He stood up from the giant’s back, reached down and flipped him over, and spoke to the club’s leader.
“He’s not dead, just unconscious, but all I have to do is stamp on his throat if you’re a stickler for rules.”
The man stared at him for long seconds before speaking.
“Tell Ronny we’re even, and don’t forget the juke box.”
“You’ll have it next week,” he said, as Tyler handed him his shotguns.
A moment after that, and they disappeared back into the weeds.
***
When Tyler failed to call and report in, Burke and Ramos grew increasingly frustrated by their inability to make contact with either him or Kari Shaw. When Tyler failed to call after twenty-four hours, they knew that he must have failed, and although neither agent would admit it, they were beginning to fear for their own lives.
Ramos’ phone rang, when she answered, it was Jessica.
“The park, now,”
CLICK!
“What did she say?” Burke said.
“They want us to meet them in the park. Do we go?”
Burke rubbed the stubble on his cheek as he thought it over.
“We go. They won’t try anything out in the open, and besides, we need answers.”
When they got to the park, they found Jessica standing alone at the same bench where they previously talked. Both Burke and Ramos looked around frantically while walking over to her.
“Where’s your husband, Dr. White?” Burke said.
“His whereabouts are none of your business, but I am here to deliver a message from him.”
“And what would that be?”
“You’re to leave us alone. The man you sent to kill us is dead. Kari Shaw is dead. If we ever see either one of you ever again, your names will be added to that list.”
Burke looked her up and down.
“Tyler Davidson and Kari Shaw are one thing, but we’re United States Federal Agents, Doctor, you kill us and someone will investigate. Oh, and you might be interested in knowing something. Kari Shaw made her confession on film, film I keep locked away in a bank’s safety deposit box.”
Jessica stared back at him.
“The First National Bank on Main Street to be exact, box number 0915.”
Burke’s face turned white.
“You couldn’t have... I mean... it’s a bank,”
Jessica smiled.
“My husband is very clever, Mr. Burke.”
Burke hesitated for just a moment, before turning and rushing back towards the car. Ramos followed him, but then Jessica called to her.
“Teresa, let him go, Teresa, let all of it go.”
Ramos stared back at her.
“I wanted us to be friends, Jessica, I really did.”
“Teresa!” Burke yelled.
“Goodbye, Jessica.”
Jessica sighed.
“Goodbye.”
Her husband appeared just As Ramos and Burke left the park.
“How’s Kari?”
“She’s fine; I told her to call us the next time she had a problem.”
“Good,” Jessica said, while still thinking of Ramos.
“You were trying to save her, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m sorry; I know that it would have caused problems had she stayed.”
“There’s no saving her, or Burke. They were dead the moment they sent Tyler to kill us.”
***
Burke illegally parked his car at the curb and then rushed inside the bank with Ramos following. Three minutes later, he released a breath he’d been holding, as he flipped open the lid on his safety deposit box and found his belongings still there.
He and Ramos were sharing a smile when they heard the first scream, and then another, followed by the armor-clad form of Tyler Davidson entering the room, with facemask down and gun at the ready.
Even as he reached for his weapon, Burke knew he was dead.
TAKEN! – STALKER
By
REMINGTON KANE
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to all the fans of the TAKEN! Series.
Thanks for coming along for the ride!
PART ONE – A MAN SEEKING ANSWERS
CHAPTER 1
Vermont
Max Stacey watched as the black motorcycle bounced along the gravel road that led to the cabin.
The bike’s rider had his face hidden behind a mirrored helmet, but Stacey knew that whoever it was meant trouble, and so he reached over and grabbed the shotgun.
He was standing on the narrow porch of a cabin that had been in his family for three generations. The cabin was actually listed under his sister’s married name and he thought that no one would ever track him there, but now he knew that he was wrong.
The motorcycle came to a skidding stop near his green Suburban and the driver took his helmet off and stared at him. The man was in his forties, brown hair, brown eyes, and had a military look about him. He was wearing a pair of black chinos and a white long-sleeve shirt with no tie under a black leather jacket. After placing the helmet on the back of the bike, the man spoke.
“Mr. Stacey? My name is Jones. I work for your Canadian friends.”
“Friends? My so-called friends let me rot away in jail for six months. It cost nearly all my money to hire enough legal power to finally get out on bail. Where were my friends when I needed them?”
“I don’t know if you keep up with the news, but your Canadian friends have their own problems now.”
“None of that is my fault,” Stacey said.
The man named Jones glanced into the back of the Suburban and spied the boxes and suitcases.
“It looks like you’ve decided to run. Smart move, they have enough on you to put you away for life.”
“What do you want, mister?”
The man began walking towards Stacey.
“I want you to put the shotgun down so we can talk. There are things I need to know. I need answers about what happened to that drug shipment that went down.”
“That was just bad luck. That plane had a near miss with the plane that was hijacked by a man named Rojo, Sebastian Rojo. He kidnapped some doctor, then he killed your men when they showed up to retrieve the shipment.”
