“Who are those women out there, Harvey, friends of yours?”
“Hell no, they want me to help them find Russell, after that, they’ll put me in jail.”
“And what about that guy? He’s sexy.”
“He’s a jerk named Tanner. I think he wants to kill Russell.”
“I read about Russell, and the cops came by to talk to me about him, but I don’t know where he is.”
“Listen, Brenda, do you still have that old dirt bike?”
“Yeah.”
“Does it work?”
“A little, but the engine cuts out after a few miles. I stopped using it.”
Harvey took money from his wallet.
“I’ll buy it from you. I need to get away from those people outside.”
Brenda smiled as she snatched away the cash.
“Take it, but it won’t get you very far before it cuts off.”
“That’s okay. I just need it to get me into the desert where they can’t follow.”
“When do you have to leave?”
“The sooner the better.”
“Too bad. We had a lot of fun the last time you were here.”
Harvey looked Brenda over. “I guess a few more minutes of being social won’t make a difference.”
Brenda laughed, took Harvey by the hand, and led him into her bedroom.
* * *
“Are you sure Harvey is on a dead-end street off Route 86?” Russell asked Tonya.
“Yeah, why?”
“My damn stepsister lives there. She and Harvey dated for a while last year, but she’s a drunk and he got tired of her.”
“Can she lead them to you?”
“Brenda doesn’t know anything about me. I’ve only seen her twice in the last fifteen years.”
“Still, she might know something that could help them. Give me her address. I’ll have a talk with her after they leave.”
“I don’t know the number, but it’s a shitty little house painted half blue, you can’t miss it.”
“All right, and I can always find Harvey at that motel he’s staying at.”
“I cancelled the meeting with him.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s not alone. I know you can take on Harvey all right, but you might get hurt if you tried to kill all four of them by yourself.”
“I can handle it. I’ll just pick them off one by one.”
“No, Tonya. It sounds risky.”
“I’ll call you later,” Tonya said, then she ended the call.
* * *
“Harvey has been in there a long time,” Zoe said.
“You like him, don’t you?”
“He’s cute. It’s too bad he’s a wanted felon and a firebug.”
Kayla looked at the time on her dash clock. “He has been in there for a while, hasn’t he?”
“Do you think Harvey is getting laid?”
“Maybe,” Kayla said. “I know I won’t be.”
“Are you bummed out because Xavier is engaged?”
“No, I’m happy for him, but I wouldn’t mind reliving old times.”
A rumble filled the air and echoed across the desert.
“Where’s that engine sound coming from?” Zoe asked her sister.
Before Kayla could answer, Harvey came out from behind the house riding on an old dirt bike.
“Son of a bitch!” Zoe said.
Harvey was laughing as he sped by the van. After leaving the driveway, he headed across the road and into the desert. Zoe had the van in motion, but it soon became clear that they couldn’t follow Harvey in the van, not without damaging the vehicle’s undercarriage.
“Xavier will not be happy,” Kayla said.
“And there goes our twenty-thousand too,” Zoe moaned.
As he bounced along while maneuvering around the scrub brush, Harvey took the time to wave goodbye.
11
Now They Have A Reason
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, NOVEMBER 2001
Spenser showed up early for his noon meeting with the leader of the Outbackers. After scouting the area and finding no signs of an ambush, he waited outside the restaurant the group’s leader had chosen. Spenser wasn’t certain they weren’t attempting to set a trap for him, and it always paid to be cautious.
A limo pulled up at the entrance of the eatery.
When three men climbed out of the rear, Spenser got a glimpse inside the vehicle’s interior. There was a woman in there, and a man was seated on either side of her. The woman had dark hair and looked as frightened as anyone Spenser had ever seen. Her moist blue eyes locked on his for a brief moment and Spenser could feel her desperation.
The door shut on the limousine and Spenser found himself staring at his reflection in mirrored glass.
The three men who exited from the limo were studying him. Two of them were dressed in black T-shirts and tan chinos as Eddie and Tony had worn. However, the man in the middle was wearing a suit. His garments were well-tailored, but they couldn’t disguise that he was a brute.
His neck was thick, the hands large and bulging with veins, and on the side of his neck was the tattoo of a skull. When he spoke, he had a broad Australian accent, which Spenser knew was associated with the working class.
“I think you’re the man I’ve come here to meet.”
“I am,” Spenser said.
“We’ll be skipping lunch; something has come up.”
Spenser pointed toward the limo. “That woman. I want to speak to her.”
“You know her?”
“No, but I want to ask her if she’s all right.”
The man laughed. “She’s better than she’ll be an hour from now, but that’s really none of your business.”
Spenser nodded. “I guess you’re right.”
“Tell me what happened to Ryker.”
“What’s your name?”
“Any name I gave you would be false, just like the name you’re here under.”
“As I told Eddie and Tony last night, Ryker died back in Los Angeles.”
“He was wounded. Did you wound him?”
