Bitsy shook her head sadly.
“The news accounts from Slovenia only mentioned that his body had been recovered after a car accident. But I began thinking about all the ways David could have hidden the truth, first from me and later from the agents who investigated the mission.”
“But I thought you said your boss was in on…”
Bitsy waved me aside impatiently. “They use independent investigators, like the police have Internal Affairs officers to check out shady cops or suspicious shootings.”
My mind was racing, trying to keep up with the pieces of information Bitsy was throwing at us.
“David could only pull off a coverup like that with the corroboration of his immediate supervisor.”
“Not you?” Jake asked, surprising me by not blindly believing Bitsy.
“I wasn’t in on that phase of the operation. I was running the smoke screen back at our embassy quarters, making it look like David was still home, with me, and not running across Europe.”
“What made you decide that David was dirty?” I was still feeling confused, as if a piece of the story was missing.
Bitsy sighed and seemed a little frustrated by my question. “I couldn’t think of any other explanation for our plan going wrong,” she answered. “I just couldn’t believe the Slovenians had any idea that Gregor was thinking of defecting. We played it too well for too long to have it suddenly explode on us.”
Bitsy hesitated for a moment, again weighing the necessity of sharing information with us before proceeding.
“I’ve worked for the Agency too long. I know how to check facts. I know how to glean little bits of information and piece them together into something big and solid. I worked my insiders. I listened to the questions they were asking and finally I found notes David had made, little things that, paired up with phone records and e-mails, led me to the truth.”
Jake was frowning thoughtfully and pacing, sure signs that he was having issues with Bitsy’s accounting. I watched him stop to look out the front window overlooking the street for what seemed to be an almost imperceptibly short moment before continuing on across the room. When he repeated this walk-and-pause ritual several times in a row, I felt my stomach clutch as a frisson of alarm caught fire deep inside my body. What was happening down on the street?
“Okay, so you figured out what was going on,” Jake said abruptly. “How did you prove it?”
Bitsy nodded, as if expecting the question. “I found the formula. David had hidden it in a microchip.”
Jake passed the window again.
“How did you find the microchip and how did you know what was on it?”
Bitsy smiled. “Everybody has a weakness,” she said softly. “David liked cognac and sex. Lots of cognac. Lots of sex. Over time I came to know him. I knew his habits and I knew his hiding places. It took a while but I found it, and when I did, I replaced it with a blank chip.”
“Wasn’t it only a matter of time before he found out?” I asked. “Why hadn’t he given it to whomever he was working for or with?”
“He wouldn’t have any bargaining power then, would he?” she asked. “I think he was holding on to it. I think he might’ve been trying to sell it to the highest bidder.”
Jake was at the window again. “So, what went wrong? How did you end up running?”
“Once I’d taken the chip I knew I had to get it into the right hands. I have a contact and a safe house to go to but I hadn’t arranged the meet when the Slovenians showed up. I don’t know how they knew that the government wasn’t in possession of the formula, but the afternoon I spotted them shadowing the house, I knew things were about to get nasty. That’s when I ran.”
It was something in Jake’s overall body posture that alerted me, a tiny shift in the muscles of his neck perhaps, an imperceptible tightening of his jawline, something that triggered me into the awareness of imminent danger and the need to move.
“Out the back, up onto the roof or down into the print shop?” I asked quietly. I opened a desk drawer, drew out two extra ammo clips and was sliding them into my jacket pocket before he could answer.
“Print shop,” he answered, pulling his Glock.
“All right. I’ll tuck her in and follow up from the back. How many?”
“Two crossing the street. I don’t know about others. They look like the visitors we entertained this afternoon,” he said. “You know, Red and Fred, or whatever they called themselves.”
Bitsy was working not to show her alarm but when she pulled her gun I saw it in her eyes. Whatever we were facing, it scared her and she was a seasoned professional.
“Let’s get you out of here,” I said, rounding the desk and heading toward the trap door hidden in my office supply closet.
“I’ll stay,” she said. “I can help.”
“Do as I say. We’re not going to risk losing what you’ve been trying to safeguard,” I said.
“But I don’t…”
“Now!”
Bitsy moved quickly to join me and within seconds we were descending the steps that led into the back room of the print shop below us.
“There are two men out front,” I said, pitching my voice low. “One has red hair, fair complexion, and he’s tall. The other is darker and not quite as tall. They said they were FBI agents but we didn’t believe them. Friends of yours?”
“I don’t know,” Bitsy answered. “I’d have to see them.”
We reached the bottom step. I had my gun out and ready as I reached out to slowly open the door. It stuck at first and I had to lean my shoulder into it to loosen the swollen wood from its frame but with a loud squeal it gave, swinging slowly open to empty us into the inky darkness of the print shop workroom.
“All right,” I whispered. “Stay here. I’ll go check out the rear of the building, then back up Jake.”
“Where are we?” Bitsy asked. “I can’t see my hand in front of my face.”
But there was nothing wrong with our hearing. We both heard the person behind us as he stepped out from his hiding place and cocked his gun.
“There you are!” he said softly. “Drop your guns. Now!”
