The Judas Strain - James Rollins [67]
As his father knelt in prayer.
Not a child’s vengeance. Only justice.
Nasser shoved open the door to the sedan. He owed his father—if only for the lesson taught to an eight-year-old boy, kneeling before his strangled mother.
Such a lesson would serve him again this night.
To be cold. In all ways.
Exiting the car, Nasser crossed and opened the rear door. Annishen unfolded out of the backseat, rising with a rustle of black leather, resplendent in an Italian-designed calfskin jacket and a dark suede outfit, a match to his Armani suit. There was not a drop of blood on her, proving again the artistry of her craft. He slipped his arm around her and closed the door.
She leaned against him. “The night is just beginning,” she whispered with a contented sigh.
He pulled her closer. Just two lovers returning from a late dinner.
The summer night was still muggy, but the apartment lobby was air-conditioned. The doors sighed open to greet them with a swipe of Dr. Corrin’s key card. The guard glanced up from his desk.
Nasser nodded to him, striding toward the neighboring elevator bank. Annishen offered a tinkling giggle, purring up against Nasser’s side, plainly anxious to get to their apartment. Her hand sidled to the holstered Glock at his waist.
Just in case…
But the guard merely nodded back, mumbled a “good evening,” and returned his attention to the magazine he was reading.
Nasser shook his head as he reached the elevator bank. Typical. What passed for security here in America was more show than substance.
He called the elevator with a press of a button.
Shortly thereafter, Nasser and Annishen stood before apartment 512. He swiped the same key card across the door lock. The indicator light changed from red to green.
He glanced to Annishen. He read the dance in her eyes, stirred from the earlier bloodshed.
“We need at least one of them alive,” he warned.
She feigned a pout and drew her weapon.
Using one finger, Nasser pushed the door handle down. He edged the way open on well-oiled hinges. Not even a creak. He entered first, slipping into the marble foyer. A light flowed from a bedroom in back.
Nasser paused just inside the door.
One eye narrowed.
There was something too still about the air. Too quiet. He needed to go no farther. He held his breath. He knew the apartment was empty.
Still, he waved Annishen to one side. He took the other. In moments, they swept the apartment’s rooms, checking even closets.
No one was here.
Annishen stood in the master bedroom. The bed was made and looked untouched. “The doctor lied to us,” she said with clear irritation and a moderate note of respect. “They’re not here.”
Nasser was in the master bathroom. Down on one knee. He had spotted something on the floor, rolled under the edge of the bathroom’s cherry vanity.
He picked it up.
A red prescription bottle. Empty.
He read the label. The patient. Jackson Pierce.
“They were here,” he muttered hard, and straightened up.
Dr. Corrin had not lied. He had told them the truth—or at least, what he thought was the truth.
“They’ve moved on,” Nasser said, and strode back to the bedroom.
He clenched the empty pill bottle in his fist, swallowing his fury. Commander Pierce had tricked him yet again. First with the obelisk, now with this shuffle of his parents.
“What now?” Annishen asked.
He lifted the pill bottle.
One last chance.
7:30 A.M.
Istanbul
“TO BEGIN,™ SEICHAN said, “what do you know about Marco Polo?”
She had donned a set of blue-tinted sunglasses. The sun had risen enough that the rooftop restaurant was a mix of shadows and glaring brightness. They had moved to a secluded corner table, sheltered under an umbrella.
Gray heard the clear hesitation in her voice—and maybe a trace of relief. Her will teetered between a wary desire to control the flow of knowledge and a compulsion to release the burden of its weight.
“Polo was a thirteenth-century explorer,” Gray answered. He had read up a bit on the man on the journey here. “Along with his father and uncle,