Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Ethan Cross
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Day One – December 15: Evening
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Day Two – December 16: Morning
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Day Two – December 16: Afternoon
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Day Two – December 16: Evening
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Day Three – December 17: Morning
Chapter 11
Day Three – December 17: Evening
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Day Four – December 18: Morning
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Day Four – December 18: Afternoon
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Day Four – December 18: Evening
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Day Five – December 19: Morning
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Day Five – December 19: Afternoon
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Day Five – December 19: Evening
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Day Six – December 20: Morning
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Day Six – December 20: Afternoon
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Day Six – December 20: Evening
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Day Seven – December 21: Morning
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Day Seven – December 21: Afternoon
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Day Seven – December 21: Evening
Chapter 121
Chapter 122
Chapter 123
Chapter 124
Chapter 125
Chapter 126
Chapter 127
Chapter 128
Chapter 129
Chapter 130
Chapter 131
Chapter 132
Chapter 133
Chapter 134
Day Eight – December 22: Morning
Chapter 135
Chapter 136
Day Eight – December 22: Afternoon
Chapter 137
Chapter 138
Copyright
Also by Ethan Cross
The Shepherd
The Cage
To my beautiful wife, Gina, for walking ten miles with me
through a Chicago snowstorm . . .
First of all, I want to thank my wife, Gina, and my daughters, Madison and Calissa, for their love and support (especially Gina who has to endure a lot craziness in the name of the research and put up with me in general).
Next, I wish to thank my parents, Leroy and Emily, for taking me to countless movies as a child and instilling in me a deep love of stories. Also, thank you to my mother, Emily, for always being my first beta reader and my mother-in-law, Karen, for being my best saleswoman.
While conducting research for this novel, I trained and rode with several law enforcement personnel. Without their invaluable help, this book could not have been completed. They include: The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department, Montgomery County Sheriff Jim Vazzi and UnderSheriff Rick Robbins, The DuPage County Sheriff’s Office and Deputy Andrew Barnish, The Matteson Police Department and Officer Aaron Dobrovits, and author and retired officer Michael A. Black.
Unfortunately, there is always a great deal of research that never makes it into the book for one reason or another. One of these cases in particular that still deserves my thanks is that of the Thornton Quarry and Dave Wenslauskis. I’m sure that the fascinating info I learned during my visit here will end up in another book down the road.
And, as always, none of this would be possible without the help of my mentor/publisher/friend, Lou Aronica, and my wonderful agents, Danny Baror and Heather Baror-Shapiro. Also, big thanks to my friend across the pond and UK editor, Tim Vanderpump, for all of his hard work on this book (even amidst the birth of his son, Oskar). In addition, I wouldn’t be here without the guidance and friendship of all my fellow authors at the International Thriller Writers organization.
To all of these and my extraordinary readers, thank you so much. I couldn’t be living my dream without your support.
FRANCIS ACKERMAN JR. stared out the window of the dark copper and white bungalow on Macarthur Boulevard. Across the street, a green sign with yellow letters read Mosswood Playground – Oakland Recreation Department. Children laughed and played while mothers and fathers pushed swings and sat on benches reading paperback novels or fiddling with cell phones. He had never experienced such things as a child. The only games his father had ever played were the kind that scarred the body and soul. The young Ackerman had never been nurtured; he had never been loved. But he had come to accept that. He had found purpose and meaning born from the pain and chaos that had consumed his life.
He watched the sun reflect off all the smiling faces and imagined how different the scene would be if the sun suddenly burned out and fell from the heavens. The cleansing cold of an everlasting winter would sweep across the land, sterilizing it, purifying it. He pictured the faces forever etched in torment, their screams silent, and their eyes like crystal balls reflecting what lay beyond death.
He let out a long sigh. It would be beautiful. He wondered if normal people ever thought of such things. He wondered if they ever found beauty in death.
Ackerman turned back to the three people bound to chairs in the room behind him. The first two were men—plain-clothes cops that had been watching the house. The older officer had a pencil-thin mustache and thinning brown hair while his younger counterpart’s head was topped with a greasy mop of dark black. The younger man’s bushy eyebrows matched his hair, and a hooked nose sat above thin pink lips and a recessed chin. The first man struck Ackerman to be like any other cop he had met, honest and hard-working. But there was something about the younger man that he didn’t like, something in his eyes. He suppressed the urge to smack the condescending little snarl from the younger cop’s ferret-like face.
But, instead of hitting him, Ackerman just smiled at the cop. He needed a demonstration to get the information he wanted, and the ferret would be perfect. His eyes held the ferret’s gaze a moment longer, and then he winked and turned to the last of his three captives.
Rosemary Phillips wore a faded Oakland Raiders sweatshirt. She had salt-and-pepper hair, and ancient pockmarks marred her smooth dark-chocolate complexion. Her eyes burned with a self-assurance and inner strength that Ackerman respected.
