by Mark Henwick
Hidden Trump
An Amber Farrell Novel
Book 2 of the Bite Back series
by
Mark Henwick
Published by Marque
Series schedule, reviews & news on
www.athanate.com
Bite Back 2 : Hidden Trump
ISBN: 978-0-9573746-2-1
Published in December 2012 by Marque
Mark Henwick asserts the right to be identified as the author of this work.
© 2012 Mark Henwick
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, Web distribution or information storage retrieval systems—without the written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, legal entities, incidents or localities is entirely coincidental. The laws of physics, chemistry, biology and psychology may not work as depicted.
Chapter 1
MONDAY
I was going to be betrayed before the week was out.
The realization seeped into me as I drove away from the Nexus building on the southern outskirts of Denver. SWAT teams were swarming over the building, arresting the surviving members of the ZK criminal gang. And body-bagging the ones I’d shot. Since ZK had kidnapped and wounded their police captain, José Morales, the assault teams were not in a good mood.
But I wasn’t running from them. I had taken off to avoid the FBI, who were starting to question how one Amber Farrell, lowly PI, was suddenly involved in so many organized crime busts. And how come I emerged unscathed from situations that would have killed a normal person? Questions I couldn’t afford to answer.
Today’s scene made it worse. It had started as a routine case for a corporate CEO, Jennifer Kingslund—find out who was trying to sabotage her company. It turned out to be her business rival, Jack Tucker—a seemingly legitimate businessman—and his illegitimate son, Frank Hoben, who ran ZK. And it had escalated into attempted murder, hostage taking, assault weapons, exploding grenades and a hot zone chopper extraction from the Nexus.
Some days are like that.
I’d achieved my objectives. Hostages rescued. ZK demolished. Tucker dead—though I hadn’t intended that. He’d shot himself as the SWAT teams closed in.
Of course, I hadn’t done it on my own. I’d had help—just not the kind of help that I could tell the FBI about. Not criminals, but people whose survival depended on staying under the radar. And whose interests didn’t necessarily coincide with the FBI’s. Or regular humans.
Which was why my adrenaline rush from slam-dunking ZK at the Nexus was cooling off rapidly. It was great to have allies, but they had competing agendas, and their own ideas of what to do with me. I was the weak point, the expendable asset. And I wasn’t sure I could trust myself any more than I could trust them.
My eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, and held.
Crap.
The adrenaline spiked back up.
I’d picked up a tail.
That black Cadillac SUV with the tints had been following me since the Nexus building. Black Caddies weren’t that unusual, but everyone else was rubbernecking the end of the SWAT operation, with squad cars, ambulances, lights and sirens making a real circus of it. Not to mention the choppers overhead. The TV people were probably there. Now, who would find following me more interesting than that?
Working on my gut feeling, I headed south out of Meridian and picked up Interstate 25. The Caddy was still there, two cars back. When they followed me off at Castle Pines, I knew my instinct had been right.
What I should do about it depended on who they were.
I guess it said things about me that there were so many candidates, and not all of them outright enemies. It might be the FBI, for instance, or Obs, the army medical unit tasked with investigating me. Or even my paranormal allies.
But my gut told me it was Hoben’s crew. And that spelled trouble. Hoben didn’t have Jack Tucker’s veneer of civilization—he was a vindictive son of a bitch with a fondness for rape and torture. Anger stoked my belly.
I leaned over and got my Heckler & Koch Mark 23 from the glove compartment. It’s a lump of a pistol, but I’m used to it from my days in Ops 4-10, the army’s most covert special forces battalion, and it has real stopping power. I’d let Hoben get away once—the first time he’d come after Jen and me. I wouldn’t make that mistake a second time.
As the roads got quieter and turnoffs ran out, the SUV fell way back. That told me either they were just tailing me to see where I went or they were on their cell phones to their buddies and I was going to find my way blocked somewhere on the empty stretches ahead. Probably the latter, and that wasn’t good. I didn’t want to be trapped between two groups of them. It was time to party. A pity I’d left the Kevlar vest back at the Nexus building.
I took a bend, temporarily out of sight of the Caddy. The road ahead was clear as far as I could see. It’d been a long day—hell, a long couple of weeks—and the major reason why was right behind me. Hoben had been dogging my heels, lurking out of sight and threatening Jen and me from the shadows. I was done with that.
I popped the emergency brake and spun the car into a one-eighty, lining up to block the lane. I got out and sprinted for the side, sliding into a ditch.
I had a minute to curse myself for idiocy as I got ready. How many people can you get in an SUV? Five? Five armed men against me wouldn’t be good odds. This was crazy—I’d gotten careless on the downside of an operation. Exactly the sort of mistake I’d trained people to avoid in Ops 4-10.
But there wasn’t any time to change things; I could hear them coming.
By the time they arrived, I was a bit of dusty trash by the road, half-hidden in sand and obscured by the scrub. Not worth their attention, which was focused on the empty car in front of them.
They coasted to a halt and came out of the car cautiously.
Well, crap. Not Hoben, and not ZK either. Then who?
