Poisonfeather (The Gibson Vaughn Series Book 2)

by Matthew Fitzsimmons

  Deja looked down the bar at Old Charlie. “Ain’t nothing to see down here, old man.”

  For a half a second, Gibson feared he had something smart to say, but Old Charlie dropped his eyes.

  “Better?” Deja asked her brother.

  “Don’t like being stared at.”

  Deja rolled her eyes at Swonger. “See what you got me dealing with here?” she said. “Got me back in West Virginia, and you know how I feel about that.”

  Swonger nodded. “Sorry, Deja.”

  “Don’t fret none. You did right to call. So tell me . . . what’s this boy done with our money?” Then directly to Gibson: “Where’s our money?”

  Gibson looked at Swonger. He’d been wrong about the moment of truth. This was it now. Swonger looked back at him. For a sickening moment, Gibson knew, knew without question, that Swonger hadn’t believed a word that he’d said. That he was about to be fed to the sharks.

  “No, not him,” Swonger said.

  Gibson couldn’t have been more surprised if Swonger had burst into flame. He wanted to plant a kiss on the top of his pointy little head.

  Deja’s eyes narrowed. “On the phone, you said it was your partner.”

  “I know what I said.” Swonger swallowed hard. “Meant my other partner.”

  “White girl double-crossed you?” Deja said. “Didn’t think little miss had that in her. Where she at now?”

  “Across the street. But she didn’t double-cross us; she got taken. The people who took her have the money now.”

  The best lies traveled in the shadow of the truth, changing only the bare minimum to achieve that end. Gibson gave Swonger style points for his performance, as he unspooled a version of events that was 95 percent truth and 5 percent fantasy. In the lie, Martin Yardas ceased to exist. The money was still a reality, but the fifth floor had snatched the Merricks at the airfield, brought them back to the hotel, and were probably up on the fifth floor counting the loot right this very minute. It was an impressive yarn, and Swonger grew into the telling of it. Gibson saw Swonger’s plan—set Deja against the fifth floor. Let the two battle it out. Best case, the two sides would decimate each other. Worst case, Deja took the Merricks and found out Swonger had played her. It was a dangerous play, but it bought them a window of opportunity. It wouldn’t stay open for long.

  “How much?” she asked.

  Swonger finished baiting the hook that Deja Noble wanted desperately to swallow. “A billion dollars . . . Maybe more.”

  Easy, Gibson thought. Don’t overplay the hand. He needn’t have worried; Deja’s ambition betrayed itself in her smile. She asked how many guns up in there, looking to Swonger, then Gibson.

  “Hard to say,” Gibson said and described the scene at the airfield. “Could be a few, could be a whole lot.”

  Deja looked over to her brother. “What do you think?”

  Truck nodded meaningfully. “Risky.”

  “No doubt. But is it worth it? That kind of money, we level up. Won’t need the Russians no more.”

  Truck thought it over. “Don’t like Russians.”

  “Amen,” Deja said and stood up. She handed Swonger’s gun back to him. “You’re coming with us.”

  “Why do I got to go?”

  “You don’t go, you don’t get paid.”

  “This is my score,” Swonger protested.

  She looked at him pityingly. “Swong, the only thing yours is those hopes and dreams, but that’s all they are. Now, are you my boy or not?”

  Tight-lipped, Swonger nodded that he was, indeed, her boy.

  “So what’s the plan?” Gibson asked.

  “They’re going to give us what’s ours, or we’re going to take it. One or the other.”

  “You’re going to storm the hotel by force?”

  “We’re in the real world now, baby. Force is all there is. Once you get past all your weak-ass mind games, it comes down to force and the will to use it.”

  “What about me?”

  “You? You stay put, Dr. King. Have yourself a little sit-in. Truck, keep an eye on Mr. Computer Hacker here. He tries to go anywhere, learn him why Malcolm was right.”

