The Housewife Assassin's Deadly Dossier (30 page)

Jack awoke to the sound of her laugh.

He opened one eye and glanced around, just to make sure he wasn’t still dreaming—about her, in fact, as was sometimes the case, more often than he liked to admit.

“Yeah, Ryan, I get it. When I rode off on the bike, I went too far.” Her tone was anything but contrite. In fact, it was downright playful.
 

“Donna, you need to take this seriously! It could have blown the mission wide open.” Jack could hear Ryan pacing across the rooftop’s flagstone patio. “The skinheads are out for blood. The Lodi police are dragging the river, searching for the body of one ‘Doreen Sugarbaker,’ a.k.a, your alias, and the doughnut shop was left in a shambles!” He stopped to catch his breath. “To top it off, you stole the target’s Harley—for a goddamn joyride!”

“Sure, why not? It’s one sweet Harley—twin cam 96, six-speed cruise drive. Can you imagine popping a wheelie on that thing? I couldn’t do it. I’m just a slip of a girl.” She paused then added with a seductive drawl, “Come on, admit it—when you saw me pull up on it at the rendezvous site, weren’t you tempted to give it a try? I mean, after those couple of years you spent undercover with the Aryan Nation—”

“How the hell did you know about that?” Jack had never heard Ryan lose his cool until just that moment.

She snickered. “Whoa, don’t get your tighty-whities in a wad! You know what they say: ‘Dossiers are meant to be read.’”

“I don’t have a dossier!”

“Of course you don’t,” she agreed sweetly. “At least, not here at Acme. But the one the CIA has on you is, oh my gawd, humongous! Remember last summer, when you introduced me to your buddy who runs the CIA’s National Clandestine Service? Well, let me put it this way—the dude can’t hold his tequila. All it took was a little Truth or Dare, and presto! Your file miraculously appeared on his computer screen.”

“Donna Stone, whenever you pull stunts like these, I regret the day I hired you.” Jack could only imagine Ryan seething through clenched teeth.
 

“If it’s any consolation, my dare was a lot worse. I had to swallow the worm at the bottom of the bottle.” She giggled. “Ryan, seriously, if you keep frowning like that, no amount of Botox will get rid of those creases on your forehead.”
 

Dead silence.

“I’m sorry, boss. Truly I am.” Her words were weighted with sadness. “Not just for snooping into your file, but for breaking protocol with Frankenstein, too. I guess I felt so…oh, I don’t know—alive after that encounter! One moment he’s got his hands around my throat and I could feel the air leaving my body. All I could think about was how many people he’s killed or hurt, and how many more would die, if I didn’t stop him. Then the next thing I know, I’m stabbing him in the jugular with a steak knife.” She paused. “Hey don’t give me that look. It’s not as if he didn’t deserve it.”

“I have half a mind to take you off this mission, Donna. You’re a loose cannon, and I can’t afford that.”

“But you won’t, because the arms purchase between Yuri and the skinheads goes down tomorrow, and you don’t have time to bring in another assassin, let alone one who looks as great as me in a tight skirt and a push-up bra.”

There was a long pause as Ryan faced the reality she’d just laid out.
 

Suddenly, she laughed, “But hey, it’s not like I pulled a Jack Craig, or anything.”

What the hell does that mean? Jack wondered. Is she saying I’m some sort of a lone wolf—a wild card? My God, I’m not an emotional train wreck! She is!

All of a sudden, he regretted not making a stronger case against Ryan hiring her.
 

He certainly regretted he’d ever felt sorry for her.

Most of all, he hated the fact he’d fallen in love with her.

Well, now that he knew what she thought of him, he’d certainly stay far away from the lovely, but lethal, Mrs. Stone.

“In fact, Donna, what you did is exactly something Jack would do—and I did exactly to you what I’d do to him under the same circumstances. I’ve put a disciplinary report in the mission file.”

“But—but I’ve got two of those already this year! A third one means I’ll be docked my year-end bonus!”

“You should have thought about that before you took your little joyride,” Ryan growled. “You’re lucky you’re so good at what you do. And by that, I don’t mean baking pies.”

“Speaking of which, I’ll be baking some, right after the mission. I’ll be sure to save one for you.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever—but the disciplinary report stays in the file.”

She laughed. “We’ll see. It’s your favorite—cherry.” From the click of her heels on the flagstone, Jack could tell she was walking away.

She’s got him wrapped around her finger, Jack thought. He shook his head and rubbed his tired eyes as he contemplated the real Donna Stone, as opposed to the one who existed in his fantasies.
 

The real Donna was so obviously angry. And damaged. And still in mourning for Carl.
 

He opened his eyes to find Ryan scowling down at him. “Enjoy the entertainment?”

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” Jack explained. “I came up here to catch a few rays along with some shut-eye.”

Ryan waved away the excuse. “She’s a pistol, that one.”

Jack snorted. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Speaking of which, if my memory serves me right, it’s your turn to pay up. ”

Ryan acknowledged the declaration with a nod. “What can I say? She’s fearless. Twenty-eight executive actions in four years, and most were in hostile environments. She’s motivated—”

“For all the wrong reasons,” Jack broke in. “Admit it, Ryan.”

