by Gayle Lynds
“It’s a single wafer,” he told her. He inserted the makeshift tension wrench and pick, turned the metal stick, and felt around inside the lock with the needle.
Wafer locks were easier because the keyhole was wider. She returned to the IV pole and disassembled it. It took a while. Finally, she had the central pole free of the legs, arm, and other attachments. Carrying it, she padded back to him, pausing whenever the truck lurched.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“Shh.”
She waited patiently, half-hoping he would fail. If he could not get the door open, maybe he would lie down again. Even if he succeeded, they still had no gun, and he would be no match for the first fist slung at him.
“That’s it.” His voice was almost reverential. “I’ve still got the touch.” He pushed himself up, the blanket in one hand.
“It’s ready to open?”
“Yup.” He stared at the pole she was holding. “What’s that?”
“Our only weapon. Pathetic, isn’t it? Why don’t we wait until later for this insanity? When I can steal a gun, say, or you can run at least one lap. Then, too, it’d be really good if you had some clothes and shoes.”
“Hey, I stood up and peed. Don’t forget the importance of that.” He grabbed the door handle and paused. Seemed to consider. His voice grew sober. “Don’t worry, Sarah. I’m reasonably sure we’re alone. I just want to make some progress. Maybe find something useful, or learn something that might help us later. If we’re going to get out of this, you’re going to have to let me work. I know you’re worried, but considering the alternatives, I think we’ve got to take some risks. If we don’t escape, the state of my health may be moot. Okay?”
Under the circumstances, she could hardly deny what he said. “Okay.”
He grinned, his white teeth flashing. She could feel him tense, coiled to act. She flattened against the wall next to the door. She nodded. He pulled it open a few inches. She took a deep breath, raised the metal pole, and stared around the corner.
“Empty,” she said with relief. She stepped inside the driver’s compartment and stared. “Wow.”
“What is it?” Asher peered over her shoulder.
“Surveillance monitors. Someone left them turned on. That’s where the light’s been coming from. There’s other surveillance gear here, too.”
Above the windshield hung a row of small monitors, alight but showing only the interior of the cavernous semi. There were gauges, dials, screens, and blinking lights.
“Hot stuff,” he agreed happily.
“Can we call or radio out?”
“Lemme see.” Someone had left a zippered sweatshirt on the front seat. He put it on, zipped it up, and sat, the blanket around his waist and legs. He studied the array.
She found a flashlight inside the glove compartment, climbed out of the panel truck, and played the beam around the semi’s interior. Except for the truck, it was empty, no supplies or weapons. Terribly disappointing. She inspected the front end. There were vents, but no way into the tractor cab. She pressed her ear to the divider, but the only noise was the drone of the tires and the rumble of the engine.
She found the rear double doors locked solidly. When she shoved her shoulder into them, she could feel a crossbar on the outside, blocking them. Asher might be able to pick this lock, too, but the crossbar would make escape impossible.
She returned to the panel truck and climbed in behind the wheel. Asher had turned on the overhead light. His face was pale, his black hair wild. There was a waxen look to him, as if he were ready to collapse. Still, his fingers flicked switches, and his gaze swept the equipment.
He glanced at her. “Find anything?”
“Nothing useful. What about you?”
“Not much. The problem is, the cameras and mikes have nothing to read in the semi, so the monitors are blank”—he waved a hand at the overhead screens—“and the listening equipment is silent. There aren’t any walkie-talkies or cells, so we have no way to communicate with the outside world. That’s the bad news. The good news is, we’ve got a functioning GPS system.”
“That’s a start.” She leaned around and saw a colored map with a moving arrow showing their route. “We’ve been traveling all over!”
He nodded. “Northeast to Reims and as far south as Troyes and Orléans, and now we’re heading north again.”
“Looks as if we’re going to pass just west of Paris. They’re keeping us on the move so we won’t be found, aren’t they?”
“That’s the way I figure it. But there is one more good thing—an intercom.” He flipped a switch.
