Corps Justice Boxed Set: Books 1-3: Back to War, Council of Patriots, Prime Asset (22 page)

REDNECK #1
:
Twenty-two…twenty-one…twenty…

Dunn looked at the club owner who seemed to
barely have the strength to stand. The rest of the employees were
quickly gathering cash and wallets to present to the armed robbers.
Dunn saw the leader’s eyes flicker and a slight grin played across
his mouth. The man was actually daring him to act.

REDNECK #1
:
…twelve…eleven…ten…nine…

Dunn took one last glance around the room
and analyzed everything: the location of the armed men, the
position of his security crew, the strippers cowering behind the
stage curtain, the hostess squatting behind the club owner and the
club owner hiding behind the bar.

REDNECK #1
:
…three…two…

Dunn kept his eye on the man’s trigger
finger and, just as the man started to say ONE, he started to pull
back the trigger, fully intending to shoot the dazed soldier in the
head. Dunn reacted on instinct and double-tapped the huge man in
the face. Instead of waiting to see the result, he turned slightly
left and double-tapped the other two armed men center-mass. Within
a split second, the place was pandemonium again. The black soldier
was covered in the now dead leader’s blood and gazed up blankly at
Dunn. The other two men whom he’d just shot were now writhing on
the ground surrounded by security and being stripped of their
weapons. The only redneck without a gun quickly dropped his knife
in horror and threw up his hands.

The aftermath of the incident confounded and
confused Dunn. Instead of being hailed a hero, Dunn was treated
like a criminal. With two men dead and another two in the hospital,
the local authorities had no choice but to fully investigate the
situation.

Despite eyewitness accounts of all the club
employees, the authorities could not prove that Dunn was justified
in killing the man. He still remembered asking the police about it
in the following days.

TODD
: Would
it have been better if I’d let the guy shoot a man in the head
BEFORE I shot him?!

The system was suddenly against him and the
interrogator said as much. The police officer told Dunn that if
that had been the case, they wouldn’t be having this
conversation.

DETECTIVE
:
Look, kid, we don’t make up the rules but the law is pretty clear.
If this thing goes to court they can paint you into a cold-blooded
killer. I already heard that the leader of those redneck boys came
from some rich family. They’re pretty connected around here and are
already raising holy hell to get you the chair.

TODD
: But
these guys were gonna kill. I could see it in their
eyes!

DETECTIVE
:
I hear what you’re saying, kid, but I don’t make the
laws.

That same police station was where Todd Dunn
first met the CEO of SSI. Travis was in Ft. Bragg visiting some
contacts and got a whiff of the incident through friends in the
Ranger battalion. After making a few inquiries, Travis decided to
intervene. He made the visit under the guise of an attorney to
gauge Dunn’s personality. He walked out of the station knowing he’d
just found a diamond in the rough.

Days later, Dunn found himself in a private
jet being swept up to some campus in Charlottesville, VA.
Apparently this company, SSI, had pulled a few strings and he’d
been honorably discharged AND all charges had been dropped. As he
stepped off the plane in Charlottesville, he was met by Travis, now
in his casual SSI clothing: outdoor gear and hiking boots.

Travis had apologized for the ruse in the
police station and went on to explain what SSI was and find out
whether Dunn might be looking for a new job. After coming to the
realization that his career in the Army was over, Dunn was quietly
overjoyed at the opportunity.

One final piece finalized the deal and
Dunn’s undying loyalty to SSI and Travis Haden. Not only did SSI
welcome Dunn into their family, Travis also made sure that Dunn’s
father’s hospital bills were paid off completely and that he
received follow-up care from the top cancer specialists in the
world. Eight years later, Dunn’s father was still in remission.

+ + +

Needless to say, Todd Dunn was a fierce
defender of SSI’s family and a perfect fit as its head of security.
He was known throughout SSI as a stickler for security procedure,
but a thoroughly approachable friend.

CAL
: So
where do we stand?

TRAVIS
: No
blowback from the authorities. No one even knew you were
there.

CAL
: How
about that reporter? Did you get him off my ass?

TRAVIS
:
We’re still working on that. In fact, it was The Hammer that came
up with a rabbit trail for him. It’s a good one.

Haines glared at Travis for using her
nickname. She was a modest woman despite her fiery spirit and
having a nickname like The Hammer didn’t help her sense of
propriety. Luckily, she and Travis were good friends (and rumored
at times to be lovers) and the comments usually rolled off her
back.

HAINES
:
Let’s just say I threw the guy a bone through an anonymous source
and he might be pursuing another more lucrative news
story.

CAL
: I’m
not following you, Marge.

HAINES
:
It’s another operation we’re running. Let’s just say it won’t hurt
our cause to have a reporter snooping around. It might actually
help us flush a couple of bad guys out.

CAL
: So
you’re not gonna tell me?

HAINES
(grinning): Not yet. You haven’t been officially sworn in or
given us your blood brother handshake.

Cal shook his head. He always felt one step
behind dealing with The Hammer.

TRAVIS
:
Alright, alright. Let’s leave Little Cal alone. Todd, any inkling
about where this West guy ran off to?

TODD
: Nope.
Once the cops lost him, he did a pretty good job digging another
hole to hide in. I’m thinking he’s probably got safe houses all
over town.

TRAVIS
: So
you’re saying we’ve got nothing.

TODD
:
Sorry, boss.

