Do or Die Reluctant Heroes

by Unknown

  “My electronic car key,” she tried to explain, “went into the pool. I don’t know if it’s waterproof—if it’ll still work to start the car.”

  That was where they were going, right? Out the front door to where her car was waiting?

  But Dunn didn’t open the front door. Instead he said, “It’s okay,” as he scrambled up to his knees and opened the door to a closet that was perpendicular to the front entrance. He pushed aside a pair of slickers—one bright yellow and the other fire-engine red.

  “Come on,” he said, looking right at her, reaching out to grab her hand, as if he wanted her to … go into that closet …?

  It was then that Aaron came thundering down the stairs as, simultaneously, the living room window shattered, shot out by gunmen who were apparently also out front, in the street.

  There was no going out the front door—it was clear they were fully surrounded—and Phoebe let herself get pushed by Dunn into the closet, even as Aaron dove the rest of the way down the stairs. Dunn caught his brother and all but tossed him through the closet door, too. Aaron then pushed Phoebe even farther in, and she stumbled over boots and at least two pairs of baseball cleats and part of a fishing pole before she realized that this wasn’t just your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill coat closet where they were going to huddle in fear before being executed by the mob.

  Instead, there was a door—a small door that she had to duck down to go through—that led into a room.

  And yes. This house that Ian Dunn had bought a year ago to keep his brother safe had a panic room.

  Martell became aware of the tail about halfway to the designated safe house-slash-motel.

  The car behind him was nondescript—a white four-door sedan with Florida plates.

  Whoever was following him was doing a piss-poor job of it, clumsily staying directly on his ass instead of keeping several car lengths between them. They raced to keep up through yellow traffic lights and cut off other cars so that horns blared.

  Martell would’ve had to have been dead not to notice.

  He tested his theory, pulling last minute into a left turn lane, and the white car followed.

  He drove through a drugstore parking lot, and the white car followed.

  He went full around a block: right turn, right turn, right turn, right turn. And the white car followed.

  He slowed way down, looking hard into his rearview mirror. Martell couldn’t tell if the driver was a man or a woman because a hat was pulled way down, its brim hiding his or her shady face.

  Martell again called the number that his FBI contact had given him, but again, it simply stopped ringing and disconnected.

  His choices were simple. Work to lose the tail—which he could easily do, considering his/her tailing skill level was zero point zero zero one. Or he could stop in a well-populated public location and get up in the other driver’s grill. Literally.

  There was a busy Mickey D’s on the corner with a police car sitting in the drive-through, so Martell pulled in—and the white car vanished. Just like that, it ghosted and was gone.

  Well, okay then.

  That was a third option. Scare the guy away.

  His stomach rumbled loudly, and he wasn’t one to take a sign from God for granted, so he parked in order to go inside and grab a burger. The line at the counter wasn’t long, plus it was time to try calling Phoebe’s various phones again.

  Her cell rang, but it went to voice mail, so he left another message—“Checking in, hope you’re okay, call me”—then did the same on her home phone as he got a double cheeseburger and fries to go.

  It was all of three and a half minutes by the time he’d paid and was carrying his bag of heart attack out the door. But as he stepped into the sunlit warmth of the afternoon, he’d already gone all Princess Bride inside his head. He’d taken a Wally Shawn–inspired path in which he’d started wondering if the driver of the white car only wanted Martell to think that said driver’s tailing skills were inept. What if, in fact, the driver of the white car had a double-oh-seven level of tailing abilities? Except now Martell would act all free and clear, and unwittingly lead the way to the motel safe house, since the white car obviously wasn’t on his ass. Meanwhile the white car’s driver had gone all super-stealth, except Martell would never know it, because he’d focus all of his energy on watching for a badly hidden white sedan.

  Although … what if the driver of the white car wanted Martell to figure all that out, therefore thinking dude had mad tailing skills so that Martell then intentionally stayed away from the help that he’d receive by going to the motel safe house …?

  Or what if—

  “Keys to the car. Hand ’em over.” The voice was low and gruff, but definitely female.

