No mercy

by John Gilstrap

  Jesse didn’t seem surprised. “Want me to grab a flight out there and talk to someone? It’s easy to stonewall when all you have to do is press a hold button. It gets a little more complicated when you have to look people in the eye.”

  Gail stood and stretched. “It might come to that.”

  Jesse turned to a page in his pile of reports. “I have an interesting lead here,” he said. “Day before yesterday, outside of Muncie, a pharmacist called the local cops to report what he thought might be a runaway. The report here says he was a kid, a teenager or maybe very early twenties, and he was filthy and clearly distraught. He waited there a long time for the bus to Chicago.”

  Gail cocked her head. “How is that a lead for us?”

  Jesse sensed disapproval and his shoulders slumped a little. “The timing works. As far as I’m concerned, wherever the stars align, there’s a potential lead. On the morning of the attack, there’s a kid waiting for a bus to the same place where our Gulf Stream headed. All things considered, it’s a pretty close match.”

  The sheriff didn’t get it. “If they were going to Chicago, why not just fly him to Chicago? What’s the bus thing all about?”

  Jesse gave that some thought. “I can’t say for sure, but a bus doesn’t go right to a location, does it? Maybe he intended to get off somewhere in between.”

  Gail looked at her deputy. For the first time since she’d taken office, she saw why this man was so popular among the troops. His mind was suited perfectly for this line of work. “Do we have a name?” she asked.

  Jesse nodded, and quickly scanned the page. “We’ve got two, actually. We’ve got a name for the pharmacist, and we’ve got a name for the kid.”

  Gail’s jaw dropped.

  Jesse chuckled. “Yeah, that sort of surprised me, too. Apparently the kid gave his name as Hughes, either Thomas or

  “And anybody that rich can certainly afford the services of an independent hostage rescue contractor,” Jesse agreed. “We can’t prove anything, of course.”

  Gail shrugged it off. “We’re too early in the process to worry about proof. Right now, let’s just celebrate our first real break. Now we have to find out what Thomas or Tony Hughes has in common with Richard Lydell of Perseus Foods.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Richard Lydell was apoplectic, his voice betraying a level of rage that Jonathan hadn’t heard since his days in the Unit, and that diatribe had involved a mud bog and a colonel’s Corvette. “Scorpion, do you understand the peril you’ve put me in? Do you understand how I am not cut out for this kind of pressure?”

  Jonathan adjusted the earpiece of his Bluetooth telephone receiver and strolled a circle around the interior of his office. Sometimes, people just needed to vent, and by staying out of their way, you made it easier on everyone. “I’ll say it again, Mr. Lydell, you don’t have anything to worry about. Frankly, I wish you hadn’t decided to stonewall them. Sometimes, protection of one’s constitutional rights is a very small step away from an admission of guilt.” He winced as soon as he heard the G-word pass his lips.

  “What the hell have I got to feel guilty for?” Lydell boomed. Then, before Jonathan could answer, the CEO of Perseus Foods took care of it himself. “The answer is nothing! Under any reasonable circumstance, the answer should be that I’m guilty of nothing. But now that you took my airplane to do whatever terrible thing you did-and I figure it had to have something to do with the triple murder in Indiana that’s all over the news-you’ve made me an accessory. My God, man, do you have any idea how much danger you’ve put me in?”

  Jonathan stood with his back to his Italian mahogany desk, staring out the window at the swarm of boats clogging the river. “Mr. Lydell, whatever danger you are or are not in is now a permanent part of your life. I do everything I can to mask my movements, and you were well aware of the nature of my business when we negotiated my fee.”

  “I didn’t know that you’d be killing people in the United States. I had assumed that your… business took you mainly abroad.”

  Outside of his office, in the reception area of the executive suite, Jonathan heard a door slam open, and a voice bellow, “This had better be goddamn good!” Boxers had responded to Venice’s summons. It was going to be a long day.

  “Look,” Jonathan said into the phone. “I don’t know what you want from me. I never made any promises to you regarding the nature of my business, and I don’t remember a lot of caveats from you when that business involved bringing your daughter home. You do what you think you have to do, but I assure you that your blood pressure should be a far greater concern right now than being linked to my activities.”

