Double Black Diamond

by A. G. Henley

  “Yeah, the media’s in a froth,” he said to whoever was on the other end. “The Swiss government wants to know who the hell we are and how we were involved. They want to interview everyone and their mother. Better keep the clients away—it’s a shit show down here.” His eyes found mine. “Gotta go. She’s awake.” He stood, filled a cup with water, and held it out to me. “Thirsty?”

  I winced. His voice was too loud, like he yelled through a megaphone. I didn’t doubt that the actual yelling would start soon. No megaphone required. I took a drink with my good arm.

  “How’re you feeling?” His expression was neutral.

  “Fantastic,” I said, “as long as they keep the drugs coming. What time is it?”

  “Sixteen-hundred local.”

  Four in the afternoon. The kidnappers grabbed Veena almost exactly twenty-four hours ago. It had all happened so fast.

  “I’m sorry, Chief. I couldn’t let them take her without trying to follow.”

  Brown sat again. “It’s over, Green. Yeah, you should have listened, as usual. But . . . if you had, we might not have recovered Veena.”

  I blinked. Admitting that couldn’t have been easy for him. “How did you find us?”

  “Now that’s a story.” And from the closed look on his face, he wasn’t going to tell it right now.

  “Is the team okay?”

  “Fine. Mostly happy you’ll live.”

  “And Connor?”

  “Better than you, believe it or not. He lost more blood, but the bullet sliced his muscle, more like a knife wound.”

  “Lucky him.” It was all coming back to me now. The way he handled the weapon, his moves. Whatever guilty secret he wanted to tell me. “Who is Connor, Brown? He was no athletic trainer. Or he was something else, too.”

  He held up his hands. “Nope. I’m not going there. He can do his own confessing.”

  Frustration choked me, but I set it aside for now. “All right, how was the mystery man involved in the rescue? Who the hell was he?”

  “Again, not my story to tell.”

  I closed my eyes. “Can you at least tell me about the kidnappers? Where were they from?”

  He eyed me. “They were Eastern European.”

  “I knew it! Darya!”

  He shook his head. “Not Belarusian, Ukrainian. We don’t have all the details yet, but looks like the Chinese government hired them. It’s a good deal for the Chinese: their military gets the nanotech, and with Veena out of the way, their snowboarders get on the podium. A nice return on their investment for this operation. Not that we can touch them, even if we get proof, which we probably won’t. They’re masters at covering their tracks. But your tip about the Chinese coach meeting with Darya’s coach led the CIA to information confirming Chinese involvement.” He lifted his phone. “We’ll know more after the Swiss get through with their interrogations . . . I mean interviews of the suspects.”

  “Will Veena get to do her final run?”

  Brown swiveled his head until his neck cracked. Little bags had set up shop under his eyes, and he needed a shave. “The Olympic Committee is holding an emergency meeting to decide.”

  I straightened too fast and felt it in my arm. “They have to let her. None of this was her fault.”

  “I hope they will. But she was pretty shaken up.”

  I heard what he wasn’t saying. They might allow it, but Veena might not be able to pull herself together to ride at all, much less lay down a medal-winning run. She was hauled away on a snowmobile, held hostage, and saw multiple people shot. I wouldn’t blame her if she never wanted to go near a ski resort again.

  But the judges wouldn’t hand her sympathy gold for being kidnapped. She’d have to earn it.

  Brown’s phone rang. I heard Bart’s British accent on the other end. “Uh huh. Yeah. I got it.” His eyes flicked to me. “Yeah. I’ll tell her.” He listened for another minute and hung up. “Well, guess what. Muth called. Local PD found Newman packing up his stuff with a one-way ticket to Paramibo.”

  “Why? And where’s Paramibo?”

  Brown’s mouth thinned. “It’s the capital of Suriname.”

  “Why Africa?”

