An Affair of Vengeance

by Michele, Jamie

  Let them come. He’d rather know whom he faced than run from a ghost.

  He went back to his room and placed a call. “I need information on a waitress at La Banque.”

  “Name?” replied a thin male voice with a polished English accent.

  “Didn’t catch it.”

  “Useful. Picture?”

  “Get it from a security camera. Slim. Very short, no more than five two. Long, dark, curly hair. American, wearing a black skirt and white shirt. Might be CIA. I think she dropped a toothpick bug into my pocket.”

  “Girls are getting aggressive with you, are they?”

  McCrea clenched his teeth, in no mood for levity. “Just figure out who she is, Lamb. We’re too close to the end to screw around.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking. On that note, you’ll be pleased to hear that I have good news.”

  “What?”

  “HQ issued a decree today. Coordinated raids begin in a week.”

  “Bollocks,” McCrea grumbled. “A week?”

  “Too late? I know. We were ready months ago, but—”

  “Not too late. Too soon. What are they thinking?” McCrea paced to the bed. “Look, I’ve just got a line on Lukas Kral. Tell them to hold off.”

  “That’s dandy. They won’t.”

  “Get serious. If we don’t take out the man at the top, the whole bloody network will just reassemble itself once the raids are over. What does the boss say?”

  “It’s not entirely up to him, but he agrees with the plan. Look, things have changed since you were sent out. Treasury, SIS, everyone has their hands in this pot. This isn’t a solo mission, not anymore.”

  “Really? Last time I checked I was the only man in the field.”

  “You still are. But there are too many agencies involved. If we don’t act soon, someone’s going to whisper something to the wrong person and it’ll all slip away, and you right with it. I’m not just talking professionally, though really, you know your prospects are buggered if these arrests fall through. It’s your reputation at stake. Your future. And if one of your underworld friends gets wind of it, it’s your very life.”

  “I get it.”

  “Good.” Lamb sighed. “Boss was worried you’d argue.”

  “Argue?”

  “Yes. You’ve got nothing more to prove, you know. Not anymore. If these raids go down as planned, your reputation is secured.”

  “I was unaware of ever having anything to prove.”

  “No, it’s just,” Lamb paused, cleared his throat. “With your brother’s reputation, I thought that maybe you might feel like you needed to—”

  “Seven more days, eh?” McCrea interrupted, annoyed. He didn’t give two chits for his reputation. The mission wasn’t about proving himself. It was about doing everything he could to counteract the evil that his brother had spread through the world.

  “Seven days,” Lamb repeated. “You’re to behave normally, keep things cool. For God’s sake, don’t do anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Do you really need to tell me that?”

  “Don’t I?”

  McCrea ran his tongue over his teeth and clicked the phone off. Just one more week in this skin, and he could return to his life.

  Whatever that meant.

  Had he done enough? Had he dug out the cancer that Aaron had helped to metastasize? No. He hadn’t gotten to Kral. He hadn’t gotten to the root of the malevolence. After the raids, it would regrow like a weed, spreading its insidious tendrils into individuals, families, and communities. It would never stop, not unless he dug it out at its source. Then there would be peace, at least for a while. He could...

  He could what? He stared at his black-socked feet, gripped by uncertainty. What would he do after he finished the mission? Criminal Britain would be aflame with news of the SOCA rat who had invaded their nest—him. His name, his face, would be mud. He’d quite possibly be blown for undercover work, at least for a while. SOCA would still employ him, but he had no idea what sort of work he’d do. A desk job? Not for him. He knew they had agents who didn’t work undercover. He supposed that’d be his new role, too. Some kind of badged investigator.

  He’d have to find an ill-fitting suit.

