‘Look there.’ He pointed toward the entrance.
Staughton was also looking. A woman he immediately recognized was leaving the hospital with an older blond man and a young man dressed in pajamas.
Thompson stopped the car and got out, gun in hand.
‘Sarah Monteiro,’ he called in a loud, commanding voice, pointing the gun at her. ‘Don’t move.’
Staughton got out of the car, confused, but without taking his gun out. His partner had the situation under control and was more used to pointing guns at people and even… shooting them without hesitation or conscience.
Sarah and the others obeyed promptly and even raised their hands, as film directors require, without receiving the order.
Thompson smiled, seeing the scene unfold under his direction, and looked at Staughton confidently, like a teacher showing his willing student the art of apprehending one or more individuals. But his expression changed as soon as he turned his eyes toward his partner and saw a red dot moving up his chest toward his head.
‘What?’ Staughton wanted to know. ‘What’s going on?’ Fear made his voice tremble.
‘Don’t move,’ Thompson ordered, looking across the street, the probable location of the shooter. Several buildings with the lights out made it practically impossible to tell.
Thompson pointed the gun at the three people with no sign of putting it down, while he watched the buildings in front, visibly uncomfortable.
‘Sarah Monteiro,’ he shouted. ‘Get over here.’
He could use her as a shield, getting an advantage over the shooter, whose identity he thought about. It could only be Jack Payne, the so-called Rafael Santini.
Sarah walked toward Thompson, step by step, without haste. This was not in her plans. Everything had seemed solved by the elimination of Templar and James. A noise in the window of the driver’s-side door on Thompson’s car broke it into pieces and made Sarah cry out and hit the ground. Thompson shook the pieces of what used to be the window off his jacket and ran to reach Sarah, his last chance, fifteen yards away, lying on the ground, easy, easy. The asphalt jumped twice near his feet. Two shots, without doubt, that made him stop and get the message: I don’t want to kill you, but if I have to… He dropped his gun and put his hands behind his head without anyone’s ordering it. He had lost. In that moment he saw Rafael come out of the house in front and cross the street with a gun pointed at him.
‘Make your colleague lay down his gun,’ Rafael ordered.
Hearing him, Sarah got up and looked at him with luminous eyes. A year later, another encounter in the same circumstances. Couldn’t they meet another way? More normally. A dinner, a date at the movies, a cup of coffee?
‘Do what he tells you,’ Thompson told Staughton in the same firm voice as always. This clearly wasn’t the first time he’d found himself with a gun aimed at him. A warrior’s occupational hazard, Staughton thought with respect, while he tossed his gun away from him. If they knew him well, they’d know he’d never shoot at anyone.
Rafael crossed the street without taking his eyes off the two men. He never relaxed or even glanced at Sarah, who already knew how he operated. All business. There’s no diversion in the life of Rafael Santini, a sometime double agent for P2 who used the name Jack Payne.
When he got near Thompson, Rafael arched his lips in a sarcastic smile.
‘How’s Geoffrey Barnes?’
Neither agent answered, naturally. Thompson met Rafael’s look, while Staughton lowered his eyes to avoid calling undesirable attention to himself. On the computer everything was much easier.
‘Give him my best, friends,’ he said in a neutral tone. Of course, they’d never pass on that message, but Staughton was pleased to know that Rafael wasn’t going to harm them.
‘You’re totally crazy,’ Phelps protested. ‘Gun out, shooting at people? You’re completely possessed. My God, where are we? And who are these men?’ He pointed at Staughton and Thompson, who looked at him fascinated.
‘My beloved Phelps,’ Rafael called. ‘Help our two new friends into the van. It’ll be a little crowded, but where there’s a will… And don’t say anything else.’
Phelps was fuming, but Sarah’s hand on his brought him back to earth. Immediately Simon and the woman walked to the van, where they’d have to squeeze three into a seat for one. Anything can be done with the grace of God.
Rafael, ever on guard, picked up the guns thrown on the ground, unloaded them skillfully, and let them fall, keeping the clips for future use.
‘We’ll see each other again,’ Rafael informed them as he walked to the van. ‘So long.’
Before getting into the van, he pressed a pen that sent a beam of red light into Thompson’s eyes. Not everything is as it appears. Then he took off as fast as possible.
The two men remained behind, confused, seeing the van leave down Fulham Road in the direction of Fulham Broadway. Their reaction came afterward when Thompson opened the door.
‘Let’s go.’
‘Where?’
‘After them. Where do you think they went?’
The two men got in the car and took off in the same direction, or, at least, that was their intention. Thompson felt something wrong and slammed on the brakes. He poked his head outside and saw what he hadn’t noticed previously: two of the tires were flat. Rafael must have shot them out.
‘What’s the problem?’ Staughton asked.
‘Flat tires,’ Thompson explained, getting out of the car.
‘He is,’ Staughton exclaimed with a sigh.
‘He’s what?’ Thompson was not joking.
‘He is good,’ Staughton said admiringly.
Just as Thompson was about to express his anger, a London cab stopped next to the car. A young man got out with a disdainful look.
‘What happened here?’ he asked rudely.
‘Keep going,’ Thompson answered impolitely. ‘This is none of your business.’
A sarcastic, annoying smile appeared on the man’s face.
‘You must be Barnes’s men.’
‘And who are you?’ Staughton asked, unhappy with the insult.
‘I’m your boss for the next few hours. I have two men inside there. What’s happened here?’
‘Are we speaking with Herbert?’
The man nodded yes.
‘Your men should be dead. We couldn’t stop them from taking the woman away,’ Staughton confessed.
‘Who?’
‘You haven’t heard of Rafael Santini or Jack Payne?’
Herbert recognized the name. He went over to the taxi driver’s door and took out a revolver.
‘I’m out of patience. So I’m going to give you five seconds to leave the vehicle.’
The taxi driver sat astonished and immobile, but when Herbert looked at his watch and started to count, one, two, three, four, it only took a second for him to leave the taxi and start running as fast as his age allowed.
‘Let’s go now,’ Herbert ordered. He turned to Thompson. ‘You drive.’ Then to Staughton, ‘You call Barnes. We can’t let them get out of the city, even if we have to get the president after them. They can’t and won’t leave the city alive.’
38
‘Good Lord, who could it be at this hour?’ protested the poor sister who had to dress as quickly as possible to attend the impatient person who’d been knocking insistently at the door of the Convent of the Order of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for the last five minutes. She even crossed herself when, still in bed, she looked at the clock and saw that it was ten minutes before five in the morning, fifty-five minutes before she’d get up for the first prayers before breakfast.
Whoever it was would have to listen to her reprimand since it was highly discourteous to disturb the sleep of the sisters, even more so when the evening before they’d had a night procession with candles in honor of Our Lady. The Marian Sanctuary stood some hundreds of feet from here, and today thousands of pilgrims were expected to come to show their devotion to the Virgin and her fruit conceived without sin.