Betrayal: A Red Dog Thriller (The Altered Book 2)

by Blou Bryant

  “I don’t know much about their business. Some of them, probably, nothing too organized though. We know Jessica Golde’s been looking for me for three years, so I assumed it was her.”

  “Might be, I doubt it’s police,” said Custer. “It’d be public, can’t arrest a bunch like that without charges, publicity, that sort of thing.”

  Patterson grunted, “Of course they can, the government controls the media, they hide what they want.”

  “Perhaps. Even if the cops don’t have them, someone’s working with this gang he’s looking for.”

  “Yup.”

  “So you need to get in, see what’s going on, and you want to use my connections in the PD?” guessed Custer.

  “It’d be dangerous for you to get involved,” said Patterson.

  “True,” replied Custer. “That don’t bother me much.”

  “I know,” said Patterson, “… just saying.”

  Wyatt said, “It doesn’t have to be. It’ll be an information gathering mission, not a frontal attack.”

  The three sat in silence, pondering the dilemma, occasional slurps of coffee interrupting their thoughts. Finally, Custer said, “Last time, you had a plan. Got one other than going in and looking around?”

  Wyatt said, “Yes, well, no. I thought you’d get me in there and I’d look for my friends.”

  “Just wander around, eh?”

  “Sounds dumb, when you say it like that,” said Wyatt.

  “Not that dumb. Would you know the dealers if you saw them?”

  Wyatt nodded. “I’m good with faces, I never forget one. And these guys are people I’d remember.”

  “I could get you in for a day, how about that?”

  Custer put up a beefy hand. “Wait a minute, now. Wouldn’t they recognize him?”

  Custer said, “No, I’d dress him up as a janitor. Nobody sees the janitor. Even the Queen of England, nobody’d look twice if she was in coveralls, crown or no crown. Come to think of it,” he said, and guffawed, “Big Charlie used to show up with a crown now and then.”

  “You’d come with me?” asked Wyatt.

  Custer laughed. “Hell no. I’m union. People see me working and they’ll know something is up.” He pulled out a phone and sent a text. Thirty seconds later, the cell buzzed. “You’ve got a job starting tomorrow morning. Show up here at seven and I’ll have someone bring you to the station.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. I still got pull. Seven here, eight at the station.”

  Patterson interrupted, “Make it six, I’ll give him some toys to help.”

  Custer sighed. “Always with the toys. Can’t do anything straight, can you?

  “Get with the times, old man.” Patterson said. “Wyatt. Do you have a phone?”

  “The girls and I share one, it’s so the Dogs can contact me if they need to.”

  “Give it to me,” said Patterson. He took it to the back and returned five minutes later with four new phones. “These are designed so you can’t be tracked or identified. GPS is enabled only when you need it for searches and they only ping the network when active. If someone tries to backtrace or hack them, the screen goes red and they shut off. Give the others to your friends, and keep this one. I programmed in our number and the numbers of the other phones.”

  “What about my old phone?” Wyatt asked. It was the only way Sandra could contact him.

  “I destroyed it, but the number forwards to this one. Make sure you type only with one hand, switching often and never—ever—use voice recognition,” said Patterson.

  “Why?” asked Wyatt, “I mean the typing, voice rec makes sense.”

  “Typing can identify you. We all have our own unique speed of hitting the keys. If you’re in the system, it could flag you as easily as facial recognition.”

  That made sense too. Joe had spent enough time tracking him on his old cell phone, that’d still be in the system. How much of him—it—survived, Wyatt didn’t know and didn’t want to find out, not at least by leading Jessica to him.

  “On that subject, a friend put some cream on my face...”

  “To obscure facial recognition?”

  “But I’ve showered, it’s been two days.”

  Patterson laughed, “Doesn’t matter. The stuff doesn’t work, not in the slightest.”

  Wyatt’s face flushed and his heart pounded hard in his chest. “You’re kidding? They’ve been able to track me all along?”