One piece of luck—there were only two of them. But the guy nearest me, from the passenger side, had a shorty shotgun. There were two problems with that. A guy with a shotgun thinks he’s invulnerable and any hack can shoot one. They always say close only counts with grenades, but shotguns work like that too.
They crept clear of the cover of the SUV, and they’d soon realize there wasn’t anyone hiding in my car. My instant camouflage wouldn’t hold up if they looked around and the odds weren’t going to get any better. The tension leaked out of me, and my muscles felt loose, ready. It was time.
I came up into a crouch with a two-handed grip on the HK, sand cascading from me like an extra in the Dune movie.
“Drop the weapons now,” I yelled. I was twenty yards away. Anyone with any sense would have obeyed. Someone with training, who was desperate, might have tried rolling away to throw my aim off.
Mr. Shotgun just turned and lifted.
At twenty yards, I don’t miss.
The driver was slower than his companion, but much smarter. He put his pistol down on the ground, his face slack with shock.
“Back up,” I told him, and he stepped back quickly.
I checked Mr. Shotgun. His marque, a brassy scent, told me he was Athanate.
Not a vampire; they’re Hollywood and myth. Athanate. The word means undying, but it doesn’t mean they—we—can’t be killed.
All Athanate have a faint scent and a subliminal presence, which other Athanate can detect and which together make up their marque. Each Athanate
House has its distinctive marque. This guy’s marque told me he was House Matlal.
Crap, now I had Matlal after me as well. I’d climbed onto his shit list when I’d busted the ZK drug smuggling operation, which was the distribution pipeline from his base in Mexico.
Mr. Shotgun’s pulse told me he was still alive. If he’d been human, the .45 round might have killed him straight off. I couldn’t feel any sympathy; he’d tried to shoot me first.
I picked up the driver’s gun. Sig Sauer 9mm. Nice, compact pistol.
“Kneel,” I said. “Hands behind your head.”
He obeyed. Sweat glistened in his slicked black hair and his eyes were sharp, taking stock: his friend’s body, the road, the HK. I liked that. It would piss me off to have to shoot him too, but he looked smart enough to know trying something wouldn’t be healthy.
The shock came as I registered his marque. He wasn’t House Matlal—in fact, I didn’t recognize the marque at all.
First things first; I took a minute to check the SUV for more weapons. Nothing, but his cell lay on the dashboard. I pocketed it.
Now I wanted answers. I stood in front of the driver. Mr. Shotgun was dressed in a bad-guy dark business suit. The driver was in charcoal gray cargo pants and a rust-colored college sweatshirt, with wraparound, iridescent shades pushed back on his head. Chalk and cheese.
“Who are you working for? Matlal?” I asked.
His mouth opened, but no sound came out. I’d seen that before, people so scared their voice wouldn’t work, but I’d thought he was better than that.
“Hoben?” I prompted him.
He nodded. His head dropped and his face twisted in frustration and…anger? What was that all about?
But I didn’t have time to mess around here.
“Look at me.” I waited till his head came back up, then I lifted the HK slowly and pointed it straight between his eyes. Any firearm pointed at you is frightening. The black hole of the muzzle looks deeper and darker and bigger the longer you look at it. The HK already looks like a freaking cannon. Up close and pointed at you, it’s terrifying.
“Are there others up ahead?”
The HK helped him find his voice, even if it was strained. “Yeah, heading towards Parker,” he said. Well, that was useful. I visualized the roads. There was a highway coming down to Parker, and then this road snaking through farmland. It would take maybe—
“They’ll be here in ten,” he said.
A man in fear for his life will tell you more than you ask for, trying to ingratiate himself. So will a smart man. But a really smart man, a really cool operator—he might lie.
“How many?”
“Two cars,” he said. “Maybe eight guys.”
Too many. So, not trying to lull me into a false sense of security. And I needed to be gone; I couldn’t go up against that many people.
“Hoben there?”
“Yeah,” he rasped.
Damn.
I tried to think of a way I could ambush him, but I simply didn’t have enough time. It hurt, but I was going to have to give this one a miss.
“And what were you told to do? Kill me out here? Capture me?”
“Just follow you. Stop you from getting away. Hold you for Hoben if we had to. Not kill you.”
Hoben would want to do it himself. In his twisted mind, every time I’d survived one of his attempts had humiliated him. He’d need to repay me in front of his friends, show them his power over me. It wouldn’t be quick. Or painless.
But how come he had people loaned from Matlal to help him?
“And since when does scum like Hoben get his own Athanate to order around?” I asked.
His face twisted in anger again, and his mouth worked before he managed to speak. “We’re watching him.”
Well, I could believe that. Matlal would be holding Hoben liable for the loss of his drugs in the busted shipment. Things must be tense between them. There had to be an edge there for me to exploit.
But not right now.
This guy didn’t seem to have any problems telling me things about Hoben, so it was worth at least one more question.
“Where do I find Hoben? Where’s he hide out?”
“Moves around. All sorts of places. Different every day.”
Shit. So close. I ground my teeth.
The comms unit in the car squawked, “What’s happening, Garcia? Where the fuck are you now?”
Even distorted through the radio, I could recognize Hoben’s hoarse voice. Time to go.
