by Joel Goldman
He shoved himself out of the chair and paced the length of the suite. If he couldn’t find Cassie there was no chance he’d ever convince her that they should work together.
Stopping at the wall of windows twenty-five stories above the city, he stared out into the night. Bright yellow headlights blurred and blended with red taillights in a swirl of color snaking through the streets. Buildings glimmered and glowed as lights were turned on and off. Stars shown down from an ink black sky, the full moon shining its own glittering spotlight on the Thames. It was the kind of view that should have made him pause in appreciation but to his eye, it was a gigantic puzzle, a random maze that he couldn’t navigate.
He slapped his hand against the glass and started pacing again, feeling like he was playing against the house in a rigged game. He could draw cards all night and still not have a chance. And that, he finally realized was his mistake. He had to think of this like it was a poker game and poker wasn’t only about the cards - it was about the people playing them. He’d won more money by breaking the codes behind their expressions, body language and chatter than by hitting on the last card. He’d have to change the game to one in which he could talk to or, better yet, see Cassie.
The obvious solution was to call her but that was more problematic than it appeared. He needed to catch her off guard. Otherwise, she’d suspect that he was digging for information. If he called and she didn’t answer, she’d have time to prepare before calling back. If she answered but didn’t have the time or inclination to play his game, he’d have wasted what would probably be his only shot. Somehow, he had to make her call him when her case was the furthest thing from her mind.
Striding back and forth, he caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror hanging on a wall between two four-drawer dressers, giving him an idea. Smartphone in hand, he stood in front of the mirror and loosened his towel, letting it drop to the floor. With one hand placed strategically over his groin, he smiled and snapped a selfie of his reflection. Chuckling, he texted the photo to Cassie, adding what’s up? He put the towel back on and waited. Less than a minute later, his phone beeped with her invitation for a FaceTime call. He tapped a button on the phone and her face materialized.
“Oh, my god! You are totally insane!” She cackled and wiped tears from her eyes.
“Why? Was the lighting that bad?”
She sputtered and giggled, barely able to get the words out. “The lighting was fine but I didn’t realize you had such small hands.”
“You forget that the camera is like the side mirror on your car. Objects are much larger than they appear.”
Cassie finally caught her breath. “No, dummy. They are closer than they appear. Seriously, though, you’re out of you mind, you do know that? I can blackmail you for the rest of your life with this picture.”
“You forget that I have no shame. I couldn’t find a decent game and didn’t have anything better to do so I thought I’d brighten both our days.”
“Well, you succeeded.”
He paused. “I miss you.” He regretted the words as soon as they slipped out. Turning the call into a serious discussion of their relationship would end it before he got started.
Cassie dropped her eyes for a moment, then looked at him, her voice soft and low. “I know.”
Jake wished she’d have reciprocated but shifted gears. “Hey, how about I send you another selfie. Just tell me where to put my hand.”
Cassie couldn’t help but laugh again. “No! No! No! Don’t you dare! Wait! Forget the dare part. I know you can’t resist that. Just, just – put some pants on.”
“All I’ve got is a towel.”
“Really?”
“Really. Ooops. It fell off,” he said, letting it go. “I’ll just bend over.” He slowly aimed the camera toward his waist.
Cassie let out a scream mixed with laughter and turned her head away from the camera, giving Jake a view of papers spread across her desk. He snapped a picture and grabbed the towel.
“You can look now. I’m decent again.”
She came back into view, still grinning. “I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“You know, you’re probably right. I think I’ll ditch the towel.”
“That’s my cue to say goodbye, but….”
“Yes…”
“This was fun…Let’s do it again sometime.”
He hadn’t learned anything from Cassie that would help him find her. But, he’d taken a chance on a long shot with the photograph and opened it on his phone. Sheets of paper were layered one on top of the other face down except for the top inch of one sheet that was face up. There was handwriting on the paper but he couldn’t make it out even after enlarging the image as much as the phone allowed. He emailed the photograph to himself, downloaded it and enlarged it on his laptop, zooming in and out until he could read Cassie’s handwriting, saying the words out loud.
“4 MCs. What the hell does that mean?”
His Google search turned up entries about a musical group called Jazzy 4 MC’s, the MCS 4-chip set in the Intel 4004 microprocessor and the role of mast cells in male infertility. Another dead-end. Feeling defeated again, he picked up the day’s issue of the Mirror the hotel staff had delivered to his room.
Returning to his easy chair, he leafed through it, hoping the distraction would loosen some nugget hiding in his head. And there it was in a headline on the front page.
Historic Reunion Begins Today.
A grin spread across his face as he read the article. An exhibit at the British Library of the four remaining original Magna Cartas had opened that morning.
“4 MCs…four Magna Cartas.” Jake let out a whistle. “Cassie,” he said, wishing she could hear him. “What in the hell went wrong?”
TWELVE
CASSIE’S PHONE RANG at 5:00 a.m. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and saw that it was Gunnar. She cleared her throat and answered.
