by Jay Stringer
Nobody knew the details of his deal with the Royale’s owners. Did he work for them? Or was he just a convenient presence? Either way, he seemed to have office space at every hotel in the chain.
Conte stepped away from the wall. He never did anything in a hurry.
“Had a pretty good day yesterday,” Nash said.
“Could I have a moment of your time, Mr. Nash?”
“August.”
Conte moved his head less than an inch, the barest impression of a nod. “August. Could I buy you a drink?”
To anybody else, Nash would have said, “Can it wait? I’m beat.” Or made an excuse, a reason to ditch out. But Conte wasn’t anybody else. When he spoke, you listened; when he asked, you gave.
Nash said sure and started to turn toward the bar.
Conte gave another of his tiny head movements. “Come with me.”
The Italian led the way across the lobby, pushing through a door and down a flight of stairs. Through another door, they came to a room that was lit the same as the lobby, decorated with low wooden furniture and a large screen on the far wall.
Conte held the door open for Nash. “Prego, entra pure.” He touched an intercom on the wall and asked for two espressos, before gesturing for Nash to sit down. Nash settled into a chair beside a coffee table, and Conte sat across from him on a sofa, leaning back into the folds of leather.
“I heard your day yesterday was far better than the one before. Great run of luck at the table, right until the end.”
“That’s how they get you.”
“It is.” Conte paused. Tilted his head. “The Ark of the Covenant. That’s a hell of a find. A hell of a find.”
“So I’m told,” Nash said. “I didn’t find it.”
A faint smile. “Yes. Chase. You have my sympathies.” When Nash didn’t answer, Conte continued. “We’ve always wondered what would happen when you went head-to-head. It’s surprising it hasn’t happened until now.”
It’s happened plenty of times, Nash thought. He and Chase had worked the same jobs before, for much smaller prizes. Sometimes she won; sometimes he did. They’d just never done it as visibly, and with such high stakes, as with the Ark. It had never felt personal until now.
Was Conte deliberately rubbing salt in Nash’s wound?
The Italian asked, “The two of you were close once?”
Nash knew the question was just for show. Conte always knew more than he let on.
“When she first started.” Nash played along for his host. “She was green. I showed her the ropes, introduced her to people. Let her work a couple jobs with me so she could see how to stay alive.”
“That was generous of you.”
Nash thought back to Chase as he’d first met her. Angry. Confused. Lost. She’d not ended up in the trade by choice. Few people did. The chip on her shoulder was going to get her killed unless someone helped out, and Nash had stepped in.
“I guess I used to be more generous,” Nash said.
And you wanted to be the first in line, he thought. You wanted to earn the points.
“And now she’s surpassed you?” Conte paused. “I should say, there was a pool. I oversaw the betting, naturally.”
Nash didn’t feel like playing along on that one. He stared back at Conte, waiting for the raven to make the next move. There had to be a point to all of this, a reason he was trying to push Nash’s buttons. There was a subtle knock on the door, and Hass stepped in with a small circular tray holding two short glasses of black liquid. He set one down next to each man, departing without a word.
“The Ark,” Conte said again, breaking the silence. For a short word, he managed to draw it out. He leaned forward. “It hasn’t gone far. The people who protect it, they rely on old friendships. I know what the rumors say about me. And I know you do, too. So you will believe me when I say, I know where it’s being stored.”
It was Nash’s turn to lean forward. “Where?”
“I imagine, armed with that information, you could mount a raid of some kind and get your prize. Prove you’re better than Chase. And I imagine your buyers would still be waiting to pay, to set up your retirement fund.”
Nash was dying to repeat his question, but he knew Conte had heard him the first time.
“And I suppose,” Conte said, with that faint smile again, “I could point you in the right direction.”
Nash opened his mouth but didn’t have words to follow. He tilted his head. Confused. Was this a shakedown? For all Conte’s poise and reputation, would he just flat out hit someone up for a bribe like this?
No, there had to be something else.
“I have a situation that needs to be dealt with. And I think you’d be well suited to the job.”
Nash didn’t like being played and couldn’t help but snap back, “You sure you don’t want Chase? I mean, why settle for me?”
Conte paused. He took a sip of the dark liquid, holding Nash’s eyes the whole time. He set the glass back down and wiped his lips with his thumb. “This isn’t a relic. Not a treasure hunt. I want you to use your old skills to find someone. And in any event, Chase has certain drawbacks that you don’t.”
“Like what?”
“Morals.”
It was Nash’s turn to smile.
“I’m listening.”
NINE
They drove a Lincoln Town Car. Chase would have preferred a limousine, to go all in on the mysterious-villain cliché, but the Lincoln would do. And, really, if they were villains, would they have offered payment? Blondie sat up front, doing the driving. Red sat next to Chase.
“I looked you up,” Red said. “Read all about you. That interview you did for the Guardian. It was so cool. Did you really do all that stuff?”
“Which one was that?”
