The Professionals

by Owen Laukkanen

  Stevens looked at her. She was staring back at him, her eyes calm. He felt the plane start its surge forward and made himself exhale slowly. “Basketball,” he said. “I played varsity, back in the day.”

  “Basketball.” She examined him. “You were a guard?”

  He shook his head. “A center in high school, believe it or not. I was tall for my age.” He found himself smiling. “All I ever wanted was to do play-by-play for the Milwaukee Bucks home games. Somehow I got sidetracked.”

  Windermere kept her hand on top of his. “Basketball, huh? I was more into football. Of course, girls couldn’t play football, so I was shit out of luck.”

  Stevens exhaled again. Felt a little bit calmer. “What did you do?”

  “Back then? I ran track. Now I do kickboxing three nights a week. Take out my aggression without worrying about lawsuits or criminal charges.”

  The plane sped up off the runway and the ground fell away. Windermere squeezed his hand. “Takeoff’s over, Stevens. We made it. You gonna live through this or what?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.” He gripped her hand in his. “I’m just going to borrow your hand for another few hours.”

  Later on, when the plane was well up in the air and Stevens had a cocktail in front of him and could relax a little, he turned back to Windermere. “So what do we do?”

  Windermere looked over at him. She gestured to the folio. “We read, Stevens. I brought more than credit card statements. In that folder is a list of every unsolved kidnapping in the continental United States for the last five years. If we can find anything that fits, we can put together a time line for these guys.”

  Stevens leafed through the folder. It was thick. “Jesus,” he said. “These kids are too good to leave much of their history lying around. We’ll lose them if we can’t get ahead somehow.”

  “We’ll get ahead.” Windermere shuffled her papers. “Maybe history will repeat itself.”

  Stevens started reading. Kidnappings in Delaware, in Houston, in Atlanta. None of them fit the profile. This is like searching for a marble in a room full of ball bearings, he thought.

  He drained his cocktail and gestured to the flight attendant for another. Then he started reading again. The plane shuddered and dove on its way over the Rocky Mountains, and Stevens stared glumly at the long list of kidnappings, unable to shake the desperate feeling they were losing the case.

  thirty-four

  D’Antonio sat in the business-class seat of another Delta airliner, staring out at the clouds as the plane sped toward the coast.

  Earlier in the day, the Detroit PD contact had called with good news. “They bit on the Beneteau scoop,” he told D’Antonio. “The Fed told me they’re headed to Seattle to check on the McAdams girl.”

  He was on his way to the airport and on board the next flight to Seattle within the hour, booked under an alias he used sometimes, Pistone. Name of the FBI cop from Donnie Brasco; kind of a joke. Now he sat watching the plains pass beneath him, hoping the Feds had a better lead on Ashley McAdams than he did.

  He pictured the cops in his head. The tall black woman and her partner, the older guy. Windermere and Stevens. He’d watched the two agents when they came back with Landry to talk to the neighbor again. They weren’t local, and they sure as hell weren’t in racketeering. From Minnesota, his contact said. Sniffing out a kidnapping ring dumb enough to snatch a made guy. What the fuck was this world coming to?

  The plane touched down in Seattle, and D’Antonio checked his BlackBerry as they taxied to the gate. More news waited: He had missed calls all over the map, but one in particular from Miami. He called back from inside the terminal. “It’s D’Antonio,” he said when his contact picked up. “What do you have?”

  “You’re not going to believe this,” said the contact. “It wasn’t just the blond kid working alone.”

  “No shit,” said D’Antonio. “He had at least two other people.”

  “Three, but how’d you know?”

  “Doesn’t matter how I know. What I want to know is how you know.”

  “Few things,” said the man. “First, the room was rented out to some guy named Howard. According to the clerk, he was tall and muscular. Brown hair. Paid cash. Came with another kid, shorter. They brought a girl back to the room before it all went down.”

  “Let me guess,” said D’Antonio. “She had curly brown hair.”

  “No, sir. Blond hair. Hot body. Real gorgeous, apparently.”

