Toxic Blonde

by David Stever

  “Ridiculous.”

  “Ever observe her doing anything out of the ordinary? Work late? Meet with anyone you did not know?”

  “Never. Why?”

  Quade closed his note book and laid his pen on the table. “Mr. Bellamy, we have reason to believe Ms. Kaine could be passing classified information about your technology to another country.”

  “Preposterous.”

  “You sure? Our intelligence tells us otherwise.”

  Bellamy loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar, ran his hand through his hair. “There was one time…I overheard her on the phone, and she spoke in a different language. It sounded like Russian, but I don’t speak it so I’m guessing.”

  “Did you say anything?”

  “No, but it gave me pause, made me wonder if George was correct in all his suspicions.”

  “He said he was suspicious?”

  “Not that she passed secrets. He was upset she had so much control. I thought he was jealous of her position. I always credited him with the advancements we made, but I wanted a young, dynamic personality as the face of the company and she was perfect.”

  “When did you overhear her conversation? The one in Russian?”

  “Few weeks ago, I think. Same time everything blew up with Mary Ann. When she got in the car accident and then moved out.”

  My turn. “You heard her speaking Russian and never questioned her?”

  He shook his head.

  “We observed you several times over the past two weeks with Keira at motels. We have photographic evidence of the two of you together, which I’m sure Mary Ann’s divorce lawyer will love, but it always seemed like an argument. Want to explain?”

  His eyes went wide. “Mary Ann had me followed?” He sipped at his coffee. “Wow, she actually did something. I didn’t think she had the balls.”

  “Well, Bellamy, you arrogant prick, you can only humiliate a woman so much.”

  “Hey!”

  He came out of his chair as if he was coming across the table at me, but Quade’s giant body came up first. “Sit back down. You don’t move unless I give you permission. Got it?”

  He sat, but still had a hint of defiance in his voice. “If all this was true, her colluding with another government, why didn’t she leave with the technology? She had ample time and resources.”

  “How do we know she didn’t?” I said.

  He did not respond. I wondered whether he was calculating his next move, or realizing what an idiot he was and accepting defeat.

  After a minute: “I trusted her. Everything was perfect. I experienced things on a professional and personal level that I thought would never happen. The company was…we were going to be superstars in the world of space technology. Life-changing technology, not just for us, but for the nation. And being with her…intimately, was more than amazing.”

  His chin dropped to his chest, but we could not allow him to sink too far. We might need him to help us.

  “We don’t know the damage, if any,” Quade said. “You’ll go back to your house and a couple of agents will remain with you until we reach some conclusion on this mess.”

  “I need to go to my office—”

  “What you need and what’s going to happen are two different things. Don’t move.” Quade got up from the table and made a phone call.

  “Have you tried calling her this morning?” I asked.

  “Yes. She won’t answer.”

  Quade and I decided on the way over to not tell him his wife was also missing. We did not want him to react, or decide to become a hero in his mind and tip off Keira, which could put Mary Ann and Katie in more danger.

  Quade requested several more agents to assist and we sat with Bellamy until Ortiz arrived. She loaded him into her car with instructions to stay with him at his house until the other agents show up. We were back in Quade’s car when the burner phone vibrated in my pocket.

  “Well, talk about timing,” I said, showing Quade the number on the phone.

  I answered, “Hello.”

  “Mr. Rhodes, time for us to meet.”

  42

  The team was in high gear, all throwing out options and opinions on how to proceed with my meeting, now scheduled for ten that evening in a small city park near Santorini’s, the Greek breakfast place. The call with Keira was brief. I was to wait on a bench next to the playground.

  Quade and I had brought Ortiz and Eric up to speed on our Bellamy interrogation. The two agents proceeded to clash on how to handle my safety, surveillance of the park, how many men they needed, and how many they could grab on short notice. I suggested it might be necessary to involve the PCPD, but Quade refused. He spouted national security mumbo jumbo and how the local police do not hold clearances.

  We were crashed around my kitchen table—Eric, the FBI, and me. Quade wanted me to wear a wire, which I quickly shot down as a death wish.

