Cat's Paw (Veritas Book 1) (28 page)

“How’d they get their hooks in you?” Alex asked.

“My sister. Yeah, strange, isn’t it? You’d do anything for yours, and I gave up everything for mine. Even though they paid her medical bills, Theresa still died from the brain tumor. By then, these bastards had me by the balls, and I’ll never be free.”

He pulled a small plastic bag from under his jacket and tossed it to Morgan. “That’s a key to a safe deposit box at the Bank of New Orleans on Magazine Street. It’s in my name. You’ll find photos, documents, audio tapes, everything from the last seven years.”

He gestured toward Alex. “It should be enough to clear your name and for the DEA to clean house. I’m not the only dirty one they’ve got on their payroll.”

Alex’s mouth fell open. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because one of us should walk away from this mess in good shape. And it’s not going to be me.”

That sounded too final.

Dennis held up a cell phone. “The vest is rigged to blow when this rings. Nothing can stop it once I push the number.”

“Come on, we can work this out. They’re not worth it,” Alex said, taking a step closer.

“I will give you money, anything you want,” Buryshkin said, his eyes wide and sweat rolling down his face now. “What do you want? Name it. I will give it to you.”

“All I want is revenge,” Dennis said. He gave a sad grin. “No money involved.”

Anya began to cackle. “See, old man, see what it is like to skate the edge of death? Is it not glorious?”

“Laugh all you want, you crazy bitch. You’re dying too,” Dennis said.

“Go on! Do it!” she said, still laughing. “You are too weak.”

Alex dove at him, but Dennis had already pressed the call button.

“Get out of here,” he ordered. “Or you’ll end up in hell with the rest of us.” Alex staggered back in shock. “Go!”

Morgan grabbed Alex’s arm and dragged him toward the double doors. His survival instincts kicked in, and they ran toward the entrance.

Behind them, Anya began to sing an old Russian lullaby, caught deep within her own madness. Her father’s pleas grew louder now, his voice cracking in desperation. “You cannot do this! You are insane!”

Dennis’s resigned laughter followed them out the front door. They pounded down the stairs, taking them two at a time, then sprinted across the open ground. Alex’s lungs and ribs protested, but still he pressed on.

They’d made it only fifty feet or so before an explosion rocked the earth underneath them. As they fell, he covered her body with his. The concussive force of the blast roared over them, raining down pieces of timber, glass, and roofing. Underneath him, Morgan cried out. He felt something heavy hit his legs. At first, there was nothing, as if they’d been sheared off. Then the pain bitch-slapped him into oblivion.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

September 22nd

Tulane Medical Center

The low murmur of voices, accompanied by the beep-beep of a heart monitor, called Alex back from the darkness. As his mind began sweeping out the cobwebs, he parsed the sounds. The first voice, he knew as well as his own.

Miri
. His sister was safe. Then he heard
her
voice and knew his prayers had been answered.

“Mmmm . . . ” he managed, unable to form Morgan’s name on his lips.

When his eyes opened, Alex found two faces within his field of vision: his sister’s and his lover’s. Both wore an exhausted “thank God he’s alive” expression.

“Hey, look, he’s awake,” Miri said, a smile busting out. “I told you he wasn’t going to give up.”

Morgan blinked away tears. “What is it with you, Parkin? First you nearly drown. Then you get blown up. You got a damned death wish or something?” Her voice held an edge that spoke of the fear that she might have lost him forever.

“I’m a damned white knight, don’t you know?” he said. Then coughed hard, which proved not to be a smart idea. Sharper points of pain came from his right leg and thigh. Given all the debris the explosion had generated, he was lucky he hadn’t been staked to the ground like a vampire.

“So what’s the damage?”

Morgan leaned back, somber now. “Your right leg got speared by a piece of wood. It was a mess, but they got it cleaned up, and so far there’s been no infection, which is pretty amazing, since we were both covered in a lumberyard.”

“And you?”

“A mild concussion and some cuts and bruises. Nothing big.”

Like hell
. Anything that harmed this woman was huge in his eyes.

“They kept you under to let you rest. They wanted to ensure that you weren’t suffering from any side effects from your near drowning.”

He remembered waking up every now and then, ever so briefly, but then he’d go down again. Considering all they’d been through, they’d both been more than lucky.

Miri gave him a kiss on the forehead. “I love you, bro,” she said, her eyes brighter now. “Glad to see you’re back among us.” She studied the pair of them. “I’m . . . going to get . . . something to drink. I’ll be back.”

Then it was just the two of them.

“Not subtle at all,” he mumbled.

“She gets that from her big brother.”

“Dennis and the Buryshkins are dead?” he asked.

“Yes,” Morgan replied. “Forensics found some body parts, and they’re still figuring out who those belong to.”

“So one of them could still be alive,” Alex said.
Like crazy Anya.
Because those kinds of people seemed to have nine lives.

“No one came out of the back of the building. Neil made sure of it.”

