Elite Operatives: Demons Are Forever Part 9

"Are you saying you can't accommodate my demands?" The Broker's cold and ominous tone gave him goose b.u.mps.

Xia didn't know how he was going to pull this off with all the recent restrictions that had been imposed on organ donations, but disappointing the Broker would mean the end of his luxurious life. There were plenty of other penitentiary directors to turn to who would be more than willing to do whatever was necessary for that price. "I can do it. You will have your order filled on time."

"If this goes well, it could be the beginning of a permanent arrangement. A very lucrative one. How do you feel about that?"

"I would like for our business to grow," Xia replied, "but other people will have to be notified."

"He can expect a phone call from me today."

"No problem then. Everyone satisfied."

"Satisfied indeed," the Broker said slowly. Xia could picture a smile on those reptilian lips.

* 76 *

Once they'd disconnected, Xia summoned his second in command to begin expedited blood tests on at least forty death-row inmates, to ensure they'd have the proper number of matches. Then he called the hospital director. Holding two rounds of executions the same week was unprecedented, but it would no doubt have the unintended benefit of keeping the rest of the prisoners at the enormous complex docile and compliant for a long while.

Simon shrank back against the cold brick wall of his cell when two soldiers armed with electric batons entered, followed by a man in a white medical jacket. Still edgy and anxious from the shock of seeing the executions, he panicked.

The guards pinned him roughly against the wall, and when he struggled, one discharged his baton against Simon's ear. His body jerked involuntarily and he cried out as an excruciating roar filled his ears and obliterated all other sound. Limbs tingling with pain, he saw but didn't feel the p.r.i.c.k of the needle as the man in white drew a vial of blood from his right arm. Without a word, the men departed, leaving him gasping for breath.

Rollo watched it all from the cot but didn't move until the soldiers had gone. "Tough luck, mate," he said as he helped Simon unsteadily to his feet.

Simon fought to calm his runaway heart. This couldn't be happening. He'd just tried to smuggle a small amount of opium, for G.o.d's sake; it wasn't like he'd killed somebody. "How can I get out of this, Rollo? Isn't there somebody I can bribe or something?"

"Not unless you're rich, man. Your organs are worth a hundred grand or so, I hear. And you'd have to have it on you, 'cause they d.a.m.n sure won't let you talk to anybody on the outside. My mum still doesn't even know I was arrested." Simon stared out at the blue sky through the bars and wept.

* 77 *

* 78 *

ChaPter eight.

New York Next day, November 17 Chase and Jack returned to the brownstone at eight thirty a.m., figuring Ma.s.simo would probably allow himself at minimum a good six hours' sleep before he ventured out. By the time he finally emerged from the building shortly before noon, both of them were wired from too much coffee. A small shoulder bag containing surveillance cams and listening devices rested on the console between them.

"He knows you," Chase said as she fit an earpiece into her ear so they could communicate. "I'll take him while you go inside."

"I think I can manage to shadow someone without being seen, thus the name Phantom."

"Don't you mean Silent Death?" Chase used the nickname Jack was known by in the underworld.

Jack's head turned so fast Chase thought she'd hurt herself.

"Don't look at me like you've seen a unicorn."

"What?"

"I know you heard me." Chase looked at her watch.

"Why did you call me that?"

"It wasn't random, if that's what you want to discern."

"How do you know?" Jack whispered, never taking her gaze off Chase.

* 79 *

"Your question isn't interesting and the answer not very remarkable." Chase opened the car door. "If you want me to really daze you, ask me the right question." She grabbed the bag and got out of the car.

Few pedestrians were in view. Chase picked the lock on the door in a few seconds and slipped inside, pausing to listen for signs of activity. All quiet, but for the low hum of the furnace. After planting cams to cover the front and back doors, she quickly checked the rooms on the ground floor. A waiting area with couches to her right, three rooms converted to bedrooms, a small kitchen in the back, and a storage room with bedding, towels, alcohol, and other supplies.

The second floor contained what she was looking for-a bedroom with a two-way mirror and attached watcher's room. She planted cams in the vents and hid listening devices, then checked the rooms on the third floor to make sure no other rooms had been modified as watchers' suites.

Ma.s.simo's door on the fourth floor was locked, but no challenge.

Wrinkling her nose in disgust at the man's cluttered living room and kitchen, she stepped over dirty clothes and headed toward his desk.

A stack of mail yielded the bouncer's full name: Ma.s.simo Umberto.

After planting cams and a listening device, Chase fired up his laptop. She was copying files onto her flash drive when Jack's voice came over her earpiece. "How's it going?"

"Quite productive. Got his name and I'm in his computer.

Where is he?" Chase asked.

"Swallowing burgers at a dive around the corner. You'd think the guy hadn't eaten in a decade. He asked for the bill. If he's going straight back, you don't have more than seven."

