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Highlander fic: The Lesser Evil (1/2)
Title: The Lesser Evil
Fandom: Highlander
Rating/pairing: PG-13, gen
Warnings: (skip) Implied (very off-camera) child abuse. Also some gory violence.
Word Count: 11,800
Notes: For the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hc_bingo prompt "Extortion".
Summary: Someone is trying to blackmail Amanda, but dragging her friends into it was a really bad idea.
Crossposts: On DW | on AO3
The first note was slipped under her hotel room door in Madrid. Thick creamy paper crumpled under her shoe, and when she smoothed it out, Amanda found a few lines written in a crisp, confident hand.
I know you cannot die. I will pay you handsomely to do a job for me.
No contact information.
She was at first puzzled, then, for a minute or two, she was quite tempted. But no, nothing good could come of an offer like that. Perhaps this would be an excellent time to visit another city and steer clear of Madrid for a while.
******
The second note appeared two weeks later in Cairo. It was on her balcony railing, weighted with a stone, when she came back from a pleasant evening dancing with a young man she'd met on the beach. (Well, technically he was forty-three. But they were all young men to her.)
Her hotel room was on the fourth floor. Amanda checked the entire suite thoroughly before she closed the curtains, locked the door, and unfolded the note.
She hadn't kept the other note, but she was pretty sure it was the same handwriting. As a forger of no small accomplishment, Amanda knew how to read the marks of a pen on paper as well as the words that they formed.
I can find you no matter where you go. I will pay you well in return for your help. Otherwise I will expose your secret. Think about it. I will contact you again soon.
Amanda crumpled the note furiously into a tight ball. That wasn't enough to calm her down. She tore it into tiny pieces and set them on fire in the hotel room's sink, washing the ashes down the drain. Better. Slightly.
"Impudent, arrogant, idiotic ..." she seethed at her reflection in the mirror. She wasn't quite sure whether she meant the mortal who had left the notes -- it had to be a mortal; none of their kind would try something like this -- or herself, for obviously being careless enough to let something slip somewhere she shouldn't have.
The thought did cross her mind that it might be some kind of joke, but she didn't think even Methos's sense of humor was that twisted. Speaking of Methos, perhaps this would be a good time to take a page from his book. "No matter where I go? Really? Let's find out."
******
The next note was brought to her a month later, while she sipped a lousy beer in a bar that occupied a mobile home trailer in a small town in Mexico that she hadn't bothered to learn the name of. It wasn't her usual scene, but well, that was the point, wasn't it?
She was traveling under the name Rose Mathis, pretending to be American. Not that it mattered after this many years whether she was or wasn't. Duncan was one of the only Immortals she knew who kept such a strong sense of his own ethnic identity. None of them could truly move beyond their upbringing -- though many try; I'm one of them -- but national boundaries were transitory as spring clouds when one had learned to think in terms of centuries rather than decades.
"Señorita Mathis?" The bartender held out a package wrapped in brown paper and slightly stained. It was labeled neatly with her pseudonym -- her heart sank when she recognized the handwriting.
"Who left this for me?" Apparently it had been dropped off at the hotel where she'd been staying in the last town, and passed along with a delivery driver going in this direction. The trail was already cold. She gave him a couple of hundred-peso notes and then stared at the package for a while before opening it.
It contained a pre-paid cell phone and another note on that heavy cream-colored paper. The note was longer this time.
Dear Rose (or Amanda? Lilah? Clarissa?), it began, and Amanda clenched her teeth, reminding herself to abandon those aliases for a while.
I hope I've made my point. Certainly you could avoid me if you truly wish to, but only by avoiding the world. Do you really want to live in a convent for the next fifty years, hoping that I'll die of old age? I have a simple job that I want you to do for me. At 9 p.m. Mexico City time, on August 19th, be somewhere that you can get reception on this phone, and we'll talk. If not, I'll call at the same time every second day afterwards.
The date was four days ago -- the package had been pursuing her for some time, it seemed. The hint of fallibility in her enemy was a relief, actually: he was good, but he wasn't omnipotent and he wasn't perfect. Amanda checked her watch. Two hours until the rendezvous time. She powered on the phone, and held it up. One bar. Well, two hours was enough time to drive to the top of the hill outside town and see if the reception was better there.
At 8:59 p.m., she'd found a place where she could get two bars (flickering occasionally to three) and parked her rented, battered jeep conspicuously by the road. Amanda herself went to ground in the scrub brush several hundred yards up the hill. She had her sword and the best distance weapon she'd been able to obtain on extremely short notice, a beat-up hunting rifle that she'd bought from the bartender's cousin.
At 9 p.m. on the dot, the phone rang. Amanda took a deep breath, hunkered down behind the rock she'd found for cover, and answered it with a terse, "Hello."
"Amanda. A pleasure to hear from you." The voice was male, smooth and cultured. Amanda struggled to place the accent: American East Coast, with perhaps a hint of London? It was not a voice she recognized. The return number was American; she didn't know the area code, but committed it to memory.
"Let's not pretend to be friends," she hissed into the phone. "You have ten seconds to tell me why you've been chasing me around the world or I hang up and throw this phone down the nearest outhouse hole."
"Ah, we'll get down to business, then." He sounded as friendly as if she'd greeted him with hearts and flowers. "First of all, I know that you don't age and you can't be killed -- at least not easily. This makes you perfect for what I have in mind."
"Which is?" Amanda asked warily. He's not Immortal. And he's not a Watcher. He doesn't know what we are.
"I need you to kill someone for me. When you can provide me proof of his death, I'll pay you twenty million dollars, American -- or the equivalent currency of your choice. I'm also open to compensating you in other ways, should you prefer: art, gold, jewelry, a yacht, a plane?"
Amanda licked her dry lips. She didn't think he was lying. About any of it. "I'm not a killer for hire."
"Everyone is for hire for anything, if the price is right."
"I said no. I'm not interested."
"I'm sorry," he said politely, not sounding sorry at all. "Didn't I make it clear in my previous communication with you? The only possible answer is yes. If you refuse, I'll expose you for what you really are. But I'd like our relationship to be a mutually beneficial one. I am prepared to pay you very nearly anything you ask."
"I don't make deals with blackmailers."
"Well," he said, "since you're still on the fence, I'll give you a few days to think about it. Why don't I call you again at this time, on this phone, in a week?"
And with that, he hung up.
"Asshole!" Amanda shouted at the phone.
Her first thought, though she hated herself for it, was to call MacLeod. But no, no, damn it. She was a big girl. She didn't need to go crying to MacLeod every time she got herself in a bit of trouble. This jerk didn't know who he was messing with.
******
"All I can tell you is that he called you from a burn phone."
"A what?" Amanda asked.
"A pre-paid phone like this one. Not his own. Probably bought it from a street vendor somewhere."
"Technology," Amanda muttered. It was so hard to stay abreast of it.
Her contact just grinned. His name was Weasel. She'd known him for a few years, and others like him; Amanda didn't believe in wasting time learning to do something yourself if you could pay other people to do it, and she'd figured out the advantages of seeking out contacts in the telecommunications industry back in the days when the "tele" part stood for telegraph.
"Well, what can you tell me? I'm not paying you to sit around and jerk off to Internet porn, Weasel. I thought you were a man who could learn things."
"I am, if there's anything to learn. What have you got to go on? An untraceable phone with no prints but yours. I can work you up a cell-tower trace and a recording setup for the next time he calls ..."
"What about handwriting analysis?" Amanda dangled the most recent note, the only one she'd kept so far. "This paper looks expensive, too. Can you do anything with that?"
"I can't, but I know some people who can." He took it, and she relinquished it reluctantly, hating to give up her one tangible connection to her tormenter. "Mandy, honey, come on, I can't help you if you don't trust me."
"I don't trust you, Weasel, any farther than I'm paying you. And don't call me Mandy."
Weasel grinned, showing crooked teeth. "But you're paying me well."
"Yes, I am. So don't disappoint me."
Back on the street, she looked up more of her contacts, sent out feelers in the underworld and also among the handful of society connections that she'd nurtured over the years. He's rich, she thought. Probably American or has spent a lot of time there. Must have fairly extensive connections of his own, or he couldn't keep finding me. And she knew it was like hunting for a needle in a haystack. In her many years as a thief, swindler and con artist Amanda had stolen from kings and presidents, gangsters and corporate executives, rich widows and other thieves. The world was full of wealthy, well-connected people, and most of them were quite experienced at hiding their tracks if they wanted to.
