Thriller Box Set One: The Subway-The Debt-Catastrophic

by Dustin Stevens

  Along the back wall, Raz was reclined with his head in the corner and his feet pointed toward them, using one of the deflated mattresses as a pillow.

  “What’s that?” he asked, raising his hands and lacing them behind his head.

  “Homeboy just walked right up to the door,” Jazmine said, continuing to work on her snack. “No fancy ninja shit or anything.”

  “Huh, I’ll be damned,” he replied, his voice making it clear he found the entire thing humorous.

  Spending another night in the van was not something Skye was overly fond of, both for the cramped conditions it provided and the extreme proximity she was forced to maintain with both of her cohorts. As working partners they were both more than capable, masking intelligence and acumen behind laissez-faire mentalities and a passing disregard for most rules of grammar.

  As roommates, though, they both left a little something to be desired.

  The van was a remainder piece they had procured outside of Portland, Oregon, one of the few vehicles they’d encountered that could run semi-economically and provide enough space for the three of them and their gear. The bulk of the electronic wall they’d been working with just a few hours before was now stacked up beside them, providing a partition of sorts from the front seats and the makeshift living quarters where they now were.

  It was far from ideal, but they had made do with worse before. In a day or two they would find new accommodations somewhere and begin anew, just as they always did.

  Skye gave no response to the conversation around her as she kept her attention locked on the screen. Reaching out, she raised the volume on the laptop as loud as it would go, watching as Wynn began to dig into his pocket.

  “Oh, wait, this seems more in line,” Jazmine said, her breath reeking of nitrates.

  Expecting to see a gun, a silencer screwed down onto the end of it, Skye raised her eyebrows as the man came out with nothing more than a cell phone.

  “Or not,” she whispered.

  Turning his body sideways, Wynn stepped up the front steps and across the porch, hesitating just slightly before raising his fist and banging it against the exposed frame of the door.

  “Hello? Anybody home?”

  Passing through the wireless microphone and over the laptop speakers, his voice sounded a bit distorted, a sharp bark of static audible at the beginning before leveling out.

  “Uh, no dude,” Jazmine said.

  “Hello?” Wynn said again before extending a fist toward the door and using his knuckles to nudge it open. Flipping open the phone in his hand, he extended it before him, using it as a makeshift flashlight to peer inside.

  “A flip phone? Seriously?” Jazmine scoffed. “How old is this guy?”

  “Shh,” Skye said, letting her growing agitation show. For four months solid she had listened to the running commentary from Jazmine and Raz both, most of the time not minding, much of it at least verging on humorous.

  This was no time for such things, though.

  The camera above the door kicked off as Wynn passed into the house, the secondary feed taking over. Attached just above where their computer bank had been positioned, it afforded a view of nearly the entire open downstairs floor plan, missing only part of the kitchen in the back.

  Given that they had never used it for more than counter space, it seemed a safe bet that anybody arriving wouldn’t be in there long anyway.

  Under ideal circumstances, they would have had time to wire the whole place, but on a truncated timetable they had to do the best they could.

  Ideal of course being a relative term when ex-special forces soldiers were showing up at the front door.

  “Hello? Skye Grant?” the man called, his footsteps sounding out against the hardwood floor as he moved forward, phone still extended before him.

  At the mention of her name, Skye felt her chest constrict. It was no secret what the men were looking for, all three of them having been a thorn in various people’s sides dating back several years.

  Still, hearing her name called out like that brought with it a renewed sense of concern, the reality of what she was doing being tossed at her once again.

  The man was quick and thorough, moving through each of the rooms in order before making his way upstairs. For several seconds there was no view of him before the final camera they had left behind took over, picking him up at the top of the steps and following him as he tracked through each of the bedrooms and the bathroom.

  From what Skye could tell the man was careful not to touch anything, leaving behind no fingerprints, nothing at all to show he had passed through. With the phone held out in one hand, he kept the other buried in the pocket of his jeans, his body pulled in tight, wasting no movement as he went through the home.

  Halfway down the hall, the light on the phone went out as the man pressed a single button and held it to his face. Only an outline of him was visible as he worked his way back downstairs, his steps much quicker than just a moment before.

  “What’s he doing?” Jazmine asked, her tone for the first tone relaying she was sensing the reality of what they were staring at.

  A small grunt was Skye’s only response as she waited, the camera on the main floor picking Wynn up again as he crossed into the center of the room and stopped, still holding the phone to his face.

  When finally he spoke, there was a hostility in his voice that wasn’t present a moment before, a tone matched by his body language as he continued to glance about.

  “What the hell is this?” he snapped, the words quick and sharp, bypassing any introduction at all.

  Skye again felt her chest tighten, her breath catching.

  Somewhere on the other end of that line was whoever was so hell bent on making her life miserable.

  “What do you mean, what do I mean?” Wynn said. “I’m here at the address you gave me, and the whole damn place is empty. Doesn’t look like anybody’s lived here in months.”

