Third Strike: A Charlie Fox Mystery

by Zoe Sharp

  Not good, I recognized. Not good at all.

  Alongside me, I registered a tight little gasp. My mother. Slowly, reluctantly, the madness faded and I brought my hands up to shoulder height, empty. I’d nothing to fill them with but anger, in any case.

  “Very, ah, sensible, ma’am,” said a man’s voice. “No reason for this to get nastier than it has to.” I let my head turn slightly and saw the small, rumpled figure of Collingwood step into view from an office marked SECURITY. He’d been watching us all the way in. Which meant he knew we were coming … .

  “What did they offer you, Terry?” I asked, bitter. I turned, only to find that the lawyer was standing, openmouthed and apparently frozen. For a moment her shock seemed so genuine I thought I might be mistaken, that she hadn’t calmly and coolly set us up to walk into a trap. Her eyes flicked from Vondie’s triumphant features, to Collingwood, and back again.

  Vondie advanced, pushing past the Storax security men until she was standing right in front of Terry.

  “What’s the matter, O’Loughlin?” she taunted. “Seen a ghost?”

  Terry took a step back, threw me a look of horrified realization and whirled towards Collingwood, gesturing to Vondie as she did so.

  “You told me she was dead!” Terry said, face white as her voice cracked harsh. “You told me they’d killed a federal agent in the course of her duties and I’d be doing my country a service if I helped you bring them in. You showed me a goddamn photograph, for God’s sake! What was it—a fake?”

  “Not a fake, exactly. I’m sure Charlie here will testify that photograph was the genuine article,” Collingwood said in that diffident manner of his. He exchanged a quick smile with Vondie. “Agent Blaylock wasn’t dead, is all.”

  “You lied to me,” Terry said quietly, her body so tight, she was shaking. I glanced at her, but she wouldn’t—couldn’t—meet my eyes.

  “I was somewhat, ah, economical with the truth, certainly,” Collingwood allowed, spreading his hands a little. “But when national security’s at stake, ma’am, I believe the end justifies the means.” I couldn’t fault the zeal in his tone. It sounded for all the world like he believed every word of it.

  “What ‘means’ are those, Collingwood?” I asked. “The ones that had Vondie and good old Don Kaminski threatening to rape my mother if my father didn’t take part in his own downfall? That’s justified, is it?”

  That got Terry’s attention. Her gaze shot past me to my mother’s set face. I took a quick look myself and found my mother had clamped her jaw shut to stop it trembling. A dark flush stained her cheekbones, but her back was rigidly straight and her chin was up with as much pride as she could muster.

  “Or the ones that had you forcing Miranda Lee to overdose so she couldn’t reveal what had really happened to her husband?” I said, cold and clear. “How do you square it as a national security issue that this company knew what would happen to someone of Jeremy Lee’s ethnic background if he took the Storax treatment, and yet they issued no warnings? What was he to you—some kind of lab rat?”

  “You sure have formed some interesting conclusions about all this,” Collingwood said, his fingers performing their habitual dance. “But I think we can continue this somewhere a little more, ah, private, don’t you?”

  The door to the security office opened again and two more men in plain suits came out. Their faces were vaguely familiar. One was big, with a buzz-cut hairstyle that had me instantly placing him—the guy who’d put my father into the Lincoln Town Car outside the hotel in New York and taken him to the brothel.

  The other didn’t ring quite so many bells, apart from the fact he was limping. That clinched it. The driver of the pickup truck we’d commandeered after the abortive ambush in Massachusetts. Both eyed me with something amounting to a dark glee.

  Collingwood jerked his head and the Storax security men closed in on us. Or rather, on me and my mother, almost elbowing Terry aside. She stumbled blindly out of their way, clearly shattered.

  The guard who reached for me was no more than twenty-five, dark-skinned, holding the PlastiCuffs so tight that the bones of his fist showed through. It was nerves that made him rough as he yanked my hands down behind me and zipped the restraints around my wrists. He moved across to pull my mother’s unresisting arms behind her.

