Sidney Sheldon’s Reckless

Sidney Sheldon’s Reckless Sidney Sheldon Tilly Bagshawe New York Times Bestselling AuthorTracy Whitney - Sidney Sheldon’s most popular and enduring heroine - is back again in the sensational and gripping follow-up to Chasing Tomorrow.Once upon a time, Tracy Whitney was one of the best thieves in the business. Then she settled down, had a baby, and planned to spend the rest of her days quietly, living anonymously, devoted to her son. But tragic news has forced Tracy to face her greatest nightmare. Now, with nothing left to protect, she returns to the hunt—and she’s more dangerous than ever.Tracy is not the only woman with a dark and dangerous past. The world faces a new terror threat from a group of global hackers intent on the collapse of capitalism and private wealth and the creation of a new world order. When this group turn to violence, with deadly effect, the mysterious woman pulling their strings becomes the CIA’s public enemy number one.Only one clever and ruthless woman is capable of tracking down the terrorist: Tracy. But as Tracy discovers, the truth proves as elusive as her target. Hampered by corruption and enemies masked as allies, Tracy will be pushed to the brink, where she must face her darkest demons. But just how reckless will a person become when she have nothing left to lose? Copyright (#ulink_1da14d07-1edc-5823-8412-ad55caf4bd52) Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd The News Building 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015 Copyright © Sheldon Family Limited Partnership 2015 Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015 Cover photographs © Andrea Buso/Gallery Stock (Woman); Shutterstock (London scene & digital texture) Tilly Bagshawe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780007542024 Ebook Edition © October 2015 ISBN: 9780007542055 Version: 2017-10-18 Dedication (#ulink_2323d08b-94ff-5fef-9a84-c7a6be4ead11) For Belen. With love. Contents Cover (#u465c721f-c5b8-5b7c-b430-960cda5d3972) Title Page (#uda2842d8-ad87-539d-b548-78126d730593) Copyright (#u72cfd796-6f6a-5336-a52e-9c45578d615a) Dedication (#uc5b2df1e-d156-5e0e-ace5-56d4d91faeee) Part I (#ueec13d78-f75d-58e4-be4c-0ad80c5cdcb7) Chapter One (#u28b7fb9e-47fb-5515-84fd-b3c502009afd) Chapter Two (#uaf3f9aff-190f-5625-a273-55544297f538) Chapter Three (#ucbb05abb-f578-5d4a-8524-6d339fe85a1a) Chapter Four (#u22531651-6285-59f8-95b0-8066cc869010) Chapter Five (#ucd2947b1-d2a4-509b-9172-e3e5386fa5dc) Chapter Six (#u97faf1b6-b100-5094-bbf3-68b5d440c188) Chapter Seven (#ub966f62a-32e6-5cf3-beb9-8c86c1f7ff6e) Chapter Eight (#uf4dfc593-e129-5b07-a3b4-08410e4267c4) Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Part II (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo) Part III (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo) Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Also By (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) PART I (#ulink_26cdeb4e-fedf-52df-8075-81f3c8a4212e) CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_de9e2f23-1259-5b36-8af7-de0cf6944e97) ROYAL MILITARY ACADEMY, SANDHURST, ENGLAND SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 9:00 P.M. SIR!” Officer Cadet Sebastian Williams burst into Major General Frank Dorrien’s office. Williams’s complexion was white, his hair disheveled, his uniform a disgrace. Frank Dorrien’s upper lip curled. If he closed his eyes he could practically hear the standards slipping, like turds off a wet rock. “What is it?” “It’s Prince Achileas, sir.” “Prince Achileas? Do you mean Officer Cadet Constantinos?” Williams looked at the ground. “Yes, sir.” “Well? What about him?” For one appalling moment, General Dorrien thought that Williams might be going to cry. “He’s dead, sir.” The Major General flicked a piece of lint off his jacket. Tall and thin, with the wiry frame of a marathon runner and a face so chiseled and angular it looked like it had been carved from flint, Frank Dorrien’s expression gave nothing away. “Dead?” “Yes, sir. I found him … hanging. Just now. It was awful, sir!” Cadet Williams started to shake. Christ, he was an embarrassment. “Show me.” Frank Dorrien took his battered attach? case with him and followed the distressed cadet along a windowless corridor back towards the barracks. Half walking, half jogging, the boy’s limbs dangled like a puppet with its strings tangled. Frank Dorrien shook his head. Soldiers like Officer Cadet Sebastian Williams represented everything that was wrong with today’s army. No discipline. No order. No fucking courage. An entire generation of dolts. Achileas Constantinos, Prince of Greece, had been just as bad. Spoiled, entitled. These boys seemed to think that joining the army was some sort of game. “In there, sir.” Williams gestured towards the men’s bathrooms. “He’s still … I didn’t know if I should cut him down.” “Thank you, Williams.” Frank Dorrien’s granite-hewn face showed no emotion. In his early fifties, gray haired and rigid backed, Frank was a born soldier. His body was the product of a lifetime of rigorous physical discipline. It was the perfect complement to his ordered, controlled mind. “Dismissed.” “Sir?” Cadet Williams hovered, confused. Did the Major General really want him to leave? Not that he wanted to see Achileas again. The image of his friend’s corpse was already seared on his memory. The bloated face with its bulging eyes, swinging grotesquely from the rafters like an overstuffed Guy on bonfire night. Williams had been scared to death when he found him. He might be a soldier on paper, but the truth was he’d never seen a dead body before. “Are you deaf?” Frank Dorrien snapped. “I said ‘dismissed’.” “Sir. Yes, sir.” Frank Dorrien waited until Cadet Williams was gone. Then he opened the bathroom door. The first thing he saw were the young Greek prince’s boots, swinging at eye level in front of an open stall. They were regulation, black and beautifully polished. A thing of beauty, to General Dorrien’s eyes. Every Sandhurst cadet should have boots like that. Dorrien’s eyes moved upwards. The trousers of the prince’s uniform had been soiled. That was a shame, although not a surprise. Unfortunately the bowels often gave way at the moment of death, a last indignity. Dorrien wrinkled his nose as the foul stench assaulted him. His eyes moved up again and he found himself looking into the dead boy’s face. Prince Achileas Constantinos looked back at him, his glassy, brown eyes fixed wide in death, as if eternally astonished that the world could be so cruel. Stupid boy, Frank Dorrien thought. Frank himself was quite familiar with cruelty. It didn’t astonish him in the least. He sighed, not for the swinging corpse, but for the shit storm that was about to engulf all of them. A member of the Greek royal family, dead from suicide. At Sandhurst! Hung, no less, like a common thief. Like a coward. Like a nobody. The Greeks wouldn’t like that. Nor would the British government. Frank Dorrien turned on his heel, walked calmly back to his office and picked up the telephone. “It’s me. I’m afraid we have a problem.” FORMER SOVIET REPUBLIC OF BRATISLAVA, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2 A.M. CAPTAIN BOB DALEY OF THE WELSH Fusiliers looked into the camera and delivered the short speech he’d been handed the night before. He was tired, and cold, and he couldn’t understand why his captors were going through with this charade. His captors weren’t stupid. They must know that the demands they’d made of the British government were nonsensical. Disband the Bank of England. Seize the assets of every UK citizen with a net worth above one million pounds. Shut down the stock exchange. No one in Group 99, the radical leftist organization that had kidnapped Bob Daley from an Athens street, actually believed that these things were going to happen. Bob’s kidnapping, and the speech he was giving now, was clearly just a big publicity stunt. In a few weeks his captors would let him go and think of some other way to grab the international headlines. If there was one thing you could say for Group 99, they were masters at self-promotion. Named after the 99 percent of the global population that controlled less than half of the world’s wealth, Group 99 were a self-described band of “Robin Hood Hackers” targeting big business interests on behalf of “the dispossessed.” Young, computer savvy and completely non-hierarchical, up until now their activities had been confined to cyberattacks against targets they perceived as corrupt. That included multinational companies like McDonald’s, as well as any government agencies seen as being on the side of the wealthy, the hated 1 percent. The CIA had had its systems hacked and seen the publication of hundreds of highly embarrassing personal emails. And the British Ministry of Defence had been exposed with its metaphorical trousers down after accepting bribes to give places at Sandhurst to the sons of Europe’s wealthy elite. After each attack, the target’s screens would fill up with images of floating red balloons—the group’s logo and a tongue-in-cheek reference to the eighties pop song “99 Red Balloons.” It was touches like this, their humor and disregard for authority, that had given Group 99 an almost cult following among young people all across the globe. In the last eighteen months, the group had turned its attention to the global fracking business, launching devastating hacks against Exxon Mobil and BP, as well as two of the top Chinese players. The environmental angle had given them even more cachet among the young, as well as winning them a number of prominent Hollywood supporters. Captain Bob Daley had rather admired them himself, even if he didn’t share their politics. But after three weeks locked up in a mountain cabin in some godforsaken forest in Bratislava, the joke was wearing thin. And now they’d woken him up at two in the bloody morning and dragged him outside to record some ridiculous video in subzero temperatures. The air was so cold it made Bob Daley’s teeth ache. Still, he told himself, at least after this I’ll be going home. His captors had already told him. He would go first. Then, a few weeks later, it would be the American’s turn. Hunter Drexel, an American journalist, had been snatched off the streets of Moscow the same week that Bob was ambushed in Athens. Hunter’s kidnapping had appeared almost random, a spontaneous act to generate publicity back in the US Bob’s had been more carefully planned. It was his first trip abroad for MI6, a training exercise, and someone in Group 99 clearly knew exactly where he was going to be and when. Bob was convinced they had someone on the inside at MI6. There could be no other rational explanation. His kidnapping had been designed to cause maximum embarrassment to both the army and MI6. It helped Group 99’s cause that Bob was also in fact the Honorable Robert Daley, from a wealthy and connected, upper-class British family. No one liked a toff. “Don’t take it personally,” one of his captors had told him in perfect English, smiling. “But you are a bit of a poster boy for privilege. Just think of it as an experience. You’re doing your bit for equality.” Well, it had been an experience. Hunter Drexel had become a good friend. The two men were polar opposites. Bob Daley was traditional, conservative and deeply patriotic, whereas Hunter was a maverick, individualist and lover of risk in all its forms. But there was nothing like three months stuck in a cabin in the middle of nowhere to bring people together. When he finally got home, Bob would be able to sell his memoirs and retire from both the army and his abortive career as a spy. His wife, Claire, would be delighted. “Look directly at the camera please. And stick to the script.” It was the Greek who spoke, the one they called Apollo. Everyone in Group 99 had a Greek codename, which they also used as their handle online, although members came from all over the world. Apollo was a real Greek, however, and one of Group 99’s founding members. The group traced its beginnings to Athens, and the euphoria following the election of the country’s most left-wing wing premier to date, the union firebrand Elias Calles. Perhaps for this reason, the Greek codenames had stuck. Bob Daley and Hunter Drexel both disliked Apollo. He was arrogant and had no sense of humor, unlike the rest of them. Today he was dressed in black fatigues with a knitted balaclava covering his face. Playing soldier, Bob Daley thought. The big man on campus. It was pathetic, really. What were these kids going to do when they grew up? When the whole Group 99 adventure was over? When Apollo was caught, as Bob didn’t doubt he would be eventually, he’d be looking at serious prison time. Had he even considered that? “My name is Captain Robert Daley,” Bob began. Looking right at the camera he delivered his lines perfectly. The sooner this was over, the sooner he could get back inside the cabin to his warm bed. Even Hunter Drexel’s snoring was preferable to being out here in the snow, jumping through hoops for this muppet. When he finished, he turned and looked up at Apollo. “OK?” “Very good,” the balaclavaed man replied. “Am I done now?” Through the slit in his mask, Bob Daley saw the Greek smile. “Yes, Captain Daley. You’re done.” Then, with the camera still rolling, Apollo pulled out a gun and blew Bob Daley’s head off. MANHATTAN, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 9:00 P.M. ALTHEA WATCHED ON HER LAPTOP SCREEN as the bullet ripped through Bob Daley’s skull. She was sitting with her long legs crossed on the suede couch of her 5-million apartment. Outside, snow was falling softly over Central Park. It was a beautiful winter’s night in New York, clear and cold. Captain Daley’s blood and brain tissue splattered across the camera lens. How wonderful, Althea thought, a surge of satisfaction flooding through her, to be watching this in real time, from the comfort of my living room. Technology really is quite amazing. She reached out and touched her screen with her perfectly manicured fingers, half expecting it to be wet. Daley’s blood would still be warm. Good, she thought. He’s dead. The Englishman’s body slumped forward, hitting the forest floor like a sack. Then Apollo walked towards the camera. Pulling off his balaclava, he wiped the lens clean and smiled at her. Althea noticed the bulge in his pants. Killing clearly excited him. “Happy?” he asked her. “Very.” She turned off her computer, walked to her refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Clos d’Ambonnay, 1996. Popping the cork, she poured herself a glass, toasting the empty room. “To you, my darling.” In a few hours, Captain Daley’s execution would be front page news around the world. Kidnap and murder had become commonplace across the Middle East. But this was the West. This was Europe. This was Group 99, the Robin Hood Hackers. The good guys. How shocked and appalled everyone would be! Althea ran a hand through her long, dark hair. She could hardly wait. CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_a31d4417-2fbf-5b1b-9c64-100fabacb804) THIS IS A NIGHTMARE.” Julia Cabot, the new British prime minister, put her head in her hands. She was sitting at her desk in her private office at 10 Downing Street. Also in the room were Jamie MacIntosh, Head of MI6, and Major General Frank Dorrien. A highly decorated career soldier, Dorrien was also a senior MI6 agent, a fact known only to a select handful of people, which did not include the General’s wife. “Please tell me I’m going to wake up.” “It’s Bob Daley who isn’t going to wake up, Prime Minister,” Frank Dorrien observed drily. “I hate to say I told you so.” “Then don’t,” Jamie MacIntosh snapped. Frank was a brave man and a brilliant agent, but his tendency to assume the moral high ground could be extremely wearing. “None of us could have predicted this. This is the E bloody U, not Aleppo.” “And a bunch of teenage geeks in red-balloon hoodies, not ISIS,” Julia Cabot added despairingly. “Group 99 don’t kill people. They just don’t!” “Until they do,” said Frank. “And now they have. And Captain Daley’s blood is on our hands.” It was hard not to take Bob Daley’s murder personally. Partly because Frank Dorrien knew Bob Daley personally. They’d both served in Iraq together, under circumstances that neither Julia Cabot nor Jamie MacIntosh could imagine, never mind understand. And partly because Frank had warned of the dangers of treating Group 99 as a joke. These groups always began with high ideals and, in Frank’s experience, almost always ended with violence. A splinter group would rise up, nastier and more bloodthirsty than the rest, and end up seizing power from the moderates. It had happened with the communists in Russia after the revolution. It had happened with the real IRA. It had happened with ISIS. It didn’t matter what the ideology was. All you needed