Precipice (17 page)

He needed to try to get some sleep.

The Sasori warehouses were on the outskirts of one of the worst neighborhoods in town, overrun by crime and poverty. This contrasted with the exorbitant wealth of the warehouses’ tenants, large corporations with surplus inventory. Six large storage facilities, identical in drab-gray appearance save for a small red, plastic numbering system, were bunched together in a district that crowded a south side of the lake.

Heavy-duty security systems warded off thieves, but police still made semi-frequent visits to deal with vandalism, mostly kids spray-painting the warehouse walls. For a while, this made it easier to tell the buildings apart, but when a few pieces of “artwork” became linked to gang activity, the authorities cracked down hard. A prisoner-release program scrubbed the walls clean a few weeks ago.

The duo’s car had flown across the city as though rocket-propelled, despite the ever-slickening road conditions. With Dominic behind the wheel, they made fantastic time. Reaching the main entrance of the district, he finally discovered how to use the brake pedal and the Corolla eased to a crawl.

Stealth was their best option, so he switched off the headlights. The dark gray car blended into the surroundings seamlessly without brilliant beams acting as homing beacons to their location.

The gate hung open as they approached…fortuitous, but foreboding. Both combed the alleys between buildings from top to bottom for any sign of activity until Shannon noticed the door, slightly ajar, on the side wall of building number four. After shifting the car into park, the two stepped out. The gravel lot absorbed their weight with a soft crunch. Dominic straightened the collar of his button-down shirt and ran his hand gently through his wavy, brown hair.

“Getting ready for prom?” Shannon whispered, in amusement. “I don’t think terrorists care if your hair’s perfect.”

“Very funny.” He glared at her.

The drizzle drowned out their footsteps as they made their way toward the door, lit by a small bulb to the right of the entrance. Not the brightest bulb in the world, but in the darkness, it acted as a spotlight, revealing their arrival to anyone watching.

Dominic felt a spark of anticipation ignite deep inside as he drew nearer. Not long ago, the man he hunted would have stood in the place of the woman at his side. He could almost hear Amadi’s accent, urging him forward. “
I got ya covered, mon.”

And then another emotion arrived, a little late, but no less important. A single, lonely tear rolled over the bridge of his cheek and disappeared into dozens of rain droplets.

What in the world was he doing here?
He shook his head. Amadi was his friend. A good friend who always watched his back.

Shannon sensed his hesitation as they paused a few feet from the door, side by side. She leaned over and whispered softly into his ear.

“Dom, I know you two were close. But he disappeared on you. Didn’t tell you why or where. He abandoned you.” Dominic started to break. “And if he is on the other side of that door, he’s doing something wrong.”

She was right. Amadi let him down. Betrayed him. And right then, a final emotion emerged, intermixing with and overtaking the others. A wash of anger rushed over him and suddenly his gun was in his hand. Steadying the standard, federal-issue semi-automatic Glock, he squeezed the grip so hard, his knuckles paled.

A dim light emanated through the cracked door. Its very presence was enough confirmation for Dominic. Rage surged through his veins and he kicked the cheap, metallic door, a large dent left in his wake. Hinges ripped from the weak frame and the door crashed inward against the wall with a sharp clang as he rushed in.

Weapon at the ready, his eyes fought to adjust to the darkness inside. A solitary flickering lamp sat on a small, worn table. Seated behind the table, in one of those fancy rolling office chairs, was a man.

“Well, well…if it isn’t Dominic Randal…” The voice that greeted him was creepy, low in tone, and saturated with sarcasm. “I’ve been waiting for you...”

He knew we were coming…

Dominic’s first thought at seeing his old friend in that chair terrified him. But that thinking only existed for a few milliseconds before being drowned out by his second thought.
That traitor!

Brow furrowed and eyes narrowed, he strode forward, the sight of his gun aimed at Amadi’s broad forehead, right between those two black, empty marbles he called eyes.

But he barely made it two steps before a sudden, sharp pain at the back of his head sent waves of blackness rolling through his skull. His knees gave way and the ground raced upward to meet him as the room faded to total darkness.

When Krieger awoke and climbed out of bed at seven sharp—another difficult-to-break habit from his military days. A voicemail message waited for him. Kaczmarek had wasted little time getting back to his old friend.

Krieger’s cell had rung just before two in the morning, but he slept straight through it and the machine picked up instead.
This is Krieger. Leave a message.
Short, curt, and to the point.

“Hi Mike. I know it’s late, but I figured you’d want to hear what I found. Call me. ASAP.”
Click
. Krieger caught the familiar tone of excitement at having returned to the game.

Still, the late hour and the request for an immediate callback implied something interesting.

His return call was answered on the first ring. “Hey Mike. You got my message?”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Who else at seven in the morning?”

“Fair enough.” He lumbered into the kitchen and gathered the ingredients for his typical breakfast: a hearty bowl of high-fiber cereal, a scrambled egg, and if he remembered to buy one, a grapefruit. Today, however, he was out, having polished off his last one yesterday, so he had to deal without until he made it to the store. Flipping on the stove, he shifted the phone receiver from hand to shoulder, tilting his head to pin the device against his cheek.

