“No, it can’t.”
“They’re going to pull a dragnet across this city, JC,” his lawyer said. “Nab up everyone who even remotely looks like you.”
“I’ve got a plan,” JC said.
“James, they’re talking about martial law.” Paused. “But I imagine, you being who you are, your plan would have to be a pretty good one. Right?”
JC smiled. He respected and admired Jacob Meier. Very different from his son. When this was all over, he hoped to sit down and have a meal with him. Talk freely. But that time wasn’t now.
“Next time I call you,” JC said, “the job will be finished. And I’ll likely need a good lawyer.”
Silence. Breathing.
“Then I’m your man. Call me when you need anything.”
JC hung up without saying goodbye. No need. And time was running out.
“You’ve got a plan?” Duke said.
JC smiled. “Of course I’ve got a plan.” Looked down at the phone. Dialed another phone number. Pressed “send.” Looked back at Duke.
“Well, you gonna tell us, man?” Duke said. Smiling but his voice showed his anxiety.
“Shhh,” JC said. Mouthed the words “I’m on the phone.”
Duke shook his head. Stood, paced around the room.
The phone rang. Picked up. “Hello?”
“Still looking for me, Guy?” JC said. “You know I’m slipperier than that.”
JC didn’t hear the snapping of Kowalski’s fingers this time. Just a pause. Then what sounded like the closing of a door. Good. Wants this quiet, like I expected.
“You’re still in town?” Kowalski said. “Figured you’d be hightailing it back to Boston by now. Maybe pulling a true runner and getting out of the country.”
“Naww, I’ve got unfinished business. Promises I’ve made that need to be kept.”
“Yeah, why don’t we sit down and have a chat about it.”
“Sure thing, I’m in a coffee shop down at the Beverly Center right now. Swing by, we’ll talk all about it.”
“Can’t right now, I’m a little busy. Trying to coordinate a nationwide manhunt for the senator’s killer.”
“What’s the old saying? Can’t find your ass with both hands?”
Kowalski stopped talking. JC had no time to wait.
“Guy, meet me in the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood tonight. I’ll have a room rented. Come find me. Just you and me. We’ll settle this once and for all.”
“Deal.”
JC hung up the phone. Took the SIM card out. Broke it in two. Tossed the pieces along with the battery into one of the food bags they were going to throw away.
“That’s your plan?” Duke said. Shook his head. Mouth pursed. Collapsed back in the chair. Grabbed a fortune cookie. “Meet him in a hotel room and go mano y mano? He’ll expect a setup. He’ll bring the whole armada with him.”
“No, he won’t, Duke.” Trying to calm others when he himself felt little calm. “Think about it. He can’t risk anyone hearing what I have to say. It will be him and him alone.”
“He’ll kill you,” Duke said.
“He’ll try,” JC said. “Theo can you get the room set up? Make it as high of a floor as possible. Window facing Hollywood Boulevard if you can.”
Theo nodded and picked up one of the other burner phones, dialing.
“You know you’ll have to kill him,” Joan said quietly.
“I know,” JC said.
“You know he’s going to expect it,” she replied.
“I know.”
“You know—”
“I know,” Bannister said, cutting her off.
“What are you going to do?”
“I was hoping I could have a little help.”
“You and me?” Joan said.
“Everyone.”
Joan smiled. Looked down, then out the window. Back at JC. “I was hoping it could be just you and me.”
“Like old times?”
“Better.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. Now? Really, now? Get a room!” Duke said.
JC chuckled. “I’ll need everyone on this job.” He laid out their roles. Joan would be the sniper. Where she would set up would be determined by where the room was. If they got a room facing Hollywood Boulevard then she would set up in a billboard right across the street. Other options were limited. They didn’t have an actual sniper rifle. Only the remaining M4 they had taken from Kowalski and his team. They had been unable to outfit it with a sniper barrel like they had planned. But at the distances they were discussing and with Joan’s skill level, Bannister wasn’t worried. Duke would be waiting across the hall from whatever room they managed to rent, armed to the teeth. Listening in on radio communications from Bannister.
