by Declan Finn
“Speaking of phone calls,” his father interrupted, “I know you came here because of the area code on the back of the photograph, but what do you expect to find?”
Wayne reached over the arm of the couch and grabbed the handle of his suitcase. He pulled it into his lap and snapped the clasps open. He took out the photos and handed them to his father. Wayne Sr. looked them over as his son spoke. “We’re trying to find the place that developed—”
“I know this sick son of a bitch!”
“Which one?” Wayne, never known as Junior, asked.
STRONGBOW’s eyebrows raised. “Where from?”
“The photographer. He lives just down the street—Downing Street!”
This sudden revelation brought a smile to Catherine’s lips. “How well do you know the police manning the gate blocking off Downing Street?”
“Well enough to give them Boxing Day presents for their families, using full names and addresses. Should I want to know?”
“Probably not.”
“Any idea about who might be handling their photographs, Dad?” PHOENIX interjected; content to let the assassin follow her own track for now.
Senior grinned. “Of course I do. I know everyone in this town.” His grin faded to an annoyed smile. “Problem is the bastard won’t work with us on this in any kind of broad daylight. He’s almost a regular at developing this sort of photography. When anyone reports being blackmailed, Benny’s is the first place the cops stop.” He glanced at his watch. “Okay, look: your mother gets home in about an hour, and—”
“I thought Mom retired,” Wayne interrupted.
“Her definition of retired is working half-days. She’ll be arriving at four—in time for tea. It’s two now. We should have enough time to get over there, strong-arm Benny and be back in time to welcome her home.”
“We?” his son asked.
“Well, of course. I’m not going to let you two have all the fun. Besides, I’m the only one here who knows where he is.”
Catherine rose. “Well, you two boys have fun, I’m going to need something for later.”
Chapter 24
The annoying bell chimed as Captain Williams forced open the creaky glass door of Benjamin Avery Prachett’s establishment. He was better known as Benny. Wayne let his father go ahead of him as the Ranger called out the aforementioned shop owner. Wooden shelves were laden with miscellaneous cameras, film, and pipe tobacco. Behind the counter—it almost looked like the plastic counter top one sees at the local McDonald’s—a curtain concealed the entrance to a back room.
He slammed his fist on the counter top. “Benny, damn you, come out! We need to talk, you and I.”
Wayne gripped his shoulder. “Patience, Dad.”
The Captain shot a glare at his son. “Patience? I’m not the one wanted by the government for shooting a member of the President’s Cabinet.” He sighed and turned to fully face Phoenix. “I guess I should follow your advice for once. She sure is something, ain’t she?”
“Who?”
“Your partner.”
Wayne smiled. “She’s not exactly my partner, Dad. Heck, I guess I should be glad she didn’t kill me on the plane to Dublin… You know, that’s a good question: Why didn’t she kill me? She said it was about my file, that it didn’t seem like I’d be the sort to turn. What do you suppose she meant by that? I don’t think the CIA would resort to using profilers on everyone that walks by their door.”
Ranger Williams grinned slyly. “Maybe she found you attractive. Sleep with her yet?”
Phoenix patted his father on the shoulder. “Yes, I did, Dad. I slept on the couch, she on the bed. Come on, Benny’s taking too long.”
Wayne slapped both hands on the counter and leapt over it in one smooth move. His father followed. They walked through the curtain, into a storage room, with about a dozen file cabinets against one wall. Another door led even father into the building.
“So, how long have you known her?” Williams senior asked.
“Since last night.”
“Wow, and I thought I had worked fast with your mother.”
The Secret Service agent shot him a look. “Dad, no more information on your private life. Please?”
“Hey, what are you going to worry about? You were born nine and a half months after we married, despite our best efforts.” The retired Ranger turned and shouted, “Benny, damn you, you have to be here, it’s not tea time yet!” He stormed forward, past the next door, while Wayne stayed to scan the labels, until his father said, “Benny, you stupid shit. What the hell did you have to get yourself into now?”
Wayne walked through the door. It was a darkroom. The single red bulb hung from a simple chain, casting everything into shades of black and red. His father stood at one of the developing tables at the far end of the room, standing over a development tray filled with water. Benny’s head of white hair reflected red in the light, making it blend with the water his face had been plunged into.
“You were right,” the younger Williams said. “He was well known for this sort of thing. They needed to find someone willing to develop the pictures, then kill him because the cops would come here first if game was called on account of conscience.”
* * * *
Special Agent Jennifer Lane stepped onto the ICU floor of the hospital, laptop in carrying case, gun in shoulder holster, hidden behind her black FBI dress code sport coat. Word was Lansing had finally woken up. She needed him to hack back into his computer. Each of his ciphers had wrapped up each program tighter than a snake around the staff of a caduceus. The National Security Agency had taken one look at his codes and wanted to know if Blaine wanted a job anytime in the near future, if only to learn how he designed them.
She asked for Blaine Lansing’s room number after flashing her ID. The floor nurse cocked an eyebrow. “That makes you the third one. We had a couple of men in black march through here maybe two minutes ago. What is this, Feebies on parade?”
