by Chad Zunker
PRAISE FOR CHAD ZUNKER
“A gritty, compelling, and altogether engrossing novel that reads as if ripped from the headlines. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Chad Zunker is the real deal.”
—Christopher Reich, New York Times bestselling author of Numbered Account and Rules of Deception
“Good Will Hunting meets The Bourne Identity.”
—Fred Burton, New York Times bestselling author of Under Fire
OTHER TITLES BY CHAD ZUNKER
The Tracker
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2017 by Chad Zunker
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542045544
ISBN-10: 1542045541
Cover design by Jae Song
To Lane, my father,
who lived a life of relentlessly pursuing his God-given dreams,
and by doing so taught his youngest son how to do the same.
To Doug, my father-in-law,
who has always supported the crazy dreamer
who married his eldest daughter.
CONTENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Everything that we…
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
FORTY-SIX
FORTY-SEVEN
FORTY-EIGHT
FORTY-NINE
FIFTY
FIFTY-ONE
FIFTY-TWO
FIFTY-THREE
FIFTY-FOUR
FIFTY-FIVE
FIFTY-SIX
FIFTY-SEVEN
FIFTY-EIGHT
FIFTY-NINE
SIXTY
SIXTY-ONE
SIXTY-TWO
SIXTY-THREE
SIXTY-FOUR
SIXTY-FIVE
SIXTY-SIX
SIXTY-SEVEN
SIXTY-EIGHT
SIXTY-NINE
SEVENTY
SEVENTY-ONE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Readers,
You may recognize I made a transition to third-person omniscient storytelling with Shadow Shepherd. This means you get to read the story through multiple character viewpoints and sometimes know things that even Sam Callahan doesn’t know. This is different from The Tracker, where I wrote strictly in first-person narrative and told all story threads, past and present, through Sam’s unique but limited view. I felt writing The Tracker in first-person narrative was an intimate and powerful way to introduce Sam to readers, so you could truly connect with Sam’s voice and heart, his struggles and pain, and how he views his life in relationship with others—all while on the run! In many ways, The Tracker was both autobiography and thriller, all packed into one book.
However, as I began to explore this next Sam Callahan adventure, I yearned to expand the scope of the story and further develop other important characters—especially Natalie Foster, who will continue to play such a pivotal role in Sam’s journey. Telling this sequel and future Sam Callahan stories in third-person narrative will allow me the flexibility to write even more exciting story lines, as well as help readers connect on a much deeper level with supporting characters. I’m very excited about what it allowed me to do with Shadow Shepherd. I hope you will enjoy it, too.
Sincerely,
Chad Zunker
Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one who wandered off?
—Matthew 18:12
ONE
Sam Callahan hung from the hotel balcony ledge, four stories up, and couldn’t believe he was once again on the run from a man with a gun.
His adrenaline was pumping, his breath short, his mind racing.
It was all too familiar, like a recurring bad dream. The assassin had already shot and killed another man inside the hotel suite: Sam’s new client, a guy he’d met only twenty minutes ago, before all hell broke loose. Sam hung from a brick ledge, looking down the sixty or so feet to the hotel grounds below. He shook his head, closed his eyes. He still had nightmares about last fall. The election. Redrock assassins. The FBI manhunt. His cancer-stricken mom kidnapped. The gray-bearded man. His face plastered all over national TV news. He was still hearing the thunderous echo of private military helicopters chasing him from overhead and seeing visions of bullets rain down from the sky. He was still waking up in cold sweats with the face of his nemesis, Square Jaw, fresh in his mind, like a mental tattoo he could never erase.
Now this. He thought of Natalie, the only woman he’d ever loved, and cursed.
He had to get out of this alive.
His fingers dug into the slippery brick, wet from the thick Mexico City humidity. The July afternoon heat was stifling. When he’d flung himself over the balcony railing a few seconds earlier, his left shoe had flown off and landed somewhere below in the central courtyard of the Four Seasons. He’d also torn a gash in the seat of his dark-blue suit pants, not that this was his biggest concern at the moment—that would be the killer still inside the executive suite. Sam’s suit jacket was also inside, folded neatly over an expensive chair in the living room. His blue tie felt like it was choking him as it flapped in the hot breeze. He hated ties and hadn’t grown accustomed to wearing them since starting at the Benoltz law firm three weeks ago.
Samuel W. Callahan, attorney at law.
He was still getting used to the new title and didn’t like being an attorney at this very moment. His fingers trembled under the pressure of his dangling weight. They were already slipping. He wouldn’t last too long.
