Kill Chain

by Meg Gardiner

  Ringing. I looked toward the balcony. The annoying tune was the ring of my new cell phone.

  I clambered to my feet, ran outside, and grabbed it from the chair.

  “I’m okay, Jesse, but oh, God—”

  “Evan, behind you. She’s in the room.”

  I turned. The Thai was standing on the far side of the bed.

  Her lips drew open to show broken teeth. Moving like light reflecting off a mirror, she veered across the suite and to the desk.

  In my ear, Jesse said, “Ev, get her.”

  I dropped the phone and charged back inside. She was rifling the things Jax had spread out on the desk. She came up with the Singapore flash drive, spun, and ran for the door.

  She got one hand on it, turned the latch, and pulled it open two inches. I crashed into her, slamming it shut again.

  She turned, kicking, scratching, trying to dig her fingers into my face. Grabbing her by the hair, I flung her around, out into the room, and planted myself in front of the door. I couldn’t let her out.

  She backed up, looking around. Damn, for a weapon—maybe the needle Jax was talking about, Jax who couldn’t help me this time. I looked around too. I grabbed one of the bottles of fine whiskey on the wet bar. Holding it by the neck, I smashed it against the wall.

  I aimed the broken end at her. “Give it back.”

  A powerful smell of whiskey hit my nose, mixing with the fecal reek. I gagged but kept the broken bottle aimed at her. She lowered her head, glaring, long hair falling over her face. Then she turned and dashed for the balcony.

  My computer. Oh, no—she was going to toss the flash drive over, maybe with the computer, and get a confederate downstairs to retrieve it. I ran into the room. She rushed onto the balcony and slammed the door shut behind her. Giving me one last look, she climbed onto the balcony railing.

  “Jesus.”

  She stood up like a gymnast on the parallel bars. And flew out into the night.

  Jesse threw his phone down on the table. “Holy shit.”

  She jumped.

  Through the crazed dim video, he saw Ev at the sliding glass door. Her face was blank with astonishment.

  The freak flat-out fucking jumped.

  Throwing open the door, I rushed out onto the balcony. Orchestral music floated up from below. I ran to the rail, nausea halfway up my throat. Jesus, twelve floors. Through clear air it took only a few seconds to reach terminal velocity, driving straight down into palm trees and glass and concrete.

  I stopped short.

  At the next room over she was clinging to the railing of the balcony, legs swinging in open space. As I watched, she shimmied up and climbed over to safety.

  She shot me a look over her shoulder, opened the balcony door, and disappeared.

  I bolted back inside, grabbed the key, and tore out into the hall. Hearing a fire door slam shut, I took off at a run.

  Down twelve flights of stairs, out into the opulent lobby, I looked around. She was nowhere. I ran to the front doors. Nothing. I hurried back through the lobby to the riverside exit. Outside, there were only waving palm trees and kids splashing in the pool. I stood under stars and reflections shimmering on the river, bereft, as the orchestra played “Shall We Dance.”

  When I let myself back into the room, the stench of shit and whiskey overpowered me. I forced myself not to look at the battered husk that had been the blonde. In the bathroom I heard water running, and found Jax supporting herself against the counter, cleaning the cut on the side of her head. The marble sink was pink with blood.

  “Sit down,” I said.

  When I took the towel from her, she slumped onto the edge of the tub. The cut looked messy but not deep. The real problem lay below the surface.

  “Shiver disappeared?” she said.

  “Yes. I couldn’t catch her.” I pressed the towel to the side of her head.

  She flinched. “Bliss attacked from behind. I didn’t see it coming.”

  “You have a concussion. Let me call somebody. Pete and Daw?”

  “I’m all right.”

  Sure. That was what Tim said, right before he showed me the bullet hole. I kept pressure on the towel to stanch the bleeding.

  “I’m all right. The juice helped.” She pointed at two bottles of minibar orange juice sitting empty by the sink. “Bliss jabbed me with an injector pen. Don’t know for certain, but the shaking and sweating—it might have been insulin shock. I may have been belligerent as well. That’s also a symptom.”

