The Archangel Agenda: An Evangeline Heart Thriller Read online

  But Malcolm had saved me. He’d come, apologizing and begging my forgiveness that he hadn’t known, that he’d been so deep undercover it had taken an entire year to find out about Dad, and then another six months to find me. But I didn’t care about any of that. He’d saved me and had become my mentor. I owed him my life—the one he’d saved, and the one he’d given me as an assassin, since he was also my recruiter.

  I parked across the street from his brownstone in Carnegie Hill. The door opened before I could knock. We hugged awkwardly again, like we were bound to it by a duty stemming from Griffin’s death.

  “Whatcha got? Why are you here?”

  I rubbed the back of my neck, unsure how much of the truth I’d be able to give him. We hadn’t ever kept secrets from each other, but there was a big difference between omitting a few details and telling someone about archangels. “I took a freelance job.”

  He arched one untamed eyebrow. “That wise in your current state?”

  I didn’t have a lot of options and blurted, “You’ve seen some crazy shit, right? I mean, like, you’ve seen it all? Real batshit crazy stuff in your day?”

  He chuckled. “Sounds like we’re both going to need a drink.” He walked down the hall and into his kitchen, his sock filled feet shuffling along the hardwood floors. His place was old, historic and charming. He opened one of the cherry-wood cupboards and took down a bottle of scotch that I was certain had to be at least one hundred years old. That was how Malcolm rolled.

  I sat on his caramel suede leather sofa. The place was kind of an eclectic blend of John Wayne meets Phillip Starke—a combination of what one would see when they think “cowboy” mixed with bright colors, geometric artwork, and an order that I certainly didn’t have in my place. Don’t ask me how, but it worked. He poured us both tumblers of scotch and plunked down in the oversized leather chair across from me.

  I sheepishly smiled. God, I didn’t even know where to start. He was either going to have me committed or take this at face value and I was really hoping for the latter.

  “I have to find the keys that open the gates of Hell, then I have to get to Griffin’s soul, and help him ascend. I promise you I haven’t lost my mind and I am not smoking crack. I’ll explain everything.”

  He drained his glass, got up and brought the bottle back from the kitchen, filling the tumbler again. He eyed me, one brow arched and he had this kind of wincing look on his face, almost as if he were in pain. “Go on.”

  “First I have to find three religious relics, the first one was with mom when she...”

  He nearly drained the second glass.

  “I’ve followed all my leads to a private residence, fully secured.” I was worried if I didn’t purge it all at once, I’d lose my nerve and go back to attempting this on my own and that was a guaranteed disaster. Even on my smallest missions, I had a team backing me up with whatever intel they could find. I backtracked and told him pretty much everything—even the visit from Metatron, and his cool act of frozen time and space. I couldn’t lie. It wasn’t who I was, especially with Malcolm. From the moment he opened his doors to me and took me in as his own, the first thing he promised me and made me promise him was: Always tell the truth, no matter what. That included how outlandish it might sound, like now.

  He lowered his glass and scrutinized me. “This is an incredibly bad idea and you need to walk away from this, Lina. What you’re talking about is not something to play with. Angels? Gates of Hell? Those are real.”

  I was all too aware of that fact, but that didn’t change my plan. “Very real. I know. So, you believe me?”

  He nodded slowly, and set his drink down, his eyes warning me. “Yes. Yes, I do.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “There may be some things that I should have told you before now. I was afraid something like this could happen...”

  My stomach tensed, we’d never kept secrets before, at least that was what he’d told me... the one thing he’d promised me. “Tell me.”

  He topped off my drink but I set it aside and crossed my arms.

  “You asked if I’d seen some crazy shit, and I’ve seen shit that will make your hair curl. I’ve been in as deep as a man can go, and I don’t want to go back. Those archangels are powerful, girl, beyond anything we’ve ever seen. I don’t want you messed up in that.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “And what haven’t you told me?”

  He blew out a breath and looked everywhere but at me. I leaned forward into his space until he couldn’t avoid me. “You never asked how I found out about your mom and dad’s deaths. I was in Berlin, deep undercover and working on a mission that seemed to have no end—9/11. Every trail we followed gave us three new leads. It was a nightmare.” He cleared his throat. “One night, I was in a bar and this old guy comes strolling up. I’m standing at the bar, scotch in hand”—he nodded at his current beverage—“there I am trying to meet a contact and this guy just won’t give it up, he’s telling me about archangels and missions. I’m trying to get rid of him and then he started talking about you.”

  I inhaled swiftly.

  “I nearly killed him. He was talking such nonsense about your parents, and you being in foster care, but he knew things. He knew things about your mom and your dad. He knew things about you, and it got me a bit.” He looked up and stared at me intensely. “He knew things about you that no one knew, like your birthmark.”

  I broke out in a cold sweat.

  “I shipped home the next day.”

  “That’s when you came for me.” I touched the nape of my neck, where my strange birthmark was. I’d never questioned it, really. My mom had told me that it meant I was destined for great things. I always thought it was horrific and ugly. It was why I kept my hair past my shoulders, and if I pulled it back, I used cover-up on the mark, which looked like a dark red distorted star. My mom swore was the seal of God. I highly doubted that.

