3

Two days later, Rodrigo and his younger brother, Damone, stood beside their parents’ graves at their boyhood home in Italy. Their mother and father were once more side by side in death as they had been in life. Salvatore’s grave was covered in flowers, but both Rodrigo and Damone had taken some of the flowers and put them on their mother’s grave, too.

The weather was cool but sunny, and a light breeze was blowing. Damone put his hands in his pockets and stared up at the blue sky, his handsome face drawn with grief. “What will you do now?” he asked.

“Find who did this and kill him,” Rodrigo said without hesitation. Together they turned and began walking away from the gravesite. “I’ll also put out a press release about Papa’s death; it can’t be kept quiet much longer. The news will make some people nervous, wondering about the status of various agreements now that I am in charge, and I will have to deal with that. We may lose some revenue, but nothing that we can’t absorb. And the losses will be short-term. The revenues from the vaccine will make up the difference, and more. Much more.”

Damone said, “Vincenzo has made up the lost time?” He was more of a businessman than Rodrigo, and it was he who handled the majority of their finances from his own headquarters in Switzerland.

“Not as much as we had hoped, but work is progressing. He assures me he will be finished by next summer.”

“Then he is doing better than I’d expected, considering how much was lost.” An incident at Vincenzo’s lab had destroyed much of his current project.

“He and his people are working very long hours.” And would be working even longer ones if Rodrigo saw they were falling behind schedule. The vaccine was too important to let Vincenzo miss the deadline.

“Keep me abreast of the situation,” said Damone. By agreement, because of security issues, they wouldn’t be together again until after the poisoner was identified and apprehended. He turned and looked back at the new grave, his dark eyes filled with the same pain and rage Rodrigo felt. “It’s still so hard to believe,” he said, almost inaudibly.

“I know.” The two brothers hugged, unashamed of their emotion, then got into separate cars for the trip back to their private airfield, where they would each take a corporate jet home. Rodrigo had taken comfort in his younger brother’s presence, in having what was left of his immediate family next to him. Despite the sadness of their purpose for being together, there had also been an ease of companionship. Now each returned to their linked but separate empires, Damone to watch over the money, Rodrigo to find their father’s killer and exact revenge. Whatever steps he took, he knew, Damone would support him.

But the fact was, he hadn’t been able to make any progress in finding who had killed Salvatore. Vincenzo was still analyzing the poison, which might give them an idea of its origin, and Rodrigo had been closely watching his rivals for any hint of knowledge that Salvatore had died, any aberration in their usual pattern of doing business. One might think their less legitimate associates would be seen as the most likely suspects, but Rodrigo didn’t eliminate anyone from suspicion. It could even be someone within their own organization, or someone in the government. Salvatore had had his fingers in many pies, and evidently someone had got greedy enough to want the whole pie to himself. Rodrigo just had to discover which one.

“Drive Mademoiselle Morel home,” Rodrigo told Tadeo after she had been there a week. She was steady on her feet now, and though she seldom left her bedroom, he wasn’t comfortable having a stranger under his roof. He was still busy consolidating his position—unfortunately, a couple of people had felt he wasn’t the man his father had been and were impelled to challenge his authority, which had in turn impelled him to have them killed—and there were some things a stranger shouldn’t accidentally see or hear. He would feel more comfortable when the house was once more a total haven.

It took only a matter of minutes for the car to be brought around and the woman and her few belongings loaded inside. After Tadeo had left with the Frenchwoman, Rodrigo went into Salvatore’s study—his study now—and sat behind the huge carved desk that Salvatore had loved. Vincenzo’s report on the poison, analyzed from the dregs in the wine bottle recovered from the restaurant’s refuse, lay in front of him. He had looked over the report when he first received it, but now he picked it up again and thoroughly studied it, going over every detail.

