“No one here has that kind of authority,” I said.
“A half hour,” he said. I could hear the wind shear atop the skyscraper through his cell. “You’ve got slightly longer than that to fuel a jet at Centennial Airport. One with enough petro to take me due southeast to Central America. The pilot will get the details once we’re airborne.”
“You’re beginning to sound less like a necromancer and a more like a common criminal,” I said.
“Do you love your son, Macaulay?” he said.
And then he disconnected.
It took twenty-seven minutes to get the police helicopter ready and for the pilot to arrive atop the Ritz. As I exited the chopper, Calypso moved closer to the edge of the building.
“Where are the snipers,” he asked.
“No snipers,” I lied.
“What you’ll want to radio to them,” he said. “Is that I won’t die right away. There will be time for me to put young Cole here into a perfect twenty-seven story swan dive.”
“No one is going to shoot at you,” I said. “You know how these things go down.”
“I know exactly how your son is going down if you fuck around with me on this one,” he said.
“Are you okay?” I said to Cole, who still looked weak.
He nodded, terrified.
I looked to Amanda, whose hands were tied behind her back.
“He’s not kidding around,” she said, trying to raise her voice above the wind and the helicopter. “He almost threw me off just to make his point when he thought you weren’t coming.”
“She’s right,” Calypso said. “You know me now, Detective. You know I have nothing to lose and all to gain.”
“The jet is fueling as we speak,” I said.
“No heroics,” the fat man said.
“Release one of them as a good faith gesture,” I said.
“There is no good faith here, Detective. Only bad, I’m afraid.”
The helicopter lifted off with Agent Byrne, Cole, Calypso, and the pilot. I’d like to be able to say that the department had someone capable of flying the chopper who was also a great cop.
This wasn’t the case. Years ago the department began the recruitment of professional pilots and made them officers, if only for flight duty. There were personal pilots within the ranks of the DPD—men and women who’d acquired their helicopter licenses on private time—but Calypso knew that we’d never be able to arrange anything in the half hour time limit.
He gave us just enough time to ready a chopper and fly downtown.
Thank God for Johnny Knoblauch.
Block knew he looked ridiculous in the DPD uniform. He felt like an asshole. What he needed to do was figure out how he was going to take down the subject and save the two lives now in his immediate care.
The helicopter was a Bell and Howell 407, equipped with a state-of-the-art GPS-based autopilot. The autopilot in present-day helicopters, like its airplane brethren, could actually fly a bird better than even the best pilots could.
However, there was an issue. Block hadn’t flown such a complicated chopper. And he’d never used the relatively new autopilot mechanism. Additionally helicopter pilots have one thing and one thing only drilled into their heads from the moment they enter training:
Do not, under ANY circumstances, remove your grip from the CYCLIC.
EVER.
The police pilot had given Block a hurried primer on how to engage the autopilot. But he was not confident. Certainly not when a miscalculation meant the quick death of everyone aboard, including those he was now entrusted to rescue.
“Where the hell do you think you’re flying?” Calypso said from the rear of the chopper.
Block’s mind panicked.
In the confusion they’d all overlooked one crippling detail. In the hustle to show him the autopilot configuration and to discuss a few quick thoughts on his assault, DPD personnel had taken one thing for granted:
That the pilot would know where the fuck Centennial Airport was located.
In the Marines, Block learned that the smallest detail could unravel an entire mission. Get people killed.
“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?” Calypso bellowed from behind him, and went for the sliding door on the port side.
Block’s Special Forces training took over.
Time slowed.
The soldier breathed in deeply, willing all the stress and confusion and pessimism aside.
He reached down and deftly changed the bird to auto.
With his free hand, he slid one of the black twin push daggers free.
As he came out of the seat, Calypso’s back was to him.
The target almost had the safety latch on the door disengaged. In just a few seconds, he’d take them all down.
Cole and the subdued agent had rolled to the other side, away from their captor.
Block reached Calypso as the door to the helicopter slid open and the wind charged the cabin like a raging bull.
God bless autopilot, Block thought as he took Calypso into his grip. The bird had wanted to flip hard starboard when the wind barreled into her, but the autopilot corrected, almost immediately.
Calypso screamed as Johnny Knoblauch put the knife deep into the base of his brainstem. Such an entry wound would instantly kill any man.
But not an Obeah.
The thing Calypso had long ago become—a legionnaire of those he sought to rule—was stronger than his corporeal body might suggest. He would die, certainly, but with the few added seconds, he wouldn’t go alone.
The huge man’s size made leverage his advantage. He reached behind him, the knife still deeply embedded in his spine, and got hold of Block’s vest. Calypso lifted the Marine high above him, slamming Block’s back into the chopper’s roof.
The blunt force stole Block’s wind. He couldn’t find his air in the small space. He needed another second or two, but he didn’t have it.
The pause was all Calypso needed to throw him from the open door.
