Black And Blue (Quentin Black Mystery #5) (22 page)

I felt sick anyway, though.

I fought not to think about what that meant.

I was about to get up, to walk out of the room to get more water and call Kiko again...

When Nick walked into the room.

His whole body posture was rigid, in fight mode.

Something about seeing him there, wearing his beat-up leather jacket, his hands balled into fists as he walked into the room, his face dangerous, brought such an intense flood of relief I almost called out his name. Instead I watched him case the room. Ignoring the Homeland Security guy who stopped speaking and stared up at him, Nick’s eyes found me. He motioned with his head for me to follow him out of the room.

I climbed to my feet, knocking into the table in my haste to get up.

The Homeland Security team, Mozar, the two F.B.I. agents I’d actually been introduced to, all looked up at me. So did Jacquie and the other two surviving SWAT guys.

On impulse, I leaned down, squeezing Jacquie’s shoulder.
 

“You should come with me,” I said to her, speaking low, in her ear.

She looked up, frowning. Then she nodded, pushing her chair back and getting up to follow me out. I’m not sure what I was thinking exactly, bringing her with me. It would limit what Nick, Angel and I could talk about, for sure, but assuming Kiko and Dex were out there, one more person who didn’t know what Black was wouldn’t make much difference.

The crowd waiting for us outside was bigger than I expected.

Nick led me out there, telling me they didn’t really have a conference room for us. I knew part of that would be Dex and Kiko, too, not wanting our conversation to be recorded.

So I followed Nick through the front door of the Port Police station and into the bright sunlight. It blinded me briefly, making me throw up a hand. When I lowered it, following Nick to the left of the doors, I found myself face to face with a lot of people I knew and a handful I didn’t know. They all stood around, talking in low voices by a group of benches and potted trees and desert plants that decorated the side of the building.

Looking through those faces, I fought to make sense of them, to prioritize.

Angel. Kiko. Dex.

I recognized the faces of three more of Black’s employees.

The two tallest men standing there worked for my uncle, who’d assigned them to be my personal bodyguards. Black and I had taken to calling them Thing 1 and Thing 2, but I also knew their names now.

“Thing 1” was Ravi. “Thing 2” was named Efraim.

Ravi was maybe 6’4”, had a red sun tattoo on the side of his neck and chocolate brown hair. Against my better judgment, I liked him. Efraim was maybe an inch or so taller and had a perpetually dour-looking face and dyed blond hair. Mostly, he was just an enigma to me. Black told me once that Efraim hadn’t been here long, meaning this version of Earth. Black seemed to think he was still experiencing “adjustment issues.”

Both of them wore dark brown contact lenses, so I had no idea what color their eyes really were. Both of them looked pissed off when they turned to stare at me.

I didn’t have to ask why.

Black and I more or less ditched them, coming down here. Thinking about what Black said about that at the hotel, how he’d made me laugh about it, brought a hard pain to my chest.

Shoving it aside angrily, I scanned through the handful of new faces, all of whom had to be Black’s people too, just from the way they dressed.

I caught a few of them looking me over, too, curious looks on their faces.

I wondered which ones were the trackers Kiko mentioned. They all looked the same to me in a certain sense. Lean hard muscles, black T-shirts, military tattoos and stances. All but a few had short-cropped hair and wore dark sunglasses. A few stored those sunglasses in the collars of their T-shirts. They all looked armed. I only noted three women, apart from Kiko.

Kiko spoke as soon as I entered their little circle.

“The trail’s already getting cold.” Her voice was blunt, precise. Her jaw jerked towards one of the guys I didn’t know. “Hamish’s team found the boat. Him, Lara and Roderick traced it to a covered dock on Long Beach. No prints. Nothing we can use.”

“Who’s it registered to?” I said.

Jacquie spoke up from behind me.

“Konstantin Group owns it.” When Kiko and I looked back at her, she pursed her lips. “Probably means our guys stole it from the harbor, since Konstantin owns that whole section of the shipping yard. The staffer I talked to said it was a company boat, used by executives for outings and to entertain clients and so on. It had a hired crew.”

I nodded, looking back at Kiko. “You think they moved him by land?”

Kiko exhaled, her hands on her slim hips. Frustration and a restrained fury emanated off her even before she spoke. “We can’t confirm that yet, doc. There’s an airport right there. We’re going through flight plans of every plane that left in the last twenty-four hours. We’re working all the airports, not just the one in Long Beach. We’re also checking satellites, trying to figure out when and how they moved him, but it’s looking like whoever did this took satellites into account.”

“What about The Konstantin Group themselves?” I said, frowning. “Could they be connected to this in some way? Any ties to Black? Or those crime families?”

“We’re looking into that, too.”

I glanced at Angel and Nick, who were listening. Angel looked furious. I’m not sure I’d ever seen her look that angry before. Nick wore his military face, one I remembered well prior to ops in the Gulf.

Just then, someone I hadn’t seen at all spoke up from my left, near an alcove in the side of the building.

