The Warriors Series Boxset II

by Ty Patterson

Show time.

  Zeb accelerated and sped down the street, saw one man look up at his approaching SUV as it swerved suddenly, climbed pavement and rammed into the rear of the vehicle and backed out rapidly and halted.

  Zeb was out, running, even before the vehicles had settled, steam rising from the front of his. The doors of the other vehicle were swinging wildly, its rear crumpled like a tin can.

  His gun was in his hand, eyes seeking out the men.

  The first two had fallen at the impact, one door had hit the front passenger and he looked dazed. The injured were half in, half out. One man shouted, a thin scream, ‘it’s him.’

  Driver, where is he? There, beneath the door. Moving fast. Hand reaching out.

  A gun flashed, Zeb squeezed. Trigger break. Red blossomed on the driver’s shoulder, he fell back. Another squeeze, the gunman’s right hand burst. He shouted and fell back.

  Polks sprawled out, raised his hands, shouted hoarsely. He was out of the fight.

  The beast unleashed itself and pounced. Leg on rail. Spring up and over, and then Zeb was flying over the vehicle.

  His eyes scanned, his gun followed. His eyes saw, his gun aimed.

  He turned in the air, landed lightly, feet firm, center of gravity low, in front of the vehicle, now facing the passenger and Porterman.

  The passenger, Luca from Porterman’s description, rolled, fast, and smooth, a Colt appeared, but he was too close to Zeb to get it in position in time, and the gun flew away harmlessly when Zeb kicked his wrist. Zeb slashed down with the Glock, caught him on the bridge of his nose. Cartilage broke, blood spurted, his smooth moves slowed, dulled and stopped.

  Porterman fell out, Zeb’s Glock trained on him.

  ‘I’m out. I’m out. Don’t shoot.’ He shouted.

  Zeb stepped back rapidly, kept them in view, cast a quick glance around the other side.

  Shot man, Barrow, lay still and unmoving.

  Polks lay on the ground, his cheek hugging earth, his eyes staring blankly at Zeb. Luca lay bleeding, groaning softly, his head shaking dazedly.

  Zeb kicked their guns away, secured them with plastic ties, went inside the house and checked it out swiftly. Empty.

  It’s probably one of the shooter’s cribs.

  He came back stood in the doorway and scanned the street swiftly. No heads poked out from any house, no vehicles rushed on the road.

  It’s office time. School time. Probably not many people at home. Daytime TV must be keeping those at home occupied.

  He dragged the men inside, ignoring their curses and swearing and dumped them in the cluttered living room. The other end of the living room narrowed into a hallway, while directly opposite to where Zeb stood, was a kitchen that stank of stale food and spoilt milk.

  There was a dirty jug of water on a center table; he grabbed it and poured it over Luca. The wounded man jerked, opened his eyes wide, saw the knife in Zeb’s hand and raised a hand in defense.

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ he shouted.

  ‘But I do,’ a voice called from behind.

  Move!

  Zeb dived into the kitchen, just as gunshots roared and echoed in the small house. Shots peppered the hardwood floor where he had been, some smacked into the wall behind, and at least a couple struck the men.

  He glimpsed the shooter through the corner of his eyes.

  Tall man, with a pony tail.

  He scanned the kitchen swiftly. Nothing to hide behind.

  Ceiling had two hooks, maybe for fans that the occupant never got around to fixing.

  He leapt, caught hold of the hooks and pulled himself up. His curled his body and brought it as close to the ceiling as possible.

  If the hooks give, I am gone.

  They didn’t, they held firm. He thanked whoever had built the house in the first place, long before cheap materials and plasterboard had made an entry.

  ‘You can’t run, you can’t hide, and you will die.’ Pony Tail sang and started shooting, a continuous roll of thunder, a diagonal stitch appearing in the plasterboard, and then another to complete an ‘X.’ Gunsmoke and wood chips and cardboard dust filled the air.

  Glock 26? He counted the rounds, waited till the shooting stopped, heard the faint slither of movement.

  He dropped and in two strides was in the adjoining dining room. It opened in the same hallway where the shooter stood.

