by Jacob Hammes
Son of Cerberus
Book 2 of the Unusual Operations Division Series
Jacob Ryan Hammes
Copyright © 2015 Jacob Ryan Hammes
Edited by Todd Barsleow
All Rights Reserved
Dedication
This book is dedicated mostly to my family. They put up with endless speeches about what I want to write about next, listen to me while I bitch and moan and complain, but still root for me like a bunch of extreme cheerleaders. It is not, however, dedicated to those who said I couldn’t do it… I did it. Yeah I mean you.
It is dedicated to the thousands of authors out there that wonder whether or not they can. It’s dedicated to all the people who escape everyday life to wander into the unknown. To all the people who have been shaped by their lives.
To all the cantankerous curmudgeons, keep on doing your thing.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
If it were not for my wife, pushing me in so many different ways, this project may never have come to a close. My young children, so full of hope and happiness, made me remember quite often why I write. My mom and dad once again gave me nothing but support. I love my family more than anything, so thank you all for the help.
Chapter 1
“I’ve made a list,” Julie Townsend said. Her beautiful blonde hair fell playfully across the soft features of her lovely face. It covered one of her tired light green, almost blue, eyes and stuck to the pink gloss covering her plump lips. The blankets she lay under played the same trick. They cascade down her prone body, nearly but not completely covering her perfectly shaped backside and long legs. She was completely naked besides those blankets and that beautiful concealing hair. The smell of her clean skin was intoxicating, too. It was as if this woman had been created by some computer program that knew every single thing a man could want.
“Go on,” Marcus Claudius Constantine said beside her. He wished she would just keep talking with that amazing voice. It was like shining a flashlight in a dark and empty room. When she spoke, the image of his dead friend Bishop propped unceremoniously up against the wheel of the vehicle on which he died went away. The images of all the dead, all the wounded, and all the demons went away—disappeared into the darkness. When she spoke, she played the role of the flashlight. She kept the horrible images in his mind at bay.
For a moment, Marcus relived that day. He was there in the house of an unfamiliar person. For a moment, he heard the rain beating down outside and the thunder churning through the wind and water. It was amongst those noises that he heard the loud pop of a pistol outside the house. Somehow he knew after that first bang that he had lost a friend.
Tonight was not a good night. Regardless of that beautiful woman lying with her head near Marcus’s, he could not shake the image of what had happened just months ago. He hated missing the dead. It was something that he wore, though, like a tattoo or a scar.
“Do you want to know what it’s about?” she goaded him. “I’ll tell you if you kiss me.”
Marcus obliged without as much as a breath of complaint. He could hardly keep his hands off of her, let alone deny her a kiss. It was her amazing intellect, though, that made him forget about his past life. Sometimes he forgot all about his deceased wife, friends, and his job. Sometimes he forgot that there were things, evil things, out there that were reaching up like tendrils in an ocean. The tentacles of those things whipped just out of sight, always threatening, yet never seemed to find him when they were together. Though he still put work above everyone else, he was slowly growing more and more fond of Julie.
“Well, it’s not really like a written list or anything,” Julie continued playfully. “It’s something I made up in my mind when I was bored at work today. I just started ticking down all the things about you I really enjoy. I was thinking about your hair and how you cut it a little shorter for me. It looks really nice like this.”
Marcus agreed. He had been partial to his nearly neck-length hair for a long time now, but change was necessary. Now, with the help of a stylist in downtown D.C., Marcus fit the part of a federal agent during the day and a punk rocker at night. The jet black hair had been cut just long enough to grease back over the top of his head while he was working, giving him the guise of a stock broker. When out at night, however, he could simply muss it up and let it fall down nearly over his eyes. It brought the cut of his jaw and his perfectly placed ears out, or so she told him.
He fluffed the covers so he could see her legs more closely. They wrapped around his like two pretzels interlaced with one another. His were nearly black with tattoos and hers were soft and slightly tanned. She was clean of scars and ink, unlike Marcus. The symbols and sayings were all in reference to his beliefs or in some way important to him and his past. The scars that dotted him every so often were also symbols; symbols of the things he had been through. The most recent scars were nearly faded, but some would last forever.
“I really enjoy the way you look at me,” Julie continued. “Sometimes I get shy and I have to look away. It sort of feels like you’re staring into my soul.”
He liked the way she shyly averted her eyes occasionally. It made him feel as if he had some special sway over her. Honestly, it made him feel as if he were a teenager again, flirting with the prettiest girl in school.
Marcus knew the reason he was uneasy. The night had been perfect except for one thing. It was one thirty-five in the morning and he had a pit in his stomach. Something out there was building, some case that would soon envelope his life again. Marcus could always tell when he would be getting a phone call within the next few hours. Regardless of what he was doing, despite the fact that it was so early in the morning or late at night, he had to answer that phone. He wouldn’t have it any other way, though. Since he had lost so much in his life, Marcus had come to rely more heavily on things like work.
