“Sir, remain—” Leet caught herself before making the mistake.
Her failure to control the situation surprised Max, her inexperience on full display. He approached the driver, a young man dressed in a baggy white t-shirt and jeans, a white ball cap turned backward on his head. In addition to appearing extremely pissed—and rightly so—he also looked like he could take a punch or three. Max could tell that he was lean and ripped beneath those baggy clothes, maybe even an amateur boxer or MMA student in his spare time. One thing was for certain: Leet and her badge didn’t frighten him in the least.
Still high on adrenaline from the gun battle and drive, Max would gladly have gone a few rounds with him just to burn off some excess energy. No time for that. This needed to be handled as quickly as possible.
“Get the fuck out my face, bitch, ’fore I feed you that badge!” he shouted at Leet. He then turned and saw Max coming. “Who are you, her muscle?” He waggled two fingers in a come on gesture. “Bring it, muthafucka!” He didn’t wait on Max but rather advanced, keeping his eyes locked on Max’s like a properly trained fighter.
Definitely not afraid. Max raised the can of pepper spray in his right hand, yet staid his trigger finger when he saw Leet come up behind the driver, who cried out and spasmed when she jabbed a stun gun into his back, staggering him just long enough for Max to smash his nose with a hard left that sent him reeling back toward Leet. She shocked him again and then pressed her advantage, tripping the guy and slamming him hard to the pavement.
Not surprisingly, he started to get up immediately.
Sorry, pal. Max put a big boot in his ribs, then stomped his head into the asphalt, breaking teeth.
And still the guy wasn’t done.
Fuck! Max stooped, fired a thick stream of pepper spray directly into his face that left him writhing and howling in agony. He held no malice toward the driver, merely took appropriate action to accomplish his mission. The Marquess of Queensberry be damned.
Max turned to Leet and nodded approval. “You’re learning. You drive.” He rounded the car to ride shotgun.
Leet took off just as bystanders showed up, drawn by the commotion. Flashes on cell phone cameras blinked behind them as they fled the scene. “Dammit!” Max hoped the incident wouldn’t wind up on the 11 o’clock news. Doubt it. They’ll be more concerned with the four dead men we left behind. The thought provided little solace, however. If only I’d moved faster.
“So who do you think jumped us?” Max muttered, keeping his voice low for the benefit of Daniel and Shai.
“Not sure, but I think they were Asian. I got a good look at the guy on the dumpster after I dropped him.”
“North Koreans? Chinese intelligence, maybe?” Max hadn’t noticed the races of the men blocking the alley; it had been too dark.
“One way to find out. The guy on the roof dropped his gun in my lap when you hit the brakes. Take a look; it’s in my purse.”
Max dipped into her leather handbag, pulled out a silenced 9mm pistol remarkably similar to a Beretta M9. “Chinese for certain, model T75.”
“Marvelous, huh?”
“Yeah, perfect.” He stuck the gun back in her purse. “So where to?”
“Not back to the safehouse, that’s for sure. We’ll head south on 101. Bay Bridge is out. No tolls eastbound but still surveillance cameras.”
“Gotcha. And then?”
“Haven’t gotten that far yet. Maybe back to LA. They might not be expecting us to backtrack after this.”
Max tossed her plan the instant she uttered it. Won’t work, they’ll still be watching LA. They want to keep us cornered out here. But driving across the country didn’t sound like a viable plan either. I can’t stomach three thousand more miles of this shit. We need to hop a private jet from a really private airport. And I know just the one.
CHAPTER 8
Leet led the way into their accommodations for the remainder of the night, a double room in a seedy motel near the town of Merced in the San Joaquin Valley. As much as Max wanted to keep driving through the night, he had to consider those under his protection, and neither he nor Leet would be worth a damn without a solid plan and some rest. Max could smell the room before he stepped over the threshold: a multi-pronged funk of mold, stale cigarettes, rotten ass, and utter despair. He closed the door behind them, not that it would do much good if they were discovered. The flimsy door might as well have been cardboard, and the cheap locks would easily yield before determined intruders.