“I’ve got a message for Hoben,” I said.
He looked apprehensive. He knew dead men are a strong message—the sort of message Hoben wouldn’t think twice about sending.
“I’m coming for him.” His eyes widened in doubt. “If he thinks that’s not serious, tell him to go check the body bags at Nexus.”
I went behind him and hauled him to his feet. There were some cable ties in the Caddy. Probably meant for me, but they’d do just as well for him.
“Wait,” he said. He looked over at Mr. Shotgun, and shifted slightly so his back was to his partner. His voice dropped. “Please, take me with you. I want out, Farrell.”
What?
I’d been in this position on missions before. I’d had conscripts beg me to keep them prisoner. But surely not this guy? I stood back so I could watch him and the road.
“Out of what, exactly?”
“I’m not House Matlal, for Christ’s sake. I’ve gotta get out.”
“Which House are you?”
“I can’t say.” His eyes bulged as if he was going to be sick. I inched forward with the gun. Sweat started running down his face.
I was having real trouble reading this. One minute, he was a smart operator; the next minute, a gibbering wreck.
“Try again.”
“I. Can’t. Say.” He had to force the words out. His stomach was heaving.
Light bulb moment.
I’m no expert, but I knew just enough about Athanate mental abilities to suspect he meant it; he actually, physically, couldn’t say, gun in his face or not.
I was stunned. A House allied somehow to Matlal, but its people so unwilling that Matlal was compelling them?
Could I trust this? And if he wanted out, how could I use that to get to Hoben?
“Matlal’s screwed with your head?”
He didn’t answer, but his expression told me I was right. I wondered what he could answer.
“Matlal’s got you working for Hoben? You can talk about Hoben?”
“Yeah.”
“Enough info to allow me to hunt him down?”
He looked more cautious. “Maybe.”
I knew then I could nail the son of a bitch. I could work with hints that this guy didn’t even realize would give me Hoben.
If he wasn’t a real cute way of trapping me.
But taking him with me now was definitely out. It’d alert Hoben. It would be too much to say a plan was forming, but I had an idea. This guy was going to have to work for his way out.
“What’s your name?”
“Larry,” he said.
“Listen up, Larry. I’m not going to take you with me now. But if you can get away tomorrow evening, without anyone knowing, I’ll pick you up. You think you can do that?”
“I think so,” he rasped.
There was no time to plan anything fancy for lifting Larry. I needed somewhere open, where I could see anyone trying to sneak up. With people around. I didn’t like the thought of others getting in the way, but probably my best defense was that Matlal and Hoben would be wary of getting bystanders involved as well—they couldn’t afford the police attention.
“You know Cheesman Park, the one with the fancy pavilion?”
He nodded.
“I’ll be there tomorrow, just as it’s getting dark. Make sure you don’t have anyone following you. I’ll have the place staked out.” I was lying through my teeth, but he didn’t know that.
“I’ll be there. I won
’t screw you around, Farrell.”
“See that you don’t. You give me Hoben, and I’ll protect you.”
I made him fasten one hand to the wheel with the cable ties, and I did the other. One eye on the road to Parker, I ripped the comms unit out and tossed it into the trunk of my car, along with their guns and his cell.
Then I smoked my tires and headed back down to the I-25 and Denver.
I’d given Larry a tough job, and he’d need some luck.
Now a cool operator, a really, really good operator, an operator with ice in his veins instead of blood, might have come up with all of that to trap me. But that wasn’t the thought that was bouncing around in my head—no, that was I’m going to nail that bastard Hoben tomorrow night.
Meanwhile, I was still dressed in the courier uniform disguise I’d used to get into the Nexus building, and now I looked like a hobo, with dust in my hair and clothes, blood splatters under the dust, and my face and hands a mess. And there was scratchy sand down my panties. Eww. I would hardly have noticed it back in Ops 4-10, let alone cared.
I’m getting soft.
Luckily, my gypsy lifestyle meant there was a change of clothes in the trunk. I really needed to find someplace to clean up before I did anything else. Anyplace would do. The hot shower would have to wait.
Chapter 2
I pulled into Park Meadows Mall and managed to sneak into the restrooms without being arrested for vagrancy.
With the worst of the mess cleaned off, changed into fresh underwear, jeans and T, I started to feel better. I leaned forward and checked my reflection in the restroom mirror. I’d brushed the dust out of my auburn hair as best I could. There were dozens of scratches on my face, caused by spalls and ricocheting fragments from the grenade exploding in the stairwell while I’d been rescuing the hostages.
The scratches were closed and healing already, because I was Athanate now, and we healed quickly. There were no other clues to that in the mirror. I had a runner’s body because I ran. My face was unchanged. The too-sharp nose was the same one that had always told me I didn’t have a best side. The bronze tone to the skin and the green eyes were unusual, but the result of mixed Irish and Arapaho genes rather than any peculiar side effects of my paranormal transformation. At some stage, as I became fully Athanate, there would be changes to my body. Not all something-for-nothing changes, but better returns for effort I put in. My body had already become more efficient. I was faster, stronger and fitter than I had been.