Denouement

by E. H. Reinhard

  The sound of pounding footsteps echoed in Ray’s head. Someone was running down the stairs at him. Ray got a single foot under him when his already blurry vision exploded into an array of color. Ray felt the back of his head hit the wall. He felt another blow to the side of his head. Ray slumped down onto his right side and tried pulling himself away from the attacker. Ray felt a blow to the back of his head, and the floor meet his face. Everything went black.

  Ray opened his eyes. Light entered. He looked left to right. A dark-haired man stood leaning against the kitchen sink on the phone.

  “Yeah, I have him,” the man said.

  Ray squinted—his vision blurred again before coming into focus. The man was an inch or two over six foot, his weight around two hundred. Ray couldn’t figure out how the man, inches shorter and almost a hundred fifty pounds lighter, could have gotten the better of him.

  “It looks like he’s coming to. I’ll see you guys in a bit.” The man clicked off the phone, set it down, and came toward Ray. “I bet you didn’t think you were in for an ass kicking tonight, did you? Special forces, bitch.”

  Ray groaned. “You’re the boss fed, Faust?”

  “Yes. Welcome to my home. Are you enjoying your stay so far?”

  Ray didn’t respond. He looked down to where his elbows rested on his thighs. His forearms and hands were free, but from his elbows up to his chest, duct tape was securing him to the back of the chair he sat upon.

  “You seem to like tying people to chairs, so I figured I’d return the favor,” Faust said.

  Ray looked over at him. Next to the agent on the countertop was a gun and what remained of the roll of duct tape.

  Ray chuckled and shook his head. “So how are your other two feds doing? I about pulled the one’s head from his body. I always wanted to try that.”

  Faust lunged at Ray and cocked his fist. Ray lifted his chin and awaited the strike, but the fed stopped, seemingly trying to restrain himself.

  Ray smiled at him. “That whole code-of-conduct thing is a bitch, isn’t it? You want to hit me, probably kill me while I sit here, but your morals stop you.” Ray shook his head. “That’s rough. Especially after what I did to your buddies.”

  The agent planted a hard right square into Ray’s nose. Ray’s head snapped back from the blow, and his eyes welled up. He felt blood running over his lips.

  “You know your agents were both talkers, right? I mean, the last one gave up your address almost immediately,” Ray said. “All it took was me scooping his eyeball from his head, and he was singing like a songbird.”

  The fed paced the kitchen. “Keep running your mouth, asshole,” Faust said. “You must have me mistaken for someone that has to answer for their actions.”

  Ray continued, “The other one, the first one, he looked at me with sad little puppy-dog eyes right as I put a bullet through his brain.”

  Faust continued pacing. Ray could see the anger building in the man. He pressed. “What was the second guy’s name? I forget.”

  Faust didn’t respond.

  “You know, the one that I pulled the eye out of? He actually asked me to kill him. He begged for it. It was just pathetic.”

  The agent went to the kitchen island, scooped the roll of duct tape from the counter and ripped off a six-inch section. “I’ve had enough of your mouth. You should thank me for this. Shutting you up might be the only thing that keeps you alive.”

  Faust walked toward Ray with the piece of tape stretched out. He came at Ray to place the tape over his mouth. Ray plunged his head forward and snapped his teeth down, catching the thumb and index finger of the agent’s left hand in his mouth. Ray sank his teeth in and clenched his jaw as hard as he could. He ripped his head from side to side like a dog attacking a steak. The fed screamed in agony and tried to pull his hand free. Ray’s neck muscles flexed as he tried to keep his hold on the fed’s hand.

  Ray watched Faust cock his right hand and deliver another fist to his nose. The blow was hard enough that Ray’s grip on the fed’s hand released. Then the agent retreated to the kitchen. Ray didn’t know if the blood in his mouth was his own or the fed’s. He spat it on the floor and laughed. The agent feverishly tried to attend to the wound, which gave Ray a window.

