One Is Evil Read online

  one is evil

  A Bobby Greco novel

  Check out Upcoming Releases on www.jeffbuick.com

  for all the details, and be sure to sign up for

  Jeff’s newsletter so you never miss a new title.

  other titles by

  JEFF BUICK

  Bobby Greco series

  No End of Bad Guys—September 2019

  https://www.jeffbuick.com/books/no-end-of-bad-guys/

  Curtis Westcott series

  A Killing Game—December 2019

  https://www.jeffbuick.com/books/a-killing-game/

  AJ Costa series

  Size Four—TBD

  https://www.jeffbuick.com/books/size-four/

  Stand-alone titles

  The Krubera Conspiracy—March 2020

  https://www.jeffbuick.com/books/the-krubera-conspiracy/

  Bloodline—TBD

  https://www.jeffbuick.com/books/bloodline/

  The Art of Deceit—TBD

  https://www.jeffbuick.com/books/the-art-of-deceit/

  The Reluctant Truth—TBD

  https://www.jeffbuick.com/books/the-reluctant-truth/

  This book is entirely a work of fiction. All characters and their names are from the author’s imagination. Places, events and incidents, while often based on reality, are used fictitiously. If there is any resemblance to a real person, whether they are living or dead, it is purely coincidental.

  Please refrain from reproducing any part of this book—by electronic or mechanical means. Photocopying or recording portions without written permission of the author/publisher is not permitted.

  All text in this book is © 2019 Jeff Buick and Novel Words Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Novel Words Inc. and Jeff Buick

  www.jeffbuick.com

  Cover and interior design by Lance Buckley

  www.lancebuckley.com

  ISBN—13: 978-1-9995334-4-1

  Dedicated to

  Celia Rushford

  The love of my life.

  Contents

  three months before

  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

  chapter sixteen

  chapter seventeen

  chapter eighteen

  chapter nineteen

  chapter twenty

  chapter twenty-one

  chapter twenty-two

  chapter twenty-three

  chapter twenty-four

  chapter twenty-five

  chapter twenty-six

  chapter twenty-seven

  chapter twenty-eight

  chapter twenty-nine

  chapter thirty

  chapter thirty-one

  chapter thirty-two

  chapter thirty-three

  chapter thirty-four

  chapter thirty-five

  chapter thirty-six

  chapter thirty-seven

  chapter thirty-eight

  chapter thirty-nine

  chapter forty

  chapter forty-one

  chapter forty-two

  chapter forty-three

  chapter forty-four

  chapter forty-five

  chapter forty-six

  chapter forty-seven

  chapter forty-eight

  chapter forty-nine

  chapter fifty

  chapter fifty-one

  chapter fifty-two

  chapter fifty-three

  chapter fifty-four

  chapter fifty-five

  chapter fifty-six

  chapter fifty-seven

  chapter fifty-eight

  chapter fifty-nine

  chapter sixty

  three months later

  acknowledgments & kudos

  about the author

  three months before

  She heard him coming up from behind, moving fast, and lengthened her strides on the wet cobblestones. Her long legs were pumping hard, her breath coming in short gasps as she rounded the corner. One foot almost slid out from under her and she had to break pace to keep from falling. He caught up to her.

  And passed, his arms tight to his lean body, his breathing deep and rhythmic. He started to pull away and she doubled down until she matched his speed, the stone buildings flying by. They rounded a long sweeping curve and she caught a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, lit up and sparkling against the dark sky. A lone car glided past, its headlights casting yellow beams that cut through the grey streetscape.

  This was her Paris, the one she had known since childhood, before the rest of the world had invaded her space. Early morning, without the onslaught of people and vehicles, was the only time left when the city was still as it had been. Her Paris still existed, but only for those willing to get up at four in the morning.

  Only two more blocks. She was pacing him now, waiting for the exact moment to make her move. They passed the final crossroad and she drove her legs ahead, sprinting flat out, her eyes focused on nothing but the road. One misstep and she would go down in a heap.

  Ahead, the iron gates sensed her cell phone and started opening. She willed an extra sliver of speed out of her aching body and pulled ahead by a couple of feet, then cut hard into the courtyard. A fountain was directly ahead, and she slid on the wet stones as she tried to stop, her shin hitting the edge. She went down on her side and lay on the ground, staring up at him.

  “I beat you,” she gasped.

  “Don’t look so smug.” He grabbed a towel from the pile sitting on the fountain and wiped the sweat from his face. “You’re twenty-five years younger than me.” He picked up another one and threw it to her.

  “And you’re a man. Men are stronger, and faster. Supposedly.”

  He ran his hands across the top of his head and slicked back his jet-black hair. His deep brown eyes were hard to read in the low light. “Did you bruise your leg, Monique?”

  She glanced down. “I don’t think so.”

  “Good. No more risks. We can’t have you hurt. Not now.”

