Black Pawn (Michael Cailen Book 1) (20 page)

Not wanting to go inside alone, Brook waited outside her
house for the detective to arrive.  The detective and his partner arrived a few
moments later and after a brief introduction, she unlocked the door and they
entered.  They were about the same height with sandy blonde hair and brown
eyes.  Both looked fit though the man introduced as Det. Richards seemed to
have more of a beer belly than Det. Colt.

She stood staring at the mess in her living room.  It looked
like a tornado had hit her house.  She turned around to address the detectives
and was greeted with a gun in her face.  While Det. Richards held the gun to
her head, Det. Colt ripped the cord off her phone.

She should have asked to see ID, but the thought hadn't even
occurred to her.  Now, it was too late.  Filled with sheer terror, still not
fully grasping what was happening or why, she asked what was going on. 
Richards just smiled while Colt tried to grab her arms and tie them behind her
back.  She started to resist, but Richards waved the gun in her face and she
quickly backed down.  Now that she was restrained, they brought her into the
kitchen and sat her down on one of the chairs.

“We don't want to hurt you, but we need you to tell us where
your brother is.  If you do, we'll leave and you can live without any permanent
scars.  If you do not, then we will have some fun with you before we kill
you.”  Richards ran the tip of his gun along her jawline as he spoke.

Trembling and terrified, she started sobbing.  Her body grew
numb with fear.

Richards slapped her hard across the face with the back of
his hand.  “Where is your brother?!” he yelled.

She screamed when he hit her and began crying
uncontrollably.  He hit her again.

“I don't know where he is!” she cried.

Richards hit her again, knocking her from the chair.  She
fell on her side, crying and screaming for help.  Colt retrieved a hand towel
from her closet and stuffed it in her mouth to muffle her cries.

“To tell you the truth, I was hoping you wouldn't give him
up easily,”  Richards grinned.

Brook tried to spit the towel from her mouth but he had
forced so much inside that it was impossible.

Colt dragged her to the middle of the kitchen floor.  He
pulled a knife from his pocket which sent Brook into another round of screaming
and crying.  She tried to squirm away to no avail.  Richards watched gleefully
as Colt knelt down beside her, slid the knife under her shirt and tore it off. 
She screamed again, trying in vain to move away.

“After we have had our fun, you will tell us what we want to
know.  Or else we will have to start all over again.”

Colt never uttered a word.  He just seemed to take
telepathic orders from Richards.

Richards was staring down at the half-naked girl on the
floor and grinning when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.  He
looked up to see Michael holding a gun aimed at his head.  He started to curse
just as the bullet sunk into his skull.  His lifeless body fell to the floor
next to Brook.  Her scream muffled by the towel.

Blocked by the kitchen wall, Colt couldn't see Michael.  He
just heard the dull tap of a silenced weapon and saw Richards drop to the floor
with a hole in his head.  Then Michael stepped around the corner with his gun
trained on him.  Colt cursed in Russian.  Quickly turning Brook into a human
shield, he put his knife to her throat.  He was shaking so badly, her neck
started to bleed as the knife dug into it.

Michael cocked his head when he heard the man swear in
Russian.  He wasn't expecting it.

“Don't come any closer or I'll kill her,” the man said with
a thick Russian accent.

Michael showed no emotion.  He replied to the man in near-perfect
Russian.  “Go ahead and kill her.  I have what I need from her.  If you want to
live though, I'd start thinking of other options.”

“What do you want?”  They continued to speak in Russian.

“Well, I'd like to talk to you but you're making me a little
uncomfortable with that knife.  So you have two options.  I can stop wasting
time and shoot you in the head.  I'll live with not talking to you.  Or you can
drop the knife and we can talk.”

Colt didn't have much choice.  Reluctantly, he pulled the
knife from Brook's throat and released his hold on her.  She quickly scooted as
far away as she could over to a corner of her cabinets.  She didn't know what
shocked her more, the fact that she was being assaulted in her home or the fact
that Michael was there, had just shot one of the intruders dead and was
speaking to the other in a foreign language.

“Toss the knife away,” Michael ordered, still speaking in
Russian.

Colt did as instructed and Michael promptly shot him in the
leg.  Clutching it, Colt screamed in pain while Michael calmly picked up the
knife.  Brook started screaming and crying again.  Colt gave him a look that
said he would kill him if given the chance.  Michael used a cell phone charger
from the counter to tie Colt's hands behind his back.  Colt struggled a little
at first until Michael stepped on his wounded leg.

