Hotshot

by Mann, Catherine

  She gave him a wide berth to take the podium, not sure of him or herself. Didn’t they have enough to worry about just staying alive? She grasped her wrist, twisting the wide green polka-dot watchband around and around over her faded scar.

  Searching the room for those clues to collect, she realized it wasn’t just anger at the mother pimped out on the drug-dealing lifestyle who pissed her off. It felt like the whole neighborhood was boiling over in a pressure cooker, ready to blow. Everything was coming to a head, from suicide calls to the FBI’s presence in town.

  Would Brody call her again? Was he out to get her or seriously thinking of taking his own life because of what the gang was forcing him to do?

  A part of her balked at the phone tapping that she knew would happen from now on, but they weren’t breaking any laws, and people’s lives were at stake.

  Vince stepped in front of the podium, no barriers between him and his audience. “The Civil Air Patrol is an all-volunteer organization with an air force affiliation. The uniforms are almost the same, as is the ranking system. The opportunities kick butt. It’s not just about learning how to march. Teens will have the chance to participate in everything from learning to fly to search-and-rescue missions.”

  He paused, leaning back against the podium and crossing his biker boots at the heels. “You can tell by my appearance I’m not your run-of-the-mill clean-cut guy.”

  Laughter rippled through the crowd, taking the tension down a notch.

  “I was a member of a motorcycle gang as a teenager—not the good kind, either. I did things that should have landed me in jail. If not for Shay Bassett’s father and his openness to taking on hellions like myself, I would be in jail. Instead, by seventeen I was on board a flight that located a missing father and child who’d gone off the road in a snowstorm. Today, I pilot multimillion-dollar aircraft. There isn’t an easy quick fix here. But I’m sure glad no one gave up on me.”

  He reached for the glass of water beside him and took a long swallow before continuing, “I could ramble on for hours about how freaking cool my job is, but I imagine my time is better spent answering questions you may have about Civil Air Patrol and my own journey off the streets.”

  Shay scanned the crowd, while mumbling a litany of observations for the surveillance device. She watched the parents, listening to their questions and watching their reactions. Some interested. Some skeptical. A few frowning with outright disapproval. For that matter, the young mother with the bling and boob job had just left the building, making her wonder why these parents couldn’t be more supportive.

  Could one of these adults be involved?

  She’d just assumed an older teen, a high-ranking member in one of the gangs, was calling the shots to increase power and establish dominance over other gangs. The possibility that one of these parents could be orchestrating their own child’s life into crime shouldn’t surprise her, but it did. She could only think of one reason why an authority figure would get involved in this juvenile level of violence.

  Money.

  Her eyes gravitated to Brody’s grandmother sitting with his sister. Lord knows they didn’t look like they were rolling in any surprise windfalls, but many got sucked into the criminal activity before realizing that gangs rarely brought much to anyone other than those at the very top of the chain.

  Why would they risk notice with something as high-profile as disrupting a congressional hearing?

  She tried to pull her thoughts together, making mental notes for later when she could speak more freely. Thank goodness Jaworski was here to keep the peace if need be.

  To make sure Vince didn’t throw himself in front of a bullet for her a second time.

  Webber jogged down the cement steps leading to the cellar below a condemned brownstone, his ponytail slapping his back. He whistled the preselected top ten song of the day. He didn’t want his buddy in the cellar jumping him.

  The late afternoon sun beat on his head like a powerful fist. Only twenty-four more hours, and this would be over.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he pumped the handle, the heavy metal door squeaking on its hinges. His mouth dry, he licked his lips and kept whistling. The cooler air underground stank like mold and rotten food.

  The slice of light from outside combined with the beams of a fat flashlight glowing in the corner. No shadows. Just one person.

  Brody rolled to his feet. “Dude, I owe you.” He jogged across the cement floor and gave him a light one-two slug on the shoulder. “You really saved my ass out there. It was like something out of a movie the way you drove up just in time before those whacked out Apocalypse dudes laid into me.”

