“I’m sorry, Lorenzo.” Ling put one hand on my shoulder. It was a remarkable display of gentleness and familiarity by her publicly reserved standards. “I understand your frustration, but if Bob has survived this long, he will survive a few more days.”
That meant I’d have to wait a bit before I could start killing assholes and get my brother back, but I put on my happy face, because at least I didn’t have to try and tackle it on my own. “I’m the spirit of compromise.”
After we’d brainstormed and gotten our assignments, the meeting had broken up. Ariel was supposed to ride back to their hideout with Antoine. The street in front of the building was kept dark on purpose. Antoine went to get their car. I waited until she was alone before I approached her. For a while, I thought Valentine would never stop hovering over her like a mother hen.
She saw me coming and looked apologetic. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Mr. Lorenzo. I know I sound weird sometimes—”
I cut her off. “Drop the act. What are you?”
Ariel was quiet for a moment. I could still see her blue eyes in the dark. “What do you mean?”
“The whole super-genius thing is a con. Yeah, you can see things, but not the way they think you do. They can’t see it, but I do. You actually can see the future.”
She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me like I was a ranting madman.
“I’ve seen the other side. You’re like him.”
“I’m not like him!” she snapped. “I don’t know of anyone like him.”
“You know what? I believe that. He’s unique.”
“He’s evil.”
“Trust me, girl, that’s really hard to miss.” My chest was burning. “He’s a force of nature. But you’re just this innocent little thing, with a mind that the most powerful secret organizations in the world would kill to possess.”
“Something like that,” she said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Sala Jihan is evil, you’re good. Flip sides of the coin, yin and yang, that’s the deal?”
“You sound delusional, you know that?”
“Maybe I am. Or maybe whatever Kat intends to do would mess things up so bad that both the angels and the devils agree it needs to be stopped. If you can see the future, then tell me what’s going to happen.”
“Don’t you get it yet?” She was exasperated. “Nobody can predict your future. That’s why you’re here! That’s why the Pale Man let you go. It’s the same reason I talked Michael into taking on this fight. Nothing is predictable once either of you get involved! On its current path, things fall apart. Everything falls apart! The world is crumbling, it’s just a question of how fast. But with you two, we have a chance to change the course.” She looked frustrated. “I just wish you could see.”
Antoine pulled up with their car.
“Good night, Ariel.”
“You know, Mr. Lorenzo, if I were you I would keep your crazy ramblings to yourself. You’ve been through a lot. The others will lose confidence in you if they think you’ve cracked.” Ariel opened the passenger side door and got inside. “You don’t need to be an oracle to see that.”
They drove away, leaving me alone in the dark.
LORENZO
Outskirts of Paris
October 5th
I’d learned that it really didn’t matter what country or culture you were in, you could always spot the ex-cons, and Samuel had hard time written all over him. If the shoddy prison tats on his forearms and neck hadn’t given him away, the bad attitude would have.
Samuel looked me over long enough to know that I wasn’t a cop, or whatever they had equivalent to parole officers in this country, then went back to working on the car engine. Shen and I had just wandered into his place of employment and interrupted him at work. The garage was busy, and he had stuff to do. At least he didn’t waste my time by pretending he couldn’t speak English. “Go to hell, man. I don’t know no Samuel.”
“You sure?” I looked to Shen, who as usual, just shrugged. “Because you look a lot like the picture of the guy we’re looking for. Doesn’t he?”
“Yes. The spitting image.” Shen wandered over to a workbench and picked up a big wrench. I shook my head in the negative, and looking a little disappointed, Shen put the wrench down.
I knew this was our guy, though the nametag on his coveralls said his name was Francoise, that was all fake. Nobody else who worked here would know who this jackass really was. Reaper’s digging said this garage was legit, and not even affiliated with any Montalban businesses. A few other mechanics looked our way, but nobody seemed inclined to question what we were doing here. When a place hired low rent scumbags like Samuel, this sort of visit was just another Human Resources issue.
