Cold Winter Sun

by Forder, Tony J.

  I had two options. Get back to the street and wait for Terry, or go after the fifth man.

  I went with the latter.

  We traced a path through a line of trees whose naked limbs looked weak and ugly, dense skeletal hedgerow shielding us from the street. Now I heard sirens, growing louder all the while. At least they couldn’t see me if I couldn’t see them. As I hammered after the suited figure, I wondered who and what these men were. Not military. Not cops. Nor were they private security contractors or government agents. They were armed, but not skilled. That made them hired muscle at best.

  But for who?

  And what had they wanted with Al Chastain?

  As the chase moved out of the trees and out onto open land once more, we raced across a road on which there was thankfully no traffic. A waist-high railing bordered the next stretch of land. The man in the suit hurdled it but cried out and staggered a little upon landing. I made my leap clean and gained on him. Looking up I saw the black mouth of an underpass which ran beneath the highway ahead in the distance. I could tell the man in front of me was flagging. He was neither built for nor used to a foot chase of this duration. I put on a spurt as he seemed to be stumbling to a halt. He barely made it into the underpass, but once into the shadows he took a couple of final lumbering steps then stopped. He bent forward at a right angle, hands on his thighs, and vomited onto the floor.

  I slowed and came up behind him softly. Waited for him to finish throwing up, and allowed him to catch his breath. He took it down in huge, greedy gulps, cheeks aflame, sweat pouring from his brow. His dripping suit and shirt clung to him like a second skin. He turned to look at me and shook his head.

  ‘Just fucking do it, man,’ he said between breaths. He used two extended fingers and a cocked thumb to indicate a gun. ‘I’m gonna have a fucking heart attack anyway.’

  ‘You talk to me and I’ll let you live,’ I told him. I sucked in some much-needed air myself.

  ‘Yeah. Sure you will.’

  ‘You have my word on it.’

  Chest heaving, he looked up at me to check out my eyes. I don’t know what he saw there, but it seemed to help him reach a decision.

  ‘You can ask, man. I’ll tell you what I know, but that ain’t a hell of a lot.’

  ‘Okay, begin by telling me what you wanted with Al Chastain.’

  ‘All I know is that Chastain was supposed to have had something the boss of my boss wanted. I don’t know what that thing was. Stuff like that gets compartmentalised. You can’t tell what you don’t know, right?’

  I nodded. That was true enough, and a maxim Terry and I lived by.

  ‘Did Chastain give it up?’

  ‘No, man. We didn’t have a lot of time to work him over before you guys crashed in. But if I had to guess, I’d say he had no clue what we were talking about.’

  ‘So who is your boss?’

  ‘Vincent Dorigo.’

  ‘What does he do and who does he work for?’

  ‘He fixes things. For several people. This time it was on the orders of Alexander Moore.’

  ‘Neither of those names mean a thing to me. What does this Alexander Moore do?’

  The man finally stood up straight, hands on hips, still taking down air as fast as his lungs could process it. He put back his head and gasped a couple of times before responding.

  ‘He’s a businessman. Whatever that means in Vegas. I don’t know the guy, only of him. We don’t move in the same kinda circles.’

  Las Vegas again. This time the mention of it got me thinking. ‘These businesses include a casino?’ I asked.

  ‘Uh-huh. At least one, maybe more. Has to be connected, right, despite what they say about Vegas having cleaned up its act.’

  I breathed deeply, my clothes still wringing wet and sticking to me. There wasn’t enough heat in the day to dry me out, although the cool breeze blowing through the tunnel was doing its best to get the job done. It just made me feel colder and wetter.

  ‘What do you do now? When I let you go. I take it your boss, Mr Dorigo, wasn’t with you on this mission.’

  ‘He’s far away, believe me. Compartmentalised, remember. I’ll call him. He’ll send someone for me. He’ll want to know what went wrong. How many of you fuckers are there, by the way? Felt like a fucking army storming in there.’