The day before her next scheduled conversation with the blackmailer, she went back to Weasel and picked up the phone, this time with new hardware installed -- a black box clamped onto the side. "Stylish," Amanda said, rotating it.
"I can slap on a coat of paint, but it'll be a few G's extra."
Amanda snorted. "Yeah, no, I'll dab on some fingernail polish and call it good. What do I do?"
"Nothing. It'll activate when he calls -- or when anyone calls. At least it'll let you know where in the world he's calling from, not with pinpoint accuracy but enough to start getting a move on finding him. And it'll get him on tape." He handed her an envelope. "I'll save the suspense. No prints or DNA on the letter except yours. Handwriting analysis, short version: male, good private-school education, either confident to the point of egotism, or fakes it very well. Possibly sociopathic."
"I could've told you that."
Phone in hand, she returned to her hotel -- and discovered a manilla envelope taped to her door, with a bulge at the bottom. Nothing was written on it. Amanda poked at it, then opened the door and retrieved a set of thin black gloves (don't leave home without them) to untape the envelope and empty it onto the bed.
A cell phone slid out.
"Oh, you absolute bastard."
Someone must have left it there. She ran down to the front desk and began questioning employees, explaining that her creepy stalker ex-boyfriend had somehow managed to find her hotel. They were sympathetic, but no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary -- people came and went from hotels all the time. Which of course was what her enemy had been counting on.
She'd just closed the door of her room when the new cell rang. Amanda jumped, then picked it up reluctantly. "Yes," she snapped.
"Amanda," said the silky voice. "Or maybe you prefer Desirée?" That was the name she'd used when checking into the hotel.
"When I find you, I'll make you wish you were Immortal."
"Temper," the voice said smoothly. "I realize that I'm pushing up our deadline a bit, but I believe in being unpredictable. It helps to prevent unpleasant surprises. Despite the rush, I assume you've been thinking over my offer. May I have an answer, please?"
"First of all, I don't plan to give you an answer until you tell me who you want me to kill for you and why," Amanda said. "I don't know who or what you think I am, but I'm no one's hired assassin."
"Of course not. I've researched you thoroughly. You're a petty thief and compulsive liar," the voice crooned. Amanda's mouth dropped open in fury. "What I'm offering is a better deal than you could find on your own in a lifetime. With the amount of money I'm willing to pay for one small task, you can retire from your risk-taking life and live happily for a good many years. Or stash it away for a rainy day and continue to live as you like, knowing that you have that security blanket. In any case --"
Amanda finally got her voice back. "You miserable, conniving --"
"In any case," he went on over the top of her, "yes or no? I'm sure I've already proven that I can find you no matter where you go. If I want to, I can give out your location to anyone I choose. You'll never be safe again."
I'm tired of being afraid, she'd once told Duncan. It was at times like this that a millennia of independence, of battle-hardness fell away from her, and she remembered once again what it was like to be that long-ago street child, stepped on and kicked and chased. The trapped feeling left her breathless, panicky, her heart racing and her head light.
But the street child, at least, knew how to deal with situations like this. Be what they want you to be, until you can kick them in the teeth and run.
"Okay, fine," she said through her teeth, forcing down fear and misery like bile, trying to sound flippant and cheerful -- just the happy sociopath that he apparently thought she was. "Just tell me what you want, who you want dead and where." And if you think I'm actually doing it, you're crazy. I am a "compulsive liar" after all, you son of a bitch.
"Excellent! I thought we could do business," he said brightly. "The person I need you to kill --"
For one awful instant, she expected him to say "Duncan MacLeod." It would just figure.
"-- is my father. I'll contact you again in one week, with the rest of the information that you need. It doesn't matter where you are; I'll find you."
With that, he hung up.
Amanda stared at the phone for a few minutes, caught between fury and a kind of strange, weary amusement. It was so utterly petty, after all the buildup and the chase -- just some kind of family feud, albeit one that had risen to deadly levels.
A week. Well. Maybe it was time to talk to MacLeod after all. She chose to view it as sharing an amusing story rather than asking for help. At the very least, he might have some ideas for turning the tables on her mystery stalker. She picked up the hotel phone and called information for a travel agency. It'd been awhile since she'd been to Paris anyway.
******
"What do you mean, you don't know where he is? You're his Watcher, aren't you?"
"I'm his Watcher. Doesn't mean I'm his keeper. Have you tried to keep tabs on MacLeod?"
"Eh. True."
Joe shrugged. "He's visiting a friend in Tokyo as far as I know. I could probably get in touch if you really need me to."
"No, no, it's not that important ..." Amanda swiveled on her bar stool to reach for her purse. "Actually, you might be even more help, come to think of it. This is more of a you sort of problem than a MacLeod sort of problem anyway."
She handed Joe the handwritten note and, while he studied it with raised eyebrows, quickly sketched the salient points of the Mystery Stalker situation for him.
"Expose you, huh?" Joe said. "How'd he find out about you, anyway?"
"I have no idea. I don't remember anything of the sort, and what am I supposed to do, make an exhaustive list of every mortal I've ever come in contact with? It's at times like this that being a misanthropic hermit would come in handy. But, Joe, I've met thousands of people in just the last ten years."
"Do you think he's a Watcher?"
"I doubt it. The things he says -- it just doesn't sound right. However ..." She gave him her best winsome look. "I don't suppose you could look up my Chronicle and see if there's anything that's documented recently that might shed some light?"
Joe glowered at her. "Don't the words secret organization mean anything to you?"
"You'd do it for MacLeod." When he showed no signs of softening, she let a small pout slip through, along with perhaps a little of her genuine fear. "Come on, Joe. If he does expose me, it's not just me that'll suffer. It's all of us. Me. Duncan. Methos. Every Immortal you've ever known. Surely you don't want to be responsible for --"
"All right, all right!" He pointed one finger at her. "I'm only doing this to maintain the secret. That's all."
"Of course," she said politely.
Joe poured her two fingers of her favorite brandy and slid it across the bar. "How are you holding up?"
"Me? What?" She sipped her drink. "Fine, why do you ask?"
"Amanda, I've known Mac a long time, remember? I've seen what he's like when he's under siege. And you've got the same look in your eyes. Hunted." He hesitated, then added somewhat awkwardly, "I know that Rebecca tried to make up for --"
"Joe," she snapped. "Don't." She liked Joe. She really did. It hurt to know that in the long run, he'd be no more than a firefly flicker in her long life. But the very concept of the Watchers galled her, and she'd never talked about her early days with Rebecca to anyone but MacLeod. Joe's tacit admission that he'd read her Chronicle already, that he knew that much about her without her consent -- her pains, her loves, her private shames -- was almost more than she could bear. It took all the control she had not to throw the drink in his face.
They both drank in silence for a few minutes before Joe said, "I was out of line. Sorry."
"Not your fault." It wasn't. Neither of them could help being what they were.
"I'll see what I can find out," Joe said. "What are you going to do?"
Amanda sighed. "What I've been doing, I guess. Put out feelers, try to find someone who knows something. He's obviously well-connected, but that should make him easier to find, not harder." She smirked. "It's hard to follow someone across two continents without being spotted. As you know well."
Joe raised his glass. "Touché."
******
Two days later, she was sitting in a sidewalk café, sipping a coffee and going through a handwritten, heavily annotated list of her own movements over the last fifty years. It was just as miserably long and complicated as she'd expected; she'd spent an entire day writing everything down, and she knew she was forgetting so much -- whole months, whole years were missing. "Why couldn't I have been like Methos or Darius, and just settle in one place for decades at a time?" she moaned, and summoned the waiter for another coffee. Joe had given her a short, incomplete list of possible contacts with mortals, but as he pointed out, there was still a ton of information to comb through, and he couldn't ask her Watcher for help without explaining what he was doing and why.
Fifty years was her cut-off because she didn't think the voice on the phone could be older, but for all she knew, it was a family secret passed down through generations. Perhaps she'd given herself away in 1700, and it had taken this long to --
"Excuse me, may I join you?"
Amanda's head snapped up. That voice. It was unmistakably the voice on the phone. And there he was, standing next to her table, three days in advance of the week he'd given her. But he likes to be unpredictable, she thought, as dazed shock gave way to a slowly growing fury.
