Black Tie: Book One of the Sparrow Archives

by Kieran Strange

  Cabe’s heart spasmed, caught at the very back of his throat. Package...

  “Package?” Ronnie repeated, and he didn’t mean to, but one swift hand shot out and clamped itself across her mouth, smearing her lipstick but effectively shutting her up.

  “Yeah, it’s here next to me. We’re gonna head down now.”

  “Are you bringing the new bodyguard?”

  “No.”

  “Does... the U.N. team there know you’re meeting with me?”

  “You’re asking a lot of questions today.”

  “Eli... you do know they would probably help us protect it if we asked them to... right?”

  “It doesn’t need protecting, it’s perfectly safe. Nobody even knows it exists. That’s why it’ll be totally fine chilling at your place for a few months, just give this some time to blow over.”

  “You know, we could probably avoid all this fucking about in the future if you just learned to trust other people with your shit.”

  Elliot snorted, his scorn audible even through the piggybacked call. “You know how important it is to me.”

  “I know, I know. You’re developing emotions and things, it’s really freaking me out. Fuck me, Eli, there’s a lot of people outside your building right now. Hang on, I’m gonna go around the block.”

  “I don’t need a play by play.”

  “All right, see you soon. Love you, Eli.”

  “Like you, too.”

  Cabe was already on the other side of the door, his footsteps growing ever-fainter as they disappeared quickly down the corridor. His headphones lay on top of the circuitboard from where he’d ripped them off seconds before, about five seconds after hearing that Elliot would in fact be heading downstairs to the parkade.

  With the ‘package’.

  There’s something wrong with him, was Cabe’s panic-stricken train of thought, desperate to grasp a handle on some semblance of sanity in what there was a chance his client was about to do. Alarm bells were ringing in his ears, and he didn’t break his sprint as he bypassed both elevators and the confused pair of clerks who were waiting there, slamming into the emergency stairwell door instead and taking each flight of downward-spiraling steps in a single leap.

  Something in his brain that’s supposed to be connected isn’t connected, he reasoned with himself, and it’s apparently making him do the exact opposite of what he’s supposed to do...

  He caught the toe of his sneaker against the fifth-floor landing as he came down and wound up barreling into the wall as his legs attempted with some mixed success to knot themselves together. Goddammit, knees...! He peeled himself away from the white-painted concrete and, somehow without losing any motion, continued on in a half-run half-stumble downward.

  Can’t miss him, can’t miss him, can’t miss him...

  Unless Cabe was able to catch him red-handed, with the package on him, the chances of him ever finding out what was in the package or what the hell Elliot was trying to smuggle out of WrightTech became almost nonexistent. This was a now-or-nothing mad dash to victory.

  He descended the stairs are far as was possible, until the air was stuffy and his inner ear was dizzy from the constant twisting and turning in one direction, and then paused for a moment when he reached the weighted door to the parkade.

  There was a circular window in the door at eye-level, and Cabe used it to give the immediate vicinity a once- and twice-over. Amidst the neatly-parked vehicles, he was unable to see any loitering or traveling bodies, though to the right one of the panels next to the twin elevator doors had just lit up.

  Cabe ducked low, and from his awkward angle, he was able to make out just Elliot’s head and shoulders as the elevator opened, glancing left and right to check the coast was clear before emerging.

  Trip and fall, trip and fall... Cabe begged silently, more for his own sadistic amusement than for any tactical advantage it would offer him. A part of him was sincerely considering taking the opportunity to make a dramatic entrance and soak up the look of abject horror on his insufferable client’s face when he was caught sneaking important packages out of the building without telling W.A.R.D. about it.

  Not because Elliot was afraid of them or anything, but because he hated being outsmarted. And the fact that Cabe was actually a step ahead of him would probably annihilate him.

  Through the window, Cabe could just about make out the top of the C.E.O.’s head as he crossed the parkade in the direction of the stairwell door, which made sense. Elliot had instructed this Miss Flynn to meet him at the back, which was where the stairs were located. Unless there was someone even shorter than he was with him, he was alone, and the car hadn’t yet arrived. Now was the time.

