Harvey Bennett Thrillers Box Set 2

by Nick Thacker

  “Of course they’re worth investigating,” Ben said. “Julie’s in one of them.”

  He knew what his benefactor meant, however. Julie is in one of them, and if we don’t have a solid lead, there may not have enough time to search all of them.

  Joshua looked at Ben, his eyes questioning.

  Ben nodded. “Four.”

  Joshua remained stoic, but Ben knew what he was thinking. The exact same thing Ben was thinking.

  “We have to narrow it down,” Ben said. “Is there anything else you can tell us?”

  “No, unfortunately,” Mr. E said. “There is not any more information to go on. However, if there is anything else you can tell me, perhaps I can —”

  “No, you know it all already. She just blurted it out, ‘we’re here, right across from the Rittenhouse.’”

  Besides the Rittenhouse Square the hotel sat on, the hotel was the only thing in Philadelphia that carried the name ‘Rittenhouse.’ There was nothing else Julie could have meant.

  They had landed an hour ago, but it had taken that long to get from the airport to the vehicle they’d rented and then through downtown traffic to the Rittenhouse. Joshua and Ben were sitting in the lobby once again, but this time around Ben wasn’t admiring any of the charming decor.

  He wasn’t even looking at the bar. He wanted a drink, but he knew a drink was a reward. It was something to enjoy after a victory, and besides figuring out the clues back in Montana, he hadn’t had any victories in quite some time.

  “She’s got to be close by, Ben,” Joshua said.

  Ben sighed, then put the phone up to his ear. “Give us an order of most-likely guesses, then,” he said. “Top candidate first.”

  The man on the other end paused, then spoke. “Okay, I will try. First, there is a white building on the corner of Rittenhouse Square and 18th.”

  Joshua was listening in, his own phone on and opened to an overhead map view of the square. He shook his head. “No, that’s not it. There’s no view from here. Julie said ‘here, right across…’ I think she meant she saw the Rittenhouse somehow, like maybe out of a window. There are too many tall buildings blocking anything on that corner.”

  Ben waited for Mr. E to give them his next option. ‘Okay, perhaps the next one is on Locust Street, near 20th.’

  Joshua scrolled around on the map, finding this location. “Could be. Doesn’t look like this map’s been updated, but there would be a view of the hotel from there. I’ll mark it, and we can check it out. Anything else?”

  “The last two are on 19th Street. One at Sansom Street and one on Chestnut.”

  “Got it,” Ben said. “Stay close; we’ll check it out.” He was about to hang up, then added, “how’s your wife?”

  “She is well. Recovered from her trip to Australia, and she wishes she could join you all now. I have been keeping her abreast of the situation, and she is doing what she can from here.”

  Ben nodded. Mrs. E was every bit as enigmatic as her husband, yet the two seemed oddly different for a husband-wife pair. Where Mr. E seemed frail, almost sickly, Mrs. E was a large, confident woman, equally trained in martial arts and weaponry. She had been a valuable asset in Antarctica, and Ben was disappointed she hadn’t been able to join them on this excursion. Mr. E couldn’t have known, however, what they were getting themselves into, so sending his wife to track down a pawnbroker in Australia had hardly been a strange errand.

  She would be tearing her hair out trying to help, Ben knew. Probably fiddling with electronics and communications equipment she didn’t understand, getting in the way of the contractors as they tried to finish their project at Ben’s cabin. She was more useful in the field, but it was probably too late to send her to Philadelphia — she would arrive the next day, long after the action had ended.

  He hoped.

  If there was going to be action, he wanted it over quickly, and in his favor. Julie needed him, and he intended to find her and bring justice to the men who’d taken her. There were no exceptions, and there was nothing any of them could say to change his mind. They were all dead men walking.

  “You ready?” Joshua asked.

