Reza logged off the computer and led them from the storage room, locked the door behind them, and reset the alarm. A back stairwell led them up to the second-floor flat. Reza directed Shada to the bigger of the two bedrooms, and Jack took the small one with the twin bed. He needed sleep, and he hoped his mind would shut off and let him rest.
“I’ll wake you at five,” said Reza.
“Thanks,” said Jack. He sat on the edge of the mattress, and even though it was lumpy, all worry about falling asleep vanished. One shoe was off when his phone chimed with a text message. It was from Chuck: Just between u and me, it read, and the last two words were in all caps: FOLLOW HER.
Jack pulled off his other shoe, typed a response, and hit SEND: Do you trust her?
He settled back onto the mattress, exhausted and staring at the ceiling, his phone resting on his chest. Chuck’s response came sooner than he’d expected: Would you trust your wife after she cheated?
The question hit Jack hard. Shada had been so contrite that he’d actually let himself believe that Chuck should be more like those I-love-you-no-matter-what guys who forgive and forget. But when the question was turned around on him-would you trust your wife?-he realized that this was the real world, not Lifetime TV or the Oxygen Channel. Jack typed out his response, then rolled over and turned out the light as he hit SEND once more:
OK. I’ll follow.
Chapter Sixty-nine
Sid Littleton watched from his office window as the snow fell on the illuminated buildings and monuments of the capital.
The phone call from London had been unsettling, but Littleton always had a backup plan. The plan’s name was Lisa Horne-or whatever her real name was-and he just hoped the weather wasn’t going to screw things up and keep her from coming to the office on short notice.
“She’s in the building,” said Bahena.
Littleton turned away from the window and saw his right-hand man standing in the doorway. Danilo Bahena had been with Littleton since the formation of Black Ice. Most of the company’s four hundred employees didn’t know him. Very few knew he was the mastermind of the black sites that the company ran for the CIA. Only Littleton knew him as the specialist who would do anything to see a mission succeed.
“Good,” said Littleton. “Go down, take her to the limo. I’ll meet you there.”
“You sure? I could just take her for a ride. Very treacherous roads tonight. Accidents could happen.”
“No,” said Littleton. “We need to know who she is first.”
“Her name is not Lisa Horne, that much is for sure.”
“If she’s an investigative journalist chasing rabbit holes, that’s one thing. If she has some other agenda, I want to get to the bottom of it.”
“Whoever she is, she knows too much.”
“That may be,” said Littleton. He turned back to the window, thinking. The gist of the warning from London replayed in his head: I have my exit strategy. You need yours.
“Get the limo,” he said, watching his own reflection in the window. “And let’s be quick about this.”
Chapter Seventy
Jack lay awake in the glow of his smart phone.
The text message from Chuck had made it impossible to sleep, and Jack made the mistake of surfing the Internet to numb his brain. For the heck of it, he followed up on Andie’s conversation with Grandpa Swyteck and searched “General Petrak.” He could have spent all night reading about the daring plot of the Czech resistance to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler’s planned successor, and how the general in exile coordinated it from the U.K. It didn’t make them Jewish, but Jack hoped that there was something to his grandfather’s ramblings, that perhaps they were somehow related to this Petrak-but that was for another day.
He put the phone away and closed his eyes. He wasn’t dreaming-sleep that deep didn’t come so soon-but in his mind’s eye he saw himself at Brookfield Zoo with his grandfather. He was five years old and enthralled by the polar bear exhibit. Suddenly, Grandpa was gone. Jack was alone and surrounded by strangers.
He shot up in bed and grabbed his smart phone. Jack had been getting lost in strange places since childhood. Tailing Shada would require a working knowledge of the area, and Jack spent the next hour studying maps of the East End. In Miami, the rule was CRAP: Courts, roads, avenues, and places flowed north and south-top to bottom- like the stuff we get from our bosses. As best Jack could tell, the only way to make sense of London was to ask, “Which way to the nearest tube?”
“It’s five o’clock,” said Reza. He was outside the door.
Jack couldn’t believe it. “Be right down,” he said.
Jack went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He’d had no sleep in the last twenty-four hours and about five hours total-thankfully, he’d slept on the flight from Miami-in the last thirty-six. He’d tried murder cases on less rest. Another two hours tonight would have been just enough to revive the jet lag. A quick shower brought him to life, and he was downstairs in fifteen minutes.
The kitchen was already bustling. The Banglatown Curry Shop was a traditional Bengali restaurant where spices were ground by hand and mountains of vegetables were chopped with pride and precision. One team filleted the morning’s delivery of fresh fish, while another cut whole chickens into parts. Two men by the wood-burning oven were arguing in their native tongue, and Jack guessed it had something to do with the cooking temperature.
“Hungry?” asked Reza as he handed Jack a plate. It was fruit, a multigrain bread, and yogurt. Jack thanked him as they headed down the hall, but before they reached the locked door to the storage room, Reza pulled him into a tiny office and closed the door. “Shada is already inside,” said Reza, “so let me be quick. Chuck is going to extend an olive branch and tell her which bill has the GPS in it.”
That didn’t jibe with last night’s text message from Chuck, but Jack kept quiet, not sure if Reza knew about the exchange.
“Of course, there will be a second bill that we don’t tell her about.” He handed Jack a cell phone. “As for the backup, use this when you follow Shada.”
“My cell works fine here.”
“This one is linked to Shada’s cell. Chuck and I installed spyware last night while she was asleep. It allows you to hear what she says so long as she has her cell with her, even if she’s not talking on the phone.”
“How close do I have to be?”
“Technically, it’s supposed to work up to six or seven kilometers. But wireless can be dicey in urban areas, especially if she goes indoors. To be safe, Chuck wants you to stay within two hundred meters.”
“What if she sees me?”
“That’s more than likely, but it doesn’t matter. Chuck played it perfectly last night, and telling her where the GPS chip is this morning will reinforce the trust. The important thing is that she thinks it’s your idea to follow her, not Chuck’s. People get nervous when Chuck has one of his men on their tail. No offense, but you’re an amateur. She might get her knickers in a knot if she sees you, but she won’t abort the mission.”
Jack tried not to feel insulted.
“I’ve also programmed a panic button,” said Reza. “Just hit the star key if you want to call the police. For all other calls, use your own cell.”
Jack tucked the spy phone into his pocket. Reza unlocked the desk drawer and removed a pistol. “Chuck also thinks you should be armed. I have a Glock nine millimeter. Do you know how to use it?”
“No gun.”
“Chuck thought you might know how to use it, being engaged to an FBI agent.”
