He had spent five hours in that loft. No wonder Roley had asked him repeatedly if he had found something. Now he ordered a meal and settled in to wait. Brewster had said she would be along as soon as she could get free. No promises.
Silk called Jenny. His wife barely spoke to him now. Her inability to understand annoyed him. Her need to be kept informed annoyed him even more. He found himself closing off, turning away from the new life she represented.
The hours passed. At last Brewster put in an appearance, breezing through the heavy front doors like a gust of fresh, clean air, smiling hesitantly at first but then, on seeing his grin, allowing the smile to light up her face, instantly chasing away the faintest shadows that spoke of last night’s drinking and lack of sleep.
She sidled into the booth. “You rang.”
“I have a lead. A good one.” He pointed at his blueberry pancakes. “Feel like helping me?”
Brewster snatched away his fork and shoveled a forkful deep into her mouth, licking the tines clean. Then she gave it back to him. Silk was very aware that the next bite he took would taste of more than buttermilk and syrup.
“We robbed a family. Freddie Knott cut the father quite bad—” he went on, describing the incident and, later, how Knott had actually wept about it in the privacy of their room. The kid had embraced violence and come away disgusted with himself. Silk took a breath and another bite of pancake, then handed the fork over to Brewster.
“You need to dig. The family was called Seager. The father, Tony. I remember because he told us just before Freddie slashed him.” He didn’t tell her he’d read it in Tanya’s diary. No way were the cops taking that from her.
“And you’re just remembering this now?”
He went through the story of how he’d remembered that their little cell had had a short time span.
“All right. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Whatever it is do it quick.” Silk wanted desperately to tell her about the pendant, but didn’t dare risk it. “I have a feeling that this is the break in the case, Susie. We gotta get this bastard before he kills again.”
Brewster licked his fork. “Ya don’t say.”
32
Trent steeled himself and looked around at the others. The op to save Maisie Miller was about to start, and speed was everything now.
Save Maisie Miller? he thought. How about to save the face and asses of the US Government? Didn’t matter sometimes if you weren’t actually guilty, someone could always make you guilty by association.
Trent emptied his mind of all distractions and clicked the comms. “You sure about these guys, Jones?”
Ken Jones didn’t answer. It was his partner, Howe, who said, “Regular as clockwork. Every day. The world over you can always count on a builder to take an extra-long tea break. Especially when he’s working for someone else.”
Trent nodded, peering out of their van’s grimy front window. The white van had been hastily disguised as a workhorse by smearing a load of mud across it and staining the windows. Some decals had been added to the sides—RE Building Co.—and now they sat across from a dusty looking builder’s yard some miles outside Monaco. The van they’d been waiting for—Sanstone Building—had just pulled in. Trent and Collins watched in silence as two older guys climbed out wearily and stretched. They left the van parked at the end of a long row of differently textured bricks and ambled toward the office, ribbing each other along the way. The word Sanstone was written on their backs, an attestation to at least some professionalism within the company. Sanstone was a humongous local and international company, the owner probably made rich from wealthy Monacan clients and, through rigorous checks, the CIA guys had found out that he was generally above board, possessed all the necessary certificates for construction work all over the world, and was a semi-close acquaintance of Blanka Davic’s. Semi-close being a push, since the head of the Sanstone Building Company was a figurehead-style man, as rough around the edges as any self-made builder, and spent most of his time over in the States.
The close locality of their southern France HQ was probably why Sanstone had been chosen to build the new infinity pool.
Now Trent and Collins quickly exited the van. Intelligence reports collected even before Maisie had been spotted told them the two builders spent upwards of an hour inside the offices almost every day, drinking free coffee and generally kicking back. They revisited again in the afternoons.
Now Collins made for the van. Trent followed. The yard was empty apart from one other shiny four-wheel drive with a trailer. An employee and a builder were loading the trailer with roof tiles. Collins and Trent made sure to stay on the van’s blind side. Once they gained the shadows cast by the high stacks of bricks, Collins teased open the nearest side door. They hadn’t expected it to be locked and weren’t displeased. Inside was an accumulation of sandwich wrappers, newspapers and scrunched up builders’ merchant receipts. The mess extended from the footwell to the seats and even in the space behind. The rear compartment was a rusty, spotted mess of dirt, grime and discarded materials.
Collins stayed low and climbed up. “Not exactly the neatest of guys.”
Trent grunted. “Not bad for builders though.”
Collins squirmed around in the passenger seat, first cracking open the glovebox and rummaging through. “Damn, there’s nothing here.”
“Keep looking.”
Collins swept her hand through the assorted rubbish. “No cards, Trent.”
“Check the floor.”
“You check the friggin’ floor. Or did you forget who’s in charge here? I’ll scoot over to the driver’s side.”
Trent leaned in, rummaged through the footwell, then angled his head and checked underneath the seat. Hard grime and clods of dirt met his gaze, droppings from the men’s boots, but no shiny cards.
Every builder in Monaco was required to have their own ID card, certified by the UNCMI—the Union Nationale des Constructeurs de Maisons Individuelles. It was the Edge’s only way onto Davic’s property and all they needed was a way in. They didn’t expect to get away without incident of some sort.
