The Days Before: A Prequel to the Five Roads to Texas series (A Five Roads to Texas Novel Book 8)

by Brian Parker

  The smell of brewing coffee filled the air, relaxing Brandon. He filled his mug and walked over to his desk, sitting heavily on the creaky office chair. The shadowy head of the detainee appeared through the observation glass. It was still dark in the cell, he hadn’t turned on the lights yet, so he couldn’t make out any details of the man’s face. All he could tell was that he wasn’t a white guy.

  The pounding and kicking intensified, including several ill-advised head butts to the reinforced ballistic glass. The officer chuckled with each successive hit as the dummy in the cell staggered backward after each blow. “Keep it up and you’ll knock yourself out,” he said loudly. “Why don’t you sit back down, let me read your report, and then I’ll get you some breakfast.”

  He hoped the substation’s security camera recorded his comments. If the idiot in the cell ended up needing to go to the hospital from all the damage he was doing to himself, Brandon wanted to be sure that the tapes showed him trying to calm the man down. In today’s world, where every media outlet was ready to pounce on alleged police brutality, a guy had to protect himself and his family.

  The detainee’s report was pretty vanilla stuff. He’d flown in from Brazil and was arrested on suspicion of entering the country on a false passport. Turns out that whoever he’d bought the passport from wasn’t terribly inventive and had reused the same name and number on other passports that had cleared customs in the past few days. Spanish-speaking detectives from the precinct had come over to the airport, but hadn’t been able to determine anything from the man, who’d remained silent except for repeating the phrase, “I have nothing to declare.”

  That was it. There was nothing else in the man’s report. The only other thing was a quickly-scribbled note that said that Homeland had been notified and they would be sending over FBI agents in the morning.

  “Ah, heck,” Brandon sighed, setting the folder aside and taking a long pull from his mug. “Guess I gotta get you fed and presentable for the agents.”

  The unnamed perp screamed at him from behind the door and began going wild once more as if he’d forgotten that Brandon was there while he read the report. The pounding increased to a level that Officer Hollister hadn’t thought possible. “What the fuck?” he muttered. “Sorry, Lord,” he amended. He’d been trying to walk closer with God the past few years. Part of that was not cursing. He’d be sure to add that to confession Saturday morning when he made it over to Saint Lucy.

  He pushed himself from the desk and the sounds of the detainee’s head thumping into the observation glass reverberated through the small office. Brandon walked over to the door and paused as he noticed cracks in the glass gleaming in the light from the office. “Wow. You’re a special kind of stupid, aren’t ya, buddy?”

  Brandon reached out and flipped the light switch beside the door to illuminate the inside of the cell and froze. Blood covered the glass as the man inside continued to pound his head into it. The detainee himself was bleeding heavily from dozens of wounds to his face and head. A large flap of skin folded open each time he reared his head back, revealing the bloody bone underneath. It flopped more or less back into place as he went forward to slam his face into the glass.

  The view through the window was blurred and murky from the smudged gore, but what he could see looked like a crime scene investigator’s wet dream. The white cinder block walls had filth of every kind on them. It looked as if the guy in the cell had smeared blood, urine, and feces across everything that he could reach. Brandon swore under his breath.

  “You’re gonna clean all of that up before the feds take you,” he said.

  The man screamed at him and reared his head back farther from the door. Brandon jumped back when the detainee thrust his head forward into the glass with a reverberating thud. Long, jagged cracks appeared in the glass.

  “Good Lord, mister. What are you on?” he called into the room. He got no response except for the frantic screaming and banging on the door. “I— I need to call Jerry,” Brandon announced aloud.

  He shuffled back to his desk and phoned his station commander, Lieutenant Jerry Jenkins. It wasn’t an extensive conversation given that Jerry was already in the car, driving from his house in Newark. The lieutenant advised him to just keep clear of the detainee, out of sight if possible to avoid agitating him, and they’d deal with the guy when there were more officers in the building.

  Brandon thought it was good advice, so he picked up the perp’s file and walked back over to the coffee pot, which was conveniently out of Mr. Whatever-His-Name-Was’ line of sight. He read through the file again trying to gain any insight into who the man was. It didn’t say anything about him being violent or even appearing to be on drugs of any kind. The report just said he was a fake Spanish speaker who didn’t give up much information about anything. Not even his real name.

  The officer tossed the report on the counter and then realized that the perp had quieted down. He was no longer pounding on the door to get out or screaming incoherently.

  That’s odd, Brandon thought. He decided to go take a quick look through the window to see if he could make anything out.

  He walked confidently toward the door, even though the man had completely unnerved him. The perp was locked behind a door, what could he do?

  Brandon bent down slightly, to see everything in the room. The man stood on the bed now, his back to the door. He’d removed his shirt, exposing welts and bruises all along his upper body, probably from the sink or toilet if he’d been flailing about inside the cell all night as the officer suspected.

  He could see things more clearly now without the druggie in the way. The better view didn’t change his determination that just about every surface was covered in filth. How had the guy had time to do that? It wasn’t a big room, but he would have had to practically bounce from wall to wall for hours to accomplish that—let alone cutting himself somehow to bleed like that.

