by S L Shelton
LA, he thought. He’s going after the media list.
Braun reached for his satellite phone and then dialed.
“Roman,” came the reply.
“We have a problem with Gaines,” Braun said coolly.
“Go secure,” Roman replied.
Braun hit the encryption setting and put the phone back to his ear.
“What's the problem?” Roman asked.
“I was notified by Homeland far too late to intercept Gaines when he found our patsies,” Braun explained, hoping to head off any accusations of dereliction. “He was hours away by the time I got the tracking information.”
There was a short pause and then Roman said. “You'll have to tell Mr. Spryte yourself.”
“I will, but I'm going to need to arrange tactical support for this Op after all,” Braun replied quickly before he could be transferred. “I need you to contact Mr. Harbinger and have him make arrangements in LA.”
“LA?” Roman exclaimed. “Why there?”
Braun hesitated… Gaines was either going after the media list because Black had betrayed them and given real payment data or because the LAG party people disclosed the connection between Braun and Grimwall. In either case, the news was going to be taken poorly.
“I think Black may have betrayed us and given the DOJ real payment information,” he replied, hoping to avoid some wrath from Spryte.
There was silence at the other end while that sank in. “We'll need an alternate plan if you can't locate Gaines,” Roman said finally. “I'll contact Mr. Harbinger. You should receive a call from him shortly.”
“Very well,” Braun said tersely, the tension in his chest ticking up a notch. “Put me through to Mr. Spryte now.”
There was no reply; just a click on the line and then a few seconds later, Spryte came on the phone.
“Roman said you have an update for me,” Spryte said mildly.
Roman, you snake.
“Yes, sir,” Braun replied. “It would appear Gaines is making an attempt to reach some of our media assets. I've ordered a tactical response and am in pursuit. But I thought you should be aware that a clean elimination might not be possible.”
There was a very long pause.
“Sir?” Braun said finally.
“I expect this matter to be handled in any way necessary,” Spryte said. “If a connection is made between us and any of our assets, the damage could be extensive. We've gone to great lengths to hide them…don't let Gaines expose us.”
“Yes, sir,” Braun replied confidently. “Whatever it takes.”
The call ended and Braun sighed deeply—Spryte wouldn't hesitate for a second to hang the payments around Braun's neck and then have Harbinger put a bullet in his head. I have to clean this up quickly, he thought.
The phone in his hand chirped while he was lost in thought and it startled him.
“This line isn’t secure.” A man’s voice spoke from the other end.
“I’m headed for LA and would like a private party,” Braun replied. “Something small and quiet. Two should be sufficient.”
“Understood. What time will you be in town?” the man asked.
“Approximately five hours,” Braun responded.
“That’s short notice.”
“Then perhaps I should call another agency,” Braun replied coldly.
“No. We can manage,” the man said, seemingly unmoved. “Do you know the location?”
“Not yet. I will need assistance with that as well,” Braun replied.
“Understood. So you’ll need AV services as well as companionship,” the man said. “Any toys for yourself?”
“No,” Braun replied. “I have my own supply.”
“We’ll contact you in five hours for a rendezvous location,” he said.
Braun ended the call. He pushed his foot down on the accelerator a bit more without even realizing it. If Gaines successfully reached the radio and TV personalities and was able to extract information from any of them, William Spryte would blame the entire thing on Braun—even though it had been Spryte’s plan. It was in his nature to blame others for his own failures.
I can't let Gaines interrogate the media people, he thought, gripping the wheel tighter. Even one slipping through the cracks could bring the whole house of cards down.
The man he had just talked to, Harbinger, was a nightmare of a man—a giant of a man. The violence Braun had perpetrated in his lifetime was nothing compared to Harbinger. And he only hired the most capable killers.
Perhaps I should have asked for more men, he thought to himself before quickly dismissing the idea. No. If two of Harbinger’s men and I can’t stand against one former CIA Agent with no Agency resources, then I don’t deserve to hold my position. Besides—he doesn’t even know he’s being hunted.
**
As MARK GAINES drove down the highway, he struggled to keep his mind on task. The grief of losing his sister to those animals was more than he could bear. But the thought that she had been violated and murdered because of something he was involved in was helping him focus his anger like a laser.
“Heinrich,” Mark muttered.
Mark had been ready to sit and wait for the police to show up after he had killed the shit stains who had killed his family. But when the kid mentioned the “German”, the connection had been made.
Grimwall, Mark thought. We are going to have a chat.
But first he needed to get some equipment—Mark had come prepared to kill…not for surveillance.
He pulled the map into his lap and looked for a suitable location to obtain what he needed. His finger came to rest on a base and a grim smile spread across his face.
“I'll need a uniform,” he muttered and pressed down further on the accelerator.
**
12:40 p.m.—Barstow, California
We drove in silence nearly the rest of the way to the Marine Logistics Base in Barstow. When we arrived, John flashed credentials at the gate before pulling up in front of a nondescript-looking concrete building with double glass doors.
