by Josie Brown
Instead Irina shifted her aim to Rebecca. “You slut! If it hadn’t been for you—”
“Irina, hand it to me.” Jack kept his voice gentle, but firm.
“No! You don’t understand—”
A second later, Rebecca was off the bed and beside Irina.
Before Jack could react, she elbowed the older woman in the stomach. As Irina doubled over, Rebecca wrenched the gun out of her hand and pointed it back at her.
Jack stared at her. “Whoa, Rebecca, it’s okay. You’re safe now.”
She smiled as she shot him in the shoulder.
“What the hell!” Jack shouted. Irina muffled a scream with a hand over her mouth.
Rebecca motioned to Irina. “Gde portfel?” she asked.
Jack recognized the language. She’d asked in Russian, Where is the briefcase?
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
She swung the gun around so that it was up against Jack’s temple. Pressing her lips into a pout, she murmured, “I don’t know if I should be proud of the fact that I’ve so successfully deceived the celebrated Acme operative Jack Craig, or disappointed that you obviously don’t sleep with my picture under your pillow.”
“Tatyana Zakharov is…was my husband’s latest whore,” Irina muttered.
Well, Jack thought, that explains a lot, including why she’s about to blow my head off.
“Your husband had something I wanted,” Tatyana continued, this time in Russian. “A computer memory stick.”
Irina’s eyes shifted to Jack involuntarily.
Seeing this, Tatyana smiled. In English, she purred, “Ah, I see. You sweet-talked this old bat into fetching it for you.” She slapped the gun against his temple. “Hand it over.”
Jack was attempting to staunch the blood from his shoulder wound with his left hand. Slowly, he lowered his right one into his pocket and pulled out the thumb drive. He held it out to her—
When she reached for it he tossed his arm over his shoulder and muttered, “Plavat' za eto, suka.”
Translation: Swim for it, bitch.
They heard the ker-plop through the balcony window.
Tatyana let loose with an angry shriek. But this time, when she raised her gun to shoot Jack, Irina grabbed the younger woman’s arm. They struggled. Just as Irina yanked it from Tatyana’s hand, the gun went off.
Irina gasped and looked down.
Blood gushed from her chest.
She fell backward—out the window, with the gun.
This time, the splash they heard was louder.
Angered, Tatyana stalked back to the bed. She rummaged in the bloodied sheets until she came up with her purse, from which she pulled a cell phone. She hit a button, waited, then said, “Mission aborted. Wait for me by the dock.”
So, she had an accomplice, Jack thought. Was it Ross Tanner?
She reached down for her stilettoes. As she strapped them on, she bent down so that she and Jack were face-to-face. “The nearest hospital is Servizio Citta'Di Rosin Massimo. It’s, oh say, a ten-minute walk from here. Since you’ll probably bleed out on the way, here’s a little something to remember me by.”
She gave him an open-mouthed kiss.
“Not bad,” she murmured.
She walked down the terrace steps without a backward look.
He didn’t wait until the click of her heels echoed on the slate steps to start crawling out.
He saw her run onto the dock, where Ross Tanner’s boat was waiting. When Ross saw her, he started the engine.
The fussy little man with the pinky ring helped her climb onboard.
So, they’re Quorum operatives, too, Jack thought.
He groaned in pain as he shifted his shoulder in order to reach the gun in his back holster.
The boat’s engine had already started when the bullet hit its mark, but his aim was off. It wasn’t Tatyana who fell forward in the boat but Ross.
Was he dead? Jack couldn’t tell.
He would have preferred that the shocked look on Tatyana’s face was from the pain of a second bullet, but he was too weak to get off another shot. Realizing her luck, she smiled triumphantly back at him.
Pinky Ring stumbled to the boat’s steering wheel. After a lurch forward, the boat sped off in the dead of night.
Jack was so weak that he crawled only as far as the dock. There, he collapsed beside a skiff.
