Kenyon and Legrand stood imprisoned in the wine cellar. Their arms had been looped around one of the stout wooden posts that supported the basement ceiling, their wrists bound by plastic handcuffs.
Dahg positioned himself beneath a light and closely examined the portrait of Lydia. Her skin glowed harshly beneath the glare of the bare light bulb. “Nice looking piece of ass,” he muttered. “So, this is what everyone’s been after.”
“How did you find us?” asked Kenyon.
Dahg put down the painting and pulled a portable radio scanner out of his pocket. It was the kind used to monitor listening devices. “I overheard you were onto something. I tailed you out.”
Kenyon winced at his own stupidity. Not once on their journey out from London had he bothered to look to see if they were being followed.
Dahg drew out a silencer and attached it to his gun. He stood at the base of the stairs and aimed it at the two men. “Nothing personal, but I don’t want any witnesses.”
Kenyon had to think fast. Dahg had forgotten to frisk the men, and the agent still had the Luger tucked in the back of his jeans. If only he could get his hands free.
“I assume you don’t want fifty million, either,” said Kenyon.
Dahg cocked his head to one side. “What?”
“That’s what it’s worth, in the right hands,” said Kenyon. “I know the right hands.”
Dahg shifted his weight to his good leg. “Tell me.”
“I’ll do better than that,” said Kenyon. “I’ll make you my partner.”
A short, ugly bark of laughter escaped Dahg’s lips. “I’d be a fool after you double-crossed me in San Francisco.”
Kenyon shrugged. “That was a mistake. Nothing personal, but I didn’t trust you. If I had realized how resourceful you were, I would have let you in on it in the beginning.”
Dahg sat down on the steps and smiled. “Let’s hear the story, partner.”
Kenyon wet his lips. He had to play this very carefully. “The Cyberworm virus that Simon stole was only half the secret. The other half, the encryption code that unlocks the virus, is concealed in that painting.”
“Where is it concealed in the painting?”
“Let me free and I’ll show you.”
Dahg, a rueful look on his face, shook his head no. “Who’s the client?”
“I’m not going to give up my bargaining chip.”
Dahg pointed his gun at Legrand. “Tell me, or I shoot your pal.”
Kenyon glanced at Legrand. Sweat trickled down the older man’s face.
The agent had to think fast. “Legrand’s the technician—if you shoot him, we can’t transfer the code to the virus.”
Dahg paused for a moment, trying to make up his mind. “I don’t believe you,” he finally said. He pointed the gun at Legrand’s crotch. “I’m going to count to three, then I’m going to shoot your friend in a very painful spot. One, two . . .”
Dahg never finished. Distracted by a noise, he turned and stared up the stairwell. “Who the fuck are you?”
A voice responded. “Your employer. Or, might I say, your former employer.”
Dahg swung his gun away from Legrand and pointed it up the stairs. Before he could fire, there was a sharp crack of a gunshot, and his head exploded in a shower of blood and bone. He pitched forward off the steps, dead by the time he hit the cellar floor.
Kenyon and Legrand stared open-mouthed as Hadrian deWolfe came down the stairs, an ancient Colt .45 service revolver clutched in his hands. He nudged Dahg in the back with the smoking barrel. The victim didn’t even twitch.
Satisfied, deWolfe stepped over the corpse and into the cellar. He stopped before the painting of Lydia. “Ah. What’s this? Such a delightful portrait.”
DeWolfe turned the picture over. “How ingenious!” He carefully withdrew Techno 69 and held it up to the light. “At last, we meet again.”
He turned and bowed to Kenyon, clearly jubilant. “Thank you, Herr Kenyon, I knew you had it in you.”
“It was nothing.”
“Don’t be so modest,” said deWolfe. “It was not in Lydia’s house, or her gallery. And that cretin Ricci certainly did not have it. Without you, we might never have found it.”
Kenyon nodded. “That was what the charade with Garbajian was all about. You wanted me to be your bloodhound.”
DeWolfe smiled a toothy grin. “Our clients were becoming a trifle impatient, I must confess. Things were getting, shall we say, desperate.”
“Desperate enough to kill your partner, Ricci?”
DeWolfe pursed his lips. “He was hardly a partner. If it wasn’t for a little blackmail over his forgery scam, the sullen boy wouldn’t have cooperated at all.”
“Why did you set me up to call him?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I wanted to find out if he was hiding the painting.”
Kenyon nodded. “And when you learned he didn’t have it, you killed him.”
“He was going to confess my involvement,” said deWolfe. “Really, you can’t trust anybody these days.”
“And what about Lydia?” asked Kenyon. “Couldn’t you trust her?”
“Lydia never knew,” said deWolfe.
“So, why did you kill her?” asked Kenyon.
“I didn’t,” said deWolfe.
“I don’t believe you,” said Kenyon.
“I have an unimpeachable alibi on the night of her murder,” said deWolfe.
