by Ty Patterson
Kelly was curious. ‘You think those guys who busted the hoods out of jail – they were out-of-state operators?’
‘Yeah. If they were in Wyoming, then they had no need to rely on the gang. They operate at a different level than the gang and could have deployed their own men in the first place.’
‘My take exactly. And you’re still staying?’
‘Yup.’
Kelly drawled as he stood up. ‘Well then, let me leave you to whatever you’re hatching. If we get any breaks, I’ll let you know.’
Kelly’s blue eyes swept over all of them. ‘Remember, no vigilante action. We are a small town, we love tourists, and there’s just no way we’re going to condone the Jackson version of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.’
Silence fell over them when Kelly left. Zeb toyed with his cup, his senses sharpening slowly, feeling the taste of air on his skin, the feel of sounds impacting him – his body’s way of telling him it was ready. It was prepared. It was lethal.
He felt the weight of eyes on him and looked at the twins. ‘Kelly gave you good advice. You’re safer back in Boston.’
They gave him stubborn looks. ‘And like we said, we aren’t going. If you don’t help us, we will investigate this on our own.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Where will you start?’
Beth smiled sweetly at him. ‘Zeb, we’re not dumb. We’ll go through the back pages of the newspapers, check out if anything happened on the day and a half that we were here.’
‘And if nothing comes out of that?’
They looked uncertainly at each other and then looked back at him. ‘We’ll think of something,’ she said bravely.
He nodded appreciatively. ‘The newspapers are the first place to start.’
He stood up and donned his shades. ‘Let’s go. Let’s start hunting.’
He stood outside the café waiting for them to join him, looking casually across Town Square, another tourist among thousands of tourists.
Nothing pinged his radar.
Meghan looked around his room when they entered. It was identical in size and layout to theirs; the difference was his gleamed in tidiness. The bed was neatly made up; the bedside tables and larger desk in the corner were bare. There wasn’t a single personal belonging in sight. She looked at Beth and saw she had the same thought. Zeb seemed to have some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder, OCD.
They had asked once about his family and had received a look in return that had shut them up for half an hour. They resorted to spinning wild backstories for him, and the latest one they had made up had them laughing long in the night. ‘He’s gay. He lost his boyfriend to some badasses and has now become an avenging angel.’
Meghan giggled and then laughed. ‘Why’s he gay?’
Beth rolled her eyes. ‘Come on, sis! You really think he could win over women with that Zen-like attitude? Any woman he dated would fall asleep waiting for his next word.’
They sprawled on his bed, waiting for Zeb to return from the bathroom. ‘Bet he’s sprucing himself up for us,’ Beth whispered, and that set them off.
‘Wise One, why are we here?’ Beth asked him when he emerged, and got a sharp nudge from Meghan.
Zeb looked at them – if the light was right, and if they looked hard, that expression could just be a smile. Just.
‘We attack this from three ends. First we do exactly what Beth said. We go through all that happened in this town when you came in and see if there can be any correlation to your attacks. Secondly, we dig up more info on this gang, who they are, where they hang out, that kind of stuff. Thirdly, we check out your father’s cases and see if there are any links to this gang, or see if those crazies had any links to this gang.’
He caught their expression. ‘I know the cops ruled that those crazies were just that, and I’m aware that six years is a long time for a gang to take action, but we have to be sure.’
He dried his face with a towel and hung it in the closet, straightening it till he was satisfied. He caught them watching him, and that expression appeared again. ‘Nope. It’s not OCD. It can be used as a weapon. Draping it right makes it easier to grab.’
He pulled out his sat phone, dialed a number, switched to speaker mode, and dropped it on the bed.
Two thousand miles away, in New York, Broker looked at the incoming number, thumbed it, crossed his feet on his desk, and leaned back.
‘Zeb,’ he shouted, ‘you haven’t killed anyone in more than twenty-four hours. What gives?’
