Authors: Catherine Coulter
W
hat's wrong now?” Mike asked.
“Zachery wants us back now.”
She sighed. “I was afraid of that. He finds out everything so quickly. You know we're breaking protocol as it is by even being here. Don't worry, though, maybe he only wants to hear what happened firsthand.”
“Three dead bodies, Mike.” He glanced over at Allie McGee. “Make that four.”
“Not your fault. It will be all right, you'll see. You did nothing wrong. Let me tell Louisa we're leaving. The traffic will be a nightmare, we'll put the siren on. Drive real fast. That should make you feel better.”
He didn't think speed would help anything. He nodded. “I'll see you in the lobby.”
He took the elevator down, replaying the fight, the shooting. He didn't see he'd had any other choice in the matter; another moment and the second thug would have shot Mike through the temple. He made a quick decision, pulled out his mobile, and punched in a number he knew by heart.
“Nick, good to hear from you. I was hoping you'd call and check in. How's the first day treating you? I wish I could have been there to see you walk through the doors.”
“I wish you had too, Uncle Bo. Because you might have been happier to see me this afternoon than Milo Zachery is about to be.”
Instant flatline. “Tell me what happened.”
Nicholas gave him a quick rundown of the day. Bo whistled, long and low. “You do manage to step in it, don't you, Nick?”
“I wonder where I may have learned that. Do you have any advice?”
“Tell Milo the absolute truth. You already knew there was going to be a lot of interest in you, and with the deaths, and the shooting, there will have to be a formal inquiry. But you've done nothing wrong. Every action has been according to policy. So go in with your head high, my boy, and don't worry.”
Nicholas saw Mike come out of the elevator. Her hair was falling out of the ponytail, her sleeve was torn, and there was all that damned blood on her shirt. He swallowed. “Thank you, Uncle Bo. I'll let you know what they say.”
“You do that. And come for dinner this weekend. Bring Mike. We'd love to catch up.”
“I will, and I'll extend the invitation, thank you.” He hung up, and stuck his mobile in his pocket.
“Ready?” Mike asked.
“To face the executioner, you mean? As I'll ever be.”
26 Federal Plaza
6:30 p.m.
Zachery was standing by the window, looking out onto the New Jersey skyline.
“Sit,” he said brusquely when they came in. He didn't turn around.
They sat. Finally, he turned to face them, hands in the pockets of his suit pants. “We've identified the man who killed Jonathan Pearce this morning, as well as the two men you brought down on Avenue A an hour ago. All three are German nationals, all three have lengthy criminal records.”
He nodded to the file folders on the coffee table, waited for them to open the files, then said, “You'll see the first man, Mr. Olympic you called him, is Jochen Foer. As you know, he had the brain implantâhis sheet is long and varied, but almost all his warrants are for murder. The man you shot in the head in the alley is Siegmund Brasch, and Heiner Veblen is the one you managed not to kill but arrest. Both are wanted by Interpol for trafficking and murder.”
“Hired assassins, then?”
“Seem to be. And Heiner Veblen, the gentleman you beat to a pulp, is currently in a coma at Bellevue Hospital. Ben is there, in case he comes to and decides he wants to have a come-to-Jesus talk. Though the doctors don't think that's likely, since he suffered a brain bleed.”
Zachery met Nicholas's eye. “Did you have to put the man in a coma, Drummond?”
“One look at me and you'll see he was a vicious fighter, and
tried to kill me. Fortunately, I'm a good fighter as well. I didn't hit his head, sir, everywhere else, but not his head. He fell down hard on that last kick, and his head smacked hard against the asphalt.”
Zachery studied Nicholas's battered face, the swelling, the blood splatter on his shirt. He looked at Mike, imagined her with a gun to her head, and saw the aftermath, the man's blood speckled on her white shirt. He'd chew their butts tomorrow about having a team with them at all times, even if they were visiting an old man in a nursing home. They'd believed they were going to pick up a boy, nothing more. Well, so much for that fine analysis. It had been too close. Would a team have made a difference? He didn't know. He said, “Drummond, you do realize this is an all-time record for a junior agent?”
