Chapter 18
Hiking up her backpack over a shoulder, Saskia strolled into the airport. Half a dozen bleary-eyed travelers wandered the clean white and gray environment, looking as if they’d been lost on a strange planet that sported IKEA trees and tin-can-stars suspended from the ceiling. Behind her, moonlight beamed through the blue-glazed windows high above, giving them a deep azure gleam. It coaxed dreams one could only find from a deep and relaxing sleep.
She could use some sleep. But she’d sleep when she’d confirmed that Jack was nowhere to be found, and indeed, the only place he could possibly be was the ferry station. It didn’t make sense that he would fly. He’d initially traveled sixteen hours by ferry to avoid a simple one hour flight here to Helsinki.
But CCTV photos did not lie. And Chester had been adamant he’d ID’d Jack correctly.
She approached the ticket counter where a yawning woman sat behind one of a dozen computers. She was the only one on this late shift. She must have checked in Clive and Niles an hour earlier. Would all three men find one another in the airport? Belize had been their destination. And Jack’s destination?
Baffled was putting her mental state lightly.
She scanned the departures grid above the ticket desk. The woman sitting before the computer didn’t smile or acknowledge that Saskia stood before her. Two flights had left within the last hour. One to Brazil, another to Amsterdam. Clive and Niles could be on either. And so could Jack.
A few more flights left on the hour. One to France. Another to London… Had he? It was Jack’s home base. And as far as she knew his family was there. Of course, that was conjecture.
There was one way to find out.
Now sans moustache and looking like a woman—bedraggled at best beneath the thick white down jacket—Saskia stepped forward and assumed a shy attitude. She placed her hands on the counter and sucked in the corner of her lip. “Was a handsome man with little hair and a lot of stubble on his jaw in through here a bit ago? Jack, my—” She closed her eyes and tried to affect tears, but they wouldn’t fall. Damn it! “We argued. I want to say goodbye to him. I know he’s headed home…”
The woman behind the counter lifted a brow, but she was not impressed.
“I wanted to give the ring back to him,” she tried. And she patted a coat pocket. “He told me it was his mother’s.”
“I can’t let you through security without a ticket, ma’am,” the woman finally announced.
“Oh, I’ll buy a ticket. It means that much to me. I can’t let him leave like this. He has to know I didn’t mean what I said. I was angry, but also, not thinking straight. No matter what happened between the two of us, I want him to be happy. And I need to give the ring back. I can’t possibly keep it.”
The woman glanced to her computer screen. “The flight to London is not even half full. I can sell you a coach ticket for two hundred euros.”
“Worth it,” Saskia said, relieved, and also shocked.
If Jack was going off the grid, then why return to his home?
* * * *
The flight to London did not leave for four hours. And Saskia didn’t want Jack to see her in the airport, so she wandered around the building, then found a place to rest in the terminal five gates down from where she’d seen Jack’s long dress coat flung over a red plastic seat. He was here. He must be sleeping on a chair, maybe the pair of legs she saw jutting out from behind a support pillar.
If she’d had a disguise on her she would have wandered closer, but she’d packed light.
Setting her backpack on the floor between her feet, she leaned over and caught her forehead in her hands, and wondered if she could manage tears now. She wasn’t sure she even knew how to cry. But it felt like she could. Was this how a person felt when the tears flowed? An ache in her chest, a heavy thud to her heartbeats, and an empty drop that seemed to circle in her belly?
She did not want to go to prison because she’d fucked up the job of keeping Jack in the ECU. Or worse. There was always the threat of a tombstone should an asset screw up.
Should she consider running? If Jack could do it, she could. And she happened to know a surgeon who could take out the chip with lightning speed. But she had no cash to hand. The ECU credit card she’d used to purchase the plane ticket was always monitored and strictly budgeted.
And the five hundred thousand Clive was supposed to transfer to her account? That account was owned by the Elite Crimes Unit. She never got to keep the booty from any job. All monies were either returned to the original source, if they’d come directly from a bank vault, or the ECU redirected the funds in a manner that would never be divulged.
“Well, well.”
Unaware that someone had approached, Saskia looked up with a smile growing—until she saw Clive standing over her. “I thought you’d be out of the city by now,” she said. “On your way to Belize. What’s going on?”
“You dump the van?”
