Sidney Sheldon - Chasing Tomorrow

I’m going to find you, Tracy.

I’m going to find you, and Jeff Stevens and Daniel Cooper.

And then I’m going to end this thing, once and for all.

THREE DAYS PASSED.

Nothing happened.

Elation gave way to anxiety and finally to despair. Tracy had come to London and evaporated. No trace of her had surfaced, as Sarah Grainger or any of her other alter egos.

The staff members at Interpol’s London office defended themselves to Jean Rizzo.

“Do you know how many passengers pass through Heathrow every day? Almost two hundred thousand. And you expect people to remember one woman’s face? She could be flying under any number of identities. Eighty-two airlines use Heathrow, Jean, flying to a hundred and eighty destinations. And that’s assuming she flew out of Heathrow. Forget needle in a haystack. She’s a speck of dust in the Royal Albert Hall.”

While he waited, increasingly desperately, for a positive sighting of Tracy, Jean redoubled his efforts to solve Daniel Cooper’s riddle. Tracy had done it by herself, after all. Then again, maybe Tracy knew something he didn’t. Some secret that only she and Cooper, and possibly Jeff Stevens, shared?

The chess angle was taking him nowhere fast. He spoke to players and chess clubs and to the editor of New In Chess magazine, the most widely read and respected publication in the game.

“There are as many outdoor venues for chess matches as there are stars in the sky, or grains of sand on a beach,” the editor told him. “All you need is a board. As for official championships, those always take place in indoor venues. The WCC—World Chess Championship—is the most prestigious, of course. But ‘where masters meet’ could be a reference to any number of matches or competitions.”

Jean refocused his attention on the “six hills” clue. He contacted the local police in Hertfordshire, England, and had staff at the long barrows site shown Daniel Cooper’s picture as well as Tracy’s. No one had seen them, or reported anything suspicious. Nor had any significant chess matches been held in the area in the past ten years.

The police in Six Hills, Georgia, clearly considered the whole thing a joke. “A riddle? Sounds like somethin’ out of Batman . We don’t get too many hostage situations down here, but if we see your fella, we’ll be sure and let you now. You want us to look out for the Penguin too?”

Jean was irritated, but didn’t dwell on it. Cooper was almost certainly still in Europe. Although it was technically possible to enter the United States with a hostage in tow, there was no need for him to make his life that difficult.

Sylvie called him. “It’s Clémence’s birthday tomorrow. She’ll be seven.”

Jean winced. “I’m sorry. I totally forgot.”

“I know. That’s why I’m calling you. I bought a present from you and wrapped it. It’s a camera.”

“Thanks. I’m sorry.”

“You’re taking her and Luc to the movies tomorrow afternoon at four.”

Jean balked. He had less than four days to find Daniel Cooper and the trail was almost cold. “Sylvie, I can’t. I have to work. I—”

“I booked the tickets already. It’s her birthday, Jean. She wants to see you. Be there.”

CLÉMENCE AND LUC WERE in a state of high excitement.

“Can we have ICEEs?”

“Can we have Pick ’n’ Mix?”

“As it’s Clem’s birthday, can we have popcorn and Pick ’n’ Mix?”

“Can we see it in 3-D?”

Jean experienced a familiar feeling of happiness combined with the guilt that he always felt in his children’s company. They’re so sweet. I should see them more.

Against their mother’s express wishes, he bought both of them an enormous bag of candy and settled down between them in the dark theater. The movie was formulaic, a lazily written cartoon complete with a wisecracking sidekick and an improbably proportioned if feisty heroine.

Tracy would make a great heroine, he thought. Bullheaded and brave. Intelligent but impulsive.

His mind drifted back to the case. He’d spent the morning watching CCTV footage provided by London’s Transport Police, showing Tracy clearing customs and emerging into the arrivals terminal at Heathrow four days ago. She was wearing a head scarf and glasses, which did a good job of concealing most of her face. Her demeanor was casual and relaxed. She neither hurried nor dawdled and she never looked over her shoulder or behind her as she walked toward the tube.

Jean had played and replayed the clip for hours, searching for a clue, for anything that might jog his memory or stir up a new lead.

Was Cooper in London? In England, at any rate?

Some instinct told Jean he wasn’t, but he told himself that perhaps his instincts were wrong. Just before he drove to pick up the kids, he’d learned that there was a painting in the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square entitled Six Hills . He’d dropped a quick e-mail to Interpol’s London field office to contact the authorities at the gallery, but he was itching to get on the phone to them himself.

Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, he switched it on, ignoring the disapproving glances of the other parents. He set it to vibrate. Immediately it began to jump and buzz in his lap, like an angry bee.

Nine missed calls.

Nine! Something must have happened.

He opened his text messages and began to read.

SYLVIE RIZZO WAS CURLED up on the couch at home, reading a novel and enjoying some well-earned peace, when the front door opened and two crying children burst in. Their father trailed behind them, looking stressed.

“I’m sorry,” Jean mumbled. “I have to go. I have to catch a plane.”

“What, right now?”

“The film wasn’t even halfway through!” Clémence moaned.

“Dad wouldn’t let us stay. I didn’t even get to finish my ICEE!” Luc sobbed.

“You bought them ICEEs?” Sylvie’s frown deepened. “I told you they make Luc sick.”

“I have to go.”

“For God’s sake, Jean!” Sylvie snapped. “I’ll have to go to court if this goes on. You can’t keep letting them down like this. It’s Clémence’s birthday!”

At that moment Luc vomited violently, spraying blue sugary puke all over the living room carpet.

Jean ran to his car and didn’t look back.

Tracy had been spotted at Heathrow. The footage was two days old, but it was clear. With a new alias, and dark brown hair extensions, she had boarded a Britannia flight to Sofia, Bulgaria.

This year’s World Chess Championships were being held in Bulgaria.

Jean had Antoine Cléry look up the date and venue.

“The competition began yesterday. It’s in Plovdiv, a provincial city, in a conference center attached to a hotel.”

Jean Googled “Plovdiv” as he left Sylvie’s house.

“Plovdiv is often referred to in Bulgaria as ‘the City of the Seven Hills . . . Inside the city proper are six syenite hills, called tepeta . . .”

Jean Rizzo slammed his foot on the accelerator.

CHAPTER 26

PLOVDIV, BULGARIA’S SECOND LARGEST city and the venue for the latest World Chess Championships, is set on the banks of the Maritsa River, about a hundred miles southeast of the capital, Sofia. With over six thousand years of history, the city is a treasure trove of archaeological wonders, with sites from antiquity, including two ancient amphitheaters, set beside Ottoman baths and mosques and the remainders of medieval towers.

Tracy booked a hotel in the old quarter, a pretty maze of narrow, paved streets lined with old churches and homes from what was known as the National Revival period. The Britannia Hotel was really little more than a guesthouse, with a few rooms, a grubby reception area and a salon that served fruit, bread and coffee for breakfast but nothing else. It suited Tracy perfectly. From her bedroom window she could see the heights of Sredna Gora rise to the northwest, above the alluvial plain on which Plovdiv had proudly stood since four thousand years before Christ was born. It had been a decade since she’d set foot in Europe. In other circumstances she would have drunk in the culture and beauty of her surroundings like a wanderer stumbling upon a water hole after years in the desert. As it was, the pealing church bells and sights and smells of the Old World barely registered.