Jake kept the gun on Sokolov but stepped to the side. He exposed himself but figured the Wolf didn’t want to kill him. Besides, if the Wolf was as good as he appeared to be, Jake would be dead regardless of where he stood. He needed the Wolf to trust him and move the gun away from the back of Bear’s skull.
“I’ve got a proposal for you, Sam,” Jake offered. “This little standoff isn’t going to end well for any of us unless you drop your gun and surrender.”
“Zero chance of that happening. I’m prepared to die today as long as I get to take this traitorous piece of shit with me.”
“Which is why I didn’t bother suggesting it. Since you and Sokolov here can think of nothing you’d like to do more than rip each other’s throats out, I’ll give you the opportunity. Kind of a winner-takes-all scenario.”
The Wolf raised an eyebrow. “What’s the winner get?”
“Oh, I’m sure we could spin some sort of scenario to get you some leniency with the courts,” Jake said, “but the real prize would be the knowledge you killed your rival with your bare hands, a tale spun through the rank and file of the Russian government for years to come. You could be a legend, Sam.”
The Wolf narrowed his eyes. “I’m still listening. What do you have in mind?”
Chapter Sixty-Six
“Two men enter, one man leaves.” Jake pointed at one of the cargo containers on the other side of the warehouse. “Inside, doors shut. We can’t have you guys duking it out and running around the warehouse.”
In truth, Jake figured the Wolf would only go for it if he thought he had nothing to lose, that his chances of escaping the warehouse alive were less than zero. Or, if he pulled the proverbial rabbit out of a hat, it would get him out of a warehouse surrounded by FBI agents. The man was resilient, and Jake forced himself to consider the possibility.
“What’s to stop you from putting us both in there, locking it shut and calling in the FBI?” the Wolf asked.
“Nothing. But I give you my word I won’t. Frankly, I hope you both kill each other.”
“Your word is a pretty flimsy safety for me,” the Wolf said.
Sokolov sneered. “He’s scared. A scared little wolf cub. He’s not man enough to do this.”
“My word is all you’re going to get,” Jake said, “but you can trust it. I won’t call in the FBI, and the container door won’t open until one of you knocks. The winner will be treated fairly and justly. Otherwise, things are going to get bloody in a hurry, and neither of you gets the vengeance you want. Vengeance is the reason for this whole manhunt between you two, right? Besides, just shooting him isn’t enough, is it? Anyone can pull a trigger. I’m offering a choice for you to settle it like a man. Make the call, Sam.”
Jake held the Wolf’s gaze, seeing the wheels turning in his brain as he ran through the scenario’s permutations. If the Wolf shot Bear, either Jake or the FBI would take him out. If Jake stood in his shoes, he’d empty his magazine into Jake and Sokolov, and take his chances with Bear and the FBI. By the same token, Jake wondered what he would do if faced with a battle between himself and Shane Langston if he knew there was no chance of escape afterward. Jake counted on the fact the bad blood between the Wolf and Sokolov ran hot and deep, and Stone would consider an easy bullet to his rival’s head most unsatisfying and cheap.
“Come on, Wolf,” Sokolov said, his tone dripping with taunt. “Let me send you from this world in a body bag.”
“Your word, Jake?” the Wolf asked.
“My word.”
The Wolf stepped back from Bear, lowering his gun. He turned and walked toward the yellow, chipped shipping container. If Jake wanted to shoot him in the back, he could easily have done it then, but the Wolf knew Jake never would.
“Let’s go.” Jake shoved Sokolov in the same direction. Bear lumbered behind Stone, rubbing away the imprint of the gun barrel from the back of his skull. Jake could read his partner’s body language: Bear wanted nothing more than to crush the Wolf’s skull.
Sokolov marched, chest puffed out. At the entrance, the Wolf stared at his gun for a moment before handing it to Bear. He stripped away his shirt, revealing a well-chiseled frame, surprising even Jake, before stepping inside the darkened shipping container.
