Wrecker: A John Crane Adventure

by Mark Parragh

  He studied the screens, watching the blurry human figures move. “Four rooms, two on either side, with a central hallway. I’m thinking maybe a larger room at this end. Probably where the stairs will be.”

  “Where are you getting that?” Jessie asked. “I don’t see any internal structure.”

  “No,” Crane admitted, “but look how they’re grouped in pairs. They’re bunked two to a room. Walls are probably just two by fours and drywall, not showing up through that roof.”

  “Okay, I’ll buy that,” she said. “Look over here. Is that a loading dock?”

  Crane followed her finger across the screen. “I think you’re right,” he said at last. “That’s how we’ll take them out, then. Find a couple trucks. There must be something in this garage over here, or maybe at the airstrip.”

  “There’s the opposition,” said Jessie, pointing to another building across the compound, bright with human figures. “Guard barracks, right? I count maybe a dozen.”

  So their team would be outnumbered when they arrived, but not badly, especially if they managed to maintain surprise. Crane had noticed that, apart from a couple men on patrol, it seemed as though the entire detachment was inside and asleep. If they hit at the right time, they could overcome a small disadvantage in numbers easily.

  “Put a sniper on this hillside over here,” he said, pointing to the screen. “He can cover the ground between the barracks and the prison. Keep them pinned down and out of our hair.”

  “Agreed,” said Jessie.

  They were beginning to lose coverage as the drone swept past the hacienda and headed out again into the empty night.

  “We have what we need?” Jessie asked.

  Crane put the drone into a slow banking turn. “I’d like to do another pass while we’re here.”

  He brought the drone back in again, low and slow, and focused the sensors on the sprawling main house with its courtyards and swimming pool. The lidar had already scanned the exterior structure. Now the radar probed the house’s interior, and the thermal camera looked for people. Crane made out corridors and sweeping staircases. He identified the kitchen and storage rooms, and the warren of small occupied chambers tucked in behind them. Servants’ quarters.

  And there, at the end of a long gallery, was a large room with one—no, two people in what Crane took to be a king-size bed. One of those figures was his target.

  “Why are you searching the big house?” Jessie asked.

  “Just don’t want any surprises,” said Crane.

  “So you’re going after Tate.”

  Crane turned toward Jessie. “Why do you think that?”

  “It’s what I’d do.”

  Crane smiled. He hadn’t expected this to work, anyway. “I’m not supposed to tell you that,” he said. “Josh thinks Cottrell won’t like it.”

  “Sawyer’s very focused on getting his son back,” said Jessie. “He won’t want anything to distract from that, and he’s especially upset that the reply didn’t come from Martin or make any mention of him.”

  “We don’t know what that means,” Crane reminded her.

  “No, but we can make a pretty good guess, and so can Sawyer. But just the same, this is about more than Sawyer’s son. Jason Tate needs to face justice. We can’t just snatch away his engineers and say we’re done. He’ll go out and get more. So we shut him down, haul him back to the States, and let the criminal justice system have him. It’s better than he deserves.”

  The drone pulled away from the hacienda once more. “Got what you need now?” Jessie asked.

  “I think so,” said Crane. “Initiating extraction.”

  He sent a command to the drone that activated its exfiltration and self-destruct program. It pulled up into the night sky, leaving the hacienda behind. It steadily made its way west, toward its final waypoint. When it reached it, small charges would destroy the cameras and electronics, and the remains of the drone would tumble out of the sky. Most likely, no one would ever find it. If they did, they wouldn’t know what it was, and they certainly wouldn’t connect it to a remote hacienda in the mountains many miles away.

  “All right, let’s get out of here,” Jessie said. She banked the Short around and flew north. She glanced over at Crane, studying the data replaying across the screens. “We’ve got work to do.”

