by Zoe Sharp
She nodded. We both kept our eyes on the helo. It was a Sikorsky S76D in dark red livery with gold detailing. Top of the range and classy—not to mention expensive. It went with the Lincoln and the handbag and the watch.
As soon as the helo was on the ground, the doors were flung open and half a dozen men jumped out, armed to the teeth. Two of them carried medical packs. They had the woman hustled across the downdraft-flattened grass and the wounded man loaded in on a stretcher inside seven minutes.
I turned away from the scene, found one of the men standing behind me. He also carried an M4 carbine—coincidence? He held the weapon not quite aimed at me, but near enough to be suggestive. I glanced at it pointedly.
The man didn’t speak, just gestured that I should head for the Sikorsky with the woman and the stretcher. When I hesitated, his grip on the weapon tightened.
I shrugged, jogged across the grass ahead of him, automatically keeping my head down, and climbed inside. The cabin was kitted out in cream leather and deep carpet, executive style.
My guard climbed in behind me and slammed the door shut. The pilot goosed the collective and the Sikorsky rose smoothly into the air. As it climbed, it rotated onto its new heading. Through the trees below I caught a last glimpse of the pick-up, still embedded in the side of the SUV, the bodies sprawled on the blacktop, and the stricken Lincoln, before the scene was lost from view.
3
Nobody spoke to me during the short flight. I stared down out of the helo’s starboard window, trying to gauge roughly where we were going. It distracted me from thinking about the guy I’d pancaked between the pick-up and the SUV. Instead, I tried to remember the way his rounds had ripped into my seat, right before I’d run him down. It seemed to balance the scales just a little.
I’d been shot before and had been lucky to survive. It wasn’t an experience I was in a hurry to repeat.
After only a few minutes, at a guess, the aircraft’s forward momentum slowed, nose lifting as the pilot flared the rotors. We swung into position for landing and I saw acres of rooftop and glass, barns, and white-fenced paddocks with grazing horses apparently unfazed by our arrival.
As we touched down and the engine note died back, the doors were flung open. The stretcher was unloaded first onto a waiting gurney. I half-expected to see an ambulance waiting, but instead a middle-aged man with a stethoscope around his neck hurried forward, otherwise dressed as if he’d come straight from the golf course. The doctor pulled on latex gloves, already bending over his patient as he was wheeled away.
The woman got out next, surrounded by a tight phalanx of four men. A phrase containing the words ‘stable door’, ‘horse’ and ‘bolted’ sprang to mind, but I kept such thoughts to myself.
I warranted only one guard, probably enough considering he was armed and, if you discounted the folding knife in my pocket, I was not. We followed the woman into the house through an impressive double-height front door. Inside, it opened out into a massive entrance hall with a sweeping staircase leading up to a galleried landing above.
The woman’s heels clicked on the Italianate marble floor. Everyone else was wearing soft-soled boots, myself included. I looked down at my dusty jeans and bloodied shirt and got the feeling they really should have hosed me down and taken me around to the tradesman’s entrance at the back of the house.
She disappeared into a room to our right, the door closing firmly behind her. Her bodyguards stayed outside. Two flanked the doorway, the others disappearing along a corridor at the rear of the hallway. My guard, sadly, was not among them. He gestured again, this time towards a baroque-style buttoned chair near the foot of the stairs.
“Wow, you just can’t stop jabbering, can you?” I murmured, and saw the merest flicker of amusement in his stony features. “I think I’ll stand, though, thanks.”
Partly to get away from the stare-out competition we seemed to be having, and partly just to see if he stopped me, I wandered to the far side of the room to study the artwork on the walls. It was mostly modern—I recognised works by Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, which, if genuine, gave me a good ballpark figure for the income bracket of the owner. Not that the executive helicopter, and the mansion, and the private army hadn’t pretty much done so already.
We waited. Maybe a quarter of an hour passed, during which time a young man in a black suit brought out a tray of coffee served in a Limoges pot, which he put down on a side table, also without speaking. I was beginning to wonder if everyone here had taken a vow of silence. None of the bodyguards touched it, so I helped myself, if only because it allowed me to hold something I might be able to use as a weapon—either the cup itself or the coffee it contained.
Finally, the door opened to the room the woman had entered. A man stepped out. From the way he was dressed—the same casually expensive style as the woman—and the way the guards stiffened slightly, I guessed this was the boss.
He was maybe mid-thirties, tall, broad, and light on his feet in the way that martial artists are. Something about the way they walk, the way they put their feet down. His hair was darkish blond and his jaw was square. I bet he’d played football in college, the kind that involved padding and helmets. But I didn’t mistake him for a meathead, by any means. There was a calculating brain behind his narrowed eyes that made me instantly wary.
He came into the hallway unsmiling, but with his right hand outstretched. Mixed messages.
“Ms Fox?” he said, his grip firm without attempting to crush my knuckles. His hands were long-fingered and broad but well-kept, neither soft nor callused. “It would seem I owe you my thanks.” He didn’t sound happy about that state of affairs. Maybe it explained the stony face.
