The woman turned a page and studied the timeline she had constructed. She was sure that the ex-SAS men would have set up a reporting system with their families-they would be aware of potential reprisals by Irish paramilitaries and foreign agents. That meant she had to snatch her targets as quickly as possible. Rommel's and Geron- imo's people didn't present a problem as they were close together. But she then had to get to Wolfe's house in Warwickshire, a drive of at least an hour, before the alarm was raised. With the men far away, she was sure that would be long enough.
Sara turned off the torch and smiled as she stretched out on the sleeping bag. Her knee banged against the steel box that contained her gear.
She had everything she needed to kill, maim and incapacitate. Which of the three she used would depend on the circumstances. She was prepared for anything. Thirteen I was about five minutes' walk from my flat when I realized that Karen would be going crazy. I'd changed the SIM card in my phone and only Andy knew the new number. I stopped at a public phone and called her office number. I got her secretary, so I hung up and tried her cell phone.
"Matt!" she said. "Where the bloody hell have you been?"
"Pardon?" I asked, playing the innocent.
"Don't mess me around. I've been ringing you for hours." She paused. "Where are you?"
Something about the way she asked the question made me suspicious. "Em, around and about. Hang on, I'll call you back." I broke the connection, retrieved my phone card from the machine and walked back toward Fulham Broadway Station. I had the distinct feeling that Karen's interest in my location wasn't casual. There was a good chance she'd been told to bring me in-technically, to protect me, but really to make sure I couldn't take unilateral action against Sara. One thing I wasn't going to be doing was calling her back. Not only could she put a trace on the phone-I wasn't going to make that mistake again after Safet Shkrelli-but she might manage to talk me into seeing things her way. I couldn't risk that, and I wasn't going to leave Andy and the others to face Sara. I was her main target, and I didn't intend to leave them in the lurch. The only way we would catch her was by me taking her on. Karen would never be able to allow that, even if she understood it.
I sent Andy a text message-we'd agreed to keep calls to a minimum. He said he'd followed Doris Carlton-Jones to a bridge club in Beckenham. I told him to stay on her. It was just possible that Sara would have arranged to meet her birth mother. Then I had a thought. Maybe she was also keeping an eye on Doris Carlton-Jones. She knew what Andy looked like. I texted him again, telling him to keep out of sight as much as possible, and not to go back to my flat.
On the bus into the center, I thought about what I was doing. Dropping out of sight would piss Karen off and it might anger Sara, too. There was no right way to act. I thought about leaving the country and making it clear to Sara that I'd done so. Would that stop whatever devious plan she was working to? I knew it wouldn't. She was implacable and relentless, and I was sure she'd spent the last two years honing the skills that the White Devil had introduced her to.
I hit several cash machines, using different accounts each time, and then went to a computer shop that I hadn't used before on Tottenham Court Road. I emerged with a laptop and a wi-fi card. Then I headed for the first hotel on the list I'd memorized. It was a cheap place in Blooms- bury, with clanking water pipes and dingy rooms, but the clerk was happy to be paid in cash and didn't ask for identification. I signed in as Mr. R. Thompson and gave an address in Leeds. Both were real, as I'd checked the local telephone directory-it wasn't a good idea to make things up, given the heightened security situation in London.
I locked the door and set up the laptop on a rickety table. I'd got the techies in the shop to initiate the system, so I was ready to roll. I logged on and checked my e-mails. There was nothing unexpected. I went to Rog's ghost site to see how he and Pete were getting on. They were making progress, but it was slow.
I got back to thinking about the cryptic clue I'd been sent. There were under six hours to go. I was suddenly plagued by doubts about Katya being the target. Why would Sara go for a woman I'd only met briefly? Also, she could hardly have come up with a more difficult target, given how seriously a gangster like Safet Shkrelli would take security. Then again, I told myself, it would be just like Sara to choose an unlikely victim, and just like her to take on almost impossible odds. I hoped Shkrelli had paid heed to my warning. I'd liked Katya. She hadn't lost her human warmth, despite the horrors she'd been through. Maybe that was why the gangster had chosen her. But was it really her name in the puzzle?
I looked at it again. "The sun set by the westernmost dunes of Alexander's womankind." The sun. Apollo? Oddly enough, I didn't know anyone of that name. Who else was associated with the sun? Louis XIVth of France had been known as the Sun King. Again, I didn't know anyone called Louis, first or second name. I logged on to one of the search engines and came up with a list of sun- gods-Sol, Ra, Shamash, Inti, Surya Deva. I couldn't link any of them to a recognizable person, unless I was expected to warn every person named Sol or Solomon of imminent death. Then there were all the newspapers with "sun" in their titles. I didn't see how they might fit in to the rest of the clue. I thought about the dunes again. The westernmost dunes. In the U.K., that would mean Cornwall-there were plenty of beaches there, as well as a burgeoning surfing scene. Cornwall. I didn't know anyone by that name. Shit, this was getting me nowhere.
Then I remembered the name and initials the sender had used to sign off. Flaminio. That was an obvious link to John Webster's play The White Devil. I'd initially assumed that meant Sara had written the message. But Flaminio was a male name. She would surely have used the name of Vittoria, the main female "white devil" in the play. As for D.F., I couldn't make any link between those letters and Webster's play. I began to have the feeling that I was playing a game with rules I only vaguely knew. Then I ran D.F. through a search engine and came up with the protagonist of a play by another writer born in the 16 th century-Christopher Marlowe's vainglorious but ultimately tragic Doctor Faustus. Why would Sara-or anyone else-cast themselves as the man who made a pact with the devil and ended up in hell?
I had a bad feeling about this. It looked like Sara might not have written the message. Was I being pursued by a male who had, in some way, done a deal with the devil? Everyone made compromises, everyone did things they didn't want to for some temporary gain. Then I remembered what Karen had said about the book I'd written: The Death List was in effect a pact with the devil and, by writing it, I'd lost part of my humanity. Maybe Sara, or someone else, was hinting at that.
I got up and smacked my hands together. It was just after eight. I had four hours to come up with a name. Katya was still a possibility, but I wasn't convinced about her anymore, despite the connection with Alexander Drys.
I went back to the computer and started from scratch. The sun. Could the message be a series of opposites or pairs? "The moon rose far from the least eastern grains of-" Whose? Alexander the Great's father Philip? His chief enemy Darius? His soul mate Hephaistion? I let that go. And mankind instead of womankind? So the target was a male? Going back to the beginning, I didn't know anyone called Moon, apart from the long-dead drummer of the Who. "The moon rose." Rose was a common enough name. I'd once done a radio program with a chicklit author called Rose Jones. I found her e-mail address on the Internet and sent her a message suggesting she keep a low profile. After I'd done that, I realized that she didn't fulfil the new criterion of being male. If that was right.
And so I went on, driving myself up the wall with abstruse ideas and unlikely solutions, as the clock steadily ticked toward twelve midnight.