Nicholas went stiff. Mike didn't know if it was Zachery's tone or him calling Nicholas a junior agent. Or both. She said, without hesitation, “Sir, Nicholas did everything right, everything by the book. You would have done the same thing if you'd been there. You know these guys were pros, not some lowlife drug dealers. The German, Siegmund Brasch, he would have killed me if Nicholas hadn't acted. I'd be good and dead, my head blown off.” She swallowed, seeing it. “He saved my life, sir. And Mr. Olympic, that was a fluke, Dr. Janovich surely told you it was. Nicholas did nothing wrong. Because of him, I'm alive.”
Zachery gave her a long look. “And I expect you to say exactly that tomorrow morning, Agent Caine, when the Shooting Incident Review Team from Headquarters arrives for the inquiry. I believe both of you acted exactly right, but I have to make the call because I have no choice. Drummond, you are suspended, pending the results of the SIRT hearing. I need your gun, and your creds.”
Zachery said nothing more, held out his hand. “Per regulation, another weapon will be assigned to you. You need to collect it, then head on home for the night. We'll sort all this out in the morning.”
Without a word, Nicholas put his weapon and his freshly laminated credentials on the coffee table. He wondered what his former boss, Hamish Penderley of New Scotland Yard, would have said in Zachery's position. He probably would have grabbed one of his prized antique foils and run him through.
Zachery nodded briefly. “The SIRT hearing will be at eight-thirty tomorrow morning. Neither of you be late.”
Nicholas saw Mike was about to blow. He caught her arm, shook his head.
“We'll be there, sir. Thank you. Is that all?”
“I'm glad you're not fighting me on this.”
Nicholas shrugged. “Rules are rules, especially when it comes to the FBI. I knew that when I signed up. As a brand-new
junior
agent, I'm on probation for ninety days, and there are no special favors to be given because exceptions were made for me to join the FBI. I understand, and I will be back in the morning to explain my side of things.”
“Good. Now go home, clean yourselves up, eat something, go to bed. As I said, we'll get it all sorted out in the morning.”
Nicholas nodded, turned to leave.
Mike said, “But, sir, we can't afford to lose the time. Adam Pearce is on the run. He's in danger, and we have to find him. We think he's the key to what's happening.”
Zachery narrowed his eyes at her. “There's a team in place working on this, Agent Caine. You're to see Agent Drummond home, do you understand me? And get a good night's sleep yourself.”
Her back was ramrod straight. “Am I being disciplined as well, sir?”
He shut his eyes, shook his head and gave an exasperated sigh. “Mike, you're being protected by getting your ass out of this building for the night. Read me?”
“Loud and clear, sir.”
“Good. You two, out of here, now.”
M
ike called Ben while Nicholas went to get his replacement weapon.
“Please tell me the German is out of the coma and talking.”
“Nope, the lights are still out. There's swelling, they put in a stent, so hopefully it will help things. He's pretty messed up, Mike. Nicholas did a real number on him.”
“Thank goodness, otherwise it might have been Nicholas in the damned coma.” She'd been there. She'd seen the fight, hands and fists flying, kicks and punches, the guy finally down, then in a flash, Nicholas facing her, firing point-blank, fast and unquestioning, and she wondered for the hundredth time exactly what kind of spy work he'd done for Britain's Foreign Office.
She refocused, shook it off. “Any chance they found an implant in the dead guy's noggin?”
“No. Clean as a whistle. Janovich did an X-ray first thing, no implant.”
“All three are German, but probably only the one has an implant? That's interesting. Listen, Ben, call me if anything changes
there at the hospital.” She wasn't going to tell him about the inquiry tomorrow, but of course he'd find out soon enough.
Ben said, “I'm going to pull Lia off Sophie Pearce, and turn hospital duty over to her, come back and help Gray and Jack go through Pearce's files and that SD card. I'll be able to monitor Sophie as well.”
“Where is Sophie?”
“She's at the UN, wrapping up. Gonna take her a while, too, from what it sounds like. She called her boss, told her she was coming in to clear her desk so she could take a leave for the next month while she handles her father's affairs. She's gonna burn the midnight oil.”
