Pretenses (7 page)

“A couple of tour buses full of people came in. She must have come in with them. By the time I spotted her, she was on the elevator.”

Scrolling down, I saw two names with addresses in San Francisco. I didn't have time to look at every name so I hit the end button to see how long the list was. There were 39 pages of the document. I didn't want to press my luck any further, so I turned off the laptop and ran to the stairs. I heard the elevator bell ping just before I opened the exit door.

T
HE LAPTOP
was still out on the dresser, right where she had left it. Coco couldn't believe she had been so careless, but the chance of someone other than the maid coming into the room was slim. As far as she was concerned, the police were lazy and missed too many opportunities to catch ordinary criminals. They certainly were no match for her, she thought.

Nevertheless, it paid to be careful. She hit the appropriate keys on the suitcase, which contained all sorts of electronic equipment and several other expensive Hollywood-type disguises. She picked up a counter-surveillance device and swept the room for hidden microphones. Nothing registered. A little more relaxed, she turned on the laptop.

Her heart thumped like a sledgehammer when she saw that someone had accessed the hit list files a few minutes ago. Not only had she left the laptop out, she had neglected to lock the files.

The police are not as lazy as I thought. But why didn't they confiscate the laptop and suitcase? Why no microphones? Ahhhh! They didn't have a warrant! That's why! They must still be in the building, probably trying to get one now. Perhaps right outside my door.

She went to the door and listened. Hearing nothing, she looked through the peephole. No one was there as far as she could see, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Her heart rate slowed. She had a backup plan. But she knew she had to
lead her pursuers away from the hotel and then come back later without the De Matteo mask. It was a bold move, but if Coco was anything, she was bold. To be safe, she deleted the hit list file. There would be another laptop and weapons waiting at San Francisco International Airport if she had to leave Washington tonight.

If the police had been in her room, they didn't have time to take down all the names, she thought. To continue working down the list would be difficult for her now, but not impossible. Sydney Drew had to be eliminated tonight, no matter what. Relishing the challenge, she grabbed her suitcase, looked through the peephole once more and left the room.

The plan was to take the suitcase up to the twentieth floor, where she kept a second room—just in case. She always registered under two or three names, paying in advance with a money order. Rarely did she ever need to go to the second room, but it was necessary now. Once in the room, she opened the suitcase and took out an Uzi and several clips. She then took the stairs to the lobby.

When she cracked the door to see if the police were there, she saw Special Agent Phoenix Perry standing by the elevators. She remembered seeing her on television when the president was holding his press conference.

Several tour groups were coming into the lobby. It was now or never. One tour group was about to get on the elevator when Coco opened the stairway door. A woman saw the Uzi and screamed. Phoenix and Kelly turned around and saw the Assassin. They pulled their 9-millimeters out, but people began to scatter in front of them.

Coco seized the opportunity and ran out a door that led to the parking lot. Phoenix and Kelly had to fight their way through the massive crowd, and by the time they got to the parking lot, Coco was on her ninja. She burned rubber and zoomed past them with the front wheel in the air. Barely able to get out of her way, the two agents ran to Kelly's Stingray.

K
ELLY THREW THE
S
TINGRAY
into first gear. The tires spun as we shot out of the parking lot. Tupac Shakur's “Heartz of Men” blared. I turned the stereo off. The suspect was about a block ahead of us. Kelly was going 110 mph, yet the suspect was pulling away. She had to be going over 150 mph. The traffic was starting to get in the way of the chase. Riding a motorcycle enabled the suspect to ride between stopped cars, only inches from disaster, where a car could not follow.

Kelly crossed the yellow lines to gain ground, then crossed back over, escaping a collision with an eighteen-wheeler by the narrowest of margins. I looked at her, aghast at how she was driving. She was oblivious to my daunting stare. Traffic ahead was beginning to back up, but it didn't slow down the suspect. She also crossed the yellow lines and sped up. It looked as if she was going to get away, but Kelly crossed over into the other lane, too. The light was red up ahead. We had her. The suspect had to slow down because of the heavy traffic, I thought, but she didn't. She went right through the light on her back wheel without hesitation.

