Into the Whirlwind (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Dirk punched the button on the elevator, rode up in silence with a couple of FBI suits, then stepped out on the fifth floor of their headquarters building. Ron Nolan was waiting, ready to lead him down the hall to his office. The FBI agent had phoned earlier to ask if Dirk could stop by.

“What's going on?” Dirk asked as he closed the office door.

Nolan pointed to the chairs on the opposite side of his desk. Dirk slid into one of them and settled against the back. The room was tidy. The only personal touches were photos of Nolan's sailboat on the wall and pictures of his wife and kids on the desk in front of him.

The agent sat back down in his chair. “We caught a break in the case. Interpol called. One of their agents got a tip from an informant that Raymond Neville is in Buenos Aires. Arrived on a flight from Jorge Chávez Airport in Lima. He was using an alias he's used before. Thomas Calvin, a British journalist. The informant claims he's currently somewhere in the city.”

“So you don't have him in custody?” Dirk said.

“Not at this time. He was spotted. By the time an arrest could be made, the guy had disappeared. The point is, the man is no longer a threat to Ms. O'Brien, her son, or anyone involved in the case. He's gone to South America to lick his wounds. If he follows his usual pattern, he'll stay off the grid until someone else requires his services.”

“How sure is Interpol that their informant's information is good?”

“They're convinced the intel is correct.”

He should have been relieved. He was, Dirk told himself. The O'Brien family was no longer in danger. He could stop worrying about Meg and Charlie.

Still, he couldn't get the image of Mickey Degan's bloody corpse out of his head. Neville was thorough. That kind of guy didn't just walk away.

“Neville's The Fixer,” he said. “People hire him to handle their problems. Someone hired him to set up the kidnapping. We need to find out who that was.”

“We're working on it. Sooner or later something will turn up.”

“Your informant says Neville's back in South America,” Dirk persisted. “That was his last known location before he showed up in Seattle. Maxwell Bremmer was also connected to that part of the world. There has to be a link.”

“We haven't found anything so far. We'll stay on it, of course. I just wanted you to know it looks like your clients are safe.”

Clients.
Meg and Charlie were far more to him than that.

“We need to find the link between Neville and Bremmer. I've got a hunch that's the key to this whole kidnapping case.”

“Like I said, we'll stay on it, but this is FBI business, Dirk. You need to let us handle it from now on.”

In other words, butt out
.

He thought about pressing Nolan for more, but he could tell by the hard set of the man's jaw that he'd gotten all he was going to get.

“Whatever you say, Agent Nolan.” He stood up from his chair. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“If something more turns up, I'll do my best to let you know.”

“Thanks.” With no further comment, Dirk walked out of the office, closing the door behind him. As far as he was concerned, the case wasn't over until he found Neville or reached a solid dead end.

From FBI headquarters, he drove the Viper down to BOSS, Inc. If anyone could find the connection between Mad Max Bremmer and Raymond Neville, it was Sadie. He also wanted to talk to Luke, see if he had any ideas.

Dirk found Sadie upstairs behind her bank of computers, reading glasses on the end of her nose, head down, then up, as she typed, then looked at the screen. Curly, platinum hair pitched backward and forward around her face as she worked.

She turned in his direction as he walked into her office. “There you are. What's up, hot stuff?”

“I know you're busy, sweetness, but I need you to do something for me.”

She huffed. “Big surprise there.”

A faint smile touched his lips.

“So what is it you're desperate for this time?” Sadie asked.

“One of the men killed in the shoot-out up at the lake was a guy named Maxwell Bremmer. Mad Max, they called him. I e-mailed you a file. There isn't much in it, but it's all I could get my hands on.”

Before he'd gone to FBI headquarters, he'd done some work on the computer in his apartment. He'd e-mailed Agent Nolan and asked him to send the info the bureau had collected on Bremmer. The FBI man had grudgingly agreed.