I sucked in a long, slow breath and tossed my weapon onto the floor. I heard Bitsy’s gun drop and knew she realized we were playing with a pro who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot us both if we didn’t follow his instructions. He had the advantage. He was behind us and his eyes had already adjusted to the darkness.
“We need to talk,” the man said.
I knew he wasn’t talking to me. Almost simultaneously, I realized that I was only in the way. Unnecessary baggage. How long would it be before he shot me? I closed my eyes, picturing the room before me as it was in the daytime, during business hours. We had stepped through a doorway into the workroom. Shelves lined the room, printing equipment and presses took up the center.
I heard the man move, off to the side and away from the wall. I coughed, using the sound to camouflage my quick, short movement backward, within reaching distance of the shelves behind me. I slid a hand out behind my back to feel the contents of the shelf closest to the spot where I stood and was gratified to feel cool plastic jugs. I was standing in front of the inks and chemicals used to develop the shop’s glossy, color prints.
Bitsy coughed, prompting our assailant to say, “Shut up!” There was a brief rustle as he moved then spoke into what I assumed was a walkie-talkie.
“Got the target,” he said quietly. “First floor. Come in through the back.”
Great. Reinforcements were on the way. I slowly slipped a jug off the shelf, keeping it and my hands behind my back as I worked to quietly remove the cap. I had no idea what was in the bottle. I only hoped it would either wound or at the very least, distract the man with the gun and enable us to escape.
“All right,” the man began, stepping closer.
He never got to finish. I whipped the jug around, slinging liquid in a smelly arc that landed dead center on target. He screamed and fired his weapon but
the shot went wild as I grabbed Bitsy by the hand and ran forward toward the front of the shop.
His screams followed us as we made our way toward the store’s entrance. Along the way I picked up a paper cutter and carried it with me.
“We’ll be trapped,” Bitsy cried.
“Maybe not,” I said and heaved the paper cutter through the plate glass display window.
The glass dissolved into a thousand tiny beads, triggering the alarm and allowing us to escape out onto the sidewalk.
“Come on!”
Still clutching Bitsy’s hand, I led her across the street and into a tiny walkway that ran between a pizzeria and a pharmacy. We were swallowed by the darkened interior of the small, dank tunnel and slowed by the slick, wet surface of the bricks beneath our feet, but we had one advantage: we’d left our pursuers in chaos and triggered an alarm that would bring police reinforcements.
We ran down an alleyway and across backyards, only stopping when I recognized the familiar slumped posture of the abandoned pump house that edged Twin Lake. I could hide Bitsy there and return to help Jake.
“There,” I said, pointing to the desolate building. “Wait inside. I have to go back for Jake. I don’t want to risk calling him.”
We were both out of breath and gasping for air, but Bitsy nodded. Before she started off she turned and squeezed my arm. “Be careful, Stella,” she said. “They’re very dangerous people.”
There wasn’t time to ask questions or do anything other than run back toward the office and Jake. Although I heard sirens and knew Glenn Ford’s small police force was responding, I was afraid for him. He had no way of knowing where we were or what had happened to us. I didn’t want him taking unnecessary risks, thinking he needed to rescue us when in reality, we’d already escaped. I knew Jake. I knew he’d stop at nothing to find me.
The problem was I was likely to be more of a liability than a help. I was unarmed and unless the conflict became one of hand to hand combat, I was going to need to be very cautious in the way I approached the situation.
I returned the same way I’d come with Bitsy, aware that her pursuers were probably searching for us. I stuck to the shadowy sides of buildings, checking each corner before rounding it and then darting quickly on toward the office. When I drew close, I saw blue lights dancing over the brick front of our building as all of Glenn Ford’s tiny force responded to the print shop’s burglar alarm. As I watched, an ambulance arrived and my guts twisted into a knot of apprehension.
I scanned the street and saw a white sedan that looked identical to the one the two agents had driven to visit us at Aunt Lucy’s. It was parked half a block down from our office, tightly parked between a nondescript passenger van and an oversize Buick. Was this what Jake had seen that triggered him to begin watching the street?
I looked back at the print shop interior, now well lit and crawling with cops. No sign of Jake. Something in my peripheral vision caught my eye, and I looked back toward the white car. Had I seen something move? As I watched the car, I began to move closer to it, trying to stay low and in the shadows. Someone was inside the vehicle.
I was two car lengths away when the engine suddenly roared to life. Without thinking I darted toward the sedan, racing down the sidewalk to come up even with the passenger-side door.
Maybe it was luck or maybe just that it was a cheap, government-issued car, but whatever the reason, the door opened when I tried it. Without thinking, I jumped inside, lunged across the seat, turned the car off and snatched the ignition key from the vehicle. The look Red gave me when our eyes met was unforgettable. It was the clearest telegraphing of intent ever sent my way by another human being. He was going to kill me.
When he moved, it was lightning fast. His left hand dropped from the steering wheel, disappearing momentarily before he raised it again, this time wielding a small handgun.
I don’t know what comes over me at times like that. It’s not fear. It is most probably a primal survival instinct that bypasses my conscious brain and sends me into action. I don’t plan, I just do.
