Need to Know (Sisterhood Book 28) by Fern Michaels (15)

Chapter 14

One by one, the women arrived at the Post’s underground parking garage. The time was twenty minutes to midnight. With the exception of Alexis, who was pulling her red bag of tricks on a portable dolly, they all wore lightweight backpacks.

Even though the garage was empty of humans, the sisters still spoke softly.

“What do you think?” Maggie said, pointing to the Maryland license plates she’d just put on the white van. “Jackson Sparrow had them delivered to my office at seven o’clock this evening in a plain brown wrapper.” She giggled at what she was saying. “There was a note inside saying that they were special plates with a magnetic backing, so they can be changed in and out in a hurry. He said they have a special set of plates for every state in the union at their agents’ disposal. He also included a set of plates for a couple neighboring states, in case we have to do a switcheroo on short notice. We have to return them, of course.”

“Did you have any trouble with the decals?” Isabelle asked.

“Yes and no. I had to wait awhile for the paint to dry on the phone number. This van now ‘officially’ belongs to the Rainbow Center for Senior Citizens. I picked this particular decal because the rainbow is so colorful. If you notice, the telephone number is painted yellow and very hard to see. I did that on purpose. The phone number is for the public library. I think it’s all the cover we need, and if not, oh, well!”

“Then I vote to board this finely decorated vehicle and head on out of here,” Annie said jubilantly.

The sisters piled into the van, with Maggie taking the wheel. She turned on the engine. It purred like a sleepy cat. She programmed their destination into the GPS and put the big van into gear. “Arthur Forrester, here we come!” The sisters hooted their pleasure as they started to discuss the operation that would take place the following night.

Gradually, all conversation petered out, with only Nikki keeping a running dialogue going so Maggie wouldn’t get tired and fall asleep at the wheel.

“How far is it again to Riverville?” Nikki asked.

“About two hundred fifty miles, give or take a few. It’s going to take us several hours. The weather isn’t in our favor, either. This van is not built for speed, and I want to stay below the speed limit. Why, are you in a hurry?” Maggie joked.

“You know me. I like to be precise in my thinking. We’re going to stop at least once, right? And this van has to be a gas guzzler, so maybe twice for gas, right?”

“Yes, ma’am. I was thinking I’d turn off at the next rest stop. I can use some fresh coffee and some donuts. You said you wanted to take a turn at the wheel, so you can take over when we start out. We’re almost to the halfway mark. You okay with that?”

“Absolutely,” Nikki said as she rolled her shoulders to loosen her tense muscles.

A couple of hours later, Nikki steered the van into the parking lot of the Big Super Saver supermarket and parked as far from the entrance as she could.

“Rise and shine, girls!” Maggie bellowed as loud as she could. “We’re here, and the time is five-twenty in the A.M.!”

* * *

As Nikki Quinn parked the van, just blocks away from the Forresters’ condo, Arthur Forrester paced his kitchen like a caged lion. He felt like his pants were on fire. So far, he’d consumed two entire pots of coffee, eaten two bologna sandwiches, and swallowed twenty-two vitamin pills. In between, he lathered a cooling gel on his face four different times, cursing ripely at the burning sensation, and that was all before five o’clock. He cursed even more when he looked at his face in the mirror. He looked like a scary clown. He fumed and seethed. The rosacea was the one thing in his life over which he had no control. No matter what he did, no matter how many prescription medicines he took, no matter how much gel and ointment he applied, nothing helped. He refused to believe any of the doctors when they told him that stress aggravated the condition. He refused to believe his wife, Nala, who was a nurse practitioner and who knew a thing or two about medicine.

What do they know? I am not stressed. I never let stress get to me. Never! . . . “Liar, liar, pants on fire.” How apt that little ditty is.

Forrester was stressed to his limits. No, the stress had gone beyond his limits. Why lie to myself? He didn’t have the answer. Well, now that things are coming to a head, my condition should improve, once and for all.

He’d take all the escrow monies, thumb his nose at Garland Lee, the bitch, and the partners. He’d finalize the deal for the brewery and, from there, he would move directly to Easy Street, collect profits, and play golf.