“I did. If I had known he had died from the wounds, I wouldn’t be here.”
“And you say his kid told you this?”
“His name was Damon Ryker.”
“Was?”
“Was,” Spenser said.
The man looked him over. “You’re not a man who fucks around, are you?”
“No, I’m not, and I still want to speak to that woman you have.”
“Why the hell do you care about her?”
“She looked frightened. I want to know why.”
The man in the suit reddened noticeably as he brought up a hand and pointed at Spenser.
“We don’t have a problem with you anymore. That’s a very good thing, for you. But if you make trouble, we’ll bury your ass. Understand?”
“Yes, you’re threatening me.”
“Bloody damn right I am, Yank. In fact, why don’t you head back to America today. I don’t like you being around.”
Spenser said nothing in response. After making a grunt of disgust, the man turned and walked back to the limo. When the door opened again, Spenser locked eyes with the woman once more, as she mouthed the words, “Help me.”
* * *
In Indonesia, Cody and Romeo were spending the day fishing with Bagus and Nadya.
After having endured a rigorous morning training session, they were both flying high. Maz had tested their abilities by having them attack him again. Knowing they were not the men they had been weeks earlier, Maz had them use training weapons made of rubber.
Cody scored three blows against Maz before the older man took him down, while Romeo landed a strike to Maz’s neck. Had the weapons been real, Maz would have been in serious trouble.
“You two will make a go of the contest all right,” Maz said, then he told them that they could leave early.
* * *
It was Bagus’s day off and he had no charter
customers, but he enjoyed fishing so much that he took the boat out anyway. After a morning of rain, the day had turned sunny, and the ocean breeze felt soothing.
Nadya caught a grouper that was nearly as big as she was with help from Romeo. Once they had the fish aboard, the young teen hugged Romeo around the neck and kissed him on the cheek.
“I would have lost the fish if you hadn’t helped. Thank you, Romeo.”
“Sure thing, little chick.”
When a smaller craft, a speed boat, headed toward them, Cody thought it might be some of Bagus’s friends coming over to say hello. Then, as they pulled up alongside them, he spotted the machetes they were holding down at their sides. There were six men in all. Cody recognized them as being the punks he and Romeo had run off before.
Nadya called to her father, “Ayah, mulai mesinnya!”
Cody wasn’t yet fluent in their language, but he understood that Nadya was telling her father to start the engines. It was too late for that, as two of the men had tossed hooks onto the railing with ropes attached. They climbed up with their machetes slung over their backs, then removed them to threaten Bagus.
Again, Cody understood enough of what they were saying to make sense of it. They were telling Bagus that he had ignored their warning and had run out of chances.
Once all six men were on board, they raised their machetes over their heads and moved in to commit slaughter. Cody heard Romeo’s gun send forth a round as he was pulling his own trigger. The small pocket pistols they had held only five rounds each, but at such close range, there was no chance of missing.
The last of the six men had fled back to the railing and was preparing to climb down into his boat. Romeo placed a bullet in his back. To Cody’s surprise, Romeo then advanced on the man, grabbed him by the hair, and shouted at him in a voice filled with rage.
“You were going to kill that little girl? You sick bastard, you were going to carve her up?” Romeo released his gun, plucked the man from the deck, and tossed him into the water.
With the serious injury he’d sustained to his back, the punk had trouble swimming. He did manage to float, but it seemed certain that he would drown given enough time.
Nadya was crying in her father’s arms, while Bagus looked both shocked and appalled by the violence he’d witnessed. Cody noticed that Bagus was staring at him with a look of fear in his eyes. He held up his gun.
“Be glad we had these weapons with us. Otherwise, we might all be dead.”
Bagus said nothing. He just stared at the dead and dying men littering his deck, and the blood running from them.
The man in the water had been begging for mercy. His pitiful cries for help ended with a scream. His movements, along with his blood, had attracted a pair of tiger sharks.
“Serves him right,” Romeo muttered, as the screams grew louder.
“Give me a hand,” Cody said.
They started tossing the other men overboard. When they came to one who was still alive, Cody killed him with a knife, while using his body to block the act from Nadya’s view. The sharks were in a feeding frenzy, as more were attracted to the feast.
Cody loaded a fresh magazine into his gun, then emptied it into the small craft, causing it to take on water. When the ropes connected to the grappling hooks were severed, the speed boat began sinking.
“Butchers!” Bagus said. “You two are butchers.”
“They would have killed us, Bagus,” Romeo said. “Would you have rather had them hurt Nadya?”
“Of course not… and yet… oh, it was all horrible.”
“It was,” Cody agreed. “But it was horrible for them and not us.”
Nadya peeled herself away from her father and embraced Romeo. When he hugged her back, Romeo planted a kiss atop her head.
* * *
In Australia, the limousine had driven a few miles south to the suburb of Marrickville and arrived at an old factory. The property was listed as being for sale but sat unoccupied. There were many newer commercial buildings in the area that offered a more modern electrical and lighting system.
