Rise of The Iron Eagle (The Iron Eagle Series Book 1)

by Roy A. Teel Jr.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘He pulled the hooded figure close

  to his face and whispered, “You’re

  about to have a really bad day.”’

  Steve finished up with his staff and raced to meet Molly and Gail at Bella Donna in Sherman Oaks. He pulled into valet parking, and, Phillip, the lone valet, ran over to his driver’s side door. “Good evening, Agent Hoffman.” “Phil, I’ve been coming here for 20 years; you’ve been parking my cars for the same amount of time. Are you ever going to call me by my first name?” There was laughter, and Phil said, “Not likely. Molly and Gail are already seated.” “Thank you.” “I’ll back your car into its usual spot in case you need to leave in a hurry.” He thanked Phillip and went into the restaurant. Angelo Distigliano was standing at the front desk when he came in. “Agent Hoffman, so nice to see you.” “Hi Angelo. Where are the girls?” He heard the sound of female laughter and said, “Never mind. Can’t miss the cackle of those two.” There was a little laughter between the two men, and Angelo followed him over to the table. Molly jumped up and gave him a big hug and kiss, and Gail did the same. “How long have you two been here, and how many glasses of wine have you had?” They looked at each other like two children trying to keep a secret. Angelo was standing behind him. “Oh…Angelo,” Steve looked back. “Yes sir. The ladies are on their second bottle.” “Have they eaten anything?” “I believe some bread, sir.” “Let’s get the usual for the three of us, please my friend, so we can soak up some of the wine.” Angelo smiled and said, “Vino good for the soul, Agent Hoffman. The girls, they be fine.” “It might be good for the soul, but it’s bad for the head in the morning.” Angelo departed for the kitchen as Steve sat down.

  “Well, I see you two have had a fun day.” They both laughed and Gail leaned over toward Steve and asked with a slight slur, “So, do you like my new tits?” Molly laughed, slurring as well, “You better not have looked at those pictures, mister! They’re vulgar.” “Hey,” Gail responded, “these are my tits we’re talking about.” Molly patted her shoulder in a drunken manner and told her she was sorry. “But this is my husband we’re talking about. I don’t want him looking at my best friend’s breasts.” “Oh please, Moll… you’re one of my best friends. You and Stevo…he can look at my tits without losing his mind.” She looked at him and winked, “Right Stevo?” She flung her glass spilling wine on him and the table. “Oops. Didn’t mean to do that.” He wiped off his suit coat with a napkin. “Okay,” he said, “let’s cut back on the wine until we get some food in you two.” He pulled the ice bucket with the wine away from the table, and the women began to pout. “We only see each other twice a year, sweetheart; we’re just out for a little fun.” “I understand Molly, but let’s try to keep the fun from ending up on the bathroom floor.” The girls laughed and took yet another sip.

  “So what have you two been up to?” They both got shy smiles and whispered to each other. He knew what that meant. “Okay…let’s table that question. Did you find anything nice while shopping?” Molly looked at him disapprovingly, “Steve, you don’t care what we bought or where we were, so cut the crap. We had a nice day and a nice time together.” Angelo came back with salad and asked Steve if he wanted a drink. He ordered a vodka tonic and a bottle of Pellegrino for the table. Steve slid the ice bucket back over after they had eaten their main course, and the girls were a little more sober. Molly had just finished her meal when she looked at Steve and asked, “How was your day, sweetheart?” Gail cringed…she knew what Steve did for a living, and she didn’t want to hear any gory details. Steve knew from Bob that Gail didn’t like to hear about police work. He said it was a fine day and left it at that. When dinner was done, Steve had Phillip park Molly’s car in the back of the restaurant. “Every year, eh, Agent Hoffman?” “Molly and Gail will pick it up tomorrow. Good night, Phillip.” “Good night, sir.” Steve got into his car with the two girls and drove home.

