London Bridges

alive. One male! He’s alive in here!”
    I started to run toward the wreckage to get a look at the driver. Who? Could he talk to me? I glanced back up at the Moyenne and wondered how the driver could have survived the long fall and crash. The Wolf was supposed to be a tough guy.
This
tough?
    I flashed my creds, and the police surrounding the wreck let me move on.
    Then I could see. I knew who it was trapped in the wreck. I couldn’t believe it, though. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing with my own eyes.
    My heart was thumping loudly, racing out of control. So was my mind, what was left of it. I came up to the smoldering, overturned car. I knelt on the rocky ground and leaned forward.
    “It’s Alex,” I said.
    The car’s driver looked at me and tried to focus. His body was trapped inside the crumpled Mercedes. He’d been crushed by metal everywhere below the shoulders. Just awful to see.
    But Martin Lodge was alive, and he was hanging on. He seemed to want to say something, and I moved closer. “It’s Alex,” I said again. I turned my head so that my ear was near his mouth.
    I needed to know the identity of the Wolf. I had so many questions.
    Martin whispered, “It’s all for nothing. Your manhunt is useless. I’m not the Wolf. I never even saw him.”
    Then he died on me, and everyone else who was waiting for an answer.

Chapter 112
    THE LODGE FAMILY had been taken into protective custody back in England. We all felt that if the Wolf suspected that the wife or any of the children had been told anything incriminating, they would be targets. Maybe he’d kill them just to be safe, or because he felt like killing somebody that day.
    The next morning I flew to London and met with the police at Scotland Yard, specifically Lodge’s superior, a man named John Mortenson. First, he reported that none of the survivors at Cap-Ferrat seemed to know anything about the Wolf, or even who Martin Lodge had been.
    “There is a new development, a little wrinkle,” he told me then.
    I leaned back in a leather lounger with a view of Buckingham Palace. “At this point, I’m not surprised about anything, John. Tell me what’s going on. This is about the Lodge family?”
    He nodded, sighed, and then began. “It starts with Klára Lodge. Klára Cernohosska, actually. Let me begin with her. It turns out Martin was on the team that brought a defector named Edward Morozov out of Russia back in ’ninety-three. Martin worked with the American CIA, with Cahill and Hancock, and also Thomas Weir. Only there was no Edward Morozov. He was an unidentified KGB defector whose name we don’t know. We think that it was the Wolf.”
    “You started by saying something about Martin’s wife, Klára. What about her?”
    “For one thing, she’s not Czech. She came out of Russia with the man called Morozov. She was an assistant to a KGB chief, and also our main source of information in Moscow. She and Lodge apparently got cozy during the transfer, and then she was relocated to England. He had her identity changed, got rid of the records. Then he married her. How about that?”
    “And she knows who the Wolf is, what he looks like? Is that it?”
    “We don’t know what Klára knows. She won’t talk to us. She might talk to
you,
though.”
    I sat back, shook my head. “Why me? I met her only once.”
    Mortenson shrugged, then he gave a half smile. “She says her husband trusted you. You believe that? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Why would she trust you, if you met her only once?”
    Unfortunately, I had no idea.

Chapter 113
    WHAT REMAINED OF the Lodge family was being kept under wraps in a small town called Shepton Mallet, which was about 120 miles west of London. Rolling valleys, lots of green countryside, perfect for hiding them, at least temporarily.
    The Lodges were staying in a converted farmhouse on a “no through” road outside of town. The land was fairly flat there, and anything approaching could be seen for miles. Besides, this was an armed compound, heavily armed.
    I arrived at about six that evening. The inside of the farmhouse was pleasant, with lots of antique furniture, but I had dinner with the family in a cramped bunker that was located belowground.
    Klára didn’t cook the meal as she had in London, and I wondered if she approved of the fare. I doubted it. The food was dreadful, worse than airplane fare. “No
míchaná vejce
on the menu,” I finally tried as a joke for her.
    “You