When the Devil Drives

by L. J. Hayward

  She went wide right. Jack moved to block and she ducked back to the left. She misjudged her speed relative to Jack’s and the Porsche kicked the Ferrari’s left rear corner. Jack’s world wobbled. The car pushed one way, then slammed back the other as the Porsche careened into its side.

  Oh fuck. This was it. This was how he was going to die. Not in a blazing gun fight or sacrificing himself for his country, but in a hot-pink supercar, spinning wildly out of control. And if he didn’t die now . . . Ethan might kill him for hurting a Ferrari.

  The car slammed to a sudden, hard stop. Airbags exploded, deflating in an instant. Everything went whiteout—vision, sound, reality—then crashed back with sudden jarring impact.

  At least it was all still. It gave him a chance to check things out. Arms attached. Legs where they belonged. Dick shrivelled in sheer terror but present. Then, someone yelling at him, banging on the window of the car. The door was wrenched open and hands were on him, checking all the things he’d already checked. Well, not his dick, but nearly. He managed to answer enough questions to prove he was conscious. When he tried to get out, the cops stopped him. He waited until the fuss had died down and their backs were turned, then hauled himself out of the stupidly low car.

  “Hey, mate, you should probably stay put,” one of them said.

  Jack waved him off. “I’m fine. Where’s the other car?”

  A sergeant motioned with his chin. “Down there.”

  That was when Jack realised they were on a bridge. The railing on the outer edge was mangled, pushed outward, scored with white paint. Jack firmed up his balance and went and looked over the side. All he could see of the Porsche was a faded white blob covered by murky water.

  “Has she come up?” he asked the sergeant.

  “Not that we’ve seen. Rescue team is on its way. Don’t have much hope for the driver, though. The car went over pretty hard.” He cut Jack a sidelong frown. “I’m surprised you’re on your feet.”

  Jack grunted knowing he was going to be feeling it in a couple of hours.

  Things proceeded with the stately gait of government departments. Ambulances and firetrucks arrived. Jack was checked over, given a list of concussion symptoms and then handed back over to the police. By the time they hauled him away to the Southport Watchhouse to be questioned, they hadn’t brought up the Porsche, but a diver had confirmed there was no body inside it. The damage was extensive enough they reasoned she was thrown from the car and now resided in the mud at the bottom of the canal. Jack wanted to believe them, but he held a healthy dose of scepticism.

  They put him in an interview room and left him alone, so he took the chance to call Ethan.

  “Jack? Are you all right? Where are you?” He sounded concerned rather than pissed, which was good.

  “Important things first,” Jack thought to him. “How did you finish?”

  There was a pause, then, “Second.” There was pride and frustration in his tone.

  Jack smiled and be damned anyone who might be watching him, smiling for no apparent reason. “Congrats. That’s brilliant. Who was first? The Lambo?”

  Ethan’s laugh warmed Jack’s chest. “No. The TVR of all things. The Lambo blew out on the third lap, at the hairpin.” His voice lowered until it was a husky rumble. “But the best thing, Jack, was Calhoun. He came fifth. He’s busily blaming the car and his sponsor but I doubt they were the real problem.”

  Smiling was one thing, laughing another, so Jack held it in. “I’m really sorry I missed it. Had a good reason, though.” He outlined the events of his own race.

  Ethan tsked. “That was reckless, Jack. You could have been hurt or killed.”

  “But I wasn’t. Thinking about buying a Ferrari though.”

  Ethan snorted. “I don’t know about buying one but you’ll have to pay Katie and Vicky back for theirs, at least.”

  Before Jack could retort, the door opened and the sergeant he’d been talking to at the scene came in, followed by Aaron. The younger cop was in jeans and a T-shirt, obviously off duty when Jack had called him. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, expression neutral.

  “Mr. Reardon,” the sergeant said, sitting opposite him. “Just got off the blower with John Axworthy at the International Security Office. He’s a pleasant man.”

