by Randy Dutton
Patrick bent down and smiled wider. “Anna, the color looks good on you.”
She gently elbowed Pete.
Patrick got into the driver’s seat and started the car. “Is that how you appeared going there?”
“Pretty close.” Anna’s tone was matter-of-fact. Her fingers were pulling out wet wipes from a large box.
“Beyond the obvious, some of your features look...different...very exotic,” he added.
Her eyes widened and overly rouged cheeks rose with amusement.
“Exotic is one word for it,” Pete mumbled.
Patrick pulled into traffic then lowered the radio volume. “That’s quite the perfume you’re wearing...matches your outfit...flowery”—he sniffed—“and with something else.”
“Grapefruit, tonka beans, and roses. It’s from the Marc Jacobs’ Lola collection.”
“Yeah,” Pete inserted flatly. “She told me it was meant to be ‘flirty’.”
She took a couple wet wipes and rubbed behind her ears and in her cleavage and then leaned left. “Better?”
Pete sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “Still very bold.”
“Meant to be sassy. Fits the character. Every identity has her own essence...no overlap.”
“Why?” Patrick cocked his head at the mirror.
“A scent imparts the strongest memories.” She started wiping off the heavy bronzing cream and the fake seahorse tattoo. “And it causes witnesses to focus on the details unique to the character, which allows me to disappear more easily.”
Pete’s brow lifted. “Exactly how many perfumes have you used?”
With pursed lips she defiantly shook her head. “Probe all you want, Dear, I’m not telling.... By the way, Patrick, thanks for getting the electrochromatic windows installed.”
“They’re awesome! I’m going to get this done for my car.” Patrick pressed a dial and the dark window tinting became progressively transparent and then he reversed it back to the maximum state limit. “I’ll bet all vehicles eventually get these.”
“Probably.” She stayed focused on cleaning.
“By the way, when I took it to the shop, I noticed the plastic license plate covers. They’re a bit hazy,” Patrick said.
“They’re special,” she said.
“How are they special, Babe?” Pete’s brow rose.
“They change license plate reflectivity to prevent laser radar guns and automatic license plate cameras from locking onto it.”
“Are license plate cameras a problem?” Patrick asked.
“You two have so much to learn,” she said. “The stored images are being used to track vehicle movements.”
“Without a warrant?” Pete and Patrick responded in unison.
“Uh huh. The covers, and a coating I brushed onto the plates, absorb the laser energy and prevent lock-on.”
“Wicked!” Patrick said excitedly. “I could have avoided last month’s speeding ticket if I had done that for my car.”
“Driving a Corvette doesn’t help you.” Anna looked at Patrick’s image in the rear view mirror. “That brings up the other item. Did you turn off the SUV’s event data recorder?”
“As you instructed...Sis.... I like the sound of that.”
“So do I,” came her warm response.
“Until you called yesterday, I didn’t realize a vehicle’s ‘black box’ computer could be deactivated.”
“It’s illegal as hell because the auto company claims ownership of it and the government passed that anti-tampering law. Unless it’s off, the box streams the data in real time through the national 16-gigabit Wi-Fi network.”
“Where’d you find out how?” Patrick probed.
“The procedure’s out there...if you know where to look.”
“And she seems to always know where to look!” Pete added.
She ignored Pete’s facetious response. “Of course, if we get into an accident, it’ll be hell to pay with the police that the odometer and GPS were turned off. I’ll install a simpler switch later, and maybe create a ghost box for the garage.”
“A ghost box?” Patrick cocked his head.
“A duplicate black box giving the illusion the SUV’s parked in the garage.”
“My wife the auto mechanic,” Pete mused.
“Anna, with people like you around, Big Brother’s gotta be worried it can’t track everyone,” Patrick said. “Oh, by the way, I put drinks in a cooler for you guys.”
“Thanks, Patrick. You’re sweet.”