According to Vincenzo, the poison was chemically engineered. It contained some of the properties of orellanine, the poison in the deadly galerina mushroom, which was why he had first suspected mushrooms. Orellanine attacked several internal organs, most notably the liver, kidneys, heart, and the nervous system, but orellanine was also notoriously slow. Symptoms wouldn’t appear for ten hours or more, then the victim would appear to recover, only to die several months later. There was no known treatment or antidote for orellanine. The poison had also shown some relation to minoxidil, with the effects of bradycardia, heart failure, hypotension, and depressed respiration—which would help to render the victim unable to recover from the orellanine lookalike. Minoxidil worked fast, orellanine worked slowly; somehow the two properties had been combined in such a way that there was a delay, but of only a few hours.

Also according to Vincenzo, there were only a few chemists in the world capable of doing this work, and none of them worked in reputable drug corporations. Because of the nature of their work, they were both expensive to hire and difficult to contact. This particular poison, at such a potency that less than an ounce would kill a hundred-and-fifty-pound man—or woman—would cost a small fortune to produce.

Rodrigo steepled his fingers and thoughtfully tapped them against his lips. Logic told him the killer he sought would almost certainly be a business rival or someone seeking to avenge a past grievance, but instinct kept him looking at Denise Morel. There was something about her that nagged at him. He couldn’t identify the source of his faint discomfort; so far his investigations had told him she was exactly what she purported to be. Moreover, she, too, had been poisoned and very nearly died, which any logical man would say proved she wasn’t the villain. And she had wept when he told her of Salvatore’s death.

Nothing pointed to her. The waiter who had served the wine was a far more likely suspect, but exhaustive questioning of both M. Durand and the waiter had produced nothing but the information that M. Durand himself had put the bottle in the waiter’s hands and watched him take it, without detour, to the Nervi table. No, the person he sought was the one who had brought the availability of the bottle of wine to M. Durand’s attention, and so far there was no record of that person. The bottle had been bought from a company that didn’t exist.

Therefore, the killer was fairly sophisticated in the trade, with the means of procuring both the poison and the wine. He—for convenience’ sake Rodrigo thought of the killer as a “he”—had researched both his victim and his victim’s habits; he had known Salvatore frequented that particular restaurant, known when he had a reservation, and known with some certainty that M. Durand would of course hold this particular bottle for his very important customer. The killer also had the skill to present a believable facsimile of a legitimate company. All of this pointed to a level of professionalism that practically screamed “competitor.”

And yet, he still couldn’t quite disregard Denise.

It wasn’t likely, but this could still be a crime of passion. No one was beyond suspicion until he knew for certain who had killed his father. Whatever his father had seen in Denise, perhaps some other man had seen the same thing, and been just as obsessed.

As for Salvatore’s past lovers . . . Rodrigo mentally reviewed them, and all but categorically dismissed them from contention. For one thing, Salvatore had been like a honey bee, never staying long enough with one lover for any real connection to be formed. Since his wife’s death, some twenty years before, he had been amazingly active in the romance department, but no woman had come close to joining his wife in his regard.

Moreover, Rodrigo had investigated every woman who spent time with his father. Not one of them had shown any signs of obsessive behavior, nor would they have had the knowledge of such an exotic poison, or the means of acquiring it, much less the hideously expensive wine. He would investigate them again, just to be certain, but he thought they would all check out clean. However, what about the people in Denise’s past?

He had questioned her about that, but she hadn’t provided any names, merely saying, “No, there’s no one.”

Did that mean she’d lived virtuous and nunlike all her life? He didn’t think so, though he did know for a fact that she’d refused Salvatore’s propositions. Or did it mean there had been lovers but no one she considered capable of such a thing? He didn’t care what she thought; he wanted to draw his own conclusions.

Ah, there it was. Why wouldn’t she tell him about anyone in her past? Why was she so secretive? That was what bothered him about her; there was no reason for her not to give him the name of everyone she had been with since adolescence. Was she protecting someone? Did she have an idea of who could have put the poison in that bottle, knowing her dislike of wine and never dreaming she might drink some of it?

He hadn’t investigated her as thoroughly as he would have liked; first Salvatore had been too impatient to wait, and then their dates had been so noneventful—until the last one—that Rodrigo had basically put the matter aside. Now, however, he would find out everything there was to know about Denise Morel; if she had ever even thought about sleeping with anyone, he would know it. If anyone was in love with her, he would find the man.

