Frank's Independence Day (The Night Stalkers) (2 page)

Chapter 3

Beatrice: 1988

United States Secret Service
Agent Beatrice Ann Belfour looked over at the kid sitting in her BMW’s passenger seat. She was only three years older than he was, but she couldn’t help thinking of him as a kid. A young street punk. But not just a young street punk. If he had been, he’d be locked in the back of the blue-and-white cruiser of the NYPD at this very moment.

Beatrice had only been an agent of the Secret Service for a year. And only authorized to enter the field and carry a weapon since last week. Good timing. She rubbed her palm against the steering wheel, thankful for the absorbent leopard-spotted steering wheel cover that her little niece had insisted she purchase. Beatrice’s hands were not steady, but she certainly couldn’t show that to this kid.

She should have just turned him over, but there’d been indicators that intrigued her. And a significant portion of her training had been learning to trust her instincts. Her problem, she was often told, was that her instincts were also crazy stupid, but that wasn’t any news to her.

He hadn’t flinched when she’d pulled her weapon, hadn’t even dropped the knife he thought was so carefully tucked out of sight. That showed a steadiness of nerves. He’d worked up a carjacking scam with the guys sitting on the hood and trunk acting as both spotters and deterrents. That was a scenario that she hadn’t been briefed on in training. Similar yes, but not the same. It was a good twist. He’d even trained them to run at trouble to minimize losses, which made him a team player as well as a good leader. Clearly all of this was his idea. Even the attention to detail as he dropped the wiper blade back into place, despite the distraction of the muzzle of her S&W 66 staring him between the eyes, spoke to his ability to remain focused under stress.

Even most junior agents didn’t do as well in practice scenarios and for this guy, it had been live.

“If you can make your hands work,” she’d bet they were shaking like Gene Wilder in
Blazing Saddles
when he was needing a drink. “You can put that knife and any other hardware you’re carrying into the glove compartment. They won’t like you carrying where we’re going.”

“Only have the knife.” His voice was deep and resonant as befit someone with a chest his size. She guessed six-two, two-ten or two-hundred-and-twenty pounds, and none of it fat.

No gun. Maybe he couldn’t afford it, which seemed unlikely in the neighborhood she’d found him in. You’d think a woman would be safe driving down a New York street six lanes wide, bright under the lights. He probably didn’t carry because he knew penalties went way up if something went wrong and he was picked up packing a firearm.

He held the knife up for her to see, his hand didn’t shake much at all, less than hers would be if she took them off the wheel. Not a switchblade, nor a spring-load, but it had a heavy blade she’d bet he could flick open one-handed. Again, legal. Not by a lot, but it would pass for a standard pocket knife under the New York criminal code. She’d bet no one else on his crew was carrying even that. He ran his team as clean and legally deniable as possible.

He popped the glove box with the back of his thumb and wiped the knife on his pants before dropping it in and knocking the little door closed with his knee. No gloves, which would have stood out on the mid-summer night, so he was limiting where he left fingerprints. She made a bet with herself that he’d use a shirttail to wipe the seatbelt buckle and the door handle as he exited the car.

This kid was careful. Which reaffirmed her first instincts.

At this time of night she made it all the way downtown in under twenty minutes and the guy didn’t say a word. Halfway there, she’d asked his name.

“Frank.”

No last name offered. He didn’t look nervy, again just being careful.

She flew down to 7 World Trade Center and whipped into the downward-spiraling ramp of the underground parking garage with a bright squeal of tires. Her parents had given her the car as a make-up present when she’d been named a field agent last week. She’d retired the very old gray Honda, probably only days before its final collapse. She’d named it Witherspoon, for what she thought Michael Caine might have called his Aston Martin in
The Italian Job.
She was thinking of naming her new BMW Jean Claude, after Van Damme’s kicking performance in
Bloodsport
. But that had only been released a few months ago and didn’t have the classic feel of the 1969 heist movie. She’d find its name eventually.

