Sabotage: Beginnings (22 page)

She rolled her eyes. “Seems you’ve caused a disturbance.”

Ben pressed his right index finger against pursed lips. “No, seems you have caused the disturbance, Margaret. I’m only here for a massage.”

“What’s your name?” she barked with a stony expression that hid fear more than it illustrated confidence.

Ben relaxed his shoulders and set his hip to support this left hand. His right index finger swished back and forth between his mouth, temple and twirled circles in the air.

“You don’t really want to be here do you, Margaret? You’re not the spa manager—you’re too old and frumpy.” Ben scanned her from tip to toe. “You’re the floor security manager. Probably the assistant manager at best. You’re divorced and detached from your ungrateful kids. You’re fucking one of these two ex-cops, so they both decided to play high school hero and defend you from this little old sissy boy. Am I right?”

“Well, I never,” she huffed as she looked desperately for someplace safe to go. She glanced right.

“Marco. I knew it.” Ben laughed at the man’s polyester red jacket. “She a good screw?”

He never looked Marco in the face though—like avoiding confrontation with an animal—you never looked in their eyes. Marco’s hands remained glued together across his round gut while his thumbs twiddled without purpose, and his expression hardened like tinted glass.

“Mister, what is your name?” Margaret asked.

“Isn’t that curious? You’ve pouted all the way over here to help me with my problem but you don’t know my name. How can you help someone when you don’t know whom you’re dealing with? I know you’re name. I know your pathetic life story, Margaret.”

Marco stepped forward. “I’ve had enough of your smart trap.”

Ben ignored him, focused coldly on her. “Get the masseuse I requested and paid for. And take these clowns as you depart,” he sassed with a flip of his wrist.

“You’re coming with me. I’m gonna teach you a lesson about how to talk to a lady.” Marco stepped forward.

Margaret stepped between them. The slightest smirk rested upon her lips. A glimmer of life appeared in her long dull eyes.

“Excuse me, baby. He’s gone too far. We don’t need his kind at this establishment,” Marco insisted.

Ben felt his dick getting hard and knew in just a robe, it would make an appearance. He pressed his palm across his front. His ears pounded with the flood of adrenaline that pulsed through him—almost giddy.

“Please, Margaret, allow Marco to flex his big muscles,” Ben taunted as he rolled back a sleeve to flex his own reed-thin arm. “Maybe Marco can give me a massage.” Ben winked.

Marco jabbed out a long arm. His meaty paw clamped Ben by his left bicep. It surprised Ben—Marco was quick. Margaret patted Marco’s sleeve and looked up to the security camera with an expression of false despair.

“Maybe you should leave,” she said to Ben.

“I’m a registered guest and I will not be made to vacate my room.”

Marco jerked up and Ben rose to his tiptoes. “How’s about you and me take a walk? We can discuss your guest status.”

Margaret giggled. The other guard looked bored.

Ben eased back onto two feet. He brushed his hair into the slicked-back style he’d sported since returning from gunshot rehabilitation in Argentina. He nibbled on his pinky and flicked his tongue along the finger to its knuckle.

“Sure, big boy,” Ben said with a wink.

“Oh no, that’s enough from you.” He yanked Ben off balance. “Lets go.”

“Bye, bitch.” Margaret cursed him with a veiled middle finger.

The two men hurried through the lobby until they reached the elevator. The classical music reminded Ben decompressing after a kill. He ignored that sound—he had other plans.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Marco snapped.

Ben glared across the car and saw his erect dick in the elevator’s mirror. He chuckled. “I always get frisky before a meal.”

Marco grabbed the front of Ben’s robe in a fist and pulled him toward him. He shook Ben like a rag doll and lifted his other fist against Ben’s nose.

“This is all you’re going to eat.”

Another short jaunt down the hall and Marco forced Ben to unlock his door. His flat palm strike at Ben’s solar plexus sent him stumbling into the suite’s foyer. Ben reached to steady himself against the deep dresser drawer.

Ben remained hunched over while he caught his breath. He’d toyed with Marco long enough. It was time for the idiot brute to leave. He had a date with the cab caller after all. He sucked in one, two and another deep breath that had been cracked out of him by Marco’s whack.

“You expecting company?” Marco asked in a different tone of voice.

Ben’s eyes jutted to the condom on the nightstand. “Yeah, why?”

“I though it was for me.”

Ben heard Marco grunt like a bull before he felt his powerful fist smash into his spine. The impact was vicious. Ben’s brain short-circuited. He blacked out.

His wrists were numb. Ben tried to clear his vision, but the blow must’ve caused a concussion. Pain radiated deep in his spine and skull. He peeked to the right to see the sun had begun to set. He tried to push up but he couldn’t move.

“Thought you’d never wake up.” Marco huffed.

Ben rocked his shoulders. “Why are my hands tied?”

He tried to push up from his knees, but Marco slapped a giant hand across his shoulder. He drilled both of Ben’s knees into the paisley patterned carpet. Ben struggled. He sucked in a huge gulp of air and craned his neck to cry out for help. The rough cotton bath towel was smothering and pried his lips apart. Marco swished Ben’s head back and forth until the material was tried tight behind his skull. It was all Ben could do to breath through his nose.

“You ready?” Marco taunted with a hint of the devil in his question.

Ben flattened his head against the rumpled bed sheet. He glanced over. There it was—the torn and empty condom wrapper.

*     *     *

“Daddy.”

“Why are you calling me?”

“I need help.”

“What have you done now?”

