Takedown (An Alexandra Poe Thriller) (10 page)

Jason McElroy.

She let out a breath and lowered the gun. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Just so you know, half the damn lightbulbs in this dump are missing and the rest are broken. I was searching for a working lamp when I ran into that piece of crap you call a coffee table.”

“I repeat,” Alex said, “
what
are you doing here?”

“Right now I’m trying to keep from bleeding to death.”

She stepped forward, and raised the gun again. For all she knew,
he
was the one who had planted the treasure box. “You’d better explain, Jason, or you’ll be bleeding a lot more.”

“Put that thing down, will you?” He shut off the faucet, hobbled to a chair at the table, then sat and inspected the damage to his shin. “You know, if you answered your phone once in a while, we could have avoided this unpleasantness. I’m here because I need you. It’s that simple.”

As he dabbed at the wound with the wet cloth, Alex had zero urge to repeat her nursemaiding efforts on McElroy. The threat of nuclear holocaust couldn’t make her go down that road.

She crossed to the stove, turned on the hood light above it, then put away her cell phone and said, “You always need me. Why do you think I didn’t call you back?”

She, Deuce, and Cooper had handled three successful acquisitions since the op at Slavne prison last year. The grab in Turkey was supposed to have been the fourth.

He said, “You’re still angry about what happened in Istanbul.”

“Shouldn’t I be?”

“Okay, fine, I understand. I was angry, too. But until the government starts asking me for diplomatic advice, there’s not a whole hell of a lot I can do about it.”

“Diplomatic advice? You think consorting with a known terrorist is diplomacy?”

McElroy sighed. “We consorted with bin Laden until he became inconvenient. Same with Saddam Hussein. The world isn’t good guys versus bad guys, Alex. It’s all about who has what we need when we need it.”

“I’m not sure I want to live in that world.”

“Oops, too late.” He tossed the cloth into the sink and rolled down his pant leg. “I’m not here to debate politics, all right? If you’re looking to catch bad guys, I’ve got a major acquisition lined up and I can guarantee this one won’t turn out like the last. Fair enough?”

With reluctance, she laid her gun on the counter.
 

“Maybe I’d rather sit this one out,” she said. “Sit them
all
out.”

“And do what instead? Go back to rounding up fugitive junkies for a few hundred bucks a head?”

“Keep in mind I know who I’m talking to when I say this, but it’s not all about the money.”

McElroy forced a laugh. “Okay. Fine. We can pretend that’s true. What about information, then? That’s part of the reason we’re in business together, remember? Quid pro quo.”

She gestured toward the front door. “Don’t bump into it on the way out.”

She turned down the hall, heading toward the den and the patio beyond. When she heard McElroy shuffling behind her, she picked up speed.

“Alex, wait.”

“I’m done talking, Jason.”

“Maybe so, but if you think I can get a cab out here at this time of morning, you’re out of your mind. I had a hard enough time getting one from the airport.”

She stopped and turned in the doorway. “So what am I supposed to do, offer you a cup of coffee and a donut? You’ve got Stonewell International at your beck and call. Get somebody to pick you up.”

She went out to the patio and stood at the rail. It was too late to sleep and too early to be alive. She tried to enjoy the view but could feel McElroy standing somewhere behind her, undoubtedly trying to figure out how to get her to change her mind.

She was about to turn and tell him to get lost when her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket, checked the screen, and saw Deuce’s face staring up at her.

Now what?

She answered it. “Do you know what time it is?”

“I figured you’d be awake. And you sound pretty alert.”

“A lot more than I want to be.”

“I’m calling to give you the heads-up. Our supreme commander chartered a helicopter and he’s at your beach house, looking for you. He just called me. There’s something major brewing and he’s pissed because you haven’t—”
 

“The heads-up is supposed to come
before
I get ambushed, genius.”

“Oh, shit, you’re there? Did he tell you what the gig is?”

“No,” Alex said. “And I don’t want to know.”

A pause. “You’re still pissed about Istanbul, aren’t you?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that? It just happened a couple days ago. Give me time to get over it.”

