Hunted: A Suspense Collection

by J. L. Drake

  THREE: Thou shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.

  FOUR: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

  FIVE: Honor your father and your mother.

  SIX: Thou shall not murder.

  SEVEN: Thou shall not commit adultery.

  EIGHT: Thou shall not steal.

  NINE: Thou shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

  TEN: Thou shall not covet your neighbor’s house; thou shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his servants, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”

  —Exodus 20:2-17

  Chapter 1

  “If someone could overpower one alone, two together could make a stand against him. And a threefold cord cannot be quickly broken.”

  —Ecclesiastes 4:12

  Jason

  Millions of sounds permeated the air, always shifting, always moving, always changing. It numbed the mind to even think about attempting to keep track of them all.

  Waves slid upon the sandy shore of the beach, creating a soothing breath as it retreated back to the sea. Dozens upon dozens of people, tourists naturally outweighing natives, gabbed ceaselessly like babies do when asking for their toys. Boisterous young men yelled like barbarians as they charged into the waves, surfboards over their heads. The ocean effortlessly rejected them and tossed them back to the sand, acting as nature’s nightclub bouncer.

  Detective Jason Flynn sat at a small table in an open-air cafe, a slice of chocolate cake on a plate before him. The salty air from the ocean had coated the table with grainy particles, but he hardly noticed. He held a book out in front of him: King Solomon’s Mines, by H. Rider Haggard. The pages were yellowed and worn from its constant use. Jason could recite every page verbatim, but he continued to read it regardless.

  “Slowly the sun sank, then suddenly darkness rushed down on the land like a tangible thing,” Jason mouthed the words softly, letting the meaning sink in. “There was no breathing-space between the day and night, no soft transformation scene, for in these latitudes, twilight does not exist. The change from day to night is as quick and as absolute as the change from life to death.”

  “Yeah, so we’ve heard, Jason,” a small voice piped up, tiny and electronic, like a mouse speaking from behind a sheet of tin foil. Jason rubbed the two-way microphone in his right ear inconspicuously. He spoke quietly, knowing the earpiece would pick him up. “Thank you for tuning in to 88.9 FM,” he joked. “We’ll be bringing you the best of the best all afternoon long.”

  A new, gruff voice piped up. “Can it, Flynn. Keep focused.”

  Jason resumed mouthing the words from his book, then turned a page. The classics would never be topped, and if someone stated otherwise, Jason would plug his ears and start to hum. He loved this book; he read it every time he was at a stakeout.

  The people moved past in a pattern like clockwork, each gaudy attraction more interesting than the last. Stray sand on the stone walkways crunched under the crowd’s feet as they drifted through the array of shops the strip had to offer. All were unsuspecting of the mayhem that was moments away.

  A short, sixty-year-old man wearing khaki shorts, sandals over white socks that were stretched to his knees, and a Hawaiian shirt that could blind a passerby waddled his way through a horde of rowdy teenagers. He said something Jason couldn’t quite make out, but it was probably something like, “Confounded kids!”

  The man sat on a bench, his gut protruding dangerously. He gazed at the scene, his eyes beady and scrutinizing. A mechanical blob sat in the man’s right ear. Everybody most likely mistook it for a hearing aide, but Jason knew what it really was.

  “Wow, Cap. Whose closet did you have to raid for that disguise?” Jason said into the earpiece. Anybody who was watching him closely enough would think he was merely mouthing the words of his book, not communicating with a man several yards away.

  Captain Slate Jones of the Los Angeles Police Department eyed Jason for a second, then quickly looked away. He stroked his frog-like neck, concealing his mouth as he spoke.

  “Flynn, this is the last time I’m warning you. No unnecessary chatter.”

  “Quit bickering like newlyweds,” Garth Jameson said through the earpiece.

  Jones looked surprised to hear the voice.

  Jason chuckled, knowing the entire team was linked by the devices and relishing the fact that Jones didn’t.

