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Interlude: Justice is BlindPrevious Story: Next Story: For Stilette there were two kinds of take: business and pleasure. Today was all business. Her retifistic passions alone weren't enough to keep the lights on, pay-off her network of informants and flips, engineer her gadgets, or keep fuel in the jet. She wore her game face as she walked down the busy South American street in a sun dress, thin thong sandals that slapped her bare soles as she walked, and a wide brimmed hat, keeping the sun from her face and shoulders. Buenos Aires was a city Stilette had come to know well as a professional, thanks to its wealth. It was also a city she longed to know b...
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Penny's navy colored pea coat and scarf fought back the chill of the Mayfair night. The chunk heels of her black loafers thudded softly on the cobbles as she briskly strolled up the covered arcade street. "Phthalo," her watcher said through her earpiece. She flicked her hair over her left ear in acknowledgment.
The gold lettering on the glass said Anseworth's. Foot traffic was light this time of night, the streets well-patrolled by well-groomed bobbies. Penny acted naturally as she produced the key she'd been given by her team lead. It fit the lock and turned easily as expected. She'd be going dark for the first time, out of sight of her watcher. "Umber," the watcher said to her as he watched the last flagging slip of her coat disappear inside Anseworth's. She was on her own now.
In the dark of the cloak room, Penny closed and locked the door behind her as she scanned for the panel. There it was, neatly concealed behind the thermostat. Her gloved finger tips pushed the thermostat facing to one side before punching in the key-code on the panel. The red LED rolled over green. Penny chided herself for almost forgetting to slide the thermostat back in place, but she remembered.
The inner door now unlocked, Penny entered the showroom floor of the shop. Hundreds of thousands of English pounds worth of jewelry and show-pieces glittered beneath their displays, managing to shine despite the relative darkness.
"I am sorry, dear, truly." Mortimer wheezed into his webcam after exhaling a thick cloud of cigar smoke in his office. The once beautiful leather of the furniture was now coated with a yellowy film from years of tobacco abuse. The pages of the many well-shelved books were similarly discolored.
Stilette's beautiful visage glared back at him icily. Aside from the black silk blouse Mortimer could see her wearing, she was clad only in a pair of matching black panties, her toes lightly resting on top of a pair of black skimmer flats. "I am sure you are, Mortimer." She said at last. "Sorry does not tell me how Vandergou disappeared or how he was compromised. Sorry does not tell me who these people are." She leaned forward as the tone of her voice lowered. "You are my intelligence man, Mortimer. I pay you very handsomely for that privilege." Her toes had slid all the way back to the incredibly shallow heel-cups of her flats, her face now just a few scant inches from the monitor and the integrated camera. "You have twelve hours to get me what I want to know. If you do not," Stilette leaned back and steepled her fingers, her bare toes dragging back up her flats, leaving them askew. "I will make you wish you had." She said quietly with finality. The green of her eyes did not leave Mortimer's as she reached over and killed the chat program.
Mortimer rapidly snubbed out his cigar before fumbling with his mouse and closing the program. He reached for his desk phone but hesitated. His years of service to Stilette had been well-rewarded, but they also had burned through much of the influence and favors he used to get the information and pull the strings she needed. He swallowed hard as he picked up the receiver and set to dialing.
"Alizarin, alizarin," Penny's watcher said rapidly, the usual calm of the voice disturbed. Penny had only just re-enabled the alarm from the inside. Her eyes widened at the code word. Over the posh Italian marble tiles of the floor, she half slid, half darted for the back of the store.
Moments later, the outer door unlocked and opened. A pair of men entered the cloak room, the older of the two laughing jovially before he pushed the thermostat aside and began to unlock the interior. Penny split her attention, straining to hear the entrants while scanning the back room. It was nearly pitch dark save for the bright red glow of the smoke alarm visible in the rear of the storage room. She knew a corridor bisected the storeroom and led to the lab and the sizing and gem-cutting workstations, the tools of the jeweler's trade.
Looking at the hardwood of the floor, Penny slipped out of her shoes, each in turn. The warmth of her white stockinged soles began to cool against the floor. She picked up her loafer-pumps and eased back further from the door as she heard the two men getting closer.
