Power Play (An FBI Thriller) (2 page)

Two Corners Mall
Washington, D.C.

Monday morning

H
e turned stone-cold and his focus narrowed laser-thin on the man who held the woman in a choke hold. A carjacking in the parking lot of a strip mall not a half-mile from his town house on Euclid—the first one he’d ever seen, and here he was in the middle of it. He’d been walking to his Jeep, a large Starbucks coffee in his left hand, when he saw this man grab the woman and jerk her out of the driver’s side of a shiny black Beemer. She screamed once. Davis yelled at the man to let her go and back away, but the man dragged the woman in front of him, whirled around to face him, and pointed a .22 at her temple. A crap gun, but it could do the job.

“Piss off or the bitch is dead!” the man yelled. “I don’t like bitches. I don’t even like my mom. I mean it, dude, walk away!”

The guy was maybe thirty, and higher than Carly from Homeland Security when she’d nabbed a terrorist in Pittsburgh. He was probably on ice, given the way he was jonesing around, his body jerking on puppet strings. Even from fifteen feet away, Davis could
see his eyes were jitterbugging, the hand that held the .22 to the woman’s head shaking.
Not good.

New tactics. Davis called out, “Dude, I get it. Look, I love my Starbucks fix, too”—he waved his cup—“but you’ve got to let her go.”

“Go away, ass-wipe, or it’s brains-down-the-drain time!” Jitterbug tightened his hold around her neck, pressing the .22 hard against her cheek. The woman’s hands clutched at his forearm, trying to pull it away from her neck to catch a breath. Even from this distance, it looked to Davis like she was more pissed off than afraid.

“Seriously, dude,” Davis called out. “It’s really not a good idea to mess with me. I’m FBI, a walking, talking death machine. You can’t hit me from fifteen feet with that popgun, but I can shoot the gold hoop out of your ear and call my mother at the same time while singing ‘Happy Birthday.’” He pulled his Glock from his holster for Jitterbug to see, then held it down at his side. “You hurt this very nice lady and I’ll personally stuff you in a meat grinder and make a cheap burger out of you. You got me? You need rehab, not this Beemer you’d just wreck, which really would be a shame, about the car, I mean. So put the peashooter down and let the lady go.”

Jitterbug stared at him, as if trying to make sense out of his words. He was shaking his head back and forth, maybe listening to other voices, who knew? His eyes whirled, his mouth worked, his hand shook, and through all his gyrations the woman looked straight at Davis, calm as could be, and gave him a slight nod. Without a pause, she bent her head and took a deep bite out of Jitterbug’s forearm, right through the tatty sweatshirt he was wearing. He yelled, loosened his grip. She pulled back inside the open
car door to give herself leverage and sent her fist into his nose, then her elbow into his gut. He jerked up his .22 and fired wildly, not at the woman but at Davis, once, twice, three times. Nowhere close. Davis leaned down, carefully put his coffee cup on the ground and raised his Glock. The woman was pinned between Jitterbug and the car door, and he made another grab for her, jerking the gun up again toward her head.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Davis said, and very calmly shot the man in the shoulder. One bullet did the trick. The man lurched back and fell away from the open car door and onto his knees, howling, holding his shoulder, rocking back and forth, the gun skittering away from him. The woman shouted to Davis, “Good shot!” And she gave the guy a kick in the ribs, sending him screaming onto his side. Then she knelt down, agile as a teenager, and picked up the .22.

A good half-dozen shoppers dribbled out of the shops toward the parking lot now that it looked safe and they wouldn’t get caught in anyone’s crosshairs. They were brimming with excitement, chattering nervously. A woman screamed, as if for effect. Davis opened his mouth at the same moment the woman held up her hand, cleared her throat, and said in a booming voice that carried all the way to LaFleur’s Dry Cleaners across the road, “Everything’s okay now, people! You, sir, call nine-one-one. The rest of you, you’ll want to stay and talk to the police when they get here. I mean it, this is important. I’d do it for any one of you, so do it for me, okay?” She gave them all the big stink eye, a nod, and an approving smile.

To his surprise, only two of the bystanders melted away. The others grouped together, comparing notes, still flying high on adrenaline.

Davis holstered his Glock and picked up his Starbucks coffee. He sipped it. Still hot.
Good.

The woman started toward him. She was tall, fit, and strong, by the look of the blows she’d dealt Jitterbug. Not a coward, this woman, more a force. In that instant, he realized she reminded him of Sherlock, or Sherlock’s mom, all the way to the red hair bouncing around on her head. It was kind of scary. She was smiling big, showing lovely white teeth, and her red hair seemed to turn redder as the sun suddenly broke through the clouds overhead. She handed him Jitterbug’s .22, butt first, barrel to the ground, smooth and easy. She knew gun safety. Even more scary.

