Ghost Rendition Page 8

  “What is my problem?” she said.

  “That’s what I’m asking.”

  She gave me that shiny smile. “You’re cute. And you have a lot of people who want to kill you.”

  “Thanks and I know.”

  “But you don’t know who they are,” she said.

  “And you do?”

  “My job doesn’t usually include sharing information, but my contact is dead and I’m on my own,” she said.

  “You’re a contractor? For who?”

  “For Shrink. Same as you. He got me a message before they got to him, ‘Beware of our own.’ He said you were the only one I could trust.”

  She knew Rob’s handle, and I had to admit that did sound like cryptic Rob bullshit. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Let’s say you have two contacts battling for turf. One decides to take out the other. How would he do it?” she said.

  “Very carefully,” I said.

  “He’d trump up treason charges and make the case that after what happened with Snowden it should be taken care of quietly,” she said.

  Pratt perked up hearing Snowden’s name. “They wouldn’t make stuff up, would they?” he asked.

  “They’d convince themselves it was true,” I said. This made sense to Pratt. He went back to his computer. “They’d disappear him. They’re good at covering their tracks. No one would be the wiser,” I said. “That still doesn’t explain the present pig fuck.” It actually turned me on to say that to her.

  “But what if he got wind of it first. Who would he go to? Who could he trust?” she said.

  “His own contractors.”

  “They’d have to get rid of them first. Take out his protection and he’s naked,” she said.

  It was hard to focus when she was saying words like “naked.’ Intra-agency politics were legendary, but contacts contracting for kill jobs on each other was insane. It was a shame. I hate to kill women, especially when they’re pretty. I eased my hand onto my Browning. It was a comforting gun. It felt better in my hand than the huge Desert Eagle the Suit used or the slick-looking Remington R51s the Yahoos in the Mercedes used. And suddenly everything she said made perfect sense. The guys who tried to hit me in the nursing home after my kill job were carrying Remington R51s. They weren’t with Khalid, the guy I was there to snuff. They were contractors, like she was saying. Their contact had tipped them off that I had a kill job, and they figured they could clean me up when it was over. It made my head swim. “What was the split over?” I asked.

  “Him,” she pointed to Pratt. “Shrink didn’t want him renditioned.”

  I looked over at Pratt, but he was busy with his favorite toy. “Why?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who ordered the rendition to start with?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did the Israelis get involved?’ I asked.

  “I didn’t know they were.”

  “That’s an interesting story. And there isn’t a shred of proof,” I said.

  “How else could I know your contact’s handle unless he gave it to me?”

  “You might if you were the one who killed him.”

  “And I killed all those nice young men to gain your trust?” she asked. “You’re even more paranoid than I am,” she said.

  “You helped us for a reason. What do you want?”

  “I want to find the people who got to Shrink, just like you do,” she said.

  I wanted to believe her, which meant I couldn’t trust my judgment. “Let’s assume that contractors like us have gone to ground to wait this out. Whoever went after Shrink reached for the B Team. Skilled professionals would have finished us today. These guys ride around in Mercedes and shoot off their R51s like they’re auditioning for a Jason Bourne movie. The party boys you took care of, group number two, were probably Russian. Putin would love Pratt’s program, and they were all carrying SR1911s. They like to drive red Porsches so they can stand out even more than the stupid Americans. And behind door number three, the Israelis. They read like pros, probably Mossad. They saw the chaos and figure maybe they can sneak in and grab it. Did I miss anything?

  “Sounds right to me,” she said. “What do we do now?”

  “I have him. I have no choice. You get to lay low until this is over and avoid doing anything dumb like coming to the rescue of strangers.”

  “I told you, I have a debt to pay,” she said.

  “Professionals don’t pay debts. They move on.”

  “Like you are?”

  “Like I said, I have no choice.”

  “You could leave him on the side of the road and not look back. You’re making a choice. I am too,” she said.

