Fatal Forgeries

by Ritter Ames

  At the roof’s edge, I crammed the confiscated phone into my purse and leaped across the opening between the buildings. Giuseppe followed a second later. The Prada messed with my trajectory, and I didn’t make the distance. I grabbed the short wall ledge along the top of the building. Hitting the apartment building knocked the air from my lungs, but I clung tight and took shallow breaths. The gun screwed Giuseppe the same way, but when I looked over he hung on with one arm, and turned to fire when the gunman tried again.

  We heard a cry.

  “Got him. Not that it’s going to do us much good now,” Giuseppe said, panting.

  I focused on all muscle memory I’d ever used to climb rock faces. The toes of my boots searched out every crack or crevasse I could find for upward movement. There was no way I could talk, so I hoped Giuseppe knew what to do or was strong enough to pull himself up. When my head cleared the short wall and I managed a temporary one-armed hold, I slung the Prada over, letting it drop to the roof so I had all hands free. My fingers ached for gloves, but I ignored the scrapes, pain, and broken fingernails, focusing on my goal. Close by, Giuseppe scrabbled like me up the rough exterior of the wall. I worked my feet and used my arms to pull myself up inch by inch. When I finally cleared the top, I hurried over to help Giuseppe.

  “Take the gun,” he cried. “Be ready to shoot if someone else comes.”

  His words were prophetic. A third gunman arrived, banged open the roof door of Miguel’s building, and fired as he ran. I pulled Giuseppe on over and handed him back the weapon. In the seconds he returned fire, I grabbed my Prada, then stayed low and did a one-eighty sweep to see what options offered escape.

  None.

  There was a door into the building, but it was locked. I didn’t have time to pick it and there was nothing big enough to use to break the lock. Giuseppe followed me to the far end of the building, watching to see if the gunman tried to jump as we had. So far, this new baddie relied on bullets. We needed to keep something between him and us whenever possible.

  “Should I shoot the lock on the door?” he asked.

  “If you do that, he’ll shoot you while you can’t shoot back.” I pointed down. “If we can drop to the balcony below, we can go through the window into the apartment. It’s just one floor. Unless he jumps, he’ll have to run back down to the street to shoot. We’ll have the building between us and him.”

  Another shot hit close, making the decision clear. I went first, holding onto the top of the building. Giuseppe returned fire.

  The balcony was only a couple of feet wide, and I hit the side instead of dead center, hugging the railing to stay vertical. Again, I had to pull myself up and over, but it was easier this time.

  Standing by the railing so I could block for Giuseppe, I shouted, “Come on.”

  He took another shot, then slipped the gun into his shoulder holster and followed my lead. He knocked against me as he fell, but I was ready. We didn’t go over the side.

  I pushed on the window. Locked. Cupping my hands around my eyes, I couldn’t see anyone.

  “Move!”

  Giuseppe grabbed the small iron plant stand at one end of the balcony and hurled it through the glass. We knocked the bigger shards inside and leapt through the shattered window, just as footsteps sounded on the roof above us. The shooter had decided to jump too.

  The apartment was a blur. We ran through to the hallway, found the stairs, and almost flew down both flights. We exited the building and broke cover at the courtyard, running full out. Zigging and ducking through shadowed lanes and leaping past wrought-iron gates. We heard shots from above and behind, and bullets zinged around us. I felt something bite into my thigh, and I stumbled but kept moving forward, limping as my energy flagged. Giuseppe cried out a moment later but kept pace with me. I was out in front, headed for an open portico in the eastern area. I turned to the right, trying to gain cover there instead of the open avenue to the left. My thigh burned. Giuseppe panted behind me.

  I caught movement to the side. A hand grabbed our collars, jerking us back a step. “I’ve got you. Come on.”

  NINETEEN

  My sight was blurred, but from the corner of my eye I saw Giuseppe reaching for his gun. Our captor noticed too.

  “Wait, no! Laurel, it’s me, Nico. I have a car. Come on.”

  Suddenly, my knees gave way. From relief or shock or the gunshot in my thigh, I didn’t know. Both guys grabbed me. We ran in tandem to the banged-up Peugeot Nico pointed to sitting at the curb along the avenue. We piled in and Nico floored the beater.

  In the backseat, Giuseppe immediately called his contact at the CNP and began feeding him information in Spanish. I had a feeling he never mentioned he had a gun.

  However, I had other personal—and greater—questions on my mind. I punched Nico in the shoulder.

  “How in the hell—” I began.

  “I’ve been monitoring your charm bracelet.”

  “But you’re here. We saw you on the video with Rollie. Heading for Switzerland. The message you left on the internet board. Were you kidnapped? Or…I can’t even say it.”

  Nico gave a rueful laugh. “No, I didn’t turn into a new Simon. Rollie thought I was working for him, but that was never the case. But my cover is blown. I won’t be able to go back.”

  Oh, we obviously had tons to discuss.

  “Did you know they were going to kill Miguel?”

  He shook his head. “I only learned last night they were feeding him bad information to get to you. He didn’t know it was coming from Rollie. It was all a front. Miguel was an innocent all along. Well, except for wanting to work pickpocket on the luxury yacht.”

