Game On (The Bod Squad Series Book 1) (6 page)

“Certainly. But can you give me a hint?”

She looked him straight in the eye, her light blue eyes gleaming. “Mr. Palmer—I knew your father. He left you a message, before he was killed. I am here to give it to you.”

Chas took a deep breath and another drag of his cigarette. Then, wordlessly, he followed her down the cobblestone street.

‡‡‡

SUSANNAH WAS MIDWAY
through her fifth café au lait when the Boss called. “Well,” she answered, “it’s about time. I was about to go take a nap.”

His voice sounded remarkably clear as he responded, “You know that’s the worst thing you could do.”

She looked up to see the Boss standing in front of her, and saw Lisa Bee and Jackson over his left shoulder. “Oh, come on!
Really?
Why didn’t we all go together, for fuck’s sake!”

The Boss looked haggard, but smiled. “Frankly, Legs, we were gonna have you come on your own. We were in the midst of a quick search of Chas’s brownstone when we realized how dangerous it was.”

“More dangerous than we already thought?” she inquired.

“Differently so,” he said. “While Jackson was looking through Chas’s cabinets, Lisa Bee did a little digging through his email and found out who Chas is meeting with today. It’s rough stuff, Legs, the real stuff. Drugs. Murder. The mob. One of the Italian crime families is involved, and between them and the French they’ve got an international ring that could take on a small country. Maybe Chas Palmer isn’t quite as clean as we thought.”

“What do you mean by that?” She gulped.

“Well, we’re thinking that maybe he isn’t just a computer hacker. That might be the cover. He may be a trained killer, one of the best. Lisa Bee found something that connects him to the Bal du Bois murders that happened last year.”

Susannah choked down the rest of her coffee and stood on shaky legs. Twenty-three innocent people had been killed in the Virginia shoot-out, including a few she knew from high school. What had started as a simple robbery of the Bal du Bois debutante ball had turned into gunplay and resulted in a mass murder. If Chas was really involved with that, he was far more sinister than she’d realized.

FTP only investigated white-collar crime—clean, simple, easy. The nastier stuff they left to the big guns, the FBI itself or other outside agencies more skilled in working with high-profile criminals. If Chas had committed or condoned murder, or in any way contributed to the events that led to the Virginia shoot-out, then this was an entirely different playing field. She was knee-deep in a game, and suddenly the rules had changed. What was she thinking, dallying with this man, letting herself actually feel something for him, and chasing him to Europe? This wasn’t child’s play. He was a criminal, maybe a rougher criminal than they intially thought, and charm was his way of getting what he wanted.

This wasn’t the first time she had been wrong about a guy. She had dealt with this kind of man before. Heck, she had dated him countless times. When she was sixteen, she dated a man who said he went to school at Georgetown. It turned out he was a con artist trying to fleece her of her inheritance after her father’s death. When she was twenty, she lost her virginity to a professor, only to discover that he was married with children nearly her age. At twenty-three she had fallen deeply in love with a man who confessed, under her newly learned powers of interrogation, that he was undercover and had an entirely fake identity; shortly thereafter he left town, and she could never find even a whisper of his trail. A string of douche bags followed, each one more aggravating than the last.

Susannah had made the decision—she remembered it quite vividly, in fact, as she was standing in the middle of a Christmas tree farm with her mother and getting all weepy about the upcoming holiday—that she would keep her heart veiled and use sex as a release, nothing more. And she had held to it. For just under ten years, that had been her single MO: she would have affairs, sexual escapades, but her heart would remain locked. That was her intention with Chas, but something had felt different, something she couldn’t put her finger on. She felt more open with him, like the walls she usually put up around herself didn’t even exist.

Had she actually fallen for him? Could it have happened? This was how love always seemed to work—when one was least prepared, or least interested, that’s when it fell into one’s lap. She had made one mistake, and one mistake only: she had let her guard down and fallen for the wrong man. This man was a master manipulator like all the others, and she was just a cog in his wheel. Well, she wouldn’t be. Not now, not after she had risked so much to be the independent, fierce, dedicated agent she was. Oh, no, she wouldn’t fall prey to his tricks. She’d put on her game face and do what she did best.

