by Michael Todd
He glanced around irritably. Shopping malls these days did have beefed-up security—electronically speaking, anyway—since the men who were supposed to actually enforce it looked like they were about five years away from retirement and couldn’t outpace a Zamboni.
Jessica strolled over to him and smiled prettily as she spun to show off her new shoes as well as the dress.
“What do you think?” she asked and tilted her head to look at him from under her lashes. She had acted oddly for the duration of the shopping trip, and he couldn’t really get a bead on what she was thinking.
He rubbed cautiously at his chin. “The colors are subtle and tasteful, but they don’t really match your hair.”
She paused and raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
Jeremiah shrugged. “I’m joking. I don’t know anything about fashion. You do look fantastic, though.”
“Agreed.” Anja sounded like she was grinning. “It’s subtle and understated, which is exactly what we’re going for here.”
“Anja says you look fantastic too,” he told his companion, and she beamed.
“That’s great! Now we only need to get our hands on some jewelry, and we’ll be ready to go.”
“Goddamnit,” he grumbled under his breath as she moved to the cashiers to pay for her new clothes.
“Haven’t you ever had to infiltrate a hostile location using disguises?” the hacker asked.
“Well, yeah, but people hold men to a much lower standard.” He shook his head in heartfelt exasperation.
“Fucking double standards.” Anja tsked at him. “But remember that we have about three hours before Carlson’s goons will show up to look for Bolden’s car.”
“We’ll be done by then.” He chuckled as the cashier raised an eyebrow at being paid in cash instead of with plastic. Anja had needed to wire them extra additional funds to spend on this little venture, and Jessica went through it quickly. He wasn’t sure how much all this was supposed to cost, but from the price tags he’d seen, they wouldn’t have much left over.
“That’s assuming Jessica doesn’t get lost in the jewelry stores.” The Russian chuckled softly.
He couldn’t help but grin in response despite his desire to be done with it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Are you sure we should have let him go?” Jessica asked.
Jeremiah looked up from cleaning his pistol and made a face. “We couldn’t keep him here. And as much as I hate to admit it, you were right. We couldn’t kill him. But I took his phone, so he doesn’t have any choice but to get out of town before Carlson’s goons try to track him down for lying to them. Well, unless we prove to be too much work and they forget about the random PI they picked up to case the motel since the rest of their teams were too busy killing your coworkers. I’m sorry about that, by the way.”
“Don’t be.” She shook her head, her expression surprisingly calm. “It’s not your fault. Besides, only three of them were actually friends. The others…well, it seemed to me that most of them either pushed me around or tried to go after my job. It was nerve-wracking, actually. I’m sad they were killed but they weren’t close to me.”
“Right.” He could understand the concept behind what she said although he’d never experienced it himself, not with any of the men he’d gone into the field with. You had to trust the people who would watch your back, which was why he’d never thought that he would be able to fit into a company that hired people based on their skills and never once questioned their moralities. After the divorce, he’d had a couple of offers from various companies that would have readily paid top dollar for a man of his skills. But, aside from the fact that he had something against mercenaries in general, these were men whom he would have to trust with his life. And, simply put, he didn’t.
Which was why he’d signed up for a couple more tours. It didn’t pay quite as well—by two or three zeroes, realistically—but he knew he would go into the field with people whom he genuinely trusted.
And now, he was out there alone. While there was probably a lesson to be learned in that, he didn’t get it.
“Anja arranged for us to stay somewhere else now that this place is blown,” Savage said as he quickly and mechanically put his weapon back together. “You should probably head out there, check the place out, and set up, then wait for me to get back. Stay safe, don’t make any calls, and don’t try to contact anyone, not even for food. Raid the minibar. She said that there would be a minibar.”
“Wait, if I go there alone, where will you go?” Jessica demanded and suddenly looked annoyed and a little scared.
“I need to take Bolden’s car to the drop-off spot.” He felt rather annoyed as he thought he’d made this part of the plan clear to her. “They know the rental car he used, so if anything else shows up, they won’t take the bait.”
“Well, yes, but how will you get out of there? Will you steal someone’s car? How will that work if you’re in a hurry?”
“Are you suggesting that you come along?” He looked incredulously at her.
“Who else do you have on your side?” she asked simply.
Jeremiah took in a deep breath. He wanted to respond, but he couldn’t come up with an answer. While his plan did work best with two people, having an untrained person in the field alongside him was merely asking for all the wrong kinds of trouble. Then again, having a second pair of eyes on this would be helpful. Besides, she was the only one who knew what he was looking for, and he really didn’t want another voice in his head to muddle things while he ran an operation.
It would be best to keep her out in the open.
“Fine,” Savage said and sighed. “But you follow my lead at all times, obey my instructions, and don’t act on something without clearing it with me first. We can’t risk having the entire Charlotte PD drop down on our heads.”
“I understand.” She smiled, and he scowled in response.
“This is how I die,” he mumbled and shoved a full magazine into his pistol. “Acquiescing to the requests of people who don’t know the risks and then rushing in to save them.”