  “Learn some damn geography, Green. Suriname is on the east coast of South America, north of Brazil. And he’s probably going because disappearing there is easy. Three million would go far. IT at the school notified Muth about some suspicious activity in Newman’s account, so Muth called local law enforcement. They got a warrant to dig around on Newman’s personal computer. He’d sent the kidnappers emails about Veena’s schedule, her training, travel, and media appearances. All the details of when she was leaving for Copper, where she was staying. Even last-minute changes. He was their contact on the inside. And he’d already been paid some money upfront.”

  What a weasel. I should have wondered how Newman paid for all those expensive scarves. And there was his mug—I’d rather be at the beach. In South America, apparently.

  “A student was also involved,” Brown said, “but before you go ballistic, it wasn’t Darya. Veena’s friend, Alison King, was Newman’s eyes on the ground. She passed along what Veena was doing in training, her social plans, times that might be exploited. The Swiss scooped Ali up at the Zurich airport a few minutes ago to interview her—she had a ticket booked back to Australia with a continuing flight to Brunei.”

  He sighed at my blank look.

  “An island country near Malaysia. The ruling sultan doesn’t cooperate with foreign governments much.”

  Things clicked into place. Darya was in the foam pit before the tramp was slit, but so was Ali. Ali took the video of Veena dancing at the bar. She knew every class Veena took, every competition she entered, what tricks she was working on, where she was going and when. And Ali had made it clear she was broke.

  Gage’s warning yesterday: Don’t let her fool you. She wants to win as much as anyone. With Veena gone, Ali had a better chance to land on the podium. Brunei must have been plan B, when things went sour with the kidnapping.

  Veena had admitted she and Ali were more friends of convenience, but I knew she’d still be hurt when she heard this. And knowing we had Muth to thank for nabbing Newman and Ali wasn’t easy for me to swallow, either.

  “Then . . . Darya did that damage to her own face?” I asked. “Girl really wanted to get rid of me.”

  “Must have. Maybe she wanted to get rid of Veena, too, but we don’t have anything connecting her to Ali or Newman.”

  So, I was wrong about Darya. Of course.

  A nurse swooped in, switching from speaking German outside the door to smooth English as she checked my IV bag. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better. When can I go?”

  Brown chuckled and yawned.

  “A few days.” She refilled my water glass and messed with the beeping equipment I was hooked up to.

  “You need some sleep, Chief,” I said.

  He snorted. “Sleep? What’s that? And speak for yourself. You look like hell.”

  The nurse gave him the stink eye as she left the room. Disapproval must look the same in any language.

  “I need to head back.” He laid a smartphone on the table beside me. “Bart got this hooked up for you. Your Mom’s been calling. Xene, too.”

  “Thanks.” I paused. “And thanks for not yelling at me.”

  “Oh, I want to most of the time, believe me.” His expression was sour. “But look. Assignments don’t always go right. You gotta roll with them. You did that. And somehow you pulled it off. Veena is safe, and you aren’t dead. You might be a pain in the ass girl who needs to learn how to follow a damn direction, but when you do, I think you’ll make a fine CPO, Green.”

  Surprise and pride mingled in my chest.

  “Now,” he said, “will you please do me a favor and keep your butt in that bed until the doctors discharge you? If I see you anywhere else but this hospital, you won’t get that glowing recommendation I’m writing so you can get yourself killed in some
other part of the world that you can’t identify.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  But I lied. If Veena got the chance to ride for gold, I’d be there, discharged or not.

  The medical staff was in no hurry to let me out. And when I heard the Committee not only decided Veena deserved to complete her final run in the halfpipe, but would give her a few days to rest first, I wasn’t in a hurry to go. In Switzerland, hospital food wasn’t bad.

  A few mornings later, I laid in bed, eyes closed, when I heard the door to my room slide open. Probably a nurse.

  Except, the nurses came in chirping in French or German or English, checking this or that, asking how I was. The last one had taken the IV out of my arm; he’d said they were waiting for the discharge paperwork. This one was silent.

  Heavy footsteps moved toward my bed.

  When whoever it was reached the side of the bed, luckily on my good side, my hand shot to his neck. The intruder yelped, and my eyes shot open. Connor.

  I let him go, and he limped back a step. He wore baggy street clothes, his face was pale under the tan, and his hair looked like it hadn’t seen a comb in a while. He carried a clear plastic bag stuffed with clothes.