  Ray stared down at his hands. He flexed every muscle in his upper body. He felt the tape tighten around him. In a single violent motion, he tried to pull his arms from his sides. The tape loosened and stretched but didn’t give. He repeated the process three times before the area around his stomach ripped. The fed glanced over from the sink as he ran water over his bloody hand, and Ray stopped moving. Faust looked back down to inspect the wound. Ray planted his feet flat against the floor. Then he pressed down, stood, and pulled with all his might, screaming. The tape ripped free. Faust’s head spun toward Ray. The chair still hung to Ray’s backside. Faust lunged from the sink and scrambled for the gun on the countertop, but his wet hands pawed off of it. Ray jerked his arms around, freeing himself from the chair. He went straight for the agent as he was lifting the gun to fire. Ray cocked back a right fist as he advanced.

  Faust dropped the gun and brought his left arm up to block Ray’s strike. Ray faked and delivered a left uppercut to the agent’s jaw, almost lifting Faust from his feet. Faust flew back into the kitchen cupboards. Ray grabbed him around the head and brought his knee up into Faust’s face. He felt the agent go limp. Ray kneed him in the face again.

  “Special forces, huh?” Ray said. He followed his words with yet another knee to Faust’s face. “Black Dolphin prison.” Ray released his hold on Faust’s head and let his body drop to the wooden floor of the kitchen. “Bitch.”

  Ray reached down and scooped the gun from the floor. He gripped it and pointed the barrel down at the agent’s head. With his foot, Ray turned the agent’s body face up so he could send the bullet home through Faust’s forehead. Ray pulled the trigger, but it didn’t budge. Ray checked the side of the gun for a safety, confirmed it was off, and tried pulling the trigger again. Again, the gun didn’t fire.

  “What the hell?” Ray said.

  He stared at the gun in his hand. On the finger side of the grip was a one-inch-square box inlaid into the handle. Ray tried pressing it and firing—nothing. The room to Ray’s right lit up. The light had to have been from a car coming down the driveway. Ray exited the back patio door and tossed the agent’s gun into the pool on the way out. He heard the sound of car doors slamming shut as he jogged from the back of the yard.

  Chapter 12

  I reached over for my phone to check the time. The screen lit and told me it was ten after one in the morning. I didn’t know if the coffee or the thought of Azarov roaming the streets was keeping me up.

  I’d been lying on my office couch for hours without as much as a wink of sleep. My mind refused to turn off. I spent a good hour thinking about Callie and my family hiding out in that hotel. Another hour passed, of thinking about the murdered FBI agents. I almost fell asleep once but was woken by Jones’s booming laugh out in the bullpen. To make matters worse, every time I closed my eyes, I saw phone numbers. I reached out and grabbed the bottle of water I’d gotten in the lunch room an hour prior. I took a sip, rolled onto my back, and stared at the drop ceiling of my office.

  I closed my eyes and tried the time-tested method of counting sheep. I was somewhere around eighty when my phone rang. I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and reached for the phone. I didn’t recognize the number though it had a Tampa area code. The caller had to be Faust.

  I answered. “Lieutenant Kane.”

  “Hey, it’s Faust.”

  “Yeah, what’s up?” I asked.

  “We, um, have had a development.”

  I heard someone in the background at his end of the call, telling him to stop moving his head.

  “Okay, what’s the development?” I asked.

  “Azarov came into my house.”

  “What!” I stood, accidentally ripping my phone’s charger from the wall. I unplugged it f
rom the bottom of my phone, let the charger fall to the floor, and went to my desk. If I’d had any drowsiness in me, it was immediately gone.

  “Yeah, he was in my house, I assume to kill me, but obviously he didn’t.”

  I took a seat. “Do you have him in custody?”

  “Unfortunately, no. He must have taken off right before my guys got here. I was only out a couple of minutes.”

  “Only out?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he knocked me unconscious.”

  I let out a breath. “Are you all right?”

  “A little banged up, but I’ll make it.”

