Falling Stars

by Tim Tigner

  Ivan looked down and shook his head.

  Boris couldn’t tell if the move signaled contrition or exasperation.

  You could have heard a spider sneeze while everyone waited for an outburst. But when Ivan spoke, his tone was measured. “Guys, I’m conducting a symphony here. You’re focused on the beat, but there’s a lot more to this tune than percussion. I haven’t deviated one note from my original plan. The music isn’t changing. It’s just becoming more complex as the rest of the orchestra chimes in. Get used to it.”

  “It might help if we knew the whole score,” Michael pressed.

  “To the contrary, it would distract you. For this to work, you need to be focused on flawless execution. Keep the faith, and be ready to roll with the new van and revised Raven in the morning.” Ivan turned to leave but then paused mid-stride. With a softer tone, he added, “We’re going to Venice Beach.”

  59

  Lessons

  French Riviera

  JO LOOKED UP as her date arrived, and smiled. It was a genuine smile, with sparkling eyes and flashing teeth.

  Crafting cons was the part of her old life that she missed most, and she was glad to be back at it. Cons gave her the intellectual satisfaction enjoyed by generals and corporate captains, coupled with the thrill of being part of the action on the ground.

  It didn’t hurt that this particular ground was in the Casino de Monte-Carlo. As the center of the nightlife scene in the small principality of Monaco, the casino’s architecture befitted the most exclusive real estate on earth. It looked to Jo like a gilded version of Notre Dame Cathedral, except that the stained glass windows were on the ceilings rather than the walls, and the floors were covered with colorful carpets.

  Her date was Fernando Aguilar. Fernando was a thirtyish Argentinian with dark, soulful eyes and windswept hair. At five-foot-six, he was the shortest man Jo had ever dated, but he carried himself like he was six-foot-six, and the boots didn’t hurt.

  Fernando stood as the maitre d’ escorted her to his table on the terrace. “I’m so glad you came.”

  “I thank you for the invitation. If your goal was to impress, you’ve already succeeded.”

  Once she was seated, their waiter pulled a bottle of rosé from a waiting ice bucket. He poured two glasses with the aid of a white napkin before vanishing.

  Jo had spent her afternoon at the Monte Carlo Polo Club watching Fernando’s Team Eagle play Vazov’s Team Excelsior. She had smiled and cheered through six chukkas, meeting Fernando’s eye at every opportunity, and then encouraging and accepting a date once the game concluded. She had tried to study Vazov as well, but he never approached the visitor bleachers.

  Once they’d clinked glasses and tasted their wine, Fernando said, “So are you going to tell me?”

  “Why I was watching the game?”

  “I’d love to know.”

  “Surely you have a guess by now?”

  “I’ve tossed around a few ideas.”

  “Your first guess?”

  “You’re a talent scout looking to poach players for a new club.”

  She ran her finger around the side of her glass, playfully clearing a path of condensation. “Not even close. Guess again.”

  “You’re a private investigator, looking for stolen horses.”

  “Stephanie Blanc, P.I. has a nice ring to it, but no. I’ll give you one more shot on goal. You get it right, I give you dessert after dinner. You get it wrong, you buy me one of those flourless chocolate soufflés I saw on the way in.”

  Fernando inhaled long and hard. “I’m known for performing under pressure, but I don’t know. Not a recruiter or an investigator—that only leaves about a hundred options. I’m going to have to play the odds and say tourist. You’re a tourist who had an extra afternoon and thought it would be fun.”

  Jo wet her lips. “I can already taste the chocolate.”

  “D’oh! That’s two losses today. But you’ve got to tell me now. What brought you to my game?”

  The waiter appeared before Jo could answer. She ordered the John Dory Supreme, while Fernando went for a medium-rare sirloin with Béarnaise sauce.

  “I’m not going to let you eat your fish until you tell me.”

  “I was doing research.”

  “Research? What kind of research?”

  “I’m a novelist. I write romance novels.”

