Jake Caldwell Thrillers

by Weaver, James

  He spent the next two hours returning phone calls for work and tracking down the phone number. Andre Fisher, an arms dealer who operated out of the Midwest. The Wolf knew who the guy was. He had his hand on the door to abandon his post and take a leak, when a sedan screeched into the lot and parked below the staircase. The Wolf’s pulse quickened as Sokolov jumped out and ran up the stairs to his room, taking the treads two-at-a-time. He turned right at the landing and disappeared into 201, leaving the door open. He wouldn’t be in there long.

  The Wolf started the car and rolled through the parking lot, heading toward Sokolov’s sedan. He bent and picked his .45 from under the seat, checking the mag and racking a round into the chamber as he steered with his knees. Buzzing the window down, he traveled along the side of the motel, Sokolov’s car growing near. He could kill the Blackbird scheme with a few well-placed shots.

  Seconds later, Sokolov emerged from the room and pulled the door shut behind him with his bag in hand. He jogged to the stairwell, deftly maneuvered the staircase and began crossing the twenty feet of open space to his car. The Wolf raised his gun as he pressed on the gas pedal. Sokolov heard the engine noise and his eyes widened. As the Wolf squeezed the trigger, Sokolov simultaneously tripped over the yellow, concrete wheel stop in the parking lot. As he fell to the asphalt, the Wolf’s shots split his hairline and embedded themselves in the sand-colored stucco of the motel.

  Sokolov rolled toward the cover of his car as the Wolf drifted past the sedan, cursing himself for his bad luck and poorly timed strafing run. Five shots from his .45 and the only thing he killed was a window and a hotel door. He gunned the car and generated enough speed to whip around to make another pass, but shots peppered his windshield. The Wolf slammed the brakes, ducked low, and jammed his .45 out the open window and returned fire until his weapon was empty. Reaching under the seat, he fumbled for his spare magazine while another round of shots pinged against his car. By the time he found the mag and slammed it into place, the tires of Sokolov’s car smoked and the sedan shot toward the street.

  The Wolf jammed the gas pedal to the floor and went after Sokolov. As his prey’s sedan hit west bound Kansas Avenue with a cacophony of squealing rubber and blaring horns, the Wolf noticed the angle of his own vehicle was all wrong, tilted down and to the right. The steering wheel shimmied as he fought for control before braking and slamming his hands against it. Sokolov sped from sight, and the Wolf got out and surveyed the damage. As he suspected, the right front tire was in shreds. Sokolov was gone. Goddamn it. The Wolf maneuvered the car to the back of the lot, wiped it down and abandoned it, jogging down a narrow alley away from the hotel and the approaching sirens in the distance. He pulled out his phone and made a call.

  “I lost the slippery son of a bitch,” the Wolf said. “But I have a lead where he may be heading. Come get me. We just need to stop and pick something up and then we’re heading to Nebraska.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jake hit the commuter lot off I-70 where they’d dropped Angela’s car. Jake parked behind the green SUV, checked the area for onlookers and removed a slim-jim from the toolbox on the back of his truck. Twenty seconds later, he pawed through the glovebox, finding nothing of interest but the registration and maintenance records from the dealership. He checked the back and found a cardboard box marked Goodwill containing clothes he presumed were Christopher’s. His face burned with a strange mix of shame and rage. The clothes reminded Jake of how he failed the kid. He shot a text to Bear to let him know the car’s location.

  Continuing along I-70, he passed the stadium complex where the Royals played baseball to a packed house and remembered he’d promised to take Halle to a game. He’d called Snell on the way, and she’d agreed to meet him at ten o’clock at a bar on the Kansas side named Shark’s. Jake ventured there once for a charity poker tournament where he’d won a big screen television. Since he didn’t watch much TV, he sold it cheap to the second place winner and donated the proceeds to charity.

