The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3

by Kathryn Guare

  “You’ve got your phone on?” he asked Kate, holding up his own.

  “I do, but it seems like we’re never supposed to use them,” she said.

  “Except in dire emergency—important footnote.” Conor got out of the car and came around to the driver’s side, adjusting the concealed holster to fit more snugly against his back. Kate lowered the window and he spread his arms, inviting appraisal. “How do I look? Fit for a squalid evening on the piss?”

  “Hardly.” She managed a faint smile. “Be careful.”

  Conor leaned down and kissed her. “I always am.”

  He walked up the street to Pohořelec, a long square lined with historical buildings and divided by a parking island. With a few hotels and restaurants in the vicinity, the neighborhood was still active. He scanned the cars parked in a row along the island and saw one in the middle with a man sitting in the driver’s seat. The battered Peugeot faced a bar that had a squat, round tower painted over the door and the name Praŝná Vĕž inscribed above it. Conor went another block before crossing the street and approached the door from the opposite direction.

  The place wasn’t upscale, but it wasn’t a dive either—just a typical, nondescript bar bathed in the ubiquitous fug of cigarette smoke. Most of the customers were jammed into a dimly lit room in the back, a stone-walled, barrel-vaulted space where a singer was belting out folk songs in an impassioned baritone. The front room Conor walked into was narrow, with just enough space for a row of tables running parallel with the long bar on the opposite wall. About a dozen people had gathered in this quieter area, and as promised, one of them was the man he’d come to collect.

  Even if Conor hadn’t already seen a photo of him, Farid Ghorbani would have been easy to spot. He was “outrageously handsome,” as Kate had insisted on describing him. Tall, muscular, olive-skinned, with close-cropped black hair. In the photo his posture had appeared military-straight, but at the moment it was rather more relaxed because—as Conor quickly discerned—Ghorbani was “outrageously” drunk.

  He also wasn’t alone. The Iranian was slouched on a stool with his back against the bar and had four young women gathered around him. They weren’t far behind on the blood alcohol content, and they appeared to be comforting him with the wobbling awkwardness unique to drunks and toddlers. Conor took a seat at the end of the bar and signaled for a drink. This wasn’t going to be quick.

  He eavesdropped on the conversation. It was as disjointed as one might expect from inebriates communicating in a second language, but he had no trouble following it. There was little variety in the discussion, and it played out as morosely as any “come-all-ye” ballad in the back room.

  The gist was Ghorbani had been unlucky in love. He’d given his heart away (to a cold-hearted woman, his ladies assured him). He thought she wanted to be with him (who wouldn’t, they exclaimed), but when he offered her a new life—a better life—she’d refused it (a chorus of unintelligible remarks, easily interpreted as unflattering). Before beginning again with some slight variation, Ghorbani ended his circular narration with a moan of self-pity.

  “I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

  Because you’re a pure solid fuckwit, Conor thought, guessing who the woman in question must be. He was astonished by the Iranian agent’s reckless behavior. The man had fallen for Frank’s undercover agent, “Greta.” Unaware her association with the New Přemyslids was a cover, he’d exposed his identity as a double agent and had tried to persuade her to defect with him. Her rejection had broken his heart. Ghorbani didn’t realize it wasn’t the worst thing she’d done to him. If not so angered by his lack of judgment, Conor might have felt sorry for the poor bastard.

  After fifteen minutes there was still no sign of an end to the pity party—or of an opportunity for a discreet approach. Conor began preparing for a more abrupt extraction, but he’d waited one minute too long. As he pushed aside the beer he’d barely touched he heard the door open. He turned and recognized the man entering Praŝná Vĕž as the one who’d been sitting in the Peugeot across the street.

  He was a younger and much bigger man, filling the doorway with a size and shape Conor didn’t relish the idea of confronting. He let his gaze fall away before their eyes connected, but not before noting the man’s reaction as he took in the scene—a less disguised expression of his own disgust and impatience.

