Chapter 110

 

 

Skyscraper Museum

Battery Park City, Manhattan

 

Day 20

Friday, July 25, 7:37 p.m.

 

 

Fiora Kleve glared at her brother as she entered the room and gave her jacket to the doorman. Jack had picked a neutral place, the Skyscraper Museum. The museum’s focus was high-rise buildings. Jack studied the technology display from design objects, to construction sites and real estate. It was a place that celebrated the architectural heritage of New York, the forces and people who created New York’s skyline.

The ‘Super Tall’, as it was called, was dedicated to the tallest buildings in the world, standing at least 1250 feet, the height of the Empire State Building.

Calla felt herself go rigid hiding her nervousness for Jack. Family had always been an issue she didn’t understand having grown up without one most of her life. “You certain Fiora’s husband is with the Blackhorse Group?”

“Sounds like her thing and this message I got from her confirms my suspicion.”

Jack paced the floor of the exhibition space. His attention was interrupted when Fiora drew in to frame.

Calla leaned into his shoulder. “Sorry to say I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“Yeah, well we never talk much?”

“Why?”

He shot Fiora a stare as she approached. “She married a banker here in New York?” Jack drew in a sharp breath. “Yeah, after she milked my US account. She’s now in a loveless marriage with an idiot who thinks he can control tech stock on the New York Stock Exchange.”

His glare scanned the room and narrowed in on a few faces carefully disguising his e-watch that monitored body heat and reflexes. In any case, he’d use it on his sister, Fiora Kleve.

Fiora, Jack’s younger sister, had been seeing an old friend of his long before she met her now husband. She’d left him for the loaded jerk in New York, Heres Benassi, an executive vice president at a news channel shortly before Jack finished his Masters at McGill.

The tease of revenge soured in his mouth. “It took me months to figure this out. We were close growing up but I never took her as one to betray me.”

Calla squeezed his hand briefly. “Jack, she sold your technology so she could survive the mess she was in.”

“We can’t act like we know, Cal.”

“Okay. I’ll take your lead with this one.”

Jack’s sister approached her face ashen. She took a deep breath as three chatting students passed them. Fiora’s eyes had changed. They’d lost the sparkle he’d always known. A pair of droopy black eyes like two drops of oil now stared at him. Her silky, black hair had been cut short. And she looked damn expensive.

Perhaps it was time to forgive.

“I can’t stay long, he’s watching me,” Fiora said approaching.

“You know you can leave him,” Jack said to her. “I can help you.”

“No, Jack. You can’t. No one can help me. Jack, I really missed you,” she said drawing him in to a hug.

She whirled round briefly, fear evident in her searching eyes. She’d been cruel to Jack but all he saw was a scared kitten. Revenge melted from his thoughts and lips.

“You work for the government, don’t you? I’m actually not sure who you work for, but I’m sure you have access to important people,” Fiora said.

He felt the burden of a protective older brother. “What is it you need?”

“Jack, I stole something from him and he says I owe him a favor.”

Jack wasn’t surprised. After all she’d done the same thing to him. Surely it was time for her to stop this nonsense and the cycle she was in. He had to admit she was a good thief, but now she was paying a hefty price.

Calla’s brows lowered in concentration. “Hi. I’m Calla, Jack’s friend and colleague. What does he need you to do?”

Fiora studied Calla for a moment. “I have to steal a data drive for him, worth millions I think. You see, he saw what I did to Jack and now he’s tied me into my past mistakes and choices.”

Calla tilted her head and shot Jack a quick glance. “How are you going to do that?”

“He won’t show his face in something he calls the Vault. But he’s asked me to go on his behalf.”

 

 

 

 

“Could I speak to Jack for a moment,” Calla said with a gentle hand on Fiora’s shoulder.

Fiora nodded and let them walk to a side bench. They waited till the students had gone through to the other end of the long hallway.

Calla swung to face him. “She’s our way in, Jack. She knows where the auction will be. We could find nothing from Monaco or even Iceland. Maybe we could give this a try.”

“You’re right. Maybe this is the way she redeems herself after she stole my technology.”

“Incidentally, what was that technology?” Calla said.

“You probably don’t want to know.” He smirked. “But she hasn’t said anything about the auction, just the Vault. What if it’s something else?”

“Then, we find out.”

“I don’t think she knows where it is. Only her husband does.”

Nash threaded his way toward them. “Sorry, got held up following a lead, but you two are the best sight I’ve seen all day.” He advanced to where they stood. “What do we have on Fiora?”

“We should let her go back to her husband,” Calla said. “We need her to dig deeper.”

They drifted back to where Fiora stood observing a terminal on skyscraper architecture. Something made her shudder.

