No Remorse No Regret (Counterstrike Book 1)

by Ian Worrall

  “Nothing, just want to get this done.”

  “Yeah, well, stop staring at me.”

  “As you wish,” Darren turns away from him and sits down. He instead starts looking up at the ceiling.

  The guise of a union assessment shouldn’t raise any suspicions. If Colton really is The Drowner, my daughter could be his next victim. And if he isn’t, no harm no foul. Once everyone has turned in the sheets, he’ll pass them on to the task force.

  Colton finishes his in two minutes and puts it in the envelope sealing it by licking the glue strip as do all the others. He pauses for a few seconds realizing he licked the envelope, going to the union not the cops so I’m fine. There are names on each form.

  * * *

  Arriving back at their office, Jackie takes the USB drive with the video interview of Detective Jessica King.

  “Seemed a little too convenient. Our first interview and we get the mole,” Jackie says.

  “That and the fact that the mole up to that point was very careful to keep hidden. And now she makes such a huge mistake by having a key of coke in her home?”

  “Maybe they should have been suspicious about being on the thirteenth floor.”

  Mitchell grunts a laugh out. “Maybe.”

  “We’re no closer to The Drowner or our vigilante.”

  “I’m thinking we should talk to Arlene Benoit.”

  “The assistant director of the rape crisis center?” Jackie asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Get permission to search the center, might find where Melissa lives.”

  “Let’s do it then,” Jackie says.

  “While we’re at it, get a warrant to check Melissa’s financial records.”

  Chapter 56

  S itting in his car, the empty field provides a different location to meet. While there is no cover to hide behind, it works both ways; anyone following him has no cover either. Torres sees another vehicle approaching, a green SUV. This is another meeting with his contact in the Russian mafia. Mikhail Komorov parks his vehicle next to Torres and lowers his window as Torres does the same.

  “I have a message for Danil.”

  “What’s so important it couldn’t be done in a drop off?”

  “He doesn’t know who I am, does he?”

  “You’re a cop. What else does he need to know?” Komorov asks.

  “I can make life miserable for him.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “A fact,” Torres says.

  “You forget, Quincey, we have dealt with the KGB and their successor. American cops have rules, Russian cops don’t. So, to us you’re just--” Komorov makes the yak yak signal with his hand. “That’s how we react to ones like you.”

  “They’re onto his contract killer. A secret weapon maybe?”

  “And how do you know about a secret weapon?”

  “A good guess.”

  “I’ll pass it along then.” Komorov turns his SUV around and drives off.

  Torres cracks a half smile as he watches the Russian drive away. My disguise is still working. They have no idea who I really am. He didn’t recognize Melissa, the still hungover and half-drunken state he was in kept the memory of her at bay. Then being unknowingly drugged, all he thought was he had a great night with the little woman.

  He has no idea the danger he’s in or that his identity has been revealed to the Russians who will now have more leverage on him. They can get to his children from his first marriage as well as his ex-wife. And his current girlfriend and her kids. While not officially married, they’ve been living together for three years, a lot less paperwork should the relationship ever end.

  Chapter 57

  I n the waiting area of the Central Credit Union, three men in their mid-twenties are eyeing an attractive petite blonde woman in biker clothes sitting opposite them. She is engrossed in a crossword puzzle book listening to her iPod.

  They are joking amongst themselves about what sex position they would use if they had her in their home.

  “Dude, I’d bend her over my weight bench and give it to her.”

  “Yeah, well I’d put her on my lap and do her.”

  “I’d like to hold her upside down and lick her pussy while she sucks my dick.”

  If only you knew boys, you’d not be saying these things.

  “Ms. Creaser?” A bank employee draws her attention. Melissa looks up.

  “That’s me,” she answers as she gets up and follows the credit union employee. She looks over to the guys, “none of you could handle me.”

  The three of them drop their mouths wide open then turn their heads away and look at the floor.