Unfortunately, he needed to find her grandson, and if necessary, he would kill all three of them to accomplish his goal.
He reached up to her mouth and pulled down the gag. She didn’t scream. “Hello, Rosemary. I apologize that I didn’t properly introduce myself earlier when I tied you up, but my name is Francis Ackerman Jr. Have you ever heard of me?”
Rosemary met his gaze. “I’ve seen you on television. You’re the serial killer whose father experimented on him as a child, trying to prove that he could create a monster. I guess he succeeded. But I’m not afraid of you.”
Ackerman smiled. “That’s wonderful. It means that I can skip the introductions and get straight to the point. Do you know why I asked these two gentlemen to join us?”
Rosemary’s head swiveled toward the two officers. Her gaze lingered on the ferret. Ackerman saw disgust in her eyes. Apparently, she didn’t like him either. That would make things even more interesting once he started to torture the young cop.
“I’ve seen these two around,” she said. “I’ve already told the cops that my grandson ain’t no damn fool. He wouldn’t just show up here, and I haven’t heard from him since this mess started. But they wouldn’t listen. Apparently they think it’s a good idea to stake out an old lady’s house instead of being out there on the streets doing what the people of this city pay them to do. Typical government at work.”
Ackerman smiled. “I know exactly what you mean. I’ve never had much respect for authority. But, you see, I’m looking for your grandson as well. I, however, don’t have the time or patience to sit around here on the off chance that he might show up. I prefer the direct approach, and so I’m going to ask you to level with me. Where can I find your grandson?”
“Like I told them, I have no idea.”
He walked over to a tall mahogany hutch resting against the wall. It was old and well built. Family pictures lined its surface and shelves. He picked up a picture of a smiling young black man with his arm around Rosemary. A blue and gold birthday cake sat in front of them. “Rosemary, I’ve done my homework, and I’ve learned that your grandson thinks the world of you. You were his anchor in the storm. Maybe the one good thing in his life. The one person who loved him. You know where he’s hiding, and you are going to share that information with me. One way or another.”
“Why do you even care? What’s he to you?”
“He’s nothing to me. I could care less about your grandson. But someone that I do care about is looking for him, and I try to be useful where I can. And, like you said, sometimes bureaucracy and red tape are just too damn slow. We’re going to speed along the process.”
Rosemary shook her head and tugged on the ropes. “I don’t know where he is, and if I did, I’d never tell a monster like you.”
His father’s words tumbled through his mind.
You’re a monster . . . Kill her and the pain will stop . . . No one will ever love you . . .
“Oh, my dear, words hurt. But you’re right. I am a monster.”
Ackerman grabbed a duffle bag from the floor and tossed it onto a small end table. As he unzipped the bag and rifled through the contents, he said, “Are you familiar with the Spanish Inquisition? I’ve been reading a lot about it lately. It’s a fascinating period of history. The Inquisition was basically a tribunal established by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in order to maintain Catholic orthodoxy within their kingdoms, especially among the new converts from Judaism and Islam. But that’s not what fascinates me. What fascinates me are the unspeakable acts of barbarism and torture that were carried out in the name of God upon those deemed to be heretics. We think that we live in a brutal age, but our memories are very short-sighted. Any true student of history can tell you that this is the age of enlightenment compared with other periods throughout time. The things the Inquisitors did to wrench confessions from their victims were nothing less than extraordinary. Those Inquisitors displayed fabulous imagination.”
Ackerman brought a strange device up out of the duffle bag. “This is an antique. Its previous owner claimed that it’s an exact replica of one used during the Inquisition. You’ve got to love eBay.”
He held up the device—made from two large, spiked blocks of wood connected by two threaded metal rods an inch in diameter each—for their inspection. “This was referred to as the Knee Splitter. Although it was used on more than just knees. When the Inquisitor turned these screws, the two blocks would push closer together and the spikes would first pierce the flesh of the victim. Then the Inquisitor would continue to twist the screws tighter and tighter until they received the answers they wanted or until the affected appendage was rendered useless.”
Rosemary spat at him. As she spoke, her words were strong and confident. He detected a slight hint of a Georgia accent and suspected that it was from her youth and only presented itself when she was especially flustered. “You’re going to kill us anyway. No matter what I do. I can’t save these men anymore than I can save myself. The only thing that I can control is the way that I go out. And I won’t grovel and beg to the likes of you. I won’t give you the satisfaction.”
