Pacific force, p.3
Pacific Force, page 3
“Tell me we’ve done good with it,” Hollyanne said with a touch of urgency.
Everyone turned her way, but she was the philosopher of the group, forever worrying about the ethics of taking all that money and forming Pacific Force as a private, mercenary venture to stop people like Nathaniel Hoestler from doing bad things. Little things, at first, like computer crime or crime facilitated by an always-on, international communications network, but their efforts had grown world-wide eventually.
However, at the same time, they’d sort of created Nathaniel as a supervillain. His own competing game had been all set to launch in the fall of 2000, but all the money had escaped from the deflating balloon of the dot bomb, leaving him broke, bitter, and vengeful.
“We stopped someone from blowing up Big Ben,” Rik reminded her. “Threw his ass in jail for it. Not my fault they couldn’t hold him.”
“And don’t forget the Vancouver Incident,” Spencer added. “Plus, the time he was planning a massacre in Beijing.”
“And it goes beyond Nathaniel,” Jake said. “Petrograd. Rome. Lisbon. Buenos Aires.”
“We’ve done good,” Rik assured her and everyone else.
“So why are we so convinced that he’ll start up again as soon as he gets out?” Hollyanne asked, eyes focused on him now.
Jake wasn’t uncomfortable with that look. If he was the mastermind of the group, she’d always been the lancer, questioning things, but willing to go right in toe-to-toe with any bad guys that came along. They’d had similar conversations so many times he’d lost count.
“It’s Nathaniel,” Jake said simply. “If he was going straight, he wouldn’t have let them break him out. He’d have turned himself in. Instead, he went to ground, and the world won’t know where he is until he strikes again or takes some most hostages and starts issuing demands.”
“Uhm,” Spencer said, causing every head to turn his way. He nodded and squirmed a little. “So, I got an email from a friend…”
Everyone laughed in spite of the seriousness. Spencer was connected to so many people that his phone was programmed to play different tunes depending on which level of priority a mail or call might have, instead of just who was calling.
“Yeah, yeah,” he continued. “And there’s a guy who is a known associate of Nathaniel…”
“Hooligan, mercenary, or something else?” Rik asked.
“One of the Russians,” Spencer confirmed. “Mikhail Ivanov. Remember him?”
“I do,” Hollyanne said darkly. “Leads with his left foot. Tendency to rely too much on elbow strikes. What about him?”
“They found his body in South London,” Spencer replied, pulling out his phone and checking something. “Near where the old Battersea Power Station was. Coroner said he’d been beaten severely and then executed at short range with a pistol. Body dumped for the cops to discover. I think he was also the one that posted on the Brighton board about recruiting before it was taken down, but I haven’t gone all the way to the bottom of their logs to confirm it.”
“Someone sending a message,” Rik observed.
“But to whom?” Jake asked. “There are any number of ways to make a body disappear in London. Dumping him like that smacks of publicity. One of Nathaniel’s enemies?”
“Or is it aimed at us?” Hollyanne spoke up. “Who would care about a third-rate punk getting what he had coming, except that he was connected with a major terrorist and financier who just broke out of prison?”
“Oh, I assume it’s a trap,” Jake nodded. “For that specific reason. If they were going after Nathaniel’s crew, there would have been more bodies. Or they would just vanish.”
“Maybe he pissed off Nathaniel directly?” Spencer asked.
“Likely, since you said they took down that announcement almost immediately,” Jake said. “Sounds like he jumped the gun and got punished for it.”
“Then what do we do?” Hollyanne asked the group.
“That’s why I reached out to all of you,” Jake said. “Pacific Force has always been a thing that could go places where law enforcement and espionage might not because we don’t have to play by the rules.”
“And we don’t start the conversation with drone strikes,” Hollyanne noted.
“Right, we’re not like the American government,” Jake agreed. “Or the Brits, the French, or the Russians.”
He paused to draw a breath and finish his espresso.
“I don’t think anybody else can stop Nathaniel, if only because they don’t see him as that big of a threat,” he continued. “Not yet. And I’d rather be going after him than letting him come after us. Safer for us and the whole world.”
“You think it’s time to get the band back together?” Hollyanne smiled.
Jake nodded. It was a foregone conclusion.
“Pacific Force needs to come out of retirement.”
CHAPTER
FIVE
Hollyanne frequently had her doubts about many things. She’d spent too many years on a dojo floor and around martial philosophers to find surety in anything.
Rik had retired for the evening. Knowing Spencer, he’d set up his laptop in the kitchen and be following the Asian markets for a while before going to bed. That left her and Jake sitting in the upstairs library, sipping at some exquisite adult beverages.
Jake liked whiskey, but she’d never developed the taste for it neat. Instead, she had a highball glass half-filled with brandy that his parents always kept around the house when she visited.
Jake was just finishing up his phone call.
“Grant will catch a red-eye flight to London tonight and be there first thing tomorrow,” he said, setting his phone face down on the table between them.
