Steal, page 4
“Who needs the animals?” I said.
“Yeah, about that,” he replied. “Who goes to the zoo in winter? I didn’t even know it was open.”
“Are you kidding me? This is the best time. Isn’t that right, Annabelle? What was your favorite animal we saw today?”
She raised her hands in the air. “Snow leppies!”
“Little-known fact,” I said. “The snow leopards actually have heated rocks in their exhibit. They’re more fun to watch in the winter.”
“I’m sold, professor,” he said. “Let’s go look at the leppies!”
Annabelle was immediately on board, she raised her arms again. “Yeah! Yeah!”
“Wait! Wait!” I said.
“Ah, yes. Business before leppies, huh?” Julian pulled his mask back down over his face and took a seat on the bench next to me. Reaching into his coat, he handed over an envelope. “Here you go,” he said.
“So you were able to do it?” I asked.
“Of course I was able to.”
“You said it couldn’t be done.”
“I always say that. Then I go ahead and do it.”
I looked down at the envelope, feeling the flash drive between my fingers. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“Just buy me a Ferrari one day and we’ll call it even,” he said. “In the meantime, be extra mindful on this one.”
“How do you mean?”
“The certain endeavors we engage in, the things we do, people like us. As risky and dangerous as it all is, it never really plays out in public. We never have to deal with that added component,” he said.
“You mean, sunlight.”
“Yes, as it were. Sunlight.”
“I understand what you’re saying.”
“Do you?” Julian leaned forward, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Because if this von Oehson kid ends up dead on your watch, my old friend, it’s a whole different kind of exposure.”
CHAPTER 11
Elizabeth remembered when she was Pluto. The planet, not the Disney character.
It wasn’t that long ago. She’d transferred into the elite Field Unit of the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Lower Manhattan, the only agent ever not to be handpicked by the task force chief, Evan Pritchard. He wasn’t happy about it.
But Evan Pritchard knew better than to butt heads with the mayor.
Mayor Edward “Edso” Deacon held sway over the city with the kind of power not seen or felt since the days of Fiorello La Guardia. If Deacon wanted his young and pretty detective Elizabeth Needham transferred into the JTTF from his personal security detail—for reasons that he had zero intention of sharing—then, damn it, no one was going to stop him. Including Evan Pritchard.
Elizabeth got the job. Her getting the most high-profile assignments, however, was another story. She’d arrived only days before the attempted Times Square bombing. So much for easing into things. But when the follow-up attack on Grand Central station was thwarted and the terror cells eradicated, it was no longer all hands on deck at the JTTF. The natural pecking order resumed. Elizabeth was the rookie, the newbie, the most distant planet in Pritchard’s solar system. Pluto.
That was then. This was now.
While Pritchard was demanding, caustic, and sometimes a flat-out son of a bitch, he was also fair. His unit within the JTTF was first and foremost a meritocracy. The harder you worked, the more you rose in that pecking order, and no one worked harder than Elizabeth. Pritchard took notice. As sure as gravity, she began being pulled in to assist on the most high-profile assignments. He even had her move desks so she’d be closer to his office. Why bother dialing an extension when all you have to do is scream?
“Needham! Get in here!”
This morning was no different.
Elizabeth rose from her chair at the sound of Pritchard’s booming voice, taking the short walk to his office. It was before 8:00 a.m., and he knew she’d already be at her desk—even though most of her fellow agents weren’t at theirs.
“Needham!” he bellowed again. He sounded like James Earl Jones with a megaphone.
“One day, he might actually say please,” muttered Pritchard’s assistant, Gwen, as Elizabeth passed by. Gwen, short on height and long on chutzpah and sarcasm, had been with Pritchard for decades. His hours were her hours.
“Don’t count on it,” Elizabeth muttered back, adding a wink.
Elizabeth entered Pritchard’s office, taking a seat in one of the two metal folding chairs in front of his massive yew desk. The chairs were purposefully old and unpadded. A hard reminder, literally, that no agent should ever feel too comfortable in front of him.
“What are you working on, Needham?” he asked.
Pritchard knew what all his agents were working on, all the time. Elizabeth was half tempted to point that out. The other half, which included her brain, thought better of it.
“I’m on that offshore gambling thing,” she answered.
“You mean, Rabbit’s Foot?”
It wasn’t a question, but a reminder. Pritchard wanted Field Unit operations to be referred to by their official name. Order and consistency was paramount to the former land component commander from Desert Storm. He never once referred to that operation as “that freeing-of-Kuwait thing.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth, correcting herself. “Rabbit’s Foot.”
“Who are you partnered with?”
Again, Pritchard already knew the answer to the question he was asking. “Sullivan,” she said.
“Anything to share?”
“Nothing yet, although that might change by the end of the day. Turkish intelligence is finally cooperating.”
The purpose of Rabbit’s Foot was to track large payouts by offshore gambling sites to shell companies possibly set up by terrorist groups. While the vast majority of operations that ran through the Field Unit of the JTTF were based on actionable intelligence, there were occasionally those that fell under the heading of speculative intelligence, otherwise known as a hunch. Instinct.
