Chapter 8 #2
Dane stood inside the door and watched the introduction to O’Keefe and the smiles and solicitations, more hugging and even some cheek kissing. David turned his attention back to him and said, “You okay?”
Dane lifted his left hand and said, “I could use a splint and some ice.”
“I see you came by the rescue the hard way.” David gestured him into the small living space of what looked like a suite of two rooms with a small kitchenette off to the left.
David and O’Keefe sat in the two chairs leaving the couch for Dane and Shana.
Dane stood by the tall, wide window that dominated the room.
Shana hovered near the couch, but didn’t sit.
“It was nothing—considering they went through a lot of bullets giving chase.”
“Who are they?” O’Keefe said.
“Tavares family. Uncle Henrique, cousin Erico and the sister of our dead man in last summer’s arrest, Gabriela.”
“What about Floyd?” David asked.
“He made contact after we escaped the compound. He got us off the street,” Dane said.
“The CIA man came through,” O’Keefe said. He almost smiled. A big change from his undertaker look.
“I’ll get you some ice,” Shana said.
David glanced at Dane’s hand. He left it at his side in spite of the throbbing and the fact that it would have been wiser to keep it raised up to chest level.
“Let me see that hand.”
“It’s fine. It’ll be fine.” The last thing he wanted was sympathy.
If these men were angry with him—and they had a right to be in spite of the partial success on his mission—then he wanted to get it all out in the open.
He didn’t want anything muted by sympathy over his injury to lie festering for later.
“I’m sorry I left you all without notice. I couldn’t wait until morning to—”
“No need to explain,” David said. He quirked a half smile and flicked a glance in Shana’s direction. “I’m damned glad you showed up here with Shana.”
Chief O’Keefe said nothing. Dane met his neutral stare for a beat then moved on. Nothing he could do now except get Oscar out of whatever trouble he was in.
“I see Cap stayed behind. Is he available for—”
“He’ll help. He’ll play whatever role you want him to play.” David shook his head. “For some reason, the man has a certain amount of confidence in you. But you might want to call him—better yet, have Shana give him a call to let him know she’s safe.”
Dane handed her the phone as she came from the kitchenette and handed him the ice wrapped in a small towel.
“I’ll call Cap while I freshen up. You catch them up on Floyd,” Shana said. She left Dane to give them the bad news.
“What about this Floyd Parker fellow? Has he heard from the kidnappers? Any more word about Oscar?”
“I’m not sure Floyd is on our side. He might be working under duress. I haven’t got anything solid from him about Oscar.”
“I thought you said he helped you get away—” O’Keefe said.
Dane nodded. He was going on gut instinct and he might be skeptical if he were in O’Keefe’s shoes.
“It’s a gut feeling at this point. We need to be careful.”
“What’s our next move? I think we should pay a visit to the Tavares organization office. It’s a few blocks from here,” David said.
“I don’t know that we want to show our full hand yet,” Dane said. “We’ll have to work with Floyd for now. But I don’t think we should plan on staying here for long. If he’s working with the Tavares family—or if they have him on a hook—they’ll be right behind us.”
“Where do you suggest we go?” O’Keefe asked.
“I know of another safe house. I told Floyd I’d call him back. In the meantime, you should be prepared to leave and we’ll rendezvous there.”
“What makes you so sure Floyd doesn’t know about your safe house?” David asked. “He’s CIA—isn’t it his business to know about them?”
Shana reappeared.
“Not this one,” Dane said. “It’s a house specifically set up to be safe from the CIA.”
“How do you know about this?” Shana asked. Her hands were on her hips in a modified Wonder Woman pose. Dane gave her a look. She rolled her eyes.
“Why exactly don’t you trust Floyd Parker? I don’t think we ought to risk alienating him since he’s our only connection to Oscar and the kidnappers,” Chief O’Keefe said.
“Oh, we have another connection. Don’t forget our friends, the Tavares people. Trust me—they’re looking for Shana and me as we speak. And I will bet anything if Oscar is in trouble they have something to do with it.”
“What do you mean if Oscar is in trouble?” David and Chief O’Keefe spoke at once saying almost the same thing.
Dane drew a breath. “Floyd is not trustworthy and he’s the only source that says Oscar is in trouble.”
“Peter said the CIA confirmed that they haven’t heard from Oscar,” David said.
