The Tomorrow Heist (4 page)

Per put the photo down on the pile, looking up at Harcourt. He examined the man for a few long moments, Harcourt seeming uncomfortable under Per's gaze. If not for the booze and pills, Per would have probed the discomfort further.

“Why me?” Per asked, finally.

“I heard what you did in Spain last year,” Harcourt said, glancing at Per's one gloved hand. “You're the man for the job, all right.”

Per understood why Harcourt had looked into his past, but he didn't like it. There was too much there to find.

“As I said in my correspondence, my fee is one hundred thousand dollars and expenses. Deposited to this account,” Per said, holding out a business card with his bank account transfer information on it. Harcourt just looked at it. Hank got up and took it from Per before returning to the sofa.

“I'll need full access,” Per said.

“You'll have it,” Harcourt said. He reached in a drawer and took out a passcard. He tossed it to Per. “This will get you into all my facilities. And this should take care of your expenses.” Harcourt tossed another card onto the desk. This one was a credit card. It was black. “No limit. And you can use it at any ATM for as much cash as you need. Passcode is L-­I-­F-­E. 5433,” Harcourt said, taking another drink.

“You are being very trusting, Mr. Harcourt,” Per said. The implication was,
how do you know I won't rob you blind?

“As I said, Broden, the one thing I do have is money. And my horse sense. You hold your cards pretty close to your chest, but I can tell I can trust you.”

Per simply looked at him, wondering what the drunk would say if he knew that Per had no intention of killing anyone for him—­unless they got in his way, of course. Per would solve the Dead Lights mystery—­what it meant and what the bomber was trying to achieve—­and then move on to his next puzzle. The answers were all that mattered to Per. All that would ever matter to him. He'd trade his life for those answers—­his and anyone else's.

Per stood up, pocketed the cards, and picked up the photos.

“I'll solve your riddle, Mr. Harcourt,” Per said.

“You misunderstand me, Broden. I don't care what the meaning is. I want you to find the coyote and put him down.”

Per had expected as much.

“Of course. There could be . . . collateral damage,” Per said. The last thing he wanted was his new employer's reporting him to the authorities because he didn't approve of his methods.

“Do what you have to do, Broden. I don't care what it costs. It's self-­defense. And in Texas, that can be bloody.”

Not just in Texas, Per thought.

H
ANK
G
REEN
ASKED
Per to wait outside while he finalized things with Harcourt. Per obliged without a word and left the opulent office. After he'd closed the door, Hank turned to face his boss.

“You didn't tell him Reese was our man,” Hank said, moving toward the desk.

“Judgment call,” Harcourt said. “Tracking Reese will lead him to the old woman, but it can't be too easy. Broden isn't just cagey, he's incredibly perceptive, from all accounts. He needs to work for it.” The slur was gone from his voice. Harcourt was sitting up straighter now too. Hank knew that Harcourt had intended to act helpless, so Broden wouldn't fully know who he was dealing with. Hank also knew that Harcourt was deluding himself. He might not have been as confused as he'd acted, but he was far from in control. He hadn't left his office in weeks, and if Per had taken a closer look at the beer bottles by the sofa, he would have seen they were full of piss.

“But what if he doesn't figure it out? What if Reese isn't a big enough clue?”

“Then he's not the man for the job,” Harcourt said.

“What do you think he'll do if he finds out Reese didn't disappear but that you sent him to work for Tenabe?”

“Nothing good, I'm sure. Don't be fooled, Hank. His demeanor is deceiving. This is not a man to be fucked with.”

“If you don't trust him, don't hire him. We'll get someone else,” Hank said, sitting on the corner of the desk.

“He's the man for the job, all right,” Harcourt said. “But he's a control freak. If he knows we're going to be looking over his shoulder the entire time, he'll never take the case.”

“Why him?” Hank asked.

“You heard me mention Spain?”

Hank nodded.

“Last year, the high-­speed train ser­vice in Spain was having a problem with theft. Jewels were going missing on almost every trip despite the fact that they were locked inside a train going almost two hundred miles per hour. The company operating the ser­vice spent thousands putting undercover security on the train, installing cameras, you name it. Nothin',” Harcourt said as he got up from behind his desk and shuffled over to the sofa.

“Then they called Broden?”

“Broden called them. He rode the train endlessly for weeks. Even when his employer told him to give up and cut off his money, he kept buying tickets with his own money and riding the train over and over. The guy's a bulldog.”

“He solved it?” Hank asked.

