Hostile Intent

Chapter Fifty-three

Emanuel Skorzeny drank deeply of the air. This was not his favorite part of France — except for the champagne, it was nobody’s — but if he closed his eyes and projected himself back a millennium, he could appreciate what its Cistercian founders might have seen in it. Troyes was the nearest town; Chaumont was closer, but there was nothing there. Paris itself lay 235 kilometers to the west/northwest. At the speeds Pilier drove, a little over two hours. It was close, it was convenient and, best of all, absolutely unfashionable. Especially his piece of it.

“Is everything ready?” he inquired of Pilier. Visits to the country needed to be set up in advance, even for him. There were security arrangements to be made, money that needed to change hands, preparations, especially when he was bringing guests.

“I think you will find the arrangements satisfactory, yes, sir,” he replied.

“That goes without saying,” said Skorzeny with some asperity. “Competence and trustworthiness. That’s what I pay all my people for.”

Not for the first time, Skorzeny wondered if he could trust M. Pilier. For one thing, the man had no taste in music. When Skorzeny requested that a private orchestra be prepared to perform a certain piece for strings alone, Pilier had looked at him in puzzlement. As if a cultured man could profess ignorance of such a masterpiece! And then he remembered that Pilier was of the younger generation, the postwar generation, the ones who had learned to despise their cultures, to hate their societies, to root for the man with the knife, even when the knife was at their throats.

The bomb throwers of 1968, of the May uprising that had toppled De Gaulle were, forty years on, the men and women who had been running the country for decades. Now aging themselves, they were long past the age where they qualified for the generous pensions and benefits of the welfare state they had, in part, created. Filled with self-loathing, obsessed by a “fairness” principle that could never be fully realized, they had turned France, and much of western Europe, into a land in which women declined the rigors and joys of childbirth in order to realize their potential as incomplete men. One generation and out — who knew it would be that easy? Two generations after the defeat of fascism, Europe had turned into a suicide cult.

Poor stewards of a thousand years of glory, it was time for them to go.

Although standing here, on a small hill above Vallée d’Absinthe, above the town where Bernard had built his great Abbey, he could still feel the resonance of what once had been. Bernard, who had preached his Crusade, founded the knights Templar, battled Abelard, suckled at the teat of the Blessed Virgin Mary herself and drank the holy breast milk, died and was buried, only to be exhumed after the dissolution of the monastery during the French Revolution and reinterred in Troyes Cathedral. A man who, like Skorzeny, had lived long enough to witness the death of his own civilization. Despite everything that separated them, his kith, his kin.

Here, in what the Romans called the clara vallis, the sheltered valley that had preserved the knowledge of the ancient world and had passed it on, from Bernard to St. Malachy, to the Irish monks and wandering scholars, to the goliards, the Minnesingers, the troubadours, to the emerging West, he felt right at home.

“Do you know how a parasite operates on the nervous system, Monsieur Pilier? How it destroys the organism benignly?”

Always with the questions. “Yes, sir. It’s a Trojan horse, a poisoned pawn, a triumph that turns to tragedy, a pleasure that turns to pain—”

Skorzeny clapped his hands together, like a child. “Indeed. It burrows, it wheedles, it infects. And every time its victim looks in the mirror, what does she see? That which she wants to see — herself, her former, beautiful self. Not the patch over her damaged eye. Not her inchoate rage against the man she cannot have. O don fatale!” He turned to Pilier. “You know the reference, of course?”

“Verdi, I believe, sir.”

“Don Carlos. Princess Eboli and the fatal gift which, as we might say today, keeps on giving.”

“Life is full of frustrations, sir,” said Pilier, noncommittally.

Skorzeny caught his tone, and its possible subtext. “Then let us take up our residency.” They got back into the Citroën limousine and moved off.

Skorzeny looked out the window as they approached the ancient building. “It’s magnificent, isn’t it?” he said.

From the outside, it was hard to imagine what it once had been: the ancient monastery of Clairvaux, dating back to the twelfth century. Today, it looked more like an eighteenth-century chateau, flying the Tricolor over the main entrance — a relict of the Enlightenment, concealing the bones of the civilization that had made it possible.

What would St. Bernard make of his Abbey today? Contemporary reports of the monastery back in the Middle Ages depicted a place of quiet contemplation, of living in harmony with nature. Scholarship and silence were the watchwords. For more than six hundred years, the Abbey had stood, its fortunes shifting with those of Christendom, until it was swamped by the rising tide of secularism and anticlericalism that culminated in the French Revolution. The monastery was closed, appropriated by the state, and fell into ruins, eventually to rise again.

But it wasn’t a chateau. And it was no longer an abbey.

“What of Miss Harrington?”

“In transit, sir.”

“You’re certain?”

Pilier hated to see the old man like this. Abject. Supplicative. Needy. It was his one weakness. She was his one weakness.

“She received your text message.”

“You’re sure she’s on her way. With the policy?”

“I see no reason to—”

“Do you think me a fool, Monsieur Pilier?” blurted Skorzeny, as they approached the massive fortress. The question was not entirely unexpected.

“If I may be so bold…yes, sir, I do.”

In the backseat, Skorzeny flinched. “May I ask why?”

“Because you don’t need her, sir,” replied Pilier. “She’s a destabilizing element. Something even you can’t control. You’ve always warned me against that sort of thing. Against that sort of woman.”

“We learn from our mistakes, Monsieur Pilier,” said Skorzeny with some asperity. Pilier realized that he might have gone too far.

“Here we are, sir,” said Pilier.

And there they were, passing through the barbed-wire fence and pulling up before the main gates. The perfect setting for his mood. The perfect setting for what was about to happen. The perfect refuge from the end of the world:

Clairvaux Prison.

Once a cell block, always a cell block.

The guard waved them through on sight. No matter how many times he was here, Pilier never got over an involuntary shudder. Clairvaux Prison was home to some of the toughest convicts in France. It had a high population of violent Muslim immigrants, who had gone from being warehoused in the Paris banlieues to being warehoused in the French penal system with nary a stop in between. It was home to murderers, rapists, armed robbers, the lot. Even terrorists; in fact, one very famous terrorist in particular.

Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez.

