Hit For Hire

by David Archer

  “We’re here,” Neil said as the engines began winding down.

  SEVEN

  Getting through customs from a private flight was pretty easy. The bored inspectors asked them if they had anything to declare, then waved them along to passport control and immigration. No one bothered to look into their bags, so the guns they’d picked up in Spain were safely carried through.

  Finishing up with immigration took almost an hour and then they walked to the Avis counter and rented a Jaguar sedan. Sarah smiled as she slid behind the wheel and adjusted the seat for her short frame. “Oh, yeah, back in the saddle again!”

  “Just remember to drive on the right side of the road,” Neil said.

  “No, this is England,” Moose said, “she has to drive on the wrong side.”

  “Whatever! I just figure I’ve got enough chances to get killed on this mission without worrying about getting hit head-on by some giant truck!”

  “Oh, chill out, Neil,” Sarah said, “I haven’t wrecked yet with you in the car.” She put the car in gear and drove out onto the street.

  “Did anyone but me notice that she said ‘yet’ in that sentence?” Neil whined. “It’s like she’s warning me that it’s coming.”

  Moose looked at him and then reached for his cellphone. “Hang on a minute, I want to record this and post it to Facebook....”

  “Don’t you dare!” Neil said, and then the two of them were fighting over the phone in the back seat. Moose was laughing like a teenager as he tried to keep it out of Neil’s reach.

  Noah looked at them and then turned back to face the road ahead. “Let’s go and find Broussard’s place,” he said. “I’d like to get a feel for the guy.”

  “You got it,” Sarah said. She reached into her purse and brought out her own phone, then called up its navigation app. “I programmed his address in before we even left home, just in case.” The computerized voice began giving her directions, and she had to turn the car around at the next intersection.

  The ride to Broussard’s large estate near Basildon took almost an hour, most of which was spent in finding their way out of the city itself. The big house sat in the midst of a twenty-acre wooded lot, and could barely be seen from the highway that ran along in front of it.

  “That place would make a pretty fair fortress,” Moose said. “Think we’ll have to force our way in there, Boss?”

  “Not if I can avoid it,” Noah said. “Those trees are thick enough to hide a small army, I’d hate to try to infiltrate the place.”

  “It wouldn't be that bad,” Moose said. “We could come at it from the east, they’re a little less dense there. We could move low, keep some of the brush between us and anyone inside that perimeter until we got to the fence line.”

  Noah nodded. “We’ll keep that in mind, but I doubt we’ll be coming here. If Broussard is the one we want I should be able to take him down without having to try invading his little private country.” He turned to Sarah. “Okay, now let’s go look at the Elizabeth.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper.” She turned the car at the next crossroad and stopped, then entered the hotel into the car’s GPS. Once it began talking she followed its directions onto another highway, the A127, that led them back to London.

  “Boss,” Neil asked, “how do you intend to find out if this is the right guy or not? I mean, the mission is to cut off the IAR’s head, right? What if you take out Broussard and he ain’t it?”

  “Remember that satellite phone?” Noah asked in return. “If he can meet my demands without calling someone above his pay grade, then he’s the guy. If he uses that phone to call someone else for approval, then the job just gets extended. I’ve got to be certain I’m cutting off the head before I take anyone out. Once I take the first one, they’ll be on alert and I won’t have a chance to take anyone else by surprise.”

  “Okay,” Neil said. “Then the only problem is how do we identify whoever he calls?”

  “That’s why I’ve got you. I need you to come up with a way to tag that phone so we can monitor or trace its calls. Got any ideas?”

  Neil snorted a laugh. “It’s actually pretty easy. Sat phones use a pretty heavy radio signal, and their encryption has been broken so that there are commercial devices available that can monitor and track them, even get their GPS location. I’ll get one and be ready if your pigeon uses his, and that’ll let me get the location of the phone he calls. Most people seem to think sat phones are safe, so they don’t even bother to move after using one. We could pinpoint the bastard in no time flat.”

  “You’ll know where the other phone is?” Moose asked. “Boss, should we go for a double whammy? Take out both ends at once? If the other phone is close enough, I could go and take a shot at whoever has it.”

  “I can do it even easier than that,” Neil said. “Get me a decent programmable drone that can carry some weight, and I can send it straight to the spot with a bomb.”

  Noah shook his head. “At this point, we won’t know enough to make the call, I don’t believe. It will be best to wait and analyze the information we get. I’d rather let Broussard have an extra few days of life than make a mistake and hit the wrong guy.” He turned to look back at Neil. “Can you lock onto the signal and monitor calls made by the other phone, as well?”

  Neil nodded his head. “Shouldn’t be a problem. I just need to get some equipment. Make a stop at a decent electronics store and I can get what I need to make one, or if you can find a sat phone store they probably sell one.”

  “See if you can find one,” Noah said. “I’d rather you just buy one that’s ready to go than try to make one yourself.”

  Neil nodded. “No problem,” he said as he started punching buttons on his phone. A moment later he said, “There’s a Satphone Store at 2007 Hornton Street, not far from Kensington Palace. They’ve got the Delma MMS Satphone Tracker. With one of those, I can listen in on any sat phone call within a mile.”

