MasterStroke (32 page)

The handgun fitted snugly into a shoulder holster over the Kevlar vest and was covered by his black leather jacket. The spare ammunition went into a pocket of the jacket. He picked up his leather overnight bag, ran an appraising eye over Sandrine and nodded.

“All set?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she replied and followed him into the hallway.

“A couple of things before we go,” he said, blocking the door. “This is going to be very dangerous. I want you to stay way back, out of trouble. I’ll have someone looking out for you and, once we have the place secure, we can find Marcus and get him any medical attention he needs. But follow orders and keep your head down. I don’t need to be distracted by where you are and what you’re doing. Understand?”

“Yes, Jack. I understand.”

His expression, up till that point stern and humourless, softened. A trace of a smile teased his lips. He held her tightly and kissed her.

“I love you, baby. Stay safe.”

And, with that, they were out the door.

Chapter Thirty Nine

The sky was dark and clear with the stars bright points in the far distance. Dawn was still some way ahead as the helicopter took off from the city helipad. The streets were eerily quiet at that time and Sandrine had watched them flash by as Jack’s SUV sped from her apartment to the river.

It’s like the end of the world
, she thought bleakly.
Nobody left.
Cross-streets were almost empty as far as the eye could see, traffic signals changing on automatic, encountering only the occasional delivery truck or optimistic taxi cab. Sandrine had no idea what awaited them, whether Marcus was still alive or desperately ill, and certainly no way of knowing what Sylvester would do when Jack and the other law enforcement teams arrived. Would he give up without a fight? The way Sergei had talked about his origins as a gangster and drug trafficker in Rio de Janeiro, it seemed unlikely. Even more so if, as Jack thought, he’d already murdered Boris and Viktor. Sylvester wanted the da Vinci sketch very badly and it seemed he would do anything to get it. So a little matter of having helicopters and armed government officials arriving on his lawn first thing in the morning probably wouldn’t bother him in the least. How many men of his own did he have? And what sort of firepower?

Ice trickled down Sandrine’s spine. She shivered involuntarily. Jack, strapped next to her in the rear seat of the helicopter, turned and gave her a brave smile, squeezing her hand in reassurance. She returned the smile but it felt hollow and not at all assured.

“How are you feeling?” His lips barely moved but she could hear him fine through the headphones.

“Terrified. Do you think Sylvester will be waiting for us?”

“Unlikely. Hopefully, we’ll have the element of surprise. But we won’t know until we get there.”

“What about Sergei? Is he coming as well?”

Jack shook his head impatiently.

“No time. He’ll be brought up later if we need him.”

Sandrine knew well the area they were heading for, having spent a few summer weekends in one of the small towns of the region. It was on the coast and, by car, a few hours’ drive from downtown, depending on traffic and whether the parkway or surface roads were used. It was quicker by train and a commuter line fed directly to the major towns along the coast.

It had been farming and dairy land for much of its early years but, in the late nineteenth century, it had attracted the city’s wealthy, the industrialists and robber barons, who built expensive and elaborate mansions on massive estates along the interior waterways which connected with the sea through a narrow inlet.

The richest people in the city, and indeed the country, used these as summer homes, escaping the humidity of the city. It was a golden period of untrammelled indulgence, of house parties for hundreds of people, oceans of alcohol uninterrupted even by Prohibition, which continued until cut down by the Great Depression.

The houses fell silent, shuttered and spurned by their owners for decades until well after World War II when the parties and prosperity returned. In recent decades, some of the houses were demolished and modern, far less tasteful versions erected while other estates were subdivided. Some of the better known estates were left alone, marooned by disinterested descendants and gradually deteriorating, the only care coming from elderly caretakers.

A few, including their intended destination, had been taken over somewhere around the middle of the last century and updated by new owners. Versailles, as Sylvester’s temporary home was known, was purchased by an infamous East Coast gangster who cherished and burnished the home’s elaborate French Chateau-inspired tropes while constructing elaborate security systems designed to keep his enemies at bay. It worked to a degree; although the gangster lived there with his family and a veritable army for over a decade, long after his influence had waned, one day he disappeared as if plucked from the earth by the hand of God.

