Gemini Series Boxset

by Ty Patterson

  ‘Kerry, Carlos, and Quincy didn’t do anything!’ Angie burst out. ‘And leave my friends out of your investigation.’

  ‘Not going to happen,’ Beth replied sharply. ‘Those hitters knew where you were within minutes of you leaving this office. Someone told them.’

  Or they knew your routine. Which means they surveilled you, knew your patterns.

  ‘Beth’s right, ma’am. My officers will be taking the same angle,’ Rolando said with a shrug, running interference before Angie Konstantin blew up.

  ‘Beth and Meghan,’ he addressed the billionaire, ‘know what they’re doing.’

  You’d better listen to them. He didn’t have to say the words. They hung heavily in the air.

  Konstantin nodded. He grasped his daughter by an elbow and shook hands with Beth.

  ‘Call me. I’ll arrange for everything you need.’ And with that, he left the commissioner’s office.

  Rolando sagged wearily into his chair when the door shut. ‘Remind me why I took on this job?’

  ‘For the money, of course.’ Beth grinned and dropped herself in another seat. ‘What do you know about those shooters?’

  ‘Huh? Give us time! However, if we go by the previous attempts, we’ll find nothing on them.’

  ‘Why her?’ Meghan played with a paperweight, bouncing it in her palm.

  ‘If I knew that …’ Rolando raised his hands helplessly. ‘You’ll really get Zeb to shadow her?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He’ll agree?’

  ‘If I say please, yeah.’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘You want me to do what?’

  Zeb propped himself on an elbow and looked at Beth incredulously.

  Their office on Columbus Avenue. Broker whistling softly, doing work-like stuff on his screen. Bear and Chloe in the small kitchen, brewing coffees. Bwana and Roger nowhere in sight, presumably out with their girlfriends. Zeb on his couch, looking like he was asleep. Until Beth dropped her bombshell.

  ‘You heard me. Angie Konstantin. She needs protection. You are it.’

  Zeb sat straight. He was the lead operative in the Agency. He went after terrorists, international criminal gangs, and threats to national security. Many in his line of work said he was the most lethal agent they knew. And here he was, being asked to babysit a billionaire’s daughter.

  ‘I don’t —’

  ‘You will, now,’ Beth said firmly, hiding a smile. Meghan and she had discussed the best way to convince Zeb, on their way over.

  ‘The direct approach is the best,’ Meghan told her.

  Beth was executing it. ‘There have been three attempts on her. There was a fourth today. Her father wants us to investigate. We need you to keep her safe.’

  Broker raised his head, observed the byplay, winked when he read Beth’s face and went back to his screen when Zeb looked at him sharply.

  ‘Her father can’t afford security?’ Zeb asked, thinking of ways to wriggle out of this one.

  ‘He can. She had a detail. She evaded them today. Besides, they aren’t investigators. They are glorified heavies.’

  ‘Bwana, Rog —’

  ‘Will stand out.’

  ‘Bear and Chloe,’ Zeb persisted. ‘They’re the best close protection team.’

  ‘You’ve seen Bear’s size?’ Beth sniffed disdainfully making a discreet gesture as the couple entered the room carrying cups of coffee. ‘He’s built like a mountain.’

  ‘We’ve got stuff to do, in any case,’ Bear growled.

  ‘What stuff?’ Zeb asked suspiciously.

  ‘Vacation,’ Chloe cut in smoothly. ‘We haven’t had one in months.’

  ‘This doesn’t feel like a vacation?’ Zeb frowned at them. ‘We have been idle for weeks. No mission. The two of you have done nothing but laze around.’

  ‘Nothing feels like a vacation when you’re around,’ Bear snorted. ‘Do what Beth says. The world needs you.’

  ‘Nope. Only a billionaire,’ Beth said.

  ‘His daughter,’ Meghan corrected.

  Zeb stared at them, hoping the twins were joking. They weren’t. Two pairs of green eyes looked back at him.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Right away.’

  Zeb knew when he was beaten. He got to his feet, put on his shoulder holster and donned his jacket.

