Trail of the Zodiac - Debt Collector 10 (A Jack Winchester Thriller)

by Jon Mills

  For a minute or two he thought that perhaps Romero had misunderstood the instructions. By 7:05 p.m. he was starting to get the attention of the barista who was noticing him shifting and looking around. It probably didn’t help that he had a large red duffel bag.

  He was just about to get up and leave when a hipster-looking guy walked into the café, turned left and handed him a cell phone.

  “What’s this?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, some guy just paid me twenty dollars to give it to you. Said you would understand.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He drove off in a van.”

  “What color?”

  “Dark black. Chevy, I think.”

  Right then, just as the guy turned to walk away, the phone rang. Jack gave it a second then answered. At first no one spoke. There was just the sound of heavy breathing.

  Then he spoke up, “You got the money in that bag?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jack’s eyes darted from face to face in the crowd of people beyond the window. Was he watching? He scanned the faces of pedestrians, trying to identify him.

  “She says you’re not a cop, is that true?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Interesting.”

  There was silence. “Look, you know—”

  “Shut up! This is how it’s going to play out, you are going to go on a little tour of the city so I can make sure no one is following you. That car you arrived in, forget it. You’re not using it. If I think for a second you are being followed, the detective dies. If you try to communicate with anyone, she dies.”

  “Let me speak to her.”

  “Mr. Winchester, you are not listening. Now pay attention or this ends now.”

  He remained quiet, the last thing he wanted to do was piss him off when he had no clue where he was. If he knew about the car he had to be close. Jack continued to scan the crowd outside. “You will get a certain amount of time to get to the next location. So you better run. Another phone, like the one you have now will be there. You will answer it. That way I know you’ve reached the location. You don’t answer it, she dies. Remember, Mr. Winchester, if you deviate from what I tell you, it’s over. Now leave the café, head south one block to 16th Street, then east until you reach the 16th Street Mission Subway Station on Mission Street. At the bottom of the stairs there is a garbage can with a phone inside.”

  “Okay but how long do I—”

  Click. The line went dead.

  Shit. Jack scooped up the duffel bag and darted out of the café. As he hauled ass south, he kept scanning the streets. He was watching him otherwise he wouldn’t have known about the car but how? And did he have eyes on him at all times? Perhaps he was paying people to watch him? Jack felt like a fish swimming upstream as he shouldered through the evening shoppers. The streets were busy, taxis honked and swerved around vehicles, a hotdog vendor hollered out to him as he rushed past causing napkins to blow off the counter.

  What about the cops? He didn’t expect they would abide by the rules. They had a mind of their own. They were complete idiots who would risk the life of their own if it meant nabbing this lunatic. No helicopter in the sky but that didn’t mean plainclothes officers weren’t integrated in the crowd.

  It took him less than three minutes to reach the entrance to the underground subway station. There were two sets of stairs and an escalator for those coming up. Jack perched his ass on the polished steel between and slid down. Those coming up scowled, and someone muttered something but he wasn’t paying attention. When he reached the bottom, he saw two garbage cans either side of the entrance to where tickets could be bought. As he was heading for the left, a phone started ringing in the right, he sprinted to it and flipped the lid and dived like a hobo searching for his next meal. His heart was pounding. The cell phone was inside a burger box, he tore it open and answered it.

  “Did that woman piss you off?”

  “What?”

  There was laughter on the other end of the line. He looked around, expecting to see him somewhere in the crowd. But no one stood out to him.

  “Get on the southbound train to Daly City.”

  “What…”

  The line went dead. Jack dropped the phone and headed into the main area to purchase a ticket. A minute later he pushed through the stalls and hurried to catch the train that was on Platform 1. The strap on the duffel bag cut into his shoulder as he barged his way through the flow of people. He wondered if the guy was trying to wear him down so that by the time he arrived at wherever he was holding Hudson, he wouldn’t have the energy to put up a fight.

  Chapter 34

  The smell of city grime lingered in the air as Jack slipped into the train and took a seat. If he was going to be dashing from one place to the next, he’d take full advantage of every chance he got to rest. The doors hissed closed, and a voice came over the speaker indicating what the next station would be. Daly City was in San Mateo County, just one block outside San Francisco City. The train began to move and took off. An interactive map displayed on a screen across from him showing where the train was throughout the journey. Along the way he glanced down the train to see if any of the other travelers were Earl. He noticed at the far end, someone with a hood up and dark sunglasses on. He was staring at him. Jack got up and started to approach and before he could get close, the guy darted into the next car. Above the door it displayed the next station in orange letters. Jack took off following close behind him. There were 10 cars per train. The man kept looking back over his shoulder as Jack got nearer. Finally he turned around and yelled at him.

  “What’s your problem?”

  Jack reached him and threw back his hood and removed his glasses while keeping a firm grip on his collar. It wasn’t him.

  “Sorry. My mistake.”

  The man yelled at him saying he was insane and he would press charges if he came near him again. He returned to his seat under the scrutiny of other passengers. The journey to the Daly City BART station took about ten minutes. He could see the platform through the window as the train glided into the station. The doors hissed open, and he piled out with the other travelers.

