“You can’t. We’re too far into it and, believe me, I’ve tried.”
“You have to give me a crack at him. I’ve already turned one of your team against this insanity. I can do it with Sokolov, too.”
“Turned? Who? I don’t believe you.”
“How do you think I found out about him in the first place? Now tell me, where is he?”
She tore her gaze from his eyes to the thick blue veins bulging like cords in his neck. Her mind raced. She was normally a quick thinker, but as he squashed her harder into the wall, she couldn’t get a single thought to stick. If the Wolf lied about turning someone from their team, he told it well. She needed to warn Sokolov.
“You’re being recalled,” she said at last. “The Director wants you on the first flight to Moscow tomorrow.”
The pressure against the wall lessened as he lifted her chin, his eyes boring into her soul as if he read her thoughts. She tried to fight the gaze but soon became mesmerized. The October moon cast enough light in the darkened alley to make out the tiny specks of black in his blue iris. He released her arms and cupped her face in his powerful hands, drawing his lips close to hers.
He whispered, his smoky, hot breath caressing her skin. “You never could lie to me, Marta. Please, tell me where he is.”
Her vision shimmered, tears forming at the thought of Sokolov. “I can’t.”
“Because you love him?”
She nodded, a tear escaping the corner of one eye. She cursed herself for her weakness, for getting into this position in the first place. “I do. I can talk to him. Make him change his mind.”
“We can do it together, Marta.” His voice floated as soft as the breeze blowing through the alley. “Let me talk to him. We have to stop this. There’s too much at stake.”
She searched his face. “And you won’t hurt him?”
“No, I give you my word. Now, where is Sokolov?”
She drew in the rain-dampened air. He wiped away her tears with his thumbs. The Wolf was persuasive, maybe he could talk Sokolov out of his insane plan. She’d been colossally unsuccessful so far.
She didn’t want to tell him, but the other alternatives evaporated. “He’s at a safe house in Overland Park. 1040 Melrose. I can drive you there.”
“Thank you, Marta,” he whispered, kissing her forehead as his hands slid down her cheeks to her throat. Wedging her back against the brick wall, he squeezed, gently at first, enough to instill panic. The wider her eyes grew, the harder he crushed, the snarl on his face melting to a sadistic grin as she flailed against his steel arms to knock his grip loose. The harder she fought, the harder he squeezed. Black dots danced across her vision as she struggled to scream and kick and claw.
As the darkness descended, she took one last look into those blue eyes and bared canine teeth. Before the last of her life slipped away, she flashed back to the Wolf’s face, to the passionate nights in the Moscow barracks, when he was deep inside her, wearing the same expression he wore now as he choked the life from her.
Chapter Five
Sokolov hunkered in a wood chair in the corner of his room at an Eazy Sleep Inn, west of downtown on the Kansas side of the state line. One hand moved a tasteless, fast food cheeseburger to his mouth and the other rested on a Glock 19 facing the door from an adjacent coffee table. The local Kansas City news played on mute and he split his attention between the footage on the television, his long silent cell phone and the door. Somebody was trying to stop him, the anxiety crawling through his gut like a tapeworm.
He grabbed the phone again and dialed Polovich. The call went to voicemail. He clicked off and dialed Androv who answered on the second ring.
“We may have a problem,” Sokolov said. “I can’t reach Polovich or Marta.”
“Marta’s impossible to reach, and Polovich is probably working on the program to bypass the security that shut us down. You know how he hates to be disturbed. If they don’t show for the meeting tomorrow, then we can get worried. Relax, you should be pleased at our progress.”
“Only three deaths. It could be better.”
“And it will be. They shut us down, but not before we inflicted damage. Just need to make a few tweaks, and we’ll be ready to try again. We’re really close, my friend, so don’t lose faith. Soon, it won’t be three deaths, but three thousand.”
Sokolov nibbled on his upper lip. His crew member was right. The plan was to hit the Americans hard, not with crude bombs or storming a theater with guns, but to strike them where they were the most vulnerable and should feel the safest. The United States killed Sokolov’s family with their warmongering in Syria, and he would return the act a thousand-fold with his own.
