Exposed - A Thriller Novella (Chandler Series) by J.A. Konrath & Ann Voss Peterson

by JA Konrath

  By the time Julianne and I reached the end of the tunnel, sirens echoed from everywhere and the smell of burning car coated the back of my throat and infused my hair. I pulled her up on the walkway to the side of the two traffic lanes and concealed the Glock along my leg. We made it to the mouth of the tunnel and walked out onto the streets of Manhattan. The area was swarming with cop cars, and I jammed the pistol into my tiny bag.

  We walked to Grand Central station, stopping at a Banana Republic in the terminal to pick up a dress to pull over my bikini, a change of clothing for Julianne and gym shoes for both of us. The clothing wasn’t pricey, but the purchase still took most of the money Jacob had stashed in the purse. Two subway fares took the rest.

  “Why are we going to Columbus Circle?” Julianne asked.

  I thought of the glorified roundabout marking the southwest corner of Central Park. It offered continually flowing traffic, access to streets leading in several directions, and the cover of crowded sidewalks. A decent place for a hand off. “It’s just a meeting place. We’re trying to get you somewhere safe.”

  If I thought it was hot on the streets, I was mistaken. Descending into the subway tunnels felt like burrowing into humidity hell. Exhaust and the odor of hot humanity swam in the air. I heard the click of heels and rumble of voices, nothing but ordinary subway sounds.

  We moved into a wide area of red quarry tile rimmed with scarred wooden benches. Live music echoed off walls and floors, zamponas, charango, guitars, and percussion, a distinctly South American sound, maybe Peruvian. I’d only been to Peru once, but I’d spent significant time in Columbia, Brazil, and Venezuela, the last time I remembered seeing a Tec-9, until today.

  I had to wonder …

  I led Julianne down steps and through platforms only to cross over tracks and double-back. The third time we passed the Andean band, she spoke up. “Are we lost?”

  “I’m making sure we weren’t followed.”

  She glanced around, as if the bogeyman himself might jump out from the nearby newspaper stand.

  “Were we?”

  “No.”

  She let out a long breath, but still looked far from relieved. “What you said back at the beach, was it true? Were they really going to sell me as a sex slave?”

  I nodded, although my doubts were adding up fast. Julianne was pretty and blond, but there was simply no way a criminal enterprise could make enough money selling one girl. Bradford and Sims was no modeling agency, their little porn operation aside. But I was becoming less and less sure they dealt in human trafficking, either.

  “Well, thanks. I know I didn’t seem like I appreciated you saving me at first, but I do. I was just a little, you know, shaken up.”

  She was sounding better, clearer. The combination of caffeine and getting shot at was working against the drugs in her system.

  “Understandable.” I gave her a smile and led her past the band one last time and up a sloping ramp toward the S train that would take us to Times Square.

  “Who are you, anyway?” Julianne asked, once the band was far enough behind us to hear one another speak.

  “Not important.”

  “It is to me.”

  “Then just think of me as a friend.”

  She frowned, a tiny crease forming on her lineless forehead. “I … I don’t have a good track record with friends.”

  I knew the feeling. “Okay, how about a bodyguard? I was sent to keep you safe.”

  “You and the driver.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sent? By who?”

  I said nothing.

  “Please?”

  “I shouldn’t have told you that much.”

  Not that my explanation would hurt anything, but I’d learned, when dealing with civilians in the field, it was better to keep things simple and them at arms’ length. I was already starting to like Julianne more than I should.

  “If someone is looking out for me, isn’t it better that I know who?”

  The platform was crowded, the rush hour stampede starting to heat up. The S train ran between Grand Central Station and Times Square every fifteen minutes. We wouldn’t have long to wait, but I still felt as if it couldn’t come fast enough.

  “I’ve never really had anyone who has looked out for me before. Not really. Not since my mom died.”

  I didn’t react, not outwardly anyway. Inwardly I was struck again by how many similarities there were between the two of us.

