“It is not your way to rush into things, Lorenzo,” Ling said. “You were uncomfortable moving on North Gap on short notice. Why strike so quickly this time?”
That was fair. Ling thought my stay with Sala Jihan had put me off my game. My blitz attack in Salzburg hadn’t been particularly well thought out. I could say something about her being unreliable for emotional reasons too, but then Jill would kill me for blabbing their secret.
“I think Stokes has Bob.”
That got their attention. Ling, Shen, and Antoine exchanged glances. Her old team knew my brother from his search for Anders in the Crossroads, and there had been some mutual respect there. It had been Bob who’d coerced Ling into roping me into this mess to begin with. Valentine met my gaze and nodded. He knew Bob better than anyone here but me. He got it. I didn’t know the American nicknamed Skunky at all, but I figured if I could convince Valentine, the rest would follow his lead. The weird little blonde girl . . . with her, I had no idea.
“What makes you think he’s holding your brother?” the girl asked.
“From what Reaper has been able to dig up last night, Stokes was British Army before he got a dishonorable discharge for doing some things of questionable legality in Afghanistan. His background got him a job doing freelance work for some shady parties.”
“Valentine knows about that kind of thing,” Skunky said.
“I got an honorable discharge. I just wasn’t allowed to reenlist. Huge difference,” Valentine said. “I’m guessing Stokes’ particular set of skills are what set you off?”
Exodus didn’t need to know that it was his breaking Jill’s ribs back in London that had caused me to sic Reaper on him. The clues Reaper had found were legit, so I didn’t want Exodus thinking I was flying off half-cocked because of a personal vendetta.
“His official training was in interrogation and prisoner handling, but now that he’s in the private sector Mr. Stokes specializes in kidnapping people for corporate espionage purposes and then holding them for ransom. Basically, freelance rendition on behalf of people who are probably on your buddy Romefeller’s Christmas card list.”
“Snatch a target and send him somewhere the authorities don’t know about while you torture the hell out of them.” Valentine sounded a little bitter, but he’d been on both sides of that equation. “Majestic has places like North Gap. I suppose it makes sense the other side has similar resources.”
“So this Stokes is the perfect sort to keep a dangerous prisoner in one piece,” Antoine mused, “until it is time to use him as their scapegoat.”
I held up one hand and began to tick off my reasons for thinking he was our connection. “The Montalbans are paying him for something. Paris isn’t Stokes’ normal AO. Jill saw him meeting with Kat in London a few weeks before Varga moved Bob to Paris. One day after that meeting, a shell corporation controlled by Stokes purchased a big, isolated property north of the city. He’s got to be our guy, and this,” I held up a printout of the old real estate listing, “has got to be our location.”
Valentine took the picture. “Is that a castle?”
“Technically, it’s a chateau. Think of it as a mini-castle, without all those bothersome tourists taking pictures, and no neighbors to hear your prisoner get uppity.”
“It sounds plausible,” Ling stated. “Assuming your brother is still alive.”
“Did Bob strike you as a quitter, Ling?”
“No. He did not.”
Shen spoke up. “I saw Stokes had a bodyguard. Do we know how many other men he has?”
“This ain’t Mexico,” Skunky responded. “Down there you could flash your guard force patrolling the grounds, sporting machine guns and wearing armor. This here is a civilized country, so they won’t show us their hand easily. Their protection will be hidden, and hard to scout out.”
“If this is basically an Illuminati black site, there will be many guards and an excellent security system,” Antoine said.
“That’s pessimistic,” Skunky said.
“Realistic. You have not met Lorenzo’s brother. He was an American Green Beret, and he is my size. Would you go into a cell with someone like that without help?”
“As big as you are, Antoine, I’d bring my whole family and extra batteries for the Tasers.” Skunky laughed as he pulled over the map Reaper had printed of area around the chateau. I’d marked the boundaries with a highlighter. “Plus, I bet the Montalbans beefed up security after Val choked their boss. This is a nice area, but it’s not too far from other known Montalban turf. They’ll call for help as soon as we hit it. How fast can we get out? Assuming we can get in there before they kill the hostage, what shape do you think he’ll be in?”
