The Kip Keene Box Set: Books 1, 2 & 3

by Nicholas Erik

  They’d been through so much already, and she couldn’t even take a phone call in front of him. Keene would’ve pretended to be hurt, but when the chips were down, he didn’t trust people like himself, either.

  Threads and bits of conversation weaved their way down the hallway, reaching Keene’s ears. Not enough to make sense of any details, just a general idea that the call was regarding some FBI business or another. Then he heard his name amidst a burst of unintelligible syllables. He strained, perking up, but it didn’t come up again.

  It could be all a hallucination, a product of paranoia, but that didn’t ease the sudden sweat breaking out across his dusty brow. His pulse spiked, strong enough that he could feel a throbbing in his neck.

  A burst of static crashed in his ears and his vision blurred, a brief diagnostic screen popping up before everything went back to normal. The neural implants were malfunctioning again. Had been since Catarina set off that concussion grenade.

  Which was when Keene decided on what to do next. The cities on the maps, they were in South America. That was where Catarina must be headed, too.

  Along with his ship and whatever remained of his crew.

  Strike was his ticket to answers. A blessing wrapped up in five and a half feet of blonde, leather-clad fury.

  Footsteps sounded down the hall, and Keene walked over to the door. Strike jumped a step back when she turned inside, almost bumping into him.

  “Then we’re headed to South America.”

  “What’s in South America?”

  “The woman who stole your map, for starters.”

  Strike chewed on her lip, stared into his eyes. Keene flashed his best smile—not too much, just enough to let her know he was a human being, interested in her cause.

  Which he wasn’t, not really, but that was irrelevant to his predicament.

  He saw her shoulders slump just a little bit, and he knew he had her. Wild, but wounded. A volatile mix, like a candle near a gas leak. The wind blew the wrong way, and everything around Strike would erupt in flames.

  “You leave tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll keep these safe while you’re gone.” Strike held the multi-tool and a glinting object in hand.

  Goddamn diamond.

  8 | It’s Where the Heart Is

  Keene got to sleep in his own apartment, a place that no longer felt like even a simulacrum of home. After a few half-hearted attempts at removing the tracking bracelet left him with nothing but a couple of bent steak knives, he slumped into his couch.

  On the one hand, heading back to South America would give him an opportunity to regain something he hadn’t known he’d even lost.

  But, like all gift horses, it came with strings. Serious ones that made him consider that, maybe all along, he’d been after the wrong thing.

  At least Strike trusted him enough to spend twelve hours alone.

  “Calm down,” he said, repeating it like a religious mantra. But the words did little good. When he stepped off that plane tomorrow, went into those mountains again, he’d find the truth.

  Or he could still run, keep running. He knew enough people, probably even someone who could get rid of this little nuisance on his leg.

  As coincidence would have it, one happened to be at the door. A thunderous kick shook the frame, and Keene knew, even before the man spoke, exactly who it was.

  “Mr. Keene,” Ruslan said, his voice booming outside in the hall, “you have been unavailable all day. So I come and visit.”

  This was his way of knocking. Keene wiped his forehead and rolled his eyes.

  “Ruslan,” Keene said. “Not a good time. It’s—”

  “No choice!”

  And the door came splintering in, Keene getting his arms up just in time to shield his face from the heavy particle board and plastic which came flying across the room. It landed on his legs, pinning him against the couch.

  Keene didn’t try to move. The feeling left his feet, and his breath came in halting spurts.

  Just listened to the footsteps. One pair of boots. Two. Three. Four.

  A lot of boots for a pickup.

  One of the goons lifted the door off Keene, and it was both a tremendous relief and a heart-stopping moment, for he now stared up at Ruslan’s unamused mug.

  “You don’t open the door, and look what I have to do.”

  Keene considered his options. Most of them appeared to lead to the bottom of a river.

  “Sorry.” He shifted on the floor, clutching his triceps. “I think I’m bleeding.”

  “No manners.” Ruslan turned to one of his associates. “No manners these days, right? No one.” He got on one knee and came in close to Keene’s face, so close that his breath, which smelled like tobacco and stale crackers, felt wet on Keene’s skin. “Where is it?”

  “I’ll get it for you.” Keene made a move to stand up, but Ruslan kicked him back into the couch, pinning him there with a large foot.

  “You stay, they go.” Ruslan nodded at one of his goons. “Where?”

  “It’s kind of hard to explain.” Keene’s fingers fished into his pocket, his gambit covered by a piece of plaster that had also vacated the wall during the intrusion.

  “You can always try.”

  “In the bedroom,” Keene said. His fingers traced the outline of his smartphone, found the power button. “Take a left.”

  He watched as Ruslan’s goon disappeared. Hoping that enough time had passed for the phone to turn on, Keene’s thumb punched in a single number, the first speed dial, and pressed send.

  Or maybe he was just mashing random gibberish.

  “If I had known you were coming, I would’ve grabbed a cheese plate.”

  “Manners are good,” Ruslan said, and then his arms shot out to grab Keene by the shoulders, “but what I really like is my goddamn product. Tell me where it is.”