The crossing traffic put on brakes; tires screeched. Several cars spun out of control into the intersection. We heard metal colliding and glass shattering. Kelly slammed on the brakes, but we just slid, fishtailing out of control. My heart was in my throat. I thought we were going to buy it when I saw two cars coming at my side of the Stingray. They couldn't stop either. I could see the terror on the faces of the drivers. They were that
close. Realizing she couldn't stop in time, Kelly took her foot off the brake, shifted gears, and floored it. The two cars just missed us. Up ahead, we saw the suspect heading toward Union Station.

“If she gets to the station, we may never catch her,” I said.

“I know, Phoenix. But it's rush hour. The traffic will slow her down. Don't worry. She won't get away.”

Soon, we could see her again. We were going to catch her. She was only a few blocks ahead, and the traffic was jammed. I looked at the speedometer. We were going 100 mph. The Assassin looked back and saw us right on her tail. She took off again. What was she doing? I wondered. She was almost at Union Station when a car slammed on the brakes. The motorcycle exploded on impact, throwing the suspect fifty feet ahead of the car she had run into. Somehow, she was able to maintain her balance in the air. Curling into a tight ball, she somersaulted several times and landed on her feet in full stride.

Kelly slammed on the brakes again. We looked at each other, shocked at what we'd just witnessed. The suspect ran into Union Station with Kelly and me hot on her trail. We blasted through the doors at full speed, but she was gone. I was breathing heavily; so was Kelly. I went to the right, Kelly to the left. I bumped into a good-looking, dark-haired woman and excused myself. “Sorry, ma'am.” I gasped for air, looking around the station. “FBI. Did a blonde just run past you?”

“Oui. Uh, yes, yes,” she told me politely, with a French accent.

“Which way did she go?” I asked, pulling out my weapon. She pointed to the east. I spotted her. She was about to get on the train for New York. “Kelly! This way! I see her.”

We hustled over to the woman and yelled, “FBI! FREEZE!” The woman put her hands in the air.

“Me?” she said, still facing the train. “What did I do?”

I jerked her around to face me. It wasn't the woman we suspected. From the back, it had looked like her. “Did you see a blonde run this way?” I asked desperately.

“Yeah. One just ran into the restroom. She may still be in there.”

Kelly ran to the restroom, weapon drawn. I apologized to the woman that I had mistaken for the suspect. Surprisingly, she was polite considering the way I had roughed her up and made her miss the train. A moment later, Kelly came out with a sophisticated mask that looked like the woman we had seen on videotape and a frightened woman who said that a woman had knocked her out and taken her clothing. Kelly and I looked at each other, shaking our heads. We knew Michelson was going to go nuts over this. He might have forgiven the high-speed chase and endangering innocent citizens if we had caught her. But since we hadn't, we were in trouble—big-time.

I
T WAS PERSONAL NOW
. For the first time, someone had scared Coco Nimburu. The danger excited her. She had just had an encounter with an agent who had chased and almost killed her. She could tell from the look in her eyes that Phoenix Perry was determined to catch her. If necessary, she would scour the entire station, looking for the smallest clue to her whereabouts.

The other agent seemed to be equally determined, driving at speeds exceeding 100 mph with little regard for civilians. These two were good and relentless. Were it not for her own great athletic ability and martial arts skills, Coco would surely be dead or in chains.

She casually walked up the stairs to the street and flagged a cab. On the way back to the Capitol Hill Hyatt Regency, she began to plot the demise of her new archenemy. First, she was going to find out absolutely everything there was to know about Phoenix Perry. The cab stopped in front of the hotel, which was inundated with cops. But they had no idea what Coco really looked like. So they checked her ID, which was flawless, and then made sure she was a registered guest and let her by.

