Hangman (Jason Trapp: Origin Story Book 1)

by Jack Slater

  As he did so, his eye was drawn to a painted white mark on the right-hand side of the wooden fence, marking the edge of a jagged, splintered chasm. The paint was gleaming and fresh and entirely incongruous. Nothing else in the yard had recently seen the bristles of a brush except that exact spot. He zoomed in on it and took a photo in order to jog his memory later on and turned to leave. Before exiting the yard, he glanced up at the spot on the construction site opposite where the shooter must have lain in wait.

  At least one, he reminded himself. Best not to jump to any conclusions.

  He briefly considered climbing up there but decided against it. If the shooter was any good, he wouldn’t have left any evidence – and if he had, it would already have been collected by the cops. Thankfully, however, he had one other source of intelligence to tap.

  Finch sauntered back out front, lifted up the tape, and swung back out onto the street. He thanked the two deputies, and as he was turning to leave, said, “Hey, guys, what the hell happened out back?”

  Deputy Large squinted and spoke for the first time in a surprisingly high-pitched voice for a man of his size. “ATF? Ain’t that your job?”

  Finch grinned, though had it not been for the thick red beard that covered his facial expressions, it might have been clear that the smile was far from genuine. “You’d think, huh? But they don’t tell me anything. I’m not officially working this case. Just happened to be in the neighborhood, and my supervisory agent asked if I’d do him a favor.”

  Large shrugged, already losing interest. “I heard it was Tanner-something, but they don’t tell me much either.”

  “Tannerite?” Finch asked, peering at the small screen on the rear of the digital camera in order to avoid showing too much interest.

  “Maybe. Yeah, now that I think about it, that sounds right. That and a hell of a fireworks show.”

  “Is that right?” Finch murmured. “You ever see gangs around here use explosives before?”

  “Not that I know of,” Large grunted, twisting his right arm at the elbow in an inconclusive attempt to reach an itch on his back. “But I heard this was a cartel hit. Tijuana, maybe.”

  “How come?” Finch asked, squeezing his nails into his palm as a reminder not to look too interested.

  The officer shrugged. “Barrel markings, I heard. Don’t know what they were doing here, though. We didn’t find no drugs. Guess whoever came here took them when they left.”

  Finch breathed a sigh of relief. If the cops thought it was a cartel hit, then the heat would die down in a week or two, soon as the body count rose somewhere else. He frowned. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  He climbed back into the SUV and drove to the LA County Medical Examiner-Coroner facility on 1104 N. Mission Road. He left the ATF gear on and glanced at the Rolex wristwatch on his left wrist, noting that it was a little past five in the afternoon. He thought about taking it off but opted instead to tuck the sleeve of the windbreaker over it.

  Overhead, the heat of the day was beginning to fade, and the endless rumble and clanking of locomotives in the Union Pacific railyard not far away reminded him of inmates clanging against the bars of the prison opposite. If he didn’t get this mess cleaned up soon, he thought, he might end up as one of them.

  “I’m sorry, agent,” the receptionist said as he walked into the building’s waiting room. “We’re just closing up for the evening. I can put you in for an appointment tomorrow morning if you want. First thing?”

  “That’s just fine,” Finch replied, glancing at a sign on the hallway right behind the reception desk that indicated the route to the city morgue. “I won’t be a minute.”

  He didn’t stop to close up the woman’s gaping jaw as he strode past. If he had taken one lesson from his career it was that it was better to ask forgiveness than permission, and ideally neither.

  Finch encountered the medical examiner at the entrance to his domain, hunched over a stainless steel sink and holding his hands under a fast flow of water. The man had on a white and pink striped shirt rolled up beyond the elbows and didn’t greet his visitor until his hands were completely dry.

  “Didn’t Annie tell you,” he said in a soft East Coast tone that Finch struggled to make out, “that we are closed for the evening?”

  “Afraid not,” Finch said, flashing his badge and introducing himself as “Eric Stone. I was hoping to check out the three corpses brought in from the Compton case yesterday morning.”

