Wallbanger (2 page)

Kizzie bagged the conversation with her
conscience and focused on the task. Two gates away the hulking
white mass of the
Copa
plane was being stuffed with luggage
and refreshments. One worker on the ground saw the bags loaded onto
the angled conveyor belt. She assumed another was at the top,
waiting to offload. She pulled the buggy to a stop before the man,
motioning with the clipboard and feigning urgency in rapid Spanish.
“Tengo que comprobar la aeronave.”

The man frowned, shrugged. The same message
in Creole garnered a similar result. She inhaled deeply and huffed.
Why was this so hard?

“Listen, slick. I’m guessing you don’t speak
Russian or Japanese, so we’re down to English, French and
snark.”

A wide grin split his face. “English will
do.”

Duct tape in one hand, Kizzie pointed at the
plane with the clipboard in the other. “This bird just left
maintenance, but no one signed off. Need to do a quick check to the
radar altimeter.”

His gaze roamed over her attire. “Does that
involve baggage?” Kizzie shook her head and he shrugged. “Not my
department. Go on up.”

She boarded the underbelly, acknowledging the
second attendant and feeding him the same line in Spanish. He gave
her little thought and went back to his job. Moving out of his line
of sight, Kizzie accessed a crawlspace and made her way inside.

In the craft’s main control area, a bevy of
wires and cable sat coiled on the floor. She pulled the cell phone
from her pocket and paused.

Don’t do this.

There it was, the voice of reason, squeaking
through the din of cogs turning in her head. She shouldn’t do this.
She should go back to her home in nearby Casco Viejo, fold her
laundry, and wait for—

Her hate for laundry—and all things
domestic—was eclipsed only by her hate for waiting. And with the
way things went down, there was no telling how long she’d be doing
just that.

Palming the device, she keyed in the number
and sent off a short text message, heart pounding wildly as she
watched it go through its ministrations:
Sending…. Sending….
Sending…. Sent.

Now there was no turning back.

Kizzie turned the phone off and then moved a
heavy batch of cable, making room to secure the device to the belly
of the huge metal plane.

* * * *

On the airport perimeter road, Xander
Duquesne studied the neon blur boarding the cargo hold of the
Copa
. He checked his watch—a touch behind schedule, but
nothing they couldn’t make up for. In the passenger seat of the
rental, Phillip Marchande reclined, eyes closed. The previous night
was a long one for all parties involved, and sleep was not on the
agenda. Phil being integral to the next phase of the operation,
Xander didn’t begrudge the man this short reprieve.

Still early morning, the dark sky and poor
outdoor lighting concealed the black car well enough should anyone
look in their direction. All was quiet in the area. A good sign.
Lifting the binoculars to his eyes, Xander returned his attention
to the aircraft.

“Think it’ll hurt?”

He should have known Phil was awake. “What’s
that?” he asked, not bothering to shift his gaze.

“The bullet she puts in your brain when you
tell her what she’s in for.”

Xander let out a thoughtful sigh. “Y’know,
you’re very preoccupied with my demise of late, Phil. It’s kinda
disturbing.”

“No sense running from a fate that’ll catch
you anyway. Just want to prepare you, because she’s
going
to
kill you.”

“There insurance money you get in the event
of my death?” But Xander knew Phil was right. Kizzie was going to
be the death of him—either by her own hand or through her
stubbornness.

“No, sadly,” Phil said. “An oversight on my
part. I’d be rich by the end of the day.”

All told, Xander and Kizzie had been
acquainted less than ten hours—two of which were spent on a yacht
in the middle of the Indian Ocean fourteen days before. They’d been
on different teams at the time—hell, they weren’t exactly on the
same team now—but the dividing line was a lot clearer then. Kizzie
was the face of good; Xander the face of evil. She’d pulled a gun
on him; he’d spanked her thoroughly for it. He smiled at the
memory. Nonetheless, they’d parted ways with their roles
intact.

It was the disappearance of Nikolay Sokoviev
that prompted Xander to track Kizzie to Panama. At least that’s
what he told himself. Nikolay was his only access to Harvey, but
with the old Russian gone, Xander was forced to work with the next
in line. He ground his teeth at the alternative and forced away the
chill that inched down his spine with what he planned on having
Kizzie do.