“The company's pretty tight-­lipped about what actually happened, but yeah, the thefts stopped. Most of what I know I heard through rumors and cobbled-­together police reports,” Harcourt said, seeming to lose interest in what he was saying, staring at the whiskey in his hand.

“And?” Hank prompted.

“Huh? Oh, right. The most common theory is Broden figured out it was an inside job, after all. ­Couple of guys on the security crew, backed by some local organized crime. But that wasn't good enough for him, he wanted the whole picture, and a ­couple of tight-­lipped bag men weren't going to give him that. But here's where the real conjecture comes in—­they found one of the security guys tied up in the baggage section. Almost every bone in his body was broken.”

“Jesus. Broden?”

“Broden. Looks like he worked him until he talked. Maybe a bit after too. The inside men would gather the jewels during the trips while passengers were sleeping, then put it all in a special case they had constructed that looked just like a normal traveling trunk. About the size of my desk. Some padding and struts inside to keep the hauls from getting destroyed.”

“Destroyed?”

“When the train went through the Sierra Morena mountain range, it would slow down because of the curves in the track. Somewhere in there, they'd launch the loaded case out the bottom of the last car. After the train was gone, and the case had stopped bouncing, their buddies would pick it up.”

“Sheesh. So what did Broden do?” Hank asked.

“He got in the case.”

“He . . . holy shit. How fast was the train going?”

“Somewhere around a hundred twenty-­five miles per hour.”

Hank whistled and shook his head. “And he survived without getting hurt?”

“Not quite. The guy's tough but he's still flesh and blood—­or at least he was back then. He was messed up pretty bad, and his arm was so crushed he had to have it amputated later at the hospital. But the really amazing rumor is that he still climbed out of the case and killed the three armed guys waiting for their score.”

“Jesus,” Hank said. Then he realized what Harcourt had really said. “What do you mean ‘back then'?”

Harcourt laughed before continuing. “I can't believe you didn't notice. This is why we need his help. If he makes it to Tenabe's ship, he's going need that arm to stay alive, never mind kill that Tatsu bitch.”

“Wait. He had it amputated? But he has both . . .” Then Hank remembered that Broden wore a glove on one hand. “Son of a bitch. I didn't even notice it was fake.”

“Ain't fake. Robotic. It's very advanced and works just like a normal arm—­if a normal arm were made of titanium and had the strength of a trash compactor. Or, so the rumors go.” Harcourt smiled and winked, which made Hank even more uneasy. He kept thinking what would have happened if he'd tried to forcibly search Broden back at the car.

“Still, like Broden said, it's a lot of trust.”

“I'm not a fool, Hank. Despite the talk,” Harcourt said. “He's not going to have as much freedom as it appears.”

“How so?”

Harcourt took a cell phone out of his pocket. The screen displayed a local map with a single point blinking on it. It was a map Hank was very familiar with. A map of Harcourt's ranch. And the blip was about where his front door would be.

“I didn't just give him that card so he could get in and out of doors,” Harcourt said before handing the phone to Hank. “But that's not my ace in the hole.”

“What is?”

“You. You're going with him.”

 

Chapter Four

London

8:00
P.M.
Local Time

J
ONATHAN
ENTERED
HIS
galley kitchen and set about making himself a cup of tea. As he waited for the water to boil, he thought about Emily. Or rather, the tea made him think of her. It was a green tea and bergamot blend that she'd introduced him to awhile back and it had quickly become his favorite. Now, every time he made a cup he thought of her; how they'd met and how Emily and Lew couldn't seem to make things work on a permanent basis. It seemed a consequence of their lives that relationships were few and far between.

As the kettle whistled, Jonathan found himself thinking about Sophia for the first time in weeks. Jonathan had met her at the same time Lew had met Emily. They'd hit it off, but before they became more than friends, they'd followed their own paths, and nothing ever came of it. But he thought about her often. When money was good, he even thought about grabbing a flight to Sri Lanka, where Sophia was heading up a research team at the university. But that was his loneliness talking.

Jonathan took his tea into the living room and popped a copy of
The Fifth Element
into his entertainment system. He settled back in his recliner with his tea and watched the movie for about the hundredth time, trying to slow his frenetic mind with the sights and sounds of the wisecracking Bruce Willis, but he kept finding himself focusing on Milla Jovovich's outfits. Before he could follow through on the idea to turn it off, a power nap grabbed hold of him and wrestled his consciousness to the ground.