And he would have. But Agent Amanda Byrne had loosened her restraints and, as the other two struggled mightily, had freed the second of the push daggers from the ankle of Johnny Knoblauch.
Just as Calypso was preparing to launch the flailing body of the pilot through the door, Byrne grabbed Block’s leg, drove the blade deep into Calypso’s right ear, planted her feet, and threw her shoulder into the huge body with everything she had.
Calypso plunged headlong out the door.
Alone.
And though he was of supernatural descent, the Obeah did not fly. Rather, he dropped—as would a lifeless stone—racing toward terminal velocity in the bitter, merciless, Colorado sky.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Epilogue
IT HAS been a month since the death of Calypso and the events surrounding the murders in the park—including the kidnapping of my son. Cole is fine except for a few scars he intends to describe as “earned on the ice”. He returned to Bemidji a few weeks ago. I miss him more than ever, and it does occur to me that I can’t look over him as well when he’s so far away. However, he needed to go on with his life, and the hard truth is (and will forever be) that I can’t be his protector at all times.
So I gave him my blessing. And made it clear I wanted him to check in regularly (which can be a tremendous challenge to young men and women my son’s age).
Gunny and the rest scattered back to their respective homes, including Amanda Byrne, who wasn’t fired from the FBI. With many loose ends to sew up in New York, she’ll be there at least until the end of the year—however it appears her love of Denver is legitimate and she plans to transfer here when her divorce and other pressing matters are final.
I’m not completely sure what happened to me that night with Amanda. I’d like to say it was a mistake—certainly it was a failure on my part, and the evil spirit that possessed my girlfriend notwithstanding, I still betrayed her, and it’s not easy to admit to myself that I could sink to such levels.
I
loved Greer, and that should’ve been enough. Still, I’m human, and I can’t turn down my feelings like the top blanket of a bed. My heart wants what it wants, and I must learn to reconcile that with who I am.
I do wish I knew who Greer really was, and if the woman I shared five years with was there at all. How am I to know if the professor would have ever wanted to be with me—if she ever could have fallen for Detective Bobby Macaulay?
It doesn’t matter. It won’t ever matter again.
And from the first time Amanda Byrne and I met, I’ve had feelings for her. She reminds me of my wife—she has that tenaciousness of spirit, tempered with emotion and humor and a view of the world so similar to my own.
Maybe I’ll go to New York. After I decompress some more.
You see, before Amanda, Gunny, Mike, and Block left Denver, we tried the best we could to reconcile all that we had seen and done. It just wasn’t possible. There are truths we can’t face—sometimes it’s cowardice, other times it’s trauma. We felt neither toward the attack in the woods near Grand Lake, or at least the trauma was bearable.
We simply could not understand it.
War, too, can be like that. Things happen that defy all you’ve ever been raised to believe in. Acts can be committed that might never happen within the context of what we all see as normal.
Cousin Meyer—Father West—is staying on. We have a lot of catching up to do. There is more of my history to learn—the history of the Clan MacAulay. Meyer has proven to be not only a good relative, but also a good friend. Someone to watch over me.
My own problems with the department, however, did seem to smooth over very quickly—much faster than I ever anticipated. It would have been hard to predict—I went in several days after Block and Amanda saved my son. Shackleford was there with me, assisting me every step of the way. He even served as my rep.
My boss would only allow the investigators to ask me questions regarding Greer’s death; when they attempted to steer things toward the events in the woods, Shackleford stood behind me and made it clear that I was under investigation only for my actions in the death of Greer Foster.
He cited my commendations and my fierce sense of duty. He named my meritorious acts as both an officer and a detective.
Two weeks later the final report was released, declaring the death of Greer Foster a justifiable homicide. I was reinstated to the force, full time.
I’m unclear exactly where the future leads—more importantly, what my role in it might be. I still have my badge and the tenets for which it stands still mean something to me.
But what we saw—what happened—well, it suggests a world that is different from the one I woke up in almost a year ago. Maybe the world didn’t change, but my place in it did.
I have reexamined my faith. My dependence on it—the confidence I had in it, no matter how tenuous—disappeared the day I lost Isabel. It had been crumbling—brick by brick, day by day, hour by hour, through the length of her sickness. And then there was nothing left.
It happens. We’re human, and therefore imperfect. We act out. We fail. I’m convinced God does not control our lives and he doesn’t drain nor refill our reservoir of faith as if we were pitchers of water.
But he watches over us. And I think he roots for us, too. I said once before that he’s tired of the way the world has become—that perhaps he’s lost faith in us. I no longer believe that to be true. He sees us, and he wants us to triumph.
And that is enough for me.
It’s the week before Christmas. Cole is planning to spend the holiday with his new girlfriend—a volleyball player from college. I’ve decided to take a couple weeks off and go and visit Amanda. Her transfer to Denver has been slow-crawling its way through the FBI’s quagmire of red tape and I’ve found myself missing her.
