A Girl Betrayed (A Leah Mason suspense thriller Book 2)

by Russell Blake

  Winters had asked how he was supposed to hand over a half million with only a blackmailer’s word in exchange, and the caller had grown flustered. After a minute of back-and-forth, he had blurted that it was either that, or the video would be released to the media by midnight. Angelo had been listening in on a muted line and had given Winters the thumbs-up – he’d already gotten his men on the road after the first call, so the stall for more time had worked as intended. The vans were now in position, the team inside them, two fast cars parked on a side street in case the blackmailers made a run for it.

  Angelo’s contact at the phone company had gotten him Ron’s and Lenny’s cell phone numbers, but there was nobody working until Monday who could track the GPS locator chips in real time. They’d debated trying to stall until then, but Angelo had ultimately nixed it, deciding to handle the drop with old-fashioned surveillance techniques rather than following the phone signal straight to them.

  A digital clock sat by the surveillance monitor in front of Angelo, counting off the minutes until ten. Angelo stared at the image, nearly bright as day through the NV lens, a two-way radio in hand. Everyone involved was a professional: the camera operators were employees of one of the larger private investigation agencies on the East Coast, and the active members of the team were seasoned ex-SWAT members and mercenaries with twenty years of combat experience. Each of the six gunmen was receiving three thousand dollars for a night’s work, but Angelo had insisted on the best – one slip, and the congressman’s usefulness to Angelo’s group would be nil, which they couldn’t afford.

  The radio crackled. “Homeless guy at ten o’clock. On the park bench. Sleeping, looks like,” a voice reported.

  Angelo raised the two-way to his lips and depressed the transmit button. “You sure? Could be one of our boys.”

  “I’ve got someone on him. If it is, he’s covered.”

  “Remember, we need them alive. Shoot to wound, not kill,” Angelo reminded him.

  “Got it,” the voice said, and then fell silent.

  The van to Angelo’s right, fifty yards away, housed a sniper with a sound-suppressed rifle loaded with subsonic ammunition. At a range of under a hundred yards, the slow slug would still do serious damage, and the shooter would be able to shatter a man’s pelvis with ease. That was the technique they’d agreed upon when all options had been considered, and the van to Angelo’s left held a pair of paramedics and a physician to ensure the blackmailers were kept alive after they’d been downed.

  The radio crackled again. “We have a target in a hoodie walking slowly up the street from the east. You can tell he’s looking around while trying not to be obvious. There’s one of your boys.”

  “Where’s the other one?” Angelo murmured to himself. “He’s got to be around here somewhere.” He hit the transmit button on the radio. “Have two men circle around the way he came. Pick it up a block away. Watch for anyone waiting in a car or in a doorway.”

  “We’ll mark his location and be ready to hit him when you give the word.”

  “Okay. Looks like this is going down. Is Joey ready?” Angelo asked.

  Another voice answered a moment later. “Yup. You want I should head to the statue?”

  “Yes,” Angelo answered. “If you can deal with him up close, do it, but he’s got to be alive, capiche?”

  “No problem,” Joey answered, his voice relaxed, decades of similar work having numbed any nerves he’d ever had.

  A minute later Joey appeared on the screen, his hat pulled low over his brow and his overcoat unbuttoned, walking slowly toward the statue. He reached it and stopped to look around, briefcase in hand. The man in the hoodie watched from the shadows across the street, and after a five-minute wait, after seeing nobody else, trotted across the empty lane and beelined for the statue.

  The operator flipped a switch and the sound of Joey breathing and his overcoat rustling filled the van. The three men listened as hoodie’s footsteps approached, and then the blackmailer spoke.

  “That the money?”

  “Yes,” Joey answered, keeping his responses short. “Where’s the video?”

  “Let’s see the cash.”

  “You want me to open it out here?”

  “Do it.”

  They heard two loud pops as Joey flipped the latches on the briefcase, and he opened the lid, holding it awkwardly. After a moment, the blackmailer removed a cloth sack from his pocket and held it out. “Put the money in here.”