He picked up the telephone and dialed a number. “I want Mademoiselle Morel watched at all times. If she moves an inch outside her door, I want to know about it. If anyone calls her, or she places any calls, I want the call traced. Is that understood? Good.”

In the privacy of the guest bedroom’s bathroom, Lily had worked hard to regain her strength. A thorough search of the room had revealed neither camera nor microphone, so she knew she was safe from observation there. At first she’d been able to do only stretching exercises, but she’d pushed herself hard, jogging in place even when she had to hold on to the marble vanity to keep her balance, doing push-ups and sit-ups and ab crunches. She forced herself to eat as much as she could, fueling her recovery. She knew pushing herself could be dangerous, with her damaged heart valve, but it was a calculated risk, as was almost everything else in her life.

The first thing she did once she was back in her flat was subject it to the same exhaustive search that the bathroom had received. To her relief, she didn’t find anything. Rodrigo must not suspect her, or he would have had the place bugged seven ways from Sunday while she’d been incapacitated. No, he would have killed her on just suspicion alone.

That didn’t mean she was safe. When he asked about her past lovers, she’d known she had only a few days to get away, because he would be digging deeper into Denise’s past and finding out there was no past.

If her flat had been searched—and she had to assume it had been—the searchers had been very neat. But they hadn’t found her stash of getaway items, or she wouldn’t be standing here now.

The old building had once been heated by fireplaces, which at some time after World War II had been replaced by radiators. The fireplace in her flat had been bricked over, and a chest shoved in front of it. She had put a cheap rug under the chest, not to prevent the floor from being scarred, but so she could silently move the chest about by pulling the rug. She pulled the rug away from the wall now, and got down on her belly to inspect the bricks. Her repair job wasn’t noticeable; she’d dirtied the mortar so it looked as aged as the mortar around it. There wasn’t any mortar dust on the floor, either, to indicate that anyone had tapped on the bricks.

She got a hammer and chisel, lay down on her belly again, and began gently tapping the mortar from around one of the bricks. When it was loosened, she worked it free, then another, then another. Reaching her hand into the cavity of the old fireplace, she pulled out an array of boxes and bags, each item safely wrapped in plastic to keep it clean.

One small box held her alternate identities: passports, credit cards, driver’s licenses, ID cards, depending on which nationality she chose. A bag held three wigs. There were distinctive changes of clothes, kept hidden because they were so memorable. Shoes were a different matter; she’d simply put the shoes she’d need in her closet, dumped in a pile with all her other shoes. How many men would pay any attention at all to a tangle of shoes? She also had a supply of cash, in euros, pounds sterling, and American dollars.

In the last box was a secure cell phone. She turned it on and checked the battery: low. Taking out the charger, she plugged it into a wall outlet and set the phone in the cradle.

She was exhausted, sweat beading her forehead. She wouldn’t go tomorrow, she thought; she was still too weak. But day after tomorrow, she would have to move, and move fast.

So far she’d been lucky. Rodrigo had kept the news of Salvatore’s death quiet for several days, which had bought her some time, but with every minute that passed, the danger grew that someone in Langley would see a photograph of Denise Morel, scan it into a computer, and the computer would spit out the report that, hair and eye color aside, Denise Morel’s features matched those of one Liliane Mansfield, contract agent for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Then the CIA would be hot on her trail, and the Agency had resources Rodrigo Nervi could only dream about. For practical reasons, Salvatore had been left in place with the Agency’s blessings; no one there would look kindly on her for taking him out.

It was a toss-up who would come after her first, Rodrigo or someone sent by the CIA. She would have a better chance against Rodrigo, because he would probably underestimate her. The Agency wouldn’t make that mistake.

Because it would look odd if she didn’t, and also because she wanted to see if she was under surveillance, she bundled up against the chill and walked to the neighborhood market. She’d spotted one guard as soon as she came out of her building; he was sitting in a nondescript gray car parked halfway down the block, and as soon as she walked out, he lifted a newspaper to cover his face. Amateur. But if there was one in front, she could assume there was also one in back. The good news was there wasn’t a guard inside her building, which would have made matters a bit more iffy. She didn’t want to have to go out a third-story window, as weak as she was.

