by Odell, Terry
Dangerous Connections
A Blackthorne, Inc., Novel
Terry Odell
KINDLE EDITION
Copyright © 2013 by Terry Odell
Cover design by Dave Fymbo
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Thanks to Jane Thomas Scheffres for suggesting the title for this book.
Chapter 1
No matter what Jinx's Klingon-spouting nephew said, today was not a good day to die, even if it wasn't his own ass on the line.
Fists clenched, stomach in knots, Jinx stared at the satellite feed on the plasma screen. No sound, but his brain had no trouble filling in the gunfire, explosions, and terror-filled shouts of fleeing innocents. No wiping the screen, fanning the air, or frantic keyboard strokes could filter the flames, smoke, and flying debris in front of him. The childish urge to throw his can of Red Bull at the display was tempered only by the knowledge that the boss would have his ass in a sling—especially after months of lobbying to get Horace Blackthorne to fork over the funds to upgrade their computer system and buy a plasma.
“Intel is critical. Plus, better eyes on the ops will help us stay on top of things,” Jinx had argued. But he hadn’t thought about what it would be like to have to watch it when things went south.
Rivulets of sweat trickled down his spine as he studied the blobs on the screen, straining to make out the Blackthorne, Inc. team. The team he’d told it would be a cakewalk. In, grab, and go. Lift a brew for him, and see you back at the compound.
Another silent explosion filled the screen. Reflexively waving away the distant smoke, Jinx stepped closer, squinting. Praying for a glimpse of someone he recognized among the blurred images. Preferably upright and moving. There. Another step closer. Could it be Dalton? It wasn’t as if the team went in wearing garb emblazoned with a Blackthorne logo, especially when they were trying to blend in.
Damn it to hell. This was his fault, his screw-up.
He jumped as though one of the bombs had gone off beside him when a hand rested on his shoulder. He wasn’t aware anyone else was in the room. Spinning around, Jinx stared into the concerned eyes of Horace Blackthorne. He automatically snapped to attention, feeling considerably shorter than his just-shy-of-six-feet as the boss’s six-five frame loomed over him.
“Sir. I didn’t expect you—I mean, you were on your honeymoon.” It wasn’t normal for the boss to show up at the compound in person. Normally, he reigned from his office in the city.
“There’s a limit to how much one can sit on a beach,” Blackthorne said, his gaze fixed on the plasma. “Report.”
Jinx backed into the edge of the desk, relying on it to support his weight, something his legs seemed incapable of doing. “Our intel—my intel, sir, said our target was scheduled for transport at oh-four-hundred. The team, posing as locals, deployed to intercept.” Jinx fought to keep his tone level. “They walked into an ambush.”
A prolonged silence settled over the room like the smoke on the screen. Jinx waited. After an interminable moment, the boss cleared his throat.
“Am I seeing a live transmission? Why is it shifting like that?” Blackthorne asked.
“Yes, sir, it’s live. I managed to finagle a little satellite time. The camera has to adjust to keep everything in the frame.” Jinx checked the clock on the wall. “We’ll lose it in about two minutes.”
One minute, forty-seven seconds, assuming nothing else went wrong, but who was counting?
“Where is Mr. Mayhew?” Blackthorne asked.
Foster Mayhew, Fozzie to everyone but the boss, should have been monitoring everything from the Blackthorne helo and relaying it to HQ. For whatever reason, communications had been cut off. And, to add insult to injury, heavy winds had grounded the helicopter. Fozzie, the team’s surveillance expert, could zero in on the fleas on a squirrel’s balls. And a Blackthorne team was a much bigger target.
“At the rendezvous point,” Jinx said. He hoped he was right. “Last sitrep was garbled, and I haven’t picked up any further transmissions. But, he should still be able to monitor what’s going on with the team.”
“You’re saying we’re the only ones in the dark? What’s the problem? I thought all this” —Blackthorne gestured to the computer array— “was state of the art. You assured me the upgrades would improve our communications in the field.”
Blackthorne bored Jinx with the gaze that could root the most seasoned operatives to the floor. Jinx’s mouth went dry. He forced himself not to reach for his soda. Or break eye contact. “Sir, it is. They have. But we have no control over weather or geography. Sometimes the stars line up in your favor, and sometimes they don’t. Our helo is grounded. According to the weather forecast, the winds should die down in a few more hours. They’ll have to hunker down until then.”
Blackthorne’s gaze returned to the plasma. Jinx faced the screen, seeing the expected, yet dreaded, no signal. He stepped to the console and turned the plasma off.
“Full report. My office, Mr. Nix. Thirty minutes, unless you have a significant update before then.” Blackthorne disappeared as soundlessly as he’d entered.
Jinx took a much-needed swig of lukewarm soda, then hurled the can into the wastebasket.
Where the hell are you guys?
Twenty-nine minutes and forty-two seconds later, Jinx stood outside Horace Blackthorne’s door. He tapped lightly and waited for the boss’s routine “Enter,” which promptly resonated from within.
Taking a deep breath, Jinx twisted the knob, opened the door, and did his best imitation of a confident stride into the room. He stood at attention just inside the doorway.