With his recent graduation from Georgetown Law, Sam had thought he was finally moving on from the disaster of last November, getting a fresh start and putting the past behind him, finding a new normalcy in his job at the law firm. Until ten minutes ago, when his client had received a text. Sam had seen
his face turn ashen, like his doctor had just sent over fatal test results. Moments later, a man had burst through the hotel-room door and then chased his client toward one of the bedrooms, where he’d put a silent bullet into his client’s back. His client was dead. Sam was sure of that. He wasn’t going to be next. He’d seized that moment to run. On instinct he’d moved to the only exit available near him, the balcony, and taken a flying leap.
Before getting gunned down, Sam’s client had started spilling his guts, as if he knew these were going to be the final moments of his life, his last chance to hand over critical information from his case. So he did—sort of. Sam was still confused about his client’s empty briefcase. None of it was information that he wanted. Not if it meant a man now chasing him with a gun. Not if it meant seeing more blood spilled. His boss, David Benoltz, may have recruited him—an attorney with a good grasp of the law who was even better at handling people in the field—to be his so-called fixer, but Sam didn’t think this was what David had in mind when he’d sent him on a plane to Mexico City that morning to meet the firm’s newest client.
If he did, Sam was resigning immediately. Provided he got out of this alive.
He needed to get off this balcony ledge first. They hadn’t taught how to get out of a predicament quite like this in his three years of law school. There was no Running from an Assassin 101 class at Georgetown. Tragically, he’d learned to run as a kid, trying to escape the angry fists of drunken foster dads. He’d then mastered the art of running while living on the streets as a homeless teenager and stealing cars. And he’d gotten his PhD in running last November as a political tracker.
He was tired of running.
But life continued to give him no choice.
Sam again thought about his meeting with the client.
His client had shared a lot of information in a very small amount of time. He was neck-deep in something serious; that was for sure. A conspiracy involving very powerful and dangerous people. Any doubts about just how dangerous had all but been eliminated in the past few minutes. However, it was the very last thing his client had said to him, in his panic, right before the assassin had burst through the hotel-room door and started shooting that had left Sam reeling the most. They were words that were personal and shocking.
“You’ve got to find Rich.”
“Who the hell is Rich?” Sam had asked, confused.
“My partner, Rich Hebbard. He instructed me to contact your firm and specifically ask for you.”
“Me? Why would he say to ask for me?”
“Because he’s your father.”
Sam had shaken his head, stunned. He’d never met his father and knew almost nothing about him.
He couldn’t hang on to the ledge much longer. Not only were his fingers slipping but the assassin inside saw him move toward the balcony. He had only seconds. He studied the area below him, the outdoor hotel courtyard, and let his mind begin to map out his surroundings. A huge water fountain, trees, flower beds that surrounded a tic-tac-toe board of landscaped sidewalks, and several outdoor seating areas, including a dozen tables directly beneath him. The tables all had huge canvas umbrellas that blocked out the blazing afternoon sun. His eyes settled on the multicolored umbrellas. It was his only chance without breaking both legs or, worse, his neck. He heard footsteps on the balcony. It was time to go. He chose the yellow umbrella, swung his legs once to get some needed momentum, said a prayer, and then he let go.
As he fell, he spotted the man with the gun peer down at him over the railing. They connected eyes for just a second. The man was probably in his early forties, black hair slicked back, sort of reminded Sam of Antonio Banderas in Desperado. He wore a sleek black suit like a normal businessman. A businessman didn’t usually carry a gun and silencer—although Sam knew they sometimes did business differently in Mexico, so he guessed anything was possible.
It was surreal to drop from the sky.
He again thought of Natalie. Always Natalie.
TWO
Sam landed square on top of the yellow umbrella—a perfect fall tucked in a tight ball, like he was doing a cannonball off the high dive at the neighborhood pool. The heavy fabric instantly collapsed all around him. Then the glass table shattered beneath him, the gravity of his fall causing dishes to fly, chairs to bounce every which way, one loud and violent heap of destruction. He hit the concrete with a heavy thud, his breath completely knocked out, felt pain shoot up and down his left arm. But when he got his bearings, he thought he was okay. He could turn his neck both ways. It wasn’t broken. He slowly tested his arms and legs. They all seemed to be working properly. He was sucking major air into his lungs and in devastating pain all over his body, but he was still alive. He could move around okay.
Sam was immediately swarmed by bystanders, who all stared and gawked. He was sure it was quite the spectacle to see a man fall from his hotel-room balcony. Two male staff members in uniform rushed over to him to make sure he was okay, speaking in rapid Spanish, and started to help clear all the debris away.
Sam peeled himself up off the sidewalk, spit glass shards out of his mouth.