  ‘Are you dead, Carter?’ Pony Tail called out and the first hole appeared chest high, in the wall that separated the dining room and the kitchen.

  Zeb ducked very low, read its angle.

  He’s sideways, to take in the kitchen as well as the dining room entrance.

  Another hole appeared, another bullet flew in the air a foot above his body.

  No time to think. No time to figure out escape. If I shoot back, he’ll know where I am. Only in Hollywood can shooters fire through walls and both survive.

  One glance around the room. Circular table. Four chairs. One stool.

  A third hole appeared, signaling the start of another ‘X’ pattern, and before the fourth appeared, Zeb was moving, one hand reaching out, body readying for explosive movement, feet moving for momentum.

  His hand completed its swing and the chair sailed around the door, in the hallway, at Pony Tail. He heard it crash once against the wall, ram into something and the sounds of something heavy falling.

  The gun fell silent.

  No time to wait.

  Another chair followed, this time his swing was better, and the chair flew down the hallway and crashed into something or someone. A third followed and from the sounds of it, broke apart when it landed.

  Zeb crouched, ducked his head swiftly around the door and took in the scene.

  Pony Tail on the ground. Eyes wide. Chairs on top of him. Struggling to get up.

  Zeb stepped in the corridor and black eyes spotted him, narrowed, slid to the Glock shining just out of reach of the gunman.

  Behind the shooter lay the entrance door, to his right lay the kitchen, to the left was the living room. The shooter dived for the gun and pulled back abruptly when Zeb let fly the stool from behind him.

  Pony Tail jerked back savagely and rolled into the living room, got to his feet smoothly and ran.

  Zeb lunged over the furniture, one hand reaching inside his holster for his gun. He landed on a chair’s leg, slipped, crashed into the door and lost his gun.

  He straightened and poised to dive at Pony Tail who suddenly halted in mid-stride, whirled as if his waist was on ball bearings and his right hand flashed to produce a snub nosed revolver.

  Whoa.

  It barked harmlessly when Zeb ducked under it and slapped it away with the edge of his hand, as hard as concrete. Before it could clatter, steel flashed and shaped into a foot long blade that Pony Tail produced. He sliced the air, made Zeb reverse, duck and weave.

  Pony Tail followed through with wicked cuts and slashes, driving Zeb back to the hallway.

  No room to move back. I’ll be on top of the furniture and then he’ll have me.

  He saw the attacker’s eyes gleam and signal another attack, waited for the knife arm to unfold, for the knife to hiss through the air in its deadly quest and at the very last minute, he leaned back, his upper body almost parallel to the floor. The Gerber blade swished silently above him and just for the smallest fraction of a second, Pony Tail was off balance.

  Zeb turned the backward swing into a sideways move and slipped under the retreating knife arm and moved deeper into the living room.

  More room.

  That space rapidly disappeared when Pony Tail produced a flurry of stabs and thrusts, pushing Zeb into a desperate rear-guard move.

  The knife sought him.

  ‘I raped her.’

  Duck. Duck again, evade the slash.

  ‘There were three of us.’

  Lean out of thrust.

  ‘We took turns.’

  Move back away from the cut.

  Zeb’s heels came against
a body. He stumbled, started falling, his hands flailed out.

  Pony Tail grinned and leaned forward for the killing blow.

  ‘I would have loved a second go at her.’

  The beast, which was watching, waiting, uncoiled itself in suddenness as if woken by an electric current that passed from the ground and into Zeb’s body, and sped through his blood. The beast filled his upper body, flew down his flailing arms and its jaws snapped.

  Zeb’s wrists snapped around the knife arm in a blur and hauled the killer toward him.

  The knife blade came straight at his eyes and at the very last moment, Zeb deadened his upper body, letting it fall like a heavy weight on the man below,

  His wrists continue their hold, tendons flexed, feet and shoulders turned and Pony Tail got dragged after him, crashing onto on the hardwood floor behind him.

  Turn, twist, left hand down, left leg up and power off.

  He pounced on the killer; his right fist curled, knuckles showing, and landed on a nerve point in Pony Tail’s exposed shoulder.

