The Coil

by Gayle Lynds

  “Take Sir Robert,” Mellencamp said. “He bled out in a bathtub like some mad Roman senator, supposedly because he’d been discovered sweating up the sheets with a few whores. Ridiculous that he’d kill himself over such a minor matter.”

  “In certain circles around London, it was known he used call girls.”

  “Exactly. He must’ve been afraid something else would come out. Something huge, for him to commit suicide.” Mellencamp sighed. “And now Raab’s resigned with the excuse of financial shenanigans. It’s unbelievable he’d resign at midnight like a run-of-the-mill thief because of some minor illegality like a slush fund.”

  “At least he can’t ram through his choice for director-general of trade now. The environmental restrictions would’ve set back international markets ten years.” The voice on the other end of the line hesitated and resumed thoughtfully: “Maybe that’s it. Maybe Raab was blackmailed into resigning because of some appointment he was going to make, and the slush fund was just an excuse to give the public.”

  Mellencamp nodded. “But how does that relate to all the congressmen who’ve dropped out here before the election? Three from the far right, three from the far left. If we’re correct, and the Carnivore’s files are what the blackmailer’s using—”

  “Then something has to connect the congressmen, Robert Childs, Chancellor Raab, and you. Perhaps you should do what the blackmailer wants, Themis. After all, he threatened your life. It’s not such a big request. A minor change in that new EU–U.S. agreement—”

  Mellencamp erupted: “I told you no!” and then sank into stony silence. He had revealed to Cronus what was necessary about his being blackmailed, no more. He would not discuss it further.

  But Cronus was already talking again, his voice intense as he pondered. “What is it that you have in common? You come from different countries. Different lines of work, although all of you are involved in politics somehow. All of you are men. White men and in power. We know you hired the Carnivore, or your wife did.”

  Mellencamp snapped, “Leave her out of it.” Ruth had died five years before, and he still grieved. She had made a misstep when she was young. With a boyfriend, she had gone to the Carnivore to stop a U.S. senator who had raped her younger sister. The senator and his powerful father, who had always protected him, died together in a yachting accident in the Mediterranean.

  Cronus continued: “Our investigators found the Carnivore was connected to Raab and two of the six congressmen. The blackmailer doesn’t seem to be after money. Is there some kind of overall plan, or is this simply a madman operating on whim?”

  “Lord knows,” Mellencamp said tiredly.

  “Our people have come up with nothing but dead ends. They say it’s like looking for a ghost in the fog. Whoever’s got the files seems to know exactly how to remain beyond our reach. Which makes me ask again: Are you sure the assassin’s daughter knows nothing?”

  Mellencamp sat up, wary. “Almost completely certain.”

  The voice was cold, businesslike. “She’s the last living link to the Carnivore. She must be eliminated before she can hurt us.”

  This was what Mellencamp had feared. “Each death draws a spotlight,” he argued. “The greater the accumulation of light, the more attention is attracted. Kill her, and we increase the risk to ourselves that we’ll be discovered. Instead, it’d be much better for us—much safer—to control her.”

  There was a surprised silence.

  Mellencamp spoke into it, his tone now disinterested. He must not act as if he was asking a favor. Cronus would want to negotiate, and this was not negotiable. “If we arrange it right, Sansborough could turn out to be useful. Perhaps vital, if we can get a handle on who has the files, or if she remembers something that she doesn’t realize is important. As you said yourself, she’s our last link.”

  “Possibly,” the voice from the distance admitted. “You have a plan?”

  “Of course.” Relieved, Mellencamp smiled to himself. “Consider the situation. Right now, Sansborough is at loose ends and probably depressed. Both her parents are dead, and her husband was killed long ago. She has no brothers or sisters, and because of the life she’s been leading, she has no real friends, except her cousin in California.”

  “Sarah Walker, yes. I remember. And?”

  “What she wants most is to go back to work for Langley, because that’s what she understands. It’s familiar, comfortable.”

