“I worried you were so caught up in making sure the Prince of Shadows was secure inside the manor house that you might not have your eye on Sonya. She’s never come ’round to our way of thinking, you know. She gets a petulant, conniving expression on her face when she looks at you sometimes. I thought she might use your distraction to make an escape or try to set up a meeting with her former cronies at Interpol or—”
“How would you know what sort of look Sonya gets on her face?” Few of Spider’s assets had ever met him face-to-face. Benton included. “Did you plant sodding cameras in my h—”
“No!” Benton cut him off. “Sir, I would never be so foolish.”
Grafton relaxed. Marginally.
“Lou told me about Sonya,” Benton explained. “He said she acted twitchy. Said he didn’t trust her.”
Considering she hadn’t hesitated to flee with the Prince of Shadows, Lou’s mistrust wasn’t misplaced. Not that Grafton had fooled himself into thinking Sonya had ever willingly stayed with him. But he’d thought her too cowed and cowardly to make a move against him.
At the proof he’d read her wrong, his blood pressure threatened to ratchet up to a boil again. The only thing that succored him was the sound of Benton’s fingers racing against his keyboard. If anyone could help him through this mess, it was Benton Currothers.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to add Lou’s suspicions to your already full plate,” Benton continued. “I’d hoped we wouldn’t need to use it.”
“How does it work? Can you see her? Where is she?”
More keyboard clacking. Benton muttered something under his breath, then finally said. “She’s still within the city limits, but that’s all I can tell by satellite. She’s carrying a simple signal emitter. It’s a filament I had Lou put in the ribbon bookmark he gave her.” Grafton’s mind briefly conjured up the hot-pink ribbon he’d seen Sonya using to keep her place in her books recently. “It’s small and completely unnoticeable to anything but the most trained eye. Good for remaining hidden. Bad for emitting a strong signal. The most I can do from here is tell you which general twenty-square-mile area to search. If you want to home in on her, you’re going to need the handheld receiver.”
“And where’s that, pray tell? What’s that?”
“It’s a little plastic case about the size of a garage door opener. It runs on a regular nine-volt battery. Once it gets within a mile of the filament, it will begin beeping. The closer the receiver gets to the filament, the faster it will beep. Lou has it with him…er…had it with him.” The distaste in Benton’s voice was clear. Grafton hadn’t pulled his punches when he’d described what had been done to Lou’s face and head. “It must still be on his body.”
Grafton looked over at Charles. “Go back to the café. Look through Lou’s pockets. He carried a receiver.” He explained what the device was supposed to look like. “We need it.”
“Tell him to torch the place while he’s in there,” Benton added. “Burn away any evidence left behind.”
Right. Good ol’ Benton. Always quick thinking. Grafton gave Charles this last set of instructions and watched as the hulking man dashed back inside the café.
“After I get off with you,” Benton continued. “I’ll ring up the owner of the café and offer him a hefty sum for the place and for keeping quiet about what he saw today.”
“Yes.” Grafton nodded. “Do that. And then send in a man to kill him. This has gotten too far out of hand. I can’t afford to leave any witnesses behind now.”
“Of course,” Benton said. “And if you find the Prince of Shadows—”
“When,” Grafton corrected. “When I find him.”
“Yes. When you find him, you’re going to need help.”
“Exactly. Like I was saying earlier, I want you to reach out to every one of my contacts with any sort of training in this type of thing. Book them passage to Chisinau.” Grafton hadn’t gotten this far in life only to let a conniving bitch from Interpol and a bona fide Iranian traitor bring him down. The bee-doo-bee-doo of sirens echoed in the distance just as Charles burst from the back door of the café. Smoke billowed out behind him, and Grafton saw orange flames licking inside the kitchen. They matched the hellfire in his heart. His tone was venomous when he added, “I want both of those motherfuckers dead before first light tomorrow morning.”
Chapter 14
Triple chocolate ice cream was invented for days like this…
Days when everything seemed to be coming up Rusty. Days when he was tasked with something of substance, something that mattered. Days when he could hold his head high because he’d come through with flying colors.
I love it when a plan comes together. He pumped an imaginary fist and then figured…what the hell…and gave himself an imaginary pat on the back too.
Activating his throat mic, he said, “VW Team, the device is attached, and Elvis has taken flight.”
“Copy that.” Ace’s warm baritone swirled inside Rusty’s ear, causing his stomach to swoop and drop like he was on a carnival ride. “Give us your location, and we’ll swing around to pick you up.”
Rusty squinted up at the street signs. They were written in both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets—except that there were a bunch of weird accent marks used with the latter. But even given the familiar letters, he had a tough time pronouncing the Russian-sounding names. He did his best and then figured he’d better spell them out so Ozzie could plug them into the GPS on his handy-dandy laptop.
“Got it,” Ozzie’s voice sounded in his earpiece. Rusty could hear the clickety-clack of Ozzie’s fingers across the keyboard. “We’re five blocks west of you. Stay put, and we’ll be there in a jiff.”