The mystery has never been solved. His wife lived there until her death, unsure of exactly what had happened to her husband. His children grew up, moved out and never showed any interest in visiting the house again. Versailles was largely left alone, used as a location for a couple of Hollywood movies and, occasionally, short-term rentals for whoever was crazy enough to pay the viciously high asking price.

A trust fund established by the house-proud gangster provided more than enough to cover the maintenance and upkeep of the estate and all attempts to buy it had been politely but firmly declined.

Sandrine knew the property well although she’d never been inside the grounds. On previous visits to the area, she’d stayed at the nearest village and cycled past the elaborate wrought iron gates set between massive granite pillars. She’d stop and gaze up the wide driveway that speared straight as an arrow from between the twin gatehouses, with their high cupolas and front sections resembling a classical temple, to the mansion at the top of a slight rise.

Each time she stood before the gates, she’d spend some time trying to discern movement at the house or around the grounds. Sandrine fancied she might draw a workman into conversation and be invited inside to tour the estate. But in the three or four times she waited and craned her neck on those hot clear summer days, under skies that were of the brightest azure blue, not once did she see anyone else.

So she found it strangely fantastic that she was returning to that place. This time, she’d get to see inside although not in any way she would ever have imagined. Despite the immediacy of the quest to rescue Marcus, she was excited to be making the journey. Over the years, she’d thought often of the house, had looked it up via search engines and read anything she could find on it.

Despite the French aristocratic connotations of Baroque architecture, she’d always imagined Versailles more along the lines of
The Great Gatsby
, bedazzled by opulent and elaborate Jazz Age parties, bootleg booze, coolly handsome men in dinner suits and whippet-thin young girls in barely-there flapper dresses.

As they neared their arrival point, the helicopter swept low over a lightly forested area, coming in on a cleared meadow, a powerful spotlight mounted under the cockpit brightly illuminating the darkness. Sandrine turned her attention to Jack who was conversing with the pilot.

“We’re some distance from Sylvester’s estate. We didn’t want to alert them. There’s transport waiting for us.”

As the helicopter settled to earth and the harsh whirl of the rotors slowed, headlights bounded towards them. Two vehicles closed in, another following behind. The sky was lightening slightly but still not enough to see.

Jack and Sandrine stepped out onto the damp grass and, crouching, ran to the waiting cars. Uniformed local deputies herded them into the back seat of a patrol car while several large canvas satchels the size of body bags were transferred from the chopper.

The cars sped off into the night. Sandrine had no idea where she was or in which direction they were heading, the headlights picking trees and hedges out of the darkness before they reached a narrow country lane and turned towards the lightening sky.

Jack was speaking rapidly with the deputies in front and Sandrine was just able to determine what was going on from the conversation.

There was a SWAT team waiting not far from the front entrance of the property and another across the Sound with a number of fast and highly maneuverable inflatable boats equipped with silent-running outboard motors. The estate had already been assessed with remote-controlled drones, using thermal imaging to overcome the lack of light at this time of the morning. Strangely, although they had pinpointed a number of enemy guards within the grounds, there weren’t as many as Jack had anticipated.

“That’s weird. I would have expected more opposition,” Jack remarked.

“That’s what the Sheriff said,” The deputy, a pleasant-faced young man, barely out of his teens, agreed readily. He half-turned from the passenger seat, and faced Jack, casting an admiring glance across Sandrine as he did. “He and the SWAT commander went over the live feeds from the drones a couple of times in case they missed something. Aside from the guards in the rear gardens, there was nobody else, not even around the front gates.”

Jack shook his head, trying to work it out. Sandrine remembered him saying that he expected a large and well-armed force waiting for them.

The deputy was casting furtive glances towards Sandrine but she didn’t find it confronting or offensive. He had a shy, fetching smile and his prominent Adam’s apple was bobbing up and down with nervousness.

“The FBI wanted to go in immediately but the Sheriff refused to budge. He said he had clear orders to wait for you.”

