Undercover Genius (18 page)

“Really?” Patra asked in disbelief. “You’re really going to
use that line? Watch too many films, do you?”

Sean stepped in front of her, blocking her with his larger
frame. “The cops are outside. You can’t get anywhere. Why don’t you run while
you have the chance?”

“I’ve got a chance to make my boss happy. Move it. The boss don’t
like to do clean up, but you’re expendable.” He gestured with the assault rifle,
standing aside so they could pass in front of him.

Patra had no inclination to leave the safety of the fastest
route to the front door. “What do you want? Maybe we can help and then you can
just leave quietly.”

“I’m leaving quietly, with you. Now get your bony ass over
here!”

She’d move her bony ass, all right. And then she’d smack him
upside the head with… Well, all she had was the tote. That would have to work.
She’d never learned martial arts.

She stalked in front of Sean, intent on eliminating one imbecile
from this world.

The sirens had stopped. She hoped that was because the cops
had arrived at their destination and that was out front. Before she could
swing, Sean grabbed her arm and flung her into the closest office. Patra
screamed in outrage. A shot rang wildly in the hall, and she ducked in terror.

Sean limped in, slamming and locking the door behind him.
“Don’t do this at home,” he muttered, dragging her down behind a metal desk,
then shoving the desk to block the door.

“You’re bleeding!”

His fancy Nike was ragged and covered in red.

Another shot shattered the flimsy door lock.

Patra’s perspective

The office they were hiding in had no window.

Patra heard shouts outside, but they seemed in the distance.
This back hall had to be half a block from the street. No one could arrive before
the goon finished shooting out the door.

“No time for a smoke bomb,” she murmured, glancing around
the room for weapons as the shooter kicked at the barricaded door. “Why didn’t
you let me smack him?”

“Because that would have got us both shot.” Sean dragged her
back to a second metal desk, pulled her under it, and curled his body over hers.

A bullet ripped through the steel of the first barricade to dig
into the back of the desk they were hiding under. Patra swallowed hard in
disbelief.

“Leave now or die here!” the goon shouted.

He finally smashed through the door, shoving the first desk
back enough to point the AK47 into the room.

“Will you tell us what the devil we’re dying for?” Patra
shouted back, although she calculated the idiot stood only a few yards away. If
he could shout, so could she.

“Because I don’t like bleeding liberals,” the goon said
snarkily, leveraging the door with his shoulder until he had a full view of the
room.

Sean was bleeding, because of her. Fury simply made Patra
think faster. Sean tried to hold her down, but she shook him off. She’d had
training in what to do if gunmen invaded.

Popping up from behind the desk, she grabbed a stapler and
flung it at the thug’s head. She hadn’t practiced in a while, but she’d always
been good at rock slinging.

The large stapler hit their assailant smack in the nose. He
cried out, falling back and pulling the trigger in his surprise. This time, the
bullet ripped through the ceiling.

The shouts outside were closer.

Sean caught her waist and tugged her back to the ground
again. “You’re crazy. That bullet could have hit you.”

“I’ll die fighting.” She grabbed a tape dispenser from the
desk behind her. Without a hitch in her movement, she shrugged off Sean, popped
above the desk long enough to take aim, and flung as hard as she could.

The roll of tape smacked the gunman between the eyes. The
dispenser bounced off his jaw just as he shot again. This time, the bullet
thudded uncomfortably close into the floor on the side of the desk where they
hid. The smell of scorched carpet joined the stink of gunfire.

Losing his temper, the badgered gunman scatter-shot wildly.
Sean slammed Patra flat to the floor and weighed her down with his body before
she could locate more weapons.

A solid wave of water hit the desk and keeled it over on them.

The would-be killer screamed, and knocked flat by the
torrent, slid across the room.

“What the f —” Sean muttered.

The water stopped as abruptly as it had hit.

Sean pushed the desk off and slid it between them and the
gunman. Shakily, Patra pushed wet hair out of her eyes. Peering around their
shelter, she located a fireman in rubber suit and protective headgear in the
doorway, holding a hose.

