Cease and Desist (The IMA Book 4) (17 page)

“I have my ways,” he said vaguely, in a way that suggested whatever he'd done wasn't legal.

I was the technology expert between the two of us, too, but I'd often caught him watching me while I was working. I thought he just enjoyed watching me, but Michael was observant; he could have gleaned a few of my tricks. I'd have to be more cautious.

“Where is it?”

“Pick a number — one through five.”

“I thought you didn't like games.”

“This isn't a game.” The cab had reached us, and now I looked at him. His green eyes were dark, so dark they seemed to hold no color at all — just shadows. “Just do it.”

“Three,” I said.

“Good.”

“Where is number three?”

“If I remember correctly, it's called
The Ivy
.”

Sounds expensive.

“Where to?” The taxi driver had opened the door and was out. His face was heavily lined, giving his olive complexion the grainy nuances of a professional portrait. He was obviously relieved we had no luggage, and when he got back behind the wheel, I saw he limped.

“The Ivy,” Michael said.

There were no in-cab seductions this time. Michael seemed too distracted and edgy. Sex was probably the last thing on his mind for once. I could have used the diversion.

The cab pulled up in front of a building that reminded me of 1920s Hollywood, with its burnished, art deco facade. The bellhops wore red uniforms with gold lapels.

“James Holland,” Michael said to the receptionist, without preamble, and slipped him cash. Very flash, although in a place like this that wouldn't be unusual.

The concierge handed him a key card, which he closed his fingers over tightly. “Thanks.”

“James Holland,” I repeated, when we were out of earshot. “Are you serious? Why not John Smith?”

“This isn't a game.”

“James Holland,” I said.

Michael opened the door to the hotel room.

“I bet I could make you scream that name.”

Once I would have blushed, but I'd long since learned that when Michael was backed into a corner, he used sex as intimidation. It was the best way he had of pushing me away. I folded my arms instead.

I refused to be pushed away.

“I thought you said this wasn't a game.”

Michael stopped and looked at me over his shoulder.

“I'm starting to think it is.”

Suraya

Blood —

There was so much blood. It melted and melded with the agony, made my world go blind and screaming. The pain. Oh, gods, the fucking
pain —

“So Michael put you up to this, did he?”

Adrian's voice cut through the muddy haze like a knife through butter.

“I must say, I didn't think the boy had it in him. He considered himself nigh incorruptible — until she came along and blew it all out of the water.”

I could no longer feel certain parts of my body. This should have been comforting — that I could no longer feel the pain — but it only intensified the effect by forcing me to focus on what I could feel.

My eyes.

Sharp, flaring pain exploded in my side. I whimpered, curling in upon myself as much as I was able. The bilious reek of butyric acid flooded my nose.

“Oh good,” he said. “I thought I'd lost you.”

My life was slipping away, thread by thread. I could feel my body dying all around me.

Dimly, I was aware of him stepping closer.

“She turned him into a bloody fool.”

Who?

Pain. This time I felt something inside me burst. I screamed and blood burbled in my throat.

“And he turned her into a fucking menace.” The curse slipped in as seamlessly as a knife into  a back.

Oh
, I thought.
Michael and Christina.

“I should have killed her when I had the chance. There were so many opportunities when I could have used her to keep the boy in line, and then eliminated the two of them once I had them both in hand.”

I imagined him clenching his fist.

“But somehow, they didn't seem worth my time.”

And now?

“Greater empires than mine have fallen for less.” He was close to me, now, close enough that I could feel the heat of him. “Troy. Byzantium. Rome. The Third Reich. American imperialism.”

I gagged on hot, wet fluid. For a frightening moment, I couldn't breathe. And then, in an even more frightening moment, I realized that I still could.

What happens now?

“I made her an offer, you know. Told her that I might spare her life if she worked under me.”

He'd made me the same offer.

“Unlike you, my dear Suraya — ” it was as though he could read the spiderweb thoughts in my fractured mind “ — Christina Parker considers herself too proud to become a whore or a mercenary. Vigilantism is only acceptable when it's free, because then it's noble, self-sacrificing, and good.”

