"Who were you talking to?"

Violante ignored Nick and rushed to the window. His face, which was normally as smooth as custard, was contorted in rage.

He's wearing an undetectable earbud, Nick thought, and he's just been warned that the police are swarming in from the park and driving across the bridge. Kate had reached the same conclusion. The cop who was watching the monitors back at headquarters figured it out as well.

Violante gaped out the window at the police cars racing across the bridges and knew they were coming for him. Somehow, they'd discovered that he was Lester Menendez. Somehow, somewhere, he'd made a mistake or had been betrayed. How it happened didn't matter now, and neither did getting the treasure. The only thing that mattered was escaping from the police. If he could temporarily prevent them from locking down the building, and keep them too occupied to quickly regroup, he had a chance of getting away in the chaos.

Violante touched the earbud again. "Buy me some time."

"What's going on?" Nick asked.

"The police are surrounding the building. Is there another way out of here?"

"There's a maid's elevator in the utility corridor," Nick said. "You can take it to any floor you want or all the way down to the garage."

It's Reyna, Kate thought. Reyna was feeding information to Violante, and she had to be nearby. Close enough to have seen the police moving in. She had no way of knowing if Reyna was on land or on water, but Kate was guessing water. She hadn't seen Reyna in either of the vehicles that had transported Violante and his money. And it would make sense to have a backup river getaway.

Kate grabbed the binoculars, ran to the flybridge, and scanned the water in front of her. BANG. A flare streaked across the sky toward the Albert Bridge and landed with a blinding flash of light on the roadway. There was a lot of thick red smoke coming off the bridge, and instantly police band radio chatter indicated that the bridge had taken a hit and traffic had come to a standstill.

BANG, BANG, BANG. More flares. Two landed on the Battersea Bridge, and the third landed on the Albert. There was a lot more red smoke followed by the screech of tires and the crashing of cars.

Kate had a fix on the source of the flares. They were coming from a small powerboat that was sitting in the middle of the Thames, in front of the Excelsior Tower, and midway between the two bridges. She focused the binoculars on the boat and saw Reyna alone at the helm.

Three Scotland Yard armored personnel carriers rolled up in front of Excelsior Tower. Violante's four security guards instantly threw their weapons onto the ground and put their hands over their heads, hoping to avoid being shot by adrenaline-pumped cops.

The rear doors of the personnel carriers flew open, and dozens of officers spilled out, looking more like soldiers than cops. They were in full tactical gear-Kevlar duty vests, ballistic helmets, combat goggles, and flame-r.e.t.a.r.dant balaclavas that almost entirely masked their faces.

A third of the officers took positions in front of the Excelsior, another third stormed the lobby and the garage, and the remaining third split up and moved toward the back of the building from both sides to begin drawing a perimeter.

Gooley stayed inside the command unit, which was now also parked in front of Excelsior Tower. He watched the monitors that showed him the feeds from Nick's flat, from the helmet-mounted cameras worn by his ground-team leaders, and from the CCTV cameras showing the chaos on the bridges.

He was determined not to let the traffic mess, and losing half his strike force, distract him from completing the mission. He'd still lock down the building. It was time to show Fox and Violante who was in charge.

The police chopper streaked overhead, and Gooley radioed the pilot with orders.

"Say h.e.l.lo and tell them they are under arrest."

Violante had watched Reyna dispatch the flares and knew the police officers advancing across the bridges were trapped behind the snarled traffic. Now all he had to do was create a disaster that would distract the officers arriving at the building. He got into the Range Rover, turned the ignition key, and released the parking brake. He shifted into drive and charged across the room, leaping out of the vehicle a beat before the front b.u.mper touched the floor-to-ceiling window.

The police chopper came around the tower, went into a hover directly in front of the condo window, and the Range Rover smashed through the gla.s.s and shot out of the building. The chopper pilot peeled away, the Range Rover missed the helicopter by mere inches, and millions of euros were sucked out of the flat's broken window.

Gooley saw the astonishing sight from three angles. He saw the Range Rover burst out of the flat and fly head-on toward the chopper's camera. He saw the terrifying view from the ground leader's helmet camera as he glanced up at the sky to see the SUV dropping toward him. And the third view was from the surveillance feed.

The Range Rover plummeted to the ground and exploded on impact into an enormous fireball. The blast shattered hundreds of windows, raining down shards of gla.s.s, and euros fluttered in the air like b.u.t.terflies.

"This is bad," Nick said to Violante. "These paintings need to be in a humidity-controlled environment, and you've broken the window."

"I don't give a rat's a.s.s about the paintings," Violante said, getting to his feet. "How do I get out of here?"

