Did I grow used to the rest? Did I like it?
She wanted to say no but the truth was complicated. She’d enjoyed some of it, but missed much more. Most of all, she’d missed being a part of a team.
A family.
That was the right word. Alicia never had a tight-knit, loving family. Never came close. SPEAR and now Strike Force One was everything that kept her sane.
She reviewed their Intel. The gang’s leader was a man named Eastwood. His deputies were Sparky and Wisner. He also had a bodyguard called Zion. The trick was finding any of these people before bullets started flying.
To that end, Hayden had placed the overeager Dahl, Luther and Molokai at the back, hoping to minimize confrontation. Their main objective was to talk to this gang, to learn what they knew and maybe draw out a little more than they’d told the cops.
Ahead, the ruins waited; the gang screamed or shouted in anger. The atmosphere was rough, violent.
Alicia tapped Drake on the head. “You ready?”
“Well it beats the bloody Caribbean, love.”
He ran ahead, keeping his head down, refraining from drawing his weapon. Alicia tracked him, Hayden to her right. They approached an outer wall, sliding into its shadow close to where half of it had crumbled. Members of the gang were close now. Alicia could hear them talking in low tones.
Hayden stepped out and raised her voice: “Police. We’re here to talk to your leader!”
Alicia rolled her eyes. “Christ, she thinks she’s talking to the fucking Martians.”
Announcing themselves as police ensured they wouldn’t be fired on, at least for now, and that they would be taken to Eastwood. It seemed the best plan. Alicia readied herself nevertheless as people rose in all directions.
“Fuckin’ zombies,” she said.
And many of them fit the bill. Drake was nodding along at her description as bodies rose from the pool and heads popped up over broken down walls. Figures emerged out of the garden and from behind tree trunks, all staring, all weighing up the newcomers. The subdued light didn’t help, casting shadows everywhere.
“Eastwood,” Hayden shouted. “We need to speak to him.”
Alicia and Drake flanked her, with Kinimaka behind. Their hands hovered close to their weapons but didn’t touch. A group of about fifteen individuals gathered, staring curiously or severely, some twirling knives and flexing chest muscles. Others brazenly stood with guns held loosely in one hand. After about twenty seconds of tense silence a figure jumped over a low, battered wall and approached.
“You’re not cops.”
Eastwood was spookily tall. Alicia thought he’d have made a good voodoo priest. Tall and thin, walking with a lurch. All he needed was a tub of white face paint.
Hayden held up one hand before plucking her ID from an inside pocket. As Eastwood approached, she handed it to one of the man’s lackeys.
Eastwood took it. Alicia was fascinated by the length of his fingers which wrapped around the leather wallet before flapping it open.
“Agent Jaye,” he read aloud. “With the . . . Strike Force. What the hell is that?”
Alicia winced. They’d never had much luck with IDs. Either nobody had ever heard of them or they just didn’t sound right when spoken aloud.
“It’s official. Agent Vandie will vouch for us.”
“Vandie?” Eastwood glanced up from the wallet. “This about those thieves?”
“That’s right. We’d like to ask you some questions.”
“Already spoke to cops. Real ones.”
Hayden took a breath. “What do we look like to you?”
Eastwood took a hard look. “Special ops. You got that look. Ex-military. Hard cases. Damn, you probably come here for a fight.”
Alicia re-evaluated her opinion of the gang’s leader. “He’s pretty close to the mark.”
Eastwood looked at her. “Why the hell’s Five-O sending out spec ops?”
“They’re pretty serious about catching these guys.”
“It’s just a robbery.”
Alicia shook her head. “Nope. It’s a fucking big heist. If they pull it off, heads will roll, and one might be yours.”
Eastwood eyed her. “Like I said, we’ve already been questioned.”
Alicia glanced from eye to eye, face to face. Which one in this large gathering was the mole? Did they know more than what they were saying? It was impossible to know.
“Like you said,” Drake spoke up. “We’re not cops. Give us a chance.”
“It’s weird,” Eastwood said. “But you can come through if you fight.”
