The family left along the trail, into the trees. It was clear that this Volvo-man knew he and the van didn’t belong here. The man set off with his cycling helmet still hanging on his handlebars. He didn’t want to wait the extra seconds required to put it on. Blake turned to see Thorne standing behind him, watching them leave. It was perfect. This family gave him some missing leverage, that little girl in particular. He smiled and it seemed to him as though Thorne understood. Leaving the engine running, he swung open the driver’s door and stepped down onto the hard, baked earth. He drew his Glock and slid back the side door. Thorne was right there in front of him, less than three feet away. The actor’s eyes glanced briefly at the gun, then back up to his eyes. He’d know that any change in the dynamic was an opportunity for him, Blake had to be careful.
“Back up, I’m coming in.”
Thorne backed wordlessly away from him, but he didn’t get far because of the narrow bench Blake had set up down the opposite side of the van. He put his hands down and gripped the edge of the wood. For the first time, Blake noticed that the cable ties were gone. Thorne was good. He’d have to be careful. The gap at the door was tight, made worse by Thorne’s height and long arms. If he was quick, Thorne could grab him around the neck and use him as a shield, preventing Sara from firing. He stepped into the van and moved quickly past Thorne to the back, where Sara stood in a low squat, two-handed firing position.
Thorne looked casually through the open side door, calculating the odds. Two steps to freedom. It was an obvious move, but he could still rely on a half second lag before they would react and fire. If they wanted him to complete the job enough, maybe they wouldn’t fire at all but hope to re-capture him. To Blake, Thorne was completely transparent. He’d known him for too long to be surprised by anything.
“You wouldn’t make it,” Blake said. “Not even if one of our guns jammed.”
Thorne turned to him, his face calm. Bored.
“It’s funny. You assholes have the guns, but it’s like you’re afraid of me.”
“I guess it seems that way. We were waiting a while and drank a bunch of Red Bull while we waited. I can practically see the future here.”
“What was that bullshit fight about when you have guns?”
“When I pictured our little meeting in my head, all I saw was you charging me down. Forcing me to shoot. If things were the other way around and I saw you appear in front of me with a gun, I’d figure that you were there to kill me. I wanted to subdue you first, then tell you what I wanted. If I wanted you dead I could’ve made that happen a dozen times over by now, you must realize that.”
“Right,” Thorne said. “How are your balls?”
“They’ve been better. That was a bitch move, brother.”
Blake spoke to Sara without taking his eyes off Thorne.
“How about you give us some space, babe.”
“Sure you can manage this big guy on your own?”
Blake felt his cheeks redden. “Yeah.”
She stared at him for several long seconds, her eyes burning. Sara wasn’t military, she had no concept of chain of command. Either they were equal in everything, or he was an asshole. In hindsight, it probably also explained the string of jobs she’d had that lasted less than a week. After a moment, she nodded and backed out the rear door out of sight.
Thorne turned from her to look at him.
“You know she’s a Section 8, right? Soon as you get the twelve mill she’s going to kill your sorry ass and take the money. The way I picture it, she’ll wait until you’re asleep then carve you up like a Thanksgiving turkey. First thing you’ll know about it, she’ll be straddling you naked and covered in blood as the knife plunges repeatedly into your chest.”
Blake tightened his hand around the pistol.
“You want to be careful what you say about my girl, Thorne.”
“I can see that you’ve thought about it. The woman’s bat shit crazy, but you don’t care. Maybe it’s love. Maybe when you fuck it’s like breaking in a wild horse. Who knows?” Thorne paused to smile. “It must be something real special.”
Blake didn’t know what he hated more; the fact that Thorne had assessed Sara Dawson so accurately, or the fact that he’d made him smile.
“Breaking in a wild horse, I like that. Kind of why we’re here, isn’t it? The painting of that mental horse. Let’s skip all the bullshit and get down to business. How about it? I got the stuff you asked for. I’d rather be gone before that family comes back here with their bicycles and their questions. Things could work out badly for them if that happened and I know you don’t want that.”
The actor’s body seemed to inflate like he was preparing to launch himself across the floor at him, but it lasted only a second. There’d be only one winner in this fight, there was too much space between them. In a head-on assault, Blake could empty the entire magazine into Thorne before he could reach his position. Attacking him was suicide. Thorne let out a slow breath, then nodded. He’d do what he was told right up to the moment he thought he could escape, or he could take him out.
Thorne opened the first case and took out the defibrillator.
He watched Thorne work at the makeshift bench. The task seemed to relax him, removing him from his immediate situation and into the world of electronics. His face calm, his hands steady. Blake could almost forget that any tension existed between them. The light was poor, even with the side door open and a small lamp turned on. The actor removed the paddles from one of the defibrillators and attached a computer lead. The interior filled with the smell of hot solder.
“So what’s the plan?” Blake asked.
Thorne continued to work as he spoke.
