The Shack: An Implacable Man

"Any more of them.?"

"Just the two of them."

He keyed his mike and called it in, looking over the bodies.

He glanced over at Delaney. "Aw hell, you're letting Little Miss Mayhem play with guns now?"

Delaney looked startled and hastily placed Stein's gun on Sally's hood. I cut in before she could say anything. "That's Stein's piece. We weren't sure it was you coming up the road. Been a long fucking evening."

He nodded, pacing the scene and eyeballing angles. "Leave it to you two to end up in two unrelated firefights in one damn evening."

The Sheriff looked over the shotgun pattern on Stein's man, then over at Sheree's shotgun. "You okay?"

She met his look with a steady stare. "They went after my baby and my man. I'd do it again tomorrow. And the day after. As many times as it takes."

"Good call. We'll put that in your statement. Should stop any questions right there. Stein was an 'armed and dangerous,' so this should pretty much be a walkover. I'll have to collect your guns, though."

I pulled the Kimber out and put it on the hood. "Never fired mine, had to use one of theirs."

"Still have to check." He chuckled. "Is this 1911 going to come up hot on a ballistics check?"

"Shouldn't. It's practically brand new. I haven't shot hardly anyone with it yet."

"With all this shit going on, I don't really want to leave you unarmed. You need to borrow a piece?"

"I've got another. And a spare shotgun."

"Jesus, Les, how many do you have?"

"As many as I need."

Sheree put the shotgun on Sally's hood. "If you two are going to stand around jawin', I'm gonna go on in an' get dressed." She looked at Delaney. "You should probably go get cleaned up."

With that, the two of them marched into the cabin, Sheree acting for all the world as if being caught out in a T-shirt and underwear was perfectly respectable.

"You're a lucky man, Needles."

"Wouldn't trade them for anything."

"I talked to Mooky, and he can't lie for shit, so I know he told the truth when he said he had a run in with those two over a package his cousin sent. That means that shit earlier had nothing to do with you two."

"We were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Right place, right time or I'd have been out a deputy and Mooky'd have burned to death. But I have to ask what the hell were you doing there in the first place?"

"We were going to thank Mooky for calling in the goon taking pictures of Delaney at the yard and ask if he'd seen anything else."

"I don't know if that's connected with Stein or a random perv. Could even just have been an amateur photographer with no sense." The Sheriff held his hands up helplessly.

"The way things have been running lately, I doubt it. Maybe a spotter for Stein."

He rubbed his chin. "Be careful, there may be more out there. You sure this is connected with the attack on your ex-wife?"

"The timing alone is pretty convincing..." I paused, thinking. "Stein's gun looks like a Smith and Wesson M&P 9; I heard a rumor that Charlotte was shot with a nine-millimeter. You might want to see if someone wants to check the ballistics on Stein's gun, here."

"He seemed awful interested in Delaney."

I didn't want to share everything Charlotte had said; I was pretty sure she would try to throw me under the bus for what I'd done to protect Delaney at the first opportunity if she could get away with it. She had no proof, but it could still make my life difficult.

I could make sure he had a clue just in case. "He really seemed interested in just who Delaney's biological father might be."

"Not, I take it, the late, unlamented Senator?" The Sheriff raised an eyebrow sardonically.

"Apparently not."

He rubbed his chin. "I can write it so he comes off as an obsessed pervert using his office to try to kidnap a 14 year old girl. That shit happens, and the State will find it convenient to be quiet about the whole thing as long I don't make it blatant. Maybe insinuate that he ran across her when he was investigating the attack on your ex."

"Hell, that may be the truth, anyway. And if he was working for someone, for some other reason, they wouldn't know we're on to them."

"Yeah, that mysterious 'fake warrant' shit still bothers me."

"Me too..." I saw a parade of lights headed up the road and the sound of distant sirens began drifting up towards us. "Looks like your crew is here."

Delaney stepped out of the front door. "I'm pulling half a sheet of plywood out of the workshop and putting it up over the window until I can fix it." She headed over to the little outbuilding.

The Sheriff gave a slight smile and I watched approvingly. "She's appointed herself caretaker of the cabin. She loves the fact that somebody built every piece by hand for their family. Any time a repair has to be made, she insists on doing it, and she tries to do it with hand tools."

He watched her more drag the half sheet out of the shed. "I get the impression there wasn't a whole lot of 'give a damn' in her life until you an' Sheree walked into it."

