Fierce Protector: Hard to Handle trilogy, Book 1

by Kane, Janine

  She wrapped her arms around his body. And then her legs, sliding on top of him. “No . . . not particularly.” Eva held a cautioning finger to her lips, reminding Zack that they had a guest next door, no matter that he was already snoring. “But you must be?”

  His hands were on her back, smooth and warm, sliding down to her bottom, squeezing her admiringly. “Not right now.” Then his fingers went lower, and Zack found her exactly as he wanted her.

  Moments later, she sank down onto him, briefly pausing their kiss and gasping quietly into his mouth, while he slipped gently inside.

  Chapter 12 – Three Rivers

  Sutherland, TX

  Thursday

  “And how would you like that?” asked the helpful teller to her first customer of the day.

  “Hundreds would be fine,” Zack replied. The counting machine rattled as the first of the newly-minted bills was run through; he couldn’t help keeping a count of the $5000 bundles. Once all five were counted, the teller repeated the act and then slid the notes into a sealable, plastic bank bag.

  “There you go, Sir. Good luck with your new investment.”

  “Thank you,” Zack said politely. “Have a great day.”

  Thursday morning’s rush-hour traffic had largely dissipated by the time they hit the road. Hank looked hassled but somewhat refreshed, while Zack’s plan to grab a few hours’ sleep had been hijacked by an insatiable redhead. The night had brought more sex, he calculated, than he’d had in a year. Once this sordid business was done, Zack mused, there would be time for a lot, lot more.

  They were ten minutes from the church when a text arrived:

  Waiting for you. Come to the altar for your confession.

  “OK, so we just play it cool, right?” Zack had taken control from the outset, and intended to see that no last-minute glitch derailed their plan.

  “Sure, cool.” He turned to Zack. “You know . . .”

  “We aren’t talking about that right now. They’re gonna agree a payment plan which benefits everyone. You’ll get it together, pay them down, and then walk away.”

  “I have no idea how I’m gonna . . .”

  But the relationship with his sister, Zack would just have grabbed Hank and slapped the self-doubt out of him. “You’ll be fine. Things come up in life. It’ll always surprise you. Now,” he said firmly as they turned into the church parking lot, “get yourself into character.” The car stopped. “You good?”

  “Yeah. Let’s get it done.” Checking that no eager parishioners were in sight, Zack led Hank up some steps to the main door of the church and slowly eased it open.

  “Stay behind me, don’t talk unless they ask you something directly, and if anything happens, just run. You got it?”

  Hank nodded. They took a few paces into the church itself, a modern design with long, broad pews on either side of a purple-carpeted aisle. The altar table, covered with a white cloth which touched the floor, stood beneath two stained-glass windows. In the morning sunlight, it was warm and smelled faintly of dust and upholstery.

  But there was not a soul to be seen.

  “We’ve got the right place?” Hank asked, but before Zack could growl his reply, they saw a black object on top of the altar. Hurrying to the spot, blood pumping, they found that it was an old-fashioned cellphone, flipped open, laying on its back. A contact was displayed – seemingly the only one in its phonebook – named ‘CALL ME’.

  Anger gave way to confusion, then a sudden welling up of fear. Something’s wrong. He touched the green button and the call connected. “Who is this?” he asked.

  “I don’t think that it matters much who I am, Zack,” came a deep voice with a faint southern accent. “I think it matters much more who I’m with.”

  There was a scuffling sound, then a female voice, crying and terrified. “Zack?”

  His blood froze. “Eva?” Hank stared at him, ashen-faced, wide-eyed, helpless, his worst fears now realized.

  The male voice returned. “Your buddy Hank seems to think we accept layaway,” it said. “He knows what he owes. He knows we are not patient. Call us when it’s all ready.” The voice fell silent to let Zack hear hysterical crying in the background. “I’d say she has twenty-three hours left.” Then the line went dead.

  The church boomed with the loudest, most unforgiveable language imaginable.

  Then, he tried to breathe slower. Focus. Get help and focus.

  He brought out his phone. In the end, the simplest version was all he could manage.

  “Zack, are you OK?”

  “No, Gray . . . They took her.”

