They weren’t. But that could change at any moment. Any number of people were gunning for him and the boy. Which meant he couldn’t keep driving around forever, wasting time he didn’t have. He was going to have to take a chance and reach out.
Using a clean prepaid cell, he dialed Ben’s number.
“Is this Murphy’s Pub?” he said as soon as the kid answered. It was a code they’d established a long time ago. One they’d never had to use until now.
Ben was quiet for a second. “Nope. Wrong number,” he said before hanging up. Michael dropped the cell in the center console and waited. The wrong number was a signal that he was in trouble. Ben was supposed to ditch his phone and call him from a fresh one as soon as he could.
He took a look in the rearview, this time letting his gaze fall onto the kid. He sat in the back seat of the SUV, staring into middle space. He’d given no protest at being hustled out of the hospital by a total stranger. Seeing Sabrina shoot one of the men who abducted him must’ve done what hours of talking and persuading couldn’t: he trusted them.
Which would more than likely end up getting him killed.
Michael shifted his gaze to the road behind them. Still no tail. But, then again, why bother with a tail? He was outfitted with a state-of-the-art tracking device. There was no need to put a physical tail on him when it was possible to track him via satellite. No need to send a platoon of Pips to gank his ass when all Shaw had to do was let his fingers do the walking.
He kept going over what had happened at the hospital. The disappearing Pip. Cordova’s triggerman. What he’d said to Sabrina, that he wasn’t alone. Something was going on. Michael’s gut told him that whatever it was, Livingston Shaw was involved up to his chin.
No one at FSS could be trusted. Not even his partner.
Twenty-Eight
Sabrina’s head was killing her.
The dull throb of it melded perfectly with the stabbing pain she felt every time she moved—or spoke or fucking breathed too hard—but at least it’d stopped bleeding.
She explained everything while Strickland drove. He said nothing, didn’t even seem to be listening, but she knew he heard every word she said.
Eventually she ran out of words and just sat there, waiting for her partner to come unglued on her. Silence filled the space between them for several long seconds before she finally snapped. “Say something,” she said.
Strickland just laughed. “What am I supposed to say exactly? Kidnapped grandsons of US Senators. Colombian drug lords. Spanish hit men. It’s all a bit above my pay grade, Vaughn.”
She wished she could say the same. “Let’s just focus on finding this Elm guy. Let O’Shea worry about the rest of it.”
“Speaking of—we’re here.” Strickland squeezed his unmarked car into a compact space in front a brick building in the downtown area, not far from the station.
The small lobby was deserted, the security desk unmanned. Sabrina felt a tingle run along her arm until it settled into a faint itch in the center of her gun hand. Looking at Strickland, she could see he felt it too. Something wasn’t right.
Finding the directory on the wall near the bank of elevators, they found a listing for Elm and took a car to the fifth floor. The doors slid open quietly onto a hallway just as deserted as the lobby. The stainless-steel sign across from the elevator was engraved with the words Elm Properties & Lending. They were in the right place.
Stepping into the hallway, the itch in her hand grew stronger. Three steps down the hall had her pulling her SIG off her hip. There was a man sprawled on the floor, half in and half out of what must’ve been his office. The brass plate on the door read Cole Nielsen.
Strickland crouched and felt for a pulse. Shaking his head, he rolled the man over to show her the clean, execution-style bullet hole drilled into the center of his forehead. The man was dead. Strickland scanned the floor and shook his head. “No brass,” he said in a barely audible whisper. Sabrina swept her gaze across the room. No shell casings. This wasn’t some disgruntled mail clerk who lost his marbles because he didn’t get a raise. Whoever did this was a professional.
Without asking, Strickland called it in before giving her a questioning look: Wait for backup?
She shook her head. There was no time for that.
