Thriller Box Set One: The Subway-The Debt-Catastrophic

by Dustin Stevens

  “Move. Your. Ass.”

  Skye pushed the words out as three separate sentences, using a halting cadence before disconnecting the line.

  Whatever happened to him next was on him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “They’re coming. Move your ass.”

  Lying flat on my back, just seconds away from falling sleep, it took a moment for my mind to kick into gear. Fortunately my subconscious was residing just beneath the surface, the act of opening my eyes the most strenuous part of coming to life, allowing me to forego lights popping and synapses attempting to begin firing anew.

  Even at that, there was still a short lag in what my ears heard and my mind processed.

  Once upon a time that wouldn’t have been the case. An order could have been barked at me while completely asleep and I would have heard, processed, and assimilated the information without so much as waking.

  Those days were gone though, just one more skill that the last ten years had eroded. Never would they vanish completely, but certainly not honed to a razor’s edge the way they once were.

  “Who is this?” I asked, the question a bit foolish, but the information the sort of thing that a normal mind would immediately seize on.

  The voice was female, young, one that I was reasonably certain I hadn’t heard before, and if I had, it was long ago. Since the passing of my mother, the only female I talked to with any regularity was Rae, and that could barely be considered talking.

  More like our own form of communication that fell somewhere between telepathy and coordinated grunting.

  “Move. Your. Ass,” was the only response, the line clicking off, a dial tone starting to buzz in my ear.

  Another second passed as I tried to put together what had just happened. I still clutched the phone in my hand, the dull din of the dial tone audible.

  Stretched across my shoulder was the gnarled cord, meaning the call had come in on the room phone. The person that had checked me in was decidedly not female, which told me that either someone else had come on duty or somebody was watching me.

  I had not told a single person where I was or when I stopped, both decisions quite deliberate, meant to keep my back trail clean. Once I was certain that nobody was tailing me I intended to call Rae, not wanting to bring unnecessary pressure on either one of us until I knew Celek was a man of his word.

  Celek.

  The instant the name entered my mind, the message the caller had deliver snapped into place. Coupled with it was a jolt of electricity, the sum force of it rocketing through my body, every nerve and muscle reacting in concert.

  There was no way to know who had called, but at the moment I had bigger concerns. They were coming. I didn’t know who they were, but I knew who they worked for, and I knew what they wanted.

  Every bit of non-essential information receded to the periphery of my mind as I stood, crossing the room in three quick steps to the front window. Pressing a shoulder tight against the far edge of the window, I hooked a finger behind the thin curtain and peered out.

  I had chosen the room because it was situated on the opposite end from the lobby, hiding me from view. What I had anticipated as an advantage also worked against me as I stared out, darkness masking most everything, providing ample cover for anybody that might be lurking.

  Again I heard the caller’s missive in my head.

  “They’re coming. Move your ass.”

  Not they’re here. Not hunker down or take cover.

  They had not yet arrived, giving me a choice to make. I could either bunker in behind the concrete block walls and try to wait them out, content to go the route of siege warfare, trusting that somebody nearby would see or hear what was going on and come to my aid.

  Taking that approach brought with it a host of problems. The hotel had been chosen because it was well off the beaten path, far beyond most of the usual flow of traffic. When I had checked in there was only a single car in the lot, quite possibly belonging to someone that was being as conscious as I was about staying below the radar.

  The man behind the front counter was well into his eighth decade and seemed barely above comatose, having to squint to see me and ask me often to repeat myself. Relying on him to see what might happen and phone it in was a long shot at best.

  Beyond those immediate concerns was the simple fact that I was ill equipped to ride out anything. Most likely whoever was coming had no intention of pulling off a kidnapping, meaning live ammunition would be aimed in my direction. Beside the concrete blocks that formed the back and side of the room, the front window was still made of glass, the door of thin plywood.

  If they started shooting anything larger than a pellet gun, there was little I could do.

  Compounding the problem was the fact that the only weapon I had on me was the knife still folded up in my pocket, an able weapon for emergency close combat inside a house, but nowhere near what I would need in a firefight.

  Sitting tight also carried with it the same reason as to why I couldn’t just call the police myself, wait it out and hope their presence would be enough to ward off anybody nearby.

  Police would ask questions, lots of them, many of them being things that I couldn’t or simply didn’t want to answer.

  That left me only a single option.

  Everything I had brought inside with me was still on my person, meaning I didn’t have to waste a moment going through the room. One moment I was leaning tight against the wall, staring out. The next, I used my elbow to leverage myself away from it, springing from a standstill to a sprint in less than a second.

  In three quick strides I crossed the room and was through the front door. I had no way of knowing how much time had passed since I’d entered, only that the world was completely dark and silent as I stepped out.

  I didn’t bother stopping behind the threshold or trying to peer out again, hoping that if anybody had yet arrived my sudden appearance would startle them just enough to give me the lead I needed.

  Assuming the men had anything close to the background I did, that eventuality was unlikely, but it was all I had.

