Chapter 17
“I’ll drive,” Saskia announced to the men in the back.
She slid over to the driver’s seat and put the van in gear. Nice of Jack to at least keep it running and warm. Though, why she was finding ways to pat him on the back was beyond her. He’d abandoned her.
Or rather, he’d done exactly as he’d planned to do, and he hadn’t lied to her about that.
When exiting the back of the accountant’s office, Saskia had noticed the ice was beginning to melt. Driving shouldn’t be a problem. And they couldn’t afford to sit here too long. Jack could have called in to the ECU and thus, the authorities. And until she knew exactly what Clive had placed, or taken, from the safe deposit box room, she had to keep him away from police hands.
“And here I thought if anyone went AWOL on the team, it would be you,” Clive said as he slid onto the passenger seat.
What the…? Seriously?
“Thanks for that vote of confidence,” she said as calmly as she could manage. Her heartbeats banged drums. Betrayed by two men in less than five minutes. How was that for payback? “I have done nothing to deserve your distrust. If anyone should be asking for explanations, it’s the people who have no clue what is going on. Why we walk out on heists without a single bill or gold brick in hand.”
“It’s all about the process of going through the motions and making others believe they’ve been robbed. Or at the very least, infiltrated. You knew we’d pull out as soon as one of the two targets had been breached. Same as with the Belgian job.”
“But I was so close to opening the vault. We could have taken loads. Was the reward you took from the safe deposit box room so much greater?”
She turned the vehicle, heading for the airport, where both Niles and Clive were destined. She was too, but now she had the van to get rid of. She needed more information from Clive.
“You must have gotten master keys for the boxes, eh?”
He didn’t answer, but she could feel his scrutiny on the side of her face. She’d said too much. Had destroyed the confidence she’d earned by acting curious about something she should have no curiosity over. Maybe? Most individuals involved in a heist were kept in the loop. It was how trust was earned.
On the other hand, she knew well that Clive was a need to know kind of guy. If the man did have a master key to turn the lock on a safe deposit box, he would ultimately have to have the key that matched the box too. And those were only issued to box holders. Unless someone had made a copy and Clive had obtained it. Made the most sense. He must have gone into the room with a key, knowing exactly which box he wanted to open. To take something out?
No, to leave the poison behind.
“Is this how all your heists go down?” she dared to ask. “In and out. Keep the crew in the dark?”
“You insist on complaining when your bank account just got five hundred thousand fatter.”
He had a point. And a smart person would not push the issue. She shouldn’t. This wasn’t even her main focus. Jack Angelo was. And he had a head start that she couldn’t allow to grow too long. She had to call the ECU and have them track Jack while they still could. But she couldn’t do that—couldn’t even risk a text—in Clive’s presence.
“Why the sudden curiosity?” Clive asked. “You’ve done the exact same thing with me in Belgium. Why do you care now?”
He was starting to think. And that wasn’t good for her.
She made a wild gesture with her hand and gave a shake of her head. “Hormones!” she managed. “I’m just a mess tonight. Sorry. You know. You’re right. I don’t care. I’ll get the cash and that’s all good with me. I really need an aspirin, is all.”
“Fresh out.” Clive turned to face the road.
Had she wheedled her way out of his suspicion with that stupid excuse? Unlikely.
“We’re headed to the airport?” Niles asked from the back. “Aren’t we doing to dump the van?”
“Saskia can handle taking care of the vehicle,” Clive said. “Right?”
“Of course. I know the junkyard where Jack was taking it. He arranged for another getaway car to be parked there. Unless he’s moved it. I didn’t know his plans included ditching us.”
She sighed. At least she could be honest about that much.
She swung the van in toward the airport. As she pulled to park at the drop-off, she checked the rearview mirror. Her mustache was still in place.
Clive grabbed her wrist, tightly, and leaned in. “I can trust you, yes, Sass?”
Preventing a wince was impossible. “Of course you can. I don’t understand why you would have reason not to.”
“Maybe those hormones of yours will make you do something stupid.”
“The only thing I want to do is dump the vehicle then get a ticket out of the tundra. Seriously.”
He nodded, yet his grip remained firm. “You know the way to contact me. Wait a week, then send me your details to the online drop box. The payment for tonight’s job will show in your account in three days, after I’ve confirmed nothing is out of order.”
“What could possibly be out of order? I’ve done the work. We made a clean getaway.”
“It’s how my employer likes things to go,” he said. “Don’t worry, Sass. You trust me, yes?”