Together they cleared the hall. Each office they passed had another dead body, each murdered with a bullet to the head. When they reached the breakroom, things took a turn. A shattered coffee pot littered the floor, shards of glass floating in a pool of cool brown liquid. A quick sweep told her everything she needed to know. A coffee mug lay in pieces next to the door, more coffee ran down the wall to her right. Someone had caught the shooter off guard. Fought back.
“Let’s move,” she said quietly, sliding through the doorway, Strickland doing his best to get in front of her. Finally reaching the end of the hall, they found Elm’s office. They discovered who she assumed was Elm’s secretary, crammed under her desk, the damage of several bullets destroying her face. Looks like they found their fighter.
The door to the left of the desk was closed and they approached it silently, each of them pressed against opposite sides of the doorway. Strickland signaled that he would take point, and she shook her head no. He narrowed his eyes at her and before she could launch another protest, he turned the knob and flung the door open.
“SFPD! Show me your hands!” he called out. Sabrina hurled herself around the corner, SIG trained on the spot directly over Strickland’s shoulder, at the man standing over who she was sure was a very dead Walter Elm. He stood facing them, face tipped down, but his sheer size was all she needed to see to recognize him. Hatred squeezed every part of her, tightening her finger around the trigger until she was sure it would fire.
“Drop the gun, Lark, or I drop you. Your choice. And please keep in mind that I’m sincerely hoping for the latter.” The words were delivered in a calm cool tone at complete odds with the white-hot anger that scorched its way through her veins.
Lark looked up at her, his bald head tipping back until his eyes met hers. He smiled, his dimples popping out as the smile deepened into a grin. “Well, if it ain’t the Lady Cop. Guess this means I’m livin’ right.”
She smirked. “Or it means it’s gonna be my pleasure to punch your ticket and send you straight to hell. Put the gun down. Last time I’m gonna say it.”
Lark chuckled and showed her his hands. The full-size 9mm he held looked like a child’s toy, even with the benefit of the silencer-extended barrel. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“Oh, that’s a relief, because it looks like you systematically executed an entire building full of people,” she said.
“This isn’t my mess. I got here about thirty seconds before your partner stuck his gun in my face.” As if to prove it, he stooped and laid the gun on the floor before straightening slowly. “I’m here with the Wonder Twins. Call O’Shea and ask him,” he said, hands still raised to shoulder height. “On second thought, call Ben; O’Shea’d probably just tell you to kill me.”
“Is it just my imagination, or do you know every asshole and dirtbag in existence, Vaughn?” Strickland said, his service weapon still trained on Lark’s chest.
“It’s not your imagination,” she said under her breath, trying to figure out what to do next. Normally she’d cuff and frisk him, but that wasn’t happening. Not with Lark. Getting within arm’s length of him would be a huge mistake, but time was wasting. Backup was blocks away. She could hear sirens wailing in the distance, growing louder by the second. “Listen to me, Strickland. I’m lowering my weapon to make a phone call. If he so much as winks at you, start shooting and don’t stop until your clip runs dry.”
Twenty-Nine
Michael hated cemeteries.
Some people saw the neat rows of headstones, heard the almost deafening silence of the dead, and felt at peace. Not him. All
he saw were rows of loved ones who couldn’t be saved, the silence that hung in the air heavy with questioning accusation. Where were you when I needed you?
“San Francisco National Cemetery. Plot eight-sixteen—thirty minutes,” Ben said when he called back about an hour later. Eight-sixteen was marked with a headstone that simply read Brother, shaded by the widespread branches of an acacia tree. Michael made it there in fifteen and spent the rest of the time trying to piece what he knew together with what he’d learned.
Ben had followed protocol and stationed a Pip outside the Kotko boy’s hospital room. Sabrina had seen him when she went in, but he’d been long gone once things got critical. If there was one thing Michael knew for sure, it was that Pips followed orders. Especially when it was Junior barking them out. They were soldiers in every sense of the word. Conditioned to carry out their mission, regardless of the cost. Nothing would’ve moved him from his post except one thing.
