“My employer wants to speak with you.”
“And who would that be?”
“His name is Lyle Hanover.”
Sara cut off her engine. After stepping from her car, she followed the man to the back of the limo where Hanover was getting out. One of the bodyguards elbowed the other as they looked her over. Their gazes were lecherous.
Sara recognized Hanover from the photo she had of him but thought he looked markedly older.
Then she stared into his eyes and knew that despite the wrinkles and gray hair, Hanover was still as sharp as they came.
“Are you arresting me again?” she asked.
“Where have you’ve been, Miss Blake? I assigned a man to check on you and he reported that you weren’t at home for at least three days.”
“I don’t have to tell you a damn thing,” Sara said.
Near the corner, a young woman passed by while talking on her phone. She was dressed in a short red skirt and wearing a skimpy top. Sara glanced over at Hanover’s bodyguards and saw that their eyes were glued to the sight.
“I could arrange to have you sit in a cell until you talked, Miss Blake.”
Sara grinned at Hanover.
“I would welcome that. It would void the deal you made with Tanner, and then he would be free to kill you.”
“He told you about that, interesting. And did you believe he would keep his word?”
“Tanner doesn’t go back on his word, but he would if you went back on yours.”
“I have no intention of doing so… at least not while Tanner is still alive.”
“Was that a threat?”
“Take it however you’d like, and know this, if you see me again it won’t be this pleasant.”
“You just think you can walk all over people, don’t you?”
“Goodbye, Miss Blake. I’ve had enough of you.”
Sara moved her car out of the way and watched as Hanover’s limo merged into the Midtown traffic. When she was in her apartment, she spent over an hour searching for listening devices or signs that someone had been through their things. She found neither and finally relaxed.
She left the apartment on foot with a throwaway phone and dialed a number she had recently memorized. She was calling Tiffany Austen in Washington D.C.
After a ten minute conversation, Sara ended the call and went about disposing of the phone, along with removing the SIM card and burning it.
Once Sara assured her that she wouldn’t be at risk, Tiffany had been agreeable to the plan Sara had come up with to deal with Lyle Hanover. Everything was in the works and would come together within a few days.
Hanover’s appearance had initially unnerved Sara because she feared that the man had known what she’d been up to. Learning he was still in the dark buoyed her confidence in her plan. Then she thought of his veiled threat to harm Tanner, and the thought made her clench her fists.
Tanner can handle anything. Sara told herself. Tension left her body as she looked down at her engagement ring and smiled.
At LaGuardia Airport, Jacques Durand dialed the cell phone number on the card Sara’s mother had given him. His flight had been delayed due to bad weather over the Atlantic and he was looking at a long wait.
When she answered, Durand realized that Lily’s voice was similar to Sara’s.
“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t call me.”
“I almost didn’t,” Durand said.
“Why, because of how Sara feels about me?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you feel about me?”
“I don’t know you, Lily, but I was curious as to why you wanted to talk.”
“That’s simple. You know my daughter better than I do, and I’d like to learn more about her.”
An announcement was made over the public address system and Durand heard it come over the phone.
“Lily, are you at LaGuardia Airport?”
“I just arrived back from my business trip. The flight was nothing but turbulence.”
“I’m in the airport as well, and my flight has been delayed.”
“Oh, how serendipitous. We have to have a drink together.”
Lily told Durand the name of an airport bar and said she would meet him there.
“I will meet with you, but I won’t discuss Sara behind her back.”
“Fair enough, if disappointing, and Jacques?”
“Yes?”
“The drinks are on me.”
“I’ll be there soon, goodbye.”
Durand put away his phone, then whistled as he walked toward the bar.
25
A Voice From The Grave
Cal Vernon’s auction of the data drive was hours away and Tanner had a plan to make off with the device. The fact it wasn’t a perfect plan didn’t bother him. He was confident he would overcome any opposition.
Vernon had rewarded him for saving his life by depositing twenty-five-thousand euros into an internet bank account. Tanner would never see the money as it was in the name of Steve Ryan. He had been allowed free reign around the chateau and its grounds. He was also given a rifle to carry but not allowed a cell phone. Communications with the outside world had been banned by Vernon until after the auction, and the on-site cell tower had been powered down.
Tanner had spent most of the previous day exploring the grounds and familiarizing himself with the layout. He had also gotten in a long run of over ten miles and performed other exercises. He hadn’t had a workout since leaving New York and it felt good to run again.
When Vernon had explained to the guards how the auction would be handled Tanner had sat in on the meeting, which took place inside the massive library hours earlier.
The members of the auction would all wear masks to preserve their anonymity. Bodyguards such as Tanner wouldn’t have a mask. The minimum bid was eight million euros, to be transferred at the auction’s ending, and the highest bidder would get the drive. That winner could then charge whatever he or she would like to for the information, or keep it for themselves.
The golden data drive would be on display during the auction. Vernon demonstrated by hanging the chain holding the device on a hook that was adhered to a white board. The board was on a pedestal and sat near a window.