Ackerman nodded. “I respect that. So many people blame the world or society or others for the way that they are. But we’re all victims of circumstance to a certain extent. We like to think that we’re in control of our own destinies, but the truth is that much of our lives is dictated by forces far beyond our control and comprehension. We all have our strings pulled by someone or something. It’s unavoidable. The only place that we have any real control is right here.” He tapped the tip of his fifteen-inch survival knife against his right temple. “Within our minds. Most people don’t understand that, but you do. I didn’t come here to kill you, Rosemary. It will give me no pleasure to remove you from the world. But my strings get pulled just like everyone else’s. In this case, circumstances dictate that I hurt you and these men in order to achieve my goal. I’m good at what I do, my dear. I’ve been schooled in pain and suffering my entire life. Time will only allow me to share a small portion of my expertise with you, but I can tell you that it will be enough. You will tell me. That’s beyond your control. The only aspect of this situation that you can influence is the duration of the suffering you must endure. So I’ll ask again: where is your grandson?”
Her lips trembled, but she didn’t speak.
The smell of cinnamon permeated the air but was unable to mask a feral aroma of sweat and fear. Ackerman had missed that smell. He had missed the fear, the power. But he needed to keep his excitement contained. He couldn’t lose control. This was about information, not about satisfying his own hunger.
“Time to begin. As they say, I’m going to put the screws to this officer. Makes you wonder if this device is responsible for such a saying, doesn’t it?”
~~*~~
After several moments of playing with his new toy, Ackerman looked at Rosemary, but she had diverted her gaze. He twisted the handles again, and the officer’s thrashing increased.
“Okay, I’ll tell you!” she said. “He’s in Spokane, Washington. They’re set up in an abandoned metal-working shop of some kind. Some crooked realtor set it up for them. I’ve tried to get him to turn himself in. I even considered calling the police myself, but I know that he and his friends won’t allow themselves to be captured alive. He’s the only family I have left.” Tears ran down her cheeks.
Ackerman reached down to relieve the pressure on the officer’s legs. The man’s head fell back against the chair. “Thank you. I believe you, and I appreciate your situation. Your grandson has been a bad boy. But he’s your flesh and blood, and you still love him.”
He walked over to the table and pulled up another chair in front of Rosemary. As he sat, he pulled out a small notepad. It was spiral-bound from the top and had a blood-red cover. “Since you’ve been so forthcoming with me, and out of respect, I’ll give you a genuine chance to save your lives.” He flipped up the notepad’s cover, retrieved a small pen from within the spiral, and started to write. As the pen traveled over the page, he said, “I’m going to let you pick the outcome of our little game. On this first sheet, I’ve written ‘ferret’ to represent our first officer.” He tore off the page, wadded it up, and placed it between his legs. “On the second, we’ll write ‘Jackie Gleason’ to represent the next officer. Then ‘Rosemary’. Then ‘all live’. And ‘all die’.”
He mixed up the wadded pieces of paper and placed them on the floor in front of her. “I think the game is self-explanatory. But to make sure that there’s no confusion, you pick the piece of paper, and I kill whoever’s name is on it. But you do have a twenty percent chance that you all live. And just to be clear, if you refuse to pick or take too long, I’ll be happy to kill all three of you. So please don’t try to fight fate. The only thing you have control over here is which piece of paper you choose. Have no illusions that you have any other options. It will only serve to make the situation even less manageable for you. Pick one.”
Rosemary’s eyes were full of hate. They burrowed into him. Her gaze didn’t waver. A doctor named Kendrick from the Cedar Mill Psychiatric Hospital had once told Ackerman that he had damage to a group of interconnected brain structures, known as the paralimbic system, that were involved in processing emotion, goal-seeking, motivation, and self-control. The doctor had studied his brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging technology and had also found damage to an area known as the amygdala that generated emotions such as fear. Monkeys in the wild with damage to the amygdala had been known to walk right up to people or even predators. The doctor had said this explained why Ackerman didn’t feel fear in the way that other people did. He wondered if Rosemary had a similar impairment or if her strength originated from somewhere else entirely.
She looked down at the pieces of paper, then back into his eyes. “Third one. The one right in the center.”
He reached down and uncrumpled the small piece of paper. He smiled. “It’s your lucky day. You all get to live. I’m sorry that you had to endure this due to the actions of someone else. But, as I said, we’re all victims of circumstance.”
Then he stood, retrieved his things, and exited onto Macarthur Boulevard.
~~*~~
Ackerman tossed his duffle bag into the trunk of a light-blue Ford Focus. He wished he could travel in more style, but the ability to blend in outweighed his own sense of flare. He pulled open the driver’s door, slipped inside, and dropped some jewelry and the wallets and purse of his former captives on the seat next to him. He hated to lower himself to common thievery, but everything cost money. And his skill set didn’t exactly look good on a résumé. Besides, he didn’t have time for such things.
He retrieved a disposable cell phone from the glove box and activated the device. As he dialed and pressed send, he looked down at the small slip of paper that Rosemary had chosen. The words All Die stared back at him.
After a few rings, the call connected, and the voice on the other end said, “What do you want?”
Ackerman smiled. “Hello, Marcus. Please forgive me, for I have sinned. But I do it all for you.”