Coco returned to her twentieth-floor room and disrobed, leaving each garment on the floor where it dropped. Still hyped from the chase, she needed a hot bath and sex, both of which would be taken care of in the bathtub. Climbing into the tub, she positioned herself under the faucet so that she could feel the nonstop splash of warm water on her sensitive clitoris. She laid back and let the water run for about an hour, then bathed.

T
HE
B
UREAU
had an unwritten rule. To err is human; to forgive is not FBI policy. It's funny, right up until the moment you find yourself getting your ass chewed like there's no tomorrow. On our way back to the hotel, Kelly and I drove past the accident that had resulted from our high-speed chase. There were five EMS vehicles on the scene.

I saw Michelson when we pulled into the Capitol Hill Hyatt Regency parking lot. He didn't look happy. Kelly got out of the Stingray and waited for me. I was thinking about the Assassin.

“I'm glad you're runnin' the show on this one, Phoenix,” Kelly joked, checking her precious Corvette for any scratches. “Nothing happened to my baby. So life is good.”

I couldn't help laughing. I loved her sense of humor. She had a way of making the direst situation less dreadful.

“We're in trouble, Kelly. The woman we chased is a highly skilled martial artist, probably trained all her life. She's powerful, balanced, and keeps her head in the heat of battle. She won't be taken alive.”

“Yeah, and she's also a nymphomaniac.” Kelly smiled.

I grinned. “Seriously, Kelly. When we find her again, I want you to stick close to me. You don't have the training to go at her one on one. I'm not sure I have the training either.”

We had started for the hotel lobby when Michelson stormed around the corner. Always well-groomed, Michelson was a spit-and-polished FBI
man. His personal motto was “Never make the bureau look bad.” Michelson had a way of making you feel like a complete buffoon without saying a word. The look on his face was sufficient, and I would have settled for the stare rather than being blasted by his harsh words.

“All right! You two have had enough time to get your stories together!” he shouted. “What the fuck happened, Perry?”

“Could you, like, lower the volume?” Kelly asked.

“SHUT UP, MCPHERSON!” Michelson yelled. “Keep that up, and you'll be on suspension so long, you'll forget you were ever an agent.” He was still staring at Kelly when he screamed, “I'm waiting, Perry!”

“Well, sir,” I began, knowing I was already on thin ice, “we came here on a slim lead. After the bartender identified the woman Director Pockets had left the lounge with, we were going to go to her room and ask her some questions. Then she took off. We didn't want to lose her.”

“But you lost her anyway, didn't you?” He glared at me. “How did she know you were after her specifically? HUH? You went into her room without a warrant, didn't you? She realized it and made a run for it, didn't she?”

I remained silent.

“How many times have we trained for this? HOW MANY? Agent Perry, we train for this to make sure that when we take a suspect down, we take him down right. That means no innocent civilians get hurt, isn't that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But you two hot dogs had to do it on your own and now we've got a fuckin' circus. And to top that shit off, you've made the President look like a goddamned idiot. He's the one who vouched for you on national television. Now look at this shit! We've got a seven-car pileup, eight civilians with major injuries being rushed to the hospital, and nobody in custody.”

I remained quiet, taking my tongue lashing like a good little girl. Sometimes I hated being an FBI agent; this was one of them.

“Well, what do you have to say for yourself, Perry?”

“Sir, we learned that she's an incredible martial artist. Probably one of
the best in the world, judging by her incredible balance and her ability to keep a cool head in a frantic situation. Also, she's a master of disguise. I think she's Kunoichi—female ninja. And if I'm right, we're going to need a lot more people on this.”

“Is that what you want me to tell the director?” Michelson growled. “You want me to tell him we're after a female ninja who can look like anyone?”

“Don't forget to tell him she's also a nymphomaniac,” Kelly said, interjecting her biting sarcasm. “I'm sure St. Clair would want to know that, too.”

“NOT ANOTHER FUCKIN' WORD, MCPHERSON!” Michelson snapped. “You two get the hell outta here. You're off the case. In fact, you're on suspension until further notice. Ford and Flynn are taking over.”