DREAM ON (Mark Appleton #2)

by Patterson, Aaron

  “It’s okay, Mr. Washington, take your time.”

  “Well, he was dragging her, and he was all bloody. He’d cut her throat.”

  The doorman starting choking up, and then the reporter came back on. “The police have never seen anything like this. The killer is now classified as a serial killer, and as of this morning, he is still on the loose.”

  “Thank you, Cindy. Two other women were killed in much the same way and dropped off in public places. The description of a white man in his forties with brown hair and a scar above his right eye is in all the papers, and the police have issued an APB. Anyone having any information should call the crime-stoppers hotline.” The report went on to interview a girl in Central Park who watched as her boyfriend was killed by the madman.

  Isis looked at Kirk but didn’t say anything. They were both thinking the same thing. Taras Karjanski had to be stopped. Kirk was beginning to see the value of the Agency. They had the information and the means to stop this kind of crime. He wouldn’t mind a piece of the Red Dog himself right now.

  “You okay?” Kirk asked as he looked over at Isis.

  “Yeah. I just hope we can bag this fool. His time has come and gone, if you know what I mean.”

  Kirk nodded. She looked out the window, lost in her thoughts.

  The way Isis looked tonight made his heart jump into his throat. She was wearing a black jumpsuit with tall black boots. Her hair was sleek and shiny, and a hint of light hit it from the street lights.

  “So you ever date or go out much?” Kirk couldn’t help his brashness, and she smiled, which was a relief. The mood was in dire need of a change to something lighter, anyway.

  “No, never can find the time. Or the right man. I suppose my job might be a hindrance as well. I did want to talk to you about something, though.”

  Kirk perked up and turned in his seat. “Oh?”

  “I don’t know if you remember when you were investigating the prison poisoning case, but you came to my office, and I lied to you. I had no choice, as you can see. But now that you are here, and, well, on our side…you are on our side, aren’t you?” Isis looked at him with those big dark eyes.

  Kirk nodded. “Every day I see more reasons why you do what you do. But I’m not sold on this way yet.”

  “Well, I was the one who was behind the prison thing. We only killed the inmates who we had researched and had proven guilty. No guards or anyone else were killed or hurt.”

  “I remember. You didn’t have anything to do with my kidnapping, did you?”

  She laughed, but he saw her eyes harden. “No, that was Big B. He insisted that I would be compromised if you kept on the case. He is very protective of me.”

  Kirk had a feeling she was lying, but that’s the way it always was between agents. There would always be secrets between them. He tried to brush it off. “Well, he was right. I was hot on your trail and it was only a matter of time before I figured it out. Can’t say I was happy about the year you guys took from my life, but I can say it turned out for the best. I came out with a million dollars!”

  They laughed and Kirk rubbed his bald head. Just do it, man. You’ve been bombed, kidnapped, shot, and just about killed! What, are you scared of a woman?

  He spit it out. “Would you like to go out for a drink sometime, you know, with me?”

  She looked at him and smiled.

  “I think I might just take you up on that, Kirk Weston.” She touched his arm and smiled. “You buy?”

  “Sure, for you.”

  “Then it’s a date. Just don’t try any funny business. I’m licensed to kill.”

  * * *

  TARAS LAY IN BED the whole day and didn’t even roll over when the phone rang. He was exhausted from his night on the town. The flat was a mess with clothes strewn everywhere and wine bottles covering the counter and floor. He had turned into the thing he hated. He was always a clean freak and had to have things in a certain order. However, recently, he was becoming sloppy and disjointed.

  He couldn’t open his eyes because his whole body ached. Even his eyelids hurt. He couldn’t remember what day it was, or what had happened the night before. Dreams and nightmares filled his mind as he slept. He saw a dark figure looming with red, glowing eyes, and the thing scared him to death. It just stood there, not saying a word and not moving.