Later, he learned he had been saved by a couple who had walked down to the self-service rialto for a bowl of calamari. If the husband hadn’t come back to the boat to fetch a shawl for his wife, Jack would have bled to death. He staunched the wound with the shawl while she steered the skiff to the hospital.
Jack awoke to find his wound dressed. He was in a hospital gown. When he rang for the nurse, she was able to tell him in broken English that although his jacket and shirt had been too bloody to keep, his pants had been saved.
Jack let loose with a relieved sigh. “I miei pantaloni, pronto per favore.”
He had to get the pants back. The thumb drive was still in the pocket.
It was his wedding ring he’d tossed out the window instead.
The nurse hurried out. When she came back, she had a paper bag with her.
Inside were his pants, neatly folded. In the pocket was the thumb drive. His wallet was also there. Nothing had been taken from it.
When the nurse left to get on with her duties, he crumpled the empty bag and tossed it across the room.
He put on his pants and slipped out of the hospital, shirtless.
He stopped at the first store he could to buy a T-shirt. The only ones they had were emblazoned with:
VENICE IS FOR LOVERS
It would have to do for now.
He had to run to catch the next flight to Charles de Gaulle Airport. Tired and still aching from his shoulder wound, he dropped into his seat and immediately closed his eyes, hoping to get some sleep during the two-hour flight to Paris.
As he drifted off, he saw Irina’s face—her sad eyes and sweet smile. She hadn’t deserved to die that way.
And she certainly hadn’t deserved the spouse she had been cursed with.
Neither do I, Jack thought. Good riddance to her.
“You look like shit,” Carl Stone muttered to Jack.
They were sitting across from each other in the VIP lounge at CDG. Jack had just received notice from Acme that he was to hand off Leonid’s thumb drive to Carl, who was flying home to LAX after some hijinks of his own.
“Thanks. Great to see you, too.” Jack winced as he moved his shoulder to position it a bit more comfortably. The thumb drive was folded into the Technology section of that day’s edition of The Wall Street Journal, which Jack had just laid on the coffee table between them.
When a cocktail waitress came over to drop off his Scotch whiskey, she gave him a slow wink.
Carl winked back and tipped big.
She walked away without even a glance at Jack.
Noting this, Carl smirked. “You know, guy, you’d have a better chance at getting laid if you lost the tourist T-shirt.” Before Jack could retort, Carl added, “Just kidding! Speaking of the old ball and chain—or maybe I should say, having your balls chained—how’s married life treating you?”
So that he wouldn’t have to go into the pathetic details of yet another spy’s marriage hitting the rocks, Jack countered, “Hey, did I hear you just had another kid?”
Most expectant fathers, Jack knew, could talk about their offspring for hours on end. Jack figured all he had to do was listen and nod for the next fifteen minutes before Carl had to leave for his departing flight to LAX.
Jack’s question put a big, bright smile Carl’s face. “Yeah, the little lady is ready to pop any day now, with our third.” He took a sip of his drink, and then placed it on top of the newspaper.
“Boy or girl?” Jack asked.
“Since we already have one of each, we decided to learn on the tyke’s birthday. But I told Donna I’m throwing it in the
Pacific Ocean if it’s not inclined to pitch a fastball at ninety-seven miles an hour.” Carl’s eyes never met Jack’s because both men were scanning the few others in the lounge to see if anyone was watching. Convinced they were unobserved, Carl picked up his drink, downed it, and slid the newspaper holding the thumb drive under his folded Burberry trench coat.
Just then, a gate update was announced in French by a seductive female voice.
“Your flight is boarding,” Jack growled. “Safe journey.” Carl held up the Technology section of the paper, as if something important had caught his eye. Then he rose, casually tucking the newspaper under his arm.
Jack didn’t move until five minutes after Carl walked out of the lounge.
When he got up to leave, the waitress handed him a note:
Dear Jack, too bad about the ring. I hope it wasn’t too great a loss.
