She abandoned the rental in the small driveway of a town house, threw her things to the Fiat, and was gone all in under a minute.
She forced herself to calm, to think, to figure out what she was going to do now. The sky was already darkening. She would be all right. She had two more clean identities in her bag, both prepared for her by Mulvaney, and there was no one better than him. Where was he? No, she couldn’t think about him just yet, too much to do.
She started west immediately. The border was only a few kilometers out of town, and she wanted to make it through before they’d been alerted about her.
Since all available personnel would rush to the scene, including the FedPol agent, Helmut would have enough time to secure the box and its contents. She’d better come through, Kitsune thought, since she was paying her a small fortune.
Lanighan had betrayed her, just as Mulvaney had warned he might. She hadn’t seen it coming, though. She thought back to the night in Paris with him two years before; she’d weighed, judged, and decided his desire for the Koh-i-Noor would keep him on the straight and narrow. He was a businessman. He knew how things worked. So what had changed? Why did he now consider her the enemy? Why had he believed she was betraying him?
A thief who would hand over the goods in person was a fool, hardly professional. He knew this. Give him the key, make sure her money was transferred, and everyone was happy. It should have worked seamlessly. Instead it was all unraveling.
Those precautions she’d set into place were going to save her now, not only from Lanighan but from the authorities, too.
She bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. It would have to suffice for the moment, until she could feel Lanighan’s blood on her hands.
She changed quickly, pulling on a new wig and pulling out the appropriate ID from the base of her backpack. She called Marie-Louise Helmut at the Bank Horim.
“Did you secure the package in the safe-deposit box?”
“Yes, madam. A fortuitous happenstance, there was an explosion nearby. Even the FedPol agent went to deal with the emergency. You will not be coming back to the bank, I presume?”
“No. Send the contents to the Café Popon, on Rue Henri-Fazy.”
“I know it.”
“I will be there in ten minutes. Have your person waiting in the women’s loo.”
“Ten minutes.” Helmut rang off, and Kitsune felt her control slide back into place. Ten minutes and she’d have the diamond back in her hands. She pulled the Fiat into the light traffic, checked the mirror to see if anyone was following.
She made it to the Café Popon in five minutes, walked to the counter, bought a croissant and a coffee. The television set above the cash register had an alert on the screen, the local station running news of the bombing, showing the horrendous carnage, the flames bursting into the sky, raining down debris. It was the only local event, she thought, dramatic enough to replace the outrage over the stolen Koh-i-Noor.
She listened to the rapid-pace French. Three injured, none dead. So Drummond hadn’t died in the blast. He was in the hospital, then, and that would slow him down, surely long enough for her to get herself, and the diamond, away from Geneva.
A young woman entered the coffee shop, walked directly past Kitsune toward the back. Kitsune followed her to the bathroom.
It was an expert handoff, the diamond was now heavy in her pocket, and Kitsune was gone. As she climbed back in the car, she thought maybe she needed some help with things after all. At the very least, it should surprise the hell out of him.
69
Geneva, Switzerland
Hotel Beau-Rivage
Friday, early evening
Lanighan raced back to the balcony at the sound of the explosion. It shook the railing and rattled the windows. He saw the ball of fire plume into the air, then smoke, black and thick, well up, blacking out the sky.
Where was Kitsune? Was she responsible for this?
Thirty minutes later his cell rang.
She said only, “I need your help.”