Alicia frowned. Hayden held up a palm. “Wait, what?”
“We’re a fighting gang. Not a criminal gang. Against each other we fight for turf, the best spots to sleep. Against other gangs we fight for honor and land. Didn’t Vandie tell you?”
“She must have forgotten to mention it. Don’t tell me she fights you?”
“Once—” Eastwood nodded “—to earn our respect.”
A silence fell. Eastwood regarded them speculatively. Hayden turned to look at Drake, who sighed at Alicia. From behind there came happy rumblings from Dahl and Luther.
“One man, one woman,” Eastwood said. “We have joint champions.”
Another few moments passed. Suddenly Alicia was done with standing still, with inactivity, and stepped forward. “I’ll fight,” she said. “Show me the bloody ring.”
The first man to her side was Torsten Dahl—as she’d expected.
“Ditto,” he said.
* * *
Alicia faced a woman who wore very little apart from a six-pack, a glare and a nasty attitude. Her shorts and sports top were barely there. Alicia stripped off her jacket and her weaponry, even the short knife nestled inside her boot. There were rules.
Apparently.
Alicia didn’t trust these people one bit. They marked out a circle in the ground, planted flickering torches around it, and shoved her into the middle. A crowd gathered. She could see Drake opposite, looking nonplussed and unsure. Nobody had expected this turn of events, but gathering information took precedence.
She waited, stretching her muscles. The woman she faced was called Rosa. She looked fit, strong and experienced in battle, but Alicia wondered if she’d ever fought for her life against hundreds of mercenaries, down in the dirt, exhausted and bloody, battling all odds to help save the world.
Doubtful.
Still, it needed ending quickly. Eastwood clapped twice and the battle commenced.
Alicia padded over the springy grass, closing the gap.
Rosa struck fast and hard, coming in with her fists.
Alicia sidestepped and dodged, watching the way her opponent moved, looking for strengths and weaknesses. She took a blow to the arm, a jab to the cheek. She’d bruise, but it didn’t hurt.
Somewhere from the crowd came Kenzie’s loud cry: “Come on! Hit the bitch!”
Alicia couldn’t decide who Kenzie was cheering for.
Rosa darted in.
Alicia pretended to stumble.
Rosa switched stances to capitalize, but Alicia was already past her, unleashing three sharp strikes. Two knifed into Rosa’s ribs and kidneys, making her gasp before she managed to spin and cover up.
After that, Rosa struck hard. Alicia respected the assault, watching carefully, taking blows where she knew it wouldn’t debilitate her. The torches flickered in her eyes, their bright flames washing across Rosa’s face. She feinted an attack, making Rosa raise her arms and then kicked her in the chest. Rosa fell to the floor.
Alicia looked at Eastwood.
“Gotta tap out,” he said.
Suddenly, Rosa lost it. Snarling, she launched herself across the grass and struck up at Alicia. Surprise caught the blonde slow-footed and she barely had chance to twist her body to the side. Rosa struck her shoulder hard, sending her spinning.
Alicia stumbled to her knees. Rosa was on her back a second later, a muscled arm enclosing her throat. In
stantly, Alicia felt the pressure and saw black spots as her air supply was closed off. There wasn’t going to be much time, not judging by the grip Rosa had.
Alicia gathered her strength and jumped up, Rosa clinging to her, then threw herself backward. Rosa hit the ground hard, Alicia on top of her. The grip loosened. Alicia took advantage, squirming around, kneeling up and then delivering a volley of devastating blows. Rosa covered up, but Alicia knew where to hit and how hard.
Forty seconds passed before Rosa tapped out.
Alicia rose.
Eastwood confronted her. “A lesson for you.”
She felt confused. “What?”
“Don’t play with your food. Devour it.”
He was right. Maybe it was the long lay-off. She couldn’t imagine herself giving an opponent any kind of chance. It highlighted yet again the dangers inherent in relaxation.
Dahl strode into the arena, supremely confident. Alicia helped Rosa to her feet, then clapped her on the back. “Good fight.”
“I shouldn’t have lost the chokehold.”
