Skills to Kill

by Brian Drake

  “Poppy.”

  She laughed. “We’ll be fine!”

  Another hand grabbed her arm. Hard.

  21

  A Really Nice Scam

  Dane said, “Those Wall Street boys are watching her.”

  “Could be nothing,” Nina said.

  “She knows they are there,” Savelev said.

  “Is that the contact?” Dane said.

  “That’s not a Republican haircut,” Nina said.

  “And now she’s so busy trying to get him to dance, she doesn’t see one of the Wall Street boys making a phone call.”

  “I’ll start the car,” Nina said. “Let’s go, Alek.”

  The three slid out of the booth but Dane broke off, weaved through the crowd toward the bar. Poppy was pulling on her contact’s arm; Dane grabbed her arm, squeezing, and she swung fiery eyes his way.

  “You—”

  Dane yanked her closer. The contact stared, wide-eyed.

  “You’re being watched,” Dane said, his own eyes on the Wall Streeters. They started to rise from their table, and one reached under his coat. “Follow Savelev out the back,” he said, and gave her and the contact a shove toward their former table.

  The Wall Streeters closed in. One held a pistol beside his leg. Dane moved forward to intercept. He grabbed the armed man’s wrist, twisting the arm behind his back, using his left hand to shove the man’s head into the round edge of the bar. He pivoted with his left elbow cocked and nailed the second Wall Streeter in the jaw. Both crumpled in a heap. Witnesses gasped and pointed, but the crowd and noise covered Dane as he slipped away and out the front door.

  He crossed the street to where Nina had parked at a fire hydrant, and squeezed into the back, crushing Poppy against her contact and the contact against the door.

  Another dumb mistake, Dane thought. The contact should have been in the middle.

  Nina drove off.

  Poppy shoved back against Dane. “What the hell?”

  “You almost blew it back there, party girl.”

  The contact said, “I tried to tell her—”

  “Stow it. Do you have the goods or not?”

  “Here,” the contact said, and dug into his shirt pocket. He handed Dane a flash drive.

  “And what do I do with this piece of plastic?” Dane said.

  “Now’s who’s stupid?” Poppy said. She reached up her skirt, yanked an iPhone from her garter clip, took the flash drive and plugged it into the phone’s side port. Turning up the volume, she played the single audio file stored on the drive. They listened to every word. They listened to the voices of President Peter Cross and another man.

  “One of those guys is the president,” Nina said, “but who’s the other man?”

  “Lee Hosler,” Dane said.

  “Who?”

  “Wait.”

  It was a dull conversation to start. Dane didn’t see the value in it at all. Until—

  “The company is in a real bind, Dave. I need help to keep the doors open.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “We could really use some government contracts. Something long-term with cash flow, you know.”

  “Well maybe you’ve been watching the news. Things aren’t going well with—well, that country that has the nukes, you know what I mean—and we’re probably going to invade next week. Your company would be perfect to lead whatever rebuilding effort we put in after the fighting is done.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’ll take some time, but I’ll make it happen. And maybe we can wreck a few extra buildings for you too.”

  The chat continued for a few extra moments, and then the audio clip ended.

  “So tell me,” Nina said.

  “Lee Hosler,” Dane said. “Owner of Baden-Solitron. He’s in the papers a lot. Government contracts, that sort of thing. He and the president went to school together, and Hosler is a reliable source of campaign cash. There have already been reports in the press that Baden-Solitron got favors from the government to go over there, and I guess this is how it happened. This isn’t cocktail party gossip. That’s why those goons were back there. Give me the earphones for this.”

  Poppy dug through her purse and handed Dane the small earbuds, which he plugged into the iPhone. He listened to the recording several more times. Something wasn’t right, and not only the fact that Cross would never make the kind of deal the recording said he did. Yes, he would always help a friend. Trying to help Hosler get some business was right up his alley, and there was nothing illegal there; but causing more damage in the name of profit? Cross would never put others at risk for something like that.

  He played the recording again.

  There. The last two sentences…

  “It’ll take some time but”—background noise—“I’ll make it happen”—more background noise, a door closing and a third voice cut off—“and maybe we can wreck a few extra buildings for you too.”

  The iPhone’s speakers were too small to define the noise, and the average person would probably miss it, but not Dane. He’d doctored enough recordings in his career to know a professional’s touch when he heard it.

  “It’ll take some time but I’ll make it happen. And maybe we can wreck a few extra buildings for you too.”

  No doubt it was Cross saying the words, but he hadn’t said them in that order. The third person’s voice really gave it away. The voice was chopped off mid-sentence, the words unintelligible, but wholly out of place in the quiet background of the rest of the chat. The recording had been digitally spliced. Cross’s remarks about blowing up extra buildings might have been an opening joke; it was just like him to do that. And a political enemy with an axe to grind would know just what to do with such a line.

  But he couldn’t share any of this.

  He pulled out the earbuds. “How did you get this?”

  “Off the hard drive all of Cross’s recordings are saved on,” he said. “I copied it off the disk. That’s the only one I have.”

  “You’re a marked man, kid. Any idea who you’re dealing with? To keep something this hot under wraps, they’ll hire real muscle, and you’ll never tie it back to the president.”