“Ten grand says she kills you, X,” Phil said,
lifting the seat back and cracking his neck.

If he did die, he wouldn’t have to pay,
Xander reasoned. Either way he was a winner. “Double it.”

“Pretty confident for a dead man. Would you
prefer a Christian burial?”

Xander shook his head and grinned. “Save the
pine box, Phil. The devil won’t care either way.”

She knows what she was getting into
.
But he couldn’t convince himself of that lie. Kizzie knew what he’d
led her to believe, and while what little Xander had told her was
factual, it was by no means the whole story. She’d
never
know the whole story.

The last eight hours of their short
acquaintance started in much the same fashion the first two had
begun—with Kizzie holding a gun to Xander’s head. To double the
effect of her menace, she held a sharp blade to Phil’s neck. And
once she was talked out of killing them both, and summarily warned
not to repeat the offense, Kizzie spent the remainder of the time
trying to pry the details about the job from Xander’s sealed lips.
“Not until we leave Panama,”
he’d said.
“Only way to be
sure you’re in.”
It didn’t stop her prodding.

He consulted the iPad, checking both the
weather and the time. They needed to leave before their window of
opportunity passed and the airport really sprang to life. The early
flights would push off soon, and then the sun would rise and
travelers would flood the area. However, in what he was coming to
understand as true Kizzie fashion, she’d insisted on doing it her
way, in spite of the fact it would cut their own departure awful
close. Xander would have to break her of that habit. Yet he had to
admit, in her position he’d have done the same.

Twelve minutes later, the vehicle turned into
the employee parking lot and Kizzie hopped in. “We’re behind
schedule,” he said once the door shut.

Without responding, she stripped off the
jacket, goggles and hardhat, and tossed them to the floor. Loose
tresses pushed from her face, she leaned against the seat back,
crossing her arms over her chest.

Dawn was upon them, the sky a light purple,
brightening as the sun inched its way above the eastern horizon.
Xander studied her expression in the rearview. The lack of rest was
evident, and she wasn’t nagging him for details for a change. But
he didn’t have to know her long to see something was wrong. He kept
eyeing her, trying to pinpoint what was going on in that brain.

“Thought you said we’re behind,” she finally
said, somber gaze on something outside the window.

The car sat idling.

“Having second thoughts, Kizzie?”

Whatever he’d seen was gone in a flash. She
caught his view in the mirror. “No.”

The stare down lasted a few moments before
Xander put the car in gear and headed toward the closed airstrip at
Panama Pacificó.

* * * *

Halfmoon Bay, British Columbia

For the third morning in a row, Bill Connolly
sat before a fire in a recliner chair, nursing a bottle of cherry
flavored Mylanta. The pain in his gut was so fierce he was sure the
ulcer would chew its way topside any day now. He took another slug
from the bottle, the thick fluid slithering down his throat. And
then he waited; not for the sun to rise—that event was two hours
off. No, he was waiting for sleep to finally set in.

Thinking on it now, he couldn’t remember the
last time he’d actually slept. He’d had a couple catnaps in the
last forty-odd years, he was sure. But sleep? With a full-on
REM-cycle? It had been a long while.

Chances were good it wouldn’t happen tonight,
or this morning, rather.

Securing the cap, he tossed the container of
liquid chalk onto the coffee table beside his cell phones and
pushed out of the lazy boy, walking to a huge window to stare out
at the still, dark waters of the bay. The two-story house at the
end of the lane used to be a haven when Martha was around. They’d
walk down their dock in the early hours of the morning and sit at
the edge; feet dangling over the crisp water with coffee in
hand—tea for her, two sugars—and talk about any and everything in
the world. She’d laugh at his attempts at fresh water fishing; he’d
marvel at her oil paintings of the surrounding seascape.

