Hangman (Jason Trapp: Origin Story Book 1)

by Jack Slater

  “Radio check,” he transmitted, more to wake himself up than for any other reason. His eyes were growing strained from constantly flicking from hallway to hallway, waiting for Dawes’ reappearance in the knowledge that it might as easily not happen.

  Hell, Trapp thought. That’s how I’d do it. Room service and a movie.

  “Still sitting outside, Jason,” Chino replied. “Waiting for the word.”

  “I found a spot by the pool, guys,” Ryan added, his transmission significantly more crackly – but nowhere near enough to hide the smugness in his voice. “Where the hell are you?”

  “Hold up…” Trapp muttered, depressing the transmit button. “He’s leaving. Ryan, you ready?”

  Now his friend was all business. “You got it. Heading to housekeeping now.”

  “Good. Chino: he’s wearing a tan suit. No tie.”

  “Got it,” came the reply.

  The plan was for Trapp to follow on foot, with Chino in reserve if their target climbed into a vehicle. While they knew that Dawes was occupied, Ryan’s job was to steal a key card from one of the housekeepers, break into the colonel’s hotel room, and sweep it for anything that might prove interesting.

  Trapp didn’t know for sure, but he guessed that if the FBI was to carry out a surveillance operation like this, they would use a hell of a lot more than three agents. There were more holes in the plan than a cheap Swiss cheese. But it was the one they were stuck with.

  He left a $20 bill tucked underneath his now empty glass and got to his feet, though he didn’t start moving until Dawes was halfway across the lobby. Even then he hung back, using one of the great central pillars as cover. He exited the lobby about fifteen steps behind the target and slowed down once he was aware which direction Dawes was heading in.

  “Okay, I got you both,” Chino reported. “He’s walking east down Wilshire.”

  They quickly fell into their preassigned roles. Trapp hung back, and Chino took the lead. There was only so slow Chino could drive on a public road without it looking suspicious. But as long as Chino could be Trapp’s eyes, he was able to hang back. Only when Chino was forced to move out of the way of traffic would he need to step back in.

  “He just turned onto Santa Monica, Jason. I’m gonna have to take a spin around the block. He’s all yours,” Chino reported.

  Trapp sped up, turning the corner just in time to see Dawes disappear into a sushi restaurant called Umi. He walked past the sleek glass eatery at a casual pace, barely glancing left as he passed. His peripheral vision was enough to locate Dawes sitting alone at a table set for two.

  “I’ve got a key card,” Ryan said in Trapp’s ear. “Heading to the room now. Thirty seconds out. Let me know the second something changes.”

  The sky overhead was darkening, but the heat of the day was now radiating back up off the concrete and out of the squat buildings that studded Santa Monica Blvd. But as Trapp stopped at the intersection and waited for the lights to turn so that he could cross the street, he knew that wasn’t the reason for the sweat now coursing out of his pores.

  “Okay, Trapp,” Chino transmitted a second later. “I’m back. But there ain’t no parking. What do you want me to do?”

  Trapp reached into his jacket to finger the walkie-talkie transmit button but froze as a pair of black Chevrolet SUVs with tinted windows rolled through the lights just before they turned. Was it just a coincidence, or…

  No, the table was set for two.

  The second they were past, he gripped the radio and blurted out an order. “Don’t stop, don’t stop. Just keep driving. I’ll explain later.”

  He crossed the street as the light-up man indicated, angling his head slightly to the right so he could track the progress of the two vehicles that had just crossed his path. As he expected, they began to slow about fifty yards before the Japanese restaurant before coming to a precise stop about a car’s length from each other, just out front.

  Okay, think fast.

  “We’ve got company,” he reported over the radio as he reached the opposite side of the street and turned back toward the restaurant. “Two black SUVs. Looks like Dawes has a dinner guest.”

  46

  Ryan froze, the key card half an inch away from the slot, still attached to the housekeeper’s chain. “Repeat your last, Trapp.”

