Devlin Sub Rosa: Book Three of the Devlin Quatrology

by Jake Devlin

“Better now. Over.”

  “Good. Over.”

  “Ah, cleared my ear. Over.”

  “What? Over.”

  “Cleared my ear; I can hear again. Over.”

  “What? Over.”

  “I said – oh, Keith. Over.”

  “Gotcha. Over.”

  “Okay, okay; got me.”

  “Sorry, couldn't resist. About an hour to the border. Over.”

  “Battery check. Over.”

  “Um, 57 percent. You? Over.”

  “66 percent. Over.”

  “Plenty of juice. So off we go. Over.”

  “Wes did a great job on these new seats; feels like I'm sitting on a cloud. Over.”

  “Scrounged 'em off some motorcycles, I hear. Over.”

  “Cool. That pervert had a helluva ménage à trois, didn't he? Over.”

  “Menagerie, Lin, menagerie. Over.”

  “Gotcha back, Keith. I know that. Over.”

  “Ah. Over.”

  “So how'd you feel about another round with Helene when we get home? Over.”

  “Sure, if she's up for it. Over.”

  “That'd be your part. Over.”

  “After I get the ankle patched and the rib looked at. She can be pretty, ah, energetic. Over.”

  “Yeah, she can be that. Do you wanna land somewhere and let me bandage the ankle? Over.”

  “Naw; I've got it, ah, stabilized on the footrest; I'm good. Over.”

  “Okay; let me know if you change your mind. Over.”

  “When we get across the border, okay? Over.”

  “Okay. Oh, you'll need to get rabies shots for that monkey bite, too. Over.”

  “Oh, right; damn little varmint. Over.”

  “Right. But you're okay with Helene for another round? Over.”

  “Absolutely. Over.”

  “We'll have to make sure Nicole's out of the house overnight. Over.”

  “Don't think that'll be a problem. Or maybe we could go over to Helene's. Mike's been okay with that before. Over.”

  “Yeah; he knows the drill.

  “We can work that all out when we get back, Keith. Over.”

  “Yeah, okay. Over.”

  “So what are we gonna do about Nicole? Over.”

  “Grounding hasn't worked, taking away her phone hasn't worked, taking away all of her electronics hasn't worked; I'm out of ideas, Lin. Over.”

  “Did I tell you what I heard her telling someone, probably Kurt, on her phone the day before we left? Over.”

  “No. What? Over.”

  “She said, 'I've got like the most BOR-ing parents in all of Ohio.' Over.”

  - 89 -

  June 18, 2013

  7:57 p.m. local time

  St. Tropez, France

  “Anyhow, in the 80s and 90s, aside from the assassination biz growing fast, we also made some good investments in both of our funds, won about eighty percent of the time.”

  “That's a lot more than most VC firms do.”

  “Yup. Most of 'em figure out of five investments, two will go bust, two will do just barely okay, and one will be the high-flyer. We went at it differently, did lots of boring little turnarounds, singles and doubles, not looking to do many home runs.

  “We – and by 'we' I mean all of the consultants we had on the payroll to go out and work with our acquisitions – we would go in kind of like that guy on 'The Profit,' that new show on one of the financial cable networks, restructure the organization, clean out the deadwood and focus on the primary mission of each biz, get each one lean and mean and nimble, always customer-focused.”

  “Like Amy did with the State Department.”

  “Right. Or Melinda did with all the companies she worked with as I was training her.”

  “Wait a min- – don't you mean when Donne was training her?”

  “Oh, sorry; I really did train her, and I used her name for the book, with her permission. And she actually sent Wes a letter kind of like the one her character sent to Donne.”

  “You really took a lot of your own experiences and stuck 'em in there, didn't you?”

  “Yup. You know what they say? 'Write what you know.'”

  “Yeah, I've heard that.”