With Colt restrained, Michael pulled the towel from Brook's
mouth, instructing her to remain quiet.  She tried her hardest to do as he
said.  She was shaking fiercely, still crying and in shock.  He didn't free her
hands because he needed to keep her close and somewhat subdued.

Michael shoved the towel in Colt's mouth like he had done to
Brook.  “It's not very comfortable, is it?”  He knelt and continued speaking in
Russian.  He tapped Colt's wounded leg just hard enough to draw attention to
the bullet hole.  Colt screamed in agony into the towel.  “I shot you so you'll
know I'm not playing around.  You'll look like Swiss cheese by the time I'm
done with you unless you tell me exactly what I want to know.  Every time you
lie to me, I will shoot you.  And trust me, they won't be lethal shots.”  He
grabbed Colt by the hair and lifted his head.  “Are we clear?”

Colt closed his eyes and nodded.  Michael pulled the towel
from his mouth.

“Why are you here?”

“We came looking for her brother.”

“Why do you want her brother?”

“I don't know.  They just told us to find out where he is.”

Michael pressed the muzzle of his gun into Colt's calf. 
“Look, since you're new at this.  I'll give you one more chance.  Why do you
want her brother?”

“Okay, okay.  We're cleaning up loose ends.  He knows
something he shouldn't, and we were sent to kill him.”

“What does he know?”

“I don't know, it has to do with something that happened
years ago.”

“Why look for him now if it happened years ago?”

Colt went on to explain what he knew, which was that someone
high up in the Russian Mafia had ordered an investigation into a man named
Ronald Sanders, who had been killed a few years ago.  They were given orders to
eliminate anyone that he might have confided in.  When they did some digging
and learned that Dominic Fosters had been like a brother to him. they set their
sights on him but could only find his sister.

“Who gave the order?” Michael asked.

Colt just shook his head.

Michael fired a shot, just missing his arm.  “Who gave the
order?!”

“Vlad Milovich!” the man cried.

Michael felt confident that was all he knew.  To show his
gratitude, he pistol whipped Colt, knocking him unconscious.  He stood over
him, looking down.  “I'm guessing the feds will be happy to see you.”

BROOK WAS
curled up in a ball sobbing in the corner. 
Michael knelt down next to her, using Colt's knife to free her hands.  She
crossed her arms over her chest and returned to the fetal position.

“I think it's obvious now that I'm not who you think I am,”
he said softly.

She slowly looked up at him, still shaking like a leaf. 
“Who are you?”

“That's not important.  What is important is that your life
is in jeopardy if you stay here.”

“Did you know those men?”  She slowly looked around at the
bodies and blood on the floor.

“No.”

“How did you know?  What did they want with my brother? 
What language was that?”  A thousand questions ran through her mind.

“That was Russian. The break-in last night wasn't a robbery,
they were looking for something.  And I had a feeling it wasn't a detective
that wanted to meet you here.  The timing was strange.  They were looking for
your brother because they think he knows something.”

Everything was so surreal, she thought it couldn't be
happening.

“Why don't we get you a shirt.”  He stood and held out his
hand to her.

She didn't readily take it.  She had just watched him kill
one man and torture another without batting an eye.  She looked up at him
searching for any hint of emotion.  There was none.

He tilted his head to the side with his hand still stretched
out to her. “If I wanted to hurt you, don't you think I would have done it by
now?”

She hesitantly reached up and took his hand.  He pulled her
to her feet and led her out of the kitchen, past the intruders' bodies and into
her bedroom.  She stood there trembling and looking around at the mess.  He
picked a shirt up off the floor that had been thrown from her dresser and
handed it to her.

Michael inspected the cut on her neck.  She wasn't cut badly
and it looked liked it had almost stopped bleeding.  She was in a daze, in
shock.  He led her to the bathroom where he wet a washcloth and started
cleaning the blood off her neck.

“We need to call the police.”  Her words were barely
audible.

“The police can't protect you.”  He finished wiping the last
of the blood off her neck.  “I'm taking you to your brother.  Once we're there,
you're his problem.”

“I haven't heard from Nicky in months.  How do you know
where he is?” She looked surprised.

“Doesn't matter.”

“What's this all about?  How are you involved in this?”

“I need to speak with your brother.  I think he knows
something that could help me.  That's all I'm going to tell you.  The less you
know, the better anyway.”

“So this whole time you've just been using me to try and get
to my brother?”

“Pretty much,” he admitted.

“Is Jake even your real name?”

“No.”

“What is your name?”

“Jake.”

“Uh, huh.”  He obviously wasn't going to tell her.

“Look, are we done?  Pack a few of your things.  We should
go before more show up.”

