A male voice answered on the fourth ring. A deep voice, tinged with the exasperation of answering yet another phone call. “Jerry Hart.”
Jake wasn’t sure what to say, a few potential lies floating around his skull. In the end, he decided to be truthful. Kind of. “Jerry, my name is Jake Caldwell and I’m a private investigator. I need to talk to you for a minute. Is this a good time?”
“Not really,” Hart said, the rasping of paper shuffling and keys clicking in the background. Jake pictured Hart in a cubicle with the phone cradled in his shoulder, papers spread across a cluttered desk.
Bear hit the mute button. “Who gives a rat’s ass if it’s a good time for him? Don’t give them the option.”
Jake knocked Bear’s paw away and unmuted the phone. “It’ll only take a second. I’m working on a case, and your name came up in the course of it.”
“What case and what context?” Hart asked. The rattling keyboard sounds stopped.
“Do you know a Sean Mack at the MedFire Corporation?” Jake asked.
A breath of pause. “Never heard of him.”
“How about Andrew Connelly?”
The clacking of the keyboard started again. “Nope.” Zero hesitation and Hart went back to work. It sounded truthful to the ear, but Hart hesitated on Mack’s name. Shit. Jake didn’t want to keep throwing out names of dead people. He flashed to the Russian name in the red book next to Hart. Time to ascertain if they were anywhere near the right ballpark.
“Well,” Jake said. “Let’s discuss Androv.”
The typing stopped, and silence chewed the line. “Who is this again?”
Bingo. “What’s the name mean to you?” Jake asked.
“Nothing,” Hart said with a microsecond of hesitation.
“You’re lying, Jerry.”
The names in the red journal blinked like a neon sign in Jake’s mind. A Russian name followed by an American name and the company they worked for. Why were they on the same line in the book?
Jerry’s voice quivered. He was scared and not because of Jake’s call. “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jake flashed back to his breakfast conversation with Stone and Keats making reference to a deadly spy—Sokolov. This guy Hart sounded as dangerous as a declawed kitten, but Connelly jotted his name in the red journal for a reason. He could very well be part of the machine—maybe not a cloak-and-dagger-James-Bond kind of spy, but some kind of spy, nonetheless. The name Androv and Hart were on the same line. Time to test the theory.
“The fear in your voice tells me you know exactly what I’m talking about,” Jake said. “And I have a feeling Androv is you.”
Bear’s features clouded as he worked through the permutations. His face lit as the light bulb blinked on. Jake thought the spy bit was a long shot, but it felt right as it rolled off his tongue.
“I’m hanging up,” Hart said with the sincerity of a drunk saying he won’t touch alcohol again.
“Fine, if you want to join the others on this list in the morgue. You are being hunted like an animal.”
The line didn’t disconnect. A hiss of background noise told Jake that Hart was still on the line, and Jake flashed Bear a thumbs up.
“What are you talking about?”
Jake waited a dramatic beat. “Where do you think I found your name?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
Jake had the guy’s full attention now, the fear dripping in his voice. Hart didn’t know where this line of questioning headed, but he knew he didn’t want to be there. But if Jake wasn’t careful, this guy would disappear. They had to set the hook to reel him in.
“I found your name in a book kept by a very dangerous individual. We need to meet, Jerry.” Silence blared on the line. Jake and Bear exchanged circumspect glances before Jake hit the mute button on the speaker phone. “We’re in spitting distance from losing this guy. Not sure how hard I should push.”
“Take away his safety net,” Bear said. “The handler.”
“Think Marta was his?”
Bear unmuted the phone and jabbed an index finger at it.
“Listen, you’re in more danger than you know. Everyone on this list is dead, which includes the handler you planned to call the second you hung up the phone. Marta’s gone. But your luck just improved. We can protect you.”
“Who is we? You said you were a private investigator.”
“A private investigator with some powerful friends in law enforcement.”
