Patriot

CHAPTER 21

The bedside telephone jangled.

Nell snapped awake, realizing she must have put her head down on the pillow next to Alexei. He was still sound asleep and snoring softly. She felt his forehead. No fever. She must have dozed off. She reached over and lifted the receiver to her ear.

“Nell Spooner.”

“Detective Harrison here, Sergeant. The lab came back with a positive hit on the sticks and—”

A dagger to the frontal lobe.

“Hold on, a positive hit?”

“I’m afraid so. Of the dozen sticks tested, ten tested negative. But two sticks showed minute traces of radioactive polonium-210. And the dosage is extremely low, almost undetectable.”

“Are you at the lab now, Detective?” Nell got to her feet, slipping back into her rain shoes and raincoat, cradling the phone with her shoulder. She hadn’t bothered to undress, knowing she might well be going out again. She looked out the window into the street. The Met’s medical response vehicle was idling at the curb, smoke curling from the exhaust. She could have Alexei at hospital in less than five minutes. “Are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m here,” the policeman said.

“Put the lab technician on the line, please.”

“Certainly.”

When the police tech picked up, Nell said, “I need to know one thing from you right now. Is this child in any danger, ANY danger, from radioactive poisoning based on your lab results? Do I need to get him to hospital right this second? I need an answer to that question, please.”

“Has there been any vomiting at all?”

“No, thank God.”

“That’s good. Primary symptom of radioactive poisoning. Although it’s not urgent, I think you should definitely take him to the hospital for observation immediately, Sergeant Spooner. But, at the very least I can assure you that he is not in any imminent danger. Based on the evidence, any amount he may have ingested would have been negligible.”

“What exactly did you find?”

“Traces of radioactive polonium-210. Minuscule traces that I almost missed. Any symptoms of minor radiation sickness he’s displaying now should begin to disappear within twenty-four to forty-eight hours. However, had you not discovered the presence of poison this early, it would have been very bad indeed.”

“How bad?”

“Assassination attempts involving polonium-210 usually begin with extremely low dosages like this and increase gradually over time until they reach a lethal level. In order to avoid detection of course. The Soviet dissident Litvinenko was a classic case in point. He didn’t learn of the presence of polonium in his body until it was too late. Polonium is an almost perfect poison from a sophisticated assassin’s point of view.”

“Is that it, then?”

“Your young charge has had a very close brush this evening. Do you have any idea at all who might be behind this?”

“I have a very good idea.”

“Well, then, good hunting, Sergeant.”

Half an hour later, Nell had checked Alexei into the Private Children’s Ward on the uppermost floor at St. John’s Hospital. A room at the end of a closed hallway. His vitals were good and the attending physician said he could probably be released the next afternoon. There were two discreetly armed policeman sitting in the hallway to either side of the door to the child’s room. No one was allowed into the hall except the night nurse.

“Is Daddy coming?” Alexei said.

“We’re going to see Daddy soon,” she said.

She bent to kiss Alexei on his forehead and left his room. The Rover was right where she’d left it at the hospital entrance.

“Home, Sergeant?” her Met driver said as she settled into the backseat of the black sedan. She was exhausted. She wanted nothing more than a few hours of sleep and a pot of steaming black coffee to get her moving next morning. At first light, she and the two armed detectives would drive to Hyde Park Zoo. There they would identify the man suspected of attempted murder and place him under arrest.

She yawned deeply and put her head back against the cushion. Could she even sleep on a night like this? She looked at the haggard reflection of her troubled eyes in the rearview mirror. There’d be no sleep for her this night. Not while the man who’d tried to kill her darling was out there somewhere.

She suddenly leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry. Change of plans. Do you mind taking me to my office? I’ve got some work to do, I’m afraid.”

“Scotland Yard, ma’am?”

“That would be lovely, thanks. The underground entrance in the parking garage if you don’t mind. Near the elevator.”

“No problem at all, ma’am.”