  He broke off I-70 into Kansas City’s downtown, heading toward his apartment. With the excitement of the day, he hadn’t showered, and the smell was becoming a problem. He parked in his lot, went across the street to a deli and grabbed a sandwich, before showering and dressing in jeans and a t-shirt, mixing bites of pastrami in between. He was tempted to skip the meeting with Snell and go to Angela’s house, curious as hell to check out the pictures. But, if he screwed up the chain of evidence and blew the case with Connelly, Bear would eat his ass alive. Twenty minutes later, he traveled I-35 heading south toward Shark’s.

  The bar sprawled in a strip mall on the north side of Shawnee Mission Parkway. Blue collar patrons clacked pool balls on a dozen tables. Other customers tossed darts at electronic boards while waitresses hustled to and fro, delivering white-foam-topped pitchers of beer to the beat of AC/DC blasting from a juke box. Though a non-smoking establishment now, the cloying odor of cigarettes still hung in the air like a stale fog.

  Snell sat on a bar stool in the corner, as far away from the hubbub as possible. She rose when Jake approached and swaddled him in a hug as tight as a strait jacket. She looked good in jeans, a dark tactical shirt, and boots with heels, which added to her five-foot-six athletic frame. The dark shadows around her eyes were gone and her hair reduced to fashionable spikes.

  “Good to see you.” She settled back on the barstool and wrapped her hands around a beer mug.

  Jake took a seat on the opposite side of the round table. “You too. How’s Beth?”

  “She’s fantastic. Scoping out colleges for next year.”

  A tattooed waitress with gauges in her ears wide enough to shoot a golf ball through came by and took Jake’s beer order. Snell covered the top of her glass to indicate she was good to go.

  “You get my message about the two guys I nabbed and the hospital deaths?”

  “Yeah, I sent it on to another agent who’s working on that case, but I haven’t heard anything back from him.”

  “So, there’s something there?”

  She shrugged. “Must be. Three people don’t just die simultaneously in the same hospital. My boss assigned a couple agents to look at it. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks. You get the warrant on Connelly’s place?” Jake asked.

  “McKernan is bringing it once the judge signs off on it. Should be any minute now, assuming there aren’t any problems.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  She turned her head and raised her thin eyebrows. “What you gave me is pretty weak. You’re lucky you know people in high places like me.”

  Jake drained his beer. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

  “Ain’t it the truth. McKernan will go in with us. I sent Foster to stake out the place in case Connelly heads back home.”

  Both McKernan and Foster were involved in the Ares adventure; they were good agents. “No way he goes back there.”

  She tipped her head. “Unless he has to get something from the house, like certain materials stashed behind some bricks in the basement.”

  “True. Hopefully, he doesn’t know we’re onto him. Would be nice to bust him at the house.”

  Snell motioned to someone, and McKernan’s bald head weaved through the sea of pool tables. He was over six foot and lean, clad also in jeans and a leather jacket. He waved a folded piece of paper in their direction.

  “I hope you know I abandoned my son’s little league game to get this.” McKernan handed the warrant to Snell. “He was throwing a one hit shutout too.”

  “Sorry about that,” Snell said.

  “How you doin’, Bob?” Jake asked, shaking McKernan’s hand.

  “Jake,” McKernan said. “Good to see you, man.”

  She read the document before folding it as she stood. “Let’s go figure out what’s going on with your mystery guy.”

  The trio headed out to the parking lot. McKernan parked two slots from Jake and hesitated at the door to his F
ord Taurus. “Things always this exciting when you’re around, Caldwell?”

  “Just living the dream.”

  They waited for Snell to lead the way, and the three vehicles snaked their way out of the lot before heading south to Connelly’s Overland Park address. As the lost face of motherless and terrified Christopher flashed through his brain, Jake hoped if Connelly was at the house, he could muster enough restraint to not shoot the fucker right between the eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “What the hell are we going to do?” Androv asked as he paced the living room. “Polovich is dead and if this Wolf asshole gets to us before we get another programmer, you can kiss this little endeavor goodbye.”