  He nodded. “You can’t touch this, though. I’m telling you.”

  I rolled my glass back and forth between my palms. I looked away, staring out the window for several long seconds. I looked back at him. “I have to, Malcolm. Would you have walked away if someone had told you to forget what that archangel told you? Who was this man?”

  He shook his head. “No. I likely wouldn’t have walked away. And, as far as the old man, to this day, I don’t know who he was. I went to detain and question him. Like I said, he’d come into a bar I was in, waiting on the contact. My guy came in as I was starting to interrogate the old man who I thought was talking crazy. The contact started to take off and we needed him. We had a lead on Osama bin Laden. You gotta remember, sweetie, when I found you at fourteen, that the 9/11 attacks had taken place months earlier. The old guy got away. I knew my contact was going to run if I didn’t get to him then. I’m sorry. I don’t know who he was. As soon as I turned over the intel, I started looking for you.”

  “I understand. It’s okay. I really do get it that you had to let the old guy go. But, with this stuff ... this archangel stuff and Griffin, I don’t think I have a choice. I’ve got to go through with this assignment from ‘up high.’

  I looked up at the ceiling and sighed heavily. “I’m not certain that I could go on living with the knowledge that the one man I’ve ever wanted to give my heart to is burning in Hell for eternity.”

  “Pretty serious for a freelance gig.”

  I laughed loudly. “Like I said ... didn’t have a choice.”

  He frowned. “You know how I feel about that.” My statement was a cardinal sin around him. He believed we always had a choice. I just didn’t see that I did. Not this time.

  “I’d caution you to be careful with these kinds of things.”

  He paused long enough that I knew he was waiting for me to agree and tell him I’d rescind the job. But I didn’t.

  “You’re well beyond your limits, kid. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  I’d been thinking about this a lot and the answ
er was an easy one. “I have to—I couldn’t save Griffin while he was alive.” I swallowed. “I have to do this for him—I can’t fail him twice.” I fidgeted in the chair. “Please help me figure this out.”

  He grumbled. “What do you need me to do?”

  “You’re brilliant at systems and I’m barely a novice, especially one like this setup. I need your help so I can get in there and find this piece.”

  “I’ll do this, but I’m telling you, I’m not comfortable with you doing this. I don’t like it.”

  He’d rarely told me his opinion on my jobs, and had never cautioned me against taking one. We both understood the risks associated with the job of being a professional assassin. And he was the one who’d recruited me, so I sometimes thought that he felt an extra pressure to keep me safe. But still, he’d never flat-out told me not to do a job, not even the extremely dangerous ones. His aggressive, overt refusal on this one was curious ... like he knew something I didn’t.

  “Come on.” He picked up his glass of scotch. I did the same. We stood and I followed him into his “special room,” filled with computers and techno gizmos that my brain had a bit of a hard time wrapping around.

  He took the captain’s chair in front of a six-screen setup. He flicked the mouse and the computer came to life. After giving him the small amount of intel I’d garnered doing my recon at Felt’s place, he discovered the security company for Felt’s house and back-doored his way into the system. On the screen was a green glowing floor plan of the entire estate. He clicked a few more keys and separated the floors and turned the entire thing into a 3-D model.

  I set my glass down and leaned forward. “Okay, so what am I up against?”

  “This is interesting.” More keystrokes. “It looks like ... for whatever reason, he’s only running a portion of his security. Must think that security guard at the front gate is enough to create an impression.” Malcolm shook his head. “He’s lazy. Installed that system when he built the house, but hasn’t run the full thing in over a year.” He turned to me with a grin. “Looks like it’s your lucky day.”

  I snorted. “I hope you’re right.”

  He spun the 3-D image around and we searched for a room that might hold relics. “There.” I pointed to a big room on the second floor. “Can you get more detail on that?”

  He switched the view and pulled up the room’s security camera. I gripped the edge of his desk. Display cases and pedestals spread across the entire room, but the randomness of it was peculiar. I recognized some of the pieces from Mom’s reports as well as bits I’d stumbled across in Ralph’s boxes. “This is the room.”

  He panned the camera. I wasn’t spotting the ring, but that didn’t mean anything. The images weren’t one hundred percent clear, and there were a lot there. I knew though that the piece was there. It had to be.

  Together we studied the room. I frowned and leaned closer to the screen. “He doesn’t have any idea what these are. There’s no other reason he’d have such a mix of Muslim and Jewish and Christian artifacts beside each other like that. It’s as if he collects them for collection’s sake.” I sat back and crossed my arms. “Typical rich guy.”

  “Yes, but that rich guy is standing between you and the next step, so you’re going to have to get in there and quickly.”

  I sucked on my lower lip and pondered all the moving pieces. “This is insane. I’m going to get caught. But I think the piece is in there. The ring has to be in that collection.”

  “You will get caught with that attitude.” He adjusted in the seat and winced.

  “Are you hurt?” I hadn’t noticed when I’d first come in, too caught up in my own crap, but now I noticed the strain at the corners of his eyes and mouth. He moved again like he couldn’t get comfortable.

