He raised the cigarette back to his lips and sucked on the filter, allowing the smoke to fill his lungs. With his free hand, he brought the scotch to his mouth, exhaling the smoke into the glass as he sipped the alcohol. When the two mixed, it created an interesting blend that Dante savored for a few brief moments.
“Maybe we should put your concerns to rest, my dear,” he said. “Send Angela out on another assignment, to see if she really can prove herself.”
“What do you have in mind?” asked Tauna, one arm dropping to the side, her other hand resting on her hip.
“What news do we have on our friend Anton?” asked Dante.
“The recluse?”
“Recluse or not, he's been making quite a few phone calls to unidentified numbers.”
“You think he's been in contact with the Agency, don't you?”
“I'd say that's a very accurate statement,” said Dante. “And I'd say eliminating an Agency informant would be just the thing for little Miss Lockhart. Would you feel more comfortable about her qualifications if she did something to damage their own investigation?”
“I think you misunderstand me, sir,” she said.
Dante's eyebrow rose. “Is that so?”
Tauna stepped closer to the fireplace, watching the flames intently with her back to the man who was, for all intents and purposes, her master. Although if she indicated that, he would promptly scold her.
“I don't believe Lockhart harbors any unrequited love for the Agency. My concern is that if she is so willing to betray them, who's to say she won't be willing to betray you if she gets a better offer?”
She turned her body slightly towards Dante, half glancing over her shoulder to look at him. “You made her an offer and it was about more than just the money—it was the chance to find the people who killed her husband. What if someone offers to give her more than just a chance to discover the truth? What if they already have the evidence?”
“And who's to say I don't?”
“But how does she know that?”
Dante waved his hand in dismissal. “Angela is no idiot. She knows I'm hiding something from her and she knows I'm withholding the knowledge because she's beneficial to me.”
“You're using her for long-term purposes. Someone else with that knowledge could give it up a lot faster if they're just trying to get to you,” said Tauna. “You don't have a definite plan for her. Your enemies might.”
“And that is a possibility I will very strongly take into account. But you can't expect me to run my empire based on what if scenarios. If I did that, I wouldn't have gotten anywhere. Now come.”
He stood from the seat, walking out the exit with Tauna following behind. Down the hall, he opened the door to a massive study with a large piece of translucent plastic set in front of the massive oak desk. Dante sat in the leather chair and ran his hand over the desktop. It suddenly illuminated and displays appeared on the plastic, his own personal computer. Dante's fingers danced on the keyboard and a file came up along with a photo of a large, well-built man with short, dark hair and matching eyes.
“Look at this,” said Dante. He dragged his finger and the cursor moved towards an item in the file labeled PHONE RECORDS. A list appeared, with almost all the calls either to or from UNIDENTIFIED NUMBER and the duration of each call, usually less than a minute.
“This is the larger concern we should have at the moment,” said Dante. “Anton has been talking to someone. And for them to be able to block their number from me means Agency. He's talking to them, feeding them information and that's something that will be very, very dangerous for us.”
“If Anton is betraying you, there is no way he'll leave his home. He'll know you suspect something.”
“Will he?” asked Dante. “Look at this.”
The cursor moved to another label on the side of the file, this one read ACTIVITY LOG. Several photos appeared of Anton walking a tiny dog in a park by the lakefront. “Every morning, he walks his dog in the same park,” said Dante. “He's a creature of habit and he's very, very overconfident in his ability to defend himself.”
Tauna shook her head. “No, this is too sensitive to hand off to her. Let me take him out.”
“You're very cute when you're trying to impress me,” said Dante with a slight grin. “But no, this is Angela's mark. I want to see what she's capable of. However, you have a good point and I plan to keep you on standby in case she fails.”
“And if she does?”
Dante's grin vanished, his face now deathly serious. “You know how I feel about failure.”
CHAPTER 6
Angela Lockhart slept restlessly. Her body kept flipping from side to side, knocking the thin sheet from her body. Her face scrunched up at what she saw in her mind's eye. In her sleep, Angela's subconscious came alive, bringing forth the memories she tried to repress.
She looked through the eyes of her past self and witnessed events from another time with a red tint. In her car, driving home at night. Jeff had been feeling under the weather after a recent assignment up north. She ran to the pharmacy to pick something up.
She had only been gone fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. But as she pulled up to the house they shared, she saw the flashing red and blue lights. Pulling her car to a stop, she slowly opened the door and walked the short distance to the house.
The blue and red lights flashed brightly, yet in this version of her memory, there were no squad cars. No ambulances. Just the yellow plastic draped around the house's perimeter that read POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS.
She tore the tape in two and stepped towards the open door. Once she set her foot inside, she heard a sound not unlike stepping into a puddle. Looking down, she saw a dark crimson liquid covering the floor.
Her eyes followed the puddle, going to its source. And then she saw where it came from. The blood covered everything—the walls, the furniture, the windows, the curtains—all of it completely drenched. Far more blood than a human body could possibly hold.