“What was that?” Jessica turned to look at him.
“Nothing,” he lied. He really wished he could have fitted one of the suppressors from the 1911s onto his Glock. It wasn’t possible, of course, not without some major modifications that he didn’t have time for. That, unfortunately, meant that if he ended up in a gunfight, it would be very loud and very public.
He really hoped the knife and garrote in his jacket would do the trick.
“Get ready to go, Doc,” he said. “We need to be out of here before Carlson’s boys decide they want to call Bolden’s bluff.”
“Are you ready for this?” Jeremiah asked and checked his weapons again. He would have preferred that the situation be covered by someone who knew what to look for and could warn him if someone was on their way to kill him.
Well, he had Anja, but that didn’t really count. She watched from the other side of the world—he assumed so, anyway—and was restricted by the view through cameras. He wasn’t sure if he liked that scenario more or less. On the one hand, she did have the kind of eagle’s eye view that none of his previous operators had held, but he wasn’t sure if he trusted her instincts. Like it or not, he would charge directly into the teeth of it and she wouldn’t.
“Don’t you think I should have a gun for this?” Jessica asked. “I feel a little naked without some kind of weapon. People will shoot at us, so don’t you think I should be able to shoot back?”
“Come on, newbie.” He chuckled. “You don’t know the first thing about guns, do you? I don’t have the time to teach you either. You could shoot me or an innocent bystander instead of the people we actually need to shoot. Besides, if this goes the way it’s supposed to, there won’t be any shooting at all.”
“How do you know that I don’t know the first thing about guns?” she demanded. “I could know something about guns. My dad could have taken me to a gun range. He could be a hunter or s
omething.”
“Your parents are anti-gun activists and very vocal about the topic on all social media,” Jeremiah replied with a grin. “Your dad wouldn’t have given you a gun even if it meant saving your life, much less your mom.”
“How did you know that?” Jessica asked.
He grinned and tapped his right ear. “Anja sends her regards. And, by the way, why am I the only one who can hear you again? Couldn’t you have bought her one of these earpieces too? Something to get her in the loop? I hate having to play translator between you and her.”
“Come on, I managed to get you this very expensive, very rare technological marvel while you were in a building that Courtney and Anderson were in the process of taking ownership of,” Anja said. “Do you think I would trust something like this to…oh, I don’t know, a bicycle courier?”
Savage sighed and shook his head.
“I think it’s annoying that I’m the one left out of the loop in these conversations too.” His companion folded her arms over her chest. “What if we’re in danger and I need to hear something but you’re too busy fighting off the bad guys by yourself to tell me about it?”
“Actually, I think it’s better that I’m the only one to receive intel from Anja in a combat situation.” He stretched against the seat of the car. “You’re my responsibility to keep safe, which means you’ll need to follow my instructions. Anja relays the information to me, and I process it and pass it on to you.”
“Would you like a side of testosterone with that?” Jessica snarked.
“This has nothing to do with testosterone,” Savage retorted and twisted to look at her. “You asked to be here instead of back at the motel. Against my better judgment, I agreed, but only on the promise that you would follow my lead.”
“If you think back, I never actually promised anything,” she said with a cheeky smirk. “I merely said that I understood.”
“Look…” He took a deep breath and held it for a moment before he spoke. “I’ll go into the field, where there’s a very real chance that we’ll face people who are determined to kill us. This isn’t a game, which means that if I go into the field with you, I need to know that you’ll watch my back the way that I’ll watch yours. In your case, that means to follow the instructions that will make sure that I spend as little time keeping you out of the line of fire as possible. If you don’t think you can do that, I think I’ll call this operation off. We’ll head back to the motel, leave this plan, and devise a new one.”
“I was only joking, come on,” Jessica protested.
“You don’t get to joke,” Jeremiah said but chuckled to keep it light. “I get to joke because I know about the situation we’re getting into, and I know when we have the time for wisecracks and when we have to be serious. Now is the time to be serious.”
“While we sit in the car and wait for something to happen?”
“Yeah, well, I need you to be alert and make this a learning experience. For me, I need to make sure you survive to be able to learn. I can do that and still hone my razor-sharp wit. Can you continue to learn while you do the same?”
“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” Jessica peered out the windshield, a little jittery. “How sure are you that anybody will actually show up for this little party of yours?”
They were currently parked in an office parking garage close to a major hospital. The building housed a fancy motel in addition to the office suites. Hopefully, Carlson’s men would focus on the parking garage across town where he’d left the other vehicle. While it was logical for the somewhat inept PI to specify a location where his apparent hostages weren’t stashed, it was very likely that the other team had no intention to simply roll over and cough up any more than they already had. Hopefully, the ploy would keep the mercenaries occupied while they attended to the real business of the operation.
