by Josie Brown
They were nothing like his ex.
He wondered if he'd ever get over her.
Perhaps if he quit drinking, he'd have a chance to find her.
He'd have to quit the blondes, too.
It was a trade he'd willingly make.
As if reading his mind, the man standing on the other side of the bed asked, "Be honest. Can you tell them apart?”
For once, Jack didn’t reach for his gun. In fact, he didn't even need to turn around because he recognized the voice as Ryan Clancy's, his boss and the director of Acme Industries.
Jack sighed. He was loath to admit he couldn’t tell one woman from another, even when sober. They insisted they weren’t sisters, but each was generously breasted and long-legged, not to mention doe-eyed and snub-nosed. Most times, they talked in unison.
At least they shut up during sex.
He shrugged. “Nah, but I’ve got a system. Here, I'll show you.”
He threw back the sheet, exposing the naked bodies of the women. The one closest to him was on her side, in the fetal position. He nudged her so that she flopped over onto her belly, revealing her backside. At the base of her spine was a tattoo with the word FAUNA. Above it was the image of one of the plump fairies from Disney's Sleeping Beauty cartoon.
He pointed to the woman next to her, who was already sleeping ass-side up. She too was branded, only her tramp stamp stated FLORA, and was also accompanied by another of the cartoon’s fairies.
Ryan's brows rose. He tilted his head toward the one woman who was still facing them. She snored gently as she cuddled her pillow to her breasts. "Let me guess. This one is labeled 'Merriweather.'"
"You'll have to take my word for it—that is unless you'd like to see for yourself."
"No need to disturb her. Besides, the view from this angle is just fine." Ryan stared down at the woman’s plump breasts. “Considering the length of the name, she’s quite a trooper.”
“In more ways than one.” Jack scooped a shirt off the floor and put it on, but left it unbuttoned over his jeans. “How did you find me, anyway?”
“We got a call from French Intelligence. Something about a monkey—and a maître d'.”
“It was a chimpanzee—and a lobby boy.”
“Tomato, to-mah-toe.” Ryan shrugged. “Apparently when you’re in your cups, you have a very bad habit of getting into fights. Stop me if I’m wrong, but if it weren't for your Acme get-out-of-jail free card, by now you’d have had the opportunity to see the inside of every hoosegow along the French Rivera. So yeah, say goodbye to your playmates. The vacation is over.”
“It’s not a vacation. I’m in mourning.”
“From the looks of things, you’re well on the road to recovery.”’
“Looks are deceiving.” The blondes beside him were certainly proof of that. “Believe me, you really don’t want me anywhere near Acme.” He took a deep breath. Okay, he thought, let the chips fall where they may. “Ryan, I lost the microdot with the code to Acme’s Agents and Assets Directory.”
That certainly got Ryan’s attention.
He didn’t turn toward Jack when he asked calmly, “Did your ex take it with her?”
Jack shook his head. “I…I don’t know. But I don’t think so. I never mentioned it to her, and it wasn’t among our mutual belongings. I truly thought I’d hid it well.” He shrugged. “If you’re asking me if the timing is coincidental, then yes, I’m sorry to say.”
Jack winced as Ryan’s head turned in Jack’s direction. The fact that the rest of his body didn’t follow was a good sign. After what Ryan just heard, Jack would not have been surprised to see Ryan pull his Sig from the holster hidden beneath his jacket and drill him right between the eyes.
Hell, it’s what I deserve, he thought.
“The reason I ask—the reason I thought it was worth finding you—is that the family alias Acme assigned to her popped up on the flight manifest for a plane that went down four days ago.”
Seeing the shocked expression on Jack’s face, he continued, “It was an Air India private charter, from Johannesburg to Caracas, soon after takeoff around two hundred miles from shore.” After letting the news sink in, he added, “Jack, is there any reason she may have been in South Africa, or for that matter, headed to Venezuela?”
“My best guess is that she was running as far away from me as possible.” His voice cracked with pain. “If you remember, she had her reasons to hate what we do for a living.” His head bowed under the weight of his memories of his wife. They’d had too many fights about it.