  “Anyhow, building all that was a little tricky with me hiding in the background, as anonymous and invisible as I could possibly be, even kept Wes in the dark about the other side of the biz. But Amber, Gordy and I managed to keep up with the demand, gradually raised the fee up to two million per hit by '94. I know we billed over a billion between 1980 and 2000.”

  “Dollars?”

  “Yup. You can do the math on that. And by 2000, I'd collected a little over a hundred names and reputations, and we had nearly forty assassins, all of them on call, but very few of them getting into the inner circle where they could identify me.”

  “So that's why you did the video welcome on the yacht the way you did it, all blurred and with your voice disguised.”

  “Yup. And you remember that you were the only one from that whole group that was invited into the inner circle. And that was only because I'd vetted you completely, both on paper and in person.”

  “It was a pretty intimate vetting.”

  “Yup.”

  “Best vetting I've ever had.”

  “Glad you enjoyed it.”

  “You know, at that party, I remember Jill and Carie telling me they'd never met you, even though they'd been with the company for six years, I think they said.”

  “Ah, right. They haven't done any actual hits yet, other than on bodyguard jobs, and those were always in response to an attack. But they're the top experts in surveillance, and they and I both like them doing that most of the time.”

  “But Sharon is in the inner circle, right?”

  “Absolutely, has been for, oh, maybe twenty years. Amber saw her at a shooting range in '87 or '89, and saw her talent immediately; incredibly accurate shooter. We vetted her, found her porn star days and her history as a hunter with her family in Arizona, and Amber approached her and carefully recruited her as a bodyguard first, and then gradually as a sniper.

  “Her first hit was in '91, a guy named Rohwedder or Rohdekker, something like that, who headed up the agency that privatized East German property as part of the German reunification. She got him through the window of his house near Dusseldorf and left a bunch of clues that led the investigators first to an RAF guy who'd actually died in 1975 and then to Wolfgang Grams, another RAF guy who” –

  “Wait a minute. Royal Air Force, a Brit? Named Wolfgang?”

  “No; sorry. Red Army Faction, the far left terrorist bunch.”

  “Ah, right. We had 'em on our radar back then, I think.”

  “CIA?”

  “Right, but not my section; I was working Paris, Munich, Rome and Madrid most of the late '80s.”

  “And then you got shot and went over to the Secret Service.”

  “Right. I – I” –

  “Pam, what's wrong?”

  “I – I – oh, god, Jake. Could you just hold me?”

  “Sure. C'mere.”

  - 90 -

  June 17, 2014

  11:27 a.m. local time

  Bonita Beach, Florida

  “Gordy. Gordy? Gordy? Gordy!”

  “Mmf?”

  “Earth to Gordy.”

  “Huh?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “What?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Why? What's wrong?”

  “You were off somewhere. And your eyes are watering.”

  “I was? They are? Oh, I – sorry, Ro. I don't – I – sorry.”

  “Where were you? What's going on?”

  “I – I was – I'm not” –

  “Here, have a tissue.”

  “Oh, I – oh, thanks.”

  “Better?”

  “Yeah; thank you.”

  “Now maybe you – what was all that?”

  “Ah, I – how can I – I sorta – I go
t stuck.”

  “Where? How?”

  “I” –

  “C'mon, Gordy; it's me. Go ahead; talk to me.”

  “I'm – I think – ah, right; it – Pam just had another flashback, a really bad one, and I sorta got lost in” –

  “Hey, Gordy! Hi, Rosemary.”

  “Oh, hi, Ann Louise.”

  “What's wrong, Gordy?”

  “Oh, nothing; I'm fine, just fine.”

  “You don't look fine; you look, ah, like you've been crying. Never seen you like that. What's up?”

  “Oh, nothing, really. Just, ah, just thinkin'. I'm fine.”

  “Rosemary?”

  “He's okay, really.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I'm sure.”

  “I'm okay, I'm okay.

  “So what's up, Ann Louise?”

  “Ya heard the latest news on the parking permits?”

  “Nope. What's the news?”

  “The county changed their policy.”

