by K. A. Tucker
It has always been so easy to talk to Bentley. We speak the same language.
He sets the case on the coffee table in front of me and pops the latches. I don’t even need to look to know that there’s a Beretta Px4 inside. It’s my model of choice, what I’m most comfortable with, and Bentley always ensures I have one. Next to it is a suppressor, a Gerber multi-tool, a fixed-blade knife, and a new burner phone. Beneath is a folded copy of the San Francisco Chronicle and an unmarked tan folder.
I don’t make a move for the folder just yet.
“There was a . . . complication recently,” Bentley begins, choosing his words carefully. I never get all the details, but I always get enough to do my job proficiently. “It involves an ex-employee of Alliance, giving explicit details about an assignment in Afghanistan.”
“What kind of assignment exactly?”
“Intelligence collection. Marine Corps captured an insurgent and allowed my guys to question him. It was highly successful, leading us to the capture of Adeeb Al-Naseer.”
A terrorist on the most-wanted list who bombed an office building in Seattle, killing almost a thousand people.
There’s only one reason that I could understand the U.S. forces handing him over, and it’s that they wanted to keep their hands clean of what needed to be done to make him talk. “But the general public doesn’t need to know the details behind the interrogation,” I surmise.
“I’m sure you’ve been following the news. You know how much heat Alliance has been under lately. The media has cost me millions in contacts, which are smaller and harder to get as it is. The war glory days are over. And if these lies that Royce was spewing get out . . . the Pentagon will hang someone for this, just to appease voters. It’ll be Alliance, and that isn’t good for anyone.”
I nod. Average Americans, driving along in their Chevrolets, filling their stomachs with burgers and their heads with Hollywood’s latest heist or action movie, have no fucking clue what it’s like to be in enemy territory, fighting a war to make sure it’s never brought to American soil again. Half of them are even arguing the need for the war over there to begin with.
So when a journalist latches onto bullshit propaganda about U.S. military and guys like Alliance’s contract workers doing unsavory things and blasts it out into the media, all those lefty liberals start screaming. While they enjoy their breakfast coffee under the blanket of safety we’ve given them. And then our government responds, because it has to. In the end, Bentley will suffer.
Just the thought of that makes me grit my teeth with anger.
“His name was Dylan Royce. He was let go four months ago for performance-related and drug dependency issues. Basically, he was a shit disturber, with a developing taste for violent behavior. We gave him a heavy severance package in exchange for a signed confidentiality agreement. Turns out he didn’t think that gag order applied in a tattoo shop. He ran his mouth off to a fucking tattoo artist and the entire conversation was recorded on the store’s surveillance system.”
“What kinds of things were said?”
“Bullshit. All of it. All kinds of false accusations. But it won’t matter if the media gets hold of it,” Bentley mutters. “The tattoo shop owner actually called Alliance’s 800 number—pulled it off our website, I assume—and told the operator that he had damaging information on Alliance that I would want to know about. She didn’t know what to do so she put him through to my operatives director’s voice mail, where he then left a message threatening to send the video to a journalist.”
I see where this is going. “How much was he asking for in exchange?”
“Six hundred and fifty-five thousand.”
“That’s . . . specific. Why not an even million?”
Bentley snorts. “Who knows. My operatives director called him back and asked for proof, so the guy texted him a short clip of a video, taken by a phone, of a monitor—some crappy little security monitor, it looks like. My guy bought us four days by agreeing to an exchange. Told the shop owner that we needed that time to round up that much cash.”
I snort. I doubt Bentley would have an issue filling a duffel bag in an afternoon.
“That’s when my operatives director briefed me. I couldn’t risk that video floating around for four days so I briefed and dispatched a team within two hours to recover the video from the shop owner and eliminate both of them from future risk of talking. Quietly. Royce sure as hell couldn’t be trusted anymore, gag order or not.”
Eliminate.
Kill.
I trust Bentley’s decision making, so if he thinks the guys had to go, then they had to go. “What happened?”