MARCUS WILLIAMS STARED down at the brutalized body of a dead woman and could tell by the bruising and ligature marks that she had been raped before being murdered. The small maintenance office connected to the back of the factory was in general disrepair. The plaster had crumbled from water damage, and the roof was bare in several spots, exposing a clear night sky. Snow had fallen through the gaps, and a light dusting of it covered everything. A large section of shelving attached to the back wall had broken free from its mounts. Its former contents littered the floor—rusted pipe fittings, bailing wire, half-dissolved cardboard boxes, old equipment manuals. The body had been discarded like just another piece of junk intended to be disposed of more thoroughly at a later time. Judging by the body’s lividity and rigor, Marcus suspected that she’d been dead only a few hours and had been killed using some small, blunt object like a hammer. If only he had arrived just a little sooner . . .
He pushed the anger and guilt from his mind. It did him no good now. Stepping through the exterior entrance of the office, he pushed the door shut and wedged a rock against it to keep it from swinging back open. The door had been padlocked, and he had popped it using a Hallaghan Tool, a device similar to a crowbar used for breaching and entries. He didn’t want the door to catch in the wind and slam against the frame. He wanted to maintain the element of surprise.
He crossed the parking lot, scaled a chain-link fence, and dropped onto the sidewalk. There were other, newer factories nearby, but this business had gone bankrupt and abandoned its facility. The Bank Crew had been paying the realtor under the table for access to the crumbling brick structure. It hadn’t taken much convincing to obtain the information from the operator of the realty office. He had crumbled like a house of cards at the mention of lawyers and prison sentences for aiding and abetting.
Marcus had been tracking the Bank Crew for several weeks now, but they had gone underground after their last job. Then, two days ago, they had struck again, taking the wife and two daughters of a jewelry-store owner. The Bank Crew, as the press had come to call them, had worked out a violent money-making scheme whereby they kidnapped the family of someone with access to a great deal of cash or valuable assets. Then they would force the person to bring them the money by threatening to kill the family. It was a pretty straightforward extortion-and-ransom gambit, but the thing that set the Crew apart was their brutal nature. Their victims almost always complied, but they killed them anyway. First, they killed the father once they had the money. Then they had some fun with the female members of the family before ending their lives as well.
The police knew that the group had four members, but they had been pretty good so far at leaving behind little evidence. The only piece of useful information came from a fingerprint left at one of the scenes. The man’s name popped up in the system, but no one had seen or heard from him since the Crew had started up. The cops in Oakland who had questioned his grandmother believed that she knew more than she was telling them, but they couldn’t do anything more than stake out her place.
Marcus had planned to pay her a visit himself, but Ackerman had beaten him to it.
Jerking open the door to the black GMC Yukon, he dropped in behind the wheel, pressed the button to activate the heated seats, and blew into his hands. After a moment, the passenger-side door opened as well, and Andrew Garrison pulled himself inside. Andrew ripped a stocking cap from his head, revealing short sandy-blond hair. Unlike Marcus, whose face was covered by three days of dark beard growth, Andrew had a clean-cut and well-kept appearance.
“Anything?” Marcus said.
“Yeah, I think I found the room where they’re keeping the daughters and saw at least one of the Crew passed out on a futon in the main building. It looks like they’ve brought in a folding table and a couple pieces of furniture to make some kind of makeshift living area. They’ve covered up the windows of the front offices, and I was afraid I’d make too much noise breaking in there. How about you?”
“I found the mother.”
Andrew seemed to be waiting for more of an explanation, but after a moment’s silence, none was needed. Andrew looked through the front windshield and said, “Dammit. How do you want to play it?”
“We go in the back. Standard tether formation, me in the front and you in the rear. We work our way through the building.” Marcus sighed. “I’m going to call it in.”
He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and dialed. The Director of the Shepherd Organization answered with no preamble after the first ring. “Did you find them?”
“Yeah. The mother’s dead. We’re ready to breach.”
“Okay, the council’s convened and have granted you full authority to move forward with this operation. Be careful and Godspeed.” The Director clicked off without another word.
Marcus laid down the phone and stared out at the snow. He had been a Shepherd for over a year now, and he still wasn’t sure if he’d made the right decision. The Shepherd Organization operated out of the Department of Justice under the guise of a think-tank and consulting agency specializing in violent offenders, mostly serial killers. But their primary mandate separated them from other law-enforcement agencies like the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. They weren’t charged with simply capturing and convicting killers. Their goal was to get them off the streets in any way possible, and they usually bent or outright broke any law necessary to do so. They had been designed as a no-holds-barred task force that could bypass all the red tape and get the job done without worrying about evidence and due process. It wasn’t all that different from operations that the CIA and military had been conducting for years, eliminating hostile targets overseas. The difference being that the Shepherd Organization carried out its activities on US soil and against US citizens.
