David Wolf series Box Set 2

by Jeff Carson

  “It’s the same unmarked Crown Vics that’ve been crawling all over town the last few days, I’m sure.” Nate sounded like he was standing in a waterfall. “Looks like they’re going after the cartel. They’re keeping their distance, that’s for sure … geez, there’s seven, eight vehicles. I saw light bars inside the rear windows. Definitely FBI … they’re gone.”

  Wolf stood and put the radio on his belt.

  “What do we do?” Baine asked.

  Wolf felt a vibration in his jeans pocket, pulled out the second phone he carried, and took in the caller’s ID—the white-skinned, tattooed guy from the storage locker.

  He pressed the button and put it to his ear.

  “Is this Wolf?”

  The background noise was loud.

  “Who’s this?” Wolf asked.

  “I said, is this Wolf?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I just wanted to let you know we’re on our way to get your son.”

  Wolf held his breath.

  “I’ll be in touch. Keep the phone on.”

  The phone went dead.

  Already at a full run, Wolf pocketed the phone and opened Baine’s truck door. Sitting behind the wheel, he reached up, finding the jingling keys still in the ignition, and fired it up.

  Baine jumped in the passenger seat. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Wolf reversed, turned the truck around, and jammed the brakes as Luke jumped in front of him.

  She ran to the back door and dove into the back seat. “What the heck is going on?” she asked. “Was that the Bureau trailing them?”

  Wolf nodded. “Yep.”

  “What are they up to?” Baine asked.

  Wolf stomped the accelerator, leaving Nate in a fresh cloud of dust as he turned onto the county road.

  Chapter 41

  Pope hung up and smiled to himself.

  Pulling out the map he’d printed off their satellite internet-enabled computer twenty minutes earlier, he placed a finger on the turnoff they’d just passed, then followed the road to the turn-off they needed.

  He leaned toward the windshield. “There’s a gradual turn left, and then we’re taking the next right turn after that.”

  Johnson was going too fast.

  “Right, right!”

  The truck careened sideways as he jammed the brakes, and they skidded past, missing the turn.

  “Idiot!”

  The train of trucks jammed their brakes behind them, and Pope heard sliding tires and then a pop of fender slamming into fender.

  Pope bared his teeth. “Go.”

  Johnson swallowed and leaned toward the windshield. Chalky dust came in through the cracked windows and it was impossible to see, but Johnson pressed the gas anyway, knowing he’d incur Pope’s wrath if he didn’t.

  The truck lurched and bounced as it passed through the drainage dip, and Pope held tight onto the roof bar. Through his flexed arm, he released the murderous rage he felt for the man next to him, threatening to rip the plastic handle clean off.

  “Sorry, boss,” Johnson said as they revved up onto the road and made their way in the right direction.

  He glanced in the rear-view and shook his head, watching two men climb back in the trucks, shaking fists at one another, like they were a traveling circus.

  Leaning back, he visualized murdering this Wolf guy one more time. Then he imagined murdering the numbnuts in charge of the FBI for losing Wolf in the first place.

  Pope shut his eyes and elbowed his window as hard as he could, exploding the glass into a thousand pieces. It showered onto his arm and lap.

  Checking the damage he’d done to his arm, he wiped a dollop of blood onto his pants and looked over at Johnson.

  Johnson stared unblinking out the windshield.

  “Don’t worry, Johnson. When we get Wolf’s kid, Wolf will come running. And then we’re back in the clear.”

  But Pope was lying and they both knew it. Too many people were now involved, all lining up to help out this Wolf guy. He’d underestimated this man’s resources. This had the potential to be a loud and messy situation. Biblical violence.

  He closed his eyes and took deep breaths, feeling the crisp mountain air fluttering against his skin from the blown-out window.

  Then again, not necessarily. He opened his eyes. If he got the kid, they could separate Wolf from whomever else he was with, and then just make him and his kid disappear completely. Or maybe stage a murder-suicide. A distraught father unable to cope with the sticky web of reality he’d spun around himself.

