Kiss Me While I Sleep cs-3 Read online

  The first thing she did once she was back in her flat was subject it to the same exhaustive search that the bathroom had received. To her relief, she didn’t find anything. Rodrigo must not suspect her, or he would have had the place bugged seven ways from Sunday while she’d been incapacitated. No, he would have killed her on just suspicion alone.

  That didn’t mean she was safe. When he asked about her past lovers, she’d known she had only a few days to get away, because he would be digging deeper into Denise’s past and finding out there was no past.

  If her flat had been searched—and she had to assume it had been—the searchers had been very neat. But they hadn’t found her stash of getaway items, or she wouldn’t be standing here now.

  The old building had once been heated by fireplaces, which at some time after World War II had been replaced by radiators. The fireplace in her flat had been bricked over, and a chest shoved in front of it. She had put a cheap rug under the chest, not to prevent the floor from being scarred, but so she could silently move the chest about by pulling the rug. She pulled the rug away from the wall now, and got down on her belly to inspect the bricks. Her repair job wasn’t noticeable; she’d dirtied the mortar so it looked as aged as the mortar around it. There wasn’t any mortar dust on the floor, either, to indicate that anyone had tapped on the bricks.

  She got a hammer and chisel, lay down on her belly again, and began gently tapping the mortar from around one of the bricks. When it was loosened, she worked it free, then another, then another. Reaching her hand into the cavity of the old fireplace, she pulled out an array of boxes and bags, each item safely wrapped in plastic to keep it clean.

  One small box held her alternate identities: passports, credit cards, driver’s licenses, ID cards, depending on which nationality she chose. A bag held three wigs. There were distinctive changes of clothes, kept hidden because they were so memorable. Shoes were a different matter; she’d simply put the shoes she’d need in her closet, dumped in a pile with all her other shoes. How many men would pay any attention at all to a tangle of shoes? She also had a supply of cash, in euros, pounds sterling, and American dollars.

  In the last box was a secure cell phone. She turned it on and checked the battery: low. Taking out the charger, she plugged it into a wall outlet and set the phone in the cradle.

  She was exhausted, sweat beading her forehead. She wouldn’t go tomorrow, she thought; she was still too weak. But day after tomorrow, she would have to move, and move fast.

  So far she’d been lucky. Rodrigo had kept the news of Salvatore’s death quiet for several days, which had bought her some time, but with every minute that passed, the danger grew that someone in Langley would see a photograph of Denise Morel, scan it into a computer, and the computer would spit out the report that, hair and eye color aside, Denise Morel’s features matched those of one Liliane Mansfield, contract agent for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Then the CIA would be hot on her trail, and the Agency had resources Rodrigo Nervi could only dream about. For practical reasons, Salvatore had been left in place with the Agency’s blessings; no one there would look kindly on her for taking him out.

  It was a toss-up who would come after her first, Rodrigo or someone sent by the CIA. She would have a better chance against Rodrigo, because he would probably underestimate her. The Agency wouldn’t make that mistake.

  Because it would look odd if she didn’t, and also because she wanted to see if she was under surveillance, she bundled up against the chill and walked to the neighborhood market. She’d spotted one guard as soon as she came out of her building; he was sitting in a nondescript gray car parked halfway down the block, and as soon as she walked out, he lifted a newspaper to cover his face. Amateur. But if there was one in front, she could assume there was also one in back. The good news was there wasn’t a guard inside her building, which would have made matters a bit more iffy. She didn’t want to have to go out a third-story window, as weak as she was.

  She carried a cloth shopping bag into which she put some produce and fruit. An Italian-looking man—who didn’t really stand out unless you were specifically looking for him—meandered around in her wake, always keeping her in view. Okay, that made three. Three were enough to do a competent job, but weren’t so many that she couldn’t handle them.

  After paying for her selections, she walked back to her flat, careful to keep her gait rather slow and laborious. She walked with her head down, the picture of dejection, and not the way anyone who was the least alert would walk. Her watchers would think she was completely unaware of them and, moreover, that her health was still so precarious she could scarcely get around. Since they weren’t extraordinarily skilled in surveillance, that meant they would somewhat relax their guard without realizing it, because she was such a poor challenge.

  When her cell phone was fully charged, she took it into the bathroom and turned on the tap water to mask sound, in case a parabolic microphone was aimed at her flat. The chance of that was admittedly small, but in her business paranoia saved lives. She booked a first-class one-way ticket to London, disconnected, then called back and, under another identity, booked a flight out of London that left within half an hour of her arrival, headed back to Paris, where absolutely no one would expect her to go. After that, she would see, but that little maneuver should buy her some more time.

  Langley, Virginia

  Early the next morning, a junior analyst named Susie Pollard blinked at what the computer facial-recognition program had just told her. She printed out the report, then wove her way through a maze of cubicles to stick her head inside another cubicle. “This looks interesting,” she said, handing the report to a senior analyst, Wilona Jackson.

  Wilona slid her glasses into place and swiftly looked over the document. “You’re right,” she said. “Good catch, Susie. I’ll kick this upstairs.” She stood, a six-foot-tall black woman with austere features and a no-bullshit attitude honed to perfection on her husband and five rowdy sons. Without another woman in the household for backup, she said, she had to stay on top of things. That carried over to her work, where she tolerated no nonsense. Anything she kicked upstairs was given proper consideration, or else.

  By noon, Franklin Vinay, director of operations, was reading the report. Salvatore Nervi, the head of the Nervi organization—he couldn’t call it a corporation, though corporations were involved—was dead of an undisclosed ailment. The exact date of his death was unknown, but Nervi’s sons had buried him at their home in Italy before releasing the news. His last sighting was at a Parisian restaurant, with a lapse of four days between then and the announcement of his death. He had apparently been in perfect health, so the unknown ailment had occurred rather abruptly. It happened, of course; heart attacks or strokes struck down seemingly healthy people every day.

  What set the alarm bells to clanging was the facial-recognition program, which said that, without doubt, Nervi’s newest lady friend had been none other than one of the CIA’s best contract agents in disguise. Liliane Mansfield had darkened her wheat-blond hair and put in dark contacts to hide her distinctive pale blue eyes, but it was undoubtedly her.

  Even more alarming was the fact that, a few months ago, two of her closest friends and their adopted daughter had died at Nervi’s hands. All of the indications were that Lily had gone off the reservation and taken matters into her own hands.

  She’d known the CIA wouldn’t sanction the kill. Salvatore Nervi was a disgusting example of humanity who deserved killing, but he’d been smart enough to play both ends against the middle and make himself useful, as insurance against just this sort of thing. He had passed along extremely useful information, and done so for years. That information pipeline was now lost, perhaps irrevocably; it would take them years, if they could at all, to develop the same relationship with the heir apparent. Rodrigo Nervi was notoriously suspicious, and not apt to jump at any partnership. Frank’s only hope in that direction was that Rodrigo would prove to be as pragmatic as his