Lethal People: A Donovan Creed Crime Novel (21 page)

The phone vibrated again, and I answered it.

“Creed, you son of a jailhouse bitch! What did you do with the body?” The man I knew only as Darwin had only just begun yelling at me. He told me how much trouble they had to go to in order to doctor the photographs and plant the phony Russian suspects. Darwin called me stupid, careless, and a bunch of other names that would have hurt my feelings had I not been keenly aware of his indelicate nature. So he unloaded, and I sipped my bourbon and took my lumps and waited for him to get on topic, which he eventually managed to do.

“I want to know who hired you, because whoever it was, he managed to throw a monkey wrench into our national defense system. And don’t tell me Sal Bonadello, a guy who thinks software means sweaters.”

Darwin fell silent, but only for a moment. Then he said, “I’m waiting.”

“I can’t give you a name,” I said.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t. But on the bright side, I know how to get it”

“Creed, listen to me. You’ve done a lot of stupid things over the years, things I’ve turned a blind eye to because up to now, you’ve been more valuable than the shit storms you’ve created. But this is too much. We can’t let someone hack into our national defense systems, and we can’t let the government find out that you and your people are running around taking contracts from criminals to kill people,” he said. “They’re funny about shit like that. How the fuck did you let this happen? No, don’t bother telling me. Just tell me this: what are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to talk to an angry midget,” I said.

“What? Are you insane? You trying to tell me some midget hired you to kill the doctor’s wife?”

“Little person,” I said. “They prefer the term
little people
.”

“I prefer Viagra and a nice set of tits, but right now you and Callie are the only boobs in my life.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I’m saying a midget hired me to kill Monica Childers, but I’m not sure she’s dead.”

“I know how to tell: did you kill her or not?”

“We killed her, but we left her body. Now it’s gone.”

“Wait,” Darwin said. “Maybe I should get some Roman soldiers to move the stone away from the tomb.”

“Look, I gave her a syringe full of BT. I think someone got to her in time to administer an antidote. I think that’s why Victor monitored the satellite, so he could get a chase team to pick her up as soon as we left.”

“Victor? Who’s Victor? The midget?”

“Little person.”

“Let me get this straight.” Darwin paused on the other end of the line. “You took a contract from an angry midget to kill a prominent surgeon’s wife, but she was rescued and then kidnapped by other people working for the very same midget. That what you’re telling me?”

“It sounds stupid when you say it out loud like that.”

Then, in a tight voice, he said, “Kill her again, Creed.”

“Okay.”

“Because otherwise she’ll be able to identify you.”

“Okay.”

“And kill the midget, too.”

“That I can’t do.”

“Why the hell not?”

“First, I don’t know for certain he’s the hacker. Second, if he isn’t the hacker and I kill him, I’ll never be able to find the real hacker. Third, I’ve entered into an agreement with him.”

“You’ll be entering a pine box if you don’t put a stop to this hacking business.”

“I will.”

“And don’t forget to kill Monica Childers.”

“Assuming she’s still alive.”

“Don’t assume anything. Just kill her.”

“Will do.”

“Keep me in the loop. I don’t want to have to keep calling you after the fact.”

“Got it.”

“Oh, shut up.” He hung up on me.

CHAPTER 25

I
’m a Time Saver.

Time Savers are people who commit special moments to memory. A skilled Time Saver can freeze all the components of an event—the date, mood, time, temperature, lighting, sights, sounds, scents, the breeze—everything. Then we park this information in a corner of our brains and relive it whenever we wish. It’s like opening a time capsule years after an event and having all the wonderful memories spill out.

Some guys like baseball, some ballet. Maybe they’re content to grow old with memories of sweeping the Yankees or reliving the
Dance of the Cygnets from Swan Lake
. But me, I’d rather Time Save the memory of trysts with beautiful young ladies like Jenine.

Fully dressed now, sitting on the balcony again, I closed my eyes and began experiencing all the facets of our encounter, committing them to a permanent file in my mind. Just as I’d indoctrinated my body to survive torture and function at a high level by testing weapons and sleeping in a prison cell, I’d structured my mind to compartmentalize the significant experiences of my life. These I can relive as if they’re happening in the moment—a wonderful skill to be able to call upon the next time I’m stuck in a real prison for any length of time.

Some people plan for their retirement. I plan for my imprisonment, for I am certain to end up dead or in prison, and if it’s to be the latter, I want my body and mind to be prepared.

I began by concentrating on her voice. Then I relived the heightened awareness, the anticipation—the entire range of feelings and emotions that raced through my mental synapses and physical receptors just after she called from the lobby phone. I marked these things in my mind until I knew I could call upon them at will.

