The Isis Covenant

XVII

‘I’ll see you back to your hotel.’

Danny Fisher gave him a look of amusement. ‘I’m a big girl, Saintclair, I don’t need a babysitter.’

‘Think about it,’ he urged. ‘You don’t know London. The streets can be dangerous at night and a trained killer might come in handy.’

‘Trained killer, huh?’

‘Two whole weeks at Sandhurst, retired bored witless. All that effort to get in and then for some reason the Army lost its allure.’

Now the look was appraising. ‘I didn’t figure you as a quitter.’

‘It came as a surprise to me, too. Think about it, while I … have to … er, go.’ He picked up the leather briefcase that had sat at his feet throughout the meal.

‘Do you always bring your work to dinner?’

He grinned. ‘It seemed a good idea at the time.’

When he returned he was wearing his overcoat and carrying Danny’s. He helped her into it.

‘What’s the decision?’

‘Sure, why not? Maybe you can come up for a coffee?’

The expression on his face made her laugh.

‘You really don’t know us Yanks very well, do you, Jamie?’

When they left the restaurant, they walked southwest, through a soft drizzle and in the general direction of Hyde Park. After a few minutes, Danny Fisher put her arm through his, and he squeezed it. They didn’t talk. Somehow there didn’t seem the need.

A hundred yards behind, dressed in a black jogging suit and trainers, Paul Dornberger kept pace with them.

It had been pure chance that he had discovered the name Jamie Saintclair in a file on Kenny’s desk. A source at the British Library had tipped Samsonov’s people off about an unusual and sudden interest in Myths and Legends of the Ancient World and someone had decided action was required. Dornberger disapproved of the oligarch’s choice of the street gang to try to scare Saintclair off. In Samsonov’s position, he would have done quite the opposite and hired the art expert. Saintclair’s file didn’t make impressive reading until the recovery of the Raphael painting amid some murkier dealings with neo-Nazis and a multi-national corporation that rivalled even Oleg’s in scale. Humble start in life. Good degree at Cambridge, followed by his failure to make the grade at Sandhurst and a modest career in the art business. But his pursuit of the Raphael had shown great tenacity and excellent deductive powers. For the moment, this was a man to be watched, not provoked. The question was: exactly how much did Saintclair know about the Eye of Isis?

Dornberger kept to the shadows, occasionally switching to a side street and jogging the next few hundred yards, to reappear with his running jacket inside out and the reflective surface visible. At first glance the pair ahead gave the appearance of being relaxed and unwary, but there was something about the woman that rang an alarm bell and Paul dropped back into the shadows. Saintclair’s file hadn’t mentioned a recent girlfriend or partner, but the body language was too comfortable for mere acquaintances. He made a mental note to have her checked out and his hand strayed automatically to the toggles at his neck. A car with two men in the front seats drove past close to the kerb and conspicuous by its lack of speed. The passenger took an unusual interest in the two walkers, right up until the moment they drew parallel, when he turned his head away and the car speeded up. It had been skilfully done, and the couple walking arm in arm took no apparent notice, but Paul Dornberger felt the hairs on his neck rise. He took a mental note of the number plate and moved a little closer to his targets. Curiouser and curiouser.

‘So why did a girl like you decide to become a cop?’

‘I was brought up with cops. My old man was a cop for twenty years, before he took the bullet that crippled him.’

‘That’s tough, I’m sorry.’

She shrugged. ‘It didn’t put him in a chair or anything. He just couldn’t walk the beat any more. He’d seen enough of desk cops to know he didn’t want to do that or be in charge of the drunk tank at a precinct, so he left and started up his own security company. Did pretty good. What about your pop?’

‘I never knew my father. Not even his name.’ It was said without emotion, but she knew instinctively what the words cost to say and she hugged his arm closer, so he could feel the curve of her breast against it.

‘Ever think about finding out?’

‘All the time. I have a letter from my mother that might have his name in it, but I’ve never opened it.’

She stopped and turned to stare at him. ‘Why the hell not? It would drive me crazy.’

He smiled. ‘A couple of years ago I would have said the same, but after last year and what happened with the Raphael, it was … different. For the first time in my life I knew who the real Jamie Saintclair was, so I didn’t need to know, if you can understand that? Anyway, knowing my mother it’s probably an instruction to wash behind my ears and change my socks every day.’

Danny caught sight of an ornamental building lit by spotlights beyond the trees in Hyde Park and went to look at it through the metal fence. Jamie stood in the centre of the wide pavement and waited.

‘That’s what I love about London. There’s always something to see.’

‘There is,’ he agreed. ‘The sad thing is that when you live here, you barely notice it.’

