Blood Pact (McGarvey) (24 page)

The doorman’s name was Henri, and face-to-face he didn’t look anywhere near as old as al-Rashid had guessed from a distance. He accepted a kiss on the cheek from Mme. Laurent, but didn’t ask why she’d returned, or who the man with her might be.

Al-Rashid got the feeling that the doorman’s eyes were on his back as he and Mme. Laurent went down the corridor to the rear apartment. But when he turned around as she was unlocking her door, the man was looking at something on the street.

Her garden apartment was small, but exquisitely furnished with what to al-Rashid’s eye looked like genuine antiques mostly from the Louis XIV period. At least one of the paintings on the wall was a Renoir and another in the corridor to the left was a Picasso—the only jarring note in the place other than an ultramodern and very expensive Bang & Olufsen flat-screen television and sophisticated sound system at one end of the living room. The garden courtyard was alive with flowers and small trees that looked almost like Bonsai. Herbs grew in a long planter box outside the kitchen door.

Mme. Laurent laid her purse and coat on the end of a couch and sat down. She took a cigarette from a silver box, and lit it with a matching lighter.

“So, Monsieur Gaulette, please tell me what this is all about. And forget the fiction that Madame Chatelet has my best interest in mind.”

“I think we need to telephone the vice mayor, have him come here. Tell him that it’s an emergency with his wife.”

“In that case the nursing home would be the one to call. It is Alzheimer’s.”

“I didn’t know,” al-Rashid said. It was sloppy on his part. “Then we will invent another fiction to get him here.”

“Perhaps I will tell him the truth. That a private detective has shown up to ask questions about a secret society of millionaires who have lost a document. And he has resorted to kidnapping his mistress.”

Al-Rashid went to the French doors and looked out at the garden. “Perhaps you should.” Even in the winter this would be a pleasant room. A porcelain fireplace in the corner opposite the television would be nice, especially at the holidays. He’d never had such a safe haven, and he’d never missed what he’d never had until now.

“He’s bound to ask if I am in any danger.”

“You are not.”

“But he’ll want to know about the document. You’ve said that you know where it is. He’ll definitely want me to tell him that part. He’s a very bright man, a careful man who does not make decisions quickly. Sometimes I find that trait in him charming, but at other times it’s irritating. Do you know what I mean, Monsieur—?”

Al-Rashid came to the realization that what had bothered him about her out on the street was a professionalism. She was no mere mistress, or city engineer. And when he turned he wasn’t surprised that she held a subcompact Glock 29 pistol in the 10 mm version pointed at him.

FORTY-FOUR

At All Saints, Dr. Franklin had been the first to show up, and after he’d made a quick examination of the four CIA officers dead in their beds on the third floor, and of Nurse Randall, Morris, Ellerin, and Kutschinski, he’d found the other two nurses frightened but unharmed and they’d taken María into the operating room.

Bill Callahan had arrived a couple of minutes before the cleanup and removal crew from the Company along with four babysitters from the Office of Security. All of it was low-key enough that none of the neighbors had any inkling that something unusual had happened while they’d slept.

The front gate had been closed and technicians had set up a temporary terminal to monitor and control the hospital’s security measures.

Deep in thought McGarvey stood at the front door looking out the windows at the street that was quiet for now.

Callahan had been on the phone for the past fifteen minutes mobilizing a special task force that would search for the priest. They were keeping the local cops out of it because some of them would almost certainly get killed if they came up against him.

“What’re the chances this guy will try to come after her again?” Callahan asked, hanging up his cell phone. “Tonight maybe?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” McGarvey said. He turned around. “That’s twice the son of a bitch has gotten past me. There won’t be a third time.”

“You think that he’s from the Vatican?” Callahan asked skeptically. He was a devout Catholic.

“Sacred Military Order of Malta.”

“That’s a myth.”

“Tell it to Nurse Randall, who was just trying to help save lives,” McGarvey said bitterly.

“If it’s true he’ll be able to go into any Catholic church or monastery anywhere in the world and be home free. We won’t be able to touch him.”

“Convenient, isn’t it? But it doesn’t apply to me.”