“I need to speak with you, Miriam. Now.”

I turned, staring.

Uncle Charles stood there, wearing a chocolate brown suit, a spotless white shirt and dark green tie. The outfit should have been too warm for the weather, but I didn’t see him sweating. He wore dark sunglasses over his shockingly pale green eyes, and now that I could feel him, that fury I’d sensed off him over the phone seemed to emanate off his very skin.

“Now, Miriam. We haven’t much time.”

I looked at Kiko. “Can you give us a few minutes?”

She glanced at my uncle, frowning. I could tell without reading her that she knew something weird was up with him.

I’d caught her looking at Thing 1 and Thing 2 like that a few times, too.

It struck me that Kiko had no idea who Uncle Charles really was.

Black told me that photos of the crime boss, “Lucky Lucifer,” were nonexistent, even via unofficial channels. My uncle Charles, a.k.a., Lucky himself, was infamous in part for how few people could identify him. Kiko and Dex and everyone else at Black Securities knew who he was on paper, but it was highly doubtful they knew his face.

They definitely didn’t know who he was to me.

Uncle Charles had apparently reached the end of his patience, however.

“Now, Miriam.” He stared around at the rest of them, his eyes hidden by the shades, his mouth pressed in a hard line. “Don’t all of you have work to do? In regards to the disappearance of my nephew-in-law?”

I saw Kiko blink, right before she stared at me.

Dex stared at me too, clearly not missing the import of his words.

Kiko recovered first.

“Colonel Holmes would like to speak to you, too, Miriam,” she said, glancing at her watch. “He should be here within the hour. We have instructions to bring you to a place where the two of you can talk.” She gave Uncle Charles a harder look. “...Privately.”

I stared at her. That time, I recognized the name of the Pentagon person.

Kiko must have spoken his first name to me before, confusing me––Black had always been more formal when he brought up Colonel Holmes to me. No first name, no middle initial. Just “Holmes” or “The Colonel.” I don’t think he’d even mentioned his first name to me in all that time. Either way, it had to be the same guy.

He’d been Black’s commanding officer in Vietnam, the one who’d created a special regiment for “unusual” operatives, in part to hide Black’s race.

He had to be in his late seventies or early eighties by now. He was one of the very few human beings in the world who knew what Black was, apart from Angel and Nick.

I nodded. “Okay. We’ll do that next.”

“Miriam,” my uncle said, sharper.

“We’ll leave once I’m done here... I want Nick and Angel with me,” I said to Kiko. “Also you and Dex. No one else for now. The rest of the team needs to find out how the hell they got him out of here... and where they went.”

Kiko glanced at Charles, assessing him with her eyes. I could tell she still didn’t like me going alone with him, relative or no, but after the barest hesitation, she nodded. Once she had, I looked at my Uncle Charles, my jaw harder.

“You got your private audience. Lead the way.”

I gave Kiko another look as I began to follow him towards the road.

“We’ll leave right after this,” I repeated to her.

She nodded. Her eyes grew calmer that time, more reassured.

As they did, for the first time it really hit me.

Somewhere in all of this, I was now in charge.

I DIDN’T WAIT for him to talk.

We reached a white limousine parked on the curb and I climbed inside the instant the door was opened by one of Uncle Charles’ seers. I pulled the Glock-19 I’d taken out of Black’s bag at the hotel and aimed it at him as he climbed into the back seat after me.

Shutting the door behind him, he turned to face me and froze, staring at the gun.

“You know something about this,” I said, my voice cold. I flipped the safety off the gun, aiming it at his chest. “I don’t have time to listen to your bullshit right now, Uncle Charles, so I’m going to be really fucking clear. Who has him?”

His narrow mouth curled into a frown.

“We don’t have time for this, Miriam,” he said, his voice as cold as mine. “You’re not safe. I came here to take you into protective custody.” He looked forward, at the driver who was watching me in the rearview mirror, his eyes noticeably wide where he stared at the gun I held. “Porven, take us to the airport.”

I pulled out the second gun I carried and aimed it at the driver’s head. “You so much as reach for the fucking key,
Porvin
, and I’ll blow your
fucking
head off...”

I must have sounded convincing.

Porvin slowly raised his hands, showing them to me.

“Get out of the car,” I said. “Now. Wait for us outside. Stay where I can see you, or I’m putting a bullet in his head.”

Porvin looked at my uncle in the mirror that time.

Charles nodded, clicking in annoyance. “You’d better do as she says.”

I watched as Porvin opened the car door, his hands still carefully visible apart from when he snapped the latch. I continued to watch him as he stood up, then closed the door behind him. He moved into view of the windshield and watched me, his eyes still wide.

Looking back at my uncle, I saw him sliding closer to me on the seat and shook my head. “Back up. Now. Put your back to the door.” When he did as I asked, I motioned at the door. “Lock it.”

He did that, too. Then he took off the dark sunglasses, revealing his shocking green eyes and clicking at me in irritation.