  Entirely unconscious of the need for it, Ghorbani had tucked himself behind a human shield. A minute ago it had been an annoying obstacle, but now it looked like the path to salvation. Any doubt Conor had about the colossus standing in the doorway was settled by the murderous glare he directed at Ghorbani—who remained oblivious—but the hit man didn’t have brains in proportion to his brawn. He hesitated inside the door, his concealed weapon rammed so hard against the fabric of his jacket that the muzzle threatened to poke through it. Taking out a mobile phone, he walked quickly through the bar to the next room.

  As soon as he was out of sight Conor was in motion. He peeked around the corner in time to see the man disappear into the men’s room—presumably to ring for instructions—then shouldered through the informal security detail, threw a bundle of Czech crowns on the bar and grabbed the Iranian by the arm.

  “Sorry for the intrusion, ladies, but this fellow is late for an appointment. Let’s go, mate. Frank is waiting.”

  The element of surprise bought him time. Ghorbani’s entourage gaped as their hero lurched from his stool, and Conor had rushed him halfway to the door before he began resisting.

  “No, no. What are you doing? It is for tomorrow night. At that hotel place. Chinese hotel place. Not for now. You are some kind of moron?” Off-balance, he staggered to keep his feet under him and Conor swung him around, using the momentum to carry them forward.

  “I must be, risking my life to save your sorry arse.”

  They crashed out the door to the street, where Ghorbani abruptly lost his fight against gravity. For a second he danced over the block-patterned cobblestones, as though attempting a drunken game of hopscotch, then went down. Caught underneath, Conor hit the ground hard and felt the sharp edge of the curb smack against his ribs like a sledgehammer. Spitting obscenities he rolled to his feet and reached for the Iranian agent, but the fall seemed to have knocked him sober. He waved the hand away and got up on his own.

  “Why are you here?” Ghorbani asked, giving him a wary but more focused stare. “What has happened?”

  “You’re burnt to a crisp, Farid. Your racist pals have turned on you, and—” Conor glanced through the bar’s window and swiveled to look down the square. There was no chance of Kate reaching them in time. “There’s a great ox of a man come to throw you in a landfill, and he’s just out of the loo, so I’d say we should be on the move.”

  He hoped their enemy’s shooting arm moved as slowly as his brain because the square didn’t offer much in the way of cover, but as they raced down the sidewalk he caught a glimpse of an opening in the block of buildings on their right. Conor backtracked, redirecting Ghorbani with a hard shove, and they plunged into the darkness of a long, tunneled staircase.

  The passageway smelled of damp stone and cat piss, and the faint gleam of the moon lit the arched opening at its opposite end. Now following the agent, Conor took the stairs two at a time, pulling out his phone as he climbed. He couldn’t get a signal, but tried again once he’d reached the top and stumbled out of the tunnel. Kate picked up on the first ring and wasted no time on preliminaries.

  “Tell me what you need.”

  “Orientation.” Doubling over to catch his breath, Conor tried and failed to stifle a groan, which didn’t escape notice.

  “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I’ve got Ghorbani, but we had to leg it and now I don’t know where the hell we are.”

  While the agent kept watch, he described their flight up through the tunnel and where it had led them—to a dark, quiet courtyard with a large Baroque-style building on one
side. He waited for her to confirm their location.

  “It looks like a church,” Conor said. After a minute with only the rustling sound of a map on the line he added, “Fairly lively now, Kate.”

  “It must be Strahov Monastery. You’re on Petrin Hill,” she said. He heard the BMW’s engine turn over. “There’s a path from the courtyard to a street just below the Pohořelec main square; I’ll be there in less than two minutes. The path should be on your left as you face the monastery. Can you see it?”

  Conor walked farther into the courtyard and stopped. “Yeah. I can see it’s behind a locked gate in a stone wall.”

  “Can you climb over it?”

  Rubbing his side, Conor grimaced. “I guess we’ll have to. See you in two minutes.”

