literal, she mused-the Latin for world was
‘It’s the letter M,’ she called out triumphantly. ‘The beginning of
Grinning, she walked into the kitchen. To her surprise it was empty, the kettle boiling unattended on the stove. Frowning, she turned the hob off and then stepped back into the hall.
‘Aurelio?’ she called, reaching warily for the gun.
There was no answer, although she thought she heard the faint echo of his voice coming from his bedroom. She stepped over to it, a narrow slit of light bisecting the worn floorboards where the door hadn’t quite been pulled to. Not wanting to interrupt, she pressed her ear against the crack and then froze. He was talking about her.
‘Yes, she’s here now,’ she heard him say in an urgent voice. ‘Of course I can keep her here. Why, what do you need her for?’
She backed away, the gun raised towards the door, her face pale, heart pounding, the blood screaming in her ears. First Gallo. Now Aurelio too?
Her eyes stinging, she turned and stumbled out of the apartment, down the stairs and on to the street, not knowing if she was crying from sadness or anger. Not sure if she even cared.
Not sure if she cared about anything any more.
TWENTY-NINE
Villa de Rome apartment building, Boulevard de Suisse, Monte Carlo, Monaco 18th March-5.23 p.m.
It was earlier than usual, but then Ronan D’Arcy figured he’d earned it. After a bloodbath in the first few months of the year, some of his shorts were finally beginning to pay off and the latest round of Middle Eastern sabre rattling had pushed his oil futures back to historic highs. If that didn’t warrant a drink, what did?
A helicopter droned overhead, circling low over the palace up on the hill, and then swooping back around to perch gracefully on the deck of one of the larger yachts lying at anchor in the harbour, the sea glittering like gold in the sinking sunlight. D’Arcy gave a rueful smile. It didn’t matter how good the market was or how well you thought you were doing, someone else, somewhere, was always doing better. It was a lesson that this place seemed to take a sadistic pleasure in beating into him at every opportunity. Still, he wasn’t going to let it spoil his little celebration.
He stepped off the balcony back into his office and quickly scanned the six trading screens that formed a low, incandescent wall on his desk to check that some random market sneeze hadn’t wiped out a good month’s work. Reassured, he picked up the phone and dialled the internal extension to the kitchen. If it had been a beer he could have fixed it himself, of course-he wasn’t that lazy. But celebrations called for cocktails, and cocktails called for mojitos, and Determination was the mojito-master.
Determination. He’d never get used to that name. It was from Botswana, or some other spearchucking African country that he’d never been able to find on a map. He’d heard of names such as Hope and Faith and Temperance. Even a Chastity, if you could believe that. But Determination…?
Maybe it wasn’t the name but the irony of it that jarred, D’Arcy reflected, his tanned forehead creasing in annoyance as the phone rang unanswered. Indolence. That would have been a more appropriate name. Lethargy. Torpidity. Yes, that was a good one. Where was the shiftless bastard now?
He slammed the phone down and clicked his mouse to bring up the apartment’s internal closed circuit TV system. The kitchen, laundry room, gym and billiard room were all empty. So too were the sitting rooms and the dining room. Which only left the…
D’Arcy paused, having suddenly noticed that, according to the camera in the entrance hall, the front door was wide open.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ he swore. What was the point of flying in a specialist security company from Israel to fit armoured doors if the stupid fucker was going to leave them wide open?
Muttering angrily under his breath, he turned to leave, and then paused. The lights were on in the corridor outside, the travertine marble floor reflecting a narrow strip of light under his office door. But the pale band was broken by several dark shapes. Someone was standing outside, listening.
He punched the emergency shut-down button on his trading system and then sprang across to the bookcase. In the same instant the door burst open and two men came tumbling through the gap, guns raised. D’Arcy hit the panic-room release button. A section of the bookcase slid back and he leapt inside. The men started firing, the silenced shots searing the air with a fup-fupping noise. He slammed his hand against the ‘close’ switch, the door crashing shut with a hydraulic thump, leaving him in a strange deadened silence that echoed with the rasping gasps of his adrenaline-charged breathing.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck…’ Frantically he scrabbled in the sickly light for the phone. It was dead, his clammy fingers sliding on the moulded plastic as he stabbed at the hook switch. There was no dial tone, the line presumably cut at the junction box downstairs.
‘Mobile,’ he breathed, patting his jacket and trouser pockets excitedly until, his heart sinking, his eyes flicked to the monitor which showed a picture of his office. His phone was still where he’d left it on his desk.
He quickly reassessed his situation. Without a phone, there was no way of letting anyone know he was in here. That meant he’d have to wait until someone came looking for him. The chances were that his brokers in London would raise the alarm when he missed their usual morning call. That would be in-he checked his watch- less than sixteen hours’ time. In the meantime he was quite safe. After all, he’d had this place installed by a Brazilian firm who specialised in kidnap prevention. It had five-inch-thick steel walls, fortyeight hours of battery life if they cut the power, access to the CCTV system and a month’s worth of supplies. He might as well make himself comfortable and enjoy the show.
He sat back, his pulse slowing, and watched the men with an amused expression. They were arguing, he noticed with a smile. Probably trying to figure out which of them would carry the can for him having got away. At least he only planned to fire Determination, he thought to himself. Judging by their brutal methods, he doubted whether whoever had sent these two would be as forgiving when they learnt of his escape.
Suddenly he sat forward, his face drawn into a puzzled frown. The arguing had stopped, the men now intent on emptying the bookcase on to the floor and arranging its contents into a large uneven mound that pressed up against the panic room’s concealed entrance. Seemingly satisfied, they turned their attention to the walls, ripping the paintings down and tossing them on to the pile. They reserved special treatment for his Picasso, one of the men punching his fist through the
D’Arcy shook his head, swearing angrily. Did they think he would come charging out to save a few old books and a painting? He valued his life far more dearly than that. Their petty vandalism was as pointless as it was…
He lost his train of thought, noticing with a frown that one of the men seemed to be spraying some sort of liquid over the jumble of books and canvases and wooden frames, while the other had lit a match. Glancing up at the camera with a smile, as if to make sure D’Arcy had seen them, the man with the match stepped forward and dropped it on to the pile. The screen flared white, momentarily blinded by a whoosh of fire.
D’Arcy was gripped by a chilling realisation. His eyes rose slowly from the screen to the small metal grille positioned in the right-hand corner of the panic room. To the thin tendrils of acrid smoke that were even now snaking through its narrow openings. To the acid taste at the back of his throat as he felt his lungs begin to clench.
THIRTY
