“And if he’s already dead?”
“Then you’ll die too,”
“I need to use that phone again.”
“Do it, but quickly,”
“Before I make the call, how do you want to do this, an exchange?”
“We want to hear from Tony Trent’s own lips that he’s safe. When that happens, we’ll release you.”
“Or you’ll kill me,”
“We’ll only kill you if we don’t hear from him, and then we’ll keep killing until we find him.”
“You need to understand something. This wasn’t personal, and if I’d known that he was DEA, I’d have simply put the word out and his cover would be useless. No one was attempting to harm a cop.”
“Understood, now make the call.”
“This may take more than one call, and then they’ll have to call me back, understood?”
Tyler picked up the phone and handed it to Darnell.
“The sooner the better,”
It took five calls, back and forth, and for over an hour, but the fifth call was from Szabo. Darnell handed him the phone.
“It’s Tony Trent,”
“Trent?”
“Yeah, who is this?”
“It’s your old cellmate from Maynardville; do you know what I mean?”
“Yes, how did you manage this?”
“Nevermind that, how are you?”
“Worse for wear and missing the fingers on my right hand, but I’m alive, thanks to you.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes, I’m with Curt Baker, he’s taking me to Henry Ford Hospital.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“Thanks, brother.”
He ended the call and looked down at Darnell.
“He said that he’s missing five fingers.”
“Most people talk when you cut off just one, he didn’t.”
His eyes left Darnell’s face and traveled to his hand resting atop the trashcan.
Darnell saw where he was looking and sighed.
“Thank God they didn’t cut off his junk.”
Tyler let out a mirthless chuckle and dropped the key to the cuffs on the floor.
“The deal was that he be returned to us alive, and we’re not into torture.”
As they walked away, Darnell called out to them.
“You two are good. I pay better than anyone and I could use a source in the DEA. How about it?”
He turned and stared back at Darnell. The man hadn’t been intimidated or showed fear, and now he was talking business. He admired that, there were few like him.
“Goodnight Darnell, and you can keep the phone, it’s untraceable.”
Darnell laughed, and then reached down to pick up the key.
***
They returned to Tyler’s home together. Tyler had invited them to stay while they were in town and they accepted the gracious offer.
When they opened the front door, they found Kari in tears, and Jessica looking disheartened.
“What’s wrong?” he said, as Kari walked over and stared up into Tyler’s eyes, while taking his hand.
“We just received a call from Henry Ford Hospital,” Jessica said.
“What? Did something happen to Szabo?” he asked.
Jessica shook her head.
“Szabo? No, no not Szabo, it was about Tyler’s wife. I’m so sorry Tyler... she passed away.”
CHAPTER 4
The day was dark and the cemetery gray, as Katherine Stewart Davidson was laid to rest.
Tyler stood among his wife’s people as his sister held his hand. Kari was behind Tyler with the doctor and her husband beside her, and a disturbing mix of emotions in her heart.
Later, with the guests departed and all condolences said, Tyler received a final visitor.
Steve Szabo entered the home and offered Tyler his condolences. His face held faded bruises and his shortened right hand was bandaged, but he appeared to be recovering from his recent ordeal.
The three men sat in the living room with Jessica and Kari, as Szabo told them what had happened.
“They didn’t know I was DEA and I wasn’t about to tell them, they just thought that I was trying to cause trouble on their side, and they caught me as I was entering that new apartment complex that Darnell built, the entire place is rented to his people.”
“Why were you there?” Tyler said, and his voice still carried that husky quality given by grief.
“I was there to see a woman, Linda Hopkins.”
“Hopkins?”
“Linda is his niece, his half-brother’s daughter. She’s not in the drug end of his business; she works for Darnell’s accountant, an accountant with only one client, Darnell.”
“What is she to you, an informant?” Jessica asked.
“That was how it started, but we’re more than that now. Anyway, Linda has no love for Darnell, despite the fact that he paid for her education and employs her. Her little brother died of a drug overdose while she was in college and she secretly blames Darnell, knowing that he controls most of the drug trade in this city.”
“So, she was looking to undermine him long before she met you?” Tyler said.
“Yeah, and she’s hardcore, it’s why she studied accounting, why she works in that end of the business. She knows that Darnell must be money laundering enormous sums of cash from street sales, money that he funnels into his legitimate enterprises, money that he uses to buy influence.”
He caught Szabo’s eye.
“Steve, given what you just said, why would you risk going to her apartment?”
“Because I’d lost contact with her for three days, and I’d begun to fear that they knew what she had been up to. When the worry became too much, I decided to go there and check on her, and that’s when they caught me.”
“And you still haven’t heard from her?”
“Not a word, but I’ve learned from another source I have that Linda is being held a virtual prisoner inside Darnell and Naomi’s home. They told me that Naomi and Linda have never gotten along, and that Naomi suspects her of being an informant. Darnell, on the other hand, seems reluctant to believe that his niece could have betrayed him, but her apartment was near where they captured me, and so that made Darnell suspicious.”