  He wheeled back and unleashed a punch right into Keene’s gut, which made Keene regret his aversion to any sort of physical fitness. There are those who think washboard abs are just for the vain. But they do come in handy in certain situations, like when you’re being shaken down by a brawny gangster.

  “You do that again,” Keene said, each word deliberate, “I can’t tell you where the diamond is.”

  “That is why we are here.”

  “Some water would be nice.” Keene took his time getting upright, a good half minute, an extended production that milked his injuries for every last second of impairment. By the look on Ruslan’s face, it was becoming apparent that his patience with the charade was wearing thin.

  “He is in the room,” Ruslan said, and then, as if to say now, took a small pistol out of his pocket. He didn’t aim it at Keene, just held it in front of his jeans, arms crossed. “Explain.”

  “Are guns necessary,” Keene said, emphasizing the word guns with unnatural loudness. “We’re all friends.”

  “That is debatable.” Ruslan now aimed the gun at Keene’s head. Keene’s pulse quickened, and he gulped. The water wasn’t just for stalling. His mouth was drier than a sandpaper desert.

  “Okay, head around the bed, to the floor safe. Under the throw rug. You see it?”

  The guy yelled in from the other room that he saw it.

  “He needs the combination.” Ruslan pressed the barrel of the gun against Keene’s temple. “Speak!”

  “I can’t think with that—”

  “Now.” The tip ground into Keene’s skull like a drill bit.

  “Right,” Keene said, sweat beginning to drip down his collar. “Forty-five, sixty-five, no, wait, I think—shit, maybe it’s—”

  A shot blasted off, showering paint chips and insulation down on Keene’s head. Smoke drifted from the end of Ruslan’s gun. He waved it in front of Keene with a condescending air.

  “I thought we were past this.”

 
“Come on man, I’ve had a hell of a day.”

  “It is about to get worse.”

  “You’re not doing wonders for my confidence here, Ruslan,” Keene said, and noted that his ears were picking up the faintest sound in the hallway. He raised his voice. “You throw me down on the couch, demand the diamond. You think I’m going to stiff you?”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Just put the gun away, let me get a damn glass of water, and we all go home happy. No charge. I do it for free.”

  A smirk flashed across Ruslan’s pitted face for just a moment. The gun, at least, was now by his side, no longer aimed at Keene. “Too late.”

  Keene’s gaze scanned the open door, and he saw the edge of a familiar boot. “Yeah. For you. Dick.”

  Keene kicked up the coffee table, sending it into Ruslan’s shins as Strike rounded the corner, dual pistols blazing. She didn’t bother with any official FBI instructions. Just bang-bang-bang until Keene’s apartment resembled a renovation unit.

  As the gunfire drowned out all the other noises, Keene took the opportunity to pin Ruslan to the ground, who had been kneecapped by the well-timed piece of furniture.

  “Jesus, I leave you alone for ten minutes and this happens?” Strike said, once the smoke cleared and it was apparent the other three people were dead. “What’s with him?”

  Ruslan tried to say something, but it was incomprehensible in between his painful groans.

  “I’m a popular guy,” Keene said. “You’re not the only one who likes me.”

  She frowned and looked at the carnage. Keene knew what it meant: Papers, official reports, all sorts of hoops. Book mandates that would throw her plan, whatever that was, into disarray.

  “You just had to throw a going away party.”

  “Not my idea,” Keene said. “And kind of your fault.”

  “Oh, it’s my fault? I’d love to hear about that logic.”

  “You took the diamond.”

  “That you stole.”

  “But,” Keene said, digging his knees into Ruslan’s sternum as he delivered the rest of the point, “you didn’t exactly book it into evidence.”

  “Could come in handy. Same as your toy.” Strike took the diamond out of one pocket, the multi-tool from the other. Then, quick as they’d come out to play, they vanished back into the lockbox that was her leather jacket.

  “So what do we do with him?”

  “Me? I am not here,” Ruslan said, and shut his eyes like a child hiding from monsters in the closet.

  Strike gave him a shrug, then pulled out her pistol. “Let me think.”

  “Whoa, hold on,” Keene said. He got up from the ground, off of Ruslan. “I mean, he’s an asshole, but—”

  “What, you want to take him along for the ride?” Strike waved the gun in the air. “Or I know.”

  “You know what?”

  “He can be your new sidekick. You two can run around South America together and drink mojitos.”

  Ruslan nodded, even smiled a little, like that was a great idea. “Sounds good.”

  “Shut up, I’m not talking to you. Jesus Christ, this is a catastrophe on top of a damn catastrophe.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to be friends,” Keene said. “Be careful what you wish—”

  A loud blast drowned out his words. He dove to the floor, his ears ringing. Was he dead? No, he wasn’t dead. What a miracle.

  An answering report cut through his thoughts. He stared across the room. A thin trail of smoke wafted from the tip of Strike’s gun. Keene glanced back at Ruslan, whose brains were soaking into the couch. His gun was still clutched in his right hand, an empty shell casing nearby.

  “That’ll never come out,” Keene said, for lack of anything else to mention about the situation.

