Prepper Jack

by Diane Capri

  There were definitely four of them. One was bigger than the others. He seemed to be the leader of the gang. Were they all white? Hispanic? Lots of people around here were of Hispanic origin. So that would be a solid guess.

  But the truth was that he didn’t know. He’d seen them briefly, inside the van, where they stood in shadows. That’s all.

  “At some point, someone will ask for a description of the attackers. You might be asked to identify them in a lineup,” he said, as if speaking aloud might jog his memory. It didn’t.

  He’d have to say he had no idea what they looked like. Which bothered him until he realized his inability to identify them might be why they let him live.

  Still, why couldn’t he remember?

  Maybe he had a little bit of brain trauma. He rubbed the lump on the back of his head. A solid blow to his head and then his head hit the floor of the van hard enough to smash his nose. That could explain the near-constant headache and why he couldn’t recall those guys at all, couldn’t it?

  Two miles down the road, he remembered the stop they’d made and the fight that had ended with another stint in the van and the needle in his neck. He rubbed the sore spot where the needle punctured his skin.

  “There were four of them and they had guns. Shotguns.” He recalled the blasts. Vividly. “Maybe someone was shot.”

  He wasn’t sure. But Lawton had been hurt. The others, too. Mason recalled the sickening snap that had sounded like breaking bones.

  He mulled it over. Tried to recall the exact sequence. He’d had the canvas bag over his head, so he couldn’t see anything. He’d been disoriented, off balance. His head was pounding, even then.

  Lawton told them he was a federal agent. The leader said he didn’t care. He didn’t seem surprised, either. Like he already knew.

  A new thought occurred to Mason.

  “Maybe they weren’t after me at all. Maybe they didn’t follow me to the Last Chance Saloon. Maybe Lawton was the target all along.”

  Which made a lot more sense, didn’t it?

  Lawton was a U.S. Treasury agent. He was a logical kidnapping victim, wasn’t he? Who knew what he’d done to those guys. Maybe they wanted revenge or something, even.

  Mason nodded. “Yeah. They had to have been watching Lawton. They knew he was there and they picked him up. Had nothing to do with me.”

  He kept walking, one foot in front of the other, testing his new insight.

  The sun was almost even with the horizon now and the wind had turned cool. But the exercise was warming him up, so he was as comfortable as it was possible to get, under the circumstances.

  He continued puzzling through his situation.

  He wasn’t a logical choice for a kidnapping. He couldn’t even pay a decent ransom. He didn’t make a lot of money and what he did earn went to fund Glen Haven.

  “I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. A random victim,” he said, trying out the only answer that made sense, as if he was explaining things to Cheryl.

  He nodded, “Yep. I was unlucky. A one-time thing. That’s all.”

  He found that idea oddly comforting. If he wasn’t the target, it meant he could simply try to forget this had ever happened. Never tell a soul. Not even tell Cheryl. Do nothing to make those guys nervous about him, to make them come back and finish him off.

  “That’s a little cowardly, isn’t it? What about Lawton?”

  Lawton could take care of himself, surely.

  But after another hundred steps or so, Mason had to admit, “That won’t work.”

  Cheryl would be worried sick. He’d have to tell her about it when he got home. She loved him. They were planning to get married. Mason was the only real father ten-year-old Micah had ever known. Micah would call him Dad one day.

  “You can’t lie to them, Mason,” he reminded himself. “That wouldn’t be right.”

  The others would want to know, too. Mason was reliable, always around. One of the guys everyone at Glen Haven counted on. He wasn’t there right now. He hadn’t come back from town today. Hadn’t returned the sedan to Gavin Ray, who would need it for work in the morning.

  Mason’s mere absence, regardless of the reason for it, would be enough to raise suspicions. They’d be curious, at the very least. They’d ask what happened. He’d have to tell them.

  Not only that, it was so close to the end of tax return season. He had a dozen returns yet to complete and file. His clients were counting on him. Everyone expected him to stay steady, do his work, carry his share of the load.

  Yes, the more he thought about it, the clearer it became that he’d been swept up by mistake. He was sure that no one would want to kidnap him. For what? His life was as exciting as a sloth’s.

  He grinned. “Maybe even less exciting.”

  Those men were rough and violent. They had weapons. The attack and abduction was flawlessly accomplished. Like they’d practiced. Like they’d done it before, lots of times. Which he figured they probably had.

  “I don’t know any men who would do that. Lawton does. He must have been the one they wanted,” he said, as if the matter were now clearly established.

  “Besides, if they’d meant to kill me, they could have easily done it and dumped me further off the road for the vultures. I’d never have been found.” His voice was a little shaky. “But they didn’t.”

  They hadn’t killed him when they had the chance.

  So they didn’t want him dead.

  “It had to be Lawton they were after.” He said it firmly this time. Definitely.

  No other reasonable conclusion he could come to, actually.

  He felt better, simply thinking this thing through.

  He nodded. The movement jacked up the throbbing in his head, grabbing all of his attention.

  Which was when he noticed something rubbing against his side as he walked. It must have become dislodged when he fell back there.