  “What would you give to know who he’s talking to right now?” Jazmine whispered.

  Nodding just slightly, Skye reached out and again tried to raise the volume on the laptop. A series of green bars appeared before her, indicating it was already all the way up, the sound able to get no louder.

  If their operation was up and running, there might be the slight chance of triangulating the call and getting an audio feed, if not an outright location on the other side.

  As was, she was stuck sitting and watching, hoping Wynn would give something, anything, to help them out.

  “Does it matter?” Wynn snapped, his voice rising. “You think they were going to come back at midnight? Just move their stuff in and set up camp because I showed up wearing black and sneaking in the back door?”

  A few moments of silence passed, Wynn saying nothing, before responding, “So, what? That’s it? I’m out?”

  Again there was a pause, allowing the other side to respond.

  “And you bastards will leave me the hell alone? Not come near us ever again?”

  Confusion pulled Skye’s eyebrows together as she glanced over to Jazmine, the same look in place on her face. In the back of the van Raz rousted himself to life, pulling his hands from behind his head and moving forward for a better view of the proceedings as well.

  Nobody said a word as they watched the screen, trying to make sense of what they were seeing.

  In the middle of the screen Wynn stood nodding slightly, the movement, the look on his face, both colored with bitterness.

  “Alright,” he finally muttered, “but you better do as promised and wipe the slate clean. I did what you asked, so if you show up again, I won’t be nearly as cooperative.”

  He paused one last time before adding, “And you be sure to tell Jacoby the same goes for him.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dinner was served a bit later than usual, a result of another campaign event that had run over by more than an hour. After months of such occurrences, Meyers Jacoby was well past noticing, having learned t
o ignore the gnawing pangs of hunger that would set in.

  Every now and again a stray rumble could be heard, but by and large he was able to pass it off with a smile and a pithy comment about a nearby aroma.

  Now seated alone in his hotel suite, a spread of kale salad and grilled chicken was on the table before him, a side of cornbread and beans pushed to the side, never to be touched.

  Meat and veggies were acceptable. Corn and beans would cause bloating, something he could ill afford so late in the evening.

  Hunched over the desk, fork in one hand, a briefing file in the other, Jacoby was halfway through his notes for the coming days, a swing that would include stops along the old Tobacco Road at Duke, the University of North Carolina, and Wake Forest. Given that college campuses were by and large bastions of liberal thinking, all three carried the potential of being rough outings, meaning he had to be on top of his game.

  With each page he could feel his mood souring, a small clench deep within as every possible coming pitfall presented itself. One at a time he could almost hear the questions being lobbed his way, each one a pointed barb masked to look like an innocent inquiry.

  The kind of thing only a group of insolent teenagers could do with such complete abandon.

  By the time he finished dinner the files had brought a scowl to his face, the look only heightened as the phone on the far end of the table erupted, the name Bret Celek appearing before him.

  “Christ, this better be good news,” Jacoby muttered, reaching out and grabbing up the phone. “Yeah?”

  Leaning back, he rested his elbows on either arm of the chair. One hand he used to hold the phone in place, the other rubbing at the loose skin around his eyes.

  “Sir,” Celek said, a short, terse greeting that managed to tell Jacoby nothing and everything all at once.

  “Aw, hell.”

  “Yeah,” Celek agreed.

  “Did Wynn mess up?”

  “Not as far as I can tell,” Celek replied. “Looks like they were gone long before he got there.”

  For a moment, Jacoby remained silent, rolling his gaze up toward the ceiling. For months they had been playing this game, relying on every resource available to someone in his position without anybody actually noticing.

  Somehow, though, those three pesky kids had still managed to evade him.

  What was worse, they had continued to be a splinter in his paw, reducing him to making statements that made him feel like a villain in a Scooby Doo cartoon.

  “How?”

  “Not sure,” Celek said. “Looking into it now. Best guess, this was just bad timing. They happened to be moving on right before we got there.”

  “Damn,” Jacoby whispered. “Damn damn damn.”

  In eighteen hours he would be standing in front of crowds wanting to shred him on everything from foreign policy to pharmaceutical drugs. This was the last thing in the world he needed.

  “Orders?” Celek asked.

  They both already knew the answer to that, the fact that the question was even asked forcing the glower a little deeper into Jacoby’s features.

  Still, he had to say the words. Celek, just like most everybody in his life, was a soldier bred from the military life. He needed instructions to function, could not think or feel or move without them.

  “Keep going,” he said. “Until it’s over. Lord knows we’ve come way too far at this point to pull back.”

  “Yes, sir,” Celek replied. “And Wynn?”

  “How much does he know?” Jacoby asked.

  “He received the same briefing file as the others.”

  “So, too much.”

  “Yes, sir,” Celek replied.

  For a moment, Jacoby fell silent. The conversation the other night was the first time he had spoken to Laredo Wynn in sixteen years, the first time he had even thought about him in at least five. Never had he had any particular problem with the man, the two having only crossed paths briefly before going their separate ways.