No. Not at all. “Of course. I would have never done job number two with you if I did not. Forget my stupid questions. I really need a nap.”
The man chuckled and opened the passenger door. The back door opened and Niles jumped out, slamming the doors behind him. He didn’t say goodbye. It wasn’t his style. He was already inside the airport when Clive got out and wandered off. He turned and watched as Saskia made her way out of the drive-up area.
Why didn’t the man trust her? What had she done to alert him? Because he’d questioned her alliances before she’d spouted off those curious questions. And the other night he’d been suspicious too.
It wouldn’t pay to rack her brains now. She had to dump the vehicle and find Jack. And as far as deep cover went, she was no longer in it.Pulling out her cell phone, she called the ECU headquarters and connected with Chester Clarke, the tech guy stationed in London, whom she worked with whenever she needed real-time support and backup. It was late, but he was there more often in the evenings than early mornings.
“Saskia. You are on dark mode. Waiting for us to contact you.”
“Can’t wait.”
“Is there an issue?”
“Just help me, will you, Chaz? I need a track on Jack Angelo.”
“The Helsinki job? Right.” She heard clattering on the keyboard. “Kierce Quinn, out of Paris, has been working with that asset. Here’s the info…” He must have been scanning the dossier on the case. It had been well over a month since Saskia had contacted anyone at the ECU. “Has Angelo still got the chip in him?”
“As far as I know.”
“Your job was to keep him in the unit. Saskia, did you lose him?”
“He’s…not immediately locatable. I need you to check with Kierce Quinn to see if Angelo reported anything regarding a poison drop-off during the heist tonight.”
“You don’t have that information?”
The accusation was obvious in his tone. Saskia fisted her fingers. “I was busy cracking a bank vault. Didn’t have time to stand and chat while also trying to keep the target unaware of my alliance to the other asset. And I’ve got a vehicle to dump. Just call me back when you’ve got a location on him.” She hung up.
Ten minutes later she—or rather the man she appeared to be—handed the owner of the junkyard a stack of bills and stood back as the van was loaded into the crusher. She would not walk away until she saw that piece of metal get compacted. It was never wise to trust that those she hired could manage a job without supervision. And she wouldn’t risk anyone snooping in the van. Not that they’d left any evidence behind.
The junkyard owner seemed oblivious. Chawing on the end of a smelly cigar, the smoke from it curled about his frothy red beard. He pushed the big red button on the crusher and metal began to crunch and tear and compress. Sounded sickening, but much better than the sound of a compressed spine or broken bones.
What would Clive do to her if he discovered her duplicity? Why was she letting that man get to her like this? They’d completed the job with but one tiny snafu. Clive had apparently gotten what he’d wanted. And she had been left standing high and dry with no evidence that he had planted the poison.
And if Jack had that evidence she had no way of knowing what he’d done with it unless Chester Clarke could learn something from the Paris operative.
Fifteen minutes after seeing the van reduced to a rectangle of metal and chrome, she thumbed for a ride at the side of the highway. Jack had not left a vehicle near the junkyard. A trucker pulled over and offered her shivering ass a ride into town. It was only five miles, but she handed him a fifty and thanked him when he dropped her off.
Standing two blocks down from the apartment she’d rented, Saskia answered her cell phone. Chester had a location on Jack.
“That’s close.” She glanced up the quiet street. And she knew exactly where it was. The surgeon’s office. “What about Angelo’s report to Quinn?”
“No contact. And Quinn was expecting to hear from him. Find Jack Angelo, Saskia. It is imperative.”
“I’m on it. I’ll report back when I’ve got him.”
Chester clicked off without saying goodbye. And Saskia wanted to ask why it was so imperative. If an asset went off the grid, then why not let them? What was it about Jack Angelo that was so important to the ECU that they’d put her on his ass to keep him?
Not that she’d managed that one very well.
She wasn’t going to beat herself up over this. Chester’s info placed Jack nearby. She hadn’t lost this one yet.
Saskia jogged toward the surgeon’s office which was a few blocks beyond where she’d been staying. She had no weapon, save a small jackknife that she’d brought along in case it had been needed during the heist, so she pulled that out from the backpack but kept it folded in her palm. She was deadlier with her fists and fast moves.
It was easier walking the streets now that the ice had begun to melt, but also sloppy. The air smelled fresh, as if awakening from a long, moldering slumber. Why she noticed that was weird. She really needed a vacation.