Hart clammed up. Jake pictured him sitting in his chair, dots of sweat lining his upper lip, wondering what he should do. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because you’re a dead man if you don’t.” Nothing from the other end of the line, but faint background office sounds. “We don’t want you. We want the guy doing the killing. You’re next on his list, and the shit I’ve seen that he does to his victims would cause your nuts to shrivel to raisins. Let us help you.”
Seconds ticked before Jerry sighed like a dying breath, quaky and final. “Okay.”
Jake smiled like a kid in a candy store, and Bear pumped a fist in the air. They had him.
Chapter Forty-Two
Jake told Jerry to hold the line while he dialed Foster. He explained what they’d figured out, and she agreed to grab Hart at the Trajor headquarters complex in Shawnee.
“Get Stone to go with you,” Jake said. “Call me when you have Hart secured, and we’ll figure out our next move.”
“What the hell do we do now?” Bear asked when Jake disconnected the call after relaying the pickup information to Hart.
“A quick trip back to the house so I can talk to Mags. Then, you and I road trip to Kansas City and talk to this guy. He’s in the journal Connelly wanted bad enough to get in a fire fight with the FBI. I want to know why Hart’s in the book in the first place, along with the others. Maybe it’ll give us some clue to find Connelly and Christopher. Kid’s gotta be scared out of his mind.”
Bear grabbed the pictures off the printer. “Sounds good. You drive.”
Fifteen minutes later, they rolled up Maggie’s driveway. Jake threw the truck in park and they headed inside, finding Maggie and Halle in the living room with Halle’s school papers spread all over.
“Thought you were going to Jennifer’s,” Jake said.
“She stood me up. Got a better offer from Travis Lewis. You guys know anything about physics?” Halle asked.
“What goes up, must come down?” Jake offered.
Bear scratched his beard. “For every reaction there’s some kind of other reaction?”
Halle sighed, swept her papers in a pile, and stomped back toward her room. “Yeah, that’s about all Mom knows too.”
“Trouble in academic paradise?” Jake asked.
Maggie rubbed her temples. “She has a test coming up. Guess I should’ve studied harder in high school. What’s up?”
“Bear and I are heading to KC to track down a lead. Hope it’s just for one night, maybe two or three at the most.”
“You getting close to finding Connelly?”
Jake pressed his lips together, holding back the lie. “I don’t know, to be honest. This is a messy freaking jigsaw puzzle. We’re getting more and more pieces, but I don’t know how close we are to seeing the big picture. I hope this guy Bear and I are going to meet can paint it for us.”
She stepped to Jake and kissed him, lips soft, breath he couldn’t hear but felt. “Be careful and don’t do anything stupid.”
“No sweat,” Jake whispered.
“And hurry back. There’s still a lot of wedding planning left to do.”
Ten minutes later, Jake and Bear cruised along Wildcat Drive, heading toward Warsaw. Past the Hilltop BBQ, a kid in jeans and a ratty t-shirt walked along the side of the road. Bear craned his head forward and told Jake to pullover. At the squeal of the truck’s brakes, the kid turned. It was Peter Pickering. He approached the truck and stood outside Bear’s wind
ow.
Bear wound down the window. “Where you going?”
“Town. Got a job washing dishes at the Rusty Skillet.”
“No kidding? You going to walk the whole way? It’s three miles.”
Pickering gave his shoulders a single pump. “No choice. Mom’s gone and won’t answer her phone.”
“Probably passed out at some bar,” Bear muttered. “Come on, we’re headed that way if you want a ride.”
Pickering flashed a look of relief and climbed into the back of Jake’s truck. He buckled in, and Jake took off toward town. They rolled across the Highway 65 bridge, a couple of fishing boats hugging the shoreline below, then hung a left on Main Street and passed the Country Mart when Pickering spoke.
“Why you got a picture of this guy?”
Jake checked the rearview mirror as Bear craned to the back from the passenger seat. Pickering held the pictures from Connelly’s basement Bear printed off.
“Why?” Bear asked. They passed the Ford dealership, the sunlight blinding off the windshields.
