Chapter 1
December 19, 2004
Six feet. A deadly distance. Especially when one man has a gun aimed at another. Close enough to take missing out of the equation. Far enough away that the target has slightly more than a zero percent chance of making a move, whether to disarm the assailant or duck and cover.
The guy I’d been hunting in the dusty and dimly lit warehouse found me first. I had taken a set of splintered wooden stairs to the catwalk that wrapped the interior edges of the building and cut across the center of the large rectangular room. I hustled up the steps, two at a time. The old wooden boards sagged and creaked and moaned, but held under my weight. The catwalk was stronger, sturdier. It didn’t move in response to me. No bouncing. No side-to-side sway. One foot fell in front of the other as I side-stepped along the catwalk. I let my feet hit the floor from the outside in, minimizing the noise. Still, the planks gave off a slight thump in response to my boots hitting the wood. I knew if I wasn’t careful, he’d hear me.
And he did.
Fortunately, I heard his footsteps, too. Unfortunately, I only heard them a second before he spoke.
“Stop,” he said. His accent was thick. South American. “Drop your gun.”
I froze and lifted my hands. The gun swung like a pendulum, upside down and with only my index finger holding it up by the trigger guard.
“Drop it,” he said.
I dipped my finger to the side and let the gun slide off and over the railing. It hit the floor with a thud, managing to not discharge a round. The cold handle of my backup piece rested reassuringly against my lower back, sending chills through me as the cold metal touched my sweaty skin.
“Now turn around,” he said.
I turned in a half-circle and got my first good look at the man I’d been chasing for the last twenty minutes. He stood approximately five foot nine. Weighed probably one-eighty. He wore a tan jacket and black knit cap. Sparse dark hair covered his cheeks and chin. His eyes matched his hair. He stood six feet away, a pistol held close to his chest and aimed at me. A distance of six feet increased his odds of being deadly accurate. A distance of six feet reduced my changes of effectively neutralizing him. Even at six-two, my reach wasn’t enough to land a blow.
“Who the hell are you?” he said.
“I’m the man who was sent to kill you,” I said.
“By who?”
“What?”
“Who’s your boss?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to write him a letter to recommend he fire you.”
I chuckled. The guy had a sense of humor, only the look on his face said he wasn’t joking.
“Why’s that?” I said.
“Because you failed this class, asshole.” He lifted the barrel of the gun and waved it back and forth, like a mother scolding her toddler.
“Only problem,” I said, “is this is only recess. Playtime for you.”
The man forced a laugh. “You’re the one following me, so you must have some idea who I am.”
“Not really.” And that was the truth. Frank Skinner and I had acted on a single piece of information that said a man fitting the guy’s description would be waiting at a bus stop.
“Well let me give you the abridged version,” he said. “I’m someone you shouldn’t be following. You should have done your homework first. Now it’s too late for you.”
I smiled. “First, enough with the school analogies. Second, it’s never too late for me.”
His eyes narrowed. He brought his left hand up and wiped his cheek with his palm. His eyes darted upward and mine followed along. Light shone through a tiny hole in the roof. Bright, but gray. Rain water dripped through the hole and spattered the man’s face. He cursed under his breath. He’d have to move and his next step would seal my fate.
The man didn’t move, though. Not immediately, at least. Two more drops hit him. Then a third. Finally, he cursed and took a step forward. Six feet had been reduced to five. Still out of my reach, but not by much. If I lunged forward, I could reach him in one step instead of two.
“Just give it up,” I said. “We’ve got the warehouse surrounded. You won’t make it out of here.”
“Then neither will you.” His eyes widened and he stuck his arm all the way out. Another mistake. His wrist flicked up and down, jerking the gun in and out of aim.
I saw my opportunity. The distance between me and the gun had been reduced by at least two-and-a-half feet. A full step and I’d have him by the wrist, neutralizing the immediate threat.
A crashing sound to my right startled both of us. I turned my head and saw a door to the outside open. Light flooded the ground floor of the warehouse. The silhouette of a man slipped through the opening and then disappeared into the shadows. I had lied when I said we had the building surrounded. There were only two of us, and I had left Frank behind a block away from the building. Either he had caught up, or the man hadn’t been alone, in which case it would be two against me.
“Freeze!” Frank’s voice echoed through the warehouse.
The man forgot about me and turned toward Frank. Bright muzzle blast exploded in front of me as he opened fire on Frank.
Frank didn’t return fire, hopefully in an effort to not wound me, and not because he’d been hit. I couldn’t worry about that, though. The man stood five feet away, his body turned and his arms outstretched over the steel railing.
I lunged forward, left arm out, right arm up. I closed the distance before the man could react. I wrapped my left hand around his throat from the side, letting my thumb slide just below his Adam’s Apple. He grunted against the pressure. At the same time I drove my right arm down, catching him on his wrist, which extended out a few feet over the railing. I twisted his arm and drove it down into the steel railing. Bone and steel met with a sickening crack. He screamed. His broken arm could no longer muster up the strength required to hold the sidearm, and he dropped it. It hit the floor below us with a clank.
“Frank?” I yelled.
