Her nose wrinkled.
“I know. I smell. I fell in the mud, and this was the best I could manage.” I swiped us into my room. “I’m not a fan of cold Chinese, so if you can bear with me, let’s eat, and then I’ll take a shower.”
“I’m not sure I got fully clean before. I could probably use another one,” she taunted.
“Deal.” We spread the food out on the desk. I held the chair out for her. I sat on the short dresser next to her, dumping half the rice into the General Tso’s. She poured some of the gravy sparingly over the fried egg pancakes. She took one bite with her mouth closed and stopped chewing almost immediately. I knew that look. “Try mine.”
I secured a cube of chicken with my chopsticks and held it out for her. She took it carefully, smiling as she chewed.
“Gimme,” I said without fanfare, putting my former dinner in front of her and taking hers for myself. I snagged a pile of my green beans before they, too, became communal property.
“You would do that?”
“I don’t see you as a person I have to take care of, that I have to protect, but if you prefer what I have, then I give it to you willingly. Also, keep in mind that I’m a Marine. I’d eat the asshole of a goat if I was hungry enough.”
She rocked back and made a face before leaning toward me. “I didn’t know such things were done.”
“Welcome to your new world. And please, don’t order egg foo young again.”
“You know I will,” she replied.
“I know. I just wanted to go on the record as having stated my position.”
“I’ll make it worth your while.” Her smile and the sparkle in her eyes promised more.
“It already has been.” I had to put the egg foo young down to keep from spilling it as she came for me. The warmth of her body and eagerness absorbed me. I remained hungry but would be satisfied in a different way.
Dinner ended before we’d eaten. First, a shower for two, and then an adult, calorie-free dessert.
Exhausted and spent, I was out cold by midnight. Four hours later I woke, refreshed. Jenny was still asleep, covers pulled up to her chin. Her naked skin, warm under the sheets. Smooth and tender. The curve of her hip. She purred at my touch but didn’t wake. I got up because I had a great deal of work to do.
I glanced in the mirror as I got my thumb drive out from behind the switch plate. I looked far better than I deserved, the result of emotional engagement, physical fitness, and intellectual stimulation. Yet, a dark cloud hung over my head. I filled the one-cup coffee maker and let it deliver a cup of the hotel’s “custom” blend.
The challenge of the day was a contract to kill Jimmy Tripplethorn that wasn’t going to work for me unless I ran across something buried so deeply that no one else could find it. I could pay the money back to The Peace Archive, but I doubted that would save me. If I didn’t pull the trigger, another operator would, and then they’d come after me, too.
Unless I could get the contract canceled, which meant leveraging Tricia the Wonderbeast. I decided that name fit her—wondrous in her own mind and a beast to everyone else.
I removed my computer from the safe. The desk remained cluttered from dinner last night. Dinner had only been sitting out for six hours. The egg foo young wasn’t good for anything except the trash, but the General Tso’s was palatable, as were the cold green beans. I wolfed the food down without remorse, trusting that Jenny would sleep until the small restaurant was open and I could treat her to a free breakfast.
She had the last day of the conference, and I had to get my head straight about my contract. That meant information.
The VPN obscured me while the dark web opened up the world of those who stayed out of view while shining light into the darkness. My first task was to find the Wonderbeast’s email before trying to gain access to her private bank records. What passwords had she used? What were the patterns for creating new ones? Humans were predictable.
I quickly compiled a list of seven different email addresses that had been used by Tricia Tripplethorn. Her publicly available commitments appeared to be random.
She did not have a nine-to-five job. She occupied her time as a board member of two different major corporations. Seattle Pacific operated with ten billion in assets, and Husky Express Airline looked like a potential merger candidate with Alaska Air. Lucrative positions.
Yet, they lived in middle-class suburbia.
There was far more to her than being Mrs. Jimmy Tripplethorn. Her maiden name was Barrows. A daughter of the family. Daddy was a billionaire.
He lived on his yacht year-round. With a crew of twenty, it was almost as long as the biggest Coast Guard cutter. It sported its own helicopter and submarine.
If that was what people wanted to do with their money, more power to them.
So, why had Tricia Barrows married a no-name with a master’s degree in public administration?
And where had their relationship gone sour? Tricia was no longer a fan of Jimmy Tripplethorn’s. I’d seen two different interactions, and neither convinced me that their home life was a happy one. The rich spouse generally had no problem retaining wealth when divorcing the poor partner. So why kill him? There had to be another reason.
Had it always been the plan to become the mayor herself without having to do any of the politicking? Ride the sympathy wave into the big house.
Another rabbit hole, but it was important to understand her motivations to help me leverage her away from continuing the contract. I needed to know what made her tick. I started digging, peeling away layers of noise that hid the private life of Mrs. Tripplethorn.
She was far more active than her public persona showed. Her social media pages had been carefully cultivated. Happy-go-lucky with the obligatory two children, now eight and ten. The giant poodle in the family pictures. Endless fun. A picturesque life.
On pages that were grossly open for all to see. It was a presentation purely for public consumption. What was the real story? What happened behind the scenes? I looked into her personal email for that.
