Retribution (The Harry Starke Novels Book 7)

by Blair Howard

  Yeah well, maybe…. I thought, then suddenly realized that, thanks to Bob, we at least had a photo of what lay inside one of those huge rooms. Or at least I hoped we did.

  Hell, we have a whole lot of figuring out to do, and that’s no lie.

  We scrambled through the thick vegetation between the south end of the building and out onto Sixth Street, and then just stood there for a moment, wondering what to do next. We had to do something. It was now almost seven o’clock, and the sun was halfway up.

  “Bob,” I said, “you’re going to have to go fetch the Jeep and then come and get me. If Shady spots me, we’re screwed. We’ll lose him. Third Street is too exposed; I suggest you head that way, east, then turn left on Euclid and huff it.”

  “Jeez, Harry. It’s gotta be more than a quarter mile.”

  “Yes it is, so the quicker, the better. I’ll wait here, out of sight.”

  He cut me a dirty look, and then nodded, and left for Euclid at a jog.

  Me? I hunkered down among the trees like a lost chimp and waited, and waited… and waited, until finally I heard the sweet sound of that finely tuned 5.9-liter V8. I crawled out onto the road covered in bits and pieces of vegetation, twigs, and no doubt a couple nasty critters. Oh how I needed a hot shower.

  “What the hell took you so long?”

  “Jeez, Harry, it was a long way. I got here as quick as I could. Now for Christ’s sake, get in and let’s get outa here before someone spots us.”

  And so we did.

  Chapter 15

  Thursday, Mid-Morning,

  It was only eight o’clock; I felt like I’d been away from home for more than a week, but it was only four hours.

  “Hey,” I said as he turned back onto Euclid. “Take a left onto Third, then a right on Church. We’ll hit Hardee’s on Twenty-fifth at Exit 25. I need coffee in the worst way, and I could eat a dead dog between two loaves of bread. You know they make the world’s best biscuits, right?”

  He cast me a sideways, semi-disgusted look, and said, “Yeah, Harry, everybody knows that. I’ll get me three-sausage egg and cheese, I think, and tots. Gotta have some tots, and maybe one of those little turnovers….”

  Damn, my mouth was watering.

  Less than fifteen minutes later we were on I-75, heading south back to Chattanooga, stuffing our faces with food that I, had I not known better, would have thought had been made in heaven. They really do make the best biscuits in the word. The coffee? Well, it was hot, and bitter, but it sure as hell was no Dark Italian Roast. Still, it filled the gap, and that was what I needed.

  By the time we reached the Ooltewah exit, I had finished everything but the coffee; Bob was still stuffing his face with sausage, egg, and cheese. No matter. I needed to talk anyway.

  “So?” I asked. “What do you think?”

  “About what?” he said through a mouthful of egg. “The Old Woolen Mill? Piece of cake.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Yes, Harry. I’m kidding. The damned place is a veritable Fort Knox but without the gold. How the hell do you figure we’re going to get in there? Because we’ve got to. Ain’t no way we can bust in through the overhead door and win, and those steel doors, all of them, wow.” He was shaking his head. “It’s not gonna happen. We have to get in without them knowing, and we have to catch ’em with their pants down. There’s only four of us, and God only knows how many of them. They see us coming, we’re toast.”

  I didn’t answer. I knew he was right. On the face of it, it looked impossible. I closed my eyes, and listened to the big tires humming on the road. Again and again I imagined the exterior of that building. I stood again on the blocks and peered in through the broken window. I’d never seen such a huge room. When we were reconnoitering the place I’d roughly paced the exterior wall of one of the sections. I’d made it to be at least sixty-five yards, so it was maybe two hundred feet long and… whew, eighty or ninety feet wide?

  Jeez, that’s more than half a football field.

  In my mind, I made a pass down the center of the virtual room. Dozens of steel I-beams, each more than twenty feet tall and maybe two feet square, supported the even bigger steel joists that held up the floors above.

  I opened my eyes. We were just passing Volkswagen Drive, heading down the hill toward Hamilton Place.