“I don’t think Bolden sold it very well, so I think anybody who does look for him will pay the motel a visit first,” Savage said. “Once they realize we’re not there and he isn’t either, they will move on his car, which will lead them to where we want them. Or they’ll realize that it’s a trap and back away, and we’ll have to find another way to lure Carlson out into the open. It’s tricky, all this spy business, but someone has to do it.”
“And what if Carlson is merely waiting for us to make a move on him?” she asked. “What if this is his trap and not ours?”
“Well, there’s only one way to make the hunter come out, and that would be to inspect the trap that was sprung, wouldn’t it? Either way, we get what we want—which is Carlson out in the open, where he hates to be. That’s the weakness of people who like to live in the shadows. They hate any kind of spotlight.”
“And what if our friend resists the spotlight?” She wiggled in her seat and pulled the lever that lowered the back a little to make it more comfortable. “What if he makes things difficult?”
“That’s what the guns are for,” he replied, drew in a deep breath, and closed his eyes as he tried to focus. This was his time to crawl into that little dark place inside him where he could make hard decisions based on tactical necessity and not worry about the moral problems that might arise along the way. It was a Darwinian principle deep within that he needed to live by—kill or be killed. Other people lived safer lives and didn’t need that darkness, but he wasn’t them. He needed to be that other person right now.
And, more interestingly, he wanted to be that person too.
“It looks like someone’s taken the bait,” Anja said into his earpiece. “I have eyes on almost a dozen people converging on Bolden’s car.
“It’s go-time.” Savage opened his eyes. The hammering in his chest had calmed to a steady, smooth, rhythmic thump. Adrenaline pumped through his body with every pulse, but it wasn’t a jittery feeling. Despite the heat of the heightened rush of anticipation—or perhaps because of it—ice settled in his veins.
He stepped out of the car and scrutinized the underground parking lot. His senses scanned the area to make sure that nobody approached. Out of habit, he touched the Glock tucked into his belt to make sure it was there. His first choice would always be the knife and the garrote, but it was nice to know that he had something he could fall back on if things went sideways.
“Carlson left his room in the penthouse and took most of his posse with him,” the hacker said. “You’re clear to go all the way up.”
Savage nodded, confident that Anja could see him as he and Jessica sauntered toward the entrance of the hotel where Carlson was staying. The sun was setting and painted the sky with all kinds of brilliant colors and the chill breeze started to cool the city down for the night.
“Good luck,” the hacker said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Anja leaned back in her seat and sighed as she watched the screens in front of her. She worked methodically to select the various camera feeds that would provide everything she needed to know. As tempting as it was, she acknowledged that when the lives of two people who depended on her were on the line, it probably wasn’t the best time to try out a new algorithm. Which really was a pity because she was certain that it would help her to sift through the veritable mountain of data that flooded into her servers to find what would help her.
There were good and bad things about modern hotels like the one Carlson had chosen. On the bright side, they had top-of-the-line everything when it came to cybersecurity. They had cameras on every floor and in every public room, as well as sensors that told them who was where at any given time. Anyone could walk into the hotel and not be tagged, but anyone who wanted to get past the lobby would have to receive an ID badge that would allow the security teams who ran the place to make sure that nothing hinky happened. Millions upon millions had been spent on places like these since they attracted a very particular kind of clientele. The kind that wanted the best of the best all the time and didn’t want to worry about their lives or privacy being threatened.
Top-of-the-line security, best of t
he best. Ironically, it was the kind that Anja and her various friends across the globe had a very instrumental part in building, and each one had left their own particular kind of signature on their work. Those signatures worked as back doors should they ever need to get past those security systems. Thankfully, the one at this particular hotel was on an open, if secure, feed back to the hotel’s headquarters in New York, which allowed Anja all the access that she needed. And more, unfortunately.
She had no interest in watching old billionaires cheat on their trophy wives with even younger women, and she certainly had no interest in all the back-door deals that were made. Well, there was an interest, sure, but it wasn’t exactly her priority, which meant that she had to save everything to sift through later. She needed to keep an eye on Savage and Coleman’s progress through the hotel.
It hadn’t been difficult to assign them their own ID badges—nothing physical of course, but the computers running the hotel didn’t need anything physical to keep from triggering alarms. They searched for RFID chips of some kind that were usually given to them by the hotel’s receptionists, and when a guest already had one, there was no need to ask them for another confirmation. Savage and Coleman would get into the hotel’s lobby and even the elevators without any trouble.
The real difficulty, of course, would be to get to the penthouse suite that was currently occupied by Carlson.
While the security in the rest of the building was mostly run on automatic with security personnel only alerted should someone trigger something, the security in the penthouse was watched by nine specialists who worked in eight-hour shifts, three at a time. They remained on constant alert to ensure that nothing out of the ordinary happened on the upper floor of the hotel.
Anja could trick the computer, and nobody would be the wiser, but she couldn’t trick people who scrutinized every camera feed like their lives depended on it. It was more than a little annoying. She wondered if this was the kind of security they provided for all their guests, or if it was something Carlson had demanded. Either way, it was an obstacle she needed to find a way around.