The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3

by Kathryn Guare

  The president wasn’t on the guest list. His arrival had been unexpected. How could the New Přemyslids have planned on assassinating the man at an event no one knew he would attend? Obviously because somebody did know he’d be there, and knew he would arrive with a nominal security detail to retain the charm of an unplanned appearance.

  The president of the Czech Republic—a man who looked incapable of whimsy—had not concocted this bit of showmanship on his own. Someone had done it for him.

  The speaker finally concluded his introduction. A swell of relieved applause filled the hall, and under its cover Conor slammed back through the door into the foyer.

  “Who told you to kill the president?”

  Sitting exactly as he’d left her, Sonia refused to meet his eyes. “It was the network.”

  “The network, the network.” Conor reached down, pulling her up from the floor. “I’m after gettin’ thick from all the bullshit, Sonia. A network isn’t a person. Who gave you the order? The racist, neo-Nazi fecker leading it, I suppose? The top Přemyslid. And who’s he, I wonder?” He took her by the shoulders, pinning them to the wall as she tried to twist away. “I’m guessing his name is Martin Labut. Have I got it right, now?”

  She tensed, but then relaxed as though exhausted. “Yes. You’ve got it right.”

  “You infiltrated the network by sleeping with the leader, got closer by getting pregnant and moving in with him, and now you want to kill him before he discovers his handpicked assassin is an MI6 agent.” He gave her shoulders a small shake. “Have I got that right, as well?”

  “In a general sense, yes, but it’s not only to save myself. I want to kill him before he discovers his son is half-Jewish.” Even with the cloth imprisoning her like a strait-jacket Sonia looked defiant. “Imagine a man who has created a path for himself to become president as soon as the murdered one is buried, who looks forward to the day when he will have the power to force ethnic minorities out of the country and create a ‘pure’ Bohemian society. Will such a man have tender feelings for the offspring of his Jewish mistress? No. He is a monster. He will act as monsters do. Maybe you can’t believe that either, but it’s true.”

  Releasing her arms Conor stepped back, and in the background heard Martin beginning his “words of welcome” to mark the formal opening of the symposium. The strange language made no impression, but the words weren’t as important as the character of the minister’s voice. Like the proverbial wizard behind the curtain it sounded larger than life—forceful, charismatic, and cheerfully confident—a voice suggesting its owner expected something momentous from the evening.

  “I believe you.”

  Hoping he wasn’t inviting a different kind of struggle, Conor turned Sonia around and began pulling at the cloth he’d wound around her. He didn’t trust her, but she wasn’t the enemy, and he couldn’t tolerate arguing with the woman when she was wrapped up like a mummy. When she was free, he threw the cloth into the corner.

  “What about Ghorbani? And the others in the network? Do they know their colleague Greta has been leading a double life as mistress to their leader?”

  “Of course not,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself, as if the cloth had been keeping her warm. “Farid only knew of my flat near the botanical gardens. And he’s never met Martin. The circle of people who know he is the leader of the New Přemyslids is quite small. Karl—the man who let me in the building tonight—he plays that role, allowing Martin to remain hidden.”

  Conor nodded. “Well, at least that makes sense, but why have you been lying to me and Kate, for the love of God? We’re your partners on this operation.”

  “And you have been here for less than a week.” Sonia glared at him. “Not for the past year, watching British intelligence officers and their Czech counterparts behaving like clowns, feuding with each other, leaking information, and risking the lives of their agents. How could I trust anyone in MI6, much less the Czech BIS? They care nothing for me or my son, only for their childish rivalries. Can you imagine how it feels, to be a pawn in this kind of game?”

  “I can, actually,” Conor said, empathizing with her helpless desperation. He’d had a bellyful himself not so very long ago. “It doesn’t mean I’m going to murder a man in cold blood, or let you do it either.”

  “So noble,” she jeered. “I will be sure to tell Gustav’s widow that the man who killed her husband on the E55 highway is quite a sensitive creature.”

