Burke's War: Bob Burke Action Thriller 1 (Bob Burke Action Thrillers)

by William F. Brown

  “Eleanor warned me about you. You killed her, didn’t you?” she gasped.

  “Ah, you’ve been talking to that fellow Burke. Yes, I killed her!” he suddenly pressed himself hard against her. “I killed her and I’ll kill you too; but I’ll do a lot of other things to you first, if you don’t get me those papers!” Greenway let his words sink in. “Until you do, I own you, Linda; and I can do anything I want to you, because you are a thief, like Eleanor.”

  “Dr. Greenway? I really need to talk to Linda,” the voice on the intercom spoke again

  Finally, he backed away and released his grip on her neck. “You are involved in the theft of important corporate documents, and there’s no one who can help you now — not the girls downstairs, not the police, not even your friend Robert Burke. No one!” he said as he pulled up his pants up and tucked in his shirt. “The next time I call you up here, plan on staying for a while and plan on being much more cooperative; that is, unless you want to find yourself in the unemployment line, or in jail, and your darling little daughter in the custody of Social Services.”

  “My daughter? You bastard!” she scrambled to her feet, pulled down her skirt, and tried desperately to straighten her clothes. “You…!” She wanted to scream something at him but she was too rattled to find the words.

  “Believe me, Linda, that was nothing,” he smiled. “No harm, no foul, as they say, simply a little demonstration of things to come, if you don’t learn to cooperate.”

  "If you ever touch me again, or dare to touch my daughter, I'll kill you!"

  "Really?" Greenway laughed at her and pointed down to her torn panties, hanging around one ankle, “Well, you might want to get rid of those first, before you go back downstairs, killer.”

  “I’m calling the police!” she pulled them off and stumbled backward toward the door.

  “Oh, be my guest,” he laughed even harder as he pointed at the phone. “I have Chief Bentley on speed dial; so, stop lying to me. As you should know by now, you are playing a very dangerous game with me, little girl. I want my papers back, and you are going to get them for me; because the next time we have one of our little chats…”

  “There will never be a next time!” she seethed as she backed away.

  “Oh, yes there will, tomorrow afternoon, I think. Yes, I shall clear my schedule. Shall we say around 3:00? So plan to bring those papers and reports to me then, right here, in my office. I’ll even open a nice bottle of wine for the occasion, as I did with Eleanor. Won’t that be nice?”

  “Nice…?” she sputtered. “I’m never coming back up here!”

  “Oh, yes you will. Of course, if you’d prefer a little more privacy,” he said as he belted his pants and grinned at her. “I suppose we could meet at your house in Des Plaines and have a ‘play date’ — you, me, and little Emily."

  She turned and glared at him. "If you ever touch my daughter, I swear, I'll kill you!"

  "Ah, we seem to have found a hot button, haven't we?" he laughed at her. "But if you don’t like the prospect of being alone with me, then you really won’t like spending a few nights with Chief Bentley in one of the cells in that new cracker box jail of his after I have you arrested as an accomplice to grand theft. I understand he and his boys can be quite rough on young women.”

  Linda’s eyes went wide as she yanked the office door open and ran.

  “Tomorrow, Linda, 3:00 p.m. tomorrow!” he called out as she ran into the hallway, slamming his office door behind her.

  Red-faced, her hair and clothes in disarray, she was almost in tears when she reached the elevator and pushed the button. The twin stainless steel doors opened, but as she tried to step inside, she ran into Tony Scalese, who was coming out. Bumping into him was like bumping into a brick wall, and she let loose a small, panicked scream. She was already right on the edge of a breakdown, and quickly backed away, terrified, assuming Greenway sent for him. However, she could not have been more wrong.

  Scalese paused. He looked at her and immediately noted her mussed hair and twisted clothes. He saw Greenway’s office door standing open at the end of the hall and frowned. Obviously, it did not take him long to figure out what had just transpired.

  Linda swore she saw his eyes narrow as he mumbled, “Excuse me,” sounding truly contrite. He stepped aside to let Linda enter the elevator, and then turned and marched toward Greenway’s office.