“That major clusterfuck happened.” He nods toward the newspaper. “Two dead bodies, surrounded by a media and police circus and a missing videotape. Had they used their heads and followed orders explicitly . . .” Bentley shakes his head. “My guys were supposed to take out Royce somewhere quiet first and then get to the shop at closing to seize the tape. But they decided to improvise, seeing as Royce was at the shop getting work done. A ‘two birds with one stone’ robbery cover-up.”
I reach for the newspaper, unfolding it to scan the front page: a double homicide at a dive tattoo shop in Mission District called Black Rabbit. The inset shows two faces—one, a Caucasian ex-Marine named Dylan Royce, whom you could easily identify on the street as such with his bulky size and brush cut; the other, a Willie Nelson wannabe named Ned nearing his sixties, who doesn’t look like he’d be capable of serious risk to anyone. Then again, I’ve watched hundred-pound women produce bombs from beneath their burkas as they charge a U.S. Humvee, ready to blow everyone up. I don’t underestimate anyone anymore.
But this Royce guy . . . “It says he had a Medal of Honor?”
“Yup. An outstanding soldier, which is why we hired him. He went downhill, though. It started with Vicodin. He turned into a real troublemaker after that.” Bentley shakes his head.
What a waste. “And this Ned guy. Why not just pay him off?” While I don’t ever question Bentley, I’m curious about this. Blackmail is shitty, but it’s not an automatic death sentence. At least, not in my book.
“For the same reason we don’t negotiate with terrorists, son.” Bentley’s tone is sharper. He’s always supported a strong stance on that. “Guys like that, who jump on the chance to make money off of horrible things they’re not supposed to know about anyways—they can’t be trusted, even after you pay them off. He’d probably pocket the money and then turn around and bury me by sending a copy of the video in. Or he’d come back for more. The guy had all kinds of unsavory connections. We can’t risk that shit. I’m not having my entire life brought down by some fucking tattoo artist looking to cash in.” He sighs. “So now you know why you’re here. I need you to find that recording.”
“I would definitely have handled this differently.” Namely, I would have had the video in hand before I pulled the trigger. But I also wouldn’t have pulled the trigger without Bentley’s say-so. “Who are these guys you sent in?”
“They’re two guys who worked closely with Royce in Afghanistan. I didn’t want to get anyone else outside this issue involved, and I figured they have a vested interest. One of them, though, is a bit of a loose cannon. Effective as hell at his job overseas, but . . .” He shakes his head, his lips pursed with regret. “I should have waited for you.”
I’m surprised he made that kind of mistake. Bentley’s the kind of guy who has three defense plans spinning before a problem has a chance to rear its ugly head. It’s his job to always have control of whatever situation he finds himself in. It’s how he’s made his fortune. It’s why the CIA taps his shoulder when it needs a problem solved “under the radar.”
He heaves a sigh. “If this video gets into the hands of the media, they’ll blow apart what we’re doing over there. It will cause irreparable damage to Alliance as a whole. And we’ve made so much good progress. So I think you can see why I need you here. It’s delicate. And it needs to be han
dled swiftly.”
I nod. Everyone talks, eventually. Everyone except me.
So Bentley needs me to get answers out of a corpse, it would seem. “What exactly am I looking for? A jump drive? A microchip?”
Bentley pops open a cigar box on his desk and pulls out two Bolivars, rolling them between his palms. “VHS tape. This shop owner used an archaic system for his surveillance.”
A fucking dinosaur in the world of recording mediums. “How many copies are there?”
“Just the one now, I believe. We found the video file of the recording on the shop owner Ned Marshall’s phone. Nothing came up on Royce’s phone. I’m guessing he had no clue this was happening.”
One day, I’d love to sit back and watch Bentley’s computer whizzes at work, digging up all this data, seeing what they can find and how fast. But that’s all interesting-to-know information, and I prefer to keep curiosity at bay and work on a need-to-know level. “What’s the official story?” Obviously the cops are going to be crawling all over a double homicide.
