The Color of Death

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Whatever the protocol, it wouldn’t matter to Kirby. He would be in and out of the trunk in twenty seconds. Thirty-five seconds, max. By the time the courier and escort came back to the parking lot, Kirby would be on his way to Sky Harbor to dump the rental car and the itchy disguise.

  He turned down one aisle between parked cars and stopped when he was a row over and directly opposite the courier’s vehicle. He put the SUV in park and left the engine running with the key in the ignition. With the expertise of a surgeon or a dentist, he snapped on exam gloves. A few quick yanks on the stretchy hosiery pulled it into place, blurring his features. He put the cowboy hat back on, furthering hindering any useful identification. Then he hit the key he’d programmed with the courier’s code.

  The courier’s rental car flashed its lights in reply.

  Party time.

  Chapter 41

  Scottsdale

  Friday

  5:40 P.M.

  A man came in through the employee door, brushed by Sam and Kate without a look, and hurried down the corridor leading to the lobby. The door closed hard behind him, emphasizing his rush.

  At the same moment, both Sam and Kate reached out to open the door leading to the employee parking lot. Gently, he pried her fingers off the hand bar.

  “Men first,” he said.

  “Since when?”

  “Since I became your bodyguard, remember?”

  She stared at him.

  He leaned toward her and said quietly, “When you’re undercover, you’re never out of your role, remember?”

  She blew out a breath. “Right. You go first.”

  “Oh, shit! I can’t believe I did that!” echoed down the corridor.

  Sam and Kate turned around to find out what was going on. The man who had been in such a hurry to get into the hotel a moment ago was now in a fever to get out.

  “Excuse me,” the man said running down the hallway. “I have to—right now!”

  “Last time I heard that,” Sam said to Kate as they jumped back out of the way, “it was in a men’s room with all the stalls occupied.”

  The door slammed.

  Sam opened it again. Kate made an ironic “after you” gesture to him and followed him out the door to the employee parking lot. Sam’s car was across the lot, near the miserable shade of light pole. They started for the car, cutting between the rows.

  Thirty feet down the third aisle between rows of vehicles, a small SUV sat in the center of the lane like a cork in a bottle. The driver’s door was partly open, as though someone had given up on finding a closer parking spot and simply parked illegally to go into the hotel for a quick errand.

  “What a jerk,” Kate said as she started across the blocked aisle. “What if someone comes back before he does and wants to leave?”

  Sam didn’t answer. He was suddenly, intently, studying the rows of cars to their right.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” yelled someone off to the left.

  It was the man from the hallway, the man in a hurry. He was running and yelling.

  Sam turned and took it all in with one quick look, time slowing to a crawl, everything sharp and distinct in the reddish light of the setting sun.

  Thirty feet away, a man in cowboy hat, boots, and surgical gloves had a crowbar under the trunk lid of a parked car.

  The man from the hotel was dashing toward him, shouting.

  Then it all speeded up as the cowboy bent down and yanked a gun from his boot. The courier went facedown. The cowboy leaped toward the illegally parked SUV. The engine revved and tires squalled.

  The car was coming right at them.

  Sam yanked Kate just as she literally threw herself away from the parking aisle to get clear of the speeding SUV. She slammed into the side of a parked car so hard her wig flew off.

  Sam was a heartbeat behind her, covering her.

  “What—” Kate asked breathlessly.

  Metal caromed off metal with a sound like a thin scream.

  A nearby windshield turned into a maze of cracks.

  Sam didn’t need the hole in the center of the web to tell him what was going down. With one hand he shoved Kate to her hands and knees between parked cars. His other hand held his weapon. He didn’t expect to hit the cowboy, but he could at least keep the bastard too worried for any more wild shooting. Ignoring Bureau policy, Sam fired two fast shots at the fleeing SUV.

  Unlike the cowboy’s gun, Sam’s made enough noise to bring men pouring out of the FBI motor coach.

  Sam grabbed his badge with his left hand. He held both hands high and in plain sight.

  “I’m FBI!” he yelled at the agents. “There’s a man down by the black Mercedes!”

  Two agents broke away toward the Mercedes.

  Three more came at a run toward Sam, weapons drawn.

  “Stay down,” he said to Kate. “They’re feeling edgy.”

  “They’re feeling edgy. We’re the ones who were shot at!”

  “They don’t know that yet. Did you get a look at the license plate?”

  “Oh, sure. Would that be when you slammed me up against a car or while you held my face to the pavement?”

  “You okay?” Sam asked, but he didn’t take his eyes off the men who were closing in on them.

  “How the hell would I know?”

  “I’ll ask you again when the adrenaline wears off. Stay down until I tell you otherwise.”

  Whatever Kate said was lost when one of the agents yelled, “Sam? Is that you under the cowboy hat?”

  “It’s me, Doug.”

  Immediately, Doug signaled for the agents with him to head for the black Mercedes.

  “I’ve got a civilian here,” Sam said, “so don’t be surprised when she stands up.”

  “She armed?”

  “No.”

  “You both okay?”

  “We’re working on it.” Sam holstered his weapon, anchored his badge holder in his front jeans pocket so that the shield still showed, and hauled Kate to her feet.