‘Broker, phone’s on speaker. Let me introduce you to–’
‘Meghan and Beth Petersen, right? I know all about them. I know almost everything that’s happened. But why don’t you fill me in, and I’ll figure out how I can rescue your sorry ass from whatever shit it’s caught in.’
He laughed, his rumbling baritone making the phone vibrate.
‘Ladies, I believe you’ve been in Zeb’s company for four days, so you know he has maybe ten, twenty words in his vocabulary. Let’s not make him exhaust those words. I am Broker. I dunno how much Zeb has told you about himself–’
‘They know enough,’ Zeb cut in.
‘Right. That helps. I am an intelligence analyst, the best in the world.’ Broker was modest. ‘I’m also the planner for our missions. The three of you pinged Werner’s radar, at YNP, and since then I’ve been keeping an electronic eye on you.’
Werner was a sophisticated artificial intelligence program that Broker owned; it was the heart of his intelligence business. Werner trawled the far corners of the Internet, hacked its way into the most secure systems and databases, made connections between seemingly disparate events and people, and spat back results based on any criteria that Broker set. Broker had human intelligence – humint – analysts all over the world, who took those results, applied their knowledge and analytical skills, and created the reports that got sent out to Broker’s clients. He also had hackers in Ukraine and Russia who worked for him. They went about cracking systems all over the world and fed the intel to Werner.
Werner always tracked the Warriors, all six of them, and flagged Broker whenever any of them were involved in any incident.
‘What do you mean, keeping an electronic eye on us?’ Meghan asked him.
‘Just that. For instance, I know the two of you had fried chicken and waffles and Spanish frittata for breakfast.’ He mentioned the café’s name. ‘I also know Meghan is wearing a red and blue flannel shirt over blue jeans, and Beth is wearing a yellow Gap hoodie over black jeans.’
The twins went slack jawed. ‘How–’
‘Elementary, my dear Petersen,’ Broker rumbled on. ‘I know what Zeb orders. He always orders the same food every time, which makes it easy for Werner. So all Werner had to do was correlate his food order to yours, identify the café, and then hack into their security cameras and voila`!’
His grin came through the phone, over the distance.
Broker enjoyed the reverential pause that followed. ‘It’s okay to call me a genius,’ he added helpfully.
Zeb spoke tersely, bringing them back to their circumstances, and filled Broker in. He looked up once when he heard the clacking of keys – Meghan on her laptop – and when Broker had digested everything, Zeb had a request. ‘I need a couple of sat phones, headsets – those new ones that you’ve got – a couple of Kevlar vests, a couple of those Aviators you’ve tooled, and a couple of Tasers.
‘Yep, for them,’ he replied to Broker’s query.
There was silence from Broker as he thought, and then a deep chuckle escaped him. ‘The long and short of this is you’re being chased by you-don’t-know-who and for you-don’t-know-why. Have I got that right, Zeb?’
Zeb nodded. Beside him Meghan rolled her eyes at him and shouted at the phone, ‘Yeah. That sums it up.’
Broker’s chuckle became a laugh. ‘Zeb usually lands in weird shit, but this one wins hands down.’
Zeb began to reply when he felt the bed move behind him and a hand gripped
his shoulder.
‘The car,’ Beth whispered urgently.
‘Hold on,’ Zeb told Broker and turned to Beth. ‘Car? Which car? Yours? Don’t worry about it. We’ll get the rental agency to pick it up.’
She shook her head vigorously, her brown hair flying. ‘Not that one. The one the gangsters followed us in from the park. You followed them. They must have parked it somewhere. They might retrieve it.’
Zeb was moving before she’d finished, two long strides taking him to the door. ‘Call you back,’ he shouted at the phone and held the door open for the twins.
They took the stairs two at a time and, when they reached the basement, ran to his SUV.
‘You couldn’t have remembered earlier?’ He met Beth’s eyes in the mirror once he had gunned their ride out.
