by Ty Patterson
Zeb chopped the man’s neck, and Zubia barely flinched. His face was scrunched tight, his eyes shut, as he repeated blow after blow metronomically on the man beneath him. Zeb struck his ears, and the elbows faltered. Zubia reared and fell back on top of him, all his dead weight aimed at Zeb like a piledriver.
Zeb grunted and for a second his control slipped as a fierce rage swept through him.
He grabbed the gangster and hurled him against the concrete wall, heard the sickening thud, followed it with a double strike on his shoulders and a lightning strike on his sternum.
A howl echoed through the tunnel and then silence fell.
Zeb hauled himself up, caught the man, and dragged him to the foot of the rope ladder.
He climbed slowly, using his arms to drag himself up to give respite to his left leg and groin. He stopped halfway up as sweat rolled down his face and blackness came across him.
He sucked greedily at the cool air when he flung the trapdoor open and was hauled up by Roger.
Roger looked at him as he lay panting, wordlessly slipped down the rope ladder, and saw Zubia slumped against the wall.
The gangster stirred when Roger approached him, and a foot lashed out, but it was a halfhearted effort.
Roger picked him up effortlessly in a fireman’s lift and started the slow climb back up.
Halfway through, Zeb reached down and they got the gangster up.
Zeb stood for a minute to let the air flow through him, re-energizing him, and nodded at the question in Roger’s eyes.
I’m okay.
In the distance they heard sporadic firing. Garcia’s men were on top.
‘Got him,’ Zeb whispered and heard Broker’s shout of delight in his ear.
Garcia smiled broadly when he joined them. ‘We’ve done it, mis amigos. It was a clean operation. Some minor injuries for us, five of them dead, the rest are captured.’
He strolled across to Zubia, who was slumped against a tire of his getaway vehicle. The gangster reeked of sweat, fear and hate and spat at Garcia.
‘You think you’ve got me? I’ll be out in less than a week. I own this city.’ He sneered at the SEMAR man.
Zeb spoke for the first time. ‘Who said you’ll be tried here?’
Zubia’s eyes widened at the American accent.
Two months later.
Zeb stretched his legs, folded his arms, and leaned back against the couch. He was in his favorite bar in the East Village in New York City, a barely started drink in front of him.
They had brought Zubia to the U.S. to stand trial for numerous charges. One of them was for masterminding the kidnapping of the twins, another was for aiding and abetting the killing of an undercover FBI agent. The media on both sides of the border had lauded the gangster’s arrest and extradition, and even after two months the news flow hadn’t stopped.
SEMAR received all the credit for the takedown. There was no mention of any American participation.
Zeb started his punishing fitness regimen the day after he reached home, an apartment on Seventy-Seventh Street, and now his ribs felt as good as new.
He glanced at the newspaper in front of him, yet another article of the arrest on its inside pages. He stopped reading after the second line of hyperbole and glanced at his watch.
Not like Roger and Broker to be late.
He started a hand toward his phone but stopped when a shadow fell across him and Roger came into view.
‘This delayed me,’ he said dramatically and held up a wine bottle in its case.
A hand reached out and took the case from his hand.
Broker.
The older man inspected the case, opened it, removed the bottle, and held it against the light. He wrapped it back up again and handed the case to Zeb reverentially.
‘I’d heard about this, never tried it.’
Broker and Roger were the wine enthusiasts in their group, and there was an air of worship about them as they handled the bottle.
Zeb inspected the case.
Chasselas del Mogor, it read, from the Mogor Badan vineyard in Baja California, Mexico.
He looked at the two of them, and they nodded.
‘One of the finest Mexican wines.’
He looked at the card attached to the case.
It bore Garcia’s name and a handwritten inscription.
The Balcones was good. This is better.
Mi vida es tuyo. My life is yours.
‘I wouldn’t say it’s better, but maybe just as good,’ Roger admitted grudgingly. Nothing was better than the Balcones to the Texan.
‘What took you so long?’ he asked Broker.
Broker made himself comfortable. ‘I was held up because two people were pestering security at my building. They wanted to meet me, but I wasn’t taking their calls. They refused to say who they were.’
He helped himself to an olive as he built the story. ‘Being the good citizen I am, I went down.’
‘If he hadn’t, we would have found a way to go to his apartment.’
Zeb snapped around. Those voices.
Beth and Meghan Petersen smiled back at him.
He stared in amazement, and when his eyes flew to Broker and Roger, they were grinning.
Roger held his hand up in apology. ‘Yeah, I knew about their arrival, but the ladies wanted to surprise you.’
