The Kip Keene Box Set: Books 1, 2 & 3

by Nicholas Erik

  She raised an eyebrow as she handed it to him.

  “Yeah, the accent,” Keene said. “You’ve never heard it before.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Or, let me guess, I know, it’s the coat. It’s dirty.” He brought the ragged, smelly alpaca fur around him, the only tenuous link to a past lifetime, and waved her away.

  “What’s on your shirt?”

  Keene looked down at the pop culture reference no one on Earth could ever understand. “It’s a—you know, it’s nothing.”

  “Should I keep the door open?”

  “Why?”

  “For your guests,” she said, as if it was ludicrous to be up here in VIP, all by himself.

  Keene drank the champagne and chucked the empty glass behind him with a loud crash that was almost inaudible over the trance and dubstep pounding from the club’s speakers. Even insulated, high above the dancefloor, the sound made his head swim and his ears hurt. It was like being right next to a Carrier’s engine when it fired up, ready for liftoff.

  “Sir?”

  “No one’s coming,” Keene said, more factual than sad. He yanked the bottle of champagne from the ice bucket and put it in the middle of his lap, drinking with sloppy indifference at irregular intervals. The kaleidoscope of colors below started to blend together, and the constant, bass-heavy drops from the DJ seemed almost musical.

  This was the end of a nice bender that had started with too many forties and an ill-advised theft at a local bank. The cameras, the cameras. He should take care of those—but wiping the footage of his little heist could wait. Besides, what better way was there to celebrate an anniversary, of sorts, all alone?

  It’d been six months since he’d landed here, fled from his crew, and for what?

  Keene popped the next bottle himself, drinking it much quicker. The room was getting heavy now, the bass slow, everything moving through molasses. He crashed through the glass table, shards exploding across the posh velvet sofa and marble floor as Keene slammed into the ground face-first.

  He bounced, but didn’t pass out, clutching a half-broken bottle tight to his chest as he closed his eyes.

  A successful celebration by anyone’s measurement.

  After accepting a lifetime ban and writing a generous check to the proprietor of the Manhattan establishment, Keene stumbled into the morning light wishing he’d brought sunglasses. Or just gotten those damn light-sensing implants back before he’d been frozen. Those would have come in handy.

  A heads up that he was headed to a future Stone Age would have also been nice.

  All he had was the multi-tool and the assortment of low-level tech in his travel bag—an emergency vaccination grenade, a stem-cell field dressing pen. True, these objects made smartphones—Keene almost gagged thinking of the word, although that could’ve also been the hangover—look like rocks and sticks, but what could’ve been…

  Keene had contemplated trying to track down the crash site and crazy old man, but he didn’t know where to start. Given his cryogenic disorientation at the time, he had only a general continent: South America. No country. He’d wandered through a few on his way up north.

  The Blue Maybelle might still have some good stuff aboard, but damned if the shame of his cowardice and a general apathy didn’t keep him from searching further.

  The multi-tool was enough to live like a king—if a king had no subjects, no friends, and everyone thought he was insane. Except for the even crazier people with whom he did business.

  A splitting pain shot through the middle of Keene’s head when his phone rang. He didn’t want to answer. All things considered, he was still wasted, and his only goals at that moment in his life were to get more wasted and then sleep it off in a pile of his own vomit.

  But the guy called back, and when Keene checked the caller ID, he decided it was better to answer.

  “Ruslan.” He tried to put some excitement into his voice, anything at all, but it didn’t work. There was no one on the planet happy to talk to Ruslan Stojan, not even the ugly bastard’s own mother.

  “Hello my strange friend,” Ruslan said. Despite his exotic name, he was a hideous, pasty, too-hairy thug from one of the five boroughs that Keene could never keep straight. “You haven’t given me an update.”

  Keene thought for a moment, but then just said, “Remind me what our agreement was.”

  “This ain’t very professional,” Ruslan said. Keene tried to stifle a laugh, remembering his first meeting with Ruslan, in the guy’s garish New Jersey mansion, his elderly mother sitting at the table while the two of them talked shop. This was a guy who thought professional was a large gold cross and as many corresponding rings as he could fit on his fat, hairy hands.

  “Spare me the sermon, Gandhi,” Keene said.

  “Gandhi? Who the hell’s that?” Ruslan said. “I need to know about a job, and you talk to me about this shit?”

  Keene could’ve sworn his headache was somehow getting worse.

  “I need to know what the job is before I can talk to you about it.”

  “Oh, funny guy, I get it. You want me to laugh, is that it? Well you ain’t gonna be laughing if I don’t get my damn diamond. Because your balls are gonna be stuffed in your mouth.”

  Keene heard Ruslan’s phone soar through the air, the call ending with a crashing burst of static. Keene winced, squeezing one eye shut.

  A few subway rides later, Keene was looking up at a towering Manhattan condominium high rise. Not quite 15 Central Park West, but it was pretty damn nice.

  He stepped inside the swinging glass door, smiled at the desk clerk, incapacitated him with the multi-tool, looked at the cameras, decided they didn’t matter, then took a trip up to the penthouse.