She carried a cloth shopping bag into which she put some produce and fruit. An Italian-looking man—who didn’t really stand out unless you were specifically looking for him—meandered around in her wake, always keeping her in view. Okay, that made three. Three were enough to do a competent job, but weren’t so many that she couldn’t handle them.

After paying for her selections, she walked back to her flat, careful to keep her gait rather slow and laborious. She walked with her head down, the picture of dejection, and not the way anyone who was the least alert would walk. Her watchers would think she was completely unaware of them and, moreover, that her health was still so precarious she could scarcely get around. Since they weren’t extraordinarily skilled in surveillance, that meant they would somewhat relax their guard without realizing it, because she was such a poor challenge.

When her cell phone was fully charged, she took it into the bathroom and turned on the tap water to mask sound, in case a parabolic microphone was aimed at her flat. The chance of that was admittedly small, but in her business paranoia saved lives. She booked a first-class one-way ticket to London, disconnected, then called back and, under another identity, booked a flight out of London that left within half an hour of her arrival, headed back to Paris, where absolutely no one would expect her to go. After that, she would see, but that little maneuver should buy her some more time.

Langley, Virginia

Early the next morning, a junior analyst named Susie Pollard blinked at what the computer facial-recognition program had just told her. She printed out the report, then wove her way through a maze of cubicles to stick her head inside another cubicle. “This looks interesting,” she said, handing the report to a senior analyst, Wilona Jackson.

Wilona slid her glasses into place and swiftly looked over the document. “You’re right,” she said. “Good catch, Susie. I’ll kick this upstairs.” She stood, a six-foot-tall black woman with austere features and a no-bullshit attitude honed to perfection on her husband and five rowdy sons. Without another woman in the household for backup, she said, she had to stay on top of things. That carried over to her work, where she tolerated no nonsense. Anything she kicked upstairs was given proper consideration, or else.

By noon, Franklin Vinay, director of operations, was reading the report. Salvatore Nervi, the head of the Nervi organization—he couldn’t call it a corporation, though corporations were involved—was dead of an undisclosed ailment. The exact date of his death was unknown, but Nervi’s sons had buried him at their home in Italy before releasing the news. His last sighting was at a Parisian restaurant, with a lapse of four days between then and the announcement of his death. He had apparently been in perfect health, so the unknown ailment had occurred rather abruptly. It happened, of course; heart attacks or strokes struck down seemingly healthy people every day.

What set the alarm bells to clanging was the facial-recognition program, which said that, without doubt, Nervi’s newest lady friend had been none other than one of the CIA’s best contract agents in disguise. Liliane Mansfield had darkened her wheat-blond hair and put in dark contacts to hide her distinctive pale blue eyes, but it was undoubtedly her.

Even more alarming was the fact that, a few months ago, two of her closest friends and their adopted daughter had died at Nervi’s hands. All of the indications were that Lily had gone off the reservation and taken matters into her own hands.

She’d known the CIA wouldn’t sanction the kill. Salvatore Nervi was a disgusting example of humanity who deserved killing, but he’d been smart enough to play both ends against the middle and make himself useful, as insurance against just this sort of thing. He had passed along extremely useful information, and done so for years. That information pipeline was now lost, perhaps irrevocably; it would take them years, if they could at all, to develop the same relationship with the heir apparent. Rodrigo Nervi was notoriously suspicious, and not apt to jump at any partnership. Frank’s only hope in that direction was that Rodrigo would prove to be as pragmatic as his father.

Frank hated working with the Nervis. They had some legitimate business concerns, yes, but they were like Janus: everything they did had two faces, a good side and a bad side. If their researchers were working on a cancer vaccine, another group in the same building was working to develop a biological weapon. They gave huge amounts of money to charitable organizations that did a lot of good work, but they also funded terrorists groups that killed indiscriminately.

Playing in the pool of world politics was like playing in a sewer. You had to get dirty in order to play. Privately, Frank thought the end of Salvatore Nervi was good riddance. In the realm of his work, though, if Liliane Mansfield was responsible, he had to do something about it.