TRAVIS
: OK.
So what’s our next move? Any ideas, Cal?

Cal thought it over for a moment. He didn’t
really have anything concrete. Maybe thinking out loud would
help.

CAL
: This
last lead was all because of Top Trent. I guess we could send him
out again and get him digging. Do we have any other guys that fit
into that part of town?

TRAVIS
: We
do, but from what you’re telling me about this guy, I don’t think
he’ll make the same mistake twice. What do you think,
Todd?

TODD
: I
agree. I’ll bet he made some quick calls to his network and told
them to be on the lookout and armor up. I think if we send Willy
and some more men up there they might be easy targets.

HAINES
:
What about your link to his cell phone, Neil?

NEIL
: Looks
like he dumped it. He knew that’s how we got a lock on him. That’s
a dead end now.

Just then the door opened and Dr. Higgins waddled
into the room.

DR.
HIGGINS
(in an almost British accent):
Sorry I’m late, everyone. I wanted to make sure the file was ready
to scan. Oh hello there, Calvin.

CAL
: Hey,
doc! What file are you talking about?

DR.
HIGGINS
: Ever since your attack our
fearless leader over there (pointing with a pudgy finger at Travis)
has had me building a dossier on Mr. Dante West. Neil, can you pull
up the file on this computer?

NEIL
: No
problem.

Neil walked over to the 52 inch touch screen
panel on the office wall and started tapping and scrolling.

NEIL
(over
his shoulder): Is it in the usual place?

DR. HIGGINS
: It is. So what Neil is about to pull up is not only all the
police records we could find, but also my analysis of the man’s
mental abilities and motivations along with some video surveillance
Neil uncovered.

CAL
: Video
surveillance?

DR. HIGGINS
: Yes. Our resident wonder boy Neil was able to hack into some
kind of database down in New Orleans and we found a thoroughly
entertaining video of Mr. West robbing a local bank.

TRAVIS
(impatiently): What are we supposed to get from
that?

DR. HIGGINS
: I don’t know what you’ll get from it, but I was able to
determine a lot about our adversary. I won’t spoil it for
you.

Travis rolled his eyes and looked back to
the screen. Neil pulled up the main file. The first image showed a
worn file folder with an old photo of West. He looked to be in his
teens.

DR. HIGGINS
: This, ladies and gentleman, was Mr. West at age fourteen. It
was his first formal arrest. From what we could gather, he was
implicated in numerous other crimes since the age of ten but had
never been caught or arrested. This tells me that Dante West is no
fool. Even at a young age, the man was smart and cunning.
Apparently the only reason he was arrested in this instance was
because one of his accomplices identified West as being the ring
leader. As you’ll see on the next page, the boy that snitched was
later found brutally beaten in the juvenile detention facility. The
informer ended up being paralyzed from the neck down as a result.
It was assumed, naturally, that West was the culprit. Once again,
the assault charge wouldn’t stick to West. We can only assume that
the incident taught the assaulted boy a lesson.

TRAVIS
:
Great story, doc, but what does this have to do with finding the
guy?

DR. HIGGINS
: Patience, my dear boy. As I was saying, West seems to have a
knack for staying under the radar. I looked back through his grade
school records and found that in his early years he excelled in
academic studies. One report even suggested he had an extremely
high IQ although his school did not have the means to test for it
at the time.

HAINES
(intrigued): So what changed?

DR. HIGGINS
: His father was killed when Dante was nine. It looks like his
mother turned to drugs and prostitution shortly after. The state
soon took Dante out of the home and placed him in a foster
facility. It was apparently in that facility that he had his first
taste of gang life. The reports from the foster home staff read
like a novel. Good kid gone bad. They all talk about how smart he
was, a natural leader. He used his authority with the kids to setup
his own little gang. They started by stealing food from the kitchen
at night and soon escalated to armed robbery. At the age of eleven,
he ran away from the facility and never came back.

From the age of twelve on, he was often brought in
for questioning but, believe it or not, they could never charge him
with anything. All the police reports detail the fact that he was
always respectful unlike so many of the other young toughs they’d
interview. I got a laugh from one entry made by a detective who’d
had the opportunity to interrogate West on more than one occasion.
This detective actually recommended that the department stop
bringing West in for questioning because the young man was, and I
quote, ‘a squared away young man with communication skills far
beyond the usual perps.’ This officer actually submitted the
recommendation to the D.A. The whole time they had no idea who they
were dealing with.

CAL
(almost
accusingly): Sounds like you’re starting to admire the guy,
Doc.

DR. HIGGINS
(nodding): Professionally, I do admire him. He is probably a
borderline genius with the skill and cunning to elude the
authorities. Over the years, I’ve only found top adversaries have
such characteristics. Anyhoo, back to the story. He moved up
through the ranks in New Orleans and, by his mid-twenties was a top
Lieutenant. When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, all the local gangs
scrambled to claim territory. West’s gang came out on top with no
small help from West himself. It was never substantiated, but I
found two gang task force reports that alluded to West’s part in
the land grab. Then, all of a sudden, West was gone. Vanished.
Through inside sources, the task force pieced together that, as a
result of his success in the post-Katrina operation, West was given
a promotion. He was tapped to expand the gang’s influence to
Nashville with the backing of his old gang. Think of it as
franchising for gangs. For the last couple years he’s been growing
a lucrative trade here in Nashville.