Hellfire

Book 12: Jonathan Grave Thriller

by John Gilstrap

Genres: Political Thrillers; General Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

For hostage rescue specialist Jonathan Grave, every mission is a matter of life or death. But he faces his most personal challenge yet when two boys are abducted while being driven to Resurrection House, the school Jonathan founded as a sanctuary for children of incarcerated parents. The boys were entrusted to Jonathan's care. Now they're missing. It's time to fight fire with fire . . . The boys' mom, Connie Kendall, is awaiting trial on drug smuggling charges. Prosecutors want her to testify against the brutal Cortez Cartel to help bring down their ruthless operations. If she cooperates, she'll get an easier sentence. But with her kids in the grip of the cartel, her lips are sealed. As Jonathan and his team of skilled operatives close in on the kidnappers, they realize that their enemies aren't just hell-bent on selling drugs. Rival factions have even deadlier agendas. The clock is ticking on an attack that could kill thousands in a single breath. And it's almost zero hour . . .

Release date: June 30, 2020

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 354

Sample

Ryder Kendall had heard every word spoken from the front seat. They thought he was asleep, and like every other adult, they believed that just because a kid’s eyes were closed late at night, he’d been struck deaf. He should be so lucky. He hadn’t slept more than a few minutes in the past three days. Not since the FBI crashed their house and tore his world apart.

Now, everything was ruined. He and his brother, Geoff, were being driven to some kind of orphanage by a lady driver, who he figured had to be a cop, and a priest named Father Tim. Both were nice enough to their faces, but the quiet conversations revealed their true thoughts. They pitied him and his brother. They felt sorry for them.

When the lady driver wondered how the boys would ever get past this kind of trauma, Father Tim shushed her, said that such things ought not be discussed within earshot. As if Ryder hadn’t already wondered a thousand times how much his life was going to suck from now on.

Dad had warned him that that trouble was coming. Ryder didn’t understand the details, but he wasn’t completely surprised when the cops kicked in their door. Okay, he was terrified when the SWAT team pulled him out of bed and onto the floor at three in the morning. And the handcuffs hurt. But only for ten or fifteen minutes, until they figured that a thirteen-year-old and his eleven-year-old brother didn’t pose any real hazard. After that, the cops let him get dressed, but not without a lady cop with a rifle watching the whole time. She seemed as uncomfortable as he did. After that, they walked him and Geoff straight out to a car that whisked them off to a stranger’s house.

He never got a chance to say goodbye to his parents.

Mom and Dad weren’t specific about why they’d done the things that got them sideways with the FBI—those were the words Dad used, got sideways—but Ryder was smart enough to know that pissing off the FBI was a big deal. That meant that his parents had committed a federal crime, not a state crime. Everybody knew that federal crimes were the worst.

And man, oh man, were there a lot of FBI windbreakers among the cops that invaded his house.

“You’re going to hear a lot of bad things about me and your mom,” Dad had told him just hours before the invasion. “I wish I could tell you that they’ll be false, but they’re not. I’ve done bad things.”

“I don’t understand,” Ryder had said. “What did you do?”

“You don’t want to know the details,” Mom had said.

Ryder had taken that as his cue to shut up. Questions never changed bad news, they only slowed it down.

Dad had continued, “Of course, when this happens, it will have a huge effect on you and your brother.” He’d said it as if they were planning a family trip. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

Sorry? Ryder thought. What happens to Geoff and me?

It turned out that the answer came in several parts. Part one: You get shipped to a house of well-meaning but deeply weird people who smelled like hot dogs and old socks and the family stared at you all the time. Then you get shipped to another place, where they punted Ryder and Geoff to the cop lady and the priest.

And now they were on their way to an orphanage called Resurrection House, even though he and Geoff weren’t exactly orphans.

They were only half-orphans.

Tears pressed behind his eyes as he remembered the sound of his dad rushing out of his bedroom after the cops crashed through the front door. The sound of the gunshots. The stillness of Dad’s body as he lay there in the hall. The redness of the blood in the carpet.

Ryder had no idea what this Resurrection House thing was all about, but for now, he figured that the Resurrection place had to be better than that first douchebag house.

Ryder had always possessed an uncanny ability to read people. Not their minds—not like one of the Legilimens from the Harry Potter stories—but he was great at reading their intentions, their state of ease. It was like what they called stranger danger in school and what Dad used to call situational awareness at home. Right now, Ryder knew that the grownups in the car were upset about something. They leaned close to each other and talked quietly.

