Hellhound On My Trail

by J. D. Rhoades

  “Just the basics. Some guy shows up and gets roughed up in your girlfriend’s parking lot by what looks like military, or ex-military, muscle. He claims to have a message from your dying father, then drops off what looks like the gun camera video from ’ninety-one. The video from the helicopter that killed your men and nearly killed you. After which you seem to have had what we in the mental health biz call an ‘episode.’”

  Keller rubbed the cool, sweating bottle against his forehead. “Yeah.” He looked up at Jules. “Sorry.” She put a hand on his arm and squeezed.

  “You know, Jack,” Berry said, “you might have checked in with your therapist before putting yourself through something like that.”

  Keller rose to his feet, setting the water on the table and trying to brush the debris off his pants with his free hand. “You’re not officially my therapist anymore, Lucas. You’re two thousand miles away, for one thing. And we’re not in the Army.”

  “Point taken. How about talking it over with your old friend Lucas who cares about you, then?”

  Keller grimaced. “Yeah. I probably should have done that. I wasn’t thinking. Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. Just tell me what you feel. Right now. Quickly. Don’t think about it.”

  “Empty,” Keller said. “Hollowed out.”

  “Do you feel like hurting yourself? Or anyone else?”

  Keller did think about that. “I’m not real crazy about this Maddox character right now, to tell you the truth.”

  “That response is within normal limits.”

  “What?”

  “It means I can’t say as I blame you. You need to tread carefully around this guy, Jack. I don’t know what his agenda is, or whatever this person claiming to be your father has in mind, but this whole thing has a bad smell about it. I’d stay the hell away.”

  “Yeah,” Keller said. “I probably should.”

  “But you’re not going to, are you?”

  “No. He said my father might have some answers. About what happened to me. And why.”

  “How and why would he have those answers? Have you thought this thing all the way through, Jack?”

  Keller gave a short, bitter laugh. “Do I ever?”

  “No,” Berry said. “How’s that worked out for you?” Before Keller could answer, he sighed. “Never mind answering. Just do me a favor. I know it’s useless to tell you not to go, so I won’t. But keep in touch. I’m going to do some digging while you’re on your way. See what my old Army contacts know about this Trammell and this errand boy of his.”

  Keller felt a lump in his throat. “Thanks, Lucas,” he said. “You’re a good friend.”

  “Yes, I am. And Jack?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Take care of yourself, okay?”

  “I will.” He broke the connection.

  Jules was looking at him across the table. Tears were glistening in her eyes. “You’re gonna go, aren’t you?” she said in a small voice. “Again.”

  He nodded. “I have to, Jules.”

  “And I can’t come with you.”

  “This is something I have to—”

  She broke in. “No, I mean I can’t go. I have a business to run.” She reached out and put a hand over his. “Just come back, okay?”

  He took her hand in both of his. “I will.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “I wish I could believe that.”

  “I came back last time.”

  She grimaced. “Yeah. You came back beat up, shot all to hell, and…well, you know.” She held up a hand to stop his reply. “Just be careful. Take care of yourself.”

  “Lucas said the same thing.”

  “And he’s right. Like it or not, Jack Keller, you’re important to people. People like me.” She stood up. “Now, before you go talk to this Maddox, find a broom and help me clean up this mess you made.”

  “I SEE,” Cordell said into his cell phone. “And how is the man who was injured?” He nodded as he listened to the reply. “Very well,” he said finally. “Sit tight. Await further instructions.” He cut the connection. The only sign of his anger was a slight tightening of his lips. The person who he had just talked to would never hear from him again. He’d failed, and soon he would realize he’d been discarded, frozen out. He’d most likely need to start looking for another line of work. The world in which he and Cordell operated was not one that forgave failure. It was why the first thing one did in case things didn’t work out is find someone else to blame. It wasn’t personal, and it wasn’t just business; it was survival.