  Molly and Gail were ahead of Steve as they walked up to the house. They lived in a very nice gated community in Sherman Oaks, south of Ventura Boulevard. The house had wonderful views overlooking the San Fernando Valley. As soon as the two women entered the house, clothes started coming off. He picked them up as the two ascended the staircase toward the bedrooms. By the time he got to the master bedroom the two nude women were laying on the bed staring up at the ceiling. “Wow,” Gail said, “the room is spinning.” Steve went over and lifted her up, “Okay…a spinning room is the first step toward a vomit party.” Molly sat up on her own and said, “It’s not spinning, silly…it’s kind of…wavy… like we’re on a ship.” He started to pull down the covers when Molly asked, “You have the whole night home, right?” He nodded. “Well, let’s fool around.” He stared at the two of them. Gail piped up, “Wow…I’ve never seen Steve at a loss for words. Consider it a birthday present.” Molly nodded in agreement, and the two women began to undress him.

  He had fantasized about Gail the entire time that he knew her. She was a beautiful woman with natural blond hair and deep, almost sea green eyes. She stood all of five feet and was curvy in all the right places. Molly wasn’t much bigger and had a figure defying her age. Molly let her long black hair down, and her brown eyes scanned his body. Before he knew it, the three were romping in the darkness until they all passed out from exhaustion.

  Steve’s phone rang at six fifteen a.m., and he reached over to grab it off the belt clip from his pants on the floor. Molly and Gail were nude in an embrace next to him, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed in shock at what had happened. He thought it was a dream, but when he looked over and placed his hand on Gail’s nude ass, she smiled and cuddled up against Molly. He didn’t need to pinch himself; the ringing phone was proof that he was awake. He gathered his faculties and answered the phone. The voice on the other end of the line was not a familiar one. “May I speak to Special Agent Hoffman?” “This is Hoffman. Who’s this?” “My name is Detective Brian Salter with the Long Beach Police Department.” He pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it with confusion. “Okay, detective, why the hell is Long Beach PD calling me?” There was a pause. “We found your business card in the purse of a Jane Doe that we have here near the Pike.” “A Jane Doe…you have an empty purse with just my card in it?” “Yes sir. We need you to come down and see if you can ID the body.” “Is this a homicide investigation?” “Not at this time, sir. There’s no physical sign of trauma to the body. She was discovered by a jogger on a park bench down here near the Pike.” Steve got his bearings and started to gather his clothes. “Okay, I’m en route. Is the coroner on scene?” “En route, sir.” “Okay, I’m on my way. No one moves the body until I’m there!” He kissed Molly on the cheek and told her he had to leave. She smiled and kissed him back and said, “Happy birthday, Mr. Hoffman!” She never opened her eyes. She just tightened her grip on Gail as he smiled and walked into the bathroom to dress.

  Jim’s phone rang at seven forty-five. He was half on and half off the hide-a-bed sofa in his single apartment in Whittier; he was also hung over from the night before and in no mood to talk. “WHAT?” he yelled into the phone. “Jim, it’s Steve. I need you in Long Beach ASAP.” He looked around the apartment. “Hang the fuck on.” There were empty beer and vodka bottles, and a box of half-eaten pizza on another box he was using as a coffee table. He pushed a couple of pizza boxes out of the way, filled with crust and half-eaten pizza, as well as some pieces that were growing penicillin. He stood up and walked toward the kitchen area where there was an overflowing ashtray and a pack of smokes and a lighter. He lit a cigarette and put the phone back to his ear. “What the FUCK are you doing in Long Beach at this fuckin’ hour? I thought you were off last night?” The line was quiet for a moment and Steve spoke, “Jim, I need you down here now. I got a call this morning from a LBPD detective. They found a Jane Doe with my card in her empty purse; they called me to ID the body.” Jim scratched his crotch through his boxer shorts as he
hunted around for his pants, the cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “Okay…that’s a strange one. So are you on scene?” “Yes!” “You want to add any fuckin’ more detail to that statement?” He could hear the beeping sound of a vehicle backing up. “No…just get down here now.” “Okay…okay…where the fuck are you?” “I’m at the Pike on South Pine Avenue. Just take Ocean to Pine and head toward the water. I’ll be waiting for you at the entrance.” The phone went dead while Jim was putting on his shirt. He grabbed a coffee at the Starbucks across the street from his apartment and headed for Long Beach.

