Bombshell (AN FBI THRILLER)

by Catherine Coulter

  Gabrielle looked wildly toward her luggage.

  Anna said, “Forget the gun you have tucked inside that luggage, Claudine. You’re not getting anywhere near it. Now, you were at Salazar’s party last Friday night. It was you, wasn’t it, who ordered two of your thugs to take Agent Racker out of there and find out what he knew?”

  Gabrielle kicked out fast and hard against Griffin’s wounded leg. She made a mad dive for her luggage as he went down. Anna grabbed her ponytail and jerked her back against her. She held her Glock against her temple. “After you’re tried and sentenced here in Virginia, Claudine, I doubt you’ll ever get to see France again at all.”

  Griffin stood slowly, his leg thrumming like a metal drum. He looked down at his cane, in two jagged pieces on the floor. “Now, Agent Parrish, don’t you think you’re being overly harsh? Maybe Ms. Renard can cut a deal with the Justice Department, tell them all about the Lozano family and about Maria Rosa.”

  Savich home

  Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

  Two days later, Friday evening

  Anna accepted a slice of pizza from Griffin and bit in. There were half a dozen pizza boxes scattered on every available surface in the Savich living room for the dozen people—DEA, FBI, and the sheriff of Maestro—and most of them Griffin hadn’t even known a week before and now they were his friends.

  Sherlock patted her mouth with a napkin and sat back in her chair. “Let me ask you, Agent Brannon, who gets the credit here, the DEA or the FBI?”

  Mac Brannon looked from Anna to Griffin, took a swig of beer, and grinned. “I guess with what’s probably going to happen between these two”—he nodded toward Griffin and Anna—“we’ll have to consider it a joint success.” He raised his beer bottle and toasted Savich. “Now that I think of it, though, Savich here did some of the prep work, but the DEA did all the heavy lifting. I don’t remember any FBI dweebs, or you, Sheriff Noble, out there hauling away the guns and drugs.”

  “We dweebs are glad we could help you get there, Mac,” Savich said, and picked up another slice of his vegetarian delight.

  Dix said, “I hate even smelling that stuff. Believe me, I was glad to leave it to you.” He turned to Anna. “I’m going to miss you pouring me coffee every morning at Maurie’s Diner.”

  Anna patted his arm. “I’m going to miss you, too, Sheriff, and Maurie, of course. He was a great boss. I was afraid he was going to cry when he found out who I really was and that I was leaving, but I distracted him by telling him to give my best to his beloved mama. Dix, you’ve got a lot of great folk in Maestro. Please tell everyone I enjoyed spending time with them.”

  Sherlock slipped a sleepy Astro a bit of sausage from one of the pizzas. “I’m glad Salazar made it. Maybe between him and Gabrielle—Claudine Renard, I mean—you can get enough information together on Maria Rosa to make the Spanish police happy.”

  “She buried their identities as deep as she could, but not deep enough,” Anna said. “I feel sorry for Dr. Hayman, though. He’s already resigned from Stanislaus.”

  Delsey said, “I, on the other hand, can’t wait to get back to Maestro and Stanislaus. What, you thought I wouldn’t want to go back there to school, Griffin? Of course I do. I want to finish my degree. The only thing I can’t see doing is going back to live in my apartment next to Henry. Ruth is going to help me find a nice, safe apartment close to campus.”

  Anna sat back in her chair and announced, “Sorry, Delsey, no more school for me. Nope, it’s time for a vacation. I was undercover for a long time, and waitressin’ is hard work. I’ve got to admit, though, that all the tips from Maurie’s really supplemented my income. Mr. Brannon said I’ve earned a long break.”

  Griffin was thinking how sexy her voice sounded laced with her syrupy slow Southern drawl when Savich said to him, “And you’re officially off duty, Griffin, until your leg heals. Are you planning a vacation, too?”

  Griffin nodded. “Actually, Ms. Parrish and I have decided to take our vacation together. Rome, the Colosseum, playing Christians and lions, and all that. It will be out of season, maybe a bit on the chilly side, but there shouldn’t be any fighting with hordes of other tourists at the gelato stand.”

