The Malhoa Connection Read online

  “A penny for your thoughts?” Inge moved away when I jerked and swung around to look at her. “Ooh, sorry. I didn’t mean to give you a fright. You were just so deep in thought.”

  “I was thinking about Mozart.”

  Her eyes widened before a frown pulled her eyebrows together. “Mozart? How... I mean, what... huh?”

  I shook my head. She’d caught me off guard, else I would not have disclosed this to her. It would take too long to explain the role Mozart’s works played in my everyday life. Instead, I studied her. “Something is bothering you.”

  She glanced to the other side of the basement. “On a good day, Jake is iffy. But there’s been something seriously off with him today. And I’m not talking about the weird smell here.” She sniffed the air. “Now it’s gone. Have you smelled anything peculiar?”

  I shook my head. My sense of smell was nowhere near her level of sensitivity. “Is it a bad or dangerous smell?”

  “I don’t know yet.” She raised her head and sniffed around as if trying to locate the origin of the smell. “But it’s been bugging me for two days. Not as much as Jake’s iffiness today though.”

  I didn’t know Jake and hadn’t spent enough time in his presence to agree or disagree. I had, however, been able to create a baseline for him from which I could determine his truthfulness. In that sense, Inge was correct. Today, he did seem more nervous than yesterday when Paulo had threatened us with a gun.

  Colin, Vinnie and Armando were sitting at the table closest to me. Colin was dividing his attention between his tablet and the men on the other side of the room. Vinnie, on the other hand, was staring narrow-eyed at Paulo and Jake as they argued with Daniel and Manny. Armando was leaning back in his chair, his half-smile making it appear as if he was amused. He wasn’t. He was worried.

  “I want a bloody name.” Manny pushed his fists into his trouser pockets. “Or we walk away now.”

  Jake rubbed his hands on his hips as if they were sweaty, then crossed his arms tightly. Once he realised what he was doing he dropped his arms and rolled his shoulders. “Then... er... then maybe you should walk away.”

  “Oh, really.” Manny must have also noticed his utter lack of confidence. He took a step closer to Jake. “And you will stop the Collector all by your little self?” Manny jerked his chin towards Paulo. “With his help?”

  Paulo moved away from where he was leaning against the stacked crates and pushed out his chest. “What the fuck do you mean?”

  “What I mean is that I haven’t seen you being helpful here.” Manny made a show of scratching his chin, his irritation real, but his behaviour exaggerated. “What have you brought to the table? Except intel about a bloody shipment that wasted our time last night. And also showed the Collector how much we know.”

  “Well, fuck you!” Paulo continued to swear and shout at Manny and Daniel, later including me and Vinnie in his vitriol. I found it telling that not once did he say Colin’s name. Or the name of one of Colin’s aliases. He ignored Colin, his rage mostly focused on Manny.

  When Paulo and Jake had entered the basement twenty minutes ago, I’d immediately noticed Paulo’s bloodshot eyes. Combined with the look of discomfort on his face every time there was a loud noise, it had been easy to assume he was hungover. I wondered how much longer he would be able to continue shouting before his discomfort pushed him to seek a dark, quiet corner.

  Manny sighed heavily and looked at Jake, ignoring Paulo. “You really want to trust this unstable idiot? Or do you want our help?”

  Jake looked as if he was trapped, glancing from Manny to Paulo and back. The fear on his face when he glanced again at Paulo told me what his answer would be before he spoke. He shook his head, staring at his hands. “Paulo has had my back. I don’t know you and I won’t give you the name of my source.”

  “I want that bloody name.” Manny’s lips thinned and his nostrils flared. “Now!”

  Paulo stormed off to a section hidden by boxes. For a moment, I wondered about that area. But then I closed my eyes to recall the micro-expressions on Jake’s face as he refused Manny again and again. My eyes shot open.

  Jake was in love with his source.

  Daniel stepped closer to Jake, his hands out, palms facing down. “Why don’t we all take a breath here.”

