Burned (Vanessa Pierson series Book 2) (23 page)

“I’ll do what I can,” she said, pulling back physically and
emotionally. She felt Fournier watching her closely, and his suspicion was tangible. “But it depends upon you, Dieter. We need to know about True Jihad.”

“I can’t tell you anything about True Jihad,” he said. “For the simple reason that I had never heard of them until the bombing at the Louvre.”

Vanessa’s pulse quickened. She believed Dieter. She said, “The workmanship on one of the bombs was similar to one of your designs.”

“I’m flattered, but I still know nothing,” Dieter said. “I don’t have free access to news.” He indicated his surroundings with his head and chin. “In here.”

Next to Vanessa, Fournier made a noise, a sort of groan. He was gritting his teeth. She felt his rising pique with Dieter’s constant negotiations. Fournier must have also sensed that a private exchange was happening in front of his eyes.

He reached past Vanessa and slid the top page off the pile, revealing a composite sketch of Bogdan’s scarfaced man. Zoe, using her tech magic, had overlaid some impressions from the security image they’d taken from La Défense. The result was a striking black-and-white portrait of a dark-eyed, dark-haired man with a broad face, a prominent nose, and a small mouth. A rash of small scars covered part of his left cheek and neck.

“He has a distinctive face, doesn’t he?” she said after a moment.

Dieter took another cookie—making that four macaroons. He actually looked at the portrait as he slowly munched.

Vanessa waited, almost jumping when Fournier thrust himself forward. “Was he part of your network?”

“Don’t get so excited, Marcel.” Dieter kept his focus on Vanessa. “Let’s just say he’s well connected, and he knew someone who needed an introduction to someone.”

“Merde,”
Fournier snapped. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? You’re talking in riddles, playing stupid games!”

Dieter snarled at Fournier in Afrikaans, the specifics indecipherable, the insult clear as glass.

“You recognize him, Dieter, so how do you know him?” Vanessa asked. “If you help us you help yourself. Did he come to you as a buyer?” She felt silent pressure from Fournier and she wished she could banish him from the room.

“Belmarsh,” Dieter said slowly. He let the silence lengthen, his eyes on the macaroons, his expression still hungry. “I was comfortable there even though the facilities are . . . rudimentary. It is clean and I had a window.”

“Was he a buyer, Dieter?” Vanessa let the urgency show in her voice.
Please say yes. We need confirmation.
“Did he buy or try to buy contraband from your network?”

Dieter looked up at her, shaking his head. “No.”

She flagged inside. He was telling them that Scarface had not purchased black-market weapons from his network. “You’re positive?”

“I’m positive.”

“Then how—?”

“Belmarsh . . .”

Her spirits took another dip—he was going to push for Belmarsh again.
Does he really have any intel to give us on Scarface? Has he even truly met the man? Is this all part of Bhoot’s wild-goose chase after all, to dominate and manipulate?

“Right,” she said slowly, breathing deeply. “I get it, you want to return to Belmarsh. And I’ve told you, I will see what I can do about your transfer,” Vanessa said. “I’m good to my word.”

“Yes,” Dieter said. He was eating another cookie. “I want to return to Belmarsh. And yes, I met this man there.”

Vanessa stared at Dieter. It took her a few seconds to realize that her mouth was open. She closed it and spoke carefully. “You met this man at Belmarsh.” She tapped the image. “You’re positive?”

He looked at her intently, his eyes mocking. “I was lucky if I saw my lawyer every month, so yes, I’m positive I remember this man. He was my only visitor other than my counsel.”

For an instant her heartbeat seemed to catch. She tried for a straight face but knew she wasn’t pulling it off. Fournier, aware of the weight of this revelation, tensed with excitement—but he kept silent. She scrambled mentally to put the pieces together at the same time she asked the most logical questions. “Was he an inmate?”

“No.”

“On staff?”

“No.”

Her pulse sped up. “What was he doing at Belmarsh, Dieter?”

“He came to see me.”

