THE VIRON CONSPIRACY (JAKE SCARNE THRILLERS #4)

by Lawrence de Maria

  Two hours later a blue minivan pulled into the driveway. Burke and his wife got out. The woman, who had indeed kept her figure, herded two toddlers into the garage as her husband unloaded the van, making several trips into the house with beach paraphernalia and shopping bags. Michael Burke looked like every other harried father on earth. Within a half hour Scarne could smell hot dogs and burgers being grilled. Burke appeared at the rail on the roof holding a spatula in one hand and a beer in another. Scarne took the opportunity to walk to the country store, where he ordered a large black coffee and a ham sandwich to go. Then he went back to his car and resumed his surveillance. He would give the Burkes time to put the kids to bed and then he’d just have to go knock on the door and take his chances. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but he didn’t know what else to do.

  An hour later Burke, still wearing his bathing suit and T-shirt, came out of the garage holding a long surfcasting rod and other fishing equipment, which he loaded into his van. He backed out and drove across the street, pulling up in front of the tackle shop. He went in and a minute later walked out holding a small plastic bag. Bait.

  Scarne followed him when he pulled away. Burke drove along Ocean Boulevard and stopped at a deserted stretch of beach about a mile from his house. He unloaded his gear and walked through a cut in dunes. It was dusk. Scarne gave him a minute and then followed, stopping at the cut. Burke walked to the water’s edge and began to set up his little fishing station, plunging a rod holder into the sand. Scarne looked up and down the beach. There were only a few fishermen and they were spread far apart. The hit man had a long stretch of sand all to himself. When the sun went down, it was unlikely anyone else on the beach would be able to see him.

  That presented a problem. A lone man on a dark beach would be easy to approach, but natural instincts built up over a million years would make him wary. And this particular man, who lived a hard and dangerous life, would be particularly alert to anything out of the ordinary. He would probably be armed, or at least have a weapon handy.

  Scarne kicked himself mentally. He should have been better prepared. He looked at his watch. There might still be time. He went back to his car and drove back to the bait and tackle shop, hoping it was still open. It was.

  “I’d like to rent some fishing gear.”

  The kid behind the counter looked up from his iPad. He had tattoos running down his left arm.

  “Be $20 a day, plus a $50 deposit.”

  Scarne didn’t want anyone remembering that he didn’t return his gear.

  “Well, you know I’m going to be here a few days, then head up to the Outer Banks. Might as well buy the damn stuff. What do you suggest?”

  “Gonna fish the bay or surf?”

  “Surf.”

  “What are you after?”

  “What’s out there?”

  “This time of year your best bet is sea trout. Probably get some croakers and whiting, too. Guy just in here said he’s been catching the occasional bluefish or King Mackerel. And don’t be surprised when you pull in a shark. They’re all over the place. Mostly sand sharks. But sometimes you’ll hook a juvenile black-tip. Nothing big. But they put up a nice scrap. How about I fix you up with a medium rod and 20-pound-test monofilament line? I hear the surf is pretty rough today, so you’ll probably need some five-ounce sinkers.”

  “Great. How long will this take? Sun’s going down.”

  “Got some stuff over there that’s ready to go. Line is already in the reels and everything. Save you some money, too.”

  The store also sold fishing apparel, so while the kid put together his order, Scarne picked out a cap, shorts, a T-Shirt, some Ho-Chi-Minh sandals and a bulky fisherman’s vest. Then he grabbed a rod holder and a bucket.

  “Man, you’re ready for anything,” the clerk said as Scarne piled his purchases on the counter.

  He couldn’t believe how much stuff the guy was buying. Well, he didn’t look like he cared, so why should he? Hell, he didn’t look much like a fisherman, either. Tough-looking bastard. But a sale is a sale, and he didn’t get many like this one.

  “Hold on a sec,” the clerk said.

  He walked over to a large glass-fronted, double-door freezer and took out plastic bag, which he added to Scarne’s order.