“Is that why they tortured you, to get her name?”
“Not her specifically, because over three hundred people live in that apartment complex, but they knew that I had come there to visit someone, and as a member of a rival gang, I had to be up to something, and if I had revealed that I was actually DEA, they would have known how serious it was.”
“Which they now know, but what sort of info was she feeding you?”
“Bits and pieces, names of shell corporations, the possible location of hidden bank accounts, that sort of thing, but before we lost touch last week, she told me that she was on the verge of getting everything, enough to completely destroy Darnell and Naomi.”
“Is his wife really that involved in the business?”
Szabo grinned at him.
“They’re a team, always have been, don’t let that pretty face fool you.”
“They rarely do,” he said.
Jessica spoke up.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand, the three days where you lost contact with her, what was going on?”
Szabo’s face clouded, and after a deep breath, he continued.
“Up until recently, Darnell’s accountant was a man named Kent Rawlings. Rawlings was sixty, overweight, and smoked two packs a day, but he was a master at hiding and laundering money. I say was, because someone recently shot him in his home, and when his body was discovered, his laptop was missing.”
“Okay, so it looks like someone may have incriminating evidence against Darnell, but that doesn’t answer my question, why didn’t she contact you before they were watching her?”
Szabo pulled a photo from an inside pocket of his jacket and placed it on the table. It was a picture taken by a
n ATM machine and showed an older white man with heavy jowls and a receding hairline, standing beside him was a beautiful, young black woman.
“Homicide detectives recovered this photo from an ATM that was two doors down from a restaurant that Kent Rawlings ate at the night he died, the time stamp places him at that ATM within hours of his murder. The woman standing beside him... it’s Linda.”
“You think she killed him for his laptop, don’t you?” he asked.
“Yes, I do, but there’s more to it than that. The staff at the restaurant say that Rawlings and Linda were acting very friendly... intimate. I think she seduced him in order to get access to that laptop and then once she had him alone, she killed him, and knowing her, she found it hard to live with herself, and then put off telling me what she had done. That’s why there was no contact for three days, she was too ashamed. But then I show up, not knowing that Rawlings was dead, and they think that the gang I was with has Rawlings’ laptop.”
“And now?” he said.
“And now that it’s been days and nothing’s happened, they must know that there was something else going on, or the info would have been used already.”
“And so they watch anyone who could have had access to that laptop?”
“It’s worse than that, Rawlings’ cleaning lady was found tortured today, and his only relative, a brother, has gone missing. At this point, I think the only thing keeping Linda alive is the fact that she’s family, and even at that, I’m certain that her apartment has been searched, and eventually they’ll torture her too, Naomi will see to that.”
Jessica rose from her seat and sat beside Szabo.
“You love this woman, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re planning on going in and taking her from Hopkins.”
“Yes.”
“But you can’t do it alone.”
“No, I’m still not at my best and there will be at least two guards and one serious security system.”
Jessica looked over at her husband. In the last year, Szabo had helped to save his life twice.
“My husband and I will do whatever we can to help you.”
Szabo looked her over, and his eyes fell on her pregnant stomach.
“You? You want to help too?”
Jessica smiled. “Don’t let the pretty face fool you.”
CHAPTER 5
Oaxaca, Mexico, December 31, 1999
While it was true that being married to the boss’s daughter hadn’t hurt Darnell’s rise up through the ranks, it was also true that he was as ruthless and determined as anyone else climbing the ladder in the drug trade.
In the waning hours of the twentieth century, Darnell and Naomi, were welcoming in the New Year in Mexico. He had been sent down there by his father-in-law to make a deal with the local drug kingpin for a thousand kilos of cocaine and had fallen in love with the area’s mountains and Pacific coastline.
He and Naomi had also become friends with the man he was sent to do business with, Juan Torres.
Torres was thirty years older than the young Darnell, and he and his wife were the epitome of graciousness and refinement, and Darnell was impressed with the man’s knowledge of world affairs, wine, and culture.
Torres’ wife, Martina, also hit it off well with Naomi, and the Torres’ soon became unofficial mentors to the younger couple.
Juan Torres had not come up through the streets, but had simply carried on a business that had been his late father’s. He employed an army of men to protect his interests and enforce his rules, but he had only murdered once, and it was at the behest of his father while he was still a young man.
Tyrese Dawkins had sent his son-in-law to Mexico with the hope of making a one-time deal. However, due to the mutual admiration that Darnell and Torres shared, Darnell managed to arrange for a steady supply of product at a lower cost; he also received permission to stay in Mexico for an extended period, something that pleased him very much.
Darnell was with Juan Torres in the older man’s study as they waited for midnight to approach.
They were sitting across from each other in a set of plush, red velvet wing chairs and sipping on a very good bottle of wine.
