Double Down (3 page)

“Well,” Mahmoud said quietly. “What do you make of this?”

“I don't know,” Tyka said. “It's too much of a coincidence. And I don't like coincidences.”

“You and me both. Shall we go take a look around?”

“Give me a moment to think.”

Tyka always took her time before acting, having learned early on to be suspicious. She had spent her early childhood in Ukraine, raised by a single mother who was a double agent, but they had frequently spent time at their second home in France. After her mother starting working for the French government, Ukraine grew suspicious of her. In 1990, when Tyka was six, the Ukrainian parliament had just come to power, and the country was on the verge of civil war. Tyka and her mother had to flee through the Odessa Catacombs to find safe passage back to France, and ever since then Tyka had had a paralyzing fear of small enclosed spaces. She also had a fear of ever letting her guard down.

Her early life had been so strange that she'd never made friends or dated the way other girls had. Her mother never wanted anyone in the house, and Tyka was moved from school to school both in Ukraine and in France. All the homes she had ever lived in were cold, in temperature and in feeling. And none of them had food . . . grocery shopping was something her mother rarely remembered to do. Growing up, Tyka survived on bread and potatoes and not much else. She'd taught herself the ways of petty thievery . . . how to steal loaves of bread from the trucks, how to eat meals and run out without paying. She'd learned how to connect to people only out of necessity, not out of a desire for friendship or closeness. She had developed some exceptional survival skills; she was extraordinarily self-sufficient, independent, and adaptable. And she'd come to accept that she didn't need anyone.

Sort of.

She looked over at Mahmoud. “What say we go around back and do a quick rundown? I'd like to have a closer look.”

“So would I, Ms. Tyka,” he said, stepping toward her, a look of desire in his eyes.

“Really, Mahmoud. It's time to focus, don't you think?”

“As you wish, Ms. Tyka. I live to serve.”

He sharpened and neutralized his features. Tyka recognized the expression well, something Gabriella used to call “the neutral mask.” It was how they all looked when they focused on a task or were about to take someone out. Focused, and like they had no feelings whatsoever. Tyka found herself surprised at her sudden disappointment in seeing Mahmoud's persona armored again.

In truth, Tyka dreamed of finding her other half, but she would never share that particular intel with a soul. She had thought about partnership a lot over the last few years . . . especially since she'd had a front-row seat watching Chas and Susannah's romance. She'd connected with this group partly because of Chas, but mostly because of his father, Chuck, who had known her during one of her first jobs. When she was fifteen, she had run away from home and found her way as an apprentice to a young man named Spliff, who'd been hired to take out the Italian. When Spliff was outed and killed by one of Bruni's bodyguards, she'd inherited his job. Along the way she'd met Chuck, and he'd given her a message to pass on to his son if things got rough for Chas. Years later she'd had that chance, and seeing the man Chas had become made her want a man of her own. But what other half could there be for a Ukrainian assassin who traveled all over the earth killing people? It was a lot to stomach. Of course, the fact that the people she took out deserved it did make it better. But who was she kidding? Who was going to fall for a hired gun?

Except for another hired gun.

She looked away, then back at Mahmoud.
Pretentious fuck
. He had really grown on her, though. Beneath his exterior was a loyal and caring heart; she could see it in his eyes. Sometimes, briefly, she caught a flash of something gentle and vulnerable underneath the sharply tuned elegance that was Mahmoud. Something she longed to see more of.

“Well, if you live to serve,” she said drily, “I am in need of a cabana boy.”

“Someone to hold your weapons?” he asked, his face still neutral.

“I would never let anyone touch my weapons.”

“Of course,” he replied. “Your crown and scepter, then. Or perhaps the train of your robe.”

“Really, Mahmoud. I only have need of someone to carry my cigarettes. And occasionally a bottle of chilled vodka.”

At this he cracked a smile. “I left my cooler at home. But your cigarettes I have at the ready.”

She took a moment to look him up and down. He was dressed all in black, simple clothes, good for reconnaissance. Though it looked like he carried nothing, she knew he had at least four concealed weapons, as did she. And, she now realized, her cigarettes. He was staring intently at the villa, likely trying to figure out the easiest access point. Birdsong's home was a rambling old estate right on the coast; it had untended gardens and stone stairs that led to a patio. The villa looked uncared for; crumbling paint and broken shutters could be seen on every wall. She knew instinctively that the best entrance would be the side; the front was too obvious, the back usually quite protected, but there was often a side entrance that even the sharpest would overlook. She was testing him, mentioning the back. Trying to suss out how sharply tuned he really was.