  Jack winced at the dryness of the sergeant’s tone. Axworthy, Jack’s “boss” in his cover job, was a generally disagreeable man. His attitude had some merit seeing as the vast majority of his security personnel weren’t his to use. Most of them, like Jack and Harry, actually worked for the Office. In situations like this Director Donna McIntosh, his true boss, would always be appraised of the situation and if she decided it was required, would override Axworthy’s authority. Until McIntosh intervened, Jack had to deal with Axwothy’s bitterness.

  “His weekends are precious to him,” Jack said apologetically.

  The sergeant snorted. “Mine are too, son, so maybe you don’t ask for any more weekends off in the near future, eh?”

  Aware that Ethan could actually hear everything, Jack said, “I’ll do my best. Have you discovered anything more yet?”

  “Actually, the diver brought up a knapsack. Found a couple of handguns, wigs, contacts, three driver’s licences with different names. And this . . .” He set a clear plastic bag on the table between them. Inside was a water damaged photo but the image was still clear. “We believe he was her target. Constable Stewart here IDed him as your friend, the Aston Martin driver.”

  Inside Jack’s head, Ethan sucked in a sharp breath.

  To confirm it for him, Jack said, “That’s him. Roy Carter.” To Ethan, he thought, “Go. Get out of the country. I’ll take care of this here.”

  “Jack—”

  “Do it. Go!”

  Meanwhile, the sergeant was asking if Jack knew why Roy would be targeted. Jack played the ISO card to hold him off, saying he would need to confer with his superiors before answering. Against the wall, Aaron was looking more and more confused, trying to reconcile what he’d witnessed of Nish and Roy the day before—a couple—with what he was learning now—an agent protecting his ward.

  “Already on my way,” Ethan said in the mix. “Don’t worry about the attempt on me. I’ll sort out it out, one way or another. Goodbye, Jack.”

  Jack didn’t even get a chance to say it back, distracted by the sergeant demanding more information. In the end, McIntosh did intervene, backing up Jack’s “need to know, and you don’t need to know” stance.

  Finally, he was released and after another argument, with a detective this time, watched the interview with Todd Calhoun. It was clear right from the outset that he had no clue about who the woman had been. He just knew her as a liaison between him and his sponsor for the race. The sponsor later confirmed that he’d only hired the woman the week before. It also became clear that he had no connection to what had occurred, or knowledge of her ulterior motive for being involved in the race.

  With no one to chase, Jack left the locals to continue their investigations—watched closely by the Office—and went back to the Q1. The room was booked for a second night, but all evidence of Ethan ever having been there was gone.

  Feeling uncomfortably alone, Jack stayed the night, awake until dawn, in case the female assassin had survived and decided to come after Ethan again. She didn’t.

  In the morning, Jack fetched Victoria from the racetrack and drove a couple of hours south before stopping. He got a motel room, slept, then drove the rest of the way home in the dark.

  Aching from the crash and tired from the long drive, Jack went to a debrief in the Office early Tuesday morning. McIntosh kept quiet during the meeting, leaving all the questions up to Director Alex Tan, who was more fascinated with the idea of a ticket being put on an assassin than with chastising Jack for his actions.

  That afternoon, Jack poured over the current John Smith List—a ranking of all known active assassins across the globe—trying to match descriptions with the woman he’d chase
d. Nothing fitted, which didn’t mean much. She might be new enough to have no confirmed hits, or she was good enough she’d never been seen. Jack guessed the former. Jack made a new entry into the auxiliary list under the moniker “Porsche.” If she surfaced anywhere else, he would know about it.

  Eighteen days later, the Office got word of the assassination of a distant member of the Liechtenstein royal family. She was found shot between the eyes from close range, a note on her body saying, “This is what revenge looks like—EB13.” It was not confirmed as an Ethan Blade kill, nor did anyone from the Office find out who could have wanted revenge on the duchess, but Jack knew this was Ethan sorting out the attempt on his life.

  What he didn’t know was when, or if, he’d see Ethan again.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Are you sure about this, Jack?” Director Donna McIntosh asked.

