Lucky Draw

by Mark Stone

  Lucky Draw

  Lucky John Adventure Series Book 2

  Mark Stone

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Untitled

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Princeton, West Virginia

  One Year Ago

  I hated this suit. The damn thing made me itchy all over, and I was pretty sure it was going to give me a rash, which said a lot, seeing as how I had been running through the Middle East with guns strapped to my back and bombs slung across my hip and still came through without so much as a scratch. I guess that might have been because Terriman Security Solutions didn’t run the Army, and the Army didn’t have to deal with the same budget restrictions.

  Still, I guess I should have been happy for the job. I knew a lot of people who had come out of the Army with nowhere to fall. The fact that I had this gig came down to Scott, a buddy of mine from years ago. While I was in the Army, fighting for the freedom of the country and earning my stripes, Scott was bouncing around from one part-time job to another, eventually landing here, providing nighttime security to the manufacturing company in one of West Virginia’s quaintest mountain towns.

  Scott was a good guy, but he had always been aimless like that, never quite knowing which direction to go in without someone there to hold his hand. The fact that he was in a position to get a job for me after coming back from war speaks a lot to how much better we need to be at helping out our veterans.

  Still, I had been taught not to complain, at least not unless the subject was football prospects or bad cover bands. Other than that, it always seemed right to me to keep my mouth shut and take what I was given. I always knew there were people with less and but for the grace of God, I could easily be one of them. I had a job, and I should be grateful for it and work as hard as I could. Still, that didn’t mean I had to like the cheap polyester they forced me to wear or the Taser in my hip that they gave me instead of a gun.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Scott asked me, walking up to me with his hands in his pockets. Not the most effective way for a security guard to walk, if you ask me, but then again, I didn’t make the rules. I had heard him coming from a mile away. At six foot five and certainly not an ounce under three hundred pounds, Scott was a big boy, definitely not the type of guy who’d be able to sneak up on someone. Not that he was working anywhere near that hard. The guy’s hair was all over his head and his eyes were gummy with sleep. One look was enough to know he had just been taking one of what I had come to learn were many nightly naps, even without taking into consideration the crumpled nature of his shirt and tie.

  “My job.” I chuckled, shaking my head as I looked at my friend. “You know, what they pay us for.”

  “We’re guarding a textile factory on the side of a mountain in a town with the same crime rate as Sesame Street,” he answered. “Plus, it’s the middle of the night. They pay us to walk around and crack jokes so they can keep the insurance company happy.” He grinned at me. It was a wide, lazy thing, the sort of smile reserved for someone who had never been woken up at three o’clock in the morning to haul brick-filled backpacks up a hill or hold pails of water up as long as they could. Still, he was a good guy and a good friend. I couldn’t be mad at him for his nature.

  “Be that as it may, my hands get nervous if I don’t use ’em. So, if it’s all the same to you, I’m gonna pretend this job is about more than saving face.”

  “Whatever you say, dude,” Scott said. “I’m just here to let you know that Rosco and I are having a Game of Thrones viewing party in the breakroom, and there’s room for one more.” He leaned closer. “Also, Rosco snagged the key to the vending machine. So, we’re basically talking about unlimited Pringles.”

  “Well, what the hell are you doing still standing here? You should get on top of that.” I chuckled, shaking my head at my friend. “I’m gonna do a few more laps. Maybe I’ll meet you in there in time to see the dragon queen get—”

  “Woah, bud! This is a spoiler-free zone!” Scott said, his hands stretching out in front of him as if to stop me. “Respect it.”

  “Sure thing. What was I thinking?” I muttered. “Just have fun, and save me some Cheetos. I’ll hold down the fort out here.”

  “No promises on the Cheetos,” he said, turning around and heading back to the breakroom. I smiled despite myself as I watched him walk away. Sure, I was basically doing this entire job by myself, but it wasn’t coal mining, and I needed the money. Besides, after coming off my latest tour of duty, I could think of worse ways to kill a night than walking around near the woods for a few hours with the stars shining down on me.

  A few hours passed with me thinking about where I had been and trying not to think about where I was going. I didn’t want to be a security guard forever. Hell, at this point, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. In a perfect world, I could lie on the beach all day, throwing back drinks, laughing with my friends, and taking life as it came. But what were the chances I was ever going to be able to live that life?

  My daydreams of sun, sand, and way too much alcohol were broken by the sound of something crashing inside the building. I hadn’t realized how long I had been standing there, staring off at the woods, until my entire body tensed, pulling my attention to the source of the noise.

  My first thought, of course, was that it was Scott and Rosco. Those idiots had probably dumped the entire vending machine over fighting over the last pack of Oreos or something. Now, I was going to have to clean up their mess, or the three of us would likely be out on our asses come the morning.

