by Chad Zunker
He circled another run-down house and paused at the next street. He leaned against a black truck, panting, his heart pounding in his ears. He rarely did the chase anymore. Maybe a jog on the treadmill every two weeks. As assistant director in charge of the Washington, DC, field office, he spent most of his time telling others how to run down criminals and terrorists. But every once in a while, it was good to shake the rust off, get dirty, show your team that you’re just one of them. He was regretting that decision at the moment.
Catching his breath, Lloyd heard the sound of trash cans bouncing to the concrete a few houses away. He’d guessed right. He crouched behind the truck and peered around the bumper. He stared into semidarkness. Two seconds ticked passed. Nothing. And then he appeared. The skinny man looked frantic, fleeing wildly but swiftly, the other men unable to catch him on foot. The man stopped for nothing, not even trash cans, his bare feet slapping down on the sidewalk directly toward Lloyd. His agents were still thirty feet behind and losing ground. Lloyd pressed his eyes closed, grunted to himself. He knew what he had to do and could already feel his old body ache.
Hidden, Lloyd began to count down the seconds.
Three . . . two . . . one.
He leaped from behind the truck, tackled the near-naked man with his still-strong shoulder. They collided violently, a linebacker crushing an unwitting quarterback. The man let out a horrible gasp and landed square on his back, Lloyd on top of him. Within seconds, Lloyd had him flipped over and his arms pinned behind his back, nearly ripping them out of the sockets. The man continued to moan in agony.
Lloyd stood and let the younger agents take over. He rubbed his shoulder. His whole arm felt numb. He was way too old for this crap.
“You okay, sir?” asked a blond agent named Carter.
“Just splendid.”
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Lloyd hobbled down the sidewalk, pressed it to his ear. His lead agent and good friend, Michael Epps, was checking in from the office.
“You get the guy?” Epps asked.
“You could say that.” Lloyd grimaced. “What’s up?”
“Just had something interesting come across my desk. Thought you should know.”
“Okay, don’t make me beg.”
“You heard of Alger Gerlach?”
Lloyd ran that name through his brain. “Gerlach? You mean the assassin?”
“Yeah. They used to call him the Gray Wolf. Or I guess they still do.”
“Sure, I’ve seen the BBC story.” A BBC reporter had put together a profile piece on Gerlach several years ago. It was a fascinating tale of murder and mayhem. The Gray Wolf was part legend and part myth. “Why are you asking?”
“We think we just got a local hit on him.”
“You’re kidding? Where?”
“Reagan International. Just a few hours ago.”
“Wait, I thought this guy was dead or something.”
“I’m not sure, to be honest. There have been lots of rumors. Also heard he retired a few years ago. Hard to know what’s really true. He’s been known to move around the world under a hundred different aliases.”
“And you’re telling me that one of them popped up on our radar in our backyard?”
“Yes, sir. American Airlines flight from Paris.”
“You send anyone over to Reagan?”
“I got TJ and Bartlett already headed over there to look around.”
“Any chance this is a bug in the system?”
“Sure, there’s always that chance. But Krieger thinks it’s legit.”
Agent Krieger was the genius tech lead on his team.
Lloyd sighed, rubbed his shoulder. “Okay, I’m headed back your way. Dig up what you can for me.” He glanced at the near-naked man, who was now in handcuffs. “I should’ve never come out here in the first place.”
“I tried to tell you, Chief. It’s not necessary.”
“I know, I know.”
“You need a medic or something?”
“No, just a drink.” Before hanging up, Lloyd again thought about Gerlach. “Hey, Mike, has the Gray Wolf ever worked on American soil?”
“Not to our knowledge. This would be a first.”
ELEVEN
Sam left the small church, walked the busy streets of Mexico City. Although the sun was now setting, the heat was still palpable, the sticky humidity on his skin. Sam was not comfortable staying in one place for very long. He kept running the details of his meeting with Tom Hawkins through his head. Who was Zapata? Why was Zapata’s crew trying to kill Hawkins? What did his partner, Rich Hebbard, have that they all wanted? Why the hell was Hawkins’s briefcase empty when he insisted that all the sordid details of this conspiracy were inside? Was the guy crazy? Or just drunk? Or both? None of it made any sense.
Sam couldn’t even wrap his mind around the very last thing Hawkins had said to him.
Rich Hebbard said he was his father? Impossible.
According to Sam’s mother, his father was a small-time drug dealer who was living on the rough side of Denver when they’d met. She was a homeless teenager, only fourteen years old, and he was already abusing her when she became pregnant. He’d threatened to kill her if she didn’t terminate the pregnancy. She ran away just to give Sam a chance. Sam had never questioned her story. It just made sense. And now, twenty-five years later, Sam was supposed to somehow believe that his real father might actually be a successful lawyer named Rich Hebbard who had his own law firm in New Orleans? Sam couldn’t even entertain the idea as a real possibility. After all that he and his mom had been through, especially of late, he couldn’t even fathom that she would’ve kept that truth from him.
So why had Hebbard told Hawkins that blatant lie?