  Chapter 13 – Balance of Forces

  Thursday, 6.30pm

  Sutherland, TX

  Antonio counted four cars in the lot as he brought his Land Cruiser to a halt in a cloud of dust. Three of the vehicles were familiar; the other, he supposed, belonged to their ‘special consultant’ for this particular mission. Stepping out of the car, he stretched after four hours behind the wheel and slicked back his thinning, black hair. The trip had been smooth, although undertaken at virtually no notice.

  Gray came out of the small one-story building to meet him. “Thanks for coming, boss. Everyone’s inside.” Reflexively, Gray scanned the road, which ran north-south across this remote property; anyone making an approach, he knew, would kick up enough dust to be seen for miles; a team guarded the perimeter, just to be sure, making this as secure a location as they were going to find.

  “You got Montgomery and Norcross?” Antonio asked, having already memorized the case file. Gray nodded. “Good. Did they do anything stupid yet?”

  “They’re playing ball, Sir,” Gray reassured his supervisor. “I gotta say, I’m impressed that Zack hasn’t flown off the handle. When this happened . . .” He shook his head. “Well, we’re lucky he learned some self-control in the service. I can’t even imagine what he might have done.”

  They stepped inside the small farmhouse, a sun-bleached, dust-bowl era place surrounded by derelict acres. Although the interior had been converted to provide a simple, functional safe-house for the DEA, the large barn across the lot was now a dilapidated ruin. At least they had the air conditioning running, Antonio noted, and was doubly grateful when he was handed a cold soda. “Some introductions . . . Guys? This is Special Agent in Charge Antonio Gomez from the Houston Division Office of the DEA. He’s my boss,” Gray said without fanfare. “Sir, you know Detective Lewis and his team,” Gray said, motioning to three men who were glued to the screen of a laptop in the corner. “This is Hank Montgomery, brother of the v . . .”

  “The hostage,” Gomez said for him. “Pleased to meet you, Hank. Don’t you worry none. It’s quite the crack team we’ve got here. And this,” he said, sizing up the surly figure sitting alone in the corner, “must be Chief Petty Officer Zachary Norcross, US Navy, retired.”

  Gomez waited for Zack to approach him, and when he didn’t, strode over to shake his hand. “Do I call you Zack, or what?”

  “Just don’t call him Rambo,” Lewis offered. “He don’t like that one bit.”

  Gomez allowed himself to laugh. “Glad to meet you, Norcross. I hear you’re going to be assisting us with this mission, is that right?”

  “That’s right,” he said. In his own mind, though, Zack pictured his role as something considerably more than ‘assisting’. In fact, ‘assassinating’ might have been closer. Not since his time in the service had he found his head crowded with so many, and so varied, thoughts of the most sadistic, limitless violence. He knew, though, that no DEA team would bring along an outside consultant with mental health issues, no matter how impressive their résumé. It had not even been established if Zack would carry a weapon.

  “Well, I’ve read enough to know that we can trust you to keep cool, and to help us keep Eva safe.”

  Zack seemed to brush this aside. “Sir, I have a question.”

  “Shoot,” replied Gomez.

  “If this is preparation for a hostage rescue,” he aske
d, “why aren’t we calling in a larger assault team? Why,” he continued, glancing around, “just us?”

  Gomez took a seat opposite Zack, under the small, dirty window which lit this part of the former living room. “Zack, on any other rescue, we’d bring everyone we thought we might need. Could be a hundred guys. But this is different. Gray, I don’t know how much you want me to say, here.”

  Gray took over, pulling up a chair next to his boss. “It’s OK, I’d trust Zack with anything. Look, Zack,” he said, rubbing his eyes, “this ain’t easy to contemplate for us in the DEA, but it’s becoming clear we have some kind of informant, operating on the inside, feeding information to the cocaine traffickers who run things in Corpus Christi.”

  “Jesus,” Zack frowned.

  “That ain’t the half of it. Right now, as things stand, we have no fucking clue who it is. Not even a sniff. So, we have to behave as though it could be anyone.” He glanced down to his boss. “Present company excepted, Sir.” Gomez waved him on. “If we went big, brought in a bunch of different departments, and then something bad happened, we wouldn’t know where to begin the investigation. I’ve thought about it all day, and we’re gonna do this small.”

