Cummins had seen Smith’s tattoo before but gave it little significance. Now, however, he realized it was more than just a decoration. A shiver went up his spine.
“This is the symbol of the Brigade,” Keller said. “Of the Freedom Brigade.”
Oh shit, Cummins thought. Fanatics.
He lifted his head and saw the intent expression on each of the other men’s faces.
“The question is,” Keller said. “Are you man enough to join with us?”
“You remember about that new start I was talking to you about, Jack?” Smith asked. “Well, this is it.”
Cummins felt a new rush of panic. During his days in MI he’d read bulletins about fanatical groups within the U.S. Usually, they were highly secretive and on the periphery of society. He suddenly got the feeling that declining to join was not an option at the moment. Usually with these highly secret organizations, once you found out about them, it was either join up or die.
“Hey, Charlie,” Smith said, gesturing toward the window. “Looks like you got visitors.”
All four of them watched as a maroon Escalade pulled up in the parking area next to Riley’s trailer. Two men got out and Cummins felt an immediate surge of panic as he saw it was Wolf and McNamara.
“Shit,” Riley said. “It’s my god damn ex-father-in-law.”
“Looks like that older one’s packing,” Keller said. “He a cop?”
“Huh-un,” Riley said. “A bounty hunter.”
“Same difference,” Keller said, peeling back his blouse and pulling out a large Desert Eagle from a pancake holster on his right side. “Whadda they want?”
Riley shrugged. “Must be about my kid. I’ll go see.”
He started to get up but Keller shoved him back down.
“We don’t need no complications,” he said. “Not with the operation so close.”
“Shooting them’s gonna bring the cops around,” Smith said. He stood. “Lemme go get rid of them.”
Cummins didn’t want that either. Not if he was going to approach Wolf about trading the bandito for the kid. But what was this about some “operation?”
Keller licked his lips and nodded then turned to Cummins and Riley.
“You two go over there and stay out of sight. Telephone your girlfriend to stay away from here till they’re gone.”
“She’s my girl,” Smith said taking out his phone and scrolling down the lexicon of numbers. He handed the phone to Riley. “Here, call her.”
He waited until the other three had moved away from the window and then opened the door and made a slow descent down the steps.
Wolf watched the man in the T-shirt and jeans approach from the trailer next door. The guy appeared to be in his late twenties with a buzz cut that was straight out of the ‘Stan. The short sleeve on his left shoulder was rolled over containing what appeared to be a cigarette pack. His arms were well-muscled and the guy moved with a lithe gracefulness that reminded Wolf a big jungle cat. Those types were the most dangerous and hardest to fight. But they were looking for Chad, not trouble.
“Can I help you?” the man said. He pronounced “help” like “hep,” which seemed to indicate a Southern accent.
This guy was one of those good old boys.
“We’re looking for Charlie,” McNamara said.
“He ain’t home.”
“Know when he’ll be back?” McNamara asked.
The man shook his head. “Took off a while ago.”
“Was he alone?” McNamara asked.
Smith cocked his head to the side.
“As I recall, he had his gal and his little kid with him. Said something about going to the Grand Canyon.”
Wolf saw a black Chevy Malibu parked on the other side of the expansive driveway, by the trailer this guy had exited. It was covered with a patina of dust. There was a U-Haul box truck parked on the other side of the Malibu. Something about the Chevy jogged his memory. He’d seen it before. It was the same one that had been parked on the access road by the ranch earlier when Riley had picked up Chad.
And now, here it was, parked close to Riley’s trailer, which was hardly a coincidence.
“They say when they’d be back?” McNamara asked.
The man shook his head. “Don’t recall that they did.” He smiled. It was a good old boy smile, ingratiating, friendly, guileless. “But the Grand Canyon’s quite a drive from here. I expect they’ll be gone at least overnight.”
McNamara’s lips compressed in frustration.