“True. But then they are getting that information from his handler—Floyd Parker. Floyd is the contact person from the CIA that would be hearing from Oscar. Oscar could be reporting to Floyd every five minutes and if Floyd doesn’t report that to his office—then no one knows.”
David nodded. O’Keefe kept his face neutral. Dane couldn’t help feeling like they were on opposing teams—like shirts and skins only they were sitters and standers—for the moment.
“So that gives him opportunity—what’s the motive?” O’Keefe asked.
“Not sure. I have some suspicions, but that’s all.” Dane didn’t want to float the notion of a potential personal vendetta against himself. It seemed farfetched, even to him.
“There’s always money,” Shana said. “Floyd has a bad attitude. Always has.”
“What about any other evidence?”
“We’re working on it. So far we have too many coincidences. Like the facts that he lured me out to get conked on the head and Shana got kidnapped. Who else would have known about that if he didn’t tell them?”
That met with some considered silence in the room.
“Very good point,” David said. “He has to be the connection with the Tavares people. The question is, what kind of connection is it? Willing or unwilling. Are they following him or do they have him by the short hairs?” David continued.
Dane said. “There’s a good chance Oscar isn’t here. A good chance Floyd faked the trouble call.”
“How are we going to find out? We have to work with him in the meantime, like you said,” O’Keefe said.
“Peter is looking into Floyd from his end. We’ll set up in a rendezvous location. Acer will stage the copter in a location up north of Rio where Tavares doesn’t have control. He can pick us up from the rendezvous location. Then get us all out of here.”
“I’m not leaving without Oscar,” Chief O’Keefe said.
“I have a reliable source working to confirm his status. There’s a good chance Oscar isn’t in country.”
“You’ll have to prove that to me.” O’Keefe folded his arms across his chest and pulled himself straight.
Dane decided it was time to put an end to the chief’s challenges.
He met O’Keefe’s eyes with a steely stare and held them a few beats.
When he spoke, his voice sounded even to himself low and sure and menacing like the distant rolling of thunder.
“You trust the CIA man Floyd Parker over me?”
David cut in. “Of course we trust you. We’ll wait for confirmation from your friend and then leave.”
“What about that shit Floyd Parker?” Shana said. Dane wanted to kiss her right then and would have reached out and touched her hair if she hadn’t been standing on the other side of the room.
“Shana’s right,” Dane said. “The plan is for you all to go back to the States as soon as I get confirmation—tomorrow at the latest. I will stay and—”
“No you don’t. You’re not going rogue on us again. In for a penny, in for a pound, I always say.” David raised a brow asking for a challenge. O’Keefe looked at him and paused a beat before chiming in.
“You have a plan of some kind?”
Dane smiled. “Yes. I do.” He paused. “Think of me as MacGyver—without the gadgets.”
He looked to Shana and wasn’t disappointed when she rolled her eyes. It gave him a little jolt of pleasure—which he kept to himself.
“Spill it, Blaise,” O’Keefe said.
The police chief’s distrust of Dane went unabated.
Dane was withholding judgment, giving the man the benefit of the doubt under the circumstances—it was O’Keefe’s best childhood friend’s life supposedly on the line and Dane was a virtual stranger to him.
Not even David vouching for Dane seemed to be good enough.
He’d put up with O’Keefe’s temper, but he had more important things to do than un-ruffle someone’s feathers.
Dane decided David would have to manage that problem.
“Shana and I will meet with Floyd at a building by Ipanema beach. It’s a safe house that Floyd has set up for us.”
“Again, won’t that be like walking into his trap—if he’s with the Tavares organization?” David said, arms folded across his chest, knowing there would be another shoe to drop.
“It would be if we didn’t have you here for backup. Floyd—and the Tavares clan—won’t do anything until they get a handle on who is here and what you know and what the resources are behind you.”
“So we’re insurance? That’s it?” O’Keefe seemed to want a more active role although he was the least equipped to handle it.
“For now,” Dane said. “We need to force Floyd to show his hand. We’ll set him up—without him knowing about it. If our location gets compromised, we’ll know whose team he’s on.”
“Whether he’s working for them willingly or unwillingly—does that matter?” David asked.
“No,” Dane said. He looked around the room at grim faces.
“I agree,” Shana put in and angled herself to be shoulder-to-shoulder with him. The singe of her skin against his nearly stopped his heart, but he bravado-ed through it.
“Then it’s a plan.” David stood and clapped Dane on the back, nodded at Shana and then moved to stand by his friend Chief O’Keefe.