Vengeance: A Reece Culver Thriller - Book 1

by Bryan Koepke

  Mobley groaned, and Reece reached back, putting a hand over his mouth to quiet him. Mobley reached out with both hands and tried to pry Reece’s hand from his mouth. He was twisting his head side to side.

  “Did you hear that?” Reece heard someone say a few yards past the big rocks. Mobley struggled with Reece trying to get free from his hand. He bent down next to Mobley’s head: “Shut up or we’re dead.”

  He held his gun out, ready to fire if Shank’s men discovered them. Reece heard a voice again—only this time it was farther away. He dropped the gun to his side and eased his grip, hoping they’d decided to go the other way. He knelt up and then got to his feet. Looking around one of the rocks, he spotted a light dancing as one of the men walked downhill away from him. He just hoped Haisley hadn’t gone looking for firewood in that direction.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Vinton lowered the bundle of tie wraps and the pliers to answer his vibrating cell phone.

  “Blackwell. Yeah, did you find the bodies?” Vinton said, cradling his phone between his chin and shoulder. He picked up the white oval inspection panel from the red cloth underneath the wing of the Lear 55 corporate jet.

  “Those two are some of my best men. If they’re still alive, they’ll track them down and take care of the problem.” Blackwell picked up a pile of Phillips-head screws and inserted the tip of the screwdriver into one. He poked it through the hole in the inspection panel and turned the screwdriver clockwise, tightening the screw into the nut plate inside the wing. Then repeated the process with all six screws.

  “Shanks went too? Was he alone? Good. Okay then, call me if they need help. I like nothing better than hunting in the dark.”

  Blackwell fished out the bottle of white gloss nail polish he’d brought along and touched up the screw heads that held the inspection panel in place. He fetched the red cloth from the floor of the hangar and reached into the landing gear well, rubbing it on a glob of black grease. Then brought the cloth out and smeared dabs of grease onto the sides of the oval inspection panel underneath the wing.

  He knew the pilots would do a walk-around inspection before boarding the plane, and he didn’t want to give them any reason to suspect work had been done. They’d figure things out eventually, but at that point it would be too late.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Reece heard a noise behind them. He slipped back from the side of the rocks and listened. “Hold it right there,” someone yelled in the distance.

  Reece instantly thought of his friend Haisley. He’d been gone too long.

  “Take it easy with that gun,” Haisley yelled.

  “Oh hell,” Reece muttered under his breath. Getting to his feet, he set off walking as quietly as he could up the hill toward the sounds.

  “Where are the others?” someone said.

  Reece stopped in his tracks about twenty yards above them. The wind was still and he could hear their voices plainly. He could see one of the men shining a flashlight into Haisley’s face. Reece had to help Haisley before it was too late.

  “There down by the river. We found a downed tree for shelter,” Haisley said, lying.

  Reece inched closer, shuffling his feet forward, trying his best to keep quiet like a savage sneaking up on prey. He wished he’d brought a knife like the big Buck knife his father used to carry when they went pheasant hunting along the Missouri River.

  The man with the light followed Haisley toward the running water down slope of them. Reece picked up his speed, closing the gap between himself and Haisley’s captors. Along the way he considered his options. He decided the best move was to knock the light loose. Reece knew his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but the men with the flashlight would be at a disadvantage without their light.

  Palming a rock in his hand, he threw it out past the men. The rustle got the desired reaction. They stopped and pointed the light in that direction. Reece could see the man pointing out toward the forest on Haisley’s right side. He knew his friend was left-handed and if given the chance would seize the gun. Reece took aim and fired a single shot. Gold flame leaped from the barrel of his gun, and Reece watched the man go down.

  Haisley started struggling with the second man and a shot rang out, ricocheting off a distant rock. Reece held back, wanting to help his friend but not wanting to get shot. He saw the man on the ground writhing. The flashlight was shining back at him and the guy was shuffling in an awkward rhythm toward the gun. He knew if he didn’t stop him Haisley would be dead.