When he opened his eyes, the credits were rolling up the screen and his cell phone was ringing. He turned the movie off and grabbed his phone, hoping it was Lew so he could apologize. He knew if he tried to call Lew, he'd never answer. Not yet, anyway.

It was Natalie again. He thought about what Lew had said in the café but rejected the call anyway. Jonathan was starting to doubt his decision to stay away from Natalie, but he wasn't quite ready to throw in the towel just yet. Then he decided what he really needed was a little time off the grid. He put his phone on vibrate and dropped it into the bowl by the door where he kept his keys.

He got changed into his workout clothes and spent an hour burning off frustration more than fat in the home gym he'd set up in the flat's second bedroom. The exertion and rush to get from set to set without letting more than thirty seconds pass was just what he needed. His mind wasn't given the chance to wander as he moved from squats, to push-­ups, to dips, and so on. But when he got to the cardio part of his workout, the treadmill let his mind drift again. He tried to focus on the job tomorrow, but his mind kept recalling other jobs they'd pulled over the years. Especially the ones where he brought a lost treasure back from the dead and delivered it to its rightful owner. And while it was usually Lew who was crass enough to point out the paycheck, Jonathan also found himself thinking about the finder's fees.

As he showered, he thought about Lew's crazy idea:
Let's be The Monarch again.

Jonathan smiled as he rinsed the final remnants of shampoo out of his hair and wiped his eyes. He chuckled, shaking his head, as he turned and let the water pelt him in his well-­exercised shoulder blade.

As the rhythm of the water droned, Jonathan's conscious mind drifted far away, recalling his favorite moments from some of the jobs he and Lew had pulled over the years. When he finally snapped back to the present, his shoulder was tingling from the extended massage. He turned off the water and toweled himself dry in the tiny bathroom.

“He's crazy,” Jonathan said. Someone needed to say it out loud.

 

Chapter Five

Jirojin Maru

1,100 km East of Tokyo

7:00
A
.M.
Local Time

U
MI
T
ENABE
, CEO of the Tenabe Group, drank her breakfast tea while the
Jirojin Maru
's steward stood by waiting for her assessment of his efforts. Umi thought he looked tired but knew he had only been awake for an hour. Umi, as usual, had been up since 4
A.M.
tending to paperwork and international phone calls. She had been running her multinational group of companies—­or
Zaibatsu
—­from her superyacht for months now. While difficult, at first it had been legally necessary. Now, it was just nostalgia—­this was where she'd spent her last moments with her husband as he died.

Before she'd inherited her father's company over seventy years ago, Umi had believed she would follow the path that most of her contemporaries had taken—­marrying and disappearing into the identity of her husband. But her father's sudden passing had changed all of that. At thirty-­two years of age, she became—­for all intents and purposes—­a man. It was 1945, a difficult time in Japan. Her father was an important and very rich man at the time. But after bringing a morning meeting to order in an office building in Nagasaki, her father's life was ended and Umi's path forever altered in a brilliant flash of light.

She continued to sip her tea, watching the steward squirm in her peripheral vision. Now at a hundred and two years of age, Umi still enjoyed torturing the men in her life. There had only ever been one man she hadn't felt that way about. But Mikawa, her husband of only a dozen years, had been murdered six months ago. While his death had released Mikawa from the cancer ravaging his body, Umi could not bring herself to abide the act. Her every moment since that day was in the pursuit of a single, solitary goal: revenge.

About to send the steward back to the kitchen for a “better” cup of tea, Umi changed her mind when her computer screen announced she had an incoming call. Especially when she saw who it was from.

“
Ike,
” Umi said, telling the steward to get out. Then she added that he'd better bring a better cup of tea for lunch, or he'd be out of a job. When the door was closed behind him, she answered the video call.

“Tatsu, it's so good to see you,” Umi said, slightly surprised that she actually meant it. “Where are you, now?” Umi leaned in toward the image of her great-­granddaughter on the screen. She was a striking young Japanese girl, dressed in black leather, her red hair splayed out across her shoulders.

“Hello,
Obasan
,” Tatsu Koga said, sounding just as pleased. “I'm at JFK Airport, in New York, waiting for a connecting flight.”

“How are things going? I haven't heard from you since Texas.”

“Things are going well. I've taken care of two more cryonics labs.”

“Excellent. And you made sure to leave the name at the scenes?”

“Yes, in spray paint just as you asked.”