was angry, dispossessed, testosterone-fueled young men with a thirst for power and attention, and in the end bad things, very bad things, would happen. MI6 had been sitting on intelligence for weeks about where Captain Daley and Hunter Drexel might be being held. But no one had acted on it, because no one had believed the hostages were in serious danger. Indeed, when Frank had proposed sending in the SAS on an armed rescue mission, he’d been shot down in flames by both the government and the intelligence community. “Have you lost your mind?” Jamie MacIntosh had asked him. “Bratislava’s an EU country, Frank.” “So?” “So we can’t send our troops into another sovereign nation. A sodding ally. It’s out of the question.” So nothing was done, and now hundreds of millions of people around the globe had seen Bob Daley’s brains being splattered across a screen. Celebrities who only last week had been lining up to be photographed with red balloon badges on their dinner jackets, in support of the group’s lofty aims of economic equality, were now scrambling to distance themselves from the horror. Kidnap and murder, right here in Europe. “I understand you’re angry, Frank,” Julia Cabot said grimly. “But I need constructive input. The Americans are screaming blue murder. They’re worried their hostage is going to be next.” “They should be,” said Frank. “We all want to get these bastards.” Cabot turned to her intelligence chief. “Jamie, what do we know?” “Group 99. Founded in Athens in 2015 by a group of young Greek computer scientists, then rapidly spread across Europe to South America, Asia, Africa and around the globe. Stated agenda is economic, to address poverty and the global wealth imbalance. Loosely classed as communists although they have no stated political, national or religious allegiances. They use Greek codenames online, and they are very, very smart.” “What about their leaders?” Cabot asked. “One or two names have cropped up. The guy codenamed Hyperion we believe to be a twenty-seven-year-old Venezuelan named Jose Hernandez. He’s the fellow who leaked the private emails of the former Exxon boss.” “The chap with the transsexual mistress and the cocaine habit?” Cabot remembered Group 99’s sting on the hapless oil executive. Despite the CEO’s resignation, hundreds of millions of dollars had been wiped off the share price. “Precisely. Ironically Hernandez comes from a wealthy establishment family. They may have helped him avoid detection by the authorities. But part of the problem is that there are no clear leaders. Group 99 disapproves of traditional hierarchy in all its forms. Because it’s web-based and anonymous, it’s more of a loose affiliation than a classic terrorist organization. Different individuals and cells act independently under one big umbrella.” Cabot sighed. “So it’s a hydra with a thousand heads. Or no heads.” “Precisely.” “What about funding? Do we know where they get their money from?” “That’s a more interesting angle. For a group that purports to be against accumulated wealth, they seem to have a lot of cash washing around. They invest in technology, to fund their cyberattacks. It’s an expensive business, staying ahead of the game against sophisticated systems at places like Microsoft or the Pentagon.” “I can imagine,” said Cabot. “We also believe they are behind various multimillion-dollar anonymous donations to both charitable groups and leftwing political parties. Numerous sources have pointed to a female member of the group, an American, as both one of their largest donors and a driving force in Group 99’s strategic objectives. You remember the attack on the CIA a year ago, when they published a bunch of compromising private emails from top Langley staffers?” The prime minister nodded. “The Americans believe that was her. She operates under the codename Althea, but that’s pretty much all anyone knows about her.” Julia Cabot stood up and walked over to the window, aware of Frank Dorrien’s eyes boring into her back. She found the old soldier difficult. Only a week ago, she’d met with him to discuss the tragic and diplomatically embarrassing suicide of the young Greek prince at Sandhurst. It struck her then how little compassion General Dorrien had shown for the boy, as well as how dismissive he was of the political ramifications of his death on British soil and in the care of the British army. “Perhaps he was depressed?” was the closest he’d come to offering any explanation. And when pressed he’d become positively irritated. “With respect, Prime Minister, I was his commanding officer, not his therapist.” Yes, Julia Cabot had thought angrily. And I’m your commanding officer. She wondered whether Dorrien was being so rude because she was a woman, or whether he was always this way. On this occasion, however, the general was right. Bob Daley’s blood was on her hands. If the American journalist, Hunter Drexel, died too, she would never forgive herself. “We must work with the Americans on this,” she announced. “Total transparency.” Jamie MacIntosh raised an eyebrow laconically. “Total transparency” was not a phrase that made him feel good. At all. “They need to get their man, Drexel, out of there. I want you to give the CIA everything you have, Jamie. Possible locations. All of that.” “So we’re going to help rescue their man, after abandoning our own?” Frank Dorrien looked suitably outraged. “We’re going to make the best of a bad job, General,” the prime minister shot back. “And in return we’ll expect the CIA to share all of their intelligence on Group 99’s global network with us. Up until now their cyberattacks have focused primarily on US targets. American companies and government agencies have been hit a lot harder than we have. I’m sure they already have groaning files on these bastards.” “I’m sure they do, Prime Minister,” Frank Dorrien said drily. It was uncanny the way he managed to make every comment sound like a criticism. “Something made these people change tactics,” Cabot said, ignoring him. “Something changed them, from hi-tech pranksters into kidnappers and murderers. I need to know what that something is.” “I DON’T LIKE IT. I DON’T like it at all.” President Jim Havers scowled at the three men seated around his desk in the Oval Office. The men were Greg Walton, the diminutive, bald head of the CIA. Milton Buck, the FBI’s top counterterrorism agent. And General Teddy MacNamee, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “None of us like it, Mr. President,” Greg Walton said. “But what are the alternatives? If we don’t get Drexel out now, right now, we could be looking at his brains being sprayed across a screen. If we don’t act on this intelligence …” “I know. I know. But what if he’s not there? I mean if the Brits were so damn sure, why didn’t they get their own man out?” President Havers’s scowl deepened. He was under enormous pressure, from Congress and from the American public, to save Hunter Drexel. But, if the intelligence they’d just received from the British was correct, saving Drexel meant launching a military offensive in an EU country. The United States had gotten enough flak for sending troops into Pakistan to take out Bin Laden. And this was a whole different ball game. Bratislava was an ally, a Western democracy. Its president and people would not react kindly to American Chinooks invading their airspace and dropping Navy SEALs into their mountains, mountains that the Bratislavans themselves categorically denied were being used as a safe haven for Group 99, or any other terrorists for that matter. And what if the Bratislavans were right and British Intel was wrong? What if Havers sent troops in, and Drexel wasn’t there after all? If a single Bratislavan citizen so much as spilt their coffee over this, President Havers would be dragged in front of the UN with egg all over his face before you could say “breach of international law.” “They might let him go,” the president said, half to himself. The three men all gave their commander in chief a look that roughly translated as and pigs might fly. “I’m just saying, it’s a possibility.” “I imagine that’s what the British were thinking, right up until last week,” said Greg Walton. “But maybe what happened to Captain Daley was a one-off,” the president countered, clutching at straws. “An aberration. After all, Group 99 have never espoused violence before.” “Well they’ve sure as hell espoused it now, sir.” General MacNamee said grimly. “Can we really afford to take the risk?” “What I don’t understand is why they even kidnapped Hunter Drexel in the first place.” President Havers ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I mean, to what end? A two-bit journalist and gambling addict, fired from the Washington Post and the New York Times. Which is quite an accolade in itself, by the way. How is this man representative of the one percent of the people this group claim to despise? From what I understand he can barely pay his bills. How is he representative of anything?” “He’s an American,” the FBI man, Milton Buck, observed quietly. “And that’s enough?” “For some people,” Greg Walton said. “These people aren’t necessarily rational, sir.” “No shit.” The president shook his head angrily. “One minute they’re sending pop-up balloons onto people’s computer screens and storming the stage at the Oscars, and the next they’re making snuff movies. I mean Jesus Christ! What next? Are they gonna start burning people in cages? It’s like a bad fucking dream. This is Europe.” “So was Auschwitz,” said the general. A tense silence fell. If he sent in the SEALs and the operation was a success, President Jim Havers would be a hero, at least at home. Of course, he would owe the British big-time. Julia Cabot was already demanding more information on Group 99’s global network and funding sources, particularly “Althea,” information the CIA was extremely reluctant to share. If this worked President Havers would have no choice but to give it to her. But it would be worth it. His popularity ratings would be through the roof. On the other hand, if Drexel wasn’t where the British said he would be, it was Havers who’d be hung out to dry, not Julia Cabot. America’s reputation abroad would plummet. He could wave goodbye to a second term. The president closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. In that moment, Jim Havers hated Hunter Drexel almost as much as he hated Group 99. How in hell had it come to this? “Fuck it. Let’s do it. Let’s go in and get the son of a bitch.” CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_885df6c2-4942-529c-b5aa-0287e91a681a) HUNTER DREXEL PRESSED THE RADIO AGAINST his ear and listened intently. The voice of the BBC World Service newsreader crackled through the darkness. “As concern grows for the welfare of kidnapped American journalist Hunter Drexel, a minute’s silence was held today at Sandhurst Military Academy in Berkshire in memory of Captain Robert Daley, whose brutal murder last week at the hands of terror group 99 shocked the world.” Hunter thought, So now they’re terror group 99. He laughed bitterly. Funny how one little murder changes everything. Two weeks ago the BBC couldn’t get enough of Group 99. Like the rest of the world’s media, they’d fawned over the Robin Hood Hackers like groupies at a One Direction concert. Then again, was Hunter really any better than the rest of them? After all, he’d misjudged Group 99 too. At the time he was kidnapped he’d been working on a freelance article about corruption in the global fracking business. He’d been particularly interested in the billions of dollars flowing between the United States, Russia and China, and the secretive way in which drilling contracts were awarded, with oil giants in all three countries splitting obscene profits. Handshake deals were being thrashed out in Houston, Moscow and Beijing that blatantly contravened international trade law. Back then Hunter had seen Group 99 as an ally, as opposed to the rampant corruption in the energy business as he was. Ironically, he’d been on his way to meet Cameron Crewe, founder and owner of Crewe Inc. and one of fracking’s very few “good guys,” at Crewe’s Moscow office when he was dragged into an alleyway, chloroformed and bundled into the boot of a Mercedes town car, not by Kremlin thugs but by the very people he’d believed were on his side. He remembered little of the long journey to the cabin. He changed cars at least once. There was also a short helicopter ride. And then he was here. A few days later Bob Daley showed up, and was introduced as Hunter’s “roommate.” It was all very civilized. Warm beds, a radio, reasonable meals and, to Hunter’s delight, a pack of cards. He could survive without freedom if he had to. Even sex was a luxury he could learn to live without. But a life without poker wasn’t worth living. He and Bob would play daily, often for hours at a stretch, betting with pebbles like a couple of kids. If it hadn’t been for the armed guards outside the cabin, Hunter might have believed himself taking part in some sort of student prank, or even a reality TV show. Even the guards looked halfhearted and a bit embarrassed, as if they knew the joke had gone too far but weren’t quite sure how to back out without losing face. Except for Apollo. Hunter hated using the stupid Greek codename. It was so pretentious. But as it was the only name he had for the bastard who had shot Bob, it would have to do. Apollo was always different. Angrier, surlier, more self-important than the others. Hunter had identified him early on as a bully and a nasty piece of work. But never in a million years had he thought Apollo was intent on murder. Bob’s execution had left the entire camp in a profound state of shock. It wasn’t just Hunter. The other guards seemed genuinely horrified by what had happened. People were crying. Vomiting. But no one had the gumption to face down Apollo. This was it. The new reality. They were all in it up to their necks. The radio signal was fading. Hunter twiddled the knob desperately, looking for something, anything, to distract him from his fear. He’d been in dangerous situations before in his journalistic career. He’d been shot at in Aleppo and Baghdad, and narrowly escaped a helicopter crash in Eastern Ukraine. But in a war zone you had adrenaline to keep you going. There was no time for fear. It was easy to be brave. Here, in the silence of the cabin, with nothing but his friend’s empty bed and his own fevered thoughts for company, fear squatted over Hunter like a giant, black toad. It crushed the breath from his body and the hope from his soul. They’re going to kill me. They’re going to kill me and bury me in the forest, next to Bob. In the beginning, in the days and hours after Bob’s death, Hunter had dared to hope. Someone will find me. They’ll all be looking now. The Brits. The Americans. Someone will come and rescue me. But as the days passed and no one came, hope died. Hunter’s radio crackled loudly, then the signal dropped completely. Reluctantly, he crawled back under his covers and tried to sleep. It was impossible. His limbs ached with exhaustion but his brain was on speed. Images flew at him like bullets. His mother in her Chicago apartment, beside herself with worry in her tatty chair. His most recent lover, Fiona from the New York Times, screaming at him for two-timing her the day he left for Moscow. “I hope one of Putin’s thugs catches you and beats you to death with a crowbar. Asshole!” Bob Daley, making some stupid wisecrack the night before he made the video. The night before Apollo blew his brains out. Would they make him record a video too? Would Bobby’s bloodstains still be on the camera lens? No! A cold prickle of terror crept over him, like needles in the skin. I have to get out of here! Hunter sat bolt upright, gasping for breath, struggling to control his bowels. Please, God, help me! Show me the way out of this. He hadn’t realized until this moment quite how desperately he didn’t want to die. Perhaps because this was the moment when he knew for certain that he was going to. Any rescue mission would have happened by now. No one knows where I am. No one’s coming. And really, why should they come? Hunter Drexel had never felt or shown any particular loyalty to his homeland. What right did he have to expect loyalty in return? Hunter had never understood the concept of patriotism. Allegiance to a country, or an ideology, was utterly baffling to him. People like Group 99, who devoted their entire lives to a cause, fascinated him. Why? Hunter Drexel saw the world only in terms of people. Individuals. People mattered. Ideas did not. Hunter had more in common with Group 99’s worldview and political beliefs than he did with Bob Daley’s. Yet Bob was a good person. And Apollo, or whatever his real name was, was a bad person. In the end, that was all that mattered, not the labels that either man lived under: Soldier. Radical. Terrorist. Spy. They were nothing but empty words. If Hunter Drexel identified himself as anything, it was as a journalist. Writing meant something. The truth meant something. That was about as ideological as Hunter got. He looked around the wooden cabin that had been his home for the last few months and tried to slow his breathing. The heavy wooden door was wedged shut with a split tree trunk and armed guards took shifts outside. Since Bob’s death two solid iron bars had been nailed across the window. Beyond it lay miles of impenetrable forest, an army of tall, darkly swaying pines above a thick white blanket of snow. In their wilder moments of fantasy, Hunter and Bob had concocted escape plans. All were insanely risky, preposterous really. The kind of thing that would work in a cartoon. And all involved two people. Alone, escape was quite impossible. The only way out of here was the one that Bob Daley had already taken. Hunter lay back, not calm exactly, but past the hyperventilating stage. Acceptance, that was the key. Letting go. But how did one accept one’s own death? His mind drifted to a story he’d heard on the radio yesterday, about the Greek prince who’d hung himself at Sandhurst. Achileas. It sounded like one of the stupid names Group 99 gave themselves. There was much hand-wringing about the boy’s death and an “official inquiry” had been launched. As ever, it was the human side of the story that gripped Hunter. Here was a young man with everything to live for, yet who had chosen to die. Perhaps if Hunter could understand that impulse, the impulse that drove a young prince to embrace death like a lover, he would feel less afraid? Slowly, Hunter Drexel drifted into a fitful sleep. THE NOISE WAS A LOW BUZZ at first. Like insects swarming. But then it got louder. The unmistakable whir of chopper blades. “Dimitri.” One of Hunter’s guards grabbed the shoulder of his companion, shaking him awake. “Listen.” The other guard slowly struggled out of sleep. Like Dimitri he was only nineteen. Both boys were French. This time last year they’d been studying computer science in Paris. They’d joined Group 99 for a lark, because a lot of their friends were doing it, and because they loosely supported the idea of taking the world’s super-rich down a peg or two. Neither of them quite knew how they’d ended up in a Bratislavan forest, freezing their tits off and armed with machine guns. By the time they got to their feet, strobe lights filled the sky. The whole camp was bathed in blinding light. Then the first shots rang out. “Shit!” Dimitri started to cry. “What do we do?” Already the helicopters were so loud, it was hard to hear one another. “Run!” yelled his friend. Dimitri ran. He heard shots behind him and saw his friend fall to the forest floor. He kept going. His legs felt like jelly, as if all the strength had been sucked out of them. The camp was a horseshoe of canvas tents clustered around the cabin. There were also two breeze-block structures, one used as a weapons store, and one as a control center, complete with a generator, satellite phone and specially customized laptop. The second structure was closest. Dimitri staggered toward it. All around him, group members were emerging from their tents, bleary-eyed with panic. Some waved guns around, but others were unarmed. Atlas and Kronos, two German lads had their hands in the air. Dimitri watched in horror as they were mown down anyway in a hail of bullets, their limbs flailing grotesquely like dancing puppets as they died. Then something hit him from behind. Not a bullet or a stone. It was a gust of wind, so powerful it blew him off his feet. The choppers had landed. Suddenly all was chaos, light and noise. American voices were shouting. “ON THE GROUND! GET DOWN!” Dimitri screamed, a child’s wail of terror. Then suddenly, arms were around him, under his shoulders, dragging him into the control center. “You’re OK.” Apollo’s voice was firm and calm. Dimitri clung to him like a life raft. “They’re going to kill us!” the boy screamed. “No they’re not. We’re going to kill them.” Dimitri watched as Apollo pulled the pin out of the hand grenade with his teeth and lobbed it toward the men who had just killed his friends. As they were blown into the air, their legs came off. “Here.” Apollo handed him a grenade. “Aim for the choppers.” INSIDE THE CABIN HUNTER DREXEL COWERED under a table. The noise of the Chinooks was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. They’re here! They found me! Even the gunfire, the all too familiar pap pap pap pap of machine guns he remembered from Iraq and Syria sounded soothing to his ears, like a lullaby, or a mother’s voice. Boom! The cabin door didn’t so much open as explode, shards of wood flying everywhere. Smoke filled the room in seconds, disorienting him. Hunter’s ears were ringing and his eyes stung. He heard voices, shouts, but everything was muffled, as if he were hearing them under water. He waited for someone to come in, a soldier or even one of his captors, but no one did. Crawling on his belly, Hunter began feeling his way towards the space where the cabin door used to be. Outside, he quickly got his bearings back. Stars up. Snow down. The Americans—presumably?—were mostly in front of him and to the right, directly facing the camp. To his left, what was left of Group 99 had taken up position in the two breeze-block buildings and were firing back. Gunshots flashed in the blackness like fireflies. Occasionally a strobe or flare would illuminate everything. Then you could see men running. Hunter watched as three of the American soldiers were gunned down just feet in front of him. His captors were clearly not giving up without a fight. A whimpering sound to his left, like a wounded animal made him turn around. “Help me!” Crawling towards the sound, Hunter found the English boy codenamed Perseus sprawled out in the snow. Hunter had a particular soft spot for Perseus with his skinny, chicken legs, cockney accent and thick, dorky glasses. Hunter had nicknamed him “Nerdeus.” They often played poker together. The boy was good. Now he lay helplessly on the cold ground, his eyes wide with shock. A deep crimson stain surrounded him. Glancing down Hunter saw that both his lower legs had been blown off. “Am I going to die?” he sobbed. “No,” Hunter lied, lying down next to him. “I can’t feel my legs.” “It’s the cold,” said Hunter. “And the shock. You’ll be fine.” Perseus’s eyes opened and closed. It wouldn’t be long now. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I never meant for … all this.” “I know that,” said Hunter. “It’s not your fault. What’s your name? Your real name.” The boy’s teeth chattered. “J-James.” “Where are you from, James?” “Hackney.” “Hackney. OK.” Hunter stroked his hair. “What’s it like in Hackney?” The boy’s eyes closed. “Do you have any brothers and sisters, James? James?” He let out one, long, fractured breath and was still. Hunter felt his eyes well up with tears and his body fill with anger. Not anger. Rage. James was his friend. He was just a fucking kid. “NO!” He started to scream, all the pent-up fear of the last few days erupting out of him in one wild, animal howl of fury and loss. In that moment he didn’t care if he died. Not at all. Stroking James’s cold, dead forehead tenderly, he stood up and ran toward the light of the Chinooks. That’s when it happened. One of the helicopters exploded, sending a fireball hundreds of feet high shooting into the air like a comet. Hunter watched it in shock. It dawned on him then that the Americans might actually lose this battle. This wasn’t the clean rescue they’d intended. It was all going wrong. Soldiers were dying. Group 99 were fighting back, fighting for their lives. Hunter kept running, because really, what else was there to do? He would run until something happened to stop him. Until his legs blew off like James’s, or a bullet ripped through his skull like Bob Daley’s, or until he was free to write the truth about what had happened tonight. The truth about everything. The lights grew brighter. Blinding. Hunter thought he was past Group 99’s control center now but he wasn’t sure. Just then a second Chinook roared back into life, its blades turning full pelt just a few yards from where Hunter was standing. Hunter watched camouflaged men leap into it one by one as it hovered just inches above the ground. Bullets flew over his head. Then, right in front of him, a hand reached out in the carnage. “Get in!” The American soldier was leaning out of the Chinook, reaching for Hunter’s hand. He was younger than Hunter, but confident, his words a command, not a request. Hunter hesitated, a rabbit in the headlights. He thought about the story that had gotten him kidnapped in the first place. About the truth, the unpalatable truth, that so many people wanted to suppress. Once he got into that helicopter, would he ever be able to tell it? Would he ever complete his mission? He looked behind him. Scores of corpses littered the charred remnants of the camp that had been his world for the last few months. It had all happened in minutes. Bad men and good men and na?ve young boys lay slaughtered like cattle. Just like poor Bob Daley had been slaughtered. And now a confident young American was holding out his hand, offering Hunter a way out. It was what he’d been praying for. Get in! Hunter Drexel looked his rescuer gratefully in the eye. Then he turned and ran off into the night. CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_1938b1b0-0277-5234-9c8b-7ffca3c91499) WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ‘HE RAN’?” President Jim Havers held the phone away from his ear in disbelief. “He ran, sir,” General Teddy MacNamee repeated. “Drexel refused to get into the helicopter.” There was a long silence. “Fuck,” said the president. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘HE RAN’?” The British prime minister rubbed her eyes blearily. “I don’t know how many other ways to say it, Julia,” the President of the United States snapped. “He wouldn’t get in the chopper. He ran into the fucking forest. We’re screwed.” Julia Cabot thought, You mean you’re screwed, Jim. Her mind raced as she tried to figure out the best way to play this. “I’ve already had the Bratislavan president on the line, screaming blue murder,” President Havers ranted on. “The UN secretary General’s asked me for a statement as a matter of urgency.” “What did you tell him?” “Nothing yet.” “What will you tell him?” “That Drexel wasn’t there. He’d been moved. But that they successfully took out a bunch of terrorists.” “Good,” Julia Cabot said. “I can count on your support?” “Of course, Jim. Always.” President Havers exhaled. “Thank you, Julia. We need a joint intelligence meeting. To figure out where we go from here.” “Agreed.” “How soon can your guys be in Washington?” “I think, under the circumstances, Jim, it makes more sense for your guys to come to London. Don’t you?” Julia Cabot smiled. It felt good to have the upper hand with the Americans for once. Right now she was the only friend Jim Havers had in the world and he knew it. She must play her cards for all they were worth. “I’ll see what I can do,” Jim Havers said gruffly. “Wonderful.” Julia Cabot hung up. EXACTLY ONE WEEK LATER, FOUR MEN sat around a table in Whitehall, eyeing one another warily. “Good of you to come, gentlemen.” Jamie MacIntosh rolled up his shirtsleeves and leaned forward, smiling amiably at his American counterparts. “I know you must both have had a difficult week.” “That’s an understatement.” Greg Walton of the CIA looked desperately tired. He resented being summoned to London, especially at a time when his beloved agency was being ripped to shreds by Congress back home. But he made an effort at politeness. Unlike his FBI colleague, Milton Buck. “I hope you have something important to add to this operation,” Buck snarled at Jamie MacIntosh. “Because frankly we don’t have time to waste on handholding you Brits.” Sitting beside Jamie MacIntosh, Frank Dorrien stiffened. “Well, quite,” he said sardonically. “After the mess you made of what should have been a perfectly simple rescue mission, based on our entirely accurate intelligence, I imagine you want to devote as many man-hours as possible to training your own men. Heaven knows they need it.” Milton Buck looked like he was ready to throw a punch. “All right, that’s enough.” Jamie MacIntosh glared at Frank Dorrien. “None of us have time for chest beating. Let’s leave that to the politicians. We’re here to combine our resources and share information on Group 99 and that’s what we’re going to do. Why don’t I start?” Greg Walton leaned back in his chair. “Great. What have you got?” “For starters, we’ve got a name for Captain Daley’s killer.” Walton and Buck looked at one another in shock. “Seriously?” Frank Dorrien pushed a file across the table. In the top left-hand corner was a photograph of a handsome, dark-skinned man with a strong jaw, long aquiline nose, and hooded, distrustful eyes. There was a detached air about him and a certain watchful hauteur, like a bird of prey. “Alexis Argyros,” Jamie MacIntosh announced. “Codenamed Apollo. One of Group 99’s founder members and a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work. Grew up in foster care in Athens. Possibly abused. A high school dropout but brilliant with computers and obsessed with violent video games from his early teens. Hates women. Sadist. Narcissist. All this is from his social worker’s reports.” “Criminal record?” Greg Walton asked. “Oh yes. Petty theft, vandalism, arson. Two years in youth custody for rape. And he was suspected in a hideous case of animal cruelty where a cat and kittens were burned alive.” “You only get two years for rape?” Greg Walton asked. “The Greeks can’t afford to run their prisons,” Jamie MacIntosh said matter-of-factly. “Not since austerity. Anyway, we believe Argyros was the man who pulled the trigger in Daley’s execution video. He was running the camp you raided, and his star is on the rise within Group 99. For months now he’s been trying to steer the group towards more violent methods, battling against the moderate elements within 99. Argyros appeals to disaffected young males in the same way that the jihadist groups groomed boys in the west after the Syrian war. He offers them a purpose and a sense of belonging, wraps it all up in a pretty parcel of social justice—” “And then murders people,” Greg Walton interrupted. “Precisely. We are fearful that Captain Daley’s death may mark the beginning of a new era of global terror. It’s an enormous pity you didn’t kill Argyros when you had the chance.” “How do you know we didn’t?” Greg Walton asked. This time Frank Dorrien answered. “Because we’ve picked up internet traffic between Apollo and an unknown contact in the US Alexis Argyros is alive and well and he’s out there looking for Drexel, just like we are. Make no mistake. Group 99 want Hunter Drexel dead.” “And you know all this how?” Milton Buck demanded sourly. A stocky, handsome, middle-aged man with dark hair and what ought to have been a pleasing face, Buck successfully concealed whatever charms he may have had beneath a thick veneer of arrogance. “Our methods are none of your concern,” Frank Dorrien snapped back. “We’re here to share intelligence, not tell you how we came by it. Now, what do you have for us?” Milton Buck looked at Greg Walton, who nodded his approval. Buck pulled out an old-fashioned Dictaphone voice recorder and put it on the table. “While you’ve been unmasking the monkey,” the FBI man sneered, “we’ve been focused on the organ grinder.” Jamie MacIntosh sighed. He was starting to find Milton Buck’s posturing deeply irritating. “Your man Apollo may have pulled the trigger,” Buck went on, “but he was following orders from above.” He pressed PLAY. A woman’s voice filled the room. It was American, educated, soft and low and the sound quality was excellent, as if she were sitting right there with them. “Is everything ready?” A man’s voice answered. “Yes. Everything has been done as you instructed.” “And I will see it on live feed, correct?” “Correct. You’ll be right there with us. Don’t worry.” “Good.” The woman’s smile was audible. “Have him deliver the speech first.” “Of course. As we agreed.” “And at nine p.m. New York time precisely, you will shoot him in the head.” “Yes, Althea.” Milton Buck hit STOP and smiled smugly. “That, gentleman, was the authorization for Captain Daley’s execution. The woman on that tape, who goes by the codename Althea, is the real brains behind Group 99. We’ve been tracking her for the last eighteen months.” “We already knew about Althea,” Jamie MacIntosh said dismissively, to the FBI man’s visible annoyance. “But you didn’t know she’d directly ordered Daley’s assassination. Did you?” Greg Walton countered. “No,” Jamie admitted. “What else have you got on her? An