  “What else?”

  “Police found clothes in the room, enough for three guys. Duffel bags with winter gear and a couple shopping bags from down the road.”

  “What else?”

  “You’re going to love this part. They also recovered like five grand in cash. Twenty-dollar bills, the lot of it. Four thousand in one bag and a grand in another. And a laptop computer, all shot up. They’re trying to save the hard drive as we speak.”

  “Make sure they save it,” said D’Antonio. “I need to know what’s on that computer.”

  “Might be tough. I can’t just walk into the lab and ask to see what everyone’s working on, you know?”

  “You’re not listening to me.”

  The man sighed. “I’ll get you the computer.”

  D’Antonio ended the call. That computer could have everything anyone ever needed to know about those kids. It would be a goddamn shame if the goons had fucked up the computer at the same time they weren’t fucking up the kids. Speaking of which—

  He called Zeke from the cab on the way downtown. “How we doing on our project?”

  “It’s not good,” said Zeke. “The kid disappeared.”

  “You mean kids,” said D’Antonio. “You have multiple projects now. Kid named Howard, big guy with brown hair. Shorter guy, that’s all I know about him. The blond kid who you already know about and a girl, supposed to be beautiful. Blond as well.”

  “Okay,” said Zeke. “But how are we supposed to find them?”

  “I don’t know,” said D’Antonio. “Look for them.”

  He put down his phone and watched the Seattle skyline come closer. Somewhere in this city, he thought, is a pretty little curly-haired girl who knows everything I need to know about the bullet in the back of Donald Beneteau’s brain. Somewhere in this city are the answers. I just need to find them.

  thirty-five

  Marie McAllister finally left her apartment after a day and a half indoors. She’d slept for twelve hours the first night and woken up disoriented, reaching for Pender and calling his name, dreaming that he was in some kind of trouble. She opened her eyes to the dusty bedroom in Seattle, the plain white walls and the too-perfect double bed, and she stood alone at the windows looking out into the alleyway where homeless men would root through the dumpsters at dawn, waking up Pender and pissing him off.

  She’d lain in bed until the room became unbearable, and then she stood and forced herself to get undressed and shower. She turned the water as hot as she could stand, filling the bathroom with clouds of steam and taking her breath away as she stood beneath the flow, scrubbing at her body with a washcloth and imagining she would never be clean.

  She showered for what seemed like hours, but when she’d dried off and dressed she couldn’t find the strength to show her face outdoors. She sat inside on the shitty little couch, watching the shadows move across the cold hardwood floor and trying not to think about Detroit. She ordered in Chinese food and tried to hide her face behind the door, certain her picture must be on Wanted posters throughout the country, but the delivery boy just looked at her like she was crazy and handed her her change and that was that.

  She tried to sleep but couldn’t, tried to read but her eyes wouldn’t focus. So she sat in front of the television instead, watching infomercials until they ran out of things to sell, and then she slumped down on the couch and tipped halfway over and fell asleep like that.

  When she woke up, it was morning again, and she felt claustrophobic, suffocated by t
he dingy apartment. She showered again, quickly, and then she dressed and went down to the street.

  She walked, enjoying the cool fresh air and the hint of salt on the breeze. She had lunch at the market at Pike Place, mingling with the tourists and the fishmongers and feeling utterly anonymous, and then she started home, stopping at the Safeway a few blocks from her house and filling a basket with fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grain breads, and yogurt, wanting to purge her system of the deep-fried diet she’d grown sick of after two years of diners and drive-thru.

  Then she reached the checkout counter, and she realized she’d run out of cash.

  It was a strange feeling, not having any money; she’d gotten used to having hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on her person most of the time. But she’d forgotten to refill her wallet before she left the apartment and had spent her last ten dollars on lunch, and as she reached for the plastic she handed over the Darcy Wellman card without even realizing she was doing it. Shit, she thought, and snatched the card back from the cashier’s hand, swapping it for her Visa. The teenaged princess behind the counter gave her a look and then glanced down at the card. She looked back at Marie and narrowed her eyes. “So who are you?” she said. “Ashley McAdams or Delores Wellman?”

