Kill Chain

by Meg Gardiner

  This entire street was comatose. They’d seen just one guy on the road, fifteen minutes ago as they pulled around the corner, black pickup cruising away with the stereo cranked up. Boyd guessed that Christian needed bright lights, Vegas wattage, a chick in a shiny miniskirt shaking her ass in his face, or he got antsy. Dead quiet on a cloudy day and the guy was sitting here wearing sunglasses, actual Armani shades, as if this place were lit like the Strip. But then Christian was also amped on speed, so maybe the sunglasses kept him from seeing quite so many snakes.

  “How much longer you want to wait?” Boyd said.

  Christian didn’t answer but kept playing with the cartridges from his SIG Sauer, lining them up on the dashboard. He set the last one down and touched each in turn.

  Jee-zus. “There’s still nine, same as last time you counted. How long?”

  He kept counting. “She’s not going anyplace in the next five minutes. After that, going places doesn’t begin to cover it.” And he smiled.

  Boyd’s balls shrank. This guy Christian, he wore rich man’s clothes, he had romance-novel long hair, everything screamed male model, and the smile was cold-blooded as a scorpion. Empty and calculating, and maybe injured. Like something was missing. It put a metallic taste in Boyd’s mouth. He grabbed his smokes.

  Christian scowled. “You don’t smoke when you’re on surveillance. People see.”

  “People see? Like we’re Delta Force? This ain’t fucking Tehran, man.” He lit up.

  Christian plucked the cigarette from his fingers and stubbed it out in the ashtray. “I have my health to worry about.”

  Boyd colored. “Know what you are? You’re a brat.”

  “Know what I am? I’m the boss.”

  Yeah. Man in charge and acting like a ten-year-old who never in his life heard of limits. But then, that was the guy’s business. Getting people anything they wanted, no matter how far over the line it went.

  “Then be the boss. Do this thing,” Boyd said.

  Christian sat for a moment, sleek and mean behind his shades. He took out his phone and made the call.

  “Rio, where are we?” He listened for a while. “Then we’ll kick it into gear.” He flipped the phone shut. “No chance of getting it from the old man. The daughter’s got to convince him to give it up.”

  “Right.” Boyd put his hand to his ear, listening to the feed from the microphone. He heard nothing. He turned off the equipment and checked his holster.

  Christian took the bullets from the dashboard one by one and began loading them in the magazine. Then he smiled that insect grin and put on a quavering voice.

  “The girl is mine,” he said. “Mine mine mine, all mine.”

  The wack job was singing Michael Jackson. He slammed the magazine into the butt of his pistol.

  “I’ve been waiting half my life for this, Boyd. We do it in my time.”

  5

  Five seconds, that was all the time it took.

  I came out of the bathroom with my hair in a towel, half-dressed, skin warm from the shower, and began making the bed. The sun was slanting through the clouds. I tossed a pillow into place and a breeze swept through the window. The light seemed to alter. I smelled cigarette smoke.

  Without warning a hand covered my mouth and boom, I was facedown on the bed with a man lying on my back. My heart flipped. I jerked my head back, trying to butt him in the face. He pressed his weight against my shoulders, pushing me into the mattress, and put his lips to my ear.

  “Don’t be dramatic.”

  Even at a ten-decibel mutter, his accent sounded menacing: the feral growl I connect with British gangster movies. His hand was rough, his breath hot against my neck. Lying beneath him in nothing but a camisole and panties, I felt completely vulnerable. I forced myself to stop fighting.

  “Good,” he said. “Quiet. They have men outside. Get dressed.”

  He let me go and stood up. I scrambled off the bed, grabbed a T-shirt, and pulled it on. He watched, eyes calm in a dog-pound face.

  “Who’s outside?” I whispered.

  “Later.”

  I found some jeans and turned toward the bathroom. I felt a visceral need to reclaim my privacy from Tim North. He blocked me.

  “Don’t waste the time. We have to go get the dossiers.”