The Mystery Stalker, definitely mortal, was a tanned, handsome man of about forty-five. His silvering hair was perfectly coifed, not a strand out of place, and his suit had obviously cost more than some people made in a year. He oozed good breeding and money out every pore. Under other circumstances, Amanda was well aware that she would have gone into orbit around him like a bee around a flower, which was just one reason why she hated him on sight.
Without waiting for her to respond with an invitation, he pulled another chair over to her tiny sidewalk table, and sat. In one hand he held a flat manilla envelope.
Amanda eyed him up and down for a weapon. Though nothing showed outwardly, there were a million things that could be hidden in that finely tailored suit. "So," she said. "We meet."
He nodded. "Indeed." He placed the manilla envelope on the table, carefully and deliberately, on top of the stack of papers she'd been perusing. "Since I'm sure you're a resourceful lady and I imagine you're currently thinking of a dozen ways to avoid working for me, none of which will end well for me, I'd like you to take a look at this first."
Amanda studied him with deep suspicion before opening the envelope, wary of hidden traps. She shook its contents onto the table. There was a thick stack of 100-euro notes, held together with a rubber band, and two 8x10 glossy photographs. One was Joe Dawson stepping out of Le Blues Bar, squinting into the sun, but easily recognizable. The other was Joe, from the back, reaching for the door of his Paris apartment.
Amanda studied these, hoping that her face betrayed no reaction. Then she picked up the money and flipped through it with her thumb. It looked genuine.
"A small down payment, to the success of our business partnership," said the Mystery Stalker with a slight smile. "And some insurance for me. I am a strong believer in insurance. As long as I leave this meeting in the same condition in which I arrived, you will never need to learn of the other contingency plans I've put in place."
He looked familiar, though it was hard to tell if it was simply that he looked like every other wealthy businessman and politician she'd met, or if she'd actually met him someplace or seen him on TV. Amanda tried to memorize every line of his face. Killing for money was a line she didn't intend to cross, but killing this man? Yes. She could find it in her heart to do so with little regret.
"Well," she said. "If I'm to be your assassin, then I need to know who you want me to kill. Your father, you said?"
He nodded and reached a hand slowly to the breast pocket of his suit. "May I?" Again without awaiting a response, he removed another envelope and placed it on the table. He laid a hand on top of it.
"This contains everything that you need to do this job for me. Since I don't hire people who are incompetent or lazy, I think that one month should be ample. One month from the time that you open this envelope -- or sooner -- I expect to receive tangible evidence that you've finished it."
Amanda opened and closed her mouth. Finally she said quietly, "And if I don't?"
In the same calm, friendly tone that he'd used throughout the conversation, the Mystery Stalker said, "Then I will have one of your friends killed. And then another, until you are done."
The trapped feeling was back, full-force, humming in her ears and telescoping her vision. It took all the strength to say, in the closest she could manage to a normal tone, "You can certainly try. My friends are immortal too."
He smiled, displaying white, even teeth. "Really? Well, be that as it may, this friend of yours in the photos is clearly not immune to physical damage. So we will hurt him instead. Very much, and for as much time as it takes for you to accomplish the job you set out to do. And should it turn out that you are lying and he is not immortal, well, we will find that out too. Do we have an agreement?"
In that moment, Amanda knew that this person was going down. Clinging to that thought, she said, "Certainly. May I?" Taking a cue from him, she slid the envelope out from under his hand without waiting for a response, and opened it. When she held it over the table, nothing fell out.
Amanda clenched her teeth, counted to ten. "I can't do anything for you," she said, low and cold, "if you don't stop playing games with me."
"It's not a game. I simply try to think of every angle. The information that you need is back at your lodgings." The Mystery Stalker nodded to her and rose. "The clock starts now. I hope to hear from you in one month. Or your friends will begin hearing from me. Please remain at your table until you can no longer see me."
As he walked away, the thought occurred to her to wonder how fast his reflexes were. Her sword was hidden in her capacious shoulder bag under the table. Could she draw it, rise, stab him through the back before he noticed her coming? Did it matter that a dozen witnesses would see her?
You will never need to learn of the other contingency plans I've put in place.
She waited, and when he turned the corner, she rose quickly and scooped her papers into her bag. She ran down the street, but when she turned the corner after him, he was gone.
******
She was staying at Duncan's barge. Another friend I've betrayed into this madman's hands, Amanda thought bitterly. But if he was really as well-connected as he seemed to be, it was quite likely that he'd known about her connection to MacLeod even before she came to Paris.
In any case, there was another unmarked envelope taped to the door of the barge. Amanda tore it off and indulged for a long moment in the pleasant fantasy of throwing it into the Seine. But no. She sat in the middle of Duncan's ascetically clean floor to dump out its contents.
For a wonder, this time the envelope actually contained what it was supposed to: a detailed dossier on one Philip Justinian Laird, age 78. The vague familiarity of the name nagged at her, but for the time being, she put it aside, focused on soaking up all the information that she could.
Laird was a businessman, though he seemed to be retired. He sat on the boards of a dozen non-profits, held stock in several business of which he'd been a former CEO, but he didn't seem to do anything these days beyond dabbling in charities and golfing at one of several estates scattered around the world. Amanda flipped through photos of Laird on the golf course, copies of Laird's medical paperwork (he appeared to be quite healthy) and grew more and more confused. She couldn't understand why the Mystery Stalker hated this man, father or not, enough to want him dead, and even more than that, she couldn't understand what had made him decide that she was the person who had to do it. Money made sense as a motive, except that Laird already seemed to have handed over the reins of his business empire to his son. Her Mystery Stalker didn't need to kill his father for his fortune -- he already had it. So why risk it all to have him dead, then? And why was it a job only an Immortal could accomplish?
Amanda hunted around for MacLeod's laptop and tackled the Internet.
Plugging in "Philip Justinian Laird II" brought up exactly what she'd expected: a picture of her Mystery Stalker from a recent Forbes article. She skimmed the article, and then an assortment of similar articles, and soon pulled together a rough history of both Lairds, Senior and Junior.
The original Philip Justinian Laird was apparently the very model of a self-made man. He'd started out volunteering at various children's charities, and, armed with a combination of personal charisma and dynamic energy, quickly moved up to running them. He'd opened his own non-profit (International Children's Education Fund) and then moved into the business world, amassing a personal fortune, though he dumped a great deal of it back into charitable works. He never seemed to seek the limelight; most of the articles that she found on him were of the "millionaire philanthropist donates new classroom to orphanage" sort, or else profiles from various magazines aimed at the moneyed classes. As she looked through all of them, though, an interesting picture began to emerge, particularly interesting in its lack of anything other than vague information on Laird before he appeared on the charity scene. She found brief mentions of his childhood in a small town in New Hampshire, but no pictures or other solid information. This wasn't terribly unusual in someone born long before Facebook, but still -- there was nothing concrete on Laird before he showed up in the public eye in his early thirties.
Amanda opened the biggest picture she could find of a young Philip Laird on the laptop screen, then compared it to the recent photographs from the dossier. "Hmm," she murmured. If it was makeup, it was good work, but that was only to be expected from someone with that kind of money and resources. And his stance, his overall bearing, was not that of a 78-year-old man, even a very fit one. Philip Laird was neither as young as he appeared in the early photos, nor as old as he appeared in the most recent ones -- physically, at least.
Philip Justinian Laird was an immortal.
But if that was so, then where did Laird Jr. come from? He'd have to be adopted. Amanda reread the Forbes article from the beginning. Ah, yes, there it was, in a few throwaway bits from paragraphs three and four: Philip Laird II had been adopted as a child from one of the orphanages in the older Laird's charitable-works empire. "Always treated me as his own son," etc. and so on.
So the older Laird was an Immortal, now approaching the point where he would soon have to cut all ties with a life lived too much in the limelight to merely fade away, instead "dying" in some suitably convincing way and then vanishing off to a hiding place for the next couple of decades. And the younger Laird was ... what? Driven by jealousy of his foster-father's immortality to make sure that Philip Laird's "death" was real?
Amanda shook her head. One thing she knew for sure: Philip Laird was nurturing a snake in his bosom. For all she knew, the older Laird might be an awful person under the slick philanthropist facade, but the younger Laird most certainly was. If she had to choose between the two of them -- the Immortal who'd never bothered her or anyone she loved, or the mortal who had blackmailed her and threatened her friends -- then it was really a no-brainer. First she had to take whatever steps she needed to, in order to assure her friends' safety. And then she'd deal with Philip Laird II.
