The Keeper Returns (The Wallis Jones Series Book 3)

by Martha Carr

  “My Weiskopf men,” their father had said, smiling broadly as Harry had drifted off to sleep in front of the fire. He had wanted to stay awake forever just to keep this day. It was the best day of his life.

  A sadness settled over him as the car accelerated and he left the Florida prison behind. He turned and looked at it, wondering if this was going to be the last day of his life. “I have no family,” he said, and shut his eyes, trying to rest up for whatever was coming next. Maybe he would see Thornton again.

  Two cars trailed the SUV that held Harry Weiskopf and up ahead two more would quickly glide in front of that one till Harry was protected from all sides. George Clemente was in the car immediately following the SUV so he could keep an eye on his prize. Clemente was thought to be a rising star in Management. A comeback of sorts. He was rising even more than those who still stood above him could even realize. They would know soon enough when they were replaced.

  He had almost died two years ago at the hands of an old enemy. A bothersome Episcopal minister, Reverend Michael had beaten him badly but he had managed to survive, even if his rehabilitation had taken months. That only gave him the time he needed to come up with a viable plan.

  He gathered around his hospital bed the lieutenants who had come through what happened in Richmond and given them their orders. They were to keep working as a cell within Management, known only to themselves. The rest of Management had not discovered them so all was not lost. Not by a long shot.

  Clemente had known for some time about a former Management operative, Mark Whiting who had successfully gone over to the opposing forces, the Circle and had risen in the ranks at the Federal Reserve based in Richmond. Whiting had run out of town not too long after Clemente’s beating and just ahead of a hit squad from Management. No one really knew where he was anymore. Clemente didn’t really care. He had other things on his mind but for a while Mark had proved useful.

  He had discovered that Mark had also spent the last years of his career at the Reserve quietly stealing millions by shaving off amounts from Management accounts that no one would ever notice. They were so small, but so continuous that over time millions of dollars had been drained.

  Clemente had tripped over the plan almost accidentally when he was looking for his own way to create an army. He had dreams that involved reshaping Management into the force it had once been in the world. That was going to take a real army and a lot of money.

  He had piggybacked on Whiting’s idea and taken larger amounts but still small enough to avoid notice, at least until he could take enough power that no one would say much of anything to him.

  He was tired of being pushed around by Management operatives who had grown accustomed to a softer way of life. They had forgotten what it had cost to get this far and if someone didn’t step in soon, the Circle was going to take enough away that it would become close to impossible to regain a footing.

  Clemente wasn’t going to let that happen, even if his methods were going to have to be a little harsh. They had already quietly purged a few of the weaker members from their cell. Such a disappointment but they were given a proper burial in a potter’s field. Clemente had pulled the trigger himself on each one of them. Personal responsibility was very important to him.

  They didn’t suffer, he thought.

  The car ahead slowed to let the two lead cars, a BMW and an older sedan glide in front of them. It was only a thirty minute ride to the private landing strip where a plane was waiting for them but Clemente wasn’t going to relax till the son of one of the original twenty enemies was safely locked away under his command. Clemente had plans for Harry Weiskopf.

  The thumb drive had eluded Clemente and he had taken a beating from that sanctimonious priest trying to capture it. The incident in Savannah had almost cost him his life but in the end, something good came of it all.

  That’s the way it generally worked, thought Clemente. Stay calm, look for the solution.

  He was confined to a hospital bed for months as the bones in his back repaired and then more time in a rehabilitation facility as he learned to walk again and regained his strength.

  Right from the start, even before he was off of the painkillers he had started to come up with ideas.

  There was a Presidential election that was coming in less than two years but the incumbent, Ronald Hayes was a Circle operative and was most likely going to win a second term. Four more years of the Circle being in control of key moves was more than Clemente could stomach.

  The key was to somehow unsettle the American public, who were unaware of the two world-wide giants and shake their faith enough in the current sitting President. Make them beg for change.

  At the same time, the hidden Management cell could use circumstances to their advantage and take out enough Circle operatives to leave their side wounded and vulnerable, maybe even sloppy.

  The bigger picture, the grand idea had come to Clemente all at once. Really, it was obvious once it had settled in and he could see how much good it could do for everyone, especially in Management. Even the unsuspecting middle class would eventually benefit, whether they would ever know the details or not.

  They would start a civil war, a quiet war. They would organize and plan military operations exactly like an established country but carry it out in front of an unsuspecting American population. Most operations would have to be small in size and move through buildings or even subdivisions and the planning would have to be careful and well thought out. If the general public ever caught on to the plan, too much could be lost.

  Their ignorance to the bigger picture of the two world powers was necessary so that Management could more easily wield their power. Perhaps someday Management could step out from the shadows and operate on a more transparent basis. The idea made George Clemente smile. Then he could name himself the President and stop all of this nonsense. Instead of one man, one vote he could finally parse votes out based on wealth.

