The Gift of the Dragon

by Michael Murray

  Ian

  “Well at least we are going after Callan. To kill him, I mean. I hate being involved with that man.”

  “Do not be dense, Ian! He has been most useful. If he hadn’t kept Moore’s tablet, I would have gladly paid him his exorbitant fee and let him keep bedeviling Northwin. I would have enjoyed it!”

  “Do you really think Trevor’s alpha whore can get the tablet back from Grant?”

  Franklin made a shushing motion with his finger.

  Ian looked around. The two were having very expensive cocktails at the P.O.V. Roof Terrace on top of the W Hotel on 15th Street in Washington. “You think someone has the P.O.V. bugged?”

  Franklin laughed at that. “Well, it is not Cafe Migrano. That place has bugs at every table. Probably several with different owners, stuck on top of each other like gum on a playground bench. However, you cannot be too careful with the secrets we keep, Son.”

  “I thought we were going to discuss how to get ‘it’ back.”

  “We do not need it back. Come over here.”

  Franklin got up and went to the railing near their table. Ian followed and leaned out over the rail. He noticed a pretty brunette server looking worriedly in their direction. Ian winked at her. Heck, it would be a good enough way to go—he could see the headline, “Man Who Escaped Fatal Grizzly Attack Falls to Death from P.O.V.” He would be famous.

  Ian looked out at the view. It felt as if he could cut his finger on the point of the Washington Monument, and the East Wing of the White House shone like a diamond-encrusted golden box in the light of the setting September sun. He sipped his Dark and Stormy, a rum-and-ginger drink the P.O.V specialized in, and remembered a line from an old poem. I know all you know, and I keep my questions close. His father could play the sphinx better than anyone Ian knew, but tonight he needed some answers.

  “So we don’t need it back, but we don’t want Callan to keep it, or to sell it?”

  “We do not want him to unlock it.”

  “And Alice Sangerman has the key?”

  “Trevor’s man, Ned, saw it. Brought back pictures.”

  His father laid several photos on the table.

  “I see a necklace shaped like a dragon. I’ve no idea if it does anything other than sparkle brightly in the setting sun. Why didn’t Ned shoot her and take it?”

  “The files are encrypted. Any lock can be broken, eventually. I do not care that much about the key, Ian. I want the tablet destroyed. On the other hand, Callan is in a hurry as usual. As long as Alice has the key, Callan will want to find her. Now that she has left that commune, she is much easier to keep track of than he is.” Franklin sipped his own drink.

  Ian grimaced to himself. With all the money he had in the bank, his father drank cheap bourbon. On the rocks!

  “I’ve instructed Trevor to tell his… whore… that Sangerman has the key.”

  “Tell me where he is, and I’ll get it for you!” Ian slammed his fist on the railing.

  “We do not know where he is, Ian. I am sure you could beat him in a fair fight, but the man is an assassin, not a gentleman.”

  “I’m not afraid of him!”

  “Afraid? I am sure you are not. Callan Grant is as apt to poison your drink or gas you in your sleep as to accept your challenge to a mano-a-mano showdown. When we get him where we want him, you can take him out—but safely. From a distance.”

  “You take all the fun out of a good killing. I had to leave Robert to a bear, and you want me to kill the great Callan Grant without laying a fist on him.” Ian sighed. “If this girl of Trevor’s doesn’t get the tablet, if he catches her, you think Grant will interrogate her?”

  “I will be amazed if he does not.”

  “Is Trevor in on your plan?”

  “What he needs to know, he knows. Not one whisper of what we discuss should reach him, Ian. It is essential that he tells Faith only what I have told him to tell her. You know how he is with women.”

  “More so with beautiful women than plain, but yes, Father, I know how he is.”

  “Good. That is that. How went the work in Montana?”

  “Robert was furious with me for leaving, said it demonstrates that I’ve no true heart for the hunt. He more than hinted that this was exactly the sort of thing that had led him to put all Apple Creek security back under Northwin, showed him that he was right to disband my team.”

  “He was drunk then?”