  There was a short pause before Trapp reported, the first couple of words slightly obscured by a deep exhale, “Okay. Looks like Jeffrey Banks, plus two, no make that three bodyguards. One driver, two shooters. Definitely armed. Banks was in the rear vehicle.”

  Ryan glanced left and right, quickly checking that each end of the lushly carpeted Four Seasons hallway was still empty of other guests, then slipped the key card into the slot. The door clicked, and in an instant he was through.

  The room lit up the second he stepped inside, briefly startling him before he realized that it was a blessing in disguise. The lights were motion activated, which proved a pleasant confirmation that he was currently alone. He double-checked with his eyes just to be certain, then relaxed, leaning his back against the room door. He pressed the transmit button. “Have you been made?”

  “No,” came Trapp’s immediate response. “I’m across the street, out of sight. The two SUVs just drove off. Banks plus one bodyguard entered the restaurant. I ditched the hat. It was too noisy.”

  Ryan stifled a grin at the mental image. “Okay. Keep me updated if anything changes. I’m searching the target’s room now.”

  He did exactly that as Trapp issued instructions to Chino in his ear.

  Dawes’ hotel room was surprisingly messy. It was a suite, but a relatively junior one by the looks of things, containing a small striped sofa, a queen size bed with thick pillows, and a flatscreen television at its foot.

  Though the bed was made, it was the only part of the room that hadn’t suffered from Dawes’ attentions. The Lieut. Col.’s class A dress jacket was hung haphazardly over the back of a chair, one arm drooping to the floor. A briefcase, open, stood at attention on the room’s writing desk, surrounded by papers. A pair of shiny black oxfords had been kicked off by the man’s bedside.

  Ryan wrinkled his nose. He’d always believed that the further someone got from basic training, the more their standards slipped – and the state of this room was living proof.

  “You got time, Ryan,” Trapp added over the radio. “They’re sitting down to eat.”

  He proceeded carefully, as advised, not even moving from his position by the door until he had visually surveyed the entire room for potential booby-traps or other tricks designed to reveal the presence of an intruder. He compartmentalized his mental distaste for Charles Dawes and ran the operation with icy calm.

  After walking around the block twice without – as far as he knew – attracting the attention of Banks’ security team, Trapp knew he had to find a better way. There was a café opposite the sushi restaurant, complete with a blackboard outside advertising sunflower seed brunch bars at four dollars a pop, but he avoided it like the plague.

  Instead, he walked a hundred yards up Santa Monica Boulevard and found himself a window seat at a bar that mostly catered to LA’s thriving tourist trade. He ordered a sparkling water and gazed out onto the street, conspicuously paying no attention to the Japanese restaurant that was barely visible out of the corner of his right eye.

  The way Trapp figured it, he would get a fair warning of Banks’ departure when the mercenary boss’ black SUVs started warming their engines. Men like him didn’t like to be kept waiting, so it was more than likely that the bodyguard inside would know to look for some sign: paying the check, post-dinner coffees, whatever, and subtly signal for his counterparts to reappear.

  “How you doing, Chino?” he murmured into his concealed radio after briefly glancing around to check that no one in the menagerie of accents and languages that dominated the bar was listening in.

  “All good on my end,” came the reply.

  Trapp resisted the urge to
check in on Ryan also. His friend knew what he was doing, certainly better than Trapp did himself. Asking for an update was simply a sign of selfishness. He didn’t need one, and Ryan certainly didn’t need the distraction either.

  But the desire was almost physical, an itch that couldn’t be scratched.

  He focused instead on sweeping the street in front of him with his gaze, making sure that he made note of, and committed to memory, every turning, storefront, and car in sight. There was something unaccountably uneasy about surveilling someone in this way, studying their every move while lurking in complete obscurity. In a way, it was a warning that anyone could do the same to him at any time.

  Thirty minutes passed before Ryan came back on the net. His voice was tight, and his clothing rustled against the radio’s microphone, and the combination of both made his voice difficult to make out precisely, especially over the ever-increasing raucousness of the bar. “I’m out, guys. Trapp, how copy?”

  “Loud and clear,” he confirmed. “What did you get?”

