Replaceable: An Alan Lamb Thriller

by Bouchard, J. W.

  “Maybe you should tell him,” Lucy had said. “I know it sounds crazy, but he trusts you. He trusts your judgment. He knows you wouldn’t waste time on something if it wasn’t at least possible.”

  “I also know that Gant likes to err on the side of caution. Until I have something more solid, I want to play it close to the vest. The cover story is that I’m following up on a potential lead on some of the stolen cash from the Mellencott Bank robbery. I told Gant a hit came up on some of the serial numbers. It’s paper thin, and if he looks into it, he’ll find out pretty quickly that I was pulling his leg, but all I need is to get out there.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I hope things will sort themselves out. We don’t have anything else to go on.”

  “I don’t like lying, Alan.”

  “Either do I. Can you keep it a secret?”

  “If Gant asks…”

  “I don’t think he will.”

  “But if he does…”

  “All I need is five hours. By that time I’ll have landed in the city.”

  Lucy bent down and opened the bottom drawer of her desk. She grabbed out her purse, rummaged through it, and then came out with a business card, which she handed to Alan. “Here. This is a friend of mine. He’s a psychic. He also does some remote viewing occasionally. He’s really good at what he does, so before you say –”

  “Thanks,” Alan said and took the card from her without another word. He didn’t believe in psychics, and he didn’t believe that they were going to make any headway in the case via spiritual assistance, but his mind was more open to absurd possibilities now that Marvin’s theory seemed to hold some weight. After all, he had believed it enough that he had sent Guy Bernard chasing after it. And that gamble had paid off, or at least appeared to have had, and Alan didn’t think any of it was coincidental. Something (nothing more substantial than a gut feeling perhaps) told him that this was all part of the plan; that someone was still carefully placing breadcrumbs, creating a trail for them to follow.

  The real question was why? If they wanted to get caught, why not make the clues more blatant?

  No. This was a game. A patient and strategic game of cat-and-mouse.

  It made Alan question his investigative abilities. If it hadn’t been for the small clues placed along the way, where would they be?

  Nowhere, was the depressing yet honest answer. They would be running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

  We still are, Alan thought.

  He remembered something Guy had said the evening before and hoped that it was true. That all roads led back to a man named Graham McKay.

  Two major events occurred while Alan was in the air trying his best to catch some shut-eye before his plane landed in San Francisco.

  The first incident was an explosion at a chemical plant in Rhode Island. The explosion had killed two dozen employees and injured nearly a hundred more. Fire and Rescue crews were still trying to contain the fire and search the debris for survivors.

  The second event was a car bomb that had gone off on a busy downtown street in Shreveport, Louisiana. It had obliterated several shops that had been in close proximity to the suspect car. Two people were killed, with six more being seriously injured.

  The news was all over the airport television screens when he landed at SFO.

  When he took his phone out of airplane mode, there was a text message from Lucy asking if he had heard about the two bombings yet. The text went on to say that both cases had been referred to the GCB.

  Lucy had ended her message with, Gant is seriously LHS.

  Alan didn’t know what Lucy meant by ‘LHS,’ but in the end decided that it stood for ‘losing his shit.’

  Close enough for government work, Alan thought, but didn’t laugh.

  While he was waiting in line for his rental car, Alan received a call from Guy Bernard.

  “You have something to write with?” Guy asked.

  “Just a sec.” Alan borrowed a pen from the customer service desk and rummaged through his pockets for something to write on. He found the business card for the psychic that Lucy had given him and flipped it to the blank side. “Okay, shoot.”

  Guy gave him an address. “It’s outside the city. Big place. Suburban area. I contacted the property owner. The lease is in McKay’s name, but payments aren’t coming from him. Property owner says he receives funds every month via wire transfer.”

  “From who?”

  “Take a wild guess.”

  “Odin LLC.”

  “You’re an ace detective, Agent Lamb. Where are you right now?”

  “San Francisco,” Alan said. “On my way to pay McKay a visit.”