The driver lady kept glancing up into the rearview mirror, as if she saw something that made her nervous. She had spiky white hair, but not the kind of white that comes with age. In the mirror, lit up by the lights of the car behind them, the brown eyes that had looked so friendly before now looked wrinkled and scared.

Ryder eased his seatbelt open and rose from his captain’s chair to turn around and look out the back window. The one other car on the road was driving way too close, the way Mom would drive when she was getting ready to pass.

“Please get back in your seat,” Father Tim said. He was completely different from what Ryder expected a priest to be. He seemed too young, and he smiled more than church people normally did.

“Are they trying to pass us?” Ryder asked.

The lady driver—her name was Pam—said, “If they were, they’ve had plenty of time to do it.”

The priest repeated, “Ryder, I really want you in your seat.”

Ryder opened his mouth to argue, but he decided to comply, instead. This didn’t feel right to him.

He’d just turned to face front when the follow car’s high beams lit up the back window and blue strobe lights painted wild shadows all over their van’s interior.

Geoff jumped awake in the captain’s chair to Ryder’s right. “What’s happening?”

“Shut up,” Ryder snapped. He didn’t want to be mean, but if little dickhead was talking, he wouldn’t be able to hear what was being said up front.

“I don’t like this,” Pam said. “I’m not doing anything wrong. There’s no legit reason for us to be pulled over.”

“Well, we can’t just ignore them,” Father Tim said.

The cop behind them popped his siren, as if to cast his vote on what they should do.

Pam pushed the button on the dash to turn on the hazard flashers. “I’m slowing down to thirty-five,” she said. “Call nine-one-one to see—”

“Tell me what’s happening!” Geoff insisted, blocking out the rest of Pam’s command.

Ryder would have been happy to call 911 for them, but the FBI had taken their phones. And their computers. Hell, they’d taken everything. He and Geoff weren’t allowed to take anything with them but underwear, clothes, shoes, and a jacket.

As the van navigated a curve, another wall of blue lights erupted out front. Another police car, parked at an angle across the road.

“I guess that decides that,” the priest said.

The driver stomped hard on the brakes, making Ryder feel better about his decision to sit back down and belt himself in.

“I’m scared,” Geoff whined.

“Shut up,” Ryder said. “We’re all scared. Saying it doesn’t help.”

Very little about this pickup and delivery had felt right to Tim, and now this traffic stop was icing on the cake. He fumbled with his phone as he extracted it from his pocket.

“What do we do now?” he asked.

“We sit,” Pam replied. A retired cop, she’d chosen social work as her second career. The same customer base, she’d explained, but nobody wants to shoot the lady with the clipboard and the smile. “Put the phone back in your pocket. You don’t want to have anything in your hands. They’ll tell us everything we need to know.”

Out front, in the wash of the van’s headlights, the cop’s door opened, and a uniformed officer took a position behind his engine block, his hands full of pistol. “Holy shit!” Tim exclaimed out of reflex. It came out much louder than he wanted.

Pam seemed less unnerved. “What the hell?”

Behind them, Ryder and Geoff almost bumped heads as they leaned into the center space to see out the front windshield.

“Oh, my God,” Geoff blurted. “Are they going to shoot us?”

“Stay in your seats, boys,” Tim said.

An electronic loudspeaker popped from behind. “Driver, turn off your engine and drop the keys out the window.”

“Remember,” Pam said in a clipped tone as she turned the engine off. “You want your hands to be empty.”

“What the hell is going on?” Tim asked.

“Ask me again in five minutes,” Pam replied. “Do everything they say. Move slowly and keep your hands visible at all times.” She made a show of dangling her keys out the window before dropping them to the pavement.

The cop on the loudspeaker said, “Driver, open your door and step out of the car. Keep your hands visible at all times.”

“I told you,” Pam said. She moved carefully. With her left hand extended out her window, she reached across her body with her right hand to pull the handle that opened the door. When it was unlatched, she used her foot to push it all the way open.

“Driver, step out, hands visible, fingers splayed, and sidestep two steps to your left. Leave the door open.”

Pam gave Tim a look he wasn’t sure how to interpret and went about the business of following directions. She slid off her seat, her feet found the ground, and then she stepped off to the side. She stood with her arms out to her sides, cruciform, in a posture that impressed Tim as one that would quickly become exhausting.

“I’m really scared,” said the younger brother. Geoff. Tim owed it to them to remember their names.