"Mortimer Dane here. I need to speak with him." Mortimer said into the phone as he paced around his office. On each revolution, he thrust a hand in to the crystal-glass candy dish on the edge of his desk and fished out a sweet. Minutes passed. Sweat beaded down the baldness of his head only to get caught in his mustache or sideburns. He had just enough time to begin humming nervously before he heard the line connect on the other end.
"Mortimer?" The Director General let a touch of disdain wrinkle out of his erudite Oxford accent.
"Yes, sir," Mortimer tried and failed to quietly spit out the mouth full of candy he'd accumulated into the ash tray on his desk. "Terribly sorry to bother you at this hour." He said, sugar still thick on his lips.
"I doubt that, but do go on." There was dry British humor, and then there was the barren mirthless sort of perfunctory humor that only the worn down and hardened possessed. The Director General exclusively exhibited the latter in Mortimer's experience.
"There was an old acquaintance of mine, a CI from my time with the Firm, by the name of Vandergou. Worked as a high-end fence."
"Is there going to be a question sometime this evening?" The Director General's eyes lingered across his palatial bed room at the sleeping form of his wife. Theirs was a loveless marriage. That however had ceased to be a concern for him when he achieved sufficient responsibility in MI5 that he needed to order the executions of deniable assets on a monthly basis. For Queen and country.
"Yes sir, terribly sorry. Vandergou's recently gone missing. Plucked out of his house on Kingsway not long ago. I knew that couldn't happen without the Firm knowing about it."
The Director General sighed. Still not a proper question. He answered regardless. "It wasn't one of ours. UN. Security Council as I understand it. I'm not familiar with the particulars." He wouldn't divulge them even if he was.
"Oh." Mortimer said, his round features twisted in confusion. "I see, sir. Thank you. I'll take it up with the Yard then."
"You do that, Dane. Goodnight." The Director General ended the call.
The soles of Penny's stockinged feet had turned ashen gray from dust as she knelt behind cover in the gem-cutting room. She could hear both men speaking plainly in the store room.
"What about ole Vandy, eh? Got pinched y'know?" The younger man said.
"That he did. A shame that. I was his rock man, but you know that. Oh, lo these long years, I've had quite a bit of business from old Vandergou." The older man, his voice more cultured, paused as he poured something for the two of them. "Here's to he. May the chains he wear be light ones."
"Right," the younger man said, toasting with the older man.
"Veridian?" The watcher asked Penny through her earpiece. Silently, she reached into her coat, turned on her mic and tapped it twice in rapid succession with her fingertip before turning it off again.
"Phthalo," the watcher said back, acknowledging her status.
"Now, onto business." The older man said. Penny heard him clap his palms together before rubbing them vigorously.
Stilette stewed in her Vault. With Vandergou gone, she was left without her biggest fence and a friend. His connections had been invaluable over the years and he was one of the rare few that Stilette didn't simply view as a contact. They'd been close. She sighed with frustration as she collapsed back onto her enormous circular bed, her black flats slipping free and falling from her feet as she did so. She pushed back into the heaping satin sheets before her eyes fell onto one of the curved nightstands that flanked either side of her bed. She smirked as she saw Penny's shoe sitting there.
"Twenty thousand? Oh come off it, Rog! I'm not council house, am I?" The younger man said, anger rising in his voice.
"Come, come, come now. It's perfectly fair in light of the market and the street prices."
"Fair my arse!" Penny heard the younger man say. Then her phone began to vibrate. Her eyes wide with alarm, her hands dove into her coat to silence the faint whirring of the vibration. She thought she'd set it to no interruptions.
"Rookie mistakes," she cursed in her mind.
Stilette laughed for the first time all day as she took pictures of Penelope's shoe to taunt her with. Nothing cheeky this time, just simple pictures. Each picture sent as a separate message naturally.
"What the hell is that?" The younger man said before immediately going silent. The older man waited and listened likewise. He too heard the faint whirring. "'S'at your phone?" The younger man asked.
