part0096

I t was Thanksgiving and people weren’t supposed to be working today. Restaurants and most of the service establishments would be open, of course. Hospitals and police stations would be open too, although they would probably run on skeleton crews. Most of the folks in the city—the nine to five workers and everyone in between—would head home or to a parent’s place, or a friend’s to enjoy the holiday. They would eat too much food, drink copious amounts of beer, wine, or other alcoholic beverages, and watch some bastards who did need to work for the holiday fight over a ball they could all afford to buy for their own if they chose to do so.

Banks didn’t like feeling like this. He normally didn’t mind sports. His college and high school both had teams and he enjoyed watching them play, even if it was more of a pastime and a way to meet the cheerleaders, and the sports themselves weren’t horrible to watch. He happened to prefer soccer and baseball, though.

His mood had much to do with the fact that he had been up all night in his effort to keep track of the person or people who would inevitably arrive to kill him. He was, quite plainly, exhausted and had a hard time feeling charitable toward anything or anyone. From the looks of it, Savage had been in Seattle and had dealt with the situation there in person. He wasn’t sure if the man would remain close to his family to ensure that no other teams made a second attempt. The operative might well know the situation online was a little bogged down, however. He was thought to work with a team when he ran operations like these, but despite his client’s best efforts, she hadn’t actually been able to find anything useful. They could already be with him for all he knew.

Which was why he was tempted to stay in the office for the entire day. He couldn’t stay there forever, of course. There were people who expected him elsewhere once the work week resumed the next day, but there wasn’t anything that said that he couldn’t simply hide out there for as long as was necessary. To his mind, it would be the last place anyone would expect him to be on a national holiday. While the prospect of being holed up there alone had little attraction in and of itself, it certainly had appeal when it came to preserving his own skin.

There was, of course, the small matter of food. He had to eat, but to do so, he would have to leave the office. Aside from that, he needed something to do. Banks wasn’t the kind of person who would be comfortable sitting around all day, and from the way he was already climbing the walls before he’d even made it to midday, he knew he needed to get out of there. He would stay on the move, he decided. That was what he could do. Hadn’t he heard somewhere that a moving target was safer than a stationary one? Well, that was what he’d do. He’d buy something at a drive-through, keep moving for the day, and return to the office to spend the night again. There were rooms in the building where witnesses could stay for a couple of days when they had to testify. He knew there were legal ramifications around the matter of people staying in the building long-term—building codes and the like—but it would do for the short-term, right?

Banks sighed and shook his head in frustration as he tried to come to terms with his plan. He was living on the edge and to be stuck with only himself for company seemed like the worst option ever. Being on the move seemed like the right thing to do.

He closed his office and took care to lock it behind him before he hurried to the elevator that would take him down to the garage. He froze and considered the wisdom of that. After a moment’s thought, he decided he would have the car delivered to the lobby entrance for him to take from there. He never took advantage of most of the perks that came with being a partner, but if there was ever a time to actually enjoy them, it was now, right?

The elevator doors opened and the lawyer stepped cautiously into the lobby, where he took a moment to inspect his surroundings. He doubted he would be able to see Savage if the man were actually waiting for him, but anxiety made a man justifiably cautious. The unforgivable error would be if he was caught because he had simply not been careful enough.

He stepped farther into the lobby, still cautious although he tried to appear confident. He received a couple of looks from the people who were on the job. Of course, he knew what they were looking at. Quite frankly, he looked like shit. His five o’clock shadow had grown for another five or six hours, his suit was a little wrinkled, and his tie sat loosely and a little skewed. He didn’t look great. but he didn’t have to, right? He was a partner and could fucking well do as he pleased.

“Mr. Banks, sir.” The man running security at the front desk nodded when he realized who approached. “Happy Thanksgiving, sir. Gobble gobble and all that.”

“Right.” Banks chuckled although he wasn’t sure why. He was a little sleep deprived, he supposed. “I’m heading out for some lunch, but I’ll be back. I have work I need to get done over the weekend. Would you mind sending someone down to bring my car up?”

He left the keys on the counter, which gave the man no choice other than to either go down and do it himself or make the necessary call to bring the car up pronto.

The guard called one of his underlings and relayed the instructions. The lawyer waited at the front desk and kept his head on a seemingly constant swivel to inspect his surroundings.

“If you don’t mind my asking, sir, is everything all right?”

He eyed the man, a little startled, and for a shocking second, he felt the temptation to simply tell him everything. It would be a relief to tell someone everything he’d been forced to face since the beginning of this fucking week and let it all out. It wasn’t like anyone would believe him if he were to tell them he was a minion to a global player who had all the fingers in all the pies. Nor would they believe that he had worked to get a CEO out of jail in order to eliminate another CEO, her underling, and their guard dog, which had resulted in him having to threaten the man’s family. And, of course, no one would ever believe that the bulldog had his scent and would soon move in for the kill.

Thankfully, the moment passed, and he forced a smile onto his lips and shook his head. “I’m simply under pressure. As one of the newer members of the partner board, it means all the work is dumped on my desk. I’m sure it’ll change once there’s someone else for the rest of the board to bully, but for now, it’ll be many weekends and working on holidays, I’m afraid.”

“Well, that’s a little above my pay grade, I’m afraid, sir,” the man said softly. He gestured to the front where one of the security team turned valet had parked his car and now waited outside with the keys.

Banks dropped a handful of bills on the countertop and chuckled. Most were Benjamins, which would go a long way in making sure none of these men talked about what they saw to the board.

