by Heskett, Jim
Sex helped with the anxiety, but it wasn’t much of a survival tactic.
So far, they had discussed half a dozen ideas to remove themselves from this Firedrake mess, but all of their plans had holes. Earlier, Ember had even tried to access the passenger names of Helmut’s new arrivals to investigate their credit card history, but had come up short. These guys knew how to cover their tracks.
“Do you think,” Zach said, stroking an imaginary goatee, “that if we just continue to motel-surf for another five or ten years, they’ll eventually give up? I mean, there has to be a limit.”
“You’d think so, but I’m not sure if that’s a workable solution to our problems.”
“I see.”
“Sorry, baby, we have to take a little more of an active role in solving this.”
Zach lifted his boxer shorts from atop the bedspread and slid them on. “Maybe we can dig a big hole, then put sticks on it, and draw them a treasure map that leads them to it. Then they go over the hole, boom. Tiger pit.”
“That’s a brilliant idea. We should start writing these down.”
“Seems we’re both out of a job, now, huh?”
“Looks that way,” she said as she leaned out of bed to retrieve her underwear from the floor.
“Yeah. I guess I’ll have to go online and update my resume soon, and then start working through those social media contacts. If we don’t die, I mean. Ugh. It sounds awful. The job hunting part, maybe even more than the getting shot or stabbed to death part. Not that I have any desire to be shot or stabbed.”
Ember giggled. She loved seeing him like this, relaxed and talkative. Vigorous sex did wonders for both of their stress levels.
She was about to respond with a joke, but stopped herself. A thought so powerful jumped up inside Ember’s brain, her jaw dropped.
She grabbed her underwear and looked back at Zach. He raised an eyebrow at her, but said nothing.
She bounded out the bed and stood up, quickly slipping on her skivvies. “Wait a second. I’ve got it. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.”
“You got what?”
“I know exactly what to do to set a trap for Thomas and Helmut. It’s thin, but I think they’re eager enough that it might work.”
She pulled up her phone to open the notes app so she could transcribe her thoughts, when half a dozen text message notifications popped up on her phone. The first one was from Kevin, the disgruntled Boulder member who had attacked her outside the convenience store yesterday morning.
FBI? If this is true, you’re going to die bitch. In the worst way, Allison. Slowly and in more pain than you ever thought possible. How could you betray us like this?
The words seemed to jump out of the screen toward her. A cold chill started in Ember’s spine and wormed across her entire body. She checked a few of the other messages and found they were all like this. Some accusatory, some pure rage, some full of terribly imaginative ways to kill a person.
She had been outed. And, by the looks of it, in a very grand fashion.
Marcus. This had to be him. This was his last play to get someone else to handle the task of killing her. Somehow, he had accessed the Club message board and created a global announcement. Or, he had manipulated someone else into doing it.
But how could he have done that?
“What is it?” Zach asked.
“It’s not good, that’s what it is. Like, imagine the worst thing you can imagine happening, and that’s pretty close to what I’ve got in my hand.”
“What happened?”
“I’ve been exposed. Everyone in the DAC knows my birth name. They know about the Bureau. A message went out, probably to everyone at once.”
Zach sat up. “Oh my God. How many of your people is that? How many saw it?”
“I don’t know how many are left, exactly. A hundred? Maybe less. Enough that it’s probably not smart for me to do stuff like walk around out in public or use a credit card.”
“What are we going to do?”
Ember’s gallows humor made her want to reply, Probably die. But she held her tongue. She had no idea. All she could do was look at Zach and shrug.
Chapter Twenty-Four
EMBER
Ember parked the rental car at the shooting range across the street after the sun had set. She glanced at her phone, reading over the text message she’d sent to her parents. They hadn’t responded, but she hoped they would take her warning to heart and leave San Diego for a while. With her birth name now public to the DAC, someone might come after them. Probably not, but better to be prepared.
The rental car was a precaution, to make her a little less noticeable. Tomorrow, she would trade this in for a different car, and do the same every day until she was out of danger.
A little joke floated through her head about how the rental car companies might not like her picking a new car every day for the rest of her life. It wasn’t a great joke, but she could work on it. With a little care, it might turn into something. Unless, of course, someone killed her before she had a chance to workshop it properly.
It also wasn’t lost on her that aside from Zach, there was really no one on the planet she could even share it with.
Ember couldn’t help but gawk at the neon-drenched strip joint named Pink Door. That was by design. On a street where everything was bland and drab and full of red brick and earth-toned stone, this garish topless dancing bar stood out.
Ember opened her purse and removed her identical twin guns, plus the job application for Omar White. Despite spending all day dealing with Zach’s employment complications, Ember still had another task to accomplish. There had to be a way to tie Omar White to Marcus Lonsdale, therefore proving her boss at the FBI had hired this man to kill Isabel Yang. Maybe even Gabe, too, although the evidence was thinner there.
If Ember could link Marcus to Isabel’s death, that would be enough. Of course, Gabe deserved better, but Ember knew full well how the wheels of justice worked. You were often lucky to tie even a single crime to your suspect and had to accept that as the best it would get.