“They took that ragged-ass Caravan of his all the way to the Grand Canyon?” Wolf said stepping forward. He wanted to get a closer look at this guy. “Why didn’t you loan him your Malibu?”
The man’s forehead twitched a bit and he studied Wolf as if contemplating how to reply.
After about fifteen seconds of silence, the man replied, the grin still etched on his face. “That old Dodge runs better than it looks.”
“You must know him pretty well,” Wolf said.
The man shrugged. “Fair to middlin’ is all.”
“Know where he works?” Wolf asked.
The good old boy smile drooped a bit. “Why you asking?”
“I’m his father-in-law,” McNamara said. “Or at least I was. I need to talk to him about something.”
“Something?” The guy lifted his eyebrows. “What’s that mean?”
“That’s between me and him,” McNamara said. “Family business.”
The man’s head bobbled up and down in a knowing acknowledgment.
“Say,” Wolf said. “Would you happen to have his number? Maybe we can just give him a call.”
The fatuous grin returned once more as he shook his head.
“Can’t say that I do. Sorry. Maybe try information.”
Wolf and McNamara exchanged glances.
“I do declare,” the man said jutting his head in the direction of the Escalade. “That sure is a fine-looking deluxe ride you got there. That’s a mighty pretty color, too.”
“Thanks,” McNamara said.
As the man walked up the steps to his trailer, he flipped down the rolled-up left sleeve of his T-shirt and removed a cigarette pack with the same red and blue design of the empty one that the woman had dropped on the driveway.
Uptown Blues Menthol, Wolf thought. For those with sophisticated tastes.
“Hey,” Wolf called out. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“I didn’t throw it.” The man stopped, put a cigarette in his mouth, and lit it. “But it’s Smith. Roger D. How about you?”
“Wolf.”
Smith replaced the pack and lighter in the fold of his mini-sleeve, blew out a plume of smoke and then asked, “Them jump wings you got there on your arm for real or just for show?”
Wolf had gotten the tattoo of the Airborne insignia on his right forearm shortly after graduating jump school at Fort Benning.
“They’re real,” Wolf said.
“How far?” Smith asked.
“All the way,” Wolf said.
Smith grinned and peeled the right sleeve of his T-shirt displaying a well-developed deltoid with a picture of paratrooper descending and the words DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR underneath.
“Thank you for your service,” Wolf said.
Smith nodded and said, “Right back at ya. I’ll let Charlie know you stopped by if I see him.” He pulled open the door and went inside his trailer.
When Wolf and McNamara got back into their Escalade, Wolf could see the worry stretched over Mac’s face. He started the SUV and did a slow look at Riley’s trailer and then to Smith’s as they pulled away.
“You believe him?” McNamara asked.
Wolf shrugged. “Hard to say. He’s more than just a concerned neighbor, though. That Malibu was out on the access road this morning when Riley picked up Chad.”
“So I noticed,” McNamara said. “So they’re asshole buddies and that guy Smith might be covering for my not-so-upstanding ex-son-in-law. I wonder if he’s a jailbi
rd, too?”
“Birds of a feather.”
“Shit.” McNamara slammed his open palm against the steering wheel. “And he’s got my grandson.”
“With this damn custody thing, there’s not a whole lot you can do at the moment. The best thing’s to try and find a new lawyer for Kasey.”
McNamara accelerated down the street, passing cars like they were standing still, then he abruptly slowed down.
“I guess we’d best go back and tell Kase about this,” he said.
That was one task Wolf hoped Mac would prefer to do alone.
Cummins had been watching as Wolf and McNamara got into their Cadillac and drove off.
Thank God they’ve gone, he thought.
The flood of bile had risen up to his throat and then luckily subsided. His tonsils still burned, however.
Smith had been standing near the front door smoking and watching. He turned and came back to the kitchen table after the Escalade vanished.
“They gone?” Keller asked.
“Sure enough,” Smith said.
“What the hell did they want?” Keller asked.