Julie would understand.
“Keep flirting with me,” Marcus said, trailing a hand down her back to her buttock. It was firm, soft, and perfect.
“Well,” Julie answered. “I like your dark, almost black eyes. I like your button nose and your plump lips. You’re unique and you should be thankful.”
“I’m thankful for you,” Marcus replied.
“You should be thankful for that, too.”
Germaine Johnson was a tall black man from the center of Dallas, Texas. Everyone said he looked like a football player that never made it to the NFL. Germaine ran with the compliment because it was true. When the six-foot nine-inch, two-hundred and eighty pound man hit his junior year in college, he was on the fast track to becoming an all-star. He had speed, agility, brute strength, and something no one else on his team had—an arm that could shoot a football nearly the entire length of the field with enough accuracy to hit a Frisbee.
He wound up in his current state because of crappy luck. Germaine had damaged both knees badl
y enough in one season that surgery had been required. He still walked with a limp. He wanted to kill the man who took his knees out, but no one was to blame but himself. Even then, the thought of killing the one responsible had crossed his mind more than once.
Germaine tripped walking down some stairs after twisting one knee on the field. The limp had made him unsteady causing him to topple dangerously. One too many beers made it all the worse. After the doctors straightened a leg that had been bent the wrong direction, they sealed his fate of never making the NFL with two plates and ten screws.
Needless to say, Germaine had been bitter for some time. Now he lumbered about as the head of a security team for a small shipping yard in New Jersey. It wasn’t his ideal job, that was for sure, but people looked up to him because of his size and fearless nature. He was one of a kind when it came to security personnel. His broad stature and ease when it came down to pushing people out of where they were not allowed made him an essential key in maintaining a secure area. Though he had never had to use his firearm, Germaine was also a crack shot.
The shipyard was home to five small docks and one large one. The smaller docks were used to unload all sorts of domestic merchandise from around the United States and outlying areas. Germaine wondered who would use a boat to transport materials these days, but it seemed like a good deal for the ship captains. The boats were usually sixty to seventy feet long with most of the cargo below decks. They came in all shapes and sizes; Germaine had even seen a tugboat with a Volkswagen car parked on its bow. The guy said he was transporting it for his buddy from one of the small islands that dot the Atlantic coast.
The large dock was really what Germaine was there to guard. The shipyard could house one supermassive ship and unload its contents in under a day. Its length was just shy of fifteen hundred feet and its cranes were capable of reaching nearly two hundred feet off the water. Not that any ships that large ever made their way to the D14 shipyard in Jersey, but they were more than capable of handling anything that came in.
This was where all the high-priced goods came to port. Expensive cars, furniture, even a few pieces of history that were in transit to-and-from museums around the world came through from time to time. Germaine wasn’t privy to inventories of any of the items that came in. He was just there to supervise security for all ground operations within his area of responsibility. This way, no one looking for a free ride or a pair of matching Bentleys ever jumped the fence.
Usually Germaine’s job was easy. Questions women asked him at bars were about mobsters and thieves like the ones from any number of films. He laughed to himself and told them how often he wished it were like that. He didn’t bother telling them about the many nights like tonight he suffered through. High winds kicked up a light mist from the freezing cold Jersey water that mixed with the light sprinkle falling from the dark sky above. No matter how many jackets Germaine put on, he couldn’t keep the cold out. Add to that the fog that made it impossible to see more than ten feet in front of his face and Germaine had to admit this was the worst night of work he had ever had to suffer through. Unfortunately, that thought had been coming to him more and more often lately.
“Germaine,” a voice came to him through the two-way radio on his belt. It was the surveillance manager sitting comfortably in his office. His job was the easier of the two. He stared at surveillance screens that filtered through the various security cameras dotting the shipyards from a nice warm chair. The fat, bearded man was probably drinking a beer to top it off. Germaine had filed more than one complaint about the man and his unprofessional attitude, but no one working for the company cared about anything but the security of the merchandise passing through. Even though the fat man was drunk most of the time, ugly as hell and never volunteered to do anything but stare at computer screens, Frank DiMaggio had never had an incident on his watch.
“Hey, Germaine.” His annoying voice broke Germaine out of his thoughts. He probably needed someone to check out a fence or a broken camera. It was the only thing that ever happened in this place anyway.
“Go for Germaine,” he replied.
“Hey,” Frank started, “there’s something weird going on near dock six.” Dock six was the smallest dock the shipyard contained. Though it was still sixty feet long, it was hardly used. Germaine wondered silently what could possibly be happening at an empty dock in the middle of the crappiest night he had ever worked.