Leet sighed after turning on the lights. “Home sweet home. Let’s make the best of it.” She threw her bag on the nearest bed, instructed Daniel and Shai to take the other at the back of the room near the bathroom door.
“You might want to strip the bedspreads,” Max said. “They don’t make a habit of washing them.”
“Good point,” Leet agreed, doing just that. “You don’t carry a black light, do you?” She smirked as she spoke.
“No.”
“Good thing. Curiosity might have gotten the better of me.”
“Some things are best left unknown.”
The graying white sheets didn’t look much cleaner than the bedspreads, but he assumed they’d been washed since their last use. Not that it really mattered. They would all sleep in their clothes, ready to make a hasty departure if necessary.
Max checked the bathroom while the others settled in. A couple of startled roaches scurried for cover beneath the toilet. The bathroom featured not only a grimy shower stall but also a jacuzzi tub. Not on your life. God only knew what microbial filth might be lurking in the piping. As he’d expected, the bathroom had no windows. Good. They would only have to monitor the front door and the picture window beside it. Satisfied that no threats would come from this quarter, he returned to the room.
“Ew, that’s fucking gross,” Leet said, peering behind the nightstand. “Sorry, Shai.”
Max leaned over next to her, saw the discarded rubber lying on the carpet. “Not exactly surprising. They rent rooms by the hour for a reason.”
“No-Tell Motel,” Leet said, shaking her head.
“Yep, hot sheet heaven.”
“I need a shower,” Daniel said. “Is the bathroom safe?”
“Well, you won’t get shot at,” Max said. “But you might contract athlete’s foot. Maybe something worse if you brave the hot tub. You’ve been warned.”
“Then I shall stick to the shower.” Daniel headed into the bathroom and closed the door. As ever, he brought his briefcase with him.
“He never lets that out of his sight, does he?” Max asked.
“Nope,” Leet said. “He doesn’t even trust me with it.”
“Smart man. No offense.”
She shrugged, sat down in a chair next to a small round table. “None taken. Who could blame him after being double-crossed so many times?”
“Good point.” Max sat down across from her. They needed to talk strategy and forge a plan, among other things.
Shai sat on the far bed, dragging and tapping a stylus on the screen of his tablet and looking thoroughly absorbed. Max craned his neck for a better view of the tablet screen. The kid was playing Tetris, rotating each block the instant it appeared, always thinking several seconds ahead. Smart kid but a little strange. You’d think he would have been shitting his pants during that attack, not so much his father. Kids are adaptable. He briefly thought back to some of the kid soldiers he had encountered while in Africa.
“Tell me something,” Max said quietly. “Why did Farber flee Israel? A man that brilliant… you’d think his government would want to protect him and use Nexus against their enemies. They certainly have enough of them.”
“That’s exactly what they wanted, only they weren’t interested in protecting him so much as having their scientists commandeer his project. After he refused them, your old pals at the Agency wasted no time trying to get to him. I don’t know all the details, but needless to say it was a scr
ew job.”
“Shocking.”
“And you know what happens to people who won’t cooperate with the CIA.”
Yeah, they send a guy like me to persuade them. “Did they threaten the boy as well? Is that why he’s here? Because if not—”
“Margaret?” said Shai, who seemed to have materialized at the table as though from thin air. He’d discarded his tablet, but the stuffed rabbit remained in his grasp.
Leet put on her warmest smile. “Yes, darling?”
“Can you read me a bedtime story?”
“I certainly can.”
“You move like a shadow, Shai,” Max said. “You want to be a ninja when you grow up?”
“No.” He averted his eyes from Max’s “I want to be a scientist like my father.”
“Good answer.” He ruffled what little remained of his hair.