“Am I going to have to fight with my hands tied behind my back?” Sokolov asked.
“That depends. Where’s Christopher?”
“You expect me to give this animal the satisfaction of knowing his child is safe when mine is dead?”
Jake spun Sokolov around and pressed in until their noses touched. “Tell me where Christopher is or I throw you in there with your hands tied and let the Wolf tear you to pieces. You said you weren’t a monster. Prove it. Where’s the kid?”
Sokolov took a deep breath. “In the trunk of my car.”
“For real?”
“Check for yourself. Keys are in my pocket.”
Jake stepped back and dug the key fob from Sokolov’s pocket. He tossed the fob to Bear and called Foster, relating what Sokolov told him. “Bear, pop the trunk from a distance just in case.”
Bear nodded. “Way ahead of you, partner.”
Jake stayed on the phone as Foster relayed commands to her team. He held his breath as her team descended on Sokolov’s car, praying Christopher would be okay.
“We got him, Jake,” she said. “We got him and he’s fine.”
Jake blew out a long breath, relief tingling his limbs. Thank God. “Get him somewhere safe. Thanks, Foster.”
Jake released the cord binding Sokolov’s hands, and the spy pulled his shirt over his head, revealing a latticework of scars. The man was no stranger to pain. He cracked his neck with two quick tilts of the head and rolled his shoulders. He strutted into the shipping container as Stone circled to the side until the shadows doused both men, their footsteps echoing in the empty, rusted metal shell.
“Let’s make it interesting.” Bear picked up a crowbar resting at the container’s side. He tossed the thick metal rod between the two men who shot death glares at each other.
“Two men enter,” the Wolf said.
“One man leaves,” Sokolov finished.
Sokolov and Wolf circled like ancient gladiators, fists clenching open and shut, muscles tensing for the upcoming brawl. Jake and Bear heaved the monster doors of the shipping container closed, securing the swing arm and locking the two spies in darkness. Jake counted off two seconds before the clash erupted from inside the metal arena.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
After two minutes passed with primeval shouts and clanging of metal on metal, Foster ran into the warehouse through the back-door Bear opened. She was the only one allowed inside. Her gun was drawn but held at her side as she slowed, stopping next to Jake. They stared at the closed container door and listened to the guttural sounds. Someone thumped on the inside, probably from getting thrown against the metal wall.
“Jesus Christ. They both in there?” Foster asked.
Jake nodded. “Been going at it for a couple of minutes. Where’s the rest of your crew?”
“Outside waiting for my signal,” she said. “That’s how you wanted it, right?”
“Just because it’s how I wanted it didn’t mean it was the way you would play it.”
Foster ogled Jake like he’d invented fire. “How the hell did you get them in there?”
“They both knew falling into the hands of the FBI would be hell. And since they both wanted nothing more than to tear the other guy a new asshole, we gave them a venue to do it.”
“Murphy is going to have a conniption,” Foster said.
“Stone buried his gun in the back of Bear’s skull. I had to get it off him.”
“Which I very much appreciate,” Bear said. “Feeling powerless sucks balls.”
A scream erupted from inside the container followed by a tremendous clang of metal echoing through the warehouse. The sounds silenced for a few seconds then resumed. Jake was glad he stood on the outside because one hell of a
war waged inside the rusted-out shipping container.
“Any bets on who wins?” Bear asked.
Jake pulled out his wallet. “Twenty bucks on Stone.”
“Deal,” Bear replied. “Sokolov looks wiry, like he’d be hard to get ahold of.”
“I hope those two bastards beat each other to death,” Foster spat.
“It would save us a lot of trouble down the road.”
Jake laid his shoulder against a nearby upright for the storage racks. “I don’t think there’s going to be any trouble. You’ve heard of suicide by cop? I think this is going to be the same kind of deal. Neither one of these guys has any intention of being taken into custody. Whoever emerges is going to provoke us into a lethal response, assuming they’re in any condition to walk out of there.”
