The Art of Possession Read online

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  More from Cari Z

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  About the Author

  By Cari Z

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  Copyright

  The Art of Possession

  By Cari Z

  When a treasure-hunting black ops soldier and a disgraced, reckless archeologist team up in search of a priceless artifact, they might get more than they bargained for.

  Ever since leaving the Green Berets to work in private security, Alex Tucker has longed for some excitement—and he’s about to get his wish.

  Archeologist Malcolm Armstrong needs the chance to prove he isn’t a fraud. Along with Alex, he’s hired to track down and authenticate a valuable scepter, in a hunt that turns deadlier than either of them imagined as they search dangerous locations across three continents and try to stay ahead of the factions who want the treasure for themselves—and Malcolm and Alex dead.

  Just as they realize the feelings between them transcend convenience and the thrill of the chase, a rival reemerges, threatening everything.

  The Art of Possession is dedicated to my ficwife Tiffany, for being the absolute best plotting partner ever, and to Patricia, who is a font of knowledge and graciously volunteered her expertise when I cried out for help.

  Finally, this book is dedicated to my love of adventure movies, and my sincere desire to see Indiana Jones put back his ill-gotten artifacts, because come on, man.

  Chapter One

  THE SCENT of lavender pervaded the picturesque hilltop town of Roussillon in the heart of Provence, aided by the soft June breeze and enhanced by the muted buzz of thousands of bees tending the fields. Against the backdrop of a cornflower-blue sky and pastel clouds that would have done Monet himself proud, it was one of the most beautifully bucolic landscapes I’d ever seen in my life.

  It was almost a shame that I only got to experience it because of a kidnapping.

  “Keep your eyes off your phone, you philistine. We’re at a café.” The woman sitting across from me crossed her legs and took a sip of her cappuccino, letting one bright red sandal dangle from just the toes of her left foot. Her dark brown skin glowed in the late afternoon light, and she looked perfectly at home surrounded by the tall ochre buildings, edged with muted white bricks to help distinguish one from the next.

  I put my phone aside and smiled at her as I reached for my drink, trying not to grit my teeth. “He’s ten minutes late for the pickup.”

  “What did you really expect? You put water in his fuel tank. Doubtless his engine is running a bit rough by now. He’ll be here, though.”

  Here was actually fifty yards farther up the hill, inside the Church of Saint Michael. It was a quiet, unassuming place of worship, without the fanfare of a lot of historical French churches. It was also the designated drop point for the five million euros that was Sophie Mercier’s ransom demand, tucked into a leather bag beneath a pew in the front row.

  It hadn’t been hard to find the men responsible for kidnapping Sophie, the fifteen-year-old daughter of a wealthy shipping magnate with offices in every major city in France. She’d been snatched on a school trip to Provence, stolen out of her private room at the picturesque but low-security hotel in this same little town two nights ago. Two hours later, a ransom demand was sent to her father. Instead of reaching out to the authorities, he immediately contacted my employer, Kensington International Security.

  “He wants the retrieval kept low-key, as far from media attention as possible,” Robert Kensington had said when he called to brief me on the job. “Rene Mercier is renegotiating a government contract right now, and he doesn’t want this to affect his bargaining position.”

  Rene Mercier sounds like he could use a solid punch to the fucking face. But then, that was the truth about most of our clients. They didn’t call KIS because they were nice people in a bind—they called up a private mercenary, security, and retrieval outfit because they wanted results and could afford to get them fast.

  Working in France meant collaborating with KIS’s in-country analyst, Patricia Diagho, who was currently cradling her shiny black cup in one hand and gazing out at the Luberon range like she didn’t have a care in the world. I looked away from her, back down to my phone. Still no movement.

  “Alex, honestly. People are going to think you’re nothing but a rude American.”

  “A completely accurate assumption,” I agreed. “I’d rather have them think that than get a slow start because I was too busy blending in to do my job.”

  Patricia looked at me over the top edge of her designer sunglasses and raised one eyebrow. “Are you insinuating that I don’t know how to do mine? As if I don’t have an alert programmed into my phone to let me know as soon as the package begins to move? As if I would ever let a disgusting waste of humanity like this man and his friends get away with kidnapping a young girl? Hmm? Is that what you think?”

  Patricia was great to work with, for the most part, but she could be overzealous about protecting what she considered her part of the job—the technical side of things. I chose my words carefully. “I think that I’d rather be sure than not, under the circumstances. It’s no reflection on you or your work, just of my own paranoia.” That much was completely true—I knew Patricia was good. Less than twelve hours after receiving the ransom demand, she had profiles ready for me on all three of the kidnappers, including likely spots where they’d be holding Sophie. Two hours of riding around the local countryside had confirmed the recent addition of a biometric lock to the thick metal door of one of the warehouses listed, as well as new gleaming bars over the windows. Bingo. After that, it was just a matter of taking them out without causing harm to Sophie.

  “Hmm. Well, I suppose I’ll overlook it this time.” She leaned back again and sighed. “Better you glance at your phone than be unable to keep your hands off your piece.”

