| |
Spectre
Money wasn’t the deciding factor when I took a job, but with some of them, if the payout wasn’t adequate, I wouldn’t touch them with a grenade launcher. It wasn’t worth the hassle.
Right now, my current job was proving to be a shit show and, with every passing second, I was starting to think I needed to ignore my client’s next call when it came, burn the phone and forget the whole mess.
The only thing keeping me from doing that was curiosity. Curiosity and boredom. Neither of those were good motivators, but I’d spent the past few months lazing on the beach in Cancun, with the odd, occasional, self-chosen target to alleviate the boredom.
I was ready to get back to the job.
So far, though, I had yet to see anything in eastern Tennessee that could possibly warrant my presence, although looks could be deceiving.
I was a prime example of that. To the casual observer—or even a trained one—I looked like a man in his late twenties or early thirties enjoying a day in a popular tourist destination, a backpack with moderately expensive and well-used photography equipment stowed inside. If somebody were to take a look—say law enforcement—they’d find that the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV’s SD card already held several hundred pictures, mostly of scenery, but there were other shots for variety. All three of the lenses showed signs of use, and I could detail which one was ideal for each shot. I’d initially started carrying a camera because it was a useful explanation if I was ever caught walking into odd places, but over the past decade, I’d develop a passing interest. One could even say it was a hobby, although I simply considered it a useful deception.
Paired with the casual clothing, stylishly overlong hair visible under the baseball cap and a pair of battered boots, I sipped my coffee and looked over a map as though searching for a prime hiking trail in the nearby national park.
My contact should have called ten minutes ago. If I didn’t hear from him soon, I’d leave. So far, all this had cost me was time and the plane ticket, but the fat piles of money I had stowed in various banks, both in America and outside of it, made the cost of the ticket negligible. The client had offered to take care of travel, but that was a hard no.
Taking another sip of coffee, I glanced down the walkway, first left, then right, before using the sparkling pane of glass in front of me to survey the street. I’d finished my check and was looking at the time when somebody approached.
I took in everything about him out of habit and wrote him off as a nonentity. Not a threat, not a contact, not a problem.
The man settled on the bench next to me, heaving out a tired sigh before glancing at me. “Waiting on the wife?”
I gave him an affable smile even as I gave my surroundings another look then went back to looking over the map.
My companion spoke again, drawing my attention once more.
“Come here every year,” the older man said, waving a hand toward the shopping center off to our right. He looked to be in his forties, overweight in the way a desk worker might be, with a friendly smile and thinning black hair. He had smile lines fanning out from his face and they deepened as he grinned at me. “You’d think I’d be used to the fact that she wants to drag me into every damn store. I could have stayed at the cabin and watched TV but here I am.”
“Married life,” I said, playing the part. I did that easily. I’d even put a gold wedding band on my hand prior to boarding my flight. It helped curtail flirtations and was another way to throw people off. Just another part of the role I played in life.
“You got it.” He aimed a finger at me, gunman style and laughed, a deep-belly sound of rich amusement that seemed a little too much for such a simple comment, in my opinion, but I’d come to learn that there were simple people out there who were able to laugh at the smallest things. It puzzled me, but many things in life did. I’d stopped questioning those things, because the answers always eluded me. “You and the missus thinking about going on a hike?”
“I am.” It caused a ripple of dark amusement to think about a nonexistent wife so the smile I gave was genuine. “She doesn’t care for the outdoors unless she’s enjoying them from the comfort of the passenger’s seat. I’ll just have her drop me off at the park.”
The phone in my hand finally buzzed. I gave my companion a nod and rose, pacing a few steps down and putting my back to a wall as I opened the secure calling app, as well as another, one I’d specifically designed myself. It altered my voice so that no known software could use it for a voice match, assuming any of my possible employers were stupid enough to try. “You’re late.”
“Spectre!” The jovial voice came over the line, irritating me in a way the overweight tourist never could. “I had some business matters to attend to...you understand these things.”