  Sokolov couldn’t argue his point. He leaned back into the worn plush of the couch in Androv’s living room with a drink, the cool liquid helping to quell the building anger. He’d been worried when his programmer didn’t show up to the meeting and went to Polovich’s apartment and then to the storage facility. Opening the door to the unit was pointless. He’d smelled enough decomposing bodies in his life to know the pungent, yet sickeningly sweet odor seeping through the door was his partner. Given the fact he almost got his head blasted off at the motel, Sokolov figured Polovich’s cause of death had to be the Wolf. Not only had he killed Marta, but now he screwed up his plans to avenge his wife and son’s death.

  “And then you bring the kid here?” Androv continued. “What the hell, man?”

  “What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t leave him there.”

  Sweat beaded down Androv’s angled face. “You should have shot him like you shot the other two. That’s what I would’ve done.”

  “Like you handle those idiots Dexter and Dawson? I tell you to keep them away and now they’re in police custody. I tell you to take care of them, but they are still drawing air.”

  “Those idiots do some dirty work for me, but they don’t know anything about this.”

  “So you say.”

  “But the kid does. Take care of this or are you getting soft, Borya.”

  Sokolov scowled and leapt to his feet. He grabbed Androv by the throat and slammed him against the living room wall, drawing his face close enough to count the pores in his skin. “Don’t you ever question me again. Ever. I’ve killed more men and women than you can possibly imagine. Their faces haunt my dreams, and their screams bounce around my head in a never-ending echo. I won’t add an innocent child to the noise.”

  Sokolov released him, and Androv rubbed his throat. “We’ve got to do something with him, man. He can identify us both.”

  “We will. When it’s over and not before.”

  Androv looked down the hall to the closed door where the boy was kept, shackled to the bed frame. Sokolov knew the boy was a problem. Androv wasn’t wrong about that. But, Sokolov actually admired the kid’s resolve. He saw his mother dead in front of him and was kidnapped by a stranger, but he hadn’t broke. Bullets from the firefight in the hotel parking lot pierced the trunk and grazed his arm, but the kid barely shed a tear and hadn’t uttered a sound. Probably in shock.

  “Maybe we should just pack it in,” Androv said. He reached into his pocket and plucked out a thin thumb drive. He handed it to Sokolov and backed away with his palms up. “There’s my part for the communication network. I’m out. Give this to whatever new programmer you find but count me out.”

  Sokolov stared at the black thumb drive. He pictured the hospital patients writhing in their beds. Images of his wife and son flashed through his brain like a strobe, the smell of their charred flesh forever embedded in his nose. He slid the serrated knife from his boot and stuck the point into the soft crevice under Androv’s chin.

  “If you back out now,” Sokolov said, “I will kill you and everyone in your family in the most gruesome manner I can think of.” He applied enough pressure to draw blood, causing Androv to whimper like a puppy. “We’re finishing the Blackbird, my friend. Got it?”

  “I got it,” Androv said, examining the dots of blood on his fingertips when Sokolov released the knife. “But, without someone to finish Polovich’s program to override the network security—”

  “You let me worry about that.”

  Not wanting to do it, but knowing he had no other alternative, Sokolov pulled his cell from his pocket and dialed the number for Jason Keats. Keats had directed him to Polovich. Sokolov could only hope the mob boss had another programmer up his sleeve.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The Connelly residence was a two-story Craftsman covered in a forest green stucco in an upper-class Overland Park neighborhood off Highway 169. Foster met them at the residential park at end of the street, the target house visible in the distance. The headlights of their arriving vehicles flashed across a group of teens hanging out in the dark on a pair of picnic tables and scattered them like cockroaches.

  “I think we scared the local wildlife,” Jake said as they gathered at the hood of Snell’s Fusion.

  “Damn shame.” Foster pulled her dark hair into a ponytail and secured it with a band. “I’m sure they weren’t doing any drinking. What’s up, Jake?”

  Jake shook her hand. “Any sign of life at the house?”

  “Not a peep. No sounds, no lights. It just feels empty.”

  A sneer slid across McKernan’s face. “I never understood what that means…feels empty.”