  “Ha! Of course he was drunk. He was awake! This all took place at six this morning. They went out to the bait pile right after that. I was flying over the Rockies when Robert wounded the bear. Jackson ran out, and made it look like the bear would get him. Robert did as he was expected to do and shouted to attract the bear. The bear complied. Robert died in Jackson’s arms. Jackson sent me a text me with the news. A picture of what was left of our exalted CEO.”

  Ian looked at his father. “I got the text when I landed, and I immediately contacted Ayn. She was devastated.” Ian held his iPhone out so Franklin could see the bloody body of his CEO.

  Franklin rubbed his cheek with his thumb as he said, “Yes, I imagine Ayn was heartbroken that her drunken wreck of a husband got himself killed saving her idiotic nephew from a bear.”

  “Well, she looked quite sad over Facetime.”

  “Good practice. The press will be hounding her soon enough.”

  “I think she’ll be able to handle that.”

  “Oh, of all the people I need to rely on to play their part over the next few days, your sister is the one I am least worried about!”

  “Why, Father, I plan for the excellence of my acting to matter as well.”

  “I plan for you to perform adequately also, Ian. See that you do not disappoint me.”

  Chapter 11, Endurance

  Harry

  A little after eleven at night, Harry Price found Director Stoddard playing tennis at George Washington Tennis Center by Georgetown, where the director practiced with an instructor or selected club members four nights a week. As he watched the game, Harry steeled himself; Stoddard did not take bad news gently. As the game ended, it relieved Harry to see that the Director won what looked like a pretty tough game. That should put him in a better mood. The public location should also reduce the chance of Harry getting his head bitten off.

  “Sir,” Harry called as Stoddard wiped the sweat from his close-cropped head with a towel and then zipped his racket into an expensive-looking leather case.

  Stoddard looked up and then scowled. “This can’t be good news, Harry. Your cable guy couldn’t fix the problem?”

  Harry looked around. Stoddard’s opponent had left the court, and at this late hour, only one other pair still played a few courts over.

  “No sir. Afraid not. No, the problem fixed him, I hate to say.”

  “Shit, Harry! You said he was one of the best!”

  “Jake was an ex-Ranger with no heart and twenty-five kills, sir. Sangerman… well, we swept the scene. She got away clean.”

  “How does she do it, Harry? Malcolm beat himself to death trying to bring her in. Now, you can’t do it either.”

  “Now, we can’t, sir. I got this from Northwin.” Price held up his smartphone so that Stoddard could hear the message. His face got darker as the nearly three-minute-long message went on.

  Stoddard looked as though he was about to throw the expensive phone down when the message finished but stopped himself and tossed it to Price, who barely managed to catch it.

  “So, the mighty Apple Creek Security Chief wants us to stay out of the way while his people take out one of our most wanted targets!”

  “Two and one, I gather, sir. I got this message from McAlister.” Price fiddled with his phone and then held it up again. Price could hear the scratchy squeak of the message but could not make out the words. This message sounded shorter. This time Stoddard actually looked happy.

  “Ah, I feel better now. So we have our asset in place?”

  “Yes sir, he is just waitin
g for the right time to activate and bring her in. The plan is to get her and number one together on Northwin’s boat.”

  “Good. Hey, Price, you are what old G.W. would call a “turd blossom,” you know that?”

  “Not sure what you mean, sir.”

  “Just that you deliver the bad news first.”

  The Director smiled, something Harry had only seen a few times before. It made him uncomfortable.

  “You keep this up, Price, and you may just get Malcolm’s chair permanently! Now, you head on home. We’ll be busy tomorrow!”

  “Yes sir.” Harry said as Stoddard waved and walked off toward the showers, whistling.

  Harry shook his head and headed back toward his car.

