Top Secret Twenty-One

by Janet Evanovich

  “Nice to know,” I said to Dillan. “I’m a disaster!” I whispered to Morelli.

  “Yeah, you keep life interesting,” Morelli said, unlocking my apartment. “Be careful where you walk. The carpets are soaked. We’ll get a restoration team in here tomorrow. As you can see, most of the damage is confined to the living room.”

  “There’s a hole in my wall! I can see daylight through it.”

  “Dillan’s going to board it up as soon as he gets rid of some of the water. I thought you’d want to get some clothes. Probably everything’s going to have to be cleaned and aired to get rid of the smoke smell.”

  I filled my laundry basket and two garbage bags with clothes. I added food for Rex and some basic toiletries, grabbed the things that belonged to Briggs, and we left the apartment.

  Morelli stuffed everything into the Buick. “Where are you going now? Are you moving in with your parents?”

  “Probably, but I don’t know what to do with Briggs. They won’t take Briggs.”

  “He’s an adult,” Morelli said. “He can take care of himself.”

  “Everything in his apartment was destroyed. And Poletti is trying to kill him.”

  “It’s not like he’s blameless. He helped Poletti cheat on his taxes, and he boinked his wife.”

  “You know about the wife?”

  “Everybody knows about the wife.”

  “And he saved Rex.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Morelli said.

  “I can’t just walk away from him.”

  Morelli looked like he was trying not to grimace. “You’re such a cupcake.”

  My eyes filled with tears again.

  “Oh crap,” Morelli said, cuddling me into him. “You can stay with me. And you can bring Briggs with you.”

  I brought my clothes to my parents’ house and filled the washer with the first load.

  “I’ll take your black suit and hang it outside to air,” Grandma said. “You’ll need it for the funeral tomorrow.”

  Oh joy, the funeral. The only thing I hate more than a viewing is a funeral. I grabbed some chocolate chip cookies from my mom’s cookie jar, told Grandma I’d be back, and chugged off to the office in the Buick.

  “I’m surprised you haven’t gotten a new car by now,” Lula said when I walked in.

  “No time to look, and no money to buy,” I said. “I need to capture Poletti.” I handed Briggs the duffel bag filled with his clothes. “It was lucky you were keeping your clothes in this heavy-duty bag. They might not smell too smoky, and they shouldn’t have any water or foam damage.”

  Briggs took his clothes bag to the bathroom to change, and Connie sprayed the office with air freshener.

  “You have to get him out of here,” she said. “Even with clean clothes he’s still going to smell like charbroiled goat.”

  “Have you heard any news about the Rangeman building?” I asked Connie. “Is it still under quarantine?”

  “So far as I know,” Connie said. “My cousin Loretta called about a half hour ago. She’s a nurse at St. Francis, and she said Emilio Gardi isn’t doing well. He’s in kidney failure.”

  A sick feeling swirled through my stomach.

  “What about Ranger’s man McCready?”

  “I haven’t heard anything about him.”

  I called Ranger. “How’s McCready doing?”

  “He’s managing. They’re trying something new with him.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m not running at full capacity, so be careful. I can’t always see you.”

  He disconnected, and I took a moment to calm myself. There’ve been times when I’d welcomed the news that Ranger wasn’t following my every move, but this wasn’t one of them.

  “You’re whiter than usual,” Lula said to me. “Are you okay?”

  I sat in the chair by Connie’s desk and hung my head between my legs. “I’m a little freaked out.”

  “You know what helps me when I get freaked out?” Lula said. “Donuts. You probably need donuts. And I wouldn’t mind having some donuts either.”

  Briggs came out of the bathroom. “I’d like a donut.”

  He’d washed the smudges off his face, combed his hair, and put on clean clothes. He still smelled like smoke, but it wasn’t at the charred goat level anymore.

  “I don’t need a donut,” I said. “I need some sanity to my life. Some normality.”