  The framing of Wolf could still stand up. All the blame could still be pointed in Wolf’s direction.

  Pope exhaled, lamenting the FBI and their incompetence.

  He wished he could smash the window again, or kill Johnson.

  For a long moment, he stared at Johnson and visualized shooting him in the throat, and it made him feel better when Johnson broke into a fresh sweat.

  Pope brushed off the map and put his finger on the dashed line representing their county road. “It’s going to be a left after this straightaway.”

  Johnson let off the gas so fast it was a flinch, and Pope smiled to himself.

  Checking the side-view mirror, he swept a chunk of glass outside and saw the line of trucks bringing up the rear, all within a few car lengths of them and choking on dust.

  Just as he leaned back his mind registered a glint in the distance and he reached out in the wind and gripped the mirror.

  “Slow down.”

  Johnson let off the gas.

  Pope counted the trucks.

  “We’re being followed.” The grill of the Dodge pickup riding their ass swung into view.

  He pulled out his phone. There was no service.

  “Damn.” Checking the map again, he pulled out his pistol and laid it on his leg. “Punch it. Get to that left turn, then pull over.”

  Johnson mashed the accelerator and the truck jumped forward. The trucks behind them disappeared, but before long the chrome grill behind them emerged in the storm of dust, the men behind desperately keeping close as they’d been ordered to.

  “Don’t miss the turn this time.” Pope pointed his pistol forward. “It’s coming up.”

  They reached the end of the straightaway and the road gently curved right. Beyond that, the left turn was clear as day.

  Johnson braked with plenty of space to slow this time and turned.

  “Pull over.”

  Pope was out of the truck before they’d stopped. He took higher ground in the trees to see who was following them.

  The other trucks pulled behind and parked, and everyone looked up at him in silence behind the windows.

  He gave the cut-engine sign, and the forest plunged into silence.

  Eyes stinging as the dust coated his eyeballs, he squinted and focused on the turn in the road ahead.

  With stomach-sinking horror, he watched as a line of FBI vehicles came skidding around the corner.

  Chapter 42

  Wolf leaned onto the steering wheel.

  “This is definitely the way?” Luke asked for the third time.

  “Yes,” Baine said, “for the last time, this is the way.”

  “But it doesn’t make any sense. How would they know?” Luke leaned up next to Wolf and pointed out the windshield. “I saw a flash. Did you see that?”

  Wolf nodded, letting off the gas. They’d been driving in a perpetual trail of dust for over a mile now, and it had dissipated enough to show a long straightaway, so Wolf had pushed the engine of Baine’s old pickup truck to the max.

  The needle dropped down fast from eighty miles per hour.

  “Turn!” Baine yelled as he pressed himself back in the seat.

  Wolf jammed the brakes and tried to control the skid as the rear end drifted left.

  The dust was thick now.

  There were three metallic pops on the hood, and the windshield became a white web of cracks.

&n
bsp; “Gunshots!” Luke yelled.

  Still skidding, Wolf cranked the wheel the other way to correct for the initial spin, and felt the truck swing opposite. Outside the passenger window, a maroon sedan parked in the middle of the road came up fast.

  “Hang on!”

  The bed of the truck slammed into the back of the sedan with a crunch and the window next to Baine shattered on impact, spraying glass inside the cab.

  Wolf reached for Baine and pulled him close just as Baine dove at him to escape the brunt of the impact.

  They rocked to a stop and the truck stalled out.

  Wolf straightened and saw Luke upside down in the back seat.

  “Are you guys all right?”

  Baine grunted. “Yeah.”

  Luke squirmed and kicked, and then righted herself. She had a stream of blood down her face, but looked alert. “I’m all right.”

  Only then did it dawn on Wolf that outside it had been a constant rat-tat-tat of automatic gunfire interspersed with popping pistols.

