The Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Series: Books 1-3: The Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Series Boxset Book 1

by Gary Winston Brown

  Jordan hugged him. “You’re welcome, Director. I’m glad I could help.”

  Dunn exhaled sharply. “It’s about damn time we turned this thing around. Agreed?”

  He took out his phone and punched in a number. The call was answered a second later. “Agent Reed,” he said, “Dunn again. We have a situation here. I need your help.”

  More gunfire. It sounded closer.

  “Everyone inside,” Hanover said. He turned to Carnevale and Dunn. “Lock down the room.” He started to close the door behind them. Jordan stopped him.

  “What are you going to do?” Jordan asked.

  “Go after them.”

  “The hell you are,” she replied. “You don’t know the layout of the house. I do. There are a million places to hide. They’ll gun you down the second they hear you coming. I’m guessing that S.W.A.T. is at least twenty minutes out, maybe longer. And you already told me you’re not equipped to deal with automatic weapons, remember?”

  “All true,” Chris said. “But if you think you’re coming with me you’re out of your mind. You need to stay here with your family, Jordan.” The Collectibles vault featured a heavy bank-style door with keycode access. Valuable antiques sat on the shelves. “This room’s impenetrable. You’ll be safe in here until help arrives.”

  Jordan stepped out of the room and into the hallway. “And if we’re not?” she said.

  “Meaning?”

  “Whoever is trying to kill my family almost killed us both at the hospital and probably took out the agents Dunn assigned to patrol the grounds. Now they’re somewhere in the house, looking for us. For all we know they have the override code to the security system. Which would give them access to the vault, in which case they could just open the door, open fire, and kill us all.”

  “Director Dunn and your godfather would never let that happen.”

  “They wouldn’t stand a chance against a machine pistol. Dozens of rounds per second you said.” Jordan stepped back into the room and spoke to her family. “Under no circumstances is anyone to leave this room. We’ll be back soon.” She closed the door, entered the pass code, locked it, and began to walk down the hall.

  Hanover raised his hands. “Just where do you think you’re going?”

  “To find whoever is in my house.”

  “That’s not happening.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “Get back in the room, Jordan.”

  Jordan stared down the agent. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know, Chris. I have certain… skills.”

  “I’m aware of that, Jordan. But psychic abilities won’t help you in a gun fight.”

  Jordan ignored the comment and continued down the hall. “I’m ending this now,” she said, “with or without your help.”

  Hanover watched her walk away. “You realize you’re unarmed, right?”

  Jordan stopped and looked back. “That’s a matter of opinion,” she replied. “You coming?”

  Hanover shook his head. “Something tells me I don’t have much choice in the matter.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Chris followed her down the corridor. “Where are we going?”

  “North wing. Training room.”

  “As in gym?” Chris asked. “You might want to put off your workout for a day or two.”

  “I need to pick up a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  53

  FOLLOWING THE BARRAGE of gunfire, flecks of gold-foil danced in the air, then fluttered to the floor.

  Candy wrappers.

  Fucking candy wrappers!

  Tasker stepped forward to better his view of the room but stayed clear of the threshold. To cross it would be suicide. Once again, he had been taken in by Rigel’s diversion. Stupid! He was trying to fight the man while raging a battle within his own body. The morphine that had pinned down the pain long enough for him to navigate the barrier wall, enter the house, and get back into the fight was wearing off. The pain receptors in his nerve cells retaliated. The Tec-9 shook in his grasp. He dropped the gun to his side and leaned against the wall for support. Darkness rose and fell in front of his eyes. He was on the verge of losing consciousness. He willed himself to stay on his feet and hang on, if even for a few more minutes, long enough to find Rigel and finish him off. He raised the machine pistol and pushed himself off the wall.

  Shawn Mendes came to his aid. The famed pop singer stood beside Michael Farrow behind a glass-framed autographed poster which reflected Rigel’s position in the room. Rigel’s back was pressed against the wall, his weapon trained on the doorway, waiting for Tasker to enter the room.