  He laughed darkly at the idea, because somehow, he couldn’t see himself living straight. It didn’t feel right to him to wear a badge and bear the full authority of his position. He was a hybrid, part criminal, part cop, and only felt right doing exactly what he did, straddling two worlds. But once this case was publicized—and he hardly imagined that SOCA would keep the most important bust of the last ten years quiet—would he ever get the chance to do it again? Even if his name and picture were kept out of the press, word would get around the gangs. He’d have a bright red target on his back, should he ever attempt an undercover mission again.

  Maybe he should take time off. He hadn’t done that since he joined. He’d barely taken a weekend to himself in years. But he didn’t know where he’d go. To his semicomatose mother? She’d gotten released from Castle Craig a little while ago, apparently cured of her addictions, but her brain was too fried for her to survive on her own. He’d secured her a space in a nursing home outside of Inverness, far away from her husband, and covered her expenses, but he hadn’t had time to visit. Hadn’t made time. He hadn’t seen her since he joined SOCA. Years had gone by, and he’d not done more than write her caregivers a regular check.

  Now, contemplating meeting her face-to-face made him anxious. It made him feel like that stupid teenager who hadn’t gotten her help in time to save her. He knew from the quarterly updates that she still enjoyed watching television. Watching her stare blankly at a screen again would only remind him of how little room for improvement there was in her life and how badly he’d failed her.

  Could he go back to his old neighborhood in Glasgow, where he’d watched his childhood friends drop out of school to join violent street gangs, ending up dead, imprisoned, or so blackened by evil that they were hardly human anymore?

  Hardly. If any of them were left, they’d run him—a dirty snitch—out of town.

  No, he had no friends or family to go home to, and couldn’t quite see himself living a quiet, ordinary life anyhow. Grocery shopping and watching movies were a world apart from the one in which he lived. Standing in a queue and handing cash over to a shopkeeper for a basket of biscuits and crisps seemed all too normal. Surely the shopkeeper would have one hand on a cricket bat, just waiting for McCrea to make a move he didn’t like. Regular people shouldn’t feel comfortable around a man like him, a man who could put a knife to their throat in the blink of an eye. They’d see right through him and know him to be a hardened man.

  Good society would never let him back in, if he’d ever been allowed inside in the first place. He’d never make it in the real world, not now. Not after what he’d seen, and what he’d done. He’d just have to keep going, whatever happened. He’d request a new assignment immediately. Never stop. Never look back.

  He’d stay undercover forever—until it killed him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  EVANGELINE CHECKED HER watch as she sprinted down the subway escalator and into the belly of the underground. She’d worked her whole shift at La Banque—she had to maintain the appearance of normalcy—and should have been exhausted after so many hours on her feet, but all she felt was exhilaration and the sense that she’d made concrete progress by bugging the Scottish gangster.

  Now she only needed to find out where he’d gone. But Mason was in control of the information gathered by the toothpick bug. With any luck, he’d deem the information worth sharing, and she’d know the Scotsman’s whereabouts before the night was over.

  She reached the platform just as a white train screamed into the tunnel, pushing a welcome gust of air through the stagnant station. She spotted an empty car two from the back. She entered it and sat down on a smooth leather seat where she could see the doors, as a matter of habit. Stations passed without a single pass
enger boarding her lonely section. Then, three stops from her home, someone stepped into her car. A man in his early fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and bright blue eyes, he wore dark slacks, a wool overcoat, and a stern expression. Businessman personified. Like most of such people in Marseille, a wireless cell-phone headset clung to his ear like a black plastic caterpillar. He sat down with impeccable posture a few rows away from her, pulled out a newspaper, and began to read the financial page.

  She straightened in her seat. “Tell me you’ve been tracking the pick.”

  “Protocol, please.”

  She ran her tongue over her teeth but fished her wireless cell phone earpiece out of her bag. She slipped it over her ear so that if someone noticed that they were both talking, it might reasonably look like they were each talking on their respective phones. They were completely alone in a sealed vehicle, so it was a silly farce, though not worth arguing over.

  “Better?”

  “Yes. And of course I’m tracking it. Your call was anything but subtle. And now I’d like to know to whom you’ve gifted such a valuable piece of equipment.”