  The killer’s knife arm came up, the blade flashed and then it clattered to the ground when Zeb punched him in the throat.

  ‘You shouldn’t have said that.’

  Zeb reached out and the blade flowed in his hand; he turned it over in a smooth move, gripped its hilt and in the next second, buried it deep in the killer’s left shoulder.

  The blade sank through flesh and muscle, scraping past bone and almost penetrated through. His brown eyes were on fire as they stared down at Pony Tail’s face which was beaded with sweat, his eyes wide in agony, his mouth open in a soundless scream.

  ‘You shouldn’t have raped her in the first place.’

  Chapter 14

  Zeb checked the house, found no more hostiles. The other men were still. They all seemed to be breathing, but a couple of them had caught stray bullets from the killer’s first burst; one stopped a round with his thigh, another had a hole in his right shoulder.

  Zeb peered out through the windows at the front, the neighborhood was still quiet.

  That calm may not last long. That amount of gunfire will attract attention.

  He walked swiftly, without haste, tried the SUV, its engine turned in a comforting growl. Its front was dented, but it would run. He reversed the vehicle and backed it up against the door. He left its rear door open and hauled his attacker inside and drove away. His police scanner gave him nothing, just lazy chatter from a police department that didn’t see much crime.

  He went through smaller streets, residential ones that would have less traffic, circled and hit the I-25 again and followed it out of the city. He positioned his ride between a panel truck and a pickup, and punched locations in the sat-nav.

  He was looking for something remote, an abandoned industrial park, even wide open land, anything that would give him privacy.

  He left the highway ten miles away from the city, followed black top for another ten miles and when he spotted a faint trail, two dirt tracks, he swung off and followed them. His navigator told him there was nothing there. It showed an expanse of water a couple of miles away. It showed green spaces.

  That would do.

  The green space turned out to be an expanse of knee-high growth that led to a lake. He stopped under the shade of a tree, let the engine die down and heard it click and clack as it started cooling. Pony Tail groaned from the inside, and with that, his eyes grew bleak.

  He washed up in the lake ninety minutes later and made his call. Beth took it, put it on speaker.

  Zeb spoke briefly, quickly. ‘I need recovery and wheels.’

  Inexperienced operatives would have questioned him, would have asked him innumerable questions. Not Zeb’s crew. Pride and warmth swelled through him at Beth’s crisp reply. ‘Hold’

  Over the years, they had stashed guns, cash, covers, passports, and papers all over the country. They now had thirty such caches in large cities and in each city; they had bought ownership in the right kind of garages where they kept a customized SUV on standby at all times.

  The garage managers had drivers who would drop the vehicles off at pick-up points, collect the old ones that would then be serviced and kept ready. The garage managers and drivers were all ex-military and were all thoroughly vetted by the twins. They had similar caches in international cities; London, Paris, Istanbul, Madrid, Mumbai, cities which terrorists had targeted.

  Zeb was working on the assumption that his SUV was hot. The gangbangers in Los Angeles knew how it looked and so did Wasserman’s crew. Once the cops discovered the wounded in the crib, they too would join the hunt. Changing plates was no longer sufficient. He had to change his ride.

  ‘Jackson is where we have the nearest outfitter. Meg’s already on the phone, she’ll get wheels rolling in half an hour.’

  ‘Am I hot?’

  ‘Nope.’ Broker drawled over the phone. ‘No cops are on the lookout for you. Not yet.’

  Wasserman probably doesn’t want attention on himself and his crew. He certainly wouldn’t report the shooting. Why hasn’t anyone else?

  ‘Break it down for us, Zeb.’

  Zeb told them; about Pony Tail and two others threatening and raping the journalist several years back. ‘She was chasing a story on someone powerful. Felix Domingo, Pony Tail, doesn’t know what the story was or who it was on. All that Wasserman told them was to scare the living daylights out of the woman and when news of her persisting reached them, ordered the kill. They cleared her laptop, phone, and all her files and made her apartment sterile once she had been killed.’

  ‘Surely they must have made her talk before killing her? She must have spilled who the story was on.’