"I should think not," the older man said as his eyes began to dart around. "One of my employees might have left theirs behind."
Penny finally swiped off all notifications and alerts. Her phone fell silent. She heard both men grow quiet as they listened. Her dusty stockinged toes fidgeted against one another as she listened with baited breath.
"Yes, it's Mortimer! How's Bea?" Mortimer rapidly drummed his fingers across his desk as he spoke to Chief Superintendent Lankshire.
"Oh she's fine, just fine. And Ruthy?"
"Tip-top." Mortimer chuckled with mock jovialness. "Say, Andy, I don't suppose you know about any business off Kingsway a few nights back. Fellow name of Vandergou..."
"Oh that! No end of trouble that was. Real spook types come in, waving round UN badges, that rot you know. Still here in fact."
"Is that so?" Mortimer was legitimately surprised.
"Quite. Something happening in Mayfair tonight. We were asked to remain faithful and punctual in our regular duties and that was that. I thought you might know a bit about more given your time with, well, you know."
"Sadly no. I don't suppose you have a name or two I could run down, these UN types?"
"Matter of fact, yes. Spoke with a pleasant gentleman on the phone. Arji Assif, I believe it was. With the UN according to his ident."
Mortimer's pen flew across a piece of his stationary as he wrote down the name. "Thanks so much, Andy. If I should learn a bit more, I'll share?"
"Please do. Devil of a thing."
"Right. Ta ta."
"Bye, Mortimer."
As soon as the line was dead, Mortimer's clubbed fingers rapidly dialed another number. He licked his lips, from the sugar, the anticipation, and the fact that he just might be on to something for Stilette after all.
The door to the gem-cutting room was already ajar. Rog, the older man, pushed it open the rest of the way. Penelope made herself small behind the workbench she used for cover. She held her shoes in one hand and her Occulus-issued sidearm in the other.
"Nothing here," Rog called back to the younger man just to placate him. He pulled the door closed behind him. Penny didn't let herself breath easy just yet.
Their voices were muffled. Definitely back in the storeroom, but unintelligible. Penny got to her feet and padded over to the door to eavesdrop.
"Arji Assif, according to our assets in Interpol, is a judiciary liaison, a go-between, that bridges Interpol with the International Criminal Court at the Hague. A special appointee-at-large of the United Nations Security Council, a diplomatic immunity holder, courtesy Holland of course, and a high-ranking member of a NATO joint-operations oversight organization that has no proper name, but was referred to as 'Occulus' in a single non-circulatory memorandum. I think they are the people responsible for the...kerfluffle in Argentina." Aside from one little pause at the end, Mortimer had recited it all rapidly in a single breath. "In short," Mortimer caught his breath in gulps of air. "He, and this Occulus, are not the sort we should make enemies of."
Stilette pursed her lips and raised one razor-sharp eyebrow on screen; she let her dangling flat fall from her toes under her desk. "Oh ho, but I think that line has already been crossed." She said coolly. "But still, good work."
"Thank you," Mortimer said breathlessly.
"You mentioned something current, an operation in London?"
"Yes. Given that we can now say they were responsible for Vandergou's removal, I think it's safe to assume they're acting on intelligence from him and working through his intermediaries, associates, friends..."
"Until they come back to us," Stilette finished for him.
"Yes, I would think so."
"Thank you, Mortimer. I'll speak with you soon."
"A moment, please." He pleaded. "There's one more thing."
Stilette moved her hand away from her mouse. "What is it?"
"That American you had me run before, Shear? The same assets in Interpol turned up something new on her."
Stilette smirked faintly, expecting a pleasant diversion from the never-ending games of cloak and dagger where the shadowy worlds of spies, thieves, and politicians met. Out of sight, she gripped the leg of her desk with her bare toes and began to stroke it. "I'm all ears." She was hungry for anything Penny related.
Mortimer winced as he began to speak. Something told him Stilette wouldn't be pleased.
Penny had seized on the opportunity as it presented itself. The younger man had gone after they'd completed their business. Rog lingered behind.
