Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
“Gimme a minute.” John raised his hands over his head and brought his wrists down hard on his knee. The zip ties cracked like crystal.
“Don’t have a minute.” Vivian kicked the shorter guy in the jaw.
“Stop.” Lola trained a gun on him. “Stay where you are.”
John held up his hands. “Thought you said there were no guns in Europe?”
“I never said no guns.” She ducked Tall Guy’s punch, then wrapped the scarf around his neck and twisted. “I said fewer.”
With a mighty tug, she slammed Tall Guy to the floor, then took off toward Short Guy.
The action distracted Lola long enough for him to snatch the EpiPen from his pocket and jab her.
She fired a shot toward the ceiling, then slumped as the anesthetic hit her system.
The gun spilled from her hand. He kicked it away.
Hands on his shoulder caught his attention.
Vivian. The ringing caused by the gunshot muffled his hearing. But he read her lips.
Are you okay?
Behind her, Jean-Michel had picked up Lola’s gun. It had been a decade or more since John had fired one at the range with his dad, but even he could see Jean-Michel’s one-armed sideways aim was more style than substance.
“Yes, I brought the drives,” Vivian said.
His hearing was coming back, but she still sounded muffled.
“May I have them, please?”
“Since you said please.” She reached into her pocket, then held them out to him. “Here. You can see the emblem on the base so there’s no mix-up.”
She’d kind of yelled that last word. Weird.
“Non, ma petite. Place them on the desk, then back away.”
With a sigh, Vivian did as he asked.
After a beat, Jean-Michel skulked toward the desk, then sat at it and opened a laptop. He awkwardly kept the gun trained on them. After locating the symbol on each drive, he slipped one into the port.
“You don’t trust me?” she asked.
“I trust no one.” One by one, he checked them. “Now, what to do with the two of you?”
“Let us go?” Vivian suggested.
Jean-Michel grinned. “I’ve always appreciated your optimism.”
“I have the code,” she said. “You could sell the information to more than one buyer. Promise to let us go and never bother us again—Rocksy included—and it’s yours.”
Jean-Michel leaned back in his chair. “You could have sold the information as well, made a fortune with the first two drives. And you didn’t, to save him?”
Vivian reached for John’s hand. “Yes.”
“How very pedestrian of you. I agree to your terms.” Jean-Michel shifted his gaze between them. “First, I’d like to verify the code is correct.”
Vivian nodded. “I’d expect nothing less.”
As a goon moaned, Jean-Michel slipped a drive into the port. “The code, please?”
“One, nine, eight, six,” Vivian began.
As she fed Jean-Michel the code, John loosened his belt. Vivian could use it since her scarf was still wrapped around the moaning goon’s throat.
“Zero, six, six, two,” she said.
Jean-Michel typed the keys. On the last digit, he looked up at Vivian. “Non. Something is wrong. For each number, the screen was green, but the last two digits were red.”
“Oh, sorry about that mix-up. Remember I switch things up sometimes? Just reverse the last two numbers.”
Jealousy flared in John. He hated that this guy had any personal Vivian knowledge.
Jean-Michel typed again.
After the final click, he cranked his brow low. “Ma petite, what did you do?”
He twisted the laptop toward her.
A grim reaper appeared on his screen.
“Sorry, it was a mix-up.”
The goon she’d cold-cocked with the serving tray woozily stumbled to his feet. Scarf Goon was already up, eyes flashing with anger as he moved toward them.
“Goddammit, I said, it was a mix-up,” she shouted.
A beefy guy burst through the door behind them. Jean-Michel fired a wild shot that thumped into the lintel above the door.
“I’ve got the gunman.” She leaped at Jean-Michel. “Clobber, on your three.”
Beefy Guy rocketed toward Platter Goon.
“Gorgeous, catch.” John tossed his belt to Vivian. “Zip ties are in the desk.”
“Dope,” Beefy Guy said.