  Reece sprinted toward the downed man and stepped on his hand just as he reached for the revolver. Haisley and the second man were wrestling viciously on the ground nearby. He picked up the gun, stuffing it in a pocket. It was pitch black except for the light from the flashlight.

  A second shot fired and Reece heard an “umph.” The bullet had found a target and he hoped it wasn’t his friend.

  Reece struck the wounded man in the forehead with his revolver, knocking him out. He shined the light toward the two struggling men and saw Haisley pinned on the ground by the guy he was fighting. He saw the gun on the ground near Haisley’s right arm. The man on top of him was bleeding from the left shoulder, but had a knife pointed down toward Haisley’s neck. They were deadlocked. Haisley was holding him off, but the knife was just a few inches from his throat. Reece aimed and fired.

  The man with the knife collapsed on top of Haisley. Reece sprinted toward his friend and watched Haisley roll away as the guy collapsed into the dirt.

  “You okay?” Reece asked.

  “Thanks, Culver. I owe you one.”

  “You owe me two, actually.”

  They took the guns, ammo, and flashlight from Shanks’ foot soldiers and headed back to collect Mobley. Reece was tired and ready to make a fire, but he knew the gunshots would bring on reinforcements.

  Haisley pulled Mobley to his feet, and they headed along the river. They had gone a long way when, out of nowhere, the cellphone Reece had taken off the guy he’d knocked out started to ring from within his coat pocket. He pulled the phone out, flipped it open, and checked the lit caller ID window.

  “Does it have a name?” Haisley asked.

  “Blackwell.”

  Reece and Haisley set Mobley down against a big tree.

  “This looks like a good place to spend the night. You think we should risk a fire?” Reece said.

  “I doubt they could find us now, as far as we’ve come. Besides, the hunt will be on tomorrow at daybreak. Our tracks will be easy to spot.”

  “Yeah, I’m with you. Probably a good idea to warm up and get some sleep so we can cover lots of ground tomorrow,” Reece said.

  When Haisley said he was ready, Reece opened the cylinder on his revolver and pulled out a .357 Magnum round. With his Leatherman in hand he pried the copper bullet from the casing. Haisley shined the flashlight down onto a wad of dead grass that was surrounded by a teepee of small sticks he constructed. Reece dumped the black powder from the bullet casing onto the grass.

  “We need something to ignite this with. You got any ideas?”

  Haisley made a face and unzipped Mike Mobley’s backpack, rifling through the contents. That reminded Reece of Mobley and his cigarettes. He started to search the big man’s pockets.

  “What are you doing?” Haisley asked.

  “Looking for his lighter.” He knew Mobley had to have a lighter, but he went pocket by pocket and came up empty. Reece did find a cellphone in Mobley’s coat pocket and opened it. He looked up at Haisley, who was giving him a funny look as if to say what are you doing, but instead of explaining he began scrolling through the list of calls. Reece counted nine calls to the same number over the course of the previous week. He studied the area code and knew it was Colorado, but to whom? Reece highlighted the number and pressed send. The caller ID on the phone showed the name Stephen Cox. Reece couldn’t believe his eyes. He slammed the flip phone shut before the number began to dial.

  “Motherfucker,” Reece growled, sti
ll looking at the phone.

  “What?” Haisley asked.

  “You’re never going to believe it,” Reece said, setting Mobley’s phone down on a flat rock beside his knee.

  “Believe what?” Haisley asked.

  “He’s got nine calls to Stephen Cox over the past three days.”

  “Let me see,” Haisley said. Reece handed him the phone and watched his friend review the calls himself. “I was wondering how Cox figured out Shanks was in the mountains of Colorado.”

  “I’ll bet when he was lagging behind in the trees he was calling Cox, giving him our whereabouts,” Reece said.

  “We ought to make tracks and leave this scumbag behind to fend for himself.”

  “No, that’s not necessary,” Reece said, reaching over to take Mobley’s cellphone. He set the phone down on the flat rock and smashed it with a baseball-sized rock. “That should take care of it.”

