Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  The one thing I clung to was that if he made it back then the bond between us was strong enough to cope with whatever might follow. In the event, I found myself devastated by his sudden unexpected enmity towards me. For someone in a profession that stands or falls by its anticipation of every obstacle, I admit that one took me completely by surprise.

  We still shared the Upper East Side apartment Parker had arranged for us as part of our relocation deal, but I moved my things into the second bedroom. At first this was a temporary measure while Sean acclimatised to the fact we were a couple. His last waking memory of me was as someone he despised.

  As is always the way with temporary measures, the move soon became permanent. But it also seemed to ease the tension between us. He took some tentative steps toward me and I thought, finally, we might be making progress.

  And then it all changed again.

  The day that eight-point-six earthquake hit I sat watching the news coverage and teetering on the cusp of melancholy. And that’s when Parker Armstrong rang me.

  “Charlie!” he greeted. There was surprise in his voice, as if he hadn’t expected to catch me at home when he knew that’s where I’d be. “How you doing?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He let the lie pass, said instead, “I have a client coming in at three this afternoon. I’d like for you to be here, meet with them.”

  I poked my brain doggedly into work mode. “Is this a solo job or part of a full detail?”

  Parker hesitated. “Not exactly either,” he said. “Best if the client explains it to you herself.”

  “OK, so what’s the threat?” The question lacked finesse, but hell—people didn’t hire Armstrong-Meyer unless they needed protecting from something bad.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” he said, not sounding at all fazed.

  I felt my eyebrows rise. Parker was usually meticulous. He possessed a wariness born of long experience at the sharp end of close-protection work. He did not normally offer his services—or those of his operatives—on such an open-ended basis.

  In spite of myself, I was intrigued. And almost anything was better than this frantic inactivity.

  “OK,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

  I made sure I reached the midtown offices of the Armstrong-Meyer agency a good half an hour before the appointed time. Excessive perhaps, but Parker always stressed that we were there to wait on our clients, not the other way around.

  As it was, I was told to go right in as soon as I stepped out of the lift into the marble-tiled lobby. The Armstrong-Meyer nameplate was still displayed behind the reception desk. I wondered how long Parker could continue to keep Sean as a full partner when he no longer played an active role.

  I knocked briefly and opened the door to Parker’s office. His domain occupied a corner of the building. It had a fabulous view out over the Manhattan skyline but I didn’t get chance to admire it.

  Parker was not alone, I saw immediately. There was a woman with him who was sitting in one of the low client chairs that bracketed a coffee table in the centre of the room. She was in her forties and the best word to describe her was sleek.

  She was dressed with a careless elegance only the long-term wealthy ever truly manage well. I couldn’t pull it off with a gun to my head. What little jewellery she wore was antique and expensive without being gaudy. Her hair and nails were flawless. And she was a redhead—one of Parker’s weaknesses.

  My boss was standing behind his desk, leaning both fists onto the polished surface, his arms braced. His head came up sharply when I entered.

  For a horrible moment I thought I’d walked in on a situation that was personal rather than professional. There was definitely something going on even if I couldn’t put my finger on what. I heard the tension fizzing in the air and saw the flash of stubbornness in the woman’s eyes. Eyes that widened when I walked in on them.

  I froze with one hand on the door handle.

  “I was told you were ready for me, sir,” I said quickly, keeping it formal just in case. “But I can come back later if you’re—”

  “No, no, come on in,” Parker said. He straightened and lifting a shoulder as if to ease the tension in his neck. “Mrs Hamilton,” he went on, “this is the operative we’ve been discussing—Charlie Fox.”

  I shut the door and came forward. Mrs Hamilton rose to meet me, neatly pushing aside all appearance of irritation, and gave me the kind of smile that makes you believe it really is a pleasure. Nevertheless, I caught the way her eyes slid questioningly to his and the bland look he passed her in reply.

