Justin

by Kris Michaels

  "I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any alphabet soup approval." Jason gave him a shit-eating grin.

  "So, no DoJ, DoD, FBI, CIA or secret entities I'm not aware of, going after this one is there?"

  "No. The Mossad was the organization there before you on that last operation. Their female specialist was effective, but her operation wasn't sanctioned by the Counsel. The Mossad has been...talked to… about the situation. Sometimes they are rather headstrong and take matters into their own hands."

  "They could have caused both of us to be exposed." The fact that a specialist like him was already on the premises in Perth still made him pause.

  "Noted. But there is nobody involved in this except us. The national agencies that I can't confirm approved this mission, approved this mission. We are alone, and we work better that way. Besides, what are you worried about? A little competition? To hear you tell it, you’re an excellent cat burglar."

  "As I have told you a hundred times before, I prefer the term ‘information extraction specialist’." Justin loathed the term cat burglar. It made him seem like a thief. That was another term he despised. He wasn't a thief. He provided a service for Guardian and his nation, and thief implied he was breaking the law for his own benefit. Justin suppressed a chuckle. Well, he was, but it was on an emotional level, not a monetary one.

  "Thief." Jason winked at him as he said it. They'd had this conversation too many times to count.

  "High priced, high tech, high risk, information extraction specialist." Justin puffed on his fingernails and brushed then against his coat.

  "I know, and I'm damned glad we have your services. You have your secondary passport?"

  "Yes, between the lining of my suitcase in the x-ray shielded molding." He had money and a burner phone in there, too. It wasn't his first rodeo. He glanced at the clock and stood. He needed to get Jason on his way, or his wife Faith wouldn't get dinner before her show. "I'm sorry you couldn't have come in yesterday. You could have met Danielle." Justin walked with Jason toward his office door.

  "Mom really likes her, but beyond that, Jade and Jewell haven't stopped singing her praises. I'm glad you finally found someone." Jason pulled him in for a hug. "You're the last of us to find someone to fill the broken places. Hold on to her if she's the one. Don't let anyone or anything get in the way of taking care of her."

  "She is the one, and all the damned souls in hell couldn't keep me from taking care of her." He hugged his brother once more before opening the door. He waved one last time as Jason hit the outer office door before he headed back to his desk, gathered his phone and keys, and called for Paulo to come get him. If he was lucky, he'd have an hour with Danielle before he had to leave for the airport. If traffic cooperated.

  Of course, traffic didn't cooperate. Justin palmed the phone and hit Dani's profile under favorites.

  "Hey, I thought you were going to come home before you had to fly out. Did you get busy at work?" Danielle's voice immediately calmed the anger that the traffic in New York City had induced.

  "No, traffic is at a standstill. It isn't looking good. How about you come downstairs and take a ride with me to the airport?"

  "I can't. I'm supposed to do a video conference with Roland about the problems we found with the Bowman property. With the time difference and the crunch on the proposal for purchase if we don't meet now and find a way forward, it may be too late, and we could lose the property." She blew out a breath of air. "Maybe you could postpone your wine buying trip?"

  "I can't. I have all the vendors lined up." Justin dropped his head against the leather seat. "I'll be back home in eight days."

  "Well, I'm sure we will survive a week without each other." Danielle chuckled. "Did that sound convincing?"

  "No. Not in the slightest." Justin laughed with her. "I'll call when I can." He hated leaving her and would have taken her with him if they could have made their schedules work, but with a major acquisition in the works, it wasn't in the cards.

  "I'll miss you. Take care of yourself and don't let any vineyard owner swindle you and give you bad wine."

  "I don't think that will happen."

  "I know it won't." Dani's voice softened. "I'm going to miss you."

  Justin nodded, fuck there was so much he wanted to say to her, needed to say, but on the phone wasn't where he needed to be when he said it. He had a perfect weekend planned for when they traveled to Jewell's wedding. No work, just the two of them. He'd made all the arrangements, and he'd even been looking at rings. Not that it was time to pop the question, hell he had to tell her he loved her first, but asking her was inevitable. He cleared his throat around the emotion. "You know how much you mean to me, right?"

