by Michael Todd
The man paid even less attention to her than he had when she’d arrived, which gave her all the time in the world to leave the complex. She’d leave the van, which was stolen and would probably be reported come morning. Instead, she peeled the coveralls off to reveal a black biker’s outfit and tossed the uniform through the open window of the vehicle. She donned the helmet she’d left on the front seat and strolled casually to where she’d parked her motorcycle. The beast came alive with a low, satisfying thrum and she revved it a few times before she accelerated away with the laptop stowed safely in her bag.
When she came into view of the highway, she pulled over, tugged her phone out of her pocket, and dialed the only number on speed dial.
“Package secure,” she said when her call was answered with no greeting. “Awaiting delivery details.”
“Delivery will be in the Johannesburg airport.” The reply was spoken in a metallic, heavily disguised voice. “Tickets have been delivered to your email address. Second payment to be wired on delivery. Plane leaves from LAX in two hours.”
She nodded, even though the person on the other end couldn’t see her. The line went dead and she turned the phone off and threw it onto the road in front of her bike before gunning the engine once more. She made sure to run both wheels over the device before she roared away.
Courtney’s phone buzzed in her pocket as she and Robinson waited at one of the coffee shops in Johannesburg. After a message from Anja to confirm the delivery process, she had managed to convince Robinson that they could afford to spend a half day in the city to take in the sights, although they didn’t move too far out of range of the airport. She was ready for the delivery as soon as she was alerted to it, begged a moment to head to the bathroom, and took her carry-on with her. She’d been sure to bring one according to the specifications provided. It was, of course, empty and had been recently purchased to hold souvenirs she hadn’t even bought. She paused and bent to tie her shoelace. A tall woman with darker skin and bright red hair came into view, moved closer, and bumped clumsily into the bag Monroe had deliberately left a step or two behind her.
The transition was certainly the smoothest that Courtney had ever seen. So much so that she wondered if a magician’s skills were involved. If she hadn’t actually watched, she wouldn’t have noticed that the bags had been switched. She kept her expression carefully neutral as she moved on with the new bag into the ladies’ room to confirm that a high-end laptop was included in the contents.
She used a new phone to rapidly send a message to Anja to confirm that the package had been delivered and that the second payment could be cleared.
As casual as ever, she returned to where she’d left Robinson. He didn’t offer much acknowledgment of her return other than a quick nod of the head.
“I really hope that cat needs her laptop again soon,” he said mildly.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Madigan was annoyed. She had wanted to pick Courtney up herself, but after the fight and the damage caused to the Hammerheads, Amanda had refused her access to any of the ATVs until she had them repaired and back to the way she liked them. It wasn’t fair, Madigan thought with a voluble growl and hurried to the gate when she heard the rumble of a heavy vehicle approaching. She hadn’t even driven anything on that mission. It wasn’t like she intended to drive around and crash the shit intentionally.
As she opened the gate manually, the armorer inched the vehicle in closer, obviously taking extra care. There weren’t too many people who treated their ATVs the way she did—like calling them her babies and getting angry and sullen when they were mistreated. Like an actual baby, or a favored pet, for crying out loud.
As the ATV slowed to a halt, Madigan’s gaze settled on a man who exited the vehicle alongside her friend. She hadn’t ever been much of a fan of the arrangement that had been reached between Courtney and herself to keep Sal between them. Now, when she saw the man—tall, blond and built like a supermodel—she wondered if there would be any trouble. She remembered how depressed Sal had been when their partner had decided that she would stay in LA.
Her doubts about Courtney’s dedication to her relationship with Sal quickly dissipated as he exited the building with a broad smile on his face. Courtney let out an ear-splitting squeal when she saw him. It was very undignified but certainly got the message across as she streaked across the courtyard and almost bowled him over. It was to his credit that he didn’t fall down under the tackle and managed to catch her smoothly out of the air. It seemed like his daily dose from Madie had certainly helped him with useful bulk and strength.
