Getaway Girl

by Michele Hauf

  Pressing the tracker pad on the laptop secured below the dash, I keyed a checkmark over the Bibliothèque pickup. Paid. My records were updated, and the fail-safe keyed into the door-lock system was overridden. Should I ever take a bullet to the head before receiving payment, the system was designed to spurt dye onto the passengers and keep them safely ensconced within the vehicle until the police (called by an internal phone system) arrived.

  “The Faction is appreciative,” the other man began.

  I put up a palm to stop him. More details than I needed—or wanted. “I lost the tail, but that doesn’t mean they won’t get unlost. Run!”

  The backseat was cleared in a breath. The first man assisted the woman as they emerged onto the sidewalk. In the process, he slipped off his mask, as well as the hood over the woman’s head. Tall and slender, she managed a silent grace even as her handlers rushed her into the train station.

  The Faction is appreciative.

  Today’s passengers were from the underground rescue ops known to me only as the Faction—their identities were but code names—thus, Three and Seven. The Faction rescued kidnapped dignitaries and royals, and intervened in covert criminal affairs that posed greater danger if police were to get involved. They operated outside the law, but their intentions were honorable. And Max Montenelli had approved them as a client.

  Good enough for me.

  Stuffing the envelope of cash into the glove box, I shifted into gear and drove away from the train station at a leisurely pace. No sign of the Peugeot. It was probably still trapped behind the garbage truck. And should they arrive any time soon? No longer my problem.

  Rolling the driver’s window down completely, I stretched an arm along the door and managed the steering wheel with two fingers crooked over the right spoke. Swirling the radio dial, I selected an appropriate song on the one station that played American hits—Bowling For Soup’s “Greatest Day”—and cranked the tunes.

  Good choice. I believed everyone had her own theme song, a song that defined her. It could change with wisdom, experience and life.

  Another successful pickup. But different from any pickup I’d ever made in the past. This one had been legit. I had begun anew. The journey had just gotten a lot brighter.

  Singing along with the words, I had to agree that this was my greatest day.

  Not a bad theme song to have, eh?

  Chapter 2

  “Taken?”

  Sacha Vital did not move. He stood at the center of the small modern office, his hands calmly at his thighs. A silver Dior suit jacket hung impeccably from his shoulders. Black pearl cuff links weighted the sleeves. Asian vanilla scented the mist that fogged from the corner fountain. The floor-to-ceiling windows let in a muted white light, softening the room’s steel furnishings, and the hanging mesh baskets of ivy soaked up the sun like beach bums at Cannes.

  Taken. The word fell like a bomb. Two weeks of preparation scouting this target—a lazy Spanish villa nestled between treacherous mountains only traversable by foot—and but eight hours the mark had been in hand. The reconnaissance crew had arrived in Paris an hour earlier. The exchange had been planned to the minute—and now?

  “Taken.”

  Sacha skimmed his fingertips along the cool surface of a round granite ball placed precisely in the center on the glass-topped desk. Tap, tap, tap. He spread his entire hand over the stone, seeking his peace, fighting the rise of anger.

  More thugs than actual thinking entities, two of Sacha’s employees, Jacques and Thom, stood back by the office door. They would not speak until asked a direct question. They knew better. He’d charged them with watching over the princess following the exchange near the Bibliothèque Nationale, keeping her fed and comfortable, and not to touch. He didn’t operate that way. Damaged goods never provided as much satisfaction as the return of the complete package did. Besides, he’d witnessed, on more than one occasion, the result of returning a damaged package.

  I will never be like my father.

  But sometimes a man was pushed over the edge, and he had to take a reluctant step toward dubious rather than fall completely under the surface, never to emerge.

  Taken.

  And he could guess exactly who was responsible. Wherever he went lately, that damned Faction lurked. He’d smelled them on his trail for the past few months, but until today, they’d clung to the shadows like the rodents they were. Had they been on to his operations? Did he have a snitch in his employ?

  Thom, his shaved head bowed but his gray eyes darting up and down, sought Sacha’s reaction. He looked like a puppy that had chewed the corner off a couch—and was dog enough to realize it was a bad thing.

