Take Down (The Men of the Sisterhood) (5 page)

Jack smiled.

Maggie Spritzer was the first to stir in the morning. She yawned, stretched, then rubbed her neck to ease the kinks out of her shoulders. It had been a while since she’d slept on a hard floor in her clothes, much less attended a picnic at the end of December. She looked around at her friends, who were sprawled in what were almost certainly painful positions. She eased herself up slowly, her muscles protesting. She was definitely out of shape. This was where she should make a promise to herself to get back onto a strict exercise program. She didn’t bother, for the simple reason that she knew she couldn’t or wouldn’t keep any such promise, to herself or anyone else, including Ted.

Maggie gingerly made her way to the front foyer and opened the shutters to see a winter wonderland. It must have stopped snowing during the night, but there certainly was a blanket of the white stuff as far as the eye could see. It was so blinding that she had to squint to ward off the glare. Away in the distance, she could hear the rumble of snowplows, and that was definitely a good thing. She closed the shutters and squeezed her eyes shut. Then she waited a few seconds before she opened them again and took in the comforting dimness of the foyer. When she felt something warm on her ankles, she looked down to see Cyrus, who was getting ready to nibble at her bare toes.

“Bet you want to go out, big dog, huh? Shhh, don’t wake anyone. Just let me get my shoes and jacket. Meet me at the back door,” Maggie whispered. Cyrus trotted off, and Maggie looked around for her shoes, which had come to rest under one of the chairs. Quickly pulling on her socks and shoes, she tiptoed out of the room to head for the kitchen. She slipped into her jacket, opened the door, and did a double take at the cold air. “Make it quick, Cyrus!”

Cyrus did as he was told and was back inside the building before Maggie could count to twenty.

Within minutes, she had the big twelve-cup coffeepot singing its song. Cyrus was rolling around on the carpet at the sink, which Jack had conveniently thought to throw in the dryer and place all dry in front of the sink before retiring for the night. Maggie headed off for one of the bathrooms, wondering why Jack had had a laundry room, albeit a small one, installed in the building.

True, there was a laundry room, but no spare toothbrushes or toothpaste. There was, however, a bottle of Listerine in the medicine cabinet. When in Rome . . . With a sigh, Maggie rinsed her mouth and washed her face. She winced at the condition of her hair. With no comb or brush in evidence, she wet her hands and ran them through her thick, corkscrew curls. Looking in the mirror a second time, she winced again but accepted that this was as good as it was going to get.

Back in the kitchen, she listened to the slowly percolating coffee. Within minutes, she could smell the tantalizing aroma; and then she heard stirring noises coming from down the hall, followed by moans and groans. Sleeping on a hard floor would do that to a body that was past its gloriously limber teenage years. The cots Jack had mentioned earlier had turned out to be a joke. At best, they were spindly and impossible to turn around on. It was Ted who gathered them all up and stacked them in the kitchen, telling Jack to return them to whatever outlet store he’d purchased them from.

One by one, the five boys staggered into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and cranky. Maggie grinned to herself as she set out doughnuts and bagels, which were a little less than fresh but would just have to do. Fine cuisine was definitely not on the menu this morning. As she poured cups of coffee and looked around, she said brightly, “Guess it stopped snowing, and the plows are out. I think we’ll be good to go in an hour or so. Now all you guys have to do is dig out the cars.”

Jack, the last one into the kitchen, said he wasn’t digging out anything because Harry had told him that the guys who’d installed the super-duper gates in the alley were also under contract to plow the alley. When they would get around to it, however, Jack had no idea. Harry had never said.

“The plows are already working the street out front. I heard them,” Dennis said.

“Good, good, that means FedEx should get here by noon. Soon as I have my coffee, I’m going to go online to see if our package is on the truck and what time it’s scheduled for delivery. Sparrow gave me the tracking number,” Jack said as he sank his teeth into a blueberry bagel.

Maggie started to giggle and couldn’t stop. “You all look like a herd of wild men. Good thing there are no ladies here aside from myself to see how fetching you all look so early in the morning.” Cyrus barked just to bark, a sign that he was neutral. Maggie kept on laughing as each of the guys tried to smooth down his bed hair.

Abner appeared, none the worse for wear. He even looked groomed, which was a feat unto itself. It turned out that he always carried what he called a hygiene kit in his backpack. He poured coffee, taking it black. He reached for a jelly doughnut and scarfed it down within seconds. “Very good.” But then again, Abner thought bologna sandwiches with ketchup were right up there with filet mignon. No one would accuse Abner of being a gourmet. “Anything happen in the world while we slept, aside from the storm’s abating?”