Courtney responded enthusiastically and quickly covered his lips, cheeks, and neck with a horde of kisses. Both Madigan and the new man looked a little uncomfortable at the open display of affection, even if they were two close friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while.
“Hi,” the man finally said, turned to Kennedy, and offered her his hand. “The name’s Allen. Allen Robinson.”
“Madigan Kennedy,” she replied with a smile and shook his hand, surprised at how firm it was. Where had Courtney come across this delightful specimen?
“Oh, you must be Madie!” He grinned. “Courtney’s told me so much about you.”
“She must have told you that it’s Madigan, not Madie,” she responded, and her smile was a little forced.
“Oh, right. There was some mention about that, yeah.” Allen looked genuinely abashed.
“Okay, that’s enough, break it up, lovebirds. There’s plenty of time for that later,” Madigan said when she realized that the other two were still tangled in their embrace. “For now, we need time to get everybody up to speed on what’s happened and what will probably happen in the next few days. Shall we?”
“Of course.” Sal pulled away from the other woman and his cheeks looked more than a little flushed. If Madigan’s eyes didn’t deceive her, he had heated up someplace else, as well.
She chuckled and wiggled her eyebrows. “Hold it in, cowboy.”
“Will do, cowgirl,” he responded a little sheepishly.
The group trooped into the social room where Anja waited for them. She looked…different. Sal frowned at her, unsure exactly what she had done, but… Well, her hair was tied back, she wore makeup, and for once, she actually looked like she hadn’t stepped out of a thirty-hour marathon at her computer.
Sal narrowed his eyes as her gaze settled on Allen Robinson, who moved over to her. She was… Holy shit, was she blushing?
“Hi, I’m Allen,” the man said and proffered his hand.
Anja’s eyes widened like she was about to have a panic attack but she steeled herself and shook his hand firmly. “Anja. I manage the cyber security around here.”
“Courtney’s told me a lot of about your work,” he said warmly. “That’s an impressive resume.”
“Thanks.” The hacker looked flustered and continued hastily, “Do you have something for me?”
“I sure do.” Allen withdrew the laptop from his bag and handed it to her.
“Thanks, I’ll get right on it.” She tucked it hastily under her arm and made her way to the server room. Amanda intercepted her and pulled her to a halt outside.
“Come on, where are you going in such a hurry?” the armorer asked and regarded her a little suspiciously.
“I want to get right to work on this.” The Russian deliberately avoided looking at Allen as he took in his surroundings.
“Oh, my,” Amanda said with a teasing grin. “Does someone have a crush on someone? As a gay woman, I do have to say that one is a tasty dish. If you’re into that sort of stuff. Which…you are?”
Anja shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it’s about time that we have more sausages around this place. It’s become a little too estrogen-heavy for me.”
Her companion’s grin widened. “Well, if you’re not too picky about having a man attached, I have a couple of ‘sausages’ you can use. Some plug in, some use batteries, and most are ribbed for your pleasu
re.” She winked when Anja blushed furiously and decided it was the blush of a woman who had her own collection.
“So, this Allen guy,” Sal said in a low voice to Madigan. “Would you say that he’s…good looking in any way?”
“Oh no, of course not,” Madigan said and shook her head firmly. “Not unless you know any women who like chiseled good looks, a sexy hint of scruff on the chin, an athlete-slash-model’s build, and the intelligent look he gets from those glasses.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Well, that’s plain mean.”
“In fairness, I’d say that you have him beat in more than a few ways, most of which Courtney’s already been privy to, so there’s no need to feel insecure.”
“I don’t feel insecure,” he protested. “You feel insecure.”
“I’ll let you take a minute to think about that,” she responded tartly, and her eyes twinkled with mischief. “In the meantime, I think we need to get together to have a quick sharing session about what it is that we all know.”