  “We can embed it in your jacket collar. They’ll never find it.”

  “No. Too risky. They can scan me and pick up transmission signals. Same with the GPS button.”

  “You need some electronics on you.”

  “My phone.”

  “Right,” Eric said. “They’ll expect him to have a phone, so I’ll follow him until the bad dudes take his celly away.”

  Quade checked to Ortiz and she nodded an approval. “No devices, phone only.”

  Ortiz continued, “I don’t want you to drive there. We should drop you a few blocks away and you walk. That way you can sense the vibe on the street, check counter-surveillance, see if you catch a tail. We have men on the block now, scouting, securing a vantage point.”

  “What if it’s a decoy? She could be sending me there as a diversion.”

  “We thought about that, too,” Quade said. “Not much we can do. No ransom instructions, no communication to Bellamy, no activity at her apartment. NSA reports no extra chatter. All too quiet, and that bothers me.”

  “Maybe she makes her ransom demand through me tonight?”

  Ortiz shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense, after the attack on the house, she would risk bringing us to her?”

  “Mama’s right.” Eric bounced around the room. “None of this makes sense.” We all turned our attention to our boy genius and awaited the wisdom that was about to pour forth. “Let’s think this through…she had access to the technology, but…what? Nothing. Bellamy had a point—she had the resources to leave with the loot months ago, but stayed. Why? You dudes observe her and Tommy boy arguing more than once, why? Super-agent Quade tells us she is a Russian sleeper agent—so freakin’ cool—but anyhow, old man Ainsley clues her in about PI Dude and the feds hot on her ass, then he rats out the safe house so she can attack and now holds hostages—”

  Quade had no patience. “We don’t need a history of the case—”

  “Let him finish, he’s building to a point. I hope,” Ortiz said.

  “Thank you, Mama. Me and you—two bodies, one soul.”

  “No, we are not. Get to the point.”

  “It appears she’s in control, the hostages and all, but she’s on defense. Using hostages as protection. So, WWJBD.”

  We all said, “Huh?” at the same time.

  “WWJBD. What Would James Bond Do? When Bond gets squeezed, he goes on offense, right? Not defense. My point is this: I say she’s stuck. She’s cornered, so we move in while we can.”

  We stared at him and allowed his peculiar 007 reference to sink in. However, he was dead on. She was stuck.

  “He’s right. Go back to what Bellamy said. Why not leave when she had the chance?” I said.

  Eric wasn’t finished. “Something else—you said she was photographing the inventory? She knows damn well that you guys will eventually see the video. It was all for show.” He stretched his skinny body out on my sofa. “Thank you, and PI Dude, I think I earned a permanent job with the firm.”

  Quade pulled a beer out of the fridge. “No way. You wasted our time, hacker dude.” />
  Ortiz helped herself to her own beer. “No, he didn’t. He’s close. Something happened, and we don’t know what. You saw arguments with Bellamy, so she’s mad at him for some reason, and at the same time Ainsley blows it all up by complaining to Washington, which brings us in, and her scheme is shot to hell.”

  My turn to be animated and spout a theory. “Yes, right. She’s exposed, doesn’t have the technology, and needs leverage to get herself out of the quicksand, which is closing in and pulling her down fast.”

  “PI Dude, nice metaphor. Any food in here?”

  “Yeah, I’m starving, too. We did not eat all day,” Quade said. “Okay, he makes a good point—she’s jammed. What I still don’t understand—where are her handlers? Why not exfiltrate her when it all got hot?”

  “No technology, no worth. She has no value without the space plans, so the boys in Moscow turned their back,” I said.

  “Damn, Johnny.” Quade marched around the condo. “If you’re correct, and she is now dead to the motherland, and if they abandoned her, her only recourse is to—”

  “Flip.” Ortiz slammed her hand on the table. “Jesus, that’s it. She’s going to use the hostages to negotiate a deal for herself.”

  “Again, you are welcome,” Eric yelled from the sofa.