“So you found something?”
Straight-to-the-point.

“I did. I dunno what it means, but there’s definitely a connection.”

Krieger recognized the faint rustling of papers as Kaz gathered his notes together. It was taking too long. “Well?”

“Hold your horses, Mike. I’ve almost got it.”

Another few seconds of rustling. Krieger waited, busying himself with preparing breakfast. He set the box of cereal on the table next to his bowl and spoon, and turned back toward the refrigerator and its bare shelves. Living alone tended to do that to a single man, no matter how old he is. Without a women’s touch, cupboards and shelves remained bare much of the time. The military pension didn’t seem to go as far as it used to. He plunked the skillet on the hot stove and broke an egg over it.

“Okay…here we go. Every single one of your victims…well, except for one...”

Krieger interrupted his friend, “Which one?”

“That director…can’t remember his name…” His voice trailed off. Kaz’s mind had suffered a few lapses recently, deadly for a man known for his sharp wit and impeccable memory. That was the reason he gave Krieger for retiring. In that life, a single mental mistake cost you much more than your job. With a wife to take care of and a daughter considering law school, he chose to get out.

Krieger chose not to offer a hand with the name, so Kaz forged ahead. “His only connection to the rest seems to be through that janitor. You probably already knew that though.”

“But the others are all connected?”

“They are. Like I normally do in these situations…well, used to do…I went through their paper trails. Not that they actually use paper anymore what with this being the age of computers and all, but you get the idea.”

Words flew off his tongue faster and faster. “Credit cards, mostly, but any transaction that could be traced to them. I almost missed it, but there was a link. Through a very mundane-looking company called Cain’s Bridges and More. One of those companies you skip over until you notice it seems to crop up a lot.”

“Uh huh…” Glass in one hand, Krieger grabbed the carton of orange juice from the door of the fridge with the other. Attempting to pour himself a glass proved difficult. The carton was near empty, capable of filling his glass with just an inch of liquid.

Muttering a quiet curse, he grabbed a pen and scribbled
OJ
on the scrap piece of paper pinned to the refrigerator by a magnetic outline of a rifle advertising the second amendment. He’d skip a drink this morning.

“All of your victims built a credit card paper trail with this Cain’s on it. All more than once, too. And not on any of their main credit card lines.”

“Uh huh…so it’s harder to trace.” The egg was almost done. Just another minute. Back at the table, he poured the cereal and added a cup of milk.

“So I got curious about this Cain’s. Why do these people need so many little decorative bridges and birdbaths in their yard? I mean, how many cheesy lawn gnomes does a person need? I asked around a bit and ran a few checks on it.” More paper rustling.

“Found some interesting things. As it turns out…other than these transactions—and I should mention your victims aren’t the only ones paying money to this company—Cain’s Bridges and More doesn’t seem to exist. No inventory, no products, no address, no license, no retail, nothing. Just a series of monetary transactions with your victims, as well as the others.”

“So it’s a shell company. Who’s behind it?” As the phone at his shoulder began to slip, Krieger lifted the skillet from the hot stove, switching the burner off as he turned toward the table.

“A man named…let me see if I can get this right…Hiroto Sasori…though I believe if we were in Japan, those names would be switched. Interestingly, Hiroto is the combination of two Japanese words, meaning ‘large’ and ‘soar,’ and Sasori is their word for ‘scorpion,’ so when you put those names together…” A pause. “Hello? Mike?”

An uneaten bowl of cereal rested on the tabletop, becoming soft and soggy. A scrambled egg lay forgotten at the bottom of the sink, its skillet leaning beside it, still warm from the stove. The phone lay on the counter, still connected to the Kaczmarek household through an open line. A faint car revving could be heard through the receiver, right before squealing tires and a gunned engine took its place. Then it was silent.

***

Dominic awoke to pain. Lots of it. A blinding, throbbing headache seemed to be the worst of his problems. Every time he tried to open his eyes or raise his head, alarm bells and warning sirens echoed throughout his tender skull. He’d keep his eyelids clamped shut for the time being.

The next thing he noticed was the heat. Wherever he was, it was warm. He moved his arms, trying to shift position. Or he thought he did, but nothing happened.
That’s weird.

He tried again. Still nothing.
I wasn’t hit that hard, was I?
Next a leg, but still no movement.

After sitting motionless—by choice rather than inability—for several minutes, he decided to make another attempt to open his eyes. This time, the blinding pain felt slightly less blinding and he managed to keep them open for a few burning flashes that caused an attack of epileptic blinking.

When those faded, he glanced around the room. His new “home” was dark and it took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the surroundings enough to make out the reason for his confusing paralysis.

He sat on a wooden chair in the center of a dark room. Stripped to his underwear, Dominic flexed his bare arms. They were tied at his sides to the seatback with a thin, but strong twine rope. His legs had been bound in a similar predicament, trussed to the chair legs beneath him.
Well, that explains the paralysis.