“Look, Alex, nobody wishes it could’ve turned out different more than I do, but I think you should listen to what the man has to say. He’s already promised to double our salaries for this gig, and between you and me, I could use the cash.”

“What happened to all that money you saved?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Deuce…”

He sighed. “Okay, I ran into an old buddy yesterday and he talked me into sitting in on a game of Stud. And you know what a lousy poker player I am.”

Alex couldn’t believe it. “Are you telling me you lost it all?”

“I can probably make my rent this month if I don’t go crazy, but that’s about it. Which is why I’m begging you, kiddo. Hear the man out and seriously think about taking the gig. He won’t include me if you’re not there.”

“Then he’s a fool,” she said.

“Yeah, well, that goes without saying. But it is what it is. So do me a solid and listen to his pitch.”

Alex wanted to reach through the phone and strangle Deuce. He was a great partner and one of her very best friends, but for a smart guy, he could be such a brain-dead moron sometimes.
 

“All right,” she said. “I’ll listen. But only because it’s you.”

“Thanks, Alex.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to anything. If I don’t like the sound of it, you’ll have to scrape up next month’s rent some other way. Sell your body or something.”

“Isn’t that what we already do?”

He hung up without saying goodbye. She stuffed her phone back in her pocket and wheeled around, knowing McElroy was waiting in the doorway.

“So is that how it works? First, you use Cooper to help recruit me, now you use Deuce to convince me to stay? What did you do, hire some card shark to cheat him out of his savings?”

“You give me too much credit,” he said. He had his nose in his phone and was typing something.

She scowled. “I should’ve shot you in the kitchen. Answer one question before we get into this.”

He looked up. “All right, what?”

“Why haven’t you asked me where I was tonight?”

McElroy shrugged. “Is it any of my business?”

“Is anything ever your business?” She thought about asking him outright if he’d planted the treasure box, but if he wasn’t
involved, she’d just as soon keep it to herself.

“Look, Alex, one of these days you’re going to have to learn to trust me a little. I really couldn’t care less where you were tonight. All I care is that you’re here now. So why don’t you do us both a favor and put the hostility in check for a minute? I’ve got two words I think you’ll want to hear.”

“Which are?”

“Reinhard Beck.”

“The anarchist? I remember reading about him when I was kid.”

“Anarchist, assassin, child killer, friend to genocidal tyrants—take your pick. He’s done it all and he’s still doing it.” He gestured. “I just sent his dossier to your phone. The usual encryption.”

Alex dug out her phone again, saw the alert, and tapped in the password to retrieve the file. “I assume I’m supposed to be excited about this?”

“You should be. This guy’s wanted in about fifteen different countries. And thanks to you, we’ve got the exclusive on him.”

“Thanks to
me?
”

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but my guy from DHS asked for you personally as a condition of the deal. You’re building quite a reputation for yourself. Even the snatch in Istanbul is considered a win since you already had the target in hand.”

“Don’t get me started.”

Her cell phone screen filled with a fuzzy black and white photo that looked as if it had been grabbed from an ancient surveillance video. Reinhard Beck stood in a bank with a sawed-off shotgun pointed at one of the tellers, his head turned toward the camera, giving her a full view of his face, as if to say
fuck you
. He was a tall, athletic looking man with light hair pulled back in a ponytail, and eyes as cold and dull as a Burmese python’s.

“Is this the most recent photo you’ve got?”

“It’s the
only
photo, except for a couple of school shots from when he was a child.”

She nodded, then moved past McElroy and went inside, sinking into a chair as she flipped through the surprisingly thin file for such a major player. It was little more than a rundown of Beck’s most heinous crimes, and a series of unconfirmed sightings over the last twenty years. He was a founding member of the German terrorist group known as the Black Hat Battalion. The organization appeared to have no particular political affiliation other than mayhem, and seemed to focus its talents on weapons and explosives trafficking, from which it made a great deal of money. Beck himself was known to his associates as Valac, a nickname with roots in demonology.

Lovely
, she thought and looked up at McElroy. “Okay, I can see why you’d want to grab this guy. So where do we find him?”