  “It’s like you want me to think you’ve got a dirty mind.”

  “You’re carrying right now, aren’t you?” she asked, more curiosity than condemnation in her voice.

  “Of course I am.”

  “What do you possibly think could happen to you in an open, public place like this that would require a gun?”

  Spoken like a true European. “Better safe than sorry” was all I said. There was no way in hell I was going to be more than a few seconds away from armed and dangerous at any time during a job. The little Kahr pistol strapped to my ankle was a concession to my surroundings. If I’d been back in the States, I’d have had three guns on my person.

  Not that I’ve been back to the States much in the past… year. Jesus. Not since the Laughton job. And the less said about that, the better.

  “But does it really do that for you?” Patricia took her sunglasses off and looked at me, really looked, her dark eyes wide and searching. It felt like she saw through me, like I was as transparent as a stained glass window, illuminated by the setting sun behind me. I saw her take in the brutally short brown hair, the way my nose flattened in the center, the tiny, pale blemishes marking the left side of my face. “Does it make you feel safer, even when you are surrounded by nothing but beauty and peace?”

  I stared right back, the pull of the scar tissue in my left should
er aching a little from keeping such a louche posture for so long. “There’s no such thing as peace.”

  Patricia frowned. She opened her mouth to speak, but a beep on her phone derailed her. “Ah. He has it.”

  “Well, then.” I stood up, placed a twenty-euro bill on the table, and stretched nonchalantly. “My treat. I’m off to work.”

  “Do keep in touch,” she said, brushing her tight black curls back from the earpiece in her right ear.

  “You know I will.” I put my sunglasses on, picked up my phone, and began to stroll in the direction of the church. Looked like Monsieur Valles was wasting no time—the dot indicating the ransom was almost to the car park. Eager to get back to his collaborators. Ah yes, Messieurs Picot and Lamarca, the masterminds behind this ridiculous affair. I was looking forward to introducing myself to them.

  I got to the car park just in time to watch Valles, clutching the bag to him like a shield, get into the tiny Peugeot that I had spent some quality time with this morning. He tried to start the car—the engine revved, then failed. He swore and tried again.

  It started on the third try, and I breathed a sigh of relief along with him. It would be much easier to take care of Valles once we were outside of town, on the road to Avignon. I got into my rental, a perky little Volkswagen Up that had conveniently dark-tinted windows, moved my gear bag from the back seat to the passenger seat where I could grab things quickly, and pulled out to follow. Not too closely—I had the tracker, after all, but the sniper part of me didn’t feel quite comfortable unless I kept my mark in my sights.

  We left Roussillon and headed west, and it took blessedly little time for Valles’s car to go from problematic to inoperable. I parked just to the side of the road on the top of a hill and watched through my binoculars as Valles pulled over, got out, kicked the car several times, then got on the phone. There was no way he was calling a taxi, not with the amount of money he had on him. This was the call that would bring one of his conspirators out of their bunker, which was essential to the next part of the plan. Robert had been very clear about the next part of the plan.

  “No shooting people.”

  “You say that like it’s inevitable that I will,” I’d groused to Robert on the phone last night while I double-checked my gear.

  Robert had sighed. “I can count on one hand the missions you’ve been on that ended without someone getting shot.”

  “I’m just responding to changes in the field.”

  “With a gun.”

  Obviously. “Guns are a necessary part of getting the job done. You don’t like it, hire a diplomat to go and negotiate with the kidnappers instead.”

  It was an old argument between us, and one that Robert hadn’t been in the mood to rehash, thank God. “Just try and resolve things as nonlethally as possible, all right? Make it easier on Patricia. She’s got to help mop up the mess at the end.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I’d promised. And I planned to. I just believed in being prepared, that was all.

  Once Valles ended his call, I got back onto the road. Thirty seconds later I pulled in just behind the man and got out of my car.

  “Hey there, buddy!” I called out, doing my best impression of a nosy, noisy American as I walked over. Valles, leaning against his hood, glared at me suspiciously. He was a tall man, with a few inches on me but probably twenty pounds lighter, his skinny features tight to his skull. He wore a dark leather jacket despite the heat, and the way he kept one hand inside of it screamed that he was holding on to a gun.

  Amateur.

  “Everything okay up there? You need a lift?” I continued, then shook my head and chuckled. “Gettin’ ahead of myself here—do you speak English? Eng-lish!” I repeated as I closed the last few feet between us.

  Valles sneered at me. “Is fine. Go.”

  “Go? You sure?” I scratched my head and put one hand on my hip. “I’d hate to leave you in a lurch.”

  Valles clearly didn’t catch all of that, but he was also losing patience if the way he began to swear at me in French was anything to go by.

  “I could check your engine for you,” I offered, and Valles snarled and stepped toward me, beginning to draw his weapon.

