“After all them years of riding in jeeps, Humvees, and helicopters,” Mac had said, “I figured I deserved something nice.”
Now he was in danger of losing that something nice. The company was in trouble and the repo man was looming. So was the mortgage.
And Wolf still felt like a freeloader, not pulling his own weight in Trackdown, Inc.
At least the fee he’d earned today would help out a bit.
The house was a two-story ranch-style with a circular drive and an attached garage. Across the expansive cement driveway, another garage sat adjacent to the house. It was two full stories as well and had once been the original one the occupants had used. When McNamara had bought the land and had the ranch house built, he’d used the substantial garage mostly for storage, but had also converted part of it into a mini-gym with a small apartment on the second floor. Wolf occupied that place now and found it more than adequate for his purposes. It was only two rooms, a small kitchen and bedroom/living room. There was a bathroom, too, but Wolf had to go downstairs to use the shower. Regardless, he felt it was a hell of a lot better than an eight by twelve cell in Leavenworth that he had to share with another man. And McNamara had yet to charge him any rent.
Maybe I am that son he always wanted, Wolf thought, remembering the first words Kasey had muttered when Mac had introduced them.
He pulled up next to her tan Honda Civic. Mac’s daughter ran the office and computer investigation end of things and she was good at both. It would have made for a smooth working relationship except for one factor. She didn’t like Wolf.
In recent months it had gone from mere dislike and resentment to sheer hatred. She blamed him for her father getting shot in Mexico.
And for their dire financial straits.
And for the strained relationship she was currently having with her fiancé.
Wolf grinned as he got out of the Escalade.
And probably a hundred other things that she hadn’t even thought of yet.
He wondered if she’d had time to run a check on those names he’d given her.
Zerbe and Cummins. The others, Eagan and Nasim, were dead, but worth checking into. And there was always his worst nightmare to wonder about.
Von Dien.
When he got out of the Escalade he slammed the door a little too hard and some residual glass tinkled down inside the rear door.
Mac’s not going to be happy when he sees this, Wolf reminded himself and went in to face the music.
Catskills, New York
Jack Cummins was starting to sweat as he looked out the tinted window of the limousine speeding through the late afternoon. Almost three weeks had passed since he’d returned to New York for the debriefing. Then he was driven to a remote cabin in the Catskills and told to chill out until they were ready to talk to him again.
Three weeks of isolation with a phone with no out-calling capability, no Internet, no car. At least clean clothes, toiletries, and his meals had been provided three times a day along with a polite inquiry asking if he had any special requests. Cummins continued to ask when this imposed isolation would end, but none of the delivery boys would answer his question. There was a big, flat-screen TV, a DVD player, and a bookcase case full of movies but he’d basically been held incommunicado. To make things worse, a periodic security patrol rode around in a four-wheel-drive vehicle, but they wouldn’t talk either.
It had been almost like being in prison, except there were no bars.
It had to be Von Dien’s idea. The rich man was calling the shots and was one paranoid son of a bitch.
When the phone had rung earlier in the day it shocked him.
“Get yourself ready,” the voice said. It sounded familiar. “We’ll be picking you up shortly.”
The knock on the door had come earlier in the day and the limo had been waiting outside for him. After wedging himself inside the big commodious space, Cummins had longed for a drink but this limo had no booze. All it did have was that foul-smelling PI, Jason Zerbe, he’d met back in Mexico. It looked like the son of a bitch was wearing the same exact clothes, too. Zerbe acknowledged him with a nod and asked if he’d enjoyed his stay in the cabin.
“What do you think?” Cummins said. “Where you been?”
“Around,” Zerbe said. “Working on a few things”
Cummins started asking more questions but Zerbe just shrugged and said they’d all be answered soon.
“You know what this is all about?” Cummins asked.
“What do you think?” Zerbe said with a smirk. “Mexico. It’s the price of failure. Hopefully, we’ll be offered a chance at redemption.”