  I simply stared. Belligerent? Well, yes.

  “I drank to get my blood sugar up, and it worked.” She glanced up. “Shiver got the flash drive, didn’t she?”

  “She did. Had you deleted the information from it?”

  The pall in her expression said it. “No. I decrypted it and downloaded the information onto your laptop. But the flash drive didn’t overwrite. The information is intact, and in the clear. Shiver has it.”

  “But it doesn’t contain the entire Riverbend file. They only got part of it.”

  “Correct. But Shiver got the part of the file that tells her where the final flash drive is located. And if Rio gets that one, it’s all over.”

  “Where is it?”

  She stood up. “We’re getting out. We sanitize the room and we split.”

  She was obviously not thinking straight. “We couldn’t sanitize this suite with a blowtorch.”

  Her shoulders dropped. “Fine. But we can give ourselves a head start over the authorities. Wipe every surface we touched and put out the Do Not Disturb sign.” She gave me a chill look. “Check your computer. The down-ticker is running.”

  “Oh, no. You didn’t get a chance to stop it?”

  “No. It reset when I jacked in the Singapore flash drive. And then . . .”

  I rushed out to the balcony. On my screen I saw a California sunrise turning the sky to gold flame. Jesse had turned away from the screen.

  “Blackburn,” I said.

  He spun back. “Ev. Thank God.”

  “You warned me. Jesse, thank you.”

  “She jumped. I saw her. Ev—”

  “She didn’t fall. She jumped to the next balcony and got away.”

  I glanced at the corner of the screen: 18:49.21 and counting down. I hit the space bar, hoping to bring up another video window. I got nothing. I didn’t know what was now loaded on my machine, or where the next destination was.

  I looked Jesse in the eye. “She got the flash drive. She knows where the last piece of the file is. There’s no way I can turn myself in.”

  He was tired, fiercely focused and infinitely far away.

  “I owe you for warning me. Now I’m done talking to you.”

  I yanked the camera hookup out of the computer.

  He slammed shut the monitor on his computer. “Suck.”

  He looked out the window at the sun cresting the mountains. The surf was churning the beach, gulls diving and screeching.

  The freak had gotten away with the flash drive that led to the final piece of the puzzle. And if she got that, everything Phil had begged him to do would come to nothing. He checked his watch and got on the phone. Evan was going to figure it out, too. He ran the distances in his head. He was closer, but still a hell of a long way away. And he couldn’t jump from balcony to balcony. All he could do was beat them to the source.

  A human voice broke into the Muzak. “British Airways.”

  “Yes. Get me on your next flight from Los Angeles to London.”

  22

  “London?” I pulled the door shut, hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign, and led Jax along the hall, humping our luggage to the elevator.

  She pressed the down button. “Call British Airways; there’s a midnight flight.” She handed me a page torn from the hotel’s English phone book. “Number’s here.”

  I drew in a breath. “Jesse told the FBI I’m here.”

  She moved just her eyes. “Why would he do that?”

  “Dad told him to stop m
e from getting the Riverbend file. Said if Jesse didn’t keep me out of this, our family would become part of the kill chain.”

  A weird light rose in her eyes. “Your family . . .” She stopped. After a second she cleared her throat. “Jesse’s got guts to take it all the way.”

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  “Want me to kill him?”

  “No. I’m going to do that myself.”

  She watched for the elevator. “Does he know we’re at this hotel?”

  “I didn’t tell him, but I wouldn’t put it past him to figure it out. The room was visible on the Webcam.”

  The snake. He had refused to listen to me, just muled his way ahead. What was wrong with him?

  “After you call British Airways, call Thai. Book Evan Delaney a ticket to Kuala Lumpur on their last flight out tonight. Pay with your own credit card,” she said. “And we’ll take separate flights to the U.K.”

  We rode the elevator down to the mezzanine, which overlooked the lobby from a spectacular height. When we walked to the railing, we saw no uniformed police, but a number of Thai and western men were conferring beneath one of the chandeliers.

  “Them?” I said.

