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

by Dustin Stevens

  Buried just beneath the surface was a tempest of emotion, a veritable swirl of thoughts and ideas.

  At the top of the list was relief, the call from Celek being what he had been waiting on since they’d met that morning. If recusing himself from his security and feigning an afternoon walk was sufficient to get him the peace of mind in knowing that he was free from the Laredo Wynn-Skye Grant problem, it was worth it.

  Even if it meant spending time he didn’t necessarily have.

  Coming in a close second was unbridled hostility, the entire situation having gotten far beyond what he had anticipated or planned for. He was a ranking United States senator, soon to be the second most powerful man in the country.

  If he wanted a half-breed hacker and a broken down veteran wiped away, he should be able to do so without a lot of headache on the topic.

  After those came a litany of other thoughts, covering a range of topics, all that could likely be filed under one of those headings if he really got down to it.

  Tonight was as important a night as the campaign had experienced yet. In the ballroom of the Hyatt, scores of people were busy setting up, handfuls more working on the tiniest details, whether they be place settings or fine tuning speeches.

  He could not afford for it to be anything less than spectacular.

  Knowing he could operate free of this headache would go a long way in ensuring that.

  Just minutes after leaving the front door of the Hyatt, Jacoby stepped into the Hard Rock. Bypassing the front desk, not even bothering to look their way, he walked around to the elevator bank and opened the nearest car.

  After eighteen floors of staring at a poster memorializing the recently deceased Prince, he exited onto a dimly lit hallway, following the posted placards to the room number Celek had texted him.

  Feeling his heart rate increase just slightly, he arrived and knocked twice, checking in either direction as the door cracked open.

  Another pulse of trepidation passed through Jacoby as he stepped into the room, the place a standard hotel affair with a king sized bed on one wall, a desk and dresser on the other, a flat screen perched atop the latter.

  Filling the bulk of the space was a half-dozen people, all but one of them men, all but one of those dressed in jeans and outdoor apparel. Two of them bore open wounds on their face, blood crusted down one’s chin, the other with a goose egg protruding from a misshapen cheek that would be black by morning.

  In sum total, Jacoby spent less than a minute assessing each of them, recognizing only Otis Dawson among the crew, assuming the rest to be men in his hire.

  Giving no greeting of any sort, he instead focused on the sixth individual in the room, the sole person present with a double X chromosome.

  Seated in a rolling desk chair, her hands were duct taped to the steel armrests on either side of her. A matching strip of the tape was spread across the bottom half of her face, covering her mouth and much of both cheeks.

  A long blonde ponytail was positioned over one shoulder, her head draped to the side, hanging at an angle.

  Casting his glance downward, Jacoby’s gaze alighted on the blood stain covering much of her right thigh, a makeshift bandage wrapped around the meaty part of it, blood having soaked through the plain white rag as well.

  The effect of the image wasn’t instantaneous, taking a few moments to register with Jacoby, another for him to react, his entire body recoiling from the scene before him.

  “Jesus Christ!” he snapped, jerking his attention toward Celek leaning nonchalantly against the wall nearby.

  The mere sight of him, standing and twisting the ring on his right hand, the pressed shirt he wore, even the lax expression on his face, brought on an acrimony Jacoby hadn’t had a moment before, didn’t even quite think was possible, given the situation.

  “What the hell, Bret?” he asked. “I can’t be here for this. You know I can’t.”

  “You’re not,” Celek said, not moving an inch, his expression remaining the same.

  “No, I mean I really can’t be here for this,” Jacoby said. “I have a major event starting in three hours. How the hell did you even get her here?”

  “Don’t worry, we weren’t seen,” Dawson said, his first words of the conversation, the same deep tone Jacoby remembered and despised present.

  The one that always seemed to let him know that while they had both served, Dawson considered himself a much different animal, something that Jacoby and Celek could never hope to be.

  What the Neanderthal had never realized is that was by design, the very reason that the various life trajectories in the room had played out the way they had.

  “And I’m just supposed to believe that?” Jacoby asked, his eyes bulging.

  “We wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t safe,” Celek said.

  Keeping his expression in place, Jacoby rotated his gaze to look at Celek.

  “Why the hell did you call me? This isn’t Skye Grant, she’s whiter than I am.”

  From the corner of his eye he saw one of Dawson’s men flash a flicker of a smile at the comment, just as fast covering his mouth with a hand.

  When it dropped back into place a moment later, the look was gone.

  “No, it’s not Skye Grant,” Celek said, using his shoulder to push himself off the wall. “Though she could be someone even more important.”

  Jacoby opened his mouth to respond, a retort lined up and ready to be fired, before stopping short. There he remained, considering the statement, before narrowing his eyes just slightly.

  “Rae Sommers?”

  “Yep,” Celek said.

  “She dead?”

  “No, though if we’d had our way...” Dawson answered.

  “Unconscious,” Celek said, “or rather, drugged.”

  Yet another emotion crept into Jacoby, one that hadn’t been present before, the slightest bit of curiosity finding its way to him. Taking a step forward into the room, he regarded the woman anew, his gaze sweeping over her.