“Looking for Charlie,” Smith said. He took a drag on his cigarette, leaned his head back and puffed out a hazy smoke ring. “I told them y’all’d all gone to the Grand Canyon.”
“Shit,” Riley said, smirking. “Good thinking.”
“Did they buy it?” Keller asked.
Smith shrugged. “They fucking left, didn’t they?”
Keller’s nostrils flared.
Cummins was wondering about all this. There was a lot more going on here than he’d bargained for … a whole helluva a lot more.
Keller pointed at Riley. “You go pack your bags. Best spend the night elsewhere. You and the kid. We can’t take the chance of them two coming back and seeing any of you.”
Riley nodded, scratching at the bandage on his left arm which was now covering the tattoo again.
“And you both figure out what you want to take to Base Freedom,” he said to Smith. “Then come dark, we can load it into the U-Haul.”
Base Freedom? Cummins thought. What the hell did that mean?
Smith looked around the trailer and nodded.
Keller turned back to Cummins.
“What you got in your wallet?” he asked.
They were back to that again. Cummins wasn’t sure on how to take this question. He didn’t answer.
Keller’s expression grew more intense. “What you got in your fucking wallet?”
Cummins shrugged, now wishing he’d stashed more of his money in another place. He mulled over his options and came to the conclusion that it was better to fork over the wallet than to have this brute pull out the Desert Eagle again. Plus, there was still the kid to consider. It was all about pretending he was in for the duration until the time was right. And at the moment, he needed to keep floating under their cloak of anonymity.
Smith started to say something but Cummins waved dismissively and took out his wallet. Keller reached over and peeled open the billfold. His big fingers shuffled through the bills, removed all the credit cards and emptied out the scraps of paper and cards. He looked at Cummins’s driver’s license and the false ID card that he’d had made up.
“What’s this for?” Keller asked, his index finger tapping the bogus ID.
“I’m out on bond,” Cummins said. “Thought I might need it down the road.”
Keller seemed to consider this. After counting and setting the money aside, he went through the credit and debit cards next and finally the other stuff. He stopped and looked at one of Cummins’s business cards.
“John H. Cummins,” Keller read. “Attorney at law. Guess you really are a lawyer, ain’t ya?”
Cummins nodded.
Keller flipped the card over as saw the writing on the back. It contained the phone number he had for reaching Fallotti.
“Fallotti Law Firm,” Keller said in a halting tone as he struggled to read the words. “This the place you work at?”
“Used to,” Cummins said. “As I told you, I left.”
“Why’d you do that?”
Cummins felt he was treading on thin ice here. One wrong answer and the son of a bitch might just pull out that big pistol and that wouldn’t be pleasant.
“Actually, the firm went out of business,” he managed to say, sticking as close to the truth as he could without divulging too much.
Keller pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number on the card. Cummins was confident that it would come back as “No longer in service,” which it did.
Keller’s tongue protruded from between his lips, like a big lizard searching for food. Then he hung up and shoved the pile of money, credit cards, and other stuff across the table to Cummins. He began reinserting everything back into the wallet.
“You gonna make a donation to the Brigade, ain’t ya?” Keller said. It didn’t sound much like a question.
Cummins paused and the other man held out his hand.
Feeling he had little choice, Cummins stripped off one of the hundreds and laid it in Keller’s open palm.
Keller didn’t move, his hand still extended, his eyes fixed on Cummins.
There were one twenty and two tens but Cummins could see the venal gleam in the big prick’s eyes. He wouldn’t be satisfied with something small. Cummins put another hundred in the other man’s hand but Keller still didn’t move.
If I give it all to the prick too easily, Cummins thought, it’ll be a tip-off that I have more.
But the thought of provoking this big psycho also had its risks.
Smith leaned forward and put his hand on Cummins’s wallet.
“Charlie and me already owe him,” Smith said. “He helped us out.”
