Piranha Assignment (3 page)

“Right,” Roberts said, but he wondered how many collectors fired their guns.

Felicity executed a high flying dismount which involved a back flip with a full twist. Her landing was solid, with both feet planted well and arms outstretched. The men burst into spontaneous applause. Felicity smiled and performed a deep curtsy.

As she stepped forward, Roberts could see just how perfect her figure was inside her spandex bodysuit. He remembered something he had heard in his youth, that men sweat but beautiful women glisten. She was beautiful, with deep green eyes, a wide and sarcastic mouth, and skin glowing the color of peach ice cream.

“Mark, meet Felicity O'Brian,” Morgan said as she approached them. “Red, the guy with his eyes popping out is Mark Roberts, the dude I told you about.”

Mark put down his attaché case and offered his hand. Felicity took it, shaking slowly as if she was receiving data input something through his palm.

“A pleasure,” she said. “But please let me get a towel before I start dripping on the floor.”

She turned toward a bench against the near wall but Morgan was already halfway to her offering a towel. She turned wary eyes on him as she took it. Roberts focused hard to catch their soft exchange.

“What do you get?” Morgan asked her.

“Mixed,” Felicity whispered. “He's self assured, but he has no real power. He's a follower, I'd guess, in a large anonymous organization. He feels kind of like a policeman, and then again like a mobster.”

Morgan raised his voice to normal levels as they walked back toward him. “Mark and I go way back, but he's here
today because he may have a job for us, or more accurately for you. He represents the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“Ahh,” Felicity smiled. “A cop and a crook.”

“Morgan assures me you can be trusted with matters of security,” Roberts said. “This is a delicate matter, requiring the skills you obtained before you began your present business.”

“You told him?” Felicity asked Morgan. Mark noted a faint accent, perhaps British or Irish.

“We find these things out on our own.”

“Right,” Felicity said, wiping her face and chest with the towel. “You want something taken, and you don't want the Watergate level skills of your own people.”

“Mark and I worked together briefly in Africa years ago,” Morgan said. “And he was the source of that tip concerning the attempted hit on our client today. I'd like you to hear him out.”

Felicity nodded and turned to Roberts. “I imagine you're used to working outside normal business hours in your line of work. As we apparently owe you a debt of gratitude, let me grab a shower, then we'll meet in the conference room upstairs and you can tell me what the job is.”

Thirty minutes later, Felicity joined Morgan at one end of the conference table, looking fresh in a white blouse and a black, front button skirt that just reached her knees. Her long, wavy red hair hung free down her back. She settled into her seat and blessed Roberts with one of her patented heart stopping smiles.

“So, give me the Reader's Digest version first,” Felicity said.

At the other end of the table, Roberts cleared his throat
and said, “Glad to. Do you have some cleared to take notes? You're going to want to write some of this down.”

“No need,” Morgan said, crossing to the coffee station. “Felicity has an eidetic memory. She'll be able to playback everything you say. So spill.”

“Oh. Well. Briefly, then, we have a personnel problem. We've got a scientist working for the government who runs a confidence game on the side. Bit of an embarrassment. We want to stop him without legal problems.”

“So tell him to stop,” Morgan said, handing Felicity a cup of coffee.

“Tried that.”

“No, I mean make him stop,” Morgan said. “Put somebody on him.”

“Can't do that,” Roberts said, rummaging in his briefcase. “He'd stop cooperating if he thought he was being followed. That was a condition of employment for him.”

Felicity sipped her coffee and smiled her thanks at Morgan. “So he's not a captive agent,” she said. “I mean, this guy could walk.”

“Possibly.”

“Then let him continue and reimburse the victims,” Morgan said, emptying his own cup.

“Not a long term option. Eventually, the local police will catch on to it. We don't want them involved.”

“You seem to have yourself a situation here,” Felicity said. “Just what's our man doing?”

“He's selling these.” Roberts pulled a large gold coin from his attaché case and rolled it down the long table to Felicity. Her eyes flashed as she picked it up and examined it. First she hefted it up and down, cold against her palm, and then held it on edge between her thumb and first finger. It weighed a little less than an ounce. An eagle and the
words E PLURIBUS UNUM indicated its American heritage. The date, 1787, was surprisingly clear. She laid it on Morgan's palm and turned back to Roberts.

“A Brasher's doubloon,” she said with a smile. “The nicest one I've seen. One of the rarest American coins there is, and it's in fine condition. Looks to be real.”

“It is real,” Roberts said, pacing with his hands in his pockets. “Our man let me borrow it for the day, and I had it looked at by two different experts.”

“Three, now,” Morgan said, looking at Felicity.

“We think it's the only one he has,” Roberts said. “He's set up in a hotel suite here in L.A. Everyone who's bought from him has been robbed before they could get it to their safety deposit box or other secured place. The next one goes on sale about a week later.”

“If they're snatched that fast, he's sending the thief out,” Felicity said. “He'll get caught soon if he keeps it up. So, why not simply fail to return the coin?”

“It can't look like the Company put him out of business. That's why I thought having an independent steal it would be best. Your work won't look like CIA work.”

“That's for sure,” Felicity said through a laugh. “So what's the story on this guy? Why are you so afraid of hurting his feelings? Who is this guy anyway?”

“His identity is classified.”

Felicity closed her eyes slowly and then opened them. “That won't wash here, bucko.” Her eyes bored into Roberts', daring him to contradict her. “I know we owe you a great deal, but I have to know something about the mark to set him up properly. Morgan must have told you I won't work blind.”

“I'm sorry, but I'm not authorized to reveal too much about this man.”

