All the Queen's Men (33 page)

John radioed in that they were going ashore.

"Do you want surveillance?"

He thought about it. "How many men do you have?"

"We can keep the yacht covered, or we can cover you, but we'll be stretched thin if we try to do both."

It was a calculated risk, Niema knew. Just because Ronsard's men hadn't been spotted didn't mean they weren't there. But everything in John's life was a calculated risk-and lately, so was everything in hers. This was how it would be, she thought; this was the life she was choosing, the life she wanted.

"Put one man on us," John finally said.

"Will do."

He tucked his pistol into his waistband at the small of his back, then put on a lightweight jacket. Niema had found a straw tote in the cabin and she dropped her pistol into it.

The yacht had its own motorized dinghy, and they went ashore in it. The sun was low in the sky, the light mellowing, the shadows deepening. They walked for a while, strolling along with the other tourists. They stopped for a cup of coffee at a sidewalk cafe; she browsed through some lovely little shops and started to buy a six-foot long, sky blue scarf, only to realize she had no money. "I'm broke," she told John, laughing as she pulled him out of the shop.

He looked back. "I'll get the scarf for you."

"I don't want you to get the scarf. I want you to get some money for me."

"Independent hussy," he remarked, tugging free and going back into the shop.

She waited on the sidewalk, arms crossed and toe tapping, until he rejoined her with the scarf wrapped in tissue paper. He dropped the weightless package in her tote, and a kiss on her nose. "That's from me. As for operating money, I'll have more funds delivered to us tomorrow."

"Thank you." Over his shoulder she caught a glimpse of a man watching them. He quickly turned away and entered a shop. She said thoughtfully, "Do you know what our Company tail looks like?"

"I spotted him when we left the dinghy. Khaki pants, white shirt."

"A man wearing black pants, white shirt, and a tan jacket was watching us. He went in one of the shops when he saw me looking at him."

John moved immediately, though without haste, curving his arm around her waist and walking with her into the nearest shop. Once they were inside he walked quickly through the shop, with the owner sputtering after them, and out the rear entrance. They were in a narrow cobblestoned alley, dark with shadows, open at both ends. He turned to the right, so they were going toward the shop in which their unknown watcher had gone.

If the man followed them into the shop and out the back, he would instinctively turn left, in the opposite direction from which he had come. If they could get out of the alley before he decided he'd been made and came after them, they would shake him.

They almost made it. The man burst into the alley when they were two doors from the end. The shopkeeper was squawking in his wake, frustrated that people were using her shop as a shortcut. He ignored her as if she were no more than a mosquito, brushing her off as he drew a pistol from the shoulder rig beneath his jacket.

The shopkeeper screamed and rushed back into her shop. John shoved Niema into a recessed doorway and dove in the opposite direction, pulling out his pistol and rolling as he hit the ground. The first shot clanged into a metal trash can. The second shot was John's, but the man jerked back into the shop.

"Run!" John said, and fired another shot at the doorway of the shop. "I'll keep him pinned."

She was reaching in the tote for her pistol, but at his command she took off at a dead run, knowing any delay could hinder him. Ahead of her, people were scattering away from the mouth of the alley, screaming and rushing for cover.

She reached the end and whirled around the wall, flattening herself against it and peeking around. John was working his way back, firing carefully timed shots that chipped large chunks of brick off the building. When he was near he wheeled and grabbed her wrist and they ran down the street, dodging through confused and alarmed pedestrians.

"Do we head for the dinghy?" she gasped, setting into stride.

"Not until we shake them. I don't want that boat identified."

Meaning the boat wasn't just a place for them to crash. It had classified stuff on board; maybe the boat itself was classified.

As they ran she pulled the tote bag off her shoulder and dug in the bottom of it for her pistol.

"What are you doing?" he asked, taking a look behind them. "Right!"

She wheeled right. "Putting the pistol where I can get to it without having to dig," she growled, jamming the weapon under her waistband in back as he had done and pulling her T-shirt out to cover it.

