Captive Target: Six Assassins Book 4

by Heskett, Jim

  “I’m not sure I know yet. My sample size is too small here.”

  “Keep trying. She’s got to be there.”

  Isabel's head swiveled around the room, looking for anyone who could fit the meager description Jacob had given her. "I don't think I see her."

  "Let's hope you do soon,” Jacob said. “The credit card she used for the Thum rideshare to that restaurant has already been deactivated. This Serena woman knows what she's doing. If I can get up on another credit card for her, that one won't last long, either."

  "I know, Jacob. I appreciate all your help."

  The restaurant's main dining room opened to a side patio room. That door swung open, and through it walked a woman with the phone up to her ear. She wore a navy blue peacoat and black jeans, with a small clutch in one hand.

  Isabel tried not to stare, but she watched out of her peripheral. It had to be Serena Rojas. She fit Jacob’s description exactly. She was beautiful, with a slim, athletic build that Isabel could tell had been honed for better reasons than simple vanity. This woman knew how to carry herself, and Isabel prayed she wouldn’t have to test her skills against her.

  In some ways, she even looked like Ember Clarke. Same height and weight, very similar hair. Same figure — lean, with a posture of toughness, yet still somehow petite.

  "I think I got her," Isabel whispered.

  "Then hold on tight and don't let go. Is she carrying a purse?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “If you can drop the tracker in her bag, that would be ideal. She might change coats or pants, but she probably only brought one purse with her on this trip.”

  Isabel drew the tracker out of her pocket. It was about as big as a quarter, a plastic case around a microchip and battery, with a dormant LED protruding from one end. Isabel squeezed the chip, expecting the LED to flash, but it didn’t.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “What’s that about?” Jacob asked.

  “These trackers are supposed to flash the LED when you squeeze them, right? So you can test the battery?”

  “Yes.”

  “Crap. This one isn’t working. Busted battery, or it ran out of juice, or something.”

  “That’s not good.”

  Isabel watched Serena take a seat at a table as a waiter set a plate of food in front of the assassin. “What do I do, Jacob?”

  “You’re going to have to tail her manually. I can see about getting another bug to you. I do know a few people locally, but I can’t promise anything.”

  “Forget it. I’ll do this the old-fashioned way.”

  “You sure?”

  Isabel considered it, gritting her teeth. “If what you’ve told me about this woman is true, then there’s no way I could get close enough to her to stash a bug in her tiny purse, anyway. Keeping my distance might be the best play.”

  Jacob sucked in a breath and then held it. “Okay, If you think that’s the way to go. Call me when she makes another move."

  “Thanks again," Isabel said and then ended the call.

  She folded her menu as she watched the woman who was ostensibly in Boulder to kill Ember Clarke. She sat by herself at a small table, eating a club sandwich with French fries. She did not touch the fries. Her head stayed down, her thumb flicking along her phone as she nibbled on the sandwich. Not once did she turn around to survey the restaurant. Was she foolish or confident? Isabel suspected it was confidence.

  Then, Isabel realized why she never had to turn around. Seated close to a bright window at another table was a man with mirrored sunglasses. Serena had positioned her chair so she could face this man, to use those mirrors so she could watch her back. Very clever.

  About five minutes into her observation, Isabel watched a young guy stride across the restaurant and approach Serena’s table. The brave man-child stood with his back straight and chest out, trying to appear more masculine and mature than his twenty-or-so years displayed. Big sly grin on his face, this kid’s flirty mode on full display.

  As the young man chatted up Serena, she humored him with smiles and nods for about a minute, then her expression turned sour. Isabel was too far away from the table to hear anything they were saying to each other, but at one point, Isabel was fairly certain she could read Serena's lips. The older woman had said something like, "I'm not interested. Please leave me alone so I can eat my lunch."

  But, the young man persisted. His demeanor grew more and more flirtatious, and he inched closer and closer to the table. Serena became increasingly annoyed. She withstood it, but Isabel was starting to think this exchange would end with the young man getting a plate smashed into his face. It was an interesting exchange to observe, really. Any normal human being would want to kill this guy, yet Serena was no normal human. She couldn't attract that much attention to herself. Surely Serena wouldn't do something as rash as that.

  Isabel gradually became curious how it would play out.

  Finally, about two minutes later, Isabel could hear Serena forcefully say no, and it seemed to end right there. She'd said it with enough inertia that a few heads at nearby tables turned around to eavesdrop. Serena quickly ducked her head back down, not giving any onlookers a clear view of her face.

  The young man, appearing wounded, skulked away from the table just as Isabel's order of fish and chips arrived. He turned and gave Serena a quick sneer before he retreated to a table full of boys around his age. They all snickered at him. His face turned red, scowling, staring down at his plate. Isabel knew that look. His fragile and testosterone-addled pride had been devastated at the rejection, which would soon bleed into anger. If Serena were smart, she would notice it too, and make her way out of here before the kid decided to come back and make a scene big enough for the whole restaurant to notice.

  But, Isabel’s target didn’t seem concerned at all. Serena’s silent lunch continued on after that. Ten minutes later, Serena took her bill, paid with cash, and then got up to leave the restaurant. Isabel dropped a $20 bill on the table and stood to follow her. The surveillance officially began now.

