guests were present in the room at the time of the blaze. All Victor had to do was get off the island and disappear. Even if his enemies eventually realized he was still alive, he would be ten thousand miles away with a new face and a new life. They would never find him.
The plan had been to kill whoever wanted him dead, to erase the threat, to stay alive. Now he didn’t need to do that. He could live his life without expecting an assassin’s bullet.
He’d won.
Victor hailed a taxi and told the driver to take him to the airport. He sat in the back, silently staring out the window. He thought about where he might go, thinking of those countries where he had never set foot, where he had always wanted to go. For prudence it would be best to go to somewhere in South America first. His Spanish was good, and he would quickly become fluent. He could pay for a new identity there, a genuine identity, become a citizen of Argentina maybe. Then from there, Who knew where he would go?
But he wasn’t going to South America, sensible as that idea would be. Because there was something he needed first. Something he couldn’t live the rest of his life without. Something he’d never wanted before.
Revenge.
CHAPTER 68
Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA
Saturday
08:12 EST
‘I always wanted to ride when I was younger,’ Procter said. His arms were folded and resting on top of a sturdy wooden fence. In the field on the other side grazed two bay quarter horses. ‘Never got the chance though. Now I’m too old and too fat to start.’ He didn’t look unhappy about this declaration. ‘They’re amazing creatures, full of character and grace.’
Alvarez stood to the side of Procter. ‘All I see is two big dumb animals eating grass.’
Procter laughed and looked at him. ‘Never wanted to be a cowboy, then?’
‘I hear horse meat tastes pretty good.’
They were in the heart of rural Virginia, farm country. Their cars were parked on a narrow road flanked by fields. No other vehicles had driven by so far. The sun was shining, but the air was crisp. Procter was dressed in jeans and a casual shirt underneath his coat. Alvarez wore a suit and overcoat. He’d barely worn anything else for weeks.
Procter turned around. ‘How was the flight?’
‘Long.’
‘I can tell. You look worn out.’
‘I’m tired as dead dog.’
Procter rubbed his hands together. ‘You should try going to bed. I hear it’s the recommended cure for tiredness.’
‘I’ll sleep later.’
‘I’ve got a thermos in the car. You want a cup of coffee?’
Alvarez shook his head. ‘I’m trying to reduce my caffeine intake.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s not good for the body.’
‘And how’s that working out for you?’
‘Not so good.’
Procter turned around again and leaned his considerable weight against the fence. The wood made a loud, threatening creak.
‘You didn’t hear that,’ he said.
‘Hear what?’
The associate deputy director had always been a chunky 3XL kind of guy, but without a suit to thin him out a bit he looked like he was carrying more weight than was good for two people, let alone one. Alvarez, who measured his own body fat in the single percentiles, saw a heart attack waiting to happen.
‘It’s Saturday,’ Procter stated, ‘the weekend.’
‘I know.’
‘You know what a weekend is?’
‘I used to.’
‘What’s on your mind that couldn’t wait until Monday?’
‘A woman.’
Procter smiled. ‘My dad used to say behind the scowl of every man lurks a member of the fairer sex.’
‘That’s probably true,’ Alvarez said. ‘But this isn’t just any woman.’ He drew a notebook from inside his coat and opened it. ‘Her name’s Rebecca Sumner, aka Rachel Swanson, American citizen, used to be one of ours, formerly of the Directorate of Intelligence working the Europe office until around four months ago.’
Procter’s face became serious. ‘The woman who met with Ozols’s killer?’
Alvarez nodded. ‘She was a good analyst, a hard worker, on the rise, ambitious, all that shit. She resigned her post to work in the private sector. On the surface nothing more than a government employee off to land a bigger paycheck. Only she didn’t take a job with any of the usual suspects. In fact, she left the country under a false passport three weeks after leaving her desk with the company. She went to France and rented a small apartment in Marseilles, paid for six months’ rent in advance. In cash.’
Procter looked sceptical. ‘On an analyst’s take home?’
‘If it was,’ Alvarez said, ‘then I’m in the wrong job and you can take my verbal resignation right now. But no, there were no withdrawals from her bank account to match the deposit. Someone else gave her the money. She had no means of employment in France, but monthly donations were made into her US bank account to the amount of her former salary.’
‘No kidding?’
Alvarez flipped over a couple of pages. ‘On Wednesday, French police entered her apartment and discovered a few things of note, such as a sink full of burned documents and communications equipment. Half her clothes were gone. Drawers were left opened. The front door hadn’t been locked.’
‘What spooked her?’
‘A neighbour confirmed she left her apartment in the early hours of Friday morning. Before she left, Sumner made a couple of calls to John Kennard’s cell phone. He was already dead by then, of course, and Sumner didn’t leave a message. It was the first time she’d ever phoned him. They had never worked together at the agency or trained together at the Farm. They lived twenty miles apart, had different social circles, no family in common, no reason to explain why she had his phone number. Seems when he didn’t answer her call, she packed her bags and disappeared.’
‘To Paris.’
Alvarez nodded. ‘Her cousin owns an apartment there that she was using. Anyway, she’s there less than a day when French authorities try to apprehend a suspect they believed to be the man responsible for the hotel massacre. He was seen entering the building with Sumner. Obviously we know what happened next.
‘The killer knows Sumner, who knows Kennard. For argument’s sake, let’s say they’ve been working together. Kennard was in Paris with me working on getting the location of those missiles from Ozols. He had access to all my notes. More important, he was there when Ozols gave me the time and location of the meet. Maybe he passed that on to Sumner, who did the same to the killer. A nice arrangement. Efficient. Fewer risks.
‘But something goes wrong because Kennard is killed, which spooks Sumner into leaving Marseilles. She thinks she’s next, so she’s meets with Ozols’s killer, who survived an assassination attempt. Hoyt drowns in the bath.’
‘A clean-up.’
‘Exactly.’
‘So who’s behind it?’
