by Seeley James
The cable slipped through her fingers.
CHAPTER 25
“Let go of me,” Koven said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Alan Sabel stayed an inch from his face, his fists full of Koven’s suit. “She went to Dubai to meet one of your clients. An armed militia stormed the building. Latest reports are that she’s on the roof, fighting for her life. I swear to god, Koven, if she gets so much as a scratch, you’re a dead man.”
“Are you threatening me?” Koven grabbed at Alan’s grip, trying to free himself.
“Yes.” Alan pushed the smaller man up the wall until his feet dangled. “This sounds like what happened to Müller.”
“I don’t know anyone in Dubai or any of the Emirates. I had nothing to do with Müller’s murder—he was my client, for Christ’s sake.”
Rip Blackson shook his head. “It’s true, Mr. Sabel. I’ve never seen any Emirates engagements on the books.”
Alan snapped his glance at Blackson. “She was meeting someone there. What clients do you have in the region?”
“Suliman and Oman are clients,” Blackson said. “I’m not aware of any planned meetings.”
Alan dropped Koven. “If I find you had anything to do with it, anything at all—”
The big man shoved him hard into the wall and stormed down the hallway.
Koven shoved his shaking hands in his pockets. “That man’s a lunatic.”
Blackson’s gaze fell to Koven’s knees where the fabric of his pant leg vibrated. “Müller was Hyde’s client. Why did you call him yours?”
Koven took a deep breath. “I met with him a couple times when Hyde was in rehab. Tom and I thought it prudent to have a transition plan in place.”
A bell sounded in the guest reception. Koven shook himself like a ragdoll to purge his fears. He inhaled deeply and blew out a long stress-breath. “Showtime.”
He glanced at Blackson, opened the oak door, and strode into the party. “Friends, lunch is served in the Knights’ Hall. There are no seating charts, no name tags, so don’t stand on ceremony.”
As Koven pointed the way, his phone rang. He pulled it, glanced at the caller, and leaned in to Blackson. “Rip, escort our guests to dinner. I have to take this call.”
After Blackson ushered the last guests out, Koven clicked open Skype and looked at his employee. “Jago, is that blood? Have you been hurt?”
“Must be Zola’s.”
“Better on you than in him. Have you taken care of that matter?”
“Zola is dead.”
“Then you are the best,” Koven said. “And his son, Philip?”
“Flip disappeared when the fighting started.”
“That worries me. Can the boy identify you?”
“Don’t worry about me. The point is, Zola’s dead.”
“The boy will grow up with revenge on his mind, that’s my point. But a topic for another day. Good job, Jago.” Koven clicked off.
He stood alone in the empty Grand Treaty Room, surveying the abandoned cocktail glasses and spilled nuts. Two workers came in and began filling trays with empties.
“My dear, why are you here?” Marthe asked from the doorway. “You should be in the Knights’ Hall, making everyone feel welcome. I thought you had a toast planned, and a few good jokes. You have to set the tone for dinner, keep them from being bored. If you don’t make them laugh, this whole thing is just another tourist trap.”
Koven approached and put his arm around his wife. “Thank you for reminding me.”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, but you’re smiling. What are you up to?”
“I’ve just been given good news,” Koven said. “Brent Zola won’t bother us anymore.”
“What do you mean? How was he bothering us?”
“He was digging into things. He and Blackson. And that madman, Jacob Stearne. They downloaded files from the company server.”
“You said there’s nothing on the server.” She pressed her hand to his chest. “You always said it’s the electronic record that trips people up.”
“There isn’t anything.” He caught her gaze. “If they find paper contracts, they can piece it together. But they were looking. That’s the problem. Betrayal. Mutiny. Desertion. You can’t allow it for a second.”
Marthe searched his eyes for a beat. “They’re not the ones you need to worry about.”
“You’re right. Let’s crank up the party, I want everyone drunk by dinner.”
