The Enraged

by Brett Battles

  “Brian?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  The man stopped and looked back. “Sorry. Think you have the wrong guy.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  But Griffin knew he didn’t have the wrong guy. He’d recognized the voice immediately as belonging to caller UNKNOWN.

  As the man turned away, Griffin stepped forward and jabbed the needle into the base of the guy’s neck.

  The drug worked quickly. The man had barely gotten a surprised, “What…” out of his mouth before he stumbled against a parked car. Griffin grabbed him around the waist to keep him from dropping all the way to the ground, and drunk-walked him to Griffin’s sedan. With his free hand, he opened the back door and manhandled the guy inside.

  He looked around and made sure there was no one else on the street before putting his fingers to his lips and whistling. Dima jerked around in surprise.

  “Get over here!” Griffin yelled.

  __________

  THE HOUSE WAS in a wooded suburb northeast of the city in Maryland, on a cul-de-sac with three other homes, all owned by Darvot Consulting.

  Reynolds opened the garage door as Griffin drove up, and immediately closed it behind him. The other four members of his team were spread out around the outside of the house in case of trouble.

  Griffin, Dima, and Reynolds lugged the prisoner into a special room in the basement designed for circumstances like this. There was a single piece of furniture in the room, a chair in the center. Though it couldn’t move, it wasn’t bolted in place. It was cemented into the floor.

  The unadorned walls and the only door were soundproof. There were no windows. The only other thing of note was the drain in the floor directly under the chair.

  Using pre-sized straps that hung on the wall outside the room, they secured the man to the chair and stepped back out. Reynolds was dismissed to join his men, while Griffin and Dima sat in front of the table that was outside the room to wait for the prisoner to wake up.

  Nearly fifteen minutes passed in silence before Dima asked, “What are you going to do to him?”

  “I told you before. I’m going to talk to him.”

  Dima looked like he wanted to ask, “And then what?” but he kept his mouth shut.

  Griffin flipped on the computer sitting on the table. From it, he could control the five cameras inside. If he wanted, he could record everything, or, as he was doing now, simply look in.

  Mr. Unknown was still unconscious, his chin hanging against his chest.

  “Keep an eye on him,” he said. “If he so much as twitches, come get me.”

  __________

  THE THREE SUBURBANS sat empty two blocks away from the target house, the vehicles’ former occupants having moved silently down streets and through backyards until they were in position.

  Nate, Daeng, and Witten were crouched near the open end of the cul-de-sac. In Witten’s hand was a mini tablet computer displaying a detailed map of the area, including property lines and house footprints. As it had been since they’d arrived in the peaceful neighborhood, the glowing white dot they’d followed from Mama Jo’s restaurant was contained within the diagram denoting the house in the middle of the curved end of the road.

  “S1, this is S3,” a voice said over the comm.

  Nate turned on his mic. “Go for S1.”

  “Five guards. Two in back, three in front.”

  “Your status?” Nate asked.

  “S2 and S3 ready and willing.”

  “Take them down,” Nate said. “Nice and quiet.”

  CHAPTER 35

  “KEEP AN EYE on him,” Griffin said. “If he so much as twitches, come get me.”

  Dima nodded his understanding, but it was a wasted gesture. Griffin had already turned away.

  Dima remained where he was until the door at the top of the stairs closed. Sure now that Griffin was gone, he entered the interrogation room.

  “He went upstairs,” Dima said. “Not sure how long he’ll be gone.”

  __________

  QUINN LIFTED HIS head. He didn’t know the name of the man in front of him, only that he’d been O & O’s leak. When he’d been told what was going to happen to him unless he agreed to help, he had jumped at the chance, knowing it would give him at least a few years of freedom before he died.

  So far Dima had performed exactly as instructed. He had provided Griffin with the syringe loaded only with saline, and had not tipped off the other man that something was up.

  “Radio?” Quinn said.

  Dima walked over and attached the sticky side of a small microphone under Quinn’s collar. In Quinn’s ear, he stuck the equally small receiver.

  “Nate?” he said.

  “I’m here,” Nate said.

  “There’s at least one other person here.”

  “We count five additional, total.”

  “As soon as you hear Griffin back in here with me, you are free to take them out. Then I’ll give you the word when to begin phase two.”

  “Copy that.”

  Quinn looked at the O & O man. “Straps.”

  __________

  GRIFFIN TOOK THE stairs to the ground floor, and locked himself in the den to avoid any chance that Dima might overhear him. He pulled out his phone and called Morten.

  “I have him,” he told his boss.

  “That’s a step in the right direction. What has he told you?”

  “Nothing yet. We had to drug him, but he should wake up soon.”

  “We must wrap this up. We’re wasting far too much time dealing with ancient history. We have paying jobs that I need you to focus on, not this crap. Get him to tell you the names of everyone who knows, then you need to root them out and dispose of them tonight.”

  Griffin knew it would take more than the night, but he understood his boss’s sense of frustration. “I’ll call you as soon as I finish interrogating him,” he said.

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  When Griffin exited the den, he found Dima standing at the base of the stairs to the second floor.

  “What are you doing up here?” he asked.

