Tom Savage - Mrs. John Doe

“Yes,” Nora said. “And by the time I got to Paris, he had a fake note ready, sending me to that cemetery where they could kill me and dump my body, and get the envelope.”

Everyone in the car was quiet for a while, imagining that scenario-the scenario that hadn’t succeeded, thanks to Jacques Lanier. Solange had been able to activate him before she’d met her fate in the apartment in the Latin Quarter, and Bill and his people hadn’t known about him. They’d thought he was simply what he appeared to be, an elderly Eurostar chauffeur.

“Who was the man in the car,” Nora asked, “the gray Citroën outside the museum, the one Jacques managed to lose? From the description Jacques gave, I assumed it was you , Josef.”

The young man shook his head. “It was probably Elder, with a very dark tan and a black wig. He must have figured that if you or your driver spotted him there, you’d assume the thief from the park was still after you, which would send you running to Pinède.”

“It did,” Nora admitted. “Who was the man in the cemetery, the one Jacques killed?”

“A local French assassin for hire,” Josef said, “a fellow named Aristide, with a long history. No loss there, believe me.”

Nora believed him. She glanced over at the young man and said, “I was in the hotel yesterday morning, when you came with the flowers. I watched you from the room across the hall. I didn’t know you were a friend, or I wouldn’t have hidden from you. I wouldn’t have followed you all over London either.”

Josef was surprised at this news. “You followed me?”

She nodded. “Russell Square, the Underground, Leicester Square. I was sitting on the bench next to you when you met Andy Gilbert. I heard every word-well, almost every word.”

He stared at her, but she didn’t pause to gloat. She had one more question, her most important question. She asked it now. “What was his name?”

“Whose name?” Jeff asked from the backseat.

“The former agent. My ‘husband.’ The man in the morgue.”

“Oh. His name was Trevor Markham.”

“Trevor Markham,” Nora said slowly. “Trevor Markham, Vivian, Claudia, Solange, a young woman named Wendy, and Maurice Dolin.” She didn’t add Jacques Lanier and Andy Gilbert to the list, not yet; she hoped they were still alive. “Let’s do this for them.”

“Zichronam livracha,” Josef whispered. “Honor their names.”

They were all silent after that. The car passed through another village, then the road arced to the right; they were now moving east along the northern coast of Norfolk. She caught occasional glimpses of water on her left, the North Sea. There was a wood on the right side of the road, tall trees, and an entrance up ahead that led off through the forest. A standing sign at the turnoff announced COWPER FIELD. No traffic-they hadn’t passed many cars since leaving the farm. Nora crossed the oncoming lane, pulled the Focus over onto the shoulder near the sign, and stopped.

Josef had his wallet out, open in his hand. He was gazing down at a photo inside, a pretty girl about his age with dark hair, dark eyes, and a wonderful smile. Nora didn’t have to ask; this girl, whoever she was, was waiting for him in Israel, perhaps in one of the cities Nassim Gamal planned to obliterate.

Her head didn’t hurt anymore; she was the only relatively uninjured person in this car. The rain drummed on the roof, punctuated by distant thunder. It was 2:49. Eleven minutes…

“Okay,” she said, “what’s the plan?”

They moved through the forest as quickly as they could, but it was difficult. The rain fell in rivers from the leaves and branches above their heads, and Josef’s injury slowed him down considerably. Nora forged ahead, then stopped and waited for him to catch up. She clutched Jacques Lanier’s heavy SIG Sauer, grateful that she and Josef had finally been able to talk her husband into remaining behind.

Jeff was in the backseat of the Focus, his injured leg stretched out, armed with the little revolver she’d used to kill Craig Elder. Only one round left in it, but he’d said he’d be fine. He knew that his incapacity would only get in the way of the mission, but it was maddening for him to be immobile while others were on the job. His job, as he saw it. The car was now concealed from view; Nora had driven it straight into the trees, some twenty feet in from the main road.

The paved drive into the airfield was on their left; she could see it now and then through the trees. After about three minutes of negotiating her body forward in the soaked tangle of bushes and tree trunks, she became aware of open space ahead of them, and she began to make out shapes, an enormous structure of some kind and a vehicle parked near it. As she arrived at the edge of the forest and dropped to her knees, she saw that the huge building was a hangar of corrugated tin spotted with rust, and the car parked on the near side of it was the gold Aston Martin. The big, bearded man named Mustapha stood next to the car, his back to her, holding up an umbrella to shield himself from the torrent. Nora saw the back of the hangar, a long metal wall with one metal door in the center; the front of the building, on the other side, faced the runway. On the farthest side of the hangar from here were a big, round metal tank beside two gas pumps, a blue pickup truck, and three small planes in a neat row, lined up in the grass at the edge of the tarmac.

In the distance beyond Mustapha, she could just make out a squat, fat airplane on the runway, perhaps fifty yards in front of her, its rear cargo door open. The two trucks were there, the rain bouncing off their canvas roofs. The men were just finishing with the last of the load. As Josef arrived to kneel beside her, the final two crates disappeared inside the plane. Moments later, the men who’d carried them reappeared and jumped down onto the tarmac. At a sharp command from their leader, the eight laborers climbed into the trucks and the drivers got into the cabs.

“Good,” Josef said. “They’ve finished their work here, so now they’ll go. That’s a lot fewer people to worry about. But where are Howard and the others? I should think-”

His question was answered before he could finish uttering it. As the trucks began to move away from the aircraft in the direction of the drive that led to the main road, a burly man in a blue poncho and a captain’s cap appeared from the hangar, bent forward under an umbrella. He strode off past Mustapha toward the plane, but he suddenly stopped and turned around, apparently responding to a call from the building behind him. He shouted something to the unseen caller inside the building, then turned and continued on his way.

“Okay, I have to get over there,” Josef said, pointing toward the little back door of the hangar. “Howard and the others are still in there, but not for long. He’s probably hitching a ride with Gamal and the crates-he won’t wait for Elder, and he won’t take a chance on the police arriving here before he’s safely out of England. Gamal and his people are keeping to their timetable, so we don’t have much time. I’ll see what they’re doing in there and try to figure out a way to stop them, or at least slow them down until we can get help.”

Nora looked out at the cargo plane. “Could you shoot out the tires?”

He shook his head. “There will be other tires in the hangar. No point in taking out the pilot either-the people who run this place will be licensed pilots. Mr. Howard would simply bribe them or force them to take his place. I can’t shoot them all-they’d stop me first.”

“So, what are we going to do?” Nora asked.

Josef shrugged. “I’ll have to think of something as soon as I’m in the hangar. You stay here until I-”