Deal Gone Bad - A Thriller (Frank Morrison Thriller Series Book 1) (12 page)

Cowgirl rushed up to
Morrison and hugged him.

“Morrison, what are you
doing here?” she said.

He could tell she was genuinely
happy to see him. You couldn’t fake that mix of intense surprise and elation. He
hugged her back and was surprised at how good her embrace felt. He hadn’t had
any physical contact with a woman in a long time. They kissed on the cheeks and
then hugged again.

“Friday night, 7:00 p.m.,
that means Flanagan’s Bar with the
New York Times
for you, right?” he
said.

They took a step back.

“God, am I that
predictable?” she said.

Morrison shrugged. “It’s
not necessarily a fault,” he said.

She scanned him from head
to toe.

“Wow!” she said. “For a
guy who’s just done three years, you look good, Morrison. You look really
good.”

He scanned her in return
but from the bottom up. She wore white sneakers, a pair of tight, pale jeans
and a dark blue silk blouse. With two buttons undone, it showed just the right
amount of cleavage. Nothing fancy. Nothing over the top. Just comfortable
clothes with a delicate touch of elegance where it counted.

“So do you,” he said. “Always
riding your horses?”

She smiled. “That’s how I
keep fit.”

And fit, she really was.
Her whole body exuded a healthy vitality interspersed with a sort of rugged
sexiness. Cowgirl made a small gesture of the hand toward the barman. Something
that meant
bring me the same as usual
, and then she said, “Come on,
let’s go to a quiet corner. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

Morrison picked up his
book and his drink and followed her across the creaky floorboards to a booth at
the far end of the room. Seconds later, a waitress brought her a glass of white
wine and a small platter of roasted pistachios. They clicked their glasses. She
toasted him.

“To your freedom,” she
said.

They took a sip. “I knew
you were about due, but I had no idea you were already out,” she said.

“I was only released
yesterday.”

“Who went to pick you up?”

“Nobody.”

Technically that wasn’t
true. Mike had sent his thugs after him, but if it hadn’t been for them, he
would have left the correctional facility alone. He preferred to hold on to
that version for the moment.

Cowgirl frowned. “What
about that redhead you were with?” she said. “Sara, right?”

Morrison shrugged. “Ancient
history.”

“Uh … sorry to hear that.”
Cowgirl paused to take another sip of wine. “I’m surprised, Morrison. That girl
really liked you. I can tell you that. It was obvious from the way she always looked
at you.”

“As soon as I was arrested,”
he said, “she vanished into thin air and I haven’t heard from her since. Mind
you, I don’t blame her. She had no idea what I really did for a living.”

Cowgirl nodded, then she
flashed a big wide smile and said, “Good then, that means you’re free.”

Morrison chuckled. “Christ,”
he said, “you don’t waste your time.”

Cowgirl shrugged. “Have I ever?”

Morrison smiled. “Hell,
no! I recognize you right there, Cowgirl.”

Morrison had never met a
more grounded and direct woman in his entire life. She knew what she wanted and
she always told it like it was. Could never have been a lawyer or a diplomat,
that’s for sure. Her nickname was spot on.

“I’ve always wondered what
you were like between the sheets, Morrison,” she said. “Something tells me you’re
worth a try.”

“You know I don’t like to
mix business with pleasure,” Morrison said.

“Business? What business?
We have no business going on right now.”

“It could change.”

Cowgirl made a face. “What?
Are you already on to something?”

“Possibly.”

“Christ,
you
don’t waste
your time, Morrison,” she said.

“Have I ever?”

They both laughed.

“Don’t tell me anything
about business just yet, then,” she said. “Just bring me back home, all right?”

Her glass of wine was
already half empty. To emphasize her point, she drained the remainder right
there and took her purse. Forgot all about the
New York Times
and left
it on the table.

“That way,” she said, “I
get what I want and you can still abide by your principles.”

Morrison smiled.

“Principles are
important,” he said.

“I know,” she said with a
laugh. “I’ve never met a more principled crook than you in my entire life.”

He looked at her. Her cheeks
were glowing with a pinkish hue. She had even started to breathe harder. He
could see the swell of her chest rise and fall in an accelerated rhythm. And
that hint of cleavage …

Morrison thought about
Johnson. His hacker was hard at work for him. There was nothing he could
contribute to his effort. Nothing he could do himself. While Johnson dug into First
Collins Bank’s landscape, he was free as a bird. He looked at Cowgirl again. God,
she looked good. Morrison decided he could really use some R&R. After all,
he had just spent three long years away from any feminine presence. It was more
than time to remedy this.

“You know,” he said, “I’ve
always wondered what you were like between the sheets too.”

She smiled. “Let’s go find
out then.”

He motioned to her and
said, “After you, Cowgirl.”

Johnson’s plan B rested on
his mobile phone.