  Angelo had anticipated that the two technicians would be alert to a possible scanning chip in the briefcase, so the move didn’t surprise Joey, who began dropping fifty-thousand-dollar counterfeit bundles into the bag. When the briefcase was empty, the blackmailer scanned the empty park, obviously nervous.

  “The video?” Joey asked.

  The blackmailer felt in his jeans and pulled a USB drive from his pocket. “Here.”

  Joey took it, and the blackmailer stepped away. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said. “You’ll never hear from us again.”

  “Us?” Joey echoed.

  “Turn around and walk away, old man. You got what you wanted. Do it. Now.”

  Joey hesitated and then did as instructed, the chance to clock the punk with the briefcase lost. Angelo squinted at the screen and spoke into the radio. “Let him get as far as you can without missing the shot, and then take him out.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Joey retraced his steps, but hoodie surprised them, and instead of returning in the direction he’d come, veered right and jogged across a different street.

  “Damn,” Angelo said and barked into the radio, “You still have him?”

  “Yes. But if he turns the corner there…”

  “Take him down. Get the van over there and load him in. Scramble. Now.”

  The camera operator toggled the camera to follow hoodie, who was near the corner when he flew face forward and crumpled to the sidewalk. Angelo watched as hoodie struggled to raise a phone to his head, and cursed.

  “He’s got a phone. Move, move, move,” he growled into the radio.

  The van with the medical crew careened around the corner and was beside the blackmailer within ten seconds. Two figures leapt from the open side door and carted him into the van. One of them returned for the sack of money and the phone, and then the van rolled away, the entire operation over in seconds.

  “Let me know his condition,” Angelo said. “And send some guys down that other street now. His partner’s probably there.”

  “How do you know?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Would you trust your partner in crime with all that cash?” Angelo asked.

  “Oh.”

  The radio crackled. “A car just took off from a block or so down that street. He was in a hurry.”

  “You get a plate?”

  “No. It was too fast. I’m sending the chase cars after it.”

  “Remember – take him alive.”

  “Got it.”

  Ten minutes later, word came in from the chase vehicles as the van made its way to the warehouse. They hadn’t been able to pick up the escape car’s trail, so they’d lost the second man.

  Worse, when Angelo arrived at the warehouse, the medical team was working on hoodie with grim determination.

  The doctor looked up at Angelo and shook his head. “The round shattered his hip, but it also fragmented and severed his femoral artery. He’s lost too much blood. There’s nothing we can do.”

  “He’s dead?” Angelo demanded.

  “Seconds away. We can’t help him.”

  The risk of a round hitting something that couldn’t be triaged had always been there, but Angelo had decided to take it – a bad option in a worse situation. The gamble had been a losing one, and now they had one of the pair out in the world, possibly with another copy of the video, aware that his partner had been shot.

  Angelo glowered at the dying man, his skin white as parchment, his thoughts on how to best do damage control.
The blood that had saturated the man’s clothes and covered the tarp he was lying on didn’t trouble Angelo, but the idea of the man’s partner on the loose did. If he decided to release the video as retribution, Winters’s illustrious career would come to an end, and with it Angelo’s ability to manipulate Congress to achieve his goals.

  That could not be allowed to happen.

  Angelo whipped out his cell phone and dialed a number, his wide face as flat as a frying pan in the dim light. His chestnut eyes watched the blackmailer without emotion as he shuddered and lay still, wide eyes staring into eternity, his expression a combination of terror and surprise.

  Chapter 33

  Emeryville, California

  Monday morning, after one of the longest weekends of her life spent with a mostly inebriated Heather, Leah was at work early, having driven home and changed out of the sweats Heather had lent her. She was the only one in the office besides the cleaning service and Monte, who was typically there whenever she arrived – the standing joke being that he slept on the couch in his lair, on the off chance that he slept at all.