“According to the feds, before Bremmer came to the States, he was somewhere in South America,” Dirk said as Sadie searched for, then popped open the file.

He walked around behind her and studied the screen over one plump shoulder. “He was a mercenary, paramilitary, soldier-for-hire kind of guy. I need to know who he worked for. Raymond Neville was also known to be somewhere down there. I need to know how they're connected.”

“I'll take a look at what you've got on Bremmer and Neville, see if I can add anything useful.”

“Thanks, Sadie.”

By the time he got downstairs, Luke was behind his desk, leaning back, a pair of worn army boots kicked up on top.

“Hey, bro. Got a minute?” Dirk asked.

“Sure.” Luke shifted, swung his long legs to the side, and sat up. The overhead light gleamed on the sun streaks in his short, brown hair. “How's everything with Meg? How's her kid doing?”

Dirk sat down in the chair next to the desk. “Charlie seems good. Meg's taking him to see a kid shrink. Make sure he's handling the abduction okay.”

Luke nodded. “Sounds like a good idea. Speaking of the kidnapping, anything new on the case?”

Dirk had been keeping Luke up to speed on everything that had happened and the info the feds had come up with—which wasn't all that much.

“I spoke to Ron Nolan again about an hour ago. Interpol says one of their informers tipped them that Raymond Neville just arrived in Buenos Aires.”

“Have they picked him up?”

“Looks like the guy's gone to ground. No idea where he'll turn up next.”

“I guess it's good he's left the States. Be better if they had the prick in jail, or better yet, in the morgue with Mickey Degan. At least Meg and Charlie are safe.”

“Yeah, that's the general consensus.”

“You might as well pull off the security detail.”

Dirk ran a hand through his hair. “Hard to justify leaving a man out there if Neville is thousands of miles away.”

Luke nodded. “I heard Pamela's out on bail.” Being a bounty hunter, Luke knew every bail bondsman in the city and a good number in the other forty-nine states. “Santini's out, too. With Neville gone, I guess they aren't likely to get their throats cut.”

“Neither of them can identify Neville,” Dirk said.

“Too bad the guy offed Degan before you got a chance to talk to him. He knew something or he wouldn't be dead.”

“The way I've got it figured, Neville is near the top of the food chain. He knew Bremmer from somewhere in South America and hired him to assemble the players. Bremmer hired Degan and Sykes. According to Pamela, Sykes was the guy who brought her into the picture. She never saw Bremmer or Neville till that day at the lake.”

“So Bremmer was Neville's main man, but he's dead, like everyone else. No loose ends.”

“The thing is they call Neville The Fixer for a reason,” Dirk said. “He's a problem solver. He didn't come up with the idea for the kidnapping. He carried it out for someone else. Maybe it was someone with a grudge against Edwin O'Brien. That seems the most likely explanation, but Sadie dug deep and she didn't find anything.”

“Doesn't mean it isn't so.”

“I know. But I'm just not feelin' it.” As he ran through the case in his head one more time, Dirk gazed out the window. The sun hung low on the horizon as the day slipped away. Tomorrow the weather was changing, getting colder again. He turned back to Luke. “We need to find out how Neville knew Bremmer. It has to be something to do with South America. That's where Neville is now and where both of them were at one time or another.”

“Bremmer was a merc. I know some people down there. Maybe one of them can help us.”

Dirk's mouth edged up. “You always know some people.”

“Yeah. Makes life easier.”

Though few people knew it, during his time in the military, Luke had spent months in some godforsaken jungle in South America hunting down a drug lord bent on genocide of the local indigenous people. He had a gift for languages, was fluent in Spanish, spoke better than average Farsi, Arabic, and Pashto. A handy guy to know.

Dirk checked his watch, then stood up from the chair. “Listen, I'll talk to you later. I gotta go.”

“Hot date?”

The blood leaped in Dirk's groin. “The hottest.”

“That has to be Meg. Watch yourself, bro.”

“She . . . ahh . . . thinks we should give it another try.”

