The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3

by Kathryn Guare

  "Stupid," Sedgwick echoed, "and now they're on your ass because they think you kept the money."

  "The funny thing is, they actually do believe me," Costino said. "Tonight wasn't the first time I'd seen those two Russians. They tracked me down fast in Mumbai. I hadn't even been hiding from them; I figured I'd done my part. I just wanted to find some way to spin the whole mess into something I could tell my bosses. Walker was dead and I thought you were too, so nobody to contradict me, and I assumed if Thomas was still alive he and Conor were probably already back in Ireland. Then Dragonov's guys show up saying the transfer didn't go through. They had me at gunpoint, telling me to try again. I got into the account, and when I saw the transfer had gone to an undisclosed location I had a full-blown meltdown—pretty obviously authentic. They believe I don't have it, but told me to be quick about finding it for them. I've been hiding from them ever since, throwing myself under the protection of Kotwal while I tried to locate Thomas, or at least Conor. Now here you are . . . at last, and if the two of you don't know where that twenty million is, I'm out of ideas."

  "We said we didn't take the money. We never said we don't know where it is. It's in a bank account in Porto Allegre, Brazil." Sedgwick gave Conor a friendly thump on the back. "McBride has the password."

  Conor whirled to stare at him, mouth hanging.

  "Give it up, buddy." The agent smiled. "You're pretty good with a lie—almost perfect—but I've been doing this longer than you. Everybody's got a 'tell'."

  "What's mine?"

  "When I'm sure you'll never lie to me again, I'll let you know." Sedgwick began rifling through the backpack and briskly addressed Costino. "Okay, this part of my plan is pretty much shot to shit. We were going to get Durgan's contact info and a few other tasks out of you by whatever means necessary, before shackling you up next to Bahubali for the tour guides to find in the morning."

  "What's the plan now?" Costino asked nervously.

  "You're coming with us. You're going home."

  "How can I do that? I've been AWOL for months. They'll debrief me about Gulmarg and I'll be arrested."

  "You were never in Gulmarg," Sedgwick said smoothly. "You broke cover and told Walker you'd report him to his DEA superiors if he went ahead with the Dragonov capture, and he had you thrown into the Arthur Road jail in Mumbai. I just found you there. So, like I said, you're going home."

  He pulled out a contraption all-too familiar to Conor—a laptop with an attachment for establishing an internet link via satellite. "However, first we're giving Vasily Dragonov his twenty million dollars, because I don't much feel like giving it back to the DEA, and saving the lives of you and your family seems a little more important—but someday, Tony, since no agency in the world has the guts for the job, you and I are going to track down that sorry-assed Russian, and kill him."

  32

  It had rained. It had snowed a little. The wind had blown, and now it was raining again. Through it all, Kate sat on her sofa, hands cradling a mug of tea, staring out at the darkness as the pendulum clock on the mantelpiece "thwocked" toward midnight. Only now, at the end of the evening, did she allow this literal demonstration of a vigil she otherwise kept hidden. At this hour she became the apocryphal woman staring from the cliff's edge, bereft, waiting for her man to return from the sea. The analogy irritated her—probably because it was accurate. She did feel bereft.

  He'd been gone for three days, four if she counted the day he left, and why wouldn't she? She'd given him a kiss in the morning, then he was off to WalMart, and that was the last she'd seen of him. Four days, and no word. Was that normal? What was the protocol on undercover agents phoning home? She couldn't decide whether to be frightened, or pissed.

  "I have no idea what I'm doing," she said aloud to the empty room. "I don't know what this is."

  She gave up for the night a half-hour later, and had crawled into bed when she heard what sounded like an avalanche of boxes tumbling around somewhere below her. She yanked on her dressing gown and flew down to the lobby, and found Conor scanning the inn's register. Next to him, Sedgwick was being pulled from the floor by a man she'd never seen before. The scene hardly registered while she was focused on immediate business, but once Kate surfaced from a long and satisfying kiss, she gave the two of them greater attention.

  "What's wrong with him now?"

