Hard Case V: Blood and Fear (A John Harding Novel Book 5) (10 page)

“We say nothing. I want a lawyer.”

“Did you hear that, guys? They want their ACLU packet – ass kissing media reporters, live cameras recording how deprived their youth was, and lawyers.”

“I have my tablet with Crue’s earlier interrogation,” Lucas said.

“What my friend is saying is although we don’t have any of that bullshit you’d like to have, we do have this gem – and yes, the star of the video clip is one of the assholes from your posse.”

Lucas held the tablet steady for them to see. To say they were impressed would be an understatement. “See boys, we didn’t want you punks to think you’ve been snatched off the street by people who give a shit what the hell you want. You all congregated at the home of my Marine Recon brother, John Harding. That’s not quite as bad as your buddy Azi tried to do, but he’s paid for his sins. Who wants to be the first to tell us the tale of woe bringing your punk asses into a van traveling to the last place on earth you want to be.”

Lucas presented our position very well. At least three of the seven were ready to start screaming out answers, but my original greeter on the street still thought this was a bluff. Some folks are just too stupid to live.

“You do not scare me, mon. The rest of you… shut up. Say nothing when we get to their station. Then say only four words ‘I want a lawyer’.”

“Oh Lord, please let Crue still be at the ‘House of Pain’,” Dev prayed for our amusement. “Yeah… you guys are going to the station for sure. It’s the last stop to the Seventh Level of Hell. When we open the door, and you’re greeted by the one and only Cruella Deville, everything will be a bit clearer.”

Denny texted me when we were only minutes away. I relayed the info. “They’re all illegals. Every ID is a fraud. Denny has hits on four of them including big mouth, for kidnapping, murder, and of course blackmail.”

“Do not speak!” Loudmouth wasn’t getting the message. You have to know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em.

“Shut the hell up, pussy,” Lucas fired back in loudmouth’s face. Then loudmouth spit in Lucas’s face. My knife-hand strike to his throat made sure he would be lucky to ever spit again.

Lucas wiped away the remnants of loudmouth retribution with grinning appreciation as loudmouth’s survival stayed in jeopardy straight on until we were parked inside the ‘House of Pain. He threw open the door. Sure enough, there was Cruella Deville, arms folded with look of calm anticipation on her face. Lucas grabbed the fighting for his life loudmouth, and flung him onto our cement floor.

“This bastard spit on me, Crue. John adjusted him immediately with one of those damn knife-hand strikes to the throat. He’s still breathing, so he can write whatever he has to say.”

Lynn smirked as gasps and cringes of recognition greeted her. She looked inside at the other Nigerian guests with her monster face of utter cold, calculating terror. “Spit on you, did he, Pappy. Well, now… you know what that means. Brave boy has volunteered to be an example for the rest of his posse. John… you know I’ve warned you about altering my toys before I see them.”

I bowed my head comically for my companions. “I’m so ashamed, Crue. It was pure instinct. This man touched a nerve when he spit into our beloved grandfather’s face.”

“Grandfather!? Why you disrespectful peckerwood!” Casey, while laughing his ass off, was trying to soothe the inner beast of Grandfather Blake to no avail. “Put the Cheeseburger on the grill too, Lynn! This age insult cannot go unpunished!”

I enjoyed my return to the ‘Rattler’ nickname I’d accrued in my first fight with him by getting my face pummeled almost into the maiming category. Yep. The monster squad continued our enjoyment of entertainment within the ranks, including Denny, who had joined us from the control room. Denny laughingly put an arm around Lucas’s shoulders.

“It’s okay, Pa. We have to enjoy the lighter moments where we can.”

“Don’t start with me, Spawn! It’s not you being held up for ridicule.”

I sensed a deeper ingredient to this continued outrage. “You have our attention, Pa. What is it that’s really bothering you?”

Lucas didn’t waste any time either. “I want another pirate mission before I get too old to go out on one.”

Uh oh, I didn’t like the sound of that. “We’re not allowed to have a pirate mission, brother. The part where you took over ownership, and then stated, ‘nothing can be damaged or out of place’ on our pirate boat exempts us from missions even if anyone was thinking of conjuring one.”