“Sit tight,” he ordered as he exited the vehicle.
While I waited for him, I spooled up the reader program in preparation for the fresh data and then checked my phone for any messages. While it connected to the mail server, I happened to look up and catch a flash of red in the side mirror.
I turned and looked behind me.
“Of all the dumb, fuckin’ luck,” I muttered.
It was a red and white Bronco. It pulled up to a fence two blocks away and parked. A man in Marine fatigues got out, looked around once, and then walked toward the gatehouse. He showed an ID and continued across the lot, disappearing as he entered a brick building.
I quickly dialed John’s phone number. One second later, I heard the phone ring in the center console next to me.
“Shit!”
I grabbed a t-shirt out of my bag, jumped out of the SUV, and then walked quickly, with purpose, toward the Bronco. As I went, I set my phone to mute and activated location services.
My heart beat faster as I approached the old Ford. I resisted the urge to look around and instead, focused on tightly wrapping the t-shirt around my phone. Moving confidently, despite my doubt, I stopped at the rear of the SUV before quickly stuffing the bundle under the spare tire wheel cover, jamming it hard under the taut Naugahyde.
I stepped back to make sure I couldn’t visually detect its presence. When I was satisfied, I walked casually back to our SUV and immediately logged on to “Find my phone.”
The signal correctly placed the flag on our location.
A few moments later, the man reemerged from the building, carrying a cardboard box. He exited through the gate and walked casually to his vehicle. Two Marines passing him saluted and he stiffly returned the gesture, his hand snapping up crisply and back down again.
An officer’s uniform, I thought.
As he approached his vehicle, I got a good look at his face. It was definitely our guy.
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Good! It would be awkward running back over there and explaining to a Marine Officer why I needed to get my phone out of his spare tire.
He swung the spare tire rack out of the way, opened the back door of the SUV, and placed the box inside next to another, larger box. Once everything was closed back up, he calmly got into the truck and drove away.
I watched my screen as the blip got further and further away from us. It was another ten minutes before John reappeared through the doors. He broke into a run as soon as he exited the building.
He hopped into the SUV and tossed me the pocket drive. “Load it up…quick,” he said urgently as he started the engine.
“No need,” I replied, smiling.
“Why the fuck not?” he asked in exasperation, tension in his face.
I turned my laptop toward him and showed him the map with the blinking dot moving away from Barstow at a quick pace.
“He pulled up over there a few minutes after you left…dressed in fatigues,” I replied calmly, nodding in the direction our target had just left from. “He went into a building down the street then came back out a few minutes later with a small cardboard box.”
“Why the hell didn’t you call me?” he asked incredulously.
I pointed at the center console, drawing his attention to the phone he had left sitting there. He dropped his head and shook it in disbelief. “Where did he go in?” he asked.
“Into that building,” I said, pointing.
We drove around to the entrance and parked next to the gate house. John flashed credentials to the guard before we passed through and into the building, stopping at a cage-covered counter. John hit the bell on the counter, summoning a sharp-looking corporal.
John pulled out his ID and showed it to the corporal as he spoke. “Corporal. About fifteen minutes ago, a soldier—”
“An officer,” I interrupted.
“…an officer left here with a cardboard box. Can you tell me what was in that box?”
The corporal lifted a clipboard from behind the counter and opened the metal cover. His finger traced down a short list, stopped on one entry briefly, and then he reached into a file box before extracting a sheet of paper with official markings on it.
“Eight training rounds for a LAW, two smoke grenades, white smoke, and four tactical wireless cameras and receivers,” he said. “But he would have gotten the training rounds and the smoke grenades from the ammo bunker. The cameras would have been all we had here.”
My brain recalled: The LAW (Light Anti-Tank Weapon) a portable one-shot 66mm unguided anti-tank weapon, United States production of the weapon began in the 60s and ended in the 80s.
“Thanks, Corporal,” John said as we turned and walked out.
Once we were back on the road, I pulled our tracking screen back up. Gaines wasn’t moving as fast as he had in the Crown Vic—probably more sensitive to notice by state troopers. I quickly calculated his speed at seventy-five miles per hour.
“He’s a quarter of the way to LA already,” I reported, prompting John to push down further on the gas.
“Why did he get training rounds for the LAW?” I asked.
“He needs a rocket for something, and since the LAW is no longer in production, the stockpiled training rounds have had their classification lowered. They fall under the same category as small arms ammunition. The Marines always get the castoffs from other branches, so the older munitions are stored with them longer,” he explained.
“How big is a LAW training round?” I asked.
“35mm,” he replied. “Not big enough to take out a vehicle, even if it had an explosive head, which the training round does not.”
The new data flowed into my brain’s version of an evidence board. Pieces moved around, lines crossed, and huge question marks opened in areas with insufficient data. I’d know more when we discovered where he was heading.
The two-hour, long-distance pursuit ended in a public garage in Burbank, California.
