by Bob Mayer
“Karralkov would slit his own kid’s throat if he felt it was to his advantage,” Riley said, ignoring the shocked look on Sarah’s face. He shook his head. “Kidnapping a kid. That’s family. Crosses some lines for some, but not for the Russians. They got a long, sad cultural history. Everyone has a cultural history, don’t they, Kono?”
The Gullah didn’t respond.
“Did Karralkov shut down this SAS gambling site during the conference championships?” Chase asked.
Riley shrugged. “No one knows for certain except whoever did it. But word is, yeah, he did. And that he got a five-million payout to let it go back up. Problem with paying someone off is, they always come back for more.”
“Your business interests don’t intersect with Karralkov or Walter Briggs?” Chase asked.
Riley raised an eyebrow. “What business is that?”
“Gambling. Making book. Whatever you call it.”
“Where did you hear that?” Riley asked.
Chase didn’t answer.
Riley turned to Kono. “Are you talking about me to strangers?”
“Chase isn’t a stranger,” Kono said. “I knew him here long before you show up, Riley. You the stranger to me.”
“Was my uncle a stranger to you?” Riley asked.
“Your uncle was a good man,” Kono said, as if the words were being pulled from him.
Riley rubbed his dark skin. “Because he wasn’t a buckra?”
“You all that to me,” Kono said. “If you not one of us, then you aren’t.”
That made sense to Riley in a strange way. It was the way he’d felt in Special Ops about those who weren’t.
But he wasn’t in Spec Ops any more. Neither was the man seated across from him, but they shared the bond of prior service.
Chase jumped into the breach. “Parsons said you knew Karralkov. That he was muscling in on people’s businesses, especially illegitimate ones.”
Riley shrugged. “He hasn’t shown up here.”
“Yet,” Chase continued.
Riley laughed. “Hell, I just got offered more client referrals because people are leery of SAS after they lost some bets two weeks ago. But I don’t have any interest in expanding my business. And if someone comes here to muscle in, I don’t see a need to fight.”
“You’d give it up?” Sarah asked.
Riley shrugged. “I’m not tied to it. It passes the time. I’m not tied to many things in life.”
“Are you tied to anything?” Sarah asked, and Riley met her eyes, his mind weakly casting about to come up with an answer and coming up empty.
Chase stepped into the awkward silence. “Is there anyone else you think could be behind this kidnapping? Kono mentioned a fellow named Farrelli.”
Riley snorted. “Tony ‘Can of Tomatoes’ Farrelli? It’s not his style. And I don’t think he’d go after family. The mob might be watered-down, their wives making shows on TV, but Farrelli is old-school. Pinkie ring, blood oath, all that.” He considered it further. “He might know something, though,” Riley allowed. “He’s been shaking down lots of places on Hilton Head. He’s doing the classic ‘pay me protection money to protect you from me’ to a lot of businesses too dumb to understand his gambit. Also trying to stick his beak into the escort business.” Riley smiled. “Apparently all those foursomes and eight-somes of golfers aren’t good boys when away from home. Escorts generate a lot of revenue on the island.”
“Gambling, too, I suppose,” Sarah said sharply.
“Gambling, too,” Riley agreed.
“Why would Farrelli go after SAS?” Chase wondered. “It’s based in Antigua.”
“I don’t think he would,” Riley said. “Maybe this kidnapping is what it appears to be. A straight-up money grab?”
“What if not?” Kono said.
“What do you think, Kono?” Chase asked his childhood friend.
“I don’t,” Kono said. He took a deep draw on the beer, then put it back down on the table. “All you fellas play games with people and money. Prey on their weaknesses.”
“And smuggling isn’t a game?” Riley asked mildly. “And it’s their weaknesses.”
Kono stared at him, and the two men locked in on each other until Kono suddenly smiled, revealing white teeth and completely transforming his personality. “Ah, man, smuggling not a game. I only do alcohol, never drugs. Never people.”
“I thought that went out with Prohibition,” Chase said.
“Plenty people on the island, up in Charleston, down in Savannah, they don’t want to pay taxes,” Kono said. “I make enough at it.”
