Most of the guns Jill had gotten were the type of cheap, unreliable trash you could procure off of low-budget street punks. Reaper knew better quality illegal arms dealers around these parts, but they would know the Montalbans. Exodus had good equipment, but I didn’t like relying on others too much, and I knew the stuff I’d left here would run.
After the bank employee left me alone in the privacy room, I opened the safety deposit box with one of the keys from the ring I’d picked up in Russia. Smart crooks made copies of their keys and IDs to leave at other stashes in the same region. The whole point of a stash was using it when you didn’t have anything else, and getting a replacement key required prolonged conversations with bank managers who might remember you later.
A strong smell hit my nostrils. Cosmoline. I’d packed the guns in the oily sludge to prevent corrosion. I’d probably used way too much for a climate-controlled room, and it would be a pain in the ass to clean, but then again, I’d been pretty new at this business back then and a little overzealous at preventing rust. I’d come prepared now though, and took the latex surgical gloves out of my pocket before I lay the empty suitcase on the table. I didn’t want to get grease spots on my new clothes.
The biggest thing in the box was a Steyr TMP submachine gun. They’d quit making these back in the 90s and sold the design to a Swiss company later. Come to think of it, Carl had gotten popped with one of those. But this one had been a reliable piece. If the French cops ran ballistics tests on this one, they’d match up to a bunch of bullets pulled out of a gun runner and his goon squad in Toulon. Carl and I had done a little job for them, and afterwards they’d tried to aggressively renegotiate. It hadn’t gone well for them.
There were several thirty-round magazines stuck into a canvas chest rig I’d never worn because it was too big and obvious. The TMP had come with a suppressor when I’d bought it, but that can had been a piece of crap anyway and this was a terrible gun to silence. Anytime you shot it on full auto all the extra gas back pressure venting carbon in your face was enough to gag you, so I’d ditched the can. If I needed to shoot somebody without making a lot of noise, that was what the other gun I’d left in the safety deposit box was for.
I’d taken the .45 one off of a hitman sent to kill me once. I’d learned to shoot with Gideon Lorenzo’s old GI 1911. I’d always been fond of that style of pistol, so I’d kept this one. It had been a basic Springfield before some mystery gunsmith had done a lot of work to it. The giant C-More red dot sight mounted on it was obsolete—or retro, depending on how you looked at it—now, but back then it had been the hotness. Really, it just made it an impractical pain in the ass to conceal because the only holster I had in the box for it was a goofy nylon rig. Of course, when I checked the sight, the battery was long dead. I’d have to pick another up before I needed to shoot anybody. The suppressor for it was an old, original Gemtech. The tube was bulky and heavy by modern standards, but still pretty damned quiet. At least, nobody I’d ever popped with it had complained about the noise afterwards. Can and pistol went in the case too.
There was an envelope stuffed full of money, only it was francs and marks. Those were completely useless now. I didn’t even think I could trade them for euros anymore. It was a waste, but Reaper had brought lots of cash. Another envelope held IDs and passports. They were all expired and way out of date. I’d burn those, just to keep the number of pictures of me in circulation to a minimum. There was a little disguise kit, but the makeup was long since dried out, and besides all of those facial prosthetics were amateurish by my current standards.
I’d forgotten about the other manila envelope.
When I looked inside I saw a sealed plastic baggie with a single old Polaroid photograph inside. I shook it out far enough to study it. The picture was a group shot of my foster parents and all their kids, including me. I stuck out as the skinny dark one. Everybody else was bulky and super white. The Lorenzos were good people, the kind of family that kids who grew up like I did thought were a myth. The picture was cracked, yellowed with age, and water stained. This had been the one memento from my too brief, temporary home that I’d taken with me when I’d fled Texas. I’d carried that Polaroid in my kit the entire time I’d been with Switchblade. It wasn’t like I’d ever looked at it, but I’d carried it anyway. I couldn’t tell you why.