Then it was over, and Dennis was truly dead.

“Damn,” Alex muttered. Now he understood what Crispin had meant when he said Alex didn’t know the whole story. Apparently Veritas’s head honcho had suspected that Dennis had his own reasons for working with the Buryshkins.

A sister
. Alex had made a deal with those bastards for the same reason: keeping Miri alive. He’d just had a stronger team on his side.

“I want to know when Dennis’s funeral is. I need to be there. And Alicia should know too. Whether she attends is her decision.”

“I’ll find out for you,” Morgan said. “The district attorney and one of the bigwigs from the DEA opened the safe-deposit box yesterday. Lars was there too, just to make sure everyone was being above board. They’re still going through all the evidence. Initial word is that there’s enough to get your conviction overturned.”

To his embarrassment, his eyes clouded over. What could he say? There was no way he could repay Dennis now. “He shouldn’t have done that.”

“He ran out of hope. We all do sometimes.”

“Not all of us. I had someone who gave a damn.”

“It went both ways.” Morgan gently kissed his lips. “Parkin?”

“Yes?”

“You ever do something that insane again, I will kill you myself.”

Alex grinned. “I’ll try to rein in my superhero tendencies just for you.”

Tears glistened, then her arms went around him, tight and warm and full of love. When she began to sob, his tears joined hers.

*~*~*

September 29th

Hotel St. Sebastian

Still using a cane, his injured leg aching, Alex made the slow journey to see Crispin Wilder. When invitation had been issued, he knew it would be unwise to refuse it. He owed this guy everything.

His brain was still buzzing from the call he’d received from a DEA hotshot in Washington just that morning. The man had offered him a half-assed apology, during which Alex had resisted the desire to tell the jerk to go screw himself.

Instead, he’d suggested that the agency should do a better job of policing their own. No surprise, the call had ended shortly after that. Clearly the people at the top didn’t care what he thought, just as long as he didn’t file a lawsuit against their sorry asses.

He tapped on the door to Crispin’s hotel suite, the same one as before. Apparently the management didn’t have a problem with assassination attempts when the man paying the bills was rich and well mannered. After the locks were disengaged, the door opened to reveal Wilder himself. He held a 9mm down by his side.

“Alex, thank you for coming,” Crispin said, beckoning him into the room. It was only the two of them today, which told Alex this was something different than just a “thanks for all your help” sort of chat.

Once the door was secured, Crispin set the gun aside and gestured toward a pair of chairs. “Let’s sit by the window. More light there. I need to get away from the work to let my head clear.”

A quick glance at the suite’s dining room table revealed that work—a laptop computer and a legal notepad filled with notes. From what Morgan had told Alex, her boss always had a full background study completed on every potential mission. Veritas couldn’t take them all on, so Crispin chose the ones he felt had the best chance of success. When he was conflicted, he asked the other members of Veritas’s board to weigh in. Exactly who those folks were was strictly “need to know.” Even Morgan wasn’t privy to the names.

They settled in the chairs near the window.

“Aren’t you worried your enemies will come after you again, since they obviously know you’re staying here?” Alex asked.

“Predictability is an issue for me. I love this hotel, so my enemies know I stay here. I’ll have to change it around next time, or life will be boring.”

“And if they manage to take you out?”

“There is always someone waiting in the wings to take my place,” Crispin replied.

“The king is dead, long live the king?”

“Just like that, but with less pomp and circumstance.”

It was an interesting notion. “Is that why you gave up gunrunning? Changing it up?” When Crispin didn’t immediately reply, Alex realized he might have overstepped. “If that’s a sensitive subject, I apologize. Truth is, I’m curious, because it’ll give me an idea of why you’re heading Veritas. You have to admit, it’s a big leap from one job to the other.”

Crispin rose and poured himself two fingers of a dark amber Scotch. He raised the bottle and gave Alex a questioning look.

“Yes, thanks, but half that. I’m a lightweight now.”

Crispin returned with the glasses, took his seat, and crossed his legs. His shoes were neatly polished, but it looked as though they weren’t new. More like a comfortable pair he was loath to part with.

Another curious facet of this most curious man.

“Your question is one I don’t usually answer. But in this case we share something in common, the fact that I started over and you will need to do the same.” Crispin sipped the liquor, then leaned back in the chair. “It is easy for one man . . . or woman . . . to say his actions have little consequence in this world, because it gives them a convenient out. But it’s not true. It doesn’t matter if you work at a 7-Eleven or if you’re an arms merchant, you make an impact on society. Admittedly, the latter more than the former, but we all contribute either by enforcing the rules of that society, or by breaking the bonds that hold us together as humans.”

“So you were a very substantial chaos generator?”

Crispin shook his head. “I was Death’s very gifted apprentice, minus the robe and scythe. I cannot possibly guess how many people died because of my activities.”

Alex tilted his head. “It could be argued that someone else would have done the same job with similar effect. You were fulfilling a need, hideous though it was. Not that I’m condoning it, mind you.”