Reyna saw the chopper swerve to avoid the Range Rover, and she took aim with a handheld rocket launcher. It wasn't every day that she got a chance to shoot down a helicopter. She was about to squeeze the trigger when she heard the roar of an engine off the stern. She turned and saw that a yacht was bearing down on her, a woman in a yellow police windbreaker at the wheel on the flybridge. She was pretty sure it was Kate Hartley. Wasn't that perfect. She always knew the woman wasn't what she seemed, but she hadn't guessed cop.

Reyna shouldered the rocket launcher and fired one off at the yacht. It streaked over the water and smashed through the front window of the main cabin, rocketed straight through the galley, and out the open door at the stern before hitting the water fifty yards away.

Kate ignored the grenade and kept the throttle fully open, plowing into the powerboat, ripping it apart, and sending Reyna into the river. The yacht didn't fare much better than the powerboat. It sustained a huge gash in the bow and immediately began to take on water. Kate ran to the dinghy at the back of the boat, untied it, and jumped in. She floated free of the yacht and was about to crank up the outboard when Reyna burst out of the black water, levered herself onto the dinghy, and lunged at Kate.

The two women rolled around in the bottom of the dinghy, scratching and clawing and punching. Reyna pulled a switchblade out of her pants pocket, slashed at Kate, and Kate felt a searing flash of pain as the blade sliced into her.

Kate stuck her thumb into Reyna's eye, and flipped Reyna out of the boat. Reyna sank below the surface, and after a moment a blood slick appeared on the black swirling water. The blood slick dissipated, and Kate saw no more sign of Reyna.

The chopper swung away from the sh.o.r.eline and hovered over the dinghy. Kate acknowledged the chopper with a nod of her head. She was bleeding from the stab wound in her side, and she suspected she had a broken bone in her hand. She had no clue if Reyna was alive or dead.

Nick led Violante across the apartment to a door he unlocked by typing a code into a wall-mounted keypad. The door opened and the two men stepped into a narrow windowless service corridor that contained the maid's entrance to the next condo, the stairwell, and the elevator.

"That's your way out," Nick said, gesturing to the elevator, "unless you want to take the stairs."

Violante pressed the elevator call b.u.t.ton.

"If you help the police, or sell the treasure to anyone else, I will behead you," Violante said to Nick.

"You haven't escaped yet."

"I will," Violante said. "I have nine lives, and I have used up only two of them."

Nick punched Violante with a right hook that dropped him to the floor. Violante's head bounced off the concrete, his eyes went blank, and he was out cold.

Nick felt for a pulse, and found that it was still strong. He returned to the condo, grabbed a pen from the desk in the office, and used it to write MENENDEZ across Violante's forehead.

Nick walked down the corridor, opened the servant's entrance to the unsold unit next door, and stepped inside. A police officer's full tactical suit and weapons were laid out on a drafting table.

Kate sat on the edge of the bed in the emergency room at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. She had two fingers taped together on her right hand and fourteen st.i.tches in her side just under her rib cage. The stab wound had been painful and b.l.o.o.d.y but fortunately not deep enough to do bad damage.

The curtain surrounding the bed was pulled aside, and Gooley stepped in. He was no longer in tactical gear but back in his leather and sheepskin coat. He handed Kate a bag of Krispy Kremes.

"At least we don't have to go to the bother of auctioning off that yacht," Gooley said, "being that it's at the bottom of the Thames." He rocked back on his heels. "You ever drive a boat before?"

"I spotted Violante's bodyguard, Reyna Socorro, in the powerboat. She was positioned between the two bridges, shooting off the flares. Sorry about the yacht, but it was my only weapon."

"Not your only weapon," Gooley said. "We pulled Reyna out of the Thames with her eye gouged out and a broken nose."

"Is she okay?"

"She was full of river water," Gooley said.

"What about Violante and Fox?"

"We got Violante. He was found knocked out in a stairwell, and he had 'Menendez' written across his forehead. It looked like he'd been punched in the face. Fox got away."

"He usually does."

"We had the building surrounded. It was like he sprouted wings and flew out the open window."

Not wings, Kate thought. Nick had made himself invisible by wearing the same tactical outfit as the police who were storming the building. He probably walked right past Gooley.

"At a press conference tomorrow, Scotland Yard will flog this as a successful joint operation with U.S. law enforcement agencies," Gooley said. "The press will be told it resulted in the apprehension of a highly dangerous international felon. We'll also hint that a stunning revelation about the true ident.i.ty of that felon is forthcoming, pending further investigation. Privately, the Yard is getting a slagging from Downing Street for a monumental c.o.c.k-up that turned a half-kilometer stretch of the Thames into a war zone."