He made a mocking sound.

“That's why they sent you in her stead in this pathetic little reconnaissance mission of theirs. Not because you possessed the skills, or because you were the right one for the job. No, Michael thinks I plan on stealing his girl away for my own amusement. Not quite so courageous, hmm? It always comes down to self-preservation in the end.

“If it's any consolation, your suffering could hold nary  a candle to what I have in store for the leaders of AMI. I have them all but in my grasp.” I felt his breath on my skin and shivered. “Now tell me exactly where they are right now,” he said, “and perhaps I'll do you one last favor between old friends and kill you quickly. You
would
like that, wouldn't you?”

Graciously, like he was offering me tea and scones.
Yes
, I wanted to scream.
Kill me
.

But I scarcely had voice to utter the words.

In my desperation, I told him. I didn't even have to think twice about it. I told him, anything, everything he wanted, and he was a liar. He played with me the way a leopard bats around a moribund rodent, coaxing every last drop of stubborn life from my dying body, laughing delightedly all the while.

Death, in all its infinite mercy, was the only thing that could save me now.

Chapter Thirteen

Discovery

Michael

No new messages
.

The transmitter I had fitted Suraya with, which Christina had programmed, had limited capabilities: one-way transmission. Small enough to secret into bodily crevices without being detected.

The basis of its appeal.

But those same traits that made it difficult to track also made the device fragile. And now I couldn't even get a trace on her.
Did something happen to it?

Did something happen to
her
?

I did a quick sweep of the room. By choosing our hotels at random, I would have forced any pursuers we had to spread themselves thinly. They would be so busy trying to cover their own asses that they would have no time to do any real damage. I hoped.

There were no bugs. No cameras. At least none that I could find. If there were any, they'd been placed by an expert with far more experience than me.

Since Callaghan could easily afford the best of the best this was not much comfort.

I cracked open the blinds with a finger, studying the streets below. I'd been keeping an eye on the cars as our taxi sped us to our destination — none of the vehicles below looked familiar.

I let the blinds close with a snap and tried to take that as a good sign. We fucking needed one.

“I'll be right back,” Christina said. I whipped my head up to look at her. “I'm going to the convenience store across the street to get some things.”

I considered telling her to stay put. Checked the idea  a second later. I'd dragged her on a plane. Ordered her around. Brought her here. If I put her on too short a leash, she'd dig in her heels and pull.

I didn't need that shit.

“Whatever you want,” I said. “You need money?”

There was a brief pause that told me she had been expecting more of a fight. “No.”

“Don't be long,” I told her.

Her eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth, then seemed to reconsider. “I won't.”

Then there was a click and she was gone.

I sat back in the armchair and leaned down to open the mini bar. “Fuck me with a rusty chainsaw,” I muttered, unscrewing the top of a beer with a fistful of my t-shirt and taking a long, hard swig.

It was bitter. Just like me.

I set it down on the end table, leaving a wet ring. There was a memo pad with the hotel's crest, and a pen. I stared at them blankly, then turned and studied my phone, turning it over in my hands.

The silences persisted.

This isn't good
.

Had something happened to her? I had no way of knowing. Not unless she got back to me.

Or if she shows up on the evening news.

I eyed the television warily.

I'd seen myself on prime time television before, reviled, painted as a garden-variety psychotic with the morals of a serial killer. A wanted man. The truth was more complicated than that, but newscasts are easier to swallow if they're bite-sized and simple.

The door opened and Christina entered the room with some rustling plastic bags.

“Are you hungry? I got food.”

“No.” I held up my beer. “I'm fine.”

Her face fell. “That's not a meal.”

“What are you? My wife?”

I regretted the words the instant they were out of my mouth. Not just because of the cruelty behind them, but because they touched upon things I could not have. Things that I couldn't even let myself think about. Ever.

