The Chameleon

by Michele Hauf

  He’d have to ask Saskia about that later.

  For now, it was time to pull on the thug. Jack buttoned his suit coat and smoothed a palm down his yellow tie. It was frigging cold, but that just helped to keep the sweat from his brow. Right?

  He needed a vacation. In Jamaica.

  Clive paused at the door and turned to say over his shoulder, “Stay behind me until it’s necessary to move elsewhere.”

  “Always.”

  He wasn’t stupid. As the muscle, Jack kept his eyes on all the players while standing behind the key operator. He’d know when it was his turn to step in. Thanks to his twitchy nose for the suspicious.

  They strode inside the blessedly warm building, and a narrow hallway filtered them toward a small room cluttered with ropes of all thicknesses coiled and hung on the walls. Sea-fishing equipment, Jack figured, as he took in an assortment of massive wood pulleys and rusted iron hooks. It looked like a collector’s messy stash, not an organized inventory of anything that might prove of use.

  Clive stopped abruptly and Jack stopped three feet behind him, hands calmly hung at his sides, as he took in the scene. A small man, no taller than a fourth grader, stood behind a desk with his hands up. Wire-rimmed spectacles made his eyes look five sizes bigger than they were. And the reason for his quiet submission stood before the desk, holding a Beretta 8000 aimed at the small man.

  “Busy man,” Clive commented.

  The gunman quickly swung his arm toward Clive and Jack. His gaze darted. His mouth was stretched tensely. The pistol was a small bit of aluminum and gunpowder, but easy to conceal. “Who the hell are you two?”

  Clive put up his hands in placation. Jack kept his hands down at his sides and his attention split between the gunman and the man behind the desk.

  “We have an issue with Mr. Koskinen,” Clive offered. “Much like, I presume, you appear to have an issue?”

  “He stole from me,” the gunman blurted out. He redirected his aim toward the short man, but then back at Clive and Jack. “Get out of here. This is my deal.”

  “I had an appointment with this gentleman,” Koskinen said with a nod toward Clive. “You, I did not.”

  The gunman pointed his pistol toward the ceiling and fired. Building debris sprinkled down to land on the desktop.

  Clive turned to Jack. Jack got the message.

  Stepping quickly, he swung around Clive and reached the gunman just as he swung the pistol toward him. Catching his wrist and pointing the gun downward, the man managed to get off another shot, even as Jack wrangled an arm about his neck. Squeezing his fingers about his wrist and compressing the bones, the gunman yelped and the weapon dropped to the floor. Jack’s firm bending of his fingers backward produced a satisfying snap.

  Jack twisted the man around to face the wall of ropes and slammed him against a thick coil. His captive spun quickly, his agility surprising Jack, but he was prepared to block the fist that soared toward his face. Kneeing his opponent in the kidneys dropped him to his knees. Bending, Jack grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back, slamming a foot to his shoulder to force him to lower his head to the floor. He moved his grip down to the broken hand and applied pressure. This time the yowl progressed to a pleading wail.

  “Kill him!” the man behind the desk encouraged.

  “Whatever issue the two of you have,” Jack said calmly, “I’ll leave for you to take care of. Clive?”

  “Where’s the drill?” Clive asked.

  “The price is twenty thousand euros,” the deskman had the audacity to say.

  “We agreed to five, and I am a man of my word. Are you a man of your word?”

  Jack crushed the toe of his shoe against the back of his captive’s head, while slowly and firmly pressing into the broken hand bone, forcing out a groan from the gunman. He gave his arm a tighter twist, just for good measure. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Needed to be done.”

  “Isn’t he a gentleman?” Clive asked no one in particular. “Now hand over the drill or I’ll have my Gentleman Jack show you the error of your ways, Koskinen.”

  “Where’s the cash?”

  Clive tugged out an envelope from his pocket and tossed it on the desk. The short man eyed it for a few moments. He had nothing to counter that action. And if he were smart, he’d take the cash. Jack didn’t see any weapons, though he wouldn’t rule out a gun in a desk drawer or taped under the desk.

  “Fine. It’s over there.” He gestured toward a wood crate on the floor beneath a coiled rope.

  “Open it for him,” Jack said before Clive could make the mistake of looking in the box himself. He twisted his shoe against his prisoner’s neck. He should have blacked out by now. For a gangly bit he was hardy.

  “Do as the gentleman asks,” Clive said.

  With a hell of a lot of huffing and sighing, the short man opened the crate with a crowbar and showed Clive what was inside. It was a box for a large machine that would require two men to carry out. Jack did not like that scenario, especially with an idiot gunman waiting to get served what he felt was just. Whatever that was.

  “It’s good.” Clive toed the box. “Doing business with you has not been a pleasure. But I’m going to guess you prefer it that way. Have your idiot help carry it out to the car.” Clive turned and strode down the hallway.

  Really? That did not leave Jack in a good position. He wasn’t about to let this bastard move any more than he already had. Jack flipped the man over and delivered him an upper cut under the jaw. Knocked him out cold.