Sokolov said, “Fine. Don’t be late and keep your eyes open. Somebody’s out there.”
A girl on the news diverted his thoughts to his little sister, Agniya, with her pigtails, wan complexion, and infectious smile. Agniya, who died of fever when she was seven with Sokolov at her side, mopping her furnace-like brow with a cool cloth. His father was a bullnecked man with banged-up hands, burned from his work as a welder on cars at the AvtoVAZ factory in his crime-infested hometown neighborhood in Tolyatti, a city nearly a thousand miles east of Moscow. His mother was too sickly to work, and Sokolov was forced to care for both the women in his life rather than go to school, while his father toiled in the factory to keep the roof over their heads. Agniya died that October, and Sokolov’s mother followed weeks later. Sokolov remembered the last day he saw his father who cast such a look of disdain at his son, like the boy of ten had sabotaged his grand plans to keep the family together. He’d walked out the door and was never seen again. Sabotage. Who was trying to sabotage his plan? If someone was after him, then a member of his team ran their mouth to the wrong person.
Where was Marta? Dead? Maybe captured by the authorities? Had she betrayed him? Did she report him to the Director? He sighed. What would he have without her? Marta was the only one who could qualm the nightmares, the only one who could take away the sounds of the bombs and explosions, the smells of flesh burning, and the sight of his wife and son and their dead eyes staring up to a blackened sky. She meant everything to him.
He tried her phone one last time. Voicemail kicked in, her husky voice telling him to leave a message. He squeezed his eyes shut as the beep sounded. His mouth opened and closed, knowing it would be foolish to leave any kind of message. But he did anyway. “I love you. I wanted you to know that.” He’d show up at the meeting tomorrow, but his instincts screamed she wouldn’t be there.
As if the newscast read his mind, a picture of Marta flashed on the screen with the by-line “Woman Found Strangled in Westport.” Sokolov scrambled for the remote and unmuted the television.
“…woman found strangled in a back alley of Kansas City’s Westport bar district,” the blonde newswoman said.
Sokolov’s vision shimmered, his worst fear confirmed.
“Authorities have not yet identified the woman who was killed early Sunday morning but are asking for your help in identifying her as well as this person of interest from nearby security footage.”
On the screen, grainy video played of a figure moving along the street, face covered in shadows above a navy jacket. The familiar stride matched the gait of the man who stormed a safe house Sokolov was flushed from earlier in the week. It had been a black figure, silhouetted by the silver moonlight emerging from the woods. A burly man, creeping through the night with a rifle trained on the back of the house.
Sokolov turned off the television and bit back tears until his lip bled, letting the grief turn to rage. Somebody would die a most painful death for this. He grabbed the burner phone and dialed a number he memorized long ago.
“Why are you calling me?” the man asked, choppy like he’d run a mile. “Do you know how dangerous this is for both of us?”
“I need to know one thing,” Sokolov said, “and I won’t contact you again. Who is after me?”
“The Director knows what yo
u’re doing and would love nothing better than to—”
“I don’t give a damn what the Director wants. I want to know who he sent to stop me.”
“It’s bad,” the man said. “It’s the Wolf.”
Sokolov jumped to his feet and flung the lamp from the coffee table across the room. “Find him. I don’t care what you have to do but find him. And if you can’t find him, find someone close to him.”
“What are you going to do?”
Sokolov flashed to the hulking figure stalking the backyard of the safe house, the man on the television, envisioning his hands wrapped around Marta’s beautiful, swan-like neck. “I’m going to peel his skin from his bones with a dull knife for starters. Then, I’ll get nasty. Find me something on him or I’ll find you.”
Ten minutes later, the man gave Sokolov the name of a woman named Angela Connelly, her address, and her cell phone number.
“Don’t call me again,” the man said.
Sokolov disconnected the call, peeled off the back of the phone, broke the sim card in pieces, and flushed them down the toilet. The pieces swirled away, just like his dreams of running away with Marta. For Angela Connelly’s sake, she better hope she knew the location of the Wolf. Sokolov was in the mood to inflict pain.