“You’ve never offered your service here,” Riley said.
“They never ask,” Kono said.
Riley turned to Sarah. “Maybe whoever is blackmailing you and your husband is into SAS for a lot of money. Maybe it’s payback? Of course, your husband isn’t going to give out his client list, but he might give a name or two, considering it’s your kid.”
“I asked him while Chase was talking to Lieutenant Parsons,” Sarah said. “He said the text message he got about Cole is very similar to the one he received about how to pay to get rebooted before the conference championship games. I asked him if he had any upset clients who were into him for a lot of money who might do this. He told me his biggest debtor around here is your neighbor”—she turned to Chase—“Peter Rollins. He’s down almost a million. But that’s nothing compared to what’s being asked here. And he said Rollins wouldn’t do this.”
Chase considered the man he’d confronted in his driveway. “I don’t see him being behind this, either.”
Riley wasn’t so certain. “Rollins is in deep financial trouble. Word on the water,” he graced Kono with a slight smile, “is that he’s got bigger debts than a million in gambling. Tourism is down with the economy. Rollins made a grab to buy Harbour Town with a consortium out of Savannah. He had to stake a large part of his fortune on it, and then mortgage his holdings to the extreme. They made the deal, but now they’re stuck with it. Fifty million would probably get him out of his jam. He owes this Savannah investment group, the Quad, a whole lot of money. I think they might even have reached out here, bought out Bloody Point.”
“How do you know all that?” Sarah asked.
Riley shrugged. “I listen. People talk too much.” He gestured with his thumb at the bar. “They think some dark-skinned fellow dressed like me, sitting at the end of the bar with a beer, probably doesn’t even speak English. Blows leaves for a living.”
Kono snorted. “Rich people think poor people stupid. Rich don’t equal smart, but they think it do. I take folk out on charters, they talk like I not even there on the bridge, working the boat.”
“Is this Quad leveraging Rollins?” Sarah asked. “Maybe he’s desperate. Desperate people do desperate things.”
“Like ask a stranger to help rescue their child,” Riley pointed out.
“Yes,” Sarah said. She took a deep breath. “I don’t see it, either,” she added, lightly placing a hand on Chase’s arm. “Walter never mentioned Rollins as possibly being involved. He’s convinced it’s the Russians. Plus, if it was Rollins, he’d have the money from the payout two weeks ago.”
“He saw you yesterday with your son,” Chase said. “Maybe that got him thinking.”
Sarah got to her feet. “Let me ask Walter again.” She walked outside, pulling out her cell phone.
“They came by water,” Kono said.
Riley and Chase turned to him.
“Many places to hide out there,” Kono nodded toward the Intracoastal.
“And you know most of them,” Riley noted, not a question.
“I know most. The Russians have boats. Like you,” he indicated Riley, “I have stayed clear of them. Their business is their own.”
“Are you going to look into that business now?” Riley asked him.
Kono nodded. “They are bad people.”
“Will you help?” Chase asked Riley.
“I don�
�t know this Sarah Briggs or her husband,” Riley protested weakly, the lure of action bringing an undercurrent to his nerves, something that had been missing for a long time. This wasn’t a suit who owed a couple thousand. He finished his beer as he considered it.
Chase picked up his beer and drained half of it. Kono finished his as Riley struggled with the decision. It wasn’t an epic battle.
“I’m in. What’s next?”
Chase finished the last half of his bottle and tossed it across the room, into an open garbage can where it landed with a crash of glass on glass. Kono tossed his in a perfect arc, and Chase followed suit. Sarah’s full bottle dripped condensation onto the table.
Sarah came in the door. “Walter says it can’t be Rollins. It’s too sophisticated, and it’s too much like what happened two weeks ago. Even the bank is the same routing number in the Caymans, just a different account number.”
“And you’re sure it was the Russians, then?” Riley pressed.