"I'll be out in five. Delay him if you have to."

"I'll stall him."

"Go for the virginal, corn-fed, country-girl tourist scenario." Chase finished and got to the car about a minute before the bouncer rounded the corner and came into view. Jack waited until he went inside to hoof it back to the rental.

Chase handed her the flash drive. "Ma.s.simo Umberto. Upload the files to Reno and see what he can dig up." She started the car as * 80 *

Jack turned on their laptop. "Not much else we can do until the club gets going tonight."

"Where to?" Jack asked, her discomfort about Chase's earlier comment still obvious.

"I'm starving."

"Bacon and eggs sound pretty d.a.m.n good."

"Not the bacon part," Chase said.

"Since when? You used to live on bacon."

"I haven't touched meat for ten years."

"Oh, one of those."

"A vegetarian."

"Almost right," Jack said. "You love s.e.x and vegetables. That makes you a vagetarian."

Chase laughed. "Corny."

Jack, still very serious, turned to face her. "So how do you know?"

"Still not the right question, but I'll answer anyway. Because our paths crossed."

The enormous Cave's dark ambience and decor suitably reflected its moniker. The central dance floor was lit by a frenzy of rainbow spots, digitally programmed to flicker in patterns timed to the pounding beat blasting from the speakers. Around the dark perimeter, booths and couches provided couples the opportunity for semi-private trysts in cushy comfort.

Chase led Jack into the club at the stroke of midnight-early prime time for the pickup crowd-and paused at the edge of the dance floor. Though she hadn't visited the Cave in years, it was still so familiar she felt she'd hardly been away.

Men and women hungrily rubbed up against each other as they danced, or talked, or stole away toward the shadowed couches. The whole atmosphere was one of practiced foreplay or a prelude to s.e.x, which made it hard to distinguish the working girls hoping to score a customer from the party women simply out for a night of fun.

* 81 *

Jack kept to her right as they eased through the packed crowd toward the bar. Every now and then they had to pause to negotiate a new way through. Jack seemed annoyed at times, and Chase had to smile every time Jack tried to turn her body away from whoever rubbed against her.

They found standing room at the end of the bar and ordered drinks-beer for Jack and a Diet c.o.ke for Chase.

"So, this is your crowd." Jack watched two women kissing a few feet away.

"It hasn't been for five years."

"Most of the women are, what, twelve?"

"Over twenty-one, but yes, I like them young." Chase rarely dated or paid for a woman over thirty.

"They look barely legal," Jack said with distaste.

"If memory serves me well, and I know it does, Ca.s.sady can't be more than twenty-five."

"Twenty-six, and that's different. I didn't s.n.a.t.c.h her from a club, high on E, and seduce her in a bathroom stall." Chase raised an eyebrow.

"Don't even try to deny it," Jack said.

"Oh, I won't. I'm merely impressed at your astute remark."

"Don't be. You're not that original."

"True. But when I realized every other stall was being used for the same reason, I felt so...common, I moved the romance elsewhere."

"Still s.e.x-crazy. There's more to life, you know."

"What a profound observation. I might have to sew that into my pillow."

"Yeah, you're f.u.c.king hysterical." Jack sipped from her bottle.

"Hotel, f.u.c.k pad, car. Where do you take them?"

"Living vicariously, are we?" Chase shot back.

"Forget I asked. Whatever." Jack scanned the crowd on the dance floor, while Chase covered the crush of people coming and going around the perimeter.

"All of the above, plus a few more. But constant hunting and relocation gets tedious after thirty-five. Don't you think?"

* 82 *

"Never been the partying type."

"Maybe not," Chase said. "But you had your needs before Ca.s.sady. You must have fulfilled them one way or another."

"None of your business."

"That either means you did and aren't too proud of it, or you didn't and feel embarra.s.sed about it. Which one is it, Harding?"

"You'll never know." Jack shifted again to dodge another attractive woman who deliberately detoured to brush up against her.

"So where do you take your meaningless s.e.x nowadays?" she asked once the woman had continued on.

"I don't take them anywhere. They come to me," Chase said matter-of-factly. "I buy my romance."

Jack turned to stare at her. "As in wh.o.r.es?" Chase tried to ignore the undercurrent of surprise and disapproval in Jack's tone. "Don't be cra.s.s. I use professionals."

"That would explain your att.i.tude with the agency yesterday.

You use call girls."

"Temporary companions."

"I see." Jack went quiet for a long while, obviously uncomfortable about Chase's revelation. They both went back to scanning the club in search of Amber. All of a sudden, Jack blurted, "I doubt you need to, so why?"

"It keeps things simple. All I owe them is cash, and satisfaction- in my case anyway-is guaranteed. We all have vices."