by Donald Wells
TAKEN! 13 – 18
By
DONALD WELLS
Table of Contents
Title Page
DEDICATION | This book is dedicated to all the fans of the TAKEN! Series. | Thanks for coming along for the ride!
TAKEN! 13 – A MAN SEEKING ANSWERS
TAKEN! 14 – MIRROR IMAGE 2
TAKEN! 15 – MOM
TAKEN! 16 – PURE EVIL
TAKEN! 17 - STILETTO
TAKEN! 18 - STALKER
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BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DONALD WELLS
About The Author
www.donaldwells.com
COPYRIGHT | TAKEN! 13-18 | Copyright © Donald Wells, 2013
Further Reading: Taken! Box Set - Books 19-24
About the Author
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to all the fans of the TAKEN! Series.
Thanks for coming along for the ride!
TAKEN! 13 – A MAN SEEKING ANSWERS
Vermont
Max Stacey watched as the black motorcycle bounced along the gravel road that led to the cabin.
The bike’s rider had his face hidden behind a mirrored helmet, but Stacey knew that whoever it was meant trouble, and so he reached over and grabbed the shotgun.
He was standing on the narrow porch of a cabin that had been in his family for three generations. The cabin was actually listed under his sister’s married name and he thought that no one would ever track him there, but now he knew that he was wrong.
The motorcycle came to a skidding stop near his green Suburban and the driver took his helmet off and stared at him. The man was in his forties, brown hair, brown eyes, and had a military look about him. He was wearing a pair of black chinos and a white long-sleeve shirt with no tie under a black leather jacket. After placing the helmet on the back of the bike, the man spoke.
“Mr. Stacey? My name is Jones. I work for your Canadian friends.”
“Friends? My so-called friends let me rot away in jail for six months. It cost nearly all my money to hire enough legal power to finally get out on bail. Where were my friends when I needed them?”
“I don’t know if you keep up with the news, but your Canadian friends have their own problems now.”
“None of that is my fault,” Stacey said.
The man named Jones glanced into the back of the Suburban and spied the boxes and suitcases.
“It looks like you’ve decided to run. Smart move, they have enough on you to put you away for life.”
“What do you want, mister?”
The man began walking towards Stacey.
“I want you to put the shotgun down so we can talk. There are things I need to know. I need answers about what happened to that drug shipment that went down.”
“That was just bad luck. That plane had a near miss with the plane that was hijacked by a man named Rojo, Sebastian Rojo. He kidnapped some doctor, then he killed your men when they showed up to retrieve the shipment.”
“It wasn’t Rojo. There’s another player in the game that we’re not seeing.”
“The cops said that it must have been Rojo.”
“They were wrong. Sebastian Rojo’s corpse floated to the surface of Lake Derwan a few days ago. There was a bullet hole in the center of his forehead.”
“That damn woman...” Stacey murmured.
“What woman?” Jones said, he was now within fifteen feet of Stacey.
Stacey raised the shotgun.
“That’s far enough. I don’t mind talking, but I’d rather do it with a gun pointed at you.”
Jones smiled.
“Fair enough, now, tell me about this woman.”
“She was a bounty hunter and she was after Rojo. She had a funny name, Blue something, no wait, Blue Steele, yeah Blue Steele, she’s a looker, but mean too. She smacked me around some before she called the cops on me.”
“How did she know that you were involved?”
“When they came across Givens’ chopper at the scene they knew that I had lied about his whereabouts, after that, the feds tied us together.”
“You said ‘they’, who is they?”
“Blue Steele, her and the husband,”
“This Blue Steele has a husband she works with?”
“Nah, he was the doctor’s husband, the husband of the woman that Rojo kidnapped.”
“How did they get out to the scene?”
“By chopper, some one man outfit called Anything Air, listen, all of this is in their statements. You people have connections, get ahold of a copy and read it for yourself.”
Jones nodded.
“Those connections have disappeared. As I said, your Canadian friends are having their own problems these days. By the way, you do realize that they not only lost millions of dollars in product that day, but also twelve good people, one of which was my brother.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, but I had nothing to do with it.”
“You were in charge of security on this side of the border. I would say that you bear some responsibility.”
“Rojo was a wild card. It wasn’t my fault that he caused that accident.”
“My brother burned to death, did you know that?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea how painful it must be to burn to death?”
“I can imagine, but it wasn’t my fault, I was nowhere near the scene.”
“Security was your responsibility.”
“Again, I’m sorry, but it wasn’t—”
“—your fault, yes, I think you said that already.”
“Anything else, mister?”
“No, you’ve given me a place to start, this chopper pilot that flew Steele and the husband to the scene, I think that I’ll pay him a visit next.”
Stacey kept the shotgun aimed at Jones’ chest.
“Goodbye, Mr. Jones.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Stacey,” Jones said. He then pivoted around and walked back to his motorcycle. After putting on the helmet, he started the bike and rode off.