**
3:35 p.m.—Burbank, California
John drove into the parking garage where the signal was coming from roughly thirty minutes after it had stopped moving. He drove past the vehicle without looking at it and continued up to the next level, parking in a space on the slope just above and behind the Bronco so we could see it without being obvious. Gaines was not in the vehicle.
“The boxes are still in the back,” he said as he turned the engine off. “But I couldn’t tell if they were empty or not.”
“Want me to go over and look in?” I asked.
He thought about it for a second before answering.
“No. He could be using one of those tactical cameras to monitor,” he finally replied. “Let’s just sit tight for a while.”
We watched it for an hour, seeing no movement. My stomach was making horrific noises, and after about thirty minutes of John listening to it without so much as an acknowledgment, he abruptly turned to me.
“Oh for God’s sake. Here,” he said, handing me two twenty-dollar bills. “Go and get us some food.”
“But what if he comes back?” I asked, feeling as if I’d been asked to scrub the toilet.
“We’ve got the tracker. I’ll wait for you.”
I left the truck, happy for the chance to stretch my legs. Leisurely walking down the stairs of the parking garage, I let my mind unspool from the puzzle it was working on as the blood began flowing through my limbs again. I took a deep breath and stretched my shoulders backward as looked up into the LA sky, the sun beating down on the top of my head.
“Damn, LA is hot in July,” I muttered.
I looked around the corner for a place to get food and spotted a deli about a block away. I walked along, enjoying all the beautiful people and their lack of modesty. So much skin.
I arrived at the deli and fell in place behind a small line of customers. When I finally got my turn at the counter, I ordered food and drinks for both of us, making sure extra large cups were available for relieving ourselves later on.
The pressure on my bladder increased with that thought, so while my order was being prepared, I stopped at the bathroom. By the time I came back out, my food was ready, so I picked it up and took a stroll back toward the garage, snacking on French fries as I went—a guilty indulgence.
When I got to the staircase, my other voice chimed in. Careful, it whispered into my ear.
I looked down at my feet and then up the stairs and saw no obvious hazards.
“I know how to walk up a flight of stairs,” I muttered as I began to climb.
Quiet, it whispered as I got to the level we were parked on.
When I came around the corner, a man in Marine fatigues stood by the passenger-side door. It was open and he was rummaging through my bag and computer case.
I set the food and drinks down quietly before walking along the back edge of the wall, careful to step with the sides of my feet to remain as quiet as possible. When I was within two parking spaces from him, I started to move out so I could get behind him.
I could see John through the open back door, lying in the seat, handcuffed and unconscious—but I could no longer see Gaines.
Shit! I thought as I tensed. Where did you go?
As I stepped across an empty space, he suddenly appeared out of nowhere, flying down on top of me from the roof of a car. He knocked me to the ground with a kick to my shoulder, and I rolled backward, trying to avoid a stomp to my chest.
I rolled down through the narrow gap between levels and managed to get back to my feet before he came through the same way. There was no way I was going to be able to beat this guy. He was too fast and too strong, and I still wasn’t 100% because of my wounds.
He made a rapid movement toward me, pulling a knife from behind him.
“Not again,” I whined aloud.
That comment caused him to hesitate for a split second, but it didn’t stop his advancement toward me.
“Dude! I’m tech support,” I protested, throwin
g my hands up in the universal sign of “Whoa”.
Amazingly, this stopped him, but he kept the knife held high.
“How’d you find me here?” he asked.
There was no point in lying to him. We were no longer working undetected.
“My phone. It’s in your spare,” I revealed, jerking my thumb back toward the Bronco.
A confused look crossed his face. “Your phone?”
He walked over to the Bronco and sliced the cover on the spare with his knife. The T-shirt-wrapped phone dropped to the ground. He reached down and picked it up, opening the T-shirt, allowing the phone to drop to the ground. I reached out to try and catch it before it hit, but he stepped forward with the knife.
Crack! went the phone. I rolled my eyes and let my shoulders slump.
“A phone?” he asked.
“It’s all I had,” I replied honestly. “I’m not Company. I don’t have all your cool toys.”
“Not Company?” he smirked, verifying he had heard correctly.
I nodded.
He dropped my Melvin’s T-shirt after looking at it, and then opened the rear window of his Bronco with his free hand.
“Then why are you here with Temple?” he asked as he reached into the back without looking and withdrew a deadly mean-looking automatic handgun.
My adventure in Europe had awoken an interest in guns. I recognized it as a Desert Eagle .50 Cal from my research. There were papers wrapped around it.
“He asked for my help, so I helped,” I replied honestly.
“Bullshit,” he muttered as he removed the papers from around the grip of his hand cannon and tossed them back into the Bronco.
“He’s not under orders,” I said, raising my hands higher. “He told me he needed help finding a friend who was in trouble.”
“Scott! Shut up!” I heard John yell from behind me. He had regained consciousness.
Gaines looked in the direction of our SUV and then back at me.
“Scott?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at me. “Lift your shirt.”
The request caught me off guard. I hesitated for a second.