“No,” Wayne said. “Thanks. I’ve already got that. I’ll, uh, see you later.”
Patty turned back to Jules and Jack.
And Robin.
“. . . don’t suppose you harbor some secret desire to become a movie star,” Robin was saying to Jules, who was laughing and shaking his head.
“No, I’m happy right here on the sidelines, thanks,” the FBI agent said.
“Oh, come on.” Robin teased him the way he teased everyone. “You can’t tell me—a guy with a face like yours—that there’s not this part of you that doesn’t look into the mirror and think ‘I could be the next James Van Der Beek’—you know, thirty-something and still playing a teenager?”
“Yeah,” Jules said, “thanks, but no thanks. My days playing a teenager are over. I did a number of undercover assignments, going into high schools, dealing with gangs. I just . . .” He laughed again. “No thank you.”
“I’m not saying you have to play a teenager,” Robin said. “Just that you could. It gives you range in terms of roles, you know?” He sighed. “It’s just we’re still looking for someone to play Jack and . . .” He turned to Patty. “Don’t you think it’s uncanny?”
She had no clue what he was talking about. Of course, anytime he got this close, all words—all thoughts—left her.
“Look at them,” he continued. “Am I nuts or am I nuts?”
Patty didn’t know what to say. But he was Robin—he didn’t need agreement or acknowledgment or even confirmation that she’d heard him. Once he was running with something, he just kept going.
“Jack, my man,” he said, “tell the secret agent here how overwhelmingly fun it is to make a movie.”
“I do see what you’re talking about,” the elderly man replied. “But it takes more than a pretty face to make an actor. You, darling, more than most, should know that.”
At last there was something she could say—a way to participate in this bizarre conversation. “Mr. Cassidy knows about making movies—he’s been on set before,” she told Robin. “His roommate is an actor.”
“Was,” Jules corrected, adding, “Not that he’s not still an actor, because he is. We just no longer, um, live together.”
“Come on, Patricia,” Robin said. “Back me up here, baby. Don’t you think Jules would make a perfect Jack? Haven’t you seen those portraits of him in uniform? Jack, I mean.”
Understanding dawned. Oh, dear. “I guess there’s a slight resemblance,” she said, unwilling to contradict Robin, even though she didn’t see it at all. Although, okay, yes, both men were compact and trim—short, in blunt non-Hollywood-speak. But Jack was effeminate and Jules was hot.
He was also a high-ranking federal agent.
“Your sister called and asked me to meet her here.” Jules now changed the subject. “Any idea what that’s about?”
Robin shook his head. “It could be anything from letting you know that she had four hours free last night, so she flew to Idaho and personally took out the leader of the Freedom Network, so thanks, she won’t need your assistance anymore, to maybe she noticed your uncanny resemblance to our Jack so she’s drawn up a contract and filled out your SAG application for you, or—”
“Places!” came the call.
“Gotta run,” Robin said. He shook hands with Jules again. “Think about it. As Jack, you’d get to do a big-screen kiss with me. How’s that for enticement?”
He waggled his eyebrows at the FBI agent while, aghast and amused, Patty exclaimed, “Robin!”
Fortunately Jules Cassidy had a sense of humor—he was laughing.
Robin turned to face her, walking backward, away from them. “You’re coming back to the office later, right? For the dailies?”
“If you want me to.” She ran to catch up with him.
“I want,” he said, and the heat in his eyes sent her heart into triple time again. He leaned closer to her and lowered his voice. “I have to talk to you, baby. Privately.” He laughed softly, ruefully. “Which is going to be ridiculously hard with Janey breathing down my neck.”
“Maybe,” she said, and her voice came out little more than a whisper. She had to clear her throat. “Maybe you could come over to my place? I mean, later tonight?”
He made a sound, as if he were in serious pain. “God, baby,” he said. “You’re killing me. I don’t think that’s a very good idea . . .”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Patty whispered. “My place, at eight.”
He didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no, either. And then she had to turn away, hurrying toward the door as she saw Jane and her bodyguards enter. She could feel Robin’s eyes on her all the way across the room, and she knew he’d be there.
Patty laughed aloud at her amazing good fortune.
“What’s with the TV crews in the parking lot?” PJ Prescott asked Decker as he joined the team already gathered in the studio.
Cosmo was just a few steps behind him, and Deck waited for the SEAL chief to move close enough before he gave his response. “Ms. Chadwick’s giving a press conference in just a few minutes.”
Cosmo was unflappable as usual, but PJ’s eyebrows rose. Deck himself had to shake his head at the absurdity of the words that had just left his mouth.
Nearly all the ops he’d ever been on had been covert assignments. First for the Navy SEALs, then for the Agency, and now for Troubleshooters Incorporated, almost all of his deployments had been quiet ones. As in no fireworks or twenty-one-gun salutes to celebrate going wheels up; no ticker tape parade upon return home. And no talking about where he was going or where he’d been to anyone, not even to his live-in girlfriend—back when he’d had a live-in girlfriend. Forget about holding a press conference.
