“Where are we?” Crane asked.
“Nowhere in particular. It doesn’t matter really, does it now? In fact, I don’t know either. We’re simply being driven. The point was for you and me to have a quiet, uninterrupted conversation. And that we’re having indeed. You’ve just related an entertaining tale, Mr. Crane.” He dusted an imaginary annoyance from the sleeve of his superb suit. “And what do you plan to do with it?”
“I’d like to write a story about the brilliant young Kashmiri who turned his back on the West and became an independence fighter. The benefactor who funded his education and was then betrayed when Sikari returned to Kashmir is part of that story. The name ‘the Scorpion’ came up in several conversations. So, will you confirm that you are the benefactor? The Good Samaritan who was betrayed?”
“There are occasions when it’s far better for everyone to remain anonymous,” the man replied. “Besides, as you said yourself, with two of the men dead and the third likely gone mad, I hardly think anyone would want to take credit for the experiment.”
“The ‘experiment’? That’s even more intriguing. What did you hope to accomplish?”
“No, no. I wasn’t the one. If I were, and I didn’t want you to know, I’d simply dodge your questions. I had nothing to do with any of it.” He held up a manicured hand. “Please, let me finish. At the same time, I’d like to know more, too.”
“Why?”
“A man can’t have too much knowledge. If I give you the address of a place where you’re likely to uncover new information, will you promise to let me know in detail what you discover?”
Crane was surprised. He had expected the Scorpion to try to stop him, and any help he got from the mysterious rich man would have to be wormed-or tricked-out of him.
“Why don’t you go yourself?” Crane demanded.
Again there was a twinkle in the older man’s blue eyes. “Through you, I will. It is, shall we say, more discreet this way. From everything my people tell me, you’re a man of your word. What’s your answer?”
“All right, I’ll give you a report. After that, I make no promises.”
“Be very careful when you go there. There’s a man who’s pursuing Sikari. He’s former U.S. Army, in fact former military intelligence. Well-trained and ruthless.” He slipped his hand inside his suit jacket and brought out a color photograph. “This is him. His name is Harold Middleton. Be cautious of him at all times.”
Crane glanced at the photo, but when he looked up he stopped listening. He was riveted by the scene on the other side of the car window-another black limo had appeared and was running without lights next to them on the cramped, two-lane residential road. It was keeping perfect and very dangerous pace, its front fenders aligned with their limo’s front fenders. Cold moonlight reflected off the darkened side windows. He could see no one inside. His lungs tightened.
The chauffeur spoke. “I’ve been watching it.” Crane liked the sound of him-there was authority in the voice, a man who knew how to get things done.
The chauffeur floored the gas pedal. The limo’s tires spun and screeched, and the acceleration threw them deep into their seats.
As they left the other limo sucking their exhaust, the chauffeur commanded, “Get out the weapons.”
Crane saw his host jab a button on his plush armrest. A door dropped open behind the driver’s seat. He pulled out an MP5 submachine gun and quickly slid it over the seat to the chauffeur. Then he grabbed the other gun for himself and rested it gingerly on his lap.
“It’s Jana,” the driver said angrily. “I could see her through the windshield. How did she find us?”
“How should I know?”
“It’s your job, dammit! You’ve screwed up!”
Crane was stunned. The chauffeur was questioning the Scorpion. He was giving the Scorpion orders. He was telling him he had failed. And the Scorpion was doing nothing to take back control.
As the limo raced onward, Crane noticed that the window between the front and rear seats had remained open the whole time. The chauffeur had heard everything. Crane thought back quickly, remembering when he saw the man in the tenement foyer and asked whether he was the Scorpion. ‘You’re a smart lad,’ he’d said, and that was all he’d said, which was no answer at all. He had dodged the question.
Crane felt his heart pound. The disguise of chauffeur was perfect to conceal the Scorpion’s legendary secret identity while carrying out business. There was only one answer that made sense-the chauffeur was the boss. Could the chauffeur be the real Scorpion?
The second limo pulled up again and the window on the front passenger side rolled down. Crane looked inside. He caught a gauzy image of the driver-a beautiful woman with long lustrous dark hair dancing in the slipstream. Her left hand was on the wheel. Her right, out of view.
She glanced at Crane and he felt a shiver-from her beauty and from what he saw as a fanatic’s fire in her eyes. Captivating, terrifying. Then she lost all interest in him and instead focused on the other two men in the vehicle. Something about her gaze as she looked at the driver registered disappointment. She hesitated only a moment then lifted a machine pistol. Perhaps an Uzi, perhaps a Mac-10. As Crane gasped and cringed, a firestorm sprouted from the muzzle and, like amplified hail, the bullets slammed in the windows, flicking loudly but ineffectively off the armored sheet metal and bulletproof glass. Dismay spread on Jana’s face and she wrenched the wheel to the right, forcing their limo into a grassy shoulder, where it bounced to a halt.
Jana’s vehicle vanished into a cloud of dust.
“How did she find us?” the driver snapped.
“Followed him?” The man in the backseat glanced at Crane, who noticed that he held his pistol firmly in a steady hand. He wondered if he was about to die.
The driver spun around and snapped, “You can never underestimate anyone in this. Never.”
The man beside him said, “What do we do about him?”
The driver considered. “Mr. Crane, there’s a train station at the end of that road there. You see it?”
“Yes.”
“You can get a train that will take you back to Paris. I’m afraid we have other concerns.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Follow the London lead. But be careful. Whatever you do, be careful.”
Crane climbed out of the limo, which rocked out of the soft shoulder and made a U turn, the opposite of the direction Jana had sped in.
The reporter, now shaking and breathless from the incident, began hiking toward the road. His reporter’s instinct gave him an important message: The woman had been intent on killing the Scorpion but the frown of disappointment when she saw the men in the limo told him that neither man was, in fact, that reclusive character.
Anyone with common sense would walk away from this story. It was beyond dangerous, but somewhere deep inside him he, the Crane, loved that. He was ugly, but his mind and spirit were beautiful. His curiosity was inflamed, and like a lover in the first fiery flush of requitement, he would see himself skinned and beheaded before he would let go of this amazing story.
He pulled out his cell and ran down the street. In the distance, police sirens screamed. He ignored them. His mind was on London and what he would find there.
3
Felicia Kaminski was playing Bach-Partita number two in D minor, the Chaconne, some of the most difficult solo violin music ever written-when the man with the gun burst through the door.
There was a woman behind the frantic, worried figure moving forcefully into the front room of the little terraced cottage on London’s Lamb’s Conduit Street. She was tall and elegant, with long dark hair and something that looked like a machine pistol-Kaminski wished weapons were not so familiar-extended in her right hand.