Hero Engine (19 page)

“Jesus fucking Christ.” I slam the door closed as she yanks the car into drive and takes off again. “Would you calm down?”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“What?”

“We’re partners or whatever, but don’t order me around like some kind of jealous boyfriend. Get in the car, calm down; no. Fuck that rubbish. I’m a little drunk, and a little on edge right now, all right. There is a superhero destroying cities and some kind of terrorist plot that needs unraveling and not a single fucking clue has made sense so far. So what are we doing? Sitting in a bar, getting drunk and arguing about each-others’ accents.” She takes a corner at roughly three million miles-per-hour.

Good thing at three in the morning on the night after a catastrophic attack on the city there aren’t a lot of people on the streets. Otherwise, Ann might be pedestrian bowling right now. I’ve got to give her credit though, if she’s as drunk as I feel, she’s doing a damn fine job of keeping it between the lines.

I think we both need a nap, but I’m not about to tell Mario
Ann
dreti that. The urban lights blur as we fly through the city center. I try my best to focus on the road, but the striped yellow lines are moving by too fast and it makes me nauseated. My hands grip the dashboard, my equilibrium wishes the world would stop spinning, and my eyes just want to be shut for a little while.

We pull up to exactly where we
borrowed
the car from, except Ann manages to screech to a halt with one tire on the road and the other three over the curb and in the park lawn. I’ve seen worse drunken parking jobs. I once arrested a sixteen-year-old kid who took his dad’s car and ended up parked at quite the angle on his neighbor’s front porch.

Ann shoves her door open, and I shoulder my way out of mine.

“Hey,” a voice yells in the distance. “That’s my car.”

I glance over my shoulder to see the cop we took the car from running in our direction. He doesn’t look very happy to see us, but I’m honestly having a hard time focusing on his face. He could be blowing me kisses for all I know. We’re a good fifteen steps away by the time he gets to the door of his still-running vehicle. Then grumbles out some words that get lost in the nighttime air. ‘Fucking’ and ‘capes’ are the only words I can make out of the ramble.

I follow Ann across the lawn, up the stairs and into our luxury airliner. The interior is just as plush as we left it. Ann crosses the cabin and lies down on a short sofa in the back of the plane, draping an arm across her eyes. I take a seat in the recliner next to the couch.

“Not one bloody word to me right now.” Ann yawns and wraps her free arm around her stomach.

“Ditto.” I recline my chair, put my hands behind my head, and hope for some kind of breakthrough in the morning. Surely to God something has to lead us somewhere. Eventually two of the clues are going to match up and bring this whole fucking mess to bed. Maybe.

A CHIRPING NOISE
brings me right out of the dead-to-the-world sleep I had been enjoying. I open my eyes to an assault by the fucking sun and its burning star bullshit. Man, fuck the sun. The damn thing needs to learn to keep its UV rays to its damn self.

My hand automatically slaps around me, hoping to knock the source of the noise right in the fucking teeth. If my fingers happen to wrap around the cell phone the thing is likely to end up on the other side of the room in multiple pieces. Unable to find an object creating the chirping that is really pissing my migraine off, I slap my hand against the desk in front of me.

The chirping stops. Thank fucking god. My eyes flutter as I try to make my way back to sleep.

“Oh, ummm, hello?”

I hear the voice in a distant place. Somewhere I’m not currently inhabiting.

“Mr. Quig, are you okay?” The words in my dream are spoken with a soft, Cuban accent.

Why would I be dreaming of someone talking to me with a Cuban accent?

Someone clears their throat. “Mr. Quig, WAKE UP!”

My eyes snap open. I really need to give the sun another piece of my mind, but that can wait. Right now, Adriana is staring at me over the computer screen. Apparently that distant place I wasn’t inhabiting was consciousness. I sit up straight in my chair and wipe the drool off my mouth with the back of my sleeve. There’s still a fog of sleep over both my eyes, and I try to blink it away while attempting to regain any kind of professionalism I once had.

“Yeah, yes, um, good morning, Adriana.” I feel a presence at my back and turn to see Ann standing behind my chair. She looks as much like shit right now as I do. One chunk of her hair is sticking straight up and her eyes are only about half open.

“I’m sorry if I, ahem, woke you two.”

“No, no, we were just…going over some strategies. Trying to solve this mess.” The lie sounds so unconvincing that I almost laugh at myself for saying it.