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Haisley and Reece took turns keeping watch in the miserable cold. When the sun came up the next morning, the air felt harsher than it had in the dark. They wrapped Mobley’s leg in a makeshift splint, and Haisley made a sling for Reece’s left arm out of bath towel he’d found in Mobley’s pack.

  They set out just before sun-up, knowing Blackwell and his men wouldn’t be far behind. They still didn’t know what to do with Mike Mobley, but had searched every inch of his backpack and pockets in an effort to avoid any more surprises. Reece took the now empty water bottles from Mobley’s pack and held them one at a time to let the rapidly moving stream fill them. He leaned out, reaching as far as he could with his good hand, trying to catch the fastest water. Reece figured it might save them from ingesting giardia parasites or swallowing some other form of bacteria that they weren’t equipped to handle. With the water bottles full they headed north, hoping to find the highway. Mobley seemed a little better after a night of rest next to the fire, but the pain in Reece’s shoulder had grown worse and he knew he needed medical attention.

  They hiked all day, following the flattest ground they could find with no sighting of anyone or anything. It was rugged country, and as he walked Reece’s thoughts ran all over the place, ranging from what it must have been like as a frontiersman, to Vinton Blackwell, and finally to Crystal Thomas and her missing mother. He’d all but forgotten the case and was concentrating now on catching Vinton Blackwell. The man he was now sure murdered his father.

  Up ahead, Haisley was gathering rocks at a spot where two large trees had fallen, forming a giant T. Some big boulders on the western side formed a windbreak, and it looked like a good spot to stop for the night. As Reece latched onto a big branch of dead pine with his good arm and dragged it back, he started to think about food. He formed a picture of a big juicy steak in his mind, and that would have to do.

  Suddenly, Haisley came running over toward Reece. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  The two men stood motionless, listening to the forest. The wind was rustling the branches of a stand of trees beside them. Then Reece heard the rumble of an engine far off in the distance, back toward where they’d left the Tahoe.

  “They’re on motorcycles.”

  “In this terrain?” Haisley said, looking at the mile-wide scree field they’d just traversed.

  “How many miles do you think we’ve covered since we left the truck?” Reece asked.

  “I don’t know, why?”

  “It might not be Blackwell. This is a national forest. Maybe they’re spring hunters? Let’s find some food and kill it while we have a chance,” Reece said.

  Haisley started prying the brass out of a .357 Magnum round, and Reece figured they had a half hour of sunlight left before it dropped below the horizon. They got a fire going and started discussing ideas for finding food. The stream was farther away now, down in a canyon to the west, but if they could find something to make a fishing hook and something resembling line, they might have a chance of catching a rainbow or brown trout.

  “What’s that noise up in that tree?” Mobley said, coming to life.

  “It’s a squirrel, why?” Reece said. He smelled the distinctive smell of cigarette smoke and glanced over toward the heavy man. “Don’t you think this might be a good time to give those up?”

  “It helps me when I have an empty stomach.”

  “Shush, give me your gun, Reece,” Haisley said, sounding parental.

  Reece handed him the gun, and his friend aimed up into the tree. Then Reece too saw a fat squirrel standing out toward the end of a branch, twitching its tail.

  Haisley fired two quick rounds, and the squirrel dropped, hitting the ground a few feet away. Reece pulled out his Leatherman and started stripping what little meat there was from the bundle of fur. Haisley grabbed the flashlight and headed out toward a copse of pine trees.

  With a three-foot limb from an aspen tree Reece sharpened both ends and placed two large rocks on each side of the fire pit, He pushed the aspen limb through several chunks of squirrel meat and laid the branch across the fire. Before long Reece smelled the scent of meat cooking, and felt like everything would be okay.