“Does that mean you’re in?”

Alex hated being so predictable, but she had a weakness for chasing after badasses, and this one was about as bad as you could get. If things went right, catching the bastard might even make up for the last debacle. And there was Deuce to consider.

Of course, that didn’t mean she had to cop to it.

“Where is he?” she repeated.

“Not far from here. You’ve heard of St. Cajetan?”

“It’s in the Bahamas, right? Club Med for the super rich.”

“That’s the one.” He gestured to the chair across from her. “Mind if I sit?”

She did, but granted him permission anyway, and watched him hobble across the room, still clearly in pain after his battle with her grandfather’s coffee table.

Good.

“Here’s the thing,” he said as he sank into the chair. “This isn’t the usual track-and-grab job. It’s slightly more complicated.”

Alex didn’t like the sound of that. “Explain.”

McElroy told her a story about the recent bombing in New York, and how one of the people involved had led investigators to a Serbian nationalist. This, in turn, put them on to a maze of phone calls that clued them in to an upcoming meeting between Reinhard Beck and a man named Frederic Favreau. Favreau was looking for a buyer for a set of codes he’d managed to acquire, and Beck, aka Valac, was first in line.

“What sort of codes?” she asked.

“That, I don’t know. Top secret, eyes only, don’t pass Go, all the usual nonsense. I’m not sure why they don’t just arrest Favreau and be done with it, but I have a feeling our friends at State have gotten greedy. They’re looking for a twofer.”

“And for the sake of political expediency, they want us to execute it,” Alex said. “We grab Valac and the codes, and take the blame if it all goes south.”

“Right. Only not in that order.”

“What do you mean?”

“They don’t want Valac to have the codes in hand even for a minute. That’s how paranoid they are. Our job is to snatch the codes
before
we snatch Valac, make sure they’re secure, then go after the prize.”

“So we take Favreau down first.”

McElroy shook his head. “That may spook Valac and nobody wants to take that chance. This is the closest we’re ever likely to get to him.”

“Then how do you propose we handle it?”

McElroy took something from his jacket pocket and tossed it to her. “These are hot off the press.”

Using her phone for light, Alex opened an artfully forged and distressed passport and saw her photograph above the name
ALEXANDRA BARNES
. Tucked into the back pages was a laminated ID card with the same photo and name, showing her as a “Correspondent” for Travel Planet Lifestyles
,
an online travel site.

“Travel Planet Lifestyles?”

“It’s a Stonewell front,” he told her. “We’ve used it as cover for a number of ops when discretion is needed. It’s fully operational, so if anyone checks, it’s legitimate. It took some quick and dirty finagling, but we managed to snag you a couple days on the island. You’ll be doing a video profile of St. Cajetan for the site, complete with camera crew.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Not in the least,” he said. “We want you to cozy up to Frederic Favreau at the hotel, locate and switch the codes, then let him lead you straight to Valac.”

Alex arched a brow. “Cozy up?”

“I’m told you’re just his type.”

“Oh, brother,” she said, tossing the passport and ID card into his lap. “I think you’ve got the wrong candidate for this job.”

“What’s the difference between this and throwing on a prison smock or pretending to be a radiology technician?”

“For one thing, I didn’t have to ‘cozy up’ to anyone.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. Just flirt with the guy. Lead him on until we can determine how he’s transporting the codes and make the switch.”

“And who’s the ‘we’ in this scenario? Are you leading the operation?”

McElroy shook his head. “I’m leaving that to Cooper. He’ll be coordinating and using Deuce and Warlock for support. They’ll be posing as your production crew.”

“Warlock? Who the hell is Warlock?”

“Oh, that’s right. You haven’t had the pleasure yet. Warlock’s a prodigy. We recruited him straight out of HMP Nottingham, where he did time for back-dooring a supposedly hack-proof MI6 database when he was seventeen. His only mistake was bragging about it online. He’ll be handling surveillance and comm tech and anything else computer related.”

Alex didn’t like the idea of working with strangers any more than she liked having to play dress-up again, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized she needed this distraction. It didn’t hurt that she might be doing something worthwhile.