Unfinished Business, page 29
part #17 of Sam Prichard Series
“We read you, mate,” Denny said. “I’m agreeing with Summer, I don’t think I’ve seen any sign of anyone else watching her.”
“And you may be right,” I said, “but be careful, anyway. We’re about to head for New York City, so we should be there in about seven and a half hours. Keep the lights on for us, would you?”
They had no trouble getting back to the airport and were back in the air, on the way to New York City, an hour later. Sam leaned back in his seat and tried to sleep, but all he could think about was the flippancy with which Jenny had tortured and then killed Leonardo.
He was fully aware that assassination was part of the political world, but he had always imagined assassins to be someone like James Bond. Jenny Lance was more like—like a Barbie doll with Frankenstein’s brain.
Just the very fact that she even existed was terrifying to Sam, but he understood that she was at least using her murderous proclivities in service of her country. Most people who enjoy killing as much as she seemed to do became true psychopaths, killing just for the fun of it, or for the psychosexual thrill they got from it. Jenny accepted that part of herself, but allowed herself to be controlled by her organization, her boyfriend and, apparently, by Noah Wolf.
It was more than an hour before he was finally able to drift off to sleep.
* * * * *
Gabby had left the house twice that day, and they had managed to keep her in sight both times without being spotted. Denny kept thinking she was going out to kill someone, but each time she only stopped at a restaurant and picked up food.
“She’s got stones,” he said. “She knows damn well her picture is all over the news, and she doesn’t even care.”
“She doesn’t look like that picture,” Summer said. “She dyed her hair, and she's probably wearing contacts or something.”
“I still say she’s got stones.”
They were still watching at 10 o’clock that evening when Denny’s phone finally rang. He glanced at the display to see that it was Sam calling, and put it to his ear.
“It’s about bloody time,” he said. “Where you been, mate?”
“Pretending to be part of the jet set,” Sam said. “Have you got eyes on her?”
“Well, not at the moment,” Denny said. “She’s inside the house, I don’t have x-ray bloody vision, you know.”
“Of course not,” Sam said. “All right, we're just leaving the airport. We should be there in about forty-five minutes. Let us know if she moves, okay?”
“You got it, mate.” He turned to Summer. “They’re here, and on the way. What do you think is going to happen when they get here?”
“All depends on who Sam is with,” she said. “I think it’s not the CIA, because they’re not allowed to operate on U.S. soil. Kinda irks me that we weren’t allowed to know what’s going on.”
“Yeah,” Denny said. “Reminds me of when I was in the SAS. They always kept secrets, and half the time I didn’t even know what my mates were doing. It’s all part of the game, though.”
“As long as they take her into custody, I don’t care.”
They settled back to wait.
There were traffic problems in the city, and it was almost an hour before the rented SUV pulled up near them. Sam had called again to find out where they were parked, and Denny got out and walked over to speak to him.
“Good to see you,” he said. “I know, you can’t introduce me to your mates. No worries, I just wanted to make sure you are all right.”
“I’m fine, physically,” Sam said. “Let’s not talk about mentally. She still in there?”
“Hasn’t come out the front,” Denny said. “The back is like most of the places around here, surrounded by a tall fence with no gate. Far as I can tell, she's in there.”
“And still no sign of anybody else?”
“Nothing, nothing at all.” He glanced at Noah. “Anything we can do to help?”
Noah shook his head. “You and the girl need to get out of here, now,” he said. “When this is over, Sam can give you a call.”
Denny glanced at Sam for approval, and Sam nodded. “Do as he says,” Sam said. “He’s in charge.”
Denny nodded, then walked back to the car. He climbed inside and Summer started up a moment later and drove away.
Sam got out and leaned against the car while Noah, Marco, and Jenny all headed toward the house, leaving Neil sitting in the car with Sarah. Gabby had never seen any of them, of course, so Noah simply walked up and knocked on the door.
A male voice from inside called out to ask who was there.
“My name is Daniel,” Noah said, “and these are my associates. We were sent by Bastian Marchand.”
There was some whispering inside, and then the door opened. A bald young man stood there, with one hand behind his back.
“Bastian sent you? Why?”
Noah pushed him aside and stepped into the house, and the others followed. “Because your phones have been compromised,” he said. “Someone managed to triangulate your approximate position using the cell towers. He didn’t want to risk calling you, because that would let them get an even tighter fix on your location.”
Dale, who answered the door, looked at Gabby. “You know what he's talking about?”
Gabby was staring at Noah. “I've never seen you before,” she said. “How do I know Bastian sent you?”
“If he didn’t,” Noah said, “how would I know his name? Where are the rest of you? We’re supposed to get you out of here as quickly as we can.”
Gabby looked into his eyes for a moment, then turned and called out, “William? You guys come on out, it’s okay.”
William, Claire, and Deanna stepped into the room, and that’s when Noah made his move. William was between him and Gabby, so he shot William between the eyes first. Marco and Jenny had drawn their own weapons and Marco took out Dale, then turned his gun toward Deanna. As he fired, Claire suddenly got between Noah and Gabby, who took off running.