He took her hand and led her to the Knights’ Hall. The dining room, intact from the eleventh century, sported a whitewashed barrel roof over stone walls and slate floors. Two long, rough-hewn tables filled the length with matching benches along each side. A spotlight lit up the entryway to showcase the servers as they brought in eleventh century meals of bread and meat, in baskets hanging from yokes on their shoulders.
Koven opened the door as two young maidens in period costumes approached bearing pewter pitchers and mugs filled with mead. He gestured them through and followed. The crowd erupted in applause as the young ladies introduced themselves with a microphone and announced what they were serving.
With the spotlight still shining, Koven stepped into the room to his own round of applause. One of the serving girls handed Koven the mic.
He smiled at Marthe, who smiled back. They took a bow before she darted offstage to an empty seat.
“Before you run off, ladies,” Koven laughed, “could I trouble you for a cup of mead?”
One of the girls handed him a pint.
Lofting it over his head, he said, “My friends, life is a waste of our time.” He waited a beat while the executives glanced at each other. “Or, is it that time is a waste of our lives?” He waited another beat. “So why not get wasted and have the time of our lives?”
To rhythmic cheers of ‘chug-chug-chug’, he quaffed his mead and held up his empty.
When the room quieted a little, he held the microphone to his mouth. “You know, when I started at Duncan and Hyde, I was still in college-boy mode. You remember what that’s like—staying out too late, calling in sick. Well, one day, Tom Duncan called me into his office and asked, ‘Daryl, do you believe in life after death?’ It was a strange question in a business environment. I looked him in the eye and said, ‘Yes sir.’ He said, ‘That’s good, because while you took yesterday off to attend your grandmother’s funeral, she stopped in to see your new office.’”
The group laughed politely.
“Hey, I saved you a seat!” Paul Benning motioned to a piece of bench next to him in the middle of the room.
“You know, folks,” Koven said, “everyone who matters in American business today is here. If only my dear friend Brent Zola could join us. I hope he’s attending his grandmother’s funeral.”
Nervous laughs rippled around the room.
“Did I tell you what that boy did during the Battle for Nasiriyah?” Koven asked. “We were ambushed, pinned down by a company of Sadam’s Republican Guard. A crazed Army Ranger ran into our position, out of his mind on drugs or something. He grabbed my service pistol and aimed it at my head. I thought I was a dead man. Folks, Brent Zola stepped in front of me and talked the whacked-out kid off the edge. He saved my life.”
A solemn silence fell over the group.
From across the room, he could feel Rip Blackson scowl at him. He spied Blackson as the young man leaned forward, the light from his phone illuminating his face. The traitorous son of a bitch was probably texting someone to check on Zola. Maybe he was texting Jacob Stearne. Maybe the police.
“I’d like to meet that man,” Paul Benning said. “Too bad he couldn’t be here.” Benning slapped the open space on the bench next to him. “Last seat in the room.”
Koven started toward him and stopped. He shouted, “Why isn’t he here?”
The room fell silent.
Koven felt their eyes on him. The outburst was stupid. What did he expect, someone to answer, ‘because he’s dead’? Di
d they know? Had news alerts popped up on their phones? He glanced around. Sweat dripped down his forehead, his skin felt gray and greasy.
Marthe jumped up and ran to his side and whispered in his ear. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
She stroked his face to re-energize him, then turned to the room. “Sorry, my friends. My husband has fits of PTSD now and then. It happens when he tells a war story. Iraq brings back terrible memories for him. Go back to your meal. He’ll be fine in a minute.”
One at a time, conversations restarted around the tables. They went back to the topics of discussion before his outburst, politely ignoring his odd behavior.
Marthe grabbed the mic from his hands and set it on a side table.
“Look.” He pointed at Blackson. She slapped his hand down. “Rip knows what’s happened. That look in his eyes is Brent’s look. That’s how Brent looked at me at Nasiriyah. I’ve made a terrible mistake. I swear to god, Marthe, that boy will haunt me to my grave.”
“Nice.” Marthe’s voice was unusually stern. “You sound like a scared little girl making up ghost stories.”
