Danger Woman by Frederick Ramsay Read Free Book Online Page A

like it, Leo.”
    â€œWhat don’t you like? You haven’t heard it yet.”
    â€œI don’t like the idea of trying to trick the cops. They have me by the, what do you say, shorts and I don’t want any more bad stuff on my plate. I have too much as it is.”
    â€œFaith, Yuri. You must have faith in the enterprising spirit of America. We will not be tricking, as you say, the cops. We will be augmenting their efforts.”
    â€œWhat does that mean, exactly?”
    â€œWhat does it mean? Well, I, like the Cheshire Cat, will say to you it means whatever I say it means. It’s what we believe when we are still in the scheming phase. Nevertheless, trust me, I have this covered.”
    â€œI won’t even ask what a cat has to do with this, okay? You said you made calls to your big-shot important friends in Washington and they pretended they didn’t know you.”
    â€œNot quite. They pretended they didn’t owe me. There’s a difference. So, I have another plan. This one doesn’t involve some candy-ass aide-de-rump on Capitol Hill.”
    â€œThis new plan…it will get me out from under the cops’ thumb. I will not have to be killed by the Bratva when they discover I am working for the police. They will, you know. One false step, one muscle guy leaning on one weak man, and I am a dead Cossack.”
    â€œYou were never a Cossack in your life, Yuri, so forget that. Listen, I can’t guarantee anything except that what I have in mind will significantly reduce the chances of you dying before your time and, if I remember my sixth grade geography correctly, might involve some Cossacks after all.”
    â€œI am confused. You know that short of miracles, I am going to die? Tell me why I should not get in the van and drive into ‘Uncle Bob’s’ country and disappear?”
    â€œBecause Mugabe would put you in the same box. I can’t help you in Zimbabwe and I just know that your dying isn’t scheduled for today, okay?”
    â€œBut you can’t tell me when it is or this plan of yours.”
    â€œAs to the plan, I can. I could. I prefer not to. There are always last minute glitches in any good plan. I needed one or two more phone calls to come through. They did and now we have it.”
    â€œWe?”
    â€œExactly. We. You and me and some friends in Chicago and elsewhere. Oh, and add the local police in the person of Kgabo Modise.”
    â€œWhat if he doesn’t buy it?”
    â€œThere is always that. If he has scruples, we go to plan B.”
    â€œYou have a plan B?”
    â€œMaybe I do and maybe I don’t. Either way he won’t know that.”
    â€œAnd you are not going to tell me plan B either, Leo?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œWhy do I feel like I am in a bad television show?”
    â€œLike I said, Yuri, trust me, I have this covered. Oops, here comes our man now.”
    Painter pointed out the window again. Modise, himself, had stopped to talk to the man mixing cement.
    â€œBrace yourself, Yuri, we are about to play a hand of high stakes Texas no-hold’em.”

Chapter Nine
    Charles Tlalelo studied his boss behind lidded eyes. What should he say? Would she be angry or have her feelings hurt? He had come to admire this woman who seemed to fear no one and nothing. Sanderson, he’d learned, was not a weak woman, but when it came to those things of the heart, who can tell.
    â€œCharles, you are looking at me like a meerkat looks at an eagle. What is it you have on that mind of yours that has you shaking in your boots?”
    â€œIt is nothing, Boss. I am thinking of…I am missing something…my lunch. I forgot to bring my lunch today.”
    â€œThe box in the fridge with your initials on it is lunch for someone else, then?”
    â€œMy initials on a box? Oh, well, yes. I see now. I am mistaken. Yes, I did bring my lunch, Thank you, Sanderson.”
    â€œCharles, you will tell