“A meat grinder? Really?” She quirked a dark red eyebrow at him, leaned forward, and kissed him soundly on the cheek.

She smelled like honey. “Well,” he said, “the thing is, my granny always used a meat grinder when I visited her as a kid. I remember she threatened my granddad with it when he smoked his cigar in the kitchen. Why weren’t you scared?”

“Believe me, I was scared to my toes, until I realized he was only a pathetic guy high on drugs,” and she looked back at Jitterbug, lying there holding his shoulder, moaning.

Criminal Apprehension Unit
Hoover Building

An hour later in the CAU, Davis said to the gathered agents, “Metro showed up two minutes later, along with an ambulance that hauled Jitterbug to the hospital. Some of the cops questioned the bystanders, others questioned the woman, and another two
questioned me until I wanted to hurl. I even mentioned Savich a couple of times, but all I got for dropping the Big Dog’s name was one guy who rolled his eyes and one big-deal grunt. They kept asking me the same questions over and over as they usually do. The woman finally broke in and said enough was enough and we were in need of a nice strong morning shot of bourbon and I was to follow her back home in case she fainted—not likely—where we’d toast our mutual good luck and competence. She shoved her card into one of their hands and smiled at them. The two cops were so taken aback, they let us both leave, and I followed her home.”

Davis grinned around the room. “So that’s the story of why I’m late, and I’m sticking to it.”

Savich said, “Really? Nah, that can’t be true. You’re actually saying one of the cops rolled his eyes and the other one only grunted when you said my name?”

“Yeah, couldn’t believe it myself. You’d think maybe they’d have some respect.”

Savich grinned, shook his head. “I can confirm that Jitterbug—name’s Paul Jones—is in surgery at Washington Memorial to remove the bullet from his shoulder. Metro’s in charge.”

Special Agent Lucy Carlyle, soon to be Lucy McKnight, was shaking her head. “Davis, listen to me. You could be in the bed next to Mr. Bug at Washington Memorial instead of sitting here trying to make us laugh. I can see it all: you’re moseying to your Jeep, sipping your latte, thinking about who you’ve got a date with tonight, when that idiot grabs the lady.”

“It was not a latte.”

“Yeah, yeah, macho black. One part of your brain is trying out jokes to tell your girlfriend tonight and all of a sudden, your manic brain snaps to figuring out angles and distances, the drugged
psychology of Mr. Bug, and calculating probabilities for survival, right?”

Davis said, “Hey, I already know what jokes work.” He paused for a moment. “And my brain isn’t manic. It’s a finely tuned instrument. Do you know, though, I think she’d have taken Jitterbug down herself once she got over her surprise at his popping out of the box like that. I gotta say it’s possible she really didn’t need me. Tough, that one. Lots of red hair, like yours, Sherlock. I bet she’d impress you.

“I did follow her home to this swank gated mansion on a huge lot in Chevy Chase, halfway down Ridgewood Road, through this big secure gate with a guardhouse, cameras, and an intercom. It’s all woods out there, with very few houses. The ones that are there are big and set back and very private. The guardhouse was empty, but she didn’t have to speak to anyone on the intercom. Nope, the gate opened up fast, which means there were cameras inside monitoring. I was right behind her in my plebian Jeep on her big circular driveway. Before we’d even stopped, this big guy comes running out of the house, makes a beeline right at me like he’s going to rip my tonsils out. She climbs out of her BMW and calls out something like ‘Hooley, it’s okay.’

“Since I had to come to work and couldn’t toast her with the bourbon, she patted my face and gave me another kiss. Hooley’s standing only six feet away, his arms crossed over his chest, measuring me for a coffin. He was a bodyguard, I’m sure of it. I’m thinking maybe she’s someone important.”

“Well, what’s her name?” Coop McKnight said.

“Does anyone recognize the name Natalie Black?”

Sherlock stared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Davis’s town house
Euclid Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Monday, early evening

W
hen Davis pulled his Jeep into his driveway, he saw a big yellow Harley idling at the curb, the rider still astride it all in punk-black, from boots to helmet to thin black leather gloves. Now, what was all this? Maybe it was Jitterbug’s brother, out for revenge. He ambled over to where the Harley and its driver sat waiting. As he neared, the driver revved a loud scare-the-birds-out-of-the-trees hello. He loved the sound of the Blockhead engine.

It wasn’t Jitterbug or one of Davis’s informants—none of them had that kind of juice, and the Sportster 1200 Custom was a nice one, a hog right up there in the Harley food chain. Who, then? He smiled as he came to a stop a foot from that gorgeous machine with its beefy front end. “I like the hissy-fit yellow paint job. Haven’t seen that color before. You like the pull-back handlebars?”

