The Disavowed Book 3 - Threat Level: Red

by David Leadbeater

  Doug had the phone at arm’s length. Now he placed it closer to his ear. “You were in full flow, my friend. It is not wise to interrupt the Jabbering Venetian when he is in full flow.”

  “The what?” Argento sounded affronted, but Doug knew that wasn’t the case. Argento and he had been close for over twenty years. A little leg pulling was expected.

  Doug got down to business. “What do you have for me?”

  “Ah, it is not everything I wanted, amico mio. But I think it is enough. This Moose—a Serb—he tracks back to the Army. Through my contacts here, and my friend in the Serbian police force, who I dragged out of bed by the way, I have followed him back many years. Did you know that Davor Davic was once a member of the Serbian Army? No? No, of course not. Many years ago, it was. But shocking, it is.”

  “Armand,” Doug cut in. “Stop going all Yoda on me.”

  The Interpol agent, when excited, tended to switch speech styles. Trouble was, he got excited twenty three and a half hours a day including sleepy time.

  “Ah, yes. Good. Good. Very funny. I am sending you a photograph. Old, but still valid. I will now wait for your outburst of gratitude.”

  Doug clicked on the newly arrived message. The screen opened up into a grainy picture of two men in army uniforms and with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Both men were laughing, happy, and staring straight at the camera.

  “Old days,” Doug said regretfully. “It was all so much simpler when we were all so much younger.”

  “Very poignant. But do you see?”

  “Yes, and thank you, Armand. I sure do owe you one. What is the Moose’s name?”

  “So many. So many. Adrijan Dokic first, I think. Then Dragomir Karadzic. Mirkovic Kapic. This man got wise early. He cut his ties and his losses after leaving the Army and became a ghost. As Danijel Javor he entered Davor Davic’s employ and then simply vanished. We have not heard from this man since. But facial recognition conquers all, my friend, and the computers at Interpol have every face, past and present. It is why we are the very best police agency in the world, of course.”

  Doug let that one go. For now. “Any other aliases, brother?”

  Argento reeled off another half dozen. The Moose was a prolific identity-monger it seemed, and a compulsive paranoid. But then he had prospered for over twenty years in a world riddled with death. He had risen from the lower ranks of the Serbian Army to become one of the world’s most elusive killers.

  Doug copied them all down. When he had finished he apologized to his fiery friend but told him about their horrific deadline and that they would speak later. After he signed off he wondered briefly if he would ever again get to speak to Armand Argento. The Interpol agent was a hugely respected man in anyone’s eyes.

  Then he turned to Natasha. “Now we hit the LA authorities with these names and hope the Moose used one of ‘em to enter the country, maybe to rent a place, at least hire a friggin’ car. It’s all down to that now. How long does Mikey have?”

  Natasha didn’t even have to check the clock. “Not long enough.”

  37

  Blanka Davic laughed as he ordered the European attacks to go ahead. His one regret was that he didn’t have access to any mobile cameras on those vehicles. “God,” he complained, “is punishing me for not moving my plan forward fast enough.”

  Collins watched the madman work. Her position, bound with her hands above her head and stretched upright, sent spasms of agony through her tired muscles, but occasional swaying helped ease the pressure. Davic had been concentrating solely on working his terrible magic; on explaining his European arc of the story to her; on overseeing the entire operation; and on his extraction plan that was being facilitated by the infamous Moose. He had not made a single reference to the box’s code since his men had strung her up.

  But it was coming, she knew.

  During Davic’s rants and strategizing she’d had time to consider her position. No one, it seemed, was coming for her. Nobody even knew where she was. How could they? And, in any case, everyone she knew had countless other serious problems today. Collins was a woman of action, of decision-making, of following through on her hunches. She got the job done, made the hard choices. It didn’t suit her—this hangin’ around, she thought with the slightest of smiles—to be inactive through all this. The past had taught her that everything changes, that the life you fought for and made for yourself—even though you carved it out of granite with your own sweat and blood—could change in a millisecond and through no fault of your own. Relatives died. Children got sick. Partners were tortured to death whilst you ran to get help.

