Somewhere in Northern Europe
Sarah awoke with a start, although the noise of surf rhythmically pounding rocks had softened, which meant it was probably low tide. Morning light slanted down through the barred windows, coloring the air dusky rose as it illuminated the walls, floor, and ceiling, all of which were built of red sandstone blocks that looked centuries old. Restless, worried, she eased away from Asher, who seemed to have slept soundly once he was warm. She walked around their prison, looking for a way to escape, but the sandstone blocks appeared solid.
She was examining the door, which was heavy, ironbound wood, when she heard the metallic screech of a bolt being pulled. She stepped back quickly, and the door opened. Standing there was one of the men from last night. He held an AK-47 rifle in one hand and thrust a paper sack forward with the other. Beyond him was a narrow stone corridor with a low ceiling, typical of medieval castles.
“Sandwiches.” He gave the room only a perfunctory scan.
She kept her gaze casual as she studied him. His brows were thick, and his face lopsided. His expression radiated boredom. He held the rifle loosely. A cell dangled in a leather case from his belt.
“Thanks,” she tried. “Is it a nice morning?”
He stared at her as if she were out of her mind and stepped back.
“Hey,” she objected, “is this all? We’re hungry.”
“Eat or not.” He swung the door closed, and the bolt slid home.
“Food?” Asher inquired from the cot. He sat up.
His voice was stronger than last night. Even from across the cell, his eyes looked clear. His curly black hair was crazed, but his coloring was normal. He sat with his feet firmly on the floor, his back erect. He looked fine, except for tightness around his jaw and eyes. Dappled sunlight from the high windows played across his hawklike face.
She sat on the cot beside him, and they ate cold egg and bacon sandwiches and shared a bottle of water. Ever since the guard had arrived with food, she had been mulling a plan. “I might see a way out of here, but do you feel well enough to help? It’d involve a fight.”
Asher’s eyes hardened into black agates. “Talk to me.”
“We need a big, sharp rock. Something that looks menacing. When the guard comes back, you stand with the rock raised, as if you’re going to attack. Since they seem to want to keep us alive—for a while at least—his first response should be to knock you down, probably with his rifle. So you’ll be far enough away that he’ll have to run at you. That’s where I come in. I’ll be flat against the wall, beside the door. When he blasts through, I’ll kick the rifle out of his hands. You grab it while he goes for me.”
Asher’s face fell. “Holy heaven, Sarah. What makes you think a plan that simple has a chance?”
“The guard does. He’s bored out of his skull. He’s going through the motions because he thinks we’re no threat.”
Asher considered the idea. “Among the top risks are that his orders have changed, or that you can’t actually hit the rifle hard enough to make him let go. Are you sure you’re still good enough at karate to pull this off? I mean, it’s been a long time.”
She said coolly, “I do more than research and write while you’re gallivanting around the world.”
He decided saying no more was wise, since his absences were a sore point with her. He felt a twinge of guilt, because he should have known about the karate. He looked across at her. Her face was streaked with dirt, and she had that pissed expression that meant no quarter given. He had always liked that about her.
He was just about to mention it, when she said, “Plus, there’s the issue of whether you’re strong enough. Because even if my plan works, we still have to get out of whatever this place is, and that may mean running.”
Asher nodded. “I can ignore the pain.”
“Unless it gets so bad you pass out.”
“Not going to happen,” he assured her.
But both knew it could. Still, they had no other options. They finished eating and went to work, checking the walls for a loose rock large enough to make the guard react.
By afternoon, sunlight warmed their stone cell, and the briny scent of the sea filled the air. Sarah had found two cracked blocks of stone, but neither she nor Asher had been able to pry them from the wall. There was nothing in the room to help them, and the guard might return any moment.
“I’ve been thinking carefully about this,” Asher announced. “I believe we’re not in Elsinore. Personally, I believe we’re in Scotland, on the coast.”
“Good heavens, why?” She sat back on her heels and stared. He often did this to her—surprised her with deductions, without bothering to explain first.
“Couple of reasons. First, people are playing golf out there. I’ve heard some snatches of conversation. Golf is Scotland’s national sport. Second, we weren’t in the air long enough to go anywhere far. And third”—he grimaced, trying to explain—“this place feels like Scotland. Rain in the air. A scent of heather. The pounding sea. High cliffs. A streak of coldness even though it’s July. And then there’s this old castle—Scotland’s full of them. Of course, I could be wrong.”
But she could tell he did not think he was. The best agents had what was unscientifically called gut. Using a combination of experience, genes, and boldness, they sensed or intuited answers or actions that often turned out to be uncannily correct.
“You’re probably right,” she decided. “But I don’t see how that helps us.”
“Yeah. I was afraid of that.” He was just about to predict a rainstorm, when there was another voice outdoors, but this was near enough to be almost clear.
She lifted her head. “You hear him?”
“It sounds like the guy who drove us from the plane last night.”