  He reached into his front pocket and pulled it out. It was a piece of cardboard. Torn from a cereal box or something. The cardboard had been white on the inside before grimy hands had ripped it from the box.

  He stopped and squinted in the dim light to read the ten words aloud. “No Cops. Tell no one. We know where you live.”

  He read it again. Twice more. At some point, his hands had begun to shake. He stuffed the cardboard back into his pocket and started walking again.

  Were the words a threat or a warning?

  Hard tremors ran down his spine.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tuesday, April 12

  8:30 a.m.

  Detroit, Michigan

  Kim ran head-first into the still-biting wind wearing a lined cold weather jogging suit, gloves, and a hat. She jogged a one-mile stretch of the nearly deserted Woodward Avenue sidewalk through downtown Detroit.

  The calendar had proclaimed the change of seasons three weeks ago. Old man winter had laughed.

  Her wind-chafed nose and cheeks probably resembled those of a Christmas elf, making her seem harmless enough. A few hardy souls hurried along, bundled against the cold blowing off the Detroit River from Canada. The ice had melted, but the water temperature was still frigid.

  An erratic spring had finally arrived in the Motor City and a couple of warm days had lured her outside to run while the weather held. Another storm was forecast later in the week, but weathermen were notoriously unreliable here. With luck, they’d continue their losing streak and the warm weather was here to stay. She’d experienced enough cold the past few months to last a good long while.

  At the foot of Woodward, she turned around and retraced her route, heading north for the last lap before she jogged home, showered, and went to work.

  Inside her building, Walter Hill was standing guard with a ready smile for her, as always. “You certainly do run a lot. Something chasing you?”

  “Still pretty cold out there,” she replied with a smile, pulling her gloves and hat off and stuffing them into her pockets.

  “Y
eah, if you don’t like the weather in Michigan, just wait a minute, and it’ll change,” he joked. He reached for a manila padded envelope from beneath the counter and handed it to her. “This came for you by courier about half an hour ago.”

  Her pulse was a little rapid, but maybe that was left over from her run instead of quickened by the sight of the envelope. No reason to feel apprehensive about it. She knew what was inside. She’d received several others exactly like it since November.

  She took the envelope from him and tucked it under her arm. “Thanks, Walter. Gotta get off to the salt mines.”

  “At least it’s warmer down there.” He grinned and gave her a mock salute.

  “Right.” There were actually salt mines eleven hundred feet under the streets of Detroit. But she worked above ground in the Patrick C. McNamara Federal Building on Michigan Avenue, just a few blocks from her apartment.

  She tossed the envelope on the kitchen table, pushed the button to brew the coffee she’d set up before she left, and headed toward the bathroom.

  When she’d showered, pulled her long, dark hair back into a low ponytail, slapped on a little makeup, and dressed in her usual black pantsuit, she came back to the kitchen for the coffee. While she sipped the hot, black nectar, she stared at the envelope on the table.

  It was the usual size and shape. Same color. Same kind of padding. She held it in her palm to judge its heft. Satisfied she’d guessed correctly, she pulled the zip strip open and poured the contents onto the table.

  The only item in the envelope was a single use burner cell phone, almost exactly as she’d expected.

  “Huh.” She’d only been half right. She’d expected a new cell phone.

  But this one was not the same as all the others.

  Which meant the Boss hadn’t sent it.

  He acquired his burners from a single trusted source who sold to no one else. He trusted only one brand because the encryption was exceptionally secure. This one was not the Boss’s usual brand. Which meant someone else sent the phone.

  She picked up the empty envelope and examined it. Unlike the cell phone, this envelope was exactly the same as all the others she’d received. Common. Indistinguishable. It could have been purchased in bulk by the federal government from the manufacturer. Consumers could have bought the same envelopes by the dozen in any local Walmart or grocery store.

  In other words, the envelope was nothing special. Its very ubiquity was the sender’s intent.

  Whoever sent this envelope knew what kind she’d be expecting.

  The sender had taken care to duplicate the delivery and the envelope to make her think the Boss had sent the burner. Probably to entice her to open the envelope. Which she might not have done if she’d suspected an unknown sender.

  Basic security protocol kicked in. She didn’t fire up the burner.

  Turning the phone on inside her home or near her existing cell phone would defeat the purpose of receiving a burner cell from an anonymous source, because her personal phone would automatically connect to it and allow the burner to be tracked.

  The whole point of any burner was to defeat any sort of trace.

  She pondered the point for a moment. The Boss listened to and often watched her every move. She was his canary in whatever coal mine he thought Reacher was inhabiting. He wanted to know where she was and why, every minute of every day.

  Whoever sent this burner might not have known about her Reacher assignment. But then she’d have to believe sending the envelope, delivering it to her home, and including a burner cell phone, all of which mimicked the Boss’s style, was all just a lucky guess.

  She didn’t believe in that kind of luck.

  More likely, the sender knew all of that and expected her to understand he wanted to avoid the Boss. Otherwise, he’d simply have called her normal phone.

  Which meant this guy knew more about her than her home address and the type of envelopes the Boss used. He also knew that she was under constant surveillance, which he apparently wanted to avoid.