Skorzeny’s quarters, made in arrangement with the French government, were hidden away at the back of the complex. Here, he was as secure as the most high-security prisoner, fully protected from the outside world and from any malevolence it might want to visit upon him. But there was also a strange peacefulness about the place. His suite of rooms looked out at some of the ruins. Even across a distance of nearly a thousand years, he could see the outlines of what had once been the fish ponds, so important to a Cistercian monastery. The monks were great gardeners, great tillers of the soil, great husbanders of natural resources, great foresters. They were men of peace.

“And yet their Abbot preached the Second Crusade,” muttered Skorzeny, giving voice to his innermost thoughts as Pilier unpacked his things and laid them out on his bed.

The fact that Skorzeny kept secure quarters in a prison was not as fanciful as it might seem. Conscious of the abbey’s place in French history, the government was excavating and restoring the ruins of the old abbey, so there were nonprisoners living at the site. There was even a short concert series in the fall, at the Hostellerie des Dames, where the music included works by Mozart, Ravel, Debussy, and, of course, Messiaen.

“The musicians are ready?” asked Skorzeny, breaking the conversational silence.

“Everything awaits your presence.”

Skorzeny glanced at his watch. He was one of those men who still wore a watch. Pilier read his mind. “She’ll be here any—”

A soft buzz on the telephone. It was the guard at the front gate. Pilier put down the receiver and said, “She’s here.”

Skorzeny was still looking at his watch. Pilier waited a decent interval and then coughed quietly. “I said, Miss Harrington is here.”

“Excellent,” replied Skorzeny, although the tone of his voice signaled anything but pleasure. He tossed one more glance at his watch, as if calculating something. “Is everything in order?”

Pilier had no idea what he was talking about. “Yes, sir. The musicians—”

“I don’t mean the musicians. I mean the Clara Vallis.”

“On schedule, sir, with no trouble from the authorities. In fact, they’re being quite cooperative.”

The doorbell buzzed even more softly than the telephone. “I’ll get it,” said Skorzeny, moving with uncharacteristic swiftness toward the door.

Pilier had no fears for his boss’s safety; anybody who got this close had to pass three multiple layers of security, including a weapons check. Skorzeny opened the door. Framed in it was Amanda Harrington. Pilier had to admit she was a fine-looking specimen of womanhood. He could see, almost feel, what attracted Skorzeny so powerfully to her.

Standing next to her was a girl of about twelve. From the dull look in her eyes, Pilier could see that she was sedated. She held Amanda’s hand limply, like a rag doll. In return, Amanda was clutching the girl’s hand tightly in hers, as if she were afraid it would just slip away and never return.

“My dear Miss Harrington,” said Skorzeny, “may I say you look lovelier than ever.” His eyes fell upon the girl. “And this must be your charming daughter.” He leaned down a bit and looked the girl in the face. “What is your name, dear?” he asked.

If the child heard him, she showed no signs of it. In any other context, the silence might have been embarrassing, or at least awkward. Finally, Amanda jogged the girl a little. “Tell Mr. Skorzeny your name, darling,” she commanded, gently. “Go on.”

A small light came back in the girl’s eyes as she registered Amanda’s order. “Emma,” she said at last. “Emma Gard—”

“Emma Harrington,” corrected Amanda, who looked at Skorzeny. Neither of them had embraced, kissed or even shaken hands. “The adoption papers—”

Skorzeny motioned for Amanda and Emma to step inside. “Are in progress,” he said. “Isn’t that right, Monsieur Pilier?” Pilier had no idea what the old man was talking about, but pretended he did.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “In fact, I was in touch with our London solicitors earlier today and everything should be ready within…within a fortnight.”

“That’s too long,” said Amanda curtly.

“Would you like a drink?” asked Skorzeny, which was Pilier’s cue to head for the bar.

“Let’s get Emma to bed first,” she said. Skorzeny indicated one of the back bedrooms. Amanda swept Emma up in her arms and whisked her away.

“She seems agitated,” observed Skorzeny. “Perhaps with some reason.”

“What do you mean, ‘adoption papers,’ sir?” asked Pilier. “This is the first that I’ve…Who is the girl?”

“My insurance policy,” replied Skorzeny. “Against untoward events and harmful visitors. Now, please mix Miss Harrington her favorite martini, if you don’t mind.”

Pilier was shaking the martini when Amanda emerged from the bedroom. The look on her face was cold. “I’ve given her her medicine,” she said. “She should sleep for quite a while now. It’s been a long day.”

Amanda took the martini from Pilier without acknowledgment or thanks and downed it. “What the hell is going on?” she said, suddenly, angrily. “Why the urgent summons from London when you know perfectly well that I have work to do. Your work. For the Foundation. In the middle of an international crisis, I really don’t have the time for—”

Skorzeny cut her off. “Why don’t you shut up?” he said.

The brutality of his tone caught her by surprise. She was just wondering what it was all about when she felt the martini kick in. Except it wasn’t the martini, it was whatever Pilier had slipped into it. Some kind of drug. The glass slipped from her hand and shattered on the flagstone floor.

“That’s better,” said Skorzeny.

Pilier escorted Amanda to a chair and set her down into it. Her eyes were open, but she couldn’t move.

“You’re probably wondering what’s happening to you. Please, don’t be afraid. The condition is not permanent, and there is no lasting damage. You will find it hard to speak, so just nod your head to my questions and everything will be fine. Do you understand?”

Amanda nodded, almost imperceptibly, but it would have to do. She cursed herself for falling for it. Her suspicions had been right all along — the old man thought they were trying to kill him at the London Eye. And maybe Milverton was. She had nothing to do with that.

Then another thought hit her. Maybe Milverton had somehow planted the notion in Skorzeny’s mind that she wished him dead. That she was tired of his importunities, and would shed hardly a tear if something happened to him. That with Skorzeny dead, she, more than anybody except perhaps that creepy Pilier, would have access to all the money until the lawyers kicked in, by which time she could be long gone. After all, she’d got what she wanted out of the deal.

She’d finally got her child.

“Were you trying to kill me in London?” There it was. She shook her head, no.

“Don’t lie to me. I will have independent corroboration of everything I ask you, and if you lie to me, it will go very hard with you. Very hard, indeed. Do I make myself clear?”

She nodded.

“Very well, then, I repeat. Were you trying to kill me in London?”

