Simon rose and came around the desk as the impromptu visitor entered the room.
“Mr. Riske, my name’s Barnaby Neill. I’m a friend of Bill Shea’s.”
The handshake was firm and forthright.
“Ambassador Shea?”
“We go back a long way.”
Lucy remained at the door, studying Neill. At some point in the past few months she’d appointed herself his guardian.
“Thank you, Miss Brown,” said Simon. And when she lingered: “Off you go.”
The door closed. Simon appraised the visitor. Barnaby Neill was lanky, fifty or fifty-five, with receding hair and rings beneath his eyes as black as coal. A worn, reliable face with a nose that had been broken. Married. College ring. Blue blazer. Rep tie. Gray trousers. Scuffed penny loafers. Hamilton wristwatch on a leather strap.
Simon did the math.
East Coast establishment.
Old money.
Friend of the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain.
Spy.
“You’re with?” asked Simon.
“Same family as Ambassador Shea. Different branch.”
Simon nodded to show that he got the picture.
Neill motioned toward the door. “Mind if we take a walk?”
“It’s raining.”
“I prefer the outdoors.”
Of course he did, thought Simon. “Suit yourself. Give me a minute.”
“I’ll be outside.”
On the way to the front door, Simon grabbed an umbrella from the stand. Lucy was hovering nearby, eyes following Neill. “Who’s he, then?”
“Just a guy that wants to talk to me. Why?”
“Reminds me of the undertaker who took care of my brother.”
“You don’t like him?”
“He’s fine, I suppose. I just had a strange feeling when I saw him.”
Simon opened the door. Rain fell in sheets ricocheting off the pavement. He had no desire to leave his office to speak with a spook named Neill. He looked at Lucy and remembered something. “Stay here.” He doubled back to his desk and returned with a sealed envelope. “Your fee for last night.”
Lucy opened the envelope. “A thousand quid,” she said, a hand rising to catch her falling jaw.
“You did a good job. Kept your cool. It was a big help.”
“It’s too much.”
Simon took her by the arms. “Put it in the bank. No spending it on anything you shouldn’t. Promise?”
Lucy met his eyes. “Promise.”
“And remember…not a word.”
Lucy rose onto her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Simon.”
“Get to work on the Dino. I got it started for you last night.” Simon opened the umbrella and ventured into the rain. He looked to his right and left, but his visitor was nowhere to be seen. “Mr. Neill!” he called.
The sidewalk was empty.
Simon started up the road toward Singh’s Café. Ten steps and rain was sluicing onto his shoulder and dribbling down the back of his neck. “Mr. Neill?”
And then, out of nowhere, Neill was at his side.
Simon tried not to appear startled. “Happy?” he asked, bunching his shoulders to fit under the umbrella.
“Necessary precautions.”
The two walked west along Kimber Road. The few pedestrians foolish enough to be out in the rain hurried past them without a glance. Simon kept close to the storefronts as much for the protection any awning might offer as to avoid being inundated by passing vehicles.
“How did you get into the car business?” asked Neill pleasantly. “I understand you were in finance. Royal Bank of Albion, was it?”
“Something like that.” Simon wasn’t about to go into his history. “You mentioned Ambassador Shea.”
“We served in the marines together. Afterward, he went to State. I took a job in a more interesting field.”
“My work for the embassy is strictly of a commercial nature,” said Simon. “Helping out U.S. multinationals, handling contract disputes, gathering evidence to assist in background checks.”
“The word is that you’re resourceful.”
“I’m sure your colleagues have me beat hands down.”
“Sometimes a certain distance is required.”
Simon drew up. He didn’t like the direction in which the conversation was headed. He was a man who dealt in realities, not suppositions. “I’m sorry you had to come all this way, but I think you’ve got the wrong man.”
“I haven’t mentioned the job yet.”
“Let me be clear. I apologize in advance if I’m rude. I don’t work for people like you.”
“Like me? In what way?”
“I prefer clients whose names match what’s on their birth certificates.”
“You might want to restate that.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve done work for at least two U.S. intelligence agencies in the past.”
“You’re misinformed.”
“Maybe some of the clients the embassy referred to you weren’t as honest as I am.”
Simon’s mood darkened. The keeping out of camera view in his workshop. The paranoia about conducting their discussion indoors. He was not a man who liked games. “Goodbye, Mr. Neill.”
He turned around and headed back to the shop. The pallid American was at his side a moment later. “Catch the news last night? The heist in Paris? The Saudi prince who had half a million euros stolen from his motorcade.”
Simon walked faster. “I don’t recall.”
“Witnesses said the thieves only needed a minute to get the job done. I wanted to ask you about it.”
Simon stopped. His shoes felt like he’d been stomping in puddles and his jacket was soaked. But neither the rain nor the damp had anything to do with the sudden blast of cold that had taken him in its grip. “Like I said, I don’t recall.”
Neill fixed him with a damning look. “Is that so? Because I’m curious as to how you would have handled that job.”
“Pardon?”
“In Marseille. Back in the day.”
Neill grasped Simon’s left arm and slid back the jacket. With a titanium grip, he twisted Simon’s forearm so that his tattoo was in full view. It showed an anchor held by a grinning skeleton and surrounded by crashing waves. Intertwined were the words “La Brise de Mer.” The ocean breeze. It was a tattoo given to members of the Corsican mafia that ruled the South of France.
“The thieves who did the job were from your old stomping ground. I know because I put them on to it. Problem is they didn’t just take the money. They took something that belongs to us, and by us, I mean the United States government. Something important. I am asking you to get it back.”
Chapter 9
Here’s how things stand,” said Neill. “I want to be as straightforward as I can, but I can only go so far. Some elements I just can’t reveal.”
The two men sat across from each other at the kitchen table in Simon’s flat. Simon sipped from a mug of tea. Neill had asked for a fernet to calm a “touchy tummy.”
A call to Ambassador Shea had confirmed Neill’s status as a high-ranking officer attached to an unnamed but well-regarded intelligence shop, some ultra-secret cousin of the CIA. Still, Simon was not entirely sure why he’d decided to hear Neill out when his every instinct screamed to run the other way. Was it Neill’s mysterious knowledge of Simon’s long-buried past? Or the flattery of being handpicked to carry out an important assignment on behalf of his nation’s government? Or was it something else still?
“It’s my experience that it’s better to know everything up front,” said Simon. “Even then, there’s always something that pops up to surprise you.”
“I’ll tell you everything you need to do the job. Frankly, there’s only so much you’ll want to know.”
“I’m glad you’re looking out for me.”
Simon wasn’t simply bored, as he’d conveyed to D’Artagnan Moore. The affair with Boris Blatt had stirred up something lurking inside him. A desire for trouble he’d kept tamped down for too many years. Even now, he could feel his fingers slipping the watch off the Russian’s wrist, the rush of superiority that came with breaking the law, the anarchic joy of breaking the rules.
And so, with his darker appetites whetted, his discipline flagging, along came Neill, offering a gold-plated, government-sponsored invitation to revisit his outlaw past.