Takedown (An Alexandra Poe Thriller)

by Robert Gregory Browne

  Outside, Alex Poe emerged from the hotel entrance and crossed toward her car, her hair a clear victim of the night’s acrobatics.

  “Judging by the way she climbed all over me, I highly doubt it.”

  “Just be careful,” the voice said. “She’s a fierce little bitch.”

  “In more ways than you’ll ever know, but she’s a lot more vulnerable than she lets on. And she isn’t the one who cut me.”

  “Hey, you wanted it realistic, remember? A little blood goes a long way.”

  Gérard touched the bandages on his rib cage and pushed out a dry, humorless laugh. “That’s easy to say when it isn’t your blood.”

  CHAPTER 8

  ALEX HAD TURNED off her cell phone in Gérard’s hotel room, and now discovered she had five new messages waiting for her—two texts and three voice mails.

  All from Jason McElroy.

  Given that it was the middle of the night, she was tempted to call him right then and hang up once she knew she’d awakened him, but the prudent course was to continue ignoring him. Whatever the asshole was hot to talk about could wait until she was back in civilization.

  She wasn’t being obstinate. Well, maybe she was, but when it came down to it, she got no joy from working for the guy. It was a relationship of convenience and little else, and after the mix-up in Istanbul, she wasn’t anxious to hear what he had to say.

  Stonewell International was a large, highly respected, multinational security firm that, among other things, specialized in black ops fugitive retrieval. If you wanted someone found and wanted it done off the grid, Stonewell was first on your list. As long as you could afford the fee, of course.

  Last year, McElroy had gone to great lengths to bring Alex into the fold. He had only succeeded because he’d had information she wanted: the identity and location of someone who’d had recent personal contact with her father. Someone who might know his whereabouts.

  Nearly a dozen years ago, her dear old dad, Colonel Francis Edward Poe, had been branded a traitor by the US government for reasons that had never been clear. Most of his file was classified, and Alex’s attempts over the years to dig up the truth had resulted in a big fat zero. But she knew one thing for sure: her father was not a traitor. She didn’t argue that he had changed after her mother’s death, but he had always been a good soldier, and betraying his country was simply not in his DNA.

  Alex had all but given up trying to find him when McElroy approached her. His scheme was simple. He wanted Alex to bag a known terrorist who was temporarily being held under an assumed name at a woman’s prison in Crimea. All Alex had to do was pose as an inmate, gain the woman’s confidence, and break her out of the place—a task that had proven difficult but not impossible.

  Unfortunately, the end result had not been a rendezvous with her father, as Alex had hoped, and the only thing that kept her working for Stonewell was McElroy’s promise that she had full use of the firm’s data network to aid her in correcting that result.

  But Alex was no longer the naive eighteen-year-old who had joined the army in hopes of finding the old man. She knew Frank Poe was a considerable prize that someone like McElroy could use to help feather his cap, so she had no illusions about her and her boss’s relationship. He was exploiting it as much as she was, and would use whatever information she managed to uncover to find Frank Poe for himself.

  All she had to do was beat him to it.

  Shortly after three a.m., Alex pulled her rental car into the carport under the Shimmy Shack, still feeling the sting of her impulsiveness. She couldn’t deny the sex had been good, but her ability to fall into bed with a guy she’d known for less than three hours left her worried about her sense of self-preservation.

  For all she knew Thomas Gérard was a serial killer.

  As she climbed out of the car and started up the steps, she again thought about the treasure box and the website link and the wedding video and wondered if he’d had something to do with them. It didn’t seem likely, but what if she had been betrayed by his charm and good looks and her own damnably fragile psyche since she’d found that photograph?

  She was halfway up the steps when all thoughts of Gérard abruptly vanished.

  The Shack’s front door was ajar.

  Though she’d been upset when she left, she knew she’d locked it, so this could only mean one thing: the intruder was back.

  Son of a bitch.

  Quietly reversing course, she returned to the car and retrieved the mugger’s gun from the glove box. There was sand on the weapon, but she brushed it off and tucked it into her waistband, then went around to the rear of the house to see if the sleeping bag was still on the ground.

  It was.

  Okay, so what did that mean? Had he not had a chance to retrieve it before he saw her pull in? Or, if he was still upstairs, had he even seen or heard the car at all? That was certainly a possibili—

  A muffled crash from above.

  There was no if about it. Someone was definitely up there, and she’d be damned if she’d let him get away.

  She moved through the darkness to a set of wooden steps that led up to the patio—the same steps she and Danny had taken to the beach every day. Switching to stealth mode, she ascended them quickly and quietly, hoping the weather-punished wood wouldn’t creak under her weight. It did, but only faintly, and she doubted it could be heard inside the house.

  When she reached the top of the stairs, she peered through the sliding glass and saw nothing but the silhouettes of the den sofa and chairs. She took out her keys and unlocked the door, slid it open just wide enough to fit through, then pulled the gun from her waistband and slipped inside.

  Movement. She definitely heard movement. Coming from the front of the house.

  She stepped into the hallway, pressed her back against the wall, and worked her way toward the living room. She was halfway there when she heard the sound of running water coming from the kitchen.

