An Affair of Vengeance (25 page)

“She sounds fascinating.”
She sounds too good for you
, Evangeline mused,
and headed for tragedy
.

“She was. And I fell in love with her so completely that I could not extricate myself. I was stubborn and refused to see that our worlds were too different for us to ever be together anywhere but in that coffee shop. Despite my growing sense of doom, we were married on a bright day in the fall. She was repelled at first when she realized how much money I had, but I assured her I gave my family most of what I earned, and that I only took money from
the Party. I found myself continually lying to her, but her eyes! Her eyes told me how clearly she saw through me. Like an eagle. A great, noble eagle, she was.”

Kral’s grip on Evangeline’s arm tightened. They proceeded into an open square flooded with morning sun. At the far corner sat a large wooden cart piled high with crates of fluffy, spun-wool roving, reams of spun fiber, and woven blankets. Bounty from the local land, she guessed, getting ready to head into town for tomorrow’s market.

“I couldn’t fool her, and I couldn’t save her,” he continued. “I was brash and stupid, two qualities I no longer allow in myself or in those who work for me.”

His whole face twitched violently.

She must have flinched, because he turned to her and smiled.

“Are you afraid of me, my dear?”

“Afraid?” she said, wondering what he wanted to hear. “Should I be?”

“Of course not. The only people who need fear me are those who have crossed me. You haven’t crossed me, have you?”

“No. I barely know you.”

“One doesn’t need to know a person to hurt them. Is that not true? Have you never been hurt from afar?”

A bird in a tree caught her eye, giving her a moment to think. She didn’t want to answer his question. She watched the bird, a little, brown thing, hop from branch to branch of an olive tree in the center of the courtyard.

“Lucky things, birds,” he said, following her line of sight. “How I envy their ability to fly away.”

“Me too.”

“My eagle—my Eliska—she could not fly away, not for all her strength. She was tethered to the earth by my love.”

“What happened to her?” They turned up an alley. The high stone wall of the fortress loomed at its end.

“Someone slit her throat. She bled out. Died painfully, I imagine.”

So stark was his revelation that she stumbled on her feet. Had he killed her? Or had she been another innocent bystander in his war? “I am so sorry,” she said, knowing what words were required at that moment. “Losing the one you love is among the worst tragedies I can imagine.”

“It is the worst. The very worst. Have you felt it?”

She swallowed hard. She didn’t think she could ignore this question, too. They passed an open doorway with no one inside. She wondered whether he was leading her back to the castle, or if he would shuttle her inside one of these buildings. She had an urge to be near McCrea again, despite all her tough talk of being comfortable on her own. She had been before, or at least she’d thought she’d been. But here, alone with Kral, she wanted backup. She wanted McCrea. Maybe she’d never be truly safe in this job, but with McCrea at her side, at least she felt like she wasn’t quite so alone.

“I have lost someone,” she answered.

“I suspected as much.”

“You did?”

“Yes. You’re too bright to be dating McCrea for, how shall I say it? Kicks? Getting back at Daddy, maybe?” He laughed, a chilling trill that ran goose bumps across her skin. “Not you. You’re looking for something to fill the void. McCrea is a powerful presence. He fills your void.”

“Maybe. Probably. I’m sure you’re right.” She quickened her pace as they neared the fortress wall. She wanted desperately to be inside again, to be anything but alone with this man.

“Whom did you lose, dear?” His hand on her arm pulled her back, slowed her down.

Her mind raced. Part of her wanted to tell him that she knew he had ordered her parents dead. The other part of her remembered McCrea insisting that she not press Kral. She’d waited
months for this moment, but now that it was here, she couldn’t take it, not if she wanted to escape with her life. Hamstrung, she lied, but made it something he couldn’t fact-check. “My dog.”

Kral stopped dead. “Dog?”

She nodded. “I had a dog when I was a kid. It died when I was in high school. Tore me up.”

His nostrils flared and eyes showed white. “You compare your dog to my Eliska?”

“No,” she said. “You did. You asked me who I’d lost. That’s my answer. I’m sorry you don’t like it.”

“I did ask. I just didn’t—” he said, thin lips trembling. “It’s no matter. We should head back. No sense in making McCrea worry needlessly over his dark flower.”

Alone in his room, McCrea’s worry for Evangeline’s safety irritated him like a mosquito bite: he knew he should leave it alone, but the more he tried to ignore it, the more it itched. She and Kral had left the compound on their morning stroll through the village not five minutes earlier. That left the perfect opportunity for McCrea to see what had captured Evangeline’s interest in the cellar last night, but he was driven to distraction by the crazy look he’d seen in Kral’s eyes at breakfast that morning. Kral clearly didn’t trust Evangeline, but there was nothing McCrea could do about it other than hope like hell that she could handle herself during his interrogation.

Handle herself? Ridiculous hope. What did he expect her to do if attacked, trapped as she was in a town patrolled by armed guards who’d shoot her at a flick of Kral’s finger?

No, if Kral wanted her dead, she was dead. There was nothing more to be done. He’d be smart to use his free time to his advantage. He owed her bravery that much. Besides, she’d kick him if he did nothing but fret while she put up with Kral’s one-on-one attention.

