by Gayle Lynds
The gate was locked; the facility closed. Given the late hour, this was not unexpected. He studied the wire mesh fence that surrounded it. About eight feet high, it was topped occasionally by closed-circuit cameras, which meant somewhere indoors was a security room with monitors and, with luck, a bloke who had been doing this so long he was bored and paying little attention to the unchanging views on the screens.
With a swift motion, Simon leaped up, grabbed the fence, scrambled over, and dropped into the complex. Immediately, he raced for the office building and pressed back against the wall, where he was out of range of the cameras. The concrete yard remained quiet, and no lights blazed on. After ten minutes, he headed quietly around to the back, passing a pickup truck that had the lockup’s name painted on the side.
Tish Childs had rented G-3. “G” turned out to be the sixth line of buildings after “A,” and “3” was the third locker in. The door was labeled clearly G-3, but the padlock was broken and hung open. No light showed around the door.
Simon drew his gun, yanked open the door, and jumped inside.
Before he had time to settle his balance and decide whether he had been unnecessarily cautious, he had his answer: A massive impact exploded inside his skull, and his gun fell from his hand.
Fifteen
Simon sprawled flat into cardboard boxes. Top-heavy, two toppled onto him. His head rang where he had been kicked, and his shoulder and chest ached where the boxes had landed. As he shoved them off, the glaring light of a flashlight blinded him.
“Who are you? Why are you here?”
It was a woman’s voice, vaguely familiar. “I’m Mark Childs’s nephew,” he said indignantly. “Simon Childs. Who in bloody hell are you?”
Simon? What the devil was he doing here? Liz stared. Not that she recognized him easily. The last time they met, he had been a teenager. In the bright beam of her flashlight, she saw that the scrawny boy had grown into a man—but still lanky, still brown-haired. His face had filled out and was on the square side, with clenched jaws and one of those good chins people noticed. The best thing about him was his nose—it was misshapen, probably rearranged in some fight, which told her he might not have changed all that much. He was dressed in a tan sports jacket, an open-necked shirt, and blue chinos belted tightly over a flat waist.
She turned off her flashlight and switched on the overhead fluorescent bulb. “Get up, Simon,” she said brusquely.
“Liz?”
He was already rising, staring, as she stood hands on hips, one holding his unaimed Beretta, the other the flashlight. Once he’d had a crush on her. He drank in the high cheekbones, the wide shoulders, the big breasts, the long legs. She was less beautiful than he recalled but far more tantalizing. Or was that simply the lingering effects of long-ago testosterone fantasies? The romantic notions of a boy in heat?
“My God, it’s been years,” he said.
Liz did not know this grown-up man. She did know he was MI6, and Mac had emphasized that Langley had brought in only the Sûreté, not the Brits. So what was Simon doing here? He would remember that she, Liz, had been CIA. Until she knew more about MI6’s interest in Mark’s affairs, she would have to play it close.
“Close, but no blue ribbon,” she lied. “I’m not your cousin. I’m Sarah Walker.”
He stared harder. “You’re Sarah?”
“You think you’d have gotten off with just a kick in the head if I’d been Liz?”
“I heard you two looked alike.” He stared longer, then dusted his jacket and trousers. His skull throbbed where her foot had connected. “I suppose you’re right. With all that Langley training, she’d have jammed a gun into my carotid artery until I gave proper answers.” But what had brought Sarah here? He asked casually, “Are you still married to…what was the chap’s name? Yes, Asher Flores. The CIA man.”
“Don’t get creative, Simon. You haven’t answered my question. Why are you here?” As a boy, he had been fast on his feet, fast with his mouth, and fast into trouble.
He raised his brows. Not only did she look like Liz, she acted like the Liz he remembered. “I’d say that’s my question, too, eh?” He glanced pointedly around at the clutter of old pictures, cartons, and stacks of memorabilia. A banker’s box stuffed with file folders was open. He nodded at it. “Looking for anything in particular?”