A direct order from someone with the last name Shaw.
A sudden shift in the air told him he was no longer alone. In one fluid motion, fueled by training and years of practice, Michael rounded the tree and drew his gun, pointing it without hesitation at the person approaching behind him.
“Just me,” Ben said, his mouth quirked in a rueful smile.
“I know who it is,” he answered back, keeping the barrel of his gun trained on his partner’s forehead.
Ben took a few more steps before stopping, the smile on his face fading into an expressionless mask that gave away nothing. “What’s going on, partner?” He held his hands out at his sides, palms face down in what looked like a submissive gesture.
Michael knew better.
“You tell me,” Michael said. “Sabrina was just attacked at the hospital while sitting with the Kotko boy.”
Ben’s face changed again, this time showing something close to panic. “What? Is she okay? Where is she?” he said in a rush, his concern pushing him forward a few steps.
Michael saw the wide, angry furrow dug into her scalp, the thick trail of blood cooling against her nape. Another half-inch and she’d be dead. He tightened his grip on the butt of his Kimber, the hinge of his jaw so tight it almost snapped when he opened his mouth. “I’ve got a better question. Where were you?”
“I was at the morgue getting a DNA sample from the boy Sabrina found. We need an ID, and police channels will take time we don’t have.”
He’d almost forgotten about the dead boy—the real reason they were here. “The guard you put outside the Kotko boy’s room was long gone when I got there. That’s a bit weird, don’t you think, considering he’d been ordered there by you?”
Ben started to shake his head, opened his mouth to protest, but the words died in his throat. He closed his mouth and then opened it again. “My father.”
“Or you.”
“You think I’m involved somehow.” It wasn’t a question, it sounded more like an accusation.
“Your father is in on the Maddox boy’s kidnapping, that much I’m sure of. I find it highly doubtful that he’d make such a bold move without including his heir apparent,” he said, his words making perfect sense, but Ben just laughed.
“Are you serious?” Ben said.
“Very.”
Ben brought his hands up slowly, palms out, until they were raised shoulder high. “Do you see the scar in the middle of my left hand?”
Michael nodded. It was huge, encompassing almost his entire palm, rendering it nothing more than a thick pad of shiny white scar tissue. He’d noticed it before but never asked what’d happened. He’d assumed that it’d been about an op gone bad. They all had their fair share of battle scars.
Ben continued. “You asked me about my brother and his wife. What happened to them. Why I was so angry with my father.” He stopped for a moment, chewed on his words before forcing them out. “Mason was my older brother. He was the heir. Our father’s pride and joy. Trained from the cradle to take the reins at FSS when the time came. Me? I was the spare. Pretty much ignored my whole life, and that was just fine by me. I had no interest in my father’s company. Truthfully, I didn’t even know what he did exactly, and I didn’t care. I went to college, graduated, and started a life far, far away from both of them. A few years ago, probably the same time you were slittin’ throats for Reyes, Mason got married. He and his wife were kidnapped four days into their honeymoon.” He stopped for a moment, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “My father gets a call. Do what we say and your son will live. He told them to get fucked. Just like that. He signed his own son’s death warrant and still had time for nine holes of golf.”
“Your hand?” Michael said, intrigued as much by the story as he was by the unprecedented level of rage that telling it had ignited in the man in front of him.
“The people holding Mason approached me, made it clear that it was up to me to convince my father to listen to reason. I went to him, begged him to do what they wanted,” Ben said. “He called me a gutless coward and refused.” He smiled, but it faded quickly. “I told him if he wouldn’t do what needed to be done to get them back, I would, and he laughed at me. What could I do? I had no training. I’d never even held a gun in my life.” Another smile coasted across his face. “He must’ve seen how serious I was because he stopped laughing and forbade me to go. I called him a miserable son of a bitch and walked out. He called in his goon squad and had them stop me at the elevator. It took some doing, but they finally got me down. And then, on my father’s orders, one of them blew a hole in the back of my hand. I was laid up in the infirmary for months. Nearly a dozen reconstructive surgeries so I could eventually use this hand again. All the while, they mailed my brother back to me in pieces.
