Naughty and Nice

by Sarah J. Brooks

  I texted Simon to track Cassie and made sure she found a place to go. Though she had no lack of resources, my hope was that she would stay within the Legacy building. Since we’d gotten back from Morocco, I had made it Simon’s full time job to keep an eye on Cassie, and Cassie knew it. There was no telling what Manuel might do, and, since she only knew him as Mavin, she might not recognize him if he showed up in his Manuel persona.

  Then, I made another call.

  “Sir?” Antoine answered on the first ring. He sounded surprised to hear from me; I hadn’t been in contact with him since the first time I’d brought Cassie here and had him stand in for me to pretend to give Cassie a massage until I could surprise her.

  “Antoine, old friend,” I sighed, relieved, into the phone. “Can you come to the suite?”

  “Immediately, Sir.” He hesitated. “Have you been able to leave the suite? Perhaps we might be better going down to the Monkey Ostrich? It’s quiet, we can grab a pint.”

  I thought for a moment. Out of anyone in my life, Antoine was the only advisor whose advice I was likely to take without question. He had known me so long, since childhood; he knew what I needed very often before I knew.

  “That sounds good. Better, actually,” I said. “I’ll meet you there. I’ll get our table.” Monkey Ostrich was a bar owned by a friend of the Legacy family. It was always a place where people could quietly discuss business without worrying that it was going to land all over the world.

  “Very good, Sir,” Antoine said, and he disconnected.

  I looked around the apartment, and then sent a text to my head housekeeper to make sure that all of the room service items were gone and the room tidied up within the next hour.

  Then, I left the building and walked across the street and down the block to the Monkey Ostrich. I walked in and shook my hands through my hair; it was misting in London, as always, which always set my hair curling in strange, unattractive ways. I took off my overcoat and hung it on the rack, then I scanned the bar.

  Antoine was right where he was supposed to be. Over six foot four, Antoine towered over almost everyone in the bar. Solidly built, dark skinned with dark hair, he had scared me when I was a child. I remembered thinking that Antoine was an adult, but, as we’d grown older together, I’d realized that Antoine was less than ten years older than I was; he had been a teenager when I was a child.

  “Sir,” Antoine stood, ducking to avoid hitting the ceiling.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “Sit.” I smiled and slid into the booth next to Antoine.

  “How are you feeling? That’s the first, most important thing,” I said, reaching out a hand to place it on Antoine’s. Antoine had slipped on the curb several weeks ago and had broken his collar bone and his ankle.

  “Oh, psh,” Antoine said. “It was nothing. Now, let’s talk about you. Things have been very interesting for you lately.”

  We took a break in the conversation to order and receive our pints, then we resumed. Antoine looked to me to begin.

  “Cassie is unlike any woman I’ve ever met, Antoine. I met her in Belize, of all places, and, at first, I thought she was just this typical New Yorker beach bum who wouldn’t bother to bother to look up from her blackberry long enough to actually enjoy the place around her, right? But, it turns out, not only is she the opposite of that woman, she’s also interested in me! So we hook up, right? And I think, “Okay, that’s it.” But then things keep happening. And then she starts…”

  “Getting involved in things that shouldn’t involve her,” Antoine said. “Dangerous things.”

  “Exactly!” I said. “It’s like the shit is attracted to her. She’s been abducted, she’s been tied to the death of an NCA agent… I mean, this isn’t small stuff. And now, I’m just worried about her. Manuel Brown kills people. He’s not playing around. And I don’t think she understands that. I think she just thinks this is like some CSI episode or something that’s just going to all get tidied up and fixed at the end of the hour, and everyone will be okay.”

  Antoine arched his eyebrows at me, suggesting I was possibly being a little unfair. “She knows that it didn’t end happily ever after for Lorinda,” he said. “And, she lost someone herself right, this Patrick Shim?”

  “Patrick was just an agent who had been using her to get to me,” I said, shaking my head as if waving away a fly. I couldn’t think of Patrick as anything other than that.

  “Are you sure?” Antoine asked.

