The Final Cut

Lanighan’s offices were down the hallway, and his state-of-the-art security system didn’t hold out long against Kitsune’s deft tools. She put the rake in the lock and pulled the trigger, listening to the tumblers whine, then clunk open.

When the latch on the door opened, the security system began giving off a quiet beep every second. She slapped a counter up on the wall, attached two metal butterfly clips to the alarm, and within moments, the counter had identified the numbers of the system’s passcode, inputted them, and bypassed the system. The alarm turned off with a small squawk, and all was silent.

She would have approximately three minutes before the alarm company registered the system at Lanighan Enterprises had been turned off and notified Lanighan of the breach. With luck, the guard downstairs wouldn’t be notified for five minutes, but just in case, she needed to work quickly.

Lanighan was first and foremost an art lover, like his father. On his computer was a comprehensive list of all the holdings of Lanighan Enterprises, and where each piece of art was kept.

Since he was holding Mulvaney hostage, she’d take his art away. Most of his net worth was tied to the collection. Wipe it out, and she’d take his fortune with her.

He’d left his desktop computer in sleep mode to save energy, and, luck of all luck, it didn’t have a password on it.

“Stupid man.”

While Kitsune’s talents lay in physical extractions—it was said she had the softest hands in the business—Mulvaney was getting older, and his natural aptitudes had become slightly more cerebral. Corporate espionage paid very well, and Mulvaney designed many of the tools he used to gain information himself. Kitsune made heavy use of them in her jobs as well.

She inserted a thumb drive into the terminal and copied over Lanighan’s hard drive. The thumb drive contained a nifty little virus Mulvaney had cooked up that deleted the master files and all the backups from the host computer as it transferred. Not only would she have the information on the art collection, her thumb drive would be the only link to his company’s files. Payroll, insurance, assets, everything. It would take great effort to re-create—effort, time, and money.

She counted down as the files deleted themselves from his system, whispered to herself, “Come on, hurry, hurry.”

Two minutes to go.

She took a lap around his spacious office, bigger than her flat in London, with a spectacular view over the city. She stopped to admire the paintings on the walls. He had a small Céza

The thumb drive beeped, and she pulled herself away. Maybe another time.

Back out the door, silent and careful. She reset the alarm, relocked the glass doors, ran down the two flights of stairs, and grabbed the elevator down.

Less than three minutes, all told. Not bad.

She walked out the front door, waggling her own mobile phone over her head as she walked past the guard. He ignored her, and she was gone into the night.

81

Ritz Paris

15 Place Vendôme

Saturday, early evening

Nicholas was deep into rereading Lanighan’s file when there was a knock at the door to the suite.

Mike was combing the files from the French authorities on the elder Couverel’s mugging and murder. She set her laptop aside and said, “There’s the coffee. I’ll get it. I’m telling you, Nicholas, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing useful in these files. The case went cold thirty years ago, and no one has done any work on it since.”

She crossed the room and opened the door. Nicholas heard a strangled cry and bolted from the couch to see Mike hurled backward into the living room and slammed against a chair. A dark-ski

The man ran into the suite, his eyes on Mike, his Beretta aimed at her head. Nicholas came in hard from the side, buying him a moment of precious surprise. He kicked out at the man’s knee, but the man whirled about and leapt back, only taking a glancing blow to his thigh. He grunted in pain, but it barely slowed him. He brought his gun to Nicholas’s chest, Mike forgotten.

Nicholas whipped his leg up to kick the gun out of his hand, but the man pulled his arm back in time. Nicholas jumped into him, slammed his fist into the man’s neck. The man’s head flew back, and as Nicholas spun around he grabbed the man’s arm and sent his elbow into his gut, once, twice. He grabbed the man’s wrist and clamped his fingers hard into the soft flesh. The man screamed and the gun went off, an obscene sound, then fell and skidded across the floor. The man’s fist hit Nicholas’s forehead, and he staggered back, seeing lights.

Nicholas heard Mike shout, “Get away from him, Nicholas!” He knew she wanted to shoot the man. And the man did, too, because he grabbed on to Nicholas, trying to use him as a shield, dragging him toward the door of the suite. But he couldn’t hold him.

Mike watched the fight turn into a vicious brawl. She had her Glock out, but the men were moving too fast to get a clear shot—blocking and countering each other’s strikes as they destroyed the furniture in the suite, and themselves.

Nicholas took a hard blow to the shoulder. He pivoted and grabbed the man’s neck with one arm as he punched him in the kidneys, vicious blows that would fell a giant, but the man managed to squirm away—how, Mike didn’t know, he was that good. He stared at Nicholas for a split second, then took off at a dead run out of the suite. Mike fired once, twice, but missed him.

Nicholas yelled to Mike, “Call it in, I’m going after him,” and ran out the door.

The man was at the end of the hall, going through the emergency door to the stairwell. Nicholas sprinted after him, made it through the door in time to see a black-sneakered foot ru

Up three more flights, and the man threw open the door to the roof and slammed it shut behind him, slowing Nicholas for a moment.

When he eased open the roof door, Nicholas was met with a deep silence. It was dark, but there was enough ambient light from the streets below and the rising full moon to make out shadows and shapes.

There were plenty of places to hide up here. The housings for the air-conditioning units acted as dividers down the length of the roof; the man could be behind any of them.

Nicholas held himself perfectly still, listening. There, labored breathing coming from about twenty feet away. He edged forward, his steps light on the gravel. Ten feet, five, then the door to the roof opened, light flooding the dark, and the man jumped up like a quail flushed from the brush. He ran hard down the roof.

Mike joined him, whispered fiercely, “Let’s get the bastard.” They could see the man bobbing and weaving, and fired.

There was a muffled grunt and the man stumbled. Good, Nicholas thought, one of them had hit him.

Mike peeled off to the other side to flank him. Three more steps and Nicholas tackled the man. They rolled to the ground, twisting, punching, kicking, trying to gain an advantage. Nicholas saw blood and realized a bullet had nicked the man’s rib cage. Why didn’t it slow him down? Nicholas flipped him onto his back, jammed his elbow in the wound, and wedged his forearm under the man’s chin.

“Who sent you?”

The man gurgled, and Nicholas eased off only to get a vicious hit in the back knocking him sideways. The man was up on his feet, his fists lashing out. Nicholas rolled over and up and went at him. He struck him in the face with his fist and saw blood spurt out. He’d broken the man’s nose.

Mike kicked out the man’s right knee from behind, and he collapsed forward. Nicholas clamped down tight on the man’s windpipe.