  “I had friends and stuff, but no one ever seemed to be there when I needed them, you know?”

  “You’re trying to manipulate me.”

  She had the nerve to give me a little smile. “Maybe.”

  “It’s not working.”

  “My mom used to love me. At least I remember thinking she did. She died when I was sixteen.”

  I focused on the rumble of the train approaching. I had been ten when I lost both parents. At least Julianne still had her father.

  “I’ve kind of been on my own after that.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “He’s not important.”

  I didn’t believe her. There was more to this than human trafficking. If her dad was a VIP, like Jacob said, this could be a kidnapping for ransom. Or leverage. Take a senator’s daughter, and you own him. That could be useful for certain corporations. Or certain foreign governments.

  The train rolled in, the sound too loud for words. Doors opened, releasing crowds of commuters, then we stepped on and they sucked closed behind us. I stood, holding onto a pole.

  Julianne stood next to me. I scanned the crowd around us, looking for potential trouble. We remained quiet until we emerged from the 42nd Street subway station and joined the steamy, neon hubbub of Times Square.

  She broke the silence. “Being alone, not knowing who you can trust, it’s not fun. You don’t know what that feels like.”

  Actually, I did. Not that I was going to share the dark times of my life with Julianne James.

  But I could see her point.

  Everyone needed someone to rely on. I had Kaufmann, the parole officer who’d been there for me when my life fell apart at age fourteen. He still checked in with me from time to time. He had no clue about the nature of my real job, my real life. But just knowing he cared made all the difference.

  “Tell me why you’re helping me,” Julianne said, “and I’ll leave you alone.”

  I let out a deep breath. When it came down to it, I really didn’t know much, and Jacob hadn’t said anything about keeping what little I did know from Julianne. “Your father sent us, sort of.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

  “Your father pulled some strings to make sure you were safe.”

  “You think that’s funny?”

  I shook my head. “Listen, I don’t know the history between you and your father. You don’t want him involved in your life, take it up with him.”

  “My father left my mother before I was born,” she said, voice flat. “I’ve never met him. Whoever sent you, it wasn’t him.”

  “You are a weapon,” The Instructor said. “You are a tool of your government. You’ll have to make calls in the field, snap decisions, but don’t let that seduce you into believing you decide anything. You may turn down an assignment, but once you accept, your job is to carry out orders, no more. Your handler will aim you, fire you, and it is up to you to make sure the bullet hits its mark.”

  I let her words sink in the rest of the walk to the health club and focused on my usual security precautions, doubling back, watching for tails.

  The place was called Stretchers, a nationwide chain exclusively for women. I didn’t have my membership card, but I gave them my fake name and address and they confirmed my ID on their computer. Julie waited in the lobby, and I popped into the locker room and opened my rented locker. From the duffle bag I took a clean driver’s license and a credit card in the name of Heidi Orland, a thousand in cash, an S&W tactical folding knife, and a spare charger for m
y cell. I still had Morrissey’s Glock, but I figured I might have to return it, so I added a compact Ruger .380 LCP of my own and two extra mags, cramming everything into my purse until it was so stuffed it refused to close. Then I secured the locker and led Julie to the nearest hotel.

  Once we were inside the room and I’d searched the place for bugs using an app on my phone, I allowed my thoughts to turn back to what she’d told me.

  “So you don’t know your father.”

  “Never met him, have no idea what he even looks like.”

  Julianne stepped to the floor-to-ceiling window. Crossing her arms over her chest, she looked down on Times Square. She looked small, lonely. Behind her, the clock on the Paramount Building read four o’clock, a half hour slow.

  “My name isn’t even Julianne. It’s Julie. I just thought Julianne sounded more like a model.”

  I attempted to run a hand through my hopelessly tangled hair. While I had recovered from my earlier desire to shave my head, as soon as this operation was over, I was definitely getting the mess cut short enough to keep it out of my eyes.

