Blue Moonlight (7 page)

What I didn’t realize at the time was that Clyne had other plans.

He wanted the flash drive for himself.

He was determined to get it, and to use it to start a new life somewhere else in a new country. It was his intention to flip the bird on the world—the world he’d built with his cheating wife and the cops—by going rogue. Problem is, the flash drive he took off with was said to contain not only information concerning the location of millions in unmarked euros and dollars stored in numerous Swiss accounts; it also revealed both the locations of misplaced Soviet-era nuclear warheads and sensitive US nuclear secrets that would be worth hundreds of millions to interested buyers. Not the Russians, necessarily, but the Iranians perhaps, maybe the North Koreans, and even the Pakistanis. Or maybe some unknown terrorist group who would like to get their hands on the information and use it to blow something up, like, say, New York City or Los Angeles.

So long as Clyne has that flash drive he’s considered one of the most wanted men in the world. Now so is my girlfriend’s new “old” squeeze, Agent Barter. Or so my new FBI friends tell me. I wonder if that technically makes Lola wanted also. Whatever the case, I’ve been trusted with infiltrating this new threesome, and with ultimately finding the flash drive.

An untrustworthy head case like me.

Makes total sense, doesn’t it?

When my beer is done, so is my shower. I’m drying off and anticipating some of the food the FBI has laid out for me and what, these days, has become a rare cigarette…when I hear the hotel room door open.

I also hear it shut, the deadbolt engage.

Gut instinct tells me to grab my automatic. But I’m totally naked and equally unarmed. I take a quick survey of the bathroom to see if there’s something I can use as a weapon. The closet thing I can find is a drinking glass.

I wrap the bath towel around my waist, and then pick up the drinking glass. I hold it in the palm of my hand like a rock, the thick, heavy bottom pointing out. Swallowing a breath, I open the bathroom door, step out.

She’s standing in the center of the floor, a dark brown leather bag slung over her shoulder. She’s not wearing her FBI Windbreaker right now. She’s wearing, instead, a black silk blouse that’s unbuttoned enough to reveal some cleavage and just a hint of a black lace bra. Victoria’s Secret maybe. Her miniskirt is also black and tight-fitting. The heels on her long black leather boots make her almost as tall as me. Shoulder-length hair parted neatly above her right temple, deep brown eyes, and
moist red lips make me want to take her into my arms, toss her onto the bed.

But I’m dressed in only a bath towel, and it’s all I can do not to keep from proving to her how glad I am to see her. But a quick peek down at the pup tent emerging from my midsection tells me I’m having little success controlling Mother Nature.

“I let myself in,” she says.

“We can see that,” I say.

She can’t help but work up a grin. “I hope these accommodations are to your liking.”

“Well beyond expectations. You’re trying to get on my good side.”

“We at the FBI wanted to prove we aren’t entirely uncivil when it comes to kidnapping in the name of national security.”

“Feel free to kidnap me anytime.”

She smiles and sets the bag onto the desk chair, takes notice of the food and the wine laid out there. Two long-stem drinking glasses came with the wine. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? The wine has been uncorked for breathing. I never noticed that, either.

“Well, Moonlight,” Agent Crockett says and sighs, “you gonna stand there in your bath towel or are you going to pour a girl a glass of wine?”

I make it two steps toward the bottle before I grab her hand and pull her into me. My towel comes off, drops to my feet. I’m standing at the end of the bed. Exposed. Both heads.

“My, my, Moonlight,” she says, staring me up and down. The look on her face is dead serious. Like she’s about to arrest me instead of seduce me. So much for professionalism.

I crawl onto the bed, pull her down beside me, begin unbuttoning her shirt. She closes her eyes, issues a slight moan, her chest heaving in and out.

“This is what I kept seeing in my head during our interview,” she whispers in my ear.

I cup her bra-covered breast with my right hand, pinch her erect nipple through the fabric.

“Sure this is a very good idea?” I whisper. “We’ve become coworkers.”

But it’s too late for that now as I have her shirt entirely unbuttoned, and I’m kissing the parts of her pert breasts that aren’t covered by her bra.

“I don’t care what the FBI thinks,” she moans. “You’re on
my
time now.”

I think about reminding her that just a few hours ago she ordered me cuffed and shackled to a metal table inside an FBI interrogation room, and that if I don’t produce Clyne’s flash drive for her, she will have me arrested. But then, who wants to talk shop at a time like this?

I kiss her on the mouth.

“Lights on or off?” she poses, coming up for air.

“Does it matter?” I answer.

We leave the lights on.

Later on we’re eating shrimp and drinking wine in bed. Or Agent Crockett is drinking wine and I’m having another beer. I attempt to light a cigarette but immediately reconsider when she shoots me this tight-as-a-tick expression with her official agent face.

“Don’t even think about it, Moonlight.”

What happened to Dick?

Clearly our little tryst was just that. Little. But it’s quality not quantity that counts in these matters. And Vanessa Crockett showed some skills, let me tell you.

