Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

  “It was you we saw. You’re stalking me?” Reed searched for a taxi.

  “I’m a journalist on your story.”

  “Give me a break. You’re supposed to stay away from me. Back off.”

  “This is a public street. Tom, you’re a hero, doing what you’re doing, enduring the unimaginable, chasing down every lead on your own. A righteous one-man task force.”

  “Get out of my face.”

  “You must love Ann more than anything else in this world.”

  Reed stopped, swallowed hard. Layne’s words pierced his armor, already weakened by exhaustion and trauma, steeped in guilt. His mouth moved to speak but as he walked, each step hammered his broken heart into smaller pieces, knowing what he now knew. Engler and Tribe. He was helpless.

  “I’m no hero.” Reed’s eyes stung as he squinted into the sun. “My wife’s the hero. I’ll go anywhere, I’ll do anything to find her. I’ve got to bring her home. No matter what. Please just leave me alone now.”

  Reed spotted a taxi and trotted to it. Layne stood there watching Cooter shoot everything. They reviewed it on playback, confirming it was all there. “I’m no hero. My wife’s the hero. I’ll go anywhere, I’ll do anything to find her. I’ve got to bring her home. No matter what.”

  Layne felt the corners of her mouth ascend into the beginnings of a victory grin.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Judy, the office manager for AJRayCo, was gossiping on the phone.

  “If a girl with her mileage is woman enough to keep a thirty-one-year-old stallion like that interested, then I say, God bless.”

  Winn, the secretary at the city electrical department, which often contracted AJRayCo’s electricians, giggled. “It’s wild. Mack and I saw them at the Well last night, carrying on and all. Mack says, ‘That her son?’”

  “You’re not serious?”

  “I am.”

  “Lordy, Lordy.” Judy was filing her nails staring at the portable TV at the corner of her desk. Her daytime soap was muted. “Boring today. Why don’t they move the stories along? That star’s been on her deathbed for months.”

  “So, the boys at your shop pull any pranks on you lately?”

  “Not really.” Judy reached for her tea. “Whatcha watching? Wait, let me guess.”

  “CNN. I’m a news junkie. They’re doing something now on the woman who was abducted in that San Francisco jewelry store robbery. You know, where the police officer was murdered?”

  “I thought they found her body in Arizona or California.”

  “No, that woman used to work in the jewelry store. They found parts of her in each state, near Death Valley and near Winslow.”

  “My God! That’s awful! How do you know all this?”

  “News addict, Judy. Oh, the news conference is coming on. Live.”

  “What channel?” Judy reached for her remote, surfing channels to see FBI, San Francisco police, and other officials at a table behind a mountain of microphones. Scores of news cameras were trained on them.

  “Hey, Winn, that reminds me. Actually, the boys did try a new one on me a few days back. Something on this very case.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  “Made up a note that sounded like the kidnapped woman.”

  “What? That’s not even funny, Judy. You tell them that?”

  “Nope. None of them owned up to it. I think it was Sparky, he’s the sort who’d do it.”

  “They really made up a note? It doesn’t make sense.” Judy wasn’t paying attention to the news conference or what the police official was saying.

  “...we just want to update you on the investigation. Today we have confirmed the identities of the murder suspects who we believe are responsible for the homicides of San Francisco Police Officer Rod August, Leroy Driscoll, Carrie Dawn Addison, and the kidnapping of Ann Reed, during an armed robbery. Investigation confirms them as being...”

  The camera pulled tight to the face of Delmar James Tribe and John Mark Engler. Now the two most wanted men in America.

  “Look at the one guy, Judy, missing a chunk of his ear. He’s frightening. What did the note say?”

  “Oh, something like ‘Call the police, I’ve been kidnapped by two white men’. It’s still up on the board. Want me to fax it to you?”

  “Would you? I’m curious. I mean that’s just not funny.”

  Judy went to the corkboard, sifted through the untidy collection of tool sale flyers, safety codes, state regs, and insurance forms before she found the handwritten note. She fired it through the fax to Winn. It went fast.

