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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  2932 Ross Clark Circle, #384

  Dothan, AL 36301

  72 Hours

  Copyright © 2006 by Shannon Stacey

  Cover by Scott Carpenter

  ISBN: 1-59998-040-1

  www.samhainpublishing.com

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: June 2006

  72 Hours

  Shannon Stacey

  Dedication

  For Stuart, who has supported me in being the Shannon I need to be—wife, mom, and writer—and for being my own personal Batman.

  And for Wax, for the late night chats about Alex.

  Chapter One

  Key West

  Facing down an irate, grenade-toting guerilla beat the hell out of knocking back umbrella drinks in this sun-drenched purgatory any day.

  But Alex Rossi waited, boiling in the unforgiving humidity. Any second now, the man who’d killed his mother might walk around that corner.

  He loosened his grip on the glass before it could shatter in his hand. Wouldn’t want to startle the mimosa-serving legion of Malibu Ken dolls.

  But twenty-five years of waiting might come to a head in this tourist trap of an outdoor café, and if Alex didn’t get to release some tension soon, the glass was toast.

  “We’re on vacation, here. Remember?” His partner raised his own glass. “Two fishing bums with nothing better to do than soak up some rays and play spot the silicone.”

  Alex gave Gallagher a hard stare, but he was fighting like hell not to smile. The man looked ridiculous in his blinding tropical shirt, and he’d even smeared some kind of white sunblock on his nose.

  His own white tee and cargo shorts were a little on the conservative side, but at least he didn’t look like some sunburned escapee from a Beach Boys reunion.

  They didn’t come any steadier than Gallagher, though. When Alex Rossi had started the Devlin Group eleven years before, Gallagher was the first contract agent he’d taken on. He was his right hand, his best friend and the only guy Alex trusted to have his back when this deal went down.

  Usually, the Devlin Group worked at the request of governments who needed help going over, under or around regulations or jurisdictions to get a problem taken care of. Now his job had collided with his past and it was personal.

  When his mother, Maria Rossi, was gunned down as a warning to her undercover-agent husband, the family had been using the name Devlin. Eleven years ago, Rossi put that name on his own agency’s letterhead as bait. Over a decade of hunting might pay off today, if Alex’s intelligence was correct. Some two-bit thief named Johnny Washburn was moving up in criminal circles—into a circle headed by the man Alex was looking for.

  For two weeks now he’d done nothing but watch Johnny Washburn lie in the sun, smoke pot and leer at beach bunnies. The only interesting thing the man did was sit at the same table in the same outdoor café for every meeting. It made the surveillance almost too easy. Except for the sunburned tourists who’d managed to grab the only table with an unobstructed view of Washburn’s table. He was half tempted to go over there and…

  The sound of a chair being pulled out scraped through his earpiece, and Alex let the thought die.

  Showtime.

  He slid a hand into his pocket and hit the button to record the conversation feeding into his earpiece. Another chair slid across the cement patio floor, and he couldn’t keep himself from sitting straighter in his chair, his hand inching toward the Glock tucked in a pocket of his shorts.

  The visitor spoke first. “Why are you alone, Mr. Washburn?”

  That voice. He knew it from somewhere. Alex met Gallagher’s eyes, but he didn’t see any recognition there. Not somebody who’d come up in recent surveillance, then. But so familiar.

  And too young. Alex choked down a bitter curse. This guy, whoever he was, was too damn young to be the man who’d ordered his mother murdered just to make a point.

  The disappointment was keen, and he fought the urge to yank out his earpiece and walk away. Vengeance wouldn’t be served today, but the contract remained.

  Washburn said, “My friend won’t meet with just anybody, man.”

  “I’m not here to play games.”

  “No games. This is the way it’s done.” A little edge crept into Johnny’s surfer dude voice.

  The hair on Alex’s arms tingled, his interest piqued again. He leaned forward, trying to see around a wide woman in a wider hat. Maybe if he could see the man’s face he’d place the voice.

  Gallagher leaned in with him, smiling, but with hard eyes. “Chill, Alex. That boy’s wound tight.”

  “I know that voice.”

  “We’ll ID him later. Unless you spook him and blow our cover.”

  Alex leaned back, cursing again the tourists who’d nabbed the good table.

  “The person I represent,” the voice said, “has received word you’re under surveillance.”

  Alex made himself pick up the sweating pitcher of ice water and pour himself a drink. Gallagher didn’t even pause in flipping through his Key West guidebook.

  There’d been no evidence they’d been made. Not so much as a hint of counter-surveillance.

