Deep Allegiance

by David Archer

  Marco made an angry gesture with his hand out the window and gunned the engine a bit, making the gears grind.

  “I told you I was on a tight schedule,” iced Dawson from the back.

  “Give me a break,” Gary complained in response. “What would you have me do, guv? You want me to drive through it?”

  “Look, I’ve got to get to a phone, so either back up or I’m going to get out here.”

  Gary looked in the mirror and grinned. “A phone? Is that all you need?” He took a cell phone out of his pocket and tried to pass it through the window to the passenger compartment.

  Dawson stared at him coldly. “I need a real phone,” he said. “One that doesn’t broadcast openly through the air.”

  Gary let the grin fade, then shifted into reverse. Right on cue, two of their British associates pulled a large blue garbage truck into the street behind them, boxing them in. Gary stopped short his reverse, turning around to look dumbfounded at the truck, as though he couldn’t understand how his luck had turned so bad. “Blast! What’s this, now?” he moaned.

  Dawson’s look was growing icier by the second. Gary decided to attempt the misery-loves-company approach. “Can you believe this?” he asked. He knew before he finished that Dawson wasn’t going for it.

  “This is ridiculous. I’m getting out.”

  “No, no, no. Hey!” cried Gary as Dawson reached for the door. “I told you I’d get you there.” Dawson sat back as Gary pulled the wheel to the right, guiding the car onto the sidewalk and around the back of Marco’s truck, mentally apologizing to Noah for not being able to stall for more time.

  Marco stepped out of his truck, watched from the corner of the building as Gary pulled away, then ran back into the parking garage while pushing the button on his radio. “Noah, I couldn’t hold them any longer, we almost lost him.” He swung back onto the motorbike, gunning the engine.

  He waved to the London agents as he rode out of the parking garage and sped back toward the hotel.

  Having listened to the exchange over the speaker, Noah knew both Gary and Marco had done the best they could. “No more time,” he said aloud, crossing over to the coat rack so he could slip into his freshly embroidered blazer.

  “Are we ready?” asked Renée as she and Jenny hurried to finish off their current projects.

  “We’re about to find out,” said Noah.

  Together, the three moved out of the command center. Noah took his place standing behind the front desk while Jenny and Renée ran upstairs.

  Through the opaque glass-front window, Noah watched Gary pull up outside.

  * * *

  “I’m sorry it took a little longer than fifteen minutes,” Gary said, stopping the car in front of the hotel.

  A London agent, acting as doorman, stepped up to the car to open the door for Dawson.

  “Ah, forget it,” Dawson sneered fiercely, stepping out of the car and yanking his bags with him. “You know, you ought to do yourself a favor and keep your big mouth shut!” he added through the window, throwing his fare in at Gary, then stalking away without another word.

  Ouch, though Gary merrily as he pocketed the money with a smile. I guess he didn’t like me trying to talk my way out of Marco’s ticket. He watched Dawson enter and hoped the others were ready for him.

  Noah Wolf gave the illusion of being busy by fiddling with the hotel room keys and the boxes they belonged to, making himself appear completely oblivious to the arriving guest.

  “Good morning,” Dawson clipped precisely, calling the deskman’s attention.

  Noah spun toward him as though he hadn’t heard him come in. “Oh, sorry! Good morning, sir,” he greeted in a subdued, but jaunty British accent.

  “I’d like to have a room, please,” said Dawson.

  “A room, yes, we have one of our very best available, room twelve,” he answered, moving back to the room boxes to pull out the key.

  “I’d like to pick my own,” Dawson stopped him pointedly.

  “I beg your pardon?” Noah glanced back at him, the oddness of the request showing in his face. Inwardly, he was pleased, knowing his team was ready for this. Pleased even more so that Dawson, for all his unpredictable behavior, was still, in fact, predictable. Jenny and Neil were waiting and listening, ready to put whatever number on the door Dawson requested.

  “I’d like to pick my own,” Dawson repeated. Noah watched him glance around, eyes settling on one of the tour brochures Jenny had placed in the front rack. On one of them, a large number seven was printed across the top. “Let me have room seven, will you?” Dawson requested.

