Third Strike

by Zoe Sharp

  CHAPTER 14

  One way and another, we were tied up with the police for most of the day. After the uniforms came the plainclothes men. World-weary and sardonic New York cops, they’d seen everything and heard more. And they made it quite clear that the story my father was now telling was more far-fetched than most.

  They were obviously aware of Richard Foxcroft’s name—anyone who had read a newspaper or seen a news report in the last week couldn’t fail to be. I got the distinct impression that the only reason they didn’t outright laugh in our faces was because Parker Armstrong’s name carried weight, despite recent events. The hatchet job that had been done on my father’s reputation, however, was a resounding success.

  They’d investigate, the cops told us, but what was probably no more than an accidental hit-and-run wasn’t high on the priority list. If we could bring them something more—like the faintest shred of evidence to support our fanciful claims of attempted murder—they might be more inclined to devote some man-hours to the case.

  While they were interviewing him and my mother, I brought Parker and Sean up to speed on the conversation with my father while he’d been patching me up. When I’d finished, both of them looked thoughtful and no less worried than they had before.

  “We need to put a lid on this quickly,” Parker reiterated, although I was heartened by his continued use of the word we. He glanced from one of us to the other. “If he’s finally agreed to make a stand, we can do something. Let me make some calls.”

  He stood, decisive, and regarded us gravely. “Meanwhile, you’re going to have to keep those two out of trouble. They’ve already come after them once. They’ll try again.”

  I got to my feet, too. I’d taken the opportunity to swallow a couple of painkillers and they’d done a decent job at floating the edge off things. Rising was considerably easier as a result. “Thank you,” I said. “And I know you don’t like to hear it, but I’ll say it again—I’m sorry for all of this.”

  “Jeez, I know that, Charlie.” He offered me a tired smile and, a rarity, put his arm around my shoulder in a more fatherly gesture than I’d ever had from my own. “Don’t worry, we’ll see it through. And anyhow, you can’t be held responsible for your parents.”

  “Tell me about it,” I muttered. “Can’t live with’em. Can’t kill’em and bury’em in the garden.”

  After the police had rolled up their crime-scene tape and departed, we gave my parents a choice. Either Sean and I would put them up in the spare room at the apartment, or we’d put a guard on them at the hotel and stick with them whenever they were outside it. After the briefest of consultations, they went for the latter option, which was both a relief and a snub as far as I was concerned.

  I noticed Parker go a little pale when I bluntly offered this ultimatum. His whole ethos for executive protection was to keep clients as safe as possible without cramping their style. Some saw it as risky, but it certainly seemed to work for him. Time and again, I’d come across agencies who’d been fired for letting their operatives crowd the principal and vetoing what the client considered normal activities. I liked Parker’s attitude. It went a long way towards explaining why, family money aside, he was doing well enough to run a substantial office in New York and a weekend place in the Hamptons.

  Nevertheless, this was not a normal situation, nor the kind of clients he was used to dealing with. I knew that if we didn’t lay some ground rules right from the start, in an emergency things were going to go pear-shaped at somewhere approaching the speed of sound.

  I was coward enough to let Sean tell it to them straight. I didn’t think they liked me any better, but at least I felt my father was likely to hold whatever Sean said in rather higher esteem.

  “You are not under house arrest and we will not restrict your movements unless our experience and our judgment of the situation tell us it’s vital that we do so,” Sean said, disregarding the cynical twitch of my father’s mouth. “But, these people, whoever they are, are serious. If you take risks with your safety, just remember that you take even bigger risks with our safety. As today should have shown you, we will always attempt to put ourselves between you and the threat. That’s what we do.” He let his eyes slide over me briefly, making a point of it. “Is that clear?”

  “We understand,” my father said stiffly.

  “Good,” Sean said, and although he kept his face and voice and body entirely neutral, I could tell how much he was enjoying this. “In that case, there are a couple of things you’ll need to remember in case of attack. If we shout ‘Get down!’ at any point, all we want you to do is bend double and keep your head low, but stay on your feet and be ready to move unless we actively push you to the ground. Don’t try and stick your head up to see what’s happening. Don’t try and look round to see where the other one is. You’re going to have to trust us to have you both covered, yes?”

