Rules of Vengeance

23

Hunched in the backseat of Colonel Charles Graves’s Rover, Jonathan watched as the country lanes of Hereford gave way to two-lane roads and the rolling hillocks yielded to asphalt plains. Finally they gained the M4 motorway and made a beeline for London. A police escort led the way lights flashing, siren muted. Another followed, practically riding their bumper. It was after six, but the fierce sun showed no signs of calming. Inside the car, the air conditioner blasted everyone with a torrent of humid, lukewarm air.

Technically Jonathan was a free man. Graves had said so, after all. But Jonathan had no illusions about the truth. He was a prisoner, and he would remain one until he brought them Emma’s head. If he dared think otherwise, all it took was a look at the uniformed policemen seated on either side of him or the electronic bracelet clamped around his left ankle.

“It’s a military model,” Graves had pointed out as he’d fixed it to Jonathan’s leg, purposefully notching it too tight. “We developed it for the bad boys in the tribal lands of Pakistan. Its signal can pinpoint you to within a meter of your position, no matter where you stand on God’s green earth. And if you try to take it off, it’ll snap your leg in two.”

At that, Graves had chuckled, but his eyes left Jonathan wondering whether he was joking or not.

The interrogation had begun in the hospital and continued as he’d had his skull X-rayed for a possible fracture or concussion (none), while he’d changed back into his street clothes, and up to the present moment. Graves and Ford rode up front and took turns peppering him with questions. What time had he gone to the cocktail party? When did the fake Blackburn make contact? Had Jonathan ever seen him before? (And here Graves was quick to insist that meant as long as he’d been with Emma.) What route did Jonathan take from the Dorchester to the tube? What was the address of the flat he visited on Edgware Road? Did he see anyone else before Emma arrived? What kind of car did she use to drive him back to the hotel? And, most important, did Jonathan have any clue whom Emma might be working for?

Jonathan spat out the answers dutifully but as the questions began to encroach on more private matters, he grew wary. Where did Emma grow up? Were her parents living? If so, where? And what about her schooling? Did she have friends in London? For these were matters that even he was unsure of.

Until five months earlier, he’d thought she’d been born and raised in Penzance, at the southwestern tip of England, and was a graduate of Brasenose College, Oxford. A richly embroidered childhood history fell in between, replete with loyal dogs, skinned elbows, deceased parents, and even a wayward older sister named Bea whom Jonathan had actually met on three occasions. All of which was a complete and utter fabrication. A Gobelin tapestry of falsehoods. A Potemkin life.

Emma hadn’t been born in Penzance but in Hoboken, New Jersey. Her father was not a schoolteacher who had perished in a fiery car crash but a colonel in the United States Air Force who had dropped dead of a heart attack at fifty. Her impeccable English accent came from the eight years her father had been stationed at Lakenheath Air Base in Suffolk. As for college, she’d managed three years at Long Beach State in California, which was about as far away from Oxford as you could get, both literally and figuratively. Her real name wasn’t even Emma, even though she’d decided to keep it because it was how Jonathan thought of her.

Still, he did his best to answer. He gave them what he knew, even if he knew it was incorrect.

But even as Jonathan complied, he was conducting his own private interrogation. He harbored no doubt about Emma’s fate should he succeed in finding her. In short order, she would be questioned by MI5, turned over to Division (in the guise of the CIA, the DIA, or any other overt intelligence agency), questioned again, and then “disappeared.” “Disappeared,” meaning shot, hanged, or, as Graves had so eloquently put it earlier, “drawn and quartered and left for the crows.” If Division had wanted Emma dead before, they’d be twice as firm in their intentions after the attempt on Igor Ivanov. There were only two sides in this game. If Emma wasn’t working for them, she was working for the enemy.

Outside, the sights grew familiar as they reentered London. They drove past the Victoria and Albert Museum and Harrods before making the turn onto Park Lane.

Despite the lies that had gone before, the dissembling and the duplicity, Jonathan knew that he still loved Emma. They had had eight years together. He believed that for the most part the woman with whom he’d shared his life and his love had reciprocated his feelings. He had no proof. Just his heart. In the end, that’s all there was anyway.

He looked at Graves, sitting so stiffly in the front seat. The enemy, Jonathan thought, with a viciousness that alarmed him.

He would not deliver her to the executioner.

On the other hand, Jonathan had no intention of spending the rest of his life inside a British jail. He would not play the martyr, either.

Not even for Emma.

At 6 p.m. sharp, the Rover pulled into the Dorchester ’s drive and stopped in front of the entrance. A plainclothes officer opened the door and stood by as Jonathan was ushered out. There were more police in the lobby, effectively lining his route to the elevator. Graves led the way, with Ford one step behind.

“Quite a welcoming committee,” said Jonathan. “Where do you think I’m going to go?”

The elevator arrived. Graves took hold of his arm and guided him inside. “You’ll go where we tell you,” he said.

Outside his door, another plainclothes officer waited. Seeing Graves, he whispered a respectful “Sir.”

Jonathan’s suite was a hive of activity. It appeared as if a search of the room had been completed and everything was being put back as it had been. Graves dismissed the last officers and shut the door. Jonathan opened his wardrobe and noted that his clothes hung much more neatly than before. “Did you find anything?” he called over his shoulder.

“Take a shower and put on some clean clothes,” barked Graves. “You’ve got ten minutes.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll find out in due time.”

“I thought you wanted me to help you find Emma.”

“Oh, you will. Now do as you’re told.”

Jonathan walked into the bathroom, closed the door behind him, and turned on the shower. Steam began to fill the room. He took off his shirt, then gazed down at the bracelet on his ankle. He opened the door to Graves and Ford standing a few feet away, engaged in a heated discussion.

“Now what?” asked Graves, looking his way.

Jonathan pointed to the bracelet. “Is this thing waterproof?”

Graves shook his head, then approached. “I should make you shower with one foot out the door.” He fiddled in his pocket for a key, then, kneeling, unlocked the bracelet. “I hear if you keep it on long enough the epidermis begins to fuse with the steel. The docs have to cut it away from the leg. You know anything about that?”

“I don’t.”

Graves stood, bracelet in one hand. “This is the last time it comes off until we bring your wife into custody. Are we clear?”

“Thank you.” Jonathan began to close the door, but stopped halfway. “Colonel Graves, just what makes you so sure Emma’s still in England?”

Graves looked at Ford, then back at Jonathan. “All in due time, Dr. Ransom. Now get cleaned up.”