  “What?”

  The girl gestured with the Visa. “This card says Ashley McAdams. That last one said Delores something. Which one’s you?”

  Christ, thought Marie. Neither of them’s me. “I’m Ashley,” she said.

  “Then who’s Delores?”

  Marie sighed. “Darcy Wellman. She’s a friend of mine, all right? She left her credit card at my house, and I accidentally gave you her card instead of mine. All right? Come on, it’s not like I tried to pass it off as my own.”

  The girl glared at her. “I’m going to need to see some ID.”

  Marie dug around in her purse and came up with the Ashley McAdams driver’s license. She handed it over. “There, all right?”

  “Long way from home.”

  “I’m a student,” she said. “You want to call the cops? My ice cream’s melting.”

  “You didn’t buy ice cream.”

  “Look,” said Marie, “just run the goddamn card before I find the manager.”

  The girl gave her a long sigh and rolled her eyes. But she ran the card through, and Marie signed. The cashier didn’t even bother to check the signature.

  Shit, Marie thought as she walked out the store. I have to be more careful.

  Later on, she made a stir-fry and grabbed her old laptop for something to do as she ate. She surfed the Internet and checked her e-mail and decided she should write her parents.

  She didn’t feel like writing e-mails, though, couldn’t think up any good lies to tell, so instead she went to travel websites and looked at pictures of the Maldives. She stared at the pictures and she thought about a little cottage on an empty beach, thought about Pender relaxing, reading novels, taking walks again. Thought about cooking elaborate dinners and tanning on the white sand and making love in a hammock while the surf crashed in the distance.

  Yeah, she thought to herself. You keep dreaming that. Maybe it will make the whole killing people thing go down a little easier.

  She wondered what Pender and the boys were up to, and she Googled Miami, picturing the boys on South Beach. Sawyer and Mouse would be roughhousing in the water, hitting on girls, and Pender would be relaxing, reading some nonfiction book he’d bought at the airport because he figured it would help them do their jobs better. She wondered if Pender missed her. She wished she’d kissed him goodbye.

  Then the search results came up and at the top of the page was a news alert that made her sit up and her heart start to pound. “Two men dead in South Beach drug slaying,” went the headline, and even though none of the boys were really into drugs Marie had to click through to be sure.

  She paled as she read the article. Miami police, it said, had recovered a laptop computer and a substantial amount of cash from what appeared to be a drug deal gone wrong. The police believed a pair of local dealers had been overpowered by as many as four armed assassins, and now authorities were looking for three white men in their mid- to late twenties as well as a younger white woman. One of the suspects was believed to be injured in the gunfight.

  She stared at the computer screen, her body ice-cold with fear and tense with frustration. The article was sparse on details, but it described the suspects and Marie knew it was them. Three men, one named Howard. Two tall guys, one blond and one brown-haired, one skinny and one bigger. A shorter man with brown hair and the mystery blonde.

  Howard was one of Sawyer’s aliases. He’d used it on the Memphis job.

  She’d have to go to Miami. She’d have to find Pender and the boys and help them escape. It made no sense for her to be sitting in Seattle when the rest of the gang was neck deep in trouble. She imagined the boys hiding out somewhere, terrified. Imagined the hit men bursting through the door.

  She spent the rest of the night staring at the walls in her apartment, picturing all of the awful things that were about to happen.

  thirty-six

  Absolutely not,” Pender said. “I can’t believe we’re even having this discussion.” He leaned back against the wall and stared up at the mottled ceiling. We don’t have time for this crap, he thought. We have to keep moving.

  They were sitting alone in the motel room, the three of them, Mouse propped up on the bed and Sawyer in an easy chair. They’d slept off the shock of Mouse’s big revelation, and now it was morning and time was wasting. No time for anger, thought Pender. It’s time to react.

