Jake Caldwell Thrillers

by Weaver, James

  “Cops?” Bear asked.

  “Nah, hired muscle.”

  An alarm went off in Bear’s head. The bad guys knowing Logan’s location, even after they moved him and changed his name. They couldn’t have guessed it. Someone tipped them off. Now the cops were gone. Something was going down. He slid his Sig Sauer from his holster, resting it on the bed.

  Logan’s eyes widened. “What’s going on?”

  “The bad guys seem to have a good bead on you, and your guard detail just disappeared.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “It’s not. So, what did these guys look like?”

  “They took turns smacking me around. The first guy doing the pounding looked like…”

  The door clicked open behind them. Logan’s eyes darted to the door. They returned to Bear, hard and serious. Bear tightened his grip on the gun.

  “…the guy behind you with the gun pointed at us.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  If Jake hadn’t seen the camera in the lab, he and Snell would have been cut to pieces when they opened the security door. He considered pushing it open with the two of them bracketing the doorway in case whoever was inside opened fire, but that killed their element of surprise. That would put Snell’s daughter at risk.

  Years ago, Jake read a study in some magazine he found on a long Delta flight to Vegas discussing human reaction time. The study covered a wide range of stimuli including driving, sports and fighting. The average reaction time for an adult male was under a half-second, females a hair over the same mark. The key was figuring out what the other guy would do and use half a second to strike first and strike hard.

  Jake knew the men behind the door were possibly aware he and Snell were in the underground lab. They might know Jake had a security key, but if they watched their monitors, all they would know was he and Snell left the lab room with a box. They might think he and Snell booked it out of there with their newfound treasure.

  On the other hand, maybe they knew Snell’s identity, and they had her little girl in their custody. Maybe they knew there was no way she would leave without her daughter, and the one way to get her was through the door in front of them. So, they would take up positions at either side of the room and train their weapons on the door, waiting for the light to turn green and the magnetic lock to release.

  If the average reaction time of a male was under a half second, Jake figured he could count on at least a tenth of a second better reaction time if they were trained worth a damn, which didn’t give him much time once they hit the door. He pictured the guys in the room, guns raised, aimed at center mass. Anticipate where they would shoot and do the opposite. Instead of charging in high, he threw open the door and dove low.

  Two guys in blue suits, guns aimed at the door in opposite corners of the room. Jake skated across the slick linoleum, feeling the bullets rush by his head before the sound registered in his ears. He brought up his Glock and aimed at the short-haired guy in the far corner, squeezing off three rounds. The first one missed wide left, but the next one took out the guy’s throat. The third shot left a dark hole an inch above his eyebrow, grey matter splattering the wall behind him. Before the other guy could adjust his aim, Snell’s piece swung around the door, and she pumped three shots into the guard’s chest, a perfect triangle if they played connect the dots. Jake jumped to his feet before the bodies hit the floor and swept the room. A third guard, a trembling kid with raised hands. He wasn’t in a suit, but a grey uniform similar to the schleps upstairs, doughy belly spilling over the beltline. His egg-shaped eyes set wide with what was surely fear, sweat on his pale brow, and a dark stain spreading across his crotch.

  “Please,” the kid said, dropping to his knees with his hands raised. “Don’t kill me.”

  “Where’s the girl?” Jake demanded.

  The kid turned his head toward a closed door.

  “Anyone in there with her?” Snell demanded; gun trained on his forehead. The kid shook his head.

  “Open it,” Jake said.

  The kid wobbled to his feet like a newborn deer on shaky legs. He crossed the room and pulled out a keycard. Jake pressed the barrel of the gun into the soft, fleshy patch at the back of the kid’s head.

  “If there’s anyone other than the girl in there, or you try anything stupid, I’ll blast a hole in the back of your fat skull. Got it?”