“Then it’s our job to get the fucker.”

6

“WILL ZERE BE
anysing else, madame?” said the waiter as Chas finished his wine and Tyka lit another cigarette.

“
Non, merci
,” she replied. “
L’addition, s’il vous plaît
.” The waiter left, then she looked at Chas. “We need to leave soon,” she said. “It isn’t safe.”

They were sitting in the basement room of a Moroccan restaurant on the Rue de Poitou. It was the middle of the day, and it was empty except for them. They sat on mirrored poufs and were surrounded by dimly lit colored lanterns. The scent of sweet Moroccan curry hung in the air, and extra tagines were stored on shelves next to an unmarked door, which led to the office. Chas lit another cigarette and tried to digest what he had learned.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he said quickly. “It’s just a lot to take in.”

They had been there for the better part of an hour, and Tyka had much to reveal. His father had, indeed, been murdered by one of Pierre’s henchmen. That confirmed what Chas had always suspected. What he had not known was that Pierre himself had ordered the hit, and his father had known something was coming. He also had not known that his father had died pursuing much the same path that Chas walked now. Chuck Palmer came from humble beginnings in New Jersey, the son of a plumber and a mother who spent all her time taking care of her four sons. Chuck’s brothers all went directly from high school into the family business and believed he would do the same. It was his mother who saw that he was different and against his father’s wishes encouraged him to go to college and eventually to business school. Chuck made good on the risk and the strain it put on his parents and became a financial scion who built PalmStar Equities from an idea into a thriving international investment fund.

In the course of his work he had met Pierre, and through Pierre he met Bruni, the Italian. They asked him to do things with money that were technically illegal, but not a huge risk. Everyone who made more than half a million a year wound up with an offshore bank account at some point. But from there, it was a slippery slope. Chuck had always been a brilliant innovator, on the cutting edge of technology, and a man who liked accessing the world’s secrets. He became a latter-day Midas, able to turn any business into gold. While becoming a renowned international consultant and advisor, he also became the go-between for Pierre and the Italian to expand their business to unforeseen shores. And that’s when the worm had begun to turn. What had once been simply a lucrative career for Chuck had turned dark, his days filled with the knowledge that his actions were contributing to far more than money laundering. Once he began to see the truth, he sought to expose the very men he had once helped. And when Pierre realized what was happening, he told the Italian. The rest was history.

“There is one more thing,” Tyka said. “Your father wanted you to have something, something very important. He hid it for you somewhere only you would know. He said, ‘Tell my boy I love him and I’m proud of him. And tell him to find a lady to love—a bride who can weather all that he is.’ He was very specific about this. Do you know what this means?”

Chas coughed with discomfort. “I have no fucking idea. That’s more than I heard my old man say in one sitting in all the time he was alive.” He paused for a moment. “What did you do for him, anyway? I mean, how did you meet?”

Tyka inhaled a long draw of her cigarette and smiled. “Mr. Palmer. I met your father because I am an assassin. One of the best, if I do say so myself. I met him because he wanted me to kill the Italian. Unfortunately, we were too late.”

‡‡‡

PIERRE LOOKED AT
his watch and sighed. He had an instinct for mistrust, and it was flaring right now—and its focus was Chas. He had had the same feeling about Chas’s father shortly before the shit hit the fan. Chas was up to something, he was sure of it. In addition, Chas was late, something Pierre hated most of all.

He reached under the table as the din of conversation continued to rise and fall and pressed a small red button sharply three times. Within thirty seconds the door swung open to reveal a woman in stilettos, fishnets, and a glittering red corset. “May I help you, Monsieur Descartes?”

The conversations around the table came to a grinding halt. “
Oui, madame
.” Pierre beckoned the woman close to him and murmured something in her ear; she then responded in kind, her voice inaudible to the rest of the men. They continued to speak for a moment or two in lowered voices. Pierre loved the fact that none of the thugs who worked for him would dream that this was the mysterious G—Gabriella, the second cousin and silent partner of the Italian. She had the intelligence and ruthlessness to murder each and every one of them if she needed to, and in her head were the locations and phone numbers for every single member of their organization. She was the one in charge of dispatching the members of their cell to their specific operations. Pierre always referred to her as the G Spot. But only in secret. Pierre knew that if Bruni ever heard him talk about his cousin that way, Pierre would be killed without a second thought.