I knew Shen was perfectly happy to beat the information we needed out of this douchebag, but I was trying to keep it diplomatic. “Then there must be another Algerian guy who works here who looks exactly like you, then. Help me find him.” I laid a stack of Euros on top of the car battery next to him.
Samuel glanced over at the cash, then went back to work. “Man, I don’t know nothing. You’re wasting your time.”
“This Samuel guy—not that I’m saying you’re him, just making conversation—I hear he’s really mechanically inclined. The right kind of people can hire him for all sorts of odd jobs involving things like cameras, security systems, and safes.”
“Installing them, or getting through them?” Shen asked rhetorically.
“From what I’ve heard, both. Which is why our guy Samuel needs to have a fake identity at a boring day job so all the many angry Frenchmen he’s robbed don’t come and cap his ass.”
Samuel kept turning a bolt with a ratchet, but he was sweating. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“I? Look at that, Shen. I think we’ve had a communications breakthrough.” I put more money down on the stack. “You did a freelance install job a few months ago. It was the sort of thing you used to do for Big Eddie all the time.”
Now Samuel was really scared. The ratchet was turning faster. Big Eddie wasn’t a name you tossed around casually. “The whole time I was in prison, I never said nothing about who I was working for when I got arrested.”
“It’s cool, Samuel. Big Eddie’s dead.”
“I don’t know nothing about that.”
“I do.” I was tired of messing around. I got right next to him, leaning over the engine as if I was trying to see what he was up to. “Because I’m the one who killed him.”
The ratchet stopped cold. “Oh shit, man . . . You’re that guy?”
“Yeah, I’m that guy. Hi, Samuel. I’m Lorenzo.” The other mechanics were far enough away and there was enough tool and engine noise they couldn’t hear me. This might not be a Montalban affiliated joint, but that didn’t mean they weren’t clued in enough to know about Anders’ bounty on me. Every criminal and dirtbag in France had probably heard about that by now. “Nice to meet you. Now quit wasting my time. Big Eddie’s in hell. I’m here. Which one do you think you should be more worried about?”
“But his sister is still around and she’s just as nuts.” And then he realized that he’d said way too much. Knowing about Kat’s takeover meant he was still up on current events.
“I thought you said you were out. Are you working for her?” That was a loaded question, since I knew the rumors flying around Europe right now were about how I was murdering the hell out of Montalban employees, so if he was, and answered truthfully, I’d probably kill him, and if he wasn’t, and answered truthfully, and I didn’t believe him, I’d still probably kill him. Sucks, but that’s what he deserved for being an asshole.
“No way!” he exclaimed. “I don’t do anything with them anymore. The Montalbans left me to rot. When I got out, they’d forgotten about me. But my name’s still out there, man. I just freelance once in a while, but never for the people you’ve got a beef with. I avoid Big Eddie’s old people like the plague.”
“Then let me clarify the nature
of my visit, Samuel. A few months ago you were paid a bunch of money by a British mercenary named Aaron Stokes to beef up the security on a chateau in the countryside.”
“How’d you know that?” That was supposed to be a secret. Now he’d moved into terrified. Good.
“I know everything.” That was a complete lie.
Skunky had played lost tourist and taken a detour down Stokes’ private road. He had to turn around before the Brits got suspicious, but when Exodus checked the hidden cameras they’d placed on Skunky’s car, Ariel noticed that new cameras had been installed along the fence. She identified the brand and model by comparing images on the Internet. Somebody must have put those in recently, so Reaper had checked everyplace that sold expensive security cameras in the region. A large cash purchase in the right time frame had led us back to this clown. A little more poking and a few bribes and we knew Samuel’s criminal record, his rep, and the fact that he’d paid off all of his considerable debts and stuck a bunch of money in the bank, all in the right time frame, told me this was probably our guy.
I tell you, criminals make the best detectives.
