Blood Trust - Eric van Lustbader [111]
“This is Naomi Wilde’s cell. We found it in the center console of her car, where it was protected during the crash.”
“So?”
“Don’t you think if she were heading off to a dangerous place she’d have it with her?” She shook her head emphatically. “No, she was with someone she trusted when she was killed.”
“Someone like Peter McKinsey.” Fraine rubbed his forehead. “If you’re right—and that’s a big if—this isn’t going to go down well with the brass, not well at all.”
“Not my problem.”
“It will be if you can’t find the body. Not a word of this can be breathed to anyone until it’s found.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Then your theory never leaves this office.”
“I can’t let that happen.”
“Where is she, Nona? Where is Naomi Wilde?”
“Fuck if I know.” She made her voice into a hoarse rasp. “But wherever she is, she’s sleeping with the fishes, just like Luca Brasi. And like a Corleone I’m going to track down whoever murdered her and get my revenge.”
Fraine turned back and leaned forward with his elbows on his desk. “Revenge is a mighty disturbing word coming from a law enforcement officer.”
Heroe rose. She was like a Valkyrie—fierce, dark, determined. “Yeah, well, murdering a Secret Service agent is a mighty disturbing business.”
* * *
“WHAT DID she say just before she died?”
Arian Xhafa turned, but the Syrian appeared quite serious.
“She said, ‘Why?’”
The Syrian’s eyes went briefly out of focus. They were like pits, merciless and brutal. “That’s what they all say. You’d think someone would be more creative.”
Perhaps you will be, when you die, Xhafa thought.
“Arjeta Kraja possessed knowledge, Xhafa, and knowledge is like a virus—it can so easily spread exponentially.” The Syrian raked his fingers through his beard, a sign that he was lost in thought. “Did she say anything else?”
“Yes.” Xhafa shivered. He had hoped the Syrian wouldn’t ask. “She said, ‘Where I’m going, there are no more secrets.’”
The Syrian started as if he’d been stuck with a hypodermic. “I knew the moment she ran,” he said, “and now here’s the proof of it. You see, you fool. She did know.”
Once again Xhafa felt like a child being reprimanded for his ignorance. Suddenly, he was possessed by a murderous rage, and he spent the next thirty seconds consciously uncurling his fingers, keeping them from becoming fists. Ever since the Syrian had brought up Arjeta Kraja, Xhafa had felt a cold lump forming in the pit of his stomach. The orphan student body at the Tetovo school was larded with girls—recruits to slavery his agents had stolen or bought from their desperate or unscrupulous families. One of those was Arjeta’s sister, Edon. Did she know what her sister knew, had her sister spoken to her before Xhafa had had a chance to silence Arjeta? He didn’t know. Come to that, he didn’t know whether Edon Kraja had survived the attack on the school. He prayed to Allah that she hadn’t. In either case, he dared not say a word about Edon to the Syrian. If he did, he knew it would be the end for him.
Oblivious to Xhafa’s mounting tension, the Syrian gazed out the smoked window, deeply immersed in his own thoughts. The caravan pulled into a huge estate, passed through an electronically controlled gate in a high fence topped with rolls of electrified razor wire, and now rolled along a drive of crushed marble so white that even in the gloom it sparkled. Men holding huge attack dogs on leashes appeared on either side of the house. The dogs strained at their leashes, their eyes golden and greedy.
The Syrian ignored them. “She saw and she must have heard someone mention the name.”
“But who would mention the name?” Xhafa said.
The armored vehicle came to rest precisely in front of an immense oak door, snatched from a looted medieval cathedral, that rose, as if on a plinth, at the top of six wide white stone steps.
The two men emerged from the vehicle. The attack dogs’ flanks quivered but they remained stationary; the scents of the two men were known to them.
The door was opened by Taroq, the compound’s chief guard. They exchanged greetings as he ushered them into a