The Asset (30 page)

“Bienvenidos a Miami.”

MIAMI

Day 54

T
hey made it to the
city in forty-five minutes, and it was a mad dash to get everything ready. The mercs brought the rental yacht in from a different marina and tied it up on the slip next to Kruz's. They were quiet, no-bullshit men who looked just like Mitchell—leathery and battle hardened. They spent hours working with Mitchell prepping the gear, then the whole team went over every detail of the plan until it was committed to memory. By the time they were finished, it was 2:00
A.M.
the day of the Kruz event. When everyone else went to their berths and collapsed, Kennedy tried to relax on deck in a chaise. It was a balmy night, with a warm breeze coming off the water that helped him shake the chill he'd gotten into his bones in Boston. Love sat next to him and passed him a bottle of red wine.

“They stock these rentals with quality hooch,” she said. “I think this was bottled the year I was born.”

“A good vintage,” Kennedy said, toasting her.

“I figured you could use a drink after vomiting three hours straight, witnessing the gruesome, yet justified, murders of seven of the world's biggest assholes, and preparing to kidnap your life coach so you can torture him for information on his luxury yacht.”

“He's not my life coach.” Kennedy groaned.

“Sorry.”

Love sipped her wine. Kennedy could feel her look.

“Spit it out,” he said.

“What? I got nothing to spit.”

“Really?” he said, remembering the kiss she had laid on him in the Southie bar.

“Really.”

Kennedy smiled. “Remember when you and Belle took sailing lessons over at UCLA? She bought those preppy shoes from the L.L.Bean catalog.”

“Boat shoes,” Love said.

“Yeah, and that stupid Cap'n Crunch jacket.”

“That was her stylish sailing jacket, you mean big brother jerk.”

Love punched him in the arm.

“Don't hit me. She was the one who almost killed you.”

“Oh my God, she was a disaster.” Love laughed. “Lost control of the jibboom in a thirty-knot wind. Sucker knocked me into the drink. You valiantly dove in and pulled me back to the boat.”

“Yep,” he said, taking a swig. “Some serious hero shit.”

“You were all smooth with your lifeguard training . . . but then you realized the top to my bikini had come off.”

“What? I don't remember that.”

“Bullshit, you practically got to second base saving my butt.”

“How did I go from hero to perv so quickly?”

“I'm not saying you copped a feel. It was just funny when you saw the girls bouncing around next to your arm.”

“How do you know what I saw? You were passed out.”

“Not the whole time.”

“Why didn't you say something?”

“Because I liked it, dummy. Jesus.”

She reached for his hand. He held hers tightly.

“One thing I don't understand is how you've managed to be alone for so long.”

“After Belle died . . . I couldn't see myself being some normal guy with a wife and family. All I could think about was the fact that she would never have that, so I didn't feel right having it either.”

“Dude, she would have wanted you to be happy. You were the best big brother ever.”

“Not when it counted. The night before she died . . . I said . . . I was horrible.”

Tears rolled down his cheeks and he didn't try to hide them or play it off.

“She forgives you,” Love said. “She knew you had her back. Always.”

Love kissed him.

“And this? This is a good thing. I'm good with it. I spoke to Belle last night. She's good with it. How about you?”

He nodded and kissed her again.

“I'm good with it.”

T
he Noah Kruz event got
into full swing at 4:00
P.M.
Kennedy was whisked into the venue through a private entrance with the other VIPs. There were only twenty of them and he was the only one who had purchased the one-on-one session. They waited in a posh greenroom, drinking champagne and toasting the success Noah Kruz had helped them realize. The whole scene made Kennedy's stomach turn.

An hour earlier, Love's stage manager friend had let her in through the talent entrance at the back of the venue and showed her to Kruz's Life Sculpting Suite. After he was gone, Love let Mitchell and a couple of his mercs in through the same backstage entrance, and they took up positions inside the suite. Back at the marina, Nuri and the rest of the mercs were waiting in the rental yacht. Noah Kruz's yacht pulled into its slip next to them shortly after 6:00
P.M.,
and his crew got to work loading cargo and preparing the boat for departure later that night.

Kennedy took his front-row seat at around the same time and, after a bombastic entrance, Noah Kruz began his ebullient presentation. Normally, Kennedy would have been rapt, hanging on every word, but that night he could barely bring himself to listen, the sound of Kruz's voice sounding hollow and inflated, like a balloon slowly releasing a roomful of hot air. And he was embarrassed by the voices of his fellow “Kruzers” droning around him. They sounded like some kind of cult parroting their
leader in a shrill, robotic chorus. Kennedy slipped into an existential coma, feeling every drop of faith and enthusiasm he'd had for Kruz drain out of him. The cacophony that trumpeted the end of the show was the only thing that could slap him back to reality.

