Trigger Break Page 5

  Banh panted when he had run out of breath. He asked the surviving hoods if they could get to a phone. They shook their heads. They were bound tight. Banh closed his eyes and jumped, and his chair moved an inch. Fire lanced through him again and he shrieked in agony. He gritted his teeth, swore vengeance on the stranger, and jumped again, in the direction of a landline phone.

  It took ten agonizing minutes for him to get close to the sideboard, and by the time he was near, his clothing was soaked in sweat and blood. He leaned forward and nudged the phone off its cradle with his chin. It took several more attempts to speed-dial a number, but he finally achieved it.

  Five gang members rushed through the door half an hour later and stood stock-still for an instant, gawking at the sight. They jumped into action when Banh screamed and cursed their fathers and mothers and likened them to dogs.

  The new arrivals cut their friends free, and one of them started attending to Banh.

  ‘That’s a nice sight, isn’t it?’ a voice drawled from the doorway.

  Eight heads turned, startled, and stared. A large black man and a slightly shorter blond were surveying them. Standing loose. Relaxed.

  ‘Brotherly love. No finer sight. It gets me bawling every time,’ the black man agreed.

  ‘Kill them!’ Banh screeched, not caring whether the intruders were friendlies or hostiles.

  For the second time in the night, he watched as time seemed to slow.

  The intruders split up, the black man going right, the blond going left. The black man’s hand chopped to his waist and came up with a silvery object. Tongues of fire laced from it, and two hoods dropped.

  The blond dropped to his knees and fired equally rapidly. Banh had numbers on his side, but the intruders had surprise on theirs. They were faster, had quicker draws, and in no time, Banh’s men were down.

  The sound of rolling thunder died slowly, and the air was thick with the smell of gun smoke when the men approached Banh.

  Banh looked dazedly at his men. All dead. A few of them had gotten off shots, and in fact one of them had hit the blond, but he seemed to be wearing armor. The strangers weren’t even scratched.

  Banh tried to stand. The black man shoved him back in his chair and stood over him. Banh nearly passed out when the man gouged his gun into Banh’s open wound.

  ‘What do you want?’ he managed to choke out.

  ‘That should be obvious, shouldn’t it? We came to teach you good habits.’

  ‘There’s a gap in your schooling,’ the blond joined in solemnly. ‘We aim to rectify that.’

  Banh was bewildered. What were they talking about? His puzzlement must have shown, for the black man smiled unpleasantly.

  ‘What did that other dude tell you?’

  Banh racked his brains. The brown-haired man hadn’t told him anything. He’d only been asking questions. Banh’s brow cleared. ‘Stay away. Don’t go after him.’

  The black man nodded approvingly. ‘That wasn’t hard, was it?’ His face turned cold. ‘And what were you planning to do when you were free?’

  He slapped Banh lightly, and the Vietnamese nearly fell off his seat.

  ‘They never learn, do they, Rog?’

  ‘Nope. I wonder why we waste time.’

  ‘Should I plug him?’

  ‘No!’ Banh yelled. ‘I didn’t mean it. I will mind my own business. I won’t go after him.’

  The blond one clicked his tongue. ‘You saw the mistake he made?’

  ‘Yeah. He didn’t say anything about us.’

  ‘I won’t come after you either! I don’t know any of you!’

  ‘That’s better.’ Another approving nod. The black man lowered his gun but didn’t move.

  ‘What? What now? I promised,’ Banh pleaded desperately.

  ‘Well,’ the blond one drawled, ‘it’s like this. We ain’t sure if you told our friend the truth. We’re just double-checking, you know.’

  ‘I did,’ Banh replied and shouted loudly when the black man shot him in the other thigh.

  ‘Just to be sure, you know,’ he heard an apologetic voice say as he sobbed and swore and cursed.

  They asked him the same questions, some new ones, and variations of the old ones. They slapped Banh awake when he was on the verge of passing out, and kept at him until they were satisfied.

