Surviving the Dead (Book 4): Fire In Winter

by James Cook

  You are what you are, Gabriel. And you always will be.

  TWENTY

  Eight years ago,

  New York City

  To people around the world, the Waldorf-Astoria was a symbol of old world beauty and elegance. Upon entering the lobby, I could understand why they felt that way. Mosaic tile floor, smoothly polished marble on columns and walls, carpets that cost as much as a Mercedes Benz E class, a bouquet of flowers on a central table the size of an SUV, chandelier as big as a train car, soaring ceilings, gleaming lines of glass and metal on tables, overstuffed sofas and loveseats in corners and waiting areas—the place was the definition of grandiose. More money had gone into the lobby alone than a hundred real people might earn in their entire lives. I doubted, however, that many of them would realize the décor was not a relic of a bygone era, but rather the result of extensive renovations in the 1980’s and 90’s by Lee S. Jablin, a preeminent New York architect. I think if they had known this, it might have diminished the hotel’s charm just a bit. I know it did for me.

  I followed Tanner to the check-in counter while trying my best to look bored and uninterested. For Gabriel Garrett, a man from the wide open spaces of Kentucky, the press of wealth, breeding, ego, expensive perfume, heels clicking on marble, accented speech from a dozen nations, barely noticed physical contact, and casual indifference for personal space was enough to send him running for an exit. But for Thomas McGee, Chief Operations Officer of Mjolnir International, a private security firm out of Phoenix, it was just another day rubbing shoulders with the well-heeled, the old money, the captains of industry. He kept his face a mask of vague contempt and irritation, the don’t-fuck-with-me façade endemic of a city where eye contact was verboten.

  Beneath that mask, Gabriel Garrett was quietly swearing to himself that the next motherfucker who bumped into him was getting an elbow to the face.

  Tanner greased the wheels by giving the pretty receptionist a high-wattage smile and complimenting the Tiffany necklace resting against the hollow of her throat. She smiled back, just a little warmer than professional courtesy required, manicured fingernails click-clacking on her keyboard. I presented my fake Arizona driver’s license when asked, confirmed the company credit card information for incidentals, and proceeded with the other two operatives to Oscar’s Brasserie, birthplace of eggs Benedict and the Waldorf salad.

  A well-dressed, smiling, perfectly polite young woman stepped in front of us at the entrance and asked in her most solicitous tone if she might see our invitations. Tanner, playing the part of the fabulously rich senator’s son, presented all three and hit her with the same practiced, flirtatious smile he had given the receptionist. She accepted it, and our invitations, with remarkably more aplomb than the girl at the check-in counter had. Inwardly, I applauded her judgment. If she was half as smart as she looked, she could probably detect the faint predatory glimmer behind those Scandinavian blues.

  Most of the other invitees were already milling around in the dining room, sampling the gourmet spread, quietly assessing one another, and accepting the advances of Jerry Pritchard, Director of Investor Relations at Citadel Capital Management, with forced enthusiasm. The atmosphere was as welcoming as a chum-ridden pool of tiger sharks.

  Pritchard eventually made his way over to us, with his artificially whitened teeth, impossibly expensive suit, and rimless Gold and Wood eyeglasses. He shook hands with Tanner, who was clearly the leader of the group, then turned to Rocco who introduced himself as Giovanni Palacio. When Pritchard asked him what company he represented, Rocco smiled broadly and said, “I’m in construction.”

  Pritchard’s smile went brittle as he withdrew his hand. In New York, saying you were in ‘construction’, was as good as saying ‘mobster’. The slimy gentry of hedge funds and private equity happily accepted their money, but they washed their hands afterward.

  Last, he turned his fake plastic smile toward me. “Let me guess, you must play for an NFL team, right? You certainly have the size for it. A bit too lean for offensive line, so I’m thinking…maybe…defensive end? Middle linebacker?”

