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

by Dustin Stevens

  While the thought of this young girl being able to pinpoint me, or anybody else, from a computer in the woods was a little unnerving, it was at least a bit reassuring to know she was one of just a few that could do so.

  Assuming she was one of just a few.

  Once the initial adrenaline of the scene at the stadium passed, I had been able to clear my head and think about what was going on around us. After doing so, the answer I’d been looking for was so clear, so painfully obvious, that I silently cursed myself for the better part of twenty miles for missing it.

  With Skye sitting in silence beside me, I’d been able to run through a host of questions in my mind, eventually coming to the one incontrovertible conclusion that I should have noticed all along.

  While what Skye was telling me was certainly possible, Celek and Jacoby would never risk it over something like this. They had resorted to something far more simple, using a basic lojack to track our movements.

  I had been so caught off guard, so instantly infuriated, when I’d picked up the bag at Union Station that I hadn’t stopped to consider the photo that was hanging in the locker. It had been taken that very morning as I drove away, included Rae standing on our front porch, wearing the same barn clothes she had been while I packed for the trip.

  The only way someone could have taken it meant they had been watching us, which also likely meant they had put something on our vehicles.

  Later that night when Celek chided me about choosing a Holiday Inn, it wasn’t because he had an impressive array of electronic wizardry at his disposal, it was because he was staring at my location on a screen. I couldn’t begin to know how advanced such tracking methods were these days, but I’d heard tell that parents could keep watch on their kids from their phones.

  Doing so to our cars would have been no problem for these guys.

  The next night Dawson had found me in nowhere Iowa, despite me taking every precaution against it. Same thing for earlier today when they showed up at the stadium outside of St. Louis within an hour of our arrival.

  They had our coordinates. No matter what we did or how crafty we thought we were being, they were one step ahead, able to sit back and watch it all play out before moving in.

  All we were doing was tipping our hand and wasting an incredible amount of energy in the process.

  Alternating between kicking myself at missing it, and at the fact that someone was in our yard without us knowing, I allowed an additional fifteen minutes of self-loathing before pushing the feelings to the side.

  There would be time to atone for mistakes later. Right now our focus had to be on correcting what we could, continuing to move forward.

  “What’s in Springfield?” Skye asked, her revival coinciding with my need to move on, not to fall victim to any further blaming.

  “Cars,” I replied. “We need to switch our rides. That’s how they’re tracking us.”

  Glancing over, I met her gaze for a moment before turning back to face forward.

  Around us, the late afternoon traffic was reasonably thin. A decent handful of truckers were headed in both directions, as were the usual assortment of sedans and mini-vans, nothing too heavy far out in the middle of farm country.

  “Speaking of which, what about my car?”

  In our haste to exit, I hadn’t thought much about the tiny brown smudge sitting next to my truck.

  “What about it?”

  “At some point we need to go back there,” Skye said.

  “Not happening,” I replied, shaking my head to drive home the point. “That thing is gone, probably being picked clean at the moment by Dawson and his crew.”

  There was no response for a moment, no sound at all save the usual hum of the road passing beneath our tires, before I heard her say, “Shit,” drawing the word out more than ten seconds in length.

  Once she was done she pulled both hands to her thighs, smacking down at the tops of them, one time after another. “Shit shit shit.”

  I considered reaching over to stop her before thinking better of it. Just as I had sat and beat myself up internally for the last half hour, I needed to let her take a much more physical approach to beating the hell out of herself.

  Only once she was done did I ask, “What?”

  “My laptop,” she said, “it was in the car.”

  Based on the explosion I’d just witnessed, I assumed that to be a bad thing.

  For me, it would pale in comparison to losing any of a dozen other things at the moment, but I wasn’t a hacker.

  We all have our specific tools of trade.

  “It’s gone now,” I said. “I promise you they have it, will be sitting on the car in case we try to return for it.”

  Shifting her body on the seat, she turned to face me, raising one knee up onto the bench between us, ignoring the myriad papers and trash crumpling beneath her as she did so.

  “We have to go back for it.”

  Shifting my focus between her and the road, I shook my head, nothing more than a quick twist to either side.

  “Negative. Not happening.”

  “No, you don’t understand, that has everything I’ve got about Burma on it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Indianapolis, the capital city of the state that comprised the first half of the name, was the tenth city in the last five days for Jacoby and his staff. The next-to-last stop on a tour that had started in Atlanta, in total it would stretch a week-long recess in the middle of the spring congressional calendar into a gash through some of the most important ground to be covered before the upcoming election.

  None of the visits would be the last before the election in November, but they had served as solid initial encounters, the one incident in Fayetteville notwithstanding.

  Despite that, Meyers Jacoby was feeling a bit road weary. Almost a week had passed since he’d been at home in his own bed, curled up next to his wife. In that time he had been forced to make do with exercise bike workouts and whatever food stuffs could be found along the way, all of it detracting from a carefully crafted routine that he took a great deal of pride in maintaining at all times.