  Melissa follows the credit union employee, a woman in her thirties, into her office. They both sit down at the desk.

  “So, what can I do for you?”

  “I would like to set up an account type CUR206.” CUR is an acronym for “Checking account Underground Railroad.” The numbers correspond to the order in the alphabet. 20 is for T for the word “To.” 6 is for the letter “F” which stands for “Freedom.”

  The credit union employee, Nadine Andrews, is one of a few employees of banks who have the knowledge of this type of account. Unbeknownst to Nadine, the woman before her is the one who helped set up this network to help abused women to escape to safety.

  Melissa hands Nadine fifty-five hundred in cash.

  There are to be at least three different bank accounts set up under different names. The escape plan is set in motion if the cops one day discover what she is. She has enough information on the Russian Mafia’s US operations that the cops or DA might just kiss her ass to give her immunity. Or even better, give the best tongue job ever. Danil’s manhandling of her gave her the final push to set the plan in motion. The last time he’ll ever do that to me.

  One of the things Danil didn’t realize, forgot, or ignored was that with the room and all its technology, nothing recorded digitally ever goes away.

  Nadine takes the cash. “I’ll get right on that, my friend.” She stands up from her chair and leaves her office, returning soon after. She types some information on her computer and hands Melissa a temporary bank card.

  “You’ll get the permanent card in about a week. You just need to set your PIN for this card and you’re set to go.” She hands Melissa a card reader and Melissa sets her PIN number 0660.

  The two women stand up. Nadine steps around the desk to give her a big hug. “Please make your escape permanent, sweetheart. Find a real man.”

  “I will.”

  Melissa blows a kiss at the three men who are still in the waiting area.

  Chapter 58

  A rlene places her new baby in the crib and sits down on the love seat. Mitchell is sitting on the couch opposite her. Between them on the coffee table is a pot of tea. Mitchell pours himself one and then pours Arlene one.

  “Milk?” he asks.

  “No, just black.”

  Mitchell hands her the cup of tea.

  “What are you here for, detective?”

  “Your partner at the center.”

  “Melissa? What about her?”

  “You know about the murders we’re investigating?” Mitchell asks.

  “Yes. What does it have to do with her?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Little Melissa Vance a murderer? You can’t be serious.” She leans back in the seat crossing her arms and legs.

  “Yes, I am. You likely have the same reaction as the targets had.”

  “Probably but there won’t be help from me. I know very little about her activities outside of work.”

  “I’m sure you don’t,” Mitchell says.

  “You think I’m lying?” she leans forward.

  “Didn’t say that.”

  “No, you didn’t say it,” she leans back again.

  “The man she’s seeing, you know his name?”

  “Yeah. Max Kehoe.”

  “Try Danil
Burlomov.” Mitchell hands her a mugshot of Danil in his youth.

  “And who is Danil Burlomov?”

  “Head of the Russian mafia. Is this Max?”

  Arlene nods. “Yes. But it’s like I said, don’t know anything about what she does outside of the center, other than seeing this man here.”

  Mitchell hands Arlene pictures of Danil having dinner and engaged in other activities with women. The dates and times on the digital stamp for the pictures coincide for times when Melissa was on a job.

  “Any of them her?”

  She shakes her head answering no. She looks aghast at the photos with her eyes watering, mouth open, and her free hand over her heart.

  “What about her?”

  He hands her a picture of a petite blonde woman, a profile shot of her getting onto The Alexandra with Danil and other members of his crew.

  “That one looks like it could be her,” she says. “But she’s got dark hair, not blonde.”

  “One of her many disguises I would guess.”

  “I still refuse to believe that she could kill anyone, particularly a man. Even with a second-degree black belt in jujitsu I’d have a hard time doing it.”

  “Even with a gun?” Mitchell asks.

  “Well, other than that. But I’ve seen her at the gun range when we went there with Max or Danil if that’s his real name. Every gun she’s ever handled was too powerful for her. It flew right out of her hand.”

