Wanted (21 page)

Jackal: ‘What’s the name of the first client I worked for you?’

A pause. One second, two . . . He watched the old speech bubble fade out next to Melville’s head. The Kid had not been involved in the close protection of a Hollywood actress who’d been receiving death threats, which had been Danny’s first assignment for Crane. But the real Crane would remember. He’d been meticulous with information from the start. Three seconds, four . . . His eyes flicked to the tiny log-out icon at the top of the screen, suddenly fearing this wasn’t Crane he was talking to, after all. But then a fresh speech bubble appeared and letters began to scroll.

Melville: ‘Janey Stempleton.’

Danny breathed out. It was the right answer. He should have felt relief, but a renewal of tension tingled through him. Because this answer was not in itself proof enough that this was Crane. Danny racked his brain.
Had
he ever told the Kid about the Stempleton assignment? He thought not, but could he bet his life on it? No. He might have made some flip comment. Or there might even be some record of it out there. Close protection was as competitive as any other industry. And with a client that famous, somewhere, somehow, his name and the actress’s might have been linked.

Jackal: ‘What date?’

He waited for a reply, but no speech bubble appeared to indicate that the real person behind the avatar was typing. Five seconds, six . . . He looked again to the door. As well as packing the car, he’d already memorized the route he’d take from here. Other than stopping to change the vehicle’s plates en route, in case anyone here had made a note of the current ones, he was confident he’d be able to get far enough away quickly enough to slip through any net that might be closing in.

A bubble formed, then came words:

Melville: ‘16 March.’

Danny’s mind raced. Could anyone other than the real Crane know that? Again, there was a remote possibility, but—

He watched more words scroll across Melville’s speech bubble, and with each new phrase, any doubts he had were finally erased.

Melville: ‘Fee: $60,000. Account fee paid into: CH9300762011623852957.’

Danny sincerely doubted anyone but Crane would have access to that information. And he remembered the fee because it had been his first as a freelancer. The account number was correct as well, the same account he’d always filtered his money from Crane through.

Jackal: ‘I’m innocent.’

Melville: ‘I believe you.’

Jackal: ‘The Kid was working with the mercenary group who did this. They in turn were working for the Georgian Secret Service. They framed the Russian Colonel Zykov as well as me for the assassination of the Georgian peace envoy, who’d been in London to protest to the United Nations Security Council about Russia’s continued occupation of the disputed border territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. They wanted Russia to get the public blame to renew pressure on them to return buffer.’

Melville: ‘Why did they frame you?’

Jackal: ‘Because they wanted to maximize publicity, international outrage and condemnation for what they’d done. They deliberately kept me just ahead of the police in London so that the whole world would watch the chase.’

Now was the time for Danny to tell Crane about what they’d made him do next: steal the locations for the smallpox vials from Colonel Zykov’s office in the Russian Embassy. But he said nothing.

Melville: ‘How is Lexie?’

Jackal: ‘Alive.’