  “Who the hell are you,” I asked, “and why did you lie to me?”

  He held out his right hand as if to introduce himself. “Connor Crowley. Vail ski patrol.”

  “Stop lying!”

  “I’m not lying. That’s my name, and that’s what I was hired to do.” He paused. “But that wasn’t all I was hired to do.” He eased himself into the chair Brown had used, and Veena last night when she’d visited. Connor’s injured thigh was huge, like it was wrapped up under his pants leg.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, wishing I could confront him in something other than a thin flowered hospital gown.

  “All right. What else were you hired to do?”

  “Protect Veena.”

  “Whatever. That was my job.”

  “And you were amazing.” He looked down at his folded hands. “But . . . her parents weren’t sure, when you were hired, if you had the chops for it. No one was. Well, no one except Veena.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Let me start from the beginning.” He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath, shifting his leg. “Almost everything I told you was true. I was a snowboarder. I was pretty good, and if I hadn’t gotten hurt, maybe I could have gone pro. I started helping out in the training room at my high school while I was recuperating, and I liked it.” He looked sincere, but he’d looked that way before when he’d lied his face off.

  “What I didn’t tell you was that my uncle—my dad’s younger brother—is a CPO. He was military, and when he left the service, he got into executive protection. When I was growing up, Uncle Sean would come to visit, full of stories of cities he’d traveled to and interesting people he’d met. I hung on every word. Every part of it sounded exciting. Travel, adventure, even the danger. I’d been a snowboarder after all. We live on adrenaline.”

  After my time at VMA, I knew that was true.

  “I was young for my grade; I graduated high school at seventeen. Uncle Sean recommended an executive security training program in the Boston area. When I graduated from that, he put in a good word for me and helped me get my first job.”

  I shook my head to clear it. “Wait—you’re a CPO, too?” He nodded. I didn’t know what to think about that. About any of it. “How does Veena come in?”

  “I was finishing up an assignment in New York City—”

  “How many jobs have you had? Did you lie about your age, too?”

  “No. This is my twelfth job in the last year and a half. Most have been short, boring as hell protection assignments. A couple weeks or weekends in DC, LA, Chicago, Dallas, New York. So, I was pretty surprised when my chief called to say he had an unusual opportunity for me.” He glanced at me. “The Venkatesans had hired you, but they wanted a backup team. I had the paramedic and athletic training experience, and I could snowboard. They pulled some strings and got me on staff with the Vail ski patrol so I could be on the mountain with her, and as a volunteer trainer with the U.S. Ski Team so I could go with her to Laax.”

  “Hold on . . . did my team know about this?”

  He sighed. “None of us were happy about the arrangement, but the clients insisted.”

  Connor worked for the Venkatesans. Brown and my team knew. Which meant all this time—all those chances Brown gave me—they weren’t because I was trying or because I cared. They were meant to keep Veena happy.

  “I wasn’t even needed. I was a . . . a decoy.”

  “Clearly that wasn’t true.”

  My thoughts raced through the last month. “You were everywhere we were. The mountain. The hospital. The bar. Copper. Laax.”

  He had the decency to look ashamed. “Not just me. The man from the ski club that you were suspicious of is my—”

  “Chief.” Of course. No one worked alone in this business.

  I felt sick, but I really should have known. Everyone told me my youth and inexperience was a problem. Why didn’t I realize they’d plan for that? Muth flat out told me a contingency plan existed for if I didn’t work out. I’d never thought through what it was. The layers of deceit astounded me.

  Connor leaned forward, his eyes burning with intensity. “I wanted to tell you, Nic, but I signed a confidentiality agreement. I had to hope that when I got to tell you the truth, you’d understand.”

  I didn’t want to understand. Only—I did. Frankly, I might have done the same thing as the Venkatesans if Veena was my daughter. But the deception still hurt. I’d trusted my teammates to be truthful with me. Another awful thought slipped through.

  “What about Veena? Did she know you were assigned to her?”