  At nine that evening, he felt a gurgling in his stomach. He rushed to the bathroom but didn’t quite make it. He vomited all over the floor. When he looked up and saw his reflection in the mirror, he vomited a second time and passed out, hitting his head on the toilet on the way down.

  An hour later, he regained consciousness, and his mouth and face were covered with vomit. At this point, he didn’t really care. The shower was only a few feet away. The water felt good as he washed dried blood and vomit off of his body. Skin was under his fingernails, and he could taste blood in his mouth from where he had bit into his own tongue.

  That must have been one great night! You dog!

  His memory returned, and he relived the events in his mind as he stood under the warm, running water. He couldn’t believe how powerful he was becoming. The pieces were coming together, and everything was perfect. Now it was time to do one more thing and the plan would be in full motion.

  The phone rang again, and this time he picked it up with a friendly hello. “Why are you calling me? You know the rules. If you call again, I won’t hold up my end of our arrangement!”

  The voice on the other end fell silent.

  “Good bye!” Taras hung up the phone with a curse. He could always count on someone to screw up the plan. Everything was too close to fruition to be making dumb mistakes now. Turning on his laptop, he logged on to his secure website.

  His user name popped up, and he saw that three others were on. He started typing.

  Reddog: Mistakes are not forgiven, keep to the rules!

  He was mad at the user and did not know what to do about it. He needed to walk carefully with this one, and he had to keep the peace until the next stage was in place.

  DC1978: It was my fault. Will not happen again.

  Reddog: Do you have the package?

  DC1978: Yes.

  Reddog: Wait for the signal then send back.

  DC1978: Permission to open the package.

  Reddog: Denied.

  DC1978: Fine.

  Reddog: Wait for my signal.

  Logging off, he shut down the laptop. He’d given the world a taste of the Red Dog, but in a few days the whole world would know and fear the Red Dog!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I STOPPED THE CAR and sat on the side of the dirt road leading up to a white beach house. It stood against the horizon and looked like a hulking monster in the night sky. I was not interested in the view right now, though. I only hoped I wasn’t too late to save Solomon.

  I’d been instructed to throw my cell phone out of the car a few miles back and to pick up a new one at a local gas station. Emily was smart. Smarter than I’d originally thought. Maybe I had overlooked her ability, but tonight she had my full attention.

  She sent me a text message with the longitude and latitude, which led me to an old, bumpy dirt lane and the grassy spot where I was now parked. The rolling hills were covered with lush, green grass that grew a foot or so tall. It made a swishing sound as I walked through it. The target on my GPS showed a red dot about two hundred yards ahead. I wondered if she was leading me into the underground holding tank I had seen in my dream.

  My foot hit something and I stumbled, just about landed on my face. My gun was out, and I crouched down in the grass and looked around as my instincts kicked in. I’d tripped on an old piece of metal. It looked like a handle of some kind. I grabbed it and tried to pick it up. It wouldn’t budge, and my back screamed in protest as I pulled. I brushed away the dirt and weeds, and saw the outline of a wooden cellar door. My heart skipped a beat as I pulled up and the old door groaned.

  This is all wrong! The entrance hadn�
�t been used in years, and the steps leading down into the blackness had weeds and grass covering them. I looked for fresh footprints, but found nothing.

  I pulled out my GPS and the red dot was sitting right over where I stood. “Well, guess this is the place.” The smell of mud hit my face as I squeezed through the entrance and descended. The door slammed shut behind me, leaving me in complete darkness. It unnerved me because the sound was so final. I was walking into a trap. This was the only way, though, and I was just hoping my reactions and training would somehow get me out of this alive.

  I put on my sunglasses and turned on the night vision option, just like in my glimpse. The stairway opened up and a tunnel led slowly downhill off to the right. I could see a ways down, and everything looked clear and empty. My mind raced as I walked cautiously along. What does this woman want with me? We were very careful, and to my knowledge, we covered our tracks well. Whomever Emily was, she had inside information on who we were, and what we were involved in.