  Zack was nodding. “Plus,” Gomez said, “the mayor has asked me to avoid attracting media attention to San Antonio’s crime problem.”

  “You care what the politicians want?” Zack scoffed.

  “It ain’t just him, Zack,” Gray countered. “If this thing gets all over the papers, then Eva’s name gets linked with Hank’s, and that’s never gonna end well. And how long will it be until your name, and the peaceful town of Sutherland, wind up in the papers? You want busloads of paparazzi climbing over the picket fences?”

  “Small is beautiful,” Gomez concluded. “Hell, Zack, I like a big noise too, but this calls for kid gloves.”

  Zack nodded, convinced, and let the matter go. “What are those guys doing?” he asked. The team of three agents in the corner were deep in a sustained, quiet discussion.

  “They were able to grab a partial print off the phone they left at the church. You never know, it might be their first slip-up.” Gray went over to check in with them, but seconds later his phone rang. “Hey . . . Oh good . . . Jimmy? Talk to me, man. I never needed good news more than I do now.” Gray began writing on his legal pad and didn’t stop for three minutes. “That’s the damndest thing I ever heard,” he said, incredulous. “Well, Jimmy, you hit one out of the park. Next time I’m down there, we’re going to Norma’s. I swear it. My dollar.”

  Gray called for the room’s attention. “Guys? Hey, I think we got a break. Anyone know anything about steel?” There was silence. “OK, that makes me the room’s leading expert. The lab has finally completed their analysis of the clothes from the two airport murders. The only thing which stood out was a tiny – and I’m talking just microscopic – amount of a metal filing. They dismissed it first time around, but I hollered at them until they came up with something.”

  “What kind of filings?” Lewis asked.

  He glanced back at his legal pad. “A kind of steel called E4130. It’s a molybdenum-chromium steel alloy, whatever the fuck that means, and it’s only – and I mean only – used in aircraft manufacture.”

  “An airplane factory?” Lewis asked, spurred into thought. It took only five seconds. “Fairfield?”

  Gray clicked his fingers. “You got it,” he confirmed.

  “Who?” Gomez asked.

  Lewis fairly shoved the three agents off their laptop and began typing. “Fairfield Aviation. They closed their San Antonio plant a few years ago. They used to make business jets, some military stuff. The factory’s been empty since then, unless I’m wrong . . .” Five minutes’ research found what they needed. Then they started making calls.

  ***

  San Antonio, TX

  9.45pm

  “Absolutely not,” Gomez insisted.

  Lewis persevered. “But, Sir . . . He’s a material witness.”

  “No,” Gomez repeated firmly.

  “Sir, the hostage is his sister. What if something bad happens? Besides, I can’t even guarantee his safety, with such a small fire team.”

  “And think about this,” Gomez said. “We hand him over to San Antonio PD, and they stick him in a holding cell. What if someone sees him? What if one of their officers is on the fuckin’ take? What then?”

  Lewis knew better than to argue. “OK. I’ll keep him with me in the van, but if it all goes to hell, Hank will be on his own.”

  “So, give him a weapon.” Lewis stared, disbelieving, at his boss until Gomez said, “OK, I’m not serious about that. But . . . just look after him, OK?”

  “You got it. Shall I save you a seat in the van?” Lewis motioned to the plain, white-sided Ford Transit, parked in this narrow alley.

  “I’m going to be at the field office, keeping my ear to the ground,” Gomez explained, returning to his Land Cruiser. “Chances are, if this informant is going to stick his head out, now would be the time. The net’s closing in, and he’ll want to let his bosses know.” He started the engine. “Good luck, Lewis. Stay in touch.”

  The detective watched his boss leave, and then slid back the door of the transit. “Evenin’ fellas. Everyone set?” It was a strange sight, even Lewis had to admit. He looked over the three men with a hint of amusement, although he had to applaud just how quickly the transformations had taken place.

