Blue Smoke and Murder

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Bullshit,” Faroe said.

  “Took the word right out of my mouth,” Zach said.

  “Thank you for your input,” Grace said ironically. “Does anyone have a better plan for getting our hands on Mr. Nice before he burns down or shoots up the whole world?”

  Silence.

  Followed by a baby’s lusty burp.

  “Ah, intelligence at last,” Grace said. “Shooter Mary is practicing with the military outside of Las Vegas. She’ll be the contact, assuming Mr. Nice is so stupid as to show up and ask for the second half of the paintings.”

  With that, Grace handed Faroe the phone, picked up another phone, and punched in Mary’s cell number.

  “Who’s Shooter Mary?” Jill asked.

  “Our long-arms specialist,” Faroe said. He smiled thinly. “She fights real good up close and personal, too.”

  “She’s put me in the dirt a few times,” Zach agreed. “But I still don’t want Jill to go alone in the car.”

  “Nobody wants her to go alone,” Faroe said. “That isn’t the point.”

  “You won’t do her any good riding in the trunk,” Grace said clearly. “And you can be sure she’ll be vetted for company along the way before anything else happens.”

  Zach made a growling sound of frustration that told everyone what they already knew—he’d lost the battle.

  But not the war.

  “I have a plan,” Zach said.

  “I’m listening,” Faroe said.

  “First, we’ve got to get Jill a BlackBerry,” Zach said. “She can text-message me without tipping off the dude listening to the bug.”

  “Done,” Faroe said.

  “Second, get me a Cessna Skymaster and a really good pilot,” Zach said.

  “How soon?” Faroe asked.

  “In time to keep up with Jill when she leaves tomorrow at, say, an hour or so before noon. It might be later, but I want to have everything in place well before she leaves.”

  Faroe grunted. “I’ll get back to you.”

  “No Skymaster, no op,” Zach said flatly. “I’ll tie Jill up and take her into the desert until the auction is over.”

  “I’ll get the Skymaster if we have to steal it,” Faroe said. “Then what? Cold convoy?”

  “Yes. I’ll have her six o’clock, ten thousand feet up, pretty much invisible to anything but radar. The Skymaster can float along almost as slow as she can drive, and it has enough range to go from Vegas to stateline.”

  “What will you do if Jill gets into trouble along a lonely stretch of Nevada road?” Faroe asked. “Parachute down?”

  “That’s where the good pilot comes in,” Zach said. “I need one who is used to taking off and landing on short strips, like the ones in the Middle East.”

  “Not a problem. We have more than one good pilot on tap.”

  “I’ll need some chase cars and a motor home on the road, behind Jill or in front,” Zach said. “Bodies with guns.”

  “Mary can help with that,” Grace said. “The men she’s training with right now are technically civilians. They’d love the exercise.”

  “We’ll see,” Faroe said. “Men with guns aren’t that hard to find.”

  “Smart ones are,” Grace said.

  “Agreed,” Faroe said. “Assuming it goes down the way Zach outlined, are you sure this is what you want, Jill? You’re going to be bait and you’re going to be alone. Are you okay with that?”

  “Okay? As in happy-happy? No,” Jill said. “But being alone is the only way to get the job done, so that’s how I’m going to do it.”

  “You could take the paintings and disappear,” Faroe said. “I’m betting that it’s the auction driving this. Once it’s over, you’ll be safe.”

  “So will the man who shot Garland Frost and probably killed my great-aunt,” Jill said. “That’s not good enough. I don’t want this wacko loose to kill other innocent people when I could have stopped him. I can’t live with that.”

  Faroe wanted to argue, but didn’t. He felt the same way himself. So he tried a different approach. “You do realize that the caller could be setting you up to take a fall as an extortionist?”

  “That’s what I told her,” Zach said.

  “How can it be extortion when the paintings are real?” Jill asked impatiently.

  “I didn’t say it was extortion,” Faroe said, “only that it could be made to look like a shakedown long enough for the local law to arrest you and keep you away from the auction.”