  It was right as Elliot was stepping up onto the curb near the stairwell door that Cabe chose to make his presence known, pushing the bar inward and opening the door in a way that spat him out quite literally right next to the smaller man. So close that his jeans brushed against his client’s neatly-pressed slacks at the seams as he quietly and visually announced the fact that he was armed.

  “Coop-Sparrow –!” spluttered Elliot in a high, skittish, fragile tone that didn’t suit him at all and was more unnerving than was satisfying. His blue eyes were wide, pupils enormous, as they lifted from the gun his bodyguard was holding very casually at his side, pointing down at the ground, to the man’s young, rough face instead.

  “Sorry, sir,” said Cabe coolly, “but I reckon maybe you and I should have a quick chinwag about that package before Miss Flynn shows up. Same Flynn from the board?”

  “Yes.” Elliot’s voice was thin, grating, and defeated.

  “Same Flynn from the scan in your lab?”

  “... no.” Elliot cleared his throat, and lowered the volume of his voice a little. “Look, Sparrow, please. Meet me in my office in five minutes, and I promise, I’ll explain everything to you. Anything you want to know.”

  The pure desperation in the man’s voice told Cabe that whatever was in this package, he may have finally found the kryptonite that others had failed to locate, the thought-to-be mythical and nonexistent Achilles’ heel of Elliot Wright. The teeny tiny part of Cabe’s conscious that pitied him was quashed in seconds by the memory of just how exhaustingly slippery and untrustworthy Elliot had continued to prove himself to be.

  “Sorry, Mr. Wright,” Cabe only partially-lied, “but since this is an issue of national and international security, I’m going to need you to hand over the package.”

  Elliot’s face may as well have hardened into pure diamond, given how the edges and lines suddenly became so sharp. “To borrow a cheesy line that may as well be from an old action B-movie, I’m not going to be able to do that.”

  “And to borrow and borrow alike, I would honestly prefer it you didn’t make me use this.” Cabe let the front sight of the Glock catch a glint of the harsh overhead lighting, and Elliot growled.

  “Believe me, Agent Sparrow,” he uttered darkly, dangerously, “so would I.”

  Something beneath Elliot’s coat shifted, causing the wool to ripple around his knees. Every single hair on the nape of Cabe’s neck stood to attention, and a metaphorical bolt of lightning struck the base of his spine. What the...

  Behind Elliot’s thighs, a pair of enormous blue eyes suddenly emerged, staring up at the agent from within a curtain of messy, chocolate-colored locks.

  “Okay...” whispered a tiny little voice, and a tiny little face and tiny pair of hands came into view alongside it as a girl of about five or six years old crept out from the folds of Elliot’s coat. “I’ll, I’ll go with you, I promise, just... just please don’t shoot my daddy...”

  Cabe had forgotten to close his mouth. His jaw was resting on his ankles and he was just gaping down at the itty bitty human as his brain failed, did an emergency shutdown, and began to reboot itself.

  “Your...” He blinked, then stared up at Elliot in total and utter disbelief. “Your whuh...?”

  Fourteen

  “Agent
Sparrow. Think you could maybe do me the professional Goddamn courtesy of holstering the sidearm in front of my kid?”

  “Ungh.” It wasn’t even a word, but it seemed to want to be said, and so Cabe allowed the ugly thing to crawl out of his mouth as he quickly whirled around and tried to sneak the Glock back underneath his hoodie. Elliot had turned, kneeling next to the teeny tiny little thing, who was wrapped in a thick winter coat against the December frost.

  “Quinn, sweetie, what did we both agree we were going to remember about strangers?”

  “Um.” The little girl took one of his hands in hers, avoiding his gaze. “That just ‘cuz they’re really really pretty, doesn’t mean they’re the good guys?”

  “Bingo.” Elliot cast a quick peripheral sneer at his bodyguard. “Now, Agent Sparrow might be really really pretty, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t want to kill us, does it?”

  “No, Daddy.”