Beth thought about her response for a moment. Heck, he’s different, but we feel comfortable around him. She flipped him the finger. ‘Hotshot, we’ve left ourselves in your capable hands. You should’ve thought about it.’
‘I’ve a hard time telling the two of you apart as it is,’ Zeb grunted as he maneuvered through tourist traffic, slowing down to merge and blend, becoming just another tourist car.
Beth looked at him in the mirror and made a bowing motion. ‘He does have a sense of humor. There’s hope for the world.’
He parked on a street an intersection away from the car park, made the twins wear their caps and shades, and when they approached the intersection, he stopped and looked across at the car park.
It was busy, which was good. It would make his approach less noticeable. He tried identifying the Ford, but in the abundance of vehicles, he couldn’t. He waited for a long time at the intersection, the women jammed close together a couple of feet behind him, and felt the foot traffic bend itself around them. His radar stayed quiet.
‘You got your guns with you?’ he asked them.
‘Nope. We left too soon.’
He came close to them and handed his Glock to Meghan. She slipped it in her waistband, beneath her flannel shirt.
‘Stay here,’ he commanded in a voice battle-hardened operatives under his command had obeyed without hesitation.
He joined a group of tourists crossing the intersection and went in the car park. It took him three passes before he could locate the Ford. It was jammed between a Ford Traverse and a Honda SUV, both of them dwarfing the car between them, offering good cover in case he had to break in.
The car was unoccupied, clean, and he discarded breaking in when he saw the rental agency’s details.
He noted the plate and called a number.
The town of Jackson had a perennial housing shortage. Strict zoning regulations, booming house prices and steep rentals had left supply lagging far behind demand. As a result, many residents and workers lived in mobile homes or camped out in nearby Curtis Canyon, Munger Mountain or other campsites.
A Ramon Perez had hired the car, listing his address as a campsite in Curtis Canyon – Broker got his details from the rental agency by means he refused to divulge. The campsite was empty when they drove past it.
An hour of searching didn’t yield any other campsites; in fact, they didn’t come across any other person. Broker’s call came when he was driving back to their hotel.
‘Perez had given a phone number to the rental agency. I did my usual magic, and get this – I’ve traced the phone to near an RV park, not far from Jackson. The phone has been stationary for the last four hours.’
Zeb punched in the coordinates Broker gave him, did a quick calculation, and continued heading to town. He ignored the twins’ protests, dialed another number, and by the time they’d reached the hotel, Kelly was waiting for them.
Kelly pierced him with his eyes. ‘No vigilante action, Zeb.’ He winked. ‘None that will lead to awkward questions.’
Zeb nodded and watched him escort the fuming women back to their room.
‘Still in the same place,’ Broker told him when he finally headed out. Darkness had fallen, and the town had transformed from its day image to its evening avatar, warm and welcoming lights and laughter floating in the sky.
Zeb drove on a narrow road, his headlights separating light from dark. When he was two miles away from Perez, he turned them off and continued ahead in the darkness that enveloped him.
Another mile went by, he nudged his wheels off the road and took shelter between dark shadows a hundred feet away from the road. Dark shadows that turned into a clump of trees as he neared them.
He donned his headset, which was almost invisible to the naked eye, donned thin-feel gloves and a Balaclava mask, and dropped softly on the ground.
He moved immediately several paces, stood still, letting himself become part of the night, and when his ki, his life force, had settled low and deep, he headed to Perez.
He saw the dim gleam ten minutes later, and as he went closer, it resolved into a white RV with gray stripes on its sides. The RV was a couple of miles away from the main campsite and stood alone and silent. It was dark inside.
Zeb stood and listened above the night. He drifted closer when he was sure he was alone, circled it once, and tried the door.
It swung open easily, and that was when it came to him.
A metallic odor hung heavy in the air, a scent he was very familiar with.