  I again heard someone on his end of the line telling him to keep still.

  “I have a couple EMTs sewing me back together as we speak. It isn’t too bad. I’ve been through worse.”

  I heard a man’s voice telling Faust he needed to go to the hospital. Faust responded with a simple no.

  “How did he know where you lived?” I asked.

  “I’m guessing he got it out of Dupold. He came out to where I’ve been staying since a few weeks back.”

  The where I’ve been staying comment struck me as a little off, but I didn’t press. “What the hell happened?” I asked.

  “Well, the security system in the house is linked to my phone. So, I’m lying in bed, reading, and get an alert that someone has entered the home through the patio door downstairs. I go to the nightstand for my gun, but sure as shit if it’s the one time that it isn’t there. I had it broken down for cleaning in the gun room at the end of the hall. So I leave the bedroom to go and get it when I see light shining up the stairs. I stop at the corner of the stairs and wait. A man comes up with a gun. I disarm him, deliver a handful of strikes and send him airborne back down the stairs with a front kick to the chest. I figure that should be it. Well, he tries getting up, so I run down the stairs and plant a knee to the face. That still doesn’t do it. He tries dragging his sorry ass away, and I stomp down on the back of his head. Finally, the guy goes out cold. After he was out, I realized it was Azarov.”

  “You had him knocked out? How the hell did he get away?” I asked.

  “Well, that’s another story in itself. I go back upstairs and grab the first gun I see from my gun room. I head back down and drag him out to the kitchen, where I use a roll of duct tape to tape him to the chair. I call it in to my guys. Well, he wakes up and immediately begins to antagonize me, bragging about my agents he killed and things of that nature. Every bone in my body wanted to put an end to him right there. Anyway, we have a little back and forth, and I figure it’s in his best interest if I tape his mouth shut. I go over there with a piece of tape, and the son of a bitch bites me like a rabid dog. I get him off of me, go to the sink to inspect the wound, and he somehow gets out of his restraints. I go for my gun, but he ends up getting the drop on me. He tapped me with an uppercut and a knee to the face that put me out.”

  “You’re lucky he didn’t kill you,” I said.

  “I’m sure he tried. I had a gun right there. Luckily for me, it was the gun that it was. I’m thinking when he saw my guys approaching up the driveway, he fled.”

  “What gun? I don’t follow.”

  “It’s an IG forty. Or that’s what they are trying to call it. They issued one to each agent in the area for testing with strict orders to not carry it in the field.”

  “And it is…?”

  “Biometric. It needs the owner’s fingerprint to fire.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of those.”

  “This is a little different though. Most of the ones that are available to the public have a failure or malfunction rate that exceeds anything you’d ever want on your firearm. This thing has been pretty spot on so far. I guess some twenty-year-old MIT kid designed it. I’ve probably put a thousand rounds through this gun and haven’t had it not fire because of the reader, until now. Apparently it won’t accept a fingerprint that’s covered in blood and water. Anyway, if Azarov tried using my gun, it wasn’t going to fire. The weapon he had been carrying was upstairs lying in the hall from when I disarmed him.”

  “Any clue as to where he went?”

  “Sorry, nothing,” Faust said.

  “Was he on foot?”

  “No idea, Kane.”

  “No one saw him leaving the property?” I asked.

  “No. My agents found me on the kitchen floor. Azarov was gone. They fanned out and searched the area, but we got nothing. They talked with my nearest neighbors, but again, nothing.”

  “Well, where do you live? I’ll call the local PD and have them be on the lookout for him.”

  “We already took care of it,” Faust said.

  “Okay.” I let out a breath and thought for a minute. “Damn, Faust, I didn’t even think to ask. How is your family? I mean, is everyone okay?”

  “Yeah, um, they weren’t home. Did you get anything off of those phone records my guys dropped off?” Faust seemed quick to change the topic.

  “Not really. I haven’t gotten all the way through them, but so far, nothing. I thought I had something of interest for a second, but it fizzled out pretty quick.”

