Final Target

CHAPTER 32

T hey only had eyes for each other,” Mickey told Gage when he slid into the Volvo outside Heathrow Airport after his Swiss Air flight from Geneva. “Two could’ve followed them right into their Guernsey hotel room and they wouldn’t have seen her.”

“How’d they spend the day?”

“They got themselves a room at the Old Government House Hotel in St. Peter Port,” Mickey said, “then met with a lawyer at LaFleur amp; Sedgwick. They finished the day with a late dinner on the waterfront. Two said the owner greeted Matson like a regular and kissed the lovely Alla like she was his own daughter.”

“Trust me. He doesn’t want a daughter like her.”

“Oh no.” Mickey’s head swung toward Gage. “Don’t ruin an old man’s fantasy.”

“Her pop is a crime boss working out of Budapest. She may have fingered my friend and the Fitzhughs.”

Mickey sighed. “So the beauty is a beast.”

“That’s all the more reason Two has to stick with them.”

“She’s gotten the best training the British Army can provide. She’s like a chameleon. If she can’t, no one can.”

Gage spent the next morning in his hotel room reading and responding to e-mail updates from investigators in his office, all the while grateful that he’d been able to recruit men and women with the judgment both to manage their own investigations and to understand how much Gage needed to know in order to manage the firm.

When Mickey arrived for lunch, he reported that Two had followed Matson and Alla from Guernsey to Lugano.

“And get this,” Mickey said, as he held up his forkful of Mediterranean chicken in the Park Lane Brasserie. “Alla was using a Panamanian passport. Two saw it, but couldn’t see the name.”

“Which means she could evaporate any time.”

Mickey nodded, then washed the chicken down with a sip of beer. “What do you want to do this afternoon?”

“Research two UK companies. Why don’t you finish up here and I’ll get the information my office sent.”

Mickey grinned. “And the papers you stole from Fitzhugh’s house?”

Gage looked over and winked. “Those, too.”

By 4:40 P. M. the Companies House clerk was alternately glancing at the clock and at Gage. A few more minutes and she wouldn’t have to accept any more file requests, and could gather up her coat and purse in preparation for her escape from the fortresslike repository of the histories of the two million companies registered in the UK.

Preoccupied with the clock, she didn’t see Mickey sliding in just under the wire. “Thanks, darling,” he said, after she accepted the file request. He could see in her smile that she found him too cute to get annoyed at.

Mickey’s cell phone rang. He answered it, then walked over to where Gage sat before a monitor examining scanned corporate filings and financial statements. “Two has an update.”

Gage took the phone and stepped outside the building.

“I think I better break it off,” Two said. “I’ve been around them too long.”

“Where’d they go today?”

“They spent about a half hour at Banca Rober and about an hour at Barclays. Now it looks like they’re on the way to the airport. I’ll probably get burned if I follow them in. They had ‘good job, well done’ looks on their faces when they left the last meeting so they may be on their way back to London.”

At 8:30 P. M., Gage received a call from Hixon One at Gatwick. “The lovebirds have landed.”