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  She didn’t know them that well, but their safety mattered. They were Fischer’s men; they should have gone with him. Instead, they had stayed behind to look after her.

  “Relax. I didn’t shoot them. Too much noise, too much blood, and it would have wrecked the jacket.” He produced a syringe and a vial, which contained a clear liquid. “It’s an anesthetic. They’re both taking naps.”

  Endless shadows, the sting of a needle. The smothering paralysis—

  Stay calm. Stay focused.

  This was what he wanted, to panic and demoralize her—to control her with fear.

  Colenso went up another notch in her estimation. In his new position, he would have had access to her psych reports. He would know exactly how traumatized she had been.

  “What do you want?”

  He smiled. “You know where Dennison and the book are.”

  She wrenched her attention away from the syringe. Colenso didn’t yet know that Dennison was in custody. It was information that Fischer had kept under wraps to buy time. Once the cabal members and Lopez knew the book was in the hands of the United States government, the situation would become even more volatile and they could lose the opportunity to capture Lopez and Reichmann. “I don’t know where Dennison and the book are.” That, at least, was the truth.

  Colenso pocketed the vial and the syringe and lifted the gun. His index finger moved from the extended safety position to rest lightly on the trigger. “Try again.”

  Taylor’s heart slammed in her chest. Colenso was experienced with weapons. Unless he intended to pull the trigger, his finger should remain in the safety position. “Fischer knows where Dennison is, but he didn’t tell me. Why would he? He’s CIA, I’m a civilian. But I do know how you can get the book.”

  “How?”

  “I have Xavier le Clerc’s number.”

  His brows jerked together. She had finally managed to shock him.

  “Le Clerc’s in the States?”

  “I had a meeting with him yesterday. He’s in contact with Dennison. By now he should have the book.”

  “Liar.”

  She shrugged. “Believe what you want, but if you shoot me, you won’t ever get the book back.”

  Colenso’s finger moved off the trigger. “Let me see the number.”

  “You’ll have to let me go in the bedroom and get it. It’s in the pocket of Fischer’s shirt.”

  He followed her to the bedroom door, keeping his gun trained on her while she found the card. Keeping her movements slow and nonthreatening, she handed him the card and walked past him and back out into the lounge.

  Colenso indicated that she sit on the couch. “Empty the contents of your bag on the floor.”

  Taylor picked up her handbag, which was beside the couch, and upended it. Her purse and the handgun Fischer gave her tumbled out along with a notepad, cell phone, pens, car keys, a comb and the miscellany of makeup that usually lived in a side pocket.

  Colenso kicked her gun across the room and took out his cell phone. She kept note of exactly where the gun had ended up, and the fact that he hadn’t noticed the absence of the magazine, which was concealed in another zipped side pocket. “You can’t make the call. I need to do it. Otherwise le Clerc will ditch the number and your only link to Dennison and the book will be gone.”

  He placed the card on the coffee table. His finger was back on the trigger. “Phone le Clerc.”

  She picked up the motel phone, which was on a side table next to the couch.

  “Use your cell phone.”

  She retained her grip on the receiver. Making the call via cell phone made sense. Colenso would retain his mobility, rather than being anchored to a motel room that could shortly become a war zone. “Le Clerc won’t answer the call unless it comes from a number and a person he’s expecting. The call itself will go to an answering service. He’ll return it if he thinks it’s safe. I’ll give him my cell phone to call back on, but I need to call from this location. Then you’re going to have to wait on le Clerc, and I don’t know for how long.”

  Colenso was silent while he mulled over the logic of using the landline for the initial call. She needed to use the motel phone because it would leave a record of the call for Fischer to find. And, hopefully, once he realized it was le Clerc’s number, a trail to follow.

  Colenso checked his watch. Despite the chilly temperature, she could see beads of perspiration on his upper lip, signaling that he wasn’t as calm as he appeared. He would be worried about Shaw and Tate waking up and raising the alarm, and that Fischer could walk in the door at any time.