  Tony Scalese burst through Greenway’s door, slammed it behind him, and felt his anger building to a towering rage. Greenway sat behind his desk and looked up at him with a contented smirk. Scalese saw the files and magazines scattered about the floor near the coffee table, and noticed that the cushions on the leather couch were out of place. He strode right up to the edge of Greenway’s desk, leaned forward on both fists, and glared down at him.

  “You don’t seem to hear so well anymore, Doc. I told you if you didn’t keep it in your pants, there’d be some serious repercussions. What? You think I was kidding?”

  “Her? I caught her going through Eleanor Purdue’s office.”

  “Purdue’s office? So what! We went through the whole place — the desk, the credenza, even her computer. There ain’t nothing in there, and you know it.”

  “But she didn’t, Anthony,” Greenway snapped back defiantly. “She was Eleanor’s best friend, and she knows more than you think she does. I saw her talking to that fellow Burke last night, and was trying to find out what they were up to.”

  “Doc, that ain’t what you were doin’ here, and you know it.”

  “You’re wrong,” Greenway rose to the challenge. “She knows where Eleanor hid those reports; and she’s going to get them for me.”

  “Really? How? Did you rape her like all the others?”

  “No, no, not yet,” he shook his head and smiled. “What you fail to understand is that certain forms of ‘physical intimidation’ can be highly useful in gaining a young woman’s cooperation.”

  “Cooperation?”

  “Yes, in her case, a small demonstration and the mere mention of her young daughter’s name proved more than sufficient.”

  “Okay, what did she tell you?”

  “Nothing yet, but tomorrow afternoon she will. She has far too much to lose now.”

  “You really are a son of a bitch aren’t you, Doc?”

  Greenway looked up and sneered at the other man. “Anthony, I haven’t come close to the many outrages you and the DiGrigorias have committed,” he said. “Speaking of which, did Bentley get rid of that ‘telephone man,’ Burke, yet, as you told me he would?”

  “No! I just got off the phone with that idiot,” he said as he backed away, chagrined. “The judge let Burke walk, and Bentley says he may be a lot more difficult to get rid of than we thought.”

  “More difficult? Then stop giving me any more of your crap about what I do and how I do it!” Greenway jumped to his feet glared across at Scalese. “I shall take care of the lovely Ms. Sylvester any damned way I please, and I will get my missing documents back. You tell Bentley to do what we’re paying him to do… unless you need me to do that, too?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When Bob and Angie Burke split eight months earlier, his friends referred to it as “the Big Bang,” “the San Andreas Fault,” or “the Eve of Destruction,” subtle things like that. For his part, as things fell apart, Bob tried to take the high road, while Angie’s idea of a road was the kind Sherman took through Georgia — burn everything and leave nothing behind but ashes. If she could not have it, no one would have it. That was Angie.

  On the other hand, Bob was a realist. For him, all that remained was to acknowledge their situation with the “D” word, D-I-V-O-R-C-E, as the song went. Maybe it was the Army, but reality was simply part of his DNA. When it’s over, it’s over, and only the dumbass Marines fight battles they can’t win. Not him. He and Angie argued enough, fought enough, and bled enough; they were well past any hope of reconciling. So why not part as friends? That was the only thing that made an
y sense to him, but Bob was a lot older than Angie was, and decades more mature.

  In terms of money and property, he owned very little when he came into the marriage straight from the Army — a cheap apartment, a used Saturn, and maybe eight thousand dollars in the bank. He thought it only fair to leave the same way. However, the company stock was different. Ed Toler decided that Bob was the best choice to succeed him as President, and he gave him the job and controlling interest in the company. That was Ed’s choice to make, and Bob felt obliged to honor that trust. The real estate and accumulated family wealth was different. The day he walked out, Bob handed Angie the keys to the big house in Winnetka, and the condominiums in Vail, New York City, and downtown Chicago. Illinois divorce law aside, the real estate belonged to her father and mother, so Bob felt it should all go to her, regardless. Fair was fair. She got the new, "polar bear" white Cadillac Escalade “war wagon,” and he drove away from the big house in Winnetka in his “embarrassing” old Saturn, as she called it.

