by CW Browning
“Let's just say the circumstances surrounding the blow-out are suspicious,” Stephanie said after a quick glance at Blake.
Tony stared at them, then sat back in his chair.
“This has to do with John Smithe, doesn't it?” he demanded after a minute. “He had the same accident, and he's one of you.”
“Something like that,” Blake answered. “How well did you know Dutch?”
“Well enough, I guess,” Tony said with a shrug. “We hung out at the same places, raced at the track. He helped me with my engine a couple of times. Like I said, he was good people. He was always ready to help out if he could, always had an open door. I wouldn't say we were real tight, just average acquaintances, I guess, but I considered him a friend.”
“Did you ever hear him talk about any work he was doing? Any side jobs?” Blake asked.
Tony shook his head.
“Nah, nothing like that,” he answered. “I think I heard he used to do body work on the side.”
“You never heard about him doing any extra driving?” Stephanie asked, raising an eyebrow doubtfully.
Tony hesitated, then reached for his beer.
“Sounds like you already know the answer to that one,” he muttered.
Blake shrugged.
“Why don't you tell us what you know?” he suggested.
“Look, I'm not trying to get a good guy's memory all messed up over something that may or may not have been stretching the law a little bit,” Tony told them roundly, looking from one to another. “If you're trying to condemn a dead man, you're on your own.”
“Calm down,” Stephanie said, leaning forward. “No one's trying to condemn anyone. We know Dutch was a good man. There weren't many people John trusted, but Dutch was one of them.”
“Something shady was going on, and we think Dutch tried to stop it,” Blake agreed. “I think when he tried to do the right thing, someone killed him. John thought so too, and tried to find out what happened.”
“And you think the same person who killed Dutch caused John's accident,” Tony stated rather than asked, looking from one to another, his beer forgotten.
“Yes.”
“Well, I don't know what you think I can tell you,” Tony said slowly. “I don't run with that crowd. I mean, I like to race and all, but I got a day job and a girl and I'm not trying to get involved in anything crazy.”
“What crowd?”
“What's crazy?”
Blake and Stephanie spoke in unison and Tony shook his head.
“Look, like I said, I'm not trying to get mixed up in anything,” he muttered, reaching for his beer again. “I got no problems having a beer with you guys, but I'm not looking to get caught up in shady business.”
Blake studied him for a moment in silence.
“You said you don't run with that crowd,” he finally said quietly. “Tell me about the crowd Dutch was running with.”
Tony hesitated for a long moment, once again looking from Blake to Stephanie and back again. Finally, he sat forward and lowered his voice.
“There's a handful of racers,” he told him hesitantly. “They're kind of crazy. They live for the adrenaline rush, but they push it to the limit. Dutch was one of them. Some of the crazy shit he did behind the wheel...well, I could tell you some stories you wouldn't believe. He was a real legend, you know? Those drivers, well, they're in a league of their own. I heard they were doing some side jobs, high-speed, precision driving. The kind of driving that sane people don't do. It started a couple months ago.”
“Any idea about what they're doing?” Blake asked.
Tony shook his head, his eyes on his bottle of beer between his hands.
“There are a lot of stories around, but I don't know what's true or not,” he said in a low voice. “The general idea seems to be they're moving some kind of product around, but there's lots of different opinions and no one seems to know for sure. They're a tight-knit group, that crowd, and they don't talk about it.”
“How many are there?” Stephanie asked.
Tony shrugged and thought for a minute.
“Well, if you take Dutch out of it, I guess that leaves four,” he said. “Five if you count the one who runs them.”
“Tito Morales?” Blake asked, his voice low.
Tony's head snapped up and he looked startled.
“Yeah. How'd you know?”
“Lucky guess,” Blake murmured. “You know who the rest are?”
Tony stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head.
“Man, you're asking a lot,” he protested, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. “What the hell does it matter? You're never gonna catch them. Just leave it be.”
“I can't just leave it be,” Stephanie retorted, dropping her voice to the same level as his. “You saw Dutch's accident. Were you there for John's too?” Tony stared at her, then slowly nodded. “Well, so was I. I helped pull him out the windshield of the Firebird. John was my partner, and I went to the ER with him, not knowing if he would stop breathing before we got him there. John was trying to find out what got Dutch killed, and trying to stop it from happening again. Don't tell me to just leave it be.”
Blake reached out to put a firm hand on hers and Stephanie took a deep breath before sitting back in her chair.
“Maybe I should be completely honest with you,” Blake said, looking at Tony. “It can’t leave this table.”
Tony dragged his gaze away from Stephanie's pale, tight-lipped face and looked at Blake. After studying him for a long silent moment, he nodded.
“OK.”
“Dutch and this handful of drivers were moving product, and that product is not what you or anyone else thinks,” Blake told him quietly. “It’s far worse than anything you can dream up. We know what it is, and we need to stop it before thousands of people are killed. Do you understand? We're not talking about a couple bags of weed. We're talking about something that will wipe out thousands of innocent people. Dutch put two and two together and, we believe, did the only thing he could to try to stop the entire operation. You know what happened to him. If we don't find at least one of those drivers, bad things are going to happen on a scale that this country has never seen. That's why we're here, talking to you. I wouldn't be asking you for names if I didn't need to have them.”