Luke sat up straighter in his chair. “What do you think?”

Dirk shrugged, hoping Luke wouldn't dig any deeper. “The sex is great.”

“Yeah, well, you told me Stella gave a great—”

Dirk hissed, cutting off the words.

“She might be a better choice,” Luke said.

“Not the same thing, bro.”

“Yeah,” Luke said softly. “I know.”

* * *

At the knock on her door, Meg untied the apron around her waist and pulled it off over her head. Tossing it up on the kitchen counter, she hurried to let Dirk in the house.

In the entry she paused, took a deep breath, and wiped her damp palms on the pale blue, curve-hugging cashmere sweater she wore over a pair of black leggings.

She couldn't believe she was nervous. She'd been a highly paid lingerie model admired by men all over the world. It took a lot to rattle her.

But Dirk wasn't just another man. He was the man she wanted in her life again. She didn't dare think further than that.

With a second deep breath, she opened the door. Dirk stood on the porch, taller than she was, even in her mid-heeled shoes, so incredibly male with his dark, slightly too-long hair, amazing body, and sexy biker mustache. She couldn't believe he was standing there holding a small bouquet of pink tulips in his hand.

“I thought you might like these,” he said, holding out the flowers.

Her eyes stung. “I love them.” She accepted the bouquet and stepped back so he could walk into the entry.

“Smells good,” he said, maybe a little nervous himself. “What are you cooking?”

“I've got lasagna in the oven. I'd love to tell you I made it myself, but it was Rose. I'm just making the salad.”

His mouth curved into a smile. “Lasagna sounds great.”

She led him into the kitchen, where he settled himself on a stool at the breakfast bar while she found a vase and put the tulips in water. Carrying them over to the kitchen table, she put them down in the center. Surrounded by the white plates she had set out for supper, the flowers looked perfect.

She could feel Dirk watching her as she walked behind the breakfast bar and went back to work, setting out a ceramic bowl and collecting the ingredients for her salad.

“Where's Charlie?” he asked.

“He's upstairs watching TV. I don't think he heard you come in or he'd probably be down here asking you a thousand questions about your bike.”

She pulled the freshly washed lettuce apart and tossed it into the bowl. “He's so inquisitive. He wants to know about everything. How, what, why, when, and where are his favorite words.”

“That's good. Means he's smart, like his mom.”

She smiled. “You think I'm smart?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“I barely got through college.”

“There are different kinds of smart, you know.”

She wondered which kind of smart he thought she was but didn't ask. “You want a beer or something?”

“A beer sounds good.”

She pulled a bottle of Bud out of the fridge, twisted the top, and set it on the counter in front of him.

“Thanks.”

“I really enjoyed the ride, by the way. It was a lot of fun.”

His hazel eyes gleamed with amusement. “I enjoyed the ride, too. Both of them.”

Warm color slid into her face. She couldn't help remembering how good it was making love with him. But it was always good with Dirk.

To distract herself from thoughts it was too early to have, she grabbed a tomato and started chopping it up, tossed it into the bowl. “So what's new on the case?”

Dirk upended his beer and took a long swallow. Just watching the way his throat moved up and down turned her on. It was ridiculous but true.

He set the beer back down on the counter. “I wish we didn't have to talk about the case tonight, but I have news. It might make you feel a little better.”

“Did they catch Raymond Neville?”

“No, but according to the feds, he's left the country. Word is he showed up in Buenos Aires.”

Meg felt a wave of relief. “So he's abandoned his kidnapping scheme. That's good news. Charlie and I are safe, and Dad doesn't have to worry about Mom, either.”

“Nothing's one hundred percent, but that's the way it looks. Just to be sure, I'm working a couple of different angles. I'd still feel better if the bastard was in jail.”

Meg turned back to her salad. “I wonder what he's doing in Argentina.”

“That's the ten-million-dollar question. With any luck, maybe we'll figure it out.”