  With shaky hands, the kid waved the keycard in front of the electric keypad. The door clicked open, and Jake pushed him through. The kid stumbled into a twelve-by-twelve room with a kitchenette holding a coffee pot and a microwave. A muted television hung in one corner. Along the far wall sat a cot covered with a thin mattress and a threadbare gray blanket. Sitting on the cot, eyes filled with tears, was the girl from the photo in Snell’s office. Her chestnut hair frayed against dusky, button eyes, and she still wore her school athletic sweats. Beth. Weariness sunk her features, but otherwise she appeared in perfect health. She shrank back to the wall at the sight of Jake with his gun pressed into the neck of the guard. The teary-eyed fear turned to elation when Snell entered the room. Beth jumped to her feet and leapt into her mother’s arms, both of them clenching tight and indecipherable wails of happiness erupting.

  Jake checked his watch. Time wasted. “We have to go. Now.”

  Snell broke from her embrace with Beth. “What about him?”

  The kid still faced away; arms raised. Jake told him to turn around. The kid’s eyes clenched tight.

  “What’s your name?” Jake asked.

  “B-B-Billy. Billy Young.”

  “How long you worked here, Billy?”

  The kid opened his eyes. “Couple of months.”

  “You’ve been down here with this girl the whole time?”

  “Just during my shift. They told me to keep quiet about it.”

  Jake pointed to the stain in his crotch. “Time for you to find a new occupation, Billy. You suck at this one.”

  “You ain’t gonna kill me?”

  “Not today. But there’s a price you have to pay for holding my friend here.”

  Jake threw an elbow and cracked the kid across the forehead. Billy collapsed like a sack to the coffee-stained linoleum, unconscious before he hit the floor. Beth spat at his form at her feet.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Jake said. “We have forty-five minutes to get downtown.”

  Snell led the way, Beth followed. Jake picked up the transport case outside the lab, handed Beth the box of vials, and they ran along the hall and up the stairs to the security office. The guard on the floor was still out cold. Beth furrowed her brow at the sight, but her mother pushed her toward the side door leading to the parking lot.

  The night air bit their skin, and a misty drizzle floated from the bruised clouds overhead, a sliver of moonlight to let them know it was a matter of time before they dumped their payload. Snell’s car was parked a good two hundred yards away in the convenience store lot.

  “We gotta move,” Jake said.

  “What about the guard?” Snell asked.

  “He’ll be too surprised to see strangers walking out on foot. If he gives me any lip, I’ll lay him out.”

  “He could call Wyatt.”

  “Yeah, but who is Wyatt going to call? We took out his guys.”

  “Not all of them,” Beth said. “Not the two mean ones. They left earlier in the day.”

  “Did they hurt you, baby?” Snell asked, grabbing Beth by the shoulders.

  “No, but the one named Devaroux wanted to. I could see it in his eyes. Can we get out of here?”

  The trio took off across the parking lot.

  “Did you see your dad?”

  Beth was quiet for a few steps. “I don’t want to talk about him. Ever again.”

  “When this is said and done,” Jake said, “I’m going to get the sick bastard.”

  “Not if I get him first,” Snell added.

  They were halfway across the lot to the guard shack when a dark
sedan, sleek and sporty, sped around the edge of the building farthest from them. It sped past the guard shack, out to the road, and disappeared into the night.

  “I’d recognize that car anywhere,” Snell said. “That was Wyatt.”

  The gears clicked away in Jake’s head. “I know where he’s going. Come on. We’ve got less than an hour to get downtown, and you have some calls to make.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “Turn around with your hands up,” the man said.

  It was four paces from the door to Logan’s bedside. Bear knew because he’d worn a groove in the linoleum wondering where the cops disappeared to. Four paces, ten feet. If the guy was here to kill Logan, he’d kill Bear without a moment of hesitation. Bear wasn’t about to get shot in the back, but he knew any sudden movements would be the end of him. He released the gun so it lay on the bed, his body blocking the view of the man in the doorway and turned.