  Ten minutes later, the elevator dinged and Keene walked out of the high rise, his coat fluttering in the wind, passerby crossing the street before they had to walk near him.

  If only they knew he had a ten million dollar diamond in the pocket of his ragged jeans.

  Yeah, they’d respect him then.

  Samantha Strike’s heeled boots were propped up on the desk, and her thoughts were drifting. The Federal Bureau of Investigation logo flitted across her computer’s screen while she day dreamed.

  Nothing to do, nowhere to go.

  Nothing she could do about what had happened last week.

  Nothing to get her mind off it.

  She sniffed, wrinkling her nose, a vestige of a habit long buried. A tug at the edge of her right cuff revealed a hint of an intricate tattoo that meant nothing.

  The corner of Strike’s mouth twisted into a sort of grin. Maybe now it meant everything. Funny how a story could change.

  The phone rang, and she leapt forward, almost yanking the unit off the desk.

  “Agent Strike.”

  “Heard you had a wardrobe malfunction this morning.”

  The hell was he talking about? “What is it, Jennings?”

  “You at your desk?” Agent Jennings said.

  “No, I’m out.”

  “You are?” Cars whipped by in the background of the call. Officers were yelling back and forth. A single siren blared, adding to the cacophony.

  “You called my office line, jackass. What do you need?”

  Jennings coughed, embarrassed he’d been had. What a dumb son of a bitch. How he’d ever gotten to be an agent, let alone a senior agent, that would’ve been an all-timer for Sherlock Holmes.

  “The tech guy called, said he had something on another case of mine.”

  “I’m glad,” Strike said. She tapped her fingers against the plastic desk. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two—

  “Look it over, see if he’s got the right idea.”

  “The right idea?”

  “See if the software flagged the right guy. You know how those nerds dow
n in tech get all excited over nothing.”

  Strike had no idea, but she could infer from Jennings’ tone that there was friction between the desk jockeys and field agents.

  “And then what?” Strike leaned forward, elbows digging into the keyboard, an endless series of gibberish appearing in the blank document before her. This was it—she was going to get some play. About damn time.

  “Put the file on my desk.”

  “You don’t want me to follow up or—”

  “And Strike?”

  “Yes?”

  “Next time, when you address a superior, you call him sir. Daddy can’t cover your ass any more.”

  “Got it,” she said, fingers crunching into the receiver hard enough to crack it. Right before the line closed, she rushed in to add, “Sir.”

  Here she was, all alone, nerves firing, twitchy, nowhere to go.

  The senior agents had caught a murder in the morning, but they’d basically laughed at her when she’d asked to come with, said something along the lines that it would be too dangerous.

  Although they were nice enough to complement her shoes, and how she’d look naked in them. Blonde and pretty in an office of men. The deck wasn’t as stacked in her favor as people on the outside might think, unless Strike suddenly took up a penchant for giving blowjobs.

  “Assholes,” she said to no one in particular, still staring at the ceiling. Fresh out of Quantico, and the first day on the job she chose these stripper boots. Like it wasn’t hard enough to break into the club. Once they took her out in the field, she’d pop a couple shots, hit a bottle across a warehouse at fifty yards dead in the middle.

  Strike snorted. Unauthorized discharge of a firearm would probably get her more desk duty instead of any props from the boys. A knock on the vinyl siding of her gray cubicle gave her a start, and she kicked over a cold cup of coffee.

  “Shit,” she said, and reached down to pick up the now empty container. She looked up to find one of the techs staring at her, wide-eyed. That was an unfamiliar look here, but Strike would take it. “Yeah?”

  “S-sorry to startle you, Agent Strike.”

  “Samantha. Sam.”

  “What?” The guy rubbed his glasses, leaving a large smudge in the middle of the left lens. He had an almost stereotypical nerd vibe, so comically overblown that it was like he was trying to copy the aesthetic. Strike, however, knew that it was all accidental: the untucked short-sleeved shirt one size too big, the smartphone holster on the black plastic belt that pretended to be leather, but wasn’t fooling anyone.

  His eyes were now dead set on the ground, like he was terrified Strike would bite.

  “I’m Samantha,” Strike repeated, a little louder. “This is my first—”

  “I know.”

  “Of course,” Strike said. Inside, she fumed, lashing herself with silent reprimands. No need to even start bringing that fact up. Here was someone who was actually coming to her, and she brought up the fact she was a total rookie. “Does it show?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe?” The guy shifted in the doorway and took a step back, like he was considering a hasty retreat. Two glossy photographs were tucked underneath his skinny arm, lost amidst a sea of fabric.

  Strike got up and walked over, figuring it couldn’t get any worse. She squinted a little bit to read the ID badge pinned to his chest. High clearance.

  “So, Freddy Marin, what’d you come to me for?”

  “Uh, something popped on the screen, and Jennings told me you’re the only agent here.”

  “Come again?” Strike did a slow sweep of the rest of the cubicles. Everyone but her had been called out on the Desmond murders upstate. Either she was catching a break, or everyone was screwing her over.

  Freddy’s gaze was focused on the ground behind Strike. She turned to see the coffee stain beginning to set into the rug.

