Sins of the Titanic (A James Acton Thriller, #13) (34 page)

“Absolutely.”
Salinger paused. “Okay, probably not. Not at least tonight. At least I hope
not. Who wants to get into a relationship with someone who’ll sleep with you on
the first date?”

Isabelle
blushed slightly, thinking back on Dylan Kane and her impulsive actions.

God,
that so wasn’t me!

She
smiled slightly.

But
it was so much fun!

“What
are you smiling about?”

She
glanced over at her partner. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”
His jaw dropped. “You slept with someone on a first date!”

“I did
no such thing.” Which was true. She hadn’t. It wasn’t a date.

Two
SUV’s whipped by them, the city streets almost empty, they having come out of
nowhere.

“Jesus!”
exclaimed Salinger. “Where’s a cop when you need one?”

But
Isabelle wasn’t ready to chalk it up to a street race. She reached forward and
flicked her emergency lights on.

Too late
to do anything.

Both
SUV’s matched the transport vehicle’s speed, one on either side. Someone on the
SUV to the left, it travelling on the wrong side of the road, reached out from
the rear window and threw something that stuck on the side of the van like a
magnet, then peeled away, the same happening on the right.

“Is that
what I think it—”

Salinger
never got to finish his sentence as an explosion tore through the van ahead of
them. Isabelle slammed her brakes on, coming to a stop only feet away from the rear
bumper, the fireball roaring into the night sky, flickering off the windows of
the surrounding buildings. She shoved the car into reverse and hauled ass back
about fifty feet before bringing them to a halt. Grabbing her radio, she
stepped out of the car, Salinger doing the same, just as tires screeching behind
them had them both spinning.

“Look
out!” shouted Salinger as he dove to the side, Isabelle spinning and throwing
herself to the ground as a tow truck slammed into the back of her car. She
flipped onto her back to see a car sailing off the back of the tow truck and
over her own, smashing into the inferno that was the transport vehicle.

Salinger
rounded their car, rushing to her side. “Are you okay?”

She
nodded and extended a hand. “Help me up.” Salinger hauled her to her feet and
she handed him the radio. “Call it in.”

“You
okay, miss?” She looked at the tow truck driver rushing over, beer gut proudly
displayed, three day’s growth peppered with crumbs of some forgotten meal.

She
nodded then looked at what turned out to be a Jaguar joining the inferno. “Shit,
that’s going to be expensive,” she muttered, looking over at the tow truck, a
man climbing out of the passenger side, jumping up and down, clapping his hands
together.

If
that’s not a happy dance…

“He
doesn’t seem upset.”

The tow
truck driver looked over his shoulder at the man and laughed. “You kiddin’ me?
He’s my best customer. I’m actually on his speed dial.” He lowered his voice,
placing a hand to one side of his mouth. “Between you and me, I hope he buys
another Jag. I’ve got two kids to put through college.” He roared in laughter
then turned, heading back to his truck.

Isabelle
looked at the raging fire, her heart heavy, there no way anyone was surviving,
the two police officers in the front lost.

Two
good men. Dead. And for what?

“This
case just got more interesting.”

She
looked at Salinger. “Did it? I think someone just ended our investigation.”

“How
so?”

“We’ve
got four dead perps, all taken out by the Secret Service, the investigation
taken over by the FBI, and now our only two suspects, who we were transporting to
hand over to the FBI anyway, are now dead. “You and me, Salinger, we have no
case. None. Nada. Rien.”

Salinger
smiled. “So what you’re telling me is we’re done for the night?”

Isabelle
laughed and looked at her watch. “Give her a call, maybe you can get a
nightcap.”

Salinger
grinned then raised his arm. “Taxi!”

“Wear
protection, little one.”

Salinger
laughed and waved on an arriving taxi.

“I thought you were actually going to leave for a moment.”

Salinger shook his head, motioning toward the inferno as the first emergency vehicles arrived, all levity gone. “Our night is just beginning.”

Isabelle nodded, their coping with the helplessness of the situation through humor over.

“Let’s get to work.”

Chinquapin Round Road, Annapolis, Maryland

“What’ve you got?” asked Red, lying prone on a rooftop across the
street from a warehouse they had tracked Acton to. Sherrie White’s quick
thinking in having him swallow a GPS tracker was proving prescient, he and his
team arriving less than half an hour ago. A quick review of the data using
codes provided by Sherrie showed Acton had been taken here for about ten
minutes then left for his university.

“Acton’s
moving,” replied Sergeant Zack “Wings” Hauser, watching a laptop display
showing the man’s movements. “It looks like they’ve left the university and are
heading back here. Good call.”

Red had
decided to check out this location first, his hunch that the side trip to the
university was to retrieve the painting that had started this entire fiasco.
The New Orleans op was wrapped—everyone was either dead or in the air, the
Secret Service taking over from Dawson’s team as soon as they were on the
ground, which wouldn’t be for over an hour.

Dawson
had requested his help, the op center stood down by Clancy now that his men
were safely in the air. They were an hour away, Dawson several. And with it
being the professors, there wasn’t a man on the team who wouldn’t drop
everything to help.

Sergeant
Eugene “Jagger” Thomas was to his right, peering through thermal imaging
goggles. “I’m showing three people sitting in chairs, two on guard.”

“Can you
tell who they are?”