  And then you too . . .

  Left barely alive, they’d said. She heard them saying it as she was stretchered away. He left her barely alive . . . purposely . . . to ruin her. Wreck her future. He told us everything. Poor Claire Collins is the product of a crazy killer’s master plan.

  She still lives only to exist in agony.

  From that moment, she had fought. She struggled every day, but never forgot those words. The spacey girl—she was gone. The new girl rose to meet the new day like a dawn eruption—head on. Full of fire. She became hard, ballsy; she recreated her own image and embraced the new Claire Collins.

  Nobody knew what lived deep inside. And they never would. It was closed off, a wild animal behind an impenetrable barrier.

  The new day was hers to command.

  Now alone, she found that she could dig deep. Probably more than most. The past struggle had been hers and hers alone to face, and it had made her into the kind of person who could happily depend on herself; content to plumb the depths of her own self-taught skills. She studied Davic and found no easy ground there—no conventional way to make a connection or propose a deal. All she could do was live through each passing minute and hope an opportunity to escape would present itself.

  But time was getting short. She knew that by the way Davic was shouting and by watching the increased urgency among his men. That was good. With haste came mistakes.

  Now Davic took a deep breath and ran his hand along the flank of the Ferrari. He admired it, caressed it, then stood back to study the graceful lines and the gleam of the paintwork.

  “Such breeding. Such beauty.” He snorted. “But Italian. Always there is a catch!”

  The Serb turned to her. “And you? All American, yes? An All-American girl. I have yet to own one such as you. Maybe I will take you with me, after all. What would you think of that, Agent Collins? To know you will vanish forever. Gone from the world, from the eyes of your friends. Just like Maisie Miller. But you will be with me.” He breathed lustfully. “Forever.”

  “I’d rather die.”

  “I know.” Davic laughed. “That’s the whole point, dumbass.”

  Collins swayed a little, allowing her muscles some respite. Davic opened his mouth to speak but at that moment one of his men popped a head around the door.

  “He’s here.”

  Davic’s eyes gleamed. “Oh good. Send him in at once.”

  The terrible superiority with which he regarded her set a bonfire of fear blazing deep down in her stomach.

  A new face stepped into the garage—an older man with shorn hair and a weather-worn visage. Muscles bunched along his arms and shoulders as he threw a barely conscious female into a heap at Davic’s feet.

  “Victoria Trent,” he said.

  Davic hopped from foot to foot in his excitement. “String her up next to Bitch Collins.”

  “I have the final phase to begin. We are working to a deadline.”

  “I realize that, Mr. Moose. But this is necessary.”

  Collins wondered what kind of man would question Davic in such a manner. She soon had her answer as Victoria Trent was bound and stretched beside her. Davic introduced him.

  “Collins meet the Moose. Moose this is the FBI agent who destroyed my house.”

  The contract killer barely glanced at her. Victoria groaned. The Moose made a last adjustment then s
talked away, sending a final glance toward Davic.

  “The big bang?” Davic asked.

  “The big bang,” the Moose agreed. “Then, I’m gone.”

  Davic nodded. “Don’t worry. We all will be. I’m leaving soon. I just need one last thing.” He pulled out a small handgun and jammed it into Victoria’s midriff.

  And gave Collins a condescending smirk. “The code?”

  Collins paused for one second, admitting defeat. This was the first time she’d ever seen Victoria, and right now the feelings she was concealing regarding the woman’s ex-husband should be the least of her worries. But still, they pierced her like a blade, tipped with poison. Victoria moaned softly, swaying, clearly already injured. Her eyes rolled, her lids flickered up and down. She didn’t even appear to feel the gun pressed to her side.

