Girl of Lies (18 page)

At the time, she was too busy. Too busy listening very closely to her sister Andrea, who was describing her experience in Rome, and specifically the awakening of her faith, in a way that Carrie found almost shocking. Shocking and… attractive?

Carrie was not quite thirty. She was a mother and a widow. She was a scientist. A pragmatist. She’d grown up attending Roman Catholic services when necessity or family obligations required, but that was it. But Andrea… her youngest sister, barely half her age, had a glow in her eyes when she described how she found herself in awe and wonder in the cathedrals of Rome.

So she paid only the barest attention when Dylan said, “Keep walking, don’t panic.”

But that oblivious stance came to a sudden crashing halt when Dylan shouted, “Get
down!”
and yanked at her arm, pulling her to the ground behind a car.

“What?” she started to ask then froze in place, at the sound of gunshots. First one, a low intense sound, so loud she felt it in her chest. That was followed by a succession of shots, two, then four, then more.

Dylan, her brother-in-law, Alex’s husband,
Ray’s
best friend… kneeled behind the car, one hand on her back and one on Alex’s, holding them down. He muttered, “Motherfuckers!”

A knife shaped icicle pressed in Carrie’s chest, as her mind circled around her daughter, Rachel. What if something happened to Carrie? Who would take care of her daughter? She’d promised Ray. She
promised
him. But he died anyway, and now there was no one, and who the hell was shooting and what did they want and
pleasekeepmydaughtersafe
and she felt herself begin to hyperventilate.

“Stay down,” Dylan commanded. His eyes scanned the street as he spoke, his face a rictus, a savage mask. For just a second Carrie expected war paint. Ray Sherman—who had, after all, been Dylan’s sergeant—was the love of her life. But she’d never seen him with a warlike expression, she’d never seen him threatened in a physical way like going into battle, and the sight of Dylan with that expression raised a clamor of loss and rage of grief all over again.

And then he was
gone
.

“Dylan!” Alexandra shouted as he stepped, suddenly, out from behind the car and ran. Across the street. Toward the shooting.

Alexandra cried out after her husband, and her legs started to straighten, as if she’d lost her mind too and was about to run out into the street after him. Carrie grabbed her arm and said, “
No!”
and a moment later Leah Simpson had her arm on Alexandra.

“Stay the fuck down,” the woman said, an expression of rage on her face.

Another gunshot, and Alexandra screamed, and then there was a scuffle followed by a loud thud, and Leah Simpson was up and running too.

“Just stay,” Carrie said to her sister, wrapping her arms around her. But for once, Carrie wasn’t protecting anyone else but her and her daughter. She grabbed Alexandra selfishly, urgently, because no matter what happened, they needed to take care of each other, no matter what happened.
Rachel
was going to need them both, and Alexandra running after her fool of a husband to protect him from gunshots wasn’t going to do any good at all.

Carrie had lost all the family she was willing to lose.

Alexandra struggled more, until finally Leah was standing over them again a minute or a hundred years later, her dirty blonde hair bedraggled and slick with sweat.

“You can let her up,” Leah said, but Carrie didn’t believe her, and she held on, and then Dylan was back. His face was a mask of concern, but Carrie couldn’t see it. What she saw was the violence underneath. The violence they’d committed in Afghanistan, the violence that kept going and going, destroying more lives, the violence that killed her husband.

For the first time in her life, for just a second, Carrie hated soldiers and everything they stood for.

“Carrie, it’s okay,” Dylan said. “Let her go.”

Just the sound of his voice was enough to set Leah Simpson off.

“What the
hell
is wrong with you, Paris?”

Dylan did a double take. Carrie eased her arms off of Alexandra, who finally got to her feet and threw her arms around him.

“You heard me,” Leah said. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Dylan only half paid attention to Alexandra’s stranglehold as he turned toward the Diplomatic Security office. “What I was thinking,” he said, “was that I saw a threat to my family, and no one was doing anything about it.”

Leah’s mouth dropped open. “So you just charge someone with a gun?”

Dylan shrugged. “He’s down, isn’t he?”

Leah’s nostrils were flared, her eyes two pinholes of fury, as she said, “My job is to
protect
you. We had DSS agents to take care of that.”