  Sacha supposed this was what a man deserved for hiring idiots.

  Hell, they weren’t idiots, they’d just been…outsmarted.

  Admittedly, the twosome did not think well on their feet. Instructions had to be fed to them in a constant stream of communication.

  Note to self: hire college graduates in the future. Corruptible graduates.

  Who was he kidding? The future would never be as the present was. It could not be. It would not be.

  Fingers growing tense upon the round stone, Sacha lifted them from the cool surface, and immediately, a fist formed.

  “The Faction?” Sacha wondered, crossing his arms and pressing his forefinger to his upper lip.

  Jacques nodded. “I believe so.”

  Not his favorite opponent. Yet an opposition he had made plans for. Sacha had placed backups surrounding the pickup in anticipation of just such trouble. And snipers on the roof.

  “They strolled into the warehouse and toddled out with the princess in hand?”

  “It was an ambush. There were…” Both men looked to one another. Sweat on their foreheads beaded like teenage acne. “Many,” Thom finished.

  “A dozen,” Jacques added, a bit too unconvincingly.

  Sacha had arranged for six perimeter guards. With such a valuable package, he should have doubled their numbers! But when had the Faction ever put more than two or three men in the field? The smaller their number, the less obvious.

  He eyed both men. Thom shuffled his feet. Jacques studied a non-existent speck on his forearm. Liars?

  “A dozen men. Yet, the two of you returned to me remarkably unscathed.”

  “They hadn’t weapons, that we could see.”

  Sacha lifted a brow. The Faction was not averse to artillery, should it be called for. And if his men had been armed…

  He could read a lie like a hawk. Thom and Jacques were lying to cover their own asses.

  That damned Faction. They had become his nemesis of late. The Faction operated as a fringe covert rescue ops; their only interest was helping those innocents who daren’t consult the authorities for aid. Modern-day Robin Hoods romping about Europe, they were. But they didn’t steal from the rich; they stole from the criminals and gave back to the rich. There was something wrong with that scenario. The Faction was a self-serving organization that operated under police radar, just clever enough for their own good.

  But had they been clever this time?

  Sacha suspected the princess was not safely on her way back to Spain. And if his suspicions were true, that left him little time to reclaim her before it was too late and the Faction ended up with the information he so desperately wanted.

  Could they know his reasons for taking the woman from her home? If they did, that would only verify there was a snitch.

  “You gave chase?” Sacha wondered.

  Thom nodded, head bowed.

  “Well?”

  “They had a driver waiting outside the warehouse. He—”

  “A driver, eh?” Sacha tilted his head, easing out a sudden kink tightening the vein at the back of his jaw. “Arrange a pickup,” he instructed. “I’ve a package that needs…attention.”

  “10:15 behind Sainte-Marie des Batignolles.” I scribbled the time down on the PDA screen set in the console between the driver’s seat and the
passenger side.

  “The cemetery, yes,” I confirmed as Fitch gave me directions. “This is a package?”

  “You know it, girl.”

  “Passengers?”

  “Two. No names, but the call traced to the île Saint-Louis. I’m sending a tracer through the wires right now to pick up any abnormal activity. But I think they’re cool.”

  She thinks? I tapped the plastic stylus upon the electronic keypad and pumped a few chews of my gum. “You know I don’t do same-day pickups, Fitch. Too risky. You’ll never have confirmation before then. It’s less than an hour from now. What’s up?”

  “Fifteen thousand big ones, is what’s up, sweetie. Euros, that is.” Fitch’s Tennessee twang echoed out from the radio—the cell phone attached to the dashboard relayed to the radio speakers so I could speak hands-free. “That’s a big payoff.”

  “Who is willing to pay so much for a mere pickup?”

  My usual pickups asked a standard five thousand euros. I wasn’t greedy, but I wasn’t a fool, either. I did this for the money—and the rush. But the fact someone wanted to pay three times my usual price made me suspicious.

  “I’m not driving the old game anymore, Fitch.”

  “I know that. You’re straight as a stickpin now. Nothin’ wrong with that.”