  Holding her in a tight embrace, Conor tore his eyes from hers to glance at Sedgwick. "Infected knife wound, although it’s the duty-free Jack Daniels that's got him legless. We stopped at the hospital on the way home for some antibiotics. He won't swallow a Percocet, but he seems to think the drink's no bother to him."

  "Knife wound. Okay." Kate decided further questions could wait until everyone looked a little less comatose, but as Conor was still staring at her, arms locked around her waist, she discreetly tilted her head in the stranger's direction.

  "Oh, sorry. This is Tony Costino. Another holy terror from your federal government."

  She extended her hand uncertainly to the longhaired, bearded man who appeared ready to pass out himself. He took her hand, his red-rimmed eyes widening in apology.

  "I'm sorry we woke you." He was struggling to keep Sedgwick upright. "I told them we ought to go to a hotel."

  "You didn't wake me, and this is a hotel. You're . . . very welcome here." Kate frowned at Sedgwick, who had managed only a few unintelligible words, and reluctantly removed herself from Conor's arms. "I suppose we should get him upstairs, he's pulled half the bandage off."

  "Yeah, he's like a little, feckin' drunk two-year-old," Conor said tiredly. "I was trying to figure out what's available. Where do you want them?"

  "Everyone on the third floor. Let's not mess up the guest rooms. Tony can have the spare room, and we'll put Sedgwick in your room."

  "My room? Well, but where am I going to—oh," He gave her a bleary grin. "Right. Good plan."

  While she settled Tony with fresh towels and the usual innkeeper's speech, Conor managed to get Sedgwick down to his underwear and under the covers. Kate sent him to bed and went for first aid tape to fix the agent's bandage.

  "Here she is, the natural redhead," Sedgwick sang out as she entered his room. He lolled back and forth against the headboard, as if trying to find his balance. "Hey there, Red. Did you miss us?"

  "One of you, anyway. Sit still." She snapped off a length of tape. He stayed quiet as she tidied up the bandage, but when she pressed the tape down across his shoulder he bolted up, hurling obscenities.

  "Oh God, I'm so sorry." She jumped back, startled.

  "No, it's all right. I'm okay." Sedgwick clumsily reached out to catch her by the hand. "Sorry. I'm sorry. You're really something, you know?" He pulled her closer, his voice thick. "You're so beautiful. I mean . . . Whoah. I'm not trying to make a play here. Hey. No way. That's not it. I'm just saying that you're beautiful and good, and I'm always an asshole. And, I'm sorry. That's all I mean. I'm sorry I'm an asshole."

  "You're forgiven." Kate tucked his hand gently under the covers. "Go to sleep now." She settled him against the pillows, careful not to hurt him again, and slipped out of the room.

  She didn't find Conor in her bed where he was supposed to be, but sitting straight upright in a chair in the living room, fast asleep.

  "Oh, honestly," Kate sighed, worried if she woke him he'd take a leap at the ceiling. She considered leaving him alone, but decided to risk a different strategy. Giving herself plenty of room to spring clear of an adverse reaction, she leaned over and kissed him tenderly on the lips. Conor's body jerked, but only slightly as he hitched in his breath and opened his eyes just wide enough to see her.

  "Aha. Magic button," she whispered. "Welcome home."

  He pulled her into his lap and continued kissing her for a while, but he was still half-asleep. "Why didn't you go to bed?" she asked, running a finger over the thick stubble on his cheek.

  "I was going to, then I realized I've never put so much as a toe inside your bedroom. Seemed like I sh
ould wait for you."

  "Carry me over the threshold?"

  "Maybe not tonight. I need the energy for something else." He gave a particular spot near the base of her throat a nuzzle, raising a shiver in her stomach.

  "Hmm. You're very stubbly." She drew in a breath as his mouth caressed the tip of her ear.

  "Want me to shave?"

  "No. I can't wait that long."

  Allowing for his nervous warning that he'd slept for no more than eight of the last ninety-six hours, Kate kept her expectations low, but Conor seemed to gather a second wind from the novelty of his "inaugural" visit to her room. Not only did he have the stamina to accomplish what she had in mind, he also stayed awake long enough afterwards for an account of the past several days. Cocooned together under her down comforter and with her head on his chest, it was the most eccentric brand of pillow talk she'd ever heard, but she hung on every detail.

