by Gayle Lynds
He stood, ran his hands down his suit jacket, and straightened his tie.
Themis stepped into the jet, and Sir Anthony walked to him. They shook hands.
“Good to see you,” Sir Anthony told him. “How was business in Paris?”
“Tolerable. How was your flight from Brussels?”
Themis—Nicholas Inglethorpe—was tall and rangy, with swept-back golden hair showing flecks of gray, a strong jaw, and an aquiline nose. Dressed in his Armani suit, the media magnate radiated charm and intelligence. Sir Anthony had known him twenty years, since he was an untidy young hotshot in jeans and sweaters, buying up radio stations in America’s South and plotting to create an empire. Now he was the kingpin of InterDirections, wore designer suits, and had his nails manicured and his hair cut by “artists” in his office high above Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Still, the sharpness in his gaze and the hunger in his face had only deepened with the years. Obsessed with success, he was worth billions, and although he had adopted the trappings of genteel society, he remained a pirate at heart and, as such, not completely reliable. Which was why Sir Anthony needed him now.
“The flight’s been uneventful,” Sir Anthony told him, “but the drive to the airport was a bloody nightmare.”
“Always is.”
“How are Mindy and the children?”
“Out of my hair, thank God. They’re at our place on Majorca for a few weeks.”
“Pleasant there this time of year.” Sir Anthony stepped back into the cabin. “Good of you to join me. Did your assistant go on ahead?”
“She’ll meet me in Belgravia.” Inglethorpe maintained one of his homes in that swank London neighborhood. His assistant was one of his mistresses.
“Fine.” Sir Anthony resumed his seat and gestured. Inglethorpe sat across from him and loosened his tie. Sir Anthony watched, disapproving. That was an American for you. They tried to excuse informality for any number of reasons ranging from comfort to an expression of equality, but in truth, it was bad manners and sloth.
As the noise of the jet engines increased, Inglethorpe pulled off the tie, picked up his brandy, and inhaled appreciatively. “Always thinking ahead. Cordon Bleu.” He raised his glass in a toast. “’Preciate it, Cro—”
Cronus shook his head in warning. He turned. “Thank you, Beebee.”
He watched as his servant left the bar, headed down the aisle past them, and stepped into the cockpit, where he would stay until summoned. As Cronus turned back in his seat, he caught his reflection in the window on the other side of the jet—perfectly groomed silver-gray hair, baby pink cheeks, and a look of stern wisdom that he had cultivated into a personality trait. The contrast with Themis in age and demeanor was noticeable—two titans in their own right, but with twenty years’ difference between them, one coolly representing the Old World, the other aggressively the New.
Inglethorpe said mildly, “After so many years, surely he knows about the Coil.”
“Probably, but I expect him to be discreet, even with me. Never rub an employee’s nose in a secret while at the same time telling him he must not know about it. Tends to make even the most loyal resentful.”
“All these code names are a nuisance anyway.”
“They’re necessary.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Our cells are scrambled. No one can listen in. The electronic age has arrived.”
Sir Anthony bristled. “The code has been an important part of our security protocols for more than fifty years. It’s crucial we keep the Coil secret, now more than ever. Possibly the code is outdated, but it’s served us well. What’s that wretched expression you Americans employ?”
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Sir Anthony winced. “Yes.”
Inglethorpe shrugged and raised his glass. “To the Coil.”
“To the Coil,” Sir Anthony agreed, “and I think we can at least dispense with the code names here, don’t you, Nick?”
“Ah, hell, I don’t know, Tony. I kind of like them.” Nicholas Inglethorpe laughed.
Sir Anthony smiled.
They drank and eyed each other as the jet taxied toward the runway.
Inglethorpe set down his glass. “All right, there’s a reason you invited me to ride with you. Let’s have it.”
“You heard about Hyperion?”
“De Darmond? Yes, of course. Terrible thing. As a matter of fact, I’d just recently applied to his bank for a hefty loan for InterDirections.” Inglethorpe dusted an imaginary speck from his slacks. “It would’ve been a good investment for Hyperion.”
