to keep the Jeep in her sights as they roared east out of the city.
The February sky was slate-grey, the autostrada darker still, throwing up spray from the vehicles in front. Senator Corrigan’s Jeep was going at speed, switching lanes without warning and then abruptly ducking out on the exit to Ferentino. It was important Eve kept a safe distance—she did not want to give herself away.
They peeled off onto a winding, deserted road. She heldback, careful only to take a corner once the Jeep had a chance to move out of sight. Hulking trees dripped darkly and the sky thickened, bowed with the deluge it was set to unleash. Her hired Fiat’s wipers jammed and momentarily she was blinded, the taillights up front her only beacons before the feeble swish resumed. She kept her headlamps dipped.
An animal shot out of the verge. Eve swerved, almost losing control, her nearside tyres scuffing the ridge of a ditch. She slammed on the brakes, the steering wheel spinning wildly in her hands, and abruptly came to a stop. The Jeep had vanished. Flooring the gas once more, Eve bombed along the slick road, determined not to lose her trail, and then, just as she was starting to fear Corrigan was long gone, a stain bled out of the mist: brake lights, far ahead. The Jeep was slowing, taking a turn into a bank of trees. As she came close, Eve saw it was a narrow dirt track, concealed behind a screen of leaves and just wide enough for the car to slip through.
Further up the road was another vehicle, a red Golf, parked at an angle.
She slowed and climbed out. The rain took seconds to soak through her jacket, matting her hair and chilling her to the bone. It was silent apart from the steady, gentle patter of raindrops. A bird cawed. Dark wings flapped.
Eve picked her way along the track. It was tricky under her Converse and pimpled with potholes, rocks and foot-deep puddles, but she couldn’t risk being picked up on the sound of an engine. At last, beyond a final twist, she caught the hush of a distant, murmured exchange. She tried to decipher what was being said.
There followed a mechanical scrape, like a gate opening.
Eve gave it several minutes before advancing. Concealed in the trees, she watched from afar. Wherever Senator Corrigan had come to, it was high security.
A hundred yards or so from where she hid, armed guards in military dress were pacing a mesh-wire blockade. Clumpy boots crunched on the wet ground. Every so often their radios crackled and a response was uttered. At each end of the barrier was a makeshift hut, housing further lookouts. The track continued beyond.
What was this place? No signposts off the road, no risk of pedestrians taking a stroll out in the middle of nowhere and stumbling across a hidden garrison.
And even if they did …
It was clear that nobody was getting past this—unless they had been invited.
Senator Mitch Corrigan had been invited.
Eve spent all afternoon trying to locate the building at Veroli. She scoped Google Maps, her own GPS, hunted any scrap that might get thrown up via a search, but according to the web the house did not exist. The only clue she hit on was a record, infuriatingly brief, connecting the Veroli Estate to the Casa Rocca in Rome. Eve knew of the auction house, had once met its famous jeweller Celeste Cavalieri, and she made a note to renew the contact. Her memory of Cavalieri was of a quiet, uncertain woman, a thousand miles from herself, and she was confident she could bleed enough from her to get her story off the blocks. What had Mitch Corrigan been doing there?
Lying back on her hotel bed, Eve tapped a pen against her teeth.
She was onto something big, she was sure of it.
Her BlackBerry beeped. She reached for it, taking news from her assistant of Kevin Chase’s forthcoming trip to London, and stifled a ripple of disappointment that the email wasn’t from Orlando. Why would it be? They neverexchanged messages unless it was to plot their next encounter—and that
The February sky was slate-grey, the autostrada darker still, throwing up spray from the vehicles in front. Senator Corrigan’s Jeep was going at speed, switching lanes without warning and then abruptly ducking out on the exit to Ferentino. It was important Eve kept a safe distance—she did not want to give herself away.
They peeled off onto a winding, deserted road. She heldback, careful only to take a corner once the Jeep had a chance to move out of sight. Hulking trees dripped darkly and the sky thickened, bowed with the deluge it was set to unleash. Her hired Fiat’s wipers jammed and momentarily she was blinded, the taillights up front her only beacons before the feeble swish resumed. She kept her headlamps dipped.
An animal shot out of the verge. Eve swerved, almost losing control, her nearside tyres scuffing the ridge of a ditch. She slammed on the brakes, the steering wheel spinning wildly in her hands, and abruptly came to a stop. The Jeep had vanished. Flooring the gas once more, Eve bombed along the slick road, determined not to lose her trail, and then, just as she was starting to fear Corrigan was long gone, a stain bled out of the mist: brake lights, far ahead. The Jeep was slowing, taking a turn into a bank of trees. As she came close, Eve saw it was a narrow dirt track, concealed behind a screen of leaves and just wide enough for the car to slip through.
Further up the road was another vehicle, a red Golf, parked at an angle.
She slowed and climbed out. The rain took seconds to soak through her jacket, matting her hair and chilling her to the bone. It was silent apart from the steady, gentle patter of raindrops. A bird cawed. Dark wings flapped.
Eve picked her way along the track. It was tricky under her Converse and pimpled with potholes, rocks and foot-deep puddles, but she couldn’t risk being picked up on the sound of an engine. At last, beyond a final twist, she caught the hush of a distant, murmured exchange. She tried to decipher what was being said.
There followed a mechanical scrape, like a gate opening.
Eve gave it several minutes before advancing. Concealed in the trees, she watched from afar. Wherever Senator Corrigan had come to, it was high security.
A hundred yards or so from where she hid, armed guards in military dress were pacing a mesh-wire blockade. Clumpy boots crunched on the wet ground. Every so often their radios crackled and a response was uttered. At each end of the barrier was a makeshift hut, housing further lookouts. The track continued beyond.
What was this place? No signposts off the road, no risk of pedestrians taking a stroll out in the middle of nowhere and stumbling across a hidden garrison.
And even if they did …
It was clear that nobody was getting past this—unless they had been invited.
Senator Mitch Corrigan had been invited.
Eve spent all afternoon trying to locate the building at Veroli. She scoped Google Maps, her own GPS, hunted any scrap that might get thrown up via a search, but according to the web the house did not exist. The only clue she hit on was a record, infuriatingly brief, connecting the Veroli Estate to the Casa Rocca in Rome. Eve knew of the auction house, had once met its famous jeweller Celeste Cavalieri, and she made a note to renew the contact. Her memory of Cavalieri was of a quiet, uncertain woman, a thousand miles from herself, and she was confident she could bleed enough from her to get her story off the blocks. What had Mitch Corrigan been doing there?
Lying back on her hotel bed, Eve tapped a pen against her teeth.
She was onto something big, she was sure of it.
Her BlackBerry beeped. She reached for it, taking news from her assistant of Kevin Chase’s forthcoming trip to London, and stifled a ripple of disappointment that the email wasn’t from Orlando. Why would it be? They neverexchanged messages unless it was to plot their next encounter—and that
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