Page 34 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold
An Airstrip the CIA Doesn’t Admit Exists
King
Technically, the little airstrip on the outskirts of Lisbon didn’t exist, but then again, neither did the woman who was standing on the tarmac, waiting for King when he arrived.
White hair blew wildly around her face, and her lips were painted the same shade of red she’d worn since he was a child. For all he knew, that was their natural color. She looked like a woman out of time, with her long trench coat belted tightly at her waist and billowing around her legs in the wind. She looked like she might have a derringer in a thigh holster. Like there was a German scientist she had to get over the wall, right then. She was even wearing a hat.
So King wanted to smile when he saw her. He wanted to tease her, but then he’d have to become someone who knew how to tease and that sounded like a lot of unnecessary effort, so he just said, “Hello, Margaret.”
“Michael!” she exclaimed like she hadn’t been expecting him—likewhat a small worldandfancy meeting you here. As if she hadn’t sent for him, specifically, and told him to meet her at this very time and place. “Come give an old woman a hug.”
He hated when she said things like that. She wasn’t old—except she was. It was a quantifiable, objective thing. She was in good health, yes. Youthful, even, for her age. Which was... old. And King hated the reminder. When he bent and wrapped his arms around her, she seemed smaller than she had last year, and he hated that most of all.
“Why do I get the feeling this is a trap?” He looked around the airstrip that was little more than a bumpy stretch of asphalt. “And why am I standing here instead of being up to my eyelids in code back in London?”
“Computers.” She scoffed and waved a hand as if to say,That’s kids’ stuff. “Oh, Michael, you wound me. I wouldn’t need to trap you. Now, do you have everything you need?”
“Everything I needfor what?”
“Oh, never mind.” She waved the worry away. “I thought of everything, and your suitcase is already on board.” She motioned to the small private jet that was idling on the far end of the tarmac.
“On board going where?” King wasn’t just skeptical. He was downright leery.
“Paradise.”
He didn’t believe her. “Why me?”
“You remember our emeralds?” It was a rhetorical question, of course. King remembered everything, and Merritt knew that better than most. “They’ve been popping up all over the map, but most have ended up in the hands of this man.” She pulled a blurry photograph from an interior coat pocket.
“A hard copy?” He gave her a chastising look. “You know, we have digital things now.”
“No one ever hacked my pocket,” she said, then pointed down at the picture. It was grainy in a way that suggested someone had blown the image up from a much wider shot, so either the photographer was very bad—or the target was very good. King highly suspected it was the latter. “Do you recognize him?”
The photo was so blurry, it was hard to tell much besides the fact that he was a generic-looking white guy between twenty-five and forty-five. But King could be certain of one thing. “He doesn’t look familiar. Should he?”
“Unlikely.” She slipped the picture back in her pocket, then looped her arm through his and started leading him toward the waiting jet. “He just popped up about a year ago, making deals.”
“What kind of deals?”
“Arms. Technology. Muscle-for-hire. A veritable one-stop shop for covert goods and services. We don’t know much about him—just that he is very private. Very careful. He’s not just brawn, Michael. This one has brains. We want to know what he’s selling and to whom.”
“And what, exactly, am I going to do when I get to...” He almost choked on the word. “Paradise?”
“Very little.” It was an instruction and a warning. “You’re going to get in. Drop a bug or two. And get out. That’s it. We don’t want to spook him. This is an old-schoolSigIntoperation. Period. Which means—”
“Signal Intelligence, yes. I’m fairly certain those were some of my first words. Right afterMommaandballand—”
“No.” Merritt’s smile was almost wistful. “Your first word wasno.”
Of course it was. It would probably be his last word too. He should say it now, in fact—
“If all you need is a bug, you could send anyone. So I will ask again, Merritt my dear, why amIhere?”
If he hadn’t known her so well, he might have missed the sheepish look in her eye. Like she’d been hoping he wouldn’t stop and ask about the fine print, but he wasn’t getting on that plane until she read every word aloud.
“It doesn’t matter—”
“Anything that has you biting your lip like that matters a lot, so—”