Cummins tried to engage the prick in further conversation but he just sat there and shrugged, smoking one cigarette after another. Plus, he was wearing that same filthy jacket, hat, and dark sunglasses that he had in Cancun. Cummins wondered if he’d changed his underwear. From the smell of him, he doubted it.
But the questions lingered.
Was Zerbe as nervous as he was? He obviously knew more about what was going on but like the closed-mouthed delivery boys who’d brought him his food, Zerbe wouldn’t say shit even if he had mouthful.
As far as Cummins knew, Zerbe was another one of the bit players, just like him but apparently, he hadn’t been benched after the first string had dropped the ball.
The price of failure.
It had been a total cluster fuck. And now he hoped he wasn’t going to be blamed for the disaster. It wasn’t his fault. Sure, he was initially supposed to be in overall charge of the operation, more or less, but that hot shot, Eagan, had taken over. He was the one running the show down there.
So technically, Cummins told himself again, what happened wasn’t my fault.
Some of the things Eagan had done had been wrong. Very wrong. Like underestimating that guy Wolf.
Who would have thought that a half-breed Indian ex-con would turn out to be Captain America, capable of besting Eagan and his vaunted Viper team?
Some bunch of Vipers.
They’d had Wolf outgunned and outnumbered and he still killed them all. Or at least he figured he had. Eagan had looked like a dead man sliding down that old Mayan pyramid and then Wolf started taking pot shots at the copter.
It was time to leave and all they could do was beat feet back to the States.
Cummins tried to convince himself that it was a good sign that although he and Zerbe had been interviewed and housed separately, now they were both being brought back into the game together.
Maybe the old man wants to keep the remnants of the team together, Cummins told himself.
But they could hardly be considered a winning team. Eagan and his raghead buddy, Nasim, had both ended up on the wrong side of a bullet down in Mexico. At least that’s what Cummins had been led to believe during the debrief. And that precious fucking artifact, the Lion Attacking the Nubian, that Von Dien was so hot to get was nowhere to be found. The guy who’d had possession of it, Thomas Accondras, was most likely dead as well. Cummins had spilled everything that he knew about it, including that he’d overheard Accondras say that the artifact was concealed in a plaster statue of a Mexican bandito. But where it was now was anybody’s guess. And that wasn’t what the old man had wanted to hear.
What the hell, Cummins thought. Did the old bastard think we were all gonna fall on our swords if we couldn’t get the thing for him?
It was just a thousand-year-old piece of art, for Christ’s sake.
And he wondered if it had been cursed. A dozen bodies already lay in its wake in this century alone.
Chapter Two
The Mcnamara Ranch
Phoenix, Arizona
“Aw, hell,” McNamara said, looking at the broken window in the Escalade. “This poor baby’s taken more hits than a long-range recon patrol. Had to drop the insurance to just liability and I still ain’t got that damn seatbelt fixed yet, either.”
He was wearing a black T-shirt, with U.S. ARMY printed in white block lett
ers across the front, a pair of gray sweatpants, and gym shoes. The multi-colored metal cane he leaned on had an L-shaped handle which Wolf knew was connected to a knife blade on the inside of the tubing. It only took a quick half-turn and a jerk to free it.
Except this time, I’m the jerk, Wolf thought.
Mac’s daughter, Kasey, stood next to him, arms crossed, a frown on her pretty face. But her gaze wasn’t fixed on the window. She was glaring at Wolf and not saying anything. As usual, her silence was deafening.
This couldn’t have come at a worse time, he thought. Just when I needed her to check on those names for me.
“But I’m more concerned about you,” McNamara said. “You ought to go to the ER. Get checked out.”
Wolf shook his head. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
Wolf nodded.
Not having insurance toughened you up, he thought.
But he didn’t want to say that.
McNamara clucked his tongue and winked. “Ranger tough, all right.”