  As he rose, he lunged to grab the abandoned gun. He ejected the magazine. Saw there were only three bullets, and emptied them into his palm. Calmly, he set the gun by the head of the unconscious man, and slipped the bullets into his pocket.

  With a nod to Koskinen, Jack said, “Looks like you’re the idiot. Help me carry this thing out or I’ll pocket the cash myself.”

  Shoving the envelope in his front pants pocket, the man then lifted one end of the crate, which did have a rope handle on it. Jack lifted the other and led the way down the hallway, listening carefully. Not a sound of any weapon being picked up. But he always stayed alert until the coast was clear. And the coast was never clear until he could not see the people or the place in view.

  He was getting too fucking old for this racket. Bruising his fists across jaws, cheeks, skulls, into ribs, and right into the sensitive esophagus. He’d once gotten a rise out of the act of violence. It had simply been what he did. It was all he had ever known. He’d grown up in a violent family. Beating the shite out of one another was how they resolved conflicts and got taught lessons.

  But he’d beaten all his anger out years ago. Honestly, he had nothing left he could summon that would personally offend him.

  Now, the act of swinging his fists had become merely a job. One that was becoming harder and harder to be proud of. He could only justify beating on arseholes for so much longer before it all crumbled. His world. His life.

  But what waited for him on the other side? Was there another side?

  The chill air smacked him as he walked out, and he and Koskinen shoved the crate inside the backseat of the BMW. It just fit.

  “And don’t come back!” Koskinen said with a flip of the bird to them before he scrambled back inside the building.

  Keeping an eye on the building as they pulled away, Jack could only smirk as Clive congratulated him on a job well done.

  Indeed. And yet, who had they marked as their enemies now?

  Chapter 6

  Jack read the note Saskia had left taped to the fridge door: Left for the garage. See you later.

  He tapped the note, then tugged if off and let it flutter into the trash bin. Clive had said he’d see him around six, and… It was only three. So. Since his watcher was also absent, he had a few hours to himself.

  He tugged out the burner phone and r
eread the text stating the demand for a one million pound ransom. He wasn’t going to waste this time.

  * * * *

  At sight of Jack leaving her building across the street and strolling down the sidewalk, Saskia slid off the coffee shop bar stool and tossed her paper cup in the trash bin. Pulling down the blue knit skull cap over her short blond hair, she walked outside.

  The homeless guy who was begging from his beat-up piece of cardboard square stepped in front of her. “Dude, you got some change?”

  She dug into her pocket and slapped a couple two-euro coins into his hand.

  “Thanks, man!”

  Walking onward, she smirked. Satisfied her disguise made her appear a thin man, perhaps a teenaged boy in holey jeans and a thick black down jacket. A knit cap boasting the Finnish hockey team—the Lions—fit snuggly over short blond hair that dusted her ears. She kept pace with Jack as he walked with purpose. He knew where he was going. And she had some idea too. There was a reason she had chosen the apartment in this area of the city. Not only was it reasonably close to the garage, it was in the vicinity of another location that put up all her red flags.

  Actually the apartment had been pre-chosen for her before she’d arrived in Helsinki four days before Jack had gotten here. She did what she was told.

  If he turned at the next street…

  And… He turned right. Good call on the neighborhood selection. Sometimes her employer seemed to have an almost prescient knowing of things.

  Crossing the street before a bus that had stopped to let off passengers onto the salted sidewalk, she walked with a swing to her step, how one might if they were listening to music through earbuds and were generally happy with their life.

  She was happy with her life. When she was working a job, she was most happy. And this kind of work? It was as if she’d been born to it. Perhaps she had been. She’d learned safe cracking from her brother—may he rest in peace—and witnessing her grandmother’s changing styles, looks, and costumes had set her on a lifelong love for assimilating herself into the world in the manner in which she wished to be accepted.

  Respected and trustworthy? She could put on a suit, some sideburns, and, with some heavy-duty makeup contouring, she could stand before a board meeting while presenting figures for the latest corporate takeover.

  Sexy and smart? The librarian look with a tight pencil skirt, thick glasses, and hair coiled in victory rolls was one of her favorite disguises. It also came in handy when role-playing for sex.

  Sweet, innocent and not altogetherthere? She could fashion herself a teenager with little makeup and non-figure-conforming clothing. The times she’d needed to be a kid to wheedle her way into a tense situation and feel out the players were numerous.

  Jack turned down an alley, so she quickened her steps and peered around the corner of the brick building where he’d turned. He shifted at the hip to look over his shoulder so she slipped out of view. Waiting a few seconds, she looked again. Almost missing him, his back leg disappeared as he walked in through a doorway.

  Hastening her steps, she avoided the slushy channels from cars that had pummeled the snow and ice to soup, and, fully aware of the camera above the door she neared, stepped lightly across the alley to sidle up alongside the door. There wasn’t a sign or identifier on the door. And no windows. The camera positioned a foot above the metal door did not sweep, nor would it mark her with her back against the wall. Whoever was inside would know who was coming and allow admittance.