Callahan gave him an odd look. “No, I suppose it wouldn’t,” he said. “Do you believe in anything?”

The question hurt, but McGarvey understood it. “Yes,” he shot back. “Saving lives is more important to me than the sanctity of a church. And if there is a God I think He’d understand.”

“I’m in the same business, Mac. Always have been. But if this guy is as good as you say he is, he must have been trained somewhere.”

“The Hospitallers.”

“Leaving them aside for a moment, how about the military? You said he spoke with an Italian accent. Have you asked the Italian army for help? The Ninth Parachute Assault Regiment, for one. They’re like the British SAS. Could be this guy trained with them at one time.”

McGarvey had turned his cell phone back on a few minutes ago. He’d missed a call from Otto. He hit the callback number, and Otto answered on the first ring.

“Are you okay?”

“My ego is a little bruised, but he did a lot of damage here,” McGarvey said. “And this entire business is making less sense every step I take.” He briefly brought Otto up to speed.

“Why would he kill the four guys in their beds? At least one of them was critical. And what about the nurse? There was no reason for it, unless the guy is nuts.”

“Or dedicated,” McGarvey mumbled. He was missing something. They all were. “Bill Callahan is here, he wants to know if we could run a check with the Italian special forces, see if someone like this guy ever trained in the Ninth Parachute.”

“Checked them, along with the Fourth Alpine Parachutists, the 185th Recon Target Regiment, and their Navy and Air Force units, plus the Carabinieri special units and the State Police NOCS, their Central Security people. Some fairly close matches for size, but no one with that voice.”

“His voice wasn’t in any database.”

“You’d be surprised,
kemo sabe,
but I have a friend in Rome who owed me a favor. He’s got connections, and he won’t make anything of my request, even though he knows about the SMOM.”

“Why?”

“Official Rome is scared shitless of them. So goes the Vatican, so goes Italy. And the Malta order provides the muscle. All of it under the table.”

“Anything else?” McGarvey asked. He glanced over at Callahan, who had stepped aside and was talking on his cell phone.

“Could be he’s not coming back any time soon. I tracked a private jet from Sarasota to Reagan yesterday. Executive Charters International from London. No passenger manifest, but it filed a flight plan for San Juan, Puerto Rico, direct and took off sixty-five minutes ago, again with no passenger manifest other than the flight crew.”

“Did they list their names and nationalities?”

“Yes, all Brits. But the thing is the aircraft disappeared from radar fifteen minutes ago. No Mayday, no transponder codes.” The three emergency codes that a pilot could send from his aircraft included 7500, which meant the plane had been hijacked; 7600, which meant they’d lost communications abilities; and 7700, which meant an emergency—they were going down.

“No one’s looking for them.”

“They were outside U.S. airspace when they decided for whatever reason to change their flight plan. Happens all the time.”

Callahan was excited.

“He’s gone,” Otto said.

“I’m not so sure,” McGarvey said. “How’s Louise?”

“Believe it or not she wants to know how Colonel León is doing.”

“She’s in the operating room. Franklin came in.”

“I’ll let her know. In the meantime?”

“See what’s going on with the CNI, especially in Seville.”

“The West Indian Archives?”

“I don’t think that Dr. Vergilio told us the truth the last time. Could be we’ll have to pay her another visit.”

Otto chuckled. “Now why didn’t I think of that?” he asked. “I’m on it.”

McGarvey hung up.

“We found your blue Tahoe abandoned three blocks from here,” Callahan said. “A forensics team is on the way.”

“They won’t find anything. But in the meantime see if anyone’s reported a stolen car, or if any cabdriver has turned up missing this morning. I’ll be back in five.”

McGarvey walked to the emergency room and out the back way across the parking lot to the rear fence, which was tall and topped with sharp iron spikes at eight- or ten-inch intervals. Impossible to scale or leap over in the short time that Ellerin had been distracted from watching the rear monitors.

The recorders from all the surveillance cameras had been erased, though he suspected that given time Otto might be able to retrieve some of them. But this was the way the priest had come. A tall oak tree, its lower limbs pruned to within at least ten feet of the fence, was the nearest object. No ladders, no rope and grappling hook had been left behind. The priest had left through the front gate, and he certainly would not have run around back to retrieve any of that equipment.