  The man was young, choppy hair with a jagged scar running the length of his cheek. He pointed a Beretta 9mm with a silencer at Bear’s chest. Bear didn’t flinch, just waited with his massive paws at his side, palms outward to show he had nothing in them. His heart thundered, hands tingling.

  “That gun supposed to scare me, Devaroux?” Bear asked.

  The man flinched at the recognition. “Have we met?”

  “Nope. You beat up my friend here. Almost killed him.”

  “It was nothing personal.”

  “It was to me, asshole. And I’m pretty damn sure my friend Jack took it personal.”

  Devaroux reached back with his free hand and engaged the lock on the door. “Probably should have just killed him.”

  “Would have been better for you,” Bear said, trying to keep his voice even. He wasn’t scared. He was pissed and couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do more than wrap his hands around the cocky, little bastard’s throat. “So, how’s this going to work?”

  Devaroux pursed his lips as if considering the answer. “I shoot you, then shoot your friend Logan, and ride off into the sunset with a wad of money.”

  “No concern about the briefcase and its contents? No worries about what the bad guys are going to do with it?”

  “Not my problem. Just as long as I don’t have to do this shit anymore.”

  “Don’t like it?”

  “I did enough killing in Afghanistan. Kinda lost the taste for it.”

  “That where you got the scar?” The longer Bear kept the guy talking, the longer he and Logan would stay alive. If the guy was smart, he’d start shooting and get out.

  “Sniper. Took out my two best friends and gave me a hell of a shave. A quarter inch to the right and my brains are still lying in the streets of that fucking wasteland.”

  “Close call averted,” Bear said. “No need for another one, so walk away now. You let us both free and we’ll call it even for nearly killing Logan.”

  “Can’t do it. I have my orders. I don’t follow them, I don’t get paid, and probably end up dead.”

  “You’re fucked either way,” Bear said.

  “How do you figure? I’m the one with the gun.”

  “You’re not the only one.”

  Bear took a half-step to the side and Logan squeezed the trigger of Bear’s gun. Three shots blasted, deafening in the confines of the room. Devaroux flung back against the door, his mouth ajar in surprise. His gun clunked to the floor, and he stared at the crimson spreading against his white shirt. He wavered and inched down the door, leaving a bloody streak against the wood.

  Bear stepped over and kicked the gun out of reach, though it was obvious Devaroux was done. Logan propped up on one elbow with the smoking gun in his hand. Screams and shouts sounded from the hall and footsteps pounded in the corridor outside the door.

  “Nice shootin’,” Bear said.

  “Figured you weren’t giving it to me for nothing. That’s the second time I’ve saved your ass by the way.”

  “I’ll buy you a bottle of your favorite scotch.”

  “Fuck that,” Logan said, groaning and lying back on the bed again. “Think I’m going on the wagon.”

  Bear dialed his cell and gave Jake the news.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Jake relayed to Snell another bad guy was dead and Logan safe. He sat in the passenger seat of Snell’s Fusion, the silver case at his feet along with the box of vials and a bottle of green Palmolive dishwashing liquid he purchased in the convenience store. Henry, the lab tech, gave him the idea. Hopefully, it was close enough to Ares to pass muster at a darkened meet site. Beth straddled the middle of the backseat. Her long, toned arms wrapped tight around her athletic frame, shivering. The adrenaline from the action in the lab had fled Jake’s body leaving him exhausted, legs twitchy and eyes burning.

  “Where to?” Snell asked. Unlike Jake, she seemed amped up, ready to roll.

  Jake registered Snell’s eyes, the fire burning. He craned his head to Beth in the backseat, her gaze locked on the Blue Heron building across the road. He couldn’t imagine what thoughts ran through her young mind. Probably trying to come to terms with the fact those stories from her mother about her asshole father were true. Snell wouldn’t come right out and blast her ex, but there would be snide comments, sprinkled innuendos. Jake suspected what weighed on the girl’s mind were those wasted times she gave her father the benefit of the doubt, those moments when she hated her mother for shredding the paper-thin vision of her father.

