by Ty Patterson
‘Like calling plastic surgeons around the country, and a few around the world, too. You don’t know this, but there are several surgeons who cooperate with us. It’s all those pesky terrorists and criminals. They keep altering their faces. Those of us hunting them never know what they look like. So, we befriended the best, the most discreet surgeons. Threw the book at them. Promised them prison time if they didn’t cooperate. Now, almost all of them do.’
Patten spread his hands helplessly. ‘Are you going somewhere with this?’
‘We met Dang in Vietnam,’ Meghan broke in.
Both men turned to her.
‘He was an international criminal. A drug runner. A former North Vietnamese soldier. Your father was his partner.’
‘Whoa.’ Patten reared back as if stung. ‘That’s a lot to take in.’
‘Relax, Cole,’ Farrell interjected. ‘That’s your father, not you. Let’s hear them out.’
Meghan broke it down for them, going into every detail, except Dang’s revelation about Josh.
The two men hung on to her every word, fascinated, and moved only when she had finished.
‘I don’t know what to think,’ Patten mumbled, raking his fingers through his hair. ‘I always thought Dad was a hero. All this…it’s hard to digest. Dang could have been lying.’
‘He wasn’t. There was no reason to.’
‘The Vietnamese police let you go, just like that?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘Believe what you want,’ Meghan replied brusquely.
‘None of this can leak,’ Farrell injected smoothly before his client could take offense. ‘Cole is already under pressure. None of this can be proven, and there’s no reason for these developments to be in the open.’
‘Relax, how crooked Billy Patten was isn’t of interest to us.’
‘What was that about plastic surgeons?’ The lawyer’s gaze sharpened.
‘Glad you brought that up,’ Beth drawled, ‘but before we get to that, there’s one more matter.’
‘We went to the nursing home. Leroy Duhan’s.’ Meghan hitched a leg and made herself comfortable against the window. She was enjoying herself and didn’t hide it. ‘You know what we found?’
‘Your client, Cole Patten, visited it some months back. We matched the visit against our timeline. It was just after Gorbunov made his allegations that your client wasn’t who he was.’
‘Thing is,’ Beth said, smiling slowly like a wolf ready to pounce, ‘you told us you’d never met Duhan or Garrett or any of your father’s friends.’
Meghan rummaged through her bag, pulled out a folder and tossed it at Farrell. ‘Surveillance video images of your client entering the nursing home. There’s a visitor log with his name on it.’
Farrell threw a shocked glance at his client, whose face had turned grey.
‘There’s more,’ she said, twisting the knife. ‘Those plastic surgeons Beth was talking about.
‘One of them, in Brazil, confirmed your client had his scar removed. This was after he became CEO of Chisholm.’
‘And that’s not all.’ Beth dropped the bombshell. ‘Dang said Billy Patten’s last words were Josh, run away. It was Josh Patten who escaped. Not Cole Patten. Your client is a fake.’
‘That’s a lie.’ Patten rose out of his chair furiously. ‘Ken, these two are slandering me. We need to—’
The doors burst open and two men walked in. One was as immaculately turned out as Patten, the other sleepy-eyed and in a rumpled white suit.
Patten’s EA followed them, her face distressed.
‘You need to come with us, Mr. Patten,’ the man in the front finished for the billionaire.’
‘And you are?’ Farrell asked when he had recovered.
‘Pizaka, sir, and my partner, Chang. NYPD. We’re senior detectives with a task force reporting directly to the commissioner.’
‘You can’t arrest me,’ Patten cried, stumbling back. ‘Ken, do something.’
‘We aren’t arresting your client, Mr. Farrell. We want to question him.’ Pizaka didn’t bat an eyelid. Not that they could see anything of his eyes. They were concealed behind his ever-present shades. ‘You’re welcome to accompany him.’
‘I will,’ Ken Farrell replied stiffly.
‘You were supposed to prove I’m Cole Patten. I’ll sue you,’ Patten yelled shrilly. His poise had deserted him. His eyes were wild, his face flushed, as his lawyer placed a hand behind his back and urged him towards the door.
