by Mark Parragh
“Until I figure out who I can trust,” he said.
Crane imagined Josh running around alone in this sprawling mansion, going slowly mad and collecting his urine in mason jars like Howard Hughes. It wasn’t an appealing thought. Josh had been through a lot in the past few days, things he apparently thought he was safe from. But he was going to have to learn to deal with them now. Crane could see him beginning that process, but he still had a ways to go.
Josh led the way into a large chrome-and-glass kitchen and found a couple steaks in the Sub-Zero refrigerator. Then they passed through a living room that looked distinctly unlived in, and outside to a tiled patio with conversation pits and a huge, gleaming grill. Josh played with his watch, and the lights came up, and hidden speakers began playing quiet music. Finally, the grill sprang to life with a hiss of gas and actual red-accent backlighting.
“Seriously,” said Crane. “The grill too?”
“What do I need staff for?” said Josh.
When the grill was hot, Josh tossed the steaks on. Then he said, “This music’s got to go, though. I’m going to grill—I got to have my jam.”
He spoke into the watch. “Gorillaz, Demon Days … track twelve.”
The music shifted to something much more upbeat, and Josh shimmied back and forth in front of the grill, singing into his spatula. He was doing a great impression of someone for whom everything was going just right. Crane knew better.
Crane had to admit Josh could grill a mean steak without hiring some ten-thousand-dollar celebrity chef. They sat at a table in the backyard, beneath the overhanging branches of an enormous tree. They’d talked over their meal, but neither had said anything significant. The past several days hung over them like a heavy, dark stone that they were pretending not to see.
Finally, Crane said, “So where do we go from here, Josh?”
Josh stopped with his fork nearly to his mouth, as if Crane had committed some social faux pas by breaking the unspoken rule. Then he put the fork down on his plate.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We did everything we set out to do, but this still doesn’t feel like a victory party. It feels like we blew it somehow.”
“Jason’s in custody,” said Crane.
“Alexander’s in UCSF getting the help he needs,” Josh added. “Whatever happened to him was real. He wasn’t just being drugged. He’ll need full-time care for the rest of his life. But the court will appoint a trustee, and I’ll keep an eye on them.”
He drained the last swallow from his wineglass and set it down. “Your friend’s daughter’s okay, right?”
“She’s okay,” said Crane, “until the next time she goes rogue, anyway.”
“Okay, that’s the upside,” said Josh. “But we have no idea who was behind Jason. He wasn’t doing all this from his little getaway hacienda in Mexico. He was a tool, but we don’t know whose tool. We’re no closer to that than when we started.”
“That’s a problem,” Crane admitted. “Especially since they know who you are, and they’ve already taken a shot at you.”
“And they hurt people. There’s still no word on Tim,” said Josh. “And that poor girl he was going to marry. Her life’s been smashed to pieces.”
Then Josh sighed. “And I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with me. I go from thinking everything’s fine, I can just back off and everything will be like it was, to feeling like I’m naked and alone in the wilderness and predators are stalking me. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know whom to trust. I don’t know how to be safe.”
Crane knew the feeling. One of the first things he’d done in training for the Hurricane Group was a counter-surveillance exercise. He’d been tailed through downtown Washington while trying to identify the people watching him and make it to an objective unobserved. He’d eventually figured that they’d done this particular exercise early on precisely for the sense of creeping paranoia it created. It had stripped away all his confidence and his preconceptions, left behind only uncertainty, a foundation they could build on. The agent they’d built on that foundation had been more focused and more capable. Eventually he’d been ready for the field.
“Two things,” he said. “Tomorrow, we’ll start revising your security protocols. And we’ll get people who can back them up, and who you can trust. Some of it won’t be fun, but if you listen to me, I can give you the tools you need to keep yourself safe.”
Josh looked at him thoughtfully. “I understand,” he finally said. “Deal.” Then he stood up and started collecting plates and silverware. “What’s the second one?”
Crane pushed back his chair, stood up, and helped gather up the rest of the dishes. “Second is something a couple people have brought up lately, in very different circumstances. We need a plan. Right now we’re just groping around in the dark and whatever we find, that’s what we work with.”
“There’s a lot to find, John,” said Josh. “Everywhere I look, I see something that needs to be done. I see people in trouble. I see problems we can solve.”
Crane smiled as they walked back into the house. “Cats in trees. I know. I’m not saying we leave them up there. But we need more of a guiding strategy than just doing good, and right now, we don’t have one, do we?”
“Not much more than that,” Josh admitted. He led Crane into the kitchen, and they stacked the dishes beside the sink. “Kind of think we need a better map if we’re going to figure out where we’re headed.”
“Not saying we have to have it settled tonight,” said Crane. “But we need to think in that direction.”
Crane felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He took it out and found a text message on the screen. “Skala’s ‘tesař’ = ‘carpenter’ = Gordon Carpenter. Shady money guy from NY. Dinner at Hashiri says he’s on the team bleeding Tate. Text me when you’re ready to pay up. XOXO - S”
So apparently Swift had survived whatever this Turnstone had planned for her. Crane was relieved, and a little surprised at how pleased he was to hear from her. He smiled, shook his head, and put the phone back into his pocket. “I’ve already got someone who’s more than happy to lend us her map.”