“You hear a gunshot, you come running,” JC told his younger friend. “You hear me say ‘zebra,’ you come running. You see people we don’t know stand in front of the door or if Kowalski or anyone not on our team comes out of that room before me—”
“I know, I come running,” Duke said. Half a smile.
“No,” JC said. “You see someone not on our team outside that room, you gun them down,” JC said.
“Two to the chest, one to the head?” Duke asked.
Bannister looked him in the eye.
“No. Gun them down. Cut them to pieces.”
Duke’s smile disappeared. Deadly serious. It wasn’t a complex plan, but it would likely work. As long as Kowalski didn’t bring too many of his own people. Or kill JC.
“What about me, boss?” Theo said.
Bannister turned to him. Wanted to smile at his wounded friend but needed his team as serious as they could be.
“You stay put. Run things from here.”
“Aww, come on, you know I can—”
“What I know, Theo, is that you were shot a few short hours ago. It may be just a flesh wound, but I need you to rest. You get out there and have that bullet hole open up and start bleeding through your clothes, you’re going to attract all the wrong kinds of attention.”
Theo looked down, disappointment clear on his face.
“I need someone running things from the back,” JC said. “You’re injured, but even uninjured it would still be you. You’ve got the local pull. This is your town, right?”
Theo smiled a bit. Looked up.
“It is my town, isn’t it, boss?”
JC smiled now. “Damn right it is. And we’re going to need all your connections if we’re going to make it out of here alive.”
“What about Lorraine?” Duke said.
Everyone turned to look at Duke.
“What’s her role in all of this?”
JC and Theo turned to look at Joan. Duke followed their gaze.
“What?” Joan said.
Nobody moved their eyes away. She sighed.
“Look, like I said, I didn’t kill her. The pain and abuse she’s endured? It would crush most people.” Shrugged. “She came out the other end, of all things, hopeful.” Smiled slightly. “She rolled down the window, sun on her face, hair flying in the breeze.” Stopped. Then shrugged again as her smile disappeared. “It’s JC’s call.”
Bannister knew it was. Knew that’s how Joan would always break things down.
“Did she say anything about family? Does she have anyone to go to? Anywhere?” he said, glancing between Duke and Joan, the two people who had spoken the most to her.
Duke shook his head. “Not to me. Never had the chance.” Picked up another fortune cookie. Cracked it open.
JC turned to Joan.
“She said her mother committed suicide like ten years ago.”
Duke froze. Half of the fortune cookie held between his lips, the other half in his left hand. Listening.
“Father?” JC pressed.
“He was married to someone else. Wealthy families on both sides. His refused to allow him to divorce.”
Duke’s eyes widened. Theo looked at him.
“What’s up, man?”
JC hadn’t heard. “Why the name Lorraine?” he asked Joan.
Joan shrugged. “Province in France. Said that’s where her parents met.”
Duke spat out the uneaten half of the fortune cookie from his mouth. “Holy crap!” he said as he dropped the other half on the thin carpet. Bolted from his chair. Wrenched open the door and tore down the taupe hallway to the stairwell.
“Duke!” JC called after the fleeing man as he and Joan stood, hands reaching for weapons.
“I know who she is!” Duke’s reply echoed off the drab walls.
Chapter 64
Lorraine
JC was out the door before Duke answered. Saw the younger man turn and bound up the stairs. Followed him up. He heard Joan behind him. Saw her as he turned and went up the second half of the single flight of stairs. Her gun was in her hand. As was his.
Cleared the landing to the second floor to see Duke standing in front of Lorraine’s door. Pounding on it. Calling her name in English. Speaking what JC guessed was Laotian. The door opened just as JC reached it with Joan right behind him. Duke rushed in. JC and Joan followed, shutting the door behind them. Theo stuck his foot in the door right before it closed.
“Fat and injured, I can still move,” he said as he closed it behind him.