  Ben nodded, standing up. He felt for the pistol he wore in his belt, tucked beneath his shirt. He wasn’t sure of the hotel’s policy on weapons — or the city’s in general, but regardless he didn’t need to waste time answering questions and digging out his permit. There was enough attention on the area already, with the shooting and ‘robbery’ that had taken place earlier that day at the yogurt shop.

  Even now the streets were blocked in two directions, and traffic and onlookers had piled up where the police and SWAT teams were milling about, lights flashing. He looked out the hotel lobby’s windows, seeing the reflections of the bright police lights from around the block.

  “Think they’ll figure it out?” Ben asked.

  “The shooting?” Joshua asked. “Yeah, they usually do. They’ll at least figure out it wasn’t about robbing a yogurt parlor. But they’ll take weeks — maybe months — to get to that conclusion.”

  “Let’s hope the yogurt shop guy doesn’t speed things along,” Ben said, knowing that the longer the police stayed busy with the shooting, the more time he and Joshua had to find Julie.

  “He’s in shock,” Joshua said. “First thing he’ll do when he snaps out of it in a few days is call in his insurance policy. That’ll keep him really tied up for the next few years.”

  Ben smiled and nodded as they walked out the front of the hotel, across the street now from Rittenhouse Square. He looked both directions, north and south, and turned right. The city was still very much alive, even though night had fallen over the historic town. The square and the great buildings standing over it were lit, thousands of multi-colored twinkles illuminating the night sky.

  “Locust Street, right?” he asked.

  “Yes, just past 20th. Let’s hustle — it’s only getting later.”

  Chapter SEVENTY

  “WE’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY,” Ben said, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.”

  “Ben, what are you talking about?” Joshua asked. He whirled around, clearly not wanting to slow down. “We’re almost there. Locust Street is right up —”

  “No,” Ben said, shaking his head. “It’s not — that’s not the place.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Hear me out,” he answered. “He said there was one on Chestnut Street, right?”

  Joshua nodded.

  “Chestnut Street is the same street the APS building is on.”

  “Well, that block anyway.”

  “Yeah, but it’s basically Chestnut Street. And Independence Hall, and the Liberty Bell, and Old City Hall.”

  “You sound like Reggie. When did you pick up all the history tidbits?”

  “I read the brief.”

  Joshua’s eyebrows rose.

  “What? I know how to read, Jefferson.”

  Joshua grinned, just a corner of his mouth lifting up, then it returned to its comfortable place as a single, unreadable line. “So what? All those historic landmarks, but we’re looking for a gym.”

  “No, we’re looking for where Julie’s being held. She said it was a gym, but I’m guessing she hasn’t been able explore it much.”

  “So you think she’s being held in a landmark? An historic site?”

  “No, not necessarily, but —” Ben started the other direction, walking back up toward the Rittenhouse hotel that sprawled above them on their left. “Let’s walk and talk. Or jog. We need to hurry.”

  “Ben…”

  “I’m serious about this. I think I’m on to something, just hear me out.”

  “Fine,” Joshua said, starting to catch up to Ben. “But hurry.”

  “Daris Johansson hired The Hawk, so it’s reasonable to assume that he’s working out of her facilities. It’s a security company first and foremost, right?”

  “Right.”

  Ben turned the corner and started up West Rittenhous
e Square, heading north, retracing the steps they’d just taken fifteen minutes earlier.

  “So if he’s at her facilities, we have to think like her. Maybe he told her to give him some space to work, space for his men. But she’s the one footing the bill. The organization.”

  “So the American Philosophical Society is probably the owner of the building?”

  “Exactly. And if I was Daris, and I was as into history and conspiracy theories as she is, I’d probably love the significance of putting my facilities on the same street as all those other national landmarks.”

  Joshua was striding forward next to Ben, now, nodding along. “Hmm,” he said. “Makes sense.”

  “It’ll make even more sense when we see it,” Ben said.

  “You’re confident about this.”