In an instant, Penny rounded the corner to the storeroom in her stockinged feet. Taking Rog by surprise, he was cuffed and taken down in an instant, the old man no match for fit young Penelope Shear.
Her sidearm, still on safe, snapped into place on the side of his neck while her knee landed atop of his back. "Roger Anseworth." She said. It wasn't a question. Feeling the cold composite of the barrel against his neck, Rog went deathly still.
"Yes," he said meekly through labored breaths with Penny atop him, his bladder barely containing its contents.
"You used to play bag man for Vandergou; you didn't just trade on gems. Don't deny it."
"That's right," the older man gave it up immediately. He'd survived his few brushes with the more violent elements of the underworld in the past by being cooperative.
"I want everything he gave you for safekeeping before he was arrested. Everything."
"I, I, I understand." Rog waited plaintively after stuttering out an affirmative.
Penny eased off of Rog while keeping her weapon trained on him. She pulled him up to his knees and then his feet with her off-hand. He began to shuffle toward the corridor. He glanced behind him for the first time. Penny wasn't what he expected.
Stilette had grown silent after Mortimer finished explaining the recent series of international clearances Penny had received, her willful termination of service with her old department back in the States, the UN appointee tag added to her passport, and the lack of a change of address filing. "I think...it's safe to say she's been..."
"Yes, Mortimer, I put that together already, thank you." Stilette said back snappishly before her eyes darted over to her phone on the nightstand with Penny's work pump. "I'm going to give you her cell number. I want to know where the phone is. Right now."
"Three, three, three, seven, nine, two," Roger said while he faced the wall to Penny's left. She kept him and the safe in her sight picture at the same time as she tapped the numbers into the safe's keypad, her weapon still pointed at him. The wall safe beeped pleasantly before unlocking.
She turned the handle and opened it immediately. Aside from stacks of hard currency, she saw velvet parcels of gems, and a variety of different keys each tagged with a bit of tape with different alphanumerics scribbled on them in marking pen.
"One of the keys is, er, was Vandy's. Labeled v-oh-nine." Rog cleared his throat awkwardly. Penny snatched up the key immediately and slid it into a vest pocket.
"What else?"
"That's all."
"What does it go to, Roger?" Penny took a step closer to him as she clarified.
"A locker at Heathrow. They, they all do." He shifted uncomfortably. "Personal effects largely. Nothing a hound could sniff out. They do that, you know." He rambled nervously.
"Did you know him well?" Penny asked, letting her voice soften a hair.
"Yes. Old chums he and I. Our sons went to school together." Rog answered instantly, his voice quivering slightly.
"Did he ever mention a woman, a thief, named Stilette?" Penny waited, her heart fluttering differently than it had been.
"Y-y-yes. Yes, he did. Not professionally of course. Good chap about business, utmost discretion. No, just privately."
"What did he tell you about her?" Penny's eyes unconsciously drifted down to her stockinged toes, the opaque white of them having become gray in patches.
"She has a home here in London. Witty. Nice car. Brought him the most interesting takes..." Rog didn't get to finish before Penny cut him off.
"Where, her home, do you know where?"
"Queenhithe I think. An old place, untouched from the Blitz, Vandy'd said. I don't know anymore. About that."
Stilette drove through the streets of London in her roadster, the whitewalls gleaming against the glossy black pearl of the paint. Every fiber of her being told her to speed, to drive fast, and take chances. She didn't. Living in one of the most surveilled cities in the world had taught her much about hiding in plain sight.
She knew Mayfair very well. The high-end shops, law firms, and the rackets they hid were old intimates of hers. She slowed to a crawl at the parking garage adjoining a four-star hotel. Her smile and a few lilting lies were enough to get her past the valet.
As she parked inside, she pulled up the sleeve of her slick short rain coat to look at her wearable. She began to scan for local radio traffic on marginal bands.
"Veridian?" The watcher asked. "Veridian," he repeated. Penny tapped back. "Phthalo," he said back to Penny. "Asset nominal," he said aloud to the team lead in the back of the van.
"Asset nominal. Guest still on scene." The team lead typed to Arji Assif on her laptop.