"Charlotte treated her like a total failure, like she was too stupid to do anything right. Kind of isolated her."

"Yeah, I kinda picked up on that. Your ex struck me a stone cold bitch. You know, you keep a dog alone on a chain, he gets nasty with anyone who comes near. Needs to relearn that not everyone is an enemy." He glanced at the approaching lights. "The deputies will take your statement." He stood up and called over to Delaney. "You want a hand with that?"

***

We were late getting out of bed the next morning. We'd been up late filling out witness statements and watching crime scene techs. For all my concerns about Sheree having to pull the trigger on Stein's man, she slept soundly, cuddled up tight to me with a smile on her face. Of course, she'd declared it Movie Night, so she was sandwiched between me and Delaney on the couch, and maybe that made it easier.

Delaney and I headed up to the salvage yard the next morning. The Sheriff was already waiting for us. Delaney waved to him and went on in to the trailer to do her schoolwork.

He offered me a cup of coffee from the Quickmart. "Just giving you a head's up; the State is already shying away from investigating Stein. His office doesn't want to deal with the possibility of a wannabe child molester, so they're all for ignoring motivation and calling it self-defense. There's no ID on the other guy, nothing real anyway. Everything on him looks to be fake. We're running fingerprints. We get anything I'll let you know."

"That's not suspicious at all, is it?"

"Could've been a pro."

"He moved well, like a cop or maybe military. He'd been shot at a few times, just had bad luck."

"Shotguns'll do that." He looked at me. "How's Sheree dealing with it?"

"Slept like a baby."

"Good to hear." He pulled out his notebook. "Speaking of fake IDs, one wallet survived the fire at Mooky's. We'll need dental to ID either of them, but I suspect we won't get anything. The IDs in the wallet were well-done fakes. A Mississipi driver's license, but the number doesn't exist. A few cash cards loaded to the max. Nothing personal in the wallet, nothing that ties to anything useful. Vehicle was a rental in the same fake name. The coroner thinks the dental work on both corpses looks European. Different composites and filling materials than we use here."

"Pros going after Mooky. They looked like it."

"Doesn't make any sense does it?"

"Unless whatever he got from his cousin was really valuable to someone."

"It's gone now, burned in the fire."

I thought about it for a second. "Make sure that anyone who asks knows that. "

He nodded. "Yeah, I made a point of it in the official reports. 'Package, unopened, contents unknown, destroyed in fire'."

"It might help."

"Can't hurt. Whatever Mooky thinks, this can't be about weed. Not with pros involved." He shook his head. "And none of this links with Gold Shield Security as far as I can tell, so watch your back."

"We will, just watch yours, too."

*****

I dialed the phone and waited. "K2 Executive Services. How may I assist you?"

"This is Lester Dawes. I need to speak with Kurt or Katie."

"Hold one, please."

A minute later another voice came on. "Needles?"

"Kim? I was trying to reach Kurt."

"Dad's out of the country, but you're on our short list if you need help."

"Just some information. I'm putting you on speaker phone on our end."

"Okay."

As soon as Delaney heard Kim's voice she sat upright. "Hey, Kimmi!"

"Thugbunny? How's my favorite crash test dummy?"

"Miss me, don'cha?"

"Let's see, the latest six week driver course just graduated and all together they managed to only roll half the number of cars in their entire course that you did in your first week."

"Chickenshits. No balls at all." Delaney's grin widened as she singsonged that last bit.

"That's kind of what Dad said. He said you have a standing job offer when you turn twenty-one."

Delaney grinned maniacally. "Think of all the paperwork you'll get to do!"

"The insurance premiums will sure as hell go up." Kim paused for a second. "Mackenzie asked if maybe there was a chance for another summer camp next year. Dad and Mom thought it sounded like fun. Driving, but some other stuff, too. Maybe four weeks if you're interested."

Delaney stiffened like she'd been hit with a shock and stared at me, nodding frantically and silently pleading. I glanced at Sheree and got a smile. I gave a single nod to Delaney and she let out a loud whoop. "Hell yeah!"

Kim laughed. "I figured. We'll let you know when and what to bring."

After a few more minutes of banter, Kim finally asked me what I needed.

"Information on an outfit called Gold Shield Security. We crossed paths with one of their guys."

"Crossed paths?"

"Fucker was watching Delaney."

"You catch him?"

"No, the cops did. Had to let him go."