  ‘Zeb?’ said Meghan, her voice silky smooth.

  ‘Yeah.’ He stopped at the door.

  ‘Hiram Konstantin wants to interview you.’

  ‘I don’t do interviews.’

  ‘You will, now. Konstantin is important to Commissioner Rolando.’

  His shoulders drooped, but he made no protest.

  ‘Zeb?’ Beth this time, syrupy sweet.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Angie Konstantin can be difficult.’

  Zeb fled.

  Chapter Nine

  The twins got to work. Chang had sent over their investigation files, which the sisters divided. Meghan looked into the previous attacks, while Beth checked out the police files on Konstantin’s business and associates.

  The first attack had occurred two months back. Angie Konstantin had been emerging from a Fifth Avenue store, one of those fancy ones that closed down for all other customers while the young heiress shopped, when a round had buzzed past her head and slammed into the concrete wall behind.

  She didn’t know someone had shot at her, but her protection detail did. They pounced on her, bundled her into her car and swept her away to safety.

  The ensuing investigation had gone nowhere. No one had seen a shooter. No sound had been heard. A few cars had sped off after the shooting, and all of them belonged to legit, blameless owners.

  The cops had initially considered someone else to be a target. However, on investigating everyone in the vicinity, they figured it was Angie. No one else was that high-profile or was having the kind of trouble that would invite a hit.

  They surmised that the hitter had been waiting in a vehicle across the street. The shot had been taken hastily and there had been no opportunity for a second.

  Meghan turned to the second attack, two weeks later. Five masked men had converged on Angie as she was leaving a downtown nightclub. Two had shoved her friends away. Another had taken on Kerry, Quincy — who was Stubble — and Carlos, while the remaining two had grabbed the woman.

  They hadn’t succeeded. She had put up a fight, kicking and screaming. Her security detail had overpowered the lone attacker, whose partners piled in, and in the ensuing scuffle, the masked men got away.

  Again, there were no clues, nothing for the cops to pursue. No DNA traces, and the attackers hadn’t uttered a single word.

  There were camera feeds this time, since the club had CCTV around the entrance. However, all they showed was the five men coming from behind a line of parked vehicles.

  The NYPD closed the club for a few days and investigated all its customers. They didn’t get anywhere.

  The third attack was probably the most dramatic. Angie was stepping out from a cinema a week later, a red-carpet movie premiere, an invite-only audience, and climbed into her waiting car.

  Only to realize it wasn’t her car. The limo looked exactly like the one she had arrived in, and she had given it no thought when the driver, his face shadowed by his cap, had waved at her. Her protection detail was waiting in another car, well behind, and by the time they realized she’d been kidnapped, the limo was underway.

  A high-speed chase followed, which resulted in the security vehicle smashing into the limo. Its driver was captured, and there the investigation dead-ended.

  Manuel Chavez, the driver, clammed up and refused to answer any questions. The cops put him in a holding cell, and by the next morning, he was dead.

  An autopsy revealed a slow-acting poison was the cause of his death, and there the investigation hit a brick wall.

  Chavez wasn’t in the system. He had no identification on his body. No one came forward to claim it.

  Meghan
sighed and leaned back, twirling a pencil in her hands. She knew how the fourth attack had gone down. None of those perps are identified, either. The first attempt was a shot, but all others seem to be grabs. Why?

  The blank screen stared back at her mockingly.

  She looked over at her sister, who had her lips pursed, a frown on her forehead. A surge of affection filled her. Beth, her baby sister. All right, they were twins and Meghan was older by just a few minutes, but she was fiercely protective of her younger twin.

  A phone buzzed. Beth reached around blindly, snagged her cell and looked at the message. She smiled, typed a reply and went back to her screen.

  Mark. That smile is for him.

  Mark was a fast-rising detective in the NYPD. He was Beth’s boyfriend, a relationship Meghan approved of. I’m happy for her. After all she’s been through, she deserves love.