  "I know. I feel the same way. Be safe. Until then."

  "Until then." Justin echoed before he hung up. Danielle refused to say goodbye. Ever. It seemed when her mother finally went over the edge of sanity for the last time, she looked at Dani and told her goodbye. Since then, Dani'd never said the words. It was irrational, but Danielle's fear was that if she ever said it, she'd never see the person again. Justin ran his thumb across the face of his phone. He smiled down at the selfie he'd taken of them at the gym. He needed the next eight days to fly by. He'd get in, get out and get home.

  Chapter 18

  Danielle leaned back in her office chair. The leather creaked as she closed her eyes and yawned. The Bowman property had been a nightmare from the initial proposal onward. But, it was the best possible location. If the new legal strategy didn't work, she'd have to throw in the towel and let Justin know it was time to cut their losses. She wasn't ready to put up the white flag just yet, however.

  The cleaning crew had come and gone. The building was quiet. Danielle should've gone home hours ago, but Justin's apartment was so big she tended to wander aimlessly at night. She glanced at her schedule for tomorrow, or rather today. Two meetings—both in the late afternoon. She sent a quick interoffice memo to her administrative assistant to let her know she wouldn't be in until her three o'clock meeting. It was almost time for the city to start waking up. She'd go back to her apartment, grab a shower, some food, and a little bit of sleep. No doubt all three would go a long way to clear up her mind for whatever tomorrow brought.

  She gathered her coat, purse, and briefcase while her computer shut down. Two more days until Justin came home. He hadn't called today, but he’d told her he might not be able to. She understood. Business was business, but it still left a little hole where longing and self-pity grew. She loved him, but they hadn't reached the point where they'd declared that to each other. She kept the words tamped down because she didn't want to terrify Justin into running away. Hi, we were friends, now we're lovers and oh, by the way, I'm in love with you. As in, I love you in a desperate, obsessive kind of way that makes me crazy when you aren't here and makes me long for your touch. Yeah, if she was Justin, she'd be running away from that kind of crazy. They were still new, but their past made it seem like they'd had been together so much longer.

  Tired and brain dead from the day and night's worth of work, she let her mind float around Justin on the way down to the lobby and gave a quick nod to the security guard who was unfortunate enough to pull the midnight shift. He nodded in return and watched her leave. The city was remarkably quiet at this time of the morning. She extended her hand and watched a cab parked down the street turn on his fare light and head her way. A sharp, cold wind cut through the wool dress and coat she wore. The cab pulled up, and she got in.

  "West 87th and Central Park, please."

  The cabbie grunted something in response. His jacket collar was pulled up and it shielded most of his face. Probably protection from the cold although the cab seemed warm enough. For once, Danielle didn't pull out her phone. She'd gone through every email before she'd left the office. The only distraction in the vehicle was the meter mounted at the front of the cab. The cabbie turned heading east. "Excuse me, I said West 87th."

  "City always works on
the sewers this time of morning. They had all the holes open. I'm taking you around it. Won't charge you any more than the short route."

  Dani narrowed her eyes and glanced at the road signs for several minutes. No, they were going way out of the way. She palmed her phone.

  "Take it easy, miss."

  Dani snapped her head up. The cabbies voice sounded like he was talking into a tin can. He held a mask over his face and pushed down the top of an aerosol spray. Her eyes watered, and she choked on a horribly sweet smell. Her phone slipped from fingers that were suddenly numb. Her eyes went from her hands to the man driving. He wore a mask over his mouth and nose, but she'd seen him before, in Perth and in Tasmania...and outside her father's building. Dani blinked back the fog that consumed her and watched as he picked up her phone and threw it out the window. "Go to sleep. If you're lucky, your father will deal. If you're not? Well, you're a little too old for the slave trade, but someone might find you attractive enough to keep around. I know they would if they saw the performance you put on at that vacant building a couple weeks back. Your man gave it to you good. I'll give him that much."