  No more surprises, Tasker thought. Not again.

  He wrapped his arm around the corner, slammed the Tec-9 against the wall, and fired blindly into the room.

  The awkward, shaky motion of the gun coming at him from around the corner telegraphed Tasker’s feeble attempt to mount an attack. Rigel retraced his steps and darted back across the floor, passing the display case behind which he had earlier taken cover. He kept running, building up as much speed as he could, then cut hard around the second display case, shoulder-rolled into the middle of the room, rose to one knee, Glock in hand, targeted Tasker, and fired. The single round caught the man in his leg and dropped him to the ground. The Tec-9 fell from his hand and clattered on the hardwood floor. Tasker slid down the wall and sat. The weapon lay beyond his grasp. The pain from the gunshot wound rode a wave throughout his entire body from one nerve synapse to the next. The darkness rose again. He watched Rigel walk toward him.

  Rigel kicked away the Tec-9 and stood over the man. “Harrison Tasker, I presume,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

  Tasker looked up. “Wish I could say the same.”

  Rigel sat on the floor, crossed his legs, and placed the Glock between them.

  Tasker’s breathing had become labored. He was having difficulty maintaining his balance. He stared at the gun. “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Call it a last chance at redemption,” Rigel said.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Rigel made himself more comfortable. He stretched out on the floor, leaned on his elbow. “It means for every correct answer you give me I’ll give you an inch.” He nudged the Glock toward Tasker. “Wanna play?”

  Tasker groaned. His body swayed. “Fuck you.”

  Rigel pulled the gun back. “Seriously, Harrison? You came here to kill me. I’m giving you that opportunity. You want it or not?” He inched the Glock forward again.

  Tasker looked at the weapon. The gun was only four inches from his hand.

  “Question one,” Rigel said. “Who sent you?”

  Tasker’s eyelids fluttered. He could feel eternal darkness settling in.

  “Answer the question, Harrison,” Rigel said. He pushed the Glock forward another inch. Added incentive.

  Tasker wondered what lay in store for him beyond this world.

  “Was it New York?”

  He had always wanted a family, should have had a family.

  “They rescinded my contract, didn’t they?”

  The gun was now just two inches from his hand. Two damned inches.

  “Are you working alone?”

  Cold overtook him. His body shuddered. He dropped his head and closed his eyes. So this was death.

  Rigel saw that the man was slipping away. “No way you get to die that easily,” he said. The killer rose to his feet, pulled Zippy out of his pocket, yanked out the metal lanyard, and wrapped it around the man’s neck.

  As Tasker slumped forward, his hand fell on the Glock. Though his body was failing him faster than his mind, his sense of touch recognized the textured surface of the weapon’s handgrip and communicated the message to his brain. As the steel cable tightened around his neck, he clamped his fingers around the gun, raised it as high as he could, and squeezed the trigger.

  The lanyard fell slack as the round lifted Rig
el off his feet, sent him staggering backwards into the Great Room and the Venus de Milo. The heavy marble statue tilted with the impact of his body but held its ground. Rigel had taken the hit to his shoulder. He checked his vest. The slug was lodged in the material. He plucked it out and threw it across the room.

  The Glock! he thought. How could he have been so careless?

  Tasker dropped his arm but maintained a loose hold on the gun. He looked down at the weapon, urged his fingers to cradle the handgrip, find the trigger, and lift the gun. Impossible. His strength was gone.

  Rigel shuffled back to Tasker. The weapon lay in his hand, his fingers slack.

  “Sonofabitch,” Rigel said, favoring the pain in his shoulder from the gunshot. Zippy hung around Tasker’s neck. Rigel yanked on the steel lanyard. The metal cord cut deep, serrated the flesh, severed the carotid artery. Tasker gurgled. Blood flowed freely from his neck. His hands flailed helplessly at the wire. He kicked at the ground, his body convulsing and twitching until at last he sat still. It was over. Harrison Tasker was dead.

