Verifiable Intelligence

by Kaitlin Maitland

  “Let’s see.” Antonio ticked them off on his fingers. “The ugly Cuban with the eye patch, the surfer with the serious reefer habit, that guy from Prague who turned out to be gay, Ramsey Vitale the Russian mobster, and Jace McKay, hit man.”

  “Stuff it! I don’t sleep with every contact I make, Antonio. You’re grasping!”

  “The world knows you slept with Ramsey - what about Jace?”

  “We barely got along, okay? He’s a self-possessed bastard who can fly a plane. That was it.”

  Antonio’s head lolled back, and he energetically bounced his foot. “I didn’t ask for a bedtime story, Dayne.”

  “Tell me again why I tolerate your life on this planet?”

  “You secretly lust after me.”

  “You’re smoking crack.”

  “Then maybe it’s because I’m the middle man on most of your contracts.”

  “You’re the middle man on a lot of contracts, Antonio. In fact, why shouldn’t I believe you’re in this whole situation up to your eyeballs?” She opened both eyes to glower at him.

  “You’re my sister, Dayne. I’m not going to sell you out.”

  “You know, it really disturbs me that you continue to say that. I’ve lost track of how many times you’ve hit on me.”

  “Well, we aren’t blood related,” Antonio hastily pointed out.

  “Still, it’s revolting.”

  Antonio’s expression was one she hadn’t seen in years. She reached out and lightly punched his knee to lighten the mood. He wasn’t having any of it.

  “That foster home was a hell hole. You and I both knew it.”

  She shrugged. “Everyone knew it. I think even the state knew it, and they put us there.”

  “Yeah, but the stuff that happened…”

  “Don’t. It’s best to forget things like that, Tonio.”

  He shook his head. “It’s hard to forget some things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like how much different you were before the shit went down.”

  “How was I different?”

  “You were totally wrapped up in your school work.”

  “I knew it was the only way out of the system, Antonio. I don’t know why nobody else ever saw that.”

  “Felonies were easier to get into than college,” Antonio quipped.

  “Yeah, and look where it got you.”

  “I happen to like where I am, thanks.”

  “Speaking of where you are,” Dayne said thoughtfully. “Where are all of your little gophers?”

  “I sent them out.”

  “Out?”

  “Out of my sight,” he muttered. “I still can’t believe you got all the way in here and put a gun to my head without anyone being the wiser.”

  “It’s my job, remember.”

  “And their job is to keep you from doing your job, remember?”

  “You could always hire me to do their job,” she shot back sarcastically.

  “I can’t afford you.”

  “Too true.”

  Her eyes were getting heavier with every passing minute. Dayne desperately wanted to snatch a few hours of sleep. But where was safe? She had a price on her head. She’d just re-kidnapped a ten-year-old boy who she had no idea what to do with. Plus, there was a lot of disturbing information rolling around in her brain. She wished she had a way to lay all of the pieces out and see if they fit together. Something inside was telling her to keep what she knew to herself. She trusted Antonio more than she trusted most people, but this time it was her life hanging in the balance.

  “Dayne,” Antonio began hesitantly. “We need to figure out what to do with Jace when he gets here.”

  “What you mean when he gets here?” She didn’t open her eyes.

  “The aunt had to have known how to get a hold of him in an emergency if he trusted her with Ryan.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “If he took the first flight out of Egypt, it would put him here tomorrow. Probably sometime in the early afternoon.”

  “Right, we’ve got all of tomorrow morning to worry about him.”

  “And Yuri has all of tomorrow morning to worry about you.”

  “Damn.”

  “That about covers it.”

  “What do you suggest then, oh omnipotent one?” she asked in a snide voice.

  “I’ll get you two set up someplace, and you can sit tight for a few hours.”

  Her suspicion grew. “While you do what?”

  Antonio grinned. “Jace knows I work out of this area. I’m the first person he’s going to contact when he gets here.”

  “Oh, and you’ll just conveniently send him in my direction? I think not.”

  “Then what do you suggest, Miss Smarty Pants?”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Did you just call me Miss Smarty Pants?”

  He nodded.

  “That is the lamest thing you’ve called me since we were about twelve.”

  “Are you going to get on with it or not?”

  She heaved a sigh. “I’ll find someplace for me and Ryan to hide on my own. You can give Jace a cell number. He calls. We make a deal of some kind. Hopefully, this whole thing will be tied up by tomorrow night.”

  “What kind of deal are you going to make?”

  “I don’t know,” she grumbled. “I’m making this up as I go.”

  Chapter Six

  “You could’ve called first.” The fear and irritation in Antonio's voice was masked by forced calm.

  Jace McKay crossed his legs at the ankle and stretched. “Why bother? You know everything that goes on in this city. You have what I need.”

  “Comfortable?”

  “Well enough.”

  Antonio closed his office door and turned around to glare at Jace. “This is the second time in two days that someone has just waltzed in here unchallenged.”

  “Sounds like you could use some new guys.”

  “Someone else recently told me the same thing.”

