Black Brick - Part Three Read online

  Shannon turned to look at me, catching me off guard. For most of the trip, she’d been doing her best to pretend I didn’t exist.

  By the expression on her face, I could tell what she was going to say next. I’d already been preparing for the conversation, if not the timing of it. Like the feeling I sometimes got just before vomiting, I knew that the moment had come.

  “Jake, we're through.”

  “I figured.” It still felt like a double punch to the gut.

  “This doesn't have anything to do with what happened to me. I was planning to end it anyway before all this happened. Besides, it’s not like there really is much to end. We had several nights together, that's all.” Shannon looked away and her face went pale.

  “You suck at timing,” I said. I didn’t like the way she characterized our relationship, it had been much more than just a few nights.

  “I make no apology.”

  I looked away. Even though I'd been expecting this, the moment took on a surreal effect. Shannon was breaking up with me in a situation where we might end up depending on each other for our lives.

  “Let's talk about this later,” I said.

  “We won't. I'm going to tell Beltran about our relationship and request a new partner.”

  “You don't think he already knows?”

  “Did you tell him?”

  I shook my head. “I kind of wonder if Beltran wasn't trying to get us to fall for each other. Almost everything he has done pushed us towards one another. It hasn't only worked on us.”

  Shannon snorted, her whole body tensed. “Are you saying we should stay together because Beltran wants us to be together?”

  “No, I accept the break up. What I'm pointing out is—”

  “It's clear that you haven't accepted anything.”

  “Things are complicated.”

  “Only because you choose to make them that way.”

  I shut up. I couldn't help but feel like one of the final things that had been keeping me from leaving this job had dropped away. I should have been angry, but I wasn’t. I was relieved. Once Martinez and Payne were neutralized and I’d done my part to clean up this mess, I’d quit. It wouldn’t matter then whether I worked for the government or not.

  “There he is,” Cherry's voice crackled over the radio. “He really wants to be found, doesn't he?”

  I was shocked to see Martinez out in the open. He was pushing Lane Vargo in front of him with a pistol to Vargo’s head. If this didn’t have “Come find me” written all over it, I don’t know what did. I couldn't decide if Martinez was being arrogant or if he really did have a death wish.

  Martinez had appeared out of nowhere and was heading towards the street where we were parked. There must have been an exit somewhere nearby to allow him to escape the security guards. The closest landmark to Martinez was a small building by the grizzly bear exhibit. I was surprised that the Diggon security team hadn’t locked it down as well.

  Even though he moved as if he had all the time in the world, it wouldn’t be long before the Diggon security team picked up on this. I looked at the security team members outside the building. None of them appeared to be looking our way at the moment, but I wasn’t about to pull out binoculars to get a better look. I didn’t want to do anything that would call attention to us. It would look bad if we were discovered with the rifle I had on my lap.

  Vargo was wearing a suit with a bright red tie and was bleeding from the side of his head. It was the first I’d seen of him since the night we’d been tasked with giving him protection at the restaurant. Since that time, I’d made a regular habit of reviewing the logs our surveillance team had been making, but there had never been another indication of anything tying him to Jason Kurt, Payne, or even Martinez.

  I was uncertain about what to do and could tell that Shannon was having the same dilemma. Martinez was likely to be noticed at any moment and we didn't want to get caught in the middle.

  If he was able to get Vargo away, we could follow him until we knew where he was taking Vargo. After the botched attempt that we had the other day during the high speed chase, I wasn't too keen to try the same sort of thing again.

  “Here's your chance,” I said to Shannon, nodding my head towards the rifle hidden underneath my jacket. “You should be able to make that shot without hurting Vargo.”

  “A bullet to the head is too easy,” Shannon said, not making a move towards the rifle. “After Beltran gets what he wants...” She didn’t finish her thought.

  “Torturing him won't bring you peace,” I said as I thought of bringing up the rifle and looking through the scope at Martinez. He was a heartbeat away. The image of Shannon going to town on Martinez surfaced in my mind and I couldn't shake it. That wouldn’t be good for her. “I could do this for you.”

  “Martinez’s finger is on the trigger. You’ll kill Vargo too. Honestly, do I have to do all the thinking for you?” Her voice was cold.

  “If I'm not at the top of my game,” I said, “tell that to my ex. She picked a great time to dump me.”

  “Sure,” Shannon muttered, “throw that in my face.”

  We sat in silence watching Martinez walk forward. He was taking his time. What was his game? Did he want Diggon security to find him?

  “Smile,” Cherry said over the radio. “We're on camera.” Whatever thought I might have had of intervening disappeared when I looked up and saw a helicopter with Channel 9 blazoned across the side. Martinez must have tipped off the media. His actions were beginning to make more sense.

  The police wouldn’t be far behind. We'd been lucky so far that none of our recent shenanigans had ended up on a video posted to the internet, and I didn't want to press our luck. The best the police had of us from the other day were a few blurry photographs and sketches that could have been anybody.

  Several armed men approached Martinez and based on his reaction, I could tell they were with him. They escorted Martinez and Vargo to a suburban waiting on the street just ahead of where Cherry and Tom’s Charger was parked.

