Exit Strategy (9 page)

“Do continue, Bishop,” he encouraged, drawing the fly into the web. “I can’t offer a solution without knowing all the details.”

Relief flashed across the other man’s face and he wiped the flop sweat off his brow. “Okay, okay. Obviously, I shouldn’t have created the fake order. That was a mistake.”

“Yes. Yes it was. Go on.”

His head bobbed up and down like one of the great blue herons common to the area. “Ace called in to say the mission—­”

Cyprian held up his hand. “How did Ace get involved in this?”

Bishop tugged at his collar, knocking his tie askew. “When Mason didn’t call in to report that the mission was over, I sent Ace to see what had happened.”

“Ah, I see. As we would do on any
legitimate
mission.”

“Exactly,” Bishop said, not catching Cyprian’s sarcasm. “The thing is, Ace said the mission was successful. Mason shot and killed Hightower, but only because Ace forced his hand. They argued or something, and exchanged gunfire. But I gather neither of them was hurt. I asked Ace about proof of death but he said he hadn’t had a chance to snap a picture because Mason was after him.” He waved his hand as if he could wave the trouble away just as easily. “I tried calling Mason’s company cell phone. Naturally I wanted to double-­check everything.”

“Naturally.”

Bishop must have caught the sarcasm this time, because the sweat started up again, popping out on the sides of his face. “Uh, neither Ace nor Hunt are answering my calls at this point.”

“Did you try tracking the GPS location of their phones?”

Bishop nodded. “Nothing came up.”

“Then they’ve obviously removed the batteries on their company phones, or destroyed them altogether, and are using burner phones. Apparently neither Mr. Hunt nor Ace desire to be found.” Had they both gone rogue, like Buchanan?

“I’m . . . I’m sure I’ll be able to fix everything. It’s just going to . . . take a bit longer.”

“If you believed
that
you wouldn’t have told me any of this.”

“Right.” Bishop’s eyes widened. “I mean, no. I would have told you, eventually, once I knew Hightower was dead. I wouldn’t want to worry you unnecessarily. I never . . . I didn’t plan on . . .”

“Lying?”

Bishop shook his head back and forth, making the sweat fly and revulsion twist Cyprian’s stomach.

“No, no, no. I would never lie to you, boss. I just . . . made a bad decision. I didn’t want Hightower to get away like she did the last time. So I thought that by enlisting Hunt it was a done deal, no possibility of failure.” His face turned a bright red and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.

Cyprian slowly rose to his feet and jerked his suit jacket into place. “You said that Ace saw Mason shoot Miss Hightower but that she isn’t dead yet. Hopefully it’s just a matter of time. If she’s gut shot, it could take a while. Which hospital is she in?”

“Yeah, about that. It, ah, took a bit of trickery to find out where she was because of the privacy policies but I—­”

“Did you find her or not?”

“She was treated at Mission Hospital and released early this morning.”

“
Released?
Was she shot or not?”

“I’m still working on that. Maybe it was a flesh wound?” He tugged at his collar again. “She hired bodyguards. I have someone watching the house in case she decides to go anywhere.”

Unable to remain still any longer, Cyprian began pacing in front of his desk. At least he could be grateful for one thing—­that Bishop hadn’t foolishly approached the house himself. The hospital would have filed a report about the gunshot wounds. The police might very well be watching the house. “You did say that Ace reported Hightower was dead?”

Bishop nodded. “Yes. But I’m not sure what happened. Maybe he didn’t—­”

Cyprian held up his hand to stop him. “I’ve heard enough. What
happened
is that you’ve made yet another mess for me to clean up. Mason Hunt is a lot like Devlin Buchanan—­intensely moral, honest, idealistic. You know what happened with Buchanan after Kelly framed him and I foolishly tried to protect her. He’s on his own personal vendetta to bring both me and EXIT down. So what did you think would happen if
Hunt
found out his mark was
innocent
?” He stalked to his desk.

“I . . . I didn’t think—­”

“Exactly. You didn’t think.” He stared suspiciously at his biggest failure. Bishop wasn’t acting like someone who’d just confessed
all
of his sins. He was still nervous, too nervous, and kept glancing at the wall of windows behind the desk.