  Fernando threw up his hands. “That’s not fair! No way I was going to guess that. But then I suppose that’s why you made the offer. You knew your virtue would be safe.”

  Jo had indeed, but she had a few reasons prepared just in case. “It was plenty fair. Think about it.” She leaned in and lowered her voice. “Romance novels always involve a dark, handsome foreigner.”

  Fernando swallowed dry. “Lots of horses too, I suppose.”

  They both laughed. He had a nice laugh, warm and soothing. More like a purr than a cackle.

  The rest of the conversation went so well that Jo nearly forgot she was on a job. She’d been expecting an arrogant playboy, given that he was a handsome polo player and this was Monaco, but he was charming. Anything but self-absorbed. She wished she’d found another way to do what needed to be done. She wished she’d picked another victim. But Ivan had to go, and there was no turning back now.

  Jo palmed her dessert spoon while their entree dishes were being cleared and excused herself to the ladies’ room. She locked herself in a stall and pulled a baggie from her clutch.

  Her goal was to put Fernando out of play, quite literally. To keep him from showing up for his next game, she’d considered tranquilizers, but decided that would arouse suspicion. She’d considered arranging an accident to break his foot, but that seemed extreme. She’d considered giving him the time of his life, but the game wasn’t until after lunch and every appetite had its limits. In the end, Jo decided to go with food poisoning.

  Food poisoning wouldn’t cast suspicion or leave a scar, but it would make the idea of hopping on a horse unbearably nauseating. Which kind of food poisoning? She wanted to use Staphylococcus due to its rapid onset and short duration, but couldn’t come up with a way to procure it. She eventually settled for the less elegant choice of Salmonella.

  She bought a family-size pack of chicken drumsticks from a bargain grocery store and went to work. The final result was a powder derived from dehydrated slime, a powder packed full of the pesky bacteria.

  While the toilet one stall over flushed, she gave the back of her dessert spoon a good lick then plunged it into the baggie. It came out with a coating of crystals on the underside. Bon appetite.

  Dessert was waiting when she returned to the table. A chocolate soufflé fit to photograph. “You waited. I don’t know if I’d have been so strong.”

  “It’s all yours.”

  “No way. I’m not dining alone.” Jo pulled an invisible switcheroo with the silverware on the table while pouring the tiny pitcher of crème fraîche onto the molten chocolate. With a broad smile and a mischievous wink, she plunged her special spoon into his side of the soufflé. “Now open wide.”

  Fernando shook his head while smiling with surrender, but instead of leaning forward with open mouth he put his hand around hers and cleaned the spoon without breaking eye contact. The sweet sensation of mission accomplished soured a second later when he dipped the spoon back into the soufflé and brought it to her lips. “Your turn.”

  Staring at the sickly spoon, Jo kicked herself for failing to foresee this possibility. When she was little and learning the family business, her father had forced her to live with the consequences of her mistakes rather than coming to her aid. Once, she ended up spending the night beneath a bed in a brothel. Another time, she spent the weekend locked in a cigar shop without food or water. She had cursed her father for hours on end, but she’d also learned to master the situational analysis required of a master criminal.

  Apparently her skills had rusted and her senses had dulled during her years of making a legitimate living. S
he was certain she’d never forget this lesson. She could practically see the Salmonella swimming around the spoon. Talk about the very definition of taking one for the team. She opened wide.

  60

  Muscle Beach

  Los Angeles, California

  VENICE BEACH is one of many legendary locations in Los Angeles. Famous for a pedestrian promenade stocked with artists, psychics and street performers, it is also the epicenter of modern bodybuilding. Every day, rain or shine, fitness fanatics and action flick fans flock to watch bronzed brutes pump iron in an open air pen on the sand.

  Tonight, however, anyone attempting to reach the pen would encounter police barricades. Whereas tourists might conclude that it was a crime scene, the locals would correctly identify a movie shoot. In this case, that movie was Big Ambition, an action film staring A-list muscle man, Preston Jenks.