  I pretended not to notice, taking a seat opposite and crossing my legs. I was glad I’d taken the time to put on a decent black suit for the occasion. What made me less happy was the fact I’d chosen to wear an open-necked shirt with it.

  The old scar around the base of my throat had faded to a thin line that didn’t tan well. I was still touchy about it even though it was only noticeable if you knew to look—and for some reason Mrs Hamilton seemed to know. I returned her gaze evenly. She flushed slightly and glanced away.

  Parker, who’d missed nothing of this, gave her a brief reassuring smile.

  “Thanks for coming in at such short notice, Charlie, but we have something of a time-sensitive situation.”

  “No problem,” I said. “What’s the brief?”

  He nodded to Mrs Hamilton. “If you’d care to fill Charlie in on some of the background?”

  Again there was more in the tone than the words but the redhead simply gave a reluctant nod.

  “I guess I ought to tell you right away that I am finding it hard to maintain a level of emotional detachment from all this,” she said.

  Most clients who came to us suffered the same problem, but to have her admit it up front was refreshing.

  She took a deep breath. “My husband died in the Tōhoku earthquake in Japan,” she said. “He was over there on business, decided to take an extra day or two at the end of his trip to see the sights, and as a result he became one of nearly twenty-five thousand dead, injured or missing.”

  I did a quick mental calculation and worked out the Tōhoku earthquake was several years previously. Not long enough to sate her grief, clearly, but enough to dull the pain just a little.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” I murmured.

  She nodded her acknowledgement, went on. “He was in the hotel restaurant when the building simply … came down around him, trapped him in the rubble. Afterward, well—” she turned diffident, “—they said he might have survived if help had gotten to him sooner.”

  I said nothing. Slow deaths are harder to bear, I knew, than if he’d been killed instantly.

  Instead, it was Parker who said, “Mrs Hamilton is now a major donor supporting an outfit called Rescue & Recovery International.”

  I felt my lips try to quirk inappropriately upwards and controlled them only with effort. Parker’s face showed no inner amusement. Had he never watched the puppet Thunderbirds series as a kid? The Tracy family living on their private island and running International Rescue on the side?

  “Yes,” Mrs Hamilton said, reading me with uncanny accuracy. “I guess that makes me Lady Penelope, doesn’t it?”

  I let go and grinned at her. “And not forgetting her trusty butler-turned-chauffeur.”

  “Of course!” Her eyes flew to my boss. “His name was Parker.”

  Parker’s face remained impassive. I suppose one of us had to behave like a grownup.

  “And you have concerns with this Rescue & Recovery?” I asked. I couldn’t bring myself to include the “International” part.

  “Yes,” she agreed, her eyes on my boss.

  Parker said, “Rescue & Recovery—they’re known as R&R—was formed as an emergency response team shortly after that Japanese quake in two-thousand-ten. Their mission statement is to provide rapid emergency assistance on the ground, anywhere in the world, twenty-four/seven, three-sixty-five days a year.”

  I nodded. A
ll very interesting but so far I didn’t see where I came in. I silently indicated this to Parker with a face that asked, So?

  “They go into areas which, by their very nature, are experiencing upheaval and a degree of civil unrest. It is a requirement of their insurance to have a security advisor on board. Until three weeks ago that was a guy called Kyle Stephens.”

  He lifted a manila folder from his desk and held it out to me. I flipped it open and saw a head and shoulders shot of a thickset man with a bull neck and a nose that had seen some action. He was uniformed in the mug shot. I recognised the red lightning streak cap badge of the US Army Rangers.

  “Is there a problem with Stephens?” I asked, skimming his impressive résumé. “He looks like an ideal man for the job.”

  “He’s dead.”

  I blinked. “How?”

  “That rather seems to be the question,” Mrs Hamilton said. She sighed. “Three weeks ago they were in South America. Mudslides in Colombia. Four hundred dead—many of them children. Two schools were destroyed. It was a nightmare, not just the continuing heavy rains but increased guerrilla activity in the area causing havoc as well. It was dangerous in many ways but that’s all part of the job.”