  I declined to answer.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’re gonna tell me who you are and what you wanted with Chastain either, are you?’

  I shook my head. ‘The less you know, right?’

  His lips thinned. Part smile, part grimace. ‘What does it hurt, man? You ain’t gonna leave me alive. I tried to shoot you.’

  ‘I gave you my word. I have no reason to kill you. The driver of your SUV is tied up in the back of it, still breathing. Had no need to kill him, either. Sure, you can describe me, but that will help no one. You can’t hurt me. At least, I hope you’re not fool enough to try.’

  ‘I’m no fool. I prefer breathing to not breathing.’

  ‘The name Vern Jackson mean anything to you?’ I asked, taking a gamble.

  I noticed the change in his eyes immediately. He tried to hide it from me, but was a moment too late.

  ‘Tell me what you know,’ I said. ‘And don’t lie to me.’

  He shook his head and gave a sigh of resignation. ‘Track-IT. Triple four, double seven, two.’

  ‘And that means what, exactly?’

  ‘Tracking device. You go to the Track-IT website and enter that code you get a fix on a GPS position.’

  ‘Of Jackson’s vehicle?’ Drew had not yet got back to me about the rental car, so this might be the opportunity we’d been waiting for.

  ‘No. But someone else has been sniffing around. Looking for something. Same thing as us, probably. No idea who they are, but we’re pretty sure they have Jackson and Kelper. We managed to get that tracker on their car yesterday. Last I heard it hadn’t started reporting back yet, but it will.’

  It wasn’t exactly an address, but if that vehicle visited the place where Vern and Kelper were being held, we might be able locate them even if the vehicle had moved on elsewhere. All we had to do was check the tracking records to find the most out of the way place imaginable.

  ‘Good. So here’s how it goes now. You toss me your gun – and I know you didn’t throw it away, so don’t even try to conceal it. I take it with me when I leave. Oh, plus your mobile… your cell phone. The moment I’m out of this underpass you start counting off. You reach five hundred, you go your own way. You won’t know when I leave the area entirely, so if I were you I would not attempt to go any sooner. Your weapon, your phone and less than a ten-minute head start in exchange for your life. That’s a pretty good deal, I think.’

  He shook his head, creases deepening across his forehead. ‘Who the fuck are you, man?’

  I looked at him and smiled. ‘Your best friend if you do as I say. Your worst fucking nightmare if you don’t.’

  He did as I said.

  25

  My phone was capable of withstanding a splashing, but not a drenching. It was ruined, so I could not call Terry. I broke it up into pieces and deposited it in the first bin I came across. The suited man’s cell joined it. Steering clear of the scene we had left behind, I walked around knowing that Terry would find me.

  Moving up a steep gradient where the road started to curve around towards the city, I glanced back over my shoulder a couple of times and saw the remnants of the commotion we had caused being played out in the distance. At least half a dozen police cars, two ambulances and a fire truck stood outside the bungalow, whilst more cars cruised the streets around the immediate vicinity. By now they would know the body count, and any sharp cop worth their salt would suspect a military presence from the breach charges and flash-bang debris. I wondered if it was enough for the Department of Homeland Security to be summoned. That would certainly raise the stakes.

  The road was slightly elevated and exposed by the lack of buildings on either s
ide so the breeze felt cold on my wet clothing. I was happy that so few people walk if they can ride, and the small number of vehicles that slid by me drove on without a second glance in my direction. I was glad of the time on my own, which I gave over to considering the situation I had unwittingly sucked people into.

  I felt bad about Chastain. I was pretty sure that our first visit to the Weather Balloon had not led directly to the man’s subsequent murder. I had a feeling that the chain of events leading to his death had begun unravelling long before we came on the scene. Nonetheless, we had breached the property in order to rescue the man, not because of the questions we wanted to ask after we had secured him. Terry and I had failed in our mission. More to the point, I had misjudged the situation by forgetting a cardinal rule: never trust the reactions of a non-professional. The suited hired gun had blown Chastain away in a moment of sheer panic rather than an act of bravery or fear.