  I looked at him closely, narrowing my eyes. Antoine thought there was more, too. After a long pause, I said, “You think there was more.”

  “I don’t think anything,” Antoine said. “But you have said that she is not the blackberry-carrying, beach bum, don’t give a shit kind of woman. That, to me, suggests two things: first, that Patrick Shim might have noticed that characteristic in her, and, two, that just like Cassie didn’t stamp you off as a materialistic, power hungry billionaire, perhaps she gave him a little more personal credit instead.”

  I sighed and drained half my pint. “Cassie wouldn’t cheat on me.”

  Antoine raised his hands. “I would never say that she would. Everything I’ve seen when the two of you have been together, including watching her leave Legacy today, suggests that she loves you and is loyal to you. But, a person can still be loyal with a wandering eye.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I knew all too well the truth of that statement.

  “The question is,” Antoine said, smiling kindly at me, “have you gotten yourself into a situation that you can’t get out of?”

  “I know where you’re going with this, and I don’t want to put Cassie in the middle. She wants a normal life. I want her to have a normal life. Hell, I want to have a normal life with her. With her and Antoine. But, in order for that to happen, some pretty serious shit is going to need to go down, and it’s going to need to go down fast.”

  “And it’s dangerous,” Antoine nodded.

  “It’s dangerous enough that not only am I in danger, you, Cassie, Simon, everyone I come within a five mile radius right now is in danger.”

  “What are your options?” Antoine asked.

  “I don’t—” I began to say that I didn’t have any options, but Antoine’s look stopped me. One the reasons I trusted and depended on Antoine so much was that Antoine believed there were always options. There was always a path out, a path in, a solution to the problem. Spotting it was step one. Dealing with it was step two. “I guess one option I have is to let her help me. Or, at the very least, to not shut her out.”

  “She’s a savvy one; Simon has told you as such.”

  “Yes.”

  “So…”

  “Yes, fine, okay,” I said, putting my hands up in a defensive gesture. “I’ll include her. I’ll see what she’s got. I’m just worried… I couldn’t take it if anything happened to her. I mean, what if I couldn’t save her?”

  Antoine looked at me with all the wisdom I’d come to know from my mentor. “What if, Brad, she can save you?”

  Cassie

  I left Legacy in a huff, grateful to be away from Brad and his ego, happy to be in the fresh air, yet absolutely uncertain of where I was going to go and what I was going to do.

  I couldn’t believe that Brad was still so adamant about not letting me help, especially when I’d proven to him over and over again that, not only was I willing to sacrifice my wellbeing, I was able to get answers.

  I punched Julian’s number into my cell phone. He answered immediately.

  “I want to meet you,” I said.

  “Crauler’s Pub on Water,” he said. “Do you know where that is?”

  “I’ll find it,” I said. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

  “You’ll be there in thirty,” he said, and disconnected. I plugged the bar into my GPS and, he was right; it would take me thirty minutes to get there, walking and by tube.

  When I arrived, I found him at a table for two in the corner. I glanced at him, trying to figure out if we we
re being secretive, but he waved openly, so I went over to his table.

  “Hey,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “This is a quiet place,” Julian said. “No worries about any spies here. Want a pint?”

  I nodded, and settled in while Julian got up to get our drinks. He was a really good looking guy; I had to give him that. I wondered if all of the men of the NCA were also GQ models, if that was a part of the job. He turned back from the bar and I turned toward the table, not wanting him to see me checking him out.

  “Cheers,” he said, tipping his pint toward mine and smiling. I found my smile broadening on my face as his eyes looked into mine. A small part of my brain sounded a danger alarm, but it was too distant, too faint. I clinked glasses with Julian and took a long swig from my beer.

  “Fuck, yeah, that tastes good,” I said.

  Julian looked amused. “Doesn’t Brad keep you well lubricated? I mean… with beer?” His mischievous smile said he knew exactly what he’d said, and I blushed in spite of myself.

  “I have all the… beer I need, thank you,” I said. “Now, let’s talk about what’s going to happen.” I wanted to get us down to business before anything even remotely resembling flirting took place.

