CHAPTER 6
Michael burst through the front door of his home, his three dogs trailing him. He had exited One Police Plaza into the dark of night. No one paid him any mind as he stepped from the interrogation room. The desk clerk returned his watch, keys, and other personal effects without a word; not a soul questioned his departure. It was as if he was just a visitor as opposed to the suspect who’d been dragged in five hours earlier. He hailed a cab and gave the cabbie two hundred dollars to get him back to Westchester, to the North White Plains train station, as fast as he could. There was no time to waste.
Michael called KC’s cell phone, but there was no answer. He called the house, but again, she wasn’t there. He knew where she was, he’d seen the video, but still he needed more convincing.
As he charged through the great room, through the dining room, he saw the note lying against the centerpiece. He grabbed it and tucked it in his pocket; he didn’t need to read it to know what it said. Without pause he continued through the kitchen, out into the garage and his adjacent office.
Michael walked in, closing the door behind him. The office was far from typical for a man running a large security firm. Besides the mahogany desk, guest chairs, and couch, there was a full workbench littered with electronics lining the far wall.
Michael was a tinkerer, good with his hands, a talent imparted by his adoptive father, Alex St. Pierre, a man who, when he wasn’t playing accountant, was in his garage building clocks, fixing cars, crafting whatever his mind could dream up. Although Alex was not his blood relative, Michael couldn’t help feeling the skill had been passed down to him. He had taken a hobby of crafting and designing and turned it into a living creating security systems for business and industry.
Michael flipped on his computer, grabbed the phone on the table, and quickly dialed. It took three rings before a greetingless voicemail answered with a beep.
“What the hell was in Italy, what was supposed to be in that puzzle box, Simon? That envelope? And that black box, it scared the old man. And it scared you, too. I saw it in your eyes.” Michael took a breath. “They took KC, dammit, this is your fault. You better find me!”
Michael hung up, calmed himself, and dialed another number.
“Hello—”
“Jo,” Michael said. “Listen—”
“Good evening to you, too,” Michael’s assistant said, her voice forever cheerful and unfazed by the late phone call. “How was your meeting?”
“Just great,” Michael said, unable to disguise the anger in his voice.
“Sounds like we won’t be getting that job.”
“Listen to me, the Jacobson contract has been canceled.”
“Shit,” Jo said, understanding Michael’s code phrase for “the shit has hit the fan.” “I’ll take care of the paperwork.”
“I’m going out of town.”
“How long?”
“At least a week.”
“All right, I’ve got it covered. Stay in touch.”
He hung up the phone and plugged the iPad into his computer. After a moment, the video at the airport appeared on his monitor. As KC’s face filled the screen, he did everything to keep his emotions in check.
“HEY,” BUSCH CALLED out from behind the bar as Michael walked into Valhalla carrying the iPad and a file folder. The place was overflowing with men and women, drinks in their hands, their eyes scanning the crowd. Music came from the small stage in the corner with the singer Red Jon Doe cutting through a perfect cover of the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.”
Michael squeezed his way through the crowd. Busch was like a musician playing his instrument: throwing glasses under the tap while mixing drinks, and stuffing cash in the register. At six feet four, Busch was like the quarterback running the game: people fighting for his attention, holding out bills as they made small talk to the strangers beside them. Busch slid three Cosmos to a group of women, two beers down the bar, and laid a bottle of Coke in front of Michael as he arrived at the bar rail.
All of the noise, the band, the crowd, the chinking of glass fell away. Michael didn’t need to say a word; Busch could read his best friend’s face as if it were a billboard.
“Shit.”
THE TWO STOOD in Busch’s lounge upstairs, the filtered noise from below droning in the background. Michael nervously paced as he quickly summed up the last six hours, from the purse-snatching to the blackmail to KC’s unknown whereabouts.
Busch leaned against the bar in shock. His face was filled with concern as his mind processed KC’s kidnapping.
Busch finally looked up. “What I don’t get is why KC was at the airport. Where was she going?”
“She was leaving me…”
Busch’s shock intensified. “What? A week ago at dinner you guys couldn’t get enough of each other. Why would she leave you?”
Michael said nothing, unable to meet Busch’s eyes.
“What the hell did you do?”
Michael remained silent.
Then it dawned on Busch. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Did you go off with Simon?” Busch’s anger grew, his voice getting louder. “What did he do? What did you do? Dammit, Michael!”
“It was in Italy, on the Amalfi coast. And it was bad.”
Busch turned away from Michael, trying to contain his anger. He pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and poured himself a drink as Michael explained his trip and what had occurred.
“And KC found out?”
“Yeah, she figured it out. Simon had asked her to do the same job but she turned him down.”
“That frickin’ guy.” Busch paused. “But you said yes, even though you told her you wouldn’t?”
Michael nodded.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Busch shook his head. “How could you fuck up something so good, so badly? You lied to her, and not a little white lie. She had every reason to leave you. And you lied to me, but we’ll talk about that later.”
“I don’t need a lecture.”