The twins glowed with health, and their burnished hair and green eyes attracted many male eyes. They had a leaner build, and the muscle tone in their arms was apparent.
‘So what brings you here?’ Zeb asked them. ‘Business?’
‘Sorta,’ Beth began and stopped when her eyes took in the newspaper article and the bottle standing on it. Garcia’s card was facing them.
She grabbed the bottle, read the card, passed it to her sister. Meghan traced the card with her fingers.
Her green eyes were wide with understanding when she turned them back at Zeb.
‘We know what you were trying to do.’ Beth waved her hand over the bottle and the paper. ‘Not this, obviously. We just came to know of this.’
Meghan cut in impatiently. ‘What she’s trying to say, we know why you guys stopped taking our calls. You wanted us to get back to our lives, the less contact with us, the better. All that psychiatry shit.’
Their eyes bored into Zeb’s with an intensity in them he’d not seen often.
‘Well, that’s not happening, buddy. We are as much a part of your life just as you are part of ours.’
Zeb shook his head in bemusement. ‘Where’s this going?’
Broker had a satisfied smile on his face. ‘You know Tony and Eric?’
Zeb nodded. Tony and Eric were Broker’s numbers two and three. They ran the logistics for all their missions, arranged for safe houses, anonymous cars, weapons and occasionally provided backup.
‘Tony’s getting married. His fiancée’s a florist, and he plans to help her. Eric is migrating to Canada. Don’t ask me why!’
His smile grew wider as he saw the dawning light in Zeb’s eyes.
‘Yeah, Zeb. You got it. Meet the new Tony and Eric. Beth Petersen and Meghan Petersen.’
Zeb sat back stunned as he processed it.
‘Have you–?’
Beth forestalled him. ‘Yeah, we’ve thought this through. It wasn’t something that came to us just this morning. We spoke to Broker and Roger several times about this; we met Clare. Oh yeah’ – she grinned at Zeb’s expression – ‘we flew to D.C. and met her. We know the risks. Jeez, if there’s anyone who knows the risks of working with you guys, it’s us. So let’s cut out the buts, shall we?’
Meghan chimed in with a devilish smile. ‘We aren’t asking you, Zeb. We’re telling you. We’re on your team now. Accept it.’
Zeb gazed at them, and his mind flashed back to the first morning he had seen them together. Yellowstone National Park. He recollected how Meghan had gotten the drop on him.
Roger brought out his best Texan drawl. ‘I have to take credit for this.
I knew you ladies couldn’t resist me for long.’
Meghan rolled her eyes. ‘In your dreams, geezer. If anything, it was all the goodies Broker has. Those and the Lear.’
Beth’s eyes shone as she nodded vigorously. ‘The Lear. Totally.’
A warmth started deep in Zeb as he looked at the four of them.
Maybe this will work.
He didn’t know he was capable of it. He thought his muscles had atrophied. It came out from the same deep place from where the warmth began.
He grinned.
He had lost a family once. He’d found one again.
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The Warrior’s Debt
By
Ty Patterson
Copyright © 2015 by Ty Patterson
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Acknowledgements
No book is a single person’s product. I am privileged that The Warrior’s Debt has benefited from the inputs of several great people.
Jean Coldwell, Donald Hoffman and Christine Terrell, who are my beta readers and who helped shape my book, my launch team for supporting me, and Donna Rich for her editing and proofreading.
Dedications
To my wife and son who made room in their lives for my dreams; all my beta readers, my launch team and well-wishers.
‘I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining.
I believe in love even when I don’t feel it.
I believe in God even when He is silent.’
Scratched on a wall by a Holocaust survivor
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Dedications
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 1
Lester Benjamin didn’t know he was going to die in less than forty-eight hours.
Lester started his day early, like any other day. He rolled the shutters up on his convenience store on Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn at five in the morning, turned on its lights, and started his morning routine.
It was late October, leaf fall was well under way and the tree in front of his store had covered the sidewalk with its foliage. He brought a broom out, swept the sidewalk clean, and nodded silently at the few joggers and dog walkers who were up that early.
He looked at the pavement critically for a moment and then turned to go inside the store where he turned on all the lights and the heating. He allowed himself a moment of pride as he surveyed his store; neatly-lined shelves offering everything that residents could conceivably need looked back at him with approval.
Lester went down the central aisle, pushed a side door open into the restroom, washed his hands and patted his hair down with his fingers. He was tall; an inch over six feet, and his ebony colored face with a thick shock of silver hair filled the mirror.
He squelched the pride.
Hard work. That alone had brought him to where he was today.