After twenty minutes of walking around, hiding in the shadows, with still no reply from the burner cell phone, Sam huddled in a quiet alley, near a pile of cardboard boxes, away from the sidewalks. He took out the cell phone he’d stolen from the teenage girl in the marketplace earlier and dialed a number from memory. It was time to call in the cavalry.
David Benoltz answered on the third ring.
“Tom Hawkins is dead,” Sam said.
A pause. “What . . . what happened?”
“Someone came into our hotel suite during our meeting, intent to kill. Shot up the door. A professional, David. And he pumped Hawkins full of bullets.”
David was quiet for a moment. “Are you okay?”
“They tried to kill me, too. I got away.”
David cursed. “Who were they?”
“He mentioned someone named Zapata. That ring a bell?”
“No, I don’t recognize that name.”
“Me neither. But I’m on the run.”
Another pause. “Wait . . . are you messing with me, Sam? Is this a joke?”
“I wish! I’ve got the cuts and bruises to prove otherwise.”
Not to mention a chipped tooth and no hair, Sam thought.
David cursed again. “Have you gone to the police? Why are you running?”
“The police can’t help me. I tried.”
“What do you mean, they can’t help? Why the hell not? Let me start making some calls, get this sorted out. Where are you right now?”
Sam ignored his question. “When Tom Hawkins called the firm yesterday, did he specifically request for me to take this meeting?”
David thought about it for a second. “Actually, yes, he did.”
“You didn’t think that was worth mentioning to me?”
“Your name is on the website, you’re listed as my associate, and if you’ll recall, you made some really big headlines last year. So people have been calling. Why’re you asking?”
“Just something Tom said, that’s all.”
Sam wasn’t ready to mention anything about Hebbard possibly being his father. It still seemed absurd.
“Where are you?” David repeated. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine. I’ve survived worse.”
“I’ve got to get you out of there.”
“I don’t have my passport or any ID. And I can’t go back to get it.”
“Why not?”
“Long story. Just trust me.” He knew he could not mention Natalie. Based on the texts with the video, he was hesitant even to call David in the first place.
David sighed again. “Okay, listen, I know a guy there. We go way back. He’s former military Special Forces. Did a lot of secret ops. He moved across the border when he got into some trouble here with the government. He’s been living in Mexico City for the past ten years. He’s not a bad guy, just kind of odd. I helped him out, so he owes me one. He knows his way around, knows who to trust.”
“How do I find him?”
“Let me reach out to him right now.”
Sam noticed two uniformed cops suddenly pass in front of the alley, look in his direction. He cursed. “I’ll call you back in thirty minutes.”
He hung up the phone, turned, hurried down the alley.
TWELVE
Thankfully, they’d pulled the black hood off.
Natalie took great pride in being more mentally tough than most, but even she wasn’t sure she could’ve handled sitting in a solitary room for hours on end in complete darkness. That was a scary thought on the drive over. Although the hood was now gone, the duct tape was still securely in place, covering her mouth, wrapped tightly around both wrists, and firmly bundled around both of her ankles. She sat uncomfortably in a wobbly wooden chair in the middle of some dark warehouse, the only light from a yellowed bulb just above a door to maybe a front-office room directly in front of her, as well as from an outside security light shining in through two large windows at the top of one of the tall metal walls of the building.
Natalie felt they were still near DC somewhere. She tried to keep a running clock in her mind, guessing that the unmarked van had driven around for maybe forty-five minutes, but she couldn’t be certain. The black hood made her feel disoriented. When the van doors opened, it was eerily quiet outside. They were in a remote location with no other car sounds to be heard. Strong hands carried her out of the van. Recognizing it was not a good use of her energy, she resisted the urge to fight them. She needed to preserve her strength for the right moment. They moved her inside the building and guided her through a few doors. The clicking of the door shutting behind her echoed in the cold space. Finally, when they arrived at her current destination, they sat her in the chair.
Within minutes of arriving, the men had pulled off the hood.
The video camera was already in place on a metal stand right in front of her. A light stand was next to it, a bright bulb shining a spotlight in her face. It was blinding. The bald and bearded driver from the van calmly told her to talk to the camera. He pulled the duct tape from her mouth, and she screamed the first thing that came to her mind: “Sam!” Seconds later, the bearded man covered her mouth again with the duct tape. The bright light next to the camera went off. With spots still in her eyes, she was able to watch two men—the young intern from the parking garage and the bearded driver—pack up the camera and lighting equipment, and then they both walked out of the warehouse room together through the office door.
Natalie sat there alone for an hour. Maybe it was shorter or longer. She couldn’t be sure. Although she tried, she had no way to properly gauge time. They’d taken her cell phone away in the van. She didn’t hear a sound the whole time she sat there, other than the wind pushing against the metal walls of the warehouse. It was maddening. They were not in the city. She was sure of that. She couldn’t hear any cars driving by, even in the far distance. Did they go north, south, east, or west? She couldn’t be certain. The warehouse felt cold and damp. She spotted a rat scampering across the floor thirty feet from her. She prayed it would not come near. There was an oversize garage door to her left. Apparently, the garage was designed to fit school buses, as an old yellow bus actually was parked just behind her. From the looks of it, she guessed it had been sitting there for more than a decade. It was dusty, and all the tires were deflated. There were no longer any official school markings on the side of the bus. They’d been completely covered up with graffiti. She thought that might mean there were teenagers somewhere nearby, within walking distance. So if she somehow got out of here, maybe she wouldn’t have to run too far for help?