Golf. His passion in life. Maybe what he should do was sell this condo and relocate to Hilton Head because of the superior golf courses. Nala isn’t coming back, he knew that. So why stick around? He wouldn’t miss this place one little bit. He didn’t even miss his wife. He rarely saw his kids and grandchildren, so he wasn’t going to miss them, either.

Being alone won’t bother me, he knew that, too. He’d start a whole new life.

Everything was almost perfect.

Forrester didn’t like where his thoughts were taking him, so he switched mental gears and decided to make another pot of coffee, which he didn’t want or need. He’d do it just to have something to do. He glanced at the clock on the range as he spooned coffee into the wire basket. It wasn’t even six-thirty yet, and he’d already eaten two sandwiches. What the hell was he going to do to fill the hours till five o’clock this afternoon? It was raining the proverbial cats and dogs outside, so going for a walk or to the store was out of the question.

Forrester went back to his frantic pacing. He wished he had a friend to call to commiserate with, but he had no true friends, just acquaintances, people he said hello to, or acknowledged with a nod.

Maybe what he should do was swallow a sleeping pill and take a nap. The only problem with that thought was that the pills worked adversely on him; instead of putting him to sleep, they just wired him up more, something the damn doctors didn’t understand. Even Nala said it was all in his head. Both the doctor and Nala told him he didn’t know how to relax and was his own worst enemy. It was probably true, because he simply didn’t know how to relax. He wondered if someday he would just keel over and sleep for a week. Maybe two weeks. What kind of bliss would that be? He didn’t give it another thought because he knew it would never happen. If he did keel over, it would be because he was dead. And then he’d sleep forever. The thought depressed him.

With nothing else to do, he wandered back to his office. Maybe I should tidy up? Why bother? he asked himself. I’ll only mess it up again. It was like making the bed. Why make it when he was just going to mess it up again when it was time to go to bed.

Forrester sat down at his desk and clicked the buttons on the computer’s keyboard. His home page appeared. The scales of justice. Every lawyer at his old law firm had the same screen saver. He couldn’t really remember now if it was mandatory at the time or not. Probably the computers at the firm came with that particular screen saver. He really needed to get a new home page. He’d long ago removed the word justice from his vocabulary. Maybe a cartoon or something funny to make him laugh. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed. Laughter was supposed to relieve tension and stress. “My ass,” he muttered under his breath.

* * *

“Well, this is cozy,” Annie said, looking around at the chintz-and-maple suite she and Myra were to share.

“I had to book four rooms. The good thing is there is a sitting room between each set of rooms. We can leave the doors open, and that way, none of us will get in each other’s way. It’s not like we’re going to be sleeping here. When we leave this evening, we take all our belongings because we won’t be coming back. I paid everything up front, so we don’t even have to worry about checking out,” Maggie said.

“I like it,” Alexis said. “It’s quaint and cozy. I might even bring Joseph and come back here someday. He’d really like this place.”

“There’s a minibar and a coffeemaker. Does anyone want coffee, or should we go down to the coffee shop and get some real coffee, not this instant stuff?” Nikki asked.

Myra shook her head. “I don’t think it would be a wise move on our part to be seen as a group. We could order in. On the desk, there’s a list of local eateries that deliver here to the inn. As Nikki correctly pointed out, the coffee they have here in the room would not meet with our approval, since we are such coffee aficionados. I think that ordering in might be our best bet, since it is still raining pretty hard.”

The sisters talked it over and decided to follow Myra’s advice.

While Isabelle took everyone’s order and called it in to a restaurant called Wild Ginger, Maggie explained to the others that there was a car-rental agency in the lobby. There were cars in the lot if they wanted to rent one for the day to cruise around, as opposed to going back out in the rain to the supermarket, where the van was parked. “We need to do something, or we’ll go insane sitting here waiting for tonight.”

“We’d need two cars,” Annie said. “We have to get the key to Mr. Forrester’s condo from Avery’s operative, as well as the card that will allow us to park in the garage this evening. We need to find out where she is, so we don’t waste time looking for her. What that means, Myra, is, you need to call Charles and set that up.”

Myra squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and hit the speed dial on her phone. Her gaze went to Annie as her hand snaked upward to clutch at her pearls. Whatever expression she saw on Annie’s face made her shove her hand in the pocket of her jeans.