  “You’ve got some time,” Guy said. “Somewhat serendipitously, I didn’t get around to pulling my guy off the stakeout until later last night. McKay showed up around seven-thirty in the evening. Didn’t leave after that. At least not before my guy left.”

  “I’m headed down there now.”

  “You’re not going alone are you?”

  “That was the plan.”

  “I thought you guys always brought the cavalry with you?”

  “Not this time. If I bring the entire circus with me, it might scare the animals.”

  “You heard about the two bombings, I take it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Related?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Ugly shit. These guys are some serious players to pull something like that off simultaneously. Really amping it up. If it was me, I’d come in locked and loaded. But I’m not your mother.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Just watch your back.”

  “I will,” Alan said and hung up.

  After the girl at the counter handed him the keys to the rental car, Alan started the hour-long drive to Walnut Creek. It was 5:56 P.M.

  He thought about the two bombings that had occurred only hours ago. A series of random robberies was a far cry from a bombing. Alan wondered why the crimes were escalating. What purpose did it serve?

  Lucy was supposed to be emailing him copies of the initial reports on the bombings in Louisiana and Rhode Island, and he planned on examining them when he was back at the hotel, but there didn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to the chosen locations. No individual or group had publically taken responsibility for the recent atrocities. It was almost as if they were committing these random acts of violence for no other reason than that they could; to see how long they could get away with it. But the severity of the crimes was ramping up. There were casualties involved now. Innocent peoples’ lives had been extinguished with extraordinary suddenness, and it all seemed to be in the name of some insane game.

  He thought about Darrow.

  Darrow had given them precious little, but he had alluded to there being things he wasn’t telling them. Why was the spook handing over cases to the GCB? To make them look bad? Was someone hoping to have the bureau shut down? Why the secrecy? In the greater scheme of things, they should have been allies, but there were hidden variables in this sick game of cat and mouse, and Darrow had decided to hold something back.

  Something about Darrow had set Alan’s radar pinging. Darrow had been a difficult man to read. A man, Alan thought, that one might do well to remain cautious around.

  And who did Darrow work for? That was a million dollar question in a long string of questions that Alan didn’t have the answers to.

  He took one hand off the steering wheel long enough to remove the business card that Lucy had given him from his pocket. He turned it over and read the address he had jotted down.

  Maybe Guy had been right; maybe this wasn’t something he should be doing alone. Given the severity of the most recent crimes, Alan would have bet his pension that there were now plenty of other agencies chomping at the bit to apprehend whoever was behind things. A few phone calls and he could have no doubt had an army of local and state law enforcement personnel at his disposal.

 
; But his hesitation was short-lived. He still thought it would be best to go in quietly and unassumingly. If McKay refused to give up the goods, he could get a warrant, call in the backup, and search McKay’s residence.

  Alan wasn’t about to let self-doubt cloud his judgment. Not this far into the game. It wasn’t as outrageous as it initially appeared when weighed against the fact that they had absolutely nothing else to go on. If they didn’t follow this lead to its conclusion, then they were dead in the water. Even Gant couldn’t fault him for that.

  As he entered the Walnut Creek city limits, Alan could see Mount Diablo in the distance. He passed the Lesher Center for the Arts as he headed south on Locust Street, and then a Cheesecake Factory as he turned left onto Botelho Drive. After Botelho, he took Main Street until he merged onto Creekside, which curved and then abruptly ended at a cul-de-sac. McKay’s residence was situated on the right side of the cul-de-sac. It was a large, two-story home surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Alan could see a swimming pool at the rear of the house.

  The house’s position in the cul-de-sac made for lousy parking, at least if someone was trying to be inconspicuous.

  Alan opted for a space along the curb immediately before Creekside curved into the cul-de-sac, on the opposite side of the street from McKay’s house. He wedged the rental car in a cramped space between a Cadillac Escalade and a Lexus sedan. He adjusted the driver’s side mirror until he had a decent view of McKay’s place. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best he could do without sticking out like a sore thumb.

