The poster’s images were sliced up by a Brand bull’s-eye, depicting all the classic tropes in silhouette: Brand aiming his Quarreler, the two types of girl, the White Stag. But Brand was bleeding from multiple wounds, the wrong girl lay dead, and the White Stag was in flames. The poster looked good. Professional.
Except Ungentlemanly Warfare wasn’t ever a Jove Brand movie. It was Layne Lackey’s fan-fiction screenplay. He was always trying to get me to read it.
How good of a replica was Layne’s mock Quarreler? I broke it open to find a dummy quiver loaded. When I shook it, there was a dull rattle. I pried the cap off the quiver and dumped a flash drive into my palm.
Layne had made a backup. I looked back over to the photo of us, then to the one of me and Kit. Missy had taken the shot. How had Layne gotten it? The only person who had it was Missy, and there was no way Missy had shared it willingly.
Someone knocked on the door. Three friendly taps. Not loud or urgent. I pressed the button on my video watch to active the pencil cameras.
I couldn’t see the guy knocking from the front camera view, but the guy behind him, facing the street, had his arms crossed over a pistol. The rear camera showed twin Range Rovers angled behind the Stag to pen it in. Once again, Chevalier had found me a little too fast for coincidence. I whispered into my watch.
“Ray, call 911. I got company.”
I was trying to remember if I had locked Layne’s front door when it slammed into the wall. So far, there were always two goons per car, which meant the other pair were coming up behind me. I put my back against an Ungentlemanly Warfare poster and shifted the curtain over the sliding door. A Chevalier goon was pulling himself up onto the second-floor terrace.
I buttoned my blazer as the downstairs got the full no-knock treatment from the mercs clearing rooms. The Quarreler was in my right hand. I unlocked the sliding door with my left.
Three seconds later, the door slid open from the outside until it was wide enough to admit one broad-shouldered soldier of fortune. The Chevalier goon stepped into the room, and turned toward me to clear the corner.
I posted his arm with my free hand to block his aim and put two darts in his leg. I only meant to pull once, but I was nervous. The Chevalier goon seized up, canting over onto his side. Unsure how long the fléchette batteries would last, I slammed an elbow into his temple. He went limp but didn’t stop twitching.
The spiral staircase vibrated a warning. I took cover behind Tender’s desk and aimed the Quarreler. It was a long shot, but a grenade would have ruined Layne’s memorabilia. When the merc came off the stairs, he did the same double-take as I had when confronted with the cardboard stand-up of Sir Collin. It saved me, because my first shot missed. The second got him in the hip and down he went, tapping out an involuntary SOS with his heels.
I swapped back and forth between watching the sliding door and stairway, awaiting the next wave. After maybe thirty seconds, my ambusher from the BART parking lot yelled up.
“Allen?”
I didn’t answer.
“You’re boxed, Allen. I got a guy out back and I’m watching the stairs. It’s only a matter of time.”
It sure was. Soon, the cops would be here. To arrest all of us. Whoops.
The Cavalier commander kept trying. “Throw your gun down and we keep this nonlethal. My guy up there, check him out. That’s a Taser in his loadout.”
I risked a glance at the goon twitching by the sliding door. Lying on the floor next to him was a space gun with a yellow hatch instead of a barrel.
The commander called up again. “But this act you’re pulling is pissing me off. I’ve got a throwaway with your name on it. They’ll find it next to your corpse and me with my lawyer’s card in my hand. Toss your kit off the back deck and we’ll play nice.”
What was either a brilliant or stupid idea came into my head. I set down the Quarreler and started stripping off my harness.
“All right,” I yelled. “Give me a minute.”
“Take your time. My guys okay?”
“One will have a headache.”
I crawled onto the terrace. The fourth Chevalier goon was standing outside the ground floor sliding doors. I tossed my harness in a high arc, then sent a Quarreler on the same trajectory. When the goon turned his head to track it, I sent two darts at his way. One of them hit his neck and he went down.
Score one for the replica market.