  Her derisive smile faltered as she looked at his face. He let the glacial silence answer for him, and it lengthened until they heard Martin transitioning to his special announcement. First in Czech, and then in English, he described the pleasure of introducing the evening’s final speaker and honored guest. Conor reached back to the inside pocket of his tailcoat and removed the gun.

  “It seems you’ve forgotten the sensitive creature has your weapon and could end this operation without firing a shot. I assume you’d prefer otherwise.”

  “Of course.” Sonia frowned, absently smoothing the pleats in her dress. “Although I wonder, will it make a difference? Either way he will live through the night, and I will have failed, in all respects. Still, a near miss would be easier to explain to him.”

  He left her sitting on the stairs with her back to the door. Once on the other side of it he shot the vertical locking bolt into place as an added precaution against interference. Taking up his position behind the drapes, Conor found it more comfortable to watch Martin by eyeing him down the length of his gun barrel. He had a more complete explanation now for the animus he’d felt saturating the atmosphere in the Labut household, and an even better reason to loathe the man responsible for it.

  Like a consummate spy, the Minister of Culture had devised a clever legend for himself—the urbane intellectual and libertine, his vices an open secret but limited to an unapologetic lifestyle. Who would expect a man of sophistication and liberal tastes had darker secrets to protect, or that he could be a cultivator of ignorance, bigotry, and hatred? It was the sort of hoax that had supported the rise of nationalist despots down through history, and it sickened Conor to think how easily Martin made use of it.

  He kept the Ruger trained on the minister. A thin stream of sweat ran down the side of his face as he alternated his aim between the man’s head and the more challenging heart-and-lung circle below it.

  “Wrap it up, for Jesus’ sake,” he said through gritted teeth, disturbed by the strength of his temptation to take the short cut. With some effort, he shifted his attention to the area around and behind the podium, looking for a more appropriate target, and settled on something just as Martin finally roared his exultant invitation for the crowd to join him in welcoming the leader of the republic.

  The president emerged from the door in the corner and the room erupted in applause. From the corner of his eye Conor watched his progress across the room, and with his knee he edged the gap in the curtain a little wider. His mark briefly disappeared when the two men at the podium came together in a close embrace, but reappeared again as they began to separate. He waited only for a few inches of daylight to appear between them before firing two quick shots.

  On the table behind the president and the minister, a large crystal pitcher of water exploded, and an instant later the mirrored panel between the windows shattered with a deafening crash. Its pieces cascaded to the floor like a sheet of falling ice. Conor quickly stepped back from the curtain, and the last thing he saw before its dark folds wiped the scene from view was the incredulous, enraged expression of Martin Labut.

  Racing to the stairs, Conor noted the uproar had already risen to a level one might expect from sending a few gunshots into a packed room. Ahead of him Sonia was halfway down the first flight, but he quickly caught up and urged her to move faster.

  “Step on it, now. You said we only needed thirty seconds to get out of this place.”

  As they passed the first landing Conor tried listening for Kate. He pictured her, stationed with Eckhard o
n the other side of the door, but couldn’t distinguish any voices in the general pandemonium.

  At the bottom of the next flight they emerged from the stairwell into a stone-vaulted hall. It was filled with the display panels of a photo exhibition, but the space was dark now, lit only by the glowing red emergency lights near the exits. Moving at a dead run, Conor followed Sonia to another staircase. She started down, and as he grabbed at the slender metal railing to corner the turn he glanced up and saw a tiny light appear at the end of the corridor. It blinked unevenly, and began moving forward. A man was coming towards them, also moving fast, and the blue-white flicker coming with him was unmistakable. It was the tactical light on a handgun.

  Conor plunged down the steps into a low-ceilinged stone tunnel, which took a turn to the right before descending again. Sonia was waiting at the bottom, but started moving when she saw him appear. Even in the dark, which was nearly absolute, he could see they were in a large open space, vaulted like the floor above them, but more ancient.