  “I had the button, the lip gloss, and the pick to choose from. He was fiddling with a pick when I first saw him. If he finds it, he’ll only think it’s one of his. He’ll toss it without a second thought. We can pick it up once it stops moving.”

  “The signal has stagnated.”

  “So he’s gone to ground for the night. It’s late. He’s probably asleep. Where did he go?”

  “Who is he?”

  She wanted information, but Mason never gave anything away for free. “A Scottish man named McCrea who met with Serge Penard tonight in La Banque’s most private room.”

  Mason flipped a page of his newspaper, seemingly engrossed in it. “And they discussed?”

  “I didn’t hear their whole conversation. Mostly the end, after McCrea pulled a knife on Penard. Penard gave him a new contact: Ménellier. It sounds like McCrea is going to Ménellier for something big. Penard couldn’t supply it, so it’s more than the usual crates of Chinese rifles and Afghan hash.”

  Mason didn’t respond, merely kept reading his paper. Their late-night debriefings often ended in such a manner, with him abruptly ignoring her and her exiting at the stop nearest her apartment, where she’d write up her official report and wait for official orders. But this was her first real chance at chasing Kral. She couldn’t let this go so easily.

  “I need to stay on McCrea to find out what he’s buying,” she pressed. “It could be anything. The British government will need to know that one of their citizens is sourcing something large from Ménellier, probably for import. I know you need to run this through HQ, but we have to fast-track this. I’m sure McCrea will meet with Ménellier tomorrow. We need to be there when he does.”

  He glanced sidelong at her and then looked back at his paper. “It is not our job to worry about the Brits. They have their own intelligence collection agencies. If they wanted to know what this McCrea person was up to, they’d have their own sources placed to find out.”

  True. For better or for worse, the CIA wasn’t keen on sharing intel with other nations, even friendly ones like the United Kingdom. But that wasn’t really why she wanted to spy on McCrea. She’d have to play her last card to make Mason believe in the new direction she wanted to take the mission. Doing so would expose her hand, but she saw no alternative.

  The train slowed as it neared a station. Doors swept open, admitting no new passengers. She waited impatiently until the train was once again humming and rocking along the tracks. Breathing deeply, she said, “Penard indicated that Ménellier works for Lukas Kral.”

  Mason’s eyebrows flickered, just a bit. He was intrigued, then. Good.

  She kept talking. “I know that Ménellier and Kral are suspected of working together to bring illegal goods into Europe, but this could be our first chance to prove it.”

  “The administration has no desire to prove it.”

  She knew that already. “The administration may not have all the facts. If we can bring the director hard evidence of Kral’s culpability in the illegal transport of high-powered weaponry into Europe, our relationship with the British would compel him to stop treating Kral like a friend and initiate a federal investigation into his activities as they pertain to the United States.”

  “The president has more facts than you realize, and his facts lead him to believe that Lukas Kral is worth more to us free than imprisoned.” Mason shifted forward in his seat and made brief eye contact with her. Then he looked away again, back to his newspaper, this time to study the sports section. “You’d be wise to remember that the Agency is in the business of avoiding federal investigations, not initiating them.”

  His tone gave away nothing, but his face wasn’t perfectly impassive. Between his eyes ran a trace of a line, the thinnest thread of emotion.

  “Where did McCrea go?” she asked again, sensing that Mason was softening.

  “A hotel.”

  She withheld any indication of victory, but she had a pilot hole established. She just had to keep drilling. “I can track him. I’ll sit outside his hotel until he shows his face, and I’ll follow him to the meet. Disguised. You know I’m good at that. Best in my class. Give me the chance.”

  Mason eyed her over his paper. “Why do you care so much?”

  Her answer came without thought. “Because he’s mine.”

  “Yours?”

  “My asset,” she clarified, sure that was what she’d meant. “My find. The best one I’ve had yet. And I’m not letting Langley sit on him.”