“No,” she said dryly. “I’m the tooth fairy, digging for molars and canines. Shall we play nicely, Simon? Logically, we’re both here because of Mark Childs. I asked first, so if you set a good example and come clean, I will, too.”
He studied Sarah. In the aftermath of the CIA mess in 1996, he had run a discreet probe, because Liz seemed to be involved. One thing led to another, a favor exchanged, a contact, two contacts, a cabinet left covertly unlocked, a computer code discovered…and he pieced together a lot of what had happened when Liz and Sarah had tried to bring in the Carnivore—Liz’s father. Uncle Hal, as it turned out. A shocker.
What was important now was that Sarah had been with the Carnivore at the end. She might know something useful about the files.
“How can I refuse?” he said. “Perhaps we can help each other. Let’s start with my gun.” He put out his hand.
Hesitating, she looked into his eyes. They were the same deep blue she remembered but more contemplative. His expression was somber. She handed the weapon to him, butt-first.
“Thanks.” He holstered it. “Put simply, I’m looking for a connection between Mark and our mutual uncle, the Carnivore.”
She did not allow herself to show surprise. “Why in heaven’s name would MI6 care about the Carnivore? He’s long dead.”
“This has nothing to do with MI6.”
“Are you off the clock, or are you AWOL?”
“Doesn’t matter. This is private, and I’d appreciate your keeping it that way.”
That sounded like Simon—fast into trouble. Still, he seemed as eager as she that word not leak. She fit the lid back onto the box of files she had just searched and sat on it.
“I’m game,” she said. “Let’s hear what’s happened.”
“I was in Bratislava yesterday on business—and no, I’m not going to tell you what it was.” He sat on another carton. “Late that night, someone slipped me a note. It sent me to a cathedral, where a man met me. I never saw his face. He claimed my father was driven to suicide by a blackmailer.”
“Was he?”
He thought about Terrill’s confession. “From everything I’ve learned, yes.”
“Poor Sir Robert.” She had always liked him. He was one of those solid British types whose word was his bond, while at the same time he was jaunty, as if he secretly thought of himself as a long-ago pirate the Crown relied upon to steal fortunes in doubloons. The stories about his affairs had never been confirmed, and she long ago had decided to assume they were groundless rumors.
Simon described his father’s hiring of the Carnivore to eliminate the Miller Street Killer. “A couple of decades later, someone tried to blackmail Dad about it.” Simon told her about his trip to Zurich, where Terrill Leaming revealed that he, too, had hired the Carnivore and was being blackmailed.
Liz was silent. So that was why whoever had the files was protecting them—they were being used for blackmail. She remembered Terrill Leaming as one of Uncle Robert’s friends from university, and she knew Claude de Darmond’s name. There had been a de Darmond listed on the board of the Aylesworth Foundation—Alexandre de Darmond. The two were brothers. Theirs was a large banking family, a dynasty like the Rothschilds’.
Simon continued, “According to Terrill, Dad believed the blackmailer was working from the Carnivore’s files. Terrill did, too, especially after he got a threatening e-mail that included what looked like a record of the job the Carnivore did for the bank.”
“What did the blackmailer want from them?”
“A vote on trade from Dad. And he demanded Terrill take the fall for Baron de Darmond.”
“The fact that h
e didn’t ask for money is interesting. Instead, one was for something political, and the other was to clear up a crime.”
“That’s the way I see it. He seems to have plenty of disposable income, certainly enough to hire janitors. In any case, my goal’s simple. I want the bastard who provoked Dad into killing himself. One of the most direct routes to him is through the files.”
“Why are you wasting time here? Talk to Baron de Darmond.”
“Can’t. He’s on the road, traveling from Zurich to his estate north of Paris. No point twiddling my thumbs until he lands. So I followed another lead Terrill gave me.” He recounted Terrill’s story that Sir Robert suspected one of Melanie’s brothers had stolen the files. “Since Uncle Blake died in that chopper crash in Bosnia, that left only Uncle Mark.”