“We are tracking him now,” G said into Pierre’s ear in flawless French. “We have eyes and ears around him. He is in an underground café with a woman, a very attractive woman. Not surprising, no? We will follow him when he comes up, and if he goes anywhere other than straight back, we will notify you immediately.”

“Hmm,” Pierre said, “so maybe it’s just another woman.”

G smiled. “Well, Monsieur Palmer does like to . . . play . . . in the afternoon—but during a meeting? He usually waits until the night.”

Pierre smiled back. “Well, you would know.”

“Yes,” G said, like a cat that had swallowed the canary, “but
he
doesn’t. Know who I am, that is.”

“Yes, I rather enjoyed the idea of you in a mask . . . and nothing else. . . .”

They both laughed, then realized the entire room was staring at them. Pierre cleared his throat, then continued at full voice, slapping her ass in dismissal. “Yes, please send us more cigarettes and restock the bar. That will be all, madame.”

“
Bien s
û
r, m
onsieur, heureuse de vous aider
,” she said huskily, and left.

At her exit there were low whistles, laughter, and murmured vulgar comments in various languages. Pierre smiled. “Yes,” he said, lying through his teeth to keep their cover, “I fucked her once. That’s why she gives such good service.” Then he opened the binder in front of him. “All right, gentlemen, shall we return to the maps? Monsieur Palmer will be back shortly.”

Or so he hoped.

‡‡‡

SUSANNAH SAT IN
the back of the falafel truck the Boss had hooked them up with. Lisa Bee was next to her on the computer and headset, and the Boss was busy outfitting the rest of the vehicle for surveillance. Jackson, meanwhile, was running the truck. He had lived in Morocco for a time in his youth and had both excellent French
and
shawarma skills. When asked about this, Jackson’s only reply was, “I once dated a girl who worked in a sausage factory. Then I dated a girl whose father was the gyro king of Chicago. Street meat has always been my ticket to ride.” No one had any response, not even Lisa Bee, whose father had made his living in smoked fish.

Jackson had actually spent most of his childhood in Morocco, the son of an American diplomat. He was of Moroccan descent on his father’s side, and Dutch German on his mother’s. The combination gave him a beautiful dark olive tone to his skin, thick brown curly hair, and deep hazel eyes. Of course, no one noticed his eyes—everyone thought they were brown. He was too busy cracking jokes to hold anyone’s eyes for long. But everyone noticed how attractive he was. He was a chick magnet, which made him perfect for being the front man in a falafel truck undercover op.

Susannah looked at Lisa Bee, who was wearing a wig at the Boss’s insistence and madly typing away at the computer, then her eyes flew to the Boss, who was trying to camouflage a camera in a piece of pita bread. “Guys,” she said, “why do I suddenly feel like we’re in an episode of
Scooby-Doo
?”

“I don’t know,” replied the Boss, clearly at the end of his rope, “and I don’t care. I need more eyes out there, but I don’t trust Jackson not to make this into someone’s lunch.”

“Maybe that’s exactly what you need,” trilled Lisa Bee, turning around, wearing her earphones as she always did, one in, one out, so she could listen to music while hearing everyone speak. Madonna could be heard faintly coming through the earbuds.

“What do you mean?” asked Bossman.

“Well,” she said, “if the cameras are attached to people’s lunches, then we’d have eyes on the street. You just need to make sure they can be ingested.”

“Humph.” The Boss looked around. “Where’s the manila from Doc Scrubs?”

Doc Scrubs was a local Baltimore doctor who worked part-time for FTP, figuring out internal as well as external surveillance systems. He worked for Johns Hopkins as a heart surgeon but moonlighted as a creator of intelligence props. He loved to think of himself as a real-life Q from James Bond. Part of his time was spent sewing up people’s hearts, part of his time was spent breaking open ladies’ hearts, and the rest was spent on his true heart’s passion: the creation of new gadgetry to give Bossman, his childhood best friend.

“Is this it?” asked Susannah, holding up a yellow envelope.

