Blood and Roses (A Beatrix Rose Thriller Book 3)

by Dawson, Mark

  “I’d like to speak to the managing director, please.”

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “It’s Michael Pope.”

  “Please hold, sir.”

  Pope had arrived in Virginia that night. He had flown to Philadelphia, hired the car and then driven south, stopping only to meet the Group Fifteen quartermaster so that he could be equipped. He had listened to news radio as he drove south. The explosion was mentioned a few times, but it had quickly been subsumed by other stories. He had supplemented his understanding in a call with the two MI5 spooks who had arrived in theatre two days before him. They were already in Chesapeake and had made extensive enquiries with local reporters. They were able to confirm what Pope had already suspected: Beatrix Rose was dead, and she had very nearly taken Control with her.

  Nearly, but not quite.

  The call connected.

  “Hello.” The greeting was clipped and brusque. It sounded like speaking to Pope was the last thing that Sir Benjamin Stone, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, wanted to be doing.

  “I’m here.”

  “You took your time.”

  “There’s a lot happening.”

  “Well?”

  “He’s not dead. She triggered a bomb, but he’s not dead. Can’t have been close enough to it.”

  “Injured, though?”

  “Burns.”

  “Prognosis?”

  “Not life threatening. He’ll make it.”

  “But you’ll see that he doesn’t?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What about our friend?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Have they identified her?”

  “No. And it won’t be easy. They’ve got a picture of her, but I doubt they’ll be able to match it up with anything. She’s been careful, and she’s been off the grid for ten years. She was a ghost.”

  “So we’re in the clear?”

  “Not necessarily. They’ve got a picture of her daughter. They’ve circulated it.”

  There was mild disbelief in his voice. “She took her out there with her?”

  “It looks like it, sir.”

  He heard the man’s temper flickering. “Why couldn’t she make it easy for us, just for once? Where is she now?”

  “The locals don’t know. But this is a thirteen-year-old girl, sir, on her own in a country she doesn’t know. She can’t hide forever. We have to assume they’ll pick her up eventually. And then it’ll just be a question of what she knows.”

  Pope heard his consternation. “What a bloody mess.”

  He glanced in the wing mirror and saw the man in a white coat approaching the car. He walked around to the passenger side door, opened it and slid inside.

  “I have to go now, sir,” Pope said.

  “Keep me posted.”

  Stone ended the call.

  Pope put the cellphone away and turned to the man on the seat next to him.

  “Hello, Pope,” John Milton said.

  “Hello, Milton. Thanks for coming. You didn’t have to.”

  Milton shook his head, dismissing it. “No, I did,” he said. “I owe her, too, remember. We’d both be dead if she hadn’t turned up when she did. And I have a debt to settle with him, too. The world will be a better place without him in it.”

  “Yes,” Pope said. “My thoughts entirely.”

  Milton had sworn off his old line of work, and although Pope would have dearly loved to have a man like him in the Group again, he had known, with certainty, that his entreaties would have been wasted on him. He wasn’t interested in pushing his luck, either. He respected Milton’s reasons. He was the best assassin that Pope had ever seen, until he had met Beatrix, and he had a lot of blood on his hands. More than the others in the Group. He was trying to make amends for it.

  Milton was wearing a doctor’s coat with ID pinned to the lapel.

  “Where did you get that?” Pope asked.

  “I’ve been inside. I found a locker.”

  “Did you look around?”

  He nodded. “He’s up there. Third floor.”

  “How is he?”

  “They say seventy per cent burns. He’s not in a good way, but they got him in quickly enough. He won’t look like much when they’re done with him, but he’ll recover.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  He shook his head. “There’s security outside the room. It’s not going to be easy.”

  “How many men?”

  “Two,” he said. “Manage Risk employees, both armed. Police, too.”

  He was right. It wouldn’t be easy.

  “This is your gig,” Milton said. “What do you want to do?”

  “One of us causes a diversion, the other one takes him out.”

  “You have a preference?”

  “You have more history with him than I do.”

  Pope looked into Milton’s eyes—bluish grey, determined, pitiless. Milton didn’t have many friends, and Pope was probably the best of them. But even their friendship, the time they had spent together throughout the years, had not insulated him from the shiver that he always felt when he was fixed in that ironclad stare.

  Milton nodded. There was no need for anything else.

  “Come on, then,” Pope said. “Let’s get started.”

  He opened the door and went around to the trunk. He opened it and unzipped the small bag that was inside. There were two Sig P226 S4s inside the bag, both fitted with Trident 9 suppressors. Pope had checked them both out in the deserted parking lot where he had met the quartermaster. The actions felt crisp. Nice and solid. The suppressors were both reasonably new. They might not even have been fired before.