Elizabeth watched as Pritchard leaned back in his chair. She was certain he was about to ask her how she and Danny—Agent Sullivan—were able to pull the end run around the Turkish minister of finance, who’d been adamant about not sharing private banking information for suspected shell companies based in his country.
But that’s not what Pritchard asked.
He had a different question. A real doozy. “So, Needham,” he said, folding his arms. Pritchard always had his sleeves rolled up tight to his elbows. “Are you sleeping with anyone these days?”
CHAPTER 12
Elizabeth blinked a few times, stunned. For sure, she’d misheard him. Only she was more sure she hadn’t. “You know you’re not actually allowed to ask me that, right?”
“Yes, and yet I still did,” said Pritchard. “Imagine that.”
Elizabeth had some very definite opinions about dealing with men in the workplace, and not all of what she believed was exactly feminism friendly. Context mattered a great deal. So did intent. But at the end of the day, the great Aretha Franklin said it best. R-e-s-p-e-c-t. The only way a guy ever truly crossed the line with Elizabeth was when it was clear he didn’t respect her.
That wasn’t the case with Pritchard. He didn’t give a damn about your skin color, religion, where you were from, or even what pronoun you used. If you were extremely dedicated and an asset to the team, then he would always have your back.
But this was pushing it, to put it mildly. He really just asked if I’m sleeping with anyone?
Elizabeth figured her best response after his doubling down on the question was a hard stare. She crossed her arms in return, saying nothing.
“Okay, let me rephrase that a bit,” Pritchard said finally. “Are you currently dating someone?”
“No, I’m not dating anyone at the moment.” Not that that was really any of his business, either. “Why do you ask?”
“Sullivan,” he said.
“What about him?”
“You know what.”
“I’m not following,” she said.
“Of course you are.”
He was right. She was following. Elizabeth knew exactly what Pritchard meant and, as clumsy as it was, why he’d asked her such a personal question. You don’t get to be the chief of the JTTF’s Field Unit without having a sixth sense. Or sex sense, as it were.
“You think Danny and I are dating?”
“No, I don’t,” he said. “But I see the way he looks at you around the office.”
“How’s that?”
“The same way you look at him.”
Elizabeth stared again at Pritchard. She was speechless. Christ, have I really been that obvious?
No, she hadn’t. Pritchard was simply that good at knowing anything and everything happening in his unit. That even included things that actually weren’t happening yet—but possibly could. That was obviously his concern.
“Are we really having this conversation?” she asked.
“Consider yourself lucky,” he said. “We could be having it with Danny in the room.”
True. That would’ve been worse, although it did beg the question: “Have you also spoken to Danny?” she asked.
“No, and I don’t intend to,” said Pritchard.
“Why not? Not that I want you to. I’m just curious.”
“Because most guys are pigs, but Danny isn’t. Nothing’s going to happen between you and him unless you want it to happen.”
“So you’re telling me to make sure it doesn’t?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Does it make you feel any better to know I haven’t had a serious boyfriend in more than five years?”
“No, it makes me feel sorry for you, Needham,” he said. “Get a life, will you? But just don’t do it with anyone here in the office.” Pritchard leaned forward, resting his thick forearms on his giant desk. “There’s only one thing worse than two of my agents sleeping with each other, and that’s when they stop sleeping with each other. Do you get what I’m saying?”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth, nodding. She stood up to leave.
“Where are you going?”
She sat back down, the metal chair beneath her feeling even harder now. “I thought we were done.”
“I wish we were, but I got a call late last night from the mayor. In case you didn’t know, I really hate late-night calls from the mayor,” said Pritchard. “You’re not going to like this one, either.”
CHAPTER 13
The only thing Elizabeth knew for sure was that the call had something to do with her. Anything beyond that was a blind guess. A few possibilities flashed across her mind. More than a few.
“The esteemed Mayor Deacon wants to borrow you,” said Pritchard.
That definitely wasn’t one of them. “Borrow me? What does that mean?”
“He wants you to work on something for him.”
“What is it?”
“He wouldn’t say, and trust me, I asked. More than once. I was actually hoping that you might have an idea,” he said. “You clearly don’t.”
“You talked him out of it, though, right? You explained that I was neck-deep in an assignment?”
“And he explained in return that the reason he needed you wouldn’t interfere for long with anything you were involved with here. It’s short term.”
“How short?”
“I tried to pin him down. A day? A few days? A week? He wouldn’t say for sure, but he did promise me it wouldn’t be long,” said Pritchard. “In fact, he used the words I promise.”
“He’s a politician.”
“Yes. I’m well aware of that.”
“How do I tell him no?” she asked.
“You don’t. He’s the mayor.”
“He’s not my boss. He’s not even your boss.”
Elizabeth recognized the look Pritchard was giving her. She used to get it a lot when she first joined the Field Unit. There was a certain watching-a-dog-chase-its-tail vibe to it.