  “Bait shrimp. On the house. They’ll thaw by the time you get to the beach. Good night to fish. It’s high tide in an hour.”

  Scarne paid cash and thanked him. The clerk smiled at his back as he walked out. It had been his biggest sale of the week. The boss would be happy. Maybe he’d change his mind about cutting back on his hours. He began to mentally frame how he would embellish the sale. Guy came in to rent a rod and I talked him into buying half the store.

  Scarne drove back to the spot where Burke’s van was. He quickly changed, and feeling fairly ridiculous, walked out to the beach. The vest hid his gun nicely. It was getting dark. There was a full moon. He again scanned the beach. Even in the moonlight, he was confident no one would see what he was doing. He walked down to where Burke was standing in the surf up to his knees. The man saw him approach.

  “What are you catching?” Scarne said.

  “Pneumonia.”

  Scarne laughed. It had gotten noticeably chillier in the past hour.

  “Pretty good spot just down the beach,” Burke said, turning back to face the ocean.

  It was a not-too-subtle hint that he wanted this stretch of the beach all to himself.

  “What should I go after?”

  Burke looked at Scarne’s over-the-top outfit and equipment and smiled.

  “How about Moby Dick?”

  Scarne laughed again and stuck his rod holder and pole in the sand and put down his bucket.

  Burke sighed. Two thousand miles of shoreline and this jerk …

  “I’m after bigger fish,” Scarne said. “Or rather, a bigger dick.”

  Burke turned. His smile vanished as his eyes drifted down to the Bersa now pointed at his midsection.

  CHAPTER 21 - FISH EYE

  Burke showed surprise, but not fear. It was not the first time he’d had a gun pointed at him. The fact that Scarne had not already shot him dead may have reassured him somewhat.

  “Who are you?”

  Scarne ignored the question.

  “Where’s your cell phone?”

  Burke hesitated.

  “I don’t bring it with me when I go fishing.”

  “So, when I go over to your bag over there I won’t find it. If I do, you are going to be short one kneecap.”

  “It’s in the bag.”

  Scarne walked back to the bag and found the phone.

  “How do they contact you when there’s a job?”

  “What job?”

  Scarne timed the next breaker, which crashed with a roar just behind Burke, drowning out the sound of the Bersa. The round splashed in the water in front of Burke’s legs and he jumped.

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “No one’s going to hear the next one, either. Come on, Burke. The tide’s coming in. Unless you want to go out with it, stop wasting my time. You and your friends killed Bryan Vallance and three other people. You’re hired help. Who hired you and how do they contact you?”

  The mention of Vallance shook Burke. So did the fact that the man knew his name. But he hung in there.

  “We use throwaways.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But not when they just want to get in touch with you. It would be too inconvenient. I’m betting that when we go through the past-call records in your account we will find the number of your contact. It’s a number you are going to give me now to save us the trouble of sifting through the numbers. I don’t have to tell you how important it is that you tell me the truth. We can find you again, and we will. What is it?”

  Scarne had used the “we” because he knew it would get Burke thinking that he was in over his head. Who they hell were they? And a “we” would also be a lot more intimidating to a family man. If the man with a gun was with h
im, where were the others? Back at the rental? Scarne wasn’t particularly happy using the ploy, but Burke, after all, was part of a team that slaughtered Campbell’s wife and daughter.

  “I have a wife and kids,” Burke said. “Give me a break.”

  “I wouldn’t play the family card, Mike. Not after Hawaii.”

  “It won’t do me any good for the people who hired me to know I ratted them out.”

  “They’re not standing here holding a gun on you. You can worry about them later. Focus on the here and now. I want a name and number.”

  “It won’t help you. The guy is just like me. Hired help. Someone calls him. He calls me. We’re just soldiers.”

  “You’re lying. It was your team in Hawaii. You made an executive decision to leave the baby alive. A subordinate wouldn’t take that responsibility. You live in a million-dollar house in the best neighborhood in Columbia. By the way, Lucy has nice taste in furniture, though I didn’t care much for the curtains. And you’ll need a new dog door.”

