The Brotherhood of the Rose Read Online Free PDF

gazed past the beach toward whitecaps. Passing them, his footsteps rumbling on the boardwalk, he glanced at his watch again.
    The man would be dead by now.
    The lights of the greenhouse reflected off its glass, concealing the night. Pacing the aisles, Eliot tried to distract himself with his roses, savoring their fragrance. Different varietiesmyriad sizes and colors. Complicated, delicate, they required perfect care and cultivation.
    Like the men he controlled, he thought. Indeed he'd always believed that his men were as sensitive as his roses and as beautiful. With thorns.
    But sometimes even the best of his creations had to be culled.
    He paused to study a rose so red it was crimson. It seemed to have been dipped in blood. Exquisite.
    He concentrated on the rose he'd mentioned to Saul in Denver. Blue.
    Frowning, he glanced at his watch. Near midnight. Outside, the April night was chilly and dry. But the greenhouse was warm and humid. Though he sweated, he wore his black vest and suitcoat.
    He pursed his lips. His wizened forehead narrowed. Something was wrong. An hour ago, he'd been told of the mission's failure. Saul had survived. The death team had removed the assassin's body, but not before an Atlantic City security guard had found it. That sloppy detail had to be taken care of. To quell his nervousness, Eliot amused himself by imagining the startled look on the Atlantic City headliner's face if he'd entered his dressing room and found a corpse on the floor. After the many gangster movies the superstar singer had appeared in real life might have been an education for him. But how would that sloppy detail have been taken care of?
    His amusement died when he heard the phone. The special phone-green, appropriate for a greenhouse, next to the black phone on the potting table. Only a handful of people knew its number. He hoped one man in particular would be calling.
    Though he'd waited anxiously, he forced himself to let the phone ring two more times. Clearing his throat, he picked it up. "Hello?"
    "Romulus," the strained voice said. "Black flag," The man sounded out of breath. Eliot took for granted the greenhouse and its phones were bugged. He and his men used prearranged codes. Romulus was Saul. Black flag meant an emergency specifically that his cover had been blown and someone was dead.
    Eliot answered, "Give me a number. I'll call you back in fifteen minutes."
    "No," Saul blurted.
    Eliot bit his lip. "Then tell me how you want to do it."
    "I've got to keep moving. You give me a number."
    "Wait ten seconds." Eliot reached in his suitcoat, pulling out a pen and note pad. He wrote down a number he knew Saul had memorized.
    967-876-9988
    Below it, he wrote the number of a pay phone he knew was safe.
    703-338-9022
    He subtracted the bottom from the top.
    264-538-0966
    He read Saul the remainder.
    Saul in turn would subtract that number from the one he'd memorized.
    967-876-9988
    - 264-538-0966
    703-338-9022
    He'd then have the number of the pay phone Eliot planned to use. "In thirty minutes," Saul said abruptly.
    Eliot heard a click as Saul hung up. He set the phone down. Tense, he forced himself to wait till he had control. Saul's insistence that he call Eliot, not the other way around, was unexpected but not disastrous. He'd have needed to leave here and reach a safe phone, no matter what. But if Saul had given him a number, he could have used it to locate the phone Saul was calling from. He could then have sent a team to that location.
    Now he had to think of another way. He concentrated on his roses, nodding as the solution came to him.
    He checked his watch, surprised that ten minutes had elapsed since Saul had hung up. But he still had time to drive to the phone he planned to use outside a local supermarket- after midnight, no one would be in the area-and make a hurried call to set up the trap. A minute to explain instructions. Then 'he'd wait for Saul to get in touch with him again. All the same, as he turned off the