“Where’s the fire?” the rubber-suited newcomer asked,
turning off the nozzle while another entered in full gear, carrying an ax.

“Fire?” Which was when Patra smelled smoke a little stronger
than scorched carpet.

“Oh, shit,” Sean muttered, apparently smelling it at the
same time.

Glancing over her shoulder, Patra saw the saturated goon
hunting for his gun. She dived for the weapon first and handed it to Sean. She
had to help him stand on his injured foot. Together, they stumbled into the
hall. Their guardian angel was already hauling his hose up the stairs. Sean
flung the weapon into the nearest file cabinet.

Patra didn’t bother looking back to see if their assailant
had escaped. She clutched the tote that had almost cost them their lives. Sean
held his soaked box and limped after her. Now that the moment was over, full
panic mode kicked in. She wanted out of the building — with the man who
had taken a bullet for her.

Down the main corridor, they could see ladder trucks through
the front windows.

“Run ahead and find a policeman,” Sean ordered.

“Bullshit.” She grabbed his arm, hauled it over her shoulder,
and kept marching. “I’m not leaving you, and I’m not sending anyone into a
burning building.”

“Your whole entire family is nuts, aren’t they?” he asked as
he hopped beside her.

“My father worked in war zones for a living and loved it, so
yeah, it isn’t just Magda.”

“Adrenaline junkies,” he said as they stumbled out the front
door.

Patra winced at the sight of a tall, broad-shouldered man in
a dark suit near the front door, gesturing to uniformed officers. She steered
Sean in a different direction, while the man distracted a policeman and a fire
captain by pointing out a window in the front facade. She hoped he was a
newspaper exec explaining the building’s layout.

One of the policemen holding back the crowd broke off to
head their way. Another fire truck arrived, and the crowd surged. The cop had
to turn around and drive them back. Accustomed to slipping into mobs and hiding
in plain sight, Patra nudged Sean away from the action.

“Patra!”

Wearily, she glanced up to see Nick behind a police
barricade. Handsome as always, he didn’t do anything so crass as to jump up and
down to catch their attention. He merely held his hand up so the sun caught his
gold watchband and snapped his fingers.

He had a medic pointed their way before they reached the
yellow tape.

“Thank you,” she murmured to Sean, kissing his cheek and
appropriating the soaked box in his arms. “And here’s where I must say
good-bye. Don’t mention my name if you can help it.”

That was family habit — slip away unnoticed, unnamed,
and uninvolved.

“Hell…” Sean started to protest, but the medic hauled him to
a stretcher.

With more cops heading her way, Patra merged with the crowd
gathering around Nick.

“Can’t leave you alone for a minute,” Nick said cheerfully,
pushing her back through the mob. He draped his blazer over her soaked shirt
and took Sean’s box. “Do we need to follow the ambulance?”

“No, we need to dry out these papers. From what I glimpsed,
I think Bill was working for the Righteous and Proud a few years back.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Nick admitted, “but to the
Metro we go, then.”

A shout rose from the crowd behind them, and Patra checked
over her shoulder.

A spotlight projecting a fanged bat image had distracted
every eye on the block.

The spotlight illuminated a second story window through
thick clouds of black smoke. Framed in the light was a fireman dragging a
coughing shrimp over the sill and onto the ladder.

“What the devil is that bat doing up there?” Patra asked in
awe.

Nick nearly doubled over in laughter, then patted her
shoulder. “You catch the Metro. I’ll go collar a thug. Batman is apparently
bored and has left his batcave.”

* * *

Back in my cellar office, I followed the news on Graham’s
network of legitimate news feeds, plus individual postings from smart phones,
and twitter accounts. The Internet is normally a faceless wave of information
impossible to comprehend. Graham’s genius was to filter out the useless flood
and catch the flakes of gold.

I sighed in relief when I saw Patra emerge from the building
with Sean. They were both soaked to the skin, and Sean seemed injured, but they
were alive.

The image of the bat signal made me sigh in exasperation. I
hit the intercom. “Why come out of the cave now?” I shouted at the faceless
machine.