  “Be careful,” she called back to him. “The ground is uneven and it’s easy to get turned in the wrong direction.”

  “Good,” Conor said, slapping his own tactical light on the Ruger. “Let’s hope the fellow chasing after us trips on it, because he’s got a gun.” Sonia abruptly stopped and swung around to him but he nudged her forward. “Go. He’s right behind us.”

  They traveled quietly over a surface that seemed like the worn, cobbled street of an earlier era rather than the floor of a basement. Through a series of rooms they passed over thresholds and under wide Romanesque arches, and Conor noted there were passages leading to other rooms on both the right and left.

  He kept a hand over the light, allowing only a faint glimmer to guide them, wondering who the man behind them might be.

  “What are the odds it’s your man from the network?”

  Ahead of him, he saw Sonia shake her head. “No. Karl’s assignment was only to make sure I got inside. He let me in through the door at the end of this passage and then left through it.”

  That meant it had to be a member of the president’s security detail, and Conor didn’t think they were going to lose him. They needed a different strategy. Coming through another doorway into a smaller room he saw the rough contours of a solid wall ahead of them, indicating they’d reached the end of this odd, subterranean village. He could hear the heavy tread of the man searching through the rooms behind them, and as Sonia started up a short flight of stairs leading to a closed door, Conor made an instinctive decision. He took her arm and pulled her back.

  “We can’t let him chase both of us out of here. What was your original plan once you were clear?”

  Sonia gave a wry shrug. “Go home, drink a glass of Scotch, wait for all of you to return with the news of Martin’s tragic murder.”

  “Christ. Sorry to ruin your evening.” After quickly removing the silencer Conor swung the gun in a circle around them. The beam of its light landed on an old wooden cupboard, sitting against the wall with a display of clay pots on top of it.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  “Buying you some time,” he said, and fired a round. The shot echoed off the surrounding rock and the cupboard jumped away from the wall, spilling the pots onto the floor. Conor added to the racket by pulling it over and gave a loud, pained cry as it landed with a crash. He held out the Ruger to Sonia.

  “Take it and run.”

  She accepted it, but stood frozen in place. “This is madness. He could kill you.”

  “Sure why would he? I’m their only witness, an heroic eejit who chased a killer through the basement and nearly got my head blown off for it. What about you? Will you be safe at home?”

  “He doesn’t kill with his own hands.” Sonia looked down at the Ruger. “And I’m the one with the gun. I will be safe.”

  Settling on the floor among the pot shards he waved her away. “Fine. Hurry up, then.” He didn’t have to wait long once she’d left. Within seconds he heard the man rushing forward through the last few rooms. When the moment seemed right, he groaned loudly and stretched his leg out across the door, and then yelled again as a booted foot connected with it. The man contributed his own startled shout as he tripped into the room. He dropped the gun while going down, its light flashing in all directions as it spun on the floor. Conor resisted an instinct to break his cover and dive for it. Looking at the man at his feet, he saw the dim gleam of gold buttons, and a colorful braided cord strung across the man’s chest.

  It was Petra’s special friend: Lukas Hasek of the Castle Guard.

  He scrambled to his feet almost as quickly as he went down, retrieving the gun as he rose. He took a few steps towards the stairs and stopped.

  “Shit.” He turned the gun on Conor, shining the light into his eyes. “Clever move. You’re not even really hurt, are you?”

  “She took a shot at me, but missed.” The guard grunted his disbelief and Conor regarded him warily, waiting for a clue as to what his presence signified.

  “She missed, huh? At fifty yards she put a shot between the minister and the president like she was threading a fucking needle, but four feet away from you she missed?” He sighed and leaned down, offering his hand. “Anyway, you did your part. She got away.”

  Conor ignored his extended hand. “Petra said you didn’t speak any English.”

  “Don’t tell her.” Hasek grinned. “It’s more useful if people think I don’t.”

  “Who are you? You sound like an American.”

  “I know. I’m not, but it’s a long story. Come on. Let’s get going. I told Kate you wouldn’t be long.”

