A loading screen appeared, and Ron Passavanti was sitting on a black leather sofa drinking a beer straight from the bottle. “I guess the best thing I can say without getting myself in trouble is, watch whatever everyone else is, because our advertisers aren’t paying us to entertain you guys. They want… well, I’ve said enough.” He raised his beer bottle. “Support your favorite programs,” he said glumly.
“But… what about Alexa? How will I ever know what happens next?”
The loading screen returned, then Janet McBride turned away from a makeup mirror. “Hello, everybody. I enjoyed my time as…” she changed her voice to a sultry twang, “Miss Alexa Charlevoix.” She returned to her natural speaking voice. “I’ll miss her, probably more than you will. Maybe you’ll see her again someday. I’ve told my agent I’ll be back in a heartbeat, if the interest is there.” She stared intently at the camera.
Diane leaned back into her headboard and bonked her head. She winced and wiped her eyes with her knuckle. “This can’t be happening. Not like this. Not now.”
The loading screen appeared, then a row of promotional icons spread out before with the caption PEOPLE WHO LIKED FORTUNE AND DESTINY ALSO ENJOYED:
Diane tossed her tablet aside. Lyssa was in jail, Sapphire wasn’t answering her urgent contact attempts, and now Alexa was gone forever. She wondered how much worse her life could get.
A chime summoned her to her living room. A blue light flashed on her television monitor. She activated the screen and a single word in white block letters appeared on a black background: FOCUS.
The screen dissolved into surveillance footage of Lyssa in her cell. A time stamp flickered in the lower right-hand corner. Diane grabbed her comm unit and checked the time. It matched the time on her monitor. She felt sick at the sight of Lyssa laying on her cot sobbing and begging to be let go. The camera was in a fixed mount, leaving a large part of the room out of view. Diane wondered if Goodwin and his flunkies were in there with her.
After a few tense minutes watching helplessly as Lyssa cried in her cell, Diane hurried to her bedroom and fetched her rifle from the back of her closet. She carried it to her sectional and sat on the edge of her seat as she inspected her gun. She pulled the bolt back to reveal her single cartridge. It wasn’t going to kill everyone on her mental list barring an incredibly lucky shot, but she figured if she could take out Goodwin the Panther Division might get an attitude adjustment. She raised the barrel and stared down the sight.
Lyssa sat upright on her cot, startled by something. “Who’s out there?” She stared to the right of the screen. The monitor went black. Diane lowered her rifle and ran to the television. She put her hands on the screen and dropped to her knees.
“No, bring her back. I need to know she’s okay. I need to know if she isn’t.”
The masked man replaced Lyssa on the screen. “Agent Pembrook. You are not fulfilling your obligations.”
“I was told to get bed rest. I’m resting.”
“Apparently you are unclear on the concept of plausible deniability.”
“I know I’m on medical leave. I’m not on active duty, I’m at home. I don’t know what more anyone can want from me.”
A map of the waterfront filled the monitor. A red circle glowed around a cluster of buildings on the north side. “Proceed to these coordinates.”
Diane stood and patted her t-shirt and sweat pants. “I’m not exactly dressed to go out and do anything. And I’m freaking starving.”
“You have five minutes to prepare.” The monitor switched off. Diane looked around dazedly. She wasn’t sure what she was expected to be doing. Eating something? She didn’t have any food on hand. She supposed she could put on her police uniform, but that didn’t seem to fit with the masked man’s ultra-secret organization. She hurried to her bedroom and slipped on a pair of fluffy white socks and some athletic shoes.
A panel opened on the far wall of her bedroom. She crept slowly toward the opening and found a plain white passageway beyond it. She reached a small room at the other end containing a set of glossy black body armor, belt and holster.
“Holy crap,” she said, “that thing’s real?”
She encased her right leg in the armor and snapped the pieces together. She rapped her knuckles on the thigh. It felt real enough.
