Alim pursed his lips, lines blooming on his dark forehead. “Fine, but you have to take care of the little ones when we’re done.”
“I can do it.”
“I know you can,” Alim said. “That is why I brought you along, my friend. Have you spoken with Fareeq about this Siddiq?”
“Not yet, but I will.”
“Do it quickly. I need to know we can trust him, or his body shall join the driver’s family. We cannot leave anything to chance.”
* * *
Stanton entered the Kansas City Police Department and asked for Chief Ware. He waited in the lobby, staring at the broken linoleum tile, the fluorescent lights buzzing. After a few minutes, a heavy-set man in a rumpled blue suit emerged.
“You Stanton?” The man extended a beefy hand. “I’m Lewis. Follow me.”
Lewis led the way through a maze of hallways and cubicles before waving Stanton through the door into a narrow room devoid of furniture. A window to Stanton’s left overlooked another room where the red head chewed her fingernails in front of a plain, brown table.
As Lewis pulled the door shut leaving Stanton alone, the opposite door on the far wall opened and Chief Andrew Ware strode through, taller than Stanton’s boss but shared his intimidating presence.
“I’m Chief Ware,” the man said, hands shoved in his suit pants. “My acquaintance, Mr. Drabek, tells me you’re a man who can be trusted for his discretion.”
“And thoroughness,” Stanton said.
“You’ve done this before?”
“Not in a police station, but over in the Middle East…many times. I’ll find out what she knows.”
Ware shifted, uncomfortable. “I don’t like Drabek putting me in this position.”
“You should take it up with him,” Stanton said.
“I have, many times. But, he’s a hard man to say no to.”
Stanton allowed a tight-lipped grin to pop. “Believe me, I understand.”
“I’m sure you do. I’ll lock this door on my way out. Lewis will stand guard at the door you came through. Try not to leave any visible marks.”
Ware beat a path to the door, and Stanton waited until the lock clicked. The red head stopped chewing her nails when he stalked into the interrogation room.
He stood at the edge of the table, arms crossed, and cast a steely glare at the girl. “What’s your name?”
“When am I getting out of here?” She narrowed her dark green eyes. Her voice was high with a twang. Pure southern white trash.
“What is your name?” Stanton repeated. The woman said nothing, her gaze fixed on the tabletop.
Stanton removed his suit coat, revealing the gun strapped to his shoulder. He reached inside the coat pocket and removed a thin, metal skewer attached by a black cord to an electric box the size of a cell phone. She shrank into her chair as he set the device on the table. Stanton draped the coat over the back of a chair on the opposite side of the table and sat.
“Who are you?” the woman asked.
“Doesn’t matter, does it?” He tapped his fingers on the table and stared. It wasn’t hard to do. She was quite beautiful.
“You don’t scare me. I got rights.”
“Those rights apply if I am a police officer. I can assure you I’m not.” The woman pushed herself upright in the chair, staring again at the instruments on the table, body rigid. “I can be someone to whom you answer a few simple questions and will have forgotten by morning. Or, I could be someone who does things to you that will haunt your dreams. It’s your choice. Now, what is your name?”
She wrapped her arms around her thin frame. “Sarah, but everyone calls me Tawny.”
“And you were friends with Alexander Voleski?”
Her eyes teared up. “I was his girlfriend.”
“Good, Tawny. You know he’s dead, right?”
She sniffled. “I want to go home.”
“You know the silver briefcase he carried?”
“I am not saying another word. You got no right to hold me here. I want to go home.”
“Tawny? You don’t want to go down this road. Trust me.”
“You better not hurt me,” she said, leaning forward and placing her hands on the table. “Alexander had friends.”
Stanton shook his head a few degrees to either side. “There are no cameras in this room. Nobody to come and rescue you. Nobody will hear you scream. And scream is what you’ll do if you don’t tell me about the briefcase.”