  “What in the heck?” he muttered, unable to keep himself quiet any longer.

  The man’s head whipped around and stared at him. Brandon saw no recognition in the blood-filled eyes before he launched himself from the bed to the door headfirst and the officer jumped back out of the way of flying shards of glass.

  The observation window shattered and the lunatic’s head pushed completely through the opening. The glass still attached to the frame bit deeply into the man’s throat, thick streams of blood pumping out of him. He continued to scream incoherently until he turned his head to where Brandon stood only three feet away.

  And then he vomited toward the officer.

  Brandon sidestepped the filth and if fell harmlessly to the polished concrete floor. The man struggled to free himself from the hole. “Stop it! You’re going to kill yourself, you moron.”

  The perp vomited in his direction once more, but this time, the fluid didn’t have the same force behind it and the pink froth fell harmlessly to the floor. His movements were becoming less frantic, slowing.

  Brandon knew it had to be from blood loss. So much of it covered the cell, and now the door and office floor as well. He glanced at the security cameras. Would they judge him if he didn’t help the man? Was he already being judged because the man had been allowed to hurt himself? He hated all of the second-guessing.

  He grimaced and went over to the wall locker where they stored the first aid kits. Pulling open the door, he selected one of them and set it on the counter. Brandon glanced at the struggling man and pulled his radio off of his hip. He called for paramedics with an ambulance to come to the police substation in the International Concourse and then placed the radio back in its holster.

  Pulling on a pair of latex gloves from the first aid kit, he stepped toward the detainee, who’d stopped moving more than a few shudders every couple of seconds. He was within a foot of the man when he said, “Now, I’m gonna try to help you, okay, mister?”

  The sound spurred the man to life once again. He twisted his neck on the glass and began snapping his teeth at B
randon. Each successive bite shook his head and he beat ineffectually at the backside of the door.

  Officer Hollister took one more step, reaching out to try and lift the man’s head off the glass. Then the guy lunged awkwardly at him, snapping his teeth inches from where Brandon’s trembling hands reached out. A spray of blood toward the floor erupted where the glass finally cut through the man’s carotid artery.

  He moved for a few more seconds, then the fight drained out of him as his heart pumped the remaining blood from his body.

  Brandon stepped carefully, trying unsuccessfully to avoid the expanding puddle. He reached across, hesitated a moment in case the man tried to bite him again. Finally, he got up the nerve and touched the man’s neck to feel for a pulse. As he pressed his fingers in, the skin opened up above the largest of the cuts and blood drained from what he presumed was the other half of the artery he was looking for.

  The detainee was dead.

  The officer stepped back, avoiding the puddle of strange puke, and pulled off the latex gloves. He tossed them into the biological waste bin and washed his hands thoroughly in the sink. What had started out as a simple, pleasant spring morning was now going to amount to a mountain of paperwork and internal affairs questions.

  “Great,” Brandon grunted, pouring out his cold coffee and refilling his cup. “More paperwork.”

  EIGHTEEN

  * * *

  NEAR BARABASH, RUSSIA

  MARCH 21ST

  “Nyet! You are not authorized to be here.”

  Major Alcock smiled and replied to the security guard in what sounded like Russian to Grady. “We are here from UNESCO to investigate allegations of human rights violations among the workers.”

  Grady tapped the earpiece he wore that gave him and the members of his team real-time translation of the conversation. The damn thing was buzzing with feedback so loudly that he almost couldn’t make out what the Brit said.

  “UNESCO?” the guard asked. “What is UNESCO?”

  “We’re a sub-organization of the United Nations. Our charter is to promote universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights.” Alcock sounded like a lawyer, and the monotone translation didn’t help Grady’s opinion of the man. “We have reports that this camp, Logging Camp 843, has participated in unsafe logging practices, denies workers proper living conditions, and regularly withholds rations for violating camp rules.”

  “I do not underst—”

  Alcock marched forward, holding a pair of bolt cutters and clamped them around the chain securing the gates. “Stop! Stop. I will unlock chain for you,” the Russian said, removing his glove and thrusting the hand inside a grimy jacket pocket.

  Grady changed position slightly, using his feet to slide his body a foot to the right so he could see around the major as he watched the guard through his rifle’s scope. If the man made any sudden movements, he’d be down.

  The hand reappeared holding a shiny silver key on a Mickey Mouse keychain. The man stepped forward and Grady’s barrel followed him. He held up the key for Alcock to see, then inserted it into the lock.

  “You must wait here,” the guard said, indicating the small shack where he’d been dozing when the two trucks pulled up a few minutes ago. “I have to wake the boss.”

  “Yes, I’d love to speak to the man in charge of this facility,” Alcock said, emphasizing the word.

  They eased the trucks through the gate and the rest of his team members dismounted, walking into the shack. Ralph glanced briefly in his general direction, nodding slightly. He didn’t know exactly where Grady and Knasovich had set up their sniper position, but it was good enough for him that they were out there.

  “Cocky sombitch, isn’t he?” Alex whispered in his mild Kentucky drawl.

