When he took the freeway entrance to Highway 101, she panicked for a moment when she realized he might be heading to the airport. Walker’s boy hadn’t said Drake had checked out of the Marriott, but it was a possibility she had to consider. If he was leaving, did Walker want her to follow him or would the contract be canceled? She decided to wait until she knew if he was leaving.
The black Audi stayed on the freeway until it took the exit to the San Francisco Airport, where it suddenly turned onto ramp to the Domestic Parking Garage. Adriana slapped the steering wheel with her hand and continued to circle the terminals with the rest of the traffic. None of the cars between her car and the attorney’s had followed him into Domestic Parking, and she would have been right behind him when he stopped to collect his parking stub. She couldn’t afford to be recognized yet. She had to break off surveillance.
But the good news was that she knew the Domestic Parking Garage was short-term parking only. It was unlikely that he would be parking there if he was leaving San Francisco. She made a quick call to the mansion that Walker used when he was in the City and told his head of security to find out if her target had checked out of the Marriott Marquis. She had her answer before she completed one more lap around the terminals. According to the Marriott’s computer system, which the Alliance had hacked into when the attorney became a concern, Drake was still registered there.
Adriana Hermann drove out of the San Francisco Airport terminal area and got back on Highway 101. Her plan was to return to the Marriott to prepare for the night. The big orange sun was setting to the west and she had work to do.
Chapter 24
Drake waited for Mike Casey’s Southwest Airline flight from Las Vegas to arrive in Terminal 1, and it arrived right on time. His friend was easy to spot, with his red hair towering above the heads of the other passengers. When Casey spotted Drake’s face in the crowd, he smiled and walked over.
“How was Vegas?” Drake asked they turned and followed the herd to the baggage claim area.
“Profitable but boring,” Casey said. “Eighty seven companies offering executive protection services to maybe thirty potential clients, and three days of speakers with nothing new to say. Every time some poor head of security said his company might be looking for a new security service, it turned into a shark feeding frenzy around him.”
Drake chuckled and nodded. “Sounds like lawyers at a business conference,” he said. “Did you get a room at the Marriott?”
“Yep. And I’m ready to do the town. How’s your thing coming along?”
“I’ll tell you over dinner. If you’re still hungry.”
Casey laughed. “Peanuts and pretzels just made me thirsty. Of course I’m hungry. Especially since you’re paying.”
They continued their friendly banter and small talk until Casey’s luggage came riding along on the carousel. Within minutes after that, they were fastening their seatbelts in Drake’s car.
“Did you rent this?” Casey asked as Drake drove to the exit of the parking garage.
“My client loaned it to me. He’s into Audis and racing his forty-foot yacht when he’s not developing software for the government.” Drake paid at the booth and continued, “I thought you might like prime rib for dinner. That all right with you?”
“Excellent choice, says your ever-faithful gourmand. Are you back on your feed after that stint you did in the hospital last month?”
“Almost there, Mike. A few headaches still. I’ve recovered about ninety percent strength in my left arm. But I’m running again, and I’m getting faster. If my reflexes were as good as they used to be, before…well, I might have saved that woman Tuesday.”
Casey turned in his seat to face Drake. “I thought this was just a consulting gig for this company.”
“I did, too, but now I’m not so sure.” He spent the rest of the ride to the hotel detailing his last four days in San Francisco. Casey wanted to check in at the Marriott, and Drake needed to change his clothes. The House of Prime Rib, the landmark restaurant at the foot of Nob Hill where he had reservations, didn’t require a suit and tie, but he was still wearing the lightning yellow Oregon sweatshirt he’d worn sailing that afternoon. There was no need, he told himself, to blind the other dinner patrons with Nike’s latest fashion statement.
An hour later, he handed his key to the parking valet at the restaurant and they ordered a round of drinks before dinner, Maker’s Mark for Drake, Jack Daniels for Casey, Drake watched Casey studying his menu. No one he knew enjoyed eating as much his tall, thin friend.
“You look good, Mike,” he said. “When we were slogging around the Middle East, did you ever think you’d wind up being the CEO of Puget Sound Security?”
Casey looked over the top of his menu. “I thought I’d be running the family ranch in Montana. Raising prime beef and selling it to places like this. If my folks hadn’t decided to sell the ranch when mom got sick, you know, that’s where I’d be right now. Did you ever think you’d be chasing bad guys again?”
Drake shook his head. “When we left the army, I wanted to be a prosecutor and put them in jail, not chase them like I’ve been doing lately,” he said. “It’s funny, we’re both doing something closer to what we were trained to do in the army than what we were trained to do in college.”
Their drinks arrived and Drake proposed a toast, “Here’s to higher education and student loans.”
When a red-vested waiter arrived to take their orders, Casey fulfilled Drake’s expectations by ordering the extra-generous, thick-cut prime rib with all the trimmings. Drake ordered a smaller cut and a bottle of Chalone pinot noir.
“Mike, you help companies deal with cyber crime, right?” he asked after the waiter left. “So tell me…how aggressive are these cyber criminals?”
