Jack Be Nimble: Tyro Book 2

by Ben English

  The scientist turned the knob and Jack flipped the lights off.

  Several things happened at once. Below and behind the killer, someone screamed, severing the night’s stillness. The doctor rolled through the doorway, a hair before bullets found the doorjamb and thunder shook the hall. Jack crossed the hall, firing and trying to draw fire, and his gun jammed.

  He let the pistol drop and continued down the stairway’s hall, running perpendicular to the gunfire. Bullets smacked and splintered the rail behind—he was nearly deaf after the gunfire—and as Jack rounded a corner he found his point of balance, popping his ears to restore a semblance of hearing.

  He met another man in that grim silence between the lights, caught up his short rifle and broke his jaw before he even knew what he was doing. The side of his fist in the other man’s throat ended all resistance, and Jack hoped anyone else hunting him was equally deaf.

  The rectangular floorplan of the house proved his salvation—the hall adjoined what must have been bedrooms and a nursery before angling back to the main hall. He’d come up just to the side of the master bedroom. A spot of blood soaked the carpet runner before the door.

  Jack’s assailant with the cracked jaw wasn’t as heavy as he’d seemed in the dark, and Jack had enough strength left to hurl the unconscious body across the hall, then lean out with the man’s gun.

  A woman, a mature version of the girl on the patio below, screamed again from the floor as Jack charged in and the last of the intruders—Jack prayed he was the last—dove through an open window. Jack found him over his gun sights as the man skid-slipped down the steep roof, toward the gutter. His gun, another Spectre M4, was looping back toward the bedroom and Jack fired at the man’s feet, shattering the tiles and gutter. With a grunt, the black-clad man twisted and fell, and Jack dove after him.

  The tiles were cold and grasping even through the borrowed jacket, but Jack slithered face first down the roof, fighting to hold the gun ready and stop his descent at the same time—

  —and the next minute thanking God’s sense of humor for his backup. Bryce stood over the writhing intruder, a gun from somewhere in his hands. The dark metal shook slightly in the dim light.

  “Don’t move!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. “Do you know who my family is?” His voice broke, and he added. “Just don’t move.”

  Jack felt a twitch of a smile that had no place on him at the moment, and would have called out but for movement on the patio below. The daughter leaned up, wrapped the blanket tighter around herself, and watched Bryce curiously. Her attention remained on Bryce and the sprawled figure before him, even after her mother burst through the patio doors, weeping.

  “Dr. Fenn,” Jack addressed the scrambled-looking man in the bedroom. “It’s a bit late to ask, but may I come in?”

  The scientist, bleeding slightly from a cut on his jaw, groaned and helped Jack through the window. His bedclothes were torn and one of his eyes looked like it would be black in a few hours, but Mitch Fenn had enough composure to demand a cell phone. “The daughter of one of my colleagues, some papers in her house—”

  “Mercedes is safe. The other hit team was stopped.” Best leave it at that. “Sorry for the damage to your home.”

  The doctor’s voice tightened even more. “I gave her address last night to a fellow on the phone.” The man didn’t trust him, and why should he? The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

  Jack safed the machine pistol and handed it over to Fenn, who blinked and took it, slowly. “You talked to Steve Fisbeck on the phone; he’s with the National Security Agency. Doug Gale at MIT gave us your name.” The older man relaxed visibly. “I can’t stay to answer your questions, doctor. I apologize for the ambiguity; but the police will be here shortly. They can do a lot more than I can to help you take care of your family. I need to move fast.”

  Fenn eyed him closely, obviously uncertain. The chaos was still too close, too fresh, for him to pick a safe path through his broken reality, but his mind was already working on it. “You’re going after these people, aren’t you? Maybe after Raines himself.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “These – men, tonight, they were after files I have, information. I deactivated our alarm and let them in the house because –”

  Jack fought the urge to bolt from the room, leave the house. L.A. police procedure was to approach this type of situation with extreme tact. He wouldn’t hear a siren. Nevertheless, “You knew them?”

