Chapter 11
“What do you want from me?”
“Dag’s location.”
Dane told him. “Dag and some gang members are staying in a previously vacant home in a remote area near Gay Head Beach.”
Wilton smiled. “Now I want you to pay him a visit.”
He took out his phone and ordered his audio-visual man inside.
“You have an AV guy?”
“We’re not bush league.” He let the implication dangle. Dane didn’t bite.
He didn’t care what Wilton thought of Dane’s operation, in fact it was better that the ATF underestimated him. But he saw Jake’s chin move with an offended jolt upward. Dane caught Jake’s eye before he said anything and shook his head.
It took less than ten minutes for the ATF audio-visual expert to wire him up, probably because there were no wires involved. A simple small earbud served as a receiver and mic and after a few tests and adjustments were made, he was ready to go.
“No video?”
“I’ll put the video on him.” The AV man nodded toward Jake, who was still being held tightly by Wilton as if he were a frisky dog.
“Hedging your bets.” Dane tested the on-off control in the small round magnetized button attached to the side of his watch. “I’m moving this.” He pulled it off and attached it to the snap on the front of his jeans.
“Whatever,” The AV man said.
Wilton said, “If it were up to me, you wouldn’t have those switches at all. Agency policy.” The man nodded his head ever so slightly in the direction of his more reasonable sidekick, Simpson. Dane could see the withheld eye-roll in the twitch in Simpson’s face. He made a mental note.
When the AV man was finished outfitting them, Dane and Jake stepped out of the surveillance van in time to see the Mongols gang members being driven off by plainclothes ATF agents in their plainclothes car.
“You know where you’re going?” Wilton asked.
Dane didn’t show his annoyance, but he couldn’t help making a pointed comment.
“I’ve lived on the island long enough to become familiar.”
“Stay on script.” The man eyed Dane and then nodded at Jake. “Jake’s career could depend on it.”
Jake made a move and Dane snapped an arm out to hold him in place. Jake didn’t get riled up about a lot, but unwarranted threats by fellow law enforcement seemed to be one of the rare instigations his surfer boy’s Zen mindset couldn’t accommodate.
“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll provoke Dag. He’ll do something stupid. You’ll swoop in and arrest him.”
“Don’t forget the part where you get him to confess to at least one murder.”
“Sure. No problem.”
Jake gave him a microlift of one brow and then he grinned.
Dane was glad his friend got his Zen back.
He’d be more effective that way. They both needed to be professional and cool in spite of the pull to go back to their teenage selves and feel all the angst and excitement of those moments long ago, all the roaring anger and outrage and out-of-control hormones.
He put a lid on the past and put it away. The zip of adrenaline every time the snap backwards took him away would undermine him now if he let it.
To beat Dag, they’d need to out-cool him as well as outthink him.
Dane was confident he was more under control than the psycho Dagmar Hunt, but the man was dangerously canny.
He knew where the otherwise invisible buttons were for Dane and Jake and knew how to push them. He knew their teenage selves.
Dane and Jake took his Jag.
“To hell with the job,” Jake said under his breath. “I’m with you.” He slammed the passenger side door.
“Bold words from a career police chief with a family and a pension at stake.”
Jake gave him the finger.
“I sure hope your AV gadget is turned off.”
Jake gave him the finger with both hands and Dane grinned.
“I like your attitude.”
“You sure you don’t want me to drive—like old times?” Jake said.
“You just want a chance behind the wheel of the Jag.”
Jake banged on the dashboard.
“Damn right. I’m dubbing this sleek beast the James Bond special.”
Dane laughed on a surge of pre-operation adrenaline, a familiar feeling and exactly where he needed to be. He turned the ignition, bringing the big cat’s engine purring to life.
It felt funny driving the Jag instead of the Jeep. Shana had taken the Jeep. He’d been surprised. But then she always surprised him, every day like the incoming tide. Relentless and always varying and new and strong.
It took less than fifteen minutes to drive to the remote area near Gay Head beach where the biker had told him to find Dag. Dane knew the property. It was a large contemporary home well off the road with a long drive and surrounded by open field and beach. Not an easy approach.
He parked the car before the bend in the road that he knew would bring the house into view.
“I’m afraid we’ll need to go in through the beach grass from here, stay low. Might get dirty.”
“As long as there are no snakes, I’m game.” Jake moved to open his door.
“Hold on. I want to try checking in with Sam one more time.” Dane pulled out his phone.
“Don’t bother.” Jake was looking in the rearview.
Dane turned and saw Sam walking low along the road, his hand on his gun in a deep pocket in his pants leg on his side facing the grass.
Within ten seconds, Sam opened the back door and slid inside.
“You out for a drive and get lucky or what?”
“Or what,” Dane said.
Sam nodded.
“You have a bead on the target?”
He nodded again.
“Take us to him.”
After checking for cars, they all got out. Dane and Jake followed Sam to his lookout spot in a tall thick stand of beach grass just outside the low picket fence that edged the property. They were as close to the back door as they could get and still have eyes on the front door.