“How do you mean, aggressive? Their attacks can be very bold and relentless. Or extremely subtle. Are you asking if we also have to protect our clients from the more common types of theft, like burglary or robbery?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Drake said. “If the detective is right and there’s a connection between the ESI manager’s death and the drive-by shooting in the parking lot, what does that accomplish when what they’re after can be stolen without killing anyone?”
“It wouldn’t accomplish anything that I can see,” Casey said. “Which is probably why I haven’t run into it before. Maybe the manager’s death and the mother’s death aren’t connected,” he offered. “Maybe the gang bangers were shooting at you because you’re tall and good looking and you were standing with a woman, ergo, you’re heterosexual. This is San Francisco, after all.”
“Thanks, Mike,” Drake laughed. “You’re a big help.”
By the time Casey had finished eating the slab of prime rib that been carved for him at their table and polished off an English trifle for desert, it was almost ten o’clock. Tables around them were being cleared for the night.
“That, my friend, was a treat,” Casey said. “Thank you. I might not need breakfast tomorrow.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Drake shot back. “What time does your flight leave?” He slipped the credit card receipt in his wallet and thanked the waiter for their meal with a generous tip.
“Not until nine thirty in the morning,” Casey said as they maneuvered around tables on their way out of the restaurant.
“I thought I’d run another of the Presidio trails,” Drake said. “Come with me. It’s a good way to work off that dinner. I’ll also show you where the mother was killed. See if it reads like a drive-by shooting to you.”
“If I run with you,” Casey said as he threw his arm around Drake’s shoulders, “I might need breakfast. Throw that in and I’ll gladly allow you to chase me through the Presidio.”
While they waited for the parking valet to bring Drake’s car around, challenges were exchanged and bets made on their friendly jog the next morning.
Chapter 25
Adriana Hermann was waiting in her executive suite for a call from the lobby. After returning from the airport, she’d had nothing to do until one of the spotters confirmed that her target was alone in his room.
Her little black dress lay on the bed for now. She was naked, just as she would be when the man was paralyzed and wondering why there were stainless steel surgical tools on the nightstand. After she showered to make sure there were no signs of the little procedure she always performed on her victims, she would still need to leave his room without frightening people. So the tight little dress had to look as good coming out as it did when she went into his room.
To pass the time until the call came, she had showered, put on makeup for the night, and played solitaire on her iPad. Then, sitting patiently just in her black panties and bra, she checked email messages from her friends in Los Angeles and watched an episode of Criminal Minds. It amused her that so many people actually thought that profilers might understand how her mind worked. When she had killed the man who had raped her, her first kill, she hadn’t been angry or revengeful, and she didn’t have a daddy problem that made her do it, either. The man hadn’t waited to give her the same pleasure he was having. That wasn’t fair. Besides that, he had bad breath.
She didn’t expect tonight’s target to have bad breath. She hadn’t seen him smoke, and he appeared to have good hygiene. The only bad odor she thought she would encounter would be his fear when he realized he was paralyzed and couldn’t breathe. It was always in those first couple minutes, when she stood over men and looked down into their unblinking eyes, that she wished she could read their minds. Did they appreciate that they had been chosen to die at the hands of a beautiful naked woman? Did they know what a select group of men they were about to join? Men who were deemed by her employers to be so dangerous that only a beautiful woman could get close enough to kill them.
And that was what would make tonight special. The attorney was supposed to be good. She would know soon enough if that were true.
In her black leather clutch was a tiny Austrian-made spy gun with the poison dart attachment. She had already loaded the curare-tipped dart that would paralyze Drake within a minute and stop his breathing within four minutes. The clutch also held a black pen that had been modified to pick the hotel’s electronic keycard locks. To exploit the vulnerability in the lock, all she had to do was push the pen into the DC port on the underside of the lock and it instantly opened. When she picked the lock to his door and stepped in, she would act like she’d had too much to drink. When she started to undress, a moment’s hesitation on his part was all the time she needed to fire the dart gun. It had worked before, and she was confident it would work again. Men were such little boys when confronted by a naked woman.
The leather clutch also held latex gloves and her surgical tools. After she hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the door, she would have all the time she needed to clean up, return to her own room for a change of clothes, and leave the hotel before dawn. There would be nothing that could be traced to her, except the male body parts left on the night stand. These were the signature of the world’s deadliest woman.
The call came at ten thirty. The attorney had returned to the hotel and was in his room on the twenty-fifth floor.
She walked to the bed and slid into her little black dress, slipped into her five-inch, black stiletto heels, and stopped one last time at the mirror in the bathroom to check her hair and lipstick. Her blue eyes searched her reflection for any flaw in her appearance and found none. She was ready.
Chapter 26
Mike Casey threw his blue, hardshell, rolling Pullman on the end of the bed and sat down next to it. He’d had so much fun with Drake at dinner that he’d forgotten to call Megan, his wife, and let her know he was fine and would be home tomorrow, just as soon as he’d won his bet on the Presidio run. He checked his watch and saw that it wasn’t past Megan’s bedtime, so he decided to call before turning in.