Amidst ‘hell yeahs’, and other significant agreement with my pirate comment, Lucas folded. “Yeah… I admit it. I never owned anything like the ‘Sea Wolf’. With all the damn ocean going training maneuvers on ‘The Lora’, I’ve reconsidered my position on using the ‘Sea Wolf’ in enemy territory. I want another piece of those bastards!”

“Is this about you channeling the pirate attack in Nigeria with the subsequent kidnappings?” Denny was of course up to speed, and ready for any weakness in the Lucas ‘Sea Wolf’ confiscation.

Denny outfitted at great expense our aforementioned ‘Sea Wolf’. It had everything a tight crew would want for blasting pirates into the hereafter or pinpointing their mother ships and bases. Lucas had unfortunately declared the vessel his during and after a very impressive demonstration of her value. The poor ‘Sea Wolf’ had been kept dormant since then.

“I screwed up, porting the ‘Sea Wolf’, and protecting her from what comes natural to a warship. I’m putting the ‘Wolf’ back in play, and I want a part sailing her into dangerous waters. Who the hell knows what the future holds? I want to go into harm’s way with the ‘Wolf’ under my guiding hands. Anyone got a problem with that? Speak up!”

Crickets, moths caught around a porch light somewhere, fireflies enjoying an evening’s rapture of flight – all made more noise than Lucas’s audience of stone cold killers. Denny let the silence go on before capping it with a heartfelt, “by your command, Ahab. I believe we can get a pirate adjustment into the schedule after the softball season ends. Our benefactors have in fact been clamoring for a return of the Sea Wolf to the high seas. I’ll put together an op where we’ll have a fleet on maneuvers near where we operate. I see we have a volunteer if he lives, to help persuade any of our Boko Haram friends to cooperate, so I’ll leave this in your capable hands, Crue.”

When we turned our attention to the volunteer, he had expired. Lynn checked him over with a smile. “It’s a good thing my minions are still here. Nice demo on why knife-hand strikes are only legal for body strikes, John. Let’s keep this simple. Line up the Bokos. Any of them still not wanting to talk get a quick throat strike from the adjuster.”

We lined them, but it was useless. They were ready to kill each other to tell us anything we wanted to know. Lynn had Quays Tannous, and Gus Denova take charge of the prisoners, along with a list of questions Denny dictated to them. Silvio Ruelas was already with our other prisoners.

Lynn faced off with each one, patting their cheeks, and generally scaring the shit out of them. “If I get a bad report about you bunch being uncooperative, I’ll come back here in the morning with my operating room tools. Don’t let them get off subject, Quays.”

“Shall I call you when we finish and report in,” Quays asked.

“No, it can wait for morning. Put the dead spitter in a body bag in the freezer. We’ll get rid of him at sea when John works out tomorrow off The Lora.”

Quays grinned at Gus. Both men looked then at me.

“What?”

“Nothing, John,” Gus answered. “Quays, Silvio, and I were going to have a pool with dates when Tommy would coerce you into the Bay again.”

I shrugged as everyone else enjoyed the thought of a Bay pool. “I have to be ready for this guy, Gus. Nothing incites murder and mayhem better than training in the Bay.”

“We know this is important, John,” Quays chimed in. “We will work our Nigerian guests into a frenzy of sharing. Gus thought showing them some past videos of our mentor, Cruella Deville, in action will keep them motivated.”

“A wise plan,” Lynn said, putting a mentor’s arm around Quays. “Make me proud, boys. We have work ahead of us tomorrow.”

Quays immediately came to a head bowed, at attention stance with his partner Gus Denova to say, “yes, mistress of the unimaginable. Your will be done.”

“I like that, my treasured minions,” the true mistress of the unimaginable stated as the rest of us appreciated the moment appropriately. She turned on the Nigerian guests. “Don’t forget boys. You make my minions unhappy, you make me unhappy. The ways I get happy again will make your group beg for death as a long lost love.”

I could tell on the Nigerians’ faces they had no intention of incurring the wrath of the unimaginable. “Goodnight, Lynn. You’re the best.”

“Nice knife-hand strike, John. Damage my toys again before I get to see them, and there will be blood.”

I did the at attention bow. “Yes, mistress of the unimaginable.”

Chapter Four

Close to Home

“Hell of a day, John,” Casey said as Dev drove us for drop off. “We sure got shortchanged on our off time between world ending threats.”

“You get to fish, and see me dodging sharks in the Bay again, Case. That should count for something. Okay… let’s get the pool going. I give Spawn a day to trade all the Nigerians for Pappy’s pirate op with full permissions.”

“A day?” Lucas rubbed his chin. “I’m in for a thousand on forty-eight hours.”

“Damn, Lucas, cut a man out of the payoff in a heartbeat, and your partner too.” Casey’s whining had no effect. “Okay, I’m down for the in-between. Thirty-six hours.”

“Shit!” Jess was unhappy. He called forward for Dev’s commitment. “Brother! Let’s go for the up-tight at midafternoon tomorrow.”

“I don’t gamble anymore, Jess,” Dev called back. “I got Rose and the kids. The thrill is gone from the gamblin’.”

“That settles it,” Jess said, taking a deep breath. “Dev’s definitely pissing while sitting down. I’m in on the down low then for one large. No way Denny takes it out past two days.”

“The bets are down, but I have to text Lynn, Clint, Laredo, Jafar, and the minions,” I told them. “If they don’t get an opportunity to hone down our pool, they’ll be whining for the next couple of months.”

“Agreed,” Lucas said. “It will make the pot bigger anyway. It’s a thousand in though. If the minions want a dog in this hunt, they’ll have to pool their money. How much are we paying them, John?”

“A lot. All three have houses, and a very ripe paycheck to be on call 24/7. They’ve done a terrific job keeping the House of Pain in top condition. They really earn their money when we have layovers like tonight. It’s the price of being able to go home, confident we won’t have murderers getting free, and causing an untold amount of damage.”

“That was the bitch about our central command,” Casey went on. “It was a great place for interrogations, holding cells, high tech command, and even as a safe house. It sucked taking care of it. Those guys are worth their weight in gold. Not to mention, they make Crue happy. She loves having minions she’s tortured into the light. Crue treats Danessa like her own daughter. Clint’s happy because Danessa loves Tonto, and cleans their house. They bought her a damn car, and are paying her way through college. You don’t suppose Crue feels guilty about the way she turned Danessa around, do you?”

Casey got the laughs he was shooting for with all of us trying to imagine Lynn feeling guilty about anything. “She does have a soft spot though. Getting at it sometimes is a mystery.”

“Clint seems to find it regularly,” I replied. “We better hope Lynn has the baby before Denny schedules any pirate operations.”

“Sure, but you know what she’ll do then,” Lucas added.

“You guys will have to go to war with a baby on board unless you find her something to focus on other than motherhood,” Jess said. “I don’t like your chances. Maybe John can invent some secret mission to keep Crue and Clint at home with the baby.”

“Hey, that’s not bad, Jess.” I didn’t believe in wishing for bad things to happen, but having something for Clint and Lynn to do where they could have the new baby with them would be for the best. Having Lynn on board The Sea Wolf, either with the baby, or worrying because someone else was looking after the baby, could end in the rest of us losing our minds or our lives. “I will keep that suggestion in mind.”

“John,” Dev called out. “You have company in front of your house again.”

I moved forward as Dev slowed. I could make out who it was with streetlamp light. “That’s my neighbor, Della Sparks, Lora, and the new neighbor from across the street. He doesn’t look happy.”

“Want us to stop for a while, John?”

“No. If Lora came out of the house, I don’t think this will take an intervention, Lucas. I’ll see you all tomorrow. It’s going to be a busy day.”

Outside as our ready van drove away, I waved to my wife. “Is this a neighborhood watch meeting?”

Della and Lora were amused. Not so much my new neighbor, Doug Ferguson. He’s one of those neighbors who never minds his own business. If a lawn isn’t mowed, the weeding around the house has been neglected, or a car is parked too far from the curb, Doug feels it’s his duty to leave a full critique letting the guilty party know about their transgressions. I’d already been served my summons to yard duty twice, and Doug had only been in the neighborhood for two months. Although I do it, I’m not much of a gardener, and I don’t obsess over my lawn much.