The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 12

  Safety over protocol, she decided, dialing Dan Gable’s number. As the phone rang, she looked absently around the apartment. A bright pink box caught her eye on the kitchen counter.

  A music box.

  The music box. Evidence in two crimes, and maybe an act of international terrorism. Or an act of war.

  No way was she going to let Metro screw it up. Or cover it up.

  Gable’s voicemail picked up, and Sam cursed her luck. She really needed to talk to Dan about the events of the last half hour, and about the music box. Subconsciously, she hoped he would talk her out of doing what she was about to do, which was either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending upon how pissed off the attorney general got about it.

  “Dan, please call me right away,” she said to his voicemail, then hung up her phone, realizing instantly how screwed she would be if Big Brother played the “where is Sam Jameson’s iPhone?” game using the same technology that had earlier revealed Brock’s deception. No turning back now.

  She made her way to Quartermain’s closet, looking for a duffel bag or backpack she could use to abscond with the music box. She wrapped her hand in her shirt before touching anything to avoid leaving prints.

  She found what she was looking for behind a raincoat, and quickly zipped the music box inside a black backpack, again being careful not to leave fingerprints.

  As she hooked the backpack over her shoulder and made for the door, movement caught her eye. Red and blue emergency lights reflected rhythmically off the high-rise across the street, and Sam rushed to the window. Two Metro cruisers were parked at the curb.

  She dashed for the stairwell, not bothering to shut the door to Quartermain’s apartment on her way out. She ran down the hallway toward the elevators, arriving just in time to hear the ding of an arriving elevator car.

  The door hadn’t opened a third when she recognized the black uniform and shiny metallic flair. Cops.

  The nearest cop had his head turned away from Sam, and spoke into the radio transmitter clipped to his shoulder epaulet as he stepped out of the elevator. The far policeman turned to look in Sam’s direction, but was distracted by another resident getting in the elevator.

  With every ounce of nonchalance Sam could muster, she put her phone to her ear and walked casually toward the open elevator door. She held her breath as she walked past the policemen, and prayed silently as she stepped into the elevator.

  The doors closed. Sam breathed a sigh of relief as the elevator descended toward the lobby.

  She glanced at the man in the elevator with her. She noticed the cleaning company logo on his shirt. Her eye was drawn to a horrific scar on the man’s neck, but she looked quickly at his eyes as he turned to greet her.

  “Buenos dias,” croaked El Jerga.

  Part II

  20

  Hector Yosue Alejandro Javier Mendoza – El Jerga, The Shiv – looked at the tall, strikingly beautiful woman in the elevator next to him. She had flame-red hair, brilliant green eyes, a strong but feminine jaw, and a tall, athletic frame.

  He was instantly captivated. If she were for sale or rent, he would gladly pay a premium for her. He wished that his favorite brothel stocked such quality. He had long ago resigned himself to the role of a frequent customer; it was how men as ugly as El Jerga had satisfied their carnal needs since the dawn of time.

  The woman looked nervous, El Jerga noticed. His adrenaline was still up from the job he had just completed – there was a struggle, and those killings were always interesting – but this woman seemed far more unsettled than he felt. Her brow was furrowed with worry.

  When the elevator reached the ground floor of the Diplomat Tower, El Jerga let the woman exit first. This polite gesture afforded him the opportunity to watch her exquisite ass as she walked away. She rounded the corner, out of sight. Pity.

  Watching a man’s life squirt from his severed jugular had awakened a dark and primal arousal, and the sight of the gorgeous redhead had amplified the effect. Death was a sexual pleasure for El Jerga, which placed him in the enviable category of those who dearly loved their chosen profession.

  El Jerga decided that he would ply his DC contacts for the right kind of companionship to channel his awakened energy and pass the time until his next job.

  Sam rounded the corner of the Shirlington apartment lobby quickly. Something about the short man with the ruddy complexion and grisly scar on his neck had creeped her out. It seemed as though the man was leering, even while he stared straight ahead.

