An Affair of Vengeance (29 page)

It began to slide.

Encased by a web of panicked bodies, he could do nothing but watch the car plunge over the edge. It whistled through the air and hit the river. A ripping crash boomed through the ravine like unholy thunder, followed by a single extended hiss of extinguished flames.

He wanted to scream her name, wanted to search every alley until he found her, but he remembered her strength and her determination. She was alive. She
had
to be.

And even if she wasn’t, he wouldn’t let her down. Not in life. Not in death. She believed in him, and he wouldn’t prove her wrong now. He’d finish their mission, come hell or high water.

He let a coolness slide over his body like a lead coffin. Expressionless, he turned his back to the wreckage and dusted his palms lightly on his pants.

Kral stood behind the crowd, his hands clasped behind his back in consideration. When he caught McCrea’s eye, he tilted his head in question.

McCrea nodded back firmly, briefly, taking responsibility for the crash.

Kral smiled and beckoned with his index finger.

Evangeline had sprung out of the car, landing hard on the rocky roadside and rolling away to hide beneath shrubbery. She grasped the thick stalk of an ancient rosemary bush as the convertible launched onto the bridge deck and crashed through the stone rail. There it hung.

No. It had to go over!

But already she heard screams. Coming closer. She had to get into the town and hide. Had to pray that it would look as though her body had been catapulted from the car and into the dark ravine upon impact.

She scrambled onto her knees, a bit scraped and bruised, but thankful that she’d thought to put on jeans before heading out; otherwise she’d be much more injured now. Her left elbow screamed when she bent it, and her left hip felt out of joint, but she could move. She
had
to move.

So move she did, first to the shelter of the nearest building, a pale pink two-story house. She flattened herself against the warm rough wall. Footsteps pounded down the hill. A crowd would gather soon, and she had to get out of sight. She limped her way to the back of the house, her leg pain a dim wail underneath stillpumping adrenaline. Behind the house she found a tight alley, dark, cool, and riddled down its center with what looked disconcertingly like sewage or table scraps. But its rancid contents made her think that it wasn’t often used, and no one was coming.

She’d be screwed if someone did.

A series of back doors opened up to the alley, but these houses would soon empty of whoever inhabited them as everyone in town rubbernecked at the scene of the crash.

She hobbled up the alley, dragging her bad leg as quietly as she could. Poking her head into each doorway before moving past added a second or two to her journey. Kitchens, mostly. All empty. The closely packed houses weren’t identical but rather had been built individually and over time to a common plan. Kitchens opened up to the alley. Garages didn’t exist. She hoped she could find what she was looking for without heading all the way back into town, but she was prepared to do it if she had to.

Her leg began to throb. Her elbow vibrated along with it. Her left knee felt wet. Bloody. She didn’t bother glancing down but kept her head up, listening for voices or footsteps, checking for escape routes should one become necessary.

A little boy skipped into the alley in front of her.

She ducked behind an open door. Waited. Didn’t hear a thing. Stuck her head out. The kid was gone, hopefully not to get help for the bloody stranger walking through the town’s sewer. She couldn’t bet on it. She had to hurry, despite how much her body begged her to sit the hell down and attend to its pains.

She half-sprinted the remaining distance of the long lane. To her left she glimpsed the town’s main street, the one she’d coursed on her rampage to the bridge. People streamed down it, their attention wholly on the destruction she’d left behind, its flames popping and crackling by the ravine. She turned right, and then took a quick left up another dark alley and was out of view of the foot traffic. Her injured hip swollen and hot, she heaved herself one more block up, and there, she saw it.

The cart loaded with wool, waiting patiently for someone to drive it into Arles for the Saturday market. Tomorrow. They’d tow it down tonight, according to what Kral had said at dinner, and set up early for the market in the morning. There, she’d hop out—hobble out, more likely—and meet Mason. Together, they’d remotely monitor the estate, and when Kral and McCrea left for the warehouse in Arles, they’d track them. Kral would be arrested in the heart of his secret weapons cache, red-handed.

Lovely plan. Several steps lay between its fruition and her current position, however, the first of which was the hopefully surmountable task of getting her battered body into the cart.

She unlatched the waist-high tailgate, and with a searing shimmy that required her to use all of her aching joints, rolled aboard. Her whole left side throbbed now. She closed the latch with a soft thud and dug herself a hole to hide in amid the soft fiber goods. A bit of airy wool roving stemmed the blood seeping through the denim. The wound on her knee didn’t look serious, just a nasty scrape that needed to be cleaned out. While painful, her injuries could wait for medical attention. She wouldn’t die here.

Not unless someone found her. She snuggled deeper into the cart and tried not to think about the sleepless night she had ahead of her.

That evening, McCrea and Kral dined alone in Kral’s cigar-scented, wood-paneled office. Kral wanted to discuss business, and the sort of business they had together couldn’t be spoken of in front of the men playing cards in the courtyard.