***
2:51 a.m.
Max Stacey awoke to the wail of the smoke detector going off.
He sat up in bed and realized that the cabin was suffused with light from a fire and that smoke was seeping in through cracks at an alarming rate.
He jumped out of bed and approached the window, only to be driven back by the heat of the fire blazing outside. While still barefoot and in his underwear, he rushed out of the bedroom and towards the front door, only to find it ablaze.
It took him only a few more seconds to realize that the cabin was surrounded by flames and that there was no way out. Less than a minute later, the smoke filled the small structure completely and Stacey made a desperate leap through a window. He landed four feet away from the cabin, unfortunately for him though, the blaze that encircled the cabin stretched out five feet from its base.
Stacey stumbled about in agony as the flames ate at his flesh, and soon fell to the ground and died while screaming.
Jones walked over and smiled down at the corpse, afterwards, he ambled off along the graveled road. When he reached it, he started his motorcycle and rode away.
***
TWELVE HOURS LATER
Jones stood inside a locked hanger at Anything Air, a private helicopter shuttle service. The owner of the business, a man named Henderson, was in the center of the hanger, strapped to a metal chair with duct tape. Henderson was middle-aged and going gray. In fact, even his skin looked gray, as he became increasingly certain that Jones was going to kill him.
“He
y, look buddy, I’ve told you everything I know, and believe me, I’ve got no reason to warn anybody that you’re coming for them. They’ve been nothing but grief.”
“Tell me more about this Asian girl; you’re the first one to mention her.”
“Ain’t much to tell, she showed up here and threatened to send my second set of books to the IRS if I didn’t help her find her friends. I got the feeling that she worked for them; the husband said something about giving her a raise.”
“How did she get your records?”
“She hacked into my computer, I guess. She was a cute little thing, but a real Brainiac, you know what I mean?”
“This Dr. White and her husband seem to have unusually resourceful friends. Tell me what you know about the woman, this bounty hunter.”
“There’s not much to tell, she seemed to be following the lead of the doctor’s husband. They both had guns, I know that much.”
“Where did they get the guns?”
Henderson’s eyes shifted back and forth, as he realized he’d said too much.
Jones leaned over and stared at him.
“I want the truth and I want it now. Where did they get the guns?”
“From me, I run a little small arms business on the side.”
“Once you dropped them off, where did you go?”
“I came back here.”
“And you never saw Sebastian Rojo?”
“No, wait, maybe, as I was flying away, I saw two people on foot headed towards the lake; they were maybe five miles from where the larger jet went down. Maybe one of them was Rojo, I don’t know.”
“This was after you dropped the doctor’s husband off near the downed jet?”
“Yeah, and about ten minutes after that, all hell broke loose out there.”
“So if Rojo was walking away, he couldn’t possibly be the one who caused the explosion. It must have been the doctor’s husband.”
“Oh, he did it alright. You take one look into that dude’s eyes and you know that he’s capable of anything.”
Jones stared at Henderson with contempt.
“I’ve spent the last few months looking for Rojo. I’ve tortured his relatives and known associates for any information they might have had about his whereabouts, and all along, you knew that he couldn’t have been guilty, knew that another man committed the murders. Why did you agree to lie for these people?”
“Like I said, they threatened to sic the IRS on me, plus... well, the doctor’s husband is not a dude I’d want to tangle with, like you said, he’s a killer.”
Jones closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as he sought to contain his anger. After a moment, he opened them and continued his questioning.
“One last thing, do you remember the name of the Asian girl?”
“Hmm, I think it was Carrie... Carol? Well it was something like that.”
Jones stared down at Henderson.
“My brother died out there on that field. If you hadn’t taken the doctor’s husband there, my brother would still be alive.”
“What? You’re blaming me? Look, mister, I’m just a pilot, pick up and deliver, ya know? Like they say, don’t blame the messenger.”
Jones reached into the right hand pocket of his leather jacket and took out a can of lighter fluid.
“My brother burned to death, Mr. Henderson. I blame anyone who had even the slightest bit to do with that, anyone.”
Jones began squirting the lighter fluid onto Henderson’s legs as he reached into his left pocket and extracted a book of matches.
Henderson struggled to free himself from the chair as tears ran down his face.
“Oh God, mister no, no don’t do it I’m begging you don’t do it!”
Jones stepped back, lit a match, and tossed it at Henderson’s feet.
The flames engulfed Henderson’s legs immediately and his screams became deafening. Jones stood nearby and watched him burn, as the chair tipped over and the flames spread to Henderson’s face and hair. The screaming ended as swiftly as it had begun and caused Jones to make a decision. He decided that when he finally had the doctor’s husband where he wanted him, that he would die slow, that he would burn him for hours, a piece at a time if necessary, and that his agony would be the sweetest of all.
***
Jessica White opened the front door of her home and smiled at the man standing there. He was holding up credentials that featured a picture ID and a badge.