  It was, after all, such adherence to detail that had taken him from a small Midwestern upbringing to the cusp of the second most important job in the country.

  Long past remembering what hotel he was even staying in, the spaces all a blur of the same monochromatic color schemes and simple furniture designs, Jacoby stood in front of the closet, staring at what remained of the clean clothes he had brought along with him for the trip.

  The evening’s event was set to meet with the local healthcare workers, a conglomeration of the medical schools and hospitals systems in the greater Indianapolis area. Normally such a thing would dictate no tie, going with a suit and an open collar that would suggest he too was a working man, that they all had shared ground and equal footing.

  With it being a healthcare function, though, there would also be a great many physicians in the crowd. That was an entirely different caste than the average 9-to-5er, meaning they would show up in suits and dresses, there to impress, not afraid to break out their check books if they liked what they saw.

  To that crowd he also had to show he was still one of them, even if he hadn’t donned the white coat in a long time.

  Standing in stocking feet on the thin carpet, Jacoby selected a navy blue suit, pulling the hanger down and tossing the entire thing down atop the bed. Solid in color, it would look sharp, professional, without going the extra step of including a pinstripe.

  Appealing, relatable, to everybody.

  From there he selected a standard white dress shirt, the material so heavily starched in anticipation of the trip it practically crackled under his touch. That too went down on the bed, the only thing remaining to choose which tie would complete the look.

  It was in that position, standing in his socks, boxers, and plain white T, one hand raised to his chin, that Jacoby found himself as his phone began to ring.

  Not
the room phone, or even the one given to him by Rummell for use by campaign staff while they were traveling.

  His personal cell phone, which meant only one of two people.

  “Please be Tracy,” he muttered, the hand falling away from his face, both shoulders slumping slightly as he glanced to the desk in the corner. For a moment he considered just letting it go, allowing it to become a voicemail message he may never listen to.

  Just as fast he let the notion pass, the events of the last couple days becoming far too large to ignore.

  “Please be Tracy,” he whispered again, crossing to the phone and feeling his stomach tighten as nothing more than a string of digits stared back up at him.

  “Damn it,” he said, raising the phone and thumbing it to life. “Yeah?”

  “Sir,” Bret Celek said on the other end, pausing there, waiting for clearance.

  “Just me,” Jacoby said, letting his annoyance at the unnecessary tactics show in his voice. “What’s going on?”

  There was no pretense that the two were anything resembling friends. Jacoby had known Celek for a long time, but not once had the two ever sat down to a meal or a beer that wasn’t predicated entirely on keeping appearances, nothing more than window dressing for business that needed to be conducted.

  No ill will existed between the two of them, but that didn’t necessarily translate to camaraderie either.

  “Good news, bad news,” Celek said. “Skye Grant has surfaced.”

  “Good,” Jacoby said, turning and resting his backside against the edge of the desk. “Dawson has her?”

  “No,” Celek said, “but he was able to confiscate her laptop. I sent my guy down to fetch it from him a couple hours ago, and soon enough we should know everything she does.”

  Letting his eyes slide shut, Jacoby raised a hand to his brow, kneaded heartily at the skin.

  “Why weren’t they able to get the girl?”

  “Well, that’s the bad news,” Celek said. “Apparently she has hooked up with Wynn.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Jacoby muttered, the words out before he even realized it.

  “And his partner, Rae Sommers,” Celek said. “Apparently all three are headed this way as we speak.”

  Releasing the hold on his forehead, Jacoby slid his hand down over his face, resting his cheek against his palm before dropping it back to his side.

  He did not need this right now, not when they were just months away from completing what had been so long in the offing. Had he any idea bringing in Wynn would be such a problem, he never would have dreamed of doing such a thing.

  If there had ever been the slightest hint that the issue with Skye Grant went beyond the bastard blood surging through her veins, he would have sent Dawson and every other operator like him he could find to snuff her out months ago.

  His first inclination had been to do just that. It was only through the fear of a possible connection being made later that he had refrained.

  “I don’t have to tell you that we’re slated to be in Chicago tomorrow,” Jacoby said, his tone clear, his voice lowered.

  “No,” Celek agreed. “You don’t.”

  “Make sure it’s done before I get there.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The debate about whether or not to return for the laptop went back and forth for another five minutes before I offered to call Rae in as a deciding vote. After that, Skye let the matter go, or at least was wise enough to stop harping about it.

  I could tell the relationship between us was tenuous at best, definitely more of an interaction borne of need than any sort of mutual affinity.

  As much as I sensed that losing her laptop crushed her, the thing was gone. I could empathize with her position, having just lost a home Rae and I built ourselves, but just like with the computer, it too was history.

  Returning to the site would do little to bring it back.