  “Yeah, but a donut’s a good start,” Lula said. “I always think better when I got a donut in my hand.”

  “Where do you suppose Ranger is hiding out?” I asked Connie.

  “I don’t know,” Connie said, “but I’m guessing he’s not too far away from Rangeman. He’s a cautious guy. He probably has a small satellite office with his account information duplicated offsite somewhere safe. I can’t see him trusting the cloud.”

  I knew he owned several properties in Trenton. All under different holding companies. I didn’t know any of the addresses.

  “Okay,” I said, “I’m going for donuts. Who’s going with me?”

  “I am,” Lula said.

  “Me too,” Briggs said.

  I drove Lula and Briggs to Tasty Pastry, gave them a twenty, and told them I wanted two chocolate-covered donuts. As soon as they were in the bakery, I took off. It was a sneaky thing to do, but I needed some personal space. I wanted to find Ranger, and I couldn’t do it with Lula and Briggs tagging along.

  My phone rang two minutes later.

  “What the heck?” Lula said.

  “I had to get away from Briggs so I could talk to Ranger,” I told her.

  I started at the Rangeman building and methodically explored a six-block area. I was looking for a building with secure parking and reflective glass windows. Ranger was all about privacy. I enlarged the grid and found a building on Bender Street that had promise. It was about a half mile from the Rangeman building. It was a three-story townhouse with tinted windows. An alley ran along the back of the townhouse, the backyard was enclosed by a nine-foot cement wall with an automated security gate, and security cameras looked down at the alley from the roof.

  I got out of the Buick and waved at one of the cameras. Thirty seconds later my phone chirped.

  “Babe,” Ranger said.

  I smiled at the camera. “Howdy.”

  The gate opened. I got back into the Buick and drove into the paved parking area. There were three black SUVs parked and three more spaces. The back door to the townhouse opened, and Tank looked out. He didn’t look happy to see me. I stepped past him into a hallway that led to the front of the house and a six-man elevator.

  “Third floor,” Tank said, holding the elevator for me.

  The elevator opened onto a third-floor loft and Ranger. He didn’t look that happy either, but then it’s hard to tell with Ranger. He doesn’t usually show a lot of emotion.

  The walls were white. The furniture was sleek black leather. The floors were cement. There was a small ultramodern galley kitchen, a dining room table and six chairs, a corner set aside as an office, a couch and a coffee table in front of a flat-screen television, and a section partitioned off that I imagined was a bedroom and bathroom.

  “Is this the Batcave?” I asked him.

  “It was a safe house until you discovered it.”

  “And now it’s not safe?”

  “Now it’s a home,” Ranger said.

  “Wow!”

  The corners of his mouth twitched into the beginnings of a smile. “Don’t read too much into that.”

  “It was a profound revelation. And I don’t know how to tell you this, but your safe house wasn’t that hard to find.”

  “Only because you know me so well. And it’s more satellite office than safe house. Was there a specific reason for this visit?”

  “I have two problems. The first is Jimmy Poletti. I know Poletti is in the area because he just shot a firebomb into my living room. Unfortunately, I’m not having any luck capturing him. I thought you
might be able to help me.”

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “I have some ideas.”

  “And your second problem?”

  “It’s you. I don’t like the thought that some freakazoid polonium assassin will have better luck the second time around and you’ll end up glowing in the dark. It’s causing me stress, so I wish you’d find the guy and eliminate him.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Do you have any leads?”

  “I think this person is probably Russian. Either mob or military. I’ve apprehended some members of the Russian mob. And it wouldn’t be hard to imagine Gardi moving in those circles.”

  “Why Russian?”

  “The polonium-210 that was in Gardi’s possession is a relatively obscure radioactive poison that has limited production. To my knowledge it’s currently being produced only in Russia and is available only to well-connected Russians.”

  “And you think some Russian mob guy hates you enough to do this?”

  “It would require a certain level of insanity, but it’s possible.”

  “So how do you find this guy?”