  The medical examiner’s tie was curled over his left shoulder, presumably to keep it out of the way. He pulled it back down and straightened it before addressing Finch’s request. “I’m afraid I can’t help you tonight, Mr. Stone. I have an engagement. And I really do prefer it when you arrange an appointment ahead of time. Who did you say your supervising agent was?”

  Finch sidestepped the question. He pulled the digital camera from his pocket. “Honestly, I just need a couple of shots for the report. I’ll be in and out before you know it. I was supposed to do this earlier, and now my boss is breathing down my neck…”

  The older man chewed on a thistle for a few moments before relenting at Finch’s appeal to his empathy. “Fine. But only this once, Agent. Is that clear?”

  “Crystal,” Finch agreed with an exaggerated sigh of relief. He followed the man into the cool, strangely silent sanctum of his profession. Stainless steel refrigerators lined one wall, and two autopsy tables stood, gleaming, in the center.

  “They’re in bins…” the ME murmured, consulting a chart on the wall, “five, seven and nine. Do you have a strong stomach, Agent Stone?”

  “Depends how much I drank the night before,” Finch quipped before resuming the correct demeanor when he saw the unsuccessful impact of his attempt at levity. “Which on this occasion, thankfully, is nothing.”

  “Good,” the ME replied with little interest as he turned to leave, shrugging a tweed jacket over his shoulders. “There isn’t much left of the man in nine. These cartels are animals.”

  Finch raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing. He waited until the medical examiner was out of the room and then pulled the first drawer open. The naked corpse – once a mercenary named Stephen Garibaldi – emerged feet first into the light.

  “You dumb prick,” he murmured, looking down at the man through pitted gray eyes, not an ounce of compassion in his voice.

  The body had been washed, and the man’s tanned skin in death had attained a grayish complexion. The bullet wounds were bloodless but evident – neat incisions through the skin. Garibaldi had been shot twice: once in the head, and then twice in the chest. It was good, professional shooting.

  The body told no other stories as Finch examined it dispassionately, exhaling gently as he rolled the corpse to gain access to the other side. The exit wound for the chest round was larger, the size of a man’s fist, but that was far from unusual. The bullet was gone, no doubt bagged and tagged and sitting in a secure evidence locker. The corpse in the second refrigerator drawer was much the same. A single entry wound through the head, which suggested that the gunbattle was not prolonged.

  “What battle?” Finch groused under his breath. His earlier inspection of the scene had turned up no evidence of a fight—just an execution. It was pitiful. His men had been slaughtered. Three of them anyway, which meant that Hawkins had either run or been captured.

  Neither was acceptable.

  The third body was exactly as described. It more resembled mincemeat in a grocery store chiller than a once living and breathing human. Finch idly wondered as he looked down whether it would taste all that different from beef.

  Surprisingly, the pink, shredded human patty lying on the refrigerated drawer in front of him wasn’t charred, just carved up by the hundreds of tiny metal ball bearings that had chewed their way through the man’s body before – Finch assumed – being painstakingly removed. He reached into his pants pocket and withdrew the one he’d picked up at the crime scene, rolling it between thumb and forefinger as he examined t
he corpse.

  There wasn’t much to learn. If the bomb had been constructed using Tannerite, that all but guaranteed that it had been assembled by an amateur – or at least, someone wearing an amateur’s cloak. The substance required no detonator and had limited power – though clearly enough for its intended purpose.

  Finch resisted the urge to turn the corpse over to examine the back. Instead he shrugged wordlessly and pushed the drawer back into the stainless-steel refrigerator before locking it with the two heavy clips and leaving.

  The sky overhead was a brooding purple as the clouds did battle with the setting sun. Finch barely noticed as he climbed into his SUV. He extracted a BlackBerry personal assistant from his pants pocket – about half an inch thicker than a comparable civilian model – and dialed Banks’ number.

  The secure cell phone took a couple of seconds to connect. The crackling of earlier models had been replaced by a single elevator-like chime which rang out once before the line initialized.

