Chapter 11

Pete nodded and rose form the couch. "Three more days" he agreed. "I think we can still be safe for three more days. You'll get plane tickets to Miami tomorrow, buy a few tickets too from the train station and give them out, I'll ensure I see Mr. Tommy, we need cash and we can't get our hands on ours right now, not without leading them to us" he said as he moved to the entryway of the room.
"Put the boy to sleep Valeria" he added and flipped the light off.
Valeria rose, the boy cradled in her arms as she moved to her bedroom for the night, allowing Nick his place on the couch.
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Nick had left early that morning to the airport after booking the very first flight, with bags stuffed up to look the part of a traveller. After then, he left for the train station to do the same under Jack Dutch, the alias Pete was mostly known for.
Valeria was in the bathroom of Pete's room, sorting guns and cartridges and whatever else they needed for the road they'd be hitting the next two days. Pete had been in a visibly better mood after returning later that morning, drenched in sweat and wrapping up his weed as soon as he entered the building. The house was quiet as he moved slowly to the kitchen to gulp a bottle of cold water after his morning run, there was left over cereal on a bowl and he cautiously tasted it before taking the bowl and drinking directly, belching immediately after. The fridge was empty save for a bottle of half-empty red wine, two fingers of banana and a pack of milk. It wasn't a bother though, seeing as no body cooked in the house.
With an audible sigh, Pete strolled to his bedroom and was met with Moses on his bed, sound asleep, the bathroom light was on and he could hear clinking coming from within. He could also smell Valeria's sugary perfume and he knew she was inside, that thought alone made his nether regions jump with a certain excitement he didn't want to feel for her no more, not after yesterday. With a deep breathe to still his nerves and loins, Pete moved to the bathroom and stood in the doorway.
On the floor, close to the tub was most - if not all - of their weapon stack, emptied from the briefcase that laid open beside her. Valeria sat on the edge of the tub, wearing only a bra and cut off Jean shorts, her hair in a loose bun, her wig hanging from the shower head.
"What did I say about being in character all the time?" He asked as he gulped his water in one go and let the plastic clatter to the floor.
"My scalp has a rash Pete, these cheap wigs make me sick" she said and looked him in the eye.
"It's part of the job Vee, it's not a ought to be a jolly ride remember?"
"I don't see you wearing wigs and contact lenses too, Pete"
"I do the brain work" he shrugged with a self-important smirk, eyes trained on her very exposed legs.
"Yeah, whatever" she mumbled and went back to changing bullets in the gun and assembling them meticulously.
"I don't like that thing on my bed Vee, you know how I feel about sharing my space" he said, casting a loathing glance at Moses.
"You have him a name, Moses. He's not a thing" Valeria stated with a frown and nodded to the guns laid out on the floor. "I needed him close in case he woke up in a fit, he's been having a cough since last night. I got him some drugs so I'm monitoring___" she was abruptly cut short when Pete moved out of the room without a care in the world, he opened his wardrobe and began to smell all his undone laundry, deciding which was considerably decent to wear and change out of his sweaty outfit.
"You only touch the guns when you're nervous, you're the knife girl, remember?" He said as he finally found and pulled on a clean blue t-shirt and fresh yoga pants.
"We'll be moving in a day, I was bored and thought, what better to do than check out our guns" she shrugged and assembled the last rifle, cocking it and pointing it at her own reflection in the mirror, she took a long stare at the pose before dropping the gun in its place, carefully placing all the parts and clicking the case lock.
"We might as well leave today, I'm starved and there's not a slice of toast in the kitchen" he complained.
" We'd better go to the restaurant and have something, I don't think ordering anything is a good idea at the moment, we're ought to be couples remember? That means I should cook and too much takeouts is suspicious" she stated.
Pete frowned at the logic but let it slide.
"I thought maybe Nick would keep you company today as well" he said from the bedroom, moving Moses to the floor and spreading on the bed.
"Maybe he will, he's out now" Valeria replied remorselessly and emerged from the bathroom, her hands akimbo. Pete looked at her, his eyes not leaving her cleavage for a second.
"Grow up, Pete" she said briskly and went to grab the baby from the floor, cradled him in her arms and swayed out of the room.
Pete grumbled and rolled on the mattress, the adrenaline from the morning run still pumping in his system, his muscles although worn were eager to flex rather than rest. Bored, he thought of a gym he could whirl the day away in since Valeria certainly wasn't going to be pleasant company at all. The meeting with Senator Thomas had been cancelled, something about a Congressmen assembly with mandatory attendance. Pete had contained his anger and disappointment and politely told him it was fine to wait one more day. The older man was as cunning as the proverbial African tortoise, Pete thought with an inward snarl. He was no doubt doing everything to pull the strings in the deal, virtually using him and his gang as puppets. He wondered how hard it would be to reach Senator Brownson himself, get the ransom and to hell with Thomas and his manipulative ways.