  I heard an edge to her voice and wondered who she was trying to convince. I said nothing but Parker gave her an encouraging nod. Her answering smile was grateful but there was still something slightly strained between them. I wondered again what they’d been arguing about before my arrival.

  “At first it all seemed normal—as normal as their work ever gets. They took the rescue operation as far as they could and moved on to recovering the bodies.” She shook her head. “All those children. It was heartbreaking.”

  “I read the reports,” Parker said gently. “It was a tragedy.”

  “And the next thing I know I get a call on the sat-phone from the team leader, Joe Marcus. Anyhow, Joe tells me Kyle has ‘met with an accident’.”

  “Did he say what kind of an accident?”

  “No, but it wasn’t what he said, it was the way he said it. It’s hard to explain. Joe can be a tough man to read but there was just too much anger.”

  “That wouldn’t be unusual,” Parker pointed out. “Losing somebody you feel responsible for can make you … rage.”

  He didn’t look at me as he spoke. I didn’t look at him either.

  “But it was as though he was angry with Kyle, not because of something that happened to him,” Mrs Hamilton said. “It was as though Joe was taking it personally somehow.”

  “Same rule applies,” I said. “If someone dies because they made a mistake—especially a one-off stupid mistake—that would do it, too.”

  “Funny.” She eyed us both. “When I pressed Joe about it later, that’s exactly what he said.”

  “But?” I put in, because in situations like these there’s always a “but”.

  Mrs Hamilton paused. She uncrossed and re-crossed her elegant legs. Eventually she said, “Do you trust your instincts, Miss Fox—when it comes to people, I mean?”

  “Mostly,” I said, because there were times when my instincts had let me down big time. And other times when I’d refused to listen to my internal warning system. Usually to my cost.

  She heard all that in my one-word answer, smiled and said, “Well then, if you ‘mostly’ trust your instincts, do you then follow up on them, or do you let it slide?”

  It was a good point. I couldn’t come back with anything except agreement. I shrugged.

  “All right,” I said. “What does your instinct tell you about Kyle Stephens?”

  She hesitated again, because now we were drifting from facts into feelings. She glanced at Parker again for support.

  “That I might have gotten him killed.”

  “It was brought to Mrs Hamilton’s attention that there had been a number of incidents that coincide with the arrival on scene of R&R’s people,” Parker said.

  “What kind of ‘incidents’?” I asked, echoing his emphasis. “You mean threats against them?”

  Parker shook his head. “Thefts,” he said bluntly.

  Mrs Hamilton’s body shifted in protest. “In the confusion following the kind of natural disasters they deal with, it’s easy for things to be … lost, but this is more than that,” she said, her voice hollow. “It’s deliberate, organised theft, and I won’t have any part in it.”

  “What proof do you have that anyone who works for R&R is involved?” I asked.

  “An anonymous tip, delivered via a third party I knew slightly,” she said. “A warning to … disassociate myself before it becomes a scandal.”

  “Which you’re reluctant to do,” I surmised.

  “Wouldn’t you be?” she demanded. “Whatever else they may be up to, my team does amazing work, locating and rescuing the injured and then recovering, identifying and reconciling the dead. Rebuilding shattered infrastructure. My people bring hope and help and closure to thousands—”

  My team, I thought. My people …

  “I realise that and I do entirely appreciate your dilemma,” Parker said soothingly, cutting her off before she could get into her stride.

  “No, you don’t,” she shot back. “You don’t appreciate just how guilty I feel.”

  That brought both of us up short. I flicked my eyes to Parker’s.

  “Mrs Hamilton,” he said carefully, “what exactly do you have to feel guilty about?”

  But she wouldn’t look at either of us. “Kyle was there for security. Not only to keep the team safe but to help maintain law and order. So I asked him to … look into what I’d heard,” she said, speaking low. “And now he’s dead.”

  “And you feel his death was a little too convenient?”

