Blood Appeal Page 19

  Playing on my mind was the loss of the element of surprise. Catching these guys out in the woods in a training camp ambush would likely never happen. They’d have to be morons to believe I’d followed them to Alaska and didn’t know the whereabouts of their training center. Their camp was more than two-hundred miles away. The saving grace of our run-in would be if they reacted and hightailed it to Glennallen for safety.

  Still spurred on to make something happen, it wouldn’t take a lot of effort to set up an encounter. All we had to do was pull the car over on the road’s edge and wait. They would take care of the rest. We simply had to lead them out of the populated areas.

  As we passed by the corner house, I had an unobstructed view through their backyard to the street where the SUV had turned. The window of opportunity lasted just long enough to catch a glimpse of the Jeep as it completed its turnaround. Seconds later it barreled past the stop sign, barely slowing down as it went through the intersection. I alerted Anna, “They’re coming.”

  We were in five o’clock traffic. Anchorage, like most cities, crowded the roadways at rush hour. We caught the light and turned left into slow moving traffic on Jewel Lake Road. Still, we were better off than the SUV that had become stuck at the traffic light. Anna yammered out her thoughts as they rattled around in her head. “There were three people in the Jeep. You said Boury and Duke for sure. Who is the third person? They may be innocent.”

  She was thinking out loud, but I tossed in my two-cents worth free of charge. “People are free to choose who they associate with but are never free from the consequences of their choices. I won’t kill an innocent person except in self-defense. If the rider engages me, he’s no longer innocent. He made his choice. Besides, it might be Woolf.”

  We hooked another left onto Dimond Boulevard, worked our way through the intersection and picked up speed eastbound. Flattop would’ve had to jockey his rig through traffic to have caught us. That didn’t happen, and now the SUV had vanished.

  Flattop didn’t know the Avenger and didn’t look as if he’d gotten a good visual on us. I counted on Flattop questioning his pal Duke’s level of sanity. Maybe it was all a figment of his imagination. After all, they had left me for dead.

  “Get our map out, Walter. Locate where we are and let me know when larger roadway intersections come up. We will keep our speed up that way and get the distance between us and them. Once we’ve lost them for sure, we can make our way back to the hotel.”

  Thirty minutes later we found ourselves on Lake Otis Parkway, heading in the direction of the Golden Lion. We crossed over the Tudor Road intersection and north to 36th Street. We sat in the parking space and waited a few minutes to see if we had any unexpected visitors show. Anna headed for the room while I placed the car cover over the Avenger and tucked it in for the night.

  Plans were still on the table to check out Pug’s place in Moose Pass. Now that the A-Team learned of a possible threat, I expected a sense of heightened security would follow. Kuhl’s recon might result in disaster unless we notified him of the change in conditions. Anna called and left a message on his cell phone to contact us pronto. It was bothersome to leave it open-ended, but it was the only option available.

  I watched the local news at ten while Anna completed her nightly routine. My thoughts drifted between memories with Anna and the close encounter of the day. I felt conflicted. Anna was the perfect lady for me. If things had gone as planned in Toronto, we would’ve left on vacation and laid the groundwork for our future together. But, it didn’t go as planned and I ended up in Shell Knob without Anna.

  Odd, how fate causes paths to crisscross in life. Anna and I were destined to be together. The haunting question was, how? Were we meant to be romantically involved or were we yoked together for the sole purpose of maintaining an assassination league. The one thing I was sure of was our paths had crossed again, and we were hot on the trail of a pack of killers.

  The hotel had provided a beautiful third story view of nothing beautiful at all. The only window in the room overlooked a dimly lit IRS building. But my attention wasn’t looking out the window. Anna had climbed in on one side of the king sized bed and whispered, “We should get some rest.” I looked toward the couch, but Anna patted the bed next to her and asked, “Don’t you want to sleep here?” I slipped my T-Shirt off, laid flat on my back, pulled the covers up over my bare chest, and exhaled a deep breath in hopes of relaxing.