There was no way to answer the question. If only she could say something. She tried to move her lips and tongue, but no sound came out. She hoped the desperation she was feeling was somehow reflected in her eyes, hoped that the old man would see the flash and understand, take pity on her. But she also knew that was a forlorn hope.

“Are you cheating on me? Having it off with Milverton, that rotter? Plotting against me?”

Amanda tried, but she couldn’t. Couldn’t move, couldn’t answer. Whatever fate he had in store for her, she had to accept it.

Skorzeny turned to Pilier. “I think we are ready for our concert now,” he said.

“Very well, sir.” He picked up the phone and spoke softly to someone. Amanda could hear his voice, barely, but couldn’t make out any words. “On their way,” said Pilier, hanging up.

Skorzeny looked at Amanda, sitting paralyzed in her chair. “The great composers,” he began. “How they reinforce our every emotion. Speak to places in the heart we did not know existed. That is the power of music.”

Workers poured in, setting up folding chairs in semicircles. They finished quickly. When everything was ready, about twenty musicians, both men and women, each attired in formal dress, entered and took their places: a string orchestra.

“What will replace our culture when it’s gone?” continued Skorzeny. Pilier got the sense he was speaking more to himself than anybody else at this point. “What will replace Michelangelo and Leonardo and Bach? The bray of Madonna or the wail of the muezzin?” He was lost in thought for a moment. “Better, perhaps, to end it all now, and spare us the agony of having to eat our own entrails as we die.” He turned to the orchestra. “You may begin.”

From the opening strains, Amanda knew what the piece was: Metamorphosis for Strings by Richard Strauss. A late work, one of his last, a threnody for the German civilization he and his music had once exemplified. It had all the glorious radiance of his early works, but none of their expansive joy. This was the work of an old man, composing his own funeral music. As if to underscore the point, near the end, he even quoted Beethoven’s funeral march from the “Eroica” Symphony.

It was music to accompany the end of the world.

The last mournful strains died away. There was no applause. As one, the musicians rose and filed out of the room. In her delirium, Amanda might have imagined that one of the violinists, a woman, gave her a searching, sympathetic look, but there was no way she could communicate with her. She could only hope.

They were alone. Skorzeny sat slumped in his chair, his mind still on the music.

Amanda’s mind was on the music as well, but in a different way. She had no doubt what was going to happen to her. She was never going to leave this horrible place alive, never going to realize her dream of taking her new daughter, who would learn to love her in time, and moving somewhere, anywhere, as long as it was far away. Never going to realize her dream of leaving Emanuel Skorzeny and all he represented far behind.

Amanda’s turmoil was invisible to Skorzeny. Not that he would have cared. He was long past caring.

“It was all so simple, until you…what is the word you young people use all the time…fucked it up. I do mean that literally. After all I did for you. Sacrificed for you. Risked for you.”

She twitched and tried to blink her eyes, to communicate in some way. It was no use. Her strength was failing her. Just when she needed it most.

“It’s over. Don’t you see? All of this. A cathedral turned into a prison. A culture turned into a cesspool. A continent into a sewer. An entire civilization into a souk. And so, rather than being pissed on…I piss on it. ‘I am become Death, destroyer of Worlds,’ as both Oppenheimer and the Bhagavad Gita famously said. I am the day after Trinity. And which of them was stronger — the Indian poet or the American scientist?”

She couldn’t even move her head to acknowledge the question.

“Once upon a time, I should have said the poet. That is how much I believed. That was how I was raised. With civilization failing and falling all around me, I still believed. Do you understand?

“But now, even I no longer believe. During the last century, Europe tried twice to commit suicide. Both times America saved it from its own worst instincts — the second time, just barely. We celebrated America for her selfless sacrifice. We created a worker’s paradise of ‘social democracy.’ Six weeks’ vacation, unlimited medical insurance, abortion on demand — why have children if they were going to interfere with your lifestyle? With the rights of women, Western society’s proudest achievement. Other cultures, lesser cultures, scorned us, laughed at us, and…”

He stopped, looked at her, then kissed her one last time. “They were right.” He fussed with something in his pocket. “What was it Louis XV said? Après moi, le deluge. Or was in Madame de Pompadour? No matter: the sentiment still obtains.”

Amanda tried to mouth some words. Skorzeny pretended to put his ear to her lips.

He had played his hand perfectly, calling forth the shade of someone he once thought dead, but knew in his heart had never died. His old friend and rival, Seelye, had covered his tracks very well. “Scrubbed” him, brilliantly.

Which is why everything he’d ordered Milverton to do had been leading to this very moment. Flushing the specter out from the shadows, whipsawing him around the Western world as he ratcheted up the stakes. Keeping him so involved in his own personal vendetta that he would never see the big strike coming. The one man he had to rid himself of, because in him Seelye had created the only person who could stop Skorzeny’s magnificent Götterdämmerung.

Amanda struggled mightily against her own body’s self-imposed bonds. There were so many things she had to say, so much to plead for, to live for. But she couldn’t even move a muscle. She realized it was useless. She stopped struggling. It was over.

“If only you hadn’t betrayed me. Did you not realize that my eyes and ears were everywhere? In your house, in your phones, inside his vaunted ranks of computers? I may be an old man, but certain principles never change. And spies are among the immutables.”

Her mouth managed to form the word, Why?

“I can understand him. He is a man, like me. He has the same desires that I do. The same lusts. A will to power. The will to live. But what, my dear, is your excuse?”

She tried to move her head, but she couldn’t.

“I should have thought better of a woman,” he said.

She didn’t know whether to believe him, that the effects would wear off. She didn’t know if she would ever wake up again, ever see Emma again. She felt herself slipping away…

When she was quite unconscious, Skorzeny signaled to Pilier. “Inform Mr. Ramirez Sanchez I will see him now,” he said.

Chapter Fifty-four

By the time he got to Camden Town, Devlin was as ready as he was ever going to be. CSS had few functional ops in Britain, but SAS and DoD communicated regularly. Devlin liked the SAS guys. They were tough. They were a throwback to the Brits of yore, the guys who set out to make the world England and damn near succeeded. There was, after all, something to be said in favor of an intact gene pool. When you kill off the best, the brightest, the bravest…and leave only the losers, the weak, the objectors, the physically and mentally unfit…well — what would Darwin say?