  But, Isabel noticed, the young man also decided to make his move. Still glowering, he left his friends at the table behind and torpedoed his way toward the front.

  Isabel hung back as Serena walked out the front door of the restaurant and stood on the patio out front, probably awaiting a Thum driver to shuttle her to her next destination. Isabel watched her through two sets of double doors between the front and the interior of the restaurant.

  Isabel had a brief thought to stop the scorned caller from advancing. But, a part of her wanted to see what would happen. How would Serena deal with this? So, she took a step back toward the wall, using a tall potted plant as cover.

  The young man strode past Isabel and marched outside, onto the front walkway between the restaurant and the parking lot. He said something to Serena. Isabel couldn't hear it. But, when he finished with his sentence, he tried to slip a hand onto Serena's shoulder. Before his palm could touch the fabric of her jacket, Serena shot out a hand and grabbed the young man by the wrist. She twisted his forearm toward his body, causing his elbow to flare out. Serena then jabbed forward, moving his wrist toward his shoulder. All of this had happened in less than one full second.

  The young man cried out in pain and sank to his knees. Isabel couldn't hear what he was saying, but it sounded like he was begging for her to release him. There was no one presently in the parking lot. Serena must have noticed this before deciding to teach the kid a lesson.

  Her free hand snaked back toward the rear of her jacket. Isabel assumed she had a gun back there. Surely, this woman would know better than to shoot this dumb and horny kid in a public restaurant parking lot. Even though there was no one watching, a silenced gunshot would still attract attention from people inside the building.

  But, she didn't draw a gun. She pulled a wool skullcap from her back pocket and slid it down over her head. She gave the poor kid’s wrist one final shove, knocking him back on his butt.

&n
bsp; The flirty guy stood, clutching his wrist to his chest. With tears in his eyes, he said something to Serena and then scurried off like a mouse hunting for a hole in the wall.

  Serena glared at him as he escaped. Then the car pulled up and she entered the passenger side. As she drove away, Isabel narrowed her eyes and watched this trained killer go. This was going to be a lot harder than she initially thought.

  Chapter Ten

  EMBER

  The prisoner finally did drink the water. It tasted fine, and a couple of hours later, she had neither died, nor fallen asleep, nor gotten sick in any way. That gave her the confidence to try one of the granola bars in the cupboard. She was actually feeling better since the exhaustion and weariness of earlier today. Food and drink helped.

  In addition to snacking and sipping water, Ember explored this basement space. It was a sizable room with three doors, aside from the door at the top of the two-tiered stairs. She had already tried that exit door, and it was locked with multiple manual deadbolts, all of them made from what appeared to be non-magnetic titanium. No surprise there.

  Two of the other doors in the room were locked. There were no keyholes in the doorknobs for her to pick. They must've operated on a key card somehow, maybe like the one embedded in the rear of the Boulder Post Office. Behind one door, she could hear a whirring or some sort of mechanical sound. Probably the water heater for the house, or building, or wherever the hell she was. Ember assumed this was a house, but she wasn't certain.

  Behind the other locked door, she could hear nothing. The third door opened into a closet. There was a decent collection of clothes inside, all of them in Ember’s size. After a thorough inspection, she could find no RFID chips or other means of tracking sewn into the clothes.

  She changed into a pair of black sweatpants and a red long-sleeved shirt, since it was quite chilly down here. Ember had a little trouble pulling her shirt down over the bulky neck collar, but she eventually got it on.

  Had Veronica really designed this basement space just for Ember? Everyone knew those Richie Riches in the Golden Branch had tons of money, but this must've cost a mint. Whatever technology it took to create these magnetic wrist and neck cuffs was beyond anything Ember had ever seen available for public consumption. In government labs? Sure. But not available to pick up at the sporting goods store at the mall.

  Despite racking her brain, Ember could not recall why Veronica would be so mad at her. They had known each other for a while, in the way that assassins in different Branches drifted through each others’ lives at odd moments. Club meetings, random message board posts, that sort of thing. Ember had no idea why Veronica would hate her with such a passion.

  The only thing that could warrant such behavior in Ember’s mind was direct competition. Had Ember somehow crossed a line with this woman? Had she stepped on her toes? And if so, how invested did someone have to be to spend a fortune on a fancy torture chamber?

  She was frustrated, but she needed to keep her head clear. There had to be a way out. There was always a way out. Ember might need to use her mind and her strength, but there was a solution to his puzzle. She would find it.

  The question was, would she be able to find it in time?

  At the bottom of this closet, Ember found what appeared to be a shiny metal cube, about two feet tall and wide. It was the only large metal object in the room she had been able to find. Didn’t seem to be magnetic, though. Maybe titanium, as were many other things here. And like the nightstand, it had been bolted to the floor. When Ember put her ear up against the box, she could hear the soft sound of a fan moving inside it, like a computer chugging at full speed. Her wrist and neck cuffs were drawn to it. This thing had its own magnetic pull. And, when she touched a wrist cuff to it, the magnetism increased dramatically. Odd.

