“So do I.” He sagged deeper into the sofa.
Somehow she knew better than to touch him. It looked like no one had for a long time.
He looked away. “I need a favor.”
“What?”
“I want to know the identities of those two men. Can you follow the CID investigation?” He looked up at her. “If it doesn’t put you in a compromising position.”
She waved it off. “I have to ask my superiors and get back to you. On one condition.”
“What?”
“I need you to go over the Afghan Op. Tomorrow.”
“You want to meet with me again?” He lifted an eyebrow.
She wanted to shout, No! She already had enough of his emotional black hole, not to mention the risk of being a casualty of whatever he was mixed up in. However, she said, “You bet, Steel.” Her buoyancy seemed out of place, even to herself. “Orders are orders.”
“Are they?”
Picking up her workout bag, she moved to the door. Suddenly she had to get out. A threat loomed over her, one she couldn’t identify. His voice stopped her at the door.
“The name’s Jack.”
She turned to him. His eyes resembled a lost puppy. Gripping the doorknob, she swung the door open. “I like Steel, if you don’t mind.” Less personal, and what she needed to stay objective. She couldn’t walk any faster to her car.
She slammed the gas pedal of the Jaguar, throwing dust into the air as she spun down the driveway. As soon as she was out of sight of the house, she punched a number on her phone. It was answered on the third ring.
“What the hell have you gotten me into, Danker?” she yelled.
CHAPTER 14
After Christie left, Steel grabbed his Glock, OTF knife, and phone and took small steps out of the house, locking the door behind him. The searing pain in his side made him dizzy.
Spinner whimpered several times beside him. He tried to comfort her with gentle pats on her neck. “Stay here, girl.” Spinner whined but lay down.
He drove the Jeep down his driveway, stopping fifty feet from the county road. Behind his vehicle, on either side of the driveway, were heavy metal gates that swung on six-inch-thick metal posts. It was painful, but he managed to pull both gates closed, then fastened and locked the sturdy chain and padlock. Bolt cutters wouldn’t work, and a car couldn’t drive through it or around it, forcing a stop and resultant camera shot.
He drove south on the county road to the next intersection, taking a right and driving along the south end of his property. He parked on the dirt shoulder. A car was coming from the east so he held his gun and waited, sliding down sideways as a precaution.
The sedan sped by and didn’t stop.
Making sure there was no further traffic, he checked a few of the hidden perimeter cameras. He found one that had a device taped to it. He pulled it off, staring at a small camera with a photograph of the woods from his camera’s perspective.
CID hadn’t found any useful evidence of the shooter who had shot Yellow in the head. Steel figured the man had entered at the same point as Blue, explaining why there was no photo. The killer had waited in the woods, watching the barn door. To do what? Ensure Yellow and Blue did their job? Someone wanted to make sure there would be no mistakes.
He tossed the camera into the Jeep and kept driving down the road. When he reached the end of his property, he drove another half mile until he came to a wooded lot with a dirt driveway and locked metal fence. A sign read, Private Property. Keep Out.
Making sure no one was following him, he drove up, unlocked the fence, and drove in, locking it behind him. He drove another hundred yards to a large steel shed hidden from the road. Exiting the Jeep, he walked up to the keypad on the side of the garage, punched the combination, pulled the door up, and drove in.
To the side was a black and blue Yamaha SR400 motorcycle with a black helmet and black leather coat on the seat. The helmet had a tinted visor so no one could recognize the wearer.
He put the helmet and jacket on, wheeled the bike out, and locked the door. When he had purchased the house, he had also bought this lot from the owner, who had purchased it under an anonymous LLC so it couldn’t be traced to him. No one could tie it to Steel either.
After locking the outer gate, he drove east to the next county road, taking it north to the highway. Then the highway west, back toward his property. No one followed him.
A half mile past his east county road, he pulled onto his land into a narrow dirt road with grass growing in it. Another sign read, Private Property. Keep Out. The road ended in fifty feet. A narrow path continued through the trees and foot-high grass. He followed the trail to a small shack with an exterior of dilapidated wood.
Parking the bike’s kickstand on a flat rock, he opened the shack’s wood door, revealing another keypad on a steel door. He punched the code, slid the thick door sideways, and quickly drove the bike inside. The cement floor was dry and bare, like the steel walls and ceiling. He left the helmet and jacket and locked up.
From there it was a slow, painful hike to the rear of his house. Glock in hand. Spinner was waiting for him, tail wagging, eager for his return. He patted her side. “Good girl.”
He unlocked the barn door, deadbolting and locking it behind him. The door had two more deadbolt bars, both two inches wide and a half inch thick, one high and one low, and could only be released from the inside. He slid them across the door.
The whole barn had a thick steel interior shell inside of the steel siding. Someone would have to use an RPG to get in. Even that might not work.
Getting out his phone, he called Kergan and left a message: “Had some visitors. Out for a run. Please get a rain coat for Carol.” Kergan would know it meant he had been attacked, was on the run and not at home, and to protect Carol.
He turned off his computer equipment and walked through the darkened barn, not needing light to guide him. Years of spelunking had given him almost a second sight in darkness.