  She didn’t thank him. She was too loaded with adrenaline and aftershocks to worry about being polite. She wanted to scream. Hit something. Shake. Hide. Scream some more.

  So she forced herself to lean against the car and act like she spent part of every day almost getting killed.

  “The other civilian looked like he was hit,” Sam said to Doug.

  “By you?” Doug asked.

  “No.”

  “We only heard two shots, evenly spaced. They sounded like they came from a thirty-eight.”

  “Those were mine. The cowboy had a silencer. I wasn’t close enough to see make or model of the gun, but even muffled, it had enough punch to knock down a man at ten feet, minimum.”

  Doug holstered his gun and looked toward the Mercedes. Someone over there was yelling for the paramedics. Somebody else had a cell phone to his ear, probably talking to the cops.

  Kate started forward to see if she could help with the wounded man. Her knees wouldn’t cooperate.

  Without looking away from his supervisor, Sam casually propped her up against the car. She didn’t know whether to thank him or hit him.

  Breathe, she told herself. Slow and deep. You can do it. Hell, even a baby can do it.

  Sam gave her a worried look.

  She bared her teeth at him.

  “What’d you see?” Doug asked Sam.

  He turned away from Kate. “White Subaru Forrester, this year’s model, heavily tinted windows, clean except for the wheel wells and license plate, which were muddy.”

  “Convenient,” Doug said, not surprised.

  “Yeah. No plate in front. Dirty plate in back was Arizona. I’m betting it’s a rental. One man in a cowboy hat and boots, surgical gloves, jeans and a medium-blue work shirt, a stocking pulled over his face, dark, short beard underneath. Caucasian, Hispanic, possibly Eurasian. I couldn’t see the eyes. An inch or two shorter than me, slim build. Shot right-handed. Had a boot holster.”

  “He say anything
?”

  “No.”

  “Impression?”

  “A pro. He’ll dump the car wherever his own is parked, throw his hat and boots in his own trunk, and vanish.”

  “Shit. Just what we needed.” Doug looked at Kate for the first time. “Who are you?”

  Sam stepped in front of her, blocking Doug’s view.

  “She isn’t here,” Sam said.

  “Mother,” Doug muttered. “Get her out of here. Then get your ass over to my office. One hour, max.”

  Chapter 42

  Scottsdale

  Friday

  6:30 P.M.

  “That’s the best you can do?” Sizemore asked harshly as he opened another beer. High-test beer in a classy, ice-dripping bottle. A snap of his thumb and forefinger sent the cap sailing toward the trash can. The cap fell in and rattled over empty bottles and cans.

  It had been a long day.

  Ignoring her own tightly drawn nerves, Sharon took a deep breath and tried one more time. “If you dialed back on the beer and—”

  “If you did as you’re told rather than getting in my face,” he cut in savagely, “none of this would happen.”

  She put her hands on her hips even as she gauged his alcohol level and temper. By the color of his face, both were high. He’d loosened his collar and tie, but otherwise was dressed exactly as he’d been every workday since he joined the Bureau.

  Maybe she should just pack it in and head for that tropical beach and let dear old Dad sort out his own mess.

  Soon, she promised herself. Very, very soon. But until then…

  “The courier,” she said with deadly precision, “is awake and doing very well. Three hurrahs for him.”

  “I’d be leading the cheer if the fool had seen anything.”

  “To be fair,” she said, “he was rattled by the flat tire and being late. So he rushed into the hotel to tell us he was here and get an escort to—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Sizemore interrupted. “Then the fool remembers he didn’t lock the car and runs back into the parking lot.” He made a disgusted sound and took down the level of beer in the bottle by a third. “Some fucking courier.”

  “The point is,” Sharon began.

  “The point is, we look like Keystone Kops,” Sizemore said harshly. “Courier doesn’t lock the car. Thief uses a remote key to open the trunk, only he locks it because it was already un locked. Big laugh out of that one. Ha ha. So the thief thinks his key is bad and goes to work on the trunk with a tire iron.”

  “We—”

  Sizemore swallowed beer and kept talking. “Courier runs out of hotel to lock the trunk, which is now locked, thanks to the thief. Second big laugh. Ha ha. Thief dumps courier with a silenced gun. Then Special Agent Sam Fucking Groves leaps to the rescue and shoots at fleeing SUV, which is against agency policy for Chrissake.”

  Sharon waited for her father to run out of venom. Or beer.

  “Agents come flying out of the HQ like bats out of hell,” Sizemore continued, took a long swallow, then another. “And where is Sizemore Security Consulting in all this? Picking our ass, that’s where. The only time we’ll get mentioned on the news is when they do the ‘laugher’ at the end of the show.”

  “So that’s why you’ve been ducking reporters.”

  Ignoring her, he drank, belched, and fired the empty beer bottle at the wastebasket. It hit with a loud sound. He walked over and kicked the wastebasket halfway across the room, making a real racket. Bottles and caps bounced over the hotel’s luxurious carpeting.

  “Some office manager you are,” he snarled at Sharon. “You should have known that—”

  “How am I supposed to know what the whole FBI can’t find out?” she cut in.