His voice was nonchalant, but Sir Anthony detected worry about where the money would come from now. He repressed a cutting remark about InterDirections. It was a media conglomerate stamped with its assembler’s personality, because, in the end, Inglethorpe had done far more assembling than building. Building required years of patience—creating good products and convincing more people to buy. Mergers and acquisitions was simply mechanics—knowing how to move the money around and where the bodies were buried. One never ran out of bodies, but financing such paper growth required an endless flow of capital…or corrupt accountants. But in these days of sensitivity to corporate fraud, it was better to hire reputable accountants and borrow the cash. He had heard Inglethorpe was on a new merger spree, this time in Germany.
Sir Anthony said, “Our man Duchesne says the French police are holding back information about the murder while they investigate.”
There was a bright look in Inglethorpe’s blue gaze. “It is high profile. Does Duchesne know what they’re not saying?”
“The baron apparently had an unlogged visitor he met personally at a side entrance, lunched with on his private terrace, and escorted unseen up to his office. According to the servants, he was secretive about his most powerful clients.”
“One of the reasons the baron is—or was—in trouble with the authorities, no doubt. Did anyone see this ‘visitor’?”
“One servant—the underbutler, who served lunch. He was also killed. Nasty bit of work, that. Found stabbed to death.”
Inglethorpe stared into his glass. “Not surprising, I suppose. He would’ve been able to identify the killer.” He looked up. “Do the police have any evidence?”
“One small oddity. A footman stole a car at about the same time. The problem is, all of the servants were accounted for. Still, the guard at the gatehouse swears he saw a man in a footman’s uniform drive away in the stolen car. It was found later in Chantilly.”
Inglethorpe sipped brandy. “The car hardly levitated there. What do you make of it? Was the thief the killer?”
Sir Anthony was about to give an incomplete answer, when the intercom announced they would take off now. He drank deeply as the engines roared and the jet sped down the runway. The wheels lifted smoothly, and the craft climbed, banking north. He gazed down again at the vast sea of glinting lights, but instead of romance, he now saw a hardworking city winding down toward exhausted sleep, a place where a lot could go wrong and did. Where the leading member of a legendary banking dynasty could be killed on his highly secure estate, while the police had few clues.
Nick Inglethorpe said, “Is there anything more about the baron’s murder?”
Again Sir Anthony noted Themis’s interest. Still, he must not read too much into it. After all, the baron’s death also might mean the end of his best chance to secure a loan at the sort of favorable conditions one member of the Coil was inclined to give another.
“That’s the only information I have,” Sir Anthony said, “except, of course, that the baroness is distraught.”
“To be expected.”
“There’ll be a large funeral. A cortege the length of the Champs-Elysées, or at least that’s what she hopes for. From her viewpoint, not unrealistic, considering his prominence and their two families.”
The men nodded to each other.
“We’ll have to elect a replacement,” Inglethorpe said carefu
lly. He was junior—at only five years, the most recent addition to the Coil—and had not yet participated in choosing a new member. “Have anyone in mind? Someone from Europe, of course, to keep the balance with the United States equal.”
“I have ideas. I’m certain you must, too.”
“The baron’s brother comes to mind,” Inglethorpe said immediately. “He’ll take over running the bank now, no doubt.”
“No doubt.” And if he were the new Hyperion, InterDirection’s loan would likely be advantageously funded. Sir Anthony asked the question that had been burning in his mind: “Any thoughts about who would’ve wanted to kill the baron?”
Inglethorpe’s blond eyebrows rose, and he looked away. “As I said, he was in trouble with the authorities. Perhaps one of his clients ordered it. It’d be smart to kill him in France, away from Zurich.” He moved his pale gaze back to study Sir Anthony. “Tell me the rest. What about the Carnivore’s files? Have we found anything?”
“About the files, still nothing. But Mac’s been murdered, and Liz Sansborough has discovered her cell was bugged. She’s on the run, but since she met her cousin Simon Childs in London, it’s likely she’ll contact him.” He paused. He knew the Childs family well. “Simon Childs is MI6.”