  She paused long enough to pull her cell phone from her pocket and call up the flashlight app, but didn’t activate it. She edged her way down the rest of the hall and made the turn into the kitchen.

  Raising the gun and phone simultaneously, she switched on the flashlight and said, “Move and you’re a dead man.”

  There was a loud yelp and a guy in a suit stumbled back against the counter, a wet cloth in one hand, the right leg of his pants rolled up to reveal an almost hairless shin with a nasty red cut in the pasty white flesh.

  “Jesus, Alex, it’s me! It’s me!”

  Jason McElroy.

  She let out a breath and lowered the gun. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Just so you know, half the damn lightbulbs in this dump are missing and the rest are broken. I was searching for a working lamp when I ran into that piece of crap you call a coffee table.”

  “I repeat,” Alex said, “what are you doing here?”

  “Right now I’m trying to keep from bleeding to death.”

  She stepped forward, and raised the gun again. For all she knew, he was the one who had planted the treasure box. “You’d better explain, Jason, or you’ll be bleeding a lot more.”

  “Put that thing down, will you?” He shut off the faucet, hobbled to a chair at the table, then sat and inspected the damage to his shin. “You know, if you answered your phone once in a while, we could have avoided this unpleasantness. I’m here because I need you. It’s that simple.”

  As he dabbed at the wound with the wet cloth, Alex had zero urge to repeat her nursemaiding efforts on McElroy. The threat of nuclear holocaust couldn’t make her go down that road.

  She crossed to the stove, turned on the hood light above it, then put away her cell phone and said, “You always need me. Why do you think I didn’t call you back?”

  She, Deuce, and Cooper had handled three successful acquisitions since the op at Slavne prison last year. The grab in Turkey was supposed to have been the fourth.

  He said, “You’re still angry about
what happened in Istanbul.”

  “Shouldn’t I be?”

  “Okay, fine, I understand. I was angry, too. But until the government starts asking me for diplomatic advice, there’s not a whole hell of a lot I can do about it.”

  “Diplomatic advice? You think consorting with a known terrorist is diplomacy?”

  McElroy sighed. “We consorted with bin Laden until he became inconvenient. Same with Saddam Hussein. The world isn’t good guys versus bad guys, Alex. It’s all about who has what we need when we need it.”

  “I’m not sure I want to live in that world.”

  “Oops, too late.” He tossed the cloth into the sink and rolled down his pant leg. “I’m not here to debate politics, all right? If you’re looking to catch bad guys, I’ve got a major acquisition lined up and I can guarantee this one won’t turn out like the last. Fair enough?”

  With reluctance, she laid her gun on the counter.

  “Maybe I’d rather sit this one out,” she said. “Sit them all out.”

  “And do what instead? Go back to rounding up fugitive junkies for a few hundred bucks a head?”

  “Keep in mind I know who I’m talking to when I say this, but it’s not all about the money.”

  McElroy forced a laugh. “Okay. Fine. We can pretend that’s true. What about information, then? That’s part of the reason we’re in business together, remember? Quid pro quo.”

  She gestured toward the front door. “Don’t bump into it on the way out.”

  She turned down the hall, heading toward the den and the patio beyond. When she heard McElroy shuffling behind her, she picked up speed.

  “Alex, wait.”

  “I’m done talking, Jason.”

  “Maybe so, but if you think I can get a cab out here at this time of morning, you’re out of your mind. I had a hard enough time getting one from the airport.”

  She stopped and turned in the doorway. “So what am I supposed to do, offer you a cup of coffee and a donut? You’ve got Stonewell International at your beck and call. Get somebody to pick you up.”

  She went out to the patio and stood at the rail. It was too late to sleep and too early to be alive. She tried to enjoy the view but could feel McElroy standing somewhere behind her, undoubtedly trying to figure out how to get her to change her mind.

  She was about to turn and tell him to get lost when her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket, checked the screen, and saw Deuce’s face staring up at her.

  Now what?

  She answered it. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “I figured you’d be awake. And you sound pretty alert.”

  “A lot more than I want to be.”

  “I’m calling to give you the heads-up. Our supreme commander chartered a helicopter and he’s at your beach house, looking for you. He just called me. There’s something major brewing and he’s pissed because you haven’t—”

  “The heads-up is supposed to come before I get ambushed, genius.”

  “Oh, shit, you’re there? Did he tell you what the gig is?”

  “No,” Alex said. “And I don’t want to know.”

  A pause. “You’re still pissed about Istanbul, aren’t you?”

  “Why does everyone keep asking me that? It just happened a couple days ago. Give me time to get over it.”

  “Look, Alex, nobody wishes it could’ve turned out different more than I do, but I think you should listen to what the man has to say. He’s already promised to double our salaries for this gig, and between you and me, I could use the cash.”

  “What happened to all that money you saved?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Deuce…”

  He sighed. “Okay, I ran into an old buddy yesterday and he talked me into sitting in on a game of Stud. And you know what a lousy poker player I am.”

  Alex couldn’t believe it. “Are you telling me you lost it all?”