  Monique jackknifed to a sitting position and stared at him with eager eyes.

  “Soon.” He smiled. “Get cleaned up and meet me in the main salon.”

  When she had left he entered the house and made his way up to the master bedroom and into the en suite bath. The shower was hot and the stinging water invigorated his skin. He dried off and slipped into a pair of jeans and a short-sleeve shirt, then sat on the edge of the bed. The woman rolled over and slowly opened an eye.

  “You should get up,” he said. “Monique will be waiting. She’s excited.”

  She managed a nod. “I’ll be down in a bit, Armand.”

  He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

  The clouds had cleared and the first rays of sunlight were streaming through the massive bank of windows overlooking the street when Monique arrived. Her jeans were snug, not tight, and there was a subtle grace to her steps as she sauntered across the room and stretched her lanky frame out on the sofa. Armand Cortez watched her with a critical eye. Every nuance—how she walked, talked, smiled and laughed—was crucia
l. Never more so than now.

  “Well?” Monique said.

  “Let’s wait for your mother.”

  Sylvia Dupres didn’t rush getting ready. It was almost an hour before she swept into the room, dressed in Dior and Jimmy Choo. A classic beauty, it was difficult, impossible perhaps, to pin an age on her. Her wavy, brown hair still hung past her shoulders, and people often mistook her and Monique for sisters. She sat on the couch beside Armand, who lit a cigarette and handed it to her. It dangled precariously from her slender fingers as she surveyed her daughter.

  “No second chances, Monique, this is once in a lifetime,” Sylvia said. “You can’t let your guard down, even for a moment.”

  Monique’s lips slowly curled into a knowing smile, and in that moment Armand knew she was ready. She would pull it off, Monique had too much of her mother in her to fail. By all appearances, both women were understanding and compassionate. Yet under the surface, they were calculating and cold, driven by money and power. He was the only person they couldn’t manipulate—he knew them too well.

  “It’s time,” Cortez said.

  Monique jumped off the sofa, ran across the room and threw her arms around his neck, then looked at her mother. “I won’t disappoint.”

  When Sylvia Dupres answered, there was little warmth to her voice. “No, you won’t.”

  chapter one

  Ryan Chamberlain’s Gulfstream circled over central Florida and touched down on the tarmac at Orlando’s Executive Airport. The plane taxied to a private hangar and after a few minutes the plane door opened and Ryan’s assistant appeared in the opening.

  “Welcome back. How was your flight?”

  “Fine, and very safe.” Ryan glanced over at his traveling companion, an FBI agent with a military bearing. “They haven’t let me out of their sight since I left the Pentagon.”

  “Is that it?” Shawn Falstaff asked, motioning at Ryan’s leather briefcase.

  Ryan nodded. “All there, the signed contracts and the hard drive.”

  “Jesus, we really have it,” Shawn said, taking a slight step back. He adjusted his wire-rim glasses and glanced at his watch. “Your department heads will be in the boardroom tomorrow morning at eight.”

  “Good.” Ryan stood, his tall frame barely fitting under the cabin roof. “Are you riding with us?” he asked the agent.

  The man had an earpiece attached to a coiled wire in one ear and he listened for a moment, then shook his head. “I’ll be in the car behind you.”

  Ryan and Shawn moved through the small, executive terminal with a group of four agents trailing behind them. They slid into the rear of a waiting car and the chauffeur headed for Synergy, the Fortune 500 company Ryan had spent his career building. Two black Lincoln Navigators pulled in behind them.

  “Serious looking guys,” Shawn said, peering out the back window.

  Ryan nodded slowly. “Well, there’s some seriously bad missile technology in my briefcase.” He glanced over at Shawn and added, “Don’t look so worried, it’s encrypted. One of those FBI guys needs to be there when we download it into the mainframe.”

  Ryan dialed a number on his cell. When a woman’s voice came on, he said, “Hi, we just landed.”

  “Everything go okay in D.C.?” In the background were the sounds of a television and kids’ voices.

  “It did. Shawn and I are headed to the office, then I’ll be home.”

  “Deal,” she said. “See you in a while. Love you.”

  “Love you too.” He killed the line.

  Ryan slipped the phone into his pocket and turned to his assistant. “Let’s head straight to The Fort. I don’t want to stop at my office.”

  “Late for dinner are you?” Shawn asked with a straight face.

  “Funny guy.”

  The Fort, its nickname from Fort Knox in Kentucky, was the most secure spot on the Synergy compound. In the heart of the building was a stand-alone mainframe computer. Other than its connection to the power grid and a handful of cables snaking off to high-security terminals inside the building, the computer had no links to the outside world or the Internet. The chance of anyone hacking the system was pretty much zero.

