Breaking the Dance Read online

  To Cindy

  Copyright Information

  Breaking the Dance: A World of Spies Mystery © 2019 by Clare O’Donohue.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2019

  E-book ISBN: 9780738756974

  Book format by Samantha Penn

  Cover design by Shira Atakpu

  Editing by Nicole Nugent

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: O’Donohue, Clare, author.

  Title: Breaking the dance : a world of spies mystery / by Clare O’Donohue.

  Description: First Edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Midnight Ink, [2019] |

  Series: A world of spies mystery ; #2.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018052801 (print) | LCCN 2018055348 (ebook) | ISBN

  9780738756974 (ebook) | ISBN 9780738756547 (alk. paper)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Spy stories. | Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3615.D665 (ebook) | LCC PS3615.D665 B74 2019 (print) |

  DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018052801

  Midnight Ink does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

  Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

  Midnight Ink

  Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  2143 Wooddale Drive

  Woodbury, MN 55125

  www.midnightinkbooks.com

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Acknowledgments

  I made my first (but hopefully not last) trip to Argentina to research this book. It is an amazingly beautiful country and there was inspiration everywhere. I first have to thank two people I met in Buenos Aires—Saul, who taught me how to make empanadas, and Marco, who showed me the basics of tango. I also discovered writers and painters I’d never been aware of before, and fell in love with Ushuaia, a city that may be at the end of the world but is most certainly worth a visit. I did as much research as possible, and loved every minute, but any mistakes in the book are evidence I did not do enough and come with my apologies.

  A book is made up of many people working together to make it real. For me that includes my agent, Sharon Bowers; Midnight Ink’s acquiring editor, Terri Bischoff, and my editor, Nicole Nugent; and everyone at Midnight Ink. Thanks to my mom, Dennis, Jack, Cindy, Steven, and Mike for dealing with a writer in the family. And thanks to my friends who offered support, served as early readers, and forgave me for the many times I cancelled plans so I could research and write this book.

  Finally, I want to thank Kevin, for his many Finn-like ways.

  The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe.

  You have to make it fall.

  —Che Guevara

  Zurich, Switzerland

  Declan Murphy stood outside the Fraumunster Church and watched. It was September, so there were only a few tourists wandering the area near him. Enough, he thought, to keep him from looking out of place, but not so many that he would have to be worried about being overheard. It was just the amount of foreign voices and selfies he would have chosen, if that sort of thing were possible to control.

  Not that Zurich was ever really a city for tourists. The winding pathways filled with shops selling fondue pots were a misdirection. Most tourists came to the city for a day before heading off to Lucerne or the Matterhorn.

  The people who stayed usually did so for one reason. Zurich was a city of money. Not always made honestly. Often hidden. It was a city where everyone spoke four languages and kept secrets in each of them.

  It was not his favorite place, if only because it reminded him too much of himself.

  When it was time, Declan walked inside, up the center aisle, past the massive pillars, to the choir. He was not a religious man. He and God had given up on each other a long time before, but he did like churches. So much sin and forgiveness comingling among the cool air and whispered voices. So much pointless hope.

  He took a seat to the left and looked up at the windows. The church was built on the remains of a ninth-century monastery, but that’s not what brought people in. It was the windows. Extraordinary stained-glass windows designed by Marc Chagall when he was in his eighties. Declan breathed out, feeling slightly more free in their presence. Certainly more at peace than he’d felt since he’d left Ireland. Each window was dominated by a color—red, blue, green, yellow—that, in the early morning light, bathed the church with drama and excitement. It was how art was meant to be. Public and private all at once, for everyone who cared to see it. He knew he was a man of few principles, but at least he was consistent in this one belief.

  As he sat, watching the softness of the light play off the gray stone of the church’s floor, a man slid next to him.

  “Guten Morgen.”

  Declan nodded at his new seat-mate, a small man with a Turkish accent. “Morning,” he said.

  Like Declan, the man’s eyes were on the windows. He took a deep breath, as if meditating. “You’ve had losses.”

  Declan bit the inside of his lip. “Months ago. I’ve put it behind me.”

  “You are in need of friends, I think.”

  “I’m in need of money, mate.”

  The man looked puzzled, but Declan felt no need to explain. “There are those who would pay well for the book,” the man said.

  The book. An address book that had been almost within his reach before it was gone. “It was taken by two Americans. Amateurs.”

  “They have it?”

  Declan shook his head. “I don’t know. Either they have it or they handed it over to Blue.”