  I continued dressing. “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do.” Without seeming to move, he was nevertheless right in my face. “Jax is missing.”

  I opened my mouth to speak. His finger appeared in front of my nose.

  “Talk comes later.”

  He was a hot negative looming before me, black body radiation. “We’ll leave through the window. Bring cash, credit cards, a phone, and ID. Passport, preferably.”

  I murmured, “Your dossiers are here in the house.”

  His head swung around. “Where?”

  “Tell me where we’re going first.”

  Again he moved soundlessly to within inches of my face. “We’re going out of range. Where are the dossiers?”

  “The fire safe in my closet.”

  “Key?”

  I got it from the nightstand and gave it to him. He grabbed my arm, hissing, “Quietly,” and while I gathered my things into a backpack, he extracted the manila envelope from the small safe. He grabbed my laptop, came back, and whispered, “Count with me. On ten, you flush the toilet and we’ll go.”

  “Why do you need sound?”

  “They have a parabolic microphone. We’ll cover our tracks with white noise.”

  “I want to call the police.”

  “Do that and I’ll be gone.”

  For a second, all my worries went out the window with that idea. Yes, Tim: Take your dossiers and be gone. Get this load off my back. Remove yourself and your dirty secrets from my life for good.

  But if he did that, I knew my best chance of finding out what had happened to Dad would go with him. And he’d leave me to face whoever was out there alone.

  I took my cue. Tim slipped over the windowsill, landed soundlessly, and turned to offer me a hand. With much less finesse than he, I hauled myself out.

  Eyes panning the property, Tim moved smoothly toward the hedge at the back of the yard. He knew exactly where to squeeze between the two poplars. We scraped our way between them and jogged across the lawn of the house behind mine. Nobody was home. The gate was already open.

  Out on the street, we slowed to a walk. White oleander thrived along the sidewalk. Tim was wearing a light jacket, jeans, and hiking boots, striding with his hands loose at his sides, eyes front. The air seemed to crackle around him.

  “Start talking,” I said.

  “Two men are sitting in a white Mercury, eighty meters down the street from your front gate. One has a Nikon with a telephoto lens. He was taking photos of your car and your neighbor’s house. The other strolled past the front of your property ten minutes ago.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Bad.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Very bad.” His gaze swept the street. “I lost contact with Jax five days ago. She should have checked in on Wednesday. She didn’t.”

  “You’re sure she isn’t simply . . . out of range?”

  “She missed three consecutive call-ins. She hasn’t responded to my attempts to contact her on any band. She hasn’t sent a mayday. I’m sure.”

  I nodded, too chicken to ask where she had been, or what she was doing. “How’d you get here so fast? I left the message two hours ago.”

  “Message? I monitor the news feeds. The News-Press published a bulletin about the car wreck at eight thirty this morning.”

  I looked at him. “You monitor the news feeds for information about my father?”

  “Since he decided to play the hero last year, yes.” He turned the corner on Pedregosa, heading for the hills. “Putting himself in the spotlight, standing up in front of television cameras at a press conference. It triggered everything. Bloody fool.”

  His
tone made me flinch. “Triggered what, Tim?”

  He took car keys from his pocket and jabbed a remote. At the curb ahead, a black BMW flashed its parking lights.

  “Get in,” he said.

  “Cut to the chase. What’s going on?”

  He gave me a glance, all portent. “Somebody has taken my wife and your father. The key to getting them back is in that envelope you have in your backpack.” He opened the car door. “We’re going to find it, and then I’m going to find out what those men outside your house know about it. And it’s going to be ugly.”

  “I know Dad was an intelligence officer. And that he knew Jax. I can deal with clandestine ops.”

  He stared at me across the roof of the car as though about to deliver the punch line to a tasteless joke. “Forget clandestine ops. This is about hookers, guns, and money.”

  On the ocean behind Jesse’s house, sunlight fell piebald through the clouds, and whitecaps sizzled in the wind. He opened his front door and saw the mail heaped on the floor in the entryway, noticed the message light blinking on his answering machine, and left it. He found his notes for the colloquium on the kitchen table. He sorted through them and stopped, leaning on his knees.

