LITMIR.BIZ

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you want to ask me?”

      “Well,” he said, withdrawing his hand and looking down at his glass, suddenly boyish and coy. “I’ll tell you in a minute. But before I do, I have a little surprise.”

      Aha, she thought, the Tiffany box. “Would it be a birthday surprise by any chance?”

      “I think you could call it that.” He took her glass from her hand and set both flutes aside on the low table. Then he lifted her fingers to his lips. “You’re so very lovely, you know that?”

      “Thank you. You’re sweet.”

      He studied her face for a long moment and then, to her astonishment, he dropped to one knee. Alex’s smile remained fixed, but inside, she felt a frisson of panic. The little blue Tiffany box in his pocket—it was probably the right size to hold a ring case.

      Oh, please, don’t tell me he’s going to propose.

      They hadn’t even known each other all that long—not that longevity meant anything in cases like this. Last year, Hans Dietermann, chairman of the board of München Deutsche Bank, had proposed to her during their first dinner together, only a few hours after they’d met. Then, as now, it was out of the question.

      She touched his shoulders, a queen signaling her knight to rise. “Darling,” she protested gently.

      “Shhh, don’t speak. Let me. What I wanted to say…”

      She sighed and leaned back against the railing. What a way to ruin a perfectly good birthday.

      His fingers slid lightly down the sides of her dress, as if he could find the words he needed written there in silk-stranded Braille. He leaned his head toward her knees, meekly, almost penitently, hands resting on her calves.

      “What I wanted to say, my love, is this…”

      He paused and exhaled heavily—working up his courage, she thought. Really, it was too tiresome. She wondered if it was too late to accept one of those other birthday dinner invitations. Finally, he found his voice again and looked up at her, a mischievous expression rising on his handsome face—handsome but not irresistible.

      “You’ve been talking to people you shouldn’t,” he said, “telling tales out of school, bad girl. It’s made your masters very angry.”

      This was not what she’d expected, but she had no more than a split second to even begin to comprehend his meaning before his grip tightened on her legs. He stood abruptly, and in one smooth movement, flipped her backward over the railing.

      Shocked breathless, she made not a sound falling the two hundred and eighty-three feet to the pavement below.

      He heard a faint thud as she landed, but didn’t bother to look over the railing. What would be the point?

      Instead, he dusted off the knees of his tuxedo pants, then picked up his champagne flute and downed the last dregs, slipping the drained glass into his jacket pocket next to the empty blue Tiffany box. He’d seen how her pupils had expanded when she’d spotted that stupid prop. He knew it would distract her.

      Withdrawing a handkerchief, he wiped down the stem of her glass, the only part of it he’d touched, as well as the ice bucket and the bottle. Perhaps the initial thought would be that she’d been drinking alone, depressed on her birthday. The notion wouldn’t stand up to five minutes of careful scrutiny, of course, but he didn’t care. He’d be long gone, from the Peak, from Hong Kong, before the police ever got around to putting together a credible theory of what had happened here tonight—if they ever did.

      Back inside, he crossed the living room quickly and silently. The place smelled like a bloody funeral parlor, he thought, with all those ostentatious floral arrangements. Appropriate, though, under the circumstances.

      He withdrew a Sig-Sauer automatic from the holster at the small of his back, under his tuxedo jacket. The suppressor was in his other pocket, the one not holding the blue box. He screwed it onto the end of the barrel as he backed quietly along the wall, through the formal dining room and toward the kitchen.

      He was at the swinging door when he heard the first faint yell of alarm rising from the front drive, twenty-eight floors below. A male voice. It wouldn’t be the doorman, though. His driver would have long since taken him out, dumping the body in the trunk of the limo before leaving to dispose of it. It could be days before it floated to the surface of the harbor.

      He gave the silencer one last, tightening twist. The motorcycle on which he himself would make his getaway had been pre-positioned near the servants’ entrance at the back of the building. He calculated that he had as little as four minutes to get to it before the first police cars came up the Peak Road. In the meantime, the civilians on the scene would be preoccupied with that silk-clad mess on the front drive.

      Poor thing. She probably wasn’t so gorgeous now.

      When he burst through the kitchen door, the maid was sitting on a stool at the center island, a gossip magazine spread out in front of her, a bowl at her chin. Her chopsticks froze in mid-air and her mouth dropped open, grains of rice tumbling from her lips.

      He put a single bullet in her forehead. The rice bowl sailed in one direction, the chopsticks in another, as the stool tipped backward. She slumped to the floor, her head wedged between the gleaming stainless steel stove and a maple cabinet.

      Taking care to leave no prints, he left quietly through the rear kitchen door. The maid stared blindly after him, her black eyes milking over.

      CHAPTER ONE

      TOP SECRET

      CODE WORD ACCESS ONLY

      NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

      FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

      INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION

      CASE NO. 1786521-02

      CODE NAME: ACHILLES

      DATE OF INTERVIEW: August 14, 2002

      LEAD INTERROGATOR: FBI Special Agent S. V. Andrews

      (Special Agent Andrews) Okay, let’s get started. Today is Wednesday, August 14, 2002, and this is interview number two with Mrs. Drummond MacNeil, also known as Carrie MacNeil.

      I should note for the record that two witnesses are present: Mr. Frank Tucker, representing the office of the Director of Central Intelligence, and Mr. Mark Huxley, from MI-6, the British foreign intelligence service. They’re being allowed to observe this interview as part of their damage assessment on joint-intelligence operations resulting from the alleged activities of Mrs. MacNeil’s husband. As of right now, Drummond MacNeil, CIA Deputy Director for Operations, is still at large, whereabouts unknown.

      Okay, I think we’re ready to begin now. So, for the record, please, state your full name and date of birth.

      (Mrs. MacNeil) Didn’t we establish that in the first interview?

      We do it every time to keep the tapes properly identified for the transcribers.

      Oh. That makes sense, I guess. So, once again then, it’s Carrie Jane MacNeil. Originally Carolyn, but I’ve always been called Carrie. My maiden name was Morgan.

      And your date of birth?

      May 16, 1973.

      So you’re…um…twenty-nine years old, is that right?

      Yes. I’ll be thirty on my next birthday. The big three-oh. And don’t I have a lot to be proud of approaching that landmark.

      Such as?

      I was being sarcastic, Agent Andrews. Obviously, my accomplishments are pretty limited. In fact, all things considered, I’d say I’ve made a real mess of things, wouldn’t you?

      In what way?

      Take your pick. I’ve pretty much blown everything over the last decade—education, marriage, credibility. Abandoned my personal

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