The voices of two men sounded from a small speaker. They spoke in French.
“Mecca-Cola?” one asked. “Merde. Give me a real Coke any day. It is the only thing the Americans do well.”
“You have a kind spot for the Americans?”
As the first Frenchman gave a rough laugh, Sarah turned down the volume. “Those are our chauffeurs?”
There was a glint in Asher’s eyes, but it was not from amusement. “Yup. That little exchange makes them seem harmless, but they’re not. They’re well armed, and they expect to kill us eventually. In fact, they seem to be looking forward to it.”
“Just what I wanted to hear. What’s holding them back?”
“They’re waiting for the order. They did get one call, but it wasn’t on a speaker phone, so I couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation.”
“Their boss?”
“Something like it. No name, naturally.”
They hunched near the radio, listening, hoping the men would say something useful. Five minutes later, they had learned only that the pair was hired recently. They wondered about the identity of the man who hired them but had decided the pay was good enough that they were not as curious as they might be.
“Is he just their boss, or is he higher up?” she asked.
“No way to know yet.”
She studied Asher. His skin color had bleached to chalk white. “You’ve done enough. It’s my turn. I’ll take the first shift.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Oh, Asher. You can be such a dope. The situation’s bad enough already. Get the hell back to the gurney. Rest. Take care of yourself. You’re scaring me to death.”
He started to push himself out of his seat and stopped abruptly. “We’re slowing.”
As he sank back down, a long stream of French oaths burst into the cabin from the speaker. “What an asshole!” one man bellowed indignantly.
The other sounded resigned. “He does what he’s told, same as us.”
Silence. Sarah and Asher waited. The only sound was an occasional curse.
Finally, one of the men said, “There it is. See?”
“Big fucker, isn’t it?” the other grumbled.
As the truck continued to slow, engine noises somewhere ahead grew in intensity—louder and louder, throbbing. Asher took Sarah’s hand and squeezed it.
“Jet engines?” Sarah asked, worried.
“Yeah.” He looked at her. Her eyes were dark, vigilant, and trying not to show her anxiety. “Sounds like it.”
Forty
Paris, France
Liz and Simon transferred buses. He dozed, his head falling against her shoulder. Beyond the Périphérique, the suburb of Seine-St. Denis was dark in the long hours of early morning. Occasional lights showed in businesses where all-night cleaning crews still labored.
A mile before Le Bourget Airport, they left the bus. A cab cruised past, followed by another. The first carried a passenger, but the second was empty. It pulled alongside, offering a ride. She turned away, coughing into her hand.
“Merci, non,” Simon told him. As the cab drove on, he asked. “Did you recognize him?”
“Not this time.”
“Awfully convenient he showed up right here, right now.” He shook his head, angry. “We’re shying at shadows, like nervous cats.”
“Be glad. It’s a defense m
echanism. If we stop, we’re in trouble.”
A wind came up, rustling the trees and evaporating the sweat from their skin. At this hour there were no other pedestrians, and the roadsides were dark and eerily still. Periodically, they ducked into yards and side streets, where they paused to make certain they were not being followed.
Finally they continued briskly on, and Simon chuckled.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked. She liked to watch him walk, the long strides, the jaunty spring as he rolled off the pads of his feet.
“Malko, in the alley. He didn’t have a chance, once you’d spotted him.”
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”
“Sure it is. Women are underestimated most of the time. There’s an advantage to that, if you use it. And you do.”
“It also gets me into trouble when I don’t recognize it.”
“Are you talking about Santa Barbara? About the dean and your boyfriend?”
He felt a surge of jealousy. He wondered what Kirk Tedesco had been like. Why in God’s name had she ever gone to bed with him? He did not know she had, but he suspected it. She was an adult. She was alone. We all make mistakes. Before he could stop himself, Viera’s face appeared in his mind. He felt the stroke of her fingers, saw the happy glint in her gaze. He tried to banish her before he resaw her death. But the image was faster than a thought…there—the bright flames fatally swallowing her.