“Malko. Can you make out what he’s saying?”
“No. I—”
She ran to the cot they had not used. It had a welded metal frame, with stained canvas stretched across. She propped it against the wall at about a thirty-degree angle.
“Come here and brace it, will you?”
“Sure.” He was there in an instant.
As he leaned into the cot, holding it in place, she hurried to the other wall, ran back, and scrambled up to the window, where she grabbed the bars and tucked her feet between the canvas and the frame.
“What’s he saying?” Asher asked.
“Shhh.”
Now she knew what Malko looked like—sturdy and muscular, dressed in an expensive business suit. He had one of those long, ordinary faces that was forgettable. The kind of man easily lost in a crowd, an advantage for a janitor. He wore sunglasses and was talking into a cell as he walked alone down below, along the cliff. He gazed around as if the manicured grounds hid hordes of adversaries. He showed no signs of nervousness, just the high alertness of the professional. Beyond him spread the sea, gray and churning from last night’s storm.
“…in Alloway,” Malko was saying. “Of course, everything will be ready there. You don’t have to worry, sir. There’s plenty of time. I’ll get the message to his assistant. You can count on me.” There was a pause, then his voice grew soft, and she strained to hear. “Thank you, sir. Yes, thank you.”
As he severed the connection and dropped the phone into his pocket, Malko turned to face out to sea, his shoulders square. She had an odd sense about him, as if he were an eager killer dog whose master had just stroked him well.
Abruptly, he turned and strode off around the building, purpose in every step. When he was out of sight, she slid down the cot and told Asher what she had learned.
“Isn’t Alloway in Scotland?” she finished. “That’s where Robert Burns was born. You must be right about where we are.”
He nodded. “When you were looking at the sea, did you see any islands?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. It must be an island, but it looks like a big fat rock. Or a big round loaf of bread.”
“Ah! That’s got to be Ailsa Craig. Now we’re getting somewhere. We’re on the Firth of Clyde, in southwest Scotland. I was here a few years ago, passing through to Glasgow. So let’s get the hell out of here. If this is a golf resort, then there have to be cars. I’m ready to escape, aren’t you?”
Dreftbury, Scotland
The A77 highway skirted the Firth of Clyde and curved up among undulating green hills where brown-and-white Ayrshire cattle grazed in the lacy shade of great-limbed pines. Simon was driving a new Land Rover, while Liz watched for exit signs for Dreftbury. He checked his rearview mirror often.
Every time she looked at him, she had a strange sense. At some point during the last forty-eight hours, he had ceased being an artifact from her childhood. Now he sat next to her in disguise—dirty blond hair, sunglasses, a cheap sports jacket, and a polyester tie. With his broad face and oversized nose, he could be an undertaker—or a government agent. She doubted anyone, even his closest friends—if he still had any—would recognize him.
“You’re looking at me,” he said.
“You’re not blushing.”
“Should I be?”
“I was simply admiring the new you.”
“Oh.” He flashed her a grin.
Using one of his aliases, he had rented the Land Rover outside Dumfries, where they abandoned the Jeep. In town, they bought two prepaid cells and clothes and hair coloring and found an inn, where they paid for the night but stayed just long enough to clean up, bleach their hair, and change. She still had euros left over from Sarah’s wallet, which she split with him. With the instant camera from his gym bag, they took each other’s photos, and he doctored two MI6 credentials he carried. She became Veronica Young, and he, Douglas Kennedy.
Finally, they returned to the A75, following it west to Stranraer on the huge inlet of Loch Ryan, where they turned north onto the A77.
“I’m excessively impressed by your disguise, too,” he told her. “Nothing like being seen with a gray-haired sex pistol.”
“Excuse me?”
“What did you expect? You’ve got the hair of a seventy-year-old but the face of a college girl. And that black pantsuit is too proper to be believed. Just the right combination for certain kinds of sexual fantasies.”
“You’re messing with me.”
“Only a little.”
“You’re ignoring all of the wrinkles I applied so carefully.”
“It’s easy to.”
Traffic grew thicker and slowed as he drove around a long bend. She scanned the area. Ahead to their left, on a hill above the sea appeared a stately white building with pillars and arches and a red-tiled roof.
“There it is. That’s it—the Dreftbury hotel.” Liz nodded, wondering what they would find there.
The resort’s famous links spread on either side, a perfect carpet of vivid green, spotted with pot bunkers and bordered by a high, ragged rough of blowing coastal grasses. A few golfers swung at balls while the sun glinted out from gathering storm clouds. Black shadows snaked across the landscape.
As she studied it, memories came back to her—the grand salon, the bar with the congenial stone patio overlooking the firth and the valley, elevators, long hallways with crooks and side halls, and the way servants had hovered.
Simon hit the brakes. The traffic ahead slowed, the average speed dropping to less than thirty miles an hour.
“What happened?” Liz looked around as the road straightened.