“Then you don't have the authority to make this deal,”
Felicity said, standing. “I haven't eaten. I live in the penthouse upstairs. Come by before eleven if you get permission to bring me in. Otherwise, it's been nice meeting you.” She walked over to Roberts, reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the gold doubloon. Then she dropped it on the table, tossed her long red mane and walked out of the room. Morgan got up and stretched.

“How'd that get in there?” Roberts asked, astonished. “I saw her hand it to you.”

“The magic of the expert pickpocket,” Morgan said. “You blew it, you know. I told you, you can't treat her like an amateur.”

“Can't you get her back?” Roberts looked worried. Morgan figured it was just part of the game.

“I won't try. I figure if you apologize and give her the scoop on your man she'll still probably do it. Otherwise, you'd better get good at picking pockets in a hurry.”

“So, you're going to have to tell me how you came to settle down in business with such a beautiful partner,” Roberts said, crossing his legs and leaning back into the soft embrace of the long velour sofa.

“It's a long story that starts in South America,” Morgan replied from a matching easy chair beside the sofa. “Now that you're on good terms with my partner, I'll have to tell it to you some time.” He nodded toward a large bouquet of pink and white roses in a cut crystal vase on the oak cube next to them. The cube served as a coffee table. The flowers served as an apology from the CIA agent. Their aroma, sweeter than any bottled scent, filled Felicity's cavernous living room.

“I'm kind of surprised the flowers worked.”

“I figured since she's a classy lady she'd understand the language of roses,” Roberts said. “White for humility, and pink expressing both appreciation and admiration.”

“Oh, you're good,” Morgan said. “Now I've got a question for you. What color is this furniture?”

“Well, I guess it's tan.”

“Wrong,” Felicity said, padding across deep pile carpet carrying a tray from the kitchen. “The color is mauve, as I've been telling this insensitive lout for months.”

Roberts looked at Morgan. “You set me up, old friend.” He reached to the tray for a Guinness Stout bottle and popped it open. Morgan and Felicity did the same, and she
settled into the end of the sofa next to Morgan. She wore designer jeans and a sweatshirt, with sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Curled into the end of the sofa, barefoot, clutching an amber bottle and smiling with those big green eyes, she looked to Morgan like the world's most elegant urchin.

“So, tell me the story on this mark, Mark,” she said. “I need to know history and background if I'm going to set him up right.”

Roberts sat up a little straighter. He looked around behind the couch at the marble mezzanine surrounding the sunken living room. Morgan followed his friend's gaze out the floor-to-ceiling window panels beyond the mezzanine, to the tranquilizing penthouse view of the moonlit Pacific. Roberts took in a deep breath and turned to face his two person audience. Morgan figured he was finally ready to take the big plunge.

Actually, he was sure Mark hadn't consulted anybody about his decision. As bureau chief he must have decided, based on instinct alone, to share classified information with this professional thief. Of course, he would have done his homework and found that she had never been convicted of a crime, and even unofficial street chatter would confirm that she was retired. Still this was the kind of thing that could end a career if he guessed wrong. Oh, well, Morgan thought, judgment was what they paid him for.

Roberts took one more deep pull from his beer. “Our man's name is Francisco Bastidas.” Once past this basic breach of security, he warmed to his subject. Giving briefings is one of those necessary skills in the CIA. “He's American born, first generation. Parents immigrated from Panama in 1950, a couple of months before he was born. Raised here in Los Angeles, right in the Barrio. No record of delinquency as a kid. Quick study, this guy. Scholarship
to Cal Tech in ‘67. Straight ‘A' student, and from all reports very patriotic. Parents died in an auto accident while he was in college, but that didn't stop him. Got into the R.O.T.C. program, and the guy was a real ball of fire. Seemed to take to the regimented Army style. Graduated Summa Cum Laude with his engineering degree and went off into the U.S. Army.”

Morgan sipped his beer, reflecting on his own life, and how it differed from Bastidas'. The South Bronx where he grew up was certainly no rougher than the Barrio. Perhaps if he had stayed in school instead of running the streets with a gang, he might have attended college. Maybe he would have gone into the Army as an officer from some Reserve Officer Training Course. Instead he lied about his age and volunteered, went in as a buck private and got shipped to Vietnam. He wondered if he might have stayed in the Army if he had earned bars instead of a couple of stripes.

“His area knowledge and fluency with the language made this young Lieutenant a natural to be posted to the Panama Canal Zone,” Roberts continued, popping another beer. This kind of thing seemed to make his mouth dry. “He made first Lieutenant a year later. He had just made captain on the fast track a couple of years after that when he was on patrol with a squad of men. As you know, the jungle in that country is pretty dense. And, to our rather slow politicians, there was no reason to fear any danger. However, at that time the Panamanian National Guard was preparing to take over the government. Lieutenant Bastidas walked his people right into an ambush. His men were massacred in a firefight. He was taken prisoner by the rebels. It's assumed they wanted some kind of information, but he really had nothing to tell them. They tortured him extensively and quite cruelly before he was rescued by another military patrol.”

“Tortured how?” Felicity asked. “I mean, physically, sexually, drugs?”

“These people are primitive, Ms. O'Brian, and not very sophisticated,” Roberts answered, staring down at the rose colored carpet. “They beat him pretty bad. Somebody pressed a red hot knife against his cheeks. And then his ears. They…well, they removed them.”

“They cut off his ears?” Felicity blanched and sat forward. She looked at Morgan, who was more puzzled than astonished. Then she reached behind herself and grabbed a remote control unit from her oak end table. She pointed the small black box past Roberts at the entertainment center across the large, sparsely furnished living room. Music filled the room from hidden speakers.