Too Secret Service: Part Two Read online

  Too Secret Service

  Part 2

  By

  Declan Finn

  Too Secret Service by Declan Finn

  Cover art by: Margot St. Aubin

  Copyright 2019 John Konecsni

  Printed in the United States of America Worldwide Electronic & Digital Rights Worldwide English Language Print Rights

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved 2019 Any attempt to reproduce this material without permission will end badly for you, do we understand each other?

  Also by Declan Finn (In Order):

  NONFICTION

  For All Their Wars are Merry:

  An Examination of Irish Rebel Songs

  Pius History:

  The Facts Behind the Pius Trilogy

  FICTION

  Codename: Winterborn (with Allan Yoskowitz)

  Codename: Unsub

  It was only on Stun!

  The Pius Trilogy

  A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller (Book 1)

  A Pius Legacy: A Political Thriller (Book 2)

  A Pius Stand: A Global Thriller (Book 3)

  Pius Tales (Anthology)

  Set to Kill

  Sad Puppies Bite Back (A Parody)

  Love At First Bite

  Honor at Stake

  Demons are Forever

  Live and Let Bite

  Good to the Last Drop

  Saint Tommy NYPD

  Hell Spawn (Book 1)

  Death Cult (Book 2)

  Infernal Affairs (Book 3)

  City of Shadows (Book 4)

  Crusader (Book 5)

  Deus Vult (Book 6 Coming soon)

  Chapter 20

  David Winter didn’t look like he should be toting luggage for a hotel. He wore a suit and tie, looking for all the world like a young house detective. The job description required he blend into the lobby. There wouldn’t be any lines of cars outside for him to handle, but he still needed to be able to impress a client of the Shelbourne.

  A brunette strode in wearing a white sweater, a red suit jacket and black pants. Her hair was a shade of chestnut, and her eyes flashed a fiery green. She marched straight up to—amazingly—him.

  “I need your help,” Catherine told him.

  “Yes, ma’am?” Was he that obvious? He’d been reading a magazine, just like he was taught to do.

  “I have a problem. My husband is dead drunk, and I can’t wake him for all the condoms in the Playboy Mansion. Not only that,” she said, pulling out a key card from a wallet, “but he made the reservations, and I don’t know the room number.”

  “That’s alright, ma’am,” David told her, rising for his slender six-foot-one. “What’s your husband’s name?”

  “Michael DeValera.”

  Winter took her card key and strolled over to the front desk, Catherine trailing behind. He rounded the desk, nodding at one of the night staff behind a computer. Catherine stayed in front of the desk, leaning forward anxiously. He swiped the card at one of the empty terminals. Michael DeValera was a guest at the Shelbourne, but there was a problem.

  “Are you and your husband staying in the same room, ma’am?” he whispered.

  “Yes. You have couches in your rooms, don’t you?”

  “In some, yes. But business-class rooms, ma’am. They’re for traveling men who are too cheap to book a suite.”

  “And what do we have?”

  David checked the monitor. Son of a gun, it was a business-class room for one.

  “My husband’s cheap,” she offered as an explanation.

  “Room three-oh-three, ma’am.”

  “Can I ask for an extra copy of that key?” she asked sweetly. “So I won’t get locked out while he’s lost somewhere?”

  “Assuredly, ma’am. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Yes. I need a luggage cart and a blanket.”

  “A blanket?”

  “Of course,” she whispered. “A luggage cart to transport my husband and a blanket to cover him up.”

  * * * *

  STRONGBOW carefully spread Wayne out on the couch while David Winter unloaded the few bags she had taken from her room at the Doyle hotel. The couch was very large and plush, against the wall opposite the windows, over which the blackout drapes had been drawn closed. After she gave the bellman a generous tip, she locked the door, spring lock, deadbolt and chain.

  Williams didn’t have a concussion. Given what pressures had been put on his body—fighting a small-scale battle.

  Although, if this is his body after it’s been out of action, I don’t think I want to know what he was able to do years ago.

  Catherine walked into the bathroom and started removing adjustments she had made to her face. She popped out the contacts and rubbed the light veil of cosmetics from her flesh. Once she was done, she spent a minute just looking at herself after a day of being a dozen different somebodies.

  After she spent time remembering how she looked au naturel, STRONGBOW walked into the hall, opening the closet door. She grabbed the first hanger she could get her hands on and hung the coat up. She started taking her sweater off when she realized something: having Williams there could really disrupt her morning routine. She considered the possibility and dismissed it out of hand. Given his behavior and attitudes, he’d probably take great pains not to notice.

  She strode into the room, stopped, and looked at Williams. She was half-tempted to cock her pistol and see how fast he’d wake up, but Catherine would let him rest while he could. As MONIAK once told her, rest was also a weapon.

  * * * *

  Wayne slowly awoke to sunlight streaming into his face. The white ceiling above him was unfamiliar, the couch he was on even more so. There was, of course, the distinct possibility that he was dead, but the stinging sensation in his head told him otherwise.