  She brewed a pot of coffee and was just settling in when her landline rang. Leah eyed the phone – almost nobody called her on that number. She answered the phone with a tentative “Hello?” and was surprised to hear the familiar voice of her employer, Simon Garr.

  “Leah? Simon Garr here. Long time since we spoke.”

  “Simon, yes, it has.”

  “Hope you’re settling in and everything’s going well.”

  Her brow furrowed at the notion that Garr, a billionaire, was calling to shoot the breeze with her.

  “Yes. No complaints,” she said, afraid that Monte had complained about her slacking and she was about to get a reprimand – or worse.

  “Listen, Leah. I need to ask you to come to my house this morning. Can you fit that into your day?”

  She almost laughed at the idea that she had any ability to refuse the summons. “Of course, Simon. What time?”

  “Whenever you can get here. The sooner the better.”

  “I’ll leave in a couple of minutes.” She hesitated. “I’m afraid I don’t know your address.”

  “It’s in Pacific Heights,” he said, and gave her an address. “Easy to find, I believe.”

  Leah jotted down the street and number. “I’m on my way. I don’t know how long it will take with rush hour, but…”

  “Do the best you can,” he said, and then Leah found herself listening to a dial tone.

  She took a gulp of her full cup of coffee, grabbed her keys, and made for the door. Leah set the mug in the coffee room and hurried out to the parking lot, her pulse thudding in her ears. There were few possible reasons that Simon would ask her to his home on a Monday morning, and none of them struck Leah as positive.

  The drive over the Bay Bridge was predictably terrible, stop and go all the way into the city. Once off the freeway, she negotiated the clogged streets until she was in Pacific Heights – among the most expensive neighborhood in the United States, including enclaves like Bel Air, Beverly Hills, and Newport Beach. The architecture changed from typically San Francisco Victorian homes to large mansions, and when she turned onto Simon’s street and scanned the addresses, she spotted what had to be his house at the end of the block – an enormous Georgian complex that reeked of serious money.

  She pulled up to a pair of wrought-iron gates, and a security guard in a black windbreaker approached with a clipboard. Leah rolled down her window and gave the man her name, and his demeanor changed from serious to friendly.

  “Mr. Garr’s expecting you,” he said with a smile, and clicked a remote in his jacket pocket. The gates opened inward and Leah rolled through, astounded by the amount of land that the estate commanded in the densely populated city. She parked beside a late model domestic sedan and took in the six-car garage before mounting the steps to the front porch, the columns framing the area obviously centuries old and no doubt shipped from Europe, where they’d once graced a French or Italian castle.

  Leah knocked on the elaborate wooden door, and moments later an elderly man with white hair combed straight back from a high forehead gave her a small bow and welcomed her in.

  “Mr. Garr’s in the living room with guests. You may join him. Go straight back and make a left at the end. Can’t miss it,” he said, his words colored by a British accent.

  “Thanks,” Leah said, looking down at her jeans and sweatshirt emblazoned with a Dallas Cowboys logo and feeling suddenly inadequate. She walked along the marble corridor and peered through a pair of open double doors at a cavernous room with wooden beams supporting the ceiling. Simon, whom she had met twice before during her negotiations, sat across a coffee table from a pair of serious-looking men in suits.

  All heads swiveled to her as she stepped into the room. “Hello, Simon,” she said, trying a smile and giving the suited pair a neutral look.

  “Ah, Leah. The woman of the hour. Please, come in and have a seat. Can I get you some coffee or tea?” Simon asked as he stood.

  “Coffee would be great,” she said.

  Simon looked over Leah’s shoulder and signaled to someone, and then gestured for her to sit beside him in the only empty chair.

  “Leah, this is Agent Morrison and Agent Beatrix, from the FBI. Gentlemen, Leah Mason,” Simon said.

  Leah lowered herself into the chair with a puzzled expression. “I…um, nice to meet you,” she said, opting for polite out of a range of possible reactions.