He left the room, checking out the pool as he walked to the stairs. Several lithe beauties frolicked amid the potted palms. Well, “frolicked” was an overstatement, but they certainly did lounge. Indolently, as though the sun and lack of nutritional sustenance had sapped their energy. Each had taut, well-oiled skin that shimmered bronze in the sunlight. Their fingers and toes glistened with perfectly applied nail polish. The women were uniformly motionless and difficult to tell apart, and with their eyes veiled by enormous sunglasses he couldn’t tell if they were awake or asleep.

They were naked, completely naked, but their exposed flesh didn’t grab his attention for long.

He trotted down the steps and into the courtyard. As yesterday, the men sat at the large poolside table and played poker with high denominations of euros. Pierre-Louis, Claude, and a man who must be Gaston had firm, hairy guts that spilled over the top of their tiny swim briefs. Jean-Marie, though, was impossibly thin and pale in his swimwear, and had a striped pattern of dark chest hair that made him look like a zebra. Each man smoked a cigar or hand-rolled cigarette. On the table, a nearly empty bottle of champagne sweated in a silver ice bucket.

“McCrea! Do join us. Jean-Marie has just taken all of our money,” called Claude.

“I highly doubt that.” McCrea walked closer to the table. “Can I get you anything from the wine cellar?”

Pierre-Louis smiled broadly. His teeth were white and straight but looked too hard, as if they were made of ceramic. Capped. “Please do. Something for a perfect summer afternoon,
s’il vous plaît
. Did you notice the naked women?”

“Hard to miss.” McCrea nodded at the men, who returned his gesture with smiles, before he walked to the staircase at the corner of the courtyard. His plan was to make it perfectly clear to all that he’d gone down to the basement. He’d hide his intentions in plain sight. So far, so good.

A cavernous chill swept up from the lower level as he neared the stairs. He resisted a shiver and jogged down. He hurried along the corridor until he faced the heavy wooden door of the wine room, and then entered and sneezed once, fiercely.

Burgundies, merlots, and cabernets crowded the first few rows. He ignored them, looking for something light. He found the whites and selected a recent vintage sauvignon blanc from the Loire Valley, a crisp, elegant wine that would go unappreciated by the drunken magnates in the courtyard. With the bottle tucked under one arm, he headed back to the door, but saw a small group of whiskies in the corner and had to stop. May as well grab one now, for he’d surely want it later. Quickly, he grabbed a moderatequality single malt that wouldn’t raise any eyebrows but would clear his head and satisfy at least one of his sensual longings. He had little hope of satisfying the other, at least not while he and Evangeline were on this mission. Afterward, perhaps…

He stopped himself from thinking further. There was no afterward, not for them. Not if she knew what was good for her.

With the two bottles in his left hand, he left the cellar, then paused and listened. He saw no one, but eyes were worse than useless in darkness—they were deceptive. He never relied on his vision in situations like this. Ears were much more reliable. But he heard no footsteps or voices, not even any breathing. He discerned that he was entirely alone in the dimly lit corridor.

So he turned to his right instead of heading back to the stairs and up to the courtyard beyond. His real destination, of course, was the storage room in which he’d found Evangeline the previous night. She’d found something interesting, and he was pretty sure it’d been in one of those big file cabinets.

His tiny lock pick, one of the few tools that he always had with him, made quick work of the door and he was inside in seconds. Newly airborne dust lent an abandoned feeling to the large room and he struggled not to sneeze again.

A shadowy space, but pale daylight coming in though a tiny window at the far side lit his way to the file cabinets well enough. Metal chilled his fingers as he pulled open a drawer. Hanging folders, lots of them, one for each month of the previous year. The next drawers were similarly arranged.

Which month would she have been most interested in?

The one in which her parents had been killed. December, almost eight years ago.

He found it and glanced through. A bill for electrical service for a warehouse in Arles. He memorized the address before looking at the next page. Shipping manifests for five tanks destined for Eritrea. Then a dry-cleaning receipt. Next, a memo requesting the transfer of two hundred assault rifles to someone in Afghanistan. Jumbled but fascinating stuff, especially when viewed as part of a pattern. If this was the sort of thing Evangeline found last night, he hoped she’d taken lots of pictures. No way either of them could risk stealing any paper. He felt gratitude for a partner with the forethought to hide a camera in her shoe and the courage to use it. He needed to talk to her, find out exactly what she’d taken photographs of. They might have enough evidence to cement a search warrant, which meant they could leave today, before their situation became untenable.

Satisfied, he flipped over the last few documents in the file, hardly looking at the contents, but stopped when he saw a familiar name written in a familiar hand.

His brother’s.

M
C
C
REA’S STOMACH CLENCHED
.

His brother’s signature marked the bottom of a transfer order for a small quantity of a powerful explosive called Semtex to that warehouse in Arles he’d seen mentioned elsewhere in the file.

Semtex. Bad stuff. But it was just a transfer.

He steeled himself for more malevolence as he flipped the page. The next document was a printout of an e-mail sent by Aaron to Krai. In it, Aaron described a “problem we cannot ignore any longer” that he would “take care of” during an upcoming trip to Arles.

Numbed, McCrea turned the e-mail over. Something was stapled to it: a big black-and-white photograph that captured the chaotic aftermath of an explosion in what looked like an outdoor market. French-language signs hung above the shops. The destruction appeared to center around the splintered remains of a small, dark car. The mouths of the onlookers were gaping in horror, clamped shut in shock, or wrenched askew in pain. Dozens were injured; some had lost limbs. Several bodies looked too bloodied to be alive any longer. If anyone had been inside that car when it had exploded, they were nowhere to be seen.