  Mitchell takes a sip of his tea, “There are smaller, less power guns. Up close and personal they’re just as deadly if the bullet goes into the head or heart.”

  Leaning forward, Arlene talks in a condescending tone,

  “And if the man disarms her, how does a ninety-pound woman defeat a grown man? She wouldn’t be any kind of a physical match.”

  “You ever hear of Spetsnatz?” Mitchell asks back in his own condescending tone.

  “No.”

  “The Russian version of the Navy SEALs. That’s what Danil did in Russia when he was in the military.”

  “So?”

  Mitchell puts his tea on the table, then tells her of the theory that Danil had trained her. “You seemed shocked that we could even think that Melissa would be capable of it. Think of how a man would react, sees a small woman he should be able to handle without any problem. Then wham, the little woman lays a beating on him worse than he gave his victims.”

  Arlene raises her thumbs. “Well if that’s true, am I supposed to be sad for them?”

  “I can imagine you wouldn’t be.”

  “A problem I am thinking though, detective, is with a serial killer on the loose right now, why are you going after a public service murderer?”

  “You’re referring to The Drowner?” he asks.

  “Is there another one we haven’t been told about?”

  “I hope not,” Mitchell continues. “You have heard about the rumored survivor?”

  Arlene’s jaw appears to drop to the floor. “I think you’re grasping at straws here, detective.” She stands to indicate she wants the interview to be over.

  “Ten years ago, I interviewed a young girl named Celine Charlebois,”

  Arlene’s jaw tightens as she sits back down on the loveseat.

  “Touched a nerve there, did I?” Mitchell asks.

  “She told me she used that name for a high school play,” she says quietly.

  Mitchell opens a file with the dates that coincide with the murders of rapists both in the state of Florida and out of state.

  “Was she in town for any of those dates that were out of state killings?”

  Arlene puts her head in her hands shaking, “No.”

  “How do I get in touch with her outside of the center?”

  She looks up at him, her eyes red with tears. “You won’t believe this, but she’s made sure no one knows where she lives. She uses a mailbox number, or gets mail through the center. She uses a voicemail service, never talks to anyone on the phone.”

  “No cell phone number to track?”

  “She says she doesn’t believe in them, that they cause brain cancer.”

  “I need that number and I need you to get in touch with her. Tell her to come in, get a good lawyer. This is for her safety. The Drowner might try and track her.”

  “How could I miss the signs?” she asks.

  “You wouldn’t have known that she was a contract killer.”

  She leans back in the loveseat as far as she can go. “Not what I meant. Is what I described to you not the symptoms of an abused woman?”

  “Yes.”

  She writes down on a stick-it note the phone number for Melissa’s voicemail. “I’d also like the mailbox number and we’re going to have to check through the center to see if there’s any way to track down where she lives. You’re able to give permission to permit this without a warrant?”

  Arlene nods.

  “So, is that your permission?”

  “Yes, that’s my permission to search the center,” she says as she writes down Melissa’s box number.

  “I know it’s hard. We think we know those closest to us.”

  “If she is the vigilante, what length of prison sentence is she going to get?”

  “Almost a hundred-people killed in ten years, if she’s lucky, she gets life,” Mitchell says.

  “Oh, God,” Arlene exclaims as she bursts into tears and puts her head in her hands.

  Mitchell stands. “Tell her to get a good lawyer. I’m sorry it has to be this way. We’ll be at the center in two days. We’ll give her that long to turn herself in.”

  He leaves the house and meets Jackie in the van outside the house. He removes the lapel camera from his jacket. “Get all that?”

  “I did. Got a message from the station. Some guy dropped off a bunch of handwriting samples. Apparently, he suspects one of his co-workers of being The Drowner.”

  “Really,” Mitchell says as he starts the engine and begins to drive off. “What’s this suspect’s name?”

  “Colton Harris.”

