The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Secret Securities

Previously: "The Quick and the Dead" 

As you ponder the job, it becomes more and more obvious that you can't square your two desires: fulfilling your contract on Nzingha, and developing a line on Hu. You'll have to turn the other one over to another team.

You tidy up 1606 and 1608 both, laying out Kips's corpse into the bathroom of the latter and removing every trace of clothing connected to officers Sullivan and Barone. In 1606, you dump Banks's paralyzed bulk into the bathtub. On the doors to both rooms you hang "DO NOT DISTURB" signs, and follow it up with phone calls to the front desk insisting that neither room be opened by cleaning staff.

That done, you take out the tiny laptop computer and log into the secure site, to tap out a report for Julian Dey.

Fucker.

You blink at the screen as the thought echoes again in your head. It's not your thought, not exactly, though it's a thought you'd probably concur with if forced to be honest. No, it's Isaac Banks's thought.

But you're not supposed to be Isaac Banks as you tap out this report, and you firmly put your mentor out of your head as you hunch back over the keyboard.

Plainly and without emotion you detail your success at neutralizing and replacing Isaac Banks. Plainly and without emotion you report Terry Kipper's death and how it came about. Plainly and without emotion you outline your plans for the next two days.

Plainly and without emotion you also report on Professor Hu Minquiang, and why you would like to take a closer look at him.

It's almost eleven before you hit "Send" on the computer. Then you shackle and gag Banks against any monkey business and move back into 1606 for the night.

At three in the morning Banks's phone softly dings, waking you. It's a spam text, but you recognize the cryptic meaning of the nonsensical Viagra solicitation: Message received; reply has been emailed; urgency low. You turn back over and fall asleep.

* * * * *

You digest Dey's reply over breakfast the next morning, which you take in the hotel's most formal restaurant: as you'd expected, it's little more than a curt acknowledgement and exhortation to concentrate on the mission. You close up the tablet and turn back to the newspaper and to the waitress, an attractive African-American in her mid-thirties who hovers nearby throughout the meal, smiling brightly and tumbling over herself to serve her tall, strong, attractive and apparently well-connected diner.

Indeed, you are so taken with her that while she's servicing another table you phone the front desk and reserve a third room—this one on the twenty-second floor—and invite her to drop by at six o'clock. She happily accepts.

* * * * *

After double-checking that Banks is still inert in the bathroom, you change into work pants and a jeans jacket, and take a taxi to the industrial districts where you and Kips stashed the original cops. First, you deal with Barone—like Sullivan, he's under a mask—and he is tractable, probably because he's weaker than his partner. Sullivan, however, refuses to take the sandwich you toss at him. "Eat it," you tell him roughly, "or you'll die." "Fuck you," he growls back. "I'll die anyway." "You'll die sooner if you don't eat it," you retort, and pull open your jacket to show the revolver tucked inside. He grumbles, and slowly consumes his sandwich.

After five minutes the vegetable paste that Project Ishtar supplied you with has made him tractable, and he numbly changes into his old uniform, which you'd brought with you. You then guide him to the warehouse at the other end of the deserted complex, where Barone, also in his old uniform, is sitting in the back of a car, staring vacantly at the roof. You tuck Sullivan in next to him, remove the masks from them, then pipe the exhaust hose into the sealed cabin and start the engine. You watch the car run long past the point where they are dead, and leave it running as you exit the complex to find another cab. You return to the hotel to change and get a bite to eat before a two o'clock meeting with Lamarque at the police station.

* * * * *

"I had the impression they were more professional," you laconically observe at around two-thirty, when the small talk has dried up and officers Barone and Sullivan have given no sign of appearing.

Lamarque looks harassed and embarrassed, and with an inarticulate mumble excuses himself. You cross to his window, to gaze impassively down into the street. If you had to stage an ambush, and this was the only intersection you could do it from ... You muse distractedly to yourself as you study the layout and the traffic patterns, playing out angles and shots as though they were balls on a table of green felt and not bullets flashing across a boulevard.

You dismiss the fantastical exercise when the door opens behind you; Lamarque enters with another officer. You've been out of Ray Sullivan's mask for twenty hours now, but you still recognize Mike Andrews. "Pleased to meet you," you rumble after the introductions, and squeeze his hand in yours. "And what happened to Danny and Sullivan?"

"They got hung up on something else," Lamarque says. "But they got Mike briefed. He's getting it all set up." There's no missing the hard look the captain stabs at Andrews.

"Good," you say. "Tell me." You settle back on your heels and smile at him.

Andrews shifts on his feet, and his expression tightens. Haltingly, he describes the plan that Banks had proposed yesterday.

He makes a complete mess of it, and you can tell from his expression that he knows he's fucked it up. Lamarque can also tell.

The moment hangs, and you let them dangle at the end of it before smiling mirthlessly.

You drop a heavy hand onto Andrews's shoulder. "Let's you and me go for a drive. Out to Dulles, and then along the two routes." Slowly you massage his shoulder, pinching harder and harder as you speak. "Along the way you will point out everything that needs to be done, and which you and this department are going to do. As as you do so, I will correct the truly extraordinary amount of bullshit you are going to sling at me."

Andrews flushes blackly.

"And then we will go over it again and again and again, until you finally get it right." You grip the back of his neck until he flinches. "And then I will want you riding with me tomorrow afternoon when the president arrives, overseeing your end of the operation. Because if officers Barone and Sullivan are as derelict as they appear to me now to be—" You turn a cold, leaden gaze onto Lamarque. "Then I will slip my erect and tingly cock up the muzzle of a loaded Magnum and pull the trigger before I see those two fuckwits within twenty miles of this operation. Do you concur with my judgment, Captain?"

Lamarque's eyes are bright with anger, and you can sense the terrible pinch he finds himself in: He can't explain his officers' absence—they have not been in all day, and their families haven't seen them since yesterday morning—without making the security arrangements look so compromised that the visit has to be cancelled. So he just nods curtly.

"Good," you say, and tuck your arm into Andrews's. "Don't be ashamed to display your ignorance. Say 'I don't know' anytime you're less than one hundred and twenty percent certain, and I will answer for you. By the time we're done, Andrews, you'll be checked out enough to apply for the Secret Service."

* * * * *

You work him hard and mercilessly until well after five, and then you make him drive you back to the hotel, where you loiter in the lobby until Rene appears. She is stunning in a starched white blouse and grey skirt, and she's highlighted her mane of dark hair with reddish-gold highlights. You'd love to take her straight upstairs, but with courtly grace you escort her to a fancy restaurant and ply her with good food and wine (and a generous manner toward the wait staff) and conversation for two hours. She is much taken with your descriptions of your job as chief of security for the president of Cabinda, and shows no reluctance about returning to the hotel for coffee and dessert, and accompanying you up to the twenty-second floor.

You don't even have to ask her in, you just open the door, and lead her into the living room of the suite. She is a little stiff as she drops onto a settee; you go around slowly turning on lamps to "low." Then you sit next to her and hold her hand in one of yours while stroking her hair with the other. Gently you lean in and rub your nose against her cheek, and she ups the game by putting her lips against your mouth. You kiss slowly and wetly, and it takes almost thirty minutes before your clothes are off, and another twenty minutes before you're in the bed with her on top and you smiling gravely up at her. After she rolls away you fetch a little bottle from the bathroom and dab the narcotic cologne at her neck; and after she's drifted off she doesn't even feel the paralyzing syringe you slip into her thigh. Then you break out Little Mavin and spend a loving hour—far more time than is necessary—tracing a light pen over her body, copying her form into a pattern for a tattoo.

Next: Coming soon! Check back!

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"