  "So, now we know what happened after he went overboard," she said when he'd finished, amazed by how quickly she'd learned to speak about her no-longer-dead husband with such detachment. "But, I still don't understand why Tony thought faking his death was necessary." Conor's hand tightened on her back before moving up to stroke her hair. "There's something you're not telling me. What?"

  "Leave it there for now, love. The rest is better told in daylight."

  Seconds later he was asleep, still cradling her in a protective embrace.

  At ten o’clock the next morning, Kate was sitting at a table in the corner of her dining room with her state senator, eight local business leaders, and the Vermont Commissioner of Tourism and Marketing. She'd offered to host them months earlier, but was now struggling to contribute any thoughts on regional branding while her mind clattered along a different track altogether. She'd been more or less managing, but halfway through the meeting, when her MI6 lover and his undercover colleagues turned up in the doorway, she had to bite back a hysterical laugh. Without so much as a glance at her, Conor directed them to a table on the opposite side of the room and briefly disappeared into the kitchen. Sitting next to her and watching it all, Yvette aimed a poker-faced gaze at Kate but remained silent.

  "I'm not sure when I'll be able to explain this to you," Kate whispered to her, after the meeting had mercifully ended and she was walking everyone to the door. "Or if I'll be allowed to."

  "Explanations are over-rated. I just want you to be okay." Yvette gave her a long, close hug, nearly reducing her to tears. "Come see me when you can."

  Back in the dining room, Abigail was removing a litter of empty dishes from the covert operatives' table, making space for more bacon and a platter of maple walnut scones still warm from the oven, icing melting down their sides. With a group of ravenous men to feed, she was in her element.

  "Plenty of bacon if you want more, and I'll get that lunch started." Offering Kate a happy smile, she swung back through the kitchen door with a bang.

  Kate joined them, taking the empty seat at the table. They were all clean-shaven and much improved after ten hours of sleep. "So? What's next?"

  Conor licked a bit of icing from his thumb. "We may sit here and eat for a few more hours. I think Tony plans to finish off a hog."

  "I haven't had bacon for two and a half years." Tony looked surprised by his own revelation. His face appeared much younger without the beard, and he still seemed dazed by the sudden change in his circumstances. Kate turned to Sedgwick, who had been avoiding eye contact.

  "How's your shoulder?"

  "Better. Yeah, it's better. Thanks." He reached for a scone. "Listen, I'm sorry if I was rude last night."

  Conor thumped his mug down on the table. "What does that mean?" He looked at Kate. "What did he do?"

  "Nothing."

  "He said he was rude."

  "He was just drunk-talking."

  With a nervous glance at the three of them, Tony rapidly collected the remaining bacon into a napkin and excused himself, saying he needed some fresh air.

  "Well? What did you 'drunk-talking' say?" Conor swiveled back to Sedgwick, whose hands shot up in surrender.

  "Jesus, McBride, chill. I don't even remember. Trying to cover my bases, here."

  "You were exactly yourself, only more so," Kate said, an observation that satisfied neither of them but which she thought quite clever. "Apology accepted. Next item."

  After a lingering glare at Sedgwick, Conor let it drop. "Next item is to drive to Burlington Airport, return the car we rented at Logan, and put Tony on a flight to DC. Abigail's packing him a lunch. We'll pick up the truck I left in the parking garage earlier this week, and come back home."

  "Tony's leaving? Didn't you tell me last night we need his help? Don't we need to make a plan?"

  "We did already. We talked upstairs before we came down to eat."

  "Of course," Kate said, feeling once again sidelined and powerless. "I should have known you'd decide everything without me."

  "Kate, it wasn't like that," Conor protested.

  "We just couldn't wait for your little Chamber of Commerce meeting to wrap up," Sedgwick added, flashing his customary sarcasm. Kate gave him a flat, heavy stare and he folded immediately, extending his third apology in the last twelve hours.