  Collins couldn’t meet the Serb’s eyes. “One. Seven. Six. Eight. Four.”

  Davic nodded and stepped away. He motioned at a guard, the unspoken command sending the minion running.

  “Now I have it all,” he said. “And you have nothing. Aaron Trent has nothing. The FBI and the CIA—they have nothing. I am invincible.”

  Collins finally met his eyes as he raised the gun, taking careful aim.

  And fired point blank.

  38

  Trent boosted the first Mustang he saw, jumped behind the wheel, and set off in a blaze of fury. The beast roared, the horses responded, and black rubber coated the road behind him as thickly as a new layer of asphalt. Compton lay just up ahead. He wasn’t going to be late for this one. The final target. As he powered the Mustang he ran through as many alternatives in his mind as he could imagine. None of them were good. All of them were terrifying. The Moose was not known for leaving his victims alive and had not once told Trent that he would. He would have an endgame.

  Trent would have to play this game all the way to the end, down to the bone.

  His backup troops were causing hell out there, squeezing every official and agency and cop until their brains ached. The clues so far ranged from ridiculously easy to inflexibly hard. The map of Los Angeles gave him the city, San Pedro the area. The bizarre number sequence was a mystery, the word spedicija was the Serbian word for shipping. But Mikey’s actual location remained unknown.

  Doug was tracking the Moose and everywhere he’d been since he landed in LA two weeks ago. They had his aliases. The Edge and Brewster were pushing their contacts and their friends, until it felt as if their bones might break.

  Trent saw twelve minutes left on the clock.

  He threw the Mustang around two corners, feeling the back end fishtail as he applied the power. Time blurred into a long, rolling tunnel as his eyes focused on target number five, the last man, standing outside a Jamba Juice just ahead. Dressed in a gray-and-white shark suit, complete with a hooded head, he stared hard at the oncoming vehicle.

  He waved a cellphone in his left hand.

  Trent checked the time. He still had eight minutes. He screamed to a halt right next to the man’s rubber-covered legs, opened the doors hard against them, and climbed out. Now, he stood under the streetlight, his frame starkly lit with twisted features pure white from stress and fear, and eyes wild with hope.

  “What’s the last clue?” he shouted. “Where’s Mikey?”

  “Port of Los Angeles,” the Shark said immediately.

  Trent floundered. “But where?”

  “You have all your clues,” the Shark said. “And now. This!”

  He pressed the “send” button on his cellphone. Trent suddenly knew what it meant. It was the signal. The simple coded spurt of command that prompted a tiny antenna somewhere in Mikey’s box to explode. A circuit would close on itself, a primer would light up and . . .

  The end.

  39

  Trent lunged for the man, knocking the phone from his hands. “I’ll kill you!” he screamed. “Kill you!”

  A group of workers started towards them. It looked like Trent was assaulting a poor guy wearing a fun costume. They would try to stop him.

  Trent squeezed his target’s wrist until it came close to breaking. “What did you do?”

  “I sent the signal, asshole.”

  Trent was in Hell. The world was a bomb blast of pure pain, a crater of dying fragments. His heart hammered so hard he thought it too might explode.

  “That was my son!”

  The Shark laughed hard, almost doubling over. “I know!” he cried. “Fuckin’ funny though, seeing your face. The Moose said you’d go apeshit. Look . . . look.” The man’s voice took on a sharp edge. “All I did was send a signal that starts the timer. You still have twenty minutes to find your son. Twenty minutes.”

  Trent fell to his knees. The hard concrete smashed into his bones. “Port of LA is thirty minutes away,” he said with utter despair. “At least.”

  “I know that.”

  “And I don’t have the exact location.”

  “Don’t you?”

  Trent leapt to his feet, blinking back tears of rage and despair and hatred. He threw himself back into the car and tramped on the gas pedal. Hang on, Mikey! I’m coming!

  He would move Heaven and Earth for his boy. He would gladly die to keep him alive.