  “Don’t worry about that,” she said, and tried to lighten the mood with a casual laugh.

  “Worry about what?”

  Strike blinked. This guy was afraid to look at her for some reason. Maybe the IT guys didn’t get enough sunlight or something.

  “You wanna show me?”

  “M-maybe I should wait for Jennings,” Freddy said, glancing at her face before turning away to head back to the safety of his own office. “I think I should—”

  Strike’s long fingers shot out and snatched the photographs before he could leave.

  “Damn,” she said with a long whistle, tracing over the figure in the surveillance cam shot, “this guy’s a legend.” Strike held the print up in front of Freddy’s face, like he hadn’t seen it before.

  “Don’t let Jennings hear that.”

  “There was a pool at the academy on who would nail his ass first.” Strike’s heart began to accelerate. Maybe it’d be her to make the bust. This was just what she needed. Come in, first day, and nail this jackass right to the wall. “How many heists in the past six months?”

  “Jennings doesn’t let us talk about it. Him.”

  “So the boss is frustrated,” Strike said, and looked at the wild-haired figure wearing the bizarre, over-sized coat. The Gentleman Thief.

  This bust would crush the Desmond murders. Blow them right off the front page.

  “Yeah, um, hey, I think you should know…” Freddy said, but it sounded like he wasn’t there. Strike tracked his eyes, and looked down at her own chest. At first, she was about to slap him for being a pervert, but then she realized what had him staring at the floor the whole time.

  Somehow she’d managed to wear a black lace bra with a white blouse. And you could basically see her damn cleavage right through it all.

  Holy shit.

  “First day,” she said, the confidence and fire present just a moment before abandoning her. “Learning curve.”

  “I walked around with a hole in my pants the first month,” Freddy said. “Michaels finally poked me in the butt.” He shrugged and turned around, pointing at the center. “Right here.”

  “No wonder they left the two of us together.” But that didn’t get her off the hook with the rest of the group, who were no doubt taking prop bets on who would be the first person to see all of her, sans clothing.

  Her money, as it stood now, was on none of them, unless she happened to come in naked the next day. Which, judging from how the last week had gone, seemed like a distant possibility.

  “Office,” Freddy said, almost choking on the words.

  “What?”

  “Do you want to come to my office?” Freddy stopped, and then a look of terror seized his face. “Not like that. I mean, I have something in my office that you’d like…no, that’s worse—”

  “Lead the way,” Strike said, and followed him through the maze of cubicles until she hit a row of glass rooms. Freddy had one all to himself, with an enormous series of workstations and flashing monitors.

  A professional grade photo printer seated in the corner shot a new print out as they entered the room. Freddy rushed over to grab it. He held it up to the light.

  “She found him again.”

  “She?”

  He shook his head and stared at the print, not answering. “Right,” he said, and tossed the print on the messy desk. He rifled through a box underneath his desk, and finally emerged with a chestnut leather jacket. Woman’s size, rough, broken in.

  “You steal this from evidence?”

  “It’s Vivian’s,” he said, like this was supposed to mean something to her. “My wife’s.” He paused. “To, you know, help out.”

  Strike flushed. “She doesn’t need it?”

  He flashed an awkward, pained smile. “I don’t think so.” Then he shook the jacket just a little bit. Figuring that anything was an upgrade over her current wardrobe, Strike slipped into the cracked, well-worn leather.

  Exact fit.<
br />
  “How’s it look?”

  “Okay, I guess,” Freddy said.

  “Okay?”

  “G-good. You wear it well.””

  “Up to her standards?”

  “Check out this photo,” Freddy said, turning back to the monitors. “He just hit a place in Manhattan, and I caught him by the pattern on his shirt. Way faster than facial recognition.” The photo printer whirred in the corner again. “This pattern recognition software I wrote locked into it, and I’ve got him three times now.” Freddy raced over to see what was hot off the press. “Make that four.” He handed her the new print.

  Strike looked at the symbol. In the other photos, it hadn’t been clear. But now she could make it out. Something about it seemed familiar.

  “Hey,” Freddy said, and snagged the paper back from her, “you twisted it all up.”

  Strike unclenched her fists and shrugged, but her thoughts were already moving back to her earlier daydreams and last week’s events.

  “Four times. That some sort of record?” Strike said, knowing it damn well was. The Gentleman Thief never got caught on camera. And when he did, the evidence disappeared before anyone could copy it to an offsite location.

  “Maybe,” Freddy said. He peered at the fourth photo, as if trying to understand how this was happening. “What would you say that is under his arm?”

  “That’s a forty.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do. Dad used to drink them all the time,” Strike said, then added, “but that’s not important.”

  “Right.”

  “He’s loaded.” Strike leaned back next to the tinted glass door, the leather shoulders stretching as her arms mashed up against the window overlooking part of the cubicle farm. Thoughts began to connect in her mind. She knew where she’d seen that damn language on this guy’s shirt before. Her father’s study. “Tell you what I’m gonna do.”

  “Confirm my report to Jennings?”

  “Even better,” she said with a sly grin, “I’m gonna bring the son of a bitch in.”

  “Jennings will never sign off—”