Passwords she had used in the past that had been compromised.
Hu5kyMacGreg0r
Hu5kyTunn1c!1ffe
Hu5kyKje!!berg
I smiled to myself. A clear pattern. After a quick search, I accessed the Wonderbeast’s email and typed in, Hu5kyMacGreg0r. The screen flashed and the webmail’s inbox appeared. She had over five hundred unread emails. I skipped those and went to the sent folder. What did she tell others?
Day to day tasks. Childcare. Friends get together. An invite to Daddy’s boat for a meet and greet with money brokers.
I tried the other accounts. One password to bind them and in the darkness show the way.
I built a list of who she sent notes to, copying the email addresses into a spreadsheet. I looked away to let my eyes focus on something besides the screen. I’d been staring for almost two hours.
The sun was up and casting light around the window shades. Jenny was still asleep. I’d have to get her up soon.
A simple Hotmail account made up of letters and numbers caught my eye. I accessed that account and tried Wonderbeast’s current password. It opened.
Only twelve emails total, and eight of them, she had sent to herself. I read through them one by one, then re-read them. I clicked on the sent folder. Nothing at all. I leaned back and crossed my arm as I battled with the secret email account. A yawn broke my reverie. Jenny was sitting up. She let the sheets fall from her. I closed my laptop and tried to switch compartments, but I was still in Tricia Tripplethorn’s world. I had been pulled in, and it wouldn’t let go. I looked blankly at the beautiful woman in my bed.
“What’s wrong?” She stood in all her Venusian glory, stretching while she stepped toward me. She kneeled next to me, running her hand through my chest hair. The Wonderbeast disappeared into the recesses of my mind as the blood rushed through me.
“I was still thinking about today’s schedule. You have to check out today, don’t you
?”
“I do not. You won’t be getting rid of me today.”
I pulled her to her feet. On the dresser, my two access cards lay beneath my cheap wallet. I removed one and gave it to her. “I’m here for another eight days. You don’t have to leave me.”
She looked at herself. “Where am I supposed to put this?”
I let my eyes wander casually over her naked form. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I was making a statement.”
“And then what, Ian? What happens to us when you have to go?”
I chewed on my lip before taking her face in my hands. “I don’t want to leave you behind. I’m thinking of leaving my job.”
She frowned, her eyes wrinkling with internal anguish. “I don’t want to be the cause of anyone leaving their job. I don’t know if I can support us both. My life is boring,” she stated in a rush.
I looked at the floor. “I have plenty of money. I don’t have to work for years if I don’t want to. I was thinking of a world cruise.”
She raised her eyebrows and contemplated me. “This is a side of Ian Bragg I didn’t know existed.”
“When this job is over, you’ll learn all there is to know about Ian Bragg.” I led her back to the bed, stripping bare before lying beside her. The world could wait for us after a proper welcome to the new day.
The revelations of the past twelve hours had changed my perspective in entirety. I had a lot to do to get myself out of the crosshairs.
And it started with removing Jimmy Tripplethorn’s head from the guillotine. A politician. What if he was the last honest one? I refused to be the instrument of his demise, solidifying corruption’s hold on power. The Wonderbeast was the key to making this right. What to do about her?
But first, what to do with my new bedmate…
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Keep it simple and focus on what matters.” Confucius
The free breakfast was hopping. Jenny and I took two empty seats at a table for four, where she knew the other two occupants. I wanted to run for my life but smiled and suffered through it.
I sat uncomfortably with a perpetually full mouth, trying to avoid answering the shotgun blast of questions. I looked at Jenny for help, pleading. She touched my arm and came to my rescue.
“Such a busy day ahead! Ian doesn’t have any time. We’re running late because of so much sex! The clock just kinda loses meaning.” I tried not to choke on my Lucky Charms, refusing to look up. The silence at the table went on for too long. I had to see. I lifted my head to find three women staring at me.
I cleared my throat. “Jenny meant to say, a late dinner followed by an engrossing movie and stimulating conversation,” I countered, trying to sound confident. They started to laugh. It was the best move I could think of.
“With a comeback like that, he’s a keeper,” one of the two stated. Jenny squeezed my hand.
I felt like I was thinking more clearly than ever. I got lost in her eyes. I had had other girlfriends, but they’d never lasted long. I had stuff to do, and they didn’t want to be a part of it. Timing. Focus. The Tripplethorn job made me question what I was doing. It had always been easy. My mind tumbled through a cavalcade of thoughts.
Because I was a player. The deadly game continued, and the more Jenny became embroiled with me, the more she risked. And she didn’t know it. The revelation would come soon. That would tell me if we had a relationship or a fling. Her eyes drew me in.
I knew what I wanted. I watched my hand caress her cheek.
A voice in the distance spoke. “The music stopped, but everyone watched as they kept dancing.”
One of our table mates. I didn’t know what she was talking about and had to ask. “I’m sorry, what?”
