Chapter Twenty-One

  St. Amand read the Sand­strom file again as Drake drove him through the city. It was al­ways im­port­ant to know everything pos­sible about a cli­ent. For ex­ample, Sand­strom’s many in­dis­cre­tions over the years in­cluded nearly a dozen as­sault charges that had been dropped and sub­sequently ex­punged (though not as thor­oughly as Sand­strom prob­ably thought), a habit of sleep­ing with the wives of his sub­or­din­ates, and at least two hom­icides that had been covered up by friends in law en­force­ment. There were also five other murders that Sand­strom was likely in­volved in.

  St. Amand would never dream of blatantly us­ing these facts in their dis­cus­sions, but know­ing them would al­low him to subtly push some of Sand­strom’s but­tons if ne­ces­sary.

  He doubted it would come to that. The pur­pose of the meet­ing, as St. Amand saw it, was to en­sure Sand­strom was well aware of St. Amand’s dis­pleas­ure about the situ­ation in Ok­lahoma and how the news had been kept from him. St. Amand would use this to bluff about drop­ping the Amer­ican and his net­work of mi­li­tias as cli­ents. By the end of the meet­ing, St. Amand was sure he and his or­gan­iz­a­tion would se­cure ten, or even twenty, mil­lion euros’ worth in ad­di­tional or­ders.

  Sand­strom could eas­ily af­ford it. He had the back­ing of some heavy hit­ters, in­clud­ing a hand­ful of bil­lion­aires who felt a shake-up to the status quo was both ne­ces­sary and in­ev­it­able. St. Amand had a feel­ing they couldn’t care less about Sand­strom’s goal of carving out his own na­tion, ded­ic­ated to his ho­mo­gen­eous ideals. The bil­lion­aires prob­ably had the same ra­cist thoughts, but their goal was purely mon­et­ary. In­stabil­ity cre­ates chaos, and from chaos comes or­der. Strong, iron-fis­ted, dic­tat­orial or­der. Who­ever that dic­tator was, he would need these same fin­an­cial back­ers to help him craft eco­nomic policies that cared little for reg­u­la­tions and stand­ards, and more about profit.

  St. Amand didn’t really care about any of their goals ex­cept the chaos part. And, dear God, there would cer­tainly be that. The great Amer­ica in flames. He couldn’t wait to see that head­line on BBC World News.

  He looked out the front win­dow. Traffic was par­tic­u­larly bad this af­ter­noon. If it kept up like this, it would be an­other thirty minutes be­fore they reached their des­tin­a­tion, and then an­other good hour to get to De Luca’s. But that was fine. Time had been built into the sched­ule to make sure they ar­rived at the res­taur­ant well be­fore Sand­strom did.

  St. Amand looked back at the file and flipped the page.

  *

  “Have you been driv­ing around this whole time?”

  Daeng tensed in sur­prise at the sound of Jar’s voice. In rapid fire, he asked, “Where are you? Why did you turn your ra­dio off? Did some­thing hap­pen?”

  “I turned it off to avoid one of St. Amand’s men no­ti­cing it.”

  “How close did you get to them?”

  “Close enough.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  Ahead, the light turned red, stop­ping the SUV.

  “Un­im­port­ant. Everything is fine.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel any bet­ter.” He weaved the scooter around the wait­ing cars to the front of the line, where all the other mo­tor­bikes had con­greg­ated.

  “How you feel is not my prob­lem. You have not answered my ques­tion.”

  “What ques­tion?” He thought back. “Oh. No, the SUV stopped to pick up St. Amand in Tras­tevere. We’ve been head­ing across the city since then.”

  “He’s in the SUV now?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I think it was him. He was wear­ing the scarf again, and—”

  A scooter edged into the spot next to him.

  “You are not a very good spy,” Jar said, look­ing over at him.

  Daeng stared back. Not at Jar, but at the per­son sit­ting be­hind her.

  “Hey,” Nate said.

  Play­ing it as cool as he could, Daeng said, “I was un­der the im­pres­sion you weren’t join­ing us.”

  “I couldn’t leave you hanging, now could I?”

  The other scooter drivers revved their mo­tors in an­ti­cip­a­tion of the green light.