He looked back at her then, his focused gaze catching hers. “Right side, yes?” he asked. She couldn't help but smile as she nodded quickly and they instantly moved together, deftly working in tandem. It was a strange comfort to be in the presence of someone who spoke her language, and it filled a space Gabriella had left behind. There was an untended patch of garden between Birdsong's estate and the one next door—it was the perfect place to trespass. Working silently, almost as one, they made their way into the overgrowth.

‡‡‡

Back at Quantico, all had gathered for the briefing. Jackson and Lisa Bee had set up a small presentation using Lisa Bee's laptop, and they were joined by Susannah and Chas, who had changed into casual clothes after their second almost-wedding. “This wasn't quite the honeymoon we planned on,” Susannah said with a wry smile, “but it is the one we keep getting.”

“Honestly, kids, I don't know that I can take it anymore,” said Susannah's mother, Janice, also looking frayed. Fritz seemed exhausted and stressed; she had been at the wedding because she was an old friend of Susannah's mother, and she nodded in agreement, gently resting a hand on Janice's shoulder. Janice had passed messages for Fritz using the gift store she owned in Alexandria, but that was as deep as she'd gotten involved. Until her husband had turned out to be alive, and a suspect in a deadly manhunt, and then she'd been pulled in deeper.

“Well, it looks like this is the only honeymoon any of us are getting at the moment,” said the Boss as he walked in, his thick hair a bit unruly underneath a classic fedora but the rest of him in very good shape. The Boss's love of old movies influenced his style, but in truth he was a master chameleon. He was famous among his team for being able to change looks at a moment's notice. Today he wore a white button-down shirt, dark slacks, and a long black trench coat; the fedora he wore made him look like something out of a film noir. A veritable Robert Mitchum from
Out of the Past
, perhaps . . . one of his favorites. “I hope you've all enjoyed the all too brief respite. Because it's high time we get back to business.”

‡‡‡

The Boss took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair, feeling a new stridency forming in his soul after his talk with Babs. They'd gone painstakingly over every detail of the case, then used the daybed in his office to go over every detail of each other. He stood a bit taller, filled with adrenaline, the pump of his heart a steady thrum in his chest. Looking at Fritz, Janice, and the Bod Squad, he thought about what Babs had said to him earlier. Did he want to find Baba Samka?
Fuck yes.

2

“Well, this seems almost too easy,” Tyka murmured.

“Yes,” Mahmoud agreed, speaking in a hushed whisper. “And that always makes me wary.”

They had made their way through the overgrown garden to the back of Birdsong's estate. Surprisingly there were no cameras, no guards; the house appeared to be empty. They had tried to get in from the side, but there were few windows and none open. So they'd found a balcony with sliding doors at the back of the villa. “It reminds me of a Hitchcock movie back here,” Tyka said with a shiver. “That one about the woman and the scary nanny and the house . . .”

“
Rebecca
,” Mahmoud said. “Love that film. But quite unsettling, I agree.”

“Mmm,” she said with a sigh. That was the Hitchcock film that had always scared her the most. She'd had her share of living in cold, empty houses alone, and it always made her uncomfortable.

“When do you have time for movies?” Mahmoud said, casing out the right angle for them to make their way in.

“Usually I watch something scary on my phone in between killing and fucking. It's the right way to transition from one to the other.”

He stifled a laugh. “Yes,” he agreed, “that's why I like to watch
Gilmore Girls
.”

“Not really, Mahmoud?”

“No. I just thought the idea might make you smile.”

Indeed.
She turned away so he wouldn't see the corners of her lips struggling to stay put. She looked out over the Mediterranean waves that lapped against the stone foundation of the villa. A ramp led right down to the water, and partway down was a stone balustrade with an overgrown stone bench and tables. She imagined it was very beautiful in the daylight, and considerably less creepy. As it was now, it gave her the shivers. The stone bench was cracked, and vines grew around a rusted old railing. The water was clear and rhythmic as it gently touched the building; a bright harvest moon shone upon its surface. She nodded and looked up. He nodded back to her. One of her great skills was scaling buildings—she grabbed a length of rope with a small hook at one end and effortlessly threw it up to the small balcony. It landed silently and caught in the perfect spot, anchoring with ease.

She moved up the side of the building as quietly as a cat. Mahmoud followed, and while he wasn't as quiet as she was, his climbing skills were excellent. When they had gathered the rope, Mahmoud used a set of lock picks to open the sliding door, then slipped inside. Within ten minutes they had checked every room, only to find the villa unoccupied. It seemed only occasionally used—a vacation home, maybe? Turning on small flashlights, they went to work in separate rooms, not speaking, searching for anything that might link Birdsong to the work of Baba Samka.

Forty-five minutes later, Mahmoud approached Tyka with a determined look on his face. Grabbing her hand, he led her downstairs and into a small office. He pressed a button underneath the desk and a painting slid to the side to reveal a small safe. “Think you can crack it?” he asked quietly.

