On that nightmare day when Claire was taken from me we went against mission protocol to rescue Paul Jenkins, an agent in our team. Ethan agreed it even though it was against everything we stood for. It meant complete disavowment if we got caught and no help would come if we needed it. He agreed it though because our team were like a little family. Close and the kind that would have done anything for each other. Going in for Paul wasn’t up for discussion whether Ethan agreed it or not.
That was the last time I had any correspondence with Ethan and the damn mission more than went to hell. When we got there it looked like Paul had been dead for at least a week. Except, we’d spoken to him that morning.
It was a trap. A damn trap
Balthazar killed Claire and a bomb took me and the rest of the team out seconds later.
It was a bomb that would have killed me if I was as close as they were.
I survived and I’d been on a personal crusade to find that motherfucker ever since.
For the last five years I’d been looking for him. That was why I’d enlisted myself in all these crazy jobs. Looking for a man like that took money.
Every time I had some lead on him I’d had to throw down serious cash to pay various people and most important stay hidden. Stay listed as dead. Balthazar had never been easy to locate even when I had the best resources at my fingertips.
“Balthazar Kane… funny how my last conversation with you was about him. How’d you know I was still looking for him?” I had to ask.
“Whispers on the underground.” Ethan nodded. It was enough of an answer.
Maybe I did slip up and hadn’t realized. Then again, speak to the right people and offer them the right price and you could get dirt on anybody.
“Xander… if you help me, I will help you,” Ethan added. I intensified my gaze on him. “Balthazar fell off grid at the same time you did, probably because your team were the only people who could get close to him. In all my years of searching for that son of a bitch your team were the only people to get close to him and I think that was why he found a way to stop you. He knew you would go in and try to rescue one of your own. That was the fucking trap. Believe me when I say we want him stopped. But the reason I’m here today is a priority. If you help me, I have word from the leadership that we will reform a team specifically to take down Balthazar.”
Now he got my attention.
He got my attention real good.
Maybe because I was tired of trying and failing. Every time I got close , or what I thought was close, I got nothing. It was shit. A croc of bull shit that cost money I risked my life making.
I’d tracked Balthazar to all corners of the globe, looking for him everywhere, but just like the fucking past he was always one step ahead of me.
Maybe this was the answer.
The way I’d find him.
I didn’t think I could live another five years like this.
I’d been hiding out in South America, bouncing around from one country to the next, never staying too long. Just long enough to hide after I’d emerged to investigate then move on. It was no way to live.
“A team?” I asked, my mind warming to the idea.
Ethan nodded. “A team Xander. That’s just one thing. The offer for this job is eight hundred thousand.”
“It’s not about the money. There’s more. I want that bastard dead.”
“Me too, and I know it’s not about the money. I want this him dead too. Remember you and I were once friends and I don’t know why you didn’t find some kind of way to reach me. For help.”
He wasn’t the only person I didn’t reach out to and should have. In my head it was better if everyone believed I died. I thought it would be easier to find Balthazar. He couldn’t run if he didn’t know I was the one who was looking for him.
“I thought it was better.”
“No. How?” He lifted his shoulders into a shrug. “You guys were as close as anybody ever got. We haven’t been able to get close since. No sightings.”
At least I’d had more than that, but that was because I’d worked with the underground. People who wouldn’t have associated with any kind of government anything. They were the kind of criminals who rose above money. No money on earth would be worth it to them to be linked with government.
“Xander… I need you on this. I really do. It’s the kind of thing where we want to keep it under wraps as much as possible and you’re the man for the job. We get what we want and potentially save millions of people and you get what you want. I don’t mean to be an ass but… I think she would want you to say yes.”
Claire.
Oh yes she would. She was my team leader after all. She would have definitely said yes.
His reference to her pulled on my heart. she was the only woman who could reach me. Right from way back when.
She would have said yes and she would have wanted me to agree to something that could save millions.
I looked back to Ethan and frowned.
“You hit me over my head, nearly fucking killing me, then you bind me to a chair to ask for my help.”
“Sorry about that man. I couldn’t exactly see you agreeing to meet over a cup of tea.”
“Well I’m not much help to you like this… am I?” I raised my shoulders and sighed. “What do I have to do?”
Ethan smiled.
Chapter 4
Xander
* * *
Wes glanced at me as Ethan came into the room.
We were sitting opposite each other around a large table in a meeting room at a military base in Nevada. It looked more like an interrogation room for the lack of windows.
Two agents followed after Ethan and took their seats at the furthest end of the table.
This was the first time in six months that we’d come this side of the border.
We’d been in Brazil for the last fourteen months, but went to Florida briefly when we got a lead on Balthazar that came to nothing.
Wes rested his elbow on the edge of the table, ran a hand through his dark blond mane and tensed his jaw. The uneasiness on his face told me he wasn’t sure about this mission, and he wasn’t sure about Ethan either.
