Player - A Deadliest Lies Novel - Michele Mannon Page 0,87
step back is necessary. His warning couldn’t be clearer. Another day, another place where it’s safe, I’ll sit back and process everything. At this point, it’s all I can do.
“One question answered, and you get yerself gone. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Ask me who I am.”
I don’t know if it’s the softening of his eyes or his raw tone that has me whispering the question. “Who are you?”
“I’m the man who loves you.”
42
Finn
I’ve got to hand it to Hayden. He may be a fella of few words but he can provoke a reaction out of you that feels like you’ve been lacerated by a sharp, curved knife. I resume my position up front a few minutes before the shite show begins.
O’Brien charges out of the back room, bellowing at the top of his lungs. “Stop. Don’t load one more goddamned crate.”
His men exchange worried glances.
“Thought O’Brien told us to wait while he was fleecing the suit?”
“That he did,” someone answers. “Barely loaded a thing.”
“Unload everything.” O’Brien is in rare form. “We no longer have an agreement.”
My colleagues pretend confusion, playing their parts perfectly.
Hayden returns with a white hand-towel slung over his shoulder. Went and wash then dried his hands, did he? Casual. Unaffected by O’Brien’s threats.
I’ve got to say, he’s handling the mob boss beautifully.
“No deal, this arsehole says,” O’Brien continues to rant. “Going to South Africa, he says. Wants to deal directly with Barrington, he says.”
“With the exorbitant, overinflated prices you’re offering?” Hayden calmly states. “I prefer to deal directly with the source.”
“Get the feck out of here or you’ll be getting a taste of what the South Africans got.”
The boss turns his back on him to address the others. “I’ll negotiate a better deal with Ogdenhayer on your behaves? How about we take a quick trip to South Africa, even take a tour of the mine. Are you with me?”
Heads nod.
O’Brien’s eyes bulge. “Think yer so fecking smart, eh?” Quick-like, he points a gun at Hayden’s head. “Got a real Einstein on the premises, we do. A dead one.”
Everyone stills.
I step forward and hold up my hand. “Wait.”
Slowly, everyone’s attention turns my way.
“Can’t die twice, can you?”
O’Brien is the first to respond. “What the bleedin’ hell is this eegit going on about now?”
“Einstein. Didn’t he like die a few decades ago?”
Complete, utter silence. You’d have thought I’d tossed Einstein’s head onto the warehouse floor.
O’Brien explodes. “Shut yer trap or you’ll be joining him.”
I hide my smirk, knowing I bought Hayden a few seconds just in case he needed them.
Everyone snickers. Everyone that is, except Hayden and O’Brien.
“You believe this fella? Think you can trust him? I’ve got two reasons why you shouldn’t. That mine he’s going on about is in central Africa, not South Africa. Couldn’t even get that straight and he’s going to negotiate a better motherfeckin’ price?”
Ever so slightly, Hayden shifts on his feet. You would have to be watching for it to see it. The same sensation I get when Diego is mucking about with his explosives washes over me.
O’Brien laughs. It’s not a pretty sound. “And two, never trust—”
“—a dead man.”
Hayden shoots a bullet point-blank into O’Brien’s head, then as my colleagues fall into action, wipes away the spray of blood with the bleedin’ towel.
And me?
I sit back and watch. Because, after a long day—months—on the job, sometimes a man needs to kick back and appreciate the culmination of his hard work.
“Everything accounted for?” Hayden addresses us, as he places a box filled with O’Brien’s paperwork into the back of a lorry.
“Yes, Boss.”
Hard to say if Hayden is pleased or not. He should be doing a jig with what O’Brien’s left behind. The mob boss was old-school in his bookkeeping. Kept handwritten ledgers on all transactions. Names, numbers, addresses. Important information that can be used in tracking down the buyers so we can terminate the lot of them.
But my job in Europe is at an end. Time to head back to the States, before the CIA close in on Finn McDuff.
The name Michael has a nice ring to it.
“Rambo. You coming?” My colleague, the comedian, snickers as he approaches.
I’ve been called worse.
“Keys.” I hold out my palm, claiming the right to drive. Easier this way, because I can tuck my duffle bag—with Clarissa’s camcorder—beneath the seat. Later, I’ll take a gander at what’s there. There will be time to figure out what military-grade, encrypted drive she’s using and if it’s as inaccessible as she believes. Because I’ve a good idea what password she might be using.