  Again, the man looked puzzled. This time Declan helped him out.

  “They thought it was Interpol. They don’t understand the finer points of the game.”

  “Do they know what the book means?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think Blue knows, either.”

  The man let out a breath. Declan hadn’t realized until that moment that the man had been nervous. He allowed himself a half smile at the thought, at knowing he wasn’t the only one with muscles constantly tense, eyes always on the alert.

  “You drew attention to yourself recently,” the man said. “Blue is after you.”

  “I’m a small fish.”

  “But you could point toward the bigger fish if you wanted to.”

&nbsp
; “I just want to get off this bloody continent. And I need a bit of cash.”

  The man nodded. “Our porteño friend needs some aid.”

  “I’d heard there was trouble.”

  “The job was bigger than he could handle. It’s brought unwelcome attention, and most are deciding to stay away.”

  “Leaving our friend desperate for help.” Declan felt a little thrill at the idea.

  The man nodded. “He has a reputation, you know this, for being reckless. Think through carefully before you say yes.”

  “But there’s money to be earned.”

  “Yes, there is money.”

  “And it’s spring in Argentina.”

  “A time of renewal. A fresh start.”

  As the man spoke a woman moved toward the windows, looking up with the kind of awe that made Declan envy her. Seeing something beautiful for the first time is unlike any other experience.

  “Send me the details,” Declan said.

  As he got up, the man grabbed his arm. “If things go wrong, I cannot help you. And, from what I understand, there’s no one left in Ireland who can offer you any assistance. You’ll be completely on your own.”

  “Not entirely,” Declan said. “There are two people who owe me a favor.”

  “Capable people?”

  Declan raised an eyebrow, amused at a memory he wasn’t intent on sharing. “Surprisingly so.”

  One

  The days were just starting to get shorter. By six o’clock the sky had taken on a streaky pinkness, but even that was yielding to the coming darkness. Outside there was the laughter of students enjoying both the September warmth and the freedom of a Thursday afternoon. But Hollis Larsson was still in her office at Bradford University, still typing, a half-dozen books on the United Nations crowding her desk.

  It wasn’t her already delayed book on the history of the UN that she was writing, though. Instead she was adding the final touches to her lecture on Interpol. She’d become fascinated with the subject, the first time in years she’d been excited to teach her students about the complexities of international relations.

  But it was what she couldn’t teach them that interested her the most. A short mission to Ireland for Interpol just a few months earlier had turned into an adventure, both dangerous and exciting. She could still recall the thrill of uncovering a killer, though the fear she’d felt at the time had faded a bit. From the safety of her small Michigan town, it seemed like a dream. If it was, it was one she and Finn had shared and kept as a secret between them.

  She leaned back in her chair, stretching her spine to relieve the tension that lived there these days. Too much sitting. There was some report somewhere that it was worse than smoking, which seemed impossible and plausible all at once. At least with smoking there was the high of nicotine and the noir beauty of wisps of smoke. Sitting was just an ache, a rounded spine, and an increasing waistline. But it couldn’t be helped. She had research to do—and not the kind she could pawn off on a grad student.

  This research was about Blue, the group that lived somehow within Interpol, or beside it. In Ireland it had been brought up more than once, and in a way that made it clear it was a secret entity. It was intriguing. Interpol was founded in the 1920s to allow for police organizations to better coordinate international investigations and catch criminals. Blue seemed to operate in the gray area between what is specifically illegal and what isn’t—more CIA than police. But why would it be needed?

  She couldn’t answer the question despite months of trying. There was nothing she could find. No whispers in academia anyway. Even people who had devoted their lives to understanding Interpol had never heard of any intelligence organization operating across international borders. Cooperation between countries’ intelligence agencies, yes, but working as one group? One retired professor she contacted actually laughed at the idea.

  “We can’t even get the FBI and the CIA to coordinate, and we’re all Americans,” he’d said. “Do you honestly think that the Brits, the Aussies, the Germans, and who knows who else would team up in some secret group?”

  “Maybe if the threat were significant enough,” she’d countered.

  He laughed again. “Intelligence agencies guard their territory like mothers guard their young. Wouldn’t happen. Couldn’t happen. Where do you come up with these ideas?”

  She didn’t say. She didn’t know if she could trust him with the truth that she’d been in the center of a Blue operation and knew of a threat that could potentially crash the world’s financial markets. She and Finn had decided early on that going public would only put them in more danger. She let the retired professor think she was over-

  reaching.