  Maybe another twenty or thirty minutes and I can hit the shower, I thought, and then my thoughts drifted back to the Woolen Mill, to my nemesis in the making.

  I closed my eyes, and was back in the parking lot on Third. I walked across the street and into the tiny ally—what was it called? Bellweather, that was it. Through Bellweather, around the two-story addition, across the concrete slab, past the steel doors, the concrete blocks… and then I had it. I sat up in my seat.

  “Those windows, Bob,” I said. “You mentioned bolt cutters for the chains on the doors, and you’re right; it would take as big a set as any I’ve ever seen to cope with them, but the window frame….”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, a huge grin on his face. “They would be made of some sort of cheap, soft alloy, maybe even pot metal. It wouldn’t take a whole lot to cut a section out of one of them. The blocks, the concrete blocks: they’re ideal.”

  “Yup. You got it. We have our way in…. Wait, we do have a bolt cutter, right?”

  We didn’t, but ten minutes later, after a short stop at the Ace Hardware store on Lee, we did, and I was able to relax and enjoy the ride up Lookout Mountain; something I was rarely able to do. That road needs every bit of a driver’s attention, especially during bad weather.

  By ten o’clock we were back at the house, and I was in the best of moods. Had it not been for the shadow of Henry’s death hanging over me and my family, I would have been looking forward to a wonderful day despite the rain that was now coming down in sheets.

  The top of the mountain and, by default, my new home, was shrouded in mist. We were, at least for a while, among the clouds, just as the two great armies that faced off on the mountaintop more than 150 years ago had been. The Battle Above the Clouds, they called it afterward. November 24, 1863.

  One of these days I’m going to get one of those fancy metal detectors and take a look at Amanda’s garden. Who knows what I could find?

  -----

  We swept into the house to find everyone seated in the living room, gazing out at what on a clear day would have been one of Tennessee’s finest views. Today the weather was foggy, raining, and quite miserable, but I wasn’t, at least not then, but….

  My father and Rose were in a somber mood; she’d obviously been crying, and my stomach knotted in something akin to rage. Yes, she was my stepmother, but in the years since my own mother had passed, she’d treated me as her own. Never once had she ever used that god-awful term in front of me, to introduce me or to refer to me. You know the one, the “stepson” thing. It was something I was extremely sensitive to and, for all intents and purposes, she had been my mother for almost half my lifetime, something even I found to be a little incongruous, considering her age.

  I went to the wet bar and poured myself a drink—three fingers of Laphroaig over a single ice cube. Yes, it was early, too damned early, but I needed it, and it would be the only one I would allow myself, considering the night ahead. I also made a gin and tonic for Rose. I took it her, and sat down beside her.

  She turned her head toward me, accepted the drink, and gifted me with a look that was pitiful to behold. I put my arm around her, and pulled her over to kiss the top of her head. She sniffed against my shoulder, but after a moment she sat up again, gave me a wan smile, and took a large sip of her gin.

  I’ve always been a bit of a hothead, a quick to anger, act first and think about it later sort of guy. That afternoon, though, I was experiencing something quite different. I was burning up inside and I was icy cold, both at the same time. Every time I thought about Henry, which was almost every minute, I experienced white-hot flashes of anger. I knew I needed to calm down, hence the La
phroaig, and I sure as hell tried, but it didn’t help a whole lot and… well, God help Shady, or James, or whoever it was that broke my kid brother’s neck. I tried to shake it off, but I couldn’t, and I knew I had to. If not, if in the coming hours I let my rage get the better of me, it might well kill me.

  I needed something. I looked at Amanda. She knew what was going on in my head. I could tell by the look on her face. She raised her eyebrows in question. I shook my head, turned to look out the window at the thickening fog, then took a deep breath and rose to my feet.

  “You have a minute?” I asked Amanda.

  She followed me down the hall to our bedroom; once we were both inside, I closed the door.

  “What is it?” she asked, a questioning frown on her face.

