The Excoms Read online

  She waited until the bulk of the passengers were boarding before she checked in, and then used the economy entrance onto the aircraft instead of the one for business class. When she reached her seat, she peeked over the center aisle toward the front of the plane.

  She had a moment of panic when she saw his seat was empty, but then she spotted him emerging from the front galley area where he must have been using the toilet. She ducked until enough time had passed for him to settle in before she checked again, and found him exactly where he was supposed to be—belted into seat 3A.

  Just in case he planned a last-minute exit, she continued checking on him until the doors were shut and the aircraft was taxiing toward the runway. At that point she allowed herself to relax.

  She had him now.

  Lunch was served not long after they were in the air. Ananke watched Ex Machina while she ate. It was the kind of film she loved. Men who thought they were smart, and women who were smarter. Okay, technically an android, but a female android.

  Before the movie ended, the cabin lights were dimmed so passengers could get some sleep. She paused the film and glanced at Perkins. He had turned his chair into a flat bed and was lying back, wearing an eye mask.

  As she watched the rest of the film, she extracted a small kit from the bag she had obtained, with Shinji’s help, in Abu Dhabi. It looked like a simple bathroom pouch. Inside was a comb, a small cake of soap, a half dozen cotton swabs, and two small pill containers—one labeled IBUPROFEN and one SLEEP.

  The comb broke down into several predesigned pieces, which, when combined with parts from two of the specially made swabs, created a ring that, if worn correctly, looked unremarkable, but if the wearer were to turn her hand palm up, four thin needles would be visible sticking out of the band.

  She set the device down and poured a cap full of bottled water into her unused coffee cup. She dumped in two of the pills from the SLEEP bottle and three from IBUPROFEN. The water boiled for a moment as it chemically reacted to the combined ingredients. Once the bubbling stopped, the drug was ready.

  Next, she pulled on a pair of puncture-resistant, skin-colored gloves and dipped the ring’s needles into the solution. She then slipped the ring over her finger. All that was left to do now was touch the metal tips to Perkins’s exposed skin, and he would remain asleep for the duration of the flight.

  And several hours afterward.

  If Shinji had done his job, a “medical” team would be waiting in Atlanta for the inevitable request for medical assistance.

  She peeked across the cabin to make sure Perkins hadn’t woken, and then eased into the aisle and headed toward the front galley. As she neared the front, she heard someone behind her lumber out of their seat. A glance over her shoulder revealed the passenger was a tired-looking, middle-aged woman clutching the toiletry bag all business-class passengers received. No one for Ananke to concern herself with.

  When she entered the galley, a flight attendant sitting near the door started to stand.

  Ananke smiled and said, “Just stretching my legs. Don’t need anything.”

  The flight attendant resettled into her seat.

  The curtain was drawn across the entrance to Perkins’s aisle. Ananke pulled it to the side and stepped through.

  The first thing she noted was that all the passengers along the aisle appeared to be either asleep or watching their TV screens—just how she wanted it.

  The second thing she noticed was the prick of a needle against her arm.

  Before she could turn to see the source, the world disappeared.

  7

  DUBLIN, IRELAND

  DYLAN BRODY SAT on his favorite barstool, convinced he was in a fix.

  No one had told him there was a problem. In fact, just the opposite. The meet was on. The goods would be ready to move. And the deal would be done.

  So said Harmon, the logistics guy, who’d just called with the update.

  But Harmon was the problem. In Dylan’s experience, even the most mundane packages he was hired to transport came with a layer of paranoia affecting everyone involved. A little nervousness would have been expected, but Harmon sounded as cool as Tom Hiddleston ordering room service.

  Hence Dylan’s suspicion.

  He thought about calling Harmon’s boss, Mr. Lyne, and expressing his concern, but then there was the whole Dylan-really-needing-this-job thing. Yes, the money for sure would be helpful, but what he really needed was the successful completion of the job.

  He’d had a bit of a bad run as of late, culminating in several months of intense rehab for fractures to his right leg and arm. Once he felt well enough to work again, he quickly learned no one wanted to hire him anymore. Potential employers were more interested in someone with—as he had heard several times—“a better track record.” He’d been seriously considering a career change when Mr. Lyne called.

  Having never worked with the man before, Dylan had, of course, done his due diligence and made sure Lyne was on the up and up. But in reality, even if Lyne’s reputation had been sketchy, Dylan would have taken the job. He was that desperate.

  Which was why he grudgingly knew it would be a mistake to call Lyne now. Dylan needed to finish this job so he could show the world he could be trusted again. Even if something fishy was going on, he couldn’t allow himself to worry about that. He needed to keep his head down, do what he’d been hired to do, and not ask any questions.

  That’s what couriers did.

  He downed the last of the pint he’d been brooding over and hopped off the stool.

  “That it for you, Dylan?” John, the bartender, asked.

  “Things to do, I’m afraid.”

  “See ya tomorrow, then.”

  “See ya tomorrow.”

  Dylan headed out, his limp barely noticeable anymore.

  __________

  THE PICKUP WAS to take place on the fourth floor of the car park at the bend in St. Andrew’s Lane, a few blocks east of Trinity College.

