Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2)

by Jack Lively

  Then I turned to Deckart. Just in time. He was bleeding from the left hand. The knife was in his right, held in the Filipino style. Thumb on the blade’s spine. Deckart came low and fast, leading with his right foot, in line with the blade. Better for the reach. Good form.

  Attack was the only way out.

  As he came at me, I went at him. Which confused him at first. Usually people run away from a dangerous guy holding a Bowie knife, or they stick their hands up in self-defense. I came right at him and gave him no choice except to strike. Deckart’s knife came hissing in low, going for the inguinal artery on the inside of my leg. I blocked him with a forearm deflection, then stepped in for an uppercut to the jaw.

  He jerked his head back and my fist brushed his chin. No stubble. Deckart was already slashing at my neck arteries, going for the bleeders. I pushed his wrist wide and head-butted him hard. I was going for the nose but made contact with his cheekbone. The impact sent Deckart tumbling. Before he could react further, I stepped in and kicked him in the face for the second time that day. His head whipped back and bounced off the dirt. I crouched down and pulled a phone out of his jeans pocket. It was a cheap burner.

  I said, “Going to need your phone, buddy.” I thumbed through the buttons. All working fine with decent battery life left and a fine connection to the local cellular networks. “Appreciate it.” I pushed the phone into my pocket. Deckart’s nose was a bloody mess, twice squashed. He sprawled limp and defeated. I stood over him. Loose and ready for whatever he wanted to do. But he wasn’t going to do anything, even if he had wanted to.

  A little crowd had drawn into a circle around the fight. A loud wolf whistle cut through them. The onlookers moved back to reveal a late model gold Hummer. The driver’s door was open and the short bald guy who everyone thought was Mister Lawrence sat behind the wheel looking at me. He was a guy in his fifties with the kind of face that stops evolving at puberty. His look was flat and bored. With overly generous lips around a half-opened mouth. No hair of any kind in sight.

  Amber Chapman was in the back, window closed. Two guys from the security detail approached Deckart. One of them lifted him to his feet. The other faced off with me, looking straight into my eyes and holding two hands up, palms out. It was my friend with the pointy ears and the shaved head. The first guy spoke softly to Deckart. I didn’t hear what was said. The guy’s t-shirt rippled with muscle.

  The pointy-eared guy staring at me was about thirty. Like the others, he was lean and fit and looked dangerous. Like a poster child for Special Forces. The other one was just like him. Like they grew them in a lab. The guy dealing with Deckart gave him a quick and violent shove. A short sharp rebuke. Then he turned and looked at me. His eyes closed sleepily for a fraction of a second. Not a blink, more like a kind of acknowledgement. Of what, I wasn’t sure. Then he said something harsh to his pointy-eared colleague. Harsh and fast and completely incomprehensible to me, because he wasn’t speaking English or whatever language they speak up in the tribal territories, he was speaking Russian.

  The Russians cut through the crowd and into a matte black Hummer, idling behind Mister Lawrence’s gold one. Chapman was still looking at me through the window, expressionless. As I looked at her, I thought of the eight-pointed star she’d drawn on the paper napkin. I was going to get to find out who that was for very soon, and hopefully what it meant. Because one thing was for sure, it wasn’t meant for me. The vehicles moved out and her look went with them. Out of the parking lot and onto the road back toward the airport.

  By the time they were gone, the mist was crawling in from the rainforest. A touch thicker than it had been on the way up. The crowd had dissipated and Deckart and Willets were gone. I took a tour around The Rendezvous to see where the Humvees had come from, and if there was another access road that I had missed. There wasn’t. The vehicles had been parked alongside the building, butting up against the woods.

  I used Deckart’s phone to call Ellie while I walked back to the Toyota.

  She picked up on the first ring. “Yeah?”

  “Keeler.”

  Ellie exhaled, like she was relieved. She said, “I spoke to Dave. We shouldn’t say anything on the phone. My place, one hour.”

  I said, “No, I need you up here at the Rendezvous. Immediately. How long will it take?”

