by L. T. Ryan
Seamus ignored the plants, and instead reached down to pick up a fist-sized rock. He tossed it to the side and started digging, tossing dirt behind him. After a few seconds he pulled something out of the ground and did a little fist pump. Bear would’ve thought it was comical if his some-bad-shit-is-about-to-go-down radar wasn’t sounding the alert.
The kid pushed the dirt back in place to fill up the hole, replaced the rock, and stood up, staring down at whatever was in his hand. Then he placed it in his pocket and took off running. Without thinking, Bear stepped out of the shadows. He wasn’t sure what he was planning on doing. It was much smarter to let Seamus run off and follow him, but Bear’s instincts told him the kid wouldn’t get far.
Seamus’s attention snapped to Bear and his steps faltered. His eyes looked apologetic, but it was clear he wasn’t going to stop and talk. Before Bear could call out to him, a white van tore around the corner and came barreling toward them.
Bear melted back into the shadows while Seamus froze. The men in the van didn’t waste any time. They skidded to stop in front of Seamus, opened the side panel, and called out to him. Seamus took a step back, but it was too late. He should’ve already been running in the opposite direction. Should’ve ran toward Bear.
Two burly men jumped out of the van and grabbed Seamus by the arms. The kid screamed and kicked at them, but he was so tiny compared to the guys. There was no way he was going to escape their grip. And even if he did, each one had a rifle strapped to their back.
Bear’s initial instinct was to throw caution to the wind and charge the van. But between the two men kidnapping Seamus and the two in the front of the vehicle, he was outnumbered and outgunned. So he stuck to the shadows. The smartest play was to wait and watch.
The man threw Seamus in the back, and the van took off before they even closed the side panel. It headed north.
Bear didn’t waste any time. He sprinted up the street, found an older model sedan, and put his elbow through the window. No alarm sounded, and Bear quickly went to work hot-wiring the car. Seconds later, he was on the road and in pursuit of the van.
18
Bear kept his distance but made sure he was never too far away from the van to risk losing track of Seamus and the men who took him. The broken window let in the cold April air, and if Bear wasn’t already running on pure adrenaline, he’d have no trouble staying awake.
The guy driving the van kept to the speed limit and made sure to use his turn signals and brake well before any red lights or stop signs. Bear wasn’t sure if it was because they suspected he was following them, or if it was because they knew if they got pulled over, they’d have an even bigger mess on their hands.
But they didn’t have to worry about the cops. It didn’t take long for the van to come to its final destination. They were in an industrial area, surrounded by warehouses and businesses like car repair shops and small factories.
A garage door opened and the van pulled inside. It was a narrow building only three stories high. The other buildings appeared to have been built in the last decade or so. This one seemed like it had been thrown up in the 1950s or earlier. Bear idly wondered if the other business owners thought of it as an eyesore or if it had particular historical value that made up for its ugliness.
He didn’t waste much time trying to puzzle it out. Instead, he drove past the garage and parked in front of a metalworking shop just down the road. He turned off the car and stuck his hand out the window, manually tilting the side-view mirror up and out so he could keep an eye on the garage. It looked like a paint shop. Pretty convenient if you were in the business of kidnapping children. Changing vehicles quickly wouldn’t be an issue at all.
The building was dark for only a couple minutes before a pair of lights lit up the top floor. A few shadows passed in front of the windows, but Bear had no way of telling how many people were inside or what the setup was like. The men in the van were heavily armed, so it stood to reason that their home base was, too.
Bear was still debating the best way to get into the building when a figure appeared out of a side door, pulled his hood up over his head, and looked up and down the street. Bear sunk down into his seat and waited. Apparently, there was nothing suspicious about the quiet street because he produced a key, locked the door, and took off in Bear’s direction with his hands deep in his pockets.
Bear didn’t waste time. As soon as the man was past him, he slipped out of the car, leaving the door slightly ajar so as to remain absolutely silent. He had always been light on his feet despite his size, and his time in the military only strengthened that particular talent. Used to drive Jack crazy. But it came in handy on more than one occasion.
Like this one.
The man didn’t even realize what hit him before Bear’s arms were around his neck, holding tight to cut off his air supply. The man tried to pull his handgun and aim it at Bear’s face, but one sharp twist and a pop later, and the guy slumped in his arms. That would be one less person to deal with inside.
Bear dragged the man across the street and dumped him along the backseat of the car. It kind of looked like he was sleeping. And by the time anyone realized anything different, Bear would be long gone. Hopefully with Seamus in tow.
Once he secured the keys, Bear jogged back across the street and ran up to the door on the side of the building that led to the garage. He stood there for a moment and listened, but he couldn’t hear any sounds from inside. The door was either too thick to let out any noise, or everyone was upstairs. He prayed it was the latter.
There were only a handful of keys on the keyring, and Bear got the right one on the second try. With one hand, he pulled his pistol from his waistband, and with the other, he slowly pushed the door open until he could take in the whole room.
Empty.
Or, at least, empty of people. The garage housed the van and one other car, a black and utterly average looking sedan they probably used when they needed a quick getaway car that would blend in with traffic. Whatever these guys were up to, they were smart enough to have a backup plan.
