by Jon Mills
Jack stepped back inside and slammed the door.
Chan pulled out a gun and in broken English spoke slowly, “I would advise you to leave now.”
“She’s not your daughter, is she?”
“Last chance.”
Jack snorted. His head bobbed ever so slightly. Before the man could react, Jack turned and pulled the gun out of his hand. With the 9mm in his hand he pointed it between Chan and his man.
“Let her go.”
When they didn’t do it, he said it in Chinese.
“Ràng tā zǒu.”
The girl glanced at Jack with a look of astonishment. He motioned for her to shuffle over to him. Chan’s man wouldn’t release her so Jack pressed the Glock against Chan’s head.
“Three, two.”
He didn’t even get to one when Chan raised his hand and the man released her. The girl slid over, opened the door and Jack backed out of the vehicle into the rain-filled night.
“By the way, I’ll keep the money for the trouble,” Jack said.
“I’m going to kill you,” Chan muttered.
“Get in line,” Jack retorted.
Jack slammed the door and told the driver to leave. The black sedan rumbled away leaving Jack and the partially clothed girl on the slick sidewalk. He looked back at her.
“Who was he?” he asked her in Chinese. She replied. Jack came to find out that it was common practice for warring families to steal those who were making good money. She had worked for Chan for several years before she was taken. She had been one of his best earners. Working as a high-priced escort. Chan was basically her pimp. Not her father. Twenty thousand was nothing. He couldn’t send his own men in to get her as they wouldn’t have got close enough, but someone who looked like a patron of the strip joint, that’s why he had hired Jack. He could slip in without a passing glance and there would be no risk to his own men’s lives.
“Where is your family?”
“California.”
“You were taken?”
“Grabbed off the streets,” she replied.
Jack grabbed hold of her arm and held it out. Rain poured over her skin revealing the dark needle punctures. He was torn about what to do. She needed to get clean.
He breathed in deeply and then flagged a cab down. When it arrived both of them got in and he asked the cabbie to take them to the Greyhound bus terminal. Upon arrival he bought her some fresh clothes from a store nearby and then purchased a one-way ticket to L.A.
He stood at the counter and scribbled down an address in L.A: The Unified Rescue Mission. The same place he had stayed at when he was there. He gave her the name of John Dalton.
“Now listen up. You are to go to this location. They will help you get off the drugs. He’s a good man. He’ll help you. In a few weeks I will send additional funds to help you get back on your feet but only if you go there and get off the drugs.”
Anyah gripped the ticket in her hand.
“Why are you helping me?”
He snorted. “It doesn’t matter.”
They waited there at the station for an hour before her bus arrived. He helped her on and gave the driver some extra cash for a cab when she got to the bus station. The driver nodded but looked a little taken back by it. Jack gave one final nod to Anyah before he stepped off the bus. As the doors hissed closed she made her way to a seat and then popped open the top window.
“You never told me your name?” she asked in Chinese.
He hesitated. “Jack.”
Chapter Two
FLORIDA
Special Agent Isabel Baker had the biker’s face pressed up against the wall. Her forearm was jammed against the back of his neck and the other restrained his arm.
“Give me the name of the person that helped him?”
“I don’t know, I told you.”
She pressed harder until he was choking. The guy was big but size didn’t matter to her. She had placed numerous men on their ass over the course of her career.
Cooper stepped closer. “Listen, we have enough to put you away for a long time. We know he was here. Now you can either give us a name, and we can see about having your sentence reduced or you can keep jerking us off.”
“Fuck you, pig.”
The FBI had raided the motorcycle club after placing them under surveillance for over two months. Though it wasn’t the illegal gunrunning or even their heroin dealing that mattered to her. Isabel got involved because of their affiliation with Jack Winchester.
It had been twelve months since she had laid eyes on him in Louisiana. She had been kicking herself ever since. Her boss Simon Thorpe had raked her over the coals despite the fact that she had nearly died in the process. Though still determined to catch him, Isabel was forced to return to the bureau and spend the next six months receiving physiotherapy. There wasn’t a night that went by that she didn’t think about what he had done for her. He could have left her for dead but he didn’t. She was alive because of him. She wasn’t sure what bothered her more, knowing that he’d escaped, or that she was now indebted to him.
She didn’t need her boss to force her into a desk job, the injury had taken care of that. For the better part of a year she had spent her time wading through case files, filling out reports and doing all manner of menial work that she usually avoided when she was in the field. It didn’t help that they had lumbered her with Agent Cooper. She thought she had seen the last of him after her time in L.A. but that wasn’t to be. Life had a strange sense of humor. Upon returning to New York he had put in a request to be transferred to Florida. He said it was for advancement but she wasn’t buying it. He lingered around like a lost puppy. In some ways she was glad to see a familiar face when she came into work, even if he was a pain in the ass.