“It wasn’t Rojo. There’s another player in the game that we’re not seeing.”
“The cops said that it must have been Rojo.”
“They were wrong. Sebastian Rojo’s corpse floated to the surface of Lake Derwan a few days ago. There was a bullet hole in the center of his forehead.”
“That damn woman...” Stacey murmured.
“What woman?” Jones said, he was now within fifteen feet of Stacey.
Stacey raised the shotgun.
“That’s far enough. I don’t mind talking, but I’d rather do it with a gun pointed at you.”
Jones smiled.
“Fair enough, now, tell me about this woman.”
“She was a bounty hunter and she was after Rojo. She had a funny name, Blue something, no wait, Blue Steele, yeah Blue Steele, she’s a looker, but mean too. She smacked me around some before she called the cops on me.”
“How did she know that you were involved?”
“When they came across Givens’ chopper at the scene they knew that I had lied about his whereabouts, after that, the feds tied us together.”
“You said ‘they’, who is they?”
“Blue Steele, her and the husband,”
“This Blue Steele has a husband she works with?”
“Nah, he was the doctor’s husband, the husband of the woman that Rojo kidnapped.”
“How did they get out to the scene?”
“By chopper, some one man outfit called Anything Air, listen, all of this is in their statements. You people have connections, get ahold of a copy and read it for yourself.”
Jones nodded.
“Those connections have disappeared. As I said, your Canadian friends are having their own problems
these days. By the way, you do realize that they not only lost millions of dollars in product that day, but also twelve good people, one of which was my brother.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, but I had nothing to do with it.”
“You were in charge of security on this side of the border. I would say that you bear some responsibility.”
“Rojo was a wild card. It wasn’t my fault that he caused that accident.”
“My brother burned to death, did you know that?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea how painful it must be to burn to death?”
“I can imagine, but it wasn’t my fault, I was nowhere near the scene.”
“Security was your responsibility.”
“Again, I’m sorry, but it wasn’t—”
“—your fault, yes, I think you said that already.”
“Anything else, mister?”
“No, you’ve given me a place to start, this chopper pilot that flew Steele and the husband to the scene, I think that I’ll pay him a visit next.”
Stacey kept the shotgun aimed at Jones’ chest.
“Goodbye, Mr. Jones.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Stacey,” Jones said. He then pivoted around and walked back to his motorcycle. After putting on the helmet, he started the bike and rode off.
***
2:51 a.m.
Max Stacey awoke to the wail of the smoke detector going off.
He sat up in bed and realized that the cabin was suffused with light from a fire and that smoke was seeping in through cracks at an alarming rate.
He jumped out of bed and approached the window, only to be driven back by the heat of the fire blazing outside. While still barefoot and in his underwear, he rushed out of the bedroom and towards the front door, only to find it ablaze.
It took him only a few more seconds to realize that the cabin was surrounded by flames and that there was no way out. Less than a minute later, the smoke filled the small structure completely and Stacey made a desperate leap through a window. He landed four feet away from the cabin, unfortunately for him though, the blaze that encircled the cabin stretched out five feet from its base.
Stacey stumbled about in agony as the flames ate at his flesh, and soon fell to the ground and died while screaming.
Jones walked over and smiled down at the corpse, afterwards, he ambled off along the graveled road. When he reached it, he started his motorcycle and rode away.
CHAPTER 2
TWELVE HOURS LATER
Jones stood inside a locked hanger at Anything Air, a private helicopter shuttle service. The owner of the business, a man named Henderson, was in the center of the hanger, strapped to a metal chair with duct tape. Henderson was middle-aged and going gray. In fact, even his skin looked gray, as he became increasingly certain that Jones was going to kill him.
“Hey, look buddy, I’ve told you everything I know, and believe me, I’ve got no reason to warn anybody that you’re coming for them. They’ve been nothing but grief.”
“Tell me more about this Asian girl; you’re the first one to mention her.”
“Ain’t much to tell, she showed up here and threatened to send my second set of books to the IRS if I didn’t help her find her friends. I got the feeling that she worked for them; the husband said something about giving her a raise.”
“How did she get your records?”
“She hacked into my computer, I guess. She was a cute little thing, but a real Brainiac, you know what I mean?”
“This Dr. White and her husband seem to have unusually resourceful friends. Tell me what you know about the woman, this bounty hunter.”
“There’s not much to tell, she seemed to be following the lead of the doctor’s husband. They both had guns, I know that much.”
“Where did they get the guns?”
Henderson’s eyes shifted back and forth, as he realized he’d said too much.
Jones leaned over and stared at him.
“I want the truth and I want it now. Where did they get the guns?”
“From me, I run a little small arms business on the side.”
“Once you dropped them off, where did you go?”
“I came back here.”
“And you never saw Sebastian Rojo?”
“No, wait, maybe, as I was flying away, I saw two people on foot headed towards the lake; they were maybe five miles from where the larger jet went down. Maybe one of them was Rojo, I don’t know.”
