Chapter 1
Wednesday, May 20, 7:02 p.m.
New York City
It was during his dinner, as he raised a forkful of Caesar salad to his lips, that Benjamin Kane saw a ghost.
The ghost of Alexander Zola.
It passed behind the maitre d’ who stood at his podium as he decided with regal impunity which of the people on his long waiting list would dine in this fine New York City restaurant tonight, where the portions were slim and the prices were bloated. Whoever or whatever glided behind the preoccupied maitre d’ in those brief seconds didn’t attract even a wisp of his attention.
And probably most of the other diners didn’t notice, and even if they did, they wouldn’t have cared. Just another nobody going nowhere in a city of millions.
But Benjamin Kane noticed because he’d lived for seven years dreading the moment when Zola would finally come for him.
Despite the new identity Kane had manufactured for himself and his relocation from Europe to the States, Kane had kept his senses tuned for all this time, his antennae fully extended. And even as he lived his busy life, building a successful business, he was always waiting, listening, watching. He’d spent years glancing over his shoulder as he walked the streets. Years sitting with his back to the wall in restaurants or other public places, expecting that someday Alex would walk in.
But Alex died in that fire seven years ago.
Kane knew that.
So then why did he search the internet every day for any scraps of news about Zola? And why did Kane still, even after all these years, keep his gun at least near him, if not on him? Right now, it was in his hotel room upstairs, tucked behind some clothes in the back of a dresser drawer. Was it because some repressed, subconscious part of Kane knew there was a finite chance, however minuscule, that Zola had survived the fire, cheating death and evading capture again?
Kane put his fork down and wiped his lips. He willed himself to calm down. He’d experienced many of these sightings in the past seven years, probably twenty-five to thirty times in all. They were much less frequent now than in the beginning of his new life. But every incident turned out to be inconsequential. They always began with a momentary glance of someone who, in low light, bore a slight resemblance to Zola. The person was usually moving quickly and very often in a crowded area, where the senses can be fooled by distractions. When you walked through cities that held millions of people, the odds were good that sooner or later you would run into someone who looks like someone else, right?
Kane began to relax now. Of course, it was a false alarm, just like all the previous times. He knew it because Zola was dead.
Dead, Dead, DEAD.
And Kane didn’t believe in ghosts.
So, FORGET IT.
Kane looked across the table at the lovely creature having dinner with him. She had flaming red hair that fell in luscious waves over her shoulders. His eyes traced the delicious curves of her twenty-six-year-old body. He was lucky. He had it all. A successful business, which had led to moderate wealth. A waistline under reasonable control for a man of fifty-five. A beautiful wife. Three beautiful kids, who weren’t too badly behaved. At least his wife could manage to keep them under control. And a beautiful mistress.
There were days when he might work a bit late and then meet his wife for dinner, but not today.
Today was a mistress day, not a wife day, and that was the reason he had a hotel room upstairs. He would make good use of the room and then be home by midnight, from his “late night at work.”
“Is anything wrong?” asked Christie. “You looked a little uneasy a moment ago.”
“Uh, just thinking. About nothing in particular,” Kane answered. “How’s your salad?”
“The dressing’s a little too vinegary.” She wrinkled her nose and smiled. “Uh, is vinegary a word?”
Christie was very conscious of how she spoke because she came from a poor background. Like her brothers and sisters, she hadn’t finished high school. But that didn’t matter a bit to Kane. He had no interest in her mind.
“Yes, I think so,” Kane replied politely. “Shall I order you another salad with a different dressing?”
“No, no. I wouldn’t eat it anyway. I have to save room for my entree.”
A well-groomed young waiter in a starched white shirt and black pants appeared next to Kane.
“Champagne, sir,” said the waiter, showing the handsome green bottle to Kane, with the label facing him to allow for an inspection.
“I didn’t order champagne,” said Kane with a puzzled look.
“Compliments of the gentleman sitting at the bar,” the waiter retorted.
“What gentleman?”
The waiter pointed. “In the trench-coat, sir. At the very end of the bar.”
Several people obstructed Kane’s view of the far side of the bar. He remained seated but bent his torso to the right to see around one particularly obese woman. He caught sight of a khaki trench-coat moving toward the exit adjacent to the bar.
