Rules of Vengeance

Jonathan found the wallet and counted the bills. The total came to five hundred and seventy pounds. He snatched the car keys. “The one out back?”

Meadows nodded. “You didn’t have to do this, you know. You could have just asked.”

“Maybe, but then…” Jonathan caught himself. There was something in Jamie’s eyes that wasn’t right. The man was genuinely frightened. Jonathan knew with a sudden and complete confidence that it wasn’t an act. “You’re not with Division, are you?”

Jamie Meadows shook his head.

“You don’t know Emma?”

“Never had the pleasure.”

Jonathan sighed. Suddenly he felt very tired. “Will you wait until tomorrow to call the police about the car?”

Meadows waved off the question. “I’ll wait a week.”

“I’ll pay you back for the cash.”

“Whenever. Take your time.”

Jonathan nodded, turning toward the back door. He advanced one step, then stopped. There remained a last, nagging issue. “What about the conference? Why did you tell me that you’d been pla

“It was my idea,” said Prudence Meadows, from across the room. “Couldn’t have you thinking we’d only just learned you were in town. You’d have become suspicious.”

She stood at the base of the stairs. She was wearing silk pajamas, and in her right hand she held a pistol.

27

“Pru, what the hell are you doing?” asked Jamie Meadows.

“Shhh, darling. We don’t want to wake the children.” She was screwing a fire suppressor onto the snout of the pistol. Finished, she held it at arm’s length, pointed squarely at Jonathan’s chest. “It was me Jamie heard. I was the one who commented on your magic hands. It was something Emma told me years ago. She never did stop bragging about you.”

“What are you talking about?” Meadows continued, if anything louder than before. “What the hell is that you’re holding?”

“Jonathan, do you want to tell him? Might as well, since you’ve seen fit to tell him so much besides.”

“Your wife works for Division,” said Jonathan, never taking his eyes from Prudence Meadows. “They’re trying to find Emma and kill her.”

“Nonsense,” protested Meadows, as if he weren’t staring at his wife six meters away, brandishing a semiautomatic pistol. “Pru? Tell him. It’s all a mixup. What is this Division you’re talking about, anyway?”

“It’s an intelligence shop run by the Americans,” said Prudence. “We have MI6. They have the CIA. Division’s just smaller and a bit more secret.”

“I don’t get it,” said Meadows.

“She works for the same organization that Emma did,” said Jonathan. “They undertake covert operations around the world to advance American security concerns. Mostly they kill people.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” remarked Prudence, advancing a step. She looked at her husband. “I might add that we only kill people who need to be killed.”

“I’ve never seen you before, have I?” asked Jonathan.

“I’m a desk girl. I run things in our London office. Or used to, I should say. After Emma’s stunt, they practically shut us down. Moved things to Lambeth. Lambeth! But no, we haven’t seen each other before. We can’t all be like your wife. Just as well. I’m a bum for languages. I’ve got my English accent. That’s good enough.”

“Your English accent?” said Jamie, perplexed. “You’re from Shropshire. Of course you have your English accent.”

“Don’t count on it,” said Jonathan.

Pru glanced at her watch, then went on. “Someone spotted you entering the country yesterday morning. The boss called and offered me full reinstatement if I could bring you in. Even a pay raise. We’re all very anxious to find your wife.”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Pru. He just wants to get out of England,” argued Meadows, on Jonathan’s behalf. “Go ahead, tell her. The police want him, but it’s a mistake.”

“Be quiet, Jamie,” said Jonathan. “I need to speak to your wife.”

“Did you meet her?” asked Prudence Meadows. “Is that where you went last night when you skipped out of the cocktail party?”

Jonathan didn’t answer. He saw Prudence check her watch again and guessed that others were on their way. It was imperative he leave as quickly as possible.

“So what did you have pla

“Is that what they told you to say?”

“Frank Co

She closed the distance between them, moving with unsteady steps. Jonathan raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and nonaggression, and as she came into the light, he saw that she wasn’t as cool and collected as she sounded. Her eyes blinked constantly and she was drawing each breath as if it might be her last. But then, like she said, she was office staff. Emma took care of the fieldwork.

“You’re right,” said Jonathan. “A one-way ticket wouldn’t be much help. But I don’t think talking to your boss is going to make things any better.”

“Of course it would,” pleaded Meadows. He was on his feet, coming round the table, shaking his head as if this whole thing were just a friendly misunderstanding. “Talking always helps.”

“Stay there, dear,” said Pru.

But Meadows kept coming.

“I said stop!” Prudence shouted.

Meadows froze. “Damn it, Jonathan,” he said. “They only want to talk to you.”

“No, Jamie, they don’t. They want me to tell them where my wife is and then they’re probably going to kill both of us.”

“Pru, is that true?” asked Meadows.

“No, Jamie. We have no intention of harming Jonathan. We just want to talk to him.”

“See, Jonathan? You must believe Prudence.”

“I’m sorry, Jamie, but I have to leave now.” Jonathan looked directly at Prudence. “I don’t know where my wife is. Tell that to Co

“I can’t allow that,” said Pru. “Just stay where you are. It will only be another minute.”

Meadows was standing by a pillar that separated the kitchen from the living room. His expression said that it was all too much for him. The gun, the confession that his wife was a covert intelligence agent, the strain of the standoff. Anger was the only refuge left to him. “Wait a second, Pru,” he said. “Are you really going to hurt him?”

“Sit down, Jamie, and mind your own business.”

“I will not,” said Meadows, gathering steam and courage. “Jonathan’s a friend. I don’t care what it is you do or whom you work for. We’ll have to sort that out later. As for now, you’re going to put down that gun and allow Jonathan to leave.”

The pistol coughed, and a chunk of plaster flew from the pillar a foot from Jamie Meadows’s head.

“Stay there and shut up, darling. We’ll talk about this later.”

But the shot only seemed to spur Meadows on. “I don’t give a damn, Pru,” he went on heatedly. “Are you going to shoot him? Are you going to shoot me, too? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Jamie, just stop!” she said.

“You stop!”

Prudence aimed the pistol at her husband. “I said stop, dammit.”

Meadows pushed Jonathan out of the way and lunged for the gun. There was another cough, and Meadows collapsed to his knees. “Pru,” he said feebly and without blame, as if the victim of a random accident. “You shot me.”

“Jamie?” she said.

Meadows slid to the floor. Blood streamed from the corner of his mouth. Jonathan knelt and rolled Meadows onto his back, first clearing his air passage. Opening his shirt, he saw a neat black hole pulsing blood an inch above the sternum. If the bullet hadn’t pierced the heart itself, it had nicked a coronary artery. “Get me some towels,” he said. “Call an ambulance.”