Between heaven and hell.., p.2
Between Heaven and Hell 2, page 2
Jasmine laughed.
“Let’s worry about that once we figure out who’s trying to recruit you.”
Chapter 2
We got back to our rental inside of the next half hour.
Jasmine had a knack for finding excellent lodgings in the most unlikely places. I cranked up the heat the second we got inside, hung my dripping coat by the door, and settled down on the sofa. Breeze dropped onto it beside me and called Bull on speakerphone.
Our SIA handler picked up instantly.
“Look who it is,” Bull said. “I was about to check in on you.”
“We’ve still got a week left of vacation,” Breeze said, surprised. “Why?”
“There’s been some rumblings on the old grapevine,” he said. “And not from where you think. I had a couple of questions from the old guard across the Pacific asking about a certain someone with a certain set of skills.”
“Old guard?” Breeze asked.
“OGI,” I said. “Old Guard Incorporated. The British equivalent to the HWC.”
“They had their own hitsquad in the UK?”
“Assume that every country with enough history and overseas interests does,” I said. “And they’re still operational, last I checked. Their timing sucks. What did you tell them?”
“The usual,” Bull said. “Deceased, written off the books, et cetera. I thought it was strange, though. The Brits have been minding their own business for the last couple of years. The fact that you’re calling can’t be a coincidence.”
“Someone found me,” I said. “He called himself Cal. He knows who I am, he knows that I’ve worked with you before, and he’s got some kind of supernatural pull. He claimed he’s part of an organization trying to give peace a chance. Sound familiar?”
Bull didn’t reply for a full thirty seconds.
“No,” our handler said. “It doesn’t.”
“He was trying to warn me off the SIA,” I continued. “So he knows about the organization, and he knows what we’ve been up to. I figure that your friends downstairs would keep you in the loop if someone was trying to Google the SIA or any of its operatives.”
“SOP,” Bull agreed. “Is he still with us?”
“I didn’t have the manpower to set up surveillance and I didn’t know who was backing him,” I replied. “Laying him out could antagonize the opposition, and I’m getting the feeling that his information didn’t come from downstairs.”
“It isn’t,” Bull said. “I had our information brokers Contracted to keep tabs on any information about you three or the rest of our people moving in and out of the Iron Depths.”
“You know how much demons love abusing loopholes,” Breeze protested.
“After the precedent you set in Paris, they’re willing to close most of them. It didn’t come from downstairs, which supports your theory. Did he tell you what he wanted?”
“Something about peace in our time. And my peace of mind.”
“I take it you haven’t suddenly gotten religion?” Bull asked.
“You have to ask?”
“Upstairs types have a certain way of persuading people,” Bull replied. “I’ve seen lesser men fall under their spell when we were moving their tech into our office. Took weeks of rehab to get them back into their right mind.”
“They use mind control?” Jasmine asked.
“Think mass suggestion and mob psychology and you’re getting closer to the mark,” Bull explained. “So he gave you his name, didn’t say who he was running with, and offered you a way out of the SIA. He knows who you are and he knows your history. And he managed to locate you.”
“He ruined our vacation,” I said. “I want to know who his people are and where to find them. I want to know what they want and how they plan to get it.”
“And you want my blessing,” Bull added.
“I want your hardware and certain assurances,” I countered.
Bull sighed.
“You don’t ask for much, do you?”
“You wanted to keep us on retainer,” Jasmine interrupted. “They have knowledge that they shouldn’t have and they know how to find us. Our value to you is directly linked to the fact that the opposition doesn’t know about us. Are you going to help us or not?”
Our handler laughed.
“Don’t go getting your panties in a twist, doll. I never said I wouldn’t help you. This pisses me off just as much as it does you, trust me. The problem is that I don’t have access to the kind of information that you want.”
Breeze’s eyes widened.
“But Michael does. The DIA might have files on these people.”
“I’d be very surprised if they didn’t, Breezy,” Bull agreed. “You want to know more about these people and what they’re up to? You’ll need to take a trip downstairs and have a look at their archives.”
“And you want me to go on a shopping trip while I’m there,” I said.
“Now that you mention it, there are a couple of things I’d be interested to know.” Excitement bubbled up in our handler’s tone. “I’d hate to rip you away from your little getaway, but if you wanted to stop by the office, now would be a good time.”
“Do you have a laneway out of Scotland?” Jasmine asked.
She hadn’t even questioned or challenged Bull. The fact that people were targeting me for something was enough reason for her to go along with this.
“There’s none open at the moment. This isn’t quite as urgent as Paris, so I don’t have the clearance to open one up for emergencies. Flying private is going to have to be enough.”
“Is there any chance that the OGI and this group are connected?” Jasmine asked.
“Out of my wheelhouse, doll. You’ll have to ask our friends downstairs. I’ll get a jet warmed up for you for an early flight.” Bull’s tone became businesslike. “I’ll talk to Giz and see what he can do for you in the meantime. See you tomorrow.”
He clicked off the call.