  Laird

  He sat in the elevated captain’s chair in the circular bridge of his ship, looking her over. She rested easily at the large yacht quay at the Epoch Marina on the Miami River, but Laird Northwin did not sit at the helm of a yacht. Originally built by Germany as an Albatross class corvette, Laird had purchased the ship from the Bundsmarine and undertaken an extensive refit to rebuild her to serve as his mobile headquarters. That had cost a great deal of money, but it cost less than maintaining large, secure offices in Washington, New York, London, and so on. A former Navy captain himself, Laird knew the value of these fast attack craft hulls: sturdy, speedy, with good seakeeping ability, built for the wild North Sea. His boss, Apple Creek CEO Robert Brandon, called it Laird’s Sea Beamer. The extensive reconstruction with modern electronics and next generation materials had cost nearly thirty million dollars. On the outside, she looked like most other bubble yachts of the idle mega-rich, with large windows and plenty of lounge chairs, but inside she was the high-tech, mobile center of his operation. When the conversion was complete, he had given the ship a new name: Endurance.

  Laird looked out of the one-way glass at the Miami shoreline. Seventeen top-ranking security officers lived on the ship full-time, and they commanded nearly ten thousand people around the world. Endurance also carried eight well-trained armed guards, along with the small crew needed to oversee the upgraded ship’s automated systems. Laird worked for Robert Brandon first and the board of Apple Creek second. Apple Creek spent more on its security arm than any other firm on the planet and, indeed, more than many medium-sized nations. Keeping Apple Creek’s secrets safely hidden was acknowledged as mission-critical work. And Apple Creek hid many secrets. Laird had thought he had known them all. The killing of Peter Moore did not have an entry in his books, so it became an obsession of his as soon as he had learned of it.

  Robert Brandon’s mind seemed to work faster than that of an ordinary man. When he talked with Laird, he would rattle off a series of tasks that needed done, almost too fast to be heard. In their early years working together, Laird would feverishly scribble notes down trying to keep up while Robert expounded. As Laird pushed the button on his digital recorder to review their last conversation, he let out a grateful sign for technology that made it easy to keep up with Robert’s machine-gun mind. As he had many times before, Laird would review the conversation and convert it into an action plan, which he would send to Robert for review and then transcribe it into marching orders for the five-thousand-man-strong Guardian Security force.

  “We have to talk more about Peter’s death, Laird. You have been trying for years to find the man, you finally locate him, and suddenly an assassin comes out of nowhere and takes him out. What gives? How did this guy find him so quickly when it took you years?” Laird could hear a loud tapping sound on the recording. Robert often punctuated his thoughts by beating his desk with a pencil. When he was angry, the taps got louder. Laird listened to his reply to Robert.

  “This proves that theory of yours. Peter’s location must have been given to his killer by someone inside our operation. There is no other way he could have found Peter. I wanted to bring Peter in right away when I found him. Get him in the brig here on Endurance, and then decide what to do with him.”

  “And I told you to leave him in the wild until we found out where he kept his files. And the old man’s logs!” After Sam’s death, when Moore ran, he took a copy of the old man’s logbook. They both knew that contained everything about Apple Creek. Tap tap TAP! “But you had people watching his every move. He should’ve been safe!”

  “Yes, two teams of Guardians were watching him in Tampa. They watched him bring in many clients to his ‘medical’ lab. You know what he was selling.”

  “Right. I am in Montana at a hunting lodge.” Robert’s non sequitur was code for the line not being secure enough to go into what Moore had been selling to these customers. Dragonaris! Now Thorn would need to hunt them down and give them the opportunity to join Apple Creek. Or die. The tape was silent for a long moment. He could hear Robert breathing.

  “Yeah, I know, Laird, more messes for you to clean up. Who killed him? You said it looked like a professional hit, so it wasn’t an accident or random act of violence. We’re the only ones with a reason to want him dead, so who ordered it?”

  “I am working on that. He had Sam’s files, so maybe someone else wanted them also.”

  “Who else knew about Sam’s files?”

  “The board. The senior officers. Their immediate staff. One of his customers might have had a reason to kill him also, some of them were underground figures. Drug lords. Gun runners. It seemed as though he would take any customer with money at the end. I’m working on a few different leads.”

  “And how is that coming?”