She waved a hand to take in the entirety of the dining area, filled mostly with women attending the conference. They started to clap. I glanced at Jenny. Her cheeks flushed, and she tried to look down. I tipped her chin toward me and kissed her.
Her lips tasted of maple syrup. I tucked her hair behind her ear and kissed her again, then quickly stood. “It’s a full day. I will see you for dinner.”
I tried to walk casually from the restaurant, but it was difficult with all eyes on me. I never liked being the center of attention, and now was a particularly bad time, not that there was ever a good time for someone in my line of work.
I headed for my room to build a full target profile on Tricia Tripplethorn. I had no idea how to confront her but would find a way. I had to if I was to have a future.
A future with the exquisite woman with green eyes and a musical laugh.
***
Jimmy Tripplethorn was on the morning news. A five-alarm fire burned in the manufacturing area of the northeast district. The local mayor and fire chief stood center stage, describing the efforts to contain the blaze. Jimmy stood in the back, looking appropriately concerned. It didn’t appear to be an act since he could barely be seen. A reporter asked him for his opinion, but he waved them off, pointing at the fire chief and telling her that he was the one with all the information and in charge of the scene until the fire was out.
She didn’t like that answer and came back at him. “So, you’re just going to do nothing?”
The fire chief and the local mayor looked at Councilmember Tripplethorn as he instantly became the focus of the press conference.
Jimmy rose to the occasion. “Political processes happen best when carefully discussed and evaluated toward a well-defined goal. Working with incomplete information and being in a hurry accounts for why we have so many misbegotten laws on the books. If this is arson, that calls for one response. If this was from an HVAC system not up to code, that’s a different reply. We will do what we need when the time is right. For now, we will give Fire Chief Hanson the support he needs through funding authorizations for the extra police for traffic control, impact assessment on the power grid, firefighting supplies, and the cost of a thorough investigation. Please don’t confuse a politician’s role in emergency management with those who are physically engaged with managing the emergency. Our job is to make sure they can do their job.”
The reporter glared at Jimmy but didn’t have a comeback. The press conference closed, and the view cut to what the helicopter could see as it circled the still-raging fire. The firefighters poured water on the neighboring buildings to keep them from burning. They’d already written off the first structure. The press had the decency not to say it out loud.
Jimmy left the briefing and peeked around the vehicles as if looking for someone. He worked his way around the outside of a fire engine. One of the news crews followed him at a distance, filming him from behind. Jimmy found a fireman sitting on the truck’s step, his head hanging. Jimmy kneeled beside him, talked to him before giving the man a hug and moving on.
The video cut back to the fire to show a section of wall caving in. The fire flared into the void but quickly died down. The combined efforts of numerous crews brought the breach under control. The news feed returned to the studio, where they showed a map of the fire’s location and the blocked streets surrounding it, advising viewers to avoid the area.
They finally cut to a commercial because the station had bills to pay, no matter the level of emergency.
I had seen enough. I trusted that Jimmy’s good-guy image was not feigned or choreographed. Jimmy led by example.
My fingers flew across the keyboard as I searched for anything related to Tricia Barrows. She’d kept most of her pre-marital assets in her name. Who knew the modest-living Tripplethorns maintained vacation properties in Italy and the Cayman Islands?
Would the media put Jimmy under the spotlight and reveal this hidden wealth? Was that motive enough to have your husband killed? If Wonderbeast wanted to be the mayor, would they find this information and publish it to smear a grieving widow? Or she was tired of the scrutiny while being condemned to middle-class suburbia and wanted to rejoin the upper crust of society.
There were too many potential reasons. I nee
ded to find something to point in one direction over another, a crack to widen.
I accessed the Wonderbeast’s hidden Hotmail account. Four emails from a single account, sent every two days, with the last a week ago. Each one contained no more than a few sentences.
The first one read: The view is spectacular this time of year. You should see for yourself. Drive like you are the only one on the road.
She never replied to any of the emails, but the subsequent notes suggested a reply had been sent.
Not the view you thought. It gets better. Climb the highest peak and keep climbing.
A call to action? I could see this as a possible negotiation with The Peace Archive, but it was like they were speaking in a different language. Inconclusive and not compelling.
The third email was even more cryptic. A chair. The deck. A cloud. Margarita.
And the fourth email epitomized brevity. End.
If there was a transfer of money following receipt of that last email, I’d have a potential link. I tried to get into her bank accounts, but her primary password did not work. I expected she would have been alerted about an attempted login, so I left it at one try. She probably used a recommended strong password, unguessable, unlike those related to her affinity for her alma mater and women’s sailing. I looked at the financial institutions that pulled up under her name in the recesses of the dark web, three different ones that appeared to be in just her name.
But the important information remained hidden from me.
The elder Barrows, grandfather to the Tripplethorn children, maintained a public presence only through whatever his media relations team and corporate entities provided. I could find no private email accounts for him or that anything of his had ever been hacked and made available on the dark web.
He would have to remain a mystery. Going after him was out of my league, but his daughter didn’t play by the same privacy rules. She needed to take a lesson or two from her old man if she wanted to play the game.
She was in my territory.
The Operator Page 6
