“I…I don’t want to die, John.” Darin had guts – his voice hardly wavered.
With my hands clamped reassuringly on his shoulders Darin released his death-grip and I knelt down in front of him. His lower lip quivered but he kept his mouth tightly clamped shut. This boy had found out early what usually happens when you cry in front of people. He sucked it up and looked me in the eyes. I didn’t smile or start spewing a lot of crapola about how everything was going to be okay.
“You’ll have to trust me, Darin. I won’t lie to you. Be straight with me like you’ve been doing and the only way anything happens to you will be over my dead body. Think about it. Nelson’s the only one knows you were part of this and he won’t be tellin’ anybody anything.” I took out my cell-phone and held up the scans of Chardin for Darin to see. “Have you seen this guy anywhere? These are all the same guy with different looks.”
Darin checked each one out with ten year old intensity. His mouth widened slightly when he saw Chardin with a close cropped beard and short hair. “Nelson jogged over to a car that pulled up across the street from where we were. This guy was drivin’ it.”
“Are you sure, kid?”
“Yeah, I got a good look at his face while he talked to Terry.”
“Do you remember what he was driving?”
“It was one of those small black Ford SUV’s.”
“An Escape?”
“No… an Edge. It was a Ford Edge.
“Do you remember anything else about the Ford or if there were other passengers?”
“It had a roof rack and dark tinted windows. I’m not sure if he was alone.”
“Good. I have to go help Nelson move his car. If any of his crew call, tell them you don’t know where Nelson is and you’re waiting for him to contact you. If they give you any shit, call me.” I wrote down my cell number on a card and gave it to him. “You stay here today. Don’t go outside and don’t scare the crap out of your Mom when she comes home.”
“I won’t. Thanks… thanks for helpin’ me.”
“Actually, you’ve helped me more than I’ve helped you. I’ll try and catch up in the next few days. I’m planning a neighborhood redevelopment program when I get clear of a few immediate problems. I might be able to make your walk home from school less thrilling.”
Nelson started rolling around grunting for attention so I kicked him in the head. I wasn’t ready for an interview with Terry just yet. “Do you have an old tarp or anything… even a sheet would do?”
Darin thought for a moment and then jogged into the back of his house. He returned with a ratty looking brown bed cover. “How about this?”
“Perfect.” I confiscated Nelson’s car keys, pocket contents, and 9mm Beretta before rolling him loosely in the blanket and duct taping it in the middle. I hoisted him up over my shoulder with the bomb pack held gingerly in the hand I had wrapped over my bundle. “Get the door for me, Darin. Stay put. I’ll be in touch.”
Darin nodded and opened the door. I took a quick look around. No one was out on the street or sidewalk. I eased through Darin’s door with Nelson on my shoulder and his car key ready in my other hand. His ride, an electric blue 1978 Cad Deville, had a huge trunk. I opened it to find one of those mammoth subwoofers blocking the area next to the latch so I heaved Terry in past it amongst food wrappers and assorted trash. I closed the trunk and called Denny.
“What’s up, John?”
“New development. I’ll let you in on it if we can agree on the conclusion.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Gang-banger, Chardin, IED. We meet somewhere quiet for a discussion and then the gang-banger moves on to the happy hunting ground. If you’re not pleased with the conclusion say so now and you get nothin’.”
“You must think I’ve turned into a pussy in my old age, Harding. I’ll meet you at building Z about an hour and a half… okay?”
“Sounds good. See you then.” I’ll drive around somewhere no one will notice me and give Denny a chance to get things ready. I hope Nelson enjoys his quiet time.
Building Z was a San Leandro warehouse that doubled as a safe-house and interrogation facility for the Company’s Bay Area encounters. Yes, folks, some things have to be done behind closed doors. Sound proofed inside with a pull up door for vehicle entry Z made a perfect spot for emergencies like this. One of the small things I do for my money is assist and clean up when we have a bad guy who has gotten involved with terror plots we want all the details of. They usually think some Nancy from accounting will ask them nicely where the next religion of peace plot will be hatching. They get Denny’s special interviewers and me instead. They tell us what we want without any publicity before vanishing without a trace. Yes, we’re judge, jury, and executioner because we don’t care if our subjects had a bad childhood. We know what they have done and what they plan on doing. If you make it to building Z for an interview, you didn’t get there for stealing a loaf of bread.