  “Aren’t we all?” Grady countered.

  “Good point.” There was a slight movement beside him as the sniper eased over to reclaim the lost distance between their lower bodies that Grady had created when he moved for a better view. There was nothing sexual about it, he was just stealing warmth from his team leader.

  “So. You and Dunn are a thing, huh?”

  “What?” Grady asked, allowing himself a moment to break his cheek-to-stock weld and squint at the other man. When he didn’t look back, Grady dropped his cheek back to the rifle. “What the fuck gives you that idea?”

  “Everyone sees the way she looks at you, boss. Now you’re doing the same thing back at her.”

  “I don’t know what—”

  “Just, don’t get us killed while you’re trying to chase after a little split tail, alright?”

  “Shut the fuck up and watch your sector, Knasovich.” Jesus, Grady thought, that man thrives on creating controversy.

  He peered through the scope, watching for any additional movement, but it was Knasovich who spotted it first. “Movement. 11 o’clock.”

  Grady pivoted slightly, seeing the guard leading the way beside a portly man in a huge parka. They waited as he stumbled through the falling snow.

  “What is meaning of this?”

  “Alex?” Grady whispered. “Is he speaking English or is this thing just adding a thick accent?”

  “English, boss.”

  “…UNESCO. We’re investigating some serious claims of human rights’ violations,” Alcock said. Grady had missed the first part due to his quick sidebar with the sniper.

  “I no violate rights of my workers,” the man scoffed. “Truth. We are best camp for workers in entire Zemlya Leoparda Forest.”

  Grady knew that part was true—at least according to what the Brits told them during the intel update.

  “I’m not interested in discussing the other logging camps in the Zemlya Leoparda Forest, Mr.… Ah, I never got your name.”

  “That’s because I not give to you,” the fat man replied tersely. “I am Anatoly Kuznetsov, foreman of Camp 843.”

  Major Alcock went back and forth with the Russian for a while, finally agreeing to do only a cursory inspection of the camp if Mr. Kuznetsov would provide information of the camps with the most egregious human rights violators. The man agreed instantly to sell out his brethren as long as the UN inspectors left his camp unharmed so he could continue to meet his company quota.

  The Brit’s performance was all for show, and preplanned. The British government had a Korean operative in the camp. UN sanctions against North Korea did not have any real effect on private corporations, so the man had been gathering intelligence for weeks on Russian military involvement in the logging camps. It was bad enough that Russian companies flaunted their disregard for UN sanctions by importing workers from North Korea, but there was strong evidence to suggest that this went higher, meaning under the table Russian government funds going to the North Korean government—something that UN sanctions expressly forbid.

  The operative was joining the team as their interpreter, bringing the total up to eight people, with still only seating for four inside the warmth of the two truck cabs. Time to cozy up and get to know each other.

  Grady and Alex continued to provide overwatch during the next two hours as Alcock led his team of “investigators” around the site, trailed by the hapless gate guard who’d been detailed to follow them while the foreman went back to his shack. They made a show of waking the workers and asking them pointed questions through the translators, which, of course, they did not provide to the guard.

  Ten minutes after they left the barracks, Grady watched as a thin man snuck out of the barracks main door.

  “Roving patrol will spot him in about two minutes,” Alex muttered.

  “Okay. I see the patrol. I’ll take the one on the left, you take the one on the right, and the dog.” He settled in behind the weapon and asked, “You have the tranquilizer gun, not your M24, right?”

  “Not my first covert op, chief.”

  Grady nodded, then switched out his own .338 Lapua Magnum for the air rifle to ensure that he had the correct weapon. Stupid. He slid the bolt forward on the da
rt gun and reacquired his target. “Okay, I’m on the guy on the left.”

  “In three…two…one.” Alex counted down calmly. The almost silent pfft of the two darts leaving the end of the barrels seemed loud as hell in the cold night air. Both targets stopped, cried out and then began to stumble forward as the Detomidine in the horse tranquilizers began to take effect almost immediately. Beside him, Alex chambered another round quickly, lined up on the dog that had just begun to wonder what was going on, and fired. The dog yipped and ran several feet before collapsing in the snow.

  “You think it was too high a dose?” Grady asked casually.

  “Nah. We used that shit all the time in Afghanistan on high value targets half the size of these guys. Almost all of them survived.”

  He nodded and keyed the earpiece three times. That was the signal to the team that they’d engaged local guards and it was time to unass the area of operations.

  “The ’terp is in the truck,” Knasovich grunted, using the slang term for interpreter that they all knew from their deployments in the Middle East. Grady responded by giving two more taps to the earpiece.

  Alcock appeared around the corner of a building on the far side of the compound with his entourage in tow. “Please tell Mr. Kuznetsov that we appreciate the information that he provided on Camps 357 and 832. We will visit both of those sites immediately—probably tomorrow—and then discuss our plan to engage the remaining fourteen camps on his list with our local office in Vladivostok.”

  “Yes, sir. I will pass your message,” the guard’s voice echoed in Grady’s ear, making him smile. There hadn’t been a whole lot to like about the Brit, but his performance tonight was truly inspired.