He looked behind him once and entered swiftly, his Glock pointing low in one hand, a flashlight emitting a red beam in another. He swung the beam around and steadied it on the figure lying on the long couch in the RV.
Ramon Perez, one of the four men Zeb had captured outside the hotel, had no expression on his face. Part of his forehead sported an ugly hole, and when Zeb peered low without touching the body, he saw a larger exit wound behind. He took several photographs with his camera, from different angles, and noted there wasn’t a powder burn. Going by the size of the hole, it appeared to be made by a 9 mm bullet, a commonly used caliber.
Zeb looked around the RV for Perez’s phone and, when he didn’t find it, cast his flashlight over his body. There was a rectangular bulge in his right hip pocket, and using just his fingers, Zeb fished in and withdrew a phone. It was a low-end smart phone that glowed dimly when he thumbed it on. He went through the menus till he found its number – it was the same number Broker had given him.
He slipped the phone in his pocket and turned to leave, when a thought struck him. This feels like a cleanup operation by the gang erasing its own tracks. But why leave the body here where it could be found. Why leave the phone? Unless…?
He dived out of the RV just as a hail of bullets cut the air where he had been standing.
Chapter 8
A split second later a spotlight bathed the RV, seeking Zeb.
Zeb wasn’t there.
He rolled to his left and kept on rolling once he landed, seeking the sanctuary of darkness. He tumbled into a natural depression in the ground and stopped moving just in time as he spotted the shine of water.
Zeb hugged the ground close, listening hard, and heard nothing but the night listening back.
Now these are real pros. I didn’t detect their presence, and if they had shot me when I was back on the ground, I would’ve been toast. They stopped firing as soon as I escaped and turned off the spotlight. No firing blind and making a target of themselves for these guys.
He checked his gun in the dark to make sure dirt hadn’t clogged the barrel when he had dived, and crawled up the small incline. The darkness all around was comforting and was like a second skin to him. He peeked once over the depression and saw the RV standing slack jawed, with its door open.
They’ll be waiting for me to make a move. Two can play that game.
He settled down, making himself one with the woods, aware of the slightest unnatural movement.
An hour later he heard it. Felt it, rather than heard it. A change in the shape of the darkness, a difference in the way the night hung over him. The feeling diminished slowly, and after another half an hour he heard an engine st
art and its sound fade.
He continued waiting. It was entirely possible their exit was a dummy and one or more shooters had stayed back to pepper him if he showed.
Several hours later, when the sky lightened, Zeb backed himself into deeper cover that gave him a good view of the RV. Seven hours had passed since the shooting, and the chances were high that the shooters had disappeared, but he was happy to wait. He had seen enough dead men who had paid the price for impatience.
The sun was painting yellow shadows on the grassy floor when Zeb broke his near motionless vigil and circled the RV in an outward spiral till he was sure they had left.
He faced the RV, worked out shooting angles, and tracked the likely position of the shooters – a hundred feet away from the open door, with a clear firing line, behind a couple of trees thick enough to cover a couple of shooters. There were faint marks in the hard ground that could’ve been their prints, but without any forensic equipment, he couldn’t be sure. He cut a sign on one of the trees, marking it for Kelly’s people, headed back to the RV and, after searching it carefully, found one of the spent bullets embedded in the rear wall.
He called Kelly as he was driving back.
‘No names. You’ll find a body in an RV, one of those four guys.’
He winced as Kelly shouted in his ear.
‘Yeah, I’m fine. Will explain when we meet. Nope, I didn’t kill that guy. You can run ballistics on my gun if you wish.’
He called Broker and updated him, who heard him out without interruption. They had worked with each other so long that they often knew what the other was thinking by just looking at each other.
‘Send me the bullet, and I’ll see what I can find. The phone, have you left it on the body?’
‘Nope. It’s with me.’ Zeb explained what he thought would happen. ‘Can you track its movements, say in the last few weeks?’
Broker grunted, ‘Does a bear shit in the woods?’ and hung up.