  “Yes and no. It depends on what your profile is. The systems have billions of data points, it works well for most people, who have social media accounts, cars and driver’s licenses, credit cards, that sort of thing.”

  “I’ve got nothing,” said Wyatt.

  “Exactly. That’s probably why you’ve not been caught yet.”

  “Yet… doesn’t sound positive, is there anything I can do?”

  Patterson jotted a number down on a piece of paper. “Try this guy, Seymour, he might be able to help. He’s a hacker, great at finding people and probably great at hiding them too.”

  Wyatt took it with a “Thanks,” committed it to memory and ripped it to pieces.

  Custer laughed. “You’re just like him, a crazy wannabe spy.”

  “Nothin wannabe about it,” grinned his friend.

  Wyatt looked at the old right-winger with new respect. “Thanks,” he said, appreciating the help the two men had given him already. “Someday, I’ll pay you guys back for everything you’ve done.

  Custer said, “Life pays us back. Got this place, been together three years. Good retirement for both of us, all thanks to you.”

  “I’ll be here in the morning then,” he said, wondering how to spend his day and decided to see if he could join the girls. “How much do I owe you for brunch?” Wyatt asked and smiled at the resulting expressions. “Fine, thanks. See you in the morning.”

  Chapter 10

  Wyatt left the restaurant and decided that a disguise would help when he joined the girls and stopped into a store to buy track pants, a light shirt and a backpack. With a brief stop to change in the washroom at a McDonald’s, and after checking schedules, Wyatt got on a bus headed to the outskirts of town.

  The trip required one transfer and took almost an hour, what with the bus stopping every single block. He didn’t mind the pace; it gave him a chance to organize his thoughts. The Dogs needed a long-term place to stay, but Sandra was on that. She hadn’t called yet and while he hoped that meant she was busy, he also was worried it meant the last of them were captured. There wasn’t anything he could do about it.

  His goal was to find the captured members of the Red Dogs. Custer and Patterson were probably right when they said the group wasn’t likely in the hands of the cops, but he still wanted to find out more about the gang connections to the police. Anyhow, he thought, if he wanted them off his back, he needed information.

  That left the drug gang, whoever they were, so he’d reunite with his friends and find out more about the third site as inconspicuously as possible. He checked it out on Google Street View with his new phone and felt even more strongly that the captured Dogs might be there. The place was surrounded by barbed wire and lacked the excessively positive corporate messaging that covered most facilities.

  Houses and business were more spread out now as the bus left residential areas behind and moved through a business park. Wyatt pulled the bell blocks early, got off, swung the backpack over his shoulders and started jogging. He considered pulling the hoodie over his head to avoid facial recognition but figured that would make him stand out.

  It was warm, despite being late fall, and he settled into an easy pace. A few minutes later, he caught his first glimpse of his target. The building wasn’t as large as it’d looked online, and sat in the middle of a grassy field, surrounded by wire. The entrance was on the other side, so he followed the road instead.

  There was a parking lot on the far side, a fleet of plain white vans in a row. No insignia on their si
des, that was suspicious. There were as well only a few other cars in the parking lot, despite it being the middle of the day.

  As he turned down the street leading to the entrance, he saw three figures crouched along the wall of the building. It was the girls, they were bent over and slowly making their way around the boxed air conditioning unit, their heads just below its top.

  Wyatt raised a hand in an attempt to get their attention, but they were facing away and didn’t see him. He almost yelled out when he saw a security guard walking around the other side of the unit, coming to the corner behind the girls.

  With only seconds to spare, he tripped, deliberately, and went flying off the road into the grass ditch, yelling out in fake pain. Well, at least it had been fake until his right wrist hit the ground, hard. Wyatt winced at the pain and it took a moment longer than expected to stagger to his feet, moaning as loud as he could.

  Getting up on one knee, he glanced up and saw the guard had turned to look at him. Wyatt waved to him, “Help?” he yelled out.