  Still, that was of no concern to him. Things had to get done.

  “Finish it. Call whoever you need to.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  There was no way to be certain what Bret Celek was up to, but I knew for damn sure that they weren’t letting me out that easy. Nobody, not even a Vice Presidential candidate, bothered pulling someone halfway across the country to have them retrieve a bag of goodies, enter an empty house, and then just let them walk away.

  I was reasonably certain about all of that the moment I left the house, but became infinitely more aware as I drove off, the call coming in from Celek less than five minutes after our previous conversation.

  “What?” I asked, easing to the side of the road and raising the phone to my ear. All afternoon I had seen signs along the freeway denouncing driving while holding a phone, stating that a serious fine or worse could be levied if caught doing so.

  Those things didn’t concern me as much as the thought of the cops pulling me over and taking a look at what was strewn throughout my truck. While I had ditched the bag that Celek had me retrieve, there was only so many ways to try and explain two stacks of cash, a file folder containing information on a young woman, and Clarice.

  None of them seemed especially appealing.

  “Okay,” Celek said, his voice void of the usual prick overtones that had marked every one of our previous conversations, enough in just a single word to cause warning lights to begin flashing in my mind.

  “So, here’s how this should go. Do you still have the bag from Union Station?”

  A slight prickle rose through my chest, just as fast disappearing, pushed down by an even stronger feeling of resentment within me.

  “Not all of it,” I replied.

  “Not all...” he said, his voice trailing off. “How much of it?”

  For a moment I considered blowing him off, telling him again to go to Hell, before thinking better of it. Clearly the man had called Jacoby in the time since our last conversation and been given his marching orders. He was a classic middle management type, a low-level CO that couldn’t tie his shoes or take a piss without say so.

  If I had to play at least quasi-nice for a bit to try and ferret out what those orders were, I would.

  “The guns and clothes are gone.”

  “Where?” he asked.

  “Gone,” I repeated, not wanting to get into it, content that there was no way they would be found and even if they were, they weren’t getting back to either of us.

  “You’re sure?” he asked, a bit of the old temperament creeping in.

  “Why? You afraid that whatever they were meant to tie me to might now come back on you?”

  I knew the comment was a bit stronger than necessary, might run the risk of pushing him away, but I needed to give him the impression I was still seething. In no way could he know that the moment of angst had passed, that I was now beyond it, looking to cover my rear and exfiltrate as clean as possible.

  “Okay,” Celek said, skipping past the questions, as much to protect himself as to avoid the ensuing argument I was sure. “And the remainder?”

  “Right here beside me,” I said.

  “Okay,” he repeated for a third time. “The cash you can keep. Many thanks for a job well done, all that shit.”

  “Right,” I muttered, bobbing my head just slightly as I glanced out through the front windshield. True to my original assessment, the neighborhood was one designed more for industry than residency. Up ahead I could see the telltale neon signs of a host of fast food restaurants, a cluster of office buildings standing further back off the road, their windows darkened.

  “The file must be destroyed,” Celek said, “for your own protection. Nothing in it can be traced back to us, but if somebody were to ask how you got some of that information...”

  His voice drifted off there, letting me fill in the blanks.

  The information from the Cyber Terror division was most likely classified. Anybody that came sniffing around on it would dem
and to know how I, a former soldier and current rancher, came by it.

  Assuming they didn’t get caught up long before then on why I had so many glossy images of a young girl that was clearly scared of being followed in my truck.

  “Keep this phone for two more days in case I need to contact you,” Celek said. “After that, destroy it as well.”

  The make and model of it made it clear it was a burn phone, the kind of thing purchased in bulk from Wal-Mart or K-Mart or a thousand other such places around the country. The only thing of any value in it was the number Celek was now calling me on, almost certainly a burn phone as well, to be disconnected at the end of the forty-eight hour window he had just handed me, if not sooner.

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “That’s it,” Celek said, forcing his voice upward a bit, the sound almost bordering on sing-song, or as close as a man like him could get.

  “I could drive out of here tonight, never hear from you again?”

  “We’d prefer you did,” Celek said. “And after that, we won’t even call and ask to hang a campaign sign along your front fence.”

  I cut the call off there, having heard enough of the man and his lies to last me for one evening. Snapping the phone shut, I flipped it over onto the seat beside me and dropped the truck into drive, pushing it hard up the street, my attention aimed on the glowing signs ahead.

  The last sentence was a thrown-in, the kind of thing that most people wouldn’t notice. Celek hadn’t been able to resist tacking it on though, knowing I wasn’t most people, would pick up on it instantly.

  An overt threat, without having to go the extra step of actually saying it out loud.

  For the second time on the day, my pulse began to pick up, acrimony and vitriol rising within as I drove faster, the speedometer climbing above forty-five. Just as quickly I leaned on the brakes, the truck slowing as I swung into the first gas station I came to, a ragged no-name affair with a handful of pumps and a single free-standing cashier booth in the middle.