“Well, I think it’s fairly basic,” Courtney said as she dropped on one of the couches and brought her legs up under her. “Something along the line of Covington stealing my father’s intellectual property for Pegasus—which we hopefully stole right back—my mom is somehow involved, and while there’s a fair degree of suspicion that my father was actually murdered instead of dying of natural causes, there isn’t any proof left to confirm it.”
“That or there were way too many people who very conveniently knew he would die at a specific time.” Madigan sat beside Courtney and toyed with her hair.
“Let’s not forget that your mother was involved somehow,” Allen added. He seemed determined not to let that particular truth be buried by other issues. If it were at all possible, he disliked her as much as his boss did.
“You mentioned that the metal wouldn’t work in the Zoo but that it does work outside.” Sal sounded curious, although his expression was serious. “You told us that but you never explained in any detail.”
“Oh, I have all that information on a memory disk,” she confirmed. “I’ll share it with you, but the gist is that the resonance from the goop in the trees and other plants somehow undermines the integrity of the alloy they created. The longer that it remains in close proximity to the goop and the radiation it causes, the weaker the stuff gets.”
“Huh,” he grunted disapprovingly. “And how the hell does Pegasus not know about this?”
“My dad ran a couple of tests, but they were shut down immediately once Pegasus snapped up the proprietary claims on the metal,” she said. “They essentially ignored everything he had to say about it, while they still stole all his intelligence. These guys are loaded with cash but are plain butt-fucking dumb when it comes to how the Zoo operates.”
“This might be something we could run past the colonel,” Madigan interjected. “He’s still waiting on an update on the stuff we pulled from the hard drive. I don’t think we have enough to get back to him with, but this might be something he’d be interested to know.”
“I had a request from the colonel to look into a new special test that Pegasus will run in the Zoo,” she continued. “Yesterday, he sent me a message saying that he wants to sign us up to see if it’s a Zoo issue or maybe pirates or someone who shouldn’t be attacked.”
“Send him a response and tell him we want to meet,” Sal said.
“Do I want to know who this colonel is?” Courtney asked with a slightly anxious expression.
“He’s a guy who’s fed us intel on Pegasus over the past few months,” Sal clarified. “He’s worked with them a lot and doesn’t much care for what they’ve been up to, so he feeds us what he knows to see if we can’t disrupt their operations somewhat.”
“I’ll be damned if he didn’t come to the right people.” Monroe nodded enthusiastically. “I’m down for anything that gets in Pegasus’ way out here.”
“Agreed.” He glanced quickly at Madigan. “Set the meet up for a neutral location. There’s no telling whether Pegasus has tightened their security after our last run-in with them.”
“So we simply assumed that those assholes are Pegasus?” Amanda asked with a challenging look at the others. “You’d think they would want to put some better boots on the ground. The guys we ran into might as well have been bounty hunters.”
Sal nodded. “I know, but who else could they have been? Nobody else has those kinds of resources. If it was them, they were pressed for time and manpower and had to bring outsiders in on a job. It was a mistake and definitely not one they’ll repeat.”
Madigan nodded. “Message sent. I’ll let you know when he calls back.”
“What do you mean, it’s gone, ma’am?”
Andressa looked up from her phone, a murderous look in her eyes as she glared at her head of security.
“What do I mean?” she snarled and regarded him with real contempt. “I mean someone entered my fucking apartment, broke into my safe, and took the fucking laptop. I don’t think I could have made it any clearer than that, you useless bunch of assholes.”
The three men looked at one another, unsure which one of them she had addressed. Amos, the manager, stepped forward since it was his responsibility.
“I personally checked all the logs and there wasn’t any kind of security alert that anyone even entered your apartment while you were not there,” he said and tried to be firm and still maintain a respectful distance. “No cameras picked up any intruders, and the people who work in the lobby made no note of any unauthorized entries. If the laptop is missing, it wasn’t from your apartment.”
Andressa shook her head. “I haven’t taken it out of that room in all the time that I’ve had it. What are you suggesting—that it grew legs and fucking walked out of the building?”