“Negative,
but from body size, I’m guessing one is Professor Palmer and the other two are
the students.” Jagger lowered his goggles and looked at Red. “We can take them
pretty easy, then we’ll just have to deal with whoever is with the Doc.”

Red
shook his head. “Too risky. They could have some sort of check-in protocol. If
we take them out now whoever has the Doc could be tipped off.” He pursed his
lips, motioning for the goggles. Jagger handed them over and Red took a look
for himself. “No, we’re going to sit tight and take them all at once.”

“We’re
taking a hell of a chance,” said Wings.

“I know,
but I don’t think we have a choice. We can’t risk the Doc.”

Jagger
rolled to his side, looking at Red and Wings. “If I know the Doc, he’d rather
have us save his wife and sacrifice him.”

Red
nodded, thinking of his own wife. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for that
woman, she the best thing to ever happen to him. She had taken care of him like
no other woman could and had given him a fantastic son that was the light of
his life. They were why he fought for his country as hard as he did. His
family, his friends, his unit. They were everything to him, and it was his duty
and his privilege to make the world they all lived in a better place.

Even if
it meant not coming home one day.

His wife
understood that, though she worried every time he deployed. She wouldn’t be
human if she didn’t. But she never complained. She knew the life, she knew the
job, and she had signed up for it the day he was allowed to read her in, it
just after he made The Unit. He would never forget how proud she had looked
when he told her. So many times he had heard about the wives and fiancées
showing fear. But not Shirley.

She
beamed.

Her only
complaint was that she could never tell anyone what her husband did, instead sometimes
suffering jabs from her family and friends about how her husband was just a
records clerk when “real soldiers” were off fighting and dying.

It had
made her cry in frustration sometimes, yet she never broke.

I’d
die for her.

And so
would Professor Acton for his wife. He looked at the heat signature of the
woman he was pretty sure was Laura Palmer, then handed the goggles back to
Jagger. “I have no doubt he would. Fortunately for him I’m in charge and
sacrificing him shouldn’t be necessary.” He looked again at the scene below. It
was a large warehouse, modern, with tinted windows for the top half of the
walls giving them an excellent view of the heat signatures inside.

And
clear shots if they could remove those windows.

He
turned to Sergeant Jerry “Jimmy Olsen” Hudson setting up his M24A2 SWS Sniper
Weapon System. “Jimmy, you stay here, hold your fire until you hear from me or
it becomes clear a hostage is about to be killed.”

“Roger
that.”

Red
pointed to Wings and Jagger. “We’re going to get some charges on those windows.
I want clear lines of sight for Jimmy when the shit hits the fan.”

“Too bad
BD isn’t here,” said Wings, looking below.

Red
decided to have some fun. “Why, not happy with my orders?”

“Ooohh,”
grinned Jagger. “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Wings
gave Jagger a look then returned to his goggles. “
Nooo
, I mean we could
use four extra guys. We’ve already got two hostiles with an unknown number on
the way. Four more guns could prove useful.”

Red had
to agree. Eight guns were almost always better than four, though not always.
Today would
not
be one of those exceptions, though he had gone into
worse situations with fewer. “Unfortunately for us we’re all that’s available.
Besides, we’ve got the element of surprise and I’d like to think we’re a little
bit better at this than they are.” He turned to Wings. “What’s Acton’s
location?”

“Still
looks like they’re headed back here. Five minutes out.”

Red
pushed back from the roof edge then rose. “Time to plant some charges.”

Operations Center Four
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

“Ilya Mashkov is a Russian national, billionaire, one of the
oligarchs who for some reason hasn’t been touched by Putin.”

“Buddies?”
asked Morrison, sitting across from Leroux, everyone tired, it now well into
the night.

“They seem
to meet regularly, always formally though privately. There’s been none of the
typical macho photo ops though, riding lions, hunting dolphins, scoring eight goals
against former NHLers.”

“When
your wingers carry AK-47s, it’s easy to score,” muttered Child.

Morrison
chuckled. “Interesting. I wonder if it means anything.”

Leroux
shrugged. “Could. There’s nothing Putin likes better than a staged photo op,
especially when he can look more macho than the guy he’s with. Like when he
tried to embarrass the Canadian Prime Minister by walking over and asking to
shake his hand in front of other world leaders.”

Morrison
smiled. “Yeah, I loved that. What did he say? I’ll shake your hand but I’ve
only got one thing to say to you: get out of Ukraine?”

“Sounds
about right.”

Morrison
shook his head. “Nice to see the man neutered by a Crazy Canuck.” He motioned
toward Leroux’s tablet. “Continue.”

“Yes,
sir. Mashkov has holdings all over the world, especially England. Deals in hi-tech,
weapons, oil, natural resources, everything. Incredibly diversified.” Leroux
waved the tablet. “It’ll take a team of forensic auditors to figure out just
what he’s into.”

Morrison
tapped his chin. “But he’s definitely part of The Assembly?”

“I think
without a doubt. After that email was received, his business empire exploded.
Look.” Leroux swiped a chart on his tablet, sending it to one of the large
screens, a bar chart with the CIA’s estimate of Mashkov’s net worth. “His net
worth went from two billion to six in a matter of a year, and that’s just what
we know about. Whoever these people are, they have money. I’m guessing that
they buy from each other, so with each new acquisition, their empire grows.”