Keller rotated his head upward and locked eyes with Smith then smirked and crumpled the two hundreds in his hand. He reached over with steady deliberation and grabbed one more century note and tucked the currency in his pants pocket. Standing, he grinned and looked down at Cummins.
“Jack,” he said. “Welcome to the Freedom Brigade.”
Kasey was more than a little upset when they’d broken the news to her. Mac asked Wolf to back him up but Wolf had let him do all the talking. He merely stood and watched. Kasey seemed to crumble under the news, the tears welling up in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. She immediately called the cell phone she’d given to Chad but it went directly to voice mail. Charlie called her back a few minutes later and claimed that he was on the road and couldn’t answer. She flipped the phone on speaker so the three of them could listen.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Huh? Why?”
Wolf caught the evasiveness in the man’s tone but remained silent.
“My dad went over to your trailer,” she said. “Chad has some medicine he was supposed to take.”
They’d all agreed that it would be best not to mention that they knew of his recent arrest.
“What kind of medicine?” Riley’s tone had grown accusatory. “Why didn’t you give it to me when I picked him up?”
“Just some vitamins his pediatrician recommended,” she said quickly. “They hadn’t arrived yet when you came by.”
Riley made a huffing sound.
“So your neighbor said something about you going to the Grand Canyon,” Kasey said.
“That’s right.” His tone was still confrontational. “Ain’t nothing wrong with me taking my boy on a little trip, is there?”
“Well, it would have been nice if you would’ve told me.”
“It woulda been nice you told me you got some stud muffin staying with you, too. He your new boyfriend?”
Wolf felt a flush of embarrassment. Nothing could be farther from the truth but Riley was revealing himself to be the jealous type who jumped to conclusions.
McNamara’s face betrayed no emotion but Wolf knew this was hard on him as well.
Kasey assured her ex that wasn’t the case and asked to speak to Chad.
“We just stopped for ice cream,” Riley said. “I’ll have him call you later. Seven o’clock was what we agreed on, right?”
With that, he hung up.
Kasey looked both furious and concerned. She glanced up at her father.
“Oh, dad, I don’t know what to do now.”
McNamara placed a hand on her shoulder and told her not to worry.
“At this point,” he said, “we got to play it smart. You did good not telling him too much on the phone. The main thing we got to do now is find us another good lawyer and work on getting this custody thing readjusted.”
She nodded and Wolf saw that she was close to tears. The situation seemed unsettling to him and he felt that there was more going on than met the eye, so to speak. But given his tenuous and often strained relationship with Mac’s daughter, he kept his suspicions to himself.
“If only Rod hadn’t gotten killed,” she said and then broke down into tears. McNamara put his arms around her and pulled her to his shoulder.
If only, Wolf thought. But he knew, as difficult as it was, there was nothing to do but ride this one out.
For now, anyway.
And he had the feeling it was going to be anything but a pleasant ride.
Mixed Martial Arts Fighting Academy
Phoenix, Arizona
An hour later, Wolf was clad in a sweat suit at Reno’s huge gym, oblivious to the cacophony of the clatter of lifted weights, the staccato rhythm of the speed-bags being pounded, and the grunting of the other participants smacking punch after punch into the heavy-bags. Even the relentless soundtrack of the heavy rock music barely registered with him. Instead, he remained totally focused on the task at hand, at least to the best of his ability.
Wolf threw a couple more jabs at the focus pads, then followed up with a straight right. He knew his performance was desultory. He’d only been at it for about twenty minutes and already felt spent. Reno Garth smacked his cane against the side of the octagonal cage and yelled.
“Pick it up, Steve,” he yelled. “Dammit. You better start showing me something.”
Wolf knew he looked bad. His body was here but his head was back at the Ranch worrying about Chad and Mac and, yes, Kasey. He threw another combination that was a little bit faster, then followed up with an uppercut as George Patton, his informal, sometimes trainer, flipped his hand down to give him the target.
Devil's Brigade (Trackdown Book 3) Page 8