“That can be another trait of women—trust,” she said. “I trusted Kirk because I liked him and enjoyed his company. I never questioned his lightweight scholarship or suspected he and the dean were informing on me.” Her voice exuded irritation. “I was an idiot.”
“More likely, your controllers were very good.”
“No. I wanted an idyllic life so much that I set myself up to be taken. I’ll never forget the thrill of learning I’d won the chair. It gave me a sweet excuse to stop chasing Langley, and it was like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for what I’d do next.”
Simon asked gently, “Do you regret getting your Ph.D.?”
She paused. “I love teaching. The TV series grew out of my interests, and I cared—care—deeply about that, too.”
“You want to go back?”
She saw Santa Barbara in her mind. Her house was secluded high up in the Santa Ynez Mountains and overlooked the city. From there, she had a breathtaking panorama of red-tiled roofs and palms that spread down to where the lush land dropped into the aqua-blue sea. The city lay across a rising plane between the ocean and mountains, as if cupped in a gentle hand. Exotic flowering plants thrived in the mild climate—hibiscus, bougainvillea, mariposa lilies, birds-of-paradise.
All of a sudden, she felt deeply lonely. A cavern opened inside her—cold, empty…familiar.
Something had been missing there. Something she could not quite describe and had managed to ignore by keeping herself busy with university work, committees, classes, the TV series, karate—even Kirk—all gifts wrapped in the town’s sleepy beauty. As she recalled Kirk’s good-natured laziness, loneliness swept over her, leaving her chilled, despite the summer night. She had trusted him. He had betrayed her.
She did not look at Simon. “People go to Santa Barbara to forget or to dream. I went to forget. I don’t know what I’ll do when this is over. What about you?”
“It’s not a question I think about. I’m an MI6 lifer.”
“Saying it that way makes it sound like a prison sentence.”
He glanced at her, surprised. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Here’s some free advice from your resident shrink: Pay attention to people’s little jokes, especially about themselves. It’s that sneaky unconscious again. Those bouts of self-deprecating humor often hint at far deeper truths than we intend…or want anyone to see, especially ourselves.”
There was no hesitation. “Agreement number two: You don’t psychoanalyze me, and I won’t ask how, if you’re so smart, you acquired a humbug boyfriend like Kirk.”
An angry retort shot to her lips, then she laughed. “Touché. I’m humbled, sir. I will close my DSM-IV and crawl meekly away from my lectern.”
“Good tactic.”
He smiled, she smiled back. They continued silently onward. Traffic continued to ease. Trees loomed black against the starry sky. Her mind was tumultuous, thinking ahead.
“I’ve been mulling what you said about Nautilus,” she told him. “It’s not just the blackmailer we’ll be looking for at Dreftbury; it’s Themis and Cronus and anyone else with a Greek code name. If we can identify them, we’ll narrow our search.”
He nodded. “Obviously, we’re going to have to do without a data or statistics expert. Still, we should study the documents I photographed as soon as possible. Together, we may know more than we realize.”
“I agree. How much time do we have before Nautilus starts?”
“People will begin arriving around four or five this afternoon to check in, get drinks, play a round of golf. There’s an opening banquet with a speaker around eight o’clock. The first presentations and panels start at eight A.M. Saturday. Tomorrow. The last are late Sunday night.”
“And security?”
“It’s usually a mixture of private and public. Nautilus hires an A-list firm like Kroll or Wackenhut. Then, depending on the country, local police or military forces or both support it. We can count on the security being tight and in place by daybreak.”
“Wonderful.”
“Nautilus knows what it’s doing. Right now, you can be certain the entire resort is closed to the public and that regular guests have been sent packing. It’s Nautilus’s routine to do that, just as they always choose each resort carefully—either owned by or somehow in the control of a member of Nautilus.”
She sighed. Then felt a surge of energy. “There’s our circus.”
