Partly because Gerda didn’t know the exact purpose of her surveillance and partly to amuse herself, she filled her texts with the minutiae of Harper McDaniel’s days. Her purchases of oranges and bananas, bread and cheese, the improvement in her injured leg, the weather, descriptions of the hotel where McDaniel was staying. Better to err on the side of excess than risk demerits.
Gerda was well aware that Albion had recently become besotted by her. The way his lips parted in her presence, the manner in which he tracked her with his pining eyes, the way he grew tongue-tied and even clumsier than usual when Gerda lingered nearby. She’d had that effect on men before and knew the symptoms well.
Though she found the man physically repellent and emotionally juvenile, she had not rebuffed his graceless flirtations. Given the precarious nature of her new career, she understood that someday she might need to exploit his affection for her.
While it made her shudder to consider the possibility, someday she might even need to admit the pitiful man into her bed.
Lester Albion was watching the video again. How many times had it been? A hundred? A thousand? No way to count. He had to admit this had become a compulsion. The last thing he did before he fell asleep, the first thing come daylight, and sometimes even in the depths of night, when he’d pad over to his computer and watch it again. He couldn’t stop. He knew he should. He knew he was spending far too much time on this, but he simply could not find the will to cease.
Over the years, he’d met the girl at the office dozens of times and always found her intriguing, but it was not until Albion’s divorce was finalized last spring that, in his lonesome state, he had begun to fantasize about a desirable new mate and thought of her again.
In an offhand remark, he’d mentioned the girl to Larissa Bixel, and that must have been what prompted her to show him the video that first time.
He and Bixel watched it together in her office, Albion mesmerized by the girl’s extraordinary physical gifts, her grace, her power.
“I’m very proud of the young lady,” Bixel said that day.
“As well you should be. She’s quite a marvel.”
In the months since, as his obsession grew, Albion had become unfocused. More and more, he was neglecting his business affairs, deserting Bonnie, his eight-year-old daughter, avoiding human contact except what was absolutely necessary to run his global empire, Albion International. He had grown deeply bored with business: trading and shipping agricultural commodities from vegetable oils to candies, chocolate, potash, and phosphate. He had lost his zeal.
This secret folly was all consuming: a video, less than five minutes in length, poor quality, poor camera work. But he could find nothing else of the girl’s early days posted anywhere. Though there were many online videos of her later athletic triumphs, and Albion found most of those captivating, none could rival the video of her when she was only eleven years old.
Wearing black tights spangled with red glitter, she walked solemnly onto the mat, bowed at the applause, then started her routine. Already, her body was more mature than those of her elfin competitors.
She gathered herself, then sprinted across the mat, leaped high in the air, and hung there for several impossible seconds, legs extended into a split. Beautiful legs, muscled and achingly long. Back on the mat, with toes pointed, she kicked up high, she twirled, she aimed one leg straight up into the air, a standing split, and spun around as fast as an ice skater on the toes of her planted foot. She did somersaults, layouts, cartwheels, vaults, and flips, pirouetting from one corner of the mat to the other.
Though it seemed a nearly impossible feat, all the while as she spiraled and danced, she also lashed and swirled a glittery red ribbon behind her. Holding the control wand in one hand, she formed figure eights in the air, made hoops that she jumped through, cyclones of color and strange and fleeting hieroglyphics, then whipped the ribbon in circles around herself so it enclosed her firm body like a chrysalis, capturing her flesh within its dazzling spin, until she broke free of the crimson cocoon and flung the wand into the air, backflipped twice and caught the plummeting wand behind her back and twirled the ribbon into eddies of undulating patterns like gentle ocean waves.
Each time he watched the video, Lester Albion was awestruck, lost in a starry-eyed, blissful trance, his heart overflowing. Once he started, he never failed to watch it through to the end, to her last leap, her proud final stance, her triumphant wave and kiss to the crowd. A single arm raised in joyous victory. And his own heart clenched and soared as it never had before. No love, no lust, nothing he’d ever felt even approached this delicious rapture.
Watching it and watching it again further fortified his resolve. Goddamn it all, before he made an overture to the object of his longing, Lester Albion was hell-bent on remaking himself into a man truly worthy of this astonishing girl.
FOUR
Hotel Monaco, Washington, DC
Adrian Naff was seated at the bar at the Dirty Habit, a flashy glass-and-chrome affair inside the Kimpton Hotel Monaco, waiting for an old colleague from his special-ops days in Islamabad and Cairo.
For the last half hour Naff had been keeping his head down, taking occasional sips of his Jim Beam on the rocks, shooting stealthy glances into the bar mirror to survey the room behind him. He wore a baseball cap pulled low and aviator sunglasses, a minimal disguise, probably an unnecessary precaution. He’d been out of the army and the private-ops business for years. Highly unlikely he’d bump into one of the old gang. But with all the ex-mercenaries running around in three-piece suits, this town always made him jumpy.
For the last week he’d been in DC and was headed back to Zurich in the morning. Seven days tagging behind Larissa Bixel, acting as her private muscle, with Bixel constantly showing off Adrian to the fawning K Street lobbyists she consorted with. Giving Adrian endless step-and-fetch-it chores to impress her subordinates.
