by Mel Odom
One of Greene’s men came up on Shel’s right and threw a punch at his head. Shel leaned forward, pressed his face into Greene’s, and let the blow slide by across his shoulders. Then he swept his fist back over his attacker’s arm and caught the man on the side of the face.
The man dropped like a poleaxed steer.
Another man kicked at Shel from the left side, but Shel lifted his arm to block the effort, felt the impact shiver along his forearm and elbow, and drop-kicked the man in the crotch.
The man sank to his knees and retched. Before he could get up, Max ran to join in. Trained in combat, the Labrador seized the man’s arm and yanked him to one side into a sprawl. The man tried to get up. Max growled threateningly. The man got the message and lay still.
For a moment, Shel was lost in the anger that he normally kept locked away. He stood in the center of a gray fog and nothing seemed real. Then Remy was there. At first, Shel couldn’t even hear what the other man was saying. He saw Remy’s lips moving, but nothing reached his ears.
Then, in a rush, the world came back into focus.
“Shel!” Remy cursed and grabbed Shel’s arm. “Let him go! Shel! You’re going to kill him!”
Shel suddenly realized that Greene was deadweight hanging at the end of his arm. Remy had hold of Shel’s thumb and was peeling it back.
With effort, Shel bottled the anger and put it away. He made himself breathe out. Then he opened his hand and let Greene sag to the floor. He knew he wouldn’t have killed Greene. He still possessed enough control to stop short of that. But he wanted the man humbled.
By that time several Marines and sailors were closing in. Most of them hung back, uncertain about what to do.
“Calm down,” Remy ordered the crowd. “We got everything under control here.” He fished his ID card out of his pocket. “Special Agent Gautreau. NCIS. Anybody who wants to go home from this will stay out of it.”
>> Locker Room
>> Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
>> 1307 Hours
“You want to tell me what that was about?”
Shel tucked his shirttail into his jeans, buttoned the fly, and cinched his belt. He had pulled his boots on right after his pants the way he always did. The shirt always went on last.
Remy, still dressed in basketball clothes, leaned against the lockers in the dressing room. Everyone else in the room gave them plenty of space.
MPs had arrived within minutes and started sorting everything out. Remy had interfaced with them and cut Shel loose, which had suited Shel just fine.
“What?” Shel asked. “The part where Greene was ticked about potentially losing the game because he got tired of me hanging with him? Or the part where you stepped into that haymaker and nearly ended up lights out? Because, honestly, neither one of those things makes sense to me.”
Remy looked flustered. “I didn’t see him because I was busy watching you.”
“I wasn’t going to hit you.” Shel calmly put his gear into a gym bag and zipped it.
“At the time, looking at you, I thought you might hit anybody.”
Shel flashed Remy a crooked-toothed grin. He didn’t feel humorous, but he’d learned that a show of gentler emotion sometimes defused a situation even if he didn’t feel it.
“I wouldn’t have hit you,” Shel said. “I wouldn’t even have hit him if he hadn’t hit you.” And maybe that was the truth.
“It was just a game.”
“Yeah. I had a good time. Glad you invited me.”
Remy looked at Shel as if he thought he were insane. “We could have gotten waxed out there.”
“Me and you?” Shel shook his head. “We could have taken a dozen guys like Greene. Maybe two dozen. He crawfished out of the situation quick enough once things started to go south.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“That’s because you didn’t see that look on your face when he pasted you.”
Remy frowned and touched his jaw tenderly. “We could have gotten in a lot of trouble.”
“Not from Greene and his buddies.” Shel reached back and ruffled Max’s ears.
“From the MPs. We could have spent Father’s Day in lockdown.”
“We aren’t. C’mon. I’ll buy you a beer at the canteen.”
Remy didn’t readily agree.
That bothered Shel. He believed in working closely with his team. Remy’s reluctance, though understandable, hurt.
A cell phone rang shrilly and cut through the hiss of water coming from the showers. Remy reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, flipped it open, and spoke his name.
Shel leaned up against the lockers and waited like he was totally relaxed. Instead, his insides twisted even tighter. His anger was an old acquaintance. He knew from experience that it wasn’t going to be easily dismissed. He needed another diversion.
And the canteen’s probably the last place you need to be, he told himself honestly. Thinking about it, he figured beer and a pizza would be a better choice. He felt the need to apologize to Remy. That was normal too.
Remy listened to the phone conversation for a few minutes, then said, “Sure” and closed the phone. He looked at Shel in idle speculation. “That was Maggie.”
Shel waited. Special Agent Maggie Foley was the team’s only civilian agent. She specialized in interrogation and profiling. Before landing the post at NCIS, she had been a Boston police officer.
“I thought maybe she was calling because she’d heard about what went down here,” Remy said.
Shel had figured the same thing.
“But she’s calling about something else,” Remy went on. “How do you feel about doing a job on Father’s Day?”
“What kind of job?”
“Fugitive recovery op. Got a guy on the local Most Wanted board that just turned up in Charlotte.”
“Sure.” Shel grabbed his gym bag. “You got a change of clothes?”
“Yeah.”
“You coming?”