  Thoughts of the unpleasant elevator ride faded quickly. She had bigger things on her mind.

  She was surprised that whoever had killed Phil hadn’t taken the music box with them. It was evidence in the John Abrams murder, the staged suicide that she and Phil had investigated in the middle of the night.

  She rounded the corner in the lobby, and caught sight of the blue and red Metro DC police lights. Her thoughts snapped back to the present, and the new rush of adrenaline in her veins washed away the fatigue.

  Dan Gable had told her about the gang of crooked Metro cops who were moonlighting for some unsavory people. But she had no idea why those crooked cops might be targeting her.

  And she also had no idea which team the individual cops on the scene, whose cruisers were now parked outside the Shirlington residential high-rise, happened to be playing for.

  Should she do the right thing by approaching one of the Metro guys with an offer to help work the scene of Quartermain’s murder, or provide them with some background on what she and Quartermain had been working on?

  Not in a million lifetimes. The opposition had already demonstrated a willingness to use deadly force, and she wasn’t eager to further test their resolve.

  That narrowed her options down to one: time to get the hell out of here.

  Sam retreated back around the corner toward the elevators, hugging the far wall to stay out of the line of vision from the street through the large wall of windows at the tower’s entrance. It was an art form to sneak around without appearing to sneak around, and Sam’s years as a counterespionage agent had taught her well.

  She found her cell phone and turned it off – no sense making it easy on the bastards – and located the doorway leading to a stairwell.

  Locked.

  You’ve got to be kidding me. Fire codes demanded stairwell entrances remain open at all times, but the increase in vagrancy after the recession had led some upper-end residences to risk a citation in order to keep people from sleeping in the stairwells.

  Sam fumbled in her pocket for her keychain, which had a stylized red heart charm. She gave the charm a twist, and a lock pick snapped open from the side of the heart, much like a switchblade knife.

  The lock yielded in seconds, and Sam descended the stairs to the first level of below-ground parking, dodging a snoozing bum. The way my week’s going, I might be joining you soon, buddy, Sam thought.

  She opened the door to the parking garage and was instantly assaulted by more flashing police lights. There was a line of cars leading up the ramp to the parking garage exit, and a police cruiser was stationed at the top of the ramp. The police were either searching cars, or had completely closed off the exit.

  Either way, it was clear that she wasn’t going anywhere by car. And if these particular Metro guys were in cahoots with Everett Cooper and company, it was a safe bet that they already had her Porsche under surveillance.

  All of that had happened extremely quickly. She was pretty sure that she had been the first person on the scene of Phil Quartermain’s murder, so it was uncanny that Metro had responded so quickly, and in such force. It reinforced her decision to get the hell away from the scene as quickly as possible.

  It’s a nice day for a walk, Sam thought with a gallows chuckle. But there was the small problem of how to exit a subterranean parking level without getting nabbed.

  The answer, of course, was to exit via a non-subterranean parking level. Many buildings had them, usually bordered by a
waist-high concrete wall. Sam hoped the Diplomat Towers had hired the same architects. She retreated back into the stairwell, climbed a half-level above the lobby, and tried her luck by opening the door.

  Hallelujah. She reemerged into the parking structure, and her insides unclenched at the sight of daylight spilling over the low wall.

  She held her breath as she walked past a bank of elevators and peered over the wall. It wasn’t quite ground level, but it was low enough to jump to the alleyway below.

  She surveyed the area as she tightened the backpack straps. No one was looking at her. She heaved herself over the wall, dangled briefly by her fingertips, and jumped to the pavement below.

  She found herself next to the Harris Teeter grocery store loading dock, and walked past an open doorway. Smelling opportunity, she looked inside, then walked quickly through the back door to the popular big-city grocery chain.

  Seven steps forward took her to the retail floor, and she joined lunchtime shoppers in the deli section. She bought a ham sandwich, extra jalapeños.