She said nothing. Quick as a snake, Stanton clamped on her wrist, pinning it to the table. Tawny tried to jerk back but Stanton’s grip was like a vice. He grasped the metal rod with his free hand and placed the needle-sharp end just under the nail of the middle finger of Tawny’s right hand.
“Do you know how much it will hurt if I slide this needle under your fingernail?”
“No, please don’t,” Tawny sobbed. She tried tugging free again but got nowhere with the effort.
“Then I’ll turn on the electricity to make it really hurt. We’ll start slow, a maddening tickle that will turn to unbearable pain that will radiate all over. After we’re done with each of your fingers, I’ll start sticking the rod in places you don’t want it to go. Don’t make me. Where is the briefcase?”
Her brow furrowed, tears streaking her heavy make-up. He applied the slightest pressure of the needle under her nail bed, and she screamed. Then she talked, blubbering through waterworks. “I don’t know. Alexander kicked me out of the room before his meeting started.”
Stanton drew the needle instrument back but kept a grip on her wrist. A psychological reward for her to continue talking.
“But you saw who he was meeting with? Describe them to me.”
“A big man, good-looking, walked with a slight limp. Another taller man with a beard, really big. They didn’t say their names. They came into Dreams to meet with Alexander.”
Stanton let go of her wrist. He picked up the needle instrument and twirled it in his fingers like a pen to remind her it was still available for use. Tawny rubbed her wrist and pushed back in her chair.
“Alexander was afraid the people he was meeting would shoot him and take the case,” she continued. “He wanted those two to help him make sure that didn’t happen.”
Stanton pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. “So, they were working with him? And he never said who he was meeting with about the case before the meeting at Dreams?”
“Alexander didn’t share stuff with me. He’d come over, have sex with me, and buy me nice things. He didn’t talk about business, and I wasn’t supposed to ask.”
He held out the needle, and her eyes locked on it. “Why should I believe you?”
“Why would I lie?” she asked, her voice trembling. “There was all those guns shooting. If I was in that room, I’d be as dead as Alexander.”
“Who took the case and where?”
“I swear I don’t know.”
“You’re going to tell me where they took the case, one way or the other.”
“I am telling you, I don’t know,” she pleaded, her voice cracking.
Stanton believed her. But, Drabek paid him to be sure, and the stakes were too high to be wrong. He clenched the electrical box and needle probe.
“Well,” he said. “There’s one way to find out if you’re telling the truth. But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
He advanced around the table, and Tawny screamed.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“This is complicated,” Jake said as they barreled along I-35 toward the city of Olathe and the Blue Heron building. Snell drove like she vied for the pole position at the Indy 500, and Jake kept reminding her to slow down or they’d get pulled over. He didn’t want to have to explain a blood-covered briefcase to the police.
“How is it complicated?”
“Getting Beth back is one piece of the prize.”
“It’s the one piece I care about.”
“I understand, but there’s more at
stake here.”
Snell scrunched her face in disbelief as she turned toward him. “More at stake than my goddamn daughter?”
Jake yelled, and she focused back on the road in time to avoid rear-ending a red minivan full of unbuckled toddlers who ogled them wide-eyed out the back window.
“Stick with me,” Jake said, after his heart scaled back from his throat. “This Ares is one unholy piece of biological weaponry, agreed? Can you imagine reading the paper one morning and finding out it was used to take out a classroom of kids or the President?”
“The President? Well…”
“Hey, that’s your boss,” Jake said.
Snell shrugged. “Point taken. So, we get Beth back and destroy Ares.”
“Yeah, but that’s like finding an addict with a bag of heroin and flushing the drugs down the drain, hoping the problem goes away.”
“What do you want?”
“I want the sons of bitches who started this fiasco,” Jake said. “Who says they won’t make more? I want to burn the whole thing to the ground.”
Snell veered off I-35 and ran several yellow lights along with a couple of red lights. Jake prayed and made sure his seatbelt was tight. The Blue Heron building loomed in the distance when the cell in Jake’s pocket rang. Voleski’s phone he picked up at Dreams. “Hello?”