  She had to assume this had something to do with magnetic operation tied to that remote key fob thing Veronica had activated before. The box had seams at the corners, but they had been welded. A single non-welded seam ran up the right side with a teeny gap visible, but she didn’t have anything to wedge into the seam to widen it.

  Ember could not see a way to gain access to the box.

  "I can't believe she went to all this trouble," Ember muttered to herself. She sighed and left the closet to explore her prison cell further.

  In this little concrete space, Ember soon found she had nothing but time, so her thoughts careened around her head like reckless street racers. She found herself thinking about Zach. His boss was due back in Colorado in another day or two, to get a final answer from Zach about whether or not he would move to Sacramento. The “final” part of that phrase bothered Ember the most. If these people were willing to go so far as to plant child pornography to send Zach a message, then who knew what else they would do. Probably not kill Zach, since that would defeat the purpose of trying to court him.

  Maybe they would, though, at some point. If he kept refusing and they decided to cut their losses, they might then label him a liability. In that case, it wouldn’t be a stretch to take him out. Zach was clever, but he wouldn’t know how to defend himself against a trained killer coming for him.

  Ember felt so helpless here, in this room with no exit. She couldn’t help Zach, and she couldn’t help Gabe, either. The other young man in her life needed her almost as much as Zach did.

  “Wait a second,” Ember said to the silent room as a thought popped up. “Am I a cougar?”

  A strange notion to ponder. She’d never pictured herself as a thirty-something bored housewife bringing the hot young pool guy a glass of lemonade. Compared to her, though, Zach and Gabe seemed like jailbait.

  Regardless, Gabe was about to embark on his Club membership test. Fagan had taken over administering it, of course, but that didn’t mean Ember had no part to play. She was supposed to mentor him, after all. Gabe was smart and capable, but when stressed, he tended to sink deep into a lack of belief in himself. But, maybe having no mentor to fall back on was exactly what he needed for his test. Unfortunate for Ember, but maybe the best thing for him.

  She hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She hoped to be out of this room and on her way to freedom as soon as possible. But, given what she’d seen of the security here, that didn’t seem likely.

  Hours passed. Ember watched the sun sink across the sky through the distorted frosted glass in the sole window looking outside. She did not have her watch, which meant she was not getting credit for any of these steps as she paced around her concrete cage. But, maybe even worse, she had no idea what time it was. There were no decorations on the walls and no clocks. Ember estimated she had been down here for eight hours since waking up, and Veronica had not returned. But eight hours could actually be twelve or four—no way to know for certain.

  At the FBI Academy, Ember had undergone training for something like this. Extended sensory deprivation with no clocks and no watch to test interrogation endurance. But, back then, she had the comfort of knowing it would end at some point.

  Ember had no idea what would happen next, locked in this basement, at the whims of a woman who despised her.

  Ember knew what Veronica wanted. To kill her. To complete a contract for the Golden Branch of the Denver Assassins Club as part of Ember’s black spot trial by combat. But what Ember could not figure out was why Veronica wanted to wait, or why she had gone to so much trouble. She’d already said she wasn't going to torture Ember. So why delay? Why draw it out? Why give Ember a chance to figure out how to escape?

  When Ember decided she was not going to be able to think her way to an answer to that question, she retired to the little twin bed, picked up the paperback of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods from the nightstand, and settled in.

  Chapter Eleven

  GABE

  As the sun set behind the mountains to the west, Gabe knocked on the door to Fagan's house at the north end of Boulder. A small thing, looked like one bedroom. Gabe had never been here before. He had always seen Fagan around at the Post Office, ta
lking with Ember, going hard in the gym—which surprised him, given Fagan's age—or lecturing groups of newer assassins in one of the classrooms. Fagan was an "old-timer," and even though the Branch didn't have an official leader, many considered her to be it. Especially now that Charlie was gone.

  Fagan was usually the one sent to Denver to observe at Review Board meetings. She was often the arbiter of disputes and had more knowledge of Branch history than the official Historian did. Most membership tests were approved by Fagan. She allegedly had a network of spies in other Branches and was always the first to know of new developments.

  They couldn’t give her the title of Branch boss or operator or manager, because the title didn’t exist, according to the Club’s bylaws. But everyone treated her like it. No one was more qualified to steer the Branch than her. That’s how Gabe understood it, at least, as explained to him by his mentor.

  When Fagan opened the door, Gabe did his best not to stare at the burned half of her face. As usual, he overcompensated and focused on her neck. This obvious deflection was probably as bad as staring higher, but he didn’t know what else to do.

  “Come in,” Fagan said. She was wearing a terry cloth robe, with what remained of her hair wet and slicked back. She looked fresh out of the shower. A little weird for Gabe to stand so close to her, knowing she was naked underneath that thing. But, it didn’t seem to bother Fagan at all. And, after all, Gabe had let Ember into his place recently while he was wearing a similar getup. No shame between assassins, maybe.

  Gabe entered and glanced around. The interior of the house was simple and clean, with framed pictures of flowers hanging above a brown and black furniture collection. The general decor seemed dark and woody.

  “Tea?”

  Gabe shook his head. “Not much of a tea drinker.”