But this was Hollywood. Tom Paoletti had warned Deck that this job might be a little different. Mercedes Chadwick was high profile. In fact, she actively sought the limelight.
The traditional response to receiving a death threat was to lie low. The average threatee went into hiding. Very few people sent out press releases about it the way Mercedes had done.
“It must be a slow news day,” Murphy commented. The former Marine was sitting on some kind of packing crate next to Dave and Lindsey, the seventh and eighth members of Deck’s team. Dave Malkoff was former CIA—enough said. And at barely five feet tall, with her timid-seeming, nearly constant smile, Lindsey Fontaine looked to be the least likely bodyguard in the entire history of personal security. But her seven very productive years with the LAPD proved that looks could deceive.
“This really going to happen outside?” Cosmo asked.
“Yeah,” Decker said shortly. “Believe me, I advised against it. . . .” He shook his head again.
He’d advised against having a press conference today, period, let alone holding it anywhere but indoors. But apparently bringing the reporters inside would disrupt the movie’s shooting schedule. And, also apparently, keeping to the schedule, as well as promoting this movie, were more important than a lot of things. Such as remaining not dead.
He’d urged Mercedes to give them more time to set this up. With a little advance notice, they could have done this in a way that guaranteed her safety. They could have requested a list of names of attending reporters from the various news agencies, run a security check on the individuals, set up metal detectors, searched all the equipment being brought in to a safe, secure, locked-down location . . .
She’d laughed and laughed. A list of names? For a press conference? Apparently the idea wasn’t just to catch the news editors’ attention with a fresh, different story, but to make it as easy and enticing as possible for the reporters to attend—not time-consuming and difficult. Because, gee, that lighthearted story about the baboon and the llama that appeared to have fallen in love over on the set of Doctor Dolittle Part Seventeen would suddenly seem pretty interesting, especially since it wouldn’t take four hours of equipment searches to gather enough footage for a fifteen-second sound bite on the evening news.
&nbs
p; Did Decker know how many movies were in production in this town right this very minute, all sending out press releases? Mercedes had asked him. Did he have a clue exactly how many production companies were vying for the media’s attention, dying to create some early buzz about their project?
Apparently he did not.
They’d come to a compromise by erecting a tent just outside the studio door.
It was not the best setup, but it wasn’t the worst, either. They’d be surrounded on three sides by the big, warehouselike windowless soundstages, and by a narrow parking lot on the fourth. With the tent overhead and several team members stationed on the roof, there was virtually no threat from a sniper. As for short-range attacks, everyone on the studio lot had to pass through the main gate and get checked in.
It didn’t mean an assault couldn’t happen. But it was far less likely.
“Sunglasses on,” Decker told his team. “If you get asked a question by a reporter—any question at all, including, ‘Is the sky blue?’—your answer is ‘No comment.’ Is that understood?”
He waited for a murmured acknowledgment from them all before he continued. “Radio-up, but let’s keep the on-air chatter to an absolute minimum.”
“Jesus,” Dave said, his voice filled with wonder.
He was staring across the cavernous room, and Decker turned to see what had captured his attention so completely.
Mercedes Chadwick was walking toward them like a queen with her entourage behind her. The blond college girl with the clipboard trailed behind FBI agent Jules Cassidy, who followed Bailey and Nash, the last two members of the Troubleshooters team to arrive. Good. They were all here. They could get this over with.
“Jesus,” Dave said again, his glasses all but fogging up. “Is that . . . ?”
Ah, yes, Dave hadn’t yet met the client.
“That’s her,” Decker said.
She was crossing the enormous soundstage, with her miles of legs and her shiny, bouncing brown hair down loose around her shoulders in artful disarray.
Lips fully glossed, makeup applied to feature her exotic eyes and perfect, smooth skin, Mercedes was dressed in an updated version of the pin-striped suits Decker’s great-uncle used to wear when he worked at the bank, but in place of trousers, she wore a skirt. At least he thought it was a skirt. It may have been a headband.
Her jacket was tailored to accentuate her very female form. Although it covered her belly button ring, it was held together in front by a single button set nearly at her waist, giving the jacket a deep V neckline.
Unlike Uncle Lloyd, Mercedes Chadwick was not wearing a crisply starched white shirt beneath her jacket. In fact, as far as Decker could tell, she was not wearing anything beneath her jacket at all.
Decker knew it was impossible for someone to move in classic movie slo-mo, but somehow this woman managed to imitate the effect. Not only that, but there was a nearly palpable wake of pheromones trailing behind her.
Beside him, Dave had managed to close his mouth.
The entire team had fallen silent as they’d put on their radios—miniature earpieces and tiny wireless microphones that attached to their shirts. There was none of the usual chatter or even “Testing one-two-three.” For several brief moments, Decker could have sworn that Cosmo, one of the quietest and the least likely of all the men that he’d ever met to break into song, was actually humming a vaguely familiar melody under his breath. Was it that old Sly tune, “Dance to the Music”?
“Wow,” whispered Lindsey, who hadn’t met Mercedes yet, either. “She’s tall.”
Yeah, right. They were all standing there marveling at the woman’s impressive height.
“Deck, hi!” Mercedes said in her musical voice. She could do sincere really well. So many other Hollywood types pushed too hard, overacted, and ended up fawning. She sounded genuinely pleased to see him. “Thanks so much—all of you—for coming out here this afternoon.”
She held out her hand, and Decker shook it, and then he was marveling at her height, because she was towering over him. She hadn’t been this tall yesterday, had she?
Decker shook Cassidy’s hand, too, then introduced them both to Dave and Lindsey. He started in on the names of the rest of the team, but Mercedes cut him off. She remembered everyone without any prompting, making a point to shake their hands.
Each time she leaned forward, her jacket was on the verge of gapping. If she leaned just a little farther . . . Nope, not quite.
It was totally inappropriate and absolutely riveting, and Decker realized that that was the movie producer’s intention. Her outfit, including her fourinch heels—height mystery solved—was designed to draw and hold attention. No doubt she knew exactly how far—to the millimeter—she could move before exposing herself to the world. She wasn’t going to let that happen, but most people wouldn’t realize it, and all eyes would remain on her, waiting, hoping . . .
He had to admire her for her understanding of human nature—as well as her ability to manipulate the system to her advantage. It didn’t make him any less annoyed about the press conference, but it did drive home the differences between the two worlds in which they were used to operating.
“You weren’t able to talk her out of this, either, huh?”
Deck turned to see that Jules Cassidy, the agent in charge of the FBI’s investigation—the gay AIC; how had that happened?—had come to stand beside him. “No.”
“I don’t think it’s likely there’ll be trouble,” Cassidy said, his gaze on Mercedes, too. He glanced at Deck. “Do you want to field any questions about security procedures, or should I?”
“You can,” Deck told him, “as long as your answer is ‘No fucking comment.’ ”
Cassidy smiled. “I’ll be a little more diplomatic, but, yeah, that’ll be the gist of it.”
“Then be my guest,” Deck said.
“Do I make you uncomfortable, Chief?” Cassidy asked—just whammo, balls out, point-blank—and no doubt calling Deck by his former military rank on purpose.
“Yes, but I’ll get over it,” Decker told him, because, yeah, as uncomfortable as he was with the idea of . . . Jesus . . . he’d liked what he’d seen of the guy’s easygoing leadership skills so far. And how many times had he worked with an FBI agent who actually listened to outside input the way Cassidy did?
The expression that flashed over the other man’s face made Deck realize that the honest answer he’d given was not one Cassidy heard all that often.
“Good,” Cassidy said with a nod. “Excuse me.” He turned away to take a phone call. He didn’t thank Decker for giving him the respect that should have been his by right.
Which made Deck like him even more.
He turned away from Cassidy and back to Mercedes, who had ended up next to Cosmo. As Deck watched, she smiled up at the SEAL, leaning close as she clasped his hand and asked with what sounded like warm sincerity, “How’s your mom?”
Cos, whose resting heart rate probably clocked in at about 22, gazed back at her expressionlessly as she added, “I was talking to Tess today and she said your mother broke her wrists—both of them? My God . . .”
He finally nodded. “Yeah,” he said, providing no further details as he took back his hand. It was pretty obvious that he didn’t think her worthy of the effort required to have a full conversation. “She’s improving, thanks.”
But Mercedes didn’t seem to notice. “I’m so glad.” She turned to look at Decker. “Are we ready to go?” But then she turned back to Cos. “You’ll be close to me, right? When we go out there?”
Deck stepped forward and answered for him. “Actually, out of all of us, Richter is best positioned toward the back.” The SEAL was on leave, and the Navy really couldn’t tell him what to do on vacation, but Team Sixteen had a new commanding officer. Deck knew from experience that the last thing Cosmo would want was to piss off the top brass by appearing in a picture on the front of USA Today.
“Oh.” She caught her lower lip between her tee
th. “We can’t cancel this, and we can’t move it inside, so don’t suggest it, but . . . I’m really nervous. I didn’t think I would be, and . . .”
On the other hand, in any pictures taken, even if he was in the front, Cosmo would be one of a group. With his sunglasses on, he’d be unidentifiable.
“I know this sounds crazy,” Mercedes said, “but . . .”
It wasn’t crazy at all. When it came to protecting someone who’d received a death threat, there were all kinds of psychological elements in play. It was important to remember that the person being protected had been thrust into a strange, new, extremely dangerous and frightening world. They coped with that in a myriad of ways, some of which could seem irrational or even nonsensical.
Troubleshooters 09 Hot Target Page 10