“I appreciate it, sir.” The man chuckled. “You have a nice holiday now, you hear?”

“You too,” he replied and hurried out toward the car. As he cleared the door, though, a van approached at a frantic speed and screeched to a halt directly behind his car. He took a step back, a hint of panic in his features as two men disembarked from the vehicle and marched over to him. Neither of the men was Savage and both looked like professionals who were paid for their work.

“Mr. Banks?” asked the lead man as he stepped closer. The lawyer hadn’t shown any sign of hostility, which meant that neither man reached for the weapons under their jackets. “Mr. Mason Banks?”

“That’s me,” he replied, not sure if he should bother.

“I’m afraid I have to insist that you come with us, sir,” the man said with a small, professional nod. “Client’s orders.”

It was a short drive but a long walk to reach the abandoned building Sam and Terry used as a base for their surveillance of Banks. They stayed on the move and took all the roundabout routes they could find while Anja made sure they weren’t followed. The ploy was effective, but it was also an exhausting way to spend most of the afternoon. The sun had already begun to set when they finally reached the location. His teammates were clearly more comfortable with the place than Savage was.

“So,” Sam said, rolled her shoulders, and drew in a deep breath. “Is now the right time for serious questions about what the fuck just happened?”

Terry nodded and looked at his boss. “You seemed to know about what would happen almost before they did. Is there anything else you’d like to share with us, Savage?”

“It’s not that we don’t trust you.” She folded her arms. “But if you know more about the situation than we were led to believe, it would be a shitty move to leave us out of the loop.”

“Shitty move,” the sniper agreed.

“I don’t actually know anything solid.” Savage placed the weapon-filled duffel bag on a nearby table. “I do know that Banks worked as an intermediary for a client. We assumed this client was Carlson, but he’s still in police custody. There is no way he could have arranged for something like this, not this quickly. He has connections, though—people who have watched his back from the beginning. It could be one of them who arranged this.”

He breathed deeply and shook his head to try to regain focus. The other two exchanged a look and moved over to where he stood.

“Is everything okay?” Sam asked. She gripped his shoulder and squeezed it. “We’ve been here working with you. We’re on the same damn side. Why won’t you simply open up to us? A little? Come on, we already know about Abby, Jules, and the annoying jackass lawyer Andy. We’re on the same side.”

“Anja really shouldn’t have told you about them,” he responded belligerently and winced when he rubbed alcohol over the cuts and scrapes he’d accumulated thanks to the glass shattered all around him in the car. They definitely wouldn’t get the deposit on the Beemer back, but he supposed Monroe would have to eat that too. Savage had a feeling he would be getting yelled at, though.

“If you’re waiting for an apology, I think that’ll be a long wait for you,” Anja said into the earbuds they now all wore.

“You really shouldn’t be so clamped up about shit.” Sam moved to help Terry clean his wounds. It looked like he had actually been grazed around the hips, likely from when he had helped to clear their perimeter. There was a little blood but not much, and it had been covered by the leather jacket he wore.

“Really?” Savage said and raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m the one who needs to open up more?”

“Don’t be gross,” she snapped in response. “We’re friends and we’re in the same line of work. We’re all in this together. I’d do the same thing for you if you were injured.”

“Do you really think I would get involved with someone as foul-mouthed as her?” Terry asked and winced when she pressed a dressing to the wound.

“Fair enough, although I could argue something along the lines of how opposites attract,” Savage said with a small smile.

“Well, if you would all like to can it,” Anja interjected, “I’m afraid we have serious business to discuss. The business that brought us all here? Banks, right?”

“Right,” the operative said. “There might have been a setback, but I was told there was a plan in the works to get our hands on him. My hands on him.”

“There appears to have been a hiccup on that end.” The hacker sounded a little more worried than usual, and a trace of irritation also colored her tone. “It’s something of a tactical boo-boo, a semantics mix-up.”

Savage sucked in a deep breath. She wasn’t usually one to bandy words like this, and the way she tried to justify and soften the blow before delivering it said she thought the blow would be something he didn’t want to hear. That aside, she usually liked to annoy him, which meant that whatever this was, it was serious.

“What’s up, Anja?” he demanded.

“Well, I’ve run over the cameras on our friend Banks, and it looks like he might have been…uh, kind of ever so slightly…nabbed.”

“Nabbed?” Terry asked.

“You know, kidnapped, absconded with, turned into a movie with Liam Neeson, the kind that ends with a multitude of bad people all beaten up,” she replied, rambling again. “The man’s gone. I can’t find him anywhere. He’s not at his offices, or at his apartment, or any of his regular haunts.”

“Is he on the run?” Savage asked. “He might have gotten wind that he’s in our sights and tried to make a run for it.”

“His car is still at the office, and from what I can see, it was brought up for him to use a couple of hours before you were ambushed. I’ve been dealing with that, so when I turned to get on track with our plans for Banks… Well, he was no longer there. His car was returned to the garage, from what I can tell from the camera across the street. It’s not a great view from up there and doesn’t actually show the entrance itself. It focuses primarily on the street frontage for the building it’s on, so anything beyond that is limited. Plus, there was a fair amount of traffic with cars and trucks coming and going around that time.”

“Shit. Couldn’t you get access from another camera with a better view?”

“All the cameras with better views are owned by the building,” she pointed. “I’ve worked with traffic light cameras to get us the information we have now. I’m the best, but I’m not God.”