She sat back and gazed out the rain-streaked windows at the nearly empty streets. In two hours, dawn would begin to break over the ancient city. She couldn’t shake the feeling that only the purest of luck had saved her Alexei this night. A nightmare had saved him, not Nell Spooner. How long would their luck prevail? Could she beat these odds forever? Could Alexei?

She closed her eyes.

“Here we are, Sergeant,” the Met driver said and she realized they’d arrived at Scotland Yard.

“Oh, sorry. I must have dozed off.”

“Will there be anything else this evening? Shall I wait?”

“No, no. I’ll be fine. I’ll get a car from the motor pool if I need one. Thanks so much, officer. Deeply appreciated… good night.”

She climbed out of the rear of the car and headed for the elevator. After the warmth of the interior, the wet night air caught her full in the face, startling but refreshing.

Her troubled mind was suddenly pierced with a clarity that brought her life into sharp focus. She heard Alex Hawke’s voice in her head.

This will never stop, Nell. These old men in Moscow won’t quit until he’s dead. I’ll be next. But I won’t stop either. I’ll not sit and fret, waiting for the next attack. No. I will not stop moving. Not until I find them. And eliminate them. Because that is the only course of action that will end this nightmare of Alexei’s.

She stepped into the elevator and pressed her floor number.

The weariness was gone.

It had been replaced by an adrenaline shot of sheer determination.

Nell marched down the long corridor, opened the door to her tiny workstation, and booted up her Metropolitan Police computer.

She typed in: “City of London. Vendor licenses, current, Hyde Park Zoo.” She clicked “View” and isolated the ice cream vendors licensed to work in the park. It didn’t take her long. Her “snow king” spoke only in monotones to her, deep and guttural. It came to her now that he was hiding his tongue, not wanting to betray his origins. She remembered hearing him in Hyde Park one day… yes… He was Eastern European, she knew that.

Czech, maybe, Polish or Hungarian…, she thought, scrolling madly down the screen.

Or… Russian.

A name floated up at her and disappeared.

She knew that name.

A name she thought she’d heard during one of their brief exchanges as she paid for Alexei’s ice cream…

Her fingers flying on the keyboard, she retraced her steps.

There it was! She clicked on it, and his pathetic little file popped up.

Szell.

Jules Szell. Age seventy-five. Place of birth, Kiev. Emigrated to the U.K. from East Berlin in the late 1970s. Disgraced police officer. Political refugee from Soviet domination. Same address since arrival. No arrests. No political activity. A clean sheet.

The murdering bastard, yes, it had to be him.

There was an ID photo. Grainy black-and-white but it was him all right; Nell couldn’t see it in the photo but she knew he was hugely round, five and a half feet tall, with a head the size of a medium-sized melon. His long grey-flecked hair resembled a writhing mass of black snakes — no wonder this guy caused nightmares — and an involuntary droop of his lower lip showed the blackened teeth that had so repelled her that day in the park. In the photo his skin had the texture of dimpled whale hide and — enough.

She removed her iPad from her purse and took a picture of the screenshot. As a precaution, she wrote his address down in her notepad. He lived in Whitechapel, of course, that lovely neighborhood celebrated down through history as the former happy hunting ground of Jack the Ripper. It was not a place Nell would normally visit with the sun not yet up. She stood and gathered her belongings and went to the motor pool. She got an official vehicle checked out and picked up the keys from the desk sergeant.

Her favorite was available and she had grabbed it. A forest green MINI–Cooper S with the high-performance engine. A good steed. It suited her and made her feel better about where she was going and what she had to do when she got there.

She dug the ignition key out of her big leather handbag, inserted it, and twisted…

“Oh, come on!” she said under her breath as the MINI’s engine labored to start. She twisted the key again and again and on the third time, it finally caught. Thank you! She thought for a second of going back to the motor pool to switch out the MINI for something a bit more reliable, but there was no time.

She needed darkness for what she had to do.

And the sky was getting lighter in the east.