by Zoe Sharp
“We’re agreed this was a kidnap attempt rather than a kill?” Schade said, part question, part statement. I watched a muscle tense in Kincaid’s jawline.
“If they’d wanted to…kill my wife, one guy in the treeline with an RPG would have got the job done a hell of a lot more easily,” he agreed finally.
“But six guys in two vehicles is nothing like enough for a foolproof abduction plan,” I said. “Not against two professionals. They should have known it would turn into a gunfight at the OK Corral.”
“If they weren’t trying to kill her, and they weren’t seriously trying to snatch her, what the hell were they trying to do?”
“Maybe it was a warning,” I suggested.
“Yeah, but who from?”
“We’re back to the ‘who’ again. How difficult would it be for someone to find out Mrs Kincaid’s schedule?”
Kincaid’s expression tightened. “Harder yesterday than it was last week.”
“Oh yeah,” Schade agreed. “Her new cell is all decked out with the latest end-to-end encryption, anti-surveillance alerts, location tracking countermeasures—”
“But is it hack-proof?” Kincaid interrupted.
Schade eyed him for a moment, then said gently. “You know as well as I do, nothing ever is, dude. All I can say is, it’s more hack-resistant than anything out there. ’Bout the only things that baby doesn’t do is eject chaff and return fire.”
Their eyes locked, something fierce in Kincaid’s. Something relaxed as a sunbathing cobra in Schade’s. I wouldn’t have liked to step on either.
I cleared my throat, bringing their attention round slowly. “If it’s not an awkward question, why no such precautions until now?”
Kincaid sighed. “You may think I work in a dirty business, Fox, but that’s what it is—a business. So, a couple of years ago, we reached an understanding—”
“Wait. Who’s ‘we’?”
“Most of the major players in the arms dealing industry. Almost all of them, as a matter of fact. We held a kind of summit over in Europe and came to an agreement on non-combatants. You got a problem with me, you bring it to my door, with whatever firepower you want to use to make that problem known. But my family? Those closest to me? They’re off-limits. And for me, with my competition? Same rules apply.”
Had Epps known about this apparent multilateral accord before he played whatever part he had in the hijack of Helena Kincaid’s Lincoln?
“All off-limits?” I murmured, just to give myself more time to think. Much as it went against my instincts as far as Epps was concerned, I couldn’t rule out that he hadn’t known. I tried to remember who had said that when it came to government agencies, cock-up was always a more likely scenario than conspiracy.
Schade was slouched sideways in his chair. I’d already begun to realise that ‘rumpled’ was a state of mind for this guy. “Yeah,” he said now. “Wives, girlfriends, kids, racehorses…Nobody lays a finger on any of them. Think of it as a kind of reciprocity.”
“I take it there are no women in actual positions of power themselves in this game, then?”
Schade gave a brief chuckle. “Oh yeah, the chicks have all the power. They’re the ones with the money, but they don’t have to keep looking over their shoulder the whole time. What’s not to like?”
“Only, maybe now they do have to look over their shoulder,” Kincaid said, no humour in his voice or face, but no sign Schade’s flippant attitude irritated him, either. “If someone has violated this agreement, it could start a war.”
“And the one group of people you do not want to start a war with,” Schade put in, looking at me over his glasses, “are arms dealers.”
10
It was my old friend Chatty—the silent man who’d stood guard after the ambush—who showed me to the quarters I’d be using. I was expecting a room in the staff wing. What I got was an entire suite next door to the Kincaids’ own.
All the lights were on when we walked in, as in a hotel. I almost expected to see a welcome message playing on the huge flatscreen TV that hung above the fireplace. Chatty handed over a set of labelled keys and departed without a word. As the door latched behind him, I dumped my small backpack on the floor in the hallway and looked around.
The main area was set out as a living space with a cream leather corner sofa facing the TV. The fire turned out to be a real-flame gas fire—instant atmosphere operated by remote control. Over to one side was a kitchenette with microwave and coffee maker. There was even a kettle that still had part of the packaging attached. Somebody knew that Brits tended to drink their tea hot rather than iced, and made sure to accommodate me. I wondered who had gone to the trouble.
In the far corner was a study area with desk and chair. Not quite on a par with Eric Kincaid’s cavernous domain, but more than adequate for my needs.
I poked my nose into the other rooms. The bedroom sported a bed that would have lodged Snow White and all seven dwarves with mattress to spare. One wall was lined with built-in wardrobes and drawers I’d never own enough clothes to fill, although when I slid back the centre doors they revealed another TV set, only slightly smaller than the one in the living room, taking up part of the space. There was a heavy-duty safe at one end of the wardrobe, too, tall enough to take the shotgun and M4 that Schade had equipped me with, plus a smaller safe for personal items. Both were bolted to the sub floor.
Thick curtains completely covered the wall opposite. When I cracked them open, I found the floor-to-ceiling glass looked out over a view of horses grazing in lush, shady paddocks surrounded by immaculate white post-and-rail fencing.