Clearly, he’d spent the time between our arrival and now running background on me, although it was interesting how quickly he’d learned my name without much to go on. He couldn’t even have run the plate on the pick-up, because it belonged to the owner of the farm where I was house-sitting.
Yeah…very interesting. And maybe a little worrying, too.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” I said, ignoring the stark mental image of that greasy red puddle under the front of the pick-up again. “How is your guy—Illya, was it?”
“Being well taken care of,” the man said smoothly. He stepped to one side and indicated the open doorway behind him. “Please, will you join us?”
Unable to think of a good reason to decline, I put down my now-tepid coffee and obliged. Inside, the room was a little less imposing and a lot more lived-in. A huge flat-screen TV hung above the open fireplace, in front of which was a low marble table boxed in on three sides by a comfortable-looking sofa and a pair of armchairs, their cushions misshapen by regular use. It lacked the interior-design magazine, staged look of the hallway.
The only thing conspicuously out of place in the room was the small, slim man lounging against the wall just behind the open door with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. I caught a glimpse of him in my peripheral vision as I entered and couldn’t prevent my head jerking round in that direction. He gave me a fractional nod, like I’d passed some kind of test.
Something about him made the skin prickle across the top of my shoulders. I had to force my arms to stay relaxed by my sides when instinct tried to form them into a defensive block, just in case.
He was dressed in uniformly dull-coloured clothing that didn’t look either new, or originally bought for him. A baggy jacket over an open shirt and T-shirt topped off the jeans and suede boots. His reddish-brown hair was collar-length, and he sported a droopy moustache and goatee, and small wire-rimmed glasses.
It took a moment for me to realise he was another bodyguard, but from a very different mould to the men in the hallway outside. More subtle, more sinuous, and ultimately far more deadly.
The boss paid him absolutely no attention as if the man was a fixture, the same as the curtains.
The woman from the Lincoln was sitting on one of the sofas. Her shoes lay on the floor and
she’d curled her bare feet up beneath her. She was clutching a glass of liquid the colour of a ripe conker that might have been brandy, or bourbon. Dutch courage, either way.
“You’ve been doing your homework,” I said. At his silent invitation, I sank onto the sofa opposite where I could keep the slim bodyguard in view. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
They exchanged the briefest of looks, then the woman cleared her throat. “I’m Helena,” she said. “Helena Kincaid. And this is my husband, Eric.”
She paused, as if expecting the name to resonate. I kept my face neutral. “I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Kincaid, but under the circumstances…”
That provoked a smile. She was not conventionally pretty, but the smile lit up her face from the inside, made it more than the sum of its parts. Kincaid sat alongside her, closer than he needed to for convention’s sake. I picked up no tension between them. In fact, they were a well-matched couple—outwardly at least.
“I understand you’re staying out at the Stephensons’ property,” Kincaid said. It was a statement rather than a question.
“Just taking care of the place while they’re away. Europe, I believe,” I said vaguely. I pulled a rueful face. “Speaking of ‘taking care’ of things, that reminds me—I need to do something about Frank’s truck—”
“It’s in hand,” Kincaid said, using that same smooth, almost bland tone as before. “The vehicle will be returned to you as soon as it’s been…sanitised.”
I grimaced. “Yeah, that might take some doing. I admit that using it as a battering ram wasn’t quite in the game plan.”
Helena’s head came up quickly. “You had a game plan?”
“Just a figure of speech.”
“Really?” she demanded, her voice sharp now. “Well, figure of speech or not, what kind of a person just so happens across an ambush on a road-to-nowhere in Hicksville and has any kind of a game plan in place for dealing with it?”
Kincaid put his hand on her leg, to reassure rather than threaten, I judged. Her own hand—the one holding the glass—trembled slightly, but I put that down to shock. She wasn’t afraid of him. That was something, at least.
“We know what kind, Helena,” he said gently.
For the first time, she glanced at the bodyguard by the doorway, as if checking something by comparison, although I hoped I didn’t give off the same kind of vibe. Then she nodded, the fire going out of her.
“Like I said—you’ve been doing your homework,” I repeated.
“Nobody sets foot into our home without that happening, Ms Fox,” Kincaid said. “Particularly after the events of today.”
He paused, as if waiting for me to jump in with questions I had no intention of asking.
Eventually, I sighed. “OK, I get that you don’t want to take anything about me on trust, and I suppose I can’t blame you for that. If someone had just made that kind of attempt on me, I’d be as suspicious as hell of anyone and everyone—especially someone who just so happened to be on-scene at the time.”
I rose, stuffed my hands into my pockets and gave each of them a level stare. They didn’t do a bad job of maintaining eye contact, either of them. “But I’m not after anything from you other than the repair and return of the truck I was driving.”
“Nothing else?” Helena demanded, unable to keep a note of incredulity out of her voice.
“Well…” I let my gaze travel around the room, as if pricing up the cost of the furnishings. “As your guys insisted I leave my vehicle behind, I wouldn’t say no to a lift back to the Stephensons’ place, if you wouldn’t mind? It doesn’t have to be by helicopter.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bodyguard by the door break into a smile. It was not reassuring.