Something in Blake's voice gave Tony pause, and he glanced at Stephanie, then back to Blake.
“John didn't make it, did he?” he whispered.
“No.”
“So they've killed two people now,” he said, rubbing his neck. “Lani? Where's she?”
“She's safe,” Stephanie assured him, finding her voice again with an effort. “She has a very special guardian angel who made sure of it.”
“Thank God,” Tony muttered. “This is crazy. I knew something bad was going down, but I never thought people would start dying. I mean, Tito's a dick, no doubt, but this is insane.”
“It'll only get worse unless we stop them,” Blake told him.
“Stop them?” Tony looked from one to the other. “You really think you can stop them? You'd have to catch them first, and let me tell you, that ain't happening.”
Blake's lips twitched.
“Let us worry about that,” he murmured.
Tony shook his head.
“I don't know,” he muttered. “You Feds don't have a reputation as being all that fast, if you know what I mean. I mean, John was different. John was one of us first. We're a special breed.”
“You're talking to a Marine,” Stephanie said in amusement. “They're a special breed of their own.”
Tony grinned at that and looked at Blake, nodding with a new respect.
“My old man was a Marine,” he told him. “He used to say the only two things you could trust were your dog and the Marines.”
“Can't argue with that,” Blake admitted.
“Do you have a dog?” Tony asked.
“Yeah, a pit bull. His name's Buddy,” Blake answered. “You
?”
“I got a boxer/pit mix,” Tony told him. “Rescued him a year ago. Best dog ever.” He finished his beer and set the empty bottle on the table. “The one you're looking for is Ricardo Martinez. You can find him at the blackjack tables in the Tropicana in AC most weekends, but I heard tomorrow he's racing out at Atco. You find him, the others won't be far behind.”
Tony pushed his chair back and stood up.
“Thank you,” Blake said, standing with him. “I appreciate it.”
“Hey, just don't tell anyone you got the name from me,” Tony replied. He turned to leave, then stopped and turned to Stephanie. “I'm sorry about John. He was a good guy. I hope you catch the bastard that did it.”
“We will,” she promised grimly.
Chapter Forty-Three
The darkness in the room was the absolute blackness that exists just before dawn, still and silent, enveloping the world in peace before the initial stirring of day. The whisper of a breeze moved through the open window noiselessly, not marring the perfect silence.
Raven stirred suddenly on his perch, lifting his beak from under his wing and opening his black eyes. He pinned the bed with an intense gaze. His mistress was stirring restlessly in her sleep, something she never did, and Raven blinked before straightening slowly. His gaze never wavered from the bed as he stretched his wings silently. After he finished, he shook his head as if to clear it before launching himself off the perch. He glided across the room to come to rest on the headboard. Raven gazed down, his head tilted sideways, and watched as his mistress writhed in apparent distress. He shifted his weight from one claw to the other, never taking his eyes off her.
Viper came awake with a gasp and a start, shooting upright with her .45 in her hand and her heart pounding out of her chest. Terror, pure and liquid, flowed through her, constricting her throat and forcing her to gasp for air as she aimed at an invisible target, her left hand moving to steady the pistol automatically. As the cool air from the open window touched her face, she realized with a start that she was covered in sweat. The remnants of her nightmare flitted away as the last wisps of sleep cleared from her mind. Her pounding heart began to slow and she lowered her pistol as she grasped the fact that she was alone in the dark bedroom.
Alina laid her .45 down and rubbed her face with her hands before tossing her pillows aside and sitting back against the headboard. There was a rustle of feathers and the quiet click of dangerous claws moving along the headboard, then Raven stepped onto her shoulder and nudged her chin with his deadly beak. She smiled and reached up to stroke the side of his neck with the back of her fingers while she took deep, calming breaths. Her brows came together in a frown and her lips pressed together.
The dream had been a vivid and bizarre collage of actual memories, all interlaced with each other to present a complete horror divorced from the actual reality of the events. The storyline of the dream was already fading from her mind, but the memories that comprised the real events were still very fresh. They would never fade. They were part of her now, and nothing would ever erase them. No amount of alcohol or drugs could ever make her forget them, and so it was really no surprise they surfaced in a nightmare tonight. What was shocking to her was that she had the nightmare at all.
As Alina continued to stroke Raven's feathers and her heartbeat slowed to a normal rhythm, she frowned. It had been years since she had a nightmare. For that matter, it had been months since she dreamed at all. Tonight, however, was a doozy. Alina shivered involuntarily as she vividly remembered swinging a machete, the blade finding its mark unerringly. She felt again the jolt in her hand and wrist as the razor sharp blade met minimal resistance from the spinal cord in the neck, and then the sudden release as the blade finished its work and once again sang through air. It was a real memory, of course. Al-Jibad met his Allah a few weeks previously when that very blade separated his head from his body. In her nightmare, however, it was John's head that tumbled to the ground. They were John's pale blue eyes that stared up at her.