“Nothing,” Espinosa said. “We’re just waiting to see if Sparrow’s package gets here. I’m thinking we need to decide who is going to the Andover Building. We need to do a preparation run.”

“That we do, that we do,” Jack said, refilling his coffee cup. He was starting to feel more alive minute by minute. “I was thinking I would go in with Dennis since he spoke personally to Jamie Farrell, and if we run into any problems, he can call him right away. Or better yet, have him on an open line. I thought we’d leave Maggie in the lobby with whoever it is that sits at the reception desk, just to make sure that person doesn’t alert anyone else. Call it insurance. I thought the three of us would go in the
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van. Harry has my car, as you all know. Does that work for all of you?

“Once we get the checkbooks, we hightail it back here and let Abner take a look at them, then we finalize our plans for the take down tomorrow. Anyone have any questions?” No one did.

Jack headed off to the lavatory, calling over his shoulder to have someone call Harry and then Sparrow, to see if his flight had been canceled.

Cell phones were whipped out and numbers punched in while updates were announced as the guys took turns with the two lavatories.

The final report was that Sparrow had made it out on time, Brooks Brothers would open on schedule, and Michael’s Salon was waiting for its customers to show up. The weatherman said the sanitation department had worked through the night and the roads were drivable, and no government agencies had shut down, opting for delayed openings instead. While that was the good news, the bad news was that the weatherpeople had slightly miscalculated, and more snow would start to fall later in the afternoon.

Everyone moaned and groaned, even Cyrus, who pranced around woofing his displeasure at all the noise outside the kitchen area, where Harry’s people had arrived and were clearing the back alley.

“I think we are good to go, people,” Jack said. “Our package is on the truck for delivery sometime this morning. Okay, let’s hear it, who is going where this morning? We’re on a timetable here.”

“Dennis, Espinosa, and I, along with Maggie, are going in the van back to the paper, then Dennis will pick up the suits at Brooks Brothers in his Humvee and join us at Michael’s for our new hairdos. Maggie has to check in at the
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and make like she works there. Espinosa and I are good; we filed our stories late last night. No problems with us. We should all be back here by noon, one o’clock at the latest. We can pick up lunch on our way. Howszat?” Ted asked.

“Oops! I almost forgot. We have another stop to make. Joe called the specialty shop where Alexis shopped to replenish her red bag of tricks. He knows exactly what to buy and how to apply it all. He said he’s watched Alexis enough to get the hang of it.”

“Okay, that works. To be honest, I forgot about all of that. Abner?” Jack said.

Abner flexed his long, slim fingers. “I’m good, Jack. All I need are numbers and we’re home free. I’m thinking someone should double-check, if that’s possible, the whereabouts of the three Andovers. No one has mentioned Snowden and the tails he has on the three creeps. We need to confirm that all our birds are in their respective nests.”

“If anything was awry, Snowden would have been on the horn. But to answer your question, I have not heard from him. I’m not worried; Snowden is a pro and on top of his game. But it never hurts to err on the side of caution. Anything else?” Jack looked around when no one said anything. “Okay, move, and be aware of the time.”

“What are you going to do, Jack?” Dennis asked as he slipped into his heavy jacket.

“Talk to Bert, wait for FedEx, and try to reach my wife, who the last I heard had gotten to Atlanta and was waiting for the airport to open. I have to say, this is the longest trip in the world time wise. The last time I spoke to her, she said that she and Alexis were both zombies. The airports ran out of food, the hotels were full, the gift shops ran out of toothbrushes as well as toothpaste, and she’s like a bee-stung bear. Alexis, too, I guess.”

The fierce look on Jack’s face warned the others not to comment, so they remained silent. The moment Jack stopped talking, they all made a beeline for their outerwear. Cyrus barked his approval that things were finally moving. He ran to his basket of toys, pulled out a bright red elephant, whipped it into the air, caught it, then sprawled on the carpet by the sink, his statement made.

Five seconds later, the kitchen was empty. Jack waited a moment to hear the sound of the van starting up. When he turned around, he saw that Abner was gone, too. It was just him, Cyrus, and his thoughts.