Once Diane was outfitted with her glossy black armor, the room began to vibrate, and her stomach lurched as she felt downward movement. She pressed her gloved hand to the wall to brace herself.
The door opened to a bare garage. An ominous black SUV stood at an angle. The back door was wide open. No operatives greeted her this time.
Diane got in the vehicle and looked at the front seat to see who was joining her on this mission. To her surprise, the seat was empty. The center console featured a dazzling array of blinking lights and status messages. A red light flashed at the top. Diane strapped herself in with a lap belt. The light switched to green and the vehicle shifted into gear on its own. The steering wheel spun back and forth as the SUV headed for the garage door, which clinked open just in time for the gleaming black vehicle cleared the opening. Diane turned her head and saw the garage door closing immediately after her departure. She swiveled her head around and gaped at the driverless front seat.
“Where are you taking me?” Diane wasn’t sure who or what would reply.
A video monitor flipped down from the ceiling and displayed a series of still images. Diane saw her quarry jump from a speedboat onto a pier and run to a waiting car, which in turn made a series of erratic turns before disappearing under a striped awning. Street-level shots appeared next. Diane couldn’t make out where the car had gone. There weren’t any overhead doors or similar hiding places. It was as if the car had simply vanished, along with her target.
She sat back in her seat and sighed. “Well, that doesn’t tell me anything. Where did he go?”
One of the photos grew larger on the screen. A red arrow pointed to a smudge in the lower left-hand corner. After blinking to reinforce the focal point, the image zoomed out. Diane leaned forward to study the photo. She thought she saw a human hand clutching a black piece of metal. It was just a fragment, but it suddenly stuck out as a nagging puzzle piece that wasn’t snapping neatly into place. Diane called for a closer look at the other stills. This was the only one with the smudge. She asked to see the car drive under the awning again. The location looked familiar, though she wasn’t used to looking at overhead surveillance photos.
She had a flash of inspiration. “Do you have street views to the corner?”
The screen went black for a moment, then a slowly panning shot displayed the storefronts and apartment stairwells straight through to the nearest intersection. Diane gasped at the sight of a storefront in the process of being redeveloped. The old sign had been torn off the façade, but not entirely. She recognized the first two letters of the old Sparta Meat Market marquee.
Her pulse quickened. She leaned forward anxiously and said, “Do you have anything from the Westwood Financial building? Pull the feed from when these shots were taken.”
The screen went blank once more. Diane put her hand to her mouth in awe at the speed her command was granted. A man dressed in all black carried a large piece of metal into a plain building. He wasn’t her target, at least, not originally. Diane called for other vantage points, but she didn’t find any footage that showed how many more people were involved in this strange operation. She decided to pay a visit to the dull brown building where the man had rushed into.
“Take me to Branford and Halsey.”
Diane peered past the monitor and saw the center console display a route map. Her destination blinked on a small screen and the SUV turned sharply to the right to begin its approach to the new coordinates.
A few minutes later, the SUV slowed and pulled into a loading zone beside a convenience mart. The monitor showed a live feed of Lyssa laying in on her cot. Diane sucked in her breath. Lyssa didn’t seem to be recovering from any sort of
physical abuse. Lyssa rolled onto her back and slept soundly. The footage was replaced with the word FOCUS in white block lettering. Diane nodded and removed her lap belt.
The door automatically unlocked for her on the curb side. She scooted over and exited the vehicle. She slammed the door behind her and drew her sidearm. Like her new quarry, she moved quickly to minimize her time spent out in the open. Despite wearing black armor at night, she felt too obvious as neon lights made complex patterns upon her as she headed straight for the door she had seen the man enter on the security footage.
When she reached her destination, she pressed her back against the wall and reached for the knob. She gave it a quick twist and pulled her hand away. To her surprise, it was unlocked. She closed her eyes and counted to three. For Lyssa, she thought grimly. She pulled the door open and ducked inside the dark building.