“Tell me something, Darnell, where do you see yourself in ten years?”
Darnell cocked his head as he thought about the question. Life had always been a succession of doing things to survive the day or the week. It was only since his marriage that he had given thought to the future, and when he did think of it, he only imagined more of the past, but on a grander scale.
He shrugged.
“I’m never going to be a lawyer or a doctor, I’m in the drug trade, and I work for my wife’s father, so I never think of replacing the boss.”
“And so this is your life, enriching another man?”
“Why you gotta put it like that?”
“Because that’s what it is, but you’re better than that, I see it in you.”
Darnell set his wine glass down.
“Juan, Mr. Torres, I would never betray my father-in-law, so if you have anything in mind like—”
Torres gave a hearty laugh.
“You miss my point, my friend. I’m not speaking about drugs or betrayal; I’m talking about passion. What is your passion in life? If you were as rich as I, what would you spend your days doing?”
Darnell sat quietly as he seriously pondered Torres’ question, and when he spoke, his voice held conviction.
“I want to be the man.”
“The man?”
“You know, the man, the power, the authority. I want to run things and run them well. Where I come from, brothers are killing each other in the street over petty shit, drug deals that wouldn’t buy a bottle of this wine. I was reading the paper while I was on the plane coming down here, and there was this story about a $40 billion dollar telecommunications deal. It had something to do with stocks, and I remember thinking that it was all on paper for the dudes getting the money. They’ll never physically handle anything more than a pen to sign the contracts, but what they sign will affect the lives of thousands of people, and those people would have to work their shitty jobs damn near forever to make even a tiny bit of what the guys signing the deals make, that, that’s being the man.”
“You can be that man someday, but you’ll have to change, learn new things, new customs, and languages. Every world has its own language and customs, and the world of high finance, the world of power and influence is no different.”
“Who taught you the things you know, your father?”
“Oh no, no, I loved my father, but he was a very crude man. No I inherited my tastes for the finer things from my mother, and then I made it a point to learn things such as etiquette, wine, art, things that certain circles find not only appealing, but a sign that one belongs.”
Darnell smiled at his host.
“I guess your passion was to run your drug empire, hmm?”
“Believe it or not, the drug trade is more of a hobby for me, and the profits I’ve received from it make up less than a quarter of my wealth.”
“Yo, seriously?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I own things, property, businesses, stocks. You want to be an owner of many things, Darnell; that will assure that you are, ‘The Man.”
“Juan?”
“Yes.”
“Will you teach me the things you know, the things I need to know?”
Juan Torres raised his wine glass and toasted his young friend.
“I’ve already begun.”
***
The Present
Grosse Pointe, Michigan
It was the screaming that woke him.
Rafe Martin rose out of the chair in the hallway and, out of habit, he checked the gun on his hip. Moe Tenney, the other guard, called up to him.
“Yo, Rafe man, do you hear this shit going on outside?”
“Yeah man, what’s all that screamin’?”
“These two hoes had a car accident and now they be trippin’ on each other, and damn man but the redhead is hot as shit.”
Rafe took a step towards the stairs and then remembered that he wasn’t supposed to leave the hallway. Darnell’s cousin was in one of the spare bedrooms and it was his responsibility to make sure she stayed in the house.
Tenney called up to him again.
“These bitches are hitting each other now, and the blonde can really—oh snap, she just ripped the redhead’s blouse off.”
Rafe ran for the stairs. The damn door was locked, so where could the girl go, and besides, he loved redheads.
***
On the street in front of the Hopkins residence, Jessica held Kari’s ripped blouse in her hands, as the smaller woman covered herself with her arms.
“Are they coming?” Kari said.
“Not yet, but they are staring out the window, let’s move to the rear of your car, then they’ll have to come out to see you.”
“What if they come too close?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know, but you’re doing great and—oh good, here they come.”
***
Rafe disabled the alarm and opened the front door. He could see the redhead’s naked back but not her breasts, which, given the rest of her must be tasty. He went down the steps, while Tenney stayed on the porch, and walked over to the women. They were both wearing gloves although the weather was mild.
“You ladies need help?”
The redhead said nothing, but the blonde shouted at him.
“You want to help? Then teach this bitch to drive, look what she did to my car.”
“I saw the whole thing, lady, and it was your fault.”
Rafe didn’t know who hit who, but he sure as hell wanted the redhead to like him. He was wearing a football jersey, and he took it off and held it out for the redhead to take, but he didn’t hold it too close, he wanted her to have to reach for it, and expose herself.
“Why don’t you put this on?”
The redhead stared at him, but didn’t reach out to take the shirt. He kept holding it out to her, and she finally reached over and snatched it. Rafe smiled at the brief glimpse of her breasts, but then she turned her back to put on the Jersey. She was so small that he thought it looked like a dress on her.
The TAKEN! Series - Books 9-12 (Taken! Box Set Book 3) Page 11