  “It’s hard without access to Gardi.”

  “Morelli said even the police don’t have access.”

  “He’s been charged with nuclear terrorism. He’s guarded by an army of FBI agents, and no one at the federal level is sharing information.”

  “I bet I can get you in.”

  One eyebrow raised a fraction of an inch.

  “I’ve got Randy Briggs,” I said. “He was briefly head of security at Central Hospital, and while he was at Central he filled in weekends at St. Francis. I’m sure he knows everyone’s schedule and all the ways to get onto a floor.”

  THIRTEEN

  THERE WAS A single donut left in the box when I got back to the office. I helped myself to the donut and turned to Briggs.

  “Ranger needs to talk to Gardi,” I said. “Can you get him into St. Francis?”

  “That could be tough. From what I hear the floor is crawling with FBI. They won’t even let hospital security in.”

  “Someone must be getting in,” I said. “Doctors, nurses, housekeeping, food service. What would be our best shot?”

  “Housekeeping. I’m sure everyone going into that room is gowned and masked, so that’s an advantage. I can get you suited up, and then all you have to do is go in with a stack of towels and sheets. Late afternoon is best. Unless Gardi’s having an emergency, he should be alone. Doctors do rounds in the morning, and nurses do paperwork around four o’clock. Usually, security doesn’t stay in the room. They hang outside the door. The problem is with Ranger. Housekeeping’s all women. They work in pairs, pushing a cart filled with supplies.”

  “I could be a pair with Stephanie,” Lula said. “Ordinarily I don’t like being in a hospital, but this would be different. This would be like one of them doctor shows where I’d have a chance to give an award-winning performance. I could perform the snot out of this role.”

  “Are you sure you can’t get Ranger in?” I asked Briggs. “He needs some specific information.”

  “I can suit him up,” Briggs said. “And I can tell him how to get on the floor. I don’t know if he can bluff his way past the FBI. If I was protecting Gardi, I’d be reluctant to let a big guy I didn’t know get into the room.”

  “But being we’re ladies we wouldn’t have those problems,” Lula said. “We could go about our business like we were invisible.”

  “Maybe,” Briggs said. “I think it’s a crapshoot.”

  “Do you know what Ranger needs to get out of Gardi?” Lula asked me.

  “He wants to know who gave Gardi the polonium.”

  “If you need information from Gardi you want to try to get it sooner rather than later,” Connie said. “He’s not doing well.”

  St. Francis is walking distance from the bail bonds office, but we had Connie drive us. I called Ranger on the way and told him the plan.

  “This wasn’t what I had in mind,” he said.

  “If I get caught you’ll be my one phone call.”

  This was met by silence on Ranger’s side, so I disconnected.

  Briggs took us to a back entrance that was used for maintenance purposes. The door had a four-digit thumb lock. He tapped in the combination, and the door opened.

  “They never change the combination,” he said. “This isn’t exactly the world’s most secure hospital.”

  We followed him down an empty corridor to a supply room. We pulled scrubs on over our clothes, grabbed sterile gowns and masks, and Briggs rolled a laundry cart over to us.

  “Connie said he’s in isolation on the third floor,” Briggs said. “Ordinarily he’d be in the lockdown ward for prisoners, but they don’t have the ability to segregate him there. Tell the guard at the door you’re here for the contaminated linens. Make sure you’re wearing double gloves and the mask. If the guard has any sense, he’ll walk away from the room when you go after the linens.”

  “How do you know all this?” Lula asked Briggs.

  “There’s a protocol for patients getting radiation. It’s nasty stuff. The drill with the laundry is that one of you stays just outside the room with the laundry cart and one of you goes in and empties the hamper and checks the bathroom. There are a bunch of security cameras past this point, so I’m going to stay here. You want to put your masks and gowns on now, and don’t take them off until you’re back here, out of camera range.”

  “We need names,” Lula said to me. “I’m going to be Shaneeka. Who do you want to be?”

  “Judy.”