  She had one hand on his shoulder as something hard and cold and metal jabbed into his side. A gun barrel? Yes, that was definitely a weapon of some kind poking him in his ribs.

  He glanced over his shoulder, but she was shorter than he was, so he only saw the top of her head. Which had that hat on it.

  He also saw skin. Pale skin. Shoulders and boob-tops, complete with cleavage. Whoever she was, she was wearing an outfit that was strapless, black, and skin tight, like she was some kinda comic book villain or maybe a Bond girl.

  She took the opportunity to give him a flash of her weapon—a small but deadly little .22 caliber—as she fired off more orders: “Don’t turn around again. Don’t stop walking. Just hand me your keys and get into your car, behind the wheel.”

  He looked over at that police cruiser. It was just pulling out of the other side of the fast food restaurant’s driveway, and she jabbed him again. “Nice, but don’t even think about it. Keys, Martell. Now.”

  She knew his name. That couldn’t be good.

  He got a glimpse of straight jet-black hair hanging lankly past a smooth, pale chin, a mouth darkened with purple or maybe even black lipstick—goth-ish—as he handed his keys over. A little weapon like the one she was holding lost a large percentage of its danger value when it wasn’t at a supremely close range. So his plan was to run like hell back toward the restaurant after she took it away from his ribs, as she went around the back of the car to climb into the passenger’s side.

  Martell felt his adrenaline surge as he waited, as he mentally prepped for the coming sprint.

  She used the key fob to double-pop the locks, which opened all of the doors, not just the driver’s. “Open it,” she ordered, so he did.

  “Sit.”

  Son of a bitch. He did that too, slowly, knowing it would be that much harder to break into a sprint from this position, but then she made it yet harder by closing the door for him.

  Before he could properly Plan-B it—she had the keys, so hitting the lock button and securing the doors wouldn’t help—she opened the back and climbed in directly behind him.

  “My weapon is still on you,” she announced. “And I know you know it’s got a small caliber, but at this range, even fired through the seat back, it has the power to sever your spinal cord. So don’t do anything stupid. Just drive. Slow and steady.” She dropped the keys over his shoulder and into his lap.

  Martell fumbled them, finally got them into the ignition and put the car into reverse, his mind whirling as he tried to work out a new plan. Plan C. Get out of the car. He had to get out of the car. As he pulled out of the parking lot, he took a left on the side street, heading away from the busy traffic and higher speeds of Route 41. He caught sight of her car—that white sedan—parked at the far end of the McDonald’s lot. He was stupid to have missed seeing it, coming out of the restaurant. But okay. He knew this neighborhood and he was going to get away. The residential streets were in a grid, all with intersections that had four-way stops. He would not be able to get up much speed—which would allow him to dive-roll out of the car when he got the chance and …

  As he slowed toward the first stop sign, he realized that she was no longer holding her weapon on him. She must’ve put it down because she was
using both hands to adjust the control buttons on something she’d gotten out of the leather messenger bag she wore, its wide black leather strap across her black-leather-bustier clad chest.

  She was muscular—her arms and shoulders were well defined, but she was lean. Like a long-distance runner or a triathlete—except she must’ve worked out on a treadmill in a basement gym. Her smooth skin was nearly neon white. Plus, she must’ve been wearing some kind of extra-padded Wonderbra to have that mega-cleavage, boobs-on-a-plate effect. In fact, she was in serious danger of a nipple pop, because the dominatrix-style strapless top she was wearing was cut so low.

  The whole look would’ve been hot if she hadn’t just threatened to sever his spine.

  But it was then that something registered. Some faint whisper of recognition even before she looked up at him, meeting his gaze in the mirror, even before she said—in a voice that was now remarkably businesslike and matter-of-fact, “It’s okay. We’re clear. We can talk. Good job playing along, by the way. But keep driving now. Let’s make sure no one’s following us.”

  That thing she’d taken out of her bag? It looked like some kind of bug sweeper—some kind of device that could seek out and find any electronic surveillance devices. What the hell …?