  “What do I call you? I’m guessing your name isn’t Claire.”

  No harm in telling her my codename. “Chandler.”

  “Chandler. That’s cool. Like on that show Friends.”

  I preferred comparison to the dead mystery writer, but I supposed it didn’t matter.

  Normal, not-a-model Julie turned from the window and looked at me.

  “So now what, Chandler?”

  “Nothing has changed. My assignment is to make sure you’re safe, whether your father is behind it or not doesn’t really matter. Okay?”

  She gave a little nod, but she looked less than convinced.

  “You’re going to be fine. I’ll make sure of it. I promise.” I gestured toward the bathroom. “Now why don’t you get cleaned up?”

  As soon as I heard water hiss through pipes, I called Jacob. We engaged in our usual security dance. By the time I was able to speak, I felt like crawling out of my skin with impatience.

  “Who is the VIP, Jacob?”

  He paused for a moment. “I hear the extraction didn’t go as smoothly as we hoped.”

  “She’s here. She’s unhurt.”

  “But you left a nasty traffic snarl in the Queens Midtown Tunnel. The media is calling it a terrorist attack.”

  “Couldn’t be helped. Who’s the VIP?” I repeated.

  Another pause. “All I was told is that he’s the girl’s father.”

  I was getting used to Jacob’s altered voice, but there were times I still wished I could hear his natural inflections, or better yet, look into his eyes, gage his expressions.

  “She says she never knew her father, insists it couldn’t be him.”

  He paused, then said, “Interesting.”

  “That’s all you have to say? Interesting?”

  “Does she have any ideas?”

  “She says she has no one, and I think she’s telling the truth.”

  I went on, filling him in on Julie’s real name and my suspicions that our fake modeling agency was also a fake when it came to the human trafficking business.

  “You think they’re some kind of intelligence operation?”

  “It seems so. Several are South American. I’m guessing Venezuelan, although they all might be mercs.”

  “And that means there’s more to Julie than the fact that she’s daddy’s little girl,” Jacob said, summing up my thoughts.

  “Right. I might have something on the Bradford and Sims Agency. I took the memory card from one of their cameras. It got wet, but if it works I’ll upload it to the dropbox as soon as I can.”

  Jacob and I often communicated via a series of secure Internet drop boxes. It was a convenient system for trading various types of files no matter where I was in the world.

  “Even if it’s damaged, I might be able to recover the data.”

  “I’m not sure anything useful is on the card. But at the very least, you’ll be able to ogle some topless photos of me.”

  “You weren’t kidding about the strip club, huh? I don’t know how you find the time.”

  I smiled despite myself, and it felt good. I might never meet Jacob in person, but that didn’t change the fact that we seemed to ‘get’ each other, important when my life depended on his communication skills and willingness to watch my back.

  “You sure you can’t find out more about this VIP?”

  “Chandler …”

  “Right. You’ll let me know when you know.” I paused, trying to come up with some other approach we could take. “How about my contact, Morrissey?”

  “Morrissey? I have a dossier on him. He’s an experienced field operative. He has a clean record, is reliable, has been working undercover as a driver for a Manhattan car service for about four years. Has provided Uncle Sam with all sorts of intel.”

  Four years of driving a car. I thought of his rough hands, his calm and deadly demeanor. I wasn’t sure I really suspected Morrissey of anything—actually I liked him, more than a little—but it never hurt to be thorough. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did a similar background search on me.

  Not that he’d find anything. According to government records, Morrissey was undercover. I, on the other hand, didn’t exist.

  “Military record?” I asked.

  “Nope. Former FBI Recruited by NSA”

  That didn’t seem right. Morrissey had combat training. He was a fist, not an ear. Sticking him in a limo service seemed like a waste of his talents.

  “What else?” I asked.

  “Not much. Parents deceased. Lives in an apartment on Staten Island.”

  “Previous operations?”

  “Classified.”