  Fenn spoke slowly at first, then with increasing assurance. “Two of them were research assistants – secretaries, I thought—for Alex Raines, back before his parents died.”

  “When you were all working together at Stanford?” Jack prompted.

  The scientist nodded. “And for a few years afterward. They were on loan from a private corporation, Armsign Industries, that funded our research. Mercedes’ father had some amazing theories that I’ve done more work on, but,” he frowned. “It doesn’t make sense. Everything they wanted at Armsign, those theories were dead ends; speculation. Fantasy.”

  “Doctor.” Jack waited for the older man’s attention. “Have you seen the news from London recently?”

  He paled under his Southern California tan.

  “That’s why your family was attacked tonight. He’s sweeping up after himself.”

  Something shifted inside the doctor. “Armsign had us all sign papers. Nondisclosure, that kind of thing. They make you promise, when you work on material at this level. They make you promise never to tell, and you think, ‘that’s fine, it’s all theory anyway. It’ll never touch me.'” Bitterness edged his voice. “And my family was tortured for this?” Fenn’s breathing changed again. “They said they had my daughter downstairs, showed us her clothes, said they’d send her up, a…piece at a time.” He wiped his face with his hands. “How can I help you get these bastards?”

  Maybe three minutes left. Already Jack’s senses were reaching out, preparing an escape. Finding his back door, while there still was one.

  Fenn was a good man; he could be trusted this far. “What you just said about recognizing Raines’ assistants? Tell the police everything you know or suspect. Someone from the FBI will contact you as well.” An industrial espionage investigation would build the Bureau’s case file; Ian would be pleased. “But leave me completely out of it.”

  The older man frowned.

  “Let’s suppose that there was only one person here tonight, my partner downstairs.”

  “I saw him.” Fenn’s brows drew together. “Isn’t that Mercedes Westen’s husband?”

  Jack wet his lips. “There was another team on their way to interrogate you. Lead the police to think that the hit team began fighting among themselves when the second team was late. Westen just showed up.

  “Steve Fisbeck will call again soon, maybe within a day. If you need to get hold of me before one of us has a chance to find you, call.” Jack dictated a ten-digit number.

  “They don’t mean anything by it, but the police will be watching you closely, as a matter of procedure. If anyone besides you calls that number it will never work again, and you and I will never talk again.” He allowed himself a brief smile. “And that’d be a shame.”

  Fenn listened silently, considering. “I can do that.”

  “Good.” Jack moved toward the stairs. “At some point we’ll need your help figuring out the technical side of things, if we’re going to construct a trail back to Raines.”

  “And I’ll need a few more answers myself, from you.” Fenn returned. They descended to the ground floor. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Jack Flynn?”

  “Anybody ever say you look like Chevy Chase?”

  The daughter had found shorts and a shirt and was talking quietly and intently with Bryce. They both looked up quickly when her father cleared his throat. Jack remained motionless as she entered the house, letting her walk right past in the gloom. She stared over her other shoulder at Bryce; Jack
might as well have been a ghost.

  The last intruder lay on the grass where he fell, with a broken leg from the look of things. Jack checked to make sure he was really unconscious, then turned to Bryce. “Well, old mate, that was exciting now, eh?”

  Bryce looked from Jack to the house and back again, gesturing with the gun, which Jack took. “I’m going to put my analyst’s kid through college with this one.”

  Jack laughed, though the effort hurt, and peeled the filthy jacket off. “’Fraid you’re going to need a new coat.” Black gunpowder streaked and stained the suede.

  “The daughter,” Bryce began, “Her name is Anna. She thinks I saved her.”

  “Maybe you did. Maybe you will.”

  Jack took a close look at Bryce; the other man was blinking rapidly and staring into the house, though there weren’t any overt signs of shock. His coloring was coming back—sallow, washed out, but Jack could see a shadow of strength there. Right there he thought, so that’s the man Mercedes married.

  He snapped his fingers, and the other man’s eyes flicked back at him.