—Tatyana
Oh, shit, he thought. So she knows I held onto the thumb drive. She must have followed me to the VIP lounge and seen that the ring was off my finger—
She must have seen the hand-off to Carl, too.
He ran out the door, and walked as quickly as he could to the airport’s architecturally renowned nest of clear escalator tubes. Each ascended or descended from the main terminal to a cluster of boarding gates. Jack had to make sure Carl made his flight, as opposed to lying in some restroom with his jugular slit.
As Jack ascended in one of the tubes, he glanced over to another tube on his right, which was descending from where he was headed.
Tatyana was in it.
She was frowning.
At first she didn’t see him. When she realized he was staring at her, she forced her lips into a smile.
Then she threw him a kiss.
He didn’t know what to make of it.
He shoved his way forward, beyond some of the other travelers, hustling as fast as he could to Carl’s gate.
He got there to find that it had already departed. He went up to the ticket agent. “I need to know if a passenger made the flight. His name is Carl Stone.”
The woman frowned, unsure if he was worthy of the information, but the distress in his eyes must have convinced her to ignore his idiotic T-shirt.
“Oui, monsieur, he made the flight—just barely.”
Relief flooded Jack’s face. “Merci,” he murmured.
So, Tatyana hadn’t been able to stop Carl.
Jack couldn’t wait to get home, to his own bed.
Then he remembered that going home meant sleeping alone.
Jack woke up with a start. It took him just a second to remember why:
Having seen Carl Stone, Tatyana could now have one of her people intercept him at LAX.
He looked at the clock on his bed stand. Hell, he’d slept over ten hours! The plane had landed by now. If they’d gotten to Carl, Ryan would want to debrief him as to how and why things had gone so terribly wrong.
It was a call he wasn’t looking forward to making, since it would be on top of a long list of bad news he’d have for his boss, especially if he hadn’t yet heard about Leonid and Irina’s deaths.
The thought of Ryan’s reaction made his wound throb. He needed another painkiller.
He opened his bar. A new bottle of Scotch whiskey was waiting for him.
Yep, that would numb the pain.
He started with a full tumbler, and didn’t stop until the bottle was empty, which was somewhere around Monte Carlo.
A little sick leave was certainly in order.
Chapter 3
Ghost Story
[Contents of Donna Stone’s overnight bag, reviewed by Acme Analysis Team]
1 floor-length terrycloth robe
1 pair of plush slippers
1 silk negligee
1 pair of support stockings
1 small cosmetic bag, filled with various makeup items
1 stuffed animal (Steiff polar bear)
1 toiletry bag, filled with a tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush, facial cleanser, and moisturizer
1 silver heart-shaped locket
2 handwritten notes, which read:
Dear Baby,
I hope you are a little sister, and not another dumb little brother.
Love, Mary
Dear Baby,
I hope you don’t cry too much.
Stay out of my tree house!!!!!!!
JEFF
1 miniature GPS tracking device
“She refuses to have her baby until her husband comes back!” The nurse, Allison, was so embarrassed by what she was saying that she whispered it into the doctor’s ear.
He groaned. “Give me a break.”
“I’m serious!” She nodded toward the pregnant patient, whose moans were low, but constant. “Supposedly he went home for her overnight bag, but he hasn’t returned.”
The doctor sighed. “When the hell was that?”
He couldn’t see the nurse’s mouth because she had on her surgical mask, but the way it clung to her lips, it was obvious she was sucking in her breath—something she did whenever she had bad news. “He left four hours ago.”
“That’s ridiculous! For all we know, he’s hitting every bar between here and their house.” He rubbed the fatigue from the last six deliveries from his eyes. “Get her prepped.”
“No!” The patient shouted from across the room. “Not until…not until my Carl is here at my side!”
The doctor grabbed the clipboard from the hook at the bottom of the woman’s bed. According to Donna Stone’s chart, she had come in some time around three in the afternoon.
