Read The Virtuosic Spy 01 - Deceptive Cadence for Free Online Page B

stayed well back. He couldn’t have noticed me. I think he’s either—ahh, what the hell?”
    “What the hell, indeed.” Conor grunted as he flew forward, tackling the man in his muscular midsection.
    The two of them tumbled to the ground with Conor on top, but before he could establish a grip on his pursuer, he found himself flattened against the ground, with a knee planted on his back and his face slammed against the gravel path. From the corner of one eye, he saw a hand stretch out to retrieve the phone lying next to his head.
    “Jessie? Yeah, never mind, love. I’ve got him. You were right, though. Silly bastard was hiding from me. Send a car down to the Lido, will you? I’ve had me exercise for today.”
    The weight shifted on Conor’s back, and a hand grabbed him by the hair, lifting his bloodied face from the ground. A leather wallet covered in clear plastic was thrust in front of his eyes.
    “Metropolitan Police, Special Branch,” the voice growled above him. “You want to watch yourself there, Paddy. You’re a long fuckin’ way from Tipperary now, aren’t you?”
    When the hand abruptly released him, Conor allowed his forehead to settle wearily back onto the bits of stone and dirt. He’d always hated that song.

    “W ELL , I SEE we needn’t waste much effort training you up for antisurveillance. You appear to have a natural aptitude for it.” Frank studied Conor’s bruised face with a faint smile. “That will free up some time to counsel you on the inadvisability of attacking your followers. Depending on the nature of the surveillance, you will almost certainly wind up either arrested or dead.”
    “Why did you have me followed anyway?” Conor slipped his tongue out across his swollen upper lip and winced in pain and annoyance. It hurt like hell every time, but he couldn’t seem to stop doing it.
    “To see where you would go, naturally. Stop talking and put the ice back on before it starts bleeding again.”
    They were back in the hotel suite, where Special Branch Officer Lawrence Shelton had deposited Conor without ceremony or sympathy before disappearing again. He had returned a short while later, bringing Frank and a bucket of ice along with him. The two of them now sat comfortably arranged around the fireplace drinking coffee. They watched him—Frank with amused pity and Shelton with a sneer of contempt—as he gingerly dabbed at his lip with a towel wrapped around the ice cubes.
    “To see if you’d bolt for home or someplace else,” the officer added in a flat voice. “To see if you were going to be as useless as your good-for-nothing brother.”
    “Now, Lawrence,” Frank chided. “I’m sure it rankles to have your surveillance exploded by a mere amateur, but accept it as a learning experience. There’s no cause for incivility.”
    “He baited me,” Shelton retorted and would have continued, but Frank’s icy stare stopped him in mid-sentence.
    “Yes, I think it’s rather obvious that he did. But tell me, how is that less humiliating?”
    Shelton’s face tightened, but he subsided into silence, and Frank turned his attention back to Conor. “Perhaps you could relieve our concerns. You were up and about awfully early this morning. Where were you going?”
    Conor exhaled a sigh and tossed the towel into the ice bucket. “I’m always up and about that early. You’re forgetting what I do for a living. I woke at half-four, like always, and thought I’d go for a walk. Is that not allowed now? Do I need a pass to leave the premises?”
    “Of course not. We just weren’t aware of your plans.” Frank shot a sidelong glance at his colleague. “Obviously, you caught us a bit off guard.”
    “Obviously.” Unexpectedly, he found himself amused by the eccentric pair. “Why don’t you give me your home number, Frank? I’ll be sure to ring with the news next time I go off to the jacks. And to be honest, I hadn’t even considered ‘bolting,’ which is a shame, really, since