No answer.
The man reached across his body with his left arm and punched at my face, his fist connecting with my nose. Although he didn’t have enough momentum to do any real damage, the blow managed to disrupt my grip on his neck. My eyes flooded with tears. I felt him break away from my grasp.
“My arm,” he said. “You bastard, you broke my damn arm.”
I heard the sound of a knife being pulled from a sheath. Blade against leather. I brought my palms to my eyes and wiped away the tears that blurred my vision. Once again, the man stood six feet away from me. His right arm pressed against his chest. In his left, he held a knife with a six inch blade. The light caught the stainless steel blade as he twirled it in his palm.
This time six feet didn’t matter. I didn’t have to contend with a bullet. In a fluid motion, I lunged forward and grabbed the railing on either side with both hands. Then I swung my legs forward while drawing my knees in. I drove the soles of my combat boots into his chest. He shrieked as they connected with his broken arm. The knife fell from his hand and bounced off the catwalk and fell to the concrete warehouse floor.
My momentum carried my body through, knocking the man down. He turned onto his stomach and began crawling away. His left arm scraped and scratched against the worn wooden planks.
“Jack,” Frank shouted from below.
I said nothing. Walked up behind the man. Stood over him. I reached down and wrapped my right arm around his neck. His pulse thumped hard against the crook of my arm. I reached around with my left arm and grabbed my right elbow and pulled back hard. The movement squeezed the man’s neck shut. I didn’t care whether he died from asphyxiation, a broken neck, or if his head popped off.
The man clawed at my forearm. He swung his hips side to side, but he was no match for me. Desperate attempts to breathe were cut off by the force I exerted against his trachea.
“Jack, let him go.”
I looked up and saw Fra
nk standing at the end of the catwalk.
“Come on, Jack,” he said. “We need this guy. He’s got info for us.”
“I don’t care,” I said as I squeezed tighter.
Frank approached with a hint of caution, perhaps thinking I’d snapped. He’d have been right if he thought it, too. “Let him go, Jack. Let’s get him to the office and question him. Then you can do whatever you want to him.”
The man’s knit cap had fallen off and his sweat soaked hair brushed against my face as his body went limp. I pulled back. Looked at Frank and then the man. Frank’s words filtered through the rage that kept me from thinking straight, and suddenly they made sense. I let go of the man. His body fell against the catwalk, limp and lifeless.
I reached over and grabbed the railing and pulled myself up. “Christ, I think I killed him.”
Frank tucked his gun and squatted down. He reached out and placed his hand on the man’s neck. After a few seconds, he said, “He’s got a pulse. Help me get him downstairs and into the car.”
“So that’s where you were,” I said. “Pulling the car around instead of chasing him in here with me.”
“You just took off, Jack. I lost you.” He looked up and I met his gaze with a smile.
“Just giving you a hard time.” I bent over and scooped my hands under the man’s shoulders. Lifted him up. Frank grabbed his legs and we carried him down the rickety stairs, which screamed in response to close to six hundred pounds of force pressing down on them.
Frank parked the car just outside the warehouse entrance, trunk to door.
“I’m gonna make sure it’s clear out there,” he said.
I nodded and leaned against the heavy steel framed door for support. The man started to come to. He coughed a few times and a deep, guttural groan emanated from his throat. I thought about rendering him unconscious again, but decided against it. A blow to the head might dampen his memory, and we needed to know everything that he knew.
Frank opened the back door on the driver’s side of his Lincoln and gestured for me to come out.
I backed out of the warehouse, dragging the guy with me. I looked to the left and to the right. The area was empty. I didn’t bother to stare into windows, though. If someone was watching us, so be it. We’d be gone by the time the cops came. And even if they caught up to us, there was little they could do. We were, for all intents and purposes, untouchable.
The rain had stopped and the sun peeked through the melting clouds. The light penetrated my eyes like shards of glass. Cold wind whipped around the sides of the building and met where we stood. It felt like getting pelted with iced over snowballs from both sides.
“Give me a hand,” I said.
Frank came closer and reached out for the man’s right arm in an effort to stabilize it. Together we slid him into the backseat and buckled him in. I handcuffed his left wrist to the metal post that connected the headrest to the passenger’s seat.
“Sit in back with him,” Frank said. “If he gets out of line,” he looked at the man and smiled, “well, you know what to do.”
I nodded, then walked around the back of the car and got in on the opposite side. I slid in next to the man and, for the first time, realized that he smelled like he hadn’t showered in a week.
“If you hadn’t been armed, I’d have thought you were a bum,” I said.
The man pursed his lips and spit. His saliva smattering the back of the seat in front of him as well as the center console next to Frank.
I drove my elbow into his solar plexus. He coughed an exhale as the air drained from his lungs. His body doubled over, chin to knees.
“Try it again,” I said.
He turned his head toward me. His face was deep red and the veins in his forehead stuck out like a snake swimming through water. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water as he tried to suck in air, but couldn’t.
“Keep him quiet,” Frank said.
I nodded. Looked at the man as he held his arm close to his chest. I said to Frank, “Go ahead and call the doc in to set and splint that arm.”