Ice Woman Assignment (2 page)

After a moment's silence, the boy croaked out “I need the ice, man. You can't get it in prison. I'd have died anyway, without the ice.”

Morgan kneeled up straighter, his nostrils flaring. He remembered that odor from younger mercenaries he had worked with: the sharp, stagnant smell of the speed freak.

“Drugs,” he muttered. Before standing, he reached into the kid's pocket, pulling out a plastic bag. Its contents looked to Morgan like lumps of rock candy, like his grandmother used to give him.

“Ice,” Barton said. “That's the drug I was telling you about. Maybe now you'll reconsider the job.” He turned to Felicity. At six feet tall, he only had an inch or two on her.
He slipped a hand around her waist and looked her almost directly in the eye. “Well my buxom lass, will you and Morgan be able to help us get these drugs off the streets?”

Felicity looked at the boy. Then she glanced at her well-muscled partner, who gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“Make an appointment and we'll talk,” she said.

“So, what do you think?” Felicity asked, pulling out of the underground parking garage of the Manhattan Beach building that housed Stark and O'Brien's offices.

“I think this'll be the most boring briefing in the history of talking,” Morgan said, turning on the radio. “Still, we need the facts to decide if we want to get involved.”

“You know, I just keep seeing that kid's eyes.” She eased into traffic and took her position among the luxury vehicles that clogged the street. She drove her Jaguar XKE, in an attempt to at least enjoy the drive. Like all her customized sports cars, it was jet black with an emerald interior that matched her eyes. She pushed it onto Route 405 and opened it up. The car was not new, but time's passing had no effect on the V-12 engine's incredible smoothness.

“Funny, my mind keeps going back to those poor FBI boys trying to crash the house,” Morgan said, raising his voice over the throaty roar of the engine. “Those guys aren't anywhere near ready to fight these people. I mean, they're in the dark ages.”

“You saying the FBI isn't up to dealing with a pack of children hustling drugs?” Felicity asked. She frowned as the predictable glut of traffic forced her to cut her speed in half.

“I'm saying Al Capone didn't have this kind of armament, and his boys weren't all hopped up on drugs, you know?” He stared out the window, watching the city
fly past. It kept on changing, like a living thing. Freeways no longer got you around seeing the parts of town where the living happened. South Central Los Angeles had become downtown.

Their meeting place was a nondescript hotel hidden in L.A.'s central business district. Neither of them had ever heard of it. From habit, Felicity drove past it and around the block. They trusted FBI security measures about as well as they trusted IRS auditors.

Felicity parked a block away from the hotel in a small parking garage. Once they reached the sidewalk, they saw Barton in the hotel doorway. He glanced at them and gave a slight nod. Barton free-lanced for years before joining the agency. If he checked the area, it was probably okay.

Felicity and Morgan walked at a moderate pace toward the hotel, all the time scanning the area. They saw no loiterers or anyone out of place. But just before they reached the door, Morgan spun around, his right hand moving halfway to his holster. It was not a danger warning, really, but something pulled his attention.

A long Mercedes limousine pulled past them, just a bit too slowly. It had frosted windows, but a back one powered down an inch or two as the car slid past. All Morgan saw was a pair of silver eyes. Then it was gone.

“What?” Felicity asked.

“Nothing. Trick of the light.”

Barton led them out of the elevator and down the hall. They stopped at the door to a suite. Felicity was surprised this hotel even had suites. Barton took a deep breath, exasperated in advance.

“Now, do you suppose you two could go in here and just listen a while? I mean, you don't have to piss these guys off.”

“Well, yeah, we probably do,” Morgan said. Inside, two
grim faced men greeted them, rising from straight chairs around a small table. Felicity smiled at them, while placing her attaché case on the table. She and Morgan both wore tailored navy blue business suits, while everyone else in the room had on gray suits, clearly off the rack, and most likely the same rack.