“It’s like the zombie apocalypse they write about in comic books.” Koven focused on a point miles outside the room. “Now that Brent’s been freed from his body, he can go where he pleases, appear where he wants. There’s no point in burying him.”
He looked at Blackson. The young man chatted nervously with a guest, his eyes flicking Koven’s way from time to time. Definitely guilty of something.
Marthe followed his gaze, then moved in front of him and hissed. “Get a grip.”
Alan Sabel entered behind them, blocking the doorway. He glared at Koven and showed him his phone. On the screen, a text from the Major: “Jacob & Carlos overwhelmed by thugs, fates unknown. Zola dead, son missing. UAE: Samira Suliman dead. No word on Pia or Tania.”
Alan put his hand on Koven’s chest and pushed him five feet back. “One scratch, Koven.”
Marthe stepped between them.
Alan looked around the room, mouthed the word ‘later’, and left.
Marthe closed in on her husband. “Why is he pissed off?”
“I have no idea. Arabs are trying to kill his daughter and somehow he blames me.”
She squinted at him, trying to gauge if he were telling her everything.
“When this castle was active,” he said, “people clubbed and knifed each other to death. Buckets of blood were shed around these hills. But I can kill someone on the other side of the globe with nothing more than the powers of persuasion. I have reached a new pinnacle of power—so why do I see Zola’s expression in Blackson’s face?”
“Stop talking like that.” Marthe shook him. “Pull yourself together and take care of the guests.”
Koven glared at Blackson until Marthe pushed him out the door. Leaning into him like a worker pushing a cart, she forced him down the narrow hallway toward their room.
“Do you think the dead get revenge?” Koven stopped resisting her. He put his arm around her, his weight on her shoulder.
“You need to rest, Daryl.”
“I swear Blackson knows what we did. He accused me of murder. Not even the right one. He’s not loyal to me anymore. I’ll monitor his calls and his emails tomorrow. I’ll bet you he’s up to something. Betrayal, like Zola, like Gottleib.”
Marthe stopped. “Enough of this.”
“I’ll talk to the Three Blondes in the morning.” Koven stopped walking. “They can spin Zola’s murder and I’ll come out smelling like a rose. Look what they did with Duncan.”
He hugged her and looked skyward. “I have to protect us, keep us safe, that’s the most important thing. I’ll do whatever it takes. Even if it means killing another traitor. We’ll survive.”
He continued down the hall.
“God, that’s such a strange thought: killing is easy.” He looked into Marthe’s eyes. “And it’s effective. Going back, pretending to be innocent is so boring. From now on, I’ll simply trust my instincts. Act first without overthinking it.” He stopped and took her by the arms. “I’m going to lean in.”
CHAPTER 26
The pat-pat-pat sound came closer and closer, bringing with it the mixed smell of Lysol and body odor. I struggled to open my eyes with little effect. My head banged as if a taiko drummer whacked on it all night and was building to a crescendo. I had to think about where I was. Tokyo maybe?
When my eye focused, I grabbed his hand.
It was Carlos. The bastard was slapping my cheek.
“We gotta go,” he said.
Sitting up made the pounding in my head crank up harder and faster. While I waited for the pain to subside, Carlos was in the corner of a large room, tossing clothes from a pile. He wore a paper hospital gown with his butt hanging out. I laughed until realizing I sported the same fashion.
I touched my head and felt a helmet of gauze circling my skull.
“What happened?”
“You’ve been out. The chinos who beat on us were off-duty cops, but I worked us out of the handcuffs.” He pointed to a shiny pair dangling from the bedrail.
My head pounded louder when I stood up and pulled off my pile-o-gauze. Even with it off I couldn’t see out of my right eye. Touching it turned into a painful experience. I tossed the bandage in the trash just as Mercury and his two god-buddies limped in, leaning against each other.
Mercury said, Whoo-iee, bro, you look like an extra in a zombie flick. I like your toga, though. Shows the right attitude. Minerva will be pleased.
