Rum Runner - A Thriller (Jacqueline Jack Daniels Mysteries Book 9)

by J. A. Konrath

  Phin and I quickly checked the other seven balistrarias, rushing from one to the next.

  All of them were sealed.

  “I doubt they all have raingear,” Phin said. “The hot water from the sprinklers will keep the majority away.”

  “The hot water will run out, Phin. I don’t know how big Harry’s tanks are, but they can’t last forever.”

  We went back to the control room just in time to see some kid tape over the last outdoor camera, rendering us blind to the gang’s activities. The microphone still worked, and the sounds of revving chainsaws blared through the speakers.

  They were cutting into the walls.

  Phin turned the volume knob, killing the sound. I looked at him, and saw something in his eyes I’d never seen before.

  Defeat.

  “We can survive this,” I said.

  He stayed silent, and stared at an empty patch of wall.

  “We pick a room, seal ourselves in with food and weapons. Even if they get inside we still have a chance.”

  “Okay.”

  “We can still fight back. It’s not over yet.”

  “Okay.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “You don’t think we’re going to make it.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Phin. Please answer me.”

  “I think we can make a last stand. But that’s what it will be. A last stand.”

  We’d been in desperate situations before. But I’d never seen Phin act like this.

  “Maybe help will come,” I said. “Harry. Herb. Val.”

  “Maybe.”

  I slapped the console with my palm. “Dammit, Phin. We need to do something.”

  He didn’t seem to be listening.

  “Phin…”

  My husband closed his eyes. When he spoke, his voice cracked. “I can’t…”

  “You can’t? You can’t what? Talk about this? Make a plan?”

  “I can’t watch that guy skin you alive for two days.”

  I knew what he was leading up to. It wasn’t where I wanted to go. We still had some options left.

  “We’re not there yet,” I said.

  “We need to discuss it. And we need to discuss it now.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “If they get in, we might not have time.”

  “You’re talking about suicide.”

  No answer.

  “If they get in, you think we should… kill ourselves.” Those words left an ugly taste in my mouth, and an even uglier image in my head.

  Phin’s eyes slowly opened. He looked at me, and his gaze was so sad that something inside me broke. I knew exactly what he was thinking.

  “You’re going to shoot me,” I whispered. “And then yourself.”

  He didn’t reply. He didn’t nod. But it was all there, in his eyes.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “We’re not through yet. And we’re not dying like that. That’s not how we go out. We’re not cowards.”

  “Jack, you don’t know the meaning of the word coward. You’re the hero. You’ll fight to your last breath. I know that.”

  “You’re no coward, either.”

  “But I’m not brave like you. I’m not hero material. I’m a tough guy. I can take more abuse than most.” He raised his voice. “But I am not watching you get skinned alive. And if it comes to that, I will take the coward’s way out.”

  Out of all the conversations I never wanted to have, this was at the top.

  “We have a child together. And you’d blow my head off?”

  Phin clenched his jaw, so hard I saw his cheek muscles bunch out. “Only because I know you’d never do the same for me.”

  What he said hurt. But he was right. I couldn’t ever take Phin’s life. No more than I could take my own. This whole stupid macho war ethic was alien to me. Kill or be killed? That was insane. Women weren’t wired that way.

  I reached out, held his good hand. “That’s not ya-aburnee, Phin. What happened to you wanting to die first because you couldn’t stand to see me go?”

  Phin pulled away from me. “Are you telling me not to do it?”

  “Phin…”

  “If we’re trapped, and can’t get away, you want to become that psycho’s captive? We’ve both been in that situation before, Jack.”

  He was right. We’d been at the mercy of lunatics.

  “And we lived through it,” I said. “We can live through this, too.”

  “But what if we can’t?”

  “There’s always hope.”

  He let go of my hand. “What if there is no hope? What do you want me to do?”

  I doubled down. I didn’t want to even consider this course of action. Not now. Not ever. “We’ll figure that out when it happens.”