“Right, well, I’ve got some good news for you.” Adriana smiles apologetically.

“Did you—” Ann’s voice cuts out and she has to cough to clear her throat before she can continue. “Did you find our man?”

“Sort of. We found exactly twenty-three Andy or Andrew Donovans in our records. We traced every one of them and didn’t find any kind of AHA ties or even criminal activity past the occasional DUI.”

“Well, what in the bloody hell? Did McCarthy give us a fake name?” The tone of Ann’s voice makes me think she’s exactly two seconds away from turning this plane around to go finger hunting.

“That’s what I thought at first too, but I didn’t quit. I went through Jackson McCarthy’s email records and found exactly one email sent to Andy Donovan, shortly after your visit with him. The email warns of your coming and your use of ruthless measures to get information. I traced the destination of the email. This Donovan character, whoever he is, is tricky. I went through no less than fifteen different levels of IP rerouting and false trails before we located him.”

“Perfect.” I clap my hands together. “Where can we find Mr. Donovan? Mississippi? Alabama?”

“Ardeche, France,” Adriana says with a certain level of amusement.

“France,” Ann asks.

“France,” Adriana agrees.

“You mean to tell me,” I rub a hand across the stubble on my jaw, “that the Grand Sovereign Mage of the Anti-Hero Alliance has set up base in the Archduke of France?”

“Ardeche, actually. It’s a city in the mountains of southeastern France.”

“And I’m assuming you’ve already uploaded the coordinates to Ulrich?” Ann stifles a yawn, stretches her arms out over her head.

Adriana smiles. “Yes, Ma’am. Already done.”

“So I guess we’re off to France.” I’ve never been out of the country. Well, other than that quick trip to Canada two days ago. Something tells me Andy Donovan is going to be much more trouble to deal with than poor, useless Gagnon was.

Ann shrugs. “C’est la vie, I suppose.”

“Have fun on your globetrotting adventure,” Adriana says. “Good luck finding Carmen Sandiego.” Adriana reaches forward to touch a button and the feed cuts off.

“France,” I say.

“France,” Ann agrees.

“Hey, Ulrich, you awake up there?” I yell to be heard through the cabin door.

Mr. Blonde himself comes through the door, thermos in hand. “Me? I’ve been awake for hours. It’s you two I’ve been worried about.”

“Yeah, long couple days, I say. Are you ready to—”

“We’ll be there in two hours, Chief.” Ulrich gives an exaggerated salute and steps back into his cockpit.

“So, uh, you wouldn’t happen to have learned some French in all that SHI training, would you?”

Ann runs a hand through her thoroughly messed-up do. The movement doesn’t do shit for the cowlick sticking out the side of her head. “I can speak English, Spanish, and German. In French, I can say ‘hello’ and ‘good-bye.’”

“That’s about the extent of what I’ve got.” The plane engines grumble and whine as turbines spin to life. “You wouldn’t happen to know how to say, ‘Cooperate or we’ll chop you fingers off,’ would you?”

Ann sniggers. “I’m quite hung over and in need of a wash, and I’m currently ready to forget any conversations we may have had last night. So let’s not push it, yeah?”

“Agreed,” I say, thankful we can both forget about last night. This partnership might actually stand a chance. Lack of sleep, plus stress of the world, plus alcohol,
do not
, in fact, equal a quality teambuilding exercise.

Ann covers a yawn with the back of her hand. “I’m going to get a shower. How do you feel about a cuppa coffee?” She’s at the back of the cabin before I answer. I guess she took my non-answer as a ‘Yes, of course.’

I make my way over to the simple pantry, microwave and fridge that make up the kitchenette of Hero Force One. Oh, yeah, I forgot coffee pot. I grab a filter and pour in a good amount of ground coffee; measuring is for people far more awake than I. Add a carafe full of water and power and we are well on our way to airline-quality coffee. I’m practically a barista.

Opening the fridge reveals little in the way of breakfast food. I settle with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. There are some bagels on the door, so I drop one in the toaster. Ann seems like a bagel kind of woman. Bagel and butter, I’m guessing.

I drop down in the comfy reclining seat to enjoy my PB&J and coffee. Breakfast of champions, I know. While eating, I open our computer to see what I can find on Ardeche. From the best I can tell, it’s a poor spot with lots of outdoor adventures. Great, we are going to visit the French version of Jackson McCarthy. Maybe being French means Andy will surrender faster.

The back door opens. Ann’s wet hair hangs on her shoulders and she’s got on the same pants and tank top she’s worn since we met. The clothes are a little flat, but she looks much fresher. I think I might have to grab me one of them showers. McCarthy’s blood could still be on my skin somewhere. The thought makes me shudder. Is it possible to get a meth contact high?

I shove the last of my food in my mouth and wash it down with lukewarm coffee. “Coffee in the pot, bagel in the toaster, butter’s on the counter.”

Ann gives me a warm smile, hopefully a sign she feels the same about last night as I do. “How’d you know I like butter on my bagel?”

“You seem proper enough to eat a bagel, but rough enough around the edges to go with butter instead of the more acceptable cream cheese.”

“Right then.” Ann snatches her bagel out of the toaster and assaults it with butter.

“While you enjoy your breakfast, I think I’m going to take a shower.” I make my into a bathroom that rivals my apartment back home.

There’s a couple of wet towels on the floor. I kick them out of the way to get to the shower stall. Water on high heat, I expect it to be warm, at best, after Ann’s shower. How big of a water heater could a hyper-sonic plane possible have? A big one, apparently. The water scalds me as I step in.

I step out of the shower feeling refreshed and as clear-headed as I’ve been since Tuesday. Apparently, some sleep does a body good. I pull on my old clothes (technically, Vince’s old clothes) but leave off the socks. Two-day-old pants I can do. Two-day-old shirt is pushing it. Two-day-old socks is an absolute negative. I slide my bare feet into my low cut boots. Vince’s nice oxford still hangs on the back of the door. The garment is matted and wrinkled. I figure a plain white tee will do just as well as anything.

“We’ll be landing in ten minutes,” Ann says when I get back in the main cabin. “Ulrich already has a car lined up and I’ve got the address loaded into our GPS.”

“Have you got your little bag of horrors ready?”

Ann pats the black duffle bag sitting in the seat next to her. “Yes, yes I do.”

Ten minutes later we are on the ground and descending the airplane staircase in a new country. Tall gray rock faces surround us on one side and a river the width of a couple football fields flows across the other. Night blankets the area. This jet-lag thing is going to catch up with me eventually. Leave Houston at ten a.m., show up in France at nine p.m. What a damn day.

“You’ve got a ride on the road. It’s a half mile up the trail that way,” Ulrich says from the plane staircase. He points toward a gap in the rock face. “There will be a French diplomat waiting.”

“Thanks,” I say. Good thing I wore boots. Too bad I’m not wearing socks.

Ann and I make the short trek without too much trouble. Cursing the uncertain footing, my ankles are as sore as my injured hip. As we cross under a patch of dense trees, two black Peugeot hatchbacks wait for us on the road ahead.

A man in a black suit steps out from the passenger side of the front car. He’s got a pointed chin and slicked-back hair. I was expecting a scarf or a beret or something, but I guess a handmade designer suit is the most French thing we get today.

As we approach, he checks us out and his eyebrows drop down. That seems more like what I imagined. “Hello, welcome to France. My name is Georges.” he says, only hello sounds more like, ‘ell-oh’ and France sounds more like ‘Frawns.’

“James and my partner, Ann.” I reach out my right hand. The diplomat shakes with feigned interest. Ann lifts hers, but the diplomat steps in and gives her a kiss on each cheek.

“Here is your car. Will you require anything else,” Georges asks.

“No, I think that will be quite all right.”

“Your visit has been kept very secret,” Georges says. “Even I have very little information about the matter. If you don’t mind my asking, are you here due to the action of a French national?”

“I don’t believe so,” Ann says. “The name we are tracking has a much more…American feel to it.”

Georges’ lips curl tighter. “Americans,” he says with a plain look of disgust in my general direction. “Well still, I must inform you, if you plan on extraditing anyone from the country, you will need to inform the consulate
before
you take them anywhere. That is the law, no matter what organization you represent.”

“Yeah, yes Sir.” I shake his hand one last time in parting.

“
Yes,
Sir.” Ann’s voice is a little tighter. She is probably not used to following the rules of foreign diplomats. To my understanding, world governments usually bow down to the whims of SHI requests.