  It was 7:00. The man Guy Bernard had had doing surveillance on McKay’s house the day before had reported that McKay had arrived home around 7:30 P.M.

  Alan had time to kill. He considered calling Lucy to see how things were going, but it would have been nine o’clock there and she would have left the office for the day. He decided that no news was good news.

  It also meant that Gant hadn’t called his bluff yet.

  Alan leaned back in his seat and waited.

  Seven-thirty rolled by, then eight and eight-thirty. By 9:15 the sky was dark, the stars were out, and there was still no sign of McKay. The side of himself that was prone to becoming panic-stricken insisted that McKay had caught wind of being made and had headed for the hills. Had drained his bank accounts and skipped town, taking his secrets with him. It hadn’t occurred to Alan what he would do if McKay never showed up.

  Alan was too absorbed with staring into the side mirror to notice the figure approaching the parked rental car. He nearly jumped out of his seat when someone began tapping on the passenger side window.

  A face he didn’t recognize appeared in the window, gesturing for Alan to roll the window down.

  Alan rolled the window down, his other hand sliding down and finding the butt of his Glock.

  The man leaned in through the open window and said, “Agent Lamb?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Guy Bernard sent me.”

  Alan swallowed hard, reasonably certain his heart was firmly lodged in his throat. He nodded and the man opened the door and sat down in the passenger seat.

  “I’m Frank Knowles,” the man said, extending his hand. “Guy’s had me on surveillance here for the last day or two. Sorry if I startled you. Can’t be too careful.”

  “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  “I didn’t want to blow your cover.”

  “I didn’t see you pull in.”

  “I’m around the corner. I hoofed it in on foot. Spotted the rental plates on your car, figured it must be you.”

  “I asked Guy to pull you off,” Alan said.

  “He did, but I guess he had a change of heart. Called me an hour ago and said he had a bad feeling about you doing this on your own. So he asked me to come back and keep an eye on things.”

  “He thought I needed a babysitter.”

  Alan frowned, but secretly he was grateful for the company.

  “I’m sort’ve breaking protocol talking to you like this. Guy didn’t want me to make contact, but given the circumstances, I made an executive decision.”

  “Circumstances?”

  “We’ve got company. Suburban parked around the corner with blacked out windows. Been there for half an hour, and the engine’s idling. Doubt it’s a coincidence. If it is, I won’t bill Guy for my time.”

  “I was so busy watching the house, I didn’t notice.”

  “You wouldn’t have. They didn’t come up the street. I got lucky and saw it when I pulled in. I doubled back a little bit ago and it was still there. I put ten years in with the SF PD before I started doing freelance P.I. work. I’m familiar with coincidences, but I’ve also learned to trust my gut.”

  They chatted for several more minutes before falling into silence. There wasn’t a lot for two strangers in a tense situation to talk about. They waited. If McKay followed a regular schedule, he was breaking it tonight. It was already quarter to ten, and Alan was having his doubts as to whether the man would show.

  “How long you willing to wait?” Knowles asked.

  “As long as it takes I guess.”

  Knowles checked his watch, briefly illuminating the inside of the car with blue light. “Almost ten. Our man is running late to –”

  A car came slowly around the curve. Both Alan and Knowles sank lower in their seats as the car passed by them. Alan hadn’t taken his gaze from the side mirror. He watched the brakelights flash as the car turned into McKay’s driveway.

  “That’s our guy,” Knowles said.

  Alan grabbed the door handle as he got ready to exit the rental car, but Knowles stopped him. “Give it a minute.”

  Headlights appeared, aimed in their direction. A black suburban cut through the darkness at a crawl, passing them and then coming to a stop as it reached McKay’s driveway.

  “You packing?” Knowles asked.

  “Yeah. You?”

  Knowles fished a hand into his jacket and brought out a nickel-plated revolver. “Pays to be safe.”

  “Maybe you should wait in the car.”

  “I’m not wet behind the ears, Agent.”