“Planned on it. I don’t know that you’re safe out there alone.”
Shel gave Remy another crooked-toothed grin and slid his mirrored sunglasses into place. “Grab a shower and change while I go get my truck. If you’re not out front in ten minutes, you’ll have to catch up.”
Remy cursed at him but started working on the combination to his locker.
Shel stepped out of the room. He was aware that most of the men were staring at him. He didn’t like the attention, but he blew it off and concentrated on the job in front of him. Being in motion helped soothe him.
This was what he needed.
>> Gymnasium Parking Area
>> Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
>> 1326 Hours
Shel sat behind the steering wheel of his black Jeep Rubicon and ignored the fact that two MP Hummers now occupied the parking area in front of the gym. He knew they were there because of what had happened earlier.
Violence was part of every soldier’s world. If it wasn’t present out on the battlefield or in whatever country he was policing, then it lurked in the camps, posts, and bases where those warriors gathered. Violence was a necessary product of the trade they practiced, and it didn’t always stay under control.
Max sat patient and quiet in the backseat. The dog had learned to adjust to Shel’s dark moods when they stole up on him.
After checking his watch, Shel popped the glove compartment open and took out a dog treat. He called the dog’s name, then flipped the treat over his shoulder. Max caught it easily and devoured it with a couple of noisy chomps.
“You’re not the most polite company I could have,” Shel told the dog’s reflection in the rearview mirror.
Max barked at him.
“When we get back from this, if there’s time, I’ll take you down to the beach,” Shel promised.
Max barked again.
One of the first things Shel had learned after being paired with a K-9 unit was how smart the dogs were. He knew that Max didn’t understand his
words, but he also knew the dog understood his intent. There were more good things in store for him than just the dog treat.
Lynyrd Skynyrd played on the stereo. Shel could listen to—and appreciate—a lot of different music, but it was Southern rock that took him back to his roots outside Fort Davis, Texas.
His daddy hadn’t cared for the rock and roll too much, but Shel knew Tyrel McHenry was acquainted with it. The Rolling Stones and the Beatles had been big during the Vietnam War when Tyrel had served.
But back home, Tyrel only listened to country and western music. Hank Williams Sr., Bob Wills, and a handful of others made up the core of his musical library. He had cut off anything new about the time Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn were singing together. But he had made allowances for George Strait and Randy Travis.
His daddy, Shel reflected, was some piece of work. He was a hard man to understand and a harder man to get to know. But he’d been fair when Shel and his brother were growing up.
Just never warm. Especially not after Shel and Don’s mama had died. That was how Tyrel had always referred to her. “The boys’ mama.” Never his wife.
And just like that, Shel was thinking about his daddy and his daddy’s ways all over again.
>> 1328 Hours
Remy jogged to a fire-engine red Camaro Z-28 that he had restored and continually worked on. He opened the trunk and dropped his gym bag inside, then hauled out the duffel containing his gear. All of the team carried spare weapons and tactical armor everywhere they went. It was the nature of the job.
Shel pulled up behind Remy and waited as the other man threw his duffel in the back. Remy kept out a 9 mm Beretta M9 pistol in a paddle holster. He wore a loose basketball jersey outside of his khaki pants that would cover the weapon.
Weapon already in place, Remy slid into the passenger seat. Golden yellow wraparound sunglasses masked his eyes.
“You ready to do this?” Remy asked.
“Yeah.”
“’Cause after that scene on the basketball court, I’m not so sure.”
Shel throttled the angry response and concentrated on breathing out. Pleasant or not, Remy’s concerns were warranted.
“I’m fine.” Shel slipped the Jeep into gear and headed out of the parking lot.
“You’re fine?”
“Yeah.”
“Just like that, you’re fine?” Remy clearly had a hard time believing that.
Shel glanced at him. “Yeah.”
“Then you tell me what that business back at the basketball game was.”
“An aberration.”
“Cool,” Remy said sarcastically. “I feel all relieved now. You’re using big words and everything.”
“You’re really going to make this hard, aren’t you?”
“We’re lucky we’re still outside a cell, still walking around. So, yeah, I’m gonna make this hard.”
“I got a thing,” Shel replied.
“What kind of thing? About winning basketball?”
Shel made himself tell the truth. “About Father’s Day.”
Remy stared at him in silence for a moment. “Oh. Okay.” Then he relaxed back into his seat like he was hesitant about saying anything else.
3
>> Interstate 40
>> West of Jacksonville, North Carolina
>> 1403 Hours
Charlotte was just under five hours from Camp Lejeune. After they were out of Jacksonville, the town surrounding the Marine camp, Shel headed west on Interstate 40, chasing the sun.
“If the traffic stays good,” Shel said, “we’ll be in Charlotte around seven.”
Remy nodded. He leaned back in the seat and played a PSP game. Earbuds filled his head with the sounds of battle on the brightly lit screen. He had pulled out the game system before they’d cleared the main gates at the camp.
“Is our fugitive still going to be there?” Shel asked.
“Yep.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yep.” Remy twisted and turned slightly in his seat as he followed the game’s shifting environment.
“And if he’s not?”