“You’re right. But the reasons don’t really matter, as long as she does the job.” He glanced up as a plane droned above them, arching out over the Pacific as it ascended from LAX. “Great news! Arnie cracked the cipher in the photo. From all indications, the Quorum is planning something big—here, in LA. As you know, we’ve been expecting some kind of domestic disturbance for at least a few months, what with all the chatter we’ve been picking up. Now that we know where, we’ll need all hands on deck. By the way, I think it’s time you formally meet Donna.”

Jack’s heart leaped in his chest. As nonchalantly as he could, he muttered, “Sure, whatever works.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. Because I’d like you to go deep cover.”

“Where?”

“I just told you—here, in LA—”

Jack let that sink in. It would be difficult, being based in the same town as her. But if he played his cards right, he could keep out of her way.

“—As Carl Stone. You’re the right height and build. And the right coloring. In any event, there are no known photos of him.”

Jack’s eyes went wide. He shook his head. “Wait…what? No, Ryan! Bad idea.
Very, very bad idea
. She’s…she’s not ready for that!”

“She’ll have to be, if we’re to smoke out the Quorum. In the meantime, we’ll keep her on a need-to-know basis. Whatever they think she has, they want it badly enough to plant a cell or two, specifically in Hilldale.”

“I’ve combed through that place on my hands and knees. Whatever it is, it ain’t there, trust me.”

“Even if it’s not, if it looks as if Carl is back, they’ll come calling. That’s reason enough for you to take on his identity.”

“And all the more reason why she won’t want me around. She’s got children, remember?”

“I say you’re wrong. More than anyone else, she wants the Quorum dead and buried—despite what she learns because of it.”

“She doesn’t want it any more than I do.”

“Yes, with good reason.” Ryan didn’t have to say it:
 

Because of Jack, the Quorum knew too much already.
 

All the more reason they had to find the microdot before it fell into the wrong hands.

If Kiril’s murder proved anything, the Quorum was the strongest and the smartest adversary Acme had faced to date.

Jack sighed. “Okay, I’ll do it—but only if you’re ordering me to do so.”

“I am.” Ryan rewarded him with a faint grimace that always passed for a smile. “Not that I look forward to breaking the news to her. I’ll hold off a day or two until after the arms sales mission. In the meantime, you can close up shop in Paris.”

“Sure.” Jack couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of it all. “I’ll stick with my bet that she’ll refuse to go along with it.”

“You’re on.”

“After what I’ve overheard today regarding the ornery Mrs. Stone, you already owe me a hundred bucks. Here’s hoping you don’t go two-for-two. I’d hate to lose my head over it.”

Ryan contemplated that with one eye closed. “Trust me, she’d aim much lower than that.”

Jack had no doubt he was right.

Chapter 24
Swallow

In espionage, a swallow is a female agent who seduces a target in order to coerce or steal intelligence.
 
Sometimes a swallow kills in the line of duty.

The upside is that you get to primp, wear beautiful clothes, and travel on someone else’s dime.

The downside is when blood gets on your Jimmy Choos.

Best-case scenario: the blood is not your own.

[Excerpt from the first entry in Donna Stone’s personal handbook]

Here’s my to-do list:

First, stall on sex with Yuri Petrovich, until the skinheads show up. Done.

Next, plant a GPS system on one of the skinheads, so that ATF can track and apprehend them during the pick-up. Check.

And finally, as a show of tit-for-tat diplomacy with Uncle Sam’s publicly acknowledged BFF, Russia, I’m to see to it that Yuri never leaves his hotel room alive.
 

All in good time, dearie. All in good time.

In fact, all of this is supposed to be accomplished before three o’clock, the time at which I have to pick up my ten-year-old, Jeff, and a carload of his teammates for an after-school baseball game. Otherwise I’ll have to face the wrath of two other mothers for having blown the team’s shot at taking the county title without a playoff game—
 

I pray that the 405 isn’t a nightmarish backup by the time I head home.

The webcam feed on Donna Stone’s house came in beautifully on the dashboard monitor on Jack’s spanking new blood-red Lamborghini roadster.
 

Hell, if he was going to be stuck in this suburgatory, at the very least Acme could pony up for a lease on a real car. Ryan frowned, but he signed the paperwork nonetheless.

Over the past few years, Jack had forced himself to avoid any news of her. But this was something nearly impossible to do. On the spook loops, where she was referred to as @WifeyAssassin, she was building quite a reputation as a killing machine, what with the extraordinary number of exterminations and her ingenuity in tracking her targets.

For the past hour—immediately after making a cherry pie, from scratch no less—he watched as Donna scribbled away in a notebook. Was it a recipe book? If so, when had she started this little hobby? As soon as she left the house, he’d have to check into it, to make sure she wasn’t breaking protocol yet again. Ryan would flip out if he found out she was memorializing her missions.

While writing, she’d been fiddling with something—an antique locket on a chain, from the look of it. What was the significance? he wondered.

Right on time, the call came to Donna’s cell phone. Since he’d tapped her phone, he also heard the message: “Yesterday you reserved a copy of
The Last Tycoon
. It’s now waiting for you at the front desk.”

Jack tensed up. Show time, he thought.
 

In truth, the call came from an Acme operative—Marion, a Hilldale librarian—informing Donna of an intel drop from her handler, Abu Nagashahi. On the way home, Donna and her children would stop for an ice pop, from the truck driven by Abu. He’d hand her a particular pop, encoded with her mission—stop the Quorum from whatever they had planned for the fair city of LA.

And partnering with Jack.

He also wondered how she’d break the news to the kids that Daddy was finally home.
 

Well, he’d soon find out.