  It wasn’t a new idea. For hundreds of years that’s the way the civilized world had worked and had gotten along just fine. Frankly, democracy was in its infancy, thought Clemente and was proving to be mostly annoying.

  The war was only part of the plan. The financial institutions would have to be consolidated so that they could more easily be controlled and manipulated. In order to do that Senators and Congressmen who were part of Management had pushed through enough legislation to deregulate the banks and trading floors. The two could now write their own rules and they wasted no time figuring out tangled ways to make more money that quickly became hard to trace to their sources.

  It wasn’t long before the economy was struggling to right itself and the problems quickly spread to the rest of the world. Sometimes a good plan just comes together, thought Clemente.

  They pulled up to the airstrip and quickly loaded Harry Weiskopf onto the plane. If he wasn’t so valuable as a trading chip with the soft-hearted Circle, Clemente would have killed him on the spot and left him for the Circle to find.

  As it was, the roaring fire back at the Bartow house was going to be a problem for someone to explain to locals if they realized the interior of the house wasn’t exactly burning down. The exterior would have come down by now, exposing the frame of the inner rooms. It would somehow get taken care of by local Circle operatives, Clemente knew that, but it would also slow them down just a little and time was what he needed most these days.

  Time to get the war well underway and time to find the identity and whereabouts of the Keeper and the cell around him. Time to kill them all and finally destroy the Circle.

  Chapter Two

  A banjo, a machete, night vision goggles, a used Play Station. Detective Arnold Biggs liked to run lists through his head. It calmed him down, helped him to focus. He needed to focus if he was going to be able to pull this off and not end up dead.

  His teenage son, Maynard had spent his first real paycheck on a big splurge. A banjo, a machete, night vision goggles and a used Play Station. Arnold smiled
just thinking about it and felt his breathing get a little easier. He had been way too young when he accidentally became a father and still remembered what it was like when money crossed paths with youth.

  The detective was standing on the edge of the three-story brick building, ready to run. He had mapped out the route and was playing it in his head over and over again. Go down the old black iron fire escape along one side of the empty tobacco warehouse. Take the turns as fast as he could on his busted knee. It would have to hold up long enough to let him take a few more steps, get down into the alley and along the old pavers.

  The detective was only in his early forties and had only been made detective after putting together who had been responsible for a string of murders in the quiet West End of Richmond, Virginia just a couple of years ago, where he had been a patrol cop for years. He had really liked one of the victims, old man Blazney and the whole thing had felt a little personal.

  It was unfortunate that it had turned out to be a deputy named Oscar Newman, a fellow law enforcement officer who just seemed to lose it one day and went on a rampage. In the end, he was shot down by an old lady, the mother in law of a friend of the detective, when Newman broke into their house and shot up the place.

  When Biggs was made a detective they had immediately paired him with an older detective, Jason Busby, Buster to everyone else, who at first had mostly grunted out orders and made him drive.

  Detective Biggs knew enough about how to get along with his elders to not ask too many questions and quickly carried out orders. Not only did he learn a lot and fast but he earned Buster’s trust at the same time.

  It was the only reason they had ended up standing watch for Rodney Parrish, against direct orders on a couple of flat rooftops. If the snitch was telling the truth that would put him right in the path of Parrish. Biggs long suspected Parrish of a lot of things but had been warned off of him. Parrish, though had finally crossed the line.

  Detective Biggs was a hulking figure and at least twice Parrish’s size. His meaty hands resembled a catcher’s mitt and could easily throw Parrish around like a doll. He was looking forward to the satisfying thud Parrish would make when he hit the ground.

  Biggs dropped his shoulders and let out the breath he was holding in a rush of air. Just a couple of years of being a detective and the entire thing was about to go to hell for all the right reasons.

  He blinked his eyes hard to let go of the image of the woman’s dead body so he could concentrate on the alley.

  He tapped his gun again, a light tap. His heart was already pounding and the feel of the cold metal calmed his nerves just enough.

  Something darted by the alley and his nerves gave into old training and immediately reacted.

  “Now,” he said in an excited whisper as he ran a few steps, the rooftop gravel crunching under his thick-soled shoes. “Dammit,” he whispered. It was just a rat.

  No one was around but the pressure was weighing on his chest. Doing the right thing seemed downright stupid but living with himself if he didn’t would have been a long, hard road and he wasn’t willing to walk it this time. He wasn’t sure why but that was one dead body too much. He could figure out all of the reasons later.

  Consequences were a hard thing to live with sometimes. That was something he was always trying to teach Maynard.

  The rat that had suddenly darted out of the alley down below, startling Biggs, was followed closely by a lean yellow cat. It had been just enough to make Biggs jump. He was glad Buster couldn’t see him from where he was standing down below.

  He would have jumped too, thinking Biggs had actually seen something and then called him an asshole for shaking him out of his calm. No one would have even cracked a smile. Parrish was that much trouble.

  Biggs pushed out the worry of what this was going to cost both of them and kept watch on the narrow backstreet that ran down between the old brick office buildings. He was standing on the roof of the old warehouse, determined to nab Parrish.