Guys like Denny take responsibility for the distasteful stuff so people can still shop in the malls without wondering whether they’ll get blown into a million pieces or dead from some nerve agent. That’s why I would have been real disappointed the other night at Tess’s house if I’d had to end my relationship with Denny. When it comes to interrogation Jack Bauer is the Easter Bunny next to Denny. I’m good but my imagination leaves a little to be desired. Denny is a real innovator. Most times he doesn’t have to do much to get what we need. Our interviewees get impressed real quick once they know the facts. My old friend Nelson will sing like a songbird in about five minutes or less.
The door’s already open for me when I arrive in Nelson’s Cad. Lucas Blake waves at me from the door as I drive past and then shuts it up tight. Blake is an old school chum of Denny’s – old school meaning unauthorized interrogation 101. He’s five foot eight inches of black rawhide. He’s a product of South Central LA, where the judge gave him the option of four years in the Marine Corps or seven in prison back during the Vietnam War when Lucas was only sixteen. Blake did two tours in ‘Nam and drew the attention of Company men there. He’s been with them ever since. Blake has three passions in life: the United States of America, the Marine Corps, and his family. Company business is just something Blake does to keep his other passions safe.
Once inside, Blake’s partner Casey Lambert sauntered over to my door with a big grin on his face. The Company recruited Lambert during the first Gulf War out of Delta. A tall lanky Texan with an Opie face and freckles, Lambert wore his long brown hair touching his shoulders. He and Blake had been together for nearly twenty years. Lambert’s only family is Blake and Blake’s family. No one knows what these two do for a living in the real world. Their cover is a bogus consulting firm that’s based in the Bay Area but hires out all over the country. The consulting firm provides cover for any travels they make.
“Hey Gunny, how’s business? Lucas here says you called Denny a pussy.”
Blake laughs as he walks up to join us. It’s one of those deep throated heehaws that’s contagious. “I did not. I said Denny hinted that you’d called him a pussy.”
I nodded and grinned at my sometime coworkers. “I may have been a little overzealous about making sure Denny understood my guest in the trunk won’t be returning anywhere outside the building other than a landfill. Denny may have taken offense to that.”
“Damn right I did, meat.” Denny joined us from the back. “You’re late. I scrambled my buddies here special for you. I hope it’s worth it.”
I walked around to the Cad trunk. Nelson was squirming on the floor a moment later where I pitched him out like a bale of hay. Sweat poured off Terry’s face. His eyes blinked with tears from the light. I ripped the duct tape off his mouth taking skin with it. Nelson yelped before going into a nonstop rant about brutality, black men, Rodney King, and defaming my lineage back to the dawn of time. Lucas drop kicked him in the face and looked at me with his stern rebuke face.
“What’d you shut him up for,
Lucas? Damn… he was just getting funny,” Casey said.
Lucas ignored Casey, still giving me the evil eye. “Why didn’t you warm this sucker up, John? We’ll have to spend at least fifteen minutes in preliminaries. I’m taking the wife out to dinner with Casey and his new lady.”
I usually get any interviewees I bring into the mood so Denny’s crew can get right down to business. “Sorry guys, but I didn’t have a choice. Nelson here recruited a ten-year-old neighbor boy to strap on a Chardin made bomb pack for the purpose of disrupting a planned outing with Samira Karim in the Jack London Square gig tonight.”
“Holy shit!” Denny was no longer bored. I handed him the pack. One look inside and Denny motioned us into the interrogation room. “Get him inside and get to work. We don’t know how much time we have. Were you able to bypass the trigger, John?”