  He shrugged. “Not as far as I could tell. She never treated me like I might be anything but a trainer interested in her career.”

  The hand squeezing my bruised heart released a little. As long as Veena didn’t know, I might be able to forgive the others. Maybe.

  I gripped the sheets, trying to stay in control of my roiling emotions. “And our date, the kissing? What the hell was that about?”

  He scooted his chair closer, minding his leg, and touched my arm. “Nic, I got to know you, spent every off-duty minute I had trying to see you, because you’re hot.”

  He said the joke with such a straight face that I burst out laughing. Bad idea. The movement sent pain shooting through my casted arm. I sucked in a breath and winced.

  “Are you okay?” He half-stood, reaching for me, but sat again when I nodded. “Do you know how many female CPOs I’ve met in the last two years other than you? Exactly one. A forty-year-old battle-ax who complained about her plantar fasciitis and showed me a million pictures of her corgis.”

  I couldn’t help smiling a little.

  “When I met you—my age, competent, not exactly hard on the eyes, and most of all, someone who understood what the job is like? I had to get to know you better. Snowboard lessons were an excuse to spend time with you. You sucked me in, Nic.”

  I glared at him. “I don’t even know you.”

  “You do. I promise. And if you allow it, you’ll know me even better once this mess is over. I didn’t lie; I just didn’t tell you everything. Nic, listen. I know you’re angry with me, and that’s totally justified, but I didn’t only come here to confess.” He checked his watch. “In . . . four and a half minutes, the nurses have a shift change. It’s the perfect chance to escape.”

  “Escape? Why?”

  “Do you want to see Veena’s final run or not?” He set the plastic bag next to me. “Clothes. Hopefully they’ll fit better than mine.” He gestured to his uncharacteristically oversized outfit. “I pinched yours from a locker a nurse left open, and these from my neighbor’s room. I couldn’t find my own stuff.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  I pushed myself up one handed and headed for th
e bathroom to get dressed. I was still angry, hurt, and not a little confused. But after everything Veena and I had been through, I wouldn’t miss her making history.

  Twenty-Four

  Connor and I stood on the deck of the Beast, waiting for Veena to show at the top of the pipe. The announcer talked about Veena’s record, the tricks she had planned, the elusive double V. Everything except that she’d been kidnapped and held hostage three days before.

  I wore too-short scrub pants, tight boots, a baggy T-shirt, and some Swiss nurse’s winter coat. Underneath, the cast hung in a sling against my chest. Connor limped and no doubt shouldn’t be standing for this long. We made quite a pair.

  Gage spotted us and hurried over. He seemed relieved to see us, which I appreciated. I told him as much as I could about what had happened after he’d left the tent.

  “Ali disappeared,” he said.

  “Yeah. She . . . might have been involved.”

  His mouth hung open, and he ran a hand through his wild hair. “I didn’t know, Nic. I mean, she’s competitive; she wanted to win. And sometimes she said shitty stuff about Veena behind her back, but I never thought she would do anything to actually hurt Veena. If I’d known, I would have told you.”

  He looked so distressed that I patted his arm. “It’s okay. No one knew.”

  Least of all me. My personal vendetta against Darya might have been one of my worst mistakes. If I hadn’t been so fixated on her, maybe I would have noticed signs of betrayal in Ali.

  An unexpected touch on my back made me jump.

  “Nicole, may I speak with you?” Ms. Venkatesan stood behind me in a black coat and hat, her neck wrapped in a shimmery, subtle red, white, and blue scarf. We stepped back from the crowd. She pulled her dark sunglasses off. Tears filled her eyes as she gripped my good hand. “Thank you so much for saving my Veena.”

  Torn between indignation and sympathy, I didn’t know what to say.

  Veena’s mother wiped her eyes with a handkerchief she pulled from her coat pocket. “We’d like to speak with you later, if you are willing. Rohan wants to thank you properly. And to apologize.” She pointed down the pipe, where Veena’s father sat in the stands. He lifted a hand when he saw us, his expression uncertain. His wife smiled at me in silent apology, slid her sunglasses back on, and made her way back.