“Well, you’re getting one. Do you know how hard it is to find love once? When Mary died, you died along with her; it took you over a year to pull out of that spiral, and then what happens? You meet KC. Bang, you’re alive again. You guys should be married by now. You sat on that ring for too long.” Busch paced the room, unloading on Michael as if he were his father.
“You should never have let her leave, you should have begged, pleaded, whatever it took, but you don’t allow someone like her to get away.”
“I know, Paul,” Michael said, his voice filled with sorrow.
Busch could see it in Michael’s eyes—he hadn’t seen his friend so distressed since Mary had died—and finally stopped pacing.
“And where the hell is Simon?” Busch asked with renewed calm. “This is his fault, everything ties back to him.”
“I left him a message. I can’t find him.”
“Of course not.” Busch’s anger was coming back.
“He’ll turn up.”
“What, when you’re dead?”
“I could have said no to the job.”
“Yet you didn’t.” Busch said.
Michael pushed the iPad across the table, waved his finger across it, and the video began to play. They both watched in silence. Busch’s breathing grew deeper, steadier, focused with anger.
As the two-minute segment came to an end, they sat in silence, eyes fixed on the frozen image of Annie.
Busch sat there absorbing Michael’s tale.
“How can someone be shot on the street in cold blood and it doesn’t hit the news?” Busch asked.
Michael shook his head.
“What precinct did you go to?”
“Downtown, One Police Plaza.”
“Why the hell would they take you down there?”
“You’re kidding, right? How the hell should I know?”
“They process fed and state through there. It doesn’t make sense that they would let you go with a man dead and no formal questioning.”
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Michael shook his head.
“Let’s go.” Busch headed for the door, not waiting for a response.
Michael grabbed the folder and iPad. “Where?”
“To get some answers.”
MICHAEL SAT ON the couch in the office of the captain of the Byram Hills police department. The station was empty except for two duty cops and the desk sergeant; everyone else was out on patrol or home sleeping at 11:30 on a Tuesday night.
“Well, this guy is the real deal.” Busch walked in, already halfway through his sentence, and threw down a freshly printed picture of Colonel Lucas in dress uniform, his chest overflowing with medals. “Full-bird colonel, West Point, three tours of duty, a highly decorated hero. He’s with military intelligence in the Far East and that is all we are going to get on him. He is otherwise buried in bureaucracy. As far as most people know, he doesn’t exist.”
“And yet you could find him?” Michael said as he looked at the picture. Lucas was at a formal reception standing among a retinue of military brass from all branches of the armed services.
“I didn’t find him,” Busch shot back. “Captain Delia’s son is in the Pentagon on the Army Desk, and I burned my last favor waking up the captain to get this info. It would chafe his ass if he knew we were in here right now. But that wasn’t my only call.”
Michael could see the anger in his friend’s eyes. Busch had retired three years earlier but still held the respect of everyone in his old department. Come tomorrow, not a word would be mentioned to the captain that Busch had paid the office a visit.
“Made some calls to some friends in the NYPD. There is no body,” Busch said. “No police record of any shooting on Park Avenue.”
“Bullshit, there were witnesses—”
“I’m sure there were, but the incident didn’t happen as far as the NYPD is concerned. This guy made it all disappear. Do you know how hard it is to do something like that?”
Michael was lost for words.
“What the hell is going on? This is not the way the military conducts itself. They don’t have jurisdiction on homeland soil.” Busch was talking as much to himself as he was to Michael. “What is he trying to get you to do?”
“Steal a box.”
“The U.S. military can’t find someone within their own ranks to do it?” Busch threw up his hands in question. “Where?”
“Macau,” Michael said. “That’s all I know. Some huge high-security structure—”
“Macau? As much as we like to say we’re friends, the U.S. and Chinese militaries don’t get along; no joint war games with our Asian buddies. If the U.S. pulls an operation inside their borders…” Busch looked up at Michael. “Not a good thing. There’s no paper trail with someone like you.”
“Only a blood trail,” Michael said.
“Macau’s a backwater den of gambling and hookers, in the shadow of Hong Kong. There’s nothing iconic there.”
“He said high-security.”
Busch sat behind Delia’s desk and fired up his computer.
“You know his password?”
“The name of his dog and his birthday, two things he could never forget,” Busch said without looking up. He worked the machine as if it were a shovel, digging, Googling, searching the Internet, pulling up anything and everything. It was only thirty seconds until he found what he was looking for.
“This is out of your league,” Busch finally said, his voice filled with dread.
“What?”
Busch spun the computer monitor around; the screen was filled with an image, exotic, lit in bright lights. While his mind had been churning about how to get KC back either through compliance with the blackmail or something more devious, Michael realized now that the task at hand was far worse than he’d imagined. Before now, he’d had no idea the place even existed, but as he stared at the screen, he knew one thing was certain: Paul was right. This was not only out of his league, it was out of everyone’s league.
“AND WHAT DO we know about Miss Merry Sunshine?” Busch asked.
Michael spun the iPad around and hit Play.
“Pretty safe to say, Annie is not her real name…”
They both watched the video, steeling their emotions, focused on Annie, on the terminal, on everything around the women.
