by Josie Brown
“No problem. She won’t even know I’m there.” Jack turned to Arnie. “First things first—we’ll need to plant a few eyes and ears in her place.”
“Piece of cake,” Arnie assured him.
Ryan snorted.
Jack raised a brow. “What’s so funny?”
“Jack Craig of all places—in suburbia.” Ryan shook his head. “Fair warning—even tricked out, it’s not the home-and-hearth country club utopia it seems. Don’t trust anyone.”
Chapter 8
Black Bag Job
When the mission is to break into a home or office, it’s called a black bag job.
Unlike a con job, which is when a grifter cheats you out of money.
Or a screw job, when someone lets you down or even worse, breaks your heart.
Or a blowjob when someone...never mind.
No matter what kind of “job,” the target feels violated.
And yes, someday, somehow, all of us are targets.
“That must be her.” Arnie nodded toward the front door of the house across the street.
With lightning speed, Jack, who had been busy unpacking some of their surveillance gear, grabbed a pair of binoculars and ducked below the large bowed window just in time to see a woman emerging from the Stone residence—240 Hilldale Drive.
She was nothing like he’d imagined. She was just…normal.
She was of medium height—from where she stood in the threshold of the door, he estimated she was five feet and six inches, maybe five-seven. And she was slender and small-boned, with none of the baby fat that you see on most women who have just delivered a child.
Then again, most women don’t lose their husbands on the very same night.
Donna Stone’s hair, straight and brown, fell just below her shoulders. Her face was pretty enough—her nose turned up slightly at the end, her cheekbones were high, all the more emphasized by her heart-shaped face and her small cupid-bow mouth.
Just at that moment, she turned her face directly to him—
And smiled.
Seeing it, straight on, he realized why Carl had fallen in love with her.
It must have been that look in her wide, deep-set blue eyes. Despite the sadness he saw in them, there was also steely determination.
It would be so easy to fall in love with Donna Stone.
Jack shook the thought out of his mind.
He watched as Donna turned her head back into the house, making a sweeping motion with her hands. Suddenly two small children appeared at her side. An older woman came out, too. She was holding an infant in a handheld carrier.
“That’s Phyllis Lindholm, Donna’s aunt on her mother’s side,” Arnie offered. “The kids stayed at her place while Donna was at the hospital delivering the infant, Trisha.”
Together, with the children between them, the two women walked out toward the car parked in the driveway—a Toyota Highlander hybrid.
“Where are they headed?” Jack asked. He knew Arnie had been listening remotely since Donna had risen to wake the children for school. As good as the audio reception was now, it would be even better once they broke into the house and bugged it.
“We’ve got a couple of hours. It’s the kids’ first day at their new school,” Arnie explained. “Donna wants to walk them into their classrooms so that they can meet their teachers. Afterward, she and Phyllis are going grocery shopping, then to Costco and Home Depot.” He paused to pop a stick of gum in his mouth. “Phyllis insists on staying with Donna for two weeks, or however long she feels she needs her, especially since Carl is ‘out of town.’” He winced. “But she’s ragging on Donna about Carl’s lousy timing. Every time she does, Donna defends him. It’s breaking my heart because she sounds as if she’s going to cry.”
“Enough already,” Jack said gruffly. “It’s beginning to sound like a regular soap opera.”
Arnie sniffed. “Dude—have a heart!”
“Yeah, okay.” Jack shrugged. The way his heart was pounding, he was surprised Arnie couldn’t hear it, what with all the audio monitors in their house. “Having Phyllis here is both a curse and a blessing. Thank goodness they’re leaving together. If Phyllis stayed behind, we wouldn’t have this opportunity to drop a few bugs.” He grabbed one of the two duffel bags with their gear. “Listen, any time Phyllis separates from Donna over the next few days, one of us should follow and try to strike up a conversation. She may not know anything, but then again, Donna may have confided in her about Carl’s mood prior to the accident.”
Arnie’s eyes lit up. “Wow, great!” He grabbed the other bag. “Hey, can I wear a disguise? If it’s in the park, I can pull off a bum easily.”
“I don’t doubt it in the least.” Jack shook his head. “Just what we need—you getting arrested for panhandling Hilldale’s fine citizens. Never mind. Let’s get cracking in case they forgot the diaper bag again.”
Arnie had already broken the passcode that armed the home’s security system. They went into the garage and got into their car, then drove around the block until they were on the far side of the house. Then they climbed over the stone wall and into the backyard.
The good news: the back door was equipped with a built-in dog door.
The bad news: the Stones had a dog. A big dog. One that growled.
“Ryan forgot to mention this,” Arnie muttered in a shaking voice.
“Turn around as you normally would, and go back to the house. Grab some of the packaged cheese out of the fridge,” Jack suggested. “He’ll love us in no time.”
Arnie was gone in flash.
The dog, a blond collie, ran at his heels, barking.
Before a neighbor could come out to see what was happening, Jack slipped in through the dog door, pulling one duffel in behind him, then the other.
A lot of the Stones’ things were still in boxes.
