Abducted: A Jake Badger Mystery Thriller (14 page)

Chapter 27

Friday, Late Afternoon and Evening

We had dinner at 800 Degrees
Pizzeria in Westwood and were at Alex's office a little before six thirty. We
spent the next three hours going over more of my old FBI case files. We came up
with a few more names of people who might have been harboring a grudge against
me, but none I felt were capable of having taken Monica. Still, we needed to
check them out. No stone unturned.

Alex was making some notes to
himself and I was sitting there churning inside. I may have looked calm, but I
was on the verge of losing it. Five days!
my
mind
screamed. It had been five days since she was taken. Where was she? What had
they done to her? Was she injured? Was she in jeopardy? I felt like I was going
to blow apart.

Alex could see what it was
doing to me. “What say we go to the gym? Lift some weights, do a few rounds on
the heavy bag?”

I knew what he was trying to
do. I appreciated it, but I didn't say anything. I just looked at him.

“Jake,” he said, “if we knew
where to
look ...
” He spread his hands, palms up. “Come
on. It's been a long day.
A long week.
You need to
unwind. Let's go to the gym.”

I breathed out a lungful of
air and nodded. He led the way out of his office and I followed. We drove
separately so Alex wouldn't have to bring me back for my Jeep. I stopped by
Mildred's and picked up Wilson. I apologized for the lateness of the hour. She
was concerned about me and said I looked exhausted. I told her I was fine.

We stopped at my apartment to
drop off Wilson. I spent a few minutes with him before we left for the gym.

While we were lifting
weights, Alex said, “We're missing something. What are we missing?”

I finished the set I was
working on and sat up on the bench. “I don't know,” I said. “We've been through
all of Monica's files, including her cases as an MP. We've been through mine as
well. We've talked to a dozen people. I don't know what we're missing.”

“Maybe we need to put a tail
on Esposito and his people,” Alex said.

“Couldn't hurt,” I said. “How
many people can you spare?”

“Enough,” he said.

Alex took out his cell phone
and searched through his contacts list. He punched a number and I lay back down
on the bench and did a third set of ten with two hundred fifty pounds.

“Bill,” Alex said. “I want to
put people on Benito Esposito and his key people ... I don't know. Find out ...
As many as it takes ... Yeah.
Round the clock ... No, not
Monday morning.
Now ... No, I'll take care of that part of it... Yes.
And use only the best. I want this covert. I don't want Esposito to know he's
being watched ... Okay. Get back to me when you've got it set up ... No, I
don't care what time it is. Call me ... Yeah.”

He clicked off and seemed annoyed
with himself. “I should have done that four days ago.”

“Been a lot going on in the
past few days,” I said, sitting back up. “Don't beat yourself up over it. He's
under surveillance now. Maybe we'll learn something.
Maybe
not.
Even if he's the one who tried to hit us, it may not have anything
to do with Monica being taken. The two things may not be connected.”

He was trying to think but it
didn't look like it was going well.

I stood up. “Your turn,” I
said.

Alex took the weight down to
one fifty and lay down on the bench and cranked out ten reps. I was proud of
the progress he’d made over the years. When we’d met at the academy in Langley,
he couldn’t bench-press seventy-five pounds. Now he could pump out three sets
of ten with one fifty.

“We're still missing
something,” he said, sitting up. He was frowning as he shook his head. He lay back
down and did another set, and then sat back up and said, “A minute ago you said
we’d been through Monica's files, including her cases when she was an MP.”

“Yeah.”

“We haven't looked at any of
your stuff from when you were a marine.”

For a moment, I just looked
at him, trying to grasp his thinking. “You think it might have something to do
with my time in Afghanistan?”

“Is that beyond the realm of
possibility?”

I had to admit that it
wasn't. But I also knew there could be a lot of distance between possible and
probable.

“Is there a reason we
shouldn't consider it?” Alex said.

“Can't really come up with
one,” I said. “It's not like we've got a lot of other things to consider.”

We moved over to the next
machine, a seated butterfly chest machine. I set the weight at two fifty and
did a set of ten.

“Another thing we haven't
really thought about,” I said, “is how the person sending the notes seems to
know what we've been doing. How's he doing that?”

“I’ve given that some
thought,” Alex said.

“And?”

“And whoever it is, is a pro.
He knows what he's doing.”

“Yeah. That's the part that
bothers me the most. Could you do something like that? I’m not sure I could.
Whoever this guy is, he knows what he's doing and that makes him dangerous.”

“Okay,” Alex said. “So he
knows what he's doing. But we still don't how he's doing it.”

“A bug?”

“Maybe.
But
where?
He'd have to have bugs all over the place.”

“Maybe our phones are tapped,”
I said.

“I thought about that. But we
haven't used our phones a lot when discussing our strategy. Most of our
planning and discussions and have been in person.”

“We talk a lot while we’re
driving,” I said. “Maybe there's a bug in your car.”

“That might be it. I'll have
a tech guy go though it.”

“Have them check your
Navigator and my Jeep while they're at it,” I said, as I started another set of
ten.

When we finished with the
weights, we moved over to the boxing room that was off the side of the weight
room. There were two heavy bags, a couple of speed bags and a three quarter
size ring for sparring. We took turns on one of the heavy bags, working
different combinations. Alex worked on four different combinations that were
most useful in confrontations with violent suspects. I concentrated on
combinations that built strength and stamina in the right side of my chest. I
hit as hard as I could without damaging the muscles that were still healing.

We left the gym at eleven and
went back to my apartment. Just as we went in the front door, pausing to
acknowledge Wilson’s exuberant greeting, Alex's phone rang. He answered,
listened, and said, “Okay, Bill, thanks. Good job ... Yeah, see you Monday
morning.”

He looked at me. “Surveillance
is in place,” he said.