Her eyes rolled back in her head and she dropped on the floor like a boneless body.

Calla hurried to her side and checked her pulse. “What just happened?”

As a deadweight, resistant to Calla’s very effort, Fiora was virtually unmovable.

Jack sank to his knees beside them. “She’s not breathing.”

They rolled her on one side.

“You guys okay?” hollered a museum security woman.

“Please, call an ambulance please,” Calla said.

He nodded and turned to his interphone.

The prickling on the back of Jack’s neck warned him. “She’s been hit by a tranquilizer.”

Jack managed to get her under a table.

Their attention turned to the far end of the room.

Motion drew Calla’s attention to the windows. “Down, now!”

Jack shot under the table. “She’s right, he’s watching her.”

Bullets blasted the high windows spraying shards as visitors took to the floor, some scrabbling for the nearest exits. Within seconds an army of miniature drones descended on them through the left exit. Small and swift, remotely manned machines charged with purpose.

Nash fired several rounds at each as they approached. Seven shots brought them crashing down. When he was certain that they were gone, he rose from his firing position making sure the room had been evacuated.

Nash replaced his gun in his holster and strode to a decapitated drone and examined its shell. “We must be tagged to several of their drones.” He turned to Jack. “We need to keep her awake long enough for her to get into that auction.”

“What if she can’t?” Jack said, observing Fiora’s eyes. “Look, she’s barely breathing.”

Calla noted the tension in his voice. He really cared for her. “Then I’ll go,” she said. “I’ll have to pass as Fiora.”

 

 

 

 

Jack’s lips twitched slightly at the corners. Putting either Calla or Fiora in that auction room was deadly. Nash had had a turn in the auction and barely made it out alive from the virtual reality, manipulative environment. Who knows what would happen to them.

Nash rose. “I’ll see where the emergency staff are,” he said and headed for the exit.

Jack’s attention went back to Calla. “What if we hack the auction? This way you are not in danger.”

Calla’s brow creased. “Jack, you may be on to something.” She wrung her hands together.”

“So how do we play this, Cal? I don’t think Fiora really knows much except to show up.” Jack thought for a minute. “She may be a thief, and a really good one, but she was never a liar. I believe Benassi wants her in on the bidding, that’s why he’s sending her. He wants her to steal the list. We need to stop your genes from ever going under a microscope, and going up for a bid. What if Fiora really knows how to get in the nerve of the auction?”

 

She gave him a blank stare. His heart weighed him down for a a split second. Perhaps it was the dim light but the moment he’d shied away from, for the several years he’d known Calla, now plagued him. What would it be like. He’d wondered and now he dared. His mouth took control of her lips with possessive thoroughness as repressed emotions tumbled out in his kiss.

Silence hung heavily in the air. Calla’s eyes dilated and she pushed him away.

She rose and spoke in a husky whisper of a sound. “Jack—”

The rest of her sentence found no volume when behind him, Nash’s penetrative stare was more than she could digest. Deep furrows lined his forehead and the glint left his eyes.

 

 

 

 

“Nash!”

Jack scuttled after him.

Nash drew Jack out of earshot of Calla. “You—”

“Kissed her.” His face was grim. “I just wanted to know what it feels like to kiss the most powerful woman on Earth. It was an unguarded moment, buddy. I’m sorry. She loves you.”

“It’s not that that bothers me. It’s what would have happened if I hadn’t walked in.”

“Nash. Nothing would have happened. Calla is with you. Frankly, I shocked her more than anything and I’m sorry.” He had to win back Nash’s trust. “Please.”

“Jack, she was carrying my child—” He paused for all of several seconds. Despair surfaced on his grim lips. “She’s my wife, Jack.”

 

 

 

 

“Nash!” Calla said. “He didn’t mean anything by it.”

Nash walked briskly in the direction of Pier A Harbor House. Calla had to walk twice as fast just to keep up with him as she passed Long Hall and then stepped into an oyster bar. Nash passed hungry diners and stepped onto the pier where Battery Park met the Hudson River. He changed pace striding slowly toward the furthest point of the abandoned pier and came to a stop, setting his hand on the rail. The sunset hit his face as Calla caught up.

He stopped.

The breeze slapped his face.

She’d perhaps gone too far. Why hadn’t she stopped Jack. It had surprised her as much as him. Jack had never kissed her although so many times she’d wondered if her friendship with him had encouraged him.

She was with Nash and they still had to sort out their emotions and the implications around their failed pregnancy.

She’d left Jack and Fiora when the ambulance arrived and caught Nash heading down the floors of the museum.

