by Ty Patterson
The Lear jet was another toy that Broker kept on standby. The two pilots and the steward were all ex-service men, competent, hard, and had bonded quickly with all of them.
The interior was done in mahogany and leather and had a luxuriously appointed bar, kitchenette and bathroom. ‘Not as if you’ll notice or care.’ Broker snorted whenever Zeb used the jet.
The steward greeted Zeb politely and shut the exit immediately once he’d boarded and then left him alone.
They all knew Zeb.
They were wheels down in Chicago three hours later.
Zeb took a cab to downtown Chicago, where he hired his favored set of wheels, an SUV with darkened windows, and drove to Washington Park, a community on the south side of the city. The community took its name from the recreational area on its eastern border.
The community had seen Irish and German settlers in the mid to late nineteenth century, but today was a neighborhood in slow decline. The lack of any commercial center or industry in the community was resulting in a leaking of the population to cities with more jobs and more opportunities.
What was left was a community that regularly ranked high in various dangerous-neighborhood statistics.
Zeb drove slowly, soaked in the atmosphere, and noticed the groups of men idling around aimlessly in pockets. It’s the absence of hope that kills a community.
Rodriguez lived on the third floor of a low-rise apartment block that overlooked a busy street, the other side of which featured other low-rise apartments. There were elementary and middle schools nearby, and Zeb could see several toddlers playing in the fenced-off green inside the apartment block. Zeb could see boards of realtors’ hanging out of various apartments. Clearly demand for rental properties was high.
He made three passes of the block, identified the windows of the cutout’s apartment, and looked over the cars parked on the street before nosing into an empty parking slot.
Zeb sat in the vehicle for hours and surveyed the vehicles parked on the street. He watched traffic pass through the apartment block and was able to separate the residents from the visitors, vendors from landlords. His SUV was registered in the name of a realtor who had apartments in the block on their books. A few clicks on Broker’s laptop had created the new, temporary identity.
He slipped on a jacket, donned his shades and, holding his backpack in his left hand, slipped out of his SUV and walked purposefully to the apartment block’s entrance.
The block had an intercom entrance, but he timed his walk so that he reached the entrance just as a couple of other tenants opened the entrance door. He smiled briefly in thanks, just another realtor out to help tenants get the best deal. Those guys might know what I look like by now, and this getup won’t fool them if they’re watching.
Zeb took the stairs and reached the third floor.
The apartment block was laid out like millions of others across the country, built by developers to cater to mixed-income residents, some of them families, some of them single tenants, many of them apartment sharing. The apartment block had four buildings laid out in a square, enclosing a recreation area. On the outside, the blocks were surrounded by parking spaces, and the approach to the street was fenced off.
Mixed income was a misnomer, since in this neighborhood, the tenants were usually low income. This floor had six single-bedroom apartments laid out three each on either side of the stairwell.
Two apartments facing each other on the left and right of the central corridor, and an apartment on either side of the corridor, bookending it.
The corridor was ten feet wide, with dim, recessed lighting. The lights were turned off since it was early evening, and natural lighting flooded the block. On either side of the stairwell were large windows, giant blocks of empty space; they looked over the enclosed recreation area.
Zeb stood at one of the windows and looked down at the recreation space, at a couple of mothers playing with their babies. Sounds and smells reached him. Laughter and dinner floated in the air.
Rodriquez’s apartment was to his left. It was to the right of the stairs as one climbed, with a direct view of the door.
Why would a criminal stay here? In the midst of families?
It came to him. That’s why. The families provide him with cover and a safety net. Neither cops nor gangbangers want to wage war in such an apartment block. It would invite too much heat.
The pinging started in him, deep and constant. It was an uneasy feeling that told him something wasn’t right, and his brain reacted, commanding adrenaline to flow through him. Zeb squared his shoulders; his jacket widened just enough to smoothly draw his Glock if needed.
Broker had tried the criminal’s number several times and hadn’t made contact. There was a landline associated with his apartment, but that had been disconnected.