  “That’s what I’d do,” Zach said.

  “So would I,” Faroe said before Jill could speak. “Tal Crawford of Crawford International is the biggest Bigfoot expected in the Vegas auction. If he’s behind your problems, you’ll be bucking the local law as well as your bug artist. CI has its hooks into law enforcement in Nevada. Crawford is a big man in the state. We know the governor is kindly disposed toward him to the tune of a couple hundred thousand in campaign contributions. That could easily mean that the state police would rather listen to Crawford’s version of events than yours.”

  “Were they legal contributions?” Zach asked.

  “Grace vetted the filings. There’s nothing improper about them.”

  “Too bad,” Zach said.

  “Yeah.”

  “So Crawford is clean?” Zach asked.

  Faroe smiled thinly. “He hasn’t buried any bodies where St. Kilda can dig them up. Yet. His lawyers are the best money can buy.”

  “Ditto the politicians,” Zach said sarcastically.

  “We don’t have time to play Oh, Ain’t It Awful,” Jill said. “I’m supposed to call Faroe on my sat phone and fire St. Kilda. What’s my new girlfriend’s name again?”

  “Mary,” Faroe said.

  “Mary what?”

  “When you’re near the bug, just call her Mary,” Faroe said.

  “Good,” Grace agreed. “I’m briefing her as I listen to you waste time.”

  “Let Mary take Jill’s place,” Zach said.

  “Too risky,” Jill said instantly. “Whoever is tracking us must know what I look like.”

  Zach hissed a word but didn’t disagree. There were pictures of Jill scattered all over the public record.

  Faroe said something too low to catch. He knew just how Zach felt.

  “Last chance, Jill,” Faroe said. “Are you certain you want to put yourself in danger over this?”

  “Yes,” Jill said. “Besides, if things get dicey, Zach will be only a few minutes away, right?”

  And it only takes a few seconds to kill someone.

  Everyone knew it, but no one said it aloud.

  73

  HOLLYWOOD

  SEPTEMBER 17

  1:04 A.M.

  Score listened to the bug on Jill Breck’s sat phone and laughed out loud. St. Kilda didn’t like being fired.

  “Listen, Joe,” the Breck woman said for the third time. “This just isn’t working. You’re spending all kinds of money and not getting anywhere. I want the paintings back as soon as possible. And it better be possible by tomorrow morning.”

  “Going off alone at this stage isn’t smart,” Faroe said.

  “And staying with St. Kilda is dumb. My paintings. My choice.”

  Silence, then a sigh. “Whatever you say, Ms. Breck. When you sign off on the paintings tomorrow morning, your relationship with St. Kilda is at an end.”

  “Good. And don’t bother calling me, hoping to change my mind. I’m going downstairs to try my luck at the tables.”

  The connection ended.

  Smiling, Score leaned back in his chair and mentally reviewed the players and their positions on the chessboard of the op. He loved an op like this. Any mope with a gun could kill someone, but it was the mental game that separated the players from the wannabes.

  Score was a player.

  Now that St. Kilda was off the board, arranging the downfall of the clever Ms. Breck would be a pure pleasure.

  74

  LAS VEGAS


  SEPTEMBER 17

  2:15 A.M.

  Jill lay with Zach, sweat gleaming, pleasure burning. With whispered words and interlocked bodies, they climbed a long slope of sensation to the cliff at the top of the world. Then they went over, free-falling through fire, landing in a tangle of sheets and one another.

  When they no longer trembled and breathed brokenly, he kissed her with a gentleness that made her eyes sting.

  “You have to go,” he said in a low voice. “Now.”

  Her body tightened around him. “We have hours yet.”

  “You need to sleep or you won’t be ready for whatever happens.”

  “I can run on less sleep than this.”

  “If you don’t leave now,” Zach said, “I’ll keep you here and to hell with the op.”

