The Gift of the Dragon (16 page)

“What are you doing at the Treasure Bay, Callan?”

“Gambling. Meeting clients.” She saw that he forced a subtle look down and to the right.

She raised her left eyebrow.

“I’m a lawyer. I specialize in helping people falsely accused of driving while intoxicated.” He looked around, smiling. “This is a good place to meet people who have the kind of problems I solve.”

She followed his gaze. “I bet.”

“Why are you here, Faith?”

Sipping her ruby-colored Manhattan, she tried to read his tone. Was he suspicious? She decided not.
 

“I’m in commercial real estate.”

Callan looked around at the casino. “You buy casinos?”

“Ha! Sometimes. I work for a big company that is looking to expand in this area, maybe buy an office park or two. Prices are still cheap down here. People haven’t recovered from Katrina. There are bargains.”

He looked into her eyes. “Interesting.”
 

Faith laughed. “Really? I think it is very boring. I drive around looking at dusty offices infested with roaches and worse things and then come here to swim, eat, and shower. Not that interesting to me. But you’re kind to say that.”

“Kind! No, that I am not. There is too much kindness in the world. Kindness lets people get away with screwing up. So then they screw up more. Like I screwed up just now. You are right. Your work is not exciting. Your eyes are interesting, though.”

Faith laughed, inwardly groaning and hearing her mother’s voice saying, “If a boy tells you he isn’t nice, believe him. Run, don’t walk.”
 

“If you’re not kind, what are you?” Making claw hands, she asked, “Dangerous?”

Callan's lips smiled. “No, no, not dangerous. I’m tough. Opposing counsel thinks so. My wife said I was tough like beef jerky.”

“Was? So you are not together anymore?”

Callan plucked a shrimp off her plate and chewed it before answering.

“Help yourself.”

“Thanks. I love the shrimp here.” He looked at her. “You didn’t seem to be enjoying them?”
 

 
Her stomach growled so loud she coughed to hide it. She had been picking at the succulent morsels, making them last. For cover.

“They are all right. Have another. I’m actually not that hungry.”

Startled, she noticed he was watching her eyes again.
Pull your shit together, Faith!

“Really? A swim in the ocean usually makes me very hungry. That was you I saw earlier coming out of the ocean?”

“Yes, that’s where I’ve seen you before. You were standing up to your waist in the water.”

“Yeah. I love the ocean. Helps me think.”

Unlike most of what he had said so far, that statement did not ping Faith’s internal bullshit detector. She thought it a good sign.
He is letting his guard down.
 

“Yes, my wife is gone.”

“Did you have any kids?”

Callan’s brows shot up. “You must be joking!”

“Hey, I’m single and don’t have kids either. I’m too selfish, and my job keeps me moving too much.”

She noted his appreciative look.
Singing to the choir
. One of the first interrogation tricks she learned what seemed like centuries ago.

Callan looked at his cell phone.
 

“I’m sorry, Faith, I’m afraid I have a client who is having an emergency I have to deal with.”

Shit.
She had come so close.
 

“I’m sorry to hear that, Callan, I was just starting to learn to tolerate you.”

He laughed.

“I’m feeling I might be able to tolerate having you aboard my boat if you are free tomorrow? We could run out to a pleasant beach on Cat Island.”

“Hmmm,” she stalled. She would be insane to go out alone on a boat with a wanted assassin. On the other hand, he presented her with a perfect opportunity to complete her mission for Northwin and collect her pay. She could plant her GPS tracker on the boat and then put together a team to take Callan out when he was alone at sea.
Get the tablet; pass Go; collect two million dollars!

She sized him up, smiling at him. He sat there wrapped in two hundred pounds of solid muscle. She had beaten larger men than him in training simulations, and a few times in the field. So long as she kept her senses about her, she would be fine.
 

Callan looked a little surprised when Faith accepted. Then he grinned widely. “Great, you are spontaneous. I like that. I’ll pick you up at the pier at ten. Ciao.”

Faith turned back to her Manhattan, sipping it. Well, tomorrow would be the day. She would either be in trouble or two million dollars richer.
At this point in my life, that seems like a good enough bet to take.

Chapter 10, An Adequate Performance

Ian

“Well at least we are going after Callan. To kill him, I mean. I hate being involved with that man.”

“Do not be dense, Ian! He has been most useful. If he hadn’t kept Moore’s tablet, I would have gladly paid him his exorbitant fee and let him keep bedeviling Northwin. I would have enjoyed it!”
 

“Do you really think Trevor’s alpha whore can get the tablet back from Grant?”

Franklin made a shushing motion with his finger.

Ian looked around. The two were having very expensive cocktails at the P.O.V. Roof Terrace on top of the W Hotel on 15th Street in Washington. “You think someone has the P.O.V. bugged?”

Franklin laughed at that. “Well, it is not Cafe Migrano. That place has bugs at every table. Probably several with different owners, stuck on top of each other like gum on a playground bench. However, you cannot be too careful with the secrets we keep, Son.”

“I thought we were going to discuss how to get ‘it’ back.”

“We do not need it back. Come over here.”

Franklin got up and went to the railing near their table. Ian followed and leaned out over the rail. He noticed a pretty brunette server looking worriedly in their direction. Ian winked at her. Heck, it would be a good enough way to go—he could see the headline, “Man Who Escaped Fatal Grizzly Attack Falls to Death from P.O.V.” He would be famous.