  She was silent for a moment, weighing it up. Down the line I could feel something like the tension in her cognitive functions. She wanted to ask why the Rendezvous, but knew that the discussion was a bad idea over the cellular line.

  Ellie said, “The Rendezvous, huh? Ten minutes.”

  I said, “Parking lot, immediate left. Find me.”

  I thumbed the disconnect button. Climbed into the Toyota’s cab and closed the door. The parking spot gave me a good view. The place was far from empty. I took brief stock of my feelings. I was calm and alert, enjoying myself. The minor ruckus hadn’t even remotely dented the evening. On the contrary, the touch of violence had only elevated the experience.

  And I could still taste Amber Chapman.

  The mystery and the puzzle, all wrapped up in a tall blonde package. I thought about her and allowed my thinking to associate freely, and move from Amber Chapman over to Hagen, then to George Abrams and Valerie Zarembina. The mental threads were hooking up and locking into place gracefully, like they had meant to tie in all along. My thinking even extended out from those people to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I thought I had it pretty much figured out, but confirmation was going to happen real soon.

  I reached over to the glove compartment and removed the Smith & Wesson special and the Glock 19. The S&W was a pretty gun with that comfortable blue rubberized grip. There were five rounds chambered in the rotating cylinder. But each .357 round packed a punch, so they’d be made to count. The Glock held a full magazine, plus one in the chamber. Which made sixteen rounds. Add the extra mag from the Nazi assassin and the total was thirty-one.

  I laid the weapons down on the passenger side seat. One beside the other, with the spare magazine between them, like a little collection. I climbed into the rear and racked back the bench as far as it would go, sunk down and settled in to wait and watch.

  Forty-Four

  Once the warm air hanging over the water strikes cold land, it forms a mist and starts to roll. Then, it has two choices. Either to double down and thicken into fog, or dissipate, becoming nothing more than wet ground. At the moment, the stuff hadn’t decided one way or the other. It was okay remaining as a rolling mist. I sat in the back of the Toyota, waiting for Ellie, and considered from which direction the recipient of Amber Chapman’s message would most likely approach.

  The roadhouse front door faced south east. Which meant it was facing town. Port Morris is a couple of hundred miles from the nearest inhabited place with a population over five hundred, but that’s as the crow flies. You can’t just drive from Port Morris to anywhere else. You’d need to throw together some kind of travel cocktail. A boat and a car would do it, but it would take around ten hours. A plane and a boat and a car would cut that down to eight.

  I was pretty confident that whoever was coming was traveling up from Port Morris, just like I had. Which reduced the question to a binary choice. Direct or indirect. I thought of what I would do in that position. And the answer was always going to be the indirect approach.

  If it was me, I would drive up via one of the logging trails. Then I’d come in on foot through the woods. Slowly and silently. That would give me the option of not showing up, if I thought there were issues. I would choose my route on the basis of tactical and strategic factors. Strategic in the sense of my exfiltration. Tactical with respect to local features, like the direction of the wind and the topography. But there was no wind. Just the low hanging mist inching up from the creeks and channels. Ellie was taking her time. My breath began fogging up the inside of the windshield, so I reached over and rolled the windows down.

  Maybe it was the mist, maybe not. But the sme
ll of salmon hung heavy in the air. Which wasn’t surprising, given that we were bang in the middle of their spawning season. The creeks and rivers were brimming with fish expending their last energy. Each one a story of success and struggle and maybe ultimate frustration. Each one spawned by an elder fish upstream. And each one coming of age in the great Pacific Ocean. The wild salmon is a predator, hunting smaller creatures. Once mature, the hunter returns to the sweet water creeks to spawn and die. Which is not as simple as it sounds. Each of them has to fight its way upstream, against the flow, against the wishes of the bears and eagles and fishermen who harness all their guile in an effort to prevent the fish from its purpose. In the end, what did the salmon get for the effort? Death and reincarnation as another nameless fish, just like the first.

  The same but different.