  “Morons,” I muttered, huffing as I trudged back up toward the building. Swiping my keycard on the door, the red light turned to green and I pulled at the handle. Marching inside, I took a hard right into the breakroom, fully expecting to find shattered glass, empty candy bar wrappers, and two of God’s stupidest children arguing about whose fault all of this was.

  Instead, I found nothing. Well, that wasn’t completely true. Scott was there, and so was Roscoe. Game of Thrones was blaring on the television set, and this building’s first line of defense was asleep, both of them snoring lightly on the couch.

  Not exactly Marines, the pair of them.

  Still, nothing was amiss. Nothing had fallen, nothing had broken, and nothing had been moved to the extent that it would create a noise as loud as the one I had just heard. So, if it didn’t come from in here, where had it come from?

  Lowering the volume on the television, I heard another boom. This one wasn’t quite as loud as the one before, but from this proximity, I could tell that it was coming from down the hallway, near the main production floor. My eyes moving back over the pair, I was surprised that the noise didn’t wake either of them. More troubling than that, though, I saw that Scott’s keycard wasn’t on his belt.

  “Scott!” I said, moving over to him and shaking the man. “Scott! Where’s your key card, Scottie? What happened to your card?”

  He didn’t rouse at all, which struck me as strange. Scott was a big guy. Lo
rd knows that, given his size, he wouldn’t have even had enough time to drink the amount of alcohol it would take to put him in this condition. Something wasn’t right, and as I heard a third boom coming from down the hall, I began to think that this job might not be as easy as Scott seemed to believe it would.

  Taking a deep breath, I looked over the room. I only had a taser on my hip, and that wasn’t going to cut it. If someone was in here, they were likely armed, and since we weren’t allowed to have guns on the premises, I was going to have to improvise.

  Deciding the half-eaten brownies on the table probably weren’t going to be much help, I grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall. It might not have been a weapon, but at the very least, it was heavy and I could swing it with one hand if it came down to it. That was likely the best I was going to get.

  The thing felt about half full in my hands, which was good. It would give it a little extra heft when I was undoubtedly forced to bring it across the face of whoever was here. Moving out of the breakroom, I headed down the hallway on my way to the main production floor. I had only been in that area once before, during orientation, but if I remember correctly, they pulled most of the product to either side of the room before shutting off for the night. That, coupled with the fact that there were no interior walls to break the area up, meant the entire place would be an open expanse. That didn’t bode well to the idea of my sneaking up on people.

  Luckily for me, as I neared the area, I heard another boom, and as it turned out, it wasn’t coming from the production area. In fact, the sound came from the small room across from the double doors that led to that large space. It came from the office of Roger Archer, whose door sign led me to believe was the general manager of this facility. As I heard the door, I heard whispering.

  “Would you stop that?” a man’s voice asked, frazzled and tense. The door sat slightly ajar, and I pushed it open just a bit to see inside. Roger Archer’s desk had been pushed out of the way and two men stood over a woman. She was on her knees, fiddling with what looked to be a wall safe. She had a gun pointed at the back of her head.

  “I’m sorry. Are you under the impression that breaking into a state of the art safe is an easy thing?” she asked, and I could hear the fear in her voice. More than that, I could hear the frustration and exhaustion. “You think it’s like the movies? I can just press my ear against it and magically hear where all the numbers are supposed to fall into place? Sorry to burst your Ocean’s Eleven fanfiction bubble, but that’s not how it works. In the real world, there are tools I need. Those tools can be loud. If you don’t like that, then I suggest you kidnap someone else to do your dirty work.”

  My jaw tightened. I knew from the look of things that this woman was doing this against her will. Still, hearing the confirmation made it all the more real. Normally, I would have pulled the alarm after seeing someone trying to break into a safe in the boss’s office. It was protocol whenever an intruder was seen on the premises. Doing that could spook these guys, though. It could cost this girl her life, and I couldn’t have that. I needed to be as cautious as possible.

  Besides, if I pulled the alarm, the police would be on their way, and that would mean I wouldn’t get the fun of beating their kidnapping asses.

  “Just keep your mouth shut. The last thing we need to do is wake up those two lumps in the other room,” one of the men said.

  “Please,” the other scoffed. “We gave them enough sedatives to knock out a horse. It would take the second coming to get them off their asses.”

  Sedatives. My blood started to boil. Not only had these goons kidnapped this girl and were forcing her, at gunpoint, to break into a safe, but they’d also drugged my friends and coworkers.

  “What about the other one?” the other man asked.

  ‘What other one?” the first man asked.

  “The dossier said there were three guards here,” the other man answered.

  “Well, obviously, the dossier was either wrong or the guy took the night off, because he wasn’t in there,” the first man said.