  In recent times, McIntosh had taken to wearing a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses when she was reading her screen. Right now, she looked at him over the top of them and her expressive blue eyes were calm, betraying no ulterior motive behind the question.

  “Absolutely certain, ma’am.” It sounded good. Firm and steady. He made sure he kept eye contact, showing her nothing but seriousness.

  After a long moment, McIntosh looked back at the screen in front of her. “There’s nothing in the job parameters from ETA that allows for this level of surveillance. Tier Two only.”

  An External Threat Assessment Tier Two surveillance meant a passive watch—a phone tap fed into a program looking for key words and phrases, scanning for the subject near high-risk targets and no active following or interaction. Delta Subject was strictly hands-off at the moment. It was a low-level job, something a tech could handle in between other, more important tasks.

  Jack’s irritation at being handed such an unimportant responsibility sharpened. It turned the dull throb in his temples into a definite pounding. For three months he and his small team—Harry and a rotating shift of techs—had been wasting their time on Delta Subject. Jack was going crazy listening to the few phone conversations that had been flagged and running background checks on the young Indonesian national’s contacts. He had never been so embarrassed as when he gave the unit leader his report—lists of unremarkable phone calls and a map showing random, scattered points of travel. If Delta Subject was a terrorist, then Jack would eat his shoe.

  If McIntosh authorised this small breach of protocol, he could end this farce. He just needed some solid evidence, something to prove he was right about Delta Subject, then he could move on to bigger things.

  To that end, he’d used the phone call to an address in Mount Lewis, a problematic suburb adjacent to Bankstown and Punchbowl, places with less than stellar reputations. The phone conversation, confirming the address of a meet-up, was the most suspicious move Delta Subject had made to date and Jack hoped it was enough to warrant McIntosh granting him permission to follow it. There was no chance she didn’t see it for what it really was, a desperate plea to do something active, something to prove without a doubt that Delta Subject wasn’t a threat.

  Finally, McIntosh nodded. “I think I can trust your instincts on this one. You have a go.”

  That had been seven hours earlier, when Jack’s headache had been just a headache.

  Over the ensuing ride to Mount Lewis and while monitoring Delta Subject’s clandestine meeting, which took place in a surprisingly well cared for old commission house, the headache failed to submit to either paracetamol or ibuprofen. Harry assuring him mixing the two different drugs was what caused the subsequent neck and back pain started a Google war in the back of the surveillance car while their current tech, Scott Lockwood, watched the house.

  When Delta Subject left the residence with a bulging bag he definitely hadn’t arrived with, Jack was croaking out orders through a sore throat and Harry was looking through their cases of equipment for a surgical mask. Scott’s assertion that it wouldn’t actually stop airborne viruses began another Google search, which ended with a hasty stop at a convenience store for some disinfectant spray, throat lozenges and a big box of tissues.

  Waving aside the suggestions he should go home and rest, Jack insisted he had to see this through. It was his hunch, his job, his responsibility—his fault if it all turned out to be nothing. A sore throat and a few sneezes weren’t going to get in the way. He was, however, quarantined in the back of the 4WD with his tissues and quickly diminishing supply of medicines while they followed Delta Subject across Sydney to an apartment building in Paddington.

  Harry insisted Jack stay in the car while he trailed Delta Subject on foot inside the building. Over the next hour, Jack’s second reported more than a dozen people coming and going from the apartment, most of them known associates of their subject and often carrying large bags. From there, with a group of four other men, Delta Subject moved on to his next location.

  When Scott pulled the 4WD into a loading zone on Oxford Street, Jack at last felt vindicated. This was where he’d believed they’d always end up with Delta Subject, not that anyone else had ever seemed to trust his judgements. Boyed by the small success, Jack wouldn’t let Harry or Scott talk him out of being the one to track their quarry on foot this time. In the end, the only way he could get Harry to let him go was by agreeing to change shirts with him.