I drove the car keys straight up his nose, following them with the heel of my hand in a Krav Maga move that can only be described as excruciatingly painful and frequently lethal to its recipient. I didn’t enjoy it too much either but it was a kill-or-be-killed situation. Red wouldn’t have hesitated to take me out, if he’d moved fast enough. I was just lucky.
“Stella!” Jake’s voice broke through to me and I realized he was there, opening the car door and pulling the incapacitated Red out of the vehicle. Two uniformed officers followed at a flat-out run, stopping as they took in the unconscious, bloody body of the “FBI” agent.
I looked up at Jake. “He would’ve killed me.”
Jake nodded. “I know, sweetheart.” His fingers were pressed hard against the man’s carotid artery, feeling for a pulse. “Medic!” he yelled, forgetting and lapsing back into his Special Forces days.
The EMTs who’d arrived with the ambulance joined the cops, pushing past Jake and taking over to begin the work of either reviving Red or declaring him dead. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to believe I could so easily take a life, without even thinking, in order to save my own. It had been too fast, too easy for me to feel that my harsh actions were justified, and yet, I remembered the look on Red’s face just before I struck. There hadn’t been an option.
I had a new problem now. Regardless of whether I’d killed the man or not, if he was indeed a government agent, I was going to find myself arrested for aggravated assault and possibly murder.
“What happened?” One of the cops asked, bending down to peer into the car’s interior at me.
“He’s one of the armed men who broke into the print shop,” Jake answered. “He was trying to get away when my partner attempted to stop him.” Jake’s eyes never left my face as he spoke, drawing me into his fictional account of the past thirty minutes.
“He was going to kill me,” I said, aware that my voice sounded flat and not at all the way I thought I should sound, given that I’d been threatened with death.
“You chased him?” the cop asked, clearly thinking I was suicidal.
“Not exactly. I just happened to be on the sidewalk when I saw him attempting to get away and as there wasn’t an officer close enough to intervene, I took action.” I looked at the middle-aged, paunchy man in uniform. “I was a cop. It’s not like I didn’t know what I was doing.”
The officer looked pointedly at the man on the ground. “Obviously,” he said.
Jake was through with the uniform. In a brusque tone he said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d put in a page for Joe Slovenick.”
The man’s eyebrow lifted slightly. “You know Detective Slovenick, do you?”
“You could say that,” Jake turned back to me. “Let’s go get you a cup of coffee.” He reached into the car’s interior, took my hand and pulled me out of the sedan. His expression softened into a gentle smile that warmed my heart. “You look like you could use something hot. Let’s go down the street to the diner.”
The cop saw us begin to walk away and acted as if he might stop us, but I didn’t give him the opportunity. “Tell Joe we’ll be in the Coffee Cup if he needs to talk to us.” Calling the detective by his first name seemed to make the uniform a little insecure about asserting his authority. He turned back to the EMTs without another word and left us alone to walk down the street to the diner. We’d just bought a little time to put together a credible story to tell the detective when he did arrive.
“Oh, shit! Bitsy!” I cried. “I forgot. I told her to wait in the pump house for me.”
“The pump house? Down by the skating pond?”
I nodded. “It was close and I figured it was a good place to hide until I knew you were okay.”
Jake lifted a skeptical eyebrow and smiled. “You came back to save me? Why, I’m right honored, ma’am!” He tipped an imaginary hat in a mock salute and chuckled. “I’m beginning to like this equal
partnership deal.”
“What, you think I’m incapable of…”
Jake held up a hand, warding off the inevitable defense from me and intervening. “Now, Stel, you know I’m only kidding.” He stopped smiling as quickly as he’d started, apparently remembering Bitsy and the impending arrival of Detective Joe Slovenick. “I’ll go get something figured out about Bitsy, at the very least I’ll tell her about the holdup and tell her it’ll be a bit longer before we get back.”
I nodded and stopped in front of the ancient Coffee Cup Diner. “If Joe shows up, I’ll try and hold him off until you get back.”
Jake hesitated before he loped off in the direction of the pump house. “I’ll call Spike. Get her down here in case we need a bit of legalese thrown around.”
I nodded and watched him walk away. When I pulled open the big, green door leading into the diner I was rewarded with a blast of warm, humid air, scented with the smell of freshly brewed coffee and home-cooked food. My throat tightened and for a second I wanted to cry. The diner was a comforting reminder of the reassurance of loved ones and home. It felt safe and far away from the violence down the street.
Delia, one of the night shift’s regular waitresses, walked up to the back booth where I sat trying to warm up and stared at me for a long moment.
“Let me guess,” she said, cracking her gum in between words. “You and Jake had words and now you’re looking to fill the empty place he left in your life with chocolate cream pie.” She looked back toward the door leading outside and slowly drew a pencil out of her mop of unruly jet-black curls. “Can’t say as I blame you,” she continued. “But it’ll take more than a slice of pie to forget that man. You need coffee and probably a fifth of Jack Daniels.”
Delia didn’t even wait for me to correct her. “I can get you two out of three. That’ll be a start, but the liquor store closed two hours ago.”
What Stella Wants Page 18