  Where now? That was the question he was going to ask him before the line went dead. He scanned the crowd, expecting to see him. Maybe this was the end of the line. Perhaps he wasn’t going to have him travel all over the place. He followed the rest of the people heading up the stairs until he heard a phone ringing. He looked side to side trying to see where it was coming from. A wino carrying alcohol in a brown paper bag got up off the ground and fished into a garbage can as Jack was trying to squeeze through.

  “Excuse me. Get out of the way.”

  The wino, looking dazed and confused, answered, “Hello?”

  Jack slipped in and snatched it out of his hands. “Earl?”

  Behind Jack the wino was protesting, telling him that it was his find and that… Jack shoved him back and he fell to the ground. On the other end of the line Earl laughed.

  “For a second there, Jack, I was about to hang up.”

  “You need to tell me where these are going to be.”

  “I don’t need to do anything. You are playing my game now. Tell me, Jack, how did you figure it out?”

  His brow knit together. “What?”

  “While all these detectives were chasing their tail, you connected the dots and found me. How did you know?”

  Jack stood still and scanned faces. “Seemed the most logical being as you were fixated on the detective and desperate to have them crack the 340 Cipher. It meant you held a grudge against her, not just the department, which indicated you had met her before, and the code, well—”

  “Not that part!” he yelled, causing Jack to pull the phone away. He hesitated a second before replying.

  “Let’s just say I have had a lifetime to learn when someone is lying.”

  “If you’re not a cop, what are you?”

  “Does it matter?”

  The
line went dead. Shit. He tried checking to see if it would show the last number that had phoned but he’d blocked the number.

  The phone rang again.

  “Yeah?”

  “Get on a bus and head towards Lakeshore Plaza. In front of the sign, tucked below one of the plants, is a phone.”

  Jack took off towards the bus station; frustration and rage began building as he dashed to catch the one heading north. The doors started to close with a hydraulic hiss just as he thrust himself through causing the driver to open them back up.

  He fished into his pocket and tossed a few bills down.

  “You in a hurry?” the driver asked. Jack glanced at him and shuffled back to find a seat. He was already growing tired of this lunatic’s game. It was all about control. The murders, taunting the department, kidnapping Hudson and sending him all over the city, that’s how he got off.

  It took close to fifteen minutes to reach the strip mall called Lakeshore Plaza. Jack fished around among the large plants either side of the concrete sign. He took a seat to catch his breath and waited for the next call. While he was waiting there a police cruiser pulled in and parked out front of a bagel store. Had all the officers been updated on the situation? He doubted it. With the amount of money he was carrying, and the agreement not to mention it to the media, he figured only those who needed to know, knew about it. The cop glanced over at him. Don’t come over. Just walk inside the store, Jack thought. If he was under surveillance by Earl, that was the last thing Hudson or he needed. Jack tried to pretend he’d just received a call and brought the phone up to his ear and then started smiling and rattling off anything to make himself look less suspicious. The cop eyed him for a second and then entered the store.

  He exhaled and the phone rang.

  “Nice, Jack, I like the way you improvised there. Now let’s take a trip down memory lane. Go south on Clearfield Drive for two blocks, then head west on Gellert Drive to the Pull-Up Bars parking lot.”

  “You bastard.”

  He knew what he was doing.

  Earl made a tutting sound. “Now, now, Jack. You don’t want to get me mad.”

  “Enough with your games.”

  “Okay, tell me who you are then?”

  “You already know my name.”

  “What are you?”

  “I told you it doesn’t matter.”

  “Everything matters, Jack. Quick, quick, five minutes left.”

  Jack flew. Firing his legs as fast as he could, he sprinted to the location where Jason had been killed. As he bolted away from the shopping plaza, crossing over Ocean Avenue, he caught the cop coming out of the bagel store. He hurried on disappearing behind a row of houses and blasted across the street. Sweat poured from his brow. By now darkness had fallen upon the city and streetlights illuminated his way. He squinted at signs, not slowing for even a second.

  By the time he crossed over Lake Merced Boulevard, he could already hear the phone ringing. His lungs were on fire, his chest caught in his throat and he desperately needed a drink. When he made it to the garbage can, the phone stopped ringing.

  “No, no, no…” he said fishing it out and tossing the bag down as he tried to catch his breath. “C’mon, phone. C’mon,” he said it even louder, hoping that he was near enough to hear him. A few feet away he saw a parked brown Ford sedan. There was nothing unusual about it, except that one of the doors was partially open. His eyes scanned the empty lot. Panting hard, Jack scooped up the bag and approached it, looking down at the phone every few seconds expecting him to call. He didn’t. As he got closer to the car he could see the silhouette of a figure inside. He squinted and pulled back the door. Slumped down inside the vehicle was Detective Romero with a knife in his gut. His shirt was drenched in blood.

  He groaned.

  He was still alive.

  Jack dropped the bag and was calling 911 for an ambulance when it hit him. He was doing this. He’d done this. This was just another one of his games, except it wasn’t — the detective’s life hung in the balance.

  “Jack,” Romero croaked, he tried to speak but instead of words, one final gasp escaped his lips and he was gone.