  Danielle's mind spun out of control. She reached toward the man. "Don't. Please." Her speech slurred and sounded slow even to her ears.

  "Ha, too much money not to, and I'm really tired of following you around. Thought we were going to be able to get the information in other ways, but best-laid plans and all that rot. You understand, don't you? Nothing personal. We just need to give him a reason to comply."

  Danielle blinked at the man as her vision tunneled. Her hand dropped into the melted snow on the floor of the cab. It was a sharp contrast to the warm fuzz that surrounded her. Her body tipped following the path of her arm. Down. God, no. She fought to breathe deeply, to get her lungs to expand and her body to move.

  "Ah, see, there you go. Go to sleep. If your father cooperates maybe they'll actually let you wake up." The man's laugh chased her down the spiraling darkness.

  Chapter 19

  Justin took in the expanse of lowered faux ceiling between him and the air duct he needed to reach and disassemble. The only supported iron beam he could use to cross was no more than three inches wide. He tested the wire that suspended it and the fireproof ceiling tiles. It was a high tensile braided cable. It would hold his weight, but if he walked across the beam, his weight could cause it to sway. No matter how solid his balance was, if the beam swayed, the ceiling tiles would dislodge. If the tiles dislodged, the motion sensor would activate, and he'd be caught. He had three feet of clearance above him and a new alarm system below him. The information Guardian had provided was outdated...by about four days if the dates on the panels he'd found were accurate. Who the fuck changes out a state of the art alarm system? Justin could only draw one conclusion to that question. Someone who believed their old alarm system had been compromised. But how would they know? More importantly, how the fuck was he going to get across the expanse?

  Justin lifted and waddled in a crouch to the beginning of the beam. He'd have to crawl across. His hands would be protected by the gloves he wore, but that metal would make mincemeat out of his knees. He sat down on the end of the supported area below him and took off his soft suede-soled shoes. He stripped off his socks and put his shoes back on. A couple quick flips of his pant legs rolled up the material to his knees. The sock wrapped around his pants, where he tied them at the outside of his knees so he could move without impediment. Sweat dripped down the side of his face, and he brushed at it with an irritated swipe.

  Justin made sure all his pockets were sealed or zipped and that his backpack was secure before he regarded the bar again. Fuck, this was not what he'd planned, but thank God he was damn good at breaking into places. He placed his first hand out onto the bar and followed with the second. His knee slid out onto the bar as he slowly and carefully made his way toward the wall twenty feet away.

  Huge drops of sweat landed on the tile with audible splats. Justin moved in microbursts keeping his center of gravity over the bar. The hard angle iron dug into his knees, and the pain was distracting, but Justin pushed through it. He had four feet left to go when he heard voices below him.

  He drew a steadying breath and froze, focusing on the bar and keeping his body from shifting. The muffled voices laughed during their conversation. Great, it sounded like they'd settled in. Justin slid his hand along the bar and moved his knee. The small space amplified the slight scrape of his improvised knee pads. He waited, ensured there was no swing to the bar and moved again. The sweat from his brow dropped again and again. His hands reached the supported area around the air duct. Lifting from the narrow, suspended beam to that area would be where shit could go wrong. The release of weight, if not done in a smooth, concise fashion could cause the bar to shift.