  The Jeep finally pulled into the kerb alongside me and I climbed in. By then I was six blocks away and on the other side of the freeway from Chastain’s place.

  ‘You stopped off for a shower?’ Terry said, looking me up and down. His mouth was a thin slit, curving upwards.

  ‘I fancied a swim. It was a nice enough day.’

  ‘How’d you leave things?’

  I liked the way he assumed I had controlled my part of the job. I often feel that if I had even fifty per cent of the confidence in myself that Terry has, I’d be fifty per cent better at what I do.

  ‘I got a couple of names. But he knew very little about what was going on. They work in small cells. Less amateur than I’d imagined.’

  ‘Names?’

  ‘Two middleweights out of Vegas. Dorigo and Moore. The first is a fixer, who works for the latter, who owns a casino complex or two. Beyond that, nothing we can learn from.’

  ‘We could use a stroke of luck by now,’ Terry said.

  I looked at him and grinned. ‘I think we may have received it.’

  I told him about the tracking device. ‘It’s not the rental,’ I continued. ‘But if Drew can’t get hold of that information, then it’s something. Maybe.’

  While I was chasing the fifth man and Terry had scoured the neighbourhood searching for me, he had filled Chelsea in on what had gone down inside the property. She was visibly shaken up and quiet, and I wondered if she might be feeling responsible in some way. She had called upon Chastain prior to our visit, had shown him Vern’s photo. She had involved him, and now he was dead. I looked back, saw the hard set of her jaw and a pain in the slits she had made of her eyes. I felt a wave of sympathy for her.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Listen to me. What happened to Al Chastain had nothing whatsoever to do with you. For that matter, nothing to do with us, either. I get the impression that his murder had nothing to do with your visit to him, nor ours. Something else is going on here. Something we have yet to figure out. I can’t see what it is yet, but I will. So don’t beat yourself up. Okay?’

  I wasn’t entirely convinced by my own argument, but if it was a lie, it was a good one to tell.

  Van Dalen nodded but made no reply. She barely glanced in my direction. I knew she must be terrified, having been caught up in something for which she was wholly unprepared. In removing her from what we considered to be a dangerous situation back at her hotel, it felt as if we had merely swept her up into a position in which her life was now made infinitely worse. The decisions Terry and I had made had cast the black taint of death on the young woman, and I knew from experience that it would her take a long time to recover from it.

  I turned to look at my friend, who was nursing the Jeep back towards the airport. We agreed that our priority was to regroup, lay out everything we had, check the information I had been given, and move on to the next plan. The jet was our only base, perhaps the only place in the whole of New Mexico where we would still feel safe. Something about my recent train of thought nagged at me. I felt as if I had missed something vital, but it swam out of view.

  ‘Does any of this feel right to you?’ I asked Terry. I shook my head and smashed a clenched fist down on the armrest. ‘This is not about Vern’s so-called gambling debt – at least, a debt that might cause such a chain reaction of events. Those men we put down, they were looking for Vern and Kelper. I’m convinced of that. But why would they come to the conclusion that Chastain would know where the two of them were? I can’t work any of this out. The only thing that does seem certain is that this all stems from Las Vegas, so there might yet be answers up there.’

  He nodded. ‘You got a couple of names out of the man you chased down. We may yet be able to track down a vehicle of interest because of what you were able to get out of him. We’ll chew it over in the Lear, but I’m thinking it might still be best if I flew up there to find out more about them whilst you and Yoko here sift through the embers of whatever we’ve got going on in New Mexico.’

  Despite our predicament, I chuckled. Referring to our current companion as ‘Yoko’ was so typical of his sense of humour, but I wasn’t sure she deserved the title.