  Outside the car window, palm trees and manicured boulevards slipped past as dusk settled in. Ryan glanced at the briefcase sitting on the seat between them. The Joint-Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile had been a staple of the American weaponry arsenal for years, yet no one had come close to replicating its technology. Now his firm had been tasked with making it faster, more powerful, and invisible. He shuddered slightly at the impact a stealth version of JASSM would have on the balance of power if a country like North Korea or Iraq got their hands on it. They could attack neighboring countries and it would be impossible to prove who had launched the missile. He willed himself to relax, Synergy was building a game changer and he needed to get that clear in his head.

  “Seriously, about dinner, what’s up at the Blackwell’s?” Shawn asked, then added when Ryan shot him a glance. “It’s in your calendar.”

  “Their annual garden party. Alexis and I actually enjoy going. He’s a good man.”

  Shawn grinned. “That, and a huge influence on the appropriations committee.”

  Ryan nodded, staring at the clouds rolling in from the fringe of the hurricane pummeling Cuba and heading for Key West. What was its name? Lorraine. The twelfth storm of the season and it was only late September. It had been a bad year for the islands. They hardly needed another hurricane.

  He snapped back to the present as the car pulled up to the gates of the Synergy complex. “Yeah, Blackwell is in our corner. He had a lot of pull on us getting the JASSM contract.”

  Shawn handled things with the security guards, including getting the two Navigators through the main gate. Ten minutes later they were inside and on the short drive to The Fort.

  “Things will be tighter at the gate in a few days,” Shawn said. “The new retina scanners are almost live.”

  “Good. That will be better than the old card access system.”

  “Way more secure,” Shawn beamed. “And we tightened up everyone’s security clearances.”

  “Excellent.” Ryan slipped out of the car, the briefcase in his hand. “It’s unnerving, having this technology on site.”

  The FBI agents fell in behind them as they entered the building and passed through the security checkpoint, first swiping their cards through a reader, then entering a PIN. The night guard scrutinized their photos on his monitor as they went by, and once inside it was a three-minute walk to the standalone mainframe in the heart of the building. Security outside the computer room was heightened, with two guards personally inspecting their ID’s and watching as they placed their right index fingers on a glass panel beside the door. The program confirmed all their identities and the door opened with a swish, but only the FBI agent who had accompanied Ryan on the Gulfstream was allowed in the room. One Synergy guard watched the hallway for potential threats, while the other kept an eye on the three remaining FBI agents and the bank of CCTV screens at the security station.

  Inside the bunker, the only sound was the low hissing of ventilation fans hidden somewhere in the dropped ceiling. The mainframe sat alone under a bank of fluorescent lights, cut off from the world. The master set of plans for Synergy’s new design would be kept in this room, eliminating the chance of a working prototype being leaked to an unauthorized person. Pieces of the design could be locked in Ryan’s office safe for short periods, but never the entire missile specs at one time.

  Embedded in one of the concrete walls was a massive safe where the specs would be stored. There were only six people who could open the door, Ryan and Shawn being two of them. Ryan swiped his card, then placed his finger on the glass. Once he passed the usual two-step authentication, a command appeared on the screen asking him to stand in front of a camera set off to one side of t
he safe. It snapped a picture of his face, then compared it to the one on file, using thousands of markers to ensure it was the same person. The green light lit up and the five-minute delay started to count down.

  “Impressive,” the FBI agent said.

  Shawn nodded. “Next time you’re here, we’ll have another level of security. Retina scans will be a baseline authentication procedure for every employee entering the complex.”

  Ryan and Shawn spent the five-minute delay checking their phones and answering emails. Shawn pulled on the handle when the light on the door panel turned to green and it opened with no resistance. Inside, the safe was lined with metal shelves, all stacked with well-ordered piles of documents. Ryan removed the hard drive from his briefcase and set it on one of the shelves, then backed out and closed the door. The light turned red and the bolts slid into place.

  “We’re done here,” Ryan said to the agent. “I’m heading home, unless there’s something else you need me to do.”

  “No, we’re good. Keep in mind I have to be here when you transfer any data from the portable hard drive to the mainframe.”

  “Right,” Ryan said. “Shawn will be in touch.”

  The agent continued. “The only approved locations to store the specs are here, or in the vault in your office. No more than three of the individual components can be in your office vault at any given time.” The man locked eyes with Ryan for longer than necessary. “Are you clear on the rules?”

  “I am,” Ryan nodded.

  He and Shawn escorted the agents back to the entrance and saw them off. The security personnel didn’t ask for ID as he left the compound and that bothered him. The retina scans would be a great addition, but Synergy was only as secure as its weakest link. He made a mental note to have his head of security tighten things up across the board.

  Rush hour was long over and Ryan kept to just over the speed limit, pulling into the driveway of his Winter Park home at twenty minutes past seven. Alexis met him at the door, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips. She pushed her body against his and they held each other close for a minute, then grudgingly parted. He couldn’t help smiling. He loved everything about her, especially her green, cat-like eyes that sparkled when she felt sexy.