  Anna looked at his impossibly beautiful face, with his nose just a little bit off kilter. “I’ll just have to figure out if he’s going to be a gimpy Christian or a gimpy lion.”

  Or maybe, she thought, as everyone laughed, she could take him to Maui instead. She could only imagine how good he’d look in swim trunks and lots of sunscreen she would apply herself. She gave a little shudder and turned down the last slice of pizza, thinking of her little polka-dot bikini.

  Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

  One week later

  Savich slipped his cell phone back into his pocket and watched Sherlock toss a piece of popcorn in a high arc to their manic dog, Astro. Astro took a flying leap off the living room carpet, caught the popcorn two feet in the air, dropped back down, chewed for a millisecond, and raced back to Sherlock, barking for more. It was a game that had no end until the popcorn was gone and they’d proved to him that it was gone, usually by letting him carry the empty bowl around in his teeth.

  Savich picked up The Washington Post, pointed to a photo of the Koh-i-Noor diamond in its setting in the Queen Mother’s crown. “You and I haven’t had a chance to talk about the Jewel of the Lion exhibit at the Met next week. I spoke with Bo Horsley, you remember, my dad’s old partner?”

  “Oh, yes. Did he congratulate you on saving the world?”

  “I spoke to him before there was any saving, but he did email me with a ‘well done’ this morning. I think I told you he’s heading up the private security for the Jewel of the Lion exhibit at the Met. Not only has he got us a town house in Chelsea, he wants us to go to the opening gala as his guests, eyeball the Crown Jewels and the Koh-i-Noor diamond, and rub elbows with the rich and famous. He’s trying to talk his nephew, Nicholas Drummond—Bo called him the youngest muckety-muck at Scotland Yard—to come over. His added inducement was Detective Inspector Elaine York, a colleague of his nephew’s who’s the official ‘minder’ for the exhibit. He really likes her. Also, she’s a vegetarian.”

  Sherlock rolled her eyes. “He have any more perks to offer?”

  Savich grinned at her. “That’s about it. He did add in his email that Nicholas is not only a chief detective inspector with Scotland Yard, he’s also a computer expert, probably better than me. He says it’s about time we met. Maybe we could duke it out. I could hear him laughing with that shot.”

  Sherlock said, “Wait a minute. We’ve got Nicholas Drummond, a Brit who’s with Scotland Yard, and yet his uncle is American FBI. How does that work?”

  “Bo told me Drummond’s mother, Bo’s sister, is American, starred in a TV sitcom here in the late seventies, early eighties. She met his father, a Brit, in L.A., they married, Nicholas was born here, and then they went back to England, where they stayed. Drummond’s grandfather is a viscount. An English peer—isn’t that a kick?”

  “I wonder if Drummond’s as cute as you are.”

  “No,” Savich said. “No way.”

  Sherlock grinned up at him. She nodded to the open copy of The Washington Post. “I wouldn’t mind seeing the Crown Jewels, and the idea of having our own house—sure, let’s go. Take MAX. I want to see if he recognizes this Nicholas Drummond as a kindred spirit or kicks his royal butt to the curb.”

  A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

  FROM CATHERINE COULTER

  I’ve got a surprise for you—a new series of crime thrillers featuring American-born, UK-raised Nicholas Drummond, a tough, focused chief detective inspector with Scotland Yard. Think James Bond—dark and dangerous, with a quirky sense of humor and a no-nonsense view of the world. A Brit in the FBI series kicks off with The Final Cut, an international crime thriller.

  Everything changes for Drummond when the Koh-i-Noor diamond is stolen from the Queen Mother’s crown while on display in a special exhibit
at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City and his former lover, in charge of the jewel’s security, is found murdered.

  Drummond teams up with the FBI in New York, as well as Savich and Sherlock, to solve the murder, find the thief, and recover the missing diamond.

  What follows will blow your socks off.

  Welcome to my new series, written with renowned author J. T. Ellison. The Final Cut will catapult you into a reading adventure that will keep you turning pages so fast you won’t even stop for ice cream.

  For a first look, turn the page.

