The Kip Keene Box Set: Books 1, 2 & 3

by Nicholas Erik

  “I owe Christen,” Andras said. “He helped me make it through police training.”

  “Isn’t that a fucking cliché,” Strike said. “Good pair we make, right?”

  “All I know, is Johnny wants this.” Strike caught the chunk of amber tossed her way. “And we have it.”

  “So what can we do next?” Strike found her voice coming out in a thin whine, like a small child who had stumbled upon Pandora’s Box, but didn’t know what to do.

  “We wait Johnny out,” Andras said. “And we put the son of a bitch in the ground.”

  “So was today everything you’d hoped for?” Strike’s eyes narrowed into hardened diamond slits.

  “Not even close.”

  Strike laid down on the bed and closed her eyes.

  They waited in the dingy roadside motel in the no-name town for a week. Every day Strike begged for cocaine and every day Andras refused while she sweated it out on the bed. He would occasionally leave for long stretches, then return, empty-handed, nothing to show for his lengthy drives.

  “No sign of him again?” Strike sat up on the bed. It didn’t hurt to move any more. Just the one night of excess had plunged her down a large hole, her body insisting that she needed the damn drug to survive. She wouldn’t admit it, but that type of reliance was worrisome. She didn’t want to rely on anything or anybody. But here she was, almost an invalid, sleeping all the time.

  “Nothing,” Andras said. He placed his silver pistol on the nightstand. She looked away when she saw it. Bad memories. “But I saw Mikey go into the Replenish a couple hours back.”

  “So he’s around,” Strike said. She swung her feet over the side of the bed. “Good. Let’s get the bastard.”

  “You feeling up to it?” Andras’ eyes were filled with genuine concern. “I don’t want you going out there again before you’re ready.”

  “I’ve blown my entire future already,” Strike said. She held up her phone. Close to a hundred more unanswered messages and calls. All variations on Madsen’s first message. The FBI was dead and gone. This would be her first and last case. Might as well make it count. “Besides, if this amber stuff is as bad as you say…”

  “It’s worse.”

  “Then I’m in.” She stood up, somewhat unsteady after the week of bed rest. She went to get her shoes by the door, brushing by his well-defined torso to get past. She stopped, foot lingering over the short boots. Then she turned around and looked at him. “You really think I’m dark? Broken, I mean?”

  “You wanted to, you could run this world,” Andras said, and by the look in his eye, she knew he was serious. Not the world. This world. The idea thrilled her, frightened her, because if she wasn’t on the right side of the law—the one with the badges and the guns—then she would be just an outlaw with a gun, Bonnie to no one’s Clyde. Maybe she already was that, in a way.

  “Thanks,” she said, standing on her tip toes to reach up and kiss his lips. This time he kissed back, and they tumbled into the bed, spilling into one another, the world and its alligators and threats and gangsters forced to wait until morning.

  7 | Replenish

  Neither of them spoke as they walked towards the Replenish. After an hour sitting in a hidden alcove right off the parking lot, Andras had seen Mikey’s old Cutlass Supreme rattle up. That was their cue. Five minutes later, they were headed for the door.

  Andras flung it open and marched through the bar, gun already drawn. Strike let the firearm he had lent her stay in her waistband. Shooting anyone else didn’t seem like a good idea.

  Andras burst through the kitchen and into the back room.

  Mikey stood there with a dumb look on his face in front of a large stack of bills.

  “AK, what are you—”

  The silver pistol flashed as it connected with Mikey’s nose. Blood sprayed down on the table and the bills. Andras grabbed the man’s floral print shirt and jammed Mikey’s face against the table, mashing it against the rough wood.

  “Tell me where he is, Mike.”

  “I don’t know.” The words came out in a jumbled mess of syllables, like he was trying to talk through a mouth full of pennies and mashed potatoes. Andras slammed Mikey’s face against the table again, then once more.

  “You know where this ends, Mike.”

  “He’ll kill me.”

  “Tell you what,” Andras said, the cool returning for one moment, “if I kill him, then he can’t kill you.”

  “Really?” Mikey said through stifled sobs. “You’d do that?”

  “You tell me where he is I might.”

  “In an old cabin, up near the abandoned tracks. He’s waiting until the shipment comes in, then he’s gonna complete the set.”

  “You mean the Amber Alligator?” Another slam. Strike almost felt bad for the guy, but the situation was what it was. There was no time for niceties.

  “It’s coming in from the Atlantic later tonight,” Mikey said. “That’s all I know. He just sent me to collect the last bit of cash.”

  “We’ll take care of that.” Andras threw Mikey against the wall. The henchman slumped down to the floor, unconscious. Andras dialed the local precinct, told them that there was a cuffed prisoner waiting. Then he gathered up the money and strode out of the Replenish.

  Halfway across the parking lot Strike yelled, “Wait!”

  “No time.” Andras shoved the key into the car door and popped it open. “We move now.”

  “What’s the money for?”