Chapter Six
By nine the next morning, the bruised clouds from the night before floated east, leaving crystal blue skies in their wake. Gravel clunked off the side of Jake’s truck, and the sun’s rays danced in and out of trees as he cruised toward Harold Dawson’s ramshackle house outside of Lone Jack, Missouri.
The country road ahead split—the left side led to Dawson’s house; the right side rose before bending around a clump of ancient maples. Ignoring the deep ruts in the dirt path that would test his suspension, Jake gunned the truck to the right. A higher vantage point would give him the bird’s eye view of Dawson’s place. Jake hoped he was there. The last thing he wanted was to waste the day waiting for the scumbag to show his face.
After bouncing through the cavernous slashes in the road and listening to the jaw-clenching scratches of drooping branches raking the roof of his truck, Jake found a gap in the trees providing a clear view of the house. A hundred yards away, Dawson’s rusted pickup slumped between the tiny white-vinyl sided ranch and a rotted wood barn, which was one decent breeze from falling over. He threw the truck in park and checked the photos in the file Logan left him. No truck visible in the pics so that was a good sign.
His cell played the theme song to The Walking Dead; Maggie’s name flashed on the display.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he answered.
“Is it? I woke up alone again,” she said, her voice low and sleepy.
“I had to leave early. You still in bed?”
“Yeah, but I should get up. Covering for a girl at Hospice for a few hours, and I’m meeting with the caterer. And those wedding invitations aren’t going to address themselves.”
Jake winced, guilt pressing him into the seat of his truck. The invitations were his job. “I’m sorry, hon. I know I haven’t been much help.”
“It’s okay,” she yawned. “You snuck in so late and we didn’t get to talk. You found your guy yesterday?”
“Yeah.” He rubbed the goose egg on his forehead. “Went smooth other than getting cracked in the head with a pool cue. I’m getting old and slow.
Maggie laughed, like little wind chimes. “Aren’t we all? Where’d you go so early?”
In the valley below, the front door opened, and Dawson staggered out adorned in grease-spotted jeans and a stained wife beater. Jake could almost smell the body odor from his vantage point. Dawson stretched his stocky frame and scratched his ass before walking to his truck.
“Logan gave me another job, and I just found the guy I’m looking for. I’ll nab him, stop by the office and then I’ll be home.”
“To your apartment or here?”
The question was as welcome as a fart in an elevator. Maggie pressured Jake to dump the Kansas City apartment and make the permanent move back to Warsaw to be with her and Halle, their teenage daughter. While he would love nothing more than to be with them and help plan the upcoming wedding, he also wanted to get this private investigation gig off the ground. With Logan headed to Florida, the prospect of moving permanently back to his Lake of the Ozarks hometown appeared less likely in the near future.
“To the apartment and then back there,” he said. “I gotta finish this job and I’ll be home.”
Dawson rooted through his truck, throwing empty beer cans and trash to the ground. He slammed an open hand against the door, yelling something toward the house.
The line quieted for a beat. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
A kid emerged from the house, long blonde hair, skinny, maybe ten years old. Dawson lumbered toward the kid and jabbed a finger at the truck. The kid’s gaze dropped toward the gravel at his feet. Dawson motioned for the kid to get over there, a tight and concise gesture Jake remembered too well from his childhood. His own father, Stony, may be six feet under, but Jake could read Dawson’s body language and predict the coming sixty seconds. The kid was going to take a beating.
“You see my email about the bridesmaid’s dresses?” Maggie asked.
Jake turned the key to the truck and the engine fired up. The kid took slow steps toward Dawson as if he dragged cement blocks behind him. “No, didn’t get a chance to check it.”
“I’m not sure which one I like. The white or the ivory.”
“There’s a difference?” The anger radiated from Dawson, growing exponentially with each step the kid took. Jake jerked the gear shift to drive.
“There’s a huge difference, honey. I can’t decide which one.”
The kid reached Dawson who alternated a pointed finger between his truck and the kid’s skinny chest. Each poke drove the boy back. Each jab raised the temperature of Jake’s blood. His foot eased from the brake, waiting for what he knew would come next.