  Ellie’s pickup truck pulled into the lot. She swept it around in front of me with a satisfying rolling crunch of large tires on gravel, coming to a stop twenty yards away. A minute later she was in the backseat of the Toyota with me. Ellie came with a scent of soap. I stole a glance at her. She looked good. Fresh and ready. I turned back to the view.

  I said, “You look well rested.”

  “Hardly. Sorry it took me longer than I thought. Some kind of a wildlife incident on the road from town. What have you got?”

  I was looking out the window, at the parking lot. Scanning the tree line on the other side.

  “Chapman was in there. We had words. Not many because she is in a situation.” I looked at Ellie. I had her attention. I said, “She’s a player Ellie, not some kind of accidental victim. She’s managed to get in with the Mister Lawrence crew, and it looks like they’re taking her onto the property.”

  Ellie snorted. “Why would they do that?”

  I said, “According to her, the guy everyone thinks is Mister Lawrence is some kind of an evil clown, her words. She seems to have exploited the clown and she’s in there with them, wearing a dress and everything. You know how it is.”

  I caught Ellie nodding in my peripheral vision.

  “Playing the femme fatale.”

  I nodded.

  “When I was in there, I saw her leaving a message for someone. Someone who isn’t me. Like what they call a dead drop in the spying business. Which is what I think we’re dealing with here. She didn’t see me seeing her. I’ve got some ideas about what’s going on with Chapman. I think I’ve got a pretty clear picture in fact. But there isn’t much reason for me to explain the ideas to you because we’re about to find out who she left that message for. And when we do, we’ll be hearing about a whole lot of other things as well.”

  Ellie was staring at me. “Are we now.”

  “Yes. I think so. And I wanted you to be with me so I wouldn’t have to repeat it to you later. Save me the effort.”

  “Plus you missed me.”

  “Plus what else were you going to do tonight?”

  “True, watching TV with young Hank wasn’t as fun as this.”

  I said, “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Yes, I don’t have a TV.”

  “What about you? Smithson and the building plans. Any of it work out?”

  Ellie sank into the seat. I figured the tops of our heads were just about visible from outside, if you were looking hard and had very good night vision. She said, “First Smithson. I interrupted his favorite TV show, which wasn’t something that he took very well. But he got over it and we had a conversation. The upshot is that he has agreed to get in touch with the FBI if he can get that past his boss. He said that he will let me know as soon as he knows.”

  I said, “Which is something he’s going to get concerned with right away, or is he waiting for the show to be over?”

  She shrugged. “I pushed him hard as I could. I said tonight. We shall see.”

  I wasn’t surprised. “Luck with the building plans?”

  “Luck didn’t play much of a part in it, Keeler. Code Enforcement. I got the key from the chief enforcement officer. You know how it is, small town, no big deal.”

  I said, “We’ve got time, give me the details.”

  Ellie glanced at me and smiled. “The guy even delivered the key to me, Keeler. That’s what I’m talking about. In his pajamas, wearing a pair of construction boots.”

  “Nice.”

  “Right, so I went into the office, flicked on the lights. Couple of rows of filing cabinets, cream-colored, steel boxes filled with papers in folders. All organized by geography.”

  “Coffee machine working?”

  “I didn’t stick around long enough to need coffee. Plus, I’m particular about my coffee. I like dark roasted.”

  “What did you find?”

  “I took the whole folder. They filed plans for the build seven years ago. I didn’t have any time to examine what it amounts to. Not like I’m a trained architect either.”

  I said, “Sounds good. You bring that with you?”

  “No. Back at the house.”

  I nodded to myself. “Okay. Well done. After this we’ll go back to your place and take a look. Make some of that dark roast coffee.”

  While we talked, my eye had been drawn to the edge of the lot where I’d seen the raccoons emerge earlier. A narrow gulley running along a slight incline to the east of the Rendezvous. At first there was nothing but stillness and the mist slowly crawling up. But I hung in there, because I trust my intuition. Which paid off when there was movement. A flicker before absolute stillness.

  I stopped talking and Ellie said, “What is it?”