  Zeb controlled the leap of rage as he recollected Domingo’s words and remembered the cuts on the journalist’s body. ‘They did; she babbled nonsense, dug up old stories and when they cut her more, she died. They didn’t get anything useful out of her.’

  ‘They must have read her files. Surely these bozos know who the subject was.’ Broker was incredulous, in the background Zeb could hear the twins agreeing with him.

  ‘Nope. They never got to read the story on her laptop. There were no other backups, no notes in her apartment, nothing that lead to the story. She never got around to telling them anything worthwhile. I think she knew she would be interrogated and trained herself to repeat a fanciful story. ’

  His crew fell silent for a moment and then Broker came back. ‘You were persuasive? You believe him?’

  ‘Yeah and yeah.’ Zeb had no qualms about aggressively interrogating a killer like Domingo. He deserved what he got and Zeb would lose more sleep over squashing an insect.

  ‘He can describe Wasserman?’

  ‘Never met him. Usual procedure. Studelander met them, gave them instructions. Wasserman was just a voice on the phone. These four hung out in Casper.’

  He gave them Domingo’s service history, the details of the two others who had raped and killed Petrova. ‘They go by Boxer and Pock Mark. All three were discharged from the Marines for criminal offenses. Studelander hunted them and made them part of his crew.’

  ‘Did this guy kill Elena?’ Meghan asked in a flat voice.

  ‘He said it was Boxer. But he was there. He said of the three, Pock Mark is the most dangerous.’

  ‘We’ll dig everything we can on him,’ Broker promised. ‘We know more now, but not by much. We still don’t know what Elena was working on and who and where Wasserman and the shadow man are.’

  ‘We know something else,’ Zeb corrected him.

  ‘Domingo said something would go down next week, He said something would happen in Texas that would change the face of the world. Studelander let this slip when he met these guys, but clammed up immediately. Domingo, Boxer, and Pock Mark aren’t involved in whatever is going to happen.’

  ‘We’ll check out all events in Texas and get back to you.’ Broker was brief, terse, and efficient. They now had a timeline to work toward. ‘By the way, I checked out
that neighborhood. There’s a garage just behind that house and there are several reports of vehicles misfiring from it. I guess whoever heard the shots must have thought it’s yet another faulty exhaust.’

  ‘There were quite a few shots,’ Zeb replied doubtfully.

  ‘You think Wasserman erased any police report? That’ll take some doing,’ Broker countered.

  ‘Yeah, but so far he’s shown that he’s very capable. Besides, all it needs is a couple of corrupt police chiefs. That’s not exactly uncommon.’

  ‘We’ll dig into the Cheyenne and Casper P.D.s.’ Meghan promised.

  Zeb halted them as they were hanging up. ‘He gave me Studelander’s description. You can run those past all our databases as well as veteran files.’ Zeb recited the man’s details to Broker, recollected something else. ‘Broker, can you run a voice print against databases?’

  ‘Yeah, Werner can do it in its sleep. Whose voice have you recorded?’

  ‘Wasserman’s, when he called me.’

  Zeb bundled Domingo back in his SUV, grinned when he remembered Broker’s snort of indignation when he said the killer was still alive. His crew were firm believers in permanent solutions.

  Zeb met Domingo’s glaring eyes; the man would live, but would never wield a gun or a knife or any other weapon again. He cuffed the man for good measure and drove back to the city.

  Cautiously, keeping an eye out for cruisers and listening intently on the scanner. He parked a block away from the crib, covered Domingo with a tarp, punched holes in it for the man to breathe and proceeded on foot to the hood’s home.

  He entered the street, saw a few more vehicles in driveways but no curious neighbors’ eyes were on him. The house was still, the men were lying where he had left them. They were breathing; two of them were unconscious, while two others had slipped into a natural sleep. Zeb checked the men who were shot; none of their wounds were fatal.

  They had probably called out for help, but if the neighbors hadn’t heard the shots, they wouldn’t hear shouts. Zeb went through the house again, this time searching more thoroughly. He scanned an untidy bedroom, rifled through drawers and a wardrobe, discovered a shotgun and three handguns under the bed. He grabbed them; their serial numbers might lead somewhere.