The wooden barrier of the ring crashed in, spilling bodies into the fighting bowl. Someone landed on Max’s stomach, jolting him fully awake. He snapped around, ready to attack, saw the man scrambling to his feet in terror, and let him go. Max forced himself up, jumped over the broken railing and staggered through the crowd until he was outside. He limped over to the corner of the old barn, away from the stream of rampaging people, wanting only to get away from the mad humans. A loop of coarse rope slipped over his neck and tightened into a strangulating noose.
“Where you think you’re going, mutt?” It was Two Fingers. He kicked Max in the ribs, then in the chest, and dragged him to the back of the structure toward the cage.
Max spun as far as he could, biting at the rope and the stick it was attached to, but unable to get a grip on either. His legs gave out and he landed on his side. Two Fingers dragged him by the noose, cutting off what little air Max’s lungs could suck in. The Huge Man was by the cage. As Two Fingers dragged Max past the open door, Max lunged, catching The Huge Man just below the kneecap. The man punched him in the face — once — twice — a third time. Max felt the darkness close in around him and knew he was about to die.
Two Fingers gave him another kick to the ribs and The Huge Man punched him again in the face. But Max would not let go, he would die trying to rip the kneecap from the leg of the man. The man punched him hard, sending white flashes sparking behind his eyes. A fury burst within the heart of the dog and he crushed down so hard the man screamed. Two Fingers kicked Max in the neck.
Max ignored him.
Two Fingers pulled out a knife, dropped the stick and raised his hand up over his head preparing to strike.
Max smelled the man at the same time he saw him. It was the man that killed the bear and he was standing behind Two Fingers. He grabbed Two Fingers from behind, bending his arm back and down, striking the forearm against his knee. The knife fell to the snow and the man threw Two Fingers into the side of the building.
The Bear Killer spun, swinging at The Huge Man who Max still held by the knee. There was a meaty smack and The Huge Man sagged to the snow.
Max gave The Huge Man’s knee another shake, released him and fell flat, his strength gone. From where he lay he saw Two Fingers pull out a gun and point it at the Bear Killer. But the Bear Killer was faster. There was a flash, a loud crack, and a hole appeared in Two Fingers’ coat at the shoulder. He fell back — a shocked look stamped on his face — and slumped against the smoking wood of the building.
A darkness blacker than the smoke smothered Max. The last thing he saw was the Bear Killer looking down into his eyes. Max looked up at him. He would have bit him in the face, but the darkness was too thick and it carried him into unconsciousness.
Sleep
Max awoke from the dream of his past as the Alpha opened the front door of the car. He remembered Two Fingers and The Huge Man, and he knew the Alpha was different from these men.
Max didn’t want to kill the Alpha; he just wanted to be the Alpha.
17
Gil
I took an Uber back to my car. Max was asleep in the backseat. He looked up at me, yawned and stared out the rear window. I drove to my office. On the way I contemplated Mr. Spock and his black suited friends. What kind of thugs drove around in a limo and suits? Who did these guys think they were… Ocean’s Eleven?
Hmm. That did give me an idea. Mr. Spock said his employers were very dangerous and had a far reach. Usually when bad guys talk like that they’re talking organization. As in The Mob, The Mafia, The God Father, The Sopranos, the notorious Black Hand of Italy. He couldn’t be serious.
On the other hand there was certainly organized crime still going on. Lots of it. There was the Russian Mafia, the Chinese Mafia, even the Mexican Mafia. Not to mention gangs like MS-13, the Crips and Bloods and the Latin Kings. Biker gangs, Aryan Nation, KKK. But Italian Mafia? Here in Colorado? I just couldn’t get my head around that. What could Shane Franklin possibly have done to get involved with something this big?
The price of office space in downtown Denver is nearly as astronomical as that of the housing market. I could go smaller and cheaper, but I like the place, so I stay. Besides, Superman has his Fortress of Solitude, Batman his Bat Cave, President Trump his Tower. Me, I have 20th and Blake.