Moments later, she was sipping an icy Coke Pete had just opened. “I’ve been back in Texas half-an-hour and I’m already overheating. This disguise doesn’t help.” She whipped off the wig, shook her head, and tied her thick wavy blond hair into a ponytail. “Thanks for bringing my kit.”
“Anything for my new, chameleon sister-in-law,” Patrick said.
“I don’t want Irma to get more nervous about her new daughter-in-law than she is now.” Anna slid up a hidden cosmetic mirror from the back of the large makeup case and started removing eye makeup.
“Why?” Patrick quipped. “Because mom’s only had four hours alone with you since you arrived on our doorstep six days ago? And most of that was when she was taking in Paula’s wedding dress. Or, because of all the time you’ve spent with our lawyer and alone with Pete, she’s not been able to pump you for information?”
“Something like that.”
“Mom still thinks you’re an executive recruiter who got accidentally caught up in that assassination plot implicating dad, not a super-secret.... I can’t say fixer to anyone.... Anna, exactly what term should I use for what you do?”
Pete chimed in, “Did! What she did – not does.” He shook his head in frustration.
“Gotcha!” Patrick said.
Anna chuckled while continuing to clean off makeup.
“Just keep it at executive recruiter,” Pete said with finality.
Patrick continued, “Okay, but that’s not nearly as interesting.... Mom’s always prided herself in her abilities to subtly interrogate our dates. You’re an enigma to her. And suddenly departing for France the morning after marrying her first-born totally confounded her.”
Anna raised a thick brow at him through the rearview. “What’d you tell her?”
“Mom didn’t know you two left separately, so I said Pete had surprised you with a quick trip back to Europe.”
“Thanks, Patrick. That’ll help with the sharp conversation I’m sure will greet me,” Pete said.
“Us.” Anna lightly touched Pete’s arm. Her smile went crooked as she turned back to the mirror to peel off the dark caterpillar eyebrows, revealing her thinner, natural blond lines. “It’s really Pete’s fault.”
“My fault?” His eyes widened.
She stared into the mirror while wiping off the face foundation. “Sure. Last month at my villa when you begged me to come to Texas—”
“You begged her?!” Patrick mocked. “Not the self-assured big brother I remember.”
“Love does weird things to a guy. Someday, little brother, you’ll stop acting the playboy and will be smitten with some young thing too.”
“I’m some young thing?” Anna challenged. “I’m just two years younger than you.... As I was saying, your normalcy triggered something inside me. If you hadn’t affected me so, I’d have rejected your offer without a second thought. I’d still be implementing Swanson’s carbon-trapping schemes and plunging down the path I spent so much time creating.... And I’d be wealthy.”
“Absconding with fifty million euros wasn’t enough?” Pete whispered.
Biting her lower lip, she shook her head coyly, and then said, “Not for what I had in mind.”
Catching Pete’s lifted brow reflected in the mirror, she smiled and added, “But then after you left, I missed you too damn much.” She turned and gave her husband a sweet smile. “You shattered my historical illusion.”
“What’s that?”
“My long-term plan...what I thought I wanted. I was
blind to my own mutability and started questioning my goals. Even after sabotaging some of the programs I’d set up, I doubted coming here was a smart move. I almost turned around at your driveway had it not been for Paula driving up. My disappearance might have been permanent.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” His left hand lay on her leg while his right stroked the side of her pulled-back hair.
“Well, finding out I was pregnant pretty much sealed the deal.” Her lips pursed. “Irma isn’t too impressed with me. I have some relationship building to do.”
“With four overachieving kids, mom’s more understanding than you may think.” Pete’s voice was warm.
“We’ll see.”
Patrick interjected, “I expected you guys back sooner...flight delays?”
“We flew out from Geneva, not Nice,” Pete explained. “It added six hours.”
“That’s quite a diversion.... Sightseeing?”
“Precaution.” Anna was wiping off the heavy ruby red lipstick that, when applied with a lip stamp, made her lips look fuller. “And I needed disguise...stuff.”
“Makes sense.... Pete, get any hassle about your peg leg?”