  Jeffrey answered almost immediately, panting heavily into the microphone. Finch heard heavy footsteps in the background. “What is it?”

  “I’ve been looking into the… incident the other night,” he replied.

  An electronic chirp sounded, and the thumping of Jeffrey’s feet slowed, then stopped. “We’re secure?”

  “Yes.”

  Jeffrey’s breath was still tight, and he sounded like he was physically battling to regain control over it. “What have you got?”

  Finch quickly ran his boss through his findings, slightly irritated by the man’s short tone with him. After all, the fact that three of his best men were lying in the morgue was entirely Jeffrey’s fault. He’d okayed the sloppy, half-assed operation without proper preparation, and now they were all in this mess together.

  “You think we were set up?” Jeffrey demanded when he was done, after audibly gulping down several mouthfuls of liquid, causing Finch to wince. “A competitor, maybe? I wouldn’t put this past an asshole like Prince.”

  “Maybe… But I’m leaning toward a single shooter. If any of the competition was involved, they’d –”

  “Why does that matter?” Jeffrey cut in. “Who says they wouldn’t send one guy?”

  “This isn’t the movies,” Finch snapped, not bothering to conceal his irritation. His boss was a numbers guy, without a second’s worth of military experience, and sometimes it showed. “Maybe one guy could pull a job like this off. But not for money. We don’t have anyone who would do a job like this without backup.”

  “Except you,” Jeffrey replied in a transparent attempt to butter him up.

  Finch ignored him. “I’m thinking our mystery man was alone, like I said. Military experience, but not a pro. The problem is, that leaves a wide field.”

  “You think someone’s trying to throw us off? Make us look bad with this contract coming up?”

  “I don’t think so. But I’ll look into it.”

  “Look into it?” Jeffrey almost squealed. “This is the big one, Finch. We land this deal and we’re set for the next decade. You can’t afford to screw it up.”

  Finch balled his fingers up into a fist. He was tempted to drive over to Jeffrey’s house, grab him from his gleaming home gym, and throw him up against the wall by the throat.

  But he just barely restrained himself. “Dawes is in our pocket. The media doesn’t even know there’s a story, and anyway, by the time I’m done, there won’t be. Besides, there’s nothing to link any of those corpses to Odysseus.”

  “Dawes will cut a deal the second he thinks his own neck is on the line, Finch,” Jeffrey hissed, increasingly losing control. “And what about the other guy? Where the hell is he?”

  Finch released his fist finger by finger, grimacing as he spoke. “Maybe it’s time I paid Dawes a visit. Set a few things straight.”

  “Just do your damn job, Finch. Find your missing man and work out who’s killing the rest of them. And do it quick.”

  He didn’t say a word in reply. Just let Jeffrey twist in the wind. At least a dozen seconds of silence passed, punctuated only by the rise and fall of the CEO’s chest. “Are you still there?”

  “Don’t speak to me like that again,” Finch said. “Here’s what I think: you remember that guy in Texas? The one I went to kill?”

  “How could I forget…”

  “He was a Ranger. Combat experience. I remember him from Iraq. Never fought alongside him, but he had that look, you know?”

  Of course you don’t.

  “What connection does he have to the cripple? Did they serve together?”

  “None. Until we gave him a reason to go looking for one. I tried to kill his girlfriend. I guess you mess with a man like that, you take your chances.”

  “Dammit, Finch,” Jeffrey growled, evidently thumping his fist against something. He was righteously angry now, and a more introspective man than Finch might have felt some culpability. “What about the girl? Could we use her as leverage?”

  Finch shook his head as he spoke. “No, half the sheriff’s department is sitting on her day and night. Way too risky. I’ll think of something.”

  “This is your mess. Fix it, and fix it fast.”

  45

  Trapp bounced through the vaulted marble entranceway to the Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire, nodding amiably to the doorman, who greeted him as he passed. Like Ryan, who would at any moment be walking through another entrance to the large, frighteningly expensive hotel, he was dressed like a thousand other trust fund kids in this city in a lightweight linen blue jacket, cream slacks, and a matching straw boater.