“Well,” Germaine started, “are you going to tell me what’s going on or do you expect me to run down there and check it out?”
There was a moment of silence on the radio. The guy was contemplating whether or not to tell Germaine what was up. For an instant, Germaine wondered whether he should rekey the microphone and start shouting what he had just said more slowly. Sometimes the connection was bad between the radios and the surveillance shack. Most of the time, however, Germaine just felt like being an ass.
He moved his thumb down to key the microphone again, but stopped short as the crackle of Frank’s response came through.
“You need to go down there. Get your air horn and a high-powered flashlight. I think there’s a ship about to hit the dock.”
The feeling in Marcus’s stomach was growing stronger. He was still wearing nothing, looking at and chatting with the beautiful Julie Townsend, but a feeling of uneasiness was creeping up over him. From head to toe, Marcus was on edge. He couldn’t remember the last time he was like this for no reason. It must have been just before his last case had started. Marcus had always had a sort of gift; the entire team he worked with at the Unusual Operations Division had some sort of gift or another. They had all been chosen for their specific abilities, whether they be innate or learned.
Marcus’s unofficial gift was this horrible intuition. It obviously wasn’t the reason he had been hand selected to run the team, though. He liked to think of it as the opposite of a bonus. It was more of a curse he had received for failing at something long ago. Since then, his emotions were in tune with his surroundings, his past, and most certainly the very near future.
“What’s going on with you?” Julie said, noticing that he was tense. In fact, he had not even realized nearly every muscle in his body was clenched. His abs stuck out against the taut skin on his stomach, his knees were locked and ready to spring, and his jaw was set like a spring.
He immediately forced his body to calm down and relax. His head, which had been hovering just slightly off the pillow, plopped back down. Julie was obviously perturbed by her boyfriend and his sudden change in mood. Marcus wondered if he had set her off.
“Oh,” Marcus uttered. “It’s just work. I’ve had a rough couple of days. Lots of paperwork and such, you know?”
“No,” Julie answered, accepting the ruse that Marcus had created. “But I’d love to calm you down a bit more.”
Marcus knew what that meant. He had been bracing for this moment all night. It was the time of night when Julie switched from some loving woman to a ravenous creature that wanted blood, sweat, and sex. It wasn’t every night Marcus got to enjoy the woman in her insatiable state and usually he looked forward to her escapades. Tonight, however, would be something different. He knew he was not going to be able to shake the terrible feeling. It almost felt like he had forgotten something just after leaving the house.
For lack of a better description, Marcus found it annoying.
Julie tossed the covers off of them onto the floor. In the dim candlelight that illuminated Marcus’s room, he could just make out the curves of her butt as she pushed it up into the air. On all fours, Julie looked like a predator, ready to eat him for supper. Her hair fell down over her face, concealing her intentions.
He had to admit, just the thought of what was about to transpire made him feel better inside.
She worked her way on top of Marcus, kissing his tattoo-covered legs as she did. Her soft kisses excited the man, but not enough to totally ease his mind just yet. Then she started biting him. The first nibble was on his s
tomach, just below his belt line. The next one was a little higher up, and then a little higher until Julie’s naked form was laying on top of his while she bit heavily into his neck.
“God…” Marcus nearly cursed at her for biting him too hard.
“Oh shut your mouth,” Julie whispered teasingly into his ear. “The fun has just begun.”
Germaine had the use of a golf cart to get around quickly amongst the massive docks and storage containers that dotted the asphalt-covered expanse between the fences and the New Jersey waterways. The little circulating yellow light on top of the cart played havoc with his night vision as he drove quickly through the fog and misty rain. He had never been told, even jokingly, that a ship was about to smash into the docks. This was something he had hardly even trained for. Germaine had sat through computerized presentations and briefings about the situation but never experienced it firsthand. What made things worse was the security outfit Germaine worked for was operating at half-staff for the next few days because of ‘cut-backs’. Usually he didn’t mind working by himself, but Germaine could definitely use some help on this.
“Just get down to the farthest point on the dock and blow the horn,” Frank the surveillance man said. “Then start flashing the high-powered light and hope they can see it before it’s too late.”
“Have you tried to contact them again?” Germaine knew the answer. Frank was still employed with the company because he had averted more than one disaster, not because someone thought he was good looking.
“Yes,” Frank said. A hint of desperation tinted his voice. “I’ve contacted the port authority, too, and no one is supposed to be coming in tonight at all. It’s this damned fog and a damaged ship, I’m telling you.”
“Okay,” Germaine said, turning his golf cart onto the dock’s long walkway. “I’ll try and get their attention, but you had better contact the Coast Guard and the local authorities in case these guys are drunk or something.”
