Dirty Deals: Olesia Anderson Thriller #1 Free Epub Edition (3 page)

Jean blinked. His eyes cleared. "Yeah," he said, in a throaty growl that made Olesia quiver. "I think I do."

He bent down to kiss her, and she let him lead her to the bed and push her down on her stomach, nudging her legs open with the toe of his boot. She cried out as he entered her, stretching her, pinning her in place. Her first orgasm roared up from somewhere dark and forgotten.

After that, it was all fireworks.

She woke with the sheets tangled around her hips, sunlight playing across her bare breasts. Jean was gone.

She rolled over and groped for the alarm clock. Six AM. Only idiots were awake at six AM. She closed her eyes, but with Jean's half of the bed so conspicuously empty it was impossible to fall back into her dream, so she tossed the sheet away and padded naked through Jean's house, following the bleating sound of a television. The terracotta tiles were cold beneath her feet and the unfamiliar corridors led her first into a bathroom, white towels folded neatly on a rattan chair, and then through a laundry that led into a garage. A single bare bulb washed over Jean's Camaro, as well as a blue Ford Focus - the standard issue vehicle for Blackrock employees who valued economy and low repair bills over speed and flash.

She flicked the light off and retreated, this time passing by a shadowed study lined with empty bookshelves, and another room left completely bare, the carpet dusty and the paint faded. She frowned at that, but continued on, finally turning a corner into the living room where a wide, plush couch faced a flatscreen TV nearly the size of the entire wall. The TV spat early morning news, something about a local theft, a car crash, a far-reaching investigation.

Jean was silhouetted before the blue glare of the newsroom, his bald head shining in the light. He turned when Olesia came in, and smiled. "You're up? Thought you'd sleep for a week after that little session."

"Easy to bed, easy to rise." She yawned, teasing the knots out of her blonde hair. "What's on?"

Jean shrugged. He jammed on the remote and the TV blinked off. "Couple days ago, some kids jacked a truck headed for the Silverado gun show, up in Marlboro. Took off with a hundred grand worth of submachine guns and ammo. Still can't find the bastards. Probably already selling them in Washington or Detroit... Gang economy."

She settled beside Jean on the couch and curled into the warmth of his body. He was naked, and his bare skin tickled against hers. "Someone else's problem?"

"Sure as shit isn't mine. If I wanted to stop that sort of low level junk, I'd have joined the PD. Nope, my philosophy is the same as it's always been."

"Step light, and watch the skies?"

"Exactly."

"Didn't help you in Pakistan."

"Ha! I didn't learn it until after Pakistan. Twelve weeks with your arm in a cast teaches you a lot." He ruffled Olesia's hair. "Don't you have a job to do?"

"God, don't remind me. Where's my bag?"

"Where ever you left it, sweetheart."

She grumbled at that, and when she pushed off the couch Jean smacked her on the ass hard enough to sting. For a moment she considered smacking him back, but then she heard the familiar beep of headquarters calling, and she ran for her phone. Her bags, along with her skirt, thong, jacket, stockings, heels, necklace and bra, were piled by the dresser where she and Jean had fucked the day before. It already seemed like weeks ago, the memory of his sweat and pleasure a distant haze.

She plucked her phone from the tangle of clothes. No missed calls, thank God. "Hey, Sparks. Why're you up so early?"

"Alleycats and... Eight-Oh-Six, stop skipping the protocol!"

"The sun isn't even up, you think I'm going to play that game?"

A string of obscenities were muffled by the speaker. "The Lockheed security staff watching Young's house just called in. They said he's been running around, making a real fuss. Lots of noise."

"Anyone else in the house?"

"Nobody in or out. He's probably getting ready to run."

"Must have spotted the spotters. Fucking amateurs... Okay, okay, I'll be there." She hung up, already shimmying into her bra. "Jean!" she called. "I need to borrow your car."

Jean's reply was barking laughter, echoing the whole way through the house. "The Ford, right? No way are you touching the Camaro."

"I'm in a hurry!"

"Sure, isn't everyone? I don't trust anyone with that baby, not you, not my own mother."