I soaked the drop from the terrace with a roll. I didn’t used to need the roll, but gravity got heavier every year. Scooping up my harness, I averted my gaze from the guy with a fléchette sticking out of his neck. Hope Chevalier provided medical coverage.
I turned onto the narrow walk beside the condo with my Quarreler leveled. I was amped up and raring to go and still lost. The Chevalier squad leader fired as he cornered, the twin darts from his Taser hitting my jacket dead center. He threw an arm over his face as my last dart thudded into his windbreaker to no result. Neither of us had stopped moving toward the other as we traded fire. We emptied our hands as we closed on each other.
The space between the wall and the privacy fence was maybe a foot wider than my shoulders. Fighting here was like two trains dueling. I had all of a heartbeat to get a read on the squad leader. He had an inch and fifteen pounds on me, none of them extra. There had to be a vest underneath his windbreaker. A trauma plate limited my options. No doubt those were steel-toed boots on his feet. He didn’t say a word. He wasn’t looking to talk me out of this, because he wanted this.
Well so did I.
He went straight for the groin. It was the right kind of kick—arcing up and in, like a whip. I checked it the only way you could, by moving in and sliding my front knee over. He sent speared fingers before his foot was back on the ground. It was the classic one-two of Jeet Kune Do: nuts then eyes, delivered together in less than a second.
I slipped the gouge and put a straight right into his ribs—skinning my knuckles but good on his vest—then rose up with a backfist, the heel of my hand snapping into his orbital bone.
It was all downhill from there. I rolled an elbow into his other eye socket and shouldered him into the fence. Ray’s miracle blazer soaked the knee he put into my ribs as I shoveled a left into his liver, then snapped his head up with a right uppercut. As his chin came down, I launched it back up with a skip knee. He didn’t need the knee, but I didn’t need to be suckered with a Taser in that BART lot either.
I went to collect everything I’d dropped, not bothering to check if the commander was out. If he got back up from that knee, I was dealing with an android. I made a mental note to send him smoothie recipes. Straws were replacing silverware in his foreseeable future.
Either the sirens hit earshot right then or I was just noticing them. I hung my harness over the antler-bars and squeezed the Stag out along the front walk. I kept to side streets and obeyed all traffic laws as I fled the scene. A mile from Layne Lackey’s condo, I pulled over to slip my harness back on and make sure the second flash drive was still in my pocket.
It was a bummer I didn’t get to see what happened when the cops rolled up on Chevalier security, laid out all over someone else’s property. They thought I was out of their league. Turned out they had it backward.
12
I overnighted the second flash drive to Ray before heading back to Missy’s cabana. I was halfway through a riceless stir-fry when Stern called.
“I’ve missed you. Did you miss me?”
“Can it, Allen. We picked up four Chevalier guys at Layne Lackey’s place off an anonymous tip.”
“You get a lot of those.”
“They were beat up and shot full of darts,” Stern said.
“Did they name their attacker?”
“They did not.”
I savored the flavor of beef. “That’s a real shame. So, how was your day?”
“You’re losing your mind, Allen.”
“Yeah? Did any of these guys have their throats crushed?”
&
nbsp; Stern blew out before saying, “No.”
“Imagine that. Don’t be a stranger,” I said as she hung up.
I forced myself to nap the day away so I would be fresh for prime time. My ensemble now included a white button-down shirt, but everything else was the same, which made my boxing shoes even more gauche, but what could you do? Show me a dress shoe that wouldn’t escape orbit when I kicked and I’d buy it.
The sun faded on the ride toward Long Beach. I kept to PCH, weaving the Stag through the congestion to lose any tails. I was on my way to catch a boat headed outside of United States territory in order to snoop on a guy responsible for who knew how many deaths. Also, I had no plan.
I was expecting a bare-bones dock walled by chain-link. Instead I got miles of ornamental wrought-iron fencing. The lone gate was open, with opposing bears on their haunches on each side. When the gates came together, the bears would embrace. That should have been my first warning.