We sat in silence for a minute or two. I checked my watch and did math. We had roughly ten hours until our flight. Part of me wanted to follow up on Cal, to track him down and find out what he knew. I hadn’t had anything to do with the OGI for two years. They wouldn’t have believed Bull’s line about my death.
Something was moving behind the scenes. Something big.
I was used to pulling triggers on the right targets with the right timing.
Being the guy in someone else’s crosshairs went against everything I’d been taught.
“He was helpful,” Breeze said. “I expected him to haggle a bit more.”
“He already did,” I reminded her. “Let’s get ready to move. I’ll take first watch.”
“You think they’re going to make a run at us here?” Breeze asked.
“At this point, Breeze? I want to be ready for anything.”
The occultist nodded uneasily and vanished into her bedroom. I took a seat beside the small window that faced out to the street and kept my eyes moving. Jasmine packed our things in five minutes and padded out of our bedroom in a snug night robe. My girlfriend settled down across from me and folded a leg over the other.
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “I know how dangerous this is.”
Jasmine smiled.
“I was going to say thank you,” she countered. “I’ve had an amazing time over the last few weeks. So has Breeze. She’s never seen this part of the world before and she loves it.”
“She earned it. And so did you.”
“We all did,” Jasmine said gently. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“You’re playing psychologist now, Jazz?”
“I know psychology well enough to see you deflecting.”
I sighed.
“Something the guy said really stuck in my craw,” I admitted. “He was talking about being a weapon. Being used. It’s bullshit, of course, but that’s what we’ve been trying to get away from. For a long time now.”
“And your first thought was to run back to the people who use us as weapons,” Jasmine agreed. “Of course that’d play with your head. There’s something that you’re not seeing, however. This is different from the work that we used to do.”
“Is it the pay?”
“It’s the purpose,” Jasmine said. “The money is one thing. But think over what we’ve managed to do with the SIA. We were serving different interests in our old life. Can you see the good that we’re doing?”
“When did you start studying virtue ethics?” I shook my head. “Jazz, we went after Bakalov to clear your name. We blew off the Council’s kneecap to keep Breeze in one piece. Our interests happened to align, sure, but that doesn’t mean we’re saving the world by working with the SIA.”
Jasmine laughed.
“We’re saving our world,” she said. “And that’s enough for me.”
She leaned over and squeezed my thigh affectionately.
“Are you sure you want to stay on watch?”
I nodded.
“Get some sleep. You can spot me on the plane.”
“I might do more than spot you,” Jasmine warned.
That drew a reluctant smile out of me.
“You just like making Breeze blush.”
“Mm. She’s getting used to it.”
Jasmine left me alone with my thoughts. I was too jacked on adrenaline and paranoia to get any sleep. I played Cal’s words over and over again in my memory and thought through what he’d offered me. It was too nebulous and nonspecific to mean anything good. The rain held steady until the early morning. I made coffee for the girls in the kitchen.
We left our rental car at the agency and hailed a taxi to Dundee airport.
It was a tiny sliver of a place. A handful of businesspeople lingered in the terminal, but none of them set off my radar. We cleared customs with the usual ease that came with flying private. I led the girls into the lounge outside our gate and found four men waiting for us.
I knew special operations when I saw them.
They’d done an admirable job of blending in. Expensive casual dress only went so far in cloaking a sense of alertness that came with a lifetime of violence. Jasmine went still and quiet beside me and Breeze froze in place when she saw the men seated beside the glass walls that led out to the tarmac.
I dropped my bag to free up my hands.
“Shit,” Breeze whispered. “What do we do?”
One of the men stood up from his chair.
He reminded me of a greyhound, all whippy muscle and not an ounce of fat on his frame. A neat, short haircut, a turtleneck and matching coat caught my eye. An expensive watch encircled his wrist and I took the lack of pentagrams on its face as a good sign.
Jasmine checked our six.
“We’re boxed in,” she said calmly. “Hands are empty.”
“Don’t count on them staying that way,” I said. “Let’s see what they want. Jazz, you’re on bodyguard duty. Sit pretty and come get me if I get in trouble.”
She nodded once.
Sweet adrenaline rolled hungrily into my body. I strolled forward to meet the point man of the six-man crew with a casual smile on my face and my hands in easy sight.
A small flicker of relief touched the man’s eyes.
I halted ten yards away from him. The others stayed in their chairs.
Things could’ve been worse. They hadn’t moved to grab us yet.
Jasmine and Breeze lowered themselves into a row of seats off to my left. Two more well-dressed killers stepped out to close off any escape behind us. I didn’t spot any flight attendants or local airport staff. I’d already scouted out the cameras and I knew that they’d already run into technical difficulties.
“This is not my morning, is it?” I asked.
“Unfortunately not, mate,” Mr. Greyhound replied.
His accent was British by way of East London.
“Are you sure you brought enough guys?”
“Let’s hope I did,” he replied lightly.
“What’s this about? We’ve got somewhere to be.”
