The Luke Titan Chronicles: Books 1-4: The Luke Titan Chronicles Boxset

by David Beers

  “Christian!” Luke shouted above the fray of voices. “You did this!”

  Christian’s mind categorized it all, even though his eyes couldn’t completely keep up as it occurred. It was only later that he would be able to replay it back with a writer’s attention to detail—everything perfectly in place as if he’d written the scene himself.

  The yard simply exploded.

  Christian watched as dirt first shot up, followed immediately by both fire and crumbling concrete. The earth shook beneath him as more debris and flame flew upwards, as if cannons had been installed beneath the street and then fired simultaneously. The men in front of Christian had no chance, and if he hadn’t paused inside the van, he would have died as easily as they did. Their bodies were blown apart from the blasts, legs separating from torsos like steamed chicken legs. Blood burst from ripped organs, coagulating on the dust in the air and creating a mist. A red, dirty mist.

  Christian hit the ground. Concrete rained down around him and he put his hands over his head, rolling onto his stomach. He kept his eyes open though, through the blood permeating the air and the destruction falling from the sky. He kept his eyes on Luke, watching him smile. Christian didn’t look away even as people died around him. Shots were fired, ricocheting off the building behind him, yet as if Luke was somehow guarding Christian—saving him for a worse fate—nothing touched him.

  The last explosion splattered dirt and body parts across the ground. Christian tried to regain his feet, stumbling as he did and falling to a knee.

  “Stop chasing me, Christian,” Luke called, though Christian could hardly hear his words through the ringing in his ears. “You’ll have your chance soon enough.”

  CHAPTER 1

  C harles Twaller understood how people viewed his weight in the same way that a dog understands how people viewed it … not that he didn’t care; it was that he didn’t even think about it. At 5’5” and 300 pounds, Charles made less than an impressive figure.

  Charles didn’t give a fuck about any of that, though. Truly, the last time he worried about his weight was in the fifth grade when some punk kid called him “fatso.” The kid went home with a broken nose and an eye so swollen he couldn’t see out of it for a week.

  Twelve years later, after Charles graduated college, he went back home and killed that punk kid. So, maybe, Charles had thought about it once more since fifth grade, but not fucking much.

  Charles was 21 when he killed his first person. He was now 35 and didn’t know how many people had died by his hand, let alone how many people murdered at his behest. The number was high, to say the least.

  Charles Twaller had a few mottos he lived by; he found comfort in mottos, things that he could go back to over and over when the world around him started getting stressful. He didn’t walk around quoting them or anything; he lived by them.

  One of them was from a song he once heard; he didn’t know what song or who sang it, didn’t give a fuck about that either, it was the words that mattered.

  And it’s you I’ll come for.

  He thought about that when he killed the punk kid, not to mention other times while committing murder. It helped focus his mind in those moments, when life was about to be extinguished. Because Charles wanted to focus then, to soak it in.

  He always giggled when he killed someone. Well, maybe not always—but quite often. It was the way they fell, all awkward and without control. He just couldn’t help but giggle like a little girl when they collapsed, fingers twitching and eyes staring straight forward at some endless peace.

  Charles wasn’t in the business of death, per se. He wasn’t a contract killer, and he never went around just offing people. He was very specific about the people he killed, and though murder wasn’t his business, it was next door to his business.

  Charles primarily dealt in guns. Weapons of all kinds. Tanks, pistols, automatic rifles. It didn’t matter. He loved guns, had always loved them. The old saying was true, if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life—and Charles loved every single day he woke up and got to transport guns.

  He shipped them across state lines and international boundaries. He held them in warehouses and supplied them to warlords. Charles didn’t care who needed them, nor what their reasoning was; he cared that their money came through on time and securely.

  Charles Twaller wasn’t an idiot by any means. He had a secondary degree in mathematics, and had originally worked for an insurance company. The path upward would have been easy enough—Charles was smart, his only family his mother and sister, and with no friends, he had all the time in the world to climb that corporate ladder. He just didn’t see the return on investment being great enough. Even with the healthcare and 401k match, how many years would it take him to reach a million dollars net worth? Too-fucking-many. Plus, Charles had liked killing that punk kid, and he certainly wouldn’t have been able to do that in the actuary department of State Farm.

  So, Charles had done what any entrepreneurial young man would do; he started a side business. His was illegal, of course, but Charles wasn’t real big into imaginary lines the government said you couldn’t cross. He wasn’t real big into anyone’s lines but his own.

  He had another motto he liked.

  Advance, whatever the costs.

  So that’s what Charles did.

  He.

  Advanced.

  And things moved quickly. At 25, he was a fat man with a master’s degree in math and a job at an insurance company. By 35, he was a fat man with a master’s degree and five million dollars net worth, though the government only knew about five hundred thousand of it.

  Still, Charles knew that sooner or later, the imaginary lines he cared nothing for would suddenly show up in bright red. They would cease to be imaginary when he was facing three life sentences for trafficking weapons, not to mention the murders they would most likely pin on him. He could keep grinding like this, amassing great wealth, but in the end, bad deeds would be noticed.

