THE MIDDLE SIN
Page 29
The carved African masks still decorated the walls of the den, though. Right above the worn leather sofa, where Patrick North sat stiff and un-moving. Wanda huddled beside him. Her face was red and splotchy from weeping. His was closed and tight.
Cleo's heart dropped like a stone.
"Pop! What's wrong?"
She rushed into the den. And pulled up short. Hard on her heels, Jack almost collided with her. His vicious curse rang in her ears as she stared at the squat figure seated behind her father's desk.
He held a silenced semiautomatic in one hand. The two men flanking him on either side were similarly armed. Given that lethal firepower, the gunman's high-pitched giggle scraped like fingernails on a chalkboard.
"Two for one. I didn't anticipate it would be this easy."
"What are you doing here?"
Jack had to growl the question. Cleo was shaking too hard with rage to do more than hiss.
"You two cost me a great deal of money. A very great deal. I had two potential purchasers in a bidding war for the Rods from God."
Cleo hissed again, more audibly this time. "So you're Domino?"
"I am."
Radio Man giggled once more, clearly delighted to have his genius recognized.
"I know, I know. I hardly look like the mastermind of an international-crime syndicate. I truly believe that's part of the reason I've been so successful. But only part. I'm very thorough, as I suspect you've already determined. I can also be very ruthless when necessary. I'm afraid this is one of those times when it's necessary."
His sigh was as dramatic as it was false.
"I knew when you came aboard I'd have to deal with you. You and Sloan and that Marston woman. I'd intended to arrange a helicopter crash after you departed the ship, all souls lost at sea. So tragic, to have you all just disappear off the radar like that. You must tell me how that fool, Westerbeck, tipped our hand."
"Yeah, right," Jack growled. "Like that's going to happen."
Above his limpid smile, Radio Man's eyes narrowed to slits.
"Oh, it'll happen. As soon as I put a bullet through Ms. North's shoulder, as she did mine. Or perhaps you'd rather I start with your father, Ms. North. The data I collected on you told me he would be your only vulnerable spot. I was right, wasn't I? You certainly came running fast enough."
Cleo would be a long time forgiving herself for that. She saw her mistakes now with the sharp brilliance of a lightning bolt. If Wanda's call hadn't shaken her so badly, she would have contacted Mae or Goose or even Doreen and had them strong-arm her father into his cardiologist's office. She would also have insisted on talking to Patrick herself, maybe picked up on the nuances in his voice she missed completely in Wavering Wanda's.
Cursing herself for the fear that had sent her running blindly into a trap, she dug the keys deeper into her palm, using the pain as a spur to clear her mind. She needed to think. Needed to pick up the silent signals she was sure Donovan was sending her.
Needed to shield her father and Wanda.
She couldn't make a move, couldn't let Jack make a move, until she got between them and the men by the desk.
"Let's talk about this, Walls. Or whatever your name is."
"Walls will do."
She moved farther into the den. One step. Two.
With each step, her mind raced.
Neither she nor Jack was armed. They hadn't had time to clear their weapons through Security and catch the flight. All Jack carried was the soft-sided briefcase with his computer. All she had were her keys.
"This is between us, Walls. You. Me. Donovan. My father and stepmother don't know anything. They couldn't tell the authorities who you were if they wanted to."
"Perhaps not," Radio Man said, "but their only usefulness to me was as bait to lure you here. They'll have to be disposed of, I'm afraid."
He sighed again, making Cleo ache to gouge out his eyes with her keys. That was when she felt the penlight thump against the heel of her hand.
Her pulse spiked. Doreen's forever light had lit up an entire cargo compartment on board the Pits. More to the point, it had damned near blinded Cleo the first time her techno-geek cousin had demonstrated its potency.
Radio Man and his two goons were within a few feet of each other. Maybe, just maybe, the beam would throw enough wattage to catch all three.
Her heart thumping, she palmed the penlight. Sweat dampened her hand. Her thumb was slick on the cylinder. So slick, she worried she'd miss the switch. Or take two or three tries to activate it.
Panic turned her blood to water. She could face down armed dopers or take out the knife-wielding husband of a battered client with icy nerves and swift moves. But her pop's life was riding on this one. And Jack's. And Wanda's.
Surreptitiously swiping her thumb against her side, Cleo screwed her face into a plea.
"Please. Just think about this, Walls. You can't believe you'll get away with a quadruple murder in a north Dallas suburb."