Kane sprang out of his seat. The waiter started to say something, but Kane cut him off by saying tersely to Christie: “Wait here.” Kane began to walk rapidly toward the disappearing coat. He deftly dodged chairs, tables, waiters, and waitresses, but when he reached the doorway there was no one in sight. He peered through the doorway and looked down an empty, softly lit hallway that led to the alley behind the building.
Kane scratched his chin and thought: Was this the same man who walked behind the maitre d’? That one wore a khaki trench-coat, too, but so did a lot of other men in this room today because of the rain. And that one in profile looked something like Zola, but I didn’t see the face of this one at the end of the bar, just the back of his head. The hair looked the same maybe, but he was pretty far away…
Okay, I know a lot of people in this town, it’s possible one of them spotted me and decided to buy me a bottle of champagne. A business associate. Sure, that’s it. I’ve got lots of business friends in this town. Maybe one of them wanted to surprise me but remain anonymous. And hey, let’s face it, I’ve got business enemies, too. Just last year I forced a competitor out of business. Maybe one of them saw me sitting here with Christie, realized she wasn’t my wife, and just wanted to let me know I was seen, to play head games with me. Okay, I can handle it, if that’s the case. Christie works for me, so what’s the big deal? I had a meal with one of my employees, right? It’s not like I was seen going into a hotel room with her…
Kane was much too cautious for that. They would, of course, go up to the room separately after they were finished with dinner.
Kane smoothed his hair with a stroke of his hand, straightened his tie, and began to walk casually back to his table. He saw that no one was staring at him, so he felt certain he didn’t look worried or flustered, and that he hadn’t done anything to draw attention to himself.
It had been, after all, seven years. The passage of that much time can certainly change a man’s appearance, and the guy who had passed behind the maitre d’ might have looked a little like Zola from seven years ago, but he would have changed quite a bit since then. Zola probably had gray hair by now, or maybe no hair, because you don’t lead a life on the edge like his without having it take a toll on you physically.
And anyway, why am I even thinking about this, because the guy is dead.
DEAD.
Kane reached the table and saw Christie had already begun her entree, a small chicken breast stuffed with spinach, gorgonzola, and pine nuts. His entree of lamb chops waited for him, and it looked delicious. The champagne sat in an ice bucket next to the table, and two tall crystal glasses were filled with the cold, bubbly liquid.
“Did you see who it was that sent the champagne?” she asked.
“No,” said Kane simply. He relaxed once again, and he wanted to forget the whole thing. He looked at Christie’s shapely body, and his thoughts wandered to what they would do after dinner…
Christie sipped her champagne. “Well, whoever sent this must have made a mistake,” she said. “The name on the card is wrong. But there’s no point in letting it go to waste.”
“What card?” asked Kane as he sat down.
“It was on the bottle,” she answered, pointing to a tiny paper card, silver on one side and white on the other, that sat on the tablecloth near Kane’s plate.
She said with indifference: “It’s for somebody named Gaspard.”
Gaspard!
Kane hadn’t been called by his real name, Gaspard Boulle, in … seven years…
A sudden hot flash engulfed him. He lunged for the card and read the short message, written in a beautifully legible script with a black fountain pen:
My Dear Gaspard:
Let’s drink to old friendships.
The gun.
He had to get the gun immediately. Without it, he didn’t stand a chance. He knew very well what Zola was capable of, and Kane couldn’t count on anyone to protect him, not the security guards in the hotel, not the police. He absolutely needed his gun, with it maybe he had a slim chance, but without it, there was certainly no chance at all. Maybe if he was very lucky, Zola wouldn’t suspect he carried a gun. After all, he had never carried one when they worked with each other long ago.
But then, Zola wasn’t his enemy back then.
Kane looked around in a panic, jerking and spinning his head to survey the entire dining room. Nowhere did he see the man he so terribly feared.
“What’s wrong?” Christie asked.
He ignored her.
She would have to fend for herself. Zola had seen them sitting together. Kane knew if he somehow escaped Zola today, then Christie would be a target. If she were alone, Zola could take her with ridiculous ease. He could probably even kill her in the middle of this crowded dining room if he wished, and then walk out without being challenged. But that wasn’t Kane’s problem. Should he warn her? He thought about it for only the tiniest of moments. The answer was clear: No. If he did, she might get hysterical. And he couldn’t have her come with him, she would slow him down if something happened. Besides, what did he really owe her? They had slept together three or four times. So what?
“Stay here,” Kane ordered Christie, with no explanation. She gave him a puzzled look but obeyed without question.