ID?” “Not yet,” Greg Walton admitted, a little uncomfortably. “You’ve been tracking this person for eighteen months and you still don’t know who she is?” Frank Dorrien asked, disbelievingly. “What do you know?” “We know she channels funds to Group 99 through a complicated network of offshore accounts that we’ve mapped extensively,” Milton Buck snapped. “We have some unconfirmed physical data,” Greg Walton added more calmly. “Witnesses at various banks and hotels we believe she’s used have suggested she’s tall, physically attractive and dark haired.” “Well that narrows it down,” Frank Dorrien muttered sarcastically. Milton Buck looked as if he were about to spontaneously combust. “We know she orchestrated the attack on the CIA systems and the blackout of the stock exchange servers on Wall Street two years ago,” he snarled. “We know she personally arranged the kidnap and murder of one of your men, General Dorrien. All in all I’d say we know a hell of a lot more than you.” “How long have you had this recording?” Jamie MacIntosh asked. Greg Walton shot Milton Buck a warning look but it was too late. “Three weeks,” Buck said smugly. “I played this to the president the day after Daley was killed.” A muscle on Jamie’s jaw twitched. “Three weeks. And nobody thought to share this information with us sooner?” “We’re sharing it with you now,” Greg Walton said. Frank Dorrien slammed his fist down hard on the table. Everybody’s water glasses shook. “It’s not bloody good enough!” he roared. “Daley was one of ours. With allies like you, who needs enemies?” “Frank.” Jamie MacIntosh put a hand on the old soldier’s arm, but Dorrien shrugged it off angrily. “No, Jamie. This is a farce! Here we are spoon-feeding the Americans valuable intelligence, detailed intelligence, actually providing them with the exact location of their hostage. And all the while they’re sitting on vital information about Bob Daley’s killer? It’s unacceptable.” Buck leaned forward aggressively. “And just who are you to tell us what’s acceptable, General? Has it occurred to you that maybe we didn’t trust the British with this intelligence? After all, your men have been dropping like flies lately.” “I beg your pardon?” “Think about it. First a Greek royal dies on your watch, General,” Buck said accusingly, “a young man who just happens to be a personal friend of Captain Daley. Then, only days later, Daley himself is killed, which let’s just say is out of character for Group 99, up to this point. Now, you may say there’s no connection between those two events—” “Of course there’s no connection!” Frank Dorrien scoffed. “Prince Achileas died by suicide.” Milton Buck raised an eyebrow. “Did he? Because the other possibility is that Group 99 have someone embedded within the British military. Maybe someone at Sandhurst, or in the upper echelons of the MOD—also the subject of a Group 99 attack, if you remember.” “As were the CIA!” Dorrien shouted back. “Prince Achileas was gay. The man hung himself out of shame, you cretin.” “What did you call me?” Buck got to his feet. “That. Is. ENOUGH.” Greg Walton finally lost his temper. “Sit down, Milton. NOW.” Greg was the senior man here. He hadn’t flown thousands of miles to watch his FBI colleague and General Dorrien go at each other like a pair of ill-disciplined dogs. There was also something about the tone the general used to talk about the Greek Prince that put Greg Walton’s back up. Greg was also a homosexual. He found the general’s lack of compassion for the dead boy both distasteful and disturbing. “Whatever has happened in the past, in terms of sharing information, has happened,” he said, looking from Buck to Dorrien and back again. “From now on we have direct orders from the White House and Downing Street to cooperate fully with one another and that’s what we’re going to do. This is a joint operation. So if either of you have a problem with that, I suggest you get over it. Now.” Frank Dorrien looked to Jamie MacIntosh for support but there was none forthcoming. He shot a last look of loathing at Milton Buck and sat back in his chair, sullen but compliant. Buck did the same. “Good. Now, as it happens we do have one other important development to share with you,” Greg Walton went on. “Have either of you ever heard of an individual named Tracy Whitney?” Frank Dorrien noticed the way Milton Buck tensed up at the mere mention of this name. “Never heard of her,” he said. “Tracy Whitney the con artist?” Jamie MacIntosh frowned. “Con artist, jewel thief, computer wizard, cat burglar,” Greg Walton elaborated. “Miss Whitney’s r?sum? is a long and varied one.” “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. We thought she was dead,” said Jamie. He explained to Frank Dorrien how, along with her partner Jeff Stevens, Tracy Whitney had been suspected of a swath of daring crimes across Europe a decade ago, conning the corrupt rich out of millions of dollars in jewelry and fine art, and even extracting a grandmaster from the Prado in Madrid. But neither Interpol nor the CIA nor MI5 had ever been able to prove a case against her. “I dread to think the man-hours and money we wasted trying to outsmart that woman.” He sounded almost nostalgic. “But then, overnight it seemed, she vanished and that was that. Jeff Stevens is still knocking around in London I believe, but he seems to be retired.” Jamie turned back to Greg Walton. “I’m baffled as to what Tracy Whitney can possibly have to do with all this.” “So are we,” Greg admitted. “The day after the failed raid in Bratislava, we received an encrypted message at Langley from Althea in which she referenced Tracy Whitney.” “More than referenced,” Milton Buck jumped in. “The two women clearly knew each other.” “What did the message say?” Jamie MacIntosh asked. “It was a taunt, basically,” Walton replied. “‘You guys will never catch me. I’m going to outsmart you just like Tracy Whitney did. I’ll bet you Tracy could find me. Why don’t you have Agent Buck call her in …’ That kind of stuff. She clearly knew Tracy, but it was more than that. She knew the agency’s history with Tracy. She knew that Agent Buck had had dealings with her.” Greg Walton filled his British counterparts in briefly on the operation a few years ago to track down and catch the Bible Killer. How Tracy and Jeff Stevens had both resurfaced at that time, and Tracy had formed an uneasy alliance with both Interpol and the FBI to bring Daniel Cooper to justice. “Agent Buck here ran the operation. It was a success, but it would be fair to say that Milton and Tracy’s relationship was”—he searched for the right word—“tempestuous. Althea knew that.” “I see,” Frank Dorrien said archly. “So perhaps it’s you with a Group 99 informant on the inside?” The comment was aimed at Milton Buck, but Greg Walton replied. “Anything’s possible, General. At this point we’re keeping all our options open.” Jamie MacIntosh asked, “Have you contacted Miss Whitney? I’d be curious to know what she has to say about all this.” “Not yet,” said Walton. “We want to broach the subject face-to-face. Tracy has a bad habit of disappearing when she gets spooked. If she knows about Althea in advance, she might just run.” “We’d be with her right now if we hadn’t been railroaded into flying here to meet with you instead,” Milton Buck added ungraciously. “We’re wasting valuable time.” “You know, Tracy used to have something of a Robin Hood complex herself,” said Jamie, ignoring the jibe. “She and Jeff only ever stole from people they believed deserved it. And she was quite the whiz with computers. I believe international banking was her forte. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised to learn that she and Jeff were involved with Group 99.” “I doubt that,” Greg Walton said. “I can’t speak for Jeff Stevens. But Tracy Whitney’s changed. She was an invaluable asset to us last time. I think we can trust her.” Frank Dorrien frowned but said nothing. He did not like the sound of Tracy Whitney, not one little bit. The woman was a professional thief and liar. Hardly the sort of person they needed on the team. “I don’t think Group 99’s the link. My guess is that these two women go back way before that,” Greg Walton went on. “Althea might have known Tracy in prison. Or through Jeff Stevens. She might have been one of Jeff’s lovers, or a rival con artist, or even someone Tracy and Jeff targeted in their heyday. We know she’s wealthy, after all. There are a million possibilities. Hopefully once we speak to Tracy in person, she can shed some light.” “Anything else we need to know at this stage?” Jamie asked, in a tone that suggested the meeting was coming to a close. “I don’t think so.” Greg Walton stood up to leave. “Nothing material. Finding Hunter Drexel and bringing him home safely remains the official focus of our operation. But identifying Althea is our most important strategic mission. We’re hopeful Miss Whitney can help with that. Of course, it would be nice to get this guy Argyros’s head on a plate too. Maybe you fellows can take the lead on that?” Jamie MacIntosh nodded. The two Americans walked to the door. “One last thing, Mr. Walton,” Frank Dorrien called after them. “Yes?” “Hunter Drexel. Why do you think he refused to go with his rescuers? Why did he run?” Greg Walton and Milton Buck looked at each other briefly. Then Walton said with a straight face. “I have no idea, General. But when we find him, believe me, that’ll be the first question we ask.” FORTY MINUTES LATER, JAMIE MACINTOSH RECEIVED a call from the prime minister. “Can you work with them?” Julia Cabot asked, once Jamie had debriefed her on his meeting with the Americans. “Of course, Prime Minister. Frank’s not a fan of their FBI chappie. But they provided some very useful information.” “Do you trust them?” Jamie MacIntosh laughed. “Trust them? What a quaint idea! Of course I don’t trust them.” Julia Cabot grinned. “Jolly good. Just checking.” “They’re lying through their teeth about Drexel,” said Jamie. “You think they know why he ran?” “I think they know, and I think they’ll do anything to stop us knowing. I would dearly like to find Mr. Drexel before they do and learn what it is they’re hiding.” “Well,” Julia Cabot said, “we’ll just have to make that happen then, won’t we?” “CAN YOU WORK WITH THEM?” PRESIDENT Havers’s voice sounded tight with strain. “Yes, sir,” Greg Walton said. “Agent Buck got off on the wrong foot with one of their guys. But the meeting was constructive. MacIntosh is a reasonable guy.” “Tread very carefully, Greg,” the president warned. “There are places we want MI6 sniffing around and places we don’t.” “Of course, sir. Understood. We’ll keep them under control.” “What about Tracy Whitney?” “We’ll keep her under control too.” “Good. Just make sure you do. Good night, Greg.” “Good night, Sir.” MAJOR GENERAL FRANK DORRIEN WAS AT home in his living room, watching President Havers on television. Sitting in the oval office with the American flag behind him, in an expensive dark suit and silk tie with his silver-gray hair slicked back, Havers looked like what he was: the most powerful man in the world. “A week ago, the United States struck at the heart of a group of terrorists who wish to destroy our way of life. Group 99 had already brutally murdered a British hostage, Captain Robert Daley. We had reason to believe that their second hostage, the American journalist Hunter Drexel, was about to meet the same fate. We also had intelligence indicating that Mr. Drexel was being held in the same camp, in Bratislava, where Captain Daley was killed. “A carefully planned, covert operation took place, based on that intelligence. And yes, that operation did involve American troops briefly entering Bratislavan territory. The United States makes no apology for this action. Although it appears Mr. Drexel was moved by his captors to another location following Captain Daley’s death, we established that both men had been held in Bratislavan territory—contrary to that country’s denials of harboring terrorists. Moreover, our mission was not in vain. Scores of terrorists were killed, the same individuals responsible for Captain Daley’s barbaric murder. Regrettably, six American servicemen also lost their lives. “Make no mistake. The United States remains committed to fighting the terrorists who threaten our citizens, and our security, wherever we may find them. And whatever their so-called motivations, or justifications for their actions might be. Now, there may be folks who criticize us for that. But that has always been, and remains, the policy of this administration. Group 99 are not harmless. They are not freedom fighters or champions of the poor. They are terrorists. “We remain confident that, working with our British partners, we will locate Mr. Drexel imminently. And in the meantime his captors should know this: You can’t run. You can’t hide. We will find you and we will destroy you.” Major General Frank Dorrien winced and turned off the television. Havers was so dishonest, it made Frank’s teeth ache. Of course, most politicians were. But the Americans were such spectacularly glossy liars. Virtuosos of insincerity. Masters of misrepresentation. How he despised them! Frank’s thoughts turned to Hunter Drexel, the man for whom all these lies were being told. The United States had risked near total diplomatic isolation for a man who had not only run away from the soldiers sent to rescue him but who, by all accounts, was a typical, entitled journalist, interested only in his story and loyal to no one but himself. A gambler and inveterate womanizer, Hunter Drexel had left for Moscow with a string of broken hearts, angry editors and unpaid creditors in his wake. Men like that didn’t deserve to be rescued. To have brave, honest, loyal men risk their lives to save them. Major General Frank Dorrien was big on loyalty. Loyalty to family, to religion (Frank was brought up staunchly Church of England and considered himself a conservative with a very capital C), to his country. But above all, Frank Dorrien believed in loyalty to the British army. Frank would gladly die for the British army. He would kill for it too. In Frank Dorrien’s world, one did what one had to do. One did one’s duty, whatever form that took. Recently, duty had taken Frank in some unexpected directions. He’d been forced to make some difficult decisions. Distasteful decisions. But never once did he question his actions, or second-guess his superiors. That was not the soldier’s way. The army was Frank Dorrien’s life. He had his wife, of course, Cynthia, whom he loved. And his opera, and his roses, and the Church choir, and his books on Byzantine History. But these were all fruits of the tree. The army was the tree. Without it, Frank’s existence would be nothing but a meaningless series of days, without order or discipline or purpose. What was the purpose of men like Hunter Drexel? Or libertines like Group 99, revolting communists even before they started butchering people? Or women like Tracy Whitney, a thief and con artist who, for some inexplicable reason, Jamie MacIntosh appeared actually to admire? Not for the first time, Frank Dorrien wondered about the dissolute world in which he now found himself working. Intelligence. Never had an industry been more ineptly named. Still. Duty called. “Would you like a cup of tea, Frank?” Cynthia Dorrien’s voice drifted in from the kitchen, reassuringly normal and sane. “I’d love one, darling,” Frank called back. One day, this would all be over. One day they could all return to normal. BUNDLED UP AGAINST THE BITTER NEW York wind in a full-length mink coat and matching hat, her Tiffany diamond drop earrings sparkling like stalactites in the dazzling winter sunshine, Althea ran a black, gloved hand along the top of the gravestone, lovingly tracing a finger over the one-word inscription. Daniel. “He’s dead, my darling,” Althea whispered. “Bob Daley’s dead. We got him.” Watching the Englishman’s skull explode across her computer screen had been gratifying. But it hadn’t brought Althea the closure she’d hoped for. She’d come to Daniel’s grave today in hopes that it might bring her some peace. It hadn’t. Perhaps it’s because he isn’t really here? The simple marble slab was just a memorial. Nothing lay beneath it. Thanks to them, Althea would never know where her beloved Daniel really lay, or whether he had even been buried. They had stolen that comfort from her, just as they had stolen everything else. That’s why I don’t feel closure, she realized suddenly. Captain Bob Daley was just the beginning. I must destroy them all. Just as they destroyed me. Althea wondered why the CIA hadn’t called in Tracy Whitney yet. It was vital that Tracy be a part of this. Her message had been crystal clear on that point. Why were they waiting? If that moron Greg Walton didn’t act soon, she’d be forced to take matters into her own hands. As the icy wind bit into her