  The bird had showed up just in time to record footage of Martinez loading Vargo into their vehicle and driving off. Several of his men moved toward a different car, I couldn’t tell the make or model from my vantage point.

  Shannon started our car.

  “We should let them go,” I said. “We don’t want to be on TV.”

  Shannon didn’t respond as she put the car in gear and moved forward. Martinez’s men retrieved rifles from their car. At first, I thought they were going to target us but they began firing at the Diggon security force.

  I had to double check to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. Martinez had managed to escape with Vargo right under their nose and now he was going to call attention to what he’d done? He must want a media circus.

  Cherry and Tom were in front of us and the suburban was several cars ahead of them.

  I picked up the radio and was about to coordinate a strategy for following Martinez that would keep us from getting noticed when the back doors of the suburban opened and men began firing our way.

  I couldn’t tell if they'd been lashed to the inside of the vehicle to keep from falling out, but something had to be keeping them on their feet. Unfortunately, the height advantage of their vehicle gave them the ability to target us even though we weren't directly behind them.

  Flashes from their gunfire illuminated the inside of their vehicle as bullets riddled Cherry and Tom's car as well. Grabbing my pistol, I rolled down my window and opened fire, taking care to brace myself. I hated shooting from a moving vehicle.

  “Watch out,” Shannon screamed. I pulled back into the car as Shannon shot past Cherry and Tom.

  What was she doing? We needed to fallback or we were going to be ripped into shreds. More bullets ripped through our windshield and shards of safety glass went flying into my face.

  I heaved a sigh of relief a few seconds later as we slid to a halt. Our engine was smoking and I was uncertain if she braked or
the car had stopped working. I emptied my magazine into the disappearing suburban but it didn’t slow them down. Switching to my rifle, I sprung out of the car and brought it up. My shots went wild and they soon took a corner and were gone.

  I stood as Shannon stumbled out of the car.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  She didn't appear to hear me so I touched her lightly on the shoulder. Shannon turned, pistol aimed at me.

  “Don't touch me.”

  I stepped back. “You okay?” There was some bruising on her face that hadn’t been there before.

  “Don't ever touch me again.”

  “I won't.”

  Shannon lowered the pistol but her anger didn't fade.

  A Charger lurched to a stop and Cherry spoke through a broken window. “Need a lift?”

  I was surprised that their car was still moving; the windshield was cracked in half a dozen places. How were they both still alive? Between our car and theirs, at least one of us should have been hit. I didn’t have time to think it through now, but I became suspicious. Had Martinez been trying to avoid harming us?

  “Trouble,” Shannon said at the same time the helicopter stopped to hover above us.

  That was when the car died. Cherry turned the ignition, but it wouldn’t turn over. By the looks of things, it would never move again.

  I avoided looking up at the chopper, hoping that they weren’t going to be able to catch my face on camera. We’d be running separate directions now. Hopefully, it would chase after Martinez and leave us alone.

  Before any of us had a chance to make a break for it, a black suburban pulled up and Beltran rolled down the window of the passenger side.

  “In flames as usual,” Beltran yelled. “Get in.”

  We all piled in to the vehicle. Dolores was behind the wheel. Her knuckles were turning white from gripping the steering wheel too hard and her face was contorted. She was screaming for us to hurry. Once the doors were shut, she slammed on the gas and took off.

  A few minutes later, when we’d determined that the news crew in the helicopter wasn’t following us, there was a collective sigh of relief. Dolores looked more relieved than the rest of us.

  “Was this another test?” I asked, barely able to hide the shaking in my voice. It was all I could do at the moment to keep from yelling. A thought had occurred to me. An explanation for why Martinez’s men had been taking special care to ensure we didn’t get hurt in the firefight. What if this was the final test? Martinez could still be working for Beltran and everything he’d been doing could have been for that purpose.

  Whether he caught my deeper meaning or not, Beltran didn’t answer my question. Perhaps he’d picked up on the venom I’d been hoping to hide.

  “No more excuses,” Beltran said from up front. “Martinez has probably escaped Diggon and the police by now, but I think we’ve found his base of operation.” He looked back at the four of us. “We’re going in after him. Can we try to not mess this one up?”

  “Maybe we’d be doing a better job,” Cherry snapped, “if you told us what was going on more often.”

  “Are we going to have back up from the other agencies?” Tom asked. The other Black Brick teams were out of the city on assignment which was probably the reason why Dolores had been recruited for field work.

  I watched Beltran closely for his reaction. He’d always talked about how he was coordinating our activities with the FBI or local law enforcement, but I’d never seen anything firsthand to indicate such things ever happened.

  “No. Martinez is our problem. We'll take care of him ourselves.” For a brief second, a look of annoyance had crossed Beltran’s face and I saw him looking from Tom to Cherry to me. I couldn’t tell if he was suspicious that we were asking questions that could blow the lid off a dangerous secret or if he was just getting tired of us constantly challenging his authority. Whatever it was, it was gone as quick as it came. There weren’t any other cracks in that cold hard demeanor of his.