  There was his mother to think about, too. He sent money home every few months, and with no man in her life, his mom could use the cash.

  Charles needed a score that would set him for life. A score that would allow him to never need worry about money again. Five million was a nice nest egg, but Charles wasn’t sure that would keep him and Momma their entire lives. He could spend money like nobody’s business. And if he was caught? The egg was fried.

  On a Friday at three in the afternoon, Charles Twaller was wondering if he’d finally found the score he needed.

  The amount of weapons in his warehouse was staggering, even for him. He didn’t know if he’d ever seen this many guns in one place, and that was a powerful statement. He’d walked around armories with African Kings, his fat belly protruding before him as if he was pregnant.

  But this, what he looked at now …

  “What the fuck is he going to do with all of them?”

  Two bodyguards stood behind Charles, neither saying a word. Charles didn’t want them to and they knew it. The people that worked around the fat man quickly learned what he wanted, and if they didn’t, they were seeking new employment.

  Charles knew their names because he knew everything about his business, but he would never say them aloud. He liked not calling anyone who worked for him by their names. It gave him a sense of … importance. Guns, money, importance—these were the things that mattered to the fat man. And mottos. Mottos kept the world moving, after all.

  The fifth shipment of weapons would arrive today and Charles was ready for them. He had his two bodyguards inside with him, but twenty more men were in the parking lot. The heat was awful outside and Charles liked making them wait in it.

  Let ‘em sweat.

  The eighteen wheeler rolled over the parking lot’s gravel, and the sound of crunching rocks reached Charles’s ears.

  He turned and looked out the window.

  Sure enough, old Hector had arrived.

  Charles waddled across th
e floor and out the nearest door, exiting the air conditioning into the intense heat. This Georgia sun was for the damned birds; Charles preferred his Boston home to this, but he went where the money compelled him, and this man wanted his weapons in south Georgia.

  So Charles, being the businessman he was, arranged for it to happen.

  The Mexican truck driver hopped out from the cab. Charles knew the man’s actual name was David, but he liked to think of the spic as Hector. What kind of a Mexican named their kid David?

  Hector was about to die, though he didn’t know it. It wasn’t the best idea, and Charles understood that, but he didn’t think he was dealing with the cartel here. Hector was just some spic that got hired for the job; he wasn’t connected, so his death wouldn’t cause a lot of turmoil.

  Plus, people knew that drivers died around Charles Twaller. It wasn’t anything abnormal.

  “It’s all there,” the Mexican said as he crossed the gravel parking lot.

  “Good, good. How was the drive?” Charles said as he extended his hand.

  “No problems.”

  The two shook hands and Charles turned to look at the back of the truck. His men were standing around it, dollies and forklifts ready to transfer the payload to the warehouse.

  “Mind if I get the keys so the guys can get started?”

  Hector pulled them from his pocket and handed it over.

  “Here,” Charles said, extending them to one of the bodyguards without looking. The man took it from him and started walking toward the truck.

  “Shouldn’t take us long. Want something to drink while they work?”

  Charles was speaking, and he stood about six inches shorter than the Mexican, so he had to look up as he spoke. The whole time his mouth was moving, his right hand was too—reaching into the back of his large waistband and pulling the gun from it.

  Hector saw it, his eyes widening as the black pistol pointed at him. He didn’t wait or beg, though, and Charles gave him some credit for that. The Mexican simply ran, turning tail and heading right back to the truck’s cab.

  This will be good, Charles thought. Charles waddled forward, space opening between him and the soon to be dead Mexican. It didn’t matter. Charles didn’t want to kill him on the gravel. The fall would be funnier if he reached the truck.

  Hector leapt up the eighteen wheeler’s steps, swinging the door open. His foot slipped, and his shin collided with the metal step.

  That’s got to hurt, Charles thought.

  He aimed the pistol and fired. The bullet clipped the side of the Mexican’s head, blowing a chunk of skull from it. The blood fell like a river no longer dammed, pouring out onto his neck, then his shoulder.

  Hector paused, his hand still holding onto the door. Charles couldn’t see his eyes, but his back looked as if he was pondering something, like maybe he’d forgotten his cell phone in the warehouse and might need to turn around.

  Charles giggled.

  The Mexican’s hand slipped from the door handle and he slumped forward, continuing to slowly slide down. The blood kept running from his head, creating a red torrent down the side of his body.

  And then, he fell backward, his body hitting the ground with a thump. He stared straight up, his leg bent at the knee behind him, his other leg resting on the truck’s cab.

  That was funny. One leg bent and the other on the cab. That was too fucking funny.

  Charles giggled as his men went to work unloading the packages.

  CHARLES HADN’T SPOKEN to the man who owned the cargo. Charles rarely spoke to anyone, having underlings do it for him. Insulation against actual conversations was important if the Feds came. Charles knew it wouldn’t matter that much; he’d still spend the rest of his life behind bars, but perhaps his lawyers could bargain a bit.