  "You may wish I was no more than the caretaker of your 'safe house'," she said coldly. "But I'm a participant in this, and I expect to be treated as an equal partner."

  "You are. You will be," Conor assured her. Abigail appeared with a large, insulated lunch bag and he got to his feet. "We'd better go, but I promise we'll brief you on the whole thing when we get back."

  He went upstairs for his jacket while Sedgwick stepped outside for a cigarette. Kate joined him on the front porch. He angled his head, blowing a stream of smoke away from her, and eyed her uneasily.

  "How bad was it?"

  Kate thought she'd probably tormented him enough. "I honestly don't have much. You said something rude, and swore at me pretty dramatically when I was clumsy with the tape, but only because I'd hurt you. Then you apologized for everything and got very sweet."

  "Sweet?" He looked skeptical.

  "Trust me." Kate grinned. "Look, you and I got off on the wrong foot, straight from the beginning, but there's a way for us to be friends, if you agree to my terms."

  "What are they?"

  "Under any condition, drunk, sober or delirious, don't you ever call me 'Red' again.”

  "Oh, God." His mouth tightened in a mortified grimace, but resolved into the warm, genuine smile that completely transformed his face. "Deal."

  The most important part of their plan, as they described it to her later in the evening, was to impress upon their enemy the extent of his dilemma. To convince him the leverage he thought he had was gone, that he had no cards left to play. Which was nothing less than the truth.

  "We've been thinking of him as Frank's 'wizard', this great mastermind, but that's giving him too much credit," Conor reasoned. "The eejit's been canting the ball out of play from the beginning. He was sloppy enough with his New York business to get tagged by the FBI before Tony showed up to save him. He destroyed his relationship with Kotwal by botching the meeting with Walker in Geneva, and he took it out on Frank's brother Desmond. Murdered one of the few associates he had who might have helped him right now."

  Full of nervous energy, and seemingly anxious to be implementing the plan rather than describing it to her, Conor was pacing in front of the living room window. Following this matter-of-fact reference to her husband's depravity, he abruptly stopped and swung around to her, looking apprehensive.

  By now he'd given her the missing pieces from the previous evening's story. Kate understood her husband had murdered at least three other people in addition to Frank's brother, and if Tony Costino had not come along her most recent birthday might well have been her last. The revelations terrified her—for the danger she'd been in, of course, but also for the fact that she could attach herself to a man so evil and suspect nothing. If her life hadn't been saved by an accid
ent of fate she might have known the truth only at the last minute. Or, maybe not even then. She sensed a reckoning was on the way. A time when she'd need to give room to a growing deluge of self-doubt about her own instincts, and whether she could ever trust them again, but this was not that time.

  "It's all right," she said, attempting a smile to reassure him. "Go on."

  Conor gazed at her—eyes bright with something she couldn't help but believe in—and finally turned away to resume pacing. "His kidnapping plan was a disaster. The only partner he had left is in jail, spilling details about that as well as the grant fraud business. Frank had all his bank accounts frozen. Even if he's got the price of a ticket, he can't get out of Ireland under his current alias, and the only criminals in the country sophisticated enough to help him are plugged right in to the republican network. Somebody might recognize him for a traitor the minute he showed his face. He's stuck on an island with enemies closing in, and only one person in the world can help him."

  Kate had been—very carefully—changing the dressing on Sedgwick's shoulder. At this second dramatic pause she dropped her hands, exasperated.

  "You're going to make me ask? Who, for heaven's sake? Who is the only person in the world that can help him?"

  "His CIA case officer," Sedgwick said, through gritted teeth. "His case officer can show up with a plane ticket, a passport and a fresh identity, and get him set up in a brand new life."

  "And why shouldn't he expect that?" Conor added, retreating from the window to the couch. "It's what happened the last time. Costino swooped in, saved him from the feds and sent him off to India. Makes things a lot simpler for us. Before we understood Tony's history with Durgan, the plan included all this desperate shite about getting him to force Durgan to lure me somewhere on some pretense I couldn't refuse—"

  "That wasn't desperate shite," Sedgwick objected. "It was a decent strategy."