“And good morning to you.”
“Did I wake you?” Gunnar asked.
“We’re you hoping to?”
He huffed. “Of course.”
“You poor thing. Do you want the truth or a lie?”
“With you the lie is always better.”
“Okay,” Cassie propped herself up in bed. The t-shirt she’d slept in was bunched below her neck, the rest of her bare. The sheets were tangled as if she’d spent the night wrestling. She thought about and was glad that Gunnar expected a lie because she couldn’t possibly explain why she was telling the truth. “I was having a steamy, erotic dream verging on earthshattering heights of ecstasy when you called and ruined it for me.”
“You left out moist and hard. Can’t have an erotic dream without those adjectives.”
“I’ll let you write the script for my next one. What do you have for me?”
“Ian Thorpe and Sarah St. James are noble civil servants with no prospects of getting rich. While I was at it, I took a peak at Malcom Bridges. A million pounds was transferred to a Singapore bank account in his name ten days ago, the same day he opened the account.”
“Transferred from where?”
He grunted, a sound Cassie only heard him make when he encountered a problem he couldn’t solve. She didn’t hear it often. “I haven’t pinned down the source yet.”
“Stay on that and check the finances of the three missing guards. I’ll send you their information.”
She ended the call, uploaded the guards’ personnel files to Global’s secure server and went for a run. It was still dark and the air was chilly and heavy with the scent of oncoming rain. Leaving the hotel, she turned right along the A4, scanning her surroundings as she built up to a steady, methodical pace. A morning run was her way of clearing her head but she had a different purpose today – to draw out anyone watching her.
Whoever had taken her photograph outside the Library had to have been involved in the theft. Why else would he have been hiding and so quick to disappear? Best to assume she’d been identified and traced
to her hotel until proven otherwise.
A few pedestrians were hurrying down the sidewalk, but nobody lingered pretending to talk on the phone or read a newspaper. No cars slowed for a closer look as they passed.
She followed the curve of the road, then turned south toward the Thames on Savoy, a commercial street not yet busy. Three cars passed her. She glanced over her shoulder at a fourth, a white Ford Fiesta, creeping along a block behind her. It was the most popular car in the UK in the most popular color, a car so ubiquitous as to almost go unnoticed, which made it precisely the kind of surveillance she was expecting.
Cassie stopped at the wrought iron gate into Victoria Embankment Gardens, a wedge-shaped pedestrians-only strip of green along the river. Rain began to fall. She turned and faced the car, now half a block away, locking on the driver, a burly man too big and broad to have been last night’s photographer. His eyes widened, then narrowed to angry gashes as he stopped in the middle of the street, engine idling, his cover blown.
“All right, then,” Cassie said. “Let’s play.”
Tugging the hood of her sweatshirt over her head, she bolted into the Gardens on the gravel footpath. She was alone, no other runners braving the weather. If her watcher wanted her, he’d have to come after her on foot or risk losing her when she slipped out another entrance. And, when he did, she’d have him on her ground. She liked nothing better than turning the tables.
The quarter-mile path ended at a band shell surrounded by a picnic area. Cassie hid behind a closed refreshment stand and waited.
The rain was pouring down in sheets moments later when the man trotted into view wearing jeans, a waist-cut jacket and black boots. His heavy brows and thick features didn’t resemble any of the missing guards. Water ran off his uncovered head as he wiped his eyes. Smacking his fists against his sides, he studied the shell and refreshment stand before he went back the way he came.
Cassie waited a few minutes, then walked in the opposite direction, out of the Gardens onto Villiers Street where the shops and offices were still dark. The street was quiet. The rain had slowed. She’d lost him for now but knew he would be back.
She tightened the drawstring on her hood, tucked her hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt and headed for her hotel. She passed a shuttered convenience store called Cravings. The name was enough to stir her hunger. Just ahead, was Gordon’s Wine Bar. She smiled to herself, now both hungry and thirsty. A gated wrought iron fence separated the two buildings, darkness filling the void.
She heard a rustle of movement and felt the brush of air an instant too late as someone reached out from the other side of the fence, grabbed her by the shoulder and threw her down a flight of stairs. Her back took the brunt of the fall leaving her sprawled on the ground, breathless.
Shaking her head, she stood and found herself on a concrete pedestrian path. The basement wall of the convenience store was to her left. The lower level of the wine bar was to her right. A dim light from inside the bar cast a faint glow across her surroundings. A pair of tables for Gordon’s customers sat outside the bar. A large umbrella rose from the center of one of them. Another umbrella tied snugly around its middle lay across the second table.
Glancing behind her, she saw that the path continued in a straight line with small pockets of light above several doorways. And then she realized where she was. Watergate Walk ran along what used to be the banks of the Thames in the 1800s. It was where boatmen landed their ferryboats. Now a row of shops and restaurants lined the Walk and Victoria Embankment Gardens lay between it and the river. Her watcher had waited for her to leave and taken a short cut from the Gardens to the Walk to intercept her. She wouldn’t underestimate him again.