‘Nope,’ Meghan replied, unable to keep the smirk off her face. ‘We said we would find out who you were.’
She winked at Chang as the cops left with the lawyer and his client.
‘Case closed?’ Beth asked her.
‘Yeah.’ She high-fived her sister. ‘Very satisfyingly.’
It wasn’t for Zeb. He had one call to make.
Gorbunov didn’t react when he walked into the Russian’s office and slipped into a chair.
The mafia boss didn’t ask how he had evaded the security and his secretarial desk.
‘You know who I am?’
‘Da.’ His eyes searched behind Zeb’s back.
‘He isn’t coming. Kirilov.’
The gang boss’s eyes narrowed. The skin on his face stretched.
‘He’s in Vietnam. In a tunnel. He will never return.’
A soft voice was speaking rapidly in the background. A reporter on the wall-mounted TV. She was covering the developments at Chisholm Corporation. Its share price had sunk to a new low following Patten’s questioning by the NYPD. Rumors swirled thick and fast that Cole Patten was really Josh Patten. The NYPD had yet to confirm. Patten’s lawyer was tight-lipped.
‘It won’t do you any good,’ Zeb commented, glancing at the TV.
The Russian blinked, his fists flexed.
‘Why?’
Zeb raised his wrist and glanced at his watch.
‘Because you’ll be dead in five minutes.’
Zeb was snoozing on his couch a full week later. He wasn’t fully recovered. His body was a walking wound. Two cracked ribs were healing slowly. Numerous cuts and lacerations were mending. However, he concealed his injuries from his friends. He was a master of disguise and even hid the bruises on his face.
The sisters had brought him up to speed on Patten, who was now under investigation, and on the events in Vietnam.
Gorbunov’s death was a mystery. The cops had no clues. Massive heart attack, the coroner said, and that was what the NYPD went with. The media went to town, speculating that rival gangs had somehow killed the Russian.
Their office returned to normalcy. There wasn’t anything urgent, no missions, no active operations. Beth spent more time with Mark and was often away.
Meghan stayed till late that evening, completing orders for new SUVs. They had decided to have more vehicles in different cities, and that meant garages had to be identified and arrangements had to be made.
She glanced at the man on the couch.
‘Zeb?’
‘Hmm?’
‘You were in Vietnam, weren’t you?’
His eyes shot open. ‘Nope. Was getting acquainted with this couch. Whatever gave you that idea?’
She gave him a measured look. ‘You know of someone called Kirilov?’
‘Never heard of him. Who’s he?’
‘Bwana and Rog. They were talking about him when they thought they were alone.’
‘You spied on them?’
‘I didn’t.’ She smiled slyly. ‘I just didn’t let on that I was there.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Gorbunov’s killer. No one knows of him. No photographs, nothing in any police dossier. He doesn’t exist.’
‘What’s that got to do with me?’
‘Bwana and Rog again. They think he doesn’t exist anymore. You took care of him.’
‘I was here all along.’
‘Here’s the thing, Zeb. Your GPS trail. Your tracker says you ret
urned from the Middle East, when we were away. It shows you were in New York ever since. However, I ran some fancy programs on it. Nothing you would understand. And those show that you faked the signal. You returned a while back. Before we went to Vietnam.’
‘So, where was I?’
She shrugged. ‘Those programs didn’t tell me that. But I know.’ Her green eyes pinned him down. ‘You returned early from your mission. Kept away to see if any badasses had followed you. And then, you followed us to Vietnam. You got Bwana and Rog to trail us, but you were there too.’
‘You’ve been watching too many movies, Meg.’ He rose, yawned, and stretched.
‘Your life, what you do…Hollywood doesn’t even come close.’ No smile crossed her face. Just that steady look.
Zeb retied his laces and started heading to the door.
‘Gorbunov,’ she said, and he stopped.
‘You turned off your tracker for a few hours. Coincidentally, the Russian died that day, in the interval your GPS signal disappeared. Your device’s last position was a block away from the Russian’s office.’
‘I know you killed him.’
‘I didn’t,’ he laughed. ‘I don’t go around killing gangsters for no reason.’