Comfortably nested halfway around the world, Arji simply typed back, "Maintain." He glanced at other screens nearby, a faint smile on his lips, waiting for other sitreps and updates from other teams around the globe. Unlike the Director General, Arji did not take his work for a burden. It was an honor and a singular joy to hold so many keys to so many kingdoms. Arji began to hum along to himself pleasantly, in tune and time with the fourth movement of Das Lied von der Erde as its early notes played softly from the surround system in his office.
The whimsy of the strings slowed, and then, the glorious crescendoing waves of brass swelled as another message to him appeared from a team in Uruguay. Arji smiled as he typed his response back to them. "Terminate." Arji hummed on, his smile fixed in place.
Penny dusted off her feet before slowly stepping back into her shoes. She'd never been self-conscious about the act before in her life, but she'd had Rog turn away under other pretenses. Ever since the Armigen incident, everything had been different.
"I was never here. You never saw me. And I didn't take anything." She bent forward slightly as she removed the hand-cuffs from Roger.
"Yes, y-yes, I understand completely." He immediately wrung his hands and wrists but made no effort to get up from his aching knees.
"You're going to wait five minutes before you leave. You won't call anyone or make any effort to stop me. We are watching." Penny, having already swept him for weapons, didn't take any chances and backed away while facing him until she reached the storefront and the showroom proper once again. Her heart was in her ears at the things she'd learned from Rog, but she kept her cool.
Stilette listened. "Veridian," she heard a voice say. Then two taps into a microphone answered. "Phthalo," the voice said again. Her wearable was bleeding edge, but it wasn't a CIA Centra Spike dragnet; she couldn't single-handedly pin-point the radio signals. She could guess based on signal strength and little else.
But Mortimer had come through for her yet again. Penny's phone was here. Stilette both hoped for and dreaded her being here. Occulus, the UN, and now Officer Shear ensnared in their world. The paranoid side of Stilette feared what they may already know. Was it Penny's meddling with Clairemont that attracted their attention? Stilette knew it was ridiculous, but the irrational corners of her mind feared that they knew she had a thing for Penny.
Stilette frowned as she swung her long toned legs out of the roadster. She wore black trousers, ankle-strap classic pumps with no hosiery, the same silk blouse from earlier, and a thigh-length glossy black raincoat, her midnight blue bob pushed back with a hair band. Her face was fresh and clean, no makeup save a hint of ashen gloss across her lips. Aside from her wearable, she carried a minimum of equipment in her raincoat.
With her own modular earpiece concealed by her ear, she continued to listen in on the transmission as she made her through the garage.
Penny hit the cool night air. After turning on her heel and starting back up the street she whispered into her scarf and collar. "Cleaning the brush."
"Phthalo." Her watcher answered back immediately. Stilette, stepping past the valet, concealed her surprise as she heard Penelope's voice for the first time since Armigen Manor. Stilette picked up her pace a bit. She glanced at her wearable, filtered and sorted the transmissions again.
As per the mission plan, Penny headed west, a few short blocks toward Hyde Park. Covering well more than three hundred acres, Hyde Park was one of the largest parks in London. Well covered with foliage, walking paths, corners, square and water features, it was idyllic during the day. At night, the density of the foliage on its edges took on a much more sinister cast.
Past iron posts by the East entrance, Penny glanced behind her. She saw nothing. She continued into the park.
It had become obvious to Stilette where Penny's signal was heading now that it was leaving Mayfair. She headed toward the Park. Stilette knew something about Hyde Park that Penny didn't. It was a virtual deadspot in the city-wide surveillance network. That would either be very good, or catastrophic. Stilette pressed on.
"Asset's entered contact zone." The team lead in London typed to Arji Assif.
"Slack. Ready the palette," he typed back, his lips mouthing German lyrics. "I asked you, Shear," he said aloud to himself. "What sort of officer you were. Tonight, I shall have my answer." Arji let his voice swell with the music as he sang along.
"Don't turn around," Stilette said just above a whisper. Penny stopped dead in her tracks at hearing that voice. "I mean it. I doubt either of us can afford any mistakes tonight." Stilette's voice was even, but a genuine raw tenor of emotion sounded underneath. Penelope had never heard her like that.