  Gray had lost ten years, and was now a pale, skinny skateboarder: baseball cap backward, scruffy jeans, and new-ish white sneakers. Freeman had decided to accentuate his racial features with giant, unkempt dreadlocks, and wore a poorly-fitting green overcoat and faded, camo pants. Zack looked like he hadn’t washed in weeks, and had then rolled around in the mud. A patched-up beanie hid his military hairstyle, his t-shirt was ragged and peppered with cigarette burns, and he wore ancient jeans and battered combat boots.

  “They need to give awards for this kind of thing,” Lewis commented drily. The three men stepped out into the alley and took a moment, as Gray put it, to “practice slouching”. Demeanor and posture would be as important as appearance, they all knew. It felt alien to Zack, a slovenly, uncoordinated gait, purposeless and shambling. “Oscars all round, gentlemen. But there’s one thing missing.”

  Lewis reached into the van’s glove compartment and brought out two paper bags, each containing a bottle of cheap, nasty vodka. “Nice work, Lewis,” Freeman observed. “Anyone got Coke and ice?”

  “You first,” Lewis said, and liberally splashed his dreadlocked colleague with the cut-rate booze.

  “Fuck,” Freeman spat. “We joking around, now?”

  Zack accepted his own dousing with better grace. “Did you ever meet a wino who didn’t smell of booze?”

  “Open, don’t swallow, then spit,” Lewis instructed, and Zack let the mouthful of booze trickle sloppily down his front.

  Freeman shook his dreadlocks, showering the alley with alcohol. “Just nobody light up around me, alright? These dreads are a fuckin’ fire hazard.”

  “I’ll wait until we separate,” Gray said; near-constant smoking was an established part of his reconnaissance persona. “Everyone wired for sound?”

  They checked the tiny transmit/receive devices hidden in their trench coat collars, and in Gray’ baseball cap. “Green across the board,” Lewis reported from within the van. “Get going. It’s almost ten already. Tell me again what you’re looking for?”

  The three men spoke in unison. “Entrances and exits. Windows. Movement. Vehicles. Unusual sounds.”

  “Top of the class. And what do you say if there’s trouble?”

  “’Awwww, man’,” the three said together.

  “And if you have eyes on Eva?”

  “’Yeah, man’,” the three chorused.

  “Good work. See you at zero four hundred, unless you’re recalled. Any questions?” There were none.

  Freeman left first, quickly settling into his drunken shuffle.
Gray went next, zipping out of the alley on his skateboard with a ‘fuck everyone’ expression on his face. Then came Zack, apparently even more drunk than Freeman, staggering left and right, occasionally leaning on the alley wall for support. Given the lead-time, and their limited resources, Lewis reflected, it was as good a recon operation as they were going to get.

  He returned to the van and traced the routes of his team on his laptop screen. The van was shielded by a residential street, largely abandoned, and by a long, tall row of houses. Past the row was the remains of a plant building which had completely gone, leaving a broad patch of rubble and grass. Beyond that was a small parking lot, which served the main building.

  Zack left the alley and made his way along the walls of abandoned houses. Lewis had assured them that these buildings were empty, though their infra-red helicopter pass had found sufficient warmth in the main plant building to raise suspicions. Zack leaned against the wall of the last house and let his eyes adjust. With no street lighting and almost no vehicle traffic, his shambling approach would, at least, have the cover of darkness. It was perhaps three hundred yards, across the rubble-strewn wasteland, to the main building.

  He took his time, counting his paces as he walked, and after thirty he would slump to the ground and just listen. Then, raising himself with a drunken wobble, he would continue. Uneven ground and jagged rubble added realism to his stagger, and then the debris gave way to a flatter, cleared area perhaps fifty yards from the factory building, where parking places were indicated by cracked, faded, yellow paint. After perhaps an hour of painfully slow progress, he slumped against the factory’s brick wall and collapsed into a grateful, booze-soaked pile.

  Blueprints of the plant building had shown a huge, open space, where the aircraft would have been assembled, flanked on the near side by offices, and on the far side by storage spaces. Gray would proceed around to the storage, while Freeman would try to get inside and survey the assembly floor. Zack’s target was the row of offices. He slid along the outer wall of the plant, looking for an entrance, but found only the main door to his left, and a locked, metal fire door near the far corner. Spying Freeman honing in slowly on the main entrance, Zack continued along to the metal door, hoping it might open without noise.