  Anna, being female and intuitive, honed in on my feelings. In the most roundabout way she could take, she tried to get me to open up. “Are you familiar with Yin and Yang?”

  “What? I saw it in a couple of Bruce Lee movies.”

  “Yin and Yang is a Chinese philosophy of opposite forces. Very ancient.”

  As we lay in the dark room, the midnight sun peeked through the edge of the window shades to add a bluish hue to our surroundings. Anna snuggled up under my arm and continued, “The Chinese believe there is a connection between seemingly opposing forces, like darkness and light, or life and death.”

  We were going somewhere with the conversation, but I didn’t have a clue where until she asked, “Do you think we have a similar connection, a yin-yang, with the people we kill?” Anna wasn’t trying to be funny. I could hear the sincerity in her words.

  “I don’t know if I’m tracking here or not sweetie, but I’d say what we’re doing is about as yin-yang as it gets. It’s a blood vengeance.”

  “Blood vengeance?”

  “Yeah, you ever hear of the Hatfield and McCoy feuds? They were opposites. The government called it a blood vengeance. Local law enforcement had chosen sides, and in order to quell the violence, the Fed’s enacted martial law to gain control of the area.”

  “Sounds like they were the same thing, not opposites.”

  “Not if you asked them. One was right, and one was wrong, depending on which one you asked. There’s your yin and yang. The Alliance and Vigilance Committee portray themselves as guardians of the people. Similar to what we say as Palatini. But we are opposite forces. They are kidnappers, rapists, and murderers. We are vigilantes, assassins, and executioners of justice. Not exactly a popular notion and some would say we’re just as wrong as the Hatfield and McCoy’s. Ideology lends itself to acceptance for what has been done. Our ideology does too.”

  “Walter, about what happened in Toronto–”

  I cut her off midstream, “Sweetie, it’s behind us—leave it there.” My words might not have sat well with her, but that’s where I needed it— in the rear view mirror. It was obvious she wouldn’t be satisfied until we talked about what went wrong, but for me, now was not the time. I had to steer the conversation in a positive direction.

  “Do you remember the first time we worked together? When I dropped that victimized girl off to you in Portland.”

  “That wasn’t the first time we worked together. That was the first time you dumped your problem on me to fix.”

  “Well, you sic’d me on that creeper like I was a trained attack dog.” We laughed. She knew I was right. I continued, “When did we work together before that? Are you talking about that lawyer I’d planned to take out, but you whacked him first?”

  “We never worked together on that operation. And as I recall you had given up on the idea.”

  “I didn’t give up, just making sure of my target’s guilt.”

  “You didn’t know another hitter was in the field, and I doubt if you would have ever hit him. You didn’t know the depth of his child pornography. The first time we worked together was the religious cult leaders you shot at the hot springs, remember?”

  Anna was able to lift my spirits when I was in a funk. She brought up my accomplishments and patted me on the back. Even attack dogs liked to be petted and appreciated.

  “Yeah, I remember. I wanted to protect you and not get you involved. Wasn’t I the idiot?”

  “Well yes and no. It’s probably a good time to tell you. I didn’t stay in the car as you had instructed me to
do. I’d checked out the area earlier and knew where you would set up, providing you possessed a logical mind. I gave you time to get comfortable and become confident that you were alone as you readied your ambush. Then, I left the car and made my way further up the hill so as not to attract your attention and worked my way to within ten feet of where you lay hidden.”

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “For two reasons, one was to cover your back. The other reason was to evaluate you for Palatini candidacy.”

  “I briefly detected your perfume but discounted it as part of my fantasy—you were on my mind, even back then, in ways you never imagined.” Anna’s soft body pressed against mine as she ran the tips of her fingers lightly across my chest. “The point was, Palatini go after large scale operations. Like our trip to Thailand. We rescued those kidnapped children and gave them their lives back. Remember? We disrupted an entire chain of organized sex slavery crime.”

  “Yeah, that was wild.”

