Takedown (An Alexandra Poe Thriller) (13 page)

“So why the concern?” Deuce asked.

“Because McElroy’s been wrong before.”

The cab made a left at the next intersection, taking them down a narrow, pockmarked street crowded on either side by tall, moldering tenement buildings. There was a different feel to this part of the city, as if they had crossed some invisible line and entered the real St. Cajetan, the one that wasn’t carefully controlled and maintained by the island’s corporate overlords. You’d never find this street on any of the brightly printed tourist maps the hotel provided.

“He’s stopping,” Deuce said.

Cooper eased off the accelerator and pulled to the curb as Favreau’s cab came to a halt in the middle of the street. After a moment, the rear passenger door opened and Favreau emerged, looking about as in sync with his environment as a ballet dancer in a hardware store.

“I guess we’re on foot,” Cooper said. He killed the engine and opened his door.

“Wait,” Deuce told him. “What if he’s just being careful? He may switch to another cab.”

Cooper nodded and tossed him the keys. “You stay with the car. I’ll follow him and give you the heads-up if he pulls anything. We should know soon enough.”

As Cooper climbed out and closed his door, he saw Favreau rounding a corner at the end of the block. Cooper looked around for any prying eyes, noticed nothing but a couple of locals sitting on a nearby stoop sharing a joke and a joint, and headed after his target.

He slowed as he reached the corner, cognizant that Favreau might suspect he was being followed, and made the turn as nonchalantly as possible.

The adjacent street was empty.

“Shit,” he murmured.

“What’s wrong?” Deuce asked in his earpiece.

“He’s gone again.”

“What?”

“You may’ve been right. He may have had another cab waiting for him. I don’t see him any…”

Cooper heard the peal of laughter, and spotted a man and woman emerging from an alleyway about half a block down. The man, squinting against the sun, looked like a slumming tourist who hadn’t seen daylight in quite some time. The woman was dark-skinned and local, clad only in a sheer red camisole and panties, and a pair of high heels that were tall enough to cause a nose bleed. She had her hands all over the tourist, coaxing him to come back into the alley.

Cooper knew there were two possibilities at play here. The alley either led to a whorehouse or a strip joint.
 

Or a combination of both.

“Hold on,” he said to Deuce as he headed toward them. “I think I know where our target is.”

W
ARLOCK
MAY
HAVE
been a rude punk, but once the clock started ticking, his ability to abandon all distractions and stay focused on his task impressed Alex.
 

After checking the CCTV cams on those strange, futuristic glasses, and telling Cooper where Frederic Favreau had gotten to, he returned his attention to the case on the sofa and continued picking through the gear. He inspected each piece, setting several micro video cameras and a handful of audio transmitters to the side.

“These should do the trick,” he said, then looked up at Alex. “Are you ready?”

“Just waiting on you.”

“You aren’t going to try to strangle me again, are you?”

“Stop making me want to,” she said.

A few seconds later they poked their head out the door, checked to make sure the hallway was clear, and headed for Favreau’s corner suite.

“Keep an eye on the elevator,” Warlock told her. “I’ve put a loop on the security cams up here, but we wouldn’t want anyone to catch us breaking into Freddy’s room.”

“And how exactly do you plan on doing that?”

He smiled and held up a fat felt pen. “My secret weapon.”

“A permanent marker?”

“This isn’t just any marker.” He removed the cap to reveal what looked like the cylindrical connector for an AC adaptor in place of the usual felt tip. “My sonic screwdriver.”

“Your what?”

“I take it you’re not a fan of The Doctor?”

Alex had no idea what he was talking about, and was starting to feel the urge to hurt him again. “Just get it done and explain it to me later, all right?”

He smiled. “You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?” She gave him a look and he raised his hands. “Sorry, sorry. My ex-girlfriend always said I’m a shameless prat who doesn’t know when to keep my mouth shut.”

“I have nothing but sympathy for her. Now are we gonna do this, or wait until Favreau gets back and ask
him
to open it?”

“Consider it done,” he said, and stepped up to the door. He was about to use his so-called sonic screwdriver when he froze. “Hmmm.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Looks like Freddy’s a belt-and-braces man.”

“Belt and braces?”