Over a period of twelve months there had only been one sighting of Jack Winchester. With Isabel’s injury preventing her from doing little more than paperwork, a new agent had been assigned to track him down. However, she hadn’t had much success. In fact, after chasing down numerous dead leads, Thorpe had her return and Jack’s case file was closed. Those at the top had been cracking down on where money was being spent and anything that wasn’t directly helping the bureau look good was put on the back burner. Fortunately for Jack Winchester his file was boxed up and shuffled away. While he remained on the FBI’s wanted list, he was rarely mentioned. According to her superiors they had bigger fish to fry. Terrorism had moved up to the front of the line and people like Winchester disappeared into the background. However, it hadn’t stopped Isabel from pulling out his case several times a week and making a few calls. She mainly did it on her downtime. But no amount of searching yielded anything significant. A few sightings here and there turned out to be nothing more than dead ends. She had even pursued a lead on a long weekend off that had taken her all the way up to Oregon. Though he hadn’t left behind anything in the dingy motel room she was sure it was him. Call it a gut feeling but she was tempted to keep looking in the area. If it hadn’t been for the fact that she had to be back in the office that Tuesday, she might have pursued it.
Daniel Cooper didn’t understand what her fascination was with Winchester.
“You nearly died twice, Isabel. Don’t you think it’s time to let this one go?”
Cooper was a different kettle of fish to her. He clocked in, did his time and checked out at the end of his shift. The job was nothing more than that — a job. But for her it had become an obsession. She lived and breathed what she did, and until her injury she was damn good at it. Perhaps it was because he had eluded her twice, or that the nature of his crimes mirrored those of the men that had killed her father. It had become personal.
When the call came in that he had been spotted in Florida with a biker gang referred to as the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, it instantly piqued her attention. She immediately got in contact with the national gang intelligence department and arranged a meeting. She was shown a photo and while it wasn’t clear, it was enough to convince her to make the call to Thorpe and
get his approval to be involved in an upcoming raid.
Thorpe had been adamant that he wasn’t going to let her get involved in anything related to Winchester after Louisiana but since she hadn’t uttered his name in over eight months she got his permission.
“Okay. Okay. Dave Bowman,” the biker said, still pressed up against the wall.
“Now that wasn’t too hard.” Isabel sniffed and glanced down. His pants were wet from where he’d pissed himself.
“Cooper, take him away.”
Cooper stepped in and strong-armed him back to a cruiser. All the while the biker was yelling about how he better get a good deal out of this. “I want the best lawyer. I want a better cell. I better get —.”
“Yeah, yeah, the best,” Cooper said knowing that he wasn’t going to get jack shit for what he had given up. No one was going to hear about how he had helped because Isabel didn’t want Thorpe finding out that she had been digging around.
Isabel watched as officers piled a stream of bikers into the back of a van to be taken away. A few of her associates came out holding several armfuls of weapons they had seized from a back room containing stacks of military-grade weapons that had been bought on the black market. It was a dangerous game getting involved with the biker clubs. While some agents went undercover, most often it was handled by the DEA.
After getting the address for Dave Bowman, Isabel was going to keep it low-key but without knowing what she was going into, she just reported that one of them had given up the name of Dave as being the link between the buyers and sellers. It didn’t take her long to gather together a group from the FBI special weapons and tactics team to raid his home down in Key Largo. However, this time around they weren’t as fortunate. Someone must have tipped him off as when they busted in the front door and swarmed the house, he was long gone. All that remained was the bare essentials for living. The rest had been cleared out. Isabel slid open the rear door and stepped outside into the heat of the day. She crouched down by the pool and ran her hand in the warm blue water.
“I guess you don’t win them all,” Cooper said coming up alongside her.
“He was here for sure.” She slapped the water with her hand in frustration and rose to her feet.
“You think he’s got involved in the gunrunning trade? I mean we know the Brothers of Mayhem in New York were involved with the Mafia.”
She shook her head. “No. It’s sloppy. He would have known better than to raise his head around a group that’s always under surveillance. He must have needed something. What do we know about Dave Bowman?”
“Well, we know he’s long gone.” Cooper chuckled.
“Family, friends, I mean.”
“Why bother with them? They aren’t going to give up any information. You know these types, they would rather do time than rat on one of their own.”
“I’m not looking for them to rat. Winchester might be out of Florida by now but Bowman wouldn’t. This is his home. The only way they leave is if they are incarcerated.”
It didn’t take long to get the same guy who had given up Bowman to hand over an address and name of his mother who was known for helping out the club. She wouldn’t be able to convince her superiors to get SWAT to raid another house for one guy. They would pound a few doors, ruffle some feathers and eventually he would resurface. But she knew that could mean weeks, even months. Her best chance was to strike while the iron was hot.
“His mother runs a trailer park down at the end of Osprey Road. But I’m telling you, you are barking up the wrong tree if you go down there. She don’t take too kindly to FBI.”
His words became a murmur as Isabel walked out of the interview room. The last thing she heard was him muttering about mistreatment and wanting to speak to his lawyer. They were all the same. Thugs until they had cuffs slapped on them, then they turned into whiny little punks.
“You know Thorpe is going to have your head on a stick if he finds out what you’ve been doing.”