  Jill stared into his eyes and knew that he meant it. Temptation went through her in a shivering wave that had nothing to do with passion. Then she closed her eyes and untangled from him slowly, reluctantly.

  “Tell me that after tomorrow,” she said as she eased to her feet.

  Zach started to tell her that tomorrow was an expectation, not a guarantee. The look on her face said she already knew that.

  “After tomorrow,” he said.

  His words could have been a warning, an agreement, or a vow. She didn’t know which.

  She did know better than to ask.

  Quietly she walked from their shared room to the empty one. She closed the connecting door very softly. Her sat phone was right where she’d left it, drowned by a flock of large, fluffy pillows.

  It will work out, she told herself.

  There will be a time after tomorrow.

  Won’t there?

  When she got into bed, the sheets were as cold as her fear.

  75

  LAS VEGAS

  SEPTEMBER 17

  9:00 A.M.

  That’s right,” Jill said into the room phone, “I’d like to rent something big enough for a lot of luggage, but not so big it’s like driving an elephant on ice.”

  “One of our guests just asked me to return a Cadillac Escalade to the airport for him,” the concierge said. “Would that vehicle be satisfactory?”

  Jill wouldn’t have known a Cadillac Escalade if it left tire prints up her back, but since St. Kilda had rented the vehicle and left it to be “returned,” she knew that half of the paintings would fit into the cargo area.

  “Works for me,” she said. “Will the hotel be able to accommodate three pieces of very valuable luggage in a secure place?”

  “Of course. The receipts for three suitcases will be with your car rental agreement.”

  “I’d rather you kept them until a friend arrives to pick them up. She’ll present her ID to Mr. Tannahill’s head of security.”

  “As you wish,” the concierge said smoothly. “I’ll deal with the rental company for you. The rental papers will be at the concierge desk for you to sign. Please bring your driver’s license.”

  “Of course,” Jill said. “Thank you for the trouble.”

  “For a personal guest of Mr. Tannahill, it’s no trouble at all. Please let me know if you need any further assistance.”

  After Jill hung up, she looked at the sat phone lying two feet away from her on the nightstand. She wondered who was listening, if it was the same person who had killed her great-aunt and burned the old house down around her dead body.

  Unease rippled through Jill, leaving a chill in its wake. Zach had already checked out. She was alone.

  Being alone wasn’t new to her.

  The loneliness she felt was.

  So was the reality of a shooter and arsonist listening to her every breath, the flush of the toilet, the rustle of her clothes when she dressed.

  It flat creeped her out.

  You asked for it. You got it. Now suck it up and get the job done.

  A knock on the door made her jump.

  Dial back, she told herself harshly. If you rev too hard now, you won’t have anything left for the real rapids.

  And she knew those rapids were coming. She just didn’t know when or how.

  The knock came again.

  “Who is it?” Jill said loudly.

  “Quincy Johnston from St. Kilda.”

  She checked the peephole. A gray-haired man with a plush walrus mustache and a leather briefcase stood in the hallway. Behind him, two bellmen waited beside luggage carts that held three large aluminum suitcases apiece.

  She took a deep breath and unlocked the door. “Bring them in.”

  The bellmen maneuvered the carts into her room.

  “Sign here,” Johnston said.

  “Not until I see the paintings,” Jill retorted.

  Without a word Johnston noisily opened each of the six cases, then closed them. “Satisfied?”

  With Zach gone? Not likely.

  “Yes,” was all Jill said aloud. “Take those three suitcases to the concierge’s secured storage area,” she told one bellman. “Leave the claim tickets with the concierge.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  “When I call the concierge, the head of security will release the three suitcases to the person I name. But only when I call. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the young bellman said again.

  “If you have any questions, I’ll brief the concierge on my way out.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Johnston gave the bellman two twenties.

  The young man smiled and left.

  The second bellman accepted his own hefty tip and walked out, leaving both luggage and cart, shutting the door behind him.

  As soon as they were alone, Johnston opened his briefcase and handed her some papers.