“Who?”
“You, of course.” DeWolfe pulled out a cigar, then lit it. “By the way, how is the posterior? Any lingering soreness?”
“You tried to kill me?”
DeWolfe held up a protesting hand. “On strictest orders merely to wound.”
“Orders from whom?”
“Why, Ilsa, of course. I must say, I found it sublimely clever.” DeWolfe glanced at the painting. “She had a custom bug made in a replica of Techno 69, then suborned Ricci into swapping the real one for the fake in the boardroom of her own company.”
Kenyon nodded at the dead CIA agent. “How did he fit in?”
“We hired Dahg to act as a mule and pick up the Cyberworm virus. He thought he was picking up control software for an air force attack drone.”
“And you?”
DeWolfe grinned. “You mean, what benefits did I get above and beyond Ilsa’s—how shall we say it—natural charms? A man of my tastes cannot satisfy them through a mere consultant’s fees. Even the money we made blackmailing Lydia wasn’t sufficient. When we finally turn the encryption code over to Herr Garbajian, we are to be paid one hundred million—more than enough to keep me in comfort for the rest of my life.”
DeWolfe suddenly lost interest in the agent. Bending over Techno 69, he carefully began tucking it back into its hiding place behind Lydia’s portrait.
Kenyon stared down at his bound hands. There was no way he could reach the Luger. He nudged Legrand in the foot, and the older man glanced up. Kenyon nodded imperceptibly toward his back.
Legrand nodded back. The PI shifted his weight, drawing his tied hands slowly around the post.
Kenyon arched his back, bringing his waistline closer. Legrand’s fingers were only inches from the gun.
The butt of deWolfe’s Colt suddenly cracked into the side of Legrand’s head, knocking him to his knees. The spy reached around behind Kenyon’s back, drawing the gun out. “Naughty, naughty.” He glanced at the round in the chamber, then tucked the gun into the back of his own waistline. “Somebody could get hurt.”
DeWolfe turned his head, sniffing the air. “What’s that, a whiff of smoke? Dear me, I do believe something may be on fire.”
Kenyon glanced up the stairs; the first traces of black smoke were curling down from the kitchen. “The police are already onto you,” he said, in desperation. “You can’t get away.”
“That is a chance I intend to take.” DeWolfe picked up Lydia’s portrait and headed for the cellar door. “Thank you for finding the painting. Auf Wiedersehen.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” a woman asked.
All three men craned their necks upward. Ilsa stood at the top of the cellar stairs, a silver filigreed Perazzi shotgun cradled in her arms.
DeWolfe placed the painting slowly to the ground. “Darling!”
Ilsa descended the steps, the shotgun pointed directly at deWolfe’s chest. “Drop the gun.”
DeWolfe threw the Colt down.
“Stand back.”
DeWolfe took several steps back, toward the cellar doors. “I was just coming to look for you.” He held his hands feebly in the air.
As Ilsa bent over the gun, deWolfe drew the Luger from his waistband.
He wasn’t fast enough. The Perazzi flashed, and deWolfe hurled back into the cellar doors, his chest crushed by the force of the blast.
Ilsa stepped cautiously forward. DeWolfe, his breath wheezing out from his shirt in bright red bubbles, stared at the advancing woman. He struggled to raise his gun, but Ilsa fired a second round, this time at his head. His face dissolved in a pulp. She leaned over and pried the Luger from the dead man’s hand, wiping the blood from the barrel.
Legrand roused himself. “Ilsa! Please, cut these bonds!”
“Shut up, worm.” His wife then ignored him, her attention drawn to the painting.
Kenyon turned to the older man. “She’s not going to set us free, Raymond. She’s going to kill us.”
Ilsa raised her eyes from Lydia’s portrait. “I was, but now that my former partner has set fire to the family homestead, I think I shall let you burn, instead.” The side of her mouth curled up in a crooked smile. “It seems that much more cruel.”
“Why did you do it?” asked Kenyon. “For the money?”
Ilsa approached Kenyon. She stood very close, staring up into his eyes. She gently caressed his cheek with the tip of the Luger. “No, darling. I did it for revenge.”
Kenyon stared back into her eyes, looking for some spark of humanity, but the cold blue orbs were devoid of life, like a deep pool of glacial water. “Revenge?”
“Yes.” Ilsa stared down at the stream of blood running from a cut on Legrand’s brow. “Revenge against my husband and his mistress.” She returned her gaze to Kenyon. “But most of all, against the son I never had.”
Ilsa kissed Kenyon softly on the lips, then placed a letter in his shirt pocket. “I believe this is addressed to you.”
The smoke was beginning to pour down the cellar steps. Ilsa picked up the painting and headed toward the basement exit. She pushed deWolfe’s corpse to one side, then opened the portal. She paused to look at Kenyon one last time, then closed and locked the double doors.