  The underground tunnel looked man made and was getting smaller, or was it my imagination? I felt like Alice in Wonderland as I seemed to be growing and the tunnel shrinking.

  I thought of the satellite that was supposed to be tracking me. It wouldn’t be able to follow me underground, and I’m sure that was her plan from the beginning. I looked at my watch. The time indicated I’d been walking for over half an hour. The farther I went, the smaller the walls got. Soon I was on my hands and knees crawling through what now looked like a foxhole.

  I’d left my earpiece in. It had lost its signal about an hour before I got to the big white house, but even though it was worthless here in this cave, I wanted it for the sheer comfort of having a device that could give some sort of contact with the outside world.

  I could tell this tunnel was open on the other end from the cold air that hit me in the face. I saw a little gleam of light coming through a small hole where the tunnel came to an abrupt end. It was too small for me to get through, so I started digging to open it up enough to slide through.

  My anger was building, and this wild goose chase was taking precious time from the life of my friend. I knew I had to hurry. He would only make it a little…whoa. I clawed through and was shocked to see a huge cavern open up in front of me. I rolled down an embankment and stood up, looking around at the gaping cave I was standing in.

  A small opening was at the top of the dome ceiling and looked like a blowhole. The room was round, with bricks lining the walls, and the dirt floor was smooth and flat, as if it had been leveled and swept clean. It was some sort of meeting room with two wooden doors at each end. I ran to the one closest to me, and opened it to find that it was packed full of dirt and rocks. The one on the far end, however, had a clear opening and joined another tunnel, which I entered at a jog.

  Where is she taking me?

  Two more huge underground rooms and an hour later, I was back at the surface again. I breathed deep and sucked in the ocean air as I lay in the grass with my eyes closed. Finally, I looked up and heard my Go Phone ring.

  Emily Dobson’s voice sounded as if she had just watched her favorite movie and was having the time of her life. “Fifty yards south, you will find a cave entrance. Take it and hurry, Solomon is fading fast, and I am getting bored.”

  I didn’t have time to answer before she hung up. I was at her mercy. She was in control of this cat-and-mouse game.

  The ground was rocky, and I figured I’d gone two, maybe three miles from where I was parked. I couldn’t see city lights or even the ocean, but I could still smell it.

  A dark mouth opened up in front of me. The entrance was about six feet tall and four feet wide. I flashed back to my glimpse as I pulled my revolver from its holster. I took one last look around and walked down into the hole in the ground. I was alone, and Solomon’s only hope.

  A few hundred yards ahead, I could make out a door, just like in my glimpse. And now, I was ready. The woman on the other side would be alone, with Solomon strapped to the table. I remembered Solomon’s pale face looking up at me, and her flashing eyes filled with hate. It filled me with rage, purpose, and adrenaline. I put my shoulder down and charged the door as fast as I could. The door splintered under my weight and I burst through, stumbling, but keeping on my feet. When I looked up, I was looking into the eyes of a killer.

  * * *

  KIRK LOOKED THROUGH THE camera that was set up facing Taras Karjanski’s room. It was a thermal x-ray device that allowed them to see as if there were no wall separating them. Isis loaded the weapon and pushed the cork back into the wine bottle. Kirk wanted to charge into the room and shoot Karjanski’s head off, but Isis kept him in check.

  This building had housed some of the world’s most famous people, from Bono to the president. Isis knew the owner and wanted to keep his reputation intact by doing this with the utmost care. “You about ready?” Kirk was getting impatient.

  “Hold your horses. This stuff could kill you in a matter of seconds. You wouldn’t want me to drop it, would you?” Isis wore a black uniform with a white shirt. “To keep him off guard we need to wait until he orders another bottle of wine. If we just give it to him uninvited, he’ll know something’s up. He’s not that stupid. My contact tells me he orders one every day and this is the brand and year he favors. Let’s just hope he does it soon.” Isis placed the bottle in a bucket of ice and laid a white towel over it.

  “He sure likes his wine, there’s ten bottles lying around in there. What a pig!”