  “Read carefully before you sign,” he said. “We don’t want you flip-flopping on us again. When I walk out of here, St. Kilda walks, too. You’ll be on your own.”

  “That’s the whole point of firing St. Kilda,” Jill said. “I work better alone.”

  “Your choice.” Johnston sounded bored.

  She took the papers and rustled them, making enough noise for the bugged phone to pick up. Then she started reading.

  Johnston opened his briefcase, put his finger to his lips, and handed her a leather portfolio.

  She almost dropped it. “Heavy words, here.”

  “One of the partners in St. Kilda is a judge,” Johnston said. “If you require translation of any legal jargon, please let me know.”

  “So far, so good.”

  She opened the portfolio, saw a BlackBerry, a Colt Woodsman, two loaded magazines, and five one-hundred-dollar bills. She raised her eyebrows.

  “Explain clause three, paragraph two,” she said.

  As Johnston began a long ad-lib, she checked the weapon quickly, carefully, knowing that his voice would cover any noise she might make.

  How did Zach know this was the right gun for me? Jill asked silently. Was it in my file? Did I tell him?

  Can he read my mind?

  Who cares? she told herself. The gun is here and I can operate it with my eyes closed.

  “Okay, I get it now,” Jill said, carefully laying the unloaded gun, two magazines, the BlackBerry, and the money on the bed. “I’ll never darken St. Kilda’s doorstep again, and vice versa.” She handed over the empty portfolio. “You have a pen I can use?”

  “Of course.”

  She signed, he countersigned, and the deal was done.

  “Here’s your copy,” Johnston said, handing her two papers instead of one. “Good luck, Ms. Breck,” he added, opening the door. “Without St. Kilda, you’ll need it.”

  The door closed firmly behind him.

  Jill looked at the flat, long-barreled semiautomatic pistol and two loaded magazines lying on the peach sheets of the bed. She hoped that was all the “luck” she needed.

  “Where did I leave that TV remote?” she asked aloud. “It should come with a leash.”

  She started throwing pillows around until her sat phone was
covered up.

  “Ah, there it is.”

  She turned on the TV to a twenty-four-hour weather station, ramped up the volume, and went back to the bed. She eased one of the magazines into the butt of the pistol but didn’t cycle the action. She slipped the extra magazine, the pistol, and the money into her belly bag. On the way out of the hotel, she’d carry her sat phone in her hand, like someone anxious to called or be called. After that, the phone could live on the passenger seat.

  The BlackBerry PDA was familiar. Some of the rafting outfits she worked for used them.

  She folded the copy of her severance agreement with St. Kilda and put it into her belly bag. The second piece of paper was more interesting. She sat on the bed to read the typed message.

  Jill,

  Zach told me you used a pistol like this before you went to college. The bullets are .22-caliber long rifle hollow points. The opposition shouldn’t be surprised you’re carrying. If they are, they’re seriously stupid.

  Give a hundred to the concierge. Use the rest for gas and food on the road.

  The alert function on the PDA is muted. Do visual checks every ten minutes or so. If you have local cellular service, you can text-message me. My IM is the first address stored. Zach’s is second. The BlackBerry is bugged—locater and voice activated, just like the opposition’s bug on your satellite phone.

  If things really head south, scream.

  Mary is wired in as your friend/contact on your sat phone. Use my number, then hit #. The call will be forwarded to her. Be sure to use the protocol you and Zach talked about last night.

  Jill smiled, remembering what else they had done while discussing “protocol.”

  Check in at least every two hours on the sat phone. Every hour would be better. They’ll be listening, but they expect you to use some kind of cut-out to release the second half of the paintings.

  We’ll be with you all the way. Zach will be above, the others will be on the ground no more than four minutes away.

  When the opposition makes contact, message me if you can. Or talk to yourself near the BlackBerry. Either will work.

  Drop this paper in the toilet and flush. Remember, the opposition may be watching you from the moment you leave your room, so stay in role.