  We did one of those ridiculous stare-downs across the table. If she were a guy, I would have wanted to shoot her. But all I wanted to do was kiss her.

  Pratt handed her a cellphone. “This is a burner. I need some time to process the data I got at Advanced Crypto. We’ll call you when we know our next move.”

  “Now Sonny’s calling the shots,” she said treating him to a high-wattage smile.

  It wasn’t the worst solution. We could contact her or ditch later, and I wouldn’t have to shoot her. “We’ll go first. Give us ten to see if we’ve picked up any followers. If you don’t hear from us after that, you’re good to go,” I said.

  “I’ll wait for your call. Don’t stand me up.” She put her hand in the small of my back, leaned in and kissed me on the lips.

  I tried to make a graceful exit and not let her see that my legs were wobbly. That’s how I used to feel with Suzanne. It was good to feel that again, and it was terrible. Now wasn’t the right time, and she wasn’t the right person. I almost forgot to check that we weren’t being followed.

  “Can we trust her?” Pratt said.

  “You can’t trust anyone, including me,” I said.

  • • • • • • • • • •

  I put Pratt to bed. He wanted to guzzle orange soda again and work through the night. You can get by on short sleep for a while if you have to, but you don’t want to get strung out and start making bad decisions.

  As I made myself some lavender tea, I had to sniff back tears. If Caroline’s story was true, that meant Rob really was dead. I couldn’t say I knew him well, but he had defined my entire career. It was like the world itself had changed. And what about Nachash? Believing that he was dead was simply beyond my imagination, especially since he kept talking to me. But if contractors were working in groups, trying to kill each other, then the pile of bodies was only going to grow.

  I fell asleep and dreamed that Rob was trying to tell me something, but he was choking to death and I couldn’t save him. I woke up to his screams. They were coming from the bathroom. I ran down the hall, pulled the door open. I found Pratt buck naked, yelling at the top of his lungs. Mimi was naked and laughing at the top of hers. She had ambushed the wrong target.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Mimi meet Sonny, my new research assistant. He’s a little shy.” I handed her the robe that lay at her feet.

  “Did you get shy too?’ she asked, donning her robe, but leaving it open.

  “I’m on deadline. I’ll come by when I can.”

  “I’m sure you will,” she said, and made a slow, dignified exit. You had to hand it to Mimi, she didn’t fluster easily.

  “Is that your girlfriend?” Pratt was fully clothed now and less panicked.

  “Mimi’s my neighbor.”

  “Your neighbor is your girlfriend?”

  “My neighbor is my neighbor. Why don’t you get to work? You can have Starbursts for breakfast.”

  Pratt spent the day happily trying to decrypt the information he’d hacked. I banged out a chapter called, “Killing with Scissors,” which Connor thought would appeal to women, and then I took a run. When I went by the Big House, Rowan was out front throwing a soccer ball to Devon and imploring him to head it back to him. Didn’t this guy ever work? On impulse,
I cut through the neighbor’s yard and around to the back door.

  Suzanne was in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on the night’s vegetarian concoction. After she had given up on being an interior designer, she had done a brief stint at culinary school. She liked the creativity of cooking and all the tactile work of chopping, dicing, and stirring. Ultimately, she found the strict hierarchy of the professional kitchen stifling, but I reaped the benefit of her cooking skills. I felt bad that Devon had to suffer through her vegetarian conversion, which seemed to have sapped her zest for creative cooking. At least Rowan wasn’t getting gourmet meals. The table was set and the plates were filled with gruel of varied colors. She seemed to be cooking something that might be dessert gruel. I scratched at the window and she let me in.

  “I went for a run and I got an allergy attack. Can I borrow a Benadryl?”

  It was a pathetic lie, but it did the trick. Suzanne had a hard time resisting the hurt and the downtrodden. If I hadn’t been allergic, we would have had a legion of lost cats, dogs, birds, and other wounded woodland creatures.