Leet escorted Shai back to bed and began reading a Peter Rabbit story to him. Max remembered Peter Rabbit and a host of other storybook characters, though not from his own youth. His father had read only newspapers, outdoor magazines, and pulp novels; his mother read nothing at all, unless booze labels counted. But Max remembered reading bedtime stories to David, even if they were few and far between. I was always gone. It saddened him to think of all those lost moments. I missed at least half of his life. He hoped Shai wouldn’t have to endure an absentee father, particularly one who would never return home.
When juxtaposed to keeping the Farbers alive, delivering Nexus seemed a rather paltry priority, especially when Max considered what the US government would use it for—perpetuating the status quo, keeping the game of international espionage forever in play, no chance at a future full of trust or goodwill. The shit I have to wade through over a couple of names.
While Peter Rabbit stole lettuce and awkwardly eluded Mr. McGregor, Max got busy on his phone, figuring out the quickest route for next day’s journey.
Leet stopped reading long before Peter made it back to his rabbit hole. Shai had fallen asleep. The shower stopped running right about then. Leet stealthily rose from the bed, went to the bathroom door and knocked softly. “Daniel? We’re going outside for a few minutes, so you can dress in here.” She turned to Max. “I’m gonna burn one while we talk.”
“Okay.” Max followed her outside, onto the walkway that accessed the second-floor rooms.
Leet’s idea of burning one turned out to be sucking on a vape pen as opposed to actually smoking, which was fine by him. Other than the occasional cigar when one was offered, Max never smoked, never wanted to. The very smell of cigarettes turned him off, reminding him of his mother.
“How long since you quit smoking?” he asked.
“About three months. I should give this up too, but I’m not quite ready.”
“Eh, one step at a time, as long as you’re stepping in the right direction.”
“True enough. And we need a right step tomorrow. Today was a fucking disaster start to finish.” She looked undeniably weary after driving from San Francisco for several hours over a winding backroad that surmounted the coastal range. Tomorrow it’s my turn behind the wheel.
“I think we can make that happen. But for starters, we need another destination. They’ll still be watching LA, every airport and travel terminal public and private. We need to get off the West Coast.”
“You’re not thinking of driving to DC, are you?”
“No, we’d never make it, and we’d go batshit crazy in the process. I’m thinking Vegas. I know a couple of tiny private airports where we can discreetly hop a private jet.”
“How would you know that?”
“I live in the area.” Her lack of knowledge didn’t surprise him. Ben might have provided her with his basic information, but he doubted she’d had time to peruse it all.
“Are we gonna stay at your house?”
Max had considered it. “Nah, best not. We need to keep moving and get to the safehouse in Virginia. If word’s leaked that I’m with you, they’re bound to stakeout my house.”
Max resided in a gated community. The tight security had always been enough to keep most unsavory characters outside the gate, but foreign operatives would be willing to risk infiltration and perhaps direct assault with Nexus up for grabs. The homeowners’ association would love that.
“Okay… that’s still a long drive. And won’t we have to head south first to pick up the interstate?”
“Yes, we will. It’s no slam dunk, but I like our chances.” Nothing lay to the east of Merced but Yosemite and the Sierras, with Death Valley to the south of that. They would have to drive south to Barstow to pick up Interstate 15 to Las Vegas, bringing them closer to LA than he cared to be.
Silence reigned for several moments, broken by the roar of a tractor trailer passing by on Route 99. Just when Max thought she might not respond, Leet said, “Okay, let’s say your plan works, and we hop a plane east. Once we disappear, they’ll be looking for us at the DC airports, large and small.”
“True enough. That’s why we’re flying to North Carolina. Not sure where yet, but I’ve got a friend there who’s always been reliable. I’ll consult with him before I make flight arrangements. I’ll book us under a phony name and false destination, just to be on the safe side.”
Leet chuckled out a cloud of vapor. “So you keep a phony set of papers on you?”
“Comes with the territory. I have enemies of my own to deal with, some of whom might be hunting us on this mission.”
Leet pondered the plan, then said, “North Carolina… Then rent a car, I take it?”