  When he pulled up to the main entrance less than a half hour later, he saw multiple police units, the coroner’s van, and Steve standing on the curb. He parked in front of one of the LBPD black and whites and got out. “What the hell’s going on, Steve?” He knew right away by the look on Steve’s face that something was very wrong. Jim became more contrite and walked toward him with a bit more hesitation. Steve looked sick. “What’s going on? Why are you down here on a Jane Doe? Is it a homicide?” He shook his head and pointed in the direction of the yellow tarp over a park bench in front of the park entrance. Jim walked over and showed his ID and lifted the tarp. His face sank, and he put the tarp back down and walked back to Steve. “Who found her?” “A young female jogger, about five forty-five this morning. She called it in to 911.” “Have you interviewed anyone here yet? Have you talked to the jogger?” Steve looked dazed as if he had just woken up, “Um… yea…she said that she saw a woman sitting on the park bench when she passed at around five fifteen, and when she came back by at quarter to six she was still sitting there. She said she decided to approach her and realized the woman wasn’t breathing.” “Did she see anything out of the ordinary other than the body?” Steve shook his head. “I only took a quick look; I’m sure you have seen more. Any sign of trauma? Did she live down here?” He shook his head again. “Shit, Steve, she’s just a kid. How long has she been with your team?” “Not quite a year.” Jim moved Steve toward a bench about thirty feet from the body. “Do you know much about her personal life?” “She didn’t have a personal life. That girl ate and breathed CSI work, and she loved working for the Bureau.” “Are you going to call the family?” Steve nodded and told him about his discussion with her about John, how she thought she recognized him, and how he gave her the shivers when she looked at him.

  The coroner’s workers opened the back of the van, and, with the help of the police, lifted Janet Simmons’ body onto the gurney. They placed her in a black body bag and covered her corpse with the distinctive red velvet blanket just as a news crew showed up on scene. Steve turned to look as they pushed the gurney into the back of the van. “I asked that they do an autopsy immediately,” said Steve. “I understand. Let’s get to the cause of death.” The two men stood up as the van pulled away. A group of people had gathered on a small bridge near the entrance. Jim and Steve started walking in the general direction of the group when a tall slender figure started to move away from the front of the group. Steve noticed it right away and pointed in the direction of the person. Jim noticed, too, and they walked faster toward the group. The figure began to push back against the crowd and then broke out in a full sprint. Steve yelled out and called for backup to stop the runner. The two men ran up the ramp toward where the person had been standing but only saw the figure disappear into a crowd further down the beach. “They have security cameras everywhere here, right?” Jim nodded. “Let’s go pay a visit to the security office. We need all the film for the past twenty four hours.”

  They were unable to get a real description of the runner as everything moved pretty fast. They did learn that it was a Black male who looked to be in his early twenties who was wearing a black track suit with a hood. One woman who was standing next to him said that he was breathing really hard when he saw the two men start talking. She didn’t have anything more than that. Steve and Jim both called their offices and requested subpoenas for the security tapes, and the park made copies of not only the past twenty four hours but the past week, which was as far back as they stored information. Steve walked back to his car with Jim on his heels. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, Steve.” “Janet Simmons is dead, Jim, and I need to know why.” “Do you still want to keep the meeting with me and John for this afternoon?” He nodded. “Okay, I’ll see you then. Do you want me to call John and tell him what happened?” Steve shot him an odd look, “Why would you call John? He didn’t know her as far as I know. We can tell him this afternoon. I have to get to the office. I have a difficult phone call to make.” With that he slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and drove off toward the 710 Freeway. Jim made a few notes and then left for his office as well.