“Ideal spot,” Jake said.
Sam grunted. It was what he did best, Dane knew from his experience working with the man in tougher locations than this. By far tougher. This was heaven compared to the hellish places they’d seen together. The last place had been Haiti, fresh off a disaster.
Sam had taken steps to be unrecognizable which was tough because Dag knew Sam and knew his voice. It was a close call whether Dag would know him.
“That was long ago, Sam. Back when you used to laugh more.”
Dane hadn’t seen Sam smile much since he’d gotten out of juvie and re-entered high school.
Sam never talked about the experience but said he owed it to Dane that he’d turned himself around.
He’d been a smart smart-mouth with quick wit and a life-of-the-party personality when he’d been with Dag’s high school gang.
Dane remembered liking him in spite of everything.
He’d seemed more of a mouthpiece than a guy who got his hands dirty.
“Seems I used up all my laughing on all the wrong things.”
Dane had the distinct feeling that Sam had been punishing himself for all the sins of his teen years.
There was no question that Sam had been involved in some bad stuff.
Dane knew of one incident for sure—the one he’d helped get Sam caught for, the one Sam went to jail for.
It was no joke, no youthful prank, no harmless nuisance.
It had been a nasty, stomach-turning incident that had ruined lives.
Dane was sure it was the reason Jake had never completely trusted Sam.
It was also the reason Sam never stopped trying to redeem himself with Dane, And why Sam never forgave himself and put himself in the kinds of danger that he would never ask, expect or want others to do. Especially not Dane.
When they’d served in the special ops unit together, Sam had volunteered for more than one suicide mission ahead of Dane, and once in place of Dane. But only once.
Once he found out, Dane had a long talk with Sam and threatened him if he ever did it again. He made Sam understand that it was disrespectful. It turned out that the last thing Sam wanted to do was disrespect Dane.
How Dane had become Sam’s idol somewhere along the way was a point of discomfort to Dane, but he’d accepted it. As he watched Sam grow and perform and mature and gain confidence, their relationship eased and normalized.
By the time their stint in special ops ended, Sam had ended up with more of a sense of worth and when he went into the soldier-for-hire business he did it right.
He was highly ethical and highly skilled and highly sought after.
Sam freelanced in the business now but he hadn’t stayed in it for the money.
Sam and Dane had started out together working for a world-wide security conglomerate before Dane joined the SWAT team in Chicago and then became an undercover detective there. Sam continued as a mercenary and was the one Dane had called when he left Chicago to go back on the road.
“I’m not surprised you took up the soft life,” Sam said.
Dane grinned when he saw the small lift in the corner of Sam’s mouth and the dimple on the right side of his face appeared.
He remembered that dimple from his boyhood and a flash of Sam’s youthful self came into Dane’s mind, but not with dread or fear or distaste. With gladness.
“No such thing as soft when you have enemies.”
“And you have a boatload of them.” Jake said on a heavy breath.
Sam raised his binoculars.
“What do you see?”
“Four bikes. Shades drawn”
“I like the odds. Let’s go in low. You two take the back and I’ll go in front.”
“Isn’t that risky? Won’t they have someone watching the exits?” Jake’s lack of military experience, and more importantly special ops experience, was showing.
“If they do, we sneak up on them and take them out.”
“And by take them out—”
“I mean hit them on the head,” Dane said. He crawled forward in the grass and for a flash thought this must be the kind of thing his Dad had done in Nam. Crawled in wet grass and mud. Most of Dane’s experience had been in rocky, mountainous regions and sandy deserts. Haiti had been mostly urban.
Jake followed suit and Sam went ahead. Dane signaled for Jake to follow Sam when he split off toward the rear of the house. Thank the lord there were no dogs. It was an advantage to have them outside of their usual environment.
It was slow going, but when Dane checked his watch he noted it had taken him less than five minutes to belly crawl to the side of the house.
He stood and leaned against the wall out of the line of sight of any windows and shimmied toward the front.
He checked back with Sam and Jake. Sam gave the nod and disappeared around the corner.
Dane heard no shots fired and figured that was a good thing.
Once he reached the edge of the house, he ducked down and took a peek around the corner.
Damn. A leather-jacketed man sat on a rocking chair on the front porch.
After a tick of consideration, he decided to get the man out of his chair and hit him from behind.
Looking around for a rock, he found one the size of a golf ball and wound up to throw it like a baseball into the woods beyond the driveway.
It was a good distance away and it had been a long time since Dane had had occasion to throw.
Taking a deep breath, he heaved it, aiming for the brush to cause a stir. It worked. He ducked back down and watched the man look up and then stand. He picked up what looked like a long rifle and walked off the porch.
With practiced stealth, Dane quickstepped behind the man and, as he reached him, the man turned. But Dane was quick and whacked him on the side of the head with his Glock before the man had a chance to shout a warning. Or to hit Dane first.
He left the man where he fell and ran up the steps and entered the front door.
As he reached for the handle, the door opened and he stood face-to-face with Dagmar Hunt.