Author: James R. Hannibal
Category: Thriller
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Talia read on into the next chapter and found the next mention of the man. Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison. The image that came to her reminded her of the Nazis, dragging innocents from their homes. She closed the book. She knew the rest of the story. On the Damascus road, during his purge of the new church, Saul met Jesus in the form of a voice and a blinding light. He became Paul, one of the most powerful and zealous leaders of early Christianity.
What had Tyler meant to accomplish by directing her to Paul’s story? She had an inkling. Paul had watched the stoning of Stephen with approval. He had stormed homes like a Nazi to drag off early Christians. Yet God had forgiven him. Maybe Tyler saw himself that way, an assassin who met with his own light on a Damascus road. His actions at the Shard, throwing his body between her and the guard’s bullets, spoke of a man so reformed. But Talia’s suspicions about his involvement in Dr. Visser’s murder spoke of someone else entirely.
And how did Tyler fit into her father’s accident?
Talia winced as the pain in her side flared. She tossed back a pair of painkillers and rolled over again, letting her worries dissolve into chaotic dreams.
Chapter
forty-
five
CHATEAU TICINO
CAMPIONE D’ITALIA, SWITZERLAND
THE CHATEAU HAD FILLED UP. Talia awoke to the sounds of her new team of elite thieves stirring in the halls, murmuring in an array of accents. She showered and dressed in slacks and a blouse, having no intention of appearing downstairs in her jammies despite the warm scents of cinnamon and tarragon luring her from her room.
When she finally poked her head through the kitchen doorway, Conrad was pulling a pan of pastries out of the oven. “Would you like some potica? Half are walnut and apple, the other half are filled with feta and”—he held up a thumb and forefinger—“the thinnest layer of ground sausage. Try one of each. You won’t regret it.”
“I’ll never regret trying your creations, Conrad.” Except the next time I step on a scale. She accepted a plate with two pastries and turned to see Tyler and Val entering from the garage. “Val? Shouldn’t you be in Milan with Ivanov?”
Val’s shirt was half untucked from her skirt, and several hairs had escaped the confines of her ponytail. She gave Talia a frustrated smile. “I have less than an hour before I need to get back. So maybe we could skip the whole little-girl-asking-obvious-questions bit?”
Tyler stole Talia’s plate and set it aside. “Brunch can wait. Gather the troops. We have a problem.”
Conrad, perhaps as a form of resistance to the affront of Tyler confiscating Talia’s pastries, carried the full brunch spread up to Mission Control while Talia collected the thieves. Val did not touch a bite of food, and only gave cursory responses to Finn and Darcy when they introduced themselves. She sat next to Eddie at the conference table, tapping a foot against the bottom rung of her stool and checking her watch every few seconds.
“Could we?” she asked as Tyler came through the door.
Tyler gave Eddie a nod. “Let’s hear it, Red Leader.” The way he used Eddie’s nom de guerre was not complimentary.
Eddie avoided his gaze and addressed the group. “I . . . missed a small detail in my evaluation of Gryphon’s security.”
Val grumbled something under her breath.
Eddie blushed. “Okay. I missed a big detail.”
For the sake of their newest recruits, Eddie rehashed the overall plan. He explained the need to steal the Mark Seven so Mac could fly it up to the mesosphere, giving them direct access to the hypersonic plans stored on Gryphon. “Valkyrie is working Ivanov for the voiceprint ID that will get us past the ship’s security protocols, but . . .” He hesitated, looking down.
Val slapped him on the back. “Spit it out.”
“But the designs for Gryphon I obtained were outdated. There was a late addendum.” He looked to Talia with an apologetic gaze. “Ivanov changed the layer of security at Gryphon’s pressure seal. Instead of a ten-digit cypher code, we need a key.”
“You mean a keyword?” Mac asked, mouth filled with pastry.
“No. I mean a physical key.” Eddie lifted a hand, holding the imaginary object. “A half-inch-diameter stick of synthetic quartz. It should look something like the data crystals used in Superman’s fortress of solitude.”
Mac and Finn exchanged a glance.