‘Except that there was a reason. Kirilov was Gorbunov’s man. I think he sent his killer after us in Vietnam.’
‘You’re overthinking this,’ he told her solicitously and strode out.
‘Zeb,’ she called, stopping him again, and he turned around with an audible sigh.
‘I would have done the same. In your position.’
She smiled, and sunlight began.
* * *
Acknowledgments
No book is a single person’s product. I am privileged that Wrecking Team has benefited from the input of several great people.
Maria Stine, Shell Levy, Dori Barett, Allan Coulton, Shadine Mccallen, Toni Osborne, Linda Collins, Paula Artlip, Molly Birch, David T. Blake, Tracy Boulet, Patricia Burke, Mark Campbell, Tricia Cullerton, Claire Forgacs, Dave Davis, Sylvia Foster, Cary Lory Becker, Charlie Carrick, Pat Ellis, Dori Barrett, Simon Alphonso, Dave Davis, V. Elizabeth Perry, Ann Finn, Pete Bennett, Eric Blackburn, Margaret Harvey, David Hay, Jim Lambert, Suzanne Jackson Mickelson, Tricia Terry Pellman, Jimmy Smith, Theresa and Brad Werths, who are my beta readers and who helped shape my book, my launch team for supporting me, and Doreen Martens for her editing.
Special thanks to Deborah Brown for suggesting Nikolai’s name.
Dedications
To Michelle Rose Dunn, Debbie Bruns Gallant, Tom Gallant and Cheri Gerhardt, for supporting me.
She wasn’t looking for a knight, she was looking for a sword
— Atticus
Chapter One
Meghan Petersen left the vehicle at a run, timing her exit precisely so that she didn’t stumble, didn’t falter, didn’t fall.
Her ride’s speed wasn’t a problem. Times Square in broad daylight was packed with tourists who seemed to mill around aimlessly. A NASCAR track it wasn’t. Her SUV was crawling in the traffic.
Leaving the vehicle wasn’t a problem, either. Beth, her twin, had shifted over, a complicated maneuver that they had honed to perfection, the moment she had declared her intention.
People were the problem. She had to land just right. She had to evade a chattering, camera-carrying bunch of tourists the moment she set foot on the street. And then she had to leap onto the pavement and run towards her destination.
She accomplished all of that without any difficulty. Her jacket snagged on a car door that was opening, but a forward thrust of her shoulders freed it.
She zipped it up. It wouldn’t do for passersby to spot her holstered Glock. She looked beyond the bobbing heads around her and focused on the three heavies in the distance. They were fifty feet away, hustling towards a blonde who was unaware of their presence.
The goons moved easily, slipping through office workers, balletic grace to their movements.
Not your average gangbangers. These are the real deal. Mercenaries, probably. Maybe even special forces.
She cleared her mind as she sped through the crush of people, her feet landing smoothly, rolling, distributing her weight. She was narrowing her gaze, tunneling her vision to exclude the milling crowd and focus on the three heavies moving toward their target, the golden hair ahead.
Twisting her body sideways to squeeze through two men. Pivoting on a heel to swerve around a family.
Cutting the distance down to thirty feet. A muttered curse floating past her when her shoulder brushed another. A shout when she had to shove away a lumbering sightseer.
Twenty feet now. The heavies getting closer to the woman. A gap opened up ahead of her, and she took advantage before anyone else occupied it. Powering through, her calf muscles carrying her forward, ten feet now, and then she saw it. The concrete base of a lamp post. Rising from the ground to a couple of feet.
Perfect for her.
Another step forward, her weight on her left leg, her right reaching out, landing on the base. She pushed off it and flew several feet in the air.
Right leg coming up, straight and angled downwards. Left leg curled tightly. Arms stretched out, body bowed like an arrowhead.
‘Shooter!’ she cried out, and the crowd scattered away at the magic words.
She flew straight at the nearest heavy, who was whirling around, his hand reaching beneath his jacket.
Chapter Two
It had all started with a meeting in Police Commissioner Bruce Rolando’s office, a week back.