“Thank you,” Jennifer said, and started moving down the hall
Is it time for a change in shift already?
She resisted the urge to reach into her jacket and pull out a cell phone to call for backup. The timing wasn’t quite right. The guard had only been put on less than four hours ago. She picked up her pace, worried now. There was always the possibility that the Bureau had sent two guys to try strong-arming a man who’d just been shot, but it was a slim chance at best. Strong arming one of your own after being shot in the line of duty—off or on hours? Jennifer casually reached into her jacket and took the safety off her pistol, just in case. She stopped and looked in Lansing’s room.
There were both men, just as the nurse had described. One flashed an ID at the guard on duty, while the other stood between her and Lansing, blocking him from the guard’s view. The black agent nodded and stood, closing her magazine.
The one at Lansing’s bedside turned and pressed his silenced pistol to the back of her head and pulled the trigger. Before the murdered agent fell to the floor, Agent Lane dropped her laptop case to her side, and stepped back, withdrawing her H&K in one motion. She delivered an expert kick to the door, focusing all her energy on the handle. The door flew open, followed by Lane, her pistol held in both hands as she stepped half-inside, using the wall for cover.
“Freeze,” she ordered. Both men turned on her, guns at the ready. “F.B.I!” she barked, using bullets for punctuation.
The first two bullets hit the bodyguard’s murderer square in the chest. The third caught the other in the throat.
Special Agent Jennifer Lane, ITF, Ops division, holstered her weapon and walked over to Blaine Lansing’s bedside. She recognized the basic elements from when her mother had been shot while on the job with the Seattle Police Department: a saline drip, an oxygen mask, and a broad-spectrum antibiotic. She remembered them well: answers given to questions asked with persistence unique to a nine-year-old.
She heard the clamor of feet in the hallway, followed by the predi
ctable “Freeze” of two rent-a-cops. Jennifer checked the saline bag for signs of tampering. There wasn’t an air pocket in the bag, not that she knew—like Catherine Miller would—it would take a bicycle pump to deliver enough air into the blood stream to produce the result of her bullets.
“Special Agent Lane, FBI,” she said casually as she held the bag in her left hand, leaving her right dangle at her side facing the cops. She didn’t dare reach inside her jacket until—
“Let’s see some ID, lady.”
She slowly turned to look down both of the .38s pointed her way.
Chapter 25
Brian Brooks almost twitched in anticipation. His latest lady of the night—technically, late afternoon—was supposed to be a special order, or so he’d been told. The wiry man straightened out his black wire-frame glasses. The black T-shirt clung tight to his ridiculous body, the leather pants even more so.
The doorbell rang. He sprang from his couch and launched himself at the door. His hand wrapped around the handle, and he stopped, freezing in place. He straightened himself, regaining composure as he slipped into another persona. He peered into the peephole at his latest woman. Her skin was a pasty white, with raven hair that resembled Elvira, Mistress of the Night. She wore a black leather raincoat, over what he was sure was nothing much. Her black leather bag hung at her side, complete with all the equipment he dare not keep in his own home.
Brian twisted the knob and pulled the door open.
“Where do I set up?” she asked as she strode in, not waiting to be invited. Did he get the right girl for tonight?
“Upstairs,” he answered. “Third door on your right.”
Brooks watched her quickly walk up the stairs, two at a time. This is unusual, he thought. Brian grinned. Maybe it’ll be more fun breaking her.
He soon followed after her. She had already put handcuffs on each corner of the four-poster bed and waited for him just inside the door. He smiled at the sight. These handcuffs were brand new, and made of steel. Better than the furry cuffs. He reached out to fondle the closed cuff, cherishing the image of silver against the brass. A black-gloved hand shot out and closed the other cuff over his wrist.
“Hey,” he whined. “You’re not supposed to—”
The left cross broke his third rail of thought, not to mention loosening three teeth. His legs gave way beneath him, and he fell to the floor, arm hanging from the bedpost.
Catherine sighed, and rolled her eyes. She grabbed him by the front of his T-shirt, hoisting him to his feet. His head lolled back, and his eyes fluttered. He was at least still semi-conscious.
“We’re going to talk, luv,” she said in a Liverpool accent—a brogue trampled by the entire cast of Riverdance—then threw him onto the bed, swinging him around by the cuff. Soon, another handcuff captured his free wrist.
“What are you doing, you stupid whore?” he said with as much force as he could muster for a man who didn’t understand his position.
“You and me, Gov’, ah ganna ’ave a little talk.”
“You can’t do this to me! I’m a member of the British Shadow Cabinet!”
“Yes,” Catherine replied coolly. “We can.”
One photograph slid in front of him, delicately perched on the bed, leaning against the wire headboard. His eyes glazed over with horror as one after the other came down before him.
Brian quickly thought to that morning’s paper. “No! You told me I’d done enough. You told me I was finished. I told everyone to stay out of that guard post! I told them it was marked for demolition! You can’t blame me because it burned down on its own!”
“Would you wish to lay money on that?” she purred. “It didn’t burn down. We were attacked!”
“Attacked! No-no-no-no-no! You can’t blame me for that. I didn’t do anything.”