Talia closed her eyes and shook her head. “Eddie, a lot of people don’t know what that means.”
“Then a lot of people need to rent the movie.”
Tyler sat forward on the couch, still scowling. “Can’t you just put it on the screen?”
Eddie gave him a shrug. “I could make something up, but I don’t have the exact design.”
“Which means we can’t make our own without stealing the original.” Val laid a conference badge and a hotel key card on the table. “I brought these for Finn. The quartz key is probably in Ivanov’s room. When I give the all clear, Finn can go in and—”
“Finn won’t be going in,” Tyler said. “He’ll be at the airfield, scoping out the security measures for the Mark Seven with Mr. Plucket and me. You’re the better choice, anyway. The hotel staff already knows you.”
“Can’t do it. Ivanov wants me at his side whenever he leaves his room. I was only able to get away this time because he had a late night and he’s still asleep.”
“Then we give him a reason to leave you behind.”
“And how do we do that?”
Tyler turned to Talia.
She stared right back at him. “Why are you looking at me?”
“Set up a meeting, Talia. Today. Tell him it’s urgent. You flew in to give him a security update.”
Val backed him up. “Yes. Perfect. Ivanov is sure to leave me behind if he’s going off to see Talia. He’s a typical Eastern European playboy. He won’t want two of his imaginary fillies meeting face-to-face.” She let out a flat laugh. “Talia knows what I mean. Horrendous flirt. Exhausting. Right, Talia?”
The hurt welling up in Talia’s chest must have shown on her face, because Val took on a look of mock surprise. “Oh. I’m sorry, darling. Did you think you were special?”
“Pavel is not a flirt. Maybe you’re getting the wrong signals.”
“Yeah . . . Signals are kind of my thing.” Val picked up the key card again, pointing it at her before shoving it in her purse. “Set up the meeting. I’ll search the room.” She flicked Tyler’s arm on her way to the door. “Keep an eye on your girl. She’s too emotionally invested.”
When the others filed out, Eddie walked over to the door and pushed it closed. “I have something for you.”
He had his fidget spinner out. He was nervous. A cold, tingling feeling washed over Talia, and she sat down on one of the conference table stools. “Something about my dad?”
“Sorry. I’m still working on that.”
“Oh.” The tingling went away. “Then why did you wait until we were alone?”
“Because this is about Tyler’s extra bruise, and the idea he might actually be—”
“Lukon?” It was the first time Talia had made the association out loud, and she found she didn’t want to hear it, even from her own lips. Whatever Tyler’s involvement in her father’s accident, she didn’t want to believe he would betray her.
Eddie returned to the conference table and started working the keyboard with one hand, bouncing the spinner from one finger to the next in the other. “One aspect of this whole operation fell out of focus while we were hiring our thieves.”
“And what’s that?”
“The real Lukon should be trying to hire them too, right?” He called a series of black web windows up on the big screen. One had grotesque zombies in the sidebar. In another, fire-breathing dragons flew and fought between columns of gray text. “With that in mind, I set traps on the Dark Web. Any mention of our candidates or their code names sends an alert straight to
my phone.”
“Annnd . . .” Talia cocked her head.
“Annd the alerts have been coming in on three—Darcy, Finn, and the big ugly Scottish gorilla.”
“Mac.”
“Yeah. Him. The real Lukon is out there, still trying to make contact with our thieves.” He lowered his chin, looking at Talia over his glasses. “Talia, Tyler is legit.”
She skimmed the messages. There were vague references to money and jobs. Nothing concrete. No locations. “Tell me you started a trace.”
“I put Franklin on it, but keep in mind, these message boards are designed to prevent traces.”
Text that had magically appeared within the caves and dungeons of the Dark Web did not prove much. The internet was untrustworthy by definition. So was Tyler. He and Val had started talking about grifting on the way down to the Milan airport. And Val had shared the first three rules of a con, raising a finger with each.
One—make your marks work for every step. Two—keep them busy so they never have time to look behind the curtain. And three—never tell a lie when the truth will do.
Posting fake messages on the Dark Web to hold Talia and Eddie’s focus, and getting them to run near-impossible traces certainly fit those first two rules.
