Christopher Reich - Rules of Vengeance

They continued viewing the disks. To her consternation, there was no sighting of a man entering the elevator on any floor, basement through eleven, from 2:20 in the morning until Detective Ken Laxton’s arrival at 3:15. At 3:17, they watched as the well-coifed detective entered the elevator and stood beside a woman with auburn hair. It took Kate a moment to realize that something was out of whack.

“Hold on,” she said sharply. “Who’s she?”

“You mean Pretty Kenny?” said Cleak, chuckling as he rubbed his eyes.

“I mean who’s the lady accompanying him in the lift?”

“Don’t know,” said the security chief. “Not a resident, I can tell you that much. I’d have remembered.”

Kate exchanged glances with Cleak. “Where in heaven’s name did she come from at three-seventeen in the morning?”

“I imagine she must have driven into the garage,” said the security chief.

“I didn’t see anyone drive in, did you, Reg? Rewind it.”

The security chief froze all screens, then rewound the loop showing the parking garage. Kate was right. No automobile had entered the garage. “Go back to the elevator. We must have missed her getting on.”

They backed up the disk and watched as Ken Laxton walked backward out of the elevator. The unknown woman remained inside, which meant that she was there when Laxton had gotten on. The frames went back further. Eleven seconds earlier, at 3:16:45, the door opened again and the woman retreated. “She got on in the basement,” said Kate.

Reg Cleak pursed his lips, as if he were uncomfortable accepting everything that went along with Kate’s conclusion. She thrust her hands in her pockets and turned away from the screen. “But how did she get in?”

The chief of security shook his head. “We checked our log and accounted for all visitors these last four days.”

Kate considered the information. “Get me the disks covering the garage.”

It took them another hour , but they found what they were looking for. At two o’clock the previous afternoon, Russell had pulled his Aston Martin DB12 into the garage, parked in his reserved space, and walked to the elevator. Five minutes later the garage lights dimmed. And five minutes after that, the Aston Martin’s trunk sprang open. Out climbed a woman in fashionable attire, slinging a leather bag over a shoulder. The bag appeared to be the right size to heft the tools required to cut through the basement wall and patch it up again afterward. The light was too dim, however, to get a good view of the woman. She crossed the garage briskly, keeping her face angled away from the camera.

Kate studied the woman as she entered the elevator and rode up one floor to the basement. Never once did the intruder lift her face so that the camera might get a good look at her. A pro, Kate reminded herself. Maybe more than that.

“She’s our ‘man.’”

Frank Connor did not like England . The food was lousy, the weather was dismal, and the place was more expensive than God. The English liked their beer warm and their roast beef cold. Worst of all, they insisted on driving on the wrong side of the road. Twice he’d nearly been run over after forgetting to look to his right before crossing the street. Draining the last of his Coke, he chomped on an ice cube and watched as the quilt of green pastures and rolling foothills rose up through the gathering dusk to greet him. It was only after the wheels touched down and the jet drew to a halt that it came to him why he disliked the country so. It wasn’t America.

A car and driver from the office waited on the tarmac at Stansted Airport, 48 kilometers northeast of London. Connor deplaned and handed his passport to a waiting official. The pilot had radioed Connor’s details ahead. A cursory check was made of his passport to confirm his identity and he was waved through. No one inspected his luggage.

“And so?” asked Connor as he climbed into the front seat.

“She’s here,” said the driver, a bluff, slope-shouldered Scot, steering the car onto the motorway.

“Did you get a visual?”

“No, but your boy Ransom’s up to something. He put the dodge on us.”

“Explain.”

“He checked in to the hotel at eight this morning. Took a run around the park at lunch, then spent the afternoon in his room. At six he came downstairs for a cocktail party. Did a little mingling. Had a few beers. He’s a civilian, and it shows. He didn’t give neither me nor Liam a look. After thirty minutes, he made a run to the WC. We couldn’t get too close, so as not to spook him. When he came out, he was with one of the docs at the conference. Tall gent. Distinguished. The two of them ducked into a conference room down the hall. We weren’t suspicious right off. After all, Ransom had been acting normally until that point.”

“And?” asked Connor.

“After about five minutes, the doc comes out, but Ransom doesn’t.”

Connor winced, then reminded himself that this was what he had wanted. A sign, even if he was unable to capitalize on it. “Where did he go?”

“The only way out of the room was a window that dropped him onto Park Lane. We got a man outside and around front in time to spot Ransom heading down Piccadilly. He was pretty far off by then. We caught him going into the Underground three blocks down the road. That’s where we lost him.”

“Where he ‘put the dodge on you’?”

“It’s a zoo in there,” the Scot protested. “It was rush hour. We’ve only got two warm bodies to do the job, not a saber squadron.”

Connor grunted. He could add another reason that he hated this country. They couldn’t follow anyone worth a damn. “It’s all right,” he said consolingly, because it was his policy always to encourage his men. “I’m sure you did your best.”

Division’s agents were drawn from all four corners of the intelligence world. Some came out of the Army’s Special Operations Command and had previously qualified as Navy SEALs, Green Berets, Rangers, and the like. Others transferred laterally from the Defense Intelligence Agency, from the Office of Consular Operations at State, or even from the Secret Service. Finally, there were those who drifted in from foreign shores. One of Division’s best-kept secrets was that it contracted international operatives off the freelance market: foreign-trained intelligence agents who had lost their billets by dint of budget cuts, ideological disagreements, misbehavior, or any combination of the above.

“Where is he now?”

“He strolled back into the lobby without a by-your-leave at eight o’clock. But it was like we were watching a different man. Before he’d been calm, real loosey-goosey. This Ransom was very jittery indeed. Kept looking over his shoulder as if someone were about to sneak up behind him and put a round into the back of his head. I overheard him tell another doc that he’d gone for a walk in the park because he was jet-lagged. For two hours? Load of crap. Something had him spooked.”

Or someone .

It was after ten when Frank Connor passed Marble Arch and drove down Park Lane. He craned his neck as they passed the Dorchester. “Did you find the other doctor?” he asked. “The one who led him to the conference room?”

“Negative. He disappeared into thin air. He was not a civilian.”

“So she’s working a team.”

“It looks that way boss.” The driver glanced sidelong at Connor. “But for who?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Connor stared at the glittering lights of the porte cochere, the richly liveried doormen, and the succession of beautiful people parading in and out of the revolving doors. He pulled a crumpled notepad from his jacket and wrote, “Nightingale in London.” “Nightingale” being the last operational designation for Emma Ransom.