  “Shot?”

  “Yeah,” Dawson replied.

  “You?”

  “Yep.”

  “Hmm,” Jacoby said, nodding, not even wanting to consider the scene that had probably played out as it all happened.

  Thus far, nothing damning had shown up on any of the latest news cycles, Rummell routinely scouring them, alerting him of anything that might catch their attention, good or bad.

  If it had been covered, he would know about it.

  “So why’s she here?” Jacoby asked. “And I do mean here, in particular.”

  A few glances were exchanged around the room, Dawson’s men deferring to him, he deferring to Celek. Clearly a plan had already been discussed, none of them wanting to be the culpable one that laid it out on the table for him.

  Folding his arms across his chest, Jacoby looked at each in turn, finally settling his gaze on Celek.

  “In short? Bait.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  “Whatever you hear me say in the next ten minutes, do not respond. Don’t even make a sound.”

  I knew the admonishment was unnecessary. Since snapping at Skye in the car, she hadn’t said a word, barely managing a nod to respond to my question about whether or not she could help me.

  Despite that, there was no telling what I might say in the coming moments, and I needed to know she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize what was already a weak plan at best.

  Again, Skye managed only a nod.

  Parked along a no-name stream not far from Lake Geneva, there was no sound save the water rushing beside us. Swelled higher than usual from spring rains, white caps lapped over the top of every rock in the streambed, swallowing clumps of tall grass along the bank.

  Above us was the same milky white sky that had been in place since I left Texas, my body already aching to be back in the heat, knowing it would probably be a long time – if ever – before I made a return.

  First things first, though.

  Taking
up my personal cell phone, I powered it on for the first time in over a day, waiting as it came to life, revealing two sticks of battery and a single bar of reception. Holding it at arm’s length, I paced out a ways from the SUV, finding a soft spot in the forest canopy above, picking up a second bar for my effort.

  It would have to do.

  There was no need to check the time stamp for the number I needed, the digits seared into my mind since the moment they first pulled me from my slumber. Without pause, I scrolled down to it in the list of received calls, holding it to my ear, hearing the shrill blast of ringing.

  “Come on, pick up, you bastard,” I muttered, counting out a fourth, and then a fifth, ring before the line was snatched up, the sound of breathing heavy on the opposite end.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  The response seemed as good as any, letting him know I was not on his staff, and that whatever sway he might have once held over me was long gone.

  Never again would this bastard push me around, VP candidate or not.

  “What do you want, Wynn?”

  Turning to glance at Skye, I made a face, disgust obvious. Seeing it, the previous fear she had displayed fell away, open curiosity replacing it as she pushed herself up off the side of the SUV and took a few steps my way.

  “You know damned well what I want, Jacoby.”

  Something close to amusement appeared in his response, causing me to increase my grip on the phone exponentially. “And what is that?”

  I ignored the question entirely, not rising to meet the barb.

  “You also know I’ve got something here you want.”

  Again, silence was the only response, the sound of the creek filling the void, the same rhythmic din it had been since we arrived.

  “Actually, I think you’ve got two things,” Jacoby said, his voice lower, the previous sound completely gone.

  It took me a moment to place what he was referring to as I stared over at Skye, my brows coming together before parting, understanding what he was alluding to.

  “No, I’ve only got one thing. Whatever she has is between you two. Wasn’t that the original agreement?”

  “The original agreement was for you to pick the girl up and bring her to me, not whatever you’ve turned this into.”

  “Funny how having a team of mercenaries show up to kill you in your sleep can do that to a man.”

  The back-and-forth was rattled off in rapid fashion, neither side backing down, letting their tone and their stance tell the other exactly what they thought of the situation.

  We were both a liability the other couldn’t abide. Normally, that would be a very dangerous situation for me given the uneven ground we stood on, but under these very narrow circumstances, we were as close to equal as we would ever be.

  And even if we weren’t, there was no way in hell I was backing down.

  “I assume you have some reason for calling?” Jacoby asked. “You might have heard, I’m a rather busy man with an important night looming.”

  To my left, Skye had inched to within just a few feet, her arms folded over her stomach, mouth drawn into a tight line.

  “I had heard that,” I said. “I’m not much of a voter, or a donor, but word gets around.”

  To that he said nothing, letting silence fill the air, using a classic tactic to try and seize the upper hand.

  I almost laughed at him.

  “You going to make me spell it out?” I said. “We both have something the other one wants, and neither of us has much time.”

  More silence.

  “So here’s how it’s going to go,” I said. “Couple days ago, Celek and I had a little chat on a bench in Millennium Park.”

  There was a pause, Jacoby checking with Celek on the other end for confirmation.

  “Yeah.”

  “You and Rae meet me there in two hours.”

  Apparently he thought the directive was funny, a series of guffaws erupting the moment the words left my mouth.

  “Seriously? You want me to go for a stroll just hours before the largest event of the year so far?”

  “It’s the only way I’m coming,” I said, “because that’s the only way I know we make it out of there alive.”

