“Although it’s written into army regulations that anyone, and I mean anyone, above the rank of first lieutenant can make a fool out of second lieutenants, I will forgo that right at the moment. Right now I understand we are needed for some particularly dirty work at the complex, so may I suggest we get to it?”
“Yes, sir, right this way.” Will turned away after placing the file under his arm and with eyes wide shooed the two chiefs away ahead of him.
The young doctor slapped her father on the arm and then placed her arm through his. “You’re just plain mean sometimes,” she said and they both laughed as they followed the scared second lieutenant out to the flight line. “Sometimes I think working too closely with Senator Lee all those years has made you mean at heart.”
The Blackhawk flew for only seven minutes. It circled the ancient hangar where at one time B-25 Mitchells and P-51 Mustangs sat like waiting dragons to take to the war-torn skies of the world. It had been over sixty years since the propeller-driven beasts ruled the air and just as long since the giant hangar had housed anything other than insects and Gila monsters.
The Blackhawk swept the area twice so the security detail surrounding the hangar could clearly identify them. Then it circled to the front of the old hangar and the large rotored craft settled to about ten feet off the desert scrub. Wind and sand blew up and obscured the Blackhawk as it eased itself through the giant and dilapidated hangar door, so it would look to the casual observer to be hanging from only five of the twenty giant hinges on either side. The helicopter hovered for the briefest of moments before the experienced pilot sat it down onto what looked like a cracked and broken concrete center floor.
Suddenly every one of the reactivated Event personnel from the CDC gave out a loud breath when they felt their stomachs heave up slightly as the Blackhawk was lowered down by the massive lift.
As the twenty-seven-ton lift operated on ultraquiet hydraulics, it was hard to tell once your stomach settled if you were still moving or not. Finally the elevator came to a stop and Niles Compton was there to greet his returning team.
Will jumped free of the Blackhawk and then handed the file folder to Niles.
“On behalf of our department, I would like to welcome you back home to Nevada,” Niles said.
“Whatever this is about Mr. Director, I sure hope you can afford my fees,” Colonel Bannister joked with his old friend as he held out his hand.
Niles took the colonel’s hand and shook it. “Good to see you again Billy,” he said looking over at the colonel’s daughter. “Gloria, sorry to drag you back to the Group on such short notice, but budgeting for a full-time disease control staff is a little beyond us.”
“It’s good to be back, Niles,” Gloria said as she waited for their mission to be described to them.
“We have an element in house that needs to be treated with respect, and I trust you to see that it’s analyzed and then, if need be, destroyed after study.”
“Sounds fascinating,” Colonel Bannister said as he followed the soldiers carrying his suitcase toward the elevators. The others followed Bannister.
Gloria smiled as she walked by Will. Compton half smiled as he watched Mendenhall’s eyes follow the attractive doctor as she walked away.
“What’s wrong Lieutenant? You look sick. Aren’t your new expanded duties meeting with your approval?”
“Huh?” Will stammered, not hearing a word Niles had said. “Sir?”
Niles turned his head and watched the group of doctors as they entered the elevator. Compton smiled and then raised his eyebrows as he turned and looked at Will.
“Carry on, Lieutenant,” the director said.
“Huh?”
Niles smiled as he turned away and strode to the elevator, leaving a confused second lieutenant in his wake.
MCCARRAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
The large man going by the name of Smith stepped off the chartered flight from Denver. He was met by a team of three men and they were backed up by four more in a car he knew was there but couldn’t see as per their training.
As the large well-dressed man stepped up to the black Chevy Tahoe, he looked at his watch and then turned to the man holding the door. He saw that he was wearing a black windbreaker.
“How much longer does the transmitter have before it dies?” he asked as he eyed the man who led the Black field team inside the Las Vegas city limits.
“We lost the signal five minutes ago, Mr. Smith.”
“You have GPS locations for all of the stops the target made?”
“Yes, sir, we do. Actually, he made only one stop after appearing at 2896 Koval Lane, and that was a private residence out on Flamingo Road.”
The man named Smith shook his head and then buttoned his blue blazer. As he stepped by the smaller man who held the door open, he looked down at him and without his other men hearing said, “What’s with the black windbreaker?”
The man was taken aback as Smith seated himself in the backseat of the Tahoe. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. After all, he had heard the rumors about Smith and his famous temper. He had also heard that the man really had one passion in life, and that was to end other people’s aspirations for a long one.
“We never wear black when the need to intimidate isn’t called for,” he said as he looked over at the man who was now having second thoughts about running the Las Vegas office for him. “And investigating doesn’t call for the intimidation factor. Don’t wear that shit again unless I specifically order you to.” Smith reached out and closed the door in the man’s face. The former U.S. Army Ranger swallowed and then ran around to the opposite rear door and climbed inside.
Smith once more looked at his watch. “Take me to where our target first appeared. That’s quite a jump from Nellis to Koval Lane in downtown Las Vegas with the route the subject took. According to the report, he cut through rough desert and the basements of several casinos to get to this location on Koval Lane. I’m interested in knowing how he achieved that little stunt.”
