“Janet Lassiter?”
Lassiter was sitting at her usual table in the Copper Ground coffee shop, staring out at Savannah’s early morning traffic while she waited for her usual order, which seemed to be taking more than the usual amount of time today. She turned to find a tall, dark-skinned man who looked vaguely familiar standing over her. He wore a narrow blue bike helmet, a tight, colorful shirt, dark shorts, and had a worn canvas bag slung across the front of his body.
Of course he looked familiar, Lassiter realized; he was a bike messenger, most likely the one who almost ran her down every other day.
“Who wants to know?” she asked, knowing full well she wasn’t going to like the answer. No one she had any use for would trust anything important to a bike messenger.
He pulled a cell phone out of his bag. “I’ve got a message for you, ma’am, from a man who transferred a thousand dollars into my Feathercoin account just to make sure you got it.”
“Does this person have a name?” Lassiter asked archly.
“His name is, ‘Thousand dollars into my Feathercoin account.’”
Lassiter considered asking what he called the guy for short but she didn’t feel like giving the smartass another straight line. Instead, she fixed him with a cold stare. Maybe she should shoot the messenger, she thought. A slug in the knee from the .38 in her purse wouldn’t kill him but it would hurt like hell, force him to find a less obnoxious line of work, and teach him not to get mouthy with short, older women. Then she motioned for him to go ahead.
The messenger cleared his throat and began reading from the cell phone screen. “‘Hello, Janet. Before you try to kill me again, consider this…’”
In her peripheral vision, Lassiter could see people turning to look at her with unabashed curiosity about the killer drinking coffee among them. It took an enormous amount of effort not to show any reaction herself. You couldn’t let the enemy see they’d had any effect on you or you’d be at their mercy. They were always trying to knock you off-balance, make you look crazy or stupid or even scary.
“‘Your home address is 1362 Carrol Grove. The security alarm code is 1776,’” the messenger continued. More people were staring, craning their necks, even standing up to get a look. Dammit, now she was going to have to move, Lassiter fumed. And she would have to change the security code while she packed.
“‘You awaken at 6:12 every morning and stop for your decaf soy latte with an extra shot by 6:42,’” declaimed the messenger, obviously enjoying himself. “‘Every night, you stand in front of your huge living room window sipping a Jose Cuervo margarita with Forensic Files on the TV.’”
Lassiter thought he had paused for breath but he tapped the screen and put the phone back in his bag. Apparently that was the message in its entirety. Lassiter felt let down in spite of herself; anticlimax wasn’t like Henry.
The people around her, however, seemed to think the show wasn’t over. Lassiter imagined kneecapping the messenger and maybe the wide-eyed couple at the table on her left, but then her own cell rang. She touched the Bluetooth clipped to her ear.
“This is Lassiter,” she said briskly.
“There are shooters at your ten and two,” Henry Brogan said. “Get up out of that chair and you will be AMF’ed.” He almost sounded polite, as if he were trying to be helpful.
Lassiter’s head snapped towards the window, scanning the buildings at ten o’clock and two o’clock. They were mostly high-rises with plenty of glass that reflected the bright morning sunlight, making it impossible for her to see anything. There might have been no one out there—or there might have been a whole platoon keeping her covered from multiple floors. She thought the former was more likely but she had known Henry Brogan for too long to risk calling his bluff. If she died today, it wasn’t going to be in a goddam coffee shop with a smartass bike messenger and a bunch of goddam over-caffeinated hipsters watching as she breathed her last.
“If I thought the world needed another me, I would have had a kid,” Henry said.
Lassiter wet her lips. “That program pre-dates my arrival at the agency. You must know that,” she said in a stiff, professional tone. If she sounded boring, her audience would lose interest.
Henry laughed. “Oh, that’s a perfect DIA answer. Always cover your ass, deny everything, and if something goes wrong, duck!”
He said the last word so loudly, Lassiter did exactly that, putting her hands over her face to protect it from flying glass. Except there was no glass, no gunshots from ten o’clock or two o’clock, just the bike messenger staring at her like she’d gone crazy and a café full of people who probably thought they were watching a reality show.
“Now tip the nice bike guy,” Henry ordered her in a condescending tone.
Lassiter sat up, smoothing her hair and squaring her shoulders. She pointed an index finger at the bike messenger. “You—” She lowered the finger ninety degrees and aimed it at the front door. “Can go.”
The messenger gave her a parting sneer and Lassiter did likewise, listening to the tik-tik-tik sound of his bike shoes on the floor. If he had really thought he was going to get a tip after that shit-show, maybe she should have kneecapped him, just as a life lesson.
But the good news was, the rest of the coffee shop rabble took the messenger’s departure to mean the show really was over now and turned their attention back to their own phones or tablets or laptops. Except for the wide-eyed couple at the table on her left; they seemed to be hoping for a better finale.
Lassiter turned in her chair, pointedly giving her back to them and everyone else, mostly so she could search the buildings and the street for sniper rifles. She still didn’t see anything at ten and two, either up high or at ground level. Brogan had to be bluffing, she was almost certain of it, but in this business, you didn’t stay alive by being almost certain.
“I have an agent of yours here with me,” Henry said. “Danielle Zakarewski. She wants to come in.”
“Fine.” Lassiter decided to kneecap Zakarewski just on general principle.
“Like me, she’s a patriot,” Henry went on. “But unlike me, she wants to spend the next couple decades scoring touchdowns for you assholes. Her safety is non-negotiable. Remember I’ve got you covered. Ten and two, Janet.”
Lassiter was vaguely aware of a barista calling out something about a decaf soy latte with an extra shot for Janet but it was just background noise.
“You cannot—” she started.
“The only person I’ll hand her off to is the person you sent after me in Cartagena,” Henry said, talking over her. “So don’t bother sending anyone else.”
“Oh, a family reunion?” Lassiter gave a short humorless laugh. “How sweet.”
“Keep it up, Janet,” Henry said, “and you’ll be the first person I ever killed for free. How soon can you get him to Budapest?”
Lassiter gave another short laugh. “How about five minutes? Does that work for you?”
There was a long moment of silence. Lassiter smiled with grim satisfaction. The smug bastard hadn’t seen that one coming.
“Good,” Henry said. She could practically hear him pretending she hadn’t just blindsided him. “She’ll be at the courtyard of the Vajdahunyad Castle at midnight tonight. Enjoy your latte.” He hung up on her.
Oh, she was going to enjoy her latte, all right—she’d enjoy it a hell of a lot more than Henry would enjoy what happened next, Lassiter fumed, putting her phone away. In fact, she should have been enjoying her goddam latte right now—where the hell was it? She looked over at the pick-up counter, frowning like a thunderstorm. If that barista had forgotten her order, Lassiter was going to rain so much hell down on her she’d be scarred for life.
Henry sat back in his chair. Danny half-expected to see steam coming out of his ears. Baron signaled their waiter for another round of espressos but she wasn’t sure Henry really needed more caffeine. On the other hand, he had set the meet for midnight and they needed to stay awake even though they were all still jet-lagged. Well, she was, anyway; Baron was such an easy-going, roll-withthe-punches kind of guy, she wasn’t sure he even got headaches. As for Henry, she was starting to think he was Superman’s secret identity.
Baron nudged her elbow. “In case you’re wondering, AMF stands for—”
“Adios, motherfucker,” Danny finished for him. “Yeah, I know.”
Both he and Henry stared at her, startled.
“Oh, come on,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What am I, a five-year-old?”
Henry shook his head. “A better question is, how the hell did he know I was here?”