  Isis laughed. “From what I hear, you’re somewhat of an expert on the subject.”

  Kirk grunted and thought back to his apartment where he used to live in Detroit. “Well, mine was organized, in my own way. I knew where everything was…whatever!” Isis rolled her eyes, and he could tell he wasn’t convincing her. “We can’t all be anal retentive.”

  “Is that what I am?” Her eyes flashed, and she stood up. “I am an organized person. You got a problem with that?” She smiled through her fake demeanor. She had a good sense of humor.

  “Whatever. You have to have everything just perfect. Jump sometimes, live a little, try new things. You know, like eating ice cream out of the box or leave the dishes in the sink for a week.”

  “I live. You should see what I can do…I mean…never mind!” Her face turned red.

  Kirk laughed and he went back to scanning Taras’s room. The Russian appeared to be talking on the phone, and then he hung up and threw the phone across the room, shattering it against the wall. Then he started rummaging through the closet.

  “He looks like he might go out tonight,” Kirk said

  “I hope not.”

  Kirk thought about the news stories that had filled the news, rehashing every last detail of the killings and what each might mean. Anything for a story! The stinkin’ media has to suck the blood out of everything. Taras put on a clean shirt, and then sat down at the desk.

  After Taras logged onto his laptop, Isis hacked into his PC, and they read what he was writing. The website was high tech; they would have had a hard time getting in without the fingerprint Mooch had. And now he had a retinal scan. But with the dummy program Isis had downloaded to his computer they could access everything he did when he was logged on. Isis burned up the keys as she pulled everything she could from the site. They could only surf the site as long as Taras was on.

  “Find anything?”

  “Something about an operation. There’s no name for it, and it seems like he’s working with someone else on it. Looking for a name.”

  “Better hurry, he looks like he is about to log off.”

  Isis punched in a code, opened up another page and began to download a file that was marked “Fun in the Sun.” The progress bar turned green and was at fifty-five percent, then seventy, then one hundred percent. The page exploded into a ring of fire and the screen went black. Isis gasped aloud, but kept typing. Logging off, she pulled a zip drive from the side of the laptop and rebooted.

  “What w
as that all about?” Kirk asked, concerned.

  “That was a download of Karjanski’s entire file marked “Fun in the Sun.” Normally, a file with that name would not mean anything, however, it had a firewall and a roaming security drone assigned to that one file.”

  Kirk rubbed his hand over his scalp and shook his head. “In English, for those who don’t speak computer.”

  “I got his most important file, and I got all of it.”

  “Great, what’s in it?”

  Isis held up one finger as if to tell him he would have to keep his shirt on, went to her desktop, and plugged in the zip drive. Blueprints, photos, letters addressed to various members of the Russian mafia, and bank account balances in the millions—no, the billions.

  “Is this what I think it is?” Kirk asked.

  “I am afraid so. It appears that our friend has a vested interest in oil refineries, and he has a lot of them.” Isis scanned through some blueprints, and came to one that, to Kirk’s trained eye, looked a lot like a bomb.

  “That is a bomb, and forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but it is also mixed in with blueprints of nuclear power plants and oil refineries. I bet you anything the blueprints are of factories he doesn’t own.”

  “I’ll check it out, but I fear you may be right. I believe he plans to blow up any factory he doesn’t own, and in the process, ruin the world’s economy and give him the power to decide what we will pay for oil.”

  Kirk sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. He had heard of hostile takeovers, but this was insane.

  * * *

  BIG B LOOKED AT the screen where Mark had just gone underground. He slammed his fist on the desk and muttered under his breath. The satellite was the only link they had because a tracking device or bug would risk Solomon’s life. Mark had left everything in his car, and his phone was not moving, so Big B assumed he had thrown it out. Pulling up a cloaking program, he filtered the image, trying to see underneath the ground so he could follow Mark. Mark showed up as a little blip of color, but the deeper he went, the harder it was to follow him. It was only a matter of time before he would lose him for good.