  Ghorbani scaled the wall first—fresh air and fear acting as an antidote to intoxication—and leaned down to offer a hand. Conor stretched to grip it and scrambled up after him, gritting his teeth.

  As Kate had promised, the path ended at a street no more than a hundred yards downhill. It was deserted in both directions, and they took cover in a graffiti-scarred stone shelter next to the road. A minute later Conor saw the headlights of the BMW coming up the hill.

  As soon as they piled into the car, Kate smelled the air turning funky. Stretched on the back seat as instructed, the Iranian agent seemed to exude alcohol from every pore, while in the front Conor gave off a more natural odor of sweaty exertion. He was clearly in pain, but offered no explanations.

  “I’m pretty sure we disappeared before he saw us,” he said. “He’s maybe already gone, or he’s up in his car ringing for help again. I’ll duck down, but just roll through the square like you’re not bothered and we’ll hope nobody cops on to us.”

  Kate watched as he gingerly moved to lower himself, but then he stopped with a sharp gasp. Worried and exasperated, she wrenched up the parking brake.

  “We both know you’re not fooling me, Conor, so you’d better just spit it out. What happened to you?”

  He released his breath with a slow hiss. “I may have cracked a rib.” He jabbed a thumb at Ghorbani, who seemed to be lapsing into a stupor. “Courtesy of the celebrated double agent. He was paralytic when I bounced him out of the bar and he fell on top of me.”

  “Oh, thank God. That’s not so bad.”

  “Glad you see it that way,” he muttered.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.” Surprised herself, Kate wondered at what point she’d come to view a cracked rib as something routine. She turned to look at the Iranian agent, then twisted back to face the road, confounded by the absurdity of it all. “He really is drunk, isn’t he? This business isn’t anything like I expected.”

  “Not really tracking with the brochure copy, is it?” Conor tensed and sat forward. “This, on the other hand …”

  At the top of the street above them the darkness had paled, and headlights began swinging over the crest of the hill. As the car came around to face them, the driver snapped on the high beams.

  “He’s smarter than I’d hoped,” Conor said, pulling his gun from its holster. “You said this was one-way.”

  “It is.” Kate squinted against the intense light and took a centering breath. The time had come to find out what three weeks of training had accomplished, and whether she was going to be an asset or a liability. “Just keep an eye on him,” she said, adjusting the rearview mirror.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ll keep an eye on the back.” She shifted into reverse and floored the accelerator.

  “Oh Jesus. Between us and all harm.” Conor clutched the grab bar above him as the car rocketed down the hill backwards.

  While steering in reverse at thirty miles an hour, Kate offered her own silent prayer. Her planned route would be viable only if the Castle Guard hadn’t whistled the authorities into action.

  To reach Conor quickly, she’d sped from the parking lot in front of the Ministry, following a road that ended in a wide, empty plaza at the gates of Hradčany. The castle complex attracted thousands of tourists, but it also housed the Czech Republic’s president. The area was open to official cars only, and the palace had two guards at the gates around the clock. Hoping the imprimatur of a black BMW might carry some weight she’d flipped on the hazard lights and slowed to a crawl as she crossed the plaza past the gate. She’d watched the guards stir uneasily when they realized where she was headed. They had no doubt seen fancy black cars before at this hour, but not coasting down the pedestrian ramp that connected the castle to the street below. She hadn’t dared to look back at their reaction, but Kate knew that even if they had only exchanged puzzled shrugs and logged it for someone else to figure out, she couldn’t count on that kind of luck a second time.

  Nearing the intersection where the pedestrian ramp ran parallel with the road, Kate slowed their descent. As the pursuing car gained on them, Conor cleared his throat.

  “Kate?”

  “I just need him to come a little farther,” she said. “This is going to be close.”

  “Does it have to be?”

  “Yes. You’ll see. I hope.”

  The car was coming fast, quickly catching up, and when it was within a hundred feet an arm appeared from the driver’s side window.