  En route to the checkout counter, she picked up a pair of oversized sunglasses and a white scarf, paid, put the scarf over her head to hide her blazing red locks, and walked out of the grocer onto the street, doing her best imitation of someone who wasn’t on the lam.

  Always assume you’re being watched, she coached herself, and act appropriately. It would have been unusual for someone not to stare at the police cars parked on the street one half-block away, so Sam paused briefly to watch the spectacle.

  Then she took off at a medium pace in the other direction, passed the Shirlington Public Library, walked around an in-sidewalk fountain, and followed the southeasterly bend in the road. Moments later, the Diplomat Towers were out of view behind her. She felt her heart rate begin to slow.

  Now what? She was alone and on foot in what had become occupied territory. She needed information and help, but using her cell phone for any appreciable length of time was out of the question – they would triangulate her position, and she would be rolled up within minutes.

  That gave her an idea. She turned the power on to her phone.

  A message from Brock popped up: “I can’t wait to see you.” Her heart sank. They had made a lunch date for today, a ritual they had enjoyed since their fiery romance had begun two years earlier.

  Another notification chimed: six missed calls and three voicemails, all from Brock. As she walked down the street away from the commotion behind her, she listened to the first message: “Baby, what’s going on? I got your note and I’m really confused. I don’t know what you’re talking about – I’m completely yours in every way, and I don’t know what rule I broke or what you’re upset about. Are you still coming home for lunch? Let’s figure this out, okay? I love you, Sam, and I want to work this out, whatever it is, okay? I mean, anything at all – let’s just figure it out. I love you.”

  The next message was more urgent, and she heard panic in his voice in the third message: “Sam, I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I just noticed that your overnight bag is gone. Baby, what is this? Is there someone else? I thought this was something special, and I turned my life upside down for you, and I’m not giving up. . .” She stopped listening, the tears falling from behind her sunglasses. He still isn’t coming clean.

  She took a deep breath and felt her diaphragm flutter with emotion. Get your shit together, she admonished. Play the hand you’re dealt, and cry about it later.

  She looked up Dan Gable’s contact information in her phone and wrote his office and home digits on a receipt she retrieved from her wallet. She talked to Gable by phone a hundred times every week, but in the digital age, when smart devices remembered everything humans used to remember, she had no idea what the numbers were.

  Sam quickened her pace, barely noticing the hip restaurants, bars, and boutique shops on the way to the traffic intersection. She approached the end of the line of vehicles waiting for the light to change, and found what she was looking for: a pickup truck.

  It was exceedingly large, and the small man in the driver’s seat barely saw over the steering wheel. Standard, Sam thought. Big truck, tiny johnson. Loud music blared from the speakers inside the truck.

  She crossed the street before the intersection, directly behind the big pickup waiting at the light, palming her cell phone. In one smooth motion that would have made her spook school instructors proud, she wedged her phone on the waist-high bumper between the chrome trailer hitch and the license plate holder.

  Sam reached the other side of the street as the light changed, and she watched the truck drive away and turn right onto the highway on-ramp. They – whoever the hell was trying to track her down this particular minute – would certainly be watching her cell phone signal move away from Shirlington on I-395 Southbound.

  Throwing away her cell phone was like losing a piece of herself, but she knew it was necessary. And it’s probably time to quit wasting so much time playing that stupid bird game.

  A new problem to solve: connectivity. She surveyed the street and found a convenience store, and paid cash for three prepaid burner phones. They weren’t untraceable, of course, but the burners had no associated account information, so if she used them carefully, it would be exceedingly difficult to trace them back to her.

  She unwrapped the phones and threw them into her backpack, then walked across the street to the Sherwood Indie Theater. Breakfast at Tiffany’s was showing at 1:00 p.m. Random, but convenient.

  She bought a ticket from the bored cashier and sat down in the dark theater, alone, with eleven minutes to spare.