  Poppy said to the contact, “What about the rest of it?”

  Dane said, “The rest of what?”

  “Papers formalizing the deal,” the contact said. “In a safe at Hosler’s place. Signed papers proving the whole thing.”

  “He’ll destroy any documents he has now that the audio is out,” Dane said.

  “Not my problem. Where’s my money?”

  Savelev passed back a thick envelope. Poppy took it and handed it to the contact. He ruffled through the bills inside.

  Dane said, “I hear Acapulco is nice this time of year.”

  “I got plans. Let me off here.”

  Nina found a place to pull over, and the contact jumped out. No good-bye. Poppy watched him go.

  “You’ll find another,” Dane said. “You always do.”

  “I hate you,” she said.

  Dane took a deep breath as Nina drove on. Nobody talked for the remainder of the drive. Nina parked in front of Savelev’s brownstone, and they followed the Russian into the house.

  Dane brought Nina a drink and joined her on the couch. Savelev paced the floor, holding his glass, and the ice cubes in the drink clinked together as he moved.

  “Sit down, Alek,” she said.

  Savelev stopped and glared at her.

  “Sit down,” Dane told him. “Come on, relax.”

  Savelev sat across from them.

  “I think I’ll need to bring in somebody else for the rest of this,” Savelev said. “We need to break into that safe and at least see if those papers are there.”

  Dane said, “Make me a deal on the M5205 and I’ll bust that safe for an extra twenty grand. You won’t get a deal like that anywhere else.”

  “You’d do it alone?”

  “No. Nina comes with me. But you’d be a fool to tu
rn this down.”

  Savelev started to say something, paused, shook his head.

  “I have the recording,” he said. “I don’t need what’s in the safe. Nothing is more damaging than the president’s own voice.”

  “There are too many ways to spin that,” Dane said. “They can create doubt about the validity of a recording. The administration’s opponents want all the ammo they can get to keep him from a second term, and this is exactly what they need, a president who took the country to war to line the pockets of a pal. And if those papers have signatures on them, it’s all gravy.”

  Savelev held up a hand, and Dane stopped. The Russian spymaster downed his drink. “Finish up,” he said. “I’m very tired. Maybe we’ll talk again tomorrow.”

  Dane said nothing more, and Nina followed his lead. They finished their drinks, and Savelev showed them out. They walked two blocks before hailing a cab.

  “How do you think it went?” Dane said. Nina sat beside him. Street lights flashed on her face as the taxi powered along the road.

  “Savelev will bite,” she said. “But he needs to sleep on it. Why did you listen to that so many times?”

  “Because that conversation was constructed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dane’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He answered. It was McConn. He was already back at the hotel, waiting. Dane told him they’d be there shortly.

  The three met on the hotel’s ninth floor observation deck; No Smoking signs were posted everywhere. The deck covered the length of one side of the building. Tables and chairs were spread about, with tall lamps providing illumination. The winking lights of the city sprawled before them.

  Dane lit a cigar. He couldn’t read.

  “Did those goons have company?” he asked McConn.

  “Not that I saw.”

  “Enough,” Nina said. “Tell me why you think that recording is fake.”

  “Fake?” McConn said.

  “There’s a background noise in the end that sounds like a door closing and the words of somebody else being cut off mid-sentence. My bet is that whoever the person in the background is showed Hosler into the Oval Office and said something as he left and shut the door. Cross likes to make jokes. That line about blowing up buildings must have been his opening line. The rest of the recording is quiet up until that point, which means it took place before.”

  “Are you sure?” McConn said.

  “I’ve doctored recordings to make people look bad, and I also know Peter Cross,” Dane said. “I wouldn’t stick my neck out for him if I thought he was dirty.”

  “You realize this has become more than just trying to sell the Duchess a classified military weapon?” McConn said.

  “Way more than that,” Dane said. “Poppy’s contact pulled a really nice scam. He knows the recording is fake, and because deep down he knows the president probably still has the original, it’s absolutely useless for blackmail. Those are the facts as I see them. He convinced Poppy, who convinced Savelev, that he had the genuine article. This was a scam from start to finish, and they don’t realize they’ve been taken.”

  “Poppy’s an idiot,” Nina said.

  “And that contact took them for a pile of money,” McConn said.

  “Yup. For all we know, those goons at the bar were pals of his and in on the whole thing. The contact approached Poppy at one of her parties, remember. It may not be a secret what she’s doing, with all her flash and dash. They saw an opportunity and took it.”

  “Is this the part where we laugh?” McConn said. “I mean, seriously—”

  “This is the part where we keep playing along,” Dane said, “and we keep the scam going by making them believe the Secret Service is actively looking for the recording and the people who stole it. We keep up the pressure so Savelev has no choice but to flee the country and take us right to the Duchess.”

  Dane stepped out of the shower and used one of the thin hotel towels to dry off. As he tied on a blue robe, Nina popped open the bathroom door and stuck her head in.

  “Alek called.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “Let it go to voicemail.”

  “Okay.” Dane brushed by her and she went in.

