When You Can't Stop (Harper McDaniel Book 2) Read online

  “Yeah, yeah. Guy with the fancy spikes or whatever they are,” Lavonne said. “Stabs the bull’s shoulders, which pisses him off even more.”

  “Right, and last there’s the suerte suprema. The matador, with his cape and sword.”

  “And that’s you?”

  “Anger, enrage, dominate. Those are the three stages.”

  “Dominate, as in kill.”

  “Draw Albion out, knock him off balance, infuriate him until he charges.”

  “And you have no choice but to defend yourself. Eye for an eye.”

  Harper didn’t answer.

  “Very convenient. Keeps you on the moral high ground.”

  “Morality isn’t a consideration.”

  “Oh, come on, Harper. I know you better than that. If it wasn’t a consideration, you’d walk up to him on the street and gun him down.”

  “Risk getting caught, spending the rest of my life in jail? He’s not worth it.”

  “Who you trying to fool? You don’t worry about risks. Face it, like it or not, girl, you’ve got a conscience.”

  Harper looked out her window and said nothing.

  She could hear Lavonne tapping a pen against her desk, a solemn cadence.

  “Albion won’t come himself. He’ll send others for you.”

  “When they all fail, he won’t be able to resist. That’s who he is.”

  “And how do you go about provoking him? What’s your red cape?”

  “I’m still working out the details.”

  “What happened to Sal, your charming goombah granddad? And your debonair brother, Nick? They bail on you?”

  “I want to do this alone.”

  “Alone but with my help.”

  Harper stared down at the street at an elderly man on a bicycle with a dozen baguettes strapped to his rear fender. Every day at this hour she saw him pass, a cook’s helper at a tapas bar on the main plaza.

  “I think that’s a mistake. Cutting your granddad and brother out of the equation.”

  Harper said nothing. The topic wasn’t open for debate.

  “Sal, Nick, they give you stability.”

  “I’m plenty stable on my own.”

  “Sure you are. I’m not questioning that. But how long’s it been since you talked to either of them?”

  “A few weeks.”

  “Do they even know where you are, what you’re up to?”

  “How’s that any of your business?”

  “You just cut them off? Left Bilbao without a forwarding address?”

  “This is my war, not theirs.”

  “Weeks since they heard from you, those two must be worried sick. That’s cruel, Harper. Least you could do is stay in touch, let them know you’re safe.”

  “I sent them each a postcard last month, told them I’m fine and they should sit tight till they hear from me again.”

  “A postcard.”

  “I didn’t just disappear. I’m not cruel.”

  But of course Lavonne was right. Despite the postcard, Sal and Nick would be distraught over her disappearance. But hurt feelings were a small price to keep them safe.

  “Look, honey, those two guys round you out. There’s a synergy boost with them around. You make a good team. Do me a favor, okay?”

  Harper was silent.

  “Give them a call. Bring them up to date. Talk this through. Listen to their input, what they can offer. I worry about you going this alone.”

  “I’ll consider it.” Though Harper had no intention of taking her advice. “So are you going to help me or not?”

  Lavonne said in a quiet voice, “This has to be off the books. Way off.”

  “Thank you, Lavonne. Thank you.”

  “And when it’s done, you’ll come back to work for me. That’s the deal.”

  “Deena’s dead. What do I have to offer on my own?”

  “You still on a first-name basis with superstars and sultans?”

  “A few.”

  “Good enough,” Lavonne said. “I’ll give you names I’m interested in, you dream up a project that includes them. Something flattering, a chance to have their pretty faces in a coffee-table book, on the walls of some fancy-ass art gallery. Same way Deena worked.”

  “I’ll think about it. But I’m not Deena. I don’t have her magnetism or her fame.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, girl.”

  There was more silence, then Lavonne said, “Where you staying in Madrid?”

  “A hotel.”

  “What hotel?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “If I get your passports done in time, I’ll have them delivered.”

  Harper told her the name of her hotel.