"Have you heard from Hollywood yet?"

"No, but I told dispatch to put Russell Crowe straight through to me when he calls." Gooley offered Kate his hand. "What you did on the Thames today took guts. You're one h.e.l.l of a copper."

"So are you."

"Cheers, then." He nodded his thanks and walked out.

Kate looked into the donut bag, and a doctor in surgical scrubs, mask, and cap came in.

"We're ready to remove your spleen," he announced in a British accent that sounded remarkably like Roger Moore's.

"Can I eat my donuts first?" Kate asked.

"I wouldn't if I were you. You're already pushing the limits on those jeans you're wearing."

"I know it's you," Kate said to Nick. "That's the worst British accent ever. What are you doing here?"

"I was hoping you'd show me your st.i.tches."

"I'm not showing you anything."

"I took a big risk coming here to visit you. You could at least show me something."

Kate showed him the two fingers that were taped together, one of which was her middle finger.

"Nice," Nick said. "Just what I'd expect from the woman who intentionally rammed a yacht into a powerboat."

"I hear someone punched Violante in the face."

"Only because I didn't have a yacht handy to plow into him. He had it coming."

"That and more," Kate said. "We've destroyed him."

"Yeah, this a.s.signment is done, but I have a loose end to tie up."

"Serena?"

"I need to give her the good news."

"And break her out of prison?"

"You don't really want to know, do you?"

"No." Kate grimaced. "Yes."

"Which is it?"

"It's yes, and I'm going with you."

"What about the st.i.tches?"

"There are only fourteen of them. Let's not overdramatize this."

"I can't take you into the prison with me, but I'll let you drive the getaway car," Fox said.

"Deal."

This wasn't a gig a.s.signed by Jessup, but Kate had been given the responsibility of babysitting Nick and she was going to do it. She couldn't talk him out of springing Serena, but she could hang in there and try to minimize the damage.

La Maison d'arret d'Orleans was built in 1896 on the outskirts of the city to hold seventy-five men and a dozen women. Now the prison was surrounded by apartment buildings, and it held more than two hundred men and women awaiting trial. One of those women was Serena Blake.

Security at the prison was notoriously lax, and the prison had the distinction of being the noisiest one in the country, at least on the outside. People gathered day and night on the sidewalks, and on the rooftops and decks of nearby apartment buildings, to communicate with the prisoners by yelling back and forth, infuriating local residents who couldn't get any peace. These same people routinely threw cellphones, cigarettes, knives, sandwiches, drugs, and other items over the low stone and concrete walls to prisoners on the other side.

Nick Fox didn't choose this method to communicate with Serena Blake. Fox masqueraded as her attorney, Jean-Luc Picard. He arrived at the prison in an ancient black Mercedes, accompanied by Kate and Boyd Capwell. Boyd wore a weather-beaten leather coat with wide sheepskin-lined lapels that looked as if it might have been stolen from a homeless man who'd used it as bedding.

Kate parked in the small lot in front of the prison, the buildings within hidden from street-level view behind the gray wall that encircled the property. This was the prison's only entrance, a rectangular opening as wide as a four-car garage, with a thick iron-barred gate and, to one side, a tiny guardhouse. Kate had on a knit cap with her hair tucked up inside. She was wearing a bulky jacket with the collar turned up, and Nick had transformed her face with makeup and prosthetic padding so that she would be unrecognizable to Serena.

Nick had told Boyd that they were helping to free a woman who'd been framed for a crime. "Are you ready?" Nick asked him. "Everything rides on you being convincing."

"This is nothing. I played Inspector Javert in the animated version of Les Miserables."

"The one with the singing mice?"

"I imbued a mouse with moral authority and an all-consuming obsession while carrying a tune in a squeaky French accent. Next time, give me a real challenge."

"There was no danger involved in that. Now you're impersonating a real police officer and walking into a prison full of armed guards."

"They don't scare me," Boyd said. "I've faced drama critics. They can be inhuman."

Nick nodded, satisfied. "Then let's do it."

Kate stayed with the car, and Nick and Boyd got out and walked to the guardhouse. They could hear people on the street yelling at the prisoners inside and the m.u.f.fled voices of the prisoners yelling back from the open windows of their cells.

Nick smiled at the guard and greeted him in French.

"Look at you. Who is the real prisoner here?" Nick asked the guard. "You or the men inside?"

"I ask myself the same question every day. At least they have room to turn around in their cells," the guard said.

"Ah, but do they go home to the love of a good woman every night?"

"You obviously haven't met my wife," the guard said and roared with laughter.