  As Martell braked for the stop sign, he looked back at her again. And she must have seen the massive confusion in his eyes, because she said, “It’s me. Deb.”

  Deb? Did he know any Debs? He flipped through his mental file of the women in his life, and he came up Deb-less. No Debbies or Deborahs either.

  She took off her hat, as if that might help. But all that did was reveal more of that obviously dyed-black goth-girl hair. Chin length, stringy, and mussed from the heat plus the hat, she had almost ridiculously short bangs that framed her pale, narrow face. It was hard to tell the color of her eyes because she wore so much dark black eyeliner around them.

  And okay. It was hard to tell the color of her eyes because his own gaze kept slipping down toward that impending costume malfunction.

  He knew her, he knew her—how the hell did he know her …?

  “Deb Erlanger,” she clarified, adding, “I work with Jules Cassidy?”

  Aha. The invisible lightbulb over his head clicked on. Deb Erlanger, FBI Agent. Whom, to be fair, he’d met only a few times. Who worked directly for his evil government overlord.

  “Drive,” Deb said, but this time it wasn’t an order as much as it was a strongly implored request.

  He put his foot on the gas, glancing again in the mirror.

  The Deb he’d met in the past had been almost invisible. She had light brown hair that she mostly wore pulled back into a ponytail, baseball cap shading her perpetually makeup-free face, sneakers on her feet. Her standard uniform had been jeans and a T-shirt, with a light jacket to cover her shoulder holster. She was tough and efficient and dedicated to her job.

  Martell had never, not even once, been tempted to imagine himself doing the hot-and-nasty with her.

  Until today.

  The whole goth thing usually scared him, but today it was a good kind of scary. Still, he knew that he’d have plenty of time to relive his fear and ponder a few fantasies—later.

  Right now, he forklifted his mind out of the gutter. “What’s going on?” he asked, admitting, “I seriously didn’t recognize you.”

  “Yeah, the disguise went a little extreme. When I think disguise, I think inconspicuous.” Exasperation tinged her voice as she climbed over the seat, moving into the front. He forced himself to keep his eyes on the road as the bustier fail he’d been predicting actually happened, times two, and she had to tuck herself back in.

  “God, I need a shirt,” she muttered. “You don’t happen to have …?”

  “Sorry.” Martell shook his head, trying to sound sincere. “You’d fit right in over at the Ringling School of Design.”

  “That’s what Yashi said.” She gestured to her outfit. “This is his doing—Joe Hirabayashi, he works with me. This is his getting back at me for an assignment where he had to wear a kilt. Like it was my fault I’m not a man. I couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t have worked. Put me in a kilt, I’m a Catholic school-girl.”

  Martell could picture that quite clearly, too, which was not okay. “What’s going on?” he asked again.

  “I should be asking you that,” Deb countered. “You’re supposed to have Ian Dunn with you. And, apparently, some lawyer named Phoebe Kruger? What happened?”

  “They, uh, decided to ride separately,” Martell said.

  “They ditched you,” she correctly interpreted.

  “Pretty much.”

  She sighed—a much larger sigh than her FBI boss would’ve allowed himself. “Well, that’s just great. So what’s your plan?”

  “Go to the safe house and wait for contact—which I no longer have to do, since you’ve made contact. Hope Phoebe calls me back soon …?”

  She looked at his Mickey D’s bag. “Eat a little lunch?”

  “That, too. Although after being scared shitless, it’s gonna take time before my digestive system kicks back in.”

  “Sorry.” She was about as sorry as he was that he didn’t have a spare shirt in the car. “I had to make sure your vehicle wasn’t bugged and, well, I was supposed to intercept you before you took Dunn to the motel—because it’s not safe anymore. There’s been a leak in the department, somewhere—not necessarily having anything to do with this assignment, but there’s definitely been a system-wide security breach, so we’re being extra cautious with all our covert ops, across the board. The contact number that you were given has been changed. Everything’s been changed.”

  “Including your need to recruit Dunn to rescue those kids?” Martell asked, unable to hide his hope from his voice.

  “Not that,” she told him, as she stole a few fries from his bag.