  “It’s right, Joshua. I’m telling you.” Still, Ben pulled out his phone once again and dialed Mr. E’s secured line. The man answered in two rings.

  “What have you found?” Mr. E asked.

  “Can you run a search for me?”

  “I still am. Right now I’ve built up the shortlist to eighteen sites, all buildings that have the characteristics you’ve requested, and —”

  “Those aren’t it,” Ben said, interrupting. “It’s the one on Chestnut Street.”

  “Harvey, are you sure? How do you —”

  “What information on the building can you see?”

  “Well, I… let me see. There is not much, really. Ownership changed hands a few times in the past decade, and — Harvey, these are public records, so I highly doubt —”

  Mr. E’s voice cut off.

  “You there?” Ben asked.

  “Just a moment. I am pulling up a city zoning map, and superimposing the Google Map on top, and…”

  “What?” Ben asked. He started to feel excited, his heart rate elevating. This is it, he thought. I know it.

  The Rittenhouse loomed over them to their left, the entrance to the great hotel dwarfed by the building above it, and the Rittenhouse Square sprawled out to their right. Ben and Joshua continued heading due north, following West Rittenhouse Street toward Chestnut.

  All around him buildings soared upward into the sky. He had the brief feeling of nostalgia, wondering how the skyline of this great old American city had looked back when horse-drawn carts filled the city streets instead of commuter vehicles and taxicabs. The ‘large’ buildings would have been minuscule compared to today’s architectural behemoths, but they would have had a beauty to them all their own, their hand-crafted designs each taking on the life of their designers.

  He wanted to stop, to close his eyes and just take it in and imagine, but he didn’t. Instead, he set his eyes on the target, knowing that any wasted time was time ticking off an invisible clock.

  And when the clock gets to zero…

  “Okay,” Mr. E’s voice said, puncturing the night air as they walked. Ben involuntarily increased his pace, and Joshua followed suit. “I have the records here. It appears as though this building sat abandoned for many years, as it was originally a residential home that nows sits on land that is now zoned for commercial. Three years ago it was purchased by a DJ Holdings, Inc.”

  “Daris Johansson,” Joshua said.

  “It must be,” Mr. E said. “But there is no proof of that here. The building, however, does seem to have some historical significance, as it was never torn down and never sold for less than a quarter of a million dollars.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much in this city,” Ben said.

  “Well, I am including the entire sales history that has been recorded,” Mr. E said. “Starting around the turn of last century.”

  Joshua whistled. “Okay, that changes things. This place was worth that much in the 1900’s?”

  “It appears so. Further, the house was immediately re-zoned and then construction permits were taken out upon the purchase. An extensive renovation, judging by the number of permits pulled.”

  “Get information on those permits,” Joshua said.

  “Yes, Mrs. E is already working on that,” the man said. “But I do not think it will be necessary.”

  “You don’t?” Ben asked.

  “No. I am seeing that there was another bid put in to the city for the property, just before DJ Holdings, Inc. closed on it.”

  “Popular place.”

  “No, I do not believe the property itself was the reason. The bid put in was for half a million more than the selling price, and it was placed by the APS.”

  Ben looked at Joshua, who was already staring at him, and both men broke into a run.

  Chapter SEVENTY-ONE

  “THAT’S THE PLACE,” JOSHUA WHISPERED. “Set back a bit, off the street.”

  Both men were crouched down behind a low, crumbling brick wall, peering over the edge at the alleyway that led to the building.

  Joshua triple-checked his phone, then nodded. “Yeah, that’s it, for sure.”

  “You see any bad guys?” Ben asked.

  “No, but we’re not going to from here. If they’re guarding the place on the outside, we need to get up the alley and do a perimeter check.”

  “We don’t have time for that,” Ben said. “Julie’s in there, and —”

  “We think Julie’s in there. Don’t forget we’ve got plenty of other places on the map that we’re supposed to check.”

  “She’s in there,” Ben said again. “Come on.”