  “It’s okay, Fruit. We’ll talk about it properly over tea when I next see you.”

  The girl, Quinn, peeked around the side of her father’s frame to peer up at the man who currently looked like he might be going into cardiac arrest several feet behind him. When she spoke again it was in a deliberately hushed tone, though Cabe’s sharp ears were able to pick up what she asked. “Is he one of your boyfriends...?”

  Elliot snorted. “No. Jesus, no. Come on, your ride’ll be here soon.”

  “Sir –”

  Elliot rose to his full height and cocked his head in a clear sign to the other man that he was operating on very limited patience in the presence of his daughter. “Yes?”

  “I can’t...” The words wedged themselves in Cabe’s throat and refused to come out. A part of him wondered if maybe it was a good thing though, since they likely wouldn’t have been received well by his client. He coughed several times, and rephrased himself.

  “Sir, if anyone else were to find out about her existence, she could be targeted as a means to get to you. She should be under proper protection, I... I can arrange that for you. Nothing but the best, sir, I promise you that. We’ve never lost a witness on our watch. S.S.A. Flint can say the word and no one will get within twenty feet of her without you knowing about it.”

  Elliot smiled sadly – but with a genuine joy. “Agent Sparrow – Cabe – I appreciate that more than you can imagine, and more than you probably even think I’m capable of. But that’s exactly what I’m trying to save her from. That was the one thing we both decided on from the start, that she was going to have a normal childhood and get to grow up as a normal –”

  Quinn pursed her lips a little and raised one eyebrow. “Daddy, if you don’t want me to listen to this stuff anymore, you should probably give me your music.”

  Elliot sighed and looked between her and Cabe. “My kid, schooling me,” was all he said, digging a lilac-and-gold WrightPod and headphones out of his coat pocket and handing the small bundle of technology to her. She sank into a sitting position on the curb between the two of them.

  Cabe cast a hasty but diligent look around to ensure no one else had entered that area of the parkade while they had been distracted. “I know the idea of witness protection seems frightening and invasive...”

  “It’s not that it’s invasive, Sparrow, I’m just refusing to consider it. I’ve lived with the media intruding upon every aspect of my life since the day I was born, more so in the last ten years than ever before. There are a great many things the world doesn’t know about me yet, believe me. Which is why I am entirely confident in the ability for my people to keep her a secret.”

  “Like your research?”

  Elliot appeared to bite back the first comment that came to mind, and waited several heartbeats before committing to another. “Quinn is an entirely different ball game, Sparrow. She exists nowhere within my company. Everything is done under her mother’s name; she’s a good woman, has full custody. They live out in the Bay Area, I get visitation rights whenever I want them and whenever I get time between business engagements.”

  “Is that sorta the best package money can buy when it comes to the black market child surrogacy business?” spit Cabe, with perhaps a little more venom than he had originally intended.

  Elliot smiled at him, but it wasn’t in any way warm; it was vicious and cruel. “Oh, of course, my apologies. I forgot, you’re the salt-of-the-earth type. It’s hard for you to imagine a real, functioning family unit where the mother and father don’t live under one roof on their little farm in Crackshack Nowhere, Tornado Valley with Grandma and Grandpa, all outward smiles and naivety and pretending Pa’s not secretly getting drunk and knocking the both of you about when none of the neighbors are around to see it. Yes, Sparrow, it is that obvious. And I don’t appreciate the judgement for how I choose to create life from some narrow-minded redneck who thinks he’s world-worn and liberally-minded because he prefers catching over pitching.” He fixed the blond with a firm look. “Yes, Sparrow, that is mind-blowingly obvious, too.”

  “I’m... I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean it like that,” Cabe ground out, the skin of his cheeks burning hot.

  “Quinn’s mother and I made an arrangement that suited us both and works wonderfully for Quinn,” replied Elliot, smooth and cold. “This afternoon was the last chance I was going to get to see her until probably after Christmas, and I wanted to spend an hour of quality time with my daughter, just me and her, in case another person I believe to be my friend tries to shoot me before I get to see her again. Now, Chaotic Good, are you seriously going to penalize me for that?”