“Charles! I just wanted you to know we all got here safe and sound. We . . . I need you to get in touch with Mr. Snowden. Ask him how we can locate his operative to get the key to Mr. Forrester’s condo. I also understand we’re going to need a keycard to swipe the gate that leads to the condo garage. Call me back ASAP.” She was about to end the call when she heard her husband say something. She listened, her lips narrowing into a thin, straight line. The sisters stopped their chattering to stare at Myra and listen.

“You need to tell that to someone who cares, Charles. I don’t care, and neither do the girls. For former superspies, I would think that your tradecraft would be better than this. When operatives end their shifts, they pass on what happened during their shifts and turn over everything in their possession to their replacements, so do not tell me that Sasha or whoever is staked out at Forrester’s condo might not have the key and the card. We want it now. No, I don’t want to wait until tonight. We’ll be leaving here soon, after we have lunch. What did you just say? Oh, I heard you, I just wanted to make sure you meant what you said. Don’t get cute with me, Charles, Avery Snowden is your friend. He just works for us, and let me remind you he left us flat to go to Delaware to be with the boys. We. Do. Not. Need. Him.”

Kathryn looked around at the sisters, her eyebrows raised. “Whoa! I like her spirit.” She grinned.

“Shhh,” Nikki said. “She’s not done yet.”

“You think we should wait for Mr. Snowden, who you say is on his way here! And would that be because you told him what we’re doing? Did you, Charles?” Myra listened a minute longer. “Oh, so now you’re blaming Fergus for telling him! It doesn’t matter who told him. It’s none of his business what we do. I thought you understood that. Whose side are you on, Charles? Well?”

“Holy crap,” Maggie hissed to Yoko, who was standing next to her.

Myra risked a glance at the girls as they slowly inched closer toward her, their sign that they were on her side. She winked at them.

“I want you to listen to me very carefully, and this time you have our permission, and by our, I mean all the girls, to tell Avery if he shows up at the site of our mission, Annie will shoot him right where the sun doesn’t shine. Tell me you understand what I just said. And never mind the damn key and card. We’ll manage on our own. Also, tell your great pal that the mission is over for them! We’re not paying out another penny to him or his people. You’re not saying anything, Charles. Say something.” Myra listened. “That’s not good enough. Good-bye, Charles.”

Myra’s phone rang immediately. She tossed it on the bed and looked at the closed circle surrounding her. “How’d I do?”

Kathryn laughed out loud. “You were smokin’ hot, girl!” Myra grinned from ear to ear.

“Can I really shoot him if he shows up?” Annie asked.

“Yes!” the girls shouted in unison.

“So now we have a problem—how to get into the condo. I know Annie can pick a lock, but in the middle of the night, in a brightly lit hallway, that’s not going to be easy,” Nikki said. “What if there are security cameras?”

“Spray paint,” Alexis said. “I have some in my bag.”

Annie threw her hands in the air. “See! Problem solved.”

“What about the gate? We need to be able to drive the van into the garage.” Nikki said.

Kathryn raised her hand. “I’m a nuclear engineer, remember? I just drive an eighteen-wheeler for fun. I think I can figure it out. If necessary, I can even turn off the power and leave the gate open. With this weather, power shortages are going to be more common than you might think. No one will pay any special notice if I turn off the power. Trust me on that. Piece of cake.”

The sisters clapped their approval.

“Do we know if Forrester has an alarm system? Worse yet, one of those silent alarms,” Yoko said.

“He does. But I remember Avery’s saying the cleaning lady told him they rarely activate it,” Annie said. “Supposedly, it’s a very secure building. We’ll have to deal with it when we get there. That will go under Kathryn’s purview.”

“Now that we’ve got everyone’s knickers in a knot, do we think Snowden will show up or not?” Maggie asked.

“Not if he wants to stay in Annie’s good graces. And he knows, if he’s half as smart as we think he is, not to try to cross Charles,” Myra said gleefully.

“I’m not being a hardnose here,” Annie said. “But we engaged his services, and we pay his astronomical fees, so we have every right to assume and demand that he stay on the mission until it’s over. He just up and left us because he got a call from the boys. I’ve always secretly suspected that he resents working for a bunch of women. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.”

