Assassin

Chapter Thirty-Three

London

BODY OF LIES WAS THE HOTTEST TICKET IN LONDON. IF YOU could even get your hands on one, that is. The tabloids joked that the sizzling waiting list for tomorrow night’s gala premiere was so long some members of the Royal Family were embarrassingly midlist. Adverts for the latest epic spy flic were everywhere. Marketing declared war on every square inch of London. Space not plastered with Nick Hitchcock’s picture was space wasted. Airtime, radio or television without a mention of the “Sexiest Spy Alive” was precious time lost forever.

Marketing had spoken. Cry havoc, and let slip the hounds of publicity, they said. Legions went forth, and it seemed every corner of the capital was plastered with Ian Flynn’s cruelly handsome visage.

Looming above a rain-soaked Piccadilly Circus, a giant billboard cutout of a smirking Nick Hitchcock dominated the skyline. There was the prerequisite luscious babe on his left arm and a lethal-looking black automatic in his right hand. Every ten seconds, his gun emitted a loud pop, and a perfect round smoke ring wafted from the gun’s muzzle to be borne aloft high above the hurry of swirling umbrellas, the glistening red buses and gleaming black taxis. The sound effect of Nick’s gun, the Lies marketing gurus soon learned to their chagrin, unfortunately could be heard only in the quiet of the wee small hours, when the hooting armies of the night had tented down.

Francesca, emerging from a Soho theatre into a surging sea of paparazzi shouting her name, glanced up at her giant cardboard costar just as Nick’s gun went off. “Firing blanks,” she said to Lily and her director, Vittorio de Pinta.

Vittorio, who clearly had a lot more riding on this picture than she did, mainly his future, draped an arm around his star’s bare shoulders.

“Mi amore,” the handsome Italian said, smiling broadly for the flashing cameras, “Please do not behave this way. Be a good girl. Smile for the cameras.”

“What’s my motivation?” Francesca said.

“Money, darling.”

“She’s got a lot on her mind,” Lily said, casting a sidewise glance at Francesca.

Lily, for a time known as Monique Delacroix and formerly personal assistant to the late American ambassador Duke Merriman, had arrived from Paris earlier that week. With a variety of make-up, wigs, and sunglasses, she managed to make herself unrecognizable. Francesca had spent two days bringing her beautiful young protégée up to speed on the plot to kidnap an American ambassador. Francesca, along with Mustapha Ahmed al-Fazad, the mastermind behind many of the Emir’s most deadly attacks in Europe, the Philippines, and the Far East, had spent the last weeks in intense planning sessions in Francesca’s suite overlooking Hyde Park. The plans were now complete.

But it was Francesca and Lily who would ultimately be responsible for the success or failure of this most audacious action.

The next day, the day of the world premiere dawned bright and clear over London. But the luscious babe depicted on Hitchcock’s arm, the current rage of London, was clearly in a state of rage herself. She stormed about her rose-filled three-bedroom corner suite at the Dorchester, screaming at all of her handlers in general and one in particular. The new Hitchcock Girl had practically reduced Luigi Sant’Angelo, her wardrobe assistant on Lies, to tears.

“Non abbastanza petto! Desidero più petto!” she cried, yanking down the neckline of her yellow de la Renta and thrusting her breasts upward.

“Scusi, scusi, signorina, ma…” Luigi sputtered, cringing on the sofa with his legs tucked beneath him, “But you cannot show any more bosom, signorina. Not with this gown—”

“Sciocco! Fool! What did I tell you a thousand times, eh? Bosom, bosom, bosom!”

She plucked a few dozen long-stems from the nearest vase and flung them at the cowering creature. The man ran screaming from the room, hands flailing about his head like diving birds, tears pouring down his cheeks.

Francesca looked over at the dark-haired man sitting serenely in an armchair by the sunny window. He was scribbling furiously in a small notebook, intense, making sure he was getting all this. She went over to him and collapsed at his feet.

“Roberto, caro, do you think I was too mean to him?”

Bob Fiori was senior correspondent for Vanity Fair, the American magazine, which had exclusive rights to the London premiere of Body of Lies. He was working hard. The film and its star-studded premiere would be next month’s cover story. He looked up from his small spiral notebook, pushing his heavy black glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. He was one of the few men on earth capable of ignoring a direct question put to him by Francesca d’Agnelli.