JC turned back to look at Lorraine. She was still wearing the same Thai beer shirt she had worn before. Bannister realized with a twinge of shame that she had no other clothes in the world.
Duke was on his knees in front of her, hands clasped, somewhere between prayer and supplication, in the middle of a torrent of Laotian. Lorraine was looking at him, then at the team, then back to Duke. Eyes widening. Backing up. Shaking her head “no.” Duke didn’t stop. Switched to English.
“Lorraine, we have to tell them. You will be protected, I promise you,” Duke said, then back to Laotian.
It took Duke less than a minute to wear her down. She nodded her head softly, then slumped in the only chair available. Duke stood. Got her a bottle of water from the mini-fridge. Opened it and gave it to her. Turned to his friends.
Lorraine reached out. Took hold of Duke’s arm, stopping him.
“I will,” she said. Turned to the team. Sighed. “My father is the Crown Prince of Thailand. My mother was the daughter of the Crown Prince of Laos, the son of the last King of Laos.”
The room was silent.
Joan closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. Opened her eyes and stared at Duke.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.
Duke opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Theo blurted out, “So, you’re a princess? Of two countries? That makes you, like, a double princess?”
“No, it makes me just a girl with unique parentage.”
“It makes her a liability for anyone seeking power in the region,” Duke said.
“Laos has no king,” JC said. Suspicious. “The monarchy was abolished in the seventies when the Communists took power.”
“True,” Lorraine said. “My grandfather was the Crown Prince of Laos. The Pathet Lao, the Communists, killed him in the late seventies. My mother, his eldest daughter, was sent abroad with other members of the royal family before the King abdicated. She was seventeen. She grew up in France, an exiled princess. That’s where she met my father, the Crown Prince of Thailand. They spent two weeks together. I was the result.”
As Lorraine paused, Duke stepped in. “The prince was already married. Thailand allows multiple wives or consorts, but they would never allow one who was a princess, former or current, of a neighboring kingdom, especially one from a country they consider inferior, as many Thais do of Laos,” he said. Closed his eyes at his poorly worded insult of Lorraine’s country. Looked down at her. “I’m sorry, Lorraine, I—”
“It’s true,” she said, looking up at him and smiling. “At least, many Thais would think so.” Looked at the rest of the team. “My father asked for a divorce, but his brother, the king, wouldn’t allow it. Claimed it would cause too much unrest in a country that is often unstable. So, my mother raised me by herself. We eventually moved to Thailand, although I was rarely able to see my father. He had another wife by that time, or I should say a consort, and was busy producing other children. I, however, am his oldest child.”
“Which is why she’s in so much danger, and was probably the reason for her kidnapping,” Duke said, picking up the story again. “The King of Thailand is old. Succession questions will become more critical in a few short years. If Lorraine were married to a powerful enough person in Thailand and subsequently had a son, that son could lawfully be considered in line for the throne. Then, that same child could be considered the heir to the throne in Laos. The deposed monarchy of Laos has continually lobbied to be reinstated, like Cambodia did in the nineties. Her child could literally unite the two countries.”
JC was running out of patience. Yes, his team had a debt to the girl. But beyond that?
“How do you know all this?” Theo was saying.
“Duke,” JC cut in, “forgive my indelicateness, but what the hell does all of this have to do with us?”
“I’ll answer both questions at once,” Duke said. “My father was the Deputy Chief of Mission in Bangkok, second in command to the ambassador, when Lorraine was kidnapped. He hated being there but I loved it. Fascinating language and culture, but he always derided it because it wasn’t Europe. Her kidnapping was in all the papers, all anyone was talking about. My father got drunk at an embassy function soon after and confronted the Crown Prince with a number of pointed questions and comments. Embarrassed the Crown Prince, himself, the United States. The King of Thailand registered an official complaint. That one night got my father removed from his posting. Derailed his career for half a decade.” Duke shook his head. “Not the first time, unfortunately.”