I queued up behind the biggest collection of sports cars I’d ever seen outside of an auto show. My old beater would have been a red flag in such a procession, but the White Stag held its own. The guard waved me through without confirming I was really Connor Shaw. There was no point. No one attending a secret offshore casino was using their real name.
I maintained several car lengths between myself and the Ferrari ahead as we wound down to the shore. The single residence inside the gate was a mansion that owed more to Crimea than California. It might have been the situation, but the place reminded me of the type of joint you had to shove a witch in an oven to escape. The doors were probably made of chocolate bars and the windows rock candy.
The carports lining the shore matched the mansion above, four long roofs each sheltering fifty or so spots, few of them empty. I took the open space closest to the docks, in the event I had to make a run for it. Every little bit helped.
The boardwalk to the dock was also covered, with the perfect amount light to keep everyone in shadow. Ambience was everything. I was watching the waves lap against the harbor when my watch flashed another text from an unknown caller.
I’ve left a royal surprise in your lair.
My heart became a frog looking for a way to escape my throat. The Black Knight had planted something in my apartment. Nothing dangerous, like a bomb or a barrel of tarantulas. He needed me alive to frame me. So something incriminating. The ferry out to the defunct oil rig-cum-casino drifted into view. Leave now and I might not get a second chance.
I started back toward the Stag, then stopped. It was too late to do anything about the Black Knight. Rushing to my condo and into whatever trap he laid was exactly what the Black Knight wanted. The only way out was to delve deeper.
The crew clipped the velvet rope back into place behind me. I headed for the stern as the ferry pulled away. Back toward land, a latecomer was waving from the dock. He looked used to boats turning around for him. This one didn’t. There was a lighted helicopter pad on the far side of the mansion, along with a private dock suitable for small watercraft. No chance I was going to run into Fedorov on the courtesy shuttle.
I stepped into a lounge finished in brass and wood, set aglow by light filtered through frosted glass. There was a full bar and an ornamental cage for buying chips. No one bought in for less than my net worth. I headed over to the bar and ordered a club soda. A Russian girl who could have walked the runway asked if I wanted lime.
“Only if you slice it fresh. When does the last ferry leave for shore tonight?”
The girl shook her head with a hint of a smile. It wasn’t clear if she had answered me or blown me off. It also wasn’t clear if she was inviting more conversation or wanted me to go away. I set a bill I hoped wasn’t too insulting on the bar. She didn’t touch it.
“Only chips,” she said with a tight head shake.
“Sorry.” I scooped the money back up. I didn’t like what the staff being restricted from accepting cash told me. It also meant I was going to have to trade with the coin of the realm.
I went over to the cage and emptied out my pockets, using my body to block anyone who might be watching. The results weren’t promising. The White Stag rode like a dream but he drank deep. I got seventy-three bucks back because a hundred was the smallest denomination accepted, leaving me with a total of seven chips worth forty-seven hundred dollars here and here alone. At least my pockets wouldn’t have any unsightly bulges.
“Good luck,” the caged girl said, but she didn’t really mean it, because she really didn’t care.
“Same to you,” I replied, meaning it.
I used the drink as cover to examine my peers. It was an interesting mix. Sure, there were the gray-haired men paired with excited girls who weren’t their daughters, but there was also the nouveau riche. The tech guys whose start-ups had made it and the high-stakes gamblers stretching way past their bankroll, hoping a sea voyage would net them a whale. But it was the fighters who surprised me.
They weren’t here as guests. Everyone one else was sporting evening wear and they were in their warm-ups. Fighters couldn’t afford these stakes anyway, regardless of wardrobe. There were three of them. Each sat alone, their hood up, trying to keep their mindset.
I headed toward the bow. The front lounge was a replay of the rear, except the clientele was a little rowdier with anticipation. Sitting in front meant you were impatient for the destination. The booze was flowing more freely here. I spotted two more fighters. One was napping with his earbuds in. The other had his shirt off and was chatting up the bartender about what all his ink meant.