  The twins had lost their folks several years back. Their father, a celebrated cop in Wyoming, had been killed in a shoot-out. They had lost their mother to cancer much earlier. As if that wasn’t enough tragedy, Beth had a hole in her memory when a she’d been shot by a campus shooter during her college years.

  Meghan had helped her sister recover, and the two had rebuilt their lives. They had met Zeb while on vacation in Wyoming. The taciturn, brown-haired man had rescued them from a cartel, and that event had led them to joining the Agency.

  ‘Sis?’ Beth tapped her shoulder.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You looked spaced out.’

  ‘I was. There’s nothing in those files,’ she grumped. ‘Any luck on your end?’

  Beth rose and grabbed her jacket. ‘Not really, but let’s go.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s time to meet Kerry, Quincy and Carlos.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘You don’t have a resume?’ Hiram Konstantin asked the lean, sinewy man in front of him.

  ‘No, sir,’ Zeb replied.

  A frown crossed the billionaire’s face. In his world, those he employed had resumes. Kerry, Quincy, and Carlos had impressive ones, which was one reason he had hired them. The Petersens didn’t submit one, either, he reminded himself, and yet I hired them. That reminded him. Did I hire them? Somehow it didn’t feel like that.

  The twins had controlled every aspect of what had supposed to be an interview. They had turned down payment. And then they had nearly walked out. On top of that, they had treated his daughter with disrespect. Not that Angie didn’t deserve it. Konstantin stifled a smile and made his face expressionless.

  In any case, it was time to restore the natural order in his world. Zeb Carter would be interviewed, references checked, and only then would he be taken on. As a contract employee. What had happened with the sisters wouldn’t be repeated.

  ‘The commissioner speaks highly of you,’ he admitted grudgingly. Something about Carter irked him. The billionaire was used to being surrounded by people who fawned over him, responded to every word of his. The brown-haired man was not one of them. He stood, even though Konstantin had asked him to sit, feet apart, hands loose, and met the billionaire’s eyes calmly.

  Those sisters … they were the same.

  ‘What exactly do you do, Mr. Carter?’

  ‘Zeb, sir. I work in the same security firm as Meghan and Beth.’

  ‘That’s …’ Konstantin looked at a sheet that his assistant had provided him. He refused to call the security man by his first name. Boss-employee dynamics had to be maintained. That Carter called him ‘sir’ was a big plus. ‘Corporate security, correct?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We advise large companies on keeping their premises and people safe.’

  ‘You’ve an impressive client list, Mr. Carter.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Now, what makes you qualified to keep Angie safe? Her security detail had three people, but Rolando and your friends think you alone are sufficient.’

  ‘I have done this before, sir. I have protected higher security risks.’

  ‘Like?’

  Konstantin gaped for a moment when Carter mentioned the names: a world leader, a business titan, a mega Hollywood celebrity.

  ‘I was under the impression your firm didn’t offer personal protection.’

  ‘We don’t, sir. These assignments were of a personal nature.’

  ‘Personal, how?’

  ‘I can’t reveal that, sir.’

  Konstantin bored him with his eyes but Carter didn’t give. The billionaire liked that.

  ‘It says here you are Delta.’

  ‘I was, sir.’

  ‘Can you provide any references? My staff will have to vet you, and then we can progress.’

  ‘Yes, sir. How many do you need?’

  ‘As many as you can provide,’ Konstantin replied, with barely controlled irritation. Carter was behaving as if he hadn’t been to an interview before.

  ‘General Daniel Klouse, sir.’

  The billionaire looked up so fast his neck ached.

  ‘The National Security Advisor?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Just who are you people?’ Konstantin whispered.

  ‘We work in a security firm, sir.’

  There was no sarcasm, no mirth, no emotion in Carter’s face or voice. He kept replying evenly. He hasn’t even moved a muscle!

  ‘You aren’t name-dropping, are you?’

  Carter recited a cell number. ‘That’s the general’s personal phone, sir. He’ll be expecting your call.’

  ‘You …’ Konstantin was lost for words.