She was right. Alicia nodded. “Next time, go harder. The problem most people have, including innocent victims of muggings and such, is that when they get an opportunity to finish it—they don’t finish it properly.”
“And Spec Ops do.”
“Damn fucking right they do.”
Dahl waited, removing his jacket and staring at a pool of darkness so as not to ruin his vision. Soon, Eastwood stepped aside, and Alicia saw a big man enter the arena. He was stripped to the waist and slick with sweat. Clearly, he’d already limbered up. His face was craggy and hard-lined, his arms and chest crisscrossed with old knife wounds and fresh bruises. He sneered at the Swede and then roared, raising his arms and clenching his fists.
He was the champion of this street-fighting gang and his name was Tamor.
Dahl stood patiently. Tamor roamed the arena, shouting at the crowd, roaring to raise their bloodlust. He punched the air, pointed at Dahl and laughed.
Alicia winced.
Drake, standing beside her, leaned over. “This should be interesting.”
Tamor bellowed for support. He flexed his muscles, every cord straining. Eastwood clapped twice, the signal to start. Tamor stalked forward, raising a huge arm to throw a punch at the unmoving Dahl.
The mad Swede showed no sign of covering up.
Tamor swung. The blow was hard and loud, striking Dahl across the jaw and sending his head to the right.
Alicia winced.
Tamor laughed, preparing to strike again.
Already low, Dahl delivered an uppercut using all the power of his thighs.
Tamor didn’t see it coming. One second he was laughing, the next he was flying backward through the air, unconscious.
Tamor hit the ground, unmoving.
Dahl hadn’t moved from his position.
A revered silence spread throughout the gardens.
Hayden turned to Eastwood. “Can we talk now?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The torches were brought in closer as Eastwood, his lieutenants and some of the gang took up a position inside the crumbled walls of the mansion. They sat with their backs to the tumbled-down rocks, drinking whiskey and bourbon, and eating pizza. Alicia and the others sat among them, side-by-side with the gang, welcome at least for the next few hours.
Hayden addressed Eastwood: “We don’t have much time. Anything you can tell us will be useful.”
Eastwood shrugged, and waved a folded slice of pizza in his right hand. “Like I told the cops,” he said around a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni. “Friend of ours—let’s call him Lenny—was approached by some dude wanting to buy special chemicals. Lenny’s connected, and didn’t want to sell the dude the chemicals—they’re bad shit. But the dude went above him, went to his boss, and forced him to make the deal. His boss called the buyer a One Percenter.”
“That was his reason for making Lenny do the deal?”
“Yeah, that and the money that crossed his palms.” Eastwood took another bite. “Truth was, Lenny thought the moniker one percenter meant the guy was super-rich. Didn’t think until later that he might belong to this mythical heist gang.”
Alicia accepted a slice of pizza for herself and a plastic cup full of whiskey. It wasn’t a bad night as it turned out, eating and drinking with a street-fighting gang under the dark vault of a Nevada night. From their slightly elevated position they could see the bright lights of the Strip shining off to their left, always visible. A million pinpoints of light shimmered among the city streets. Further away, dark shadows encircled the vast valley: the uneven outlines of mountain ranges.
She sat back, remaining watchful but content to be back in the field.
“You’ve heard of them?” Hayden asked.
Eastwood shrugged. “Nothing concrete. They’re legends, like all the friggin’ gold mines around here. You don’t know if they really exist and, most days, you don’t really give a shit.”
“What do you know about them?” Drake asked.
“The One Percenters are the best of the best. Heist kings. They’ve pulled off something like eight mega jobs without the cops coming close. There’s five of them. They use tried and tested local networks—like Lenny—to gather materials—”
“You mentioned the liquids they bought are bad shit,” Dahl said, waving away the chance of pizza. “What were they exactly?”
“Highly volatile shit,” Eastwood said. “If you mix them . . .” He made the noise and gestures of a large explosion. “Oh, and this dude bought detonators as well.”
Hayden frowned. “That doesn’t sound like the best robbers in history,” she said. “It sounds stupidly loud. Deadly.”