“Yep. Perfect. Scrubs’s newest invention. Amazing, and his timing can’t be beat. Behold: a camera concealed inside a sucking candy.”

Lisa Bee whipped her head around. “Who to the
what
?”

“Yes, ladies,” the Boss said, in a low and excited bass thrum, “why Doc Scrubs and I always got into mischief. He’s a genius. A total fucking
genius
. This was something I received last week but didn’t know what to think of it. Cameras. Embedded in clear hard candy.”

“Well, what if they eat them?” she asked.

“That’s exactly the purpose, Bee. These are ingestible. He got the idea from those camera pills they’re now using to find out if people have acid reflux.”

“Wait a minute,” Susannah said, “people swallow cameras?”

“I think I have acid reflux,” Jackson said, “because I’m hopped up like the Energizer Bunny. Always ready to rock out a new job, or rock it on the dance floor. Clearly I have too much acid!”

“Clearly you
do
too much acid,” the Boss said drily. “Not the same thing. But I digress. On the positive side, Jackson can put the candy on the plate with the falafel, like a free bonus. Then we’ll really have eyes on the street. The cameras are able to take a picture every two seconds, which is transmitted here, to this device.” Bossman unwrapped a cylindrical package, to reveal what appeared to be a fairly real-looking fake hot dog, equipped with faux bun.

“Shit,” said Susannah, “is that what I think it is?”

“That’s right,” said the Boss, “it’s a remote access computer and USB port in the shape of a hot dog.”

“Why a hot dog?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” the Boss replied. “Scrubs has an odd sense of humor.”

Lisa Bee piped in, “Seems like the good doctor has some odd fetishes.”

“That,” Susannah said, “or some odd eating habits.”

“I dunno,” Jackson said with a grin, “I like the guy.”

“Exactly my point,” Lisa Bee said. “Not really a ringing endorsement.”

Susannah thought she caught a look of fleeting disappointment on Jackson’s face, but she couldn’t be sure; anyway, she was too invested in figuring out what the point of the hot dog was and if they could use it in their next move.

‡‡‡

TYKA AND CHAS
emerged from the underground café into the sparkling Paris sunshine. They both took a moment to light another cigarette, surreptitiously looking around to make sure the coast was clear. Tyka looked at Chas for a moment. “You are a marvelously attractive man, Chas. Much like your father. I wish we had met under different circumstances.”

He smiled. “I do too. But to be frank, I’m otherwise engaged at the moment. Or so I hope.”

“Hmm.” Tyka licked the corner of her mouth. “Lucky lady. Pretty too. I have always thought white-collar criminals preferred blondes, but perhaps redheads are a challenge?”

Chas appeared startled. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

Tyka put a hand on his chest. “I have been tracking you for some time, Chas. I know much more than you would be comfortable with. It was your father’s explicit instructions that I not make contact with you—not give you this message—unless I needed help getting to Bruni, or, god forbid, you were in some kind of trouble with these men. I think we have come to the place where both of those things are happening. Your father had a peculiar ability to sense future possibilities. It is exactly what made him such a good businessman.” Suddenly, her eyes darted over his left shoulder. “Shit. We are being watched. I know that one—Luigi, the Boot. He’s a snake. Thankfully, he does not know me. Kiss me, quickly. And make it look good.”

Chas did as he was told, grabbing Tyka and pulling her to him in a passionate kiss that left, to the observing eye, no question as to their relationship. When they finally pulled apart, Chas let his hand linger upon her ass for a bit, just to make sure they were creating a believable cover. Tyka’s eyes darted over his shoulder. “Good,” she said, “he looks smug, like we have turned him on. Filthy bastard. I’ve seen what he has done to the whores he hires every night. Filthy fucking bastard.”

“Can I take my hand off your ass now?” Chas asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Thank you, Mr. Palmer, that will be enough. I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed it, however.”

The side of Chas’s mouth curved upward. “Well, I can’t exactly say that either.”

“Time for me to leave, Mr. Palmer. Please take my lighter,” she said hurriedly, brandishing the lighter with the red lips upon it. “If you should need me, run your tongue along these engraved lips, and I will find you.”

“Seriously?” he said, both delighted and unnerved. “How does that work?”