Right to the Kill (Harmony Black Book 5)
Page 29
“I promise,” Harmony said.
“All right,” Jessie said. “And if you’re very, very good, I might even stop off for ice cream on the way back.”
* * *
Jessie stood in front of a one-way mirror, sipping stale coffee from a paper cup and enjoying the show. Kevin was at her side. He had a shell-shocked look on his face.
“She’s been at it for eight hours,” Jessie said.
On the other side of the glass, Harmony was circling the stainless-steel table like a shark while her victim was sobbing into a crumpled sheet of notebook paper. The rest of it, thirty pages’ worth of a confession, was at his side. Harmony grabbed the top page and shoved it in his face, pointing to one line like it was a death sentence, some tiny but fatal detail he’d forgotten.
“I wouldn’t wish this on anyone,” Kevin murmured.
“Right? Forget waterboarding, this is cruel and unusual punishment.”
Eventually Harmony emerged, looking pale and unsteady on her feet. She slammed the door and leaned against it for strength.
“We have to cut him loose,” she said.
“What?” Jessie asked. “Why?”
“He’s not the Concierge.” Harmony nodded toward the mirror. “Every detail he gave us checks out. The Concierge outsources his smuggling jobs. This guy’s been his hook-up in New England for a couple of years now. It’s piecework. Usually he just does his normal everyday job, flying a traffic copter for a TV station. Once every couple of months he gets a call to fly out, pick up a person or a package, and make the delivery. The next day, a cash envelope shows up in his mailbox. ‘Not asking questions’ is part of his job description.”
“What can he tell us about his boss?” Jessie asked.
“Nothing. The Concierge never shows their face, always calls from a different burner phone and always with a voice modulator, and only pays in cash. I had him write down the details of his last eight delivery jobs. We can check them out, see if any interesting leads pop up, but I think it’s a dead end.”
“I’m on it,” Kevin said. “Send me the data, and I’ll get cracking.”
“We could pass this guy off to the locals,” Jessie said. “They can at least charge him with joyriding in his company helicopter.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Harmony said. “We know the Concierge is paranoid about security. He—or she—is careful, precise, meticulous to a fault.”
“Yeah?” Jessie said.
“Let’s give him something to think about.”
* * *
This is the luckiest day of your life, the woman in the suit and tie had told him. He couldn’t disagree. Caught red-handed with a stolen helicopter, confessing to everything he could think of—from smuggling drugs to cheating on his second wife—and they’d still kicked him to the curb without so much as a speeding ticket. No charges, no consequences.
He was on his way home in the back of a cab when his phone rang. Call from a blocked number. He answered it, and an electronic voice cut him off before he could say a word.
“You were taken into custody,” the Concierge said. “What happened?”
“Hey, uh, they told me—” The pilot fumbled in his pocket, tugging out a folded piece of paper. “They told me to give you a message. I’m supposed to read it word for word.”
Silence. The Concierge was listening. The pilot unfolded the page and read the lines Harmony had written out in neat, tight cursive.
“‘We have no interest in conventional crimes. The only reason you are on our target list, and the only reason we even know you exist, is because of Bobby Diehl. His sloppiness has put you and your entire organization in danger. And if you continue to associate with him, then as soon as we’ve taken him down, we’re coming for you next. Walk away while you still can.’”
The only response was a slow wash of modulated static, the sound of a heavy breath.
Then a click as the line went dead.
* * *
Harmony served out her sentence in the hospital, reading field reports on a tablet in between bouts of being poked, prodded, and pinched. After a few days, they let her walk slow circuits around the ward, getting her legs and her strength back. A few days more and she browbeat the lead physician into signing her all-clear order. She suited up and went back to work.
When she stepped off the elevator, entering the subterranean warren of the Basement, Jessie was overseeing the installation of something new. It was a long rectangle of black obsidian, bolted to the bare wall by the entrance, so that anyone entering or leaving headquarters would have to see it. A torque wrench squealed as a workman drove the last bolt snug into place. Jessie waved Harmony over.
“Just in time,” she said.
“What’s this?” Harmony asked.
“I was thinking about all those years we were under hell’s thumb without knowing it. And it was going on for decades before we came along. Every time somebody figured out the game they’d just wipe everybody out, shut it down, and start over again. Vigilant Lock was, what, the fourth or fifth version of the same scam?”
“Something like that.”
“But now it’s ours. And we’re here to stay. We’re laying down roots, marking our territory. Part of that—the new HQ, the support staff, the mission archives—that’s practical.” She gestured to the wall. “And part of that is honor. Our people don’t get erased, not anymore. Yeah, their files and their stories have to stay locked in a vault, and the world can never know what they did, the debt we all owe, but…but we know. This is to make sure we don’t forget.”
Harmony studied the span of cold obsidian. She looked to Jessie. “It’s a memorial wall.”
Jessie held up a single star, five-pointed, polished gold. She pressed it to the center of the obsidian, near the top. It hung there and shone, a single bright star in an endless night.
“This one’s for Cooper,” Jessie said.
Down the hall, April rolled her chair to the edge of an open doorway.
“They’re ready for you in the briefing room,” she called out.
Harmony and Jessie shared a lingering glance.
“Three people were responsible for Cooper’s murder,” Harmony said. “Dominguez, Cranston, and Bobby Diehl.”
“Two down, one to go,” Jessie said.
Harmony turned to the briefing-room door.
“Let’s get to work.”
Afterword
I’m writing these final lines on the morning of a new moon. I’ve always found new moons a reflective time, a good moment for endings and beginnings. In its way, this book marks a little of both. The transition for the Harmony Black series, moving between publishers, took place at the same moment as a seismic upheaval in Harmony’s world. Nothing could ever be the same, after that. And so I took this manuscript as an opportunity and a challenge, granting me the chance to look at everything I’d done up until now, consider what worked, what didn’t work, and how to come back at the series with a fresh eye.
More than anything, I hope you enjoyed coming on this adventure with me! There’s more action to come, danger just ahead, and a pair of long-overdue reckonings on the horizon…
Special thanks as always to my editor Kira Rubenthaler, who gamely jumped in to take up editing duties on the series. Also thanks to James T. Egan, my cover designer, who brought a new style to the series; to Susannah Jones, whose audiobook narration never fails to bring the fire; and to my assistant, Morgan Blake.
Want to know what’s coming next? Head over to http://www.craigschaeferbooks.com/mailing-list/ and hop onto my mailing list. Once-a-month newsletters, zero spam. Want to reach out? You can find me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/CraigSchaeferBooks, on Twitter at @craig_schaefer, or just drop me an email at craig@craigschaeferbooks.com.
The Harmony Black Series
Harmony Black
Red Knight Falling
Glass Predator
Cold Spectrum
Also by Craig Schaefer
&nb
sp; Sworn to the Night
Ghosts of Gotham
The Long Way Down
The Loot
The Complete Revanche Cycle