  “So Rollie is trying to kill me.”

  “He says no, but his actions say otherwise.”

  “Do you know why?”

  He gave me a sad smile and nodded. “Do you?”

  I sighed. “Probably. But I’d prefer to have substantiated proof.”

  Still, what did I gain either way? Be the daughter of a master criminal moving guns and forgeries who’d pulled a gun on me? Or be the daughter of the apparently only good guy in a family of thieves and killers who died shortly after my mother? Likely by actions of that other possible father figure.

  “We’re staying at—”

  “I know where you’re staying,” Nico said. “Call Jack and tell him to meet us on the street. Rollie knows where you’re staying too.”

  I put the battery back into my phone. I had to redial twice before Jack woke up to answer, and by then we were almost to the hotel’s parking lot.

  “Leave our stuff,” I shouted. The volume on my brain seemed short circuited. “We have to cut and run. Rollie had Miguel killed and gunmen shot at us. Nico grabbed us.”

  “Nico?” Jack seemed to fully wake then. “Are you hurt?”

  I chewed my lip. “We could both use a doctor.”

  “I’ll kill him.”

  “You’ll have to stand in line,” I said.

  Nico said, “Tell him I’ll go to the front desk and take care of the bill. Just get out as quickly as possible.”

  Oh, it’s nice to have my right-hand geek back, I thought. Then I passed out.

  I woke up in the ambulance the CNP officer sent when Giuseppe said he and I had been shot. Saying I was fine did no good since Jack was there.

  “You’ve lost blood, you’re likely suffering from shock, and I’m going to wring Nico’s neck for not heading straight to hospital instead of coming for me. I would have gotten away, dammit.”

  “You were asleep. You had no clue.” While I did feel woozy, I hated to play the helpless female role. But getting shot after little sleep, sporadic and bad food, a whole lot of overnight tension, and a boot camp workout strenuous enough to keep me out of the gym for a month was making me kind of glad I was lying on the gurney.

  I needed stitc
hes, but Giuseppe said his was nothing and made them just clean and cover his wound with a bandage. Luckily, the bullets caused no major damage. Giuseppe’s passed cleanly through his arm, mostly a flesh wound. The one in my thigh didn’t hit bone, but I was warned I’d need to have physical therapy if I didn’t want lingering pain. I hated PT, but I hated lingering pain even more, so my future was set.

  Though I argued, I was admitted to a hospital room. It was a boring, much too beige room, but I figured it was the authorities’ way of making sure I stayed there until someone could come and get a statement from me. At least the room had a coffee station down the hall.

  Giuseppe told me the dead and wounded at the apartment house had all been rounded up after he told them where to look for everyone. But Rollie wasn’t one of the felons caught up in the delayed dragnet.

  “Did Rollie have visual on the takedown?” I asked Nico when he brought in coffee for us.

  He gave me a lazy look and a shrug. “He said he was going to, but I wasn’t the only one Rollie had working technical duties. My guess is he watched the whole thing from a distance. I wouldn’t have even known about it if one of the shooters hadn’t slipped up and said something when they were getting ready to leave. I hacked their phones then and pieced together what lies were told and what plans were being carried out. When I saw from your charm bracelet signal that you were in the center of things, I stole the car and got there as quickly as I could.”

  Jack disappeared by this time, as had Giuseppe’s gun and shoulder holster. I hoped he was just getting rid of the firearms and not doing something stupid. I was beginning to think I needed to plant another bug on Hawkes.

  “Where is he, Nico? I don’t need Jack to go all cowboy on me and singlehandedly take off after Rollie,” I said.

  “Rollie is in the wind. We need to watch out for him, but he’s not back today. However, I did find a cache of rather explosive treasure, and Jack and the CNP were very interested in that.”

  “Rollie’s team left it behind?” I asked.

  “I may have secured the room with a computer lock with a twenty-digit code, making it difficult for anyone to get back in and get the merchandise.”

  “Was there ever an auction?”

  “Yes, originally,” he said. “But you were right in thinking we messed up those plans. The original idea was to trade the Caravaggio to settle a debt for inventory. The auction was a fast, hush-hush maneuver to pull it off. Make the payoff with a bunch of other masterpieces run over the auction block. The time and place have been changed now. They’d originally confirmed the details at a restaurant in London, and Miguel stayed to eavesdrop when he heard about a big money event in Barcelona and happened to catch a reference on the painting. He remembered you talking about the work. But when he became too interested, Rollie used his curiosity to his advantage.”

  I sighed. “If I hadn’t pushed for extra information…”

  “It wasn’t your fault. Miguel was a thief,” Nico said. “He was doing it as much to try to get his own payday at the auction as to find out details for you. He believed the wrong people.”

  What Nico said made sense, but I still felt badly about what happened. “I grabbed a cell phone when we were in his apartment and put it in my purse. The phone was on the floor. Can you take it please and see if it’s his, and if he had any family I can contact?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said, patting my non-wounded leg.