It had set up on the airfield’s tarmac, near the parking lot. The big top billowed in the wind, a white sailing ship beneath a black sky of high, bright stars. Off to the side, the trailers of performers and roustabouts were parked, a ramshackle assemblage with an occasional newer vehicle among the dilapidated. The Cirque des Astres had never been particularly lucrative and apparently still was not.
On the other side of the tent, the buildings of Le Bourget Airport rose in the night, large and blocky. Grass and pavement extended around them. Famous as the landing site of Charles Lindbergh’s historic flight across the Atlantic, the old airport was no longer a major terminus. It still handled freight and business flights, the semiannual Paris Air Show, and other exhibitions and events, including this circus.
All was quiet, somnolent. The night helped hide their goal.
It had been seven years since she last saw Gary Faust. A former French Resistance leader, he would be in his eighties now. His French mother and American father had founded the circus in their youth. Then, during World War II, Gary had used it as a front for his ring of spies and saboteurs, members of the fabled Resistance. For his brave work, he was awarded the Légion d’Honneur, the Croix de Guerre, and the Médaille de la Résistance. A hero of France.
As they rounded the tent, she saw the plane in the moonlight, ghostly, almost an apparition. It was a 1940 Westland Lysander, one of only two in the world still flying.
“Is that it?” Simon asked, staring at the high-winged monoplane. His low tone revealed his skepticism. “Can it still get off the ground?”
“Gary says she flies like a dream.” When local ordinances allowed, he took families up for free rides. The flights were good advertising, of course. But more than that, Gary loved to pilot the geriatric craft, giving others a taste of the precariousness and strange exhilaration of a long-ago war.
Simon shook his head. “Looks as if someone built it in their basement out of tinfoil and school paste. How’s that going to carry us across the Channel?”
“Watch how you talk about my girl,” said a very French voice in English. “She is easily insulted. If you want her to ta
ke care of you, you must show respect.” The man who stepped out of the plane’s shadows had an easy gait. He was bulky and erect, dressed in dark gray coveralls and a cap, goggles dangling from his neck.
He took Liz by both shoulders, kissed her on both cheeks, and pushed her back, still holding on as he peered through the moonlight. “So, you are well?”
“I’ve had a glass of wine.” She smiled. “Cheese and a baguette.”
“That is all any of us can ask, eh? Who knows what tomorrow brings?”
“I’m glad to see you, Gary.”
“And I, you. I am sorry about your mother’s death. But perhaps it is just as well. She was tormented. That father of yours!” He released her and crossed himself. “I speak ill of the dead.” He crossed himself again and chuckled. “After all these years, it still seems not to have harmed me. Why do I worry?” He turned. “You are Simon? Melanie’s nephew?”
They shook hands. “Good of you to help us,” Simon told him. The old fighter’s hand was dry and strong. “Liz tells me you have the perfect plane for our—”
“Say no more.” Gary pressed a finger to his lips. “Decades ago, I learned it is better to not know the detail of a mission unless I am to lead it. You are young, Simon, which means you are worried. No doubt you have never seen a miracle in flight like this one.” He patted the Lysander’s wing. “You must relax and trust. She and her sisters ferried your F Group people into France and sneaked many of your downed fliers home again. The Free French used her as a spotter plane, and she brought arms and supplies to us maquis. Why could she do all this? Because she flies slow and low to ground, and she can land and take off in the most inaccessible places. That is necessary for where we go tonight.”
Simon studied the plane suspiciously. “You have room for both of us?”
“I had her rear gun taken out and the seat enlarged forty years ago, after I bought her in a war-surplus sale. All this time, she has easily carried two passengers.”
“That would be us.” Liz climbed up on the wing.
“Oui, that would be you. Hurry along, Simon. I must get you there long before dawn so I can return here unseen.” He raised his face and seemed to taste the night. “We go to a field I know in Northumberland. It’s on the farm of a friend from the old days. The past and our advancing ages cement those of us who survived.” As soon as Simon climbed up, Gary followed. “This is an important assignment, hein?”