She paused and I could hear a keyboard clicking away. "Small outfit, not in our league. Usually does VIP security for rap stars and celebs. Typical 'bigger is better' musclebound goons, not real talent. Rumor has it they provide 'extra services.' Leg-breaking, occasionally murder. Some of their members were implicated in a series of drive by shootings in that East Coast-West Coast rap feud. No convictions. Let me check contracts."

A minute later she began running down a list of contracts they knew about. Pretty much a list of low level celebs with a bit of singing talent or some sex tapes. Until she got to one name.

"Wait. Go back one."

"Jason Bradley Calloway, Esquire. He does extreme sports. High altitude mountain boarding, rally racing, BASE jumping, motocross, ice climbing."

"Last I looked, he's a lawyer."

She tapped away for a second. "That, too, but he doesn't spend much time at it from what I can see. He's kind of a rising star in extreme sports."

"Nice work if you can get it. You know where he lives?"

Kim paused for a second. "Look, I'll send you a standard target package on him, no charge. If he's stalking Delaney, there's a reason, and it's probably not a good one."

Sheree raised an eyebrow and mouthed "Target package?" at me.

"We'll take it."

"Standard protocols, send me an email with your PGP key."

I started to ask what the hell she was talking about, but Delaney cut in. "Can you just use the email and key we set up at 'summer camp'? I've only ever used it to email Tess and Mac anyway."

Kim paused. "Yes. I still have it. Good idea. I'll send you a test message and send the package in a day or two."

Delaney straightened up smugly. "See? I paid attention."

"I wish our paying students tried half as hard as you do." Kim actually sounded like she meant it.

Delaney suddenly blushed, and Sheree looked at her proudly.

"Sent."

Sheree signed Delaney onto the computer. Delaney's experiences with the NCWB had made her leery of her own gullibility. She refused to get on the computer unless one of us was there, afraid she'd fall into some kind of trap again. She popped her email open. "Got it."

We finished the call and I looked at the email. "Your email account is encrypted?"

Delaney shrugged. "Katie had us do this. She said it'd be harder for a cyberstalker to go after us. She said girls our age need to careful." She looked up at the ceiling. "Like I didn't know that already. Besides secure comms are always important."

That garnered another raised eyebrow from Sheree. It was pretty clear I needed to explain Kurt and Katie's business to her in more detail.

Delaney took a while to spin down to go to bed; the prospect of another summer camp had her too excited.

She finally did, though, and Sheree and I sat on the couch watching the fire. I knew the question was coming.

"So, Kurt and Katie's school..." She just let it hang there.

"It really is for bodyguards. VIP asset protection. Really high level stuff mostly. They also manage some private military contracts. Some armed combat forces and security service stuff."

Sheree looked at me suspiciously. "That sounds like mercenaries."

"Mercenaries are illegal. The UN basically banned them back in the late 1980s."

"So what's the difference?"

"The name mostly. Supposedly, there are other differences, but they aren't really clear. Kurt and Katie mostly do training." Mostly. The only time they'd asked for my help, they'd seemed to be on the right side of the law. At least that's what I'd assumed. I hadn't asked a lot of questions.

Sheree gave me a calculating look and shifted gears. "Did Delaney really roll cars over down there?"

"That's normal in a really good 'crash bang' course. The only way to really know what the limits are is to go all the way over a few times. It's the only way to get a real feel for it." I could see she was trying not to be upset. "Kurt and Katie are real pros. The cars have safety harnesses and they have a crew and equipment right there, just in case. She was probably safer there than on a roller coaster." That was probably an exaggeration, but most roller coasters don't have crash medical teams standing by.

She sat silently for a second. "That's why they always need more cars, isn't it?"

"Yeah. The class is supposed to chew them up. If they don't roll them, they aren't trying hard enough."

"So Delaney rolled a lot of them. She's really fearless, isn't she? Too fearless." Sheree smiled softly at me. "That's why you did it, so she'd know when she needs to put the brakes on."

I nodded. "There are limits for everybody. Physics doesn't give a shit if you're afraid or not. I'm hoping she sees that it isn't just about cars. Besides..." I stopped for a second trying to figure out how to say it right.

Sheree beat me to it. "She attracts trouble? I'm thinking Delaney could sit on the couch eating cookies and watching TV in her pajamas and there's a good chance it'd end up in a shootout. That's what yer thinkin' isn't it?"

"It seems like it. I know it's not her fault. This is all on Charlotte, but Delaney is stuck in it up to the neck and we don't know how far or deep this goes."

