The director was taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where the security would be tighter, and rushed into surgery. Simultaneously, his house was secured, arrangements made for the director’s housekeeper, Bridget, to take care of Kaiser, and the deputy director stepped up to take Mr. Vinay’s place until, and if, he returned. The accident site was carefully combed for any sensitive papers, but Mr. Vinay was extremely careful about paperwork and nothing classified was found.
For long hours in surgery, his survival was very much in question. If Keenan hadn’t managed to angle the car slightly away just before the van collided with them, the director would have died on the spot. His right arm suffered two compound fractures, his collarbone was broken, five ribs were broken, and his right femur was broken. His heart and lungs were severely bruised, his right kidney ruptured. A shard of glass had pierced his throat like an arrow, and he had a concussion that had to be watched closely for signs of developing pressure in his skull. That he was alive at all was because the side air bag had deployed, shielding his head from part of the impact.
He survived the various surgeries needed to repair his broken body and was taken to SICU, where he was kept heavily sedated and closely monitored. The surgeons had done the best they could; the rest was up to Mr. Vinay.
Chapter Seventeen
M. Blanc wasn’t happy to hear from Rodrigo again so soon. “How may I be of service?” he asked somewhat stiffly. He disliked what he did anyway; to have to do it very often was salt in an open wound. He was at home, and receiving a call there made him feel as if he’d brought evil much too close to his loved ones.
“First, my brother, Damone, will be working with me,” Rodrigo said. “There may be times when he will call instead of me. I trust there will be no problem?”
“No, monsieur.”
“Excellent. This problem I asked your help with the other day. The report said that our friends in America had dispatched someone to handle it. I would like very much to contact this person.”
“Contact him?” Blanc echoed, suddenly uneasy. If Rodrigo met with the contract agent-at least Blanc assumed it was a contract agent, that was usually how a “problem” was handled-it was possible Rodrigo would say something that the contract agent would then carry back to his employers, and that wouldn’t do at all.
“Yes. I’d like his mobile phone number, if you please. I’m certain there is some way of contacting him. Do you know this person’s name?”
“Ah… no. I don’t believe it was listed in the report I received.”
“Of course it wasn’t,” Rodrigo snapped. “Or I wouldn’t ask, would I?”
He actually thought, Blanc realized, that he had been sent everything Blanc received. That wasn’t the case, however, and had never been. To minimize the damage he did, Blanc always removed important pieces of information. He knew that if he was found out, the Nervis would have him killed, but he’d become very skillful at balancing on that high wire. “If the information is available, I will get it,” he assured Rodrigo.
“I’ll be waiting for your call.”
Blanc checked the time and calculated the time in Washington. It was the middle of the workday there, perhaps his contact was even having lunch. After disconnecting the call from Rodrigo, he walked outside so no one-mainly his wife, who was an insatiably curious woman-could overhear, then punched in the required sequence of numbers.
“Yes.” The voice wasn’t as friendly as it was when Blanc caught him still at home, so he was probably where someone could hear his side of the conversation.
“In the matter I spoke to you about before, is it possible to have the mobile phone number of the person who was dispatched here?“
“I’ll see what I can do.”
No questions, no hesitation. Perhaps there wouldn’t be a number, Blanc thought, walking back inside. The temperature had dropped with the sun, and he was shivering slightly, not having put on a coat
“Who was that?” his wife asked.
“It was work,” he said, dropping a kiss on her forehead. Sometimes he could talk about what he did, sometimes not, so although she clearly wanted to ask more questions, she did not.
“You could at least have put on a coat before going outside,” she scolded in a fond tone.
Less than two hours later Blanc’s mobile phone rang. Quickly he grabbed a pen, but couldn’t find a scrap of paper. “This wasn’t easy, buddy,” his contact said. “Something about different cell phone systems. I had to dig deep to find the number.” He read off the number, and Blanc scribbled it on his left palm.
“Thank you,” he said. After hanging up, he found some paper and wrote down the number, then washed his hands.
He should call Rodrigo Nervi immediately, he knew, but he didn’t. Instead he folded the paper and put it in his pocket. Perhaps he would call him tomorrow.
When Lily left his hotel room, Swain started to follow her back to her lair but decided against it. It wasn’t that he thought she would spot him; he knew she wouldn’t. She was good, but he was damn good. He didn’t follow her because it just didn’t feel right. It was crazy, but he wanted her to trust him. She had come to him, and that was a start. She had also given him her cell phone number, and he’d given her his. Funny how that felt the same as giving a friendship ring to a girlfriend in high school.
He hadn’t done what Vinay had told him to do. He kept putting it off, partly out of curiosity, partly because she was battling giants and needed all the help she could get, and partly because he was seriously interested in getting her into bed. She was playing a dangerous game with Rodrigo Nervi, and Swain was enough of a risk-taker to be intrigued and want to play, too. He was supposed to take her out of the equation, but instead he wanted to know what was going on in that lab. If he could find out, maybe Vinay wouldn’t demote him to desk jockey for not doing his job the first time he got close to Lily.