This is going to make it virtually impossible for us to find the thumb drive, if it’s here, Jack thought. As for the other intel that might have also been in Carl’s possession, what form was it in—a file folder of papers? A microdot? Was it another thumb drive?
He came to the conclusion that the best place to start was the bedroom, and he walked upstairs. When he got there, from what he could tell, things were more organized. Clothes were hung in closets, or folded neatly in drawers. Linens were already stacked on the shelves.
He started with the dressers. The tall boy had to be Carl’s. The top drawer was just deep enough to hold a man’s wallet. Ties were laid out, flat, in rows. There were several small boxes that held cufflinks. Others held tie clips.
One slim box held four tickets to an upcoming Dodgers game. Apparently, Carl had planned on taking the family.
Jack doubted Donna would take them in his stead.
He opened the next drawer to find it equally divided between the dead man’s socks and underwear. All were neatly folded. He sifted through the items with a gloved hand, feeling between them for anything hard and small, like the thumb drive, but finding nothing.
He repeated the search in the rest of the drawers, again finding nothing.
Then he moved on to Donna’s dresser. It felt odd going through the woman’s unmentionables. Unlike her husband, her underwear was tossed in the drawer, willy-nilly. Like most of the women he knew, the garments came in all colors. While there were some more modest items, she owned a thong or two.
Or three or four.
And a pair of pink furry handcuffs.
Obviously, there’s more to Mrs. Stone than meets the eye, he thought as he held up a white lace thong.
After going through the rest of her drawers with no success, he moved onto the closet. It was large, and the husband and wife were meant to share it—her dresses on one side, Carl’s suits on the other.
He wondered how long Carl’s things would hang there before Donna felt ready to part with them.
Until she got tired of crying herself to sleep each night.
He went through all the pockets, first of the
suits and then of Donna’s dresses and coats. No luck.
Donna’s shoes were laid out, but Carl’s shoes were still packed in boxes, on the deep top shelf, along with other boxes. He shifted one over. When he did, another fell. He cursed himself for his clumsiness. As he stacked the items back into the box, one caught his interest—
A portable gun vault.
It took a few moments to pick the lock. A Sig P250 was inside.
It must have been Donna’s gun, since Carl had his with him at the end.
He hoped she knew how to use it.
While Arnie inserted audio bugs, Jack went through every room in search of the thumb drive. Besides looking in the obvious places—drawers, cabinets, bins, and pockets—he opened up jewelry and music boxes, searched books for cut-outs, felt through seams in the furniture, drapery, and into every nook and cranny he could find.
He came up with absolutely nothing.
When he was done, he assisted Arnie with replacing the down lighting domes with similar ones containing miniature webcams.
After every installation, Arnie tested each monitor’s signal with an iPad. In between testing, he nibbled at a leftover casserole dish of chicken potpie that was on the counter. Lassie, who was now his new best friend, begged and whined at his feet.
“Hey, don’t make too big of a dent in that pie,” Jack warned him.
“But it’s so good!” Arnie exclaimed with a full mouth. “Damn, this woman can cook! It’s nothing like that store-bought crap our moms used to feed us as kids. Here, have a bite.”
He held out his spoon.
Seeing this, Lassie leaped up on her back legs.
Surprised, Arnie jerked his arm away.
The casserole dish fell onto the floor.
Outside, the sound of a car could be heard, pulling into the drive.
“Oh…shit!” Arnie spit out potpie as he grabbed his duffel bag and headed for the dog door.
Jack rolled out behind him.
Lassie heard the car, too. Maybe she remembered her primary allegiance was to the family, or maybe it was the potpie all over the kitchen floor, but in any case, she stayed put.
The men waited until Donna and her family were in the house before rolling the car back into the garage of the rental house across the street. Once they were inside, Arnie clicked on the webcam in time for him and Jack to see Donna scolding Lassie, and shooing her out the door.
“I feel guilty,” Arnie admitted.
“You should,” Jack chided him. “I hope it was worth it.”
Arnie rubbed his stomach. “Heaven on a spoon. So, that’s what it’s like to have a good home-cooked meal! No wonder Carl married her.”
Arnie would know better if he’d been the one rummaging through Donna’s panty drawer.
So that he could get her white lace thong panty out of his mind, Jack quickly got to work.
“I think we should get a kid,” Arnie proclaimed. He’d just come back with the groceries, a.k.a., more beer and pizza.
Jack put down his binoculars to stare at him. “What are you, nuts?”
“No, I’m being serious,” Arnie insisted. “Don’t you see? If we had one, it would make it easier to talk to the neighbors—you know, at the park. Otherwise, I’m just the sad sack neighbor guy tossing a Frisbee to myself.”
In a way, he’s got a point, Jack conceded.
“Great. I’ll ask Ryan to requisition one for us.”
Arnie frowned. “Really?”
“No, you moron. What are you going to feed a kid, beer and pizza?” He pointed to the countertop, where Arnie had left their primary food supply. “Should we ask Ryan to spring for another cot, too?”
“Okay, I get the point. Then, how about a midget who just acts like a kid?”
Jack’s reaction was to sigh and rub the headache from his forehead.