After sitting there for a while without seeing or hearing anyone, Natalie finally got her nerve up. She refused to just wait around to be rescued. She inched herself to the edge of her wooden chair, then rocked twice and used her momentum to get up onto her feet. With both her hands and feet bound together by duct tape, it was difficult to maneuver. She couldn’t just walk out of there. But she could hop slowly. Maybe she could find a tool of some sort to cut off the duct tape and run for the hills. As quietly as possible, she began to inch toward the large garage door, where the most light came in from the outside window, one small jump at a time.
One hop. Pause, listen. Another hop. Pause, listen. And so forth.
She got halfway to the garage door when the office door suddenly opened, and bright light poured into the warehouse. Natalie cursed. The stocky crew-cut guy from the parking garage entered the room. There was nothing Natalie could do. She had no freedom to flee, nor any way to defend herself. She just stood there and grimaced as the guy got closer, wondering if he would somehow punish her for getting out of the chair. She could see that his left eye was black and swollen, and Natalie thought it was probably from the swift kick of her foot in the parking garage. She’d struck quite the blow and left some damage.
When the guy reached her, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t punch her. He just lifted her up over his thick shoulder, carried her right back to the wooden chair. He set her back down, and then he calmly took out more duct tape and proceeded to secure her to the chair this time. He methodically wrapped the duct tape all the way around her upper body and the back of the chair. Then he fastened her legs to the front chair legs. She had just lost her small sense of freedom.
Sitting there, analyzing her situation, Natalie made two quick mental notes. First, they were obviously watching her somehow from the other room. She carefully scanned the warehouse. Were there video cameras? She wondered how many people were inside the front office. Just the stocky crew-cut one? Or were there others? How many men would she have to evade to get out of this place? Second, she was surprised, considering what she’d done to the crew-cut guy’s face earlier, that he didn’t take the opportunity to return the favor. She was grateful, of course, but it didn’t fit the profile she was developing in her mind. She was fully prepared to feel the wrath of his fist. Or worse. But nothing ever came.
Finally, the crew-cut guy turned, found the black hood on the floor. Natalie cursed under her breath. The guy carefully pulled the hood back over her head without a word. She was in darkness again. She tensed up, wondering if he would now take his chance to clobber her when she was most vulnerable. No physical contact came. A moment later, she heard the office door open and close. She was alone again in the warehouse. However, she was not as frightened as she was the last time while wearing the hood. At least she had a feel for her whereabouts. For whatever reason, they were not violent with her. Was there no truth to beat out of her? Could she simply be a pawn in someone’s game?
Sam. They needed her to get to Sam.
Why? Who were these guys?
In the darkness under the hood, she kept running these questions in her mind.
Anything to not think about that rat being in the same room with her.
THIRTEEN
Sam sat at a small table along a metal railing in a quaint second-story café, overlooking the Zócalo, Mexico City’s famous main square, surrounded on all sides by massive old building structures. The Zócalo was the city’s center for national celebration and national protest—where the Mexican people regularly gathered for festivals, religious events, royal proclamations, and military parades. A boisterous festival of some sort was
currently in progress, as the square was already crowded with thousands of people. His eyes shifted back and forth from the square below to the front doors of the café, making sure no unexpected guests suddenly arrived in search of him. In twenty minutes, he was set to meet a man David called Uncle Jerry next to the giant flagpole, towering more than 150 feet high, that stood directly in the center of the Zócalo. An enormous red, white, and green Mexican flag swayed in the warm wind.
Sam’s instructions from David were to stand on the north side of the flag, twenty feet away, and Uncle Jerry would find him. David couldn’t really give him a current description of Uncle Jerry; he had not seen him in more than ten years. David wasn’t sure if Jerry, now in his fifties, had altered his appearance. All he could tell Sam was Uncle Jerry once sported a braided black ponytail and a mustache. He’d been skinny with a perpetual cigarette. A tattoo of a creepy black scorpion was etched into the skin on the back of his left hand. All that could’ve changed. Sam felt uneasy with the vagueness. David insisted he could trust the guy.
Sam trusted no one. But he needed serious help.
Uncle Jerry would have to do for now.
The café was busy with patrons. It was nearing dinnertime—or drinking time—as most of his fellow guests seemed to be enjoying cold cervezas and cocktails. Sam ordered black coffee but barely sipped it. He wasn’t hungry or thirsty. His stomach was tied up in thick knots. Although he tried to stop himself, he kept watching that damn video on the cell phone of Natalie being held hostage, kept hearing her scream his name. He’d already sent three more desperate text messages to the original number, each one escalating his anger. He still hadn’t heard anything back. He was losing his mind. Watching the video was not helping matters, of course. He felt so lost, just sitting around, waiting.