  A man in a suit and flak jacket poked his head through Baine’s window. “Are you folks all right? We need to get you …” He stared at Luke in the back seat. “Luke.”

  “Benjamin.”

  “Are you all right? We’ve been looking for you guys for days.”

  Luke slid to the back door and tried to open it. “No shit.”

  Wolf got out and opened the driver’s-side rear door and Luke slid out.

  Baine climbed out after them and they ducked behind the wrecked truck next to Agent Benjamin.

  Bullets smacked into the side of Baine’s truck and they ducked low.

  Benjamin crawled next to Luke. “No, I mean we’ve been trying to get hold of you. Haven’t you checked your email?”

  Wolf racked back the slide on the Beretta and watched the conversation out of his peripheral vision.

  “My email?” Luke checked her pistol. “No.”

  Benjamin fired at a man in the trees dressed in camouflage pants and a football jersey, carrying an assault rifle.

  The guy dropped without knowing what had hit him.

  “What?” Luke asked. “An email?”

  Benjamin nodded at Wolf and Baine. “Agent Benjamin,” he said, introducing himself.

  “Baine.”

  A window above them exploded and a bullet ricocheted off the dirt, cutting Wolf off from introducing himself.

  “Why were you guys on their tail?” Luke asked.

  “A sting gone bad. We followed them and they stopped and opened fire on us.” Benjamin pointed. “At least most of them. One truck drove away up the road as we came up. They turned on us and started firing. It’s like they were covering the one guy as he escaped, the coward.”

  Wolf ducked and ran behind the maroon Crown Vic, and then raised the Beretta as he passed through into the open.

  A cartel member was standing behind the hood of a truck, letting rip a string of auto fire in another direction. Wolf fired two rounds into the man’s side, dropping him, and then continued on to the next FBI vehicle.

  The agent cranked his head, gave Wolf a double take, and then aimed at Wolf.

  Wolf recognized the man as Agent Frye, the small wiry man from his interrogation months ago.

  Frye dropped his aim as Wolf slid next to him.

  “You, what are you doing here?” Frye asked.

  “I need a car, now.”

  Frye fired twice into the trees after a fleeing cartel member. “Kind of bad timing for you to finally show up, Wolf.”

  “My son is a mile up that road.”

  Frye ducked down and put his back against his door. “What?”

  “Up that road. My son is up there. I think that truck that left is going after him.”

  Frye shook his head. “Shit. There’s still four or five cartel men taking cover between those trucks.”

  “Give me your keys.”

  Luke, Baine, and Benjamin slid next to them like base runners coming into third.

  Wolf held out his hand. “Now!”

  Frye handed the keys over. “I’ll be shooting from the rear.”

  Without another word, Frye opened the back door, climbed in, and closed it.

  “Lay down some cover fire,” Wolf said as he climbed behind the wheel.

  Luke, Baine, and Agent Benjamin nodded with wide eyes.

  With knees jammed against the steering-wheel column and his head tilted to avoid the ceiling, Wolf shut the door, put the key in the ignition, and pressed the gas.

  The V8 engine revved at the slightest touch and he silently apologized to Baine, Luke and Benjamin as he spat dirt all over them.

  Wolf watched in the rear-view as Frye rose to his knees on the back seat. There was a loud pop inside the car as Frye shot out the rear window, and then his gun roared.

  Wolf mashed the accelerator and shot out the passenger window, then continued to fire as they sped past the line of cartel pickup trucks.

  The engine screamed and bullets slapped into the side of the Caprice. He squinted as shrapnel hit his bare arms and face. Holding his breath, he waited for a deformed piece of lead to enter his body. Certainly with so many bullets hitting the car he was going to take at least one bullet. He knew what it would feel like. It would sting and then be unimaginably hot. But it would be a pain that could not compare to losing Jack.

  He pressed the accelerator hard into the floor, but the engine was already performing to its potential, pushing him back into the seat.

