by J. R. Ward
Kicking herself out of neutral, she opened up her e-file on all the research she’d done on those missing person cases. Staring at the words she’d typed, the tables she’d made, the references she’d listed, she couldn’t help thinking that all this was what she’d been doing before the storm had rolled through her life.
Memories of Matthias rose like spikes breaking through skin, the pain making her short of breath.
Closing her eyes briefly, she told herself to get a grip.
“It’s coming over e-mail,” she said gruffly.
Tony snagged a Twinkie and swiveled in the direction of his computer screen.
A moment later, she heard him mutter under his breath and then he turned back around to her. “This is…incredible. Absolutely incredible—I’ve never seen…How long have you been gathering all this? And what’s your angle? Who are your—wait, you aren’t turning this over to me exclusively, are you?”
Mels smiled sadly and nodded. “Think of it as my going away present. You’ve been so generous with me ever since I started. And maybe you can get further with it than I could.” She glanced at his screen, seeing all of the work she’d done. “I’ve been stalled out, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be in good hands with you. If anyone can crack the truth behind those disappearances, it’s you.”
As Tony’s eyes went even wider, she knew she’d done the right thing—for herself, for him…and most important, for all those missing boys out there, those souls that had somehow, inexplicably, disappeared into the Caldwell night.
Tony was going to find the answer. Somehow.
* * *
As Matthias strode down a carpeted hallway in the ground floor, employees-only part of the hotel, he walked with his head up and his arms swinging casually at his sides. Passing by open doors, he read the little plaques next to each one, and checked out various administrative, human resources, and accounting personnel, all of whom were working hard, talking on their phones, typing on their computers.
Busy, busy. Which was perfect if you were looking to infiltrate somewhere where you didn’t belong. The key was walking with purpose, like an appointment was waiting for you, and making eye contact in a casual, bored manner. That combination, even more than a suit and tie, was critical: You didn’t want to give any of the worker bees an excuse or opportunity to get off their asses and get in the way.
Thank God Adrian had agreed to hang in the lobby. Someone like him, with those piercings, was a billboard for Duck Out of Water in this situation.
As Matthias went along, he knew that sooner or later he was going to find what he was looking for: a vacant computer that was networked into the Marriott’s big database. And what do you know, bingo presented itself three doors down in the form of an empty office with a full desk setup: The little plaque detailing who belonged in there had been slid out of its holder, and there were no personal effects on the desk, no coat hanging in the corner—no window, either. Better solution than he’d expected.
Slipping inside and closing the door, he thought it would have helped if he’d had access to the resources of XOps—nothing like a badge with your picture and an IT title on it to smooth over any inquiries. As it was, all he had was a loaded gun with a silencer.
Sitting in the cushiony leather office chair, part of him was very clear that everyone was expendable, that if anybody walked in while he was working, he was going to shoot them and drag the body under the desk.
But God, he prayed it didn’t come to that for more reasons than one.
Bending down, he hit the switch on the CPU and cut the boot-up off before the inevitable password-protected sign-in screen flashed. Going in under the operating system’s radar, he took control, scrambled the IP address, and jumped onto the World Wide Web.
The XOps computer system was a monolith set up by the best experts he’d been able to recruit, whether they’d been MIT graduates, fifteen-year-old arrogant little shits, or multinational hackers—and each and every one of those big brains had been silenced by means of leverage…or the cold embrace of the earth.
After all, the builders of your castle knew your secret escapes—and he’d especially not wanted anyone in the organization to be aware of the hidden path he now took into the network.
Eventually, someone would probably discover he’d snuck in and out using a ghost admin account, but it would be weeks, months—maybe not ever—
He was in.
A quick check of the clock in the corner of the screen told him he had no more than sixty seconds before he ran the risk of being identified as a concurrent user.
He needed less than thirty.
Putting his hand in his pocket, he took out the SanDisk he’d bought on the way here from the gift shop. Punching the thing into the USB port in the front of the machine, he initiated a data download that was nuclear in its scope, but relatively self-contained in terms of bytes.
Not a lot of operatives, after all, and their missions were short and to the point.
And talk about intel—the files were the lynchpin of his self-protective exit strategy: he’d set up this comprehensive information cache, along with its auto-updating function, the moment the XOps computer systems had been put into service. It was just as important as the weapons and the cash he’d hidden in New York. And London. And Tangier. And Dubai. And Melbourne.
In his business, the emperor stayed on the throne only as long as he could hold on to his power—and you could never be sure when your base was going to erode.
In fact, the return of his memory told him all about how he’d guarded his influence, hoarded it, nurtured it, kept himself alive and in control…until he’d begun to stink from the filth of his deeds; until his soul—or what little of a one he’d had—had withered and died; until he’d become so emotionless he was practically an inanimate object; until he’d realized that death was the only way out, and better that he choose the time and the place.
Like in a desert, in front of a witness…with a bomb that he’d rigged to do the job.
Guess he hadn’t been in control of everything, though, because Jim Heron hadn’t left him where he’d lain and so he hadn’t died according to schedule.