Noah fired once, but Gabby had already turned the corner. Claire went down as he took off after Gabby, but then Noah ducked back as Gabby squeezed off a shot of her own. He waited a moment, then stuck his head out for a split second, saw that she was gone from the hall and started moving down it. Jenny and Marco fell in behind him.
The back door was standing open, and they reached it just in time to see Gabby going over the back fence. Noah sprinted after her, but by the time he went over, she was nowhere to be seen. The three of them spread out, but they found no trace of her.
“Let’s get back to the car,” Noah said. “The police will be coming anytime, and we need to be long gone.”
Down the street, where Sam and Sarah and Neil waited with the car, Sam looked up to see a man approaching on the sidewalk. He seemed to be curious, and he stopped near where they were parked and looked at Sam.
“Did you hear gunshots?” he asked.
“There’s something going on down the street,” Sam said. “You might want to get off the sidewalk.”
A sound caught Sam’s attention and he glanced toward the house, and that’s when he saw Noah, Marco and Jenny coming toward them. He’d only taken his eyes off the man for a split second, but a tiny bit of motion in his peripheral vision made him spin around again, and he saw that the man had a machine pistol in his hand, and it was aimed at Noah.
Sam reacted without hesitation, throwing himself at the man with the gun and shoving it upward. The guy was strong, though, and pushed Sam off of himself easily. He bounced against the car, scrambling for his own gun, but the guy was already over a fence and gone. Noah and the others ran up and looked over the fence, but there was no sign of him.
“At least,” Noah said, “we now know what Andre looks like.” He turned to Sam. “We got all of them but Gabby,” he said. “She got away.”
“Crap,” Sam grumbled. “And I let Andre slip through my grasp.”
“Sam, you’re lucky to be alive,” Noah said. “In considering that he was about to unload that gun on us, you have our thanks.”
Sam scowled. “At least I did something right,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been nothing but a third wheel with you guys.”
“If you hadn’t been here,” Marco said, “we probably wouldn’t be. Don’t sell yourself short, Sam, you just saved our asses.”
“Oi!” The call came from down the block, and Sam recognized it instantly.
He turned and looked, then said, “Denny?”
It was Denny, all right, and he was holding Andre by the back of his neck and with one arm twisted behind his back. Summer was right behind them, her little pink pistol in her hands.
“Caught this running out the alley with a bloody machine gun,” Denny said. “Just had a feeling it might be something of yours.”
Marco burst out laughing. “How the hell did you catch him?”
“Well, I know you blokes said for us to go get lost, but one thing about Windlass is that we don’t run off and leave our own. If anything went bad, we wanted to be close to Sam. We drove around the block and parked again, and this bloody fool comes zipping out the alley with that bloody machine pistol in his hand. Well, I just figured it had to be connected, so I popped my door open as he ran by. Caught him in the leg and he went down, and by the time he realized what had happened I had my gun shoved against his head.” He shrugged. “Just thought you might want to take charge of him.”
“Indeed we do,” Noah said. He nodded to Marco.
“And now,” Noah said, “despite the fact that I’m quite grateful, I need you to do exactly what I asked. Go somewhere, and wait for Sam to call you.”
Denny looked irritated, but another glance at Sam made him give in. He hooked his head at Summer and the two of them walked away. As soon as they were out of sight, Noah put on his sunglasses and looked at Andre.
“You and Gabriella are the last of your entire organization,” he said. “You have any idea where she might’ve gone?”
Andre’s face showed no emotion. “Not even a clue,” he said. “I’ve been watching her for the last two days, because I wanted to try to salvage the others. I was hoping to catch her alone, but your two bunglers, there, kept following her around. Had I known who they were, I would have simply killed them, then taken care of Gabriella.”
Noah watched the display inside his glasses, then nodded his head once. Sam hadn’t even seen Jenny slip around behind Andre, but her hand appeared over his shoulder and the knife dragged across his throat. Marco pushed him down and to the side, so that the spraying blood didn’t hit any of them, and then they all stood and watched as Andre bled out.
“And now,” Noah said, “there’s only Gabriella left.”
They went and checked into a hotel, avoiding the Marriott in case Gabby knew that Sam had stayed there before. They checked into a Westin hotel, and all of them went to their rooms to shower and change clothes. Sam had called Denny when they chose the hotel, and told him to bring Summer and come there.
Denny and Summer had come directly to his room, and they waited while he got cleaned up. When he came out of the shower, already fully dressed, Denny finally got the nerve to ask the question.
“Sam,” he said, “just who the hell are those people?”
“I'm not allowed to say,” Sam said. “But let’s just say that sometimes, it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. These people do the same kind of thing that Gabby does, but in the interest of national security and justice. And they are very, very good at it.”
Denny and Summer looked at each other, then turned back to Sam. “So what’s next?” Denny asked.
Sam shrugged. “Gabby’s in the wind,” he said, “but the organization behind her is no longer a threat. She’ll surface sooner or later, and someone will get the chance to do something about her. As for me, I’m going home. I want to sit on the floor and play with my children for a couple of days, and forget everything I've seen on this last trip.”