“I made a mess.”

“What fucked up country are you in now?”

“Las Vegas.”

S
he drew two
sips from the oversized coffee mug. It was chilly even on the sun-lit patio outside Jane’s Coffee House. Her ungloved hands gripped the piping hot container as the steaming aroma seduced her into another sip. It was cozy once she tucked her fleece turtleneck beneath her angular chin. Her crocheted beanie tugged across the rim of her simple sunglasses.

Northern Virginia, more particularly Langley, was alive with brisk activity on this November afternoon. Jane’s was bustling as usual and the on-the-go crowd seldom hesitated for pleasantries. Too much on too many minds for the simple things.

Unfortunately for Robert Boyd, the pretty, light-eyed female who nodded with a flirtatious grin wasn’t so simple. And he, the break-every-rule-to-get-ahead employee, appeared too caught up in his crinkled copy of the
Washington Post
to care.

Batya tucked a curly tuft of auburn hair beneath her ear and snugged the colorful scarf around her neck. The cold wind kicked up and reminded her this wasn’t south Louisiana. She sipped from the brightly painted ceramic mug three times as Boyd strutted past. Not that Batya was thirsty, but three sips was the confirmation signal that she’d positively identified him.

Not an easy mark to make. Boyd was nothing special at his average five-feet-seven inches. His thinning mousey-brown hair hung too long over the back of his jacket collar. Expensive designer sunshades made him look like a cross between a Saturday fishing channel guest and a miniature Terminator. Basically, other than the high-level position he’d sucked ass to secure with the CIA, he was absolutely unremarkable in every way.

A horn beeped twice from an idling motorcycle across the street. The brick path made for a quaint downtown vibe. If this had been the 1980s, the area would have been labeled a yuppie hangout. Instead, the occupying force of federal employees from down the street mainly frequented it. That fact didn’t concern Batya—the real CIA spooks were deployed across the globe, while administrative staffers and desk-jockey wannabes tried to impress each other at happy hour with low-level credentials and contrived adventures.

Boyd looked left then right, took another gulp from his Styrofoam cup, then plopped into the leather seat of his paint-faded Volvo XC90 SUV. The dated high-end vehicle belched to life with a patch of black fog coughed from the exhaust.

He’s not very spy like
, Batya thought.

Left blinker activated, Boyd crept into the easy flow of meandering traffic heading west. Batya snuck a five-dollar bill beneath the weight of the mug. She dipped her face at the passing Harley Davidson Road King as she hurried across the painted curb toward the rented white panel van.

The van vibrated as the ignition charged it into action. Her eyes remained on the motorcyclist down the road. A bright yellow safety swatch across the back of the biker’s jacket allowed Batya to spot it easily and remain a safe distance behind it and Boyd.

She wasn’t crazy about Justice’s new passion for motorcycles, but she understood their association with the Savage Souls’ outlaw club was the best way to disappear from the CIA’s grid. They’d also aligned themselves with an unholy host of military combat vets.

The Volvo and Hog hesitated at a four-way stop. Batya chewed at a fingernail—had they been made? This was an intuition operation based on a loosely formed plan. Neither one used electronic communications to signal their surveillance tactics. They were both experts at in-the-field improv, but this was Langley after all. And while Boyd was a half-ass at best, much craftier men were involved and had a stake that couldn’t allow for failure.

The road looked abandoned with only new home construction on each corner of the intersection. The bike’s brake light popped bright three times. Batya nodded though she knew he wouldn’t see her acknowledgement. His bike cut quick to the left and accelerated like a bolt of pissed off lightning around Boyd’s SUV. She laughed as Justice shot an angry middle finger at Boyd when he roared past his driver’s side window.

It looked like a case of road rage, but Batya knew it was a ruse to ensure Boyd wouldn’t suspect a tail. Her plain work van was a better fit for the heavy construction zone. It was her turn to take the primary eye on their target. If she knew her husband, he’d soon return to the mission with his jacket turned inside out and something else on his head besides the full facemask.

The Volvo eased into the intersection and stopped. Batya hit the brakes. Big jugs of water rolled around the back over heavy plastic bags. Her fingers slid smooth over the Pachmayer grips on her Sig Sauer 9mm P226 that she pressed beneath her thigh. Her thoughts turned to baby Grace—no way did she intend to be taken by surprise. She slammed both palms onto the van’s deep warbling horn and threw her arms up in the air when she saw the dull brown eyes peer back at her through his rearview mirror.

Boyd flipped her off and turned left toward the cul de sac. She turned right. A slight wiggle of her fingers danced across the top of her steering wheel as she and Justice crossed paths. Most neighborhood layouts were similar, and it would be just a matter of time until they met again. She made the first left hand turn and began to worm her way back toward Boyd.

Batya gasped as she made the final right turn. Her eyes popped wide open. She was shocked to see Justice’s motorcycle lying in a nearby drainage culvert and his body sprawled across a v-shaped dent in Boyd’s Volvo.

“I’m calling the cops,” Batya yelled.

Boyd waved his arms. “No, he’s all right. No need to call the police.”

Perfect, no cops called.

Batya saluted him. “Okay, I’m not an insurance agent.”

“This biker trash slammed right into me out of nowhere. Probably high on dope,” Boyd said, anger in his voice, but a foundation of fear quivered in the undertone.

“Probably so. Us working stiffs out here every day and crap like him sucking off it.” She slid her fingers beneath Justice’s meaty shoulder and bearded chin to check his pulse. She jerked back when he kissed her hand.