Kiss Me While I sleep (11 page)

He’d run it by Frank Vinay in a few hours when sunrise hit D.C., but his gut told him he was on the right track and he’d start nosing around before he talked to Vinay. He just needed to decide on a starting point

It all went back to her friends. Whatever they’d been doing that got on Nervi’s bad side, that same thing would be her target as a sort of poetic justice.

He thought back to the file he’d read in Vinay’s office. He hadn’t brought any paperwork with him, because it could compromise security; unsanctioned eyes couldn’t read what wasn’t there. He relied instead on his excellent memory, which produced the names
Averill
and
Christina Joubran,
retired contract agents. Averill had been Canadian, Christina from the States, but they’d lived in France full-time and been completely retired for over twelve years. What could have spurred Salvatore Nervi to kill them?

Okay, first he had to find out where they’d lived, how they’d died, who their friends were other than Lily Mansfield, and if they’d talked to anyone about something unusual going on. Maybe Nervi was manufacturing biological weapons and selling them to the North Koreans, though again, if Lily’s friend had stumbled across something like that, why the hell wouldn’t they have simply called their old bosses and reported it? Idiots might try to handle things themselves, but successful contract agents weren’t idiots, because if they were, they’d be dead.

That wasn’t a good thought, because the Joubrans
were
dead. Uh-oh.

Before he thought himself in circles again, Swain got out of bed and showered, then called room service for breakfast. He’d elected to stay at the Bristol in the Champs-Elysees district because it had hotel parking space and twenty-four-hour room service. It was also expensive, but he needed the parking for the car he’d rented last night, and the room service because he might be keeping some very odd hours. Besides, the marble bathrooms were cool.

It was while he was eating his croissant and jam that something obvious occurred to him: the Joubrans hadn’t stumbled across anything. They’d been
hired
to do a job and either it had gone bad on them or they’d succeeded at it and been killed afterward when Nervi struck back.

Lily might already know what that something was, in which case he was still playing catch-up. But if she didn’t-and he thought that was likely, since she’d been away on a job when the kills went down-then she’d be trying to find out who had hired her friends, and why. Essentially, she’d be asking the same questions of the same people that Swain intended to interview. What were the odds that their paths would cross at some point?

He hadn’t liked those odds before, but they were looking better and better by the minute. A good starting point would be finding out what, if anything, had happened to any Nervi-owned facility in the week preceding the Joubrans’ deaths. Lily would be checking newspaper reports, which might or might not have any mention of a problem pertaining to the Nervis; he was in a position to go straight to the French police, but he’d just as soon they not know who he was or where he was staying. Frank Vinay wanted this kept as quiet as possible; it wouldn’t be good for diplomatic relations for the French to know that a CIA contract agent had apparently assassinated someone as politically connected as Salvatore Nervi, who hadn’t been a French citizen, but had nevertheless lived in Paris and had many friends in the government.

He checked in the phone directory for the Joubrans’ address, but there was nothing listed. No surprise there.

Swain’s good luck was that he worked for an agency that collected the most minute bits of news from all over the world, then cataloged and analyzed everything. Another bit of good luck was that the information highway in that agency was open twenty-four hours a day.

He used his secure cell phone to call Langley, going through the usual process of identification and verification, but within a minute he was talking to a person in the know, by the name of Patrick Washington. Swain told him who he was and what he needed, Patrick said, “Hold on,” and Swain waited. And waited.

Ten minutes later Patrick came back on the line. “Sorry it took so long, I had to double-check something.” Meaning he’d checked on Swain. “Yeah, there was an incident at a lab on August twenty-fifth, a contained explosion and fire. According to the reports, the damage was minimal.”

The Joubrans had been killed on August 28. The lab incident had to be the trigger.

“Do you have an address on the lab?”

“Coming up.”

Swain heard computer keys clicking; then Patrick said, “Number Seven Rue des Capucines, just outside Paris.”

That covered a lot of ground. “North, east, south, or west?”

“Uh-let me pull up a street-finder-” More clicking keys. “East.”

“What’s the name of the lab?”

“Nothing fancy. Nervi Laboratories.”

Yeah, right. Mentally Swain translated the name into French.

“Need anything else?”

“Yeah. The street address of Averill and Christina Joubran. They were retired contract agents. We used them occasionally.”

“How long ago?”

“Early nineties.”

“Just a minute.” More clicking keys. Patrick said, “Here it is,” and recited the address. “Anything else?”

“No, that’s it. You’re a good man, Mr. Washington.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The “sir” verified that Patrick had indeed double-checked Swain’s identity and clearance. He put Patrick’s name down in his mental file of go-to people, because he liked that the man was cautious enough that he didn’t take anything for granted.

Swain looked out the window: still raining. He hated that. He’d spent too many hours in the steaming tropical heat after a sudden downpour had drenched him to the skin, and the experience had given him an intense dislike of getting his clothes wet. It had been a long time since he’d been cold and wet, but as he remembered, it was even more miserable than being hot and wet. He hadn’t brought a raincoat with him, either. He wasn’t even certain he owned one, and he didn’t have time to go shopping.

He checked his watch. Ten after eight; shops weren’t open yet, anyway. He solved that problem by calling down to the front desk and arranging to have a raincoat in his size delivered to his room and charged to his account. That wouldn’t prevent him from getting wet this morning, since he couldn’t wait for it to arrive. At least he would be in the rain only going to and from his rental car, not slogging through miles of jungle.