  “Collier or Lee?”

  “Collier.”

  “What'd they do, double the price?”

  “Nope; still fifty bucks a year, free for Collier County residents. But now they're also issuing another type to households, not just to the car.”

  “What?”

  “To households, not the car. So if somebody's got two cars, they can use it for either one. Or even loan it to friends.”

  “Nice idea.”

  “But they charge an extra ten bucks for that type.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it's like a credit card, and you just stick it in the meter to get the ticket for your dashboard or just show it to the guard at the parks that have gates.”

  “Ah. So it's sixty bucks a year instead of fifty?”

  “Nope; the ten bucks is a one-time thing. And you can renew it for the next year online; you don't have to go in physically to do that.”

  “Kewl.”

  “Yeah, cool, Ro. Very.”

  “They've also set up monthly, quarterly and six-month pricing for snowbirds and tourists who use rental cars, for either type. I don't remember 'em all, other than ten bucks for a month and twenty for three months.”

  “Plus the one-time ten bucks for the card type?”

  “Right.”

  “Still a pretty good deal.”

  “Lots better than the eight bucks a day.”

  “Or the two bucks an hour in the Lee County lot.”

  “Right on, Rosemary. Greedy bastards up there.”

  “And I hear they're working on an app for people's phones; not sure how that'll work, but they're – uh-oh, gotta run; Sonya's heading this way. See ya.”

  “Wow, Gordy, she took off really fast.”

  “Hey, Ann Louise! Wait up!”

  “Yeah, Ro, but it looks like Sonya's even faster.”

  “Wonder what she's got on her mind.”

  “Who knows? But whatever it is, Ann Louise and anybody within about twenty feet'll hear about it, f'sure.”

  “Twenty? Try fifty.”

  “Maybe so, Ro, maybe so.”

  “So, Gordy, tell me, what got you so lost?”

  “I don't – I'm not” –

  “Oh, come on, Gordy. I'll buy you a hot dog.”

  “Hmm. And a snow cone?”

  “Deb's got snow cones?”

  “Yup; she's trying 'em out, see if they sell.”

  “Kewl. Deal?”

  “Okay; deal.”

  “So what was it that got you lost?”

  “Okay, okay. I got stuck with Pam having a flashback, the worst one yet, and I was – I guess I was feeling it all with her. And I know where I want 'em to go after that, but I was trying to figure out how to make the transition, and I – I don't – I was” –

  “So you were lost in your head.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “It's a little scary, Gordy; that's the first time I've seen it happen.”

  “Gotta tell ya, it happens sometimes, but mostly when I'm home at the keyboard. And usually I come out of it with an answer. But nothing on this one, nada, nichts.”

  “Yet. It'll come.”

  “I hope so. Jake's got a lot more to tell her.”

  “Hmm. How about this? You know 'em well, right?”

  “Ah, yeah, I guess so.”

  “And you trust 'em?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Most of the time?”

  “Most of the – yeah, I guess so.”

  “Well, then, just turn it over to them and let them work it out. You just watch and listen.”

  “Maybe that'll” –

  “C'mon, Gordy, it's worked before, hasn't it?”

  “Yeah, I” –

  “It has. It has. You can make it work again.”

  “You know, Ro, you're right. Thank you.”

  “Okay, love. So go for it.”

  “Okay. Mustard and ketchup only, and black raspberry.”

  “Deal. C'mon; let's go.”

  - 91 -

  June 18, 2013

  8:13 p.m. local time

  St. Tropez, France

  “I'm sorry, Jake.”

  “Better?”

  “Yeah, a little bit; thank you.”

  “Flashback again?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes it just” –

  “I know, I know.”

  “It was so vivid this time, like I was right back in the midst of it.”

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “I'm not – I don't – it was so – oh, god.”

  “Now, now, now, Pam; it was over twenty years ago.”

  “I'm sorry, Jake; it was so real this time.”