Inglethorpe swore a long string of barbaric American oaths.
“Childs learned his father was being blackmailed,” Sir Anthony went on, “and now he’s on a private crusade to find who has the files, too. This could be beneficial, if we can keep him quiet as well as track him.”
“And if he’s not doing it for MI6,” Inglethorpe snapped.
“Apparently, he’s not. But then there’s still the CIA. Sansborough contacted her old door, because of course she thought she’d been working with the CIA.”
Inglethorpe exploded. “How could you let this get so out of hand! Sansborough’s vanished, MI6 and Langley could be burning our heels any moment, and we still don’t know where the damn files are or who has them! You’re the leader of the Coil, dammit! This falls on your shoulders!”
Sir Anthony repressed a sharp retort. “I’m not the leader in the way you mean, Nick, and you bloody well know it. I’m simply first among equals. Remember, I have only one vote. We—all of us—decided on this plan. Once we saw the vast amount of publicity her TV series was receiving, and that she was planning a show on assassins, what else could we do? There was no way the blackmailer would risk millions of viewers knowing about the files. You concurred, or you wouldn’t have canceled her show. As it turns out, we were right. Sansborough was almost killed in Santa Barbara.”
“It was a decision born of desperation,” Inglethorpe said stubbornly.
“It’s a desperate situation. We must find those files!”
“Does the rest of the Coil know what’s happened?”
“I’ll be bringing them up-to-date. Of course, we’ll have to meet tonight now.”
Inglethorpe fixed his hard gaze on Cronus. “You want something. What is it?”
It was time to make the brash American wait. Sir Anthony finished his brandy, enjoying its polish and richness and then the smooth rhythm of his jet in flight. There was no substitute for money and the quality it could buy. He set the snifter onto his table, and his cool, implacable gaze settled on young Inglethorpe. Inglethorpe was glaring, but there was nervousness around his eyes. Good.
Sir Anthony said, “Sansborough’s door believes she may be suffering flashbacks. I’m concerned he may send out agents to find her. Or he might get curious about whether Asher Flores really was shot and look into that. The last thing we need is the CIA sniffing around. There’s too much to find. Agreed?”
Inglethorpe said suspiciously, “They could ruin our plan, what little remains.”
“Precisely. At the same time, there’s MI6. Simon Childs may have incited their interest. We don’t want them in the fray either. I’m sure you see my point.”
“Not really.”
Sir Anthony knew otherwise. “I can handle MI6 myself. You’re the logical one to take care of Langley. No, Nick, listen. You’ve done favors for the director of operations for years. When they needed the cover of a journalist, you provided it, no questions asked. You got their people into Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia…. We need to stop a probe into Sansborough. Stop it cold. The intelligence community can be manipulated, but it has to be done quickly, before their machinery starts rolling. That means now. We need the CIA to back off, to stonewall her if she phones again. She must remain an independent, not interfered with. Will you take care of it?”
At first, Themis shook his head. When he looked up, Cronus saw uncertainty. Most unusual. Cronus frowned, and Themis gazed away. But then Themis sat up straight, and Sir Anthony knew he had figured out a solution.
Themis smiled. “Is that all you want? Jesus, Cronus, that’s chicken feed to a boy from Texas. I know the right person for the job. His identity will have to be my secret, of course. Just between him and me, but consider it handled.”
Gatwick Airport, England
Twenty minutes after the luxury jet touched down at Gatwick, Nick Inglethorpe was in a men’s room stall, talking on his cell. “You’re certain there’ll be no blowback?”
“Not when I take anything on, Nick. You know that.”
“I knew you were the one. And no need to mention this to Cronus, right?”
“If that’s how you want to play it. Did the old man mention any progress on the Carnivore’s files?”