  The night air had cooled considerably, my skin prickling as it hit the sweat lining my brow. The rubber treads of my shoes scrapped against the rough concrete as I sprinted hard around the corner of the building and slid between the side wall and the driver’s side of the truck.

  Having backed in so I could make just such an escape if I needed to, I used the key to unlock the door, not wanting to use the electronic entry. Doing so would cause the parking lights to flash twice, giving away my position to anybody that might not have seen my exit.

  In less than a few seconds they would hear the engine turn over, would see the flare of my brake lights as I pushed it into gear, but just those couple of instances could make all the difference.

  Having disconnected the overhead dome light long ago, the front cab remained shrouded in darkness as I climbed in and jammed the key into place. With a single crank the engine sprang to life, responding to two quick pulses on the gas pedal before being dropped into gear.

  The back end of my truck swung violently as I jerked the wheel at an angle, pushing myself up onto the roadway. Twice it fishtailed back and forth across the brushed asphalt, tires squealing just slightly before leveling out, the aroma of burnt rubber finding its way to my nostrils.

  With my breath held tight, I sat leaning forward behind the wheel, clutching it in both hands, my chin just a couple inches above the dimpled rubber. Alternating glances through the front windshield and the rearview mirror, I held my breath for the entire half mile stretch back onto the freeway.

  Nobody made any effort to stop me.

  Chapter Twenty

  The first call was not what Bret Celek had expected. Weeks of painstakingly raking through aliases and associates, receipts and records, had led them to the house in Elk Grove. Once they had the address and reasonable certainty that was where Skye Grant and her crew were holed up, they had acted immediately. Within
just thirty-six hours they had put a tracking device on their van and had Laredo Wynn at the front door, keeping as close a monitor as they could on a group that was simultaneously skilled in electronic surveillance and off-the-charts paranoid.

  Of everything he had hoped, even expected, when Wynn called from the front room of the house earlier in the night, finding out that the place was empty, the cupboards bare and the floors swept clean, was a surprise. How or why that had occurred he still had yet to put his finger on, some small part of him conceding that he may have to do something that he really hated and chalk it up to plain bad luck.

  The second call, though, there was no explanation for.

  Once he’d gotten off the phone with Meyers Jacoby, fresh orders in hand, he had immediately made the call.

  Otis Dawson and his boys were the best at what they did. Celek had known them for a number of years, first when they wore green camouflage, now that they dressed in all black and did the same sort of thing privately, charging an exorbitant rate for their services.

  In an ideal world, Celek would have called them directly to make the pickup in Elk Grove. This being far from such a place though, he knew he was unable to do so, for a variety of reasons.

  The first, and of chief concern to both Celek and his boss, was the fact that Dawson ran a business, and that presented a possible tie between the two sides. Despite the very unique array of services Dawson performed, he was also scrupulous about records, and paperwork was subject to audit. Should anybody ever come looking they might see an enormous deposit, may even pursue it far enough to discover it had originated in the office of a ranking United States senator.

  Running a close second was the fact that Dawson was not a tactician - he was a wrecking ball. Delicate matters were not the kind of thing they specialized in, doing the vast majority of their work overseas. Every man on his payroll was a former operator, and was proficient with firearms and explosives.

  Simply put, the men got things done, but they left a mighty wake behind them.

  Sending a team that was used to working the back streets of Beirut into a quiet industrial suburb outside one of the largest cities in America would not only be foolish, it would be short-sighted. It would be taking a hatchet to a cyst that could easily be excised with a scalpel.

  Or so Celek had thought.

  Now that Grant was again on the run and Wynn had outlived his usefulness, the situation had grown to call for a hatchet.

  While there may eventually come a time when a connection could be drawn, the number of loose ends that were fast piling up was becoming too great to ignore. Celek needed Grant removed, he needed Wynn silenced, and he needed both done immediately.

  Sensing that desperation, Dawson had leaned on Celek. The unusual hour and the need for immediate action gave him an extraordinary bargaining position, allowing him to commandeer nearly twice his usual fee. Over the course of their conversation Celek had tried every tactic he knew, ranging from veiled threats to promises of future favors from a newly-elected VP, but all fell on deaf ears.

  Part of what made Dawson so good at what he did was an extreme detachment, a complete removal of any personal angle to his dealings.

  If his services were required, if an instant and thorough job was needed, then the only thing that would secure him was money.

  Lots and lots of money.

  If there had been even the slightest hint of gloating over the course of the transaction, Celek might have been inclined to call the whole thing off. He would have sensed that he was being extorted just for the sake of it, the entire affair becoming a source of amusement, and told Dawson to stick it.

  Never once did it occur though, the back-and-forth almost clinical.

  Celek needed something, Dawson wanted to be paid to make it happen. Once a figure was reached and the money sent, the two sides parted with the tacit agreement that things would commence that moment.

  A great many people Celek dealt with liked to speak in hyperbole, but never once had Otis Dawson been prone to doing so. When the phone rang again just two hours later, Celek knew it was because things had already started.