  A shadow blocked the light for a moment. He looked toward the open blackout curtains, thin wisps of veil the only thing between the room and the outside world. In front of the window, a graceful form slowly flowed from stance to stance.

  Tai Chi?

  Wayne rolled to his feet and crossed to the windows in four long steps. He pulled the blackout curtains shut. He bit back the urge to turn and tell some rookie that snipers can see through thin veils, too. But he wasn’t in the District anymore, he had to remember that.

  He turned toward the shape, now very visibly Catherine Miller, whose fluid motion hadn’t stopped.

  “Good morning,” she cheerfully greeted him.

  A lump formed in his throat as he stared at her face. “Morning.” He struggled for words. “Where exactly are we?”

  “The Shelbourne Hotel,” she said, passing her hands in front of her chest. “I borrowed DeValera’s pass key since he won’t be needing it.”

  Wayne nodded, understanding. “I take it that you tagged me?”

  “You mean the tackle?” she said, drawing her body around in a slow pivot, turning her back on him. Her back muscles were well formed, and definitely solid.

  Wayne turned right and walked around her, the bed, and then turned back, staring straight into her face. “Actually, what I mean is, you wound up saving my life again, right?”

/>   “I guess you could say that,” she said with a smile.

  He stood, perplexed for a moment, maintaining eye contact at all times. “Could you please tell me why you’re only wearing clear nail polish?”

  “Balance,” she answered.

  “Excuse me?” he said to her back as she turned once more. Wayne’s eyes skipped straight to her legs. With the tension in those muscles, he wouldn’t want to get in the way of any of her kicks.

  Catherine formed one last move, then stopped. She turned to face him. “Balance. It’s a very simple concept you probably don’t realize, since you don’t have dead weight strapped to your chest.”

  He closed his eyes and gave his head a small yet vigorous shake. He would’ve sworn they had both spoken the same language last night. He opened his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  She sighed. Was he this clueless because he’d just gotten up, or did she really shake him that badly? She raised her hand, palm forward. “High kick, right here.”

  Wayne slipped his shoes off and leaned sideways, ready for the kicking leg to counter the balance.

  “Stop there,” she told him. “That’s one of the reasons right there. Balance.” He straightened out. “Does 36B hold any meaning for you?”

  “It’s a bra size, last I checked. But, if I remember correctly, one of my coworkers told me that Victoria’s Secret solved that problem.”

  “Then I doubt she does many of these.” Catherine snapped around in a pivot, her heel stopping an inch in front of Wayne’s nose.

  “Nice arches,” he commented dryly.

  “And you also have to consider inertia,” she said, slipping her foot down to the carpet.

  He wanted to laugh. “I never thought I’d be discussing the physics of martial arts and mammary glands.”

  Someone knocked on the door. Wayne pulled out his H&K, dropping to one knee behind the arm of the couch. Catherine’s hand shot between the mattress and the box spring. She rolled over the bed, pulling her Glock with her. She dropped one knee to the floor, her gun held in both hands before her.

  A small manila envelope slid under the door. It lay halfway in, and halfway out of the room. Wayne made eye contact with Catherine, then nodded over to the door. She acknowledged with a nod. Wayne had his gun locked on the door as she blurred past him. She turned into the closet and settled deep into the pocket facing the door. He followed her, swiftly moving into the bathroom doorway.

  Both weapons had a firm lock on the door as Wayne slowly reached down to grip the paper between the tips of his fingers. He pulled back, pushing off his legs. No one fired a shot. He waited a count of ten before he even considered moving. Williams walked backwards into the room. He sidestepped out of the door’s line of sight.

  “Well, that was cryptic,” he muttered, holstering his weapon.

  “Doesn’t anyone ever consider the telephone?” Catherine said from the closet. “Maybe FedEx?”

  “FedEx is a good way to get a gun into a country, but not for sending documents you never want anyone to find.” He started to open the package when he stopped, looked up, and realized Catherine wasn’t there. “I don’t think you have to stay in the closet,” he called.

  “I know,” she replied. “I’ll be right out.”

  He shrugged. “Okay,” he said to himself. He tore open the envelope. Wayne reached in and pulled out three 8 x 10 glossy photographs of two women and one man. He couldn’t tell whether or not they had been taken in the same time frame, but he was certain the man was having a fun time. Stapled to each picture was the negative from which it was derived. He tossed each photo on the bed as he pulled out new ones. The scenes in them all became more and more graphic as he went along, each one featuring a different woman.

  After fifteen photos, the envelope was empty. What was the point? Why would someone send Michael DeValera pictures that could be taken by any second rate private investigator?

  He splayed them all out on the table, trying to figure out the purpose. The man wasn’t DeValera. He was thinner, with much less hair than Michael had had back on the bridge.

  “What is it?” Catherine asked, her voice no longer muffled by the barriers of the closet.

  “Photographs,” Wayne answered, not turning around. “The type you blackmail someone with. I think kinky may be too weak a word for them.”