  “I don’t know how you survive on your own. I have this image of you eating three meals out of a microwave and having no clean underwear,” she said.

  She almost never came inside when she picked up Devon. She said my house was too depressing. The fact was that I didn’t mind take-out food, and I bought a lot of extra underwear. I didn’t correct her. I liked having her maternal instincts aroused in my direction.

  She had always thought of herself as a doer. She was going to be a career woman first and a mom second. But none of the careers she tried were ever a love match, and when we had Devon she was over the moon. We would have had a house full of kids if the problems hadn’t started. They weren’t out in the open at first, but the fact that we both hedged on adding to our family should probably have been a clear sign. Suzanne became a preschool teacher instead and loved every student as if they were the kids we never had. I wish I had found something that I was half as suited for, preferably that didn’t involve killing.

  “What Rowan is doing to Devon qualifies as child abuse,” I said while palming the two Benadryl and pretending to swallow them.

  “Don’t start.”

  “Okay. How are you doing?”

  She eyed me suspiciously.

  “I get it that it hasn’t been easy with Devon. And I know how much you take that to heart,” I said.

  “Because I freak out at the first sign of trouble, right?”

  “Because you’re a wonderful caring mother,” I said.

  This actually stunned her into silence. I took the opportunity to give her a kiss on the lips. It was a quick one, but she didn’t recoil, which was a pretty big win. It had been a long time. She tasted the same. I wanted to grab her and feel her in my arms, but I didn’t press my luck. I did manage to crumple up the Benadryl and drop them in Rowan’s food before I left. Hopefully it would make him too sleepy for sex.

  “Thanks for your help. You were a life saver,” I said.

  “You should start carrying them with you,” she said, trying to gain back her usual distance.

  “Then I wouldn’t have an excuse to see you,” I replied and made what I hoped was a dashing exit.

  I ran hard to burn away the thickness in my chest. Was it only that I took Suzanne by surprise, was that why she let me kiss her, or was there something more?

  Desire is the enemy of decision. That’s what Nachash would say. Then again, he had never been married. I took a cold shower. It was probably good that Pratt had scared Mimi away, at least for a while. I needed to keep my head straight.

  The doorbell rang. I finished dressing quickly. Had Mimi decided to make a frontal assault so soon after her retreat?

  Pratt answered the door before I could get there. The kid had no sense. He had a big sloppy grin on his face as he welcomed Caroline into the house.

  “What are you doing here?” I said, not completely surprised.

  “I didn’t like my hotel room. This is much homier.”

  She was dressed in a tight blouse and jeans and carrying a small suitcase. She looked great, but the right thing to do was shoot her.

  “You know this is against the rules,” I said.

  “There are no rules now. What if they track you here? You’re better with me here to help.”

  “How did you find us?” Pratt asked.

  “She put a microdot on my back when she kissed me good-bye. I should have guessed.”

  “Don’t be mad. I missed you,” she said.

  “It was a problem his knowing where I live, but there was a pretty good chance he was going to die. You’re a much bigger problem.”

  “I promise never to tell anyone. Cross my heart hope not to die,” she said.

  “Not the kind of security I’m looking for.”

  She reached into her pants and my Browning was in my hand.

  “Easy there, Quick Draw.” She pulled out a picture of a dark-haired man and two blonde children. “These are my twins. There is nothing and no one I care about more. I’m going to write where they live on the back of the picture and give it to you.”

  She picked up a pen and scrawled an address on the back. “Even though I’m sure you’re good enough to find them off the picture.”

  “And the guy?”

  “My ex-husband. Him, you can kill,” she said.

  I took the photo. My only alternative was to kill her and I didn’t want to do that. Not yet anyway.

  “Am I really going to die?” Pratt asked.

  “Not with the Angel of Death with us,” I said. Caroline gave me a quizzical look. “That’s my pet name for you.”

  “I like it. I might have t-shirts printed up. By the way my name is Caroline. I made up the bit about the cat.”

