If Rodrigo had the passenger list checked, the jig would be up, because she wasn’t flying under the name of Denise Morel, or even her own name. She had no doubt he’d check; the only question was how soon he’d do it. At first, he might not even be suspicious enough to do more than have her followed.
By leaving so openly, and taking so little luggage, she hoped he’d be curious but not suspicious, at least not for the short amount of time it would take her to disappear.
If the gods were smiling on her, he wouldn’t be unduly suspicious even when his men lost track of her in busy Heathrow. He might wonder why she flew instead of taking a ferry or tunnel, but a lot of people flew the short hop from Paris to London, and vice versa, if they were short of time.
In the best possible scenario, he wouldn’t think anything of her trip for at least a couple of days, until she failed to return home. The worst possible scenario would be if he had his men grab her in de Gaulle airport, regardless of witnesses and possible repercussions. Rodrigo wouldn’t worry about either of those. She was betting he wouldn’t go to that extent; so far he hadn’t discovered she wasn’t who she said she was, because he hadn’t had his men storm her flat. In the absence of that knowledge, there was no reason for him to cause a public disturbance.
Lily went downstairs to wait for the taxi, standing where she could see the street but her watchers couldn’t see her. She had thought about walking the several blocks to a taxi rank and waiting in line, but that would have given Rodrigo time she didn’t want him to have, and also tired her. Once—only a little over a week ago—she could have sprinted the distance and not even been winded.
Perhaps her heart had sustained little damage, just enough for Dr. Giordano to detect the murmur, and this insidious weakness would eventually go away. She’d been very sick for over three days, eating nothing, flat on her back. The human body lost strength much faster than it gained it. She’d give it a month; if she wasn’t back to normal in that length of time, she’d have some tests run on her heart. She didn’t know where, or how she’d pay for it, but she’d manage.
Of course, that was assuming she was still alive a month from now. Even after she escaped from Rodrigo, she’d still have to evade her former employer. She hadn’t computed those odds yet; she didn’t want to discourage herself.
A black taxi stopped outside. Picking up her carry-on bag, Lily murmured, “Show time,” and calmly stepped outside. She didn’t hurry, didn’t in any way appear nervous. When she was seated, she took a mirrored compact out of her tote and angled it so she could watch her watchers.
As the taxi pulled away, so did a silver Mercedes. It slowed, a man darted over and practically leaped into the passenger seat, then the Mercedes accelerated until it was right behind the taxi. In the mirror, Lily could see the passenger talking on a cell phone.
The airport was about thirty kilometers out of the city; the Mercedes stayed behind the taxi all the way. Lily didn’t know if she should be insulted or not; did Rodrigo think she was too stupid to notice, or that she would simply not care if she did? On the other hand, normal people didn’t check to see if they were being followed, so the fact that her watchers were so blatant could mean Rodrigo still didn’t really suspect her of anything, despite having her watched and followed. Judging from what she knew about him, she thought he would do that until he discovered who killed his father. Rodrigo wasn’t one to let a loose end go untied.
When they reached the airport, she walked calmly to the British Airways desk to check in. Her passport said her name was Alexandra Wesley, British citizen, and the passport photo matched her current coloring. She was flying first class, she wasn’t checking any luggage, and she had carefully built up this identity, over several years, with numerous stamps on her passport showing she visited France several times a year. She had several such identities, prudently kept private even from her contacts at Langley, for just such emergencies.
Boarding for the flight had already been called by the time she went through all the security checks and got to the designated gate. She didn’t look around her, instead carefully studying her surroundings with her peripheral vision. Yes, that man there; he was watching her, and he held a cell phone in his hand.
He didn’t make any move toward her, just made a call. Her luck was holding.
Then she was safely on the plane, effectively in the hands of the British government. Her designated seat was next to the window; the aisle seat was already occupied by a stylishly dressed woman who looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Lily murmured an apology as she slid past the woman to the window seat.
Within half an hour they were in the air for the hour’s flight to London. She and her seatmate exchanged pleasantries, Lily using a public-school accent that seemed to put the woman at ease. The British accent was easier to maintain than the Parisian one, and she almost sighed with relief as her brain seemed to relax. She dozed briefly, tired from all the airport walking.
When they were fifteen minutes out of London, she leaned over and pulled her carry-on bag from underneath the seat. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said hesitantly to the woman beside her, “but I’ve a bit of a problem.”
“Yes?” the woman said politely.
“My name is Alexandra Wesley, perhaps you’ve heard of Wesley Engineering? That’s my husband, Gerald. The thing is—” Lily looked down, as if embarrassed. “Well, the thing is, I’m leaving him and he isn’t taking it at all well. He’s set men to following me, and I’m afraid he’ll have them grab me. He’s a bit abusive, set on having his way, and . . . and I really can’t go back.”
The woman looked both uncomfortable and intrigued, as if she didn’t like hearing such intimate details from a stranger but was fascinated in spite of herself. “You poor dear. Of course you can’t go back. But how can I help?”
“When we leave the plane, will you take this bag for me and go to the nearest public loo? I’ll follow you and take it back. It has a disguise in it,” she said quickly, when the woman’s face showed alarm at being asked to take a stranger’s bag in this age of terrorism. “See, look through it.” She quickly unzipped the bag. “Clothes, shoes, wigs. Nothing else. The thing is, they might think of that—that I’d disguise myself, I mean—and pay attention to the bags I take into the loo with me. I read a book on how to evade a stalker and it mentioned this. He’ll have men at Heathrow waiting for me, I know it; as soon as I step out for transportation they’ll take me.” She wrung her hands, hoping she looked suitably distressed. It helped that her face was still thin and drawn from illness, and that she was normally lanky anyway, making her look more frail than she was.
The woman took the bag from Lily and carefully went through every item. A smile broke over her face when she examined one of the wigs. “Hiding in plain sight, are you?”
Lily smiled back. “I hope it works.”
“We’ll see. If not, we’ll share a taxi. Safety in numbers, and all that.” The woman was getting into the spirit of things now.
If her seatmate hadn’t been a woman, Lily would have improvised, taken her chances, but this gambit slightly increased her chances, and at this point she was willing to grab at the least advantage. Agency men could be waiting for her, as well as Rodrigo’s goons, and they wouldn’t be as easy to fool.
Depending on how they wanted to play it, they could have her arrested as soon as she stepped off the plane, in which case there was nothing she could do. They usually played it much closer to the vest than that, though. If they could avoid involving the British government in what was essentially a housekeeping chore to them, then they would.