  Chapter 8

  Half an hour later, Shannon and I were walking towards a downtown hotel that was next to Martinez’s location. We were going to provide backup while Beltran went in after him. Because of the gravity of our mission and the fact that all the other teams were out on assignment, Beltran had recruited several Black Brick analysts to accompany them as well.

  I wondered if Cherry and Tom were with Beltran, or providing backup somewhere else, Beltran hadn't been clear on what their role was going to be and I hadn’t thought to ask until it was too late.

  Beltran seemed to think that having four analysts at his back made up for their collective lack of experience and training.

  The analysts knew how to work their guns and occasionally went into the field, but they weren’t ideal companions for a mission like this. If we really did have connections to local police, the FBI, or any other government organizations, wouldn’t Beltran have preferred to have their personnel on hand rather than barely trained analysts who might freeze when the gunfire starts?

  As I thought about the past couple of weeks, other inconsistencies began to jump out at me. Beltran had never been able to get us the police file for Bruce Andrews’ murder. Other times, he’d had no problem getting useful information from police. Was that just because he had contacts in some precincts but not others?

  Shannon walked slightly ahead of me, pulling her luggage with one hand. The setting sun cast her face into shadow.

  Since I was going to quit soon anyway, I decided to take a risk and open up to her. She could be quite levelheaded when the occasion called for it and I needed to bounce some of my questions off somebody else or I was going to go crazy. Speaking quietly, I floated by her my theory that Martinez’s defection had been intentionally planned as part of our final test.

  “You’re an idiot,” Shannon said, but I could tell there was something she wasn’t saying. There had been a hesitation on her part as she considered my theory, but whatever it had been, it was gone now, buried behind those blue eyes that I was afraid would haunt me for the rest of my life if I didn’t get her back.

  Shannon jabbed at me with her free hand. An effort to cover her own misgivings?

  “There are too many other questions,” I said. My luggage didn’t have wheels and I nearly dropped it while dodging her punch. It hadn’t been playful and would have hurt. Shannon grimaced at missing but didn’t try again. “Both Beltran and Peck refuse to provide us with adequate assurance that we're working for the government. Their callous disregard for civilians is worrisome.”

  “Says the man that has killed more than everybody else combined. Be quiet, people might overhear you.” Shannon nodded politely at the door attendant a few moments later when we entered the hotel.

  If we weren’t working for the government, who did we work for? A competitor of Diggon? Had everything we’d been doing been about business? If that turned out to be true, I’d feel like a fool indeed.

  Even though our missions had usually involved spying on or stealing information from various corporations, I couldn't be certain that the endgame was entirely about money.

  There could just as easily be a political side to all of this, but it would require serious research to make any connections because Diggon donated to numerous political candidates on both sides.

  I walked around the lobby of the hotel and pretended to be interested in the news playing on a television hanging from the wall while I waited for Shannon at the front desk. If I could only get her to engage with me in a discussion about this, perhaps we’d be able to figure out what was really going on.

  Even though it was the first time she’d dumped me, it wasn’t my first experience with her suddenly becoming sullen and withdrawn. I’d originally become aware of this habit of hers back when our training had started and we'd been assigned to the same group with about twenty or so other kids. While there, we were tested and given lessons.

  I nearly tripped.

  I hadn't thought about those other kids
in a long time. We’d been told that the other kids had failed and been sent home.

  And I had swallowed the lie. The kids had all been like us, orphans. There wasn’t a home for them to go to.

  How many more of us were there?

  I’d been staring through Shannon; she looked my way and frowned.

  “It's over,” Shannon said a few minutes later once she’d obtained our room key. “If I catch you looking at me like that again...” She left the thought unfinished.

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  Shannon headed to the elevator, leaving me to catch up.

  “Peck talked to me again,” she said once the elevator doors had shut and we were alone. “He told me what happened to you as a kid. I almost cried. No wonder you are messed up. Peck said that something like that could leave a man with hidden weaknesses that raise their ugly head under high stress.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. I considered bringing up my suspicions that Peck may have somehow been tied to the death of my parents, but I stopped myself. I’d already proven that she wasn’t ready to question the intentions of Peck or Beltran. The elevator door opened so I remained quiet while we found our room.

  “Weaknesses?” I asked once we got to our room a few minutes later. “Like my desire to protect innocent people or the fact I want more of an explanation about why you’re breaking up with me?”

  Shannon opened up her suitcase and began assembling her rifle, a scoped Springfield M1A with an adjustable aftermarket stock. I did the same.

  “I did care for you,” Shannon admitted. “I wasn't using you.” That was more like it. Perhaps she was finally coming around.

  “What changed?”

  “It’s hard to say.” Shannon snapped her scope into place and she tightened it down.

  “So you still care for me?”

  “No.” Her voice betrayed the lie. “I can’t be with somebody like you.” I wanted to reach for her but she seemed to anticipate my desires because she picked up her rifle.

  I turned away and finished assembling mine.

  When I was done, I set it on the bed and went to the balcony. Night had set in but most of the lights were on in the office building across from us. I wondered how Beltran knew that Martinez would be located in this building, let alone on this side of it.