“What else haven’t you told me?” Cyprian demanded.

Bishop winced as if he were in pain and retrieved the remote control from the top of the desk. “This came on TV a little earlier.” He pressed a button and the Blue Ridge Mountains were replaced with a recording of the local news.

The first story was a short clip about the opening of the new EXIT office in town. It showed ­people touring the building last month as the final construction was being completed. Recording the news for the past few weeks had been one of Bishop’s responsibilities so that any coverage about EXIT could be evaluated and sent to Cyprian’s daughter, Melissa, to review. She would make marketing decisions about new strategies based on how EXIT was being portrayed by the press.

“Wait, pause the recording.” Alarmed, Cyprian pointed at the screen. “That’s Sabrina Hightower, in that last group. What was she doing here?”

Bishop shook his head. “Touring the building I assume, but I don’t know why she’d want to do that.”

Cyprian could well imagine one reason she might want to look at EXIT’s headquarters: to look for anything that was further proof of the company’s alleged negligence and carelessness. But was there another reason? Did she suspect anything? Was there any possibility she might have separated from the tour group and nosed around? That could be
extremely
problematic. He tapped his fingers impatiently against his thigh. “Continue.”

Bishop pressed the start button. “
This
is the part that concerned me.”

Stupid fool.
What Cyprian had just seen was intensely important and very concerning. But Bishop wasn’t adept at recognizing the significance of minor details, which was one of the reasons that Cyprian had planned on firing him before the Hightower fiasco had started. And then it was too late.

Cyprian watched the second news story, and his stomach dropped with dread. Black and white sketches of three ­people were displayed behind the TV anchorman, along with a request for information if anyone knew who they were or had seen them anywhere. The reporter stated that the three ­people shown, plus one more not shown, were being sought as potential witnesses to a crime that had occurred last night.

“Pause it,” Cyprian snapped. He stalked closer to the screens, shaking his head at the amazing likenesses revealed by each of the sketches. “Devlin Buchanan, Emily O’Malley, and Ace. Who drew these?”

“I called a contact at the television station and put some pressure on her to—­”

“Who. Drew. Them?” he gritted out.

“Sabrina Hightower, early this morning, for a Detective Donovan.”

Cyprian swore and began pacing in front of his desk. Things were unraveling faster than he could patch them back together. He didn’t need any magical tea leaves to know what those sketches meant. Buchanan was back, and butting his nose into EXIT business. Somehow he’d gotten wind of Mason’s bogus mission and let him know that Hightower was innocent. Probably because of that fake EXIT order Bishop had created. That was the only explanation—­documentation where there shouldn’t have been any. Which meant the mainframe’s supposedly infallible security had been breached. He didn’t know why there wasn’t a sketch of Mason too, but the anchorman had mentioned a fourth person, so he was likely part of whatever had happened.

And what role was Ace playing in this? Calling in to say a mission was successful even though the mark hadn’t been terminated? Ace wasn’t the type to care if his mark was innocent. The only reason he’d lie about a mission was to cover his own ass. With Buchanan back in the picture it didn’t take a genius to realize what must have happened: Ace
knew
Buchanan was back, and he didn’t want his boss to have a chance to reel him in before Ace had had his revenge for Kelly’s death, and for his bruised pride. Buchanan had nearly killed him during their last encounter, and Ace had been forced to tuck tail and run.
That’s
why Ace wasn’t answering his phone.

Cyprian stopped pacing and flattened his palms against the windowsill, resting his forehead against the cool glass that protected the screens.

This had all started six months ago with one stupid, rash mistake.
His
mistake. Cyprian had no one to blame but himself. Because of a father’s love for his only daughter, his love for Melissa, he’d acted out of anger, thinking to protect her. But all he’d done was make everything worse.

Now he’d been reduced to murdering innocent ­people like Sabrina Hightower. He was turning against truly good men that he genuinely admired—­Buchanan and Hunt—­to cover his tracks and keep EXIT’s core charter intact. He despised himself for the things that he’d done, for what he still had to do. But there was no turning back now. He had to finish this. He had to eliminate all the loose ends. And equally important, he had to reinstate strict discipline among his subordinates.

