Authors: Dakota Banks
F
red Smith’s lovemaking was not to her liking, but it didn’t matter. After a few centuries, it was all insert tab A into slot B, unless Elizabeth was free to indulge her whims. That wasn’t possible with Fred—she needed him among the living to be useful.
Elizabeth arrived early at the hotel he’d picked out for their late-night delight and installed a video camera with a view of the room. The security guard who came with Fred was on her payroll, so the place was declared bug-free in spite of the presence of the camera. Recording sex with each new man was standard until she had at least three recordings to establish a pattern. Then she didn’t bother with it anymore.
You never know when the leverage will come in handy.
She was on her side on the bed, her face away from the camera, but giving the lens a nice view of her curvaceous ass. Fred was still flopped on the pillow beside her. She pulled him toward her, and he began sucking on her breast. She tilted her body and he followed, so his profile was on camera.
Left side—not his better one.
She pushed his shoulder away. “I’d like to get cleaned up. Would you like to join me in the shower?”
A half hour later, Elizabeth needed another shower. But she was satisfied that she could lead Fred around by his dick.
Of course, I have to make him think he’s going where
he
wants.
On his way out, she slammed him against the door, rubbed her body against his, kissed him insistently, and gave him a blow job. To her surprise, little Freddie was up to it. She’d figured it was about a 30 percent chance.
“Let’s do this again,” he said.
Uh-huh.
W
hen Elizabeth got home, she went into the basement to check on the hub of her intelligence network. Although her home was a traditional redbrick on the outside, the basement was bright, ultramodern, and packed with computers and other communication equipment. She had a staff of hundreds, twelve of whom worked in this room keeping track of items around the world that might be of interest to her. The rest of her staff were field operatives. All of them were highly skilled and highly paid, and knew that quitting their jobs wasn’t an option. They signed on for life. Their lifetimes—not hers. When they weren’t able to work anymore, they retired in luxury, and in the meantime, they enjoyed the finer things. Intense loyalty to her, protection by her, and generous rewards. Betrayal was punished by a gruesome death, but that was rarely necessary. It had been a couple of hundred years since the last punishment, and the details of that one were enough to keep modern recruits in line. The system worked for her long before computers.
She sat down at a desk on a dais that overlooked the room. That extra height had cost her. The basement ceiling wasn’t high enough, so she had the concrete floor and all the substructure lowered. But she thought it was important that she sit on a higher level than her staff. She flipped through some routine reports, with some items highlighted. She took note of them but didn’t see anything worth following up. Nevertheless, she remained in the room for another two hours, keeping her staff on edge and liking it.
A
maro picked up the box at the door and brought it in. Eliu saw him first. Her shoulders fell, but she said nothing.
“Christ, how can this be happening?” Hound said. He jumped up so quickly that his chair fell over backward. “That door was unguarded for all of fifteen minutes. We think we’re watching him, fuck, he’s watching us!”
He flung open the door, angrily pumped his fist, and yelled, “I’ll get you, you bastard!”
Maliha felt her stomach ball up into a hard knot. “Does he have his own cameras in the hallway?”
Hound closed the door. “Probably watched me install the damn spyhole,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit!”
“Why can’t we get in front of this? We’ve tackled some of the worst problems in the world and now we’re being jerked around,” Amaro said. “What are we up against?”
Learn humility, Master Liu said. All right, I’m humble already. Yanmeng!
“We need to stop moping around and think like an Ageless. At least I do. If I wanted to deliver that box and knew no one was surveilling the door, I could easily dash in here from miles away, plant the box, and be gone without being seen,” Maliha said.
“With some kind of device that’s jamming our cameras,” Amaro said.
“Sure. The Ageless have plenty of resources at hand. There might be a secret lab somewhere churning out jammers and other useful things,” Maliha said.
“You mean like Q in the James Bond movies?” Amaro said.
“Why not?”
“Then why the hell don’t we have our own secret lab?” Hound said. He hadn’t simmered down yet.
None of them wanted to open the box.
“Because I’ve always handled my needs individually, by finding talented people and paying them gobs of money.”
Hound’s mind tracked in a different direction. “You mean Ageless like Jake?”
Maliha shook her head. “This isn’t a good time.”
“You said you’d tell me everything after your surveillance shift,” Hound said.
“What’s this about Jake? Something I should know?” Amaro said.
“Wait,” Maliha said. She nodded toward Eliu, who was sitting at the table listening to their Ping-Pong conversation. “Let’s open the box. Then we’ll talk.”
“I got it,” Hound said. He went over to the box, slit the packing tape, and lifted the lid. After unwrapping the contents, he said, “He’s not dead.”
Eliu appeared at his elbow. She looked, and her hand flew to her mouth. “It’s skin,” she said. “Skin from his arm. I know that tattoo.”
Maliha checked the box. In it was a strip of skin, rolled like a belt. She gently unrolled it and found it to be about two inches wide and a foot long. “Are you certain this is his?” she said.
“Yes,” Eliu said. “Oh, my God. They are skinning my husband alive.”
“We’ll put a stop to it. We’ll get him back,” Maliha said.
We have to. It’s killing all of us.
Maliha and Hound went off to pack the skin in ice. They were keeping the ice for the other body parts refreshed. Once out of Eliu’s hearing, Hound gestured at the two other Styrofoam coolers.
“You know it’s too late for replantation,” he said.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Maliha said. “It doesn’t matter. We’re keeping them here for Eliu, too. What do you want us to do, put the parts down the garbage disposal in front of her?”