  It was only when he glanced at Manny that I realised they’d orchestrated this conversation. Or rather this performance. Daniel waited for Manny to take a step back before he lowered his voice. “I understand that you don’t want to give us this person’s identity. But maybe you can ask your source if they would like to meet with us. That way you are not betraying their trust and they have the choice to meet the people who can maybe help them.”

  Jake’s eyes shot up to meet Daniel’s. “You will help her?”

  “Her?” Daniel nodded. “Yes, we will. If we can. But we will need access to her.”

  Jake bit his thumbnail as he considered this. I flinched when I noticed all his nails were bitten to the quick. This was a deeply fearful individual. He blinked a few times, then lowered his hand. “She’s the Collector’s personal assistant.”

  Manny turned to look at me. I nodded. Jake was telling the truth. Or at least, he was telling what he believed to be the truth. I wondered if Manny was also thinking about Francine’s revelations last night. Was it possible that Jake’s source was Wraith?

  Inge and I walked closer, Colin and Vinnie staying at the table.

  “Her name?” Manny lowered his chin as he stared at Jake.

  “I won’t tell you.” He looked at Daniel. “If she wants to meet with you, I’ll support her. If she wants to tell you her name, I’ll support her.”

  “You care for her.” It was clear on his face.

  Jake glanced at me, then back to his hands. “She’s a good woman. She’s trapped like all of us. Well, not you. Just the rest of us. The Collector found out that she borrowed fifty thousand euros from a drug dealer to pay for her mother’s cancer surgery and treatment. The Collector bought that debt and is using it to force A... my source to cooperate.”

  “You’re telling the truth.” Or what he thought was true.

  Taking into consideration everything we’d learned, I still didn’t want to voice my thoughts, but it was becoming increasingly probable that the Collector might be a woman. If so, she might also pretend to be this assistant. It was not unknown for psychopaths to pretend to be victims. And manipulation was one of their key traits.

  Daniel leaned towards Jake. “Let us help you help her escape the Collector’s clutches.”

  If it weren’t for my expert knowledge in nonverbal communication, I would’ve missed Daniel’s micro-expressions. He was good. Really good. His concern came across as genuine because for the large part it was, but the motivation for finding this assistant and ‘helping’ her might not have been what Daniel was leading Jake to believe.

  It worked. Jake nodded. “But you’re not meeting her until I speak to her.”

  “Of course.” Daniel nodded. “You can meet her and tell her about us. Encourage her to come here to meet us and see for herself. She can tell us her story. Who knows? Her story might just give us an extra clue to help us stop the Collector.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes.” Daniel’s smile was gentle. “Go, Jake. Speak to her and bring her here.”

  Jake swallowed and glanced towards the section where Paulo had disappeared.

  “Don’t worry about him.” Manny stepped to the side, putting himself between Jake and the hidden section. “We’ll deal with that cri... man.”

  Jake nodded and walked to the door, already biting his thumbnail. His hunched shoulders and smaller steps were typical of an individual attempting to make themselves less noticeable. How much of this fear was because of Paulo? How much because of the Collector? Was there something else we didn’t know about Jake that was causing him such extreme anxiety?

  For a criminal known to have links to organised crime syndicates, he seem
ed far too timid to deal with ruthless mobsters.

  “Great!” Paulo came out from the behind the boxes and stormed towards us. “Well done. You’ve got Jake all trembling and hopeful that you’ll save his girlfriend. Why don’t you just send a written invitation out to the Collector?”

  “If that would bring that bloody thug here, I would emboss the invitation.” Manny shook his head and walked away.

  I took a step back when Paulo continued to shout about bringing someone he hadn’t authorised into his church. No matter how Daniel tried to intervene, Paulo wasn’t calming down.

  “What’s your damage, dude?” Vinnie got up from the table and walked closer. “I’m beginning to think you don’t really want to find out who the Collector is. Huh? Is that it? You have some secret deal with the Collector? Is that it?”

  Daniel inserted himself between the two men, putting his open hands on each chest and pushing them apart. “This is not getting us anywhere.”