“What do you mean more?” she said, alarmed.

“You don't think these two guys were it, do you?”

She quickly grabbed a bag from her closet and filled it.

JESSICA PACED
, waiting for Michael's call.  The plan
was, if he succeeded in rescuing Brook, he would head straight for her
brother's place.  He'd talk to him, warn him to move, and leave Brook in his
care.  He said he would call once he was on the highway to let them know he was
all right.  He also left Josh with instructions to call Kevin around two
o'clock to let him know he would have to catch up with him tomorrow because he
was chasing down a lead.

Jessica's phone rang.  She answered, breathing a sigh of
relief at the sound of Michael's voice.  “Were you hurt?”

“No, not at all.”

“I was so worried.”

“I know,” he grinned.  “Can you hand the phone to Kyle for a
minute?” Michael didn't want to use Josh's real name, and he didn't want to use
Justin since Brook had met him as Justin.

“Uhh.. Yeah.”  She gave Josh a funny look and handed him the
phone figuring that's who he meant.

“Hey, bro,” Josh greeted him.

“Get rid of the phones.  I don't want to risk them being
traced.  We'll get new ones when I get back.  I'm leaving you in charge, so if
anything comes up, you handle it how you see fit...  Oh and I'm sorry.”

“What for?”

“For how Miss Emotional is going to react when she realizes
she won't be able to call me.”  He was referring, of course, to Jessica.

Josh chuckled.  “Thanks, man.”

Michael smiled and hung up the phone.  After removing the
battery from his phone, he threw it out the window.

“Can I use your phone?”  Michael then asked Brook.

She looked at him like he was crazy but reached into her bag
and gave him her phone.  He chucked it out the window.

“What are you doing?!”  She yelled and clutched at him in
vain to save her phone.

“They can track it.”  He rolled his window up.

She sat back in her chair and pressed her hand to her
forehead.  She couldn't believe all of this was happening..

JOSH HUNG
up the phone and put it in his pocket. 
Jessica was all over him.

“Why did you hang up?  I want to talk to him.  Give me the
phone.”  She tried to reach in his pocket and take the phone back.

He grabbed her hand.  “Jessica.  We have to ditch the
phones.  They can track them.”

“I want to talk to Michael,” she demanded.

“He said to tell you he'll see you tomorrow.”

“Give me the phone, Josh.”  She was starting to get very
upset.

She saw a tinge of pity in his expression.  “Jessica, he's
already tossed his phone.  You won't reach him.”

Her eyes welled and she looked like she was about to cry. 
He tried to give her a hug, but she just pushed him away and secluded herself
in the bedroom.   He took the batteries out of the phones then left to dispose
of them.

Rick stood at Morgan's door with a file in his hands.  He
took a deep breath, straightened his tie then knocked.

“Come in.”

He stepped in, closing the door behind him. 

“We have a hit.”

Morgan looked up from the paper he was reading. 

“What do you mean?”

“Cailen's prints turned up in an investigation into a home
invasion.  They were all over the house.”

Morgan leaned back in his chair.  He didn't smile, he seemed
to be deep in thought.

Because of Michael's classified status, when the police ran
his prints all they got was a military contact and an ID number.  When the
investigating detective called the contact to inquire about the ID, it set off
alarms.  Not only had Morgan been trying to find Michael but the military was
also looking for him.  Shaun disappeared in China and Michael vanished after
returning from China.  Their superiors wanted to know what happened to their
star soldiers.  They were working closely with the CIA to find them.

The military contact the detective called didn't give him
any information on Michael, but did alert the CIA to the police investigation. 
The detective was told to pursue other suspects in his case and ignore
Michael's prints, much to his dismay.  He had feared they would stonewall him
and they did.

“Is that the report?” Morgan asked.

“Yes.”  Rick passed him the file.

“You can leave now.”

As Rick left, Morgan picked up his phone and dialed while he
looked over the report.

“It's me.  I need you to check out a house and see what you
can turn up.  Cailen was there.  See if you can find me something useful.” 
Morgan gave the caller Brook's address.  “I need this done quickly.  I'll send
payment today, but I need you to go now.  The clock is ticking on this one.” 
He hung up the phone and took a deep breath.  He looked down at the report in
his hands.  Why was Michael there?  He picked up his phone again and dialed an
extension.

“Rick, I need you to dig up anything you can find on Brook
Fosters.  Check for any unusual banking activity or phone calls, travel,
friends, anything that might explain why he was there.”

He hung the phone up and rubbed his face.  He pulled a
bottle of antacids from his desk drawer and popped a few.