“I understand that you told me you’d call at 10:15. It’s almost half past. The sort of work I provide requires accuracy at all levels. If you can’t manage to contact me at the proper time, can I trust you to be accurate on other levels?”
A couple of young women went by and one of them shot me a flirtatious look. I ignored it as I listened to the change in the breathing pattern on the other end of the line.
“I’m a busy man, Spectre.”
“I know you are...Tommy.” Dead silence. I couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll give you credit. Whoever handles your tech and security is decent. I’m better.”
“I’m not amused,” Tommy O’Halloran said, his voice tight.
“I didn’t expect you would be.” The leader of the Irish Mafia in Boston wasn’t a man known for his sense of humor.
He’d taken over from his father at a young age, just six years ago, when his father suffered an abrupt, fatal heart attack. He’d only been twenty-four at the time. From what I could tell, some men in the organization didn’t think he was ready for it. Tommy had taken the reins of control with brutal hands and swiftly silenced all dissenters. Humor wouldn’t serve him. Shifting my stance, I braced a foot on the wall behind me as I gave the perimeter another slow look. “But I don’t take jobs without knowing who I’m working for. That was made clear in the initial contact.”
“You haven’t agreed to take the job yet. This invasion of my privacy doesn’t engender trust, Spectre.”
“Then we can end this discussion now. You found me. I’m sure you can unearth other possibilities.” I lowered the phone.
“Wait.” Tommy’s voice came out in a rough growl.
“All right.”
“The payout for this job is substantial.”
“You already mentioned that. What is substantial, in your mind?” A cute brunette went bustling past me, laden with bags and I watched as she dropped down onto the bench I’d vacated, grinning at the man there. She leaned over and kissed his cheek before brandishing the bags. He looked at them with a wince. Calculating how much she’d spent, I decided. But then he leaned in and kissed her.
Human interaction could be fascinating.
“I’ll transfer five hundred thousand in Bitcoin to you just for assessing the job. If you accept it, I’ll send another five hundred thousand. Complete it in the manner I request and I’ll send another million.”
As the couple on the bench got up and wandered off, I blinked slowly, processing what Tommy O’Halloran had told me. “You’re offering two for the job.”
“It’s an important job. And I need it completed soon. Within the next ten days.”
Mind furiously working, I flipped through my mental file of everything I had learned about the O’Halloran family and could figure out only one issue important enough to warrant this level of urgency from Tommy.
“Does this have anything to do with your brother?”
“You seem to have a great deal of interest in my family,” Tommy said in a testy voice.
“I don’t have any interest. I simply believe in being thorough and taking all angles into consideration. And you haven’t answered me.”
“What the fuck does it matter? I’m offering two million on what will be one easy fucking job. Are you interested in that, at least?” Sarcasm punctuated his every word.
“My curiosity is piqued, but if it’s so easy, why hasn’t one of your men handled it?”
He didn’t want to answer. I could all but hear the mental debate going on, but finally, he said, “The job can’t be traced back to me in any way. My men are skilled, but they lack your level of skill. Your reputation, even your name, is all based on your ability to move in and out without being noticed. Rumor is, nobody even knows what you look like.” He paused for a beat, then asked, “Is that true, Spectre? Has anybody ever even seen your face?”
A toddler, dressed in jeans and a bright-pink shirt with a bear cub on it, headed toward me, chasing a ball that had escaped her hands. Carefully, I caught it with my foot and nudged it back in her direction. She beamed at me and squeaked out, “Baaw!”
I translated it to mean, “Ball.”
“Somebody is looking at me right now, Tommy.”
He grunted. “Look, I don’t have time for this dicking around. Are you going to take the job?”
“You haven’t given me details yet. I don’t take jobs without knowing the specifics.”
“You’re as big an asshole to work with as people say. I’ll text you an address. When you get there, let me know.”