“So you want to find out whether Mark got the files, and if he did, what happened to them after he died.”
“Right.” Every time he looked at her, he felt unsettled. Those dark eyes, the extraordinary face. She even had the same melodic voice as Liz. “Your turn.”
Could she trust him? Mac was adamant no one hear about the Carnivore’s files or learn that the wife of a CIA operative had been kidnapped. At the same time, the files might be necessary to save Sarah. Fear for Sarah gripped her, but she pushed it quickly away. Simon already knew about the Carnivore’s records, so that left only the kidnapping to be kept secret.
“I’m here for the same reason—the Carnivore’s files,” she told him. “I didn’t ask what you were doing in Bratislava, so you can’t ask why I want them.”
He hesitated. “Fair enough.”
She described her visit with Tish Childs. “According to Tish, Mark’s last ‘big deal’ involved Melanie and some resort named Great Waters. She said he kept a file on it, so that’s what I’ve been looking for. I’ve checked these.” She tapped the banker’s box on which she sat and indicated five others. “What say we look together?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
There were at least twenty file boxes amid the jumble. He rose and opened the one on which he had sat. It was packed with dusty file folders. He thumbed the tabs, reading carefully for any reference to resorts or spas, specifically Great Waters. Nearby, Liz opened another box. She searched through it, too, stopping to check inside several folders. They finished almost simultaneously and moved to new boxes.
“Despite his being such a washout,” she ruminated, “Mark’s records are amazingly tidy. What’s odd is that some of these folders date all the way back to the 1970s, even though they’re empty. Pristine. It’s as if he stuck on labels because he was hopeful, but when nothing came of a deal, he still couldn’t throw out the file. That certainly fits Tish’s description of him as an unrealistic dreamer.”
“I’m finding the same thing. Encourages me he kept something that’ll help us.” As he worked, he remembered, “Speaking of searching files, did you notice the FBI’s named its killer wiretap program ‘Carnivore’?”
“I read about it. It’s probably just a coincidence.”
“I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was a tip of the hat to dear Uncle Hal.”
She smiled. “Anything’s possible. Why don’t you phone some of your chums at the Bureau and ask?”
“Right. I’ll do that.”
“Sure.”
They exchanged grins and resumed their search. An hour passed. The storage locker grew stuffy. Liz’s back began to ache from the cramped position.
They were well into the second hour when suddenly Simon shouted, “Great Waters!” He whipped a folder from his box. “Here it is!”
She was at his side in a heartbeat, crouching as he opened the file, her weariness gone. Inside were lined pages from notebooks, typing paper, even a napkin—each listing a time and a date and sometimes a place for what must have been meetings.
They read through the notes quickly, but there was nothing about the deal itself.
“At least they’re in chronological order,” she noted, discouraged.
He pulled up the last piece of paper.
Meet Great Waters Thursday next with goods.
Payment 1 mil sterling.
She took the scrap of paper. There was no date and no signature. “What ‘goods’ does he mean?” she wondered. “The Carnivore’s files? They could be worth at least a million pounds to the right person.”
He looked away, his gaze unfocused. “‘Meet Great Waters.’” He shook his head. “Meet at Great Waters?”
“Which takes us right back to what in hell is Great Waters? Where is it? I’ve never heard of it, have you?”
He shook his head. They stared at the note.
She frowned and free-associated: “Maybe he really did mean to meet Great Waters. Maybe it’s a person or an animal or a character in a play or a code name—”
“That’s it!” Simon stood up, pulled out his cell, and punched buttons.
“Who are you calling?”
He pressed a finger to his lips and spoke into the cell, “Hey, Barry, old boy—”
Before he could say more, the voice on the other end of the line growled, “What is it with you, Simon? Your boss wants your gonads for her fish tank!”
Simon was surprised. “Care to enlighten me?”
“Why aren’t you in Florence, where you’re bloody well scheduled to be? You’re sure as hell not supposed to be calling HQ. Where are you?”
Ada’s safe house. Dammit. He had forgotten. “It’s a small miscommunication. I’m on the job, and I need information.”