“This will all be over in a few minutes,” Tim assured.

“Front seat passenger,” the guy on the loudspeaker said. “Same drill. Open your door, keep your hands visible...” The instructions were pretty much the same as before.

Tim turned so he could see both of their faces. Adolescents look so much younger when they are frightened. “Ryder and Geoff, listen to me,” he said. “There’s been some kind of misunderstanding. I’m sure everything will be fine. After I get out, I want you both to listen carefully and do exactly what the officer tells you to do.”

“Are we in trouble?” Ryder asked. His voice trembled.

“I don’t know,” Tim said. “But if you do what they say, everything will be fine.”

Father Tim slid out of the passenger side door and then moved away from the van.

“Hands farther out to the side,” the cop commanded. Tim raised his hands higher, splayed his fingers farther out. Could they not see his white collar?

“Stay cool, officers,” Tim said. “I’m a priest, and my driver is a retired police officer.”

For a second or two, nothing happened. Maybe longer. This was wrong. All of it seemed unreal. Unearned.

The kids.

Tim turned to look back at the boys, and that’s when he heard the gunshot. Pam fell, and then something kicked Tim hard in the chest. As he fell to the street, he wondered how anything could feel so hot and not set him on fire.

He thought, Please, God, forgive me. Everything went dark.

The spatter from Pam’s exploding head painted the window just inches from Ryder’s face. He jumped and screamed something even he didn’t understand. Another shot followed, and Father Tim dropped from view.

“No!” Geoff yelled. “Oh my God, they killed them!”

Ryder didn’t say anything. His mouth wouldn’t work. Through the smear of gore, he watched the cop from the front racing toward the van. His flashlight beam bounced as he ran. Ryder’s stomach churned. He thought he might puke.

Except he didn’t have time.

The cop pulled his sliding door open at the same time the other cop opened the slider on Geoff’s side. They opened them hard, causing the panels to rebound halfway closed again.

“Get out,” the closest cop said.

“What did you do?” Ryder shouted. “You killed them!”

The cop pressed his pistol against Ryder’s forehead. “Open that mouth of yours again if you want to join them.” The cop’s face looked like it had been bloodied, a red splotch covering part of his forehead and eye.

To Ryder’s right, Geoff yelled, “Leave me alone! Ryder! Help!”

The other cop slapped Geoff across the forehead with the barrel of his pistol, and the boy collapsed.

“Jesus!” Ryder yelled. “Geoff! Goddammit, leave him alone!”

The last part of his words sounded clipped and garbled as the cop with the weird face shoved a rough sack over his head and tied it tight across his neck. Out of reflex, Ryder brought his hands to his throat and pulled at the cinch.

“No!” he yelled, and he punched blindly at his attacker. “Get this thing off—”

A light flashed behind his eyes, and there was nothing.

Tim hurt. His chest felt hot, hollow, and numb all at the same time. He thought his eyes were open, but the world was dark. He thought he could see the outline of trees across the black sky, but he couldn’t be sure.

“I’m alive,” he said aloud. It was a test of his voice. It didn’t sound right, as if coming from someone else and far away. “But I’m dead soon.” The words didn’t frighten him, though maybe they should. What they did was focus him.

He needed help, but out here in the wee hours, he could go undiscovered for longer than it would take for him to bleed out.

Ancient Boy Scout first-aid training tried to form in his mind. Should he raise his legs to counter the onset of shock, or should he try to raise his torso to slow down the bleeding?

Tim winced against the anticipated pain as he finger-walked his left hand to his pants pocket, where he could find his phone. Moving an arm meant flexing a chest muscle, though, and that brought the fiery agony back in Technicolor.

“Awww, dammit!” he grunted as he brought the phone up to his face. He shut his eyes against the brightness of the screen. He pressed the voice command button and said, “Dial nine-one-one.”

The phone replied, “Please say a command.” The electronic lady’s voice sounded even bitchier than usual.

“Call nine—”

“Hey, Kim!” a voice shouted. “This one’s still alive.”

Tim closed his eyes again.

Jonathan Grave awoke as something heavy punched him in the chest. He jerked upright, ready to fight, but as he reached for the .45 on his nightstand, he heard the phone blasting “Onward Christian Soldiers” and the picture cleared for him, despite the darkness. JoeDog, the eighty-pound black lab who occasionally claimed Jonathan to be her master, hated phones. Jonathan must have missed a previous ring or two, and the beast was tired of the noise.