  “This.” I slipped my arms around her waist and pulled her into my arms. For a long moment I held her tightly, then I kissed her, gently and with more feeling than I knew I had in me. Then I stepped away. I didn’t have time for what I knew would happen next if I let it. The kiss was short and sweet, but it was what I needed. She’d always had a calming effect on me, which was what I was hoping for, and she’d never failed. Quite suddenly the black cloud over my head lifted and I felt better. I pulled her to me, kissed her again, and whispered in her ear: “Thank you.”

  “For what? What was that about?”

  “Nothing really. I just… well, I wanted to tell you how much I love you, and that seemed as good a way as any to do it. Why, are you complaining?”

  “No, sir. Not at all. It was just unexpected, that’s all.”

  “Well, you know me. I’m the king of the unexpected.”

  “That, my friend, is an understatement, and oh how I sometimes wish you weren’t.”

  “Oh come on now. You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

  She nodded as I opened the door. “That’s true, Harry,” she said as she brushed past me into the hall, “but sometimes I wish…. Oh how I wish….”

  She didn’t need to say more. I knew exactly what she meant.

  Chapter 16

  Thursday Afternoon, Early

  After our jaunt to Cleveland, lunch was a quiet affair, something of an anticlimax. We ate our salads pretty much in silence. My head was back in Cleveland, outside that damned huge edifice, trying to figure out an approach that would work.

  Four of us! Just four. Not enough, but it’s all we have. And if what Benny said is true, they’ve got maybe a couple of dozen. Five to one. Not good. Okay, so we have some planning to do.

  It was going to be a long afternoon, and an even longer evening.

  I looked around the table. It was a somber group, and no wonder, but we had to get to it.

  “Kate, Bob, Jacque, come with me please. We’ll go to the dining room.” I rose to my feet and turned away from the table.

  “What about us?” Amanda asked.

  I shook my head. “You don’t need to be a part of this. It will only mess with your head. You too, Dad.” Big mistake. I should have known better.

  I thought she was going to explode. “Damn it, Harry. If you think for one minute that you’re going to leave me out of this, you can forget it. I need to know what’s going on. I need to know what the hell you’re planning,” and she folded her arms, her face rigid, muscles tight.

  “Me too,” August said quietly.

  Even Rose was nodding.

  “Fine. We might as well stay here in the kitchen then, close to the coffee.”

  They visibly relaxed; I did not. What we had to discuss was not for the faint of heart.

  “Let’s go get the hardware,” I said. We did, and we laid it all out across the kitchen counters. Amanda, Rose and my father stared at it, aghast. There was enough weaponry and accoutrements laid across those counters to start a small war.

  I pulled up the address on Google Maps, then spread the printouts we’d made of the building out over the kitchen table so that everyone could see them, and then I began.

  “Okay, so here’s what we have so far, and it’s not much. We figure they’re holed up somewhere in this section at the south end of the building, here.” I pointed to the spot on one of the prints.

  “This is where we saw Shady, and round about here there’s a pile of concrete blocks set against the wall under a window. All of the doors are steel and secured with heavy chains and padlocks, so we’ll make our entrance through that window.”

  I pulled up the photo Bob had taken of the room.

  “This is what we’ll be getting into.” They looked at the photo. It wasn’t a very good one, but it was good enough to provide some insight as to the vastness of the place. The room was filled with what looked like builder’s equipment—scaffolding, sections of steel forms for pouring concrete, lumber of every shape and size, some old and obviously recycled, some new; thousands of concrete blocks; bricks, wire, rebar, and a whole host of other stuff in the darker regions I was unable to identify.

  “Looks busy,” Bob said. “Negotiating all that in the dark will be a nightmare.”

  I nodded. “But there are street lamps on the west side of the building and a fire station across the street. The windows are huge, and there was light coming in from outside. I think that once our eyes get used to the low light, we should be able to see well enough to find our way around.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” August said. “There must be at least a dozen stairwells in there. Unless they have windows, those will be pitch black.”

  He was right.