“No matter how much you’ve earned your stripes here, Needham—and you sure as hell have—you still would’ve never set foot on this floor were it not for Deacon. I know it, you know it, and, most important, he knows it. He also knows he can make my job even harder than it already is. So if that egomaniac of a mayor wants to borrow you for some short-term assignment, I’m not going to be the one to tell him no,” he said. “You’re free to tell him if you want to, but that’s the irony. If you were dumb enough to turn him down, you’d never be facing this situation in the first place.”
There was a reason Evan Pritchard was a successful and highly decorated wartime commander. He knew how to pick and choose his battles.
“What time does he want me at his office?” asked Elizabeth.
“He said there’d be a car waiting for you out front at 9:15 sharp.” He glanced at his watch. “That will give you just enough time to curse to yourself repeatedly before briefing Sullivan on your temporary leave of absence without furthering any more sexual tension between the two of you. Sound about right?”
Elizabeth faked a smile. “Perfect,” she said.
Pritchard smiled back. “Good. Now get out of my office, Needham.”
She did as he asked. She also did everything he predicted. Elizabeth returned to her desk while cursing under her breath, a few of the more choice words rising to the level of mumbling. When Sullivan arrived, she told him about needing to do “something” for the mayor, yet to be revealed. All the while, she was paying way too much attention to how she sounded and looked at Danny, lest she make it any more apparent—so she was told—that she had the hots for him. Damn you, Pritchard…
At 9:15 on the dot, she walked outside to see that the mayor wasn’t merely sending a car for her. He was making the trip himself. It was as obvious as the black stretch limo hogging all the curb space right smack in front of the building. Edso Deacon wasn’t subtle.
Out came his driver to open the door for her. As she slid into the seat, she reminded herself to keep her cool, that no matter what she couldn’t let Deacon see that she was pissed. No way. He would enjoy that too much. The best play was to keep her mouth shut. Nothing but her best poker face.
Elizabeth took one look at the man sitting next to her, and suddenly all bets were off. It wasn’t the mayor staring back at her. Deacon wasn’t even in the limo.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.
CHAPTER 14
I flashed my very best smile. “Hey, partner!”
The art of persuasion is only about 80 percent actual persuasion, what you say and do. The other 20 percent is about making sure you have a captive audience.
I told the limo driver only one thing ahead of time. After you open the door for her, get your tail back behind the wheel as fast as possible and drive!
Which is not to say that it was beyond Elizabeth to do a tuck and roll from a moving vehicle. But I liked my odds. She would at least stick around and hear me out, although not without getting a little miffed at me first.
“What the hell’s going on?” she asked. “I could kill you right now.”
Perhaps miffed was being way too kind.
I’ve noticed over the years that Elizabeth’s eyebrows tend to scrunch up when she’s ticked off. The more ticked off, the more scrunched. They were pretty damn scrunched.
“Sorry,” I said. “This was the only way.”
“The only way for what?”
“That’s what I’m about to explain.”
“Wait. Did Deacon put you up to this? Whatever this is?”
“Actually it’s more like the other way around. I did once save his life, after all. He’s doing me a favor because I need you to do me a favor.”
I thought it was a pretty good segue. Surely she would want to know the favor.
Nope. Not yet. “Why are we in a limo?” she asked.
“That was in case Pritchard happened to be watching.”
“He’s not in on this?”
“Pritchard? Hell no.”
“So, in other words, you lied to my boss. That’s what you’re telling me?”
“Technically, it was the mayor doing the lying,” I said. “But, hey, the good news is you don’t have to deal with Deacon. He’s not involved with this, either.” I caught myself. “Well, he’s not involved beyond getting clearance from Pritchard to borrow you, and then letting me borrow his personal limo.”
“Great. So instead of being pissed just at the mayor I get to be pissed at both of you,” she said. “And where are we going right now? It feels like I’m being kidnapped.”
“Funny you should mention kidnapped,” I said. She was about to say something more when I cut her off. I was running out of segues. “Can I please just tell you what’s going on?”
For the next twenty blocks or so I explained everything leading up to my pulling in front of her building in a limo. There was no editing, no minor sins of omission. And certainly no protecting the privacy of a multibillionaire. Everything Mathias von Oehson had told me, from Carter and his prostitute to his use of peachy keen in his Instagram post to the painting stolen from the Hungarians and possibly their stealing it back, I told Elizabeth.
You either trust your partner or you don’t.
“I really need your help,” I said.
She didn’t doubt my sincerity. Just my sanity. “You’re crazy,” she said. “Do you know that? What if Pritchard finds out?”
“He won’t.”
“The guy’s like a Jedi Master. He can find out anything,” she said. “He even knows all about my sex life, or lack thereof.”
I shot her a look. Who’s the crazy one now? “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Never mind.”
“The mayor was very clear to Pritchard. Under no circumstances can he force you to tell him what you’re needed for,” I said. “Of course, knowing Pritchard, he already asked you this morning if you knew anything.”
“He did.”
