The Gambler (24 page)

“Your mother said that you set up our meeting that night, why?”

She was back to her phone again. ‘It was time.’

“Time for what?”

‘Angel and Jenna.’

“I don’t understand.”

She seemed a little flustered by his admission, but he gave her time.

She went on to tell him that Bonata didn’t know that she knew what he was up to, that he was planning to kill her grandmother. He didn’t know that she’d stolen the codes to his accounts, or that she had been secretly feeding her grandmother information for months. She told him that the job she was here to do had nothing to do with the expose`. She’d told Bonata that she wouldn’t do this job, whatever it was, and when threatening her didn’t work, they’d taken her father to make her comply.

She had no idea in the beginning that what she was doing was wrong. It was all a game to her. Then she’d heard the men talking and bit by bit she started to understand. Maybe because of her isolation her whole life, she didn’t know the ins and outs of men like Bonata and their dealings. She still didn’t seem to.

She knew that her dad was in danger, and that she had to save him. Andros wasn’t sure she understood what killing someone actually meant though; but from what she had in that bag, she wasn’t here for tea and conversation. No one had taught her how to fight; it was like her mom had said. But everything she knew about crime, she’d learned from Bonata and his men. She’d studied them and listened to them, when they thought they were free to talk in front of her, because they didn’t think she understood.

There was one thing he wanted to know and he asked her outright. He had to know who the real Jenna was, was she the innocent girl that loved chocolate, had it all been an act, what? because right now he was confused. The girl he’d met couldn’t be capable of flying a plane to Cuba with a kill kit.

“Were you putting on an act Jenna, that night we met?” she might’ve orchestrated the meet, but she couldn’t have planned her brother striking her down. How did she know that he would react? How did she even know where to find him?

From the look of confusion on her face he surmised that she hadn’t been, she didn’t even seem to understand what he was asking her; somehow that made it all the more sad. How could there be so many different facets to her? He asked her about her childhood and she told him pretty much the same story her mother had, which meant the old lady was off his shit list.

“How did you know I would help you?”

She got up and went to her bag and came back with her damn toy, which he was beginning to think wasn’t so much a toy, as it was her secret weapon. She typed in some stuff and he saw his face on the screen. She handed it to him and he was surprised to see
his life on the damn thing; every rumor in the paper, every escapade that they still couldn’t prove, but most of all, all his work with his treasures.

He looked at her then and she went back to typing on her phone.

“Alice told you it was time?” she nodded her head and bit her lip. He chose to leave it at that, because that shit made his head hurt. That was the one thing he would never understand.

“What do they want you to do baby? Tell me.”

Before she could answer him, if she was even going to, there was a knock at the door. He drew his weapon and left her on the bed as he made his way to the door. Gramps was standing on the other side looking bemused.

“You better come down to the study and bring our little firebrand with you. I got news.” He didn’t question the old man about what kind of news, he figured it had
to have something to do with what they were dealing with here. He reached his hand out for her and she joined him, before they both followed the old man out the door.

Garrett and Jameson were left outside the door
, and just the three of them went in and sat around the room that looked like it hadn’t been touched since before the turn of the last century. Gramps was looking around like he was searching for ears and eyes and Andros held his tongue until the old man was finished.

“What’s going on gramps?”

The old man cleared his throat and clasped his hands over his middle. His eyes never left Jenna, as he seemed to be getting his thoughts together. “I just spoke to my guy at the Pentagon. We’ve got us a situation here son, a real situation.”

Andros felt the change in Jenna as she sat next to him, she hadn’t moved in any discernible way, but he was becoming as in tuned with her as she was with him. Leaning forward, her stared at his grandfather until the other man started to talk.

“I’ll make this quick because we don’t have a whole lot of time. Bonata isn’t the one that hit your house.”

“What?” what the fuck was this now? he was not in the fucking mood for any more assholes.

“Yeah, it seems he was sending his goons after you in the car that day to kill you and get her back, and the trade was the same deal. They wanted her alive.”

“So who the fu…who’s trying to kill her then?”

“Mossad.” The one word dropped like a death knell in the room.

“Come again.” His heart was kicking in his chest and he reached for her hand. What the fuck was going on here? “Why is Israeli Intelligence after her?”

“Apparently she cracked the code.”

“What fucking code gramps?”

“They’re top secret military base codes.”

“How the fuck…
” He was out of his seat and pacing around like a caged beast. Jenna meanwhile, was looking down at her hands, where she had them folded in her lap.

“That’s where Bonata came in. Apparently he got her to do it then he sold the info to the highest bidder. The only problem is, Jenna somehow tricked them. She gave them only the lower level info
, but kept the last part hidden. Bonata was pulling a double-cross; he sold the info to more than one faction. I guess that’s where the off shore accounts and shit came from.”

“How does your friend know all this?”

“She told them, she was sneaking info to an agent on the sly, they figured she finally figured out what the fuck Bonata had her doing and she wanted them to stop him.”

“I’m not following
any of this. Are you telling me that flower has been fucking around with international security?”

“It looks that way, but that’s not all of it. The Russians took her old man; they were one of the factions who paid Bonata. When she refused to divulge the last piece of the puzzle they snatched him.”

“And the American government knows all this and they’re doing what?”

“They don’t have jurisdiction here; and besides, they’re always one step behind her, they only know what she tells them at this point. No one can figure out how she did it, and without the final code what they have so far is useless.”

Andros turned to look at her then. She looked so small and alone in that moment that it tore at his heart. What the fuck had they done to this girl? Se lifted sad, tear filled eyes to him before dropping her head again. “Angel, Jenna bad?”