Jinx didn’t think Blackthorne’s main office in San Francisco had been updated since the fifties, but this one at the compound made it luxurious by comparison. It was little more than an old wooden desk, a phone, and a computer. His boss nodded to the utilitarian visitor chair. Jinx’s heart thudded in his chest as he took a seat across from Blackthorne.
Blackthorne’s chin tilted a fraction of an inch. “I trust your station is covered.”
“Yes, sir. Zeke’s on it.”
“Let’s keep this short, nonetheless. Your report, Mr. Nix. From the beginning.”
Blackthorne’s tone matched that of Jinx’s father when it preceded meting out punishment, adding several layers of stress to Jinx’s overloaded system. Of course, his father used his full name at times like that, and Blackthorne hadn’t, but he might as well have.
Josiah Ignatius Nix, what do you have to say for yourself?
Jinx blinked away the image of his father and met Blackthorne’s steely gaze. “Sir, I take full responsibility for the current situation.”
“I doubt that’s the case. Tell me about this... situation. I’ve been out of the loop.”
Jinx didn’t want to think about what had kept the boss out of the loop. Blackthorne and Grace, his new wife, were older than Jinx’s parents, for God’s sake. The boss’s tan su
ggested the two of them hadn’t been inside their hotel room the entire time, but still—Jinx thought the images of the op might be easier to handle than the ones threatening to take over his brain.
“Right, sir.” Jinx dragged a hand through his hair. “As I mentioned earlier, the target, Crystal Montlake, age twenty-seven, was” —not wanting to give up, he corrected himself— “is the daughter of the client, Dexter Montlake. She was vacationing in Cabo San Lucas with three housemates from her graduate school days at Cal Tech. A reunion getaway. According to the other women, Crystal decided to extend her vacation because she’d met a man. Smooth-talking, good-looking, and precisely the sort of guy her father wouldn’t approve of. She swore the others to secrecy, and that was the last they saw or heard from her. When she was a week overdue at work, her father hired Blackthorne to find her.”
Jinx braced himself for what would come next. No way the boss would miss it. The slight flare to Blackthorne’s nostrils told Jinx he was right.
Blackthorne leaned forward, forearms on the desk, hands clasped. “I’m curious. How did what you’ve described—which is clearly a case for our investigative branch—get into the covert arena?”
Chapter 2
Jinx rested a hand on his pocket, making sure he’d feel his phone vibrate if there were any updates. He gathered his thoughts, ignored his pounding heart. “Sir, this did start out with Investigations. They had more trouble than they should have tracing Ms. Montlake, as if she was deliberately covering her tracks. The assumption was either she expected her father to look for her and didn’t want to leave a trail, or she’d met with foul play. The thing is, she isn’t exactly... runway model... material. Not your typical guy magnet.
“The housemates said she’d never dated much—always studying, shied away from the social scene—and thought it was a little off-kilter for this stud to be attracted to her.” Jinx thought for a second, remembering Fozzie always chasing buxom redheads, then ending up ass-over-teakettle in love with Torie, who was anything but. “And she's older than the sort who are sold as sex slaves—those are usually kids.”
“Prostitution is still a possibility,” Blackthorne said. “But I agree, I wouldn’t put that option at the top of my list. Then, there’s always the possibility that whomever she was with didn’t want to be found, and simply by being with him, she’s also invisible.”
“Yes, sir. They investigated that angle, although it was tricky getting a lead on her mystery man.” Jinx rubbed his palms on his jeans. “There was... um... some overlap.”
Blackthorne’s eyes narrowed. “Hit the bullet points, Mr. Nix.” Irritation colored his tone.
Jinx took a breath. “Crystal Montlake was a last-minute substitution. One of her best friends from college offered her the trip. The friend’s sister was having a baby, and she wanted to be there. So, Crystal took her place.”
“You think she disappeared because she was mistaken for her friend?”
“It’s as good a guess as any. The friend works for a telecommunications company. She’s got an engineering degree. The resort targets those companies—offers all-expense paid trips for employees, who, it turns out, are very much in demand by the Mexican drug cartels. They capture and force young professionals to build private cell phone networks so they can do their communicating off the grid.”
Blackthorne raised his fingertips and rubbed his forehead—the most demonstrative display of emotion Jinx had ever seen. “Drug cartel. Don’t tell me. Mr. Dalton got wind of this.”
“It wasn’t like that, sir.” Well, it was sort of like that, but they had a legitimate target and a client willing to foot the bill. “We didn’t go all cowboy or anything. We got approval. And once Investigations had tracked her down, it would have come to covert ops to extract her anyway.”
“Assuming she needed to be rescued. She is, after all, a grown woman.”
“Sir, we went with what Investigations reported. That she was being held against her wishes.” Who wanted to run off with a drug lord?
“But Mr. Dalton took it upon himself to... modify... the plan to suit his personal agenda.”
“I can’t speak to that, sir. To my knowledge, the team followed the plan, as approved.” Jinx hung his head, pinched the bridge of his nose. Had Dalton used his uncanny powers of persuasion to get the boss’s second-in-command to go along with it? “According to my sources, we determined her position and discovered the tangos were going to move her. It should have been a walk in the park, not a clusterfu—not an ambush. And, I’m sorry, but until communications are restored, that’s all I can tell you.”
