“Zeki, put some pants on,” Adabelle replied, taking a seat and making herself comfortable enough to let the two agents know she’d been here before. “No one wants to see your meat-club. We’re here on business.”
“We, indeed. Hello, Burke,” Zeki said, swinging his remaining leg over the side of the bed. He pulled himself upright by the bedpost, letting the sheet fall away in spite of Adabelle’s admonishment. “And may I assume this picture of beauty is the famous Lyndsey Archer? At last a face to match with the reputation.”
Lyndsey’s eyes had grown wide when Zeki had revealed himself, and she stammered an acknowledgment, her obvious reaction causing the Turkish contact to smile. He sat back down on the bed, pulled a prosthetic leg from under it, and strapped it on. Then he grabbed a pair of jeans from a nearby chair and pulled them on. When he stood up, it was clear the tight pair of jeans were crafted only to accent what Adabelle had asked him to cover.
The dark-haired agent seemed immune to the show, and got right to business.
“I assume you’ve heard from Perry Hall.”
Zeki raised an eyebrow. Knowing the nature of Perry’s business in Istanbul, the fact three agents were asking about him made his mind race. There was a very good chance they weren’t looking to invite him to go shopping with them. Though not an agent himself, Zeki knew enough about the workings of espionage to know someone like Perry could cause some real headaches for his superiors.
“Why would you ask such a thing? Obviously, I’ve been busy with ‘other matters.’ You just missed her in fact.”
“Zeki, it’s crucial we find him,” Burke said. “He’s in some serious trouble.”
“I can’t shake the feeling he’ll be in even more serious trouble should you succeed in finding him.”
Adabelle calmly pulled her H&K P30 and leveled it at Zeki’s head, then lowered it to his crotch. “You’re a good contact, Zeki. You’ve proven yourself very useful in the past. But contacts, are, ultimately a lira a dozen. So I’ll offer you a choice. You can continue to be useful, or I can put a bullet through your most prized possession.”
Zeki remained calm, but he knew Adabelle well enough to know she’d have no qualms about shortening his prime asset, or his life. “He’s here because he got a lead on Flick.”
Archer and Burke glanced at one another. This answered a lot of questions, almost all of them in fact. They knew why Perry had come, and they knew why Moore would have objected strongly enough to issue a Grey.
Adabelle lowered the gun. “And I assume, being the helpful person you are, you pointed him in the right direction.”
“I got him started, yes. But I have no idea where he ended up because I don’t know where Flick is. I had to call one of my contacts, and he got hold of someone else altogether.”
She lifted the gun once more and said, “I guess you’re going to need to call him back. Now.”
Zeki reached for his cell. “I never pictured you as the sort to deface a great work of art,” he said to the brown-eyed woman who was again targeting his pants. “Ali, Zeki again. Yes. I know. Listen, I need to know where Perry Hall ended up after talking to your guy.” He looked up and rolled his eyes, doing the “yak-yak” motion with his free hand.
“Mmm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. Right. Okay.” He disconnected and smiled at the three agents, who he was amused to see were wearing the same anticipatory expression.
“He’s gonna call me back.”
Adabelle groaned. Lyndsey threw her hands in the air. Burke scowled.
“You three are very entertaining to watch,” Zeki said. “Would anyone like a drink?” He opened a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of clear liquid. “Raki. Very good. Tastes a bit like anise.”
“Not interested in anything that even remotely sounds like anus,” said Lyndsey.
Adabelle also shook her head, but Burke held up one finger. Zeki got two small glasses and filled them each halfway.
“What do you do? Sip, drink it like a shot?” Burke asked, holding his glass to let some light filter through. He turned to Zeki for the answer just as the man banged his empty glass on the table. Following his lead, Burke tilted his head back and let the drink flow down his open throat. The flavor was unfamiliar, with a little burn, but not unpleasant.
Zeki’s phone vibrated. “Merhaba. Mm-hmm. Okay.” He wrote an address on a piece of paper. “Yes. I promise. No more calls today. Say hello to Beyza. Ta-ta.”