Lester’s journey had started six decades back in a small village in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and whenever he felt the oncoming of self-pity, he reminded himself from where he had come.
He owned the store and the one-bedroom apartment above it.
‘Thank you, Lord,’ he whispered and returned back to the counter.
At six, his two assistants, Joe and Emilio, strolled in. The two of them, in their late twenties, were just out of college and helped out in the store. He high-fived the two of them and they got the store ready for business.
The day went by soon enough for Lester, the convenience store was the only one within a few blocks and got steady traffic throughout the day. Many of his customers were regulars who he knew by name and he always greeted them warmly. It was only a convenience store, but it was his store and he firmly believed that the personal touch made a difference to his customers.
Joe and Emilio helped him wind up in the evening and at nine, they rolled the shutters down and silence fell over their share of Myrtle Avenue.
Lester walked two doors down, climbed a short flight of stairs and entered his still apartment.
He took a shower, broke open a can of soup, heated it, and had his dinner.
A few slices of bread and a bowl of soup.
He sat by the window for a while and watched the occasional car whoosh by below as it turned the street momentarily gold, before darkness claimed it back.
The faint hum of tires and the play of gold and black lulled him to sleep as he sat by the window.
Lester woke earlier than usual the next day.
It was that day in the week.
He showered and hit the avenue forty minutes after waking up and a brisk walk took him to the subway station on Classon Avenue and Lafayette. Fifteen minutes later, he boarded the Brooklyn Queens Crosstown, and one change later he joined commuters in a steel MTA train as it rocked its way to Manhattan.
Two hours from the time he’d left home, just as the sun made a determined bid to pierce the cloud overhang, Lester entered Central Park and walked rapidly to a runner’s track. Runners, joggers, dog walkers, and cyclists, the park already had traffic and it was just seven in the morning.
Lester moved deep inside the park to a secluded track that only serious runners knew of and went to his hiding place. It was a deep copse, in plain view of the track ten feet away, but so thick that runners couldn’t see beyond the immediate foliage.
Lester checked his watch.
Seven thirty.
And there she was.
She was wearing a dark track suit, a Columbia Business School hoodie, and her dark pony tail bobbed as she ran evenly.
A ray of sunlight escaped the leafy shade overhead and her chocolate skin glowed briefly. Lester drank her in, her dark eyes, her features, her even stride and his heart swelled.
Alisha Jones. That was her name.
She was his daughter. She didn’t know he existed.
One day she would inherit his convenience store and his apartment.
Lester would die with that thought in his mind.
The killer knew Lester’s routine.
The killer knew all about routines and patterns and profiles and Lester didn’t fit his previous victims’ profiles. That was good. What was even better was that Lester lived alone, no one to raise the alarm if he didn’t return home.
He followed Lester and learned his routine and waited for the right time.
There had been several opportunities to take the African American man, but the thing in him was not ready then. He would know when the time was right. The man was bigger than him, taller by half a foot and heavier by a few pounds. Despite his sixty odd years, the man
was fit, but the killer was confident he could take him.
His earlier kills had been messy, he was still learning, and this time he was determined to make it a clean kill.
He followed the man easily and marveled at the stupidity of people that they never bothered to check their backs. He took the subway along with him; at one point he could have reached out and touched the man, but the killer had learned to cloak himself in invisibility. He was just another commuter on the train.
He followed Lester to Central Park, knew what he was there for, and just as the woman jogged past, he struck.
Lester’s body was found the next day by a jogger and the NYPD swung into action. They got his identity from the New York State driver’s license in his wallet, calls were made and eventually they got hold of Joe and Emilio.
They were both shocked and Joe shed tears in the privacy of the restroom. Lester had been more than an employer, he had been a friend. They told the cops that Lester didn’t seem to have any relatives or friends that they knew of. The store and his apartment were his world.
The cops searched his apartment, found two names with numbers, and two calls were made.
One was to Alisha Jones.
The other was to another sixty-year-old African American, in Tennessee. The man lay on his bed for a while after hanging up, and then slowly eased up.
His son heard his stirring, heard his end of the call, and rushed to his room.
He brushed his son’s help away, stood upright, breathed deeply, and regarded his son.
His son was huge, six foot four, all of it hard muscle. He had close-cropped hair, piercing eyes, and an air of stillness that concealed a capacity for enormous violence.
He told his son what had happened and watched his eyes darken.
He held a hand up to stop him.
‘This isn’t something for you. I’m sure the cops will investigate.’
He looked steadily at his son, waited for an acknowledgement and when his son nodded once, he sighed deeply and lay down again.