“Then maybe I saved Camp Lejeune from Shelzilla. Bad thing is nobody knows, and I don’t get a medal or a commendation.”
Shel took in a deep breath and let it out.
“That ain’t gonna work,” Remy said.
“What?” Shel asked irritably.
“Trying to suck in all the oxygen in the Jeep and hoping I pass out from asphyxiation.”
The growing irritation inside Shel almost broke free. “You planning a comedy routine?”
Remy grinned a brilliant white smile. “Nope. This is what you call natural humor. But if you want, I can use hand puppets. Might make it easier for the slow kids to comprehend.”
Shel ignored him. And he continued to do so for the next 137 miles.
>> Interstate 40
>> Outside Greensboro, North Carolina
>> 1619 Hours
Shel pumped gas at the small convenience store while Remy went to grab some burgers from the fast food franchise located inside. Max ran around the dog-walking area.
By the time Shel paid for the gas, cleaned up after Max, hit the head, and returned to the Jeep, Remy stood waiting with two paper sacks of burgers and fries and a tray containing a half-dozen bottles of water. They divvied the food, and Remy emptied one of the water bottles into a dish beside the Jeep for Max.
“Who’s the fugitive?” Shel unwrapped one of the burgers and took a bite.
“A lowlife named Bobby Lee Gant.” Remy bit into his burger, then winced a little; Shel saw him try to cover the reaction. Remy’s jaw was still swollen from the punch he’d taken.
Shel chewed, thought for a moment, then swallowed. “The biker guy who did the carjacking in Jacksonville back in April?”
Remy nodded. “That’s the one.”
The carjacking, which had involved a young Marine and his wife, had been particularly heinous. The couple had been shopping in Jacksonville. The Marine had just returned from Iraq. While they’d been stopped at a light, Bobby Lee Gant and three of his buddies had driven up beside them on their motorcycles. Gant and one of his buddies had ridden doubled up.
At the light, Gant slid off the motorcycle he had been a passenger on, crossed to the young Marine’s car, and smashed the window with a tire iron. Then he’d taken a pistol from his belt and shoved it into the Marine’s face.
Just back from Iraq and the horrors he had seen there, the Marine hadn’t reacted well to the open violence. He’d grabbed for Gant’s pistol automatically and ended up getting shot in the face. He had survived but had been forced to undergo cutting-edge reconstructive surgeries to repair the damage. His right eye had been lost, and his military career had ended at the same time.
One of the other men had yanked the wife out onto the street. Then Gant had driven off in the car while his friends followed on the bikes, leaving the couple behind. Luckily the Marine’s wife had her cell phone and was able to call for medical assistance immediately.
NCIS had been trying to get a lead on the biker for the last two months. It was the kind of assignment Shel enjoyed: danger with a hint of vengeance.
“How’d we find him?” Shel asked.
“Charlotte PD nabbed Gant’s girlfriend on a holding charge. She’s pregnant. A fall like that, she’d be inside county lockup and the kid would end up on its own. She tried to pull hardship, claimed that her family had disowned her and nobody would take care of her kid. Charlotte DA froze her out.”
“Hard.”
“Yeah.”
Despite the years of military life, wars, and what he had seen while with NCIS, Shel hadn’t hardened to the struggles of others. He empathized with the young mother. A lot of people who trafficked in crime weren’t evil. Not like Bobby Lee Gant. They were just people looking for an easy or quick way out of a bad situation.
“The girlfriend rolled on Gant?” Shel asked.
“Like a log.” Re
my pushed the last of his first burger into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Afternoon sunlight glinted on his yellow gold lenses.
“Did Charlotte PD check her story out?”
“Maggie says no. They don’t have any paper outstanding on Gant and we’re not going to let them play on our court. They forwarded it to us.”
Shel unwrapped his second burger, then tossed one of the meat patties Remy had purchased for Max to the dog. The Labrador snapped the patty out of the air like a Frisbee and gulped it down.
“Don’t see how he does that,” Remy commented.
“I trained him to eat like a Marine,” Shel said.
“I kind of got that from the way he chews with his mouth open.”
Shel ignored the gibe. He wasn’t ready to play yet. “You think Charlotte PD took an honest pass on this and left Gant undisturbed?”
“Nope.”
“Me neither.”
“Gant will probably know something’s up.”
“Yeah.” Shel dropped the wrapper into the bag. “So if Gant knows the police have located him, why’s he still there?”
“Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe Charlotte PD has a stealth mode like none we’ve ever seen.”
Shel folded his arms across his broad chest. “Let’s say they don’t.”
Remy grinned. With the swelling in his face, the effort was lopsided. “Gant’s daddy is in Charlotte. Maggie says he’s a bad dude. Runs the local chapter of the Purple Royals.”
“Motorcycle gang.”
“That’s the one.”
Shel sipped his iced tea. NCIS had encountered the Purple Royals before. They were a dangerous motorcycle gang fueled by meth and arms running. Most of the inner circle was made up of “one percenters,” men who were confirmed criminals.
“Me and you against a biker gang?” Shel asked.
“Well,” Remy said, “we don’t have to bring them all in. Just Gant.”