  Ben took off in a jog, running straight up the alley and toward the short, whitish building standing at the end of it. If the place had ever been historically important, it didn’t show that now.

  The ‘house,’ as Mr. E had called it, looked nothing like anything Ben would ever want to live in. A row of blacked-out rectangular windows spread along the length of the wall, but the rest of the wall was completely devoid of noticeable features. The plain, boring whitewash had long since faded, and coupled with the dim hue of the nearby streetlight, the wall seemed to be decrepit, yellowed with age.

  Ben reached the end of the alleyway and saw that there was another alley — a narrow street, really — that stretched left and right, connecting Chestnut Street to the south with whatever street lay to the north.

  Joshua caught up. “Hey man, at least give me a warning when you’re going to run like that. We get seen by The Hawk’s group and we’re dead.”

  “Fine,” Ben said. “Warning.”

  He darted out again, this time to the right — south — toward Chestnut Street. He heard Joshua groan from somewhere behind him, but the man’s footfalls echoed off the old wall and into Ben’s ears.

  When he reached Chestnut Street, he slowed down and let the adrenaline subside. Though he knew from personal experience that the Ravenshadow men were not afraid to start shooting in public — in broad daylight for that matter — he was standing in the midst of throngs of late-evening tourists and pedestrians. Dogs were being walked on leashes, and families bounded down the great old avenue in both directions.

  “This is it,” Ben said. “The front of the ‘house.’”

  The front of the house looked exactly the same as the side, except it was very narrow and had a door on it.

  “Kind of an eyesore,” Joshua said.

  “Yeah, no joke.”

  The house, unassuming as it was, was certainly large enough to contain a gymnasium. The width of it would have been perfect, and the length was longer even than a typical school basketball gym.

  “This could be it,” Joshua said.

  “This is it,” Ben responded. “Should we knock?”

  Joshua didn’t even grant Ben a response. Instead, he continued walking around the facility, just as he’d told Ben they should do.

  Ben was growing anxious, feeling strongly that they were wasting time, but he followed behind Joshua anyway. The man did know what he was doing, Ben realized. Joshua Jefferson had once been a member of a security team not unlike Ravenshadow. They had met in the Amazon Rainforest, but Ben imagined that J
oshua was not unfamiliar with urban reconnaissance either.

  Joshua, now out of the prying eyes of the public passersby on Chestnut Street, held his pistol out in front of him, two hands, at the ready. He walked slowly, purposefully, not allowing his steps to be heard by even Ben, walking closely behind.

  “Move up to the corner,” Joshua whispered. “Let’s see if there’s a back door.”

  Ben nodded, knowing Joshua couldn’t see him, but walked past his leader and toward the corner of the building. He waited at the edge of it, unsure of what to do next.

  It was not often Ben felt out of his element. He enjoyed the outdoors, and nature, and had decided long ago to spend as much time as possible within it. He’d bought the cabin and the land it was on in Alaska, knowing that it would be something he’d hold onto forever, a personal retreat he could always return to to recharge and rejuvenate.

  And then Julie came along, and he found himself thrown into a completely different world. It wasn't her fault, but there was an aspect to it all that caused Ben to wonder if it would be different if they’d never met. He wasn’t about to give her up, but there were times in their relationship when the tension between loving the woman who’d promised her life to him and his desire to hide away in the cabin forever came to a head.

  Now, he was feeling the pressure of being exposed and in an environment he didn’t understand and feel comfortable in, and knowing that it was all to get Julie back.

  He sucked in a breath, letting it fill his lungs and push his chest out. He needed strength now, especially if they were going in and fighting the Ravenshadow team undermanned.

  “See anything?” Joshua whispered.

  Ben shook his head. “Not without jumping out there, but I do think there’s a door.” A single step lay halfway down the alley, adjoined to the back of the building.

  “Looks that way.”

  Ben froze. “This is it, Joshua. I’m positive.”

  “How can you tell?”