“All right. You know, I can't help but feel like everyone is looking for something, and we have no idea what that something is.”
“Maybe the something is a someoneâAdam Pearce.”
“Him, sure, but there's something more. Hey, here comes Nicholas, I've got to go. Call me if you find anything.”
“Mike, you and Nicholas look like crap warmed over. Get yourselves fixed up, okay? Oh, yeah, another thing, next time, even if you guys think you're just going to scoop up some kid, I'll have a team surrounding you. This shouldn't have happened, Mike, you know that.”
What could she say? He was right. She punched off.
“News?” Nicholas asked, reaching her.
“Ben said nothing new. Why don't we get some dinner? There's a great new Chinese place down the street I've been wanting to try.”
He ran a hand through his hair. He looked tired, and depressed and flat-out beaten up. “If it's all the same to you, Mike, I'd like to grab a taxi and head home. It's been a long day.”
“A cab? What, you didn't drive your ejector-seat Bondmobile to work this morning?”
She didn't even draw a smile. “No. I don't have a car in the city. Taxis work fine.”
“I'm right here, with keys in hand. I'll drive you home.”
Nicholas thought of his magnificent town house, all five beautiful floors of it, thought of Nigel, doubtless dressed to the butler hilt. “No, no, there's no need. I'd like the time alone, to clear my head.”
Mike grinned. “If you think I'm falling for that, you must really think I'm stupid.”
“Never,” he said. “Honestly, I'll be fine.”
She hooked her arm through his and dragged him to the elevator, punched the down button. “I know you, the minute you're home, you're going to investigate Pearce and the Germans and Adam by yourself.” She shook her head. “Why do you think Zachery wants us together? He knows things are moving fast and he figures we'll keep investigating, even though we shouldn't. He's pretty smart.”
He waited for the doors to close, then faced her. She'd put her hair back up in its ponytail, but the blood had dried on her white blouse and turned black. “You really think so?”
“Yes. Remember how much he told us before he got to the inquiry part? He's not going to outwardly sanction us working off-book, but I'm sure that's the reason he sent me home with you. So don't fight it.”
He smiled then, and Mike saw a hint of his uncle, Bo Horsley, her former SAC. “So you're not simply supposed to be my babysitter? Keep me out of trouble? I get the sense you wouldn't be a very good one in any case. Are you?”
“Nope, I never was. I used to have to babysit to earn spending money, and I hated every minute of it.”
Up went a black eyebrow. “Don't like kids, Mike?”
“I like kids fine. It was all the parental rules I disliked. Dinner at seven, bath and bed by eight, no jumping on the sofa or pillow fights. Where's the fun in all that?”
7:30 p.m.
“Want to tell me where we're headed?”
Nicholas commended his soul to God and said, “Upper East Side. Three fifty-eight East Sixty-ninth, between First and Second.”
She shot him a look as she turned onto the FDR. “So you're not far from Ariston's.”
“No, not far at all.” The sky was purple with the threat of impending rain, a fog drifting between the high-rises, creeping toward the Brooklyn Bridge. New York looked more like Gotham City tonight than he'd ever seen.
Mike said, “Don't worry about your job, Nicholas. The SIRT board will find you did everything according to the book, like Zachery said.”
“It's not that,” he said, turning to face her. “The high-tech specs on Pearce's computer, the three German assassins, the implant, Pearce's murder, Alfie Stanford's murder. It's all connected, and I think I knowâ”
His mobile rang. “Good, here's news,” and he put the call on speaker. “
Bonsoir,
Monsieur Menard. It's one-thirty in the morning your time. Don't you sleep?”
“
Bonsoir,
Nicholas. Not when I have such interesting research to pursue.”
“You're on with Mike Caine, too.”
“Hello, Pierre.”
“It is good to hear your voice again. This is quite an interesting case you have. Nano-biotech is all the rage in the European underground. There are many uses for the developing technologies, and in the hands of the wrong people, it could go very badly.”
