The Fifth Profession

11

Joyce Stone had described the mansion's layout. Having memorized the floor plan, Savage proceeded tensely along a dark hallway. He studied an opening to his left and saw an illuminated clock on an oven. The kitchen was spacious, fragrant with the lingering smells of oil and garlic from the evening's meal. Passing a counter, he entered a shadowy dining room, its rectangular table long enough to seat fifteen guests on each side as well as the master and his wife at each end.

But Papadropolis was not in residence. A member of Savage's surveillance team had reported that Papadropolis and an entourage of guards had flown on the billionaire's private plane to Crete this morning. The tyrant's departure had been an unexpected gift of the Fates. Not only had Papadropolis lessened the number of guards at the mansion, but those who remained would feel a lessened sense of duty.

So Savage hoped. He'd soon find out.

At a farther doorway, he halted, hearing muffled voices. Three men. Down a stairwell on his left. Laughter echoed upward. Sure, Savage thought, they're happy to be dry and warm.

He continued through the shadows, entering a murky living room. Halfway across, he heard a chair creak and ducked behind a sofa. The sound came through an archway ahead. Holding his breath, he crept nearer and saw the glow from a rain-misted light outside two barred windows. Each window flanked the mansion's front door, and in the vestibule, another glow-red, from a cigarette-revealed a guard in an alcove on the far side of the door.

Savage raised a pistol. Its projectiles weren't bullets but tranquilizer darts, and its front and rear sights had been tipped with infrared paint that allowed him to aim in the dark, its luminous specks visible only through his goggles.

The weapon made a muffled spit. At once Savage moved as quickly as the need for silence allowed, crossing the vestibule, grabbing the guard as he slumped from a chair, and more important, grabbing the guard's Uzi before it clattered onto the marble floor. He set the guard behind his chair and folded his legs to make sure they didn't project from the alcove.

With the Uzi slung across his shoulder, Savage studied the top of a curving staircase. A light up there indicated a hallway that Joyce Stone had described. Shifting his gaze from the vestibule toward the corridor above him, then once more toward the vestibule, he slowly ascended.

At the top, he pressed against the left wall and peered cautiously through the archway, toward the right, along the illuminated corridor. He couldn't see the corridor's end, but so far he hadn't glimpsed a guard. Rachel Stone's bedroom was in that direction, however, and he took for granted that a sentry would be watching her door.

He risked leaning farther into the archway to get a better view of the corridor. Still no guard.

At last he had to show his head, his view of the hallway complete.

A guard in a chair at the end! The man read a magazine.

Having revealed himself gradually, Savage used equal care to shift back out of sight, lest sudden motion attract the guard.

Would there be a corresponding sentry at the opposite end of the corridor?

Savage stepped softly toward the right side of the archway and peered with greater caution along the left flank of the corridor.

Or started to. A noise alerted him. A gun being cocked.

There was a guard on the left flank of the corridor. Savage aimed reflexively. His weapon spat. The guard on the left stumbled backward, his eyes already losing focus as he pawed at the dart protruding from his throat. The guard's knees buckled.

Savage prayed that the man's cocked handgun wouldn't discharge when it hit the floor. At the same time, he pivoted into the corridor and fired at the guard on the right. This guard had seen his counterpart stagger backward. Reacting to the commotion, he'd dropped what he was reading and grabbed his pistol. He began to surge out of his chair.

Savage's gun spat yet again. Its dart struck the man's left shoulder. Though the man tried desperately to aim his pistol, his eyes rolled upward. He toppled.

The thick carpet had muffled the noise of the falling bodies. Or so Savage prayed. Pulse hammering, he hurried to the right, toward the door to what Joyce Stone had told him was her sister's room. He tested the knob; it was locked. He suspected that the bolt could not be freed from inside but only from this side. After picking the lock, he scanned the doorframe with his metal detector but found no sign of an intruder alarm, urgently entered, and shut the door.

12

The bedroom was luxurious, but Savage barely noticed its expensive furnishings as he scanned them in search of Rachel Stone. A bedside lamp was on. The bed had been slept in; its rumpled covers had been thrown aside. But the room was deserted.

Savage checked beneath the bed. He peered behind closed draperies, finding bars on a window, then searched behind a settee and a chair.

Where the hell was she?

He opened a door, found a bathroom, and turned on the light. The shower door was closed. When he looked inside, the stall was empty.

Where…?

He tried another door. A closet. Dresses. Rachel Stone lunged through the dresses. Scissors glinted. Savage clutched her wrist an instant before she'd have stabbed his left eye.

“Bastard!”

Her anger-contorted features suddenly changed to a frown of surprise. Noticing Savage's black camouflage- greased face, she struggled backward.

“Who-?”

Savage clamped a hand across her mouth and shook his head. As he yanked the scissors from her grasp, his lips formed silent words. Don't talk. He pulled a card from his pocket. The card was sealed in transparent, waterproof plastic.

She stared at its dark hand-printed message.

YOUR SISTER SENT ME TO GET YOU OUT OF HERE.

He turned the card, revealing a further message.

THIS ROOM MIGHT HAVE HIDDEN MICROPHONES. WE MUSTN'T TALK.

She studied the card… and him… subdued her suspicion, and finally nodded.

He showed her another card.

GET DRESSED. WE'RE LEAVING. NOW.

But Rachel Stone didn't move.

Savage flipped the second card.

YOUR SISTER TOLD ME TO SHOW YOU THIS.

TO PROVE SHE SENT ME.

He held up a wedding ring, its diamond enormous.

This time when Rachel Stone nodded, she did so with recognition and conviction.

She grabbed for a dress in the closet.

But Savage squeezed her arm to stop her. Shaking his head, he pointed toward jeans, a sweater, and jogging shoes.

She understood. With no hint of embarrassment, she removed her nightgown.