Sarah slapped her hand down on the table top, knocking over her untouched bottle of beer. No one moved to upright it. The beer poured out, pooling on the table, then dripping down off the nearest edge. “I’m not sure of a damn thing! I just know someone snatched Cole off the dock and came for me. They shot Chase’s dog. They’re texting Walter and demanding he divert the funnel to their account. And I know that while we’re sitting around discussing this, Cole is sitting in some dark hole someplace, scared out of his wits.”
Chase stood and wrapped an arm around Sarah’s shoulder. “We’re on it.” He indicated Riley and Kono with his free hand. “We’ve got a team.” Letting go of Sarah, Chase pointed at Kono. “You scout the islands, ask around. See if anyone saw whoever kidnapped Cole off the dock. Find out what the Russians are doing with their boats. They’ve got to park them somewhere. I’ll go down toward Savannah and chat with Mister Karralkov.”
“I’m coming with you,” Sarah said.
“They tried to grab you the other night,” Chase said.
“People like Karralkov act differently in daylight,” Sarah said.
“And you know this how?” Riley asked.
“And I’ll be with you,” Sarah added, ignoring Riley and focusing on Chase.
“Not a good idea,” Riley said in a voice that indicated he didn’t want to argue a stupid point.
“I’ll take her,” Kono said. “She be safe on the water with me.”
“I—” Sarah began.
Chase cut her off. “You can’t go to Karralkov’s with me. You go with Kono on his boat.”
Riley folded his arms across his chest. “What do you want me to do?”
“You talk to Mister Farrelli,” Chase told him.
“You don’t want me backing you with the Russians?” Riley asked as he got to his feet.
“I have some experience with Russians,” Chase said.
“How’d that turn out,” Riley said, and it wasn’t a question, so Chase chose to ignore it.
* * * * *
Erin checked Chelsea’s vitals when the bells hanging on the front door of her office jingled.
“Be right out,” she yelled.
Chelsea was irritable from the wound and the IV, so Erin put her under once more. It would take a little while for the wound to be healed enough to let the dog fully regain consciousness. Satisfied the dog was stable, Erin pulled off her gloves and peered through the crack in the door into the front part of her business.
Two men were waiting for her, and although one resembled a bulldog and the other had a furtive, hound dog look, unless once was turning the other in for treatment, this wasn’t a business call. They had nothing on a leash, in a cage, or carried in their arms, although Hound Dog had an arm in a sling.
Erin pressed autodial one on the cell phone, while flipping off the lever for the ringer. It was answered on the first ring.
“Yo, sweet-thing.” The voice was male, deep, and cooked slightly southern.
“I might have a problem here,” she whispered into the phone.
“On my way. Give me three, leave the phone live.”
Erin tucked the phone into the breast pocket on her scrubs, then waited.
“Hello!” one of the men called out. “You coming?” His voice was deeply accented: Russian.
Erin stepped back from the door and faced the other way before she yelled, “Be right there.”
“We ain’t got all day,” one of the men complained.
Erin pushed through the door and stopped behind the counter. “Can I help you?”
“You got a dog that been shot?” Bulldog asked.
“I do not got a dog that been shot,” Erin said.
Hound Dog’s forehead furrowed as he tried to decipher if she were being a smartass, but Bulldog had no doubt. He put both meaty hands on the counter and leaned toward Erin. “Did someone bring a dog in here last night suffering from a gunshot wound.”
“It’s none of your business,” Erin said.
Bulldog leapt past the truth. “Whose dog?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Erin said, taking a step back.
Bulldog sighed and nodded his head at his partner, and they started around the counter, one to each side.
“Hold on, hold on!” Erin said, her hands in the air.
Both men paused at the diminutive redhead’s plea.
“What?” Bulldog asked.
“The unicorn,” Erin said.
Bulldog blinked in confusion and Hound Dog’s mouth was hanging open. Erin expected to see a long tongue roll out any second.
“‘Unicorn?’” Bulldog repeated.
“The unicorn rides with the night,” Erin said in a low voice, looking past them. “It holds magic in its horn, and love in its heart.”
The two men exchanged looks, then Bulldog shook himself out of the confusion of her babbling and pushed past her into the back. He saw Chelsea on the table. Erin slid into the room, moving to the other side of the operating table as Hound Dog crowded in behind her, forcing her aside. “This is a sterile environment. You could catch something.”