I let the curtain drop on this rural idyll and stuck my head into the bathroom. It was all marble and chrome, with a rain head in the shower cubicle and a bath that was actually deep enough to soak in.
When I was done, I went around the room again, looking underneath and behind things. If there were hidden mics or cameras, they’d been placed by someone better at concealing such things than I was at finding them. Even so, I didn’t intend to have any conversations anywhere inside the house that I didn’t want the Kincaids or Schade—especially Schade—to overhear.
And that was a pity. Because after the revelations of the morning I really needed to speak to Conrad Epps. Either he was playing a far more dangerous game than he’d prepared me for, or he had only half an idea of what was going on.
Either one of which did not bode well for my short-term health or long-term survival.
11
I found Helena Kincaid in one of the horse barns adjacent to the main house, brushing down a beautiful palomino mare.
She was wearing full chaps over jeans, and a stylish looking western shirt. The style of clothing matched the horse. Helena’s fair hair was pulled back into a single plait at the nape of her neck, and she wore no jewellery or make-up. Everything about her, from her appearance to her movements, suggested brisk competence.
If she’d lost her composure in the back of the Lincoln, out there on the road, she had regained it now in spades.
She was grooming the horse with a body brush. Every few strokes she scraped the brush against a metal curry comb in her other hand to clean it. She worked in utter concentration, her eyes fixed on the task. It didn’t take a genius to work out that she was doing so to avoid having to meet my gaze.
“I didn’t thank you,” she said, not pausing in her labours. “For coming to my aid. Please don’t think I’m ungrateful, because I’m not.”
I hear a “but…”
I leaned on the door frame, watching her work. The stable was roomy, one of maybe a dozen laid out on either side of a central walkway that was wide enough to lead a horse down the centre without having to run the gauntlet—or the teeth—of the other animals in occupation.
The construction was like something from the Royal Mews, which I’d toured years before, all immaculately varnished planks between the stables, clean wood shavings and rubber non-slip mats on the floors. There were even c
eiling fans and a mist system in case of a summer heatwave.
As Helena evidently caught a ticklish spot, the mare stamped and swished her tail. Helena stopped her vigorous brushing and glared in my direction. The resentment in it took me a little by surprise.
“Let’s be real clear on this, right from the get-go,” she said. “You are not my mother—and you are certainly not my father. OK?”
I blinked. “I think we can agree on that.” I said after a moment. “Were you expecting that I might try to be?”
She didn’t answer that, but went back to her brushing, still not looking me in the face.
“You are not going to restrict my movements, interrogate my friends, or veto my plans. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I pronounced it the same deadpan way I had done back in the army when addressing female senior officers—“marm” rather than the more American “may-yam” —and resisted the urge to come to attention before her.
That brought her up short. Finally, her gaze snapped across to me, searching for insubordination. There was nothing for her to see. I’d had quite a bit of practice at that, too.
She took a deep breath and said in a lower voice. “I will listen to you but only if you will show me the same courtesy. I will not be suffocated in security.”
I raised an eyebrow and she flushed a little.
“I get the impression that hiring me was not exactly your idea?” Which was weird, because Kincaid himself had stated clearly that my employment was at his wife’s insistence, more than simply at her request. So, he’d lied to me—the question was, why?
“No, it wasn’t my idea.” She shook her head. “Nothing personal, I just don’t want anyone baby-sitting me.”
“What about Illya? And…Ellis, was it?”
Mentioning the dead driver was a calculated move. Most people rejected close protection because they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, accept that the threat towards them was real. The price paid by both men—and Ellis in particular—proved beyond a doubt that it was.
Her flush deepened, as did her defiance. “What about them?”
“You were, presumably, happy to have them looking out for you?”
She shrugged. “Happy? Not exactly. But they’d both been with me forever and, besides, there were plenty of places they…couldn’t accompany me. I still had a measure of privacy.”
She turned back to the mare, untied the lead rope attached to her halter and turned her around in the stable so she could groom the other side. I was glad of a moment to analyse what she’d just told me—and what she hadn’t.
Privacy to do what? It could have been anything, from a gambling habit, an affair she didn’t want Kincaid’s men to report back to him, or simply the need to get out from under a microscope every once in a while.
Or it could be that she needed the seclusion occasionally in order to check in with her handler, Conrad Epps.
Helena retied the palomino to a ring set into the wall on the other side of the stable. As she did so, the mare lipped at the sleeve of her shirt and nudged her shoulder, eager for titbits. Helena smiled, rubbed the top of the horse’s neck just behind her ear. By the way the mare tilted her head and leaned into it, I guessed it was a favourite spot.
“She’s in beautiful condition,” I said. “What’s her name?”
“Sunrise,” Helena said, affection in her voice. Then she glanced at me sharply. “You ride?”
I nodded, thinking back to a job on Long Island when having half a ton of horse on hand had proved very useful as a kind of improvised weapon. “It has been known.”
Her first response was pleasure, but her expression quickly clouded. I guessed she was realising belatedly that this could be yet another piece of alone-time I’d just removed from her grasp.