  Dylan wanted nothing more than to get inside the building for a little pre-event scouting, but knew the people he was receiving the package from might be doing the same. If they found him wandering around, it could foul things up well and good.

  A courier’s job was to show up where he was told to show up, take possession of what he was given to transport, and take it to where he was instructed to go. There would be no recon, no surveillance, nothing outside the assigned tasks. Those details were the responsibilities of others. Even though that meant no walk-through of the garage, checking the place out from down the street was something he thought he could get away with.

  He found a drainpipe running up the side of a building near the corner of St. Andrew’s Lane and Exchequer Street. He waited until there was a gap in the foot traffic, and then scaled the pipe to the top of the wall. It took a few moments to maneuver over the top, but soon enough he was on the roof. From the back end, he used a pair of cheap binoculars to scan the garage.

  Each floor had five arched large openings filled with angled blue slats that made it difficult to see anything inside. He turned his attention to the roof. All but one of the parking spots were empty. The lone car there had someone sitting in the driver’s seat.

  Dylan frowned. The meeting was still an hour and a half away. Did the guy have something to do with it?

  Hold on there, he told himself. You’re just on edge. Maybe he’s part of the advance team. You know, making sure the place is safe for when you arrive.

  Not convinced, Dylan switched his view back to the slatted windows and checked each one individually.

  His gaze paused on the window right above the ground-level garage entrance he’d been instructed to use. A black rod that looked far too much like a rifle barrel was sticking out between two of the slats.

  More protection? Or someone waiting to pick off the meeting’s participants as they arrived?

  Or was Dylan the only one who was supposed to use that entrance?

  Just relax
! You’re making something out of nothing.

  Was he?

  Again he considered calling Mr. Lyne, and again he talked himself out of it.

  It’s going to be fine. In a few hours, you’ll be finished and home again.

  He thought if he repeated it a few hundred more times, he might start to believe it.

  __________

  DYLAN SPENT THE remaining pre-arrival time at a pub called the Banker’s Lounge on Trinity Street, a block away from the garage. As much as he wanted another pint, though, he stuck with tea.

  Five minutes before the appointed hour, he headed out again.

  By entering St. Andrew’s Lane via Trinity, he came at the garage from the east. Along this side were more of the arched openings, only these weren’t filled with slats. An idea poked at him from the back of his mind. It was probably ridiculous and unnecessary, but he couldn’t shake himself of the notion, so seconds later he was rolling a nearby trash bin under one of the windows.

  Getting on top of the bin was relatively simple. Pulling himself up through the arched opening took a bit more work.

  After catching his breath, he used the cover of the parked cars to sneak up to the next floor. This was the floor with the slatted window where he’d seen the rifle barrel sticking out. Several vehicles were parked between him and the window, so he dipped his head toward the floor and looked under the vehicles. Sure enough, someone was crouching right where the rifle should be.

  Dylan took extra care moving to the next ramp, his journey aided by the fact the rifleman was more focused on the world outside than the one within. When Dylan reached the next level—where the meet was to take place—he scanned the space from the safety of a concrete barrier at the top.

  He immediately spotted the gray panel van parked near the stairs, with a logo on the side that read FLOWERS BY MAUREEN. It was exactly as Harmon had described. As were the two men standing impatiently in front of it.

  See, everything’s fine.

  He double-checked to make sure no one else was around, took a calming breath, and walked out.

  The two men didn’t notice him until he’d covered almost half the distance to the van. When they did, the larger one drew a weapon from a holster under his jacket.

  “Not another step,” he ordered.

  Dylan halted. “I’m here about the flowers. Katie sent me,” he said, reciting his portion of the recognition signal.

  For a few moments, no one moved.

  Finally, the guy who wasn’t holding a gun said, “Where did you come from?”

  “I’m here about the flowers,” Dylan repeated. “Katie sent me.”

  The men exchanged a look, and then the armed one said, “You’re the courier?”

  Dylan stayed silent, allowing them to finish the greeting. When they didn’t, he said, “Perhaps I’m in the wrong place. Have a good evening, gentlemen.”

  “Your, um, flowers are ready,” the smaller man said. “I just need you to…sign the receipt.”

  It wasn’t the best delivery of a counter-sign in the history of espionage, but it was good enough.

  Dylan smiled. “Then let’s get down to business, shall we?”

  “No,” the big man replied, his gun still aimed at Dylan. “First you tell us where you came from. You were instructed to come in through the front entrance, but my man woulda seen you if you did.”

  “My job was to meet you here, and here I am. There’s no reason you need more than that.” He was playing tougher than he felt, but it was the Irish way.

  “It’s okay, Tom,” the smaller one said. “We don’t need to lose any more time.”

  After another beat, the man’s partner lowered his weapon.

  “All right, then,” the unarmed one said to Dylan. “Get yourself over here.”

  Four minutes later, Dylan drove the van through the garage and out the main entrance. He couldn’t help but fidget as he emerged onto St. Andrew’s Lane, knowing if the guy with the rifle was going to take a shot at him, now would be the time, but he made it all the way onto Exchequer without anything hitting the van.