“That wouldn’t make Murphy happy,” Foster said.
“Fuck Murphy,” Jake replied. “Justice would be both of these guys leaving here covered by a tarp.”
A tremendous thud rocked the side of the container and silence followed. A rhythmic thump sounded, spaced a couple of seconds apart. Jake pictured one of the men with the crowbar in his hand, chopping a man apart like one would a log with an axe. He pulled his gun from his hip holster and held it by his side.
Foster’s lips curled with disgust. “I thought he was the one…and I let him touch me.”
“I’m sorry,” Jake replied.
After a minute of silence, three knocks clanked against the container. Jake and Bear raised eyebrows, and Jake ticked his head toward the door. He and Bear approached from the side, and Jake lifted the metal sealing arm. They pulled the doors wide, and the Wolf stumbled out, scarlet cuts sliced across his chest, a crimson-dripping crowbar in hand, face splattered with blood like an artist flipped a drenched brush in his direction.
Jake peered around the corner and recoiled at the bloodied mess that once was Sokolov, his head destroyed like a watermelon with a sledgehammer. He doubted dental records would even be of any assistance. As Jake traced Stone’s bloody path, three rapid shots rang out, and Stone stopped in his tracks, the crowbar clanging to the ground. Jake jerked his head to Foster crouched in a shooter’s stance; face compressed with anger. The Wolf rolled as he fell with three neat, black-ridged holes at his heart.
“He came at me with the crowbar,” Foster said, voice robotic as she watched the life stream from the Wolf’s body.
The Wolf’s eyes found Jake, and one corner of his mouth ticked up before his life blanked out and face slackened.
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” Bear murmured from the corner of his mouth.
Jake blew out. “Amen to that. Where’s my twenty bucks?”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Both Sokolov and the Wolf were dead, and Murphy radiated fury like a runaway space heater. Jake fought to suppress a grin at the curse words coming from the old man’s mouth. And since Murphy hurled the majority of those words in Jake’s direction, he chose to walk away rather than dignify them with a response.
“I thought Murphy’s head would explode,” Bear later told him. “Like one of those thermometers in the cartoons. I’m surprised you let him ride your ass all the way to your truck.”
“I thought it might be a better option than punching a sixty-year-old senior member of the FBI in the head.”
“I don’t care what anyone says. You’re smarter than you look, Caldwell.”
But Jake couldn’t escape Murphy’s wrath forever. It took two solid days of questioning at the FBI office to fill in the gaps to a degree that satisfied Murphy. He cleared Foster since the Wolf had a crowbar in his hand while staggering toward her, though Jake was pretty sure a toddler with a plastic whiffle ball bat could have disarmed him at that point. She wouldn’t discuss it, even when Jake managed to corner her outside the FBI offices.
“You okay?” Jake asked.
“You really have to ask?”
Jake patted her on the shoulder. “I guess not.”
* * *
They moved Snell from the intensive care unit to a private room with a banal view of the traffic rolling along I-35. Vases of flowers and Mylar balloons lined the windowsill. She listened in good spirits as Jake and Bear told her the conclusion to their little adventure, though her eyes clouded when McKernan came up. She asked Jake about funeral arrangements, and he agreed to take her if the docs would let her out of the hospital.
“Where are we with the Blackbird program?”
“Some say MedFire’s software engineers managed to close the loophole in the programming Sokolov exploited, and hospital patients in the US won’t have to worry about their life support systems shutting off anymore. The execs say their systems were airtight and there never were any vulnerabilities. Nobody will admit to anything, especially when it comes to the three patients that died.”
“Either way,” Bear said from the window, “I think it’s safe to say nobody is dying from it.”
Snell regarded the tubes and monitors hooked to her arms. “Not yet anyway. And Sokolov?”
“Russian government’s denying his existence…or what’s left of it. Stone did a lot of damage with the crowbar.”
Snell’s eyes found Jake’s. “Why’d you do it? Once you had those two locked in the container, why not open the doors and let us in?”