The room was also stacked with boxes and crates. As much as Bear wanted to know what was going on, he didn’t think it was a good idea to take his time. He wasn’t sure if the guys would kill Seamus, but he wasn’t about to take that risk. The sooner he made his way up to the third floor, the better.
Bear crossed the room to the next door and pushed it open. The squeak of rusty hinges echoed up a narrow stairwell and he froze. The door was just wide enough for him to slip through without widening the gap any further, but when he let it fall shut behind him, he cringed as the hinges squeaked again in the other direction.
He waited at the base of the steps, listening to see if there was any movement above him. He couldn’t even hear the men on the third floor, but at least they weren’t rushing down the stairs to investigate the sound of the door opening.
After a minute of nothing but silence, he ascended the stairwell. He kept to the outside and pointed his pistol upward, making sure he’d get a shot off before anyone coming down after him even had time to find their mark. He only stopped moving once he reached the second landing.
Now he had a decision to make. He knew there were men on the third floor, but he couldn’t guarantee there weren’t some here either. He could clear the floor and risk wasting more time, or he could ambush the third-floor men and risk someone coming up behind him.
But if the men really wanted to kill Seamus and take whatever he had, they wouldn’t have brought him back to the garage. They would’ve done the deed and dropped his body off in some alley. It was unlikely anyone would miss a homeless kid too much. And those who did weren’t likely to go to the police to report him missing.
With his decision made, Bear twisted the handle on the second-floor door and thanked God these hinges weren’t as rusty as the ones downstairs. Just like before, he slowly opened the door until he could see the whole room, and immediately patted himself on the back for having the sen
se to check this floor before he headed up to the next one.
Two men had their backs to the door. They were standing over a table with a desk lamp and some papers on it. The rest of the room was pretty bare, except for a few folding chairs and some more boxes and crates stacked in the corners.
As much as he was curious about the contents of those packages, he needed to neutralize these two before he went upstairs. The only problem was he couldn’t risk either one of them firing a weapon and alerting anyone upstairs.
Bear made a snap decision. He kept low and rushed at the men, using the butt of his sidearm to knock one unconscious before the other even noticed. When the second man, who had fiery red hair and a splash of freckles across his face, realized what was happening, he reached for a pistol sitting on the table.
But Bear was faster. He kicked at the man’s knee and sent him to the ground, the pistol spinning away across the floor, well out of reach. Freckles tried to reach up and put his hands around Bear’s neck, but his grip was weak. Bear broke the hold and punched him in the gut to steal his breath away. As the man was gasping, Bear delivered a strike to knock him out.
Knowing he only had a minute or two before they woke up, Bear found some rope and tied them back to back. A roll of duct tape sat on the table. He used that to silence both of them.
He circled the room once to make sure there wasn’t anyone else hiding in the shadows, and then went back to the table in the center of the room. He adjusted the light closer so he could see the plans in front of him. They looked like schematics for a tunnel or subway system.
The first man started to wake up, but Bear didn’t cast him more than a cursory glance to make sure his bonds were still tight before returning his attention to the problem at hand. He ruffled through the papers, but it didn’t seem like they were planning to bomb anything. It was just different views of what looked like an abandoned tunnel, plus some potential routes to get in and out of it.
Bear grabbed a crowbar from nearby and pried open the top of the nearest crate. Inside were dozens of tiny replicas of the iconic red telephone box you saw everywhere in souvenir shops around London. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what they were for, and sure enough, when Bear slid open a false bottom, several tiny bags of cocaine spilled out.
Turns out he had stumbled onto a drug trafficking operation by accident.
Apparently, it was just going to be one of those days. First it was Jack. Then a mystery Marine and a homeless kid, followed by terrorists. Now he had to deal with a gang of drug traffickers too. He was getting too goddamn old for all this excitement.
Bear double-checked the ropes that kept the two men in place. They were both awake now, but they weren’t going anywhere. Freckles still looked a little groggy, but the first man was glowering at Bear hard.
“Sorry, boys,” Bear said. “Gotta go pay your friends a visit now.”
Without waiting for a muffled response, Bear made his way back to the stairwell and up to the third floor. From this vantage point, he could hear someone talking on the other side of the door, but he couldn’t make out any of the words.
Chances are there were still a couple of guys inside, and with the kid in there, Bear didn’t want to go charging in and risk injuring him. Or worse. But someone was bound to wonder what was taking the guy in the hoodie so long to get back, or even why the two men on the second floor hadn’t returned.
So Bear decided to watch and wait.
19
Bear had crept back down to the second floor and slipped back inside the room. He knelt down next to the wall, keeping the door slightly ajar so he could hear if someone was coming. He hoped it would be someone from the third floor and not anyone new entering via the garage, but he had a good vantage point for both directions.
Sure enough, after about fifteen or twenty minutes, Bear heard the door upstairs open. Laughter filled the stairwell before it was once again muffled as the door swung shut. Heavy footsteps pounded down the stairs, but it only sounded like there was one of them.