  He needed to talk to the owner, though, because with this many weapons, more money would be shelled out—and Charles wanted, nay needed, a piece of it. Amassing capital quickly was the name of the game at this point, because he was growing too big to escape notice much longer.

  He sat down at a desk in the Georgia warehouse and watched as two men dragged the dead Mexican across the parking lot. His blood stretched out in a trail behind them, and for some reason Charles giggled at that, too. He’d have the giggles for a while now; he did every time he killed someone.

  “Focus, focus, focus, bucko,” he said to himself.

  He reached for the cell phone sitting on the desk and scrolled through it. He had a direct number for his customer, just like always. He paid people to set these things up, a direct number for each customer that went through encrypted connections. Charles didn’t know how it worked, and he didn’t need to. He only needed to know that it worked.

  Charles hated speaking with any of his clients, but knew he had to this time. Otherwise, he’d get instructions for the pick-up, someone would show up, then the cargo would leave just as it had come. This was only a stopping point for the owner, at least as far as Charles knew.

  He tapped his screen and the phone started ringing. He placed it on the desk, turning on the speakerphone.

  “Hello?” someone answered.

  “Hi,” Charles said. “Do you know who this is?” The man should, the number on the other end being very specific.

  “I do.”

  Silence … and Charles didn’t like that one bit. The man said nothing else, letting his words hang in the air as if the conversation might be over.

  “I wanted to speak to you about our exchange,” Charles said, feeling uncomfortable for the first time that he could remember. He never felt uncomfortable, no matter the circumstances, and he’d dealt with nothing but criminals for a decade. Yet those two words—I do—just sounded so wrong.

  “Okay,” the man said, and nothing else.

  “I don’t want to overstep boundaries, but with this much product, I imagine you’re going to need more help.” Charles started his spiel even as his mind reeled from the conversation’s odd feeling. “I’d like to offer my services.”

  A pause came over the line and Charles immediately wanted to fill it, but he clamped his teeth down until they hurt, refusing to let his instincts take over.

  “That could be possible. Your name is Charles Twaller, right?”

  His jaw relaxed.

  The man shouldn’t know his name.

  “How did you—”

  “I like to know who I’m in business with. I knew who you were before a single check was sent, so consider it a compliment. You’re a very competent man, Mr. Twaller.” The voice on the other side of the call was so calm, eerily so. Charles hated every word uttered; in fact, he wanted to hang up the phone. He couldn’t, though, because this was real fucking money. “What kind of services do you offer, Mr. Twaller?”

  Anger flared inside the fat man at the use of his name—so casually—as if he hadn’t spent years insulating himself against just such a thing. He did his best to swallow the anger, just like he did the rest of his emotions.

  “I can handle most anything you need, I think.”

  “You’re not a man who thinks much. I thought you were a man who knew much.”

  Was this guy fucking with him? Was he really trying to piss Charles off?

  And it’s you I’ll come for, he thought, suddenly certain that he was going to kill this man at some point.

  “I can handle what you need done,” Charles said, his voice turning flat.

  “You might be right. Perhaps we should discuss this in person? I won’t go forward unless we do, as what I’m asking is delicate.”

  “When are you available?”

  “I can be at your warehouse in two days.”

  “Be here at eight in the morning.”

  Charles hung up the phone, not waiting for the man to say one more goddamn word.

  He stared at the cell phone for a few seconds, his cheeks growing red and his breathing more rapid. His face twisted into a horrific grimace of red rage as he reached for the phone again. He raised it in
to the air and slammed it on the desk, the plastic edging immediately breaking and scattering to the floor. He brought the phone down again and again, until there was nothing but wreckage in his hand.

  One of the workers outside had stopped and was staring through the warehouse window at his boss.

  Charles looked out and he went back to unloading.

  CHAPTER 2

  “T hree months and we haven’t heard anything.”

  Christian Windsor nodded. There were things he could say, but none of them mattered. Tommy Phillips was quiet as well, sitting in his wheelchair, both of them across from the FBI Director, Alan Waverly.

  “Very few leads.”

  Christian nodded again, not looking over at Tommy. There had been a time, not so long ago, when this conversation would have been directed at his partner—at both of his partners—and Christian would have been the proverbial third wheel. No longer, though.

  The meeting had been scheduled two weeks ago, the intention for Christian and Tommy to report on the single criminal they chased nearly around the clock. They had their recommendations, were ready for Waverly’s questions, and needed him to make a decision on how the investigation would move forward—as Christian and Tommy were at a crossroad, and at odds on which way to proceed.

  However, all of that was secondary for Christian; he had something else he needed to bring up, perhaps something more important in the long run.

  “Sir,” Christian said in the Director’s silence, “it may be time to find someone else for my spot.”

  Alan Waverly leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. He looked to Tommy. “Did you know he was going to say this?”

  “Yes,” Tommy whispered, which was the extent of his volume. The ability to speak louder was beyond him, and would be for the rest of his life.

  “You two are thick as thieves. Not a word from you on it, huh, Tommy? There was a time when I would have gotten a heads up.”