Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766) Read Free Page A

somewhere near Bayreuth, had fitted it out with an aerodynamic package, including a Pur-R-Rim integrated spoiler system, Hella daytime running lights, stainless-steel side and rear skirts and flank. The V-12 engine had been modified to provide 630 horsepower. It would accelerate from zero to sixty in 4.7 seconds, evolving in a tremendous peak torque of five hundred pounds even from low speeds. All this to be controlled from the luxury of a perfectly stitched Nappa leather and Alcantara
interior with the latest genuine carbon-fiber fittings.
    In the rearview mirror, as he headed southwest, he watched the silhouette of Country Club Plaza disappear and thought again of what a pleasant, desirable place this part of this city was. People he encountered elsewhere seldom appreciated the unexpectedly cosmopolitan nature of Kansas City, much less for how long it had prevailed. Take the Plaza, for example, which old man J. C. Nichols had developed in 1922 as America’s very first suburban shopping center. Its Spanish architecture—towers, fountains, and sculpture—still cast an enchanted spell over the Brush Creek Valley. And the stores it housed were the equal, often the sisters, of those on Madison Avenue and Rodeo Drive. This was a confident but curious town, to which some came and from which others, such as Billy himself, traveled forth. And it was as nice a place as any he’d seen to call home: the United States still as it had been at its zenith.
    As aware of his own moods as he was of the temperature, Billy wondered what had made him so suddenly wistful. He supposed there were any number of possible causes but gradually came to focus on two. The first was that he really did not like being recognized by complete strangers. Restaurant and hotel staff were one thing, but the general public was quite another. Ever since he’d agreed to appear in an advertisement meant to instill confidence in a large, abruptly faltering bank of which he was a major shareholder, he’d had the sense that his familiar, comfortable cloak of anonymity had been at least partially shed. A billboard version of that ad had forced this reservation to the front of his mind, and as he sped past it, he looked away.
    The second reason, which had continued to unsettle him long after it should have, was a deal from which he had recently and precipitously pulled out, on the basis not of careful analysis but of instinct. For a time it had seemed to offer the promise of huge and quick rewards as well as a hard-to-come-by opening to an all-but-limitless new market. The man with whom he had struck his bargain was a friend, or rather they had for years shared what passed for friendship among people at their level. It was the others, the ever-changing operational people, the Russians themselves, who had eventually given him pause. The more he’d seen of them, the more suspicious he had become that, for them, lucre trumped judgment. And this had cut against his grain. The last of the developers he’d met had particularly irritated him: a patronizing, odious Cossack, whose skin all but swallowed his sweat. “How can we be sure you will deliver what you say you will?” the man had asked. What a question! Claussen Construction spanned the globe. It was number one because it was never late, never over budget, never anything but straightforward and professional. Surely, no one could say the same of any of the other partners in the deal. Nor could Billy even be sure what those men’s true motives were, except that very likely there were more of them than they were letting on.
    It was surprising how many suspicions could be pricked by a single, stupid question. Claussen Construction had been brought in to repurpose an about-to-be-abandoned Cold War military installation, perched along some godforsaken Russian seaside, as a five-star resort. Could the Russian syndicate already be angling to renegotiate Claussen’s fees, or was