The Butcher's Bill (The Linus Schag, NCIS, Thrillers Book 2)

by Martin Roy Hill

  "She decked him like a schoolyard bully," Kasitz wheezed. "Then when I tried to grab her as she ran out of the cabin, the bitch slammed her elbow into my face. I think she broke my nose, Mr. Black."

  Black rolled his eyes, stepped nearer, and growled, "Where the fuck is she?"

  "Back in the cabin," Kasitz said. "We got her back in there . . . the two of us."

  Black stepped to the door and put his hand on the knob. "Is it safe to go in there?"

  Gott nodded. "Yes, sir. We put the zip cuffs on her again."

  "Good," Black said. He opened the door.

  Yolanda Butcher stood in the middle of the living room of the spacious cabin, almost as large as the captain's own accommodations. Despite her hands being zip-tied together, she clutched a desk lamp like a club. Her dark eyes blazed with anger and her lips curled in a grimace. Blood from the guard's broken nose spotted her shirt.

  Black held up his hands and said, "Please, Mrs. Butcher. I only want to talk."

  CHAPTER 24

  FRIDAY

  NCIS Southwest Regional Headquarters

  Naval Station San Diego, California

  1800 hours

  LINUS SCHAG LEANED BACK IN his chair and glanced at his watch for the . . . well, he couldn't remember how many times he'd checked his watch. Time seemed to be stuck, moving neither forward nor backward. He looked at the papers on his desk, then at the documents on his computer screen, and sighed. He looked at his watch again.

  Schag sat in Riley's office working on administrative matters, sorting through documents related to other cases, reading, and commenting on subpoena requests—the work Riley would be doing if he weren't occupied with the other agents trying to find Bill and Yolanda.

  Yolanda. Schag felt a sickening jab of pain in his stomach thinking of her. It was bad enough having the feelings he had for her and the guilt they produced, as if he were actually cheating on Bill. But with Yolanda . . . who knew where? Worry and fear gnawed at his gut and compounded all the other emotions.

  Riley left it to Schag to call Yolanda's mother and father to tell them what happened. He told them the official story—that Bill Butcher found the safe house, killed two agents, and kidnapped Yolanda. Yolanda's parents seem to doubt that as much as Schag did. Despite everything Bill had done, they still believed he loved Yolanda and would never harm her in any way. Still, Schag could hear the worry and fear in their voices. He wanted to tell them he had talked to Bill, and he was not the madman the media and law enforcement officials were making him out to be. What difference would it make? He'd have to tell them hired killers had kidnapped their daughter. How would that make the ordeal better for them?

  Sitting in this damned office was killing him. He wanted—he needed—to be out looking for Yolanda. Riley and the others were wasting time trying to find Bill, thinking that would lead them to Yolanda. Schag knew it wouldn't. He was certain Gideon was behind the kidnapping.

  Schag had copied Butcher's files to a CD, and hid the micro disk in his shoe as Butcher had done. The CD was in Riley's computer and when no one was near the office, Schag studied the files. Between brief looks at the Gordias data, he worked on the files Riley needed completed.

  Schag looked at his watch again. At last, the minute hand had moved. It was almost an hour since he last checked the burner phone. He stood, stepped to the opened door, and looked out. The hallway was empty. He stepped back to the desk where his battered flight jacket was hanging from the back of the chair, jammed his hand into the right side pocket, and pulled out the phone. Powering it up, he checked the text messages. There was one new message.

  "Need your help.

  Tonite 2200. B @ phone booth 2303 Shelt Is Dr"

  Schag hadn't spent much time in San Diego, so he wasn't sure what "Shelt Is" meant. Pulling up his Web browser, he typed "2303 Shel." The search page's auto find function showed him it was an address on Shelter Island Drive. Schag knew Shelter Island, a popular tourist attraction filled with hotels, restaurants, and nightclubs jammed between boatyards and yacht brokers. The island was very near the sub base where Schag was staying, and he had eaten dinner there only the night before. The map that popped up on his search screen revealed the address was a hotel on the southern tip of the island.