  “No big thing.” He knelt to jam a brick against the door, propping it open. “I happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

  “Funny coincidence.”

  Not funny and not a coincidence. He’d been tracking Brody.

  Webber stood, grabbed Brody’s hoodie, and slammed him against the concrete wall. “Who did you call?”

  “What?” Brody squeaked.

  “Come on, brother.” He twisted the sweatshirt tighter. “Speak up, or there’s nothing I can do for you.”

  “Just Lewis,” he whispered.

  “I know that much. He told me about the call.” Lewis had actually set up the whole thing to see if Brody would take a used cell phone. Webber was supposed to pretend to use a phone, toss it in the trash in clear sight of Brody, then wait and watch. Lewis was always looking for weak links, and Brody had already used up his second chances.

  And now he’d forced Webber to betray his friend. A test for Webber, too.

  He was walking on the edge here, trying to keep Amber and his mom safe. Shay Bassett, too. “You’re not supposed to call him. Only I am.” He was even keeping Brody alive. “Lewis wants to know who else you called and what you did with the phone.”

  “No-nobody,” he stuttered, the lie written on his face.

  Webber released his hold long enough to dip his hand in the front pocket of Brody’s sweaty hoodie. “This phone, I’m guessing. We’re supposed to toss ’em after we talk. You know that.”

  “I will.” Brody reached to get the phone back, but Webber was quicker.

  “It’s all old.” He turned it over and over in his hand. “Scratched up like. Used.” He knew, because he’d marked it ahead of time. “Where did you get it?”

  “I found it.” He looked away.

  “You just found it? Be straight with me, man. If I can tell, then Lewis is going to know for sure.” He squeezed his friend’s shoulder hard. “I’m trying to help you.”

  “Just don’t tell him then.” Brody bucked up.

  “The only way you’re going to survive this is to tell the truth.” A fact that scared him snotless, since he’d told his own lies to Lewis. Except Brody wasn’t smart enough to pull it off. Selfish lies showed most.

  His foot sank into a soft pile of trash as he stepped closer. “Come on, brother, own up. You can trust me.”

  Yeah, he was learning to lie well.

  Brody dipped his head and whispered, “I saw you throw it away. It seemed like a waste.”

  “What did you do with the money Lewis gave you?”

  “Bought some food and stuff.”

  Bull. He looked into his friend’s eyes, and yeah, Brody had done exactly what Lewis suspected.

  “You bought blow.” Webber pinned him to the wall again, arm across his neck. He wasn’t risking Brody going ape shit on him. “Only question is, did you snort it or shoot up?” Coke or heroin, bad news either way. “Lewis is going to kill you if you don’t get yourself under control. I wouldn’t be surprised if somehow he already knew and sent those Apocalypse badasses to finish the job for him.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.” Brody shook his head, his pupils wide, even for a dark cellar. “He’s with us.”

  Webber wasn’t as certain.

  He leaned in nose to nose. “Are you that much of a pin-head you don’t see he’s playing a
ll sides, whatever brings him the biggest payoff?”

  Brody started shaking. Hard. Worse than the time ten years ago when they’d gotten stuck in a snowdrift trying to sled down the drainage ditch. A long time ago.

  They weren’t kids anymore.

  Webber eased the choke hold and reached into his own deep pocket, his fist curling around brass warmed from his body. His throat hurt like when he used to get strep all the time, but he had to be a man and see this through. It was Brody’s only chance at staying alive.

  That’s all he could do now, try to keep the people around him alive. He wasn’t sure exactly when he’d grown a set of balls and decided to do something other than just roll over and die. He only wished he didn’t feel so alone in seeing this out.

  Webber waved his free hand out the door and snapped. Three long shadows stretched down the stairs. Drawing up in the entrance. Two brothers and a peewee looking to blood-in with the Mercenaries. All wearing the same brass knuckles he pulled out of his pocket.