cheeks, Althea hoped it didn’t come to that. Wrapping her mink more tightly around her, she turned and walked to her waiting limousine. It was nice to be rich. But it was even nicer to be powerful. CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_d014368f-a019-50cd-8b67-ef20099ef6d6) TRACY WHITNEY WATCHED THE SNOWFLAKES FALL softly to the ground outside her window as she sewed name-tapes into her son’s soccer kit. Nicholas Schmidt, 9G. This was the second kit Tracy had had to buy Nick since the summer. At fourteen, her son was growing like a weed. He must be taller than Jeff now, Tracy thought. Nicholas knew Jeff Stevens as Uncle Jeff, an international antique dealer and old friend of his mother’s. He believed his real father was a man named Karl Schmidt, a German industrialist, who’d died tragically in a skiing accident while Nick was still in his mother’s womb. It was the story Tracy had told him, and everybody else in Steamboat Springs, the small Colorado town that had been their home for almost fifteen years now. But it wasn’t true. There had never been any Karl Schmidt, or any ski accident. Jeff Stevens was Nick’s father. He was also a con artist and a thief, one of the best in the world. Although never quite as good as Tracy. Putting aside the shorts, Tracy got to work on Nick’s shirt. The dark blue team colors brought out the color of Nick’s eyes—piercing blue, like his father’s. He also had Jeff’s athletic build and thick dark hair, and that irresistible combination of masculinity and charm that had drawn women to Jeff Stevens like moths to a lightbulb. Tracy hadn’t seen Jeff in three years, not since she saved his life, rescuing him from a psychotic former agent named Daniel Cooper. But she thought of him often. Every time Nicholas smiled, in fact. That last encounter with Jeff Stevens had been a crazy time in Tracy’s life, a brief, brutal return to the adrenaline and danger of a world she thought she’d left behind forever. Afterwards, she’d struck a deal with the FBI to grant her immunity from prosecution and returned to the peaceful anonymity of Steamboat Springs. Uncle Jeff had visited once, and kept in touch with postcards from far-flung parts of the world. He’d also set up a trust fund for Nick worth tens of millions of dollars. What can I say? he wrote to Tracy. The antiques business is booming. Who else am I going to leave it to? Jeff knew that Blake Carter, the old cowboy who ran Tracy’s ranch and had practically raised Nicholas, was a far better, safer, more solid father than he could ever be. Like Tracy, he wanted their son to have a stable, happy life. So he’d made the ultimate sacrifice and walked away. Tracy loved him for that more than anything. It bothered her sometimes that everything Nick knew about her and his real father was a lie. My own son doesn’t know me at all. But she took comfort in Blake Carter’s words. “He knows you love him, Tracy. When all’s said and done, that’s all that matters.” At last the huge pile of kit was named and folded. Tracy stretched, poured herself a bourbon and threw another log on the huge open fire that dominated her open-plan living room. She watched it spit flames high into the air, crackling so loudly it sounded like a gunshot. Warm, comforting smells of pine resin and wood smoke filled the room, mingling with cinnamon from the kitchen. Tracy sighed contentedly. I love this place. With her slender figure, shoulder-length chestnut hair and lively, intelligent eyes that could change from moss green to dark jade according to her mood, Tracy had always been a beauty. She was no longer a young woman, but she still exuded an intoxicating appeal to the opposite sex. There was something unattainable about her, a spark of challenge and temptation in those unknowable eyes that transcended age. Even in jeans, Ugg boots and a roll-neck sweater and without makeup, as she was now, Tracy Whitney could light up a room at a glance. Those who knew her best, like Blake Carter, saw something else in Tracy—a sadness, deep as the ocean, and beautiful too in its own way. It was the legacy of loss—lost love, lost hopes, lost freedom. Tracy had survived it all. Survived and thrived. But that sadness was still a part of her. Tracy sipped the dark liquor, letting its warmth slide down her throat and into her chest. She shouldn’t really be drinking—it was only four in the afternoon—but after all that damn sewing she deserved it. Plus it felt like evening. Outside twilight was already making way for darkness, with the indigo sky fading slowly to black. On the ground, snow lay feet thick and pristine, like frosting on a wedding cake, punctured only by the dark green spruce and pine trees, reaching their leafy arms up to the heavens. The house was at its best in winter, when its floor-to-ceiling windows showcased the snowcapped Rockies at their most magnificent. The term “splendid isolation” could have been coined for this place. It was one of the main reasons Tracy chose it all those years ago. A loud knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. Tracy smiled. So much for isolation. The ranch’s position might be remote but Steamboat Springs was still a small town and Tracy was the mother of one of its more troublesome teenagers. Her mind ran over the possibilities as she walked to the door. School counselor? Principal? Irate mother of an eighth grade cheerleader? Sheriff? Oh God, please not the Sheriff. Blake would hit the roof if Nick had been running one of his scams again. Last time he’d managed to reprogram the school library computers to show that half of the middle-school students were entitled to rebates. The school had erroneously paid out over two thousand dollars to Nick’s buddies before the head librarian got wise and called the cops. Sheriff Reeves had gone easy on Nick that time. But one more screw up and he’d have to make an example of him. Tracy put on her most gracious smile and opened the door. A waft of freezing air hit her. Tracy shivered. Two men were standing on her porch. Both wore long cashmere coats, trilby hats and scarves. One of the men she didn’t recognize. The other, very unfortunately, she did. “Hello, Tracy.” Agent Milton Buck of the FBI attempted a smile, but was so out of practice it came off as a leer. “This is my colleague, Mr. Gregory Walton of the CIA.” Buck gestured to the much shorter man standing next to him, hopping from foot to foot against the cold. “May we come in?” FIVE MINUTES LATER, TRACY AND THE two agents stood awkwardly around the kitchen table. Tracy had offered them each a cup of coffee. Coats had been removed, pleasantries dispensed with. It soon became apparent that the shorter man, from the CIA, was in charge of proceedings. “Thank you for letting us in, Miss Whitney.” Bald, softly spoken and scrupulously polite, Tracy immediately liked Agent Walton a lot more than Agent Buck. Then again there were tapeworms that Tracy Whitney liked more than Agent Buck. The two of them had history together, none of it good. “It’s Mrs. Schmidt here,” Tracy said. “And I wouldn’t leave a man to freeze to death on my doorstep, Mr. Walton. However much I didn’t want to see him,” she added pointedly, looking directly at Milton Buck. “Please. Call me Greg.” “OK.” Tracy smiled. “Greg. Let’s skip the pleasantries. Why are you here?” Walton opened his mouth to say something, but Tracy wasn’t finished. “I had a cast-iron guarantee from the Bureau, after I helped them neutralize Daniel Cooper and arrest Rebecca Mortimer three years ago, that my family and I would be left in peace.” “I understand that,” Greg Walton said reassuringly. “And you will be. You have my word on that.” “And yet here you are in my kitchen.” Tracy raised an eyebrow archly and crossed one long, slender leg over another. Greg Walton thought this lady’s quite something. Not for the first time in the presence of a very beautiful woman, he felt relieved he was gay. “What we need to talk to you about today, Miss Whitney, has nothing to do with that case or with your past. It’s a matter of national security.” Tracy looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.” “Perhaps if you listened, you would,” Milton Buck snapped. He was still handsome in a brutish, arrogant way, Tracy noticed. And every bit as charmless as she remembered. “What Mr. Walton is saying is that we’re not here to prosecute you for your crimes as a jewel and art thief.” Tracy said, “I should think not as I haven’t committed any.” “We’re here to demand that you do your duty for your country.” “Is that so?” Tracy’s eyes narrowed. As far as she was concerned Milton Buck could stick his demands where the sun didn’t shine. Three years ago the bastard would have left Jeff to die, strung up on a cross by that maniac Cooper in the hills above Plovdiv, Bulgaria. It was only Tracy, and her friend Jean Rizzo from Interpol, who had saved Jeff and brought Daniel Cooper to justice. Although of course the FBI had basked in the credit, no one more so than Agent Buck. “Not demand,” Greg Walton corrected, shooting Buck a dirty look. “Request. We’re here to request—to ask you to help us. The long and the short of it is, Tracy, we need your help.” Tracy studied Walton’s face distrustfully. She looked at her watch. “I’m picking up my son at five thirty. You have my attention for the next hour, but after that you must leave.” Milton Buck looked outraged. He opened his mouth to speak but Greg Walton glared at him. “That’s a deal, Miss Whitney,” Walton said. “Now, let me tell you why we’re here.” For the next forty minutes, Greg Walton didn’t draw breath. Tracy sat listening to him, leaning forwards over the kitchen table, her coffee growing lukewarm, then cold. Like most people in America, Tracy had seen the story of Captain Daley’s gruesome execution at the hands of Group 99 online. She knew about the controversial raid in Bratislava; how for all the government’s spin it had clearly been a failed attempt to rescue American journalist Hunter Drexel. What she didn’t know, was that rather than still being in Group 99’s hands, as President Havers had explicitly told the nation in a televised statement, Hunter Drexel was actually on the run, for reasons unknown. Or that a woman, codenamed Althea but believed to be a wealthy US citizen, was not only masterminding and funding Group 99 but had directly ordered Daley’s death. “Wow,” Tracy said, once Walton was finished. “Havers must be out of his mind. To flat-out lie like that? What happens if Drexel suddenly pops up somewhere, Edward Snowden—style, and holds a press conference?” “That would be extremely unfortunate,” Greg Walton admitted. “More unfortunate, however, would be a global escalation of violence and murder such as we witnessed with Captain Daley. Kidnappings, executions, bombings. Anything’s possible now that they’ve crossed this red line. We don’t know exactly how large Group 99’s network is. But we do know that it’s massive, and growing, especially in places where the economic divide is acutely pronounced. Like South America, for example.” “On our doorstep,” Tracy mused. “Precisely.” Tracy processed all this for a moment before turning to Walton. “This is all very interesting. But I still don’t see where I fit in.” Greg Walton leaned forward. “This woman, Althea, sent an encrypted message to us at Langley a little over a week ago. In it, she mentioned you by name, Tracy.” “Me?” Tracy looked suitably dumbfounded. Walton nodded. “What did she say?” “That she’d outsmarted us just like you did. That only you could unmask her. That Agent Buck here should pay you a visit. She almost made it sound like a game. A competition between the two of you.” If Greg Walton’s expression hadn’t been so serious, Tracy would have burst out laughing. This had to be a joke, right? “Have you any idea who this woman might be, Tracy? Any idea at all?” Tracy shook her head. “No. I wish I did but, no. This makes no sense to me.” “Listen to this.” Greg Walton played her the same recording of Althea ordering Bob Daley’s execution that he’d played for MI6 a few days earlier. “Have you ever heard that voice before?” “I’m sorry,” Tracy said. “I haven’t. Not that I remember.” “Think hard. It may be someone from your distant past. From your childhood, even. Or the Louisiana Penitentiary?” Tracy allowed herself a small smile. The voice on the tape was educated, sophisticated. Nobody from the penitentiary had sounded remotely like that. “Could she have been a colleague at the Philadelphia Bank?” Walton pressed. “Or perhaps someone you and Jeff knew in London?” From my days as a thief, you mean? Tracy finished for him. No. I don’t think so. Hearing Greg Walton, a man she’d never met before, reel off places and people in her life as if he knew her intimately was disconcerting to say the least. But she kept her composure. “No,” she said. “I’d remember, I’m sure of it.” “Well, you do know her.” Milton Buck lost his patience. “That much is a fact. So if she’s not from your past, she must be from your present. What prior contact have you had with Group 99?” “What?” Tracy scowled at him. There were no words to adequately express her loathing for Milton Buck, a man who was prepared to sacrifice anything, or anyone, for the sake of advancing his career. If Buck had had his way, Jeff would have been left to die at Daniel Cooper’s deranged hands. Tracy would never forgive him. “Think very carefully before you answer, Miss Whitney,” Buck warned her. “If you lie to us now, any deal we may have made in the past will be off. Null and void.” “I don’t need to think carefully,” Tracy shot back. “I’ve never had any contact with Group 99.” “Hmmm.” Milton Buck’s upper lip curled. “You admire them, though, don’t you?” He seemed to delight in pressing Tracy’s buttons. “All that subversive, antiestablishment baloney. It’s right up your street.” “I did quite admire them once,” Tracy said defiantly. “Before Daley’s execution I was impressed by their techniques. But then so were a lot of people. I mean, there’s no doubt they’re smart. Hacking in to the Langley computers is no mean feat.” “No. It isn’t,” Greg Walton muttered bitterly. “They’ve outsmarted governments and intelligence agencies and Big Oil,” Tracy went on. “But, I never shared their views, Agent Buck. Other than their dislike of the fracking industry. And I certainly don’t admire terrorists, or murderers.” “So you don’t believe in redistributing wealth away from the top one percent?” Milton Buck asked skeptically. “Robbing the rich to help the poor?” “Certainly not,” said Tracy. “Look around you, Agent Buck.” She gestured to the expensive oil paintings hanging on the walls and the cabinet full of polished silver in the dining room. “I’m part of the one percent. Then again, from what you describe, so is this woman Althea.” She turned back to Greg Walton. “If she’s rich enough to funnel millions to Group 99, isn’t she part of the problem, in their eyes?” “There’s a lot about Group 99 that doesn’t make sense to us right now,” Walton replied. “A lot of inconsistencies. Together with the British, we’re piecing together a clearer picture of their changing objectives. But what we do know is that their days of peaceful protest are over. We have a hostage out there right now whose life is in imminent danger.” “I know that,” Tracy said, chastened. “Hunter Drexel.” “And he won’t be the last. We believe Althea may hold the key to the entire network, Tracy. We need your help to find her. Come back to Langley with us.” Tracy’s eyes widened. If the situation weren’t so serious, she would have laughed. “You want me to come to Langley? Right now?” “We don’t want it,” Greg Walton’s tone was deadly serious. “We need it. You’re our best hope.” “No,” Tracy said, on autopilot. “I won’t. I can’t. I have a son …” She stood up and walked over to the window. It was totally dark now. All Tracy could see was her own reflection. I look like a housewife, standing in her kitchen. This is ridiculous. I am a housewife, standing in her kitchen. Turning back to the two agents she said, “Look. I don’t know this woman. That’s the God’s honest truth. We’ve never met. Clearly she knows who I am. But that doesn’t mean the reverse is true.” Greg Walton leaned forward urgently. “Even if that’s true, Tracy. Even if it turns out you don’t know her, you can still help us.” “I don’t see how.” “You and Althea have a lot in common.” Tracy frowned. “How do you figure that?” “You’re both wealthy, independent women, with a background in computers, who’ve successfully evaded detection by the authorities in multiple countries. You both play by your own rules, conceal your identities, and rise to the top in what are traditionally all-male environments. You’re both risk takers.” “Not anymore,” Tracy said firmly. “My reckless days are over. She’s a terrorist, Mr. Walton.” “Greg.” “I’m a housewife.” “She knows you,” Walton insisted. “And at a minimum, you can help us understand