But what drew her attention the most was not the blood—it was the form of her husband spread out on the ground. His body lying motionless, his eyes wide open and vacant.
Angela fell back, landing in the blood with a splash, falling into it and it suddenly became an ocean, surrounding her. She rose up, splashing and flaying, gasping for breath, her entire body stained red.
Her hands gripped something solid and she pulled herself up. Slowly, she allowed her eyes to open and she found herself lying in the front entrance of the Agency's headquarters. Footsteps echoed on the hard, marble tile. Angela slowly brought herself to her knees and felt something hard, cold and metal pressed against the back of her skull.
“Don't worry, you'll see him real soon.”
Angela spun around, hoping to see the face of her husband's killer before her own life became forfeit. And in that brief instance, Angela now found herself not in the Agency's headquarters, not in the house she and Jeff owned. But rather, she sat upright in bed, the gun she slept with under her pillow clasped in her hand and pointed at empty space in the room.
She breathed heavily, eyes darting from side to side. Carefully, she relaxed her muscles, lowering the weapon and moving her free hand to her face, wiping the sweat from it and pulling aside the damp hair that clung to her skin. She looked down at the tank top and sweat pants she wore—they too, stuck to her body, also soaked with her sweat.
“Just a dream...” she muttered, placing the gun back under her pillow. The clock read 5:00 AM.
Of course it had been a dream. That wasn't even how Jeff died. She was away on assignment when it happened. When she returned and had the news broken to her, she went to the morgue to identify the body. She didn't find him dead in his own blood. She never confronted his killer.
But she would.
Angela went to the bathroom, stripping the wet clothes. She climbed into the shower and allowed the cold water to spill over her body. Once she felt refreshed, she dried off her body and tightened her robe
. Going to the bed, she pulled the sheets off and dropped them onto the floor. She'd take them down to the laundry room tomorrow.
Rather than putting fresh sheets on the bed, she went to the living room and picked up the remote, turning the television on. She rarely used it and had only broadcast stations. Flipping through them quickly showed her nothing worth note was on. She hit the red button at the top of the remote and the television went dead.
Angela's head turned to the liquor cabinet. She could feel that familiar tinge in her mind. She didn't feel any physical effects—it wasn't as if she began to go through withdrawal symptoms or anything. No, what it manifested as was a series of justifications and reasons in her mind.
It's just a drink or two. There's nothing wrong with that. I need to unwind anyway. I just had a pretty traumatic dream. Would it be wrong if I had been up all night to have a drink now? It's not like I keep a regular sleep schedule anyway, what's early morning to most people could be dinnertime for me. It's always happy hour somewhere, so what's the harm in having a little bit?
Without even realizing it, she noticed that she had suddenly found herself walking to the liquor cabinet. Her hand remained steady as she wrapped her slender fingers around the bottle labeled Smirnoff. Slowly, she unscrewed the top and then took a glass from the top shelf, raising the bottle over the edge.
The vodka seemed to move in slow motion as it splashed inside her glass. She poured a little in at first, only about a quarter of the glass. Then more fell in and she told herself she had poured that much by accident.
More justifications. More excuses.
Now the level of clear liquid had reached the halfway point of the glass. Angela raised it to her lips but just as she was about to sip, a loud noise startled her and she dropped the glass.
It shattered on the hardwood floor and she scolded herself for being so clumsy. “Dammit...”
The sound came from her cell phone. She picked it up from the table where it rested beside her laptop. The display read UNKNOWN NUMBER and she already knew who it was. She flipped open the phone and hit the SEND button to connect the call.
“Do I have to guess who this is?” she asked. “And do you have any idea what time it is?”
***
On the other end of the phone, Dante chuckled. “Good morning to you as well, sunbeam. You near your computer?”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I have your next assignment and I want you to explain the information to you as you have it all in front of you,” said Dante.
“Hold on, let me get it connected.”
Dante spread his arms out, draping them around the large whirlpool he sat in. The water bubbled loudly and a few feet away there sat a large screen like the one he had in his study, displaying Angela's photo and her contact information. As he spoke, the powerful microphone picked up his voice and transmitted it over a secured satellite connection that could not be traced.
“Okay, I'm on,” she said.
“Good, log onto that secure server I told you about,” he said. A few seconds passed and then just before she told him she logged on, a small box popped up in her profile that read OPERATIVE CONNECTED TO SERVER.
“Coming your way,” said Dante. He placed his hand over a glass touch keyboard installed within reaching distance of the whirlpool. The keys lit up and he brought up the file for Anton. He moved the cursor to the button on the screen labeled TRANSMIT. Within a few seconds, the file would appear on Angela's computer. A progress bar appeared, quickly filling.
“Do you see it?” he asked once the progress bar has completed.
“Yeah,” she said. “So this is the guy you want me to go after?”
“That's him,” said Dante. “His name's Anton. Apparently, he's been getting a lot of calls—and making a lot of calls—to an unidentifiable number. And for Infernum to be unable to identify a number—”
“—means he's been talking to the Agency.”
“Clever girl,” said Dante.
“So you need this done immediately?”