  Cordell looked through the doorway of the dining room, into the living room of the large house in northern Virginia where Kathryn Shea lived. All he could see from his vantage point was the back of her head. He squared his shoulders and walked into the living room. She didn’t look up at him as he entered, but continued staring into the fireplace. There was no fire. A large leather chair that had been one of her father’s favorites seemed to embrace her now. She loosely held a rocks glass with a single ice cube remaining in one hand. Earlier in the evening, she had switched from martinis to straight bourbon. That was never a good sign.

  Cordell took a seat on the couch that sat at a right angle to the chair. Her head turned slowly to take him in. Her eyes were dull and glassy, but when she saw the look on his face, they seemed to sharpen. “Well?” she said.

  Cordell knew better than to try and sugar-coat bad news. “Mr. Trammell’s emissary reached Mr. Keller.”

  Kathryn turned away and looked into the dark, cold fireplace. She raised the glass to her lips, then looked at it in annoyance as she noticed for the first time that it was empty except for the rapidly melting cube of ice. Cordell leaned over and took it from her hand. He hoped she wouldn’t ask for a refill.

  “Tell me what happened,” she said. She enunciated every word with the extreme care of the very drunk.

  “The people who were supposed to take the briefcase were late. They tried to do it in the parking lot of the bar where Keller’s been working. He and the bar owner, a young woman, came out and stopped them. One of them was injured when the bar owner broke his arm with a baseball bat.”

  Kathryn looked back at him, her dark eyes widening. “The woman? A woman broke your man’s arm?”

  “Not my man, per se. An independent contractor. But yes.”

  She let out a brief snorting laugh. “Maybe you should have hired her.”

  He ignored the jibe. “Trammell’s man, a former operative named Maddox, went into the bar. That’s all we know at this time.”

  “We don’t know if he gave Keller anything.”

  “No.” He hesitated. “There are certain resources I could be using to learn more at this time. But using them could be…problematic.”

  “Then don’t tell me about them,” she said. “But use them. Use any means necessary.” She saw the look on his face and nodded. “Yes, Mr. Cordell, I am completely aware of what those words mean. But I need to know what Maddox gave Keller. And I don’t want Keller talking to Trammell. It’s a matter of national security.”

  “Ms. Shea,” Cordell said, “this would be a lot easier if I knew what it is you are so…” He almost said “afraid,” but quickly corrected himself. “Concerned about Mr. Trammel, or his representative, giving to Keller.”

  She stood up, a little unsteadily, and took the glass back from him. “Cliff Trammell can spill his guts when he gets to the Pearly Gates,” she said, “not before.” She smiled grimly. “Not that that’ll get him in. Probably just the opposite. Cliff Trammell is one man who the truth will definitely not set free.” She walked, a little unsteadily, to the sideboard where a half-full bottle of Blanton’s Gold Edition and a sweating ice bucket sat. She picked up the tongs from the bucket, hesitated a moment, then set them back down. She turned to face Cordell. “I’m going to bed,” she said. “Feel free to use the guest room.”

  Cordell stood. “Good night, Ms. Shea,” he murmured. “And thank you.”

&nb
sp; She nodded and left, staggering slightly as she went through the door.

  Cordell watched her go. For a fleeting moment, he considered following her up the stairs, up to the lavish bedroom he knew sat at the top of them. He had always kept a cool professional distance from his clients, but there was no denying the impact that Kathryn Shea had on him. She was undeniably beautiful, and there was something about that iron control she kept over herself that made a man want to break through it, tear down those walls, to conquer…

  He shook his head. No time for that. There was work to be done. Some very long strings would need to be pulled, and it would be very bad for everyone if anyone saw the hand pulling them. He took out his cell phone again.