Diane pressed her back against the inside wall and fought to control her breathing. Her heart felt like it would pound through her armor. She took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the near darkness. She noticed a greenish glow around a partly open door in the distance to her right. She raised her sidearm, ejected the magazine and checked it. She couldn’t see how many bullets were loaded in it, but she felt one protruding from a notch at the top.
She snapped the magazine back into place and advanced toward the glowing door with silent, deliberate steps. She assumed the place didn’t have any sort of surveillance cameras in use, or if it did, none of them had night vision. She figured someone would have engaged her by now.
She reached the glowing door and pressed on it with her left hand. It creaked open slightly. Diane saw a bald man hunched over a sheet of plywood propped up on a pair of sawhorses staring into a green-tinted monitor. “The heat’s off. Nobody saw anything,” he whispered.
A distorted voice buzzed through a tinny speaker. “The heat’s off when I say it is. I say give it two more days. If I don’t see any action, I’ll give the all clear.”
“There isn’t any action. We can make our move tonight. They won’t know what hit them.”
“Don’t be hasty. They won’t know what hit them in two days, just the same. No need to rush and do something stupid.”
The bald man shook his head. “I’m going batty in here. It’s stupid to sit around waiting for the gumshoe brigade to sniff us out. We’re three steps ahead already. We need to keep moving.”
“I told you to bring a book,” said the scratchy voice.
“Pfft. Books. What am I gonna do with those, beat myself senseless with ‘em while I wait for your blessing to start phase three?”
“It’s not my blessing. We do what the boss tells us. The boss says to wait, so we wait. Find a way to amuse yourself for forty-eight hours like the rest of us.”
The bald man snorted and raised his hand. “Fine.” He clicked a switch and the screen went dark.
Diane spun her sidearm around and struck the man across the back of his head. He crumpled to the floor at her feet.
“Now would be a great time for some backup,” she hissed. A moment later, tires screeched outside of the building. The outside door swung open and three operatives slipped inside before the door clanged shut. Their spotlights shone on her. She raised her arm to shield her eyes. “I think it’s just him. Sweep the building. Take all hostiles alive.”
“Understood,” said the center operative. He gave hand signals to his comrades and crept away, shining their spotlights on the walls and everything in their path.
Diane turned her attention to the bald man on the floor. She produced a pair of cuffs from her utility belt and pulled his arms behind his back. After snapping the cuffs on, she frowned at his unconscious form at her feet. She applied a zip strip to his ankles for good measure. She was in no mood to chase anyone. Like the mysterious voice said: no need to rush. Not yet.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The operatives returned and signaled that the building had been swept clean. Two more vehicles pulled up outside and a cluster of four agents dressed in protective suits stormed in. Diane was ushered out as the bald man was strapped to a dolly and wheeled away. She turned to the closest operative and gestured to the man. “Where are they taking him?”
“Debrief,” he said simply.
“Is that the place they took me when—”
The operative raised his hand to shush her. “None of our business. The less we know, the better. Just be advised the debrief team will extract any relevant information before disposal.”
Diane nodded as a chill ran down her spine. It sounded like the same place she’d been taken. If not, she got the general idea. She wanted to be included in the process, especially since she had tracked him down. On the other hand, she wasn’t big on torturing people. She hoped the masked man would credit her accordingly with tracking down a slippery asset and reward her in some way. Such as pulling strings to get Lyssa released from jail.
She stood beside a black SUV with her fellow operatives. The strike team leader jutted his chin toward the building and Diane looked up to see a piece of reflective metal being hauled out and scanned with a strange device. “Impressive. How did you know?”
Diane fought the urge to reply, “Know what?” She gave him a thin smile. “That’s… classified.”
“Roger that. Those clever bastards. How they figured out where the cameras were pointed to hide the getaway car is way beyond my pay grade.”
“Yeah, it’s crazy.” Diane had no idea what he was talking about.