“I don’t doubt my father is involved in what’s happened to the Maddox boy. He cares for no one beyond what they represent in terms of profit and loss—his own sons included,” Ben said. “But I had nothing to do with it.”
Michael hesitated for just a moment before holstering his gun. He’d seen that look before. Ben hated his father, blamed him for the death of his brother—but he blamed himself just as much, if not more, because he hadn’t been able to stop what he knew had been coming.
“It wasn’t Reyes’s man at the hospital. It was Cordova’s,” he said, letting his partner in as a way of clearing the air. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but someone seized Cordova’s interests and they’re in it to win it.”
“But she’s okay. Sabrina’s okay?” Ben said, dropping his hands, shoulders still a bit tense.
“For now. But that won’t last long. The Russian kid recognized the guy she dropped as one of walking shit stains that snatched him.” He shook his head. “This whole mess is getting twisted. We need to figure out who we’ve got in the game and what team they’re playin’ for, because—”
Ben’s phone let out a chirp. “It’s Sabrina,” he said before putting the phone up to his ear. “Hey, are you alright?” Ben turned away from Michael, the rest of the conversation carried out in hushed tones that raised his hackles.
Michael glanced down at the marble stone stretched across the grass. Watched the gentle sway of the acacia’s shadow branches dance along its surface.
Brother.
He suddenly understood. This is where Ben laid what had been left of his brother to rest. He looked up to see Ben snap his phone closed.
“We gotta go.” Ben said, moving swiftly toward the Land Rover. “Sabrina found Lark standing over the dead body of the lead she was running down. She’s holding him at gunpoint, but we both know that’s not gonna last long.”
Thirty
They parked across the street from the address Sabrina’d rattled off to Ben and watched the parade of navy-clad unis streaming in and out of the brick building that housed Robert Elm’s offices.
They’d made plans on the drive over—what to do about Lark, how best to
handle Sabrina. Neither one of them wanted her involved, but they were past that now.
She appeared across the street, marching a trussed-up Lark out the door, her SIG stowed snuggly in his ear. Strickland was a few steps behind.
“You’re up. I’ll take the boy; you go get our little runaway,” Ben said. “Meet me back at the house.”
Michael exited the car without saying a word and crossed the street, walking toward her. When Lark saw him, he smiled but stayed quiet. Sabrina had him double cuffed, two pairs strung together to accommodate his massive frame, as well as a pair of waist chains. A third set of cuffs locked his wrists to the chains wrapped around his middle. There was an enormous lump just above his left temple, oozing blood. She used the gun in his ear to push him forward.
“Your prisoner, Agent Payne,” she said for the benefit of anyone who might be watching the exchange.
He opened the rear door of her unmarked and shoved Lark into the back of it. “I’d appreciate help transferring him back to my field office, Inspector,” he said, securing Lark’s seat belt and locking it in place before sliding into the passenger seat.
She stood on the sidewalk, looking at him for a moment before turning toward her partner. She spoke in low tones he couldn’t make out, but whatever she said pissed Strickland off.
“This is bullshit.” Strickland leaned down and pushed his face through the open car window, within inches of his, looking directly at him. “You could probably kill me with a fuckin’ toothpick—I know that. But if you think for one goddamn second that I’m gonna let—”
Sabrina hauled him back. “Shut up. Shut your mouth right now, Strickland.” She looked around to ensure that no one was listening. “I have to do this. Do you understand what I’m saying? I don’t have a choice. I’m in this—”
“Then so am I.” Strickland said it like it was the simplest thing in the world … and for him it probably was. He had no idea what he was buying into; but Sabrina did. Michael could see fear for her partner written plainly on her face.
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