Hudson, the arrogant kid, knelt next to a tree as Van moved up to him. He tapped him on the shoulder and was about to tell him to flank to the left, when the kid’s head snapped back and he fell dead. His face destroyed like a mashed cherry pie. So much for Van’s record. He fired three fast shots into the tree line and moved to the right.
Things were getting out of hand here and Van was just the man to get them moving back in the right direction. He saw one of the men he’d spotted from the car lying prone by a tree and sighted in while he was still running. Van could hit bulls from fifty yards at a sprint all day every day. His finger was just taking up the slack on the trigger when his whole body was ripped from the ground by an unstoppable force. He blacked out for an instant as he hit the ground, full on his back, but was jerked awake as teeth tore into his carotid and jugular. Van saw his blood jet into the air, highlighted in green-black from the night vision that still illuminated his world. The pain was there, but seemed far away as his frame shook, this way and that, from the horrible power of some monster from his childhood nightmares.
A part of him, that also seemed far away, told him to get up, to keep fighting, that his men needed him and he was the only one that could save the day. He wanted to comply, to be that knight of old, riding in on a white charger in shining armor, but his ability was lost, like his honor, and instead of rising, he slid into unconsciousness and death to face his Maker and answer for his choices.
I put the little red dot on Jerome’s forehead, right where I’d shot the driver a few minutes ago, and almost took him out. I stopped at the last instant; I don’t really know why I stopped, but I did and instead scanned the landscape for more targets. Seeing none, I swept back up to the road where the second SUV sat idling. Trees obstructed my view of the windshield, so I just started blasting away into the car. My AR15 isn’t full auto, but I can pull the trigger pretty fast. I finished the thirty round magazine, flipped it over and inserted its upside down double, snapped back the bolt and put another ten .223s through the windows and doors. After that, I found Jerome in my little green reticle and caught him trying to sneak up on my left flank. Of course he was in complete darkness and had no idea that I was watching him. Not that I really needed night vision for him. He was making so much noise I could easily have peppered him by sound alone. Still, I didn’t want him to get too close, what with him having a full auto rifle and all. Wouldn’t be prudent. So I stayed in my prone position and put a bullet through the buttstock of the little Commando he was carrying. There was a chance the bullet would ricochet into him, but that was a chance I was willing to take. As it turned out, the impact ripped it out of his hands, and for the second time tonight, he stood there looking a little stunned, having been disarmed as if by magic from afar.
“I can have Max tear your throat out or I can put one through your brainstem and drop you like a puppet with its strings cut… or… we can make sure these guys are all out of the fight and then talk things through. Your choice.”
I saw him stand there for a few seconds, then nod.
“Walk to the sound of my voice,” I said.
When he made it to within about fifteen yards, I had him stop and sit down. I stood and Max and I went to him. I did a quick pat down search for weapons. Finding none, I sent Max out on a search and destroy mission for any hiding or advancing soldiers coming our way. I took up a position of cover behind a thick tree, leaving Jerome sitting in the open to draw fire, while I scanned the landscape for intruders. Max came back ten minutes later. He didn’t have any blood on his mouth and I hadn’t heard any screaming or gunfire, so I figured the coast was clear. Keeping Max between us, we made the rounds, checking each of the dead men that had come after us… or at least me. I figured they couldn’t have known Jerome Larkin would be here, so that left me as their target. I thought I recognized the second man we found. He was the guy I’d shot in the hips. Someone else had put one through his forehead, up close and personal. I guess they weren’t planning on leaving any witnesses, not even their own. On a recent case, I had a run in with a squad of mercenaries for hire, and while researching their boss, I’d come across this man’s bio and picture. He didn’t work for the guy I was researching, but he had his name out in that world looking for work. I couldn’t remember much of the details, but he was ex-army or special-forces or DEA or something like that, gone to do wet-work in the civilian branches of the business.
None of this was making sense to me. Gang members I could understand, but mercs?