“Yes, sir,” the driver said as he placed the large Tahoe into gear.
“What’s the name of this place again,” he asked the chastised man next to him.
The man pulled out his notebook and then decided at that precise moment to remove the offensive black windbreaker. He opened the notebook and studied his notes, infuriating Smith even more than he had been.
“The Gold City Pawn Shop,” the man finally answered without looking up.
“Then why aren’t we at the Gold City Pawn Shop already?”
The Tahoe screeched out of the charter area of McCarran airport heading to downtown. As they pulled out onto the main drive heading toward the city, another black Tahoe pulled out after them.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
As Collins ran the paint roller across the den’s wall, he tuned with a sneer and looked over at a very messy but very satisfied Alice Hamilton.
“No wonder the senator didn’t like you much. You purposefully plied me with drink, and then the next thing I know I’m painting, and I’m doing most of the work.”
“Yes, and soon I’m going to go into that backyard of mine and then grill you a steak, Mr. Collins.” Alice looked up after she poured more light-green paint into the pan she was using just to see if she got a rise out of Jack by calling him mister. But Collins just kept painting. Badly, but he kept painting nonetheless.
“You’re not going to get to me, you know?” he said as he almost fell over when he tried to get more paint on his roller. “This is only the first day of my retirement, so my mind is still strong young lady.”
Alice looked up at Jack and smiled. She lay the paint brush down inside of the pan of paint and then walked over to where Jack was trying his hardest to apply paint to the roller, but every time he tried he would almost fall face first in the opposite direction. Alice took the roller and then placed it in the pan at Jack’s feet. “Come on soldier boy, I think you’re ready
for that steak now.”
“See, I knew if I did a bad-enough job you would call an end to this … this farce.”
“That’s right Jack, I’m surrendering,” she said as she guided him through the now empty house and toward the back sliding door. “Let’s get some air, and then I’ll bring you out some coffee.”
“Air? Yes, air would be nice,” he said as she placed him not too gently into one of the chaise lounges.
“Okay, just stay put and entertain yourself for a few minutes.”
“And how do I do that, my dear Mrs. Hamilton?”
“Hum ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ or something.”
An expression of confusion came over Jack’s face. “I … I … don’t know Row, row, row … row, row … your boat.”
Alice wanted to answer, but she had to turn away or she would have lost it right there. She went back into the kitchen, trying her best not to laugh out loud at Jack’s butchering of the children’s song title. When she made it into her kitchen, which she hadn’t really used since the death of Garrison Lee, her cell phone rang. If it was someone public, they would have called on her landline. But since it was her cell phone she knew it was someone at the Event Group calling from the complex.
“Hello,” she said, knowing who it was before the words came through the atmosphere.
“Uh, hello, Alice?” came the voice full of worry and concern.
“Hello my dear. And before you worry yourself too much, he’s here. A little plastered right now, but I can also attribute that to painting, and not just my twenty-year-old whiskey. He’s out in the back trying to sing.”
“Thank God,” Sarah said on the other end. “He’s not answering his phone and I—”
“Stop it now. You listen to what I have to say. My words may be a little bit slurred, but you should understand them well enough. Jack needs time. I don’t know what happened in the field, but I know something inside of him snapped. I’ve seen it before, Sarah. Garrison resigned no less than fifteen different times. He and Jack are a lot alike you know?”
“That’s why I knew where I had to call. Look, Alice, I have to give our field report to a group of recalls from the CDC in a few minutes, but do you think afterward I can stop by? I won’t bug him about his decision. I just need to see him.”
“I would be angry if you didn’t come by, young lady. He needs you now, not an old woman who knows songs he doesn’t know.”
“What?” Sarah asked.
Alice turned away from the open sliding glass window where she heard Jack trying to recall the words to “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” but he kept going off track with a mixture of that song and the theme from Gilligan’s Island.
“Nothing, I’ll see you when you get here.” Alice hung up the phone and then as her eyes moved away from her backyard, she caught a glimpse of the only portrait she had on her walls. It was of her and Garrison Lee fifty years before when they took a field trip to Egypt. She saw the angry look on his face for having to be still for so long just for a portrait, but it was the only thing she ever asked of him, so he did it, complaining all the way. She smiled at the picture of herself and the one-eyed ex-senator and former general in the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, and then she looked at Jack out on the back porch.
“Just like him.”
THE GOLD CITY PAWN SHOP
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
The man inside the Tahoe was parked across the busy street. The Black Team had been out front watching for the better part of thirty minutes. Smith never uttered a word but had held up his hand several times when one of the three men inside the Tahoe attempted to ask a question. His eyes never left the pawn shop.
As far as he could discern it was a busy place of business. He saw very little out of the ordinary. Smith looked to his left and the field supervisor he had chewed out earlier. He looked at the man’s hand and then smiled to himself. “Give me your ring and watch,” he said as he held out his large hand.
