Page 22 of Tightrope

The intruder had descended from one of the upper floors using a rope. Smith had to admit he had been impressed with the speed and agility of the getaway. When it came to the escape routine, the guy looked like a professional cat burglar.

The intruder had fled through the garden as the shots rang out. Once clear of the grounds, he had jumped behind the wheel of an aging sedan parked at the side of the road.

Noisy departures and junkyard vehicles were not part of a pro’s repertoire. So what the hell was going on here?

Curious, Smith had ditched his own plans for the evening, climbedinto his well-tuned but very nondescript Ford, and followed the intruder to the run-down auto court.

Now he sat quietly, smoking and going through possibilities.

The obvious explanation was that the intruder was an ambitious but rather inept burglar. A beginner in the profession, perhaps. Everyone had to start somewhere.

But Smith was not a fan of coincidences. It struck him as exceedingly unlikely that a common thief had decided to rob the Hidden Beach Inn on the night after Pickwell’s murder. Cat burglars were usually after expensive jewelry and fat wallets. Currently there were no guests in residence at the inn, let alone wealthy ones.

If the intruder was not a run-of-the-mill burglar, that left a more problematic possibility. The man who had been chased out of the inn’s gardens tonight could well be a competitor.

Smith knew he had only himself to blame for his current situation. His big mistake had been underestimating Pickwell. It had never occurred to him that the crazy, paranoid inventor would try a double cross. If there were, indeed, others after the cipher machine now, then things had, indeed, gotten complicated.

What was done was done. The best way to deal with the competition was to eliminate it. But first it would be a good idea to get some information.

Smith put out the cigarette and reached across the seat to pick up the gun and the mask.

He got out of the Ford and sorted through his extensive repertoire of accents as he walked toward the door of the cabin. He decided to go with Cary Grant. Everyone who went to the movies recognized that elegant transatlantic voice. And it just so happened that he and the actor shared a similar sense of style and the same taste in clothes—except for the mask, of course.

He adjusted the mask and stopped in the shadows near the door of the cabin. He was forced to take a moment to suppress the rage thatthreatened to overwhelm him. If this were any other project he would have walked away by now.

But this was not any other project. This was vengeance. During the Great War and in the years immediately afterward he had risked his life time and again for the elite bastards in Washington who ran the top secret intelligence agency known as the Curtain. In the end he had been tossed aside like so much trash. And then, just to add insult to injury, his spymaster—the man who had recruited him—had tried to kill him. So much for trust and loyalty. So much for gratitude.

He had tried to make the fool understand that after the war the country needed skilled spies more than ever. Anyone with half a brain could see that Europe was a powder keg that would soon blow again. Russia was enduring waves of violence and instability. And no one really understood what was going on in the Far East. If ever there was a time to put the best intelligence agents into the field, it was now. Instead, funding for the various agencies—and admittedly, there were several—had been severely cut back.

The Ivy League gang that operated the levers of power had concluded that if spies were once again required, they would be recruited from the established East Coast families, men who had graduated from the best schools. One could only trust a truegentleman, born and bred, after all. The agents in the next war—and war was coming—would probably come from Yale.

At the start of the Ares project the desire for a truly fitting act of vengeance had been a Siren’s call. Now it was an obsession.

Chapter 12

“What makes you think that the intruder might have been heading for Pickwell’s room?” Matthias asked.

Amalie widened her eyes. “Gosh, I don’t know, Mr. Jones. Maybe I leaped to that crazy conclusion because after Pickwell died last night you demanded a tour of that room. You went through Dr. Pickwell’s belongings. When you left, you hinted that other people might show up wanting to do the same thing. When I woke up to find an intruder in my home, it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, he wanted to take a look at Pickwell’s room, too.”

Matthias winced. “Okay, it was a logical assumption. Tell me exactly what happened.”

They were standing at the foot of the villa’s grand staircase. As far as he could tell, every light in the place was on.

He had been in bed when he’d been awakened by Amalie’s phone call but he had not been asleep. He never slept well when he was working an investigation, and that went double for this case.

Amalie had delivered the news of the intruder in short, tersephrases and then hung up. He had thrown on some clothes, climbed behind the wheel of the Packard convertible, fired up the powerful engine, and driven to the mansion on Ocean View Lane at a high rate of speed. It was nearly three in the morning. The streets of Burning Cove were empty.

Amalie had met him at the front door with a pistol in her hand. After he had recovered from the shock, he had noticed that she was dressed in a pair of flowing, wide-legged women’s trousers and a cream-colored sweater. Her hair was brushed back off her face and anchored with a couple of combs. She had not bothered with makeup. The lack of lipstick and mascara made her seem less cool and remote but it also underscored her vulnerability. She was a woman who had awakened to discover an intruder in her home. She had to have been terrified. She would probably have nightmares for a long time.

She did not look terrified, however. She looked resolute and quite fierce. She had a very tight grip on the pistol. That worried him.

“I told you pretty much everything when I spoke to you on the phone,” Amalie said. “I heard my aunt scream and then I heard a thud. I got my gun out of the drawer and went upstairs. The balcony doors at the end of the hall on that floor were open. I knew then that there was someone in the house. He must have been hiding in one of the rooms, because the next thing I knew he was running toward the balcony. I went after him but he managed to get away. I got off a few shots but I’m sure I didn’t hit him.”

“How long have you owned that gun?” Matthias asked.

“About six months. Why? Does it matter?”

“No. I was just curious.”

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