“This is Mister Alvarez, representing the Drug Enforcement Agency,” Barton said, indicating the stocky Hispanic man. “This gentleman is Mister Conrad, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” The tall balding man with big ears nodded. “I'm here to represent the Agency. Gentlemen, this is…”

“Not yet,” Felicity said. Morgan pulled a device no bigger than a television remote control from Felicity's case and started scanning the room.

“The room's been swept already,” Conrad said.

“Not by us,” Felicity said, still smiling and controlling her reaction to the federal agent's terse comment. “Our equipment is a little more sophisticated than what you use. Yours isn't the best on the passive devices.” Barton looked embarrassed, but Morgan finished in two minutes.

“All clear,” he said, putting his listener detection device away. “I'm Morgan Stark.” Morgan shook hands with both strangers. “The lady is Felicity O'Brien. Chuck tells us you guys can use some help, so we're here to listen. What can we do for you?”

“You can help with some street surveillance,” Alvarez said, stepping to the bar. “Want a drink?”

“No thanks,” Felicity said. “What we want is to know what your problem is.” She sat on the sofa, hoping no one would notice her nose wrinkling. This had been a room for smokers, and the odor seemed to puff up out of the cushions when she sat. Morgan continued to stand.

“The problem, as always, is drugs,” Alvarez said. “We have a new thing taking over the streets.”

“This stuff called ice?” Felicity asked, leaning forward to protect her clothes. “So what is it? I thought crack was the latest thing in suicide.”

“You're behind the times,” Barton said. “Crack is yesterday's news. This stuff's a lot worse. It's really a form of methamphetamine.”

“What, like crystal meth?” Morgan asked. “Okay, so it's speed. I met that stuff in the Far East. Guys used the stuff to stay alert. What's so dangerous about that?”

“What is so dangerous, Mister Stark, is that this is in a purified crystal form,” Alvarez said. “Technically it's not the same thing. It's a different but related chemical called 4-Methylaminorex. It has effects comparable to methamphetamine but with a much longer duration. Sometimes on the street they call it euphoria, spelled U4Euh. It looks like crack and it smokes like crack but it's not cocaine. Crack might keep you high for half an hour. This stuff can keep you flying for twelve, fourteen hours.”

“Can't be,” Morgan said.

“Don't kid yourself,” Conrad said, speaking for the first time. “This stuff's synthetic and what we've found on the street is unbelievably pure.”

“It must be serious stuff to convince the FBI, DEA and CIA to work together,” Morgan said. “Where's the stuff coming from?”

“Originally from the Philippines, Korea, and Hong Kong,” Conrad said. “It made a big hit in Hawaii. Now it's all over the West Coast. We believe the operation's been taken over almost completely by a Colombian organization.”

“There's news,” Morgan said, rolling his eyes. “Drugs from Colombia. So? You want us to drive down to Medellin and bring in a drug lord for you?”

“You don't seem to take this very seriously,” Alvarez said, a little louder than necessary. “There's more than five
hundred people every month getting turned on to this stuff, and they might not matter to you, but…”

“Easy,” Felicity said, maintaining her smile. “I think you misunderstood my partner's meaning, although we do want to maintain a realistic view here, right? After all, I doubt all those people using this ice are being force fed it. Let's agree that all these victims won't be asking for a drug enforcement effort, or be too willing to help us out with getting the drugs off the street. However, I think what Morgan meant was, what is it that you need from us? We're not the police; we deal with security matters.”

“The point is,” Barton said, “I thought you guys might have the connections to find out who the distributors are at this end. Your record indicates you're very good at getting information. We don't want you to take any real risk, just help us find out how this stuff's getting distributed.”

“Your people on the street can't find these boys?” Felicity asked.

“You don't know about the organization pushing these drugs up from Colombia,” Alvarez said. “They are called the Escorpionistas, and they demand incredible loyalty. Like the Yakuza in Japan, or the Triads out of Hong Kong, these people defend their security with their lives. We've been at them for a couple of years but we just can't break in.”

“You don't know enough about them,” Morgan said.

“You're right,” Conrad said, “but we know a little about you two.” He picked up a brochure from the small table. Its glossy cover said “Stark & O'Brien, Security and Risk Management Services.”