Talia let out a breath. “I’m still on the fence. Tyler could have sent those messages himself.” She let her stool rotate, narrowing her eyes at Eddie. “The whole crew will be in Milan the rest of the day, Tyler included. You’ll be alone in the house with Conrad.”
“So?” The geek shrank back a few inches.
“So . . .” Talia gently stopped his fidget spinner. “While Val is searching Ivanov’s room, I want you to search Tyler’s.”
Chapter
forty-
six
CHATEAU TICINO
CAMPIONE D’ITALIA, SWITZERLAND
EDDIE WAS A SPECIALIZED SKILLS OFFICER. An SSO. A hacker—in his own mind, at least. On the net, he wielded JavaScript and Python the way a superhero wielded eye-lasers and seismic blasts. The less virtual forms of espionage, however, were not his forte.
The crew split into two teams, guys versus gals. Darcy and Talia left for Milan immediately, taking the Tesla. The chemist had insisted on making a few purchases in the city before Talia’s meeting. The guys lingered, laying out their recon plan on the kitchen table.
Eddie could feel Tyler-slash-possibly-Lukon watching him, like Tallmadge watching Benedict Arnold. Eddie stood, kicking his chair back with a grinding squeak, sweat glands working overtime. “I have . . . things to work on. Hacker stuff.” He ran up the stairs and sequestered himself in Mission Control, listening for the telltale kerchunk of the front door closing. He heard it twenty minutes later. That left only Conrad in the house.
Potika and blintzes. Cacciatore and coq au vin. Eddie had enjoyed it all, but none of Conrad’s offerings fooled him in the slightest. Any killer might be well trained in the culinary arts. If action movies were any guide, they had a propensity for it. Conrad was no exception. Eddie could see it in the way he chopped his carrots.
Mustering his courage, Eddie peeked out into the hall. No Conrad. He was probably still in the kitchen, a butcher-knife’s throw from Tyler’s quarters.
They were all supposed to be on the same team, but Tyler clearly had things to hide, perhaps related to the mission, perhaps not. Either way, if Conrad caught Eddie snooping around his boss’s quarters . . . As he crept down the stairs, Eddie glanced down at his fingers. They looked a lot like carrots.
Pots clanked in the kitchen. The cook hummed a sea shanty, slipping in the occasional “haul away” or “eventide, my darling.” Eddie listened from the bottom step of the main stair for several seconds, and then hurried past the big stone fireplace to the double doors of Tyler’s room. He placed a hand on the lever.
The humming and clanking in the kitchen stopped. Eddie let go and glanced over his shoulder.
No butcher knife came flying.
The shanty started up again, and he breathed a sigh of relief and pushed down the lever.
“Eddie?”
He spun around to find Tyler staring at him. “Mr. Tyler?” How long had he been there? Eddie tried to play it cool, leaning a hand against the door, which fell open with an obnoxious creak. Eddie yanked it closed again and stuffed both hands into his armpits. “I was just looking for you.”
Tyler glared long enough for Eddie to wonder whether the former assassin would do his own throat-slitting or leave it to his cook. Finally he lowered his voice to something between a whisper and a growl. “It’s Lukon. Remember? Keep it straight in Milan.”
“I’m . . . not . . . going to Milan.”
“Yes. You are. Mac and Finn gassed up the van. They’re waiting for us. Let’s go.”
In that moment, Tyler, whom Eddie had been so drawn to when they first met, looked like a spider saying Step into my parlor. Eddie didn’t want to be the fly. “But I always stay in Mission Control.”
“Not this time.” Tyler turned to go, then stopped and looked back.
Eddie swallowed. “Anything . . . else?”
“Your drone—Susan, Cindy, Sybil—”
“Sibby?”
“That’s the one. Bring her along. She may be useful.”
The four men took a switchback path of ancient stone down to the street level, where a black panel van sat idling. Mac stuck his head out the driver’s window. “Are you two ready to go, or should I take her for another spin around the lake?”