  “All right. Sarah, let’s go by there after we look at the hotel. Neil, I’ve changed the plan. You’ll be staying at the Elizabeth with Moose after all. If Broussard uses his sat phone, I want you close enough to pick it up.”

  “What about you and Goldilocks, here?” Moose asked. “Where will you be staying?”

  “We’ll go to the Cavendish,” Noah said, “where we stayed before in London.”

  “Ooh, good, can we get the honeymoon suite this time?” Sarah asked with a grin.

  “No, and we can’t even stay in the same room. Adrian never had a woman with him, as far as we know, and I can’t break character now that we’re getting close.”

  Sarah scowled at him. “Well, this mission is gonna suck!”

  “You’ll survive,” Neil said. “Look at Moose and me, we don’t get to be with our girlfriends and we make it through.”

  “Shut up, Neil,” she growled. “You’re not helping.”

  They drove along in silence for a few minutes, and then Sarah pointed at a large building ahead. “That’s the Elizabeth,” she said. “Place looks like it must be pretty old, but it’s in good shape.”

  “It’s nineteenth century,” Noah said, “but that’s all I know. I think it’ll work fine for what we’re doing.”

  They drove past it and then Sarah asked Neil to get directions to the Satphone Store he wanted to visit. He pressed a button on his phone and its navigation started reading off directions.

  “There are too many GPS direction devices in this car,” Sarah said as she turned where the directions indicated. “Just when I get used to one electronic voice, another one pops up and starts telling me where to go.”

  “That’s what they’re for,” Moose said. “Cause girls get lost so easy.”

  “I’m gonna lose you,” Sarah grumbled. “First chance I get, trust me.”

  They arrived at the Satphone Store a few minutes later, and Neil hurried inside. Moose waited in the car with Noah and Sarah, listening to Sarah singing softly along with John Legend. Neil was back in less than t
en minutes, holding something that looked a lot like an old brick phone.

  “This thing will do the job,” he said. “I can lock onto the signal of a phone and use this device to get its ESN so I can find it again and listen to any calls made to or from it, and I can grab its GPS location at the same time. I can even pinpoint a location on whoever Broussard might call.”

  “Good,” Noah said. “It’s almost five o’clock; we’re going to drop you guys off at the Elizabeth and let you get settled in for the night. You can go out and relax a bit this evening if you want, but be in your rooms tomorrow. Neil, I want you to monitor for any satellite phone usage in the hotel tomorrow, okay? If you find any, see if you can tell who it is and what the call is about.”

  “No problem, Boss. Want me to record the calls? This unit has a record feature.”

  “Yes,” Noah said. “That way I can compare it to the voice I heard on Mustapha’s phone last night. Assuming that was Broussard, I’ll recognize his voice. We’ll check in with you tomorrow around noon.”

  “Sounds good,” Moose said as Sarah pulled up in front of the old hotel’s entrance. He and Neil climbed out and got their bags out of the trunk, then walked inside without saying another word. Sarah put the car back in gear and drove out of the entryway and onto the street.

  “Are you getting hungry?” Noah asked.

  Sarah nodded and grinned. “Starving. We seem to have skipped right over lunch, and breakfast was a long time ago as far as my stomach is concerned.”

  “Yes, it was. Let’s go find some dinner.” He took out his own phone and told Google Now to find restaurants near their location, then looked at Sarah again. “Greek food okay? The Santorini is over on Moscow Road, off Queensway.”

  “Just hit the direction button,” Sarah said. “Might as well have one more gadget telling me where to go today.”

  Noah did so, and they got to the restaurant in less than fifteen minutes. The food and service were both excellent, and they managed to enjoy dinner without thinking much about the mission.

  “I’ve got a little surprise for you,” Sarah said. “I was supposed to wait 'til tonight, but since we can’t stay in the same room, I want to go ahead and tell you now.”

  Noah narrowed his eyes. “Surprise? What kind of surprise?”

  “Well, while we were getting our ID kits, Allison took me aside. She wanted to tell me something and let me be the one to share it with you.”

  “I noticed you seemed surprised about something,” Noah said. “What is it?”

  “Remember your old friend Molly? She’s transferring to E & E, coming in to work directly with Allison and Mr. J in the planning department.” She watched his face closely as she finished speaking.

  Noah’s expression didn’t change. “I shouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “Now that she knows I’m with the agency, it would make sense for her to want to be part of it, too.” He cocked his head slightly and looked into her eyes. “Is this going to make you uncomfortable?”

  Sarah kept her face as expressionless as she could. “Should it?” she asked.

  “No,” Noah said. “I have no feelings for Molly, but I do seem to have some for you, even if I don’t quite know how to classify them. I can assure you that I won’t be with anyone but you, unless the mission forces a situation I can’t avoid.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “I know that,” she said. “Trust me, I haven’t forgotten about little Felicita! I just want to know I don’t have to worry that Molly might come between us.”

  “I can’t see how she could,” Noah said. “I don’t want to go back to pretending to be her boyfriend, and she already knows I have some kind of real attachment to you. She wouldn’t want to interfere with that; she’d be more likely to try to hang out with us and observe it, so she can figure out more about what makes me tick.”

