Ultimate Weapon (McClouds & Friends #6)(55)

“It is her,” Val said. He was dead sure in his balls. He understood perfectly why Steele might risk taking back her own given name. After years of being a blank slate, sometimes a person felt the need to write something on that slate, however simple, and have it stand. And the daughter of a goldsmith might well be drawn to metalworking.

It was enough to convince him. “What happened to Tamar?”

“Her mother and sister died at the concentration camp in the end of September,” Henry said. “Your typical heart-tugging Balkans tragedy. No more data on little Tamar after that. She vanishes into thin air.”

Henry’s cool, cynical tone grated on him. “Who ordered the shooting?” he asked. “Drago Stengl, you said? I have heard the name.”

“That’s because he hired PSS personnel in the nineties,” Henry said. “We did some of his dirty work for him, like as not. Bastard’s in hiding now. Charged with a bunch of gruesome war crimes in Croatia. Word is he’s dying from some disgusting disease. Appropriate, huh?”

“Do you know where he is?”

“I know where his daughter is,” Henry offered. “Found the info in the PSS files on Stengl. Ana Santarini. She lives in Italy on the Amalfi Coast. She married Ignazio Santarini, a rich import-export merchant with ties to the Camorra. Don’t you have contacts down there? Weren’t you f*cking some Camorra mafioso’s wife for PSS a few years back? Maybe you can just, ah, insert yourself into that slot again, wangle yourself an introduction to Ana? If it comes to that?”

Val grunted, noncommital. “Maybe. Could you go to Italy—”

“Already there,” Henry said. “I’m in Salerno. I thought you might want me to follow Ana Santarini around, so I took the liberty.”

He was speechless. “Thank you,” he said. “Please carry on.”

“Hey, no problem,” Henry said. “I have nothing better to do right now, and Italian girls are hot. I got here this morning. Followed Ms. Ana all day. She’s got a nice ass. She went to a private clinic for a couple of hours this afternoon. My guess is Stengl’s languishing there. But in any case, you better move your ass before Ms. Live Wire gives you the slip for good. Are you mobile yet?”

“I think so. Later.” Val pocketed the phone, glanced in the mirror. He looked like shit, but he had no time for a shower or shave. He dragged on the black tee, buckled on the holster, shrugged on his gray Armani jacket. He had thought about ordering a suit from the department store, but he didn’t know how formal the event was. He could not draw attention to himself by being overdressed. In America, it was better to err on the side of overcasual. At least the jeans were black. He was lucky he had not pissed himself when she zapped him.

He packed everything into his SUV, pulled up the frequencies of the beacon he had slipped into Steele’s bag, and located them heading south on I-5.

It wasn’t difficult to overtake her cab. She had only a twenty-minute head start on him, and he drove fast. An hour on the road found him outside Tacoma, driving through an evergreen forest on a road that led to a resort hotel. Signs identified it as the Huxley Resort and Spa. The icon that indicated her position had stopped there minutes before he arrived. He pulled over at the entrance and waited until he saw a yellow cab pull out before he proceeded into the parking lot. The timing of his entrance was critical. She had to be seated in the hall, exit choked with the wedding party, the ceremony already well begun before she caught sight of him. No chance to protest his intrusion without disrupting the wedding and agitating the child.

He caught sight of Rachel first, dressed as she was in hot red and black; tights, dress, shoes, coat, the crimson hair ribbon in her dark curls. She glowed like a holly berry against the dull grays and browns of the wintry forest, perched on Steele’s hip as they walked toward the hotel. Rachel was fussing, arching back, mouth open. He could imagine the rich alto tones of Steele’s voice as she wheedled and cajoled.

He kept her in sight, falling casually in with other groups of guests making for the hotel, but he did not let himself stare at her or even think about her. Creatures who were accustomed to being hunted could sense a predator. He kept her in his peripheral vision and emitted a blank white noise screen in his head as he watched the matrix turn.

The gray man. A classic technique for a covert operative, silently projecting, I am not here. You did not see me. I do not matter. He was good at it. In fact, it could be overdone. That silent chant could become actually noticeable to those who were trained in such things, like Steele. She would hear him if he chanted too loudly. Even in his mind.

Steele and the child disappeared inside. Val the gray man blended into the crush of people near the entrance and loitered. A glance inside located Steele in the back in a chair far to the side, the child on her lap. Not surprising. He’d overheard enough sessions with the child psychologist to understand Rachel’s fear of strangers, particularly men. Steele was creating a safety zone, to limit pre-wedding socializing and have a possible escape route in case of tantrums.

He caught sight of the blond man who had acted as Steele’s bodyguard at Shibumi near the front of the hall. Davy McCloud looked mildly harrassed, and held a chubby, squirming infant with wild red ringlets in a carrying pouch. Val glanced around for the other bodyguard, Nick Ward, but did not see him, until a clot of tuxedoed men in the front of the hall resolved themselves into a semicircle, facing the center aisle.