Takedown (An Alexandra Poe Thriller) (30 page)

“So we get proactive.”

“Would you mind telling me how?”

“I’m working on it. Do you know where they’ve taken them?”

“The second floor’s best I can tell you. That’s the private residence, but there aren’t any cameras up there, so I don’t have eyes.”

Deuce thought for a moment. “You
can
loop the feeds on the cameras you’re hooked into, right? Replace them with a static image?”

“I can, but these people are trained and that will only fool them for so long.”

“I just need it long enough for you to clear me a path.”

“A path?”

“To get me down this hill and inside that house without being seen.”

“That might work for the guards manning surveillance, but what about the ones standing post? You start shooting, you’ll be announcing your intentions to the entire estate.”

“Not if I use Cooper’s tranq gun.”

“You must be joking.”

“Hey, it worked on the delivery guy, didn’t it?”

“I like you, mate, but you’re certifiable.”

“You won’t get an argument from me. Now start making those loops.”

It’s called a clusterfuck.

A military term for an operation that’s so fouled up that it’s nearly impossible to repair. The irony being that the culprits are usually the personnel involved, making bad decisions at all the wrong times.

Alex knew there was nobody to blame for this particular clusterfuck but her. She had let emotion get the better of her, causing her to make the wrong moves from the very beginning, starting with her decision to sell the house in Key Largo.

The guards put cuffs on her, Cooper, and Favreau, then marched them upstairs and separated them.
 

They took Alex into an unoccupied bedroom and sat her in a chair. One of the men waited with her until the door opened and Eric Hopcroft stepped inside.

He told the man to get out, and waited until they were alone before sitting on the edge of the bed.

He said, “Look at you, Allie Cat. All grown up.”

“Don’t you call me that.”

“Would you prefer Ms. Barnes?”

She said nothing.

“You know, it’s only by chance that I saw you on the monitor in the security office. They were running a facial scan and I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. So I checked out the name you had given the hostess and what do I find? Some cheap travel website you supposedly work for.”

“Maybe I do.”

He pulled her Kahr P380 out his pocket and showed it to her. “I suppose this is a fringe benefit? We found one exactly like it on your boyfriend.”

She said nothing.

“And then there’s the question of Frederic Favreau. I have a hard time believing you’re in any kind of relationship with him. The man’s a toad, and look at you. You’ve grown into quite a beautiful young woman.”

“He hired us to protect him,” she said.
 

“Oh?”

“He told us he had a business transaction, but didn’t trust the people involved. I can see why.”

Hopcroft smiled. “Nice try, but why the ruse with the website? That makes no sense. And judging by the look on Favreau’s face in the hallway, he had no idea who you really are or what you’re up to.” He paused. “Who are you working for, Alex?”

She said nothing.

“Mr. Gray?”

She had heard the name before. From Thomas Gérard. The man he’d said had initiated this operation and requested her involvement.

She hesitated only slightly. “Never heard of him.”

“Maybe you know him by his real name. Richard Munro. He’s got a very cushy job there in Washington, working for the Department of Homeland Security.” He leaned forward and whispered, “I don’t think they know he’s a duplicitous, backstabbing bastard. Then again, maybe they do.”
 

She said nothing.

“Munro is an old friend of your father’s and mine. We were all at the Company together.”

“The CIA?”

Hopcroft nodded.
 

Alex wasn’t buying it. “My father was never CIA.”

“Really? Think back to your childhood, Alex. All the trips he took, and the little knickknacks and toys he brought you and Danny from other countries. Every one of those countries was a political hotspot, and there was your father, right in the thick of it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t expect you to,” he said. “I don’t expect you to believe a word I say. But I have a feeling that Munro or
some
body has filled your head with lies. Because I know you didn’t come here to help Frederick Favreau.” He paused. “You came here to kill me.”

She said nothing but her eyes must have given her away.

He smiled. “What did they tell you about me?”

“Not ‘they.’ My father.”

His eyebrows raised. “You’ve been in touch with Frank?”

“He’s been in touch with me,” she said. “And you’re right, I
don’t
believe a word you say. But I believe him. And he says you killed my mother.”

Hopcroft studied her, then closed his eyes, lowered his head, and said nothing for a long moment. Then he sat upright again, set the P380 on the mattress, and slipped a hand into his pocket.

He brought out a square gold coin. A Bahamian fifteen-cent piece.

“You remember when you were about eleven years old and I showed you a little vanishing trick called the French drop?”

She remembered, vaguely, but said nothing.

He demonstrated by holding the coin between the index finger and thumb of his left hand, then closed his right fingers over the coin and carried it away.

When he opened his hand again, the coin was gone.

He showed her his left hand and the coin was sitting on his palm.

“It’s an illusion,” he said. “A trick of the eye.”

“I’m afraid your tricks don’t impress me anymore.”

“No, but apparently Richard Munro’s do. He’s the master of the French drop and many other illusions. Like the illusion that your father is a traitor. That’s one of his finest maneuvers. And now he seems to have gone to great lengths to convince you of something else that isn’t true.” He paused. “Frank didn’t tell you I killed Mitra, because he knows better. He knows I would never have hurt her or allowed any kind of harm to come to her. Not if I could help it.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I was in love with her.”

“Y
OU
’
RE
FULL
OF
crap,” Alex said. “You didn’t love her. That’s just another one of your tricks.”

Hopcroft shook his head. “There’s so much you don’t know about our past, Alex. Things we could never talk about.”

