“The thumb drive isn’t with me,” Dagan told Morrison. He could have lied or prevaricated, but in situations such as this, he’d learned the truth was always the better bet. “But it’s safe. And I could have it here in twenty minutes with one phone call. I’ll give it to you, and you can stop the hack job into your systems, but you have to tell me who Spider is.”
“Even if you know his name”—Morrison shook his head and that ridiculous man bun brushed Dagan’s cheek, making his jaw clench—“you’ll never catch him. He’s too bloody smart. Too sly. He hides himself behind powerful people. Hides his businesses behind shell company after shell company. And if he knows you’re coming after him?” Morrison laughed again and the sound was uncanny, sending a chill up Dagan’s spine. “You’re as good as dead.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Oh yes?” There was a hitch in Morrison’s voice. “But I don’t thinkIwill. You see, if I tell you who Spider is, I’m as good as dead too.”
Red tinged Dagan’s eyesight. “You lying piece of shit. We had a deal!”
Morrison tilted his head, bringing his lips close to Dagan’s ear. When the old man’s hot breath brushed Dagan’s cheek, he grimaced. “And I’ll keep it too.” Morrison whispered so quietly that Dagan had to strain to hear him. “But first, shut off the mobile in my pocket.”
Dagan thought perhaps it was all a giant ruse to get him to loosen his hold. Then Morrison continued, “And you have to promise me protection. You’re American, right? Working for the CIA?” Close enough. “I want in the witness protection program. If I give Spider up, Imustbe protected.”
That Morrison was willing to give up his fortune to go into hiding spoke volumes about what it must be like to be stuck under Spider’s thumb.
Instead of agreeing—no need to chance Morrison’s backup hearing—Dagan simply nodded. Then, still keeping the fork against Morrison’s neck, he reached into the man’s jacket pocket and pulled out the device. It was warm from having been on for so long, and he was only too happy to turn it off. Once he did, a sense of relief washed through him, knowing they were no longer being overheard.
“Now.” He was careful to keep his voice low. “Who is—”
That’s as far as he got before Morrison’s head flew back and hot, wet blood splattered across Dagan’s face. A single report sounded a split second later.
Chapter 39
Steven watched the bearded bloke drop Morrison’s lifeless body and took aim once again. Squeezing his trigger, he grimaced when he missed the man’s head by mere centimeters, his bullet slamming into the side of the harbor arm. Before he could get off another shot, Beard had thrown himself under the pier and out of sight.
“Bloody hell. Fucking Morrison,” Steven swore.
The old man had managed to make it to the pier before Steven, relaying that Chelsea Duvall and Beard were about to hop in a dinghy and head to who knows where.
“I’ll keep them here,” Morrison had hissed.
It hadn’t mattered that Steven had told him not to do a fecking thing, told him to simply hold his position, because not ten seconds after Steven made the demand, the sound of Morrison’s first shot boomed across the beach. The second had followed a scant moment later.
Should have known better than to give him a gun, Steven thought from his position behind a fishing boat some distance up the beach. Since the tide was out, the little vessel rested on dry land and provided him with adequate cover from which to assess the situation.
He was completely dumbfounded that Morrison had tried to make a deal. Spider’s identity for the thumb drive—he had known all that noise Morrison made about not giving Spider up was a bunch of tosh the instant the line had gone dead. So he’d put a round into the old man’s head. Because even though on paper he technically worked for Morrison, in truth he had been Spider’s man from the beginning.
Roper Morrison put on a good show by hiring bombshell birds and flirting and manhandling them so much it was enough to make a good man gag. But Morrison’s true proclivities ran far afield. To pubescent girls with barely budding breasts and boyish figures.
Somehow Spider had found out about the child pornography that abounded on Morrison’s personal computers and had even gotten his hands on photos of Morrison and some poor, clearly underage girl in Thailand. That’s all it had taken for Spider to pull Morrison into his sticky web.
Spider had promised not to reveal Morrison’s debauchery to the world. But in return, Spider expected Morrison to use his legitimate billion-dollar media empire to launder cash from Spider’s very illegitimate businesses.
Of course, Spider hadn’t gotten to where he was by trusting people to do their jobs. His motto wasKeep my enemies close but my friends closer. Enter Steven. Hired to keep an eye on Morrison. Make sure the old man didn’t muck up the good thing Spider had going by following his particular immoralities.
It had been ridiculously easy to kill Morrison, considering Steven had never cared for the bloody bugger to begin with. It didn’t get much worse than a kiddie molester in his book. Morrison was far better off rotting in hell.
Steven considered ringing up Spider and telling him what he’d learned, but he held off. He knew what the next steps should be without Spider confirming them. Since the incursion into Morrison’s systems was, in fact, a hunt for none other than Spider himself, the only course of action was to kill everyone involved. Total annihilation was Spider’s go-to method when threats were leveled against him.
Steven darted from behind the boat, holding his SIG up and at the ready.
Chapter 40
The minutes after Dagan shoved the dinghy into the surf were foggy for Chelsea. But not the good kind of fog, not the sweet-smelling, first-of-fall fog. She was talking industrial spill, evacuate-the-area fog. Noxious fog. Fog tinged with terror and the haunting knowledge that Dagan had gone off to confront their enemies.
Alone!
She didn’t remember precisely what she had done. Time had gone all wonky on her, becoming fast and slow all at once. But given she, or rather her backpack, was pressed against one of the pilings supporting the harbor arm and her booted feet were sunk into the pebbles of the beach, she must have rowed to shore. And given she was gripping the cold metal of the revolver, she must have retrieved the weapon when she saw it skitter over the beach. And last but certainly not least, given Dagan was sprawled at her feet, facedown and cursing roundly, he must have escaped being hit by any of the shots she’d heard fired.