“Good. I knew I could trust you. That's why I picked you for this assignment. When your mother left you in that terrible place, I knew she'd made a mistake. You just needed . . . direction,” Umi said. “You've proved me right a hundred times over, Tatsu. I'm so very proud of you.” It was true, but Umi was well aware she was using the praise as a tool.

But then, isn't everything a tool?

Tatsu wasn't technically her blood, but Umi treated her like she was. After Tatsu had beaten two bullies to death in Osaka's Kamagasaki district—­Japan's biggest slum—­for brutalizing her brother, Tatsu's parents took the opportunity to admit her to a psychiatric hospital. From what Umi knew of them and their situation, it was probably more to reduce the number of mouths they had to feed than save Tatsu from jail.

That's where Umi had found her while touring the facility several years ago, trying to decide if she should fund their research facility. In the end, she hadn't provided the money they wanted, but she had made a smaller contribution for the freedom of a young girl who had garnered her attention. At the time, she'd had no idea what she'd use her for, but Umi was always stockpiling things on the off chance she'd need them.

Back then, Tatsu had had natural talent but was like an unpolished gem. Over the years, Umi had arranged training for her. She'd learned judo and karate in the early days, advancing to disciplines that involved knives and swords. By the time Tatsu was eighteen, Umi began sending her out into the world.

Tatsu had lacked conviction, though. While she'd had the skills, she'd lacked the heart of an assassin, which was the real reason Umi had rescued her from the facility and honed her skills. But if there was one thing Umi was good at, it was finding someone's motivation and using it to her own ends. Umi found Tatsu's motivation when she remembered why Tatsu had killed in the slums. Bullies. Tatsu couldn't stand bullies. Once Umi understood that, motivating Tatsu to do her bidding had just been a matter of concocting the right story—­again, something at which Umi excelled.

“I'm so glad,” Tatsu said. “I'm headed home. I should be there by tomorrow afternoon.” Umi could almost feel the girl's need for approval through the screen.

“Excellent. We'll need time to prepare.”

“Yes,
Obasan.
” Tatsu preened. Umi had given her what she wanted, but there would be a price.

“But . . .” Umi feigned indecision. “No, never mind. You've done enough, child.”

“What is it? Please tell me.”

“If you're sure.”

“I am!” Tatsu said, before turning to apparently check her surroundings after speaking so loud. “I mean, I am.”

“Well, all right,” Umi said, stifling her smile. “There may be a new problem. But this isn't like anything you've faced before. He's . . . experienced.” She'd only just received the reports from the bugs she'd had planted in Harcourt's mansion back when Reese had come to work for her, but she needed to be ready.

Per Broden wasn't a pudgy executive stealing from the company coffers, or a politician keeping Umi from getting what she wanted. She knew what she was asking, but there wasn't any choice. She had no doubt Tatsu had what it would take to do the job, but skilled as she was, she had never faced anyone of this level before. And there was a very good chance she wouldn't be victorious.

But at the very least, she'd delay him.

Umi gave Tatsu her new instructions and ended the call. Almost immediately, she received another call. This one from not quite so far away.

“P
LEASE
,
BE
REASONABLE
!” A bearded, disheveled man in a dirty lab coat said from the other side of the screen. He was in a lab of some sort though all of the stations behind him were empty. He seemed to be very much alone. Still, he kept looking back over his shoulder as he spoke. “It's been weeks. You have to let me go!”

“I have to do no such thing, Dr. Reese,” Umi said in perfect English. Though she could speak almost ten languages perfectly, the number she could manage to struggle through was a mystery even to her. Reese was Canadian by birth and spoke English and a hackneyed version of French. He was disappointing in so many ways, Umi thought.

“Please, just . . . just let me out of here,” Reese said, the tone of his voice revealing his abandonment of hope. “Just let me come up to the surface for a little while. Let me breathe some actual air!”

“If you didn't have air, you would have died a long time ago.” And Umi definitely didn't want that. Not yet, anyway.

“You know what I mean,” Reese whined, putting his face in his hands and rubbing his eyes until they were even redder than usual.

“We had an agreement, Dr. Reese. You didn't deliver on your part of the contract. Why should I deliver on mine? No, you'll stay where you are. Now if you'll—­”

Reese suddenly grabbed the camera and shoved his face up against it.

“It . . . it keeps watching me,” he hissed, furtively looking around. “When I try to sleep, it sends things to . . . to
touch
me! Please . . .” Reese trailed off like he'd realized there was no point in continuing. Umi watched a tear track down Reese's hairy cheek. It was under her orders that Reese was being prevented from sleeping. And despite his deserving the punishment, she was finding the results fascinating.

