The Collectors (Camel Club 2)

honey. Then zip, it’s Portland for your sweet ass anyway.”

“I just want to nail that little son of a bitch so bad.”

Bagger looked thoughtful. “Well, maybe that can be arranged.”

She looked up at him warily. “Jerry, you can’t put a hit on the guy, okay?”

“I’m not thinking about that, baby. You said he might be pissed because you’re doing your job too well. How’s that?”

“I bring in too much money, then all of a sudden people start looking at me to move up. I start moving up, then all of a sudden I’m a threat to his job. Believe it or not, Jerry, there aren’t a lot of women doing what I do. There are some who would love to see another female in a section chief slot. If I keep bringing in people like you and flood our overseas operations with ‘finessed’ cash, it hurts him and helps me.”

“Hell, only in the government sector do you get dinged for overproducing.” He thought for a moment. “Okay, I see how we can turn the tables on this bozo.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Our next run at El Banco.”

“Jerry, I’m being reassigned. My associate and I are on a plane tonight.”

“Okay, okay. But here’s the deal. Until you leave you can do one last run, right?”

Annabelle seemed to consider this. “Well, yeah, I mean, I have the authorizations. But even a million bucks in interest isn’t going to get me this guy’s corner office.”

“I’m not talking a measly million.” He looked at her. “What’s the largest single amount you’ve ‘finessed’?”

She thought for a moment. “Most of the wires are one to five million. But I did fifteen million in Vegas. And twenty mil from New York, but that was two years ago.”

“Chickenshit.”

“Chickenshit? Right!”

“Tell me, what would really hurt this guy?”

“Jerry, I don’t know. Thirty million.”

“Let’s make it forty million. And let’s make it four days instead of two.” He figured quickly in his head. “So that’s twenty percent interest instead of ten. And that comes to eight million to yours truly. A nice piece of finessing.”

“You’ve got forty million in cash?”

“Hey, who do you think you’re talking to? And we had two championship fights here in the last week. I’m flush with green.”

“But why are you doing this?”

“Eight mil in four days is nothing to sneeze at, even for a guy like me.” He gave her neck a rub. “Plus, like I said, you’re growing on me, lady.”

“But I’m still going to Oregon. I can’t disobey orders.”

“Okay, you go to Oregon. But then you think about getting out and coming back here. I’ll even give you ten percent of the eight and set you up nice.”

“I’m not looking to be your kept woman, Jerry. I’ve got a brain.”

“That you do, and I’ll put it to good use. Along with the rest of you.” He ran his hand down her back. “I’ll call down to the boys.”

“But like I said, I leave for Oregon tonight by private plane.”

“I understand that.”

“What I’m saying, Jerry, is there’s no way you’ll have your money back before I leave.”

He laughed. “Oh, the hostage thing? I think we’re past that, sweetie. You’ve made me one point six million and counting, so I think you’ve proved yourself.”

“Only if you’re sure. Forty mil is a lot of money.”

“Hey, the gig was my idea, not yours. I’ll handle it.”

She stood. “I’ve run a lot of these ops, Jerry, and to me it’s just a job.” She paused. “Everybody else they just wanted to know how much, how much. Greedy bastards all of them.” She paused again, seeming to search for the words, though she’d practiced them for a long time. “You’re the first one to ever do something for me. And I appreciate it. More than you’ll ever know.” This was probably the first true statement she’d uttered in Bagger’s presence.

They looked at each other, and then Annabelle slowly put her arms out and braced herself. He immediately crushed his body against hers. She almost gagged on his heavy cologne. His strong hands quickly found their way under her skirt, and she let them stay there, enduring his brutish groping in silence. She so wanted to slam a knee into his crotch. Hold on, Annabelle, you can do this. You have to do this.

“Oh, baby,” Bagger moaned into her ear. “Come on, let’s do it. One time before you hit the road. Right here on the couch. I’m dying here. Dying.”

“Trust me, I can feel it against my leg, Jerry,” she said as she managed finally to pry herself away from him. Annabelle adjusted her underwear and pulled her skirt back down. “Okay, stud, I can see I’m not going to be able to resist you much longer. Tell me, you ever been to Rome?”

He looked puzzled. “No. Why?”

“I rent a villa there every year when I go on my rare vacation time. I’ll call you with all the details. And two weeks from today I’ll meet you there.”

“Why two weeks, why not now?”

“That’ll give me time to report in to my new assignment, and maybe use the forty-mil run to leverage something better than Portland.”

“But my offer to come back stands. And I can be pretty damn persuasive.”

She ran a finger slowly over his mouth. “Show me how persuasive you are in Rome, baby.”

The $40-million wire left the Pompeii Casino two hours later. The e-mail that Tony had first sent to the Pompeii’s operations center had a special component to it: ultrasophisticated spyware that had allowed Tony, from a remote location, to take control of the Pompeii’s computer system. With that secret access he had written new code into their money-wiring program.

The three other wires had gone to El Banco, but when they’d sent the $40 million out, it had instead been automatically rerouted to another foreign bank and into an account controlled by Annabelle Conroy. While it would look to Bagger’s people that the money had reached El Banco—a phony electronic receipt would be automatically sent to the Pompeii—not a dime of it would ever come back to him. Annabelle’s scheme had been mainly for one purpose: to get the spyware on Bagger’s computer system. With that done, she was golden. And then she had played her part and let Bagger’s greed and lust bury the man, because the best way to con a mark was to let the mark suggest the con.

Four days from today to the minute, Bagger would grow a little nervous when his money didn’t show up. An hour later he would be getting a sick feeling in his gut. An hour after that he would become homicidal. And Annabelle and her crew would be long gone with over 41 million tax-free dollars to keep them company.

Annabelle Conroy could buy her boat and sail the rest of her life away, leaving the endless cons behind. Yet it was still not enough punishment, she thought as she left Bagger’s office to pack her suitcase. First, though, she was going to take a shower to get the man’s grime off her.

As Annabelle was bathing, she thought again that the money loss was clearly not enough pain for the man who’d murdered her mother over ten thousand bucks that Paddy Conroy had duped Bagger out of. There was never enough pain for that. Yet even Annabelle had to admit, $40 million was a nice start.

CHAPTER 25

ROGER SEAGRAVES HAD DISCOV-ered where Stone lived and had sent men to the cottage when it was empty. They’d searched the cottage thoroughly, leaving no sign that they had been there. And most important, they had left with Stone’s fingerprints, taken from a glass and a second off the kitchen countertop.

Seagraves had run the fingerprints through the CIA’s general database, finding nothing. Using a password he’d stolen from a fellow employee, he tried a highly restricted database. Access was granted, and he placed the print in the hopper. A minute later this led him to Subdirectory 666, one that he was certainly well acquainted with, although his search request for Stone’s prints came back with “access denied.” Seagraves was familiar with Subdirectory 666 because it was where

his own personnel history was kept, or at least the sort of “personnel” he used to be. He had often laughed at the “666” label, thinking it rather cheeky, though accurate nonetheless.

Seagraves exited the computer system and pondered this development. Stone had worked for the CIA, judging from his age, a long time ago. He had probably been an “eliminator” because the Triple Six classification was never given to those who pushed a pencil or pressed computer keys for the Agency. At present, Seagraves didn’t quite know how to take this discovery. He’d since learned that Stone’s librarian friend had been given the task of selling DeHaven’s book collection. Unfortunately, his men’s pursuit of Stone had raised the man’s suspicions. And a Triple Six man was born with inherent paranoia; that was just one of the many qualifications for the job.