“I know that's an expensive
proposition. Thanks.”

“Hey, if the military can
spend hundreds of dollars for a hammer or a toilet seat, I can spend a few
thousand as part of a recovery effort of a high value kidnapping victim.”

“Thanks,” I said, again. “You're
a good friend.”

“I know. So, what's the plan
for tomorrow?”

“No idea,” I said. “Let's
sleep on it and see what we come up with in the morning.”

Chapter 28

Saturday Morning

Wilson and I were up early
for our morning run. The morning was cool and clear, and the park where we run
was deserted at six thirty. Given that two teams of shooters had already made a
run at Alex and me, or just at me and he happened to be there, I was wearing my
Kevlar and carrying my small Ruger .357. Good thing, too, because as Wilson and
I rounded a curve in the path, two Mexican men were waiting on the trail for
us, guns in hand.

“Go to the Jeep,” I said to
Wilson, and I dove into the bushes to my right and rolled toward a large tree
that stood several feet away from the trail. As I dove into the bushes, I heard
the gunfire. Slugs thudded into the ground around me. I knew Wilson would obey
and that he'd be okay. The shooters were after me, not my dog. I rolled up
behind the tree and retrieved my .357 from my fanny pack.

I peeked out from behind the
tree and saw that the shooters were splitting up to come at me from two
directions, hoping to get me in
a crossfire
. The guy
going left was more concerned with where he put his feet than with trying to
see where I was. I came out of my crouch from behind the tree in his direction
and fired twice before he could return fire.
Two in the
chest.
He was down and done. The other guy fired before I got back to
the cover of the tree. His shot came close. He crouched behind some bushes. I
couldn't see him clearly. He fired two shots into the tree, high and to the
left of where I was. I stepped out on the opposite side from where I'd been and
put two rounds into the bushes where his shots had come from. I heard a groan
and a gurgle. I circled around and came up on his position from his left. He
had dropped his weapon and was holding his stomach.

I kicked his weapon away and
knelt beside him. He rolled his eyes up and looked at me.

“Who sent you?”

“No
habla
Ingles.”

“Yes, you do. Now tell me,
who sent you?”

He just looked at me.

“Look, you were just shot in
the gut with a .357 hollow point. Unless I call 911 right away, you're going to
die a slow, painful death. Now who sent you?”

He shook his head.

“Okay, then here's the deal.
Tell me and I'll call 911. If you don't tell me, I'm going to put my thumb in
your eye and apply constant increasing pressure until your eyeball pops. Like
this.”

I put my thumb in his right
eye and began to push. After a few seconds, he began to cry out.

“Who sent you?”

I kept increasing the
pressure. He kept screaming.

Finally he said, “Okay. Okay.”

I pulled my thumb out of his
eye.

“Who sent you?”

“Esposito.”

I called 911. Then I called
Frank McGarry. He said he’d notify the local police that there was an agent on
the scene and then be on his way. There was no agent, but I appreciated his
willingness to protect me from over exuberant local cops.

I pulled off my tee shirt and
pressed it into my would-be assassin’s wound to slow the bleeding. He cringed
from the pain of the pressure. While I kept pressure on the wound, I called
Alex and explained what had happened. He asked if I needed him at the scene. I
told him no, Frank was on his way. Alex said he'd be waiting for me at his
office.

“What's your name?” I asked
the shooter.

“Henry,” he said between
ragged breaths.

“Henry, does Esposito have
Monica Nolan?”

“Don't know.”

“Other than Esposito himself,
who in his organization would know about what he's doing?”

“No one knows everything,” he
rasped. “He trusts no one.”

He was starting to fade. “Okay,”
I said, “just rest easy. Help will be here in a few minutes.”

Henry passed out just as the
local cops arrived. They approached cautiously. I identified myself. The
paramedics arrived and took over with Henry. They got him stabilized and into
the ambulance. The local cops began securing the scene. I explained about
Wilson and one of them walked with me to my Wrangler to get him. I knelt down
to greet him and let him inspect me to be sure I was okay.

It took Frank about thirty
minutes to get there. He brought Detective Branch with him. I explained what
had happened, including that Henry had told me that Esposito had sent them to kill
me. Frank had me give an official statement to Branch while he spoke with the
local police and the M.E., who had just arrived.

When Branch had what she
needed, she said, “Two shooters surprise you while you're jogging with your dog
and you get both of them. Pretty good.”

“Maybe they just weren't very
good at their job.”

She shook her head. “I've
been asking around about you. If what I hear is true, wouldn't have mattered
how good they were.”

“Nobody's that good,” I said.
“Don't believe everything you hear.”

She considered me
thoughtfully for a moment, nodded slightly and turned and walked away.

I was waiting by my Jeep when
Frank got back to me.

“So,” he said, “Esposito.”

“Esposito,” I said.

“If the shooter lives and
will talk to us, we’ve got him. If he won't or can't tell us what he told you,
Esposito gets a pass.”

He was waiting for me to
respond. I didn't.

“Give the system time to work,
Jake.”

“Sure,” I said. “But like you
said, it all depends on whether or not Henry lives, and if he does, whether or
not he'll tell you what he told me.”

Frank knelt down to give
Wilson a good scratch behind the ears. Wilson thanked him with a nice lick on
the side of his face. When Frank stood back up, he said, “You think he has
Monica?”

“Who am I talking to right
now?”

He took in a deep breath and
let it out. “A concerned friend,” he said.

“I don't know whether or not
he's got her. But I'm going to find out.”

He studied me for a moment. “Be
careful about how you do it. I'm only one guy and my influence only goes so
far.”

“I understand.”

As he started to leave, I
said, “You help me out a lot, Frank. I appreciate it.”

He put his hand on my shoulder
and said, “Go find Monica.”