  He’d called a team meeting and they’d asked Tiffany to wait outside and now Pender stood, staring down at his friends and wondering again what in hell they were going to do. Mouse, at least, looked better, though his bandages were still bloody and he’d taken a lot of drugs. They were running out of clean towels to dress the wounds.

  Sawyer stood and walked to the window overlooking the parking lot. They’d opened the curtains partway, and he was staring out at Tiffany as she sat on the curb, staring down at her feet. “Why not?” he asked.

  “We’re not just going to add her to the team,” said Pender. “We don’t even know her.”

  “What do you want to know?” said Mouse. “She’s rich. She goes to Princeton. Her dad’s worth like a hundred million dollars.”

  “Okay,” said Pender. “So why does she need us?”

  “You know these rich girls. They get bored. She just up and ditched school last week. Came down here on vacation. Said she was looking for some kind of adventure.”

  “So she’s a tourist,” said Pender. “Absolutely not.”

  Sawyer sighed. “So we can bring your girlfriend along and that’s it.”

  “Girlfriend?” said Pender. “And whose girlfriend is she, exactly?”

  Sawyer glanced at Mouse. Mouse kept his eyes on Pender. Nobody wanted to answer. Then Mouse shook his head. “Look, just forget about the girl for a second,” he said. “We’ve got other things to figure out.”

  “If you forget about her, I’ll take her back,” said Sawyer.

  “Shut up, Sawyer,” said Pender. “Be serious a second. We have to ditch that car. Today.”

  “Then we gotta get some clothes,” said Sawyer. “For Mouse especially. I’m sick of staring at his skinny little body.”

  “You love it,” Mouse said. He turned back to Pender. “Here’s the big thing, boss. We left the laptop at the hotel in Miami.”

  Pender felt his heart stop. That laptop was the key to the whole operation. If someone managed to hack it they’d find everything they needed to put the whole damn team away for life—full names and addresses, banking information and aliases, and a shit-ton more incriminating evidence. He groaned. “We’re screwed.”

  “We’re not screwed,” said Mouse. “I put beaucoup security on that thing. Anyone even looks at it wrong it will self-destruct. Erase everything. Anyways, I have everything
we need memorized or backed up somewhere safe. But I need a new machine so we can keep operating, and also,” he shrugged, “we kind of need money.”

  “Yeah, we do,” said Sawyer. “I left four grand in that hotel room.”

  Pender glanced at Sawyer. “You’re broke?”

  Sawyer nodded.

  “I left a grand,” said Mouse, “but I still have about fifteen hundred dollars in cash.”

  “Okay,” said Pender. “I still have plenty left over from the Minnesota expenses. Ten grand or thereabouts. We’re fine for a little while.”

  “Good,” said Mouse. “But we’re going to want to get our hands on more money sooner or later, right? So you guys have to get me a new machine.”

  “Fine,” said Pender. “Any requests?”

  Mouse read off some specs, and Pender dutifully copied them down. The whole damn thing might as well be in Russian, he thought. Thank God, Mouse knows what he’s doing. “Where would we get one of these?”

  “Best Buy. Any decent computer store. Just go in and give that to a salesman, and he’ll sort you out.”

  “Right,” said Pender. He straightened. “Now, listen. About Tiffany. We’re not just going to let some new girl waltz in and hang with us just because she happens to be hot.”

  “That’s not why—”

  “Can it, Mouse,” said Pender. “You gave the whole goddamn game away because you wanted to get in her pants. That doesn’t mean you get to keep her.” He glanced at Sawyer. “You guys can’t even figure out which one of you is going to be the one to—”

  There was a knock on the door, cutting him off. Sawyer opened it partway, and Tiffany peered in at him. “Hey, guys,” she said. “Can I come in?”

  Sawyer glanced back at Pender. “We’re not done yet,” he said.

  “Look, I had an idea,” she said. “I’ll just hang around with you guys a little while. A few days. We’ll get to know each other. You can figure out if you like me or not.”

  Pender cleared his throat. “Tiffany,” he said. “Come on. You’re what, nineteen?”