  “Okay, good. Now there’s one more condition. It’s nonnegotiable.”

  Lavonne’s terms were simple. If Harper was determined to put herself in harm’s way again, she needed to upgrade her combat skills. A dead agent, Lavonne said, was no use to her.

  Harper didn’t object. A month to finish getting in shape, refine her hand-to-hand technique, prepare for the battle ahead. Lavonne needed a week to set it up with the sensei at the dojo. A week was fine, Harper told her.

  The good news: there was no need for Harper to return stateside, because the trainer Lavonne had in mind was only a few hours south of Madrid. The man’s name was Marco González, and his dojo was in the Santa Cruz district of Sevilla. Though he was perhaps a bit unorthodox in his methods, Marco had trained several of Lavonne’s top field agents, and all of them, she said without a trace of irony, were still alive.

  “You’ll like Sevilla. It’s beautiful,” Lavonne said. “Flamenco y sol.”

  “I was there when I was eight. I remember it vividly.”

  “One of Deena’s celebrity shoots?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Anybody I know?”

  “Moonwalk, sparkly white glove.”

  “Deena shot the King of Pop?”

  “He was on a European leg of the Dangerous tour. Had a couple of days free between Madrid and Lisbon. He was sponsoring a charity in Sevilla, so Deena met him there. Took some outdoor black-and-white shots. Very simple, very authentic. He loved the photos. Used one on an album cover.”

  “Deena brought you and Nick along? You met Michael Jackson?”

  “He was very kind, very shy.”

  “It always amazes me,” Lavonne said, “the circles you run in.” She gave Harper the address of the dojo in Sevilla, then said, “Really? You’re not shitting me. Jacko himself?”

  “A sweet man . . . sweet and sad.”

  As eager as Harper was to resume her quest, her fitness had clearly declined in the years since she’d last trained in judo and karate in Miami. A teenager then, in her midthirties now, her muscle memory was sharp, and the moves still there, though there was no denying her speed and power had diminished.

  The bad news: reconnecting with Lavonne meant Harper would be tethered to a desk spy in DC. Though Lavonne was a good woman, honest, frank, and ingenious, with access to a vast arsenal of databases and invaluable back-channel info, Harper would still be tethered.

  But by god, she was determined to keep her granddad and brother out of the next phase of her war against Lester Albion and the corporation he headed.

  Though Sal and Nick had been invaluable partners in her earlier battle against Albion, she would shield them from further risk. This was her fight.

  If more of her family’s blood were spilled, it would be hers alone.

  THREE

  Santa Cruz District, Seville, Spain

  After another week in Madrid, waiting in vain for the documents to arrive from Lavonne, Harper packed her single suitcase and her camera bag and took the three-hour train ride to Sevilla.

  The dojo was on a back street in the western end of the Santa Cruz district. The freshly painted, two-story building looked tidy but otherwise unremarkable. Only a single white tile with blue numerals above the doorway identified it. Like most
of the buildings on the street, it had ornate wrought-iron bars crisscrossing its windows. The building was wedged between a tourist shop that seemed to specialize in bullfight paraphernalia and a hair salon.

  Marco González answered her knock, bade her welcome, and showed her to a Spartan upstairs flat, which would be her home for the next month.

  Maybe forty, maybe ten years older, Marco was lanky and roughly Harper’s height, a couple of notches under six feet. He had short, grizzled hair and skin patched with age spots, and his features had a noble angularity, a high forehead, strong nose and chin, jutting cheekbones, as though he descended from Roman centurions. Though he moved with a supple nonchalance, his pale-blue eyes were as cutting and intense as those of a falcon scouring an open field.

  After she set her bag down, Marco questioned her about her martial arts training. When she finished, he said, “Trophies, belts, ribbons, these are sin sentido.”

  She nodded, well aware how pointless they were.

  “Cuando estés lista, empezaremos.” When you are ready, we will begin.