  “Did you get it, Winn?”

  “Coming through now. They just said they think the men were both convicts who did time in Folsom. They’re headed east. Here comes the fax. They said Winslow, Arizona, is the last place they have on them.”

  “Winslow? That’s not too far from us.” Judy studied her TV. A printed case summary filled the screen.

  Suspects:

  Delmar James Tribe and John Mark Engler.

  Delmar and John.

  In a distant region of Judy’s stomach, a flicker of knowing began; it was a weak, desperate cry, welling into an anguished scream until she snatched the note from the fax tray. Dear God.

  Winn at the other end of the line had read it. “My God, Judy, I don’t think this is a joke.”

  Judy didn’t hear her friend. She was staring at the TV, then reread the note, each word imploring her like the hand of someone drowning, someone flailing for their life, begging her to...

  Please call the FBI now—

  The TV showed another photo. A woman. Her pretty face smiling at Judy. Her name emblazoned under it. The words she had scrawled leaping at Judy from the note she held in her trembling hands...

  Please call the FBI now. My name is Ann Reed, I was kidnapped by two men from the San Francisco Deluxe Jewelry Store armed robbery. I saw them shoot a police officer.

  We're going east. Men are named John and Del. Two white males about six feet driving a...

  Judy reread the passages.

  We’re going east...John Mark Engler and Delmar James Tribe.

  John and Del.

  “Judy? Are you there?”

  Gooseflesh rose on her arms as she thought back to that day, the electricians bringing her their work orders, job sheets, invoices, time sheets, the note falling from the pile. No one admitting it was a joke. Oh God. Could one of the boys have picked it up on a job somewhere?

  “Judy? Are you there?”

  “Sweet Jesus, Winn, what have I done? What should I do?”

  “Call the FBI! Right now!”

  “Yes.”

  “Right away!”

  Judy’s hands shook, she knocked her tea over, lifting Ann’s note in the nick of time from harm’s way. Flustered, she didn’t know where to begin looking for the FBI’s number in the Albuquerque directory.

  “Lord, help me.”

  Judy dialed 911.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  In San Francisco, Reed watched the live broadcast of the latest news conference with Zach and Doris.

  Every muscle in his body throbbed, his stomach was heaving uncontrollably, his ears pulsed; he slipped into a surreal state as he studied John Mark Engler. The task force had obtained recent photos. Over time his face had hardened, his eyes were colder.

  Like looking into hell.

  For Reed had devoted himself to pursuing monsters. Exposing them. Chronicling their sins, all the while believing they could never touch him. How could they? Truth was his shield and his sword. But he’d looked too long into the abyss without realizing it had also been looking into him.

  “You will know my pain, Reed.”

  Engler. Destroyer of worlds.

  The karmic wheel had turned full circle on Reed. His hopes for Ann were slipping, descending. Like a casket lowered into the grave. The press conference ended. Doris muted the TV.

  “We just have to keep praying,” she told Zach, then touched Re
ed’s shoulder. “Tom, you’ve barely slept in the last few days. Please rest.”

  Reed met her eyes. Ann’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry. So sorry.” He heaved himself to his feet.

  In their bedroom, Reed collapsed on the bed. He was sinking in a losing battle with something unseen; his soul roiling, screaming for his old friend Jack Daniel’s to wash it all away, pulling Ann’s pink robe to him, gripping it as he fell into an icy darkness, calling for Ann, searching for her, seeing her smiling face. Oh, Ann. Her voice. Tom. I’m here. Touching her skin. Breathing in her scent. Pulling her to him. Tom. Feeling her hand on his, touching him. It was so real. Tom. Yes. I can wake up now. It was a nightmare. Tom. Ann, it was so damned real. I thought I’d lost you, I—Tom.

  “Tom. It’s Turgeon. Wake up.”

  He blinked. How long had he been asleep?

  Turgeon was holding out his glasses to him, allowing him to orient himself. Sydowski was with her. Reed sat up. The coldness coiled around Reed’s heart, constricted. He braced himself. Prepared for the worst.