Penny heard Stilette's voice coming from her left, just off the foot path she trod. She remained motionless. "How," Penny asked quietly.
"It's not important." Stilette looked around. "Go home, Penelope. You don't want to be a part of whatever this is."
Penny craned her head to the side and looked in Stilette's direction. She could only faintly make out her form in the dark of the trees. "You don't know do you? Who we are, why we're here."
"Occulus, I know. I know enough. And you should too. People like this, Penelope, are not like us. To them, we are not names or faces. We are hashmarks, numbers, or designations."
"Why did you come here?" Penny asked at least. She answered before Stilette could. "Just to warn me?"
"Well," Stilette paused. "Your phone was off." It was the first time tonight she'd heard the wry Stilette she'd first met.
"Asset's black in contact zone, no rendezvous with team." The team lead typed rapidly.
Arji's fingers flew across the keys and answered. "Drybrush." His singing grew silent as he fixed his attention on the screen, eager for the next update in lieu of his last command.
"Thinner. Thinner. Thinner." The watcher said through Penny's earpiece. Stilette could tell something was wrong by the change in her posture. Flustered and desperate to stall, Penny turned her radio on and said. "Muddled, repeat, muddled." From the crunch of leaves, Stilette was already turning to bolt. "Wait," Penny called after her before ducking for the treeline where Stilette had been.
Penny's earpiece fell out and dangled from its chord as she toppled forward in the leaves and grass of the thicket, one loafer-pump leaving her foot in the tumble. She ditched the other one as she got to her feet to continue chasing Stilette.
A low wall stood between Stilette and freedom. In the distance, she heard the screeching of tires. Stilette was in mid-vault when Penelope grabbed her coat and pulled her backward. Stilette slipped free of the raincoat almost immediately, the glow of her wearable's screen illuminating both women amid the grass and leaves.
The white soles of Penny's stockinged feet were streaked with dirt and grass stains as she fell backward with the raincoat. Stilette's blouse had lost a button, her ample cleavage heaved with her breathing as she struggled to her feet. Before Penny could barrel forward again to grab at her, Stilette looked down at her and said, "Come with me."
Penny was stunned. Stilette's face told Penny the thief hadn't expect to say it. Regretting it, or confused with herself and desperate to escape, Stilette threw one leg over the low stone wall. Penny lunged.
Like a lover, Penelope wrapped her arms around Stilette's trousered leg, one hand snaking up her thigh and the slick fabric of the trousers, the other toward her ankle. "I can't," she managed to say, her throat dry and knotting as she collapsed on her side of the wall, desperate to keep Stilette.
Stilette struggled with her, using her leg on the other side to pull away while her hands gripped the edge of the wall. "I know," Stilette half-grunted half-moaned back at her. Penelope's gloved fingers had found the gap between Stilette's arch and her pump. Penny probed them inside to keep better hold of her, the ankle-strap on Stilette's shoe doing its job of keeping her pump in place. It was distressingly close to a fantasy Penny had had.
Suddenly, Stilette, her leg still hooked on the other side of the wall, leaned back. With one hand, she pushed the hair out of Penelope's eyes. With the other she reached down to undo the ankle strap of her pump. "Penny," Stilette said to her, their eyes meeting with her hand sweeping down to her cheek, "please." Stilette tugged the little end of the ankle strap taught so the buckle undid itself, then she pulled away.
Penny felt her perfect foot glide through her hand, Stilette's pump landing with Penny on the other side of the well. Despite herself, perhaps in answer to Stilette's plea, her grip loosened on Stilette's thigh. Free, Stilette briefly paused on the wall, her trousered leg and bare foot resting on top. "Thank you," Stilette whispered before dropping to the other side.
Penny, her mind a tangled mix of arousal, frustration, and adrenaline watched Stilette go. She heard heavy footprints moving through the thicket toward her location. Before she was found, she snatched up Stilette's shoe and stuffed it into her pea coat. She briefly fought back tears, but she couldn't articulate why.