Denny started to say something, but then he thought better of it.
* * * * *
They got up early the next morning and began packing for the next flight. Noah and his team would be going on without Sam, while he arranged a flight for himself, Denny, and Summer. Marco stopped and knocked on Sam’s door to see if he wanted to join them for breakfast, but he declined.
“Look,” Marco said, “I know this wasn’t a very pleasant mission for you. Are you going to be able to handle it, man?”
“Marco, I’ve seen some terrible things in my life,” Sam said slowly. “To be perfectly honest, though, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything as terrible as Jenny. Noah, he’s just professional, he just gets the job done, but that Jenny—she’s absolutely terrifying.”
“Noah is truly a professional, that’s true,” Marco said. “The thing is, there’s something about him that I think you don’t know. See, Noah actually suffers from something called histrionic affect disorder, and I don’t have a clue what any of those words mean, but the whole thing all put together means that he has no emotions. Without emotions, he doesn’t think the way the rest of us do, so every decision he makes is based on pure logic. He knows what he’s doing all the time, even when anybody watching him might think he’s completely on a rampage, or that he’s gone totally off his rocker. He’s always an absolute and total professional, and he’s the very best there is at what he does.” Marco made a grin, and nodded. “Now, when you talk about Jenny? Yeah, sometimes she scares the living crap out of me. I’ve seen her damn near skin a man alive, because he didn’t want to tell us where to find Sarah when she was captured by the Chinese. She’s a cold-blooded killer, that’s absolutely true, but sometimes she’s one of the sweetest girls you’d ever meet. You should have been there when Noah and Sarah got married, you wouldn’t know it was the same person who was the maid of honor.” He shrugged. “The thing is, while it looks like she’s crazy as a loon, she is absolutely in control of that dark side of hers, and I can even tell you why that’s true.”
Sam’s eyebrows went up. “Really? And how is that?”
“Because Neil is still alive. They live together, and they have the same kind of fights that every other couple has, and she has never so much as laid a hand on him. She lets that stuff out of herself when we go out on a mission, and that way it never comes out when she isn’t expecting it. That’s why Noah is willing to let her do some of the things she does. Because that’s how she copes with that side of herself, and because the country needs her.”
Sam looked at him for a moment, then extended a hand. The two of them shook, and Marco walked away.
A half-hour later, Sam, Denny, and Summer met up in the continental breakfast area. Noah and the rest were already gone, and Sam ate only half of his waffle.
“Was it that bad, mate?” Denny asked.
“It wasn’t good,” Sam said. “To be honest, it kinda made me wonder just where we stand, working for the government the way we do. Don’t get me wrong, I know that people like them are necessary, but I hope I never have to work with them again.”
They finished eating and got up to leave, tossing their paper and plastic into the trash can. Sam went to the front desk and settled up their bills, and then they headed for the front door.
A little old lady was just coming in, and she seemed to be having a problem with the huge purse hanging from her shoulder. Sam leaned on his cane as he stepped aside to let her pass, but that’s when she suddenly turned and pulled a pistol out of that large bag. She pointed it at Sam, and Sam’s life suddenly flashed before his eyes.
In what could only have been the barest of split seconds, Sam watched himself as a child, saw his father’s funeral for a second time, saw his marriage fail and watched Indie come into his life. He was just up to the point where Bo was born, when the sound of the gun brought his reverie to a halt.
He blinked, and looked down at himself to see where he’d been hit. He stared for a second, because there were no bloodstains on his white shirt, and then he looked back up at the old lady, the old lady who had been Gabby in disguise. She was still standing in front of him, but her eyes held no light, no expression at all, and as he watched, she toppled over backward. There was a tiny hole in the center of the bridge of her nose, and he turned to look behind him.
Summer stood there with little Maggie, the miniature twenty-two caliber pistol, clutched in both hands. The look in her eyes spoke of shock, and of regret, as Sam reached out and took the gun from her.
Suddenly, the world around them returned. People were screaming and running in every direction, except for Sam, Summer, and Denny. Denny had already had the presence of mind to pull out his ID.
“Federal agents,” he called out. “It’s all under control, now, folks.” He looked over at the desk, where the clerk was staring at them all. “Hey, mate,” he said. “Would you mind calling the police for us, please?”
* * * * *
It took a couple of hours to settle everything with the police, and then Sam and the others were allowed to leave. Sam had called Russell Kincaid on his cell phone, and he had promised to get word to Janice that Gabby had been taken care of. Once that was done, Sam, Denny, and Summer finally headed for the airport.
It was late afternoon by the time they landed at Denver, and Roger Bowman was there to pick them up. Sam rode back to the offices, tossed his bags into the back seat of the Mustang, and headed for home. When he got there, he walked in the door to find an excited Kenzie waiting for him, and he scooped her up in his arms and held her until Indie came into view. Then he wrapped one arm around each of them, and looked at his son who was holding onto the side of his playpen and cooing, “Da, da, da, da…”
“You can’t believe how good it is to be home,” he said.
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