  “Gun,” Conor said, his voice clipped. At the same time Kate threw the car into first gear.

  The tires whined and spun against the cobblestones before getting traction, and she pulled the wheel hard to the right, sending them into a skidding u-turn as the car cornered the end of the ramp and started climbing. Behind her, she heard Ghorbani thump to the floor. Below, she saw the pursuing car had missed the turn and was squealing to a stop. Conor lowered his gun and stared at her.

  “I think I’m done asking questions.”

  Kate smiled but stayed quiet, knowing what waited at the top of the hill. It was too risky to take it slow this time. She accelerated as they came around the corner at the top, racing over the plaza and back down the street to the place where she’d started.

  “Are the guards moving?” she asked, her eyes fixed ahead while Conor looked out the rear.

  “Oh, they’re moving,” he said. “Yer man nearly flattened them, coming around the corner. He’s on his way now. That’s some speedy class of Peugeot.”

  After a series of sharp turns in the Pohořelec neighborhood, Kate drove onto a wide main road with two lanes running in both directions and a tram track in the middle. She didn’t stop for lights, and skipped back and forth between lanes, dodging cars, until they pulled onto the nearly deserted E55 highway. After several miles she was forced to slow down for a stretch of road under repair, and the Peugeot, still on their tail but unable to overtake, started to gain ground. Conor turned to face the rear, with one knee on the seat and a foot braced against the floor.

  “Pull to the right,” he commanded. Kate obeyed without question and a second later her side mirror blew apart. She kept it up, jinking left and right as clouds of road dust billowed around the car and bullets continued to slam against the metal.

  “It is too straight, this road, and you drive too slow for going straight ahead. We must turn off this road.” Ghorbani had surfaced again, clawing his way up from the floor and finding his voice at an inopportune time.

  “Have you got a weapon at all?” Conor demanded.

  “No. Gun is under front seat of my car outside Praŝná Vĕž.”

  “Then shut the fuck up and get back on the floor. Kate, scoot down, and stay at this speed. Keep swerving until I tell you to stop.”

  Jaw clenched, she shimmied down until she could barely see over the dashboard. Conor swung his arms over the top of the seat to steady himself, and holding the Walther in a two-handed grip, went completely still. Kate waited for his signal, terrified by the silhouetted target he presented for the shooter.

  “Hurry,” she whimpered, unable to stop herself. Conor gave no sign of hearing her, but soon after, a loud explosion sounded inside
the car and he turned, dropping back onto the seat. For a heart-stopping instant Kate thought he’d been shot, until she heard a scream of metal behind them.

  “Okay,” he said softly. “You’re all right now.”

  Kate stretched up and looked in the rearview mirror. There was a bullet hole in the back window with cracks arranged like a starburst around it. Such a small hole, she thought, her head suddenly fuzzy and strange. Beyond that, she saw the Peugeot ricochet from the guardrail, and although the scene grew smaller with distance she watched long enough for it to veer back across the road and land nose down in a shallow ravine. She took a deep breath and began to shake, her hands jumping spastically on the wheel.

  Conor reached over and rested a hand on her leg. “Let’s get off the road for a while.”

  They left the highway at the next exit, which deposited them at a service area. Kate drove to a dark corner of the parking lot and stopped beneath a hundred-foot pole holding up the brightly lit “Golden Arches.” A little piece of home.

  She turned to look at Conor’s expressionless profile. “There were no cars in front of us. What about behind us? Could you see if there was anyone else on the road when …” She trailed off, afraid of what naming the thing she’d seen might precipitate.

  “When I shot him?” He completed the question without looking at her. “No. We’re clear. No witnesses.”

  They sat without speaking—even their double agent sat quietly in a corner of the back seat. After several minutes Conor stirred and scrubbed his hands over his face, then looked at her with a faint, reassuring smile.

  “Well, we can’t just drop this car back at the airport. I guess I’m glad we’re not the Alders right now. They just bought a bullet-riddled BMW.”