  Only two people knew the Boss was always watching her and why and how to mimic his systems. Even more to the point, how to avoid him.

  One was her former partner, Carlos Gaspar.

  The other was Lamont Finlay, PhD, Special Assistant to the President for Strategy. A man with a lot of important responsibilities and a terrifying amount of power.

  Gaspar had the means and knew the methods to send her the burner. But why would he? He had retired and left the FBI for a cushy private sector job a few weeks back. She actually talked to him all the time. Mostly about his family and her nonexistent social life, but still. Communication between them was normal.

  She shook her head. If Gaspar had wanted to have a confidential conversation for some reason, he’d have done something simpler. They had developed several techniques for avoiding the Boss when they’d worked together. He could easily have used any one of those, and likely would have.

  She sighed. Having eliminated the obvious, she was left with only one likely answer that made sense.

  Lamont Finlay had probably sent the burner. But why?

  Their prior dealings had been limited and always initiated by her. He’d never attempted to establish contact with her before. Why was he doing so now?

  She cocked her head and stared at the burner, as if it might give up its secrets by telepathy or something.

  Didn’t happen.

  “Okay, then.” She drained the last of the coffee, rinsed the cup, and turned it upside down on the drainboard. She mumbled one of her mother’s bromides. “When you only have one choice, it’s the right choice.”

  The only way to find out what Finlay wanted was to talk to him.

  Kim dropped her personal phone onto the table and slipped the burner into her pocket.

  She trusted Finlay, to a point. But not far enough to be alone with him with no method of contacting another human. So she grabbed a fresh burner from her desk drawer and checked her gun. She never left home without it.

  She donned her coat and gloves and left the building, walking briskly toward a location she knew offered a slender gap in the Boss’s satellite coverage.

  Six blocks away, she fired up Finlay’s burner and stopped walking. An initiation text message flashed on the screen. It said simply, “Press 1.”

  She pressed 1. The phone rang three times before he picked up.

  “Can I offer you a ride?” The deep, resonant voice was unmistakable. She recognized it immediately. Just as she’d expected. “The limo is parked across the street.”

  She scanned the area for the vehicle and spied it idling at the curb in front of Comerica Park. In a couple of weeks, this area would be teeming with people. But it was too early in the season for baseball. Tigers’ opening day wasn’t scheduled until next week and the sidewalks around the stadium were all but deserted now.

  Kim hustled over to the armored Lincoln. Finlay’s Secret Service right-hand man, stepped out to open the door for her. “Good morning, Agent Otto,” he said.

  “Agent Russell,” she replied as she slid inside. He closed the door and returned to the front passenger seat. The driver pulled away from the curb, headed north on Woodward Avenue away from the city.

  Russell lowered the glass wall behind the front seat and turned to face her. “We have about thirty minutes to drive. Make yourself comfortable. There’s coffee in that insulated cup for you.”

  He raised the privacy divider and she settled into the plush interior with the hot coffee and enjoyed the ride as she considered all the reasons Finlay might have for summoning her.

  Everything that came to mind was about Jack Reacher.

  They had absolutely nothing else to discuss.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tuesday, April 12

  10:30 a.m.

  Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

  When the limo reached Bloomfield Hills, they passed the location where Jimmy Hoffa had been abducted in broad daylight all those years ago. A differen
t restaurant operated there now, but unlike the restaurant, the case had not been closed.

  The FBI had worked the disappearance for decades, but Hoffa’s body had never been found.

  An involuntary shiver ran all the way up her spine.

  Making a person disappear wasn’t as easy as old movies made it seem, but it wasn’t impossible, either. Not that she was worried. She reached into her pocket for an antacid and chewed it to calm her stomach.

  A few miles farther north, Finlay’s driver turned the limo onto a private road lined with tall hedges on either side. Every hundred yards or so, Kim noticed a wide driveway and a single mailbox set into a stone enclosure.

  Bloomfield Hills was the richest zip code in the state of Michigan, and among the wealthiest in the country. Even the mailboxes occupied their own homes.

  She wasn’t really surprised. Finlay had shown a penchant for luxury every time she’d met with him.

  In theory, Finlay was a government servant, just as she was. But somehow, his salary seemed to come with way more perks. Which was one of the reasons Gaspar didn’t trust him. Ethical cops didn’t live as large as Finlay, Gaspar often said. He didn’t approve of Finlay anyway, but the lavish lifestyle made him more suspect in her ex-partner’s mind.

  Half a mile farther, the driver turned right and continued past the tall hedges. They traveled along a well-maintained, winding driveway through rolling lawns that must have required an entire crew. Spring flower gardens surrounded the residence ahead. Maybe the gardening crew lived on the premises. There was certainly enough housing to accommodate a full staff.

  The house was a brown Tudor revival style mansion complete with finials, scalloping, and lancet windows. Kim counted twenty chimneys before the limo moved too close to count the rest.

  The driver curved right into a circular driveway and pulled up in front of a private building larger than a boutique hotel. The place might have been somewhat smaller than Meadowbrook Hall, a public museum nearby where Kim had attended a few weddings over the years.