Max took the stairs with me at a perfect heel and we entered Sheepdog Detective Agency at exactly the same time.
“Hi, Boss,” said Yolanda. She’s a sweet little thing, all of five feet tall, with long, jet-black hair, glasses, fifty-two years old and blessed with the spicy disposition of a habanero pepper.
She knows I hate to be called boss.
“Hi, Yo-Yo.” She loves it when I call her that.
She said something to me in Spanish I didn’t understand. I hate bi-lingual people.
I said, “What?”
She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. I said something to her in German.
She said, “What?”
I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. She gave me a look that would shred tungsten. No courage problem with Yolanda.
“Anything happen while I was gone?”
“The President called. He wants you to assume command of the CIA.”
She’s funny like that. “I took on a new case today.”
“You’re working nine cases already. You don’t have time for another one.”
“Most of those are pretty much wrapped up, and I’m waiting on results from CBI on the others.”
Yolanda started going through papers. She looked at me over her glasses. “So what is it?”
“Missing teenager.”
“Oh great.”
I took a deep breath — let it out. “Yeah.”
She raised one eyebrow. I love it when she does that.
“I remember the last one,” she said.
I nodded. “Yeah, so do I.”
“Tell them no. You’re too busy. Send them to another agency.”
I sighed. I hate sighing, but it seemed appropriate. “I can’t. It’s too late.”
Suit yourself. It’s your funeral. But don’t come crying to me when you start pulling your hair out and croak from a massive coronary because of the stress.”
She wagged a finger at me. “You think being all healthy and in good shape will save you. Pah! Stress doesn’t care about shape. It gets you from the inside. You think you’re big — muscle bound. Means nothing. My uncle Carlos was a mountain of a man, two — maybe three of you. With arms like that Terminator Governor of California. Waist like a ballerina. But his wife, my aunt Lucinda, was a she-devil.” She curved her hand into a mouth shape moving the fingers up and down rapidly against her thumb. “Nag-nag-nag, all day and night.” She went back to her papers. “Dead at thirty. Stress.”
I started to say something, but she interrupted by looking over her glasses again. “And you’re no spring chicken.”
I thought about siccing Max on her, but I was afraid she might hurt him. Instead I smiled pleasantly and said, “I’m barely in my thirties.”
“Stress,” she said, not bothering to look up.
I went into my office, pulled the shades so the sun could glow in and sat at my desk. Max laid down and started licking himself.
“That’s gross,” I said. Max belched and kept on licking. I looked at the Frazetta painting of Conan across from my desk and wondered if I could borrow his sword for a minute.
My office is kind of a hodgepodge of artwork, film, and literary works. The two Frazettas are a nice offset to the complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that takes up two shelves of my bookcase. I have an original Gene Colon painting of Dare Devil, a Neil Adams of Bat Man, an X-Men by John Byrne, an Avengers End Game with Josh Brolin’s Thanos complete with gauntlet and all six Infinity Stones and my Magnum Opus, a Superman by Alex Ross from his four-volume, graphic novel Kingdom Come collection. Gary Cooper decorates my west wall in a poster from High Noon, and Damon Wayans outfitted in a Marine D.I hat and smiling wi
th a gold tooth from the movie Major Payne, adorns the south wall. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is the centerpiece of the east wall, with smaller signed frames of Bruce Willis in Die Hard and Hostage. There are Star Trek collectables edging the shelves that run the walls bracketing the room, along with Battle Star Galactica fighters and Star War’s Battle Cruisers, Tie Wing Fighters, and Giant two legged Snow Walkers thrown in for dramatic effect. I have a framed movie poster of Richard Burton and Victor Mature in The Robe (“were you out there?”), and another of Robert Downy Jr. decked out in Iron Man’s crimson and gold armor. Two more shelves of my bookcase are filled with fun reads like Stephen King’s The Stand, Robert Crais’ The Watchman; Macbeth by that Shakespeare guy, a few Pattersons, some Clancy, most of Sheldon’s and Crichton’s stuff, and maybe all of Clavell’s. I’ve got Wouk, and Jakes, Trevanian, Austen, Wick, Donaldson, and a whole slew of others.