“Oh, Mahmoud. Please tell me this is not how you choose to challenge me.”

“Why not, Ms. Tyka?”

“Far too easy.”

Her first teacher had been a master of espionage, a young street-rat-turned-genius. Spliff was British, nicknamed for selling pot, and he had found Tyka in London after she had run away from her mother. She had hitchhiked from Paris to London with a wad of cash she'd found in her mother's makeup kit, grabbed one of her mother's spare guns as well, and was sitting in a pub drinking a beer when Spliff sat next to her. He was just twenty at the time, and they spent five years working together before he was gunned down by one of Bruni's men—killed by the Marconis just like Chuck Palmer, Chas's father; and now Gabriella. Gabriella had meant the most to her, but Spliff had taught her everything she knew, not the least of which was breaking into anything, anytime, anywhere. She hadn't done a safe in many years, but this one didn't look too tough. If she only had a hammer and a tire iron—it would take her less than two minutes.

“Do you have a hammer and a tire iron?” she asked Mahmoud, careful to keep her voice barely a whisper.

“Sorry?” he asked. “Are you being serious?”

“Of course not,” she said, a scowl on her face. “Don't you know a joke when you hear one?”

“I should have known,” he said with a smile. “You've seen enough to know what I am and am not hiding beneath my clothes. But thank you for the compliment.”

“Stop distracting me,” she said. “Do you want me to open this or don't you?”

“You're the one distracting
me
, Ms. Tyka,” he said. “Now I can't stop wondering what you might have hidden under
your
clothes.”

She gave him a playful shove, then turned to hide the smile on her face
.
“I can do it. It will just take a bit of time.”

“How long?”

“I won't know until you stop talking and give me some room.”

“As you wish, your majesty.”

Mahmoud stepped back and waited, allowing her some space.
Thank Christ!
She was beginning to spontaneously combust just being close to him. The safe had a combination lock—Spliff's specialty—and it looked like one of the easier ones. Tyka started by moving the dial clockwise several times to reset it. Then she stared for a moment at the safe. “What I wouldn't give for a stethoscope,” she muttered.

“Sorry?” Mahmoud asked.

“Nothing,” she said, “just give me a few minutes.” It was really her own fault for not having brought a proper tool kit along. She had lock picks in her backpack, but those wouldn't help here. She put her ear against the safe and turned the dial counterclockwise, slowly, listening for two clicks near each other, one fainter than the other. Spliff had actually taken a safe apart and explained all the pieces and how they fit together; he had shown her exactly what was going on inside at the same moment that she was turning a dial on the outside. She knew about drive cams, notches, and lever arms, and how they all fit. As she turned the dial, she could see Spliff's crooked smile in her mind's eye. She reset the lock and listened closely several more times.

“You're awfully sexy when breaking and entering, Ms. Tyka,” Mahmoud said softly. “Frankly, you're awfully sexy doing most anything.”

“Stop it, Mahmoud, you're interrupting my work,” she said, pressing on. What she wouldn't do to stop the blush that rose up from her chest all the way to her cheeks!
Keep it together, tatou doux!
Spliff loved that her last name meant “armadillo” . . . he used to call her
mon tatou doux
, his sweet armadillo,
gentle like an armored tank
, he'd say. Oh, was she distracted! Mahmoud was really heating her up from the inside. When she was sure she had figured out the total number of clicks, she knew how many numbers she was looking for. Five.
Worse than three, but better than seven.

“Grab me a piece of paper and a pen,” she said.

“Only if you ask me nicely,” he said wryly.

“Might I have parchment and quill, your highness?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Ms. Tyka, your vast knowledge of the English language threatens to give me heart palpitations.”

“Really,” she said sharply, a grin she couldn't seem to fight away imprinted on her lips. “Can we get on with it?”

In about thirty seconds he had something for her to write on, and seemed to be behaving himself, though he did have quite a provocative look in his eyes.
Dammit
. She quickly plotted two lines to form a graph and labeled them
T
and
M
. Then she reset the lock, put it at zero, and began again to listen. Once she'd figured the numbers out, she had to play with the sequence, though Spliff had shown her some tricks that made that easier than randomly choosing. Combination cracking was a bit like counting cards, he'd taught her, something he was exceptionally good at.

In about fifteen minutes she had it. She looked up at Mahmoud with pride. “Well, I'm not as good as I used to be, but not so bad, either.”

“Fifteen minutes? I thought it would take you under five.” At her expression he laughed and said, “I'm joking. Very impressive. Remind me to have you check my safe in Tangier if we have a chance.”

“You should be so lucky,” she said with a wink. “I reserve my safe-cracking skills for potential mass terrorists.”

