Never Trust A Lady

the same elusive charm as his smile. “I don’t see her anywhere, so I guess I must have missed her. Oh, well…”

“I’m sorry,” said Jane, which was a bald-faced lie.

“Me, too.” He gave another little c’est la vie shrug, then, as if suddenly remembering his manners, stepped forward to take the paper-wrapped parcel from her. “Here, let me give you a hand with that. Where are you ladies parked?”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Connie in her iciest and most dismissive upper-crust British.

It was a tone designed to give frostbite to a penguin, but its effect on Tom Hawkins seemed to be quite the reverse. By no stretch could the smile he turned on Connie be considered rueful or lopsided. And it did affect the terrain of his face-all of it. It touched his features like the sun coming up on an Arctic landscape, squinting his eyes and lighting his skin with color and warmth. Jane didn’t know about Connie, but her own reaction to that smile was about the same as if she’d taken a slug of Canadian whiskey, neat.

“Thanks,” she gasped over the beginnings of Connie’s protest. “That’s very kind of you.” She edged around her friend with a whispered, “It’s okay,” and fell into step with the man, who was already starting down the ramp with her burden.

“That’s us right there, the dark blue van.” She waited while he wedged the painting into the back of the van. She surrendered the bag containing her Roy Rogers cap pistol when he turned to ask for it. When he had tucked that away, as well, she heard herself witlessly babbling profuse thanks, saw herself poking out her hand with a lamentable lack of grace, realized that she was as out of breath as if she’d been the one doing all the toting and lifting.

“My pleasure-glad I could help.” Without the smile, his face was once more grave and careworn, though not so forbidding, perhaps, as she’d first considered it. And his handshake was firm, and very warm.

“Anything else to go in here? No?” He slammed the van’s doors, tested them to make certain they were closed properly, then nodded politely to Connie, who was protectively hovering. “There you go, you’re all set. You ladies drive carefully now.” With a brief nod to Jane, he turned and started back up the loading ramp. Halfway up, she saw him pause to light a cigarette, hunching over his cupped hands to shelter against the drizzle.

“Who was that?” Connie demanded as she turned the key in the van’s ignition, her tone sharp and battle- ready.

Jane chuckled, and realized at once how artificial it sounded. How exhilarated she felt-but that was just from the cold, wasn’t it? And so breathless-which was easily explained, especially at her age, by the ordinary bustle and fuss of settling in and buckling up. Oh, but she had found that man attractive-and what was wrong with that? It had been a long time since she’d felt that particular buzz, and she’d damn well enjoyed it.

“A man I ran into in the lobby,” she said in a bright and casual tone that was as fake as her smile. “He was waiting for a girlfriend, I rather imagine. It doesn’t look as though he’s made connections yet.” With patent insincerity, she added, “Poor guy.”

“Well, one can’t be too careful,” Connie said as she edged the van out of the line of parked cars. “These days, you never know.”

Chapter 3

Hawk tucked his lighter away and continued up the ramp without looking back. He didn’t need to look to know that the blue van was pulling away from the curb, or that the man named Campbell was already behind the wheel of his black rental sedan, set to follow. He’d be doing the same, of course, when the time was right, and in the meantime, he wasn’t concerned about losing sight of the van. The small electronic device he’d planted on the top edge of the back door would make the vehicle easy enough to locate.

In the shelter of the loading bay’s overhang he lingered a while to smoke his cigarette, to any interested observer just a poor nicotine addict enjoying his fix. But while he waited for the calming effects of the drug to take the edge off his adrenaline high, his eyes were busy scanning the parking lot and nearby streets and alleyways. When he was satisfied that no one else besides Campbell was taking any particular interest in the two middle-aged ladies in the dark blue van, he drew on his cigarette one last time and dropped it to the concrete, squinting against a lingering tail of smoke as he ground the stub beneath the toe of his shoe.

He dusted his hands together, then shoved them into the pockets of his charcoal-gray overcoat and moved to the steps, moving quickly now and with purpose, taking the short way to the parking lot. God, he could still feel the tingle. Feel it in the palms of his hands, feel it crawling all the way up his arms and across his shoulders, along the back of his neck and into his scalp. As he’d felt it a few days ago outside Loizeau’s shop in Marseilles, and again just moments ago, holding that damn painting in his own two hands. The tingle of excitement. The thrill of the game.

As he zigzagged his way through the busy parking lot, in a midafternoon gloom that was only partly mitigated by the premature illumination of mercury vapor lamps, it occurred to him that he might be in danger of becoming addicted to the tingle.

And why not? Why not, when it was one of the few real pleasures he allowed himself these days. No risk of emotional involvement attached, a helluva lot safer than sex and probably only marginally more hazardous to his health than cigarettes or booze.

Besides, holding that painting, knowing what was hidden inside it-hell, it would give any man a thrill to realize that right there in his hands was the key to the future of civilization as we know it, the beginnings of the next holocaust, the fate of millions of innocent lives. Wouldn’t it?

But Tom Hawkins acknowledged and accepted the truth about the man he’d become, which was that the wildfire racing along all his nerves hadn’t been ignited by any of those things. No…he knew that what he’d felt, standing in the rain with that painting in his hands, was more like what a fighter feels with the throat of a vanquished foe pulsing in his grasp. The elation of a poker player who’s just been dealt a pat hand. The emotion that had surged through him then was the same one that fills the breast of the chess champion just before he utters the words, “Checkmate.”

No…for a man to think about the fate of children and nations at such a time, he would first have to care about those things. But Hawk had learned the hard way that caring bears a terrible price. And that it was one he no longer cared to pay.

He spotted his rental car in the next row over, went straight to the trunk, unlocked it and took out his briefcase. He tucked it under his arm while he relocked the trunk and let himself into the car, then placed it carefully on the seat beside him until he’d gotten himself settled in behind the wheel and relocked the doors.

After a quick but thorough check of all neighboring vehicles, he punched in a number combination and opened the briefcase. Inside was a smaller case that resembled a laptop computer. This Hawk turned toward him, flipped up the screen and began to touch keys. When he had the monitor screen green and glowing, he selected a disk from a small assortment in his briefcase and inserted it in the laptop. A moment later a map of eastern Virginia appeared on the screen. A few minor manipulations gave him Arlington and its environs. Close enough, for now. He marked his own waypoint, then sat back and lit a cigarette while he studied the screen through narrowed eyes.

Generally speaking, Hawk disliked high-tech toys, especially anything that relied too heavily on computers. It was his firm belief that they couldn’t be trusted. Also that they were short on flexibility and utterly lacking in imagination and loyalty. He wouldn’t like to have to count on one in a crisis. The Global Positioning System was an exception, probably because he’d had one on his boat for a good many years now and had gotten used to it. These days, he considered a GPS unit an indispensable modern convenience, rather like a microwave oven.

But he still knew how to boil water the old-fashioned way, if it came to that.

The rapidly changing numbers on the LCD screen told him that the van was still moving, albeit slowly. He glanced at his watch. Rush hour-small wonder. No need to follow just yet.

He turned on the car’s engine, adjusted the heater and ran the windows down a crack to let out his smoke, then took the cellular phone from its box in the center console and punched in a number he knew by heart. While he waited for the connection, he parked his cigarette between his lips and reached inside his coat, searching for the small piece of paper he’d tucked away in his shirt pocket.