She reached out and ended the call, the conversation failing to hold her interest. She took a sip of her tea and thought about which call she should make next. She closed her eyes for a moment as she swallowed.

It really was the best cup of tea she'd ever had.

T
ATSU
K
OGA
—­
NOW
DRES
SED
in loose-­fitting pajama pants, Converse sneakers, and an oversized hoodie that said “WHAT THE FUKshima” across the front—­sat against the base of a pillar using her duffel bag as a pillow. The white earbuds that snaked out from under her raised hood plugged into her phone, but it was all for show. Her phone's games and music were silent. She'd learned a long time ago that this was not only the best way to be left alone but also the best way to listen and watch the world around her. It made her invisible and unapproachable, which was best for everyone concerned.

Her flight had landed at JFK Airport over three hours ago. That was expected. But now, as her connecting flight taxied out onto the runway to take off for Tokyo International Airport, she was still sitting in the passenger waiting area.

She was posing as just another student traveler waiting for a long-­delayed flight, but in truth she wasn't booked on any flight yet. Umi's instructions had been to study the files she had sent to Tatsu's phone and wait for her to call with Tatsu's new destination. Tatsu didn't know where she was going next and might not for quite some time, but she knew what she was going to have to do once Umi knew where Per Broden would be long enough for Tatsu to connect with him. She really wanted to be back by Umi's side for the coming event, and she might still make it, but that would have to wait for now.

Umi had rescued Tatsu when she was young and lost, and she would do anything for the matriarch. And she had already proved it, time and time again.

Tatsu pulled up Per Broden's picture again on her phone's screen and examined it, memorizing every detail.

He was a funny little man on the surface, but his files told a different story. According to the reports, he was intelligent, perceptive, tenacious and, as of late, dangerous. He'd spent most of his life in law enforcement in Stockholm; first for the police, then for the Swedish Security Ser­vice. He excelled at puzzles and had an incredibly high success rate, almost as high as his IQ. Though apparently as the years went on, the violence associated with his cases had increased. He'd finally retired five years ago and now worked as a kind of international private investigator, still picking and choosing the most enigmatic cases he could find. And apparently Tatsu's recent work had caught his interest. She smiled slightly when she imagined the little man trying to figure out what “Dead Lights” meant.

Tatsu closed her eyes, turned on her side, and tried to calm her mind. But as had happened for the past few weeks, when she closed her eyes, she saw the face of the man she'd killed in the Houston bombing. She didn't feel remorse, exactly, but she continued to wonder why she hadn't delayed the attack. The bombs that had leveled the building were on timers, and she'd had a kill-­switch app in her phone. All she would have had to do was tap her screen, and the timers would have stopped. When the man was done whatever he was doing in there that late at night, dressed the way he was, she could have restarted the timers and still have completed her mission. But she hadn't. It hadn't even occurred to her at the time.

She knew there were a lot of good reasons for not stopping the timers, of course. If the man had noticed the stopped timers and fiddled with them or reported them, the mission would have been in jeopardy. And for all she knew, he'd been sent there to stop her. But that last part was a stretch and doubtful.

Of course, he wasn't the first person Tatsu had killed and wasn't even the first person she'd killed for Umi, but he was the first person she'd killed because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was aware that he might actually not be the only one. She hadn't done a full search of the other facilities she'd bombed in the past few weeks, but she'd always been assured that the premises were vacant. Of live ­people, anyway. But there was a difference when you actually knew, when you'd looked a person in the eye—­albeit through binoculars—­watching as his life stopped.

Tatsu's thoughts were dragged away by voices nearby. While she was only pretending to be waiting for a delayed flight, there were large groups of ­people scattered around benches and tables throughout the airport who were doing it for real. At a bench across from her, a ­couple of girls in their teens sat with backpacks in their laps looking down at the busy concourse several meters below, their demeanor plainly showing that traveling was something new for them. Behind them, three young men in their early twenties laughed to themselves. Every now and then one of them would step forward and harass the girls for a bit before stepping back to shoulder punches and nods of approval from his compatriots. And each time they did it, they got more brazen.

Throngs of ­people still streamed by, but they either didn't notice the scene or were pretending not to. If it continued, Tatsu knew where it was headed. She had been like the girls for a short time early in her life, before she'd learned to push back. Naive or not, the girls' wide-­eyed, frightened looks said they knew what was building as well. She thought about closing her eyes again, but she couldn't get the bullying out of her mind.