But just to make matters
worse, he’d left it upstairs. He got up and climbed the stairs in the dark. Then
he wallowed around the main floor, feeling his way clumsily with extended arms.
Cursing his goddamn penchant for procrastination. He’d meant to install some
emergency lighting for months if not years, but he kept putting it off. One of
the major faults his total freedom allowed him to indulge in. Johnson pretty
much only ever did what he wanted. But for sure, when he was done with
Morrison’s contract, he’d call up an electrician and take care of this.

He walked around cautiously
like the blind man he now was, wary of hitting something hard with his shins. He
had forgotten where he’d left the phone. Usually, it would be in the tidy by
the front door, but it wasn’t there. As he roamed through the kitchen, he could
hear the clock ticking in his head.

Those logs. Those bloody
server logs.

While he groped for his
phone on the kitchen counters, he finally clicked. He had left the mobile phone
in the living room. That’s where he had last used it. On the couch.

He went there as fast as
he could without crashing into a wall or a piece of furniture. Then, when he
finally palmed his mobile, he used it as a makeshift flashlight to thread his
way back downstairs into his control room.

He would use the phone as
a wireless Internet connection. That was easy to do, but it still required
numerous changes to his setup. First, he had to plug the phone into one of the
laptops. Then he would have to forget about the two other computers and focus
only on this one to perform all his tasks. That meant starting new sessions.
Replicating some of the work he’d done on the other laptops. A big freaking
pain in the butt.

Especially when he knew
those logs were still lying there, unedited.

Johnson worked in a fury.
Going from one session to the next on his laptop computer. Typing commands
frantically. Moving his way one step at a time closer to where he had been when
the power had gone.

All in all, it took him
twenty minutes to get there. Twenty long minutes during which, he was sure, the
logs containing traces of his breakin had had the time to spread further on
the First Collins network. Johnson cursed aloud and fixed the log issue on the
server in a second. With a little chance, it would go unnoticed. Too small a
blip on the radar. But it still bothered him. By nature, he was a meticulous
hacker. He hated to leave any trace behind.

After all this wasted time,
he was ready to resume his work and start digging into First Collins’ archives.

That’s when the power came
back.

The bank of neon lights above
flickered for a moment, then engulfed him in a clear whitewash. Johnson looked
up.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” he
shouted.

He would’ve been less
annoyed if the power had remained down.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” he
shouted again.

But for all his
frustration, he chose not to change anything back in his setup and to carry
forward on that lone computer. He had lost enough time already.

Johnson quickly settled
into a rhythm. The tips of his fingers were on fire, his brain more alert then
ever. Anger seemed to sharpen his focus.

He worked in a frenzy.

Munching on a handful of
jellybeans.

Downing a big gulp of root
beer at regular intervals.

For three straight hours,
he never relented. Then, finally, he was able to catch a glimpse of what he was
looking for.

The four hundred accounts
they had targeted at First Collins Bank.

Johnson focused on the
activity in those accounts that took place in the days leading up to and
including the day of Morrison’s arrest.

The archives showed
nothing. No withdrawal had been made from them. Large or small. From a branch counter
or from an ATM. Nothing. No deposit either, although this would have come as a
surprise. The accounts had remained untouched.

This had been expected. After
all, once Morrison was arrested, the whole operation died right there, no?

Johnson downloaded the
details of all these accounts to his laptop. Copied them on a USB key.

Then he continued browsing
through the archives.

What about the days that followed
Morrison’s arrest?
he thought.

He retrieved data for a
first batch of accounts and looked at it.
Hmm
, he thought,
that’s
strange.
He retrieved another batch. Saw something similar to the first
batch. Then he retrieved all the remaining information concerning the four
hundred accounts and performed a quick analysis.

That’s strange,
he thought.
Really
strange.

He downloaded all the
information to his laptop. Made copies on the USB key. When he was sure he had
everything he needed, he proceeded to erase every trace of his presence. Disconnected
every session he had opened in the First Collins Bank landscape and modified
every log.

When he was done, he
grabbed his mobile phone and typed a text message for Morrison.

Come here now, man. You’ve
got to see this.

Cowgirl’s room was nicely done.

Almost everything in it
was white. But not just plain white. Two or three different shades. Very subtle
variations. Very pleasing to the eye. Only the bedside tables offered a flash
of discreet color. There were two of them—unmatched—simple low tables made of
clear natural wood. The whole setup gave the room a kind of contemporary Scandinavian
feel. As far as Morrison could tell, the rest of the house was done in a
similar way. But he hadn’t had much time to notice. When he and Cowgirl had gotten
there, they had immediately rushed upstairs to the bedroom.

What had happened in that
big king size bed had been completely at odds with the calm and subdued
atmosphere of the room. The sheets were sweaty and messed up. The bedspread had
long fallen to the floor. And the pillows lay scattered all over the place, as
if a bomb had exploded at the center of the bed.

Which it kind of had.

Morrison lay on his back,
staring vacantly at the ceiling, still panting. Cowgirl was at his side. Lying
on her flank, out of breath. Her right leg arched across his body. Morrison
gently stroked her thigh. It felt firm and muscular under his hand. Just like
the rest of her body.

“God, you’re on fire,” she
said.