The organization consisted of small cell groups, and Marcus had been recruited to head one of the teams due to certain talents he had displayed during his time as a homicide detective with the NYPD. While on the force, he had shown great promise and deductive aptitude, but he had also thrown away his future by choosing not to look the other way. A wealthy senator from a powerful family had a penchant for abusing and murdering young girls, and Marcus had refused to let him get away with it. Instead, he had put a bullet in the senator’s brain and had only avoided prosecution so that the senator’s dark deeds would not see the light of day.
Marcus had operational command of his unit but reported to a man he knew only as the Director and some council of faceless men or women whose existence he couldn’t even verify.
“What’s wrong?” Andrew said.
“Other than the current Attorney General and the Director, have you ever met anyone high up the chain of command? Any members of the council?”
“Why the sudden interest?”
“It’s not a sudden interest. It’s a nagging suspicion. Haven’t you ever wondered about how we get away with the things we do? Or who’s pulling the strings?”
Andrew shrugged. “Sure. But I believe in what we do. I think the world’s a better place with us on the streets. So I try to focus on that. Keep my mind on the things that I have control over.”
“You really think what we do is right?”
“We save people’s lives, protect the average Joe from monsters that he doesn’t even want to know exist. What can be wrong about that?”
“Gandhi said, ‘I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.’”
Andrew laughed. “How do you think Gandhi would feel if that was one of his loved ones lying dead in there? A lot of people in this world would say that we’re every bit as bad as the men we hunt. They’d say that we violate these men’s human rights. But those people have also never had to put their own kid in the ground after their baby girl’s life was stolen by a man just like the ones in that building. They can’t say how they’d feel then. Until you’re in that position, you can never understand the depth of what we do. You think Gandhi ever met a man like Ackerman?”
Andrew looked away and leaned back against the seat.
Marcus reached up and rubbed his temples. The migraines had been getting steadily worse, and he barely slept fifteen hours in a good week. He couldn’t go on like this, and the situation with Ackerman didn’t help matters. The killer had been used in Marcus’s recruitment to show him the true face of the type of men that the Shepherd Organization hunted. But the demonstration had backfired. The killer escaped and became convinced that his and Marcus’s destinies were linked. Ackerman’s fixation on him resulted in frequent calls and unwanted attempts at helping with active investigations. But the worst part was that Marcus and the other members of his team had no idea how Ackerman even knew what case they were investigating or how the killer had learned his number. All attempts at finding and tracking Ackerman had turned up nothing.
Andrew said, “Maybe we should thank Ackerman. He did find the Bank Crew for us. He may end up saving the lives of those two girls.”
Marcus’s arm shot out and he grabbed a fistful of Andrew’s coat. He jerked him up and off the seat, pulling him in close. “And he tortured two cops and an old woman in the process! It’s only a matter of time before he starts killing again. If he isn’t already. But I suppose that’s okay as long as the ends justify the means, right?”
He shoved Andrew back against his seat and looked toward the abandoned factory. Silence stretched within the vehicle.
“We’ll get him, Marcus.”
“Whatever.”
Andrew was silent for a moment more and then added, “If things go south in there and the cops show up, remember to let me do the talking.”
Marcus cocked his head to the side and said, “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m just saying that, you know, you’re not much of a people person.”
“‘A people person’? What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, it’s what’s known as a euphemism or a nice way of saying that you’re a bit of an asshole.”
“Thanks. I’m so lucky to have you as my wingman.”
Andrew raised his hands in surrender. “I just call it the way I see it.”
Marcus ignored the comment and tried to prepare his mind for what they were about to do. Pole lights surrounded the structure, illuminating most of the exterior. The building was white block with a metal roof. It was in need of a coat of paint and a pole jutted up in front of the offices, but the sign on top had been removed. It looked like any other nondescript building within the industrial park, only it had been sitting empty for years.
“You wearing your vest?”
“Of course. I sleep with the damn thing,” Andrew replied.
Marcus took a deep breath, cocked his head to the side, cracked his neck, and then threw open his door. “We’ve got work to do.”
~~*~~
Marcus entered first, leading the way with a silenced 9mm Sig Sauer P226 Tactical Operations pistol gripped in his hand. Andrew followed close behind with a Glock in his right hand and his left touching Marcus’s back. They moved forward in tandem as if they were connected by a tether. It allowed them to cover all angles. In a space like this one, with big open rooms and several points of ingress, they needed to monitor their backs as much as their fronts. And the bottom line was that no matter how cautious or well trained they were, a man with a little luck and a handful of bullets could end their lives as easily as they could his.
The back of the warehouse opened into a pale green hallway with two wood-grain hollow-core doors on the right and one on the left. Then the corridor came to a door in front and an intersection that veered off to the right. They had acquired a floor plan from the realtor’s office, and through a window, Andrew had glimpsed one of the girls being taken to the large office on their left-hand side.
The girls’ names were Paula and Kristy, their ages sixteen and twelve.