He’s either dead, or they’re waiting inside.
The apartment opposite to Rodriguez’s opened, and a young girl, about eight years old, skipped out, holding a green scooter. She stopped on seeing the stranger standing at the window. The stranger didn’t turn. Just his head swiveled, dark glasses looked her way, looked back again. The stranger didn’t speak, didn’t smile. The girl ignored him. She slammed the door behind her, smoothed her cornrows, which gleamed against her ebony skin, and headed to the play area below.
She turned back to bang on Rodriguez’s door. She did that every day, same time, just to annoy him.
The door moved inward an inch. She looked at it, puzzled. It had never opened before.
She lifted her hand to push it open when she felt the air move, turned and saw a blur headed her way. The stranger lifted her and dived into the stairwell.
The sound roared first, an explosion that ripped through the still air; then the blast of air came, carrying with it splinters of Rodriguez’s door thudding into the walls and doors on the floor.
The explosion sounded muffled to the girl; her head was buried deep in the stranger’s jacket, his arms around her.
She felt him place her on the landing and looked at him, dazed and uncomprehending. Her ears were ringing. She saw his lips move, but she couldn’t hear anything. She tried to look past him, and he moved, blocking her sight. She looked back at him as he shook her gently.
‘Stay here. Don’t move.’
He shook her again, and she nodded.
She had seen a snake once in their apartment block, and that’s how he moved. Soundlessly, liquidly as if he had no bones. She saw something dark and shiny in his hand and recognized it immediately. A gun. She had seen enough of them on TV.
She heard apartment doors opening, and he roared, ‘Get back in, ma’am. Your daughter is safe. I’ll bring her in a minute. Call the cops. Don’t come out till they get here.’
She saw him cross Rod’s shattered door swiftly, peek inside, return and enter it. He came back after some time, came down to her, picked her up and carried her to her apartment. He knocked on the door and handed her to her mommy, who was looking at him with large, scared eyes.
That was the last time she saw him.
That charge was meant to kill, but not destroy the entire apartment. Professional. But how confident were they that it would be me who pushed the door?
Zeb mulled it over as he ran down the stairs, through the throngs of people who were heading in the other direction.
‘Dunno, man. I just heard a big bang, and I got outta there quicker than you could say bomb,’ he replied to an African-American man who was shoving people out of the way as he pushed upstairs.
‘Might be a good idea to let the cops handle it,’ he shouted back at the man.
Maybe they didn’t care if it was me or some innocent that got killed. Broker did say they aren’t particular how they get the job done.
He sat in his SUV and breathed deeply.
If I hadn’t seen the trip wire gleaming as the little girl pushed the door open, she would’ve been dead. As it is, we were both lucky the bomb didn’t go off immediately.
; He closed his eyes for a moment, pushed back the thoughts into a tight container in his mind, sealed that container, and opened his eyes. He would never return to those thoughts again.
Rodriguez was dead. He had been lying in his living room, a hole in his head. Krone had probably silenced him as soon as Rodriguez had opened the door for the hitman, and he’d then set the trap for Zeb.
Rodriguez had been dead for more than two hours at least, if not more. Rigor mortis took a couple of hours to set in, and the body had been already stiff when Zeb felt it.
The girl had knocked on Rod’s door with easy familiarity, as if she did that regularly. She was wearing her school shoes when Zeb had scooped her up. Return from school, have an Oreo or two, take scooter and run off to play. About forty minutes in all.
So sometime during the day when the kids were away at school and the adults went to work. Kids left for school around seven thirty or eight in the morning.
Ten a.m. That’s when Krone must have killed Rod. The block would’ve been as quiet as possible by then.
Zeb squeezed the wheel hard. It was the second time Krone had nearly gotten him.
An hour later he was back in the Lear and in half an hour more they were wheels-up.
To Jackson.