“You mean like my mother’s first marriage?”

He stiffened. “You know about that?”

“I’ve seen the video,” she said. “And you’re in it.”

“Did Munro show it to you?”

“I told you, I don’t know this Munro person. The video came to me anonymously. Talk about shattered illusions. I feel as if I was lied to my entire childhood.”

Hopcroft lowered his head again. “I’m so sorry about that. But they were all necessary lies.”

“Necessary? Why?”

He hesitated. “That’s something your father needs to tell you.”

“Fuck you,” she said. “You sit there and pretend to have sympathy for me, but you can’t even tell me the truth? Who’s the man my mother was marrying? Where is he now?”

“It’s not my place to say.”

“Of course not. Why would you even want to? You’re consorting with a known terrorist. A guy who’s wanted in six different countries.”

“Maybe that’s another illusion.”

She balked. “Which part?”

“The part about me.”

“Right,” she said. “Yet there you are with my gun, and here I sit cuffed in a chair.”

“What do you want from me, Alex? You want me to prove it to you?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I want. You’re very good at showing me coin tricks, but all I see is a guy hanging around with thugs and facilitating the transfer of some very dangerous information.”

He paused. Looked at her. “You want the codes, don’t you? That’s what this was originally about.”

“I don’t really give a damn anymore.”

“You would if you knew what they are.”

“All right, then. Illuminate me.”

He was silent, but she could see by his eyes he was considering the pros and cons of telling her.

He said, “They’re the key to a little secret your friend Munro would just as soon keep to himself. But your father knows, and so do I. I’m guessing that’s why Munro sent you to kill me. It’s exactly the kind of thing he’d do. There’s a certain symmetry to it.”

“You still haven’t told me what they are.”

“GPS coordinates.”

“To what?”

“To seven different strategic locations around the world. All highly classified. What Munro calls the Seven Wonders.”

“Locations for what?”

“Chemical storage facilities, containing an organophosphorus compound that makes sarin gas look like a household disinfectant. The US government thinks the inventory has been destroyed, but Munro knows better. And with those coordinates in the wild, he has quite a problem on his hands.”

“Yet you’re about to help Frederic Favreau sell them to Valac.”

“I’m telling you, I’m not what you think I am. It’s all illusion.”

“And I still don’t believe you.”

“Then maybe this will help.”

He got to his feet, took a key from his pocket, then walked around behind her and unlocked her cuffs.

Alex looked at the P380 on the bed but remained where she was.

“Go ahead,” he said. “I’m unarmed.”

She still didn’t move.
 

He went to the bed and picked up the pistol, released the magazine, and showed her it was full. After slapping it back into place, he offered the weapon to her, grip first.

“It’s what you came here to do, isn’t it? If you don’t trust me, if you believe the lies that Munro has filled your head with and you think I would kill the woman I loved, the woman my best friend married, then by all means, take it. Pull the trigger.”

Alex stood up, took the pistol from his hand, then kicked the chair aside and stepped back, pointing the muzzle at his chest.

“Tell me the truth,” she said.

Her hands were trembling.

“I’ve told you all I’m willing to, Alex. Everything else has to come from Frank.”

“And when is that supposed to happen? I haven’t seen him since I was a teenager.”

“He’ll come to you when he thinks you’re ready.”

“When he thinks I’m
ready
? You’re lying,” she said. “
You
killed her. He
told
me you killed her.”

“Did he? Did he really?”

She almost said, “Yes, he did!” but that would have been a lie. The accusation had come from Thomas Gérard. And while that poem and the story surrounding it had been a powerful convincer, how could she be sure others didn’t know about them? The people she was dealing with, the people she worked for, were all very good at extracting information by whatever means necessary. She knew for a fact that Thomas Gérard was a liar. No speculation there. He’d lied to her from the very beginning.
 

Had what he told her about her father been a lie, too?

Had the text message?

If it’s too much to ask, I’ll understand.

Her certainty crumbled as she realized that of course it was a lie. Her initial instincts had been right. Her father would never have asked her to kill Hopcroft even if the man had killed her mother. He would have never asked her to kill
anyone
.

“Make your choice, Alex. But think about one last thing before you do.”

“What?”

“Why would I be standing here if none of this were true?”

And that was the clincher, wasn’t it? Why would he bother to come here? For old times’ sake? That seemed unlikely. Why not have her shot and been done with it?

Yet here he was, trusting her with a loaded weapon in her hand.

She lowered the pistol.

“You’re your mother’s daughter, Allie Cat. I can’t tell you how much you remind me of her.” He gestured. “You even have her ring. She got that from her grandmother.”

“Stop, Uncle Eric. I don’t want to hear any more right now.”

“Then you’d better put that weapon in that holster strapped to your leg. It’s time for you to meet the man I work for.”

“But why?” she said. “Why do you work for him?”

“Because I want the truth, too. And the people
he
works for have it. The closer I get to him, the closer I get to them.”

She didn’t bother asking him what he meant by all that. He wouldn’t tell her anyway.

She said, “You know I didn’t come here just for you, or those codes. I came for Valac. That’s what I do. I’m supposed to take him back with me.”

Hopcroft nodded. “Then let’s try to make that happen.”

D
EUCE
EMERGED
FROM
the jungle and made his way under cover of darkness down a shallow incline. The loading dock was several hundred meters away, a CCTV camera mounted on the roof above it.

“Warlock, are you ready with that first loop?”

“Give me a mo. Almost there.”