The remaining goon, with Vivian’s scarf dribbling from his neck, lurched toward Vivian.
John slide-tackled him.
Vivian had Jean-Michel in a headlock. “Tie up your guy with the scarf, John.”
He wrapped a round turn and two half hitches knot around Scarf Goon’s wrists. By the time he finished and removed the guy’s gun from his holster, Vivian had strapped Jean-Michel to the office chair, and Beefy Guy had hog-tied Platter Goon.
“What about her?” John gestured to Lola’s unconscious form.
“Zip ties.” Vivian dusted her hands together, then wrapped the plastic around Lola’s wrists and ankles.
“Ma petite, let me go.” Jean-Michel fought his restraints. “The sellers are ruthless.”
“Not my problem.” She picked up the gun she’d stripped from him and released its magazine. “Who were the buyers?”
Jean-Michel lifted a shoulder. “I cannot say.”
“You’re facing a long couple of days of questioning, Jean-Michel.” Vivian sighed as she removed the magazine from the gun John handed her. “It’ll go easier if you cooperate.”
From behind them, a gravelly voice grumbled, “She’s right.”
* * *
Outside Maison Moreau and seated on the back bumper of an open SUV, Vivian pressed her cheek against John’s chest. The slow, steady thump of his heartbeat soothed her.
The job wasn’t over.
It was never over. Each operation had consequences, loose ends, new plots. They needed to find the buyers, Dragomir, learn how he’d gotten the intel, and how, exactly, Vandenberg was involved. But she could turn the page on this particular chapter.
Over the past hour, local police had cleared the scene.
“You got a minute?” MacColl asked.
“For you?” Vivian asked. “We’ve got at least five.”
“Should I go?” John asked.
“Nah.” MacColl crossed his rumpled arms. “You’re in this as deep as anyone.
After the attack on the office in DC, Vandenberg put me on paid leave and took over the operation because I was ‘too lax to run a branch.’ No investigation, immediate suspension.
That didn’t pass the sniff test for me, especially with our history.
She had a pattern of doubling back on my reporting, second-guessing my asset allocation. So I went black and headed to Europe.”
Vivian leaned forward.
This was a new MacColl. In DC he was a harried grump. Competent, chock-full of integrity, and knowledgeable, but no one you’d want to bump into at 6:00 a.m. Out here in the field, he was all patience and clear reporting.
“How’d you get here undetected?”
“I have my ways,” MacColl said. “Once I arrived, I reconnected with my old network to find out more about Vandenberg. Can’t get shit from the system—she’s got it on lock.”
Which explained why Anjali couldn’t get much from it.
“I can confirm your suspicions about the leave in the eighties. She had a kid with one of her Yugoslav assets. By all accounts, Vandenberg loved the guy, but she gave the kid up to protect her career and avoid attention from the secret police.”
Vivian shivered. You remind me of myself at your age.
“But she kept tabs on the kid—Dragomir Mihailovic. Vandenberg’s spent the last decade redacting information about him while trying to stop him.”
“But why?”
“We’ll ask her, but I have my guesses. For better or worse, he’s her kid. She might’ve thought she could rehabilitate him. Or worried his actions would reflect poorly on her. Or he might’ve learned about her and blackmailed her into helping.”
“But she didn’t raise him, and he’s grown. His actions are his.”
MacColl lifted a shoulder. “Logic doesn’t always play into these things.
Like Hall and Rodriguez letting themselves get wrapped up in it, too.
Those three have been a power clique for the past fifteen years.
I’d bet they staged the attack on the DC office to get the drive and hide evidence of Dragomir’s involvement. ”
“Speaking of—where is he?”
“Parts unknown.” MacColl scratched the back of his neck. “We found the tracker in a bathroom at the hotel. It’s clear he was the seller. Any clues about the buyers?”
“Not on the drives. Accounting forensics on the auctions might tell us.” Vivian yawned and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “Sorry. It’s been a long week.”