Coffee in hand, Jack made his way to the conference room, where he sat down to go through the printout of Andover Pharmaceuticals’ financials. He reached for his calculator, his pen, and a yellow legal pad. He worked steadily, making columns of numbers, meticulously adding and subtracting as he allocated and reallocated what he thought was fair for all of those who were to be the beneficiaries of Andover’s munificent donation to the cause of all that was good and right in the world.

He set the papers aside and switched over to the personal finances of the three Andovers. Multimillionaires all. Well, not for long, he thought grimly.

Something was nibbling at the back of his mind, something Dennis had said earlier, possibly yesterday or the day before, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what it was. He got up to pace around the long conference table. He did some of his best thinking when he paced. What was it? He stopped under the Jasper Johns painting, looked up at it in the hope it would give him his answer. Nothing came to him. He continued pacing, then stood under the Jackson Pollock painting. No help there, either.
Shift into neutral, Jack. Let it come on its own
. Right. Easier said than done.

Then Jack remembered his intention to call Avery Snowden. The operative growled a greeting on the first ring. “We’re all good here,” was all he said before he broke the connection.
A man of few words
, Jack thought. Still, he felt reassured.

Five minutes later, Jack almost jumped out of his skin when he heard the door buzz at the front of the building. Cyrus was a black streak whizzing by him.
FedEx?
Jack ran after Cyrus, and told him to stay as he peeked through the plantation shutters. Sure enough, it was indeed a FedEx deliveryman. Jack could barely contain himself as he opened the door, stared at the driver as though he were the enemy, signed his name for both packages, slammed the door shut, and slipped both dead bolts into place.

His heart beating trip-hammer fast, Jack headed for the conference room, where he had to try three times before he could open the thinner of the two packages. He heaved a mighty sigh as he looked at all the exquisite credentials Bert and Sparrow had managed to get for him and the guys, and Maggie, too. He laughed out loud when he read Sparrow’s note, which said,
Whip these babies out and you are golden
. What really set him off on a laughing jag was a picture of a golden, happy face behind a set of bars. He looked for his own set of credentials. He was for now Special Agent Anthony Lupine. Ted was Special Agent Andrew Molnar, Espinosa was Special Agent Raoul Samoza, Dennis was Special Agent Donald Ryder, and Maggie was Special Agent Lucinda Collins. There were no credentials for Harry because everyone had agreed that an Asian might be too easily remembered, and Harry’s picture had been in the papers too often, given his martial arts prowess and worldwide reputation in the field.

Jack eyed the second delivery, which wasn’t a soft-sided package but a hard cardboard box. He knew what was in it, but his jaw still dropped in awe as he slid his pocketknife through the heavy tape. Five guns. All Glocks. Disassembled, and wrapped in some kind of mystery packaging to thwart the scanners at FedEx, he surmised. The gun of choice for the fibbies. No ammunition. That was okay; they absolutely were not going to shoot anyone. At least not today. The guns were just for show.

He pried at the special packing and saw the shoulder holsters on the bottom of the box. The holsters looked old, worn, and
real
. He guessed it was true what he’d heard: If you had the money, you could get anything in Vegas. He supposed it was all in knowing the right people, or knowing people who knew the right people. Anything for a price.

It took Jack exactly fourteen minutes to assemble the Glocks. “Good to go, baby, good to go,” he muttered happily under his breath.

Because he had nothing else to do at the moment, Jack picked up one of the holsters and tried it on. He shoved the gun into it and practiced his draw. He was familiar with guns, had gone to the shooting range hundreds of times when he was an assistant district attorney. He’d always qualified. Thank God he had never had to draw on anyone. He also had a license to carry a gun in his real life but not as Special Agent Anthony Lupine.

Aha, the boys had slipped up. Nah. Not Sparrow. He rummaged in the box and found the licenses in an envelope that was stuck to the bottom of the plastic filler. The envelope read,
Just in case.
“Sorry I doubted you, Sparrow,” he muttered.

And then he remembered what he hadn’t been able to remember before: Andover’s launch after the New Year with its new rheumatoid arthritis medicine. Why or what it meant in the scheme of things he had no idea. Beaucoup bucks for the Andover coffers and the three owners for sure. But why was he even thinking or worrying about that? When he couldn’t come up with an answer, he shelved the thought as he had before. Sooner or later, it would come to him. If not, then it wasn’t an important consideration as far as their plans were concerned.

Just as Jack started to look down at his watch, a gift from Nikki years ago, one of those watches that did everything but scramble eggs, in his opinion, his phone rang. Snowden. He picked it up, listened briefly, and hung up. Now he knew the importance of that new product launch.