“Overly cautious. Not that I can blame him.” Warlock got closer to the door and studied the frame, top to bottom. “Unless I’m mistaken, and the likelihood of that is zero to none, he has an inexpensive but crudely effective wireless perimeter alarm hooked up to this door.”

“How do you know?”

“My glasses rarely lie.”

She looked at the door and saw nothing, but was willing to take his word for it. “Okay, so can’t you use your fancy pen?”

He eyed her with disdain. “This is for locks, not cheap counter-espionage devices. If we try to breach this entrance, Freddy’ll likely get a notification on his cell phone that someone has invaded his space, and we’ll never see him again.”

“So we fly blind? That’s not gonna work at all. We need eyes in that suite.”

Warlock nodded. “I really do wish I could have procured the room right next to this one. ” He looked across at the rock star’s door. “They’re bound to share a ventilation system.”

“So maybe he’ll let us in,” Alex said. “I can distract him while you do your thing.”

“Who? Bellamy?”

“Is that his name?”

Warlock nodded again. “Liam Bellamy. A Liverpudlian git who thinks playing a single chord and howling like a strangled cat is music.”

“I take it you’re not a fan?”

“Hardly. Considering where he comes from, you’d hope that some of the influence would have rubbed off, but this twat makes millions proving there’s no direct relationship between talent and environment.”

“You think you could pretend to be one? A fan?”

“Of Bellamy’s?” He looked as if she’d asked him to clean out a septic tank. “I suppose I could, but I’d have to seriously consider suicide afterwards.”

“Works for me,” Alex said. “Hopefully you’ll wait until this op is done.”

“Anything for Stonewell. What do you have in mind?”

“Just follow my lead.”

Alex moved to the rock star’s door and knocked. Loudly. She waited a few seconds, got no answer, and knocked again.
 

Still no answer.

She turned to Warlock. “Apparently he isn’t a hermit after all. Looks like you’re off the hook.” She gestured to the marker in his hand. “So show me some magic.”

“With pleasure.”

He stepped up to Bellamy’s door. “This hotel, like many around the world, is equipped with a key-card lock with a particular flaw that anyone with a little talent in electronics and a connection to the Internet can exploit. I discovered this trick online.”

“And here I thought you were an evil genius.”

“Genius? Yes. Evil? Only when necessary. But I’m afraid I can’t take credit for this one.” He uncapped the pen again and held it under the door’s lock mechanism. “There’s a small hole under here and all I have to do is poke the tip of my wand into it, and as my dear departed grandmother used to say…Bob’s your uncle.”

A green light came on and Warlock turned the knob, opening the door.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Alex said. “Thank God for insolent punks who know how to use the Internet.”

Warlock arched a brow. “If you aren’t careful, sooner or later you’re going to hurt my feelings. Wasn’t throttling me enough?”

“Somehow I don’t think so. Shall we?”

She pushed the door wide and they stepped into a foyer and a living room very similar to theirs, except for three significant differences: It was a corner suite, had only one bedroom, and was a complete dump. Furniture was overturned, room service trays held piles of dirty dishes, empty beer and liquor bottles were strewn about, clothing hung off barstools and lamps, a broken acoustic guitar stuck out from under the sofa, the wall-mounted television monitor had cracked glass, bath towels were piled in a corner, and the overall stink rivaled the Quarantine Road landfill back in Baltimore.

Warlock sniffed. “Tell me that isn’t dead body I’m smelling.”

They heard a very loud snore coming from beyond the bedroom doorway.
 

“Not dead yet,” Alex said, “but definitely circling the drain.”

They crossed to the bedroom, peered inside, and saw a very naked rock star sprawled faceup across a king-sized bed, clutching a half-empty bottle of Chivas Regal.

Warlock gestured, keeping his voice low. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present the Liam Bellamy in its natural habitat. Don’t get too close or it’s liable to impregnate you.”

Alex eyed him flatly. “You do know you’re not nearly as clever as you think you are, right?”

“Now you’re just being cruel.”

“Uh-huh. So what’s the plan, here?”