“I’ll have my friend do that for us under his name as an extra security measure. Even if they find out we flew to North Carolina, it might throw them off long enough for us to drive to DC.”
“Well, I have to admit it’s not a bad plan, better than mine at any rate.” She paused, hit the pen. “Shit, my mind is toast since LA. I never would have thought of—”
“Look, don’t sweat it. And don’t start second-guessing your every move. Just go with what you know, what you’ve been trained for, and pick up whatever else you can in the process.”
She coughed, swallowed. “I learned more than I bargained for at Union Station.”
“I’m only gonna say this once, Margaret—”
She turned away. “Don’t. Just fucking don’t.”
“No, I will. And I hope you listen, because otherwise none of us will get through this alive. There’s no room for sugar coating in this business. You lost a partner. I didn’t know the man, but he was career Bureau so I can tell you this: he knew the risks. We all do, and we’ve all lost partners on the job. You can’t blame yourself—”
She whirled around and stared him down, the tears in her eyes not running yet. “The guy smuggled two guns into the bathroom right under my nose!”
“He’s an operative; that’s what they’re paid to do. And if he’s CIA, he knows how to do it better than anyone.”
“But—”
“I’m not done. What might you have done differently? Found an out-of-order sign and hung it on the door? Stop and frisk everyone going into the bathroom?”
“Either one might have worked.”
“You don’t know that and you’re probably wrong. Either of those moves would have only drawn more attention to you. Your partner played it low key, exactly as he should have. But the right moves don’t always work.” He omitted the part about accepting that fact and moving on. I’ve probably said too much already, but so be it. Max needed her focused on the mission, not Wagner’s death. And he meant what he’d said—any inattention on her part would indeed get them all killed and put the secrets of the Nexus project into the wrong hands.
She sobbed once, turned her back on him again. Max waited patiently and hoped she would be done soon. Not because he didn’t understand her feelings of guilt and liability—he knew them all too well—but because it would be a tacit admission that his message had gotten through,
that she would be ready to face tomorrow with her guilt properly stowed somewhere in a corner of her mind, as he secured his own.
She turned back to Max a couple of minutes later. “I’m… I’m sorry.”
Max put his hands on her shoulders, guided her a little closer to deliver his final words on the subject. “Don’t be. You’re bound to lose friends and lovers on jobs, happens to all of us. But trust me, you’re more powerful than you think. I can’t do this alone. I need you, and they need you even more, Shai in particular. Keep that in mind and put the rest aside.”
She nodded, moved gently against his grip toward the door, the memory of the LA incident still etched on her face. But she’s thinking the right thoughts now. She’ll come to her senses by morning. Either that or it’s over.
“I’m gonna head inside now,” she said in the empty, detached tone of a soldier who had just witnessed a massacre.
“Get some sleep. You take the bed. I’ve got the chair.”
“Are you sure? You should really—”
“I’m sure. I’ve got a lot of practice.” He would awaken at the slightest sound when sleeping uncomfortably upright in the chair; in bed, he might not wake in time if trouble barged through the door. And if Margaret got too close to him…
Yeah. I’ve got a lot of practice with that too. Way too much. He thought of his dream on the plane. Do this right—you don’t need another actor in your nightmares.
Max followed Leet inside and locked up. Before getting any sort of catnap, he had a couple of calls to make.
CHAPTER 9
The sign by the highway read Larrimor Motel. Below that crooked plastic lettering advertised FREE CABLE! HOT TUBS! HOURLY RATES! The sun, already blazing at only 0900, drowned out the red neon letters VACANCY at the bottom of the sign, all Max had seen when they arrived, the only portion of the broken sign lit.
Max chuckled as he traversed the cracked concrete on the second-floor walkway, considering the sign. Larrimor sounded like some pointy-hatted wizard from a B-rate fantasy movie. He should conjure up some painters and masons to renovate this dump. On second thought, an arsonist or wrecking ball might make more sense and get him back whatever chump change he had tossed into this dump.
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