Christopher Reich - Rules of Vengeance

Jonathan padded into Meadows’s study. By the light of the desk lamp, he searched for a weapon. His eyes landed on a letter opener. It was long and sharp, with a carved ivory handle. More of a dagger than an office tool. He picked it up.

Silently he descended the stairs.

Meadows was sitting at the kitchen table. He looked up abruptly. “You scared me.”

Jonathan approached cautiously, the letter opener pressed against his leg. “Who were you talking to?”

Meadows tried on a smile. “Oh, that… nobody.”

“Who, Jamie?”

“My nurse. Have a special case in the morning. I’d just remembered that we needed some extra meds.”

“You said I had magic hands.”

Meadows considered this, confused. “Did I?”

“Emma used the same expression when I saw her yesterday. I was wondering how it came up between the two of you.”

Meadows peered at Jonathan, mystified. “The two of us? Me and Emma? It didn’t. I’ve never met your wife.”

“I just thought it was an odd coincidence. I mean, I’ve never heard it put that way before, and then here you are talking on the phone about me. It was about me, wasn’t it, Jamie?”

“Of course it wasn’t. I told you, it was my nurse.”

Jonathan went on. “What time is it in Washington, anyway? Let’s see… it must be just about five in the afternoon. All the staff still at their desks? Emma said Division works twenty-four/seven. Lights always on.”

Meadows was shaking his head. “I wasn’t talking to D.C. I was talking to my office.”

“At eleven o’clock?” Jonathan registered his disapproval. “I’d grade your story as weak, Jamie. Not up to Division standards.”

Meadows smiled uncomfortably. “What the hell is this ‘Division’ you keep talking about?”

“You tell me. After all, you’ve been there long enough. I am curious: did they bring you in before Oxford or after? Did you point Emma in my direction? That’s one thing I’ve always wondered about.”

“Would you stop this nonsense? Actually, Jonathan, you’re frightening me.”

“What did they want you to do? Keep me here until they show up? Kill me or just follow me?”

“Kill you?” Meadows’s eyes widened. “I think you’d better leave. You were right. It isn’t safe.”

“You worked in Cornwall,” said Jonathan.

“At Duchy Hospital. So what?”

“That’s near Penzance, where Emma said she was from. At Oxford, you were at Brasenose before medical school. So was Emma. And then there’s the matter of the couch.”

“The couch?”

“I guess that’s just good tradecraft. You couldn’t let me sleep there. It’s too near the front door. I could up and go without your knowing it. You needed me upstairs, where you could keep an eye on me until your friends come.”

A sheen of sweat had popped out on Meadows’s forehead. “Friends? What friends? Jesus, Jonathan, get a grip! It’s me, Jamie, you’re talking to.”

But Jonathan wasn’t listening. He knew about Emma’s training. It was all about cover. He glanced toward the front door. “Are they coming now?”

It was then that Meadows discovered the letter opener. “Don’t do it,” he said, his voice rising. “Whatever it is you have in mind. Don’t. I’m not with Division. I’ve never met Emma. Swear on my children’s lives. Whole magic hands thing-coincidence. Something I must have heard somewhere. Pure chance.” He was rising from his chair, hands in front of his body. The sweat was coming now, gathering in his bushy eyebrows and sliding down his pink cheeks. “Pru!” Meadows began to call, but Jonathan was around the table and on him before he could get the name out. He clamped a hand over Meadows’s mouth and pressed the tip of the letter opener against his neck. “Quiet,” he said.

Meadows nodded furiously.

Jonathan lowered the blade, then removed his hand from Meadows’s mouth. “I need some money.”

“In my wallet. It’s on the counter by the key basket. Take whatever’s there. Should be several hundred quid. Take the ATM card, too. PIN’s one-one-one-one. Please, no lectures. It’s too easy, I know already. You can have my car, too. It’s a Jag. Fast as all hell. I won’t call the police. Not right away, anyway. I mean, later I’ll have to. Insurance and all that. The thing cost a fortune.”

Jonathan found the wallet and counted the bills. The total came to five hundred and seventy pounds. He snatched the car keys. “The one out back?”

Meadows nodded. “You didn’t have to do this, you know. You could have just asked.”

“Maybe, but then…” Jonathan caught himself. There was something in Jamie’s eyes that wasn’t right. The man was genuinely frightened. Jonathan knew with a sudden and complete confidence that it wasn’t an act. “You’re not with Division, are you?”

Jamie Meadows shook his head.

“You don’t know Emma?”

“Never had the pleasure.”

Jonathan sighed. Suddenly he felt very tired. “Will you wait until tomorrow to call the police about the car?”

Meadows waved off the question. “I’ll wait a week.”

“I’ll pay you back for the cash.”

“Whenever. Take your time.”

Jonathan nodded, turning toward the back door. He advanced one step, then stopped. There remained a last, nagging issue. “What about the conference? Why did you tell me that you’d been planning on going for so long?”

“It was my idea,” said Prudence Meadows, from across the room. “Couldn’t have you thinking we’d only just learned you were in town. You’d have become suspicious.”

She stood at the base of the stairs. She was wearing silk pajamas, and in her right hand she held a pistol.

“Pru, what the hell are you doing?” asked Jamie Meadows.

“Shhh, darling. We don’t want to wake the children.” She was screwing a fire suppressor onto the snout of the pistol. Finished, she held it at arm’s length, pointed squarely at Jonathan’s chest. “It was me Jamie heard. I was the one who commented on your magic hands. It was something Emma told me years ago. She never did stop bragging about you.”

“What are you talking about?” Meadows continued, if anything louder than before. “What the hell is that you’re holding?”

“Jonathan, do you want to tell him? Might as well, since you’ve seen fit to tell him so much besides.”

“Your wife works for Division,” said Jonathan, never taking his eyes from Prudence Meadows. “They’re trying to find Emma and kill her.”

“Nonsense,” protested Meadows, as if he weren’t staring at his wife six meters away, brandishing a semiautomatic pistol. “Pru? Tell him. It’s all a mixup. What is this Division you’re talking about, anyway?”

“It’s an intelligence shop run by the Americans,” said Prudence. “We have MI6. They have the CIA. Division’s just smaller and a bit more secret.”

“I don’t get it,” said Meadows.

“She works for the same organization that Emma did,” said Jonathan. “They undertake covert operations around the world to advance American security concerns. Mostly they kill people.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” remarked Prudence, advancing a step. She looked at her husband. “I might add that we only kill people who need to be killed.”

“I’ve never seen you before, have I?” asked Jonathan.

“I’m a desk girl. I run things in our London office. Or used to, I should say. After Emma’s stunt, they practically shut us down. Moved things to Lambeth. Lambeth! But no, we haven’t seen each other before. We can’t all be like your wife. Just as well. I’m a bum for languages. I’ve got my English accent. That’s good enough.”