Bad Faith (Mason Ashford Thriller Series Book 1)

by Nick Stevens

  He stared out the window as he pulled his clothes back on. Flames danced in the distance, coming towards him before disappearing.

  “Ong! Kim!”

  Sounds of jostling outside his door, followed by a knock and Ong throwing open the flimsy door. Shirtless and covered in sweat, Bon-Hwa saw a belt wrapped around Ong’s hand. Kim Wook peeked from behind the bodyguard.

  “See what’s going on out there. I saw something on fire, out in that direction. Find out what it is, and report back. Deal with it if you have to.”

  Sal spat on Aaron’s lifeless corpse as she stepped over the body. Pointing to the length of rebar, she said, “That’s what he used to kill the men they found in Rock Creek. He bragged about it like he was proud of what he’d done. What a piece of work.”

  Digging through Aaron’s pockets, Mason found keys and a wallet with several hundred dollars inside, but no identification. Sal raised an eyebrow as he pocketed the cash.

  “What? He’s not spending it.”

  The pair checked the remaining room, finding it an empty mirror image of the first. Sal exited the building, standing outside the doorway. Mason joined her, curious about the puzzled expression she wore.

  Shotgun propped against her shoulder, Sal nodded into the trees. “That is something you don’t see every day.”

  What looked like a torch, its brilliant flames visible through breaks in the scant tree cover, ran farther into the camp. Mason and Sal watched the flames until they disappeared.

  “Did you see where it came from?”

  Sal pointed. “There. That’s where I first saw it.”

  Chapter 24

  Mason’s throbbing leg kept him awake and alert even as the limping slowed them down. The three ibuprofen he’d taken from his pack kicked in, pushing the pain just below the surface. The ringing in his ears faded as they covered ground. He heard Sal panting next to him, joining the steady rhythm of his own heartbeat echoing in his head.

  As they got closer to where the fire came from, Mason and Sal spread out, expanding their search. The distance also ensured a single burst of gunfire wouldn’t hit both of them, a fact Mason declined to share with Sal.

  The outline of a cabin appeared out of the darkness. Faint light glowed from the single window on the wall facing them, its panes covered in grime and dirt. Mason swept around to the outside, pistol at the ready.

  Sal headed straight for the building, eyes sweeping the ground and trees around her. A sound in the distance locked her in place. Voices bounced through the trees, coming from deeper within the camp. Sal couldn’t guess the distance in the heavy tree cover, but the voices were coming closer.

  Picking up her pace, Sal rounded the corner of the cabin, finding Mason waiting at the door. “I heard voices. They’re coming this way,” she whispered. She repeated it, louder, until Mason nodded.

  A warm, yellow glow spilled out of the door, open a few inches on its hinges. Sal pushed the door open with the barrel of her shotgun. Red-ringed eyes stared up at her from the floor, framed by matted chestnut hair. A deep gash along her left cheek dripped blood, black in the cabin’s light. The girl cradled the lifeless head of another woman, strands of black hair obscuring her face.

  “Chloe Stewart?” Mason asked from the doorway.

  A flash of recognition penetrated the shock.

  Sal kneeled next to the girl. “Your mother sent us to find you. People are coming. We have to go. Now.”

  “I can’t. I can’t leave her.” Chloe said, her voice hollow and brittle.

  Mason peeked out the door, looking deeper into the camp. The beam from a single flashlight bounced through the trees, coming closer.

  “Chloe, she’s gone. We can help her after we get you out of here.”

  Sal reached for Chloe’s hand. A string of puncture marks dotted the inside of the girl’s skeletal arm. “Mason.” Sal nodded to Chloe, showing him the track marks running up and down the girl’s arm. His mouth formed into a grim line. The girl crouched on the rough wood floor in front of him had none of the vigor or energy from the photos she’d shared online. Tortured, drugged and abused, much like the corpse she clung to. Both deserved justice.

  “Get her out of here. Keep heading that direction.” His arm waved towards the house where he’d heard Bethany earlier. He tossed her the key fob he’d taken from Aaron. “Try finding that car. Get her out of here.”