“You know this guy?” I asked.
Jerome shook his head. “Nope. Never seen the man in my life.”
We made our way to where the SUV went over the cliff. I had Jerome sit again and set Max to guard him while I shimmied down to the burned, crushed up wreck. The vehicle had actually gone up in a fire ball, just like in the movies, a rarity in my experience, but most of the flames had died out. I counted five dead men inside, all toasted. Pretty horrible, but there was plenty of fire power in there too. So, bad as it was, it probably saved our lives.
I was sweating and tired when I made it back to Max and Jerome. I sat down opposite him with about twenty-five feet between us.
“You explain this to me,” I said.
“Told you before,” said Jerome. “They gonna kill Clair.”
“These aren’t Bloods.”
“Don’t matter. They workin’ for the Bloods.”
“Working for the Bloods?” I gave that some thought. Had gangs started bidding work to mercenaries? No way. But…
“Who in the Bloods wants her dead?” I asked. “I mean who put out the contract on her?”
“Don’t work like that,” said Jerome. “Not like in the movies. Not like those Italian gangster shows. Ain’t no contracts, no kisses of death, no formal stuff like that. Usually it’s a personal thing. Tre shoots Bone Bag, so his bro Smoker comes at Tre’s boys with some help… that sort of thing. Or, one of the OGs says there’s gotta be some blood on the street for something or other, either to establish turf or for a formal lesson or retaliation. That sort of thing.”
“Okay,” I said, “then which Original Gangster ordered the hit on Keisha and her mom?”
Jerome thought for a bit, then looked back at me through the dark. “Don’t know. But I could find out.”
“How?”
“I still got boys back in the hood.”
I pulled out my cell phone.
Jerome shook his head. “I’d have to go there.”
“Go where?”
“The hood. Chicago.”
“You are a wanted man,” I said. “How am I supposed to get you to Chicago?”
“You got a car,” he said.
Hmm. He had me there.
30
Sarah Gallagher stepped out of her front door, looking like Venus. She wore a simple blue dress that stopped short of her knees, so tight fitting it looked like it had been applied with a spray can. Her hair was perfect, her makeup flawless, and her high heels made her sleek calves look like a work of art. You’d think she’d been sculpted by Michelangelo himself.
I wondered if she woke up looking like that.
I said my goodbyes to Pilgrim. I didn’t plan on being gone long, but in my line of work, you never know.
Sarah hunched down and gave Pilgrim’s head a rub. He looked up at her with love and licked her fingers. They were old friends.
“How you doing, boy? How’s my big hero?” she asked, smiling into his furry face.
Pilgrim once helped save Sarah from a very bad man.
For an answer he rolled over and showed her his belly.
Sarah gave him a good scratch and looked up at me. “He’s still hurting isn’t he?”
I saw the tears start in her eyes.
“He’s lucky to be alive. Getting shot like that at his age is no small thing.” I hunkered down next to her and gave him a rub myself. “But he’s a tough old boy; aren’t you, Pilgrim?”
He growled, playful-like, and chewe
d on my wrist.
“Thanks, Sarah,” I said. “I know this is short notice.”
We both stood up.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “it will give me a chance to go through your things.”
“My things? What things?”
She grinned mischievously and held up the keys I had given her to my place. “How is it you like to say… things you wouldn’t know about… things you couldn’t know about…” her eyebrows drew down and her voice lowered, “…things you shouldn’t know about.”
I nodded. “Seriously, that was the worst Pee-Wee Herman impersonation I have ever heard.”
“That’s because I wasn’t impersonating Pee-Wee, I was impersonating Gil Mason impersonating Pee-Wee. A tiny taste of your own medicine.”
“Everybody’s a critic,” I said.
Sarah leaned in and gave me a little peck on the cheek. She smelled like sunshine. “You just take care of that little girl and get back here safe.”