  Schag looked at his watch again. It was 6 p.m., 1800 hours in military time. Four more hours. He wanted to get there at least half an hour early to surveil the area. Even though he trusted Bill, he didn't want to blunder into an ambush. It could take an hour or more to get from 32nd Street to Shelter Island, depending on traffic. To get there before the meet, he'd have to leave NCIS headquarters no later than 2030 hours—8:30 p.m. About two and a half hours away.

  Schag turned back to the documents on his desk, tackling them with new energy. The sooner he got through them, the sooner he could concoct an excuse to leave.

  ☼

  "Where the hell are you going, Schag?" Riley demanded.

  Schag finished slipping on his leather jacket. It was 8:30 p.m., and he was eager to get going. He didn't stop to answer Riley, but walked past him and the other agents in the Hole.

  "Back to the Gateway," he answered.

  "Really?" Riley said in mock disbelief. "How lucky for you."

  "You don't need me here, Tom," Schag said, still moving.

  "What about the paperwork?"

  "Done and on your desk or in your email queue."

  "That's doesn't mean you can just take off."

  Schag stopped and turned to face Riley.

  "Tom, I can't be involved in this investigation. You said so yourself. The paperwork is done, and you're just wasting my time now. So, I'm getting some dinner, a drink, and some sleep. I'll see you in the morning—if you need me."

  Schag turned and walked through the door.

  "Schag!" Riley shouted, but the door closed before the word was out of his mouth.

  Riley turned, saw the other agents staring at him, and felt his face flush with anger and frustration. "What the hell are you people looking at?" Riley swore under his breath as the other agents turned back to their work. "I'll be in my office," he said, and stomped out of the bull pen muttering, "God damn insubordinate asshole."

  ☼

  Schag pulled into the parking lot at the address Butcher texted him. It belonged to a hotel-marina at the southern end of Shelter Island. The parking lot was packed. Well-heeled couples left their vehicles and walked toward an open-air restaurant. Unable to find a parking space, Schag parked in a public lot across the street from the hotel, and trotted across the road to the lobby entrance. He glanced at his watch as he walked through the doors. It was a little after 9:30 p.m. Glancing around the swank lobby, he spotted a lone pay-phone booth half way down a secluded hallway near the public rest rooms. Schag picked up a complimentary copy of USA Today and sat in an over-stuffed chair on the far side of the lobby where he could watch both the entrance and the phone booth.

  Minutes ticked by with glacial speed. Schag reread the same three articles in the newspaper, stopping occasionally to glance over the paper at the lobby and the pay phone. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. When the minute hand on his watch clicked into the full upright position, he stood, walked to the phone booth, and stepped inside.

  It rang straightaway.

  Schag picked up the handset and said, "Yes?"

  "Still wearing that old leather jacket, eh, Lin?" Bill Butcher said.

  Still holding the handset, Schag leaned out of the booth and looked around. He saw no one.

  "Where the hell are you, Bill?" He demanded.

  "Somewhere where I can see you but you can't see me."

  "How can that be?" Schag said. "I've been watching the lobby and the phone for the past half hour."

  "I know," Butcher answered. "I've been watching it for the past hour. Had to make sure you didn't bring any of Riley's boys with you."

  "I wouldn't do that."

  Butcher grunted. "You might have been followed."

  "That I can
buy," Schag conceded. "So, are we going to talk?"

  "Not here," Butcher said. "I've got my own safe house. A rundown motel, but the owner keeps his nose out of his renters' business. I'm texting you the address. Meet me there in one hour."

  Schag took out his burner phone and turned it on. A moment later, it beeped with the incoming message. "Got it," he said, and hung up.

  Schag returned to the lobby and looked around, seeing no one who looked even vaguely like Butcher. He looked back down the hallway and still saw no one. With a shrug, he walked out of the lobby, and trotted back to his parked car.