  The men nodded to her, their faces unchanged, as expressionless as bronze statues. A young woman arrived carrying a coffee service on a silver tray and set it in front of Leah. She poured a china cup three-quarters full and murmured to her, “Cream? Sugar? Sweetener?”

  “A little cream and sugar, please,” Leah said, and the woman splashed the ingredients into her cup and hurried away.

  Simon waited until Leah had taken a sip before speaking. “These gentlemen paid me a visit first thing this morning to ask why you were out in Novato on Friday, nosing around Terra Megatrends Technologies. Since I have no idea what that is, or what you’re working on, I thought I’d take the opportunity to see you again and hear the answer.”

  Leah frowned. “I’m working on a story,” she said, reluctant to say more.

  “Miss Mason, why are you doing a story involving Terra Megatrends, and what is your interest in the company?” Agent Morrison asked in a sandpaper voice.

  “I told you. I’m researching a story,” she said, looking to Simon. “The rest is protected by journalistic privilege.”

  “That’s not going to fly,” Agent Beatrix growled. “We need to know why you’re nosing around the company.”

  “Why?” Leah asked, honestly puzzled.

  “Because we need to know,” Beatrix snapped.

  “Well, then, it’s because I’m researching a story,” Leah said, her smile patently fake. “That’s what investigative journalists do. Little thing called the First Amendment covers it. I believe the clause is something about not abridging the freedom of the press. I can Google it for you if you like.”

  Color rose in Agent Morrison’s face. “That doesn’t apply to national security issues. Terra Megatrends is subject to that protection. So enough of the cute quips, Ms. Mason. Tell us, or we can arrest you and hold you without a hearing or attorney, as long as we like.”

  “You’re going to arrest a member of the press because they won’t tell you what they’re working on?” Leah asked. She looked over at Simon. “That’s why you invited me here?”

  Simon sighed and sat back. “Gentlemen, no threats are necessary. Obviously Ms. Mason values her First Amendment rights more than you seem to. But surely there’s a way for everyone to get what they need without it coming to blows?”

  Morrison considered Simon and then eyed Leah. “What aspect of Terra Megatrends are you researching? We know you met with the founder on Saturday. He called us right after you left. Give us something so this doesn’t hav
e to get ugly.”

  Leah thought about what she was holding back from the agents. She had no real reason not to be forthcoming, but she didn’t respond well to threats.

  Simon seemed to sense her reluctance to offer the agents anything and touched her arm. “May I have a word with you in private, Leah?”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  Simon stood, and they walked to a picture window that overlooked the bay. He leaned into her and spoke in a low voice. “If whatever you’re working on is worth this being the hill you want to die on, I’ll back you a hundred and ten percent. But if you’re just being stubborn, now would be the time to reassess, because these guys don’t seem to be playing.”

  “They have no right to intrude into my work.”

  “Agreed. So perhaps if you would take this as a request, not an order, from your patron, to share with them anything that isn’t top secret in your book, everyone’s life would be a lot easier, and I would be able to go about my day without worrying about getting you out of some FBI dungeon.”

  “It sets a bad precedent.”

  “Indeed it does. So do taxes and asset forfeiture, but you can’t win against those, either. Look, Leah, I’ll go to the wall for you if it’s important, but if it isn’t, give the nice agents what they want so they’ll get the hell out of my house.”

  Leah nibbled at her lower lip as she thought, and then gave in. “Only because you’re so persuasive.”

  “I’ve been called far worse,” Simon said with a trace of a smile, and then turned back to the agents. “Come, Leah. Let’s try this one more time.”

  They returned to their seats, and Leah took a long draught of her coffee, the brew intoxicatingly rich compared to the swill she habitually drank. The agents eyed her in stony silence, and she savored the anticipation in the air before finally speaking.

  “I’m researching a venture capital fund whose holdings include Terra Megatrends. I couldn’t find anything on the company, so I drove up to ask them questions like what they do and for whom. They stonewalled me, and as I was leaving, a pair of goons showed up to intimidate me. That’s the sum total of what I know.”