He checked his messages. Maryam was in place. His hunch, her research. She was a woman of many talents.

Once more, Devlin marveled at the chance that had brought them together. On the surface, she was just the kind of woman he should avoid, if not kill. Her fortuitous appearance in Paris when he was first stalking Milverton, her forbearance through the long silence that followed, her reappearance on the plane to Los Angeles…

And yet perhaps it was time for a play not in the playbook. Maybe it was time to trust your instincts instead of the probability charts. Whoever had sent her to Paris to track him, whatever the reason she had waited so long, however she had managed for their paths to cross again on the way to LA — it didn’t matter.

Could he trust her? Of course not.

Was he going to trust her? Absolutely.

Because, for once in his life, he was going to experience the joys of an absolutely unconditional relationship. Even if it cost him that life.

A “22” masquerading as a cabbie picked him up at Heathrow. The London weather was, as usual, miserable, cold, damp, and raw. “What’s the Bulgarian bride’s lucky number in Casablanca?” Devlin asked, leaning in the window, as if he were giving the driver his final destination.

“Twenty-two, black, gov’nor,” came the reply.

Devlin got in. “Louis,” he said, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“I know it is, sir,” said the cabbie. “I can feel it in me bones.”

“Damn right you can,” replied Devlin.

A Glock 31 with a 17-shot magazine was in the back of the cab. Enough to do the job, if he did it right. No knives, though. Oh well. He had the element of surprise and that, plus superior firepower, should be enough to take the job on.

Number 22 Buck Street was not the sort of place a tourist would stumble upon. It was a dead end between Camden High Street and Kentish Town Road, lined with ramshackle dwellings, some of which had been squatters’ dumps back in the 1970s, now rehabbed but still unstylish.

The driver dropped him off at the corner of the Camden High Street. A short walk.

Devlin pretended to pay him: twenty-two pounds, on the nose. The cabbie pretended to accept.

“Why?” said Devlin as the driver put the car in gear and made ready to drive off.

“Why not?” said the cabbie. “The malfeasance of one diminishes us all.” He smiled. “But the death of one…fuck ’im if he can’t take a joke.” And then he was gone.

The house wasn’t much to look at from the street, but that was what he would have expected. They were men who lived in the shadows, would always live in the shadows, and only briefly emerge into the sunlight. But this wasn’t going to be one of those times. This was the day that one of them would no longer see the sunlight, ever.

Devlin had retroplanned. What would he do in these circumstances? The FBI team had penetrated even his defenses, but that was thanks to Milverton’s man on the inside. He had nobody inside Milverton’s OODA loop. There was just one true thing he knew: Milverton was human. Devlin could take this guy out, if he was smart enough and strong enough and brave enough.

What was the attacker’s rule of thumb? Three-to-one odds. Overwhelming force, overwhelmingly applied. He was two guys short.

Too bad. One-on-one — plus the element of surprise — would have to do.

Not the basement: too easy. Not the skylight: too easy and too hard, simultaneously. Nor the windows. Assume everything rigged, first principles, what is the thing, in and of itself?

The front door. Easy in, easy out. Everybody had to eat, meet, greet. The safety of the antechamber was the most delusory safety on earth.

He was going to ring the doorbell and see what happened. First principles.

He rang it.

If he were Milverton, he would have been watching himself on the CCTV. Just another deliveryman, FedEx, DHL, the Royal Mail, whatever.

He rang it again. Tried to look ready for his close-up.

Still nothing.

He rang it a third time. The Glock was burning a hole in his pocket.

Footfalls, maybe. Steps, certainly.

The door started to open, slowly, cautiously.

Showtime.

This was the moment of maximum vulnerability. When Milverton most suspected whomever was at the door. When he was most ready.

The door opened. A crack—

And now they were face to face.

Milverton didn’t look so formidable in his knockabouts. Devlin’s hand stole toward one of his firearms, but Milverton just stood there in the doorway, no sign of alarm on his face, no sign of recognition either, just that same icy calm demeanor. Milverton’s hands were at his side, empty. This couldn’t be this easy—

The door opened wider.

“I’ve been expecting you,” said Milverton, “so why don’t you come in and we can get this over with?”

Devlin tensed—

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you on my own fucking doorstep. Just don’t make me stand here with the door open. Do you know what it costs to heat a house these days?”

Devlin stepped across the threshold and Milverton closed the door behind him.

The house was typical for this part of town: lived-in, comfortable, threadbare — the home of a careless intellectual or a Monty Python character.

“Drink?” asked Milverton.

“Little early for me, thanks,” replied Devlin.

“Then sit down and let’s talk, before we get down to business.”

Devlin took a seat on a well-sprung sofa. “It can’t be this easy,” he said.

“Of course it can,” replied Milverton, “when you want it to be.”

“But your own man gave you up. A fellow SAS officer.”

“Who still works with me from time to time. I sent him to pick you up.” Milverton smiled and Devlin could see the tips of his canines. “It’s nice to stay close to HQ, here in the old neighborhood.”

Devlin instinctively inventoried the weapons he had concealed on his person. Milverton picked it up at once. “Don’t worry, the Glock’s for real, and in good working order. I couldn’t very well invite you all the way across the Atlantic and into my home and not give you a sporting chance. Not after all we’ve been through together, now, could I?”

“What do you want?”

Milverton chuckled mirthlessly. Devlin could practically see the man’s scalp through his close-cropped blond hair as his head bobbed involuntarily. He thought about—

“Don’t even think about it,” said Milverton. “Even you aren’t that good. Neither of us is…you know, the thought just occurred to me, that we don’t know each other’s names. Our real names.”

“Guys like us don’t have real names,” said Devlin.

“Do you even know yours? No, let me rephrase that,” said Milverton. “As a wise man once said, it’s a wise man who knows who his father is.” He looked at Devlin directly. “What’s your wisdom quotient these days?”

“Fuck you.”

“Neither witty nor wise. But I assure you that there is a man on the Continent who would pay dearly for that information.”

“Emanuel Skorzeny.”

“That’s what most people call him, yes. But, as you just so brilliantly noted, blokes like us don’t have the luxury of real names. We’re shadow people, ‘little noted nor long remembered,’ as your Mr. Lincoln once said. But we do what we can. And, like everybody else, we try to save our sodding arses.”