  He paused and, after a second’s hesitation, they both nodded.

  “One last thing,” Sean said, and now he did allow his voice to go soft and deadly. “This is not a democracy. We will do whatever we have to in order to preserve your lives and keep you safe. What we will not do is stand there in the middle of a firefight and discuss alternatives as you see them, or justify our actions. If we tell you to do something, just do it. Afterwards, we can talk about it all you like.”

  “So,” my father said, matching his tone to Sean’s almost perfectly, “what happens when, in the cold light of day, you find you can’t justify your actions?”

  There was a long silence while they stared each other down. Here were two men who had both handled death, from one direction or another, and never flinched under the weight of that responsibility.

  “I don’t know, Richard. It’s never come up,” Sean said deliberately. He checked his watch, a wholly dismissive gesture, and started to turn away. “But if it ever does, I’ll be sure to let you know … .”

  Sean, Parker, and I formed a three-man detail to get them out of the building and into the Navigator that Joe McGregor had waiting by the curb. This time, we took no chances, but whoever had been behind the wheel of the rogue cab did not spring out at us for a second attempt.

  Nothing happened on the journey to their hotel, where McGregor took station. He had nothing to report when Sean and I arrived to relieve him in the morning, and nothing untoward happened the following day, either. Unless you counted the excruciating politeness with which Sean and my father treated each other. It screeched at my nerves like a tone-deaf child with their first violin.

  We spent the day shopping for a replacement suitcase for my mother, and new clothes to fill it. She picked out another hard-shell case just like the last one. Where previously I might have tried to talk her into something lighter, now I voiced no such objections. Structural suitcases, I decided, were my friend.

  Parker, meanwhile, was working furiously behind the scenes and providing us with regular updates on progress—or lack of it.

  He’d sent to his various contacts Sean’s rudimentary photos of the couple we’d found baby-sitting my mother back in England. Apart from the fact that everyone seemed to think Blondie’s pic had been taken post mortem, nobody initially offered any clues as to their background.

  Then Parker got a possible hit on Don, last name Kaminski. It turned out he was an ex-marine with a disciplinary record, who’d been spat out by the military machine two years previously and disappeared into the private contractors’ market. In other words, he was either a bodyguard or a mercenary.

  Parker had uncovered the firm Don apparently worked for. Unfortunately, due to delusions of grandeur on their part, they seemed to think they were equal to—and therefore direct rivals of—Parker’s outfit. The result was that they refused to tell him anything about what their guy might or might not have been up to.

  They wouldn’t even confirm Don was outside the mainland U.S., which I felt was a bit pointless, given the circumstances. But, Parker did at least manage to pick up a useful little s
nippet from an unguarded comment. From that, he deduced that Don Kaminski’s employers were growing increasingly alarmed by the fact they’d lost contact with their man. I thought of May and her shotgun, and the aggressive porcine guards around his temporary prison, and decided that it was probably going to be awhile yet before he got in touch.

  It took longer to get any information on the woman I knew only as Blondie, although I admit that the state of her face probably didn’t make her any easier to identify.

  We were just coming out of Macy’s department store when Parker called on Sean’s mobile. Sean let the answering machine pick up and didn’t make any attempt to respond to the call until we were back in our vehicle and on the move again. I returned Parker’s call while Sean dealt with the lunchtime traffic.

  “Are you all together and close by?” Parker demanded.

  “Yes,” I said, being cagey over the phone. “About ten minutes, give or take traffic. Trouble?”

  “Nothing desperate,” Parker said. Yes, it could be trouble. “Just get back to the office as soon as it’s convenient, would you?” And yes, it’s urgent. And he ended the call before I could satisfy my curiosity any better than that.