“This was after you dropped the doctor’s husband off near the downed jet?”
“Yeah, and about ten minutes after that, all hell broke loose out there.”
“So if Rojo was walking away, he couldn’t possibly be the one who caused the explosion. It must have been the doctor’s husband.”
“Oh, he did it alright. You take one look into that dude’s eyes and you know that he’s capable of anything.”
Jones stared at Henderson with contempt.
“I’ve spent the last few months looking for Rojo. I’ve tortured his relatives and known associates for any information they might have had about his whereabouts, and all along, you knew that he couldn’t have been guilty, knew that another man committed the murders. Why did you agree to lie for these people?”
“Like I said, they threatened to sic the IRS on me, plus... well, the doctor’s husband is not a dude I’d want to tangle with, like you said, he’s a killer.”
Jones closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as he sought to contain his anger. After a moment, he opened them and continued his questioning.
“One last thing, do you remember the name of the Asian girl?”
“Hmm, I think it was Carrie... Carol? Well it was something like that.”
Jones stared down at Henderson.
“My brother died out there on that field. If you hadn’t taken the doctor’s husband there, my brother would still be alive.”
“What? You’re blaming me? Look, mister, I’m just a pilot, pick up and deliver, ya know? Like they say, don’t blame the messenger.”
Jones reached into the right hand pocket of his leather jacket and took out a can of lighter fluid.
“My brother burned to death, Mr. Henderson. I blame anyone who had even the slightest bit to do with that, anyone.”
Jones began squirting the lighter fluid onto Henderson’s legs as he reached into his left pocket and extracted a book of matches.
Henderson struggled to free himself from the chair as tears ran down his face.
“Oh God, mister no, no don’t do it I’m begging you don’t do it!”
Jones stepped back, lit a match, and tossed it at Henderson’s feet.
The flames engulfed Henderson’s legs immediately and his screams became deafening. Jones stood nearby and watched him burn, as the chair tipped over and the flames spread to Henderson’s face and hair. The screaming ended as swiftly as it had begun and caused Jones to make a decision. He decided that when he finally had the doctor’s husband where he wanted him, that he would die slow, that he would burn him for hours, a piece at a time if necessary, and that his agony would be the sweetest of all.
CHAPTER 3
Jessica White opened the front door of her home and smiled at the man standing there. He was holding up credentials that featured a picture ID and a badge.
“Special Agent Price?”
“Yes, Dr. White, and thank you for seeing me.”
“Please, come in,”
Special Agent Richard Price of the DEA was thirty-eight, stood six-foot-three and weighed two-hundred and two pounds. His sandy-blond hair was cut short and the blue suit he wore was tailored to fit his muscular frame, while his dark green tie matched his eyes.
Jessica escorted Price into the living room, on the coffee table was a carafe and three cups.
“Would you like coffee?” Jessica said.
“Oh, no ma’am, no thank you, but tell me, Doctor, is your husband home. I’d really like to talk to him too.”
“I’m right here.”
Price jerked his head around and found the doctor’s husband standing behind him. He was wearing a jogging outfit and Nike's, and his brow gleamed with a sheen of perspiration. He walked over and sat next to Jessica on the sofa.
“Mr. White?” Price said.
“No, but it’s close enough, my wife actually goes by her maiden name.”
“Oh,” Price said, as he gave him a scrutinizing look. “Say, didn’t I drive past you over by that huge church on Main Street?”
“You might have, that was part of my route today.”
“Wow, that was what, six miles from here?”
“Yes, by car, but when Jessica called and said that you were coming, I took a shortcut through the woods.”
“Still, you must be in great shape, you almost beat me here.”
“Well, like I said, it’s a shortcut. Now, Special Agent Price, is it? Why did you want to speak to us?”
“It’s about Sebastian Rojo,” Price said, as he eyed them both for their reaction to the name.
“Has he been captured?” he asked.
“Actually, his body floated to the surface of Lake Derwan the other day. He had a bullet wound in the center of his forehead.”
Price looked at them, waiting for a reaction or a question, when neither came, he asked a question of his own.
“Is there anything that you two would like to add or change about the statements you gave in Vermont?”
“No,” Jessica said. “In my statement, you’ll note that I said I didn’t know what became of Rojo. I escaped him in the storm and was later found by my husband, Ms. Steele, and the chopper pilot. I guess we just assumed that Rojo had escaped.”
Price studied them carefully, as he came to a decision.
“According to your statement, Dr. White, you say that you were knocked unconscious when the jet that you were on made an emergency landing. You then state that when you awoke, you saw Rojo running back towards the jet and that there was a black cloud of smoke in the sky behind him. It’s because of this statement that we assumed that Rojo had been the one who killed the drug dealers and blew up their helicopter. However, now that we’ve found him dead with a bullet to the brain, that assumption is being doubted.”
The TAKEN! Series - Books 1-4 (Taken! Box Set) Page 22