  She didn’t need to show herself or go inside. If her intel was correct, this was the place of business for a doctor who specialized in adjustment surgeries. Not plastic surgery that could change a person’s face and characteristics. Rather, he removed tattoos, or added them, took out teeth and replaced them with a GPS chip and a crown. He even removed tracking devices that could have been placed anywhere on the body. And he charged a pretty penny.

  Backing away from the door, Saskia shoved her hands in her coat pockets and kicked at the snow wedged up along the slushy channels as she walked toward the main street. Stationing herself at the building corner, she had only to wait another ten minutes before Jack swung out and walked toward her. He gave no clue that a procedure had been performed, but it had been mere minutes. Nothing had happened, except perhaps a conversation and scheduling an appointment.

  Back pressed to the brick building Saskia waited, nodding her head, as if in time to music. Jack turned the corner, remarking her with the side eye, but kept on walking. Just another kid, he must have thought.

  When he’d walked a good block away, she swung around the side of the building, and using the relative privacy of the shadowed alleyway, she slid off her black coat and turned it inside out to reveal the white reversible lining. Put it back on. Then she tugged off her cap and wig, and tucked away the hairpiece in the zippered pocket. She shook out her naturally dark hair. After pulling a tiny packet with an alcohol face wipe from another pocket, she then wiped away the makeup from her cheeks that had given her a sunken look.

  Turning about the corner, she inspected her work in the window of a pastry shop advertising fresh scones. One last swipe to a streak of contouring along her jawbone and she was back to plain old Saskia. Just another face in the crowd. It was her most difficult disguise, but she never stayed in it too long.

  Jack Angelo had made the move she had hoped he would not make. Not that she had a stake in what he did or did not do. But since meeting him, and deciding he was an all right kind of guy? She had to admit, at the very least, she liked him. Didn’t want to see him get in any trouble. Because some troubles were devastating, and no man could rise up from them.

  And as far as she knew, he would be breaking a promise if he went through with an appointment with the man he’d just visited. She liked her men rough and rowdy, but also, true and possessed of integrity.

  Her big Irish bull was making her wonder about him now.

  * * * *

  Jack arrived at the garage and noted how his shoes crunched over the snowpack. Sounded like he was walking over Styrofoam. It snowed in London, his home base, and he’d been to Siberia and even Minnesota in the States, but those had been brief visits. Who on God’s green earth chose to live year-round in a place like this? Not simply for a visit, but permanently. It was colder than a witch’s tit. And that was mighty cold.

  Entering the digital code for the garage that Saskia had given him, the metal door popped open and he swept in, rubbing his hands together and mentally marking on his list the need for thermal gloves. Clive’s crop of silver hair was nowhere in sight, but there was a light on in the office. Saskia and Niles stood across the garage, looking over the plans drawn on the floor.

  “Jack!” Niles greeted him with a thumbs-up. The man did like his turtlenecks, and today’s choice of black blended with his skin tone. He wore earbuds decorated with gold skulls, but only one was in an ear, the other swung across his chest.

  “You have a relaxing afternoon?” Saskia asked as Jack approached. “Clive has been here for hours.”

  “He said not to meet him here until six.” Jack checked his watch. “It’s exactly five fifty-nine. I’m early.”

  “So you are.”

  She slid her gaze up and down his body in a manner that said so many things. I’ve seen you naked in the shower was the first thing. I’ve scammed you not once, not twice, but three times was the second thing. And the third resulted in that judgy look females always gave a man when they had deemed him not up to snuff.

  He didn’t need the judgment. And he really didn’t need the mind games.

  “Niles has plotted our steps from entry through the wall in the accounting office that sits next to the bank to the safe,” Saskia explained while pointing it out on the floor drawing. “It’s an easy walk. Even the drill through the wall should prove quick with Clive’s new toy.”

  “If you consider two hou
rs quick,” Niles chimed in. “That’s how long it should take to drill through the office’s brick wall and then the bank’s reinforced concrete wall, if I’ve guesstimated the schematics correctly.”

  “No building plans?” Jack asked.

  “I was able to access the floor plans for the entire block through city records,” Niles explained. “But the bank plan is vague. To be expected. It meets the standard wall thickness using concrete and brick. And the bank is over a hundred years old, so I expect that thickness. The building materials weren’t as strong back then, but they reinforced them with concrete and used a lot of rebar.”

  “No steel barriers?”

  “Not that the floor plans show.”

  “Then it’ll be quicker than two hours with that drill,” Jack said. “More like an hour.”

  “You think?” Niles scratched his head. “I admit this is my first time with this sort of drill.”

  “I’ve used something similar before,” Jack said. “It cuts through concrete like butter. Just need to have a water source to keep it lubricated.”

  “There’s a bathroom in the accounting office. We’ll run a hose from there to the wall.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.” Jack crossed his arms over his chest. “We should be able to move on this sooner rather than later.”

  “Are you in a rush, Jack?” Clive pushed the industrial drill on a low cart across the concrete carport and planted it next to where Niles was working on his laptop. “The party’s only just begun. Don’t you want to stick around and get to know us?”

  Jack quirked a brow. Since when did the man suddenly want to chat over tea? He was here for a job. Get in, get out. Get paid. Bye bye.