He’d rented a Jaguar because he’d always wanted to drive one, and also because only the more expensive cars had been available by the time he got to the rental office last night, even though he’d crossed the Channel “much faster” than usual, thanks to Murray’s NATO friend. He figured he’d write off the usual amount of a rental on expenses and eat the rest of it himself. He’d never seen a rule he didn’t like to finesse, but he was scrupulously honest on his expenses. He figured his ass was more likely to be raked over the coals because of money than for any other reason. Being fond of his ass, he tried to spare it unnecessary stress.

He left the Bristol behind the wheel of the Jaguar, deeply inhaling the rich leather scent of the upholstery. If women really wanted to smell good to men, he thought, they’d wear perfume that smelled like a new car.

With that happy idea lingering in his mind, he plunged headlong into Parisian traffic. He hadn’t been in Paris in years, but he remembered that the bravest and most foolhardy won the right-of-way. The rule was you yield to traffic on the right, but screw the rule. He deftly cut off a taxi whose driver slammed on the brakes and screamed Gallic curses, but Swain accelerated and shot through a gap. Damn, this was fun! The wet streets raised the unpredictability factor, adding to his adrenaline level.

He battled his way south of the Montparnasse district to where the Joubrans had lived, occasionally consulting a city map. Later in the day he would check out the Nervi lab, eyeball the layout and more obvious security measures, but right now he wanted to go where he figured Lily Mansfield was most likely to be.

It was time to get this show on the road. After the merry chase she’d led him the day before, he couldn’t wait to match wits with her again. He had no doubt he’d win-eventually-but all the fun was in the run

Rodrigo slammed down the phone, then propped his elbows on the desk and buried his face in his hands. The urge to strangle someone was strong. Murray and his band of merry idiots had evidently gone both blind and stupid, to let one woman so thoroughly make fools of them all. Murray swore he’d had experts look at the airport video, and none could tell where Denise Morel had gone. She had effectively vanished into thin air, though Murray was gracious enough to admit that she must have used a disguise, but one so clever and professional that there were no visible similarities for them to track.

She could
not
be allowed to get away with killing his father. Not only would his reputation suffer, but everything in him demanded vengeance. Grief and wounded pride roiled together, giving him no peace. He and his father had always been so careful, so thorough, but this one woman had somehow slipped under their defenses and dealt Salvatore a nasty, painful death. She hadn’t even given him the dignity of a bullet, but had chosen poison, a coward’s weapon.

Murray might have lost her, but he, Rodrigo, hadn’t given up. He refused to give up.

Think!
he commanded himself. To find her he first had to identify her. Who was she, where did she live, where did her
family live?

What were the usual means of identification? Fingerprints, obviously. Dental records. The last wasn’t an option, because he would need to know not only who she was but who her dentist was, and at any rate, that method was used mainly for identifying someone already dead. To find someone alive… how to do that?

Fingerprints. The room where she’d slept while she was here had been thoroughly cleaned by his staff the day she went back to her flat, destroying any prints, nor had he thought to lift a print from any of the drinking glasses or silverware she’d used. Her flat was a possibility, though. Feeling faintly heartened, he contacted a friend in the Parisian police department who didn’t ask questions, just said that he would take care of it immediately himself.

The friend called within the hour. He hadn’t gone over every inch of the flat, but he’d checked the most obvious places and there were no prints at all, not even smudged ones. The flat had been thoroughly wiped down.

Rodrigo swallowed his rage at being so completely thwarted by this woman. “What other means are there of finding someone’s identity?”

“None that are guaranteed, my friend. Fingerprints are of use only if the subject has previously been arrested and his prints are in the database. It is the same with every method. DNA, as accurate as it is, is good only if there is another DNA sample to which it can be compared so you can say, yes, these two samples did or did not come from the same person. The facial recognition programs will identify only those people who are already in the database, and is targeted mostly toward terrorists. It is the same with voice recognition, retina patterns, everything. There must be a database from which matches can be made.”

“I understand.” Rodrigo rubbed his forehead, thoughts racing. Security video! He had Denise’s face on security video, plus much clearer pictures on her identity paperwork and the investigations he’d done. “Who has these facial-recognition programs?”

“Interpol, of course. All the major organizations such as Scotland Yard, the American FBI and CIA.”

“Are their data banks shared?”

“To some extent, yes. In a perfect world, speaking from an investigational standpoint, everything would be shared, but everyone likes to keep some secrets, no? If this woman is a criminal, then Interpol might very well have her in their data banks. And one other thing-”

“Yes?”

“The landlord said that a man, an American, was here yesterday asking about the woman. The landlord didn’t get a name, and his description is so vague as to be useless.”

“Thank you,” said Rodrigo, trying to think what this meant. The woman had been paid in American dollars. An American man was looking for her. But it followed that if this man had been the one to hire her, he would already know where she was-and why search for her anyway, when she had completed her mission? No, this had to be something totally unconnected, an acquaintance perhaps.

He disconnected the call, a grim smile twisting his lips, and punched in a number he’d called many times before. The Nervi organization had contacts all over Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and were expanding into the Orient. As an intelligent man, it behooved him to make certain one of those contacts was very conveniently placed within Interpol itself.

“Georges Blanc,” said a quiet, steady voice, which was indicative of the man himself. Rodrigo had seldom met anyone more competent than Blanc, whom he’d never met face-to-face.

“If I scan a photograph and send it to your computer, can you run it through your facial identification program?” He had no need to identify himself. Blanc knew his voice.

There was a short pause; then Blanc said, “Yes.” There were no qualifications, no explanation of the security measures he might have to sidestep, just that brief affirmative.