Amos looked at the other men for some help but received no response. His employer ignored him and continued to pace around her apartment.
“It has to be that Monroe bitch,” she stated belligerently. “She’s the only one who has any reason to suspect me in the company. And she called me and asked for a meeting but cancelled at the last minute to travel—where did she go again?”
“She took a flight on a company plane to Johannesburg’s Oliver Tambo International Airport and on to Casablanca,” Amos confirmed quickly. “Here’s the problem, though. The timeline you suggest for the…ah, theft… If it was her, it doesn’t make any sense. She couldn’t have been involved.”
“The bitch has gone to the Zoo,” Covington mused and ignored the man. “She thinks that a few animals will scare me off her trail. Well, she’s wrong. Call Carlson and tell him that I’ll head out into the Zoo myself this time. Tell him to send me some people and that we’re going on a fucking safari.”
“But…the laptop was one of the most secure pieces of technology in this building,” Amos protested, his expression one of real confusion. “Bio-encrypted to the point of overkill. Exactly what do you expect her to be able to do with it?”
“If it can be stolen, it can be hacked,” she responded cuttingly. “And that will simply not happen on my watch. I want to talk to Carlson as soon as possible. Since his man Rodrigo obviously failed in his assignment—multiple times, I might add—I think we need to stop hiring from the outside. It’s time for us to get our own hands dirty in this.”
Amos sighed and finally gave up. “I’ll let Mr. Carlson know and arrange for a plane to be readied.”
Anja scowled at the screen that had somehow demanded her constant focus for far too long. The display should have been relaxing, with some nature shots quickly replaced by what looked like the madness of an architect who had never really made it to the big leagues. Not that she knew anything about either of those things. She stared at a login page for the laptop that she’d been handed.
“How’s it going?”
She jumped. Thankfully, she managed to stifle the instinctive squeak of alarm. She hadn’t heard anyone enter the room, and the voice was only vaguely
familiar. It took her a few seconds to remember that there were new people in the compound now and that she needed to get used to it.
Of course, she could forgive the intrusion given who it was—and what he carried. Tall, blond, and handsome, and he brought gifts of coffee? She could absolutely get used to interruptions like that.
“Oh… Not great,” Anja said and accepted the coffee with a grateful smile. “This encryption will take years to crack. I have a couple of friends who know about this sort of thing and even they are stumped. Normally, I’d run another game to get the DNA we need to crack this baby, but as of right now, our friend Covington is on a plane with no known destination and has probably already wiped her apartment of anything that could be used to open this. That leaves us royally screwed unless we get a finger of hers or something.”
Allen nodded. He didn’t know much about this sort of thing, but it was impressive that Jacobs had managed to put a team like this together in such a short space of time. He had gathered outliers who were great at their jobs and needed a place to belong. Well, considering that he seemed to fit that category too, maybe it wasn’t that odd.
“I’m usually really good at placing accents,” he ventured in an effort to break the silence, “but for the life of me, I can’t tell where yours is from.”
“Well, I’m originally from St. Petersburg,” Anja explained and swung her swivel chair to face him. “I got a scholarship at a tech school in the US and I managed to stay for my masters too, so I lost most of my Russian accent.”
“That’s great,” Allen said and didn’t sound like he’d faked the enthusiasm at all. “But how did you end up all the way out here? I mean, it’s not a regular location for up and coming IT specialists.”
“Well, I worked for the FSB—the security agency in Russia,” she explained. For some mysterious reason, her trust issue seemed to have gone out the window. “It was mostly low-level coding work to keep their firewalls up to date, but I had a lot of access. And when I saw what they were doing, it wasn’t anything I approved of. Finally, the time inevitably came when they needed access to something and I managed to help them. I got a little greedy, and I got caught. My friends on the outside helped me to leave the country, but I needed a place to settle. Jacobs offered me a place to stay if I helped them with some troubles, so I came here.”