  “Don’t know. Play it safe. We’ll catch a taxi outside the other wing.”

  Schlepping my backpack and new Louis Fauxton bag, I hurried with her down a staircase and outside past the pool and a restaurant, along the river, and into a tropical garden gushing with sweet flowers. Along a narrow path, palms and creepers arched overhead. A Western man came walking along the path toward us.

  He wore a sports coat and a harried expression, and had a cell phone to his ear, talking American English. He looked straight at me. I ignored him, and he glanced away.

  And looked again. His gaze sharpened.

  Walk, keep moving. Brazen, that was the word I needed. My face felt as red as the gumball on top of a police car. Catholic guilt reaction was telling me I was busted. Shit-out-of-luck, fifteen-to-life, mandatory-sentencing busted. The crazy-devil part of my conscience shrieked, Run.

  “What’s your rush?” he said.

  My vision blurred but I kept walking.

  “Where you ladies off to in such a hurry?”

  I strode past but heard him behind me. “It’s too hot to walk so fast. Why don’t you come on over to the bar and join me for a drink?”

  Ten feet on, I turned. Jax had stopped. The man had his hands spread, blocking her way. On her face I saw pain, contempt, and impatience, a bad combination.

  “Hey, hon,” I said.

  He glanced at me over his shoulder expectantly. I walked back smiling. “You’re making a mistake. Say good night.”

  He grinned. “Wow. You guys are tough, huh?”

  I shrugged, holding his gaze. Though I didn’t see Jax move, a second later he gasped and buckled, grabbing his nuts.

  We walked away. Outside the hotel we hopped into a cab and pulled away into the city night. Jax leaned her head back against the seat.

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  The sweep of streetlights caught her face. Light flickering on and off, strobing over her.

  “For?” she said.

  “Getting him to make your favorite mistake and turn his back.”

  The taxi let us out at the cavernous international terminal. Jax looked around.

  “If Diplomatic Security’s here from the embassy, they’ll stick out like an erection. If it’s Bangkok plainclothes, you won’t spot them.”

  She glanced at me again—taking in my hair, my clothing, my nervousness. She was wearing authentic Gucci and a silk scarf tied around her hair in a splashy fashion, hiding the gash on the side of her head. Lipstick covered the swelling on her mouth, but in the morning I bet she was going to have a black eye. I found a luggage cart and we headed into the fulminating light of the terminal. She held on to the cart with one hand. For balance, I sensed. But as usual she marched chin up, like a prima ballerina sweeping toward an adoring audience.

  “Go through your legend,” she said.

  “Kathleen Rowan Larkin. Called Kit. I’m twenty-nine, born in Oklahoma, raised in Menlo Park, California. College at Berkeley. Live in San Francisco. Mom’s Colleen; Dad’s Louie. I have two older sisters, Sian and Kendra.”

  The terminal was clamorous, packed with travelers arriving for long-haul flights. We headed for the British Airways counter.

  “I work for a small ad agency, but this is a pleasure trip. A sabbatical, actually. Postdivorce. My husband gained four hundred pounds and robbed a string of Krispy Kreme doughnut shops to feed his junk-food addiction. He was arrested in an orgy with Ronald McDonald and a dancing monkey. At San Quentin they had to shovel him into his cell with a forklift.”

  “Don’t embellish. If you want me to top Jesse, just say so,” she said. “Though the monkey’s a nice touch.”

  “It scratches where he can’t reach.” I pushed the luggage cart through the crowd. “Don’t worry; I’ll remember the legend correctly.”

  Her hand slipped off the cart, and she wobbled. I grabbed her just before she lost her balance.

  I got her out of the crowd. Off at the edge of the hall, I made her sit down atop the luggage on the cart. She held on to it, fighting to keep from toppling over.

  “You’re getting worse.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “You plainly aren’t. Look at me.”

  She gazed up, and I saw something that creeped me out so hard I nearly peed myself. Her left pupil was blown. She had a serious head injury. And people were looking at us. Not just passengers, but airline personnel and security cameras. We couldn’t stay here. Sooner or later somebody was going to come along and ask what was wrong. And there were cops patrolling the terminal. Armed cops.