Her mind made up, she called Joe. The Watchers must have a file on Laird. Joe wouldn't like sharing it, but she was confident that she could convince him the need was urgent enough.
The phone at Le Blues Bar rang and then went to the answering machine. Amanda left a terse message asking Joe to call her at the barge, then -- a sense of foreboding growing in her chest -- tried his home number. It picked up on the first ring, and she'd just weathered the initial relief when it was wiped away by Laird Jr.'s purring voice. "Hello, Amanda."
It felt as if all the air had been punched out of her. She tried to inhale, once, twice, and finally sucked a breath into her lungs. "Where's Joe?"
"What are you worried about? I thought he was Immortal like you," Laird said smoothly. "Don't worry, he's just fine so far. Whether he remains fine depends on what you do."
"You bastard. You said I had a month."
"And so you do," Laird said. "I promise you that for the duration of that month, Joseph Dawson will be my honored guest, as long as you keep yourself busy working to fulfill your end of our bargain rather than working against me."
When Amanda was a young Immortal, she had once helped with a boar hunt in one of the villages where she'd lived. The farmers, armed with nothing more than knives and pitchforks, had built a system of crude fences in the woods to channel the boar into the village stockade where it could be slaughtered. At the time she'd been caught up in the excitement, whooping with glee as they slammed shut gate after gate, cutting off each avenue of escape, herding the boar into a narrowing corridor until finally there was nothing it could do and nowhere else to go but the pen.
Now she knew exactly how it had felt. One by one, her options were being closed off, herding her gently but firmly into Laird Jr.'s slaughter pen.
And all she could do was play along.
"We had a deal, didn't we?" she said calmly. "But I'm going to want a few things along the way. First of all, I want to be paid in installments. This down payment you've given me is a start, but I don't plan to wait until afterwards for the rest of my money, and there's only, what, ten thousand euros or so in this stack?" She'd handled enough money to be able to calculate it at a glance, based on the height of the stack. "That won't even cover expenses. I want to receive fifty thousand every day, until I'm done."
"That's fair," Laird agreed.
"Second," she said, her heart pounding, "I want Joe to deliver the money to me. Each time. And I expect him to be in good health when he does."
This time there was a pause on Laird's end; she could tell he was turning this over, figuring out her angles. "All right," he said. "Deal. Anything else?"
"Just this," Amanda said. "I want you to think about what it might mean, having an enemy who lives forever and can't be killed. Right now, as long as I get the payment you've promised me -- and that includes Joe, alive and well -- then I have no reason to be your enemy." Except for the fact that you've blackmailed me and threatened my friends, you lying snake, and I'll be taking it out of you, believe me. "Once I do this job and get my payment, then we need never see each other again. I think it's in both of our interests to keep it that way."
"I think we are agreed in that," Laird said. "Where would you like your next payment?"
"St. Julien's Church on the Square René Viviani," Amanda said immediately. "Tomorrow noon. If Joe isn't completely unharmed, or if he doesn't arrive on time, then you will have made an enemy, Laird."
"St. Julien's at noon," Laird agreed, and the line went dead.
Amanda hung up the phone and drew several slow breaths until the faint, dazed feeling began to recede. Meditation was Duncan's line, not hers, but for a long time she sat on the floor and watched the porthole shadows creep across the wall.
She'd tried to run. It hadn't worked. And now he'd found another chain to put on her: Joe's life, and by implication, Duncan's and that of everyone else still alive that she loved.
She had no way to know how close his watch on her was. She had to assume that he would know everything she did -- everything an observer could reasonably infer, at least -- and that she could make no large moves without being detected. Laird certainly knew about Duncan already, but she had no idea how to get in touch with him -- the only person who could have helped was Joe, currently out of her reach. She thought about contacting Methos, but she wasn't sure if Laird knew about him, and she hated to pull yet another person into Laird's snare.
Everything an observer could reasonably infer ...
Where is my Watcher? How much does he or she know of what's going on?
Could I pass a message to the Watchers?
Do I want to?
Amanda rose and looked out the porthole at the Quai de la Tournelle. It was the height of tourist season, and the Quai bustled in the afternoon sun. She saw a few likely possibilities -- people standing too long in places they didn't seem to belong, or reading newspapers while looking around from behind them -- but there was no sure way to pick one out of the throng, especially since there were likely to be a few hostile observers along with her Watcher.
Odd to have the Watchers be the lesser evil in this case.
Amanda collected Laird's dossier and her sword. She explored all the likely hiding places in Duncan's barge but was unable to find a gun. Damn it, MacLeod, why couldn't you have been born with a good useful streak of paranoia rather than that stupid Highland sense of honor? His desk yielded stationery and a pen, and she wrote a quick note on the smallest slip of paper that would fit it:
Dawson kidnapped. Watchers in danger of discovery. MacLeod MIA. Culprit: Philip Laird II. Meeting @ St. Julien's noon tomrw.
The tricky part would be finding the right person to pass it to. Actually, though, she'd had an idea about that -- something even better than the chancy proposition of trying to identify her own Watcher. She only knew one other person in the organization -- Methos had been persona non grata for years -- but luckily, the other person was one who might be very much inclined to help her, and was quite likely to be completely off Laird's radar. One thing Duncan did have was an excellent map of the city and a Métro route schedule. Amanda examined both, and used Duncan's computer to look up a particular business's address.
She left the barge at a brisk clip and strode down the Quai, trying to look busy and purposeful. It was difficult to figure out if anyone was following her. There were plenty of people drifting in her general direction, even a few who stuck with her to the Métro, but in the general bustle, who could say? Which was, of course, what both her own Watcher and Laird's people were counting on, she supposed.
The Métro let her out in a different part of town. She let herself slow to a more meandering pace, eventually locating the café that she wanted. She'd never been here, but Joe had mentioned it to her, and apparently she'd remembered the name correctly. She kept walking, slowed more, and finally located a bench outside a bookseller's. Here she sat down and waited for about ten minutes. It was no great hardship to feign impatience, checking her watch frequently. She took out her phone and checked it rather ostentatiously for messages. Then she got up and began to pace. After a while she glanced up the street towards the café, looked at her watch again, then began to walk swiftly towards it, looking over her shoulder frequently at the bookseller's. If anyone were watching, she hoped that all her body language conveyed the bookseller's as her true destination, not the café.
And if she isn't working today, what will you do ...
But there she was, waiting on a customer at a window table. Amy Thomas's hair had grown long since the last time Amanda had seen her, and was wound into a complex braid on the back of her head. She was currently Watching an Immortal named Louis Benoit, a quiet non-confrontational sort who worked at an art supply store in the area. Joe was a master at keeping secrets, and Amanda felt privileged to be one of the circle that he did tell a few of his secrets to. Especially when in this case, it might help save his life.
She loitered, looking at a menu, until Amy was behind the counter, then approached her. It was hard to tell if Amy recognized her; they'd never spoken, and there was only a very slight pause before Amy asked if she could help her.
"Café au lait to go, please." Amanda took out a 10-euro note and the rolled-up bit of paper, and held it on top with her thumb as she pressed it into Amy's hand.
Amy's eyes widened a bit, and she turned away to make change. Amanda had to give her credit for her deftness; she could see Amy's hand unroll the note under the level of the counter as she counted out change with the other hand. When Amy turned back to Amanda, her eyes were wide. "Your change, ma'amselle," she said, and shifting gears with barely a pause, whispered, "Who are you? Is he all right?"
Amanda gave her head a tiny shake. There was no plausible way that Laird would know about Amy unless he knew about the Watchers in general, and even then, they both might pull this off if his observers had no reason to believe this was anything more than a routine stop for a cup of coffee. "I'm being watched," she whispered. "Trying to throw them off. Don't leave immediately. Just do what you'd normally do 'til I'm long gone. And get my coffee," she added in a tense undertone, because Amy had stopped doing anything but listening to her.
Amy nodded and Amanda waited, continuing to exude obvious signs of impatience and look over her shoulder towards the bookstore, trying to ignore Amy as if she was nothing but an ordinary barista. A young couple entered the café. Outside, a middle-aged gentleman had paused and was checking a tourist guidebook. Everyone looks suspicious when you know you're being followed. It's like the Methuselah Stone all over again.
Amy brought the coffee. Amanda wished she could say more to Amy's pleading eyes, but she gave an abstracted nod instead and was already turning away as soon as the cup left Amy's hands. It's up to you now, kid. I hope you really are your father's daughter.