The gang that had mistaken Spenser for Vince Ryker, the Outbackers, had obtained ownership of the property after a “business acquaintance” failed to pay his gambling debts. The group had been using it as a meeting place ever since.
The man in the suit who had spoken to Spenser was named Jock Martin. He had started life as a dockworker and gradually drifted into crime. As the current leader of the Outbackers, Martin had gained control of a dying group whose membership was down to about a dozen men. The man he replaced, and who had been murdered by Vince Ryker, had been charismatic.
Jock Martin was not charismatic, and many members left recently when Martin took charge. One of those men left to form his own group, taking about half of the men with him. That man, Greg Thompson, was now dead, having been stabbed to death in his sleep.
Evidence had been planted that would point to him having been murdered by his wife, whom he was estranged from. That same woman was the one Spenser had seen in Jock Martin’s limo.
* * *
Her name was Willow Thompson. Once she went missing, it would be assumed that she fled after killing her husband. Free of suspicion in Greg Thompson’s death, Martin was certain that he could woo members back into the Outbackers.
Willow was yanked from the limo and all but dragged to an area at the rear of the warehouse. Preparations had been made, and thick plastic laid down to cover a section of the concrete floor. On a nearby table was a sharp knife, a chainsaw, and two bags of lime.
“Why are you doing this?” Willow cried out. She was in her twenties and worked as a wedding photographer.
“It’s not personal,” Martin assured her.
A man had already been at the factory preparing things. He walked over and pawed at Willow’s breasts.
“We could have a little fun with her first, Jock. She’s built right for it.”
Martin looked at his other men. “You blokes want her?”
They all smiled, then leered at Willow.
Martin shrugged. “Looks like you’re going out with a bang, Willow. But she’ll be all yours, boys. I like mine willing.”
Willow screamed and doubled her efforts at getting free. In response, she was shoved to the floor after being slapped across the face.
Two of the men were laughing at her, but they stopped when Jock Martin held up a hand.
“I thought I heard something while she was screaming.”
“It was the sound of a charging handle being slid back,” Spenser said.
The men looked toward the restrooms and saw Spenser holding an AK-47.
Jock Martin was one of four men present who had a firearm on him, but he was the only one with enough sense not to use it. The man who had pawed Willow reached for the pistol secured in his waistband. Before he could free the gun, three rounds were stitched across his chest.
Martin had rushed for the limo, slid across its hood, and made it into the driver’s seat. While Spenser was dealing with the other armed men, Martin got the limo in gear and headed for the loading dock door, which was down. He managed to get the limousine up to a speed of sixty kilometers an hour when he rammed the corrugated metal door.
The door buckled in the middle, causing gaps to form at its lower corners. The spaces were big enough for a man to crawl through. Spenser sent six rounds toward the door and was rewarded by hearing Martin cry out in pain. When he looked back at the two remaining men, who were unarmed, they were holding their hands up in surrender.
“Sorry boys,” Spenser said, “but I’m not in the second-chance business.”
Spenser shot each man once in the head and watched them drop. While the men had been dying, Willow had looked on with marvel at how smoothly Spenser had dispatched them. She was the daughter of a criminal and had married one, but she had never witnessed such audacious violence.
“Are you all right?” Spenser asked her.
Willow stared back at him from her pos
ition on the floor but didn’t answer. When Spenser walked over and offered his hand, she took it, and he helped her to stand.
“I’m Tanner,” Spenser said.
“I’m Willow,” she whispered. “Willow Thompson.”
Spenser rushed over to stare through the gap in the door and saw a blood trail heading toward the fence. He eased through the hole with the rifle leading the way, then looked around. The blood trail ended where Spenser remembered seeing a blue BMW. The car likely had the keys left in it and belonged to one of the men he’d killed.
Willow joined him and asked a question. “Did Jock Martin get away?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“He has other men.”
“Not for long he won’t,” Spenser said.
“Thank you… for helping me.”
Spenser started walking toward the rear of the factory.
“I have to leave before the police show up.”
Willow hurried after him. “Take me with you.”
Spenser was surprised by the request, but he sent Willow a nod and they were soon on their way.
12
Not So Fast
ARIZONA, AUGUST 2018
Harvey heard the shot that struck the front tire of the motor bike, then found himself skidding out of control. When he realized he was headed for a cactus he laid the bike down and went tumbling end over end.
After coming to rest with his face in the sand, Harvey moaned from the many aches vying for his attention. As he attempted to rise onto his hands and knees, a boot was placed on the back of his neck.
“You broke our deal, Harvey,” Tanner said.
“I wasn’t running from you; I was running from those women.”
“Sure,” Tanner said.
Kayla and Zoe joined them, and Zoe cuffed Harvey’s hands behind his back.
“No, no cuffs, I can still help you find Russell.”
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