  Jack leaned in. “Romero. Romero!”

  He checked for a pulse but there was nothing.

  The phone started ringing.

  “You bastard!”

  “Come on, Jack, really? What was he to you? If he’d had his way, you would have been on your way to county by now. In some ways I did you a favor, so now you’re going to repay me.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Shut up. It’s too late for him but it’s not for her. Now are you going to tell me who you are?”

  “I already told you.”

  “Jack Winchester, yeah, yeah. I want to know the rest. You’ve got less than two minutes to tell me.”

  A wash of headlights came up in the distance as a vehicle approached. Out the corner of his eye, Jack spotted a police cruiser crawling into the lot. Blue and red strobe lights lit up the darkness.

  “So?” Earl asked, acting all calm and collected.

  “You called him, didn’t you?”

  “See, I knew you were smart. You’re not like these cops. So tell me, Jack, who are you?”

  Jack stepped back from the vehicle, blood now on his hands. “I worked for the mob.”

  “Ah, now we get closer to the truth. Doing what?”

  “Finding assholes like you.”

  He laughed. The cruiser drew nearer and Jack set the bag down.

  “So that big bust over on Pier 1, that was you, wasn’t it?”

  “Just tell me where the hell you are?” Jack yelled into the phone.

  “All in good time, Jack. Right now you better think fast as I don’t think that cop is going take too kindly to finding one of his own dead.”

  Jack sneered, his eyes locked on to the cop who lit him up with a bright spotlight. Jack lifted a forearm to block his eyes. “Listen up, Jack, this is how it’s going to work. You are going to kill that cop and take his cruiser to Pier 39 Marina. There you will steal a boat and take it to Alcatraz Island.”

  “I’m not killing him.”

  “Think again.”

  “He’s just doing his job.”

  “Then she dies.”

  Jack stabbed the air with a finger. “That was not the agreement.”

  He bellowed over the phone. “I make the rules, Jack. Kill him or she’s dead.”

  Jack fired back. “You kill her, you don’t get the money.”

  The cruiser stopped and the cop pushed out of the vehicle, withdrawing his weapon.

  “Put it down!” he shouted.

  More laughter ensued on the other end. “It takes thirty minutes to get to Pier 39 from where you are. You have twenty. Tick, tock! And remember, Jack, I’m watching.”

  The line went dead.

  The officer bellowed even louder. “I told you to put the phone down.”

  Jack released it and it clattered on the asphalt.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “Look, I don’t have time for this. The name’s Jack Winchester, call it in. You’ve got a dead cop, and there will be another if I don’t get to Pier 39 in the next twenty minutes.”

  “Get on the ground, now!”

  Jack put out a hand, “Listen to me.”

  “NOW!”

  Jack dropped to his knees, clenching his jaw, squinting into the bright spotlight aimed at him from the cruiser. The officer continued to bark orders, instructing him to lay prone on the ground with his arms outstretched.

  Jack lifted his head. “Look, officer, you’ve got this all wrong. I’m working with the police to catch the Zodiac. Just call it in and ask to speak to Captain Dickson. He’ll verify everything.”

  The officer shifted his head to the side, got on the radio and called it in as he approached with his firearm out. As he made his way over, he peered into the vehicle and his eyes widened. “Holy shit. We’ve got an officer down, I repeat, officer down
. Requesting backup at the Pull-Up Bars parking lot.”

  He heard the sound of his handgun sliding back into the holster, and the familiar jangle of cuffs being withdrawn. As the officer dropped to cuff him, Jack spun over. He scissor kicked him in the head and scrambled to a high mount position where he straddled over his body. The cop tried going for his gun but Jack cracked him a few times on the jaw then shuffled up his chest to prevent his arms from reaching back. He then pressed down on him using his full body weight to stop the cop from moving. With his head down low he spoke into his ear.

  “I’m not going to kill you. He’s watching us. He set this up. Whether you believe me or not, what happens now will determine whether another cop lives or dies. I did not kill Romero.”

  The cop continued to struggle, but it was virtually impossible in the position he was in. It was all about weight distribution and pinching his knees together to cause his arms to cross. Jack knew he was losing time, at this rate he wasn’t going to make it.

  The only way out was to take control. He reached back and pulled the officer’s handgun then brought it up to his head. Lowering his body, he tried one final time to get through to him. “I’m not going to kill you, but you are going to have to pretend you’re dead, do you understand?”

  The cop stared back at him.

  “I’m running out of time, officer. Do you understand?”

  He gave a nod. All the while Jack acted as if he was still struggling with the officer to give the illusion just in case he was watching. “Now I’m going to get off, and drag you over to the cruiser, when I drop you and fire, play dead. You got it?”

  The officer looked confused as Jack hopped off him and told him to act as if he was struggling. All the while Jack kept the gun on him as they pushed back and forth and landed on one side of the cruiser. Jack rose to his feet and fired two rounds just to the side of the officer, then stared down at him. It was only then, in that moment, that the cop must have realized that he was telling the truth. Jack walked back and grabbed the bag, then hurried over to the cruiser. He slammed it into reverse, flipped the siren on and tore out of the lot at a high rate of speed.