  “It comes with actual field experience, Bob,” Foster shot back. “I know it’s tough to get when you’re playing glorified movie director from a distance.”

  “Bitch.”

  “Asshole.”

  Jake opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on when the two slapped on smiles and shared a quick hug.

  “Good to see you,” McKernan said. “It’s been a while.”

  “Not since the Ares gig. You lost weight?”

  “Couple of pounds. P90X. So, what are we looking at here?”

  Snell slid the warrant from her back pocket and dropped it on the car hood. “We have the warrant to search the residence based on the information Jake and Bear provided. We’ll go in and sweep the house to make sure it’s clear. Follow procedure. I don’t want to get our asses shot off even though Foster feels the house is empty.”

  “It is empty,” Foster said, which earned her a glare from Snell. “But of course, we’ll sweep it.”

  “Jake and Bear’s intel says Connelly has been secretive and speaking to an unknown party in an unknown language which his wife didn’t know anything about.”

  “What, is he some sort of spy?” Foster asked.

  “Who the hell knows? What we think is he shot and killed his wife along with a local citizen in Warsaw. He’s considered armed and dangerous so watch your asses. Jake and I will take the basement which is where we think the incriminating evidence will be, but I want you two to comb the rest of the house, especially Connelly’s office.”

  “Um, aren’t we short-handed for this kind of deal?” McKernan asked.

  “I want the group tight,” Snell said. “At least until we figure out what’s going on. If need be, we’ll clue in the locals. Let’s go.”

  Snell and Jake took the front door while McKernan and Foster covered the rear in case Connelly tried to cut out the back. Jake agreed with Foster, however. The house felt empty, even gloomy given the fact Angela now lay in the county morgue a hundred miles away. Snell knocked on the ivory-colored door with the warrant in her left hand and her right resting on the Glock 17 on her hip. Jake pressed his back against the house, his Sig Sauer pointed to the front porch. Snell knocked one more time and clicked the mic on her shoulder. “No answer here. McKernan, what’s your door like?”

  McKernan’s voice crackled. “Glass transoms running down the side. I can bust one and turn the lock.”

  “Do it.” Snell turned to Jake. “A heap of shit fell on my head because of your involvement with Ares and Senator Young, so remember, you’re here as an observer. Don’t touch anything and don’t shoot anybody.”

/>   “What if Connelly’s in there and starts shooting at you?”

  “Blow his head off and we’ll worry about the mess later.”

  “Works for me. Just keep an eye out for the kid, and don’t go in the basement without me.”

  Sixty seconds later, the deadbolt on the front door clunked and McKernan let them inside. They shut the door and listened, the dead quiet of the house marred only by a grandfather clock ticking from the darkened living room. A family photo adorned the wall in an ornate silver frame—Angela, Christopher, and Andrew Connelly. A smirk pasted on his murderous face. Jake’s clenched fists dug half-moons into his palm to keep from punching it.

  “Stay here,” Snell said to Jake as the other two agents swept through the house. Since she wasn’t going to let Jake play with the other children, Snell should have brought another agent to allow them to travel in pairs. Jake wandered into the cleared living room; hands clasped behind his back to ensure he didn’t touch anything. Framed pictures of Angela and Christopher lined the mantel of a gas fireplace, love and hugs wherever they were. Connelly posed in one frame at the end of the row, taken at some cheesy portrait studio with a fake sunflower field background. Angela and Christopher together, a full sunflower’s bloom between Connelly and his family. Christopher beamed, but Angela’s smile seemed weighed down.

  Pictures of Jake with his entire family were rare, the last one taken a couple of months before his mother died of a heart attack while making dinner. Jake was eight, Nicky ten, and little Janey five. Stony was, of course, hammered, and Jake remembered his mother’s burdened smile, as if it took every ounce of willpower she had to hold it together and capture a memory. That picture had a hallowed place on a shelf in Jake’s room until Stony ripped it to shreds in an inebriated rage about something stupid when Jake started high school. When he caught Jake taping the picture back together again, his belt whipped across Jake’s back and the pieces of the picture burned in the fireplace.