“What do you want?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I want you. That’s why I invited you here. Fag?” Milverton held out an open packet of Players.

Devlin shook his head.

“I find it calms my nerves,” said Milverton, lighting up. “Nasty old habit I can’t seem to break.”

“Where’s the little girl? Emma? You took her, didn’t you?”

“You liked that bit with the chopper, did you? I was rather proud of that myself, although I was surprised you went for it so easily. Unworthy of you, really…”

“The little girl?”

“Oh, she’s quite safe. Better off than she ever would have been in that dreadful American burg.”

“Her mother wants her back.”

Milverton took a long drag on his cigarette. “I would say that’s up to you, now. Which is another one of your current disadvantages…Do you trust her?”

“Trust who? The kid?” Throughout their enforced conversation, Devlin had been sizing up Milverton’s own weaponry, which he had concealed on his person as skillfully as Devlin had concealed his hardware. He had also scoped out the internal security measures, the redundant systems. Basically, he was screwed.

“No, not Emma. The pretty little sand nigger I almost killed in Paris,” Milverton was saying. “The one who picked you up so inexpertly. That was when I realized that you weren’t as good as your reputation, and frankly, nothing you’ve done since has persuaded me otherwise.”

“Maybe today’s my lucky day.”

“I think not. You’re sure you don’t want a drink? I hate to imbibe alone. In fact, I insist.”

“Bottled beer, then.”

“Very good,” said Milverton, rising. “Please don’t get up — the motion sensors are activated, and…well, you know. That ‘X’tal vision’ really does work, doesn’t it?”

Devlin was trying to decide whether to call Milverton’s bluff as the SAS man returned bearing two bottles of Grolsch. “Don’t worry — one hundred percent purity guaranteed,” said Milverton as he returned. Nearly simultaneously, they each flipped the metal switch that popped open the sealed top of the beer bottles, which both, satisfyingly, whooshed. “Happy days,” said Milverton.

“How do you want to play this?” asked Devlin.

“Simple,” replied Milverton. “I want you to give yourself up. To give me everything I need to get Skorzeny off my back.”

“To sign my own death warrant.”

“That’s your problem. Frankly, I don’t care what happens to you. I still owe you for Paris, and I just know that you’re itching to find out which of us is better. That’s something I’d welcome too, but it hardly seems critical at the moment, does it?”

Milverton took another swig of beer. “At the end of the day, I’m a businessman, and right now I’m doing business with a very nasty man whose money and resources command a great deal of my respect. Still, I am eager to get this particular transaction over with, and what happens to my current employer after that…”

And then Milverton did something that caught Devlin completely by surprise: he gave him a sympathetic, man-to-man look, unaffected and unadorned. There was no fear in it, but there was some vulnerability. Imagine that, the “worst man in London,” vulnerable. Or at least honest. “In the end, we both want the same thing, don’t we?”

“A woman…” said Devlin. “And that’s why you’re offering me a deal.”

Milverton shook his head. “No. There’s no deal. It’s strictly take it or leave it. Skorzeny’s been looking for you for a long time, and my job is to deliver you to him.”

There was nothing to lose. “Where is he?” asked Devlin.

Milverton laughed. “He’s in France, at his ‘country house.’ You know what a history buff the old bugger is, and he’s taken it into his head that the safest and most discreet place for him to be at the moment is in the monastery of Clairvaux.”

“The Clara Vallis. Latin for Clairvaux. At least he hasn’t lost his famous sense of humor. You know, the one that nearly broke the Bank of England.” Devlin didn’t mention he’d already figured that out, and had acted accordingly.

Milverton flashed anger. “England is finished,” he barked, “and I’ll thank you not to rub it in…anyway, what happens after I deliver you to him is none of my business.”

“You mean, you don’t care if I kill him.”

“Shit, as they say, happens. I’m offering you a swap — your life for your country’s. If you refuse, I give you an EMP blast that will cripple your country for…for long enough for your enemies to finish you off.”

“What about the little girl?”

“Unfortunately, she’s not part of the transaction.”

“Then let’s get this over with, then,” said Devlin.

“Not until you answer my question,” replied Milverton. “Do you trust the bitch? I don’t see why you should. She was on to you in Paris before I was. She’s good. Very good.” Milverton took another swig of his beer. “You know, for a professional, you’re a bit of a nancy boy, emotionally speaking. You don’t even know her real name, do you?”

Devlin decided to ignore the question. In fact, come to think of it, he didn’t. “The bomb. The EMP. Launching it from a ship — on a weather balloon — on the open seas. That is very clever.”

Milverton laughed again, this time for real. “We try.” He rose, walked over to a desk, and opened the lid of a laptop. “No, don’t get up. It isn’t safe.”

The laptop sprang back to life. Milverton touched a few keys, then spoke into the laptop’s mic. “Whither away,” was all he said. Then he turned back to Devlin. “The Clara Vallis is still safely beyond American territorial waters, and the weather balloon is now well and truly launched. All that remains for me to do is arm the package and in a few hours an EMP blast will ripple across the eastern United States and that, as they say, will be that. Which is why my offer’s sell-by date is getting shorter by the minute.”

The room’s sensor controls, Devlin knew, would be on the laptop; he’d have to disable it to fight safely, but not destroy the hard drive…

“It’s showtime, O my brother. The pity is, we’ll neither of us ever get to know each other on, shall we say, a real first-name basis.” Milverton punched in the arming codes. The only way for Devlin now to stop the bomb was to get to that laptop, to force Milverton to give him the rollback codes. But first he had to disable it, to give himself freedom of movement. Right.

At that moment, Devlin’s phone rang.

He didn’t move, but only looked at Milverton, who nodded. “Maybe it’s your girlfriend.”

Carefully, Devlin pulled the BlackBerry out of his breast pocket. It was still ringing. “It’s her,” he said.

“Well, bloody talk to her,” urged Milverton. “Never let it be said that I was not enough of a gentleman to allow the condemned a last tender moment. Who Dares, Wins.”

Devlin pressed the Talk button, at the same time he hit the “Sym” key. “I’m having the nicest chat,” he said into the phone as he electronically swept the room. “I think a vacation in France would be lovely. Yes. Some historic little town tucked away in a valley where we can drink absinthe and make love….”

He was right: the motion sensors were being controlled from the laptop. Blind the laptop and he just might have a chance. Let’s see just how good he was.