He tried to shake off his anguish. “When will we know for sure if it’s her, or some other poor soul with that name?”
“The airline has asked NTSB to help in the investigation, but the water is pretty deep there. Should they recover the black box, it’s doubtful they’ll be pulling up bodies as well.” Ryan sighed. “I’ll say prayers that it’s an anomaly. However, if she was on the plane—Jack, you know you have my deepest condolences. As for whether your wife somehow grabbed Acme’s Agent and Asset Directory when she headed out the door, there is a way in which we can find out if it was compromised.”
“What?” Jack stuttered. “But…how?”
“Arnie coded all agents’ and administrators’ microdots with a specific verifier. Besides tracking which agent’s code has been entered and where in the world the access is taking place, it verifies the agent’s personal GPS coordinates. Even if there’s a match—say, the agent is there, but is accessing the files under duress—there’s a trick identifier.”
Jack had to ask, “Has anyone tried to sign in as me?”
“No, which makes me believe that perhaps the microdot was misplaced accidentally.” Ryan shrugged. “I’m glad you came clean about the loss before we found out the hard way. Based on what you’ve just told me, the only thing saving your ass from a one-way ticket to Gitmo is that none of our agents or assets have been exterminated, as of yet—which tells me it may be hiding in plain sight.” Ryan nodded toward the door. “Jack, I’m giving you a chance to redeem yourself, if you’ll take it.”
Jack’s lips curled into a grimace. “You mean my fuck-ups haven’t made me expendable?”
Ryan laughed. “Not yet, anyway. If you head up this investigation, you might actually be Acme’s salvation.”
“What will I be investigating?”
Ryan paused, then muttered, “Carl Stone’s death.”
Carl…
Was dead?
“It was a Quorum hit.”
Oh, hell, Jack thought.
He had no one to blame but himself. “You’re sure of it?” He knew his voice was shaking.
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.” Ryan’s statement was anchored with a weariness Jack had never heard before.
“Ryan, Tatyana was there. She came with the producer, Ross Tanner, and some short, bald guy who wore glasses and a pinky ring. When they were escaping, I shot Ross. But I couldn’t stop them from getting away.”
“Interesting. We’ve suspected for some time that Ross was a Quorum asset.”
“Good then. At least I got one of Carl’s killers.” Jack tried to smile about it.
Ryan winced. “We’re still waiting for confirmation on that. No one matching his description was found in the canal, or in a Venice morgue. But at the same time, Ross Tanner hasn’t showed up on any flight manifests out of Venice, or on any Los Angeles flights. And oddly enough, his wife has disappeared as well. They had no children. Recently, his film projects were put on hold while the production company’s assets were sold, along with his real estate holdings.”
Jack frowned. “But Carl gave you the thumb drive, didn’t he?”
“No. He called to say he was on his way into Acme headquarters to drop it off when his wife, Donna went into labor. He never made it. He also had something else in his possession that they desperately wanted. At least, that's what we gather from the chatter we're hearing online. It's the reason he was in Paris in the first place.
”
For a moment, Jack heard nothing at all: not the gulls shrieking, or the waves lapping the dock pilings. Not even the gentle snores of Flora, Fauna, and Merriweather.
Nothing, except the bottle as it skittered across the floor.
As it rolled past, he stopped it with his foot, then reached down and picked it up.
By holding the bottle upright, he could tell there were at least a few sips left.
Yes, he was tempted to take a swig.
Instead, he tossed it out the galley porthole.
It landed in the sea with a loud splash.
Ryan smiled. “Welcome back.”
Chapter 6
Dossier
A dossier is a collection or file of documents on the same subject, especially a complete file containing detailed information about a person or topic. A government’s intelligence agencies will create a dossier on (a) agency personnel, (b) persons of interest, and (c) known threats to the country in question.
Should such a file be collated on your behalf, you can be sure it would contain (a) every pertinent recorded document that has ever been filed on you, (b) comments from everyone who has had an opinion about you, and (c) a full and comprehensive compendium of your dirty little secrets.
