A grandfather clock ticked in one corner, slicing off one of the few remaining seconds of Dr. Chase’s life. Books and manuscripts occupied every inch of surrounding floor, tabletop, and chair, a stereotypical academic’s office. Dr. Chase never turned around as the gunman walked in and stopped mere feet from the professor before pulling out a disposable cell phone and speed-dialing the only number it contained.
Joseph Chase’s desk phone rang.
“Who the hell could that be?” He grabbed it from the stand. “Joseph Chase speaking.”
Pfft. Pfft.
Two bullets slammed into the back of Chase’s skull, and then his lifeless body slumped over the desk. The assassin retrieved Dr. Chase’s laptop computer, as specified in his agreement, and two minutes later relocked the professor’s front door and returned to the van.
The driver turned to his partner as he stuck the key into the ignition. “We should throw that damn computer in the river. The last thing we—”
His words were cut off when the engine turned over and two pounds of C-4 strapped to the van’s undercarriage detonated. For a brief second, the city street was bathed in a fiery glow as the van rocketed ten feet in the air before slamming back down, a burning shell of twisted metal with two charred corpses inside. Debris clinked on the asphalt as wide-eyed residents peered out of windows at the demolition. A wailing siren soon came to life in the distance, growing louder as the van’s shell burned.
Two hundred feet down the block, a man sat in his car surveying the destruction. Satisfied no one could have survived the inferno, he pulled out of his parking spot and headed away from the carnage, taking out his cell phone.
A heavy voice answered on the first ring. “Is it done?”
“Mission accomplished,” the man replied.
The line went dead. He put his phone down and concentrated on driving as several city police cars flew past, headed to the explosion.
A minute later a smile cracked his face.
Chapter 2
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Red and blue lights pierced the darkness, washing over paramedics as they loaded two charred corpses into body bags. The zippers slid shut as Philadelphia detective Kristian Nunez arrived at the scene. A uniformed officer motioned for Nunez to pull his fire-engine-red 1968 ragtop Mustang past the sawhorse barricades, behind which smoke drifted in ghost-like tendrils from the burned-out remains of a vehicle.
Nunez shook his head. Another beautiful day at the office.
“Detective, over here.”
Nunez turned toward a nearby ambulance. A dirty and disheveled officer in blue sat inside the open back doors with an oxygen mask attached to his face and bandages on both hands.
“I was the first responder, sir.” The officer looked all of twenty years old.
“How you doing, son?”
“Been better, sir. Just wanted to let you know what I found.”
Nunez took out a notebook and waited quietly, pen in hand.
The officer waved one bandaged hand toward the smoking metal. “When I got here, this damn van was a huge bonfire. I see one guy in a front seat, and I can’t tell you why, but I tried to pull him out. Only after I got this”—he held up his hands—“did I realize the guy was already roasted. Didn’t see anyone else in the area when I arrived, and right after I got burned the cavalry showed up.”
“Thanks, Officer. You take care of those burns.”
Just as he turned to seek out the lead sergeant, another uniformed officer jumped in his face.
“Detective, you’ve gotta get over here. We found another stiff.”
Nunez hustled into the building and up a set of marble stairs. He ducked under a flapping string of yellow police tape that barred Professor Chase’s front door and found the crime scene, the details of what had transpired all too clear. A pool of blood covered the desk and spilled onto the floor. Books lined the walls, hundreds of them alongside pictures of the newly deceased: shots from Stonehenge, Buckingham Palace, all complemented by Joseph Chase’s smiling face. Nunez glanced out a window as a search and rescue team pulled the driver from inside his van’s burned-out shell.
He checked his preliminary notes. No signs of forced entry on the apartment door, though any competent thief could bypass the deadbolt with one hand. From the burn marks on the victim’s skull, it appeared Dr. Chase had been working at his desk and was shot from nearly point-blank range.
The poor bastard never saw it coming.
Nothing seemed to be missing other than a computer. A power cord dangled from atop the polished walnut desk. Chase’s wallet was on a nearby table, several hundred dollars inside. This was no random robbery. Someone had come here with a purpose.
The officer who had spoken with Nunez outside walked up beside him and cleared his throat.