“Special Agent Price?”
“Yes, Dr. White, and thank you for seeing me.”
“Please, come in,”
Special Agent Richard Price of the DEA was thirty-eight, stood six-foot-three and weighed two-hundred and two pounds. His sandy-blond hair was cut short and the blue suit he wore was tailored to fit his muscular frame, while his dark green tie matched his eyes.
Jessica escorted Price into the living room, on the coffee table was a carafe and three cups.
“Would you like coffee?” Jessica said.
“Oh, no ma’am, no thank you, but tell me, Doctor, is your husband home. I’d really like to talk to him too.”
“I’m right here.”
Price jerked his head around and found the doctor’s husband standing behind him. He was wearing a jogging outfit and Nike's, and his brow gleamed with a sheen of perspiration. He walked over and sat next to Jessica on the sofa.
“Mr. White?” Price said.
“No, but it’s close enough, my wife actually goes by her maiden name.”
“Oh,” Price said, as he gave him a scrutinizing look. “Say, didn’t I drive past you over by that huge church on Main Street?”
“You might have, that was part of my route today.”
“Wow, that was what, six miles from here?”
“Yes, by car, but when Jessica called and said that you were coming, I took a shortcut through the woods.”
“Still, you must be in great shape, you almost beat me here.”
“Well, like I said, it’s a shortcut. Now, Special Agent Price, is it? Why did you want to speak to us?”
“It’s about Sebastian Rojo,” Price said, as he eyed them both for their reaction to the name.
“Has he been captured?” he asked.
“Actually, his body floated to the surface of Lake Derwan the other day. He had a bullet wound in the center of his forehead.”
Price looked at them, waiting for a reaction or a question, when neither came, he asked a question of his own.
“Is there anything that you two would like to add or change about the statements you gave in Vermont?”
“No,” Jessica said. “In my statement, you’ll note that I said I didn’t know what became of Rojo. I escaped him in the storm and was later found by my husband, Ms. Steele, and the chopper pilot. I guess we just assumed that Rojo had escaped.”
Price studied them carefully, as he came to a decision.
“According to your statement, Dr. White, you say that you were knocked unconscious when the jet that you were on made an emergency landing. You then state that when you awoke, you saw Rojo running back towards the jet and that there was a black cloud of smoke in the sky behind him. It’s because of this statement that we assumed that Rojo had been the one who killed the drug dealers and blew up their helicopter. However, now that we’ve found him dead with a bullet to the brain, that assumption is being doubted.”
“Why?” Jessica said.
“If one of the drug dealers survived and killed Rojo, then the Canadian drug syndicate would have no reason to doubt your statement and they wouldn’t have sent this man out to get answers.”
Price reached into an inside pocket and produced three photos of a man, they appeared to have been taken by a telephoto lens. All three photos were of Mr. Jones.
The doctor's husband studied them. “Who is he?”
Price handed him one of the photos.
“He calls himself John Jones. Up until three years ago there is no record of him ever having existed.”
<
br /> “He works for the drug syndicate?”
“They call him their answer man. If anything goes wrong anywhere in their operations, they send him out to get the answer why. Wherever this man goes, people die. In fact, we’ve already found the bodies of Max Stacey and the pilot that helped you, Joe Henderson. They were both burned to death.”
“How did he get to Max Stacey? I thought he was in jail.”
“You’ve been keeping track of Stacey’s whereabouts, sir?”
“We had unfinished business,” he said.
“Jones settled all accounts. Stacey got out on bail a few days ago and we found his body at his sister’s cabin.”
“Why are you telling us this?” Jessica said.
“I’d like to postulate a theory I have. Would you allow me to do so without interruption?”
“Of course,” Jessica said.
“My theory is that you, Doctor, your husband, Ms. Steele, and the pilot in Vermont were all lying. I think that someone other than Rojo blew up that Sikorsky and killed those syndicate men. I think that same man then tracked down Rojo and killed him, and Doctor, I think that man is seated across from me right now.”
“Are you accusing me of something?” he asked.
Price smiled at him.
“No sir, as I said, it’s just a theory, and truth to tell, if you did what I suspect you did, well then, I don’t blame you. If someone took my wife there would be hell to pay, believe me. My main reason for coming here is to warn you about Jones and to ask you to let us give you protection.”
“We’ve recently installed new security measures here, Agent Price; if Jones steps onto our property, we’ll know about it.”
Price stared at him.
“Are you saying that you don’t want our protection?”
“No, I would like your help. Keeping my wife safe is my number one priority.”
“As it should be, let me step outside to my car for a few minutes and make a call to set things up.”
As they walked Price to the door, Jessica asked a question.
“Blue Steele, has she been warned about Jones?”
“Yes, Doctor, but unlike you, she declined protection, but don’t worry, we have someone keeping an eye on her anyway.”
“Good,” Jessica said, as Price walked out to his car. After closing the door, she looked up at her husband.