  He heard a couple of more shots ring out in the distance, and Haisley arrived a few minutes later with two more dead squirrels for their dinner. Reece bit into the first chunk of cooked squirrel meat and smiled. It was a little tough, but he wasn’t complaining. Now all he needed was to get back to civilization, before Shanks and Blackwell disappeared. Worse, before the FBI offered Blackwell immunity.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Sam Shanks pried open the window to the laundry room in Vinton Blackwell’s Minturn villa. He knew Crystal and her stepfather were away and he had the house to himself, but that didn’t help him. Shanks was nervous and out of his element. He was the planner and manipulator, the brains behind the operation. He hadn’t been on the action side of his crimes in decades.

  Shanks started casing the house, searching for anything that could hide a small painting. He started on the second floor, not wanting to be caught up there if Blackwell came earlier than he guessed. One room had a row of bookshelves, and he looked behind the books for the small Van Gogh, but found nothing except dust balls. Through the dormer window to one side he saw the first glimpses of daylight. He had to hurry or he’d be caught.

  The bald man left the room and hurried toward the next, picking up the scent of Crystals perfume as he entered her bedroom. He saw a rolltop desk and searched it, knowing the small painting could be hidden anywhere. A sudden squeak erupted out of nowhere, and he froze in his tracks, listening. It must just have been the settling of the house, he decided after long seconds. A bead of sweat rolled off his forehead and splattered on the leather insert of the desk. Shanks pulled out his shirttail and blotted up the perspiration, not wanting to leave any trace of his unannounced visit.

  He sprinted down the stairs and went room by room, searching for any sign of the painting or the black felt bag it might have been stored in. He spotted a page from the architectural plans on the kitchen counter and searched the cupboards. Streaks of light shone through the windows, looking like someone with a flashlight was outside.

  Shanks ran for the basement door and found it locked. He knew he’d found the right place, but he wasn’t sure how to unlock the door with the tools he’d used to enter the laundry room. Where would they keep the keys? Casting about the kitchen, he saw a brass key rail in the shape of stallion hanging above the microwave oven.

  Going to it, he examined the key rings, searching for the one that would most likely open the door. He saw a single brass key and snatched it from the hook. It turned out to be the right guess. With the door opened, he replaced the key before slipping down the stairs. He wanted the Van Gogh more than anything, for the incredible price it would bring. Besides, he’d be able to stick it to Blackwell one last time.

  Shanks rummaged inside a cabinet at the base of the stairs. He went through the built-ins on the adjacent wall but came up empty han
ded. The house creaked above him, and Shanks froze. Madly he tried to think of a possible excuse for breaking into Blackwell’s villa. He was a sitting duck down here in the basement.

  He wondered if Blackwell would be bold enough to take him on after all of these years. The fight they’d had in the kitchen of his home after he’d found the newspaper article about Michael’s death surprised him. It had been too easy to subdue his hired gun.

  The furnace kicked on behind a door under the staircase, and Shanks startled with surprise. He considered that room and dismissed the thought quickly, knowing no one would store a priceless painting next to a furnace. Turning around in a wide arc, Shanks spotted a small wooden desk on the opposite wall. It was covered in envelopes and papers, looking like it hadn’t been touched in years. He peered down behind the desk, thinking it might be the perfect hiding place for a small painting. No such luck.

  He spotted a briefcase leaning against the side of the desk and pulled it out, noticing how light it felt. Shanks sat in the desk chair and set the briefcase on his knees. He tried to open it by pressing the two tabs sideways, but it was locked. What series of numbers holds the clue to opening this case?

  The answer came to him. He entered them and pressed the brass tabs sideways. The top of the leather case popped open. He nearly lost his breath when he saw the painting inside. The priceless Van Gogh with its vivid yellow and red poppy flowers was staring up at him. The wooden frame was old and distressed, but the picture looked like a museum piece. He pulled the felt bag from his back pocket and slid the priceless artwork inside, taking care not to damage it with the now continuous beads of sweat dropping off his forehead. Shanks picked up a pile of the envelopes off the top of the desk, shoved them into the briefcase, shut the lid, and stuffed it back alongside the desk where he’d found it.