The man was flipping him off and yelling. Jack walked to the hood of the car. “I’m sorry, I’ll move,” he said, placing the GPS on the lower end of the hood.
He got back in the Jeep and they began to drive. They were silent a long time before either of them spoke again.
“Where’re we going?” she said.
“I know a place. Just sit back. It’s a bit of a drive.”
CHAPTER 25
Bel Air was the most affluent area in Southern California. It had an air of being paradise for the wealthy and the homes were in pristine condition with luxury cars in every driveway. But it was unwelcoming to strangers. When Jack had first come here, the thing that had struck him was that there were no sidewalks. The residents didn’t want dog walkers and bicyclists in their neighborhood.
Jack pulled the car into a driveway that wound up through manicured shrubs. The lawn was massive and it connected to the back porch of what looked like a castle.
“Your house?” Heidi said.
“It’s my parents’ home. My real parents. Or it was when they were still alive. Now it’s just empty.”
Jack parked and they stepped out in front of the massive building. Walking on fine, white gravel, they reached the door and Jack entered the code before stepping inside. He turned and noticed that Heidi still stood outside, staring in awe at the house.
“We’ll be safe here,” he said. “They won’t be able to track down my real name.”
He shut the door behind her and they walked into a foyer before going through a living room that overlooked Los Angeles. A pool and a hot tub gleamed blue from the backyard and Heidi stood in front of a painting near a leather couch.
“Caravaggio. I haven’t seen that painting in a long, long time.”
“Yes,” Jack said, checking the doors and windows.
“You just leave it hanging up here? It has to be worth a few million dollars.”
“The grounds are monitored by a security company. If we didn’t have the code to the door, they would be here already.” He walked to her and turned her so she was looking at him. “What do they want with us?”
“They want you back in the lab and me in a jail cell. Berridium is a weapon to them, Jack. They want their race of super soldiers and they see this as a national security issue. They’ll never stop looking for us. Eventually, they’ll find this place too.”
“I don’t believe in no-win scenarios. There has to be something we can do.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. But I don’t know what that is. You’re powerful, but you can’t take on the entire United States military.”
Jack turned and began pacing. He felt the soft fur of the bearskin on his feet and noticed for the first time how sensitive this suit, and his metal limbs, really were. “Agamemnon,” he finally said, “how did he get away?”
“I don’t know.”
Jack paced a bit longer and then said, “I’m going to call someone. We need help. You can use any of the bedrooms upstairs.”
“Who are you calling?”
“An old friend.”
She turned to walk up the steps as Jack sat on the couch and picked up the home phone. She stopped and turned to him. “Jack?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry I got you involved in this.”
“If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here. You have nothing to be sorry about.”
When she was upstairs, Jack dialed a number and leaned his head back on the couch cushion as it rang. A male voice picked up, groggy and fumbling with a lamp.
“Hello?”
“William…it’s Jack Kane.”
A pause on the other end. “Jack? Where the hell are you? Nicole said you’d disappeared from the hospital.”
“I’m okay. I’m at the place I told you about in Los Angeles.”
Another pause. “How the hell are you talking! You were in a coma a week ago.”
“I know. I’ll explain but I need your help right now.”
“What’dya need?”
“I need to find someone. That man that did this to me, Agamemnon.”
Jack left Heidi at the mansion as he climbed into the Jeep and drove back to Hollywood. He reached a twenty-four-hour hamburger joint that was frequented by cops and pulled in and parked. He saw William Yates sitting on the patio, nursing a coffee. Jack walked to him and sat down without a word, as if they were having a casual lunch.
“What the hell happened to you?” William said. “You look like a damned bodybuilder. Is that a suit?”
“No. It’s real.”
William reached out and touched the muscles on his massive forearms. “What is this, Jack? What happened to you?”
Jack went into detail as he explained what had occurred the past year. The fact that he was awake during the coma but couldn’t speak, Heidi, the colonel, his escape. William was patient and didn’t speak. He would just nod and take sips from his coffee, though he didn’t break eye contact with Jack.
When Jack was finished, William ordered another coffee. He was silent a long while and then said, “The Myrs have taken over the streets. They’re more violent and well organized than the Mexican Mafia and much more so than the Bloods or Crips or the biker gangs. They’re taking over the drug routes. Manufacture and distribution. They want all of it. Agamemnon’s a rich man now, Jack. He’s on our ten most wanted, but he’s like a ghost. He’ll hit a bank and then disappear.”
“When was the last one?”
“About six months ago. I think they’ve made their money and they’re lying low now, focusing on the drug trade.”
“I need to find him, William.”
“You and everybody else. Wish I could help you, bud. But every cop in this city’s looking for him and we haven’t had any luck. The kids he’s got working for him would rather go to prison than say anything about him.”
“Are any of them in custody right now?”