“What’d you think, Denny, I’d haul a live bomb in here? When he checks, Chardin will get a live signal but that’s all.” I grabbed up Nelson by the seat of his pants and dragged him into our special room. He was snoring from Blake’s kick to his temple. We have a new examination table inside with plastic curtains strung all around. Two rolling carts carried implements designed to warm the hearts of even the most ardent bad guys. I got the idea from the ‘Dexter’ series on HBO. Denny liked it because most bad guys were familiar with the series’ character. They knew when waking on a table with their bodies taped so they couldn’t move anything but their eyes, attended by four guys with plastic clothing covers and gloves, things were about to go real bad. I put Terry on the table and cut him free. Lucas and Casey taped him to the table with their usual precision.
“Me and Casey been keeping up on your YouTube exploits. Very entertaining, especially that Russian mob clip. I heard you had some repercussions though. Anything we can help you with, John?”
“Nope, but I appreciate the offer. Denny probably told you I now have Fiialkov helping out with this Chardin character.” We all put on our ‘Dexter’ suits so I started waking Nelson up with some slaps. His eyes blinked into consciousness. When Terry’s eyeball’s took in his surroundings they nearly popped right out of his head. He mouthed words for a moment without sound. Then Denny went to work.
“Introduce us, John.”
“This is Terry Nelson. He’s a cheap gang-bangin’ thug. I’ve picked up shells on the beach with more brains. He outdid himself this time.”
Nelson is already impressed. He has a little trouble talking with his forehead and chin nearly immovable. “Har… Harding? What… what’s goin’ on?”
“You can talk to me, Mr. Nelson,” Denny said, leaning toward Nelson. “You mixed with the wrong guy. Now, you’re going to tell us everything about Claude Chardin. In case you don’t know his name, he’s the one that gave you the explosive pack.”
Terry’s eyes widened even more which I didn’t think was possible. “Man… I don’t know shit about-”
Casey cut his cheek with a scalpel in a slow deliberate shallow slice from his chin to eye. Nelson’s squeal ended in a sobbing, guttural whine. I believed we’d reached an understanding. I moved up where Terry could see me.
“Look Nelson, you were going to outfit a ten-year-old boy with a bomb to blow up God knows how many innocent people. You ain’t ever leavin’ this place alive. My associates will get everything you know. How you draw your last breath is in your hands right now. Tell us everything you know about Chardin and this gig at Jack London and you can go out with a smile on your face.”
Denny moved up and showed Nelson a hypodermic. “This is a wonderland hotshot, Mr. Nelson. Do as John suggests and you get it. Play dumb and in an hour you will be begging us to hear every detail.”
Nelson folded like the cheap prick I figured he was. He cried first. Yeah, that’ll work.
“Okay… okay… I know the guy. He… he said I’d make twenty thousand if I could cause a distraction for him with a small bang on the Square. I didn’t-”
Lucas bitch slapped the gang-bangin’ moron with a coldly delivered refresher. “We’re not interested in what made you shit on your country, maggot.”
Nelson saw something in Lucas’s eyes that reached him on a level he understood. His eyes closed for a moment, squeezed tightly as if in protest to his entire miserable life before opening once again with a suitable haggard acceptance. “Dude didn’t tell me why. He gave me ten thou’ up front and told me what he wanted done.”
“How did he contact you, Mr. Nelson?” Denny kept it formal.
“There… there’s a cell-phone in a panel under my driver’s seat. I got his number in there. He only contact me twice. The money sold me… I-”
“Shut up!” I thought of Darin blowing up in some crowded spot in Jack London Square and reality starts to fog up on me. Denny grabs my arm but I shrug him off. “I’ll be right back. Better start prayin’ Terry. If that cell-phone ain’t there with all you say I’m going to make you wish you were never born.”
I jogged out to Nelson’s Cad and found the throw away cell-phone under a taped over piece of mat. I’d already checked the regular cell he’d been carrying without anything other than the gang-banger stuff I planned to use to make my wakeup call in the area around my neighborhood. I brought it back in to Denny. He downloaded every bit of anything it had on its circuit board. He made some calls while he worked. I saw him smile in the midst of his examination and figured we hit pay-dirt. He uploaded the stuff somewhere because he watched the notebook computer screen until a beep sounded. Denny walked back to Nelson and before I could intervene he injected Nelson with a hypo that put a dim smile on Terry’s face before the shadows came up from hell and dragged his black soul down to his just rewards. At least that was what I comforted myself with.