  Her brother nodded and slid Gibson’s whiskey back to him as a consolation prize. Deja gathered Terry and the rest of her team to the side and laid out the situation. Swonger stood with them. When Deja finished her speech, Swonger glanced over at Gibson, who saw fear in his eyes. Fear but also something else. Swonger had always talked a big game, but now he was quiet and looked calmer than at any time since Gibson had known him. Almost brave. Well, he would need to be. They both would. One of Gibson’s commanding officers had been fond of quoting Patton: “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” Gibson had also heard it put more bluntly—a bad plan is better than no plan at all. Well, this was both of those, and none, and it would turn violent sooner rather than later.

  Deja led her people out the front door and across the street. Gibson finished his whiskey in two gulps. He pushed the glass away and reached over for Swonger’s tumbler. He needed to get free of Truck Noble. Easier said than done. The man was the size of the Death Star. He doubted the old “I need to use the bathroom” bit would come off like it did in the movies. Although he kind of did need the bathroom, now that he thought about it . . .

  Truck Noble didn’t view Gibson or Old Charlie as threats. He found the remote and put on SportsCenter. The office door opened a crack. Gibson had forgotten all about Margo. Old Charlie saw it too. From his angle, Gibson couldn’t see in the door, but Old Charlie could and was having a telepathic conversation with Margo. The two seemed to arrive at a silent agreement, and the old man turned to stare at Truck Noble. Truck didn’t notice at first, but at a commercial he caught Old Charlie’s stare and didn’t like it, not one bit. Gibson doubted Truck had had to say things twice very often in his life. Certainly not to run-down old men in bars.

  “Tell your boy to quit staring at me,” Truck muttered to Gibson.

  “He’s not my boy.”

  “Tell him.”

  Gibson told him, but Old Charlie kept on staring.

  “I’ve been drinking here since 1967. I’ll look where I goddamn please,” Old Charlie said imperiously.

  That brought Truck to his feet. He shoved Gibson toward the old man.

  “I’m already done with this town, now quit staring before—”

  Truck didn’t finish his threat.

  Margo wrapped the baseball hat around Truck’s head. At least that’s the way it looked as the bat splintered against his skull. The meat of the bat spun through the air and rattled off a wall. Truck took a staggering step forward, absorbing the force of the blow. He wheeled on Margo. Blood poured down Truck’s neck from a gash over his ear, but he paid it no mind. Judging by the look on Margo’s face, she’d expected the fight to be over already. She dropped the broken handle of the bat and brought her hands up in time to partially block the snap right hook that Truck delivered like a comet to the side of her head. It sent her crashing face-first across a table, and Truck sprang forward, wrapping one hand around the back of her neck, pinning her to the table, while the other rained blows down on her kidneys. Margo was strong, but Truck held her down effortlessly.

  Gibson hit him low, driving his shoulder into Truck’s ribs, trying to force him away from Margo. Truck didn’t budge, and Gibson felt sudden solidarity with the bug that had splattered on his windshield. Hitting Truck reminded him of wrestling with his dad when he was six or seven years old. Truck pivoted with a ballerina’s grace and flung Gibson clear. Gibson tumbled to the ground, rolled, and found his feet.

  At least he’d accomplished his goal—Truck had lost all interest in Margo. That was the good news. Bad news, he seemed intent on putting Gibson’s head in orbit. Truck closed on him in the blink of an eye. A man that big shouldn’t be that quick. Gibson anticipated the same snap right hook, ducked it, but that only delivered his chin for the lefty uppercut that lifted him
clean off his feet. He landed on his back and listened to cathedral bells toll, wondering who’d died. You, dummy, if you don’t get moving. His head popped up, but he couldn’t get his legs or arms to cooperate. Truck loomed over him, took a step forward, and stopped. The big man swayed drunkenly and shook his head. A mighty dry heave, and then Truck Noble vomited through his hands.

  “The hell?” he puzzled aloud and dropped to one knee.

  Gibson’s arms and legs came back online, and he scrambled backward as Truck Noble toppled forward. The three of them looked at each other. Gulliver down.

  “What happened to him?” Margo asked.

  “Baseball bat must’ve taken a minute to register.”

  “I need a drink,” Old Charlie said.

  Margo told him to help himself. She fetched rope, and Gibson helped her hog-tie Truck. Badly concussed, the big man passed in and out of consciousness. It took both of them to drag him to the kitchen and lock him inside the walk-in pantry.