The season was late for a fire, but Jake had a small one going, mostly for look and smell rather than heat. The two of them were in comfortable chairs, facing the fireplace with a table and bottles between them.
“He going deep cover?” Hollyanne asked, turning tactical now in spite of the glass in her hand.
Or maybe because of it. Shit was about to get serious again.
Jake nodded to her.
“For now,” he said. “If this is a trap, he can work into it sideways and maybe vanish in the splash we’re likely to make when we get there in a few days.”
Hollyanne grimaced.
“What?” Jake asked.
“If it’s Nathaniel, he’ll be expecting us to follow our normal pattern of doing things, right?” She stared into the brandy like it held precognitive tea leaves. “Should we do something sideways?”
“Like what?” Jake queried.
“He’ll have a plan,” she continued. “He always does. I want to upset it.”
“Okay. How?”
“What you do isn’t predictable.” Hollyanne smiled to take the sting out of her words. “But how you do it is. I want to hit him out of left field.”
“Should you take command on this one?” Jake turned to look at her now.
“No, because I’m just as emotionally compromised around him as you are, just for different reasons,” she grimaced again and fell silent.
Jake watched and waited.
“Let’s take a private jet right now,” she said. “Tonight. Everyone’s here. Refuel someplace off his radar, like Portland, Maine. Land in maybe Liverpool or Manchester and catch the train into London quietly. Have Grant be the obvious one that Nathaniel and his people will be looking for.”
“Sure,” Jake agreed. “Backwards from how I’d run this investigation. I like it. You want to go wake up Rik?”
“Absolutely not!” Hollyanne laughed. “She’d try to drag me into bed with her, and it would either be a fight, or we’d never get out of here on time.”
“I thought you didn’t like girls,” Jake observed.
“Usually,” Hollyanne corrected him. “Most women are too fragile or brittle. Plus, I have spent a lot of time in weird monasteries where there were no men over the last few years. You learn to make do.”
“Plus, we’re not twenty anymore,” Jake nodded.
“And that,” she agreed. “Thirty-seven used to be ancient.”
“Fine.” Jake stood now. “You have Spencer get us a plane and I’ll roust the Valkyrie from her beauty sleep.”
“Don’t trip and fall.” She snickered as she rose as well. “She might pin you down and have her way with you.”
He shrugged and Hollyanne understood that there was more there than she’d realized. Rik had never married. Nor had Jake. Hell, only Grant had, but he’d been divorced three times now, never able to emerge from being the con artist he was born to play even when he found a good woman.
Not that Grant would know a good woman if she walked up and bit him. But still.
Still, this felt right. The Pacific Force never just rushed right in. They always took it methodically.
Nathaniel would be counting on that, so hopefully she could force him to make a mistake.
Next time, she might not just knock the man out.
CHAPTER
SIX
Grant Collingwood. He’d gone ahead and used his own passport this time after Jake had called back with a change of tactics. The Immigration officer studied his picture and then his face, as if the two somehow didn’t go together all that well.
Average. That was a term more than one person had used to describe him, but Grant preferred Mean in the statistical sense, which was a much more complicated thing with many more interesting meanings. He was that central point that confused people, because everywhere he went, Grant was likely to run into someone who knew a guy who looked just like him, somewhere else.
Forgettable, in that sense, then, because he would remind them of someone, but that meant that they’d lock onto a couple of details that happened to be close and forget the rest.
And maybe Grant was that other guy, just in a different guise. Dressed different. Hair different. Slouched. Lifts in his shoes. Tanned. Pale.
Chimerical, but nobody ever understood what he meant. Drifting in and out of roles, even when he had to play himself.
Whoever the hell Grant Collingwood really was.
Right now, the Officer grunted something, and he was through and into London.
Land of the Angles. Lovely place. He stopped long enough to get his suitcase and didn’t even get lost looking for the right train to take him downtown, where he was booked to stay at a charming place on a nice street literally across from the Queen’s garage with discrete men carrying submachine guns against need.
Tourist season was still a ways off, so the roads would be less crowded, but that just meant it would be beastly for someone to track him and remain anonymous.
The train ride to London was a bit crowded with other folks arriving from Canada on business, so he didn’t stand out in the slightest. Grant prepared for every role, even the ones he assumed on the fly while running for his life from men with guns through the back streets of Kolkata.
Still, Grant was somewhat surprised when a familiar face happened to drift up next to him walking along as they made their way along the Underground platform, like a traveler who just happened to be heading in the same direction.
Unforeseen, but not exactly a surprise. Still, Grant didn’t address the man, unsure what name might be appropriate today.
“Coffee sounds good,” the man said idly, turning this way like they were traveling companions.
“It does,” Grant agreed.
Obviously, someone in the British government had marked his unannounced arrival and had decided to follow up in person. Thankfully, Grant wasn’t trying to smuggle anything in this time that would give them an excuse to pick him up and haul him somewhere for one of those conversations.
