Andras burst into the kitchen—really just a closet-sized station with a fry-cooker, stove, oven and microwave within precarious distance. No one manned the hissing pan as it spit vegetable oil on to the scarred counter.
“Your rodeo, baby,” Andras said, stepping aside, holding his hands out like he was ushering her down the red carpet. “I’m just here to supervise.”
“Sure,” Strike said. She looked at the wood panel door at the back, something out of a bad low-budget movie from the seventies. In the porthole, she saw shadows. Heard veiled laughter and low voices. Suddenly, coming down to Florida wasn’t such a good idea.
All the evidence pointed to Christen, anyway. But this wasn’t about who killed his wife—not really. The words echoed in her ears: before they weaponize it. Neurotoxins. No, she had an obligation to see this through.
She owed him that much.
And this beat the shit out of training and running and shooting two dimensional targets in a gray concrete coffin of a room.
“You’re thinking about running,” Andras said. He nodded, his eyes glinting to match the knowing look on his lips. “Some people can’t handle it.”
“I can handle it.”
“You don’t even know what it is, babe,” Andras said. He turned off the flame on the stove. “Fire hazard.”
“The hell is your deal?” Strike said, watching the pan sizzling and hissing as it died down to a simmer.
“That’s a long story, and we ain’t got time for even the beginning,” Andras said. He ran his hand through his hair and shrugged. “Besides, this isn’t about me, hon.”
“You think he did it?”
“I think that justice can be a damn difficult beast to trap and keep,” Andras said. “But what I know is that these guys, they complete this amber set, refine it, then we’re all gonna be in some deep shit. Every last one of us.”
Strike didn’t think twice. She brought the door crashing in with a boot kick, the wood flying open so fast that it caught one of the guys standing inside right in the shoulder. He grunted and cursed, but Strike didn’t notice, just walked past him and strode into the small back room. A card table was in the center, two bricks of uncut coke in the middle like some sort of strange decoration, a stack of bills running through a counting machine in front of the fat guy seated before it.
“Jesus Christ, AK, I told you not to bring these rooks around,” the large man said. He scratched his full head of hair with thick golden-ringed fingers. He didn’t even bother to look up. “Aw, shut it, Mikey, the broad didn’t even get you full on.”
Mikey stopped whining about his shoulder.
Strike wasn’t sure what to do, so she started with, “I need to know about the Amber Alligator.”
“No foreplay,” the man at the table said. He continued to count the money, shoving a stack of Ben Franklins through the top. The digital LED spit them out, the counter totaling five thousand. “You could learn something from this broad, AK.”
“I’m Samantha,” Strike said, her voice smaller than she wanted it to be. “Not some broad.”
“All the same when you wind up dead.” He finally stopped tallying the bills and shifted to take a look at Strike. The man had fleshy jowls and wore a track suit. Nothing about his clothing suggested opulence. Everything about his demeanor did though, in spades. He was a crude man of wealth and taste. “Name’s Johnny. She’s a looker, isn’t she?”
So this was the mysterious Johnny. Strike had to admit that he played the part well.
“I cleaned her up a little,” Andras said. “Rough around the edges.”
Strike shifted and cleared her throat. Down the rabbit hole. Too late to go back now. “The Amber Alligator.”
“What are you—Feds? Marshals? Maybe some of those other alphabet boys, in with Snowden and shit.”
“Nothing you need to know.”
“She’s getting that it pays to keep her mouth shut,” Johnny said. “Learns quick.”
“She’ll pick it up,” Andras said. Strike thought she heard a tightness in his free-running voice that wasn’t previously there. The strain of a man who adopted a persona—quite well, most of the time—that was, in the end, merely a character. Well-acted, well-played, but a lie.
“So you’re crooked like our friend AK. Looking to cut in, make some real cash. She’s smart, like you. Getting in early, in the twenties. That’s when you wanna do it. Money spends best when you’re young.”
Strike glanced back at Andras. She thought she saw the slightest hint of contempt flash through his eyes. Whether it was self-loathing or hatred for Johnny was difficult to tell.
“That’s right,” Strike said. “I want some work.”
“But see,” Johnny said, waving a knife in her general direction. “There is the issue of trust. Never trust a pretty woman. Never trust a cop. The two together, well, you can run the math there. Two strikes.”
“I’m just here about the Amber Alligator.”
“That’s high-level. You tell her about that, AK?” Johnny said. “Always running his pretty mouth to pretty girls. It’s a problem.”
“She can handle it,” Andras said in a stone-cold voice.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
Strike watched as Johnny cut off a chunk of uncut Columbian pure. His razor blade dashed against the scarred table, chopping the endless white mountains into giant rails. He slammed the switchblade into the wood, shaking the entire table. A single hundred-dollar bill floated off the stack onto the ground.
“You do something for me first, a little test,” Johnny said. “Then we talk about this other job. A big one, but no one’s crazy enough to ask for it other than you two. Mikey here, he bitched out when I even suggested it. Friggin’ hates alligators. But first I need to know you’re straight.”
“I’m a cop,” Strike said, hardly believing the words were coming out of her mouth.