‘Your investigation is going nowhere,’ the speaker growled at Rolando and detectives Pizaka and Chang. He was tall, in his fifties, dressed in an immaculate suit. Thick hair slicked back, his dark eyes glowering at the cops.
‘We are doing —’
‘It isn’t enough. My daughter has had three more attempts on her life while your cops are bumbling about.’
Pizaka furiously made to retort but fell silent when Rolando shook his head imperceptibly. There was no expression on the commissioner’s face. The speaker was Hiram Konstantin, a billionaire who owned companies, hotels, shipping lines, and real estate all over the world. He donated generously to the NYPD Foundation and played golf with the mayor.
‘Investigations take time,’ Rolando said mildly.
‘I don’t have time. I am going to hire my own detectives to look into this.’
‘Sir, your daughter is well-protected. We have teams assigned to her —’
‘Those attackers tried three times! She has her protection detail, your cops around her, and yet those heavies nearly got to her.’ Konstantin slammed a palm on a nearby table. ‘I’ve had enough. I want to hire the best investigators to look into who’s behind these attacks. Can you recommend any?’
Pizaka traded glances with his partner, Chang. Surely the commissioner wasn’t going to allow the billionaire to have his way.
‘I might know someone,’ Rolando replied smoothly. ‘They are sisters. Twins. Have you heard of Beth and Meghan Petersen?’
‘Are they investigators?’
‘They are a little more than that.’
All eyes swung towards Pizaka when a curious sound escaped him.
‘You know them?’ Konstantin raised an eyebrow.
‘Yes, sir.’ The detective composed himself and adopted his boss’s expressionless face. ‘The commissioner is right. The Petersen sisters aren’t ordinary investigators.’
‘What are they, then?’
‘You should meet them, sir, and see for yourself.’
‘Yes, sir, we’ll be there.’ Meghan ended the call and swiveled in her chair, lost in thought.
She and Beth were in their Columbus Avenue office. They weren’t the only occupants. Bwana and Roger were tossing a basketball at each other. Broker was in the corner, practicing his putts on a small golfing strip. Bear and Chloe were curled on a couch, reading. Zeb was spread out on another couch, his eyes closed.
There were
no active missions for the Agency, the covert outfit they worked in, which was why all the operatives were in the city.
‘Who was that?’ Beth asked when her sister stayed silent, curling a twirl of hair around her fingers.
‘Commissioner Rolando.’
‘What did he want?’
‘We’re to meet someone, in his office.’
‘Who?’
‘Hiram Konstantin.’
‘The billionaire?’ Bwana cocked his head curiously.
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘The commissioner didn’t say.’
‘When?’
‘Right away.’
Bwana threw the ball back to Broker and grabbed his jacket.
‘Us,’ Meghan drawled as she and Beth headed to the elevator. ‘Not you.’
‘I’ll drive,’ Bwana offered. ‘I’ve always wanted to meet one of these rich cats.’
Hiram Konstantin inspected them silently when the twins entered Rolando’s office. Brown-haired, green-eyed, dressed casually in jeans and sneakers, jackets over tees, the sisters were hard to tell apart. Only the closest inspection showed their noses were slightly different. The billionaire’s eyebrows came together when Bwana followed them.
‘I thought they would be older,’ he told the commissioner when introductions were made, not caring that the sisters could hear him.
Beth turned towards the door and started leaving the office, her sister close behind.
‘Where are you going?’ Konstantin shouted.
‘You wanted someone older,’ Beth tossed back.
The billionaire stood, nonplussed. People scurried at his bidding. Stock markets rose or plunged at his statements. No one turned their backs on him.
‘I told you.’ Rolando didn’t conceal his satisfaction. ‘They aren’t ordinary investigators.’
Konstantin sighed and spread his hands in apology. ‘I am stressed. These attacks on Angie … let’s start again.’
The twins returned and seated themselves, at Rolando’s gesture. The commissioner on one side of his large desk, the sisters on the other side, and the billionaire in front of them. Bwana leaned against the wall, hands folded across his chest, a dark mountain next to Pizaka and Chang.