  Nachash whispered that she was playing me. I thought he was probably right. But she knew where I lived. I was better off keeping her close for now. At least that’s what I told myself.

  “I’m Gib. This is Danny, which you probably already know.”

  “Nice to meet you boys. Let’s get to work,” she said.

  We sat at the kitchen table. Caroline and I had lavender tea, and Pratt drank orange soda. Caroline peppered him with questions and he talked a mile a minute. Some of it was technical, which Pratt seemed cagey about. Some of it was personal, which he seemed to enjoy. And some of it was tactical, which he answered with wild speculation.

  I chased down the picture Caroline had given me. It appeared to check out. I was no Pratt, but I wasn’t bad with computers myself, and I had some pretty good tracking programs that could crack basic fake identity setups. It was no guarantee, but according to what I could find, she had two kids and an ex-husband in Ridgewood, New Jersey. It was like some karmic dating service had connected us. And it was exactly the kind of distraction that I didn’t need. As she continued to question Pratt, I tried to figure out what she was getting at and not get distracted by picturing her naked. By midnight, I gave up trying to do either.

  “I hate to interrupt this almost completely useless conversation, but did you get anything on Rob’s supervisor?” I asked Pratt.

  “Rob was a supervisor.”

  “He was a contact. You must have pulled the wrong file.”

  “Robert Brooks Jr. CIA, Human Intelligence division. Promoted to supervisor three weeks ago,” Pratt read.

  “That’s impossible. Supervisors don’t run contractors.”

  “Maybe he held onto us for protection,” Caroline said. “We were both with him a long time.”

  It made some sense. I’m pretty sure I was one of Rob’s first contractors. He was pretty young when we started. If Rob thought he was under attack, he would go to people he could trust. Then again, it’s not like he had confided in us. He gave us some cryptic hints and handed me the rendition knowing it would blow up. “The more we find out, the more confusing it gets. Are you holding out any other information, preferably something we can use?” I asked Pratt.<
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  “Before he was promoted, he reported to a supervisor named Chandler Westfield. Does that help?”

  “You waited all this time to tell us that?”

  “You asked me to find his supervisor. He’s not his supervisor.”

  “Did you find an address too?”

  “He lives in Scarsdale.”

  “Okay. I’m glad I asked. We’re practically neighbors. I’m going upstairs to sleep now. Tomorrow we’re going to break into his house, tie him up, and have a nice friendly conversation with him. If you come across anything interesting before then, like say who exactly is chasing us and how to get them to stop trying to kill us, please let me know.”

  I knew my sarcasm was wasted on him, but I saw Caroline suppressing a smile, which gave me some small satisfaction.

  “You can sleep in Devon’s room. It’s to the right of the bathroom,” I said to her. “Mr. Helpful can sleep on the couch.”

  Nachash had trained me to fall asleep like turning off a switch. Usually, I did a simple meditation exercise and I was out. But it wasn’t easy with Caroline in the next room. My gun was under my pillow, but I had to admit that it was fantasy more than danger that kept me awake. When the door to my bedroom opened, I thought I was imagining it. Caroline was backlit from the light in the hallway. All I could see was blonde hair, a white t-shirt and white panties.

  “Your room is the other one,” I said.

  “Maybe I like this room better.”

  “If this is you trying to interrogate me, I’m not going to crack,” I said.

  “Want to bet?” she said and pulled her t-shirt over her head.

  Her breasts barely moved. Caroline had to be in her late twenties, but her body had yielded nothing to time or gravity. She wriggled out of her panties with an ease that would have put seasoned strippers to shame. “If you want me to leave, say so,” she whispered.

  “I want you to leave,” I forced myself to say.

  She laughed and removed my boxers.

  “Please leave,” I said.

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” she said and slithered on top of me. She managed to touch every part of her body to mine. Her hands found my shoulder blades and pulled me against her. Her feet hooked around my ankles. Her mouth covered my neck.