  Sal looked back at him. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to finish this.”

  Ong stomped away from the brothel, annoyed at being called away from his prize for the night. When the captain called, he had no choice but to respond, even to investigate a campfire. He’d never disobey the captain. Years of witnessing his brutality first-hand built a healthy respect, and more than a little fear, of Khang Bon-Hwa.

  Kim, tromping along behind him, was another matter. The son of the captain’s wife’s sister, Kim Wook fell into his role through nepotism and good luck, but that’s how it was among the great and powerful in his country.

  “Give me the torch,” Ong barked to Kim. Ong had years of experience and sacrifice on Kim. The younger man feared him despite his superior rank, giving Ong the opening to abuse him when they were away from the captain.

  Kim tossed the light. Ong caught it in his free hand. The other held a suppressed Glock 17. The bodyguard didn’t trust Kim with a weapon. In the dark, the fool might shoot him by mistake.

  The two men stalked through the trees, searching for the campfire Ong was certain his general saw from the window. Ong’s room didn’t have a window, he realized with more than a little bitterness.

  Ong halted, shining the light into some overhead branches. Kim, bored with the search and searching again for a cell signal, crashed into Ong’s back.

  “Watch what you’re doing, idiot!” Kim’s eyes went wide with fear as Ong shoved him with one powerful arm, sending him toppling over. Ong raged, “You go over there,” pointing to his left, “and stay away from me.”

  Ten yards away, Mason watched the altercation between the men with interest, thankful his hearing had returned enough to overhear the conversation in angry Korean. He couldn’t understand it, but the body language told him enough.

  Withdrawing further into the copse of trees, Mason watched the man skulk away from the larger man who’d put him on the ground, shoulders slumped.

  The man tromped through the trees, stepping on twigs as he fished a cigarette and lighter from his leather coat. He checked behind him, ensuring the big man hadn’t followed him for another round of abuse. Lighting up, he inhaled a deep lungful of smoke before blowing it out. A waft of sweet tobacco smoke drifted past Mason, forcing him to suppress a cough.

  Cigarette wedged between his lips, the man again dug out his phone and resumed searching for a signal, oblivious to anything else around him. The tiny screen illuminated his face, blinding him to the danger lurking a few feet away.

  Mason watched the flashlight drift farther away from the distracted man. The man in front of him turned in lazy circles, more concerned with his phone than whatever he was doing out in the woods.

  Lifting the leather sap out of his pocket, Mason looped the lanyard around his wrist. Mason stepped behind the doomed man, clubbing him with the weighted leather weapon at the base of the skull. Swinging again, Mason’s arm passed through empty air as the man crumpled to the ground like a sack of grain, his mobile phone clattering against a rock.

  A voice penetrated the night. “Kim Wook! Kim Wook!”

  Mason checked the man’s pulse, then rifled through his pockets. He turned up a key fob and a thick wallet. Then he placed the mobile phone, its glowing screen acting like a beacon, next to the body. Mason retreated to the nearby trees.

  “Kim!” The man’s voice bellowed into the night.

  The shouting figure came into the small clearing with a pistol held high. Sweeping right, left, and behind him, he cleared the area before moving toward his unconscious partner.


  Keeping his pistol ready, the man crouched down and checked his partner for a pulse.

  Dropping out of a tree, Mason brought his baton down on the hand holding the pistol. His swing went wide, knocking the gun out of his hand instead of shattering the delicate bones holding it.

  The other man swung with his free hand, slamming a fist into Mason’s stomach. Staggering back from the blow, Mason charged as the man reached for the dropped pistol. A vicious swing caught the bodyguard across the back of the knees. He collapsed, his weight bringing him down in a heap. Mason saw the bodyguard’s left hand close on the body of the pistol. Stomping down, he felt bones break like snapping twigs through his shoe.

  The bodyguard unleashed an animalistic howl, kicking from the ground. He connected with Mason’s injured leg. Unable to leap out of the way, Mason rolled with the blow, staggering back to his feet.