  Burke looked confused.

  “Dog door? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Scarne told him.

  “Shit. We don’t even have that mutt anymore. Got rid of it when the twins were born. It got too jealous.”

  Scarne fired again. The bullet splashed behind Burke, this time having gone between his legs.

  “The next one takes one of your balls off. The right one.”

  Now, Burke looked frightened. The man holding the gun on him seemed implacable.

  “You Government? It was the Russian, right?”

  Scarne was surprised but hid it. He decided to see where it would go. He smiled and nodded.

  “Figures,” Burke said. “Should have known the deal was queer. But I thought the Cold War was over. They’re our pals, now, right?”

  Scarne took a chance.

  “Depends on which Russians. Some are, some aren’t.”

  “I don’t want any trouble with you guys. I was in the service. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt the country. I figured this was some kind of international corporate bullshit. That’s where we get a lot of our work now.”

  “We know it’s the Russians, Mike.” Scarne was winging it. “But not which ones. Give me a name.”

  “Name? We don’t ask, and they don’t tell. What sense is there in that? I just got a call from a guy I trust who tells me to expect a call from this Russian. He calls and tells me I’d get another call from someone else telling me what’s up. I get that call and I put together a team and we go to Hawaii. It was kind of a rush job. I didn’t like it, but the money was in my account before I even left. A lot of fucking money.”

  “How did you know it was a Russian?”

  “Like I said, I trust the source. And the guy had a Russian accent. Hard to miss.”

  “What about the last call. Tell me about it. Another Russian?”

  “No. German. Very slight accent.”

  “How can you be sure? Why not Dutch? Or Norwegian?”

  Burke shifted his weight.

  “Careful, Mike,” Scarne said. “You move like that again and I might accidentally shoot both balls off. Get back to the accent.”

  “Definitely German. I’m good with accents. Even went to school in the Army about them.”

  “What else?”

  “Nothing, that was it. Short and sweet. He was an arrogant cocksucker. ‘Make it so. Make it so’.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s what the Kraut prick kept saying. He liked to give orders. That’s how he ended the call, too. ‘Make it so’.”

  “I’ll need the name of your contact. The one who told you to expect the calls.”

  Another large wave broke, spraying them both. Water splashed in Scarne’s face.

  Burke seized the chance. He swung his fishing rod across his body. The move took Scarne by surprise. Burke was standing too far from Scarne to hit him with the pole, but that wasn’t his intent. His aim was almost perfect. The heavy sinker caught Scarne high on his forehead, staggering him. He fired a wild shot that missed and he sank to his knees, the Bersa digging into the sand.

  Burke lunged toward him, bringing the fishing pole back in another arc. The sinker glinted in the moonlight, giving Scarne just enough time to get his other arm up. The piece of lead wrapped around his forearm barely missing his face. He reached for the automatic but the other man crashed on top of him.

  Scarne saw the glint of a long fisherman’s knife as it slashed toward his throat. With his left arm still attached by line to the heavy surf rod, Scarne was barely able to block the knife thrust with his gun arm. He kneed Burke in the side and they rolled together. The man cried out. He dropped the knife. The piercing scream was all out of proportion to Scarne’s action, but the cause was soon apparent.

  The large hook attached to the sinker had impaled itself deep in Burke’s right eye. Scarne could see a trail of blood beneath the tail of the bait shrimp hanging down the hit man’s cheek. He quickly brought his arm under Burke’s chin and wrapped the fishing line tight against his neck. Then he rolled on his back, grabbed some free line with his other hand and tightened it. The back of Scarne’s head was in the wash and an occasional wavelet filled his nostrils with sand and salt water but it was bearable.