One of the hotel staffers pointed at his forehead with concern. Sam touched it with his fingers, examined them, saw the blood dripping. There was a lot of blood. He felt dizzy but stable. The other staffer was trying to get him to sit down, to take it easy, but Sam rebuffed him when he spotted the second man out of the corner of his eye, one hundred feet out. This was just how his mind worked, even eight months after the Redrock episode. He found himself always watching his back, always studying others within his close vicinity, perpetually paranoid that someone was still out there trying to get him. Like a permanent scar, Pastor Isaiah, his mentor and the man who rescued him from juvie, had said, that feeling might never go away—he just had to learn to channel it the right way.
Certainly not now, not with this happening again.
The second man had a thick goatee, looked to be in his thirties, and wore a pair of sunglasses and a dark suit very similar to the assassin upstairs. He moved briskly across the courtyard around the large fountain, coming directly toward Sam and the growing crowd. Sam recognized his purposeful gait. He’d seen it all too often a few months back. This man was not coming forward as a concerned citizen—he was coming to finish the job.
Sam stepped forward, felt his left knee buckle in pain, and nearly knocked over one of the hotel staffers as he pushed his way through the small crowd. They were dismayed. He had just fallen from his fourth-story balcony, and now he was up and running?
Sam paused briefly, scanned the courtyard.
His mind pulled up a quick map, like a mental GPS, and he could suddenly envision a dozen different possible escape paths. He’d discovered this heightened ability to see detailed maps in his mind as a street kid, which made him the best thief in his crew. He’d always had a freakish way to see around hidden corners and get himself out of tight spots. The mind-mapping didn’t help him much in law school, but he certainly needed it right now. The courtyard was fully enclosed within the hotel property. He had to get to the outside. He had to get to the busy streets of Mexico City. He had to get to the crowds if he had any hope of losing them.
He chose a path and sprinted up the courtyard sidewalk toward the main lobby—away from the man chasing him—bound up the steps, and burst through the large glass doors. The spacious lobby was busy, with several guests at the front desk, dozens more sitting around in luxury, sipping their margaritas and cocktails from a hotel bar nearby. Everyone stopped and stared at the crazy man who’d just made the brazen entrance from the central courtyard. The maniac wearing only one black shoe with blood rolling down his face.
Sam pointed behind him, yelled, “He’s got a gun. Pistola! Pistola!”
His words instantly raised the level of concern in the room. Panic ensued. Guests began to jump out of their seats, spill drinks, topple over each other, scrambling and darting for the nearest exits. Sam saw a uniformed security guard
appear from around the corner. He didn’t look like much: skinny and unprepared, even with a gun strapped to his waist. Sam doubted this guy could stop an assassin, and he certainly wasn’t going to put his life in the guard’s pathetic hands. Instead, Sam ran for the front doors of the hotel, pushed through them, spilled out onto a busy sidewalk near the hotel’s entrance. There were a dozen cars parked while guests were dropping off luggage and checking in at the front desk.
Sam whipped his head left, right. He could hear a police siren nearby. He’d be happy to talk to the police, to start figuring out what the hell had just happened to him upstairs, and to find some asylum. He cursed again. It didn’t look like he was going to get that option just yet. He spotted two more men, fifty feet to his right, standing beside a black Mercedes sedan. Dark suits, sunglasses, the same getup as the other two guys inside the hotel. There was a whole crew of them. One of them held a finger to his ear, as if listening to instructions in an earpiece, and then pointed in Sam’s direction. When the man reached inside his suit jacket, Sam knew what was coming next.
Who were they? What had Sam’s client done?
The white Range Rover was parked to his left, ten feet away, engine still running, an elderly man of probably eighty helping a valet unload bags from the back. Sam jumped into the driver’s seat, put the SUV in gear, and punched the gas pedal down to the floorboard. The engine roared, and the thick tires spun powerfully. He yanked the steering wheel left, did a quick U-turn in the hotel entrance. In his mirror, Sam noticed the elderly car owner yelling, shaking a frail fist, his luggage toppling out the back—a suitcase rolled and spilled open, clothes littering the pavement. But Sam never slowed. He watched his mirrors. The two men in dark suits scrambled to their Mercedes and worked quickly to follow him away from the hotel.
The street in front of the Four Seasons was thick with traffic. As he’d learned on the cab ride from the airport earlier, everywhere in Mexico City was crowded—there were twenty million people! Sam barely slowed, however, as he zipped into oncoming traffic, causing cars to swerve and jam on their brakes. He punched his foot to the floor again. He was flying by other cars, left and right, swerving in and out of congested traffic. Blood started dripping into his eyes from the cut on his forehead. He could even taste it in his mouth. He quickly wiped it away. The Mercedes was already gaining ground on him. There was clearly a trained driver behind the steering wheel, and the sedan was sportier than his vehicle.