“Well, don’t tell him.”
“You want me to be an accessory to blatant disregard of policy?”
“I’ll buy you a beer after.”
“Really? I’ll drive.”
It didn’t take much to convince him. He had been pushing for a date with Isabel since his arrival at the bureau a few months back. That was one thing about Cooper; his persistence was why the FBI kept him on. Despite his obvious flaws as a field agent, he had excelled behind a desk since his injury.
It didn’t take long to locate the address. When the sedan rolled into the trailer park, they immediately noticed that most of the occupants were ex-bikers. Huge palm trees waved gently from the ocean wind as they stepped out of the vehicle and approached the residence. Unlike the other dilapidated trailers, hers looked as though it had been renovated. She was outside on the porch drinking a beer with a guy who looked as if he was pregnant. A bulge protruded from beneath a dirty white shirt.
“That’s far enough,” she said, as they got close to a fence that surrounded her property. There was a “Beware of the Dog” sign hanging on the gate.
“Ms. Bowman?”
“Yes?”
“I was hoping to have a word with you.”
Chapter Three
Jack stared up at the nineteenth-century home in one of Chicago’s most affluent neighborhoods. Nestled in the historic district of the Gold Coast, the red-brick, three-story mansion was full of character. As he approached the front door, the owner, Patrick Lefkofsky, was already waiting for him. He lurked in the shadows of the doorway smoking a cigarette. It glowed a bright orange in the darkness.
“Thank you for coming.” He peered nervously up and down the street. “Come on in.”
Inside, it was every bit as magnificent as the outside. It looked as if it had recently been renovated with a fresh coat of white paint, modern archways and stylish décor. The entire place looked like a photo in an interior design magazine.
“Nice place you have here.”
“Are you into design, Mr. Winchester?”
“Not really, but I can appreciate money well spent.”
He nodded and began showing him around. “Over ten thousand square feet. It was built back in 1883 by a well-known architect called A.M.F. Colton. Ceilings are over ten feet, six bedrooms, four baths, recreation and home theater area, three-car garage, eat-in kitchen, you name it, this has got it.”
“You must have a big family.”
“It’s just me.”
He led Jack into a formal room with a piano, fireplace and cream furniture. A large painting hung on the wall. Jack immediately recognized it was of Patrick, a dark-haired woman and a girl who couldn’t have been more than twelve. All three of them were dressed in business attire and positioned in a way as if to convey success more than a sense of love.
“Is that your wife?”
Patrick followed his gaze. “Yes, Casandra. She was a beautiful woman.”
“Was?”
“She died two years ago from breast cancer.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Jack continued to stare at the portrait.
“Can I get you a drink? I have spirits, beer or perhaps you would prefer coffee?”
“I’m good.”
He motioned for Jack to take a seat. Patrick took a seat across from him and pulled out a box of cigars. After Jack declined, Patrick lit one for himself and blew out a thick plume of smoke.
“Do you mind me asking something about your ad?” Patrick asked.
“What would you like to know?”
“Are you a private eye?”
Jack smirked. “Not exactly. I offer to help people who have fallen through the cracks in the justice system.”
Patrick leaned back in his chair, and seemed intrigued. “I noticed your fees aren’t very high.”
“Not everyone can pay top dollar. I work on a sliding scale. I consider the job and then based on their situation, I determine a price.”
“How long have you been doing this? Fi
nding people, I mean.”
“My entire life. Though things have changed over the past few years.”
He looked confused as if he was trying to decode Jack’s words and assess his ability.
“Things?”
Jack leaned forward in his chair, sighed and clasped his hands together.
“Mr. Lefkofsky, how can I help you?”
“That’s what I’m trying to determine. Can you actually help?”
Jack stood up. “If you are just looking to assess my abilities, and are not serious about hiring me, then it’s best I leave. I don’t have a lot of time.”
Patrick put his hand out. “Please. Take a seat. I’m sorry. I don’t mean any offense. It’s just that I have hired others before and it hasn’t gone as well as I thought it would. You must understand, it’s in my best interest that I know who it is I’m dealing with.”
Jack hesitated before returning to his seat. “So?”
“Someone is holding my daughter.”
“Why not contact the police or feds?”
He sighed. “I can’t. She’s not in the USA and well…” he trailed off.
Jack’s brow knit together. “Then where is she?”
“Peru.”
“Peru? Trafficking?”
He shook his head no.
“You said someone is holding your daughter. How do you know that?”
“Two months ago I received this.” He got up from the couch and went over to the fireplace. He removed an envelope from underneath a small elephant statue and handed it to Jack. Jack glanced at him before taking a look inside. It was a note that looked as if it had been scribbled on a napkin. It had the address for Mr. Lefkofsky’s residence and the words: “Help. I’m alive in Peru. D.”
“D was how she always signed off anything personal. I didn’t need to have an expert verify her writing. That’s her. I know it is.”
“How can you be sure?”
He disappeared and a few minutes later returned with a folder full of personal letters that at a glance matched the writing style. All of them were signed with the letter D.