Eastwood shrugged. “You asked. I answered.”
“So we have liquid explosive and detonators,” Dahl said. “That’s a start.”
“Lenny seems to have gotten quite chatty,” Hayden said.
“Lenny’s like that,” Eastwood nodded. “He’s a gregarious dude. Good man to have at the front of an operation.”
“And did Gregarious Len find out anything else?” Kinimaka asked.
“They chatted for a while whilst the explosives were . . . brought up. This dude, called himself Steele. He was big, with close shaven hair like you.” He nodded at Luther. “A slightly smaller man perhaps. He was arrogant though, thought he was the big shit and all that. Lenny got him talking about the job he wanted the explosive for.”
Eastwood went quiet, looking around for more whiskey. Alicia passed him her own with a nod.
“Thanks. I’m leading you on a bit. All Lenny got from Steele was the name of a cop station but a specific one on East Clarke Avenue. They also got to talking about cars, this dude loved his all-American V8 muscle, and he started whining about having to learn the schematics of a bus. Thought it was a real laugh apparently.” Eastwood shrugged.
Hayden stared at him. Alicia coughed loudly. “That’s it?”
“Never said I was fucking CNN, did I?”
Alicia considered asking for Lenny’s address but knew it was worthless. Eastwood wouldn’t have mentioned the guy if he wasn’t certain he’d be kept out of it. The truth was, this Steele guy had probably revealed a little too much to Lenny, but it was hardly incriminating or world-shattering.
“Is this the only mention of the One Percenters?” Drake asked a valid question, since they’d taken this job on the assumption that a crew perfectly capable of taking the eggs and then dropping them and their wealth on the open market was involved.
“No. The dude visited other sites, once with a blond female. Bit of a looker, they said. He told her he couldn’t wait for Saturday and she got mad with him. But it’s not just that. There’s an underground, you know? Both online and on the streets. The heist gang has a following. Rumors pop up everywhere something shady is about to go down, something big. Occasionally—” he shrugged “—their followers are gonna get lucky.”
“The One Percenters h
ave a following?” Karin couldn’t understand why. “They’re nothing . . . just crooks.”
“No,” Eastwood said. “They’re successful crooks. Everything that’s successful tends to get a following, one way or another, either to help tear it down or watch it grow.”
“That’s a bit deep for a gang eating pizza and drinking whiskey,” Alicia said.
“By that, she means she doesn’t have a clue what you just said.” Mai laughed.
Hayden rose, brushing her trousers down. The others followed one by one. Eastwood held her gaze.
“You really think it’s the One Percenters?”
“I don’t know,” Hayden said. “But, whoever it is, it sounds like they’re getting ready to cause a whole lot of trouble. Thanks for your help.”
“That’s cool. And you?” He nodded at Dahl “Anytime you wanna come back, maybe fight for us, you’re welcome.”
Dahl held a hand out. “One day, I just might take you up on that.”
Alicia turned away to head out, wondering what the hell the Swede meant by that.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Hayden fought to focus. Like the others she believed the layoff, although necessary, had blunted their acuity. They weren’t as sharp, single-minded and quick. It would return but felt a little debilitating right now.
“I’m headed downstairs,” Kinimaka said.
She nodded at him. They’d been given a second-floor room inside the Azure and although it was one of the hotel’s cheapest, it surpassed almost everything she’d ever stayed in.
“I’m still wired,” she said. “Let’s go.”
They exited the room and wound their way around the long corridor to the elevators. The hotel was cool and sumptuous, the hallways quiet and wide, with high windows to both ends with incredible views. The elevator deposited them quickly onto the ground floor. Despite the late hour—it was after 1 a.m.—the hotel walkways were packed with guests. Hayden walked alongside Kinimaka, threading their way past two world-class restaurants, a respected buffet and the reception area. Once clear they walked along the other wing of the hotel. Statues lined the way. Thick, luxurious carpets were like cushions under their feet. The corridor curved and then opened onto an extensive casino.
The Faberge Heist Page 8