  The plan was, I didn’t entirely have a plan. I meant solely to bluff him into blinking, to get him to do something rash, draw him and Rae both out into the open.

  From there I would actually formulate how to proceed.

  “And what’s to say I don’t just shoot her now? Nobody would know.”

  An instant jolt sprang through my core, my stomach clenching, my chest contracting tight. Again I felt my grip on the phone strengthen, forcing myself not to let him hear that he had a struck a chord.

  The truth was, he – or more aptly, one of his henchmen – could do just that.

  A secondary truth was, though, that he had much, much more to lose than I did.

  “And you realize how many news outlets are in the greater Chicago area? My little friend, with her files, and her DNA, could be on every single one of them in time for the 5:00 cycle.”

  I paused there, letting the threat sink in, before adding, “Which I’m pretty sure would trump anything you might do at your little event, maybe even lead the 10:00 and 11:00 news later tonight as well.”

  To that there was no response, not from Jacoby over the phone or Skye beside me. Everybody seemed to be agreeing in their silence, every last one of us knowing that the situation was ugly, but that what was about to play out was largely inescapable.

  “And don’t you dare put her in a hood, or strap anything around her,” I added. “I want to see the red tank top, and I want to see the blonde hair.

  “See you in two hours.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Meyers Jacoby felt ridiculous, in just about every way possible. He detested the oversized hat and trench coat that he’d been forced to don, the setting sun doing nothing to hide his identity in one of the busiest places in the second largest city in the country. He had no idea where Celek had even procured the items, but looking at himself in the mirror before departing his room, he’d thought he was wearing a child molester’s uniform.

  Now, seated on a bench in Millennium Park, Rae Sommers beside him, he even felt the part.

  Making matters worse was the ear wig shoved into the canal of his left ear, the assorted voices of Celek, Dawson, and his men drifting in over the line.

  More than once he’d been forced to tamp down the urge to tell them all to shut the hell up, that as a veteran and the sitting Chair of the Armed Forces Committee, he did not want or need their presence.

  Of course, prudence being what it was, he didn’t actually say such a thing, but that didn’t keep the thought from working its way into his mind.

  Most of all though, more than the other things combined, was the fact that Jacoby loathed that this was all done at the hand of Laredo Wynn.

  Just the thought of him, from his name to the thick tuft of red hair sprouting from his face, was absurd. The man was an ogre, a Neanderthal, a thousand other things that had no place in modern society, let alone in the same conversation as someone like Jacoby.

  Still, somehow, he had managed to gain the upper hand. What was originally supposed to have been calling an old marker, cashing in something that he had been saving for ages, had turned into something else entirely. Not only had the man not delivered what he was supposed to, he had managed to latch on with the person he’d been sent to fetch.

  The fact that Wynn’s partner was sitting less than two feet away did little to offset the sour taste in Jacoby’s mouth. Sitting with her hands shoved into the front pockets of her jeans, her wrists secured to her belt with clear zip ties, she didn’t resemble much of a threat. The mere sight of her made the animosity within Jacoby rise a bit higher, every part of him wanting to swipe the back of his hand across her jaw.

  Even more he wanted to wait until Wynn showed, making sure the man saw what happened, flipping
the power dynamic back around. There was a reason Jacoby was an officer when Wynn was just a soldier, just as there was a reason he was now on the precipice of the VP chair while Wynn was scraping by in a dust patch in Texas.

  For the first time all day, the thought managed to bring a thin smile to Jacoby’s face, seeing it all play out in his mind. Wynn showing up. Jacoby having his way with Sommers. Wynn trying in vain to stop him as Celek and Dawson intercepted him and Skye Grant.

  Seeing the entire troupe whisked away in one of Dawson’s unending black SUV’s while Jacoby went back to the Hyatt and prepared for the evening’s festivities.

  “Keep smiling, shithead.”

  It was the first words Jacoby had heard the woman say all day, her voice carrying a flinty edge that matched her features perfectly. At the sound of it, the previous scene he’d been envisioning fled from his mind, every thought disintegrating as he turned to face her.

  “What was that?”

  Sommers’s features cut a harsh profile in the waning afternoon light as she stared straight ahead. Around them, clumps of tourists continued to move back and forth, heading to or from the sculpture garden, many carrying sack loads of treasures from their day out sightseeing.

  The sounds of conversation and revelry floated on the air, though Jacoby paid none of it any mind. Instead, he allowed his entire upper body to turn as he openly stared at the woman beside him.

  “I said, what was that?”

  The last three words were delivered crisp and harsh, using the tone Jacoby normally reserved for committee hearings or berating low level staff, the sound almost always bearing the reaction he wanted.

  This time, it managed to do little more than lift the corner of Sommers’s mouth.

  A full minute passed as Jacoby sat and stared at her before turning back to face forward, it very apparent that whatever conversation there was to be had passed.

  Even at that, the implication of her statement was not lost on Jacoby.

  “Look alive, boys,” Jacoby said, raising his voice as high as he dared to be heard over the crowd passing nearby. “Wynn’s on his way, and he’s got something planned for us.”