  Just like the earlier conversation with Wynn though, it did not contain the information he was expecting.

  “Is it done already?” Celek answered, skipping over a greeting. In his own voice he could hear something bordering on hope, wanting nothing more than to begin pushing things off his plate.

  With the campaign just beginning to gain steam, there was going to be no shortage of other headaches headed his way soon enough.

  “Ha!” Dawson replied, his trademark baritone audible even in just a single syllable.

  Feeling his stomach drop, the same foreboding notion that had set in while speaking to Wynn appeared in Celek. Waiting it out, not sure exactly what to do, he remained silent, allowing Dawson to take the floor.

  In his mind he could picture a firefight turned ugly, Wynn lying in wait for them and engaging in a shootout. Instinctually his gaze moved across the room and settled on the television resting atop the night stand, wondering if he should begin scouring the cable news networks for breaking news about a standoff taking place in Iowa.

  Of all the calls he had been forced to endure over the course of the night, updating Jacoby on that fiasco would without a doubt be the worst.

  “Sumbitch was waiting on us,” Dawson said.

  At this Celek rose and crossed to the nightstand, snatching up the remote and extending it toward the plasma TV sitting silent on the wall.

  “Meaning what? He fought his way out?”

  “Ha!” Dawson spat again, this time the word tinged with bitterness, letting Celek know that he both resented the question and found it a ridiculous idea. “Allow me to rephrase...he knew we were coming.”

  With his finger poised on the power button, Celek lowered his arm by his side. He held it there a moment before tossing the remote away, the item landing silently on the bed.

  “Meaning what?” he repeated.

  “Meaning somebody tipped him off,” Dawson said. “We pulled in one side and he pulled out the other.”

  A tiny bit of relief passed through Celek, previous images of a shootout retreating from mind. Just as quickly it was replaced by a host of new questions, no small amount of confusion permeating the mix.

  “Tipped off? You sure? By who?”

  One after another he rattled off the questions, verbally relinquishing a stream of consciousness.

  Over the line he could hear Dawson spit, almost imagining the thick stream of brown tobacco juice he was known for flying from his mouth.

  “I was hoping you could tell me,” Dawson said. “We haven’t told a soul, were thinking maybe you set us up.”

  The confusion on Celek’s face grew more pronounced, a crease appearing between his brows.

  “You think we set you up? Hell, we’re the ones that hired you!”

  The last sentence came out louder than intended, a natural reaction to how preposterous the statement seemed.

  “I’m aware of that,” Dawson said.

  “And was there anybody there waiting for you?” Celek asked. “Did you guys run into any opposition?”

  “Nope,” Dawson said, “and we’re aware of that too. That’s why I said we thought it was you. Past tense.”

  A certain edge in the final words let Celek know that he was fast approaching thin ice. At the sound of it, he took a deep breath, pausing long enough to allow a bit of the acrimony within to bleed away.

  Dawson had mentioned that they were pulling in as Wynn pulled out. That had to mean either he was alerted to their presence, or for the second time on the night, they were being subjected to the universal forces of bad luck.

  Never one to believe in such things, he discarded the latter notion entirely, focusing on the former.

  Somebody had let Laredo Wynn know they were coming. Someone had known to be watching, and had given him enough lead time to get out before anybody arrived.

  “A
nything of use in the room?” Celek asked.

  “Not a thing,” Dawson replied. “Covers were barely mussed, shit paper is still folded into a triangle in the bathroom. Guy stopped in for a few hours to crash and was gone again.”

  For a moment, Celek considered the notion. It was certainly possible that was how Wynn had played it. With a background like his, he would be prone to mistrust, would be extra vigilant for a while about covering his back trail.

  Moving back to his initial position by the table, Celek took up the burn phone he’d been using to communicate with Wynn. Thumbing it to life, he moved to Wynn’s number in the call log, wanting so badly to call and see if it was still active.

  If the call was connected, it would tell him at least that the phone had not yet been destroyed.

  At the same time, doing so - especially at such an odd hour - would only raise Wynn’s vigilance. It would also be obvious that Celek was checking on him, perhaps pushing him to disappear entirely.

  Flipping it closed, Celek slid the phone back across the table. Right now, he had to assume that Wynn fleeing the hotel when he did told him everything he needed to know. The fact that he was in Iowa already meant he was on the move.

  Whether he had run off again because he was warned or just jumpy was really immaterial. He knew that he held information that Jacoby would not want him to have, was already laying down countermeasures to protect himself.

  “What are your plans now?” Celek asked.

  “Assuming you still want us to proceed?” Dawson fired back quickly.

  At that, Celek took pause a moment, considering the options. Morning wasn’t far off, which would make tracking Wynn a bit tougher, any confrontations that much more obvious. He would also likely stay in highly visible areas, at least for a while, making any kind of interaction difficult.

  “Stay back,” Celek said, his voice detached as he continued to think through things. “We know we can always catch back up with Wynn if we need to.”

  “Roger that,” Dawson said. “Standing down.”