At the far end of the barn he stopped by the last shooting target on the wall. He knelt next to the floor molding and pulled on a small section. It broke away on a hidden hinge, revealing a black button, which he pushed. He snapped the molding back in place and stood.
A four-by-six-foot section of the floor slid back, revealing a retractable stairway in the corner leading down. Spinner hopped down the steps behind him.
He pushed another switch when he reached the bottom. The flooring slid back to cover the opening again, the ladder pulling up beneath it.
The previous owner, an ex-military paranoid survivalist, had screened buyers, waiting for someone like Steel to show up. After talking to Steel for a while, and noting his interest, the owner had showed Steel the secret level he had built. It had sealed the deal for Steel.
The lower level had a small kitchen with a stove, refrigerator, pantry shelves full of enough canned and dried food to last for months, a deep freezer, microwave, and a large living room complete with a sofa and large TV. There was also another computer station and large screen, and a bedroom with a walk-in closet and bathroom.
The survivalist’s rich wife had funded the previous owner’s security system—maybe just to keep him happy. When she had died, the man had moved to an even more remote location with even more security.
Steel had never told anyone about the hidden level. Not even Carol. He figured if someone wanted to get to him, the less Carol knew the better. But maybe that was another way he had created distance between them. Isolating his life from hers.
From the refrigerator he grabbed a grapefruit-flavored water, washed down two aspirin, and sat on the sofa, exhausted, his side throbbing.
Yellow and Blue’s attack had to be over the Komodo Op. It was also a message: We know what you did and we are going to make you pay.
The military might want to interrogate him furthe
r. Even try him in a closed hearing for a prison term if they believed they had enough evidence. But they wouldn’t send two killers to murder him. It made him think someone outside of the government had ordered the Komodo Op. But who had that kind of power over the president?
It angered him that they had invaded his home and threatened him here. More upsetting—and another sign that he couldn’t let go—was that he wanted to be here in case Rachel returned. What if she came back and no one was here? That idea seemed stuck in his brain. He missed her that much.
He called his current private investigator, Larry Nerstrand. Larry had cracked some long-standing cases that others had quit on. Steel couldn’t deny a tiny seed of hope in his heart.
“Hi, Jack.”
“Any news, Larry?”
“I found someone who has a record that passed through your area about the same time your daughter went missing.”
Steel clenched the phone. “What kind of record?”
“Let me chase him down and talk to him, Jack.”
The target had to be either a pedophile or involved in sex trafficking. He swallowed. “No one will admit to something like that.”
“I know how to be persuasive.”
Steel believed him. Nerstrand was big, ex-army, and tough.
“Look, Jack, you’re a nice guy, and I want to find Rachel. But I’m done after I find this guy.”
“I can get you more money.” Though he would have to ask Carol and she would refuse. Maybe Kergan. He had some emergency money stashed too.
“That would be nice. But if this guy is a dead end, I think you have to accept she’s gone. It’s up to you, but I’ve done everything I can think of.”
“Thanks.” He hung up, wondering if he could ever let Rachel go.
He considered the attack again. Whoever was after him wouldn’t just blow up his house. They wanted to know what he knew. Which meant they would come at him again. Next time he would ask the questions. He settled back, thinking of his next point of attack.
Christie.
CHAPTER 15
Flaut had followed Steel west but was forced to drive by him when he pulled over onto the shoulder. He didn’t try to return later. Steel would spot him.
He felt sated, like he always did after a kill. As if he had plugged a hole in his head with a good drug. But the unfinished details surrounding Steel gnawed at him during the drive home. Not wanting to ruin the moment, he pushed those concerns aside.
In a half hour he pulled out his phone and called Torr. Torr was the first CEO he had ever worked for. He found that amusing. He wasn’t sure how Torr had located him. Probably through someone in the CIA. Torr was one of the few people he had ever worked for that he respected. Like himself, the man had a sense of godliness in his attitude toward people.
Torr listened in silence as Flaut filled him in, and then said, “The two idiots blew it.”
“Steel is good.”
“Where is he now?”
“After CID left, he took off in his Jeep. He locked his driveway gate. He’s on the run. It’s what I would do.”
“And you didn’t follow him?”
Flaut’s fingers tightened on his phone in response to Torr’s condescending tone. He let it go. “I recognized a woman leaving Steel’s. Christie Thorton. She’s an analyst at the Pentagon. Counter-terrorism Ops. I think she works for Danker.”
“Fine, just don’t tell Danker anything.” Torr paused. “Steel must be special. I’m sure we can give you a crack at him soon.”
Flaut knew Torr was treating him like a dog, throwing him a juicy bone. His face tightened, but he said, “I’d like that.”
***
Torr got off the phone with Flaut and immediately called his number two flunky. CIA Director Hulm. Torr couldn’t wait to tell him of the failure. He was sure the two dead men weren’t CIA. Hulm would have hired out through intermediaries. Still. Failure.
While Torr waited for Hulm to answer, he doodled on a pad of paper on the glass top of his desk. No one was dependable these days. Except Flaut. For some reason that idea made him scribble harder on the paper.