A shout followed them. Unfortunately, the streets were still crowded with tourists, and heads turned to follow them as they ran and dodged. All anyone chasing had to do was follow the ripple of disturbance.

"Left," John said, and they turned left as smoothly as if they were joined at the hip. "Right." They took the next right. If they could get people looking in different directions it might create enough momentary confusion for them to gain some ground and slip away.

They dodged onto a small side street, bright with flowers growing in boxes and in pots set on narrow stoops; the doors were gaily painted, and children wrung the last moments of sunshine from the day. John increased his speed; they had to get off that street fast, before any kids got hurt.

They turned right, down an alley so narrow sunlight never penetrated it; they had to run single file. The street ahead of them was purple with shadows, alive with people. Lights were winking on.

Someone barreled into John as soon as he emerged from the alley and they went crashing to the ground. For a split second Niema thought it was an accident, then arms grabbed her from behind and she reacted automatically, driving her elbow back into a gut that wasn't as hard as it could have been. The guy whooshed out his breath in a violent explosion. She ducked out of his hold, whirled, and poked him in the little notch beside his eye. She didn't have the proper angle, back to front, but he went

down anyway, writhing on the ground and vomiting.

John grabbed her wrist and yanked her into a run. She looked back and saw her assailant lying unmoving on the ground. The man who had tackled John was kind of half sitting, half lying against the wall. He wasn't moving either.

"Don't look," John still towed her by the wrist, so fast her feet barely touched ground. "Just run."

Her stomach turned over. "I didn't mean-"

"He did," he said briefly.

They dodged down yet another street and found themselves in a part of town where the streets seemed to branch off each other like tangled spaghetti. Ahead of them a trio of men cut across an intersection, weapons drawn. One of the men spotted them and pointed. John pulled her down the nearest bisecting street.

"How many of them are there?" she panted.

"A lot." He sounded grim. He angled back toward where they had seen the three men, hoping to come out behind them. They ran up a narrow, picturesque street, with flower boxes in the windows and old women selling a few wares on their doorsteps, from tatted lace shawls to homemade potpourri. One woman shrieked at the gun in John's hand as he and Niema ran by. A sharp angle took them to the left, and a dead end. Niema whirled and started back, but John caught her arm and pulled her toward him.

She heard what he heard. The street behind them slowly fell silent as the old women grabbed up their wares and vanished into their houses. The sounds of traffic came from a distance, but here there was nothing.

Louis Ronsard strolled into view, a slight smile on his sculpted lips and a Glock-17 in his hand. The big pistol was leveled at Niema's head.

John immediately moved at a right angle away from her. The gun didn't waver from her head. "Stop right there," Ronsard said, and John obeyed.

"My friends," he said lightly, "you left without saying good-bye."

"Good-bye," John said, without expression. He made no move with the weapon in his hand, not with that big 9mm locked dead center on Niema's forehead.

"Drop your weapon," Ronsard said to John. His dark blue eyes were arctic. John obeyed, letting the pistol drop to the street. "You abused my hospitality. If the guard hadn't surprised you, you would have gotten away with it. I never would have known you got into my computer. You did, didn't you? Otherwise you wouldn't have been leaving my office at that time, you would still have been in there working."

John shrugged. There was no point denying it. "I got what I went after. I copied everything; I know what you know."

"To what point, my friend? Blackmail? Or did you want exclusive access to the RDX-a?"

It was Temple who answered. As Niema watched, John's face altered ever so slightly, his eyes taking on a flat quality. "Whoever has the compound will make a lot of money in a very short time. Plus ... I have some uses for it."

"You could have bought whatever amount you needed."

"
And
you
would make the money."

"So that's what this is all about? Just money?"

"It's always about money."

'And her?" Ronsard indicated Niema. "I assume she's your partner."

"I don't have partners."

"Then she is . . . ?"

"She isn't involved in this. Let her go," John said softly.

In a heartbeat Ronsard had the gun off Niema and on John, his finger already on the trigger. "Don't play me for a fool," he said, his voice low and deadly.