Bulldog actually laughed. “You’re funny, chick.” The humor left his voice. “But don’t fuck with us any more.” He leaned over and lifted the tag on Chelsea’s collar. “Chelsea. Boulder, Colorado? What the fuck?”
“Whose dog is that?” she asked, pointing at Hound Dog. “Someone hurt his shoulder.”
Bulldog dropped the collar and turned to her. “Whose fucking dog is this?”
“Mine.”
Both men turned to the figure standing in the door, and even though they were large men, they took a step back. Six-six, two hundred and fifty pounds of packed muscle, encased in a pair of loose cargo shorts and a black T-shirt with RANGER stenciled in gold across the chest, stood there. The shirt was so tight, each of the six letters appeared to be tattooed across rippling muscles.
“Who are you?” Hound Dog spoke for the first time.
And the last, as the Ranger took one step toward him and snapped a jab into his temple. He went down like a stone.
Bulldog fumbled under his loose shirt, going for a gun, but the Ranger moved faster than one would think possible for such a big man. He flowed around the operating table, grabbed the gun hand, then twisted the hand down at the wrist. Bulldog went to knees with a whimper of pain as the Ranger exerted pressure.
“I can snap it,” the Ranger said. “And I really don’t like Russians.”
Erin placed her hand on his arm. “Please don’t, Gator.” Her hand barely covered a quarter of the bulging bicep.
Gator sighed. He didn’t break the wrist, but he didn’t release the pressure. With his other hand, he reached under Bulldog’s shirt and retrieved a Glock pistol, which he tossed to Erin, who fumbled and almost dropped it. “Who sent you?”
Bulldog swallowed and shook his head. “You can break my wrist, but I never tell you.”
“Okay,” Gator said, and he twitched his forearm.
The sound of the
bone breaking echoed in the room, and Bulldog screamed.
“Gator!” Erin said sternly.
Gator blushed. “He said I could.”
“He said you can,” Erin corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“He had a gun!” Gator said in his own defense. “Come on, Erin.”
“Well,” she said, “since you’ve started.”
Gator turned his attention back to the man whose body was writhing in pain, his hand still in Gator’s, trying to avoid moving that limb. Gator gave it a little jiggle and the man screamed again, not quite as loudly.
“I got all day, you commie piece of scum,” Gator said in a tone that indicated he did indeed have nowhere else better to be for a while. “Who sent you?”
Tears of pain were crawling out of Bulldog’s eyes and sliding down his ruddy cheeks. “Can’t. He’ll kill us. You can—” but he caught himself before giving Gator permission to do anything else.
With a sigh, Gator let go of Bulldog’s wrist. As the man bent over, cradling the damaged limb, Gator reached into the man’s back pocket and extracted his wallet. He tossed that to Erin also. “Who is he?” He folded his arms and considered the man kneeling at his feet as if considering a choice steak that he was trying to figure out how to have cooked.
Erin opened the wallet and extracted a driver’s license. “Says Ivan Oronsky. Maybe he works for that Russian mobster?”
“You work for Karralkov?” Gator asked.
Bulldog looked up, fear in his eyes. Gator lifted a large hand, fingers curling into a tiger’s paw fist, designed for maximum impact on minimum surface area, in essence to cause extreme damage.
Erin stepped between Gator and Ivan. “You don’t have to say anything,” she said to the Russian. “Just nod. Do you work for Karralkov?”
Ivan looked over to make sure his partner was still out of it, then twitched a nod.
“Get the fu—” Gator caught himself before he completed the curse. “Get out of here. And take him with you.” As he was saying it, Gator went over to the unconscious man and removed his gun and wallet also.
Ivan got to his feet unsteadily. “I can’t—”
“Sure, you can,” Gator said, checking the gun. He pulled the slide back. “You boys don’t even carry a round in the chamber, and you left the safeties on. What kind of wusses are you?” He chambered a round and waved it, generally in Ivan’s direction. “You got thirty seconds to get out of here.”