Lieutenant Shackleford wants to see me before I leave.
“Sit down, Mac. Take a load off.”
“Thanks, boss.”
“I think this time off is a good thing,” he says. “I stood up for you, Mac, because I believe in you. I want you on my team.”
“I don’t plan on going anywhere, Lieutenant.”
“Good,” he says. “I’ll see about a new partner when you get back. Things have been a little crazy around here—budget cuts, etcetera. You know the drill.”
“I do.”
“Look, Mac, I’ve never pried on the whole Grand Lake scene.”
“And I’ve appreciated that, sir.”
“I want you to know that it’s not going to have any negative affect on your place here. What I mean is, you’re too good a cop to let that hocus pocus bullshit get in the way.”
“Understood, Lieutenant.”
“Good, Mac. Listen, you enjoy your time in the Big Apple.”
“I plan to,” I tell him.
“Say hello to Agent Byrne,” he says, straightening his desk.
“Will do.”
As I’m leaving, he calls after me.
“Oh, one last thing. I took care of that immigration issue—the favor in regard to that seer, Madame Marta Jones.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“I reached out to a friend I have in Justice. He has a friend in INS, and so on. It’s all taken care of.”
“Again, sir, I know it probably cost you a few markers.”
“It did,” he says, as I’m turning to leave. “But with a permanent work visa, she’ll be here for a long, long time.”
I stop walking and turn around.
“Say again?”
“I got her all fixed up. She’ll be here in Denver as long as she likes. I figured that would make you happy.”
“Make me happy?”
“Forget it. You can buy me drink when you get back. The clock’s ticking, Detective.”
And then he does something I’ve never witnessed.
He grins.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
R.S. Guthrie lives in Colorado with his beautiful wife, three Australian Shepherds, and a Chihuahua who believes she’s a forty-pound Aussie. The Guthrie dogs are their children and there is no disputing the fact that the canines rule the household.
L O S T is the second in the Detective Bobby Mac Thriller series and the first chapter excerpt is included at the end of this book. The author’s next planned book is the third in the Detective Bobby Mac Thriller series, entitled Reckoning. But somewhere in the near future, there is a dog book digging to get out, and it will pay homage to the kindest, most loyal animals on the planet.
Pictured with the author is three year-old Elsa. She is as intelligent and as beautiful as she appears (and knows it all too well.)
You are invited to visit the author’s web page for information:
http://www.rsguthrie.com
The following is a special preview of the first chapter of the second Detective Bobby Mac Thriller, available for download now:
L O S T
A Detective Bobby Mac Thriller (Vol. 2)
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
King Solomon, Proverbs 17:17
MY BROTHER, Jackson, and I have not spoken much over the years. The reasons are complicated, but in the end, it’s because we are far too alike, he and I. We humans have such difficulty reconciling with ourselves, we seem to clash hardest with those most like us.
It’s not that we don’t love each other. I certainly love him, and I know he would be there for me if the chips were ever to fall askew, and I needed him to help.
But for the day-to-day camaraderie, we’ve had to make our peace.
So when I saw the message on my desk from the PA, telling me my brother in Idaho had called and needed me to get back to him ASAP, I figured it had to be bad news.
I walked outside, wary of the
filth of the downtown air. I had moved to south Metro—thirty miles from our precinct building—for several reasons, not the least of which was to get myself further from the pollution that seemed to be permeating my beloved city more and more every day.
I also moved because I could no longer live in the place where I’d killed, Greer, my girlfriend—the one I wanted more than anything to marry one day.
Yeah, memories like that tend to sully the feeling that there’s no place like home.
The nearest city bench looked as good as any spot to digest whatever my brother needed to tell me. I sat, but I did not call him right away. When faced with the prospect of speaking with Jax, it usually seemed prudent to make at least a cursory attempt to calm myself.
Afterward came the decompression.
Most of our discussions more resembled live debates than brotherly chitchat. They tired me. Drained my mental will. I knew that’s why so many of our conversations earlier in life had degenerated into all-out warring.
I took a few regulating breaths and dialed his number.
“Chief Macaulay,” my brother answered.
“Hey, Jax.”
“Bobby, how the hell are you, brother?”
He did not seem upset. Unfortunately this did not assuage the fear in my gut.
“Hanging in there,” I said. “How are those girls of yours?”
I had not shared anything about Greer, Cole’s kidnapping, or any of the rest. He never met Greer—I think they spoke only once—and since all worked out with my son, I simply didn’t see the need to involve my estranged brother or his family.
“Mary’s doing great,” he said, referencing his wife. “The little ones aren’t so little anymore, big brother. Celia is eight, Gracie just turned six.”
“They grow like weeds,” I said, wondering where this uncharacteristic chewing of the rag was headed.
Black Beast: A Hard Boiled Murder Mystery (A Detective Bobby Mac Thriller Book 1) Page 18