  “You guys hang back a little,” Daeng said. He gave Nate a small smile. “Good to see you.”

  “Good to see you, too.”

  The light changed, and traffic surged for­ward.

  *

  Quinn and Or­lando left Wash­ing­ton on a private jet just after mid­night. With them was Steve Howard, a freel­an­cer they of­ten used. While Howard did not know what St. Amand looked like, he was a skilled op­er­at­ive. Misty had re­mained in Wash­ing­ton, to co­ordin­ate things from that end.

  Their pi­lot was able to shave al­most an hour off the typ­ical flight dur­a­tion, land­ing them in Rome right after three p.m. local time.

  As they tax­ied to the ter­minal, Or­lando called Daeng and put him on speaker. From the back­ground noise, it was clear their friend was driv­ing.

  “We just touched down,” Or­lando told him. “What’s go­ing on?”

  “I’m fol­low­ing an SUV car­ry­ing the guy we think is St. Amand.”

  “You saw him again?”

  “Yeah, he got in about forty minutes ago, and we’ve been work­ing our way slowly to the north­east since then.”

  “Any idea of your des­tin­a­tion?”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “Is Jar with you?”

  There was a pause be­fore Daeng said, “She is,” and told them about a res­taur­ant they’d seen some of St. Amand’s men enter with sev­eral large cases. “We have cam­eras on the place, and last time we checked the men were still in­side.”

  “Should we ren­dez­vous with you? Or…?”

  “Without know­ing where we’re go­ing, you could be driv­ing around in circles. Prob­ably best if you head for the apart­ment. The key’s in the lock­box. If things change be­fore you get there, we’ll let you know.”

  “Sounds good. Stay safe.”

  *

  Ten minutes north of the Span­ish Steps, the SUV pulled to the side of the road.

  Daeng and Jar eased to the curb. The driver, the man in the scarf, and the two men in the back of the SUV ex­ited their vehicle and entered a very fa­mil­iar build­ing.

  “Break into the cam­eras again,” Daeng said to Jar.

  “Again?” Nate said.

  “That’s one of the build­ings we checked out yes­ter­day. Sup­posedly has ties with St. Amand. Well, I guess not sup­posedly any­more.”

  “I am in,” Jar said, look­ing at her phone.

  Daeng and Nate huddled around her. On­screen was the in­side of the el­ev­ator the four men from the SUV were rid­ing.

  Nate poin­ted at the man wear­ing the scarf. “That’s the guy you think is St. Amand?”

  “He fits the known de­scrip­tions,” Daeng said. “But you’re the guru, right? Is it him?”

  “He could be al­most any­body with that damn thing cov­er­ing his face.”

  The men ex­ited the el­ev­ator on the fourth floor.

  “No cam­eras in the hall­ways?” Nate asked.

  “On the other floors, yes,” Jar said. “But not on that one.”

  “In­ter­est­ing. Who lives here?”

  “The think­ing is that St. Amand moves around between res­id­ences,” Daeng said.

  “So today is switch day?”

  “Seems pos­sible.”

  Nate stud­ied the build­ing. “Were you able to get in­side?”

  “Didn’t try. Wanted to keep a low pro­file.” Daeng looked at Nate. “Um, I got a call a few minutes ago. Quinn and Or­lando have just landed.”

  Nate nod­ded, but said noth­ing.

  Daeng stud­ied him for a mo­ment. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Eyes on the build­ing, Nate said, “Yeah, well, not sure I feel the same yet.”

  “It doesn’t mat­ter what you feel now. You’ll know I’m right soon enough.”

  “Daeng, ser­i­ously, I’m not ready for one of your philo­soph­ical trips right now.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m sav­ing that for later.”

  “I doubt I’ll be ready for it then, either.”

  “All I’m say­ing is that it’s good for you to be among friends.”

  Nate took a deep breath. “Maybe.”

  *

  Nate knew Daeng had his best in­terests at heart. In fact, he knew Daeng was right. For a long time now, Quinn and Or­lando, then Daeng and most re­cently Jar, had been Nate’s fam­ily.

  But he didn’t want to hear it. He pre­ferred to re­main in the co­coon he’d cre­ated, where the only way he could hurt was by do­ing some­thing to him­self. If he spent time with Daeng and Jar and Or­lando and Quinn—es­pe­cially Quinn—those walls would crack. He wasn’t ready for that yet. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready.

