Read Online Father Night by Eric Van Lustbader - Free Book Online Page B

we were supposed to get out as fast as we could.”
    Jack shook him. “Who gave you your orders?”
    “He said his name was Omega.”
    Jack looked at him skeptically. “And you took that at face value?”
    “I took the ten thousand dollars that arrived at my door at face value.”
    “Who delivered the money?” Annika said.
    The driver shrugged. “A kid. I never saw him before or since.”
    Remembering the conversation he had had with Annika in her apartment, Jack wondered whether Omega might be Grigori Batchuk. “And this Omega,” Jack said, “what did he look like?”
    “He was a voice on the phone”—the driver winced in pain—“nothing more.”
    “Did he call you at home?”
    “My mobile,” the driver said. “I don’t have a landline.”
    Jack held out his hand. “Let’s have it.”
    The driver took one hand away from his nose and dug in his jacket pocket. As he was about to extract his hand, Jack grabbed his wrist, moved the hand out slowly. It was gripping a mobile phone.
    Jack took it from him and turned it on. When the screen lit up, he checked the call log. “What language did you and Omega speak?”
    “Russian,” the driver said.
    “His accent?”
    The driver shrugged. “I’m from Moscow and so is he.”
    Jack was scrolling through the list of recent incoming calls while the driver watched.
    “That’s the one,” the driver said, pointing. “He always called me from that number.”
    Jack showed it to Annika. “It’s a Moscow exchange,” she said, “but that’s all I can tell.”
    Jack handed the phone to the driver. “Call it.”
    The driver glanced up at him, sniffling heavily. “What? I’ve never contacted him.”
    “Why not?” Annika asked.
    “He told me not to.”
    “Do it now,” Jack said.
    Fright leapt into the driver’s eyes again. “What d’you want me to say?”
    “Tell him the truth—or a version of it. You’ve run into a problem, your compatriot is dead. You’re broken down. Give him your location.”
    “For real?”
    “Yes,” Jack said. “And tell him he has to come himself.”
    “He won’t like—”
    “Convince him,” Jack ordered.
    The driver made the call, tilting the mobile so Jack could listen in. The line rang and rang, but no one answered. There was no voice mail, either.
    Jack took the mobile away from the driver. “Ten to one it’s a dead line,” he said. “Omega’s moved on.”

 
    F OUR
     
    C ARO, CYBER-DATA in a flash drive, returned to her penthouse hotel suite, after spending the bulk of the afternoon at lunch in Alexandria and then meeting with certain people for whom she had zero affinity but who were of use to her current plans.
    A breathtaking nighttime vista of D.C., the Potomac, and the Tidal Basin greeted her with the affection of old friends. She had rented the suite upon her return to the U.S. on a false passport, after having fled Albania and her former lover and boss, a man known only as the Syrian. Her name was now Helene Simpson. She knew the Syrian had put a price on her head; she knew that he would not rest until she had been hunted down, brought before him, and disemboweled while he watched, hot-eyed and smiling. Such was the price he inflicted on those who betrayed him. She had confided none of this to Vera, nor would she, ever. She had lived too long as her own, sole confidante; she saw no reason to alter that game plan. Nevertheless, she felt the pressure and anxiety of being hunted. She did not sleep well, or, for days at a time, at all, only to fall, at last utterly exhausted, into a shallow sleep, besieged by nightmares of her capture and subsequent death at the hands of her spurned lover.
    The Syrian was a notorious recluse. Even those closest to him didn’t really know him at all—his origins, his family, even his real name. He had insisted she call him Ashur when they were intimate, but she had no clear idea whether or not the name meant anything, except to him.
    Her terror of him provided numerous