Marcus nodded toward the right door. They took up positions along each side of the entryway with Andrew monitoring the rest of the corridor. Marcus twisted the knob and gave the door a gentle push. Using a law enforcement technique known as “pieing”, he used the door frame as a pivot and kept himself positioned so that anyone in the room would only be able to see him as soon as he saw them.
The room was empty.
They repeated the same procedure at the next door. A bathroom. No one inside.
Marcus gestured with two fingers toward the door on the left. They took up their positions, and he twisted the knob. It was locked. Nodding silently, Andrew prepared to kick in the door. Marcus hated to make the extra noise, but their first priority was getting the girls out safe. They had done this sort of thing enough times to know the procedure. Andrew’s blow would clear the way, and Marcus would swing into the room.
A glance passed between them, and then Andrew kicked the door near the handle. The striker plate burst from the jamb, and the door swung inward. Marcus followed it through the opening.
He analyzed the scene within a millisecond. A bare mattress lay on the floor. It was yellowed and stained. The whole room stank of body odor and urine. The girl sat atop the filthy mattress, and duct tape bound her hands and feet and covered her mouth. Her blond hair was greasy with sweat, and her eyes were red from crying. A purple bruise covered her cheek. To her right, a dark-skinned man in a faded black Raiders sweatshirt sat in a dirty old recliner that looked like it had been left on the curb for the garbage man to retrieve. An Ithaca shotgun with a pistol grip rested across his lap.
The man’s eyes went wide, and his hand flew toward the shotgun.
Marcus squeezed the trigger, the P226 bucked, and the man fell back into the chair. Marcus fired two more shots into the man’s chest, just to be sure.
Andrew was already at the girl’s side, cutting through her restraints. She pulled away from him like a wounded animal that didn’t understand he was trying to help. The girl’s head jerked around as if she was searching for a way to escape. Her once beautiful blue eyes had gone feral. It was the sixteen-year-old, Paula. Andrew reached for her, and some part of her finally realized what was happening. She started to sob.
“Get her out of here. I’ll find the other girl and meet you back at the car.”
“You can’t go up against these guys on your own.”
“Look at her, Andrew. We can’t just leave her here. Besides, I know what I’m doing.” Marcus pulled off his leather jacket and tossed it to Andrew, who wrapped it around the girl’s trembling shoulders. Without another word, Andrew lifted Paula from the mattress and headed toward the back door.
The sight of the girl and the thought of her sister in a similar condition somewhere in the building propelled Marcus forward. The rage was building in him now, but he tried to beat it down and stay calm. He needed to remain objective and focused, but the feral look in Paula’s eyes kept filling his mind. Physically, she would be fine. But the events of the past two days would stay with her for the rest of her life. On the surface she might appear normal, but she would never again feel safe. Her body would heal, but a piece of her soul would never return. He knew from experience.
He entered the main part of the warehouse and could hear rap music thumping and crackling out of a set of small underpowered speakers. The ceiling of bare supports and metal loomed thirty feet above his head, and tall shelves containing bins for parts lined the space. The smell of old oil and rust hung in the air. Past the end of a row of shelving he could see dust-covered tables and machinery. Vise-grips, sanders, and various metalworking tools still covered the work benches. Apparently, they had been trying to sell the equipment along with the real estate. The hum of a portable space heater droned within the open area in between the shelving. He could see a heavyset man in a red puffy coat sitting at a beige card table playing solitaire next to the heater. His large legs jutted over the sides of the small chair. The man’s dark brown hair stuck up at odd angles, and a skullcap rested on the table next to the rows of cards.
Marcus quietly worked his way behind the man and raised his gun.
A scream cut through the air. High and shrill, the sound of a young girl crying out in pain or fear. Or both.
The man in the red coat chuckled at the sound of the girl’s pain and played a ten of clubs on a jack of diamonds.
The anger in Marcus welled up again.
He placed the barrel two inches behind the man’s skull—sighting in on the medulla oblongata, where the spinal cord broadens at the base of the brain—and squeezed the trigger. The sharp thump wasn’t the little plink that was typically portrayed in the movies. It was difficult to truly silence anything more powerful than a .22 caliber pistol. But he refused to wield anything beneath a 9mm, and usually carried a .45 for stopping power. Opting for stealth on this operation, he had loaded the P226 with subsonic ammunition and an SWR Trident suppressor. It made little difference to the end result.
The fat man fell forward onto the card table, and its legs bent inward under his substantial bulk. The table shot out to the side as the man slammed to the concrete floor.
“Jeff? You okay over there?”
Marcus swore under his breath and ran forward into the rows of shelving on the opposite side of the open area. He knelt low so that no one walking down the adjoining rows would be able to see him through the shelving. Heavy footfalls slapped against the concrete, the sound moving in his direction. He aimed back toward the fat man, hoping that his accomplice would go to check on him.
But the man must have been smarter than that.
