without a break for too long. He'd call her in and let her know what Jay had found, as soon as he was done telling the Director. She'd be happy to hear the news.
'Good morning, Alex. You have good news for me?'
'Yes, sir, I believe so. Very good news.'
32
The Selkie stood on the doorstep, holding a small box wrapped in expensive paper. She wore crisp, dark blue cotton slacks, a matching long-sleeved shirt and a baseball cap the same color. A few wisps of the blond wig peeped from under the cap, and she had on just enough makeup to look five years older than she was. The wrapped package was the size of a box a diamond necklace might fit into. The van parked behind her on the street was a rental, plain, white, with stolen tags in place. She looked the part of a delivery woman in the upscale neighborhood.
She rang the bell.
A minute passed. The Selkie rang the bell again.
'What?' came a sleepy voice from the intercom.
'I have a delivery from Steinberg's Jewelers for a Miz Brigette Olsen?'
'A delivery?'
Jesus, honey, which part of that didn't you understand?
The Selkie glanced at the clipboard she held. 'From a Mr. Genaloni?'
'Hold on a sec.'
The woman inside opened the door only as far as the chain latch would allow. From what the Selkie could see through the gap, Brigette was young, blond, busty, what the Irish called a fine strapping girl. She wore black silk pajamas and a faded blue bathrobe. And if the phone call that the Selkie had listened in on last night was correct, Brigette would receive a visit sometime today from Ray Genaloni. The Selkie was ready. Brigette extended one hand for the package. 'Give it to me.'
'I'll need you to sign for it, ma'am,' the Selkie said. She waved the clipboard. She glanced at her watch, as if she had places to go, things to do.
Brigette hesitated.
The Selkie could probably boot the door and pop the safety chain loose. Those things were nearly always tacked on with short and useless screws, but she didn't really want to take the risk of somebody seeing her — kicking in the front door of a gangster's mistress in broad daylight was not the smart way to go. Or she could pull the small.22 pistol she had tucked into the inside-the-waistband holster, under her shirt, behind her right hip and threaten the woman — Open up, honey, or get drilled. But that was risky. And she definitely didn't want the woman dead.
One more bit of business and neither way would be necessary. 'Oh, sorry, I almost forgot, there's a note I'm supposed to read.' She unfolded a piece of paper from the clipboard. 'Says here, ‘Ray says wear this and nothing else for me this evening.' '
The Selkie stared at the ground, as if embarrassed.
Brigette laughed and undid the safety chain. 'That's Ray, all right.'
She opened the door. People were so gullible.
Alex Michaels was on his way to the cafeteria, though he wasn't really very hungry. The hot leads of just two days ago had petered out. Jay Gridley's winnow of programmers living in Russia had come up blank. And the DNA and fingerprints of the woman who had collected Scout at a Schenectady, New York, hotel hadn't found a match on any of the systems they had checked.
Gridley had moved his search for the programmer into the surrounding CIS countries, and was also widening the net he'd thrown for the assassin, but so far zip on either.
Toni Fiorella had, it seemed to Michaels, been avoiding him. She'd missed a staff meeting, left early and generally looked at him as if he'd developed some highly contagious disease she didn't want to get close enough to catch.
Well, at least he still had his job. Once the Director had told the President they had pictures of Day's assassin and were going to be able to run her down in the near future, that had been enough.
Whether that was true or not was another matter, but certainly they were better off than they had been. It
Ahead of him in the hall, Michaels saw John Howard walking toward the cafeteria. Howard saw him as he reached the entrance. He nodded. 'Commander.' He was polite, but no more.
Michaels didn't understand why the colonel didn't like him, but it was apparent he did not. 'Colonel.'
Howard moved off, not offering to eat and visit with his boss.
But Jay Gridley came bustling up, grinning, and Michaels filed Howard away to deal with later.
'Tell me you've got good news and that raise is a done deal,' Michaels said.
'Well, I dunno how good it is, but, lemme see, I, uh, got the programmer. How's that?'
'No!'
'Yep, yep, yep! I was right, he's a Russian. Emigrated to Chechnya, been living there for years, that's why we missed him on the first passes.' Jay held up his flatscreen so the image on it was visible.
'Commander, meet Vladimir Plekhanov.'
Genaloni glanced at the clock on his desk. Enough. He needed to get out of here. Shuffling forms, electronic or paper, was enough to drive you nuts after a couple of hours. He waved the intercom on. 'Roger, get the car. We're going out to Brigette's.'
'Yes, sir.'
What he needed after being cooped up with the pressures of business all day was a place to unwind and somebody to cut loose with. Nothing like getting your ashes hauled to mellow you out. And if they left now, they'd beat most of the rush.
Being rich had its perks, all right.
Brigette had been extremely cooperative. As soon as she'd gotten over her surprise at seeing the pistol in the delivery woman's gloved hand, her first words had been:
'Oh, shit.'
The tone hadn't been one of fear, but of irritation. As if she'd just discovered it was raining when she'd planned to lie in the sunshine.
Now, the van was parked a block over, in the driveway of a vacant house for sale — a chore the Selkie had done while Brigette had been handcuffed to her kitchen plumbing.
Back in place, she'd uncuffed the woman and allowed her to dress.
As she had been slipping into her black silk panties, Brigette had turned those sweet cornflower-blue eyes on the Selkie and said, 'Are you going to kill me, too?'
No doubt in her mind as to why the Selkie was here. No brainless bimbo, this one.
'No, why should I? You do what you're supposed to do, Genaloni goes down, I'm gone.'
'He'll have bodyguards with him. They'll be out front.'
'How many?'
'A couple.'
Apparently being cooperative again — but lying. Genaloni would have at least four guards, five if you counted his driver. One of them would be watching the back, too. Brigette was trying to cover her ass — more than the silk G-string she had on did. If her sugar daddy took the hit, she could hope his killer would let her live because she'd helped her. If Genaloni survived and the delivery woman fell, sweet Brigette could tell him how she'd lied to protect him.