  Boris drove the white exterminator truck while the others rode in the Tesla. He was wearing coveralls, complete with booties, gloves and a hooded mask. The idea was to hide his features while leaving no DNA behind. And the getup appeared perfectly normal for someone spraying insecticide.

  He’d managed to make the modifications in time, but they were crude and temporary. They clashed with his sense of propriety. He’d itch until he had the opportunity to redesign the whole frame with appropriate elegance. But that would have to wait until they were back in France. Meanwhile, Raven would perform as required.

  The ability to fly Raven in and out of the truck was a big relief. Especially since the Sangster incident had turned up the heat. No doubt Pavel could even pull it off while the truck was driving. He was every bit as intuitive with aeronautics as Boris was with engineering.

  What wasn’t intuitive was why Ivan had waited to adopt this tactic. Boris had suggested it way back at the beginning. Something told him he’d be slapping his forehead before it was over, marveling at Ivan’s insight. The man had mastered operational tactics like no other.

  Boris turned the truck off Electric Avenue onto Westminster. Almost there and so far, so good. He’d garnered a few funny glances due to the protective garb, but nobody had honked. A few turns later, the driving app told him his destination was a hundred yards ahead. When he closed to forty, he saw the signs.

  The same “friends” who scouted the scene had reserved parking spots using folding signs stolen from the Sheriff’s Department. For the truck, this was the driveway of an empty house two blocks north of the movie shoot. For the Tesla, they’d reserved a spot two blocks south of the shoot in a beachfront public parking lot with line of sight on the action.

  After parking and locking the truck, Boris stepped across the street into a grove of bushes and stripped off the coveralls. He stuffed them into a backpack and ran south four blocks to rejoin the team. “We’re good to go,” he said, a bit out of breath. “It was an excellent choice of location. Minimal foot traffic in the immediate vicinity and no reason for anyone to give the truck a second glance.”

  Ivan nodded.

  “Are you going to tell us why we’re here now?” Michael asked.

  “We’re here because this place has exactly what we need.”

  “And what’s that?” Michael said, playing along.

  “Rolling cameras, a clear flight path and an accessible movie star.”

  “Accessible movie star! You can’t be serious?”

  Ivan remained silent, but raised his eyebrows.

  Boris felt his stomach drop as Michael replied. “You are serious. We’re actually going to kidnap Preston Jenks?”

  “We are, and we’re going to do it on camera with the whole world watching.”

  “But why?”

  Ivan flipped open his laptop. “All part of the plan.”

  61

  Game Over

  French Riviera

  THEY CAME FOR HIM ten minutes before the 2:00 match. Three players from Team Eagle. Number 3 spoke while 2 and 4 held back atop their chestnut mounts. “Feel like a real match? We’re down a man today.”

  Achilles tried not to appear too eager. “I saw you talking to Nic. Did he say I’m ready?” Nic was the club pro, a champion from the 1980s. He was also Achilles’ trainer, or rather Sergey’s, as that was the name Achilles was using.

  “He said you’re green as a spring leaf, but a natural athlete. He said you’ve got a lion’s heart and a cat’s reflexes.”

  Lions were cats, although Achilles wasn’t going to quibble with the compliment—bought though it might have been at the price of 500 euros an hour, mount and tack included. He had run up an astronomical tab over the past three days, but the opportunity to join Team Eagle for a game against Vazov’s Team Excelsior was worth it—especially given that the funds came from an operational account long-forgotten by the CIA. Jo was the one with the lion’s heart, the one actually paying a price. He shuddered to think what she had done.

  Achilles met the player’s eye. “I’ll do my best to prove Nic right.”

  “I’m Andrey,” the team captain said, tossing Achilles Team Eagle’s number 1 jersey. He gestured to the two other players. “And this is Pablo and Paulo.”

  “Just focus on defending against their 4. Andrey and I will handle offense,” number 2 said.