“Considering what Stokes paid you, either you overcharged him, or you did a whole lot of work to that old place.”
“Part of that was him paying me to not talk about it. I haven’t talked to them or said a word about them since the job was done. You can’t mess with those Brits! His boys are killers, man.”
Shen snorted.
“I need to get into that chateau, and you’re going to help me.”
“You want to die, man?”
“The only thing I’m in danger of dying from right now is boredom. You’re boring me, Samuel.” Before he could react, I cupped the back of his head and shoved his face against the engine block. From his wailing it turned out that it was still hot. Then I caught the car hood and pulled it down on his body. He squealed when it hit, but let’s be honest, it really wasn’t a good angle to really hurt him. So I wacked him with it a few times, squishing him. The money was sent flying by the wind gusts. I smashed him as far into the engine compartment as I could, and then leaned my weight on the hood. His legs were kicking and he was letting out some muffled screams, but he wasn’t going anywhere. “Check it out, Shen. I’m not bored anymore.”
“You need a hobby.”
Two other mechanics had seen my negotiation strategy and were coming our way. They probably didn’t know who Samuel really was, but there was a certain international blue collar code of honor that declared you needed to step in when some outsider started kicking the shit out of one of your coworkers. Both were big, burly, tough guys with nearly as many prison tats as Samuel had. One of them had a jack handle. The other carried a ball-peen hammer.
Shen stepped right in front of them, hands on his hips. All he said was “No,” and smiled. The two big guys stopped, looked at Shen, who was half the size of either of them—or one quarter of their combined mass—yet seemed completely confident anyway, and realized this probably wasn’t the dude to mess with. They walked away, muttering. Apparently Samuel wasn’t popular enough to risk an ass-beating over.
I opened the hood, pulled Samuel out by the ear, and then dragged him out the back door so we could have some privacy while Shen stuck around to make sure none of the others suddenly felt like using the phone. Once we were in the back parking lot, and satisfied there weren’t any other witnesses, I let go of his ear.
“Okay, okay!” There was blood trickling from his nose and bruises spreading on his cheek. It turned out I’d gotten more leverage on that hood than I’d thought. “I swear I don’t work for the Montalbans anymore! Back when nobody knew who Big Eddie really was, there were rules, you know? You obey the rules, you don’t get clipped. But the new boss is all up in everyone’s shit. She’ll have you killed if she imagines you did something wrong. The money’s good, but I’m avoiding that outfit. I swear. If Stokes is in with them, I didn’t know it. He told me he’s a free agent.”
“I believe you, Samuel, which is why I’m offering you two options. Weigh them carefully. I pay you more than what Stokes paid you to begin with to walk me through every aspect of their system, and then you can forget this conversation ever happened. Or I beat it out of you for free. The only part of this which is completely non-negotiable is the part where you tell me everything you know.”
“Stokes will kill me,” he protested.
“He might later, but I’ll for sure kill you sooner. So, bribe and run, or severe beating and probable death? I’ve not got all day.”
I must have been really persuasive, because his decision didn’t take too long. “I’ll talk, it’s good! I didn’t like those pricks anyway.”
“Fantastic.” That was easy. I whistled for Shen that it was time to go. Then I pulled out my key fob, and pushed the trunk button. “Climb in.”
Samuel got a really sick look on his face when he saw the Audi’s trunk pop open. “Don’t make me get in the boot. Come on, man, I said I’ll tell you everything.”
“Oh, you will. And then you’ll hang out with us until the job is over. If we get caught, you get caught too. That should guarantee you don’t forget any pertinent details. Plus, I’d hate to be all merciful and let you go, only for you to have second thoughts and warn them we’re coming.”
“I wouldn’t do that!” he protested as Shen joined us.
“Yeah, because you’ve been a rock so far.” I probably didn’t need to make him ride in the trunk, but I’d just stolen this car, it was clean, and he had grease all over his coveralls.