“Yo, Patrick,” the man called out as he reached the second-floor landing. “Boss man says gets your ass—”
His words were cut off as he opened the door and noticed the two other men struggling against the ropes. Bear tackled the newcomer to the floor. He put one hand over his mouth, while he held the pistol to his head.
“Shit,” Bear said, finally taking a good look at the man he had pinned. His hair was cropped short and the whiskers on his chin were thin and patchy, but it was clear he was a natural-born redhead. He looked a little like Freckles, and Bear wondered if maybe they were related. Either way, he couldn’t be any older than eighteen. “What’re you doing mixed up in all of this, kid?”
Whiskers tried to respond, but Bear didn’t lift his hand. Or move his gun, despite the tears in the kid’s eyes. He deserved to be scared straight. Before something worse happened.
“This is what’s going to happen,” Bear said. “I’m going to move my hand and let you up. You’re going to sit yourself down in one of those very nice folding chairs and keep your eyes shut until I tell you otherwise, you got me?”
The kid nodded his head as vigorously as he could under the pressure of Bear’s hand.
When Bear lifted his hand, Whiskers didn’t make a sound. Bear removed his weight and let the kid stand up. Shaking and openly crying now, Whiskers walked to the other side of the room, casting a glance every few seconds at the other men tied to the chair.
Bear waited until the kid sat down and squeezed his eyes shut before he found another length of rope and tied him to the chair. He tore off a piece of duct tape, but didn’t stick it to his mouth just yet.
“You can open your eyes,” Bear said.
Whiskers followed his instructions.
“How many people are upstairs?” Bear asked.
Whiskers glanced at the two men next to him. When he looked back at Bear, he shook his head.
“Look, you’re fucked either way,” Bear said. He purposely gestured with the hand that held the gun. He didn’t miss the way Whiskers followed his every movement. “Right now, your best bet is to tell me what I need to know. Once my business is finished upstairs, I’m gonna call the cops and you’re all going to jail. You will be tied to this chair when they arrive. The difference is whether they’ll find you alive or not.”
Whiskers shuddered. “Three. Three people.”
“Including the kid?”
Whiskers nodded.
“What’s the layout of the room?”
“One big room, plus a bathroom off to the right.” He cleared his throat. “There’s a-a couch in the middle. And a couple chairs, a TV.”
“They got guns up there?”
Whiskers nodded.
“Any other surprises I need to know about?” Bear asked.
“They’ve been drinking,” he answered.
“You did good.” Bear placed the strip of duct tape across the kid’s mouth. “Let this be a lesson for you. Don’t make the same mistake twice.”
Bear turned to Freckles and the other guy. “And you two assholes should know better than to bring a kid into an operation like this. He was gonna get shot sooner rather than later and that would’ve been on you.”
Freckles looked angry, but Bear could see the fear in his eyes. The other guy just kept trying to struggle out of his ropes. Bear wasn’t worried. The cops would be here before any of them had a chance of slipping free.
Bear didn’t waste any time making his way back to the third floor. He kept his pistol aimed forward and opened the door like they were expecting him. Any hesitation would’ve tipped them off, and the few seconds it would take for the men inside to register he wasn’t one of theirs would be enough for him to get the drop on them.
He was already three steps into the room before the first man realized what was going on. He had hair so blond it was practically white, and he wore a newsboy cap to top it all off. The other man had been lounging on the couch, his feet up
on the armrest. He didn’t even bother looking up until Newsboy shouted.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Bear didn’t bother answering. Instead, he struck out at the man’s gut, knocking the air from him before throwing an uppercut and breaking his nose. Blood streamed from Newsboy’s face, but it didn’t slow him down. He charged at Bear just as the other man, who was inexplicably dressed in suspenders, jumped to his feet and pointed a gun in their direction.
Bear ducked and grabbed Newsboy’s waist, spinning the pair of them. When Suspenders’ shot rang out, it hit Newsboy in the shoulder and made him cry out in pain. Bear took advantage of their momentary shock by aiming his pistol and putting a bullet between Suspenders’ eyes. He slumped back down to the couch.
Newsboy recovered and tried to swing at Bear, but in a daze of pain and confusion, he missed. Bear aimed at the man’s knee cap and squeezed the trigger once. Newsboy collapsed to the floor in agony.
Bear’s frantic eyes searched the room and found Seamus huddling against the wall. He was silent, but there were tears streaming down his face.
“You okay, kid?” Bear asked. He wanted to give Seamus his full attention, but he had to clear the bathroom first. If Whiskers was lying about how many people were in the room, they could both end up dead. “Did they hurt you?”
When he was sure the bathroom was empty, Bear turned back to Seamus, who hadn’t moved. Bear took a deep breath and tried to regulate the adrenaline pumping through his system. He tucked his sidearm away and held up his hands.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Seamus,” he said. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
Seamus nodded and wiped the tears from his eyes.
“Did they hurt you?” When Seamus shook his head, Bear asked, “Why’d you run away, buddy? I thought we had a deal.”
Seamus remained silent and Bear could tell he wasn’t going to spill his secrets just yet. Instead, Bear turned back to Newsboy. He knelt down next to the man and snapped a finger in front of his face to get his attention. He looked pale, but he was in no danger of bleeding out.