“Ashcroft’s security system is high end, but it runs through the same server as his home network. This creates a hardware link between the ethernet ports in every room, and the cameras protecting the painting. I’m almost certain he’s forgotten about the wired network, everything’s wireless these days. Phones, tablets, laptops…nobody uses ethernet anymore. One of the first things he did was give me the Wi-Fi password so I could get online.” Thorne paused to blow on a solder connection. “Anyway, the plan is to use this defibrillator to simulate a lightning strike on his network which will blow the internal fuse in his router. The cameras will be undamaged, but no recording will take place.”
Blake grinned. “Nice.”
Thorne seemed to finish what he was working on and sat back on the cheap office chair. It creaked dramatically under his weight. Blake frowned.
“Why’d you ask for four of these if you only needed one?”
Throne sighed, like he was dealing with a child.
“This one is for the router, these other ones are for mains power. You’ll need the juice from all three to knock out the power breaker. If I knew where the isolator switches were located it would be a different story, but I’ve not seen anything like that and there’s only so much sneaking around I can do without looking suspicious.”
“Okay.”
“Anyway, once the power is out you have 90 seconds to cut the phone line before the system resets. There’s a pole out on the highway. Take that out, and the alarm can’t call for help. Do not cut the phone line first.”
“What difference does it make?”
“The system is connected in real time to the alarm company via satellite internet. If you cut the phone line first, it can still raise the alarm. The landline is a failsafe; SOS calls only, no live data. Since the first defibrillator takes out the router, the alarm can’t do shit when you take out the phone line.”
Blake thought about this for a moment.
“Why doesn’t the alarm use the landline when we hit the router?”
“The Ashcrofts aren’t in the property most of the year. Eight months of the year, they’re in D.C. The alarm is smart enough to recognize certain events, like a lightning strike or a power outage as being no cause for concern. The phone line on its own would also be fine because the live alarm
data from the satellite would still show everything was OK; but if you’re on camera holding a cutting disc then that’s not going to hold up. Everything has to be in the right order to look natural.”
Blake nodded. This wasn’t his field, but what Thorne said made sense. When he didn’t say any more, the actor resumed his work on the remaining defibrillators.
The hunched-over position had caused Thorne to sweat through his T-shirt, making it cling to his body. Blake could see his muscles flexing through the thin cotton material as he moved. Thorne was larger than he’d previously thought, possibly even a match for his own build. He fed this into his own calculations. Thorne was four inches taller than him. In a fist fight, Thorne would be able to hit him two inches farther away. It wasn’t much, but at the same distance Thorne could hit him with more power. He’d had a taste of that in the hotel bar, and that was only for threatening Kate.
Blake thought back on the earlier fight. He’d caught Thorne by surprise and landed some brutal blows before the actor had a chance to hit back. Despite this, Thorne had still managed to gain the upper hand. Without Sara, the fight might have had a very different ending. The relaxed man he saw in front of him was an illusion. Thorne was waiting for an opportunity to kill him. Without thinking about it, the Glock moved to aim center mass.
“You know you can’t shoot me with that thing, right?”
Thorne missed nothing.
“I told you, brother. This ain’t where it ends.”
“I know what you told me. I just don’t like having a gun aimed at my chest while I’m trying to work. It’s distracting.”
“You’ve had worse.”
Thorne swung around in the chair.
“Look, Blake, aim it at the goddam floor or you can do the rest of this yourself. I’m not going to be blown away because you’ve sneezed. In case it’s not obvious to you, the plan requires me to walk these things in through Ashcroft’s front door and set them up. If I’m dead, so are your chances of getting the twelve million.”
Blake swore silently to himself.
When Thorne had laid out the plan there’d been a niggle at the back of his head, but he hadn’t put his finger on what it was. Blake had to hand it to him. Thorne had devised a plan that needed him to be alive until the end. But that didn’t work for him, he had his own plans.
He lowered the pistol toward the floor of the van.
“How’s this buddy? You like this better?”
“Why don’t you just eat it? Save me the trouble later on.”
Blake smiled. After everything that had happened, he still liked Thorne.
THIRTY-FIVE
Thorne sat on the edge of his bed staring into Lauren’s eyes. She had a bowl of warm water on her lap and she was using it to clean up his face with cotton balls. Her proximity forced him to spread his legs, which was all the more uncomfortable since James Ashcroft stood in the doorway watching.
“You’re sure it was the man from the mall?” Ashcroft asked.
“A hundred percent.”
They’d already changed into their party clothes. Ashcroft a tuxedo, Lauren a blue-black evening dress with too much material in some areas, and not nearly enough in others. It seemed to Thorne that women’s clothing fell into two groups; the type that hid the owner’s body, and the type that exaggerated it. All of Lauren’s clothes were from the latter group. She wet another cotton ball and he tried not to stare at her cleavage.
“We need to tell Victor about this immediately.”
Thorne’s eyes zipped back to Ashcroft.
“Cabot? No way. You know he’s trying to frame me, right? To him, this will be everything he wants to hear.”
“You can describe these people to him, he needs that information.”
“James, it happened so quickly. I don’t have much to add to the description I already gave him from the time at the mall. All you think about in a fight is not getting hit and how to hit the other guy. You register pain and little else.”