Niema slipped her right hand up behind her back and gripped the pistol tucked in her waistband. Ronsard caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and started to turn, but she already had the pistol out and leveled at his head.

"Perhaps," she murmured in her best Medina imitation, "you should be asking
me
the questions. Drop the pistol."

"I don't think so," Ronsard said, still holding his weapon on John. "Are you willing to risk your lover's life? He wasn't willing to risk yours."

She shrugged, as if it didn't matter. "Just move over there beside him."

Both men
froze.
John seemed to have stopped breathing, his face going white. Ronsard stared at her in astonishment, then began laughing mirthlessly. Niema didn't dare take her eyes off Ronsard, but she was almost paralyzed herself by the risk she was taking. With John's history, a wife he had killed rather than let her betray two men, for another lover to betray him would be devastating, so devastating that not even his superhuman control could hold. His reaction was crucial, because Ronsard had to believe it.

"My apologies, Monsieur Temple," Ronsard said to John. "It appears we were
both
used."

"Sorry, darling." She gave John an insincere smile. "I have the disk. While you were sleeping last night, I sort of confiscated it." He knew that was a lie. Not only had she not left the bed last night except to visit the head, getting the disk didn't mean anything now that the information had already been sent to Langley.

She looked back at Ronsard, to keep his attention on her instead of on John. "I would introduce myself, but it's better if I don't. I'd like to put a proposition to you, Louis-one that would benefit both of us."

"In what way?"

She smiled again. "The CIA is very interested in ... reaching an agreement with you. We don't want to put you out of business. You could be very valuable to us, and vice versa. You have access to a lot of very interesting information-and we're willing to pay you well for it."

"So would other governments," he said, his eyes still cold.

Niema kept an eye on John as well as Ronsard, willing him not to spoil the setup. "Not as much as we can. And there's an added bonus."

"Such as?"

“A heart."

The softly spoken words fell into a silence that seemed complete. John started, then halted himself. Ronsard's face twisted with hatred. "You dare," he whispered. "You dare bargain with my daughter's life?"

"I'm offering the services of the United States government in finding a heart for her. Those are services you can't match, no matter how much money you have. Even a new heart might not save her, but at least she'll have a chance to hold on until other cures can be found."

He hung there, a father's anguish on his face. "Done," he said roughly, no haggling, no jockeying for position. His love for Laure was genuine and absolute. He would do anything, even sell his soul to the devil, to save her. Working with the CIA was nothing in comparison. He lowered his weapon and nodded toward John. "What about him?"

"Mr. Temple?" Niema shrugged as she lowered her own weapon. It was a risk, but one she felt she had to take to make this agreement work. "He's ... a bonus, so to speak. I wasn't expecting to have his aid in the job, but since he was there, and so good at it, I let him do it." She had to keep John's cover, she thought. His identity as Joseph Temple couldn't be questioned.

John bent down and scooped up his pistol. Niema couldn't read his expression. His face was still pale, his eyes as dead as she had ever seen them. He started toward Ronsard.

"Temple!" she said sharply, just as a sound drew her attention to the right.

Two of Ronsard's men came around the corner. Their gazes locked immediately on John; he was the prime target of their hunt. They saw the pistol in his hand, saw him moving toward Ronsard. Niema knew, in a nanosecond of stark vision, what was going to happen. She saw their weapons train on him. He was momentarily too focused on Ronsard to react as quickly as he normally would have.

She didn't hear herself scream, a hoarse sound of rage and terror. She didn't know she was moving, didn't feel her hand holding the pistol as it began to rise. All she could hear was her heartbeat, slow and ponderous, as if it pumped molasses instead of blood. All she knew was-not again. She couldn't watch him die. She couldn't.

There was a distant roar. A blue haze of gun smoke. The stench of cordite burning her nostrils. The buck of the weapon in her hand as she fired, and kept firing. A crushing force hit her, knocked her down. She tried to stagger to her feet, but her legs wouldn't work. She fired again.