“I think that Mr. Snowden thinks, or convinces himself, he is under contract to Charles. We’re just a sideline,” Myra said. “But he has always come through for us, we have to give him credit for that. Especially the extraction-and-disposal end of things. We need to think about that and make a plan.”

“I might have an idea if it comes down to that,” Kathryn said. “Jackson Sparrow and I were talking, and I asked him what his most memorable case was, the one that had the most meaning. The one that got under his skin that he still thinks about. You all want to hear it?” Everyone said they did, so they sat down in the sitting room and formed a virtual circle.

“We have quite a bit of time until our meal gets here, so expound away, my dear,” Annie said.

“It all started when Jackson was a rookie agent, fresh out of Quantico. It was his third assigned case. ‘Routine’ was the way he put it. The night before, his whole team sat down together for dinner. Some kind of fish. The whole damn team got food poisoning. He didn’t, because he avoided the fish. As he put it, it was drowning in some kind of white sauce. That left a one-man team, so they assigned him to a seasoned team. He said the guys were in their forties, and they’d been around a long time and seen it all. He was young, twenty-three, and in awe of those guys. As you all know, the FBI is strictly domestic. The CIA is not domestic. They operate on foreign soil. This particular case had the CIA and the FBI working together. Jackson loved the danger the CIA spooks confronted on their assignments, not that working in the field for the FBI wasn’t dangerous, because it was, but nothing like working in the field for the CIA. And by the end of that case, he’d made friends with some of the CIA guys. Who, by the way, are still his friends to this day.

“Jackson excelled, and he moved up the ladder really quickly. Flash forward five years. He was so good at what he did that this one guy from the CIA asked the powers-that-be if they would lend Jackson to their group for a special case. It was a case that lasted three full years. It was a case that involved this man named Nigel Bly. Jackson called him a chameleon. He had his manicured hands into everything—he was an arms dealer, a money launderer, a drug peddler, and anything else he could be to turn a dollar. He worked both sides of the law. The CIA paid him off the books. The other side paid him off their books. The one thing Bly would never agree to was prostitution and slave trafficking, although he was privy to it. He’d even inform the CIA of times and dates so they could raid the places. I guess he was worth his weight in gold to the CIA. The CIA would set him up with false intel, and he’d pass it on. Nothing important, just to keep the guy in the other side’s good graces and in the game. Flash forward again, to when something bad went down, and there was a lot of gunfire. Jackson said it was the first time he’d ever fired his gun in the whole of his career.

“When the shooting stopped, Jackson was wounded, and so was Bly. Bly more so, but Jackson carried him to safety, and eventually the CIA got them both to safety. It took a long time for Bly to recover. The CIA set him up in Barbados, where he rules like a king. The place is like a fortress. He has his own network of agents. He still plays both sides and collects monies from both sides. To this day, he has never left the island. ‘It works for everyone,’ Jackson said.

“During his tenure at the FBI, Jackson said he called on Bly many times for help, and it was always given. Once a year, he goes to see him.”

“And this means what?” Annie asked.

“What it means, at least to me, is, if we need to replace Avery Snowden, we have Mr. Nigel Bly standing in the wings. It’s an option, nothing more, nothing less. If we decide to forgive Mr. Snowden for his . . . rash decision to abandon us, then we don’t have to ever revisit this. Like I said, it’s an option. Oh, I almost forgot something. Jackson told me that Mr. Bly knows Mr. Snowden very well and considers him a thorn in his side, as Snowden believes Bly to be to him. That’s it, the end of the story.”

“And just in time,” Maggie said, running to the door to take delivery of their food.

“I think we should tuck all of that away for the time being. What I especially like is that now we have a name we can bandy about where Charles and his superspy are concerned,” Annie said.

“Maybe I’ll try it out on him later when I call.” Myra giggled. “I’ll put him on speakerphone so you can all hear his reaction. If Mr. Snowden is familiar with Mr. Bly, then I am sure that Charles is, too.” Myra giggled again as she reached for a napkin and plastic fork.

“I think we’re on a roll, girls,” Nikki said as she eyed a carton of Chinese food.

“Hear! Hear!”