  This drew the attention of the girls, and alerted them to the presence of the guard. Hannah snuck up behind the man, who was watching Wyatt, but not moving. With one touch from Hannah, he fell to the ground.

  Wyatt turned his attention to the entrance, where a guard was watching him. From the angle, he hoped—believed—that he couldn’t see the girls. Just in case, Wyatt stood up and waved, intent on keeping the man’s eyes on him.

  He limped forward as Ira and Ari dragged the prone man back behind the unit. Hannah gave him a little underhand motion, towards the entrance.

  Under his breath, he muttered, “I thought I said to keep inconspicuous,” and continued to limp towards the gate. “Hey,” he yelled.

  “Private property,” the man yelled back.

  Not on this side of the fence, thought Wyatt, but didn’t say it. He limped off the grass and back onto the road. At his slow pace, it took a minute for him to arrive at the small box that served as a gatehouse. The guard stood in the doorway like a nervous dog, his rear inside and his nose out, sniffing for danger.

  Wyatt made sure to face the entrance when he arrived, forcing the guard to step out and face him, his back now to the three women that were inching forward. The big building behind them was windowless, they had that to protect them from discovery, as long as nobody left the building while they snuck out.

  Wyatt kept his eyes focused on the guard, “Can I get help?” he asked.

  “Hey, it’s private property. Step off or I call security.”

  “Isn’t that you?” asked Wyatt.

  The man looked confused and said, “Yes, but I’m in charge of the gate.”

  “This is the gate. Whatever. Can you call an ambulance? I think I broke my leg,” he said.

  “Doesn’t look like it. You walked over here.”

  “My wrist feels broken too, aren’t you going to call an ambulance?”

  “Use your own phone,” the guard replied.

  The three girls were now behind the hut, only feet from the guard. Ari had a knife in hand and made a small stabbing motion.

  Wyatt said, “No!”

  The guard jumped at the exclamation and regarded Wyatt as if he was a crazy man. “You won’t use your own phone?”

  Hannah had a big smile on her face and blew him a silent kiss. Wyatt repressed a grimace and stepped to his right.

  “No. Cell phones ‘cause cancer. Fine, if you won’t help me, I’ll walk, but I’ll see you in court.” He almost laughed as Ari hefted Ira up to pull one of her throwing disks from where it was stuck in the wood beside a camera, its cable sliced clean in half.

  “What?” the guard asked.

  “That’s right, I’m going to sue you for not helping. What’s your name?” Wyatt took another step to the right. The guard turned to him and now faced the length of the fence, away from the girls, who crept nonchalantly to the road in the opposite direction.

  “I’m not giving you my name.”

  “But it’s on your shirt,” said Wyatt, pointing to a tag that read, ‘Brad’.

  “Then why’d you ask? This is private property, I’m calling the police, you’re trespassing.”

  Wyatt took a step back. “How’s this, I’m on public property, don’t get your panties in a twist,” Wyatt said as the girls continued up the street. “I’ll leave and find an ambulance on my own. Who’s your boss?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to file a formal complaint. What’s his number?”

  “We don’t take complaints.”

  Wyatt considered pushing his luck and asking more questions but gave up, and threw his arms in the air in mock frustration. “Fine, I’m leaving, but your mother would be ashamed that you didn’t help a stranger in need,” he said in as judgmental a voice as he could muster. With that and what he hoped was a dismissive turn of his back, he limped off in the opposite direction from his friends.

  As he rounded the corner, he looked back and saw the guard was still watching him. He continued to limp until he was no longer in view and then jogged around the business park. As he rounded another corner, he saw his three friends standing out front of a small corner store, soft drinks in hand.

  Hannah handed him a strawberry Coke she had picked up for him and smiled sweetly. “Good timing,” she said, and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek.

  Wyatt glared at her in mock disgust. “What happened to keeping it low key and watching the place?”

  “An opportunity presented itself,” she said. “Do you what to know what we found, or would you prefer to berate us for a while? I can go either way.”