  “I can probably make my rent this month if I don’t go crazy, but that’s about it. Which is why I’m begging you, kiddo. Hear the man out and seriously think about taking the gig. He won’t include me if you’re not there.”

  “Then he’s a fool,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, that goes without saying. But it is what it is. So do me a solid and listen to his pitch.”

  Alex wanted to reach through the phone and strangle Deuce. He was a great partner and one of her very best friends, but for a smart guy, he could be such a brain-dead moron sometimes.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll listen. But only because it’s you.”

  “Thanks, Alex.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to anything. If I don’t like the sound of it, you’ll have to scrape up next month’s rent some other way. Sell your body or something.”

  “Isn’t that what we already do?”

  He hung up without saying goodbye. She stuffed her phone back in her pocket and wheeled around, knowing McElroy was waiting in the doorway.

  “So is that how it works? First, you use Cooper to help recruit me, now you use Deuce to convince me to stay? What did you do, hire some card shark to cheat him out of his savings?”

  “You give me too much credit,” he said. He had his nose in his phone and was typing something.

  She scowled. “I should’ve shot you in the kitchen. Answer one question before we get into this.”

  He looked up. “All right, what?”

  “Why haven’t you asked me where I was tonight?”

  McElroy shrugged. “Is it any of my business?”

  “Is anything ever your business?” She thought about asking him outright if he’d planted the treasure box, but if he wasn’t involved, she’d just as soon keep it to herself.

  “Look, Alex, one of these days you’re going to have to learn to trust me a little. I really couldn’t care less where you were tonight. All I care is that you’re here now. So why don’t you do us both a favor and put the hostility in check for a minute? I’ve got two words I think you’ll want to hear.”

  “Which are?”

  “Reinhard Beck.”

  “The anarchist? I remember reading about him when I was kid.”

  “Anarchist, assassin, child killer, friend to genocidal tyrants—take your pick. He’s done it all and he’s still doing it.” He gestured. “I just sent his dossier to your phone. The usual encryption.”

  Alex dug out her phone again, saw the alert, and tapped in the password to retrieve the file. “I assume I’m supposed to be excited about this?”

  “You should be. This guy’s wanted in about fifteen different countries. And thanks to you, we’ve got the exclusive on him.”

  “Thanks to me?”

  “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but my guy from DHS asked for you personally as a condition of the deal. You’re building quite a reputation for yourself. Even the snatch in Istanbul is considered a win since you already had the target in hand.”

  “Don’t get me started.”

  Her cell phone screen filled with a fuzzy black and white photo that looked as if it had been grabbed from an ancient surveillance video. Reinhard Beck stood in a bank with a sawed-off shotgun pointed at one of the tellers, his head turned toward the camera, giving her a full view of his face, as if to say fuck you. He was a tall, athletic looking man with light hair pulled back in a ponytail, and eyes as cold and dull as a Burmese python’s.

  “Is this the most recent photo you’ve got?”

  “It’s the only photo, except for a couple of school shots from when he was a child.”

  She nodded, then moved past McElroy and went inside, sinking into a chair as she flipped through the surprisingly thin file for such a major player. It was little more than a rundown of Beck’s most heinous crimes, and a series of unconfirmed sightings over the last twenty years. He was a founding member of the German terrorist group known as the Black Hat Battalion. The organization appeared to have no particular political affiliation other than mayhem, and
seemed to focus its talents on weapons and explosives trafficking, from which it made a great deal of money. Beck himself was known to his associates as Valac, a nickname with roots in demonology.

  Lovely, she thought and looked up at McElroy. “Okay, I can see why you’d want to grab this guy. So where do we find him?”

  “Does that mean you’re in?”

  Alex hated being so predictable, but she had a weakness for chasing after badasses, and this one was about as bad as you could get. If things went right, catching the bastard might even make up for the last debacle. And there was Deuce to consider.

  Of course, that didn’t mean she had to cop to it.

  “Where is he?” she repeated.

  “Not far from here. You’ve heard of St. Cajetan?”

  “It’s in the Bahamas, right? Club Med for the super rich.”

  “That’s the one.” He gestured to the chair across from her. “Mind if I sit?”

  She did, but granted him permission anyway, and watched him hobble across the room, still clearly in pain after his battle with her grandfather’s coffee table.

  Good.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said as he sank into the chair. “This isn’t the usual track-and-grab job. It’s slightly more complicated.”

  Alex didn’t like the sound of that. “Explain.”

  McElroy told her a story about the recent bombing in New York, and how one of the people involved had led investigators to a Serbian nationalist. This, in turn, put them on to a maze of phone calls that clued them in to an upcoming meeting between Reinhard Beck and a man named Frederic Favreau. Favreau was looking for a buyer for a set of codes he’d managed to acquire, and Beck, aka Valac, was first in line.

  “What sort of codes?” she asked.

  “That, I don’t know. Top secret, eyes only, don’t pass Go, all the usual nonsense. I’m not sure why they don’t just arrest Favreau and be done with it, but I have a feeling our friends at State have gotten greedy. They’re looking for a twofer.”

  “And for the sake of political expediency, they want us to execute it,” Alex said. “We grab Valac and the codes, and take the blame if it all goes south.”