I’d put together this stash when I’d made the final jump from semi-illegitimate mercenary to full-on criminal. I wonder what it said about me that this was the place I’d finally left my old life behind. I studied the picture. Gideon Lorenzo had been a good man. He’d been a judge, but one of the rare ones who actually balanced justice with compassion and didn’t go too stupid one way or the other. Despite knowing my juvenile record, he’d taken me in after sentencing my real father to prison. Any understanding I had of mercy, decency, or honor had come from him. He’d hate that it was my avenging his murder that had put me on this path.
One nice thing about a privacy room was that nobody could hear the fool talking to himself. “Be good, Hector, you said. Well, dad, I tried to follow your advice,” I told Gideon’s image. “Okay. Eventually.” It had gotten me shot and imprisoned, but hell, who was I kidding? That didn’t mean he would have changed his advice one bit. There had been nothing flexible about Gideon’s principles.
I swear, he did look kind of proud of me in that picture though.
Then there was Bob standing next to me. Even though we were both teenagers there, I looked like a midget next to that man-mountain. Of course, I was the only one not smiling for the camera. I’d gone on to be a crook, and he’d become a cop. It was Bob’s quest to expose Majestic that had gotten him captured in the Crossroads.
“This is your fault, Bob.” Only that was bullshit. It was my involvement with Big Eddie that had introduced Bob to Valentine and the wealth of Majestic secrets he’d gotten from Hunter. Without me dragging him into that, Bob would have gone on as just another oblivious crusader, far beneath Majestic’s malicious notice. Bob had pulled the trigger, but I’d given him the ammo. I started to put the photo with the envelope back in the safety deposit box, but then I changed my mind and put it in the suitcase too.
The last thing in the box was a stainless steel knife . . . Man, this was turning into a regular trip down memory lane. It was the old, custom Italian switchblade I’d carried in Africa, not that I’d ever used it much. My working blade had been a surplus US Air Force combat knife. I’d never used this flimsy little decoration for anything more strenuous than opening a package. But because his merc company was named Switchblade, Decker had given his troops these as gifts. He talked a big game about brotherhood and loyalty, but the second he needed to spend our lives to accomplish a mission, he did it, and slept like a baby afterwards.
If Gideon Lorenzo had shown me how to be an actual human being, Adrian Decker had taught me how to be a merciless bastard who got things done.
I picked the knife up, slid the button forward, and the skinny blade popped out. Click. It made me smile. This was a toy compared to the folders I usually carried, with a locking mechanism that would probably break if I ever had to really go to town on somebody and hit a bone. I tested it with my thumb. It still held a good edge. What the hell, I was feeling sentimental and would never be coming back here again, so I closed the blade and stuck it in my pocket.
Suitcase full of useful implements of destruction, I left the bank. Valentine had cooked up a scheme, and I was going to tag along and make sure he didn’t screw it up.
VALENTINE
Paris
September 20th
It took a couple of days for Eloise to set everything up. I had been afraid that she’d want to back out, or would just bolt, but with reassurances from me and daily cash payments from Tailor, we kept her on board with the plan. She contacted Mertens and gave him some story about how a client had cancelled on her, freeing up her entire weekend. He—quite understandably in my opinion—took her up on her offer. We dealt with the rest.
I was standing in the rain on a busy street beneath an umbrella, waiting for Tailor to pick me up, talking on the phone Reaper had given me to stay in contact with Lorenzo. That was one of the three phones I had to carry now. This spy stuff was complicated. The umbrella wasn’t really that necessary, but it kept my face off any security cameras that might be around here.
Unbeknownst to Tailor, I was keeping Lorenzo in the loop. He was desperate to get his hands on any of Katarina Montalban’s people, and he was probably better at this sort of information extraction than anyone on my ragtag team, so he could have Mertens. Part of my decision there was that I was still worried that Lorenzo was going to go off half-cocked and expose us all if he got impatient. Sala Jihan had messed him up, and my gut was telling me that Lorenzo was one setback away from going on a rampage. Regardless, there was no way we could get any information out of him and then let him go. He’d tip off Kat, and we’d lose her. It was cold, but having Lorenzo dispose of Mertens was easier. Also, despite what you see in the movies, it is hard to get rid of a body in a major city without getting found out.