“Hi, Megs,” he said when she answered. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“You know I can’t sleep when you’re gone. I’m working my way through Season One of Downton Abbey that I rented to keep me company. Are you and Drake back already? I thought you’d be out on the town.”
“No. Drake’s starting to show his age. I thought I’d get him to bed early.”
“Be nice to him,” she laughed. “You’re older than he is. Maybe you’re the one who needs to get to bed early after a week in Vegas. Go ride the trolley to the Buena Vista and have an Irish coffee. You’ve always wanted to do that.”
“And if I don’t, I suppose I won’t hear the last of it. You’re a hard woman, Mrs. Casey, forcing me to go out on a night when the moon is full in a place as strange as San Francisco.”
“I am a hard woman,” she laughed again, “and don’t you forget it. Tell Adam hi for me. And be home before five. The children are going to surprise you and cook dinner.”
Casey smiled at the thought of his two young children cooking dinner. He knew he would probably be feasting on mac ’n’ cheese and garlic bread tomorrow night. That was the kids’ all-time favorite meal.
But she’s right, he thought. Ten-thirty is too early for two thirty-something studs to be in bed. “Drake’ll just have to suck it up and deal with it,” he muttered. “Besides, if he did need the rest and stayed up too late, he’d be that much easier to beat tomorrow at the Presidio. He retrieved his wrinkle-free sports coat from the closet and left the room with it draped over his shoulder. He knew Drake’s room was on the twenty-fifth floor, but he didn’t know the room number.
“Hope you’re not in bed, buddy,” he said when Drake answered his call. “Megan’s making me take you out for a proper cup of Irish coffee. You up for that?”
“Is this about our run tomorrow? Some devious plan to make sure you win our bet?”
Casey laughed. “I’m sure I won’t need a devious plan to win. You’re forgetting I ran cross country in college. What’s your room number?”
“I’m in 2535, last room at the end of the hall. Are you on your way now?” Drake asked.
“Just getting in the elevator. I’ll be there in five.”
Casey had the elevator all to himself for the ride up six floors. When the door opened again on 25, he saw that rooms 2501 to 2535 were down a hallway that angled off to the right and that rooms 2536 to 2571 were down a hallway to the left. He started down the long hallway, thinking about where the closest trolley car station was that would take them to the Buena Vista. Megan was right. He and Drake were too young to be in bed this early. Drake did have an excuse, though. He’d almost been killed in that explosion just a month ago.
Then he noticed a woman kneeling in front of her door at the far end of the hallway and fiddling with the key card lock. He hoped she wasn’t drunk, because the last thing he wanted to do tonight was be accused of coming on to a vulnerable woman when he stopped and asked if she needed help.
As he got closer to her, however, he was surprised to see that she was trying to get in Drake’s room. It was the last room on the right side of the hallway and that was the door she was trying to open.
“May I help you, Miss?” Casey said, possibly louder than necessary, as he approached. He noticed her small purse lying open on the floor beside her and that she was about to push a black pen up into the bottom of the key card lock on Drake’s door. That’s when he knew then she wasn’t drunk and didn’t need his help. She was using an electronic lock picking device to break into Drake’s room.
As Casey reached for his cell phone to call security, the woman grabbed her purse and took out a tiny revolver with a funny attachment on the barrel. She kept the gun in her right hand pointed at his chest while she picked up the purse with her left hand.
“There’s no need for that,” Casey said as held his cell phone out to show her it wasn’t a gun. “I’ll just move
against the wall and you can leave.”
Casey saw that she was five foot ten in her stiletto heels and beautiful. She circled around him. He turned slowly, trying to get his cell phone pointed to get a clear shot of her face, when she shot him in the stomach and ran down the hallway.
As he fell back against the door of room 2535, he tried to call for help, but no sound came out of his mouth.
Chapter 27
Drake, who was sitting at the work desk in his room, reading an email from his secretary, heard something crash against the door. If that’s Mike, he thought, he needs some help with his hotel etiquette. That crash was loud enough to wake people up.
“That you, Mike?” he asked as he looked out through the peephole. When no one answered and he couldn’t see anyone at his door, he cracked the door. His friend was lying on the floor.
“Mike! Can you hear me?” Kneeling down, he felt for a carotid pulse and found it racing. Casey’s eyes were unblinking and staring up. He wasn’t breathing. He tilted Casey’s head back, made sure his airways were clear, and immediately started CPR, thirty chest compressions followed by two rescue breaths per cycle. After two cycles, Casey still wasn’t breathing.
“Come on, Mike—breathe!” It was time to get help. “Someone call 911,” he shouted.
The door across from his room opened and a man in blue boxers looked out.
“Call 911,” Drake said. “He’s not breathing.” He continued his rhythm of chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth rescue breaths. He knew that if it was a stroke, he had to keep blood flowing to Casey’s brain. But his heart was beating. He just wasn’t breathing. Whatever it was, all he could do was continue CPR and pray that help would arrive soon.
The man across the hall came back in jeans and a T-shirt, talking with someone on his cell phone. “They want me to stay on the line,” he said to Drake, “but the EMT’s are on the way.”
Dark Trojan (The Adam Drake series Book 3) Page 8