  He folded his newspaper and stood, curling one hand around a rounded steel rail as his body rocked with the motion of the train. His eyes shimmered aqua blue, like arctic ice. With otherwise unremarkable features, Mason was exactly the sort of indescribable, inconspicuous man that the Agency loves to recruit. Impossible to pick out of a crowd, he was the most inscrutable man she’d ever met. She had no idea what he was about to say.

  “Meet me in six hours at the storehouse. I’ll bring what you need. You’re going in.”

  Early the next morning, Evangeline lounged on a cream-colored sofa in the crystal-and-concrete lobby of the Metro Hotel. Razorsharp black bangs hung thickly in her eyes, and the rest of her naturally curly hair had been straightened and slicked into a very high ponytail. Very fashionable right now, or so the most current issue of Vogue had told her when she’d gone hunting for authentic details for her disguise that morning. As she gossiped in French to an open line on her cell phone, she applied a fresh coat of bright orange lipstick—the color of the moment, again according to Vogue. With an exaggerated look at the dangling silver watch on her left wrist, she sighed.

  Playing the part of a rich party girl waiting for her breakfast date couldn’t be further from the truth of what tumbled inside of her. Between the late return to her apartment, the hours of report writing, and the early planning session with Mason, she’d hardly gotten any sleep last night. Her nerves jangled from three cups of coffee, but she’d never felt sharper and more ready for a mission.

  Two bottle-blonde twentysomethings in sexy sundresses exited the glass-walled elevator and approached the couch where she sat. They dropped their bags and collapsed next to her, never halting their rapid conversation in slang-filled French. She picked up bits and pieces. Cheating boyfriends, new jeans. The usual concerns of spoiled girls, and easy enough to share. She caught the artificially green eyes of one and said something about how much she liked her Gucci handbag. The girl’s smile widened, and she let her examine it while exclaiming over Evangeline’s bag in return. Evangeline couldn’t care less about the oversized Prada satchel she’d received from Mason that morning, but she made sure the girl didn’t open it. The small case of burglary tools tucked in a side pocket would be hard to explain.

  Gleaming glass doors swung open and admitted a breath of spicy cologne, followed shortly thereafter by one of the most visually arresting men Evangeline ha
d ever seen. He was a sparkling specimen in pale linen whose long, jet-black hair was held in place by a simple golden knot. Thick but neatly groomed facial hair outlined his broad jaw. His imperious brown eyes glowered under heavy brows.

  She knew him on sight, although only from photographs. Cristobal Ménellier was a native Marseille boy made good—very good, judging by the flashy Rolex and gold jewelry dangling from his sleeve. He’d made his money as a street dealer, but his ruthless business savvy and uncanny ability to stay out of jail had helped him rise above the retail scene. He was a middleman now, higher up than Penard, and with his links to Kral, considerably more interesting.

  A flash of white by the stairs caught her eye. McCrea, dressed in khaki slacks and a white shirt, loped down the stairway that led to the guest rooms. His slim-cut pants showcased a pair of long, lean legs and narrow hips. He scanned the room, and his focus landed on Ménellier. A flicker of recognition contorted the Scotsman’s hard face as he changed course and walked into the lobby, toward Evangeline and her new friends. She continued her discussion with the local girls but let her voice fall conspiratorially, reducing her end of the prattle to exclamations and encouragements for them to continue their tales.

  “I believe we share an acquaintance?” McCrea’s low rumble was directed to Ménellier.

  Ménellier flashed straight, white teeth. “Serge is my brother-in-law. Calling him an acquaintance gives him far too much credit.”

  McCrea’s gaze swept over the three women on the couch.

  Evangeline leaned close to the girl nearest her, who had just recounted a tale of single-girl woe, and patted her leg affectionately. She thought they looked like three best friends and hoped McCrea thought the same. If he looked closely, she was sure he’d see her heartbeat pulsing in her throat.