  Each item had been hastily – and expensively – acquired on the same street where the hotel stood. The cloth of Trapp’s shirt, unwashed, itched everywhere it encountered his skin, but particularly the collar, and resisting the urge to scratch it only made things worse. To complete the look, a pair of white headphones, like those included with every purchase of an Apple iPod, ran out of one ear and into the inside pocket of his jacket.

  “I’m in,” he murmured, reaching into his jacket and pressing the transmit button on an encrypted Siemens walkie-talkie handset. The purchase of just one had taken a $500 chunk out of Trapp’s savings. It was the next two that really hurt.

  “You’re coming through nice and clear, Jason,” Chino replied immediately. He was behind the wheel of the Corolla, parked a couple of streets over, just in case they needed wheels fast.

  “Me too,” Ryan added after a couple of seconds. His voice was low, and Trapp pressed his finger against the headphone in his left ear under the guise of adjusting his hat to make out the sound. “Just getting the lay of the land.”

  Trapp clicked the transmit button twice to acknowledge that he had heard, mindful not to be seen murmuring to himself too often. He settled down in a straight-backed wooden chair near one of the ornate pillars that stood guard around a magnificent crystal chandelier in the center of the lobby. In a matter of seconds, a penguin-suited waiter from the nearby bar snapped to attention and took a drink order.

  “Just soda water, thanks,” Trapp said. “With ice and a slice.”

  “Are you staying with us, sir?” the man asked. He was young and tanned and spoke with a more well-to-do accent than Trapp himself.

  He shook his head. “Just here to meet someone. I’ll pay cash.”

  The waiter nodded. “Absolutely.”

  The soda water arrived just a couple of minutes later and was set down on a napkin so thick that it could be used in lieu of a bath towel. Trapp thanked the man and settled in to wait.

  It was late afternoon when Lt. Col. Dawes strode into the lobby behind a procession of sunburned tourists in high shorts with cameras around their necks. Trapp almost missed him. He took a sip of his drink and as he did so reached into his jacket and pressed transmit.

  “Target just walked through the door,” he said.

  This time, it was him who heard two clicks over the air, and not the other way around. If things went to
plan, Ryan would now fall in behind the officer and follow him to his room.

  If something went wrong, though…

  Well, there was always Chino for that.

  Trapp turned his head, searching for an irritating drumming sound that had started about 30 seconds earlier. The lobby was alive now, a curious mix of tourists returning from a day’s sightseeing, and he wondered perhaps whether it was their footsteps against the polished marble floor, only for his attention to be attracted to a blur closer to home. He looked down and discovered – quite to his surprise – that his knee was bouncing relentlessly up and down, a jackhammer of nervous energy.

  He stilled it, placing one hand on his right thigh and squeezing hard. He felt like a fraud, like a little boy playing dress up as a spy.

  That was at least some of it, anyway, though he wondered whether he would feel the same way if he was the one following Dawes and not Ryan. He’d always been nervous before an operation, but action – actually getting his boots on the ground – usually dispelled those nerves. Not so this time. If anything, being an impotent observer made things ten times worse.

  He took another sip of the soda water, allowing an ice cube to fall into his mouth as he tipped the glass back, then sanded it relentlessly with his tongue until it was gone.

  And then did it all over again.

  The radio clicked.

  After a short pause, Ryan’s voice came over the airwaves, slightly breathless. “Okay, I got him. Room 457. I’m bugging out.”

  Trapp fired off the customary two clicks.

  After that, he positioned himself at the lobby bar, with a good view of each of the hallways that led into the lobby from the guest rooms. He nursed a single bottle of beer for over an hour, watching as the foot traffic in the hotel shifted into evening mode: beautiful starlets in dresses their fathers would be horrified to see them in, men in impeccably tailored Italian suits, even the occasional child dressed for dinner in a fancy restaurant they most likely had no interest in attending.