  He reached into the bag and took out a third item: a lead-lined case that contained a syringe and a transparent ampoule holding two milligrams of polonium-210 dissolved in 3.3ml of saline. Polonium was an effective and convenient poison. It emitted pure alpha particles, which, outside of the body, could be stopped by a sheet of tissue paper. Inside the body, however, it was something else. The radiation released energy that created free radicals, and they, in turn, formed toxic compounds that degraded surrounding cells.

  Death was guaranteed, quick and difficult to diagnose. In a case like this, it would most likely be attributed to existing trauma.

  It was the perfect poison.

  The KGB had loved it.

  “Think you can get into the room?”

  Milton took the case and slipped it into his pocket. “Yes,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Something had stirred Control. They had him dosed up to the eyeballs with liquid morphine, and the opiate had filled his brain with a thick, somnolent haze. It took five minutes for him to realise that he was awake.

  It took another moment to realise where he was.

  And then another to remember what had happened to him.

  Cassidy’s telephone call had saved his life. It had given him the chance to put a little distance between himself and the seat of the explosion, and because of that, he had been spared the obliteration that Beatrix Rose had intended for them both. Instead, the shockwave from the detonation had picked him up and flung him against the side of the Little Bird. The impact had broken his arm and three of his ribs. The firestorm had swept over him next, a rolling tide of flame that had incinerated his clothes and his hair and cooked his skin.

  He could remember only occasional moments in the hours that had followed. An ambulance had taken him to the nearest emergency room, but when they assessed the scale of the damage, it was clear that he needed more specialised treatment. He had come around from his drugged stupor long enough to remember being dunked in a stainless steel tub of iced water. They had given him morphine again, but he had been awake long enough to recall the burned skin
being cut away from his face and chest and the front of his legs. They had slathered him with burn cream, wrapped him in bandages and then transferred him to Sentara.

  The bandages had been removed, and his body had been soaked in ice water before an anti-bacterial solution was applied. He was moved to an isolation ward while his wounds were left to air-dry, and then more cream was applied and the wounds bandaged again. The procedure would be repeated, day and night, for as long as it took. Weeks, maybe.

  The morphine was a constant. His senses were blunted and dulled, and in those hours when he was awake, it often felt as if he was underwater.

  He had unconsciously scratched at his wounds during the night, and so the nurses had fastened ties around his wrists to stop him. They were attached now, his arms secured down by his sides. He struggled instinctively before remembering what had happened and then relaxed.

  “Daddy?”

  He opened his eyes. Cassidy was sitting in the chair next to his bed.

  “Can you hear me, Daddy?”

  He tried to speak, but his lips and mouth were dry. Cassidy stood and took a sponge from a bowl of water on the table next to the chair. She held the sponge over his mouth and squeezed gently. Drops of moisture rolled into his mouth.

  “Thank you,” he rasped.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Sleepy . . .”

  The drugs. They said that was to be expected.”

  He closed his eyes, and sleep welled up around him again.

  “Daddy?”

  “I’m . . . I’m . . .”

  “Try and stay awake for a little bit.”

  He opened his eyes again. Cassidy was standing there, smiling down at him.

  “The doctors are pleased with how it’s going. They say they’ll need to operate again next week. They’ll have to cut away until they can get to the new skin beneath. And then they say they’ll look at grafts.”

  “What . . . what do I look like?”

  The flicker of uncertainty that passed across her lovely face was enough. “You look like you’ve been in an explosion. But the doctors are pleased with how you’re healing. They seem optimistic.”

  He knew that was all for his benefit, but he tried to smile his understanding, forgetting that his mouth was hidden beneath the bandages and that, in any event, the effort of using those muscles and flexing his charred skin was too painful.

  He gasped and she leaned in closer, concern on her face. “Are you alright?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “No.”

  “Alright, then. I’m going to go and tell them that you’re awake. Your bandages need to be changed.”

  He tried to reach out a hand for her, but the stays held his arm in place. “Cassidy,” he whispered.

  “What is it?”

  “Your mother?”

  “She’s coming. The boys, too. Their flight gets in tonight. I’m going to meet them at the airport. I’ll bring them straight over.”

  “Thank you.”

  She waited at the foot of the bed.

  “Beatrix Rose?”

  “You asked last night, Daddy. She’s dead. Burnt to a crisp.”

  “Good.”

  “You don’t need to worry about her any more. She can rot in Hell.”

  “And the girl . . . ?”

  “They don’t know where she is. They’re still looking. They’ll find her. She’s just a girl. How hard can it be?”

  The elevator reached the third floor. There was a soft chime, the doors opened and Isabella stepped out into the lobby. It was an open space bounded at both ends by glass walls with automatic doors. She tightened her grip on the handle of the canvas bag and went through the door to the right.

  A teenage girl and a man were walking along the corridor towards her. Isabella recognised the girl at once.

  Cassidy.

  She didn’t know the man. He was of medium height. His hair was cut short, very close to the scalp on the sides and just a little longer on top. He was wearing a suit that looked expensive. His shoes looked expensive, too. They were polished so deeply that the strip lights overhead glittered off the caps.