He’d allowed them to take advantage of his distraction over his mistakes—­starting with Kelly and continuing with Bishop. If he’d paid attention to what Kelly had been doing, the Buchanan incident would never have happened. If he’d paid attention to Bishop, Mason wouldn’t have been dragged into the Hightower mire. Well, he was paying attention now. And it was time to stop the bleeding, to deal with each of his problems one by one.

Starting with Bishop.

He turned around and forced another smile. Sometimes he wondered that his face didn’t crack. “Have you told me everything?”

Bishop’s eyes darted to the side and he swallowed. “Y-­yes, sir. Of course.”

Liar.

“Good. What I need you to do right now is find Mason and Hightower. Can you do that?”

“Of course. Absolutely. I assume you want them both dead?”

Cyprian held back the sneer that threatened to curve his lips. Bishop kill Mason? He couldn’t even begin to imagine a scenario where that was a possibility. Right now he wasn’t even sure that Bishop could handle Hightower, let alone a skilled enforcer. But that wasn’t the point. He wanted Bishop out of the way for a while, so he wouldn’t get wind of what Cyprian was about to do.

“That would be excellent. Be sure to send proof of death. And use the cleanup crew to ensure the scene is sanitized. No mistakes this time. No loose ends.”

“Of course. Of course. Thank you, sir. Thank you for being so understanding. And for giving me another chance to make it right.”

“Everyone deserves a second chance.”
But Bishop had already been given a second chance
. “I assume you’ll want to start your assignment immediately.”

“Yes, sir.” Bishop gave him a pathetically grateful look and exited through the sliding panel. It swished closed behind him.

Cyprian moved to the wall of fake windows again and pressed the remote, rewinding the news coverage until the picture of the tour group inside the new EXIT building was displayed. He ran his finger down the curve of Sabrina Hightower’s face. She wasn’t particularly beautiful, but she certainly wasn’t ugly. And there was something about her that was compelling. The eyes perhaps? Startlingly blue, they were large, expressive, and hinted at an underlying curiosity and intelligence. It was that curiosity that had him concerned.

“What were you up to that day, young lady?” He studied the clip several times but didn’t see anything amiss. Maybe a call to one of Bishop’s local media contacts could get Cyprian the full, unedited tape.

His lip curled with distaste. Bishop. Who’d have thought he could screw up so badly? He punched the speaker button on his desk phone, then sat down and speed dialed a number in the Colorado office.

The line clicked. “Systems Security. How can I help you, Mr. Cardenas?”

“Good afternoon, Eddie. I have reason to believe that a data security breach has occurred. I’d like you to look into it, assess the damage, and report back to me. And I want this to stay confidential, just between the two of us. Understood?”

“Of course, sir. Is there something in particular that concerns you?”

“Yes. EXIT orders. And my assistant, Bishop. I want his access revoked. But I don’t want him notified. He’s on . . . temporary assignment, so he won’t have reason to try to log onto the mainframe. I’m hopeful he won’t notice that we’ve disabled his ID.” He heard the tapping of computer keys over the line.

“His ID is disabled. I assume you’ll want a report of everything he’s accessed. Do you have a timeframe in mind?”

“He was promoted to his current position two months ago. His clearance would have been too low to do any damage prior to that.”

“Two months it is. Anything else, sir?”

“It would set my mind at ease if we perform another full-­system security audit even though we just finished one. I have reason to believe someone outside the company also accessed the EXIT order database, a former enforcer named Devlin Buchanan, although I have no clue how. This is all
confidential, Eddie. I want you to do the work yourself. No delegating. And no sharing anything you find with anyone but me. I don’t even want the Council to know about this until I review the data so I can make recommendations.”

“I’ll clear my calendar so I can work on this full-­time, alone.”

“Thank you, Eddie. I appreciate that. There is one more thing, though. Mason Hunt, an active enforcer, has gone off the grid and I need to find him. Could you please supply me with a list of all of his real-­estate holdings? Not the kind of list I could get from a property appraiser. I want the real list.”

“Of course. That will take a bit more time, depending on how many layers of aliases and holding companies he might have created.”