“No, but another wouldn’t have been as efficient. I was particularly adept at my trade,” Crispin said, his voice full of bitterness. “Now, I’m adept at balancing the scales, making those who hurt others pay the price, if possible.”

“Then you’re still Death’s apprentice, in a different way.”

Crispin pondered that. “Yes, I guess I am,” he replied, smiling slightly. “I’d like you to work for us, Alex. Though you don’t think you have skills, you do. You speak passable Russian, you know the drug trade, you think like a criminal. And—this is the most important part—you have a conscience.”

“Let me guess—if I hadn’t gone in to rescue Dennis, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Exactly. The world needs more honorable people, like you and the Iceman and Valkyrie. If you had walked away from that hostage situation, I would have known that you put your pride above the life of another. Even the life of a man who betrayed you for his own personal reasons.”

“His sister.” Crispin nodded. “Did you know Dennis had double-crossed the Buryshkins when Morgan and I went into the house?”

“No, I did not. I expected the problem to be Anya. Dimitri warned us she was growing increasingly unstable.”

“I’m guessing that after I talked to Dennis at the police station, he decided to break free of the Russians. I had no idea he’d been keeping my ‘get out of jail free’ records for years.”

“That’s my assumption as well. What do you think will happen now that Vladimir Buryshkin is out of the way?”

Alex took a long sip of his Scotch, letting it burn its way down to his belly. “It’s going to go to hell. I doubt that Grigori will take his uncle’s position—it’s not his goal in life—and with Anya gone, there will be a substantial power vacuum.”

“I agree. New Orleans will suffer through a change of gang leadership, at least in the drug and prostitution trades.”

“Los Impíos will try to gain more ground,” Alex said. “They’ll claim the city as theirs, even if it isn’t. Unless they’ve changed since I was in prison, they’re more likely to war among themselves than execute a full takeover. It’s going to be ugly for a while.”

“Again, I agree. There’s already been a change in leadership just in the last couple of days. Miguel de Francisco, the one who sent his men to burn out your sister, is dead. His cousin, Arnaldo, has taken over for the time being. The word we received is that you and Miri are no longer targets.”

“Because . . . ?”

“Arnaldo is too busy fighting his own battles to mess with you. Also, he was warned that if they made any further attempts on either of you they would answer to Veritas.”

Well, hell.

“He agreed to that ultimatum?”

“He did. He is infinitely smarter than his predecessor.” Crispin sighed. “Unfortunately, the power vacuum is going to be felt on the streets. That’s the downside of removing a strongman or a dictator. Post-Saddam Hussein Iraq is a good example. He kept the factions in check through a particularly brutal regime, but removing him upset the balance of power. We’re still paying for that mistake. Hopefully, we won’t have that degree of carnage here.”

That comment could only lead to one question. “Did you ever meet him? Hussein?”

Crispin didn’t reply, which was an answer of its own.

Alex shifted gears. “So what’s your sales pitch?”

“Before I get to that, we owe you something.” He walked to the table, retrieved a large manila envelope, and handed it to Alex. As Crispin settled into his chair, Alex turned the envelope over in his hands. Only his name was on the front.

“What’s this?”

“Our agreement was to supply you with all the information we had compiled as to who set you up and how you might go about clearing your name. Events have overrun what’s in that report, though some of it might still prove useful when you return to court.”

Alex nodded. “Dennis did our work for us.”

“In many ways, yes. Once his sister became gravely ill, Buryshkin swooped in. The Russian was an expert at exploiting any personal weakness.”

“Thank you, anyway. You honored everything you said you’d do for me and my sister. I’m not used to that kind of backup.”

“Well, you will be if you join us. We work across the globe, sometimes with the blessing of a country’s government, sometimes without their knowledge, or occasionally as their enemies. Our name says it all: truth. We reveal it whenever and wherever we can. We make a small difference, here and there, but at least we are trying.”

“Did Veritas exist before you came on board?”

“Yes, on a smaller scale, with limited funds. They made me a job offer, once upon a time.”

“You’re kidding me,” Alex said, stunned.

“No. I was recruited, just as I am trying to recruit you. The first time they made contact, I told them I’d kill them all if they didn’t back off. Then . . . things changed,” he said, his eyes sadder now. “The second time, I accepted their offer.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Alex knew better than to ask what had pushed this man to make that decision.

Crispin set his now-empty glass aside. “The salary is excellent, and the medical and dental have to be, given what you’ll face. It’s a dangerous commitment that means you might come back in a box, if there’s enough left of you to bury. We fight hard. Sometimes we win, sometimes we die.”

“That’s a helluva sales pitch. What about Morgan? Would I work with her?”

A knowing smile came his way. “What is your status with her?”

Alex weighed his answer. “We’ve got the start of something good, but need to sort things out. Trust has been an issue for both of us in the past, but it’s looking promising. At least for now.”