‘They’re always ahead of us one or two steps. All that tech with you and you still haven’t found a way to track them?’ His voice was laced with frustration as he spoke to Broker thirty thousand feet in the air.
Broker made a peace sign on the screen. ‘All the tech can’t help us if we aren’t able to find something to pinpoint them. Like a GPS tracker or a mobile phone.’
Broker had listened silently when Zeb had told him about the bomb and the near escape. He had then broken his piece of news.
‘This is now a mission for us. Hunting down Krone. Clare called me a few hours back when I had briefed her. It looks like our friends, Krone and his buddies, are wanted by the FBI for killing an undercover agent. The agent was undercover in a drug gang in Mexico.’
He paused. ‘Director Murphy wanted to bring us in as consultants and work with their field office in Jackson Hole and their Special Agent in Charge, Gary Stotler. I said we were better off on our own. He didn’t push it.’
Zeb knew Murphy wouldn’t push it. He was well aware of their unconventional ways, and if there was any blowback from Broker and Zeb’s mission, then the further away the FBI was, the better.
Broker brought him to the present. ‘So anyway, the FBI’s resources are also at work trying to find where these guys are at the moment. I’ve asked them not to make the manhunt public knowledge; else these guys might just disappear into the shadows.’
‘They’re heading to Jackson too,’ Zeb told him.
‘Thanks, Sherlock. I worked that out by myself. The twins.
‘Now here’s something. Beth Petersen called me. She said there was no point in calling you since all she got back from you was silence. I wonder why she said that.’ He grinned and waited for Zeb to comment.
When Zeb didn’t, he rolled his eyes and continued. ‘They contacted the rest of Petersen's SWAT. Foley, Suiter, Jordan, Taggart and Joe McBride's wife. The guys were shocked when they learned what had happened and offered any help they could, but were adamant there was no connection between the past and the present. Foley offered them his personal security detail. Jordan invited them to chill out with his family in Florida. They declined both offers, of course. But here’s the thing. Maggie McBride invited them to visit her and said maybe talking to the twins would jog her memory, if there was anything to be jogged.’
When Zeb continued looking at him, Broker said irritably, ‘Dang it, Zeb. Don’t you get it? She’s asking if they should go visit the lady.’
Zeb thought it over. ‘It won’t hurt. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were feeling cooped up. And who knows, McBride’s wife just might know something.’
Broker laughed. ‘We’re clutching at straws, aren’t we? Until those guys fuck up and make a mistake, allowing us to trace them, we’re groping in the dark. All right. I’ll keep digging. You sure you don’t want the rest of our guys?’
Zeb shook his head. ‘Nope. I can handle this.’
Broker snorted. ‘What I thought.’
The man was bare-chested and clung upside down to the craggy cliff of Lake Travis, in Texas. He wore just a pair of solo shorts and a pair of climbing sneakers. His hands were bare and gripped a rocky outcrop while his feet were secure in two toeholds. Far below him, his raft bobbed gently in the waters of the lake.
He had been climbing and diving all day, each time going higher before diving. He was not the only solo climber on the lake, but he was the only one who was pushing higher and dropping down. A small band of spectators had gathered to see how far he would go before the cliff subdued him.
He looked down below, positioned himself for his fifth dive of the day, and took a deep breath.
And his phone, jammed into a rear pocket, rang.
Zeb spent the night in a hotel in Chicago, catching up on his sleep. Sleep when you can, eat when you can was drilled into him. The bomb was on all local news channels in an endless loop, reporters covering it with breathless excitement. Nobody had seen the bombers. The girl mentioned a guy with shades had saved her. But other than the shades there wasn’t a description. The channels didn’t have anything, the cops didn’t have much to go on, and recycling was the easiest way to present news.
The next day he flew to Jackson.
He looked down at the fleecy clouds below, lazily floating without a care. The jet was cutting through the sky like a silver arrow, and occasionally a wing caught the sun and turned gold. A flash of yellow bathed Zeb’s face and with that came the girl’s eyes, wide with fright. His fists tightened unconsciously.