  ☼

  In an office behind the lobby desk, Bill Butcher watched Schag leave the lobby on the hotel's closed circuit security system. Butcher wore a jump suit emblazoned with the name of the CCTV firm that maintained the hotel's security cameras. A bright-red wig covered his baldpate, and he wore a thick beard of the same color. Earlier in the day, he had disabled a few of the closed-circuit video cameras. Later, changing disguises, he showed up as a repairman saying the company's automated error detection system had alerted them to a problem. He quickly "fixed" the problem, but told the hotel security staff he needed to calibrate the system. Butcher convinced the guard who watched the monitors to walk the premises while he worked.

  A wry grin spread across Butcher's face as he watched Schag leave, looking one way then the other, trying to figure out where Butcher was. With almost perfect timing, the hotel guard returned to the security office just as Schag left the lobby.

  "Get it fixed yet?" the guard asked.

  "That I did," Butcher answered with a soft Irish lilt that went with his bright red wig. He gathered up his tool bag and smiled at the guard.

  "That was fast," the guard said.

  Butcher shrugged, still grinning. "Luck of the Irish," he said. He winked once, and left.

  CHAPTER 25

  SATURDAY

  Bill Butcher’s Safe House

  San Diego, California

  0020 Hours

  SCHAG'S GPS GUIDED HIM TO the address Bill Butcher had given him, a boxy, two-story building located on a two-lane frontage road paralleling the Interstate 5 freeway. A neon sign announced it as the Bay View Motel. It was the only thing colorful about the place. The weatherworn paint had grown dull, and the plants that grew wild along the outer walls of the lobby were a thirsty brown turning to black. The name itself was misleading. A freeway stood between the motel and San Diego's Mission Bay, a massive, man-made aquatic sports attraction. Schag was certain the only thing seen from any of the motel's grimed windows was traffic.

  Schag parked around the corner on a road leading uphill. From there he could see that the motel, though narrow in front, ran deep, with two separate buildings that stepped up the sea bluff. There was laundry drying in front of a few rooms, and it was obvious to Schag the motel did not cater to the tourist trade but rather rented out to residents who, for various reasons, couldn't lease an apartment or a house. That included fugitives like Bill Butcher.

  The agent walked another block uphill and turned a corner, found a narrow alley, and worked his way back downhill toward the back of the Bay View Motel. There he hopped a wall and found a spot where he could watch most of the rooms and parking spots. Then he waited.

  After twenty minutes, he still hadn't seen anyone with the height or bulk of Butcher. He watched a young hooker drag a john into her room and, a few minutes later, push him out. Occasionally, Schag caught a whiff of marijuana. Once he witnessed a minor drug purchase go down outside of a room, the light thrown through the opened door silhouetting the transaction for any narc with a camera. Then he heard the crunch of a shoe on sandy cement, turned, and found a giant shadow hovering about him.

  "Lin, you going to sit here all night?"

  Schag dropped his head in shame. "How long?" he asked.

  "Since you got here," Butcher replied. He nodded over his shoulder. "I was over there in the shadows when you jumped the wall."

  Schag stood, shaking his head. "Making sure I didn't bring the cavalry with me?" Schag said, annoyed.

  Butcher shrugged. "It was a nice evening," he said. "I was just enjoying it and the music."

  Schag cocked an ear. "What music?" he asked, not hearing any.

  "It's in my head," Butcher explained. "It's there all the time now. Better than the voices, I used to hear. You think it's because of that . . . what'd you call it? Agueloquine?"

  "Yes," Schag answered softly. "Yes, I do, Bill."

  "Me, too," Butcher said, his voice gloomy. He stepped closer, and as the light from the motel fell on him, Schag could see he wore a red wig with matching beard.

  "Nice look."

  "Aye, to everyone here I'm a just a jackeen Irish immigrant," Butcher said in his lilt. He switched to his normal voice and added, "Something I perfected for a role in one of Shaw's plays. Everyone's looking for a big bald guy, not a hairy, red-headed Irishman." He cocked his head toward the motel, and adopted the lilt again. "No more foosterin' now. Let's go, copper."

  Schag followed Butcher through a parking lot that bordered the two-story structure.

  "I checked out that same route you came through before I rented this place," Butcher said. "Figured it'd make a good escape route. I have a car parked up there, just in case."

  As they passed the door where the hooker lived, it opened and a woman with bleached hair and a dress two sizes too small stepped out.