  “Isn’t it?” Anger pulsed through her voice. “Either it’s a coincidence and he was just plain unlucky, or he was silenced. Silenced because of something I asked him to do,” she said. “I can’t take the not knowing. It’s destroying my faith in R&R and the work they do. How can I be proud of something that might be so tainted? To steal from the dead, the dying or the injured. It’s a desecration.”

  “Which is why I propose sending in Charlie,” Parker said. “To put your mind at rest.”

  She made a brief gesture of frustration with her hands, and I realised this was probably the point where I’d come in.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Fox—Charlie,” she said. “I mean no offence, but Kyle Stephens was a decorated veteran of two Gulf Wars and Afghanistan, and yet still he ended up dead. And now Mr Armstrong wants to send in a young woman who can hardly have the same kind of experience or—”

  “One of Charlie’s many strengths is the fact people woefully underestimate her abilities,” Parker said. “Trust me, she is more than capable of handling herself. If she wasn’t, do you honestly believe I’d propose sending her?”

  Mrs Hamilton’s eyes skated over me. They lingered again on the scar at my throat and I couldn’t quite decide if the sight of it reassured her or not. She bit her lower lip.

  “It’s very short notice,” she said, as if that final point might dissuade me.

  I was wearing the TAG Heuer wristwatch Sean had given me as a ‘welcome to New York’ gift shortly after we arrived. I checked it and did some fast mental calculations. Not for the first time since some bastard ran my Buell Firebolt off the road I cursed the fact I had yet to replace the bike. It would have halved my travel time.

  “I keep a go-bag ready packed at home,” I said. “I can be ready to leave in less than an hour.”

  Mrs Hamilton was silent for maybe half a minute. We let the silence run.

  Eventually she sighed and got to her feet. “All right,” she said, checking her own watch. “An hour? That’s good, because the next transport plane out is due to leave the Air Cargo centre at JFK a little over three hours from now.”

  I smiled. “Should give me plenty of time then.”

  #

  Parker ran me out to the airport himself, despite my protests. I apprecia
ted the ride, but if he played personal chauffeur for me too often I was going to start getting knowing leers from the other guys and comments about how the boss was trying to get into my pants.

  The problem was they wouldn’t have been far wrong.

  Not that Parker would ever be quite so crass, but he’d shown beyond any doubt that it would only take the slightest encouragement from me to turn our relationship into something much more personal.

  He wanted me, maybe even loved me. And part of me recognised that it would have been such an easy step to take.

  It would also have been totally wrong for both of us.

  “Any hunches, doubts, suspicions, you call me, a-sap,” he ordered as he dropped me off outside a hanger belonging to the freight company that was co-ordinating the latest earthquake relief supplies. “And Charlie—watch your six.”

  “I will,” I said, answering both questions. I grabbed my bag from the footwell and climbed out, then paused while the howl of a jet powering through take-off made speech temporarily impossible. Then I said, “And if you hear anything from Sean …?”

  His face hardened. “I’ve got people working on it. When we find him—not if—I’ll call you,” he promised. “Just as fast.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The morning after my arrival I met the final two regular members of what Mrs Hamilton had described as “the core team” that made up R&R. A thin waiflike girl and a leggy blonde bitch.

  As I arrived at the mess hall where non-stop breakfast was being served, Joe Marcus was just leaving. We did the usual dance in the doorway before he stepped back and beckoned me through with a slightly impatient jerk of his head.

  “You’ll be working with Hope this morning. Girl over by the far wall—looks like she hasn’t eaten for a month and won’t eat for another,” he said by way of description. “That’s Hope Tyler. Don’t let the appearance fool you. She’s the best I’ve seen in a long time. But you’ll get to judge that for yourself later.”

  I followed his eyeline and saw a girl whose youth was exaggerated by her thinness. She was all bones and sharp angles. In view of Marcus’s description I eyed the way she was tucking into the typical carb-laden stodge being provided by the army camp’s catering corps and concluded she had a lightning metabolism, hollow legs, or a tapeworm.