That’s more like it.

She didn’t know his name, but she had seen the man before, meeting with Nasser, two years ago. A fat envelope had passed between them. Nasser hadn’t known Seichan had tailed him, spied on his rendezvous. Seichan had a series of photographs of the unknown operative somewhere in her Swiss bank vault. Something tucked away for a rainy day.

Or a sunny one like today.

“No wonder Nasser is operating lean,” she mumbled.

The bastard had someone positioned inside Hagia Sophia. That did not bode well. If this man was leaving, that meant someone else had already relieved him. She watched him stop in the plaza and take out a cell phone.

Probably calling Nasser, letting him know his quarry was safe and sound inside the church.

Her cell phone rang.

Odd.

She reached blindly to the phone, pressed talk, and lifted it to her ear. “Ciao,” she said.

“Hello,” the caller responded, his voice bright. “I am looking to speak to a woman named Seichan. I was told to call at this number, to arrange for us to get together. A certain monsignor and an American would like us to meet.”

Seichan’s skin chilled as she listened, focused on the figure, watching his lips move in synchronization with the voice in her ear.

“This is Balthazar Pinosso, with the Vatican’s art history division.”

At least Seichan finally had a name for the man in the photograph with Nasser. Balthazar Pinosso. A Guild operative. She breathed through her nose. Nasser didn’t just have someone positioned inside the church — he had someone inside their own goddamn inner circle.

Seichan mentally kicked herself. It wasn’t Sigma that had a Guild mole. The Vatican did.

“Hello,” the man repeated, with a trace of worry.

Seichan leaned her cheek tighter against the stock, taking dead aim.

Time to plug the leak.

“Kowalski…” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

“The shit’s about to hit the fan.”

“Hell of about time!”

Seichan pulled the trigger.

10

Out of the Frying Pan

Thank God, the cocktail party had finally ended.

Lisa hurriedly unbuttoned the hand-beaded silk coat that overlay her black cocktail dress, a pleated silk charmeuse. The Vera Wang — designed ensemble was well over her budget, but she had found the dress spread out on her bed earlier when she returned to get ready for Ryder Blunt’s soiree, welcoming the cruise ship to the pirates’ home port.

Dr. Devesh Patanjali must have handpicked the dress himself from the ship’s luxury shops down on the Lido Deck. That was reason alone to get it off her body. Lisa had not wanted to go to the party, but Devesh had left no choice. So she had joined the other senior staff up in Ryder’s suite.

Champagne and chilled wine had flowed. Hors d’oeuvres were passed atop silver platters, borne aloft by liveried wait staff, while iced trays of caviar surrounded by toast points decorated the buffet table. Apparently there remained enough members of the ship’s orchestra still alive to form a string quartet. The group played quietly out on the balcony as the sun set, but they were forced to disband when the winds kicked up and rain began to pelt down in heavy, stinging drops.

Thunder rumbled overhead even now as the storm grew in intensity. At least the ship remained steady, sheltered in the caldera of a sunken volcano. Still, word of a typhoon and countless responsibilities had soon ended Ryder’s impromptu party.

It had lasted only a couple of hours.

Lisa stripped to her bra and panties, glad to be done with the matter. She climbed back into her jeans and slipped a loose blouse over her head, shimmying it in place. Barefoot, she crossed to the evening purse on the bed, another gift of Dr. Patanjali, a Gucci frame bag with silver tassles. The bag had a price tag still on it.

Over six thousand dollars.

Still, what it held was of far greater value. During the festivities, Ryder had discreetly passed to her a pair of party favors, which she had quickly tucked into her purse.

A small radio and a pistol.

And the news that accompanied the gifts was even more welcome.

Monk was alive!

And on board the ship!

Lisa quickly hid the gun in the waistband of her jeans and covered it with the edge of her loose blouse. Radio in hand, she crossed to the door and listened with her ear pressed against it.

There was no regular guard posted at her door. The entire wing had been cordoned off at the stairwell and at the elevator banks. Devesh had assigned an inside cabin for her, only two doors down from where her patient still slumbered in a catatonic stupor.

Satisfied she was alone, Lisa dialed the radio to channel eight and slipped on the radio’s earpiece and microphone. She pressed the transmitter. “Monk, are you there? Over.”

She waited.

A bit of static rasped, then a familiar voice spoke. “Lisa? Thank God! So Ryder got you a radio. Did you get the gun? Over.”

“Yes.” She desperately wanted to hear his entire story, how he survived, but now wasn’t the time. She had more important concerns. “Ryder said that you had some plan.”

“A plan might be too generous a term. More like a seat-of-your-pants run for your life.”

“Sounds great to me. When?”

“I’m going to coordinate with Ryder in another few minutes. We’ll be ready at twenty-one hundred. You be ready, too. Keep the pistol with you.” He gave her a brief overview of his plan to free her.

She filled in some necessary details to help him, then checked her watch. Less than two hours.

“Should I tell anyone else?” Lisa asked.

A long pause.

“No. I’m sorry. If we’re going to have any hope of escaping, we’re going to have to bolt with as few people as possible, using the cover of the storm. Ryder has a private boat in a slide launch on the starboard side. I’ve got a map from your friend Jessie. There’s a small township about thirty nautical miles away. The best hope is to reach it and raise the alarm.”

“Is Jessie coming with us?”

An even longer pause followed.

Lisa clicked the transmitter again. “Monk?”

A sigh filled her ear. “They caught Jessie. Threw him overboard.”

“What?” Lisa pictured his smiling face and propensity for stupid puns. “He’s…he’s dead?”

“Don’t know. I’ll explain more when we meet.”

She felt a well of grief for a young man whom she had only known for a few hours. Lost in that well, she could not find her voice.

“Twenty-one hundred hours,” Monk repeated. “Keep your radio with you, but out of sight. I’ll contact you again then. Out.”

Lisa removed the headpiece and grasped the radio in both hands. The physicality of the hard plastic helped center her. They would talk again in a couple of hours.

Thunder rumbled.

She clipped the radio inside her pocket, folding and tucking in the headpiece. She kept its bulge hidden by the drape of her blouse.

She stared at the cabin door. If they were going to make an escape, Lisa did not want to leave empty-handed. She knew there were reams of data and files in the room with her patient.

Plus there was a computer…with a DVD burner.

She had talked with Henri and Dr. Miller up at the cocktail party. In hushed whispers, they had related how Devesh and his team were collecting samples of various toxic bacteria produced by the Judas Strain, the worst of the bunch, storing them in incubation chambers in an off-limits lab, run by Devesh’s virologist.

“I think they’re also doing experiments with the virus on known pathogens,” Dr. Miller had reported. “I saw stacks of sealed plates marked Bacillus anthracis and Yersinia pestis disappear into the restricted lab.”