“No. He just keeps botching it.” Inglethorpe had sensed for some time that since his latest acquisition had raised eyebrows in some quarters, his stock was falling with the Coil and with Cronus in particular. Therefore, letting Cronus believe media magnate Nicholas Inglethorpe still had the clout to manipulate the CIA was a smart idea. “But thanks on this one. I owe you.”
“Yes, Nick, you do.” The line went dead.
Twenty-Eight
MI6 Headquarters
London, England
With its commanding position above the Thames River, MI6’s headquarters in Vauxhall Cross, South London, looked to Shelby Potter like a bloody birthday cake, not a place for the raw business of foreign intelligence. Potter not only disliked the angles and setbacks, he found the honey-colored concrete and green glass damned offensive.
The only thing good was its location—isolated at the south-bank end of Vauxhall Bridge. Potter had indelible memories of the unmarked London high-rise that had been HQ for decades, where so much was sacrificed and accomplished. In those days, security identified it to the nosy public only as the Ministry of Defence. But then, until just seven years ago, the government had denied MI6’s very existence. All of that had changed by 2001, when MI6’s chief, Sir David Spedding, died. It was announced in the gossip rags. He might as well have been some bloody airhead socialite.
Scowling and grumbling to himself, Potter parked and marched inside. Word had come down that the queen would soon make him a commander of the Royal Victorian Order. A knighthood for an old spy who had spent his career paying fools to betray their country and then murdering the patriots who tried to stop them. This, after years of being passed over because of his bad mouth, bad team manners, and Janice.
He had a half mind to turn it down. Except he knew it would make Janice proud. A soldier’s woman had an easy life compared to a bloody spook’s. If he took the thing, he would dine her at the Connaught, where they would drink to their thirty years of out-of-wedlock bliss and reminisce about better times, when the Foreign Office did not have to advertise for spies as if they were looking for baker’s assistants.
The one good tradition that endured was the late hours analysts and planners devoted to protecting Britain. He passed lighted offices and cubicles, his hands clasped behind his back, nodding soberly at those who hurried along carrying colored folders, each color indicating a level of security. They were good young people, even if they did look at him as if he were some statue in Hyde Park, not the still very alive and barkin
g operations director in charge of all MI6 covert missions.
In his office, he flicked on the lights, sat at his desk, and leaned back, waiting. The clock read 10:44. One minute later, right on schedule, his phone rang.
He picked it up. “Tony?”
“Hello, old man. Thanks for making time for a chat.” Sir Anthony Brookshire’s voice had the same measured, resonant pomposity Potter associated with long nights of drinking and political discussions back when they were both students at Cambridge.
“What do you want, Tony?”
Brookshire managed a chuckle. “Always the cynic. I hear congratulations are in order. A knighthood. Very well deserved.”
“I’ll most likely turn it down.”
“I wouldn’t do that, old man,” Sir Anthony said. “Janice deserves it, if nothing else. You might even marry the lass after all these decades, eh? Lady Potter. Has a ring, don’t you think? So does Sir Shelby.”
Potter swore, suddenly understanding Tony’s underhanded role. “Dammit all to bloody hell, Tony, this was your idea. You put on the screws.”
“You’re overdue, Shelby. It’s common knowledge among those of us with our fingers on the pulse. Unfortunate that the, ah, clandestine nature of your work has held it up. This should’ve happened a decade ago.”
“Clandestine nature of my work, my maiden aunt.” Potter snorted. “My lifestyle and outlaw personality, that’s why C and Her holy Majesty would never do the honors.” “C” was code for chief of MI6—the director-general. Potter felt an unusual moment of respect. “Damnation, Tony, you’ve impressed me. How in hell did you manage it?”
A slight irritation entered Brookshire’s tone. “I merely detailed a few of your many contributions over the years.”
Potter smiled to himself. Translation: Tony had made C understand that Potter knew where too many ripe bodies were buried to be ignored again. But then, Tony Brookshire was a consummate politician. No one could remain in service to the queen a lifetime and rise to the rarefied levels he had without being one. The world of British national politics was fangs and claws, blood and bone, but usually covered with such a civil veneer that the rest of the planet considered the British stuffy.
