by Jace Killan
Jared crawled out from under the car, overwhelmed. As his adrenalin wore off, he suddenly didn’t care who they were. Or what they were doing. He longed for the life he’d had a week ago—a life now lost to him, probably forever.
“If you’re FBI,” Jared said, sitting in surrender, “why didn’t you help her?”
The Hispanic flanked Jared, crouching he placed a hand on his back. “We didn’t know.” He spoke with a heavy accent. “We should have. But we didn’t know.” He sounded sincere.
The two men helped Jared to his feet. Again, he considered fleeing, but if they wanted him dead, they could have done it already—killed him in the street, like Emma. Maybe they were there to help him.
He climbed in the SUV riding shotgun and they drove away. The blonde driver took his phone out and said, “We got him.” He paused. “K. Send me the address. We’ll be there in fifty minutes, that should give you enough time.” Pause. “No, really? You think Stevens can handle it?” Pause. “All right.”
He ended the call and looked at Jared. “I’m Spencer.” He tapped his phone with one hand, other hand on the steering wheel, then passed the phone to Jared. The screen displayed a picture of Spencer, if that really was his name, in military fatigues with his arm around a tall and tanned soldier. “That’s me and my best friend, Chorch Maxwell.”
Jared thought of Joaquin who had mentioned his brother, killed in active duty.
As if reading his mind, Spencer said, “Joaquin is working with us, undercover. I served with his brother and knew his father. Both exceptional men that gave their lives for this country.”
Jared processed that. He’d liked Joaquin. The thought of him intentionally hurting Emma hadn’t sat right, but undercover? Working with who, the FBI? Then why the hell didn’t they prevent what happened to Emma? Jared knew his grief influenced his thoughts.
Spencer took back his phone. “Joaquin has been feeding us information on the cartel’s scheme.”
“Then you know about the stock manipulation?”
“Yes.”
“And Owen?”
“From what we can tell, he’s involved out of greed, maybe blackmailed to help, but we don’t know what leverage the cartel has on him.”
“Who killed my wife?”
The guy in back placed a hand on Jared’s shoulder.
Spencer entered the freeway. “We’ve tapped the office phones, but didn’t receive authority to tap your personal cell phones, only Joaquin’s because he gave us permission. That was, until your wife was shot. Then we received authorization on your phone and saw that you made only a couple calls after your wife died, one of them to a Benjamin Quinn with the SEC. On your phone records, we saw a couple other calls. No doubt the cartel has been monitoring your communication and heard whatever prior conversation you’d had with Benjamin. We think that you probably indicated that you were suspicious of your firm’s activities. And that was enough to get you greenlit by the cartel.”
“Greenlit?”
“They put a hit on you,” the guy in back said.
Spencer placed a hand on Jared’s leg. “The idiot was after you, not Emma.”
Though Jared had suspected this, confirmation tore at him. It’d been his fault.
“Jared, beating yourself up won’t do anyone any good. And if you want to blame someone, blame us. We should have been on it. We should’ve been watching closer. Truth is, we were blindsided by this. I didn’t think they’d go to these lengths to protect their money making scheme. Even though they tried to make it look like a drive-by, this hit has drawn a lot of attention. They must’ve been pretty scared of the SEC looking into them.”
“You know it’s not just the cartel, right?” Jared said.
“How do you mean?”
“The NIS.”
“The New Islamic State?” Spencer asked. “What do they have to do with this?”
“Really?” Jared thought for a moment. Had he misread their involvement? No. Their most lucrative transaction stemmed from the EU terrorist attacks—the currency manipulation. And the oil futures. Jared explained why he thought the NIS were tied into the scheme.
Spencer shook his head. “We’ve been monitoring Guzman and the cartel pretty heavily. Sure, there’s a few Islamic radicals we’ve found in the US that we’ve tracked back to receiving assistance from the cartel, but I don’t think we’ve made any other connection to terrorists, especially not the NIS.”
“I’m certain of it,” Jared said. “And I’ve been worried that they have acquired access to some military technology and Anthrax. There’s more that I can draw out for you, but those are the biggest.”