  His back was killing him. It had been since last night, when he spilled. When the cops drove up. And he hadn’t told the half of it. Goading him didn’t cover it.

  He had hotdogged it and lost his balance showing Buddy how to hop the curb. Their headlights caught him slap-bang flat on the ground, and by the time he got up they were out of the patrol car. What are you two doing?

  It’s okay, Officer, I work here.

  Sure. How about we give you a ride home?

  No, we’ll be a while. We’re practicing penalty shots.

  Buddy laughed. The cops didn’t.

  Is there somebody we should call? A caregiver or doctor?

  No. Why would you do that?

  Blank disbelief. Because you can’t walk.

  And in their eyes, living his life in the face of that fact proved him crazy for sure. They had no idea—not walking wasn’t the worst thing.

  Indignity was. And pain. And loss of independence.

  He poured himself a glass of water and tipped pain-killers from the prescription bottle into his hand. That was what the clinical trial would be about: freedom. To live without the hurt raking into him. To stand up for a few minutes longer, to reach things on a shelf, to talk eye-to-eye, to go places without worrying about accessibility. Without strangers giving him that you’re-so-brave look. Without having to ask for help with simple things from the woman he wanted to marry.

  He gazed out the plate-glass windows at the beach. Freedom, right. He didn’t want to spend the day sunk in a drowsy trance, in thrall to drugs because of legs that barely worked. Especially not if he was going to talk to P.J. Drugs had helped send his brother to jail. How could he help P.J. stay clean if he retreated into his own pharmaceutical haze? He scooped the pills back into the bottle and put it away.

  He headed for the front door, hitting play on the answering machine as he went past. He grabbed the mail, ripped open an envelope, and heard a hardpan Oklahoma voice on the machine.

  “It’s Phil. I’m in trouble, so you’ve got to do this for me.”

  He looked up.

  “I’ve been ambushed. Highway One, north Santa Barbara County.”

  Oh, Christ.

  “These people want something Jakarta Rivera stashed away. The trail that leads to it is in those papers Jax left with Evan. We can’t let them get it. If they get that information, they’ll use it to track and target and . . .”

  A ragged pause, noise in the background. “That information can never come to light. If they get hold of it, they’ll start killing. Jesse, you have to get those papers and destroy them.”

  The blood drained from his face. Evan had the dossiers at home. She’d already sent out word to Jax and Tim.

  “Destroy them. Do whatever it takes.”

  Phil’s voice dropped further, and Jesse listened to the rest of the story, disbelief draining into shock. He understood why Phil was telling him to do this. What would happen if he didn’t. Evan, all of them, at risk.

  “Do it tonight. Tomorrow will be too late. And . . .” Pause. “You have to keep my daughter out of this. Evan cannot know. Keep her clear. Do you hear me, Jesse? If you don’t, my family becomes part of the kill chain.”

  “Oh, fuck.”

  He grabbed his phone and dialed.

  Sitting in the parked car, I handed Tim the manila envelope. “Explain that remark.”

  He pulled out the thick bundle of documents. “Sexual blackmail is an enduring espionage technique.”

  “Yes. Catch Ivan with his pants down and force him to steal the blueprints for the ICBM; I get it. If you’re saying my father used a honey trap to obtain information, I guess I can’t be surprised.”

  His gaze ran across my face like a splash of ice water. “No, you’re not surprised. You’re repulsed and think it’s not true.”

  Flushing, I looked away. Clouds were lowering over the mountains again.

  He returned to the dossiers. “Jax worked for the agency back when they were just sussing out the connection between drug cartels and paramilitaries. Asian colonels selling heroin to build private armies. That cartel in Ecuador funding Hezbollah weapons deals, the IRA training FARC rebels in Colombia.”

  “Get to the part about hookers.”

  His eyes cut my way. “Jax managed an extensive honey trap. She bought information from the madam who ran a prostitution ring.”

  “A madam?”