“You think they’re carrying them after all?” Collins muttered.
“It’s unlikely. FBI, yes, Homeland, yes. But rough-ass builders carrying around a lousy laminated card dominated by their big smiling faces. Doubtful.”
“Damn. I hope we don’t have to nab ‘em. It’ll cost us a day’s paperwork.”
“Keep looking.”
Collins sighed. “I’m pretty much out of places to look.”
They checked the door compartments, the center console box. Trent was about to resign himself to the abduction when a thought struck him.
“They’re not smokers, right?”
“Report didn’t mention they were.”
He reached over, flipping open the ashtray. Inside, two shiny cards twinkled back at him as if happy to be found. Collins slithered back into the passenger seat, almost clunking him across the face with a swinging boot. She plucked the cards as she wriggled by. Trent carefully surveyed the yard.
Nothing had changed, but the builder loading the trailer was almost finished. Trent urged Collins out and the two of them headed back to the car. As soon as they set off Trent contacted Radford. “You get the van?”
“Sure. Are you checking up on me?”
“I need to know what time you’ll be back at the safe house.”
“Oh. Traffic depending, half an hour.”
“Make it twenty,” Collins interjected. “We have a lot to do before they find these cards are missing.”
“I know. I need to drive this stolen van back there and use the sub-par standard CIA toys Jones and Howe were assigned to change out the cards’ photos.”
Trent grunted. “And get access to Davic’s place. Collins is right. Move it.”
Radford cut the connection, muttering about lost concentration. Collins glanced over at Trent. “You don’t need to back me up like that.”
�
�I realize that.”
Trent ignored her stare, preferring instead to focus on the fun-loving Collins they’d partied with the night before. Monaco, it turned out, did have its down-to-earth fun spots, and Collins had unerringly been drawn to them. Trent had lost count of the many touches and half-kisses, but knew by now not to make anything of them. Collins was flirt by night, hard-ass boss by day, and he was forced to wonder what had made her that way. Nothing good from her past. And he had too many personal problems of his own these days to want to start the process of making inroads.
Now, the schedule was tight. Radford was en route to the safe house inside a Sanstone van they’d boosted, one of the many parked up in the company’s vast yard. They assumed he’d procured one also with a photo-card. The team needed to doctor the cards and get access to Davic’s place before any of the thefts were noticed and reported. They could have risked locating all three cards at the company’s yard, but the chance was too risky. Now Trent pushed the van along the winding roads, the only thing on his mind the long overdue rescue of tragic Maisie Miller. He still thought of her as little Maisie¸ the youngest of the Millers. What had happened to her was the most appalling: forced to work for the man who had murdered her parents, forced to grow up with one of the world’s worst criminals. In his very house.
Trent was determined to end all that today. Within hours they would at least try to reunite Maisie with a little happiness and later with her surviving sister. Trent already knew the potential achievement would leave him feeling hollow, sad and riddled with guilt. To be told an expert black-ops clean-up crew had extracted the Millers, with the exception of Emilia, left dupes for dead bodies, and that they had worked for Davic was torture enough.
To know they had delivered the Millers alive to the one of the worst monsters alive was hell incarnate.
*
Trent poured coffee as Radford burst through the door and slipped immediately behind a computer. The cards were laid out before him. The small color pictures of Trent and Collins were waiting. All Radford had to do was take his own and get to work. Collins shook out her long black hair and walked over to stand next to him. Her eyes were hard, serious, but Trent never failed to be moved by the softness of her skin, her cheeks, and the baby-face charm of her appearance. He looked away before she caught him staring, not wanting to alienate someone who, at first, they had dreaded becoming the overseer of their destiny, their non-future with the CIA, the supervisor of their small-time antics to save the innocent, but now was turning into a valuable co-worker.
Not asset? Trent thought. It was how he had once been trained to think. No. Definitely co-worker.
He reached for an apple. Standing here, staring out the window over streets that were always spruced as if expecting a royal procession, it was hard to conjure up his difficulties back in LA. Thoughts of Mikey and Victoria were taking a back seat this time around. Maybe that was why there seemed to be a little more room for Collins.
Radford slid back from the table and walked over to the whirring printer. He nodded as he watched the paper emerge.
“Almost ready.”
Collins pushed a handgun down the back of her pants. “Time to load up?”
“Tie your hair back and keep your face averted,” Ken Jones said to her. “You’re supposed to be a rough, hairy-ass builder.”
“Hairy ass?” Collins gave him a sardonic stare.
“Huh, sorry. Figure of speech is all.”
“Time to focus.” Trent moved forward. “This is all about Maisie now. We don’t want to let her down.”
33
As they approached Davic’s house, Trent felt the unaccustomed flutter of nerves. It didn’t surprise him. This one was big; far larger than any of them had dared mention aloud. They hadn’t seen any sign of the extra team—the Thrusters and their enigmatic leader, Vince Hadleigh—but Jones and Howe assured Trent and Radford that they had checked in with all the right code words.
Radford clucked. “The only Monte Carlo those asses will be able to find is the one in Las Vegas.”