  They were talking, and they didn’t see her.

  There was an open door immediately to her left. Isabella slipped inside. It was a small waiting area, with a table and chairs, magazines fanned out on the table. The kind of place where the family of patients who were critically ill might be asked to wait. She stayed near the door.

  She held her breath and waited.

  She dared a glance outside.

  There was a larger waiting area where several long leather couches had been arranged, facing a picture window that offered a panoramic view of the Chesapeake skyline. The man and the girl had taken seats there. They were pointed away from her, facing the window.

  She frowned with frustration. She took off the beanie and the leather jacket and stuffed them into the bin. So much for her brilliant plan.

  They continued their conversation. Isabella was close enough to eavesdrop on them.

  “So how was he?” she heard the man ask.

  “Awake.”

  “But?”

  “But he’s in a bad way. He’s covered head to toe in bandages, and they’ve had to tie his arms down to stop him clawing.”

  “I’ve seen soldiers with burns before. You’d be surprised. It’s amazing what they can do these days.”

  “The doctors are fantastic. I’m very grateful for what you’re doing. The money . . . it must be . . .”

  “Don’t be crazy. It’s the least we can do.”

  “Has he spoken about what happened?”

  “No, not really. They pump him full of morphine practically all the time. He asks about her, though.”

  “She won’t be a problem anymore. She’s gone. That’s one thing we can be sure about. You need to tell him that.”

  “I do.”

  Isabella tightened her grip on the handle of the bag. A nurse walked down the corridor towards her. She took a seat, dropped the bag and fumbled a magazine from the table.

  The nurse stopped at the door.

  “Is everything alright, honey?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “No,” she said, wishing the woman would stop drawing attention to her.

  “Who are you here to see?”

  “My father,” she said.

  “What? Mr Finnegan?”

  Isabella flinched, terrified that Cassidy or the other man would hear, be suspicious, find her out. Her mouth was suddenly dry and she could only manage a shallow nod.

  The nurse looked puzzled. Isabella’s stomach contracted with nerves.

  “Mr Finnegan? Your big sister is here. I just saw her.”

  “Yes,” she said, managing a smile, but struggling to tamp down her fright. “I know.”

  “Why are you in here, then? Are you alright?”

  Leave me alone. “I’m fine, really,” she said.

  She woman’s pager buzzed. She picked it up, looked at it and nodded to herself.

  “I’ve got to run,” she said, smiling back at her. “But if you or your sister need anything, I’m just at the desk at the end of the corridor. My name’s Megan. You just need to ask.”

  “Thank you,” Isabella said.

  The woman walked to the desk.

  Too close.

  She needed to do better. Couldn’t leave it to dumb luck like that. She wouldn’t last long if that was the best that she could do.

  She strained her ears again.

  “He asked about the girl,” Cassidy was saying.

  “We have something on that. She was in a hotel fifteen minutes from here. The staff recognised
her picture. She checked out this morning.”

  She sounded panicked. “What does that mean . . . ?”

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” the man said in a calming tone. “I don’t want you to worry, Cassidy. The chances are she’s just trying to work out how to get home, and when she goes to the airport, and she will go there, the police will pick her up. In the meantime, I’m going to tell the guards to look out for her and increase the security detail from two to four. Around the clock, twenty-four-seven.” He lowered his voice a little. “You need to remember that she’s just a girl. The mother was dangerous. The daughter? I’m pretty sure we can handle the daughter.”

  Isabella watched their reflections in the window as first the man and then Cassidy stood.

  “Would he recognise me if I went in?” the man asked.

  “I don’t think so. The drugs . . .”

  “Of course. I won’t, then. But tell him I stopped by. And you need to remember that we will do everything we can to put him back together. Everything, alright? Money is no object here.”

  “Thank you, Mr King. I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am. My whole family is grateful.”

  The man leaned down to her and kissed her on the cheek. “It’s not a problem. Now, come on. Come downstairs with me. You need a break. Let me buy you some coffee.”

  Isabella hid behind the door, listening to the sound of their footsteps as they walked back to the elevators.

  She waited a moment, checked that the space outside was empty and then emerged and walked quickly in the opposite direction.

  They went in through the main door. Pope went first and took stock. He recognised the reporter from WCTV, drinking coffee with her crew in the cafeteria. There were two uniformed cops on the table next to them, one of them leaning over and flirting with her as she tried to tease out nuggets of new information. A man at an adjacent table was working on a laptop; a print reporter, perhaps? A policeman, fat and out of shape, was sitting on a stool, drinking coffee from an outsized Styrofoam cup. A young, slender, pretty girl was waiting as a man brought two coffees over from the counter. Pope recognised him as Jamie King from Manage Risk.

  There were two men who looked like they might have been soldiers once upon a time. Easy to spot. They were Manage Risk operatives keeping an eye on the comings and goings down here. Add to that the two men that Milton had seen upstairs.