  After he left, she unpacked her clothes, settled them in the flimsy cabinet, then went into the bathroom and tucked the single photo she had of Leo and Ross into the edge of the mirror. She studied the fading images of her baby son and husband, then took one more look around the austere room, decided it suited her perfectly, and joined Marco downstairs.

  He removed his shoes and motioned her to the practice mat, both of them in street clothes. No one else around. She unstrapped her sandals, set them on the floor, and stepped on the mat to face him.

  He bowed his head to her and she bowed hers in reply.

  “No seas tímida.” Don’t be shy. “Take me down, then finish me.”

  “Finish?”

  “Enséñame lo que sabes.” Show me what you have.

  She circled him at arm’s length. He faced forward, tranquil, his eyes focused on the mat as she made a slow circuit around him. She halted in front of him, two feet away. Marco’s hands hung loose at his sides.

  She chose a simple inner-thigh judo throw. Uchi mata. Stepping swiftly forward, she planted her right foot in front of his, grabbed his sleeves at the elbows, jerked upward to break his balance, and tipped him a few degrees off-center. Then, with her grip tight on his shirtsleeves, she swiveled her back to him, shot her right leg back and upward between his legs, bent forward, and rolled him across her hip and thumped him onto his back.

  Nothing fancy, a basic but efficient throw she’d executed hundreds of times. Start to finish, not more than three seconds.

  She dropped onto him, astride his waist, gripping hard with her thighs, and began to throw mock blows to his face and throat. “Ground and pound,” as it was known on the street. Take them to the asphalt and, from that superior position, continue to punch until the opponent was out of commission.

  After four or five simulated blows, Harper heard the slap of footsteps behind her, and as she turned, she glimpsed a barefoot kick aimed at her head. She didn’t duck in time, and the heel struck her temple. Her eyes fluttered, red sparkling lights filled the room, and she was gone.

  She resurfaced in stages through gray and dizzying layers of light. She found herself lying flat on her back on the hard floor with a hot spike throbbing behind her right eye. Through the haze, she could make out Marco’s face hovering over her.

  His first words of counsel were spoken in a quiet voice.

  “Like many students of the martial arts, you learned to fight in the ambiente controlado of the dojo, where it is one against one. Everyone is luchando justo, playing by rules. But on la calle, attackers may be numerous, and they may be disguised and come from unexpected angles. Your most dangerous enemy may not be the one facing you. Therefore, you must always be awake to your surroundings. If you fail in this, one day you will die. And if you die in battle, my reputation will suffer.”

  Marco showed her the sly hint of a smile.

  She felt half-dead, all right. A hollow ringing in her ears, a queasy blur in her vision. Teeth not meshing.

  The blindsider stood nearby, a woman about Harper’s age. Marco’s lover, she would learn in the days ahead. A woman with curly, black hair, an inch taller than five feet, compact and powerful, with dark, resolute eyes.

  Her name was Gabriella, and she and Marco would be Harper’s primary sparring partners during her month at the dojo. Gabriella rarely spoke, and when she did it was for purely utilitarian purposes. After four weeks living in close proximity to the woman, Harper knew nothing of her history or views of the world. All she knew for certain was that Gabriella’s deep, brown eyes were haunted by some grim secret.

  For Harper, it was a bruising, highly educational month. Each day was split into three segments. Hand-to-hand battles on the mats in the morning. Harper versus Gabriella or Marco, or both at once. Harper versus tall men; short men; husky men; tall, slender women; all of them quick and strong and agile, with sharp elbows and fast hands and feet.

  These visiting sparring partners were present solely to hone Harper’s technique, and each made only one appearance. Unlike other clubs where Harper had trained, Marco’s dojo was not a gathering place or communal facility. Marco had no disciples and taught no group classes. For those four weeks, Harper remained his exclusive focus.