  The numbers in polo designate position rather than rank, with 1 being the foremost and 4 the rearmost on the field. Number 3 was typically the team captain, the tactical leader, while 2 tended to go to the best player, as its back and forth nature made it the most difficult to play. That left positions 1 and 4 as the most suitable for novice players, and Achilles’ size inclined him toward 1. He was a big guy requiring a big pony, meaning more speed and less agility. Better for offense than defense. That suited Achilles just fine, as it would maximize his mingling with the opposing players.

  Achilles popped three pain pills while following his teammates to the starting line. He’d found that learning effective mallet work came easily, given his strength and hand-eye coordination. Riding hadn’t been problematic either. Muscle memory returned as readily as it did when riding a bike. The rub came from clinging to a horse for eight hours a day. Saddle sores were no laughing matter.

  Achilles and the other three Eagles rode straight for the starting line. He studied the opposing team the whole way. The closer he got, the clearer it became that identifying Ivan during play would not be so easy. Vazov’s features were partially hidden beneath a helmet and behind protective goggles. There wouldn’t be much conversation on the field either, so identifying Ivan vocally would also have to wait until a break or the traditional after-game drink.

  The umpire rolled the ball without fanfare once everyone was at the line, and the game was on. For the first chukka, Achilles found himself fully focused on just surviving, both literally and figuratively. Polo was a fast-moving, hard-charging, dangerous sport. He hadn’t come this far to take a mallet to the head or get kicked from the team.

  Seven-and-a-half minutes of play later when they headed for the sidelines, Achilles was no closer to identifying Ivan than he had been days earlier. The break between chukkas didn’t change things, as Excelsior returned to their sideline across the field. Between swapping ponies and swallowing water, the three-minute break was hardly restful. The other Eagles remained quiet as each gathered his thoughts, but Achilles did get a back slap from number 2 as they returned to the field.

  And so it went until the last twenty seconds of the third chukka, when Achilles gave his team a 5-4 advantage and ended the first half. Tactically it was a blunder, because it brought attention to him, but his competitive nature had kicked in and he’d gotten lucky.

  Rather than heading in the usual direction when the bugle sounded, his fellow Eagles turned their ponies toward Excelsior’s side and rode for the owner’s tent. Achilles felt a drop of adrenaline kick in. This was the opportunity he needed. If he positively identified his nemesis, he planned to put the tapered end of his mallet through Ivan’s eye socket right then and there. With a proper swing, he could bury it a
good four inches. On the other hand, if he looked Vazov in the eye and determined that he wasn’t Ivan, Achilles would attempt to ingratiate himself. Maybe garner a drink or dinner invitation from the man who supplied Ivan his drones. Maybe get a fresh lead on The Ghost.

  “They do things a bit differently at Club Monte Carlo,” Andrey said, removing his helmet as they rode. “The home team hosts halftime refreshments while staff members stomp the divots.”

  Helmets off was a double-edged sword for Achilles. It would make his job easier, both the identification and the assassination, but it would also expose him. His disguise was thinner than he would have liked. It had to be. The number of hours and amount of sweat involved ruled out makeup and prosthetics.

  He wore a blonde wig with hair considerably longer than his norm, and contacts that turned his dove gray eyes a pale blue. The combination gave him an entirely different demeanor, much softer and less serious. He believed it would hold up to anything short of facial recognition software, or trained and suspicious eyes. But you never knew.

  Vazov’s four bodyguards greeted the eight players with mugs of a drink that looked like light beer but was probably Panaché, a mixture of ale and lemonade that seemed to be the club drink.

  Everyone dismounted, grabbed a beverage, and crowded around Vazov, who addressed the group with lifted mug. His movements did not feel familiar, but this circumstance was very different from the first time Achilles met Ivan.

  “Well played everyone.”

  Achilles had expected to feel a chill the minute Vazov opened his mouth, but the voice, like the stance, did not resonate with any in Achilles’ memory. Feeling anxious and emboldened, he met Vazov’s eye. Something was brewing there, but it wasn’t surprise from an unexpected recognition. Achilles felt a savage stab of disappointment. Vazov wasn’t Ivan. Vazov wasn’t Ivan!