“You’ve got to forgive me,” said Spencer. “This isn’t really my op. I’m stationed at the Pentagon and check in on Joaquin every once in a while. And this is Marco.” Spencer nodded over his shoulder. “Marco isn’t even FBI. He usually contracts with the CIA. He volunteered to keep a close eye on Joaquin.” Spencer offered a soft smile and shook his head. “I just couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to that kid.”
Spencer seemed lost in thought while he paused long. He appeared genuine—one of the good guys. “Local command has overseen this under the direction of white-collar crime. We’ve been looking at this like we would insider trading and money laundering.”
“I think it’s a lot bigger than that.”
Spencer pulled off the freeway. “I guess that makes more sense as to why you were greenlit.”
“So what do I do now?” The guy that’d killed Emma, most likely still hunted Jared.
“You could work for the Bureau.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No.” Spencer turned down into a commercial district. “We could use someone like you. You’ve got obvious skills and if what you’re saying about the NIS pans out, then you’ve got even more than we’ve seen.”
Jared narrowed his gaze. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you shook us twice. We were following the sedan that followed you. You lost him in the car wash. We found you later, but you lost us again. And we had a satellite dedicated to tracking you.”
“Satellite? So that’s why it felt like I was being watched.”
Spencer pulled up in front of a building that had an ambulance drop off, but not big enough to be a hospital. Maybe an Urgent Care? He parked in the emergency entrance, next to an ambulance.
“What are we doing?” Jared asked.
“This is a treatment facility,” Spencer said. “It specializes in dealing with suicide attempts.”
41
Mayhew wasn’t the least bit surprised when Junior appeared in his office, standing outside the remains of the fallen glass wall.
“How’s my kid doing?” Mayhew asked. He tried not to sound drunk, but felt pretty hammered.
Junior ignored him and stepped over the glass.
“Is she talking yet?”
Mayhew didn’t even know what she looked like. All he had was the black and white ultrasound resting on his desk next to a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels.
“Is there a problem?” Junior asked.
“What if there is?” Mayhew slurred. “You going to kill me, too? Take out my wife?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, amigo. I told you I could handle Jared. Now you guys really fu...”
“I’m not here to talk about that. I want to know about you. Is there a problem?”
“Nah, man. We’re cool. Hell, I’m glad Emma’s dead. Now let’s go make some more money, yeah?”
Junior walked slowly around the desk and looked down at the open drawer at Mayhew’s side housing the glock.
Fear overtook him. Junior was too close. Mayhew grabbed the pistol and tried to raise it toward Junior, but Junior was big and quick and hadn’t drank ten shots of Jack Daniels.
Junior placed a gloved hand on Mayhew’s chest, pinning him to the chair. Then with the other hand, wrapped around Mayhew
’s grip on the pistol, Junior twisted his hand back and upward, pointing the pistol under Mayhew’s chin.
Junior hadn’t intended to kill Mayhew, but he was good at his job, so he’d planned for it all the same. He knew Mayhew kept a loaded glock in his locked drawer. Of course, that hadn’t kept Junior out of the drawer. He’d removed the firing pin from the glock nearly a year ago, just in case Mayhew ever had a tug at his conscience and decided to use the pistol on himself or anyone else—Junior in particular.
After the episode earlier that day, when Mayhew had broken the glass wall, Junior had broken in and returned the firing pin. He figured Mayhew might have the balls to end his own life, or it would make for an opportunity for Junior to end it for him should the need arise. Turns out it arose.
Junior had been careful to wear gloves that night, as he had any other night that he’d entered the offices of Northern Investments. Unbeknownst to Mayhew, Junior had also uploaded files to Mayhew’s computer indicating him in Emma’s murder. Or rather in the attempted murder of Jared who’d stumbled upon Mayhew’s other family, with an underage girl and her baby daughter.
Through email it would appear that Jared had communicated his disgust with Mayhew and threatened to turn him in. Mayhew hired the hit. But it went bad.