  By dint of only a small number of minor moving-vehicle violations, Sean made it back to base inside my ten-minute estimate. We rode the elevator in silence and Bill Rendelson intercepted us before we’d taken more than three steps out into the lobby.

  “The boss wants to see you two alone first,” he said quietly to me, not giving away any clues. He turned to my parents. “If you’d come with me, sir, ma’am?” I saw a flicker of impatience cross my father’s face, but he allowed the pair of them to be ushered into one of the conference rooms. Bill promised to be back soon with refreshments, then shut the door on them smartly and hurried across towards Parker’s office, jerking his head much less deferentially that we should follow.

  Inside, Parker Armstrong was sitting in his usual position behind the desk. Opposite him, in one of the client chairs, sat a nondescript little man in a badly cut gray suit. He looked like a second-rate salesman or a clerical drone who has trudged the same furrow for so long he’s worn a groove deep enough to bury himself.

  The man looked up quickly as Sean and I entered. He had a mournful, rumpled face, with baggy eyes that were slightly bloodshot, but they didn’t miss a trick. I knew before the door had closed behind us that he’d pinpointed the fact we were carrying, and we weren’t exactly being obvious about it.

  A pro, then. But what kind?

  “This is Mr. Collingwood,” Parker said as both men rose for the introductions. “He’s with—”

  “Er, let’s just say I’m with one of the lesser-known agencies of the U.S. government and leave it at that, shall we?” the man said, glancing at Parker almost with mild reproof. He offered us both a perfunctory handshake, letting go almost before he’d gripped.

  Parker stared back, unintimidated. “I like to keep my people fully informed,” he said.

  Collingwood ducked his head, smiling apologetically. “I’d be a whole lot happier, at this stage, if we kept this whole thing as low-key as possible, Mr. Armstrong. I’m sure you can understand our … concerns.”

  I was getting better at placing regional American accents. Not quite Deep South enough to be Alabama or Georgia. Maybe one of the Carolinas.

  Parker nodded reluctantly and waved us to sit down. Sean and I took the chairs on either side of him, positions of support and solidarity that weren’t lost on the government man. Those heavy-lidded eyes gleamed a little as they regarded us.

  Despite his observant gaze, Collingwood struck me as an official rather than an agent—the kind who’d once been in the field, but was now firmly anchored behind a desk. His suit had the bagged knees to prove it. He had a briefcase lying closed on the low table near his right hand and a buff-coloured folder, also closed, in front of him, which he fiddled with while he waited for us to settle, fussily lining it up with the edge of the table.

  His hands were misshapen across the backs, I noticed, like he’d spent his youth bare-knuckle fighting or suffered from premature arthritis. Perhaps that explained the lackluster handshake.

  “Why don’t you bring everybody up to speed,” Parker suggested.

  The little man ducked his head again and smiled at us. His hair was very thick, its glossy blackness at odds with his lived-in face. It couldn’t have looked more like a wig unless it actually had a chin strap.

  “This business came to our attention because Mr. Armstrong was attempting to identify, ah … this woman,” he said, opening the folder just far enough to peer inside and lifting out a blowup print, which he spun the right way up and slid across the table towards us.

  “Yes,” Sean said, barely glancing at the picture. He didn’t need to. It was the one he’d taken of Blondie lying on the floor in my parents’ garage with her eyes closed. The blood from her obviously broken nose formed a mustachelike stain on her upper lip.

  Collingwood sat back and rested his elbows on the arms of the chair, steepling his fingers and tapping the ends together so his nails clicked.

  “What can you tell me about this photograph?” he said carefully. “First off, where did you, ah, obtain it?”

  He looked from one of us to the other. We stared right back, giving him nothing. Collingwood cleared his throat, trying to hide his desperation behind a nervous laugh. “I mean to say, we know when it was taken. That’s the beauty of digital these days—there’s a time code embedded in the image. But we don’t know where. Or under what, ah, circumstances.”

  “Perhaps it might help if we knew why you need to know this,” Sean said, pleasant but noncommittal. “Who is she?”