  Most people thought of Parrish as a thief and a local numbers runner, even a sound guy for some barely talented hip-hop bands. Definitely not worth this much trouble.

  Biggs had his own suspicions for a long time though that involved a lot more if he could just prove it. Only problem was that Parrish was protected by too many legit people and for reasons that Arnold Biggs didn’t completely know yet. He had bits and pieces of the answers and that’s what made all of this so dangerous. In the past he couldn’t be sure if pursuing Parrish was only going to cost him his career and the start of a decent pension fund without yielding some kind of satisfying conclusion. The dead body had tipped the scales even if grabbing Parrish would set off some people.

  Lieutenant Greevey had given a direct order more than once to leave Parrish alone but Arnold Biggs knew right away that the day would come and it wouldn’t be possible. Buster knew it too. They did a nice impression of paying attention and without a word went back to work.

  They knew better than to even try to have a conversation inside the police station. There were eyes everywhere and they couldn’t be sure who was watching and who cared. Greevey was fond of saying that he was part of management, for what that was worth and they could be too if they would just follow orders. Detective Biggs decided he was as far into management as he wanted to be and was just fine staying a detective.

  “Buster,” he said, “Come on, let’s get going. There’s still a few more people we can talk to about the Queen’s thing.”

  He had started the day with the idea of just working a case. Parrish was not on his radar, not really.

  There was a string of robberies that were bugging him, mostly because he couldn’t make everything fit together.

  A growing list of small mom and pop stores had been broken into through air vents followed by a quick smash and grab of mostly cigarettes and baby formula. Both could fetch someone a quick profit on the local black market and not leave much of a trace. Several of the stores had security cameras but they were always disabled before the thief entered the building. The latest break-in was in the Queen Stop ‘N Shop.

  Somehow by late afternoon that trail wound itself around and had led both detectives to this place, standing watch for Parrish on the top of old brick warehouses in what was still known as the tobacco district, in the hot sun with no shade. It didn’t matter that it was fall in Richmond. The sun was relentless.

  Biggs kept watch on the alleys below as he ran the pieces of the case through his head again, trying to see where Parrish fit in but the trail wasn’t clear.

  That didn’t mean it wasn’t there. If Parrish was a part of it, there was something larger going on with all of it. Both detectives were sure of it.

  Looked at separately, the robberies didn’t form much of a pattern and seemed at best, random attempts to make some quick cash.

  However, Biggs approached every new case by laying out everything he knew about the crimes in long lists. He loved lists.

  Where the victims lived, if they went to the same diner, even their religion and if they showed up anywhere on a Sunday. Things like that mattered in a small town like Richmond, Virginia.

  “Always go local. Even a crook has to lead some kind of life,” said Buster. It was one of the best things Biggs had ever heard him say.

  That’s how he started to spot the beginnings of a strange pattern. All of the robberies stretched neatly across only two police precincts and all of the owners belonged to the same men’s civic club, some kind of circle. Biggs still needed to ask more about that.

  There were other stores in the area, stores that had more merchandise or had locations that would seem to make better targets. None of those owners though had the same connection. Someone was targeting these particular stores.

  A pattern could be as telling as a fingerprint even if Biggs couldn’t tell what it was just yet.

  Biggs suspected the Browning brothers who were always getting into trouble and were known for just this kind of heist. Only cat
ch was that they weren’t smart enough to make up a plan and they wouldn’t have thought to take care of the cameras.

  They usually acted on impulse and hoped everything would turn out alright. That’s why they were constantly being caught and charged with something but just as often evidence would go missing or a witness would lose their nerve. They were being protected. Both detectives suspected they were doing favors for cops on the side, whether it was of their own free will or not.

  “They’re in someone’s pocket,” said Buster, in that gravelly voice that only years of smoking could produce. His wife worked for nearby Phillip Morris and still got the company perk of a free carton a week.

  “That part is obvious,” said Biggs at the time. “The question is whose and do we care?” Biggs learned early in life that every town has its lines that you don’t cross.

  They stopped the younger brother, Paulie Browning as he was coming out of the free clinic run by the Episcopal Diocese that was set up in an area just across the dividing line of Main Street. On one side sat St. John’s Church where Patrick Henry made a famous speech about liberty or death next to rows of carefully renovated houses that had been constructed just after Sherman’s march.

  On the other side, not too far past the rows of old businesses that fronted Main Street sat one of the largest housing projects in the country, Gilpin Court, named for an actor who had been born there on Charity Street. Its other nickname was Apostle because so many of the streets had been named after St. James, St. Luke or one of the other original twelve men. Things hadn’t quite worked out the way someone had hoped for most of the residents. The choice between liberty or death seemed to have already been made.

  Paulie was at the clinic on a regular basis to get help for his diabetes and was known to stop by every week at around the same time.

  They caught him coming out and he had startled for a moment when he saw the detectives but the small spark of fear was quickly replaced with a little bravado.