He nodded, taking a sip of coffee. “One. Young kid named Hector Cortez. Was a banger with MS-13 before joining up with the Myrs. He’s looking at life on a distribution charge and refuses to talk. He’s at the county right now.”
“I need to see him.”
“You still got your badge; that won’t be a problem.”
“You got the time?”
“Yeah, it’s 4:17.”
“I’m going to visit him before their breakfast.” He paused a moment. “I wanted to ask you, how’s Nikki and her girl?”
“They’re good. She’s kind of a mess right now as you can imagine. You’ve put her through a lot.”
He shook his head. “I should never have come back.”
“This is your home, Jack. Where else would you have gone?”
Jack didn’t respond. He stood up and said, “I’ll call you soon, William. I’m going after this guy. And I’m going to get him.”
As he was walking away, Jack heard a voice say, “HURT THIS BOY.”
He spun around, thinking someone behind him spoke. He looked to William, who was walking to his car. Other than him, nobody else was near.
An icy fear ran through him as he realized that the voice had been his.
CHAPTER 26
Jack parked at the jail and wondered if they’d let him in without his badge. A database of detectives and attorneys that had visited defendants in the jail existed, somewhere, but not all the employees knew about it or how to use it.
He walked up the ramp leading to the entrance and turned into the building. He had to go through two glass doors before finding himself in the front area. Lines of deputies stood at the counter, helping relatives of inmates check in and out. It reminded him of the DMV in a lot of ways.
He reached the counter and was being helped by a woman in a white uniform and curly blond hair. She didn’t look up from her computer screen as he stood there waiting, and he politely cleared his throat.
“I’ll be with you in a minute.”
He folded his arms and scanned the monitors behind the counter, captu
ring cell blocks and the cafeteria and the hallways. Few places were as depressing to be in as the jail. He wondered how people worked here without feeling like inmates themselves.
“Okay,” the woman said, looking up at him, “what can I do for you?”
“I’m Detective Kane with the LAPD. I need to speak with a Hector Cortez.”
She pulled up Hector Cortez’s file and scanned it.
“Where’s your badge?”
“I don’t have it with me. I came directly from home.”
“Well I can’t…wait a sec. Okay I got a note from a Detective Yates that you’re comin’ to see him. Just head right through those doors, Detective. You don’t need to pass through security.”
Jack got a slight thrill from the woman’s change in demeanor. When she had verified that he was actually a cop, she smiled and became helpful. One of the perks of being an officer.
Though Jack had technically been a cop these past eleven years with the DEA, he wasn’t allowed to let anyone know except the partners he was working with.
He went past a sliding metal door and nodded hello to the guards. A long hallway led to the meeting rooms and as he walked down he looked at the drawings up on the walls. Drawn by hand, they were all works done by the inmates. Many were sketches of ancient Mayan and Aztec warriors and Gods, women collapsed as slaves by their feet. Their enemies’ broken bodies underneath them. Some were of motorcycles and loved ones that had been left behind. Others were places they had been, like the Grand Canyon or Las Vegas.
Jack entered the meeting room and sat on the cold metal stool bolted to the floor, facing thick glass and a phone. A buzzer sounded and the metal door on the other side of the glass opened. A large Mexican man with dreadlocks stepped inside. He sat down across from Jack and was quiet a long time before Jack picked up the phone and he did the same.
“What’chyu want, cop?”
“You Hector?”
“Yeah.”
“I want to know where Agamemnon is.” Jack said. Though his training told him to build rapport, somehow he knew it wouldn’t work with this man.
“Man, ya’ll sound like a broken record. I ain’t tellin’ you cops shit about Agamemnon. Ya’ll want him so bad, you go out and find him.”
“YOU WILL TELL ME WHERE HE IS.”
The space was filled with a voice that wasn’t Jack’s, one he didn’t believe could come from him. It was loud and piercing and he could see its effect by the way Hector’s face contorted.
“What the fuck is that shit?” Hector said.
“YOUR FAMILY ON LAS CRUCES BOULEVARD.” Jack suddenly felt the smoothness of the metal platform just underneath the window. He looked down as his hand moved a human tooth up toward Hector.
Jack jumped up with a start. He was trembling and felt vomit rising in his throat.
“You a cop, man,” Hector shouted, his voice muffled by the glass barrier. “You can’t kill nobody.”
“DON’T BE NAÏVE, LITTLE BOY. GOD KILLS, AND SO SHALL I.”
Hector turned ashen and placed his head in his free hand, staring down at the ground.
“I tell you where he is, you leave my family alone?”
Jack didn’t respond. He just listened as Hector began to describe how to find Agamemnon.
Jack walked out of the jail and vomited in the parking lot. Somehow, he knew where he needed to go.
Las Cruces Boulevard was a lower-middle-class neighborhood. A place where the older generation had expected to put in their forty years and then have their retirement and their homes to rely on. But all those jobs had been transferred overseas, leaving only gangs and drugs and part-time and contract work. People just barely scraping by.