No reply, naturally. I’d sent Graham into the fray, and he’d
probably gone. There was no other interpretation of the bat images.

I didn’t care
how
he
did it. I wanted to know
why.

I paced restlessly until Patra arrived. I knew she’d arrived
because I could hear EG break into excited chatter in the foyer above. I was
ready to fly into a million jagged pieces, but I couldn’t let my siblings see
that.

Taking a deep breath, I hastened up the stairs before Patra
could escape to her room. I needed to know she was really okay before I could
breathe normally.

Patra’s eyes lit as soon as I appeared. “Ana, can we dry
these out?” She held out a mangled wad of
papier
-
mâché
.

“Looks like a task for Mallard. EG, will you run that mess
down to the kitchen?” I assumed Patra had risked her life for that trash, but I
would not judge. Repeat fifty times.
I
will not judge.

“Where’s Nick?” I asked the instant EG ran off.

“A fireman carried out a guy who might have been the
arsonist. Nick took off after him. What the devil was that bat signal about?
Nick almost died laughing.”

“Inside joke. I don’t suppose we have any names or
explanations for this incident?”

“I tried, but it’s hard talking to men with guns,” Patra
said, shoving her wet hair from her eyes. “But they didn’t just want Bill’s
papers. They wanted
us.
I don’t know
anything. Why would anyone think I would?”

I held up my hand and began ticking off fingers. “If it
really is you they’re after, let me count the ways. Because you had your
father’s papers. Because you came here. Because you talked to Bill Bloom —”

Patra interrupted. “Bill was mixed up in more than my
business. That’s what I want to dig out of those files. There are invoices to
Dr. Smythe in Bill’s files. I don’t know what Sean found but he pulled a bunch
of folders, too. What if Bill wasn’t killed because of me?” she asked with a
hint of desperation. “What if he was killed because of what he knew about
someone else?”

“Then you’d better figure out what you know that someone
nasty would want to talk to
you
. Until
that time, we need to put you on a plane back to London.”

Patra ignored my sage advice. “You said some of my father’s
papers are coded. Have you had any success in de-coding them?”

“I’ve decoded a few lists of times and days but I haven’t
matched them to anything yet. You brought us decades of files to sort through.
It takes time. Why don’t you go visit Magda while we work on it?”

“I’ve got an interview with Rhianna to do yet and a job to
start tomorrow! Going to take a shower now.” Patra ran off.

“Would you have gone to London?” the hall lamp asked. “Leave
your adult siblings alone.”

Graham was back. And he was right, but I used to change her
diapers,
even if I hadn’t been as old as
EG at the time. It was hard to ignore the maternal instinct.

“One of you will have to find out what Sean is telling the
police. Or get to him before the police and tell him what to say if you wish to
keep Patra uninvolved,” Graham continued.

We really didn’t need Patra’s name involved. Or any of us,
if it could be avoided. Like Graham, or any good spy, we’d learned to live in
the shadows. I liked it there. I could accomplish much more if people didn’t
notice me.

Patra had chosen a different path, but I respected Graham’s
desire to be overlooked. Although that bat signal may have been a sign that
Graham had become more concerned than usual.

“Hold the fort while I’m out,” I agreed. “Don’t bomb any
small countries while I’m gone.”

Me and Graham working in tandem — what a concept. Gave
me goose bumps, I admit.

* * *

I called Nick and located the hospital where Sean and the
potential arsonist had been taken. That someone had twice tried to burn papers
in Patra’s possession wasn’t exactly a pattern. Yet. They weren’t the same
papers. The incidents had happened an ocean apart, and fire is the obvious
means of destroying paper. But it established a pattern of violence. Paper
shredders were far less dangerous.

Since Nick had said he was in the emergency room, looking
for a chance to get at the thug with smoke inhalation, I went in search of Sean
through normal measures. I asked at the information desk.

He’d been admitted for observation. When I reached his room,
Sean was already dressed and trying to figure out how to cover up his bandage
and escape.

“If the police ask who was with you, tell them it was this
person,” I said by way of greeting, handing him my Linda Lane alter ego card.
“And thank you for looking after my idiot sister.”