  He waved away my concern. “My damn hip. I’ve put surgery off too long. They told me I won’t get another assignment until I get it fixed.”

  I arched an eyebrow at him, just because they’d demanded it didn’t mean he was going to do it. “Did you bother calling a doctor yet?”

  “Yes, dammit. I’m going in the morning. Dirty bastard is probably in cahoots with them.”

  I smiled. “Maybe, but if you have to have it done...”

  He grunted.

  That wasn’t horrible news. I could deal with him going in for surgery. But he couldn’t get sick on me. That would put him out of commission for any further help on this project.

  Malcolm reached over and patted my knee. “Work the facts. Find the holes. Watch your back.”

  I sighed. I stood and brushed the legs of my pants. “Okay. I have to get on this.”

  “Do the work, girl. Just do the work. Everything falls into place from there.” He hugged me. “But I am going with you.”

  “Your hip, though.”

  He waved a hand at me. “Hip, schmip. I’m not letting you do this one on your own.”

  I knew better than to argue with the man who had raised me for the past fifteen years and taught me everything I knew. “We better get a move on, then.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I’d done my homework, but I didn’t feel any better about this. Not the settling calm like I felt when I went after a target. This felt disjointed, erratic, like we’d missed something. There shouldn’t be a reason for me to feel that way. We’d managed every single loose end. All I had to do was stroll in, find the piece, grab it, walk out.

  My intuition guided me on every mission. When things didn’t seem right or a segment of intel didn’t feel right to anyone else, I trusted my gut and it had never let me down. To outsiders, I looked like a loose cannon, but my gut had never ever failed me. The trouble was that I couldn’t put my finger on the issue this time, so I had to go in with this abrasion rubbing me wrong.

  Malcolm slowed the car two hundred yards from Dr. Felt’s and I rolled out. Armed with my favorite knives, I also had an earpiece that would keep me in contact with him. The plan was for him to cause a diversion on the far end of the estate that would draw the security guard away and then he’d cut the system in the house. There appeared to be nobody else there. The estate only employed two guards at night, one outside, and one inside. I knew the precision of the interior guard’s rounds, and we’d worked out timing that kept me on the far end of his route at all times.

  I had more than enough time to get in and out without being spotted, as long as I could locate the relic. Maybe that’s what had me feeling sketchy. On the surveillance cam, we hadn’t found the ring yet. I had chalked that up to its size, lack of clean clarity, and the odd discombobulation that Felt had set up in his special “artifact” room.

  I had faith, though.

  The alarm would be back up and in place by the time he finished the circuit and if I was lucky, no one would even know the piece was missing until Felt came home....

  And maybe not even then.

  I jogged the last ten feet to the perimeter wall and eased around to the delivery gate, hiding behind thick shrubs. Once the system was off, this gate would electronically unlock. It was a terrible hole in the system, but one I was going to exploit like mad.

  The earpiece crackled. “In position.”

  I slowed my breathing and focused. This part was second nature to me and I was grateful for a space that didn’t hold a single memory. When I was working, nothing else existed. I was a machine.

  Leaves rustled overhead and I breathed in the rich perfume of fresh-cut grass. Across the compound, tires squealed and I tensed. Malcolm’s distraction was in play. He’d flattened the rear driver’s-side tire before coming into view of the guard shack, timing it perfectly so he’d have a blowout at the main gates. Then he’d play up his age and deteriorating health to get the guard to help with the tire.

  Guard One down.

  Before exiting the car, he’d flip the remote on the alarm, disabling it.

  I held my breath and waited for the—

  Click.

  Th
e gates would only stay unlocked for ten seconds. I quickly checked to make sure I was still in the clear, then sprinted to the gates and slipped between the big metal doors.

  Shadows stretched long across the delivery route and I sped toward the house. I wanted to be inside before the guard got Malcolm’s tire fixed. We knew it would take me forty-two seconds to get to the back entrance.

  I made it in thirty-eight, jimmied the lock, and snuck inside. As expected, I stood in a large hub of the house. Tables and shelves lined the walls and the contents of the room sat in neatly labeled boxes and drawers—basically, it was the main storage room, where every delivery was catalogued and dispatched through the halls and doors splintering off the room to the other areas of the house.

  The door closest led up a simple set of servant’s stairs and I took them quickly, wincing as the old wood groaned halfway up. At the top, I paused again, listening for anything that shouldn’t be here. The wide hallway was empty, save the pompous gleam of the rich floors oiled to perfection, paintings professionally lit and glowing in the darkness, high ceilings appropriately molded, domed skylights superbly gilded. Midway, the hallway opened up to the floor below and a gracious curve of stairs.

  Across from those stairs was the closed door I needed.

  I checked my watch. The guard was at the far end of the house, checking the windows and rooms in the master suite. I had four minutes and twelve seconds to locate and finish and get out of here.

  In my ear, I heard Malcolm thank the guard. That didn’t worry me. I wanted Malcolm gone and at the rendezvous spot before I entered the room. I touched the knife at my hip, a subconscious check and an old habit. Then I stepped into the hallway and out of the shadows.

  The power went out, squashing what little light I’d had in the hallway.