Warlock gestured to the wall behind the bed. “Freddy’s suite is beyond that wall.” He indicated an air-conditioning duct up near the ceiling. “Looks as if I was right about the ventilation system, which means I’ll need to find the crawl space into the ducts, which I assume is somewhere around here.” He nodded toward an open doorway. “Maybe the loo.”

“Okay,” Alex said. “Go do your thing. I’ll stay here and babysit in case our boy from Liverpool beats the odds and wakes up.”

“And if he does?”

“I guess I’ll have to improvise.”

F
REDERIC
F
AVREAU
WAS
not a patient man.

He knew this about himself and attributed it to his upbringing in a home for wayward youths in Newark, New Jersey. He had always tried to adjust accordingly, but there was only so much abuse he could take before his true nature took over.
 

He was dangerously close to reaching that point with Reinhard Beck, and he hadn’t even met the man. What he had hoped would be a simple transaction via the phone and encrypted e-mail had turned into what could only be characterized as an elaborate, time-sucking audition.

And for what?

The honor of selling the great god Valac a piece of information?

Ridiculous.

Wasn’t it enough that Favreau had tortured and killed someone to get that information? He was not, and never had been, a fan of such brutal methods of extraction, but he did whatever needed to be done. And if that bastard scientist had been smart enough to take the money Favreau had offered, such drastic measures would never have been necessary.

You’d think Valac would appreciate Favreau’s initiative, but no. You don’t get an audience with a superstar unless and until you’ve jumped through all the necessary hoops.

True, a short vacation in St. Cajetan was nice, but Favreau had no desire to play the part of the trained monkey, ready to dance on command. If Valac’s initial bid on the merchandise hadn’t been much higher than anyone else’s, Favreau wouldn’t even be here. But his patience was wearing thin and he was willing to take only so much before he’d tell the son of a bitch to fuck off, then take the next plane home.

The place that had been chosen for the preliminary meeting was a dive. Favreau had spent time in his share of strip joints over the years, but this one looked like something from the outer rim of hell. Most of the women were dogs, for one thing, like the one on stage, pimping for Bahamian dollar bills. There was nothing less appealing than a stripper with the face and body of a pit bull.

He sat at a table, drinking scotch, staring morosely at what looked like a hair on the rim of his glass that was clearly not his, when a couple of hard cases walked in through the front entrance, spotted him, and came over to the table.

Favreau had never seen Valac before, had only spoken to him on the phone, but neither of these guys looked like they fit the voice.

The tall one, obviously in charge, scraped a chair back without an invite and sat across from him as the other one hung back a little, keeping his eye on the door.

“Good afternoon, Frederic.”

The accent was American. If Favreau had to guess, he’d say the guy was ex-CIA, one of the many who had either gone rogue or hired themselves out to men like Reinhard Beck.

“Where’s Valac?” he asked.

The tall man smiled. “Dealing with other matters at the moment. He sent me to continue the negotiation.”

“Continue?” Favreau said. “He made his bid and heard my counter. Either he accepts it or I’m gone. I know a man in Chechnya who would kill for what I’m selling.”

“I assume you’re talking about Dakalu?”

Favreau tried to keep the surprise off his face. How could they possibly know whom he’d been in contact with?

“Dakalu is no longer in contention,” the tall man said. “He’s had an unfortunate accident.”

“Accident?”

“Something to do with his car exploding. I don’t know the exact details.”

Favreau felt a chill run down his spine. What the hell was going on here?

The tall man was still smiling. “I believe you’ll find that Owusu and Budiono have withdrawn from the bidding as well. So that leaves only Valac.”

What started as shock was turning into anger. Favreau said, “So is this your idea of negotiating? You brought me here to try to intimidate me?”

“Of course not. Valac loves the island and wants others to enjoy the experience just as he does. It isn’t often that men like us get a chance to relax, but St. Cajetan is something of a safe haven, and he thought you might appreciate it here.”

“Bullshit,” Favreau said.

“There’s no need to be hostile, Frederic.”

“Look, I don’t care if your boss is the last man on Earth, if he thinks he can lowball me—”

The tall one raised a hand. “It’s not like that. Valac is a man of honor. He simply wants a couple days to consider your latest price and asks that you humor him. In the meantime, he hopes you’ll indulge in the many pleasures the island has to offer.”