  “What if he’s somewhere else?” the other man said. “What if he’s, like, patrolling or something?”

  “He’s not going to be anywhere else,” the first man said. “If he were here, he’d be with those other losers. Now, just shut your hole and let me focus. You know how important getting into this thing is.” He pressed his gun against the back of the woman’s head. I watched her shiver with horror. “Important for all of us.”

  That was it. I wasn’t letting this go on any longer. Pulling a few coins from my pocket, I flung them against the far wall.

  “What the hell was that?” the other man asked, looking back toward the door.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” the first man said.

  “I did,” the woman said. “It sounded like it came from outside. Maybe you guys should go check.”

  “Shut up and do what you’re here to do!” the first man ordered.

  I tossed some more coins and they made a similar sound. Now, there was no doubting the noise.

  The first man looked at the other one. “Fine. Go look. I’ll stay here with her until we get this done.”

  I took a deep breath and one step away as the man neared the door. I had one shot at this. They had guns and I had a damn fire extinguisher. So, if they so much as even saw me coming, it would be too late. Luckily, I had a plan, and if I was right, they wouldn’t see a thing.

  The man neared. His footsteps stopped as he reached for the door, and I threw a kick into it that would have knocked a hole into the side of a mountain.

  The door flew back, striking the man hard. I jumped to action, spraying the contents of the fire extinguisher everywhere. A thick white mess of cover shot everywhere. Pulling my hand from the trigger, I brought the extinguisher across the other man’s face. I heard the bones in his cheek crack as I did, and I was just fine with that. I kneed him hard in the gut, and as he started to fall, I grabbed his gun and his slumping body. Swinging him around, I held the gun to his temple.

  “That’s enough!” I said. “Let her go, or I’ll put a bullet right in your friend’s—”

  A shot sounded, silencing me. The man shook in my grasp and then went limp. I realized with a start that the first man had shot him in the skull. I let his body fall in shock.

  “In the head?” the first man asked. “Were you going to say that you were going to shoot him in the head?” He shrugged. “I figured I’d save you the trouble.”

  I pointed the gun in his direction, but he didn’t point his in mine. He pressed it again against the woman’s head.

  “I wonder if you’ll be as quick to let her die as I was to kill him,” the man said.

  “I said let her go,” I replied, my hands stiffening around the gun.

  “Or what?” the man asked. “You’ll shoot me? Even if you did, it’d take a perfect shot to take me out before I put a bullet in her brain.” He winked at me. “You think you’re lucky enough to take a perfect shot?”

  I looked down at the woman. Her eyes were filled with fear but also something else. There was a weathered determination there too. She nodded at me, just slightly, and then she threw an elbow right into the goon’s family jewels.

  He grunted as he leaned forward in pain, but he would be doing more than that when I was through with him. I shot him twice, once in the leg and once in the arm, causing him to drop his gun.

  “I’ve gotta say,” I muttered as I walked up to him and kicked the firearm out of his grasp. “Looked pretty perfect to me.” I looked over at the woman. “You okay?”

  “I’ll make it,” she answered. Standing, she kicked the man hard in the side. He contracted in pain, helpless on the floor. I couldn’t say that it was a sight I minded.

  “Stop in the name of the—” a loud yell sounded from behind me. Looking back, I saw Scott and Roscoe rounding the corner, sleep in their eyes, shock on their faces, and tasers in their hands. “What . . . what happened?” Scott asked.
>
  I shrugged at the man. “This is what you miss when you spend all your time watching television.”

  1

  “I have a question for you,” she said to me, her fingers dancing around the top of a pink straw that led all the way down into a pineapple filled with rum and juice. The woman wore a blue and white bikini, her hair pulled back into a wavy ponytail and her sunglasses perched at the top of her head. A smile graced her lips.

  I loved a lot of things about Bonita Springs, my new beachfront paradise of a home in Florida. Probably because there were a lot of things to love. You really couldn’t go wrong in a place that had sand, surf, the clearest gulf water imaginable, and weather that was absolutely gorgeous until, like a flash, it wasn’t.

  I didn’t think I loved anything more than tourists, though. I had only been here a few months now, but I already knew the way of things. They’d come down here in droves, stripping off their identities along with most of their clothes, and forget about everything except having fun for a few days. It was intoxicating to be around, and it certainly didn’t hurt that this particular tourist was drop dead gorgeous.

  “You do, do you?” I asked, a smile pulling at my lips as well. I had been talking to this woman for about ten minutes now, ever since she wordlessly came up to my table, pulled out a seat, and plopped herself down. Not that I was complaining. Even with the scenery here outside the Rusty Bucket, a beachside bar that had become my drinking hole of choice since I’d gotten here, this woman was something to look at. “Well, fire away, sweetheart.”