“I will,” I said, “but all joking aside, don’t go to my place. Some very bad men might be staking it out. That’s why I brought Pilgrim here. Okay?”
Sarah knew when I was being serious. “Okay, Gil.”
We both stood up, and she took the leash and walked Pilgrim inside as I got back in the car with Ziggy, and Jerome, and Max. Ziggy sat in the back, Jerome in the front passenger side and Max in the far back cargo area. I’d removed the rubber platform, put the rear seats back in and replaced the fence between Max and them. Max tolerated Ziggy, but I wasn’t so sure he’d afford Jerome the same latitude.
“How long you two been together?” asked Jerome.
“She’s just a friend,” I said.
“Somebody better tell her that,” he said.
“Ziggy say you got that right,” said Ziggy from the back.
“You two are nutty,” I said.
“And you be blind,” said Jerome.
“Stupid too,” said Ziggy.
I backed into the street and we began the long road trip to Chicago.
Max lay in the back of the SUV, his eyes mere slits. He took in everything. Jerome sat in the front where Gil could watch him, but Max smelled the fresh blood seeping from the wounds he’d given him. The Alpha had stopped Max from killing the prey, which was his right, but Max didn’t understand it. Jerome was their enemy and Max had felt the man’s power. He was dangerous and should not be taken lightly.
The other human smelled of rot, his veins running with drugs that kept him functioning even as they killed him slowly.
Ziggy had shot up just before Gil stopped outside the rundown apartment where he was staying for the time being. The heroin mellowed him, allowing him to float along gently.
Max had no concept of heroin or why a human would take such a substance, but in the way animals think, he understood, through the incredible power of his senses, that the narcotics were eating the man alive. Everything about the man rankled him. The smell, the weakness, the strange sounds he made; grunting under his breath, soft laughter, mumbled words meant only for himself, the flitting of his eyelids and the flaring of his thin nostrils.
The Alpha seemed either unaware or uncaring of the danger that Jerome posed, sitting there so close to him. And the fence between Max and them would not allow Max to aid him if the man attacked. So he lay where he was, unmoving, seemingly asleep, but fully awake, waiting and watching.
Halfway through Kansas, I got a call from Jared. I’d phoned him after leaving Sarah’s and told him about the attack at my place and asked him to have Jeffco (The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office) go clean up the bodies. I didn’t call them myself because I knew they’d want me to come answer a slew of questions and maybe even arrest me until they figured out what was really going on. I didn’t think little Keisha had that kind of time.
“Hey, Jared.”
“You playing games, Gil?”
“Games?”
“Jeffco rolled onto your mountain with just about everything they had available. You know what they found?”
“A bunch of dead guys, a fried SUV and another one shot to pieces?”
“Nothing,” said Jared.
“What do you mean nothing?”
“I mean absolutely nothing. No dead soldiers, no burned up cars, no blood, nothing.”
“That’s not possible,” I said.
“It is what it is,” said Jared. “Two of my buddies from the old days were with the guys that checked it out. If they say there was nothing, then you can trust there was nothing.”
That worried me. Mercenaries were bad enough; not the kind usually associated with gangs like the Bloods, but maybe… maybe they might hire out for an important enough cause. But getting a cleanup on as big of a mess as I’d left… in that quick of a time period… was way too big for any street gang. No way. This had government written all over it, and not just a flunky either. Meaning Senator Marsh himself was involved, and that was a scary thought indeed. What would make a sitting US Senator — a possible candidate for President — get involved in something as deadly as this? And why did he want Keisha?
Scary.
On the bright side, at least Jeffco wouldn’t be sending out a BOLO for my arrest.
“So what is going on, Gil?”
“I’m not sure, Jared, I’m really not, but it’s probably best if you stay out of it from here on until I get more info. No use in both of us getting into trouble.”