  So why did Fitch’s tone make me feel guilty?

  Plastic drinking straw stuck in the corner of my mouth, I twisted in the driver’s seat to swing my feet outside. I stepped onto the pavement with my left foot. The Audi sat in a parking lot outside the Forum des Halles, a mall area that was fronted by lush gardens, that always beckoned me during my down time. I had stopped to buy a plain crêpe with just a touch of cinnamon, and Orangina Fire—with a straw—my favorite snack.

  Scrubbing a hand over my hair, I sighed and looked off toward a flock of gray pigeons attacking a bronze statue’s head. “It doesn’t feel right, Fitch.”

  “Trust me.”

  Fitch hadn’t failed me yet. The feisty Goddess of All Things Cyber had served Max and me for years as the go-through for all our pickups. Fitch had so many computers and mainframes and ports and wires on her barge, I always felt lacking while looking over the electronic jungle. I like technology, but if it doesn’t involve grease and gears I don’t want to take the time to learn about it.

  Nearing her fifties, Fitch raised a literal jungle on the deck of the barge tethered to the left bank of the Seine and jogged ten miles daily. She was one hundred percent no-nonsense American smarts—Fitch’s description.

  Her extensive connections made it easy for Fitch to identify and screen all prospective clients. Also, she had a connection to the computer in my BMW and Max’s Audi, and could follow me with GPS or by tracking me on the cell phone. My pride and joy was currently in the shop, getting a few treats, such as a plasma ignition system, dye packs for the security system and bulletproof metal plating beneath the body.

  Hey, a girl’s gotta watch her back, no matter what the destination. And my new journey was all good. No more questionable criminal activity. This getaway girl was now clean.

  With a sigh, I dispelled the unnecessary apprehension. I tugged the partially macerated straw from my mouth. “Fine, Fitch, I trust you.” We rarely spoke in person anymore. Safer not to be seen together. Though I feared few repercussions from the bad guys. Fitch did her thing; I did mine. No need to start partying together. “Drop-off?”

  “The south reservoir on the Marne.”

  Beyond la périph and out of the immediate city. Of course, the cemetery sat in the shadow of the périphérique, which was the freeway that circled Paris—some called it the Ring Road—but the Marne was the opposite direction from the pickup. “That’ll be extra for the mileage. You told them that?”

  “You want extra beyond the fifteen thou?”

  I chuckled and stretched my arms out before me in a pulling yawn. “Guess not. Size of package?”

  “Small. Handheld. Sensitive data that will—”

  “Enough.”

  Details…complicated things. Details painted a trail. And a trail to Jamie MacAlister did not exist.

  All clients first went through Fitch, and she screened them carefully. Jobs even hinting of the illegal would no longer be accepted. Likely the package the passengers carried contained timely information, which needed to be shuttled quickly and discreetly. I could go there.

  “I told them you’d be outside the cemetery at the east gate at 10:14 a.m. They verify the drop-off location, and you’re on your way.”

  “Got it.” I clicked off and leaned back to check the dashboard clock. 9:35. I needed but twenty minutes to make the location.

  Sipping the last spicy ginger and citrus drops of Orangina, I then crumpled up the crêpe wrapper and tossed that, along with the small teardrop-shaped glass bottle, out the window. A mesh wastebasket chained to a street sign caught the refuse.

  Stepping out, I went around to sit on the boot of the car. An initial heel check confirmed my black- and white-checked Vans hadn’t picked up any stones that would scratch the chrome bumper. Swiping a few bread crumbs from the knee-length black crinkle skirt I wore, I then lay back, propping an arm behind my neck and my head on the cracked back window. Bulletproofing had prevented the entire window from shattering, but it would need to be replaced, if not for protection, then for the image I wanted to present to my clients.

  The sun beamed across my exposed belly. The short button-up white silk blouse rode to just below my breasts. I never buttoned the bottom three buttons. I like freedom of movement, and there’s nothing wrong with being sexy—even clocking one hundred and thirty kilometers an hour.