  She had also upped the stakes, which would have thrown off his carefully calculated plan. Colenso was a smart operator, but he didn’t like surprises. Introducing the wild card of le Clerc, an old adversary who had been a thorn in the cabal’s side for decades, had forced a more important objective on Colenso than simply killing her and taking out Fischer and his men.

  Le Clerc wouldn’t be happy at the breach of trust, but she had no alternative, and there was always the possibility that le Clerc could make productive use of Colenso’s link to the cabal. The likelihood that Colenso would get close to a player like le Clerc was zero.

  “Make the call.”

  She picked up the receiver and dialed. A split second later the call was picked up, not by a male voice as she had expected, but by a bland female voice that requested she leave a message.

  Colenso frowned as she stated her name and cell phone number. He’d let her make the call, but he still didn’t have any proof that she had reached le Clerc.

  Letting out a breath, she hung up.

  “Pick up your cell phone.”

  She found her cell phone in the muddle of items on the floor and placed it on the coffee table.

  He put the phone in his pocket and pulled out the vial, which was partly filled with colorless fluid. “By the way, I think you know what this is.”

  Her stomach contracted.

  The click of a briefcase. The cold sting of the needle—

  “Ketamine.”

  “That’s right. Technically it’s an anesthetic. An interesting drug, but not really a killer.” He produced a second vial. “After they drank the K in their coffee, they weren’t really in a position to argue when I injected them with insulin.”

  Taylor’s blood ran cold. The thought of being injected with ketamine filled her with horror, but insulin was worse. In the correct dosages it was a lifesaver for diabetics, but in large doses it dropped the blood sugar, causing diabetic coma, lack of oxygen, brain damage, organ failure and cardiac arrest. “You murdered them.”

  He checked his watch. “With the dose I administered, anytime soon.”

  A cold ripple of recognition went through her. Colenso was a killer. She couldn’t afford the mistake of underestimating him again. With each kill he was growing in confidence. He had fooled her and everyone else in the Bureau, including Bayard.

  Colenso produced a pair of handcuffs from his jacket pocket with all the flare of a magician producing a rabbit. “Hold your wrists out, and don’t try anything.”

  His finger was back on the trigger. At this range he wouldn’t miss.

  He snapped the cuffs in place and stepped back. He checked his watch and jerked his head in the direction of the door. Pulling on a pair of latex gloves, he retrieved her gun, found the magazine in the side pocket of her bag and slipped both into his pocket. “Time to leave.” He grinned. “Fischer should have found Casale by now.”

  Rico Casale had been dead for several hours.

  Fischer studied the body sprawled on the floor of the second-story apartment in one of Jersey’s more run-down areas. There were no signs of a beating or a trauma of any kind, but there was no mistaking the rigor, or the smell, of death.

  He could hear Fabroni throwing up out on the sidewalk.

  Fischer pulled on latex gloves and crouched down, careful not to touch the body while he systematically searched Casale. He was no forensics expert. A
t a guess Casale had been dead for several hours, long enough for rigor to set in, then relax slightly. And for the insects to find him.

  A beetle scuttled away as he pulled aside Casale’s shirt collar and studied a faint bluish mark on his skin. “There’s a puncture wound on the right side of his neck.”

  It looked like Casale had been caught cold, probably from behind. Judging from the lack of any other marks or wounds, whatever poison had been injected had acted fast, immobilizing him. The way he had died didn’t matter so much as who had killed him, but the fact that the killing had been achieved by a drug overdose, or poison, was interesting. In Casale’s world, and this neighborhood, the gun ruled.

  Straightening, Fischer took out his phone, turned it on and checked his calls. He frowned when he saw the number. Bridges, the agent who had come in to replace Wells, knew they were going after Casale. He wouldn’t phone unless something had gone wrong.

  Bridges picked up on the second ring. “Shaw and Tate are being taken by ambulance to Georgetown hospital. Looks like they’ve been injected with something.”