So far, all roads had led here, to Tyson Darby, the owner of the lawnmower repair shop in Broomfield, as well as this bar twenty miles away in Denver. Ember had never met the man, but she had seen him from across the room last week, when she had been here to locate the first of the bombs the psycho Bam had hidden around Denver.
Tyson had been in the back of the bar, at a circular booth with low lights and a cadre of well-dressed thugs sitting around him. Exchange the black lights and glass-top tables for regular bulbs and checkered tablecloths, and the scene could have played out in a New Jersey pizzeria.
Before Ember left her car, she became very still, eyes open wide, studying the dark street. Only a couple hours ago, Ember had been outed as a member of the FBI to sixty or eighty assassins in the Denver area. Maybe more than an eighty, but the latest rumor indicated fewer. The rest had either died in inter-Branch squabbles or had fled the insanity before that could happen.
Local law enforcement was chasing their own tail trying to make sense of the situation, she’d heard. Police weren’t sure why all of a sudden otherwise normal, upstanding citizens had taken to the streets to kill and maim others. It wasn’t political or religious, as far as they could tell, and she’d even heard rumors that the governor intended to dispatch state troopers and SWAT teams to patrol the streets in downtown Denver to maintain order.
She wondered if they might all try this again, somewhere else. There was no reason a bunch of assassins couldn’t settle in Boston or New York to form a BAC or NYAC. Whatever they did, it wasn’t Ember’s problem any longer. She had reached that elusive status of being a retired assassin.
But, she wouldn’t consider it a successful retirement until she had survived the next few days.
Ember breathed for a full minute, making her eyes focus to check for movement on the street. In that span, only a couple of cars drove by. The pink front door of the Pink Do
or opened once, and a bouncer leaned out and spat into the parking lot. At the homeless shelter across the street, the lighted sign above flickered. No homeless hanging out in front tonight. Too cold.
When she was satisfied there was no one hiding here, she readied her pistols and left her rental car. A sea of crunchy snow remnants lined the street, and she crushed through them, heading toward the muted music and blinking lights.
Her plan was simple: walk in and march over toward Tyson Darby’s table in the back. If anyone got in her way, she would break that person’s fingers, then she would stand before Tyson and ask him if he had brokered the deal between Omar White and Marcus Lonsdale to kill a federal agent. She would ask nicely the first time. Not as nicely if she had to repeat herself.
Ember pulled back the door and the whump whump of the bass beat jumped up around her ears, making her nose vibrate and itch. She stood in the anteroom, with one person in line ahead of her. After a short wait, she paid the admission price to the man behind the cutout wall and then strutted inside. Sensory overload hit her as the lights, sounds, and smells of the strip club enveloped her like a blanket.
She realized her heart was thumping, her head buzzed like air and her feet felt like they were clad in concrete shoes. Adrenaline made her hyper-sensitive, and she’d only realized it now.
A young woman with shiny brown skin and dyed platinum blonde hair slinked over toward Ember, carrying a tray with a candle in a jar and a box of matches. “Good evening, sweet thing,” the girl said, almost shouting against the constant barrage of music. “Would you like to light my candle?”
Ember snickered. “I’m not even sure what it is you’re asking me to do, but I’m pretty sure it’s not on my menu tonight.”
The girl maintained her smile, leaning in closer to Ember. She lowered her voice. “I remember your face, honey, so I’m pretty sure they remember it, too. You should turn around and walk out of here, while you still can.”
Without breaking the act, the girl smooched Ember on the cheek and then walked away. Ember considered this last statement for a few seconds as she scanned the room for threats. A goon near the bar took notice and walked a couple steps toward her. He was still at least a hundred feet away, on the other side of this vast room.
The man stood and stared, but he didn’t make any motion to intercept her. His suit coat stayed buttoned, with both of the guy’s hands in sight. She kept watch on him out of her peripheral, in case anything changed.
Ember pushed past a group of college guys blocking her vision. She laid eyes on the back table… and it was empty. No Tyson.
No local crime lord sitting there, eating onion rings and checking boxes off his crime lord checklist.
As she stood there, head cocked, brow furrowed, a trio of men in dark clothing marched toward her. The two on the wings were both bulky, hired muscle. That much was clear. But the one in the middle was short and pudgy, with little round glasses and a thinning hairline. He looked like David Wellner, but better-dressed. Definitely not hired muscle, more like Management.
“Can we help you?” the management guy asked. She could barely hear him over the music, but he didn’t seem like the type to raise his voice. The trio had stopped within two feet of Ember, cutting her off from view of the back table. Even without the boss, they didn’t want her nearing the man’s domain.
“Where’s Tyson?” she asked.
“Mr. Darby is out of town.”
“Bullshit.”
The management guy gave her a snide grin. “Listen, ma’am. Tyson Darby is an upstanding member of the community and a multiple-business owner. He has done nothing wrong and if you’re here on a fishing expedition, you’re going home empty-handed. You are quite clearly a cop—”
“I’m no cop. I’m just looking for Tyson.”