“The least we can get is a dog,” Arnie pointed out.
“No.” Jack shook his head adamantly. “With a dog comes…responsibility.” And that was something neither of them could take on if they were to focus on taking down the Quorum.
So no dog, and no kid.
And certainly no wife.
It had been two weeks since the twenty-four hour surveillance mission had begun. So far, Arnie’s attempts to engage the neighbors had resulted in three slaps to his face. Either his disguises weren’t working or he had lousy social skills, or both. Jack was willing to bet on Door Number Three.
In Arnie’s favor, he had been invited to a neighborhood key party. His reconnaissance brought both of them some interesting insights into a more provocative point of view of life in the suburbs, to say the least. “One thing’s for sure, there are a lot of unhappy couples in Hilldale.”
In time, would that have described Donna and Carl?
In the hours when Jack wasn’t on surveillance duty, he did what he could to delve into files covering every facet of Carl’s life, both before and during his tenure with Acme—the background check on his parents, his academic reports, his military record, and Acme’s recruitment and training reports.
Nothing stood out.
Jack then combed over the dead agent’s mission reports, looking for any telltale sign that might indicate when he knew the Quorum was onto him. He found none. The reports were perfunctory at best—no color or embellishments. On the rare times Carl’s reports included clandestine surveillance photos of the Quorum operatives who had interacted with him, they were either targets who had been exterminated or who had been apprehended in the meantime.
However, there were no photos of his Quorum recruiter and handler, a man named Eric Weber.
Nor were there any of Tatyana Zakharov, although one of his earlier filings reported a brief encounter, apparently by mistake. Carl’s description of her was straightforward and spot on, matching Jack’s own observations:
Beautiful. Smart. Deadly.
Now in hindsight, Jack wondered if Carl’s assessment of her was short and not so sweet for personal reasons.
There was no picture of Pinky Ring either. This was particularly disappointing to Jack because there was a fifty-fifty chance the man would have been identified by name as well.
Going over all these, Ryan was adamant that Carl never let on that he felt his cover was blown. “He knew I’d pull him out at the first sign of danger.”
“He must have been worried about something,” Jack insisted. “Why else would he have left his family in that bunker of a house?”
A house in which his bereaved widow slept fitfully, if she slept at all.
Maybe the Quorum figured out that the intel died along with Carl, Jack reasoned.
To date, there hadn’t been any break-in attempts or other unusual activity in or around the house. Life for the Stones—and for Jack and Arnie, for that matter—was settling into a pattern.
On most days now, it was Aunt Phyllis who took Mary and Jeff to school and then went on to the stores for any necessary shopping. During that time, Donna cared for infant Trisha, and did the laundry or other housework. Usually Phyllis got home in time for Trisha’s mid-morning nap, at which time Donna took a run, or she slipped off to the shooting range.
Jack was impressed with what he saw—clean shots, mostly bull’s-eyes.
It relieved him to know that, on some level, she could protect herself and her family.
Unlike her days, which were filled with family tasks that kept her grounded in the present instead of lost in the past, Donna’s nights were spent roaming from room to room in the large house. If she wasn’t patting the heads of her sleeping children, she was staring out the great room window facing the backyard and into the dark recesses beyond the trees.
Or she was baking—cinnamon rolls, cakes, pies, cookies.
And all the while, she cried.
It’s odd—what people will do as they mourn, Jack thought. He laughed mercilessly as he thought about his own recent actions in light of his wife leaving him.
He’d thrown himself into his work.
>
In other words, despite his anger and sadness, he hadn’t changed a thing about his life.
I have lousy priorities, he realized. I guess Carl did, too. If I’d had his family and knew that the Quorum was after me, I would have run for the hills with them, and never looked back.
Chapter 9
Ambush
The best ambushes create a diversion first, so that the target is looking in the wrong place when the time is right.
Even if you’re the target, you can turn the tables on your aggressors by taking the first opportunity to take them off guard.
If possible, have this interaction in the presence of others. No one wants witnesses to a hit.
“Ouch! Trouble in paradise,” Arnie murmured.
It was ten-thirty on the fourth Wednesday of their surveillance mission. Jack looked up from the file he was reading and walked over to the wall in front of the el-shaped couch, where Arnie had set up a seventy-inch flat screen monitor. The screen was divided into six separate webcam feeds. Like dominos, every ten seconds the sections changed to another location in the surveillance area not previously seen in the past sixty seconds.
He scanned the screens, one by one. “Where should I be looking? Have you spotted an intruder?” Jack’s hand went instinctively to his gun holster.
“No, no! Nothing like that. It’s just a trio of the neighborhood mean mommies.” Arnie swiped one of the screens so that it grew twice as large as the other ones, and moved front and center. It showed the Stones’ driveway. A Mercedes G wagon was pulling up.
When it stopped, three women exited from the vehicle. Their attire was casual: slim jeans and silk blouses under casual linen jackets that were cut in a way that fit their well-toned bodies like gloves. They wore jeweled sandals with heels as high as those Jack had seen on Vegas showgirls.
Jack stared at Arnie. “You know these women?”