Off came the helmet and out fell a reddish-brown braid, thick and heavy past her shoulders. He’d heard one of the agents in the unit call the braid a fishtail. Okay, he could see that. She was wearing dark sunglasses. She pulled off her leather gloves and began
drumming her fingers on the fuel tank. Her nails were clean and buffed, and she wore no rings. “The handlebars were a pain until I got used to them. Now they’re good.” She eyed him up and down. “Mom said you sort of moseyed, like you had all the time in the world. I told her you sounded like a druggie yourself. She said no, couldn’t be, you were an FBI agent, plus you were too cute to be stupid. You’re Special Agent Davis Sullivan?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Who are you?”

She pulled off her sunglasses. Would you look at those pale green eyes. He’d never seen that color before, well, yeah, he had, that very morning. She was striking, like her mother.

“I’m her one and only kid.” She leaned over and shook his hand. “Thank you for keeping my mom out of deep doodoo this morning. She seems to be getting herself into weird situations lately, and I try to be around to help her out, only I wasn’t this morning, so thank you again. She couldn’t believe that little twerp wanted to carjack her new Beemer, right in front of the shopping mall. All she was doing there was picking up her dry cleaning.”

Even though she’d thanked him—twice—Davis could tell Biker Babe wished she could have been the one to be there to do the saving, not him. Her hair wasn’t as stark red as her mom’s. Her dad must have diluted the mix, but she was pale-skinned like her mom, with nary a freckle in sight. He smiled. “You’re welcome. So she said I saved her?”

“Not exactly, but close enough. She said you never dropped your cup of coffee, said you calmly put it down, and when it was over you picked it up and took a sip. She admired that. She said you smelled like cordite and lime, like the aftershave my father used to use. I can still see him, patting his face with it while he hummed show tunes.” She stopped, shook her head, reset. “From
what she said, I think the guy’s brain was on overload and he’d probably have crashed and burned without your help.”

Yeah, that’s what he’d thought, too, but he couldn’t help himself. He said, “Nah, the guy was still in the manic stage, unpredictable, on the edge, but you’re right, Ms. Black. You look like your mother.”

She gave him a lazy smile. “Thank you.”

“If I hadn’t been there, Ms. Black, I think your mom would have cleaned Jitterbug’s clock herself, made him very sorry he was in that particular shopping mall and had a hankering to joyride in a shiny black Beemer.”

“Jitterbug—good name. I went by Washington Memorial to check on him, found out the moron’s real name is Paul Jones. I hope he’s not a descendant of a very fine American hero John Paul Jones.”

“If so, it’s time the gene line closed its doors. You want to come in? Give the beast here a rest? You can pull him in behind my Jeep.”

She looked at his town house, then at him, up and down, and revved the engine. “Mom said you had a real smart mouth.”

“Me? Never. And my place is clean since my housekeeper was here today, so even the john sparkles. No food, though, since Monroe doesn’t cook.”

“Monroe?”

“He’s a retired firefighter and my housekeeper, what you’d call real anal. I once saw him using an ancient toothbrush he’d pulled off his tool belt to get after some dirty grout in the shower.”

She grinned. “Don’t you just hate that dirty grout?”

“Never really noticed it until Monroe pointed it out.”

She studied him a moment longer, then pulled her helmet back
on, fastened the strap, and pulled on her gloves. “I’d like to, but I can’t. Can I have a rain check?”

“Any day but Sunday, that’s my busting-around-with-family day.”

She nodded. “Thanks again, Agent Sullivan, for helping my mom. I gotta go.” She roared away from the curb and down Euclid Avenue like she owned it.

“Who was that hot cracker?”

Davis turned to see Mr. Mulroney standing right behind him, a bag of groceries from the Mini-Mart cradled in his bony arms, a bag of Fritos Scoops! sticking out the top. And was that a can of bean dip? His mouth watered.

“Do you know, I never found out her name.”

“What’s wrong with you, boy? I never thought you’d be that turtle-slow.”

“I guess all that black body armor on that sweet hog sizzled my brain.”

Mr. Mulroney, eighty-four and a half, said as he turned away, “At least she wears a helmet, and that’s gotta mean her brain’s not a bowl of cold oatmeal.”

When had that saying been popular? He watched Mr. Mulroney navigate himself and his groceries safely into the town house two doors down from his, then he glanced once more down Euclid, but she was long gone. He liked her smart mouth and her sense of humor. He pulled off his leather jacket, slung it over his shoulder, and whistled as he walked into his spanking-clean entrance hall. He looked around, breathing in the scent of Pine Sol, Monroe’s favorite cleaner. He walked into his shiny kitchen, pulled a bottle of water from the spotless refrigerator and drank deep. He said to the bottle, as he wiped his mouth, “Curiouser and curiouser.”