  CHAPTER 30

  The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office maintained a branch office in Palo Alto. Josh spent much of the morning there, accompanied by his own lawyer, discussing Jason Tate’s case. It was the sort of meeting designed to put Josh’s teeth on edge, full of ambiguous language and contingent statements from his attorney carefully crafted to not actually admit that they knew where Jason was. It was more than two hours of phrases like, “If, hypothetically speaking, Mr. Tate could be induced to return to the United States,” and, “my client is simply a concerned citizen eager to see justice done.”

  But by the meeting’s end, both sides had accomplished what they set out to accomplish. Josh had made it clear to a bright young assistant district attorney that he knew where Jason was hiding, and was prepared to effectively kidnap him and bring him back to the United States. And his lawyer managed to do it without actually admitting to anything beyond Josh’s name. At the same time, without committing her boss to anything, the ADA made it clear that any questions regarding Jason Tate’s departure from Mexican territory were the domain of the Mexican government. Her office was not concerned with how Tate came to be on American soil, but would be prepared to take him into custody as a material witness the moment he landed. Overall, he thought, it was a success.

  It was two hours you could have spent playing Grand Theft Auto.

  Tim was on his phone in a waiting area as Josh and his attorney came out. Josh was talking with his lawyer, but quickly realized that Tim wasn’t happy.

  “I told you, I don’t know,” Tim said in a hushed tone that still carried because of his intensity. “I’m not there. Yeah, I understand.”

  When he looked up and saw Josh approaching, he turned away and cupped the phone in his free hand. “I can’t talk now. Yes, yes, I said I’d do it.” Then he hung up and hurriedly jammed the phone into his jacket pocket. He fell in beside Josh as they walked out toward the lobby.

  “That didn’t sound good,” said Josh. “What’s going on?”

  Tim shook his head. “Nothing, nothing. Don’t worry about it. Just … wedding stuff with Emily’s mother.”

  He’s lying. Something’s wrong.

  “Do you need to deal with it? I can drive myself around.”

  “No! No, it’s okay. It’ll be fine.”

  In the lobby, Josh and his lawyer went separate ways after setting up a conference call for the following week. If all went well, Jason would be back in the States by then, and things would start to shake loose. Josh watched his lawyer walk off across the lobby. Then he and Tim went outside and headed for the parking garage.

  Tim is really freaked out about something.

  In the parking garage elevator, Josh couldn’t help noticing it. Tim was agitated and on edge, and that was making Josh nervous.

  “I’ve got a foundation board meeting in ninety minutes,” said Josh as they walked down a lonely row of parked cars. Josh could hear street noises below and the sound of a revving engine echoing through the garage.

  “I know your schedule,” said Tim.

  “What I mean is, I’m going to be there for like three hours, with lunch and so on. There’s plenty of time for you to take off and deal with whatever’s got you so worked up.”

  He stopped as they reached the Mercedes.

  He always moves around and opens the door. Why isn’t he opening the door?

  “I mean, you’re obviously—”

  Josh turned back to Tim and saw the gun. Tim held it low and close to side, the muzzle pointed at Josh’s midsection. He stood motionless and silent for a long moment.

  Oh? No witty remark? No obscure reference?

&
nbsp; “Get in,” said Tim. “You’ll have to drive.”

  “I don’t know what … “I said get in!” Tim pulled the key fob from his pocket with his free hand and unlocked the car. Josh walked slowly around the Mercedes as Tim followed him with the gun, raising it to aim over the roof. Tim kept his eyes on Josh as he opened the front passenger door. Josh opened his door, and they both carefully got into the car.

  Tim sat with the gun in his right hand, held across his torso and pointed at Josh as Josh started the car and drove out into morning traffic.

  They headed north up El Camino Real, and then Tim told him to take a left onto Sand Hill.

  They turned him! They got to your bodyguard! You are so screwed! How much closer can they get than that? Where the hell is he taking you?

  “I have to say, I thought there was more of a mutual respect between us,” Josh said. “I thought you were a friend, Tim.”

  Tim said nothing for a moment, and when he did answer, his voice quavered at first until he got it under control. “I don’t know where you got that. You seem like a decent guy. Kind of lonely.”