  Besides, Skye hadn’t said as much yet, but the reason she called us was because she needed protection. Aside from mutual enemies in Celek and Jacoby, there was nothing else we could offer, no other circumstance for her to reach out. Neither of us had much money, and together we didn’t have a fraction of the technological skills she did.

  What we had were weapons and the know-how to use them.

  The remainder of the drive into Springfield was spent in silence, Skye’s arms folded across her chest, head aimed out the window. Positioned that way she resembled a spoiled child, pouting as she made a point to never look my way, not even feigning interest in the file Celek had assembled on her sitting on the seat between us.

  Not that I cared a great deal. The events at the stadium had squared us. She had helped me get away from Dawson last night, and now I had returned the favor. From here on we were working as partners, neither one beholden to the other.

  As such, we had to do what was best for everyone, not cave to the childish whims of one individual.

  Pushing Skye from mind, I focused in on Rae ahead of us, watching as she bypassed the exit for the Springfield airport and moved on into town.

  The decision was the same as I would have made. While the airport would provide a captive number of vehicles to choose from, the Springfield airport likely wasn’t very large. That meant there was far less area for any security to cover, the odds very high that the place had cameras on every light post.

  We would also have to take a ticket to enter any of the lots, leaving both Rae’s SUV and my truck behind. In the event we made it through the coming days, we’d either have to pay an exorbitant amount to get them back or eventually have someone come looking for us once they discovered two automobiles registered in our names had been left sitting indefinitely.

  Neither seemed appealing.

  That left finding a shopping center, something every woman alive was naturally adept at, even one like Rae that would rather have to face a cattle brand than spend an afternoon at the mall.

  Two exits past the airport, Rae signaled to leave the freeway, leading us onto the outskirts of town. Circling around the city on the eastern outer belt, we drove another ten minutes before finding what we wanted, a sprawling outdoor mall visible from the side of the road.

  “I see she went with Option B,” Skye said, her first words in nearly an hour.

  “Apparently,” I replied, easing to a stop at a red light, Rae positioned two cars in front of us.

  With the end of the work day fast approaching, traffic was just beginning to thicken up. Given the overcast sky above, headlights were starting to dot the landscape, the world not far removed from becoming a bustle of people trying to get home.

  Some would argue what Rae and I did for years was the worst way a person could earn a living.

  I would argue that what was playing out around us was a fate worse than Hell itself.

  Reaching over into the space between us, Skye grabbed up my cell phone and entered a string of digits. A moment later some kitschy pop song erupted, filling the interior of the cab before she could extract her own phone from the pocket of her sweatshirt and turn it off.

  “There, now you have my number,” she said, her voice bearing the same detachment it had since finding out her laptop was gone.

  “Okay,” I said, pressing the gas lightly and swinging around to follow Rae.

  I didn’t bother asking why I would need it, letting my tone do that for me.

  Ignoring me entirely, Skye sat up a little higher on the seat, her attention aimed out the window, staring at the mall filing by. Running parallel to it, we followed the street for nearly a quarter mile before hooking a right and entering the complex.

  “What is it we’re looking for?” she asked, her attention on the rows of cars outside.

  “A new car,” I replied, watching as Rae turned down one row. Moving past her, I took the next one, slowing to a pace just quick enough not to draw attention, my gaze swinging from side to side.

  “No, I mean what are we looking for exactly?” Skye said, the edge on the last word dr
awing my gaze over toward her.

  “Oh,” I said, realizing for the first time that she was actually drawing me into conversation. “Something inconspicuous, large enough for the three of us and our gear, a dark color if possible.”

  Swiping a car was not something I was the least bit interested in doing. With the possible exception of entering the house in Elk Grove or carrying a gun across state lines, nothing I had done thus far could be deemed illegal.

  There would be plenty, such as the file beside me, that would be difficult to explain, but that wouldn’t rise to the level of really interesting law enforcement.

  Taking a car would obliterate that, and if we weren’t careful, it could paint a target on us that would increase the number of people pursuing us to a lot more than just Dawson and his crew.

  Still, we had to assume Celek had access to financials, meaning we couldn’t rent a car. The second we used a credit card they would have our location, possibly even the tracking technology most rentals came equipped with these days.

  That would leave us no better off than we already were.

  And assuming what would probably happen to it, we wouldn’t want to be liable for it anyway.

  We also couldn’t continue using ours, needing to sever their ability to follow us so we could go underground for a while and regroup.

  That left this far-from-appealing option as our only route.

  “So, a black mid-sized SUV?” Skye asked, turning to face me, her right hand raised to the passenger window, tapping against it to point at a dented Rav4 sitting just beyond our front bumper.

  How I had missed it, I hadn’t a clue.

  “Exactly,” I whispered, checking over the SUV before shifting my glance to look out over the lot around us.

  Just as fast I was pulled back toward the passenger side, my focus on the sound of the door wrenching open.

  “Keep your phone on,” Skye said, stepping down as a blast of cool air passed inside. “You guys get out of here and find someplace to meet. I’ll be there soon.”