  He coached her in a stripped-down, pitiless blend of judo and karate, with the brutal chops, slashes, eye gouges, and choke holds adopted from Krav Maga, a cutthroat self-defense system used by the Israeli military. She learned to grapple on the ground, defend and attack with arm bars and scissor head locks. Air chokes to shut off breath, and the more lethal blood chokes meant to rob the brain of nourishment. All of it was intended to end the fight quickly and decisively. Option one, escape. Option two, immobilize the attacker, then escape. Option three, with no possibility of escape, completely disable the attacker. Or as Marco called it, “Arrasar.”

  Obliterate.

  The afternoons were devoted to stretching, weight training, then pounding the heavy bag: leg kicks, knee kicks, elbow strikes, hammer fist, palm strikes, knife hand, open slaps, and uppercuts. Jolt after jolt meant to callus her hands and accustom her joints to the shocks of a solid punch.

  And for two hours every night, there were the butterflies.

  Monarchs, black-veined whites, southern orange tips, clouded yellows, ilex hairstreaks, swallowtails. That first night, Marco identified them one by one as Gabriella shooed them out of a large glass terrarium, a dozen in all.

  They fluttered around the big dojo, drawn upward toward the domed ceiling lights, then swooped down to eye level as if to inspect the long-limbed creature with the shoulder-length black hair and angular features standing wordlessly beneath them, finally continuing their random, skittering flights.

  “The most important thing,” Marco said: “No pierdas el equilibrio.” Don’t lose your balance.

  “I’m supposed to catch one of these?”

  “No,” he said. “All of them. Catch lightly, do not kill.”

  As if catching were not challenge enough.

  She watched as butterflies lit on the mat, the windowsill, the edge of the heavy punching bag, but Marco warned her catching one in repose was not allowed. They must be in flight.

  She set about it, supervised by Marco and Gabriella, who stood together at the far end of the room. Felt the absurdity of it as she swatted and snatched at empty air. She stalked one, then another, tried to find one slower than the rest, tried to chart their flight paths.

  But their stumbling trajectories, their slow, awkward, soaring flights, their random dodges and feints defied her. Foiled and foiled again, one fruitless swipe after the next. The end of that first night left her breathless, sweating, dizzy, and ready to abandon this place, this preposterous man, and his silly methods.

  Marco clapped his hands twice.

  “Bastante bien por esta noche.”

  Pretty good? Harper considered it a pitiful performance. A humiliation.

 
“Enséñale cómo se hace, Gabriella.”

  Gabriella nodded and proceeded to demonstrate how it was done. Hands so quick and sure Harper could not detect the magic in her technique as she nabbed them one by one from the air and deposited them back in the glass terrarium, where they transformed into a pulsating cloud of color.

  Gerda never called her employer by name. Though she’d come to know him better in the last few years, this was a habit begun years ago when she was a child and knew her mother’s employer only as an important older man, not someone likely to warm to a young lady like herself. Mostly she called him “sir.” Her overseer, her master.

  His first text message had arrived months earlier: Work for me, five thousand a week. Text your reply to the number below.

  No signature, no further explanation. That’s how it began, how she was recruited. She presumed her mother had referred her to Lester Albion, for her mother was the only one who knew exactly what crimes Gerda was capable of.

  Gerda had been languishing at the time, uncertain of her future, in need of a leader, a direction. The job was a godsend. Though Gerda did not believe in God. After she’d accepted the work, texts remained their only form of contact.

  From this moment on, one of those early texts read, there will be no in-person communication about any of these matters.

  Upon her arrival in Seville, Gerda texted him that she had departed Madrid and had trailed the target three hours south by train and was awaiting further instructions. He didn’t text her back, which was not unusual, for he was a busy man.

  While in Madrid throughout September, twice daily she had updated him on McDaniel’s daily trips to markets and her afternoons roaming the stacks of the National Library. She had quickly pointed out the target’s zealous interest in her research. It was a new passion, for the McDaniel woman had shown no similar behavior in Bilbao. In that Basque town, she’d confined herself to daily walks through the steep and winding streets of the old fishing village of Algorta, where she had been staying.