  They finally straightened and holstered their guns. ‘Remember your promise,’ the black one warned.

  Banh nodded dully. ‘Yes,’ he whispered.

  He raised his head with all his strength, parted his chapped lips and looked at them with glazed eyes. ‘Are you with the Mossad?’

  ‘No. We’re worse.’

  Banh believed them.

  * * *

  Neither Bwana nor Roger nor Zeb paid any attention to the lampposts outside Banh’s house. If they had, they might have spotted the miniature black devices mounted high up on two of the posts. Those devices were small and very easy to miss. There were two of them, both facing the gang leader’s residence. They sent out a wireless feed to a central console a few streets away.

  The cameras had been planted by the patriarch’s gang in LA. A phone call from Senior, the elder brother, had gotten a few hitters to climb up the lampposts, fix the devices, and turn them on.

  Those images and videos reached the siblings, who were hunched over a screen as they watched the feed.

  ‘Who are they?’ Junior, the younger brother, asked as they watched the brown-haired man enter the house and leave after an hour. Then the black and the blond men arrived.

  Their LA gang hadn’t been able to plant any surveillance devices inside Banh’s house. The siblings had to rely on their imagination to guess what was going on inside.

  Senior, the elder brother, shrugged.

  ‘Stun grenade?’ Junior murmured as they watched the house light up from inside, shortly after the brown-haired man’s arrival.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ his sibling confirmed.

  The brown-haired man walked out, and for a moment, he faced one of the cameras full-on. A printer on the desk came to life and the stranger’s face rolled out on two white sheets.

  The two men studied the printout for long moments and shook their heads at the same time. They didn’t recognize him. They returned to the video and resumed watching. Neither of them knew the black and the blond men, either. The printer spat out their images too.

  ‘I’ll pass them to our men. Let them ask around. You email our friends abroad,’ Junior suggested.

  Senior didn’t respond. He was looking at a calendar. At a particular date. Two days away.

  ‘Everything’s ready.’ Junior slapped his brother on his shoulder. ‘You worry too much.’

  * * *

  Senior brooded as he looked at the printouts in his hand. None of this was to his liking. The gang, the business empire, and its members, were going in a direction he wasn’t happy with.

  He was aware that his father knew of his reservations. As did his brother. They think I am conservative. They think these acts will revive us. But it’s they who are stuck in the past. Nothing good comes out of killing.

  He wasn’t squeamish about bloodshed. He and Junior had dirtied their hands many a time. As had their father. One didn’t rule a fiefdom of that size without taking lives.

  No, it was the approach his father was taking that he didn’t agree with. He can test us in different ways. We are already running business divisions. He can make his judgment based on our performance.

  But no. He wants to recapture past glory.

  He was a dutiful son, however. He would do what his father bade him. And do it well. There was no better planner than he. That was where he and his sibling differed.

  He had attention to detail. Junior had the vision. The two weren’t friends, but worked well together. That would be the best outcome for the business. The two of us at the top. But Papa favors him, I know. Papa wants to make him the head of the gang and the empire. This whole test is just to ensure that Papa is seen to b
e fair.

  I won’t give up, however. I will fight for that role.

  For he had his father’s blood in him. The genes of his ancestors. They were conquerors. Empire builders.

  Senior, too, wanted to rule the fiefdom.

  He rolled the sheets into a cylinder and went to make calls and send emails. To America and Europe. The two brothers had to identify who these strangers were. Work out just how big a threat they were.

  And then, kill them.

  Chapter 8

  Holly Nicholson called the emergency board meeting to order. She and five other women were at the University Club in San Francisco. It was an exclusive institution, membership by invitation only, and one had to attend a prestigious school to be considered for membership.

  Nicholson had been to Stanford, as had her fellow board members. They were all members, but the club and its grand décor weren’t on her mind.

  The six of them sat around a conference phone, waiting for five more women to dial in, from Asia, Europe, and South America.

  There used to be twelve of them, and they’d called themselves the Kickass Women’s Club. It had started off as a networking group when they were in college, but had morphed into something vastly different.