Jack pulled to a stop in front of the third house on the right. He had never been here before but somehow it looked familiar. He stepped out of the car and walked slowly up the driveway to the front door. It was open and he went inside.
Two men who resembled Hector lay on the living room floor. Their hands were tied to their ankles, and gags had been placed in their mouths. Trembling, Jack removed their gags.
“What happened here?” Jack said.
“Don’t hurt us, esay. We ain’t done nothin’. We ain’t done nothin’, man.”
“DO NOT BE AFRAID, JACK.”
Jack noticed the man’s front teeth; one of them was missing. He stood up in horror and nearly stumbled backward out of the house. He stood at the doorway a long time before running over and untying the men. He sprinted out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
What the hell am I?
CHAPTER 27
William Yates woke up at seven in the morning to his phone ringing. After meeting with Jack the previous night, he decided to get as much sleep as he could before starting the day. Unfortunately he was the type that grew more tired with sleep, not less.
He rolled over and grabbed his cell phone off the nightstand. “Hello?”
“Detective, this is Marcy at the precinct. Um, you have some visitors.”
“Take a message and tell them to come back in a few hours.”
“Um, I don’t think they’re going to do that, Detective.” She whispered, as if it were as secret, “It’s people from the military.”
William’s heart dropped. He sat up in bed.
“Detective?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Tell them I’ll be in in twenty minutes.”
“Okay.”
William hung up and tapped his cell phone against his palm. He got up and dressed quickly before heading out the door and to his car.
The day was hot and a thick layer of smog covered the city. The air stunk of exhaust, and as he pulled onto the busy street, he wished he’d bought that cabin in Ketchum that he had always thought about. Right now, relaxing in a police department of six where nothing ever happened sounded like heaven.
Cars were packed tightly on the freeway and he guessed he was travelling an average of ten miles per hour. His air conditioning only worked sporadically and he had to take off his suit coat and roll up the sleeves of his shirt.
When he got to the precinct, he was expecting Humvees and military Jeeps. Instead, there were just two black Chrysler 300s parked out front. He took his time going inside. He had never been in the military or had the desire to be. But his father had been. On the nights when he was too drunk to leave the house, his father would put on his uniform and rant about things that had happened in Vietnam.
The precinct was buzzing with activity and William saw Marcy behind the front desk. She pointed to the conference room near the back. William would have preferred if they were sitting in the waiting room.
He walked in to four men, two of them in uniform and two of them in suits.
“Detective Yates?” an older one said. “I’m Colonel Tiberius Finley. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you.”
William noted that none of the other men were introduced as he sat down across from them on the other side of the conference room table.
“What can I do for you, gentlemen?” William asked.
“It’s regarding a detective in your unit. We were told you were his direct commanding officer.”
“Which detective?”
“Jack Kane. He recently retired from the DEA and took a position here.”
“Okay, what would you like to ask me?”
“We’d like to question Detective Kane about a possible break-in at a secure government facility a few days ago. We believe he may be involved.”
“Really? You think a decorated DEA agent and detective broke into a federal facility, huh?”
“The circumstances are…extenuating. We’re not faulting him. We don’t think he had much of a choice. But the person he is with is extremely dangerous and unstable. We need to find her immediately and we think that Detective Kane may know where she is.”
“Hm. That is a dilemma. But it’s not one I can help you with.”
“When was the last time you saw Detective Kane?”
William stood up and began to walk out of the room when the colonel said, “He’s more dangerous than you can imagine, Detective Yates. Remember that I warned you about that.”
William waited in his office until the men had left. He pulled out his cell phone and realized Jack probably didn’t have his cell. It was still at the hospital in a storage unit. Besides, those suits looked like FBI or Homeland Security. Knowing them, they probably already got cell phone records and maybe even a wiretap going.
Suddenly, his cell phone rang. An unknown number.
“This is Detective Yates.”
“William, it’s Jack.”
“I was just going to call you. Where you callin’ from?”
“New cell. You can reach me on this any time. I got a feeling I should call you just now. You have anything you need to tell me…William, you there?”
“Yeah. That’s just weird. Um, yeah. Military was here to see you. They brought some Feds.”
“Anyone we know?”
“No. A Colonel Finley. Never heard of him. They said the woman you’re with is extremely dangerous and unstable.”
“The government does love their propaganda.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s the one that saved my life. She had to take me somewhere. She wasn’t supposed to do it and I don’t think her bosses are happy about it.”
“Well, you know the drill. Lawyer up and let them give it their best shot.”
“No, I don’t think that’s what this is. They’re not doing an investigation.”
“What’re they doing then?”
“I don’t know. But it’s not that. Look, if you hear anything else, let me know. Would you?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Thanks.”
“Jack,” William blurted out, “are you in something deep?”
A long pause before he said, “I’ll call you in a couple days. Bye, William.”
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