Milverton laughed and signaled for him to wrap it up.

“Good-bye, Maryam,” he said. “Wish me luck.”

Milverton let out a chuckle. “Very touching. And now, for the last time, I ask, what is she to you?

Devlin realized he was serious. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Then you’re fooling yourself. She’s a dream, the dream of the prisoner in the condemned hold. You think that this time it’s going to be different, but when they string you up and drop the trap, you’ll realize as your neck snaps that it was all a fantasy. Blokes like us, we spend our lives not trusting anybody but ourselves and our weapons, and then some skirt comes along, the one with our name on her arse, and down we go. Happens to the best of us. And you and I…we are the best.”

Now or never.

Devlin leaped, rolled, firing four shots from the semiautomatic Glock as fast as he could. No time for niceties, just marksmanship. The laptop’s LCD screen shattered. He was that fast.

So was Milverton. The return fire nearly took his head off. Then the lights went out. That much he expected. The strobe light, he didn’t. Like a seventies’ disco, but brighter and more blinding. Illuminating the target, which was him.

He charged, hit the sofa, and flipped it over, ducking beneath it as the shots rained down. Mentally, he calculated the trajectory. Milverton was slightly above him, on a stairway, seizing the high ground, firing down. His temporary refuge was now a killing field. He had to get out of there.

Frontal assault. It was the only way.

He managed to get just enough purchase, just enough leverage, to shove the sofa in Milverton’s general direction. The motion caught his eye, then his aim, then his fire.

Big mistake.

The Glock still had plenty of ammo left.

The whirling strobe died first. Then he put a perfect multi-round shot group where his senses and his experience told him Milverton would be.

He was wrong. Milverton was that fast.

Milverton landed on him from behind, clawing, tearing, scratching. Devlin was knocked to the ground by the impetus.

Knives. He had none. And Milverton, he knew from experience, would have several. The first order of business was to protect himself. The killing thrust would come almost immediately. He rolled…

And took it right in the shoulder. Deep, slicing through the trapezius, the supraspinatus, and the head of the triceps. More than deep enough.

He was prepared for the pain. He welcomed it.

For it froze Milverton’s knife hand, just long enough…

He came up firing.

He could hear Milverton groan as his insides were shredded. It would take him an agonizing while to die.

Which meant he was more dangerous than ever.

No time to relax. Dead wasn’t dead until dead was dead.

He shot him again. He could hear the man’s agonized breathing, then a scrabbling as he moved, clawing his way toward something.

Toward the computer, its shattered screen casting off sparks. But it was still dangerous — as dangerous as Milverton.

In his pain, a vision of the dying FBI agent came to him. The woman, whose name he never knew and never would know, her face turned to his, her last question on her lips: “Who are you?”

Another unanswered question.

Ahead, he heard a crashing. Of things swept away, to the floor. Of desperation as Milverton lunged for the laptop. “You’re too late!” came the voice in the darkness. Big mistake.

His last shot followed the voice trail, striking Milverton square amidships. He fell.

Time to end this.

Devlin dove, landing hard on Milverton’s back, full force. He could hear the spine break.

“Get it over with,” said the paralyzed man lying beneath him. The pain must have been agonizing. Devlin could feel the involuntary twitching, as the body’s neuromuscular system shut down. It would not be long now.

“No luck,” he said. “I’m not that nice a guy.”

“Who are you?” begged Milverton, still clutching the laptop beneath him.

Devlin popped another clip into his weapon. “The codes. I need those codes.”

“Fuck you!”

“Not interested. You’re done. You’ve never done a single worthwhile thing in your whole life. Now’s a real good time to start.”

Whether he had touched his conscience or whether it was the beating of the wings of the Angel of Death, Milverton suddenly softened. “Trade,” said the dying man.

“Trade,” soothed Devlin.

“Save her…” Milverton released the laptop.

“If I can,” said Devlin, grabbing it. “The codes?”

The light was going out in Milverton’s eyes. “Bernard, Malachy…” he whispered. The pain must have been excruciating, but the SAS man was a tough guy to the end.

Devlin patched the laptop into his PDA and punched what had to be the codes: 1146–1139.

Bernard. Malachy. The years of the Second Crusade and the Malachy prophecies. Things that obviously meant something to Skorzeny. What the hell were they dealing with here? A madman, yes, but a special kind of madman. A madman whose battle was not with the world, but with God.

He had been right all along: the “terrorist” angle was just a smokescreen. St. Bernard, St. Malachy, the passage from Revelation that Milverton had quoted to the President…There was an apocalypse coming all right, but it didn’t have anything to do with the Hidden Imam or the Second Coming.

Milverton was telling the truth. The message flashed:

OVERRIDE SEQUENCE. ABORT Y/N?

He had time. Just enough time. He looked back at Milverton.

“Where is she? Where’s Emma?”

He could just barely hear the words. “With her.”

He took pity on him.

Devlin turned the sofa upright, lifted Milverton off the floor, and laid him down, gently, on the couch. “Die in bed, O my brother,” he said.

He tossed the flat, took everything that was useful, including the hard drive, set the charges — SAS could pick up the rubble later — and downed his beer.

There was a picture of a beautiful woman on Milverton’s desk. At last he understood what had happened to Emma.

He memorized the face and laid the picture over Milverton’s dead heart.

Chapter Fifty-five

Emanuel Skorzeny got into the elevator that would take him down to Level Seven, the most secure part of the prison. It was the French equivalent of the Supermax facility in Colorado, reserved for the most dangerous inmates in the country.

Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez, the notorious “Carlos the Jackal,” was lying across his bunk with his back to the cell door, smoking a cigarette. France having succumbed to the antismoking hysteria that had swept the West, it was against the law to smoke in any public building, which included the prisons. But when cigarettes were outlawed, only outlaws would have cigarettes, and Carlos was living proof of the proposition.

“What’s up, Manny?” Carlos asked him in English, without preamble. He still had a very strong and pronounced Latin American accent.

Skorzeny hated to start a conversation without preamble. And he really hated it when Carlos called him Manny. “How are you today, Monsieur Ramirez Sanchez?”