“I had to take it off in Geneva to prove it wasn’t a bomb.” Pete grimaced. “A TSA agent still fiddled with it for a couple minutes to see if it might be a weapon. The embedded computer and battery particularly mystified them.”
“My brother, the bionic man.” Patrick chuckled.
“I’m used to the scrutiny. Even with the prosthetic off, the titanium support ossified into my leg bone sets off the scanners. Guess what the worst part of flying is now?” He raised his brow at his busy wife. “With a prosthetic leg drawing undo attention, I have to travel separately, with my disguised wife a few aisles away pretending she doesn’t know me.... And I had to watch the guy in the next seat hitting on her and staring at her”—he cleared his throat—“enhanced cleavage.”
“It’s part of the illusion, Dear,” she chimed in while peeling off the nose augmentation that had given it an aquiline shape. “He’s not telling you the whole story, Patrick. Pete and I separately wandered to the plane’s rear lavatory area and talked most of the flight.”
She glanced in the rearview mirror at Patrick’s sophomoric expression.
“I said, talked, Patrick.”
Chapter 4
August 6, 2030 hours
Onboard the Spider
Monaco
Gabriel put down his cell phone. “Sorry about the interruption. I asked Haver Fridleifsson to go to the villa before the investigators removed anything.”
“Good move.” Swanson stubbed out another cigar.
“We were talking about Anna’s motivation.... I think she may have had a distraction,” Gabriel said. “Possibly a man, though she didn’t give a hint of one last month when she had me over for dinner.”
“Jared called during her servant’s interrogation that a tall man had been there for two days and two nights,” Swanson said casually.
“When?”
“The first week of July.”
Gabriel sighed. “You neglected to tell me that earlier. Was it Robert Spenser? You remember...that environmental movie producer from Monaco. They’ve had a ‘friends with benefits’ arrangement for years. He wined and dined her and took her to celebrity events. In return for his introducing her to the rich and powerful, she was arm-candy that made him look good. She outclassed even the most sophisticated society girls.”
Swanson took a sip. “It wasn’t him. Her time with Spenser was mostly business, though no doubt she spent many nights with him.... No, this was someone the servant hadn’t seen before.”
Gabriel’s eyes shifted to the beautifully illuminated Monte Carlo Casino just blocks away. He reflected on the occasions he had seen Anna dressed in the top fashions walking the red carpet while entering the Belle Époque building. Her high-bosomed, athletic body turned nearly every head.
Wistfully, Gabriel said, “Despite her stunning beauty and regal bearing, I’ve always thought Anna’s real charm was her skill in manipulating discussions and decisions. That woman could competently discuss nearly any topic. No doubt Spenser appreciated those talents.”
“What do you expect from a woman with top honors from Harvard Law School?” Swanson added with a snarl, “And I paid her bills for the last two years! That unfaithful b—”
“Alexis!”—Gabriel sternly interrupted him—“Come on! She earned her keep on her very first assignment. She set up her regular client for a financial fall where you made, what, a hundred million dollars?”
The old man smirked. “About that much. It’s amazing what a seductive wench can convince a man to do when she’s got him in bed.”
Swanson motioned to the 20-year-old brunette visible beyond the window. The pretty girl, outfitted in a body-hugging outfit, came scurrying into the lounge and refilled his glass. Just as quickly, she gave the elderly man a furtive smile before departing.
Her coquettish glance was not lost on Gabriel as he wondered just what influences the bevy of flirtatious yacht stewardesses had on his now-leering boss.
Gabriel reacquired Swanson’s attention. “What language was the visitor speaking? Anna’s fluent in several.”
“I don’t know. Jared was to brief me when he returned. The three men with him were killed in the crash. But there were two others who may have aided her, they’re unaccounted—”
“No.” Gabriel shook his head. “Add those two to her toll.”
“Damn.... Where were they?”
“Haver found their rock-shredded bodies hidden part way down the cliff.”
“She shot them?”