He was across the room in a flash, kneeling at her feet. Taking her hands in his he looked into her eyes before drying her tears. “No baby, Jenna’s never bad.” How the fuck was he going to get them out of this? He looked over his shoulder at his grandfather. “Where is it?”

The old man tapped his temple. “She keeps it all here.”

He hung his head and tried to calm down a little. Jenna wasn’t saying anything, just sat there with a sad look on her face. For that alone he could kill the fucks all over again. He didn’t have time to think about the past now though, he had to figure out a way to keep her safe.

“What’s your guy saying? How do we get her out of this mess?” He knew they wouldn’t stop unless she was brought down
, and he wasn’t sure he could protect her on his own. That galled him to admit, but his pride was nothing compared to her safety.

“They’re working on some
thing, the long and short of it is, that the Israelis are working to change the codes, but it’s gonna take time. In the meantime, we’ve got the Russians, the Persians and a few other middle-eastern factions gunning for that code.”

“She has until eight o’clock tomorrow morning to hand it over or her old man buys it.”

“So if they change their codes she’s in the clear with them right?”

“Yeah, I guess, but their other worry is who’s to stop her from doing it again. Peter, that’s my guy over there, said that they’re working out a deal. They explained to Mossad that she wasn’t aware of what she was doing, and that when she figured it out, she tried to get help from the American government. They’re taking this all into consideration, but the fact still remains that if that information falls into the wrong hands before they fix it, it can be an international disaster.”

“Do they know that this wasn’t her doing? That she’s a fucking innocent in all this?”

“Calm down son, they’re trying to work something out. They don’t know about her father being taken though I don’t think, so we’re on our own here.”

“So where’s her father?”

That was the first time Jenna picked her head up. “Palace.”

“What palace?”

“There’s only one son.”

“No.” He was shaking his head as the realization dawned. Had she actually come here to break into the presidential palace to rescue her father?  How the fuck was he going to work this?

They spent the next few hours trying to come up with a plan, but he had nothing. This wasn’t his jurisdiction
. The only thing he could think of was getting her the fuck out of there and letting her old man fend for himself. How the fuck had they let it come to this?

“The good thing is, nobody knows what she looks like.”

“What do you mean?”

“They have no idea who she is, they just know her by her handle, from what I gathered
. Peter was trying to get that information out of me. I didn’t give him anything of course.”

“So how did he know she’s with us?”

“Apparently Bonata had a tracker on her and Mossad picked it up.”

“So they know that she’s here.” He started running his hands all over her
, trying to find whatever the fuck they had attached to her.

“It’s not there, she ditched it.”

“What, when? Where did you toss it baby?” When she made the motion of pulling down the lever on the slots, he didn’t know if to laugh or fucking cry. “Who are you really baby?” he pulled her in for a nice long kiss and she lost some of the sadness from her eyes.

“Don’t worry baby, nothing will happen to you
, I won’t let it.” He was feeling better now that he’d learnt they had no idea who she was. He could work with that.

“What I don’t understand is how a foreign entity can carry out a hit on American soil.”

“Those are murky waters son, better left untouched, if you know what I mean.”

“Okay let’s recap here. She has information that Bonata sold, she kept some of it back and now these assholes are after her for it. The people she stole it from have what
, two days before they can safeguard it? and in the meantime she has both parties after her, one to kill her and one to use her and then kill her.” Just saying that shit pissed him the fuck off.

“Is there anyway to get into this palace?”

“You’re not going in there, I’m thinking we should let the spooks do it and get the hell outta dodge. We can’t fight this one boyo this is way out of our league. Unless Jenna has an idea, she came here with a plan obviously.”

“No fucking way, she’s not going in there.” Now she was the one running her hand up and down his arm
to soothe.

“Forget it little thief, you’re not going anywhere but back on that plane and home.” She took his hand and pulled him up from the floor. “Come.” Neither man said anything as they followed her out the door and back up the stairs.

She went to that toy of hers again and he promised himself that the first chance he got, he was burning the shit. Fucking Tom and Jerry. He wondered now if that’s what she had really been after.

She did her magic and pulled up a screen, which looked like the blue prints for something. As usual, he had no idea what the fuck she was showing him. Then she got a scroll out of her bag and they studied what looked like an underground road map.

She pointed to herself then and mimed walking or running. “Jenna go here.”

“Where is here?”

“Uh, that looks like the palace, and if I’m not mistaken that’s the street outside. I could be wrong but I think she’s trying to say there’s an underground tunnel somewhere.”

“How would she know that?”

“Son, the girl broke into one of the world’s best kept secrets, I’m pretty sure getting the blueprints for a hundred year old palace and some underground maps was child’s play.”

All Andros could think, was that she hadn’t known what a swan was, she was fascinated with butterflies and chocolate, and she had the brain of a fucking genius. He couldn’t quite connect the two, but he was gonna have to.

He looked at her as she tried to explain her plan to gramps. All he wanted to do was get back to where they were before all this had been revealed. Had it really been only a few days since he’d first seen her? Felt like a whole fucking lifetime had gone by.

“Yo
u must be tired baby, let’s take a nap. Whatever we’re gonna do can’t be done until the cover of night, so we might as well get some rest now. We’ll have another go at it later gramps; and no more dealing with the spooks, not until we’re out of here and I have her home safely. You said they don’t know what she looks like, or who she is and I’d like to keep it that way. 

“Fine by me, you two go get some sleep, I’m gonna try to see what I can see about this fix our girl has got us into.
Damn what I could do with that brain.”

“Gramps.”

“I kid, I kid.”

Yeah right, Andros told himself to remember to keep an eye on the two of them when they were alone together. He didn’t believe for a second that gramps would do anything that would cause her harm, but the old reprobate could get up to some serious shit when left unattended. The last thing he needed was for the two of them to form an unholy alliance. Fuck!