Onwards to Part 2
Fandom: Highlander
Rating/pairing: PG-13, gen
Warnings: (skip) Implied (very off-camera) child abuse. Also some gory violence.
Word Count: 11,800
Notes: For the
hc_bingo prompt "Extortion".Summary: Someone is trying to blackmail Amanda, but dragging her friends into it was a really bad idea.
Crossposts: On DW | on AO3
The first note was slipped under her hotel room door in Madrid. Thick creamy paper crumpled under her shoe, and when she smoothed it out, Amanda found a few lines written in a crisp, confident hand.
I know you cannot die. I will pay you handsomely to do a job for me.
No contact information.
She was at first puzzled, then, for a minute or two, she was quite tempted. But no, nothing good could come of an offer like that. Perhaps this would be an excellent time to visit another city and steer clear of Madrid for a while.
The second note appeared two weeks later in Cairo. It was on her balcony railing, weighted with a stone, when she came back from a pleasant evening dancing with a young man she'd met on the beach. (Well, technically he was forty-three. But they were all young men to her.)
Her hotel room was on the fourth floor. Amanda checked the entire suite thoroughly before she closed the curtains, locked the door, and unfolded the note.
She hadn't kept the other note, but she was pretty sure it was the same handwriting. As a forger of no small accomplishment, Amanda knew how to read the marks of a pen on paper as well as the words that they formed.
I can find you no matter where you go. I will pay you well in return for your help. Otherwise I will expose your secret. Think about it. I will contact you again soon.
Amanda crumpled the note furiously into a tight ball. That wasn't enough to calm her down. She tore it into tiny pieces and set them on fire in the hotel room's sink, washing the ashes down the drain. Better. Slightly.
"Impudent, arrogant, idiotic ..." she seethed at her reflection in the mirror. She wasn't quite sure whether she meant the mortal who had left the notes -- it had to be a mortal; none of their kind would try something like this -- or herself, for obviously being careless enough to let something slip somewhere she shouldn't have.
The thought did cross her mind that it might be some kind of joke, but she didn't think even Methos's sense of humor was that twisted. Speaking of Methos, perhaps this would be a good time to take a page from his book. "No matter where I go? Really? Let's find out."
The next note was brought to her a month later, while she sipped a lousy beer in a bar that occupied a mobile home trailer in a small town in Mexico that she hadn't bothered to learn the name of. It wasn't her usual scene, but well, that was the point, wasn't it?
She was traveling under the name Rose Mathis, pretending to be American. Not that it mattered after this many years whether she was or wasn't. Duncan was one of the only Immortals she knew who kept such a strong sense of his own ethnic identity. None of them could truly move beyond their upbringing -- though many try; I'm one of them -- but national boundaries were transitory as spring clouds when one had learned to think in terms of centuries rather than decades.
"Señorita Mathis?" The bartender held out a package wrapped in brown paper and slightly stained. It was labeled neatly with her pseudonym -- her heart sank when she recognized the handwriting.
"Who left this for me?" Apparently it had been dropped off at the hotel where she'd been staying in the last town, and passed along with a delivery driver going in this direction. The trail was already cold. She gave him a couple of hundred-peso notes and then stared at the package for a while before opening it.
It contained a pre-paid cell phone and another note on that heavy cream-colored paper. The note was longer this time.
Dear Rose (or Amanda? Lilah? Clarissa?), it began, and Amanda clenched her teeth, reminding herself to abandon those aliases for a while.
I hope I've made my point. Certainly you could avoid me if you truly wish to, but only by avoiding the world. Do you really want to live in a convent for the next fifty years, hoping that I'll die of old age? I have a simple job that I want you to do for me. At 9 p.m. Mexico City time, on August 19th, be somewhere that you can get reception on this phone, and we'll talk. If not, I'll call at the same time every second day afterwards.
The date was four days ago -- the package had been pursuing her for some time, it seemed. The hint of fallibility in her enemy was a relief, actually: he was good, but he wasn't omnipotent and he wasn't perfect. Amanda checked her watch. Two hours until the rendezvous time. She powered on the phone, and held it up. One bar. Well, two hours was enough time to drive to the top of the hill outside town and see if the reception was better there.
At 8:59 p.m., she'd found a place where she could get two bars (flickering occasionally to three) and parked her rented, battered jeep conspicuously by the road. Amanda herself went to ground in the scrub brush several hundred yards up the hill. She had her sword and the best distance weapon she'd been able to obtain on extremely short notice, a beat-up hunting rifle that she'd bought from the bartender's cousin.
At 9 p.m. on the dot, the phone rang. Amanda took a deep breath, hunkered down behind the rock she'd found for cover, and answered it with a terse, "Hello."
"Amanda. A pleasure to hear from you." The voice was male, smooth and cultured. Amanda struggled to place the accent: American East Coast, with perhaps a hint of London? It was not a voice she recognized. The return number was American; she didn't know the area code, but committed it to memory.
"Let's not pretend to be friends," she hissed into the phone. "You have ten seconds to tell me why you've been chasing me around the world or I hang up and throw this phone down the nearest outhouse hole."
"Ah, we'll get down to business, then." He sounded as friendly as if she'd greeted him with hearts and flowers. "First of all, I know that you don't age and you can't be killed -- at least not easily. This makes you perfect for what I have in mind."
"Which is?" Amanda asked warily. He's not Immortal. And he's not a Watcher. He doesn't know what we are.
"I need you to kill someone for me. When you can provide me proof of his death, I'll pay you twenty million dollars, American -- or the equivalent currency of your choice. I'm also open to compensating you in other ways, should you prefer: art, gold, jewelry, a yacht, a plane?"
Amanda licked her dry lips. She didn't think he was lying. About any of it. "I'm not a killer for hire."
"Everyone is for hire for anything, if the price is right."
"I said no. I'm not interested."
"I'm sorry," he said politely, not sounding sorry at all. "Didn't I make it clear in my previous communication with you? The only possible answer is yes. If you refuse, I'll expose you for what you really are. But I'd like our relationship to be a mutually beneficial one. I am prepared to pay you very nearly anything you ask."
"I don't make deals with blackmailers."
"Well," he said, "since you're still on the fence, I'll give you a few days to think about it. Why don't I call you again at this time, on this phone, in a week?"
And with that, he hung up.
"Asshole!" Amanda shouted at the phone.
Her first thought, though she hated herself for it, was to call MacLeod. But no, no, damn it. She was a big girl. She didn't need to go crying to MacLeod every time she got herself in a bit of trouble. This jerk didn't know who he was messing with.
"All I can tell you is that he called you from a burn phone."
"A what?" Amanda asked.
"A pre-paid phone like this one. Not his own. Probably bought it from a street vendor somewhere."
"Technology," Amanda muttered. It was so hard to stay abreast of it.
Her contact just grinned. His name was Weasel. She'd known him for a few years, and others like him; Amanda didn't believe in wasting time learning to do something yourself if you could pay other people to do it, and she'd figured out the advantages of seeking out contacts in the telecommunications industry back in the days when the "tele" part stood for telegraph.
"Well, what can you tell me? I'm not paying you to sit around and jerk off to Internet porn, Weasel. I thought you were a man who could learn things."
"I am, if there's anything to learn. What have you got to go on? An untraceable phone with no prints but yours. I can work you up a cell-tower trace and a recording setup for the next time he calls ..."
"What about handwriting analysis?" Amanda dangled the most recent note, the only one she'd kept so far. "This paper looks expensive, too. Can you do anything with that?"
"I can't, but I know some people who can." He took it, and she relinquished it reluctantly, hating to give up her one tangible connection to her tormenter. "Mandy, honey, come on, I can't help you if you don't trust me."
"I don't trust you, Weasel, any farther than I'm paying you. And don't call me Mandy."
Weasel grinned, showing crooked teeth. "But you're paying me well."
"Yes, I am. So don't disappoint me."
Back on the street, she looked up more of her contacts, sent out feelers in the underworld and also among the handful of society connections that she'd nurtured over the years. He's rich, she thought. Probably American or has spent a lot of time there. Must have fairly extensive connections of his own, or he couldn't keep finding me. And she knew it was like hunting for a needle in a haystack. In her many years as a thief, swindler and con artist Amanda had stolen from kings and presidents, gangsters and corporate executives, rich widows and other thieves. The world was full of wealthy, well-connected people, and most of them were quite experienced at hiding their tracks if they wanted to.