“Marshall has been linked to local motorcycle clubs for years, doing all their ink. SFPD assumes it’s either a random robbery or tied to one of this guy’s associations, so they’re sniffing over there. Royce will likely be written off as unfortunate collateral damage.”
“That’s good.” Having to watch my shadow for police always complicates things. “Has anyone searched their houses yet?”
“Royce moved back in with his mother after splitting with his girlfriend recently. He’s still in boxes. We slipped in and lifted his computer, to see if he was shooting his mouth off to anyone else. My guess is he felt the need to unload his resentment with Alliance on someone and figured the old man wouldn’t give two shits about what he had to say. Which means we need to focus on the tattoo artist if we want to find that tape. His house, the shop, anywhere it may be hidden. And you’re the only one I trust to get the job done right.”
My gaze flickers to the silver mark peeking out above his shirt collar, a glimpse of a time when his life was in my hands. Literally. When that bullet pierced Bentley’s artery, I was sure he would be gone in minutes, but I jammed my thumb into it to stem the blood flow anyway, keeping him alive long enough to drag him to safety and medical attention.
That bullet led to his retirement from the navy.
Ned’s house will be my first stop. It’s the most obvious one. “And we know it’s not in the shop?”
“Nothing came up in the police report. You’ll need to check it out, but keep it low-key. That place is too hot now, after what happened.”
I nod. “You said search and recovery, with potential target elimination. You’ve got two dead here. Who’s the third?” “Potential” means it may end up being straight search and recovery. I find the video, I hand it over, I get out. That’s not bad. It was my specialty, once upon a time. Low risk of being shot or stabbed, which is always nice. This means there’s a chance that I could be back to drinking my coffee and watching the cruise ships port in Santorini within days.
“A young woman by the name of Ivy Lee.”
I struggle to keep my expression even, suppressing ugly memories that threaten to rise as he strolls over to hand a cigar to me. I don’t want him to see that the past still affects me. Bentley needs to know that I am fine and that I can do what needs to be done. “Who is she to them?”
“She’s Ned Marshall’s niece and the only family member still in contact with him. They were close—lived together, worked together. Like two peas in a pod. Could have been his daughter.” He snips the end of his cigar off with a cutter. “She was hiding in the shop when the team went in to question and dispatch. She was able to give information to the police. A name and a description of one guy’s accent; a profile sketch of the other one, which the media circulated. Thankfully, there haven’t been any bites. It’s a fairly generic sketch.”
“Did she say anything about a video?”
He shakes his head. “Not a word.”
Which means she could be withholding information that she fears will get her killed.
I feel unease sliding down my back. I’ve been taking assignments from Bentley for almost five years, and all of them have been for middle-aged male targets and guaranteed threats. This will be the first female target, and we don’t even know if she truly is dangerous. I don’t like uncertainty when it comes to my job.
Setting the newspaper to the side, I flip open the tan folder. A petite, exotic girl with a full sleeve of tattoos and blue streaks in her black hair looks out at me, her piercing glare making me wonder if she might have seen the candid photo of her being snapped. She’s obviously part Asian, but her features are softer and fuller, suggesting a mix with something else.
I slide the end of the cigar into my mouth, reveling in the fresh grassy taste of the paper against my tongue, as I study her face. “What do we know about her?”
He tosses the cutters to me. “She never stays in one place for too long, she makes a lot of cash deposits and has several thousand in savings—a lot for someone her age and in her profession. She associates with dubious people. Bikers, street thugs. Even some dissident Irish Republicans when she was living in Dublin. She’s no innocent schoolgirl.”
Give Bentley twenty-four hours and he’ll have a dossier on anyone.
“We have to assume that she was in on it until we know otherwise, that her uncle involved her at some point, and gave her the videotape to hide.”
“And she needs to be eliminated?”
“I need to know all potential risks are eliminated.”
“That sounds like a collateral damage kill, Bentley, and you know I won’t do that.” My job is all about precision, and if I’m doing it right, there is no collateral damage. “Maybe she has it and doesn’t know it.”
