frantically for the rear door handle but Tippu had locked all the doors. He turned his massive bulk around in the front seat and looked at the plainly terrified white man.
“Ar take you see dragons,” he said. “You lucky, Mr. Nash. Dragons’ feeding time.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
London
BRICK KELLY TRAILED IN LILY’S SCENTED, ALLURING WAKE. He watched the lavish redhead in pearlescent peau de soie sashay silkily through the French doors onto a balcony terrace. There were a number of these semi- circular terraces off the ballroom, all overlooking small gardens on the hotel’s north side. But for the deep thump- thump of the news chopper hovering overhead, it would have been a peaceful spot to escape the tumult of the sharp-elbowed crowd inside. Across Park Lane, the trees of Hyde Park loomed black against the evening sky.
Ambassador Patrick Brickhouse Kelly felt a twinge of guilt.
Tish and the boys were somewhere at the far side of the ballroom, getting autographs from the star, Ian Flynn. It was the reason he’d brought his family out tonight, despite all Jack Patterson’s words of caution. C’mon, Tex, he’d said. A chance for his cooped-up boys to see the world premiere of the new Nick Hitchcock thriller? And, perhaps meet the star himself? In the end, Patterson and his DSS detail had finally relented. Half the royal family and all of their security would be there after all. The ambassador’s family might be a little more secure at a spring garden party inside the walls of Buck House perhaps, but not much.
He cast a guilty glance over his shoulder, looking for Tish and the boys. They were sure to be taking pictures, now, and where was Daddy? Why isn’t Daddy in any of the Nick Hitchcock pictures, Mummy? Because Daddy had slipped away to have a clandestine word with an old friend, darling.
Lily paused just outside the doors, allowing Brick to advance alone. Francesca had her back to him, her elbows resting on the wide stone balustrade, gazing into the deep summer night. Her lush blond hair was pulled back into a chignon, held in place by glittering diamond clips. She seemed to be whistling softly or whispering to chipmunks playing below among the chestnut trees.
Long-buried memories stirred. A week with her, lost in the sanctuary of a small bedroom overlooking the Spanish Steps. Brick, having survived the sandstorms and tank battles in the deserts south of Baghdad with his skin mostly intact, had elected to stop in Rome for a week before heading home to Richmond. A refueling stop, he’d told his mother on the phone, and she’d suggested a hotel he’d find at Trinita dei Monti 6, the Hassler. The intimate old-world atmosphere of the hotel proved perfect for nursing war wounds.
It was on his second night in Rome, dining alone at La Carbonara, a lively trattoria he’d discovered in the Piazza Campo del Fiore, that the young American army captain had first glimpsed the beauty. She happened to be working in the kitchen, slicing salami at a heavy wooden table, and every time the kitchen door swung inwards or outwards, he tried to catch her eye.
In the warm, steamy light of the kitchen, surrounded by frenetic cooks, busboys, and black-jacketed waiters, she seemed serene, and, save the gleaming knife in her hand, even angelic.
The kitchen door swung like a camera’s clicking shutter. She’d catch his eye as one waiter pushed into the kitchen with a tray of empty dishes; and he would return the favor as another emerged bearing plates of steaming pasta. Finally, there was that one smile. Neither would remember nor care who’d smiled into the camera first. He fell in love. He thought, at the beginning, she might just be a little bit in love with him, too.
Still blood runs deep, she’d said to him after their first fight. It was one evening after two or three bottles of rough Chianti in a taverna in Testevere, and he spent the rest of the night trying to explain why what he’d meant was not an insult. She was easily hurt, and prone to quick anger. One lesson Brick learned that week was that threading an Abrams M1-A battle tank through Iraqi minefields made tiptoes across the eggshells of the female psyche look suicidal.
When the young Francesca, having asked about his bright decorations, had learned the extent of her handsome new lover’s recent activities in the Persian Gulf, her eyes had flashed with righteous anger.
It ended badly in a quarrel that last night, just before his flight to Andrews AFB and then on to Richmond. A horribly public outburst over the recent Iraqi defeat in the “mother of all battles.” He’d innocently proposed a toast, raising a glass to his fallen comrades in the 100th Armored Division.
“Here’s to us, our noble selves,” Brick said. “None finer, and many a damn sight worse!”
She’d lowered her goblet and, with a thin smile, emptied her full glass onto the white linen tablecloth. The table looked bloodsoaked.
“Still blood runs deep,” she said, gazing at the spreading crimson stain. “This war is not over. It is just beginning.”
Brick looked into her eyes and realized he was seeing her for the very first time. “Tell me about it,” he said, and she did.
Her father, now the proprietor of La Carbonara, was a sixth-generation Roman. Her mother was Syrian. Francesca had grown up in the backstreets of Damascus. She lived in an abusive, tortured household rife with political and religious fervor. She’d listened to both sides all her life, and ended up passionately siding with her blessed mother in her hatred for the impious capitalist imperialists bent on ruling the world. Now her poor mother was dead. Of a broken heart, Francesca always screamed at her abusive father when her anger flared. Her father’s abuse of his daughter was knotted irrevocably with his religion. And her hatred.
What Brick decided he did not need, after a tour of duty in the Gulf in which many of his friends had died horribly in the defense of freedom, was a raging Islamic fundamentalist in his bed. They parted. He never saw Francesca again. Until this moment.
Crossing the terrace now, his mind was filled only with memories of her body in different poses and shifting shades of light in the beautiful old bed. He felt his heartbeat accelerate. “Francesca,” he said quietly, the accent on the first syllable, and she turned around. The soft light of the garden on her exquisite face, bare shoulders, and deep bosom was unbearably unfair to a long and very happily married man.
“Caro?” she said, the big brown doe eyes gleaming. “Si. It is you. Tank. My great American war hero. Ecco, mi amore, come here, eh, Tank Commander? Give your old friend a kiss, eh?”
She held out her arms and Brick went to her. He sincerely meant to give her a chaste peck on the cheek, but she wasn’t having any of that. Both hands went around his neck and she pulled him to her, red lips parted, and the kiss on the voluptuous mouth was unavoidable. He was trying to pull away when he felt a sharp bite just under his left ear.
“What the—”
He caught a glimpse of her right hand, saw her big sapphire ring with the silver needle protruding from the center of the stone and then, nothing more.
“He’s slipping. Help me hold him up,” the Rose whispered.
Lily grabbed Brick’s arm just as the nylon harness dropped from the sky to the terrace below. A hovering helicopter, indistinguishable from any of the press choppers still circling above the hotel, now dangled a hundred- foot-long nylon sling from its opened bay. Together, the two women quickly looped the harness down over Kelly’s head and shoulders and then cinched it upwards under his arms. Rose looked up at the man leaning out of the open chopper bay just above and gave the visual signal. The unconscious American ambassador shot straight up into the night sky, instantly winched up and hauled inside the helicopter. The chopper, white with large blue ITV NEWS logos on its flanks, roared away over the treetops of Hyde Park.
Rose looked at her watch. “Under ten seconds,” she said to Lily, “Va bene, eh?”
“Molto bene,” Lily said, and something in her voice made Rose look up. Lily was reaching up inside the wig of red hair arranged atop her head and festooned with emeralds.
“Che cosa…what are you—” Francesca said, but Lily was one step ahead of her.
“Un cadeau,” Lily said, pulling a small black object out of the nest of her hair. “A farewell gift. From our Pasha. In memory of your brilliant performance in the sumo shrine. You remember, darling? You costarred with him.”
“No,” Rose said, moving backwards, “Don’t. Don’t.”
“Surely you knew what would happen if you got too close to him. The Pasha kills what he loves in order to
