“It’s just a party,” Romeo said. “Damn it.”
Cody gave his shoulder a squeeze. “There’s still one more.”
* * *
Livingston wasn’t at the last location either, which was an old house with a large detached garage. The nearest house was some distance away.
While Livingston wasn’t there, it was occupied. There was light, movement, and the sound of a TV playing.
Cody moved in to do the reconnaissance while Romeo kept watch for signs of a missed perimeter guard. He was gone for fifteen minutes. When he returned, he was grinning.
“Livingston?” Romeo asked.
“Better: Emma. There’s a room in the back where the windows were recently bricked over and at least three guys inside with guns. This must be where they’re holding her.”
Romeo released a small laugh. “Oh, thank God, yes, yes.”
“We need to do this right or one of them will use Emma as a hostage.”
“I know, and one more thing. I want to call in the location to the police.”
“Why? We can handle this.”
“I know, Cody, but man, this is Emma’s life here. If those assholes in there get lucky and kill us both, I want her to still have a chance.”
“I get it, but once we make that call, we’ll have to strike fast, or the cops will be on us too.”
Romeo nodded his understanding, then said, “Here’s how I want us to do it.”
* * *
Inside the house, the boy Emma knew as Joe was making plans of his own. His tongue had been hurting him since Emma bit down on it and he’d only been able to eat soft food.
Joe hated Emma and wanted her dead. Not the slow death of dehydration, but death by his hand. To accomplish that, he was easing a gun from the holster of one of his companions. Joe hadn’t drugged anyone this time; the man had fallen asleep after drinking six beers.
The other men all had guns, but not Joe, not since he accidentally shot a wall while practicing his quick draw. That had happened during the last kidnapping and they still wouldn’t let him have a weapon. That was all right, because guns were easy to get.
Joe cleared the weapon from the holster right before his companion turned over in his sleep. He’d get in trouble for killing Emma, but so what? They were willing to let her die anyway and the ransom was being paid in the morning.
With the gun tucked behind him in his waistband, Joe moved toward the room at the rear of the house, by going down the back hallway.
A man named Tucker was on guard duty there. He had his chair tipped back against the door frame and was playing a game on his phone. Joe was trying to think of some way to lure Tucker away from the door when the sound of breaking glass came from the front of the house.
Tucker cursed as he fell out of the chair. After righting himself, he picked up his phone and brought out his gun.
“What the hell was that noise?” Tucker yelled, as he ran down the hallway.
* * *
Inside the room, Emma and her father stirred. They had both been asleep and only woke when Tucker had shouted his question.
“What’s going on?” Hart asked. His voice was scratchy because his throat was so dry from lack of water.
“I’m not sure,” Emma said. “But there seems to be some sort of commotion from somewhere in the house.”
A tentative smile crept across Hart’s face. “Perhaps we’re being rescued.”
* * *
Tucker had reached the front of the house with his gun drawn. He let out a laugh as he realized what had happened.
“A tree branch?”
“The damn thing came through the window and almost hit me,” one of the men said.
While Joe was in the rear of the home planning Emma’s death, the noise the branch made had brought the other five men into the living room. One of the other men, the drunken one whose gun Joe had stolen, pointed at a spot near the branch’s trunk, where it rested on the window sill.
“What is that? Is that a pipe?”
It wasn’t a pipe. It was the barrel of a shotgun. It was Cody’s gun. He had rested the Mossberg on the branch to steady his aim. Clad in black and wearing a ski mask and gloves, he was hard to see amid the branch’s fall leaves.
Cody’s first blast hit the man who had spotted his gun, passed through him and into the man behind him. Four more rounds fired in rapid succession left the other three men wounded as well. Tucker went lumbering away with a chunk of flesh missing from his right side, at waist level.
With the shotgun empty, Cody took out a pistol and fired at Tucker twice. The 9mm. rounds struck the man in the back but didn’t take him down.
Cody dived through the window, rolled onto shards of broken glass, and went in pursuit. Tucker rounded a corner, made it another dozen feet, then fell onto the frayed carpet. He was dying from the damage done to his liver.
* * *
“We are being rescued!” Emma said, while hugging her father.
They had heard Cody’s shots and the scream of dying men.
When the door flew open an instant later, they were both smiling. The grins left their faces when they saw Joe pointing a gun their way.
“I’m going to kill you, bitch,” Joe told Emma.
When the booming of a shot followed the words, Emma flinched, thinking she’d been wounded. That thought left her mind almost before it formed, because at the same time, she saw the side of Joe’s head erupt in a spray of blood.
Joe’s body had barely hit the floor inside the room when a man in black appeared. When Emma looked into the blue eyes showing in the slits of the ski mask, she felt a calmness come over her.
“He saved my life,” she told her father.
Another gunshot sounded from the front of the home and was of a lower volume than the previous ones. Moments passed, then a second man dressed in black appeared. He spoke to Emma’s father with an American accent.