“Yesterday after you picked me up from the cave you got the emergency call. Was it because someone shot that lady and Rollie Boland?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, I was at the corner of Poor Boy Road and Wildcat Drive, wonderin’ what to do. You told me to go home, but I didn’t want to cuz Mom was on a helluva bender, which was why I went to the caves in the first place. She’s been hangin’ out with—”
“The picture, Peter,” Bear said as Jake followed Main Street to the left toward town.
“Oh, right. I’m standing there and this car barrels down Poor Boy Road and lays skid marks because he almost runs the stop sign and would’ve t-boned Old Man Killemet’s truck. This dude was the driver of the car.”
“Which dude?”
“The guy in this picture.” Pickering held up the print.
Jake swerved across the road and skidded to a stop in the parking lot of an auto shop. The garage door stood open, and the mechanic working on an old Buick squinted against the sun in their direction.
“That guy?” Jake asked. “That guy tore out of Poor Boy Road after we dropped you off?”
“Yeah,” Pickering said. “You probably passed him on the way back to your cabin.”
Jake’s heart thundered. He pulled back onto Main Street, rolled up the hill into downtown Warsaw, and stopped outside Nix Horseshoe Bar.
“Holy shit.” Pickering jumped forward in his seat. “You should see your faces. Did I like…solve a crime or something?”
“Go to work, Peter,” Bear said. “I’ll be in touch if we need anything else from you.”
Pickering showcased a mouthful of yellow teeth. “Think this could help me with the whole gun at school thing? I mean, being a helpful citizen and all?”
Bear cranked his head and shot Pickering a laser glare that would burn through a steel beam. “Get the fuck out of the truck.”
The kid’s grin dropped like a bag of bricks in a pond. He fumbled for the door handle and darted across the street in a matter of seconds. Jake reached back and grabbed the picture Pickering referred to. The dark, widow’s peaked haired, fishy-lipped guy in the navy suit.
“Who is it?” Bear asked.
“Borya Sokolov,” Jake said.
Chapter Forty-Three
“Sokolov was here?” The words came out of Bear’s mouth like molasses in winter. “A Russian spy in Warsaw?”
“Jesus Christ.” Jake wrung the life from the steering wheel, a needle jabbing at his temple signaling the onset of a headache. “This makes no sense.”
“We assumed Connelly killed Angela, but what if we’re wrong? What the hell was Sokolov doing here?”
“I was banking on the fact Christopher was in the hands of his father. Connelly may be abusive, but I like the kid’s chances better with him than Sokolov. Stony may have beat the shit out of me, but I never worried about him killing me.”
While they pondered the brain buster, Charlie Heburon emerged from the Nix Horseshoe Bar. Hanging on his elbow was a ridden-hard-and-put-away-wet barfly with frizzled, dirty blonde hair and cottage cheese arms. Charlie’s auburn beard hung to his chest; his fifty-year-old skin wrinkled like crumpled tin foil. When he spotted Bear sitting in Jake’s truck, he gave an uncomfortable wave and stuffed his keys in his pocket, jerking the barfly up the Main Street sidewalk rather than climbing in his jalopy.
“Maybe Peter was wrong about seeing Sokolov.” Bear pressed his head to the windshield as he tracked Charlie and the woman.
“He sounded pretty damn sure, man. Let’s think for a second. With the exception of Hart and Sokolov, everyone we’ve been able to track from the dead-pool list in Connelly’s basement is swimming with the fishes, right?”
“Probably,” Bear said, leaning back as Charlie disappeared from sight.
“Sokolov, at least according to Keats and that FBI guy Lumsden, is a Russian spy. Both the guys from Trajor and MedFire had Russian names tagged in Connelly’s book. You could jump to the logical conclusion they were in cahoots.”
“And someone is killing them off one by one. But why? And who?”
Jake drummed his fingers along the top to keep the creative juices going. “They had something cooking. Keats talked about Sokolov being ex-KGB and the dead woman from the photos was his handler. He also said Sokolov was working on some technology called the Blackbird, but he either didn’t know or wouldn’t say what it was.”
“This shit makes me want a drink,” Bear said. “Either we go into the bar, or you drive to Kansas City and we talk on the way.”