  I faked an aw-shucks chuckle and shook my head. “Afraid not, sir. Football was never my sport. My stature is the result of good genetics, high-protein diet, and an affinity for the weight room.” When I shook Pritchard’s hand, I squeezed a little harder than I needed to. His barely restrained wince brightened my day. “Tom McGee, COO, Mjolnir International.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. McGee.” He flexed his hand a few times when I released it, obviously relieved. “Just wanted to introduce myself to you gentlemen and remind you the presentation starts at four-thirty. I look forward to seeing you there.”

  The little man walked away, still flexing the compression out of his knuckle joints. Rocco leaned closer to me, voice low, faking a bad Southern accent. “Well ain’t you just the most precious little country bumpkin.”

  “Can it, Roc.”

  “Seriously, man. How do you turn it on and off like that? Five seconds ago I’d have let you marry my daughter. Now you look like Charlie Manson after a sterno bender.”

  “Mr. Palacio…” Tanner said, a warning in his tone, staring pointedly across the room. We both turned at the same time. At the restaurant’s entrance, showing their invitations to the polite receptionist, were Miguel Villalobos, Ian Hargreaves, and Anja Renner.

  Rocco and Tanner gave them a quick, professional appraisal and dismissed them, exactly as they had been trained to do. Ordinarily, I would have done the same, but a pair of smoldering, storm-cloud eyes lanced across the room and caught my gaze, rooting me to the spot.

  Her beauty was enhanced by mulberry lipstick and smoky eye shadow, tastefully applied. Her suit was perfectly fitted, hugging her slender curves. Her head tilted a little to the side as she looked at me, a stray lock of golden hair falling across her sculpted face. A dark heat began to burn low in my stomach and I started breathing harder, my heart a hammer in my chest. Anja stood equally still, equally enthralled, lips slightly parted, cold eyes glistening with animal curiosity. Her hand, which had just a moment ago handed over her invitation, went suddenly limp, dropping slowly, its purpose forgotten as I watched her chest rise slowly, the swell of her breasts lifting under her blouse.

  A second ago she had been a programmable thing, a machine of efficiency and digitized calculation. But as she stared across the room at me there was a change in her, transforming her from a robot into woman in less time than it takes to say the words. My professional calm crumbled, fell apart, disintegrated to dust. I felt an understanding pass between us, a recognition of like to like, an elemental fascination pulling us together, demanding that we touch, that we feel sparks crackle on our skin under entreating fingertips. I started to take a step toward her, a little voice in the back of my mind screaming a warning, a voice I ignored.

  Then Hargreaves tapped her on the shoulder.

  She looked away and released me, breaking the spell. I stopped, took a deep breath, and turned away, the shadowed edges of tunnel vision fading, the color coming back into the world, vise loosening from my chest. In a second or two, I felt like myself again, good old reliable Gabriel, possessed of his faculties, the searing heat of attraction receding, mission coming into focus. I checked to make sure Rocco and Tanner hadn’t caught that little exchange. They had not. Good.

  I cleared my throat and joined my companions, wondering what the hell just happened. I had seen plenty of pretty women before, but I had never reacted like that. Never lost control so quickly, or with so little prompting. Then I remembered Anja’s face as our eyes met, the blush that traveled from graceful neck to elegantly curved cheeks, the way she seemed to get a little trembly in the knees. The heat came back all over again, and I had to shake my head to clear it.

  Stay focused.

  We made the rounds a while longer, introducing ourselves to other potential clients, asking questions, rehearsing our carefully memorized lines. Oh, Phoenix isn’t so bad. It’s a dry he
at. Nothing we do is all that terribly glamorous. Most of our work is overseas. Guarding valuable cargo, riding in trucks from one place to another, that sort of thing. Honestly, you could put most of our employees in cheap uniforms and an armored truck, and their job description wouldn’t change a bit. Ha-ha-ha.

  All the while, I kept sneaking glances at Anja, already thinking of her by her first name. The photograph in her dossier didn’t do her justice. She was stunning. I wondered what her hair would look like if she let it down, how much brighter the eyes would be if she took those glasses off, if her body was as strong and firm as the lines of her suit indicated. The gaggle of paunchy, pasty, middle-aged men around me noticed her as well, some ogling her surreptitiously, others staring openly. I had a primeval urge back them all in a corner and start smashing heads together.