“Mr. Hart, the men who kidnapped you are all dead. Please follow me, sir, while my partner escorts your daughter.”
“Water,” Hart said. “We need water.”
“Yes sir,” Cody said, as he looked back at Emma and Romeo.
* * *
Emma’s mouth parted in shock as she looked at the eyes of the man in the doorway. She knew those eyes, those most memorable eyes, even though she hadn’t seen them in years. As her father was escorted past Joe’s body and toward the home’s kitchen, Emma stared into the blue eyes of the man at her side.
“Romeo?”
The man said nothing, but he made a sympathetic sound while taking in her blackened eye and damaged lip. Then, he took her by the hand and slid an emerald ring onto it. Emma let out a sound of surprise when she realized it was the same ring Romeo had given her in Indonesia. The ski mask was sliding upward when the sound of sirens cut through the night air.
Before Emma knew it was happening, the man in the ski mask left her side and was leaving the home with his friend.
“Drink, Emma,” Hart said as he rejoined his daughter in the hallway. He was holding out a plastic bottle full of water.
Emma took the water and sucked it down in desperate gulps. By the time she was through, the lights of several police vehicles could be seen; they reflected off the wall at the end of the hallway. Emma removed the emerald ring from her finger and studied it. As she did so, she discovered something new. There had been an inscription added.
I’ll always love you.
Emma began crying as she slipped the ring back on, then wondered if she would ever see Romeo again.
101
Flash Fire
THE BOUDREAUX FARM, LOUISIANA, JANUARY 2019
Kendra kept Jake inside the house over the next sixteen hours while a cadre of forensic techs, crime scene clean-up crews, and ATF agents swarmed over the farm. There had also been news vans present, but they were told to leave by Homeland Security officials.
This time, instead of calling the law, Tanner had put in a call to Thomas Lawson.
The ATF arrived on the scene two hours later. When all was said and done, the blasts would be blamed on the Dixie Devils, and their demise said to have been brought about by their own incompetence at handling explosives.
Evidence found at the scene would show that an unexploded pipe bomb was recovered near the body of a biker named Gator.
The remaining six chapters of the Dixie Devils located throughout the south would receive visits from local federal authorities. Their searches would find no evidence of bomb making materials, but the clubs would be on notice that their activities would be scrutinized. They were also warned to stay away from Louisiana.
As for Randolph Grey, he too received a visit from ATF agents. On occasion, Grey’s construction company used explosives. His records would indicate that everything was above board, but like the Dixie Devils, he was being put on notice.
* * *
By the time evening rolled around again, Tanner had replaced the broken windows and caught a few hours of sleep. He was sitting out on the front porch after dinner when Kendra joined him.
She pointed out at the field where the scene of slaughter had taken place.
“It almost looks like nothing happened now.”
“The tractor is a little worse for wear, but yeah, the Dixie Devils got the worst of it.”
“I know it was multiple bombs, but from inside the house it sounded like a single explosion. It also knocked a picture off the wall.”
“Whose picture?”
Kendra smiled. “It was a photo of Granddaddy.”
“He probably leapt off the wall to join the fight.”
“We’re about to have dessert; come back inside.”
“I’ll pass on the sweets, and I’ll be going out soon. I still have to deal with Randolph Grey.”
“Be careful, didn’t you say he had one of those bikers with him?”
“Yeah, a man named Flash, but I don’t think he’s a biker anymore.”
“He’ll still be angry about what happened to his friends.”
“He will, so I guess I’ll have to kill him too.”
Kendra stared at Tanner. “You talk about death so casually.”
“You might call it my stock in trade.”
“Does Grey really need to die?”
“You want me to show him mercy?”
“I’m just sick of death and killing. If he backs off, let him live.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“Jake told me you were getting married soon. What’s she like?”
“Sara is beautiful, smart, and tough.”
“Not tougher than you, I’d bet.”
Tanner smiled. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
* * *
Randolph Grey had not had a good day.
ATF agents invaded his offices and FBI agents had questioned him about his connection to the Dixie Devils motorcycle club. Grey told them that his only link to the club was through his future son-in-law, Flash.
When the story made the local news, albeit in a watered-down version, Grey’s name was mentioned. The expansive project he had planned for the area where the Boudreaux farm sat was also discussed, along with the rumors that some of the Boudreaux’s neighbors had been coerced to sell their properties.
To top things off, two of the project’s largest investors backed out of the deal. More would follow, signaling the end of what would have been a five-hundred and sixty-million-dollar project.
Infuriating Grey even further, Chief Cross wasn’t answering his phone and was said to have gone on an unscheduled vacation.
Grey ended the workday sitting in his office and drinking straight whisky from a bottle.
* * *
Flash had been taken in for questioning and later released. He had been able to confirm that he was with Letty Grey at the time of the attack on the farm. When he’d been informed that Gator and the other Dixie Devils were dead, Flash had to fight to keep from crying.