  “It will feel so good to punch his ugly face.” Vinnie pushed against Daniel’s hand, just hard enough to make a show of it.

  “Vin”—Daniel glared at him—“go cool down.” He turned back to Paulo. “And you”—he narrowed his eyes—“get your head in the game. You know we are here to help you finish the mission you started. We’re here to stop the Collector.” He lowered his hands and took a step back. “As legally as possible. Keep that in mind.”

  “Whatever.” Paulo’s top lip curled as he gave Vinnie’s retreating back one last glare and returned to his hidden section.

  Daniel turned back to us and shook his head. “Let’s hope Jake manages to convince his source to meet us.”

  I was intrigued by this development. And pleased when my tablet pinged. Manny glanced at my tablet, then at Daniel and nodded. They sat down at the table and within a minute had Armando and Inge deep in conversation. Vinnie took a chair and seated himself in a position to slow Paulo down if the latter decided to join us.

  Only then did Colin and I take two chairs to settle as far away from the others as possible without it looking suspicious. I opened the app Francine had downloaded on my tablet and tilted the screen for Colin to see.

  This morning, we’d decided that Colin and I would be the only ones to watch the footage of the insect-sized drone Francine would use to follow Jake. I’d argued that there was no way any of them could guarantee Jake would go out to meet his source. Vinnie had offered me a thousand-euro bet Manny and Daniel would get Jake to leave the church and lead us to his source. I was glad I hadn’t taken that bet.

  It hadn’t been a long discussion deciding who would watch the footage. I was the obvious choice. My expertise in nonverbal communication would enable me to notice anything untoward, anything that could threaten our safety. Or Jake’s safety.

  The footage on my tablet showed Jake walking down the road leading to the church. He was almost at the end of it and was speaking on his phone. He ended the call and put the phone in his jacket pocket. Nothing in his posture alerted me, so I took this time to yet again go over the data we had so far.

  I dismissed any information in this basement. We had no way to verify that any of the intel Armando, Inge, Jake and Paulo had gathered was not tainted by the Collector. I would more easily believe that the Collector had been feeding them information than believe that the emails in the Conhecedor email account were the communications from that company. Or that Conhecedor was closing down their business activity.

  If Wraith was indeed working for the Collector, or if she was the Collector, it was much more probable that she’d hack numerous systems and make it all look authentic enough for the four thieves to be convinced.

  The only information I was willing to include was what we’d uncovered and what Ty had found on White Elephant forum. He was Francine’s contact and she trusted him. I trusted her, ergo I trusted his intel. The question I had about his discoveries was not about the legitimacy of it, but rather how it connected with everything else we had.

  Why did Wraith have five profiles on White Elephant? To what end? And what other useful intel would Ty and Francine find in the private chat rooms of these profiles? Was there anything that would lead us directly to the Collector?

  My pondering was interrupted when Colin’s hand touched my forearm. He nodded at my tablet screen and I looked down. Even though Francine had assured me that the micro-drone was so small that almost no one ever noticed it, I still worried as I saw the clear footage of Jake walking up to a woman.

  There was no mistaking her gender, but that was all I could identify. She was wearing a wide-brimmed hat that didn’t look too out of place on a sunny day like today. Her red jeans and colourful spring coat were in complete contrast to the goth outfits Wraith had worn when Francine had met her. This could be a change of personal style or a disguise. But it worked to make her look feminine and harmless.

  Her hair was hidden under the hat and I only caught glimpses of her neck and jawline. Not enough to even try to read facial expressions, so I focused on her body language. It was not as spontaneous as Jake’s. His was easy to read. Affection and happiness warred with tension.

  He walked up to her and took her hand. I wished I could hear what he said to her. Francine had warned us not to expect any sound with the footage. To get close enough to record clear audio would risk discovery. And being far enough to remain unseen would mean catching all the surrounding audio as well—not a practical option.