“Our initial report was confirmed. Deceased is Joseph Chase, age fifty-five, single, no children, lived alone. He’s a professor at Penn. Afraid that’s all we have right now, Detective Nunez. No prints so far, no discarded cigarette butts, hairs, clothing fibers, bullet shells, nothing. Whoever did this was careful.”
“I figured as much,” Nunez said. “This is too clean to be some junkie off the street. Usually we’ll find everything except the perp’s wallet lying around when we get a homicide, but this is different. Somebody knew what they were doing.”
“Unless whoever did this is now roasting outside.”
A grim smile flickered across Nunez’s face. “Excellent point, Sergeant. If that’s the case, we have a whole new set of problems to deal with.”
Nunez’s phone vibrated. One of the IT guys was calling, hopefully with some good news.
“Nunez here.”
“I just saw the building’s surveillance footage,” an officer on the information technology team said, “and they got most of it on tape. We have two guys entering the apartment, then leaving three minutes later with a laptop. They take the stairs to ground level, walk to their van, and boom, no more bad guys.”
“Do you see anyone else around the van?”
Maybe they’d get lucky and spot somebody planting an explosive on the vehicle.
“Negative, sir. They parked for about ten minutes, just sitting there, then walked into the building. Nobody gets anywhere near that vehicle from the time they park until it goes sky-high.”
“Damn. Get those tapes and bring them in. We’ll have to go over them more thoroughly in the lab.”
Nunez flipped the phone shut.
“Looks like you were right, Sergeant. The two men who shot Dr. Chase are the same two you found outside. We’ve got a real mess on our hands here.”
After an hour of processing the scene, Detective Nunez walked outside with a storm brewing on his face. Every uniformed officer avoided his hunched figure, a sea of blue parting as thunderclouds barreled past.
Chapter 3
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Inside the Philadelphia branch office of the Central Intelligence Agency, a man sat behind his government-issued desk and thought distinctly ungovernment-like thoughts. Maybe it was a good thing when the thugs and degenerates killed each other.
He closed the report and slammed it on his desk, frustrated with the meaningless investigations that consumed his days.
Who cared if one gang in Kensington was taking over more turf to sell drugs? The dealers were like a Hydra. Cut off one head, and two more grew in its place.
His ringing desk phone pulled him back to reality.
“Dean.”
He listened for a few moments before hanging up. An email popped onto his screen. Moments later a different report was in his hands, and for the first time all day, CIA agent Nicholas Dean had found something worth his time.
A car had exploded in Rittenhouse Square. Preliminary reports indicated the accelerant was a C-4 plastic.
Finally, something exciting. The incident summary, taken straight from the city’s police database, indicated two stiffs had been found in the burned-
out van. Interesting, but that wasn’t what he cared about. What got his attention was the third body, a college professor of some repute, found shot to death in an apartment across the street.
A security camera had caught two men walking out of the dead guy’s building and immediately getting blown sky-high when their van turned into a fireball.
A humorless grin crossed Nick’s face. This was a lot better than dealing with idiot dope fiends who fancied themselves as gangbangers. He picked up the phone and called a friend in Langley.
“Brent, its Nick Dean. I need you to send me any reports we have that involve C-4 explosive in the past year, whether it was detonated, used in the commission of a crime, or any that was reported missing or stolen. As soon as possible, and I know—I owe you one. Thanks.”
Five minutes later, several pages of reports from Brent shot out of his printer.
Nick studied them for a while, listening to the wall clock tick as he read. Once he’d finished, Nick made a brief phone call to the Philadelphia chief of police and then walked out of his office and climbed into his government sedan. He had the name of the investigating detective on the dead professor homicide and permission from the chief to liaise on the case.
After the events of 9/11, a push had been made for government agencies to open the lines of communication in the hopes that an increased information flow would aid in preventing another disaster. After the dust had settled and the forced friendships between Type A personalities had been declared in rambling and mostly unenforceable mission statements, one of the few initiatives that had actually gone forward was Nicholas Dean’s position. Normally constrained by the FBI’s monopoly on all domestic activity, the CIA had gained a tenuous foothold on American soil with the establishment of Agency liaison positions with FBI field offices.