The waters chafed and dashed on the shore below as an inviting crimson sunset hit the city’s landscape. Hundreds of yards out from the pier, a faint view of Ellis Island could be seen. Ocean blueness deepened its color as the sun began to dip behind the horizon.

Calla set a gentle hand on Nash’s shoulder. “Nash, Jack’s a friend and didn’t mean anything by it. He was hurting about his sister …”

She didn’t intend to cry but, tears stung at her eyes. “Jack—”

“Took advantage—”

“Nash… he’s only a friend. Our closest friend. Please believe it. Don’t be mad.”

“Nash!”

Calla turned around only to see Jack hurry toward them. How much more proof did Nash need that she loved him and would never leave him. He was wounded, and about something more than she knew. She registered no emotion from his face. Jack met them at the edge of the pier and they both studied Nash’s expressionless face.

“I’m sorry, man,” Jack said.

Jack’s tone was sincere and Nash shot him a quizzical look. His eyes scanned the city’s horizon border.

Without warning Nash slammed an abrupt hand on Jack’s throat. Calla set her palm over it and attempted to removed Nash’s fingers one by one.

Something was wrong. Nash wasn’t himself at all. What had happened to him?

The strength in his hand as he held Jack left her speechless. Nash’s grip tightened. He was never violent on the offensive only in defense of his life or those he cared about.

This wasn’t him.

He’d been drugged.

“Let him go,” Calla said calmly, a fear mounting in her stomach.

Nash didn’t respond, his lips sealed by an invisible force.

Calla registered agony in Jack’s face. The shock in his face threatening to buckle his knees.

Calla glanced back at Nash. “He’s been drugged.”

“What do you mean drugged?” Jack said gurgling the words out between gasps under Nash’s hold over his throat.

“Must be a hallucination drug,” Calla said.

Jack’s hands flew toward his throat and tugged at Nash’s grip. “I’ve seen this before with soldiers,” Jack said. “This one seems to be aggressive and we need to do something fast before he strangles me.”

Nash’s hand tightened further round Jack’s throat and for the first time, Calla couldn’t stop Nash without hurting him.

 

 

 

 

Calla’s eyes narrowed into Jack’s pained face. “Tell me more about how this drug works.”

Jack could hardly articulate with his windpipe crushing under Nash’s hand. “The military use them on soldiers to help them deal with the atrocities of war and orders. It’s not legal as it can change a person’s behavior. Those drones must’ve stung Nash with it,” Jack said slowly, his fingers now digging into Nash’s wrists.

“Jack how do we snap him out of this?”

With every second Jack’s exhalation became rougher. Jack took a difficult breath. “He needs the equivalent of a bolt of electricity to his heart. Now!”

Calla’s eyes widened in disbelief Jack. “Where are we going to find that kind of energy?”

“You, Calla. You have the strength of a bull.”

The last words were spat out in staccato. Nash’s grip would choke off Jack’s air supply if she didn’t react fast.

“You need to give him the strongest punch in the heart that you can muster,” Jack spat out.

“A punch to his heart?”

Jack attempted a nod.

Hadn’t she done that too many times to Nash at least emotionally. But she had to save the man she couldn’t live without, and the friend she couldn’t let die.

Calla closed her eyes trying to slow the seconds before Jack choked to death. She drew in a deep breath and balled her fingers into a tight fist. She thrust two balled knuckles into Nash’s heart.

Nash riveted backward at the force of her blow and dropped Jack on the oak boards. He raised his hand to strike then stopped it midair, the drugs clouding his decision, yet he seemed to question if he’d hit an innocent.

Nash would never hit her. No drugs could erase his real nature. Was he fighting the drug he’d been injected with? Tears stained her vision as she set a calm palm on his tightened jaw.

She slammed another blow to his heart. “Come on, Nash, stay with me, baby.” He caved back but refused to hit her standing immobile in the wake of her blows. Both she and Jack observed as she delivered a last blow. Her heart ached each time she threw a punch yet the drugs refused to leave his eyes.

Calla’s heart broke each time she struck him and she drew him into an embrace and kissed him with a hunger that contradicted her calm.

She pulled back. Her eyes questioned his gaze and in one abrupt movement, she reached for his neck and once more set her lips on his dry mouth. Her lips gently moved over his, aching for him to return until she found his own gentleness.

His eyes registered her passion and softened. Nash’s kiss was strong as he responded to her then drew back a little. “It takes a drug for me to get a kiss like that?”

 

Her eyebrows drew together. “Nash, are you okay? You scared me.”

“You hit like a tank. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy that.” He drew her closer. “I still love you, you know, even when you punch like a fast train. The best and most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do is love you, Calla.”