Pulling her shirt back on, along with her panties, Agent Crockett reappears for me by getting back down to all business. Set by the bed is the leather shoulder bag she brought into the room with her earlier. She hoists up the bag, opens it, and pulls out one of those sleek, slick, super-thin new Mac laptops that I can’t even begin to afford. Next she pulls out a passport, a wallet filled with credit cards and cash. Both euros and dollars. Clearly the FBI seems to have covered their bases.

I open the passport, glance at the photo. It’s me from my days as a cop. How the FBI acquired it I have no idea. But then, I’m not surprised they acquired it either.

“We have a source who tells us that your ex-significant other shows up now and again at a bar located not far from the Santa Maria Novella piazza.” Now clicking on a map of Florence and enhancing so we get a real-time satellite view of the very square she’s talking about. “Right there,” she adds, using her index finger as a pointer. “Establishment called Harry’s Bar. Right on the river.”

“I know it. Hemingway used to drink at the one up in Venice.”

“Florence is small and very walkable, if you recall.”

I do recall. You can walk from one end to the other in fifteen minutes.

“You want me to have a few drinks at Harry’s, I take it. Find a way to reintroduce myself to Lola.”

She nods.

“That would be the strategy. Let’s hope she’s willing to trust you enough with the location of the flash drive.”

“What if she figures out immediately that I’m working for the cops, and splits?”

“Then job over. We’ll fly you right back. But…”

It’s one of those dangling
Buts…

“But we don’t believe that will happen. We believe that, given the chance to make her escape, she’ll want to accompany you out of the country. We have a ticket waiting for her. Just make sure she has her passport. Interpol has been alerted, and she will be allowed through airport security without a hitch.”

“Gotcha. But what if the flash drive isn’t so readily available?”

“Listen, if it’s hidden inside a safety deposit box in a local bank, we want to know. If it’s hidden inside a vault, we want to know the combination or, at the very least, a verifiable location. But if it’s located inside a sock in Clyne’s underwear drawer,
we want you to find a way to get in and steal it. The point, Moonlight, is to convince Lola to reveal what she knows.”

“I’ll seduce her with my charm and good looks.” Moonlight the confident.

“Watch yourself,” she warns. “One danger will be your falling back in love with your ex. You must maintain enough focus and control to get the job done. Keep that brain of yours clear.”

I’ve never fallen out of love.

“And when it’s over? You won’t prosecute Lola?”

“We have no reason to charge her with anything as of yet, especially if she cooperates with you. But we will need to interview her at length.”

I think about what she’s telling me. Think about how easy it will be to fall under the spell of the woman I once loved and still love a little too much. Could be that by entering into the FBI’s little arrangement, I will be setting myself up for another fall. As Agent Crockett says, I’ll just have to try my best to stay focused.

“One question: Why haven’t you already picked up Clyne or Barter if you know where they’re hiding out?”

Shaking her head.

“Can’t take the chance that they’ll destroy the flash drive. Far as we know, it’s the only one in existence—though, of course, who knows how many times they’ve copied it. If they have, we’ll have to deal with that when the time comes. We also don’t know whom they’ve been in contact with since Barter came aboard, and whom they might lead us to. So our policy since we’ve located them has been to observe first and act later.” Her hand on my thigh. “Now we have you and now we can act.”

Sliding off the bed, she stands, slips into her skirt, and fixes it around her narrow waist.

I slide off the bed, wrap an arm around her, move in for a kiss. But she pushes me away.

“Fun’s over, Romeo,” she says. “You have homework to do. There are more items inside that bag that you’ll need for the assignment. Go through it all and call me if you have any questions. I’ll be available to you day and night. But call only if it’s of the utmost importance. Got it? We don’t want to risk a communications interception. My number is on the preset speed-dial list on the BlackBerry we included inside the bag.”

Now fully dressed, she goes for the door. Before opening it, she turns back to me.

“Good luck, Moonlight. And be careful. Clyne and company have their fingers on some serious death and destruction. No telling what they’re capable of when it comes to protecting it.”

She lets herself out.

I step on over to the door, lock the deadbolt.

I sit on the bed, naked, and smoke.

Not that I smoke a lot these days. The constriction of the blood vessels it causes inside my brain is not the safest thing in the world when you have a piece of .22 caliber hollow-point residing directly beside your cerebral cortex.

I should just quit outright.

But for some reason, I can’t get myself to let go. As crazy as it seems, it’s like letting go of the memory of Lola.

I set the laptop on my lap, feel the warmth from the processor against my bare thighs. I scroll through the photos of Clyne that are stored inside the Flickr account. Instead of the slightly overweight, whiskey-soaked, trench-coated APD detective, what we have now is a trim, concave-jawed, dressed-all-in-black phantom. In most of the shots, he’s wearing narrow-framed sunglasses that succeed in hiding those sad eyes. Black turtleneck sweater, dark trousers, black jacket. Dressed just like I imagined a man to be hiding from international law to be dressed. In the shots, he’s seated at a table in an outdoor café, sipping a cappuccino, a newspaper in his hands. Trim beard and shorter-than-short cropped hair on his head, both of which have been dyed black.