Sheree was quiet for a moment. "Why do you think they really want to do another 'summer camp'?"

"I think Katie is looking at this as an investment. Kurt is probably just having a blast, but Katie is always looking ahead. Do this every year and the girls are young, so everything becomes reflex. Competent female bodyguards are always in demand at for high level work. A lot of female principles are uncomfortable with male bodyguards in certain circumstances. Even if they only manage to recruit one of the girls when they turn twenty-one, they'd have made their money back in a year or two."

"That's..." Her voice trailed off.

"Mercenary? That's kind of what they do. But I'm sure they like the girls, too, so it isn't all about money. And she won't have to work for them if she doesn't want to."

Sheree sighed. "It sounds crazy, but... it's Delaney." She suddenly giggled. "We could go on another vacation. Rent another bungalow with a private beach and I'll buy another teeny-tiny bikini that I can just leave in the suitcase again, maybe?"

"Are you seriously bribing me with promises of sex to make sure I'll let her go?"

Sheree smiled up at me. "Are ya interested in getting a down payment?"

*****

Sheree looked over the target package we'd received from Kim. It'd only taken two days for Kim to put it together. "He's got a condo in Georgetown, but he's building a mansion up in the mountains in West Virginia not too far across the border from that Hardscrabble place. Bought himself nearly 10,000 acres. Pretty much two mountains and a valley between them. He told a reporter he's using the mountain roads to test his cars and motorcycles."

"An asshole with too much money and too much time on his hands."

"It's probably worse than that. The one mountain he's building on?" Sheree scanned further down and brought up a news clipping. "There was a hold out who didn't want to sell. After living there for almost 40 years, she somehow went over the edge of the mountainside road on a clear blue day."

"A sociopathic asshole with too much money and too much time?"

Sheree nodded slowly. "She has a whole list of 'coincidental' deaths here. Guys he had feuds with, a couple women who were claiming paternity suits..." She looked up at me. "Kinda like Charlotte. One was a ruled a suicide, the other was supposedly an accidental overdose."

"Looks like we have our guy."

She opened a map file that turned out to be some kind of overhead imagery, maybe from Google, but then again, knowing Kim, maybe not. "Here's where he's building his new house, you have to go up this long mountainside road to get there." She traced the line of the road up. "Everything from here on is his property. He's gated the roads to keep people out."

"Is he staying there?"

"Not yet. But Kim included a picture of a Facebook post that says he's up on Saturdays with his 'guys' to practice racing the mountain roads. It's about a seven mile loop."

She brought the picture up and we looked it over. Big bad Jason Bradley Calloway, Esquire, and a half dozen muscle bound guys in black T-shirts. "That's gotta be his security team. Probably more for show than anything else."

"If Kim is right about Gold Shield, they're for a lot more than that." She said it softly. "You need to be careful."

I looked over at Delaney. "Careful is our middle name, isn't it." That just earned an eyeroll and a snicker.

*****

I went alone for two weeks; unlike the goon in the SUV, I actually had training in this shit and I had a good half dozen at least semi-functional cars to use from the yard.

During the week, it was busy with work trucks and crew going in and out, but on Saturdays, it was pretty much just Calloway and his bodyguards visiting the mountain retreat. There were a couple random deliveries, but that was all.

Whatever supercar he brought spent the day roaring up and down the roads at insane speeds. I figured him for a real adrenaline junky, since racing those kinds of roads at the speeds he was going was just short of suicide. Still, he might be almost as good as he seemed to think he was.

At the end of the second week, I had a plan. And Delaney made it better.

*****

"Get the keys to the wrecker."

Delaney's eyes sparkled. The wrecker was one of her favorite vehicles. It was a black Ford F550 with a Vulcan 812 Intruder II tow package, normally used for repo work. I didn't do repo work, but it was also damn good for snatching wrecks out of tight places. The pivot stinger could slide into places that seemed impossible and once the tire jaws clamped down, it was simple to lift and pull the car along.

I'd bought it from Emmett Tuckett when he retired.

Emmett Tuckett had been a hard-core hard-drinking cigar smoking repo man, and he'd bought the best equipment he could get. He'd had countless run-ins while repossessing cars all over the state. He'd been shot, stabbed, run over-eight fucking times-and bitten by dogs ranging from Pit Bulls to Rottweilers. He'd finally retired and sold me his truck after he'd had a "particularly bad day."