  “You’re a dick,” he said with a grumble. “Go on, what’d you find out? Let’s walk while we talk, I don’t want the guard coming for a bag of chips on his break and finding us together.”

  “It’s not a real business, that’s for sure. The front door was locked and all the windows are not only blacked out, they’re bulletproof, I think. There are cameras everywhere, that doesn’t mean much, businesses are careful, but this looks high end. Speaking of which, we went through a few of the cars in the parking lot; they’ve got sophisticated trackers on them. Oh, and last but not least, they’re all the same model as the one we stole.”

  “Any sign of our friends?”

  “None, but we didn’t get inside.”

  “Fine, we’ll find a way to get more information. In the meantime, we need to call some guy Patterson recommended, he can erase us from the system. That goo that Rocky spread on our faces? It doesn’t work.”

  “How do you know?” Ari asked.

  Wyatt recounted his morning. Hannah didn’t remember Patterson, but she’d been locked in the back of a police car at the time. He fished the phones out of his backpack and gave three to the girls.

  “So, did you call the guy they told you to? He’s some hacker?”

  “No, I didn’t and I don’t know anything about him,” said Wyatt. “Patterson didn’t say much, only that he could help us figure out if we’re being tracked.”

  “You trust him?”

  “Don’t know.” Wyatt asked and took out his phone. “Let’s find out,” he said and dialed the number from memory.

  A man answered, “What?”

  “Seymour?” Wyatt asked.

  The person on the other end hung up. Wyatt looked at it in confusion and continued walking. His phone buzzed at the arrival of a text. Hold the phone farther away from your face. He did. Another appeared. Turn 360 degrees, keep the phone at arm’s length. He did this as well.

  “What was that?” asked Ari.

  “I don’t know, the guy hung up and then texted me, asked for that little spin.” Not sure of what to do or make of it, he continued walking, his friends following.

  As they looked for a bus, the phone rang. Unknown number. Wyatt answered, and before he could ask questions, the voice asked its own. “Who are you?”

  “Wyatt. Patterson gave me your name and number.”

  “Who are the gir
ls?”

  “Ari, Ira are the twins, Hannah is the one between them.”

  The person on the other end hung up again.

  Five minutes later, the phone rang again. Wyatt answered, “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I was checking on you, Wyatt Millar. And your friend, Hannah Murkshaw. And the other two.” the voice—Seymour—said. “Hand the phone to the one with the dreadlocks.”

  Wyatt passed it over to Ira. She listened for a short time, said no three times and handed the phone back to Wyatt. The phone switched to speakerphone on its own. “I’m Seymour and I’ll be in touch.” With that, the strange man hung up.

  “What was that?” Wyatt asked Ira.

  “He wanted to know who we are.”

  “And?”

  “He still doesn’t know,” she said with a satisfied smile.

  Wyatt stared at the phone and then his friends. “Well, that’s good for you two, but he found me and Hannah. That means others can. What do we do now?”

  Hannah shrugged. “Back to the HUC or wait for him to call back?”

  “Sure, let’s go back. He seemed a bit crazy. Let’s find a bus.”

  “Screw that, we got phones, order a car,” said Ari.

  “What about payment?”

  She pulled a bunch of money cards out of her pocket. “I took a few from the bag we found. Untraceable and perfect for a girl on the run.”

  Wyatt selected a cab from several in the area and it showed up only minutes later. As he shut the door, the car said, “Hello, Stephen, thank you for ordering from Cheryl. Where can I take you today?”

  Stephen? After hesitating briefly, he gave the address for the HUC.

  “I’m sorry, that address is not authorized. Where can I take you today?”

  “Why not?”

  “Where can I take you today?” the car repeated.

  Ari said, “It’s in a Reclamation Zone. A lot of cab owners black out parts of the city or people who look dangerous. Take us to Major and Twenty-Third,” she said. “We can walk from there.”