4. Frank #2
“Eyes on Penny, she’s en route to the spa now,” Seb’s voice crackles over my in-ear monitors as I run my squeegee over one of the massive courtyard windows in the Diamond Center’s lobby.
I clear my throat twice, our signal for confirmation while in high-traffic areas where someone might overhear a curious janitor ‘talking to himself’—and start the process of moving on from my current task so that I can inconspicuously connect with Caz and the laundry cart in the service elevator, as planned.
We cased the center a few weeks ago, got a good lay of the land, and set the groundwork for getting Quentin’s alias, ‘Hans Wulf’—body worker and all around attractive employment prospect—a job in the Center’s famous spa.
All of our careful preparation and planning seems to be paying off.
So far, everything has run smoothly—completely without incident.
Not to mention, our target looks like she’s maybe 160 dripping wet—and she can’t be more than 5’5”.
I’d seen pictures of her on the Internet, seen her stats and partial FBI academy records—but it’s hard to tell exactly what someone’s going to be like in the flesh until you’ve got eyes on them in the material world.
We’ve got nothing to worry about.
The service elevator doors open and I wait for two waiters pushing trolleys of spent room service dishes and utensils clear out of the way—revealing Caz and the massive laundry bin on wheels at the back of the elevator.
I use the mop handle and the wringer lever on the bright yellow wheeled bucket and cleaning caddy as I slip through the open doors.
“My last appointment before Penny, just left,” Quentin whispers into my earpiece.
Caz and I exchange nods as he hits the button for the spa floor.
I ditch my yellow bucket and mop, moving in alongside Caz to help him push the massive laundry bin down the hall toward the locker rooms between the gym, pool, and spa.
“I’m collecting our coin now, boys.” Quentin’s voice, soft but sure breaks the silence as I glide toward the massage rooms, the sweet chemical smell of indoor pool chlorine giving way to the earthy, herbal scents of the spa—the tang of acetone and nail polish hovering between both as we push the laundry bin past the line of salon-goers having their fingers and toes painted.
This time it’s Caz who clears his throat twice in affirmation, our strides casual and unbothered as we approach the line of massage suite doors.
I count the seconds silently, stopping into the salon to collect a bin of hand towels from a nail tech eagerly awaiting our arrival.
One, two, three, four, five…
Less than a hundred feet away, Caz and I see Quentin, in full Hans costume, lead the unassuming Louise Penny into one of the massage rooms down the long hall.
Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten…
It should take less than half a minute from the time he’s gotten her, to lights out for agent Penny.
Quentin’s one of the best in the business, and she’s guaranteed not to be carrying in a premiere placement center on mandatory repro leave.
A bathrobe and slippers are just shy of getting her completely naked and defenseless.
We couldn’t have asked for a better setup. No smash, just grab.
I’m about to count off the last twenty seconds when a clatter and muffled scream breaks my concentration.
Caz and I shoot one another a glance—but there’s no time for discussion; the heavy wooden door Q and our target had disappeared through only seconds earlier bursts open; nearly swinging into a passing esthetician—her tray of tools rattling loudly in time with her surprised scream.
“Oh, shit,” Caz hisses under his breath as Louise Penny tears out of the massage suite like a bat out of hell—arms windmilling in time with her long strides as she makes great time down the hall.
Quentin lurches out of the doorway, his hand grasping at his knee.
It takes me a second to register the growing red blotch beneath his hand, but quickly my mind connects the dots as I watch Q pull a plastic ballpoint pen from just above his knee.
“Fuckin’ hell,” I groan softly, picking up our pace as we move down the hall—Quentin struggling after her, blood seeping down his pant leg as other staff members in the hall begin to scream.
“Seb, we have a big fucking problem,” I seethe as quietly as possible while Caz and I close the distance between us and Q. “We have a runner,” I grunt under my breath as we weave the cart through the panicked women crowding the hall.
“Merde,” Seb clucks on the other end of the line.
“Go, you try to catch up to her. There’s just not that many options for where to go—I’m going to get Q back to the van.
If you can’t nab her in a minute or less—fucking bail—come back to the van and we roll,” I growl, low and heated with anger.
I reach into the laundry cart, pulling the thin black nylon case containing the tranq rifle and darts from the pile of used sheets and towels, sling it over my shoulder and move to grab hold of the hobbling Quentin.
