Hot Streak

CHAPTER 25

C eci had contacted his team by phone and passed on his orders in a cryptic code impenetrable to listeners. With the specialized surveillance equipment throughout the world, no one relayed sensitive information in open language. Everyone was listening to everyone else, the modern-day Maginot Line of self-defense encumbered by its own informational bulk, just as its predecessor was by its static concrete.

All the men collected from various points on the Mediterranean were to be in Paris in a week. There they would meet in a safe house near Orly and confirm the required procedures for kidnapping Count Fersten's daughter. Ceci was flying up with all the necessary bank account numbers to finance the venture. The men expected half-payment up front deposited in their Swiss accounts prior to the beginning of the mission.

Deraille had only to travel from Marseilles, so he had arrived first, followed by Reha from Athens. They were still waiting for Timur Makal, but he was always the last to arrive, loathe to leave his gambling and women. Since the deadline for their meeting was noon on Thursday, Kemal “Ceci” Kiray expected Timur to arrive just under the wire, as usual.

His entrance was as expected. At 11:45 there was a small flurry of flying gravel in the curved drive, and a black Porsche Targa came to an abrupt halt. A minute later, he stood in the drawing room doorway. “I drove all night from Vienna,” he said, and his eyes were dilated from the amphetamines in his blood. But he always appeared with a beaming smile, like an uncontrite young boy.

“Was she pleasant company?” he asked, indicating the peony pink lipstick stain on the coarse silk weave of Timur's putty-colored jacket.

“They're all pleasant company,” Timur replied with a negligent glance at the pastel souvenir of his beautiful companion. “If she hadn't been so pleasant, I wouldn't have been so late.”

“You're an irresponsible boy.”

“But a lot happier than you, eh, Ceci? And ready to fly you wherever you're off to.” He moved toward the liquor table to pour himself a drink, undeterred by Ceci's mild censure.

Both Deraille and Reha were familiar with Timur's nonchalance, though they were as different from him as day and night. Deraille was a small, dark Corsican who'd spent most of his life in Marseilles and was the very best in his line of work. He was a specialist in surveillance, and could reconnoiter the movements of an intelligence chief within the confines of his own safehouse. Rifat had first heard of him when the Cypriot Prelate had been assassinated in his isolated monastery cell. Bernard Deraille had found the way in. That job had taken him a methodical three months to reconnoiter… his longest ever. But the political ramifications of the murder were still being felt in Cypriot politics.

“Hey Deraille… killed any priests lately?” Timur inquired with another of his charming smiles, holding up a glass of the pear liquor he favored.

“I'm saving myself for the Pope, now that the Bulgarians botched the job,” he replied, his teeth flashing white against his swarthy skin.

“In that case, I won't bet a sou on the Pope's life. You're the best, Bernie.” And he drained the glass in one long swallow.

“I know,” the wiry Corsican replied matter-of-factly. He'd been the best for many years; false modesty did not figure prominently in his psyche.

“And Reha,” Timur went on lazily, setting his glass aside with precision. His finely tuned nervous system was singing. “I hear a prominent Athens shipping magnate died in his Mercedes outside a small taverna. Are the arms transfers out of Sofia finally cleared up?” Timur's smile was angelic.

Reha only grunted. He lacked a sense of humor and had never appreciated Timur's whimsy. A former Turkish olympic heavyweight wrestler, he'd been cashiered out of the army after breaking one too many heads, then saved from prison by Rifat. A brute of a man with no neck or remorse, he was Rifat's most dependable bodyguard and assassin.

Dropping into a tapestry armchair, Timur lounged, all dark-haired, dark-eyed, lean elegance. Contemplating Ceci over the hands propped idly under his chin, he said, “I suppose we gear up at the crack of dawn tomorrow.”

“You're restricted to the flat tonight,” Ceci replied. “Departure is 0500.”

Timur groaned. “You're a sadist, Ceci. Why can't we lift off at a respectable hour?”

“Because my dear Makal, there are fewer people around at 4:30 in the morning to see us load the necessary supplies on board.”

Timur sighed, his dark eyes half-lidded. “Where are we going?”

“Minneapolis.”

His eyes widened in inquiry. “Where?”

“A city in the center of the U.S.” And then Ceci laid out the details of the kidnapping.