  Closing my eyes I took a few moments to breathe and prepare. To shuck off any tendrils of anxiety and lose myself in the moment, and the puffy clouds overhead. Made me feel like a kid again, to stare at the clouds and pick out a fat-bellied bear or a big round daisy. It was important to retain a childlike wonder and to be resilient. Resilience got me through a lot of hard times.

  Memories of hot summer afternoons spent running through the sprinkler with the rest of the neighborhood kids were always welcome. I wondered what had become of Stacy MacPherson, the dark-haired rogue of the bunch, who’d always play the pirate or the sneaky one-eyed, one-armed villain. Had he found himself a gorgeous bride or had he become the fat bald man who nursed a pint nightly at the corner pub? Or Robin Fergus, the eternal hostess and mother, who always tended her “children” whenever we had played house in the backyard. She must have a large brood by now. Certainly they were all named after birds, as she had oft liked to name her baby dolls.

  Did they ever wonder what had become of Jamesina MacAlister? The girl who would fix their dented and flat bike tires and who insisted upon driving the make-believe limousine when the pretend family cruised to the pub? Could they even imagine she had moved from her pa’s tiny little house in Crieff, Scotland? That she operated a covert transportation service?

  I shouldn’t use the word covert any longer. I didn’t drive criminals now. It was all on the up-and-up.

  I am a professional driver, thank you very much.

  My pa, a mechanic, had fueled my passion for all things greasy, geared and fast. Ewan MacAlister had encouraged me to tear apart my first engine when I was ten. It had literally bottomed out from an old field truck, but the joy of disassembling the network of rusted pipes and gears and desiccated grease had only been surmounted by actually reassembling the thing.

  I had driven my first illegal street race at fourteen, and gained reprimands from Pa. “You’ll drive your poor pa to an early grave!” he’d often lamented when I’d return home with wind-tousled hair and an exuberant replay about the race spilling from my lips.

  That day I’d begun to relentlessly seek anything that put the wind in my hair.

  A year following Pa’s untimely death—he’d slipped on spilled beer in McNally’s Pub, and the fall had taken his life—I had almost driven myself to follow him.

  Twenty, alon
e, and without a single close relative, I had sought a new perspective. Adrenaline had been sucked out of me following Pa’s death but like a junkie, I had wanted it back. I had needed it. Was it an attempt to forget my pa, the only family I had ever known? Maybe.

  So, I set off for France and had bummed a job in a chop shop. I like to mod engines, but wasn’t much for bodywork. And forget those fancy computer chips—I prefer working on good old-fashioned engineering, and leave the complicated stuff to specialists.

  Why Paris? No reason, really, beyond the allure of the big city, and the secret racing circuit, I had heard, was huge. The illegal street races were initially difficult to find, but I’d soon scented them out like a bloodhound after a thief.

  The feel of raw horsepower under my control is the ultimate. To master a metal beast and make it move as if it were an extension of my own limbs? Nothing like it in the world. But risky. A rollover during a midnight race had resulted in a broken collarbone and the gearshift through my leg. I now sport a keen scar on my left thigh, and had been thinking of tattooing over it with a flaming gearshift. Just thinking. I’m not sure I could handle the pain of the needle.

  After a year of fending for myself and surviving on the race money I’d won, I had been turned on to a more controlled driving experience by a charming Italian of African-American descent. Man, but his green eyes could still make me swoon to think of them. Did I mention my love for Italian men?

  Maxwell Montenelli had suggested I master my furious desire for speed by introducing me to driving as a profession. Yes, like driving for profit. That meant a bit more money in my pocket, which led to a bit more food, a bit more clothing and a bit more home.

  A girl can easily be seduced by a bit more.

  Professional driving put a whole new spin on what I had once thought about control. Mastery came only with subtlety, an awareness of my surroundings and a supreme connection with the machine. I had to learn to drive all over again. To dance behind the wheel. The car only did as the driver directed it. Accidents should rarely be blamed on faulty mechanics, only on stupid drivers. Max had once compared mastering a car to a computer. Information in, results out, equals performance. Put in faulty information, you get faulty performance.