  Now it was a private equity group that invested in technologies and companies around the globe. Not all the TKWC women were wildly wealthy. But all of them were extremely well connected and had sound business acumen, and it was those traits that had made the club one of the most powerful equity groups in the world.

  It was also a very high-profile group because of its guiding principles.

  TKWC was very particular in the firms it took a stake in. The companies had to offer products or services that made the world a better place. The firms had to have gender equality and have female board representation. The gap between the highest and lowest earners in the investee firms had to be low.

  Board members of the TKWC frequently dined with presidents and prime ministers of the world’s richest nations. They spoke at global forums. Their social media pages had large followings. When a TKWC board member spoke, political and economic leaders around the world listened.

  Holly Nicholson was its current president, a role that rotated every two years.

  When all the callers had joined in, Holly glanced around the ornate table. All of them were of similar age. Holly was blonde and slim, a child of the West Coast. There were African-Americans, Hispanic women, Europeans and Asian women in TKWC. It was a diverse group.

  One chair was vacant. Stay strong, she told herself.

  ‘You might have heard of Shira Levin’s death,’ she opened the proceedings. The eyes of those present went to the empty seat. Those on the phone whispered in assent.

  Shira had been a board member. What’s more, she had been a friend to all of them. She, Holly, and three other women had been the original founders of TKWC.

  ‘I have spoken to Commissioner Rolando of the NYPD and will be flying out later today to meet him. It’s too early in the investigation. He didn’t have anything much to offer. I spoke to her father too. He was remote, distant. You can understand why.’

  They knew why. Avichai Levin hadn’t approved of his daughter being in the public eye. It had set her up as a target. Shira was a determined woman, however. TKWC was her passion. She wasn’t going to let her father’s job define her.

  Holly’s voice cracked as she reminisced about her friend. The eleven of them shared stories and anecdotes. Tears were shed, and it was only after a couple of hours that Holly brought up business.

  ‘Shira was on the board of three companies,’ she said, mentioning their names. Heads nodded around the table. One firm sold technology that tracked nuclear material as it was transported either to reactors or to defense establishments. World governments were its customers.

  Another firm was in the cybersecurity space. It prevented consumer data from being misused. A third was a robotics company that developed artificial intelligence technology for elderly care.

  ‘As you’re all aware, all three companies had offers from bidders. Shira had been evaluating those bidders when…’ Holly trailed off, dabbed her eyes, and put on her game face.

  TKWC’s rules for selling a company were as stringent as its acquisition criteria. A bidder had to show a five-year plan. It had to meet TKWC’s gender and pay equality rules. If an acquirer defaulted on their commitments, TKWC would get its portfolio company back.

  ‘All these evaluations will be deferred to an appropriate time. We have to vote on a member to take Shira’s place. That member will carry on Shira’s role. Is there anyone who doesn’t want to be considered for the role?’

  No hands were raised. No caller voiced an objection.

  She wrote their names on eleven slips of paper, folded them, and put them in a glass bowl. She handed the bowl to Miyako Nagasawa, who was on her right. Miyako shook the bowl and passed it on to Alicia Negrete.

  Alicia closed her eyes and picked out a note. She opened it and read out the name on it.

  ‘Mulan Yao.’

  Mulan was based in Tokyo. She and Maya Indrawati, who was in New Delhi, looked after their Asian interests. Both Mulan and Maya were on the conference call.

  ‘Any objections to Mulan’s appointment?’ Holly asked her board.

  No one had any.

  Holly swiftly ran through the details of Mulan taking over Shira’s responsibilities, and after discussing other business matters, she called the meeting to a close.

  ‘Do I need to meet her father?’ Mulan asked, from Tokyo.

  That stopped Holly. She had never considered a possible meeting. Avichai Levin had no connection to TKWC. Normally, there wouldn’t be a need to meet him. However, these weren’t normal circumstances.