Krone had made a third mistake. An innocent had nearly died.
Chapter 13
Krone was back in Cheyenne, where the three of them made arrangements with another gang. Krone believed in making such arrangements in person.
‘Fifty Ks for these two women. Alive. Unharmed,’ Krone growled at Garcia, fanning a couple of photographs at him, in a rest area north of Cheyenne. Garcia owned a car garage and, in his second career, doubled as a small-time hood who distributed marijuana and meth in Cheyenne and Jackson to the tourists who came seeking a high different from the ones nature provided.
The wind crackled in the heat as he glowered at the short man in front of him. Garcia sported a drooping moustache and a lost look. Presumably the demeanor helped him as he went about his business.
‘Spread the word. But remember. The women should not be touched. If the women have so much as a bruise, I’ll find you, cut your balls off, and stuff them in your mouth.’
Garcia nodded rapidly and swallowed. He believed Krone. Anyone would believe him. That bald head, hard body, glaring blue eyes and buzzsaw voice screamed cross me and I’ll fuck you all ways to hell.
Krone and his buddies hired a Tahoe and hit the road to Jackson.
They had a six-hour lead over Zeb, but they had lost most of that by going to Cheyenne.
The Voice yelled at them when they hit the road.
‘A bomb? You didn’t think that maybe, just maybe it wouldn’t be Carter who opened that door? You ever heard of the heat that collateral damage draws? And what were you doing there in the first place? The girls were your priority, and they’re still out there.’
Krone stifled a yawn and looked outside the dark window of their ride. Heat rising from the ground made shapes wavy; a tree appeared to undulate. Knuckles cracked – Palisano – bringing his attention back to the Voice.
‘You hired us to get the girls. I told you how we work. We get the job done, our way. No questions asked. You’ve heard of our reputation. Get off our back, and let us do our job,’ he cut in roughly.
‘The bomb–’ the Voice shouted.
‘The bomb was to take out Carter. It didn’t get him. Big deal. Now we’re focused on the girls.’
The Voice fell silent. ‘I’ve warned you–’
‘Yeah, you have.’ He hung up and fired the engine.
‘Asshole,’ Palisano muttered behind him.
He met Palisano’s eyes in the mirror. ‘He’s a prick, but he’s not stupid. Those threats of bringing the other heavies in aren’t empty. If we don’t grab those bitches, we are in a world of trouble.’
Romero broke his silence. ‘We going to attack the cop’s home and take them?’
Palisano snorted. ‘That would be a suicide mission.’
Krone nodded in agreement, and his face split in a feral grin. ‘With the fifty-K reward we’ve put on them, all hoods and thugs in this state will be looking for those twins. They’ll have no place to hide. And to top that, we’ve set our trap.’
Kelly and the twins were at the same café in Jackson when Zeb met them.
Meghan pushed down her shades and eyed him dramatically. ‘Home comes the hero after the wars. Where’ve you been, Zeb? We didn’t hear of any bombs going off, any gunfights. Whatever you’ve been doing must have been that top-secret stuff you special-ops guys do.’
Kelly looked over her head and shook his head slightly at Zeb. The women hadn’t correlated Zeb’s absence to the apartment blowout in Cheyenne or the bomb in Chicago, both of which had barely received a mention in Jackson.
Kelly himself had only a vague idea of what Zeb had been up to; it wasn’t as if Zeb was a fount of information. The cops weren’t on the lookout for Zeb, and as long as that status remained, Kelly was as happy as a cop saddled with two exuberant twins could be.
‘You taking these girls off my hands anytime soon so that I can get my life back?’ He winked at Zeb.
‘You don’t have a life, Kelly. All you do is work, come home late, grump at Liz, watch a bit of TV with her, sleep, go to work, and the cycle repeats. Doreen and Emily get bored to death when they’re home,’ Beth reminded him. ‘It’s a wonder Liz hasn’t left you.’