- Prey
- Sphere
- Black Rose
- The Great Train Robbery
- Blue Dahlia
- Carnal Innocence
- Dance Upon the Air
- High Noon
- Lawless
- Sacred Sins
- Tribute
- Face the Fire
- Holding the Dream
- A Man for Amanda
- All the Possibilities
- Next
- Prey
- Sphere
- Black Rose
- The Great Train Robbery
- Blue Dahlia
- Carnal Innocence
- Dance Upon the Air
- High Noon
- Lawless
- Sacred Sins
- Tribute
- Face the Fire
- Holding the Dream
- A Man for Amanda
Tanner on IcePage 39
“As a matter of fact,” I said, “it’s a name with a lot of resonance to it. Kitty O’Shea was Parnell’s girlfriend, and her jerk of a husband caused a scandal that ruined the man’s career. It’s a name with a real history to it.” “So is Romanoff, Evan.” “You can be Katya Romanoff as soon as we clear Immigration,” I assured her. “You can be Katya Romanoff or Katya Singh or Katya Kovalshevsky, whatever you want. But first we have to get you into the country.” “When will we have the passports?” “The day after tomorrow. And the day after that we fly from Bangkok to New York via Los Angeles.” “They gave you tickets?” “They didn’t really want to,” I said. “But I had a return ticket in business class, and it was in my name even if I had lost it. I’ll have to show them a passport to prove I’m really me, so I won’t have the tickets in hand until I do, but once Sukhumvit comes through with the passports it won’t be a problem. One ticket in business class more than covers two tickets in economy.” “Poor Evan. If you didn’t have me along you could sit in the front of the plane.” “That’s all right. Even the luggage compartment would feel luxurious to me after the past couple of weeks.” “What’s the matter, Vanya?” “Well, I’m sure I’ll figure it out.” “What?” “A way to pay for our passports. I showed Sukhumvit the ivory statues, and he all but laughed in my face. They may be worth something, they may even be museum quality, but this is no place to sell them. He’s giving me a pretty good deal on the passports, but I don’t know where I’m going to find the money.” “My poor little Vanya,” she said. “Maybe it is not so bad after all that you have me with you.” And she twisted the ruby ring from her finger and dropped it in my palm. Chapter 24 “I thought you were dead,” the Chief said. “There were these stories out of Burma. Great work, setting off a bomb at one of their sacred sites. Nothing quite gets a headline like blowing up the Holiest of Holies, eh?” I’d been back for less than a week when the call came, and we were meeting in a bare-to-the-crumbling-walls apartment on the top floor of a tenement in Alphabet City. The building was abandoned, and I could see why. Squatters had nested in some of the other apartments, but only the Chief had wanted to climb five flights of stairs to this one. How he finds these meeting places, or why he thinks they’re suitable, is just one of the mysteries that hover about him. “But then they arrested you and hanged you,” he went on, “and I found that disturbing in the extreme. That’s not like Tanner, I told myself. It’s never happened before.” “Once is generally plenty,” I said. “And the irony of it,” he said. “Here I’d just got you back after having lost you for what, twenty-five years?” “Something like that.” He put his fingertips together, looking almost as though he were praying, which I somehow knew he was not. “One sends men out,” he said, “knowing that there’s a chance one will not see them again. Of all the burdens of command, that is by far the heaviest. Yet in this instance I had no real concern that you might be lost. I felt confident that you’d execute your assignment and return in good time, and in all likelihood net yourself a tidy profit in the bargain.” Some tidy profit, I thought. I’d lost everything I brought with me, including my flashlight and my Swiss Army knife, and I’d still be stuck in Bangkok but for Katya’s ruby ring. “The shock,” he said, “when I learned you were dead. But of course, that was your doing, wasn’t it? Covering your tracks by having someone else carry your name to the scaffold.” “This Rufus Crombie,” I said. “Your… what? Employer?” “Patron, you might say.” “How sure are you of him?” He gave me a long look. “Why?” he said at length. “I didn’t arrange the bombing at Shwe Dagon Pagoda. It’s about the last thing I would have done. Well, the second last, actually. The last thing would be harming Aung San Suu Kyi.” “That woman.” “Yes.” “But your assignment-” “Was to destabilize the SLORC regime,” I said, “and that would have been the worst way to do it. And bombing Shwe Dagon runs a close second. They framed me for it, and if they’d had the chance, they’d have hanged me for it. As it was, they did the next best thing. They hanged an Australian kid and said he was me.” I drew a breath. “It was a setup from the jump. That’s what I was there for. To be framed. And caught. And hanged.” He was sitting up straight now, a frown creasing his brow. All the years seemed to drop away, and he was his old self again, the man I’d known back when the Cold War was red hot. Of course he hadn’t been all that sharp back then, but it was still comforting to see him as I remembered him. “Report,” he said. When I’d finished he went to the window and spent a few minutes staring out. Then he said, “It’s all very confusing.” “Yes.” “And unsettling as well. Disturbing, even.” “That too.” “You were set up, as you said. You also seem to have been protected. Someone arranged your escape from jail, for example.” “Unless I was supposed to be recaptured. But you’re right, I had a guardian angel hovering around somewhere. The warning I got at Shwe Dagon was well sent.” “And someone killed the man who planted heroin in your luggage.” “But how did that work? I think that was all part of the frame, the heroin and the dead body, so that I could be charged with drug trafficking and murder at the same time. Who was the dead man in my bed at the guest house? And why had they chalked his temples so he would look like Harry Spurgeon?” |
- The Loners
- The Saints
- Switched
- Fangtastic!
- Re-Vamped!
- Vampalicious!
- Tome of the Undergates
- Black Halo
- The Skybound Sea
- If You Stay
- If You Leave
- Until We Burn
- Before We Fall
- Every Last Kiss
- Fated
- Suspiciously Obedient
- Random Acts of Crazy
- Random Acts of Trust
- Her First Billionaire
- Her Second Billionaire
- Her Two Billionaires
- Her Two Billionaires and a Baby
- His Majesty's Dragon
- Throne of Jade
- Black Powder War
- Victory of Eagles
- Tongues of Serpents
- Empire of Ivory
- Crucible of Gold
- Delirium