  Knock it off, idiot. What is this, junior high? You’re not trying for second base with Jenny Landon under the bleachers. You’re on the clock. These people are dangerous. Get it together.

  Words slipped past me as I went from one person to another, exchanging pleasantries, trying to focus on what they were saying. I must have seemed dull and just a bit distracted to the people I met. Sometimes I caught Anja staring at me when she thought I couldn’t see her, and felt my blood heat up all over again.

  There is a mind trick I do when I need to split my attention. It works in much the same way as my speed-reading trick, but it is supplemented by a library of stock social responses to the predictable patterns of polite conversation. The words go into my ears, are processed and catalogued, and the shiny surface of sub-conscious thought chooses the correct response, facial expression, and mannerism of body. In this manner, I can perform impressive feats of cognitive agility whilst pretending to be engrossed in some idiot’s story of how his yacht ran over a submerged log off a remote section of some Bahamian island and the harrowing three days of second-rate food and lodging ashore before the engineer could get it fixed.

  Dreadful, I tell you. They didn’t even have room service. I had to stand at the counter and order fried plantains and shredded pork with common laborers. The dining room was this dingy, stinking little place with swarming flies and no air conditioning. Honestly, how do those people call themselves civilized?

  While part of me resisted the urge to shake these stupid people by their throats, the rest of me focused on staying centered. I concentrated on my breathing, responses, expressions. Tanner was slowly maneuvering us closer and closer to Villalobos, and soon, I would have to look Anja in the eye from less than three feet away, shake her hand, feel her skin against mine, and do it with no visible reaction. To do that I had to suppress the animal part of me, the hairy, bone-cracking mammal of the ancient savannah.

  Carefully, gradually, I started melding the two sides of my mind together again. The pragmatic, analytical core, and the automatic, software-like surface entity. The primal, unpredictable part got shoved down, suppressed, boxed up, filed away for future examination. I didn’t need it for the time being. What I needed was control. Precise, unyielding control.

  Just as the last vestiges of carnal heat slid rippling beneath the cerebral waters, Tanner reached out a hand and a smile to Villalobos.

  “Hi there, I’m Rowan Marshall, Mr…”

  “Villalobos.” His voice was deep and heavily accented, and just as cold as his eyes. “This is Ms. Renner, my personal assistant, and this is Mr. Hargreaves.”

  “This is Giovanni Palacio and Tom McGee, old college buddies of mine.”

  We made the requisite round of introductions. I started with Villalobos, who barely glanced at me as he offered a limp noodle of a handshake. Then there was Hargreaves, strong and assertive, black flecks of iris scrutinizing me and, by their slight narrowing, not liking what they saw. Last was Anja, more petite than I had thought, head barely cresting my chest, face like porcelain, shoulders rigid, eyes avoiding mine like the plague. There was the faintest tremor in her hand as she reached out, making me wonder how she would react when our skin made contact. Just as we were about to touch, we were saved by a fork ringing against a crystal glass.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention for just a moment.” Pritchard said, standing on a chair. “I hope everyone had a chance to sample some of the fine cuisine provided for us this afternoon by the talented folks here at Oscar’s. I know I certainly did, and I don’t mind telling you the desert bar is to die for.”

  A pause, a polite round of chuckling.

  “The presentation will be starting in ten minutes, so if you don’t mind, we should all begin making our way to the Conrad Suite on the fourth floor. Each group has its own table set aside, and the hotel staff will be available to answer any questions you might have. Please feel free to take a plate or a beverage with you, and if there is anything you would like once we’re upstairs, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  People began moving toward the exit clutching champagne and little plates of spinach quiche. Villalobos and company excused themselves, rounded up a few cups of coffee, and departed for the elevators. On his way out, Hargreaves took a moment to stop and level a stare at me, eyes hard, lips as thin as paper. I offered a friendly smile and lifted my drink, engaging the resonant Southern drawl. “See you up there, partner.”