She scowled as she tugged her skirt back over her hips. She still smelled of Jean's sweat but there wasn't any time to freshen up. The SP-01 was loaded, and she adjusted her shoulder holster beneath her jacket, wincing at how the magazine ruined the cut of the fabric. "Remind me why I like you so much?"

"My winning personality, Olly," came the reply from the living room. "And my dick."

* * *

She took the Ford, grumbling all the way. Young's house was one of several identical, white-washed two-story units facing out on to a nature reserve, and it wasn't until she saw the car parked conspicuously on the far side of the street that she knew she had the right place. The car was a little black import with a trunk like a ghetto-rapper's butt, and two men sat inside, having an argument. They straightened up when Olesia passed. Black suits, white shirts, black ties. Security staff always dressed up like X-Files extras when they were out on assignment, she thought. Typical.

She parked around the corner and walked the rest of the way, the SP-01 a comfortable weight against her ribs. Young's place, number forty-three, squatted behind a wrought-iron fence, the grass cut neat and the windows shuttered. She watched the glass for any sign of Young, but the house was still.

Olesia sidled up on the passenger side of the black car and rapped sharply on the window. The man behind the glass glanced up. He looked young, almost too young for security, with a dusting of stubble and his eyes hidden behind dark glasses. The window slid down and he leaned out. "Ma'am, if you're after directions-"

"I'm the contractor." She let her jacket swing open wide enough to show the butt of the pistol protruding from the holster. "Is Young still inside?"

The two men looked at each other, then nodded. "Went out for coffee an hour ago, then came back and stayed in. He usually sits upstairs in his study. That's the room facing us." He pointed at the second story of Young's house. "What do you need us to do?"

"Just cover the door. If he runs, I don't want to have to chase him in heels. You got a key?"

They drew a paper packet out from the glove box. It jingled as Olesia tore it open and poured the keys out into her hand. "You boys have a lovely day," she said, and went across the road to number forty-three.

She watched the large bay windows carefully as she unlocked the gate. There were no signs of life behind the curtains, but even so, she reached inside her jacket and flicked the safety. The front yard stank of fresh fertiliser and she held her breath as she unlocked the front door, wincing as the locks clicked back. Only after a count of twenty did she nudge the door open and step inside.

The house was dark and cool. The aircon whirred on full, loud enough to block out any creaking or footsteps upstairs. Leather lounge, IKEA coffee table, fake fireplace. A paper cup of something brown sat on the coffee table, but when she pressed the back of her hand against the cup it was cold.

She crept through to the kitchen. It was empty, as was the laundry by the back door. She glanced through the window into the back garden. Rows of potted plants and a small wooden bench, but no sign of Steven Young.

Upstairs, then.

She peered up the staircase, into the shadows. She could just make out the entrance to Young's study, light breaking through beneath the door, and she made her way up with one hand on the butt of her pistol. A fat tabby cat was asleep on the landing, but woke as Olesia climbed the final step. She nudged the tabby away and it regarded Olesia with baleful blue eyes.

She pressed her ear against the study door. Inside was a faint humming of computer fans, but no sound of typing, no muttering or hushed breath. She drew her pistol and knocked on the door. "Mister Young?"

There was no reply.

Again, she rapped on the door. When she breathed deep she was sure she smelled something like sour milk, or vomit. "Mister Young, we know what you're planning. I could have you arrested, but I'm here to make you an offer instead. Place your hands on your desk, spread wide-"

No sound came from inside the room. She caressed the trigger, counted to three and shoved the door open. The study was bathed in sunlight, a bank of four flatscreens lit from behind in silhouette. An office chair lay overturned on the ground, and the carpet around it was soaked black.

Steven Young, the balding, skinny-wristed engineer, was bundled into the far corner. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, milky and blank. His jaw hung low. There were three holes in him that Olesia could see - two in his chest, just below the collarbone, and a third through his throat. How many others were hidden by the blood soaked into his plaid shirt, she couldn't tell. His glasses had fallen off his nose and landed in his lap, the lenses slick and red.

Pistol held out before her, barely daring to breathe, Olesia crept to the cupboard and yanked the door open. Empty, but for rows of identical plaid shirts on wire hangers. Then to the bathroom on the second floor. The shower curtain was torn from the hooks and the mirror above the basin smashed and bloodstained, but there was nobody hiding there, no assassins lurking in the pile of towels. She ran downstairs, past the sleeping cat, pulled her phone and called Sparks.