The day before her next scheduled conversation with the blackmailer, she went back to Weasel and picked up the phone, this time with new hardware installed -- a black box clamped onto the side. "Stylish," Amanda said, rotating it.
"I can slap on a coat of paint, but it'll be a few G's extra."
Amanda snorted. "Yeah, no, I'll dab on some fingernail polish and call it good. What do I do?"
"Nothing. It'll activate when he calls -- or when anyone calls. At least it'll let you know where in the world he's calling from, not with pinpoint accuracy but enough to start getting a move on finding him. And it'll get him on tape." He handed her an envelope. "I'll save the suspense. No prints or DNA on the letter except yours. Handwriting analysis, short version: male, good private-school education, either confident to the point of egotism, or fakes it very well. Possibly sociopathic."
"I could've told you that."
Phone in hand, she returned to her hotel -- and discovered a manilla envelope taped to her door, with a bulge at the bottom. Nothing was written on it. Amanda poked at it, then opened the door and retrieved a set of thin black gloves (don't leave home without them) to untape the envelope and empty it onto the bed.
A cell phone slid out.
"Oh, you absolute bastard."
Someone must have left it there. She ran down to the front desk and began questioning employees, explaining that her creepy stalker ex-boyfriend had somehow managed to find her hotel. They were sympathetic, but no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary -- people came and went from hotels all the time. Which of course was what her enemy had been counting on.
She'd just closed the door of her room when the new cell rang. Amanda jumped, then picked it up reluctantly. "Yes," she snapped.
"Amanda," said the silky voice. "Or maybe you prefer Desirée?" That was the name she'd used when checking into the hotel.
"When I find you, I'll make you wish you were Immortal."
"Temper," the voice said smoothly. "I realize that I'm pushing up our deadline a bit, but I believe in being unpredictable. It helps to prevent unpleasant surprises. Despite the rush, I assume you've been thinking over my offer. May I have an answer, please?"
"First of all, I don't plan to give you an answer until you tell me who you want me to kill for you and why," Amanda said. "I don't know who or what you think I am, but I'm no one's hired assassin."
"Of course not. I've researched you thoroughly. You're a petty thief and compulsive liar," the voice crooned. Amanda's mouth dropped open in fury. "What I'm offering is a better deal than you could find on your own in a lifetime. With the amount of money I'm willing to pay for one small task, you can retire from your risk-taking life and live happily for a good many years. Or stash it away for a rainy day and continue to live as you like, knowing that you have that security blanket. In any case --"
Amanda finally got her voice back. "You miserable, conniving --"
"In any case," he went on over the top of her, "yes or no? I'm sure I've already proven that I can find you no matter where you go. If I want to, I can give out your location to anyone I choose. You'll never be safe again."
I'm tired of being afraid, she'd once told Duncan. It was at times like this that a millennia of independence, of battle-hardness fell away from her, and she remembered once again what it was like to be that long-ago street child, stepped on and kicked and chased. The trapped feeling left her breathless, panicky, her heart racing and her head light.
But the street child, at least, knew how to deal with situations like this. Be what they want you to be, until you can kick them in the teeth and run.
"Okay, fine," she said through her teeth, forcing down fear and misery like bile, trying to sound flippant and cheerful -- just the happy sociopath that he apparently thought she was. "Just tell me what you want, who you want dead and where." And if you think I'm actually doing it, you're crazy. I am a "compulsive liar" after all, you son of a bitch.
"Excellent! I thought we could do business," he said brightly. "The person I need you to kill --"
For one awful instant, she expected him to say "Duncan MacLeod." It would just figure.
"-- is my father. I'll contact you again in one week, with the rest of the information that you need. It doesn't matter where you are; I'll find you."
With that, he hung up.
Amanda stared at the phone for a few minutes, caught between fury and a kind of strange, weary amusement. It was so utterly petty, after all the buildup and the chase -- just some kind of family feud, albeit one that had risen to deadly levels.
A week. Well. Maybe it was time to talk to MacLeod after all. She chose to view it as sharing an amusing story rather than asking for help. At the very least, he might have some ideas for turning the tables on her mystery stalker. She picked up the hotel phone and called information for a travel agency. It'd been awhile since she'd been to Paris anyway.
"What do you mean, you don't know where he is? You're his Watcher, aren't you?"
"I'm his Watcher. Doesn't mean I'm his keeper. Have you tried to keep tabs on MacLeod?"
"Eh. True."
Joe shrugged. "He's visiting a friend in Tokyo as far as I know. I could probably get in touch if you really need me to."
"No, no, it's not that important ..." Amanda swiveled on her bar stool to reach for her purse. "Actually, you might be even more help, come to think of it. This is more of a you sort of problem than a MacLeod sort of problem anyway."
She handed Joe the handwritten note and, while he studied it with raised eyebrows, quickly sketched the salient points of the Mystery Stalker situation for him.
"Expose you, huh?" Joe said. "How'd he find out about you, anyway?"
"I have no idea. I don't remember anything of the sort, and what am I supposed to do, make an exhaustive list of every mortal I've ever come in contact with? It's at times like this that being a misanthropic hermit would come in handy. But, Joe, I've met thousands of people in just the last ten years."
"Do you think he's a Watcher?"
"I doubt it. The things he says -- it just doesn't sound right. However ..." She gave him her best winsome look. "I don't suppose you could look up my Chronicle and see if there's anything that's documented recently that might shed some light?"
Joe glowered at her. "Don't the words secret organization mean anything to you?"
"You'd do it for MacLeod." When he showed no signs of softening, she let a small pout slip through, along with perhaps a little of her genuine fear. "Come on, Joe. If he does expose me, it's not just me that'll suffer. It's all of us. Me. Duncan. Methos. Every Immortal you've ever known. Surely you don't want to be responsible for --"
"All right, all right!" He pointed one finger at her. "I'm only doing this to maintain the secret. That's all."
"Of course," she said politely.
Joe poured her two fingers of her favorite brandy and slid it across the bar. "How are you holding up?"
"Me? What?" She sipped her drink. "Fine, why do you ask?"
"Amanda, I've known Mac a long time, remember? I've seen what he's like when he's under siege. And you've got the same look in your eyes. Hunted." He hesitated, then added somewhat awkwardly, "I know that Rebecca tried to make up for --"
"Joe," she snapped. "Don't." She liked Joe. She really did. It hurt to know that in the long run, he'd be no more than a firefly flicker in her long life. But the very concept of the Watchers galled her, and she'd never talked about her early days with Rebecca to anyone but MacLeod. Joe's tacit admission that he'd read her Chronicle already, that he knew that much about her without her consent -- her pains, her loves, her private shames -- was almost more than she could bear. It took all the control she had not to throw the drink in his face.
They both drank in silence for a few minutes before Joe said, "I was out of line. Sorry."
"Not your fault." It wasn't. Neither of them could help being what they were.
"I'll see what I can find out," Joe said. "What are you going to do?"
Amanda sighed. "What I've been doing, I guess. Put out feelers, try to find someone who knows something. He's obviously well-connected, but that should make him easier to find, not harder." She smirked. "It's hard to follow someone across two continents without being spotted. As you know well."
Joe raised his glass. "Touché."
Two days later, she was sitting in a sidewalk café, sipping a coffee and going through a handwritten, heavily annotated list of her own movements over the last fifty years. It was just as miserably long and complicated as she'd expected; she'd spent an entire day writing everything down, and she knew she was forgetting so much -- whole months, whole years were missing. "Why couldn't I have been like Methos or Darius, and just settle in one place for decades at a time?" she moaned, and summoned the waiter for another coffee. Joe had given her a short, incomplete list of possible contacts with mortals, but as he pointed out, there was still a ton of information to comb through, and he couldn't ask her Watcher for help without explaining what he was doing and why.
Fifty years was her cut-off because she didn't think the voice on the phone could be older, but for all she knew, it was a family secret passed down through generations. Perhaps she'd given herself away in 1700, and it had taken this long to --
"Excuse me, may I join you?"
Amanda's head snapped up. That voice. It was unmistakably the voice on the phone. And there he was, standing next to her table, three days in advance of the week he'd given her. But he likes to be unpredictable, she thought, as dazed shock gave way to a slowly growing fury.