Carlos rolled over and deigned to look at him. It infuriated Skorzeny that he, one of the most powerful men in the world, had to take such insolence from a man like Ramirez Sanchez, but there it was. Luckily, this would be the last time he would have to spend in the man’s company. Even though they’d known each other for decades, they were business associates, not friends. “I don’t hear no noise.”

“This far underground, and this far away, I doubt that even your keen ears will pick up any sound. You’ll certainly hear the reports, however.”

“You’d be surprised what I can hear way down here,” said Carlos. “Anyway, I never had nothing against the Americans—”

“That’s because you’re a mercenary, not an ideologue. Even with a name like Ilyich.”

“I want to fuck up the Arabs. For what they did to me.”

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you kidnapped the OPEC delegates in Vienna. You made some powerful enemies back then.”

Carlos snorted and chain-lit another cigarette. “Look who’s talking. When word of this gets out, your life ain’t going to be worth jack shit.”

Skorzeny smiled. At last, he had this churl at a disadvantage. “Of course word is going to get out. It’s supposed to get out. It’s my ship. I learned a long time ago that it is far better to be feared than loved. And the increase in my investments—”

“Easy for you say,” said Carlos, looking bored. “Even if you richer than God, nobody fucking loves you. Don’t you know the old song? ‘Money can’t buy me love.’ I think that was the Beatles.”

Skorzeny was to remonstrate with this savage that somebody indeed did love him, that she was waiting for him, desiring him, lying in his bed right now…but this was no time to lose focus.

“Anyway,” continued Carlos. “There are plenty of Arabs in here. North Africans, Algerians. The place is filthy with them.”

Carlos rose and padded over to his crude shaving mirror. It wasn’t a real mirror, of course, not one made of glass. More like a reflective surface, embedded in the wall. He put his hand on it and pushed—

The sound of voices, wafting from somewhere. Spooky.

“This used to be the cellars of the old abbey. Where the monks could hide out, get drunk, fuck around, whatever. But they built it so they could hear what was goin’ on upstairs. ‘Whispering galleries’ or some shit like that. Amazing what those medieval guys could do with no electricity. You can hear a fish fart in the pond. Anyway, I pay off every month for the authorities to leave it alone.”

Skorzeny could hear the voices quite clearly now, rough voices speaking in French, Arabic, Urdu, Chinese, Vietnamese…the mother country’s violent progeny. “You’re a powerful man, Monsieur Ramirez Sanchez.”

“Yeah, well,” said Carlos, “look where it got me…. Anyway, what you want? I guess if you’re here, the shit really is about to hit the fan.”

Skorzeny wished he had some water in which to wash his hands. Just being near this man made him feel unclean. “I wanted to tell you”—here he was, off-balance again—“that it’s been a pleasure doing business with you. What we’ve done together, this day—”

“Or else you scared of something.”

Skorzeny despised it when anyone interrupted him, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. His power was useless here. “The only thing I fear is the beating of the wings of the Angel of Death, and I intend to postpone that as long as possible.”

Carlos sat back down and looked Skorzeny over. “Yeah, well, from the looks of you, that won’t be all that long. You still scared of that kid whose parents you killed. You and those Arabs.”

This was hitting uncomfortably close to home. “We all…took part in that conversation. You, me…the American.” Skorzeny was referring to Seelye.

“And that’s why he fucked you. ’Cause you fucked him. Everybody guilty, and everybody gotta pay. Way of the world. Me, I’m already doing it. You got a ways to go.”

Skorzeny tried to control his rising anger and anxiety. “You’re wrong. That boy is dead. If he wasn’t then, he is now. Our plan is going to work—”

“What’s in it for you? More money? Ain’t you got enough?”

“Revenge is what’s in it for me. And altruism.”

Carlos laughed in his face. “That’s a good one. You keep telling yourself that.”

“Euthanasia, then,” said Skorzeny. Why was he on the defensive?

“That’s a big word for murder, Manny.”

That did it. Skorzeny actually raised his voice: “How many times do I have to tell you—”

“What’you going to do about it, baby? Have me killed? One word from me and every porch monkey in this joint gonna be looking to fuck you up. So why don’t you shut up and listen for once in your sorry-ass life?”

This was getting out of hand. “Listen to what?” demanded Skorzeny. He had better things to do than to sit here and—

“Listen to this,” said Carlos, holding up a hand for silence.

The voices had stopped. That much he could tell. Skorzeny strained his ears, to pick up whatever it was that Carlos was hearing.

And then he heard it.

Thwack thwack thwack…It was like the beating of wings.

But it wasn’t angels. It was helicopters.

“I think you got company,” said Carlos, lying back down on his bunk. “It was a real pleasure doing business with you, Manny. Have a nice day.”

Chapter Fifty-six

“Eddie Bartlett” brought his MH-60/DAP Black Hawk down low and fast. The United States didn’t have bases in France any more, not since de Gaulle had withdrawn from NATO, but American ships still put into port in the south of France and so he had come aboard the USS Heliotrope near St. Paul-de-Vence, where the Black Hawk was gassed and good to go.

There was no flak over French air space. Not that he had expected actual gunfire, but usually the French got a serious wedgie whenever the Americans looked crossways at them. This must be a very special occasion.

He put the whirlybird down right on target, in the middle of the yard, which had been cleared in advance. God, it felt good to be flying one of these babies again.

He had two passengers: Hope and Rory Gardner. But he was thinking about Jade. She always wanted a helicopter ride. “When you’re all better, honey,” he thought to himself. Then the two of them would go up and spread Diane’s ashes over the Pacific.

There — there was the woman he’d been told look for. It had to be her. But who was that with her? A girl.

“Oh, my God!” screamed Hope. “Oh, my God. EMMA!”

The rotors were whirring for a fast take-off. The woman on the ground couldn’t hear her.

“It’s her! It’s Emma.” Hope threw her arms around Danny’s neck and hugged him. “You found her! You—”

A bullet smashed into the side of the Hawk.

Danny leaned out the side of the helicopter, motioning for them to run toward him. The girl started to run — unsteadily, groggily, but she was running.

Rory saw his sister. “Come on, Emma!” he shouted.

Several more bullets pierced the Black Hawk. Who was shooting at them?

“Get down!” shouted Danny.

“Come on, Emma!” shouted Rory again. This time, she might have heard the sound of her brother’s voice. She looked up. She stumbled and fell.

