by Sable Jordan
9 millimeter? 38 special?
She tried identifying the weapon by the perceived size of the hole in the muzzle, a pointless endeavor. A gun’s a gun, and at point blank range even a BB pellet would do more damage than Kizzie wanted to live with.
“Up…o-or I shoot.” The woman’s breaths came in short, shallow puffs. She jerked Kizzie’s head forward, shaking so hard the vibrations transferred.
That trembling brought both relief and unease. The positive: she wasn’t a trained killer, or a surgeon for that matter—both required steady hands under pressure. The negative: Kizzie had her head in the path of a loaded gun being handled by a frightened civilian.
“Easy.” She raised her empty hands to show she was no threat.
“Up. Now!”
“Just gonna roll to my knees, okay? Don’t get crazy with the Cheez Whiz.” She lowered her arms slowly. The gun pushed into her head again and that plain pissed her off. “You want me up or not, lady?”
No response. Kizzie shuffled to her feet, the gun practically a knew appendage on the right side of her head. It shifted when she moved, digging in at the base as she stood. Judging by the upward angle, she was slightly taller than the woman.
Another difference between them: Kizzie wasn’t shaking.
“Who are you?”
Totally useless information when planning to kill an intruder.
“Janet Johnson,” Kizzie said, feeding the woman the same helping of bullshit she’d given Zio. The handle was as soluble as the ink he’d so frantically searched his hand for. “And since we’re exchanging pleasantries…?”
Another nudge with the barrel. “I ask the ques–”
Kizzie curled to her left, turning a tight circle that brought them face-to-face. In the same instant, she trapped the gun arm between her shoulder and ear and hooked her left arm over it.
A high-pitched scream; the gun bucked. Two quick burps Kizzie hoped hadn’t hit the guy on the floor. A headbutt dazed the other woman and, yelping, she tipped her chin up. Kizzie rammed her forearm into the woman’s exposed neck and drove her against the wall. Another round exploded from the pistol.
She didn’t relent, digging in until the gun fell to the floor. In one fluid motion, Kizzie crouched, swooped up the weapon and aimed. Her left ear played jingle bells; the right had heavy wheezing on repeat.
Without taking her gaze off the form now huddled near the bedroom door, she inched back enough to hold her fingers to Zio’s neck. His pulse was still strong. “Name.”
Silence met her, and she didn’t have time or patience for that.
Kizzie pulled the trigger; the forehead exploded.
Screams morphed to a soft whimper, and the woman opened her eyes to see the butler’s porcelain face splattered at her bare feet.
“Next one goes in yours.”
“Silvia…M-Moniz.”
“You alone?” Silvia nodded. Kizzie cocked the hammer back on the gun. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I swear.”
“Are you gonna make me kill you, Silvia Moniz?”
Clutching her throat, Silvia twisted her head side to side quickly. She wasn’t a girlfriend—Kizzie had his dossier and Zio was a ladies’ man—but judging by the white thong and bra, Silvia planned on being his after party this fine Belémian morning. Talk about wrong place.
Pistol steady in one hand, Kizzie plucked an earring from her ear with the other. She held the long glass cylinder up with her fingertips, shook it a little, then tossed it over. “Drink.”
Silvia unscrewed the tube’s cap and warily downed the contents. She tilted her head back to take it all, gulped, and then opened her mouth to show it was gone.
A puzzled frown crossed Kizzie’s face. That much of the liquid might do more than knock Silvia out. The dosage was calculated for Zio’s weight, but given the ink from the pen didn’t put him down, the benzos in the earring could very well keep Silvia wide awake. Kizzie swallowed a sigh. The chemist back at Langley needed a stern talking to.
They waited in thick silence, Silvia’s wide eyes glued to Kizzie’s indifferent browns. Three minutes later, Silvia slumped to the floor.
At least something worked.
Kizzie cleared the apartment then zipped up her hoodie, covering the damaged top. A tear to the lining in her right pocket and she pulled out the pouch of nitrile gloves secured there.