  That was how he wanted the property settled; but his lawyer, George Grierson, could not disagree more. “Bob, you don’t understand. That isn’t how it works. If you give her all that stuff now, without even arguing, it comes off the table and then she’ll get half of what’s left, too.”

  “No, George, you’re the one who doesn’t understand. I don’t want any of it and I never did. The truth is I should have stayed in the Army. I know that now, but Ed caught me in weak moment and I caved. Okay, that first year or so with Angie was really great, and the job was great, too. Ed would teach me stuff during the day, and Angie would turn me stupid all over again at night, but it was great. We were in love and I thought it would go on forever, until Ed got sick and went into the hospital, and that was the end of everything.”

  “It was for him, too.”

  “True, and for me and Angie. You see, she didn’t give a damn about the houses or the cars, either. She thought it was all hers to begin with — and the company too. The truth is, I didn’t want that either, but Ed made me swear I’d accept and honor his stock distribution plan. He insisted; he said he’d come back and haunt me if I didn’t. He told her about it in the hospital, when the first set of tests came back bad. For ‘Daddy Dearest’ to do that to her… well, she blamed it all on me, of course, said I brainwashed him and that was the end of them and of us.”

  “I understand that, Bob, but the house and the condos are worth a lot of money, maybe more than the company when you net it all out. Can I at least talk to her about a trade, maybe some kind of a compromise?” Grierson suggested.

  “George, you’re missing the whole point. She thinks the houses and the condos always were hers, from day one. I can’t trade them to her. If I did anything other than hand her the keys, she would have blown an even bigger fit. The problem is she thinks the company is hers too, by right. If I don’t hand over those keys too, she’s going to war. So give her the real estate, all of it. That’s a sideshow. The real battle will be over the company.”

  That was why Angie ended up in the big houses with the expensive cars, and why Bob ended up in a modest two-bedroom rental townhouse in Arlington Heights with rented furniture and an old Saturn parked in the small, attached garage out back.

  It was already dark when Bob finally left the office, stopping home long enough to check the mail, see if there was anything on the answering machine, and change clothes. Normally, that would be followed by a hard martial arts workout at the gym, a 5-K run, some fruit and salad, and an early night’s sleep. After six months of this Spartan regimen, he shed the excess “Angie” weight and his fat ass was almost back to fighting shape. He wasn’t quite the “lean, mean, war machine” of five years ago who could hump seventy-pound packs across the Hindu Kush all day long, but he was getting there. This Spartan regime, the modest townhouse, and occasional TV dinners didn’t bother him in the slightest. He’d lived out of suitcases, Bachelor Officer’s Quarters, cheap motels, tents, backpacks and occasionally on the hard, bare ground, so a ninety-nine dollar mattress and Formica countertops were much more to his taste than the big house with all the marble in Winnetka.

  He pulled a bottle of water and an apple out of the refrigerator and began to flip through the day’s stack of junk mail when his phone rang. The display on the answering machine showed a number he didn’t recognize, so he let it go to record.

  He heard a young woman’s hesitant voice say, “Mr. Burke, this is Linda Sylvester. I tried calling you before and… Look, I know it is late and I can call back, but I need to…”

  He grabbed the receiver before she could hang up. “Linda, this is Bob Burke. Sorry about that, and I’m glad you called.”

  “I… I need to talk to you. Not like this though, not on the phone. I think they’re…”

  “I understand. Where are you?”

  “Actually, I’m around the corner from your place at the pay phone in the lobby of the Marriott Courtyard, and I’m scared, Mr. Burke,” he heard her sob. “I’m really scared.”

  “Wait right there. I'll pick you up at the back door in let's say... five minutes.”

  In the Federal Building downtown, US Attorney Peter O’Malley was signing the last of the correspondence on his desk when one of the intra-office phone lines buzzed. He pushed the button on his telephone and heard, “Mr. O’Malley, I’m glad I caught you. This is Stephens down in Audio Surveillance. I have something on the tap we installed on Subject Burke’s home phone. There hasn’t been much traffic on it, but you said to notify you as soon as …”

  “Burke?” O’Malley suddenly sat forward and sounded very interested. “Good, good.”