  “Do you have to do that?” I murmured, letting the pain slide out through the cracks, letting him see it. “How would you feel if it was your mother?”

  The young man hesitated, his Adam’s apple bounced like a basketball in play. He shrugged, embarrassed to the roots of his hair.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered. Around him, a couple of the others shifted their feet uncomfortably.

  “Do these people know there’s no ‘national security’ involved?” I demanded more loudly, eyes swinging to meet Collingwood’s. “That you’re working on your own, off the books? That, at this very moment, your superiors are as interested to find you—and in what you’ve been doing—as we were?”

  Collingwood hesitated fractionally, his eyes meeting Vondie’s as if to check she was going to stand firm. I don’t know what passed between them in that instant, but it must have been enough. He let a smile curve his thin mouth.

  “Nice try, Charlie,” he said, and if his voice didn’t have quite the same confidence to it that it had before, I was the only one who seemed to notice. “You sure do know how to, ah, think on your feet. I admire that,” he said with a bit of a chuckle, which he allowed to fade before going on in his most serious voice. “Thank you, guys. We’ll take it from here.” He nodded to the two men who’d just joined him. “The U.S. government sure appreciates your cooperation in the capture and containment of this dangerous suspect.”

  “And her aged mother,” I tossed over my shoulder, acidic, as Buzz-cut grabbed my arm. “Don’t forget that heroic part, boys.”

  “Charlotte,” my mother managed to protest, but I wasn’t sure if it was the provocation or the reference to her advancing years she most objected to.

  Another uniformed security man came out of the office behind Collingwood and whispered in his ear. Collingwood’s face twitched and I knew, in that moment, that they hadn’t got Sean and my father.

  “Too fast for your rent-a-mob, were they?” I said mildly. “Shame.”

  “Let me go after them,” Vondie said, breathless with the want of it. She reached under her short jacket and pulled a Glock 9mm out of a belt rig. “They won’t get far, I guarantee it.”

  “There won’t be any need for that,” Collingwood said grimly, eyeing the pair of us. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about your father, Charlie, it’s that he’s an honorable man. I think if we offer him and Meyer the chance to trade themselves for you both, they’ll deal.”

  “In that case,” I said icy, “you don’t know Sean half as well as you think. The only way you’ll get him in here is if you offer your own head.” I waited a beat. “Detached, preferably.”

  “You’re in no position to be clever,” Vondie said, moving in on me with a sneer.

  “You never were,” I said. “And you can’t go out looking for Sean and my father with all guns blazing, can you? We wondered why we weren’t picked up on the way down here. But you’re hiding from your own people just as—”

  Vondie flipped the gun into her left hand and hit me in the stomach with her clenched right fist. I saw it coming just far enough out to brace, but she put some weight and venom behind it.

  I staggered back, heard Terry shout, “For God’s sake, you can’t do this!” but I was concentrating more on staying on my feet at all costs. The pain was a tight crunch in my gut that radiated out in sharp, nauseating waves. I forced myself not to let it show on my face as I straightened.

  “I thought so,” I said, as calmly as I could manage. “You punch like a girl.”

  Vondie bared her teeth at me, might have gone for a second shot, but Terry stepped between us. She took my arms, steadied me, her eyes on my face. “Charlie,
I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “You have to believe me. They approached me days ago, showed me pictures of Agent Blaylock and told me you’d killed her. That if you tried to contact me, I should play along and lead you here. It all sounded so damned plausible. I didn’t have a choice!”

  “No choice?” I laughed, and it wasn’t a happy sound. “I would have thought when Storax are signing the checks, they’d have a say in how their hired help behaves, wouldn’t you, Terry?”

  Her shoulders dropped. “You think they’re working for us?” she said, and I would have scoffed at the question, but I saw the sudden stillness, the awful realization as it hit her.

  “Aren’t they?”

  “No,” she said quietly. “We’re working for them.”

  CHAPTER 31

  They separated us. It was the first thing they did.