  Barcelona would never have the same kind of memories for me after this trip.

  TWENTY

  While Jack wasn’t at the hospital to offer him support, Nico played babysitter to me and used the time to explain how when Rollie contacted him on his return from London he put into play a plan he and Jack had concocted behind my back. I’d resisted the stronger pain meds, but due to the fact sleep had been a luxury I couldn’t afford for the past several days, I had trouble staying alert as he talked. After I’d zoned out the third time, he said, “Why don’t you sleep a little. We’ll fill you in later when Jack gets back.”

  I wanted to argue, but a nap sounded too good right then. I played patient and stored up my anger for when I could unload on the two of them at the same time.

  “Okay,” I said. “I can wait.”

  Nico was no fool though and knew my quiet demeanor didn’t bode well for either of the males on my team. Once my short nap was over, and Hawkes came back flush with success over his and the CNP’s joint recovery of a battalion of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, Nico immediately snuck off again pleading the need to make arrangements for our return to London.

  By the time we took off, I had my plan in play, and when I had them as a captive audience and we were thirty-thousand feet from an escape, I made my move. “Exactly what moment did I become impeached as head of the Beacham London team?”

  Nico had booked us passage on a practically empty plane, so I had room to stretch out my leg, despite not being in first class. But more importantly, with the ambient sound of the engines and the air-filter system, there was little likelihood of being overheard. Jack and I sat across from one another in aisle seats, with Nico in the seat ahead of Jack, but he sat sideways to talk to the two of us.

  Nico initiated the back pedaling. “Jack and I talked before about what I should do if anyone previously associated with Simon tried to coerce me into working with them. He felt that was a calculated risk, and he was right.”

  I turned to Jack. He shrugged, saying, “It’s what I would do. Think out of the box.”

  “You can think outside the box all you want,” I said, looking each in the eyes. “But if I’m ever kept out of the loop like this again, you’ll find yourselves manning your own entire team. Because you won’t be on mine. I will not be treated like someone who has to be protected at every turn.”

  One of the flight attendants approached with a cart. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “Three Cokes,” I said. “Just leave the cans, please.”

  She smiled and handed over three cups of ice and cocktail napkins and opened the three cans. When she left, I figured we had a half hour before we’d be bothered again.

  Looking directly at Jack, I said, “From what I know you heard from Giuseppe, I showed my ability to perform in stressful situations. Anyone could have gotten shot and passed out. I stayed standing and scrambling at all critical junctures.”

  “You’re right, and I’m sorry,” Jack said. “Nico and I had unfounded concerns.” But his contrite manner didn’t completely convince me.

  My mind cast back to one of the first conversations he and I had at a fish and chips meal in London, when I was trying to figure out who Hawkes was and we were on the run from Moran’s guys. Jack made a comment then about not having “a Nico” working for him, and I smarted off that Nico would never work for Jack because my tech wizard didn’t tolerate smartasses. But now, though the epitaph fit him like a bespoke suit, Jack was much more, and I couldn’t stop vacillating between my anger over his setting this up without telling me and awe in how he set everything up so perfectly I never realized I, too, was being out-maneuvered. Leaving me to wonder at his apology and whether I was still getting played.

  Nico started talking again, and I tuned back in to the debriefing story.

  “I received a phone call when I was in Paris. Just after you boarded the Chunnel train on Thursday morning,” Nico said. “Very lucrative offer Rollie presented. Simon apparently extolled my talents on numerous occasions, exactly as Jack figured. Rollie’s current project had been derailed and needed me to provide digital backup for his team. I told him I’d think about it and call him.”

  “And you called Jack.” Obviously, I’d been wrong years ago about Nico’s tolerance for smartassery. I stopped trying to think in two directions at one time when he made the next revelation.

  “Yeah, to get everything set up like we’d talked. The ide
a was to get me in to feed info back from the inside. But we didn’t count on him being as paranoid as he is. I can get back in, except the digital operation randomly changes entry codes every twenty-four hours. What I know today will be useless tomorrow.”

  I looked at Hawkes. “So you already knew all about this at the same time I had Nico on speaker three days ago and made my big confession about the Caravaggio.”

  “Sort of,” he said. “Nico and I didn’t have the chance to talk about the full spectrum until after he got back into London and temporarily rid himself of Rollie. We talked after the conference call.”

  “Of course. That was why you looked guilty when you shoved your phone in your pocket Thursday morning when I came out of the restaurant bathroom after talking to Marci. You hadn’t been talking to your boss. You’d been talking to Nico.”

  He shrugged, then had the courtesy to offer a sheepish grin. “I did talk briefly to Cecil before the call from Nico. And Cecil did call me in for a briefing.”

  Nico jumped in to fill the conversation then. I had no doubt it was due to the look on my face. I tamped down my anger to listen to his words.

  “When I realized we needed to move quickly, I called Patricia,” Nico said. “The group was in Berlin, and I connected with them from Paris to return in their plane to London. You could have blown me over when I learned Rollie was the one who originally planned to transport the Caravaggio to the auction as a scheme to get onboard to meet with the secondary gun purchaser.”