Rogue Angel 52: Death Mask (9 page)

12

17:00
—Seville

“Okay, time to face the music,” the interrogator said. Roux still didn’t know his name. He hadn’t announced himself for the recording in the interview room and hadn’t repeated it since he introduced his team in mumbling Spanish deliberately intended to mask their names. He’d been given a cup of weak coffee and left alone for a while to think about what would happen next. It was a fairly basic technique—rather than keep hammering away at an intractable object, sometimes it was more effective to just let the sea of doubts lap up around it, chipping away at the edges until something worried free.

“You taking me to the ball?”

“Sorry, Cinderella, we’re off to the courthouse.”

That caught Roux by surprise. So much for due process. “My attorney hasn’t arrived yet.” He glanced at his watch, for the first time that day worried that too little time had passed.

The interrogator shrugged. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later. Think of it this way—it just gives you longer to make up a convincing cover story. We’re not in the habit of holding suspects in custody without charging them. Maybe that’s how they do it in France, but here we believe in the rule of law. So, we can do this nice and quietly, or we can make a big song and dance out of it. I would say your choice, but it’s not. It’s mine. Look lively. The magistrate doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I’ve spoken to my attorney,” Roux said.

“You’re going to make this as difficult as possible, aren’t you? If your legal representative is unavailable, the court will supply you with one. Now, I have had to pull a number of strings to make sure that a magistrate will be ready for us, and to keep you off the front page. Best not make this any more uncomfortable than it already is.”

Reluctantly, Roux rose. He was cuffed hand and foot, so any ideas of making a break for it had to be kept on hold for now. The opportunity would arise, though; he was sure of that.

“Fine, let’s get this over with, then, shall we?”

“That’s the spirit.”

“I am going to take great pleasure in suing your ass off when you realize just how badly you’ve screwed this up.”

“I’d expect no less.” The interrogator smiled and led him out by the rear of the station house.

An armed escort was waiting for them.

Roux hadn’t expected such blatant heavy-handedness; it was a declaration from the police that they’d got their man and he was
dangerous
. It was grandstanding. Despite what the detective had said, he had almost certainly tipped off the media and intended to try Roux in the most public way possible. Maybe he was trying to shake the tree and see what came spilling out. It wasn’t how Roux would have done it, but there was always more than one way to win a battle of wits.

The drive was only a matter of a few minutes. He should have been grateful they hadn’t decided to frog-march him through the streets.

His lawyer still hadn’t arrived by the time the entourage reached the courthouse steps. He was bundled out of the car and led inside. He didn’t struggle against them. That wasn’t how he’d win this. He needed to be sharp and to know his surroundings, so as they pushed him toward the courtroom, he took the time to look around and fix key geography points in his mind—staircases, doorways, windows, areas of ingress and egress, the balcony that swept around the foyer, giving the armed court officers above a panoramic view of the marble floor, the security scanners and X-ray machine that wouldn’t have looked out of place at Homeland Security, and the cameras. Roux was always interested in the cameras. Someone who lived an unreasonable span of years needed to be. It didn’t do him any favors to turn up at crime scenes decades apart looking exactly the same. Someone always noticed, then came looking and needed to be taken care of.

The bailiff led him into the courtroom, releasing his cuffs. Roux stretched, working the tight, aching muscles in his back, then turned to face the front. There were no spectators in the gallery. The magistrate’s chair was empty, and there was no sign of his representative, though the state prosecutor was already shuffling paper earnestly at his desk. The bailiff knocked twice and called “All rise” as a side door opened and the magistrate entered the room.

He motioned for those assembled to sit. “Do we have a list of charges?”

“Your Honor,” the bailiff said, reciting a list of charges grievous enough to see Roux locked up for several lifetimes at least. Before the final counts of murder in the first degree had been read out, his attorney came barreling into the courtroom, face flushed and panting as he struggled to catch his breath. He set his briefcase down beside the wall, beneath the room’s only window, and mopped at his brow with a dirty white handkerchief before addressing the bench.

“This is outrageous.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening. “What kind of kangaroo court is this? You have no evidence to link my client to any of the events today. You have a list of spurious charges and are looking to bury him rather than risk justice being done. He is the victim here.”

“This isn’t the time for opening arguments, counsel. How does your client plead?”

“He doesn’t.” He took a sip of water from a glass that stood on the table in front of him.

The magistrate wasn’t amused. “Your client must enter a plea. Am I to assume it will be one of ‘not guilty’?”

“No, Your Honor. My client will not be offering any such plea. I move that the case against him be dismissed.” He looked at the clock on the wall, then back to the magistrate. Roux watched him, wondering what the man had in mind. “This entire thing is a sham. An outrage. My client’s detention is unlawful, lacking in sufficient cause or evidence.”

“Be careful, counsel. I do not know how you do things where you come from, but in my city, we adhere absolutely to the letter of the law.”

“I object, Your Honor!”

That made Roux smile. He was impressed how convincing his man had been up until that moment. The magistrate, however, was far from impressed. He slammed his gavel down, about to demand order, when all hell broke loose.

The first explosion shook the building savagely, bringing down a rain of plaster on the proceedings. There was a moment of shocked silence before the air filled with shouts and screams. Beyond the doors, people struggled to stay calm in the midst of the whirlwind, fear overwhelming them as the foundations of the building shook again and it became obvious they were under attack.

Roux remained motionless, letting it happen.

His attorney was the only other man in the room not to betray his fear. He looked at Roux and nodded. This was what the old man would pay so handsomely for. A third explosion rocked the place. The quality of the screams changed. People were hurting out there. Smoke and debris filled the air as more plaster came raining down. The bailiff moved to secure Roux’s chains. The old man wasn’t about to let that happen. He planted an elbow in the man’s throat. He went down hard, gagging. Roux looked around the courtroom as doors burst open. Guards came streaming in, bringing with them the stench of explosives and a wave of dust. Roux identified the window at the far end of the room as the weak point. The guards moved toward him, but before they were halfway across the floor, another explosion shook the room, this one much closer to home.

Roux crouched down, covering his ears a moment too late for it to make any difference. His ears rang. Daylight streamed in where the window had been seconds before, and two men dressed in black stood in the opening. He had a choice to make and he had to make it fast. He let the two men raise hell and hurled himself over the railing, rolling and scrambling across the floor as the smoke and dust thickened. Chaos was his friend. He ran toward the main doors while the guards yelled behind him. By the window the men in black opened fire, shooting not to kill but to add to the confusion.

Roux’s attorney came charging after him.

Together, they emerged from the courtroom into the foyer. The security gates had been abandoned, guards trying desperately to help with the wounded and fallen. Roux walked straight out of the courthouse, his attorney two steps behind him.

An unmarked van was parked at the bottom of the steps, the side panel open and waiting for them. Both men clambered inside. The doors slammed behind them, plunging them into darkness. The engine gunned, and the van peeled away from the curbside.

“This is it, old man, quits,” the attorney said. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re even now. Agreed?”

“I’m not sure it’ll ever be even, my friend. But for now, if there’s a debt, I think it’s from me to you. I expect you to call it in at some point. I’m grateful.”

“Whatever you say,” his companion said.

For the next minute they sat in silence, the van slowing, stopping, accelerating with the traffic lights, turning quickly through the city streets. They could hear sirens seemingly in every direction, but the driver didn’t increase his speed. There was no need to. It would be a while before the law-enforcement guys coordinated resources and even figured out what kind of vehicle they were looking for. Right now, he doubted they even realized he was gone. The courthouse had been transformed into a bloody war zone in a matter of seconds, and those two gunmen had made it seem like a terror attack. It would take considerably longer for anyone to find out his attorney wasn’t qualified to do much except blow things up.

The man held out a hand and Roux reached out to shake it, before seeing he was being offered his watch, wallet and phone.

“I thought you might want these.”

“I owe you.”

“You do. I’ll send you the bill.”

It wasn’t easy to hold back the smile. Roux returned his wallet to his jacket pocket and slipped the watch back onto his wrist. The timepiece held sentimental value. It had been a gift from the inventor of the seconds chronograph, Nicolas Mathieu Rieussec, watchmaker to the king of France, what felt like a long, long time ago. He hadn’t felt dressed without it. He was glad to have it back. Roux turned the phone on and waited for it to connect to the network.

He needed to get out of the city—and ideally, the country—as quickly as possible, but right now he was at the mercy of the man who had extricated him from that courtroom drama. Roux could only trust he’d thought of everything.

The van kept turning left, left and left, and Roux could sense they were climbing an incline. Not mountains, he realized. A high-rise parking lot. They came to a halt. He heard the driver’s-side door open and close. A hand thumped on the side of the van before the doors were flung open to let in the light and a familiar, unmistakable, sound.

The driver held a hand out to help him out of the van.

“We ready to roll?”

Roux stepped out into the light, appreciating his man’s thoroughness. A helicopter waited for him, blades turning slowly in readiness. All things considered, he couldn’t have hoped for much more. “All set,” Roux said.

“Then we’ll leave you to it. Good luck.”

Even before he was in the air, the white van had started its descent toward street level.

By the end of the day it would be resprayed, fitted with new plates or burned somewhere out of town. Either-or, didn’t matter. There would be no evidence left to tie him to the van or the bombing. That was what
did
matter.

“Where to, boss?” the pilot asked as the helicopter rose steadily into the air.

“As far away from here as possible. I need to make a call, so don’t go too high. Don’t want to risk losing cell reception.” The phone displayed four bars. That was more than enough. It didn’t seem to be the wisest course of action to call someone in the police when he was on the run from them, but he’d never been one for playing it safe. There was someone in Europol he needed to talk to. She answered on the second ring.

“Roux? It’s been a while.”

“Too long, Elise.”

“Are you in town?”

“Alas, no. I’m not even in the same country.”

“That’s a shame,” she said. “For a minute I thought you were going to try to make it up to me.” He didn’t need to ask what he was supposed to be making amends for. No doubt she’d written him up on her list of heartbreakers.

“Next time,” he promised.

“So if it’s not my body you want me for, it’s got to be my connections.”

She knew him too well.

“The Brotherhood of the Burning, what can you tell me about them?”

He heard a sharp intake of breath down the long-distance line. “Nasty, racist bunch, Spanish neo-Fascists, anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish. Until a couple years ago, they were contained within two or three cities, but their influence is starting to spread. They’re attracting the worst elements of society, giving them something to focus their anger on.”

“And the name? Mean anything?”

“Most certainly does. They identify with the Spanish Inquisition like it’s something to be proud of. They think that the Jews and the Muslims should be driven out of their country or, better still, burned alive.”

Roux said nothing for a moment. He should have seen the connection himself; it had been staring him in the face. But for some reason, he hadn’t joined the dots. “So they’re interested in some kind of ethnic cleansing?”

“That’s all that most of them are interested in, yes. It’s what attracts most of their membership to the cause.”

“Most? But not all of them? What motivates the rest, any ideas?” He knew she was holding back on something, a piece of the jigsaw that he still wasn’t seeing.

“There are a few who are just as interested in the Inquisition itself as they are in the violence.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve got a watch list? Names? Something that might give me somewhere to start?”

“You really are pushing your luck, aren’t you, sweetheart? Is there something you should be telling me?”

“I would if I could.”

“Everything I’ve told you so far has come off the top of my head. If you want more than that, I’m going to have to go into the system. Going into the system is going to leave a trail. So I’d want to know what I’m getting myself into.”