Fournier couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “He came through official channels?”

“He didn’t drop down the chimney,” Dieter said flatly.

“Who is he?” Vanessa asked.

“I assume his visit was arranged with the usual security measures,” Dieter said. He picked up an almond-flavored cookie and studied it; he’d eaten the last of the rose macaroons. “He introduced himself as Mr. Hanna. He did not stay long.”

“What did he want?” Vanessa shook her head. “He has to have incredible connections to get vetted to see you inside Belmarsh.”

Dieter shrugged. “Like I told your French friend before—he’s well connected and he knows someone who needed an introduction.” He looked closely at Vanessa, as if he were trying to see how much she comprehended.

She closed her eyes for a moment to make the links between ideas, and then she opened them and spoke slowly and carefully. “Mr. Hanna was admitted to Belmarsh—and he was there as a representative for someone else?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who that someone else was?” Fournier asked.

“No, I’ve already told you, I don’t know.” He sighed. “But obviously it had to be someone with clout.”

Then, almost as if it were an unimportant afterthought, he added something that made Vanessa tense internally.

He said, “Somehow I got the sense Mr. Hanna was there on behalf of an American, not a Brit.”

“Why?”

Dieter closed his eyes and made slight movements with his head. “My visitor said something like, ‘I’ve traveled here on behalf of a friend who is not able to come himself.’ The way he said it, I thought,
He’s American.
” Dieter opened his eyes again to stare at Vanessa. “Don’t ask me to give you more explanation, but I have good instincts.”

She ran on instinct so often herself, she couldn’t argue.

“Could this powerful person have been looking to buy black-market weapons?”

“No,” Dieter said, sounding confident. “This powerful someone had something to
sell
.”

Now Vanessa took several deep breaths.

She saw a shadowy figure outside the window. He held up two fingers. It was the officer ready to escort them from the facility to the jet. She was out of time, but she had to fill in the most vital blank of all. She spoke calmly, without apparent urgency. “One thing I need to understand, Dieter—Mr. Hanna came to Belmarsh on behalf of someone else, possibly an American, and he asked you to make an introduction?”

“Correct,” Dieter said. “That is the gist.”

Fournier pushed in front of Vanessa. “Introduce
qui à qui
?”

Dieter looked past Fournier to Vanessa.

She nodded slowly.
Bhoot.

Stunned—the pieces of the puzzle were finally falling into place, but she couldn’t afford to get thrown by her emotions, not now. Mr. Hanna, aka Scarface, had gained entrance to a super-max prison in the UK to visit a notorious terrorist and arms dealer on behalf of a very powerful individual asking for an introduction to Bhoot. But to sell what?

Abruptly, she felt very cold. “Dieter,” she said slowly. “When did Mr. Hanna visit you?”

“I had been at Belmarsh for less than a month when he came to me.”

Vanessa nodded, but she was seeing through Dieter to the past: The timing of the visit would have been just before Bhoot sent his Chechen assassin after her assets. The inside of her mouth tasted bitter.

“Introduce
qui à qui
?” Fournier asked again, clearly exasperated. He stood behind Vanessa and paced restlessly.

Dieter ignored him.

Vanessa was close enough to Dieter to hear him breathe. “Introduce the weasel to the ghost, or at least their representatives . . .”

She’d remembered Bhoot’s mistake. She saw it now as intentional, calling the mole the weasel.

Dieter nodded. And he took another almond macaroon. “These aren’t as good as the rose, but they are nevertheless delicious.”

The door opened and the officer stood in the threshold.

“Just one more question,” Vanessa said, gathering the documents. The red light on the tiny recorder blinked on and off. “This introduction—were you able to oblige?”

“I was willing. I told you, the only other visitor I was allowed to speak to was my very highly paid attorney.”

She took another long, slow breath. Because now she was staring at a whole new picture: Scarface, aka Mr. Hanna, wasn’t a buyer, a terrorist. He was the thief who stole the detonator, and it now looked like he was also the mole’s representative. That changed everything, because it meant that the mole wasn’t selling secrets to True Jihad, he must be the man
behind
True Jihad!