The cleanup squad was huddled around the reflector and having an animated discussion with a blank face on a tablet. She assumed it was the masked man. They wrapped the reflector in plastic and lifted it carefully into one of their nondescript vehicles. The communications device the bald man had used followed, then the man himself. A black canvas sack was pulled over his head the second he cleared the doorway and he was loaded into the back of another vehicle. The strike team leader twirled his arm in tight circles to signal to Diane and his team to clear out. Diane clambered into the back seat of the strike vehicle and was driven away quickly.
She was returned to the sub-basement under the Cranston Towers. The lead operative nodded to her and pointed to a plain white door. Diane got out of the SUV and headed for it. A light shined into her right eye, then the door slid open. She stepped into the small cabin where she had put on her armor before being carried down to the garage. She removed her armor. She felt her stomach heave as the elevator rose to her apartment. After her armor was stored, the cabin stopped moving and the door opened. She hurried through the white passageway to her bedroom. The secret panel closed with a hiss behind her and she stood in her bedroom, alone.
She was left with an empty feeling inside. On the one hand, she had scored a victory for the Special Neighborhood Operations team. On the other, she didn’t feel any closer to bagging her ultimate target, or to getting Lyssa sprung from jail. She patted her stomach and determined much of that emptiness was hunger.
She stepped out to her living room to order up room service. Her television monitor displayed real-time footage of Lyssa sleeping fitfully on her cot. Diane gulped and squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t think about tending to her own needs while Lyssa suffered. She decided to go to the Panther Division and grab something from the cafeteria. She’d at least feel like she was working, instead of sitting at home waiting for something to happen.
She felt she was dressed enough for a late-night cafeteria run. She made sure she had her ID and headed for the lobby. A short time later, she arrived at the Panther Division and ate a slice of pepperoni pizza with a cup of water. She sat alone and tried not to think of Lyssa trapped in her cell somewhere beneath her feet. She groaned and wiped her lips with a scratchy napkin. She left the cafeteria and entered the lobby in time to see Goodwin getting slapped on the back by Sergeant Addison. She hung back to observe the scene from afar, so as not to attract unwanted attention.
“Damn, Gunslinger! The number four most wanted! I alwa
ys knew you were special.”
Diane watched as other officers showed their appreciation for Goodwin’s heroism. Everyone except Lee Harper, who shook his head and frowned as Goodwin told the tale of how he staked out the suspect and got the drop on him, then killed him with one shot to the chest after the suspect had pulled his gun–but not fast enough–then Goodwin put five more slugs in him to send a message.
The message Diane received was that it took six bullets to take down the suspect, but she didn’t voice her opinion. Lee Harper was doing that for her. “That’s not what happened at all, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t take credit for my police work.”
Goodwin smirked at Harper. “Whoa, where’s that coming from? Jealous much?”
“I’m not jealous, I’m stating a fact. You didn’t bring him down, I did. You put five bullets in him to confuse ballistics when they go over the body. My body-cam footage will show the truth.”
Sergeant Addison held up a tablet. “Oh, you mean this?” He tapped a red icon with his thumb. The screen went black. “Oops, my mistake. I thought that was old data.”
Goodwin gave Harper a crooked smile. “Maybe you’ll get the next one. Persistence pays.”
Diane felt her cheeks redden at the sight of this injustice. She began to step forward to rise to Harper’s defense, then looked down at her sweat pants. The men barely respected her when she was in her full uniform. She knew she wouldn’t be taken the least bit seriously in her street clothes.
Goodwin’s lackeys backed Harper into a corner. Goodwin reached out and grabbed Harper by his shirt. “Listen, things are changing around here. Pembrook used to be top dog, but now that muff-diving bitch isn’t long for the force, I guarantee it. You need to get on board and go with the grain, or you’re going to lose. Decide whose side you’re on.”
Harper looked to either side and nodded. “O-okay. Message received.”
Goodwin let Harper go and patted his chest. “Good boy. Now, just go attest to the sergeant that I got a clean kill out there, and we’ll forget this ever happened.”
A Dangerous and Cunning Woman Page 15