CHAPTER SEVEN

Alicia Walker glanced over her shoulder. Two men were about eighty feet behind her and matching her pace. She ducked into an alley and sprinted fifty feet to an overflowing Dumpster, crouching low in the shadows. She could feel the pressure of the government-issue Glock pistol against her back. It felt good.

The two men walked past the alley entrance without a glance. She waited a few minutes, then moved through the garbage-strewn lane back to the street. It was dark, the only light coming from a streetlamp halfway down the block. She looked both directions, her eyes taking in every detail. The street front was lined with retail shops: a butcher, a bookseller, a tailor and a small deli stood on the far side of road. Her eyes saw into every doorway, every shadow, every niche. Nothing. She ventured out from the alley until she could see into the recessed doorways on her side of the street. There was no sign of the men. She resumed walking north on the street, her senses on high alert.

Some people would call her actions paranoia. She called it common sense. And not just because she lived in New York.

Alicia Walker was undercover FBI, working in the corporate fraud division. She was trained to notice the small details and to recognize and eliminate danger before it eliminated her. Six years with the Bureau and so far she had managed to sidestep the violence that so often plagued undercover work. She had pulled her weapon three times, but had never fired. That was something she was extremely proud of. Most of her working days were spent in posh offices with white-collar criminals, amassing enough evidence for the boys from the J. Edgar Hoover Building to swoop in and arrest the major players before they could pull their scam and close up shop. She had been successful many times, but this one hadn’t gone well. Not that it was really her fault; she had come in at the last moment, too late to stop the con from going down.

Six weeks ago, Alicia had met Tony Stevens at a SoHo art gallery featuring a new Manhattan artist. He was attractive and charming, and from minute one she had suspected he was involved in some sort of con. The signs were all there. He was more than willing to talk about himself, but reluctant to reveal too much about NewPro, even though she showed a real interest in his company. She didn’t push too hard, but spent some time going over the company’s SEC application. Bells started to go off immediately. She dug deeper and after two weeks was convinced that Tony Stevens and his cronies were not interested in going public, but were setting up their victims for a big crash. She kept in touch with him, as a new friend, not a business associate. He revealed precious little to her, but with the scraps she managed to pry loose, she was positive NewPro was a scam.

Twelve days ago her suspicions had proved correct. Overnight, NewPro had vanished. The front doors were locked and the offices inside stripped bare. Any paper trail at the New Jersey manufacturing plant was gone, and the key players, including Tony Stevens, had disappeared. With them, they took almost ten million dollars of their investors’ money. She was disappointed but not surprised; she knew the scam was wrapping up when she got involved. Another week, maybe two, she might have had enough on Tony Stevens to get a positive ID. From things he had said, she suspected he was from Stockholm, but she had no idea what his real name was. The FBI and Interpol computers had no record of anyone matching his description, and that worried her more than anything else. Usually by the time a con artist was scamming his victims for ten million dollars, he was in a criminal database somewhere. But not Tony Stevens. This meant whoever was running the operation was bringing in partners with no prior arrest records. That made them tough, if not impossible, to find.

Alicia reached her apartment on West Twentieth Street in Chelsea. It was a typical New York brownstone walkup, with eight steps leading from the street to the landing. She checked the street, then let herself in, locked the door behind her and headed straight for the bathroom. She filled the bathtub and lowered herself into the steaming water after securing her gun in a small cavity next to the tub and hidden by the shower curtain. The warmth felt good, even though it was a mild mid-September evening. She let her mind drift back to Tony Stevens and NewPro.

Even though the con hadn’t taken her by surprise, the size of the scam had. Including the other cities they had targeted, the take was more than two hundred million. That number was huge. The Bureau was treating the case with the attention it deserved. District offices in every city where Stevens and his accomplices had been active had agents working the scene and trying to identify the players. To date, they had very little. The best penetration into the group was her attachment to the New York chapter. Although Tony Stevens had been tight-lipped, he had inadvertently given them something to work with. Tony had talked about a luxury boat he owned and kept moored in the Bahamas. She wasn’t sure where exactly, but he had spoken a couple of times of Freeport and Port Lucaya on Grand Bahama Island. The boys stationed in the Caribbean were running the registered owners of every boat over thirty-five feet, trying to find a connection back to the mainland. It was a long shot, but the best they had right now. The phone logs and utility accounts had netted them exactly nothing. Tony Stevens was no fool. He had been extremely careful to leave no clues.

Alicia pulled the plug and stepped out of the bath. She toweled off and rubbed on some body cream. A full-length mirror was affixed to the back of the bathroom door, and she stood staring at her reflection for a few moments. She was twenty-nine and in prime physical condition. There was no tummy or weight on her hips and no fat on her legs or arms. Her body was lean, her B-cup breasts just the right size for her chest. She had dark hair that fell just past her shoulders and a face that was attractive, but not beautiful. She could turn some heads when she put on makeup, but if she really wanted to get noticed, she just needed to dress in Spandex. She never did.

Alicia slipped into her bathrobe and headed for the kitchen. Tuesday night and no date. No friends calling on the phone to have coffee. Nobody wanting to spend time with her. Such was the life of an FBI agent. All the glamour of getting to carry a gun to work, none of the James Bond love life. But tomorrow was a new day, and her boss had hinted he may have another assignment. Time to go undercover again. No truths, all lies. Never let anyone close. Never let your guard down. Never.