“There’s my girl,” he says, in that cheerful way of his. He even steps closer and places his hand on my shoulder, making me think that he’s not too sore after our little spat earlier in the week. “How was the flight?”
“Do you know what Walter had me fly in on?”
Grinning now, he nods.
“You’re an asshole.”
“Among other things.” He turns toward Philippe, his face suddenly serious. “Boylan left twenty minutes ago to relieve Reed.”
Philippe glances at his watch. “Very good.”
I say, “And who exactly are Boylan and Reed?”
“The MI6 guys,” Nova says. “Boris is the Russian and he’s stationed on top of the building across from Gramont’s place.”
“His name is actually Boris?”
Philippe says to Nova, “Want to get her situated? I have to use the restroom.”
“My pleasure.” Nova motions for me to follow him as Philippe leaves us. We come into one of the bedrooms where tables have been set up with computers and papers and surveillance photos. He grabs one of the photos and hands it to me. “Remember her?”
“Yeah, that’s Alayna.”
“If you remember back in Vegas, she didn’t have any guards on her. The only protection she had was when she was with Delano and his men.”
“And should I assume she has guards now?”
“You should.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
I glance back down at the photograph, the slim woman in the smart pantsuit, blond hair and sunglasses. Around her is an entourage of at least two men in suits, also wearing shades.
“You said before she used to be some kind of model, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Why did she quit?”
“From what I’m told she got too old and somehow fell in with Delano.”
“How old is too old?”
Nova grins. “Twenty-eight.”
Philippe enters the room. He has two bottles of Evian and hands one of them to me.
“How much have you informed her?” he asks.
“Just about the guards,” Nova says. “At least the guards we know of right now.”
Philippe takes a swallow of his water, nods slowly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if more show up tomorrow.”
“Do we know where the buy’s going to be?” I ask.
Philippe shakes his head. “Just that it’s at noon. We’ll have to follow her from her place to God knows where. It’s my guess it’ll be somewhere in the city.”
“Where is her place?”
“Technically it’s Delano’s place. And it’s not a place so much as a mansion. It sits right along the Avenue La Motte Picquet and overlooks the Parc du Champs de Mars, which is where—”
“The Eiffel Tower is located,” I finish for him. “Sounds like pretty snazzy digs.”
“The rest of the team has been watching her for the past three days,” Philippe says. “After Delano’s memorial, she hasn’t left the mansion once.”
“There was a memorial for that guy?”
“Believe it or not”—Philippe makes a sour face—“that monster had many friends.”
I think briefly of the man Philippe mentioned on the ride here, the one who might take over in Delano’s place.
“What about the code?” I ask.
Nova says, “What about it?”
“It doesn’t make sense. Why would someone want to buy the code without the flash drive?”
Both men look at each other, look back at me, and like that an extra piece of the puzzle falls into place.
“Unless,” I say, “they plan to get their hands on the flash drive.”
“Impossible,” Philippe says. “Your government has that sealed more tightly than your nuclear weapons. What we have been speculating is whether there is more than one flash drive.”
“But I thought Delano wore the only one.”
“You don’t think he would have a copy?”
I turn and walk to the window and stare down at the traffic below us. I think about that night in Vegas, at the party, the man greeting me with the flash drive around his neck, the gold glinting in the light.
“Actually no, I don’t. If he had more than one copy, why would he go to such lengths to protect the flash drive he wore?”
“If he wanted it truly protected,” Philippe says, “he would have put it in a safe.”
Turning back around, I say, “But safes can be broken into. They’re not one hundred percent secure. Keeping the flash drive around his neck at all times was his own personal form of security. He believed nothing could touch him, hence nothing could get at the flash drive.”
Nova says, “Let’s not waste time going back and forth on this. The facts are clear. Someone is coming to Paris to buy the code, and it’s our job to figure out who that someone is.” He turns to me. “I’m assuming you didn’t get much sleep on the flight over here.”
“You would be assuming right.”
“There are a handful of cots in the other bedroom. Go lie down and try to get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
Thirty-Three
But I can’t sleep. The cot is too uncomfortable. Nova and Philippe continue to talk in the next room. After a while, someone else arrives—one of the MI6 guys—and a third voice is added to the mix.
I toss and turn. I hold my breath, try to asphyxiate myself into sleep. I regret not bringing sleeping pills.
Eventually I get up and join the men out in the flat. The new man is Reed. It’s clear he’s MI6: broad shoulders, strong face, piercing eyes.
Nova takes me aside, asks if I’m okay.
“I can’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
“Jet lag,” I say, but it’s a sorry excuse. The truth is I keep thinking about what my mother told me during our dinner. Never once has she opened up like that before, and now she had to go do it and mention my father and for some reason that’s all I’ve been thinking about. Not the man I knew—the coldhearted killer—but the man who brought roses and wrote poetry.
Philippe and Reed sit off in the corner conferencing about something. I stand with Nova on the other side of the room.
I whisper to him, “Do you buy his theory that the