"I sold an entire cargo of teenage Sri Lankan girls. This presents far fewer difficulties."
"Yeah? Well, I have only one thing to say to that, you sick bastard. Tachi dao."
The giggle came again, sounding so much like a teenage Sri Lankan girl that Cleo almost gagged.
"Tachi dao? What's that supposed to mean?"
Cleo sliced a look at her dad. At his imperceptible nod, she turned a smile on Radio Man.
"It means, asshole, that you're a dead man." The high-intensity beam stabbed across the den, searing in its intensity. Radio Man shrieked and threw up his gun arm to shield his eyes. The man to his left spun away from the light, then dropped like a lumberjack when Donovan's briefcase smashed into his head.
The goon to his right squeezed his eyes shut at the same instant as he pumped off several rounds. Cleo couldn't stop to see where they hit. She'd already launched herself through the air.
When the red haze cleared, Cleo had dropped goon number three, Jack's briefcase had put a crease in goon number two's skull, and Radio Man was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. The fist Jack had plowed into his face while he was still blinded by the forever beam had sent him south.
Bullets had stitched a seam across the den wall. One African mask hung at a crazy tilt. Another had splintered. Wanda was crushed under Patrick's sheltering body, screaming hysterically.
"It's okay," Patrick huffed, trying to calm his bride. "Wanda. Baby. It's okay."
She wouldn't believe him. Either that or she couldn't hear him over her own screams.
"Pop! For God's sake, you're crushing her."
While Jack collected the scattered weapons and mounted guard over Walls and his accomplices, Cleo helped her father and stepmom up, then dialed 911. She had to put the phone to one ear and a hand to the other to shut out Wanda's hysterics, but managed to get her message across.
Less than ten minutes later, three squad cars came tearing up the street, sirens wailing. When Jack let the police in and Patrick led his wife upstairs, Wanda was still gulping back sobs.
28
It was late, almost midnight, when Cleo mumbled into the speaker beside her front door.
"Little Miss Muffett sat on a tuffet."
She would just as soon Jack hadn't heard that. Short of directing him to stand on the sidewalk while she muttered into the speaker, there was no way to avoid it.
Sure enough, his eyes held a wicked glint when the door of her home-slash-office clicked open. "Real sophisticated code you use there, North."
"Sophisticated enough. The system only recognizes selected voice prints."
Jack gave the box another once-over. "I didn't realize they were putting out reliable voice-recognition systems for home-security systems."
"They're not. My stepcousin-in-law rigged this one. I gave her a hefty bonus for it. It won't come anywhere near the one I plan to give her for this little baby, though."
Jiggling the penlight on her key chain, Cleo led Jack inside.
"I have to meet this woman," he commented.
"You probably will. If you plan to stay more than a night or two, that is. She usually parks on my living room couch during working hours." Cleo dropped the keys on the counter and turned to face him. "Do you, by the way? Plan to stay more than a day or two?"
"Am I invited?"
Oh, yes, he was invited. Into her home. Into her heart. She owed him for dropping everything to come with her. Big time.
"Well, I can't see any reason for either of us to rush back to Washington. We've bagged Domino. We won't have to appear before any boards of inquiry for at least another week or so. And we have at least one more round to decide yet. We were going for two out of three, remember?"
"I remember."
Grinning, he hooked a hand in the waistband of her jeans and yanked her forward.
Cleo's heart did a joyful little dance against her ribs. She caught his hands, though, and held them still before he could work the snap.
"Thanks, Jack," she said softly, "for being there when I needed you."
"You're welcome."
As single-minded as most males, he had only one thing in his head at the moment. The snap popped. Her zipper came down.
"This time, we go the full count, babe. We don't answer any phones. We don't answer doorbells. No clients. No bosses. As long as it takes."
It took a long time.
All that night.
Most of the next day.
Well into the third day, when Jack had to fly back to Washington.
Cleo followed two weeks later. As she'd feared, she had to testify at so many different hearings and boards of inquiry she soon lost count. Every agency with an interest in the Pitsenbarger wanted the details on how and why she went down. The air force. The army. The navy. The Coast Guard. The U.S. Maritime Authority. The Department of Homeland Security.