Kane stood and walked quickly out of the dining room, past the maitre d‘ and into the luxurious hotel lobby, all the while searching, scanning everyone in his field of vision as they went about their business. There was no sign of Zola. Kane finally reached the elevator, punched the up button, and then turned around. As he waited, he continued his cautious surveillance of everyone around him, his foot nervously tapping the Italian marble floor.
He silently cursed Zuckerman for having come up with the scheme to betray Zola seven years ago. Kane also wondered how Zola found him. Maybe Zola had gotten the information from that pig, Hobblewaithe? Kane realized it was incredibly stupid of him to have trusted Tristan Hobblewaithe in any way, and if the information had come from him, Kane sincerely hoped he was already dead.
A chime sounded, and Kane whirled around as the double doors opened. The elevator car was empty.
He stepped in and hit the button for the twenty-sixth floor. The doors closed and the car lurched slightly as it began to gently accelerate its cargo upward. He was alone now, and safe for the moment. He watched the numbers above the door.
Three.
Should I have taken the stairs instead of the elevator? he thought.
Nine.
No way. Although Kane didn’t like the idea of stepping into any kind of confined space like an elevator, he had to get his gun as quickly as possible. Twenty-six floors of stairs would take too long, and he would probably even have had to stop and rest a few times on the way up the stairwell because he wasn’t in great shape.
Thirteen.
At least with the elevator you could see who was in the car before stepping in yourself.
Nineteen.
Kane fumbled in his pocket for his room keycard and thought about the comforting feel of the gun’s smooth steel surface. That feeling would soon be his again. Maybe he would even get out of this place alive.
Twenty-three.
But what if Zola was waiting right outside the elevator? With a knife maybe. Kane knew he would be a goner because there was nowhere to …hey, wasn’t there some movie where that happened, the elevator doors opened and…
Twenty-five.
This was a bad idea. I should have taken the goddamn stairs.
Kane’s heart raced. Sweating and panting, he moved instinctively to the back of the elevator. Please dear God, just let him kill me quickly, that’s all I ask, and…
Ding.
The doors opened on the twenty-sixth floor. Kane stared out into the hallway.
Nobody.
Nothing but a vase of flowers on a polished burgundy table against the rose-colored wall.
He stuck his head out, just enough to look cautiously right and left. Nobody.
And then he ran for his room, ran like hell in fact, and a room service attendant turned the corner, walking toward him with a surprised look on his face because it was not often he saw adults running in the hallways. But Kane didn’t break his pace, he turned the corner that the attendant had come around and he reached his room a few seconds later and tried the knob first, finding it was locked as he expected and there was no sign it had been forced. He slid the card with the magnetic stripe into the door slot. The green LED lit up and he stood back as far as he could, turned the knob and gently pushed the door open with his foot and held it open with his right arm fully extended.
Kane held his breath.
The door hit the stop with a gentle clunk and so there was certainly no one behind the door. He could see, because of the desk lamp he’d left on, that the room looked empty. The bathroom door on his right was closed, just as he’d left it, but even if Zola was hiding in the bathroom right now, Kane was confident he could make it to the dresser and get the gun, flick the safety off, and be ready to fire in seconds.
So, he ran for it.
But when he opened the drawer and his hand found the gun, he lifted it and instantly realized he was dead, as dead as if he already had a stake in his heart, or a bullet buried deep in his brain because he knew from the weight of the weapon that his friends were gone, those thirteen little guys who had been his steadfast buddies for all these years— the twelve bullets that had rested snugly in the clip, waiting so patiently to one day be called upon, and the loner that had loyally stood at attention in the chamber the whole time.
They had all been kidnapped by Zola.
Kane dropped the useless weapon.
And then he realized Zola was of course behind him already, after moving in dead silence from whatever spot in the room where he had invisibly crouched like the ghost he was, or on second thought maybe he hadn’t moved because no one could move that quietly. He’d just materialized behind Kane. Teleported, maybe.
Zola spoke only two words: “Goodbye, Gaspard,” as calmly and politely as if they were old friends parting after having a drink together at the neighborhood bar, and Kane’s final thought was: Seven years. He waited that long to get me. If nothing else, he’s a patient enemy.
Kane didn’t have time to resist or even twitch before a powerful arm clamped around his neck and the long blade of the knife sliced into his back and punctured his heart.