  “There might not be time. I need you to tell me, if all hope is gone, what you want me to do.”

  My eyes teared up. I shook my head.

  “Tell me what you want, Jack.”

  “We can live through this.”

  “And what if we can’t?” he yelled. “Tell me what to do!”

  “You want to take the coward’s way out!”

  “Ending our lives on our terms isn’t cowardly. Would you rather be tortured to death? Watch me be tortured to death? If they get in here, that’s going to happen. And they’re going to get in here. There’s no doubt. So what the hell do you want to do about it!?”

  My whole body shook and I screamed, a scream of rage and hate and anguish and despair. “Fine! You win! Kill me! I want you to kill me, then kill yourself!”

  My lower lip was trembling uncontrollably, tears soaking my face. Phin threw his arms around me, and I held him as tight as I could, and my lips found his and I kissed him, kissed him harder than I ever had before, kissed him like it was the very last time.

  Because we both knew it probably was.

  DEL RAY

  A brilliant plan, flawlessly executed.

  They’d blinded the cameras, and boarded up the sniper holes. The cop and her husband were trapped like blind cats in a cage, defanged and declawed, waiting for death. Del Ray had some brothers testing the walls with chainsaws, looking for ways in.

  Maybe they wouldn’t need to wait for the dynamite. And the best part? Not a single soldier hurt or killed.

  That’s how generals were supposed to roll.

  He heard the distinctive whir of the Gyro engine get louder, but Del Ray didn’t want to deal with T-Nail’s shit at that moment. So he walked the opposite way, heading south around the house, just beyond the reach of the hot water sprinklers. He thought about blazing a blunt, but instead took a pull from the sizzurp bottle in his back pocket to take the edge off the pain in his hand and ear. Del could think better on codeine than on weed, and something was hanging on the outside corner of his mind, trying to climb its way inside. Something about the outdoor cameras. Something he was missing.

  He noticed the sprinklers had stopped steaming, and drew closer to check. Del stuck a bare hand into the drizzle.

  Warm, but not boiling.

  Without putting on a raincoat, he walked across the damp property toward the house. He got wet, but not burned, and his curiosity compelled him forward. Del touched the house, running his hand over the stacked logs, then giving it a thump with his knuckles. Solid. This place really was a fortress.

  He walked along the perimeter, staring up at the roof overhang, searching for the closest surveillance camera. Del found it, the lens taped over. It was high quality, with night-vision, but an older model; perhaps ten years out of date, judging by its size. Continuing along the wall, he walked over to one of his men wielding a chainsaw. Del gave him a tap on the shoulder to get his attention.

  “Walls are thick,” the soldier said. “And there’s something behind them.”

  Del leaned over, peeking into one of the slits the man had cut. He used the flashlight app on his cell to see inside.

  Concrete. And it had cured alongside the wood.

&nb
sp; There was no way they were getting in with saws.

  Del was about to tell the soldier to quit when he heard the Gyro approaching fast. He waited for T-Nail, who easily navigated the wet ground on his Mecanum wheels. The pitch of the gearbox was lower than normal, and Del knew it was going to need a battery change soon.

  “Why are you stopping?” T-Nail called out, his voice arriving a few seconds before he did.

  The gangsta cast a panicked look at Del.

  “Saws can’t cut through,” Del answered for him. “Cement behind the wood.”

  “It was a shit plan anyway.”

  T-Nail’s shirt was soaked with water, which had blended with blood from his shoulder wound, staining it pink. Damn good thing Del had waterproofed the electronics on the Gyro. But maybe T-Nail should have asked him to make sure, before he tried taking a $30k electronic wheelchair through a field of sprinklers.

  “I was thinkin’,” Del said.

  “’bout damn time.”

  Del ignored the jab. “This place is pretty tight. All kinds of crazy security. What if it’s mafia?”

  “You think the outfit owns this place?”

  “Who else would? Goddamn castle out here in bumblefuck, no other house for miles. You know if the cop is protected?”