A fine story with only one real problem—Jared still lived, but was MIA. Junior would have to tie up that loose end and fast. If Jared died now, regardless of how, any half-way decent investigator would suspect foul play. Mayhew had hired the hit. It went bad, ending Emma’s life instead. The hire continued until the job finished. So Jared needed to die ASAP.
Mayhew, in his remorse for Emma’s death had offed himself. The loop would close. A lot of tragedy and no conspiracy. It would be perfect. If only he could close the loop for real.
He needed to phone Guzman for an update.
Bruce was off duty when he saw the light up in Mayhew’s office from the street below. He entered the building, using his fob. He hadn’t heard from Jared, and the two were supposed to attend a meeting that night. His phone went straight to voicemail.
Mayhew said that he was out of town and that there had been an accident. He wouldn’t indicate what exactly only that Jared’s wife Emma had been hurt and it didn’t look good. This had only increased Bruce’s concern. He wanted to be there for his friend, like Jared had been for him. But still no answer.
Seeing Mayhew’s light on, Bruce thought maybe he’d heard from Jared and didn’t bother taking the elevator. Part of his sobriety involved exercise. He had started using the stairs when he travelled from floor to floor. Between that and eating better, more often, he’d lost nearly forty pounds. He raced up the stairs with ease unlike when he first started.
At the ninth floor, he barely huffed as he whisked his fob to open the door leading into a hallway between the bathrooms. Stepping out, there came muffled but animated arguing. He heard Emma’s name. Her death hadn’t been an accident but a hit.
Bruce shrunk against the wall, out of sight but within earshot of the conversation, breathing heavily now. The other voice had a Spanish accent though he spoke fluent English. Mayhew sounded drunk.
They argued. Then Bruce heard a gunshot, a pistol by the sound of it, probably a forty-five. Bruce hadn’t shot since leaving the service. He didn’t dare carry a firearm due to his felony conviction and New York laws, but he recognized the sound as if it had been the voice of his own mother.
He looked around for something to swing. There was probably a pair of scissors at any of the desks inside the offices, but if he went that way, he’d be spotted and scissors would hardly stand up to a gun. So he shrunk further into the wall and waited, hoping that whoever survived the gunshot wouldn’t find him hiding.
Minutes passed like endless hours until finally, footsteps sounded down the hall followed by the click of a door.
Bruce had to find out what had happened, but what if the shooter hadn’t really gone? He waited a minute more, then decided the coast was clear. He crept around the corner and into Mayhew’s office, aghast at the view. Mayhew sat in the leather desk chair, mangled head toppled forward on the desk in a pile of blood. Blood and brain matter spattered across the window like red unsanded drywall texture.
Bruce tried to ignore the sight, pushing down his anxiety and triggered memories of combat. He crept to the window, crouching low and peeked through, hoping the shooter would leave the office and Bruce might be able to at least recognize the vehicle even if from nine stories up.
A moment later, someone did exit the building—not in a car but on foot. Bruce couldn’t tell who, only that the man wore a suit and had a head full of dark hair. After crossing the street, the man entered Joaquin’s building.
“I had to, Jefe.” Junior walked in the elevator going up, breathing calmly to counter the adrenalin rush from killing Mayhew.
Junior did his best to explain the situation. It wasn’t his fault after all, but that idiot Cesar, hired by the cartel to kill Jared. Junior had volunteered for the hit. It would have made sense. He knew of Jared’s movements, his mannerisms, and what the bastard looked like. Junior sure as hell wouldn’t have shot his wife by mistake. But someone up top wanted to give their boy a gig.
The death had brought with it a hailstorm of attention and Guzman was pissed. Duly so.
Killing Mayhew partly closed the door on this fiasco. The other part entailed killing Jared. According to Guzman, the idiot Cesar had lost Jared and they feared he’d made another attempt to meet up with the SEC guy, Benjamin. But the cartel had eyes on Benjamin and he’d returned to DC and acted like business as usual.