  Prying the pistol from his broken fingers, the bodyguard grasped it in his other hand and fired wildly into the darkness from his back. The bullets thudded into surrounding trees. The bodyguard’s mouth went slack in disbelief. The man disappeared.

  Mason worked around the boulder as the man fired, grabbing large rock, the size of a grapefruit. The man sat up, his head searching for his prey as Mason crushed his skull with the stone from behind. The body slumped to the side and fell over.

  Grabbing the pistol out of the dead bodyguard’s hand, Mason shot the man once in the head. Ejecting the magazine, he counted the remaining four rounds in the nine-millimeter CZ-75 twice before reloading. Searching the body for an extra magazine, he only found a pack of unfiltered Camel cigarettes.

  Slumping onto the cool rock, Mason caught his breath and wiped the sweat from his eyes. Standing, he walked over to the man still laying on the grass.

  “Wake up.”

  Kim Wook’s eyes snapped open. Still dazed, he tried shaking off the confusion of his situation. Nestled next to a tree with his hands tied behind him, he tried speaking. The gag lashed against his mouth made that impossible. Mason couldn’t believe how young his prisoner looked.

  “Do you speak English?”

  The young man nodded and mumbled behind the gag.

  “Good. That makes this easier. I’m going to ask you a few questions. You’re going to answer them. The guy you were out here with is dead. No one is coming to help you.” Pointing to the corpse nearby, Mason pressed the end of the suppressed pistol against the man’s forehead. “Your only way out of this alive is telling me what I want to know. You scream, you die. You lie to me, you die. Okay?”

  Eyes wide at the word die, Wook’s head hammered up and down.

  Mason leaned forward, tugging the gag loose from the man’s mouth. Panting, the man nodded in thanks.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Kim Wook. I drive. Please.”

  “Please?”

  “Yes. Please. I drive.”

  “And who do you drive, Kim Wook?”

  The bound man’s forehead wrinkled. “Kim Wook. Driver.”

  Mason mimed driving a car. Kim Wook pushed a smile onto his face, nodding.

  “Who do you,” Mason stuck a gentle finger into the man’s chest, “Drive, Kim Wook?”

  “Khang Bon-Hwa.”

  “Who is Khang?”

  “Big man. Important.”

  “Who else?”

  The confused look returned to Kim Wook. Mason pressed the pistol harder against his forehead. With his free hand, Mason pointed to the body. “One.” Then tapped Kim Wook’s head. “Two. How many more?”

  “Two.”

  Mason couldn’t tell if the man repeated what he’d just heard or there were two men left. He knew about the two remaining men from earlier and had to chance it. Kim Wook passed the first test.

  Speaking slowly, Mason asked, “Why are you here?”

  “Phone.”

  “What?”

  “Get phone.”

  Mason held up the phone he’d taken from Kim Wook.

  “Push green blue.”

  Looking at the screen, Mason tapped an icon with a mix of Roman letters and Asian glyphs. Mason spent the next three minutes using Kim Wook’s translator app to interrogate the man. He learned about the drugs moving into and out of the compound, and about girls they targeted in order to extort their parents.

  “How long has this been going on?” Mason waited on the translation.

  “Years, from what I know.”

  “You knew about this? All this time?”

  “No! No. I’m a driver. My family got me this job. I’m new.”

  “Okay, Kim Wook. I’m a man of my word.” Mason stuffed the gag over his mouth, leaving him bound in the night.

  “I’ll come get you later.”

  Chapter 25

  Sal pushed aside the ache pulsing from the middle of her back as she hauled Chloe through the sparse trees and between buildings. Chloe’s arm draped across Sal’s shoulders, weighing her down. The shotgun, slung across her back, thudded rhythmically with each step.

  “Come on, Chloe. We’re almost there. Almost home.” The pep talk wasn’t for Chloe. Exhausted and beat up, Sal talked to herself, like she had on countless races. As a marathoner, she thought she’d known pain running over countless courses. Lost toenails, soft tissue injuries, and hairline stress fractures were the price she paid for racing. That was before tonight. Before a madman tied her to a chair for his own amusement. If she made it home alive, she’d never complain about training injuries again.