Wes didn’t like any kind of authority figure. He didn’t trust any of them, probably because he never worked with them.
While I understood where he was coming from, and respected his opinion, for me it was a little different. In the past I’d seen dirty cops and people who were supposed to be good getting involved with all kinds of shit. I had good examples to follow though. Ethan was one of them.
I had to admit that Ethan was definitely one of the good guys and more than that, he was the kind of guy you could be real with. So that was what I was going on.
It didn’t matter to Wes, but as my best friend he was the kind of guy who would be on board despite his reservations.
He was the only good thing about the last five years. Wes was what I considered to be a modern day Robin Hood. We’d met while he was robbing some rich guys to give money to a village of destitute people. We became friends quickly and he’d been the only person I’d trusted this whole time with my secrets.
That meant I wasn’t doing this— whatever scheme Ethan needed me for — without him. To sweeten the deal I gave him all the money I got for our stint with Bernard. It just seemed right, even though I practically had to force it on him. Wes didn’t have to be here.
“Thank you both for coming,” Ethan stated with a pleasant smile, looking from me to Wes. He then moved over to the overhead projector and switched it on.
“This is our guy.” Ethan pointed to the large computer screen and the image of a man I knew as a renowned mobster came up.
“Giovanni Marchesi?” I filled in, before he could say it.
Ethan didn’t look surprised. The other agents did though. Wes narrowed his eyes at me. He knew that if I had a name it was someone to beware of. I only remembered those who we needed to be mindful of in the sense that we should stay away from the
m.
“What do you know about him?” Ethan asked.
“Vegas King, Mafia Boss, owns Las Vegas, we should stay the fuck away. Far, far away,” I replied.
“That sums him up and we would stay the fuck away except he just got bumped up on our list of threats.”
I smirked, unable to imagine what the guy had done. “Mobsters are greedy. They just want money, they’re low flying criminals in comparison to who you people normally deal with.” I raised my shoulders.
When last I checked, the SMF were more concerned with terrorists, anarchists, rogue government officials, and people associated with them. Not mobsters. Interfering with people like mobsters was like poking at an ant’s nest. You see it and you leave it if it doesn’t bother you. Poke at it and the ants would be all over your ass.
The next slide Ethan showed me shut me right the fuck up.
It was of a guy I’d seen many times before, years ago when I was an agent. We only knew him as The Chameleon. No other name, just called that for his ability to blend in and disappear in the blink of an eye.
He was a Russian illegal arms dealer who’d supplied all manner of people with all types of weapons to carry out whatever scheme they’d planned in order to bring down destruction.
“I don’t have to ask if you know him,” Ethan stated. “Or, him.” He flicked the slide to Diego Sanchez, a notorious member of the Cuban Cartel.
“Fucking hell, Ethan, what the fuck happened?” I scuffed.
“All three are working together, big time. Giovanni of course is the little guy, but the man with the money. There’s always an investor in the equation. Always. It so happens that as this investor is what we call ‘resourceful’, he was able to pull off a heist we never saw coming. It’s the reason why we’ve been called in.” He pulled in a ragged breath and lowered his dark brows. “Two weeks ago the blueprints for a hybrid uranium and plutonium nuclear warhead were stolen while in transit to our base in Arizona. They were created by a scientist at N.A.S.A. Nothing like it exists.”
The blood left my cheeks. “What the hell are you saying to me?”
“It was Giovanni’s guys. They took them. It was very clever. They managed to get to a guy working with the team carrying the prints. Then they managed to switch trucks. There was an ambush but that was just a diversion. We managed to get a guy ID’ed through facial recognition. Only barely. Seriously, it was literally by a stroke of luck and that was how we managed to trace everything back to Giovanni and find out what he’s been up to.”
“And what is that?” I asked. Stealing things like that pointed to some element of terrorism but Ethan hadn’t mentioned anyone like that yet. Just The Chameleon.
Ethan held up his hands. “So far we only know of The Chameleon and Diego’s involvement in the scheme. It’s enough to establish that they have to be working for someone higher than them. We don’t know that part yet but anybody who wants blueprints like that and commissions a man like The Chameleon for a job can’t be anybody good. Xander, they have the designs to create something all-powerful that could obliterate anywhere they want. Hence this being classed as a global threat. This is serious and we need to get the prints back. That’s where you come in.”
Here it was. My part.
The job.
“What the hell am I supposed to do?” With names like The Chameleon and Diego in the mix that called for much more than me.
“Intel suggests that Giovanni still has the prints in his possession. We just don’t know where he’s keeping them. We need you to find them and steal them back.”
I held up my hands and shook my head. Something didn’t make sense.
“What do you mean intel suggests? How the hell do you know he still has them? This thing went down two weeks ago. The Chameleon must have them off shore by now.” That was more his style. He wouldn’t leave things like that in the hands of a mobster.