  But this?

  Thirty minutes away from the Port, he rang Doug.

  40

  Doug got another call before Trent contacted him. His man in the LAPD had come through, beaten the horde, and claimed the prize. Captain Miles McDonald spoke with precise alacrity.

  “A man matching your description and images was seen entering through LAX and subsequently hiring a car. That car’s tracker system has been made available to the LAPD.”

  Doug knew these things usually took a court order and a friendly judge. A swell of gratitude washed over him. It seemed all favors everywhere had been called in for this one.

  Nothing could be bigger.

  “The vehicle made frequent stops at a place in Bel Air and a Hollywood gym, as well as the Port of Los Angeles. Which one would you like to focus on?”

  “Where is it now?”

  “Just leaving Bel Air.”

  Doug thought fast. What clues did they have to Mikey’s location? Something about shipping. San Pedro. They pointed toward the Port. Ultimately though, how quickly could he actually get to any of the mentioned places?

  “No choice,” he said. “And now I believe I know what it is. The unknown number.” He checked his watch. “We’re in Long Beach. Twenty minutes away from the docks.”

  Natasha ran for the door, keys in hand.

  As Doug ran hard to catch up, Trent rang.

  41

  “Please, my boy. He’s at the docks, please, Doug. You’re closer than I am.”

  “Already on my way, brother. Don’t worry, I figured it out. We’ll be there. And the number you gave me? The clue? It’s a fucking container number. I’m fucked if I shouldn’t have figured it out before.”

  “It’s been a helluva day.”

  “Damn straight. Natasha’s googling the container’s location now. She’s into the Port’s map. Shit, man, there are thousands of ‘em.”

  “I know. Doug . . .” The unspoken plea was almost more than Doug could stand.

  “We’re hitting the Port now!” Doug cried. “See you soon, brother.”

  He ended the call abruptly. As Natasha shouted out directions he dialed another number. One more call to make.

  Radford answered. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Tell you later. No time, but you need to get here.” He shouted out the Bel Air address that Captain McDonald had given him. “The Moose has been there several times. It could be Davic’s hideout. Victoria could be there. Cops are heading out too.”

  “On it,” Radford said. “And Doug? Be careful, man.”

  “You too, brother.”

  Doug followed Natasha’s directions without question. He had no questions left. By voice text he instructed his man—Magic Man–Alex Black that if he couldn
’t reach Doug to go through Adam Silk or Dan Radford until further instructions were sent, and he reeled off their numbers. Cell reception was notoriously bad out here at the docks where it should in fact be spectacular.

  Natasha rotated her iPhone, struggling to read the small numbers. “Shit! Shit, I lost it when the screen rotated.”

  “Find it, Natasha.” Doug whispered as he belted down a pathway, straight through a manned checkpoint, and saw the flashing lights start up in his rearview. “We’re down to the final minutes. Find it quick or we’re gonna be too fucking late.”

  42

  Davic screamed his instructions in a high-pitched voice like a badly-done-to child. It was in complete contrast to his normal polite voice and his low threatening one. They were the fluctuations of a madman, spinning out of control between irregular, jagged points.

  Collins felt her hands untied, her body supported, but saw nothing through a haze of tears. Victoria Trent’s body hung beside her. She could sense its presence. But life had departed it, and now it felt and thought and experienced no more. Davic had shot the woman through the heart, screaming Aaron’s name as he fired, and had laughed hard when the woman slumped; raging at her, spitting at her, even punching her cooling corpse.

  Collins’ world was a white-hot sheet of pain and hellfire. She felt herself being dragged, and struggled up through a burning cocoon, her cop’s training screaming that she had to focus on her surroundings. On her welfare and predicament. With skill and luck she might still find a way out.

  She focused on Davic’s back, seething with anger as she again spotted the man. He had stopped just up ahead, holding a small radio to his ear.

  “Start another round of attacks,” she heard him say. “All countries.”