“Of course. It’s now a cube. Where’s Niles?”
“He went ahead to Belize. But I figured if I hung out here for a while I’d catch you.”
Not good. Saskia’s fight or flight response clicked to high alert. “Why do you need to catch me?”
“Because like I said earlier, I don’t trust you, Sass. And I still don’t trust you.”
“What the hell does it matter now? The job is done.”
“Did you tell Jack Angelo about the poison?”
“No.” She shook her head and looked down, unwilling to look him in the eye, and trying to keep her calm. A defensive reply would only make her sound more suspicious. And the man couldn’t be aware that Jack was just down the way. “Why? Did he say something to you?”
Clive pulled a bowie knife out of his coat and aimed it at her leg. How had he gotten that through security? She’d had to dump her tiny pocketknife at security and then they’d still X-rayed her.
“You’re lying to me, Sass,” he said in a low, exacting tone, “and I don’t like liars.”
“I’m not. I didn’t tell Jack anything. Why would it matter?”
“It matters because Jack was asking me some strange questions inside the bank.”
“I can’t help what the man chooses as a conversation topic.”
“Of course not. You’re going to come with me. I need some answers about who you really are.”
“You’re fucked, Clive. You know me. We’ve worked two jobs together.”
“And yet you’ve suddenly all these questions.”
“I told you I’m—” Yeah, the wacky hormones defense had gone over not at all. No sense in pounding it in like a bent nail.
“You going to come along with me?” he prompted with a twitch of the blade toward her leg.
“Hell no. I’m waiting for a plane.”
“You’ve other plans now, Sass. I’ve a rental out in the lot. Let’s go.”
She shook her head, eyeing the periphery. No one else in sight. He didn’t have thugs with him. Not that she’d expect them. She could jump up, smash her palm up against his nose, and knock him out. That would give her time to grab the knife and run. To where? She couldn’t go to Jack; that would compromise her. Again. And if the airport had any modicum of security, she’d have officers on her within minutes.
The smell of coppery blood filled her senses before Saskia registered the searing pain of the knife piercing her upper thigh. It cut through her leggings and tore a thick red gash in the skin. Purposely shallow and not a fatal injury. Clive didn’t want her dead. He wanted to be able to move her to a different location. And then? She didn’t want to consider what could go down.
On the other hand, if she got Clive out of here, she could work with that. And she still had four hours…
Clive clutched her hand. “Grab your pack. We’re heading out. If you don’t start walking now, I’ll have to stab the other leg and toss you over my shoulder. Security will think you’ve fainted.”
The idea of losing her mobility was not something she chose to deal with. With a submissive nod of head, Saskia grabbed her backpack, winced at the shooting pain streaking up and down her thigh, and limped off toward the exit with Clive’s knife jammed into her spine.
* * * *
Jack heard the female grunt. It had sounded like she’d taken a punch, but when he dodged his head around the column behind which he’d been standing, unobtrusively observing Saskia for the last five minutes, he saw what had really happened. Clive had stabbed her.
And while his instincts were to run after them and take out Clive, he held back.
He pulled out the new burner phone he’d purchased after ditching the van behind the bank and dialed up Kierce Quinn.
“Who is this?” Quinn answered.
“It’s Angelo,” he said. Of course, he was off their tracking system. As planned. He needn’t worry about the phone being traced. Well, he did, but Quinn wasn’t stupid; he knew exactly where he was.
“We’ve got the London headquarters tracking you, Jack. The boss is not pleased.”
“Wasn’t trying to please anyone in particular. But listen. Saskia’s been taken by Clive Hendrix. I need a track on her.”
“What the hell did you do with your chip, Jack?”
“Quinn, this is an emergency.”
“You can’t be trusted now. I’m going to patch in Chester Clarke from the London office on this one. He’s been communicating with Saskia Petrovik. I don’t know what you’re up to—”
“I’m up to trying to save one of your agent’s arses. Now track her for me. I’m going to try and tail them, but I don’t have a vehicle. I’ll have to jack a car out in the lot. And it’s freezing out there, so I’m not sure how that will go. Quinn.”
“Just wait.”
“Don’t call the boss, Quinn. Oi. Do whatever the hell you want. Just—if you don’t want to lose Saskia, you will track her for me.”
He ran down the concourse. His flight left in four hours. And he intended to be on it.