  Jason often gave his superior a hard time, but he really did respect Slate Jones. The captain was at the top of the food chain and wholly deserved to be there. The man was more grizzled than an oak tree, but he had earned the right to be a tad abrasive. He had been awarded the L.A. Merit of Bravery, the Honor Badge, etcetera, etcetera, and so on and so on.

  A pack of twenty-something women strolled by wearing jeans that would make Daisy Duke blush and tank tops so skimpy that nobody had bothered to print a design on them. All the males gazed at them without an ounce of shame. Jason joined in so as not to be the odd man out. He even threw in a whistle for good measure. One of the more block-headed males gave him an approving thumbs-up.

  What an honor. I’m in the in-crowd now.

  An attractive woman approached Jason’s small table. She was every bit as eye-catching as the girls who had just strolled by, but her respectable modesty restricted her to more appropriate attire. Her nametag identified her as a waitress.

  “Anything else, sir?” she asked with a stunning grin.

  Jason returned the smile. “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

  The waitress eyed King Solomon’s Mines. “Good book?” she asked, scratching behind her right ear.

  “The best. Can’t beat the classics.” He tapped the book’s cover twice.

  “So I’ve heard.” She gave him an alluring gaze and left.

  Jason eyed her for a few seconds and then returned to the novel. The waitress’s nametag had said her name was Margaret, but he knew she was actually Cheyenne Childers, one of L.A.’s top criminal analysts and officers.

  Their entire encounter had been planned in advance, and if a single syllable or movement had been changed, that meant the mission was a bust. Jason would’ve immediately tucked the book under his arm, stood up, and left the cafe without leaving a trace, tossing the disposable earpiece into a garbage can as he did.

  The conversation, however, had gone exactly as planned. The mission was a go. Truth be told, Jason was thrilled.

  Today’s mission was an anticipated one, one that would go in the record books as either one of the most daring or most idiotic, depending on whether or not the glass was half empty or full.

  The ball had started rolling three weeks earlier in the police department’s briefing room, or, rather, the broom closet that had been lovingly dubbed the briefing room. Jason entered the cramped room, finding a group including Detective Garth Jameson, Cheyenne, Captain Jones, several other detectives and officers, and a young man with stone-hard eyes and quivering lips.

  “Flynn,” Jones said, gesturing to the nervous young man. “This is Josh Locke, our new officer. He’s fresh out of training, receiving top marks.”

  “He’ll be accompanying us, then?” Jason asked.

  “Correct.”

  Jason stepped before Josh, furrowing his brow. The officer couldn’t be older than twenty-five, yet a Glock 9mm was strapped to his belt for the distinct purpose of being fired.

  The boy was a walking oxymoron with his world-weary eyes and youthful features. Despite the warmth of the room, he trembled uneasily, as if holding a cinderblock on his shoulders. His muscles were tight and stiff as if he was at attention before a ruthless dictator.

  “Josh,” Jason said, strolling in a circle around
the rookie, “these aren’t games. These aren’t simulations. Once we step out of this building, we are targets. We will bleed when hit. To prevent this, we must be ever watchful. Always looking for the slightest disturbance, a small ripple across the glassy pond surface. Vigilance is the difference between life and death, justice and anarchy. Can you be vigilant?”

  “Yes, sir!” Josh called out.

  “Is that so?” Jason strolled past the boy. “Check your fly.”

  Josh had glanced down and gulped. His eyes shifted around, and his face grew dark red. He slowly zipped up his pants and cleared his throat.

  “Very good, Josh.” Jason grinned and nodded. “Welcome aboard.”

  The next day, the small group converged in the briefing room, gathered around a large television screen mounted on the wall. Jason stood before the team. He clicked a button on a small remote, and the screen flickered to life.

  “This man is our next mark,” Jason told the team.

  The screen displayed a photo of a tall African American man in a starched white tuxedo. Dark sunglasses with lenses the size of a CD concealed his eyes. His hair had been twirled into scraggly dreadlocks that dangled over his shoulders like jungle vines.