  Andras looked down at the bundle of cash clutched in his arms like he wasn’t even aware that he’d taken it. He shrugged, then opened the back door and dumped it all in the back seat. Then he got in the front and started the engine.

  “You coming?”

  “I guess.”

  Andras pulled out of the parking lot, headed towards the old railroad. A parade of cop cars, lights flashing, passed them by, gunning it towards the Replenish. Strike caught Andras’ eye in the rearview. He looked nervous, like he was afraid they’d come and get him, too.

  But the lights just disappeared.

  Ten minutes later the sedan bumped over the old tracks. A completely paint-stripped wood cabin sat nearby on a bumpy knoll. Andras pulled off at bottom of the gravel driveway and cut the engine. He checked his pistol, racked the slide and then exited the car.

  “What’s the plan?” Strike said, jogging to keep up with his long strides. “Goddamnit, talk to me.”

  “The less you know, the less trouble you’ll get in,” Andras said. He refused to look at her, even acknowledge that she was the only partner he had. “I need to fix this.”

  “But I’m here now.”

  “Should have never gotten you involved. Even with Christen insisting, begging. Favors, right?” He flashed a wistful smile completely devoid of any energy. “One thing, after this is done.”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t forget me.”

  They were at the door. Andras leveled his pistol at the brass doorknob. He fired a single shot and punched through the door. The first room was empty. So was the kitchen. A shotgun blast roared out from the small bedroom in the back, blasting through the wood and flinging a pot from the stove to the ground.

  Strike dove behind the rickety wooden table. Andras made no such movements. He stood tall, back pressed right next to the bedroom’s doorway.

  “You know how this ends,” he said, in a low, menacing voice, “You were never gonna make it to the bigtime, Johnny.”

  “Because I let shitbirds like you stick around for too long,” Johnny said. “You out there too, sweet cheeks? The one with the perky tits and the blonde hair.”

  “You keep running your mouth about her, and I’m gonna skin you alive.”

  There was a short, brutish laugh. “You’ve been wanting to say that for awhile.”

  “Eleve
n years.”

  “He ever tell you why he needed the money?” There was a long silence. “I’ll take that as a no.” Johnny racked his shotgun and another burst of buckshot tore through the wood frame cabin. The glass on the stove door shattered. Strike pressed herself further into the corner, hugging the table leg for the illusion of safety.

  “This ain’t about that,” Andras said.

  “Of course it is, kid. Every choice you made after that day led us here. You’re gonna get her killed, just like that little boy you ran over. Smoke a little weed, do a little blow to celebrate making it halfway through training. I get how it goes. But then a kid runs out for his toy car in the parking lot, and you’re lit behind the wheel, and boom, there goes everything.”

  “Don’t talk about this.”

  “And you come to me,” Johnny said. “Tell me it’s all over. So I set you up with some clean piss, tell you how to cheat the test. You pass, everyone’s okay, until the civil suit comes along, and then you’re hurting, gotta pay this broad a cool six figures ‘cause that’s what the court said her little kid was worth.”

  Strike peered out from under the table. She could see tears streaming down Andras’ face, him wiping them away with the tip of his silver pistol, digging the cold metal deep into his cheeks. Another blast came from the bedroom, right above Andras’ head.

  He ducked, but didn’t change positions.

  “So now I got you,” Johnny said. “Now I own you. But there was always a choice. And you chose the lie.”

  Andras wheeled around the corner, a single blast greeting him as he squeezed off shots, emptying the whole clip. From the dull thud, Strike could tell some of them hit flesh. From the lack of screams, she knew that at least one had hit Johnny in the head.

  Andras came back two minutes later, clutching his gut and a piece of paper.

  “You’re bleeding,” Strike said. “Let me see that.”

  “Too late for me,” Andras said. He dragged himself towards the table and leaned against it, breathing heavily. “But not for you.” He laughed a little and coughed. Blood covered the tabletop. “Watch out for the darkness.”

  “It’s not too late.”

  “Just make sure you give them this,” he said, dropping the paper on the table. “And don’t forget me, remember?” Then he kissed Strike on the forehead and limped out of the room before she could even say goodbye.

  8 | Insubordination

  “Samantha Strike,” Agent Madsen said in a grave voice, “you’re telling me that you have no idea where Andras Kobina fled?”

  “No, sir.” She played with her thumbs. “But he was hurt pretty bad. I doubt he made it far.”

  “The local cops found his sedan covered in blood, filled with used medical supplies about three miles from the town’s limits. There was four or five hundred dollars in hundreds in the backseat. You are aware, Ms. Strike, that aiding and abetting a fugitive is a federal offense?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And that your absentee behavior over the past two weeks is grounds for immediate dismissal from the program?”

  “Yes, sir,” Strike said. Her chest tightened. Here it came. “I got your message. I’ll clean out my locker.”

  “And yet, despite all those phone calls, you apparently had the time to treat yourself.” Agent Madsen gestured towards her right arm. “What is that?”

  Strike glanced down at the tattoo that now covered her entire right arm from the shoulder to just above the wrist. The skin was still slightly raw. “A reminder, sir.”