  Not so for the man he was throttling. With the fishing hook digging ever deeply into his eye and the monofilament line cutting into his neck, the hit man thrashed wildly, his hands desperately reaching back to claw Scarne’s face. But it was no use. Scarne had done this kind of work before. He buried his face in the man’s neck as the frantic fingers slipped through Scarne’s wet hair, unable to get a purchase. Finally, it was over. Just to be sure, Scarne rolled over and pressed Burke’s face into the water, holding it there for several minutes.

  He rolled Burke over. He was dead.

  Scarne looked up and down the beach and saw no one. Burke’s body started drifting out, head first, tongue protruding from a gaping mouth and a soggy shrimp hanging from one bloody eye. The burial at sea would be temporary; the body would wash up along the beach within hours.

  Scarne wasn’t worried about repercussions. An investigation into Burke’s background was sure to turn up some interesting reading. The police would make the natural assumption about a dead hit man floating ashore on a deserted beach strangled, with a fish hook in his eye. Obviously some sort of macabre retribution. It would be relegated to the “Chickens Coming Home to Roost” file. As for Dave Fogelson, the realty agent — even if he put two and two together, he might be reluctant to admit he probably gave a killer directions to his victim.

  Scarne found his gun. He’d have to clean and oil it later. He put it into his pocket. Only then did he notice the stinging in his left forearm and right hand where the fishing line had cut into his flesh during the strangling. He was bleeding in both spots, but not excessively. The cuts weren’t deep enough for stitches.

  Scarne washed the wounds off in the surf. He knew he was luckier than he deserved.

  “Better than a hook in the eye,” he muttered.

  Scarne turned, picked up his fishing equipment and walked casually back to his car. He couldn’t help but recall an earlier case that also involved a brutal killing of a fisherman on a beach, in Miami. Surfcasting was apparently a dangerous avocation.

  On the drive across the bridge spanning the Intracoastal, Scarne also remembered what he’d said to Winston Todd in the restaurant when the old lawyer mentioned the $100,000 fee. “I don’t do assassinations.” Well, technically that was true. Scarne knew he would not murder a stranger for hire. But he’d killed in war and in self-defense. He’s also killed to save someone from unbearable torture. And now he’d killed to …. well, it was self-defense, but just barely. The line was getting more blurred all the time.

  “Fuck it,” he said to himself.

  The bridge was deserted. He got out of his car and dropped his fishing gear into the water below. Then he drove to Charleston and found an all-night
chain drug store, where he purchased antiseptic alcohol, some gauze pads, tape and a bottle of ibuprofen. After bandaging himself in the car, he drove back to Columbia. He bought some sandwiches and beer at a convenience store and checked into a motel near the airport. The next day he caught a 9 A.M. flight to Chicago.

  It was time to talk to Kate.

  CHAPTER 22 - TARGETS

  “My God, Jake! What happened to your head?”

  Scarne’s hand inadvertently went to the right side of his forehead to touch the bruise left by the fishing sinker. It was more of a raised bump now and he winced at the sharp pain, which settled into a dull throbbing.

  “And your hand. It’s cut up.”

  Kate’s eyes shifted to his other hand.

  “Both hands. Were you in fight?”

  Scarne resisted the temptation to say, “You should see the other guy.” Instead, he said, “I could use some coffee.”

  “Of course. I’ll put on a fresh pot.”

  Scarne followed her into the kitchen and sat, rather gingerly, on one of the stools surrounding the center island. The bruise on his head wasn’t the only damage he’d suffered in his battle with Burke. While Kate busied herself with a drip coffeemaker, he looked around the ultra-modern kitchen and smiled. Cooking was never one of Kate Ellenson’s strong suits. Across from him was a stainless-steel, double-doored oven combination that must have been six-feet wide. There were six separate stove-top cooking configurations. The whole apparatus reminded Scarne of stoves he’d seen in the galleys of Navy frigates.

  “Where’s Aurelia?”

  “This is her day off.” Kate smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m perfectly capable of making a pot of coffee. If you’re hungry, I can probably even make you some scrambled eggs.”