  Cabe held out a hand, his mouth open but no words coming out. None were really jumping out at him. “I – you – you can’t expect me not to tell Flint about this, I mean, that’s... that’s an insane oversight –”

  “Or a bestowing upon of trust and loyalty for which I will quite literally owe you my life,” said Elliot, his voice dropping lower than Cabe had heard it before, deep in his chest. His icy blue eyes were flickering elusively across the floor of the parkade around them. Finally, he rattled out a shaky sigh, and locked them with the agent’s own.

  “Cabe,” he said nakedly, as the sound of a car’s wheels crunching over the asphalt announced the arrival of Quinn’s ride, “please.”

  Bloody – fuck.

  Between them, the tiny head of mahogany locks bounced a little higher as Quinn stood up. The earbuds were still wedged into her ears; Cabe wondered if it was the behavior of a girl whose father was a multi-billionaire electronics producer and developer, or of a child who had been trained from a young age to ensure she always knew what to do if the adults around her got a little bit heated. Her big sapphire eyes found his as she was backing away. She smiled nervously and gave a tiny bit of a wave with her fingers.

  Fuck. Fuck, fuckity fuck.

  Cabe’s sneaker scuffed against the curb as he swiveled on one foot, angling his body away from the silver Lamborghini that was rolling casually up beside them. A curvy, freckled woman with a head of coppery curls tossed back in a blue bandana was leaning out the driver’s side window, frowning through huge sunglasses as she looked between Cabe and Elliot and Quinn and back.

  “Hey, Mommy.”

  “Hey, Monster. Get in the car, ‘kay? Books are on your seat.” A car door slammed behind him, but Cabe kept his back politely turned. Or perhaps he was just anchored to the ground, terrified that if he allowed his iron will to shift even the slightest he might lose his nerve and change his mind altogether about just... letting them go.

  Fuck... am I really doing this? Am I really about to let this fly under the radar!?

  “Thought you said three was company, four was a crowd. What’s James Bond doing here?”

  “Really?” said Cabe, pivoting on the spot as his exasperation for the insult (or compliment?) was enough to push him into turning around just a fraction. “I’m not even wearing a –”

  He stopped, staring at her. It was her. The girl from Elliot’s bed on his first day, his four o’cl
ock.

  “Lara?”

  “Miss Flynn to a gentleman,” Elliot snipped.

  “It’s okay, Eli,” the redhead told him with a smile. “We’re already on a first-name basis. Well, we almost are.” She winked at him. While her spunky, cheerful demeanor was very similar to her persona back when he had spoken to her last week, it was very obvious now, meeting her under circumstances that weren’t a complete set up, that she’d deliberately dumbed herself down when she’d initially met him, likely in order to lull him into a sense of false security around her. Or just to convince him that Elliot liked to sleep with bimbos.

  Oh my... how many of the people I’ve met have been plants? And is it really fair of me to feel righteously angry about this when we were just congratulating ourselves over TIME magazine...?

  “I was just saying to Eli, I thought it was only going to be the three of us.” While she seemed content to play it cool, there was a hidden note of concern beneath her voice which everyone who was currently part of the situation was more than intelligent enough to pluck out and decipher. She was fully aware they had been caught. “Not that plans changing around here is anything unusual.”

  “No change of plans at all, Miss,” said Cabe firmly, his thumbs jammed in the front pockets of his faded jeans. “I’m just here to... ensure the package’s safe transferral.”

  Lara smirked a bit to herself, but her eyes were bursting with real, hearty warmth. “Hire him,” she said simply as she passed a slightly stunned (but relieved) Elliot on her way back to the car, disappearing as she sank back into the low driver’s side door. The tires squeaked against the parkade floor and the car began to glide away.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Cabe caught sight of Elliot waving discreetly but enthusiastically to his daughter as the car pulled past him.

  “She’s right, you know,” Cabe said as he folded his arms across his chest and began to walk back toward the elevators. “You should hire me.”

  “You already have a job. And I want to eventually get rid of you one day.”