Free Kingdom of Darkness by Andy McDermott

said.
    The blonde perked up. ‘Oh, same with me! I don’t suppose you could . . . help me think of some?’
    Nina was spared from further conversation by the arrival of two cops at the cell door. ‘Wilde!’ one barked. ‘Nina Wilde. Come with us, please.’
    The ‘please’ was something new; her status with the Beverly Hills Police Department had apparently been upgraded. Had her phone call finally gotten results? She stood and waited for the cops to unlock the cell, then went with them to an office on a higher floor. A sunset sky was visible beyond the slatted blinds.
    Eddie was already there. ‘Oh, thank Christ,’ he said as she entered. ‘You okay?’
    ‘I’m fine,’ she replied as they embraced. She held him for a long moment, then eased her grip as she realised they had company: two stone-faced men in dark suits. ‘And you guys are . . . ?’
    ‘Special Agent Daniel Beck of the FBI,’ said the older of the pair. He gestured to his companion. ‘This is Agent John S. Petrelli. Dr Wilde, we’re glad you and your husband are okay.’
    ‘ We are, an’ all,’ Eddie told him with a humourless grin as the cops exited. ‘So, now that Nina’s here, maybe you can finally tell us what’s going on?’
    Beck seemed uncertain himself, which did not fill Nina with confidence. ‘Firstly, all the charges against you have been dropped. We’ve been ordered to take you back to New York. A . . . situation has arisen.’
    ‘No shit,’ said Nina impatiently. ‘A man gets murdered right in front of me, then the killer tries to shoot me too? I’d call that a situation as well.’
    ‘Who told you to take us home?’ Eddie asked.
    ‘The order came direct from Washington,’ Petrelli told him. ‘From the State Department – but it was approved by the White House.’
    The Englishman turned to his wife. ‘You must’ve done a good job with your phone call. Who did you ring?’
    ‘Seretse, at the UN. From what that young guy said just before he got shot, I figured the IHA needed to know. I never imagined Seretse would be able to pull strings all the way up to the White House, though.’
    ‘You got better results than me, then.’
    ‘Why, who did you call?’
    Eddie looked sheepish. ‘Macy. Only person I could think of in LA.’
    ‘What about Grant? Or even Marvin?’
    ‘You’ve got Marvin’s business card, so I didn’t have his number. And would you really want Grant having the paparazzi follow him down here?’
    ‘Good point. Is Macy okay?’
    ‘Yeah, she’s fine. A bit shaken up, but seeing someone get killed right in front of you’ll do that.’
    ‘I know,’ she agreed gloomily. ‘I thought I’d left this kind of thing behind me. I’d hoped I had.’
    ‘Maybe you should’ve let more people know you’d left the IHA. That kid might have given his conspiracy theory to someone else. What was in those papers, anyway?’
    ‘Something about the dig in Alexandria. I didn’t have time to see much, but he’d definitely got inside information – there was a plan of the outer tomb with specific archaeological notations on it.’ She turned to the FBI agents. ‘Where are the papers now? Some of them got burned up in the limo, and the cops took the rest from me.’
    ‘They’ve already been taken away for analysis,’ was Beck’s reply. ‘They’ll be brought to you in New York.’
    The couple exchanged glances. ‘Okay, what’s going on?’ Eddie demanded. ‘We blow up half of Beverly Hills, and then get to walk away as if nothing’s happened? You said there was a situation – what situation?’
    Beck passed a photograph from a manila folder to them. ‘Is this the man who tried to kill you, Dr Wilde?’
    Nina stared at the picture. Though the printout was new and glossy, it was clearly from an old source, the image a grainy, dirt-specked monochrome.
    The face on it was instantly recognisable, however. Glaring into the camera was her would-be assassin, the scar across his face clearly