These lobbyists were the highly paid, elegantly tailored men and women who lubricated the wheels of the government on behalf of the investment-and-commodities-trading wing of Albion’s global empire. Albion International, Adrian had learned, was far more than an agribusiness. Food products and agricultural supplies were only the public face of the company. The investment shop was the hidden gold mine.
He wasn’t privy to the content of Bixel’s meetings, and she hadn’t confided details, but from stray remarks Adrian overheard in elevators and hallways during this DC trip, Bixel was troubled about a bill working its way through Congress that would create stricter SEC oversight of dark pools.
Dark pools, Adrian learned from an internet search, were private financial exchanges that allowed large institutional investors like Albion International to buy and sell high volumes of securities with complete anonymity. Though it seemed slimy as hell to Adrian, all of it was perfectly legal. And Bixel was doing her part to keep it that way.
He took another taste of his booze. The glass was still at his lips when the tap on his shoulder jerked him upright, and he spattered half his drink on the bar.
“Whoa there, Naff. Wound pretty tight, aren’t we?”
Lavonne Jones drew out the stool next to him and settled in. She was a stately six-footer with the broad shoulders of a long-distance swimmer, gleaming caramel skin tone, and cinnamon-brown eyes that Adrian had always found fetching. She was wearing her black hair long and wavy today. If it was a wig, it was a classy one.
The bouncy, red-haired bartender wiped up the spill and asked Lavonne what she’d be having, giving Adrian yet another quick smile.
Lavonne reached over and dabbed a fingertip in the remains of Adrian’s drink, licked it, and frowned.
“What is that, Old Crow?”
“Beam,” Adrian said.
“Bring us two Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve 20 Year.”
“Your friend has taste,” the bartender said and winked supportively at Adrian as if Lavonne might be out of his league.
“You staying here, this posh hotel?”
>
“No, I just like the bar. I’m down the street.”
“Looking good, Adrian, very prosperous. Working for Lester Albion has its perks, I suppose.”
He took off his sunglasses and set them aside.
“I’m surviving.”
“Word is, Albion’s gotten paranoid.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Is it true?”
“Your intel’s pretty good. Last month he had my tech guys install keystroke-logging software on the entire network. Phones, computers, he’s snooping on everything. Packet sniffers, the whole nine yards. These days, you want to send a secure comm, you write a letter and lick your own stamp.”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t fired your ass yet.”
“I may have been demoted, but no, he hasn’t cut me loose.”
“Demoted, meaning you’re not all buddy-buddy anymore?”
“After last year’s legal issues, guy doesn’t know who to trust.”
“Does he have reason to mistrust you in particular?”
“I believe he still considers me a loyal employee.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Their drinks arrived. Adrian had a sip and cocked an eyebrow.
“Wow.”
“A couple more sips, Naff, you’ll never go back to the rotgut.”
“How’d you know I was in town?”
“Smart security professional like yourself, I think you’d figure that out without my help.”
“You’re tracking Albion’s people worldwide, waiting for somebody to slip up, so you can nail him. Customs flagged us when we came into Dulles, sent you a heads-up.”
“See, I knew you could do it.”
Naff took a larger bite of the bourbon, felt the golden warmth spreading through his chest, a lush buzz. He set the glass down. He didn’t usually drink the hard stuff. More of a draft-beer guy. But he was finished with his most recent tour of duty and ready to relax. No more meeting rooms to stand guard over. He and Bixel would be on the Gulfstream G650 back to Zurich in the morning. This was his first night off in weeks.
“So are you still taking Albion to the range for shooting lessons?”
“He’s moved on. He’s into weightlifting now. Trying to bulk up.”
“You’re kidding. That little bantam rooster?”
“This is why you got in touch, ask about his latest hobbies?”
“You know exactly why we’re having this talk, Adrian.”
“So tell me something, Lavonne. Have you ever informed Harper that you and I were hunkered down in the same trench more than once?”
“Never been any need to go into that.”
“So what is she to you, an old friend? You doing her a personal favor helping her go after Albion? Somehow I don’t think it’s that.”
Lavonne smiled and took a sip of her drink, rattled the cubes, held the liquid up to the light as if evaluating its hue.
“I must be getting warm.”
“The reason I wanted to see you,” she said, “is because I understand you gave Harper a bit of a clue where she might go looking in her quest for justice.”
“I may have intimated something a while back.”
“Olive oil, Puglia. Do I have that right?”
Adrian looked around the bar. The hum of the happy-hour crowd was thickening, the clink of dishes, conversational volume rising, waiters upshifting to high gear. Nobody was eavesdropping on the guy in the baseball cap chatting up the elegant African American woman in the dark business suit.
“I believe I said something to that effect.”
“So you sent her on a wild-goose chase? Or do you expect me to believe you’re trying to bring Albion down?”
“Come on, Lavonne. You’re not sure which side I’m on?”
“You’re security chief for the whole damned corporation, but you’re giving a woman who wants to destroy your employer a treasure map to help her do just that. I find that odd, Adrian, and yes, I’m trying to fathom whose side you’re on.”