Shen wasn’t as patient as I was. He just snap kicked Samuel in the stomach, and while he was bent over, gasping, Shen hurled him head first into the trunk.
“At least it’s roomy in there,” I said as Shen slammed the lid.
As we were driving away, I called Reaper and told him we were on our way back.
“Did you get the package?” Reaper asked, having watched too many spy movies.
“It’s in the trunk.”
“Oh . . . Did you make sure there wasn’t one of those emergency exit pull tab thingies? They mandated those for like when kids play hide and seek in the trunk and get trapped.”
“Yes, Dad.” I hung up on him. “Sheesh, you’d think I’d never kidnapped anybody before.”
As usual, Shen sat quietly, watching out the window as the outskirts of Paris scrolled by.
In the few times we’d worked together, I’d found that Shen wasn’t exactly a man of many words. Which meant he was probably the safest person I could say the following to: “Between what we’ve heard about Stokes’ crew, and Samuel’s rep for doing quality work, I hate to admit it, but Valentine made the right call. If we’d gone when I wanted we probably would have gotten spotted and chewed up . . . Probably would have gotten Bob executed in the process.”
“Yes.”
I drove in silence for a moment. This was eating at me, and I kind of wanted to talk about it with somebody. I hadn’t wanted to bring it up with Jill since she was injured and had enough on her mind, and Reaper was still dealing with his weird personal demons. But what the hell, Shen seemed like a good listener.
“Ever since I got out, I’ve been off. I’ve been making too many mistakes. I’ve gotten sloppy. That place screwed me up, Shen. If I’d taken my time at the smuggler’s shop maybe I would have seen Anders staking it out. Jill wouldn’t have gotten shot. This is all on me. I know better, but it’s like ever since I got out of that dungeon, I’ve been seeing red. Like I can’t think straight until I end these people. The Pale Man got in my head. I can’t explain it.”
“Desire for vengeance clouds your vision.”
“Is that like the Zen Buddhist way of saying I’m too bloodthirsty?”
“Because I’m Chinese, you assume I’m profoundly philosophical?” Shen looked over at me and grinned. “That is racist.”
“Motherfucker, I’ve seen you fight. You’re like a kung-fu master, snatch the pebble from my hand grasshopper, badass. If a
nybody on Exodus is going to get all philosophical Art of War on me, it should be you.”
“I checked that out from a library once. It is actually a very good book.”
“And here I was thinking you’d spent years meditating under a freezing waterfall and punching rocks before you joined Exodus.”
Shen shook his head. “I was a killer for the Triads.”
I glanced over at the unassuming little man. In my business that was one hell of a resume item. “No shit?”
“No shit.” Shen sighed when he realized I was still staring at him, waiting for him to continue. “Pay attention to the road, please.”
“I did. Traffic wasn’t bad here, but I didn’t want to do anything that would attract police attention while I had a kidnap victim in the trunk. I’d stolen money from Chinese organized crime a few times over the years. They were an unforgiving, merciless bunch.”I know the Triads. They’re not known for their retirement packages.”
“My past is not something I am proud of. When I was a boy, I was a typical Hong Kong thug, but I was clever and had ambition. I worked my way through the ranks and developed my skills. By the time I was twenty, I was a trusted associate.”
“That’s a big career jump from Triad assassin to Exodus do-gooder. What happened?”
“One day my employers asked me to kill someone. I decided not to.”
“I’m guessing that’s the abridged version.”
Shen was quiet as a police car went speeding by. We both watched it in the mirrors for a moment to see if it flipped around. Samuel’s ex-con coworkers didn’t seem like the types to call the cops, but you never knew. Once he was certain we were clear, Shen continued. “Being ordered to kill a man who has broken our agreed-upon rules is one thing. Killing his wife and children to set an example is another. The assignment forced me to examine my life choices.”
I laughed at that. Shen was like the master of understatement. “And?”
Alliance of Shadows (Dead Six Series Book 3) Page 32
