The Paparazzi Blunder (Christian & Anastasia - Snippet #4)

“Send him in please, Andrea.”

He extends his hand in sincerity with a wide smile on his face, and instead of gripping my hand, he grasps my wrist as he always have done in the past, with the other hand firmly hitting the side of my other arm.

“Grey! Glad to see you in one piece my friend!” he says in a self-assured voice.

“Alex,” I give him a solemn nod and an acknowledging smile.

I point to a chair before my desk, and he sinks in it in an elegant crouch like a hunter. He crosses his leg above his knee, and acknowledges Taylor in the corner of the room.

“Hello Taylor,” he says nodding.

“Mr. Pella,” replies Taylor in the same way military man does to a higher ranking officer.

“How long will you be in town?” I ask even though we both know I know the answer.

“I’m only here for today. I came to help with the investigation of your EC135. And I have compiled all the findings the experts come up and the security personnel...” he says pausing.

“I hear a ‘but’ coming up.”

“Yes, there is a ‘but’. I don’t have to tell you the kinds of aircrafts I know. I buy them, I sell them, and I know them inside out. I’m sure that you have suspected foul play when both your engines went down.” I nod.

“I have conclusively confirmed that it is foul play after going through all the evidence. And evidence as a concept is something like an ancient language. One must speak it and read it in order to understand it. Otherwise, it is gibberish to any other person. So few can read it even if they can speak it.”

“That’s where you come in,” I say with a smile.

“Yes. I have the technical reports here for you. But, I also managed to extract a partial print which didn’t belong to you or your passenger.”

I straighten up in my seat.

“A partial print?”

“Yes. We ran some checks in some known data bases. Nothing came up... yet. However, as your own head of security would agree, it doesn’t mean that the print doesn’t exist in another database. If the print exists on your helicopter, so does the person. In order to check the criminal records, I would dig deep and check sealed records as well.”

“Why do you say that?”

Alex leans in and his dark blonde curls move with him. He narrows his turquoise eyes. His eyes slightly shift to Taylor, and then look back at me. I nod at him understanding his meaning. Taylor needs to hear it.

“Like I said, reading signs is like reading an ancient language. The evidence that is present as well as what isn’t there are important. A partial print left by a person who hates you so much that he or she took the risk of being caught, and damaged your helicopter in such a way that you would take flight, but that it would fail you during your flight. He wanted to ensure that you were dead. He wanted to ensure that you didn’t make it down alive. What’s more, he wanted to make sure that it looked very much like an accident...” He pauses, sits back in his seat and the leather of the chair accommodates him by sinking deep. He lets me absorb the impact of the information he has given me.

“You said ‘he’. How can you be sure?”

“I’ll get to that. Now, this is a calculating man. But a little overanxious angry man; a man who has possibly either lost everything to risk so much, or incredibly stupid, but then the level of detail he put in, and the attention he paid to his deed, one which you would have to admire from the devious point of view, makes me think that he is in fact very intelligent,” he says making me frown, “you, my friend, have an enemy who would go to extents to eliminate you, and take risks an ordinary person wouldn’t. Only a man who has nothing to lose would do that.”

“Why not a woman? Don’t they say, ‘hell has no fury like a woman scorned’?” I ask.

“No!” he says firmly. “Women operate differently. They can be more devious than a man, but, women like to let you know how you have scorned them, and how they are getting even with you. Men in the other hand, first kill you and then measure the size your dick, and then tell you how you won’t get to fuck with him again.”

“Is it just a hunch?”

“Hunches are like sixth senses, Grey. Being a man who calculates his steps six months in advance, I would never base a conclusion on a hunch. It may just be a starting point, but never a conclusion. You have evidence enough to support that. You just have to look in the right places. The answers are available for the right questions.”

I feel frustrated. What the hell does that mean? Where do I get to look? I run my hand through my hair. Fuck! I feel like I’m playing Jeopardy on “Everything You Never Learned” category!

He shoves a neatly arranged file with a CD.