“The FBI is here as well?”

The young deputy nodded.

“The entire circus has arrived in town. It’s the usual jurisdictional problems. Happens whenever someone from the City gets into trouble up here, especially if money or influence is involved. City cops clash with us or the State Troopers, it gets crazy, then the Feds bull their way in. Sheriff said it’s been much worse since the Patriot Act. FBI, DEA, ATF and those clowns from Homeland Security just muddy the pond further. To them, everything is another 9/11.”

Jack sat quietly for the rest of the trip but Sandrine could sense his unease.

“Something’s really wrong,” he said eventually.

“Yup,” the deputy agreed, turning around again. “That’s what everybody is saying. But nobody knows what’s going on.”

“Well, I suppose we’ll find out soon enough,” Jack said finally.

Two large black SWAT personnel carriers were waiting in the parking lot of a diner advertising country-style home cooking, half a kilometre from Versailles’ front gates. Sheriff’s Department squad cars and unmarked and anonymous four-door sedans, the trademark of the FBI, crowded close by. The lot was filled with olive drab uniforms, dark suits and the black fatigues and ballistic vest apparel of SWAT members. Many of the men and the few women carried take-out containers of coffee; they dipped into paper sacks of donuts as they chatted with each other. A communications van was set up close by but few of the waiting personnel paid much attention to it.

Jack excused himself as he and Sandrine climbed from the back of the patrol car, saying he had to check in with the Commander. He wandered off to the communications van. Sandrine drifted along the edges of the various groups then walked up the steps of the diner, built to resemble a rural cottage that existed nowhere except in the imagination of big-city marketing executives. It was the sort of place that appeared in television commercials promoting one-pot macaroni and cheese dinners or frozen apple pies, fronted by wire-rim bespectacled, grey-haired and kind-faced grandmothers.

Sandrine knew exactly what to expect when she stepped into the diner. A series of large rooms radiated off the reception area with booths, tables of various sizes and a counter with a large commercial kitchen visible behind it. Red-checked tablecloths matched the bib aprons of the waitresses who huddled together near the entrance of the empty restaurant.

It felt strange walking into a diner devoid of customers. These places hummed twenty-four-seven, well-oiled machinery producing all-day breakfasts and hot coffee, Cokes, fries and generous slices of cherry pie served a la mode, cheeseburgers and fried chicken, a ceaseless ballet of harried but wise-cracking waitresses balancing plates from kitchen to table. This morning, there was nothing. No banter with regular customers or calling out orders to short-order cooks, no milling around the cash register sharing a quick joke with the manageress or escorting new customers to their tables.

The waitresses were gazing out to the car park, forlorn expressions shrouding their features. The morning rush had been chased away by law enforcement, police barriers blocking off entry to the car park. In the distance, some traffic slowed to drive in, stopped, confused by the cordons, then ventured on to find somewhere more hospitable to their hunger.

“There goes another one,” one of the waitresses said sourly as a battered pickup truck drove away.

Another snorted derisively.

“Jim Harbeck. Two eggs over easy, a side of bacon, wheat toast. At least we won’t be missing any action there. The ornery old coot hasn’t tipped more than a dime since the Korean War.”

The manageress craned her neck towards the window.

“Tip or no tip, it’s people like Jim who pay your wages. Comes in every morning without fail.” As the older woman, who had the ease of long-term employee, turned back, she saw Sandrine standing in the middle of the foyer.

“Yes, ma’am. Can we help you? As you can see, there’s plenty of space. Don’t need a reservation.” She nodded towards the booths. “Take a seat anywhere you like. One of the girls will be right with you.”

Sandrine gathered up a local newspaper and sat by a window overlooking the car park. She wanted Jack to be able to find her quickly if need be and she had a good view of the communications van where he was still deep in conversation.

There was an edge to her appetite that could only be satisfied the traditional way – eggs, fried, sunny side up, bacon, link sausages, hash browns and sourdough toast. Juice to start and coffee to finish. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be waiting but the diner seemed like a much better way to pass the time than standing around the car park.