  “Say what? That’s a lame name for a secret-agent nurse.”

  “I’m not a nurse. I’m pushing a laundry basket.”

  “It don’t matter. You still could take pride in your work. I think you should be Shandra.”

  “Okay, I’m Shandra.”

  We followed Briggs’s instructions and took the service elevator to the third floor. Three men in rumpled gray suits and wearing earbuds were at the end of the corridor.

  “Showtime,” Lula said, setting her sights on the three men.

  “We’re going to keep a low profile,” I said to her.

  “Sure,” she said. “I know that.”

  Lula stopped in front of the men and looked into the room. The door was closed, and on it was a sign with the international symbol for radiation.

  “Shandra and me are here to get the contaminated linens in this room,” she said. “We’re sort of new at this, so you might want to stand back in case we accidentally spew some bad shit out at you.”

  All three men took several steps back.

  I pulled on double gloves, took a large heavy-duty orange plastic bag with a radiation symbol on it from the cart, and went into the room.

  Gardi was in bed, hooked up to a bunch of tubes that were dripping stuff into him. His eyes were closed, and his skin was the color of wet cement.

  “Hey,” I said to him. “How’s it going?”

  He half opened his eyes. “Great.”

  “Sorry about the polonium.”

  “Shit happens.”

  “I heard someone set you up.”

  “You heard wrong. I set myself up. It was a business deal. I needed money. Bad. Now I’m a dead man.”

  “There might be an antidote.”

  “You got one in your pocket?”

  “Just saying. Who gave you the polonium?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Ranger.”

  “Figures. Look, I got nothing personal against him, even though he ruined my dinner with my friends.”

  “Then help me out here. Who gave you the polonium?”

  “Some guy with a weird tattoo on his neck. I told the FBI, and they looked at me like I was nuts. I don’t think they believed me.”

  “Does this guy have a name?”

  “I didn’t get one. He approached me. Said he knew I needed money. Said he had a lot of money and needed a job done.”<
br />
  “What did this guy look like?”

  “Average height and build. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. Caucasian, but I couldn’t see his hair. He had on mirrored sunglasses, but I could see he had a scar above one of his eyes. He had some kind of accent. Sort of British. And he had that tattoo on his neck.”

  “What did the tattoo look like?”

  “It was a skull with a flower.”

  “And he told you he wanted you to deliver the polonium?”

  “Yeah. He said if I got it on me it was deadly so I should be careful. I guess he got that right.”

  “But you agreed to do it anyway.”

  “It was a lot of money. And it seemed safe. The canister had a timer on it. I pushed the button, and I had a half hour before it spewed out the shit. Except the stupid thing got busted in the scuffle with the Rangeman guy, and it all leaked out on me.”

  I went into the bathroom and gathered up his towels. “How did Skull and Flower pass the canister to you?”

  “He got me a hotel room in New York. The Gatewell. The canister was in the room when I checked in.”

  “And the money?”

  “Cash. Delivered to my … financial partners.”

  “Jeez, Emilio, this sucks.”

  “Is my hair falling out yet?”

  “Not that I can tell.”

  “If I beat this thing, I’m debt free.”

  “Yeah, well, good luck.”

  I left the room and shoved the orange bag of linens into the cart.

  “We all done here?” Lula asked.

  “Yep. All done.”

  We put our heads down and walked the laundry cart to the service elevator. We got off at the ground floor, pushed the cart beyond the point where there were security cameras, and shucked our masks, gloves, gowns, and scrubs. We left the cart in the hall and exited the building. Connie and Briggs were waiting at the curb. A black SUV that I suspected was a Rangeman vehicle was idling across the street. Lula and I got into Connie’s car, and she drove us back to the office. The black SUV pulled up behind Connie’s car, and Hal got out.

  “Ranger would like to see you,” Hal said.

  I got into the SUV, and Hal drove me to the safe house on Bender Street. I took the elevator to the third floor and found Ranger at his desk.