  But…. “I’m hoping we won’t have to go to the upper floors. I’m banking on them being somewhere on the ground floor. But you’re right. We have LEDs for the weapons, and some small flashlights, but we’ll use them only if we have to. Anyway, from there, we’ll make our way to the south end where, I hope, we’ll find them. That’s it. That’s all I have.”

  “If they don’t find us first,” Kate grumbled quietly.

  “What about outside?” Jacque asked.

  “What about it?”

  “You don’t think that maybe they’ll have someone on lookout?”

  “They didn’t this morning. We’ll just have to hope they don’t tonight, that they’re confident enough not to bother.”

  “So your plan is to climb in through the window and wander around until you stumble onto somebody?” Amanda was angry.

  “Er… no.”

  “Then what? That’s what it sounds like to me.”

  I shrugged. She closed her eyes, bit her lower lip, and shook her head. I didn’t answer, because I had no good answer, and because she was right: wandering around in that vast cavern of a building was precisely what we would be doing. But hell, what choice did we have? It was either that and hope that we could keep the element of surprise, or call in the local police, which I didn’t want to do. I wanted Shady Tree, and I wanted Ren and Stimpy (as I’d nicknamed Duvon James and Henry Gold two years ago), and I wanted them all to myself.

  “So we take Bob’s Jeep,” I continued, ignoring the glare Amanda gave me, “and we leave here at midnight. That will put us in Cleveland around 12:45, give or take a few minutes. We park the Jeep here, in the lot on the north side of 282 Church Street.” I pointed to a spot on Google Maps. “It’s out of sight of the mill and maybe a hundred yards from its north end.”

  “No,” Kate said. “That’s no good. If we need to get away in a hurry that’s a long way to run. Here, right here.” She touched the photo with the tip of her finger. “This is where we need to park, under the big tree at the north east corner, up against the wall. It will be dark, even darker under the tree.”

  I stared down at the photo, and then at the laptop, deep in thought. “Okay,” I said, nodding. “That makes sense. Bob? Any thoughts? Jacque?”

  There were none.

  “Okay then. It’s not much, but….”

  “Call it off, Harry,” August said. “You’re going to get yourself and your friends killed. Call in the police. Let them do it. I don’t want to lose another son.
”

  That was exactly what I’d been afraid of when I tried to separate them from it. Damn. I sure as hell wasn’t going to do as he asked, but I owed it to the others to ask.

  “Bob, Kate, Jacque. How about it? You want out?”

  “Before you answer that,” August said. He leaned forward, put his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together in front of him. “I’d like you to tell me exactly what it is you expect to achieve. What is your objective? And please be specific.”

  That’s my old man. Always the lawyer.

  “My objective is to get my hands on Shady Tree, him and whoever else is responsible for Henry’s murder.”

  “And do what?” he asked. “Are you looking for justice or retribution? Do you intend to kill them?”

  I stared across the table at him, my teeth clamped tight together.

  “Because if that’s what you intend to do,” he continued, “I will not allow it. I will not allow my son to commit a capital crime, no matter the reason. Harry, I will stop you. The minute you leave here I will call the Cleveland Police Department and tell them where you’re going. I need you to give me your word that that is not your intention.”

  “I want them in jail,” I answered. “That’s my prime objective. They will, of course, resist. Someone, maybe more than one, maybe one or more of us, is likely to get hurt or killed. That’s out of my control. If it happens, it happens. But I promise you I am not going up there with the express intention of killing anyone. You have my word.” I meant it, too.

  He nodded, and leaned back in his seat. “Good enough.”

  “So I’ll repeat the question,” I said. “Bob, Kate, Jacque, you want out?

  Bob was the first to answer. “Not me.”

  Kate stared at me, her lips drawn tight. I thought for a moment she was going to side with my father, but very slowly she shook her head. I smiled at her.

  “Jacque?”

  “If you three are in, so am I.”

  I nodded, but said nothing. Instead, I walked out of the house and onto the patio. I sat down at one of the tables, under an umbrella. The seat was wet, but I didn’t care. It was still raining, just a slight drizzle. I set my elbows on the table, my chin in my hands, and I stared out into the thick white mist.