Christina took a step back from me, flushing. “You haven't eaten a goddamn
thing
since we got on that plane. You're running on fumes.”

“Danger doesn't sleep,” I pointed out. “You think the bad guys out there care if we're exhausted? You really think they'll go, oh, you're fucking tired? Well, excuse us then, we'll just stick our thumbs up our asses while you nap it out for nine hours?”

“Please,” she said. “I hate seeing you this way. You
need
to rest. To eat. If you let yourself get sick because you're too
proud
to take care of the essentials then you're doing half the work for them.”

She let out a shaky, ragged breath.

“
Please
.”

I sighed.
Fuck
. She was right.

“You're right.”

It was like a string had been cut, letting all the tension out of her shoulders. “I — what?”

“You're right. I'll take you out. We'll eat out.”

She held up the bags. “But I got food — ”

“I know.” I closed my eyes. “I know. Tomorrow. We'll go out tomorrow. Wherever you want. I promise.” The leather creaked as I got up. “Thank you for getting the food, but I'm really not hungry now.”

I could feel her eyes on me.

What are you? My wife?

Why had I said that?

Why had I fucking said that?

My head throbbed, the bitter taste of the ale lingering in the back of my throat like day-old vomit.

“You eat your dinner,” I said, quickly shucking off the rumpled clothes I'd been wearing on the airplane. I felt too hot. Too constricted. “I'm going to get some shut-eye.”

Her eyes were like hooks pulling at my skin.

What are you doing to me, sweetheart?

What are you doing?

“Don't worry about waking me.”

Her eyes swung up to mine. I patted the mattress beside me, giving her what I hoped was a reassuring look. From her expression, that seemed doubtful. I wasn't exactly the picture of comfort.

“Maybe I should sleep in the recliner,” she said.

I studied her without speaking, saw her eyes drop to my chest, then to the floor. She bit her lip.

“Stop that.”

She tensed. “I'm not doing anything.”

“You're a manipulative little shrew.”

I expected denial, but she surprised me as she so often did. “If I am,” she said, “I learned it from you.” She sat down in the chair I'd just vacated and began to eat. “Did you hear anything from Suraya?”

“No.”

She swallowed. “That's bad.”

“It sure as hell isn't good.” I eyed her with impatience. “Do you plan on coming to bed?”

With a smooth, practiced motion, she reached up to the lightswitch on her side of the room and snapped off the light.  “Go to sleep, Michael.”

I must have been more exhausted than I thought. I slept solidly until 2 A.M., when the pressure of my bladder became too much to bear. I was no longer alone. Her soft, warm body was beside me. She smelled like spices, curry. Wonderful.

After draining the main vein, I went back to bed. But not before I looked at my phone —
no new messages —
and felt a bolt of real fear. We were in danger, both of us. And this time, I suspected that I might not be able to spare her from the worst of it.

Christina

We had lunch in a hole-in-the-wall style Chinese restaurant. The wontons were good but the bok choy hung limply in pools of grease.

I was exhausted. Michael spent all night on his phone or his laptop or both. Sleep had once again become a thing of the past, and it was beginning to take its toll on me.

A bell jangled at the front door signaling the arrival of another customer. He spoke to the waiter in a hushed voice, and they all seemed to look our way.

“What?” Michael said, turning his head.

The waiter seated the man at our table.

“Who the fuck are you?” Michael said.

“James Holland,” the man sneered, causing Michael to stiffen. “How very Bondian.”

Michael set down his chopsticks and cracked his knuckles. “What do you want?” he said, over the sound of popping joints. “Why are you here?”

“There's no need to make a scene,” the man said placidly, taking the chopsticks and using them to eat sweet and sour pork from my plate. “We can talk outside.”

He'll shoot us in the head outside
. I looked at him caustically, trying to take everything in. Maybe he'd shoot us in the head here, too. Both his hands were out and empty but that didn't mean that he didn't have a gun secreted away somewhere.