I’ve taken courses in German, Dutch and Russian and remember just enough to talk to my dogs. My desk has an Apple on it (the computer not the fruit); a picture of my late wife and daughter, a picture of my late partner Sam Ponsiago, shots of all my working canines from over the years and pictures of my comrades who died serving with me, both in the Marines and at the Sheriff’s Office.
The phone rang. Yo-Yo picked it up. “Sheepdog Detective Agency.” She listened for a second; covered the mouthpiece with her hand, yelled into me, “You want to talk to a cop named Fred?” I wondered why I spent the money on a hold button and intercom.
I nodded and picked up the phone.
“Hey, Gil.” His voice told me right away he had bad news.
“Hi, Fred.”
“I might have some info on the Franklin kid. A copper down in the Springs saw we had a missing person report on him and called to let us know they found a body that’s probably him.”
A black hole opened in my stomach. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry too. It’s pretty bad, Gil. The kid was tortured. The copper in the Springs said it’s the worst thing he’s ever seen and he ain’t no rookie.”
“How are they identifying the body?”
“Just physical description so far, but it all seems to match.”
“How long has he been dead?”
“Two — maybe — three days. The body’s too badly damaged to get an exact time yet. They just found him around eight this morning.” About the same time I met with Lisa Franklin at the coffee shop. Fred wasn’t done. “Cause of death was a heart attack.”
“Heart attack?” I thought back to Yolanda talking about stress.
“Yeah. I don’t even want to think what they’d have to do to induce a heart attack in a seventeen year old kid.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“Gil, I was thinking, since you’re working the case and all, maybe it would be better if you broke the news to the mother. She’ll have to go down and make positive ID.”
“Yes, I appreciate that, Fred. I’ll tell her.” I hung up.
I called Lisa Franklin; she picked up on the second ring.
“Hello?” I could hear the underlying trace of hope that edged her voice. I knew her hope was that it might be Shane on the line. The black hole in my stomach was growing. I felt sick.
“Lisa, it’s Gil Mason.”
“Did you find him?”
I closed my eyes, fighting the nausea and fear that filled me. “I’m not calling about Shane. I have to ask you a few questions.”
“Okay.” The hope was gone.
“Is your husband home?” I knew the answer, but I had to be certain.
“No. He went to pick up Amber. The rest of the kids are staying with my sister, but the three of us are going to spend the night at a hotel.”
“You’re still at the house?” I had to fight to keep my voice from shaking.
“Yes. The police are gone and I’m cleaning up.”
“Stay there, I’m coming over.”
“Alright.” Now I heard the question and fear in her voice. I wanted to say something to make it better. Instead I was going to have to destroy her world. The black hole swallowed me and all I could do was hang up.
18
On the way to Lisa’s, I called a friend of mine, whose a Denver cop, Andrew “Andy” Miles, and asked him to put out a BOLO for a welfare check on Tom Franklin’s car. I couldn’t tell Andy much without giving up the whole deal, which could mean their deaths, hence the welfare check. I also asked him to clear and list the plate from the limo Mr. Spock and his goons were riding in. He said it checked clear to a Ballard’s Rentals in Colorado Springs. I took down the address and asked him to let me know if they spotted Tom Franklin’s car.
Before I made it to Lisa’s, Andy called me back. One of Denver’s finest spotted the Blue Audi parked behind a Laundromat on east Colfax. It had a flat tire and blood on the steering wheel. Tom must have tried to put up a fight. Good for him. Andy wanted to know what I was mixed up in. I told him I wasn’t sure but he’d be the first to know. He didn’t like it and started to yell, but my cell phone mysteriously cut out just then.
I stopped a few houses down from the Franklin’s and shut off the car. I’d left Max back at the office. I sat there, eyes closed, breathing deeply. Trying to gather my courage.
Some tough guy.
I hardly knew the lady, but she was nice, a good mother and wife, and I was going to have to tell her that her son was dead and her husband and daughter had been kidnapped by the same people. Lucky me. I felt sick at the thought of it.