  “I was looking for you. The…prisoner, I think he’s waking up.”

  Griffin headed down the stairs, Dima following a few steps behind. Instead of heading straight into the interrogation room, Griffin checked camera feed first. The prisoner’s head was now up, his eyes half opened.

  “Has he talked?” Griffin asked.

  “Not when I was down here.”

  That’s about to change, Griffin thought, before he strode into the room. He walked right up to the prisoner, grabbed his chin, and slapped him hard.

  “Wake up, asshole,” he said.

  The man groaned as he winced from the blow.

  Griffin jerked the man’s head up. “Look at me.” The prisoner’s eyes remained half closed. “Look at me!”

  The man’s lid opened only a fraction of an inch more, but his eyes focused on Griffin’s face. “What?” he said.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  A grin spread across the man’s face. “I’ll tell you one thing. I’m not Steve Howard.”

  Another slap. “I’m not afraid of hurting you. So if you want to mess around, go ahead. But if you’d rather pass on the pain, tell me who you are.”

  “I’ll make a deal with you.”

  “Sorry. No deals. Answer my question.”

  “Can you take your hand off my chin? That’s not part of the deal, but it’s kind of weird talking with you hanging on to me like this.”

  Griffin slapped him again, but then let go of the guy’s chin.

  “Thanks.” The prisoner worked his jaw for a moment. “So here’s what I was thinking.”

  “I said, no deals. Here’s what I—”

  “Just hear me out, okay? What could it hurt?”

  Griffin stared at him, not saying a word.

  “The deal is this. I don’t want to say what I have to say twice. Know what I mean? Yeah, you have your fancy v
ideo system.” As the prisoner said this, he glanced past Griffin at one of the cameras mounted in the room. “So you could record it and show that, but we both know your boss is going to want to hear it from me.”

  Griffin remained silent.

  “This is the part where you say you don’t have a boss,” the man said. “And then I say, ‘Actually, you do. I mean, unless Kyle Morten fired you.’”

  Griffin locked eyes with the man. “You think you’re a smart guy, don’t you? You think you can trip me up with your little name-dropping?”

  The prisoner shrugged. “I was trying to do you a favor.”

  “I don’t need your favor.” Griffin leaned in close. “So let me tell you the deal I have for you. Which, by the way, is nonnegotiable. You will talk. You will tell me who you are. You will tell me everything you know. You will tell me who else knows. And you will start right now.”

  “You mean how you and your boss murdered Miranda Keyes and her colleagues for one of your clients? A bullet to the head of the driver. Very subtle. Or do you mean how you guys handed over a list of names to Javier Romero in an attempt to keep the truth from coming out, thinking he’d take care of your problem for you?”

  Griffin took a step back. “Who are you?”

  “Remember, I gave you a chance.”

  “How many others know?”

  The prisoner stared past Griffin, stone-faced.

  “Answer me! How many?”

  No response.

  “Your silence won’t save anyone. I’ll find them like I found you.”

  The man grinned again as he looked at Griffin. “What makes you think you found me?”

  Stop it! You’re letting him get under your skin, Griffin told himself. This was his interrogation, not the prisoner’s. He glared derisively at the man, his lips parting as he was about to start in on the questioning again.

  “Now,” the man whispered.

  __________

  NATE NODDED AT the O & O man standing by the power box, and a second later all electricity to the building was severed.

  “Perimeter team neutralized. Power out,” Nate said into the radio.

  __________

  EVERYTHING WENT BLACK.

  As Quinn whipped his arms out of the restraints Dima had loosened for him, and leaned down so he could pull the straps away from his legs, he heard Nate’s report. He could hear the door open and shut across the room.

  “Dima, dammit, get the lights back on!” Griffin yelled.

  No response.

  “Dima, where are you?”

  While Quinn freed his left leg, he heard the movement of cloth, like someone rubbing their hands across their clothes. The moment the strap dropped from around his right leg, a bluish, rectangular light flicked on. Griffin’s cell phone.

  Quinn couldn’t see the man behind the phone, but he heard Griffin curse as he realized Quinn was free. Immediately, the light moved with the man rushing at Quinn.

  Quinn dove to the side, rolling on the floor before popping back up on his feet.

  Behind him, he heard Griffin skid to a stop. As Quinn turned, he saw a flash of metal, and knew the man was holding a knife.

  When Griffin came at him again, it wasn’t in a run but a deliberate stalk.

  “You’re not getting out of here,” Griffin said.

  “Who said I wanted to?”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Me? I’m the man who’s going to take you and your partner down.”

  “Oh, really? I don’t see that happening.”

  “Of course you don’t.”

  Quinn feigned to his right, then left, heading around Griffin toward the door. Griffin was only partially fooled, and lunged, his knife leading the way. Quinn saw it coming, twisted out of its path, and lashed out with his own hand, knocking the phone out of Griffin’s grip.

  The moment the cell hit the floor, the light went out.

  Quinn made it all the way to the door, but knew he couldn’t get it open before Griffin would get there, so he crouched low against the wall and waited.

  An unsettled silence fell over the room.

  “It’s only a matter of time,” Griffin said. “I’m going to find you, and I’m going to cut you up. And then I’m going to find your friends and no one will ever know what happened to any of you.”