The distant lights of the oil rig came into view. It was a complex of four platforms connected by generous walkways. The superstructure glittered with hundreds of golden lights. The helicopter pad was currently occupied. At least fifty watercraft of various sizes were moored around the base, from yachts to speedboats. More were approaching from every direction. Despite the late hour, the party was still warming up.
The ferry docked with nary a bump. Once the rope was opened, the passengers filtered off briskly. Lollygagging meant an hour round trip to shore and back.
There were two elevators up, along with a lighted staircase no one was using. I chose the stairs, preferring a view of the complex’s underbelly to the nighttime sea. The only other person on them was one of the fighters. I gave him berth as he jogged past. I could empathize. You walked a knife’s edge before a fight, wanting to be warm and loose without tiring yourself out. Struggling to keep your adrenaline from firing prematurely and leaving you blown out before the bell ever rang.
I took it slow to get a look at what was happening at sea level. There were four guys on dock duty, roping off boats and keeping watch. None of them were visibly armed. A man in a tuxedo greeted those arriving in their own craft and rode the elevator with them, probably to work the buttons. I didn’t see any boats get turned away and I didn’t see anyone get thrown over the side, which wasn’t saying it didn’t happen.
There was a lot of activity in the water around the platforms. I heard splashing but all the lights killed my night vision. Yuen once told me cruise ships created their own little ecosystems, from the sea life orbiting them for scraps. Then the sea life who ate the other sea life showed up. The same went for this place. You dumped whatever didn’t get eaten over the side and let nature take its course.
My head kept going back to what was waiting for me onshore. I was sure that by now the Black Knight had tipped Stern about incriminating evidence in my condo. My guess was Layne Lackey’s phone. I probably gave him the idea when I texted it.
Ground and center, Ken. Focus on what you can control, I told myself. The climb helped clear my head. The elevator crowd had beat me to the top by a wide stretch, leaving me all alone.
Each platform had a single multiple-story building standing on it. The one closest to the elevator looked to be a nightclub at sea. Muffled electronic music vibrated through the walls. I decided to skip it. I wasn’t sure how I could poke around in there and not
look like I was poking around. Even if I ran into Fedorov, the volume being what it was, I wouldn’t be able to spy on him without sitting in his lap.
The second platform accommodated an upscale gaming house, the granite veneer clashing with the steel superstructure. A guy in a tuxedo opened the door as I approached, greeting me with a deferential smile. Reflexively thanking him was probably a mistake. Darn me and my plebian manners.
Blood-red carpet ran from paneled wall to paneled wall. The ceiling was sprinkled with skylights. A haze missing from modern casinos completed the atmosphere. Maritime law must have lacked a provision against indoor smoking. I went aisle by aisle. It was all house games: roulette, craps, blackjack, and keno. There was also a game with two croupiers and cards I didn’t recognize, along with a bank of vintage mechanical slots and another of pachinko machines.
This was the attraction designed for thrill seekers. The place where the rich could impress their misters and mistresses with how much they could lose without a care. Lingerie-clad girls who weren’t old enough to indulge themselves served drinks, taking their gratuities in chips. Nothing or no one caught my interest. I glanced away from anyone who tried to attract it. The less attention I drew, the happier I was.
I drank in the sea air on the walkway to the next building. Smoke was great for mood but that was about it. The third structure was much like the second, this one devoted to card games. Poker of all flavors and baccarat were popular, but there were other, more complex games I didn’t understand. Games using nontraditional cards with wizards and dragons and castles on them. The tech guys were eating it up. If I was reading the stacks right, there was close to a million bucks on the table.
I didn’t have the head for card games. I’d done okay during the poker boom by reading people, but I lacked the love of the game to put in the hours it took to become better than adequate. Anyway, it was mostly clients who invited me to play and I wasn’t about to win myself into the poorhouse. I couldn’t testify as to the quality of players, but every hand opened with more than what I had in my pocket. I didn’t even have enough to ante.
Jove Brand is Near Death Page 16