“Ta-ta?” asked Adabelle, reaching for the paper.
“I like to keep things light. Which is why I’d appreciate it if you’d lower your weapon. Or raise it. Either way would be preferable.”
Looking at the slip of paper, Adabelle holstered her gun. “I know this neighborhood,” she said. “Residential, small shops. Not what you’d call ‘upscale.’”
Zeki snorted. “It’s a shithole.”
Archer and Burke looked to Adabelle.
“It’s a shithole,” she confirmed.
“Better get started,” Burke said. He’d been standing near the door and now he opened it. “Good seeing you again, Zeki.”
“Always good, James. When you finish shopping with Perry, the two of you should stop back and we can finish this raki.”
“We’ll see.”
They returned to the waiting car. Burke could see from the driver’s expression as he held the door open for them that he held Zeki’s neighborhood in low enough regard. He wondered how he’d feel about their destination.
Adabelle handed the driver the slip of paper as she slid into the back seat. He took one look at it and paled slightly.
That answers that question, Burke thought.
As the car pulled away, Adabelle checked the privacy window. It was tightly closed.
Burke extracted his phone and again dialed Moore. “Fucking voice mail again!”
Adabelle grabbed the phone from Burke and dialed the number herself. She held it to her ear for a moment then dropped it in his lap. “Okay, this is unusual.”
“Unusual?” Burke said. “Try unprecedented. Unheard of. Not an occurrence that… occurs!”
Adabelle turned to Archer. “I pictured Burke more adept at the English language.”
Lyndsey smirked, apparently deciding making fun of Burke was worth momentarily burying the hatchet with Adabelle. “You’d think. But I understand his distress. Moore answers his phone. It’s what he does. Not great at ending phone calls, but he’s hell on wheels at starting them.”
“I’m afraid I don’t really know of any other way of contacting him,” Burke said. “It’s not like he’s on Facebook.”
Adabelle’s face brightened. “No, but he’s on Twitter.”
“Not funny.”
“I’m serious, Burke. Actually, I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”
“Well, there’s a couple of good reasons why I wouldn’t. First, I’m not on Twitter, and secondly I find it extremely unlikely J. Carlton Moore is either.”
“I thought you were a top gun. Do you even know this man?”
Adabelle reached for her phone. After keying in her security code, she touched the icon showing the small bird in the blue field and waited a second while the app loaded. Then she tapped the screen a few more times before turning it toward Burke and Lyndsey. The handle was @j_c_moo. The account picture was a black and white photo of a young boy.
“I’ve seen that picture before,” Lyndsey said. “Someone found it and texted it around the agency. It’s him at age four or five.”
“Give me that.” Burke snatched the phone from Adabelle and started scrolling down. After a moment, he chuckled. Then, scrolling further, he began to laugh loudly. He held the phone toward Lyndsey. “You gotta read this. He’s hysterical!”
Lyndsey took the phone and read aloud. “‘Imagine what a different world we might be living in today if Nixon had coined the phrase “fake news” in 1973.’” She grinned. “Okay, that’s pretty good. Oh, wait, here’s another one. ‘Outside the BDSM community, I've never met anyone who
gets as excited as my dog does when he sees me attach a leash to his collar.’ I didn’t even know he had a dog.”
“He doesn’t. It’s a joke,” Burke said.
“He does. It’s a chow,” Adabelle corrected.
Lyndsey scowled at the remark, then squinted at the screen. “I don’t get this one that just popped up.”
“Just popped up? Give me that!” Adabelle grabbed the phone back and read, “‘#ff grey@eagle. Abrt.’ It’s gibberish. Why would he tweet a #ff for grey@eagle? That’s not even a correctly formatted Twitter handle.”
“First of all, what the hell is a #ff?” Burke asked.
“It means Friday Follow. It’s when you recommend other users to your followers. It’s for networking.”
“Twitter is so stupid,” Burke said.