  “No way, man,” Johnny Washburn protested. “You think this is some pool hall back-room operation? If the feds were on to me, I’d know about it.”

  “I said nothing about government agencies.”

  Not good.

  If the voice knew Johnny Washburn was being watched, and not by the feds, there was a good chance he knew about the Devlin Group. And DG guys weren’t supposed to get made.

  Now Alex knew with a burning certainty the man sitting with Washburn had to work for the man Alex was looking for. There was no way he could let him just walk away from this café.

  “Man, what are you talking about?” Washburn demanded.

  Alex scanned the outdoor café, looking for his opportunity. He needed to be on the other side of the patio if he had any chance of seeing the man’s face.

  There. By the street. He fished in his pocket for a couple of quarters and started to rise.

  Gallagher snapped the guidebook closed. “Where are you going?”

  “To get a paper. Be right back.”

  “Don’t—” Gallagher started, but Alex was already walking away.

  He forced himself to walk straight to the newspaper box and put the coins in the slot. He scanned the headlines for a moment, then made his way back toward the patio.

  Casually. Sauntering. Just another fishing bum blowing off responsibility for a while.

  “This is how it’s going to be,” the voice was saying in his earpiece. “We’ll meet again in ten days—”

  “Ten days? No way,” Washburn protested.

  “Timing is everything. You’ll do what you’re instructed, exactly how and when you’re instructed.”

  Alex smiled at an elderly woman, nodded to a waiter. Let his gaze wander toward, then away from, Washburn’s table.

  Thirties. Latino. Thick and wavy black hair.

  He paused to smile at a toddler styling his hair with ketchup. Damn. The face didn’t click with a name.

&nbs
p; Plastering a “hey, how you doing?” smile on his face, Alex took a few more steps. This time he let his gaze linger a little longer.

  It was the face of a stranger. But that voice was in his earpiece again, in sync with the man’s lips. Alex watched as he slid an envelope across the table to Washburn. “Remember. Timing is everything.”

  The man looked up at Alex, and his mouth tightened.

  Damn. He’d lingered a second too long. Alex started to move, then the man’s eyes widened and he shot out of his chair. The recognition on his face was unmistakable.

  Where do I know this guy from?

  The gun came from nowhere.

  Alex was aware of Gallagher moving. A Malibu Ken clone dropping a tray. The sticky-haired toddler jabbering behind him—right in the line of fire.

  He’d never get to the gun before the man got a shot off.

  Alex took a running leap onto Washburn’s table, using it as a springboard onto the patio wall even as the legs cracked beneath him. The shot was high, slamming into a palm tree just over his head.

  Alex ran to the left, staying on the wall, well above the patrons scrambling under tables. Another shot nicked the stucco under his feet.

  He had no chance to draw his own Glock. He couldn’t use it yet, anyway. If there were a clear shot to be taken without risking civilians, Gallagher would take it.

  A quick glance over his shoulder showed the man taking aim again, and no sign of Gallagher. Alex hopped off the wall, angling further away from the crowd.

  He hoped the scumbag would follow him. Away from elderly ladies and toddlers, Alex could take him. It wouldn’t take him long to get the information he wanted.

  The plan evaporated when he heard a high-performance engine roar to life. He turned just in time to see a Porsche Boxter scream past him, his mystery assailant at the wheel.

  He let loose a stream of expletives as the car tore up the road, then turned out of sight. The guy was uncatchable. The first tangible link to his mother’s killer in eleven years had just driven away.

  When his pulse stopped pounding in his ears, Alex turned and made his way back to the café.

  Gallagher had Johnny Washburn by the scruff of the neck, shoving him into the backseat of their beat-up, rented Volvo. The thief was putting up only a token struggle, and Gallagher had him handcuffed to the inside door handle in no time.

  “I don’t know the dude’s name, man,” Washburn said. “I swear I—”

  Gallagher slammed the door closed in his face. “What now, boss? We’ve probably got less than a minute before the locals show up.”

  Alex scowled. Gallagher wasn’t supposed to call him that in public, or even at all. Too many ears out there. In his identity as Devlin Group founder Sean Devlin, he was Gallagher’s boss, but as Alex Rossi, he was just another contract agent in the field. One everybody obeyed, as he was senior agent and believed to be Devlin’s right-hand man, but just an agent.

  “We’re going to convince little Johnny here we’re his new best friends,” Alex answered, sliding into the driver’s seat.

  “You shouldn’t have moved on him,” Gallagher said critically when he got in the other side. He spoke in a low voice, his words probably not penetrating Washburn’s panic.