  “I been in the slam for twenty goddamn years and only found out ’bout her a few days ago. You’re the one should know this shit.”

  “I dug into it. She don’t seem dirty. But this place, man…”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  “The cop?”

  “No. Yo mama.” T-Nail scowled. “Yeah, the goddamn cop. Can we write some shit down, hold it up to the camera?”

  That thought trying to get into Del’s head finally popped in, fully formed.

  “There might be a better way,” he said. “Security on the place is dope. Cameras got motion detectors and night vision. Seems like they thought of everything.” He lowered his voice. “But they deaf.”

  “What?” T-Nail barked.

  “They deaf,” Del said, louder.

  If T-Nail noticed the deliberate diss, he ignored it. “What you sayin’?”

  “Why would they spend all of this money on being able to see, without being able to hear? I bet one of these cameras has a microphone. Probably the one by the front door.”

  T-Nail motored the Gyro past Del, forcing the smaller man to hop out of the way so his feet weren’t run over. He ordered his soldier to tell the others to quit with the saws, then followed T-Nail to the front of the house.

  There, under the awning, embedded in the wall next to the taped-over camera, was a round metal audio grill. Del stood on his tip toes to try to pull the duct tape off the lens, and couldn’t reach it.

  “Out the damn way.” T-Nail extended himself to a standing position and removed the tape. Then he said, “Can you hear me in there?” He looked back at Del Ray. “Can they hear?”

  “Depends. Mic could be off. Or broken. Or they might not be near it.”

  “Can they answer back?”

  Del squinted at the microphone. “Could be an intercom, goin’ both ways. But I dunno if it’s wired or not.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “If it’s wireless, it won’t work. We’re jamming the radio signals.”

  T-Nail turned his attention back to the camera. “If you hear my voice, let me know. You hear me, Jacqueline? Answer me, or I’m gonna kill a cop.”

  PHIN

  A monitor on the console flickered, and Phin noticed the duct tape had been removed from an outdoor camera. T-Nail and his general, Del Ray, stared into the lens. Phin gave Jack a nudge and they turned up the volume.

  “…gonna kill a cop.”

  T-Nail yelled, “Bring her here!” over his shoulder.

  “I don’t hear the saws anymore,” Jack said.

  Phin didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. Maybe they couldn’t get in with chainsaws. But it looked like they were about to do something worse.

  It took a long minute, but two of the thugs brought a handcuffed woman over. She was about Jack’s age. Caucasian, dirty blonde hair, thin, wearing jeans, a flannel shirt, and a softshell jacket.

  “Tell them who you are.”

  “I’m Officer Barbara Knowles, Spoonward PD.”

  “Officer, let me tell you what’s going to happen,” T-Nail said. “There are two people inside this house. I’m going to count to five. If they don’t open the door, I’m going to cut your lips off.”

  Jack stood up, but Phin caught her wrist.

  “Phin, we can’t let this happen.”

  “We can’t open the door.”

  “One…” T-Nail began.

  “We have to do something.”

  “What?”

  “I need men over here!” Del Ray yelled over his shoulder.

  “Right now there are only four of them out front,” Jack said. “Maybe we can open the door, save her.”

  “Do we shoot to kill?” Phin asked. “Or are you still on your wound only kick?”

  “Two…”

  “Head shots,” Jack said.

  It was about time. But as Phin stood up he saw six more gangbangers converge around the front door, Scorpions at the ready.

  “Too many now,” Phin said. “We can’t risk it.”

  “We can’t let them do this, Phin. What if it was me out there?”

  “That’s the point. You’re in here. And you’re staying in here.”

  “Three…”

  “Is there some sort of way to talk to them?” Jack said, searching the control panel.

  Phin had found the button earlier. A button marked FRONT DOOR SPEAKER. It was in an odd place, in the lower corner of the console.

  But there was a problem. While Phin and Jack could see and hear, T-Nail and crew couldn’t know that for sure. If Jack spoke to them, they would know they had a communicative audience. Which meant things would get even worse.