  “Seems rather dramatic, holding hostages—if they are hostages, we have no idea at this point—why not walk into the FBI and turn herself in?”

  “She needs something, dudes.”

  “Eric is correct. Why would someone in her spot hold a hostage? To gain, what? Money? If her cover is blown, which it is, and Russia turned their back, she needs protection.”

  We needed a break and all sat silent. Eric called down to the bar for sandwiches to be sent up, and none of us moved until Mike came in twenty minutes later. We went through various scenarios with him and he offered his opinion, which matched our consensus. She must be backed into a corner and the only way out was to hold some leverage.

  I rejected Ortiz’s suggestion they drive me within a few blocks of the park then walk. If she made me as Delarosa, then we assumed I would be tailed as soon as I left this building. The smartest play would be for me to go alone and sit and wait as instructed.

  After we demolished the sandwiches, we decided figuring out Keira’s motive was a waste of our time and we turned to the strategy for tonight’s rendezvous between her and Arthur Rhodes.

  Ortiz and Quade agreed to station themselves three blocks from the park. I would leave my phone on and Eric would monitor from my condo and maintain an open line between him and the agents. We ordered him to stay put and to not leave the condo under any circumstances. Quade also agreed to keep counter-surveillance to minimum. If she truly was FSB and had support, a man would be tucked in every doorway, hidden in every shadow, and watching from every rooftop. Experts in surveillance tradecraft, they would sniff out a FBI agent in seconds.

  At dusk, I wandered to my balcony with a double pour of bourbon in a glass. Over the course of my career, I ran undercover ops many times. Posed as a drug dealer, junkie, gun runner, pimp, john, bookie, and even as a fence trying to unload a boxcar full of televisions. Every time my heart pounded, my nerves charged, and most times the sting went down as designed. This one, though, I’m not so sure. People I set out to protect are now held unprotected. How did I fail them?

  Ainsley was an enigma and I was not sure what to think about him. Why would he tip off Keira to the safe house? Was he working for her or against her? I’m dying for that answer.

  Katie consumed my mind since last night. Where was she at this moment? Was she hurt, under duress, in pain? Was she locked in some room, or tied to chair like the first time I met her? Was she hungry, thirsty, cold, naked, or clothed? Before I met Katie I never dreamed of someone working with me on a case. Now I can’t think of working a case without her.

  Mary Ann Bellamy. The ultimate innocent victim. All she did was take action against her sorry excuse of a husband; now she finds herself at the mercy of a woman who would inflict pain on a whim and take pleasure in doing so.

  Eric was inside, still stretched out on the sofa, catching a nap before tonight’s fun. I smiled at the thought of his wacky, but uniquely likable personality and brilliant mind.

  WWJBD? He would not be melancholy and wallow in self-pity. He would be tying the perfect bowtie, slipping on his expensive, expertly tailored black tuxedo jacket, tucking the Walther PPK in his shoulder holster, and then stopping by the hotel bar for a martini, shaken not stirred.

  I toasted 007 and drank my bourbon.

  Katie and Mary Ann, I’m on my way.

  43

  A damp, misty fog rolled in from the ocean, God’s way of adding atmosphere to the clandestine meeting with Keira, and added a wet shine to the streets. I took a cab from McNally’s to six blocks from Greek Town Park and walked the rest of the way. Every man, woman, or child on the street seemed suspicious. My nerves pinged on high alert, but I decided to see this through and could not turn back. I had no choice: my client, and a person I held dear to me, faced danger and it was my job to bring this to a safe completion.

  I wondered how long Keira would play out my Arthur Rhodes persona. Would she keep the ruse going, or upend my deception and challenge me, or would she come clean and use me as her ticket out of her botched mission to steal technology from the United States and beg for a deal? Or, would they flat out kill me and leave me at the mercy of our Lord? Then I’d need all the help I could get.

  Eric and Ortiz pulled up city maps of the park before I left to aid in reconnaissance. Two acres of a grassy recreation area with a children’s playground and soccer field at one end, and a small wooded patch with walking paths at the other. I sat on the bench near the playground as instructed.