“Yeah, well I wasn’t waiting around for them to get their act together.”

At this point Alexandra broke off from Dylan, growing confusion and anger on her face.

Leah pointed at Dylan. “You interfere with anything like that ever again and I’ll see to it you spend the night in a jail cell.”

He shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time, lady. Threaten me with something worthwhile, why don’t you?”

Leah’s shoulders slumped. Then she marched off, her only parting word, “Stay right here.”

Carrie watched as she stomped off, veering toward the far side of the street. There, two men were lying in a growing puddle of blood. A third had his hands tied behind his back with zip ties. He muttered and cursed. Two armed men stood over him, their pistols out as they scanned the street for threats.

Less than a minute later, she was back at their side. “We’ve got more officers on the way. In the meantime, I want you all back at the condo.”

Carrie looked at her sisters. Andrea had her eyes closed, her lips moving. Was she praying? Impossible to tell, but that’s what it looked like. Sarah was sitting on the ground, leaning against the car. Her eyes stared off into space, expression not that different from the way she’d looked in the hospital those weeks after she was injured and Ray killed.

Alexandra was saying something urgently to Dylan, her eyes boring into him.

“No,” he said. “I won’t. I did exactly what needed to be done.”

“You could have been killed.”

“I could have been killed anyway, Alex. I could have been run over on the way here. I could have been killed in Afghanistan. It’s my job to protect you, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

Her response had an edge of hysteria. “Even if I end up a widow like Carrie?”

Carrie took a step back from the two of them, feeling as if she’d been punched in the gut. A hard, ruthless punch, delivered cold and with precision by someone who loved her.

Dylan’s expression said much the same thing. But Carrie didn’t wait around to find out what his response was. She turned to her youngest sisters, Andrea and Sarah, and said, “Come on.”

She knew they followed her. Because that’s what happened when Carrie gave orders. And because seconds later, she heard Sarah’s voice, in a hiss. “That was a shitty thing to say, Alex.”

Armed escort at their flanks with pistols out, Carrie led her family back toward the condominium.

It was 11:54 pm, but a low buzz still filled the card room of White’s on St. James’ Street in London.

White’s was a gentlemen’s club. Not the modern definition of the word, with women swinging on poles, though George-Phillip had been given to understand that a similarly named
White’s Gentlemen’s Club
in London was exactly that. This White’s, however, was considerably more reserved. Founded in 1693, it was an extremely exclusive club. For more than three centuries it had been men only, a private reserve for the extremely powerful and wealthy. One did not just request membership in the club: White’s was invitation only, and often the only way onto its membership roles was proximity to royalty.

George-Phillip, at last count 46
th
in line for the throne, was still close enough to rate membership in the club. George-Phillip had been sponsored for club membership by the Prince of Wales in 1983. That sponsorship was a result of his father’s death in a car accident when George-Phillip was seventeen, leaving him the Duke of Kent at far too young an age.

Sadly, it was an issue of membership that was on everyone’s lips right now. In 2008 the Prime Minister had publicly resigned from the club. Others had actually turned down their offers of membership. All because of the fact that White’s—a gentlemen’s club, after all—did not count women among its members.

George-Phillip, egalitarian though he was about most issues, saw no difficulty with a men’s only club. Nor would he have concerns with a women’s only club. Sometimes one needed a place to be undisturbed by members of the opposite sex.

“The problem is the liberal newspapers,” said Rory Wheeler, the
gentleman
currently sitting across the table from George-Phillip. “They print these libelous stories about the club and it generates hostility. I shouldn’t be surprised if it were sponsored by foreign spies, George-Phillip. You really should have your MI-6 people look into it.”

George-Phillip didn’t bother to correct that his agency was no longer known as MI-6. He also never discussed his work as head of the Secret Intelligence Service with anyone, especially newspaper owners such as Rory. He felt a moment of pain as profound as midnight. Anne, his wife, would have appreciated this story. He and Anne had never been passionate—that was reserved for George-Phillip’s first love—but they’d been partners. They had enjoyed each other’s company, they had loved, and they had laughed. She would have spent an unreasonable amount of time chuckling over Rory Wheeler’s bizarre opinions.