Chase closed her eyes, making it look like an effort to remember. In truth, she knew exactly what Red was referring to. Ashley Eades, a prominent UK journalist, had been the first to track Chase down for an interview after she’d been involved in stopping a would-be terror attack in London. All details of the incident were classified, but Eades had somehow linked Chase’s name to it. The details of the attack itself were held back from the story, but Eades had used that initial contact to start a deep dive into the relic-running community. That had been the start of the mainstream attention and the reason Chase had become a pariah among half of her own people. Chase hadn’t been the only person Eades interviewed, but she’d been the one to take the blame.
“All the stuff about Syria,” Red said. “Did you really go there?”
“Bunch of times.”
Chase rubbed her upper arm without thinking. She had a small scar, left by a passing bullet in Syria. An inch to the left, and the shot would have destroyed her shoulder.
Red turned in her seat. “Were you scared?”
She looked to be older than Blondie, maybe late twenties, but had the excitement of someone much younger. It was an odd effect. Both she and Blondie seemed to be playing a game, wrapped up in the excitement of being mysterious.
“Every second,” Chase said. “Fear keeps you alive.”
“I think it’s so cool you admit that,” Red said. “The guys she interviewed, they all wanted to be, like, macho. Rock stars.”
“You reach a point, you realize fear and bravery are basically the same thing,” Chase said. “In the moment, there’s no difference between them.”
Red nodded like she’d just been given a life lesson. “That’s deep.”
Chase watched buildings pass, trying to figure out where they were going. They’d taken the FDR, but where were they now, Eleventh Street? They drove across a bridge, and Chase finally realized they were in Greenpoint. She’d been here a few years ago, to watch a Doormats gig at a small club on the waterfront. They turned right and headed toward the river. Chase saw brewing companies, bars, restaurants. Up ahead, gleaming modern high-rises. They turned left at the river, into the parking lot of a large redbrick building that had been ref
itted with modern touches of glass and steel. Chase recognized it right away, mostly from the large neon sign on the roof that had become a New York landmark. This was the headquarters of Dosa Cola, one of the biggest soft drink companies in the world.
“We’re here,” Red said with a sly smile. “Ted, help our guest.”
Blondie-now-Ted got out of the driver seat and opened the rear door. He waved toward the building’s entrance with a flourish. Chase climbed out of the car and looked around. She had plenty of room to run. Ted was behind the door, and Red was getting out of the other side. Neither of them would be able to grab her in time. Despite the offer of money, she still knew the right thing to do was get out of Dodge. But now she was intrigued. Chase could never resist the pull of a bad idea.
Red stepped in next to her and bobbed her head toward the entrance. “Coming?” She turned and led the way, taking long, confident strides up the redbrick steps and into the building. Chase hesitated one last time, turning to look up into Ted’s smiling face, then figured, what the hell, and followed.
Red was nowhere to be seen by the time Chase made it to the large foyer. The floor was painted with the most iconic version of Dosa Cola’s logo, the one they’d used in the fifties, when the postwar generation had helped make them one of the coolest companies in America. The name was written diagonally across a star that could have been taken off the flag, with a small tagline beneath that read, “A Dosa a day keeps the doctor at bay.” The logo had changed a number of times over the years but never strayed too far from this basic design. On the far side of the huge space, a sleek modern reception desk ran the length of the old brick wall, contrasting the modern with the retro. A petite Latinx woman sat behind the desk, fixing Chase with a bland smile.
Ted came in behind her. “Follow me.”
He nudged her shoulder as he walked past, leading the way up a staircase that wound around the circular chamber, up to the second floor. They passed through an archway in the old brick, and onto a walkway of glass and steel. The offices lining the walkway had glass walls, providing a full view right through them, to the machinery of the bottling plant beyond. Chase could see each of the machines working, turning out hundreds of bottles and cans, but no sound penetrated the glass.
Ted led her to an elevator at the end of the corridor and slipped a key card into a slot. A gentle electronic voice said, “Penthouse,” and they started to rise.
When the doors opened, Chase stepped out into a modern room that felt larger than the farm she’d grown up on. It was split over two floors. She was standing on the lower level, which felt like the old building, with the same red brick and a vaguely retro fifties feel to the decorations and furnishings. In the center of the room was a glass staircase, which spiraled up to a mezzanine above, made of the same glass and steel as the offices. The far wall of both levels was a large window, running the full height and length of the penthouse, looking out onto the back of the neon sign that lit up the waterfront at night.
Ted pointed to a sofa on the lower level, set deep into a recess in the floor. Chase took a seat and waited to see what happened next.
“Would you like a drink?” Ted said.
Chase leaned back into the cushion. “Let’s see,” she said, making a show of looking at the neon sign, then back at Ted. “What options do you have?”
He grinned. Each time he smiled, she shaved a year off his age. She was starting to worry he was too young to have driven the car. “Not just that. You can have whatever you like.”
“How about an explanation? And my five thousand? I’m loving this whole Bond villain thing, but why am I here?”
“Would you like ice with that?”
Chase smiled, played along. “Sure, and some bourbon.”
Ted bobbed his head and turned on his heel, heading around to the other side of the spiral staircase, where Chase could see him bending over a bar. She heard the chinking of glasses.
Soft footfalls padded across the frosted-glass floor of the mezzanine above them, toward the stairs. Chase caught a glimpse of blond hair as someone started down the steps, but the spiral kept them just out of sight. The newcomer rounded the bend near the bottom, and Chase could see her in full.
