Rules of Deception

Finally, the hole grew big enough that he was able to touch the lock. He knew cars, and he was certain that there was a pushpin he could depress to free the catch. He wasn’t as certain what he’d do once he opened the trunk. It wouldn’t be any wiser to jump out of a car doing a hundred fifty kilometers an hour than to wait for a professional killer to fire a bullet into his skull at point-blank range.

He ran his fingers over the hook-shaped catch, wedged his thumb against it, and pressed for all he was worth. His fingers slipped off the metal. He tried again with the same result.

The car slowed and made a sharp turn to the right, leaving the pavement. They began a series of climbing switchbacks and he braced himself to keep from slamming into the chassis. The whine of the engine testified to the aggressive slope. The sharp turns and the constant speeding up and slowing down made him nauseous. Finally, the hairpin curves ended. He sucked down a deep breath, but it didn’t make him feel any better.

Sliding to the rear of the trunk, he pulled back the carpetlike padding beneath him and freed the repair kit stuffed inside the spare tire. The best he could come up with was the tire iron meant to be used with the jack. He tried whacking the lock, hoping that it might break and pop open. No such luck.

The car came to a halt and the engine died. He grasped the tire iron in his right hand. It felt light and ridiculous. Still, he readied himself as best he could to spring from the trunk. He heard a key slip into the lock. The trunk opened and the afternoon sun hit him full in the face, blinding him. Reflexively, he closed his eyes and raised a hand to ward off the glare.

“Get out,” said Simone.

Next to her stood a compact man with dark hair, a pale complexion, and dead eyes, holding a pistol at his side. Jonathan needed no introduction.

“If you please,” the man said with a quick flick of his pistol. “And don’t bother with whatever that is you’re holding.”

Jonathan dropped the tire iron and climbed out of the car. They had parked in a lay-by a few hundred feet from the top of the mountain. The vista was dramatic, a panorama of towering granite piers in every direction.

“I suppose it’s too late to say that I want to leave the country.” Jonathan’s throat was suddenly dry. He needed water.

“I tried to warn you off,” said Simone.

“Why didn’t you tell me you worked with Emma? That would have been enough.”

“I don’t. In fact, I’m as interested to learn what she was doing as you are.”

“Then who are you with?”

Simone just stared at him.

He took a step toward the edge of the lay-by and glimpsed a sheer rock face. He judged it to be a thousand-meter fall to the valley floor.

Simone stretched out her hand. “I need all the information Parvez Ji

“He didn’t give me anything,” said Jonathan.

“You came all this way to see Ji

“I went to see Ji

“No, you didn’t. You came to Davos to get out of trouble. To get your proof.”

Jonathan said nothing.

“Why are you making this so hard?” she asked.

“You don’t have to do this, Simone.”

“You’re right. I don’t. But Ricardo, here, does.”

Ricardo, the assassin, sniffed the air. “Please, if you have any information, now is the time to give it to Mrs. Noiret.”

“What’s your game?” asked Jonathan, ignoring the man who had tried to shoot him in the tu

“My game is the same as everyone else’s in this business. This is not about playing doctor.”

Jonathan took the flash drive out of his pocket and held it in his palm. “Iran’s entire nuclear program is on this thing. Ji

Simone glanced at the drive. “Does he? I don’t concern myself with those issues.”

“Tell me who you work for and why you wanted Emma so badly. Tell me that, and it’s yours.”

“I work for the Central Intelligence Agency. I’m your friend. Believe me.”

“My friend?” Jonathan shook his head. Spi

“Merde!” Simone jumped toward the cliff. Furious, she looked at Jonathan, then at the man named Ricardo. “He’s yours.”

Jonathan gazed into the sky and took a deep breath. The air was marvelously crisp.

Just then, there was a thudding noise, like a hand slapping a bare back. Jonathan flinched, expecting to feel something sharp and final. He drew a breath. Nothing had struck him.

The assassin collapsed to his knees. A red stain blossomed on his chest. He gasped, and as he fell forward onto the snow, blood poured from his mouth.

Simone spun to look behind her, searching the rugged terrain above them. A figure detached itself from a shelf of rock. A person dressed in black and gray, with a knit cap tight on their head and eyes hidden behind wraparound sunglasses. A hand pulled off the knit cap and a spray of amber hair tumbled free. When she was a few feet away, she took off her sunglasses.

“You,” said Simone. “But how…”

Emma Ransom raised her pistol and fired a bullet into Simone Noiret’s forehead. Simone tottered and retreated a step, stu

Emma stepped to the edge and watched her fall.

75

She stood ten feet away cradling a strange-looking gun in her arms, some kind of pistol with a silencer and a folding stock. There was no sign of a broken leg. Nor were there any visible injuries sustained from a three-hundred-foot fall. She looked at him as if he were a stranger, offering no indication that she desired to hug or kiss him, or that she was happy to see him at all.

“But I saw you,” he said. “In the crevasse.”

“You thought you saw me.”

“The blood…the trail in the snow…your leg was broken. I saw the fracture.”

“It wasn’t my bone. It was all incredibly sloppy. I had to work fast. When I found out-.”

“Emma,” he said.

“-that it was set for this weekend, I began to-.”

“Emma!” he shouted. “Is that even your name?”

Without answering, she turned and began jogging down the hill. Rooted to the spot, Jonathan was filled with a flux of emotions: wonderment, anger, elation, and bitterness, all of them warring with one another. It took him a second or two to sort his feelings out. Still stu

“I talked to the hospital,” he said. “The nurse there told me that the Emma Everett Rose who was born there died in a car accident two weeks after her birth.”

“Later,” she said. “I’ll tell you everything later.”

“I don’t want everything. I only want the truth.”

“The truth, even,” she said. “Right now, I need you to tell me something. Ji

Jonathan dug the second flash drive out of his pocket. “No,” he said. “I tossed yours.”

She snatched it out of his hand. “I’ll forgive you,” she said. “This time.”

Emma attacked the hill as if it were a racetrack, punching it on the straights, braking into the turns, downshifting crisply. Emma who couldn’t manage a stick to save her life.