Duke turned to Lorraine. “I am so sorry for my father’s behavior,” he said. “For his insensitivity about your kidnapping. For embarrassing your father, all those years ago. I hope you can forgive him.”
Lorraine smiled and nodded, reaching out and clasping Duke’s hands in hers. Joan glanced at JC, eyebrows arched. Bannister nodded. In Asia, the sins of the father do get passed down. Both Duke and JC had lived there when they were younger and understood.
Duke took a breath and looked at JC.
“I owe her,” he said to JC. “I owe her and her family a debt for my father’s behavior. I, well, we, owe her for our very lives. I can’t leave her alone and unprotected in some random hotel room, hoping that some Thai or Laotian cleaning woman or janitor doesn’t recognize her.” Shook his head. Frowned. “I need to protect her. Which means she stays with me.”
Theo closed his eyes at Duke’s words then slowly shook his head. Joan’s eyes were on fire. JC blinked. Once. But his jaw was clenched.
Duke clenched his jaw as well. “Boss, I can’t leave her. I’m taking her on the mission with us.”
“I need you at that hotel,” JC said. “Tonight. Locked and loaded, ready for war. Not worrying about some woman I don’t know catching a random bullet.” JC’s voice was rising.
“I can solve the problem for you, Duke,” Joan said. “Right now, if you like.” Her hands hadn’t moved but her bodyweight had shifted.
Duke’s eyes snapped to Joan. “You had your one chance at that. Try and take another and only one of us will live through it.”
“You said she was a liability,” Joan replied. “I’m just offering to clarify things for you.”
Theo and Lorraine started talking, trying to convince Duke of another course of action. Seconds later Joan and Duke started trading threats again.
“Enough!” JC barked. The room went silent. “Lorraine, please understand this is nothing personal,” he said, anger barely held in check. “Duke’s right, we owe you a debt for what you did for us today. I make it through tonight alive I will express my generous gratitude to you. But tonight,” JC continued, turning to Duke, “you have a job to do. I expect you to do
it. You don’t like the job, don’t like my conditions, then don’t go.” Paused. Trying to slow his breathing. “However. If you are not there tonight, as I specified, then don’t bother contacting me again.” Turned, walking for the door. “Because you’ll be off the team.”
JC’s hand was on the doorknob when a fist pounded on the other side of the door five times.
“Open up! Police!”
JC paused. Still gripping the door handle. Glanced over his shoulder. Joan’s hand was on her gun but she had yet to draw. Duke and Theo were both standing in front of Lorraine, both with guns in their hands. JC looked at both of the men. Frowned. Shook his head.
“After all these years, you don’t know that voice?” JC said.
Turned back, opened the door and stepped through quickly, shutting it behind him.
Chapter 65
Things You Can’t Unsee
JC stepped into the hallway, blocking the forward movement of the two people outside with his body. Looked at the taller one, then at the shorter one.
“How am I not surprised you have the perfect voice for a cop, General?”
The General smiled. Inclined his head towards Detective Karen Garcia. “She was none too happy about me saying that. Nor about me tagging along. But,” Shrugged.
“Who’s in the room, Bannister?” Garcia asked. “Is Duke in there?”
“All business, all cop,” JC said, shaking his head in disapproval, trying to shift gears from anger at Duke to something else. Some thing that could smooth the situation out here. “A thank you would be nice.” Waited. No thank you was forthcoming. “For helping you get out of jail?”
Garcia stepped back and crossed her arms. “You want me to thank you for kidnapping my partner, torturing him, recording a confession that will never stand up in a court of law, and then leaving him locked in the trunk of a car?”
JC glanced at The General.
“A little bird told me. Then I told her,” General Robinson said.
He looked back to Garcia. “We didn’t actually torture him, but yeah, a thank you would be nice,” he said, nodding.
“Fine. Then thank you for helping me get out of jail and for ensuring that the man who engineered the setup can never be prosecuted for it.” Arms still crossed.
The Fixer, Season 1 Page 37