“And I’ve told you, Mr. Darby is not available. In his absence, I am authorized to speak on behalf of his business enterprises. As it stands, I have nothing to say to you.”
“Tell me about Omar White.”
The management guy frowned at her. Ember knew she was jumping straight to the finish line, but she lacked the patience to play a game of diplomacy. She wanted to take this frumpy assistant-whatever guy and tie him to a chair. He wouldn’t be so smug then.
“I’m afraid I don’t know anyone named Omar White. If you want to come back with a warrant, maybe we could talk. But, if you think you’re going to do this same interrogation song and dance with Mr. Darby, you are sorely mistaken.”
Ember’s hand snaked back toward her pistols. The two guys on the outside responded to this by widening their stances. She had no designs on shooting up the place, but she’d wanted to see how they would react to a perceived threat. To their credit, they didn’t act impulsively. Tyson’s men were well-behaved and calm.
“I don’t have a warrant, because I’m not a cop.”
“Then, if you don’t intend to drink and enjoy the club, I suggest you leave. We do not allow loitering at Pink Door.”
“No,” she said. She didn’t even know why she was engineering this standoff. But it felt good to let out a little of the anger. It felt good to up the stakes. The danger was like ice in her veins.
The management guy let out a sneer, breaking his spotless facade. “Listen to me. Walk out of here, now. I’m not going to tell you again.”
Before she knew what had happened, Ember had an Enforcer in each hand. She raised them, keeping one pointed at each of the goons flanking the manager guy. A few of the nearby patrons backed up, creating an open perimeter around the guns.
All three of Tyson’s men put their hands up, but Ember knew the goons had no intention of surrendering. Ember could see a couple more out of her peripheral, mobilizing and approaching with care. This situation was becoming a mess, and Ember wished she hadn’t provoked it. A little late now for second-guessing, though.
“Ma’am,” the manager guy said, once again a picture of tranquility. “Please put away your weapons. We do not allow guns inside the Pink Door.”
“Where is Tyson?” she asked again, slowly and deliberately. She had an itch to unload her magazines on these three. But she also wasn’t sure why she felt this way. Catharsis? Was this some twisted game her subconscious mind was playing with her? A way to funnel everything that had happened over the past six weeks through the barrels of her Enforcers and into the faces and bodies of these men?
“I told you, he’s not here.” His voice was clipped, his anger boiling just beneath the surface.
Now Ember noticed at least half of the room was aware of this standoff. Club-goers looked on in horror, even while music still pumped from the speakers. Some of them were frozen in their seats, some hiding under tables, a few had run for the door. A stripper on one of the satellite stages jumped down and stomped her high heels as she scurried out of the room.
Ember looked down at her guns. She hadn’t intended to draw them. It had happened almost automatically. What had been her goal? Would she shoot up the place, possibly harming civilians?
She didn’t know how she had arrived at this juncture.
This was a mistake, fueled by adrenaline and a compulsive need to burn off excess energy. All of this had been in her head. An imaginary conflict.
“Is there anything else we can help you with?” the guy asked, his expression still neutral.
Ember swallowed and put her guns back in her waistband. The two goons on the edges lowered their hands, and the other guards halted their approach. But none of them took their eyes off her.
Ember stood opposite at least ten of Tyson’s guards, in various spots across the interior of the club. If she had started firing, she wouldn’t have made it more than five seconds. There were too many of them.
“I see,” she said, still feeling angry, but mostly now at herself. “I made a mistake.”
The manager took a step forward. “So it would seem. You can leave now and please do not come back.”
As the adrenaline spike began to fade,
she considered replying, but decided she'd overstayed her welcome. Instead, she flipped a middle finger at the management guy and then spun on her heels to leave.
Chapter Twenty-Five
EMBER
DAY FIVE
The top level of the covered parking structure at Denver International Airport was not actually covered, a fact that amused Ember. Amusing since you paid extra for “covered” parking up here in the open air, where your car was subjected to snow and wind and rain, just like the cheaper outdoor long-term parking areas that surrounded the airport.
This top-level garage parking was at the same height as the canvas mountaintop-looking domes atop the airport, with a walking bridge connecting parking and the terminal. This early in the morning, however, there was no foot traffic to speak of. They might get ten more minutes of this before the early travelers started to populate the area.
Ember and Zach sat in his car. He had his phone in one hand, his keys in the other, staring ahead.
“You sure this is going to work?” he asked, looking nervous.
“No, but it’s the best option we have right now.”
Zach winced. “Here’s the problem. If I post this picture, then it takes Thomas and Helmut’s guys fifteen or twenty minutes to get here, why would I still be in the area? Wouldn’t I take the picture and then move on, you know… going on ahead, into the airport?”
He had a point. Ember had devised this idea yesterday while brainstorming with Zach. He would park in the garage and then take a picture of the row and section, just as any normal person would so they could remember where they had left the car at airport parking. But then, the trick would be that Zach would “accidentally” post that picture to social media. They had to assume that Thomas or his people would be watching Zach’s social media channels, waiting for him to give them a clue how to find him.