Josh raised an eyebrow. “Would it take us someplace we want to go?”
Crane considered that as Josh left the kitchen, and Crane followed him down a hallway. Of course, Swift had her own agenda, and he’d seen firsthand how ruthless she could be in getting what she wanted. On the other hand, she knew things they didn’t. The question was how much information could they get out of her without compromising themselves. It would be tricky to walk up to that line without crossing it.
“I wouldn’t follow it blindly,” he answered finally. “But if we keep our eyes open and don’t jump off any cliffs, we could learn a lot about the landscape.”
“Keep me posted on that,” said Josh. “Lot to think about in the meantime. But when we’re ready, let me know what you’ve got.”
Josh opened a pair of double doors and revealed an enormous home theater with a curving screen wrapped around one wall.
“You got plans tonight, John?” he said. “Still got the new Batman. I mean, it’s out now. Not really that big a deal anymore. But with all that’s been going on, I still haven’t seen it. You want to check it out? Unless you’ve got things to do …”
Crane imagined Josh sitting alone late into the night in his huge, empty house, watching his movies and imagining noises in the darkened corners. That couldn’t be good for him, especially in the state he was in.
In fact, Crane suddenly realized, that was why this had all hit Josh as hard as it seemed to. He felt isolated, adrift, facing a strange new reality alone. That was why Tim’s betrayal had shaken him so badly, and why he felt responsible for whatever had happened to him. Josh was alone and looking for a friend.
“No!” he said. “I’m up for Batman. Let’s do it.”
“Awesome,” said Josh, and Crane could see the relief break across his face. “You’re going to love this setup. Go grab a seat down front. Yo
u want popcorn?” He looked suddenly bashful as he gestured over to a stainless steel setup sunk into one wall. “I’ve got a thing …”
“Let me guess,” said Crane, “you can make popcorn with your watch.”
“Yes,” said Josh, “yes, I can, and I make no apologies for it.”
“Fair enough.”
Crane headed down to the front and chose a seat in the middle. Before long, Josh followed with a tub of hot popcorn and sat down beside him. “This is going to be awesome,” he said.
“Well, there’s probably going to be a lot of camera tricks and stunt doubles, though, right?”
Josh looked over. “What do you mean?”
Crane gave him a dubious look. “I mean Adam West has to be pretty old by now, right?”
Josh’s jaw dropped. “What?” He stammered for a moment and then landed on, “You don’t really think that … No. No, you’re screwing with me, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” said Crane, “I was screwing with you. I’m not completely detached from popular culture. I know there have been many Batman movies and TV shows since then. Some involving Superman. I know Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger both played the Joker, though Mark Hamill did his voice for the animated shows, and many consider his to be the definitive portrayal of the character.”
Josh threw a piece of popcorn at him. “Nerd.”
Crane snorted back at him. “I’m not the one with the watch that makes popcorn.”
Josh waved that off. “Just shut up and watch the movie. Wait, are you one of those people who talks about stuff during the movie?”
“No,” said Crane. “God no. The government trained me to kill people like that. Save it for post mortem.”
“Good,” said Josh, “good. I don’t want to have to kick your ass right here in my theater.”
“Yeah, that’s probably best for both of us.”
Josh turned away for a moment and murmured furtively into his watch. The lights went down and the screen lit up. Crane felt his phone buzz in his pocket once again. He slid it out and saw another cryptic message from Swift. He would have to figure out what he was going to do about her sometime soon, and he didn’t expect that to be easy.
But not tonight, he thought. Not tonight. He held down the button until his phone powered down, and then slid it back into his pocket. Tonight he was going to hang out and watch Batman with his friend.
The End
John Crane will return in Shot Clock.
Turn the page for a sneak preview of John Crane’s next adventure.
SHOT CLOCK - CHAPTER 1
British Columbia, Canada
The road twisted through the high Canadian Rockies, a narrow arc of asphalt carved into the side of a mountain. It threaded a path between sheer stone cliffs, shrouded in wire against rockslides on one side, and yawning emptiness beyond the guardrail on the other.
Then the whine of a high-performance V-12 engine echoed through the mountains, and a lone car shot down the highway. The Lamborghini Aventador Superveloce was a single flash of color, a bolt of bright red with black trim, poised between slate-colored clouds, gray stone, and white, snow-capped peaks.
Behind the wheel, John Crane slapped the paddle shifters, and the engine protested as he downshifted and whipped the Lamborghini through a curve. In the passenger seat, Josh Sulenski looked out over the mountains. Josh grinned like a ten-year-old on his birthday.
“Look at all this!” Josh said as Crane shifted again to accelerate out of the curve. “Is this awesome or what? Come on, John, pull over. I want to drive.”
Crane glanced over at the chasm beyond the guardrail. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”
“Oh, come on! I’m not going to plunge us to our deaths. I know how to drive. I have a license and everything.”
“You know how to drive a normal car,” said Crane as they shot into a tunnel. “This thing was built from the ground up to kill rich people. I seriously think it was designed by Italian communists.”