  Jake thought of his daughter Halle. The two girls were the same age, both athletic, both strong. If Halle knew half the things he’d done in his life, would she have that same sad expression on her face?

  “Jake?” Snell asked. “We have less than an hour to get to the meet. Where are we going?”

  Jake rubbed his tired eyes. Snell wasn’t going to take this well. “We’re going home. We have no reason to go to the meet.”

  Snell’s doe eyes widened like hubcaps. “What are you talking about?”

  “We have Ares. We have your daughter. Logan’s safe. We’ve won. It’s done.”

  Snell pressed her lips together and white-knuckled the steering wheel. Her teeth ground together.

  “It’s not done. The bad guys are still out there. Keats, Wyatt, and whoever they’ve brought in to buy the goddamn poison.”

  “You have enough evidence to nail Keats and your ex-husband. Call in the commandos and sic them on the meeting site. We don’t have to put any of our lives on the line. We both have too much to lose.”

  “We can’t mobilize a full-blown team in time. And evidence? What evidence? Everything we have is circumstantial. We have no paper trail linking Keats to this shit. It’ll take our techs weeks or even months to figure out what to do with Ares. In the meantime, the terrorists will fly back to wherever they came from, and my ex-husband will be in the wind and out of reach before the sun rises tomorrow. Besides, the lab tech said Wyatt has another batch of Ares. The bad guys get ahold of them and the whole country is in danger. No, we act now and take these bastards down while we still can.”

  “With what? You and me against an army of bad guys? Drive in with guns blazing? Not gonna happen.”

  Snell eyed him for a moment, her tone softening. “Why did you get the box of vials from the lab and dishwashing soap?”

  “Just a backup.”

  “Bullshit,” she said. “You had a plan. You said when we got out of the warehouse, I’d have calls to make. What was the plan? Who am I supposed to call?”

  Jake didn’t answer.

  “What do you think Keats will do when he finds out you’re involved with screwing him out of millions? Let you go like he did last time? What do you think he’ll do to your family?”

  “Leave my family out of this.”

  “I am. Keats won’t. There will be retribution. I guarantee you that much. You know that.”

  Jake stiffened. She was pushing his buttons, goading him into action. It was working because she was right. If he didn’t show up with Ares
, there would be no money exchange. If Drabek showed up with a different batch of Ares, he’d score the money, the bad guys attain the poison and they all would escape. Either way, Keats would figure out he was getting screwed and would come after him. Come after Maggie and Halle. Shit.

  “And Wyatt? He’ll come after us. He’ll sic Ware and the entire Kansas City Police Department on you, me, and anyone else he can think of. You won’t be able to set foot in Kansas City again, if you ever get out of it to begin with. And don’t forget about Senator Young. You’ll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life, Jake. I thought that’s why you escaped the mob in the first place. There’s too many crooked sons a bitches running around to let this go.”

  The night’s mist dotted the windshield, each drop appearing larger as the negative permutations revealed themselves.

  “Jake,” she continued, gently gripping his forearm. “We don’t have a choice. We have to finish this.”

  He recalled the plan that began formulating in his head in the lab of Blue Heron. The wheels in his head spun back up. The plan was thin. Paper thin.

  “We’re going to need more people,” he said.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Jake drove since Snell had multiple phone calls to make and he only had one. He called Bear and told him to meet them at Jake’s apartment. They didn’t have time to drive Beth home, and Jake’s apartment was more or less along the way. Bear seemed happy with getting some action instead of sitting around a hospital answering questions. He said he had to figure out how to ditch the Kansas City Police who peppered him with questions but promised to make the meet.

  As they sped toward I-35 and downtown, Snell placed her calls, keeping the call tree limited to people she trusted. Two worked at the FBI office despite the late hour and could make the meet without a problem. A guy named Briggs and a woman named Foster. The third was some guy named McKernan who had the video equipment to capture the meet and provide the evidence.