With covered hands and elbow grease she flipped Zio onto his back. Distant sirens cut through the early morning stillness, ramping her efforts up a notch. Whether they were headed toward her or not didn’t matter. She had to move, and getting him in bed was no longer an option. Time for plan C.
Or, more specifically, time to invent a plan C.
Kizzie yanked off his shoes and socks, tossed them near the door. The slacks came off next and she shook her head.
“You keep doing this shit backwards, hun. Screw the sexy bad guy then drug him.” She sighed long and loud, eyes locked on his cock. Almost enough to make her forget the horrible kisses. How was it all bad guys were hung like moose? Was a huge package the trade-off for bucking morality?
She worked him out of his shirt, threw it and the pants aside; grabbed his arm, yanked until his torso was twisted and a shoulder blade exposed.
Abandoning that task, Kizzie stepped over Silvia and into the bedroom. She made a mess of the neat covers, which, lucky for Zio, didn’t have a single clown on them. Rifling through his nightstand drawer yielded an open box with six rubbers remaining. She ripped one off, thought about the size of the man on the floor and shrugged. “Why not? You’re a stud.”
Another condom in her arsenal, she opened both on her way to the bathroom and let the wrappers flit to the floor. One rubber went in the toilet, the other over the edge of the trash bin.
Back in the hall, she recovered his cell phone; pulled out her own and removed the false back. 12 MicroSD cards were secured there—6 originals, 6 backups—each loaded with spyware.
She opened the flap covering the external storage port on his phone and ejected the chip, selected the one that matched from her array. 30 seconds later, his storage chip rested in its housing and his phone was in his pants pocket, the spyware embedded in the core of the machine’s operating system. When he used it later he’d never know the stealth software whirred away in the background.
That was just icing. Zio could toss the thing and they’d be back at square one.
The real target in this ruse was the elusive Sanzio Galletti himself.
Not exactly the head of an international drug cartel but, in spite of the name, Sanzio was no saint. Second-in-command to his older, even more elusive brother, Abrahan, and what the Brothers Galletti dabbled in was far more dangerous than any street drug tweakers and geekers chased down to get up. These men operated in information. Top secret information with the potential to destroy governments and destabilize small nations.
Dangerous, indeed.
Twisting her skirt half a turn, she fingered the hem, finding one of two inch-by-quarter-inch microsyringes she’d carefully sewn in. Another rip—this outfit really wasn’t holding together well—and she forced the plastic encapsulated tube out, shook the viscous gray liquid within. From the stylus slot of her phone she extracted a sterile needle only slighter thicker than the business end of an acupuncture needle and screwed the connections together.
Pinch the skin between his shoulder blades, insert the needle, slowly depress the plunger and voilà!, he’d be tagged. As the fluid was forced through the needle and into his body, it hardened into a continuous filament that transmitted data to a satellite overhead. The type of cutting edge stuff DARPA had probably already deemed obsolete. Things moved fast in the world of clandestine operations….
The sirens wailed, closer.
Done playing nurse, Kizzie made quick work of cleaning up, tucking the used items into the empty bag and then into her pocket. She slid on her sandals and placed a call.
“Thank you for calling Dornwell Holdings,”
an automated dulcet intoned. “If you know your party’s extension, please enter it now… For English, press—” Kizzie punched in a code and waited. Ten bars of terrible hold music filtered through the receiver—an inventive mashup of classical, jazz, electronica, and ‘please-oh-please-kill-me-now’—and then a groggy human voice whispered, “Tony’s pizza.”
Kizzie rolled her eyes. Some people were just so paranoid. “Large pineapple and anchovy. Hold the anchovy.”
A slight huff came from the man on the other end. “Comin’ to pick it up?”
“Don’t I always?”
He ended the call, and Kizzie stooped to recover her earring. She checked Zio’s palm—no ink—wiped down the gun and forced it into his hold.
Her phone vibrated. “Something wrong?” Agent Fletcher asked, obviously annoyed at being disturbed at this ungodly hour. She couldn’t blame him so spared him her usual dose of sass.
“All done.”
He cleared his throat. “Done? We agreed to move in two weeks.”