A bullet pinged off the main rotor. A sniper, for sure. But where was he?

“Emma!”

Rory jumped from the chopper and sprinted across the yard.

“Rory!” screamed Hope. Danny grabbed her before she too could jump. Then he reached for a weapon—

— a Brügger & Thomet TP-9 machine pistol. One of the ghetto gang-bangers’ machine pistols of choice. But unlike those clowns spray-painting the side of a Burger King in Baldwin Park, he knew how to use it.

Still, who was he supposed to shoot at? Danny scanned the yard. No guards to be seen.

WTF? Rory had stopped running.

He was gesturing, gesticulating. Not at anybody in particular, but at the heavens themselves.

“Come on!” he was shouting. “Shoot me! But let her go! She’s my sister!”

Rory was dead. That much Danny knew. The fatal shot would come any second now…

Nothing.

Emma staggered into her brother’s arms.

Nothing.

Danny made ready to take off. The rotors whirred faster now.

Besides, there was still that other woman on the ground. Who the hell was she? He was supposed to grab the kid and get the hell out of there as fast as possible.

Fuck that noise.

He didn’t want to take off. He wanted to fight. It was payback time.

The Brügger spat suppressing fire.

The Black Hawk started to rise.

Come on, kids, goddammit. Come on!

The first thing Skorzeny saw was Amanda, lying where he had left her.

But no Emma. No Pilier.

He was still standing there, in his private quarters, when he was hit from behind.

Punches, raining down, like the Lord’s burning wind. Two blows, one each, to the kidneys. Something cut his legs out from underneath him. Falling, he lashed out with a kick.

Another punch, this one more painful than the last. Skorzeny fumbled for one of his pockets. For the canister. He cracked it. A simple vial, like the vial they had given him when he was a child. In case the Russians caught him. Or the Americans. Death before dishonor. Meine Treue ist meine Ehre. My Faithfulness Is My Honor.

He managed to roll over as the capsule cracked. Struggled to his feet, a handkerchief over his mouth. He thought he could hear Carlos laughing at him, mocking him, from his cell in Hell.

The man fell back. His mouth, too, was covered. The cyanide had failed.

Only one chance now—

Rory and Emma ran for Danny’s chopper. And then the gunfire began again. Not directed at them. Directed at him. And this time, it meant business.

Smart, very smart. Wait for them all to get on board. Then take them out.

Too close quarters to use the Black Hawk’s armaments. This was supposed to be an in and out, only necessary force.

There — up on the roof. A big, powerful man with a very nasty looking gun. The Brügger & Thomet was not accurate at this distance. He had to get closer.

Danny turned to Hope—“Grab ’em and duck!” he shouted.

She reached…reached…

Emma first, tumbling into the spinning chopper. Rory still on the ground.

A round punched through the interior. Time for evasive action. Danny got the Hawk into the air.

“Rory!” screamed Hope. “You can’t leave him—”

Another round. This one just missed Hope as she leaned out.

Only one chance. Straight up, as fast as possible.

Hope grabbed Rory.

The next shot missed.

Hope and the kids were thrown to the floor of the helicopter by the G-forces.

Danny threw the bird into a controlled spiral. It would take an ace, a Tom Powers, to hit them now.

Hope threw up. Emma passed out. Rory whooped.

“Hang on!” shouted Danny, throttling back.

Suddenly, the Hawk dropped thirty feet. Danny pulled it out of its dive and rammed it forward.

The sniper was trying to reload. The Black Hawk was closing fast.

The sniper brought the barrel up. Danny was looking right down it.

Shit! He wasn’t going to make it.

Skorzeny slid across the floor. The rapidly dissipating gas cloud was between him. His hands fumbled for the release lever, just by the foot of the bed. This was going to hurt, and hurt bad, but at least he had a chance to survive.

He grasped the catch—

Something grabbed at his feet. He lost a shoe.

Skorzeny had to see. He turned. No doubt about it. It was him. The demon child he had sought so long, the one whose parents he had killed, the one whose presence he had sensed all these years, the one who, he knew, would someday try to take his revenge. The one man who posed him real danger. Seelye’s revenge.

“I am the Angel of Death,” said Devlin.

The slide opened. The old cistern, which he’d had retrofitted as an emergency escape hatch, yawned. He might break an arm, but the drop wouldn’t kill him. It was his only way out.

Half his body dove over the side. But the man’s iron grip still held him. “You’re ruined,” he said.

Skorzeny slid a little farther into the well.

“The EMP device has been neutralized. The Clara Vallis has been boarded. There’s not a country on earth that will harbor you now, you son of a bitch.”

Skorzeny wriggled, willing himself away from this monster — a monster he had in part created.

Danny yanked the Hawk to the left just in time. A bullet nicked the canopy and ricocheted off. If he was lucky, Danny would have just enough time to right the helicopter and get off a shot.

He jerked it back to the right. He could see the sniper now. He reached for the machine pistol.

Not enough time. Not enough time. Then—

The rifle dropped from the man’s hands. Wounded, the sniper screamed.

Another shot hit him. But he wouldn’t go down.

There — the other shooter. The woman.

Time to finish this.

Danny flew the Black Hawk up his ass.

The TP-9 spoke at nearly point blank range.

The sniper fell, bouncing off the roof and plunging to the courtyard below.

M. Pilier’s last thought, as he died, was that he finally was rid of Emanuel Skorzeny.

Skorzeny balanced on the precipice.

“Was all this just about money?” said the man, clutching him, clawing him, pulling him back. But the pain from the knife wound was too great. He was losing him.

“When everything else is gone,” gasped Skorzeny, kicking out one last time, and catching Devlin in his wounded shoulder, “what else is there?”

As Devlin winced in pain, Skorzeny broke free.

He plunged into the well, and vanished from sight.

Devlin watched the Black Hawk as it soared into the sky. Out the window he could see a broken body. The guards were already dragging it away.

He looked around the room. The richest man in the world, taking refuge in a cell.

In the end, what else was there?

Her voice, from the doorway. “Are you all right?”

He nodded. He was numb.

She rushed to him. “You’re bleeding.” She ripped away his shirt. He could feel himself fading. “Hold on, Frank,” she said.

“My name’s not Frank.” He managed to force a painful smile. “Who are you?”

“I’m your guardian angel,” she said.