In the second installment of the Gem Team Series, Robert "Boz" Bozeman is in search of the leader of an International Crime Organization.
Working with "The Company" he gets a good lead when five Museums are robbed of thier "Ruby" collections.
Follow Boz, Kay and Reggie as they travel from Washington to France and finally into London, searching for the one man who can lead them to the head of the organization.
Excerpt
“When did you know it was the Institute?” I asked.
“I didn’t know at first and this guy Philippe said he wasn’t going to tell us until we agreed to do the job. If we agreed he would take us to the building, if we didn’t agree then he would leaver, no hard feelings and we wouldn’t know enough to have our lives put in jeopardy.”
“Go on”, I said prompting him.
“Well my partner and I sat in a small hotel room in D.C. and looked over the plans. This guy Johansen had all of the intelligence we needed to by-pass security, move in and out of the building without causing any alarms to go off and an escape route laid out to the minute from leaving the building.”
“How long did it take for you to make your decision”, I asked.
“It wasn’t until the next day when we met again at the same hotel”, he said.
“Which hotel?” I asked.
“Hotel Rivera” he said as he pulled another cigarette out of his pocket and lit it.
“Go on”, I said trying to sound casual, but I was getting anxious for this guy to get to more details.
“Well we met the next day and Rooker and I asked how much the job would pay. The guy never hesitated he said, ‘half a mil’. Well you better believe we jumped on it and said we were in. Now I wish we would have walked away. I should have known that a score that big was going to be some place hot.”
He pulled a long drag off the cigarette before continuing, “Anyway, this Philippe guy says that we understood that once he told us what the target was we couldn’t back out and if we tried to back out, we would never leave the room alive. We should have left, but all we saw were dollar signs, big dollars signs and we wanted the money. I guess you could say we sold our souls that day.”
I marveled at the wisdom coming out of this young mans mouth. Perhaps I had misjudged him earlier. He might not have known what the Patriot Act was, but he had enough street smarts to stay alive longer than most men in his profession.
“So you agreed and this Philippe told you the target?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said putting his finished smoke out on the floor, “the second he told us, Rooker and I looked at each other and we knew that we had made a huge mistake. But it was too late. We wanted to live more, so we made the best of the situation and dove into making sure we knew the plans inside and out. We even worked hard on finding a better way to do the job and we had one or two points that this guy Philippe said he had not thought about, which impressed him I guess because he wanted us to meet his boss.”
My ears perked up at the mention of Phillip’s boss. Was this the guy we had been looking for? I felt so close my mouth began to water. Just then my cell phone buzzed again. I glanced at the read out and saw another text message, “Go easy and slow, let’s get all of this on tape”.
I nodded my head to no one and looked over at Cripps who was staring at me. I covered my reaction as best I could, “Did you met Phillip’s boss?” I asked as my stomach knotted up.
Cripps started to open his mouth when I heard a small pop coming from what seemed like behind him. His left hand went to his neck where a hole had opened up just under his ear and a stream of blood shot out between his fingers.
I didn’t have time to think, I just re-acted jumping across the table and pressing my hand against his. “Reggie,” I screamed, “Reggie, get in here now!” It felt like forever before anyone answered my cries for help.
Reggie burst into the room and took in the whole scene in a moment. “What happened?” he yelled as he rushed to my side.
“I’m not sure,” I screamed, “but I think his neck exploded!”