Martha.
A woman talented both in bed
and out. He hadn’t come to the home in years, but being there
always made him think of their past and the future they never got a
chance to share. He caught his reflection in the glass and wondered
absently if her hair had grayed the way his had. Probably not. Hers
was a brown so dark it bordered black. And her eyes; two shining
blue beacons that guided him home through the darkest nights.

But then she found out about his wife.

Oh, he’d made an honest woman of her, giving
her his grandmother’s ring and his assumed last name. But once she
unearthed the truth about what Bill really did for a living, Martha
Connolly knew she’d always be the mistress.

Shortly after discovering her husband was
not
the head manager at Franco Financial, and that his
frequent trips out of town were
not
related to the
aforementioned managerial position she’d been led to believe he
held, Martha packed her belongings and left. No note. No phone
call. Just ether.

And Bill came home to find she’d packed up
sleep and taken it with her.

He could have tracked her down—he was an
agent, after all—but what would he say? Sorry I didn’t tell you I’m
an operative for a clandestine government agency? Yeah, that would
have gone over well with his superiors. They’d have both been belly
up and floating in the water within a matter of days. That
clandestine agency didn’t play when it came to silence. Besides,
with all the dirt and grime in the world, Martha was so clean as to
actually
be
godly. He wouldn’t tarnish her with the mud
flung on him while in the trenches protecting his country.

His marriage with the nation’s defense began
at an early age—ROTC in high school, graduating the Citadel and a
stint in the Marines that eventually segued into a career with the
National Clandestine Services. But it was his promotion to the
Special Operations Group where he truly found his calling. The SOG
was a highly specialized division of the NCS focused on covert,
paramilitary operations. It functioned on results, and he
delivered. Members were responsible for all the things America
needed done but didn’t want credit for doing. “By the book” was a
running joke. There was no book. There was only how and
that
you did the job.

Within the SOG there was an even more
secretive group of agents, the Covert Response Unit, and this elite
team was Bill’s own. He regarded CRU, or ‘The Crew’ as he called
them, as the most unselfish and patriotic of the bunch, forfeiting
the average American lifestyle—the two-point-three kids, white
picket fence, and two cats in the yard—so that every other
American, and would-be American, could enjoy those luxuries.

Yes, Bill was a man monogamous to both of his
wives, the two marriages satisfying different ideas of wedded
bliss. One was of comfort that he’d grown to live with; the other
of passion he couldn’t live without.

Despite her disappearing act, Bill still
loved the woman he’d claimed his own before God and the Justice of
the Peace. And while they hadn’t seen each other for decades, they
were still legally man and wife. Like normal married couples, they
shared a secret: Martha knew who he really was. Intel like that
could get him killed if ever she slipped.

Her knowledge of his identity was a secret
he’d take to his grave, and he prayed she’d take his to hers.

Unfortunately, her confidence wasn’t what
troubled him now. There were other leaks in the wall he helped
build to protect America and her citizens, leaks that had much
graver consequences than the lost love between Bill and Martha
Connolly. He took an oath to protect his country, and would do that
until there wasn’t breath left in his body.

3-19 would have gone a long way to doing just
that.

How the hell did Baldwin screw up the
Mauritius job?
he wondered, forcing his thoughts away from his
wife. Kizzie was his best agent by far, the first person recruited
to The Crew when Bill got the all-clear to put his new team
together. She thought on her toes, could kick ass with the best of
them, and didn’t question his directives. It also helped that she
made a nice honey trap. Miss Dependable for a decade, and then in
clutch-time, she’d choked.

Debriefing Gale Freeman and Solomon Nevins,
the other two members of that operation, had yielded little
results. From what Bill gathered, the party Ri Nguyen had tipped
them off about was not quite the affair the team was expecting. And
Ri hadn’t resurfaced to be interrogated about his absence. But both
Freeman and Nevins assured him Kizzie had made every effort to
acquire the requested information. Kizzie’s version of the story
was the same, and Bill was just biding his time before he contacted
her again.

He knew she was pissed with him, but he’d let
her stew. Nothing made an agent more indebted to you than when they
botched a mission. After that, they were willing to go the extra
mile and then some to please their handlers. And Kizzie was already
deep in Bill’s pocket. She would go miles and miles to please
him.