“Bad,” Valentine and I answered at the same time. He gave me a knowing look. We both understood how rotten being locked up could be. I’d gone old school, basically medieval, and Valentine had been subjected to one continuous drug-addled sci-fi mind-fuck. I’m guessing either of us would laugh at a stint in a normal prison system, not that there was much danger of that, because if we got caught we’d get disappeared long before any trial.
“Perhaps not,” Ling said. “If they’ve kept him around in order to kill him at the scene and frame him as the rogue Majestic operative, it will raise too many questions if he has been tortured or if there are traces of suspicious drugs in his system. His captivity may have been far easier than yours was.”
I gave her a grim smile. I could tell Ling was just saying that for my benefit.
“Assuming they don’t simply set him on fire or something like that, so the police can only identify him by his dental records.” Antoine stopped speaking when he saw me frowning at him. “Or what Ling said. That’s more likely.”
“It’s fine.” By my standards these Exodus types were all optimists. Thinking you could actually make the world a better place had that effect on people. “Bob might be messed up, but he’ll still be alive. Anders is smart. He was the last surviving Majestic operative that put Project Blue together. They were all so compartmentalized that his superiors don’t know that, though. He needs someone with Bob’s résumé, and he needs it to be unquestionable that Bob was the one recruited by Willis to do this mission. They’re going to use a nuke, so you know it isn’t going to be a half-assed investigation afterward. Bob’s death and frame-up will have to be really convincing.”
“Look, I’m not trying to be an ass here,” Skunky said, “but they could have killed him a while ago and got rid of the body, still pin it on him, and then say he escaped just as easily. He’s still on the news, only now he’s the subject of a worldwide manhunt instead of suspect dead at the scene.”
“They don’t need to convince the press or the public, that’s easy. But the Majestic leadership is tough. Kat wants to take over the Illuminati. She’s not going to want a war with Majestic. She’s going to want them thinking one of their own went rogue for the last couple of years and got killed in the act. Bob’s still alive. I know it.”
Skunky sighed and looked to Valentine and Ling. I was right. Ling was the official decision maker, but everybody here trusted Valentine’s opinion. “That’s a lot of risk without much preparation or intel based on a hunch.”
“The longer we hold off, the more likely we are to get compromised. Twenty million dollars in reward money between me and Valentine, and Paris is crawling with thugs now.”
“We need enough time to scope this place out, observe it, see who comes and goes, try to get a handle on what’s in there first.” Skunky was growing exasperated.
“Normally, I’d agree. I love planning. Planning’s great. But it’s out by itself away from the city. Look at that map. Where are we going to watch it from?” It was surrounded by grassy fields and hills, but there wasn’t a whole lot of cover. The nearest neighbors were farms. “What if we get made between now and then? What if they launch Blue while we’re still dicking around? I’m sneaking in there soon, by myself if I have to.”
“So jeopardize the wh
ole mission, because you’re grasping at straws?”
“Who the fuck are you, again?” I was getting a little tired of Skunky’s devil’s advocate act. “I made my living getting into places nobody was supposed to be able to get into. What’s your background?”
“High-end camera sales and not throwing my life away on futile noble gestures on dumb suicide missions! You got a problem with that?”
“Oh my God, both of you, chill the fuck out,” Valentine said. “Skunky was on Switchblade Six with me and Tailor. Ramirez and Hawk trained him. Skunky, Lorenzo is old school Switchblade, from back in the Africa days. Decker trained him. We’re all family here, and this dick measuring contest isn’t helping.”
Switchblade? Okay. I had to give him some props for that. He was young enough that he must have been in during their Vanguard era, when Decker had gone all corporate and legitimate businessman, but even then, the Switchblade teams had maintained their reputation of being tough as nails mercenaries who took the shittiest jobs and came back for more. And ironically, for the first time in years, I even had the stupid little knife Decker had given me. I pulled it out of my pocket and pushed the button. The pointy little blade popped out. I held it up in front of my face and wagged it back and forth. “Knife check.” That had been Decker’s stupid running joke.
