Page 172 of Blood Stone

Chapter Thirty-Six

As he reached the sidewalk, his Maserati rolled up to the curb and the passenger door swung open.

“Hurry. I just shook off the tail that has been on us for the last thirty minutes,” Nial said from the driver’s seat.

Roman got in and shut the door. Kate was settling into the back seat as he pulled on his seat belt. She gave him a strained smile.

“The Pro Libertatis don’t have Winter and Garrett,” Roman said as Nial pulled away again, accelerating hard but smoothly through the gears.

“Then who does?” Sebastian’s voice issued from the overhead phone speaker.

“Leave that for now,” Nial said sharply. “Time is running out. We’re on hour twenty-two for Winter and ten for Garrett. We need to move, not theorize. Roman, spill it.”

Roman jumped. “How did you know?”

“Your heart.”

Roman grabbed at his chest, becoming aware only then that his heart was galloping like a mad thing, independent of any will of his own. “They tried their leverage. They brought out a big gun.”

“The mayor?” Nial guessed.

“Good guess. Except he and I knew each other from before. The Great War.”

Nial turned on to the on ramp for the El Camino Parkway and accelerated again. “They have leverage overhim?”

“I think so. He denied it – he spouted Libertatis policy with utter conviction, but right at the end he reminded me about Cuvilly during the war.”

“Translation?” Kate asked from the back seat.

“Tiny village near Somme,” Sebastian said, his voice very clear.

Roman nodded.

“You were in that battle?” Nial asked.

“I was in a lot of them,” Roman replied. “But I nearly didn’t make the Somme. My brigade were all but wiped out because we were hiding out in Cuvilly in the days leading up to the battle, recovering and regaining strength. One of the villagers who wanted to make good with the local Nazis turned us in.”

“Who?” Nial pressed.

“The name doesn’t matter. It’s not relevant.” Roman pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, trying to contain the growing sense of doom and fury building in him. “It was the local lawyer,” he said.

“MacDonald,” Kate breathed.

“Sebastian!” Nial said shortly.

“I can be there inside fifteen minutes,” Sebastian replied.

“He won’t use his hotel. It’ll be something more private that gives him more control.”

“They’ve been in L.A. for weeks,” Kate said. “He could have rented anything by now.”

“Not without a paper trail,” Sebastian said.

“We’ll be in the hills in twenty minutes,” Nial warned.

“It could be Van Iuys or East L.A. or bloody Tacoma,” Roman said.

“It’s not going to be East L.A., because the cut-off led there. It’ll be away from there,” Kate pointed out. “And MacDonald will keep them in the city because he has to look like he’s doing business as usual. He can’t leave town the minute Garrett disappears. It will connect him to the disappearance. So they’re here somewhere.” Her hand curled over Roman’s shoulder and squeezed. Roman gripped her fingers.