He lifted the covers away and padded naked across the master bedroom to lift his phone from its charger on the dresser. He’d learned a long time ago that calls that came in after bedtime—was it really only 3:15?—brought important news. The short walk ensured that he’d be at least awake enough to understand what was being said.

The ringtone told him that Father Dom D’Angelo would be on the other end. “Morning, Padre,” Jonathan said. His voice sounded a little like he’d gargled with glass. “Working late or getting up early?”

“Hi, Dig. Come downstairs and let me in. It’s cold out here, and we need to talk.”

Jonathan had known Dom since college—long enough to recognize the urgency in his tone. “Hang tight,” he said. “Two minutes, max.”

With his phone still in his hand, he swatted the switch for the overhead light and walked six steps over to the leather chair in front of the window, where he stepped into his bug-out jeans. He always draped clothes nearby when he went to bed, a habit that stretched back to his days in the Unit. In any emergency, dressed was better than undressed, and speed mattered.

JoeDog, fully awake and ready to go, apparently expected something good in her future. Her swinging tail was forcing her hind legs into a jig.

“This isn’t about you,” Jonathan told her, but his voice just spun her up more. He opened the bedroom door, and she was off.

In its previous life, Jonathan’s home had been a firehouse. As a boy, he would hang out there in his spare time, shining brass and playing poker with the firefighters. They’d called him their mascot, and he wore the title proudly. After he fell into a little money—okay, a lot of money—and the powers that be determined that Fire Station 14 would be better situated out on the highway, he bought the place and turned the first two floors of the sprawling structure into his home and the third floor into the offices for his company, Security Solutions. He spent lavishly on the renovation, converting the space into a warm oasis of leather, wood, collectible art, and oriental rugs. While the external architecture remained the same—including the big rollup doors, all but one of which had been permanently secured—he’d gutted the interior. The brass pole remained, but it led nowhere, merely a decoration.

The hardwood steps felt cold against his feet as he made his way down to the main level, where JoeDog had already figured out that someone was at the door. Out of habit and an abundance of caution, Jonathan opened the drawer in the table adjacent to the door to reveal the chambered Glock 19 pistol that always resided there. Had he not known that the visitor was a friend, the Glock would have been in his hand, shielded by his thigh.

Jonathan opened the door to reveal Father Dom standing a few feet back, his hands shoved into the pockets of a beige canvas ranch jacket and his expression dour.

“Hey, Dom. What’s up?” Jonathan stepped aside to leave room for the priest to pass. “Come on in.”

Dom tipped his chin as a thank you and stepped forward. “We have a serious problem,” he said. He walked straight to the three-cushion leather sofa and helped himself to a seat. “I’m missing a couple of kids.”

Something stirred in Jonathan’s gut. Among the significant charitable causes Jonathan supported, the one of which he was most proud—and most anonymous—was his perpetual endowment of Resurrection House, a residential school for the children of incarcerated parents. RezHouse sat on Church Street, up the hill from Saint Katherine’s Catholic Church, on the grounds of Jonathan’s childhood mansion. He’d deeded the massive structure and its acres of property to the church for one dollar, on the condition that it be used in perpetuity as RezHouse. A security breach a while back had resulted in Jonathan hiring a full security team to keep the place safe.

“Missing kids is a scary phrase, Dom,” Jonathan said. “What do you mean?”

“Father Timothy left this afternoon with that new social worker we hired at RezHouse—Pam Hastings—to escort two brothers from a foster home out past Lexington, but he hasn’t come back yet. No phone call, nothing.”

Jonathan sat on the opposite sofa, facing the priest. Jonathan had never met Pam Hastings, but he knew Father Tim to be assistant pastor—or some such, the title didn’t matter—of Saint Kate’s. Quiet and always friendly, he was known among the parishioners as Father Flash, having reduced the duration of his masses to just under an hour each. During Saturday confessions, his line was always the longest because he also had a reputation for easy penance. “That’s a long drive. You talking Botetourt County, that area?”

“Right. A little town called Haverville. About five hours from here.”

“Well, come on, Dom. That’s a ten-hour round trip. Maybe he stopped.”

“Maybe he did,” Dom agreed. “But he would have called. Certainly, by this hour, he would have called. At least one of them would have called.”

Jonathan wanted to find a way to talk him off the ledge, to find a way to conclude that this probably was nothing. But it truly was very late. “Have you called the place they were supposed to be picked up from? Did Father Tim ever arrive?”