The door behind him slid open and Finn beckoned for Eddie and Tyler to climb aboard. “Mac feels slighted at having to drive anything with less performance than a Lamborghini.”
“I’m well aware.” Tyler buckled himself into the passenger seat and pointed to the road ahead. “Quit pouting and get moving, Mr. Plucket. We have work to do.”
Eddie found with delight that the van was less of a transport vehicle and more of a mobile command center. He took his place in the swiveling chair at the main workstation and read the steel plaque mounted above the screen. GROND: GROUND REMOTE OPERATIONS NODE. There was a black wolf’s head beside the text. “Nice. I like the nod to Tolkien, boss. But what’s up with this chrome bar in front of the keyboard?” He tried it out, resting his forearms on the bar and attempting to type. He had seen better ergonomics in Brennan’s office.
“That’s for operational security.” Tyler glanced over his shoulder from the front passenger seat, face deadpan. “In case I ever need to chain a hacker to the primary workstation.”
Eddie slowly lifted his forearms off the bar. “Ha-ha. Th-that’s hilarious.”
Tyler wasn’t laughing.
The aerospace expo had taken over Linate Airfield on the east side of Milan, the site of one of the few landlocked seaplane runways in the world. A trio of military speedboats raced down the strip of blue-green water as Mac turned GROND onto a nearby agricultural road.
Eddie bounced in his workstation chair as Mac left the gravel and drove up the slope of a rolling wheat field. “Is this absolutely necessary?”
“It is if we wanna see anythin’, Wee Man.”
“I asked you to call me Red Leader.”
“I prefer Wee Man.”
“Or you can call me Eddie.”
“Wee Man it is, then.” Mac pointed through the windscreen. “Thar she is, lads.” He parked on a hilltop perch a quarter mile east of the asphalt runway.
Finn slid open the door, handing Eddie a monocular. “If you catch someone looking our way, it means they’re getting a glint off the lens. Drop this like a hot potato. Got it?”
“Got it.” Again, Tyler had not gone cheap with the tech. The scope focused automatically as soon as Eddie held it steady at his eye. Preparations for the demonstration days at the end of the week were in full swing. Small packs of conference staff watched over the contractors as they set up displays of helicopters, armed drones, and boxy command vehicles.
Shifting to midfield, Eddie found the Avantec tent, one of the
largest, with a big elevated display platform in front of the entrance. Ivanov’s men were setting up stands there with missile bodies and engines of various sizes.
“The Mark Seven will be under the tent,” Tyler said from behind him. “Can you see inside?”
“Too dark. Sorry.” Eddie focused instead on a pair of cylindrical devices on either side of the entrance, guarding the tent flap like Chinese lions guarding a palace. They reminded him of the R-series astromechs from Star Wars. He frowned, lowering the scope. “It looks like Ivanov has his own droids. That is so unfair.”
“I think those are trash cans.” Finn was looking through a scope of his own. “Moving on to perimeter security, I see a standard twelve-foot fence with concertina wire . . . gravel strip at the base. That means an infrared trip wire . . . Ooo.” Finn clicked his tongue, lowering the scope. “We’ve got a couple of German shepherds in the northern guard shack. Can’t afford any barking on the night of the job. We’ll have to take Fido and friend out of commission.”
“No!” The outburst came from Mac. “I winna hurt no dogs.”
Finn lowered the scope and cocked his head. “You’re an enforcer, you beat people up for a living. But dogs . . . You draw the line at dogs?”
“I prefer flyin’. An’ no dog ever owed nobody money. All they do is give.”
“We’ll use a sleeping agent,” Tyler said. “And we’ll put it in the finest steaks, okay?”
This seemed to placate the Scotsman.
“Good. Now, we still need a look inside that tent. Time to bring out your pet, Red Leader.”
Eddie had almost forgotten about Sibby. He pulled her case out of the van and popped it open on the running board. The two halves of the ball-shaped drone lay snuggly packed in foam. “Give me a sec to sync her to the tablet. What about the girls? Any word?”
“Nothing yet.” Tyler glanced at the clock on the van’s dashboard. “Ivanov should be arriving for his meeting with Talia any moment now.”