  “It’s about time,” Rigel said. He pulled Zippy out of the man’s neck, ran the serrated steel cord across the dead man’s jacket, removed fine particles of flesh and blood from the weapon, then retracted the garrote.

  He picked up the Tec-9, draped the sling around his neck, shoved the Glock into the front pocket of his bulletproof vest, and walked out of the Great Room.

  In the main lobby he stopped, listened, pulled the last Werther’s out of his pocket, unwrapped the candy, and popped it in his mouth.

  The estate remained cemetery silent.

  His targets were still here, hiding somewhere within the massive house. He could feel it.

  He set out to find them.

  54

  MORE GUNFIRE.

  “It’s coming from the Great Room,” Jordan said.

  “How can you be sure?” Chris asked.

  “Like I said, I know this place. I can tell you the location of every sound in the house from within these walls. That definitely came from the main floor.”

  They made their way through the secret passageway until they had arrived at the Training Room.

  “We’re here,” Jordan said. She pushed a button on the labyrinth wall.

  The hidden entrance, disguised as one of many mirrored panels that ran the length of the wall of the Training Room, clicked open. They stepped inside.

  “Holy crap,” Chris said. He looked around the room. “What the hell are you training for?”

  The room featured a lap pool, Jacuzzi, urethane dumbbells of varying weights on chrome stands, barbells, training racks and benches, two treadmills, an elliptical Cross-Trainer and rowing machines, a Rockwerx indoor rock-climbing wall, state-of-the-art Pilates equipment, heavy bags, speed bags, grappling dummies, Ensolite training mats, head, hand and foot gear for martial arts training and sparring, and elastic hand wraps. Opposite the fitness area were two specially designed ranges: a soundproof indoor shooting range for handgun practice and a knife-throwing target range.

  “I’m the daughter of a billionaire,” Jordan replied as she walked across the training mat toward the ranges. “My family has received more than our fair share of death threats over the years. Unfortunately, that comes with the territory. I can’t always rely on bodyguards. Rock designed this place for me. He trained me so that I’d know how to protect myself.”

  “Rock Dionne... your father’s head of security. The man who died in the crash.”

  “That’s right.” Jordan replied. “He taught me how to shoot, throw, and fight. I’m going to show him he didn’t waste a second of his time.”

  A safe was built into the wall beside the shooting range. Jordan punched in the combination, opened the door, removed a Heckler and Koch VP9 9mm tactical handgun from the shelf, racked the weapon, fitted it into her waistband, then walked to the knife throwing range. Three perfectly balanced, stainless steel Gil Hibben throwing knives in a black nylon shoulder harness hung on a wall hook. Jordan slipped into the rig.

  “Need anything else while we’re here?” Chris said. “Blowgun, maybe? Poison darts?”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Hardly. You train like a friggin’ ninja.”

  “I wouldn’t go quite that far.”

  “Says the woman strapped with the semi-automatic handgun and wearing the three-pack of knives.”

  “I like to be prepared.”

  “No,” Chris said. “Packing an overnight bag with fresh underwear and a toothbrush is being prepared. Keeping a flashlight in your glove box is being prepared. Hell, taking a pee before a long drive is being prepared.”

  “Would you rather we just ask them nicely to leave?”

  “You know, if Dunn were here, he wouldn’t let you leave this room.”

  “Well, he’s not. You are.”

  “I shouldn’t let you, either. It’s too dangerous.”

  “But you will.”

  “Because I have no choice in the matter?”

  “Precisely.”

  “And because if I tried to stop you, you’d probably kick my ass?”

  “I would never assault a federal agent.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Subdue… possibly. Incapacitate… maybe. But assault? Never.”

  “Every man and woman in law enforcement thanks you.”

  “Come on,” Jordan said. She walked back toward the hidden mirror-door. “There’s one more thing I need to do.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Level the playing field.”