  “You followed up by joining in the assault against a Brazilian child pornography ring. You, Seymour, Rusty, and Donnie cut off the legs of their criminal enterprise. I remember Maximillian saying we don’t have an accurate count, but quite possibly, you saved hundreds of lives by what you did.”

  “Donnie bought the farm on that project,” I whispered. The room was silent for a moment.

  “I know you don’t want to talk about Toronto, but I want you to let me say one thing without interrupting.”

  “Okay.”

  “You performed amazingly well under the stress and circumstances you were under. You saved hundreds more women and children who were being trafficked by the Mob and those that would be enslaved in the future.”

  Lying at my side, Anna couldn’t have seen my smile, but it was there, hidden in darkness.

  “I wanted you to know that I support you in every way on this project. This is the first time I’ve seen Palatini devote so much time, manpower, and finances to a project that will bring justice to only one victim.”

  “What I’m going to say won’t make a lot of sense, but I’m going to say it anyway.” A brief pause had served to highlight my awkwardness. “I was shown the ‘what’ and ‘who’ of the crime committed against that little girl.” Again I paused. “I don’t want to make it sound weird, but I’ve been chosen to act on Dawn Simmonds behalf. I’ve been Called, by ‘who’ or ‘what’ I don’t know, but her blood has made an appeal.”

  Anna’s hair brushed across my face as she moved on top my chest. It was dark, but not so dark I couldn’t see her eyes as she studied my face. “I don’t think it’s weird at all.” She’d led me to the exact place I wanted to go. She nestled deeper into my embrace. “I believe whatever you say, Walter.” I’d shed the reserve I’d felt earlier and allowed my errant hands to stray for the moment and walk down memory lane.

  Chapter 13

  “Fear is a reaction…Courage is a decision.”

  —Sir Winston Churchill

  The night had been long and sleep short but rewarding. No contact with Kuhl remained a chief concern. We pressed forward with our plans to head to Moose Pass and recon Brady Woolf ’s place. We grabbed a quick bite at the hotel before departing.

  “I have an idea I want to discuss before we leave.”

  “What’s up sweetie?”

  “Duke or Boury may have called Woolf and warned him to watch for you or your car. Even if they weren’t positive, they might have considered notifying the others.”

  “What do you have in mind? We already agreed not to call off the trip.”

  “We need Woolf ’s place mapped. I think we should pick up a rental and drive it until we leave for Glennallen.”

  “Good idea, make it happen.”

  One thing I’ve learned about Anna, she loved to make the arrangements. She had a head for details, was a quick organizer and liked all the Is dotted and Ts crossed. While we finished breakfast, Anna made a call and found a car to pick up. The extra run-around cost us time but ensured our anonymity. It was a smart move.

  With Anna behind the wheel of our newly rented Toyota, we made tracks south on the Seward Highway. We hadn’t traveled fifteen minutes before we were out of Anchorage and cruising along Turnagain Arm with Cook Inlet in our rearview mirror. The Inlet waters turned tranquil a mile past Beluga point where the current of the tidewaters had been noticeable. I wished the same were true about the roadway. Although still early in the day, there were numerous motorhomes and travel trailers lumbering along like railroad cars on the only access route to the Seward Peninsula. We weren’t going to make up lost time on the drive.

  For most people, the view was scenic and relaxing. Even with pressing issues on my mind, I’d found myself trying to spot mountain sheep on the rocky outcroppings where the road had cut into the mountain side. Not far from Anchorage, a small pod of white Beluga Whales rolled and fed at the edge of the receding tide.

  An hour south, the road ascended Turnagain Pass. Green, lush, picturesque beauty surrounded us. The slow moving traffic quickly got on my last nerve. Tourists in RV’s hogged the road and hampered posted driving speed. When we hit the passing lanes, we gave the Toyota all she had but in the end it didn’t matter how many we passed. We ended up stuck behind another RV or trailer.