Skunky gave me a respectful nod. Young Switchblade must have heard a lot of stories about old Switchblade. I returned the nod. I could still think he was wrong, but it wasn’t because he was a wimp. I closed the knife and put it back in my pocket.
“We’ll all hug later. Right now, can we figure this out?” Valentine sounded weary.
“Fine.” Maybe they were right. I was pushing it. I was angry, frustrated, out of practice, and all that combined was making me sloppy. “Tonight’s pushing it. I’ll admit that. Look how willing I am to compromise. But it’s either soon or never, and you all know it.”
All seven of us were quiet for a bit as the maps were passed around. The house itself was twelve thousand square feet with a couple of outbuildings and a big garage. They could have an army inside and we wouldn’t know until it was too late. There was four acres of lawn inside the fence. It was hard to tell from Google Earth, but there were some trees and bushes I could use for cover if I got inside the perimeter, even some statuary around the pool area, but there were also balconies on the second floor that would probably have guards posted.
“There is only one lane in.” Shen warned us.
“It is entirely fenced in. I wonder if the gate is light enough we can ram through or if we’ll have to use explosives?” Antoine asked. “It is possible Stokes installed hydraulic bomb blocks too.”
“There is no way to see from the road.” Shen ran his finger down the map. The lane was a windy quarter mile that would make it hard to build speed. “It would be suspicious to get close enough to look.”
“Two of us they wouldn’t recognize could take a rental car, pose as tourists, drive up this lane looking lost, then turn back,” Antoine mused. “One visitor is not so suspicious. A minute of looking around is better than nothing at all.”
“Good call,” I told him. “The real estate listing says the fence is iron bars, but no height given. I wish I could tell if we’re talking topped in razor wire or what . . .”
“I bet decorative fleur-de-lis. Only a fat fool would get stuck climbing over.” Shen said. I could tell he was thinking what I was thinking. When we’d worked together before, I’d learned that he was really good at not being seen. Maybe even as good as I was.
“Shen and I could get in there, pave the way and take out the exterior guards and any dogs.”
“I’m betting the Dobermans have poodle haircuts,” Valentine said. “Look at this rich bitch neighborhood. My hometown didn’t cost this much.”
“Spare me, American. I grew up in a hut.” Antoine ran one hand across his shaved head to wipe away beads of perspiration. That was one problem with crappy meeting places. You couldn’t exactly complain about the inadequate air conditioning to the management, who in this case was an old blind Vietnamese lady. “Despite the price, I can see why Stokes chose this property. There is no way to insert quickly short of a helicopter. Could your Mr. Reaper get us some more current photographs?”
“I’ve got him working on it now.” Sadly, since Reaper had been semi-retired and gone all weirdo hermit since I’d been gone, he hadn’t replaced Little Bird after he’d crashed it in the Crossroads. I was missing our drone already. “He’s also checking for any possible angle of getting in there. Lawn care, pool cleaner, food delivery, I don’t care. Anything Stokes’ assholes have brought in from the outside gives us a potential in. Reaper is all up in his business. If Stokes spent money on anything recently, he’ll find it.”
“There’s nowhere we can get close enough to use a parabolic microphone on the windows.” Skunky was checking the elevation on one nearby hill. “If the grass is tall enough here still and they’ve not run a bush hog over it, I can put on my ghillie suit and crawl in from the main road. I can provide overwatch and cover to three quarters of the property from there.”
I checked the scale. “That’s five hundred yards away. Are you good for that distance?”
Skunky just grinned. “Heck yeah, man.”
“Jeff is very talented with two things, Lorenzo,” Ling assured me. “A precision rifle that he babies as if it were his child—”
“It’s got a lot of carbon fiber on it,” Valentine interjected. “He thinks it makes it go faster, like a sports car.”