  Jace shook his head. He was through with the small talk. “What do you know, Herrera?”

  “Your brother is safe.”

  “By whose standards?”

  Antonio appeared to consider this. “Mine.”

  “Not good enough. I want to know where he is.”

  “Call this number.” Antonio held out a slip of paper.

  Jace snatched the info and stood up. Antonio Herrera wasn’t small, but Jace towered over him at six foot four. Grudgingly, he admired the fact that Herrera didn’t back away. It also told him the other man didn’t believe he’d done anything Jace could hold him accountable for. At least nothing that could be proven. Yet.

  “Who has him? Surely you can tell me that.”

  “Dayne Castille.”

  “What the…” Jace’s thoughts whirled in a hundred directions at once. “That scheming weasel has my brother?”

  “Hang on, McKay.” Antonio held up a hand. “She didn’t nab him the first time.”

  “The first time?”

  “She re-abducted the kid last night,” Antonio explained. “At great personal risk, I might add.”

  Jace pulled out his phone and dialed. The entire situation kept getting better and better. Now Dayne was mixed up in this? How the hell had she managed to get in the middle of it?

  “Hello?”

  She didn’t need to say her name for him to recognize the husky tone of her voice. It was amazing how some things stayed with a man no matter how much time passed.

  “Dayne, it’s McKay,” he said in a clipped tone. “Let me talk to Ryan.”

  There was a brief pause.

  “Jace?”

  Jace’s heart thudded against his ribcage, and a tidal wave of relief washed over him. “Are you okay Ryan?”

  “Yeah, Dayne’s not bad,” Ryan told him. “She lets me eat and go pee and stuff.”

  “That’s good. Let me talk to her again.”

  “Are you coming to get me, Jace?”

  “Let me talk to
Dayne, Ryan. I’ve got to straighten a few things out.”

  There was another pause.

  “Where?” Jace growled.

  “Six Flags.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You know, Six Flags. It’s an amusement park.”

  “Fine, when?” Jace asked as he tried to keep the exasperation from his voice.

  “In three hours, at the fountain inside the entrance.”

  He closed the phone and tried to breathe. What in God’s name was she thinking taking Ryan to a place like that? They had half of the most feared mercenaries in the world on their tail, and they went to an amusement park?

  “Where is she?” Antonio asked.

  He glanced up. Antonio looked…concerned. Was he somehow connected to Dayne? Jace pitied the man if he was involved with her. She had always been a moody individual. A man could run ragged trying to keep up with her. Not that he would know or care.

  “Six Flags.”

  “She took him to Six Flags?”

  “Did I stutter?”

  Antonio’s chuckle began in his chest and erupted into a full belly laugh. Jace could only gaze at the man and wonder if he’d lost his mind. He didn’t see anything amusing about any of it.

  “Care to share the fun?” he muttered.

  “What better place to hide a kid?” Antonio said breathlessly. “There are hundreds of people in that park at any given moment. Besides, nobody would think to look for them in a tourist trap like that anyway.”

  He reconsidered his earlier opinion that Dayne was insane. Maybe Herrera had a point. The best place to hide was in a crowd of people who looked just like you. There were bound to be hundreds of kids Ryan’s age in that park. Dayne and Ryan could easily get lost there.

  “I’m going to need transportation.” Jace sent Antonio a pointed look.

  “What do I look like, the Walmart underground?”

  “You owe me.”

  “I set up the contract, Jace. I didn’t tell you to listen at keyholes.”

  “You knew what was going on there.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Herrera, don’t screw with me. You knew the feds were meeting with Dolohov.”

  “It was just a rumor.”

  He growled in frustration. “You set me up with a contract so I could find out?”

  Antonio pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Look, we aren’t going to get anywhere with this conversation, all right?”

  “Then get me some damned transportation.”

  Jace winced as his voice reverberated around the office. Frustrated and confused, he felt as if he was lacking half of the information he needed to smooth out this latest wrinkle in his life.

  “What kind of transportation do you want?”

  “Something fast and maneuverable.”

  “Can you handle a motorcycle?”

  Was the guy kidding? When you had the potential of being on the run every day of your life, you learned to drive everything.

  “I’ll take that look to mean yes,” Antonio said wryly.

  Antonio strode abruptly out of his office into the main garage. Jace followed him past the blank stares of his posse to a back corner of the garage. A tarp crinkled as it was tossed aside to reveal five motorcycles. While Antonio looked on, Jace checked out the selection.

  “This one’s nice,” Antonio pointed to a Harley VRod.

  “Too flashy. I don’t want that kind of attention.”

  “Honda Goldwing?”

  “Did you not hear me say maneuverable?”

  Hidden behind the chunky Goldwing was a smaller bike with clean lines, no gaudy chrome, and power. The corner of his mouth twitched. This was a bike he could ease in and out of traffic on. And he would have enough speed to lose someone if he was tailed.

  Jace settled himself astride the machine and grinned. “This’ll do.”

  “Ducati Monster, nice choice.”

  “You can add it onto your next commission.”