It was a blessing, really. Jane was only 13 months old when Anne passed away on Christmas Eve of 2008 after a very short, painful battle with pancreatic cancer. Jane had no memory of her mother.

He shook his head to clear it. Intrusive memories. Lovely memories, but now was not the time.

“Rory, I’m sure you know my agency is primarily concerned with disrupting terrorists and nuclear proliferation. We don’t monitor what is happening with the newspapers.”

Rory took a sip of his whiskey, then whispered, “Come now, Georgie.”

George-Phillip winced at the overfamiliarity.

The old gasbag continued, his face seeming to expand from the alcohol fumes. “Think about it, George. It’s Labour at the center of it. First they’ll let women in the club, and next thing you know one of them will be leading the country.”

“Like Mrs. Thatcher?” George-Phillip asked.

Wheeler waved a hand dismissively. “An aberration.”

A nervous looking steward entered the room. He stood on his tiptoes and waved at George-Phillip.

George-Phillip raised his eyebrows and waved the man over. “Yes?”

“Your Grace, I’m very sorry, but there is a man here to see you. A Mr. O’Leary.” He leaned close. “If you’d prefer, I can get rid of him.”

O’Leary was
here?
That was unusual in the extreme. A phone call, certainly. But he could only remember two occasions when O’Leary had sought him out here at the club, and the last time had been at the behest of the Prime Minister.

“I’ll see him, of course. Actually, O’Leary should be on the pre-cleared list.”

George-Phillip knew he was blowing smoke. None of the staff ever paid attention to the standing pre-cleared list unless the visitors were royalty—in which case they were likely a member of the club in the first place.

He quickly moved out into the hall, saying, “Please make one of the private rooms available immediately. I’ll retrieve Mr. O’Leary.”

He checked his watch as he strode to the front door of the club. 12:34 am. Unusual indeed.

The steward had, of course, left O’Leary on the front step of the club in the slight drizzle and fog. George-Phillip quickly invited him in and led him down the hall to a small sitting room. Inside, he moved to the small bar and poured a drink for himself and one for O’Leary. The table was mahogany, sumptuous, excessive. It had likely sat in this room for two hundred years. This wasn’t the first time he’d sat here: George-Phillip had met with the Prince of Wales here in 1984, at this very table. Even then, one leg was too short, and the table rocked just slightly, disturbing both of their drinks. But tradition said the table was not to be replaced—or, apparently, repaired—because one did not meddle with tradition. Not in a club like White’s.

“I presume this is urgent?”

“Yes, sir,” O’Leary said.

“Tell me.”

“Charlie Frazer, sir. He was shot in Washington.”

“Dear God. Who?”

“We don’t have a positive ID yet.”

“Details, please.”

“Frazer and Linden were trailing the Thompson sisters, sir. They’re in Bethesda, outside Washington, DC.”

George-Phillip felt unreasonably irritated by this. “I know where Bethesda is, O’Leary.”

“Of course, sir. Several of the sisters were walking to a local restaurant, accompanied by Diplomatic Security agents.”

“All right.”

“Frazer reported that he felt there were others watching them, but we don’t know who.”

“Saudis, maybe. Or CIA,” George-Phillip mused.

“Regardless, sir, there was an altercation, and Frazer was shot. He’s being treated at a local hospital, his prognosis is good.”

“Any other injuries? The Thompson sisters?”

“They’re fine, sir. No injuries.”

George-Phillip closed his eyes, a sense of relief flooding him.

“How are the local police treating it?”

“Mugging. Frazer and Linden both had diplomatic ID. But Frazer’s cover is likely blown.”

“We’ll recall him from Washington, I think. Switch to a different team. And O’Leary…”

“Yes, sir?”

“Have an armed covering team. I want contingency plans. Including one to evacuate the sisters.”

O’Leary’s overactive eyebrows bunched together. “Sir?”

George-Phillip leaned close. “Get me options, O’Leary. Right now that bastard Thompson holds all the cards. We need to get control of this situation.”

“Yes, sir,” O’Leary said.

George-Phillip stood. It was long past midnight now, and long past time to get home.