She pictured Jeffreys’s face. Was it possible?

And if so, what the hell is he planning?

As the door closed behind them, Vanessa heard Dieter’s quiet words, “Thank you for the Ladurée, and please, get me the
fok
out of here.”

As directed, he entered the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul on foot through the Sıra Odalar
Gate. He checked his pocket watch. His timing was good. Attached to his left wrist, the titanium briefcase now seemed to him to be an appendage, a dangerous part of him.

From the gate he wound right and left, getting lost in a matter of minutes, until he saw the almost invisible sign for the
Zincirli Han in what seemed a forgotten corner at the edge of the bazaar.

The Grand Bazaar was bounded by hans, or inns, many located just inside and outside the massive fifteenth-century walls. Most of the inns dated back hundreds of years to that same century or close to it, when they had served as meeting places for various traders, some legitimate, others less than honest. They still served that purpose, offering sequestered places for individuals seeking privacy to meet covertly to transact business.

The inner courtyard of the Zincirli Han was illuminated by watery light filtered through old skylights and a bit of ceiling open to the sky above. Tired flowers and vines grew tangled from large pots. A boy, crouched on hands and knees, flicked marbles near a small fish
pond. The man saw a flash of orange as a fish surfaced through the murky water.

The boy stared furtively at the scars on the man’s face as he passed, while a withered, white-haired Turk with a few black teeth nodded at him from the shadows of an open café where old men smoked and drank strong coffee and played backgammon. He slid his free hand into his right pocket, which contained a scrap of paper with “the tinker” written in Turkish.

He sensed movement to his left and he tensed, ready to defend himself and the briefcase. But it was only the white-haired Turk, so old his bones were like sticks. The Turk grinned, placing his wrinkled hands against his cheek before rubbing his stomach and winking.
Need a room to rest for the night, and food and drink, and maybe a woman?
he pantomimed.

He dug the piece of paper from his pocket. The old man looked at it and stopped smiling. He pointed to a narrow staircase that led to a single door. The man with the scars on his face climbed the stairs and knocked. The door opened after a long wait. A man peered out. The tinker—he was dark and fat and bald. By reputation he was one of the best in the business when it came to attaching and arming specialized trigger detonators.

He showed the tinker the paper; he didn’t have to show the case locked to his arm. He felt the fat tinker’s eyes on the briefcase before they moved to his scars. The tinker stepped back and let him inside a small room. A brightly colored bird screeched from a corner. The windows were open, but still the room felt tight and airless. The tinker gestured for him to sit. There were two long cushions on either side of a square wooden table. He preferred to stand, but he did not want to insult the tinker. Reluctantly, he took the cushion closest to the door.

The tinker disappeared behind a curtain; he returned within seconds carrying a suitcase that measured about sixty-five centimeters
in length, a bit shorter in height, roughly four times the size of the briefcase the scarred man carried. The tinker did not appear to be straining as he placed the suitcase on its side next to the table. He opened it.

The man stared at the device, at its compact smooth silver cylinder. It looked solid. Its purpose to kill and poison and maim, to inflame emotions, to frighten and confuse and get the world ready for the Final Wrath. When he swallowed, his throat was painfully dry. He managed to nod and the tinker closed the suitcase.

The tinker then gestured for him to open the briefcase.

Hands trembling slightly now, he unlocked the chain from his wrist, unlocked the case itself, lifting the lid to show off the stolen triggered spark gap. The tinker looked it over and gave a satisfied nod.

The man stood, abruptly weightless without the briefcase. He eased toward the door, not wanting to turn his back on the tinker, who was gently caressing the trigger.

Outside, he retraced his steps quickly. As he walked out of the han, he realized that his heart was racing and he’d broken a sweat that beaded thickly on his dark skin. He had not expected the sight of the weapon to affect him in such a powerful way.