Jake shifted into reverse and came within an inch of backing into Charlie and the barfly. They’d made the compact loop around downtown and were either heading back to the bar or his car. Judging from the keys in Charlie’s hand, it wasn’t to Nix’s for another round.
Bear dropped his window. “Charlie, you get into that fucking car and I’ll throw your ass in the deepest, darkest hole I can find. You already have two DUIs.”
Charlie stuffed his keys in his pocket again. “We was just going in for a nightcap, Sheriff.”
“Nightcap? It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, dumbass.”
Charlie and the barfly stumbled up the sidewalk and disappeared into the bar as Jake gassed the truck toward the highway.
“How long until he heads back out to his car?” Jake asked.
“One beer after we leave.” Bear called the office and told them to stash a deputy outside the bar. “The second the stupid redneck sticks a key into the ignition, arrest him.” He disconnected and scratched his beard. “What do you think Sokolov has cooking?”
“I don’t know, but it’s big enough someone is willing to kill his entire crew to stop.”
“Marta the handler and these two nimrods from Trajor and MedFire. What about Keats and the arms dealer guy? What was his name?”
“Fisher.” Jake turned left onto Highway 7 and gunned the truck along the winding roads heading toward Kansas City. “I doubt Fisher is part of his crew. The guy has been running guns for a while.”
“But you said Keats didn’t know him.”
Jake dismissed the statement with a flick of his hand. “Keats is the biggest gunrunner in the Midwest. No way in hell he didn’t know who Fisher is. But I can’t envision a player like Fisher getting involved in some conspiratorial Russian plot. Maybe supplying the bad guys the guns for whatever it is.”
“So, Fisher’s probably out with Sokolov. Keats?”
Jake scraped his upper lip with his teeth. “If there was a fat enough payoff for him? Yeah, Keats would get involved. Look what he did with Ares a few months ago.”
Bear pinched a dip from a can in his shirt pocket and fitted it against his gums. He spit into an empty water bottle. The smell of wintergreen drifted through the cab. “The question of the day is if Connelly is part of Sokolov’s crew, or he’s the one hunting them down.”
“Guess we’ll find out how willing Hart is to sing
when we talk to him,” Jake said.
“If he’s close-lipped, we could always beat the truth out of him.”
Jake pitched a cagey look across the truck cab. “I gotta stop hanging out with you. You’re a bad influence.”
A little under two hours later, Jake and Bear pulled to the gate at the FBI headquarters and talked to the guard. He made a call to Foster and waved them through.
Jake retuned the wave. “I keep visiting here and pretty soon they’re going to have to give me an ID badge.”
“Who’s there with Foster?” Bear asked as Jake wove through the lot on a quest for an empty spot.
“Sam Stone with the CIA. You haven’t met him yet. Seems like an okay guy. Foster trusts him anyway. Any thoughts on how to play it?”
Bear rocked his head back and forth. “Depends on what those two will let us do. One thing I’ve learned about the feds, they don’t like to relinquish control. Especially to a county sheriff and a shady-ass ex-mafia leg breaker.”
“Who you calling shady, fat boy?”
“We’re the ones who made contact with Hart. They should let us take the lead.”
Jake parked near the east end of the lot. “I don’t care who gets the info as long as we get it. I get more worried the longer Christopher is out there unaccounted for.”
They gathered with Foster and Stone outside an interrogation room on the second floor, observing Hart through a one-way mirror. Hart chewed on his fingernails, shifting in his chair like ants crawled in his pants. Foster made introductions and handshakes exchanged.
“Any word on Snell?” Jake asked.
“She’s going to be fine,” Foster said. “Out of commission for a while, but she’s going to pull through.”
“Thank God. What did you guys find out?” Jake asked.
“MedFire’s HR department provided some background on our missing Sean Mack. Been with the company for six years. Born in San Francisco, went to school at the University of Washington and worked for a company called Applied Analytic Sciences in Seattle for eight years before jumping ship to MedFire.”
Jake Caldwell Thrillers Page 68