  ‘You’re flying out tonight to join me in New York, aren’t you? Let’s meet him there. He said he’ll be in NYC for as long as it takes.’ For as long as it took for his daughter’s killers to be found.

  Mulan agreed, and after discussing logistics, Holly wrapped the meeting.

  She joined Miyako, Alicia, and Helen Garrido for a quiet drink, and they talked about Shira. About how the five of them, the original founders, had bonded while in Stanford. How the idea for TKWC had come up during an evening of pizza and beer.

  ‘We have been through a lot,’ she mused.

  ‘She, more than all of us,’ Helen replied. ‘Her father…none of us had to deal with that kind of background.’

  ‘Theresa and Susan,’ Holly agreed, ‘they too come from similar backgrounds. But Shira’s was unique.’

  ‘What do you think he’ll do?’ Miyako asked. He. Avichai Levin.

  Holly’s lips twisted mirthlessly. ‘He’s the head of Mossad. What do you think he’ll do?’

  * * *

  ‘Have you heard of the Kickass Women’s Club?’ Beth asked Zeb as soon as he entered the office. He had flown back from LA in the night. Had caught a few winks in his Jackson Heights apartment. The twins were the first to greet him in the office.

  I’d rather go against ten terrorists than these two. Especially when they’re charged up. And they were. Beth was bouncing in her seat the way she did when she had uncovered something important. Meghan was more restrained, but she too had that gleam in her eye.

  Broker was practicing his putts on the golfing strip. Something he did only when there was a breakthrough of some sort.

  Zeb ran through this mental database. All the names and organization he was aware of. Nope. That name didn’t ring a bell. ‘Is it some gang of female assassins?’ he ventured cautiously.

  Beth snorted. ‘Way off, dude. Way, way off.’

  ‘Get to it, sis,’ Meghan urged her. ‘Or else our tame killer might do some damage.’

  ‘They’re a private equity group. They raise capital and invest in companies.’

  Zeb nodded as he recollected the name from the business pages he’d read. ‘They’re into ethical investment, aren’t they?’

  ‘That�
�s a strange name for an investment firm.’

  ‘It’s what they called their outfit when they were in college. They stuck with the name.’

  ‘And this is relevant, because?’

  ‘Because Shira Levin was on their board. Not just that, she was a founding member. She was on the board of three of their portfolio companies.’

  Zeb sat down and blindly accepted the mug of coffee Meghan thrust at him. ‘I thought she was in New York to study music.’

  ‘That too,’ Meghan elaborated, ‘but TKWC was her primary focus.’

  ‘Why didn’t Avichai say anything?’

  ‘He probably did. To the NYPD. We didn’t speak much with him, remember? Chang and Pizaka might know. But they would’ve figured we knew too.’

  Zeb leaned back and absorbed the details the twins narrated. About TKWC. Its formation. Its members. The companies it had invested in.

  ‘The robotics company is in Boston. The cybersecurity company is in Seattle, and the fissile material tracking company is in Israel,’ Meghan finished.

  Corporate deals normally don’t become bloody, Zeb pondered. But he knew there were exceptions.

  ‘Another wrinkle,’ he mused.

  Personal revenge, or a terrorist attack. Or terrorists exacting vengeance. Those had been the motives he and his crew had figured on. None of them had thought of any business angle. But then, we didn’t know of her business interests. Until now.

  ‘We need to talk to Avichai. See what else was going on in her life. And also talk to this club.’

  ‘Have set it up already,’ Beth confirmed. ‘As it happens, TKWC’s president is meeting Levin tomorrow. He suggested we sit in on that meeting.’

  * * *

  The twins and Broker worked on Werner, digging into TKWC, its board members, and their investments. They hadn’t found anything at the kill site. Camera feeds and cell phone footage had proven to be frustrating. No big reveal on the killer’s vehicle.

  Werner was still working on the killer brother’s photographs that Zeb had gotten from Banh and his heavies. Bear and Chloe called in later in the day. All the interviews they had attended had been fruitless.