“I didn’t ask you to annihilate her—only kill her. Pills or poison would have been easier routes to take. Even a gunshot would have been less dramatic than what you chose, no? I think one of the villagers had a heart attack from the spectacle of it all.” Kral tucked a forkful of duck confit into his mouth and said, thickly, “You are more like your brother than you’ve let on.”

“She betrayed me. She deserved what she got.” McCrea wasn’t eating much, but then, he never did. “It’s cleaner if it looks like an accident.”

“Indeed. You have learned your lesson well!” Kral sang, to some tune McCrea didn’t recognize. The man was terribly happy tonight, and drinking heavily. “Though you learned it a bit too late for our dear departed Evangeline. To Evangeline!”

McCrea raised his glass of Château Lafite Rothschild. Their goblets met with a clash that was too loud for the small space.

Kral giggled. “She had no idea, you know. I met her as she was leaving. The idiot was clueless. Had you not signaled to me to let her go, I doubtless would have had her shot when she tried to drive off.”

McCrea hesitated. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. How would he feel if he had murdered his lover because she was a traitor? “It’s a good thing you didn’t. We would have missed a hell of a show.”

“Indeed, indeed! Tell me, do you think she was catapulted out, or did she go down with the ship? Was she comatose and burning alive when you got there?”

Bile rose in his throat. He couldn’t answer.

Kral cocked his head. “What has your cat’s eyes narrowing in displeasure? Was it something I said? Don’t tell me you regret her death.”

Something close to honesty should suffice. He cleared his throat. “She was a bloody spy, and now she’s dead. I have no further interest in her.”

Kral’s voice dropped. “I suppose I understand. I felt the same way about my dear Eliska. Oh, Eliska! I live for her now, you know? How I regret letting her die, letting her blood be spilled for my gain. It is the tragedy which defines my life. Now you, too, have spilled a woman’s blood to advance your own agenda. We are too much alike, you and I, and grow more so each day.”

McCrea sipped the expensive wine, which tasted thick and rich, like blood on his tongue. He didn’t know how much more of this constant psychological compartmentalization he could take, but if he faltered, everything he and Evangeline had done in the name of toppling Kral’s empire would be wasted. It was an outcome that he couldn’t bear to consider. Not with the prices that had already been paid. For the second time that day, McCrea
prayed. This time, he prayed for himself, for the strength and courage to continue. For Evangeline, he knew he would fight. He knew what side he was on. Now, he knew where he belonged.

So he said, without a trace of doubt about where his loyalty rested, “We are truly brothers.”

“Welcome to my family.” Kral smiled, his teeth glazing in a grin that look like it might be honestly glad. “Tonight, we drink to fraternity.”

“Fraternity.”

Their glasses crashed together again in toast.

“Tomorrow, we’ll go together to my warehouse to retrieve these weapons you’ve gone through such effort to obtain. You’ll need to know my operation inside and out, now that you’re working for me.”

The warehouse. The ultimate prize. Kral hand-selling a SOCA agent Stinger missiles might just be enough for an arrest and successful prosecution. This was exactly what McCrea had been waiting to hear.

The anticipation of finally crushing this vile man made it easier to fake a smile. “I look forward to it, brother.”

“How I love this city! Art and blood welded together by centuries of repetition,” Kral exclaimed as their car came within sight of Arles the next morning. They sat in the slick leather backseat of a black sedan with heavily tinted and probably bulletproof windows. “Rather like our kind, wouldn’t you say?”

“Quite.” McCrea was brusque, but in truth, it was hard to dislike Arles. It was an old town with both Greek and Roman heritage, but the Romans had built the more memorable structures. In ancient times, a grand arena, racing circus, and theater provided steady entertainment, an aqueduct and baths ensured cleanliness, and a major port brought in goods and income. Now,
French, Spanish, and North African cultures blended together in a city that was almost purpose-built for pleasure.

Today, though, nothing could be further from McCrea’s mind. Winding into the small town was excruciatingly slow. It was Saturday, and every villager from miles around seemed to have made the journey into town. Tourists, too, crowded narrow streets that were barely more than alleys.

The car pulled to a halt just inside the old city wall.

“From here, we walk,” Kral sang.

The two men stepped out of the cool car into the blazing midmorning sun. Kral led the way through the meandering, pedestrian-only paths of ancient Arles. After walking up a long curving stairway, they turned down a broad boulevard and entered a street market.

Beneath white tents, withered old ladies clucked over bruised peaches. Young imps nicked slick olives from plastic tubs. Gray-bearded gentlemen haggled over squawking ducks.

McCrea felt an urge to shout out a warning, for all of them were blind to the danger in their midst.

Kral ushered him past a table at which a handsome middle-aged woman sold fragrant, fresh pastries. He bought two
chocolatines
and handed one to McCrea. McCrea bit into the warm chocolate-laden pastry as their path took a sharp left turn up a narrow alley. His right shoulder scraped against the rough brick wall as he followed the small man through the passageway. A few more steps revealed a brick wall blocking the alley’s far exit.