  Thank­fully, Daeng let the sub­ject drop.

  After a few quiet minutes, Jar said, “They are com­ing back down.”

  “All of them?” Nate asked.

  “Plus one.”

  The feed from the el­ev­ator cam showed five people des­cend­ing. The new mem­ber of the group had hair long enough to drape over his shoulders. Like the oth­ers, he was wear­ing a suit. The angle of the cam­era made it dif­fi­cult to see much of his face.

  As the el­ev­ator neared ground level, Jar switched to a cam­era cov­er­ing the lobby. The men ex­ited and walked through the room, this time the lens show­ing their faces.

  The new guy was older than the men whose faces weren’t covered, prob­ably in his late forties, early fifties. He had high cheekbones and wore wide, wire-rimmed glasses. Some­thing about him seemed fa­mil­iar to Nate, but what and why, he wasn’t sure. He was sure about an­other mem­ber of the group.

  “I’ve seen him be­fore,” he said, point­ing at the largest man.

  “That’s the driver,” Daeng said.

  “He was in Mar­rakesh with St. Amand,” Nate said, re­call­ing the brute who had chased him.

  “Any­one else?” Jar asked.

  Nate frowned. “I’m...I’m not sure.”

  When the men walked out of the build­ing, Jar switched to one of the ex­ter­ior cam­eras. The angle was al­most straight down and didn’t help with iden­ti­fic­a­tion, but at least Nate and his friends could con­tinue to ob­serve the men without hav­ing to look at them.

  As the group ap­proached the SUV, one of the men ran around and got into the back­seat on the other side. Po­ten­tial St. Amand climbed into the back on the pas­sen­ger side, fol­lowed by an­other man, put­ting Po­ten­tial St. Amand in the middle. The brute went around to the driver’s seat, while High Cheekbones climbed into the front pas­sen­ger seat.

  Nate grim­aced. He’d been hop­ing to see enough of the scarfed man’s face to ID him as St. Amand. That would have wrapped things up, and he could have been off to…well, any­place else.

  The SUV drove off.

  Daeng opened the cargo area un­der the seat of his scooter, pulled out a small cloth bag, and tossed it to Nate. “Put these on.”

  Nate re­luct­antly pulled out the comm gear and donned the earpiece. “Gee, thanks.”

  Daeng closed the com­part­ment and climbed onto his bike. “Shall we?”

  *

  At first it seemed as if the SUV was head­ing to the of­fice build­ing. But thirty-five minutes in, it passed the last chance to turn west and con­tin­ued south apace.

  Not too much farther on, Daeng said, “They must be head­ing to the res­taur­ant.”

  “Jar,” Nate said, “let’s you and I get ahead of them and get there first. Daeng, you con­tinue to fol­low.”

  “Okay,” Daeng said. “I’ll tell Quinn and Or­lando to meet us there.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Let us know when you are get­ting close,” Jar said.

  She sped through the next light as it turned red, leav­ing Daeng and the SUV be­hind.

  Daeng used the pause to call Or­lando.

  After he gave her the ad­dress, she said, “Got it. Where did you guys put the gear bag?”

  “Closet by the bath­room.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Or­lando,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Nate’s here. He’s with Jar.”

  Si­lence.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes. Okay. I just…okay. Thanks for let­ting me know. See you there.”

  As Daeng dis­con­nec­ted, he had the ri­dicu­lous thought he’d be­trayed Nate. He was go­ing to be so glad when things were back to nor­mal. Well, noth­ing would ever be pre-Liz’s-death nor­mal again, but at least whatever the new nor­mal was go­ing to be.

  Un­less the way things were now was the new nor­mal.

  Dear god, he hoped that wasn’t true.

  *

  Jar parked the scooter in the same spot she’d used earlier, and she and Nate made their way back to the roof where they’d planted the re­mote cam­era re­lay.

  The first thing they did was to re­view the foot­age the out­side cam­eras had re­cor­ded while they were away. Jar played everything at high speed, slow­ing only when someone was com­ing or go­ing from De Luca’s. St. Amand’s men ap­peared four times. Smoke breaks, and never more than two at a time. In every in­stance, the men went back in­side.