Morrison smiled. “You’ve
done nothing to put it out. Quite the opposite.”

“Damn right,” she said.

Morrison chuckled. “That’s
what three years of abstinence will do to you,” he said.

“You didn’t slip while you
were in there?” she asked.

Morrison shook his head.
“Nope.”

“Not even once?”

“No. That’s not for me.
Although plenty of the others did. There’s a code, you know. Like it’s
accepted. But it’s not my thing.”

She kissed him on the
cheek. Fondled a lock of his hair. “Something tells me it was worth the wait,”
she said.

He turned his head toward
her and smiled. “Damn right. Like you just said.”

She chuckled. They
remained silent for a beat.

Morrison was spent. They
had been riding the mattress for a while. Now was the time for a little rest, for
a quiet talk and for catching up.

“What have you been doing
these last years?” he asked.

She sighed. “I don’t want
to make it worse for you, Morrison, but I haven’t done much. I’ve just been
enjoying my freedom.”

Like the others, she
thanked Morrison for his discretion. If he had ratted her out, she would not
have had such a pleasant time. She told him she had spent the majority of her
days taking care of her stable. She now had four horses of her own and kept
another half dozen in pension, mainly for city slickers who spent their
weekends upstate. She also gave riding lessons and competed in the odd event
here and there. All in all, she had a nice little business going, centered on
the horses she so dearly loved. Not enough to make a good living on, though. For
that, she depended on some funds she had amassed in previous successful operations.
Some of them with Morrison. But her stable provided her with a nice comfortable
front, and she had spent the last three years quietly enjoying it. Away from
the life.

“You haven’t worked on a
single deal since the bust?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I’ve been
waiting for your release.”

Morrison was taken aback. “Really?”

“Yes. I don’t care too
much about the others,” she said. “I didn’t want to get involved in anything
else with them.”

“I’m sure they’d be
delighted to hear this.”

“But it’s true. Seriously,
Morrison. You’re the smartest. By a mile. And since you’re now broke, I knew you’d
be eager to get something going. So I was happy to wait.”

“Do you have something in
mind?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe
something along the lines of our busted operation. Sheriff Sanford only got you
by pure dumb luck. There’s still good money to be made that way, right? Don’t
tell me you haven’t considered it.”

“You’re right, I have. But
have you kept in touch with the others?”

She pulled a face. “Barely.
I see Harris every now and then, but it’s more because of his wife. She’s a
rider, too. Tommy’s still inside, of course, so I haven’t seen him in a long
time. As for Mike, well, I prefer to stay away. He kind of gives me the creeps.”

Morrison frowned. “How
come?” he asked.

“I hear all these rumors,”
she said. “Apparently, he’s bought all these guns. And recently, he’s started
to hire some of the foot soldiers we used. But it has nothing to do with ATMs anymore.”

“So what is he up to?”

“I don’t know. The only
thing I know is that he feels he needs guns to pull that off. And we never felt
that way in our operations, right?”

“Right,” Morrison said.
“Right …” He was about to ask her another question when he heard a muted buzzing
sound. His prepaid. It was in his coat pocket somewhere on the floor.

She turned to face him. “You’re
not gonna pick that up, are you?”

He moved sideways from
under her. She let him go and rolled on her back with a sigh. He got up.

“That’s rude, Morrison. Where
are your manners?” she said.

Her half-joking tone
couldn’t conceal that there was a layer of truth underneath her comment.

“Sorry,” he said. “I have
to take this.”

He bent forward to pick up
his jacket and retrieved the mobile phone. He flipped it open. It was a message
from Johnson.

Come here now, man. You’ve
got to see this.

He folded the phone shut.

“Sorry, I have to go,” he
said.

Cowgirl rose on her elbow.
“You’re kidding me,” she said.

Morrison started to roam
the floor to pick up his clothes.

“It’s business. I really have
to go.”

“Are you gonna come back
after?”

“Maybe, but I can’t
promise.”

He put his underwear back
on, and his jeans. Then he sat at the edge of the bed to put on his socks. Cowgirl
moved lazily toward him, her naked body luscious and warm. He would’ve loved
nothing more than to stay with her, but he couldn’t.

“Where are you sleeping?” she
asked.

Knowing her opinion of
Mike, Morrison thought it was better not to tell her he was staying over at his
place yet. It would open the door to too many questions too soon. He was still
trying to find answers to a lot of them himself. So he chose to be elusive.

“I’m crashing at a place a
bit out of town,” he said.

She sighed. “Well, it’s
too bad, Morrison. I could’ve used a warm body all night.”

Morrison put his shoes
back on. He could feel Cowgirl’s breasts pressed against his back.

“We can do this some other
time,” he said. Then he grinned and added, “I don’t mind one bit.”

She chuckled and gave him a
weak slap on the back. “I bet you don’t,” she said.

Morrison got back on his
feet, put his shirt on and grabbed his coat. Then he leaned over her and paused
to admire her beautiful naked body.

“It was great,” he said,
bending to kiss her. “See you, Cowgirl.”