Without Heron’s interference, though, he wouldn’t have eventually met Mels.
And he wouldn’t be using this information in the way he was going to.
This felt like the better outcome.
Except for the losing Mels part, that was.
Just before he signed out, an abiding curiosity got to him. With a quick shift, he pulled out of his shadow account and his little secret locker of information—and signed in for real, using an account he had set up for one of his administrators about six months ago.
It was still active. And the password hadn’t been changed—which was stupid.
Going into the personnel database, he typed in a name and hit return.
In the center of the gray screen, a tiny hourglass spun slowly, and seemed to do that weightless rotation forever. In reality, it was probably less than a second or two. The data that flashed next was Jim Heron’s profile, and Matthias quickly scanned the orderly notations.
He wasn’t worried about this activity getting traced—and it would. Operatives were going to show up at this particular computer ASAP.
Naturally, they would know it was him, and they wouldn’t be surprised.
The next profile he reviewed was his own, and he went back to Heron’s again before he signed off. He wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong, but something stuck with him, something that just wasn’t right. No time to figure it out, however—at least not in this office.
Matthias jacked out and crushed the flashdrive in his fist. After shutting down the comp, he popped open the door, looked to the left and the right, and stepped into the hall. Walking off, he—
“Can I help you?” a female voice demanded.
He paused and turned around. “I’m looking for Human Resources? Am I in the right place?”
The woman was s
hort and stocky, built on the lines of a dishwasher or maybe a file cabinet. She was dressed in a steel gray suit, too, and her hair was cut right at the jawline, like she felt as though she had to prove that she was all business, all the time.
“I’m the head of HR.” Her eyes narrowed. “Who exactly are you here to see?”
“I’m applying for a waiter position in the restaurant? The front desk sent me here?”
“Oh for godsake.” Ms. VP looked like she was going to boil over on the spot. “Again? I’ve told them not to refer you guys here.”
“Yeah, I know—shouldn’t I be meeting with the hospitality manager or something—”
“Take this hall here out to the lobby. Go past the restaurant—until you’re almost at the fire exit. There’s a door marked ‘Office’—you’re looking for Bobby.”
Matthias smiled. “Thanks.”
She wheeled away and started marching in the opposite direction, the muttering suggesting she was already on the phone with whoever she was about to bitch-dial.
Have fun with that, he thought as he strode out.
Chapter Forty-nine
“You okay, big guy?” Jim asked as he carried Dog back up the stairs to the apartment over the garage.
The little man had been guarding the place all night, keeping everything as it should be, his eyes as fierce as his fur was not.
Up in the studio, Jim put the animal down and went over to the kitchen. “Just kibble this morning, sport. Sorry. But I’ll bring you back a turkey club, ’kay?”
As Dog let out a chuff of agreement, Jim figured deli sandwiches were probably not the best diet, but life was too short not to enjoy something as simple as what you liked to eat. And Dog loved ’em.
Running water in the sink, he rinsed out a small red bowl and refilled it. Putting the thing on the floor next to a cup and a half of Eukanuba, he stepped back and let Dog sniff around, take a test bite, and settle into his breakfast.
With the meal in progress, Jim walked over to the door and took out his cigarettes. Lighting up on the landing, he exhaled and braced one hand on the rail.
The reporter was at work; he’d checked on her as soon as he’d left the Marriott. And given that there was no sign of Devina anywhere, and the tracer spell remained up and rolling on both Matthias and the guy’s female, he’d decided to head back here and make sure all was cool.
Now he wasn’t sure what to do…except listen to Dog crunch.
Off in the distance, a truck traveled over the road on the far side of the meadow, going at a steady pace. Closer by, crows cawed to one another on the pineboughs. Behind him, Dog kept working his jaw.
Everything was so damned tranquil, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
It was on his second coffin nail that he realized he was waiting for Nigel to make an appearance. That British dandy always seemed to show up at critical times, and now felt like one: Jim couldn’t believe what Ad had done. The self-sacrifice, the mission critical, the man-up. On some level, it was unfathomable.
Eddie would have been really proud of the guy.
But what were they going to do now? Jim still didn’t know where the crossroads were, and Devina was undoubtedly getting up to something.
“Nigel—my man,” he muttered on the exhale. “Where are you.”
Instead of a royal visit, all he got was ashes to tap off the tip of his Marlboro, and he began to wonder if there hadn’t been a trickle-down effect to Devina’s getting her chain yanked by the Maker: Looked like the archangels were sitting back on this round as well.
Fair enough—
Just as he turned around, another vehicle came into view on the opposite side of the meadow. It was traveling fast—and it had a friend, a perfectly matched buddy.
Cops.
And what do you know, they were hanging a louie and shooting down the lane.
“We got company, Dog,” he muttered, grinding out his butt in the ashtray he kept on the railing. “Come here, my man. Let’s disappear together and watch the show.”