  Chloe groaned, more out of reflex of hearing her own name through the haze of withdrawal. Sweat poured off the girl, soaking into Sal’s shirt and making her frail frame slick. Sal gripped harder, fingers sinking between the girl’s prominent ribs. Sal paused at the sound of a sharp, rhythmic tapping. Checking around her, she looked back to Chloe. The girl’s teeth chattered away. The early Spring night turned cool, but not enough for this kind of reaction. Pressing the back of her hand against Chloe’s forehead, it came away clammy and warm. Sal saw Chloe had rubbed her nose raw with the back of her hand, fending off the constant dripping as she staggered through the trees.

  Sal recognized the early signs of heroin withdrawal. Soon, the girl would collapse into a misery of aches, sweating, and moans. Then she’d reach the bargaining phase before the genuine discomfort began. Sal witnessed it firsthand as neighbors and friends succumbed to the temptation of the needle, getting clean for weeks or months before capitulating again. She remembered recovering addicts screaming for a hit, the walls shaking against their fists. Sal guessed Chloe was about twenty-four hours from her last injection. Five days of hell waited for her.

  If she survived.

  A few moments later, Chloe stopped carrying any of own weight, leaving Sal dragging her, bare feet scraping against the occasional rock or errant branch littering the ground.

  The lights Sal spotted in the distance grew larger. Lanterns dotted the distance, throwing yellow light against the trees and structures. Sal made out the distinctive glint of light against painted metal near one of the buildings. The structure came into view, with a car parked beside it. Reaching for the key fob Mason tossed her earlier, she made out the white unlock symbol against the black button.

  The house’s front door groaned open, freezing Sal in place with an unconscious Chloe hanging off of her. Ducking, Sal eased the girl to the ground as a woman limped down the stairs, staggering toward the black Range Rover.

  “Bethany Kaine! Don’t move!” Sal rose, pistol aimed at Bethany’s torso. With the light behind Bethany, Sal only saw the woman’s outline framed between the car and house.

  Bethany froze in place.

  Moving closer, Sal stepped right, putting herself between Bethany and her means of escape.

  “Drop the gun. Drop the bag.” Even suspended, Sal lost none of her authority directing suspects. She kept shifting to the right. Bethany turned, keeping her face towards the stranger with a gun pointed at her.

  Fighting through the searing pain
of her injuries, Bethany asked, “Who are you?”

  “Police. Drop the weapon, Bethany. I will shoot you.”

  The light landed on Bethany. Singed hair framed the mottled burns decorating the right side of the woman’s face. Blood leaked from a wide gash on her left leg, giving the designer jumpsuit a black stain in the poor light. Tears ran down the woman’s face.

  Sal suppressed asking Bethany what happened. Her training took over. “Drop the weapon.”

  Bethany looked at her right hand, as if she’d forgotten the little revolver. “Why?” Bethany shrugged.

  “Not like this, Bethany. You can tell your side. In court.”

  “My side! There is no my side! Paul and Aaron did this to me! And that Stewart bitch.”

  “Calm down. We can resolve this. You don’t have to die tonight, Bethany. Those other men? They’re not walking out of here. Aaron’s dead. Paul might be already. There’s just you to tell the story.”

  Bethany looked at Sal, a flicker of hope dancing in her feline eyes. “What about Chloe? She knows.”

  “She’s dead,” Sal lied. “It’s just you. I’ll take you in, get you to a hospital. Drop the gun, Bethany.”

  Bethany paused. Lost in thought for a moment, she raised the gun and pulled the trigger twice. The shots went wide but caught Sal by surprise. Returning fire, Bethany fell to the ground.

  Sal darted to Bethany, kicking the stainless-steel revolver away. She ripped the purse out Bethany’s hand, tossing it aside. Holstering her own pistol, Sal twisted Bethany’s arm, shoving her into the gravel and wedging a knee into her back. Sal checked herself for any gunshot wounds. Finding none, she dug her knee deeper into Bethany’s back.

  “What the fu-,” Bethany shouted from the ground.