In any case, he followed the man up the escalator to the surface and walked beside him into a coffee franchise similar to the ones back home, standing behind him in line and catching that the name on the side of the cup should be Steve.
He didn’t look like a Steve, but who was Grant to argue?
They found a table away from everyone else and put down their almost-identical suitcases.
“Forecast still sunny and cool today?” Grant asked as they got their coffee and stared at each other across the battlefield of a coffee shop table.
“Last I checked,” Steve answered blandly.
“That’s good,” Grant noted. “Have some sightseeing planned this afternoon, after a quick shower and lunch.”
“That’s what concerns us,” Steve said, still not using Grant’s name, even though it appeared to be on the tip of the man’s tongue. “We’d like to be kept in the loop.”
Grant smiled amiably at the man. He’d never asked what Steve did. Or rather, exactly who he did it for. Those sorts of things were just left on the table to roll off when nobody was looking, leaving a prettier picture when the after-action reports were written up.
Somewhere in that beast called British Intelligence, with a law enforcement background and before that military. It was there in the way the man walked. Grant thought that they were about the same age. Late thirties. Bland in that forgettable way men like them practiced constantly.
Grant had never imagined himself as a spy, but he supposed that to be the role he filled with Pacific Force. That, and talking to men and women like this. Shame they hadn’t sent Deborah to chat him up today.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Grant offered. “Do you have a card with current contact information?”
Slight emphasis on the current part. Probably had a dozen numbers that all routed to this one phone, and had to be evasive when it rang if your number wasn’t programmed in. Might be Steve for a while. Or not.
Steve palmed a business card then shook hands as they rose.
No message had been delivered. Well, they knew who he was, and that he was here, but that was no surprise. Other tongues would wag. News would get out.
Steve departed immediately, which was fine. Grant gave him a head start as he memorized the phone number and email address. He’d pick up a local phone this afternoon to use as a burner while he was here.
Then he would start stalking London’s underworld, looking for his old mate, Nathaniel Hoestler.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Jake appreciated getting lucky and knowing people who had been made fantastically wealthy by the explosions of various tech companies in Seattle over the last generation. A close family friend had left his Bombardier Global 5000 behind in Seattle while he was sailing down to San Francisco with his family. One quick call and they’d gotten the aircraft and crew prepped and taken off by two in the morning, headed east in luxury.
The best part was that this beast had the range to fly them direct to Manchester without having to stop anywhere.
Spencer was finally asleep. As was Hollyanne. There was a cute stewardess up front, more or less ignoring everyone except to peek out every once in a while and see what folks might need.
He sat in a comfortable chair made of leather clouds and watched Rik work.
“How many of those comic books are you going to sign?” he asked.
She looked up and smiled.
“Pacific Force Issue Number One, with signature.” She smiled in a most evil way. “Got twenty here. Worth a lot of money on the comic convention circuit. More if you wanted to sign a few.”
She held out a stack. Jake sighed and took them, flipping up the tabletop arm.
“Do you really need the money?” he asked as she handed him the small Sharpie she’d been using.
“No, but the fan service helps,” Rik replied. “Doubly so if we’re back in business. There are people out there who make money from what we do.”
“This is a one-time thing,” Jake glowered at her.
“Is it?” Her eyebrows went up in disbelief. “What else are any of us doing? Felt like we were all just marking time. Maybe the time is now.”
“And you’ll talk to Verónica about starting a new run of the graphic novel?” Jake asked, signing the splash page. “Further adventures? Why did I ever let you talk me into helping your friend start a comic book about us?”
“Good publicity.” Rik grinned. “How else was I going to meet the President of the United States anyway? The last one, not the current punk. He was a fan. I mean, the man’s a serious nerd.”
“More Pacific Force memorabilia?” Jake pressed, finishing and handing her back the stack.
He assumed that she’d get everyone’s signature on this batch and make them true collectors’ items.
“The same IP contracts are in place,” Rik shrugged. “None of it makes us much money personally, but again, it makes others like Verónica a nice living. Plus, T-shirt makers. Lunch boxes. Action figures. Might have to commission a new set of challenge coins for this. We’ll call it ‘The Return.’”
“I’m glad you handle all that stuff,” Jake said. “You can deal with Verónica yourself.”
“She’s still single, Jake,” Rik leered.
“I’m sorry, but too many of them come across as needy groupies,” Jake replied. “I know they aren’t, but I’m looking for something else.”
“What?”
“I’ll know when she walks in the door.”
Rather than speak, Rik nodded towards Hollyanne, snoring quietly in the corner.
Jake shrugged. They had, then they hadn’t. At the time, it wasn’t right for either of them. He had no idea if it might be now.
“Maybe you’re right,” he finally said. “This makes me feel more alive than anything I’ve done in the last two years. More right.”
“Take him down and start hunting bad guys again?” she smiled.
“We’ve got to find him first,” Jake reminded her. “Then stop whatever crap he’s up to this time.”
CHAPTER
EIGHT