  I pulled my tranq pistol, fired a shot into Valles’s chest, and stepped in to catch him before he could even clear his gun of the holster. “There we go, buddy,” I murmured, slinging Valles’s arm over my shoulder and getting him back to the rental before anyone driving by could make sense of the scene. I stuffed him in the rear seat, then drove the car back a hundred yards and farther off onto the shoulder. Leaving the keys in the ignition, I took Valles’s jacket, phone, and gun, and zip-tied his hands and feet together. “You just wait here like a good criminal.” I liberated my equipment bag as well, then tapped my headset. “Target One secure.”

  “I assumed as much when I saw the package had stopped moving, but thank you for confirming,” Patricia said in my ear. “And Target Two?”

  “Should be on the way. I moved the rental and am heading back to wait for Two in the other car.”

  “Is that wise? What if he drives up and notices you’re not Valles?”

  “The shadows are long enough that I think I can fool him until he’s in range. And either way, he can’t risk not checking in, not with the amount of money at stake.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Thanks for your vote of confidence.” I tapped the headset to disconnect, put on Valles’s jacket, propped up the car’s hood, bent over it, and waited. I had to wave off a few do-gooders, but it didn’t take long for Target Two, in this case Edouard Lamarca, to appear, driving like a maniac and pulling in at an angle so close to me that his front fender nearly brushed the backs of my legs. I stiffened, fresh adrenaline suddenly pumping through me. Fucking asshole. It took more effort than I liked to go for the tranq gun and not the other one when Lamarca grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.

  He totally deserved that dart to the groin.

  Lamarca gasped, folding in on himself like a paper fan. He was a short man, no more than five-foot-five, and I was able to pick him up bridal-style and shove him into the back of his own car with barely a twinge in my shoulder.

  “Target Two down,” I said as I gagged the unconscious man, then zip-tied him the same way I had Valles. “It’s time to go for a ride.”

  “That went very smoothly.”

  I got into the car and turned it back onto the road, driving conservatively. “Comme sur des roulettes, that’s me.”

  Patricia sniffed. “Oh really? Let’s see how well you manage the next part before you begin congratulating yourself. You still have to get into the building.”

  “No problem.” I drove for another five minutes, then turned left down a tiny, nameless road toward a vast field of lavender. The warehouse I’d scoped out earlier was the sole building in a grove of tall, umbrella-like stone pines. Picot was in there, alone with Sophie.

  Not for long.

  I parked Lamarca’s car a hundred feet down the lane, got out, and retrieved the man from the back seat, along with the rest of his relevant equipment. I cut the tie binding his hands, hoisted him over my shoulder, and made my way to the front of the building. “You sure you took care of the camera?” I murmured as I tried to maneuver the deadweight I was carrying into a position where I could press the man’s hand to the reader outside the warehouse. This would be so much easier if I could just cut the damn thing off.

  “I looped a false image in twenty minutes ago. Monsieur Picot shouldn’t be any the wiser.”

  I grunted, flopping Lamarca’s arm around in an attempt to get it into position. “And you’re compensating for the changes in the light?” I asked.

  “I am, in fact, not new to this, merci very much. What’s taking so long?”

  “Monsieur Lamarca isn’t a flexible man, even when he’s passed out. Hang on.” I swung the limp body down so it was almost as though Lamarca was standing, then, holding him up with one arm, pushed his hand into pla
ce with the other. It was a huge relief when the light finally blinked green.

  I let Lamarca slump to the ground, zip-tied him again, then opened the front door and crept inside the building. It wasn’t big, with one empty room in the front, covered in trash—apparently it was the kidnapper’s dumpsite—and a closed door beyond that. I took a cursory look around, then swore.

  “There’s another camera in the corner.”

  “What?” I heard Patricia tap rapidly on a keyboard for a moment. “That shouldn’t be there. Their purchase history doesn’t support the existence of another camera.”

  “Maybe it came with the place,” I said, not bothering to rein in the sarcasm. I heard a whimper from inside the room. “I’ve got to assume he knows I’m here.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Get Sophie out, obviously.” I crept over to the door, quietly on the off chance I was wrong, and carefully cracked it open.

  A scream ripped through the air before I could even glance inside. So much for quiet. I kicked the door open and strode in, tranq gun up and ready to fire.

  Picot was clearly expecting me. He had Sophie standing in front of him, one arm around her neck, the other one aiming a gun at her head. He was a pale, flabby man—he’d been one of Rene Mercier’s drivers before being let go—but now, in his desperation, he was as dangerous as any man alive.

  “One more step and I will kill her!” he shouted. “I will kill the girl!” Sophie, barefoot and clad in a soiled yellow sundress, squeezed her eyes shut. Two tears rolled down her swollen face. Either she’d been crying hard or one of the kidnappers had slapped her. Motherfucker.

  I kept my focus on Picot. “There’s no need for that,” I said levelly. “I’ve got your ransom outside in Monsieur Lamarca’s car. You take the ransom, I take the girl, we both leave with what we want.”

  “Where are Edouard and Jean?” he demanded.

  “Both are alive. One’s right outside the building, one’s in the back of a car on the side of the road. Neither one is worth your consideration anymore, though, Monsieur Picot.”