Tailor knew I had my people, but he was under the assumption they were all Exodus personnel. The last time he’d encountered Lorenzo was in Zubara, where Lorenzo’s partner had whanged Tailor on the head with a shovel. Tailor didn’t know about Quagmire, St. Carl, or the Crossroads, and I wasn’t ready to explain it all to him. It was just simpler this way.
“You have everything you need?” Lorenzo asked.
“I think so. We’re waiting for a message from our girl. She thinks he’s in Vaugirard, but didn’t have his exact address yet.”
“I know it. Nicer residential area, some good bakeries. You need to keep control of the situation. Things go wrong, it’s not like it is in the slums. The cops will be there in a hurry, especially if there’s gunfire. Don’t shoot anybody.”
“Fine, Mom, I’ll try not to shoot anybody.”
“This isn’t a game. Don’t fuck this up. I’ve watched you work for a long time. Catching people really isn’t something you’re good at.”
I chuckled. “We caught you that one time.”
Lorenzo didn’t have an immediate answer to that. He just breathed through his nose a couple of times, angrily. “You had a small army and I still had to break into you oblivious bastards’ fort. Just stick to the plan, Valentine.”
“Are you sure Kat won’t get spooked once this asshole disappears?” It didn’t help that Lorenzo had already left a bloody trail of dead Montalban toadies across half of Europe. She had to know someone was gunning for her.
“She won’t run. I know her. She’s too territorial. Push her here and her instinct will be to push back. She’s going to be well protected, and she’ll be confident that nobody can get to her. She’ll already be on alert, but if we get good info from Mertens, something actionable, it might not matter. Either way it’s the best shot we’ve got.”
“You’re not wrong,” I agreed. Tailor pulled up, this time in a different black rental sedan that probably had no connection to his employer’s expense accounts. “I gotta go. I’ll call you when it’s done.”
“Do not fuck this up,” Lorenzo repeated.
“I love you too,” I said as I got into the passenger seat.
“Was that Ling?” Tailor asked. “You guys are pretty serious then, huh?”
“Huh? Yeah, we’re pretty serious.”
“I just got a confirmation from Eloise. The appointment is on. She’s supposed to be at his flat at nine-thirty. I got the address.”
“You tell her to split?”
“No, we need her to get us to the door without spooking him. She agreed. She doesn’t seem as scared now. This might actually work.”
“I sure as hell hope so. Text me the address. I’ll relay it to Ling, tell them to start getting ready. We’ve only got a couple hours.”
Darkness fell over the City of Lights as Tailor and I drove down a quiet street in Vaugirard. It was a nice, middle-class area, free from most of the commotion that had rocked the city recently. The streets were tight, with little cars crammed into every space they could possibly be parked in. Apartment buildings lined both sides of the street, built into one another so as to make me feel like we were driving down a narrow canyon.
A few cars ahead of us was a nondescript blue Renault Clio, Eloise’s car. I was sure she made enough money to afford something nicer, but that particular model was one of the most popular cars in France. For a professional who valued discretion, using a common car, even if it wasn’t fancy, made a lot of sense. In Tailor’s Audi we followed from a safe distance, keeping a few cars in between us when we could. I received a text that Shen and Antoine were in our Sprinter van, approaching our destination from a different direction. They would cover the back of the apartment in case our target bolted. Ling and Skunky were in another vehicle ready to fill any gaps or to provide extraction.
“Not too many people out,” Tailor said, scanning the sidewalks. The rain had turned to a thunderstorm and it was keeping people indoors. The wipers were keeping a steady beat. He even had to turn on the defroster because we were fogging up the glass. “This is good.”
“Once we bag him, I’ll have my people bring the van up and we’ll toss him in. If any lookie-loos show up just flash your badge and tell them to move along.”
“Then we’ll take him to meet my people and hand him off.” Tailor was still under the impression we were going to drive Georges across town, to meet with some of his own people.