  “Go,” Margo said. “I’ll mind our friend.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Try not to get her killed.”

  Gibson left by the back door, still wobbly on his feet. His jaw felt dislocated. He walked up a block before circling around to Tarte Street. He could see Deja’s men forcing open the front door of the Wolstenholme Hotel with a pry bar. Swonger stood among them but distinctly not of them. Gibson could hear raised voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Whatever it was, it wasn’t any too friendly. But it did make for a nice diversion. The back of the hotel might be unguarded now, but he’d need to hurry.

  Gibson broke into a run.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  From beneath her hood, every sound had taken on an ominous dimension—the rustle of a curtain, a man’s cough from behind her head, the indistinct murmur of men’s voices. The effect was disorienting. Lea thought she might be back in Niobe. Maybe. She’d lost track since the massacre at the airfield. When Emerson Soto Flores had introduced himself at gunpoint, she’d been prepared to die. But the sense of peace that had gripped her at the airfield had faded, replaced by a sensible terror. Perhaps not dying had brought her back to her senses. The clarity that comes only when death runs a finger along your neck. She wanted to live but wasn’t certain if that was in the cards any longer.

  The only thing she could be certain of was the ropes lashing her wrists and ankles to this chair. That and the compact Walther still strapped to her thigh. At the airfield, Ogden and her father had been thrown to the ground and searched, but she and her mother hadn’t warranted such treatment. From the way Emerson Soto Flores spoke, Lea didn’t believe he held women in high regard. He and her father had that much in common. She hoped for the chance to make both men reconsider their prejudices.

  A door opened, and the room fell silent apart from the whirl of an approaching electric motor. An older woman’s voice broke the silence.

  “I send you for two, and you bring me four.”

  “I’m sorry, Mother. It seemed wise to let you decide for yourself.”

  Lea recognized the man’s voice from the airfield. Emerson Soto Flores’s words showed respect, but the tension in his voice suggested that son and mother did not see eye to eye.

  “We will see. How many did we lose?” the woman asked.

  “Five. Tomás will not see the morning.”

  “So many?”

  “There were more than we anticipated. It was . . . difficult.”

  “That is disappointing. Make Tomás comfortable.”

  “He is.”

  “And their killers?” There was a silence. “Good. The airfield is cleaned up?”

  “The cars will be discovered, but no one will make sense of what happened there. The bodies have been prepared.”

  “Good. Then let me meet the two extras you have brought.”

  A rough hand gripped the nape of Lea’s neck as the hood was tugged free. She blinked and looked around, confirming her suspicion—she’d been returned to Niobe. She’d never spent a night at the Wolstenholme, but there was no mistaking the faded opulence of the presidential suite. On her tour of the hotel, Jimmy Temple had recited the proud history of the hotel and shared anecdotes about its many illustrious guests. She wondered now if, in the last century, there had ever been a gathering quite as strange as this one.

  Her fingers were numb and had turned a light frostbite blue. She flexed them, hoping to coax blood back into them, but the knots that bound her to this chair hadn’t been tied with her circulation in mind. Beside her, Damon Ogden groaned under his hood; he’d taken the worst of it at the airfield. Her parents completed the row—four fools tied to chairs.

  She counted six armed men spread around the room, many of whom she’d served at the Toproll over the last few weeks. Emerson knelt on one knee beside a woman in an expensive wheelchair with a plush burgundy leather seat. The woman was a lion, a proud dignity to her posture. No jewelry. A conservative black dress fell to her ankles. Lea guessed her age as sixty, and thought she might once have had a kind, maternal face, but the thick scars that bloomed at the woman’s throat, fanning up her jaw and across her cheek, had burned all that away. The woman’s silver hair, drawn back in a modest bun, made no effort to hide the melted scab that had been her left ear. Lea saw no kindness in her eyes, no signs of empathy of any kind.

  “It’s rude to stare, girl.”

  “It’s rude to tie people to chairs,” Lea snapped back, before she thought better of it.

  The right side of the woman’s face smiled. “Who is she?”