  “I was glad you called,” he said, “regardless of the circumstances, which, judging by your disheveled appearance, include a fight from the morning…” He looked me up and down and I blushed.

  “Anyway,” I said. “Continue.”

  “Tight-lipped,” he observed.

  “Journalist,” I reminded him.

  He nodded. “Okay, I have an idea. I’ve been doing some research, and I have at least a general idea of where Manuel Brown might be keeping Antoine. I’ll need to talk to Brad about what he remembers about the last time he was with Antoine in any house that wasn’t his own, any sounds he remembers, that sort of thing.”

  “I think all of that is documented in the file,” I said.

  “It’s still always good to talk to witnesses,” Julian said. “Sometimes people forget things. Sometimes they disregard them, thinking they’re not important. Anyway, once we zero in on the exact location, two things are going to happen simultaneously. One, Brad is going to distract from the front. He’s going to call Manuel out to the front porch and talk to him. Then, you and I, and other NCA agents, will go in from the back.”

  “Me?” I exclaimed. “Why do I have to go in?”

  “Because Antoine will trust you,” he said. “He knows that you’re not one of us. He’ll know that he can go with you and be safe.”

  “Manuel is going to be watching for me,” I pointed out. “He’s gunning for me.”

  “Manuel is going to be thinking that you’re sitting in the passenger seat of Brad’s car, where a UC is going to be sitting in your place. UC is short for—”

  “Undercover Officer, yeah, we have those in America, too,” I said, frowning. “So, what, we just go in and get him? After all of that? It’s that easy?”

  “Oh, Cassie, It’s not going to be easy.” He put his hand on mine and squeezed it lightly. I stared at it, feeling the warmth of his palm spread across the top of my hand. For a moment, time seemed to suspend itself. Not going to be easy. I looked at him, and he slowly pulled his hand away.

  “No,” I said, pulling my hand into my lap. “No, I won’t do it.” I shook my head.

  He regarded me silently. I let silence sit between us, daring him to speak first, while I finished my pint. He didn’t speak. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “You want to throw Brad in like a piece of bait,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. “You want to set him up to walk right up to fucking Manuel’s front door and, what, say ‘Hi, could I please have my son back?’ I mean, are you fucking joking? And we go in from the back all stealth and shit? What exactly is Brad supposed to say to keep Manuel distracted for long enough for us to get in there and get Antoine?

  “And,” I continued, just warming up with the ridiculousness of Julian’s plan, “you’re just assuming that Antoine, a boy who has been traumatized for years is going to what, just go with me? Because I tell him I’m a friend of his daddy’s? Are you for fucking real?”

  I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms, not even looking at Julian. Frankly, by that point in the day I’d already had my fill of stupid men. Then, of course, I remembered that I had been the one to call Julian, not the other way around.

  “Listen, Cassie, I’ve done this sort of thing before. I know it’s out of your wheelhouse, but, you have to trust that I do this sort of thing all the time. Criminals are not smart. We give them a lot more credit than they deserve. They’re easy to confuse, double cross. We get them thinking one thing, and then we turn it around on them; that’s all.”

  He looked at me and smiled, reached his hand out for mine again. I looked at his palm, open on the table, and shook my head.

  “I think I should go,” I said. “What do I owe you for the pint?”

  “Nothing, Cassie,” Julian said, frustration, for the first time, present in his voice. “You don’t owe me anything. But, please reconsider. This plan is only truly possible if you participate. Manuel has to believe you’re there. He has to believe you’re with us. He has eyes and ears everywhere. If you’re at Legacy, he’ll know. If you’re at Brad’s house, he’ll know. The only way to keep Brad, yourself, and Antoine safe is to follow the plan.”

  I stood up, my head full of thoughts, scenarios, what-ifs. I shook my head and turned to walk out the door.

  “Wait,” Julian said. “Let me walk you to the tube.”

  I turned and walked, giving him the option to catch up with me, which he did. I didn’t speak. We walked side by side, sometimes bumping into each other if our steps got too close. In spite of how angry I was with the entire situation, when he nudged me hard, on purpose, I giggled.