her strategy, her MO. If we can predict her next move and identify her weaknesses, we stand a chance of stopping her. How is she slipping through the net? Who’s helping her? What would you do if you were in her shoes?” “I don’t know what I’d do.” Tracy’s frustration was mounting. “Group 99, Althea’s world, it’s a closed book to me.” “So let us open it.” Greg Walton’s tone was becoming more insistent. “We’ll brief you on Group 99, everything we know and British intelligence knows. Trust me, Tracy, if I weren’t certain you can help, I wouldn’t be here. The president himself asked us to approach you.” Tracy looked skeptical. “Really?” “President Havers would be happy to call you himself to confirm it,” Walton said, leaping on her hesitation. “Finding Althea and cutting Group 99 off at the knees is the White House’s top national security objective right now. Bar none. A call from the White House can be arranged if you’d like that.” Tracy ran her hands through her hair. “I’m sorry, Greg. I’m flattered, I really am. But if the president thinks I can help then I’m afraid he’s been seriously misinformed. I give you my word that if I think of any connection between myself and Althea, or any sort of lead you could use, I will pick up the phone. But I’m not coming to Langley. I have a son.” “I know,” Greg Walton sighed. “Nicholas.” “That’s right. The last time I left him, I almost didn’t make it back. I swore then, to him and to myself, that I would never put myself in harm’s way again.” “Not even for your country?” Tracy shook her head. “I love my country. But I love my son more.” She looked at her watch again. “And now, gentlemen, you’ll have to excuse me. It’s time for me to go pick him up.” Milton Buck got angrily to his feet. “You don’t get to call the shots here, Tracy. Do you think anybody cares about your soccer mom priorities, when Americans are out there being kidnapped and tortured and American companies are having billions of dollars wiped off their balance sheets? Who the hell do you think you are?” “That’s enough.” Greg Walton didn’t raise his voice, but the look on his face made it plain that he was livid with his colleague. “I apologize, Miss Whitney. We’re grateful to you for giving us your time.” He handed Tracy a card. “If you change your mind, or have any information or questions, please call me. Day or night. We’ll see ourselves out.” He walked to the door, with Milton Buck following like a sullen child. As they left, Tracy said, “I’m sorry.” Milton Buck waited till Greg Walton was out of earshot before hissing in Tracy’s ear. “You will be.” FOR FIVE MINUTES THE TWO MEN drove down the mountain road in stony silence. Then Greg Walton turned to Milton Buck. “Fix this,” he said. The avuncular tone he’d used with Tracy was gone now. The two short words dripped with menace. “How?” Buck asked. “That’s your problem. I don’t care how you do it, but you get Tracy Whitney to Langley or your career is over. Is that clear?” Milton Buck swallowed hard. “Crystal.” NICK AND TRACY SAT AT THE dinner table, watching a video on Nick’s phone. “That is awful,” Tracy said, tears of laughter streaming down her face. “I know,” Nick grinned. “I’m putting it on Vine.” “You are not,” Blake Carter said thunderously. “Give me that phone.” “What? No!” said Nick. “Come on, Blake. It’s funny. I’ll bet it goes viral.” “It’s disrespectful is what it is,” said Blake. Ignoring the boy’s protests, he took the phone and deleted the footage of the principal of the middle school glancing around what he clearly believed to be an empty corridor before farting loudly. “Mom!” Nick protested. Tracy shrugged, wiping away the tears of mirth. “Sorry, honey. Blake’s right. You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.” “Not ‘people,’” Blake corrected her. “Adults. Teachers, for crying out loud. In my day you’d have had a whip taken to ya for something like that.” “In your day they didn’t have phones,” said Nick, still angry. “Your idea of fun was hitting a ball on a string. You know what your problem is? You don’t know how to have fun.” “Nick!” said Tracy. “Apologize.” “Sorry.” The word dripped with sarcasm. “I’m going to my room.” Seconds later Nick’s bedroom door slammed. Blake looked at Tracy. “Why do you encourage him?” “Oh come on. It was funny.” “It was puerile.” “That’s because he’s a kid,” said Tracy. “You don’t always have to come on quite so ‘Sam Eagle’ about everything.” Blake looked hurt. “I’m not his friend, Tracy. I’m his parent.” Realizing what he’d just said, Blake blushed. “Well, I mean … you know … I’m …” “You’re his parent,” Tracy said seriously, laying a hand over Blake’s. “He’s lucky to have you. We both are.” Tracy felt tremendous love for Blake Carter. Pushing seventy now, the old cowboy had been a wonderful father figure to Nicholas and the dearest friend Tracy ever could have wished for. She knew that Blake loved her. He’d even proposed once, years ago. And though she couldn’t love him back in the same way, she absolutely considered him family. “Is something the matter, Tracy?” Blake asked her. “Besides Nick?” That was the other thing about Blake Carter. He saw right through her. Trying to hide things from Blake was like trying to hide them from God—a wasted effort. “I had a visit today,” Tracy told him. “From the FBI.” Blake Carter stiffened, like a deer sensing danger. “And the CIA,” Tracy added. “Together.” “What did they want?” Tracy told him. Not everything, but the bare bones of what had been said, as well as Greg Walton’s proposal that she fly to Langley. “What did you say?” Blake asked. “I said no, of course. I’ve never met this woman, I’m sure of it. And what I know about counterterrorism you could write on the back of a stamp.” “But these guys thought you could help?” Blake said gently. “Well, yes,” Tracy admitted. “They did. But they’re wrong. Don’t tell me you want me to go to Langley?” “Of course I don’t want you to go,” Blake’s voice grew gruff with emotion. “But maybe it’s not about what I want. Or what you want. These 99 people … they’re out of control. Someone needs to stand up to them. They’re against everything this country stands for. Everything America was built on.” “You see, there you go again,” Tracy said archly. “Sam Eagle.” “All’s I’m saying is, they need to be stopped. Don’t you agree?” “Of course I do,” snapped Tracy. “And they will be stopped. Just not by me. I’m not a spy, Blake. I have nothing to offer here. Heaven knows how this woman Althea knows about me, or why she mentioned my name. But now she’s got the FBI, the CIA and the White House convinced I have some sort of inside information, some magic power to find her and do their jobs for them. The whole thing’s ridiculous! I feel like Alice down the rabbit hole!” “OK, Tracy. Calm down.” “And even if it weren’t ridiculous, even if I could help, which I can’t— I’m not leaving Nick. Not ever.” “I understand that.” “Actually I don’t think you do.” There were tears in Tracy’s eyes now. She was angry and visibly upset, although whether it was with Blake Carter or herself she couldn’t have said. “I think you’d better go home, Blake.” The old cowboy raised an eyebrow. “OK. If that’s what you want.” Before Tracy could gather her thoughts, he’d picked up his hat and left. Tracy heard the sound of Blake’s truck pulling away, followed by a loud blaring of angry teenage music coming from Nick’s bedroom. Tired and miserable, she cleared away the plates and went to bed. TWO HOURS LATER, TRACY WAS STILL wide awake, staring at the ceiling. She thought about Blake. Why did he have to be so good, all the time? So damn selfless and upstanding and righteous? Didn’t he realize how annoying it was? She thought about Nicholas, and how like his father he was. Jeff would have laughed at the fart video. She tried to deny it to herself, but there were times when Tracy missed Jeff so badly it felt like a stone slab pressing on her heart. Finally, despite her efforts to shut them out, she thought about her two visitors today. The short, charming CIA chief, Greg Walton, with his earnest entreaties; and the bullying, hateful Milton Buck with his not-so-veiled threats. “I’m sorry.” “You will be.” Tracy hadn’t told Blake about that part. She hadn’t wanted to worry him. Blake didn’t know about the jewel heist Tracy had pulled off only a few years back in L.A., stealing the Brookstein emeralds from under the nose of her rival, Rebecca Mortimer. The FBI had made a deal after the Bible Killer case, promising Tracy immunity on that and a string of other crimes. Tracy had scratched their back, and they’d promised to scratch hers. But if Tracy knew one thing about Agent Milton Buck it was that the man had no scruples. He’d think nothing of reneging on their deal and sending her to jail if he thought it would advance his career. I’m not going back to jail, Tracy told herself. Not ever. Milton Buck wasn’t the only one with dangerous secrets up his sleeve. Blackmail, Tracy had learned long ago, was a two-player game, and Tracy had prepared her own next move long ago. If Buck tried to come after her over this Group 99 business, she’d be ready. Eventually, sleep began to come to her. As she sank into its embrace, floating in and out of consciousness, Tracy thought about Althea, this mysterious, murderous, wealthy woman that had the president of the United States and all his many minions clutching at straws. Who is she? Where is she? And how does she know my name? How had she gotten involved with Group 99? And was she the one responsible for turning them from an organization of peaceful, subversive, idealists into brutal terrorists, as bloodthirsty and ruthless as all the rest? Blake Carter’s words came back to her: It’s not about what I want, Tracy. Or what you want. These people need to be stopped. Exhausted, Tracy Whitney finally slept. CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_538d6753-714d-5c17-a011-47cabb9c875c) SALLY FAIERS WAITED PATIENTLY FOR THE four keys in front of her to merge into one so that she could unlock her front door. It would help if the door would stop swaying too. But after four large vodka and tonics, one couldn’t have everything. Sally’s flat was on Beaufort Street in Chelsea, one of hundreds in a typical, redbrick Victorian mansion block. By journalist standards it was nice place. Expensive part of London. Decent transport links. Not covered in mold. An award-winning columnist at The Times, Sally Faiers was at the top of her game but she would never earn a fortune. No one went into investigative journalism for the money. But Sally owned her own place, paid her own mortgage and even, when the situation demanded, bought her own vodka. At last, the key went in, so suddenly that Sally lurched forward, bumping her head painfully against the door. “Arse,” she grumbled under her breath. The four flights of stairs were a killer. She really must go to a gym sometime this century. Staggering, breathless, into her flat, she locked the door behind her and kicked off her heels. What a night! Sally had filed her latest story, an expos? of one of the top Catholic clerics in England colluding in a pedophile ring, at six o’clock and had gone straight to the nearest pub to celebrate. She was in between boyfriends at the moment, but had made do with snogging John Wheeler from the sports desk in the cab on her way home. She contemplated asking him in for a nightcap—word on the desk was John had the biggest dick in Wapping—but then she remembered what had happened the last time she had a one-night stand with someone at work. Will, the sexy intern on news. Poor Will had mooned over Sally for weeks afterwards, continually “dropping by” her desk for coffee when she was trying to write. In the end she’d had to have a word with the editor and get him transferred to obituaries. She still felt bad about it. Padding into the bathroom, Sally peeled off her dress and tights and turned on the shower, glancing at her reflection in the mirror before she stepped inside. At thirty-two Sally Faiers still had a good figure, despite her gym phobia, borderline alcoholism and generally dissolute lifestyle. Her waist was small, her boobs big and remarkably perky, and her long legs just the right amount of toned. She had a small, snub nose that she hated but that men inexplicably found sexy, pale gray eyes like morning mist, and a very wide mouth, that had been known to produce an astonishing number of swear words, curses and profanities, especially when its owner was under a deadline. She wore her blond hair in a blunt bob, and almost always dirty due to a chronic lack of both time and being arsed. The moment she opened the shower door, her phone rang. Sally groaned. Two in the fucking morning! It wasn’t unusual for her to receive calls at odd hours. But once a story was filed, there was usually a lull until her research began again. On this last story, some of the calls had been harrowing. Broken men, sobbing down the line to her as they recalled childhood abuse. Detachment was the one part of the journalist’s job that Sally had never been able to master. That, and an ability to ignore a ringing phone. Wrapping a towel around herself—Why? Nobody’s here?—she staggered back into the hallway and picked up. “Sally Faiers.” “Hello, gorgeous.” Sally’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. It was a bad line, but she’d know that voice anywhere, the deep, masculine, American voice that was part drawl, part growl. “Hunter.” Just saying his name was painful. “You’re alive, then.” “No need to sound so happy about it.” “I’m not happy about it. You’re a fucking arsehole.” “Now, that’s not kind. You know the only way I got through the last year was by imagining you naked, with those perfect legs of yours wrapped around my waist. Remember Stockholm?” “No,” said Sally. “The only way I got through the last year was by imagining you chained to a wall in some godforsaken Group 99 hideout with a pair of electrodes glued to your bollocks.” Hunter laughed. “I missed you.” “They let you go, then?” “Actually I escaped.” Now it was Sally’s turn to laugh. “Bullshit! You have about as many survival skills as a hedgehog trying to shuffle across the M40.” “I’ve improved.” Hunter sounded wounded. “I did have a little help from my fellow countrymen. At the beginning.” Through her drunken haze, Sally read through the lines. “You mean, you were there? In the Bratislava camp?” “I was there,” Hunter confirmed. “And they left you behind?” she asked, incredulous. “Not exactly,” Hunter admitted. “I made a run for it.” Sally slid down the wall and sat on the floor. “What? Why?” “It’s a long story.” A torrent of emotions rushed through her. The strongest was relief that Hunter was alive. He’d broken her heart into a million tiny pieces when he left her for that slut Fiona at the New York Times. But even Sally didn’t want to see pieces of his skull flying through the air like poor Bob Daley’s. Hot on the heels of relief was excitement. The whole world was out there looking for Hunter Drexel and speculating about his fate. And she, Sally Faiers, was on the phone with him, listening with him tell her that he’d run from his American rescuers—that President Havers’s statement had been an out-and-out lie! Talk about a scoop! Reaching up, she grabbed a pencil and pad from the hall table. “Where are you?” “Sorry,” said Hunter, sounding nothing of the sort. “Can’t tell you that.” “Give me a clue at least.” “And you can’t tell anyone about this phone call either.” Sally laughed. “Fuck off. This is front-page news. The minute you hang up I’m calling the news desk.” “Sally, I mean it, you can’t say anything.” Hunter’s voice was deadly serious all of a sudden. “If they find me they’ll kill me.” “If who finds you?” Sally asked. “Never mind that now,” Hunter cut her off. “I need you to do me a favor.” It was astonishing how quickly relief could turn to anger. “In what alternate universe would I do you a favor?” Sally asked. “I need you to do some digging for me,” Hunter said ignoring her. “You remember the Greek prince who was found strung up at Sandhurst?” “Sure. Achileas. The suicide. Hunter, you aren’t seriously telling me you’re working on a story right now? Because …” “I don’t think it was suicide,” Hunter interrupted her. “There’s a senior officer at Sandhurst, Major General Frank Dorrien. I need you to find out anything you can about him.” Sally paused. “You think this Dorrien guy murdered Prince Achileas of Greece? Are you on drugs?” “Just look into it,” Hunter said. “Please.” “Tell me where you are and I’ll think about it,” said Sally. “Thanks. You’re an angel.” “Hey, I didn’t say yes! Hunter?” “You’re breaking up.” He started making ridiculous, crackling noises down the phone. “I am not breaking up. Hunter! Don’t you dare hang up on me. I swear to God, if you hang up now I’m gonna call the CIA right this minute and tell them about this call. Every word. And then