“His preliminary analysis didn’t show bullet holes, but one was decapitated with a long blade. Blood stains on the promenade, outside her garden’s back wall, indicate the fight was there.”
“Damn!” Swanson growled. “A blade? God, how she loves ancient weapons!”
Gabriel’s straight face hid his thoughts. I’ll wager she used that BeltSword I gave her a few weeks ago.
“Hard to tell how she overwhelmed two men with 9mm machine pistols, but spent casings show one did fire a couple shots.”
“The men knew how dangerous she was. How could they have allowed her to get so close?”
“We’ll probably never know, but I suspect her accomplice played a part.”
“What about the bodies?” Swanson showed sudden concern.
“After the fire department leaves, and it’s dark, I’ll have a couple men recover the corpses and weight them into the sea. Right now the villa’s only a fire investigation. If a double murder’s determined, the police might start linking events.”
“How?”
“Well, for one, Jared and his men left one suspicious fire scene only to appear at the computer center fire two hours later.... An hour after that, they plunge over a cliff.”
“Whatever you need.... Keep me out of it.”
“That’s my goal.... Alexis, where’s her Bangladeshi servant? Inside the villa, Haver found a chair positioned for interrogation.”
“I don’t know. Jared was going to take care of him.”
“What? Kill him?” Gabriel’s eyes rolled upward as he shook his head in disbelief at Swanson’s casual dismissal of the question. “Next to the dogs, she was most protective of Maulana.” He audibly sighed. “So, we have no witnesses, no money trail, and few leads. Alexis, you’re fortunate you immediately accepted her offer; otherwise, I doubt we’d be here on your yacht having this discussion. She’s good at her craft. Best I ever trained.”
As Swanson relit his cigar, Gabriel stood up and wandered to a window in the Spider’s lounge. From this third-deck height he had a grand view to the dock and surrounding buildings. His thoughts wandered to his prey. Where are you, Anna? Are you watching us now...maybe through a sniper scope?
He rapped his knuckles against the thick bulletproof glass. His eyes traced the embedded wires that created electronic interference for parabol
ic laser microphones. Then he frowned when he saw greenish-gray moss strands caught between the panels. His gaze then shifted back to the casino lights. How many millions have I lost at Baccarat in that place? The bounty will come in handy.
Gabriel’s eyes drifted back to Swanson, leaning back, his narrow eyes staring at the glittering chandelier.
“Alexis, the timing of her deal is important.... It came after you took action against her. So, as long as you don’t violate it, she won’t break her word. Let her go...at least for now.”
Swanson’s eyes went wide. “Then her threat of blowing up my yacht was a bluff?”
“It’s still here, isn’t it? Don’t doubt for a moment she didn’t consider it.”
“What if she’s just delaying an attack?”
“Don’t worry, boss...we’ll continue searching for anything suspicious. Once we’re done, I’ll turn off the wireless jammers and reconnect your Internet. Our snipers will stay topside as lookouts.”
Gabriel walked to the opposite window and looked at the megayacht’s port side, now illuminated with work lights. Two inspectors were inserting a fiberoptic probe into an uncovered ventilation pipe on the main deck.
“I’ve got five engineering teams checking the Spider. It’ll take time.” Gabriel shifted attention to the uncharacteristically light green water brightened by the underwater security lights. He grimaced. The whole harbor’s infested.
“Alexis, is that genetically modified phytoplankton of yours toxic to swimmers?”
“Doubt it.... Hell, I don’t know! That traitorous geneticist might have done anything with it. Why?”
“Tomorrow I’m putting more divers over the side.”
Swanson’s brow furrowed. “I thought the hull had been checked!”
“It has.... But last she and I talked, she admitted to using PETN from her onboard stash to blow up that Maldivian official’s boat. I want to see if she cast her cache over the side.”
“She didn’t clear that assassination with me!” Swanson complained testily. “I only found out about it several days later. She said that Hassan guy was too loose with the bribes we’d given him in exchange for falsifying official Maldivian sea level readings.”