  The sputtering fire of the automatic rifles was a blur outside, and then they were through.

  Chapter 43

  Pope had always known he would die in battle. From the day he’d taken Gabe’s advice and joined the marines, he’d known that being a soldier was the life for him.

  Had his youth counselor from the Denver YMCA all those years ago lived longer, he’d have probably been unsurprised by Pope’s dismissal from the marines and his rise to the top of the biggest illegal drug-smuggling operation the Rocky Mountains had ever known.

  Pope had always been a leader, even back in the days of wandering the streets of north Denver. He’d always been a commander, a fighter who was willing to do the dirty work. When you were abandoned by your parents, that’s what you had to do. Nobody else was going to look out for you. Nobody else was going to tell you that you had what it took to be great. You had to take greatness and wring it by its neck, and then shove it in your pocket.

  The air howling through the passenger window dried the tears from his cheeks as he sped at seventy miles per hour up the dirt road.

  He was at the end and he knew it. And he also knew he would die just as he’d lived—with greatness. But to do so, he’d have to take it. He’d have to make it happen.

  Everyone was going to die today. It was going to be something people talked about in awed whispers for generations.

  As he approached the crest of a hill, he hugged the right side of the road because, though cataclysmic and memorable, a fiery head-on collision would be a trivial way to end it all after coming so far.

  After coming so far? Where exactly had he come to? What had he been fighting and killing all these people for?

  With that thought, he drifted back into the center of the road as he topped the hill, leaving his seat as the tires left the road.

  There was no oncoming vehicle on the other side. No crash to end his miserable, pointless life. Only a straight downhill cut through the pine trees and a clearing at the bottom. In the clearing, on the right side of the road, stood a dilapidated building. The twisting wooden fire tower told him this was his destination.

  So be it. Everyone would die.

  He let the truck continue at breakneck speed for another few seconds and then pumped the brake.

  The rear swayed from side to side as the wheels skidded, and the building came up fast. With expert precision, he slid sideways and then stopped alongside the building in a puff of dust.

  Quickly he scanned the rear field behind the fire
house and saw a man looking in his direction.

  Just as the truck rocked to a stop he jammed it in park and got out, not bothering to waste the extra second to turn off the engine.

  The man in the field was the fat ass ex-sheriff, raising a pistol and looking shocked by Pope’s sudden appearance. He was out in the wide open, standing like a moron in the clearing with the cover of trees at least a football field away from him.

  With his own pistol raised, Pope chose to run at the man diagonally, straight out in the open rather than taking cover behind the fire-tower stairs.

  Pop-pop-pop. Bullets whizzed over Pope’s head—close, but no cigar. Pope jammed a foot into the soft dirt and crouched to one knee, and then with trophy-winning accuracy and speed he shot the man twice in the chest, dropping him to the ground.

  As the shots echoed down the valley, he heard pebbles crunch underneath a shoe directly behind him. He’d run around the back of the building and into an ambush from behind.

  But Pope’s name was on a plaque at Camp Pendleton, and as he twisted and locked the pistol sight on the kid’s chest, he fired, knowing the kid didn’t stand a chance.

  Chapter 44

  Patterson was as quiet as Lancaster on the outside, but was screaming on the inside.

  They were almost there. Just a single block on Main Street and they were going to be in the parking lot of the station, where, if all was going according to plan, three special agents were waiting to take Lancaster into custody—crouching unseen in the parking lot and ready to move just before they entered the building.

  Counting her, that was four against one, and she liked those odds.

  But they first needed to get there without incident.

  As the SUV bounced into the lot and Lancaster swung into a parking spot, she took a steely breath.

  Hopping out and walking to the rear of the SUV, she almost collided with a Byron deputy she recognized as Prough.

  Prough looked like he’d just finished running a hundred-yard dash with a tiger chasing him.

  He stopped right in front of Patterson and gulped air. “You heard?”

  Patterson cringed and looked around the parking lot. There was no sign of FBI agents.