  “I’ll explain later,” Ryan replied, his voice obscured by the pinging of an elevator – at least, that’s what Trapp presumed. “I’m moving to the truck now.”

  Trapp chewed his lip – one thing had been bugging him. “Any idea how long he’s in town?”

  Ryan sounded like he was speaking through a string telephone now, the radio’s range clearly strangled by the concrete elevator shaft. “Flight’s booked out the day after tomorrow, first thing in the morning.”

  “Okay,” Trapp said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Return the key card, then get out of there.”

  We’ve got time. Not much, but some.

  “Copy. Ryan out.”

  Trapp’s major concern had been that Dawes might be planning on leaving town the next morning, or even tonight. That scenario would have been difficult, though a part of him hungered for the increased liberties a restricted timetable would enforce. At least that way the decision to move would have to be made.

  True, Dawes’ actual schedule only gave them another 36 hours to work out what to do, but that was a hell of a lot better than three.

  He was so caught up in mapping out a path forward he almost missed the first sign that the dinner was over. The lead SUV’s left indicator started blinking, followed quickly by the one behind it. Trapp only realized what was going on when the first vehicle took advantage of a break in traffic and embarked upon a lumbering U-turn.

  His hand instantly jumped to the transmit button. “Hold up, guys. We got movement.”

  “Copy that,” Ryan replied coolly. “I’m sitting on Durant Drive, just off Santa Monica. What do you want me to do?”

  Trapp threw down a $10 bill and headed for the door of the bar without looking back. He didn’t exit until both SUVs were turned around and heading the other way down Santa Monica. As he was frozen in place, Chino reported his own position on Merv Griffin Way. He called up a mental map of the area in his head as he stepped out onto the street. Now that the stressors were coming thick and fast, he didn’t have time to stew in any one of them individually. He could think of Chino and Ryan not as his friends, but only as assets. And right now, he had them positioned covering both sides of Santa Monica Blvd.

  “Okay, here’s what we going to do,” he transmitted as the roar of the bar faded away with the closing door. “Get your engines warmed up, but don’t start moving – yet. If Dawes gets into one of those vehicles, I want you to tail him. Don’t bother picking me up. I’ll let you know when to move.”

  Trapp’s neck whipped from left to right as he double-checked he wasn’t about to be either ticketed by a waiting police car, or hit by an oncoming 18 wheeler, then jay walked across the wide street. “If they separate, stay on Banks. I’ll follow Dawes. Clear?”

  “You got it, homie,” Chino said.

  “You sure that’s a good idea, Trapp?” Ryan’s voice crackled next. “Banks’ guys will be professionals. We’re not. If they spot us, then the show’s over.”

  Trapp had already considered that and decided that the risk was worth it. Banks and his people knowing for sure that they were being watched would be an added hurdle to surmount, but they were already the Death Star to his rebels. They had the money, the manpower, and hell, the motorcades. “I understand that. Just do it.”

  Perhaps convinced by a certainty he didn’t really feel, neither man dissented. He watched the two SUVs stop at a set of lights, then pull another U-turn at the end of the block, and finally swing into the side of the street, just next to Umi. For a short while – barring the horns of a couple of aggrieved drivers – nothing happened.

  “Okay, Ryan,” he transmitted, pressing himself against the glass front of the ice cream shop on the corner of Charleville in order to stay out of sight. “You’re up. Unless something changes, they’ll be heading your way. Chino, you still there?”

  “Yeah, boss,” the Latino replied with a hint of mirth.

  “Stay where you are for now. If they head the other way, then you take the lead. If not, hang back a couple hundred yards behind Ryan. He can vector you in from there, okay?”

  “Hey, you’re the expert,” came the drawled reply.

  Trapp rolled his eyes, though he never took them off the restaurant. The two SUVs sat outside with their warning lights flashing like toy cop cars, imposing mainly in their mystery. A minute later, the hulking bodyguard exited the restaurant first, checked both ways down the street with his fingers conspicuously closed around a holstered pistol, then gestured at his charges to follow. As they did, doors opened, and the men in the SUVs swung into action.