“You’re gonna miss the flight,” Greyhound said with a hint of apology in his tone. “I appreciate you keeping things professional, mate, I really do. We got a flag from a couple of our boys in the area about SIA personnel getting cozy with one of the Family.”
My mind turned cartwheels and arrived at all kinds of bad conclusions.
“This is about last night,” I said. “The guy in white.”
“Sure is,” he said. “We need to debrief you, make sure you’re not compromised.”
“Let me guess. His Majesty decided he needed his own investigations unit into the supernatural. And you guys are all Old Guard.” My eyes flickered around the lounge and found all the right details. “Is there any chance we can push this back to next week?”
“It’s a pressing matter,” Greyhound said. “And it can’t wait. The ladies come with us, too. We’ll let Bull know that you’re in safe hands, don’t worry.”
They knew Bull. They knew the SIA.
And they’d known where to find us.
I was out of the loop. I hadn’t seen these guys waiting for us, and it hadn’t been for a lack of trying, either. They were just as professional and dangerous as Jasmine and I. Another layer of supernatural know-how definitely hurt my chances of surviving a fight with the men around us.
I was going to have words with our handler when I saw him next.
Where had these guys gotten their information? How had they tracked us?
And why were they treating us with such respect?
“What the hell,” I said. “I might learn something. Who doesn’t like a little inter-agency cooperation?”
Greyhound flashed his teeth at me.
“That’s the spirit, mate. We’ll cover your flights back. You have my word on it.”
“Jazz, Breeze. Looks like we’re taking a detour.”
“Are you sure about this?” Jasmine asked me in Russian.
I nodded.
“It looks like these guys know more than we do.”
The rest of the escort rose up to their feet with the easy patience of men who were used to waiting. My eyes flickered to the Gulfstream idling outside on the tarmac. I’d expected a flight back to Seattle, but it looked like we were headed into the belly of an unknown beast.
There were a couple of things going for us.
The British equivalent of the SIA knew who was tracking me.
I knew they wanted to get us to a secondary location and find out what we knew.
But that was a two-edged sword. I knew some of the OGI higher-ups.
I liked my chances of a mutually-beneficial operation in the near future.
Chapter 3
The former OGI operatives were professionals.
They got us into their own private jet with a bare minimum of fuss. Two men took the lead while the other four brought up the rear. I didn’t see a single firearm on any of them as they moved out into the wind and the rain. It was hard to miss the blades around their necks and hitched to their belts. They’d come here ready for a fight, and we’d met them with peace.
Greyhound got us comfortable on the cream-colored seats of the private jet.
I settled down across from him. The girls took their own little booth directly behind me and the others clustered around us in an irregular pattern. I knew the tactic. They’d positioned themselves so I couldn’t see any more than two of them at a time.
It gave them an edge in close quarters if things got messy.
I could practically feel Jasmine’s tension in the seat behind me.
She was ready to kill the second things didn’t go our way.
“My name’s Harrington,” Greyhound said. “Appreciate the compliance.”
“Think of it more as a shared interest,” I suggested.
Harrington’s eyes flickered to Breeze’s glare behind me.
“Shared interest, then,” he agreed. “It makes things easier for everyone.”
“You didn’t disarm us,” I noted. “Oversight or show of respect?”
The former soldier laughed.
“Mate, if you had weapons you’d have already used them against us. You travel light and you travel sterile. I know if you had your own jet you’d probably be strapped up to the ears about now, but we had to catch you at the right moment.”
“How’d you know I was alive?”
“Bull as good as admitted it to us. That and someone matching your description was seen talking to our friend in the pub. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. We figured that you were running an op for him and wanted to make sure we didn’t step on each other’s toes.”
“I’m retired.”
“So am I,” Harrington said with a smile. “Doesn’t count for much when the stakes get high, though, does it?”
I studied his guileless eyes for a long moment.
“I guess it doesn’t. Run me through our itinerary here. I’ve got shit to do.”
“We’ll land in less than an hour. From there we’ll have to separate you from the others and ask you some questions. It’s that simple, really. Like I said earlier, you’ll be well cared-for. We don’t want any grief with the SIA.”
Breeze frowned.
“Why take us in, then?”
“We’ve got a situation, and Mr. Brown here got mixed up in it.”
“You couldn’t call first?”
“The situation is time-sensitive, I’m afraid.”
“So you’re on a clock, and you need our help,” Jasmine said bluntly.
Harrington nodded.
“We need to know what you do.”
“We can shortcut this, then,” she replied. “We don’t know anything.”
“Orders from people who get paid more than me, miss.”
Harrington went quiet after that.
I killed the time by watching the swathes of ocean turn into English countryside. Silence usually drew conversation out of interrogation subjects. Jasmine may as well have been a gorgeous statue, but I could see Breeze shifting impatiently in her seat. She hadn’t been on the rougher side of a debriefing before. The questions she’d asked were honest and well-meaning.
But the trick was to say nothing at all if you didn’t want to incriminate yourself.