  You’re an overthinking ass, Dylan Brody. That’s what you are.

  As he headed toward the drop-off point north of the city, he started thinking about his future again. He’d be able to use his success on this job to leverage another. It might take him a while to build his business back to what it had once been, but bit by bit he’d get there.

  Traffic was light, adding to his increasingly buoyant mood. After a while, he was feeling so good that he even smiled at a red-headed beauty crossing the street in front of him while he was stopped at a light a few kilometers shy of the countryside. It didn’t hurt that even though she was talking on her phone, she seemed to be checking him out, too.

  Yes, things would definitely be better now.

  When the light turned green and he was on his way again, he began to hum that old Black Eyed Peas song he loved, “I Gotta Feeling.” Soon he was bouncing his head to the rhythm. This private concert was the reason it took him a moment to notice the flashing lights behind him.

  When he saw the garda car in his side-view mirror, he muttered, “Not now,” and then quickly checked his speedometer to make sure he wasn’t going too fast.

  Nope. He was well within the speed limit.

  Take it down a notch. The car is probably on its way elsewhere.

  Dylan kept shooting glances at the mirror, expecting the car to go around him, but it stayed right on his tail.

  “This cannot be happening.”

  Maybe it was a faulty taillight, or something stupid like that. It wasn’t his driving, that was for sure. He’d driven with even more care than usual, following the law to a fault. Not counting his potentially illegal cargo, of course. But if he was being stopped about what he was transporting, then he would have expected more than one car with a single officer inside.

  At his first opportunity, he guided the van to the side of the road, hoping he wouldn’t be there long. The garda pulled in behind him and stopped.

  For the next few minutes, Dylan nervously tapped the steering wheel and stared at the side mirror, waiting for the officer to get out of his car.

  When the door finally opened and the garda climbed out, Dylan said, “Whoa.”

  The guy was big. Like rugby full-back big, over a hundred and eighty-five centimeters tall and as broad as an elephant across the shoulders.

  As the garda drew near, Dylan rolled down his window and put on his most cooperative smile. “Good evening, Officer.”

  The man nodded and said, “Driver’s license, please.”

  “Sure, sure. Of course.” Dylan pulled out his wallet, fumbled his license loose, and handed it through the window. The name was fake but the license was real.

  The cop looked at it for a second and then said, “What’s in the back?”

  Dylan motioned back toward the logo on the side of the van. “Flowers.”

  “What kind of flowers?”

  “I’m not sure about the type. I do the deliveries, not the packing.”

  “Is that so? Show me.”

  “Don’t you need a search warrant to do that?” The moment the question was out of Dylan’s mouth, he regretted it.

  “Is there a reason why I should need one?”

  “Not at all, not at all. Just curious, that’s all.”

  “Then you don’t mind showing me.”

  Some employers were great at prepping a vehicle so that nothing questionable would be visible if a door was opened. Dylan had no idea if Mr. Lyne’s people fell into that category. He sent up a prayer that they were as he said, “It would be my pleasure.”

  When he turned away from the officer to unlock his seat belt, he felt the prick of a bee sting on the back of his neck. His instinct was to slap down and squash the insect, but before he could, he slumped over, unconscious.

  8

  MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

  ONE OF THESE days it would be fun to attempt something a little mo
re challenging, Rosario thought, and then immediately snorted.

  Who was she kidding? Nothing was challenging enough for her anymore.

  Just look at where she was now compared to where she’d started life. Clawing up that cliff was probably the most challenging thing she would ever do.

  Of course, her birth parents were partly responsible. Sure, they’d left her at the back door of that godforsaken storefront church in Tuxtla Gutiérrez when she’d been only a few weeks old, but the mixing of their DNA had given her genius-level smarts.

  Her surrogate parents? Well, they had contributed, too, in their own way.

  The church had been one of those radical evangelical offshoot-type places, filled with uneducated zealots who didn’t know the difference between the square root of four and the round root of a chaca tree. Science was the enemy. And the church’s champion was the self-righteous bastard of a preacher named Morales.

  The preacher and his wife had taken Rosario in, telling everyone she was their daughter. What she really was to “Papa” Morales was his servant. Some of Rosario’s earliest memories were of cleaning toilets and scrubbing dishes and being whipped with a switch for not dusting the living room properly.

  And the sermons—she couldn’t forget those, either. Everything was an opportunity to preach for Morales. His favorite refrain was telling Rosario she’d been abandoned because she was not worthy of God’s love, and that it was only through her obedience to Morales and her strict adherence to his teachings that she could even hope for a slim chance of entering heaven.

  If Rosario had been an ordinary girl, she would have probably been crushed by his mental torture and become a meek follower of his every word. But even at a young age she was more than smart enough to know he was full of shit, though not quite smart enough to avoid the beatings.

  Soon enough, however, she realized her best course of action was to pretend his methods were working. She carried out every task she was given, kowtowed when contrition was called for, and always acted the repentant daughter who was thankful for any scrap of attention she received. She was merely biding her time, learning as much as she could, and planning for the moment when she could make her break.