“That much is obvious. What’s less so is this. Some cops are rats, some aren’t,” Johnny said. “What type are you, Sammy girl?”
She reached down and picked up a fresh bill.
Welcome to Florida, she thought, as the first avalanche of white powder shot up her nose.
Johnny smiled.
“I think we can work with this.”
Andras gave a grim nod while Strike rocketed into euphoria. This was the way she had always wanted to feel. She finally knew what people said when they talked about genies, bottles and no turning back.
She kept going.
5 | The Docks
Andras flicked a cigarette out the window and cut the already dim beams down to a barely-there glow. He shook Strike’s shoulder.
“Once you got going, I thought you were gonna tell him your whole life story.”
“I felt good.”
“Your old man sounds like a real son of a bitch.”
“He is.”
“Don’t do too much of that stuff,” Andras said, concern in his eyes. “It gets bad quick.”
“It worked out.” Strike scratched her neck, her eyes darting about the empty docks. The black water shimmered in the dull moonlight. No other cars sat in the lot. A single small boat was docked in its slip. Completely silent. No movement. “I’m fine.”
“You got the flow already, girl,” Andras said. Almost like he regretted bringing her along.
“You think so?” Strike reached over the seat and kissed him on the lips. No return kiss, but she didn’t care. She didn’t even question why she did it. There was still a pleasant thrum coursing through her veins. “And you doubted me.”
“I was trying to warn you.”
“Some warning.”
“The coke is just a side business,” Andras said. He patted the manila envelope full of bills, six inches thick, about to burst. “The antiques, the smuggling, that’s where it’s at. And the a
mber, that’s the—”
“Coup de gras.”
“Something like that.”
“So this guy’s more than a gangster,” Strike said.
“Johnny’s trying to be a man of the world, I guess,” Andras said. “Never figured he’d get into the arms business, though.”
“That what the Amber Alligator is, then?”
“You wanna know what happened?” Andras said.
“We got time, it looks like.” Strike pointed at the empty docks. “Do tell.”
“He found out about it by accident. Got a chunk of this amber with a lizard or mosquito in it, lifted off a luxury cruise ship by some two-bit thief posing as a bell-hop. Whatever, worth a couple grand, maybe five figures. Not a bad score. Idiot drops the box off near the stove in the Replenish. It melts down ‘cause of the heat, the cook, he kicks the bucket when he inhales the vapor.”
“Jesus.”
“So Johnny’s wheels start spinning. Researches this stuff. Turns out it’s not amber, but this calcified neurotoxin that some of the reptiles and insects from the Mesozoic era secreted as a defense mechanism. If the creature died under the right conditions, like in an air pocket or something, then the stuff would ooze out and just kind of harden over time.”
“So he starts tracking these fossils down.”
“Sure. This is about five years ago. I’ve been working for him for eleven years. Lining my pockets and all that. Hear about this shit, and I decide, well, I gotta get on this. Not for the money, but to stop it. Coke’s one thing, but bio-weapons? Shit, that’s not me. Take it to my boss, no one cares. I’m on my own. Guess it’s what I deserve.”
“How does Christen play into this?”
“He’s an old friend of mine. Got hooked in with Johnny about the same time I did. Eleven years back. But he never worked for him. Just played the ponies and shit. Loved those goddamn things, and Johnny just kept lending him the money. Said he’d clear out his debt when Christen offered him the amber. Christen didn’t know what the hell it was, ‘til I told him. Just thought it was an antique the old bastard might like.”
“So then I guess Johnny made some threats after Christen pulled out of the deal,” Strike said. Headlights appeared in the harbor, far off on the horizon. “He keep this chunk of amber in a safe, by any chance?”
“Yeah, he did,” Andras said. “Why?”
“I think Johnny might already have it.”
“That’s not good,” Andras said.
“But he’s already had a bunch of this stuff for years.”
“You need a certain quantity to create a true bio-weapon that’s worth millions. Otherwise it’s kind of like a knife in a gunfight. Low scale, low impact. But between Christen’s chunk and the Amber Alligator, he’ll have enough. Sell it to some terrorist group or something, come away with an eight figure payday. Retirement money.”
“What’s the Amber Alligator, anyway?”
“Just like it sounds,” Andras said with a grim shake of his head. “Show time.”
“Hell yeah,” Strike said. Her eyes tracked the headlights on the harbor’s horizon, closer now. With the lack of activity, they might as well have been an emergency flare. “Our boys are coming in right on schedule.”
Strike clasped her hands underneath her thighs, trying to tamp down the nervous energy that coursed through her body. The vinyl felt scratchy, the burrs in the material suggesting it’d seen a lot of wear. Eleven years of stake-outs and stories.
“I can drop you off, still,” Andras said in a low voice.
“What happened to AK?” Strike gave him an easy wink. She slid out a bag full of white powder and shook out a key bump. “I kind of need him, not this lame-ass wet blanket partner I’ve got.”
“Sure, babe.” Andras sighed and flipped the center console up. He removed a silver pistol, checked the clip, then handed it to Strike. “You’re in it now.”
Strike took the gun and slid it into her waistband. “Yeah, you too.”