“Did we? He’s locked and loaded. Activate the phone; body tracer’s in.” Fletcher fumbled around on his end and Kizzie continued. “Might want to check into a Silvia Moniz as a K.A.”
“Got it. Phone’ll be a minute. Just confirmed the filament is live. Fixed position, a couple miles east of the airport…consistent with one of the addresses you pinned as a possible hideaway.”
“Ding, ding. Give the man a Kewpie doll.”
“Glad you’re out safely, but this was a dangerous op, Kizzie.”
“And here I thought I’d be gettin’ licked by kittens.” Okay, so she couldn’t hold the sass back for too long. She headed into the kitchen.
“You should’ve called backup, or at least let me know you were going in beforehand. You could’ve been killed.”
Just being in Belém was like dying for Kizzie. She’d been there long enough as it was. She steeled herself against the memories.
“I had an in, I took it.” With a wet napkin she wiped down the wall near the light switch. “You got what you wanted, right?”
“Yeah.” Fletcher sighed. “We’ve been trying to pin down Galletti for almost two years. I owe Connolly big time.”
“He didn’t spend the evening getting groped by this asshole, did he? You owe me, on top of what you’re already doing. How’s the phone coming?”
“Few more ticks.”
She couldn’t wait. Kizzie made another sweep of the apartment, ignoring all the beady little clown eyes and the very tempting idea of tossing them to the floor and striking a match. Silvia was crumpled at the butler’s feet, Zio was tagged and resting quite peacefully after a night of passionate, meaningful non-sex. That’d have to do.
Time to g–
His phone trilled. Kizzie went for his pants and stopped short. “Did you get that?”
“Get wh—”
“Galletti’s phone. He just got a text message.”
“Wha— You’re there? At his house! Jesus, Kizzie, what about guards? What if someone fol—”
“Fletch…” She didn’t need his concern, she needed confirmation, and after all she’d been through to track the man down she’d be damned if things went wrong at the last minute. Not to mention this could’ve all ended in the elevator—without the grind and jab—had the ink from the pen worked as it was supposed to. Desk agents…
The sirens practically screamed in her ear now. Her pulse raced but she fought the urge to flee. Just a few more seconds. She had to be sure.
The long pause on Fletcher’s end as data transmitted back to Langley made Kizzie’s skin crawl.
“Picture,” he finally said. Kizzie made for the door. “A boy, maybe seven or eight. Mean anything to you?”
“Follow up on it.” She ended the call. The screech of sirens faded. One last look back at the chaos she made, Kizzie opened the door.
Two hours later, she was speeding down the highway, warmed through with relief. “All right, Belém,” she mumbled to the city 100 miles in her rearview, “Now we’re even.”
July 25th
Bruges, Belgium
At a table in a bar on the Grote Markt, Phillip Marchande took a healthy swallow of the most overpriced blonde Brugse Zot the place had to offer. The window to his immediate left—an unlikely seating arrangement for him—provided a clear view of the plaza, the restaurant, and the waitress. An iPad and the half-drained pilsner kept him company while he watched her from a safe distance with the aid of the zoom function on his sunglasses.
Behind him, a German couple argued over their next destination. The wife would win, but Phil found it amusing her husband thought he had a chance. Phil learned a long time ago that a woman with her mind made up could only be deterred by divine intervention or chocolate.
From the other side of the window a gawker pressed his face to the tinted glass, hands shading his eyes as he looked in and blocking Phil’s view. His brow furrowed. Why the hell did people do this when the doors were open? Half a beat later, the man moved along and Phil found her again.
A tray of mugs perched on the fingertips of one hand, she wended through the outdoor tables, approaching one full of young men.
She looked…healthy. Her small frame had finally picked up weight, filling out the drawn lines of her face and adding a slight curve to narrow hips. The tee shirt clung a little tighter to her small breasts. Looked good on her. And though she’d just had a birthday—turned the ripe old age of 20—she appeared much younger than the last time he’d seen her. Had to be Bruges’s atmosphere—all charming castles and old belfries; horse-drawn carriages and cozy shops. An idyllic place like this would do someone like her a great deal of good. She deserved the fairytale.