  Tim’s voice trailed off.

  They can put that on your gravestone. He was a decent guy who was kind of lonely. Great.

  “I wish I could afford to not give a damn about your money,” Tim said. “But it’s always there, isn’t it? You can try to shrug it off, and I can try to ignore it. But it’s always there. Just the sheer weight of it. Stack anything else up against that and … well, you know. Keep going here.”

  They were driving into Rancho Corral de Tierra, Josh realized. It was a nearly four-thousand-acre patch of undeveloped parkland with mountains, farms, and hiking trails. It would be a very easy place to lose a body in. Was Tim taking him to someone, or was he expected to do the job himself? Josh felt a bead of sweat edging down the back of his neck. He was going to die today.

  “Whatever they’re paying you—”

  Tim let out a short, humorless laugh. “See? There’s always the money.” He sighed and shook his head. “I thought about that. But there’s more to it. They’ve got a carrot; you’ve got a carrot. But you don’t have a stick. I knew you might pay me off. But you’d never hurt Emily.”

  “Oh, God! Did they … ?”

  “No. But they could. At the end of the day, I knew they would, and I knew you wouldn’t. So here we are.”

  The road twisted and switched back on itself as it climbed the grassy hills. Near the top, there would be parking areas and trailheads. Josh imagined a black car full of dangerous men who would take him off Tim’s hands. He pictured them sending Tim away in the Mercedes and then walking him down a trail to some isolated spot overlooking a drainage gully choked with foliage …

  Tim’s fingers drummed nervously on the armrest, and one leg trembled.

  He doesn’t want to do this, but he’s going to do it. You can’t let him hand you over. Pop quiz, hotshot. What do you do? What do you do?

  All comes down to the gun. You have to control the gun.

  Yeah, this guy’s a trained fighter. You’re … you. You’re going to beat him up?

  Have to try. Seatbelt. Can’t move.

  Josh dropped his right hand into his lap and pressed the release button on his seatbelt. He held it in place, and Tim didn’t seem to notice.

  “Last chance,” Josh said. “We turn around now, and we go to the police, tell them what happened, and they protect you and Emily. What do you say, Tim?”

  Tim waved the gun at him. “Just shut up! Don’t make this any harder.”

  Josh steered through a tight turn onto a relatively straight, climbing stretch of road. He took a deep breath. Then he took his other hand off the wheel, held it against his chest, and released the seatbelt.

  The belt retracted across his torso and hurled the latch against the window with a loud crack. Josh grabbed for the gun with his right hand and slammed it against the dashboard. The car veered toward the edge of the road, and a harsh warning tone came through the sound system. The evasive steering assist feature turned the Mercedes sharply back to the right, and the momentum helped carry Josh over the center console as he pushed off with both legs. He grabbed Tim’s wrist with both hands and tried to force the gun away.

  The seatbelt restrained Tim, but he had the training that Josh lacked. He hit Josh hard on the shoulder with the blade of his hand, and Josh felt the shock run through his body. The car let out its warning tone again and veered back to the left as it tried to maintain the center of the lane.

  Josh slammed Tim’s hand against the dash again, and this time the gun flew free. It hit the windshield and bounced back across the car to tumble into the steering wheel and vanish into the driver’s side footwell.

  Tim was pressed back against the door, Josh trying to crush him against it, pushing against his own door’s kick panel with both legs as he lay across the center console. Tim hit him again, and then his hands closed around Josh’s throat, and he pulled him even farther out of his seat. Josh fought to breathe, but he couldn’t draw air. He felt his heart pounding, heard blood rushing in his ears. He was no match for Tim to begin with, and he was already growing weaker. He clawed at Tim’s hands, but he couldn’t dislodge them. He looked into Tim’s eyes, and it was like Tim was the one who was dead. He’d switched part of himself off to do this. There was no empathy there, no mercy.

  Josh thrashed, and the car veered right again, and something fell from his jacket pocket into Tim’s lap. The autoinjector Crane had given him. In desperation, Josh grabbed it. He flipped open the cap and stabbed down into Tim’s thigh. The autoinjector hissed.