“Your man Welch has a copy of these results,” he says. I nod with a frown.

“My starting point is that I have an enemy who is a man. That’s it?”

“It’s not written in stone, but I’m certain that it is a man. Your modern science calls this ‘profiling’, doesn’t it? You may assume that I have psychological profile of your ‘would be killer’. Someone who is extremely intelligent, angry, and bent on some sort of revenge to the point of making sure you are dead. What’s worse, he doesn’t care who dies along with you. That’s why he didn’t care that you would have a passenger in your helicopter. They just become collateral damage. That’s one hell of an enemy. If you’re anything like me...” he says then smiles with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, “of course, you are sort of like me, I’d ask what toes you have crushed, but in my case, it’d be many. However, I would assume that you have might also have a standing order of them as well. We don’t get to be the kind of men we are; driven, controlled, and ambitious and on top of everyone’s game to the point of obsession, and not make a list of enemies.”

“How do I know if it’s a recent enemy or someone in the past that is just waiting for the right opportunity?” I ask with an impassive face, my rage carefully tucked under the surface.

“That will present itself in a short time. Because he has made this attempt, and nearly succeeded will make him more daring, but also angrier for having failed. He will try again for sure, against you and yours. To exert you the greatest pain till he gets his assumed due, he may try to get to you through the ones you value, most likely before he attempts to kill you again. He’ll let you know who took you under, right before he takes you under.”

“How can you be certain?”

Alex Pella’s eyes darkened as if he morphed into a different man.

“That wouldn’t be what I would do, because I am on top of my game, but that’s what a raging second best does. Someone who lost the alpha fight. First order of things for you must be is to up your security for every living person you value! For everyone you would grieve upon losing,” he says as if he has gone through an experience so painful, even talking about it in another man’s terms, gave him excruciating pain.

His mask of assumed confidence slips back in place in just a few seconds.

“Protection is the first order of things. Cover your ass, and the asses of those whom you value while you’re investigating. You have a starting point, and your man Welch is a shrewd one. You have a solid man protecting you in Taylor. They know what to do in sweeps. Tighten the ins and outs to your properties, your places of business you frequent, and obviously your modes of transportation,” he says rising to his feet.

“I am here for the duration of the day, but I have to leave tomorrow morning. I have an unfinished business to attend.”

“Thank you Alex!” I get up. As he extends his hand again his jacket opens up, and I notice a concealed weapon in his jacket.

“You’re packing?”

“Of course, I’d feel naked without it.”

“How did you pass my security with a concealed weapon?”

“You don’t want me to give you tricks of the trade, do you now Grey?” he says with a boyish grin I remember so well from Harvard. I smirk at him.

“Why do you have to have a gun?” I can’t help asking because of my dislike of weapons.

“Well, Grey, I thought it’d take too much time to manually insert the bullets into men who wished me dead,” he says with a genuine smile.

“Isn’t that what your exaggerated security is for?” I ask sarcastically.

“It’d be unwise to not to for men like us,” he shrugs.

“I don’t know how a gun would have saved me when my helicopter was going down,” I say acidly.

“It’s because guns are tools. Your best weapon is your head which you seemed to have used very well. But it doesn’t hurt to be aware of the tools your enemies might employ and be proficient in them.”

“You and I will have to agree to disagree on weapons as tools,” I say, and lead Alex out.

My Blackberry buzzes.

I open the message as I stand with Alex Pella by the elevators. An idiotic grin comes up to my face as soon as I see her name on my phone’s screen.

“By the way,” Alex says after seeing my grin. “I hear that my congratulations are in order,” he adds as his security joins him into the elevator car. Before the door closes he adds, “if what I see from your smile is correct, you might want to make her, your protection worthy asset number 1. Cura ut valeas* my friend...” he says, and the door closes as I’m left standing with my Blackberry in hand with an overwhelming dread that Anastasia might be taken away from me. I'd die. I'd be worse than dead. I shake my head to clear the thoughts. I have to hear her. I have to feel her presence...

"Taylor! We're leaving."