Trent agreed with a nod. “Wasn’t it their op that went bad a few years ago? Set the place on fire?”
“No, that was the CIA chasing a master thief along the Strip.” Collins volunteered. “Daniel Belmonte. Got away with ten million in diamonds. Never recovered.”
Trent coughed. “That’s what I said.”
Collins turned to stare. “Are you kidding me? It’s all speculation. The CIA never even—”
Trent stopped her by hitting the brakes. The wall that surrounded Davic’s place ended up ahead at sprawling wrought-iron gates wide enough to admit two tanks abreast at the same time.
Radford leaned forward. “The stories we could tell you about the Thrusters. Could be the topic of the next night out?”
Collins checked the baseball cap that fitted low over her forehead, the dark shades, and the scruffy coat that hid all her gear. “Do I look raggedy enough to pass for a construction worker?”
“Not half enough,” Trent said. “But it’s all we have.”
“All we need to do is get to the house,” Radford said. “Worst case scenario, I mean.”
“You’re goddamn IDs better be more reliable than your claims about having a woman in every port,” Collins said.
Radford exited the car, remaining silent. Trent silently applauded him for it. The finesse could have been made easier by enlisting Radford’s local ‘contact’—a woman named Jane De Rossi who worked for the local government office and was able to issue any number of permits—but Trent had respected Radford’s attempts to turn over a new leaf. Putting him in contact with Jane would only set him back again.
Radford thumbed a black voice box. “Yeah, um, can we get in?” He flashed his ID at the obvious camera. They all noticed it swivel toward the van.
A gate opened in the side of the wall and a tall leather-jacketed individual ambled out. He stood for a moment, staring at them.
“Haven’t seen you three before.” He spoke with a thick French accent. “Where have you come from?”
“Been working the airport job,” Radford said. They’d researched Sanstone’s other local contracts.
Leather Jacket moved subtly. Trent saw the shape of a compact sub-machine gun under the heavy material. The guards were clearly taking no chances.
“We have our IDs,” he said in halting French, holding his at arm’s length and letting a spray of plaster plume from his sleeve.
“You’re even filthier than the last bunch. Doesn’t Sanstone tell you men to clean up? Company reputation and all that.”
“We did clean up.” Trent shook his jacket again, emitting a veritable cloud of plaster dust. “But after a few weeks of plastering out a hanger the board finish tends to . . . stick.”
Radford guffawed, as if sharing a private joke. “Better to us than the friggin’ walls.”
“So you’re airport crew.” Leather Jacket seemed to relax a little. “They pull you guys in from anywhere, right?”
“Yeah. So long as we got clearance.” Trent again brandished the shiny card. “We move around a lot.”
“So why they send you here?” A second man now loitered in the gateway. “We need no plastering work done.”
Radford motioned at the van. “We’re here to lay the pool liner and damp seal. A one-handed baboon could do it.”
“Three of you?”
“It’s our work crew.” Trent put a note of exasperation in his voice. “Look, if you don’t need us that’s fine. We don’t want trouble. Let’s go.” He turned away.
“Wait. You go nowhere until I say so.”
Leather Jacket shifted again, motioning at the other man in the gateway. “Check them.”
Now Trent tensed as the man moved. They all had guns, ammo and comms under their shabby outerwear. Carefully he moved his right hand as close as he dared to the hidden weapon.
“Card,” the second man barked at Radford. He read it watchfully, as suspicious as his colleag
ue. Trent didn’t blame them. Blanka Davic was not a man you should fail. The lackey checked Trent’s card then stopped in front of Collins.
“Card?”
The FBI agent handed it over.
“Look at me, Neeson. No point handing me a picture card if I can’t see your damn face.”
Trent held his breath, drifting into a better position. Radford was angling to see if he could survey the little gate and its defenses. This situation could go south in about two seconds. He had time to reflect that, with Silk here, they wouldn’t have had to pretend Collins was a builder, but you worked with whatever you had.
Apply it, plan it, execute it. Don’t look back. Don’t question yourself once you’re in harm’s way. Always move forward.
“A girl?” The lackey coughed in surprise.
“Woman actually. Lia Neeson. Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know.” The lackey turned to leather-jacket. “Is it?”
“Christ, why would it be a problem?”
“Well, she has tits. Don’t they get in the way when you’re, you know, hammering or something?”
“I have tits?” Collins rasped as throatily as she could. “Congrats. So do half the men I work with. Not the healthiest bunch of lads.”
Leather Jacket stepped in. “I’ve heard enough. You guys check out. Just head up to the house. New pool’s on the back right end, near the mountain.”
“Thanks.” Trent climbed back into the van and the three of them waited for the gates to open. When they did, Trent drove through, breathing through his teeth.
“Close one.”
“And a good job we made it,” Radford said. “They had three more men in a gatehouse back there. Howe’s reconnaissance put the count at two maximum.”
Collins shrugged. “Man the hell up, Dan. We made it didn’t we?”
Trent headed around the right hand loop. The house, white framed and seemingly built entirely of glass, filled their vision. “Get ready,” he said. “We’re about to come down on these Serbian assholes harder than a comet.”
The Disavowed Book 2 - In Harm's Way Page 14