  Jar brought up the feeds for the in­terior cam­eras, and dis­covered the an­om­aly al­most right away. “Looks like they did not com­pletely be­lieve us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Not long after we left, the auto shutoff func­tion was ac­tiv­ated on both cam­eras.”

  She showed him the last few seconds be­fore the feed when dark, when the door to the room at the far end was start­ing to open.

  “How long were they off for?”

  “One cycle.”

  “Then they only made one sweep.”

  “So it would seem.”

  She let the re­main­ing video play, again at high speed. Most of the in­cid­ents when the men left the room matched the times they ap­peared on the out­side cam­eras. When the play­back reached the end of the prerecor­ded ma­ter­ial and switched to the live feed, all four men were back in the room.

  Nate re­trieved his phone and touched the screen. “Daeng’s six blocks away.”

  She glanced over and saw he had his track­ing app open. Daeng’s was the only dot on it. Since Nate didn’t have the ID info of the bug on the SUV, she checked the app on her phone and saw the vehicle a block ahead of Daeng.

  “Four minutes away,” she said.

  Nate looked around. “I’m go­ing to see if I can get a dir­ect view from up here.”

  He popped to his feet and moved across the roof, to­ward the build­ings that faced De Luca’s res­taur­ant. Jar picked up the re­lay and fol­lowed.

  There was a two-meter gap between the build­ing they were on and one that fron­ted the same street as the res­taur­ant. After a quick ex­am­in­a­tion, Nate backed up sev­eral meters from the edge.

  “What are you do­ing?” she asked.

  “What do you think I’m do­ing?”

  Without wait­ing for her to re­spond, he sprin­ted across the roof and launched him­self over the gap, land­ing on the other side with plenty of room to spare.

  “Stay there,” he said. “I’ll come back after they’ve gone in­side.”

  He headed for the front edge of the build­ing.

  Jar looked at the gap. She’d jumped farther be­fore. She’d just never done so over a five-story drop. She had no in­ten­tion of be­ing left be­hind, though.

  She stuffed her phone in her pocket, re­moved her back­pack, and set it and the re­lay against a vent, where they’d be in the shade. She ran as fast as she could and shoved off a good ten cen­ti­meters shy of the gap.

  There was a mo­ment around the halfway point when she wasn’t sure she’d make it, but then her foot landed a fin­ger’s width bey­ond the edge on the other side, and her mo­mentum pro­pelled her the rest of the way to safety.

  She snuck over to where Nate was ly­ing at the street side of the roof, and stretched out next to him.

  “Nice jump,” he whispered. “Though I would have de­duc­ted a few form points on your land­ing.”

  “Is that sup­posed to be funny?”

  He smirked. “You do know this means you’re go­ing to have to jump back, right?”

  “Ob­vi­ously. I am not stu­pid.”

  “No, you are far from that.”

  From their new po­s­i­tion, they had a clear view of the street. The res­taur­ant was across the road and to the right a couple of build­ings. There were more people walk­ing around than earlier in the day, plus sev­eral more parked cars. The curb right in front of the res­taur­ant was empty, though, thanks to a few traffic cones that pre­ven­ted any­one from us­ing the spots.

  “How are the guys up­stairs do­ing?” Nate asked.

  Jar re­con­nec­ted her cell to the re­lay and held it so they both could see the screen. The door at the end of the up­stairs hall­way was open, but no one was in view. Jar switched to the lower cor­ridor cam­era in time for it to show two of the men exit into the din­ing area.

  She looked up in time to see the men step out­side. One was the guy Nate had talked to, and the other was one of the men who’d been hold­ing Jar. After wait­ing for an eld­erly couple to pass by on the side­walk, they pro­ceeded to the curb and moved the cones out of the way. They stood on the side­walk, side by side, fa­cing the road.

  Jar switched her phone to the tracker. “Thirty seconds.”

  Right on sched­ule, the SUV turned onto the road and pulled up in front of the wait­ing men. One opened the back pas­sen­ger-side door, while his part­ner opened the one in front. The first to emerge was High Cheekbones, then a body­guard from the back and the man in the scarf. The other body­guard ex­ited on the far side and came around.

 

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