As the CIA’s lone agent operating in the Philadelphia area, Nick’s post was a lonely one. He could call in support from Langley when needed, but those occasions were rare. Nick joked that the FBI tended to treat him like a mushroom: feed him shit and keep him in the dark. As such, Nick had made the best of it and developed relationships within the Philadelphia police department. He wouldn’t label them as friendships. No, these were more of the acquaintance variety, people who said hello but didn’t really want to know how you were doing.
The chief had approved Nick partnering with one of the city’s best in homicide. Whether or not Detective Kristian Nunez wanted a government agent along for the ride was a different story.
Dean would worry about that later.
Leaves painted black in the moonlight fluttered on a soft breeze, small trees in the parking lot backlit by the city lights. His tires spun as he shot out of the parking lot, headed toward Philadelphia police headquarters. If he was right, Detective Nunez had just landed in the deep end and had no idea what was coming next.
Chapter 4
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Even at this time of night, traffic had backed up on the Schuylkill Expressway. Red brake lights cast a melancholy glow on each driver stuck in the mess. Nobody moved but some had a better seat than others. Detective Nunez, for one.
His Mustang elicited envious stares from nearly everyone it passed. However, Detective Nunez stared at the traffic with hard eyes as he drove, glowering at the dark night sky while he inched toward headquarters at Seventh and Race, a circular concrete edifice nicknamed “The Roundhouse.”
The nerve center for the department’s operations, it housed an arm of every specialized area the police utilized. Right now, he had questions enough for all of them.
Why did two professionals murder a college professor in cold blood for his computer and then walk outside only to be blown apart? Where would someone get the explosives used to destroy the van and its occupants, and just who the hell could pull that off?
A buzz reverberated, his cell phone at it again. The damn thing never stopped.
“Nunez.”
“Detective, this is Officer Benson at dispatch. A CIA agent just walked into the building and requested to speak with you immediately. Shall I patch him through?”
Nunez nearly rear-ended the motorcycle in front of him.
“Did you say CIA?”
“That’s correct, sir. I’m not sure why he’s here, but he wants to speak with you as soon as possible.”
“When did he get there?”
“Just now, sir.”
“Tell him I’ll be there in five minutes. Show him to my office, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nunez hit the switch for his unmarked car’s blue and red lights and, in a minor miracle, traffic actually parted.
Minutes later, the Mustang roared into The Roundhouse’s underground parking garage, Nunez’s stormy mood growing darker by the minute.
When he made it upstairs, the office door bearing his name and rank was open, the lights shining from within. Detective Nunez turned the corner and found himself face-to-face with a human bulldozer.
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Acknowledgements
As always, this book wouldn’t exist without the invaluable help of so many. My first reader, Mom, thank you. Jen, you are an amazing editor and make every story better. Stuart and the Books Covered team made another awesome cover, and Chereese caught those final edits during proofing. And most importantly, Kelsey, Kit and Sloane. The best team I could ever hope for.
Dedication
This one is for Sloane Parker.
We love you.
Also by Andrew Clawson
Have you read them all?
In the Parker Chase Series
A Patriot’s Betrayal
A dead man’s letter draws Parker Chase into a deadly search for a secret that could rewrite history.
Buy it
The Crowns Vengeance
A Revolutionary era espionage report sends Parker on a race to save American independence.
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Dark Tides Rising
A centuries-old map bearing a cryptic poem sends Parker Chase racing for his life and after buried treasure.
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A Republic of Shadows
A long-lost royal letter sends Parker on a secret trail with the I.R.A. and British agents close behind.
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A Hollow Throne
Shattered after a tragic loss, Parker is thrust into a race through Scottish history to save a priceless treasure.
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In the TURN Series
TURN: The Conflict Lands
Reed Kimble battles a ruthless criminal gang to save Tanzania and the animals he loves.
Buy it
TURN: A New Dawn
A predator ravages the savanna. To stop it, Reed must be what he fears most – the man he used to be.
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TURN: Endangered
Tanzania’s deadliest gangster is after everything Reed built – and will stop at nothing to destroy him.
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Check my website for additional novels – I’m writing all the time.
About the Author
Andrew Clawson is the author of the Parker Chase and TURN series.
You can find him at his website, AndrewClawson.com, or you can connect with him on Twitter at @clawsonbooks, on Facebook at facebook.com/AndrewClawsonnovels and you can always send him an email at [email protected].
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Andrew Clawson, The Turn Series Box Set
The Turn Series Box Set Page 53