Then I re-experienced Jenine’s arrival in the doorway, my first view of her, and the immediate impressions I formed, and how I felt the moment I encountered her beauty, newness, and youth. I smiled, thinking how none of this mattered in the least to Jenine and the other beauties I’d met in my life, although I’m sure they have fond memories of the money I spent.

I focused on the way she entered the room while listening to music, just as you’d expect a college kid to do, with the ear buds, the oversized MP3 player, and …

And suddenly I realized she didn’t have the MP3 player with her when she left the room!

A cold chill rushed through me. Could Jenine have put the MP3 player in her purse while I was on the balcony, signaling Quinn? I didn’t think so. If she ever kept it in her purse, she’d have done so before meeting me. I had to assume the worst. As a trained assassin for many years, I survived the deadliest ambushes, the most terrifying physical encounters imaginable, by always assuming the worst.

I jumped to my feet and dialed the operator. A young lady answered. “Front desk. This is Jodie; how may I help you?”

“Jody,” I said in my most commanding voice, “this is Donovan Creed in room 214. I’m a federal agent. I need you to listen very carefully.”

“Is this a joke?” she asked. “If it is, it’s not funny.”

Maybe I should have told her that after spending twelve years as the CIA’s top international assassin, I ought to know a bomb threat when I saw one. Then again, the word assassin conjures up such diverse feelings. I decided to stick with the federal agent story and gave her another go.

“Jody, I repeat, I’m a federal agent and there’s a bomb in my room. I want you to activate the fire alarm, contact hotel security, and immediately begin evacuating the building.”

“Sir,” she said, “bomb threats are taken very seriously. If I report you, it could mean prison time.”

“Jodie,” I said, “I wrote the manual on bomb threats, okay? Now sound the fire alarm and make an evacuation announcement before I come down there and rip your face o
ff
!”

I slammed the phone down and ran to the door, flipped the lock latch outward so the door would stay propped open, and tore down the hall, banging doors, yelling at the top of my lungs, “Emergency! Evacuate the building immediately! Leave your things behind! Get out of the building now!”

By the time I got to the fifth door, the fire alarm started blaring, so I raced back to my room and started a frantic search. The bathroom seemed the likeliest place, so I started there. I checked behind the shower curtain, lifted the toilet bowl tank cover, looked up to see if any ceiling tiles had been dislodged, and checked the floor for debris in case I’d missed something. Then I realized this wasn’t going to work. I simply didn’t have the time to conduct a proper search. Jenine, on the other hand, had the entire length of our visit to decide where to hide it.

If she hid it.

If it was a bomb.

I ran to the balcony, felt my legs climb over the railing, felt myself hurtling through the air. I realized I’d just jumped o
ff
the second floor balcony! My legs had made the calculation without me, had hurled me as far out as possible in an e
ff
ort to clear the sidewalk below.

Now, in midair, with my mind back on the job, I tucked and rolled as I hit and tried to ignore the searing pain that suddenly knifed through my shoulder. I scrambled to my feet, sprinted twenty yards, and dove behind the thick base of a giant palm, scattering twelve-inch sand tsunamis in my wake. I tucked my chin, protected my vital organs as well as possible, and waited for the explosion.

CHAPTER 26

A
nd nothing happened.

A handful of hotel guests began filing out the side and back entrances. There weren’t many, but I supposed that during a fire drill, the vast majority would have gone out the front.

A minute passed, and the fi re alarm droned on. The speakers must have pointed to the front and sides of the hotel because the alarm was fairly muted from my position.

Some more guests joined the first group. I considered running over to warn them, but no, a discussion was bound to follow, and we’d probably all get killed while they questioned my credentials and the conclusions I’d drawn.

In the end, it didn’t matter, because someone in the group made the decision to walk toward the front of the hotel and the others followed.

More time passed, seconds I’m sure, but it always seems longer while waiting for a bomb to explode. The mu
ffl
ed drone of the alarm gave way to other sounds you’d expect to hear from behind a palm tree fifty yards from the Pacific Ocean: breaking surf behind me and, somewhere, hidden from view, the musical clang of steel drums rising above the tra
ffi
c noise. A quarter mile to my left, I could hear the distant rumble of the roller coaster on the Santa Monica Pier.

I didn’t know how long I had before the bomb detonated, but if I had any time at all I figured I should use it to find better cover. I slowly uncoiled my body and chanced a high-speed dash to a small concrete wall fifteen yards to my right. I dove behind it face first, like Pete Rose sliding into third base, and waited. I looked up. Twenty yards to my right, on the concrete walkway behind the neighboring hotel, a young man in a bright orange windbreaker had stopped holding his girlfriend’s hand long enough to point at me and laugh.