  “Shane Drake. Likes to call himself ‘the Don, Shane Drake.’ Thinks of himself as the next Al Capone or Robert DeNiro. Six foot two, one hundred eighty pounds, green eyes. I mention the eyes because you’ll probably never see them. They’re always concealed by his sunglasses. Born in Chicago, Illinois, raised in L.A. His father was a junkie, his mom even more so. All his clothes are custom, shipped in from different areas dotted across the state. He takes the crosswalk rather than jaywalking, yet has six passports, boxfuls of illegal weapons, and more guards watching him at all times than the Hope Diamond. He has a taste for fine Italian wines, and, of course, finer Italian women.”

  Jason clicked the remote again and the screen’s image changed. Don Shane sauntered through an alley in his white suit, clutching a short staff in his right hand. A gigantic brute of a man followed closely behind him, looking more like a hairless gorilla than a human.

  “The man is never seen without two things: that breathing sack of steroids-infused meat named Slax Barron, who is Shane’s personal bodyguard, and an ornate walking stick carved from a black African Baobab tree. When he was sixteen, Shane happened across a secret drug deal in one of the city’s darker alleys and walked away with a brick of methamphetamine. It took the dealers a week to figure out they’d had their pockets vacuumed clean by a kid.”

  He clicked the remote to show another photo of The Don and his muscle from another angle.

  “Drake quickly became a popular little guy, selling the whole brick in a matter of days. For the next seven years, he rose among the ranks of L.A.’s dealers. He’s also grown smarter, stronger, and more efficient. He’s smart enough to not indulge in the drugs he sells. The same goes for heavy drinking. The negative effects of both were obvious to him growing up, thanks to his parents. He gets the goods distributed by hiding the portions in innocent sugar packets, the kind you find at a table in honky-tonk diners, and letting his customers come to him. He operates out of San Fiesta, a seaside fast food restaurant that’s a part of the shopping strip that overlooks Venice Beach. It provides actual service. I had a funnel cake there this morning. Not bad.”

  Jason moved toward the screen, clicking the remote. A bird’s-eye view of the shopping strip appeared, the San Fiesta shop outlined in black. At the time the snapshot was taken, hundreds of people had been congesting the strip and streets. The very sight made all the cops in the room shift uncomfortably. Thousands of bystanders, all in the crosshairs.

  Cheyenne said, “I take it you have a plan of action?”

  “You know me too well,” Jason said, eyes sparkling. “The reason we know all we do about Don Shane is because of a mole that has been planted in his operation for two years now. You’ll know him only by Red, for now. The mountain of evidence he’s accumulated against the Don will be enough to put him in prison until his hundredth birthday. This Saturday morning, Shane Drake will be disappearing from the face of the Earth for God only knows how long. He’s been getting antsy and paranoid, and now he’s going deep underground. We won’t hear from him again, and he’ll get away scot-free.”

  Jason approached the image to point out the plan.

  “That’s where we come in. At two-thirty, for the briefest moment, Don Shane’s security will be at its weakest. He’ll exit the San Fiesta via the back door,” he pointed out the route on the photo, “go around these three shops, and walk toward a blue Mercedes that will be loitering between the Pucker’s Lemonade Stand and the Experience L.A. Gift Shop. After he gets in and the door swings shut, we may as well throw him a going-away party. We’re never seeing him again. His security will be limited to three men by his side: our man Red, a five foot two oaf named Forrest, and Slax. We will take the Don into custody and put him away before he knows what hit him.”

  And so it began. The fateful Saturday had arrived, the clock inching closer to half-past two. Jason’s eyes darted from his book to the crowd. People, people, people. Way too many to perform an intervention properly.

  A surfer in green swim trunks screamed like a yodeler with the flu as a wave flung him through the air and sucked him into the water. Ten seconds later, he surfaced, coughing up water and laughing fitfully.