The man next to him was about to ask a very stupid question, especially stupid considering how his day had gone thus far with the director of the Black Teams. Instead of doing the stupid thing, he removed his watch and his wedding ring and gave them to Smith. He would have asked why he didn’t use his own watch, or his own wedding ring, but stopped short when he saw how much more expensive the man’s wedding ring was compared to his, and with the Rolex he wore, well, he decided not to break the bond of trust he was now trying to develop.
“Thank you. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Smith left the large Chevrolet and then waited for a city bus to pass before he sprinted across the street and entered the Gold City Pawn Shop without a second’s hesitation.
The agent from the Las Vegas district watched Smith go and then turned away and looked out of the side window. He knew the man as the most ruthless person he had ever met in his life. He had been recruited by Smith right out of the army, claiming he and others were about to rebuild an elite paramilitary unit that would work closely with the CIA and NSA. Needless to say, he had jumped at the chance. But now he realized that if the job didn’t kill him, the man named Smith surely would.
Smith looked down at the ornate door handle that was probably cast sometime in the 1940s. He depressed the thumb plate and knew immediately that he had touched something other than brass. Under his thumb he felt slick, cold glass. He opened the door without pausing and stepped into the pawn shop. He held the door open a moment as two teenage girls left holding a bag full of CDs. He smiled and nodded as they giggled their way past. He closed the door and then looked around the shop. There were musical instruments hanging on the walls, large-screen LED television sets, and stereo systems. If this was a front, he thought, it was convincing.
Smith started up the aisle toward the back of the store where he noticed an older man leaning against the glass cases reading a magazine. As he looked at the many pawned items on display, he watched the man without him ever knowing it. He saw the clean-shaven face and the well-trimmed hair. That was when Smith smelled military. As he stepped to the counter he also saw that he was being observed by no less than fifteen cameras, far too many for a small pawn shop. The older man noticed his approach and then closed his magazine.
“Howdy, what can I do ya’ for?” the man asked as he looked Smith up and down.
“Well, I just want to get these appraised,” he answered with a return smile as he held out the wedding ring and the watch.
The older man behind the counter looked at the two items and then smiled. “Without looking through my jeweler’s loupe, I can tell you the ring isn’t what you probably think it is, and the watch, well,” he started to say as he pulled a large cardboard box out from under the counter, “as you can see, I have a bunch of that crap already.” He looked at Smith, and then he relented a little. “Having a hard stay in Vegas my friend?”
Smith smiled and tried to look embarrassed. “You can say that.”
“Okay partner. I’ll give you fifty for the ring. On the condition you take that fifty, put gas in your car, and go home. Do we have a deal?”
Smith placed the ring on the countertop and then nodded his head as if he were embarrassed to no end.
“Ah, don’t sweat it my friend, we all have our moments. You just had yours and now you’ve learned from it.” The man, a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army and part of the security team for the Event Group Complex, took the ring and then slid a paper form toward Smith for him to fill out. “Name, address, phone number, and sign at the bottom of the page. And I’ll tell you what, I’ll treat this as a loan, so you can get it back before the wife finds out.”
“Thanks buddy—thanks a lot.” Smith watched as the clerk turned and went into the back room. When the thick curtain parted he could see two other men standing in the back with the refuse of junk collected by the gambling lowlifes that frequented this place. He saw one of the men look up at him just before the curtain slid back into place. The man was medium sized, and he was black. The
ir eyes locked for the briefest of moments, but in that short time Smith had confirmed what he already suspected. The place was a front for something. What, he didn’t know yet. But the black man with the bandage on the side of his jaw was the very same man from Mexico they had pulled out of that culvert outside of Perdition’s Gate. Smith would recognize him anywhere.
As the old man returned from the back room, he handed Smith his fifty dollars in cash. He read the receipt of exchange and then smiled. “ID please.”
Smith produced the fake license that corresponded with the fake name and address he had given on the loan form. The old man wrote down the license number and then slid the ID back.
“Now, you go home,” he looked down at the receipt, “Mr. Smith, and we’ll see you when you come back to get your ring.”
“You bet,” Smith said as he pocketed the cash and then placed the watch that he couldn’t pawn into his pocket.
Smith strolled confidently through the pawn shop and then hesitated at the door to see what was happening behind him thanks to the reflection in the thick glass. The old man watched him for a moment and then went back to the magazine he was reading. Smith opened the door and left. As he crossed the street he felt inside of his coat pocket. The watch that he couldn’t pawn appeared and he smiled as he dropped it into the gutter beside the Tahoe. He entered the backseat and handed the man his fifty dollars.
“They took both the watch and the ring.”
The man just looked down at the cash in his hand. That was all he received for the wedding ring and the watch his wife gave him last Christmas.
“This place has something under it, I can smell it. A passageway, something…,” Smith said as his words trailed off in thought. “We may have to call in another favor and get some geological data of the area leading to and from that pawn shop.” He smiled to no one but himself as a plan started to form. “Now, let’s go to the private address out on Flamingo Road.”
* * *
Inside the Gold City Pawn Shop, Will Mendenhall stepped out from behind the curtain and watched as the large man crossed the street and vanished. He shook his head as he tried to think.
Ripper (Event Group Thrillers) Page 23