  “We may have a break,” Sydowski said. “We need your help.”

  “A break? Is she alive?”

  Turgeon had a sheet of paper in her hand. “The FBI got this fax at the end of the news conference.”

  Reed heard more voices in his living room. More people were here.

  “What is it?”

  “Read it, Tom. We think it’s from Ann.”

  Please call the FBI now. My name is Ann Reed, I was kidnapped by two men from the San Francisco Deluxe Jewelry Store armed robbery. I saw them shoot a police officer. We’re going east. Men are named John and Del. Two white males about six feet driving a red late-model SUV with Calif. plate starting...

  His spine tingled. It was Ann’s handwriting. “I, where did you—”

  “Is it Ann’s, Tom?”

  “Yes! Yes! Is she alive? Where did you get this?” He studied the back. Nothing. The front. It was a fax, 505 area code.

  “New Mexico. Albuquerque,” Sydowski said.

  “Is she there? Give me a number. I want to talk to her now.”

  “Hold on,” Sydowski said.

  Reed searched round for his small bag, unpacked since returning from the desert. “I’m going there right now. Who do I see? Albuquerque FBI?”

  “Tom, listen. No one has her.”

  Sydowski explained the tip and how they needed Reed to provide a sample of Ann’s handwriting to compare with the note. “It came after the press conference,” Sydowski said. “The FBI and Albuquerque PD traced it to a motel near the Rio Grande. Their people are all over it with help from every other agency that can assist.”

  “What do they know?”

  Sydowski and Turgeon sat Reed down.

  “As of a few days ago, it appears they were at a motel, the Sundowner Lodge in Albuquerque.”

  “Did they find anything to indicate—?”

  Turgeon was shaking her head. “All unfolding as we speak, Tom. Albuquerque’s got forensics, dogs, they’ll run phone tolls, check security cameras, gas stations, restaurants.”

  Reed ran his hands through his hair.

  “It’s a good break, Tom,” Sydowski said before his cell phone rang. He answered, taking a few steps out of the room as Reed heard him say, “Oklahoma?”

  Reed and Turgeon looked at each other.

  “Walt, tell me what’s going on?” Reed said.

  “Hold on.” Sydowski rushed to the living room, which had swelled with FBI agents and SFPD officers. McDaniel was on his cell phone writing notes, talking in whispers just as the home phone rang.

  Reed looked at the detective monitoring his incoming calls. He nodded and Reed answered after the second ring. “Yes?”

  “Tom Reed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Reed, this is Mike Sorros, I’m with USA Today in Dallas.”

  “Dallas.” Something was happening, Reed searched for hints in the police faces near him.

  “Mr. Reed, a source of mine in Oklahoma has confirmed that the suspects wanted in your wife’s case were in a motel last night in Carter County, west of Ardmore in a rural area near Healdton.”

  “I don’t know where that is.”

  “Roughly 120 miles north of Dallas, Texas.”

  “They were in Oklahoma last night?”

  Reed glimpsed McDaniel, Sydowski, and the other detectives exchanging concern. They knew Reed’s call was from a reporter with breaking information.

  “Correct. My understanding is the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and county investigators have confirmed it was Delmar Tribe and John Engler through fingerprints and possibly some security video.”

  “Is my wife with them? Do you know?”

  “A man staying at the same motel stepped from his room to buy a soda late last night and said he saw two men leave in their vehicle, a red SUV with a California plate.”

  Reed squeezed the phone.

  “The man, Jimmy Leverd of Fort Worth, said a woman was with them and my understanding from my source is that your wife’s fingerprints were on a soda can in the motel room.”

  Reed closed his eyes. “You’re certain about this?”

  “I trust my source, Mr. Reed. I was calling for your reaction to this break in the case.”

  “You want to quote me for USA Today about the break in Oklahoma?” Reed looked at Sydowski and McDaniel, reading unease in the FBI agent’s face that the press was learning information as fast as they were.

  “It gives us more hope that we’ll bring her home safely. We’re less than twenty-four hours behind them now and we’re gaining on them.”