“So pick yourself up,” Kruz bellowed in conclusion. “Save yourself. That's how you win. And being a winner is the best possible gift you can give to the people around you and the world. Good night!”

Standing ovation. Kruz's four beefy bodyguards fought off the crowd as he shook hands and signed autographs. Kennedy went to another tedious VIP cocktail reception back in the greenroom to wait for his one-on-one. All he wanted to do was get on with it, but he ended up having to talk to a lot of lost and damaged people who couldn't get enough of the cold cuts platter. Kruz worked the room, taking his perfunctory handshake photos and signing autographs, then breezed out.

“Hello, sir.” An older man with dyed hair and eyebrows accosted Kennedy. “I'll be escorting you to your session with Mr. Kruz.”

They shook hands and the man led Kennedy down the hall to the Life Sculpting Suite, where he would have Noah Kruz all to himself. When they walked in, Kruz was sitting behind a desk, waiting for Kennedy with a mildly condescending smirk on his face.

“So why do you want to save the world?” Kruz asked.

“Beg your pardon?” Kennedy said.

“It's in your personal profile,” Kruz reminded him in an accusing tone.

“Right. Sorry.”

Kennedy had put that in his profile years back when he wasn't completely jaded about making a difference in his work. He took the seat he was offered on the other side of Kruz's desk.

“Let's try this again,” Kruz said. “Why do you want to save the world?”

Kennedy tried to think of a bullshit response but opted for the naked truth.

“Because I care about people.”

Kruz pressed a button on a small electronic device on the desk. Kennedy heard an audio playback of himself saying, “Because I care about people.”

“Did you hear that?”

“Yes,” Kennedy said, confused.

“I don't think so,” Kruz said, and played it back again.

“Because I care about people.”

“The
way
you said it?
How did it sound?”

“Um—”

Kruz held up his hand, stopping the “um” from going anywhere. He played the recording of Kennedy's voice again.

“It sounds like I'm full of shit,” Kennedy said.

“Exactly!”

Kruz slammed his hand down on his desk so hard he knocked half of his books onto the floor. He stood up and paced around the room, cracking his knuckles. Then he got behind Kennedy and dramatically half whispered in his ear.

“How old are you?” Kruz asked.

“Thirty-three.”

Kruz made a “tsk” sound.

“I would have guessed closer to forty. Your body has begun to age early. Do you know why?”

“No. Why?”

“Because you've been telling it over and over, for years, that you don't matter. The world matters.
People
matter. But not you. And you're dying a slow death. It's called chemical senescence—the mass slaughter of cells perpetrated by proteins in your blood. When you have purpose in your life, your cells continue to divide at a rate that keeps you youthful so you can carry out youthful tasks, like procreating. When was the last time you had sex?”

Kennedy looked self-consciously at Kruz's handlers.

“Months,” Kennedy said.

“What, six, eight, twelve?”

“I've lost count.”

A handler gave Kennedy a signed book and T-shirt, the signal that his time with the guru was almost up.

“What do you have left then?” Kruz asked.

Kennedy said nothing.

“Exactly. Nothing. Stand up.”

Kennedy stood. Kruz stood in front of him, face-to-face.

“Do you want to die?”

“No.”

“Louder!”

“No!”

“I believe you!” Kruz smiled proudly. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Trust my gut,” Kennedy said and put his gun in Noah Kruz's face.

W
hat the fuck is—?” Kruz
started to say as Kennedy fired a dart into his chest.

His security detail went for their weapons, but Mitchell and his mercs, who had already been hiding in the room, quickly took them and the rest of Kruz's handlers down with more darts. They zip-tied the wrists and ankles of his staff, duct-taped their mouths, and put Kruz into a huge commercial laundry hamper on wheels, covering him with towels and table linens. Kennedy, Mitchell, and the mercs wheeled the hamper quickly through the backstage area and back out the door they'd all come in. Love was waiting in a laundry service van the mercs had brought. They loaded the hamper into the back and took off.

One hour before Noah Kruz was lecturing Kennedy in the VIP room, Nuri and the mercs back at the marina had taken out Kruz's crew with tranq darts and put them belowdecks on the rental yacht. While they waited for Kennedy, Love, and Mitchell to arrive with Kruz, they prepped his yacht. Nuri modified the communications systems so it would emit false GPS data showing the boat was on its way to Nassau for Kruz's next event. This would keep the Coast Guard happy. It would also make it impossible for
Lentz to track the yacht, which he would undoubtedly be committing all his resources to do, once he realized Kruz was missing.

When Kennedy, Mitchell, and Love arrived, they moved Kruz from the laundry hamper to a berth belowdecks and were under way in a matter of minutes. Mitchell switched on a police scanner and listened for chatter. Nothing yet. Their heading was straight east toward Bimini. Mitchell wanted to avoid the southerly boat traffic to the Bahamas and the Keys and get into dark water before they got to work on Kruz.