“I don’t go off of the property when I ride out,” she said. “We have two hundred acres, so there’s no need. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll steer clear of roads and boundaries.” But I don’t want you with me.
That part of the message came across loud and clear, even if she didn’t say it aloud.
I tilted my head slightly. “How difficult do you intend to make life for me, Mrs Kincaid?”
She stiffened. “Well, I understand my husband is paying you a lot of money to put up with a little inconvenience.”
I shook my head. “No, actually. He’s paying me an obscene amount of money to keep you alive.” I paused a beat, watched the flush reappear in her cheeks. “Do you have any objection to that?”
She lifted one shoulder, let it drop. “It’s his money.”
“No, I mean to the ‘keeping you alive’ part?”
That provoked a reaction, just not the one I’d been expecting.
I saw the flash of anger sear across her face a split second before she threw the metal curry comb straight at my head.
I ducked in reflex. The curry comb whizzed over the top of me, a little too close for comfort. It clattered into the wall of the stable opposite, gouging a jagged chunk out of the varnished top layer. The horse inside the stable skittered in fright. Even the palomino mare bunched up into the corner, snorting. Panic gleamed white in her eye.
I straightened up slowly, allowing no expression onto my face, even though my mind was spinning.
Helena was staring at me, her own eyes as wild as the mare’s. Her chest heaved as though she’d just run a marathon. She rushed for the door to the stable and I stepped back, letting her past. She still had the body brush in her hand, although that one was only wood and bristle.
“I’m…sorry,” she muttered as she fled. “I’m… I can’t… Please, excuse me.”
I stood and watched her half-walk, half-run along the length of the horse barn. She disappeared through the main door at the end, still clutching the forgotten grooming brush in her hand.
I stepped into the stable and stroked the palomino mare along her silky neck. She quivered beneath my hand for a minute, then calmed.
“Well, Sunrise,” I murmured. “You know her better than I do, so what the fuck was that all about?”
12
With an efficiency that came naturally to her, it was Mrs Heedles who supplied me with access to Helena’s diary. Not her private journal—if she even kept one—but a schedule of appointments, social engagements, and a note of her general routine.
If I’d waited for the lady herself to furnish me with the details, by the time the information arrived I reckoned I would probably be too old to act on it.
For someone apparently not involved in her husband’s line of business, and without the necessity to go out and make the rent money every month, she still kept to a busy timetable.
Her day began a little after 6 a.m. with a run. Accordingly, when she stepped out of the master suite the following morning, she found me already in the corridor. I was dressed in similar sweats to her own.
The only major difference between us—or so I hoped—was that I wore the Kramer rig clipped to a leather belt underneath the drawstring waistband of my sweatpants. It wasn’t the most comfortable option, but the only way to guarantee the SIG would remain firmly in position, exactly where my hand expected it to be.
Helena didn’t try to keep the annoyance out of her face when she saw me waiting for her. But there was a hint of underlying embarrassment, too, for the way she’d reacted—or maybe overreacted—the day before.
I kept my expression totally bland. “Morning, ma’am.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, more weary than exasperated. “If I can’t shake you, then you may as well at least call me Helena. ‘Ma’am’ is for my grandmother.”
“OK…Helena.”
“Better.” She walked past me and I fell into step alongside, felt rather than saw her cast me a sideways glance. “I don’t suppose there’s any use in me pointing out that I’ll be staying on the trails inside the property?”
I already knew from talking to Schade that the extreme boundaries were covered by a range of electronic
and automated security measures that made the CIA headquarters at Langley seem as wide open as a public park on the Fourth of July.
“Not much,” I agreed cheerfully. “And anyway, I could do with the exercise.”
She set off at a pace she couldn’t hope to sustain. More to the point, one I hoped she couldn’t. I was more than capable of a half marathon at a steady jog, or a flat-out dash over a hundred metres or so, but I wasn’t much good at combining the pace of the latter with the distance of the former.
Fortunately, after the first half mile or so she throttled back to a more reasonable speed. One I was able to manage without the disgrace of going into a full cardiac meltdown.
Helena didn’t go much for small talk while she ran. A good thing, since I didn’t have the breath to spare. Every now and again, I flicked my eyes across at her set features. The fixed line of her mouth told me this was one occasion when playing dumb would serve me better than any other strategy I could come up with. I said nothing.
As we reached the home stretch, Helena lengthened her stride. Maybe she was hoping to leave me floundering in her wake at a moment where her husband was likely to see us and decide I wasn’t up to the job.
I kept pace.
I stayed half a step behind and to her right, with my eyes on the treeline and any possible chokepoints in between. We were moving slightly uphill now, along a sandy path that separated two of the paddocks and provided a convenient lane to separate the groups of horses and walk them to and from their grazing unmolested.
Each of the paddocks had a wooden structure next to the fence to provide shelter for the animals from the weather, hot or cold. One was coming up on our right and I instinctively moved a little closer to Helena, forcing her further over to her left.
“You’re crowding me,” she snapped. They were the first words she’d spoken since we left the house.