He laughed again. “Well, Ms. Tyka, you don't know me that well yet. I shall have to do my best to catch your eye. By the way, what were the
T
and
M
for on the graph?”

“They were for Tyka and Mahmoud.”

“Yes, I was hoping as much. I mean, what was the difference between the two lines?”

“The
M
line is the steady one you measure everything against, and the
T
line is the complicated one you have to work to figure out.”

Mahmoud laughed again. Tyka could feel the sound like a whisper upon her skin. “Very accurate. So . . . what have we got?”

The safe held a large stack of euro bills, a pouch that contained some very fine-looking diamonds, a handgun, and an envelope. When Tyka opened the envelope they both gasped.

Inside was a file on every member of the Bod Squad, including Gabriella—
including Tyka—
with phone numbers, home addresses, known locations, and work contacts. There was even a section on Mahmoud's family and the bombings in 2003. At the very back was a torn sheet with the word
Casablanca
handwritten on it. Mahmoud looked at Tyka, his face twisted into a scowl. “Dammit,” he said. “How the fuck did we get made?”

‡‡‡

In the Quantico boardroom, Lisa Bee caught up the rest of the team about Birdsong's villa and the possibility that he might actually be Baba Samka. Everyone looked to be some combination of impressed and frustrated, none more so than Susannah and her mother, who'd both been put through the ringer about Buzz and now were wondering if they'd been wrong all along. AJ “Fingers” Jones, the best hacker among them and a rare giver of praise, was impressed enough to say, “Damn, sis! Now I'm gonna have to up my game.”

“Fine intel, Bee,” the Boss said admiringly. “High time I stop asking you for coffee and copy paper and allow you to do what you do best.”

“Toldja so,” Jackson said to Lisa Bee, who was blushing a bright red.

“Wait a minute,” Susannah said, standing up in a tight pair of dark blue jeans and boots, her auburn hair flowing beneath a white cowboy hat. Susannah went by the nickname Legs, and it wasn't hard to figure out why at the moment. “Are you saying it's possible that my dad had nothing to do with this? That we've all implicated the wrong man?”

“Now, calm down, Susannah,” Fritz said. She looked frustrated as well, but as always was clearly in control. She tucked a strand of frizzy brown hair behind her ear and leaned forward in her chair, her power suit and low voice giving her an instant air of authority. “We had plenty of intel linking Buzz to the crimes. How else do we explain the codes we found in your house? Or the information my team found that linked him to Bruni, to Morocco, and to several of the crimes on Baba Samka's list? He's part of this; I'm now just wondering if perhaps he's not the
only
part.”

Chas jumped in with his slight Southern accent, frustration in his voice. “I feel like I missed something huge here. Birdsong has been a contact of mine for years, all through the time I worked for Bruni. I never knew his allegiances, but I also never thought he could be part of something like this. I pegged him for a low-level criminal, in it for the excitement and not much else. But now I'm wondering what I might have missed . . .”

“That's not the issue, Chas,” the Boss replied. “You'll be of greater use to us now, since you have an established connection to him. Give us something about his background, his habits, known locations. Tell us what you know.”

Chas took a breath and shrugged. “Well, there's not a heck of a lot,” he said, standing and beginning to pace the length of the room as he spoke. Chas Palmer was tall, good-looking, and well put together. He had dark hair and blue eyes and was sharp as a tack. He and Susannah made a beautiful couple. Their romance had begun when she was investigating him for his role in a white-collar criminal operation. As it turned out, he had been in deep cover for years with a different branch of the FBI than the one Fritz headed, hunting his father's killer. When Bruni had been taken out by Gabriella, Chas had believed his search had ended. Now he found himself digging deeper and deeper into a nest of vipers.

“Birdsong was always the go-to person for information you couldn't find anywhere else . . . You went to him because somehow he got it.” Chas rubbed his chin as he thought. “Bruni used to say they called him Birdsong because he was like a bird—he'd fly in when necessary, and could never be caught. And he managed to keep his pro soccer cover through all of it. Even knowing all I know, we'd never be able to catch him on anything—he's too damn smart.”

“So what can we do?” Fritz asked.

“I could ask him for something,” Chas said. “But I have no idea where he is right now. Johannesburg? Italy? Also, it'd have to be really solid—like I said, he's way too smart for any kind of con.”

At that point Lisa Bee spoke up, zipping up her light-pink sweatshirt. “Um, Fritz? Well, what if we're somewhat honest with him and tell him that Buzz has escaped? Then he'll either lead us to Buzz or maybe we'll catch him throwing us off. Either way it's helpful, right?”

“An excellent idea, Lisa Bee,” Fritz said, then looked over at the Boss. “I must say, John, I'm continually impressed with your team. Every one of them has surprised me with their skills. You did a good job, putting the Bod Squad together.”