“No. Intel says Giovanni still has them. Listen to this recording. We were able to listen in on a conversation an hour after the prints were stolen.”
He tapped a button on the computer and the screen filled with the two vertical lines that jumped and spiked as the conversation began.
* * *
Giovanni : We got the blueprints, everything is secured and I’m taking them somewhere safe. How long until I hand them over?
The Chameleon spoke next in his thick Russian accent.
The Chameleon: We’re still planning. You have the means to keep them secured. I’ll arrange a meeting in a few weeks to relieve you of them and hand you, your payment.
Giovanni: Fantastic, Pleasure doing business with you.
* * *
The line disconnected and went dead after that.
Hearing their voices brought it all to life. Actual shit happening.
“We’ve had serious eyes on Giovanni since then,” Ethan said. “ We haven’t seen any kind of meetings set up with The Chameleon or movement to suggest that the blueprints have been handed over. Giovanni is keeping them safe while whatever plan for them unfolds. They must still be in the planning stages but we don’t know what the plans are. There’s a team working on finding that part out. For us we are just focusing on getting the prints back. I don’t have to stress that our involvement means the government want to keep things quiet and resolve the matter while the prints are right here in this city. It means we can contain the problem. The minute The Chameleon takes them, that’s it. If we don’t know what the fuck’s happening outside of what we know, we for sure won’t know then. And you know that once he gets his hands on something that’s it. We won’t see him again. All there will be is destruction. The outcome.”
Wes brought his hands together and bit the inside of his lip. I could practically read his mind.
He was thinking that this was above us.
“This is deep shit Ethan,” I remarked on the edge of a sigh.
“It is. And I’m afraid it gets worse.”
“How much worse?”
“We’re not the only ones who know Giovanni has the prints.”
I bit the inside of my lip. “Who else knows?”
“Again, we don’t know. Last week there was a raid at his warehouse facility in the desert. It’s where he does the usual transit of business. The place someone would look if they were looking for the prints. Four of his best men were killed in the event. We identified one of them as the guy who came up on surveillance when the prints were stolen, so it’s reasonable to assume that they could have all been in on it. Giovanni knows he’s being targeted for it, but like us, he has no idea by whom. So… there’s that to worry about. However, it provided the perfect opening for you because he needs replacements.”
I could see where this was going and I didn’t like it. Being a replacement to work for a man like that was no easy task. Giovanni considered himself the Vegas king and his men were like knights. Close to him in every way. The application for the position was some type of death match.
“You want me to become one of his knights?” I smirked glaring at him.
Ethan nodded. “Yes. It’s the only way. That’s the only way we’ll get close to getting the prints back. You’re the best person all round with the skill to go in undercover, blend in and infiltrate. We need a professional hacker to hack the fuck out of whatever enclosure he’s keeping the blueprints.” He paused for a second and I could see the worry heavy on his face and his good eye. “Giovanni shares his secrets with his knights. Becoming one of them means that you’ll know where he’s keeping the prints. They’ll be one hundred percent guarding the prints with their lives, it’s worth… Let’s just say it’s priceless. The type of nuke that can come from that is something the government officials won’t even talk about with people below a certain pay grade. We can’t allow the blueprints with the fucking step by step ‘how to’, to fall into the hands of people like The Chameleon.”
I groaned inwardly inclined to agree. There was that moral judgment pulling on me again. I did seem like the
best person for this.
Best because of that fucking word again.
Thief.
I was a thief. Professional thief. None of these other pussies could do what I did. What I did came naturally to me. It came from years of living to survive and the art of manipulation. I could absolutely blend in. Walk the walk, talk the talk and use my brain for the rest.
“Xander, you know you’re the best person for the job. If you can do it just imagine the benefits.”
“And, if I can’t? You’re not talking about that part.” I’d never done anything like this before so I couldn’t guarantee anything.
“I don’t like to think about the negative. We just have to try.”
Try… Jesus. This didn’t feel as simple as just trying.
But I’d do it.
“Alright… I’ll do it.”
Ethan nodded his gratitude. “It’s not gonna be easy but it’s a window of a chance I want us to take. It means we can fix things before they get more out of control.”
“Yeah, I get it.” I sighed.
“One last thing.” He flicked the slide and the next image made everything fade from my mind.
The image before us was of a beautiful young woman.
Very beautiful.
White blond hair adorned her head in long graceful waves and piercing blue eyes looked at me with what I could only label as desperation. I wasn’t sure why I saw that. I was pretty certain most guys would be enchanted by her beauty and stop with that before they started reading into any emotions. To me though… that was what I saw.
Maybe it was because I’d lived my life feeling nothing but that.
Desperation and desolation.
“Who is she?” Wes asked. It was the first he’d spoken all evening.
“That is Jia Marchesi, age twenty six, art graduate turned hotel manager,” Ethan answered. “She’s the boss’ daughter.”
Ace of Hearts Page 3