25

Dublin Airport

Clancy pretended to read the spy novel, which is what he had legitimately been doing moments earlier. The book was pure crap. It made an agent’s life seem glamorous when in fact it was mostly being on stakeout, pissing into a jar, holding your shit until it went wherever a shit went when you did not take it, and if you were super unlucky, fucking up an assassination bad enough that you had to spend the rest of your life in exile.

But maybe it wasn’t bad luck. Maybe it was a self-destructive streak.

There was no other explanation for why he was sitting in the Dublin airport when Vit Linder had been clear that Clancy was to stay in London until the assassination was complete, and that the killings must happen on the 23rd, right before Hayes signed the accord. Striking her down then would send a warning about what would happen to those who opposed industry. It would terrorize the leaders and send a righteous message to the masses already bored with the topic of climate change and who wanted cheap gas and inexpensive clothes without the guilt. The timing of the assassinations was meant for them. A war won in the mind was much cheaper than one fought on land.

The timing was important to the Order, and it was why they wanted him to stay in London, close to the action, poised to pivot if necessary. If they knew he was in Dublin, they’d have him finished off, no question.

But here was a truth he couldn’t dodge any longer: they were going to kill him no matter what. He’d hung onto that Caribbean escape fantasy for as long as he could, longer than he should have. It tasted so good. But under the imaginary sombrero, he was a sensible man. Once he’d taken out the president and vice president, there was not a single reason to let him live and ten good ones to off him.

So, he figured, might as well sate his curiosity.

Specifically, he wanted to know what Salem Wiley was up to.

That kid.

When he’d first tailed her in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, he’d pegged her as either the kind to break and shatter on impact, a grenade taking down those near her, or one of those rare birds who had steel hidden below the feathers. Damn if he hadn’t discovered she was composed of pure metal, brain and body, although the way she carried herself made it difficult to see.

She must know by now that the Order had kidnapped Mercy Mayfair, a move that Clancy did not truck with. It shouldn’t have mattered because it wasn’t his fight, but still.

The curiosity.

It wasn’t so much Clancy’s fault. Linder was the one who’d dropped Wiley’s name in his single phone call with Clancy. He’d done it “by accident,” trying to gauge what reaction it would evoke from Clancy, that much had been clear.

The Grimalkin has been assigned to Salem Wiley … oh! Wrong file.

The guy was a Jerry Lewis pratfall of a human being. Clancy knew that before Linder’s phone call. The man had a reputation and a nickname in the intelligence community. In fact, it’d been all Clancy could do to bite back those three words when the Speaker of the House introduced himself: You mean One-ball?

Clancy had read Linder’s file, as he assumed most FBI and CIA agents at the upper levels had. Anybody who was a leader, or rich, or famous had a similar collection of intelligence gathered on them. What made Linder’s file stand out, at least in water cooler discussions, was the video of Linder in his room at the Moscow Four Seasons twelve years earlier. Linder’s recorded behavior fell more on the Newt Gingrich than the Fatty Arbuckle side of the sexual impropriety scale. In fact, it would not have stood out if not for his diaper fetish. Watch a video of a man born with one testicle begging to get his nappy changed by a Russian thug he’d paid to call daddy, and it stuck with you.

Nothing illegal, but damn memorable just the same.

It was safe to assume that the Russians possessed a similar tape. The Kremlin collected Kompromat like fish breathed water. When Linder, to everyone’s surprise, was elected to the House, and then, slap my ass and call me granny, became the Speaker of the House, that tape was trotted out again. At least by the FBI. Clancy had last watched it maybe four years ago, recent enough for it to immediately come to mind when Linder called him on the Order’s dedicated phone.

Tell me you love me, daddy!

Clancy wondered if the video could be leaked online. He’d been wondering about a lot of things since talking to Linder, because despite his apparent buffoonery, Linder’s ploy had worked, in a way. He’d gotten into Clancy’s head. Besides Wiley, Clancy couldn’t stop thinking about the Grimalkin, who, if half the legends were true, made Satan look like a middle-aged cruise director. And once Clancy had Wiley on his mind, he’d wanted to see her. And not like he’d seen her walking into Parliament from his perch in that ridiculous Ferris wheel.

No, he wanted to know what she was up to.

Wherever that kid went, it was sure to be interesting.

He’d gone to her mom’s hotel—talk about another piece of work, that woman—and scoped it. That’s how he’d seen Jason leave with the girl. Turned his stomach. Next, Clancy motored over to the Campus, where he spotted Wiley leave with the MI5 guy, looking like she’d been forced to eat her own stomach with a knife and a spoon. Clancy had tailed their car until it was clear they were going to Stonehenge.

He’d turned off to avoid detection. No telling how good the MI5 agent was, not this early in the tail. An hour later he located their empty car in the private lot, picked the lock, and dropped in a bug.

Next stop? The airport for some shut-eye. It was a guess, but a smart one because it put him ahead of them if they were leaving the country and near them if they were returning to London. When his bug caught them discussing that they were going to Blessington, he chartered a puddle jumper to the Dublin airport, and voila, here he was.

They’d landed twelve minutes ago, walked in front of him six minutes after that.

He’d let them go.

It was a hunch, and one that played out.

Ho-leee shit. He hadn’t planned for this. Lucan Stone was striding across the Dublin airport. No way could he have flown in the same plane as Salem and the Brit. He appeared to have been waiting for them, which was interesting. They hadn’t called their destination in to the London Bureau, at least not after they’d returned to the car.

Clancy guessed Lucan would only go as far as the airport’s front doors. A black man blended in rural Ireland like coal in snow. Shame, that. Unfair for a gifted agent to be cobbled by something he couldn’t change, but that was life.

Stone walked out of sight, a few women turning to watch him go. He was a handsome man, no doubt. Probably a double agent, too, but Clancy wasn’t in a position to judge.

He’d been about to return to his book when Jason separated from the magazine rack across the way. Clancy recognized the man’s eyes even though the shape of his face had changed. He’d lost sleep thinking about those eyes. Worse than being so close to him was the fact that Jason made Clancy immediately. His gaze connected with Clancy’s, flashing neither hope or threat, only icy recognition.

Clancy peed himself a little bit.

He’d told himself since Rome that he’d commit hara-kiri if it ever got to the point that he needed adult diapers, but decided on the spot that he would not count Jason-based incidents.

His ears buzzed as a happy thought occurred to him. If as Linder had said the Grimalkin was on Wiley, and both Jason and Wiley had just passed through this airport, then the Grimalkin must be working with Jason.

The Grimalkin was here.

Hot damn, Clancy might be the first agent to positively ID the legendary assassin. He squinted into the crowds; preternaturally relaxed Irish in their pointy-toed shoes blended with harried, moon-faced tourists and suited business travelers. He needed to pick out someone not quite right, a person whose gaze lingered too long, a man who appeared to be following Jason.

He kept it up for nearly ten minutes. For nine minutes and fifty-seconds of that, he knew it was a fool’s errand. Someone of the Grimalkin’s caliber would not be made so easily.

Clancy put his book back up to his face.

Bullshit spy novel.