  "Well, there you go, you naughty Irishman," she said, eyeing Butcher, then Schag. "Now I know why you don't take me up on my offers."

  "Ah, be away with ya, you wicked hoor," Butcher said, smiling. "It's all I can do to keep me hands off ya." He slapped her on the behind, and she giggled like a little girl. "And you w' no drawers, I can tell. Diabolical, you are, temptin' me mate the way you are."

  Butcher reached his room and unlocked the door. He held a cupped hand under the latch as he opened the door. A small wad of tissue dropped in his hand. He held it up so Schag could see.

  "No visitors," he said, leading Schag inside. "You know, she really is a good kid."

  "The 'hoor'?" Schag asked.

  "Studies medicine. Knows a lot about anatomy."

  "I bet," Schag said. He glanced about the cramped room with its ancient bed, a marred wooden table serving as a desk, and from what Schag could see through the opened bathroom door, plumbing from another century. "All the comforts of home," he added, his voice grim.

  Butcher saw the pain in his friend's eyes and tried to lighten the mood. "It has its good points," he said. "The walls are so thin not even a SEAL could get near without me hearing him coming. And if I open the bathroom window, I can get a cheap contact high."

  Butcher smiled a grin so infectious it made Schag chuckle before asking, "So, why did you bring me here, Bill?"

  The grin vanished and Butcher's face turned serious. "I need your help, Lin," he said. "I've been racking my brain trying to figure out where Gideon took Yolanda."

  "You're sure it was Gideon?"

  "I'm sure," Butcher said, waving Schag to sit on the bed while he took the chair at the desk and removed the wig and fake beard. "Yolanda and I had a secret method of sending messages to each other. All those times I was away on missions." He shook his head. "It was a breach of security, I know. But—" He shrugged. "Anyway, whenever there was Internet access, guys would spend their down time playing online video games. Yolanda and I would log on to this one online game with fake names, and in our online personas leave messages for each other. To anyone else it would look like we were dissing each other as part of our avatars. But we knew what we meant."

  "And you got a message from her?"

  Butcher nodded.

  "Ever since she was grabbed, I've gone to a nearby library twice each day and logged onto the game using one of their computers. I figured whoever took her would need to communicate with me. And I was right. Today, there was a message."

  Butcher's lips tightened into a thin, bloodless line. Schag leaned
forward and looked into Butcher's angry blue eyes.

  "What did it say, Bill?"

  "They want to arrange a meet," he said, his teeth still clinched. "They'll let her go if I give myself up to them. Otherwise they'll kill her."

  Schag felt his own chest tighten, as if a giant hand was squeezing him.

  "You don't believe them, do you, Bill?" he asked, his own voice tight. "That they'll let her go, I mean."

  "What do you think?" Butcher said, shaking his head. "They'll kill us both. They can't leave witnesses." He stood and paced the small amount of empty floor the bed and the desk didn't cover. "We've got to figure out where the hell they've got her and go get her before they can hurt her.

  "Did they set the meet yet?" Schag asked.

  "No, they wanted my answer first," Butcher said. His hands rubbed the sides of his face. "I haven't acknowledged the message yet. I'm trying to buy time."

  "Good," Schag said. "They’ll have her in a safe house somewhere around here. Too dangerous hauling a kidnapped woman too far. What about the Gideon compound?"

  Butcher shook his head. "First place I went," he said. "There are still a bunch of cops around there." Butcher chuckled darkly. "I think they're guarding the place against me."

  "They have any other property around here?"

  Butcher nodded toward the laptop. "That's what I've been doing, going through all my files looking for something local. The only company I found was a port services firm with an office in National City. I checked it out, too. Small office, something of a warehouse down on the docks, but I didn't spot any unusual activity."

  A thought formed at the edge of Schag's memory. Port services. An oil tanker anchored offshore. A Gordias-owned shipping firm.

  "Fire up that thing," he said, pointing to the laptop on the desk. "I've got an idea."

  ☼

  It took a good ten minutes for Schag to wend his way through the labyrinth of files Butcher had collected on Gordias. As he searched, he explained his hunch.