“Wrong. I’d say you need to call Ada with your excuses, lame as they may be.”
“Sorry, Barry. Didn’t mean to cause aggravation. I’ll head for Florence tonight,” he lied. “Before I go, I have one small loose end to tidy up. Do you or Scotland Yard have any gangsters in the data bank named Great Waters?”
Without another word, Barry Blackstein put Simon on hold.
Liz stood up, her expression questioning.
“I’m on hold,” Simon explained. Dammit, something about her made him feel nine years old again. “What?”
“You’re in trouble, aren’t you,” she said. A statement, not a question.
“I see you’re a journalist, right enough,” he said. “I can tell by your nosiness.”
“And the accuracy of my deductions. You’re supposed to be in Florence. Are you really going tonight? You haven’t changed much after all, Simon.”
“Florence is a little vacation I don’t want to take. It seems rather crucial to discover whether my father’s suicide was provoked.”
He had her there. Reluctantly, she nodded. “You’re right. Sorry.”
He held up a hand and whispered, “Apology accepted. Hold on.”
Barry was talking in Simon’s ear: “Great Waters is the nickname of a London hood named Gregory Waterson. That’s straight from Scotland Yard gang control. Waterson was murdered in June 1997.”
Simon shot a look at Liz and said to Barry, “So Great Waters was a hood. The name had the sound of it. Murdered? In June 1997?”
Liz went rigid. The same month and year her mother and Uncle Mark had died.
Barry continued. “He owned a gambling club and was into prostitution, outside betting, extortion, whatever he could find. He was a small-timer, but ambitious. His turf was taken over by Donny Mester. Word is Mester killed him for it, thereby doubling his own territory. My question is, Why should this interest a penetration agent such as yourself?”
“Now you’re getting the point,” Simon said with sincerity. “That’s what I’m trying to ferret out.”
“What possible good will gang wars here do you there? Oh, no. Simon, no. You’re not in London, are you? Ada will be apoplectic. You’re supposed to keep your head down and fingers clean. I’m going to have to report this—”
Simon sighed. “Come on, Barry. I may be a tad incomprehensible at times, but I’m not the queen’s fool. Of course I’m nowhere near England. The British Isles are safe. S
oon you’ll have to worry about what I’ll do to Italy. But first, my contact needs to find out what happened between Donny Mester and Great Waters. Then he’ll tell me what I want to know to do my job. Does Mester have a rival I can send the chap to?”
There was a sigh of exasperation. “All right, your contact should probably chat up Jimmy Unak. He was a close pal of Great Waters. But when Donny Mester took over, Jimmy prudently switched loyalties to Mester. Now the street is saying Mester thinks Jimmy is plotting a coup d’état. In return, word is that Mester’s scheming to kill Jimmy before he can pull it off. Business as usual on the left side of the law.” He relayed the address of the gangster’s club, threw in a few more details, and hung up with a final warning: “Get your arse to Florence!”
As soon as Simon touched his cell’s off button, Liz said, “The gas explosion and fire that killed Melanie and Mark was in June 1997.”
“I’d guessed that. Nasty business.” He told her what Barry had said. “I’d say a visit to Jimmy Unak is in order.”
“I agree. Let’s go.” She headed toward the door. “Turn off the light, will you?” She pressed her ear against the door, listening.
Simon cut the light and stood behind her. Her hair smelled nice. She pushed outside. He followed and closed the door while she sped toward the office building. He loped after, enjoying the view. She slid to the left of the structure.
Scanning for a janitor or security guard, he caught up with her. “How’d you get in?” he whispered.
“Over the front fence. How about you?”
“Same way.”
As they hurried around toward it, he surveyed the facility, concerned about this open area, where the high cameras could record them. The second they reached the gate, he punched the electric lock, which had been impossible to reach from outside.
As the tall gate creaked inward, Liz glanced back at the office and saw a silhouette move across on the other side of the blind.
“Hurry!” she whispered.