  His office door erupted open, and Boxers’ frame filled it. He looked like hammered shit. Clearly, he hadn’t bothered to glance in a mirror before he’d driven in from his house in DC. The quaintness of Fisherman’s Cove was wasted on Boxers, whose primaryound the twenty-four-year-old Lagavulin, and poured himself thirty dollars’ worth.

  Jonathan continued, “I won’t share the details of my precautions, but I can tell you this-the nature of our agreement has not changed. Please try to have a nice day.”

  Lydell was just about to open a new round of negotiation when Jonathan pushed the disconnect button.

  “The hell was that about?” Boxers rumbled as he fell into the leather sofa near the fireplace.

  Jonathan wandered his way and helped himself to the wooden William and Mary rocking chair. The slatted back was somehow easier on his twice-broken vertebrae than the really soft stuff. “Richard Lydell is whining again. The cops in Indiana are better than we gave them credit for.”

  Boxers scowled. “We in trouble?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “Nah. The locals in Samson put the right pieces together and figured out that we flew in from out of town. They traced some records at the airport to Perseus, and when they called, Lydell refused to talk with them.”

  Boxers looked concerned. “That’s like wearing an ‘I’m guilty’ sweatshirt.”

  Jonathan chuckled. “Lydell’s connected. He got the politcos involved. That investigation won’t go anywhere.”

  Boxers took a hit of the scotch and winced. “I wish you wouldn’t talk directly to people like that. It’s a security breach. You’re gonna get yourself in trouble one day.”

  “What, the phone call? Christ, the Scorpion calls are routed through so many switches, nobody could ever know where it’s coming from.”

  It had been a bone of contention between the two of them for some time. Boxers had long believed that Jonathan took too many security shortcuts, arguing that the little things add up over time. Jonathan’s side of the argument was all about personal contact. Without it, he felt, a mission was never whole. You had to make some kind of contact with every client, or else you risked getting set up. Jonathan respected his own ability to judge people by their voices.

  Boxers let the point drop. “Sorry to hear about the ex, Dig. How’s she doing?”

  “Not well, but so far, no change. They’re just hoping that they’ll be able to pull her through it.” He modulated his voice to filter out all emotion.

  “Been to see her?”

  “I’ve tried, but they won’t let me into ICU. I’m not family.”

  “Ven told me that Fuckface is dead, too. Real shame about that.” Like Venice, Boxers had witnessed the Divorce Wars.

  Jonathan wasn’t in the mood for that kind of bantering. He stood. “Come with me to the War Room,” he said. “I’ve got something you need to see.”

  Boxers stood, shifting his drink to his left hand so he could use his right to push himself up from the seat. “I saw the Angry One in there cuing something up for the screen. Is that it?”

  Jonathan never did understand why Boxers and Venice hadn’t found a way to get along, but he’d decided years ago to stay out of it. He led the way to the War Room-a paneled conference area with every conceivable electronic gadget lining the walls and ceiling, plus more embedded in the teak confer
ence table. When they entered and Jonathan pushed the door closed, Boxers helped himself to a seat close to the LCD video panel at the head of the room and placed his scotch on the table.

  “Use a coaster,” Venice commanded, and she slid one across to him.

  He glared and placed the leather disk between the sweaty “I can’t tell. Tibor was famous enough to turn up over a million hits when I searched for him. I can say, though, that a search for Tibor’s name and Conger’s name turned up nothing.”

  Boxers asked, “But because he’s so famous, isn’t it fair to assume that they knew each other? Or at least corresponded?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “They might have corresponded, but they certainly had never met. We see that in the video. Conger didn’t know who he was.”

  Venice turned to a transcript she’d made. “As for the weapons,” she said, “what was that line from the video?” She riffled through the sheets. “Here. When they were talking about whether Hughes brought the ‘items’ and he holds off, wanting to see his son-Thomas, is it?”

  Jonathan nodded.

  “Right, he wanted to see his son Thomas. Hughes says, ‘Your side of the bargain is an inanimate object, my side is a human life. My son. They don’t equate.’ To which Conger replies, ‘Your side of the bargain, as you say, is actually thousands of lives, Mr. Hughes.’” She looked up to see if they had drawn the same conclusions. “It makes sense,” she said.