Bentley pauses to stick his cigar into his mouth and light it. “You’re thinking Beijing, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” Two years ago, I was hunting down an American-born terrorist who stole a highly communicable virus from the CDC with intentions of selling it to extremists in North Korea. It took some blood and sweat, but he finally admitted to smuggling the tiny vial through American airport customs on his five-year-old daughter and then hiding it inside one of her dolls for the flight to Beijing, where he would await buyer contact.
News of the missing virus never made it beyond the walls of the CDC, buried to avoid pandemonium and public scrutiny; and whichever high-ranking CIA member tapped Bentley’s shoulder for help ensured that there would never be a paper trail to the U.S. government when the thief’s battered body washed up along the shore.
“Well, if that’s the case, she’s going to find out soon. She called a real estate agent about putting the place on the market within the next couple of weeks. She’ll have to clean it out to sell it, and if she finds a hidden videotape in there, she’ll sure as hell play it.”
Will it mean anything to her? Will she care?
Bentley draws several long pulls off the cigar to get it going, all the while watching me with a knowing gaze.
The copy of her driver’s license says she just turned twenty-five a few weeks ago. “Well, it’s definitely not hiding in one of her dolls,” I mutter quietly.
Bentley barks with laughter. “She looks like the type of girl who used to light dolls on fire instead.”
There’s definitely an edge to her, her heavy boots zagged with fluorescent pink laces, balancing out the plaid schoolgirl skirt that barely covers her ass. A skull stretches across her shirt, drawn in pink jewels, the California sun reflecting off them.
I wonder if it’s just a look, if her tongue and mind are as sharp.
“I need this handled right, Sebastian, and you’re the only one I trust,” he says between puffs, the rich, aromatic smoke fighting for my attention.
It’s the second time he’s said that.
“I’ll eliminate a known threat without question. You know that.” I settle my gaze on Bentley, who watches me intently.
“But I won’t end an innocent life.”
He pauses and smiles, and there’s a hint of sympathy there. “I’m not asking you to. If she doesn’t know about the tape, then keep it that way. Find it and bring it to me, and she and the world can go on believing that those other two were random, unfortunate deaths.”
“That means I can’t question her openly,” I warn him. A few hours of questioning always gets me the answers I need. “This will take longer.”
He sighs. “Yes, I realize that. But if she has any knowledge of this . . .” He tips his head back and releases a ring of smoke. It holds its shape for a few seconds before dispersing into the air above our heads. “We need to ensure that she doesn’t have a chance to talk about it to anyone. Ever. Make it clean and quick and low-key. Coincidental.”
Low-key. Coincidental.
A car careening off a road. A body found underwater, tangled in the weeds. A used needle laced with heroin. Something that is tragic but doesn’t raise suspicions, especially given that her beloved uncle was murdered so recently.
The way Bentley’s talking about it, it’s like he’s already decided that she is a liability and needs to be gone. But I also know that he’s not sure, and that puts doubt in my mind. I never pull the trigger when there is doubt.
I study her severe scowl again. Even with it, there is a unique beauty in her face. She’s not on the run, which makes me think Bentley is wrong and she doesn’t know anything about what her uncle was up to. That, or her uncle’s murder didn’t scare her enough. But what if her uncle dragged her into something against her will? What if she knows something she can’t simply unknow? Does she still deserve that kind of “low-key, coincidental” end?
It’s not my call. It’s Bentley’s. I have a job to do, and I leave the questions of morality to my commanding officer, knowing he’ll make the difficult calls. I’m quite happy letting him do that.
I scan her information more closely. “She’s from Oregon?”
“That’s her parents’ address. She lived there from fifteen to eighteen, and has landed back there a few times for brief stints, but mainly she’s been on the move, with no fixed address, crashing with friends and family. She came to San Francisco seven months ago. Before that she was in Thailand for a month. Before that, with family in Madrid for a few months. Before that, Ireland. She has American and EU citizenship. She’s been searching out flights to New York, and Singapore, and even Australia on her phone this week. Looks like she’s going to be on the move again, so you need to get in there fast.”