The muscles in Marcus’s forearm started to burn as time stretched out. His prey knew he was there and was waiting for him to make a mistake.
He heard a grunt and the sound of metal clacking onto concrete. At first, the domesticated side of his brain didn’t know what had just happened, but the animal part registered the danger.
The crashing noises cascaded toward him, and he rolled out into the open just as the row of shelving where he had been hiding collapsed over onto its neighbor.
His gaze darted around the room, and he glimpsed a black man in jeans and a gray hooded sweatshirt at the far end of the rows of shelving. The man raised a Heckler and Koch MP5-K and, with the gun on full auto, unleashed a spray of 9mm bullets in Marcus’s direction.
He ran toward the opposite side of the shelving past the dead man in the red coat. The bullets sparked all around him, ricocheting off the concrete and striking the parts bins. He reached the door leading to the back offices and scrambled inside as bullets chewed into the frame. The hallway stretched ahead, and he instinctively ran toward the room where they’d found Paula. The sound of tennis shoes slamming down onto concrete chased him inside.
Once in the room, Marcus grabbed the Ithaca shotgun from the dead man’s lap and pumped back the forestock to make sure that the weapon was loaded and ready. Then he grabbed hold of the filthy mattress, pulled it up onto its end, and shoved it toward the room’s entrance. Before the mattress had even struck the door frame, he had slid to the floor to the left. He lay there flat against the concrete with the shotgun pointed at the doorway.
Bullets struck the door and mattress. He heard the sound of an empty MP5-K magazine striking the concrete and a new one being slammed home. More rounds ripped through the walls, blanketing the room with drywall dust, the tiny particles filling his eyes and nostrils.
He waited.
Time stretched out.
Then the man in the hoodie pushed the mattress away from the doorway and started to step over it. He hadn’t made it a foot into the room when Marcus fired. The man’s chest exploded into red, and he flew back against the door frame, landing in the hallway.
Marcus dropped the Ithaca and followed the man into the hall, with his Sig Sauer held out in front of him. The man’s eyes stared into oblivion, and crimson stained the center of his gray sweatshirt. Marcus stepped over him and headed back to the main section of the warehouse to find Kristy.
He passed the dead heavyset man, the broken card table, the downed shelving, and the scattered and rusty parts. A set of stairs that led up to what he guessed was the factory manager’s office sat next to another series of workstations. Windows were set all around the raised room so that the manager could look out over his workers and supervise their activities.
Marcus had no illusions that Ty Phillips wouldn’t be ready for him. Rosemary’s grandson was smart and bloodthirsty, so there was little doubt that he was the leader of the Bank Crew. Ty would be set up in the manager’s office with his choice of the girls.
Marcus ascended the stairs and listened for any movement from above, but he could detect nothing beyond the hum of the space heater and the thump of rap music. A suspicion of what he would find within the office crept through his mind, and he thought about how he should handle the situation.
He stayed to the left on the stairs and kept his weapon at the ready. At the top, he pushed through a glass-fronted door into the manager’s office. An empty desk sat along the back wall with several blank corkboards hanging above it. The room smelled musty, and the walls were a pale yellow.
Ty Phillips stood next to the desk with his left arm wrapped tight around Kristy’s neck, a Glock 19 pressed against her right temple. Phillips stood two feet taller than the girl. He was shirtless, and Kristy was crying. Phillips was thin and prison tattoos snaked across his arms and chest. Kristy was still dressed, but her clothes were torn and her lip was bleeding.
Phillips smiled and tightened his grip around her. “Stupid cop. You should’ve known to bring the SWAT team if you were coming after me. Now drop the heat, or I’ll splatter this girl and do the same to you.”
Marcus’s aim didn’t waver. “I’m not a cop. I’m a Shepherd. I keep wolves like you from hurting good people like this girl.”
Phillips laughed. “A Shepherd? That’s the craziest sh—”
The Sig Sauer bucked in Marcus’s hand. Phillips’s head jerked back, and he dropped to the floor of the office. Kristy twitched at the sound but barely reacted beyond that. She just stood there, glassy-eyed, like a trembling statue.
Marcus approached and kicked Phillips’s gun away. There was a nice neat hole above his left eye. A pool of blood was forming behind his head where Marcus imagined the medical examiner would find a large and ragged exit wound. The eyes were blank and lifeless.
Marcus put his arms around the girl. She tried to pull back, but he held firm. Eventually, she fell against him, gripping a handful of his shirt and burying her face in his chest. He placed a hand on the back of her head and said, “You’re safe now. We’re going to get you home.”
Even as he spoke the words, he realized that she no longer had a home to return to. Her parents were gone. Her old life was gone. The person she was and would become had been forever changed.