“You should take tomorrow off. I’ll give word to Digger about the forensics. It’ll be good to have you back in the office.” MacColl turned to John. “What about you?”
“What about me what?” John asked.
“The office. We could fast-track an application, and with your family background…”
Vivian swung her gaze toward him. “What does that mean?”
“I recently got some info about my parents’ actual careers,” John said. “Remember what you told me about the State Department as a cover story for officers abroad?”
Of course.
Another pattern dropped into place. His parents worked at the agency. They could meet for lunch at Langley and spill all the beans. It would be without John, of course, but it might be a bonding experience if she and his parents learned about each other’s work exploits.
Unless he got clearance?
“Thanks.” John shook his head. “But I love my job.”
“What about you?” MacColl asked Vivian. “Since your cover’s blown, I’ll need to pull you from the field for a while. What US-based jobs interest you?”
“Can we talk about this when we’re all back in the States?”
One thing was sure. Staying put for a while sounded like heaven.
MacColl nodded. “And that’ll be…?”
“Tuesday. We’ll be back on Tuesday.”
“Great.” MacColl dragged his finger across the surface of his phone. “Which reminds me. A wedding gift for the two of you.”
Vivian’s phone buzzed. “Two tickets to Copenhagen?”
“Mission here’s complete. Go have fun.” MacColl returned to the police fray, leaving them alone together.
John squeezed her hand. “Hi.”
“Hi.” She squeezed back.
“This is quite the elopement story,” he said.
She laughed. “I’m sorry.”
“About what?” He kissed her temple.
“All of it. The lying, the danger, the fighting, the truth serum.”
“I liked that part. You said nice things about me.”
“I always say nice things about you.”
“Still nice to hear them.” John twisted toward her.
“But I don’t need truth serum to be honest. I love you, Vivian Bernardita Flint.
I tried not to for a couple of hours, but it didn’t take.
And I’d never want you to quit something that makes you feel so alive.
So I hope you’ll reconsider what you said this morning on the bridge. ”
“Reconsidered and retracted.” She laid her hand on his chest. “But let me clarify something. You make me feel alive. I don’t want to be like Vandenberg and put the job before everything I want out of life. My mom did too, in a way. And I’m tired of working two jobs.”
“Three,” John corrected. “Including Rocksy.”
“Shit, no wonder I’m exhausted.” Vivian squeezed his hand. “My point is, I don’t need the job to feel alive. Just you. If you’re up for it?”
He slid the earrings they’d purchased earlier from his suit pocket.
“Always.” As he gently hooked them into her ears, he said, “Gorgeous, you totally pull these off. Can I please take you to Copenhagen and make you my wife?”
Tears pricked her eyes. “I want to say yes. But I need to tell you three secrets first.”
“Finally. Aliens?”
“Fuck off.” She bumped shoulders with him. “My sister Torrey is also Rocksy. She creates the stencils, and I spray-paint them around the world. That’s why I didn’t want to give up my apartment. I store the stencils there.”
He blew out his breath. “Okay. What’s the next one?”
“Everything I said about the agency covering my expenses was true, but because of Rocksy…after all the donations to children’s literacy and art programs in Baltimore… I’ve got two million dollars stashed away for retirement.”
“Okay, cool.” He blew out a breath. “I mean, that’s life-changing money, and I hope you know I’m not a gold digger, but what’s the third one? Secret lair?”
“I want another dog. Ruckus could use a buddy, and if I’m not in the field, I can help take care of them.”
He tucked a red curl behind her ear. “But if you were in the field, your husband would happily handle things while you’re off saving the world.”
“I like the sound of that.” She kissed him. “Oh, and this isn’t a secret, more like a warning. When we get back from Copenhagen, we need to go to my mother’s retirement party. My whole family is dying to meet you.”
He hauled her onto his lap. “I’d love nothing more.”