  “Your DCI considers her a security risk.”

  “Of course Arlene does, and she’s right. Arlene will continue to offer her the hope of contract work, just to keep her quiet. But there’s nothing Sansborough can do to make it right with Langley. She’s been keeping busy by working on a graduate degree in psychology at Georgetown. I’ve encouraged her to continue. What we must do is create an opportunity for her in that field. Something irresistible. But we must move quickly, before she finds some other interest or gets in our way somehow. If we handle this right, she’ll vanish into academia, just another woman with a past she’d like to forget. A cipher in some college or university. Small. Then as long as she stays quiet and out of the way, we can watch her. She won’t be a danger to us. Or to herself.”

  Grey Mellencamp lived on a Thoroughbred horse farm some forty miles east of the safe house. The limousine had left the country road for the Beltway, where the nighttime traffic was thick and frustrating, normal for this hour. The moon was rising, casting a wash of silver across the speeding cars and the houses and the businesses, which spread in a vast ocean of winking lights everywhere he looked.

  He returned the clippings to his briefcase, relieved Cronus had agreed to his plan. His mind wandered tiredly, avoiding the touchy parts of his past, but as soon as the limo paused at the farm’s front gatehouse and the security guard waved the limo onto his land, he began to relax. Although he had not located the Carnivore’s files, at least he had saved an innocent woman’s life.

  The limo pulled up to his front portico, where lighted carriage lamps sent a yellow glow across the brick drive. Chet jumped out from behind the wheel and ran around to open the door.

  Mellencamp emerged into the cold, carrying his briefcase. He nodded at Chet and climbed the front steps wearily.

  “Six A.M. tomorrow, sir?” Chet called to his back.

  “Yes, of course. See you then.” Unaccountably, Mellencamp turned to add a final few words to his driver. “Have a nice night, Chet.”

  “Thank you, sir. You, too, sir.”

  The secretary of state walked inside, where the house was aromatic with the scent of a pine fire. He headed down the hall, shrugging out of his overcoat, and entered his den. Cherrywood wainscoting lined the walls, and heavy drapes on the French doors protected the room from the night’s freeze. He dropped his coat onto a sofa and fell heavily into his chair beside the fireplace.

  The flames licked up orange and blue. It was a real fire with real logs, none of that fake nonsense so many young people used now to avoid cleaning out the ashes. He leaned forward and rubbed his hands together, warming them, again nervous about who had the files and what it meant to his dead wife’s good name and to his future.

  His housekeeper called out from the kitchen. “I heard you come in, sir. Would you like a drink?”

  He raised his voice. “Don’t concern yourself, Gretchen. I’ll fix my own.”

  He loosened his tie and pushed himself up, feeling all of his more than three hundred pounds and sixty-six years. He moved ponderously to the bar. He was measuring out a whiskey sour when chill air gusted from behind the drapes. He looked up and caught his breath.

  A black-clothed figure stepped out.

  Before Mellencamp could think, could react, the figure moved behind him and yanked back his forehead.

  “No!” Mellencamp dropped his glass and grabbed for the hands, too late.

  “You should have done what we asked, Themis.”

  The short needle of a loaded syringe pierced his fleshy cheek, where the mark wou
ld be unnoticed among the salt-and-pepper hairs of his evening shadow. As his head was released, a wave of dizziness swept through him, and he turned in horror, trying to focus, while the killer vanished behind the drapes. Pain seemed to crack open his heart. He realized with outrage that there was a human sacrifice tonight after all. His legs collapsed, and he pitched back, dead.

  Part One

  The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit.

  Once you have the rabbit, you no longer need the snare.

  —CHUANG TSU

  One

  May 2003

  Brussels, Belgium

  In one of his trademark conservative suits, Gino Malko strolled through the rue Saìnte-Catherine area in the heart of the lower city, enjoying the cool sunlight of the northern spring as he swung his special ebony cane with the silver handle. From time to time, he threw back his head, shut his eyes, and let the sun warm his face, somehow avoiding the other walkers as if he had built-in radar.