The person on the other end was silent for a moment. When it spoke at last, it was accented, Middle Eastern. “Who is this?”
“The man who has what you want,” Jake said. Snell whipped into a convenience store parking lot and parked so they faced the Blue Heron building across the road.
“Where is Voleski?”
“Around. I’m an associate Mr. Voleski hired to help him with the transfer. You can call me Mr. White.” Snell raised her eyebrows. Jake covered the mouthpiece and whispered. “I’m a huge fan of Reservoir Dogs.”
“How do I know you have what I want, Mr. White?”
“It’s in a silver briefcase with little green vials. I take it you still want the case. If not, I have another buyer lined up.”
“I doubt that, but it is not necessary anyway. I have payment for the case. Where is Voleski?”
Jake worried about losing the fish on the hook. If he was too vague, the buyer might get skittish.
“Let’s just say Alexander and I disagreed. He wanted to back out of the arrangement he made with you and go in another direction for more money. I said we should honor the deal in place. There was some heated discussion that did not end well for Alexander, a permanent and fatal disfigurement.”
“How unfortunate for him.”
“Indeed. So, tonight, at midnight, I will honor the deal that was made. Just tell me where and I’ll be there with the case.”
The voice was silent, and Jake half-expected a disconnection of the call. Instead, the voice gave him an address. Jake had a vague placement of the locale, a lonely bank of abandoned buildings in the stockyard district just west of downtown, near Kemper Arena where he once went to the circus as a child when his dad got free tickets for fixing some guy’s roof.
“Midnight,” the voice said. “And, Mr. White? If there is any, how do you Americans say, funny business, I will personally kill your entire bloodline. Slow and most painful.”
“I understand. And what do I call you?”
Three heavy breaths crackled the speaker. “You can call me Keyser Söze.”
Jake hung up, suppressing a smile.
Snell asked, “What are you grinning at?”
“Son of a bitch has a sense of humor. He called himself Keyser Söze from the Usual Suspects, the criminal mastermind in the movie. Ruthless bastard.”
“Hilarious,” Snell said, straight-faced. “Now what?”
“Part one of the plan is done. Now let’s get your daughter.”
* * *
Stanton emerged from the interrogation room after thirty minutes with Tawny. She’d be sore from multiple body parts for a few days but would recover. Lewis led him from the room to Chief Ware’s office one floor up. If the screams he heard from the room bothered him, he didn’t show it.
Ware’s office was immaculate, the dark paneled walls decorated with photos of Ware shaking hands with celebrities and politicians, walking the tight rope between impressive and ostentatious. Ware gestured for Stanton to sit on a leather sofa with a glass coffee table in front and ordered Lewis to leave them.
“How did it go?” Ware asked.
“Not as well as I hoped. The girl knew nothing. Voleski dismissed her from the room before any real action took place.”
Ware chewed his upper lip. “You believe her?”
“I employed some coercive negotiation techniques, and she never broke from her story.”
Ware paced to his desk and back. “So, you learned nothing? I hate to think we violated the poor girl’s civil rights for nothing.”
“The only thing she mentioned was who Voleski met with. A couple of big guys. One was good looking with short brown hair and a limp. The other was bigger and had a beard. She didn’t get their names.”
Ware stiffened at the description and strode to the door. He called out to Lewis who came at a run.
“Has the girl left yet?” Ware asked. Lewis shook his head. “Good, hold her for a moment.”
Ware darted back to his desk and thumbed through several files before pulling out a photograph. He handed it to Stanton.
“Who is this?” Stanton asked.
“A man named Jake Caldwell. He was working with Jack Logan tracking down Voleski and the briefcase your boss so desperately wants.”
“I think I saw this guy go into Dreams. Who is he?”
“A former leg breaker for Jason Keats. Go ask the girl if this is the man who met with Voleski before the shooting.”