  “It was a woman named Linda Sylvester,” the technician continued.

  “Sylvester? Excellent! I was hoping that might happen.”

  “The call only lasted twenty-three seconds. She said she did not wish to talk on the phone. She was scared; said it twice, and that’s exactly the way she sounded. Anyway, the call came from a pay phone at the Marriott Courtyard in Arlington Heights. It must be close, because he said he’d meet her there in a couple of minutes. Then they hung up.”

  “Damn!” O’Malley exclaimed as he glanced at his watch. “It’ll take an hour to get out there in this traffic. Keep it monitored, Stevens. At least we finally got something off that tap,” O’Malley added as he ended the call. Linda Sylvester! It's about time, he smiled.

  Bob Burke drove into the parking lot at Marriott Courtyard and pulled into a space near the rear door. Before he could turn the engine off, Linda Sylvester dashed out, opened his passenger side door, and jumped inside.

  “Go! Go, please,” she pleaded as she dropped down in the seat, keeping her head below the window level.

  “Sure, sure” he answered as he backed out of the space and drove away. “Anywhere in particular you want to go?”

  “No, just drive,” she said as she raised her eyes over the back of the seat and looked behind them. “Is anyone following us?”

  “Like Greenway or his pals?” he asked as he checked the car’s mirrors. “Relax, I can protect you.”

  “No you can’t! I don’t even know why I called you, except I’m terrified and there was nowhere else for me to turn.” She looked up at him and pleaded. “Please, you’ve got to help me.”

  He looked over at her and saw she was trembling and on the verge of a breakdown. “Linda, have you eaten anything today?”

  “No, there’s no time, I have a babysitter with Emily.”

  “There’s always time, you look like you’re falling apart.”

  “Thanks! That’s all I need,” she said as she collapsed in the corner of the seat.

  “I see a McDonalds up ahead. I’m going to hit the drive-thru,” he said as he checked the rear view mirror. “There’s no one following us, and you need food. While we are eating you can tell me all about it.”

  With a bag of sandwiches and two coffees in hand, he parked in the rear of the McDonalds lot in the shadows next to the dumpster. Five minu
tes later, between bites of a Big Mac and a handful of fries, she began to open up. “Eleanor is our CFO and Chief Accountant. I guess you already know that. She’s older than I am and I’m new, but we are both single and we became friends. You know how it is in a small office. The other women are all married or teeny bops, and the handful of men are either gay or won’t keep their hands off you. Eleanor’s been with the company since CHC started down on the South Side. Greenway was President and ran the clinics, and Eleanor kept the books. That was before Scalese and all of his creeps took over, she told me. Then, the business exploded, and they opened a lot of new clinics, the big new office building in Indian Hills, and other things.”

  “They ‘took over?’ ”

  “Oh, yeah. They run CHC now, not Greenway.” I think Eleanor finally got fed up with all the crooked accounting and went to the cops with it. Maybe she went to Bentley, I don’t know; but she dropped a few hints to me that she got herself into something very dangerous.”

  “I’d say so; Greenway killed her.”

  “I know that now. He told me he did, and he told me he’d kill me too.”

  “Greenway? He told you he killed her?” Bob asked, astonished. “When?”

  “This afternoon,” she said as she turned her face away, unable to look at him. “He told me he killed her to make a point, Mr. Burke!”

  “To make a point? What kind of sick…”

  “He was demonstrating that he can do anything he wants — to her, to me, to anyone — and get away with it. Anything!” he heard her sob.

  He looked at her and began to understand. “What did he do to you?”

  “Nothing! No, that’s not true. Look, Mr. Burke I don’t even know you, and….”

  “My name’s Bob, and you can’t keep this all bottled up inside, Linda. You need to talk to someone — your mother, your sister, a girlfriend, me, take your pick,” he said as he turned her face toward him. “But since I’m here, close your eyes and start talking. Okay?”