  Tim looked down in surprise for a couple seconds. Then he began to scream.

  Josh ripped Tim’s hands away from his throat and gulped in air. Tim’s shrieks grew more intense. He tried to push Josh away, but he was twitching and uncoordinated. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he began to seize. His body shook, and he began to grunt, short sounds in a rhythm with the convulsions.

  The car finally braked itself to a stop, and Josh reached back and grabbed the wheel to pull himself up. He threw the door open. As he got out, he kicked Tim’s pistol, and it flew out onto the pavement. Josh scooped it up. He looked around wildly, as if the people Tim was delivering him to were watching.

  But he saw nothing. Clutching the gun, he ran around to the passenger side and opened the door. Tim lurched over, falling against the seatbelt with a groan. He tried to reach up for Josh with one hand, but his arm fell limp and twitched awkwardly.

  Josh leaned over him to pop the seatbelt. Then he hauled Tim out of the car and lay him down on the pavement.

  What the hell do I do?

  You don’t know who’s here. Who’s coming. You go. Get out of here!

  Josh bent down, grabbed the still-shaking Tim beneath his armpits, and dragged him off the side of the road onto the dirt shoulder. He looked down at Tim once more, still twitching and making high-pitched keening sounds. Then he hurried back to the car.

  He slammed the passenger-side door, ran around the car, and got in. Then he peeled out. A few yards ahead was a gravel turnout. Josh steered into it and slewed the car around, fishtailing and throwing back gravel. He got the car turned around and headed back down the hill. He glanced over at Tim as he passed, still lying on the ground in his dusty suit. Then he was gone.

  Josh drove and tried very hard not to think.

  CHAPTER 31

  The Indian Ocean, off Réunion

  She flew from Tivat to Athens, and then on to Ramgoolam airport in Mauritius where the seaplane was waiting for her. Now the endless expanse of the Indian Ocean glittered below her in the bright afternoon sun.

  “How long?” she asked the pilot.

  “Another twenty minutes, miss.”

  She wasn’t looking forward to this. Dealing with Redpoll was challenging enough when it was over e-mail or by phone from thousands of miles away. She didn’t want to do it in person, especially on his home turf. But, of course, he
almost never left his absurd yacht anymore. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since he’d set foot on land. More than a year, anyway. He was even wary of straying into national jurisdiction these days, and mostly stuck to international waters. That made it easy to stay away, but now he wanted her home, and she had things to tell him.

  It’s not home, she reminded herself. He’s not your father, and that’s not your home.

  The pilot was challenged by radio and gave a series of code words that changed every day. Then she saw it. The Orion was huge, twice the length of a 747, her gleaming hull formed from white metal and glass. She could make out the outdoor pool—as opposed to the indoor one—the retractable balconies that extended out over the water, and the eight-meter satellite dish built into the superstructure. As they came in to land, she thought the figure standing alone on the upper promenade might be Redpoll. There was something about the way he carried himself. Then the plane touched down and slashed through the water until it settled to a stop near a waiting boat.

  The boat took her to the stern landing dock where the security team waited to check her aboard. She was familiar with the procedures. She’d left most of her things in a hotel room in Mauritius. She carried no handbag. All she had was what she wore: a pair of chunky black Manolo Blahnik boots and a skimpy floral print cocktail dress by Giambattista Valli. Her shopper at Harrod’s had described the dress as “frothy and feminine.” It signaled innocent sexuality, but her short-cropped blue hair and the boots gave her a contrasting dash of punk attitude. Together, it presented her as a rebellious little girl, which she knew was just how he saw her. She’d learned long ago that the best way to handle him was to show him what he expected to see.

  She held her arms up while the millimeter wave scanner spun around her. Then a crew member gave her a perfunctory sweep with a metal detector wand, which beeped softly at the buckles on her boots, and welcomed her aboard.

  “You’re expected in the third deck gallery, miss,” he told her.