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New York City, where the chic and commonplace clash along busy streets that make the perfect place to pursue a man.
“OH MY, MY, but the man is even more dishy in the skin,” Lindy Gardner said to no one in particular as she focused the digital-cam binoculars.
The device had been designed to look like a pair of stylish sunglasses, so she didn’t concern herself with the passersby on the street, but zoomed in on the tall blonde leaving the ritzy Piazza Hotel.
Joshua Benedict aka Stuart Temple. Approximately thirty-eight years old.
Origins: unknown.
Current residence: Nice, France.
Occupation: Fixer.
She produced the man’s stats by rote, but peering through those lenses, Lindy didn’t see a familiar image from the surveillance photos the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, had collected during recent months.
Life sparked the lifeless images she’d studied during mission briefing into a wholly 3-D man. He stepped onto the pavement, his smile dazzling as he inclined his head to the doorman and moved past with smooth strides.
Definitely a man her old school chums would have called a cut above bog standard.
With the depression of a button, zoom lenses magnified her vantage again. Startling black eyes and brows contrasted with his pale hair and tanned skin. His hair glinted in the late-afternoon sun.
Joshua Benedict looked as if he spent much of his time sailing, fishing and windsurfing on the deep-blue waters of the French Riviera.
According to her intel, he did.
But Lindy also knew he spent the rest of his time jet- setting around the globe conducting business.
Legitimate society believed this man to be nothing more than a businessman with many areas of interest. But the world of the Secret Intelligence suspected Joshua Benedict of conducting illegal business, which was precisely why he was in New York City on this bright spring afternoon.
And why she’d followed him here.
Tracing her finger along the binoculars in what would appear to the casual observer as an adjustment to her sunglasses, Lindy depressed another button and captured the man’s image as he moved beneath the Piazza Hotel’s marquee.
Target acquired.
Joshua Benedict appeared to be a tourist, looking for all the world as if he belonged in the crush of people that ebbed and flowed along the street.
Lindy knew there was nothing casual about this man’s visit, however. An informant had relayed reliable intel that connected Joshua Benedict to a recent auction-house theft.
Not as the thief, though.
This man maneuvered easily through the layers of society, from the wealthy glitterati to the shadowy underworld of international organized crime. He rubbed elbows with power brokers, from global financiers to old-money families who made up high society on three continents.
He had established his reputation as a man who could mastermind brilliant business deals, “fix” any sort of unexpected situation and leave behind no prosecutable evidence. Most importantly, he could keep secrets.
A regular Johnny of all trades.
The thought made Lindy smile. Ironically, his job description didn’t sound so far off from hers.
Except that Joshua Benedict worked for the bad guys, and one bad guy in particular.
Henri Renouf.
The man SIS wanted to apprehend in a big way.
In much the same fashion as Joshua Benedict, Henri Renouf was known to the general public as a businessman with a cutthroat reputation—a reputation built through rumor, innuendo and suspicion. Since Renouf had been around for over four decades, he’d established himself as a private and very powerful man whom most people didn’t dare to cross.
According to Secret Intelligence, the rumor, innuendo and suspicion surrounding Renouf was well-founded. The man was known to be an obsessive antiquities collector, but Renouf didn’t let the availability of artifacts deter his acquisitions. In Britain alone, he was suspected of “acquiring” numerous priceless relics from museums and private residences through thefts spanning several decades.
Since Renouf had the resources to conduct his shady actions through intermediaries, he protected himself with distance. But with each passing year, he got bolder. While no international agency had enough evidence to prosecute, after a recent rash of heists all over the globe, her agency, in conjunction with Interpol, had deemed the time ripe to make contact with one of Renouf’s associates.
Joshua Benedict was a means to an end.
With that thought, Lindy watched him cross the street then found herself suddenly on the move.
In her chic two-piece ensemble, she could have been any resident of this big city, where people favored practical walking shoes and relegated more stylish footwear into carryalls until reaching their destinations.
Her own carryall contained shoes, plus a few items that would mark her as a visitor to the Big Apple. Mostly cover essentials. Passport. Notebook computer. Cellular phone.
Hiking the bag higher on her shoulder, Lindy marked their path along Fifth Avenue, keeping her gaze on her target, admiring the way he affected the perfect blend of casual disinterest and purposeful concentration as he passed upscale stores.
Admiring the man himself.
Benedict moved with a boldness she knew would make him a native of any city on any continent. Confidence. He wore it as easily as the lightweight blue shirt and tan slacks—clothes that had clearly never seen a rack, judging by the way they molded the athletic lines of his body. If she could see his feet, Lindy knew she’d find him wearing something butter-soft and expensive.
So far, the man fit his profile to a T.
Except that she hadn’t expected him to be quite so handsome.
When he stopped to await a signal to navigate another cross-street, Lindy slipped the digital-cam binoculars back up her nose and snapped a second image, just to see if she could capture his expression as he glanced up