  Forty yards from me, a homeless person, or a bum in my day, was bundled up and stretched out on a bench. No other souls in sight. Eric manned our communications center back in the condo and Quade and Ortiz waited in a car some blocks away. Ten o’clock came and went. I had my phone in my hand and my Beretta in the waistband of my jeans. At ten twenty, the homeless man threw off a blanket and stood, glanced around, and shuffled in my direction, the first time I ever prayed for a person to actually be homeless and coming to ask for handout. I moved my gun into my jacket pocket.

  At fifteen yards, he said, “Hey, buddy, can you help me out?”

  “Not tonight.”

  He was now within twenty feet and his gait changed from a shuffle to upright, swift, and I was his target. I stood and pulled the gun just as an arm came from behind me and knocked it from my hand. I turned and swung but the homeless guy was now on me and we both went to the ground. I landed on my stomach, with him on my back.

  All his weight pressed on my back, pinning me down. He said, “Do it,” to the other man and then a sharp sting to my neck. Did they get me with a needle? I mustered some strength and bucked up and kicked out, scrambled to my feet. Or did he let me up? It was too dark to find my gun. Or did they have it? I squared off to both of them, but they stood there, watching me. A stiffness in my neck traveled down my body…they got me with something. A dizziness swirled in my head. Where’s my gun? The bench a few feet from me and I wanted to sit. What? Who? I stepped forward but my legs did not work and I fell to the grass.

  I could see and hear but my body would not move. They turned me onto my back. “Find his phone.” Light mist sparkled in the glow of a streetlamp. They tugged at my shoes…stripped me of my clothes. I tried to shake off the paralysis, but nothing…naked on the wet grass…cold. More tugging and pulling and now no longer wet. Did they put new clothes on me? Quade, where are you? Are you seeing this? A flash of clarity and I figure they will leave my clothes and phone on the bench, as if I never left that spot. Eric will never know…

  I floated in the air. Being carried? Treetops…the night sky…crystal raindrops in the shine of arc lights. We stopped…doors opened and closed. I was on my back…the cargo area of a van. The whit
e van? My arms and legs frozen. The men sat in the front and did not speak. We were moving—to where? Bumps, stops, turns…keep track, I told myself…need to tell Quade. A cell phone rang. One man said two words I did not understand. On my way to somewhere to never be found…Katie, hold on, I’m coming. I tried to lift my head…so dizzy…then a thick fog of black rolled over me.

  ***

  My head throbbed, my arms and wrists hurt, but I welcomed the pain because feeling was back in my body. I opened my eyes to the harsh glare of a light bulb hanging from a ceiling. I blinked them into focus and scanned around. A basement of a house? I stood upright, my feet on the floor but secured. My arms and legs outstretched, in a standing, spread-eagle position. Thin ropes wrapped around each wrist, pulling my arms up and out, tied to eye screws in the rafters above. A rope was around my right ankle with the other end fastened to a steel support pole. My left leg was tethered to an old workbench.

  And I was naked.

  Talk about being in a vulnerable position. I yanked on the ropes but it only made the knots tighter. Thoughts raced through my head: last night, drugged, brought here in the van, now hung up like a lamb for slaughter.

  Dirty, dingy, damp, and musty. Filthy concrete floor, boxes stacked in one corner, and two old bicycles under a set of wooden stairs to my left. To my right, a furnace and water heater. A small window sat high on the far wall. Still dark outside. How long was I strung up here? Nothing good went through my brain. Were Katie and Mary Ann also held in this house? How long did Quade and Ortiz sit and wonder why I never moved from the bench? How long did Eric stare at the blinking cursor indicating my phone still in the park? Did they think Keira met me and we sat there for our meeting? Did the FBI have any visual surveillance on me? My abduction probably took less than one minute. At what point did they decide enough was enough and move in? By that time, I was on my back in a van and on my way to...where?

  The muscles in my arms ached.

  Ignore it, Delarosa. Pain is the least of your problems at the moment. Listen, remember everything.