Her parents felt that a federal job was beneath their only daughter. They’d worked hard to get out of the same poor-ass neighborhood where she’d just found Frank. That their daughter hadn’t taken her Columbia University education to become a doctor or lawyer, or at least marry one, had made them more than a little bit crazy. After a year of simultaneously completing her Secret Service training and managing to finish her degree in criminal law, they’d felt contrite and given her the Beemer. She wasn’t any less pissed at them for all the hassle they’d dished out over the last year, but she did love this car.

It practically stood on its nose when she hammered the brakes at the control booth of the restricted section of the underground parking. She lowered the window.

“Hi Beatrice,” Harry popped the button inside his booth to raise the steel gate and lower the tire punchers into the pavement surface. “Knew it was you when I heard the wheels hit the upper ramp.”

She flashed her ID at him for form’s sake. Added a grin of thanks and goosed the gas, spinning down two more layers to her assigned spot.

Beatrice kept an eye out as the kid climbed out of the car. Sure enough, Frank applied his shirttail to belt buckle and both the inside and outside door handles.

# # #

“Any record?”

Frank didn’t “huh” this lady as he tucked his shirt back in as smoothly as he could. Didn’t pretend to not understand. He looked at her over the top of her car, kinda surprised at how far down he had to look. She’d seemed so damn big with the fancy car, the shiny damn gun, and the total lack of fear. She couldn’t stand more than five-seven or eight, but there was no question which of them was holding the power at the moment.

And he didn’t like that it was her. Not one lousy little bit.

He shook his head. No record, no time, no juvie.

“Not even detention, much.”

He’d been top twenty at the high school, which only said he wasn’t as out-and-out lazy as everyone else there. College hadn’t been all that high on anyone’s to-do list in his class. He’d had some idea that the chop shops might eventually pay him enough to hit Columbia or City University, but he’d never figured that as real likely.

The “no detention” line got a laugh he hadn’t expected, and he had to reassess her again. Bright white teeth, and hair as dark and shining as those eyes. The smile also made her look younger than the thirty he’d originally tagged her with. Low twenties. He moseyed around the rear of the car and tried to make no big deal out of checking her up and down.

Red Converse sneakers and faded jeans that showed hard use and good quality. Certainly not Goodwill or Woolworths. High-necked yellow blouse. Black leather vest, dressy kind that wasn’t for warmth, but instead for looks… and hiding damn big guns. The combo promised a slender waist and a serious enough chest that the gun in the shoulder holster didn’t show much under the soft leather. If he didn’t know it was there, he might not have thought anything out of place. And a whole lot of things were in the right place on this woman.

“Do I pass?”

He went for a safe shrug. Okay, so he hadn’t pulled off much in the way of smooth, but she was a woman who deserved a long look.

“Turn around.” She didn’t make it a request.

He narrowed his eyes at her and she twirled a finger. Well, he knew that his looks didn’t leave him nothing to worry about in that department. He and his boys worked out together every day ’cause there sure wasn’t shit else to do in the projects, and he’d received more than his fair share of fine benefits from the ladies to keep him working the iron.

“Describe what I’m wearing.”

Some kinda test. So, he stared at the row of cars parked across the way, lined up neat as bowling pins. They were all driven by skilled drivers like her, each car slid into its spot sweet and straight. This wasn’t no office-bozo kinda parking. The garage was all pretty quiet on this side of that security gate up there. Not much in the way of traffic. ’Course it was one in the morning on July Fourth. The place smelled of garage, oil, fuel, and rubber. Where the hell was he?

So, he described her. Got into it. She’d left a damn clear impression. She didn’t stop him after her clothing, so he got into her high cheekbones and full lips, her black hair, long, straight but threatening to curl madly,
and the thin gold chain around her neck with no ornament dangling on
it. And she didn’t need anything more to look seriously fine. No rings or bracelets and...

He spotted a reflected motion on the flat rear glass of a Ford Bronco parked across the way.

Her reflection pulling out that damn big gun.

He dove for the ground and rolled between a couple of cars.

Sweat poured off him even as he regained his feet in a low squat and began thinking on the best direction to run. Blown away in a parking gara—

That laugh again. It stopped him cold.