Caz keeps pace down the hall as I drape one of Quentin’s beefy arms over my shoulders. He’s almost a whole head taller than me and built like a comic book superhero—but I manage to get him off his bleeding leg and moving at a brisk pace toward the staff elevator and out of the building.
“What the fuck happened in there?” I spit as soon as the staff elevator doors close, whisking us down to the basement and the loading bay exit in relative obscurity.
“I paid for our hubris with my so-called ‘pound of flesh’.” Quentin sucks in air through his teeth with a wince, ripping a snowy white sleeve off of his athleisure zip up as if it were a wet paper towel, doubling over momentarily to tie the piece of fabric around his thigh with enough pressure to help stop the bleeding.
“We seriously underestimated Miss Louise Penny,” he admits, though I can see how much it costs him—a wound to his pride and mine.
“Holy shit, she is fast and squirrelly as hell,” Caz huffs, his voice low and feathered by his ragged breathing. “I thought I had her, but she took off through the men’s locker room. Her feet are bleeding everywhere now though, so she shouldn’t be hard to track.”
Quentin nods, opening his hand in a signal for me to throw him the keys to the van.
“Ditch the bin Cazzy.” I grin at Q, tossing him the spare keys and dongle for our makeshift laundry van.
“Follow our little friend as close as you can, Seb—you’re already on the west side of the building, Caz—funnel her down Seb’s hall, and I’ll get her at the fire exit bottleneck.
Q will bring the van around to the west lot. ”
Quentin and I take off in different directions out of the service elevator.
“She’s heading to Seb's hall—be ready,” Caz warns, as I swing out of a service exit—crouching low in the neat row of ornamental cypress hedges that act as cover for the unsightly utilities—air vents and electrical meters; my hands working all the while to assemble the tidy little tranq rifle as I approach the west fire exit.
The crushed white stone crunches beneath my boots, my eyes never leaving the fire exit door with its heavy push bar and bright yellow and orange signage.
“Intercepting now,” Sébastien bites out before falling silent again.
I listen to my heartbeat, bu-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump .
As sideways as this whole thing has gone, the fact is—Louise Penny has a terry bathrobe and slippers to her name right now, and Sébastien is packing a handgun. It’s no contest.
Still, the acquisition should have been essentially instantaneous…
“Seb, what the fuck is going on in there? Did you nab her yet or not?”
“Shit!” Caz yelps suddenly. “Oh fuck, are you serious!?”
“Caz, talk to me!” I bark back.
“She’s going full on kung-fu movie on Seb’s ass right now—she disarmed him and now—Oh shit!”
That’s all I need to hear. I’m on my feet and kicking in the fire escape door in my next breath.
You know that they say: if you want a job done right—you gotta do it yourself.
The bright midday sun beams into the mood-lit resort hallway, Louise’s eyes narrowing to slits instinctively against the sudden burst of brightness.
Even stripped down and bleeding, Louise Penny’s sigma aura is absolutely insane. Even though I’m an alpha, I can feel it exerting its pressure on me—like someone adding one cinder block to your chest, then moving on to a second one.
There’s no time to waste, then.
"I see we got us a lively one here, boys!" I cheer before pumping a tranquilizer dart into the meat of her thigh.
Behind Louise, I see Sébastien’s shoulders droop with relief—the conspicuously inconspicuous duffel bag Louise had entered the center with earlier in the morning slung across his chest.
Louise’s eyes, so vibrant cinnamon brown they’re almost red, like her hair—glare back at me with pure hatred as they glaze with the telltale haze of artificial slumber.
"Grab her before her head hits the floor!" I shout at Sébastien as she begins to lurch backward.
Caz lets out a strangled squeak, lunging to spot Sébastien as Louise begins to fall in earnest.
Between the two of them, they lift her dead weight ungracefully—hefting her rag doll limp body clumsily through the open fire escape door as Quentin howls into view on screaming rubber tires.
“Move it Q!” Caz shouts, hurrying the wounded Quentin out of the driver's seat as Seb and I negotiate the unconscious Louise into the back of the van—Caz hopping into the newly vacated driver’s seat as soon as he can.
“Alright boys—not the cleanest job, but let’s motor!” I bark, and Caz obliges, doing his best not to peel out of the lot as we make our escape.