  “Mother, may I present Chelsea Merrick.”

  “That explains her manners. Welcome, my dear,” the woman said, and gestured for the next hood to be removed.

  The guard moved down the row like a hostess in a game show revealing the prizes. Off came Ogden’s hood. A length of rope had been used as a crude gag. That interested the old woman, who held up a questioning finger.

  “Why is the black one gagged?”

  “It was either that or cut out his tongue.”

  “Who is he?”

  Emerson whispered in her ear, and Lea saw her smile.

  “CIA? Well, what an unexpected windfall.”

  The final two hoods came off. The Merricks looked around in a panic. There were standard questions that came with the removal of hoods: Where am I? Why are you holding me? But no one asked them. Charles and Veronica Merrick knew better than to open their mouths. If they thought to question why, they could always refer to the swollen imprint of a pistol barrel that ran along Damon Ogden’s swollen jaw, across his left eye, and up to his forehead. An object lesson in who was in charge and how the rules had changed since the firefight at the airfield. Rule one: Charles Merrick wasn’t blustering his way through this. Rule two: No one gave a damn that Damon Ogden worked for the CIA.

  “Do you know who I am?” the woman asked Merrick.

  Merrick shook his head, downcast eyes showing a deference Lea never thought she’d see. Apparently, it took a pistol-whipping to teach her father a little humility.

  “That’s not unexpected. My name is Lucinda King Soto. Although you never met face-to-face, my husband worked for many years to move your money out of the United States. I’ve come for that money and for the honor of my husband, Montel Soto Flores.”

  Lea didn’t recognize the name, but her parents and Damon Ogden certainly did. The three of them looked at the older woman in shock and fear.

  “That’s not possible,” said Ogden. “You died in Mexico.”

  “Yes,” Lucinda said. “Thank you for that.”

  “How?”

  “How what? How did I stay alive after you painted my husband as a government informant?”

  “That’s not what happened—”

  “Isn’t it? Charles Merrick didn’t betray my husband to save himself? Your government didn’t exploit my husband’s connection to Merrick to make cases against the cartel and its associates? And to seize the money he laundered on
their behalf? Until even an idiot could see that my husband was the common link to all the arrests and seizures? And the cartel is not run by idiots. They reacted exactly as you expected they would and did your dirty work for you.” Lucinda paused, her scars pulsing in anger. “Deny it again and I will have my son remove your tongue.”

  Damon Ogden seemed to take the old woman at her word. Lucinda nodded and a smoke-trail smile drifted across her lips. Lea recognized that smile. They were all actors in a play that Lucinda King Soto had been scripting for a long, long time. This suite was a stage, and Lucinda already knew the ending. Everything that happened from now until the end had been rehearsed in her imagination, and Lea and Ogden were now being written into the final act. This was the face of revenge, and it was ugly to see in someone else. Was this what she looked like? Lea wondered. Was this what Dorian Gray saw when he glimpsed his picture?

  A knock at the suite’s door interrupted Lucinda’s moment. She glared at the two men who were ushered inside. They conferred in hushed tones with Emerson, who cursed under his breath. Lucinda demanded an explanation, which her son again knelt to deliver.

  “Go,” she said. “Leave Hector and Rafael. Take the others and deal with it.”

  Her son stood and led his men to the door. Lucinda stopped him.

  “Emerson,” she said. “They do not leave the lobby. Yes?”

  “It will be done, Mother.”

  When they were alone, Lucinda studied Damon Ogden thoughtfully. The next act of the play was about to begin.

  “It’s fascinating how little we understand the forces at work in our lives. Up until now, I thought I had a clear understanding of Charles Merrick’s betrayal. But it is only with your presence, Mr. Ogden, that I see the entire picture. That I must ask myself why the CIA would care about Charles Merrick. For years, I considered his paltry sentence proof that he had sold out his money launderer to secure a deal. But now I see that the real prize lay in China, didn’t it? My husband was merely collateral damage. We were nothing but pawns to be cleared from your board. You let the cartel do your dirty work for you and eliminate the only man who could connect Charles Merrick back to China.”