But Radovan was not so sure. Armitage had informed Zivco Ilić – to whom she had first reached out, for reasons still unclear to the Vuksans – that Louis had returned briefly to the Netherlands and was met at the airport by De Jaager’s factotum Paulus, who now lay slumped and dead in the kitchen. In addition, the Vuksans’ contact in the AIVD, the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service, claimed that Louis and De Jaager had visited the Rijksmuseum together, and Louis might even have stayed for a time in this very safe house. Armitage had believed Louis and De Jaager to be engaged in some joint endeavor, one involving an American private investigator named Charlie Parker. This, to Radovan, did not look like the standard relationship between a hired killer and his one-time employer, but suggested a deeper connection. One might almost have said a friendship.

He increased the volume of the music still further, and lit another cigarette.

Chapter X

Special Agent Edgar Ross did not smoke, drank rarely, and socialized on a level familiar only to the dead. His life, or the productive part of it, revolved to a worrying extent around the private detective Charlie Parker and, to a slightly lesser degree, Angel and Louis. Ross’s affection for all three was minimal, although in the context of his largely solitary existence, this served to elevate them almost to the status of boon companions. But his respect for them exceeded his affection by a considerable magnitude, and it was partly this – or so Ross told himself – that led him to make the call to Louis.

Yet Ross, in addition to speaking with Conrad Holt, had also put out discreet feelers beyond Federal Plaza. In every situation, however grave, the question to be asked was: How may this be turned to my advantage? A distinctive duplicity was bred in the bone of those who monitored and investigated others for a living, and Ross was far from immune to it. He was aware that, sooner or later, Conrad Holt would attempt to feed him to the wolves. When this happened, Ross intended to make them fight for their meal.

In the meantime, he would continue to secure his position while sticking to his primary task, which was to identify and destroy a group of men and women known as the Backers. This cabal was powerful, corrupt, and mired in the occult, most particularly the search for an entity called the Buried God, which they believed to be a fallen angel, imprisoned deep below ground. Ross, for his part, didn’t much care what they did or did not believe: he knew only that they were a malign influence on the affairs of men, a contaminant, and needed to be rooted out. Ross was prepared to use any and all means toward that end, among them Charlie Parker and, by extension, Angel and Louis. If that meant protecting those men when required, so be it.