“Shit, Mags. Sorry, but I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”
“You okay?” she asked. “You sound weird.”
Dawson’s arm lashed out and backhanded the kid. The boy flew back and crashed to the gravel, hands covering his face. Dawson advanced on the crumpled figure, and Jake jammed his foot against the gas pedal.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Just gotta take care of something. I’ll call you back.”
He tossed the phone to the passenger seat as he maneuvered the truck toward the fork in the road. The heat crawled up his neck, flushing his face in a crimson hue, feeling the sting of the strike on his face as if Dawson struck him. Jake’s father was the master of the backhand slap, and Jake the recipient of it many times. The perfect balance of speed and stealth—you never saw it coming. As Jake wrung the life from the steering wheel and spun right at the fork in the road, he had to get his shit under control, or it would be Dawson’s neck beneath his hands. That wouldn’t end well for anyone.
By the time Jake roared up the driveway, a woman made a feeble attempt to stand between Dawson and the boy. Another quick lash from Dawson’s hand sent her sprawling on the ground beside the kid. Jake slid to a stop in a cloud of dust and grabbed his pistol under the seat. Dawson jerked his head at the disturbance, a snarl rising on his stubbled face. Jake drew a deep breath of sanity through his nose and out his mouth, releasing the gun. It would be a horrible idea to bring it, and he wouldn’t need it anyway. If he couldn’t take care of a drunk wife beater, then he might as well give it all up and go work as a janitor somewhere.
Jake stomped from the truck, noting the blood trickling from the boy’s nose. Old, purple and yellow bruises lined the woman’s arm like a bad tattoo. The familiar scent of whiskey wafted from Dawson as Jake drew close, hurling him back to the house in Warsaw when he would lay on the floor after a beat down from his father, his mother shielding him from further blows.
“Who the fuck are you?” Dawson grunted, spitting at Jake’s feet. He stood as ta
ll as Jake at six foot two but lacked any semblance of musculature. Sizable enough to take out a kid and a hundred-pound woman, but he had zero chance against Jake.
Jake ground his teeth together. “You get off on beating people weaker than you?”
“Little bastard stole money from my truck, and she was dumb enough to try and stop me from disciplining him.”
The woman staggered to her feet and tugged the boy’s arm until he stood. He wobbled for a moment but held his ground.
Jake stepped closer, his voice low. “You have a fucked-up sense of discipline, Harold.”
Dawson’s face crunched. “Who the hell are you?”
“The man who is going to break all two-hundred and six bones in your body, one at a time, if you lay another finger on either of these two ever again.”
Dawson spit on the ground and wiped his mouth with the back of a meaty arm. “This ain’t none of your business. This is my family.”
“I’m making it my business.”
Dawson glared at the woman; lip curled over his yellowed teeth. “You screwing this guy or something, Evelyn? Is that what this is about?”
Evelyn licked a dollop of blood from her split lip, her eyes fiery and defiant. More defiant than they should have been given the mass of bruises on her face and arms. “I ain’t never seen him before in my life, but I can guaran-damn-tee he’s a better man than you’ll ever be.”
Dawson shoved her to the ground, and the boy went after him, kicking and screaming curse words no boy his age should know. Before Jake could pounce, Dawson cracked the boy across the face again.
Jake grabbed Dawson by the arm and jerked him away. Dawson telegraphed a swing which Jake could have ducked in his sleep. Dawson’s momentum pulled him past Jake who jabbed three rabbit punches to his kidneys, giving an extra twist in his hip to drive the last one home. The guy would be pissing blood for a week. Dawson turned, and Jake gathered a roundhouse punch starting in Oklahoma and ending at Dawson’s jawline, slamming the redneck into the open cab of the truck. Jake waded in to finish him off when Dawson lashed out with a hunting knife from the cab. Jake jumped back from the wide arc swipe a millisecond late as the tip of the blade sliced through his shirt and drew a crimson line into his stomach. If Jake stood another six inches closer, he’d be holding his guts in his hands. Getting old and slow.
Jake Caldwell Thrillers Page 54