  Northwin heard himself sigh on the tape, and he sighed again listening to it. “We searched Moore’s offices in Tampa. We didn’t find much, just some personal items. No files and no evidence other than Moore’s blood. We left a photograph, one I hoped would lead anyone poking around the scene into a trap we set, using Tomas Guzman for bait.”

  Northwin heard Robert draw in his breath.

  “That is what I called you about. Guzman just contacted me, saying that Moore’s killer was coming to visit him.”

  Robert’s voice sounded excited. “Tomas is the one who used to work for Moore? Used to manage his security?”

  “Yeah. He’s set up a new operation outside of Apple Creek. A bar and a restaurant he uses to launder money for some of the South Americans. Moore’s former customers. We let him do that to try to lure in the killer, hoping he would want to finish off Moore’s lieutenant. I sent you a memo about it.”

  “Offer Guzman the complete package, Laird. Bring him back inside, full re-instatement, vice-president title and salary. If he brings us Moore’s killer.”

  “That’s more than I’d give, Robert. He broke his oath. Just letting him live is very generous.”

  “I know, Laird, but it’s my decision.”

  That conversation had happened yesterday. Guzman had liked the offer and said he would bring the killer to Laird in exchange for the agreed-upon status change. Laird had sent two of his own men to help with the recovery. Something had gone wrong, the men had been shot, and the supposed assassin was gone.

  Laird punched the arm of his captain’s chair. If I knew Guzman was going to try to bring in Alice Sangerman, I would have sent a dozen men! Guzman is lucky to be finally dead, with several bullets in the head, too many for even the Dragonaris to save him. Laird was angrier with himself. He should have pressed Guzman harder for the identity of his target.

  He was not sure Alice Sangerman was Moore’s killer, anyway. Moore was one of her dead father’s oldest friends, and when you were talking about Sam Sangerman, that meant something.

  Laird thought it more likely that Moore’s killer was Callan Grant, number one on Laird’s personal most-wanted list. Laird knew that the FBI wanted Grant also. Well, they can have what is left of him when I am done!

  However, Alice Sangerman had now crossed his trip-line, and Laird’s duty was to bring her in. Then I’ll decide what to do with her.

  There was one consolation to the disaster outside Guzman’s building. An unmanned dr
one had been set to watch over the operation, and that drone had recorded a boat leaving a dock near the Harbor Tower just after the failed ambush.

  He glanced at the time on the digital readout of the ship’s instrument cluster. The time had come for his meeting with Michel Thorn, Laird's most difficult yet often most effective man.

  The briefing room reflected his nineteenth-century taste. The decor would give an animal lover a heart attack. The dark, oak-paneled walls were hung with the stuffed heads of a grizzly bear, a huge Alaskan wolf, a Barbary lion, a Florida panther, a snow leopard, a great white shark, and a bull shark, and above Laird’s usual seat reared the head of an orca with its toothy mouth agape. The long, scarred wooden table held a computer and a lamp and was attended by several chairs. Below the dead heads were pictures of his children, his wife, and a scarred old side-wheel warship. Laird himself furthered the nineteenth-century theme by wearing a great coat perched on his shoulders like a cape, with a white shirt beneath, the top several buttons open and showing a wealth of dark, graying hair. The hair on his head fell to his shoulders. While that was mostly black, his full beard was shot with white. Beneath his bushy brows, gray eyes peered out with the sharpness of flint.

  As he entered the room, Laird checked the temperature on the wall-mounted thermostat as was his habit. Sixty-seven degrees. This room was the coldest one on the ship, being cooled by the same climate control system that kept the large electronics bays of the computer room from overheating. The cooling and ventilation system had been an important part of the refit. To reduce the power required to keep the racks of computers from overheating, the engineers had run ducts all along the ship’s hull, using the difference in temperature between the air and the water to assist the conventional air-conditioning systems. The fuel saved resulted in a several-hundred-mile range increase.

  Precisely one minute late, the broad frame of Michel Thorn banged into the room. He had a long scar running from below his left eye to the corner of his mouth. The scar flushed red when he was upset, ruining Thorn’s poker game. Right now, it was a lighter shade of pale.