The Collected

CHAPTER 14

San Paolo, Brazil

Maurice Curson could not believe his luck. For four years, he’d been persona non grata in the secret world. The only suitable employment he could find for someone with his particular skill set was as a bodyguard for rich losers.

But the asshole clients weren’t the worst part. It was the other bodyguards who really annoyed him. While there were a few ex-military types who Curson could respect, he was convinced the majority had all come straight from gyms where they’d spent their time lifting weights, taking steroids, and mostly likely watching that stupid Kevin Costner-Whitney Houston movie over and over. Smoke blowers who acted like they’d come straight out of the Secret Service and knew best what to do in any situation. Only none of them had been in the Secret Service.

In Curson’s old career, he’d done jobs in over thirty different countries, had killed, been shot at, and successfully protected people a hell of a lot more important than the latest winner of American Dumbass. These other guys? They wore it as a badge of honor any time they knocked a member of the paparazzi to the ground.

Amateurs. A whole mess of idiotic amateurs.

That’s why when he’d been offered the gig-an actual, honest-to-God black ops situation-he had jumped at the chance. To hell with the fact it meant backing out of a previous commitment. And it didn’t even matter that it wasn’t a trigger-man position. He didn’t care. He was back in, and, hopefully, if he played his cards right, he’d never have to go back to that other crap work again.

The op was pretty straightforward. A snatch and grab. The target: a Brazilian economist who was stirring up trouble and needed to be convinced to adjust his thinking. While Curson would have preferred to be on the snatch team, he was content to be in charge of getting the package from the op site to the safe house-in effect, a glorified driver.

Two days of planning, a dry run, and he and the other team members were ready. Hell, he’d been ready for years. It was all he could do to keep the smile off his face as he sat in the appropriated ambulance, waiting for the target to be brought to him.

Four years in the cold-exiled for a mistake that could have happened to anyone-were finally behind him.

Goodbye, Mr. Stoned Movie Star. I’m really back in the game now.

“Sixty seconds.” The voice came over the comm in his ear.

This was it. The grab had been made and they were on their way.

Maurice climbed out of the ambulance and walked around to the back. He checked the street, confirmed it was as deserted as it had been before, and opened the rear doors.

“Thirty seconds.”

He climbed inside, ready to accept the package.

The three-member snatch team appeared at the back right on time, the target propped up under one of the men’s arms like a passed-out drunk. Working quickly, they transferred the Brazilian onto the gurney inside, and Curson buckled him down.

“Set?” the team leader asked.

“All set,” Curson told him.

“He’s all yours.”

The men disappeared down the street.

As Curson checked the buckles one last time, he realized his cargo didn’t appear to be breathing.

Oh, crap.

He checked the target’s pulse, or tried to, because there was none.

Oh, God, no.

The snatch team had delivered him a stiff.

He immediately began CPR.

“Come on, come on,” he implored the lifeless body.

No response.

He glanced at his watch. If he didn’t leave now, he’d be behind schedule.

Dammit!

He tried another go at CPR, but there was no bringing the man back.

Dammit, dammit, dammit!

He knew this would somehow become his fault. His grand reentry into the realm of secrets and spies thwarted before it could even get going.

He took a deep breath. Be a pro. Finish the job.

He climbed out of the back, circled around the vehicle, and got in behind the wheel. Sticking to his preplanned, less-trafficked route, he reached the turnoff for the safe house just inside the time range he’d been given.

During the whole drive, he’d been thinking about the dead man in back. He’d explain everything to his client. Tell him the target had arrived DOA, and that he’d even tried multiple times to resuscitate him. They’d have to believe him. They’d just have to.

He turned down the driveway, rehearsing in his head what he was going to say. But as he approached the isolated house, thoughts of his explanation vanished. Parked directly in his path were two sedans, their occupants standing outside, guns drawn and pointed at him.

He looked in his mirror, intending to back out of there as fast as possible, but a third car was pulling across the driveway, blocking his exit.

Oh.

Crap.