window, closet, and corner. After days of incarceration, Kyle’s muscles would not respond to the quick pace, and even the dim light was like staring into bright headlights. He could not see worth a damn with eyes long tuned to complete darkness. He heard the skip-slide footsteps of Jimmy Todd behind him, moving forward while facing the rear. The door of the elevator stood open at the end of the room, a chair blocking it from closing. Moore threw it aside and guided Swanson in, leaning him against a wall. Todd backed in, still with his gun pointed at the vacant space.
Moore punched a button, and the door hissed closed. He removed his own weapon as the descent began. “Down to the loading area, mate. Hang in there.”
“That place will be swarming with cops,” Kyle said, drawing air down deep into his lungs. “If they are going to jump us, this will be the perfect ambush spot.”
“No worries. I think they’re all on a tea break for a few minutes.”
With a jolt, the elevator stopped moving, and as the door began to open, both SAS commandos had their guns at the ready, with Kyle leaning against one wall. No one was there to stop them.
They went out, moving faster. Moore and Todd flanked the stumbling Swanson. A large white SUV was parked beside the loading dock, with its motor running. As they piled in, Kyle saw a small Uzi submachine gun waiting on the backseat. He grabbed it.
“Go!” Colin Moore barked when the doors were closed, his voice loud in the confined space. The SUV lurched into motion and headed away from the prison, soon to be lost in the morning traffic.
Kyle dropped the handcuffs. “Thanks, guys. I buy the next round,” he said and passed out, totally spent.
“No worries,” said Moore, taking away the Uzi.
AT A WINDOW ON the top floor of a nearby building, General Nawaz Zaman of the Pakistani intelligence service inhaled a long draft from his cigarette as he watched the white van merge into the growing traffic and fade from view around a corner. “He’s gone, without a shot being fired,” he said. “Good.”
“The Americans are going to be furious,” said the tall warden, sitting in a folding chair, legs and arms crossed.
Zaman shook his head, and his jowls moved with the motion of a broad smile. “It makes no difference. Somehow the prisoner, a very clever and highly trained assassin, escaped during the night. The breakfast tray was slid into his cell as usual and was discovered to be untouched when the guards went to fetch him at noon. I shall pretend outrage and invite the FBI to assist in the investigation.”
“You should have let my men beat the prisoner as punishment before we turned him loose.” The warden’s lean face was in a pout. His comment was directed to the third man in the room, the helpful imam whose family had been saved by Kyle Swanson.
The religious leader said, “Warden, this was a matter of my personal honor. I consider that man to have been a guest in my home, and the traditions of Allah, his name be praised, demand that I protect him, with my own life if necessary. Were we still living in some village, everyone would be required to protect him. You know that. Anyway, you accepted the offered money, so why do you continue to challenge me?”
“He blew up half of our city!”
“No, he did not. You know nothing. All that man did was shoot a worthless Taliban and then get snared in a web of fate,” said General Nawaz Zaman, focusing on the warden, the geniality gone. “Why do you speak at all? These things are beyond your understanding. If you utter so much as a whisper about this matter, even in your sleep, you will take his place in the prison.”
The general then flicked his cigarette through the open window. Dawn was giving over to a beautifully bright day.
35
MONTE CARLO
MONACO
ONLY WHEN JIM HALL received the anonymous Facebook message as he had demanded from the Central Intelligence Agency did he realize that his plan had actually worked! He had beaten the system. He had blackmailed the CIA and had gotten away with a forever get-out-of-jail-free card. He went down to the hotel bar and ordered a solitary, celebratory drink, feeling a long-sought sense of transformation, and without a second thought about selling out Kyle Swanson and Lauren Carson.
He played with the ice cubes and picked his teeth with the little plastic sword that speared two olives in the martini. New clothes were a must. He could buy whatever he wanted in the exclusive shops in Dubai, but why bother? It would be more fun, a better experience, to go to the source for his threads. Hand-sewn shoes from a British craftsman, custom-made suits from the best tailors of Europe, fitted shirts in Italy, with money no object. Jim Hall liked that idea.
The message had arrived during the night, and Hall left Dubai the following day, bound for Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris with a first-class seat aboard Qatar Airways. He used a backup passport that allowed him to use another name for customs and legal paperwork, but he did not worry about fingerprints or facial recognition software or retina scans. It did not matter if the authorities tracked him, because there would always be an asterisk on his file that would guarantee that he would not be molested. They would do nothing, and eventually give up.
In Paris, he rested, had a nice lunch, and then purchased a tuxedo from a designer’s studio shop, along with matching black dress shoes, polished to a bright sheen. A stylish haircut at a salon set him back two hundred and fifty dollars. The following day, a high-speed train whisked him south to the Principality of Monaco, the money- soaked independent state snuggled between the mountains and the Mediterranean on the French Riviera. A memory of the beautiful Princess Grace and her fairy-tale romance flitted through his thoughts. Like Grace, he was going to be living the dream.
That evening, the dream would feature Jim Hall as James Bond, and he believed he fit the part better than some of the movie stars who had played the role. Not as good as Sean Connery, but better than most of the others. After all, he was a real spy. He strolled that night along the Golden Square that led to Le Grand Casino de Monte- Carlo, where master craftsmen had created an ornate castle on the outside and a perfection of polished stonework within. He caught a glimpse of himself in his tux and thought he looked good. He moved with ease through the corridors, ignoring the Salle des Ameriques, where rich rubes from the States came to play familiar Las Vegas games such as craps. Smiling at the genteel segregation of the Americans from the more cosmopolitan European casino atmosphere, Hall decided to speak only French that night. At a gilded private room for serious gamblers, he paid an additional entry fee and stepped inside.
A waiter in a short white jacket and dark trousers appeared at Hall’s shoulder as he sat down at the roulette table, and Jim ordered a double martini on the rocks, with olives. A thick slab of one-hundred-dollar bills from his new wallet was exchanged for chips.
He let play continue while he tasted his drink and made himself comfortable. The women were gorgeous in colorful gowns, with diamonds at their ears and throats, and the men wore upscale suits, dinner jackets, or tuxedoes. A slender brunette with long hair over her bare shoulders and a low-necked gown the rich purple color of ripe plums was checking him out from the far end of the table. Hall smiled at her.
Hall placed his bet, ten thousand dollars, on red, for a single spin of the wheel. He did so because he had always wanted to do that once in his life. He did so because he