  Sarah blinked. “Well—I guess I could handle that, as long as it wasn’t all the time, y’know?”

  Noah nodded. “I understand. And I don’t want you to worry about it. You’re the only girl I want, Sarah.”

  She smiled, and they finished eating. An hour later, they had checked into the Cavendish and gone to their rooms, and Sarah lay in her bed and cried silently.

  EIGHT

  Noah was already up, showered and dressed when Sarah called him at seven the next morning.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hey, there,” Sarah said sleepily. “Did I wake you?”

  “No, I’ve been up for a while. I was about to call you and see if you’re ready for breakfast.”

  “Hmmf. Can you give me ten minutes? Okay, make that twenty minutes?”

  “I want to go on down. Why don’t you meet me in the restaurant when you get ready. I can just drink some coffee until you get there.”

  “Aw, that’s sweet,” Sarah said with a chuckle. “Okay, I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  Noah ended the call and left the room, following the hall to the elevator. An older couple was waiting and he rode down with them, but they headed for the exit while he walked into the restaurant that was off the lobby. There were very few people there, so he asked the hostess who greeted him to show him to a table for two. He ordered coffee and said a guest would be joining him, then settled in to wait for Sarah.

  She arrived fifteen minutes later and Noah stood to hold her chair for her. “Wow,” she said, “aren’t we a gentleman today.”

  A couple at a nearby table was smiling at them, so Noah gave her a grin. “Just being the new me,” he said as he took his own seat again. “Judging from what I’ve seen and heard, I’m something of a gentleman when I’m not performing my usual services.”

  Sarah’s eyes went wide for a moment, but she couldn’t quite stifle the smile that escaped onto her face. “And here I thought you were just trying to be sweet,” she said. “Oh, well, I guess I’d better take what I can get.”

  The waitress came back and handed the menus to them, and they both chose folded eggs with treacle bacon and Boston beans, with a fresh cup of coffee for Sarah and a refill for Noah. The waitress drifted away to put in their order and the two of them sat and chatted as they waited.

  “So, where do we start today?” Sarah asked.

  “I need to check in with our local lady,” Noah said, “see if anyone has checked into the Elizabeth that we need to pay attention to. I’ll check with her now and then, all the way up to time for my meeting. I’m going to let you check in with the guys after we leave here. I don’t want to take any chance that someone could overhear me talking to them, or them talking to me. Don’t let them use any names during the call.”

  Sarah nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Any particular instruction you want me to give them?”

  “I think they know what to do. I just want to give them the opportunity to let us know if there’s anything I need to watch out for.”

  “Okay, so what’s on our agenda for this morning? Anything special or unusual?”

  “I think not,” Noah said. “We can probably go drive around the city for a while, just to keep moving. I don’t see any point in sitting still.”

  Their breakfast came a few moments later and they dug in. “I think one of the best parts about being an international traveler is that we get to try so many different kinds of food,” Sarah said. “If anyone had ever told me I would be having baked beans and eggs for breakfast right now, I probably would’ve said they were crazy, but this is really good.”

  “I’ve always enjoyed trying different fare in my travels. Of course, sometimes that means trusting someone else to order for you, if you don’t speak the language. I went to some kind of a restaurant with some men from my unit once, and ended up eating some little pieces of red meat on a skewer. It was really good, but when I asked what it was they told me I was eating rat.”

  “Eww! That’s disgusting! People actually eat rat?”

  “I understand it’s quite a delicacy in some places. It actually was very good.”

  Sarah shuddered and
refused to look at him for a minute, then shoved her plate away. “Okay, you have officially ruined my appetite this morning. That’s rotten, I was really enjoying that until you opened your big mouth.”

  Noah looked at her for a few seconds, then went on eating his own breakfast. After a minute she pulled her plate back over and continued eating.

  When they were finished with breakfast, they got into the Jaguar and drove into the city. Noah waited until they were some distance from the hotel, then had Sarah pull the car over and park. He took out his cell phone and dialed the number for Catherine Potts.

  “Catherine, it’s Alex Colson,” Noah said. “Anything going on I should know about?”

  “Not much of anything, actually,” Catherine said. “Your bird landed, checked into the hotel under the name you gave me late last night, in room 303. There are also a couple of young American men staying there, and I get the distinct impression they might be yours. I understand one of them has walked past Mr. Sykes’s room a few times this morning. He’s on a different floor, so it appears he might be keeping some surveillance of his own?”

  “Probably a big guy?” Noah asked. “Lots of muscle?”

  “That would be the one. I thought I smelled a bit of our outfit around them. Do you want me to keep my people on station? I’ve got two watching from outside and one of the maids is actually with SIS.”

  “It wouldn’t break my heart if you keep them on their toes. Mr. Sykes can be pretty slippery, from what I understand. As long as he doesn’t have anyone else around there shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “All right. When will you be making your appearance?”

  “I’ll be there at around three. You can reach me on this number if anything changes.”

  “Very good, Sir,” Catherine said. “I’ll let you know if anything comes up. Ta-ta for now.”