“Nick’s fine.”
“Nick it is, then. As you might guess, I’m quite familiar with the magistrates in Central London.” The girl held up the warrant pinched between a thumb and forefinger and jiggled the paper. “I find it odd that I’ve never heard of this one.”
Nick reached up to retrieve the warrant, but Chaya jerked it away.
“What are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything… yet. I would like to propose a partnership. My father is missing, and you are the only ones who seem to know anything about it. Why don’t you let me tag along on your investigation?”
“Out of the question.”
“Then Interpol won’t mind if I give this document to one or two nonfictional magistrates that I know.” She gave her hair a melodramatic toss and batted her eyes. “You’ve no idea how eager to please these judges can be around cute little solicitors like me.”
“Oh, I think I do.” Nick’s hand went for his Taser of its own accord.
Drake caught his wrist. “She can help. Who knows Maharani better than his own daughter?”
Chaya flashed a sugar-sweet smile, showing perfectly straight white teeth, and then stepped around Nick and hooked Drake’s arm. She tucked the warrant into the pocket of her peacoat. “I guess it’s settled then.”
CHAPTER 29
Had Katy known the power of Kurt Baron’s lectures, she would have asked Nick’s dad to move in with them a long time ago. Luke was sound asleep. Katy was on the verge herself.
The dark lecture hall offered a welcome break from racing around Frankfurt. Kurt, aka Clark W. Griswold, had been running them ragged since they arrived. They saw the cathedrals, the botanical gardens, the Frankfurt Zoo. Most of it was a blur, but she did find the enclosure full of guinea pigs at the zoo oddly amusing. Maybe they weren’t considered disposable pets in Germany.
To stay awake, Katy took her eyes off the giant timeline of Jericho artifacts on the screen and let them drift around the room. About half the students were paying attention. The other half were either playing with their phones or passed out like Luke. None of them took any notice of her.
Good.
Throughout their tourist activities, Katy had noticed people watching her — the tall guy at the zoo, the car that followed them all the way to Mainz, the blonde woman who stayed with them from the train to the botanical gardens and then reappeared when they came out. And there were others. Maybe some of it was her imagination. Maybe all of it. Kurt had said as much, but he didn’t know the history. He didn’t understand what Nick did for a living. He didn’t know what Katy had been through already.
She was jet-lagged. She missed her husband. She told herself these things were making her paranoid. She needed to let go and start enjoying herself.
Katy squeezed her sleeping son, took a deep cleansing breath, and focused on her father-in-law’s lecture, but Kurt was droning on about a broken oil lamp preserved in the shelter of the Jericho wall. She sank a little in her seat. Maybe she could start enjoying herself later.
When the lights came up, a short, stocky individual stretched in his seat and picked up his pile of books. He started up the stairs with the rest of the students rather than hanging around to wait for Dr. Baron to pack up. That would be far too obvious. Besides, he knew where the professor and his daughter-in-law would exit, from the green room backstage. He could pick them up in the hall.
The woman came down the stairs on the other aisle as he went up. She did not see him this time, but this time he was more cautious. He wore a yarmulke. It was amazing how a little cultural item could become camouflage. He had also shaved, removing the beard of stubble, and he carried a thick pile of books under his arm, naturally raising his shoulder and ruffling his jacket to disrupt his form and cover his face.
He examined the woman with his peripheral vision only. She looked wary, alert. Baron had trained her well.
Out in the upper hall, he found a dark alcove and dialed his phone. The man who answered spoke German — a courtesy to him and a way to minimize the risk of inadvertent exposure.
“How was the lecture?”
“Enthralling.”
“Any further problems?”
The short man glanced over at the lecture-hall doors, watching the last of the students filtering out. In a minute or so he would need to reposition to keep tabs on his quarry. “No, we’ve adjusted.”
“I told you not to underestimate her.”
“Yes. You did. I assume you want me to remain hidden?”
“For now, but be ready to move in if I need you.”
The man reached into his coat and felt the butt of the Glock 42 holstered in his waistband. “Always.”
CHAPTER 30
Although common sense seemed to have taken a backseat, Nick had enough of it left to keep Chaya with him when he and Drake split up. Between his teammate and the girl, it was hard to tell who was the wolf and who was the prey. Either way, Nick knew leaving them alone together was a bad idea. Amanda could thank him later.
To keep Drake out of trouble, Nick sent him up to Cambridge in the Peugeot to chase down a hunch. Meanwhile, he took the unscrupulous lawyer to her father’s office to see what they could dig up. Without a car, that meant twenty-five awkward minutes on the Tube’s Central Line — great place to sit and be a target, in multiple senses of the word.
“I take it you’re single too?” asked Chaya, breaking the silence as they left Kensington Station on their way to Holborn.
“No.”
The monosyllabic answer shut her down, but not for long. Passing through Oxford Circus, she gathered her courage again. “Sooo, you leave the wedding ring at home then?” She glanced pointedly down at his bare hand.
Nick took in a long breath. He didn’t like her tone, and she was way off. He missed his wife and son, and he worried about them — constantly. Katy and Luke made up the part of his life that he could never fully compartmentalize. Everything else — the mortgage, plans for the future, even his other family members — he could pack in mental boxes to save for when he came home. Most of his day-to-day life did not exist when he was out on the mission, but Katy and Luke could not be tucked away so easily. He had learned that the hard way more than a year ago, while hanging by his wrists in a Chinese interrogation room.
Nick put his hand in his coat pocket, out of sight. “It’s not like that. It’s… policy. When things get heated in the field, jewelry causes issues. Rings can get hung on clothes or weapons.”
Chaya looked up at him with those big almond eyes. “Do things often get heated in the field?”
“No.”
Like a gift from heaven, the word Holborn emerged from the left side of the car’s LED display and moved to the center. The train slowed to a stop. Nick got up and headed for the doors.
The sloped glass facade of International Biological Engineering stood as a modernistic affront to the stark gray Edwardian style of the rest of Kingsway and the Strand. The echoing lobby with its concrete walls and aircraft-aluminum trim continued the theme. Everything screamed high-tech. Nick’s badge got them past the security desk and up the elevator to the third-floor research section. There, a curving hallway walled with faceted aluminum panels led them to a faux redhead, bunkered behind a concrete reception desk.
“How can I help you?” she asked in Estuary English, covering the receiver of her cell phone as Nick and Chaya approached. Then she recognized Chaya and the plastic customer-service smile fell away. “I’ll call you back, love,” she said into the phone. She put it down and folded her hands on the desk, staring Chaya in the eye. “Dr. Maharani is on leave, same as I told you this morning. He lef’ strict instructions tha’ he was not to be disturbed.”