He had wondered what his father had seen in her. As a brunette, she had left Rodrigo cold; his reaction to her a? a blonde was very different. It wasn’t just the normal Italian reaction to blond hair, either. It was as if he was truly seeing her for the first time, seeing the intellect and strong will so evident in those pale eyes. Perhaps Salvatore had been more perceptive than he himself was, because his father had respected strength as he’d respected nothing else. This woman was strong. Once she had crossed his path, it was almost inevitable that Salvatore would have been attracted to her.
Rodrigo leafed through the other pages Blanc had sent him. He was interested in the Mansfield woman’s employment history with the American CIA; she was a hired killer, period. He wasn’t shocked that governments used such people; he would have been shocked if they didn’t. This was information he could use at a later date if he needed a particular favor from the American government, but nothing that would help him right now.
He was more interested in the information about her family: a mother and a sister. The mother, Elizabeth Mansfield, lived in Chicago; the younger sister, Diandra, lived with her husband and two children in Toledo, Ohio. If he couldn’t locate Liliane, he thought, he could use her family to flush her out of hiding. Then he read that she hadn’t been in contact with her family in years, and had to allow for the possibility that she might not care about their welfare.
The last page indicated what Blanc had told him, that his father’s murder had not been ordered by the Americans. She had acted alone, seeking vengeance for the deaths of her friends the Joubrans. The CIA had dispatched an operative to terminate the problem.
Terminate. That was a very good word, but he wanted to do the terminating himself. If possible, he would have that satisfaction. If not, he would accept with good grace that the Americans had handled the situation.
The very last paragraph made him sit up straight. The subject had fled to London using an alias, then evidently switched identities once again and returned to Paris. Search efforts were focusing there. The operative on location believed she was preparing for yet another strike against the Nervi organization.
Rodrigo felt as if he’d been electrified; every fine hair on his body lifted, and chills ran down his spine.
She had come back to Paris. She was here, within his reach. It was a bold move, and if not for M. Blanc, he would have been caught unawares. His personal security was as tight as he could humanly make it, but what about the Nervi holdings scattered around Europe? More particularly, what about the ones here in the Paris area? The security systems in place were good, yes, but where this woman was concerned, extra precautions were called for.
What was her most likely target? The answer came immediately to mind: Vincenzo’s laboratory. He knew it; the flash of intuition too strong to ignore. That was where her friends had struck, and gotten shot for their efforts. She would see it as poetic justice if she completed the job, perhaps setting a series of explosive charges and completely demolishing the laboratory complex.
Losing the projected profits from the influenza vaccine wouldn’t bankrupt him, but he was looking forward to that huge influx of cash. Money was the real power in the world, behind the kings and oil princes, the presidents and prime ministers, with each group trying to get more than the other. But even greater than the lost profits would be the insult, the loss of face. Another incident at the lab and the WHO would begin questioning the security, at best simply withdrawing the funding, at worst insisting on on-site inspections. He didn’t want anyone from the outside looking through the laboratory. Vincenzo could probably hide or disguise what he was doing, but any further delay would wreck their plans.
He couldn’t let her win. Aside from everything else, word would reach the streets that Rodrigo Nervi had been bested-and by a woman. He could perhaps keep it quiet for a time, but eventually someone would talk. Someone always talked.
This could not have happened at a worse time. He had just buried his father no more than a week before. As well as he knew what needed to be done, nevertheless he was aware that on some fronts there was still a lingering doubt that he could step into Salvatore’s shoes. And he himself had taken over a lot of the everyday work of Salvatore’s; he had no one in position to do the same for him.
He was in the middle of arranging a shipment of weapons-grade plutonium to Syria. There were opiates to funnel into various countries, arms deals to be made, in addition to all the legitimate work of running a multifaceted corporation. He had to attend board meetings.
But to apprehend Liliane Mansfield, he would make the time, if he had to clear his slate of everything else. By tomorrow morning, every employee of his in France would have a photograph of her. If she walked down the street, eventually someone would recognize her.
The security at the laboratory was common, at least on the outside. Fenced and gated-with one entrance in front and one in back, both manned by two guards-the lab itself was a series of connected buildings that were mostly windowless. The architecture was graceless, the buildings themselves constructed of ordinary red brick. The parking lot on the left contained about fifty vehicles.
Swain noted all of this on one drive-by. The Jaguar was kind of noticeable, so he couldn’t do an immediate repeat without the guards noticing. Instead he waited until the next day to do another drive-by, and in the meantime, he used all his contacts to locate the building specs so he could figure out how Lily was most likely to try to gain entrance. For the exterior grounds, security was pretty much what he could see: the fence, the gated entrances, the guards. At night, the grounds were patrolled by a guard with a leashed German shepherd, and the grounds were well-lit.