  —CATHERINE COULTER

  A BRIT IN THE FBI

  The Final Cut

  CHAPTER

  1

  London

  January 2013

  Very early Thursday morning

  Nicholas Drummond lived for these moments. His hands were loose, warm, and ready inside thin leather gloves. He could feel his heart beat a slow, steady cadence in his chest, feel the adrenaline shooting so high he could fly. His breath puffed white in the frigid morning air, not unexpected on an early January morning in London. There was nothing like a hostage situation to get one’s blood pumping, and he was ready.

  He took in the scene, as he’d been trained to do, complemented by years of experience: shooters positioned on the roofs in a three-block triangular radius, sirens wailing behind shouts and screams, and a single semiautomatic weapon bursting out an occasional staccato drumbeat. The streets were shut down in all directions. A helicopter’s rotors whumped overhead. His team was lined up behind him, waiting for the go signal.

  His suspect was thirty yards away, tucked out of sight, ten feet from the left of the entrance to the Victoria Street Underground, and not being shy about letting them know his position. He’d been told the guy was a nutter, not a surprise, given he’d been wild-eyed in his demands for money from a second-rate kiosk at dawn. Instead of making a run for it, he’d grabbed a woman and was now holed up, shooting away. Where he had found a semiautomatic weapon, plus enough ammunition to take out Khartoum, Nicholas didn’t know.

  At least he hadn’t killed his hostage yet. She was a middle-aged woman, now lying on her side maybe six feet from him, trussed up with duct tape. They could see her face, leached of color and terrified. He could imagine her screams of terror if her mouth weren’t taped.

  No, she wasn’t dead. Yet. That presented a problem—one wrong move and a bullet would go into her head.

  Nicholas glanced over his shoulder at his second, Detective Inspector Gareth Scott, tucked against the curb, his expression edgy, a flash of excitement in his eyes. He clutched his Heckler & Koch MP5 against his chest. His Glock 17 was in its shoulder holster.

  The suspect stopped firing his weapon, and there was sudden, blessed silence. Nicholas didn’t think the guy had run out of bullets. Had the gun jammed? They should be so lucky. What was he thinking? Planning?

  Nicholas dropped down beside Gareth. “We have ourselves a crazy. Tell me what else you know about him.”

  “We have a photo, taken from the eastern rooftop. It’s blurred, but facial recognition did their magic. The guy’s name is Esposito, out of prison only a month. I guess he woke up real early and decided he needed some excitement in his life and went on this little rampage.”

  “What set him off?”

  “We don’t know. He took four quid out of the kiosk till, all the guy had at this hour of the morning, and grabbed the woman when the police showed up.”

  Esposito raised his weapon again and blasted half a dozen bullets into the foggy morning air.

  Nicholas saw a brief glimpse of the man’s head, but the angle made it impossible for the snipers to take him out. He wouldn’t give them permission to fire, anyway, not if there was a chance of hitting the woman. He had to make a decision; time was running short.

  Nicholas glanced at his watch. Five-sixteen a.m., an ungodly hour in winter, barely enough light to see. At least it wasn’t raining, but clouds were fat and black overhead. That was all they needed.

  Esposito continued shooting, then stopped midblast and shouted, “You stupid coppers back off or she’s dead, you hear me? I’ll let her go as soon as I’m clear!”

  There was return gunfire, and Esposito screamed, “Do that again and I swear I’ll kill her. Back off. Back off!”

  Nicholas shouted, “We’ll back off. Don’t hurt the woman.”

  Esposito’s answer was a bullet that flew a couple of feet over Nicholas’s head.

  “Enough,” Nicholas said. “Let’s get him.”

  “You want him alive?”

  “We’ll see,” Nicholas said. “We need a better angle. Follow me.”

  They duck-walked across the street, then flattened, faces to the ground, when a fusillade of bullets kicked up gravel two feet away from their earlier position. Gareth cursed. “At least the guy’s a lousy shot.”

  Silence again, except for their fast breaths. Nicholas didn’t think Esposito had seen them move. “Keep still and stay down,” he whispered. They were only twenty yards downwind now, sheltered by the construction in front of the station’s façade. A good spot, though if Esposito turned, he might very well see them and they’d be dead.