  THE DESERT Sands Motel stood across the desert highway from Henry’s. The place had been built in the mid-’70s, and it showed the wear and tear of forty-plus years of desert wind and sand. The motel made a razor-thin profit catering to a clientele of tired truckers, cheating spouses, transients, and drunks who staggered across the highway from the bar after a night of overindulgence. It had been sold a few months ago to a family-owned company headquartered in Bangalore, India. The new managers had repaired the battered sign out front and slapped a new coat of paint on the place. The only effect was to make it look like a beaten-up old motel with fresh paint on it. Maddox’s dust-covered rental car stood out in the sparsely populated parking lot.

  Keller knocked on the door of Room 16. It was 11:45 in the morning. He hadn’t gone directly over as he’d planned. Julianne had convinced him to sleep on his decision. She’d hung the “closed” sign on the bar door to let him know she’d be sleeping on it with him. They hadn’t gotten much sleep, however. Near dawn, after they’d made love for the third time, she’d told him, “I ain’t doin’ this to try to make you stay. I just want you to know you got someone to come back to.” That had been the only time his resolve had wavered. By sunup, however, the itch to be moving forward became irresistible. He gave Julianne one last, deep kiss and headed across the highway. He didn’t look back.

  Maddox opened the door. “Mr. Keller,” he said. He didn’t seem surprised.

  “Okay, you bastard,” Keller said, keeping his voice as level as he could. “Tell your boss I’ll see him.”

  Maddox nodded. “I understand you’re angry at your father—”

  “You don’t understand shit,” Keller broke in. “I ought to kick your ass.”

  Maddox held up his hands in front of himself and stepped back slightly. “I’m only the messenger, Mr. Keller.”

  Keller didn’t advance on him, although he wanted to, badly. “Bullshit. You sprung that gun camera video on me. Had you seen it?”

  Maddox put his hands down and shook his head. “No. I swear to you I haven’t. Only a very few people have.”

  “Like my father.” The last word sounded like a curse.

  Maddox nodded. “Like your father, yes.”

  “And he knew what the effect on me would be. Worse, he’s probably had it for years. Or at least known about it.”

  “That, I can’t answer. I don’t know any specifics. I do know that he can give you the names and the current locations of the people responsible. Both for the incident and the cover-up. But I don’t know how long your father has known.”

  “And just how would he know this?”

  Maddox moved back into the room. Keller could see he had his suitcase open on the bed. As Maddox began placing socks and a shirt back into the case, Keller entered.

  “Clifton Trammell,” Maddox said, “has worked in, let’s say, sensitive positions for the United States government for his entire adult life. In his position”—he shrugged, then bent down to zip the suitcase shut—“you learn things.”

  “What position?”

  Maddox went across the room to a dresser that looked so battered it might have been thrown down a flight of stairs. “That is a question you’ll need to ask him.” He took an envelope off the top of the dresser and held it out to Keller. “Our plane tickets are in here,” he said. “We’ll need to get going to make the flight. I hope you’re—”

  Keller didn’t reach for the envelope. “I’m not going anywhere with you, Maddox.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll get there on my own.”

  Maddox lowered his arm, his brow knitting with puzzlement. “But…but why?”

  “Because I don’t trust you.”

  Maddox’s jaw tightened with anger. “Fine. But you need to know there’s not much time.”

  Keller hesitated. He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to the next question. He asked it anyway. “What does he have?”

  “Pancreatic cancer,” Maddox said. “Stage Four. He could go at any time.” His mouth twisted. “And if it makes you any happier to hear this, yes, he’s in a great deal of pain.”

  “No,” Keller said. “That doesn’t make me happy.” He didn’t want to tell Maddox that for one brief shameful moment, it had.

  THE MAN who sat across the Formica table from Cordell was lean and gaunt. His black hair was peppered with gray and cut close to his skull. He had sunken brown eyes and the permanent squint of a man who’d spent most of his life in the sun, looking at people over the sights of a weapon. His birth name was Arlen Riddle, but he rarely used it. He wasn’t using it now, and he clearly was unhappy when Cordell called him by it.

  “I thought our business was done the last time I did a job for you people,” Riddle said. His voice was low and raspy, with a hint of Texas accent in it.

