“You could say that,” I said, tensely, looking at the lake—loch, whatever—and trying to use its placid surface to give myself a peaceful feeling that was not so strangely lacking in my life today. “I need cash and transport the hell out of this country.”
If he thought my request strange, he didn’t deign to mention it to me. “Anything can be arranged for the proper…incentive. What sort of transport were you thinking?”
“Private plane,” I said, thumbing on the other officer’s smartphone so I could browse while I chatted. Luckily, neither one of them had bothered to set a passcode. Silly of them, really. “I’m about an hour outside Edinburgh, apparently. How long will it take you to get a private plane—a trusted one—to, say, the airfield at…” I started to scroll my Google results for “airfield.”
“I have an airfield near Lochty, assuming you want to stay out of Edinburgh, given the circumstances,” he said casually, like he arranged illegal transport for fleeing felons all the time. For all I knew, he did. He didn’t technically work for the bank itself, after all. I’d have to call my actual banker, Nils, and arrange payment after he quoted me a fee. “It is just a field, though, a grass strip in the middle of nowhere. Does that work?”
“That works,” I said. “Also, for planning purposes, I might need some, uh…toys.” I really didn’t want to be specific here, because if I said, “I need grenade launchers, rocket launchers, machine guns, a nuclear bomb, etc.” I was pretty Brit NSA would be all over that shit, no matter how lousy they were at their job. A fricking third world knockoff NSA consisting of two guys and one of those old long-range microphones would pick up on that kind of conversation.
“I see,” he said, still cool about the whole thing. “Have you run into a difficulty that is beyond your usual abilities?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You could say that. I need some special shopping done. From the kind of markets that, uh…well, would be easier in the US, but most difficult in Europe.” I hoped that was subtle enough for the Brits, but clear enough for him.
“I believe we can accommodate such a request,” he said. “For a modest fee.”
“Tell me how much you need, and I’ll call Mr. Nils and have him wire the money.” I braced myself, because I knew this was going to hurt.
“I think five million should cover it,” came the answer a moment later. “Top to bottom.”
I wanted to say it was highway robbery, but I was sitting on the shoulder of a highway and I had zero ability to throw flame, light nets, fly, heal my wounds rapidly, or turn into a dragon if need be. If someone came along to highway rob me right now, my recourse was to beat their skull in. I didn’t like that, because I’d come to enjoy having other abilities at my fingertips for when trouble (inevitably) came a-callin’.
“Done and done,” I said. It wasn’t like I’d earned that money, and I could smell the danger I was in right now. A private plane out of the country and some serious hardware for five mil? I’d pay that price, get the hell out of here, and regroup, make my plans for revenge, and come back to bushwhack Rose when she least expected it. Or else find a way to lure her to me and into a trap, throw her off her game and finish this fight that way.
No matter how I played it, though, getting hounded by Police Scotland until they ran me to ground? Not an effective way of dealing with my Rose problem. Thorny little bitch.
“A pleasure as always,” Fritz said, and then he hung up, presumably to deal with the problems of arranging a private plane for an international fugitive and lots of guns to be smuggled into a country that didn’t really truck with that sort of thing.
My next call was also from memory, and was answered on the third ring by a curious voice. “Hello?”
“This is, uh,” I started, hoping he’d recognize my voice. “Well, I hope you know who.”
“I think I recognize your voice,” Nils said. “And I somehow thought I might hear from you today.”
“You’re a smart guy when it comes to knowing your customers and their needs, Mr. Nils,” I said. “I need a payment to Fritz. Five mil.”
If he was surprised at the sum—larger than I typically moved, but I had somewhere near half a billion still sitting in his bank—he evinced no surprise. “I see. I will arrange it immediately.”
“Thanks,” I said. I might have chitchatted more, but neither he nor I were chitchatty people, and I suspected he was as busy as I was. “By the way, this number—”
“I assume it won’t be in service much longer?” he asked, but he did so in the manner of a man who already knew the answer.
“Safe bet,” I said. “As always.”
“Til next time, then,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, and as soon as the call was disconnected I broke the phone in half, looking around to make sure no one was watching, and rolled down the window and tossed it into the loch. I finished my browse, finding out that there was a nearby town just up the road, and then broke that phone in half too. I’d been careful not to plot any trips, instead figuring out where that Lochty airfield was by visual inspection only, then after busting that phone followed it with the two police cell phones, which were just plain flip ones. I thought about tossing the radios too, but those couldn’t be tracked (that I knew of) and I’d been listening to the low-level chatter of their manhunt, hoping not to hear anything like, “She’s stolen a police car and is on Route Blankety-Blank, on the shore of Loch Rainyland.” Because that would be bad.
The last of the things I needed disposed of now gone, I popped the car into gear. Still getting used to driving on the other side of the road, I eased back out into the light flow of traffic along the scenic lane and took a left. Hopefully the village ahead would continue to provide me a respite for trouble, and I’d be able to grab what I needed, swap cars, and get the hell out of Scotland before anything else bad happened.
But somehow…I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be nearly that easy, because with me? It never was.
6.
The Scottish village wasn’t really much of a village. It was more like a collection of houses that were grouped casually together with a church, a petrol station, as they called them, and little else.
Luckily for me, there were woods nearby, and I took full advantage, ditching the cop car after I wedged it between two trees in a parallel parking situation right out of Austin Powers. I didn’t do the parallel park myself, of course; I actually picked up the car and moved it there, partially to take this particular instrument out of Police Scotland’s arsenal, and mostly to test my own succubus-level strength, because it had been a while since I’d done anything without Wolfe power.
I was still strong enough to lift a car, so that was good. And it wasn’t even the full height of my powers, luckily, because I had a feeling that if the dread that was building in my belly gave way to an actual reason for being rather than just a nervous residue of the ass-kicking I’d received last night, I’d be needing that strength.
Hiking back to the village only took a short while, a quick run over uneven ground. I surveyed it while remaining hidden in the trees, trying to figure out where I’d do my respective misdeeds.