“Dude, I like this girl,” he said, speaking for the first time. He had a soft voice, his accent difficult to place. “Seriously, she’s cool.”
Kincaid ignored him and reached into his inside jacket pocket, the action making me twitch reflexively. When he withdrew his hand, however, the only thing in it was a chequebook. He flattened it out on the table between us, laid a gold pen on top.
“Please, don’t get me wrong, Ms Fox, I—we—are very grateful for your…intervention today. But you must realise that people in our position find trusting in strangers…difficult.”
“You’re very cynical, Mr Kincaid.”
“I’m a realist,” he returned. “Anyone successful in kidnapping my wife could have legitimately asked for a substantial ransom for her safe return, as I’m sure my associate, Mr Schade will confirm.”
The slim bodyguard shrugged. “I’d have opened at twenty million, maybe accepted ten as a kind of early settlement deal.”
Kincaid uncapped the pen, opened the book to the next blank cheque and started filling in the day’s date.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
He paused. “How much will it take, Ms Fox, to ensure your…discretion in this matter?”
“I’ve already told you my price,” I said roughly. “Give me back Frank’s truck—preferably in the same condition it was in before I used it to hit that bloody SUV, and we’ll be even.”
“Nothing else?”
“I assume, from what you’ve said, that you’re going to make all the evidence out there on the road simply…disappear?”
Kincaid looked to the bodyguard again.
“Oh yeah, already in hand,” Schade said. “Clean as my conscience before nightfall.”
“Then that will do for me,” I said. “All I’m trying to do is get by.”
Kincaid sat back slowly, recapped the pen and laid it back on top of the chequebook. “When you say ‘get by’ I take it you’re referring to your current…employment status?”
I gave a short laugh. “Lack of it, you mean?”
“In that case, I’m sure we could offer you something that would suit your…unique skill-set. I want to—”
I shook my head before he could get any further down that particular line of thought.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “But I don’t do that kind of work anymore.”
“Is that so?” He gazed at me. He had blue-green eyes that were focused and intense. “From what I heard about you today, Ms Fox—driving unarmed into the middle of a firefight—you just can’t help yourself.”
4
My lack of current employment status was a situation entirely of my own making. I was the one who handed in my notice, after all.
If only that had been the end of the story.
The circumstances that surround my telling Parker Armstrong to take his job and shove it, are too long and complicated to go into here. Let’s just say that things happened while I was over in the Middle East a few months ago that made me view my boss in a somewhat different light.
What I hadn’t quite taken into account, however, was the fact that not only did Parker pay my salary, but his family owned the building where I’d been renting my heavily subsidised apartment, and he had rubber-stamped the work permits that allowed me to remain in the States, and my firearms licences. He was also a major player in the relatively tight-knit world of close protection.
All of which were major obstacles to my future career prospects and general wellbeing.
He let me get back to New York and settle in for a few days before he came to see me. It smacked of unseemly haste, but I reckoned I was probably getting special dispensation, even so. Anyone else would have been out on their ear the moment they handed their kit in.
“There’s no easy way to say this, Charlie…but I’m gonna have to ask you to vacate the apartment.”
It was put baldly enough to make me stare at him, not quite open-mouthed, but damn close to it. We were sitting in the living area, apparently relaxed and friendly. I’d just made him a cup of coffee—the real stuff. He’d asked me, without tension, if I’d changed my mind about remaining with his agency. Equally without tension, I’d told him I had not.
; Then he pulled the pin on that little conversational grenade and rolled it across the floor at my feet.
There were plenty of things I could have said at that point. I could have sworn and stamped and yelled at him that this mess was as much his fault as mine. Instead, I took a last calming sip of coffee and put down my empty cup, quietly and carefully, on the side table next to my chair.
“O–K,” I said slowly, drawing out the word. “How much notice do I have?”
“By the end of next week would be good.”
“The rent’s paid monthly,” I pointed out.
“And the lease is directly related to your position with the agency, which you relinquished two-and-a-half weeks ago.”
I did a quick mental calculation. He was giving me one month to the day. Nobody would be able to accuse Parker of not playing strictly by the rules.
Well, in this case, maybe…
We sat for a moment longer, eyeing each other while the bustle of the city carried on in the street far below us, the rasping exhaust of a motorcycle going up through the gears, the wail of a police siren.
Parker always was a good poker player. I could read nothing in his face now. It was a stern face under hair prematurely greyed and still kept clipped military short. There was a time, when Sean had been out of the picture, that I’d thought there could be something beyond a professional relationship between us. Parker certainly wanted more than I could give. More than would have been good for either of us, in all kinds of ways.
“What about Sean?” I asked.
“As far as I know, he’s not coming back, either.”
“As far as you know? You mean you haven’t heard from him since…Bulgaria?”
“Not a word.”
If me handing in my notice was bad, Sean leaving was worse. For both of us, probably. Parker had taken Sean on as a partner—his name was over the door. As soon as the Manhattan firm Parker started became Armstrong-Meyer, whatever Sean did had direct consequences for Parker’s hard-won reputation.