“Roberto! Answer me!”

“Sorry, did you say something, Francesca?” Jonathan Decker said from behind his camera. He was the photographer covering the story. He was very happy about the stuff he’d just gotten, Luigi being attacked with roses.

“My God! Does no one around here listen to me?”

“Calm down, Francesca,” Fiori said. “Sorry, I didn’t hear what you said just now. I was concentrating on what you said before that.”

“I feel bad about Luigi.”

“Maybe you were a little mean. But you’re under a lot of stress. Tonight is a big night for you, dear Francesca. Here, have a glass of champagne.”

“I wouldn’t let my dog drink this piss the studio sends up. Will you be a darling and order me the Pol Roger or the Krug? Scusi, Roberto, you’re right, I’m just a wreck about tonight.”

“Darling, Jonathan and I went to the screening, remember? You’ve got nothing to worry about, I promise.”

“Nothing at all, baby,” Decker added, with the wry smile that was his trademark.

Of course, it wasn’t the movie she was worried about.

The London audience’s reaction to Body of Lies that evening at the Odeon in Mayfair was astonishing by any measure. The sexual frisson between Ian Flynn, the fifth actor to play Nick Hitchcock, and his latest Hitchcock Girl, as played by Italian bombshell Francesca d’Agnelli, was palpable. Riveting. You could, as one L.A. film critic said next morning, tongue firmly in cheek, “cut it with a knife.”

No Oscar nominations, certainly, but big box office, definitely.

Raed, the black-liveried chauffeur, who was in reality a heavily armed Syrian assassin Lily had organized for the evening, nosed the big silver Rolls up to the red carpet extending from the Park Lane entrance of the fabled Grovesnor House Hotel. This was the site of the international Body of Lies premiere gala now at full tilt in the Great Room, the largest ballroom in all Europe. There was a gaggle of jostling paparazzi and crush of screaming, cheering fans as Francesca exited the Rolls. In the life of most stars, it was a moment to be cherished. For Francesca it was merely necessary, a moment to be endured, a prelude to the evening’s true climax.

The international press was out in force. Mobile video units lined both the north and south sides of Park Lane and the airspace above the hotel was host to four of five helicopters, their pilots and cameramen all vying for the best angle to cover the arrival of the celebrities. Casting her eyes upwards, Francesca wondered how they managed to avoid each other. An air collision tonight would be a disaster in more ways than one.

Security, as she’d expected, was pervasive. Metal detectors at every conceivable entrance, names and pictures on every invitation, British and American security men with skinny ties talking to their lapels everywhere you looked. Francesca, Lily, and the slightly drunk director Vittorio, fully accredited, blew through without a problem, according to plan.

Entering the tightly packed and raucous ballroom, Francesca, with Lily in tow, moved with the confidence of a woman who knew she possessed more sheer wattage than any other woman in the room.

“Darling!” a famous American gossip columnist said, taking her arm, “I’ve just been with Steven. He thought you were brilliant! He wants to breakfast with you tomorrow morning in his suite at Claridge’s! Isn’t that fabulous?”

“Fabulous,” Francesca said. “Darling, have you met Lily? Wasn’t she enchanting as Nick’s secret paramour?”

Without waiting for a reply, Francesca left Lily with Liz and made her way though the press of bodies, dodging the flashing capped smiles and breezing past the wafting air kisses proffered by the botox brigade. She was looking for a man wearing a star sapphire ring on his left index finger. She didn’t know what he looked like, but she didn’t need to. He would recognize her. After tonight, the whole world would recognize her.

“Lovely ring,” she said. A bulky mustachioed man in a white silk Nehru jacket had smiled at her from his post at one of the many, many bars. This one was just to the right of a pair of French doors opening onto a small balconied terrace. Beyond the traffic of Park Lane, the heavy leafy green of Hyde Park lay under the dark summer sky.

“Thank you,” the dark man said, “I bought it in Cairo.”

“So he’s here,” Francesca replied, and motioned to him to follow her out to the terrace.

Lily found the photographer Jonathan Decker five minutes later, chatting up the Duke and Duchess of Somewhere.

“Oh, Johnnie,” she breathed, “May I steal you for a small tiny minute, s’il vous plaît?”

Decker turned away from the duchess and regarded the budding starlet with the towering, diamond-studded red hairdo and the neckline plunging due south. “Hey, baby,” he said.