Photos were arrayed on the board. They were pictures of three men who were recently identified as undercover agents with the use of Bishop’s database. Two of the men were white, while the third appeared to be Hispanic. Vernon said they had all been killed after being outed as federal agents. They were just a taste of what could be done with the knowledge contained in the database.
Bishop’s father, Kent Bishop, had spent decades accumulating photos of police officers, military personnel, and federal agents. The computer hackers Owen Bishop had hired, had accumulated more data in minutes than Bishop’s father could have gathered in several lifetimes. Still, the elder Bishop had envisioned the possibilities of facial recognition technology, and his son was using it to make the government pay.
The authorities had used facial recognition tech to identify and apprehend criminals, now the shoe was on the other foot.
The fourteen masks the guests would be wearing were white and identical. The only thing that differentiated them were red numbers printed on the forehead section.
According to Vernon each guest would arrive on small planes chartered for the occasion. Although they were allowed to travel with a pair of bodyguards, those men would have to stay with the planes while the auction was in progress. Masks would be handed out on the planes and when everyone was escorted to the house, the auction would begin.
When Vernon declared that Owen Bishop would be running the auction from a remote location via video conferencing, confusion showed on every face, including Tanner’s.
A sixty-inch television was sitting atop an oak table in the area where the bullet-riddled desk had been. Vernon laughed as he turned the television on and Owen Bishop’s image appeared on the screen. Bishop looked healthy
and was smiling at the camera.
“How is everyone?”
“It must be a recording,” said the leader of the guards, who had been the man who’d worn the gloves and roughed up Bishop.
On screen, Bishop said, “This is not a recording. I will be handling the auction tonight and I expect it to be a great success.”
“It’s got to be a recording,” the guard said. “Bishop is deader than disco.”
“Ask him a question,” Vernon said.
The guard raised a hand. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Three,” Bishop said, and he was correct.
The youngest guard, the one Tanner had struck with the rifle butt, pointed at the screen.
“How the hell is he alive?”
Vernon let out a long laugh, then he spoke to the image on the screen.
“That’s enough fun, Tremblay, come on in now.”
Several moments passed, then Vernon’s chauffeur, Tremblay, entered from the hall. He was wearing a headset, and when he spoke in greeting, the image on the screen repeated the words in Bishop’s voice.
“Son of a bitch,” said the head guard. “How do you do that?”
“Isn’t technology a wonder, gentlemen? Tonight, I’ll be wearing the headset and make it seem that Bishop is still alive. It will allow everything to seem normal and as if Bishop were still in command of his organization. The bidders have faith in Owen Bishop and his reputation. They might all back out if they knew I had ousted him and taken control.”
“Clever,” Tanner said, and was genuinely impressed by the planning Cal Vernon had put into the auction.
Another man entered the room. It was Karl, Vernon’s personal bodyguard. Tanner had knocked most of the man’s teeth out days earlier and the cuts and bruising around his lips looked horrible. Karl gazed at Tanner with a malevolent stare that spoke of the murder in his heart. As if reading his mind, Vernon called to him.
“You’re not to harm, Ryan, Karl. Is that clear?”
Karl spoke English with a guttural German accent that was made worse by his missing teeth. He pronounced certain words with a sibilant sound, as if he were a talking snake.
“If you ever want this bassstard dead, Cal, let me know. It would give me pleasssure to kill him.”
Tanner spotted something then. In the pocket of Vernon’s dress shirt were a pair of eyeglasses, Owen Bishop’s eyeglasses. Vernon saw Tanner staring at them and patted his pocket.
“I’m keeping Owen’s glasses as a souvenir.”
“He no longer has a need for them,” Tanner said.
The meeting was soon over, and Tanner left to walk the grounds and come up with a plan.
His plan to escape with the data drive was as simple as it was daring. As one of four guards assigned to watch over the guests during the auction, Tanner would be close to the data drive. Since the guests would be unarmed, that left only the other three guards to deal with.
By striking fast, Tanner could kill the other guards before they had a chance to react. He would then grab the drive, shoot out the window, and run off into the night. By the time the guards in the hallway broke down the door he would be gone and headed toward the airfield, which was three kilometers away.
He’d found a dirt bike on the property and hidden it away for later use, while also rigging a crude bomb using gunpowder taken from rifle rounds. The bomb was attached to the circuit breaker panel that controlled the chateau’s exterior lights and cameras. Tanner would have to set it off manually, but once the grounds of the chateau went dark, the guards at the airfield should be drawn in to see what was happening.
If all went well up to that point, Tanner still faced a great challenge. Although he had recently learned to fly an airplane, he was far from proficient and lacked experience. Still, he was on the verge of becoming a pilot. He had faith that he could steal one of the charter planes and make his escape.
Once he was in the air he could travel to a more populated area, land the plane in a field or on a road, and go into hiding. After he made contact with Benedetti, the CIA would see that he slipped out of the country.