  Jonathan leaned forward and pulled at his lower lip. “If Conger had a bug up his ass about his assumption that Carlyle Industries was manufacturing chemical weapons, the thing he’d want most in life would be to have a sample to show people.”

  “But nobody would ever step forward to do that,” Boxers said, taking up the line of logic.

  “ Could anyone step forward?” Venice asked. “Does Carlyle actually make chemical weapons?”

  Jonathan stepped in. “If it was true, Ven, it wouldn’t be something we’d be free to discuss. All that matters is Conger thinks it’s true. What better way to get the proof he’s looking for than to kidnap the child of one of the workers? What was Stephenson Hughes’s job there, anyway?”

  Again, Venice answered from memory. “His job title is senior contract administrator. A paper-pusher. He earns just over a hundred thousand a year, and his wife doesn’t work.”

  Jonathan scowled. “Why would they kidnap his kid? Why wouldn’t they go after some senior executive? Or at least someone with direct access to the project?”

  Boxers scoffed, “As if your job title ever reflected what you do for a living. Or mine, for that matter. For all we know, he could have been the grand imperial poobah of special weapons.”

  “And he certainly implied that he had what Conger was looking for,” Venice said. “Even if he never handed it over.”

  “That was probably his contingency plan,” Jonathan agreed. “Like we said before, handing the stuff over was the only hedge he had to keep Thomas alive.”

  “They’d have killed him anyway,” Boxers grumbled.

  Jonathan shrugged. “Of course they would. But what choice did his dad have? It’s why kidnapping works so well as a bargaining tool.”

  “Let’s get back to Fabian Conger,” Venice said, returning to her notes. “He’s a member of a group called the Green Brigade. Sound familiar?”

  Jonathan cocked his head. “It does. Why?”

  She so loved having the upper hand in these things. “Remember the name you had me research? Christine Baker?”

  Jonathan poundand side of the deep rectangular room, easily stretched twenty feet into the darkness. Along the back wall, a raised platform, a couple of music stands, and some dormant amplifiers were evidence of a recent live band performance. Four-legged wooden tables crowded the the place in the front and along the right-hand side.

  “We’re not open yet!” a male voice called from the kitchen behind the bar.

  Jonathan put a finger over his lips to signal Boxers to remain quiet. “Stay near the door here,” he whispered, and then walked farther into the bar. He intentionally moved a chair just to make some noise.

  “I said we’re closed!” This time the voice shimmered with annoyance, and a few seconds later, its owner appeared in the kitchen doorway. “We don’t open for another half hour.”

  Andrew Hawkins looked exactly like the picture that Venice had been able to pull down from the Internet. Although shorter than Jonathan had expected, at say five-eight, Hawkins wore his long hair in a ponytail, and sported a mountain-man beard. Jonathan pegged him as midforties, and figured the gnarly nose evidenced a close familiarity with the product he served. Whatever friendly demeanor existed for his customers was nowhere to be found for his early morning gate-crashers.

  “Good morning, Mr. Hawkins,” Jonathan said in a tone that was equal parts cheer and menace.

  Hawkins’s tired, pale blue eyes narrowed as he tried to make a connection. “Do we know each other?” He tensed as he caught sight of Boxers’ towering hulk blocking his exit out the front door.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Jonathan said. “We’ve got the Green Brigade in common.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hawkins replied a little too quickly. “Now I’ll be happy to serve you in a half hour.” He turned on his heel and disappeared back into the kitchen.

  “He’s bolting,” Jonathan said, but Boxers was already out the front door, on the way around back. Jonathan took the more direct route. He planted his hands on the polished mahogany of the bar and vaulted his feet over, scattering glassware and a sealed plastic container of olives, cherries, and lemon wedges onto the webbed rubber matting on the floor. Ahead, from the other side of the wall, he heard the sound of running feet and clattering pans. That meant Hawkins was not lying in wait just on the other side of the door, which in turn meant that Jonathan could crash through the door with abandon.