  “Okay,” Trapp transmitted, keeping his voice quiet mainly because evolution demanded it, rather than any real fear he might be overheard. “Ryan, looks like they picked Box A. You’re in play.”

  “Got it,” came the terse reply.

  It was as though a pipe leading from the back of Trapp’s throat all the way down to the bottom of his gut was being constricted, mostly by the flood of adrenaline yet again pumping through his veins. And yet he was less nervous than he’d been earlier, when his only worry was whether or not Dawes would realize he was being surveilled. Now that the threat was infinitely more real – and visible – it was relegated just to a healthy reminder not to screw up.

  The bodyguards swept their gazes up and down Santa Monica Blvd., watching everything and yet seeing nothing, protecting their boss from nothing more concerning than the occasional tourist meandering home and consequently missing the greater threat.

  Don’t get cocky, he reminded himself.

  Banks and the Army colonel shook hands then embraced, acting more like old friends than business contacts. As they pulled away, Banks kept holding on to Dawes’ hand, half-shaking it as he offered some final thoughts.

  “Status, Trapp?” Ryan asked in his ear. “I’m about to turn onto Santa Monica.”

  Trapp was about to delay his friend when the two men pulled apart, and Banks walked to, then climbed inside the rear SUV, his bodyguard slamming the door shut behind him. “Okay, keep moving, nice and slow.”

  “You got it.”

  The two SUVs started rolling, slowly at first as they waited to merge into traffic, then with increasing haste the instant they first spotted a gap.

  “They’re heading out,” Trapp said, ducking his gaze to the ground and pretending to play with something in his hands. Banks was Ryan’s job now. He scanned the street out of the corner of his eyes, catching a glimpse of Dawes ambling slowly in his direction. The man had one hand in his right pocket and was walking with an exaggerated spring in his step that unaccountably caused Trapp’s blood to boil. It was as though Dawes was crowing over the deal he’d just signed – and not out of pride for his work for the American taxpayer.

  But Trapp mastered his anger as Ryan’s voice came over the radio net. “Okay, Chino, fall in behind me. We’re heading east up Santa Monica. Stay fifty yards behind me, more if the traffic gets light.”

  As Chino ra
dioed his agreement, Trapp thought about turning the radio off in order to concentrate on his own mission. The conclusion was short and sweet.

  Hell no.

  It took Dawes a couple of minutes to close the distance between him and Trapp, and by the time they crossed paths, the crooked colonel was whistling an upbeat tune. The man’s gaze passed over Trapp, causing his skin to crawl with unease, but the moment quickly passed.

  Okay, let’s see what you get up to at night.

  Trapp swiveled in place a second too early, just as his target paused to peer into the window of the Peninsula Hotel. His right foot had already propelled him forward when Dawes stopped, and knowing that halting in turn would attract attention, he carried on past the man, silently cursing as he did so.

  “Chino, close up a bit,” Ryan ordered.

  The crackle of the radio gave Trapp an idea. Still walking, he pulled a black cell phone out of the pocket of his slacks and conspicuously dialed a number. After bringing it to his ear, he started braying about a non-existent hotel reservation in New York.

  “Well, that’s simply unacceptable,” he hissed to the imaginary reservations clerk. “I stay in that suite every time I’m in the city.”

  Trapp slowed to a dead stop, stabbing his finger into the air with emphasis as he announced to the world, “I don’t care if you can upgrade me. Do you know how often I travel to New York? Maybe I should speak to your manager. I’m sure they would be concerned about the way you are treating one of your best customers.”

  Trapp heard Dawes’ footsteps coming up behind him and took a half step forward so that his resumption of walking didn’t look too suspicious. “Okay, I’ll hold.”

  The Army colonel’s gaze languidly passed over Trapp a second time, this time holding a fraction more interest and a lot more distaste. He was counting on it. The added attention was regrettable, but a reasonable price to pay, since it most likely meant that Dawes had categorized him as nothing more than a spoiled trust fund kid.