  “I hope you didn’t use all the hot water,” she said.

  “This isn’t Siberia, baby.”

  “Keep that up and I’ll cut you off again.” And she shut the door.

  Dane ordered lunch from room service, pulled on his clothes and sat out on the deck with the patio door cracked. He stood at the rail and listened to the city. The heartbeats of passing cars and buses were loud even at this height.

  Room service knocked and Dane answered. A blonde-haired kid wheeled in a cart loaded with covered silver trays. Dane sent him away with a nice tip. He set the plates on the table. Kobe beef hamburgers on French rolls, even though one could not get “real” Kobe beef in the States. Only Japan had the real deal, but US beef manufacturers did their best to imitate it and priced it accordingly. It wasn’t as good as the real thing, but it was good. Dane had requested that none of the usual “fixin’s” be added. One aspect of the meat was that it had enough flavor to not require any kind of modification.

  Nina exited the bathroom, tossed her PJs on the bed and, still dripping a little, grabbed an outfit and returned to the bathroom to dress. By the time she joined Dane at the table, he was three bites ahead.

  “Your phone rang again,” he said.

  “Alek?”

  “I didn’t bother to look.”

  “He’s taking the bait.”

  “Probably. He can wait until we finish.”

  22

  All the Risk

  “I want Poppy to go with you.”

  “No way.”

  They sat at a table on the upper patio of Savelev’s place. He’d hosed off the concrete prior to their arrival; the air smelled wet. The ever-present pigeons had been on the roof’s edge when they took their seats, but quickly flew to the top edge of the neighboring building—waiting to see what scraps of food the larger creatures left behind.

  “I want her at a professional level. She’s the best of the pack. You’re the only one who can train her properly.”

  “Because I’m a woman?”

  “Once she sees what you’re capable of, she won’t be able to get enough. Show her everything you know. Like I showed you.”

  “If she’s the best you have,” Nina said, “it’s nothing to brag about. The answer is still no.”

  “You want to see the Duchess,” Savelev said. “You cannot get to her without my help.”

  “And you want us to rob a safe,” Nina said. “We don’t have to do that. Don’t forget that we can sell the weapon elsewhere.”

  Savelev and Nina locked eyes. Dane looked from one to the other, noting the sharp set to their jaws and unblinking eyes. This kind of argument was nothing new to them. He didn’t want Poppy tagging along either, but this was the best lead they had to the Duchess, and they couldn’t risk wrecking it.

  It helped that Nina said no. If they went along too willingly, Savelev would sense a fast one.

  The Russian said to Dane, “What do you think?”

  “Yes, honey, what do you think?”

  Dane couldn’t fight the grin that spread across his face.

  “She can join us.”

  Nina shook her head.

  Savelev clapped his hands and let a laugh. “Good! Now let’s look at some pictures of Hosler’s house.” He left the table and went inside.

  Nina leaned close. “I was serious.”

  “I know. That’s why he believed you.”

  “She’s nothing but trouble and you know it.”

  “And we’ve fallen pretty far if we can’t handle her.”

  “We’ll be armed. She’ll have a gun. How do you propose to handle that?”

  “I have a plan.”

  “Do you?”

  Savelev returned and Nina sat up. She did not look directly at him a
s he rejoined the table and handed Dane some pictures. “I told you I was a dinosaur,” the Russian said.

  The pictures showed Hosler’s mansion, placed in the center of an open field; security men, some with dogs, dotted the property.

  “This is it?” Dane said. “No pictures of the safe? How do I know what I’m breaking into?”

  “We couldn’t get that close,” Savelev said. “The safe is in Hosler’s study, and his study is on the ground floor. See there?” He pointed at one picture that showed a sliding glass door off a small patio. “The safe is there, I swear.”

  “This isn’t as thorough as I’d like,” Dane said.

  “Best we could do.”

  Nina said, “Your people do need help. A lot of it.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Nina said. “She’s going to drag us down.”

  They were back at the hotel.

  “Poppy already knows how to handle a gun, so we don’t have to show her that. But we need to make sure we check her gear. Tomorrow morning, find a gun shop that sells blanks and make sure they’re loaded in Poppy’s gun.”

  “That’s rich.”

  “You got a better idea?”

  “What about the rest?”

  “Hosler has security but we can’t kill anybody.”

  “They’ll be trying to kill us.”

  “Exactly. So we shoot to wound only. We’ll put McConn in the trees with a rifle to provide covering fire. While the three of you keep the security force occupied, I’ll slip into the house.”

  “Think Hosler will be there?”

  “I hope he is. I’d like to have a word with him.”

  The night of the break-in, they left the car five miles from the estate. They were dressed head to toe in black with beanie caps and face paint to complete the commando ensemble. Dane carried a leather satchel across his chest that contained needed tools for cracking the safe, with extra room for the boodle when he found it. The gear was a ploy in case Poppy told Savelev about it. He would not touch any of those tools.

  Hiking through the forest, Dane, Nina and Poppy came to a hill overlooking the property. A narrow clearing provided space for them to drop prone and begin observations. The ground was soft and cold, and the chill bit through their clothes. They’d warm up again once the action started.