Blackthorne stood. “You verified your sources, did you not?”
“Of course. Triple-checked. But I should have—”
“Berating yourself does no good. Now, return to your post and keep me informed.” Blackthorne turned his attention to his computer. Jinx's cue to exit. The door had hardly shut behind him when his phone vibrated against his thigh. He yanked the phone from his pocket and took the call. Had to be an update. “Jinx,” he almost shouted.
“Fozzie was back on line,” Zeke said. “Lost the signal, but you should get down here.”
Jinx dashed to the end of the hall and took the stairs three at a time. Winded, but with less excess nervous energy, he yanked open the door to what was usually his comfort zone—the windowless, beige-painted concrete block walls of command central, where Zeke sat in front of one of the computers. Without turning to acknowledge Jinx’s entrance, Zeke shook his head. Jinx stepped closer.
Damn, the monitor displayed Blackthorne’s screen saver, and Zeke had a headset on. Using the time to catch his breath, Jinx waited, shifting his weight and clenching his fists.
“Ten-four,” Zeke said and swiveled his chair around.
“Fozzie?” Jinx asked, studying Zeke’s face for a sign it was good news.
Creases appeared between Zeke's brows. “Yes, but I don’t have a lot. Fozzie’s doing what he can, but the best he can get is intermittent, garbled transmissions.”
“The team?”
“Not good.”
Jinx’s heart stopped. “Damn it, Zeke, give me the details.”
“I’ve been cleaning up the satellite transmission.” He clicked a couple of keys and the plasma came to life.
Jinx shoved his hands into his pockets and watched the scene unfold again—this time in agonizingly slow motion. The smoke and explosions were clearer, but it wasn’t any easier to determine who the people were. “That the best you can do?”
Zeke lifted his hands from the keyboard. “You think you can do better, be my guest.”
Jinx rubbed a hand across his jaw, felt the stubble telling him he’d been working too long. It pained him to admit it, even mentally—and no way would he ever say it out loud, but Zeke was as good—maybe a tad better, even—than Jinx was at enhancing video. “You started it. Keep going.”
Zeke’s brusque nod was his acknowledgement that Jinx had paid him a compliment. “I count five people.” Zeke paused the replay, zoomed in, and, from his computer, drew five circles which appeared on the plasma.
“Five could be our team and the target,” Jinx said.
“Or, it could be five hostiles.”
“Can you get a clearer image of the people?”
“That’s what I was working on when Fozzie’s call came through.”
“Play it back,” Jinx said. “Enhance the audio.”
“You deal with it. I’ll keep working on the images.”
Jinx settled behind his computer and plugged in his headset. Zeke might have the edge at image enhancement, but nobody came near Jinx when it came to audio. Despite the piss-poor quality of the sound, no matter that background noise and static drowned out recognizable speech, and never mind that things cut in and out—if there was a message in there, Jinx would find it.
Simply hearing Fozzie’s unmistakable Aussie accent laid a sense of calm over Jinx. Even though he couldn’t recognize one word in ten—yet—none of the on
es he recognized were Mayday. They might be dealing with a clusterfuck, but Fozzie wasn’t calling for help. Which meant the team was probably alive. Or at least Fozzie believed they were.
Jinx pushed his programs to the limit, alternately cursing and cajoling, but slowly, Fozzie’s transmission took shape.
“How’re you doing?” Zeke asked.
Jinx glanced at the plasma. “I’ve got good news and bad news.”
Chapter 3
Two days later, Jinx lounged poolside at the Slice of Heaven resort in Cabo San Lucas. The resort where Crystal Montlake and her former housemates had stayed. Where he’d been sent to play field agent. He sipped his third Margarita—virgin, unfortunately—surrounded by tropical vegetation, heat, humidity, and what appeared to be several dozen vacationing young professionals.
Blackthorne had assured him everything would be taken care of—down to an assumed identity, new appearance and wardrobe, thanks to Investigations and significant help from Grace. Making people disappear and reappear as someone else was her specialty.
“But, sir. I don’t have experience in the field,” he’d protested when Blackthorne had given him this assignment. He’d protested further when Grace had insisted on a haircut. He dragged a hand through the unfamiliar shortness.
“You need to look like a corporate engineer, not a computer geek,” she’d said. To that end, she’d presented him with an expensive wheeled carryon filled with clothing suited to his new identity as a disgruntled, recently fired engineer. “If someone searches your luggage, they need to be convinced you’re more of a button-down kind of man.”
When Jinx had arrived and checked in, he changed into the swim shorts and tropical print shirt he’d found inside the case. He’d deal with unpacking the rest later.
Now, glancing around the pool area, breathing a mixture of chlorine, coconut oil, and unfamiliar floral scents, he thought if this was field work, maybe he could handle it. He’d been upgraded to an executive suite where he found a fruit and cheese basket, including a bottle of champagne, on the sitting room coffee table. Jury was out on the heat and humidity, but it made an acceptable change from the gloomy November weather in San Francisco.