Should she have taken Jack’s offer to go off the grid seriously? Could she? Not anymore. The offer had surely been rescinded. But she’d never thought that her life could be different than it was now. Freedom was a concept, not a reality. And if she didn’t get Jack in hand her current freedom would dangle from a thread.
“He had better still be here,” she muttered.
Approaching the nondescript office door set into the brick wall, she counted the time from when the crew had exited the bank and now. A little more than an hour. Which is why, after kicking in the door, she wasn’t surprised to find a dark office.
Flicking on the light switch, she scanned around the small, dank reception area. The smell of alcohol lured her back to another room where she found a surgical table and dented metal cabinets with master locks on each drawer pull. In the waste bin she noted small bits of gauze with bright red blood on them.
Jack had been here. And recently.
She pressed her hand to the stainless steel table. Didn’t feel any warmth. But if Chester’s GPS had tracked the chip here…
“He couldn’t have been gone for more than a few minutes.”
Her phone rang again. Chester said, “He’s moving. Heading south of the position I originally gave you. I’ve got you on radar. You’re less than a hundred feet from him.”
Him? Or the chip now removed?
She had to work fast. Saskia headed out the door and turned left.
“The other way,” Chester said.
She swung around and ran, boots splashing in the puddles.
“It’s moving rapidly,” Chester reported. “Must be in a vehicle. It’s going to pass right before you…”
She heard the approaching car. Shoving the cell phone into a pocket, Saskia picked up her speed. As the nose of a brown sedan appeared from the left, she leaped for the hood and slid across it. Managing to grip the windshield wiper stopped her from flying off and face-planting on the slushy tarmac. The car stopped. She slid off.
Bending forward, she lifted a leg to land a roundhouse kick to the driver’s side window. It didn’t crack.
Saskia opened the door before the driver could lock it. Reaching in, she grabbed the driver, a bald, stout man whose heft made it impossible to lift him out of the seat. Instead, she yanked him toward her by clapping her hands about his head. “Where is Jack Angelo?”
“Who are you, crazy woman?” His thick Finnish accent ended with a growl.
“You know who I’m talking about. Jack Angelo.”
“I have no names. No names. Ever!”
“Fine. The Irishman who was just in your office. You removed a chip from the back of his head.”
“No, I—”
She kneed the man in the side off his face and he yowled. Gripping the steering wheel, she saw his other hand go for the stick shift. Saskia reached in and pulled the keys from the ignition. Then she pulled the man down so the top half of him tumbled out from the car, but he was still held inside by the seatbelt across his waist.
She grabbed his head again and lifted her boot. “The next one is going to hurt. Might even take out an eye. You ever do reparative surgery on yourself?”
“He was at the office!” the man confessed. “But he’s gone now.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know! I never ask. And who would tell me? You know that.”
She did know that. And wasting any more time with this idiot would prove fruitless. Shoving him back into the car, she stomped off, tearing away the mustache as she did so.
If Jack was going off the grid he’d get out of town as quickly as possible. He could have a contact pick him up, though that would be risky. Stealing a car would be wise, but taking the ferry would be too slow. And he knew Clive and Niles had intended to fly. It would be stupid to risk running into them at the airport. As well, Jack did not like to fly.
The only option Jack could possibly go with was the ferry. No ferries ran this late at night, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be the first on the boat in the morning.
Swinging around a corner not far from her place, Saskia ran along the sidewalk and into her building. She’d turned in her apartment key before leaving for the job this evening, but she wasn’t stupid.
She arrived at the door, which she’d left open a hair. Inside was empty and quiet. Using the light on her phone, she beamed it across the floor. No wet or drying tracks that Jack might have left behind had he returned here.
Her phone rang again. She did not want to confirm to Chester that she’d lost the subject, so she didn’t answer. He’d figure it out. Which would not go well for her.
What next? Jack hadn’t given her any clues where his destination was, despite her trying to wheedle that information out of him. She’d only gotten a redacted dossier on him when she’d been assigned this job. Minimal information. Nothing regarding the reason he’d been recruited into the ECU. The key components to guessing a man’s next move were always family, friends, and history.
She had nothing.
Except.
Family is everything to me. Sometimes you take a fall for family. But always, a man is there for them.
Where was Jack’s family? In London? Would he really go back to England after making a clean break from the ECU? It would be the stupidest move he could possibly make.
No, he was too smart for that. And she needed to get to the ferry station.
A text buzzed on her phone. Chester sent her a grainy photo from the airport time-stamped twenty minutes earlier. It was Jack.