Rules of Vengeance

The effect on Tweeden was immediate. “You’ll have to leave now, Colonel,” the club manager said icily. “I can’t help you any further.”

Graves rose. “Who was it?” he whispered. “Who did Russell meet with? Give me a name.”

“Foreigner,” said Tweeden. “Name you see on the football pages.” Then, in a louder voice, for public consumption, “It was a pleasure, sir. My assistant will see you to the door.”

“Come on,” said Graves, taking hold of Tweeden’s elbow. “One name. You can do that much.”

Tweeden yanked his sleeve free. “Good evening, Colonel.”

Graves dropped into the front seat of his Rover and slammed the door. “Damn it all,” he muttered under his breath. He’d been a second away from getting the name, and then who of all people should show up? If he weren’t a rationalist, Graves would think that the gods had something against him. He considered ru

He felt his phone vibrate and saw that he had received an incoming message from the AVS, Automobile Visual Surveillance. He crossed his fingers. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, Lord…”

He downloaded the message from his in-box into the car’s command center. It was nothing James Bond-like, just a scratched-up color monitor like any other police car had these days. One after another, pictures taken from surveillance cameras in a four-block perimeter of Sloane Square appeared on the screen. He scrolled through them until he caught sight of Russell’s Aston Martin DB12 parked in the same spot he now occupied.

Graves scrolled through the next few photos more slowly. A time stamp on the bottom corner indicated a lapse of two minutes between each picture. It would be sheer luck if he found anything. A Lamborghini passed by, then a BMW, a Mercedes, and an unmissable Rolls-Royce Phantom. He wondered if anyone in London drove a car costing less than a hundred thousand quid anymore.

The source of the pictures switched to the camera at the rear of the club. Graves sat up, remembering that Tweeden had vouchsafed that Russell’s guest had entered via the back door. He scrolled through thirty or forty images before stopping abruptly.

It was the Rolls-Royce again: a black Phantom, the flagship of the brand. It had pulled up opposite the club’s back entrance. Its passenger door was open, but no figure was visible. Tinted windows prevented him from seeing inside the vehicle.

Graves magnified the photo. The license was a vanity plate bearing the number ARSNL 1. Every soccer fan in London knew whom the car belonged to. He recalled the stack of sports magazines about the Arsenal Football Club he’d discovered in Robert Russell’s flat. One more mystery explained.

He called in the plates to AVS, requesting all pertinent registration information. A name, phone number, and address were waiting when he arrived at Thames House nine minutes later. Not an HRH, exactly, but hardly a commoner either, at least not in the general sense of the word. Men and women whose personal fortunes exceeded a billion pounds constituted their own aristocracy, whether they were English or not.

Justice waits for no man, thought Graves as he picked up the phone and dialed the home number listed on the automobile’s registration. He wondered how a billionaire felt about being roused at two in the morning. An angry voice picked up on the seventh ring.

“Da?” demanded the man nicknamed the Great White.

Graves had his answer. He didn’t like it much at all. They weren’t very different from us, after all.

49

Ghosts in the gathering light, the figures floated across the docks, gathering nets, hauling tackle, and coiling ropes as they fitted their craft for sea. It was not yet 5 a.m. and the port of Civitavecchia was wide awake. The docks never sleep, thought Jonathan as he trudged along the quai. He was tired and hungry and his pants were wet from sleeping on the grass in a field outside of town. To the north, intermittently visible through the patchy morning fog, lay moored the massive oceangoing ferries waiting to board at first light and deliver their passengers to ports in Corsica, France, and Spain. To the south, an armada of fishing boats bobbed inside the jetty, readying for another day’s labor.

Jonathan bought a bag of warm roasted chestnuts and found a place to sit, anonymous among the passing seamen. The port looked neither familiar nor strange. Eight years had passed since he’d visited. It had been February, not July, the streets cold and empty, the town melancholy. Hardly a place begging to be visited.

Yet Emma had insisted they come.

“No one stays in Rome,” she’d said. “It’s much too expensive. Civitavecchia is the real thing. You practically feel as if you’ll run into Nero around every corner.”

He knew now that her reasons were excuses. She hadn’t come to escape the high prices or the tourists. In February, there weren’t any. She’d come for the same reason that had brought her here three months earlier.

She’d come because she had to see someone. And he had a suspicion that that someone’s name had the initials S.S.

He crunched on a chestnut, dredging up memories of their visit. Eight years was a long time, and he’d been too preoccupied with the last-minute change in posting that had cut short their honeymoon to play the eager tourist. He glanced over his shoulder at the cafés and coffee bars that lined the seafront. All were dark, awnings retracted, chairs stacked next to the door and chained to prevent theft.

And then he saw it. Large, colorful block letters unchanged since that day in February so long ago. He read the words, and it came back to him in a torrent. The quicksilver feelings of confusion, apprehension, and anger.

The sign read, “Hotel Rondo.”

How was it that he had forgotten?

Emma threw her camera onto the table and collapsed on the bed. “So what do you think? Wasn’t I right to suggest we come?”

It was four in the afternoon. Jonathan was drenched from an afternoon squall that had come in from the sea, taking them by surprise. They had made a tour of the ancient port city of Civitavecchia that would have exhausted even the most ardent sightseers.

“I think I’ve seen enough Doric columns to last me until I’m forty.”

Emma punched him on the arm. “Be happy I only insisted on visiting the most important sites. Three hours isn’t so much.”

“Three hours? I thought it was three days.” Jonathan watched as Emma peeled off her wet togs. First the jacket, then her blouse, the pants and socks. She turned, clad only in her underwear, which were sensible women’s Jockeys. But on Emma, even a paper bag looked sexy.

“What are you looking at?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“Because I think I deserve a reward. You know, for actually paying attention when you read all that stuff from the guidebooks.”

“Do you, now?”

“I do indeed. Something that will make me forget that we could have been admiring the Sistine Chapel instead of all those ancient craphouses.”

“You just like the sight of all those naked women.”

“Michelangelo’s eye for beauty was almost as good as mine.”

“Really?” Emma gave him a look as if to say he was too arrogant by half. “Well, then, I think I can do something about that,” she said, matching his tone and upping him one. “And I can give you your tour of the city at the same time.”

“Interesting. I’m curious.”

“Take a seat on the bed. And not too close. No touching the docent.”