She wandered around the car until she was facing him, hands empty. Out where he could see them plainly. Did nothin’ to calm his nerves.

“You recall what you see accurately, are exceptionally aware of your surroundings, and have good reaction time.”

“Which means what?” He managed to make it come out more as an angry shout he meant than the choked squeak he was feeling. He stood slowly, his heart still pounding against his ears.

“Which means I was right. Let’s go.”

She walked off toward the steel-faced garage elevator set in an unadorned concrete wall. He glared at the low pipes wandering along the garage ceiling, but finding no kinda clue up there, he followed her.

# # #

Beatrice pressed the button that brought the elevator down, but didn’t say a word. She stayed quiet to let Frank stew in his own juices. He stalked into the elevator like a grizzly bear who’d just crawled out of its den and found no food anywhere. Seriously grumpy. She keyed in the lock code to take them up to the seventh floor.

“You like being right.” Frank didn’t make it a question and he didn’t waste time asking her where they were going.

Beatrice had to grant that the kid had the patience to figure out that
he’d find that out soon enough. And also enough smarts to know that she wasn’t likely to tell him before then.

“Damn straight!” She loved the feeling. “Being right is fun. It’s one
of my favorite things. And if I were blond and could sing, I’d be Julie
Andrews.”

His look told her that his education in movies needed some serious fixing up.

For the life of her she couldn’t figure out why she so enjoyed messing with this kid.

Kid. He was seven inches taller than she was with a workout chest big enough that he made the elevator feel small. Nor had she missed how fine a form he had when he’d turned away from her. That she’d even noticed was interesting in itself, but she absolutely wasn’t going to think about that.

The door opened and they stepped into the inner building’s lower entrance foyer, the one which lay seven stories above the front-entrance street-level signs for brokerages and banks that filled the bulk of 7 World Trade Center, New York, New York.

Frank grunted when he saw the sign above the desk. But no more than that. Steel letters on dark wood: United States Secret Service. She remembered the feeling the first time she’d seen this sign, as if the world had just become a great deal more serious. Of course that had been on her new recruit tour, she’d known what building she was in. She gauged Frank’s reaction. “Adapts rapidly to changing situations,” was added to her initial assessment.

He eyed her sideways for a moment, then nodded to himself as if she finally made sense in his world. Of course a Secret Service agent would outsmart a simple carjacking scheme.

She’d spent the last year training in driving, weapons, investigations, research, and a dozen other skills. She’d also been trained in unarmed combat and wanted to see how Frank Adams did. It was stupid to take on an unknown street fighter twice her size, which made it just her style.

She signed in at the desk and signaled one of the guys to come out and pat Frank down, which he submitted to but clearly didn’t like.

“Escort him through. Find him some sweats.” She glanced down. His feet were as big as the rest of him and there probably weren’t any loaners that size. “Barefoot is fine.”

She turned and headed into the women’s locker room to change. She considered handing him to someone else for testing, which is exactly why she didn’t. Her instructors were always telling her she was much too impulsive, too quick to leap into the fray. But one of the old-timers, one who actually used to ride on President Ford’s protection detail, the only PPD agent she’d met so far, told her never to stop doing that. From then on she ignored all instructions to back off and had graduated top of her class. Maybe it was part of some test to see if she’d comply. She hadn’t.

She wandered into the gym. They told her it was nothing as nice as the one in D.C., but it worked fine for her. A row of weight machines down one side and a gray foam mat that covered the rest of the floor. She knew from experience that it wasn’t as soft as it looked.

When Frank arrived, he looked amazing. The black t-shirt with large white U.S.S.S. stretched tight across his chest and showed actual six-pack abs. Black gym shorts revealed legs that rippled with muscle. She could feel the heat rising through her body, so she turned away and led him onto an open corner of the mat.

He tried to turn so that it was his back facing the wall, rather than hers, but she didn’t let him. It left him watching the other agents over his shoulder, keeping an eye on them. There were only a couple working out. Things were quiet on July Fourth night, these few were probably just killing time before their shift started. She knew one of them well enough to wave, but that was all.