Viper dropped her hand from Raven's neck and rubbed her eyes, leaning her head back. Her throat tightened and she stared up at the dark ceiling. Why was she suddenly equating John with Al-Jibad in her subconscious? It wasn't her fault John was dead. How could she possibly have known or prevented an assassin from going into his hospital room and killing him?
“For God's sake,” she muttered out loud. “Jersey is killing me.”
Raven stretched and tilted his head questioningly before hopping off her shoulder and landing on the bed next to her. He began to make his way across the mattress toward the foot of the bed, content that his mistress was recovered from whatever fit overtook her in her slumber.
Alina watched her black pet go, her mind dwelling on the bizarre nightmare. The dream wasn't even about John initially. She was chasing the assassin who killed him, the stranger who knew her, but in the dream he wasn't the assassin who killed John. He was one of the travelers from Mexico, and he was trying to kill Hawk.
Viper shook her head and raised her arms in a stretch above her head. She pushed aside the lingering feelings of disquiet and horror and tossed the covers back. Swinging her legs out of bed, Alina stood in the darkness and strode toward the bathroom, setting the nightmare firmly out of her mind. She had more important things to worry about than a subconscious manifestation of some latent psychosis that held no bearing over the reality of her present existence.
Michael rolled over in bed with a groan and reached for his phone in the semi-darkness. Dawn was cresting outside, but the pale light hadn't permeated the sheer curtains at the windows yet and he had to feel around on the side table for the cell phone.
“No one with a will to live calls me at this hour,” he growled into the phone.
“Or what?”
Michael's eyes popped open at the voice and he sat up quickly, glancing at the clock.
“I've been known to be less than amiable,” he answered less aggressively.
“I think I can take you, gunny,” Viper replied, amused. “Of course, if you'd like to test that theory...”
“How much coffee have you had?” Michael asked, rubbing his eyes.
“More than you, obviously. Are you still asleep?”
“Not anymore,” he muttered. “What's up?”
“I need you to check your email,” she told him. “You might want to do it on your laptop. It's a pretty big file and I don't know if your phone will handle it.”
Michael raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to respond before realizing that she had already disconnected.
“Well, that's rude,” he said out loud to the empty bedroom before dropping the phone back onto the bedside table. He tossed aside the covers and swung his legs out of bed. “Wakes me up, then hangs up on me.”
Michael strode into the bathroom, still muttering to himself. When he exited a few minutes later, the muttering had stopped but the scowl was still there. He went down the stairs and headed straight to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, flipping on lights as he went. It was close to three in the morning before he went to bed after spending all night pouring through Trasker Pharmaceuticals public records. Chris was working on getting a subpoena for their internal records, but that would take at least a week, if not longer. In the meantime, Michael was left deciphering public records until the early hours of the morning and still coming no closer to what he was looking for. In fact, the only sure thing he discovered was that the stock for Trasker soared considerably two months ago. The man generally assumed to be responsible for that surge in fortunes was a known lobbyist who lived and worked in Washington. No surprises there.
Michael finished filling the basket with coffee grounds and hit the brew button. Turning to get a mug out of the cabinet, he yawned widely and shook his head. He glanced at the clock on the stove. Two hours of sleep. That was all he got before Alina woke him up only to hang up on him.
“You're lucky I like you, Lina,” he muttered, turning to stride into the dining
room while the coffee brewed. “Otherwise, I'd be back to sleep by now.”
His laptop was still sitting on the dining room table where he left it. Michael opened it and powered it up, yawning again as he sat down in front of the computer. He rubbed his face, trying to wake up, then clicked on his email icon and watched as his email opened up. Right at the top was an email from Raven Woods.
The smell of coffee and the gurgling sound from the maker in the kitchen drew Michael's attention away from the email before he opened it. Standing, he went into the kitchen to interrupt the flow long enough to pour himself a steaming cup of black coffee. He replaced the carafe in the machine and the coffee resumed brewing. Sipping the strong, black brew, Michael turned to go back into the dining room, feeling better armed to handle whatever Viper was going to throw at him.
Once seated again, he opened the email somewhat apprehensively. There was no message, just a link embedded in the body of the email. He frowned and glanced back at the sender’s address. If he didn't know better, he would think it was a virus. However, he knew Raven Woods was the alias Viper used in New Jersey. It was the name on the deed of her house, and the name on the registrations for both the Jeep and the Shelby. That was the extent of what Michael was able to determine when he tried to pry into Alina's affairs. Everything else was a mystery, both on paper and in reality.
“Here goes nothing,” he murmured, clicking on the link with a sigh.
Almost immediately, his screen went black.
“Oh, for the love of...” Michael exploded, reaching for the power button.
Then his hand stilled. Wait. He'd seen this before...last year when Viper hacked into his laptop before he knew who she really was. She was wanted by his agency at the time, and she hacked his laptop to start a remote chat with him without being traced.
“Son of a....” he muttered. “How the hell does she do it?! How do you DO this stuff???” he demanded of the screen loudly as a white cursor began to move across the top of the screen.
I was starting to think you went back to sleep.
Michael scowled before reaching out to type a response.