His appearance was nondescript — light, long-sleeved button-down shirt (to hide tattoos?), jeans, slightly scuffed shoes. There was nothing to set him apart from the hundreds of thousands of men in L.A. And that, more than anything, made him suspicious.

“I have a car waiting,” the man continued. “The two of you will get inside without a fuss and then everything will go…very pleasantly.”

“I don't think you understand how this works.” Michael picked up one of the forks the restaurateurs had provided us with, weighing it in his hands. The polished metal gleamed under the lights as he pointed the prongs at the man. “If you have something to say to us, say it now.”

“I strongly urge you to reconsider.”

“Or what?”

“Someone could get hurt.”

Michael stiffened and the man nodded towards me. “It would be a shame if something happened to your friend, don't you think?” The man's hand moved, the vaguest gesture of a threat.  “Accidents can be so easily avoided when one follows the rules.”

“I've never been much of a follower.”

“That is a pity, Mr. Holland,” said the man.

“Yes.” Michael bared his teeth. “For you.”

The man's arm twitched, but Michael moved like a serpent. Blood spattered the table cloth and my arm as Michael drove the fork into the palm of the man's hand, pinning him to the tabletop.

For a moment, I sat frozen, rooted in horror at the sight of so much blood gushing from the man's lacerated palm. “Oh, God,” I choked.
Maybe Los Angeles is out of the reach of even the angels it's named for
.

The restaurant owners were cursing and screaming in Chinese as we rushed for the door. The man tried to stop us, but Michael pushed him aside as if he weighed nothing. True to the man's threat, there was a car outside and he must have gotten word that something went wrong because the driver's door was open and he was standing outside with a gun.

“Down,” Michael said, just as he began to fire. He yanked me behind a pile of filthy trashcans in the alley next to the restaurant. The bags held meat scraps and had been sitting under the hot Los Angeles sun all day. Something wet and rancid soaked into my jeans and I bit my lip to keep from moaning in disgust. The heat only exacerbated the odor.

Michael glanced around, then grabbed me by the arm. We ran down the alley with the man with the gun in hot pursuit. The alley came to a dead end with a barbed wire fence. On the other side was a busy street. Michael cursed and said, “Get on my shoulders. We're going to jump it.”

“But the man — ”

“He won't risk any stray bullets. Cops are coming.”

It was true. I realized I could hear sirens in the distance, growing louder.

I got on Michael's shoulders and took off my coat, wrapping it around my hands as I gripped the wire-topped fence to swing myself over. The barbed wire shredded my coat and also my hands, and I hit the sidewalk hard enough that my bones vibrated unpleasantly with the force of impact.

Michael didn't have a coat. He tugged off his shirt, looping the material around his hands. The fabric was thinner than my jacket had been, and his hands were more lacerated than mine. He hit the ground with the litheness of a cat, although I could see sweat shining on his back. He was breathing fast from the run, but then, so was I.

“Come on,” he said, “let's get out of here.”

We walked fast, staying on busy streets. Ordinarily, I think a girl in dirt-stained pants walking hand in hand with a shirtless man with the build of an action hero might have turned some heads. And we did get some second looks, but nowhere near as many as we would have gotten in the small suburb where I grew up.

“It never fucking ends,” Michael said.

“How did they find us?” I gasped.

He shook his head. “I don't know. They shouldn't have been able to. Not so soon.”

A light clicked in my head. “The transmitter. Suraya's transmitter. They must have been able to intercept one of the signals she'd sent out. They could have rewired it, and done a reverse-trace. They could have found us with your phone.”

“It was supposed to be untraceable.”

“Nothing is untraceable,” I pointed out. “Even the government gets hacked. If they'd found the device, they could have rewired it. Not easily, but if you have the right men and women, and the leisure of time, anything is possible.”

He pulled out his phone. And then, before I could stop him, threw it out into the street. Someone honked. I didn't hear the smash as it was crushed under the tires of a silver Lexus going way too fast.

“That won't help,” I said belatedly.

“Made me feel better,” he said, deadpan.