Austin Camacho - The Payback Assignment

Her moment of euphoria passed a moment later as she recognized the brooch. That perfectly facetted diamond with its halo of matched pearls set in its marbled green base was unmistakable. It was the brooch she had casually targeted weeks ago at a party as part of an absurd negotiation. Her eyes dropped to meet his, showing only a hint of suspicion.

“Honey, how did you ever get this? I can’t imagine any woman being willing to part with such a beautiful piece of jewelry once she had it. Besides, it must be worth a fortune.”

“Don’t you worry about how I got it,” Seagrave said. “You just get ready to wear it to that party Saturday night. You’ve earned it. Or you will.”

“Whatever do you mean?” she asked, not really wanting the answer.

“I told you, baby.” There was an edge on his tenderness now. “Whatever you want, you get it. As long as I get what I want.” His stubby fingers slid up her thigh, around the curve of the hips she had begun to think of as too full. His breathing deepened as hers became shallower.

“Oh, yes. We were talking about starting a family, weren’t we?” she said, backing away slightly. “I wasn’t sure you were serious, dear. Why don’t you get us a drink and we’ll talk about it now.”

“Had a drink,” he muttered low in his throat. “In fact, had a few. And we already talked. We’re going to have a son. And we’re going to start on it right now.”

His strength always surprised her. Gripping her upper arms he pulled her in to a hard, rough kiss. Before she could regain her balance he had spun her around and pushed her toward the king size bed that dominated the room.

Marlene stumbled on the carpet. Her thighs smacked the edge of the mattress and she felt her nipples scrape across the chenille bedspread. Her fingers curled into the spread as she heard his knees thump to the floor behind her and felt her slip roughly pushed up around her waist. She was staring at their ornate walnut headboard and, above it, the cheap velvet painting of a matador she had always hated. She clamped her eyes shut, trying hard to call up a more romantic image and relax so it would not hurt so much when he entered her.

Morgan awoke at an elbow nudge from Felicity. He had warned her that he generally made it a habit to fall asleep whenever his attention was not needed for anything. He knew she’d wake him at the end of the flight. He leaned forward to look past her. The view out the window told him that their 747 had gone into its holding pattern over Los Angeles International Airport.

At the airport in Merida, Morgan had been pleasantly surprised at the efficiency of the customs personnel. They were even fairly pleasant once he made it clear that he was more familiar with the applicable statutes than they were. No one at the airport questioned his international security officer credentials or his redundant multinational carry permits. Of course, he still had to endure an ungodly amount of hassle to get his working tools to travel with him. It was worth it, he supposed, for his machete and knives to be stored in the baggage compartment. Customs officials also forced him to pack his pistol in three separate cases, which naturally they provided, for a price. One case carried all his ammunition. Another contained the bolt from his pistol, while he packed the remaining harmless receiver and barrel in a third. All in all, he imagined it was less of a hassle than the hotel maid would go through when she found the bits of his disassembled submachine gun under his pillows.

After landing, he walked ahead of Felicity through the buzzing beehive of LAX. He hoped he looked like any traveling businessman in his lightweight sky blue suit, white shirt and maroon tie. He still wore combat boots, but he had shined them to a high gloss. He brushed a determined red cap aside, taking their two suitcases and the three small gun cases by himself. Felicity followed, now dressed in the full tan skirt, plush brown blouse and rope sandals he picked up for her. Yes, they were a convincing tourist couple.

The automatic doors opened before him, and he stepped out into air as hot and humid as the atmosphere he left behind in Mexico. Not the same though, because the air there carried a hint of sweetness from the foliage, whereas Los Angeles air, even this far outside the city, was thick with the petroleum and ash stench of smog. The heat seemed worse too, but only because he was wearing a tie now.

Between jets taking off and automobile engines running he could barely hear his own thoughts. Felicity pointed to the long line of taxis waited at the curb, and he marched toward the lead cab. The taxi pulled forward to stop in front of them before they reached the street. They slid into the air-conditioned back seat and the slim black man up front jerked the car out into the dense traffic. Felicity leaned forward to give him an address in the Manhattan Beach area.

For scenery, their trip rivaled the average hospital wall. The view was of one continuous freeway choked with cars, each mile looking suspiciously like the last. Morgan was oblivious to his surroundings, and figured Felicity would be too. After all, she had seen it all a million times before and, like his, her mind was surely occupied with other things.

Morgan did not recover from his personal reverie until their cab stopped in front of a huge, contemporary structure that had been built as close to the coastline as such a building could stand without sliding into the ocean. Felicity thanked the driver when she paid him, and Morgan noticed that she was a generous tipper. Grabbing the small suitcase and one gun case before Morgan could, she led the way into the lush, luxurious building. The lobby was appointed in stainless steel with gold accents. A uniformed security guard sat behind a marble counter. While Felicity stopped to chat with the guard Morgan read the wall-mounted directory. Most of the building, he learned, was devoted to professional offices. The top three stories held apartments.

The velvety decor mildly affected him, but other things impressed him much more. The building and its uniformed employees were quiet. A woman wearing a jumpsuit and apron was polishing a table at the side of the lobby, although the place already looked clean. A repairman stepped out of the elevator, maybe the reason Morgan saw no sign of maintenance needed anywhere. The place emanated efficiency.

Morgan and Felicity stepped past the maintenance man just before the doors slid closed. Even the elevator moved silently. At the end of the rocket ride, the elevator whispered open at the top floor, the twentieth. Two apartment doors faced each other there, separated by a central tropical garden that was illuminated from a wide skylight above. He could not remember ever seeing the bird of paradise plants indoors before. Their blues and reds and yellows and oranges glowed as brightly as they ever did in their natural setting, their petals yawning like the birds’ beaks that gave them their names.

Felicity strode to the door marked “number two” in fancy scrollwork. Next to the doorknob, an electronic cipher lock presented three rows of four numbers each. Felicity pushed eight buttons in a certain pattern, much like dialing a telephone number on a touchtone telephone. After the subtle click sounded, she turned the knob and opened the door.

Morgan followed her into a cavernous space. Felicity touched a light switch revealing a huge, sparsely furnished, sunken living room. He judged the room to be twenty-one feet wide by twenty-eight feet deep. The marble tiled mezzanine under his feet continued around three sides of the room. He stepped down three steps into deep plush carpet that matched the walls. The color wasn’t really pink, but not quite red either. He thought he may have seen it on a paint pallet in a hardware store with a name like dusty rose or something of the sort. He couldn’t imagine anything more feminine. The furniture was plush, a velour texture that added to the feeling of softness the room exuded. Directly to his right stood a round oak table with three nicely padded chairs. In front of him, a hand rubbed oak cube filled in as a coffee table. Beyond it stood a very long and inviting sofa. Some searching of his memory produced a name for the color of the furniture. Mauve. Maybe. Ordinarily he would just call it tan, but in this case the specific shade seemed to matter. Behind the sofa, up on the mezzanine level, an array of stereo equipment looked out from behind glass doors. While he stood rooted, three steps past the door, Felicity crossed the room and stepped up to the bar beside the stereo cabinet. She reached into one of the upper cabinets, rattling glasses.