  At the mention of Kate’s name Conor sprang to his feet. “Where is she? What the hell is going on?”

  Hasek had holstered his weapon but at the sudden movement he drew it and took a step back. “Relax.” He shot a hand forward, a signal both of warning and reassurance. “I’m on assignment, and I thought I might need your help, so I told Kate to wait for you at the Hotel U Prince. It’s just down the street.”

  “What kind of assignment?” Conor demanded, still suspicious.

  “I was supposed to extract an MI6 agent and send her back to the mother ship, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen tonight.” He sighed and again tucked the gun away. “I’d better come with you and explain the rest of it, because I’m definitely going to need your help now.”

  “MI6 sent you here? Are you working for Frank?”

  “No, I don’t work for MI6.” Hasek smiled. “I work for someone you call Harlow. She sent me.”

  20

  Kate was waiting as directed in the Terrace Bar, an open-air lounge on the roof of the Hotel U Prince. It directly faced the tower of Old Town Hall, bathed now in a golden light that accented the freckled appearance of its brickwork. Behind it stood the Church of Our Lady Below Tyne, illuminated against the night sky as if captured in a camera flash, and to the left a softer glow lit the dome and twin steeples of another church dedicated to St. Nicholas.

  City of a Thousand Spires.

  More like a thousand spies, Kate thought, reflecting on the latest one she’d met. Sitting in a quiet corner bordered on two sides by the roof’s balustrade, she turned her back on the scenic view, preferring to focus instead on the terrace entrance. If Conor didn’t walk through it in the next few minutes she was going after him.

  After he’d disappeared back at the reception, she’d been left standing with Lukas Hasek and Petra, until Martin summoned his wife for an audience with the president. Although clearly resentful, even Petra knew some protocols couldn’t be ignored. As soon as she was out of earshot the member of the Castle Guard had begun speaking to Kate. At first she’d only smiled and nodded, preoccupied by the goal of connecting with Eckhard, who had indeed arrived in the hall and actually was standing near the bar, as if summoned by the power of Conor’s suggestion. She’d started paying more attention to Lukas Hasek when she realized he was speaking in English and a
ppeared to know a lot about them and what they were doing.

  Without taking her eyes from the terrace door, Kate agonized as she sipped from her glass of hot cider. Her shoulders kept jumping in violent shivers, even though the patio had tall, propane heating lamps to warm the chilly night air. What if she’d done the wrong thing? In hindsight it felt unforgivably reckless to have confided in a Czech military officer she’d met only five minutes earlier, but he’d seemed so earnest and urgent, and when he’d thrown out Harlow’s name it affected her like a magic password.

  Remembering their meeting with that extraordinary woman at the Ram Gorse Pub, Kate had instinctively trusted Lukas and his assertion that MI6’s embedded agent—whom he called “Greta”—was in danger. Since he apparently knew nothing of Greta’s real identity, she’d only provided a summary of the operation as originally planned: a simulated assassination by MI6 that would sabotage any ideas the New Přemyslids had about staging a real one during the symposium.

  Now she wondered if she should have kept her mouth shut about even that. She had no idea how an “agent extraction” worked, and unlike Conor, she had no track record when it came to acting on instinct.

  Miserable from the growing fear that she’d made a horrible mistake, Kate’s relief made her light-headed when Conor at last appeared in the doorway. Since Lukas was right beside him, she assumed something had gone wrong with his plan for Sonia.

  “So, that went well,” Conor said dryly when they reached the table. “Not quite pear-shaped, but near enough.” He laid a hand on her arm as he kissed her cheek, then immediately pulled back and began shrugging off his tailcoat. “God almighty, Kate, you’re freezing with cold. Why do you never bring something warm to put on?”

  “Nothing matched.” Kate gratefully accepted the coat, pulling it tightly around her shoulders before the warmth of his body could escape. She noticed it was covered in some kind of reddish dust, and wondered how many more times it would need to be dry cleaned before they got home.