  “Room seven?” Noah clarified, returning the room twelve key to its box and moving to the one that said seven. They were all the same to him, every key would open Dawson’s door. “Yes, I do believe you’re in luck,” he said, pulling the identical card out of the box. “Room seven is available.” He picked up a hotel registration sheet and handed it to Dawson. It would give Jenny and Neil the short time they needed to change the numbers on the doors. “If you’ll just fill out the guest registration.”

  Dawson took the sheet without comment and started filling in the blanks.

  As Noah watched, he caught sight of Marco, now dressed as a bellman, stepping into the lobby. He had tucked some false teeth into his mouth, a simple change that was enough to make him look entirely different.

  Anyone else who had known Donald Jefferson would not have been able to maintain composure the way Noah could. He stood there, waiting for the “guest” to finish completing the form, a polite half grin on his face even as he contemplated just how he would kill the man in front of him. If Noah had felt the emotion that the rest of them were feeling, the rage at having lost their friend and patriarch, Dawson would clearly have recognized the expression he would have been wearing. It was why Noah chose to put himself on the desk, rather than anyone else.

  Recognizing the necessity of keeping a neutral expression, the assassin held his little grin and rang the bell on the counter to his left. The loud sound cut through the thoughts of violence in his mind, refocusing him on his task.

  Dawson looked up questioningly when he heard the bell.

  Noah dismissed the curiosity with a tight smile, gesturing to Marco as he stepped toward them in his bellhop disguise. “If you would just show this gentlemen to room seven, please,” said Noah in a clipped British accent as he held the key out to Marco.

  “Sah,” Marco said, taking the key. Then turning to Dawson, he added, “If ye’d like to follow me, sah?” while picking up his bags.

  “Do enjoy your stay, sir,” said Noah as Dawson strolled after Marco.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Dawson muttered, as though bothered with the subtleties of polite interaction.

  Noah watched him until he was out of view, still keeping his expression blank and neutral. When Dawson was gone, he turned and pushed open the hidden door once again and slipped into his command center. He closed it quickly behind him and realized that he was feeling a sense of relief at not having to look at Caleb Dawson any longer.

  “Are you all right?”

  Noah turned his head, expecting to see Neil behind him, but the keen eyes regarding him were blue, rather than brown. It was Gary, and Noah hadn’t even realized that he had made it back inside the hotel yet. The actor, now in his first role as a field agent, had made good time getting rid of the taxi cab and slipping through the back door.

  Noah nodded and walked toward Neil’s desk. He could feel Gary’s eyes following him as he went, and then sat down in the chair beside the desk.

  “I wanted to kill him,” he confessed. “I wanted to reach across the counter and grab him by the throat, drag him across it and beat him to a pulp.”

  “He killed your friend, Noah.” Gary didn’t blink or fidget with pity when he said it. His voice was blunt, as open and raw as Noah’s confession. “No one’s going to fault you for feeling that way.”

  Noah nodded, but his thoughts were complex. On his last m
ission, he had lost his unemotional edge, reverting back to the emotions of his childhood self for a time. He wasn’t used to feeling anything at all, and it had been made clear that if he lost that edge for good, he might not be capable of continuing as Camelot.

  Neither of them spoke, and a moment later, they heard Marco’s voice coming from the hallway camera monitor. “Here we are, sah.” The two agents looked down at the video feed to see Marco letting Dawson into his room. Noah pushed a button, switching their view to the bedroom camera as soon as the two of them had entered. “All set,” Marco was saying. “Hope you enjoy your stay.”

  “All right,” said Noah, watching Dawson. He realized that he wasn’t feeling any actual emotion, despite the fact that he still wanted to kill Dawson at the earliest opportunity. “The trap’s been set. Let’s spring it.”

  SIX

  Still in the command center, Gary moved over to the voice recorder Neil had set up for him and popped in the disc Noah gave him. They were working so smoothly together, almost as if Gary had been part of the team for years. For his own part when he thought about his teammates, Gary didn’t feel the slightest hesitation to trust any of them.