  Eventually, he turned into a café, Le Cerf Agile, and sat at an outdoor table covered in white lace.

  The eager waiter bustled over. “Good morning again, monsieur. Another fine day, eh?” he asked in English. “Your usual?”

  “Thank you, Ruud,” Malko said, smiling, playing his role.

  Malko was a heavy tipper, so the waiter returned quickly with café au lait and a Belgian pastry. Malko nodded his appreciation, poured from the two silver pitchers, stirred, and bit into the pastry. He leaned back at his ease to watch the passing throng of locals, NATO personnel, businessmen, tourists, and EU staff members. It was early for tourists, but the fine spring weather had attracted a swarm.

  He was on his second pastry when he spotted the target. He casually picked up his cane and moved naturally into the stream of pedestrians. Apparently, the density of the crowd forced him to hold the cane upright.

  In the normal course of things, he bumped into one or two people, including his target, expressed his horrified regrets each time, and finally, as if the crush were too much, turned back toward the café.

  A woman screamed. Everyone looked in her direction. Near her, a tall, slender man with a Mediterranean complexion had collapsed on the sidewalk, his hand clutching his chest.

  As Brussels’ thick traffic surged past, people converged. They shouted in French, Flemish, and English.

  “Give him air!”

  “Call the paramedics!”

  “Can anyone administer CPR?”

  “I’m a doctor—stand aside!”

  Now back at his table at the café, Malko sipped coffee and chewed his pastry and watched as the doctor dove into the riveted throng. The spectators whispered into one another’s ears and peered down. As Malko finished his pastry and dusted his fingers, a shiver of horror swept around the circle.

  Almost immediately, a man in shirtsleeves fought his way out, dialing a cell. His face was pink with excitement. “There’s been a tragedy on the street in the rue Saìnte-Catherine district!” he reported in French. “Heart attack—a doctor just said so. What? Yes, he’s dead. Important? Hold your hat: It’s EU Competition Commissioner Franco Peri! Get it on the air at once. Yes, the lead. Pull whatever else you have off!”

  Gino Malko smiled, left euros on the lace-covered table, and headed off, cane swinging. He would be back in his hotel in five minutes. Checked out in ten. And in fifteen, taxiing to the airport.

  July 2003

  The University of California

  Santa Barbara

  It was after nine o’clock in the morning, and Campbell Hall was crammed with students sitting in row after row, rising toward the back of the amphitheater. Liz Sansborough studied them as she gave her last lecture of the summer term. There was something about their indifferent, interested, scrubbed, dirty, sleepy, alert faces that radiated hope.

  They reminded her of her years at Cambridge, when she was their age and searching for a clue, too. She would probably continue to search until she keeled over from work and the occasional but necessary martini. The fact that they showed up class after class made her optimistic that they would not quit the hunt either.

  “Marx claimed violence was the midwife of history,” she told them. “But fascism wasn’t created by an aristocracy any more than communism was by a peasantry. Both were the result of political ideologues, from Trotsky and Lenin to Hitler and Mussolini, and each political system was born in violence. They and their followers resorted to ‘overkill’ out of ideological intoxication—a substitute religion, if you will—to create a new world and a new human. In the cases of Stalin and Hitler, they used terrorism and violence not only against other armies but against civilians, including their own, just as dictators do today. Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and the al-Qaeda network are modern examples.” She paused to let the summary sink in, then smiled. “All right, now it’s your turn. Where do you think all of this fits in with what we’ve been talking about in terms of the psychology of violence?”

  She watched their feet shuffle and their gazes lower. The hands of the usual suspects shot up, but she wanted someone else to show some mettle.

  “Come on, brave-hearted souls,” she coaxed. “Who wants to take a wild stab?” A few more hands rose. “All right, you look as if you’ll have something interesting to say.” She pointed a finger. There was no seating chart for such a large lecture class, and although she recognized the twentysomething, she was unsure of her name.