“And if he is?” Stanton asked.
“You’ll know where to look for the case, and you can get the fuck out of my police station. I’m done with this mess your boss created. Tell him I’m done, and I want those photographs. The blackmail ends now.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Jake and Snell discussed the best route into the Blue Heron complex from the convenience store parking lot. Their plan was based on her knowledge of the layout when she was married to Drabek. A lot could have changed in five-plus years, but time was short, and they had no choice but to make a few assumptions. The front door was out of the question. There was the main truck entrance, but it was manned by a twenty-four-hour guard service.
“Are they any good?” Jake asked.
“For eight bucks an hour, not so much. But they know enough to pick up the phone or hit an alarm button.”
“How many are there?”
“After ten at night? Probably one. They have a second during the day shift to help with the truck traffic.”
“Any other options?” Jake asked.
“There’s a gate off an access road in the southwest corner. At least there used to be. Wyatt talked about getting rid of it. Probably an alarm wired to it, maybe a camera linked to the security office. Definitely locked. If it’s even there anymore.”
“Any bolt cutters in your trunk?”
“Not exactly a standard issue item.”
Jake ticked his tongue on the roof of his mouth a few times. “We could follow a truck in. When the guard goes to check out the driver, I take him out and we roll inside.”
“Too risky,” Snell said. “The security office has cameras trained on the guard shack. We’d be spotted and they’d sound the alarm.”
They contemplated options, staring across the highway at the bright building, both well aware of the clock ticking against them. A low, misty fog settled, casting halos around the streetlamps. A long, white, eighteen-wheeled semi-truck bearing the logo Yancy Trucking lumbered into the convenience store parking lot and swung around to the far edge. A grizzled, old driver, five and a half feet tall and equally wide climbed out of the cab and waddled toward the store.
“Yancy Trucking,” Snell said.
“That’s one of Blue Heron’s main haulers. Ten to one that guy’s heading inside the plant.”
“Can you drive one of those things?” Jake asked.
“Nope. Can you?”
“It’s been a while and I’d grind the gears smooth, but I used to shag trucks at Keats’s warehouse in Oklahoma.”
“Let’s go. I’ll hide in the back of the cab.”
His jaw went slack. “I’m supposed to hot wire an eighteen-wheeler?”
“Thought all ex-criminals knew how to hot wire cars. Don’t they send you to some kind of school when you pick that profession?”
“I was a leg breaker for the mob,” Jake said. “Doesn’t mean I can hot wire anything.”
She flipped her hand toward the store. “So, go get the keys.”
“What about the old driver?”
“I have no doubt you can persuade him to let us borrow his truck.”
Jake raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? That’s your plan?”
“I thought you were the man who could fix things.”
“I’m not beating the shit out of an old man for no good reason.”
“We have a good reason, and I didn’t say you had to beat him.”
Jake ground his jaw. “Fine. Give me your badge.”
“Why?”
“Either give it to me or do it yourself.”
Snell fished her FBI badge from her jacket. “We have an hour and fifteen minutes to get inside, get Beth, and drive all the way downtown for the midnight meet. Tick tock, Caldwell.”
Jake climbed out of the car and crossed the parking lot. The mist evolved into a light drizzle, the fluorescent lights over the gas pumps revealing rainbow patterns from oil and spilled gasoline on the asphalt. Jake hiked up the collar on his jacket and kept his face low, away from the surveillance cameras at the pumps.
Standard convenience store configuration. Register island toward the front, manned by an uninterested, pimpled teen scrolling through an iPhone. He barely registered Jake entering. Racks of chips and candy bars ran along one aisle with a bank of coolers in the back holding a myriad of caffeinated drinks and beer. Beyond the coolers, a hallway led back to the restrooms. The squatty driver wasn’t visible among the racks, so Jake headed to the bathrooms.
Jake Caldwell Thrillers Page 43