  Reed did not hear Sorros ask his other questions. He stared at Zach and Doris, trying not to lose his composure. Please, Ann. Hang on. Just hang on.

  SIXTY-SIX

  Angel Zelaya touched the thick cotton napkin to his lips after finishing his enchilada lunch at his favorite Mexican restaurant in southwest Houston.

  Impeccably dressed in his copper suit, navy polo shirt, and glasses, Zelaya looked every inch the successful wholesale gem buyer. He was a soft-spoken careful family man who attended Mass on Sundays. A father who enjoyed playing with his four children in the pool of his home in Lakewood Forest, a desirable Houston neighborhood.

  What Zelaya never enjoyed, and had a personal rule against, was dealing with anyone from his past, that being the three hard years he did in Leavenworth for stealing and selling Ml6s to various Central American revolutionaries.

  It was a lifetime ago.

  So when Delmar Tribe first contacted him a few months back with the San Francisco offer, Zelaya rejected him outright. Later, after he took a call from Tribe’s partner, John Engler, whom Zelaya thought more intelligent than Tribe, Zelaya was tempted. Engler said they had solid inside information on a jewelry store. The scale and quality of inventory was impressive. Zelaya considered it until he flew to San Francisco to personally assess the situation. He weighed the risks and his profit margin. He kept weighing them until he broke his rule: he agreed to do business with Tribe and Engler.

  Zelaya would pay five hundred thousand cash for one million in retail. Extremely generous.

  Zelaya had nearly doubled his network in South America. By having his tradesman recut, melt down, and recast, and with some substitution, Zelaya could turn his end into three, possibly three point five million. All for five hundred. The prospect prompted him to indicate to some of his trusted clients that he might soon be offering some very good numbers on new product. Very good numbers. It was risky but the bottom line was enticing, Zelaya thought, after paying for his meal and walking to the door, where he stopped cold.

  Tribe’s face was glowing from the big-screen TV behind the bar.

  What the hell was this? Zelaya closed his eyes sadly, then took a stool at the far end of the near empty bar and ordered mineral water.

  There they were. Tribe, Engler, the face of their hostage, pictures of their victims, a little map like connect-the-dots, f
rom San Francisco, to Death Valley, to Winslow, Arizona, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Healdton, Oklahoma. Might as well light up Texas. Zelaya drank some of his water; then his dealer’s cell phone vibrated.

  “Yes?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

  “We’re local now. We’re not far from the point. We’re set.”

  These morons had beautiful timing. Zelaya said, “No.”

  “No? What do you mean, no?”

  “I’m staring at your face. Is your middle name Mark?”

  “What?”

  “Did you call to tell me to tune in?”

  “What?”

  Zelaya ensured no one could overhear him. “You’re live on CNN.”

  “Goddammit. It was Tribe. He messed up.”

  “I don’t care. The deal’s off.”

  “No. We’ve come this far. Wait. We’ll move it up. We’re very near.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “We’ll call you. Angel, don’t you hang up! Angel!” Zelaya ended the call, then consulted his Rolex. He had to see the owner of a store at a downtown shop. All legit. And boring. Then there was the church board meeting.

  Walking to his gold Mercedes 450 SL in the lot, Zelaya rebuked himself for not adhering to his rule. This deal was dangerous. He should back away, period. Still, the numbers were damned tempting. And he had everything in place with his network. If Engler or Tribe did call later, he could exercise leverage. Given the circumstances, he’d only close the project if he had a deep discount, say one hundred thousand. Greed is a sin, Zelaya reminded himself. Perhaps he’d give the church a sizable donation. He sighed as his gleaming car glided from the lot. He resumed listening to his Freddy Fender CD and pondered an evening swim with his children.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  Ann Reed’s sweating fingers tightened on the handgrip under the rear passenger window. Her right wrist was still handcuffed to the grip and her right ankle chained to the rear frame of the seat in front of her.

  Engler had stopped along an empty stretch of a two-lane back road to make a call from a roadside pay phone. Tribe was lying in the far back bed of the SUV, sleeping off his wound and hangover.