There is a natural desire to take a peek inside your own dossier. If given the chance, should you take it? Just remember: sticks and stones may break your bones, but words—not to mention pictures and certified documents—may be the end of life as you know it.
“See here, the way we figure it, your buddy the deceased was revving that baby at full tilt boogie—say, a hundred and a quarter—before he lost control.” The Yucca County Sheriff’s deputy spat out a bit of the straw he’d been chewing. “Maybe he was trying to avoid a jackrabbit or something. Anyhoo, our guess is that the car flipped a bazillion times, then burst into flames.”
The first step in Jack’s investigation was to see the scene of Carl’s demise. Abu Nagashahi, another Acme operative who was also an explosives expert, had been assigned to go with him.
Both stared at the crater in the middle of the road, where Carl Stone’s Porsche Carrera hadn’t just exploded—
It had disintegrated.
At least, that was the way some trucker described it to the deputy who’d been sent to investigate the crash scene. The accident happened right on Highway 62—or what the locals called Twentynine Palms Highway. The trucker had been following behind the Carrera, albeit thirty miles-per-hour slower, which put him a good ten minutes behind. The only reason he’d been able to keep the Carrera in his sights was that this stretch of blacktop is pencil straight. But after the road hooked south—just west of Steeg Road above Sand Pit Ranch road—he lost sight of the sports car, until he rounded the corner himself.
By then, what was left of the car was a massive fireball leaping skyward.
“You said you think he skidded to avoid a turtle or something?” Abu scratched his head. “I see the eighteen-wheeler’s skid marks, but none from the Carrera, which means he didn’t slow down, let alone swerve off the road.”
The deputy gave Abu a blank stare.
Abu shrugged then mouthed the word bomb to Jack.
The deputy bristled. “What did you say, smartass?” He turned to Jack. “Did he just speak Arabic?”
Jack shook his head. “Bomb is an English word. As in, VBIED, or Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device. You’ve heard of C4, right? Plastic explosives?”
The deputy chewed down his blade of straw another couple of inches as he thought that one through. “Well whattaya know! And all this time we thought it was a case of spontaneous combustion.”
Jack dropped his head and sighed loudly. “That’s a myth.”
“Oh, I beg to differ, sir. I saw a documentary about it, on the SciFi Channel, so it’s most certainly true.”
Jack’s silence spoke volumes on what he thought about the deputy’s television viewing habits.
The deputy shrugged. “Okay, let’s say you’re right. What makes you think it was some sort of bomb?”
Abu shrugged. “The size of the crater, for starters. And the trucker mentioned a fireball shooting skyward, right? Then there’s the fact that the car and everything was blown up, and sadly, Carl Stone along with it. Even if we find the charred chassis, the airtight design of the Carrera assures that any DNA would be incinerated beyond analysis.”
“Ha. Maybe you’re right. You know, I hear Al Qaeda stole a whole bunch of missiles and launchers and shit from Saddam’s stash, when Iran fell.”
“Iraq,” Jack muttered.
The deputy tilted his hat far back on the crown of head. “Beg pardon?”
“Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, not Iran.”
The sheriff guffawed. “Shee-it! What difference does it make? They’re all a bunch of towelheads, ain’t they?” He turned to Abu. “Of course I mean no disrespect.”
“No, of course not,” Abu muttered under his breath. He took out a laser distance measurer and walked over to the hole.
While he went about the business of measuring it, Jack turned to the deputy. “So, are you telling me that there are Al Qaeda terrorists out here in the middle of this desert?”
The deputy chewed his cud on that one for a good minute or two. Finally he said, “It’s a big fucking desert. Isn’t that where they like to, you know, run their jihadist camps? Hell, I hear they cross the border all the time, coming in with the wetbacks.” He gave Abu a sideways glance.
Abu dead-eyed right back at him. “I’m Sikh.”