I said, Where the hell were you? I needed you.
Mercury said, Went drinking with these guys. Man, do they know how to par-tay! Say, they got any pain killers around here? Vicodin, Percocet, morphine? We’re not as young as we used to be.
Seven-Death fell in a chair and draped his arm on a gurney until he realized it held a dead guy. He jumped sky-high and nearly tossed his cookies. The monkey-god was about to follow his lead. I couldn’t watch.
I grabbed my clothes, dressed, and checked out the immediate environment: an emergency room with ten drape-enclosed bays. Carlos checked on our friends while I went through the pockets of the other guys’ pants. I found a crumpled business card that had “LOCI” written in English and the rest in Kanji and shoved it in my pocket. One pocket had a cop’s ID card but it was all Japanese.
“What happened to your angel?” Carlos asked from one of the bays.
“He’s a god. Sometimes they’re unreliable.” I pulled back the curtain on bay four.
A half-dead Japanese guy, mid-forties, pudgy, past his fighting prime, and looking like a solid middle-class citizen who’d been in a car accident, was pinned with two IVs. From the look of him, he had been forced into this job by medical bills or college loans, some kind of financial disaster, because he didn’t have that criminal edge to him.
“Definitely not yakuza,” Carlos said, looking over my shoulder.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” I asked.
“An American walking up and shooting Zola in the heart.”
“Dark overcoat?”
“Si. And Zola’s boy wrapped up by two Japanese. Right at the end, your pal ‘Skippy’ showed up and checked out Zola’s corpse.”
A nurse came in, took one look at me and gasped.
“Do you speak English?” I asked.
The tray in her hand clattered to the floor as she ran away.
“So it’s true,” Carlos said. “You are good with the ladies.”
I gingerly limped over to the entrance to see who was out there.
A Japanese woman, young and serious-looking, with shoulder-length hair, a somber suit, and a grim look in her big, brown eyes headed straight for me.
Time slowed down and Demi Lovato marched behind her singing, “Confident”. She had it in spades. It was the kind of authority that comes from beating out your peers for promotions at every opportunity. I sensed a well-defined clarity of thought as she examined the scene before her in a single s
weep.
She smelled of lotus blossoms with a hint of vanilla.
“You are released by doctor?” she said, tilting her head a little. She spoke slowly, searching for each word, working hard to be perfect. No doubt she took top honors in high school English but never spoke it again until now.
“Are you the doctor?” I asked.
“No.” She stared at my swollen eye.
“Then, yes,” I said, “the doctor released me. Where can we catch a cab?”
She cocked her head and crossed her arms. “I present National Police Agency.”
The NPA is a big-league outfit that outranks the Tokyo Metro Police, based on my last brush with them. But that was a long time ago and I beat the charges. All I wanted was to distract her long enough to sneak out of there.
“I like your shoes,” I said.
It was a safe bet. I may not know jack about shoes but I know most women are more intentional about shoes than husbands.
She blushed and checked the linoleum. “Inspector Yoshida release you too?”
“Yes.” My headache pounded so hard I could barely hear her. “Do you know who attacked us?”
“You not true. You no leave yet.” She crossed her arms and gave me a serious look—an adorable expression on her. “Murder very big deal in Japan. Fire-arm make very, very big deal.”
“Big deal for me too,” I said. “Brent Zola asked me to keep him alive, but these guys killed him and kidnapped his son.”
I thumbed over my shoulder at the emergency bay where Carlos tried to interrogate the middle-aged guy with his limited Japanese.
She looked impatient and a little superior. “They say, you attack them.”
“You think Carlos and I came through customs with chains and crowbars? The weight alone—”
Her face exploded in crimson when she realized I was right; we were victims not perpetrators. Every part of her face clenched as if she were about to detonate. She stormed over to a bay and started tearing apart the guy on the gurney in Japanese. Carlos and I watched over her shoulder. She gestured and stuck a finger in his face, clamped her handcuffs on his wrist and the bed.