“A black wolf. Exactly like the obsidian one left with Lilian Flanders’s body.”
Natalie thought this over while Mary Alice studied the rest of the photo. “That’s a gorgeous boat. What do we think, fifty feet? And polished within an inch of her life. They don’t make boats like that anymore.”
Helen tapped the dossier. “It says here he has a phobia of flying—hasn’t been on an airplane since 1979.”
1979. The year we’d assassinated his father.
“I guess you can blame us for that,” I said. “Knowing your father died in an airplane crash probably messes you up for life.”
Helen went on. “He stays almost entirely in Europe, traveling by his yacht—named theGalinafor his dead sister. That’s sweet, I guess. Otherwise, he travels by train. When he has to come to the U.S., he crosses on theQueen Mary 2. This says he crossed a week ago, ahead of the hit on Lilian.”
“Makes sense if he’s that much of an Anglophile,” Natalie said brightly. “That ship is all cream teas and cricket. I’ve always wanted to sail on her.”
“Well, it looks like you’ll get your chance,” Helen said, pulling an envelope from inside the packet. It was red, marked with the Cunard logo in gold. On it was a Post-it with a note in Naomi’s handwriting.P. L. confirmed on this crossing.
“Is that—” Natalie broke off as she grabbed for the envelope. She yanked it open and four tickets spilled onto the bed. She snatched one up and grinned. “Sailing in five days from New York.”
Mary Alice turned to her earnestly. “So would Marie Kondo approve? Does this murder now spark joy for you, Natalie?”
Natalie shot her the bird and I ignored them both.
“That gives us less than a week to figure out how to murder a man on the most famous ocean liner in the world and get away with it,” I said. “Piece of cake.”
Chapter Five
The day after we metwith Naomi we headed to D.C., stopping just long enough to turn in the rental car and hop the train for New York. The trip took the better part of a day, but we weren’t in a hurry. We had roughed out a plan for handling Pasha Lazarov and needed time to noodle over the details. The dossier Naomi had compiled had been thin to the point of transparency compared to what we usually got when we undertook a mission. In the course of a regular job, we’d be handed fat binders full of information—the target’s history, habits, closest contacts, medical records. Everything from shoe size to preferred sexual position, and we’d use those facts to begin a discreet surveillance, planning a way in. Sometimes a job took months, sometimes a long weekend. Everything depended on how security conscious the target was. The people we took out weren’t nice, and people who aren’t nice often have a sixth sense for danger. Their instincts forself-preservation are far more refined than the average person’s. They can smell a trap, sniff out a potential ambush. More than once, we’d made elaborate preparations only to find ourselves making it up as we went along when our arrangements had been wrecked by a last-minute change of plans from a twitchy target. Some folks think being a professional assassin means being a perfect shot or some kind of strangling savant. Those things help but the most important quality is adaptability.
In the case of Pasha Lazarov, adapting meant dealing with the fact that we had almost no real data to build our plans on. We knew he was sailing onQM2, but apart from that, nothing. Mary Alice pulled up a series of pictures of the ship on her laptop and we gathered around, clicking and pointing until we had a rough idea of the layout.
“Let’s assume he’s in one of the two Grand Duplex suites,” Mary Alice said, switching over to the gallery of the poshest cabins. “They’re the largest and most luxurious, and a man with handmade underwear isn’t going to slum it.”
“Potentially problematic,” Helen said, bringing up a map of the suite’s layout. “Those suites have private dining rooms. What if he takes all his meals in his suite?”
“That is a problem for later,” I told her. “For now, let’s assume that our tickets will at least get us in his general vicinity.”
“They will,” Natalie volunteered as she studied our booking. “Naomi sprang for Queens Grill suites. Two of them. They’re located on the same deck as the Grand Duplex suites.” She used the deck map to trace the path from ournumbered suites to the ones we suspected Pasha Lazarov might have chosen. “Easy.”
In the meantime, Mary Alice had navigated to the price list for the suites and gave a low whistle. “Dammmmmmmn. Naomi went all out. I feel bad now for bitching about the Best Western.”
“She even included passports,” I said, turning out the rest of the envelope. “But y’all aren’t going to like it,” I added with a grin as I handed them around. Museum practice was to issue fake identification using the actual initials of the agent in question. We’d been extensively trained, but the best agents can get tired and that’s when slips happen. It’s too easy to start to sign a bill with your pseudonym only to find you’ve let down your guard and started writing your actual name. Using your real initials gives you a quick way to recover. Plus it means you can even carry monogrammed items on a job, a bonus when it comes to making your assumed identity look lived in.
The names Naomi had chosen were a little over the top—mine was Bianca, for god’s sake—but that wasn’t the part the others would object to. Naomi had had our photos expertly altered to resemble the appearances we’d have to assume, and she’d changed up our ages a little—a reasonable precaution if Pasha Lazarov was targeting four women in their early sixties. Mine and Helen’s were aged down to mid-fifties while Mary Alice’s and Natalie’s went the other direction.
“Sixty-nine?” Natalie shrieked. “What kind of bullshit is this?”
“I’m supposed to be seventy-one,” Mary Alice put in dryly.
Helen preened a little. “Fifty-five.”
Mary Alice looked daggers at her before turning to me. “Billie?”
“Fifty-three.”
“Biiiiiiitch,” she said on a sigh.
“At least you get to wear comfy shoes and stretchy cruise wear,” Helen pointed out. “Billie and I will have to strap ourselves into Spanx and high heels.” But she preened some more when she said it.
—