  Collingwood’s gaze swung across him, then he gave a weary sigh, raising his hands a little.

  “Okay. Her name is Vonda Blaylock,” he said, eyes still on the photo, lying untouched on the tabletop. “And she’s one of ours.” He looked up, his face ever more sorrowful. “Or, leastways, she was … .”

  Oh shit.

  I glanced back at the photo, as if knowing Blondie’s real name and status as a government agent might change my memory of her in some way. No, I decided, it didn’t. She and her heavy-duty sidekick had still conned their way into my mother’s house, threatened her, frightened her, and been prepared to do untold damage to whoever came to her aid. I relaxed, shrugging off the guilt that had been nudging at my shoulder. All things considered, she’d got off lightly.

  Vonda. Not a name I’d come across before. It suited her, sort of, although she’d always be Vondie to me.

  “When you say she’s one of yours, does that mean she was on an assignment of some kind?” Sean asked, picking his words to be as neutral as possible.

  Collingwood winced, as if he’d been hoping for something more reassuring than that. Or at least something different. There was a light sheen of sweat coating his forehead. “Not exactly,” he said. “She’s been on leave for the last couple of weeks. Look, can you at least tell me if she’s still alive or—”

  “She was when that picture was taken,” I said, taking pity on his patent distress.

  “Well, thank the good Lord for that,” he said, slumping back in his chair, hands dangling. “That shot came down the wire and we thought … I thought …” He stopped, shook his head and added, almost to himself, “Whatever she’s gotten herself into, she didn’t deserve—”

  “Just what has she gotten herself into, Mr. Collingwood?” Parker asked, still in that dangerously quiet tone.

  “Hm?” Collingwood looked up, distracted, and Parker had to repeat his question. “Well, I can’t go into details—you understand—but we suspect that Miss Blaylock has been doing a little, ah, freelancing, put it that way. Either on the company dime, or on her own. I had a conversation with her about it, gave her the opportunity to come clean.” He looked at the photo again. “She didn’t take it—just put in for vacation time. An internal inquiry was scheduled for when she got back at the start of
this week, but she never showed, and all our attempts to locate her have failed—until that arrived.” He jerked his head to the photo. “What happened to her?”

  I did.

  Rejecting brutal honesty, I said, “She took part in a scheme to blackmail my father, Richard Foxcroft, by kidnapping my mother.” I was watching his face while I spoke to see if any of this was news to him. If it wasn’t, he gave a pretty convincing display of bewildered consternation. “In England,” I added, as though that made it so much worse.

  “Are you sure about this?” He looked blankly around us, as if we were all going to crack up and admit that we were joking. “I mean, ah, how reliable is your intel?”

  “Very,” I said. “By the time we arrived to, ah, remedy the situation,” I went on, matching my style of delivery to his, “your Miss Blaylock was pretty well dug in and prepared to repel boarders. How else do you think she ended up with her nose splattered all over her face?”

  Collingwood wiped a thoughtful hand across his chin and I heard the slight rasp of his fingers against the stubble. The guy had a few tufts of body hair protruding from the ends of his shirt cuffs and just below his Adam’s apple, too. He must have had to shave twice a day just to stop people calling out Animal Control.

  “So you took the picture,” he said. “I did,” Sean said. He shrugged, untainted by guilt of any kind. “We wanted to know who she was and who she was working for, and she wasn’t keen to tell us.”

  “So all you did was ask, huh?” Collingwood demanded with outright suspicion. “No rough stuff?”

  “I may have raised my voice towards her,” Sean said blandly, carefully sidestepping what he’d done to her companion instead. “But the fight was over by then. And I’m hardly a torturer.”

  No, he wasn’t, I reflected, but he was a damned good interrogator. Cold, ruthless and utterly relentless. I’d been on the receiving end during my Special Forces training and, even though a part of me had always clung to the shrinking reality that it was all just a game, his innate menace and his aptitude for arrowing in on fear and weakness had terrified everyone who’d had to endure it.