The plan left Vernon alive, but then, Vernon had never been his true target. Tanner had already killed Bishop, and when he returned home with the data drive, his mission would be complete.
Any number of things could go wrong with the plan, including the plane crashing because of his inexperience. While a delay could see the data fall into someone else’s hands and be transferred to an unknown location.
Cal Vernon was also no fool. He would keep a copy of the data. That concerned Tanner, however, he had made a deal to bring back the data and kill Owen Bishop. He would accomplish both those tasks.
Cal Vernon’s rise to power had been unforeseen and was a separate issue as far as Tanner was concerned. If Hanover threatened to go back on their deal, the man would regret it. Tanner had had his fill of espionage and just wanted to return home to Sara.
The threat of Cal Vernon using the data to cause harm would be mitigated by his need to go into hiding. Tanner was unaware of who the bidders would be at the auction, but he doubted they were the understanding type. They would discover Vernon’s ruse of using technology to fake Bishop’s participation.
They would also not be pleased that they had traveled to France for nothing. If Vernon admitted to the group he had a copy of the data, it would be an admission that he misrepresented the uniqueness of the product he’d been trying to sell.
Either way, Vernon would become a target and the database wouldn’t help him identify the potential threat of the thugs who would be sent to kill him.
Tanner returned to the room he’d been assigned and locked the door. He checked the time and saw that the auction was scheduled to begin in three hours.
After setting his watch to wake him, he settled onto the bed for a nap. It was going to be one hell of a night and he might as well go into it well-rested.
Tanner was asleep within minutes, as if he had not a care in the world. It was the type of sleep reserved for the innocent, or those possessed of supreme confidence.
Tanner was no innocent.
26
Bidder Number Three
The charter planes began landing one after the other. They had picked up their passengers at an airport that was less than a hundred miles away, then made the short flight to the chateau. By eight p.m. all the bidders were present, and they had put on the masks Vernon supplied.
The white masks were plain and the only thing that distinguished them from one another were the numbers printed on them. There were fourteen bidders in all. Thirteen men and one woman. The woman’s long dark hair hung down past her shoulders. What little skin showed beneath the business suit she wore pegged her as Asian.
Most of the men seemed to be white but there was one black man. He was taller than the others and had a regal bearing that made Tanner wonder if he were some sort of royal.
Tanner, along with several other guards, used a small fleet of black SUV’s to ferry the guests between the airfield and the front entrance of the chateau.
Cal Vernon was running a silent auction. This meant the bids would be typed onto computer tablets that had been supplied to the bidders and sent to Vernon electronically.
The tablets were kept out of the view of the other bidders by partitions. All the bidders would see of each other once seated was a view from the neck up. With everyone wearing masks, the losers’ expressions of disappointment or sorrow would be hidden, as well as the winner’s grin of joy.
Whoever had offered the highest amount would be informed of their success the same way they had placed their bid, by a message on the computer tablet. Afterward, they could initiate a transfer of the funds into an account of Vernon’s choosing.
Thanks to the deceptive technology Vernon was employing, the bidders would all believe that Owen Bishop was their auctioneer. If there were any backlash, it would be directed at Bishop, who was already dead.
Within weeks, C
al Vernon would have had plastic surgery and be at the start of a new life. He likely wouldn’t use the data unless he needed it as a bargaining chip if he were ever tracked down. It irked Tanner that the man would ride off into the sunset rich and happy. Then again, all he cared about was getting Sara free of the charges hanging over her head.
Tanner saw bidder number three approach Vernon’s chauffeur, Tremblay. Bidder Number Three was a trim man of short stature dressed in a good suit. Judging by the skin tone of his hands he was likely Mexican, or perhaps middle-eastern.
The man spoke in a low voice, and whatever he said caused Tremblay to look over at Tanner. However, Tremblay’s gaze moved on and he seemed to be staring at the other guards as well.
Perhaps Bidder Number Three had a complaint about how he was treated by one of the guards. When Tremblay’s eyes didn’t fall on him again, Tanner figured it was nothing.
The bidders were escorted into the wide foyer where they were seated. Tremblay had been assigned the task of passing out the computer tablets and explaining the auction rules. When he was satisfied that everyone understood the process, the guests would be led to the library for the auction.
Before speaking to the prospective bidders, Tremblay took out his radio and spoke into it while speaking in a quiet tone. He didn’t wait for an answer and put the radio away.
While Tremblay was keeping the bidders occupied, Tanner and three other men headed to the library. They were to be already present when the guests were escorted inside. Tanner was the first man through the library door, which had been guarded by more men, including the young guard whose rifle he’d taken to kill Bishop.
Tanner’s gaze was locked on the golden data drive dangling from its chain. He was beginning to consider making his move before the bidders entered the room, rather than after. That’s when he heard the sound of several charging handles being slid back all at once.
The Spy Game Page 13