  I said nothing. I held my breath and concentrated upon what I was looking at. For a while, nothing happened. Maybe a minute or longer. Then the bearded giant, Jakob Hagen, walked out of the woods and strode purposefully toward The Rendezvous.

  Ellie and I watched him stroll. It wasn’t like the guy had any other way of moving. He was ripped and ready, like a one-man bulldozer. But I’d seen an intelligence there that belied the menace. Too smart to be a simple thug. Maybe a complicated thug.

  Once Hagen was inside, I collected the pistols from the passenger seat and put them in my jacket pockets. Smith & Wesson on the left, Glock on the right. The spare magazine went in the back pocket of my jeans and I was ready to roll.

  I said, “You follow me.”

  We didn’t walk across the lot. Instead, we moved back from the Toyota into the woods, and worked our way painstakingly around to that gulley. I led the way laterally, avoiding a descent to the trail I figured Hagen had taken. That way, when he came back out he wouldn’t see any disturbed twigs or rocks that might alert him. The mist helped.

  After about a half mile, the gulley resolved in a boulder-filled creek, pregnant with water boiling down from the hills. On the other side of the creek was a steep incline. I had a hunch that Hagen had parked his car on the other side of it. I figured I had at least a couple of minutes, so I carefully scanned the area. Five minutes later I discovered a faint boot print on one of the stepping stones that poked out of the rolling water. A big boot, which had crossed the creek toward the Rendezvous.

  I showed it to Ellie and she nodded. I pointed her to a spot behind boulders a half-dozen yards from the crossing point. I came close and spoke softly. “You stay there and watch for my lead. If he crosses at the same spot, we won’t have to worry about lines of fire, if it comes to that.”

  Ellie removed the Ruger from her holster and chambered a round. The action snicked softly, a different set of frequencies from the rushing water. She moved off in the darkness.

  I concealed myself between two truck-sized boulders that Hagen would have to pass through if he was taking that path. The moving water was loud. There was no way I’d hear him coming. I could see the way up the gulley, but I figured it was too dark to be seen.

  I leaned back against the damp stone and made myself calm and silent, allowed my pulse and breathing to slow down. It felt nice to be there. Peaceful with the sound of rushing water.

  Fifteen minutes later there
was movement up the trail. Hagen was picking his way down the gulley, keeping an eye on his footing. Which meant he wasn’t looking ahead. I let him get over the creek, making his way one foot at a time over the stones. When he stepped over that last stretch of water, he entered the range of his own gun.

  Hagen must have sensed my presence because he looked up from the ground then, and we locked eyes. I stepped forward.

  I said, “What does it mean?”

  The Smith & Wesson special was pointed directly at his head. With five of his own bullets in the cylinder, Hagen knew the likely outcome if he made a wrong move. He tensed up at first and looked very concerned, and rightly so. My finger was already teasing back the trigger, finding the sweet spot. I was prepared to pull at the slightest opportunity. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he tried something, I would have put him down and moved on.

  But Hagen did exactly the right thing. He relaxed and shrugged, moved his hands away from his body. He said, “You mean the symbol. The eight-pointed star.”

  I said, “Yes.”

  “It means a high-level thief. Usually it’s a tattoo. A prison tattoo.”

  “A Russian prison tattoo.”

  He nodded. “That’s right.”

  “So given the context, right here and now, what does that eight-pointed star tell you?”

  “It’s a confirmation, Mr Keeler. We are dealing with the theft of nuclear materials at a high level.

  Forty-Five

  I said, “How would Chapman know that, if she hasn’t yet entered the compound?”

  Hagen had his hands raised, palms up and out. He said, “May I reach into my jacket pocket to show you something?”

  “Open the jacket first.”

  Hagen opened the black leather jacket. There was something rectangular held by the inside pocket.

  I said, “Take it out.”

  He removed a burner phone. “It isn’t just a phone, it’s a radiation detector. Measures different kinds of emission. Chapman has one concealed in a lipstick case. If she sent this message it means that she’s detected sufficient trace radiation to make that assessment.”