He tested the knots, flexing and tugging and pulling and wiggling at the ropes, trying to loosen their grip, but whoever tied them must have been a scout as a child. Those suckers snared him in a chokehold a boa constrictor would envy. Beads of sweat surfaced on his bare skin with the effort, but it was to no avail. Glancing down, he noticed the chair legs, chained to the floor with heavy metal links.

Frustrated at his lack of success with the rope, he gave up and tried to rest, taking time to look around his prison. A concrete floor, square in shape and about fifteen feet on each side. The entirety of the room was bare, save for a closed folding chair near the door and his current seating arrangement, positioned near the back of the room.

The door loomed large, dark and metallic. Four, five inches thick, he guessed. Its massive form was broken by a small, barred window which allowed a sliver of light to knife through the thick air. The beam illuminated the room enough for Dominic to appreciate the dire nature of his situation.
Where am I? I didn’t know these warehouses held prisons.

“Hello?” His question echoed around the bare room and down what sounded like a long, empty hallway beyond the door. “Hey!” This time, he called with more defiance and volume, but the word returned to him with the same depressing results: a big load of nothing.

“Hey! Amadi! Come in here and face me like a man!” His scream still returned nothing.

Once more, just for good measure, “HEY AMADI! SCREW YOU!” He lunged forward and strained against his bonds, rattling the chains on the floor.

Nothing but the receding echo of chains returned to his ears.

***

Krieger had been in Sloan’s office less than a half hour after spitting out his new intelligence in a series of short bursts. Sloan’s response was immediate. Leaving Krieger sitting in silence, he hefted himself out of the chair faster than should be possible for a man of his size, and hustled out of the room. A few minutes later he returned, carrying a short stack of papers, and grabbed for the phone. The half of the conversation Krieger could hear made little sense.

“What’s the status on that project I asked you to handle?” He began the phone call civilly enough, even if he skipped any form of proper pleasantries.

“What do you mean?” Sloan’s voice didn’t match his typical stern, grumpy demeanor. In fact, he sounded nervous, even scared.

“You told me that already. Give me something new!” He bellowed into the phone, swearing at the person on the other end. The force of his words was getting stronger. “Well, you sure as hell better find him. Soon!”

He pulled the phone away from his ear and was about to hang up when something on the other end caused him to yank the device back to his ear. “What? You’re sure it’s ours? We’ll send an agent over there to check it out. Call me when you learn something.”

This time he really did hang up, slamming the receiver onto its charger. He looked genuinely scared and furious at the same time.

Krieger waited a full minute without speaking. He watched Sloan frantically pace behind his desk, growing increasingly irritated as he marched back and forth, before breaking the quiet.

“Sir?”

The sound Sloan emitted was a mix between a sigh, a groan, and a harrumph. “Dominic and Shannon were out last night tracking down a suspect, Anthony Mack. They’d tracked him to that Second Circle nightclub and were going to confront him there.” He ran a trembling hand through his few remaining strands of hair.

“Right. I remember hearing that. What happened?”

“Their orders were to check in last night, but I never heard from them. I assumed they were still following a lead and would check in when possible, but now it’s morning and still nothing.”

“Maybe they forgot or didn’t have time,” Krieger offered.

“That’s what I thought too. Until I heard your story about Sasori. If that information is freely available for any Joe Schmoe to discover within 24 hours, it has to be common knowledge. It’s possible they got that same intel from Mack. And if they did…” His voice trailed off.

“What?”

“It’d take a miracle of Biblical proportions to keep Dominic from charging after that lead. A parting of that sea, a worldwide flood, dead man walking, that sort of thing. He’d see it as an excuse to stampede in there, guns blazing.”

“Why wouldn’t he tell you first? Or ask for backup?”

“He should have, but you need to understand Dominic. He’s not a thinker. He’s an act first, deliberate later kind of agent. Which can be good in this line of work, but it can also get you in trouble. He gets that from his father.” Sloan stomped toward the door, beckoning Krieger to follow. They strode out of the office and worked their way through the maze of cubicles. “Karen, you hear from Shannon or Dominic yet?”

Absorbed in her computer screen, his secretary didn’t turn to acknowledge their passing, but she shook her head no. “Nothing yet, sir.”

He growled. They continued past the desks and turned left down another hallway. He continued his story. “John Randal was one of the best agents SISA has ever seen. Worked here 52 years. Holds nearly every record we’ve got. But he suffered from a rash streak as well, especially in his younger years. As he gained experience, he also gained patience and maturity. Wisdom through experience. That’s the way he always told it, anyway.”

“And now Dominic’s just like him?”

“A clone. Except he hasn’t hit that patience and maturity stage yet. He’s liable to go running into a firefight with a Boy Scout pocketknife.”

“Wouldn’t Shannon tell you if they went after Sasori?” She seemed the more levelheaded of the two.

“It’s not Sasori Dominic’s concerned with. Our intel indicates Hiroto Sasori is an aloof, billionaire exec out of San Francisco trying to score a few bucks on the side by renting out space. He’s always operated in the legal gray zone. He’s suspected of smuggling high-end computer parts for his company, but a murder scheme like this is well beyond his ability. Besides, he hasn’t set foot in this area in nearly a decade. He has no idea what these men do in his facilities.”