  “Help yourself,” he said.

  “Thanks.” She took more.

  A woman who ate French fries without either an apology or an encyclopedic explanation as to why she really shouldn’t be eating French fries. Be still his still-trembling heart.

  “Take a left here,” she ordered, pointing with one of the fries. “We’re heading toward the harbor. Yashi’s renting some kind of vacation cottage for our new safe location. As soon as he gets the keys, he’s going to text me the address. Meanwhile I’ll call HQ and see if they can track Phoebe Kruger’s car, see if we can’t find Dunn that way. Assuming he hasn’t ditched her by now, too.”

  She dug in her bag for her phone and just that small amount of motion created …

  “Uh, you want a heads-up when you pop?” Martell asked her. “Like, Hello! Nipple! Or would you prefer it if I just ignore …?”

  “Shit!” She tucked and pulled as she actually blushed beneath her undead-flavored makeup, even as she laughed her dismay. “Sorry! No! Don’t ignore! Please. God. Thank you. I’m so sorry. But maybe don’t shout nipple. Please?”

  “Boob?” he suggested.

  Deb laughed again. “Yeah, ’cause that’s better?”

  “We could go with a code word,” Martell said. “Xylophone.”

  She laughed again, still blushing as she focused on dialing her phone. “As soon as we get to the safe house, I’m changing my clothes, so …” She put her phone to her ear, then grimaced before leaving what had to be a message. “It’s Deb. Our little glitch with the lawyer just got bigger. Call me ASAP.”

  Before Martell could comment, she turned back to him with that same briskness. “I know you just met Phoebe Kruger,” she continued. “But give me your impression. Do you believe her, trust her …?”

  “Believe and trust her about what?” Martell asked.

  “To start, is she … who she says she is?”

  His voice went up an octave. “Are you kidding me?”

  Deb sighed again. “Nope,” she said. “We’re not sure exactly how Bryant, Hill, and Stoneham knew to send her to the prison. We’re still looking into that. Was it you, by any cha
nce, who contacted the firm?”

  “No, ma’am,” Martell said. “In fact, I was intending to bitch about her to your boss. But then I figured you FBI guys arranged it, to expedite whatever deal we struck.”

  “Nope,” she said. “It wasn’t us. She just showed up—no clearance, no background check. Although we’re running one right now.”

  Martell stared at her as he rolled to a stop at a red light. “And I wasn’t informed about this before I let her vanish with Dunn because …?”

  She looked steadily back at him as she ate more of his fries. “You let Dunn vanish? You’re telling me you honestly could’ve stopped him?”

  Martell didn’t answer until the car behind him honked. Light was green. As he looked back at the road and drove, he admitted, “No.”

  “Mistakes happen,” Deb said, not unkindly. “Across the board. What we have to do now is fix this one. Which starts with you telling me whether you think Phoebe Kruger is a potential problem.”

  * * *

  Ian Dunn’s brother Aaron owned a house with a panic room—which was good, because Phoebe was on the verge of panicking as she was pushed inside.

  Aaron slapped on an overhead light, and she looked around.

  It was tiny—jail-cell-sized—but high-tech and well supplied. A toilet and miniature sink sat out in the open in the corner on the far end, and shelves lined one full wall, with a bunkbed setup along the other. Near the door was a huge flat-screen monitor that looked to be hooked into some kind of intricate computer surveillance system. That same wall also held a phone and a clock.

  Dunn came in last and slammed the heavy steel door shut behind him, and Aaron helped him throw an array of deadbolts and locks.

  The sudden silence was jarring, but it didn’t last long.

  “Who’s hurt?” Dunn asked, moving purposefully to the shelves that held supplies—clothing, blankets, bottles of water, and cans and jars of food—as well as a heavy-duty first aid kit.

  “Not me,” Aaron said, despite the fact that blood from a skinned elbow was dripping down his arm. He was already at the computer, turning on the monitor and flipping down a futuristic-looking keyboard and mouse that had been built into the wall. “But my beautiful home has just been turned to total shit by the fucking Dellarosas.”