“Why do you suppose they let you live?”
Lauren turned sharply to her husband. “Jimmy!”
“No,” Thorne said, “it’s a fair question. The honest answer is I don’t know. The man was having problems breathing after our fight and probably wanted to get out of there.”
Lauren leaned closer and lay her forearm on his thigh for support. He could feel the warmth of it through the cotton of his running pants. It was both casual and intimate at the same time. Her back hid it from her husband, so it was unlikely to be accidental. All he knew, was that he was increasingly enjoying it and that soon it may become obvious.
“Lauren, it’ll wash off in the shower.”
“I hate that this happened. I want to help.”
“It’s fine. I’ve been in fights before, this is no different.”
Ashcroft sighed. “You think I should I cancel the party?”
“No. If anything, this has bought us time. Whatever they were planning is out the window now they’ve lost the element of surprise. Did you arrange the security we spoke about?”
“Yes. Eight men. Four are outside already, another four are arriving later.”
“Good.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” Ashcroft said, “but we got you a tux for the party. A lot of people are going to want to meet you and shake your hand. You’re the man of the hour.”
Thorne was silent for several seconds.
“There a free bar at this party?”
Ashcroft smiled. “Of course.”
After he showered, Thorne found a card envelope sitting on the table in front of the mirror. It was about the same size as his laptop with a bulge in the middle the thickness of a Gideon Bible. Three words were handwritten on the outside.
Just in case.
Thorne sighed. He knew what was inside the envelope without opening it, and it was no Bible. Ashcroft had hired eight men, but this envelope told him everything. He picked it up and felt the contents move between his fingers. The envelope wasn’t sealed, the flap had just been folded inside. He reversed the flap and tilted the opening at his palm. The Smith & Wesson slid grip-first into his hand. He stared at it for a moment. Every gun he’d ever held had eventually been fired at another human being. Ashcroft treated him like a friend, but this made him feel cheap and disposable.
He’d almost died for the man once, wasn’t that enough?
Almost immediately, the anger passed.
The senator didn’t know the full story of his afternoon with Blake, only what he’d told him to explain his physical appearance. As far as Ashcroft knew, there’d been a brutal fight on his own property that pointed to a further attack. An attack he’d warned him about. But now Blake had the modified defibrillators Thorne thought it was unlikely. Aidan Blake was unpredictable, but he always chose an easy option if there was one. He was lazy, it was who he was. If he planned to hit the party, Blake would’ve killed him.
He sighed and tucked the pistol into the back of his pants.
Just in case.
He caught sight of himself in the mirror. The tuxedo made him look like a maître d' at an upscale restaurant. Or at least, a maître d' who had recently had his ass handed to him. He smiled and tried to make it look genuine. Holding this on his face all night was going to hurt. He’d been to his share of terrible parties, but none like this. Lauren had admitted that most of the guests were north of 70, some closer to 90. Millionaires and billionaires who could later be called upon to finance Ashcroft’s candidacy. Fewer than a quarter of the guests were real friends.
Thorne left the room and almost immediately came across an old couple standing looking at the Picasso. They jumped at the sight of him, then seemed to relax. He could tell they planned to start talking to him, but he was altogether too sober for that so nodded and slid quickly past before they got a word out.
The entrance hall was packed with people dressed like they were at a wedding, something enhanced by the over-the-top decorations that hung suspended from the
ceiling. In the corner of the room, an Asian man in a white suit sat playing a piano. Thorne wasn’t certain, but it sounded like the man was doing Barry Manilow covers.
“It’s like being in God’s waiting room, isn’t it?”
He turned and saw Lauren standing next to him. She passed him a glass of Scotch that was so full he had to take a drink to prevent any from spilling.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Come on,” Lauren said, “let’s go upstairs.”
They moved through the guests to the stairs. Everyone turned to stare at him. Some smiled, but most did not. They knew who he was, what he’d done. He’d saved one of their own kind but it wasn’t enough. He wasn’t rich and he didn’t belong here. Lauren led the way. She was two steps in front of him but he could still look at the back of her head due to their height difference. Her ears stuck out, he realized. She tucked her hair in behind them to disguise it, but they clearly stuck out.
Even her flaws were perfect.
There were more guests upstairs, though the thick carpeting made it quieter. The library had close to 20 people in it, including Ashcroft himself. They were all men and most were smoking cigars. The senator was talking and the guests had gathered around to listen. Lauren kept walking and disappeared into the master bedroom at the end of the corridor. He checked they were alone, before following her in. She waved him into the bathroom with a lit joint already in her hand. She wasn’t wasting any time.
“I hope you’re not planning on going out the window,” he said.
“Not in this dress.”
She sat on the edge of the bath, then patted the space next to her. He closed the door behind him and turned the lock. Lauren tilted her head over, an eyebrow raised. It was hard to place what she was thinking but he didn’t want anyone walking in on them in the bathroom together, even if all they were doing was smoking a joint. She moved closer so her leg pressed against his and held out her hand so that he could take the joint.
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