  “Four…”

  T-Nail held a short-blade hunting knife to the woman’s face.

  “Please open the door!” she cried.

  Jack was frantic now, her eyes darting everywhere. Phin tried to shift his weight, to block the button from her view, but she caught the movement, pushed him aside, and pressed it.

  “Hello, Terrance,” she said. “It’s me. Lieutenant Daniels.”

  “Name is T-Nail. And you ain’t a cop no more, Jacqueline. How you been likin’ your retirement?”

  “It’s been pretty good up until now. How was prison?”

  “Got tired of the food. So I left.”

  “And this is how you want to spend your newfound freedom? Nursing an old grudge?”

  “We’re way beyond the nursing stage. We’re right in the thick of it.”

  “That officer has nothing to do with this. Let her go.”

  “I’ll make you a deal. You open up, I’ll let this fine cop here go back to her life. I’ll even kill you and Phineas quick. You don’t open up, you get watch me cut her up into little pieces, and then you get to watch me do the same with Samantha.”

  Jack immediately put a hand over her mouth. Phin felt his heart become stone.

  “That’s right. A team in Lake Loyal snatched your daughter. She’s on her way here right now.”

  “It’s a bluff,” Phin said. It had to be a bluff. If it wasn’t, Phin knew he wouldn’t be able to go on.

  Jack walked away from the console and began to pace the small room. “They know her name. They know she’s in Lake Loyal.”

  “She’s with Val and Lund. You think they’d just hand over our daughter?”

  “What if they have her, Phin?”

  “Even if they do, it’ll take hours for them to bring her here. Which gives us hours to figure something out.”

  Jack went back to the button. “The door won’t open. When your men shot it up, they jammed the lock.”

  Phin had no idea if that was true, but kudos to Jack for thinking on her feet.

&nb
sp; T-Nail sneered into the camera. “Then open the goddamn back door.”

  “Only one door,” Jack said.

  Del Ray stepped closer to the camera. “So you sayin’ you built this castle without an escape route?”

  “I didn’t build it.”

  “Who did?”

  Phin and Jack traded a glance. “A powerful friend,” Jack said. “One who is going to be pissed off at what you’ve done to his house.”

  “Fuck your powerful friend,” T-Nail said. “You got five minutes to figure out how to let us in. And four minutes are already up.”

  JACK

  How could we buy more time?

  “The punt gun,” Phin said.

  I shook my head. “We’ll hit the hostage.”

  “She’s dead anyway. This would be quicker than what T-Nail has in mind.”

  “I’m not killing an innocent woman, Phin.”

  “So instead you’re going to watch T-Nail cut her lips off?”

  “Thirty seconds…”

  I looked around the room, searching for an idea, and my eyes locked onto the Kindle Fire. I snatched it up and powered it on, hitting the app I wanted.

  “That’s your idea?” Phin asked. “Reading an ebook?”

  “Fifteen seconds…”

  I turned up the sound on the Kindle and held it to the microphone. It spoke.

  “Ooo, you like that don’t you, you sexy muthafucka.”

  DEL RAY

  The soldier on Del’s right asked, “Was that Samuel L. Jackson?”

  “I am Samuel L. Jackson, and I’m gonna fuck you so hard the coroner gonna have to pull the sheets outta your dead ass.”

  Everyone except Del, T-Nail, and the officer burst out laughing.

  “Get to work, bitch. This thang ain’t gonna suck itself.”

  More laughter. The men doubled over and began slapping their own thighs like the cats from Fat Albert.

  “What is that?” T-Nail demanded, turning to Del. “A TV?”

  “It’s an app,” Del said. “Called Marriage Saver.”

  “What the hell does that even mean?”

  “It’s a program for tablet computers. It shows uncanny valley animations of celebrity faces saying sexual things. You’re supposed to put it over your partner’s face when you’re getting busy, so you can pretend you’re banging Beyoncé. It got a lot of media attention because it was using celebrity likenesses without permission.”