  Almost as if he knew what they were doing, Esposito grabbed the woman, held her in front of him as a shield, and dragged her fifteen feet before pulling her down behind a big metal construction bin. Now Esposito was facing away from them, a good thirty feet from their position. He was squatted down behind the bin, leaning around the side to check for threats, ready to fire.

  And Nicholas thought, This is surely a gift from the Almighty. He was staring at the bottom of the construction bin. Its base was at least three inches off the ground. He smiled as he smoothly rolled onto his belly and pulled his Glock 17 from his shoulder holster. He aimed at those three precious inches on the underside of the bin, sighting carefully. The guy had big feet in shiny white Nikes, a bull’s-eye target if there ever was one.

  Nicholas squeezed the trigger. The man yelped and hopped away from the bin, stumbled and went down hard on the pavement.

  “Take him now,” Nicholas yelled into his shoulder radio. He jumped to his feet as he spoke. “And do mind his weapon, people.”

  His team rushed to surround Esposito, who’d fallen five feet from his hiding place behind the bin. He saw them running at him and slammed his weapon to the ground, threw his arms up in surrender, and the standoff was over. Just like that. And no one was dead, or even badly hurt.

  A metallic horn rang out signaling the engagement was over.

  Gareth clapped his boss on the shoulder. “Nice one,” he said, then called out, “A Team, to me.”

  A smattering of applause made Nicholas turn, but before he could holster his Glock, a voice boomed over the loudspeaker. “Detective Chief Inspector Drummond. You have broken the rules of engagement, and are hereby disqualified. Report to me immediately.”

  CHAPTER

  2

  Gareth shook his head. “Penderley does not sound happy, Nicholas. And all you’ve done is show some above-average imagination.”

  Esposito limped over, his face twisted, so mad Nicholas wondered if he would throw a punch. But he simply squared off; his thick finger stabbed the air for emphasis, and he yelled, “You shot me in the bloody foot, you bloody sod!”

  Nicholas couldn’t help it—he grinned. “You were so scrunched together I could have gotten you in the arse, but those big Nikes of yours were waving flags at me.”

  “Yeah, have a big laugh. I’m serious, Drummond. I’m going to limp for a week. You weren’t supposed to shoot me; you were supposed to capture me unharmed. Those were the rules, but no, you had to show off. Those rubber bullets hurt.”

  “A woman’s life was in the balance. I had to act, not negotiate. You shouldn’t have made yourself such a target. Next time, pick a bin that hugs the tarmac.”

  Gareth laughed and Esposito turned on him, gave both men a fist shake, and limped off. Nicholas didn’t doubt the
re’d be payback at some point—the rubber bullets did hurt, he knew that firsthand—and Esposito was tough and smart, he’d come up with something that would make Nicholas want to weep, but that would be tomorrow or next week. Penderley was now.

  “He’ll get over it,” Gareth said. “Buy him a pint at The Feathers tonight and he’ll soon forgive you.”

  Not a chance, Nicholas thought and went to see his boss, Hamish Penderley, Detective Chief Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police’s Operational Command Unit, a stiff-necked old buzzard in his early sixties who’d played by the same set of rules for forty years, and would take those same rules to the grave with him. Penderley was self-made, public-school-educated, the third son of a barkeep in Coventry, and proud of it.

  Nicholas came from wealth and an old name, and that rankled and galled some people he worked with. Thankfully, Penderley wasn’t one of them. His issue was Nicholas’s dual citizenship; he’d been born in the United States, and that made him less of a Brit in Penderley’s eyes.

  Nicholas made his way through the obstacle course to Penderley’s position on the grandstand, thinking about the newly instituted mandatory training exercises that had everyone on edge. Actionable terrorist threats had been made against London—again—and as such, the Metropolitan Police felt it necessary to refresh the training all their officers received. Nicholas and his team had been to Hendon for surprise tactical weapons drills four times in the last six months. Requalifying with weapons, being dragged out of bed for real response exercise, like this dawn’s kidnap-and-hostage scenario, anything and everything; it didn’t matter, Penderley threw all of it at them.

  Nicholas had argued, as he always did, that his homicide team knew their stuff cold, would be better utilized brushing up their profiling skills and forensic accounting, but might equaled right in Penderley’s world. Penderley’s old world.