"Alleycats and private eyes-"

"Sparks, I need help here. The contact is dead." She yanked the front door open and dashed to the gate. "No sign of forced entry, and-"

The street was empty. The black car, and the security guards, were gone.

The aftermath was brief. Two agents from out of state arrived with yellow warning tape and a bodybag. Olesia watched as they cleaned out the house, vacuuming up every stray hair and skin flake and organising them into little plastic bags. They took photos of the singed carpet fibres where ejected shells had bounced. They scoured the doorknobs and keyboards for prints.

Within an hour, the house seemed alien and empty. Olesia waited around the corner, where a white Blackrock van was parked beneath a tree. Inside, a man with a deep Caribbean tan was sucking data off the pile of hard drives they'd recovered from around the house.

The back of the van was tropical-humid, and Olesia fanned herself with a sheaf of papers as she watched over the tech-man's shoulder. "Got anything?"

"You've got to hold on a while. They shot up his computers pretty bad, and just about every one of these drives has got a nick or hole in it." The tech-man peered into the light of his monitor. "Wiped the drives too, but only a single round of formatting. Must've been in a hurry."

"You can recover everything?"

"In time."

She sighed. "I need the name of his contact now. Not tomorrow, not in a few hours. Now, before they take the data and fuck off behind the Iron Curtain. Understand?"

"Shit, lady, I get it." The tech-guy wiped sweat from his eyes. "I've found some pointers to his cloud data. Might be something there."

"Protected?"

"Give me an hour."

Olesia nodded and called Sparks. "Hey," she said. "Sorry about being abrupt, but things got messy here."

"Don't worry, don't worry. What about you? Are you okay?"

There was something in Spark's voice that made her stand up straight. "Aww, are you worried about me?"

"I'm not worried, I'm just-"

"It's okay, Sparks. I'm a professional. If anything, I'm pissed. They were right outside, and I let them drive away."

"Any idea who they were?"

"Basic suits, dark glasses. Young looking." She screwed herself down into the corner of the van, listening to the hum of the tech-guy's equipment. "What's worrying me is what they did with the Lockheed security team that were posted here. There's a nature reserve nearby, but we've swept the grass and there's nothing there, so maybe they're in a ditch, or a river... Shit, or they're in the trunk of the bastard's car."

"Well, we're trying to track that one now, but we're not having much luck. There's a satellite fixed on Bethesda 24/7, but it's focused on Lockheed headquarters. Might be able to stitch something together from local surveillance cameras-"

"Wait a minute." She frowned, then reached into her pocket. The SD card was still tucked inside, and she held it up to the light. "You think Young was stupid enough to use the same passwords at work and home?"

The tech-guy took the SD card and slotted it into his laptop. "Worth a try. Here we go... office password was transition, with ones for i's. What a dick."

Olesia, thinking of her own passwords, said nothing.

"Okay, trying his cloud data... Got it!" The tech-guy gave the thumbs-up. Data was spitting across his screen, massive file trees unfolding like origami. "Jesus, an engineer with a dictionary pass. Like he wanted it to be easy."

Olesia patted the tech-guy on the shoulder. "Sparks, you hear that?"

"I hear it," said Sparks. "Have him send everything through to headquarters."

Olesia leaned in close, watching the data unfold. Emails, tarballs of code, porn... Lots of porn. "Anything on who he was selling to?"

"I'm looking, I'm looking." The tech grumbled as he burrowed through archived emails. "Yeah, he set up a meeting... no, wait. Two meetings."

"Two?" Sure enough, there were two sets of dates and locations buried in Steven Young's email. One with a contact called Haskel, and the other with someone called Zero Error. Both were offering big bucks for the schematics. The date with Zero Error had come and gone almost a day before; an angry email demanded to know why Young hadn't been at the drop-off. Steven's reply was apologetic and fawning. He'd changed his mind, he said. Too risky, he said. An attack of conscience.

The meeting with Haskel, on the other hand, hadn't been cancelled. It was set for that night, nine pm, at the Garden Inn. And the payout...