  The corners of his mouth twisted in what might have been a fake smile. His eyes scanned the room, darting from one end to the other, deeply ingrained suspicion pouring off him in waves, the tireless alertness of a man who lived his life inches from death. He looked as though at any moment he might lift his employer bodily, draw some hidden weapon, and flee the building in a hail of bullets. A tough customer to be sure.

  I hoped I wouldn’t have to discover which one of us was tougher.

  *****

  The presentation was as painfully boring as I expected it to be.

  The three of us got through it by sipping ice water, faking a measure of solemn interest, and speaking to one another in low whispers. Anyone watching us might have thought we were debating the relative merits of the various funds Citadel had to offer. In truth, we were casing the room for a good spot to divert Villalobos and strategizing how to separate him from Hargreaves.

  “Why don’t we just kill the limey fuck?” Rocco asked. “Wait till he goes to the John, or something. I’ll do it myself, quick and quiet. Prop him up in a stall with his pants down. By the time Villalobos misses him, he’ll be in the back of a suburban.”

  “That’s a last-resort option,” Tanner said. “Besides, we still have to worry about Renner.”

  “Leave her to me,” I said.

  Tanner looked quizzical. “What’s your plan?”

  “She’s attracted to me. I’ll ask her out for drinks after this, take her back to my room. You stay close to Villalobos and find out if he’s serious about investing in any of these funds. If he is, call Tolliver and tell him to have Pritchard set up a private meeting with one of his salespeople. Be there when Villalobos arrives, tell him you were invited. Go through the motions, then have the sales guy make up some excuse to leave the room. That’s when you grab him.”

  Tanner thought it over for a moment. “It’s not a bad idea, as long as Villalobos doesn’t show up with any of his security people.”

  I shrugged. “If he does, take them out quietly and put them in the suburban with Villalobos. Our assets on the hotel staff can clean up the mess.”

  Tanner paused again, considering. “I like it. I’ll have Tolliver send weapons to our rooms. You guys okay with .22’s?”

  “Integral suppressors? Sub-sonic ammo?” Rocco asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Works for me.”

  I said, “Just don’t let it become a firefight. You’ll be outgunned.”

  As I sat back in my seat, the dimmed lights brightened and the last presenting hedge fund manager smiled and gave a slight bow to the mutely applauding attendees. Pritchard stepped up and announced the beginning of cocktail hour, and encouraged the audience to come to
him or any of the fund managers with any questions they might have. To keep up appearances, the three of us approached the manager of a commodities and currency arbitrage fund and asked some drill-down questions about his methodology. He babbled some vague references to a proprietary computer program his staff had developed, and how it worked in much the same manner as a search engine to monitor import and export data from a vast array of companies to predict minor shifts in commodity prices and currency rates before they could self-correct. Minor fluctuations, really. A few basis points here and there. But if you get out ahead of them and use a modest amount of leverage, you can reap a tidy profit. Thirty-six percent annualized over the last four years, far ahead of market returns.

  While Tanner broached the subject of the minimum required investment, I cast a glance over my shoulder and once again caught Anja staring at me. This time, however, she did not look away as quickly. Her gaze held mine for an extra few seconds before she lowered her face demurely, the corners of her lips curving in a faint smile. Her left hand came up, fingers tracing a line down the side of her neck.

  Now would be a good time.

  I excused myself and made my way over. Anja didn’t look up, but I could tell by her body language she was aware of my approach. When I reached her, I leaned close and spoke softly.

  “Ms. Renner?”

  She turned and looked up, face angled slightly to the side, blasting me with the full effect of those storm-colored eyes. “Mr. McGee, I believe? Is there something I can do for you?”

  I could think of a few things. Her voice was rich and clear with a slight Bavarian accent and impeccable pronunciation. “I was wondering if you would join me at the bar for a drink.”

  Her smile became challenging. “You are very direct, Mr. McGee. Are you not supposed to flirt with me first? Brag to me about your wealth and influence, your chalet in Switzerland, your collection of cars?”