As he thought hard, he realized why he hadn't gone solo from day one. The risk. It would be like a bottle of syrup walking into an ant hole. He would be fished out and sent to jail before he could bargain a price. The abduction had gone beyond a private affair, many other Senators and Ministers had taken it as a personal blow and it was only a matter of time before the president was concerned too. It was only a matter of time before the the cops threw all caution to the wind and the Senator himself gave orders that they be caught by all means possible.
Martha, that was Pete's assurance and confidence, the fact that she was distraught enough to hurt herself and make Brownson's life a living hell in such a manner that others who weren't in their home had word of it, infact, it was evident on the man's face that all wasn't well and then the word passing around on the estate and beyond was that Martha was draining life out of him.
That was Pete's assurance, his assurance that as long as they still had the child then everything would be fine, they were safe and they would remain so as long as they had their bargaining chip which was Moses. He was indeed counting on the fact that if the woman was as disturbed as it was reported, then they were safe, she would not want anything to happen to the child and that meant no hot chase would be on their heads, at least not at the moment. If she was disturbed, if meant she was afraid of losing her child and would make an effort to get her back, that was something that was working in their favour.
Pete knew Senator Brownson fairly well, he knew that he loved his wife a little too much and was slightly obsessed with her. He did the calculation and the figures also matched in his favour. If the wife was distraught and the husband loved the wife, that meant the husband would be distraught too and even if he wasn't emotionally capable of being as helpless ad a woman, at least he would be worried and that worry meant he would comply and do just what they requested. Either ways, it favoured them.
If there was something vital he had learnt during his years, it was that men may not really be so gullible on their own, but they were babies once a woman that as involved. Be it a woman they knew or not. Many men died daily for saving women that truly didn't need saving in his opinion and if they happened to know or love the said woman, then it was an icing on the already made sugary cake. Anything a man did would somehow be done to please to women in his life, be it the mother, wife, daughter, girlfriend, sister or simply a colleague at work or a classmate or a friend or a neighbor a few blocks away. Their actions were subconsciously wired to please the opposite gender and Pete knew this for a fact. What he wasn't sure of was if the notion indeed applied to him.
He was a man, no doubt, he had a functioning set of balls and everything anatomically that couldn't be argued otherwise. But the factor was that he didn't have a woman in his life, at least not any that was of value after the first and only night. He lived like a nomad and that meant no neighbours or colleagues or friends. Most of hi acquaintances were of the male specie and the handful of females he had met in his line of work were those doctored to either kill him, dupe him, fraud him or help him kill, dupe or fraud another man. He knew these things and he refused to fall a victim to it even after possessing the knowledge, it would be sheer foolishness and he didn't like the look and feel of being foolish in any mood or form. He prided himself in being smart and wise and that was what h believed made each mission he undertook successful and each task a win.
Another rather valuable lesson he had learnt during his thieving journey was the act of spontaneity. He had learnt it the hard way but it was something he would not trade for anything. It had been a mission in Ivory coast, it was a small scale loot, back then, he wasn't quite reputable to undertake the bigger heists and the few sources and contact he had gathered didn't trust him well enough to believe he could pull anything of a greater magnitude off. He simply took the smaller tasks, sometimes he failed but most times he succeeded and he learnt his lessons while at it.
The day he had learnt to be spontaneous was the evening he had made his second loot for the month, he was elated and had taken the finder's share to his contact and information source. Well, the man had been a pig and a terrible pig at that. It didn't matter that Pete had been half of age at that time or that Pete had actually been shot in the leg during the heist, the greedy man had asked him inside for a bottle of beer and Pete had stupidly accepted the offer, eager to talk about the fierce night with someone and have a companion before heading home. The moment the shutter man had pulled his gun from underneath the at stool, Pete had seen it clean and clear hit he wasn't prepared to react, didn't know how to react the something so quickly and without thinking it over. He had paused and that pause was the reason he nearly lost his life that night.
The man had used just that second of indecision and weakness, that second of second-guessing to pull out his 19MM and put a slug that missed his throat just an inch. He had fired the second time and it had caught Pete on the side, just shy of his kidney this time. It was apparent that the man had the intention of killing him anf making away with whatever money he had stuffed in the small duffel bag. When Pete had decided he wouldn't die and if someone had to, then it would be the old man, he gave a direct shot, he had always been praised for his good aim, he didn't miss and that was how he had learnt the art of spontaneity.