It was Red. Except, now she was Blond, and dressed in a blue jumpsuit that probably cost the budget of a small nation. She gave Chase a smile that seemed to acknowledge all the questions flying unspoken through the air. She paused at the bottom of the stairs long enough to take a glass of clear liquid offered by Ted on his way past to hand Chase a glass of amber liquor.
Red/Blond did a small turn, showing off her new look, and raised the glass in a toast. “To the Bond villain thing.”
Chase didn’t respond to the toast. She stayed in her seat and waited.
“Oh, come on,” Red/Blond purred. “Smile. We’re all having fun here.”
“Are we?”
“Okay.” She smiled, stepping down into the sofa recess.
Ted followed behind like a loyal puppy.
Holding out her free hand to Chase, she said, “Lauren Stanford. This is my PA-slash-BFF, Ted.”
Chase took the offered hand in a firm grip and said, “Of course you are.”
The Stanfords were one of the richest families in America. Owners of Dosa Cola, along with several media and entertainment companies.
Chase took a sip of her drink as Lauren and Ted settled down across from her, then said, “So why the game with the plane? The flight attendant thing?”
Lauren’s eyes sparkled. “I own the airline, and I thought it would be funny.”
Chase watched the way both Lauren and Ted held back giggles of excitement at that, and everything fell into place. The weird mix of innocence and cynicism, of threat and friendliness. Lauren was a spoiled rich kid, playing in a world without consequences.
Chase bit back on every jagged little piece of resentment she had and played it cool. “So why am I here?”
Lauren and Ted looked at each other. Ted nodded, some unspoken conversation passing between them. His eyes stayed on Lauren a little too long, and Chase read the puppy love.
Lauren leaned forward. “We want you to find the Fountain of Youth.”
TEN
As if to signify getting down to business, Conte pressed his intercom and ordered bourbon for Nash. Hass brought in a large carafe, half full, and set it down on the small table. There was only one glass. Hass handed Conte a fresh coffee, this one much larger than an espresso. Now that Nash thought about it, he couldn’t remember ever seeing Conte touch booze.
Conte took a sip, leaned back in his seat, and said, “You’re not here as a relic runner. I gather you were something of a problem-solver for the CIA.”
Nash nodded. “Find and remove.”
“Perfect, yes. Tell me about Lothar Caliburn.”
Nash paused, caught by surprise. “An assassin. A good one.” He leaned forward. Had Conte noticed his hesitation? Best to push on past it. “He was all the talk back then, when I was still in the agency. High-end jobs. Came and went like a ghost. Slipped across borders. The name was fake, obviously. A cover ID. Every time anybody talked about him, they added on three impossible things.”
Conte smiled his approval. “Sì. Molto bene. He knew how to use myth and legend. Caliburn was a sword.”
“I didn’t know that. Just figured it was a cool-sounding code name. Eventually, the agency sent their best find-and-remove guy after him.”
“And that was how you made your own legend.”
Nash shrugged. “I’d like to think I was already a bit of a legend by then. But yes, I took him out. It was my last job for the agency.”
“Why?”
Nash’s mind flashed back again. Iraq. That CIA job. The heat. The sand. The goddamned dryness. The gun in his hand. Why did it feel so heavy? It had never felt heavy. Guns were always like his hands. A natural part of him, ever since he was a boy. But he felt the weight and the sweat on his palm then. The gun was pressed to the head of his targ
et.
The last job.
The last time.
You need to get out.
“Where else was there to go after that?” Nash said. “I didn’t want a desk job, and I’d taken out the boogieman. Figured it was time to test myself on the private market. And somehow that led to relic running, rather than security work. But you already knew that.”
“Let’s say I did. And who was Caliburn?”
Nash knew the Italian would already have all this information. Every conversation with him was a transaction, a trade of knowledge and, with it, power. So why was Conte asking all these questions?
“Ryan Preston. Nobody important, actually. You’d only know him as Caliburn. He’d been a freelancer for fifteen years, Canadian, never worked in the military, never worked for a known agency. He’d always been self-employed.”
“Interesting.” Conte blew on his coffee. “Interesting. And tell me about R18.”
Nash hesitated. “Why?”
“Humor me, per cortesia.”
The more Conte dropped back into Italian in a conversation, the more he was playing a game. The raven was fluent in English, but pretending otherwise was a good mask, a way to buy thinking time and to lead people to underestimate him.
“Mercenaries, ex-military types. They tried to hire me a couple years back, but I turned them down.”
“Why?”
“With a name like that, I figured they were guaranteed Nazis.”
“Sì. The name is shortened, but Reinheit means purity. And the numbers are linked to A and H.”
Nash knew how it worked. He’d come across many such groups over the years. His first move into espionage had come when he was loaned from the military to a joint FBI-ATF task force to infiltrate a group of white supremacists in Southern California. Nash had learned they all seem to need some allusion to Hitler somewhere in their name or motto, preferably something that could be expressed in tattoo form.
“I haven’t heard anything about them for a couple years,” Nash said.