  ‘We’re missing a major piece of the puzzle. Maybe it’s up there. But Vern could still be close by, so yes I do think I need to stick around. Quite what we do about Chelsea, I have no real idea.’

  ‘Do I get a say in my future?’ a voice queried from the back seat. It put me in mind of the troubles that had come my way over the previous summer, and another woman in desperate need of help without her even knowing it. Terry had described her and the child she took care of as our baggage, and now it seemed we had more to look after.

  I nodded. Found her in the rear-view. ‘Of course. You’re not our prisoner, Chelsea. We brought you with us because we thought it would be safer for you. Looks like we were wrong.’

  ‘We can’t know that,’ Terry said, his eyes busy on the road and in his mirrors. ‘If these same people had found Chelsea at the hotel, it could be her lying dead right now.’

  There was that.

  This time I did twist in my seat. Van Dalen’s glare was now a little hostile. I could hardly blame her. ‘Terry’s right. I didn’t expect us to be driving you into a firefight, but my best guess is that these same men were after you three. Maybe they would not have located you at the Days Inn, but I suspect they would have eventually. I know you’re scared and worried about what happened back there at Chastain’s place, but on the whole I still think you’re safer with us.’

  I believed that to be the case, but I could not help but think about how safe people actually were around me these days. I had my daughter, which meant those who wished ill of me still had their hooks in my life if it suited them. My plan since walking away from sorry mess of the previous summer was to keep my distance from the security and intelligence services. Equally, I was aware that the unlicensed and disavowed darker divisions might one day decide to make an example of me.

  Not on this trip though. This was a crazy situation whose complexities would make themselves known to us soon enough. Someone always held that final piece of the puzzle, even if they were not aware of it. It was our job to find them and squeeze it out of them.

  The young woman regarded me with scepticism and fear. She had not directly witnessed any of what had taken place inside Chastain’s bungalow, but with the presence of the police and whatever sanitised version Terry had gone with when describing the scene, she knew lives had been lost and that we were responsible for some of them. There was nothing to be gained from pointing out that we had not done so by choice, and certainly with no malice or satisfaction. It went with the territory. Simple as that. You either walked away and managed the guilt, or you never saw the light of day again.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Once we get back to the airport, you get some food and drink inside you, listen to what we have to say. If after that you want to go your own way, then that’s what you do. Neither of us will try to stop you. You can take a cab, or I’ll drop you off somewhere. Back at the Days Inn if you decide that’s for the bes
t. I would advise against it, but I’m not holding you against your will. In fact–’

  Terry’s phone rang. I held up a finger to postpone the chat with Van Dalen while my friend took out his mobile and checked the screen. He handed it across to me. It was Drew’s number. As I thumbed the answer icon a couple of helicopters swooped overhead in the direction of the shitstorm we had left behind. The chase was hotting up. Having heavily armed men taking lives in your city tended to cause that level of reaction. I wondered if the man in the suit had also managed to secure his escape.

  ‘It’s Mike,’ I said. ‘I assume you tried contacting me first but got no joy. I had a slight… accident with my phone. I’ll pick up another and text you the number. In the meantime, I hope you have some good news for me, Drew. We could use some right about now.’

  ‘I had to go through another source,’ Drew replied. ‘But I’m afraid I have bad news. The vehicle’s on-board GPS was deactivated. Someone beat us to the punch. The rental company are checking their records now, but it may be some time before they can tell me where the last signal was located.’

  I cursed. It would have been too easy, but I felt our efforts deserved a break. I told him I had a tracker of our own to check out, fed him the details and asked him to call me back. I offered no further information of my own.

  ‘Look for somewhere well out of the way,’ I told him. ‘Knowing where the vehicle is now will be something to get our teeth into, but if it has visited a remote location then that may be where we’ll find Vern.’

  We drove on in silence for several minutes before Drew called back. I still had hold of the phone. I listened, glanced over at Terry and gave him a thumbs-up. After Drew gave me the location I repeated the coordinates before speaking into the phone again.