Tanner was to blame. Tanner had murdered Gator, and Flash swore to himself that he would kill the man.
As he entered Grey’s office, Flash was angry and in mourning over the loss of his friends. When Grey sprung up from behind his desk and gave Flash a shove, his only emotion became rage.
* * *
Grey was half-drunk. With no one else to blame for his trouble, he lashed out at Flash.
“You, you son of a bitch. This debacle is all your fault. That motorcycle club of yours was worthless!”
Grey saw Flash react with shock at being verbally assaulted. After Grey shoved the man, he watched as shock morphed into anger.
Flash shoved Grey back so hard that it sent the man tumbling backwards over the desk. That was followed by Flash lifting Grey off the floor and slamming him against a wall.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, Randolph? You think you’re a tough guy, huh, mon ami?”
Flash struck Grey in the face. The punch didn’t break his nose but did cause it to start bleeding. A second blow split open Grey’s bottom lip and caused him to slide down to the floor. Flash wasn’t done with him and began kicking Grey. The man who had plans to be the future mayor of New Orleans curled up into a ball and whimpered for Flash to stop.
After stomping on Grey’s head and opening up a gash on his right cheek, Flash moved over to a black leather sofa. On the way there, he grabbed a beer from the wet bar kept in Grey’s office.
The bottle of beer was nearly empty by the time Grey made it up off the floor and into his chair. When he looked over at Flash, it was with the same gaze Flash had seen in the eyes of others he had given a beatdown to. It was fear, and it was respect mixed with knowledge. It said that they knew Flash was no one to fuck with. Flash loved that look. Seeing it in the eyes of the high and mighty Randolph Grey caused him to laugh.
“You must have lost your mind to think you could shove me like that, Randolph, but you know better now, don’t you?”
When Grey didn’t answer, Flash tossed his bottle at him. It struck Grey on his shoulder, causing him to flinch.
“Answer me, bitch.”
“I shouldn’t have touched you. I won’t ever do it again.”
“Damn right you won’t. And try pressing charges on me and see what happens. Once I got bail, I’d find your ass and beat you even worse.”
Grey dapped at his face with a handkerchief, turning the white material red with his blood.
“I won’t say a word to the police, but Letty will wonder what happened to me.”
Flash knew that was right. He was surprised that he no longer cared if Letty Grey was angry with him.
“Tell her the truth. Tell her I kicked your ass. I don’t give a shit. All I care about now is killing Tanner.”
“How? The man destroyed an army of men. What could you do by yourself?”
“I’ll kill that bastard. I’ll kill him for Gator and all the other Dixie Devils he murdered. Tanner will pay for killing my brothers.”
Grey collapsed back into his office chair while pressing a hand to his injured ribs.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. The project is dead in the water.”
“Vengeance matters, and don’t forget, Tanner will want to kill you too.”
Grey’s eyes widened as he sat up straight.
“You believe he’ll really do that?”
“That man is no joke, Randolph, and you lied to his face. If I don’t kill him, he’ll come after you, then he’ll try to kill me.”
“Then you must stop him.”
“I will,” Flash said, and rose from the sofa.
“Call me when it’s done,” Grey said.
Flash sent him a look of disgust, then left the office. In the parking lot, he took off the suit jacket he was wearing and tossed it away. He was done being civilized.
102
Mystery Men
SOMEWHERE NORTH OF LONDON, OCTOBER 2003
Hours after the rescue of Emma and her father took place, a car moved along the quiet lane where the home used
by the kidnappers was located. Because the house sat on a curve, and due to force of habit, the driver of the vehicle had put on his turn indicator as he approached the property.
The man was in his thirties, with short red hair. Dressed as he was in a conservative suit, and with his glasses on, he looked like a college professor.
When the home came into view and he saw the three police vehicles parked on the grass, the turn signal was slapped off and his wheels made straight.
When no police cars appeared in his rear-view mirror the man was certain he had escaped a close call. That belief died when he came off a curve and saw two unmarked vehicles blocking his path. As he attempted to turn around on the narrow lane, his panic did him in.
He had gone too far back and gotten a wheel stuck in a ditch. A minute later he was face down on the roadway with his wrists cuffed together. The phony ID found on him would pass inspection, although his fingerprints would tell the truth. He was Clive Morrison, Livingston’s right-hand man, and a senior member of Green Wrath.
* * *
Later that day in London, Kay discovered that the disc drive taken from Canterbury’s underground shooting range contained a list of aliases used by himself and Garth Livingston. There were also a listing of banks and account numbers. All of the accounts were under aliases used by Canterbury, but Kay wondered if there were accounts in the same banks under the aliases used by Livingston.
She forwarded the information along with her suspicions to a friend and contact at Scotland Yard. Before the sun set, Garth Livingston’s illegal accounts had been uncovered and over two million euros were frozen.
Young Guns Box Set Page 46