“I did let you in.”
“No, only Foster. You could’ve had a dozen agents surrounding the container and nabbed two Russian spies with one fell swoop.”
Jake blew out a breath. He knew this question would come and told her what he wouldn’t tell Murphy. “When I first worked for Keats, I remember sitting in his office one night having a drink when the news story broke that they freed Jerome Cutler. You remember Cutler?”
She squinted. “Illinois senator, accused of money laundering and something else.”
“Child pornography,” Bear said.
“And guilty as hell of all charges,” Jake said. “I know this because Keats is one of the guys who laundered his money. When the story broke, Keats stayed up nights worrying he’d have to whack a United States Senator just to have peace of mind. I remember saying the rich can get away with anything. Keats responded: dead men can’t get away with anything. I didn’t know what he was talking about until Cutler’s car exploded two weeks later while he was out on bail. Dead men can’t get away with anything. That and those bloody torture pictures were what was on my mind when I left those two in the shipping container.”
“You’ve made some enemies at the Bureau,” she said.
“Ask me if I care,” Jake replied. “Nobody would have gotten anything from either of those guys. The world is a better place without Sokolov and the Wolf.”
When Jake told her the FBI nabbed Stone’s wife, Mariya, in a hotel room in Iowa, her face crunched in confusion. “I thought he was married to Angela?”
“He was married to both. He married Angela to get to Sean Mack at MedFire. As far as we can tell, Mariya is a Russian spy as well, though the CIA isn’t telling your people a thing. She probably was the other one shooting at us in the driveway.”
Snell sighed. “Makes you wonder if he had any other families out there.”
“Makes you wonder what he told Foster,” Bear said.
Nobody had a reply for that.
* * *
On the way back to Warsaw, Christopher wouldn’t leave Jake’s thoughts. He’d talked to Maggie who said Klages managed to locate an aunt who lived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She was on her way to pick up the kid. Foster had some follow-up with the kid, including medical tests and a shrink, but promised to bring the boy to Jake. What would his life be like moving forward? Jake supposed it depended on what the aunt was like, but the kid would carry psychological scars with him for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t talk much about his time with Sokolov, but it seemed his captor treated him decent, excluding the time the boy spent bound and locked in Sokolov’s trunk.
“Where we going?” Bear asked as Jake turned off thei
r Warsaw route along a heavily graveled road.
“Gotta make a pit stop,” Jake said. “One loose end to take care of.”
“You’re not going to shoot anybody, are you?” Bear asked.
“I sure as hell hope not.”
Dawson’s farm rolled up on his left. The dirtball father’s truck was absent from the driveway, and the mother smoked a cigarette in a rusted-out metal chair on the porch. Jake tracked to the east as the boy’s figure disappeared below the horizon, the sunlight glinting off the spinner on his fishing pole. Jake continued along the gravel road until he rounded a bend. Off to his left and down a hill hid a pond of murky brown water surrounded by knee-high weeds. The boy set a tackle box on the ground, released the hook from his pole and flung the line into the water.
“Be right back.” Jake climbed out of the truck and traversed the steep hill.
Timothy pulled his head back as he recognized Jake approaching. He finished reeling in the line.
“What are you doing here?” Timothy asked.
“Came to check on you. You’re pretty good with that pole.”
The boy threw another cast out, the lure splashing at the far end of the bank. Jake bet the boy could drop the lure into the water anywhere he wanted.
“My dad’s in prison,” Timothy said.
“I’m sorry.”
The boy tensed. “Are you? My mom blames you; you know?”
“I imagine so.” The guilt threatened to pull Jake into the soft bank of the pond.
“She said you had no right to come onto our property and do what you did.”
Jake let the air trickle out from his lungs. The last thing he wanted was to make things worse for the kid. “What do you think I should have done when I saw your dad hitting you two?”
Timothy threw out the line again. “I don’t know.”
Jake Caldwell Thrillers Page 77