  “We were made anyway.”

  “Maybe we were, and maybe we weren’t. Now there’s no question.”

  “I have to place that voice,” Alex said again, and then swore.

  “We sure as hell won’t get close enough to do it now. We’re done here, unless Washburn spills his guts, and whoever you bring in now will have it that much harder.”

  Alex already knew he’d screwed up royally. He’d exposed himself and Gallagher, as well as a crowd of civilians, to a hell of a lot of risk on a hunch. He’d blown the operation wide open—alerting both Johnny Washburn and his buyer to a surveilling presence.

  “Guess you and I are on vacation, pal,” Gallagher said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I think you can probably use one.”

  He didn’t need a damn vacation. He needed inside Johnny Washburn’s head. Then his computer and cell phone. It was time to start shaking the contact tree. The bastard wasn’t getting away from him now.

  One week later, New Hampshire

  Something’s burning. The thought hit Grace Nolan a mere second before the alarm shrieked.

  “Hold on!” She ripped off her headset, then pounded down the stairs. Dammit, this couldn’t happen again. She’d worked so hard to make sure it wouldn’t.

  The room was quickly filling with smoke, and Grace grabbed a potholder. She yanked open the oven door and took out the smoking cookie sheet. With a curse, she dropped it into the sink and turned on the tap.

  The pan popped and warped as the chocolate chip briquettes slid into a black, soggy mess in the sink.

  “Crap!” she yelled at the smoke detector, flapping a towel under it to clear the smoke.

  She could disable any security system known to man, and sell the CIA its damn own secrets, for chrissake. Why the hell couldn’t she bake a decent batch of cookies? A boy should come home from a long day in second grade to something warm and homemade with love.

  When the alarm had chirped its last chirp, Grace rummaged through the cabinet for the Chewy Chips Ahoy. After tossing a few on a plate, she shoved the package back behind the bran flakes and glanced at her watch. Just enough time to wrap things up with Carmen before she poured Danny’s milk.

  “Forget to set the timer again?” Carmen Olivera asked after Grace retrieved the headset.

  She nodded, then shrugged at the Latin beauty in the high-definition video screen. “I think I forgot the vanilla, anyway. Do they taste the same without the vanilla?

  “Do I look like Betty Crocker? You need to get out more, chica.”

  If only she could. “Who’d have thought motherhood’s harder than infiltrating Russian military installations?”

  “Honey, I know it is. Why do you think I run so fast from men?”

  “Because they usually have badges from some alphabet agency or another, and want to see you in an orange jumpsuit?”

  “That too. You should come back to us, babe. Can you believe Gallagher and I are staying at the freaking Plaza Royale?”

  “I’ve been to the Plaza Royale. And I quit the agency eight years ago, Carm. When are you going to believe me when I tell you I’m not coming back?”

  “Never. You know the Devlin Group—we never give up.”

  “Yeah, like Mounties, only a little more juvenile, and a lot more delinquent. And speaking of delinquents, how’s Gallagher doing lately?”

  Carmen rolled her eyes. “Not too happy about being the hired muscle, but Dev didn’t have anybody else available. Pretty good money just to hang around and make sure nobody kills me, if you ask me.”

  “Damn straight,” Grace agreed. Sean Devlin had founded a very lucrative business brokering assignments for the loose network of international freelancers specializing in just about anything. His primary focus was assisting government agencies whose hands were tied by red tape, but he certainly didn’t do it for free.

  “Like hanging out pool side’s such a hardship for him,” Carmen was saying. “You’d think he’s on vacation for all the attention he’s paying me.”

  “Based on some of his previous jobs, I’d say this is pretty close to vacation for him.”

  “Knowing my luck he’ll try to cut the power to the camera bank and set off the fire alarm instead.”

  “What’s the job?” Grace asked, knowing Carmen would tell her if she could, shrug it off if she couldn’t.

  “Some pencil pusher from a biochem company got it into his head to sell a sample of a new biotoxin to the highest bidder.”

  “Wow! I hope you brought good gloves.”

  Carmen pulled her sable mass of hair into a sleek ponytail. “A very unsexy, but surprisingly flexible hazmat suit, actually. It makes blending in a bit of a challenge, though, so the whole thing’s gotta go down like clockwork.�
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  “And the seller?”

  “We’ll leave him for the big, bad buyers to take care of. The client doesn’t want the publicity of prosecuting a guy for managing to steal a very scary concoction out from under their noses.”

  “People really have to start taking better care of their scary concoctions.”