  “It’s your job to know! Hell, ask Jason. He knows fucking everything about what’s going on in the gem business and he can’t wait to bend your ear. I should have fired his ass last year when he asked for his second raise in ten months.”

  Sharon didn’t know which was worse, her headache or the anger gnawing in her stomach. Sometimes getting in her father’s face worked, because it was about the only thing he respected. But not when he was halfway drunk.

  “The point is,” she said, “the intact package was delivered by Sizemore Security Consulting to Branson and Sons. That matters more than a few seconds on local TV news feed.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Losing another package in the parking lot of the hotel would have been a public relations disaster. Which brings up my next point.”

  Sizemore twisted the cap off another bottle of beer and turned his back to her.

  She was used to it. She kept talking even as she braced for what her words would bring. In truth, part of her was looking forward to it.

  She just might let it all go, yell back, and to hell with little things like long-range security and enough money not to spend her life dreading bills.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this,” she said clearly, “but it has to be said. There’s a leak somewhere that—”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “—we need to stop,” she finished.

  “You’ve checked the couriers and guards again and again. So have I.” Sizemore sent the bottle cap spinning in the general direction of the prone trash can. “You’ve run their credit cards and debit cards and checking accounts. Nothing but Joe Citizens, every last one of them. If their accounts don’t show unexplained cash, then no cash worth chasing is coming in. It’s not our leak.”

  “If the leak isn’t with us, then it’s with the FBI.”

  Sizemore started to explode, then looked thoughtful.

  Abruptly, Sharon realized he wasn’t nearly as drunk as he seemed. Like her—like any good agent—he could be a game player when it was worth the effort.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “It’s gotta be Groves.”

  Her brown eyebrows rose. “Interesting. Any particular reason or was that just the first name you thought of?”

  “Don’t run that bitchy mouth on me,” Sizemore said. “You’re not too old to get slapped and I’m not too old to do it. I gave you a job when nobody else would touch you with anything but his dick and don’t you forget it.”

  How can I? You remind me twice a day. But that was old history, so all she said aloud was, “Why do you think Groves is the leak?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “We can’t afford to be embarrassed by more screwups,” she said. “We were lucky not to lose the second Branson and Sons package. If I’ve missed something, I want to know it.”

  “Groves was in the parking lot.”

  “A coincidence.”

  “Yeah?” Sizemore took a long drink. “Groves has a CI and he’s not sharing the information with anyone, including Kennedy. Then Groves shows up in the parking lot just in time to stop a robbery and be a hero. Coincidence my ass. He’s got a line into the gangs that we don’t. I want his CI before something happens that makes us look like more of a donkey’s asshole than we already do.”

  Sharon was quiet for a moment. Then she nodded. “All right. How?”

  “I’m betting the CI is Natalie Harrison Cutter.”

  “The woman he caught swapping stones?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You think he flipped her, that she’s his informant in return for not getting arrested?”

  “The timing is right.” Sizemore reached into the breast pocket of his suit and handed Sharon a picture. “This was taken off the security cameras.”

  She gave it a comprehensive glance. “Ms. Cutter?”

  “So Groves says, only no one by that name is registered at the hotel or for the gem show.”

  “False name?”

  “That’s what I’m assuming. Nobody in the FBI data banks popped under that name either.”

  “What about Arizona law enforcement?” Sharon asked.

  “Zilch.”

  “Did anyone get a look at the citizen who was with Groves in the parking lot?”

>   “The SAC said she was facedown between the cars. Female. Caucasian or Hispanic, under fifty.”

  Sharon tapped the photo with her fingernail. “From what I’ve heard, the female Groves was with in the hotel was a green-eyed redhead, late twenties, early thirties. Other than the age, the rest is wrong for Cutter.”

  “The hair was a wig. Don’t know about the eyes.”

  “A wig? How can you be sure?”

  “Kennedy told me they found a red wig in the parking lot near where the female had fallen.”

  “So I’m looking for a Caucasian or Hispanic female around thirty whose eyes may or may not be green—colored contacts are easy to get. What about height? Weight?”

  “Five-foot-five or -six. One-thirty to one-forty. Not a stick.”

  “Good for her,” Sharon said. “Anything else?”

  “Shit, you want me to connect the dots for you?”

  “Fine. I’ll show her picture around as soon as I finish the paperwork on the—”

  “Give me the damn thing,” Sizemore cut in, grabbing the photo. “I’ll take care of it myself.”

  Chapter 43

  Phoenix

  Friday

  6:30 P.M.

  Kirby parked the white SUV in the east economy lot at Sky Harbor. He’d already ripped off the fake beard and stuffed it in the cowboy hat along with the panty hose. Now he switched boots for running shoes and shoved all the leftovers in a small nylon duffel. When he got out of the car, nothing of his disguise remained except the dark hair and jeans—which hardly stood out in Arizona—and the surgical gloves he wouldn’t remove until he shut the car door.

  The bullet hole on the rear panel that had seemed to be as big as a baseball while he was driving on the freeway looked insignificant in the long golden light of a desert evening.