  The man was about eight feet away, straight out from the door.

  “You think you scared me with what you found out?” Griffin said. “You think you’re the first problem I’ve ever had to deal with?” A quiet step closer to the door. “Don’t kid yourself. I’ve dealt with far worse problems than you, and I’m still here. Just like I’m going to still be here after we’re through.”

  Another step. Griffin was five feet away now.

  “What I think I’ll do is leave you locked in here for a while. If you’re ready to talk when I come back, I may be willing to let you live a bit longer.”

  Griffin took a step toward the door.

  “Enjoy the dark. I’ll see you in a—”

  Quinn grabbed Griffin’s ankles and yanked them out from under the man. Griffin fell backward, tumbling to the floor.

  Quinn followed right behind, his hands searching for Griffin’s wrists, mindful of the knife the man still held.

  “You son of a bitch!” Griffin yelled, pain in his voice. “Is that how you want to play?”

  Quinn found the knife hand and tried to pin it against the floor, but Griffin jerked and twisted and squirmed, making it impossible to hold down. The best Quinn could do was keep the knife from plunging into him.

  Griffin smacked Quinn in the shoulder with his other hand, and then popped him in the jaw. Quinn’s grip on the man’s wrist slipped. Griffin immediately took advantage, and shoved Quinn off to the side.

  Quinn heard the man jump to his feet and run for the door. Pushing himself up, he followed right behind. Griffin opened the door and exited the room, and tried to pull the door closed again. But Quinn yanked it out of Griffin’s grasp before the other man could shut it all the way.

  There were two windows high on the walls of the area beyond the interrogation room, so while the lights were still off, it wasn’t pitch-black, and he could see Griffin was already at the base of the stairs.

  “You’re not going to want to go up there,” Quinn said.

  Griffin sneered, and started up the steps.

  “Let him know you’re there,” Quinn whispered loudly enough for Nate to pick up.

  Over the radio, he heard Nate say, “Light ’em up!”

  Griffin was halfway to the top when the upper door opened and three handheld HMI spotlights blazed down on him, stopping him in his tracks.

  “Drop the knife and stay where you are,” Witten ordered from behind the lights.

  Griffin, an arm held in front of his eyes to keep him from being blinded, swiveled his head back and forth, looking for a way out.

  “Drop the knife,” Witten repeated.

  Some people never knew when to give up. Griffin was one such person. As was Quinn.

  In a sudden burst of motion, Griffin leaped down the stairs, bypassing the treads, and landed bent-kneed on the basement floor. As his gaze fell on Quinn, he rushed forward, fury radiating from every pore.

  Quinn had his own fury stored up. After the first swipe of the knife passed harmlessly in front of him, he grabbed Griffin’s wrist and slammed it against the metal doorjamb of the interrogation room, following it up with a right hook into Griffin’s ribs.

  When the knife finally fell to the floor, Quinn twisted Griffin’s arm back and rammed it into the jamb again. There was a satisfying double crack as both bones in Griffin’s forearm broke.

  The man cried out in pain and tried to pull away. Quinn pretended to struggle with him for a moment longer before letting go.

  Griffin’s momentum knocked him back against the wall. He took a step, ready to run, but froze as his gaze fell on the squad of men now at the bottom of the stairs, each with an M16 rifle ai
med at his chest.

  Quinn walked over, careful not to get in the line of fire. He smiled. “So, Mr. Griffin. As you can see, when everyone works together, dealing with people like you is just like swatting flies. If you’re ready to talk, we might be willing to let you live a bit longer.”

  CHAPTER 36

  IT WAS NEARLY one a.m. by the time Quinn and the others finished taping Griffin’s interview. There would undoubtedly be more interrogations in the future. Details were still missing—some names, dates, where the bodies could be found. But what Griffin gave them painted a picture even darker than they had presumed.

  A career not going as expected? A competitor more problematic than desired? A negotiation not going the intended way? That’s where Darvot Consulting came in. Using resources such as the flawed O & O, Morten and Griffin had been able to obtain information clients could use to cripple their adversaries. And where information alone wouldn’t work, Darvot provided a heavier hand. Say there was an intelligent, ambitious diplomat whose star shone a bit brighter than yours, and would always be in your way to the career you wanted. No scandals to bring that person down? No problem. How about a nice, tidy car crash in a foreign country? And here you were now, ten years down the road, the assistant secretary of state, a position everyone knows you would have never attained if Miranda Keyes had lived. A horrible loss? A tragedy? Not to you. Though you could never say it out loud, you had always thought of it as a happy accident.

  When everything was ready for the next phase, Quinn looked at the laptop from which Helen Cho had been monitoring the situation. “We’re all set,” he said.

  “You’re cleared to make the call,” she told him.

  Quinn turned to Dima. Except for his attempted escape after the lights went out, Dima had done well. “No screwups,” Quinn said.

  “I won’t,” Dima said.

  They had rehearsed what he was supposed to do half a dozen times.

  Quinn nodded at Witten, who then escorted Dima into the den, so the others could listen to the call on the laptop in the living room without their presence being picked up over the line.