He pulled up her security-coded file and read it. Her psychological profile said that she’d been operating under some strain for a couple of years now. In his experience there were two types of contract agents: those who did their work with no more emotion than they would expend on swatting a fly, and those who were convinced of the good they did but whose souls, nevertheless, wore thin under the constant assault. Lily was in the latter group. She was very good, one of the best, but each hit had left its mark on her.

She had stopped contacting her family years ago, and that wasn’t good. She would feel isolated, cut off from the very world she’d worked to protect. Under those circumstances, her friends in the business had become more than just friends; they’d become her surrogate family. When they were hit, her tattered soul had perhaps taken one blow too many.

Frank knew some of his colleagues would laugh at him, thinking in terms of souls, but he’d been in this business a long time and he not only knew what he saw, he understood it.

Poor Lily. Perhaps he should have pulled her out of the field when she first started showing signs of psychological strain, but it was too late now. He had to deal with the situation that existed.

He picked up the phone and had his assistant locate Lucas Swain, who, wonder of wonders, was actually in the building. The fickle Fates must have decided to smile on Frank.

Some forty-five minutes later, his assistant buzzed him. “Mr. Swain is here.”

“Send him in.”

The door opened and Swain sauntered in. Actually, he sauntered everywhere. He walked like a cowboy who had nowhere to go and wasn’t in any hurry to get there. Ladies seemed to like that about him.

Swain was one of those good-looking people who seemed to be perpetually good-natured, too. There was a goofy smile on his face as he said hello and took the chair Frank indicated. For some reason, the smile worked in the same way as the walk: people liked him. He was a devastatingly effective field officer because he went in under people’s radar. He might be a happy man, he might have a walk that looked like the definition of laziness, but he got the job done. He’d been getting the job done in South America for the better part of a decade, which explained the deep tan and rock-hard leanness.

He was beginning to show his age, Frank thought, but then, weren’t they all? There was gray at the temples and along the hairline of Swain’s brown hair, which was kept cropped short because of an unruly cowlick in front. There were lines bracketing his eyes and on his forehead, creases in his cheeks, but with his luck, the ladies probably thought that was as cute as his walk. Cute. It was a sad day in hell, Frank reflected, when he was mentally describing one of his best male field officers as cute.

“What’s up?” Swain asked, stretching his long legs out as he relaxed, his spine curving so he sank down in his chair. Formality wasn’t Swain’s way.

“A delicate situation in Europe. One of our contract agents has gone off the reservation, killed a valuable asset. We need her stopped.”

“Her?”

Frank handed the report over the desk. Swain took it and swiftly read through it, then passed it back. “The deed’s done. What’s there to stop?”

“Salvatore Nervi wasn’t alone in the situation that ended with the death of Lily’s friends. If she’s on a rampage to get all of them, she could wreck our entire network. She’s already done considerable damage by eliminating Nervi.”

Swain screwed up his face and briskly rubbed both hands over it. “Don’t you have some irrascible rogue agent, forcibly retired under a cloud, with some special skill that makes him the only choice possible for locating Ms. Mansfield and stopping her killing ways?”

Frank bit the inside of his cheek to control a smile. “Does this look like a movie production to you?”

“A man can hope.”

“Consider your hopes dashed.”

“Okay, then, how about John Medina?” Swain’s blue eyes were full of laughter as he got into the spirit of deviling Frank.

“John’s busy in the Middle East,” Frank said calmly.

His reply brought Swain upright in his seat, all hint of laziness gone. “Wait a minute. Are you saying there really is a Medina?”

“There really is a Medina.”

“There’s no file on him—” Swain began, then caught himself, grinned, and said, “Oops.”

“Meaning you’ve checked.”

“Hell, everyone in the business has checked.”

“That’s why there’s no file in the computer system. For his protection. Now, as I was saying, John’s deep cover in the Middle East, and in any case, I wouldn’t use him for a retrieval.”

“Meaning he’s way more important than I am.” Swain had that goofy grin again, meaning he took no offense.

“Or that he has different talents. You’re the man I want, and you’ll be on a plane to Paris tonight. Here’s what I want you to do.”