The Pitsenbarger incident turned out to be merely the tip of the iceberg. Jack's queries about Radio Man had reopened dozens of cases the International Commercial Crimes Service maritime division had put in the cold file. He was soon up to his ass unraveling a string of hijackings and illegal shipments that stretched back for years and involved every country from Australia to Zimbabwe.
Cleo returned to Dallas, where her stepmother was still trying to recoup her shattered nerves and Doreen was enjoying the flat-screen TV she'd purchased with her hefty bonus. She'd mounted the screen high on the wall in Cleo's living room. She could now stretch out all two hundred plus pounds and cackle away in total comfort.
Given all Jack had to do, Cleo figured she'd hear from him in a month or so. She was surprised to get a call from OSI headquarters less than two weeks later. Even more surprised that it wasn't Jack on the other end of the line. It was a harried-sounding officer who identified himself as General Barnes's exec.
"Would you hold for the general, please? I'll put him on the line."
Despite herself, Cleo went into a mental brace.
"North?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are you available to work a case for us?"
"That depends. What is it?"
"Someone pumped two bullets into a United States Air Force captain stationed at RAF Laken-heath last night. We have reason to believe there may be international implications. At the request of the British government, I'm pulling Donovan off the Walls investigation and sending him over."
"And you want me to assist?"
A warm glow spread through Cleo. It felt good to be considered part of the team again. Better than she would ever have imagined.
"No," Barnes barked into the phone, bursting her bright bubble. "The British Intelligence Service, in the form of Lady Marston, wants you to assist. She seems to think you and Donovan make a helluva team."
He paused. Cleared his throat. Rattled his pipe stem against his teeth.
"So do I. When can you jump a plane for D.C.? I want to brief you before you leave for London."
Jack. London. Murder. What more could a girl ask for? Cleo's heart was already halfway across the Atlantic. Her feet stayed firmly rooted in her business.
"There's the slight matter of payment for services to be rendered to be discussed first."
Barnes made a noise halfway between a sigh and a snort. "Your standard fee, plus expenses."
"Color me gone, Chief."
Join Cleo North for another action-packed adventure in
THE LAST BULLET
by Merline Lovelace
“I’ve got to jump a plane to D.C. in a few hours, then I'm off to London," former USAF investigative agent turned private security consultant Cleo North announced as she breezed out of her office. "The air force wants me to work a murder case."
Mae, her part-time office manager, looked up from the latest issue of Golf Digest and gave an absent smile. "Your passport is in the safe. I'll go get it."
"And I'll go pack."
The call had come from her old boss, General Sam Barnes, commander of the USAF Office of Special Investigations. Cleo and the OSI chief had parted on somewhat less than amicable terms six years ago. Barnes had accepted her resignation with grudging words of praise for her ability to bust cases. He'd then tacked on rather scathing and, Cleo had thought, completely unnecessary comments about her hardheaded independence and tendency to bend the rules.
Her relationship with the Old Man hadn't improved over time. And matters had taken a definite turn for the worse when the ship-hijacking Cleo had recently helped foil had ended in an explosion that destroyed tons of air force munitions.
As if it was her fault the bullet she'd put into one of the hijackers had spun him around at the precise moment he'd decided to launch a
shoulder-held missile? At least she'd saved the Navy Seahawk helicopter the bastard had been aiming at, along with its crew…and the British operative who'd just climbed out of the chopper.
Now that operative wanted Cleo to investigate the murder of an American officer stationed in England.
Cleo's flight landed at Reagan National just past 2:00 p.m. Washington, D.C., was decked out in its best spring finery. The cherry trees surrounding the tidal basin had shed their blossoms, but still wore the feathery green leaves of May. The white marble columns of the Jefferson Memorial sparkled in the sun, as did the clean lines of the federal buildings in L'Enfant Plaza. Construction around the plaza slowed things to a crawl until the exit for the Capitol Street Bridge. Crossing the Potomac once more, they zipped along the Suitland Parkway.
Security was extremely tight at Andrews. Understandable, as the base was home to the 89th Airlift Wing, which flew Air Force One and other VIP support aircraft. The driver did a careful zigzag around strategically placed concrete barriers. At the sandbagged gate, Cleo was asked to provide two sources of identification. Even with a military driver, she had to wait while the security force specialist called OSI visitor control to verify her appointment.
Once cleared, the driver angled right and followed the perimeter road to the boulevard of flags leading to the 89th wing headquarters. The semicircular building also housed a number of tenant units, including the headquarters for the United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations.