Off the Edge (The Associates) (26 page)

Zelda walked up and put a scotch in his hand. “The mama’s back,” she said.

He lowered his gaze to the gargoyle fresco at the corner beneath the window, where a pair of pigeons had made their nest. He’d watched pigeons incubating their eggs and feeding their chicks for three years now. Helpless little beings at the mercy of everything. When the condo board voted to clear the stonework of nests and birds in order to preserve its historical beauty, Dax had fought it. When he failed, he bought out his neighbors in disgust. Some neighbors refused. So Dax had ruined them, and then he’d bought them out. Because nobody but nobody stood up to Dax’s wrath.

Fucking historical beauty.

He put his hand to his head.

“Christ, at least take a codeine.”

“I’m fine,” Dax said. And if he was going to send a woman into the arms of a monster like Jerry Lee “Rolly” Drucker, aka Jazzman, the least he could do was stay awake and bear the pain a little longer.

“We’ll find a way to pull her out,” Zelda said.

“Mmm,” Dax said. They both knew how that would go.

Jerry Lee Drucker had first met the Shinsurins during deployments in South Korea while he was with the Rangers, and later as a military contractor. The files Zelda had pulled on him showed him to be a formidable strategist and a fluid thinker with contacts across the world. It would be hard to save Emmaline, during or after the exchange.

He felt Zelda’s eyes on him. “Generals have sent entire armies off to die for less,” she said. “This is the TZ, Dax.” She wore a chic green maxi dress with gold sandals. They’d been at dinner with one of the U.N. High Commissioners, talking him down. The various powers were getting antsy about the TZ. They wanted to move big against Jazzman. They didn’t understand that it was too late to move big—not unless they were prepared to see part of Bangkok taken out.

Zelda looked at her watch. Had she planned to meet somebody later? She always seemed so painfully alone. She didn’t even have a family, unless you counted her adoptive family. Which Zelda definitely didn’t.

“You don’t have to stay,” Dax said.

“I do,” she said simply.

Dax nodded. Zelda kept her personal life private, and Dax made a point of not putting too much thought into it, but he knew Association business pulled her out of social occasions far too often.

If only his original plan had worked. When word of the auction had first come out, he’d tried to buy the weapon himself through a straw man working on behalf of undisclosed Americans, but Drucker had sensed something fishy about the offer.

Well, something
had
been fishy. The straw man would hand the TZ over to Dax to be destroyed and buried. Once Dax was sure he had all the plans and the locations of the ground lasers, he’d have Drucker killed.

Yes, Drucker had a good nose; you developed that, being in the field as long as he had been.

But his ex-wife would be his soft spot. As soon as Macmillan and the girl were at the safe house, Dax planned to work up the exchange, with or without her consent. Or Macmillan’s.

He’d approach Jazzman with a new offer. Cash and Emmaline, or Laney, or whatever she wanted to be called. It was an offer Jazzman wouldn’t refuse.

A ringtone sounded. Dax grabbed his mobile from his pocket. A voice on the other end. Riley, an Associate and one of his most reliable investigators.

Four words. “They’re in the wind.”

“You’re sure you had the right place?” Dax asked Riley.

Zelda swung her gaze to him. Dax put Riley on speaker.

“They were here. I can tell from the lookout nest,” he said. “Maybe they smelled trouble and left. Maybe one of the teams from the auction pulled them out of here.”

Dax exchanged glances with Zelda. More likely, Macmillan had guessed about an exchange. Or somebody had tipped him off.

Riley said, “Maybe he’s going for equipment for his plan. To take it over via the voice security.”

“And I’m sure he can succeed, given enough time,” Dax said, “but he robbed us of that time when he blew everything to hell rescuing the girl, so that’s off the table.”

“The guys feel very confident he can succeed,” Riley said.

Dax sighed. The other Associates loved Macmillan. But Dax needed a sure thing now. The fact that Macmillan had blown the element of surprise by saving the girl showed he was no longer reliable.

What the hell had happened to Macmillan?

“Go back to the Sawadee Hotel and wait with the others,” Dax told Riley. “We’ll see what turns up.” He closed the line and turned to Zelda. “We can’t send the Associates after each other. I won’t force them to make that choice.”

“Agreed.” Zelda drained her scotch. She wore one of her definitive looks.

Dax knew what she was thinking. The Associates weren’t the only players they had on the field.

“We have to put Thorne on them,” she said. “You know we do.”

Nobody knew that Thorne was Dax’s man. Not even the other Associates.

He shook his head. “Thorne would have to grab the girl and then screw things up and fumble her to our buyer. It would destroy his credibility with Hangman. Possibly even his cover.”

“Then let Thorne’s credibility with Hangman be destroyed. Let his cover be blown. Let everyone be destroyed. This is the big fight, Dax, and we agreed that anybody and everybody can be sacrificed to win it, even Macmillan. Even Thorne. If we can’t take the weapon away from Jazzman, we need to be the ones to buy it.”

Dax stared out at the park. They’d been trying to get somebody inside Hangman for years, and Thorne had been brilliant, working his way up within the notoriously cutthroat organization to become Hangman Four. Thorne with his black hair and wild Irish blood—the man was dangerous and brilliant enough to lead the group one day. The prospect of controlling Hangman got Dax hard in ten different ways.

He looked up to find Zelda staring at him.

“Yeah,” she said, eyes narrowed. She’d have guessed what he was thinking. You couldn’t get anything past Zelda. “The TZ comes first,” she said. “Think about the Glorious Light having that weapon. The New Tong. The North Koreans. Any of them. We’ll all be living in burnt-out buildings fighting over dog meat if the wrong people get the TZ. Who said that? Can you remind me who said that?”

He’d said it. It was true, too. He watched the pigeon mama. “If we send Thorne out after Macmillan, that’s a fight to the death. Especially with the girl involved.”

Zelda swirled the ice in her glass. “If we don’t send Thorne for her, somebody else will take her. Macmillan can’t protect her—not with everybody who’s coming after her.”

“He thinks he can,” Dax said.

“The arrogance of the overachiever,” Zelda said.

She was right, of course. Zelda was one of the best minds he’d ever encountered; he sometimes wished she’d agree to go back out in the field.

“What do you think happened down in that basement?” she asked him.

“Things got personal.”

Dax got Thorne on the line and explained what he needed. Thorne listened impassively, asking only the important questions. There was very little Thorne wouldn’t do. He gave Thorne directions to a vendor stall on Thana Soi, the last known place Macmillan had been with the girl. With Emmaline Drucker.

If there were leads to be gleaned in that stall, Thorne would find them. “I want everybody to come out alive, if possible,” Dax eyed Zelda as he spoke. “But the mission is primary. It won’t be easy—”

“I understand,” Thorne said.

“I knew you would,” Dax said softly. “Thank you.”

Thorne cut the connection.

Zelda furrowed her forehead. “Thorne sounds unhappy.”

“You know how he is—half monster and half whipping boy,” Dax said. “Kindness spooks him.”

So it was done. They watched the pigeon mama.

After a while, Dax said, “Did you know that pigeons are one of the few species that can recognize themselves in a mirror?”

“I did not know,” she said.

“Most other animals don’t recognize themselves. Pigeons do.”

“Mmm.”

Dax watched the pigeon mama, wondering what that would be like to look at himself in a mirror and not recognize himself. To see only the endless and blameless world.

Bangkok

Ten minutes later Macmillan was driving through one of the sparkling, chaotic business districts. He dropped Rio off when he hit the edge of it, where the bustle of commerce collapsed into a drab residential area. The line that separated the two areas was formed by a row of low-rent business traveler hotels that stretched for blocks.

He kept driving after that, parking some ways away, and he got out with Laney. She wore the cheap blue dress Rio had chosen, along with a little blue jacket, plus a wig, a sunhat, and sensible flats—with knee-highs.

He locked the car door with a smile. “You packed the knee highs.” Of all the things to take, she’d grabbed the knee-highs.

“It’s not what you think,” she said.

“Not because I like to ravish you in them?”

She smiled.

He went around to where she stood. “Why, then?”

“Rolly would hate them. And, it’s just something of mine. For my birthday.” She straightened his tweed sports coat and smiled up at him in his ball cap and wig. “You look so damn different.”

“You like me as a brunette? Should I go brunette like you?”

She snorted.