  Jason rolled his eyes. People these days.

  Overhead, a flock of seagulls, speckled with black and gray feathers, swooped over the strip in a perfect V formation. Nobody paid them any attention; they simply kept gossiping, or shopping, or eating. Jason gazed at the flock. It speared the sun and flew out the other side, heading out to sea for some destination no one would ever know.

  He thought about how scientists and researchers state that birds travel in that particular formation to make the entire flock more aerodynamic, thus making the journey from point A to point B more efficient.

  Half of Americans don’t know the word “aerodynamic.” How did a couple of birds figure out that system, and then tell their friends about it?

  He grinned at the flock as it grew smaller and smaller on the horizon. The wonders of natural instincts never ceased to amaze him. It had its benefits, like birds of a feather flying in a V, and its definite downs, like human instincts to kill and mutilate. Survival of the fittest.

  He had seen far too much of the latter in his lifetime.

  A vibrating came from Jason’s pocket, but he didn’t avert his eyes from the pages. He had set his phone to signal him when it was 2:28 p.m. One hundred and twenty seconds separated the team from Shane Drake.

  Jason risked a quick look at Captain Jones on the bench. His leg was bouncing nervously, his eyes darting back to his watch every two seconds. He was just as aware of the time as Jason was.

  “Almost time, everybody,” Jason murmured to the earpiece.

  “Right,” Jones said, keeping the bickering to a minimum. “Firearms ready to draw.”

  “Check.”

  “Check.”

  “Check.”

  “Check.”

  Jason clucked his tongue. “Now, I knew I was forgetting something. I thought I’d left the kitchen lights on…”

  “What? Jason!” Garth exclaimed through the radios, probably louder than he should have been. “You forgot your gun?!”

  Jason appreciated the concern from his friend, but Garth needed to remain invisible in his hiding spot.

  “Keep it down, keep it cool, Garth. You have yourself to worry about. Besides, you know me. I’m nothing if I’m not flexible.”

  “You said the same thing last week when Starbucks ran out of whipped cream. I’d say this is a bit more critical!”

  Jones intervened with a “Shut up, both of you!” then with the four words they’d all been waiting and dreading to hear: “The Don’s in sight.”

  The whole team drew a silent gasp. Jason’s eyes crept from the yellowed pages, trying to grab a peek of t
he infamous Don in person.

  The man possessed a towering presence, without a doubt, but his physical size had little to do with it. An air of power and confidence surrounded him like a bubble, making him appear bigger and badder. He sported the trademark white suit and a dark purple tie, giant sunglasses still hiding his eyes. The African cane was clutched in his right hand like a knight’s lance, adding to his mighty swagger.

  Signs of wealth dotted his body: rings, pendants, chains, all dazzling brilliantly in the sunlight. He seemed to be trying to convince everyone else of his wealth, but Jason was sure he was just trying to convince himself.

  Slax Barron, the chief bodyguard, walked a short distance behind the Don, the two attempting to appear that they didn’t know each other. The man wore a skin-tight shirt with no sleeves, advertising his boa-like arms. His muscles—combined with his close-cropped hair and a scar that ran across the left side of his neck—made the passersby steer clear. He held a giant beer can in one hand. He put his lips to the lid and threw back his head, downing the alcohol in a mammoth gulp. He dropped the empty can to the sidewalk, adding littering to drug dealing.

  Jason noticed a medium-build Latino man in casual clothes following the two men. He had a crimson baseball cap on his head. This man was their mole, Red.

  “Red is with them,” Jason curtly said into the radio. “He’s wearing a red ball cap. Do not shoot the red ball cap.” He enunciated every word. The last thing he wanted was for the man who had been undercover for two long years to be killed by one of the good guys.

  The third bodyguard known as Forrest walked among the crowd too, but he was almost too small to spot. Jason didn’t doubt, though, that the man carried a gun to compensate for his height, or lack thereof.