“There’s the answer.” He fought memories of Viera and that last violent night in Bratislava. “The antiglobalists are here in force.”
They now had a sweeping view not only of the magnificent hotel but all the way down to the base of the hill, where a two-lane country road was also snarled with traffic. Dreftbury’s high stone wall fronted the road. Slowed by security checks, limousines with smoked windows queued up at the main entrance, while trucks and delivery vans waited in single file at the service gate.
But across the road from this orderliness were shouting ranks of demonstrators, thousands of them, lined up five and eight deep behind sawhorses and cordons monitored by uniformed police. Dressed in casual clothes and wearing backpacks, the massed protesters pumped signs up and down. Above them, on the crest of a hill, was their command station, where a cadre of men and women orchestrated the protest’s progress, binoculars to eyes, walkie-talkies to ears.
“Turn on the radio,” Simon said tersely. “I see reporters and cameras.”
As she searched for a news station, he told her about the antiglobalists’ frustration that the mainstream media seldom took their charges and complaints seriously. That they felt marginalized, voiceless, unheard.
“I’m not surprised they’re here,” he explained. “I’d warned my boss something was brewing. They’ve been looking for a way to open the public’s eyes, and Nautilus is a natural target. Whether they can force it nationally…even internationally—”
Liz interrupted, “There’s the exit sign to Dreftbury.”
She found a station and turned up the volume. As Simon sped off the highway and around onto a country road, a newswoman reported, her voice raised, “…at the very exclusive Dreftbury resort.”
On the radio, car engines revved and idled, people shouted orders, while others chanted slogans. The din was unrelenting.
“We’re standing across from an estimated three thousand demonstrators,” she continued. “Some are sending aloft a huge flamingo pink balloon in the shape of a pig. They seem to have a sense of humor—it’s labeled CAPITALIST PIG EQUALS HOT AIR. More agitators arrive by the hour. They dart under the barricades and rush to Dreftbury’s two entrances but are arrested before they can force their way inside. Then the police pack them into lorries and send them off to jail. Inspector Hepburn, of the local constabulary, declares there have been no injuries, but he urges the public to stay away. Standing here, we can only agree. We’ve never experienced such congestion and chaos in so small an area. At the service entrance, Glasgow’s string orchestra was ordered off its bus and told to remove all their instruments for inspection. They were most unhappy, but no one is exempt from being searched. Now we’re walking toward the limousines, where we’ll speak with some of the guests. They’re the planet’s elite, according to the protesters, and they’re here to conspire about how to run the world over the next year.”
Her voice faded and suddenly rose. “Stand aside, young man. We are Edinburgh radio. You are not the police. How dare you! You really can’t stop us. Mister! Mister!” They could hear someone tapping on glass. “Roll down your window so we can talk!”
Liz lowered the volume as Simon braked. They were approaching the tangle of traffic that crawled in front of the Dreftbury resort.
“At least we’ve reached the stone wall,” she said.
“Look inside that stand of trees.”
As the Land Rover rolled forward, bumper-to-bumper with the car ahead, she studied the dense timber edging Dreftbury’s grounds. A leashed German shepherd stepped out, head high, quickly followed by his handler, who was dressed in combat black and carried an automatic rifle. The armed man and trained dog were policing the perimeter. Soon she saw more men, more dogs.
Her rib cage tightened. “Daunting,” she said. “Private security?”
He nodded. “Thought you’d like to know.”
Asher seldom worried. It was not his nature. For him, worry felt more like a sense of heaviness, of uncertainty. But from the moment Sarah was kidnapped, his guts had been in twisted knots. That was how he knew he was worried. Their reunion in Paris had relieved him at first, because she was alive. After that, it was all downhill again. She was still in danger, and he was still out of commission.
Her plan could work, but the rock they needed had not materialized, although they had carefully inspected three walls and were now on the fourth. They searched for flaws and tugged at any irregular protrusion.
Then with a suddenness that stunned him, a chunk of ragged red stone about six inches wide and a foot long popped out a few inches.
With a simple tug, Asher held it in his hands.
She watched, her eyes as wide as pizzas. “You found a piece. It’s perfect!”
He did not answer. He was staring into the hole.
The metallic rasp of the door’s bolt being thrown made them wheel and stare.
“Take that rock over there, quick,” she said. “Get ready to pretend you’re going to attack him!”
“No! Wait. Emergency change of plans. Go to the door and make nice. Do not kick or clobber him.” He jammed the rock back into the wall. Brushing sand from his hands, he hurried to the cot and collapsed. The door swung open.
She was there, waiting. “Thanks,” she told the same armed man as before.
Lack of interest had deepened on his irregular features. He still carried the rifle and wore the cell phone attached to his belt. He grunted, handed over two more bottles of water and another paper sack, and left. Again the door closed solidly and the bolt slammed home.
Asher smiled. “Nice.” It pleased him that she occasionally did what he asked.
She whirled. “Whatever you found in that wall better be a miracle.”