  “What did you have?” Faust asked.

  “I got a number for a time and weather place out of Miami. One of the guys seemed like he called it fairly regularly.”

  “Let me guess, you found the time-and-weather number on multiple records?”

  “Yeah, well at least one other. Did you guys already look into it?”

  “It was brought to my attention. We checked it out. The website that goes along with the number, as well as the number itself, belongs to a woman. Um, damn, I can’t remember her name off of the top of my head. I’m pretty sure it’s written down on one of the associate’s records on the cover sheet. Anyway, we checked her out. She has a clean sheet with nothing to suggest she’s involved. As far as why they are calling there, I have no idea. At first we thought it was some kind of switchboard, if you will, for these guys to communicate or something. We had a couple of our tech guys look into it, but as far as we can tell, it’s exactly what it claims to be.”

  “Okay, well, like I said. It was all that I found of interest.”

  I heard more talking on Faust’s end of the phone. A man seemed to be insisting that Faust go to the hospital.

  “Hey, that’s all I really have for you, Kane. I’m going to need to run. These EMTs need to finish getting me stitched up.”

  “Okay. You don’t need me out there for anything?” I asked.

  “No. There’s nothing to do out here. We’ll catch up in the morning.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Faust clicked off.

  I walked to the light switch beside my office door and flipped on the lights. My chances of falling asleep were definitely somewhere between slim and none. I dug back into the phone records. They were the only thing I had that could turn into a lead.

  Chapter 13

  Awaking to a knock on my office door, I pulled my head from the pile of papers on my desk and tried to compose myself. “Yeah, it’s open,” I said.

  The door swung open, and Hank walked in. I glanced at my desk clock: 8:16 a.m.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I’m ready to finish up with those phone records.” Hank slid out a guest chair at my desk.

  “Sure.” I tried to restack the pieces of paper I had spread out.

  “Let me get the ones without drool on them,” Hank said. “I’ve been here for twenty minutes. I saw you facedown, snoring on that pile of papers.”

  “Whatever.” I grabbed Hank a stack of phone records from one of the guys that I hadn’t looked into and slid them over.

  “Did you find anything?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Faust had a run in with Ray last night, though.”

  “What? Really? Is he okay?” Hank’s questions flew quickly.

  “I talked to him. He seemed fine. Basically, he said that Ray broke into his house. I guess Faust got the better of him and ti
ed him up, but Ray broke his restraints and then proceeded to get the better of Faust.”

  “Faust got the better of Ray?” Hank asked. His voice sounded unsure.

  “From what he said, he took it to Ray pretty good.”

  “I guess I never pegged Faust as a fighter.” Hank’s face showed he was thinking. “What do you actually know about the guy?”

  I shrugged. “He’s my contact at the FBI. I know he has a family.” I thought for a moment about our conversation in the middle of the night. “Then again, when I asked him if his family was all right, last night when we spoke, he seemed a little weird on the topic.”

  “What is his actual position at the FBI?” Hank asked.

  “Honestly, I don’t know. I doubt he’d tell me if I asked,” I said.

  “Background?” Hank asked.

  I shrugged again. “Couldn’t tell you.”

  Hank let out a breath. “Whatever. As long as he’s on our side. I’m going to take these back over to my desk and get going. I’ll check back in with you when I’m done.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Hank slid his chair away from my desk, stood, and headed for the door.

  “Hey, Hank, Bostok is the new major. He popped in and told me last night. He gets the office on the first of the month. The meeting we interrupted was them offering up the position to him.”

  Hank smiled. “That’s great. Now make sure you get the captain’s seat so you can move next door and get all this crap out of my office.”

  I smirked.

  Hank walked out.

  I figured it would probably be best if I cleaned up, brushed my teeth, and changed before I actually started working. I grabbed a change of clothes and my overnight bag from my office closet and headed downstairs to the gym and showers. I was showered, changed, and back in my office within fifteen minutes.