“Johnnie?”

“Yes?”

“Was I good?”

“Phenomenal.”

“It was only the one line. Merde. Everything else, they cut me.”

“It was the delivery of that one line, baby, believe me. Sultry. You could feel the testosterone levels spiking all over the goddamn theatre. Say it for me.”

She smiled through pouted lips and repeated the line.

“I’ve been a naughty girl, Nicky.”

“Yeah, baby. Just like that.”

“I don’t know anybody here.”

“Count yourself lucky. I know everybody here.”

“Really? Who’s that?”

“Who’s who?”

“That tall one over there. The incredibly good-looking one with the curly black hair. He looks bored. I like that in a man.”

“Good eye, my dear girl. That is Alexander Hawke. One of the richest men in Britain, or so everybody says. He’s got a title, too, a good one. Not a ‘Your Grace’ or anything, but still. Christ, I hope I get old enough and rich enough to look down on new money some day.”

“My God. Beautiful. Is he married? Say no. Who is he talking to and why isn’t it me?”

“Want to meet him?”

Ten minutes later, Lily found herself alone with the most attractive man she’d ever seen. He asked her if she’d like to join him for a drink at the bar.

“I drink too much at these damn things,” he said, “Everything I say bores me to tears. I’m having a spot of rum, Goslings Black Seal. Bermudian. Quite good, if you’ve never tried it.”

“Just a glass of white wine would be fine.”

“Pisse-de-chat,” Hawke said, “Try the rum.”

“Oui, c’est bon. Merci.”

Hawke nodded at the barman who came right over and took the order. A minute later, the drinks arrived. He raised his glass to her and smiled.

“You look familiar. Are you?”

“Pardon?”

“You know my name, but I don’t know yours. Sorry, I didn’t stick around for all the closing credits.”

“Lily Delacroix, Monsieur Hawke, une plaisir.”

“Pleasure,” Hawke replied, and realized he had nothing to add. He looked around the massive room, having no idea where to take this. He was slightly amused with his situation. This little red-headed starlet wasn’t much over twenty, he was sure. What on earth was he thinking when he—

“I don’t know anyone here, I’m so sorry,” she finally said.

“Don’t be sorry. I’ll fill you in. That group over there, for instance. Finance men from the City. The fat one doing all the talking is Lord Mowbray. The others are Barings, Rothschild, Hambro. The one who’s laughing at whatever Mowbray just said is Oppenheimer. Diamond chap from South Africa. Throw in a couple of wealthy dukes and you’ve got the whole lot.”

“Merci.”

“Je vous en prie, mademoiselle.”

“You speak French.”

“Not if I can help it. There are one or two French idiomatic expressions I find amusing. A way of describing a woman with a figure like this latest Hitchcock Girl, for instance. Francesca something or other.”

“D’Agnelli. What is the expression, Monsieur Hawke?”

“Il y a du monde au balcon.”

“Everyone is seated in the balcony,” she said, laughing. “Big bosoms.”

“Precisely. Now, my dear girl, if you’ll excuse me, here comes young Tom Jefferson, an old American friend of mine. I must—”

“Hello, Hawke, old buddy. Helluva movie, wasn’t it? The boys loved it. And this pretty young lady was in it if I’m not mistaken. How do you do, I’m Patrick Kelly. What’s your name?”

“Back off, Brick. I saw her first. Don’t pay any attention to him, Lily, he’s married.”

“Bonsoir, monsieur l’Ambassadeur. I am Lily.”

“Now, how in God’s name do you all know what I do for a living?”

“Because my closest friend, she told me you might come tonight. I will tell you a secret. She hopes to get a chance to speak with you, monsieur, if you still remember her.”

“All right, now you’ve piqued my curiosity, mademoiselle. Who is this mystery woman?”

“Francesca d’Agnelli.”

“Francesca?” Brick said. “Good lord!”

“Leave me out of this,” Hawke said, and sipped his rum.

“Where is she? I’d love to say hello.” Brick said.

“She’ll be so happy. I just saw her walk out onto one of the balconies over there. For a cigarette, I’m sure.”

“Which one?”

“By that bar. Come along, I’ll take you to her.”

“Alex, you hold down the fort,” Kelly said. “Order me a Ketel One on the rocks with a twist. I’ll be right back.”