Drinks dispensed, she held the empty tray flat against her middle, cupping the bottom edge with both hands. Her lips turned up pleasantly while she spoke with one of the men. He replied; his friends laughed. She flipped dyed brown hair off her shoulder and smiled wider. Was she flirting?
Phil wanted to grin…and rip the guy’s head off.
He swallowed more beer.
She ducked inside the restaurant and Phil returned to the task he’d abandoned. The form on the tablet’s screen already contained the pertinent information: Charles de Gaulle airport. Arriving in two days. He reviewed the reservation and paid by gift card. Info forwarded to his boss, he changed the screen to the weather. The drive down to Paris would be a wet one.
The phone vibrated in his pocket. A discreet tap to a button on the sunglasses and the caller’s info appeared on the lower corner of his right lens. He let it connect, left the line open.
“Good or bad?”
The arguing couple got a bit louder, masking the sound of his caller’s voice. Phil grabbed up his tablet and headed for the door, deserting his expensive drink. “I’ll get both anyway.”
“Another hit off the necklace, three days ago—just a mile or so away from one of my usual spots.” The man on the line chuckled. “I’m sure she heard of my prowess and came looking for me.”
Outside, the young woman stood at the table of men, now stuffing a business card into her pocket. Phil’s eyes narrowed.
He cut through a line of people at a cart serving frites; headed away from her, striding toward the large statue in the center of the Markt. A sharp turn left and he blended in as best he could with a tour group wandering by. “Not keeping a low profile, are you, Stix?”
“Have I ever kept a low profile? All part of the life,” Stix replied off-handedly. “I’ll leave all that ‘low-profile’ stuff to you and X. Though, word has it he hasn’t been too incognito himself…”
Phil almost stopped short, full attention now on the call. “What have you heard?”
“Not enough to ruffle your feathers, Marchande. But there was a whisper,” Stix said, voice full of mischief. “Some beautiful young vixen...who isn’t Nai.”
Phil smirked, catching a glimpse of his prey one last time as he went by.
Back to important things.
All this time and only three hits off the necklace? This wasn’t working as planned. He broke away from the group and doubled back, heading for the statue again while making a quick check of his watch. She’d be getting off soon. “The bad?”
“Network’s down again.”
His jaw clenched.
Using a network was hit-or-miss, or more miss than hit, apparently. Tracking in major cities was spotty—too much interference and the relay got scrambled. Outside of major cities was worse—with fewer chip readers, chances of getting a hit were slimmer. The few blips they had didn’t pinpoint a specific location, more a general area they were hoping to determine a pattern from. To do that, they needed more hits. “How long will it take to get back up?”
“Two to ten days, depending on where it broke off in the loop. Longer than you may have, my friend. If you didn’t care about a trail, I could have it hopping in hours. I’m surprised you’ve been able to last this long, but I think your luck’s running out.”
Didn’t he know it. Phil reached the center of the plaza, sidestepped quickly, narrowly avoiding capture in the digital memories of a cheesing couple. He perched a hip against the arched concrete wall surrounding the statue. “I’ll pass the m—”
“That’s not all.”
Their only lead was roaming about and currently untraceable. What could be worse than that?
“Some rich American died in the act the other day, landed face down in the sushi.”
“That’s sick, even for you.” Phil shook his head, gaze on the young woman. More smiling, more hair touching…
“No really.” Stix laughed. “Name’s Hall—Avery Hall. Owned Hanabi, Inc. Fireworks supply company. They do pyrotechnic displays for big celebrations…New Year, Fourth of July and the like. Was balls-deep in some chick he had laid out on his table in Shimoda. One of those deals where you eat sushi off a woman’s naked body. Sounds fun, right? Except they both ended up dead, and he literally landed in some sashimi.”
Hall…Hall… Didn’t ring a bell. “And the girl?”
“Jane Doe—or whatever the Japanese equivalent is…maybe Yamada Hanako?” Stix said, contemplating out loud. “Or how about J—”
