She clicked the button and the rum ignited. Rebecca took a swig from the bottle and watched the files burn for a moment. It didn’t take her long to throw some clothes into a suitcase. She took practical items, nothing fancy. She had a wardrobe full of clothes she loved but it was no time to be sentimental. She had to get out as fast as possible.
There was a clean-up job under way; she was certain of it now. All the signs were there. The op had gone wrong and whoever was in charge had pulled the plug, and they were cutting off the loose ends. She knew this kind of thing happened in the old days, but she never would have believed it still occurred in this age. You’d better believe it, she told herself.
Why the need to start killing people? Just what the hell was really going on? She had the sinking feeling that the op wasn’t just off the books — it was out of the library entirely.
Her control was already dead. Only seven hours ago. They would be sending someone for her too; they might have sent them already. She looked at her watch. Each passing second brought her own demise hurtling closer.
Her heart was pounding as she zipped up her laptop and grabbed her personal effects. She left the comms equipment. She didn’t need it, and all the files were on the computer. In the kitchen the thick smoke made her cough as she turned on the faucets to put out the fire in the sink.
She left the apartment, her throat choked with fear, and walked along the corridor expecting a man with a silenced pistol to appear at any moment. No, she reminded herself, they wouldn’t do it like that. She’d have an accident, maybe take an overdose. Maybe get mugged in a restroom.
She decided against the elevator and took the stairs. She hurried down them, her face slick with perspiration. On the ground floor she didn’t use the front door but found a fire exit at the back and pushed it open into an alleyway. The cold wind tossed her hair over her shoulders. Rain soaked her.
Rebecca could hear traffic nearby but could barely see. If she ran they might hear her, so she walked slowly and carefully to the end of the alley. Relief washed over her as she stepped out onto the street.
Maybe she was wrong, maybe her control had just been unfortunate, but she had spent her life analysing the odds, and the odds told her to get the hell away. She had a car but didn’t go to it. They would know about it. It was registered in her name. Maybe there was a bomb waiting underneath it or the brake cables were severed.
Rebecca walked down the street, the rain beating down on the top of her head. She felt safer to be near other people. They wouldn’t do anything in public. She hailed a cab, telling the driver to take her to the airport. She had a place she knew she could go, where no one would find her. On the way she thought about what had happened and what might happen, and a plan started to formulate in her mind. By the time she got out of the taxi she knew exactly what she was going to do. It was dangerous, crazy even.
But it might just keep her alive.
CHAPTER 28
Paris, France
Friday
08:12 CET
Alvarez pulled his bulky frame out from the hotel bed of nails and headed for the shower. After three efficient minutes of washing and scrubbing, he got out, dried himself, and dressed. He’d had only a handful of hours of sleep the night before, the same as every other night over the week, and he felt like pounded crap. He was running on fumes, and the fumes were running out. When he was younger he could do whatever the job required, whenever, but things had taken a downward trend somewhere along the road after taking Route 35. Route 40 was just around the corner.
Things weren’t going to get any easier, with the job or with his body. Time was the worst enemy there was. The way Alvarez saw it you were smart if you knew fighting it was a losing battle, but you were a coward if you didn’t fight anyway. Alvarez had allowed himself an extra half hour in bed in an effort to rejuvenate his brain and sinews. The big-ass yawn told him it hadn’t been enough. The direct hunt for Ozols’s killer may have gone cold but concentrating his efforts on finding out who hired the seven shooters to kill the assassin was generating leads.
Seven out of the seven dead shooters had been identified, and of those the American, Stevenson, was the focus point of Alvarez’s hunt. Noakes had found a series of photographs on Stevenson’s hard drive of some kind of meeting between Stevenson and an unidentified man, dated a couple weeks before the Paris massacre. A third individual had taken the shots secretly, mainly of the mystery man, an overweight guy in his fifties carrying a briefcase. There were pictures of him arriving at a cafe in Brussels and taking a seat at one of the tables outside where Stevenson waited; of the two conversing for a while, drinking coffee, and eating pastries; and of the fat guy standing to go, leaving the briefcase beneath the table.
The photographer had then followed him to his car and taken a few pictures of him driving away. For some reason the guy with the camera had failed to get a shot of the licence plate, but Noakes was doing his best trying to get it from reflected surfaces. So far without luck.
Stevenson’s bank records showed that he had deposited one hundred thousand euros in cash a day later. No one at the bank had questioned the deposit or notified the authorities about it. The bank manager had since been fired. Alvarez was determined to identify the guy with the briefcase and was working towards that goal with his typical composed efficiency.
Alvarez’s ability to remain calm in a crisis was one of his most highly prized traits. It took a lot for him to get emotional and even more for him to act on that emotion. In his time in the military he’d been on the receiving end of some hairy situations, and as an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency more than one gun had been pushed in his face. Only once had he genuinely feared for his life, and at that moment he found that fear focused him and made him deadly.
If anything it was easier for him to deal with danger than it was the more mundane varieties of stress. People not answering the damn phone pissed him off far more than staring down the barrel of a. 45.
Kennard had disappeared off the radar, his phone taunting Alvarez with his all-too-perfectly-well-rehearsed voice-mail message each time Alvarez hit speed dial. The previous evening Alvarez and Kennard had shared a drink in a shitty little Parisian apology of a bar. Alcohol was something Alvarez usually saved for special occasions, but Kennard had been wearing a face like he’d been sucking jalapenos for a couple of days, and Alvarez understood the importance of morale.
It felt good letting his hair down too. The week had been an ungodly bitch, and he was feeling the effects. A few beers had chilled him out, but Kennard had been a bundle of nervous energy. Something was definitely under the younger guy’s skin, but Kennard was keeping his lips well and truly locked. Woman trouble, Alvarez guessed. Some slutty piece of ass not returning his messages or some other bullshit. After draining the last of his beer, Alvarez had suggested finding a burger joint but Kennard shook his head.
‘I would,’ Kennard had said, ‘but I’ve got something I need to do.’
Alvarez’s eyes widened a fraction. ‘Something, or someone?’
‘I wish.’
Alvarez was firing up his laptop and onto his second cup of black coffee when his phone rang. Less than sixty seconds later he was heading out the door.
It was a short hop on the metro to the embassy, and he made his way to his office hoping that someone had made a terrible error. They hadn’t. The police report was waiting for him, including photos. Alvarez sat down, unhooked his office phone, switched off his cell, and carefully read through the information.
Kennard was dead. Murdered. Stabbed multiple times in the gut, ultimately dying from loss of blood. Signs of a struggle. His phone was taken and his wallet emptied. No witnesses. Paris’s finest had it down as a robbery. Poor schmuck.
Alvarez had lost people before, albeit rarely, only two in his whole career with the company. They were assets though, not true CIA. He accepted it as an inherent risk of the operational side of the business, but it wasn’t something he’d ever become used to. Alvarez leaned back in his chair and exhaled heavily.
He’d never particularly liked Kennard and wasn’t about to pretend to grieve for his passing, but he was genuinely sorry the guy had been murdered by some snail-eating piece of shit. Probably some homeless junkie so he