  “Stop it, klutz!” I said. “I’ll run you into the road.”

  He turned, suddenly, and was in front of me.

  “You’re a beautiful woman, Cassie,” he said. He stood in front of me with his hands in his pockets, his cheeks alive with energy and excitement, a shy grin on his face.

  I couldn’t help but smile in return. When I did, I must have leaned my chin forward, done something to suggest that I was receptive to his flirtation. Who knows, maybe, at some level, I was receptive. We locked eyes, and he moved in closer to me. Took his hands out of his pockets. My mouth was open, and he wrapped his arms around me, brought me in for a kiss….

  I turned my face away and buried it into his coat collar. He kissed the side of my head. I closed my eyes.

  “I can’t do that,” I whispered. I had my arms around him, my heart pounding in my chest.

  “I know,” he said, continuing to hold me. “I know you can’t. I can’t either. I don’t know what just happened there.”

  “Two pints, chugged fast,” I said, smiling and pulling away. I looked at him and winked, no hard feelings. “It’s what happens, right?”

  He looked at me curiously, then nodded. “Right,” he said. “Okay, then.” He turned and walked me the rest of the way to the tube station, then made sure I got on. “I’ll be in touch with you, Cassie. I promise. And, remember, Brad cannot know that you’re going to be a part of the operation. If he thinks you’re in danger, he’ll abort the whole thing.”

  I nodded. “Tight-lipped.”

  “Journalist,” he said, nodding.

  Brad

  Things moved fast after I met with Antoine. He got me in contact with an NCA agent, Julian, who had done a lot of work on the case with Patrick Shim, before Patrick’s demise. With Simon confirming that, by her GPS, Cassie appeared to be doing some shopping in central London, I texted Julian and set up a meeting with him at Legacy.

  He was there within an hour. My secretary let him in, and I ushered him to have a seat. First impression was that the NCA must buy all of their agents from the same catalogue; Julian bore a striking resemblance to Patrick. “Agent Boran,�
� I said, gesturing for him to sit. “Thank you for coming in.”

  “My pleasure,” He said. He took a thick file from his briefcase and set it on my desk.

  “My understanding,” I said, “is that you had been in contact with Patrick about my son and his case, his abduction so many years ago, and the death of my fiancée, Lorinda.”

  “Yes,” Julian said. “And Patrick had a plan, that, unfortunately, he wasn’t able to execute properly. Before he died, he shared with me everything that he knew. He gave me his passwords, he gave me all of his information about Cassie, and,” he cleared his throat, “he gave me all of the information he knew about you.”

  “So,” I said, “after all of this is completed, you’re probably going to arrest me and I’ll never see the light of day again,” I said. My voice was grim, but the reality was true.

  “That remains to be seen,” Julian said. “You are, forgive me, a somewhat small fish in a large pond. You’re definitely not innocent, but the NCA has discussed using you as an informant, possibly granting immunity, if the information we get from you contributes to the capture of Manuel Brown and the man he answers to.”

  I arched my eyebrows. “The man Manuel Brown answers to?” I said incredulously.

  “Yes,” Patrick gave me a rueful smile. “Manuel Brown is not the top of the line. He has a boss. Just like you have to answer to him, he answers to someone even more powerful. Even more diabolical.”

  “Wow,” I said, sitting back. “Okay, what’s the plan? Let’s assume that, in order to avoid charges, I agree to cooperate?”

  Julian smiled, taking a small recorder out of his pocket. “Is it all right if I record this portion?”

  My stomach jolted with anxiety over my words being recorded, possibly twisted. He saw me hesitate; he waited.

  “Yes,” I said. “Go ahead.” I would do anything for Antoine and Cassie.

  “We believe we know where your son is, Mr. White. We have it limited to a city block, based on illegal activity that’s been coming from the house, as well as satellite pings that come from that block to all over the world. It’s rare for one city block to have contacts in France, South Africa, Belize, The Congo, Russia, Australia, and others. From a residential city block, that is.”