  55

  RIGEL EXPLORED THE first floor of the grand home. He held the Tec-9 high, close to his body, eyes locked on the front sight, the weapon trained directly ahead, searching each room for his targets.

  He recalled the specific condition of the Quest contract: no survivors. The entire family was to be wiped out. The payout was huge. His mind drifted back to his battle with Harrison Tasker. The man had been discourteous enough to die before telling him whether or not New York had, in fact, rescinded his contract to kill the Quests. Regardless, he would be paid. He would factor any financial loss into the creation of a new contract. The competition would pay him any amount of money he demanded in exchange for the carefully planned execution of the New York syndicate bosses, especially if the murders were carried out in ways that would not draw attention to his benefactors. He would make the killings look like a series of accidents: a fatal heart attack from a failed pacemaker; a family dinner at a fine restaurant ending in death from anaphylactic shock. Each assassination would be made to order, no clues left behind. His most profitable contract had earned him thirty million dollars for three months of work in Columbia. Reconnaissance and planning accounted for eighty-five of those ninety days; the terminations completed in the remaining five. The deaths, undoubtedly his best work to date, had been front page news for a week in El Tiempo, the country’s largest newspaper. Framed reprints of the articles hung on the living room wall of his Florida home. The posters served as excellent conversation starters. When once a dinner guest asked why he chose to display such grisly art, he told her the truth; that he had carried out the contracts and been responsible for the deaths. He shared with her the story-behind-the-story, elaborating on the exciting details of each hit, only to realize, too late, that in his enthusiasm to impress her he’d crossed the line. The look on her face and sudden change in demeanor gave her away. People had a strange tendency to become uneasy upon hearing a confession of murder, especially when they found themselves in the presence of the murderer himself. He was then forced to rectify the situation, and nothing puts a damper faster on an otherwise enjoyable evening than killing your guest in order to guarantee her silence. Living in the Sunshine State had its benefits, among which included the Everglades and its plenitude of hungry alligators. He took pride in keeping them well fed.

  Rigel moved through the house, clearing the solarium, twin kitchens, dining room, ballroom, cigar room and rea
ding room. The lower levels of the estate were next. He was about to descend the marble staircase when the home suddenly plunged into darkness.

  Rigel froze, heard a whirring sound above him, looked up. It came from a camera mounted high in the ceiling.

  Inside the labyrinth, Jordan used her cell phone to log into the mansion’s security system. She zoomed in on the intruder standing at the top of the stairs and opened the speaker. Her voice boomed over the house-wide intercom: “Who are you?” she asked. “What do you want from me?”

  Rigel lowered his weapon and smiled at the camera. “Good evening, Mrs. Quest,” he replied. “Nice place you have here. A little much for my taste. But hey, each to his own.”

  “Answer the question.”

  Rigel displayed the Tec-9. “That’s rather obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Who sent you?”

  “Someone who has unfinished business with your father.”

  Hanover turned to Jordan. She muted the phone. “What is he talking about?” Chris asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jordan replied. “Follow me.”

  Together they traversed the labyrinth. Jordan captured the electronic image of the intruder on her phone and instructed the system to FOLLOW. The security system locked in on Rigel and tracked his movements as he searched the house.

  Jordan and Chris exited the labyrinth by way of the Great Room. Tasker’s body lay in the adjoining entrance to the Music room. Despite the obvious fatal laceration to the man’s neck, Chris checked his pulse. He looked at Jordan and shook his dead. “He’s dead.”

  “Good guy or bad guy?” Jordan asked.

  “He’s not one of ours,” Chris replied. He saw the glass shards in his face and hands, the steel nails sticking out of his body. “Jesus,” Chris said. “What the hell happened to this guy?”

  “Look at his neck,” Jordan said. “Same injury as yours. How much do you want to bet the guy who did this is the same one who attacked you in the hospital?”