His gaze drifted down to the body of Ty Phillips. Maybe these men deserved to die for what they’d done, but was it his place to carry out their punishment? He caught sight of his reflection in the office’s many windows. He looked into the eyes of his doppelganger and wondered what he had become, what he was becoming. There was no one to blame for his choices other than himself. He was a killer. He was a monster.
Marcus wondered what separated him from men like the Bank Crew. Was he any better than them? Was he any better than Ackerman?
SANDRA LUTRELL FELT a pinch on her arm and awakened from a horrible dream. She felt strange and groggy. Her head ached. She tried to reach up to rub the sleep from her eyes, but she couldn’t move her arms.
Her eyes fluttered as she tried to pull herself into full awareness. At first she didn’t recognize her surroundings. The space around her was small with gray metal walls. There was a Coleman lamp on the floor that cast a sparse puddle of illumination onto the concrete. The room was longer than it was wide, and eventually she recognized it as the interior of a storage container like the one she had used to store some extra furniture when she had first moved to Chicago from Nebraska. The job had been an upgrade, but the apartment had been a downgrade. She hadn’t been able to find a house she liked right off and had used a storage facility outside Jackson’s Grove for six months until she found the perfect place. She had fallen asleep in that same house last night.
Sandra tried to move her head but discovered that it was restrained as well. She felt cold and glanced down to find that she was still in her pajamas. Her mouth opened to scream for help, but then she saw the man in the shadows at the opposite end of the container. The darkness obscured his face, but she could see that he was dressed all in black. A syringe dangled from his right hand.
She remained completely still, her eyes wide and her muscles frozen with fear.
His words cut through the cold, moist air and sent shivers through her body. His voice was soft and lacked confidence, as if he were vying for her approval. “I just injected you with a small dose of adrenaline to counteract the other drugs that I gave you and speed up your recovery.”
Other drugs? Awareness of the implication of those words came slowly. Sandra’s thoughts were still scattered and only semi-coherent. But when realization struck her, it hit with the force of a freight train. She had been kidnapped. A man had come into her home while she slept and had stolen her away. But what would happen now? What did he plan to do with her?
She opened her mouth to plead with him, but the words wouldn’t come. Fear gripped her tongue.
He stepped forward into the light. A pair of oval wire-rimmed glasses rested on his nose, and his face was thin and pale. His brown hair was short and combed neatly to the side. All of which gave him a bookish appearance betrayed only by the above-average muscle tone showing beneath his tight black clothes. He had one of those ageless faces where he could have passed for early twenties or late thirties without anyone questioning him. He could even have passed for a teenager if it hadn’t been for the thick shadow of stubble that covered his cheeks and chin. He didn’t appear angry or insane in any way. In fact, if Sandra had passed him on a lonely street at night, she wouldn’t have felt the least bit threatened by him.
His quiet appearance gave her a boost in confidence, and she said, “Please, just let me go, and we can forget that any of this ever happened. No harm, no foul. You don’t want to go down a road that you can’t come back from.”
His gaze strayed away from hers, but then he said, “I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”
He reached into a small leather bag sitting near the Coleman lamp and brought out two clamp-like devices that seemed vaguely familiar. He moved toward her.
“What are you doing? Please don’t—”
Her words became a scream as his left hand grabbed her face with surprising strength. Using his thumb and forefinger, he held her eyelids open. She tried to blink and pull away, but the restraints held her in place. With his right hand, he inserted one device into her eye, and she remembered where she had seen such an instrument before. Her eye doctor had used something similar to hold her lids open during her last visit.
Sandra bucked and cried out for help, but she could do little to prevent him from repeating the procedure with her left eye. Tears rolled down both her cheeks and clouded her vision, but she was unable to blink them away.
The man reached back toward the leather bag, and she caught the glint of something shiny in his hand.
“Please don’t do this. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“There’s no point in screaming. No one can hear you. I realize you’ll try anyway, but I would suggest that you use your last breaths for a more useful purpose.”
His hand moved toward her leg, and Sandra saw the scalpel. Her screams reverberated off the metal walls. A terrible pain sliced through her inner thigh. Then he leaned in close, and his eyes burrowed deep into hers.
“I’ve just made a deep diagonal incision through your femoral artery. It’s one of the primary paths of blood flow. You’ll be dead within a moment unless I seal the wound.”
Sobs racked her body. “Please, no. I—”
“I’ll stop the bleeding and release you if you answer my questions honestly.”
“Anything you want! Just let me go.”
“Okay, Sandra. Why are you happy?”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“We don’t have time, Sandra. You only have a moment before you die from blood loss. Tell me now. What is the key to your happiness?”
She was beginning to feel light-headed, her leg pulsing and gushing blood with each beat of her heart. The room spun, and a nauseous feeling snaked through her abdomen. Her mind fought for an answer. “I don’t know. I guess I just try to focus on the good things in life and see the best in people.”
He smiled. “That’s a good, simple answer. Thank you, Sandra. Maybe, after I take your soul, I’ll be able to do the same.”