“Not sure there's a need to rush. His daily routine is in the file. Your best bet would be to hit him when he takes his dog for a walk in the morning.”
“In a park?” came Angela's shocked voice over the speakers. Dante grinned, picturing the look on her face.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“A public park, in broad daylight, are you out of your mind?”
“It's been suggested before.”
“No, I'm not doing the hit in broad daylight. Not in a public park.”
“What's the difference between a nudie booth and a park?” asked Dante.
“I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer.”
He smiled again, reaching for the cigarette case and lighter resting on the whirlpool's edge. “Relax, love. This is the way the job has to go, okay? Anton's a bit paranoid, he's got far too much security in his home. But when he's going for his morning jog, his defenses are down. Every man has at least one fatal flaw—for Anton, it's that little fuzzball he calls a dog.”
“This hit is too risky to pull in broad daylight. You can't honestly expect me to go through with this, not now. According to this, he usually goes for the jog around seven. That's in two hours and it's a bit of a drive from here.”
“Then do it tomorrow. Like I said, this isn't a rush job. But I do need him eliminated sooner rather than later. Before the Agency makes a deal with him.”
“What makes you think they haven't yet?”
“If they had, they wouldn't still be playing phone tag, now would they?”
Angela remained silent on the other end and Dante knew his assumption to be correct. Perhaps Tauna was right, perhaps Angela still retained a slight bit of empathy for the Agency. Or perhaps her training was just so well ingrained that the thought of passing any information about their policies or even confirming his suspicions seemed ludicrous. It seemed to Dante that keeping tight-lipped about the Agency came as natural to Angela Lockhart as breathing.
He had to hand it to Draconi—that bastard really knew how to train an operative. Angela despised the Agency for their failure to act after the death of her husband but she still wouldn't give them up, even if she was working for the enemy. That part seemed particularly ironic and Dante was hardly a fan of it. But he would live with the situation and soon, he would find a way to turn Angela completely to his side. In the meanwhile, he would have to indulge some of her quirkier personality traits.
“Is there any specific method for this job?” she asked.
“I'll let you do whatever comes natural. Just don't end up on the evening news.”
“Except there is one more question I have.”
“I'm all ears.”
“If there's no rush on this job, why did you call me at five in the morning?”
He smiled as he lit the cigarette. “I thought you might be up.”
“What—?”
Before she had a chance to utter another word of righteous indignation, Dante hit a button on the keyboard and a message appeared that read DISCONNECTED.
He leaned back in the hot water, the jets massaging almost every inch of his body and relieving what little tension he held in his muscles. Striking another button on the keyboard, the score from 2001: A Space Odyssey began to pipe through the speakers. He closed his eyes, dragging on the cigarette as the visuals from the movie cued up in his mind.
“It's good to be the king,” he muttered to himself.
He slowly raised his head and opened his eyes, a look of bewilderment coming over his face. Dante's eyes scanned the area around the whirlpool. He saw the collection of fine towels hanging along the wall beside several Japanese yukata. His eyes took in the glass doors connected to the exercise room which housed the weight-lifting equipment and cardiology machines. But there was something else he searched for that he could not find at all. Something far more important.
Dante pushed a button on the keyboard, bringing up the in
tercom system. “Carlton, where the hell is my rubber ducky?”
CHAPTER 7
Angela Lockhart glanced at her watch. Anton should be here any minute, assuming Dante's information proved accurate, and it usually did. She felt tired. She wanted to go back to bed, assuming she could even fall asleep.
Reflective sunglasses concealed her eyes. Her legs were crossed, an open book resting on her lap. She pretended to read, but in reality her eyes kept a watchful vigil for her mark. Soon, he would come by. And then, she would take him out.
She just hadn't figured out how she would. Not yet, anyway. There were far too many people around and this place was far too public.
Too many families.
Her best chance seemed to be following Anton until he went somewhere a bit more secluded. Maybe she'd get lucky and he'd have to use the bathroom. She could easily hit him in there, get him with his pants down.
A few feet from the lake sat a concrete pathway. Some people used it for biking and jogging or just strolling. And that's when she saw the face from the picture Dante sent her. Short, dark hair and dark eyes. Tall, easily over six feet, and built like a linebacker. His hand held a leash attached to a poodle that strolled by his side. The dog's size in comparison to its master had been almost comical, but Angela wasn't laughing.
“Son of a bitch...” Her voice came out in a low, hushed tone. “You didn't say he'd be this big.”
Her hand reached inside the outside pocket of her jacket and she felt the small, silver gun inside. Only a few shots but that's all she would need. Although now she began to doubt that logic.
Once Anton walked past her, she closed the book and stood from the park bench. She kept her eyes fixed on him as she slowly walked to the path, careful to keep her distance so he wouldn't sense her presence.
He moved at a leisurely pace, allowing the poodle's tiny legs to keep up with his long strides. As Angela followed, she noted something off in the distance. A band shell. Made of concrete, and if she could get him inside there, she'd be able to eliminate him in relative privacy. Not as much as she would like, but it would have to do.
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