  “Take me there, okay? Just tell me. Talk to me; I'm here for you.”

  “I know you are, but” –

  “Where was it? Where did it happen?”

  “Sofia.”

  “Bulgaria?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And when? What time of year?”

  “Summer, July … tenth … 1991.”

  “Okay; take your time.

  “Why were you there?”

  “Mission. JJ and I … and Zach … and” –

  “Zach, your husband?”

  “Right; our handler. And two other honey-trappers and four of our assassins. Nine of us in all, eight in the hotel and Zach at our exfil site. We were assigned to take out two Russian mafia guys.

  “We'd just had our covers blown … I still don't know how, whether it was Zach or Nick or somebody else, some other mole … and JJ and I were the only ones who escaped. We split up when we left the hotel, and JJ got to the exfil site just after I did.”

  “Was this the mission where the watchers let the Bulgarian keep beating her to get more stuff on tape?”

  “No, that was another one; in Munich.”

  “Sorry; go on.”

  “Lemme get a tissue.”

  “Take your time, Pam. Take your time.”

  “Ah, much better. Glad I'm not wearing mascara.”

  “You're gorgeous without it, love.”

  “Oh, Jake, that's sweet.”

  “It's true.”

  “So where was” –

  “You and JJ split up.”

  “Right. Oh, god; sorry.”

  “That's okay, Pam, that's okay.”

  “Okay. She ran west and I ran east, so the guys who were after us had to split up, three chasing me, three after her.

  “The streets were crowded, but the three guys behind me kept shooting. I saw people around me falling, bleeding and heard them scream when they were hit. Luckily, they only had semi-auto pistols, not full autos. If they'd been able to just spray the crowd with bullets, I wouldn't have made it. I'd have been cut down right along with maybe scores of bystanders.”

  “Did you have a weapon?”

  “Nope, nothing.”

  “Oh, geez. What'd you do?”

  “I
just ran as fast as I could, zigzagging through the crowds and around corners whenever I came to one, but always heading for the exfil site, calling Zach to call in the helo as I ran.

  “But I knew there was only open space at the exfil, for the helo to land and take off, and I knew it would be nothing more than a kill zone, so when I got to a corner near it, I held back just after I turned and waited.

  “When the first guy came around, running, I tripped him, grabbed his weapon as he fell and shot him dead. The second and third guys must have heard the shot, because they didn't come running around the corner, but stopped back a ways and advanced carefully. By then, I was off and running again. Two more corners and I'd be in the kill zone.

  “So I ran into an alley and dropped behind a dumpster sort of thing, took out the second guy when he glanced around the corner.”

  “Head shot?”

  “Yeah; lucky one.

  “Then I ran the rest of the way down the alley, out onto the next street, and around another corner to the exfil site. I could hear the helo coming in, but it'd be at least a minute before it could get there. And JJ was nowhere to be seen.

  “Then I got shot.”

  - 92 -

  July 28, 2013

  9:07 a.m. local time

  Undisclosed location

  “So it vas just ze fluck inductor?”

  “No, Doc, it's 'flux inductor.'”

  “So two of zese fluckin' flucks?”

  “No, no, Doc; it's 'flux,' f-l-u-x, magnetic flux.”

  “Ah, ja. Zat I know.”

  “And it wasn't just the inductor; we had to modify many more components.”

  “But you got it up to sechs Stunde – sorry – six hours?”

  “Just under that, Doc … so far.”

  “Und how did you discover ze vay to modify ze inductor?”

  “It was mostly Julie.”

  “No, no, Greg, mostly you.”

  “No, no, no, Julie; you had the idea of raising the inductor's capacity.”

  “But you thought of installing a bigger one.”

  “Yeah, but you knew that'd require that we make almost all the other components bigger, too.”

  “Und so zen you had to redo all the matt.”

  “All the what?”

  “Ze matt.”

  “Yeah, we had to get a bigger and thicker one to support it and stabilize it. The vibrations knocked it out of alignment.”