  “A reminder of what?”

  “The Garden of Eden.”

  “I see,” Agent Madsen said, poring over Strike’s file from behind gold rimmed glasses, “it says in your file that you’re a pronounced atheist.”

  “I am.”

  “Then you are lying to me?”

  “No, sir,” Strike said. “I found the story to be appropriate.”

  “Very well,” Agent Madsen said, waving a hairy hand in the air as if to say that there were far more important matters to attend to, “on top of all this nonsense, your drug screen came back positive. For cocaine.”

  “I did quite a lot, sir.”

  “Well, that’s not the answer I expected, but I appreciate your frankness.” Agent Madsen mopped his brow with a slightly yellowed handkerchief. “Is there anything you’d like to say in your defense?”

  “I’d do it again.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a second, Ms. Strike,” he replied with a wry smile. “And I must say, the results speak for themselves.”

  “Results, sir?”

  “We apprehended an illegal cargo ship off the Florida coast, exactly at the coordinates on the paper you procured at Johnny Drago’s cabin. Just as the paper said, there was an entire alligator encased in what appeared to be amber. But further lab tests suggested that the substance was, in fact, a very powerful neurotoxin that we were previously unaware of. Our people have put out an alert, and we are searching for more samples.”

  “That’s good news,” Strike said. She closed her eyes as the light streamed in from the windows. Meetings, like stake outs, weren’t her strong suit.

  “And you did catch a murderer, and help a fellow agent, even if it was through unorthodox methods,” Agent Madsen said. “That does not go unnoticed.”

  “I wouldn’t say caught, considering the circumstances.”

  “Between you and me, Ms. Strike, that man is better in a box than above ground. Well done.”

  Strike cracked a thin smile. “Thought you were a hard ass for the rules.”

  Agent Madsen cleared his throat. “I am. That’s why I’m knocking you down to second in the class, even though you have the best scores I’ve ever seen. Ridiculous acumen you possess. Since you missed graduation due to your little escapade, consider this your official ceremony.”

  “Sir?” Strike felt her palms tingle. This had to be an elaborate put on, right before she was dragged off to jail, kicking and screaming. But no jackbooted soldiers barged through the doors, and Madsen’s bemused smile seemed to be genuine. “Uh, thank you sir.”

  “And, unfortunately, you will be serving in the New York field office, under Agent Jennings. He’s a real son of a bitch, but I had to make it look like we kind of care about the rules.” Madsen gave her a wink and extended his hand. She walked towards the desk in a trance. “Congratulations, Agent Strike, and welcome to the FBI.”

  She shook his hand and then walked out of the room in a daze.

  Agent Strike.

  Maybe the coke hadn’t worn off, and she was having some sort of delusional fever dream. She touched the wall and scratched the paint with her fingernails.

  “Trying to dig a hole to China?” Christen Alger said. He approached her, not with a warm smile, but more one of thanks—for the closure. And for keeping his ass out of jail. “I owe you one.”

  “A lot more than one,” Strike said. “I made Agent.”

  “You deserve it.” Christen looked at the floor. “You hear from Andras?”

  “He’s gone,” Strike said. “I don’t mean gone, I just mean—you know.”

  “Yeah, I kind of figured,” Christen said. They walked down the hall and took the stairs towards the front lobby in silence. “So when do you start?”

  “Half a year. Maybe a year. They want to make sure I’m clean, try to pound this insubordination out of me.”

  “Think it’ll stick?”

  “The sobriety or falling in line?” Strike said. She felt a shiver run up her spine as she looked out into the bright light. The question bothered her, largely because she had no damn idea what the answer was.

  “You’ll figure it out,” Christen said. “We all do.”

  “Yeah.”

  They paused by the doors, staring out at the almost empty parking lot.

 
“What’s with the tattoo?” Christen finally said. “Didn’t think that was your style.”

  “The serpent in the Garden of Eden,” Strike said, rolling up her sleeve to reveal a snake surrounded by thorny plants, venomous looking flowers and ominous foliage, “it’s a reminder.”

  “A reminder of what?”

  She pointed towards the top, where a luscious apple stood out near her shoulder blade. “Never eat the apple. Not even if the snake demands it, tells you there’s no other way.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because this life might not be paradise,” Strike said. “But it’s better than the other choice.”

  “What’s the other choice?”

  “Darkness.”

  She pushed out the doors, into the sun, feeling the warm rays beat down on her shoulders. Snakes were everywhere. And now it was up to Strike to find them.

  Even when the darkness screamed for her to give in.

  No.

  Especially when the darkness screamed.

  the End

  If you enjoyed Kip Keene’s adventures, please leave an honest review of the box set on Goodreads or Amazon. Each one is a tremendous help. Thanks.

  Kip Keene and Samantha Strike return in THE DIAMOND DRAGON, an adventure that takes them deep in the heart of the mythical land of Shambhala, on the heels of an ancient prophecy. Get it on Amazon at: watchfirepress.com/dd

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