  ‘I told him. On the way, sir. He said he had met you at some fundraiser in DC.’

  ‘Yes, I didn’t think he would remember.’

  Carter didn’t say anything. He stood there, his hair fluttering lightly from the air-con’s blast.

  The billionaire cleared his throat. It was time to take charge.

  ‘We need to discuss terms, Carter, if this is to go ahead. Name your fees.’

  ‘There are none, sir.’

  Billionaires didn’t moan; otherwise, Konstantin would have.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he demanded.

  ‘Just that, sir. We, Meghan, Beth and me, are doing this for the commissioner. No payment involved.’

  ‘But … I’m your boss!’

  ‘No, sir. I’ll protect your daughter until the sisters find out who’s behind these attempts and we stop them. You don’t employ us, however.’

  The sheet in Konstantin’s hand fluttered to the floor.

  ‘You can always work with someone else, sir.’

  ‘No,’ the billionaire recovered. ‘Mr. Carter, you’ve got the job.’

  ‘Just like that, sir?’

  ‘Yes, and for one other reason.’

  ‘What’s that, sir?’

  Konstantin grinned. ‘Angie will hate you.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Beth and Meghan met Kerry in a bar. The bodyguard showed no signs of resentment at being fired. He ordered them drinks and answered every question of theirs professionally.

  ‘No, that wasn’t our job,’ he replied to Beth when she asked whether he had investigated the attacks.

  ‘That attempt at the cinema — why were you so far behind?’

  ‘Event security, ma’am. The organizers wanted it that way. No security detail was allowed near the red carpet. Mr. Konstantin discussed it with them and only then greenlighted Angie’s attendance.’

  ‘How did Chavez get past security?’ Meghan flagged the server for another round.

  ‘You’re Meghan, right?’ Kerry smiled disarmingly. ‘Hard to tell the two of you apart.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She didn’t smile back. It wasn’t a social visit. The three bodyguards were on their suspect list.

  ‘He had the right credentials. He was the named driver for a Hollywood star.’ The bodyguard mentioned a name. ‘His face checked with the photo on their system. The car’s plates matched. What the security cordon didn’t know was that the celebrity had left an hour ear
lier.’

  ‘How did Chavez know that?’ Meghan made herself look intrigued. The NYPD checked that out. They initially suspected the actor, but it turned out that Chavez, or whoever was behind him, had hacked into the event’s system.

  ‘Someone hacked into the system. That’s what the cops concluded.’

  Kerry didn’t have anything else to offer. His story of the attempts matched those in the police files. Pizaka and Chang had interviewed him extensively after each attack, and their record didn’t deviate from what the bodyguard was telling the sisters.

  ‘What do you think?’ Beth asked Meghan as they were leaving.

  ‘You’ve got Werner on him?’

  ‘Yeah. Didn’t turn up anything. Decent financial records. There’s money to be made in the protection business. A house on Long Island. He’s not married. Has a girlfriend who is in Brooklyn. No offshore accounts. No extravagant purchases. Nothing suspicious.’

  Werner was the supercomputer in their office that ran a sophisticated artificial intelligence program.

  Beth held her forefinger up before Meghan could speak. ‘Nothing on Carlos either.’

  ‘Quincy?’

  Beth snorted. ‘You’ll see when we meet him.

  ‘Nope, am not going to tell,’ she smirked when Meghan looked sharply at her.

  Quincy lived in an apartment complex in Jamaica. An upmarket neighborhood filled with studios, cafes, and media agencies.

  ‘Not where I thought he would live.’ Beth looked up at the building and checked out the street. ‘How much do you think these apartments go for?’

  ‘About a mil or two. The building’s new, gated, own security. He owns his place?’

  ‘Yeah. Bought outright. No mortgage.’

  Meghan whistled softly in surprise. That was some doing, even for those in the protection business. They waited for an approaching resident to swipe the entrance with a keycard and rushed in behind her.

  ‘Friends of Quincy,’ Beth said with a smile when the woman looked curiously at them. They took an elevator and stepped out into a carpeted hallway.