  Collingwood had me and my mother hustled out of the lobby and taken through into the security area. They had a holding cell back there, presumably used as a secure place to stash intruders until the local law enforcement arrived. Vondie opened the door and shoved my mother inside, twisting a painful lock onto her wrist when the older woman attempted to resist.

  My anger flared afresh. I stepped forwards instinctively, but Vondie let go of my mother with a shove and yanked the barred door shut, separating us.

  “Sorry,” Vondie said, smiling. “No family rooms in this hotel.”

  The outer door behind us burst open and Terry elbowed her way through. She was struggling against the two security men who were trying, somewhat halfheartedly, to detain her.

  “Collingwood, you can’t do this!” she snapped. “You’ve violated their legal rights. Even if you had any kind of a case against these people, it will never get to a courtroom if you deny them their right to legal counsel. I’ll stand—”

  “You have a sister in San Francisco, don’t you, Terry?” Collingwood interrupted, his voice gentle.

  Terry stopped, baffled. “Yes,” she said, frowning. “What—”

  “How would you like her hounded by the IRS? How would you like your cousin’s work visa to the UK revoked and her deported in leg irons? How would you like your parents in Concord accused of harboring terrorists and thrown in jail?”

  Collingwood jabbed a finger to emphasize each point, jolting her with every new threat, pushing her back. And when she was reeling, he paused, smiled at her almost kindly, let his voice turn coaxing. “You want to do your duty, don’t you, Terry?”

  “Of course,” she said. “But—”

  “Well, you’ve done it. Now let us do ours.”

  For a long few seconds, Terry wavered, gaze skittering between us. She bit her lip, wouldn’t quite meet my eyes. Then, at last, she nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, Charlie,” she said, her voice low, and went out.

  The two Storax guards had been standing, dumbfounded, listening to the threats Collingwood made against Terry’s family. They clearly had no wish for their own relations to come under that kind of official scrutiny. All it took to send the pair of them scrambling for the exit was for Collingwood’s gaze to swing in their direction. The door closed behind them with a grim finality.

  “You choose your people well, Collingwood,” I said, bitter, aware of a faintly shiny taste in the back of my mouth. I faced him. “But if you’re not being paid by Storax to clear the way for the licensing of this new drug, what the hell are you up to?”

  Collingwood didn’t answer right away, just jerked his head again and Buzz-cut closed in on me, the pickup driver keeping his injured leg at a safe distance. I must have just nicked him, otherwise he’d be on crutches.

  I braced myself, glancing across at my mother, who was pale as death behind the bars.

  “I’m not going anywhere without her,” I said.

  Collingwood swung round, got right in my face.

  “Come now, Charlie,” he murmured. “Do you really want her to see what we’re about to do to you?”

  The soft words hit harder than Vondie’s punch to the gut. Before I knew it, I’d allowed myself to be dragged out, down a short corridor, into another room. It was empty with painted block walls, a concrete floor, and concealed lighting panels in the ceiling. It might have been a storeroom or an empty office, but it felt like a cell, or worse.

  It was a reasonably sized space, but with Collingwood and Vondie, and the two men, it felt oppressively overcrowded in there.

  Vondie set about searching through my pockets and quickly found the switched-off mobile phone. I’d emptied out everything else before we’d left Terry’s house. I thought of Sean’s phone and hoped that he was using it to call Parker right now.

  I don’t know how much cavalry I can rustle up if you get yourselves into trouble, Parker had told me, but I’ll do what I can.

  The only thing I could do was give them both a little time.

  Vondie showed the phone to Collingwood, who nodded back towards me.

  “Let her turn it on, just in case.”

  “Do you really think we’ve rigged it?” I asked. “Wow, you’re more scared of us than we thought.”

  The pickup driver stepped up behind me and cut the PlastiCuffs. I flexed my hands a few times, then obligingly thumbed the phone into life. Vondie snatched it out of my hands and pressed a few keys, scowling.

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s called being a professional,” I said sweetly. “You should try it some time.”