  He pressed play on the machine in front of him and listened. It was a recording of Dawson’s brief conversation with Noah at the front desk. He picked one sentence from the recording and set it to loop. While in the cab, he’d already heard Dawson’s voice quite a lot. It wouldn’t take him long to perfect it.

  “I’d like to pick my own room,” the disc repeated twice.

  Gary paused the player and repeated the sentence aloud, copying only the cadence of the voice at first, adding more of Dawson’s intonation when he spoke it again. He was aware, somewhere in his mind, that Noah was behind him, checking his progress, perhaps checking how well he’d really be able to do this, wanting to see if he was as good as Wally Lawson believed him to be.

  “Sounds good,” he heard Noah say confidently, shifting from observing Gary and back to monitoring Dawson.

  “No,” Gary said. “I need to put a little more tenor into it.”

  * * *

  “I hope you’re comfortable,” Marco-the-bellhop could be heard saying to Dawson.

  With one ear still monitoring Gary’s progress, Noah took a position standing between Neil and Jenny, whose eyes hadn’t left the monitor since they returned to the command center. Neil turned the screen slightly, allowing Noah a better view.

  “If there’s anything else you need, sah, please don’t hesitate to give us a ring.” Marco handed Dawson his room key.

  “Thank you,” Dawson replied, sounding bored. He dropped a generous tip into Marco’s outstretched hand.

  “Thank you, sah,” Marco said, smiling and leaving quickly.

  This is it, thought Noah. Dawson would make his call now and they’d have him. He could feel his anticipation rise as Dawson walked to the phone on the nightstand and picked it up. From the corner of his eye, he saw Neil check the status of their planted wire, noting that it activated automatically when Dawson picked up the phone.

  “Come on,” Neil muttered when the assassin visibly hesitated. “Damn.” He slapped the tabletop when Dawson put the phone down again.

  Noah and Jenny exchanged looks for a second, then turned back to the monitor.

  “He’s leaving the room,” Noah said as he began moving toward his position at the front desk.

  “As long as he doesn’t go for the phone in the lobby, we’re all good,” Gary said over his shoulder. With all the trouble they had had that morning, the lobby phone had not gotten a bug planted in it.

  Noah nodded his acknowledgment, moving quickly in order to beat Dawson to the desk. He shut the secret door on the others, picked up a prop stack of mail and feigned boredom as he flipped slowly through the envelopes. He was just in time to hear Dawson’s soft-soled shoes as he came down the stairs.

  As they had expected, with Noah standing there at the desk, Dawson gave the lobby telephone a pass, barely glancing at it before walking outside. Noah kept a cautious eye on him, hoping he wouldn’t go too far. The minute the front door closed behind him, Noah whispered softly, “Marco, do you have him?”

  “I do,” Marco sent back. The subcutaneous communication system that was implanted against the bone just behind their ears made it possible for them to communicate with each other without anyone else being aware. After leaving Dawson at his room, Marco had quickly switched into his disguise as a window washer at a building across the street, and now watched Dawson walk lightly down the hotel’s front steps and head directly to the phone booth at the corner, one of the few that remained in this part of London. Marco moved the digital shotgun microphone out from under his arm, aiming it covertly. “Right on target, Noah,” he answered.

  Noah moved back into the hidden command center just in time to hear the phone being dialed through the amplifier as Neil turned up the volume. Noah slipped casually between Jenny and Neil, resting a hand on the back of each of their chairs as they all leaned in to hear what Dawson was saying.

  Neil had already shifted their monitor’s view to the outside camera and though the angle was irregular, they could clearly make out Dawson standing in the phone booth. Neil zoomed in tight and adjusted focus on the keypad. As Dawson dialed, Neil quickly wrote down the numbers he was punching in.

  The plan was working. They were still ahead in this game. Even with the glitches, everything was coming together just the way it needed to.

  “Hello?” a woman’s sultry voice asked, and the sensitive shotgun microphone picked it up and transmitted it to the command center.