  “Prognosis?”

  “Tate’s not breathing—they’re working on him. Shaw’s in better shape, but not much.”

  His jaw clenched. “Taylor?”

  “She’s gone. I checked the motel phone. There was one call listed. She phoned le Clerc.”

  Fischer’s phone rang as he boarded the chopper. It was le Clerc.

  “I’ve just had an interesting call from Ms. Jones.”

  “Where is she?”

  “The information carries a price.”

  Fischer’s jaw tightened. “You want the ledger.”

  “I need the original. A copy won’t carry any weight in an international court of law.”

  “It can be arranged. Where’s Taylor?”

  “At midnight she’ll be in Portland, Maine.” He supplied the address of a popular motel just off U.S. Highway One.

  “Who has her?”

  “He’s American, male. The accent is West Coast. L.A., perhaps. He wants the ledger and he thinks I’m going to deliver it in exchange for Ms. Jones’s life.”

  Not Tripp. Colenso.

  The conditions were predictable, the timetable compressed. Xavier was to go alone and bring the original copy of the book. When he reached the motel he would receive instructions about the precise location of the handover. He would be watched. If anyone else was involved, the deal was off and Taylor was dead.

  It was a given that the deal was a setup. The only certainty was that Taylor would be alive at the time of the handover, because Colenso couldn’t risk losing his leverage before that point.

  Fischer checked his watch. Four hours. “I’m going to need help.” Colenso was smart—he would have backup—but Fischer was willing to bet that le Clerc and his team were smarter. The Frenchman’s network was serpentine, elusive and motivated. They would blend in in a way the new agents replacing Shaw and Tate couldn’t. If nothing else, le Clerc would guarantee the safety of the book.

  “It can be arranged.”

  “Then we have a deal. Just one last thing. How good is your boy with explosives?”

  Thirty-Three

  Lubec, Maine

  Helene Reichmann concealed her car on the deserted stretch of road overlooking the sea. A black van pulled in behind her. Several men dressed in black combat gear and equipped with night vision and automatic weapons flowed out. Within minutes they had dispersed, melting into the windswept trees that edged Ritter’s driveway.

  Moving slowly, she picked her way down the pitch-dark driveway, pausing frequently to allow her vision to adjust to the intense dark and to listen. Not that either senses would do her any good if Lopez had gotten here before them.

  The lights of a lone two-storied beach cottage came into view and she quickened her pace. Ritter’s hideaway, built in a north-facing cove that not only carried a similar name but in its own small way mimicked the icy hell that the port of Lubeck in Germany had been, was tiny compared to the mansion he kept in Boston. Ritter liked his privacy, particularly when he came to the beach, and it was that hermit philosophy she was counting on. He employed a local woman to cook and clean, but he didn’t have any staff living on the premises.

  Security lights flooded the porch as she walked up the steps. Flexing her fingers against the cold, she pressed the buzzer.

  Long minutes later, she wondered if she’d gotten it wrong and he wasn’t here. Parker had been running for the mountains when Lopez had cut him down; it was possible Ritter was doing the same, although she would put money on the fact that Ritter wouldn’t panic. She leaned on the buzzer again.

  The door swung open a few inches.

  Ritter’s gaze was wary. “Helene?”

  She flinched. “I told you never to call me that.”

  “What do you want?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, we have an emergency on our hands.”

  He looked past her. “How did you get here? Where’s your car?”

  Helene took the impact of the solid cedar door as it slammed closed on her shoulder. Wedging one booted foot in the gap, she fumbled in her pocket, produced a gun and pointed it through the gap. She hadn’t chambered a round, but the old fool wouldn’t know that. “We need to talk.”

  The pressure on the door eased. Helene stepped inside and closed the door. “Into the library.”

  Ritter was an entrepreneur, a mathematical genius with an uncanny talent with stocks and shares. He had taken the small chunk of the cabal’s money she had allotted him and built an empire.