Dom was leaning far forward, his elbows forming a tripod with his knees. “I don’t know. I called, but no one answered. It could be because of the hour when I called. I just don’t know.”

Jonathan understood the concern, but he didn’t know why Dom was here. “How can I help?”

Dom seemed to be stumped by the question, too. “I . . . I don’t know, to be honest. I figured you had contacts you could reach out to. You seem to know everybody.”

Jonathan watched his friend’s eyes. There was real fear in them. Yes, there were people he could wake up, but at this hour, that was an aggressive move to make. On the other hand, this was Dom asking.

“I know just the guy,” Jonathan said. He pulled his phone from the pocket of his jeans, scrolled through his contacts list, and pressed a button. When the line on the other end shifted to voice mail, he clicked off and punched the number again. The line rang again. “I can do this all night,” Jonathan muttered.

On the fourth ring of the second go-round, the line connected, and the very angry voice of the Fisherman’s Cove police chief said, “Honest to God, Digger, if there’s not a dead body in your foyer—”

“Missing kids, Doug,” Jonathan said, getting ahead of the idle threat. “On their way to RezHouse and they never showed up. Father Timothy, too, along with a social worker. Dom’s worried that—”

“Stop there,” Doug Kramer said. “Where are you?”

“I’m at home.”

“The padre there with you?”

“Yes.”

“How long have they been missing?”

Jonathan relayed the question, then put his phone on speaker.

“I can’t give you a hard number on the time,” Dom said. “Tim and Pam left this afternoon—no, yesterday afternoon, I guess—to go out to Haverville and come back with two kids. Two brothers, Ryder and Geoffrey Kendall. I haven’t heard anything from any of them since.”

“Where the hell is Haverville?”

“Botetourt County,” Jonathan said.

“Okay, and where the hell is Botetourt County?”

“Way west,” Dom said. “Closer to Tennessee than here, but Father Tim would have called me if there was a delay.”

“Murphy rules the universe,” Kramer said. “If they broke down, it would only happen where there’s no cell service.”

“The boys are eleven and thirteen,” Dom said. “Their mom was just arrested, their dad is dead.”

Silence on the other end.

“Come on, Doug,” Jonathan coaxed. “Eleven and thirteen. Yeah, could be nothing, but...”

“Give me thirty minutes,” Kramer said. “I’ll get my head straight and pull on some clothes, then head over to your place. And you’d better have coffee brewing.”

Twenty-eight minutes later, JoeDog jumped to life and scrabbled her way out from her sleeping perch under the coffee table that separated the two sofas. She had an uncanny way of knowing before the bell rang that someone was at the door.

It wasn’t yet four in the morning, but Doug Kramer was showered, shaved, and fully clothed in a freshly pressed khaki uniform, complete with gleaming Sam Browne belt and polished gold badge.

Jonathan greeted him with a steaming mug of coffee. “Cream and four hundred sugars, just as you like it,” he said.

“I wouldn’t press my luck on the humor thing at this hour,” Kramer said. He hooked the mug’s ring with his forefinger and wrapped his other hand around the barrel for warmth. “Morning, Dom.”

The priest was standing at the sofa. “I hope this turns out to be a big mistake,” he said.

Kramer prepared himself with a deep breath and took a sip of coffee. “Let’s all sit down.”

From body language alone, Jonathan prepared himself for bad news. He let Doug take the spot he used to have on the sofa while he helped himself to the William and Mary rocker that normally was his favorite anyway, thanks to too many years of back-yanking parachute drops.

“I’m not getting a happy vibe out of you,” Dom said. His face was drawn tight.

“That’s because I have bad news,” Kramer said. “While I was getting ready, I had our dispatcher do some checking. You know, to see if anything bad has happened on the roads or whatever.” His face turned to stone as he cast a glance toward Jonathan and then returned his gaze to Father Dom. “There was a car found on a back road where Botetourt County meets Bedford County—between Salem and Lynchburg. Local sheriff’s department says it looks like it might be a carjacking. There was blood on the ground, but no sign of people. A couple of shell casings, but that doesn’t mean anything out in that part of the world. People shoot all the time.”

“They do that here, too, Doug,” Jonathan said. “What about the car? Who’s that registered to?”

“It’s a rental.”

Dom’s head drooped. “Tim used a rental car for the transfer. It was too far a drive in his own vehicle, and the RezHouse van is in for service.”

“Do you know which company he used?”