“Pretty complete services,” Conrad continued, opening the pamphlet. “VIP close protection, surveillance, counter-terrorism, hotel and corporate security, conference guards, even security training according to this. And your rep supports it all. Barton convinced me you might have a
chance at finding something out. But we wanted to meet you before we agreed to bring you in.”

“Barton also told us a little about the events involving the ill-fated Piranha project,” Alvarez added. “It looks like you can work with the government, and the bad guys don't spot you as good guys. Perhaps you can get us a name. Just a starting point to track back to the woman at the top of this organization.”

Felicity looked up, her interest piqued. “Woman?”

“Anaconda,” Barton said. “And that's all you get until you say yes or no.”

“I'm just too damned dedicated to the cause,” Barton thought, feeling sand slide down into his shoes. A warm desert breeze flapped back his blazer, flashing his waist holster.

He had not told Alvarez or Conrad that he had been Felicity's lover since the Piranha affair. When in Los Angeles, he spent nights at her penthouse apartment. Most times he could count on a leisurely morning in bed with her. However, this morning she had dragged him out early. They had picked up Morgan and his friend at Morgan's apartment. Felicity had let Barton take her Nissan 350ZX after dropping them off and sent him back to the hotel room the CIA was paying for. She wanted Anaconda's dossier before noon, and she planned too spend the morning in the air.

Sand whipped across his cheeks. He tried to ignore his stinging eyes and focus on his goal, a blanket on the edge of the flat basin he trekked across. A stone at each corner pinned the wide, Indian print affair down. A slender, beautiful, black woman held down its center.

“Bonjour, Chuck,” Claudette Christophe said, flashing impossibly white teeth. Her black jeans and white tee shirt accented her long model's legs and small but perfect breasts. She waved him down beside her, picked up a large jug and poured him a glass of iced tea. As she leaned in to hand him the drink he picked up the scent of her perfume which, to him, just smelled expensive.

“My name sounds funny in that Haitian accent of yours, Claudette,” Barton said, sitting. “I'll bet living in Paris you only meet guys named `Sharles'.”

“Yes, and one `Chuck' is enough for me.” She handed him a pair of binoculars and pointed over his shoulder at the sky. “Look. There they are.” Chuck turned and focused on a slow moving dot arcing across the vast blue field. A bank of cotton ball clouds rolled like tumbleweeds away from the dot. Claudette frowned, and then picked up what looked like a large walkie-talkie.

“Chuck just arrived,” she said.

“Good,” Morgan's voice answered. “He can gather Felicity's pieces while you get mine. We're going to make one more circle, then we'll be right down.”

“You know,” Barton said, leaning back on his elbows, “She didn't tell me why they were out here. I take it he's teaching her how to skydive.”

“Oh, she already does,” Claudette replied, reaching out to brush some sand out of his brown, curly hair. “Says in her jewel thief days she sometimes got on roofs that way. What he's teaching her is how to make HALO jumps.”

“As in High Altitude, Low Opening?”

“Yes.” Claudette followed the dot as it arced lazily across the sky. “The poor girl gets bored so easily.”

“I know,” Barton said. “I might have brought a cure for that. How high are they?”

“He said a little over eight hundred meters. Is it not…windy for this?” Did Barton hear a slight waver in her voice?

“I wouldn't worry,” he said, focusing his binoculars on the distant plane. “Morgan was a professional mercenary for years, like me before The Company hooked me. He's probably done this dozens of times.”

“Still it is far. It is sand. And for people who go looking for danger, sometimes things happen.”

Barton looked away from the plane. “You really love him, don't you?”

“There they go.”

Barton looked back. He had missed their exit from the plane. Now he watched two forms dropping spread-eagled toward the Southern California desert. Soon he could distinguish which one was the female shape. He could see Felicity's long hair trailing her like a flag. The wind pressed her jumpsuit against her, as tight as the shrink wrap on a new toy. Her defiant breasts thrust toward the ground. Then she flipped to the side, unexpectedly. Her arms flailed. She seemed out of control.