  So I watched. The woman rubbed her thumb soothingly over Jake’s hand as she spoke to him. Her posture was supposed to be hesitant, but there was a hidden confidence in the set of her shoulders and the positioning of her feet that belied her faux-meekness. Jake’s affection towards her was genuine. Her loving touches were not. But there was a familiarity in both their postures that caught my attention.

  They were lovers. This was adding a different dynamic to both Jake’s involvement in our search for the Collector and the intel he was bringing from this source.

  The woman nodded and cupped Jake’s cheek. He leaned in to kiss her and my eyes narrowed. A loud noise close to us jerked my attention away from the screen before I could analyse what my subconscious had registered.

  Daniel and Inge were walking towards us, Daniel making more noise than necessary. She frowned at the tablet in my hand and blinked a few times. Daniel nodded once when he saw we’d heard them coming. I tilted my tablet away and frowned. I needed to see what was happening between Jake and that woman.

  “I’m helping Inge find a strange smell.” Daniel walked to the side to keep Inge from coming too close to us. “Did you guys smell something?”

  “Nope.” Colin pointed at my tablet. “We’re watching the rest of the footage of the shipyard. I’m impressed with the quality of those forgeries.”

  Colin droned on about artists and Inge lost interest. She walked towards the door, sniffing and shaking her head. “It’s around here somewhere.”

  When I was assured that her attention was completely on finding the odd smell, I tilted the tablet screen back only to see Jake already close to the church. His gait was bouncy, his posture more upright than I’d seen before. He was happy.

  I wasn’t. There had been something in the woman’s behaviour that wasn’t sitting right with me. I ignored Jake re-entering the church and chatting to Inge and Daniel, leading them back to the others. He was excited that he’d convinced his source to meet us. “She’ll be here in another fifteen minutes. She’s so relieved that you offered to help her. She’s desperate to get away from the Collector.”

  He continued, but I cut that conversation off. Mentally, I started playing the second act of Don Giovanni as I accessed the recording of the footage and moved the slider towards the end of Jake’s interaction with the woman. The part where he leaned in to kiss her.

  The kiss ended and he moved back, his head pushing her hat back. Not a lot, but enough to see more of her face. I could see her lips and the tip of her nose as she blew Jake a kiss. Her sof
t smile disappeared the moment he turned to walk back to the church. She touched the corner of her mouth.

  I inhaled sharply.

  Many times people didn’t realise they were displaying crude gestures, indicating their true opinion of someone. She had touched the corner of her mouth with her middle finger. People did that when their thoughts reflected that exact gesture.

  As if to confirm her opinion, her tongue pushed through her lips for a moment. A cue of triumph.

  What had she done that made her feel victorious?

  In my head, I turned up the duet where Leporello threatened to leave Don Giovanni. A sense of imminence was pushing at my mind, urging me to make the connection.

  Fifteen minutes. She had said she would meet us in fifteen minutes. Why hadn’t she immediately come with Jake? Why had she... I gasped as if someone had punched me in my abdomen when the pieces fell together with an almost audible click.

  “Jenny?” Colin was rubbing my forearm. “Love?”

  I couldn’t speak. My throat was paralysed by the realisation of the danger we were in.

  “Smoke.” Inge’s whisper sounded like a shout to me.

  I swung around to see her staring at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the only door into—and out of—the basement. She was standing next to us, her hand shaking as she pointed at the smoke coming from a box at the bottom of the staircase changing into engulfing flames. Within two breaths, the entire staircase was consumed by fuel-hungry fire.

  “Holy fuck.” Manny’s shocked tone jerked my attention away. He was staring at the boxes and crates surrounding the tables we’d been working at—the boxes and crates with all the intel Jake’s source had been feeding them. It was all on fire.

  Colin grabbed my hand and pulled, but I couldn’t move. Darkness entered my peripheral vision, inviting me to its safety—a place where I wouldn’t face death trapped in a flaming hell.

  Chapter FIFTEEN

  “JENNY!” COLIN TUGGED on my hand. “We have to go, love.”