“Only when people don’t use it properly,” Adabelle said. “And Moore is definitely in need of a tutorial.”
Burke shook his head. “No, that doesn’t make any sense.” Abruptly, he shot straight up in his seat. “Holy shit…grey…eagle…he has to be talking about the Code Grey! Eagle is Perry’s code name! And he’s not asking for a Friday Frolic or whatever the hell. He’s saying False Flag! He didn’t issue a Grey at all. Abrt means abort!”
Adabelle frowned. “If he didn’t issue the Grey, then who did?”
“Are you really so dim?” Lyndsey said, smiling maliciously.
Burke was practically bouncing around in his seat. “Now we really need to find Perry. This situation just went from really bad to—”
“Moderately fucked up,” Adabelle said, rapping on privacy screen. It lowered and she shouted to the driver, “Drive like your boyfriend’s waiting for you. Now!”
11
Perry moved deeper into the house, his gun ready, his ears tuned and waiting for the sound of the motorcycle returning. But all was quiet as he stepped across the floor of the main room. A single flight of stairs beckoned and he went forward, pausing only once to check a closet, which turned out to be empty. Then it was up the stairs, one step at a time, using the sides of the steps instead of the middles to minimize creaking. He stopped halfway up to wait a few seconds and listen, but heard nothing, and he couldn’t afford the time to move as slowly as he’d prefer.
At the top of the stairs, the upper floor curved around with a landing that encompassed the stairhead, creating a prime location for a waiting assailant. Perry addressed this by going up the last few steps backward to make sure someone wasn’t waiting to shoot him in the back.
The people lying on the landing were not waiting to shoot him in the back. In fact, they wouldn’t be doing anything ever again. They were dead, lying naked in a familiar pose, their heads propped on small bundles made from their clothing. Each had a stab wound to the neck. Although a sight Perry had seen more than once now, he didn’t think he’d ever get used to it, especially since it always reminded him of Trina. Every time he saw a body laid out in this meticulous, macabre fashion, he saw her lying there instead of the current victim. Not that the actual scene wasn’t bad enough. The victims had been in their late twenties or early thirties. Both good-looking, modestly dressed, completely normal. They clearly had little money, but the home itself had been neat and clean. Attempts had been made to create a homey atmosphere—a married couple just starting out, cut down by the random appearance of a brutal killer. In the wrong place at the wrong time.
And then Perry saw something that made his blood chill in his veins: a corner of the loft...stocked with a child’s toys. Perry glanced around the loft quickly, but saw no other bodies in the main area. To his right were two doors—the bedrooms, no doubt. He reached the first in a moment and burst inside, his desire for stealth completely forgotten. A child in the house—was it dead or dying? It didn’t make sense to have bodies in other rooms; Flick generally placed them all together. The bodies of the couple were fresh. Perhaps Flick had been interrupted by Perry’s arrival.
The first room, clearly the couple’s bedroom, was empty. Perry ran back into the loft and tried the second door.
It was locked.
He backed up a step and then brought his foot down on the flimsy doorknob. The ancient hardware broke and clattered to the floor. Perry hit the door at a dead run, tumbling into the room with his pistol at the ready. It was definitely a child’s room.
At first he thought the room was empty, then he heard the smallest sound from behind a partially shut closet door. He adjusted his grip on the pistol, even though the noise had not seemed menacing. It had sounded like a muffled sob. Perry opened the door all the way with one hand, keeping his pistol aimed with the other.
There, on the floor of the closet, sat a boy. He was probably three or four years old and sat cross-legged, hugging a ragged teddy bear. His ruddy cheeks were stained with tears and his round eyes were the picture of terror. Perry leaned down and the boy shrank away, trying to draw deeper into the closet.
“It’s okay,” Perry said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help.” He wracked his brain, trying to remember any Turkish words. He didn’t know if the child knew any words even in his own language, let alone English. “Yardım et. Help.” Then he gestured toward himself. “I am a friend. Arkadaş.”