  Strike blinked and got to her feet slowly, mumbling to herself and shaking her head. The only words Keene caught were, “Too late to go back now.”

  Afterwards, she patted down Ruslan’s corpse, extracting a plastic baggie of white powder from his pants, giving Keene a surreptitious glance as she transferred it to her own pocket.

  Keene pretended he was looking out the window.

  From there, Keene and Strike spent the night wordlessly packing bodies into her hatchback’s trunk, then lighting fire to it in an abandoned park on the bad side of town.

  “Great plan,” Keene said, once they were back at the apartment, which looked somewhat like the place he once called home. “Bulletproof.”

  “No one will ask questions.”

  They sat on the couch until daybreak, lest any more visitors throw a going away party for the soon to be departing Keene.

  9 | Old Friends

  Early in the morning after a restless, eventful day, Keene could’ve made a lengthy list of places he’d rather be than at the airport. The Gulag might have been higher. But instead, he was about to board a plane to the middle of South America.

  In a positive twist of fate, Strike wouldn’t join in the fun. At least not right away. There were certain threats and insinuations about her appearance becoming a possibility should he have a predilection for “not delivering.”

  But, until then, no babysitter, which would allow him to track down his old friends sans chaperone. Maybe get off this rock.

  On the other hand, there was still the anklet, and she informed him in no uncertain terms that, should his time limit expire, the entire power of the United States government would be used in order to bring him to justice.

  He almost laughed at the word, given the past twenty-four hours. But the near-psychotic look of focus in her eyes gave him enough pause to choke it down and keep a stern demeanor.

  “One week,” she said at the baggage check. “Seven days.”

  “I know how long a week is.”

  “Or your ass goes to jail.”

  “You love stating the obvious, don’t you?” Her eyes narrowed into fire-slinging slits, and Keene could’ve sworn his heart dropped through the floor. “Seven days. Got it.”

  “The way you train a dog is repetition.”

  “This thing isn’t going to call down a missile strike on my head when I get on the plane, is it?” Keene looked down at the ankle monitor, its bright steady green dot glowing to indicate that everything was working well.

  “New DoD tech,” Strike said. “Don’t mess with it.”

  “How’d you get it?”

  “Connections,” she said with a grim smile. “A favor.”

  He lifted up his stiff new jeans and dropped the fabric over the bulky plastic. Now it just looked like he had some sort of deformity, where his calf was as large as his thigh. Better than announcing he was a criminal.

  Keene smiled at a white-haired lady that passed close by, and she gave him a nice grin and a nod.

  He stared down at his clothing. Maybe the nasty coat had been the problem all along. Being able to interact with actual human beings made his yearnings for a different time subsist a little.

  “I control it,” she said. “Only me and—”

  “Yeah, Freddy, the nerd who wants to get in your pants. Only you two can see it. I remember.” Keene looked up at the streaming list of flights on the screen above. Almost time. He tapped his feet and double-checked his back pocket. Passport, boarding pass, extra money. All there.

  “He does not want to get in my pants.”

  “Believe me, lady, everyone who looks at you wants to get in your pants,” Keene said. His eyes stayed focused on the board.

  “Do you want to?”

  “Wanna what?” Keene said.

  “Get in my pants?”

  “I thought the FBI has rules about dating coworkers.”

  “You don’t exist.”

  “Speaking of nonexistent things.” Keene gave her a knowing nod. “What about m
y multi-tool?”

  “The little square thing? Staying here. With me.”

  “It could be vital—”

  “I bet it could be, asshat. To your escape.”

  An announcement sounded over the intercom, indicating that Flight 32 to Latacunga, Ecuador was now boarding.

  “You’re sure this is where she’s headed,” Strike said. “Your ‘former associate,’ as you so graciously explained in voluminous detail last night.”

  “I’m not a snitch,” Keene said, thinking of the best explanation he could under the circumstances. It was a better response than the truth. That yes, Catarina was a former associate of his. From further back in the past than civilization had existed on Earth. “Besides, we all have our secrets.”

  With a little flourish, he reached into his pocket and extracted the note Strike had dropped the night prior. Her face flushed when she saw what he held.

  “Give me that.”

  “When were you going to tell me that this artifact isn’t just some piece of useless ancient crap?”

  “It’s need to know.” She snatched the balled up paper from his fingers.

  “I especially enjoyed the part where your father wrote that the Emerald Elephant was an artifact of tremendous evil and destruction and must be hidden from humanity.”

  “Just delusions.”

  “That’s what he was searching for when he was killed, right? This Emerald Elephant, the one from the maps?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I bet.” Keene tilted his head to the side and sized her up. “So, I guess what I’m wondering is whether this is only about revenge. Or if it’s about saving the world, too.”

  “Because you’re the perfect candidate for the latter. Read between the lines.”

  Keene would’ve thanked her if the tone didn’t drip with sarcasm. The intercom reiterated that the flight was boarding, and that this was the last call before it left any stragglers behind for good.

  “I gotta go.”

  “Find the map,” Strike said, catching Keene’s hand before he stepped out of reach. “Please.”