  Half as wide as the bar and grille, the kitchen was a place that no customer should ever see. Jonathan recorded it as a blur of greasy walls and food-spattered floors as he watched the back door to the alley close. Three seconds later, he hit the door at full speed, slamming the crash bar and launching the door open with enough force to rip it free of the automatic-closer hardware. A glance to his left showed Boxers turning the corner doing his best to run, and a glance to the right showed Andrew Hawkins sprinting for all he was worth, but already slowing.

  Jonathan tore after him. After ten strides, he’d cut Hawkins’s lead in half. “If you make me catch you, I’ll make it hurt!” he yelled to the little man. “I just want to talk!” Behind him, he could hear Boxers lumbering to catch up.

  Hawkins at first sped up his stride, and then gave up, drawing to a trot and then a walk as he raised his hands in surrender.

  Jonathan fought the urge to tackle him anyway, and instead opted to keep his distance. Without looking at Boxers, he made a sideward waving motion to indicate that he should likewise show restraint.

  Stopped now, with his hands still raised, Hawkins turned to face them both. He looked both frightened and embarrassed. “Running’s not as easy as it used to be,” he said, sheepishly.

  Jonathan kept his voice calm. “Put your hands down. We’re not cops, and we’re not your enemies. We only want to talk.”

  Hawkins lowered his hands. His expression was pure suspicion. “You mentioned that. What are we going to talk about?”

  “The Green Bees.”

  “I don’t-”

  “And please skip the denials. We’re in an alley, for God’s sake, because you made like a track star last time I mentioned the Green Brigade.”

  Hawkins shifted his eyes between Jonathan and Boxers, and as he did, he seemed to find resolve. “Maybe I don’t run so good, but I’ll tell you right now that I don’t scare easy. If you’ve got blackmail on your mind, I got nothin’ worth extorting.”

  “We’re not here to extort anything, Mr. Hawkins. Can I call you Andy?”

  Hawkins scowled. “Not even my
mother calls me Andy. Andrew’s fine. And what’s your name again?”

  “Leon,” Jonathan lied.

  “That’s no more your name than mine is Mona,” Hawkins said.

  Jonathan neither confirmed nor denied. “You’re the leader of the Green Brigade. Yes?”

  Hawkins watched as Boxers worked his way around to block his only escape route. He sighed. “Look, the true answer is no, but I know if I tell you that, you’re gonna beat the shit outta me.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “If you didn’t want me to think that, you wouldn’t have brought Lurch here to block the sun.”

  Jonathan smiled in spite of himself. Back in the Unit, a few people had tried to make the name Lurch stick for Boxers, but the big man didn’t like it. Really didn’t like it. “He’s back there because you looked twitchy as hell inside, and because you ran. Think of him more as a roadblock than a menace. All we want is the truth.”

  Hawkins shrugged. “I used to be the commander of what used to be the Green Brigade. But it doesn’t exist anymore. At least not as I knew it.”

  Jonathan cocked his head.

  Hawkins patted his shirt and then his pants pockets before he stopped himself. “You gonna shoot me if I get a cigarette?”

  “If the cigarette doesn’t have a trigger, you’ll be fine.” As Jonathan spoke, a gentle press with his right elbow reconfirmed the presence of the. 45 on his hip.

  Hawkins told his story as he slid a Marlboro between his lips and lit it with a flourish from his Zippo. “When I joined the Green Bees, it stood for something. We were an environmentalist group. We talked trash, smoked a little weed, organized protests, and circulated petitions.”

  “What were your causes?”

  “A lot of animal rights stuff. Habitat preservation, clean air legislation, that sort of thing. You know it’s shameful how we treat the defenseless creatures of this planet.” He caught Jonathan’s telltale glance toward his clothing. “Yeah, okay, I know. The leather belt and shoes argument. I eat meat, too, but it’s different. You don’t want the whole stump speech, but let me tell you, the day will come when s even on the tattoo.” Jonathan’s shocked expression made Hawkins laugh. “That’s some shit, ain’t it?” He patted his left breast, over his heart. “Right here. To be a full member of the tribe, you had to get this ugly-ass coat of arms lookin’ thing tattooed on your chest. Red, white, and blue, with ‘brigadier for life’ across the bottom. I mean, the thing is fuckin’ huge.”