  “Gee thanks, Jace,” Antonio said caustically. “And I suppose you’re going to need a weapon too?”

  “That would probably help.”

  “Didn’t make it through customs with yours, huh?”

  Jace didn’t bother to answer. He wheeled the Ducati into the open and checked it over.

  Antonio looked offended. “What? You think I don’t keep my bikes maintained?”

  “This is a chop shop.”

  “That one’s all original.”

  “If you’re charging me for it, it’d better be.”

  Antonio handed Jace a Glock .357sig and three extra clips.

  “You and your Glocks,” Jace grumbled as he stashed the clips.

  “It happens to be my weapon of choice. Beggars can’t be choosers, McKay.”

  “I’ll remember that next time I have you on the business end of my scope.”

  Antonio held out a yellow and black helmet that closely resembled the paint on the Ducati’s gas tank.

  He shook his head. “I have a feeling I’m going to need my peripheral vision.”

  “I know you’ve got every reason to be angry, McKay, but don’t direct it at Dayne,” Antonio told him quietly.

  “Defending her honor are we?”

  “She didn’t want to be in the middle of this any more than your brother did. Wrong place wrong time.”

  “Look, I don’t want Dayne involved in this any more than you do.”

  “Had enough working with her before, huh?”

  Jace grinned. “Let’s just say we have different ways of doing things.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “What do you know about this mess, Antonio?”

  Antonio’s face turned pensive. Jace knew the other man was wondering how much he should reveal. It was ironic really. They were both working toward essentially the same thing. But every shred of information was a valuable asset. And nobody wanted to give up their secrets. Not even to people who seemed to be in their corner.

  “What did your aunt tell you?”

  “She’s not my aunt. She’s my father’s second wife’s sister.”

  “So Ryan is your half brother?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s still my father’s son,” Jace said dismissively. “His aunt said an armed man took him from a library and gunned down a librarian on the way out.”

  “Dayne was there.”

  “She was there? Inside the library?” He pounded his fist to his palm in anger. “She was there and she didn’t stop it?”

  “Why should she get involved?”

  “If not then, why now?”

  “Right after the abduction someone put a contract on her life.”

  Jace frowned. “Yuri?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. But he seems like the likeliest candidate.”

  Jace wasn’t convinced. “Why bother with Dayne?

  “I figure they must’ve seen her in the area and decided she was a threat.”

  He disagreed but kept his thoughts to himself. It didn’t make any sense. Why would they care if Dayne was in the area? As far as he knew, she wasn’t involved in this mess at all. The frustration rose inside him again. It was like having the outside edges of a puzzle but no middle. He had the frame, but there was no picture.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” Antonio handed Jace the keys to the bike.

  “South.”

  “Just checking. I’m never sure if you assassins ever see anything in a city other than your mark.”

  Jace flipped Antonio the bird as he revved up the bike and shot through an open bay in the garage. He had no idea how trustworthy Herrera really was. His gut was nagging him. Something told him there was more to it than the man was saying.

  Chapter Seven

  The rushing wind was a relief as Jace eased the Ducati down the winding highway. It cooled his cheeks and cleared his head. He had plenty of time to make the drive from North County to Eureka, Missouri and Six Flags. In fact, he had too much ti
me.

  He knew Dayne had no clue how tight his time schedule was. She had no reason to know. She’d been sucked into the situation without being told the players or the rules. He couldn’t suppress a grin as he recalled how stubborn Dayne could be about doing things her way. It’d been her stubborn streak that had ended their eight-month partnership. She’d been too bullheaded to listen when he told her Ramsey Vitale was screwing them over. Even when he’d produced verifiable intel that supported his claim she’d brushed him off because her gut told her different. Dayne trusted her instincts. Jace trusted the facts. It didn’t make for a pleasant working relationship.

  It galled him that she had watched Ryan’s abduction without doing a thing to help. But he couldn’t fault her. He would’ve done the same himself before Ryan came into his life. Responsibility for his younger brother had changed the way he viewed things.

  Dayne was all about survival. She’d always been that way. She looked out for number one. He knew that. At one time he’d admired it. He still did. But he wondered if she experienced the emptiness that had once plagued him. Number one was a lonely place to be.

  There were only four cars in the Waffle House parking lot. That suited Jace just fine. He was hungry, having just spent nineteen hours in the air with nothing but nasty airline food for sustenance. His concern for his brother aside, he was still a practical man. If he was hungry, he was distracted. So since he had the time, he might as well eat.

  The interior of the small restaurant was old but clean. He seated himself in a corner booth with his back to the wall and his eyes on the door. Habits like that one could save a body’s life.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” A slender woman in her late twenties with smooth skin the color of warm cocoa flashed him a bright smile.

  He rubbed a hand down his face and offered her a tired smile in return. “Coffee,” he said.

  “I’d ask whether you want regular or decaf, but you look like you could use the pick me up.”

  “Regular’s fine.”

  After a trip to the wait station she filled a thick ceramic mug with steaming black coffee.

  Jace took a drink. It burned like acid the whole way down but it woke him up.

  “You ready to order?”