Free The Blood Lance by Craig Smith

Dale to Zürich for six months when Malloy was operating there, but in the trade he supposed that amounted to an introduction. 'If Chernoff and Farrell are still in the city, Dale has the best chance of finding them. Just keep him out of the spotlight. I can't afford to expose him - even for something this big. You'll go in on your State Department ID, by the way. With the financials the Germans have turned up that shouldn't raise any eyebrows.'
    'Anything in the financials worth looking at?'
    'Nada.'
    The girl handed him a business card as she passed him. Checking it, Malloy saw only a number.
    'Remnants of your old slush fund in Zürich I just reactivated,' Jane told him. 'For incidentals.'
    'What's my limit?'
    'Whatever it takes.' And then she was gone.
    Malloy walked back to the main hall, where the woman in her thirties approached him carrying a site map of the Met. 'Excuse me,' she said, and extended her map, 'Do you know where I can find the Impressionists?'
    Malloy palmed the airline ticket she handed him as he touched her map and then shook his head. 'Sorry,' he told her, 'I'm lost myself.'
    Malloy returned to his Ninth Avenue apartment an hour later. Gwen was out and not answering her cell phone. He wrote a note, packed his bag, and then started shifting files to one of his travel laptops. As he was finishing up, he called Gil Fine. Gil had been an analyst with the agency when Malloy was overseas. After the shakeup in 2002 Gil had caught an updraft and floated into Homeland as a senior analyst. For the past several years Gil had provided Malloy with raw data which Malloy processed and summarized and filed with various intelligence agencies. The work kept his hand in the game and gave him a little bump in his income, but of course it was indescribably dull.
    When Gil answered, Malloy said, 'Do you know who's sleeping with Jack Farrell?'
    'Should I?'
    'Hamburg police are saying he was in bed with Helena Chernoff last night.'
    'The media is going to go ape on this guy, T. K.'
    'What have you got on the lady, Gil?'
    Malloy heard the clacking of computer keys, then, 'About six gigabytes. Pics, police reports, intelligence summaries, biometrics, video. . .'
    'You have her on video?'
    Malloy heard more key-tapping. 'Several, actually. You kill people in hotels and that's what happens. Got a gunfight in a parking garage. . . footage of her shooting a man when she was working for Julian Corbeau. . . a ton of stuff actually.'
    'She worked for Corbeau?'
    'The only one left standing as far as I can tell.'
    'I'm going to need everything you have on this woman, Gil - not just summaries.'
    'Sorry. Can't do it. Only a handful of people are authorised to access most of this stuff.'
    Malloy looked at his watch. 'What's the problem?'
    'Jurisdiction. There's possible activity inside U. S. borders; so we can't send that to you without formal requests and high level approval.'
    'Give me the broad strokes.'
    'You're on a secure line?'
    'You, me and Big Brother.'
    'Main case is Senator Brooks. From the 2004 election?'
    Malloy didn't place the name immediately. 'What was his story?'
    'Plane crash.'
    'Right. Won the election anyway.'
    'But the governor got to make the appointment.'
    'Right. He tapped someone in the other party. Democracy at work. What's Chernoff got to do with it?'
    'They were calling it a pilot error on the news, but there may have been tampering, and FBI found some footage on a security camera somewhere that might have been our girl.'
    'I thought Chernoff worked mostly in the old East Bloc countries.'
    'That's where she got her start. In the past ten years she has been working in the West - but very quietly and mostly against politicians and legitimate businessmen.'
    'I've got to have this stuff, Gil. Get your supervisor to call Jane Harrison if you have to.'
    'Teaming up with the Iron Maiden again, are you?'
    'Catching Farrell has become a priority. Right now Chernoff is the only lead.'
    'With Chernoff's track record, T.