  John Swenson pulled into the underground parking structure of his condo just before seven a.m. He parked and pulled a gym bag from the back of the truck. He grabbed the GPS unit off the dashboard and left the Basin River case file with the film on the passenger seat to take to Steve later in the afternoon. He locked up the truck and was walking toward the elevator when he caught sight of a dark figure moving in the shadows. He pretended not to notice and pulled out his keys which had a transmitter tag that operated the doors and elevators of his condo complex. He had purchased the condo on East Seaside Way three years earlier. It was on the 20th floor with a great view of the Long Beach harbor and looked out over the Queen Mary and other attractions. He placed the transponder against the black pad next to the elevator when the dark hooded figure stepped up behind him. The elevator doors opened, and he felt the muzzle of a gun being pressed into his back. “Get in!” John calmly walked into the elevator with the gunman behind him. As the doors closed, John asked, “So, I take it you don’t live in the building.” There was no response. John pressed the button for the twenty third floor which was the penthouse where two units occupied the top of the building. The gunmen still didn’t make a sound as the elevator began to rise up into the building. “You know…if I were you, I would put down the gun.” There was no response. “Okay,” John said as he moved quickly to the right of the gunman, grabbing his right arm and twisting it while disarming his left. He pulled the hooded figure close to his face and whispered, “You’re about to have a really bad day.”

  Since the elevator was at the sixteenth floor when he disarmed the man, he pressed the button for twenty. His unit was directly adjacent to the elevators. The doors opened, and there was no one in sight. He pushed the man toward his front door and passed his hand over a scanner, and the door opened. Once inside the front foyer of his condo, he pushed the gunman down. The impact knocked the man’s hood off; he was a young Black kid, mid twenties, with a bald head and a teardrop tattoo below his right eye. The kid said nothing and just pulled himself up on his hands so he was sitting. John dropped his gym bag on the counter and took off his jacket. The kid could see that his intended victim was not just massive in his build, he had a gun and a badge on his belt. “Shit man…shit…muda fuka…shit!” He was shaking his head as he sat on the floor. “I’d never beens able to make yous as five-o…shit.” John pulled out a barstool next to his kitchen bar. The kid looked around at the condo. It was immaculate. There was a black leather sofa and chair in the middle of the living room that faced a very large flat screen TV. There was a black cabinet that contained electronic equipment on one side of the TV and another unit of the same make filled with DVDs and CDs. There were all kinds of art on the walls, and a small rug that the sofa and chair sat on. The room had two large windows that were behind the TV which flooded the room with light, and he winced as he looked around. The floor he was sitting on appeared to be white marble. There were two doors on either side of the room, and a glass door that looked like it led to a patio. He could see a king size bed in one room, the other was too dark. “I could’a scored, bro…you gots some nice shit.”

  John sat backwards on the barstool with his huge arms on the back of the chair and his head resting on his hands. “Well…you could have ‘
scored bro’ if you hadn’t been so stupid, so what’s the deal? You doing a gang initiation, or are you just a thug?” He kept looking around the condo; his eyes casing the place as if he was going to come back and rob it later. He spoke as he looked, “Naw bro…I’s full crip, man…I needs some cash. I needs to get me a fix.” John didn’t move, “So what’s your drug of choice, my bother?” He stopped casing the place and looked at John with a fearful look. “I’m no dope fiend, man…” “Really…then what kind of ‘fix’ is it that you need?” He started to shake. “Look man…I sometimes likes to use me some coke.” “The drink or the drug?” John laughed but the kid didn’t. “What’s your name?” “Joe.” “Seriously man. I’m a cop. What’s your full real name.” “My name’s Joe…I knows my rights, muda fucka. I don’t have ta say shit ta ya.”

  John grabbed his gym bag, unzipped it, and pulled out a laptop computer. He opened it and sat it on the counter next to his chair. The unit had two red squares: one on the left and another to the right of the keyboard. He placed his right thumb onto the red light on the right square, and the screen lit up. An electronic voice emitted by the computer came on and said, “Login verified.” John started typing as Joe looked up at the screen. He saw a large Department of Justice seal in the right hand corner and the initials “NCIC.” He didn’t say a word, but John could tell by his expression he knew exactly what he was doing. “I’s not telling yous no more man…I want my lawyer.” John laughed, “Well, you have that line down in proper English. I haven’t read you your rights yet, bro. I’m just a citizen that’s being robbed at gunpoint.” He took the laptop to the floor and instructed Joe on where to place his right thumb. He refused. “I knows my rights.”