  Webber thumped Brody on his chest, lightly for now. “You know we have to put you in check.”

  Tears pooled up in Brody’s eyes. “I won’t do it again, man. I’m your brother. You can trust me.”

  Not anymore.

  “Lewis has to see we take care of business, or he won’t be respecting us. You need to remember you ain’t nothing but a soldier.” He tapped Brody on the chest again with the brass knuckles: thump, thump, thump. If he didn’t lead this, someone else would do it. Much worse. “When you disre spected him, you dissed us all.”

  Webber threw the first punch.

  Before his fist met flesh, he shut down. He blocked the whimpers, the flailing, the pleading. He blocked it all. He was two people right now. Like two halves of a brain. Or two sides of nature. He had logic, the part that told him what he had to do, no matter how much it made him want to puke. And he had rage. Years of it bottled up with nowhere to go.

  He let the fury pour out of him now, used it in a way that could bring some good. Brody would hurt like hell, but he wouldn’t end up with a bullet behind his ear. That counted for something. His fist slammed in time with the other arms pumping up and down, driving Brody to the floor.

  Then it was over.

  Brody lay limp on the ground, eyes closed. Webber knelt down to be sure, and yeah, his friend was still breathing. And groaning. They knew how to deliver a beat down that didn’t damage internal organs.

  He swallowed back puke.

  Webber reached in his pocket and pitched a wad of rolled bills to the other three. “Go party.” He nodded to the peewee who’d wanted his blood-in so bad. “You done good. You’re a brother now.”

  Poor little fucker.

  Whooping and high fiving, the three sprinted up the concrete steps. They faded away, high on the smell of blood and whatever they’d pumped into their veins.

  Webber walked toward the flashlight and snatched it up, along with a bottle of water. He walked back and poured it all over his childhood friend’s face.

  Brody moaned, rolled, and clutched his stomach.

  Webber leaned low. “Lewis has a message for you. Quit screwing around and do what you’re told, or he’s going to make sure your sister’s nothing but a toss-up for every Apocalypse piece of shit to plow through.”

  Brody cried. He just curled up and sobbed like a baby.

  The puke fisted harder up his throat.

  Fuck. Webber wanted to cry like a big baby, too. Like the pussy he was trying so hard not to be anymore. But he had to think about the money that would keep his mom and Amber from being tossed. God, these people knew how to find just where to hurt a guy. Lewis had sure found his weak spots fast enough.

  He kept kneeling beside his friend and waited until Brody’s heaves slowed.

  “I’m gonna take you to the emergency room now. Okay, dude? It’s over. You just gotta keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told. You need to remember you’re a foot soldier. Follow orders, and you’ll stay alive.”

  Brody wasn’t half as smart as he thought, and that was dangerous.

  Webber stood again. He’d taken a chance in planting a cell phone that actually had been used for Brody to “find.”

  Lewis hadn’t counted on that. The older guy had told him to use a new one and fake out Brody. Risky thing, disobeying Lewis. Too easily Brody could have been the one delivering the beat down.

  But Webber knew he was smarter. His planned disobedience had a purpose. For sure the cops had to be tracing calls after that bomb threat. Setting up Brody to use the cell phone that had been used for the bomb threat, hoping for a trace . . . it was their only chance at taking Lewis out.

  And maybe even figuring out what else Lewis had going on that he wasn’t sharing.

  Hope. He hated that feeling most of all.

  Webber stuffed his hand in his pocket and shook off the brass knuckles. He extended a bloodstained hand.

  Brody clasped on tight and tugged himself up, barely, leaning most of his weight. “Doesn’t seem fair I get the beat down when nothing happened to you for taking that bitch’s purse.”

  “Life isn’t fair, and if you think it is, then you’re even dumber than I thought, my brother.”

  Lewis had given him his orders and made the consequences clear. A suicide bomb explosion would have everyone looking for terrorists and paying less attention to jacking up gangbangers. Shutting up Shay would make for one less—very persuasive—do-gooder who’d somehow snagged big government attention.