Chad, Kasey’s five-year-old son came running up to them and skidded to a stop on the asphalt driveway.
“Grandpa, what happened to your car?”
McNamara reached out and tousled the boy’s unruly crop of chestnut hair.
“When are you going to take this little guy in for a haircut?” he asked.
“When we can afford it,” Kasey said, her frown deepening. “And I like his hair longer.”
“Never make it in the army with a mop like that,” McNamara said.
“Which is why I like it,” Kasey shot back. “Come on, let’s at least get out of this heat.”
She grabbed her son’s arm and steered him toward the front door.
McNamara watched her go and braced his cane on the ground, gesturing for Wolf to follow him.
“Well, at least this’ll make it easier for the repo man.” McNamara said with a wry grin. “Maybe we ought to consider clearing out your place so we can hide it in there.”
My place? Wolf thought, glad that Kasey hadn’t heard that.
The garage was separate from the two-story wooden-frame house, which Mac always referred to as “The Ranch,” and he’d filled the bottom half, where the cars were supposed to be stored, with a ton of old furniture, assorted boxes of military gear, photograph albums, old filing cabinets, tools, a generator, and just about everything else he’d acquired over a lifetime of traveling the world and accumulating memories. One corner, however, had been left bare and transformed into the quasi gym. A narrow corridor between the stacks of chattel led to a haphazard assortment of benches and weights. Once Wolf had moved in they’d hung a heavy bag from one of the crossbeams in the ceiling and erected a speed-bag platform and an over-under bag, which spanned the distance between the thick, overhead beam and the wooden block that had been nail-blasted to the floor. A plastic-coated jump rope hung on a nail on one of the beams near the bags and a small kitchen timer sat on a shelf next to the rope. Above this area, on the second level, was the apartment that Wolf had called home since his release from Leavenworth.
All things considered, it was a good deal and he felt completely satisfied and grateful.
Which was not to say that he didn’t long to get back on his feet and find something better. But first, he had to start paying McNamara back. He just didn’t know when that was going to be.
And now, the broken window had popped up like an unexpected punch to the gut.
The repo man?
Wolf grimaced. He knew things were bad financially, but hoped that Mac was only kidding.
“Thing’s really that bad?” Wolf asked.
“Well, I’ve been trying to decide.” McNamara sighed. “You know that old saying, if you only have enough for your car payment or your house payment, you need to remember that you can always live in your car but you can’t drive your house.” He looked askance at Wolf then laughed.
Wolf forced a chuckled because he sensed that was what Mac wanted but still felt like he’d been gut-punched.
“Anyway, even if we lose the Escalade, we’ll still have Kasey’s car. And I figure it’d get pretty damn crowded with all five of us living in the Escalade anyway.”
“Maybe this will help.” Wolf handed him the envelope with the cash from Manny.
McNamara jammed it into his pocket and nodded. “He give you anything else?”
“Two easy ones,” Wolf said. “Or so he says.”
“Well, I’m riding shotgun on them two.”
Wolf had figured as much, but he’d also been afraid that was what Mac would say. He’d been shot in the abdomen in Mexico and the damage had been significant. Their rush to get back Stateside to get better and more affordable medical treatment had been costly on Mac’s health. The torn bowel resulted in peritonitis, which required more hospitalization and heavy doses of antibiotics. Trying to get into the VA hospital had proven next to impossible and by the time all was said and done, the medical bills from both here and Mexico had eaten up all their profits from the mission south of the border. Not to mention putting them in the center of a federal investigation to boot.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Mac.”
“Hell,” McNamara said with a chortle. “You wouldn’t know a good idea if it snuck up and bit you on the ass.”
Wolf stepped ahead and opened the door for McNamara. The big man shuffled through the door slowly, placing the rubber tip of the cane down prior to each new step. The muscles of his right arm bulged with the pressure of the movements. Despite his age, he was still a powerhouse. Wolf noticed Mac was striving to cover the grimace of pain with a wide smile.