“You in a hurry, Denny?”
“John, you’re too close to this. Nelson needed to go bye-bye before your feelings for him got out of hand. Chardin wouldn’t have trusted this idiot with anything more than what I just got from the cell-phone. He won’t know we’ve busted Nelson yet so he’ll keep the cell alive we have the number for. I’m having him triangulated as we speak. We’ll get the bastard before he has a chance to move. There wasn’t any need to take this interrogation any further.”
“Maybe you needed to trust me with a say in that, Denny.”
“What about it, Lucas?” Denny turned to Blake.
“I got no dog in this hunt other than America. John bleeds red, white, and blue. You should take a moment before asking me for an opinion, Denny. I ain’t your bitch… if you know what I mean.”
“Don’t even look at me, Den,” Lambert had both hands up while backing away. “John’s gold with me. I ever get mixed signals about something and I think of going to ground he’ll be the first I call after Lucas for backup. You feel me, Ace?”
Denny looked at Lucas again. The grin Lucas gave him in answer did not please Denny. A few seconds of absorbing the obvious exhorted a small chuckle from Denny and a drop of his shoulders. He looked up at us with a shrug. “You guys are as close to family as I’ve got. Don’t take this personally. Some things you’re better off not knowing. If that’s a problem then dance with a different partner.”
“Maybe you better remember some people are exactly what you think they are, Denny,” Lucas replied with calm aplomb. “You should have given John a chance to satisfy his curiosity.”
“Maybe, but I didn’t. Let’s go get this murderin’ son of a bitch before he gets away. You can bet he didn’t trust anything to Nelson other than assigning the bomb. We’ll leave Nelson here for disposal. Get your gear on. It’ll have to be the four of us.”
“Want to take a few seconds to brainstorm how the hell Chardin knew anything was going on down at Jack London tonight?” I saw Denny’s eyes widen slightly. “It could have been my guys but I’m betting you know somebody else more likely.”
“I’ll think about it while we’re loading.”
Lucas gripped Denny’s shoulder. “You know, Denny, you’re just like family t
o me too. If I find out you knew something about someone that could get us maimed or killed, I’m goin’ to whup you like a red-headed stepchild. What did you see on the cell that made you boink the little gang-banger here?”
Denny sat down. “I’m under orders guys. I saw a number I think matches with an alias we’ve been tracking in our department. My calls inside confirmed it. We’ve suspected someone’s been feeding Chardin information from in the agency. It won’t affect us nabbing Chardin.”
“Unless you uploaded the cell info to the wrong person,” Lucas pointed out. “In which case we could get triangulated right into a trap. I don’t think you’d do that, Denny. I think you already know now who it is working with Chardin. Am I right?”
Denny nodded. “He’s out of the loop but we can’t pick him up without tipping off Chardin.”
I knew. “It’s Reddig. Isn’t it, Den.”
Denny stood up. “Can we go now? I can’t guarantee we’ll all get through this unscathed but I guarantee what I can’t say won’t hurt us. Okay?”
I exchanged glances with Lucas and Casey. They grinned and nodded. “Is this dead or alive?”
“We’d like to take him alive.”
“Tell John where he is,” Lucas told Denny. “If anyone can figure an approach that’ll net this scumbag alive it’s him.”
“He’s at the Marina in San Leandro. We have a general area for the signal. Chardin could be eating at a restaurant there or he may have a boat he’s prepping for tonight’s dance party. We’ll have to get closer before we can pinpoint which it is. Our people are checking the registry of every boat in the Marina right now. My guess would be he won’t have anything obvious but they’re looking for boats just ported there or anything out of the ordinary.”
“He’s got our pictures. Bet on that.”
“You’re right, Lucas,” Denny acknowledged. “Any suggestions, John?”
“Once we find out where he is exactly and I don’t care where, let me blow his knee off.”
Hell on Earth Page 51