The man stared down at her, framed by the open gate in the center of the fence, his shadow swallowing the light from the street, his gun aimed at her. Cassie had fought men bigger and stronger than herself, including some that were armed, and learned to take advantage of being underestimated because she was a woman. But this man wasn’t just big. He was a predator. She saw it his conquering pose at the top of the stairs and in his unhurried swagger as he came toward her. She would have been a fool not to be frightened and she wasn’t a fool.
“’Allo, Cassie. Lovely to make your acquaintance.”
THIRTEEN
CASSIE TOOK A CALMING BREATH and staggered her feet slightly wider than her hips and angled to the side, her knees facing the same direction. She tightened her core enough to take a punch. It wasn’t a fighting-ready stance but it was a start. Remaining flat-footed with her arms loose at her sides made her more vulnerable but she counted on that to draw him close enough that she might be able to disarm him.
The man reached the bottom of the stairs, stopping out of her reach, holding his gun at his side. He ran his eyes up and down her, a small smile at the corners of his mouth like she was a special treat he was savoring before devouring her.
Cassie kept her face slack, her breathing even. Owning the ground wasn’t always about who held the gun. It was also about keeping control of herself while rattling her opponent. She brushed off her sleeves, nonchalant.
“So, you know my name. Who are you?”
“I’m the man with the gun.”
Cassie sighed and shook her head. “Didn’t your mother teach you any manners? You should always introduce yourself when you attack an unarmed woman. Unless, of course, you’re too shy to talk to girls. Or maybe you’re just embarrassed because your parents gave you a sissy name.”
“You’re a snarky one, aren’t you? I like that in a woman…to a point. You can call me Aramis, not that the name will do you any good.”
She pulled her phone from her sweatshirt, hoping he didn’t notice when she snapped a picture of him. “I’ll just call 911 and let you tell the first cop that shows up your real name.”
He raised his gun toward her. “Do that and your precious Magna Cartas will end up confetti tossed about like it was New Year’s Eve. Tell that to your friends at Global Security and make ‘em believe it.”
Though Cassie’s picture had been taken barely six hours earlier, both she and her employer had been identified. They might know about Global Security but she was certain they knew nothing about Prometheus. Still, their sophistication and resources were impressive. She decided to reinforce what she hoped Aramis thought he knew about her.
She lifted her hands in mock surrender. “Well, I’m glad we’re past the I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about bullshit because that makes my job a lot easier. The British Library’s insurance company hired Global Security to investigate their loss and you’ve got to admit this is one seriously big-assed claim. If you destroy the Magna Cartas, it will cost them a fortune and I’ll lose my job. All we care about is getting them back so we don’t have to write a huge check. Help me out with that and I’ll tell anyone that asks I tripped and fell down those stairs.”
He cocked his head to one side. “Insurance, eh? How much?”
Cassie paused, letting the hook sink in a bit deeper, hoping this was the turning point. “Ah…I’m sorry, but…ah…that’s confidential information.” He took a menacing step toward her and she put up her hands again. “Okay, okay. It’s a lot, a hundred million pounds.” She took a chance. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but there’s also a reward for anyone providing information leading to the recovery of the Magna Cartas.”
“A reward, now. You don’t say. How much are we talkin’ about?”
“It’s negotiable, depending on the information and how helpful it is but it’s enough that you could stop throwing women down the stairs for a living.”
“Ah, but I like throwing women down the stairs and I don’t like ratting out my friends. Now, I’ll have that phone.”
“What phone?”
“The one in your hand you just took me picture with, you stupid twit.”
“This phone? Sorry. It was a gift and I’m kind of attached to it.”
“Maybe I’ll just shoot you and take the
phone.”
“You’re not going to shoot me.”
He aimed the gun at her heart. “And why not?”
Cassie put her hands on her hips and smiled. “Because as soon as you do, you’re going to walk out of here and be picked up by one of the ten million cameras that record every ass scratch in London. You’ll be arrested before you can figure out that you’re too stupid to unlock my phone. So, that’s why you aren’t going to shoot me.”
Aramis nodded and tucked his gun behind his back in his waistband. He stroked his chin and folded his massive arms across his chest. “You make a good point. I’ll just take it from you then and pardon me if I break a few bones.”
Cassie raised her back heel, keeping her right elbow and forearm close to her body, her left arm slightly in front. “Pardon me if they’re yours.”
Aramis’ eyes flashed as he charged her. Cassie launched a kick to his solar plexus but he grabbed her foot in midair, twisted it in the opposite direction and sent her tumbling toward the wine barrel tables. Crouching, she grabbed the umbrella lying on one of the tables and sprang at Aramis as he closed in. She speared him in the belly but he brushed the umbrella aside as if it was a feather. And then he was on her, arms wrapped around her middle, lifting her off the ground and squeezing her in a bear hug.