  One hand secure on the supported area, he moved the second up. His knees slid up, inch by inch until he could shift his weight to his shoulders and lift through his arms. The pain of blood returning to his damaged knees made him grimace and puff air through his lungs. He couldn't move quickly. He couldn't let the bar swing. Once all his weight was on his elbows and shoulders, he pushed up while applying pressure through the tips of his toes onto the center of the beam. The sweat ran freely down his face and onto his neck. Justin inched one foot forward and off the beam. He planted his knee on the hardened surface of the supported area and choked back a groan of pain. He'd fucked his knees up, of that there was no doubt. He shifted his weight onto his knee and lifted his toes off the beam, staring at his foot over his shoulder the entire time. Justin folded up onto the supported area and rolled onto his back. He glanced back from where he'd come. A huge smile split his face. What a fucking rush! Damn, he hadn't even made it to the safe, and this was already one of the best missions he'd been on. He glanced at the air duct and followed the metal back with his eyes. There. A juncture. That meant access. Not to the office. Hell, dropping down through air returns was all Hollywood, although Tom did make that shit look good. No, he had a failsafe for times just like these. There was no way anyone wouldn't know he'd been here because he was about to knock out the entire building. Night, night. Sleepy time. Sorry, Jason, but if you want the information, you'll deal with the fact that the extraction will be discovered a little sooner than anticipated.

  The enclosed ventilation system that made this building a fortress also made it vulnerable. It offered a way to get in, get the documentation, and get out without going across that damn bar again. Justin carefully assessed the air handler. Fortunately, there were only two balanced magnetic switches set at the access point—one at the vent cover itself, and one attached to a thin filament connected to the vent cover. It was an old-school redundancy most people would overlook in the fiber optic enclosed systems that existed today. Whoever set up the system was good. Not great, but Justin would give them props. He neutralized the switch on the grid and cut the filament. The other BMS dangled uselessly on the thread. If he'd pulled the cover without seeing it, the device would have triggered alarms in the security center.

  His backpack came off, and he opened the bottom left pouch on his vest and palmed two small rolls. One was plastic sheeting; the other was a Kevlar infused tape. It was cut into inch strips and set on a wax paper backing. He taped the edge of the plastic down around the air handler until only a small corner remained open. Justin pulled a canister out of his mesh pouch. It looked like a hand grenade, but it was knockout gas. It was an aerial version of Diethyl Ether. From what Jason told him, it had been chemically altered to be more concentrated and guaranteed to knock out anyone who breathed it in for at least an hour. He set the canister down and pulled a scaled-down version of a gas mask out of the back pouch of his backpack. It fit over his mouth and nose leaving his eyes unobstructed. While he occasionally wore glasses when he was working with the clientele in his restaurants, he didn't need them for this. The hooked nozzle of the ether “grenade” fit over the lip of the air handler, and Justin taped the plastic closed before he d
epressed the tab dispensing the chemical. Once the dispenser emptied, he retrieved it and strapped it back in. There were no prints on the tape or the plastic, why leave the container so someone could back track the manufacturer. From there they could see who purchased it. No, he'd leave nothing to identify him or his organization. Sloppiness wasn't his hallmark.

  With his backpack strapped on, and all the pockets of his vest secured, he headed back to the drop ceiling. The crouch he maintained kept his knees bent, and that strain felt amazing. Not. Justin approached the area where he'd previously heard talking. Nothing but silence. He glanced at his watch and gave it three more minutes to allow the chemical to make its way through the entire facility. Justin put on his ski mask. It was fucking sweltering in the area he was in, but if he ran into difficulties with the safe, he wouldn't have time to make it out without having his image snagged by a security camera. He hated cameras. Videotapes and digital recordings were a bane to his existence when he worked for Guardian. Several times he'd wondered if it would be worth it to go straight to the prize and double back for the digital proof. Yeah, like that would happen. He wouldn't know what the fuck he was looking for anyway. But it would be a rush to try it. Wouldn't that be a trip? The smile he wanted to bust out with was hampered by his gas mask. Maybe he should study up on digital storage of security camera systems.

  Justin sat down and dropped his feet onto the ceiling tiles suspended by the bar. He glanced at his watch before he lifted his leg and punched out a ceiling tile. The thick fire-retardant material snapped and crumbled to the floor. Justin waited, listening for any indication of movement. When all was quiet, he lowered himself down out of the ceiling. Two men in janitor's uniforms were slumped over a small table. Employee break room. That meant he needed to go right when he reached the door. Justin zipped soundlessly through the halls of the building, his mind referencing the blueprints he'd committed to memory.