  Cordell took a sip of his coffee. He looked around the nearly deserted diner to make sure there was no one eavesdropping. “I’m afraid not. We have another situation requiring your skills. And your discretion.”

  “Discretion,” Riddle muttered. “Christ.”

  “We could always give the job to someone else,” Cordell said. “But then our arrangements regarding your…activities would need to be reviewed.”

  Riddle had gone from the Marine Corps’ elite Force Recon Company to a job with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Foreign Deployed Advisory and Support Teams. The FAST teams had engaged in direct action across the globe against some of the world’s most dangerous drug traffickers. They often operated independently, with minimal government oversight. There were many temptations to cross legal and moral lines, and Arlen Riddle had fallen prey to more than one of them. By the end of his tenure with DEA, it was growing harder and harder to distinguish the activities of Riddle and his team from those of the people he was originally sent to take down. The drug traffickers, with their usual flair for dramatics, had given him a nickname: El Perro del Infierno. The Hound of Hell.

  Once Riddle’s activities had been uncovered by people at the top (meaning they’d gotten too brazen to ignore), some of his superiors wanted to try him, convict him, throw him in a cell and let him rot there until the Last Judgment. Some were angry and disgusted enough to suggest just turning him over to the cartels he’d been robbing product and money from and letting them deal with him.

  Cordell had been advising the DEA head in his under-the-table lobbying campaign for Director of Central Intelligence when he’d found out about the incipient scandal. He’d persuaded all concerned that a public trial would not only destroy everyone’s career, but would cripple the DEA for years. As for the other alternative, such a thing could not be considered. Cordell had saved Riddle’s freedom and his life, but now he owned the man and his talents. Both men knew it as they regarded one another across the table. Only one was happy about it.

  “So,” Riddle said, “what’s the job?”

  Cordell pushed a manila envelope across the desk. “The information you need is in there. There’s a man named Jack Keller. He’s in Arizona, near Phoenix. He’s going to be trying to contact his father here. It’s important that that not happen.”

  “So…” Riddle said. He left the word hanging in the air as he picked up the envelope and opened it. “What exactly are you saying?”

  Cordell
smiled. “Use your best judgment as to how to proceed.”

  Riddle pulled a pair of photographs out of the envelope and looked at it. It was a black-and-white mugshot showing a blond man with a square face and jaw and long hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Is this Keller?”

  Cordell nodded. “That picture is several years old. He’s cut his hair since.”

  Riddle grunted and slid the first photograph behind the second. This photograph was in color. It was shot from long range, using a zoom lens. “This would be the father, then.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why’s he in a wheelchair?”

  “He’s sick. Cancer.”

  Riddle pulled out a thin sheaf of documents from the envelope. He riffled through them casually, then slid them back in, along with the photographs. He folded his hands on the table and looked at Cordell, his eyes narrowed. “So let me get this straight. You want me to go to Arizona, find this guy Keller, and stop him from seeing his dying father.”

  “That’s not all,” Cordell said.

  Riddle’s lip curled. “Of course not. What else do you want me to do? Kick a baby down a flight of stairs? Drown a little girl’s kitten in front of her?”

  Cordell ignored the gibe. “We want to find out what Keller’s father may have already told him. Or given him.”

  Riddle leaned back. “Ah,” he said, “I’m starting to get it.”

  Cordell said nothing.

  Riddle went on. “Dying old man wants to confess his sins to his son. But you, or whoever you work for, want those sins unconfessed.”

  Cordell took a sip of his coffee. It was strong, stale, and bitter. He made a face and set it back down. “I don’t know that I believe in sin.”

  “I’m sure that makes life easier for you.” Riddle picked up his own coffee for the first time and drank. He didn’t seem to mind the taste. “So you think Keller may have already gotten something from his father. What?”

  Cordell rubbed his temples. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “I honestly don’t. It’s some sort of object. I think.”