Covering pain and discomfort and bad times with a mask of bravado, Wolf thought. That was Mac, all right. The toughest and finest man Wolf had ever known.
They stepped inside the air-conditioned coolness. Kasey had resumed her position at her desk and was clicking keys on her keyboard. She didn’t look at them as they entered. Chad had grabbed his rubber AR-15 rifle and was running from cover point to cover point in the living room and dining room. Adjacent to the front door it had a long stairway leading to the upstairs bedrooms. The boy paused by the banister and said, “I’ll cover you guys.”
“You do that,” McNamara said.
The house itself was very large and decorated in a western motif, traditional wooden trim and floors, with beige walls and a large stone fireplace on the far wall. The mantle above the fireplace had a large shadowbox display of Mac’s Green Beret along with his CIB and the various other decorations he’d been awarded over his long career. His time in the military had gone more than double that of most army lifers, amassing enough ribbons to fill up virtually the entire case. Now all of his past glories resided behind a small pane of glass within a larger wooden box. Next to the shadowbox, the Mexican bandito, their souvenir from their ill-fated adventure south of the border, seemed to stare back at Wolf with an almost taunting insolence. Mac had insisted on keeping it when they’d left Mexico.
“I’ve grown kind of attached to that hombre,” he said. “Kind of sums up our whole trip down there.”
They passed the couch which had McNamara’s sheets, blanket and pillow neatly folded with military precision in the center. He’d been sleeping downstairs in the den since his return, finding the nightly trip up the staircase a bit too challenging.
Kasey was still busy at the computer. Wolf set the new files on the desk as she busied herself on the keyboard. She glanced at them and didn’t say a word.
“Kase,” McNamara said. “Me and Steve are gonna run over to the body shop and get an estimate on that window. We’ll hit the bank, too.” He pulled out the envelope and tossed it on the desk. “You need to take anything out of this right now?”
She didn’t reply, but reached out and grabbed the envelope, rifled through the sheaf of money and tossed it onto the desk. “Put it in the company account. I’ll make the notation later.”
Wolf wanted to ask her about the list
of names he’d been ruminating about since Mexico and if she’d found anything out about them. She was a wizard at finding information, but so far hadn’t given him squat.
“Say,” Wolf said, trying to flash an ingratiating smile. “You have time to check on those names I gave you yet?”
“I haven’t had time,” she said. “I’ve got a paper due.”
The brusqueness in her tone was obvious. Besides running the office part of their bounty hunting company, she was also going to grad school pursuing a degree in English. “If I’m going to go after a worthless degree,” she’d often say. “It might as well be in something I like.” Mac harbored hopes that she’d continue on to law school after graduation, although at this point motherhood and the company took precedence over everything.
“Aw, come on, Kase,” McNamara said. “We been hearing that for the past month. Those are some important leads we gotta follow up on.”
She continued typing and didn’t look up from the monitor screen.
Important is putting it mildly, thought Wolf. It’s the only lead I’ve got.
“Leads that are going to net us zero in terms of income and profit.” Her fingers seemed to be flying over the keys now. “Do I need to remind you of that?”
“Well, when you gonna get to it?” McNamara asked.
“When I have time,” she said.
McNamara frowned and glanced at Wolf.
Wolf knew it would do no good to badger her. She was holding all the aces. He had no computer and limited skills for searching on the free ones at the library. Not to mention the time factor. Plus, he could hardly expect her to devote her time to his personal Easter egg hunt when Trackdown, Inc. was in such dire financial straits.
McNamara sighed and snatched the envelope off the desk. He turned and Wolf could read the anger and frustration on his face.
“We’ll put it all in the checking account then,” McNamara said. “Let’s get outta here. A might too cool in here, right at the moment.”
Wolf shot a quick look at Kasey but she showed no sign of having paid attention to what her father had just said.
Devil's Fancy (Trackdown Book 2) Page 3