  “This is Jonathan,” Dawson said, his voice loud through the speakers. “I thought I would give you a call, since I’m in the city.”

  “You’re late,” huffed the voice, some of the sultriness replaced with annoyance. “I was just about to give up on you.”

  “Then you’re too impatient,” snapped Dawson. “London traffic is always a problem, you should have made allowances for that. Do you have the package I’m looking for?”

  “Yes,” she said, slightly subdued. “I have it.”

  “Very good,” Dawson said. “Now, where are we supposed to meet up?”

  “At the landing, by the river,” she answered. “There is a bistro called Alejandro’s.” Neil nodded at Noah’s questioning glance, indicating he’d already begun locating the address.

  “Be there at one thirty,” Dawson ordered. “And have the package with you.”

  “How will I recognize you?”

  Dawson’s eyes followed a bus as it drove by, noticing the flower printed across its side. “Wear a pink carnation, and I’ll find you,” he said, and then hung up the phone.

  Noah checked his watch while Gary quickly grabbed the phone. “That’s only a little more than an hour,” Noah said. “This could throw a monkey wrench into the plan.”

  “Let’s see if I can still catch her,” Gary said, already dialing the number.

  Noah waited, leaning onto the back of his chair as Gary waited for an answer to his call.

  “Hello?” answered the same sultry voice, edged with a touch of confusion.

  “It’s me again, Jonathan,” Gary said. Noah nodded, because the voice was a perfect match for Dawson’s own. Noah knew that Gary was very good at voice impersonation, and he’d even taught Noah some tricks for a couple of missions. According to Wally, there were very few people who could imitate a voice as neatly and quickly as Gary just had.

  “What now?” the woman asked, annoyance back in her voice. “Want to make it a daisy instead of a carnation?”

  “No,” clipped Gary with Dawson’s voice. “I decided I don’t want to wait that long. The sooner I deal with this job and get it over with, the sooner I can get out of London.”

  Noah could hear the woman’s confusion in the brief silence that followed. “Look, that’s the way I work,” Gary said, tinging his voice with a touch of menace. He met Noah’s eyes as if to reassure him that he wou
ldn’t mess it up. The look seemed to say that he knew just how far he could push her.

  “Where do you want me to go, then?” the woman asked.

  “Just come to my hotel, the St. Aloysius. Do you know where it is?” Gary asked, hoping she didn’t.

  “No.”

  “It’s at the corner of Lansdowne Street and Marbury Road,” Gary said, rattling off their actual address smoothly. “I’m in room eight.”

  “I can find you.”

  “Be here in thirty minutes. And don’t bother with the carnation,” he finished snidely, cutting the connection.

  Noah tapped Gary’s shoulder in appreciation. “Let’s go,” he said unnecessarily. The rest of the team was already up and moving, and Noah collected the extra MI6 agents as they all got into position.

  * * *

  Neil stepped out the back door and down to the street corner. He snapped the ladder he carried with him into place and smoothly removed the fake signs they’d used to manipulate Dawson. Hopefully, when Dawson left, he wouldn’t feel the need to double check his location.

  Back in the command center, Noah watched as Neil called up the recording they’d taken of the woman’s voice. It was a bit grainy, having come from the amplifier, but it would suffice. He set one sentence to loop just as Gary had done with Dawson’s voice, then looked up to check on Gary’s progress, knowing that Renée might need his help before she’d be ready.

  A dressing screen had been set up in the back of the room, and Gary emerged from behind it. He was wearing a suit similar to the one Dawson had worn, with the jacket over one arm as he quickly adjusted his tie.

  Noah waved him over, helping him slip into the suit jacket while Neil played the recording, letting it loop twice. Renée held up a hand to tell him to stop the loop and repeated the sentence aloud, imitating the voice as well as she could. “What now? Want to make it a daisy instead of a carnation?”

  “I think the resonance should be a little higher,” Gary advised. He sat down beside her and explained what he meant. Noah watched and listened for a moment, but then, satisfied that Renée would be able to pull it off, he moved back to watch Dawson on the monitor.