He’d climbed the tree, no mean feat in itself, had crawled to the end of one of the branches, and when he’d seen the lights of the cab show up in front had leaped across ten feet of air, clearing the top spikes and landing within the compound.

The priest was impressive. McGarvey could think of no other term for the man’s athletic prowess, or for his stick-to-it attitude.

He would come back for María. Nothing could keep him away. Unless he wasn’t given the chance.

FORTY-FIVE

Al-Rashid sat down on a wingback chair, a heavy coffee table between him and the woman. He was seething that he had made such an elementary mistake about the vice mayor’s wife, but there’d been nothing in the media about her illness. Yet he should have picked up on the fact that nothing about her had appeared in the media over the past couple of years.

None of that showed on his face. He motioned to the cigarette box. “May I?”

“Yes,” Mme. Laurent said, her aim never wavering.

Al-Rashid got a cigarette, lit it, then sat back and crossed his legs. “It seems as if you and I are at an impasse now. You’re not about to shoot me, at least not yet, and I’m not about to leave until your lover shows up.”

“I will shoot you, though not at the moment,” she said. She was collected. Nothing was apparent on her features except for a slight interest, and a hint of amusement. “But tell me who you really are, and what your interest is in whatever society you think Robert is involved with.”

“It’s called the Voltaire Society and from what I’ve been able to learn it’s been in existence for a century and a half or more, though I’m not really sure what its purpose is.”

“Who are you?”

“I’ve been hired to find out about it.”

“Why?”

“My employer did not share that with me.”

“You’re lying, of course.”

Al-Rashid shrugged. “We all do from time to time. But now that I’m here it won’t do any harm to call the vice mayor. I won’t hurt him, I’m not armed, and in any case you have the advantage.”

“What makes you think that Robert is involved with the Society?”

“I spoke to a man last night who gave me his name. Under the circumstances I had placed him under he was in no position to lie to me.”

“I don’t believe you, and if you don’t start making sense I will shoot you as an intruder. And believe me, Monsieur Gaulette, or whatever your actual name is, I am a very good marksman.”

“I’m sure you are. He was a night watchman at a small office on the Rue Gaillon. I had been led to believe that it was the headquarters of the Society, and I went there to meet with Monsieur Petain, who I thought was a Voltaire. But he wasn’t there, and the office was a sham.”

“You killed him?”

“There was a scuffle, it was an accident. Believe me I don’t mean any harm. I just want some answers that I think the vice mayor has. And also believe me I wouldn’t dream of injuring him—I’d be a hunted man in all of France and I value my life more than that.”

“I won’t call him here.”

“Because you love him?”

Mme. Laurent inclined her head slightly.

“Then I have wasted my time this morning. I’ll have to find another way.” He started to rise, but she motioned for him to sit down.

“I will not ask him to walk into a trap, but perhaps I can exchange information if you agree to leave. I know about the Society. I’ve heard things. But believe me I will not hesitate to shoot.”

“You’ve already said that. But if you want a deal, then we can at least try. Tell me what you know about the group. For instance, who else is involved besides the vice mayor and Monsieur Petain, that man I was to meet?”

“First you tell me how you came to hear about it, and where you got the name Petain.”

“From a man who works in the Bernar Kantonal Bank,” al-Rashid said, and he watched for a reaction. “Do you know this name?”

Mme. Laurent’s lips pursed only slightly. “I’m not sure. But the point is how did you come to this particular man in this particular bank?”

“That I can’t say. Except that he was helpful. He led me to Petain and to the Paris office, and then to you through the vice mayor.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It was obvious at least to me that something was going on between you.”

She shook her head.

“From news photographs. You were practically grafted on to his hip in some of them. But I have only two questions for Monsieur Chatelet. What has been the purpose of the Voltaire Society?”

“To do good.”

Al-Rashid laughed, though it wasn’t the answer he’d expected. “Spare me. From what I understand a fair amount of money may be at stake if it involves a Swiss bank such as the Bernar Kantonal.”