He grabbed the shopping bag with the rest of Rio’s purchases and set off. They had to walk this last bit to whatever hotel Rio selected, possibly through a gauntlet of hunters.

This was a transitional part of town; there was lots of neon when you looked up, but down on the street level all that flash got mixed in with hand-lettered signs and grimy shop windows.

They entered a department store with mirrored walls, silver mannequins, and deafening electronica. Up the escalator they went to a display of silver mannequins in beachwear overlooking the street.

Things looked clear—nobody had followed them, it seemed.

Eventually Rio called with a hotel name and room number.

They headed out onto a different street. As the poor-man’s end of the business district, it had the best hotels for hiding—and for escaping. Rio had a few favorites on the strip.

It was a little risky—they weren’t the only ones who would identify this as a good place to hole up, but that would be true of all good places to hole up. No reason to choose a bad place.

He worried about Laney, though. It wouldn’t be long until everything crashed down over her head—the danger they were in, her brother, the fact that she’d killed Harken, their slim escape, seeing Rolly again. That mini-outburst in the stall was just a blip.

He’d help her. He’d see her through it.

They joined the throng on the busy thoroughfare, passing a row of beggars and lotto ticket vendors. “Just behind this area is an old city neighborhood that’s like a maze—an instant getaway.”

Laney nodded. She carried off the black wig well enough, what with her dark eyebrows, but she looked nervous. Too conscious of being chased.

She’d give them away.

Macmillan slung an arm around her. “Focus on something in your mind, Laney. A TV show or something.”

“Okay.”

The hotels were on the second and third floors, above the shops. The little doors had lit signs above them, lettering in Thai and English, sometimes Chinese. Some hand-painted. Family hotels.

Her gaze darted all around.
Damn.
He’d spot her a mile away if he was hunting them, just from the fear rolling off her.

“Be anywhere but
here
. A hunter will notice if you’re
too here.”

“Like what?”

“Anything.”

“I can’t just disconnect like that.” Her voice sounded tight.

“How about a TV show? Do you watch that soap opera with the famous singer?”

He could see her trying to conjure it up in her mind’s eye, practically sweating with the effort of it. She couldn’t disconnect. No surprise there—it was against her nature. Only one thing would get her mind off the street. Connection.

He had to give her something real. Something of himself.

He took a breath. Was he really going to do this? He lowered his voice. “Remember when you visited me down in that cell the first time? And you talked about having to say goodbye to all the familiar people in your life?”

She slid her gaze to him, sensing a ploy.

“I had to do that once,” he continued.

“For real?”

“For real,” he said. “It was ten years ago. I was riding on a train in Mexico with my parents, my sister, and my fiancée. Gwen. The four people I loved most in the world.”

She shot him a glance, caught by the past tense. “Loved?”

“We were traveling through an area of unrest to visit a colleague of mine. It was my idea to take the train. I was arrogant; I thought it would be safe. We were playing a word game that we loved. The adjective game.”

Her expression softened. “It
sounds
like a game you’d love. Right up your alley.”

“It was up all our alleys. With my family moving around, we were closer than most families; each other’s best friends. You wouldn’t believe how many stupid games we had. And Gwen just fit right into our world. We were this…
family
.” He took a breath. What had he gotten himself into? This wasn’t a story he ever told. But it was shifting her focus—that was the important thing. “I was just a scholar. Peter Macmillan Maxwell, PhD. We were…happy.”

A group of three hunters ahead; it was their stance that tipped him off.

“I’d gone back a few train cars to where the functioning restrooms were,” he continued. “While I was waiting in line there, the train hit a series of bombs. Everybody in our car was tossed to the back, like dice in a cup. A violent halt. But all the front cars were destroyed. The car my family rode in, totally destroyed.”

“Oh, my God. Maxwell.”

“All of us survivors, we were pouring out into the jungle. It was night, middle of nowhere. Just the burning luggage and seats for light.”

One of the hunters eyed them as they passed out of the shade and through a patch of sun. He cringed; wigs sometimes shone wrong in natural light. Doggedly he kept on, describing the juxtaposition of twisted, burnt-blackened metal, charred corpses, and bright fabrics as he watched the hunters from under his lashes. He didn’t know what contingency they were connected to, but he knew that they’d spot them if he couldn’t keep Laney absorbed. Connected.