  He stared at Helene with his light gray eyes, and a shudder worked its way down her spine. He had always been odd, a little too brilliant and insightful, and with that uncanny instinct for the future. In her opinion, despite his prodigy status, at times he verged uncomfortably close to abnormal—and not in a good way. Sometimes she had been convinced he could read her mind. Years ago she had been almost certain he had guessed about the book.

  His stare was fixed but slightly unfocused now, as if he was looking at something she couldn’t see, a trait that had always infuriated her. When he spoke he used German, his voice halting and guttural, spinning her back to the months spent at the institute in Berlin, the long weeks cooped up on the Nordika. “You haven’t come to talk. You’ve come to kill me.”

  She lifted the gun. The first bullet caught him in the center of the chest, the second an inch off to the left. He died quickly, with surprisingly little fuss and hardly any mess.

  Dispassionately, she stepped back from his crumpled form and the pungent smells that filled the room, and positioned the gun back in her pocket. One more loose end tied up.

  Leaving the light on in the study, she systematically walked around the house and switched every other light off. When she was satisfied that the house was secure, she mounted the stairs and sat in the deep shadow of the first landing. The position gave her a clear view of the front door and the study.

  Satisfied that the trap was set and that she had taken every precaution, she took out the gun and settled in to wait for Lopez.

  Thirty-Four

  Washington, D.C.

  Taylor came to lying on the chilly surface of a hardwood floor. She felt sick and sluggish and so cold convulsive shudders kept jerking through her. She also had a pounding headache. From the throbbing, localized on one side of her head, it was an easy bet that Colenso had dropped her on the floor.

  “Take a seat.”

  Colenso came into focus, comfortably sprawled on a leather couch, a leather coat and a woolen scarf keeping the chill at bay. Memory flooded back.

  When they had left the motel, Colenso had forced her to climb into his car at gunpoint. Le Clerc had rung back within minutes and she had picked up the call. He had asked to speak to Colenso. When Colenso terminated the call, he had stabbed a hypodermic into her thigh.

  He hadn’t told her which drug he’d used. By the time he informed her that she was once more high on ketamine,
she had been in no state to care.

  He grinned, obviously having the time of his life, and waved his gun at an armchair situated off to one side. “I insist.”

  She pushed up into a sitting position. She was still cuffed, which made moving difficult. While she waited for her head to stop swimming, she took stock of her surroundings. The room was large, and strategically lit with lamps and wall lighting placed to highlight works of art and paintings. She didn’t know a lot about antiques, but the few pieces she could see looked very old and expensive.

  Outside she could hear the unmistakable sound of surf. A large bank of windows that presumably looked out over the sea but were presently blacked out by the night dominated the room. An empty fireplace occupied one wall, the pale, gray stone perfectly fitted and as cold in appearance as the temperature.

  Using the arm of the chair to steady her, she hauled herself upright and sat down.

  A gust of wind buffeted the house. The windows shuddered, shifting the garish reflection of Colenso and herself. “How long have I been out?”

  Colenso checked his watch. “Approximately three hours.”

  She stared at a painting on the wall. Art was something she did know a bit about, courtesy of a narcotics bust where the currency had been stolen art. “The Degas looks authentic.”

  “It’s real. So are the Picassos.”

  She examined the paintings positioned on the stark stretch of wall behind her. Not one Picasso; three.

  “The smaller of the set was damaged in transit.”

  She stared at Colenso. “From Germany?”

  He smiled. “Colombia. Although my father was on the Nordika.”

  Pushing to his feet, he walked across to an elegant side table and poured himself a drink from a crystal decanter. “Technically, my telling you that I’m a cabal member earns me the death penalty, but that was before Lopez started his little rampage. Now the rules have changed.”

  At a guess, Colenso was making them up as he went along. “He hasn’t got all of the upper echelon yet.”

  His gaze sharpened. “How do you know that?”