“What’s the other thing?”
“A banjo.” Ling waited for that to sink in. “I am not joking. He plays the banjo.”
Shen just shook his head sadly.
“Hey, country is cool, Ling. Don’t judge,” Skunky protested. “I know Shen’s all Mr. Tradition but my folks ditched Taiwan when you guys’ civil war started getting ugly. I’m all-American.”
I’d heard Ling was from Northern China, before she’d been conscripted by the commies. I glanced at Shen. “Hong Kong,” he said nonchalantly, which was by far the most information he’d ever shared about his past. So half the Exodus team was of Chinese descent, representing both North, South, and American . . . So of course the American played the banjo. Skunky probably owned an orange Dodge Charger with a Confederate flag on the roof, too.
“We need to figure out their numbers and their security system. You and Shen can’t sneak through that field if they’ve got FLIR cameras up. That means we’d have to kill their power supply, but do they have a backup generator? How long will it take for their reinforcements to arrive?” Valentine was really thinking through all the ramifications, and all of these experienced operators were actually looking to him for guidance. I’ll be damned. At some point he’d really turned into an actual leader.
Then I got a big surprise, when all of those supposedly experienced badasses looked to the teenage girl. “What do you think, Ariel?”
She was deep in thought, twirling her hair. “It fits. Bob is an important piece of the puzzle. Everything I can see points to Katarina using Blue for its original purpose to weaken the Illuminati, so she can take it over. Placing the blame for a Majestic operation on a rogue Majestic operative prevents their retaliation against her, and furthers her overall goal. So I think Lorenzo’s hypothesis is correct—”
“Thank you.”
“But we still need more information,” she finished. They all nodded like she was brilliant.
“Why the hell does her opinion count? Are you even old enough to drive?”
Shen tried to placate me. “Ariel is very smart.”
“Fantastic. I’ve got a smart person too, and Reaper agrees with me.”
“She is like a girl Reaper—”
“Greaper?” Skunky asked.
“But smarter,” Shen finished.
“I’m just saying we’re going to need more time to figure things out.” Ariel rolled her eyes. “Lorenzo changes things. I never thought he
’d come back from the dead or be involved now. He’s special. He’s a unique variable.”
I froze. Sala Jihan had said the same thing. I snapped, “What the fuck did you just call me?”
Ariel was taken aback. “Huh?”
My manner had changed so abruptly that I think I startled Exodus. The room got really quiet. “Easy, Lorenzo,” Valentine said. His left hand had dropped under the table. I had no doubt it was resting on the butt of that big, stupid sixgun he liked to carry. “She’s just trying to help. She didn’t mean to, like, offend you or whatever. What the hell is your problem, anyway?”
I was staring at her, really looking at her for the first time. Ariel looked frightened, but was she really? There was something off about this little girl, and it wasn’t just because she was too clever, or had a gift for seeing patterns, or whatever that bullshit was. I was really good at observing people, you had to be in order to copy their mannerisms or mimic their voices. I was a master at pretending to be someone I was not. This wasn’t a young woman. This was something else pretending to be a young woman. And just for an instant I heard the whispers, pushing against the edge of my sanity.
“So I guess what your Oracle is saying is that fate hasn’t determined a path for me yet?”
The others didn’t notice, but Ariel was suddenly very nervous when I used Sala Jihan’s words back on her. Now she was as suspicious of me as I was of her. None of the Exodus people saw what was going on, but somehow . . . I knew this little girl did.
“It’s fine.” She gave me a nervous smile. “My methods are probably a little weird for him. Mr. Lorenzo and we can talk about it later.”
“Yeah . . . sure we will.”
Valentine had no clue what had just gone down, and looked bewildered. “Alrighty then . . . so it’s settled. Stokes is our next target, but we’re going to take our time and do this right. We can’t afford any more screw-ups.”
Alliance of Shadows (Dead Six Series Book 3) Page 31