She was still peering through the fence when he saw the man walking purposefully towards him. It was the coat he noticed first — a dark seaman’s jacket that screamed out a warning. Then the eyes, like machine-gun slits and focused, in a bull-nosed, angry face. The man’s arm was already lifting by the time he saw the gun, a big automatic with a long cylinder attached to the barrel. Silenced then, as if that mattered a damn now. He must have shouted, because Danny turned towards him with a mixture of fear and horror on her face. She was too far away to help, but she was already moving. His briefcase was in his left hand, and instinct told him to use it as a shield. But instinct was too slow. The long cylinder kicked up and to the left, he heard a sharp ‘phut’ and felt the breath knocked out of him at the same instant. As he was thrown backwards his mind registered a second bullet hitting him somewhere in the chest, but he was already fading. No pain yet, just an all-over numbness, but he knew it would come. Amazingly, he was still falling. Did the world always slow when you were dying? He heard the crack as his head hit the concrete — no shortage of pain now — and for a second his vision went red. His lungs fought for breath, competing against the hurt that had been done to body. As he lay paralysed a dark presence loomed over him, blocking out the street lights. For a moment he thought he was already dead, but his vision cleared to reveal a dark tunnel with a hand and narrow, heavy browed eyes way above it. He turned his head away to avoid seeing the bullet that would finally kill him.

The gunman ignored Danny Fisher’s scream and looked down the barrel into Jamie Saintclair’s confused eyes. A hundred grand and a vacation. Easy money. His right forefinger took up the pressure on the trigger. Two to the chest and one in the head. Nobody ever survived that. When the flying handbag smashed into his head he literally didn’t know what had hit him, only that it was large and heavy and followed up by a screaming banshee that lashed out with a kick that knocked the gun from his hand. Jacko Bonetti had been in plenty of street brawls in his time. He knew when to fight and when to run. The mark was dead or well on the way there. His opponent might be a chick, but she had the moves and she had the jump on him. He had a momentary concern about the handgun, but he was wearing gloves and by the time it was traced to the guy who supplied it, Jacko would be back where he belonged on 47th Street. He sprinted back up the street towards Mario and the waiting car.

Danny’s first instinct was to go after the shooter, but she’d seen Jamie go down hard and now she ran to his side. She knelt and scrabbled at the buttons of his overcoat, cursing her fumbling fingers. Two rips in the cashmere showed where the bullets had struck and her heart sank at the lack of blood that pointed to almost instantaneous death. ‘Stay with me, Jamie,’ she whispered desperately. ‘We hardly got to know each other.’ At last she got the coat open and tore at his jacket and shirt where she could reach the wounds.

She froze.

‘You bastard.’

‘That’s a bit harsh.’ His voice sounded as if he’d swallowed a mouthful of river gravel.

‘You complete bastard. So that’s what you were doing.’

‘Mmmh.’

She pulled back the shirt and studied the two silver splashes where the bullets had mushroomed against the web of Kevlar fibres.

‘What kind of guy wears body armour on a first date?’

‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ he managed, before the lights went out again.

‘Okay, mister. You have some explaining to do.’

She sat by the assessment bed where Jamie lay bare chested, with various electrical monitors attached to his skin and two enormous bruises merging over his heart. A nurse had drawn the curtains round the bed to allow them some privacy.

‘I suppose I do owe you an explanation,’ he admitted.

‘Damn right you do.’

‘I don’t think this has anything to do with your case.’ He told her about the Raphael and the Sun Stone and the possibility that Howard Vanderbilt had taken out a contract on his life.

‘And you didn’t think to tell me this before?’ The blue eyes flashed dangerously. ‘You didn’t feel it might be a good idea to let me know I might be standing next to a walking shooting gallery.’

‘It was only a remote possibility.’

‘So remote that you went out and bought a bullet-proof vest.’

‘That was in the way of a present,’ he protested. ‘A gift from a Detective Sergeant Shreeves.’

‘Who took the threat seriously enough to send it to you,’ she pointed out.

‘He was only covering his backsi … hedging his bets.’

For a moment he thought she was going to walk out and he knew he would always regret that. He also knew there was nothing he could say that would stop her. She made him wait, but when she spoke again there was authority in her voice. ‘If we’re going to work together, this is the way it goes. You let me know anything, and I mean anything, that might have an impact on our personal security and I’ll do the same. Of course,’ she gave him her best bad-cop stare, ‘I haven’t been holding anything back. Okay?’

He nodded. ‘Okay.’

‘I’ll call some folks and see if I can get something done about Vanderbilt. It could take a little time, but they’ll ask a few questions, throw a little weight around and maybe he’ll back off. Meanwhile, is there anything you’d like to get off your chest?’ She pointed at the electrical spaghetti. When they finally finished laughing he told her about the ‘muggers’.

‘That’s exactly what they said?’

‘Exactly. The man says to back off.’

‘And you’ve no idea who the man is?’

‘None. My first thought was that it might be a message from Vanderbilt.’ He brushed his fingers lightly over his chest and winced. ‘But recent experience suggests that he’s into more direct action.’

‘Could it be to do with anything else you’ve been working on?’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve gone back over everything. I’ve made a few enemies, but not that kind of enemy.’

‘Then we have to assume that the man wants us to back off from trying to find out what happened to Berndt Hartmann and, if it exists, the Crown of Isis.’ She pinned him with hard blue eyes. ‘This is my job, Jamie, but there’s no reason for you to get yourself killed. Maybe you should get out now?’

He grinned at her. ‘Not until hell freezes over.’