I’ll run the story in tomorrow’s Times.” “No you won’t,” said Hunter. He hung up. Sally Faiers sat naked in her hallway for a long time with the phone in her hand. “Fuck you, Hunter Drexel,” she said aloud. You ripped my heart out. You utterly betrayed me. And now you expect me to sit on the biggest story of my career, and quietly go out and do your dirty work for you on some wild-goose-chase, bullshit story at Sandhurst? “I’m not doing it,” Sally shouted down the empty hall of her flat. “Not this time.” But she already knew that she would. HUNTER HUNG UP THE PAY PHONE and stepped out into the howling wind. How he wished he were in London with Sally! Preferably in bed. He found himself getting hard at the thought of her. Those legs. Those phenomenal tits … What had possessed him to leave her in the first place? She’s right, he thought. I am an asshole. He looked around him miserably. Up and down the litter-strewn street, poorly dressed people dived into ugly concrete apartment buildings or offices or caf?s, anything to get out of the cold. The few poor souls forced to wait at bus stops huddled together miserably, like sheep en route to the abattoir, stomping their feet and smoking and clapping their gloved hands together repeatedly against the bitter weather. Romania was a beautiful country. But Oradea, the city where Hunter had spent the last three days, was a dump, full of abandoned, communist architecture and depressed, unemployed people. The hospitals were stuffed full of abandoned children, and filthy Roma families roamed the streets like animals, some of them actually sleeping on top of mounds of rubbish, left to rot or freeze or drink themselves to death. If Romania’s a supermodel, Hunter thought, Oradea is the pimple on her ass. There was none of the beauty of Transylvania here, none of the sophistication of Bucharest. No sign anywhere of the much talked about economic revival. Wherever Romania’s EU millions had been spent, it wasn’t here. Oradea felt like a forgotten city. But that made it perfect for Hunter Drexel. Right now Hunter needed to be forgotten. No one would look for him here. Not that there was no money to be found in Oradea. In the Old Town, along the banks of the Crisul Repede river, a few magnificent mansions, relics of the pre-communist days, had been reclaimed by wealthy private owners. Stuffed with fine art and priceless antiques, their formal gardens lined with lavender bushes and neatly clipped hedges, these homes glittered like stars in an otherwise pitch-black sky, sparkling incongruously like newly cut diamonds dropped in a pile of manure. Their owners were mostly native Romanians, gangsters, corrupt local government officials, and a smattering of legitimate businessmen, some returning to their hometown now after years of exile abroad. It was in one of these houses that Hunter was staying. Its owner, a property magnate by the name of Vasile Rinescu, was a keen poker player and a friend of sorts. “If you’re here to play, you’re welcome,” Vasile told Hunter, when the latter had arrived, shivering and desperate, on his doorstep. “I don’t know about blood, but poker is definitely thicker than water.” “Thank God for that,” said Hunter. “I’m hosting a game this Saturday as it happens. Some very interesting players. High stakes.” “Good,” Hunter said. “I need the money. I’m … in a bit of a tight spot right now.” Vasile laughed. “We may be a backwater, but we do watch the news here, my friend,” he told Hunter. “The whole world knows about your ‘tight spot.’” A look of panic crossed Hunter’s face. “Don’t worry.” Vasile clapped him on the back. “My friends are discreet. No one’s going to turn you over to the CIA, or Group 99. Unless of course you lose, and you can’t pay. In that case they’ll turn you over to the highest bidder.” “Right.” “Once they’ve finished torturing you.” “Gotcha.” Hunter grinned. “I guess I’d better not lose then.” “I would try very hard not to,” said Vasile. He wasn’t smiling. Hunter didn’t lose. After three days at Vasile’s, enjoying the first home-cooked meals and hot baths he’d had since he was kidnapped in Moscow, he’d managed to win enough money to fund at least another month on the run. Keeping one step ahead of the Americans, Hunter realized now, would be the easy part. It was Group 99 that worried him, in particular Apollo. The sadistic guard was bound to view Hunter’s escape as a personal humiliation, one that he would stop at nothing to avenge. If Hunter so much as glanced at a computer, Apollo would find him. That meant no emails, no credit card, no cell phone, no rented car, no flights, no electronically traceable presence of any kind. From now on, until his story was finished and in print all around the world, Hunter must live entirely under the radar. Luckily, poker provided the perfect opportunity to create this new, cash only, invisible version of himself. Poker players were natural secret keepers, with an inbuilt sense of loyalty towards each other. Through poker, Hunter had “friends” like Vasile Rinescu scattered all across Europe. He could flit from safe house to safe house, earning enough to live, and work on his story between games. Of course, without a computer or a phone, research would be tough. He couldn’t do this without Sally Faiers help. But he knew Sally would help him. She may not trust me as a man. But she trusts me as a journalist. She knows this is big. Once he’d published his story—once the truth, the whole truth about Group 99, was finally out there—he would turn himself in to the Americans. He’d have some explaining to do, of course. But then so would a lot of people. Wrapping his scarf tightly around the lower half of his face, Hunter headed across the bridge to the mansion. Vasile Rinescu had been a wonderful host, but his friends were getting tired of losing. Tomorrow Hunter would move on. CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_8bb311e5-7015-5a11-8d8e-22e6cfdff7fc) JEFF STEVENS EYED THE GIRL SITTING at the end of the bar. He was at Morton’s, an exclusive private members club in Mayfair, and he had just lost heavily at cards. But something about the way the lissome blonde returned his smile gave him the feeling that his luck was about to change. He ordered one glass of Dom P?rignon 2003 and one glass of Perrier and crossed the polished parquet floor to where she was perched, her endless legs dangling deliciously off the end of a taupe velvet barstool. She was in her early twenties, with high cheekbones and the sort of glowing skin that only youth could produce. If her silver dress got any shorter it would be in clear contravention of the sales descriptions act. In short, she was Jeff’s kind of girl. “Waiting for someone?” He handed her the flute of champagne. She hesitated for a moment, then accepted, locking her dark blue eyes on Jeff’s gray ones. “Not anymore. I’m Lianna.” “Jeff.” Jeff grinned, mentally calculating how many minutes of flirting he would have to put in here before he could take Lianna home with him. Hopefully no more than fifteen. One more drink. He had a big day ahead of him tomorrow. Jeff Stevens had been a con artist for as long as he could remember. He’d learned the basic skills of his trade as a boy at his Uncle Willie’s carnival, and they’d taken him all over the world, to places more dazzlingly glamorous and terrifyingly dangerous than the young Jeff had known existed. With his sharp, inventive mind, easy charm and devastating good looks, Jeff had quickly risen to the very top of his “profession.” He had stolen priceless paintings from world-famous art galleries, relieved heiresses of their diamonds and billionaire gangsters of their property portfolios. He’d pulled off jobs on the Orient Express, the QEII and Concorde, before that airliner’s tragic demise. Working with Tracy Whitney, in the heyday of his career, Jeff had pulled off some of the most audacious and brilliant heists ever accomplished in a string of cities across Europe, always targeting the greedy and corrupt, and always managing to stay one step ahead of the hapless police as they tried and failed to link him or Tracy to any crime. Those were happy days. The best days of his life, in many ways. And yet, Jeff reflected, he was happy now too. After losing Tracy for ten long years—after they married, Tracy suspected Jeff of having an affair, wrongly as it turned out, and disappeared off the face of the earth—they were now back in contact. Tracy had saved Jeff’s life a few years back, when a deranged former FBI agent named Daniel Cooper had tried to kill him. It was in the aftermath of that ordeal that Jeff learned he had a son, Nicholas. Unbeknownst to Jeff, Tracy had been pregnant when she took off and had raised the boy alone in Colorado, with the help of her ranch manager, a decent, sweet man named Blake Carter. Jeff had seen at once that Blake was effectively already a father to Nick, and a damn good one. He’d loved the boy enough not to try to change that. Tracy had introduced Jeff as an old friend, and in the intervening years Jeff had become a sort of unofficial godfather to his own son. Perhaps it was a strange arrangement. But it worked. Jeff adored Nick, but his life was way too crazy to provide a stable environment for a child, or teenager as Nick was now. This way they could be friends, and hang out and send each other stupid videos on Vine that Nick’s mother wouldn’t approve of. Jeff did want to visit the boy more. But he hoped, with time, Tracy would come around on that point. As for Tracy, the love between the two of them was still there, still as strong as ever. But she too had made a new life for herself, a peaceful, calm, contented life. For Jeff, the adrenaline rush of pulling off the perfect con remained irresistible. It was as much a part of him as his legs or his arms of his brain. Even so, he would have given it up for Tracy, as he did once before when they married. But as Tracy had said, “If you gave it up, Jeff, you wouldn’t be you. And it’s you I love.” So Jeff had returned to London and his old life. But this time it was different. Better. Now he knew that Tracy was alive. And not just alive but safe and happy. Even more wonderful, he had a son, a fabulous son. Nick became the purpose of everything now. Every job Jeff took, every penny he made, was for his boy. He gave up drinking, only gambled occasionally and started turning down any jobs he perceived as too high risk. It wasn’t just him anymore. Jeff could no longer afford to be so reckless. On the other hand, he thought, resting a hand on Lianna’s buttermilk thigh and feeling himself growing harder by the second, a man must have some pleasures in life. Jeff would never marry again. He would never love again, not after Tracy. But asking Jeff Stevens to forsake women would be like asking a whale to live without water, or commanding a sunflower to grow in the dark. Leaning forward, he was about to ask for the bill and bundle the lovely Lianna into a cab when a tall, thin, older man stepped angrily between them. “Who the hell are you?” the man asked, glaring at Jeff. “And what are you doing pawing my fianc?e?” Jeff raised an eyebrow at Lianna, who flashed him back an apologetic half smile. “Jeff Stevens.” He offered angry man his hand but was met by another withering glower. “She never mentioned she was … that you were, er … congratulations. When’s the big day, Mr. …?” “Klinnsman.” Jeff swallowed hard. Dean Klinnsman was probably the biggest property developer in London after the Candy brothers, and allegedly ran a sizable organized crime operation. He had a small army of Poles, building contractors by day, whom he used after hours as enforcers paying the kind of visit to Klinnsman’s enemies and business rivals that Jeff Stevens definitely did not want to receive. “A pleasure to meet you Mr. Klinnsman. I’ll be on my way.” “You do that.” Dropping a wad of fifties on the bar, Jeff practically ran for the door. “What was his name?” Dean Klinnsman growled at his young fianc?e, once Jeff had gone. “Madely,” the girl answered without blinking. “Max Madely. He’s here on vacation. Isn’t that right, James?” She looked at the barman, who went white with fear. “I believe so, madam.” “He lives in Miami,” the girl went on. “I think he makes, like, coffee machines. Or something.” “Hmmm,” Dean Klinnsman grunted. “I don’t want you talking to him again. Ever.” “Oh, Deano!” Lianna coiled herself around the famous developer like an oversexed snake. “You’re so jealous. He was only being friendly. Anyway, you needn’t worry. He flies back to the States tomorrow.” JEFF’S CAB RIDE HOME TOOK LONGER than it should have, thanks to the driver’s taking some stupid detour around the park. As they crawled past the grand, stucco-fronted houses of Belgravia, Jeff found himself tuning in to the talk show debate on the driver’s radio. Two men, both politicians, were arguing heatedly about Group 99 and the ongoing but so far fruitless search for both Captain Daley’s killer and the American hostage, Hunter Drexel. “It’s the Americans we should be blaming for this,” one of the men was insisting. “I mean, if you’re going to throw your weight around, trample international law and go guns-blazing into someone else’s country, the least you can do is A: make sure your hostage is actually there and B: shoot the right bloke when you arrive. Instead, we now have Daley’s killer on the loose, Hunter Drexel still being held somewhere, and a bunch of murdered teenagers lying in a Bratislavan morgue.” “They weren’t ‘murdered,’” his opponent shot back, apoplectic with rage. “They were military combatants, killed in action. Justified action I’d say, after what they did to Bob Daley. They were terrorists.” “They were kids! The fella who shot Bob Daley was a terrorist. But he’s not the one with a bullet in his skull, is he?” “They’re all part of the same group,” yelled his opponents. “They’re all responsible.” “Oh really? So are all Muslims responsible for ISIL?” “What? Of course not! The two situations are not even remotely similar.” “’Ere we are, mate.” To Jeff’s relief, he saw that the cabbie had finally reached his flat on Cheyne Walk. Tipping the man more than he deserved, Jeff stepped out into the cool night air. The breeze coming off the river, combined with the softly twinkling lights of Albert Bridge, soothed his nerves. Like many people in England Jeff was gripped by the twists and turns of the Group 99 affair. On the one hand he found the lazy, anti-Americanism expressed by the first politician on the radio show to be both insulting and wrongheaded. Jeff had lived in England long enough to know that if it had been the SAS going in to rescue a British hostage, they’d have been hailed as heroes and Bratislavan territorial integrity be damned. Then again, the SAS might not have made such a total balls up of the whole thing. On the other hand, there was a part of him that agreed with the first politician, when he characterized the men shot dead at the Bratislava camp as “kids.” Up until Daley’s slaying, Group 99 had never been violent, and were rarely if ever referred to as terrorists. Was everyone who had ever joined the organization now to be tarred with the same brush as the monster who shot Daley? Jeff Stevens knew he made an unlikely apologist for the Group 99ers. Back when it was trendy to admire them, Jeff had always found their politics crass and their so-called mission wildly insincere. These young men from Europe’s broken states might justify their actions under the banner of social justice. But from what Jeff could see, what really drove them was envy. Envy and anger and a growing sense of impotence, fueled by leftwing firebrands like Greece’s Elias Calles or Spain’s Lucas Colomar. Maybe Jeff was getting old. But in his day, the idea was to earn one’s wealth and then enjoy the hell out of it. True, Jeff had broken plenty of laws in his day. Technically, he supposed, he could be described as a thief. But he only ever stole from genuinely unpleasant people. And he did so at great personal risk to himself, boldly and daringly; not by sneaking into the back end of somebody’s computer system. To Jeff Stevens way of thinking, hackers were just a bunch of whining cowards who happened to be good at math. And as for targeting the fracking industry? Really! If there was one thing guaranteed to put Jeff’s back up it was a sanctimonious eco-bore. If Nicholas ever turned into one of those entitled, embittered little nerds, Jeff would die of shame. Not that that was likely to happen. Taking the lift up to his penthouse apartment, Jeff felt glad to be home. The vast lateral flat was his pride and joy. With its elegant sash windows, high ceilings, parquet floor and spectacular views across the river, it felt more like a museum than a private residence. Over the years Jeff had filled the place with priceless antiquities, treasures from his travels, both legally