  “Any relation to –”

  Jackie pumps her arm. “He’s the cousin of Marsha Harris and the dead suspect John Harris. And there’s a note saying he licked the envelope, so we’ve got DNA.” As she is about to start the van, her phone rings. “Hello?” she answers and then puts her hand over her mouth. She turns to Mitchell; her eyes are tearing up. “Our next stop is Zach’s hotel room.”

  Forty minutes later, Mitchell and Jackie are at the hotel room where the former FBI agent is lying dead on the floor. There are twelve empty beer bottles and five unused bullets lying on the floor and table. A bottle of prescription medication is spilled out on the bed, the gun still in his hand.

  The note on the table reads: “You know I was simply a hindrance to the investigation. This way you should be able to get The Drowner easier. Everyone is better off without me.”

  Jackie has tears rolling down the side of her face as she is sitting on one of the beds. Mitchell paces around the room.

  “We were so close, I can feel it. Why did he do this?” Jackie asks no one in particular.

  “I guess he figured he lost his last chance at redemption,” Mitchell says as the coroner places Zach in a body bag and loads him onto a gurney.

  “Clear the scene, Detective?” one of the Identification Team asks.

  “Get all the evidence you can, just in case. Contact the FBI if they want to do something for his family.”

  * * *

  Torres opens the door to his partner’s home. Chris lived alone, a string of broken relationships in his wake due to him focusing on his career. Torres enters and notices a projection screen TV. Pretty big and expensive for a cop’s salary. But then he doesn’t have any kids or wife to support. The text message on the cell phone gave Torres a clue as to how things happened. The bust was a set up from a rival of Alexei and Chris got whacked.

  I have a kid who will need money for college, won’t be so tough.

  Torres starts
going through the apartment, searching behind posters and in drawers before finding a small fireproof safe. Not much bigger than a cashier till What would he have in here locked away? Take it home and open it in the garage. The wife and kid will be asleep now so it won’t wake them.

  Snapping out of his reminiscing, Torres goes on his laptop and finds a news report on a missing businessman named Tom McFarland. There’s a picture of him with a young Danil Burlomov. He then enters a search for Tom McFarland and it comes up as listed under cold case files. Not so cold anymore, this case is soon to get hot. He dials the number for the Cold Case Unit and requests the files be brought to his office.

  The light at the end of the tunnel has appeared. Danil Burlomov you’re going down soon by my hand. With Jessica getting railroaded, he’ll be safe from any IAB investigation, and soon safe from the Russians and out of their grasp.

  * * *

  At the reception desk of the Regal Massage Parlor, a brunette woman about five feet ten and twenty-five years old is talking to a customer, a man in his sixties.

  “You had a good time with Elena?” she asks.

  “She was great.”

  The door opens and several members of a SWAT team burst in.

  “Hands above your heads, interlock your fingers and get your knees on the ground,” the team leader orders.

  “What’s going on?” the woman asks nervously. With quick glances, she looks back and forth between the cops and the customer. Danil told her he had a guy on the department that prevented busts.

  “Just do as you’re told, lady.”

  She and her customer comply with the instructions. Two plain clothes officers come in behind the SWAT team and put zip ties on their wrists. The police continue through the massage parlor interrupting sex in progress. The men and women are all handcuffed naked to the massage tables.

  The team leader keys his radio microphone. “Torres, it’s Leon.”

  “Torres, go ahead.”

  “Looks like we got it wrapped up. Should be sixteen arrests.”

  “Great, put them in the wagons,” Torres says.

  Closing his laptop, Torres is outside in his car. He restrains a smile as he watches the people being loaded onto the paddy wagons. A good day’s work. We can justify it to the Russians by saying we need to bust their business every now and then to keep suspicions at bay. Danil should buy that. They’ll never know the main point behind all this is to be investigating the McFarland murder. This is one place he was last seen. Might be something under the floor boards, or in the tiles. Even after ten years, with advances in DNA testing, it might be possible.