A flash drive. What could a seventeen year old teenager have on a flash drive that was important enough for anyone to torture and kill him over? Government secrets? Drug transactions? Maybe he had seen something… taken a picture of something or captured some video of something he wasn’t supposed to see. But then there was the question of the flash drive itself. Thumb dot, I corrected myself. Stupid name.
So was it the drive itself that was important or what was on it? Smaller than a normal flash drive, but big deal, these days electronic memory gets smaller by the nanosecond. So what? Smaller? Faster? More memory? No, it must be what was stored on that drive…dot…whatever. Just what was Shane mixed up in?
I opened my eyes. I’d stalled long enough. There was work to do. A sad dirty, stinking job, but it had to be done. I left my Escalade and walked to the front door. It was nearly seven-thirty and the sun was beginning its slow descent behind the mountains. The breeze had cooled, dropping the temp below sixty. The sound of children playing down the block made my eyes sting. I knocked, stepped to the side of the door. Like I said, old habits die hard. The door opened. I smelled cookies baking; Lisa trying to get life back to normal. That wasn’t going to happen.
She knew the second she saw me; it was in her eyes. She went white.
I didn’t mince words. Fast and quick, like a Band-Aid. “The police have found a body. They think it’s Shane.”
Her knees unhinged. I caught her before she could fall and carried her into the living room. She’d done a lot in the few hours she had. The papers were cleared from the floor, the furniture back in place. I sat her on the couch and went to the kitchen to get her some water. All the shattered glasses were piled in a trashcan sitting in the middle of the floor. I found a plastic sippy cup without a lid and filled it from the sink.
Lisa took a few small gulps. I ripped off the other band-aid and told her the rest.
Water wouldn’t help this time.
When we were done at the morgue, I took Lisa to her sister’s house. Lisa was in a state of shock; so was I. The forensic pathologist only unzipped the body bag far enough for Lisa to make identification. Afterward he gave me the complete rundown. I wish he hadn’t. It’s like when Tommy Lee Jones is about to have Will Smith zap his memory in Men in Black and he says, “I’ve just been down the gullet of an interstellar cockroach, kid. That’s one of a hundred memories that I don’t want.” What had been done to Shane was beyond comprehension. It made me very afraid
for Tom and Amber. It easily made my list of a hundred memories I wish I could forget. And suddenly the idea of this being tied in with organized crime didn’t seem quite so unlikely.
The sky was in a bad mood, humped and ugly dark clouds rode low, moving fast. A light rain spit against the windshield as we arrived.
Lisa’s sister was two years older and fifty pounds heavier. It was immediately obvious she was the boisterous one in the family. Under other circumstances, I felt she would be gregarious, as it was she took charge of her sister and carted her off to another room.
The Franklins had five children. Shane was the oldest; his younger brother, Joseph was fifteen, followed by thirteen-year-old Marshal, nine year old Sarah, seven year old Autumn, and two year old Amber. Joseph was my first choice. But I didn’t want to talk with him in the house. First rule of interrogation; remove the suspect from his comfort zone.
“Are you and Shane close?” We were sitting in my Escalade, thunder rumbling overhead.
“He’s my brother.” Joseph stood as tall as me, but thin, maybe a hundred and forty pounds, with sandy, blond hair that touched the collar of his Silver Chair t-shirt. He had clean features, a straight even nose, innocent eyes. He reminded me of a young Jim Halpert from the TV show The Office, before he got all buff and hairy for the movie 13 Hours.
“Sometimes brothers don’t get along.”
“We do.”
“Do you know anything about his disappearance?” None of the children knew about his death yet. A peel of thunder cracked above us. Joseph ducked, then flushed red as he realized I was watching him.
He looked away. “No, I don’t know anything.”
“What are his hobbies?”
“Hockey, computers, stuff like that.
“The two of you play on the same hockey team?”
He shook his head. “He’s older, better. He plays AA Midgets. I’m on an in-house team.”
“What about school?”
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