In fact, Allison had been the one to check them into the hospital’s labor-and-delivery floor. Mrs. Stone, big with child, was already breathing through her labor pains, just like they taught in all the Lamaze classes. Allison was surprised the husband wasn’t more anxious. To break the ice, she teased him about it.
“This one will be our third,” he assured her. “I know the drill.”
She chuckled with him, even as she patted Mrs. Stone’s sweaty palm. “Ah! Well, then, you’re old hands at this. Do you know yet if it’s a girl or a boy?”
“No. We want to be surprised.” He winked at her. “Besides they’re all little bundles of joy, aren’t they?”
Together they helped the patient onto the bed. As Allison strapped Donna’s arm to the blood pressure pump, Mr. Stone—Carl, as his wife called him—suddenly declared, “Honey, in the rush to get over here, I must have left your overnight bag at the house. Now that you’re checked in, I should go back and get it. Don’t worry, be back in no time.”
He’d kissed her—full on the lips; tenderly, fervently.
As if it might be the last one they’d ever share.
That’s when it hit Allison: Mr. Stone wasn’t coming back.
On the other hand, the baby would be here any moment now.
Although Donna was offered an epidural immediately, she refused to take it. Now that she was already dilated to nine centimeters, it was too late, despite the fact that she was convulsing from the pain.
Still, Carl was nowhere to be found.
“Your baby is coming, Donna! You have to be prepped for delivery,” Allison begged.
Donna’s eyes shadowed her shifting emotions—disappointment, anger, concern, and fear—
And finally, resignation.
“Okay,” she murmured. “For the baby’s sake.”
As Allison positioned Donna’s knees and pelvis, Donna grasped her hand and whispered, “For Carl not to be here, something must be terribly wrong.”
Allison smiled and forced herself to say, “Everything will be alright.”
Still, she couldn’t help but feel Donna Stone was right.
In the delivery room, pain trumps anger, but fear trumps pain.
Most importantly, faith trumps death.
The Stone child was in a frank breech and too far down the birth canal for a C-section to be performed. However, the doctor could still position the infant to be pulled out f
rom the mother, depending on her level of distress.
The delivery team worked furiously to do just that. Throughout the process, they monitored the child’s and the mother’s heartbeats. But then, at the exact moment the infant girl emerged into the world—seven-twelve that evening—the mother’s blood pressure dropped precipitously.
Allison attended to the baby while the doctor and the other delivery nurses worked the crash cart until Donna was stabilized.
When she came to, she whispered, “Can I hold my baby?”
Allison tucked the infant into the crook of her arm. “It’s a girl.”
“Does Carl know?” Even as Donna Stone asked the question, the dread in her eyes showed she already knew the answer.
“I’ll wake you the moment he comes in,” Allison promised fervently. “In the meantime, you should try to sleep.”
Donna looked down at her baby. “Yes, all right.” Gently, she handed over the child. “Trisha is her name. He chose it.”
“It’s beautiful.” Allison smiled. “And she is, too.”
She put Trisha in the isolette, then administered a light sedative to the infant’s mother.
Donna’s eyelids fluttered as the drug took effect. Slumber came with a sigh.
After placing the child in the nursery, Allison ran to the emergency room. No one who matched Carl Stone's description had been admitted. A visit to the hospital morgue relieved her of her worst fear—that her premonition was right.
Still, he might be there. Maybe he took the elevator to the main floor, where the hospital’s chapel was located. It was worth checking.
The room held two rows of six benches. She always chose the side closest to the window. The light from a lamppost outside hit the stained glass windows, bathing the altar in front of the pews in a kaleidoscope of color. She fell to her knees and prayed—not just for the mother and the child, but for the father, too.
Solace surged over her, if only for a brief moment. Then it occurred to her that St. Orange was just one of fifty hospitals in the LA metro area—
Each with its own morgue.