Jeffery Deaver - Watchlist

Unless they’d taken to showering together, only one was here now.

Suddenly, the shower stopped. Jana heard the curtain slide open and the sound of someone climbing out of the tub.

“Charley?” a woman’s voice called out.

The babysitter, Jana thought, squaring herself with the bathroom door, aiming for the height of an average woman’s head.

“Charley?” The tone was slightly more urgent.

The door swung open to reveal a dark-haired woman, older but far from old, in a white bath towel. Seeing Jana standing there with the gun, she drew back slightly.

“Where is Charlotte Middleton?” Jana demanded.

The woman didn’t answer. Her eyes were hard on Jana, searching for something. Then, suddenly, a look of recognition flickered across her face. “You’re Santash Grover’s daughter,” she said triumphantly.

Jana flinched. It was impossible that this woman should know about her father and yet she did. “Where is Charlotte Middleton?!” she asked once again, reminding herself that any knowledge the woman had would soon be irrelevant.

The woman smiled. “Go to hell.”

“You first,” Jana told her, pulling the trigger.

The smoke, the heat of the fires, the falling debris, the ash that caked his mouth and choked his lungs-all these things were near unbearable, as was the clutching fingers of death at his heels, but what pained him most as he ran through this scene of destruction was the belief that for the rest of his life-whether the rest of his life spanned decades or minutes-he would never again hear the music he loved so much. His hearing was gone. No ringing. No hum. Nothing. Harold Middleton felt as though he were trapped in a horrible, violent snow globe, able only to peer helplessly at the world outside. He ran through the shattered compound, leaping over crumbled walls, scattered furniture, dead bodies, trying to find his way out of the destruction, holding on to the strange and childish notion that if he could escape soon enough, perhaps his hearing would be restored as his prize. He felt battered and bruised and hot but other than his hearing, no injuries seemed serious or permanent and for that he was grateful.

In his right hand he clutched a battered AK-47 he’d found among the ruins, scarred but its metal was not superheated. He’d fired off an experimental round-strangely disorienting in its silence-before heading off again, and now Middleton was glad he had picked it up, for as he turned a corner around a ruined, toppled wall, he saw two panicked Russians heading directly toward him. Behind them, a shattered wall spat out hot tongues of fire like an angry demon. One of them stopped in his tracks, as though stunned by the presence of another living being, the other better maintained his composure. He raised his weapon and began to fire off bursts of silent gunfire.

Middleton hit the ground, rolled and took shelter behind a twisted mass of metal and stone. He felt broken glass slice into his palm and in his silent world, the pain was somehow more vivid, more real than it would have been before. He felt rather than heard the impact of the rounds against his shelter and he crouched low, assessing his situation. He was protected here. He was safe for the next few seconds. He could form a plan.

It was all so absurd. Yes, he’d done high-risk work before with the Volunteers, but it was not that long ago he had been a professor of music, a man who investigated and verified musical manuscripts. Now here he was, in a destroyed, burning compound somewhere outside Moscow, fired upon by men whose affiliations and allegiances were a mystery to him. It was all a mystery to him. So much had happened since that day on the beach in the south of France and none of it made any sense at all.

In a dreamlike state that accompanies the loss of one of the senses, Middleton peered over his shelter. One of the Russians stood with his feet wide apart, his shoulders hunched, moving his weapon back and forth. He had a crazed, desperate look in his eye and at once it became clear that the Russian believed that if he could kill Middleton it would somehow lead to his safety, just as Middleton believed that if he could escape quickly enough, his hearing would return.

Middleton squeezed off a short burst, and the Russian went down. Now the second Russian, who had stood still and impassive, raised his own assault riffle. Middleton began to duck, but his shirt caught on a protruding piece of metal. It took only a second to disentangle himself, but that second should have been his end except the Russian went down in a spray of ash and blood.

Middleton felt it before he saw it, the faint whump whump whump of a helicopter. When he looked up it was hovering perhaps fifty feet above the wreck of the compound, perhaps two hundred yards from his current position. One man in the helicopter squatted with his weapon, scanning the chaos while another threw over a rope ladder and waved Middleton on. He shouted something, but Middleton could not hear over the noise of the chopper.

But he could hear that noise. His hearing was returning, along with the ringing, but his hearing was coming back.

Middleton had few choices. He could attempt to find his way out of this burning mess, fighting off more Russians as he found them, or he could take the escape offered by the helicopter. That seemed to be the better of the two options. He would worry about the chopper’s BlueWatch logo later.

In her Paris suite, Leonora Tesla had fallen to her knees. She pressed her right hand against the wound in her left shoulder. It bled horribly, but it was not a life-threatening wound-certainly not if she could get medical attention soon. It hurt like hell and she tried to think clearly through the pain, see clearly through the tears of agony that clouded her vision. She still wore nothing but an oversized bath towel wrapped around her and absurdly she felt embarrassed. She should have worn something more appropriate to her own shooting.

Above her hovered the daughter of Santash Grover, the man who had studied with Sikari. Jana was tall for a South Asian, beautiful, dark in complexion, and she moved with a kind of ease and grace that Tesla could not help but admire. She was also very cruel. Tesla could see it in her eyes.

“That,” said the woman in her accented French, gesturing with her weapon toward the wound, “is to let you know that I am serious. Nothing more than that. You may think you are in pain, but it is nothing compared to what you will feel if I shoot you in your knee. In addition, you will have the knowledge that you will never walk unaided again. Think of what will happen, then, if I shoot you in both knees. Take a moment to consider these things and then I will ask you again.”

“I don’t believe I will ever walk again in any case,” Tesla replied in French, trying to think of something, anything, to give her more time, to throw this woman off balance. “You won’t leave me alive. I suspect it is the way you work, but even if it weren’t, I know you are Grover’s daughter. You think you can kill me to contain the secret, but the secret is already out. I’ve already sent a dozen emails.”

Something dark crossed the woman’s face, but it was followed by a cruel smile. “Then I will have more questions to put to you. I only hope you will answer easily. Once I put bullets into your knees and elbows, any place else I shoot will have little effect. I’ve seen it happen that way.”

“I’m sure you have,” Tesla said with a grunt. Her eyes scanned the room around her, looking for something she might use as a weapon: a lamp, a phone, a phone cord, a chair. In truth, Tesla did not know how much torture she could endure before betraying what she knew. She supposed it was a good thing she knew so little. Apparently Charley was no longer in the suite; she had impulsively slipped out. Well, good for her. But she would be back. That was what Tesla knew or perhaps assumed. Charley would, sooner or later be back, and what would she find upon her return? Tesla’s dead body, and this assassin waiting?