Ian looked out at the view. It felt as if he could cut his finger on the point of the Washington Monument, and the East Wing of the White House shone like a diamond-encrusted golden box in the light of the setting September sun. He sipped his Dark and Stormy, a rum-and-ginger drink the P.O.V specialized in, and remembered a line from an old poem.
I know all you know, and I keep my questions close
. His father could play the sphinx better than anyone Ian knew, but tonight he needed some answers.

“So we don’t need it back, but we don’t want Callan to keep it, or to sell it?”

“We do not want him to unlock it.”
 

“And Alice Sangerman has the key?”

“Trevor’s man, Ned, saw it. Brought back pictures.”

His father laid several photos on the table.

“I see a necklace shaped like a dragon. I’ve no idea if it does anything other than sparkle brightly in the setting sun. Why didn’t Ned shoot her and take it?”

“The files are encrypted. Any lock can be broken, eventually. I do not care that much about the key, Ian. I want the tablet destroyed. On the other hand, Callan is in a hurry as usual. As long as Alice has the key, Callan will want to find her. Now that she has left that commune, she is much easier to keep track of than he is.” Franklin sipped his own drink.
 

Ian grimaced to himself. With all the money he had in the bank, his father drank cheap bourbon.
On the rocks!

“I’ve instructed Trevor to tell his… whore… that Sangerman has the key.”

“Tell me where he is, and I’ll get it for you!” Ian slammed his fist on the railing.

“We do not know where he is, Ian. I am sure you could beat him in a fair fight, but the man is an assassin, not a gentleman.”

“I’m not afraid of him!”

“Afraid? I am sure you are not. Callan Grant is as apt to poison your drink or gas you in your sleep as to accept your challenge to a mano-a-mano showdown. When we get him where we want him, you can take him out—but safely. From a distance.”

“You take all the fun out of a good killing. I had to leave Robert to a bear, and you want me to kill the great Callan Grant without laying a fist on him.” Ian sighed. “If this girl of Trevor’s doesn’t get the tablet, if he catches her, you think Grant will interrogate her?”

“I will be amazed if he does not.”

“Is Trevor in on your plan?”

“What he needs to know, he knows. Not one whisper of what we discuss should reach him, Ian. It is essential that he tells Faith only what I have told him to tell her. You know how he is with women.”

“More so with beautiful women than plain, but yes, Father, I know how he is.”

“Good. That is that. How went the work in Montana?”

“Robert was furious with me for leaving, said it demonstrates that I’ve no true heart for the hunt. He more than hinted that this was exactly the sort of thing that had led him to put all Apple Creek security back under Northwin, showed him that he was right to disband my team.”

“He was drunk then?”

“Ha! Of course he was drunk. He was awake! This all took place at six this morning. They went out to the bait pile right after that. I was flying over the Rockies when Robert wounded the bear. Jackson ran out, and made it look like the bear would get him. Robert did as he was expected to do and shouted to attract the bear. The bear complied. Robert died in Jackson’s arms. Jackson sent me a text me with the news. A picture of what was left of our exalted CEO.”
 

Ian looked at his father. “I got the text when I landed, and I immediately contacted Ayn. She was devastated.” Ian held his iPhone out so Franklin could see the bloody body of his CEO.

Franklin rubbed his cheek with his thumb as he said, “Yes, I imagine Ayn was heartbroken that her drunken wreck of a husband got himself killed saving her idiotic nephew from a bear.”

“Well, she looked quite sad over Facetime.”

“Good practice. The press will be hounding her soon enough.”

“I think she’ll be able to handle that.”

“Oh, of all the people I need to rely on to play their part over the next few days, your sister is the one I am least worried about!”

“Why, Father, I plan for the excellence of my acting to matter as well.”

“I plan for you to perform adequately also, Ian. See that you do not disappoint me.”

Chapter 11, Endurance

Harry

A little after eleven at night, Harry Price found Director Stoddard playing tennis at George Washington Tennis Center by Georgetown, where the director practiced with an instructor or selected club members four nights a week. As he watched the game, Harry steeled himself; Stoddard did not take bad news gently. As the game ended, it relieved Harry to see that the Director won what looked like a pretty tough game. That should put him in a better mood. The public location should also reduce the chance of Harry getting his head bitten off.
 

“Sir,” Harry called as Stoddard wiped the sweat from his close-cropped head with a towel and then zipped his racket into an expensive-looking leather case.
 

Stoddard looked up and then scowled. “This can’t be good news, Harry. Your cable guy couldn’t fix the problem?”

Harry looked around. Stoddard’s opponent had left the court, and at this late hour, only one other pair still played a few courts over.

“No sir. Afraid not. No, the problem fixed him, I hate to say.”
 

“Shit, Harry! You said he was one of the best!”

“Jake was an ex-Ranger with no heart and twenty-five kills, sir. Sangerman… well, we swept the scene. She got away clean.”

“How does she do it, Harry? Malcolm beat himself to death trying to bring her in. Now, you can’t do it either.”

“Now,
we
can’t, sir. I got this from Northwin.” Price held up his smartphone so that Stoddard could hear the message. His face got darker as the nearly three-minute-long message went on.

Stoddard looked as though he was about to throw the expensive phone down when the message finished but stopped himself and tossed it to Price, who barely managed to catch it.