And then Clyde’s giant frame and bald head flashed to mind. The senator’s personal bodyguard. Maybe more than a flunky? Him I could see doing this. But would he have the clout? And why? I called Sarah again and asked her to check out Clyde. After a few minutes of teasing, which I was grateful neither Ziggy nor Jerome, who were both sleeping, could hear, we clicked off and I was alone with my thoughts and the flat Kansas landscape.
Once the sun rose, I pulled out my cellphone and made a final call.
31
About six hundred miles outside of Illinois, my cell buzzed. It was Senator Marsh. Despite the fatigue, I smiled as I answered. I’d been expecting his call.
“I thought we had an agreement,” said the Senator. He sounded perturbed, like Morgan Freeman as crazy Joe Clark in Lean on Me, minus the baseball bat.
“Agreement? What agreement?” I asked all innocent like.
“You leaked the story to the press.”
“Did I?”
I could hear him take in a long slow breath and let it out.
“What kind of a game are you playing at, Mr. Mason?” and just like that, he transformed to Luscious Fox from Batman; the calm voice of reason.
“What kind of game are you playing at, Senator?”
“Explain.”
“Did you send men to kill me at my house?”
“What?”
“Mercenaries,” I said. “Two cars full; lots of toys. Very professional. Not the sort of boys to play with gang members. Not Bloods or Crips or even MS13. More like hired thugs from say…a government agency.”
“Mr. Mason, I don’t know what you are talking about, but I assure you I had nothing to do with sending anyone to do anything to you. I came to you to help save a little girl, which you did and for which I will be eternally grateful. Somewhere along the line, you have been turned against me. I don’t know how or why, but if you seriously believe that I would actually try and have you killed, then you know nothing about me. I abhor violence. I grew up surrounded by it. My own brother was gunned down in front of my eyes when I was thirteen years old by a boy barely in his teens. Where I grew up, the streets ran red with the blood of children. I vowed that one day I would put a stop to that violence and I have lived by that vow my entire adult life. It is my guiding principle. So whatever you may think about my politics, or even me myself, the one thing you can be certain of is that I would never condone any act of aggression against an innocent.”
Wow. This guy was good. Either he was being truthful or he deserved an Oscar. Like it or not, I believed him.
“Okay,” I said, “then someone close to you.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
“No,” he said, “not possible. Maybe a former client of yours. Someone who held a grudge?”
Possible, of course. I’d made plenty of enemies; some even mercenaries.
“No,” I said, “the timing doesn’t work. I don’t believe in coincidence; at least not this coordinated. What about someone on your staff?”
I could almost hear him shake his head. “But why, Mr. Mason? You did exactly as I asked.”
“What about me finding out about you making a bid for the presidency? What if one of your loyal men thought I might spill the beans and hurt your chances?”
That pause again, but this time I could tell he was considering. He said, “Now don’t think I’m buying into this. You have given me absolutely no evidence. But some of my men have been known to be overly zealous in the past. Nothing like what you are suggesting, but enough that you have me thinking. I’ll do some checking. It would have to be someone high in my organization. Someone close.”
“Like Clyde?” I asked.
“Clyde is my most trusted friend, but as I said, Mr. Mason, I will check into it. You have my word.”
“And you, sir, have a great story about saving a little girl to help support your run for high office.”
“That’s not why I hired you.”
“Maybe not, but I’ll be watching you.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“That’s all I ask,” I said.
“Now I have to set up a press conference for some time in the next few days, thanks to your alerting them about our recovering little Keisha. In other words, another fire to put out in an already very busy schedule. If I have any further need of you, I’ll call. Understand that Mr. Mason, I’ll call you.” He hung up then.
The conversation helped to wake me up. I looked over to see Jerome staring at me. He was a mess. Blood caked his shirt and pants and he had bruises on his bruises and cuts on his cuts. He stretched his legs and I could tell the movement cost him some pain. I’d filled both him and Ziggy in on everything I knew, starting with Marsh showing up at my place and hiring me, down to him maybe running for president. Full disclosure.
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