  The young woman had a sheet of pale blond hair that hung straight, masking half her face. She tossed her head to free her eyes and mouth, perhaps even to breathe. She said earnestly, “Adult aggression and violence can stem from early-childhood experience, Professor Sansborough, but that’s not always the complete explanation.”

  “Go on.”

  “In fact, that explanation could be construed as too easy,” she said, gaining confidence. “A cheap shot. ‘Good’ people sometimes get seduced into violence by situational forces. They…they get caught up in a violent moment, and their real selves sort of get lost.” She stopped, groping for more.

  Liz nodded. “In other words, their personal identities get suspended in a kind of moral disengagement. They use justification and interpretation to legitimatize their actions. Ergo, the ‘herd mentality’ and the ‘power of the mob’ and how an average person can wind up doing something despicable and violent and evil that they’ll never forget and may never be able to forgive themselves for….”

  For Liz, the rest of the lecture sped past. When it was over, she was feeling wired. She gathered her notes and stuffed them into her briefcase. She was not supposed to have taught today. In fact, she should be in Paris right now, taking some vacation time with Sarah and Asher. But in the end, she had been unable to make herself leave this final lecture of the summer session to her assistant. It was too important. In it, she summarized everything her students should have learned, and if they paid attention and went back over their notes, each had a very good chance of not only doing well on the test but actually learning the material.

  The lights dimmed in response to California’s latest energy worries, and the auditorium emptied quickly. As they often did, a few stayed to walk with her across the grassy campus to her office.

  “But shouldn’t the ‘good’ person resist the power of the mob?” one asked.

  Tall eucalyptus trees swayed in the ocean breeze. The air smelled fresh, of sea salt and sunshine. Liz breathed deeply, enjoying the summery morning, enjoying her life.

  “Absolutely,” she agreed. “But with that, we’re getting into ethics.”

  “It’s not an easy thing to do,” another said quietly. “To resist, I mean.”

  “Right,” said a third. “When the surf’s up, sometimes you’ve just gotta dive in.”

  “And sometimes not,” Liz reminded them. She liked their questions. They were thinking, which was the major point of an education, as far as she was concerned. “Ask yourselves what it takes to say no when everyone else is insisting
yes. Once you start to consider how you’d like to behave, you begin to build up a savings account against the times when you face difficult decisions, and you will face them.”

  “I’m really glad you didn’t get sucked completely into the TV thing,” the youth who liked surfing said. “I mean, it’s great you’re still teaching.”

  “I can’t imagine I’ll ever quit,” she assured him. “Now that we’ve got a professional producer and crew for the series, I have more time for you.”

  They smiled and peppered her with questions about the new episodes on the Cold War that would be aired.

  “You’ll have to be patient,” she told them. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”

  They liked that and laughed. When the small group reached the psychology building, she shooed them on their way. One young man was particularly sweet. He had a crush on her and was often among the group that stayed late.

  Tongue-tied, he managed to mumble, “Great lecture, Dr. Sansborough,” before shuffling off.

  Liz pushed in through the door and climbed to the third floor. The building was faded pink concrete, utilitarian, without pretense, which she liked. The corridors bustled with staff and students. When she arrived at her office, Kirk Tedesco was inside, leaning back in her chair, his big Rockports propped up on her desk.

  He was reading TV Guide. He lowered it and grinned. “Hi, babe. How was the howling mob?”

  Her office was cluttered with books and papers. Kirk was the calm in the center of the research storm. She smiled in greeting. “Sharp as little tacks.” She closed the door and dropped her briefcase onto the floor next to her gym bag.

  “Right. In your wildest.” Kirk was a psych professor, too, specializing in personality disorders. He was so easygoing that his scholarship was on the light side, but he was friendly and fun, and she had grown to depend on his companionship.

  “No, really, Kirk,” she told him. “This is a great class. They’re interested in the subject. I’m glad I stayed for them. Paris can wait until tomorrow.”