  “Her name is Rio Sanger. She’s behind this.”

  I gaped at him. “You’re saying the owner of Miss Kitty’s House of Pleasure has kidnapped my dad?”

  “Jax and your father worked only one operation together. If they’re both missing, that op is the reason. And Rio is the connection.”

  “Madam Bang-Bang grabbed him off the road? Why?”

  He stopped rifling the papers. “The operation ended badly. Rio got burned on the deal. I imagine she wants restitution.”

  He meant payback. I ran a hand over my forehead. “What happened?”

  “Jax was tracking the drug money. Phil came in to assess the weapons angle, to find out who was buying what kind of firepower.” He lifted a scrap of paper to his face. “Rio ran a club that catered for exotic tastes. Her clients didn’t know she was getting it all on film.”

  “Which she sold to Jax.”

  “Turned out the arms dealers and moneymen weren’t as dangerous as the whores.” He smiled, unamused. “Customers who were flunkies twelve years ago are power players today. Military brass, captains of industry. If these people could be blackmailed or turned, the take would be huge.”

  “So she’s after money.”

  “She’s after power. Money is a happy side effect.”

  “What went wrong?” I said.

  “You recall why Jax left the agency?”

  “She told me she got involved with an asset who betrayed her, in Medellín. She killed him.” My eyebrows rose. “That was this operation?”

  “Riverbend. And the key to it must be in here someplace.” He pored over a précis and several grainy photographs. “How much of this material have you examined?”

  “None.”

  He looked up. “Really?”

  “Perhaps I’m not the curious cat you imagined. How much of it did I want to know?”

  He eyed me for a second longer and went back to pawing through papers. Across the street, a door opened. A jogger came out and headed up the hill.

  “Understand something, Evan. Some men don’t care if they get caught with hookers. Rio went to extra lengths to capture them on film committing . . . acts that would humiliate them culturally.” Finally he looked at me. “We’re not speaking about ten minutes in the missionary position. And we’re not talking about consenting adults.”

  The truck barreled along the freeway toward town. Je
sse couldn’t get through on the phone. He glanced at the speedometer—ninety, too slow. Her home phone clicked to the answering machine, and calling the cell phone got a recording: “The person you are calling is unavailable. Please try again later.” She was home; she had to be there. If she wasn’t answering, something was wrong. He closed on the car in front of him and flashed his lights. It pulled into the right lane and he screamed past.

  You have to keep my daughter out of this . . . Do you hear me, Jesse?

  He heard. He heard hard-nosed, wily Phil Delaney sounding ragged and desperate. He heard, Tomorrow will be too late. He swung off the freeway toward her house, trying her number again.

  Tim continued hunting through the files. “Rio promises the rich and powerful anything they want. That was why her client videos proved so valuable. Because she traded in the only currency that counted with these men.”

  I sat with my hands clenched. Trading in depravity. Realpolitik worked like a two-by-four to the head.

  “How will this Riverbend information help get Dad and Jax out of trouble?”

  “We’ll trade them for it.”

  I barely knew Tim North, and didn’t want to know him. His résumé included the British Army sniper school, dirty ops conducted in the planet’s worst sump holes, and a second career doing a sociopath’s dream job—killing people for money. He was a pit viper.

  I didn’t think he would take this outrage lying down.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said. “You don’t plan to pay this woman off, chalk it up as a loss, and walk away.”

  “Getting my wife back is a win.”

  “But that won’t be the end of things.”

  He flipped a page and turned his head. His eyes said no.

  I jumped. My phone was ringing. I grabbed it, seeing JESSE on the display. “Babe?”

  “Ev, I’m in your driveway. Where are you?”

  My pulse jumped. “What are you doing at my place?”

  “Your dad—”

  Tim grabbed the phone from me. “Get inside the house.” Impatient. “Yeah, that’s me. Get yourself inside Evan’s house as if everything’s normal. And—” Eyes heating. “Mate, shut up. Give me a yes or no. Is a white Mercury parked down the block?”