The other reason he wanted to call Hulm was to make sure the man was clear on what to do with Steel. He opened the file folder on Steel and scanned the information. There were lots of ways to make him pay.
He had a sense for things like this, how to time them perfectly. Whether in the boardroom or in a corporate takeover, instinct guided him. It got him to where he was today. Head of the flunkies.
Hulm answered curtly. “I’m aware. I’ll take care of it. Whatever you do, don’t send Flaut after Steel. If anything goes wrong, they’ll trace Flaut back to you.” He hung up without waiting for a response.
For some reason Torr didn’t find Hulm’s response trustworthy, but he did agree with not using Flaut. He called the head of his company security. They would find someone to do what he wanted.
***
This time Hulm was the one who wanted to punch someone—the president. But Hulm didn’t allow his puffy face to show it.
The president smiled at him. “So now Torr has you jumping through hoops. How does it feel?”
“Torr wants Steel dead, but I have an idea.”
***
When Flaut arrived home, his three-year-old golden retriever, Lacy, ran up and stopped just before him in the kitchen, her head bowed and her eyes averted.
“Good girl.” He stroked her head until she finally lifted her gaze to his. Lacy had been an abused dog that he had adopted. Sometimes he still wanted to track down the abuser and make him pay, but the shelter had no information on the previous owner that had abandoned the dog.
He threw a frozen dinner in the microwave for himself and cooked a pound of lean hamburger on the stove for Lacy. They ate together. Afterward he sat on the couch in the living room and put in a porn DVD. One of his favorites. Lacy sat next to him while he stroked her back.
He took a shot of Jack Daniels. Then he slipped a thin silver case out of the coffee table drawer in front of him. With practiced care he opened the case, not wanting to jar it. It was filled with a layer of white powder. He took a credit card and cut three lines. Using a thin straw in the case, he took one line into a nostril, settled back, and waited for the rush to flood his limbs.
Steel.
The fact that Steel had allowed targets to live on the Komodo Op drove a needle of anxiety into his head. It left him with an unfinished feeling. As if he was seeing a beautiful sculpture ninety-five percent completed, but with all work on it stopped. Some part of him couldn’t resolve itself with that, and Steel had caused this incompleteness.
Eventually he would have to go south to finish the Komodo Op, with or without Blackhood Ops. It bothered him that he was so enslaved to finishing things, but he reminded himself that it was perfection he sought. Like any great artist.
An image of his father swam into his eyes.
You can’t be great at anything unless you do it perfectly, said his father. You’re going to swing that bat until you have a perfect swing. No dinner until you do. And no talking unless you’re talked to. His father rapped his palm with a bat.
Flaut blinked and the image disappeared. He didn’t let it come back, instead choosing to ride the rush back to Steel.
Torr would eventually send him after Steel, but he didn’t know if he could wait. He didn’t mind that Torr had sent hired guns against Steel. If Steel hadn’t been able to handle them, he wouldn’t be worth the bother. And before today, Flaut didn’t know how good Steel was.
Performance, even excellence, on pre-planned Blackhood Ops was different than performing in improvised situations. But now he knew Steel represented a challenge that made his heart race.
A solution came to him. Check out Steel’s virtual reality operation. He had used the Blackhood Ops VR program many times in training
and was well-versed in it. But he wanted to run something special on Steel’s system. Look at it as a preview of things to come.
CHAPTER 16
The next morning Steel’s side felt better.
He changed his security text alerts to a new phone he had ready for such an occasion. Taking the old one apart, he trashed it. Using another burner phone, he sent a text to Christie. He wasn’t sure about her, but the fact that Kergan had recommended her meant something. And Yellow and Blue had planned to kill her.
If the people she reported to were behind this, they were keeping it from her. Letting her know he wasn’t living at his house anymore would get the information to her superiors. If they were the ones involved, they wouldn’t come to his place to look for him unless they were following her. He wanted to find out.
Christie returned his text with a call, and he said, “I’m not staying at the house anymore so we have to meet elsewhere. There’s a truck stop a half hour east of my place on the highway. Noon sharp. Make sure your car doesn’t have a tracker on it and you’re not followed.”
“You think I led those men to you?” Her voice held surprise.
“It’s for your own safety.” He hung up.
Another thing bothered him. Yellow and Blue had bypassed his perimeter too easily.
He went up to the first level. From a locked cabinet he selected a number of wireless pressure pads, minicameras, and motion sensors, and threw them all into a bag. Then he exited the ground-level door and walked with Spinner into the woods. His Glock traveled with him all the time now.
Anyone entering his property would eventually funnel into a few choke points that he could monitor. He didn’t want to use booby traps, since bear, deer, or Spinner could set them off.
He hid a motion detector and camera on the bridge over the stream. Next he buried the pressure pads just under a film of dirt in two different places he felt an intruder might take if they were coming toward his home from the south or east.
Satisfied, he returned to the barn to make sure he could pick up the new feeds. After that he took Spinner to the lower level, said goodbye, and left. Spinner wasn’t a barker, and the ceiling was sound-proofed anyway.
Steel Force Page 6