  Sam cried through the previews, thinking of Brock and what his deceit had taken from her. She loved him fiercely, until several hours ago at least, and she couldn’t imagine life without him.

  But it was her new reality, and as Audrey Hepburn made her dramatic appearance, Sam resolved to adapt.

  21

  The assassin called Quinn was on his knees, gag in his mouth, naked, with burgeoning whip welts on his backside. His dominatrix stood behind him.

  She released his feet from their shackles. He stood shakily, still breathless. Quinn towered over her petite frame, but despite her diminutive stature, he still felt thoroughly dominated in her presence. It was surely an art.

  Perhaps this kind of liaison fulfilled a deep need to experience some semblance of temporary retribution for all of the submission he had forcibly inflicted on his many victims over the years.

  Or maybe he was just a kinky bastard.

  Some people preferred a couch, soft music, and a therapist. Quinn preferred a riding crop and a ball gag. He didn’t give it too much thought.

  Quinn had paid in advance, customary terms in the oldest profession, so there was only the awkward business of dressing and getting ready for the rest of the day.

  His pants were barely zipped when he felt the all-too-familiar vibration in his pocket. Fredericks. He sighed. “Hi, Bill,” he answered. “Working on your sun tan?”

  “Funny,” Fredericks said. “Actually, I’m really working my ass off down here. Speaking of which, how about getting on a plane?”

  “No, thanks. It’s my day off.”

  “We need you down here in cucarachas, or whatever the hell they call this dump.”

  “Caracas.”

  “Right,” Fredericks said. “So, you’ll be on the first flight out then?”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “Curmudgeon is pissed, says we’re not moving quickly enough, says the Intermediary is breathing down his neck.”

  “The usual, in other words.”

  “You’re too young to be cynical.”

  “I blame you,” Quinn said.

  “Sorry to have taken the idealistic gleam out of your eye. So, I’ll see you in a few hours?”

  Quinn sighed again. He enjoyed frequent changes of scenery, but he also enjoyed a day off every now and then. “Which account do you want me to use?”

  “Use the OS do
ssier.”

  Holy shit. Operation Syphilis? Rumored to be the brainchild of the Facilitator himself, distasteful moniker notwithstanding. “Are you sure?”

  “No, I’m making all this up,” Fredericks deadpanned. “Of course I’m sure. Stop thinking and start traveling.” Fredericks hung up.

  Quinn found himself feeling nervous. Operation Syphilis was serious business, at least the portion of the op that he knew about. He finished dressing and was almost to his Land Rover when the phone buzzed again. “I forgot to tell you that I need you to bring the dry cleaning,” Fredericks said, then hung up before Quinn could reply.

  It was code, of course, for a pickup. Not a dead drop, which usually went quickly, but a meeting at a safe house with a live agent. It meant he was supposed to pick up something that came with special handling instructions. There goes the afternoon.

  Quinn returned to his hotel, paid cash for two more nights, collected his belongings, and left the room empty with the “do not disturb” sign hanging on the door. The room still smelled a little bit like sex and perfume, remnants of the two women whose company he’d enjoyed a couple of nights earlier, and the recollection left a lingering pleasantness that put a rosy patina on the excruciatingly boring procedure he now undertook.

  He drove south of town and parked his Land Rover at a park-and-ride facility, then caught the northbound train back into the city, overnight bag slung over his shoulder.

  He bought a newspaper from a kid on the train, discarded everything but the fashion section, and pretended to read the inane articles covering hem height, appropriate neckline depth, and all sides of the question of whether cheetah-patterned high heels were appropriate for the workplace. Forcing him to read the fashion section was undoubtedly a cruel joke perpetrated by Fredericks, and Quinn vowed revenge.

  His discomfort was rewarded when he exited the underground Metro station to find a cab waiting at the curb. The cab number – 12114 – corresponded to the rendezvous instructions.