“Then don’t sneeze on me. I can’t afford to be laid up with germs, especially ones from a foreigner.” The sheriff took a tissue from his pocket and covered his mouth with it. “Them Al Qaeda boys have stolen enough of them heat-seeking missiles and launchers from Egypt to blow up every truck that comes barreling down this road for a month. Maybe they were testing a launcher on your buddy’s sports car.”
Jack’s sunglasses were tinted enough that the deputy couldn’t see his eyes grow big with disbelief over the man’s stupidity.
“The crater is twenty-three feet, seven inches at its widest point,” Abu shouted back at them. “And six feet-four inches deep, in the center. Fifty, maybe sixty pounds of plastic explosives could make that size dent. The bomb wasn’t set with a timer, since whoever did it wanted Carl in the car when it went off. It might have been set off by remote control, but since the trucker said no one else was on the road but the two of them, we can rule that out. Instead, it was rigged to go off at a speed exceeding ninety-five miles-per-hour.” Abu shook his head in awe. “Considering how low the chassis rides, it’s lucky he wasn’t in a more populated area when it blew.”
“I see he’s a bomb expert, eh? Figures.” By now, the grass straw between the deputy’s thin lips was a mere nub.
“Look, Deputy, was there anything the trucker said that might provide additional information? For example, did another car pass him before he came up on the crater?”
“Well, yeah, he did say something I thought strange at the time. But now…well, I can see how it makes sense.” Deputy Dumbass looked down at the steaming blacktop, as if in a trance. Then he leaned in toward Jack and whispered, “Aliens.”
Jack shook his head, annoyed. “The US Government spent thirteen million dollars last year securing the borders. Considering it’s two and a half hours from the Mexican border, and we’re out here in the middle of nowhere, what would illegal aliens have to do with anything?”
The deputy shook his head, amused. “Right now I ain’t talking about the wetback kind. I meant the kind…well, you know! Up there.” He pointed overhead.
Jack couldn’t believe his ears. Still, he managed to keep a straight face when he asked, “So, this trucker thinks the car was beamed up into an alien space ship?”
The deputy nodded his head. “Yep, exactly! That would explain a lot, dontcha think?”
“Yeah. Right.” Wrong. Jack stroked his chin. This kept his trigger finger busy. Otherwise
, he’d be tempted to put Deputy Dumbass out of his misery. “Of course, that doesn’t explain why Carl’s car is right over there.”
He pointed to the parched desert floor on their left. About a quarter of a mile away, the charred body of the vehicle could be spotted. Abu had already looked it over. Shaking his head, he explained, “The velocity of the fall slammed it into the ground, crushing everything inside. Anybody inside would have been pulverized.”
While the sheriff watched, Jack and Abu circled the area between the crater and the car, in the hope of finding Carl’s body, but no luck.
“Even if there was something left of him—say, a limb—it could have been carried off by a coyote, since the sheriff’s department’s search didn’t take place until daylight,” Abu muttered to Jack.
“I myself lean toward the theory that a meteor fell out of the sky,” the deputy insisted. “Fate works in mysterious ways, my friends. One moment, a man’s eating a piece of pie at a shit-hole truck stop, the next moment he’s barreling down the road, only to be blown sky-high—”
“Wait!” Jack stared at the officer. “Did you say Carl stopped somewhere?”
“Didn’t I mention that before?...No? Been forgetful lately, probably this damn heat. I need to start drinking more of that Ginko Bonobo stuff, and less Jack Daniels. As I remember, your friend gassed up at the Hot Wheels All-Nite Truck Stop. Jolene waited on him. I know this because when she heard what happened to him, she darn near went to pieces. You’d think he’d asked her to marry him and not just banged her on the counter.”
Jack’s brow went up an inch. “Is that what she said, that he screwed her?”
“She didn’t have to say anything. Three truckers pulled up while they were getting it on. Hey, it’s no reflection on your buddy, believe me. That gal’s got quite a reputation. She’s known as the trucker’s dream of Highway 62.”
This time when Deputy Dumbass spit, he sprayed some of it on Jack’s shoes.
Jack suppressed his urge to frown, let alone yank the deputy by his necktie down on his knees and order him to wipe the spittle off his shoes.