They walked towards the approaching boat and waited on the docks. The job was simple. Hand over the cash, take back a couple crates of black market antiques, maybe a couple kilos of coke. Small scale, given what Johnny had planned. Just enough of a felony to earn his trust. Despite the humidity, a slight chill flitted through the soupy air. Strike jammed her hands into her pockets and rocked back and forth on the dock. Her phone buzzed.
Another call from Quantico. For a moment, Strike’s thoughts raced back to the real world. Careers, superiors, rules and after action reports. Training, presentations, meetings. But then the boat rammed into the dock, and two men toting assault rifles hopped out on to the rotting planks.
Here, the real world didn’t apply.
Maybe it was the coke.
Maybe it was the nerves from her first field mission.
But Strike felt like she had been possessed by an outside instinct—training, drugs, fear—as she watched her hand reach down. These guys weren’t friendly. This wasn’t some test. Johnny didn’t trust them worth shit, and, in all honesty, why should he have? The gun popped out of her waistband like it was launched from a rocket, propelled into orbit exactly at head height.
Two shots, two thuds. A spray of errant assault rifle fire blitzed into the night, lighting up the dark sky for an ephemeral blink.
Then deafening, ear-ringing silence.
AK stepped forward and crouched down.
“I’ve never seen reflexes that quick,” Andras whispered. Strike blinked as blood pooled beneath the men’s heads. “I was wrong.”
“About what,” Strike said, her pistol shaking even though she was now gripping it with both hands, as if she was trying to corral a wild beast.
“You don’t have the flow,” Andras said. “You are the flow. Of darkness.”
He vaulted over the side of the boat, Strike frozen in time. Not looking at the bodies, not looking anywhere. Still unsure how such a small time-frame could change everything. Thoughts colliding against each other like atoms in a chemistry set.
Andras came back over the side, shaking his head. “Nothing. No crates, no coke.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were gonna kill us,” Andras said. “Kick us into the harbor.” He lit a cigarette and puffed it in the sticky night. “Eleven years, and this is the severance package.”
Strike dropped to one knee, finding it hard to breathe properly. You remember how to do this, she thought over and over, but her body fought her hard, didn’t know anymore. A gentle hand came down on her shoulder, but it didn’t matter. The flashes came back to her, the sequence of events replaying as a nightmarish slideshow in her head.
“I did find this on board,” Andras said.
Strike looked up, lifting herself from the damp wood with the help of his hand. She squinted. A small chunk of orange rock sat in his palm.
“What is it,” Strike said, her voice barely a whisper.
“The neurotoxin,” Andras said. He glanced up and pocketed the object. “We gotta get moving.”
“Just a little while longer.”
“Cops are coming,” Andras said. He pointed to somewhere where Strike didn’t want to look. “We got about a minute before they’re here, from the sound of it.”
“Just leave me.”
“We’re in it together, now, babe.” Strike felt herself lifted from the ground, like she was riding a carpet. Or maybe she was the carpet, being tossed in the backseat with a hurried shove. Lights danced across the back windows as the sedan screeched out of the parking lot.
None followed them.
Strike took that as a good sign right before sleep set in.
6 | Truth
“Hey. Come on. There you go.”
Strike felt water splash against her buzzing face. She sat up with a start, head pounding. Her eyes flashed across the unfa
miliar surroundings. Jail? No, too nice for that. Her gaze centered on the stripped finish of the particle board dresser. A cracked television sat near the edge, about to fall.
“How long was I out?” The words were sticky, sluggish, like molasses and yogurt trickling off her lips.
“A couple hours,” Andras said. “It’s ten.”
“I get punched in the face?”
“Not quite,” Andras said. He held up a plastic baggie of powder. “This’ll do it, hon.”
Strike touched her pulsing temple. Despite the intense pain, her desire for the narcotic didn’t subside. If anything, it accelerated, breaking through any barriers of reason.
“Give me that.”
“Check your phone,” Andras said. He tossed her the device. She scrolled through the litany of messages, most from her superiors and teachers. A couple stood out. The first was from Christen, who had answered her text message with a brief voicemail.
She played it, but all he said was, “The safe’s the reason she’s gone. And it’s all my fault.” Her throat caught, and she had to put the phone down. He sounded guilty, but it wasn’t because he’d broken any laws. It was because, one way or another, he was responsible for another human being’s life ending.
And I’m guilty, too.
Strike got up and paced about the dingy room, from the three-legged nightstand to the broken television. The second text message was just from someone she’d entered into the phone as Boss Man.
Agent Madsen, one of the head agents in charge of the Quantico facility.
You’ve been terminated from the FBI training program, effective immediately.
“You see what your boss had to say? Hello? Goddamn, I should’ve sent you back when I saw you at the airport,” Andras said. “Before you rented that damn car and drove all over the state.”
“Why didn’t you?” Strike said, shoving Andras with a ferocity even she didn’t realize she possessed. Andras stumbled backwards, leaning against the crumbling wallpaper. His jaw twisted into a knot. No explanation came forth. “That’s what I thought.”
The Kip Keene Box Set: Books 1, 2 & 3 Page 51