“I could probably find out,” Dom said. “Who leased the car they found?”

“It’s only been a few minutes,” Kramer said. “Not a lot of time for questions yet. It’s a pretty sure thing that an abandoned car didn’t jump to the top of their to-do list, even in a place like wherever-the-hell-that-place-is.”

“No mention of the boys?” Jonathan asked.

“No mention of anybody. As far as they’re concerned, there’s nobody to mention.”

Jonathan ran it all through his head. He flat-out didn’t believe in coincidences. Building on Doug Kramer’s commitment to Murphy’s law, Jonathan was a disciple of the codicil that declared when two or more unpleasant events happened in short proximity of time or space, they were presumed to be related until proven otherwise. In this case, the blood, shell casings, and missing children told the story of a murder and a kidnapping.

“What do you know about the parents, Dom?”

“No more than I know about any of our students before they arrive. A name. And in this case, I know that their father was killed in the raid on their house and that their mother is in custody. The rest will be in the file that comes with them.”

“Is she rich?” Kramer asked. He looked to Jonathan. “I presume you’ve jumped right to kidnapping.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“I have no idea,” Dom said. “It’s not like we do credit checks. Tuition at RezHouse is free.”

“We’ve all three of us got internet machines in our pockets,” Jonathan observed, retrieving his phone. “You’ve said their names twice, Dom, but refresh my memory.”

“Geoffrey and Ryder Kendall,” Dom said. “I don’t remember the mother’s name. I could go back to the rectory and get it.”

“Kendall,” the chief said. His eyebrows knitted together in a scowl. “Boy, that name rings a bell.”

Jonathan entered the name into his phone and laughed. “Not exactly a unique name, is it?”

“Might her name be Constance?” Kramer asked.

“It could be,” Dom said. “In fact, I think it is.”

Jonathan entered the name into his search engine and got nothing. “What are you seeing that I’m not?” he asked Kramer.

“You can’t search where I’m searching,” Kramer said. “The Constance Kendall I’m seeing here has a federal warrant out on her. DEA and FBI both. It’s a felony pick-up order, but that’s all it shows.”

“Is that unusual?” Jonathan asked. “I mean, that the warrant doesn’t say what it’s for?”

“Very.”

“What does that mean?”

“I have no idea,” Kramer said. “It’s rare enough to qualify as unique.”

“And does unique imply important enough to kill or kidnap children?” Jonathan asked.

Kramer laughed. “You like running down a single track, don’t you?”

“Eleven and thirteen,” Jonathan reminded yet again. “Whatever this is, that makes it worth tracking down.”

“What does that mean?” Kramer asked.

“That means I’m going to do what I do best,” Jonathan said. “I’m going to bring them back home.”

Kramer stood. “And that’s my cue to leave.”

The suddenness of his move startled Jonathan. “Just like that?” He stood, too.

“Don’t take it personally,” Kramer said. “I’ve never really understood what exactly you do for a living, but I’ve always sensed, as an officer of the law and of the court, that I’m better off for my ignorance. Am I wrong?”

Jonathan smiled. “Thanks for coming by, Doug.”

He walked the chief to the door. “Keep the coffee cup,” Jonathan said. “I have lots more just like it.”

Kramer pulled up short just as he crossed the threshold. His face showed worry. “We’ve known each other long enough to speak plainly, right?”

“I’m hurt that you would even ask,” Jonathan said.

“Be careful,” Kramer said. “Around here, you’re a big deal and you get away with stuff. That shootout at the mansion, for example.”

Jonathan waved it off. A terrorist cell had come far too close for comfort not too long ago, and the results had brought headlines that no town council ever wants to deal with.

Kramer continued, “Don’t make like that’s nothing. It’s something. It’s a big something. Anyway, I could keep your name out of it because I’m your friend, and I know you’re coming from an honest place.”

“You don’t want me hurting strangers,” Jonathan offered, cutting to the chase.

“Well, not you, so much,” Kramer said. “But this deals with kids...” He left the rejoinder for Jonathan to fill in the blanks.

“Boxers,” Jonathan said.

Kramer hiked his shoulders, a silent yes. Brian Van de Muelebroecke—aka Boxers—was one of Jonathan’s closest friends. They’d worked together since forever. Nearly seven feet tall and topping the scales at a deeply classified number, Boxers—also aka Big Guy—lived in a world where subtlety didn’t exist. He was simultaneously kind and lethal. Jonathan knew of no one more loyal and dedicated t