  “I’ll play it straight with you, Bryce. You still think I look like Jack Flynn?”

  Bryce nodded, massaging his forearms. “He ruined my life.”

  “Well, maybe we can fix that.” He handed the jacket over to Bryce. “Put this on. Now, here’s the story: you were out driving, trying to figure your life out, get perspective on all your neuroses, and you saw these blokes wreck their car. They were fighting with each other, slammed on the brakes in front of you. Then you all wrecked. You chased one of them to the house. You follow me?”

  “Am I going to be in trouble?”

  Jack shook his head. “You just walked in on something big, Bryce, and you saved everybody in that house. Tell the police it’s all a blur.” Matching action to word, he wiped his gun barrel across Bryce’s cheek. Now his face matched the gunpowder stains on his jacket. “Try to keep it simple and you could walk away from this a kind of hero.

  “And don’t tell anyone, if you can help it. Let your father find out about this on the evening news. Play it subtle.”

  He seemed to get it. Jack stowed his gun. “Forget I was here and you won’t see me again. Mention me to the cops, and you will. You’re the hero, Bryce. Play it subtle.”

  Jack made him repeat the important bits, then jogged away, across the golfing green. His bag was where he left it in the Jeep. As he eased the door shut, red-and-blue strobes splashed against the buildings and rooftops.

  An open cement ditch marked the seaward edge, hidden from the green by tall ornamental grasses. The breath of the sea was fully upon him now, and Jack ran towards it, letting the clean, thick air fill his lungs. At least there’d be no mud to make footprints, and the wind would fill his tracks in when he left the drainage. The water lay somewhere ahead.

  Jack ran straight down into the darkness between the dunes, dodging back and forth over the wood, grasses, and gravel; crossing over the leavings of a dried-up ocean. Mercedes. He tried to scowl, but hope stole over him like a bright, shiny shadow against a black sun.

  *

  Pete was waiting for him in the parking lot of a diner. The other man looked awake and characteristically chipper, in a 1950’s TV-rerun kind of way, leaning against the hood of the Tesla Roadster. The top was down, despite the cool breeze off the beach.

  “You look like death warmed over, pal. Maybe we should get you something to eat. ‘To eat is to sleep’, you ever hear that?”

  The retro neon filigree over Dean’s Place called strangely to Jack, and in his mind’s eye he saw himself sliding comfortably into the vinyl smoothness of a booth and ordering a double breakfast platter and three glasses of orange juice. The smell of frying eggs was practically a physical thing, nearly in his mouth already. What the hell, his body didn’t know what time it was, and the idea of kicking off a new day with breakfast was ridiculously appealing

  —Jack came to himself, his hand actually on the glass door, underneath a sign enthusiastically proclaiming Children, Dogs, and Animals Welcome! A family filled the booth next to the window with blissful chaos, a young family with two children who shouted the lyrics of two completely different songs at each other through mouthfuls of pie. Smelled like apple. Jack heard the parents’ laughter clearly through the glass. He watched them all a long moment, then turned to Pete.

  Who also waited, expectant and motionless.

  A number of avenues of action spread out in Jack’s mind, a variety of movements and consequences. A few actually made sense, given the events of the evening.

  Seems to be a night for old friends, Jack.

  “Feel like a drive?”

  “Naturally.” Pete tossed him the keys.

  Jack batted them back and headed for the passenger’s side, the warm, plastic interior of the diner and its promised greasy feast still pulling at his back.

  “We need to talk to someone I know, a woman I grew up with. She’s a forensic scientist with the local P.D. Name’s Archer.”

  Pete paused. No, froze, the key in his hand scant centimeters from the ignition. He blushed ostentatiously. “Irene Archer. Irene Archer?”

  Jack took a second or two to enjoy the full facial spectacle of Pete’s bafflement, then put two-and-two together. “Don’t tell me she’s assigned to the case at Armsign? Where you pulled a Houdini last night?”

  Pete started the car, reversing away from Dean’s Place and heaven-warmed apple pie . “I didn’t know you’d already seen the report.”

