Chapter 23
JETT
After changing into running gear and grabbing my earbuds and phone, I moved to the front door of the villa. Several security personnel were there, two from the team Locke’s people had hired, one who was part of the British royal guard, one who worked for al-Qadiri, and one of Alvarado’s men.
Alvarado’s man frowned at me. “May we help you, Mr. Davis?”
“Just going out for a run,” I explained with a friendly smile.
Al-Qadiri’s man tilted his head toward the stairs to the terrace level. “You would be safer remaining on the property and taking advantage of Mr. Maris’s fitness center.”
“Am I in danger?” I asked, acting as sweetly naive as possible while wondering what the fuck.
The guard working for us shifted on his feet. “It is our job to ensure your safety.”
Alvarado’s man nodded. “You should stay here.”
I tried to look friendly and clueless. “No, thanks. I’d rather enjoy this beautiful weather. It’s a nice break from New York’s cold.”
I moved to the front door before Alvarado’s man spoke again. As I left, I heard him murmur something to one of the other men, but I didn’t stick around to hear what it was.
While I was too experienced and well trained to shake with nerves, I certainly felt them.
Now that my lust was temporarily slaked, my training was kicking back in, and the weight of all my questions about Locke was impossible to ignore. What were the chances that Locke’s business in the Kiel Canal was unrelated to the very mission my fellow agents were on right now?
Pretty slim.
And why had those men warned me against leaving? They had no need to protect me. I was household staff and nothing more.
I started with a walk, then a slow jog, following a map of the area on my phone while listening to music in one earbud. After a mile and a half, I found a secluded area and stepped off the road into a large cluster of trees before making my call.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?” Rocky answered with a smile in her voice. “Why am I not surprised to hear from you?”
I tempered my voice to keep it low on the off chance anyone was anywhere in range. It seemed impossible, but I’d been trained to never assume. “Hey, yeah, about that… Turns out work might have found me.”
Her teasing tone shifted immediately. “So help me god, if you went looking for trouble…”
“I didn’t. I swear.” Well, not exactly. Not that kind of trouble anyway.
“Tell me.”
I paused, sick to my stomach at the idea of lying to her. Rocky was solid. Had been supportive of me from my earliest days at ESP. But I couldn’t bring myself to admit to her I’d taken a job as a high-paid escort.
It also occurred to me, way too late, that there might have been some kind of clause in my employment contract that forbade such a thing.
“There’s a group here… some kind of chess tournament going on at a local villa,” I began carefully, trying to avoid actual lies. “And it includes some heavy hitters. I’m talking Esteban Alvarado, Ted Harlan, Saleem al-Qadiri, Vukasin Drakovi?—”
“Woah, woah. What are you saying? Where exactly are you?”
My heart thundered as I swallowed. “Italy. Near Maiori, on the Amalfi Coast.”
“And there seems to be a gathering of… let’s see. A notorious cartel leader, a British royal, an oil prince, a Serbian weapons dealer…”
“It sounds unbelievable,” I said, blowing out a breath. “But it’s true. I saw them.”
“And you think they’re actually there to play chess.”
I opened my mouth to say of course, that I had seen the actual game and some of the play. But then I bit back the words.
“I… I’m not sure what they’re doing,” I admitted. Truth.
“Any chance you can find out?”
“I can try. Are any of these guys on our radar for specific reasons right now? I mean, besides Alvarado.”
She asked me to wait a minute and then put me on hold. The sun had gone behind a cloud, and the slight breeze was enough to make my sweaty skin uncomfortable.
She came back on the phone, all business.
“It was Drakovi?’s weapons lost in the CRL derailment.
Selene Mercier owns a microchip company.
The same chips Russia is desperate to get their hands on.
Sorensen’s pharmaceutical company makes various antidotes.
” She didn’t elaborate, but I knew she meant antidotes to chemical and biological agents.
“There’s no chance this is a gathering of chess aficionados, Jett. ”
When she said it like that, I felt like a complete idiot.
“I, ah… overheard someone mention the Kiel Canal,” I said, cringing in expectation of getting Locke into trouble or torching my own career.
She sounded incredulous. “In what context?”
“No context. I don’t know. I just heard it while I was eating lunch. It got my attention. I don’t know how it relates to any of this.” Also true.
“Jesus.”
“The conversation was mostly stuff about the game and general niceties. There was nothing at all about their businesses or anything clandestine.”
“Well, there wouldn’t be, would there? It’s not like a gathering of bad actors is going to chat about their criminal enterprise at a restaurant.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled. It wasn’t a restaurant. It’s a private villa with armed guards, and I’m sleeping with one of the supposed bad actors. “Right.”
“Keep your eyes and ears open, Jett. In the meantime, I’m going to put together some surveillance tech and overnight it to you at your hotel.”
“I’m staying with a friend,” I said. “I don’t want him involved. Let me find another place for you to send it.”
I looked both ways and began walking on the road again in the direction of the town. As soon as I was warmed up again, I picked up the pace with a jog.
“Be careful,” she said, sounding more serious than the situation seemed to call for. No one at the villa was going to suspect me of being an intelligence agent. A whore, maybe, but not a spy.
“I’ll text you an address.”
After ending the call, I quickly made my way into town, inquired about a place to receive a package, and discovered the local post office allowed Fermo Posta.
I sent the information to her, signed the email Jethro Davis, and then cleared the relevant data from my phone before heading back at as fast a pace as I could manage.
By the time I returned, I was drenched and noodle-legged. I made my way through the front door, handing my phone and earbuds over to the guard before walking through the hidden metal detector bars that had been set up.
He nodded and returned my items to me, causing me to wonder how the hell I would be able to get the surveillance equipment through the door.
It was a problem for another time.
Just like the fact I’d held a single name back from Rocky on my list of who’s who here at the Italian “hotel.”
The thought of Locke getting pulled into an ESP investigation filled me with dread. I told myself I was protecting him. But the truth was messier. The moment I said J. Locke Maris’s name out loud, he would be forever—officially—off-limits to me.
And that was a line I couldn’t bring myself to cross.