“Damn it,” Josh protested, but then the Lamborghini left the tunnel and Crane downshifted and braked hard into another sudden curve. Josh fell silent and gripped the armrest.
“Get used to it,” Crane said as they came out of the curve. “There is no way in hell I’m letting you drive this car, on this road, with me in the passenger seat. Just not happening.”
Josh looked at him in dismay.
“You know, you could have rented a normal car,” said Crane. “That was an option. But you had to have this ridiculous … you do recall we had to ship the luggage because this thing doesn’t have any trunk space, right?”
“Well, sure, we could have pulled up in a Subaru Forester. We could have bungie corded the bags to the roof and everything.” Josh snorted in derision. “It’s the Mount Robson Conference, John. You know who’s coming. Heads of state. Multinational CEOs. People no one’s ever heard of who hide behind the curtains and run the whole train set. A car like this is table stakes.”
Crane didn’t answer. He braked as the Lamborghini came up fast behind a battered pickup with a camper on the back. He checked the other lane and then whipped around it.
“Look, we’re coming down into the valley,” said Josh. “It’s an easy road from here.”
“Pass one of those performance driving courses I sent you, and you can drive. Did you do that?”
“You know how busy I’ve been.”
“All right, then.”
“Damn it, John, pull over and let me drive or you’re fired!”
“No,” Crane said calmly. “And no, I’m not.”
Josh sighed. “Could you at least act like I’m your boss from time to time?”
Crane pretended to consider it for a moment. “No good,” he said finally. “About as close as I can get is mouthy kid brother.”
Josh whirled in the form-fitting seat and then suddenly stopped. “That’s … that’s actually kind of sweet, John. You warm the cockles of my heart.”
“Cockles?”
“Extra bits for your heart that make it work better. They’re very expensive. Only really rich people can afford them.”
“Well, I guess you’re lucky, then,” said Crane.
“Insanely,” Josh answered. “Whoa, look at that!”
A high mountain valley lay spread out before them. A side road turned off the highway and wound its way down to a deep turquoise lake nestled between the steep slopes at the valley’s end. A hotel perched at one end of the lake—a sprawling Victorian fantasy castle of rough gray stone encrusted with wings, gables, and high-pitched roofs. It was, Crane admitted to himself, magnificent. Just the sort of place for a quiet gathering of the world’s movers and shakers.
“Wow,” said Josh. “This is going to be something. And I still want to drive the car.”
“Why don’t you just buy yourself one?” asked Crane. “It’s lunch money for you, and then you could wrap it around trees to your heart’s content.”
Josh snorted. “I’m not going to buy one of these. Look at it. It’s ridiculous!”
Crane grinned. Then he downshifted, braked, and slewed the Lamborghini onto the side road that led to the lodge.
High above, a quad-rotor drone fell into place behind the car. Its camera zoomed in to capture the plate number, and its radios pinged the car’s GPS tracker. It relayed this information back to a ground-based computer, which traced the Lamborghini to a specialty leasing agency in Vancouver. The agency’s records gave the name of a holding company, which belonged to another holding company. Eventually the chain came to an end, and in a suite in the sprawling Victorian hotel by the lake, a laptop pinged for attention.
The screen displayed the drone’s shot of the car and the license plate, as well as file photos of Josh.
Beneath them, a message flashed. It read:
“JOSHUA SULENSKI – CEO, MYRIA GROUP.
KILL LIST: NEGATIVE.
PROTECTED LIST: NEGATIVE.
ACCEPTABLE COLLATERAL DAMAGE/DIVERSIONARY TARGET.”<
br />
The man in the suite noted this and filed it away in his mental catalog of the hotel’s guests. Then he went back to work on the grenades.
AFTERWORD
So John Crane’s second full-length novel goes out into the world. I remember how nervous I was when Rope on Fire launched, and it turns out that feeling doesn’t go away with book two.
But I’m reassured by the reaction to Rope on Fire, and especially by the fact that the things people said they wanted more of in that book were exactly the things I was working on in Wrecker. Readers said they wanted to see more of Josh, and Josh takes on a much larger part in this story. They wanted more prominent female characters and someone who could be more of a foil for Crane, and in this book, Crane meets two women who will both keep him on his feet, albeit in very different ways. (In fact, both made cameo appearances in Rope on Fire, though there was no way for readers to know how important they would eventually become.)
So I hope this book succeeds in expanding on the world shown in Rope on Fire, and points the way toward Crane’s future. And in particular, I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.
I should note that Bahia Tortugas is a real place, and truly is as remote and isolated as I’ve described it. Beyond that, however, I’ve taken a great many liberties with the town and its people. I hope they’ll forgive me. In a more general sense, I want to thank all the people, too numerous to name here, who answered questions and provided advice as I was working on Wrecker. The good stuff is down to them. The mistakes are all mine.
Finally, thank you for reading Wrecker, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. As always, I can be reached at [email protected] with comments or questions. I look forward to hearing from you.
If you enjoyed Wrecker, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. Reviews help other readers find books they’ll enjoy, and they help me bring you better books. Everybody wins. Thank you for your support.
Ready for more?