  And if Webber didn’t comply? Lewis would shoot Webber’s mama full of the coke she’d fought so hard to kick, then cut out Amber’s baby, leaving them both to bleed out.

  All Webber needed to stop everything?

  Do exactly what he’d threatened on the phone with Shay Bassett that first day he’d been told to call and get under her skin. He had to kill himself. Strap a bomb to his chest and blow himself up, along with an auditorium full of people.

  All during a nationally televised congressional hearing.

  FIFTEEN

  Don wished the pieces of this investigation would come together faster. Instead, it seemed every time they figured something out, the puzzle expanded as wide as the web of cell phone numbers they’d collected by building networks from that banger’s call.

  And they had less than twenty-four hours to complete the picture.

  Their broadening scope of law enforcement now included the Cleveland Police Department, and the D.C. contingent had shifted to Ohio in preparation for the hearing. He’d been given full use of a station interrogation room for a secured meeting while Paulina settled the Congress members at the hotel.

  Although it didn’t take much effort, given the California congressman’s aide seemed to have taken care of everything from a private guard to mints on the pillow.

  Don glanced at his watch again, waiting for Vince, Vince’s commander, Shay, and Officer Jaworski. He needed work, in fact welcomed the chance to avoid Paulina and the discussion of a possible pregnancy. She had to have noticed the lack of a condom, but after their explosive sex, she’d hauled out of his place pronto. That was okay by him since he was still reeling at even the thought of a baby.

  Another child.

  Another chance to fail.

  Something was cracking wide open inside him, and he was slapping emotional Band-Aids all over himself to keep from hemorrhaging out faster than coffee gurgled in that old coffeemaker in the corner. The hell of it all? He couldn’t figure out what else to do.

  The door clicked open. He jolted to a stop. Whoa.

  Officer L. Jaworski was truly and thoroughly torqued off. You’d think the guy would be happy they’d brought him into the loop. Of course, calling the baton-clutching cop had been a no-brainer when Vince had reported from the air about the attack launched on the boy. They’d followed Brody as long as they could until he slipped into a back alley. God only knew what had happened to the kid. Hopefully Shay could offer insights to help them.

 
Shay, Lieutenant Colonel Scanlon, and Vince followed the young officer who flexed his muscles like an action hero wannabe. The door snicked shut behind them.

  “Thank you for meeting with us.” Don nodded a welcome to the familiar faces, shook hands all around. He’d billed himself as a part of Paulina’s team, since technically the CIA had no jurisdiction here. The role of “concerned father” wouldn’t get him the same level of attention. All the more reason to focus on the job at hand rather than checking how Shay was holding up. “We’re looking forward to working together to ensure everything goes smoothly tomorrow.”

  “So I hear, Agent Bassett. Let’s get right to it.” Jaworski gestured for everyone to take a seat then set a digital photo frame on the table. He clicked to the first image. “Major Deluca tells me his technology indicates that the boy in this photo made a call today on the same cell phone that was used to place the bomb threat at the community center. It’s important that we be sure. Are you certain that’s Brody? I can’t make out anything from this.”

  Vince waved for him to click to the next. “There are more here than she got to see on the printout.” He turned to Shay. “Brody’s the professor-looking one with the scraggly beard, right? ’Cause it appears there’s some facial hair on the chin.”

  Shay leaned closer on her elbows, tucking her short brown hair behind her ears. She’d done that as a child when nervous. An image of her as that sweet little tomboy side-swiped Don with questions of what a kid of his with Paulina would look like.

  His daughter rubbed the lock of hair between her thumb and forefinger. “Sure, but that’s not what tipped me off. Honestly, it’s just something about the way he’s standing.” She pointed to a tiny smudge on the kid’s neck. “And the head of a snake tattoo wrapping around.”

  Jaworski and Vince nearly missed bumping heads looking back at the photo. Vince tapped the magnify feature to zoom in. “Sure enough, there it is.”