“Your contact said otherwise. Michael said he knew you were the type to pull a double-cross.”
“Michael?” Brooks asked, confused. “Who the fuck is Michael? My last contact was a big ugly guy, friggin’ hunchback—and he didn’t strike me as a ‘Michael’.”
Multiple contacts. Smart move.
“What are you going to do with me?” Brian whined.
Silence.
“Well?”
Brooks looked over one shoulder, then another. She was gone.
* * * *
Catherine walked into Captain Williams’ living room wearing a respectable beige trench coat—with black leather lining—and a baseball cap on her head. The leather bag was now a simple leather briefcase, stuffed with two detachable spiked heels. Both men looked over sets of pictures laid out on the center coffee table.
“You guys find anything over at the developer’s?” she said, dropping her bag on the floor.
“Benny, face down in a pan of developing solution”—Wayne held up the photos—“and these.”
She reached out for them as she sat down. “What are they?”
“Benny sure did know what he was doing,” Wayne said. “My bet is that these are photos of all the guys who came in with some real un-pretty stuff in case the police came smashing the storefront window in asking after it. Unfortunately, only Benny knew the filing system for what we found in boxes. There was also a camera in the wall rigged to a button in the desk. Whenever he found the content of the film, he took a snapshot of the blackmailer when he or she came back to collect them. For all we know, he could’ve taken pictures of everyone who walked in while keeping only those that had some creative pictures.”
“There’s another problem,” his father continued. “The camera was digital, hooked up to a printer upstairs. The window was left open, and the damn things were flying everywhere. It’ll take us a while. What did you find?”
“I found that we’re looking for a hunchback, apparently.”
“The hunchback of Notre Bomb?” Wayne asked, picking up another photo. He looked at his father. “You know what, Dad, now that I think about it, do you think you could arrange for a Glock 7 to find its way into my hands?”
Catherine smiled. “You like mine so much you want one of your own?”
Wayne flashed her a set of teeth. “I just don’t want to have to go through airport security and wind up in each new country having trouble securing a gun.”
“I’ll talk with my SAS contacts as soon as possible,” Captain Williams said.
“Thanks.” Wayne turned his attention back to the photo in his hands, then his face fell. “Oh nuts.” He turned the picture over.
It was a hunchback.
* * * *
“What do you mean he was almost killed?” Winston Scofield bellowed loud enough that Jennifer Lane had to tear the cellular phone away from her ear.
“I thought I sent people there to keep him alive!” he continued to rage.
“Yes, sir,” she said calmly. “I got here just in time to see her central processing unit get splattered all over the floor.”
“What?” he asked.
Jennifer smiled. She’d successfully turned him around with the use of one computer metaphor. “She was executed with a gunshot to the occipital lobe.”
“He blew her brains out?”
“Yes, sir. Both of them had FBI identification—I saw it myself.”
“You touched their fake IDs?”
“No, sir. I saw it lying on the ground—neither managed to put it away before the shooting started. I’m waiting for the Physical Evidence Retrieval Team to arrive now.”
“Forget the PERT, get him out of there.”
“Don’t worry, sir. Everything is under control. No one can get to him.”
“How can you be sure?”
Jennifer glanced out at security holding back the crowd who flooded the floor, growing every moment.
“Just a hunch.”
* * * *
The hunchback in the photo was made up very well, in Catherine’s opinion. He had metal braces on his legs and was supported by two metal crutches. He face was covered in scars that curved b
ack to his nose.
“Lupus,” Wayne stated.
“What?” Catherine asked, looking up from the photo.
“He looks like he has Lupus—it’s a disease that produce facial scars resembling a wolf’s face.”
Strongbow disagreed. “It’s makeup. It’s well done, granted, but it’s makeup. I’ll be very shocked if he actually has to use any of these materials. Heck, I doubt he even has a hump on his back.”
“What makes you say that?” Captain Williams asked.
“Look at all that metal. Would you search a hunchback to see if he had a weapon on him? In fact, would you even bother to check if the hump was real?”
“I would,” Wayne said, “but airport security wouldn’t.”
“There’s also another possibility,” Wayne Senior added. “Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity: the target was a man named Carlos, an assassin that used a network of old men—homeless war veterans—in order to get information around France.”
“Dad, this is London. You can get someone who matches that description lying around every other doorway. Besides, I doubt Catherine’d be wrong about something involving makeup.”
“Why?”
Phoenix smiled. “Let’s say she has a unique talent for this sort of stuff.”
A key rattled in the lock. A moment later, a voice called out, “Wayne, I’m home.”
Commander Angela Furnon Williams, US Navy (ret.), strolled into her living room, briefcase at her side. She had auburn hair that grayed at the temples, and two sparkling violet eyes separated by a rabbit-like nose. Her eyes fell immediately on her son. She dropped her case and quickly embraced him, lifting Wayne off the couch. She kissed him on both cheeks, then stepped back to look at him with the same scanning stare that his father had given him before.
“You look good,” she told him. “Backwoods living has done well for you. You haven’t visited Bourbon Street, I can tell.”