She reached into the inside breast pocket of her jacket and came out with a photograph and laid it on the bar between them.
Adrian looked down at it. Six-year-old Julie Marie Douglas in her wheelchair on another sunny day in Phoenix. Her thick glasses flared in the brightness. She was cradling the floppy-eared hound dog he’d sent her two birthdays ago. She’d named it Benny the Beagle.
“She’s always got that dog with her,” Lavonne said. “Hardly ever puts it down.”
Adrian looked at Lavonne, the rising anger constricting his throat.
“She’s doing okay,” Lavonne said. “Those meds are helping.”
“Did your people bother her or Shelly?”
“We kept our distance.”
“Fucking around in my private life, Lavonne? Why?”
“You know how it works. Yeah, we worked together a ways back, and personally, I like you fine. But I need to know what your motives are. If you’re friend or foe. Why you’d keep working for Albion on the one hand and toss Harper a bone on the other. Having a sick daughter in Phoenix, that might shed some light.”
Adrian sighed.
“Because I have a sick daughter now you trust me?”
“I assume it’s why you stay with Albion. Fat paycheck, a big chunk of it wired to Phoenix every month. Except a guy with your background, your skills, you could find good work somewhere else.”
“Check the job market lately, Lavonne? These endless wars are churning out lots of guys with my credentials.”
“You could come work for me.”
Adrian looked into her brown eyes. She sounded serious. But with Lavonne you never knew. A pro like her could con a Vegas card shark.
“Though I couldn’t offer you what Albion is paying.”
“I’ve grown fond of the private sector. Less red tape.”
“So you keep working for a guy you know is dirty as hell, then maybe to ease your moral discomfort, you feed Harper info to undermine the guy. Do I have that right?”
Adrian tapped the edge of the photograph.
“I’m not married to Shelly. She was in the 101st in Kabul. We did time over there, foxhole romance, that’s all.”
“Fourth Brigade Combat Team, I know about those ladies. Tough chicas.”
“Shelly’s definitely tough.”
“So you’re not married, got no legal responsibility to pay the kid’s bills. But you do it anyway. An honorable guy.”
“Okay, let’s say I’m staying with Albion for the paycheck. But my helping Harper, that’s something else.”
“You’re hoping someday she’ll fall for you. Sail off together into a perfect sunset.”
Naff took another sip of his drink, kept his eyes from her.
“Adrian, get real. The woman’s still grieving. She lost her husband and child less than a year ago. We know for a fact your boss murdered them, then managed to evade prosecution. You head up security for the asshole killer. This isn’t a match made in heaven.”
“That why you’re here? To warn me off?”
“What’s in Puglia? I know Albion’s been buying up thousands of acres along the seashore, olive groves. Is that what we’re talking about?”
“You tell me something first. Is she working for you, for DCS? You got Harper on the payroll? It’s only fair I should know what I’m dealing with.”
“Puglia, Adrian. That’s what we’re talking about.”
“Maybe that’s what you’re talking about.”
“So I assume you didn’t really know anything incriminating? Sent Harper off on a fool’s errand. You bullshitted the woman?”
Adrian mulled it for a moment, eyes on the mirror, watching the action behind them. He had another taste of the bourbon and set it down.
“Okay, look, I’m going to tell you what I know, not because of your threats or clever interrogation techniques, but because I’m worried.”
“About what?”
“What Harper’s getting into.”
“Talk to me.”
He told her the little he knew. Last winter, when Albion’s second-in-command, Larissa Bixel, came to Adrian for the names of a few reliable operatives who’d be willing to handle a couple of dodgy missions, Adrian had supplied a list of men he’d worked with as a military contractor. Guys long on courage and short on morals.
Lavonne sipped her bourbon and listened.
“One of the jobs was in Africa, that one you know about already, the chocolate thing. But Bixel also wanted a specialist for an operation in Italy, in Puglia.”
“What kind of specialist?”
“Basically, the same skills as the other job—a guy with a military background, weapons training, usual job description, but also something extra.”
“Which was?”
“Biology.”
“You be more specific?”
“That’s as specific as Bixel got. Guy with a military background who’d seen action plus knew his way around a biology lab.”
“This is the man she wanted to send to Puglia?”
“Yeah. If he happened to know anything about olive trees, so much the better. But that wasn’t required.”
“Okay.”
“I knew somebody that fit the general description. Guy I knew from Iraq, a SEAL, he ran a special-ops team out of Mosul for a while. Search and destroy. He was very good at destroying.”
“And the biology part?”
“The guy was in his twenties, halfway through med school when the fuckers brought down the twin towers. Turned patriotic, dropped out of school, made it through SEAL hell, winds up in Iraq looking through night-vision goggles for three tours. Calling in bombing runs.”
“You gave this guy to Bixel for an errand?”
“They like ex-military for their dirty work. Never know when combat skills will come in handy.”
“So this guy went to Italy?”
“No. He met with Bixel, heard her pitch, turned her down.”
“I see.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“Help me. What’s this hero’s name?”
“I could tell you, but it wouldn’t do any good.”
When You Can't Stop (Harper McDaniel Book 2) Page 3