  “I thought classified doesn’t apply to you, Jacob.”

  “Are you asking me to dig?”

  “Indulge me, will you?”

  “You have your assignment, Chandler. Deliver the girl to Morrissey unhurt. The rest isn’t your concern.”

  “Maybe not, but I’ll feel better.”

  For a moment I wondered if we’d been cut off. Then Jacob cleared his throat.

  “I’ll see what I can find.”

  We ended the call. Jacob was right. Worrying about this was not my job. I was trained to follow orders, a weapon to be deployed. I’d saved Julie from the fake modeling agency and now I was to turn her over and walk away.

  The rest didn’t matter.

  I had suspected from the beginning that I was given this assignment precisely because my teen years were similar to Julie’s. Because of those similarities, this didn’t feel like any other mission to me. I cared about what happened to her, but that didn’t mean I could allow my personal feelings to skew my judgment.

  If there was reason to worry, Jacob would find it and let me know.

  The drone of the hairdryer ended. Time being short, a shower for me would have to wait. I focused on accessorizing, strapping the folding knife to the back of my left thigh, under the dress. On my right thigh, I donned a Velcro holster for the Ruger. A brush through my tangle of hair, and I was out the door.

  Even without my taking time for a shower, we were pressed to upload the camera images to the dropbox and make it to Columbus Circle. I would have preferred to walk, since it was much easier to spot tails by foot, especially in rush hour, but since we were short on time, I opted for a subway ride to Lincoln Center. Backtracking one avenue and four blocks, we reached our rendezvous spot.

  I checked my phone. Twenty minutes before six, just as I’d planned.

  Jacob hadn’t called back.

  I focused on my surroundings. I hadn’t picked up any evidence that we were being followed during our walk, and I didn’t spot any shadows now. I smelled exhaust, hotdogs from a nearby food cart, and the tang of horse manure wafting from the park. A woman passed by, the scent of some sweet vanilla coffee concoction trailing in her wake. Behind us, a small group of men offering pedicab rides through the park spoke in b
roken English, trying to talk tourists into paying a small fortune for an evening jaunt in the half-bicycle, half-cart contraptions. Horns honked and cabbies yelled, typical New York City on a summer evening.

  When I spied the Town Car, my nerves surged.

  He was early.

  The car swung to the curb and Morrissey stepped out. He was tall and lean and calmly dangerous, and I felt that same little burst of edginess mixed with lust as when I’d first met him this morning. This time he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses, and I caught a flash of ice blue eyes that just added to his allure. Like the perfect chauffeur, he climbed out and circled the vehicle.

  “Nice car,” I said. “This one rigged to blow, too?”

  One side of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile. “You did a good job.”

  “You, too. Want your Glock back?”

  “Sure. At least until the next time you’d like to borrow it.”

  He stepped close to me to shield the exchange from onlookers. He smelled of Giorgio Armani For Men’s Acqua Di Gio.

  At least someone had gotten a chance to properly clean up.

  I took the gun from my purse. When he pulled me into a hug, I placed it in his hand.

  “Take good care of her, okay?”

  He brushed my fingers as he took it from me, lingering a moment too long, then he slipped the weapon into a holster on his left side.

  “She’ll be safe. And if you need to get in touch with me, you have my card.”

  “I do?”

  Morrissey’s hand slowly made its way down my side, then up under my dress. He slid a business card into my thigh holster. His breath on my neck was hot, and for a brief moment I could practically feel his lips on my bare skin.

  He pulled away, then glanced at Julie and opened the back door. “Ready?”

  We exchanged a quick hug, her grip a lot tighter than mine.

  “Thanks,” Julie said. “For everything.”

  “You bet,” I told her. “It’s all going to be okay from here on out.”

  When she climbed into the limo, Morrissey shut the door behind her and circled to the driver’s door.

  “I hope we get to work together again,” he said.

  “Me, too.” But I actually had play on my mind.