Perry’s Turkish was so poor as to be almost nonexistent, but the words seemed familiar to the boy, who visibly relaxed and stopped trying to back through the rear closet wall. Perry wondered what the child had seen. Hopefully, his parents had locked him in his room when they became aware of someone—Flick—in the house. Perry hated to think the boy might have seen what had happened to his parents.
“What is your name?”
The boy looked blank and his lip quivered, signaling more tears were on the way.
Perry tried again. “Adın ne?”
The boy brightened a little. He stabbed his own chest with his stubby finger. “Erol.”
Perry pointed at the boy. “You Erol?”
The boy nodded.
“Hi, Erol. I am Perry. I am not going to hurt you.” Perry pasted an enormous grin on his face in an attempt to reassure the child, but worried it made him look like a ravenous lunatic. All the while, his mind was racing. What was he going to do with the boy? How was he going to get him out of the house without seeing what had become of his parents? Did the child have family who could take him in?
Through his frantic thoughts came the steady beat of some inner warning. He had been scarcely aware of it at first, having been so intent on communicating with the boy. But now it was getting through and he realized what it was—his inner clock warning him that he’d been in the house too long. He’d given himself only ten minutes. Surely he’d passed the deadline by now.
As if in confirmation of this thought, Perry heard sounds from outside. A car door shutting, then another. Voices.
Perry looked back at the boy. “Erol, you stay here.” He motioned down to the floor with hands open, palms downward. “I will be back. You stay. Don’t make a sound.” He placed a finger over his lips. Then he stood and left the room, pulling the door as shut as its mangled frame would allow.
By following the outline of the wall, Perry reached the window without passing directly in front of it. He leaned sideways and peered down at the front of the house. Three people were standing beside a car, observing the house as if placing bets on how long it was going to remain standing.
“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Perry said aloud. He recognized two of them—James Burke and Lyndsey Archer. The third he didn’t know, but wished he did. She was a complete and total knockout even at this distance. He wondered what she looked like up close and even found himself contemplating what she might look like without all those inconvenient clothes on. He shook his head. First he’d been unexpectedly affected by the nude woman at Zeki’s place and now he was undressing another woman with his eyes. Compared with his monkish behavior of the last three years, this trend practically qualified him for a course in sex addiction.
Pushing his lustful
thoughts aside with some effort, Perry wondered what the hell they were all doing here. Had they come to help? Had Moore sent them? The latter was almost certainly true. Without Moore being the guiding force, how would they have known where to find him? And, if Moore had been their source of information, it meant they weren’t on a friendly social call. They were either here to bring him forcibly back to New York...or they were here to kill him.
12
Burke eyed the house suspiciously. “Are you sure this is the right address? Maybe your driver did go to his boyfriend’s place.”
“He’s not really gay,” Adabelle said. “That was me playing the part of the bitch on today’s episode.”
Lyndsey coughed. “What’s the Turkish equivalent of the Emmy? You’re a shoo-in to win.”
The dark-haired agent shot her a glance, then said, “How do we proceed?”
“These are the complications as I see them,” Burke said. “Flick might be in there, and Perry might already be dead. If so, Flick is likely waiting to make us dead too. Also, Perry might be in there, and he might have looked out of window and seen us. He’s been at this long enough to know three agents showing up out of the blue when you’re on the outs with Moore is not indicative of them getting ready to throw a surprise party.”
“Well, sort of a surprise party,” Adabelle murmured, earning a cold stare from Lyndsey.
“Not the sort you’d want to attend as the guest of honor, anyway,” continued Burke. “If that’s the case, he’s as dangerous to us as Flick would be.”
“Maybe he’s not looking,” Adabelle said.
“Hopefully, he is looking,” Lyndsey replied, taking three steps forward and separating herself from the others. As Burke and Adabelle looked on she suddenly began acting as though she was at a heavy metal concert, with her left hand raised with devil horns, and her head banging up and down hard enough to make her long hair fly. She continued for only a few seconds, then turned to the others.
Assignment- Adventure A SpyCo Collection 1-3 Page 21