  “Can you fly?” I said.

  She made to stand up again. “Got to watch—”

  “Jax.” I lowered my voice to a whisper and leaned right up to her face. “Tell me the truth.”

  She tried to shake her head, and fell back against the cart. “Got to watch out.”

  I took both her hands in mine. “I’m done running around in the dark. You have to tell me what’s going on. It’s something so bad that it made Jesse willing to have me arrested.”

  “I’ve been trying to warn you. Got to watch out for her.”

  “Who? Shiver? Another attack whore?” I squeezed her arm in frustration. “If you won’t tell me, I have to assume that I should do what Jesse says. I’ll go to the U.S. Embassy and surrender. I’ll turn the Riverbend file over to the FBI and let them use it to try to rescue Dad.”

  Her face went gray. “No.”

  “I don’t care if the feds get the file. My only concern is getting Dad back.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Stop this.” Sitting down on the luggage cart beside her, I took her shoulders tightly in my hands. “You have to trust me.”

  For a long, painful moment she stared at me. Then, struggling, she got her wallet and took out a snapshot. It was the photo of the little brown-eyed girl perched in the crook of a tree.

  “I’ve been trying to warn you.”

  “About her?”

  “Yes. Back at the hotel, I told you not to wait. To have babies, soon as possible.”

  My heart sank. She was losing the thread. She peered at the snapshot as though the sight of the girl’s face made her head hurt.

  “I was thirty-four when I had my baby.” She handed me the snapshot. “My daughter. That’s what this is about.”

  I stared at the little girl’s photo, my heart stammering.

  Her voice broke. “What Christian wants is his sister.”

  23

  I clutched the snapshot. “This girl is your daughter?”

  “She turned eleven last month.”

  “And she’s in London?”

  The expression on her face was defiant and defensive. Tentatively I put my hand on her arm. Confusion must have creased my face, because she said, “She and T
im and I don’t live together in a ranch house on Wisteria Lane.”

  That wasn’t what was confusing me. “She’s Hank Sanger’s daughter?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Goodness. It would seem you know the facts of life.”

  I gazed again at the photo, and my gut tightened.

  Christian wanted his sister.

  What the Sangers were after, beyond money, even beyond my father’s death, was to punish Jax by taking her daughter and selling her into prostitution. To steal her and turn her life into a living death.

  Jesus. I rubbed my fingers across my forehead. I didn’t get this. Why did Jax put the information about her daughter on the flash drive?

  “Who was this computer program meant for?” I said.

  “It was meant to protect her. And to . . . be a last testament, if things came to that.”

  “Are you telling me Tim doesn’t know where she is?” I said, and thought of something worse. “Doesn’t Tim know you have a daughter?”

  “Of course he does. But for her safety, he doesn’t know the whole story. Or where she is right now.”

  Oh, my God. Just how dangerous was Tim North?

  I looked at her sharply, my heart beginning to pound, remembering her rebuke on the video file. Phil, Tim—you’re the reasons I’m alive. So this hatred . . . It’s wrong.

  What had really happened between Jax and Hank Sanger? How were my father and Tim North involved?

  Whatever—Dad was involved now. And from the moment he was ambushed by the Sangers and their thugs, he had been trying to protect us—me, Jax, and her daughter.

  She continued gazing at the photo. “If something happened to me, I wanted a way to protect her. And I wanted . . . She needs a dad. I want him to know the whole story, what really happened. Protect her, get her out.”

  And Jax had intended the video record to clue Tim in to protect her little girl as well. But Tim had no idea what the video contained, and so had sent me out to get it and turn it over to Rio and Christian. He had flown into action to save his wife, and ended up risking her child.

  “What’s her name?”

  She looked at me crooked. “Haven’t you figured it out?”

  I shook my head, gazing at the photo. Now I saw the resemblance: the feline cast to the little girl’s eyes, the warm brown tones of her skin, the self-possession with which she carried herself. Her face was full of dreams and excitement, however, that I had never seen in Jax.