“Well, we know there are at least two.” Michael hit Pause, slow-moed the image, then stopped it. He pointed at the departure screen behind the ticket counter; when you mentally blocked out the LED readout, you could see the reflection of activity in the terminal. Behind the image of Annie and KC was a sea of people, businessmen on cell phones, young lovers more focused on each other than the line, crazed parents trying to control their kids. Among them was a man smiling, a bag on his shoulder, and for the briefest of moments, a red light could be seen flashing from the bag’s side, the recording light.
“Our videographer,” Busch said quietly.
Michael reached into his file and pulled out an enlarged photo of the man. “I’ve already pulled the images I think I’ll need.”
They both stared at the man: He was just over six feet, his hair buzz-cut short, a military air to his posture.
“I’ve looked at this thing multiple times, I don’t see anyone else, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more. That’s Kennedy airport. KC didn’t say where she was going when she left, and there was no indication in her note, but my guess is back to England. Her passport was gone. I tried her sister but there was no answer.”
“Well, if these guys grabbed her, she could be anywhere now,” Busch said.
Michael ignored the comment as he fingered the video, scrolling through as if turning pages, finally pausing at an image of the two women in profile, bags on their shoulders, lost in conversation. Michael pointed to the bag tag.
He reached into the file and pulled out an enlarged photo of Annie’s bag tag, the word Tridiem emblazoned in gold on black.
“It means ‘third day,’” Michael said.
“I remember my Latin.”
“Kind of a small Blackwater-type company; elite soldiers cashing in on their spec op skills. But these people are far more selective, more specialized, pristine reputation, privately held. No record of any job, and the site only lists the chairman, Lee Richards. Based in Switzerland.”
“She’s a mercenary?” Busch asked.
“I don’t know what to call her, but right now she answers to Lucas. And she’s not a secretary.”
Busch was silent, digesting Michael’s words.
“I’ve torn through everything on this computer,” Michael said as he touched the iPad. “It’s brand-new, purchased with cash yesterday from the Apple store on Fifth Avenue. There’s got to be a way to trace this woman.”
“You can’t go chasing windmills; she could be anywhere, and when I say that I don’t just mean in New York.”
“I know,” Michael said, but his words meant something else entirely.
“If you do this gig in Macau, how do you know they won’t kill you and KC anyway?”
“This colonel is so desperate for this box, if I get my hands on it, he’ll trade. I guarantee it. And if he doesn’t, not only will I destroy his box but I’ll do it in front of his dying eyes.”
Busch stood up and walked around the room, his gaze far off as he poured himself another drink. And then his gaze returned to Michael as if he had just arrived in the room.
“So.” Busch slapped his hands together. “When do we leave?”
“Not a chance,” Michael said in all seriousness.
“You listen to me,” Busch said, his smile dissolving. “I’m with you whether you like it or not, and not for you, not for getting my yayas off or getting away from Jeannie. I’m going for KC.”
CHAPTER 7
“She’s sleeping,” Annie said, the air phone held tightly to her ear to cut out the whine of the jet.
“The sedative hasn’t worn off yet?” Colonel Lucas’s voice sounded tinny through the small handset.
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��Didn’t need it, she came willingly.”
“You told her what she had to do?” Lucas pressed her. “How did she react?”
Annie stared out the window at the moonlit Atlantic below. “She doesn’t know yet.”
“That’s not what your orders were.”
“And yet she’s with me, on the plane. Sometimes there are ways to bend people to our will without the threat of violence,” Annie said.
“Growing a conscience?”
“If you need to persuade someone to perform a series of unpleasant or difficult tasks, it’s best to start with a subtle means of coercion. Fear, which you use so readily, can work for a time, but left to fester, it clogs the mind. Do you have St. Pierre?”
“I had him from the moment he saw KC with you,” Lucas said. “But I still need to know that you can get this job done.”
“That all depends on the skills of this woman.” Annie glanced down the aisle at KC, sound asleep in her reclining chair. “Can she handle the job?”
“Trust me, she can.”
“She doesn’t look the part.”
“Neither do you,” Lucas said, ice in his voice.
“If she can’t, or if she tries to pull some last-minute trick, it’s my life that’s in the balance, not yours.”
“If the two of you can’t get the job done, there will be far more lives at risk than just yours.” Lucas paused. “And listen to me, if you fail, your orders are clear.”
“I know what my orders are.”
“Do you?”
Annie paused a moment as she looked back at KC’s sleeping figure. “Of course.”
KC AWOKE SOMEWHERE over the Atlantic. It took her a moment to get her bearings, to stretch the aches and sleep from her bones.
“Hi,” Annie said, looking up from a thick file she was reading.
KC smiled, trying to focus as she shook off her dreams. “Hi.”
“Brought you some dinner,” Annie said as she put aside her file and lifted the lid off a warm dinner plate resting on the tray between them.
KC opened a bottle of water and drank half of it in one go, hoping to ward off the dehydrating effects of air travel. “Thank you. It smells delicious.”
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