“Right,” I lied, not missing a beat. I was hoping he wouldn’t be too mad when he found out I had no intention of doing that. He was my friend and my former partner, but I didn’t trust his employers, and I wasn’t giving Romefeller our sole lead. Giving him to Lorenzo kept Tailor’s hands clean, and by extension his employers’, which seemed really important to them. Tailor would be pissed at me, but he would just have to deal with it.
I watched the GPS’ screen. “We’re almost there.”
“This brings back memories, huh?” Tailor asked, after a moment.
“What do you mean?”
“Zubara, man. Think about it. We’re rolling down a street in a major city, trying not to get noticed, planning on snagging some asshole to drag him back for interrogation.”
“Hopefully without getting our asses shot off or bringing the cops down on us. Yeah, this all feels familiar.”
“Right? You nervous?”
“A little,” I admitted, but that was mostly because I was lying to Tailor about what we were going to do with our target once we grabbed him. “There’s a lot that can go wrong.”
“Stop being so negative, Val. We’ll be fine.”
I chuckled. “You sure about that?”
“Always remember, I am never wrong.”
We were prepared just in case. We didn’t have long guns, but my team in the van did. My big .44 was riding under my right arm in a vertical shoulder holster. I was wearing a concealable soft armor vest under my jacket, which wouldn’t stop rifle bullets but would protect me from anything less than that. I was also packing a CZ-75BD 9mm pistol on my left hip, with a couple of spare magazines. The barrel was threaded and I had a sound suppressor for it hidden in my jacket pocket. I didn’t ask, but I was sure Tailor was packing too.
“Alright, she’s parking,” Tailor said. I watched as Eloise found an open space and pulled into it, parallel parking like a pro. Unfortunately, there was nowhere for us to leave our car. “Shit, I can’t see another open space.”
“Let me out,” I said. “We’ve got comms. I’ll keep eyes on her. My team is in position.” I opened the door as Tailor came to a stop. “You find a place to park and get your ass back over here.”
“Got it,” Tailor said, before he drove off and left me there alone. I immediately realized I’d left my umbrella in the car, and the rain was cold.
I scanned the street as I made my way up the sidewalk, walking with my hands in my jacket pockets and my head down,
hoping my baseball cap would hide my face from any high-mounted security cameras. There were very few other pedestrians out that I could see, and only the occasional car drove past.
Eloise was waiting for me near the door of the apartment building. She wore a long coat that came down to her knees, undoubtedly over some classy but too-tight dress. “Where is your partner?”
“Parking.” I touched the mic on my neck. “Where the hell are you?” Far down the sidewalk, a pair of policemen rounded a corner and turned up the street, headed my way. Shit.
He sounded exasperated. “I’m stuck at a light!”
“I don’t like this waiting out here,” Eloise said. “He is expecting me. He will become suspicious.”
“Tailor, I can’t wait, man,” I turned away so Eloise wouldn’t hear what I said next. “I’m too exposed out here. There are cops coming.”
“What? Why?”
“Routine patrol, I don’t know.” They might not even give me a second glance, but a foreigner standing around in the rain in a residential area was suspicious, but worse, if the cops stopped to talk to me, it would be obvious to Eloise that I wasn’t the law. And I still needed her to get inside. “Look, I can’t stay here. I’m going in with the girl.”
“Val, just wait, damn it!” Tailor argued. “Give me a minute.”
I made my decision. “Eloise, how do you get into the building?”
“He is in flat number 3B. But the door is locked. He has to, how do you say, buzz us in.”
“Right. Tailor, apartment 3B. The lobby door is glass. Just smash it if it’s an emergency. I’m taking her up.” I let go of my throat mic and looked at Eloise. “Let him know you’re here.”
“As you wish,” Eloise said, more calmly than before. She pulled out her phone and sent a text message. A few seconds later, the door unlocked with a loud click. I held the door open for her then followed her in.
Alliance of Shadows (Dead Six Series Book 3) Page 18