  “Don’t go chasing shadows,” he’d advised her. “I know these days academics want to make a name for themselves, get on all the cable news shows with bestselling books. But don’t ever forget, Hollis, we’re teachers. And what we teach are facts, not theories.”

  And now, sitting alone at her desk, she had to admit, aside from limited personal experience of Blue, all she had were theories.

  “Maybe it is a joke,” she said out loud, with nothing but the dust bunnies gathering under her desk to hear her. Maybe the agents who spoke of Blue were just playing some game. She shut off her computer for the day and stood up for the first time in hours. Her hip creaked a little. At forty you just couldn’t miss three weeks of yoga and expect to stay flexible.

  “Dr. Larsson?” A woman about her age peaked her head into the office. “Can I bother you for a moment?”

  Hollis waved her in. The woman in turn waved to someone behind her and in seconds she was joined by a man. Both dressed in jeans and Bradford University t-shirts, with overeager grins and the nervous expectations of the parents of freshmen. Hollis didn’t know either of them, but she knew immediately the conversation she was about to have.

  “I’m Anne,” the woman began. “Our son Jim is a student of yours and we’re just wondering how he’s doing.”

  “The semester just started. I don’t even know everyone’s name. Jim …?”

  “He had a quiz,” the man said. “He got a C. He wasn’t a C student in high school and it worried us. So we thought we’d both take the day off work and drive here from Grand Rapids.”

  “Not just for this,” the woman corrected him. “Jim needs some new clothes and we also thought maybe we could stock his fridge. I don’t want him living on pizza.”

  “What can I help you with?” Hollis asked with a practiced tone of patience.

  The man nodded. “Sorry, Professor, my wife worries. He’s our oldest, you see. We thought maybe Jim might need some extra tutoring. Or maybe he’s partying too hard and he needs a stern warning. I remember my college days.”

  “Arthur!” the woman said. “He doesn’t party,” she assured Hollis.

  Helicopter parents. They got worse every year.

  “He’s just adjusting to the workload,” Hollis told them, as she’d told many parents before them. “It takes time for all freshmen to find their sea legs. I’ll keep an eye on him and if there’s any concerns about his grades, I’ll be in touch.” She had no intention of following through on that. If her guess was right, she wouldn’t need to; Anne and Arthur would be checking in regularly.

  Hollis turned off her desk lamp and moved toward her office door. The parents moved with her, luckily, until they were all in the hallway. Hollis locked the door and smiled. “Nice to meet you both. I’m sure Jim will adjust. They all do.”

  “He said your husband is a teacher here,” Arthur said.

  “Yes, world literature, but Jim wouldn’t have a class with him. Not yet, anyway. He mainly teaches graduate students.”

  “It sounds fascinating,” Anne gushed. “You with world politics and your husband with world literature. You must have wonderful conversations over dinner. Maybe Jim will want to
major in that.”

  “Who can make a living with a literature degree?” Arthur said, less as a question than an obvious statement.

  “Take care.” Hollis smiled and turned in the other direction. As she reached the stairs she heard Anne telling her husband he had been rude, and wondering, loudly, how that would affect their precious child’s grades.

  She had several students named Jim, but she only taught one freshman class, Intro to World History. It wouldn’t be too hard to figure out which one of them belonged to Arthur and Anne. But that was next week’s problem. She had a long weekend stretching out in front of her and she wasn’t going to waste a moment of it thinking about school.

  Two

  Hollis walked from Mason Hall across the campus to the faculty parking, crunching leaves under her feet as she stepped. As she did, she knew that someone was following her. She was always listening for steps that patterned hers, slowing when she slowed, quickening when she stepped up her pace. Usually the pattern broke after a few yards as the person behind her moved away. Not following her, she would realize, just walking behind her.

  But this time there was no break. The steps stayed the same as hers from almost when she left the building, through the quad, and even through the shortcut she took across the library’s front lawn. Every time she turned, the steps behind her turned.

  She listened carefully. It wasn’t two pairs of steps, so it was unlikely that the parents were the ones following her. Besides, they would hardly just follow; they would likely be shouting her name, flagging her down to show her photos of Jim as a baby or high school valedictorian or something else that would send their son into therapy for years.

  This was one set of footsteps. And whoever they belonged to, they were beginning to move faster. They were catching up.

  In just a moment she would reach the parking lot. Her car was in the second row, fourth from the right, as always. She could move quickly and be inside before the steps caught up with her. Or she could turn around and face what she knew would be trouble.