“I see your point.”
“The skin can be replaced, by the new artificial skin if necessary, but I’m worried about infection. If he’s not being cared for by professionals in a sterile environment, when we find him, it could be too late.”
“What fucking professional would do this to him?”
“Maybe one whose life is threatened.”
They rejoined the others. The note inside the box said, M
RS.
P
AGE’S
D
INER, 9 A.M.
T
HE GRILLED CHEESE WITH HAM AND ONIONS IS TO DIE FOR.
“I don’t think we need to watch the hall overnight,” Amaro said.
“You’re just saying that to get out of your shift,” Maliha said. Her attempt to lighten things up fell flat.
All four of them settled in the living room and looked at Maliha expectantly. She filled them in on everything she’d learned recently about Jake, including her suspicion that he could have been the one who killed Abiyram.
“It seems to me that we’re talking about Jake’s missing years one minute and the next, Abiyram’s killed by a sniper. I know Jake’s an expert shot, and he was traveling and out of touch with me at the time. Come on, guys, tell me I’m being paranoid,” Maliha said.
“I thought you loved Jake,” Amaro said. “How does that fit in?”
“I don’t know. There’s always been something about him. He keeps me at arm’s length with these secrets of his. I don’t expect a perfect past—how could I? But he’s so slippery about this moral code of his.”
“Jake’s back in Chicago. Why don’t you confront him with what you learned and see where that gets you? If he’s not one of the bad guys, we could use his help,” Hound said. “I have to say, though, you seem too easily swayed by Jake. When you’re away from him, you think more rationally. But the minute he, well, you know, you lose your perspective.”
House in the mountains. Kids. He’s all my dreams in one very nice basket.
“You have a lot of nerve,” Maliha said. Her voice started to rise. “That’s not true.”
“Yeah, it is,” Amaro said. “That’s the thing. You can’t see it like we can from the outside. Is the sex that—”
“Stop it! You don’t know him the way I do. How could you? He’s Ageless. I have some . . . issues to resolve, that’s all.”
“As long as you’ve got your eyes wide open,” Hound said. “Why aren’t you bringing up the things you’re doubtful about? That’s what people in love do. They talk things over honestly.”
Maliha sighed. “You’re right. I desperately need to clear the air with him. I’ll put that on the schedule—right after breakfast at Mrs. Page’s.”
T
he diner was on the southwest side, in Garfield Ridge. It was a family place, with lots of booths, coloring books for the kiddies, and a counter complete with chrome stools. There was a lot of all-American décor, from flags to signed baseballs. It was full of sunshine from sparkling-clean windows and nearly deserted at this hour. The working-class patrons, many of whom had jobs at Midway Airport, had already come and gone.
Maliha chose a booth near the back, close to the rear exit and with a good view of the front door. She was well armed, but no weapons showed. She didn’t want to alarm Mrs. Page and have the police called. She arrived fifteen minutes early and ordered the recommended grilled cheese sandwich with orange juice.
Why not? I’m cooperating.
At nine, three men came in the door. Two took seats at the counter, and the third slid into the booth with her. He made a point of taking a photo out of his pocket and comparing it to her face. She smiled for his approval.
A waitress came over to take the man’s order, but he waved her away. Each of the men at the counter ordered coffee.
“I hear the last guy who met up with you didn’t end up so good,” he said.
“You heard right.”
“That’s why I got Curly and Larry over there. I’m Moe. All I have to do is give you this envelope”—he put an envelope on the table in front of him—“and leave. We don’t want any trouble in this nice family establishment.”
“I don’t want trouble either, Moe.”
What I’d like to do is behead all three of you with one sword strike.
“Good girl.” He left the booth and the three men walked out together.
“Hound,” Maliha said. Hound was parked across the street, listening to everything.
“Here.”
“The main one is wearing a dark green jacket.”
“You heard her. I’ll take green jacket. Don’t lose them.” He had investigators waiting to tail anyone who met with Maliha.
Maliha took the Orange Line back downtown and stretched her legs with a jog to her home. Inside her condo, everything was quiet. Eliu and Amaro were probably sleeping, or at least resting in their rooms. Maliha sat at the kitchen table and spread the contents of the folder out in front of her.
It was another assignment, as she’d feared. The dossier was extensive.
Maliha’s second target—she had to think of someone she was forced to assassinate as a target, as in the time when she was a demon’s slave—was not a black-and-white situation. A Kentucky senator, Carlton Plait, had had an affair and a child out of wedlock early in his career but had since been a loving husband and family man. Floating around him were rumors of accepting monetary bribes for pushing legislation, but the rumors hadn’t crystallized into facts yet, and possibly never would.
An investigative journalist, Camila Reyes, was hot on the senator’s trail and had uncovered hush money that the senator was still paying to the mother of his bastard son. If the information was released, plus if the pay-to-play story gathered steam, either the senator would resign or his political strength would be severely damaged in his conservative state. He probably wouldn’t be reelected. If the story was published, the journalist stood to gain in prestige and promotions. It would be a turning point in her career.
It wasn’t the kind of case Maliha would consider taking on.
Besides, who is the villain here? A journalist prepared to rake a man’s career and private life over the coals because “the public must know the truth” or just for a juicy byline? Or a senator who, cynically speaking, is no worse than many of his colleagues?
Her designated target was Camila Reyes, the journalist.