The Mystery Stalker, definitely mortal, was a tanned, handsome man of about forty-five. His silvering hair was perfectly coifed, not a strand out of place, and his suit had obviously cost more than some people made in a year. He oozed good breeding and money out every pore. Under other circumstances, Amanda was well aware that she would have gone into orbit around him like a bee around a flower, which was just one reason why she hated him on sight.
Without waiting for her to respond with an invitation, he pulled another chair over to her tiny sidewalk table, and sat. In one hand he held a flat manilla envelope.
Amanda eyed him up and down for a weapon. Though nothing showed outwardly, there were a million things that could be hidden in that finely tailored suit. "So," she said. "We meet."
He nodded. "Indeed." He placed the manilla envelope on the table, carefully and deliberately, on top of the stack of papers she'd been perusing. "Since I'm sure you're a resourceful lady and I imagine you're currently thinking of a dozen ways to avoid working for me, none of which will end well for me, I'd like you to take a look at this first."
Amanda studied him with deep suspicion before opening the envelope, wary of hidden traps. She shook its contents onto the table. There was a thick stack of 100-euro notes, held together with a rubber band, and two 8x10 glossy photographs. One was Joe Dawson stepping out of Le Blues Bar, squinting into the sun, but easily recognizable. The other was Joe, from the back, reaching for the door of his Paris apartment.
Amanda studied these, hoping that her face betrayed no reaction. Then she picked up the money and flipped through it with her thumb. It looked genuine.
"A small down payment, to the success of our business partnership," said the Mystery Stalker with a slight smile. "And some insurance for me. I am a strong believer in insurance. As long as I leave this meeting in the same condition in which I arrived, you will never need to learn of the other contingency plans I've put in place."
He looked familiar, though it was hard to tell if it was simply that he looked like every other wealthy businessman and politician she'd met, or if she'd actually met him someplace or seen him on TV. Amanda tried to memorize every line of his face. Killing for money was a line she didn't intend to cross, but killing this man? Yes. She could find it in her heart to do so with little regret.
"Well," she said. "If I'm to be your assassin, then I need to know who you want me to kill. Your father, you said?"
He nodded and reached a hand slowly to the breast pocket of his suit. "May I?" Again without awaiting a response, he removed another envelope and placed it on the table. He laid a hand on top of it.
"This contains everything that you need to do this job for me. Since I don't hire people who are incompetent or lazy, I think that one month should be ample. One month from the time that you open this envelope -- or sooner -- I expect to receive tangible evidence that you've finished it."
Amanda opened and closed her mouth. Finally she said quietly, "And if I don't?"
In the same calm, friendly tone that he'd used throughout the conversation, the Mystery Stalker said, "Then I will have one of your friends killed. And then another, until you are done."
The trapped feeling was back, full-force, humming in her ears and telescoping her vision. It took all the strength to say, in the closest she could manage to a normal tone, "You can certainly try. My friends are immortal too."
He smiled, displaying white, even teeth. "Really? Well, be that as it may, this friend of yours in the photos is clearly not immune to physical damage. So we will hurt him instead. Very much, and for as much time as it takes for you to accomplish the job you set out to do. And should it turn out that you are lying and he is not immortal, well, we will find that out too. Do we have an agreement?"
In that moment, Amanda knew that this person was going down. Clinging to that thought, she said, "Certainly. May I?" Taking a cue from him, she slid the envelope out from under his hand without waiting for a response, and opened it. When she held it over the table, nothing fell out.
Amanda clenched her teeth, counted to ten. "I can't do anything for you," she said, low and cold, "if you don't stop playing games with me."
"It's not a game. I simply try to think of every angle. The information that you need is back at your lodgings." The Mystery Stalker nodded to her and rose. "The clock starts now. I hope to hear from you in one month. Or your friends will begin hearing from me. Please remain at your table until you can no longer see me."
As he walked away, the thought occurred to her to wonder how fast his reflexes were. Her sword was hidden in her capacious shoulder bag under the table. Could she draw it, rise, stab him through the back before he noticed her coming? Did it matter that a dozen witnesses would see her?
You will never need to learn of the other contingency plans I've put in place.
She waited, and when he turned the corner, she rose quickly and scooped her papers into her bag. She ran down the street, but when she turned the corner after him, he was gone.
She was staying at Duncan's barge. Another friend I've betrayed into this madman's hands, Amanda thought bitterly. But if he was really as well-connected as he seemed to be, it was quite likely that he'd known about her connection to MacLeod even before she came to Paris.
In any case, there was another unmarked envelope taped to the door of the barge. Amanda tore it off and indulged for a long moment in the pleasant fantasy of throwing it into the Seine. But no. She sat in the middle of Duncan's ascetically clean floor to dump out its contents.
For a wonder, this time the envelope actually contained what it was supposed to: a detailed dossier on one Philip Justinian Laird, age 78. The vague familiarity of the name nagged at her, but for the time being, she put it aside, focused on soaking up all the information that she could.
Laird was a businessman, though he seemed to be retired. He sat on the boards of a dozen non-profits, held stock in several business of which he'd been a former CEO, but he didn't seem to do anything these days beyond dabbling in charities and golfing at one of several estates scattered around the world. Amanda flipped through photos of Laird on the golf course, copies of Laird's medical paperwork (he appeared to be quite healthy) and grew more and more confused. She couldn't understand why the Mystery Stalker hated this man, father or not, enough to want him dead, and even more than that, she couldn't understand what had made him decide that she was the person who had to do it. Money made sense as a motive, except that Laird already seemed to have handed over the reins of his business empire to his son. Her Mystery Stalker didn't need to kill his father for his fortune -- he already had it. So why risk it all to have him dead, then? And why was it a job only an Immortal could accomplish?
Amanda hunted around for MacLeod's laptop and tackled the Internet.
Plugging in "Philip Justinian Laird II" brought up exactly what she'd expected: a picture of her Mystery Stalker from a recent Forbes article. She skimmed the article, and then an assortment of similar articles, and soon pulled together a rough history of both Lairds, Senior and Junior.
The original Philip Justinian Laird was apparently the very model of a self-made man. He'd started out volunteering at various children's charities, and, armed with a combination of personal charisma and dynamic energy, quickly moved up to running them. He'd opened his own non-profit (International Children's Education Fund) and then moved into the business world, amassing a personal fortune, though he dumped a great deal of it back into charitable works. He never seemed to seek the limelight; most of the articles that she found on him were of the "millionaire philanthropist donates new classroom to orphanage" sort, or else profiles from various magazines aimed at the moneyed classes. As she looked through all of them, though, an interesting picture began to emerge, particularly interesting in its lack of anything other than vague information on Laird before he appeared on the charity scene. She found brief mentions of his childhood in a small town in New Hampshire, but no pictures or other solid information. This wasn't terribly unusual in someone born long before Facebook, but still -- there was nothing concrete on Laird before he showed up in the public eye in his early thirties.
Amanda opened the biggest picture she could find of a young Philip Laird on the laptop screen, then compared it to the recent photographs from the dossier. "Hmm," she murmured. If it was makeup, it was good work, but that was only to be expected from someone with that kind of money and resources. And his stance, his overall bearing, was not that of a 78-year-old man, even a very fit one. Philip Laird was neither as young as he appeared in the early photos, nor as old as he appeared in the most recent ones -- physically, at least.
Philip Justinian Laird was an immortal.
But if that was so, then where did Laird Jr. come from? He'd have to be adopted. Amanda reread the Forbes article from the beginning. Ah, yes, there it was, in a few throwaway bits from paragraphs three and four: Philip Laird II had been adopted as a child from one of the orphanages in the older Laird's charitable-works empire. "Always treated me as his own son," etc. and so on.
So the older Laird was an Immortal, now approaching the point where he would soon have to cut all ties with a life lived too much in the limelight to merely fade away, instead "dying" in some suitably convincing way and then vanishing off to a hiding place for the next couple of decades. And the younger Laird was ... what? Driven by jealousy of his foster-father's immortality to make sure that Philip Laird's "death" was real?
Amanda shook her head. One thing she knew for sure: Philip Laird was nurturing a snake in his bosom. For all she knew, the older Laird might be an awful person under the slick philanthropist facade, but the younger Laird most certainly was. If she had to choose between the two of them -- the Immortal who'd never bothered her or anyone she loved, or the mortal who had blackmailed her and threatened her friends -- then it was really a no-brainer. First she had to take whatever steps she needed to, in order to assure her friends' safety. And then she'd deal with Philip Laird II.