  Alan didn’t argue. He was thankful for the backup. He quietly opened the car door and stepped out onto the street. Knowles followed suit. They left both the driver’s and passenger’s side doors open a crack so as not to make any noise.

  Alan came up the cul-de-sack toward McKay’s house at a crouch, gun drawn. Knowles cut across the street, staying low as he tried to use a row of bushes for cover.

  As Alan reached the house, he ducked down behind a car parked on the opposite side of the street and watched as two men exited the black Suburban.

  McKay was still in his car. He had no doubt seen the Suburban pull up behind him, blocking the driveway.

  A motion-activated light blinked on, flooding McKay’s driveway in orange light. The man that had gotten out on the Suburban’s driver’s side was carrying a silenced pistol. He approached McKay’s car. The other man had disappeared around the front of the Suburban.

  Suddenly, the brakelights of McKay’s vehicle flashed once and then the car started moving in reverse.

  Bastard’s panicking, Alan thought.

  McKay’s car rammed the side of the Suburban, but wasn’t able to move it. The man with the silenced pistol fired twice at the car. Alan heard a rapid pfft pfft sound and then the rear windshield of McKay’s car was vaporized in an explosion of glass.

  Alan didn’t think. He ran across the street, aiming his Glock, shouting, “Drop it!”

  The man holding the silenced pistol froze, but only for a moment. He bent at the knees, lowering his profile, and swiveled, the gun coming around toward Alan.

  Without hesitating, Alan fired twice. His first round caught the man in the upper chest, knocking him back. The second round disintegrated the man’s chin. The silenced pistol clattered to the ground. Alan came up fast, back up against the Suburban now, Glock still aimed at the downed man.

  Alan caught movement out of hi
s peripheral vision. The other man who had exited the Surburan appeared, gun raised. Alan raised his Glock and then the sound of gunfire sent his ears ringing. The man crumpled, rebounded off the rear of McKay’s car, and sank to the ground.

  Knowles was there in a flash, his revolver pointed at the man he had just shot. He bent down, checked for a pulse, and when he didn’t find one he went over to Alan. “You okay?”

  Alan nodded. “Just barely.”

  Knowles helped him up and then glanced at the man he had shot. “A decade on the force,” he said, “and I never shot a man once. At least I won’t be the one writing a report.”

  They approached McKay’s car. The engine was still idling. Knowles covered the passenger side and Alan came up on the driver’s side.

  McKay was still buckled into the driver’s seat. He was still, eyes open, staring straight ahead. For a moment, Alan was certain the man was dead. But then his head swiveled in Alan’s direction as the car window came down, and McKay said, “Please don’t kill me.”

  “Are you hit?” Alan asked.

  “I don’t think so. I’d really like to leave if you don’t mind.”

  “Cut the engine. Then I want you to unbuckle your belt and step out of the car. Slowly.”

  McKay complied.

  Alan had expected a taller man, but the man who stepped out of the car was shorter than he was, maybe 5’7” with his black Oxfords on. He was pale as a ghost as he placed his hands on top of his head and slowly stepped forward in Alan’s direction. When he reached the rear of his car, his eyes caught sight of the two dead men whose bodies now littered his otherwise immaculate driveway. “If you promise not to kill me,” he said, “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  Chapter 13

  It was almost midnight as Alan sat on the plush sofa in Graham McKay’s living room. McKay was seated on the other end of the couch, his handcuffed hands folded in his lap. At this hour, an average person who conducted their daily operations during normal business would have appeared tired, perhaps even exhausted, but McKay looked as though he had drunk a six-pack of energy drinks, one right after the other. His eyes were wide, darting all over the place without settling anywhere. The adrenaline was still surging through him. Even Alan had trouble focusing. He felt jittery and the fact that he had shot a man only an hour or so before hadn’t fully registered. He tried to keep his mind from recalling the fact that he might have gotten shot himself if it hadn’t been for Frank Knowles’s quick reaction time. Alan made a mental note to thank Guy Bernard the next time he saw him. If it hadn’t been for Guy’s premonition, things might have gone differently.