Looking again at his watch, he was shocked to see that it was already three minutes shy of the noon hour. Working on those numbers had taken a lot longer than he’d thought. He was aware suddenly of how quiet it was, with only the sound of Cyrus chomping on a huge bone that was guaranteed to clean his teeth. That had to mean the alleyway had been cleared by Harry’s people.

His stomach growling, Jack headed for the kitchen. He whistled for Cyrus, who came on the run. The shepherd waited a moment to see if his master would reach for the leash, which meant a sedate walk, or no leash, which meant a free-for-all run up and down the alley.

Jacket on, zipped up, and a heavy scarf wrapped around his neck, Jack opened the back door. No leash. Cyrus whizzed past the open door and tore down the alley, barking shrilly. Jack huddled in the doorway, hands jammed in his pockets as he stomped his feet up and down. It had to be only twenty degrees out there, he thought. He stood it as long as he could before he whistled to Cyrus to cut it short, just as the
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van and Dennis’s Humvee appeared at the security gates. The minute the door to the van slid open, he could smell the garlic. They were going to dine on Italian.

When Dennis emerged from the Humvee, he was struggling with plastic-wrapped suits on hangers. Jack held the door open for him. Ted emerged from the van, carrying two shopping bags, and Espinosa carried the food. Maggie had her own shopping bag and a box of some sort. “Everything okay? No problems?”

“Good to go,” Ted said, hustling through the doorway. The others agreed. Jack heaved a sigh of relief.

Ninety minutes later, lunch was over, the cleanup completed, Cyrus had been walked, and everyone was dressed for what Jack called the coming festivities. Jack had told them about Avery Snowden’s call and the resulting change of plans. Now the only thing left to do before the trip to Andover Pharmaceuticals was for Espinosa to apply some of Alexis’s tricks to alter their appearances.

“I’m not liking any of this right now,” Dennis complained. “When Murphy’s Law kicks in, plans go down the tubes.” His tone went from whining to accusatory when he said, “You said, Jack, that Mr. Snowden said all was good, and we were on schedule for visiting the three Andovers
tomorrow.
Tomorrow, not today. I’m not liking this one little bit,” he said.

Jack sighed. He was used to plans going awry, as were the others. “Yes, I did say that because that’s what Avery told me when I called him earlier. But that was hours ago. When he called ninety minutes ago to say that Otto was leaving tomorrow morning for New Mexico to talk to some people about the new drug, he called me immediately. As you all know, he has some kind of equipment in place that allows him to pick up all phone conversations in Otto’s house, and those of the other siblings as well. He’s on top of things. Had he not had his equipment in place, and we went out there tomorrow, we’d be up the old proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle. Tell me you understand what I just said, Dennis.”

Dennis yanked at his blue-and-white-striped tie. “I’m not stupid; I understand. I just said I didn’t like it. Improvising at the eleventh hour is never good. Don’t forget to factor in that wacky weatherman’s prediction for snow later today. We have miles to drive, and after the snatches, we still have to head out to Pinewood. That’s another long haul.”

“Thank God the van has good new snow tires,” Maggie said as she stared at her reflection in the glass of the wall oven. “I hope you aren’t wimping out, Dennis, and expecting us to cancel. We adapt. That’s spelled a-d-a-p-t. I hate wimps.”

Dennis flushed a rosy pink, but he didn’t say another word.

Jack eyed Maggie and Dennis and was satisfied with what he was seeing. He stood still and suffered through Espinosa’s filling in his cheeks, adding latex to his chin to make it longer, and narrowing his nose with the same latex. While his hair wasn’t high and tight, it was a good crew cut and didn’t need anything done to it.

“You guys got all the electronic stuff secure,” Ted said. “Remember now, you can mumble or talk as the case may be, either into your lapels or the cuffs of your sleeves. The sound is muffled but still good. You should probably leave now because under normal conditions it’s a forty-five-minute drive to Andover, but with the weather and the roads, I’m thinking more like an hour and fifteen minutes, maybe more,” Ted said. “I’m sorry that you’re going to be hitting Andover earlier than we intended, but that’s unavoidable with Otto’s change in plans. And with the snatches today and not tomorrow, there’s less time for something to go wrong based as a result of the Andover raid.”

“It’s going to take us that long to get back here, too, so you guys be ready to roll the minute we get back. Watch Cyrus for me,” Jack said.

Maggie looked around, winked at Ted, then focused on Jack. “Let’s do it!”