  “Read it on the plane.” Jack held up his phone. “Al’s got us all plugged in, just like old times. What about you? Are you up-to-speed with current events?”

  The other man allowed as he had a few questions. “For starters, why are you here alone?”

  “Everyone else is staging in Havana. Alonzo and Ian are going crazy working out logistics and a jumpstart training session. Good thing the Tanners have been there a few months already, working with the Cuban military.” He yawned so hard his jaw popped. “And I’m not alone, thanks. Up to my neck in new friends in L.A.” Jack looked up at the stars. “And some old ones, too.”

  Pete inclined his head in thanks. “This is a nice car, by the way.”

  “Sticks out too much. Any trouble getting it out of Studio City?”

  “Not as much trouble as you had when we were freshmen, getting out of Jennifer What’s-her-name’s dorm. There were a few black-and-whites at the house, but they were just getting around to taking down license plates by the time I left.”

  They drove east, their backs to the ocean, as Jack slowly filled Pete in on the details of the Princess’ kidnapping, omitting nothing. Pete drank it in, exhibiting the same good-natured patience one reserves for small children and former college roommates. At the appropriate moments Pete took over, telling Jack about the events in San Francisco and the previous night at Armsign. He threw in what he knew about the killings at MIT and added, “There is supposed to be someone else on the hit list, lives right around here. Mitch Fenn.”

  This gave Jack a chance to finish up his part of the story, and Pete listened intently. Jack had a few questions about the failed hit in San Francisco, “And you’re sure the wet work team wasn’t tied to any kind of organized crime?”

  “No, someone named Marduk was the handler, maybe even perched right up there near the top of the food chain. That’s not a mob name, either. I can smell them.”

  “That reminds me,” Jack said, “Does the Old Boys’ Club mind that you’re in town?

  Pete smiled absently. “They ignore me breaking territory if you’re in L.A.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. They never forget when they owe someone a favor. Besides, they think it’s hilarious when I sub as your stuntman.” The smile slowly faded.

  Jack fought to think clearly, to see the path ahead. Neither man moved to touch the radio. He supposed the good stations had all changed since either of them had last spent any decent amount of time in the
city.

  At length, Pete voiced what was on both their minds.

  “What are we doing now, Jack? What are we telling Archer?”

  “The truth, as completely as we can. Remember, she’s a scientist first. Once she sees the connections between these crime scenes she’ll know what to do next. And we need her resources to collect and analyze the evidence we’ll put into the file, when all this is over and done.”

  “How much does she know? About the team?”

  Irene’s home phone number had changed, and her cell was turned off or out of power. Jack tried Information, then Steve’s contact database. Nothing. He gave up trying to call ahead. Good thing he remembered the address. “Almost enough to be one of us.”

  “Not on the team?”

  “Nicole did her preliminary observation, and Toria tried to talk her into the same deal everyone else has, but spontaneous leaves-of-absence don’t fit in that well with extended forensics work. And Irene really likes what she does.” He looked over at Pete. “Prefers working with the dead. Besides, she has a family.”

  Pete pulled off the freeway. “That makes a difference. How’s she going to take us showing up at her house this late?”

  “I’m thinking more about how she’s going to take your mysterious appearance, Mr. I-don’t-leave-by-the front-door-at-a-crime-scene.”

  “Then we’d better get our story straight.”

  *

  The phone rang, outrageously loud in the kitchen, and Mercedes almost dropped the French coin. The only person who ever called at this hour was—

  Irene didn’t even wait for Mercedes’ hello, let alone get the phone near her ear.

  “Are you all right? I just found out you had a break-in. Why didn’t you call me?” She couldn’t remember ever hearing Irene this frightened. Her own heart hiccuped a little, and relief flooded Mercedes at the sound of her cousin’s voice.

  “I’m okay. I’m okay, really. It wasn’t really a break-in, anyway, at least I didn’t think so until the detectives showed up. I got home and there was a weird guy in a letterman’s jacket standing in the yard, that’s all.”