  We took the turn-off toward Seward and a hundred miles south of Anchorage a small sign appeared at the edge of the road that read Moose Pass. You didn’t want to blink, or you’d miss the sign and the town. Moose Pass was similar to Shell Knob in some aspects. Small, isolated and spread along the roadway, hemmed in by the mountainous terrain to the northwest and the Upper and Lower Trail Lakes on the opposite side.

  Pug had an old 1988 Champion 12’ by 56’ mobile home registered to his name. In an area that housed a little over two-hundred people, I didn’t figure it would take long to find his place. We slowed the Toyota and hooked a left off the Seward Highway when we spotted several loosely clustered mobile homes.

  “This is it,” Anna said.

  Nestled in the park, she knew which space was his. The lots were spacious, with yards and roads well maintained. Trees accented this neighborhood. Clearly visible were less than a dozen mobile homes, encircled by a gravel road in front of the spaces. The trailer park had one unique feature. A row of RV and travel trailer hook-ups bordered the park’s edge nearest the highway. Every space was filled with fifth-wheel trailers and motorhomes that hadn’t found their way to the roadways to menace other traffic. Eventually, they would.

  On a hunch, I asked Anna to drive by the motorhomes and see if Leigh’s RV was there. None of the rigs matched up to the description Anna had, so we turned our attention to Pugs trailer house. We crept along the gravel drive keeping a close eye out for Woolf ’s White 1980 International Harvester Scout.

  We located Woolf ’s aluminum-sided palace where the map had indicated it would be, but there were no vehicles parked in the stubby driveway or under the attached carport. I mapped the area quickly, then we high-tailed it for Anchorage.

  Kuhl had not returned my message. There was no way of knowing if his cell phone received a signal where he’d stayed. From not knowing his status, a sense of foreboding and anxiety set upon us. Given the distance we had to travel, and the quietness of the ride, a guy had time to think about the ‘what ifs’ and I didn’t want to verbalize any of them. It would only serve to heighten the level of our concern.

  We swung into Anchorage, dropped the rental car off, fired up the Avenger and hit the road for Glennallen. We were halfway across Eklutna Flats when I told Anna about an auto wrecking yard that we’d passed on the way to anchorage and that I wanted to pay them a visit. I needed to outfit the Avenger with local license plates.

  The Oregon license plates the Avenger wore were registered to the new me and legitimate. That meant the new me was traceable. For the project, the legal plates needed to be shelved and a set of local non-traceable plates mounted in their stead. I asked Anna to watch for the junkyard as we entered Palmer.<
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  It was four-thirty when we arrived. The two-tone dilapidated wood fence stood easily over seven-foot high in places and less in others, effectively hiding the mangled vehicle graveyard from public view.

  “Wait here unless you want to stretch your legs.”

  Anna looked over the ratty storefront exterior and said, “Enjoy.”

  “I’ll make it fast.”

  As I stepped from the car, I grinned back at Anna and said, “You sure you don’t want to stretch your legs, sweetie? I’ll bet the crusty old geezer that runs the joint would like to see them.” With a wry look, Anna merely pointed toward the front door. I closed the door and hoofed it to the entrance. A red and white sign that read “Closed” hung by a wire and floated on the evening breeze. In the window adjacent to the entry door was a plastic sign. Stuck to the glass by a suction cup it read “Business hours” and showed five o’clock daily as their closing time. I cupped my hand against the window and looked inside. A row of overhead fluorescent lights faintly illuminated a long counter. I didn’t see anyone moving around in the place. I figured the old coot probably closed up early to beat the Palmer traffic rush to the nearest tavern. I reached over and pushed down on the vintage lever door handle. It opened. A chill came over me. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Anna watching through the rear-view mirror. The door opened smoothly and without so much as a squeak. As I stepped through the entrance, I placed my gun hand on the butt of my Walther. As I crept forward, there was a rustling noise somewhere in front of me. I didn’t need to walk into a crime scene or criminal act in progress, but it was the first thing that came to mind.

  He startled me as much as I had him. Behind the counter was a young man kneeled on the floor rummaging through a box. Quick to his feet, the little guy practically jumped out of his skin when a breeze caught the entry door and slammed it shut.