As he ducked inside, the pair of squad cars tore right up to the double doors, dust rising from their wheels grinding to a halt on the pea gravel.
Naturally, his phone went off as the unis were getting out. With his animal under his arm, he answered the call softly and watched through the drapes.
“I’m busy, Ad.”
“Where are you?”
“At the garage. And the CPD just showed up—make my day and tell me you got rid of the body?”
“We fish-tanked it, along with the car he came in. They aren’t going to find a damn thing.”
“So why are the cops here now?”
“I don’t know—hold on.” There was some muted conversation at that point. “Matthias is with me. He says it’s the bullet Mels took when she came out to the garage—she had it analyzed, and of course it matches the casings in the basement of the Marriott. You can draw the conclusions from there.”
“Great.”
Now Ad’s voice dropped to a whisper also. “By the way, your old boss is good with a computer.”
“What’s he up to?”
“I think he’s going to blow the lid off of the whole XOps operations.”
“He’s doing what?” Jim nearly forgot to keep his voice low. “How do you know this?”
“He and I left the hotel room together, and on the way to the exit, he made a little detour into Toshiba territory. He’s got a SanDisk with a lot of information on it—I was right behind him when he loaded up the damn thing.”
What was he going to-—
The reporter, Jim thought. He was going to give it to her, and tell her to do her job.
Man, talk about your one-eighties. Matthias had devoted his life to keeping XOps hidden. Had killed for it, tortured for it, turned on friends and allies for it. He’d bullied the White House and frightened worldwide leaders; he’d leveraged money and sex; he’d double-talked, double-crossed, and buried the quick and the dead.
And now he was letting it all go?
“We’ve done it,” Jim breathed. “This is the crossroads.”
“Looks like it.” Ad’s voice resumed normal volume. “Anywho, he’s all worked up about you—he doesn’t want you shanked and told me to call.”
Which was another surprise. “Tell him thanks, I can take care of business here. Where’s he going?”
“Won’t say, and he wants privacy.”
“Well, give it to him, but stick around.”
“You got it, boss.”
Jim hit end and scrubbed his face. It appeared as if he’d won the round…because the crossroads could be any number of things requiring a choice or a decision that revealed the quality of the soul in question.
And that man was giving up his seat of evil—not by stepping down, but by blowing the place the fuck up.
Jim would have spiked something at the goal line…but he didn’t want to upset his visitors: Down below, the cops were sniffing around, checking those locked doors where the F-150, the Explorer, and the Harleys were kept. Their next move was to head for the stairs, and as they ascended, he was grateful that Dog stayed silent.
Knock. Knock.
“Caldwell Police,” came the shout. “Anybody home?”
Knock. Knock.
“Caldwell Police.”
One of the pair cupped his hands together and leaned into the glass, peering inside.
Jim raised his invisible palm and gave the guy a little wave just to be neighborly—but what he really wanted to do was flip his middle finger. This visit probably meant he and his boys needed to decamp—peace and quiet were going to be impossible to come by after this, particularly when the police followed up with his landlord.
But he had other problems at the moment
Especially as the police decided to throw civil rights out the window, and jimmied the lock.
* * *
“Mels Carmichael.” Mels frowned. “Hello?”
When there was no answer, she hung up a
nd checked the time. One o’clockish. Grabbing her coat, she got to her feet and gave Tony a wave.
As she left through the newsroom’s front door, she wondered if she shouldn’t have had her buddy get off his phone and come with her. Last time she’d done this, she’d nearly died.
Then again, she wasn’t meeting Monty anywhere near the river. And how many people had kicked it in an urban Barnes & Noble?
Stepping over to the curb, she measured the traffic and the temperature, and decided to hoof it instead of take a cab: Monty wanted to convene at that same open-air mall where she’d met Mr. Ballastics the day before, and it was only five blocks away—besides, maybe the walk would clear her head.
Not.
She spent the entire trip looking over her shoulder, wondering if she was being followed.
On the plus side, there was nothing like a good shot of paranoia to get someone over the afternoon hump. The stuff was better than a shot of espresso, and free.
The street mall was busy again, people out in the April sunshine, hustling between the shops and those chain restaurants where you could eat a huge plate of food as well as a dessert for fifteen bucks. The bookstore was at the far end, and when she walked in, she casually strolled through the stacks.
One good thing about getting out of Caldwell would be never having to deal with Monty and his stupid-ass, pseudo-spy crap again.
As instructed, she went to the back, passed the magazine section, mounted the three steps up into the Romance and Fiction area, and then headed farther down to Military.
Naturally. Because when you were pretending that you were sharing intel of national security-level importance, you didn’t want to do it in the Health & Beauty section: A background of picture books of guns and wars were much more manly. Yup.
“You’re here,” came the hushed voice.
As she turned to Monty, she braced herself—but this was actually him. Same big forehead, same pinchy little mouth, right pair of sunglasses, which he kept on—because wearing something like that made you much less noticeable indoors. Another great plan.
God, her Ray-Bans…Matthias had kept them, hadn’t he.