Nicholas said, “We're looking for a specific company, Pierre, very advanced, very cutting-edge. A supposedly legitimate leader in the field with the possibility of a few off-the-book projects going on, too. We're looking for someone with money, who could provide serious funding. The equipment we found this afternoon is heads and tails above anything I've ever heard or read about.”
Menard said, “This equipment, the implant, it was made of a biological polymer?”
“It seems so. My bet is, whoever developed it might also have worked on organ transplant research. You know the rejection rate on organs is always a problem. If there's a biologically based metal that won't be disruptive, there may have been a breakthrough on the other side as well.”
Menard said, “There are only a few companies I have heard of who fit the criteria you're speaking of, but none of them are known to have criminal dealings.”
“They wouldn't, I don't suppose. Whoever is behind this would have to be, on the surface at least, on the up-and-up.”
“I will look into this for you, my friend,” Menard said. “I assume the inquiry is of an urgent manner?”
“When is it not, Pierre? Oh, yes, we believe the chances are good the company is based in Germany.”
“Ah,” Pierre said and disconnected.
Nicholas said to Mike, “This is good. He'll have something for us shortly. Here we are.”
Nicholas pointed, and Mike pulled into an empty spot directly in front of a stunning five-story limestone-washed town house. Why was she surprised, given who his grandfather was, who his parents were? Nicholas was fidgeting, he looked embarrassed. She said, “Well, it's not too bad, considering. Nice of the slumlord to throw in a parking place since this place is such a hovel.” She put the Crown Vic in Park, unsnapped her seat belt. “Did it come with rented furniture?”
He shook his head at her. “Very funny. Thanks to my grandfather, this place is all mine, four floors of it at least. Nigel has the third floor, that's where the kitchen is and his rooms. He's in heaven.”
“Close enough I'll bet he doesn't need an elevator,” she said, still staring up at the house.
“Don't give me any guff over this, Mike. Like I said, my grandfather was behind it. I wanted something simple, and he would hear nothing of it.”
She started to laugh. “Um, Nicholas, I did visit Old Farrow Hall. I wouldn't expect you to be living in a studio walk-up in Hell's Kitchen. It's a beautiful house. Let's go inside, I want to see how Nigel's set you up, and see if we can scrounge something up from yourâno, hisâkitchen. I'm famished.”
He paused after he unlocked the front door. “Promise me you won't tell anyone.”
“Nicholas, the entire FBI knows your grandfather is a baron. Not to mention all the women agents know he owns Delphi Cosmetics and are trying to get the nerve to ask you to get them free
samples. No one will be upset about this. They might tease you a bitâI mean come on, you have a real live butlerâbut they won't hold it against you. We're all better than that.” And she ruined it with a giggle.
“Sure you are.” He opened the door onto a magnificent entryway, done in dark woods and white marble, very modern, and it fit him perfectly. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
“Should I take off my shoes? No? Where is Nigel?”
Nigel suddenly appeared above them on the stairs. His face went white and he hurried into the foyer, looking Nicholas up and down. “Oh, my, whatever happened to you? And you, Agent Caine? There's a bit of blood, I see.”
“We're okay, Nigel, nothing some Advil and ice won't fix. And a change of clothes, maybe one of my shirts for Agent Caine. We're both starving, we didn't have time to eat much today. Any chance of some dinner?”
“Yes, I have a lovely roast in the kitchen, with vegetables and mash. Shall I open a bottle of wine? I set aside a Château Margauxâthe '67. It can decant whilst you change your clothes for dinner and fetch a shirt for Agent Caine.”
“Yes, I'll find something. Nigel, this is a working dinner, so we'll have some Pellegrino with lime. Thanks.”
“Of course, sir. Perhaps I'll arrange a nightcap later, some brandy perhaps, or some port. Yes, that's what's needed, the port to go with the pear tart I've made. They'll go together nicely.”
Nigel was smiling, the bloody sod. He was loving playing the formal English butler, watching Nicholas turn red and tongue-tied. He saw Mike was grinning, quite enjoying herself.
“Oh, bugger off, both of you.” He stomped up the stairs, the sound of Mike's and Nigel's laughter following him.