The Final Cut

He was perfection.

He was a god.

The ground began to move under his feet.

97

Voices, loud, angry voices, then there was nothing, no sound at all. It had been only moments, but it seemed much longer since he didn’t know what was happening. Then Nicholas heard Kitsune screaming. He tapped the comms unit in his ear. “Mike! Now!”

He heard her yell to Menard’s men, “Go, go, go!”

Nicholas had wanted to stay close to Kitsune, but six guards had followed her up to the big office on the second floor and he’d been forced to hide in the shadows. When the guards heard Kitsune scream, they didn’t rush into the office. Obviously they’d been ordered not to come in, and they wanted to do something, but there was no one to tell them what to do.

When the building began to shake, the decision was made for them. All but one of the guards took off down the stairs to get out of the warehouse, and Nicholas heard the staccato gunfire from Menard’s men taking them out. The last guard started for the doorway, weapon up. Nicholas came up behind him, hooked his arm around his throat, and twisted, then threw him to the floor.

Nicholas ran into the room. He saw Mulvaney throw Kitsune against a wall. Mulvaney turned and saw him, and incredibly, he smiled, the same smile he’d given Nicholas as he’d escaped over the wire fence in the alley behind Mike’s garage. “I wished I’d killed you. But now’s a good time, isn’t it? You’ve made your last mistake, boyo.”

Nicholas saw the detonator in Mulvaney’s hand. He fired, shattered his hand, but the bullet was too late. Mulvaney had already pushed the button and the floor was buckling under their feet.

The noise of metal wrenching apart was brutal, and then came the wall of flames behind him. No escape back through the door. He saw Mulvaney fall to the floor, heard him cursing, cradling his wrist.

He saw Lanighan standing in the corner, his eyes—exalted, that was it, his head thrown back to the heavens. A long, thin scream tore from his throat. Nicholas saw he had something in his hands. It was the three stones, but now they looked like one, and they were covered with blood, Kitsune’s blood.

Nicholas shouted, “Mike, Lanighan, stop him!”

She jumped in the window and crossed to Lanighan in three strides, turned him around, then put her fist to the soft spot under his jaw. His eyes rolled back in his head and he went down.

Mulvaney was on one knee but coming back up when Kitsune appeared from behind him and kicked him, hard, in the back. He sprawled onto the floor face-first, and she darted over to Lanighan.

The fire was whipping madly toward them, the walls starting to go up in flames around them.

Mike was pulling at his arm. “Nick, we’ve got to get out. Come on. Come on!”

He saw Kitsune through a thickening veil of smoke on her knees by Lanighan, the blood from her arm streaming over his face. She was hurt badly; he needed to help her. He took a step toward her, but she rose and rushed to him, pressed something hard into his hand.

He looked down and saw it wasn’t the three stones united, it was simply the Koh-i-Noor, and it was covered with blood, her blood. What had happened to the other two stones?

Kitsune’s face was highlighted by the inferno behind her. He saw her mouth move: “Go.”

He made a grab for her, but she raced back toward Mulvaney.

Mike screamed, “Nicholas, come on, come on! I’ll get Lanighan.” She pulled him up and threw him over her shoulder and carried him to the fire escape. Nicholas climbed out the window, and she shoved Lanighan at him.

Together, they got Lanighan down the rickety metal stairs as Menard’s men came ru

Mike grabbed his arm. “No, Nicholas, it’s too late!”

He turned briefly to look at her and said only, “I have to go back for her,” and she watched helplessly as he began to climb the ladder rungs.

The metal was hot under his hands, and the higher he climbed, the hotter it became. He reached the window but could see only billowing endless flames, the black smoke threading in and out in a mad dance. He yelled her name again and again.

Then he saw her. He yelled her name again. She turned and smiled, gave him a small salute, and turned back into the fire. He saw her standing over the body of her mentor, and Nicholas would swear he heard the sound of a bullet over the crackling roar.

She was gone.

He climbed back down the fire escape, and saw Menard’s soldiers had gathered up the remainder of Lanighan’s guards. One of Menard’s men said, “We have four down out front. The firefighters are on their way.”

Mike stepped to his side, gripped his shoulder. Her face was black, covered in soot. He slowly reached up a hand and wiped her cheek.

“Are you okay?” she asked, and began ru

His ears hurt, his throat was raw with smoke. His hands were blistered from the heat of the metal. He looked down to see his shirtfront was covered in blood from where he’d wiped his hands. “I’m fine. It’s not my blood, it’s hers. Kitsune’s gone. I think she shot Mulvaney.”

It had all happened in a split second.

Mike hit him on the shoulder. “You scared me again. Stop doing that.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Koh-i-Noor, still smeared with Kitsune’s blood.

Mike stared at the bloody stone. “So she gave it to you after all.”

He saw Kitsune’s face again, saw her smile, saw her walk into the heart of the fire. He cleared his throat. “She’d never hidden the Koh-i-Noor in Lanighan’s briefcase. She had it all along; it was in the blue bag. I saw her pry it out of Lanighan’s hand, and she gave it to me.”

Mike didn’t say anything. She’d seen Kitsune lean over him, but she hadn’t seen anything else, at least not clearly.

They turned and watched the fire, listened to the smaller explosions rip through the warehouse as the charges that Mulvaney had laid ignited. Nicholas could swear the Koh-i-Noor was warm in his hand, but when he looked down at it, he saw that the skin of his palms was burned and begi

Mike asked, “Nicholas, did you see the other diamonds?”

“No.” Had he? He simply didn’t know.

“All that precious art on the bottom floor, all of it destroyed.”

The roof started to collapse, the corrugated metal walls buckling with an unearthly groan. Nicholas put his arm around her shoulders and turned her away.

“Enough. Let’s go home.”

98

Ritz Paris

15 Place Vendôme

Sunday morning

Mike came out of her bedroom the next morning to find Nicholas already showered, dressed, and sitting at the table in their living room, eating a croissant that she wanted to rip out of his hand.

He looked up and smiled at her. “Good morning. Before you ask, yes, my stitches survived.” He saw her arm was back in a sling. No wonder, given the way she’d jerked Lanighan over her shoulder last night. “How about yours?”

She waved him off. “All good.”

She sat at the table and stared at the beautiful plate of food in front of her—café crème, yogurt, croissants with strawberry preserves, and a big fat brioche.

He said, “Best of all, here’s coffee. You’ll need your strength. Our debriefing is in half an hour.”

She asked, “How are your hands?”