Her mind made up, she called Joe. The Watchers must have a file on Laird. Joe wouldn't like sharing it, but she was confident that she could convince him the need was urgent enough.
The phone at Le Blues Bar rang and then went to the answering machine. Amanda left a terse message asking Joe to call her at the barge, then -- a sense of foreboding growing in her chest -- tried his home number. It picked up on the first ring, and she'd just weathered the initial relief when it was wiped away by Laird Jr.'s purring voice. "Hello, Amanda."
It felt as if all the air had been punched out of her. She tried to inhale, once, twice, and finally sucked a breath into her lungs. "Where's Joe?"
"What are you worried about? I thought he was Immortal like you," Laird said smoothly. "Don't worry, he's just fine so far. Whether he remains fine depends on what you do."
"You bastard. You said I had a month."
"And so you do," Laird said. "I promise you that for the duration of that month, Joseph Dawson will be my honored guest, as long as you keep yourself busy working to fulfill your end of our bargain rather than working against me."
When Amanda was a young Immortal, she had once helped with a boar hunt in one of the villages where she'd lived. The farmers, armed with nothing more than knives and pitchforks, had built a system of crude fences in the woods to channel the boar into the village stockade where it could be slaughtered. At the time she'd been caught up in the excitement, whooping with glee as they slammed shut gate after gate, cutting off each avenue of escape, herding the boar into a narrowing corridor until finally there was nothing it could do and nowhere else to go but the pen.
Now she knew exactly how it had felt. One by one, her options were being closed off, herding her gently but firmly into Laird Jr.'s slaughter pen.
And all she could do was play along.
"We had a deal, didn't we?" she said calmly. "But I'm going to want a few things along the way. First of all, I want to be paid in installments. This down payment you've given me is a start, but I don't plan to wait until afterwards for the rest of my money, and there's only, what, ten thousand euros or so in this stack?" She'd handled enough money to be able to calculate it at a glance, based on the height of the stack. "That won't even cover expenses. I want to receive fifty thousand every day, until I'm done."
"That's fair," Laird agreed.
"Second," she said, her heart pounding, "I want Joe to deliver the money to me. Each time. And I expect him to be in good health when he does."
This time there was a pause on Laird's end; she could tell he was turning this over, figuring out her angles. "All right," he said. "Deal. Anything else?"
"Just this," Amanda said. "I want you to think about what it might mean, having an enemy who lives forever and can't be killed. Right now, as long as I get the payment you've promised me -- and that includes Joe, alive and well -- then I have no reason to be your enemy." Except for the fact that you've blackmailed me and threatened my friends, you lying snake, and I'll be taking it out of you, believe me. "Once I do this job and get my payment, then we need never see each other again. I think it's in both of our interests to keep it that way."
"I think we are agreed in that," Laird said. "Where would you like your next payment?"
"St. Julien's Church on the Square René Viviani," Amanda said immediately. "Tomorrow noon. If Joe isn't completely unharmed, or if he doesn't arrive on time, then you will have made an enemy, Laird."
"St. Julien's at noon," Laird agreed, and the line went dead.
Amanda hung up the phone and drew several slow breaths until the faint, dazed feeling began to recede. Meditation was Duncan's line, not hers, but for a long time she sat on the floor and watched the porthole shadows creep across the wall.
She'd tried to run. It hadn't worked. And now he'd found another chain to put on her: Joe's life, and by implication, Duncan's and that of everyone else still alive that she loved.
She had no way to know how close his watch on her was. She had to assume that he would know everything she did -- everything an observer could reasonably infer, at least -- and that she could make no large moves without being detected. Laird certainly knew about Duncan already, but she had no idea how to get in touch with him -- the only person who could have helped was Joe, currently out of her reach. She thought about contacting Methos, but she wasn't sure if Laird knew about him, and she hated to pull yet another person into Laird's snare.
Everything an observer could reasonably infer ...
Where is my Watcher? How much does he or she know of what's going on?
Could I pass a message to the Watchers?
Do I want to?
Amanda rose and looked out the porthole at the Quai de la Tournelle. It was the height of tourist season, and the Quai bustled in the afternoon sun. She saw a few likely possibilities -- people standing too long in places they didn't seem to belong, or reading newspapers while looking around from behind them -- but there was no sure way to pick one out of the throng, especially since there were likely to be a few hostile observers along with her Watcher.
Odd to have the Watchers be the lesser evil in this case.
Amanda collected Laird's dossier and her sword. She explored all the likely hiding places in Duncan's barge but was unable to find a gun. Damn it, MacLeod, why couldn't you have been born with a good useful streak of paranoia rather than that stupid Highland sense of honor? His desk yielded stationery and a pen, and she wrote a quick note on the smallest slip of paper that would fit it:
Dawson kidnapped. Watchers in danger of discovery. MacLeod MIA. Culprit: Philip Laird II. Meeting @ St. Julien's noon tomrw.
The tricky part would be finding the right person to pass it to. Actually, though, she'd had an idea about that -- something even better than the chancy proposition of trying to identify her own Watcher. She only knew one other person in the organization -- Methos had been persona non grata for years -- but luckily, the other person was one who might be very much inclined to help her, and was quite likely to be completely off Laird's radar. One thing Duncan did have was an excellent map of the city and a Métro route schedule. Amanda examined both, and used Duncan's computer to look up a particular business's address.
She left the barge at a brisk clip and strode down the Quai, trying to look busy and purposeful. It was difficult to figure out if anyone was following her. There were plenty of people drifting in her general direction, even a few who stuck with her to the Métro, but in the general bustle, who could say? Which was, of course, what both her own Watcher and Laird's people were counting on, she supposed.
The Métro let her out in a different part of town. She let herself slow to a more meandering pace, eventually locating the café that she wanted. She'd never been here, but Joe had mentioned it to her, and apparently she'd remembered the name correctly. She kept walking, slowed more, and finally located a bench outside a bookseller's. Here she sat down and waited for about ten minutes. It was no great hardship to feign impatience, checking her watch frequently. She took out her phone and checked it rather ostentatiously for messages. Then she got up and began to pace. After a while she glanced up the street towards the café, looked at her watch again, then began to walk swiftly towards it, looking over her shoulder frequently at the bookseller's. If anyone were watching, she hoped that all her body language conveyed the bookseller's as her true destination, not the café.
And if she isn't working today, what will you do ...
But there she was, waiting on a customer at a window table. Amy Thomas's hair had grown long since the last time Amanda had seen her, and was wound into a complex braid on the back of her head. She was currently Watching an Immortal named Louis Benoit, a quiet non-confrontational sort who worked at an art supply store in the area. Joe was a master at keeping secrets, and Amanda felt privileged to be one of the circle that he did tell a few of his secrets to. Especially when in this case, it might help save his life.
She loitered, looking at a menu, until Amy was behind the counter, then approached her. It was hard to tell if Amy recognized her; they'd never spoken, and there was only a very slight pause before Amy asked if she could help her.
"Café au lait to go, please." Amanda took out a 10-euro note and the rolled-up bit of paper, and held it on top with her thumb as she pressed it into Amy's hand.
Amy's eyes widened a bit, and she turned away to make change. Amanda had to give her credit for her deftness; she could see Amy's hand unroll the note under the level of the counter as she counted out change with the other hand. When Amy turned back to Amanda, her eyes were wide. "Your change, ma'amselle," she said, and shifting gears with barely a pause, whispered, "Who are you? Is he all right?"
Amanda gave her head a tiny shake. There was no plausible way that Laird would know about Amy unless he knew about the Watchers in general, and even then, they both might pull this off if his observers had no reason to believe this was anything more than a routine stop for a cup of coffee. "I'm being watched," she whispered. "Trying to throw them off. Don't leave immediately. Just do what you'd normally do 'til I'm long gone. And get my coffee," she added in a tense undertone, because Amy had stopped doing anything but listening to her.
Amy nodded and Amanda waited, continuing to exude obvious signs of impatience and look over her shoulder towards the bookstore, trying to ignore Amy as if she was nothing but an ordinary barista. A young couple entered the café. Outside, a middle-aged gentleman had paused and was checking a tourist guidebook. Everyone looks suspicious when you know you're being followed. It's like the Methuselah Stone all over again.
Amy brought the coffee. Amanda wished she could say more to Amy's pleading eyes, but she gave an abstracted nod instead and was already turning away as soon as the cup left Amy's hands. It's up to you now, kid. I hope you really are your father's daughter.
Onwards to Part 2
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