  “Where will Meyer have taken your father?” Collingwood asked, folding his arms and leaning against one wall.

  I shrugged. “Who knows,” I said. “He could go anywhere. I hear Phoenix is nice this time of year.”

  “How much have you told your boss?”

  “Everything,” I said without hesitation. “We’ve kept him fully briefed and he’s making moves as we speak to have the pair of you hauled in for treason—if that’s a recognized crime over here. Back home, you’d probably be sent to the Tower of London and beheaded with an ax for what you’ve done.”

  Collingwood’s face showed emotion for the first time. “I’m doing my job,” he said, darkening with the fervor of a true fanatic. “My superiors may not like my, ah, methods, but I love my country, and if we don’t get the jump on this nation’s enemies, you can be sure as hell they’ll try and get the jump on us.”

  “Your superiors don’t know what you’re up to,” I said. “Come to that, if you’re not taking a backhander from Storax, why the hell are you trying to bury a drug that doesn’t work?”

  “But it does work,” Collingwood said, levering himself off the wall abruptly and pacing, and there was a zealous gleam in his eyes now. “It targets a particular genetic code. Do you have any idea what could be done with that?”

  I stared at him blankly. “You’re talking about a bioweapon,” I said. I laughed. “Jeremy Lee’s family were originally from Korea. Is that what this is all about? You’ve gone to all this trouble for the possibility of developing a side effect into a weapon. What are you intending to do, Collingwood, stand on the battlefield and wait for your enemies’ bones to crumble?”

  Collingwood stared at me for a moment, then shook his head. “You don’t understand the possibilities, just like the bureaucrats above me when I first got wind of this. The Storax people were trying to play down the whole thing, so they could get their license, but I saw what could be done with it, even if they didn’t.”

  I didn’t want to let him reel me in, but I couldn’t help asking, “How ?”

  He gave the slightest of smiles, as though he’d known I wouldn’t be able to resist his rhetoric.

  “Any company that handles government contracts has to be checked out regularly,” he said. “I have unlimited access to Storax’s files and I like to be thorough.”

  “So you’re a glorified filing clerk,” I said.

  His face tightened. “You’re not an American, Charlie, and you don’t understand the threats facing this country,” he said. “But, right now, you’re one of them.” He glanc
ed across at Vondie. “We need to contain this as fast as possible. Find out what she knows and who she’s talked to—and where Meyer and Foxcroft are likely to be,” he said. “Do it, but with no … outward damage. If we have to trade her, she needs to look to be in one piece, if nothing else.”

  “There won’t be a mark on her,” Vondie promised, almost a purr. “Don’t you worry about that.”

  Collingwood nodded and walked out without a backward glance. The door closed behind him.

  “Well, hardly a mark,” Vondie amended. She eyed me, triumphant, savoring the moment. “Okay, boys,” she said. “Strip her.”

  I fought them then, hard and dirty. Knowing what they were trying to do set off all kinds of echoes back down the line, reaching viciously into the past and slashing through reason and training to carve a strake of outright bloody fear.

  Even through the white-hot smear of rage, I recognized the fact they had their hands tied. They’d been told not to do anything to me that was going to show, and I was giving it everything I had and a little more besides. So, even outnumbered, I was more than holding my own and I reckoned we were pretty much at stalemate.

  And then, as Buzz-cut staggered back, doubled over and starting to retch as he clutched at his balls, Vondie finally stepped in with an exasperated bark of, “Oh, for fuck’s sake …” and stunned me.

  I didn’t see her pull it. She reached under my thrashing arms and dug the double electrodes of the TASER directly into my rib cage just below my left breast, which was probably as close to my heart as she could get it.

  There was an almost infinitesimal delay, then the stunner’s electro-muscular disruption technology stampeded over my neural pathways with all the tact and delicacy of a boot camp drill sergeant. It didn’t bother trying to modify the control signals from my brain to my muscles, it blasted them into the ether, screeching commands in their place that I was unable to ignore or defy.