  “Why?” Jack demanded but already unbuttoning his blue-and-white-checked shirt. Normally, he would have dressed much more casually while trailing a subject, but he’d wanted to impress McIntosh with his professionalism in order to get the go ahead.

  “Because you look like a try-hard in that shirt.” Harry’s smirk disappeared for a moment as he pulled off his old T-shirt. When it reappeared, it was more of a leer. “And this will be ironic.”

  Borrowed shirt on, Jack left the others in the car to continue monitoring Delta Subject electronically and headed into the nightclub.

  His renewed enthusiasm for his hunch was sorely tested when he got inside. The lights bored into his sensitive eyes and the music pounded against his aching head. Overheated bodies pressed against him, hands groping as young and not so young men tried to talk to him, yelling to be heard over everyone else.

  Hot and sore and tired beyond all pretence at patience, Jack pushed through the writhing crowd. He wanted to find the dark corners, a secluded place he could watch from: somewhere he could find a wall to rest his aching bones against while he finally got the definitive proof he needed.

  He spotted a corner with good angles and headed for it, his body feeling like it might fall apart before he got there. Then the music cut out and a bright spotlight speared the smoky shadows, highlighting a circle of red velvet curtain hanging across a small stage. Jack flinched, the throbbing in his head spiking, the white light cutting through him like a knife.

  “Gentlemen and . . . gentlemen,” a voice purred over the sound system, eliciting a cheer from the masses. “We have a special treat for you all tonight. A newcomer to Slayed, we just know you’re going to love her all the same. Please welcome to the stage in her first ever performance . . . Dixie Normous!”

  The crowd erupted in screams and claps. Shoulders hunching to protect his vulnerable head from the piercing whistles, Jack made another push for the corner. Then the curtains swept back to either side, revealing Dixie Normous. Jack barely got a glimpse of the silver dress that caught the spotlight and shattered it into a rainbow of colours, the coiffed wig of pink hair, the split in the skirt that showed of a length of silky-smooth leg, before a hand landed on his shoulder. It clamped down and spun him around.

  “Spot check,” a gruff voice rumbled a second before more hands grabbed Jack’s arms, holding him in place while the speaker initiated an unnecessarily rough pat down.

  Somewhere in his head, Jack knew this was club policy to crack down on drug use, but right then and there, all he knew was threat, attack, defend. Even as he went down under two huge bouncers, punching and kicking futilely, Dixie’s light-brown face framed in pi
nk, dark eyes circled in glitter and lips painted blood red, caught his eye. Then a meaty fist connected with his jaw and that was all Jack knew until he woke up somewhere quieter, cooler, and still too bright. He was alone in some sort of office, probably still at the club, judging by the faint drone of music coming through the door. Thankfully, he wasn’t there for long before Harry and Scott sneaked in and extracted him.

  By the time they got him home, Jack was alternating between bone-wracking shivers and take-all-his-clothes-off fevers. He was huddling into his leather jacket, supported by a complaining Harry, when they arrived at his front door. Scott fumbled through Jack’s keys, looking for the right ones while Jack tried to help and only succeeded in dropping the keys a total of three times. Finally, the door was opened and, fending off his colleagues’ warily offered help in getting into bed, Jack closed the door in their faces and entered his code into the security system.

  What a complete train wreck. A routine tail, an unsuspecting subject and a fully trained team. How had it gone so spectacularly wrong? Sure, at the time his brain had felt like it was both contracting and expanding and some bastard had attached weights to his arms and legs, but that wasn’t an excuse.

  Which left him one option. Now he was home, without Harry nagging him and Scott grumbling about appropriate protocols, Jack would be able to access his implant and use its assistance to analyse the whole operation. The mere thought of performing an in-depth cognitive model while battling some bug made him want to sink to the floor then and there and just sleep until all his problems vanished, but McIntosh had gone out on a limb for him on this one. She’d sidestepped Tan’s authority and let Jack follow his wild hunch. If it turned out to be nothing but a monumental fuck-up then it wouldn’t just be Jack’s neck on the line. He had to salvage something from the whole mess.