  “Really?” she asked, amused. She came around to the adjacent side of the table. The assassin had put on a white hotel robe that probably cost about 75 dollars to buy, and more expensive to smuggle out in a suitcase.

  “Look for yourself,” he offered. “I’m not a great fan of pornography, but I know something’s wrong when some of those body parts are put in the wrong places.”

  Catherine picked up a photo. “Personally, I think swinging a whip is great exercise, but from what he’s using, you can see it doesn’t take a bullfighter to swing that paltry thing.” She let it lightly fall from her fingers, landing upside-down on the tabletop. “I don’t even think it reaches the speed of sound.”

  “What do you make of the negatives?” Wayne asked.

  “Probably some method of reassurance to the blackmail victim that it’s the final installment. He does them a favor; he gets a strip of negatives back, including copies of the photos they showed him. That’s the easy part. My only question is: What did this guy do for them to get so many pictures back?”

  “Maybe they decided to pay him back in one bulk deal?” Williams suggested.

  “It doesn’t work. With that sort of system, the mentality of the victim falls into three categories: he has to kill the blackmailer in the belief that he’ll be a slave for the rest of his life; he can be a slave for life; or he can go to the police. If you give your victim negatives, you reassure them that their actions prevented one more scrap of misdeed from becoming public.”

  “But that can only last for so long,” Wayne said. “Once a blackmailer runs out of pictures, there’s nothing left to control them: indicating that this man has almost outlived his usefulness.”

  “I’d guess DeValera was supposed to give these back to him, then smash his skull open in a back alley with the envelope still on him.”

  “But he’s no one important. I’ve never seen his face in a newspaper, nor anywhere else. This is pretty petty blackmail, considering the greater laws of the Ten Commandments he could’ve been blackmailed for breaking.”

  “You said it yourself,” STRONGBOW told him, considering the photos. “He’s not important. Petty blackmail for petty men.”

  He shook his head. “He couldn’t have been too petty, otherwise these guys wouldn’t have taken notice of him. He has to have had some sort of importance. Probably a government job. All sorts of people go unnoticed around desks and offices and simple officers, like secretaries. He could be a law clerk for all we know.” Wayne stopped to rub his shoulder. His back ached, probably from being on that couch all night, no matter how comfortable it was. He stretched further than his fingers could touch. Catherine absentmindedly reached over and pressed into the spot that bothered him, not taking her eyes off of the photos.

  “Thank you, no,” Williams told her, although he felt like letting her go on.

  “Knotted muscles nearly got me killed once,” she told him. “I was in the middle of fighting a particularly nasty Mafioski when I pulled my arm back for a final blow.” She lightly pressed her fingers along the muscle. “My shoulder blade came down on a knotted muscle. The suddenness of the pain delayed me for a second longer than I had.” She reached toward the center of his back, pressing lighter. His lower eyelid twitched.

  “Take your shirt off,” she told him.

  Chapter 21

  When he opened his mouth instead of moving away, she pressed a bit harder into his back. PHOENIX shut his mouth and complied. He took his jacket off where he stood, removing it with deliberate movements. He tossed it onto the unmade bed. “Take a seat,” she ordered.

  Wayne sat down next to his jacket. After he took of
f the tie, Catherine noticed that the narrow end had been singed badly; she didn’t inquire. He took off the shoulder holster, his shirt, and the bulletproof vest. Mats of fine blonde hair covered his chest. Catherine circled behind him. His back was one gigantic multicolored bruise. The center was a mass of purple and black, with green and yellow at the outer edges.

  “It only looks bad,” Wayne told her. “I shouldn’t think anything’s broken. Otherwise I wouldn’t have made it this far. I may have a high tolerance for pain, but broken bones usually make themselves noticed. I don’t think much of a problem. I’m a quick healer, it’ll be gone in two or three days.”

  “When was the last time you were hit this bad?” she inquired, as though collecting a medical history.

  “IED. The Sandbox.”

  “Reach back with your right arm.”

  “You?” He reached back. His mobility wasn’t perceptively impaired. “Let’s hear it for six degrees of mass destruction.” He felt her gentle fingers along his back, passing places it really stung. “Do you have a medical degree?”

  “Hell no,” she replied. “But I took a first aid course, just like the rest of my unit. I’m sure I’m no where near as good as your brother the…”

  “Physician Assistant,” he finished. “Just like the one in the Presidential limousine… long story, maybe I’ll tell you sometime.”

  “I just hope no one hits you in the back anytime soon.”

  Wayne looked over his shoulder at her. “In terms of fighting, it’s quite helpful, actually. Go ahead, hit it.”

  While Catherine considered it a bad idea, the confidence in his voice made her curious. She pressed her left hand flat against his back to make sure he didn’t tense to receive the blow. She spread her fingers wide apart as she wound her right arm backwards. She lashed out, palm outward. It landed between her fingers against a yellow-green patch. Wayne jumped as if electrified. He was on his feet and halfway through the arc of a roundhouse punch before Catherine could pull back. Her left arm went up just in time to intercept it.