A cop in the Philadelphia PD had tipped Guzman off to an emergency call for a guy named Jared Sanderson who’d attempted suicide. Unfortunately he was unsuccessful and had been picked up by an off duty officer and taken to a treatment facility specializing in depression and anxiety.
Junior thought through the news as he took the elevator to his floor. Mayhew’s death would look like a suicide for his putting a hit on his business associate Jared and inadvertently killing Jared’s wife. Jared, in his grief from the loss of his wife had tried to kill himself.
When they investigated Mayhew’s suicide, they’d question Jared. And that was a problem. But he wouldn’t have to answer any questions and he might be hard to get at in psychiatric care.
The path became clear when the elevator doors opened to Junior’s floor. He just had to help Jared try again and this time, succeed. The idiot Cesar would want the job, to save face and fix his error. He didn’t know it yet, but he was already dead. Junior would use him and then end his life.
Junior explained the plan to Guzman who approved and as a bonus offered to pay a whopping ten grand for Cesar’s death. Junior would get another fifty when Jared died.
Of course, Guzman hadn’t offered to compensate Junior for taking out Mayhew. But he shrugged off the thought. Perhaps his hardest task from Guzman’s call, lay before him. Joaquin it seemed was due for a promotion. He’d take over Mayhew’s firm. But was he ready for such a responsibility? Not at all. Yet, he’d probably pull it off. Joaquin worked hard. He could hang with the best of the investment bankers now.
It didn’t matter if Junior felt uncomfortable about the move or not. Someone needed to do it and Guzman wanted it to be Joaquin. And more importantly, his other employer agreed.
He knocked on the door.
Joaquin lay in bed, but not asleep. He and Kristin had Face-timed for a couple hours that night, talking first of Emma. Then their conversation had drifted to a wide range of stuff, ending on how Chorch died. He left out the part of Spencer so as not to prompt further discussion that he couldn’t answer about his FBI handler.
Eventually, Kristin had fallen asleep. Joaquin didn’t end the call though. He just watched her beautiful face, slightly lit by her computer screen. Even void of makeup, she was gorgeous. Sure trouble, but he almost didn’t care. He loved her. And he hated himself again for having ruined something so wonderful as
a relationship.
As Victor Hugo had written in Les Miserables, “The greatest happiness in life,” comes from the knowledge that we are loved in spite of ourselves. He’d experienced that love from Brina, and he’d destroyed it with his choices. Now he knew that love again, from Kristin, and he inevitably would destroy that, too. He was just leading her on and he knew it. There wasn’t a chance in hell that he could ride off with her into the sunset. This ruse he played with the cartel would end one of two ways—he’d either die or he’d have to hide the rest of his life.
Why’d he have to be so selfish? It wasn’t fair to Kristin. She deserved a happy life, unconditional love, and a family—all things he couldn’t give her. He’d have to call it off, he knew that now, and yet he couldn’t quit her. She’d become his new addiction.
Taps sounded on his door. He quickly closed the laptop, disconnecting his view into Kristin’s world.
Another knock. Junior wasn’t very patient this evening. Joaquin didn’t bother dressing, he hurried to the door and opened it.
Junior, decked in a suit as normal, didn’t seem as smooth and collected as he usually did in his middle of the night visits.
Joaquin stepped aside allowing the big Mexican into his room. Junior went to the fridge and pulled out a Gatorade, opened it and chugged it in a few gulps. “So you got your 24 right?”
“Yeah.” Joaquin said. He’d passed the exam a few months ago. “Why?”
Junior didn’t answer him. “You like this life? I mean, it beats prison, doesn’t it?”
Joaquin shrugged. Sure. It beat prison. Better Food. Kristin. But to say he was free would be to float down that river addicts called De Nile.
“What if I told you, your debt with Guzman is settled? What would you do?”
That question caught Joaquin off guard. What would he do if he didn’t have to deal with Guzman? Or Junior? Or the cartel or the FBI? He’d probably start making honest money with his newfound skills in the securities industry. He’d probably use that money to buy a big diamond ring.