and illegally acquired. The shelves were crammed with everything from ancient Egyptian vases, to first edition Victorian novels, to mummified pygmy heads creepily pickled in jars. There were coins and statues, fossils and burial robes, fragments of arrowheads and an entire Nordic rune stone mounted on a plinth. There was no rhyme nor reason to Jeff’s collection, other than these were all unique items, things with a history that he loved. An ex-lover once suggested that Jeff surrounded himself with things to compensate for the lack of human closeness in his life, an observation that irritated him deeply. Probably because it was true. Or at least it had been, before he found Tracy again, and Nick came into his life. Wandering into the kitchen, Jeff slipped a Keurig coffee packet into the machine and walked out onto his terrace while it brewed. Since giving up drinking, coffee had replaced whiskey as his nighttime ritual. For some reason it never seemed to keep him awake, and childishly he enjoyed the gadgetiness of the new generation of coffeemakers, all the shiny chrome and buttons to press and the perfectly frothed milk. It was the week before Christmas, and London was in the grip of a cold snap that covered everything with a sparkling gray frost. There was no snow, yet, but the park still looked like a Victorian Christmas card, timeless and peaceful and lovely. Jeff had always loved Christmas. It made him feel like a kid again, dreaming of candy and presents with his nose pressed against the store windows. Then again, as Tracy used to remind him, Jeff had never really stopped being a kid. The only difference was that as an adult he’d exchanged gazing through store windows for breaking in through the roof. “You’ve become a permanent fixture on Santa’s naughty list,” she used to say. Smiling at the memory, and still half thinking about Nicholas—he missed him at Christmas more than usual—Jeff pulled out his phone and, on a whim, called Tracy’s number. Irritatingly it went to voicemail. “It’s me,” he said awkwardly. Jeff had never liked leaving messages. “Look, I really want to see Nick. I know we said to give it some time, but I want to come out there. It’s been too long and I … I miss him. Call me back, OK?” He hung up feeling annoyed with himself and went back inside to retrieve his coffee. He should have waited for Tracy to answer. Things always went better when they spoke in person. A loud buzz from the doorbell made him jump. Who the hell could that be at this time? Jeff’s stomach suddenly lurched. Surely not even Dean Klinnsman could have tracked him down that quickly. Or maybe he could. Someone at the club could have given him my address. It would only take a phone call. Jeff darted into his bedroom, unlocked the drawer on his bedside table and pulled out a handgun. Keeping his back to the walls, he edged towards the front door of the flat and peeped nervously through the spy hole. “Jesus,” he exhaled, opening the door. “You scared the crap out of me.” Lianna stood alone in the hallway, wrapped up in a dark gray cashmere coat and winter boots. “I thought it was your fianc?e. Or one of his henchmen. Come to finish me off.” “No,” Lianna smiled lasciviously. “Just me.” Undoing the belt of her coat she opened it slowly, her eyes never leaving Jeff’s. Other than the boots, she was completely, gloriously naked. “Where were we?” she asked, advancing towards Jeff like an Amazon goddess, her pupils dilating with lust. For the tiniest fraction of a second, Jeff thought about how very, very foolish he would be to sleep with Dean Klinnsman’s girlfriend. Then he grabbed Lianna around the waist with both hands and pulled her into the apartment. As long as Tracy Whitney was alive, Jeff Stevens’s heart was spoken for. The rest of his body, however, was quite another matter. CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_43b31f42-7b1c-50d3-a4a1-609c2e17792f) TRACY LOOKED AROUND THE FAMILIAR WALLS of David Hargreaves’s office. Christmas cards from staff and grateful former pupils covered every available surface. School would be out in a few days. If only Nick could have controlled himself a little longer, Tracy thought desperately She’d gotten to know the principal of Nick’s middle school almost as well as she’d known his elementary school head, Mrs. Jensen. Poor Mrs. Jensen. It was a wonder the woman wasn’t in a sanitarium somewhere, banging her head quietly against a padded wall, after everything Nicholas had put her through. “The thing is, Mrs. Schmidt, it’s not simply a question of money. What Nicholas did was a blatant act of disrespect.” Tracy nodded seriously and tried to rid her mind of the image of Mr. Hargreaves farting loudly into what he believed to be an empty corridor. Nick, seated beside his mother, adopted a hurt look. “What about artistic expression? Our teacher told us only last week that art knows no boundaries.” “Be quiet!” Tracy and Principal Hargreaves said in unison. Nick’s decision to break into the faculty recreation room after school hours and paint a series of cartoons on the walls, depicting various teachers in caricature, was likely to mark the end of his career at John Dee Middle School. He and an unnamed accomplice had painted the teachers engaging in different “humorous” situations (the mean, overweight math teacher, Mrs. Finch was re-imagined by Nick as a hot dog, lying in a bun and being squirted with ketchup by the football coach). As a piece of art it actually wasn’t bad. But as Principal Hargreaves said, that wasn’t the point. “I’ll talk to the board over the weekend,” the principal told Tracy. “But to be frank, I don’t see that we have much wiggle room here. Nicholas has had a lot of chances.” Principal Hargreaves didn’t want to lose the beautiful Mrs. Schmidt as a parent. Tracy’s son might be a tearaway, but she was a lovely woman. More importantly she’d donated very generously to the school over the years, and was offering to “more than compensate” for the damage Nick had caused to school property this time. But his hands were tied. Tracy said, “I know. And I appreciate your even discussing it. Please let the board know that I’m grateful.” After the meeting, Tracy waited till they were in the car and safely off campus before turning furiously on Nick. “I don’t understand you. You have to go to school, Nicholas. It’s the law. If they kick you out of here, you’ll just have to go somewhere else. Somewhere farther away, and stricter, where you don’t have any friends.” “You could homeschool me,” Nick suggested guilelessly. “That would be cool.” “Oh no.” Tracy shook her head. “There is zero chance of that happening, mister. I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.” Homeschooling Nicholas would be like trying to teach deportment to a newly captured chimpanzee. “I could send you to boarding school,” Tracy countered. “How about that?” Nick looked aghast. “You wouldn’t!” No, Tracy thought. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t live without you for one day. “I might.” “If you did I’d run away. Why do I need school anyway? Uncle Jeff left school at twelve. He learned all he needed to know on his Uncle Willie’s carnival.” “Uncle Jeff is not a good role model.” “Why not? He’s rich. He’s happy. He has a great business, traveling the world.” “That’s … not the point,” said Tracy, increasingly desperately. She didn’t want to talk about Jeff and his “great business.” “Well what about Blake?” said Nick. “He’s a good role model, isn’t he?” “Of course.” “Well he went to work on his daddy’s ranch when he was my age. Full-time.” They’d reached home now. It was still only lunchtime. Tracy debated sending Nick to his bedroom—minus his computer, phone and any other means of escape—but the thought of him stuck indoors all day, brooding, didn’t seem right. Instead, she sent him out with two of the hands to go and clear the snow drifts that had built up on the high pastures. “You want to work on a ranch full-time?” she told a stricken-looking Nick as she pushed him into the back of the truck. “You may as well get started now.” With any luck a few days of backache and chilblains would cure of him of that romantic notion at least. Still, Tracy wasn’t looking forward to explaining Nicholas’s latest shenanigans to Blake Carter. She could already hear the old cowboy’s “I told you so” ringing in her ears. “I TOLD YOU SO,” SAID BLAKE. “I’m sorry to say it, Tracy, but I did.” “You don’t look sorry to say it,” Tracy complained, handing him a bowl of steaming beef and vegetable soup. On stressful days, Tracy liked to destroy things in blenders. “I didn’t tell him to go in there and do those paintings, you know. He’s not a toy that I control.” “No,” agreed Blake. “He’s a boy that you influence. And you keep encouraging him to act out.” “I do not!” Tracy said furiously. “How did I encourage this?” “You told him the artwork was good.” “It was good.” “Tracy.” Blake frowned. “When Principal Hargreaves showed you the math lady in the hot dog bun, you laughed! Right in front of Nick! You told me that yourself.” Tracy shrugged helplessly. “I know. I shouldn’t have, but it was funny. Nick is funny, that’s the problem, Blake. And I love that about him.” The truth was that Tracy loved everything about her son. Every hair on his head, every smile, every frown. Becoming a mother had been the great miracle of her life. Creating Nicholas was the one, pure, wholly good thing she had ever done, untinged by regret, untouched by loss or pain. Whatever the boy’s faults, Tracy adored him unconditionally. “It was tough to keep a straight face in that office,” she admitted to Blake. “Every time I looked at Hargreaves I couldn’t stop thinking about the farting thing.” She started to giggle. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. Blake sat in stony silence as tears of mirth rolled down Tracy’s cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said eventually. “Are you?” Blake said sternly. “’Cause I don’t see it, Tracy. Do you want that boy to wind up like his father?” Tracy recoiled as if she’d been stung. Blake never brought up Nick’s parentage. Never, ever. He knew Jeff Stevens was Nick’s real father. Seeing the two of them together that time Jeff came to stay at the ranch had hardened Blake’s suspicions on that score into incontrovertible fact. But he’d never discussed it with Tracy. Never asked for any details or cast any judgments. Till now. To her surprise, Tracy found herself suddenly defensive of Jeff Stevens. “Do I want Nick to be funny, you mean? And charming and brave and a free spirit?” “No,” said Blake angrily. “That’s not what I mean. I mean do you want him to be a criminal, a liar and a thief? Because if you do, you’re going the right way about it.” Tracy pushed away her bowl and stood up, her eyes brimming with tears. “You know what, Blake? It doesn’t matter what I want, or what you want. Nick is like Jeff. He just is! You think you can lecture it out of him, or punish it out of him, but you can’t.” Blake stood up too. “Well, I can try. I’m gonna take him out for a meal tonight in town. Talk to him man to man. One of his parents needs to tell that boy the difference between right and wrong.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” Tracy shouted. Blake was already heading for the door. “You are so goddamned holier than thou, Blake Carter. Did you ever wonder why I’m your only friend? You’re not perfect, you know.” Blake kept walking. Tracy yelled after him. “If Nick’s a hoodlum, he’s a hoodlum you raised! Not Jeff Stevens. You! Take a look in the mirror you … hypocrite!” Blake shot her a look of real pain. Then he walked out, slamming the door behind him. FOR THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON Tracy caught up on paperwork. Then she cleaned the kitchen until every surface sparkled and reorganized the books in her library. Twice. Why did Blake have to be so judgmental? Worse than that, why did he always have to be right? Afternoon turned to evening, then to night. When the hands came back in from the fields, Nick wasn’t with them. “Mr. Carter came and picked him up,” one of the men told Tracy. “They were headed into town, I think. Did you want us to bring him back here, Ma’am?” “No, no. That’s OK,” Tracy said. “You go on home.” It was a bitterly cold night, not snowing, but with a wind blowing that could flay the skin from your bones like a razor blade. Usually Tracy loved nothing more than to curl up in front of the fire on a winter’s night like this, luxuriating in the warmth and savoring the precious hours alone with her book. But tonight she found she would read a page and take nothing in. She wandered into the kitchen to make herself some food, then found she wasn’t hungry. If Nick were here they’d have watched a show together—something mindless and funny like The Simpsons—but Tracy hated watching television alone. Eventually she gave in to her jitters and began pacing the room, going over and over the argument with Blake in her mind like a child stubbornly picking at a scab. I shouldn’t have called him a hypocrite. High-minded maybe. And rigid. But not a hypocrite. He’d looked so hurt when he walked out. That was the killer. Then again, Tracy had been hurt too. Did she really deserve to be punished for loving the free spirit in Nick? For finding him funny and charming, even when he was being exasperating? For being on his side? Tracy’s parents, both long dead, had always been on her side. Especially her father. Then again, as a child Tracy had never given them cause to worry. She’d never stepped out of line or been in trouble at school. I was the archetypal good girl. And look how my life turned out. For all Blake Carter or anyone else knew, Nick might grow up to be a missionary or an aid worker. Rebellious boy didn’t necessarily translate into rebellious man. Did it? Still, she shouldn’t have said what she said to Blake. She’d apologize as soon as he dropped Nick home. And thank him for tonight. Tracy looked at her watch. 10:15 P.M. They were very late. Most restaurants in Steamboat stopped serving at nine. Tracy pictured Blake ensconced in a booth somewhere, haranguing Nick about moral responsibility until the poor boy’s ears melted. I hope he’s OK. A banging on the front door broke her reverie. They’re back! Blake must have forgotten his key. Tracy flew to the door. Pulling it open, the first thing she noticed were the lights of the squad car, blinking blue and white in the darkness. Then she focused on the two cops standing in front of her. “Mrs. Schmidt?” “Yes,” Tracy said cautiously. One of the cops took off his hat. He gave Tracy a look that made her knees start to shake. “I’m afraid there’s been an accident.” No, there hasn’t. “It seems Mr. Carter ran his truck off the road up at Cross Creek.” No, he didn’t. He didn’t. Blake’s a very careful driver. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Schmidt, but I’m afraid he was killed instantly.” Tracy clutched the doorframe for support. “What about Nick? My son?” “Your son’s OK. He’s been taken to the hospital. Yampa Valley Medical Center.” Tracy’s legs gave way beneath her. Blake was dead—her Blake, her rock—but all she felt in that moment was relief. Nick was alive! It shamed her to admit it, but that was all that mattered. “He had to be cut out of the truck. But he was conscious going into the ambulance. We’ll take you to him now if you’d like?” Tracy nodded mutely. She started walking towards the squad car, stumbling through the snow like a zombie. “Do you have a coat, ma’am?” the cop asked. “It’s pretty cold out tonight.” But Tracy didn’t hear him, any more than she felt the cold. I’m coming Nick. I’m coming my darling. EVERYONE AT YAMPA VALLEY MEDICAL CENTER knew Tracy Schmidt. She was one of the hospital’s most generous local donors. A nurse led her to Nick’s room. To Tracy’s immense relief, he was awake. “Hi, Mom.” His face was bruised and his lower lip was trembling. Tracy wrapped her arms around him like she would never let go. He started to cry. “Blake’s dead.” “I know.” Tracy held him. “I know, my darling. Do you remember what happened?” “Not really,” he whimpered. “Blake thought someone was following us. A woman.” “What woman?” Tracy frowned. “Why would he think that?” “I don’t know. I didn’t really see her. But Blake was kind of distracted I guess. One minute we were driving and the next …” He started to cry. “Shhhh. It will be all right, Nicky. I promise.” Tracy stroked the back of his head. Beneath her palm she could feel a lump the size of a hen’s egg. Forcing herself not to panic, she asked, “Do you feel OK?” “Sort of. I feel dizzy. And super tired. The doctors ran some tests.” “OK,” Tracy said brightly. “You get some rest. I’ll track down that doctor and see what’s what.” Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/sidni-sheldon/sidney-sheldon-s-reckless/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.