Highway to Vengeance: A Thomas Highway Thriller (4 page)

“I do.”

“Then follow me, my friend. I’ll take you to
the living quarters.”

We made our way to the far corner of the
warehouse, where, strategically hidden behind a maze of stacked
boxes, was a sturdy-looking door with an old-fashioned combination
lock built in.

“Steel reinforced,” Willis said. He gave it
a rap. It sounded solid. “Used to be on a bank vault. Combination
is 88-44-22-11. Give it a whirl.”

“Which way first?” I asked.

“Left. Always left.”

I spun the lock to the proper numbers. There
was an audible click, then I pulled the door outward and we walked
in.

“Now this is what I’m talking about,” I said
upon entering.

The space was about 800 square feet and set
up like a studio apartment, complete with a bathroom, bed, desk,
refrigerator, stove, big-screen plasma TV, Blu-Ray player, stereo
system, laptop, and fully-stocked walk-in pantry.

Willis was smiling proudly. “Pretty sweet
set-up, ain’t it?”

“Hell yeah,” I said. “I’m just pissed you
never told me about it before. And here I thought we were
friends.”

“What can I say? Every man’s got to have a
place to get away to. Even a bachelor like me. Anyway, it’s got
running water and electricity plus a backup generator if someone
cuts the power. But what it doesn’t have is access to the outside
world. No cable, no phone line, no internet, nothing that can be
tapped into.”

“Then what’s the laptop for?”

“Security,” Willis said. “Here, let me show
you.”

They walked over to the desk. Willis flipped
open the laptop and hit a few keys. The screen split up into four
quarters.

“It’s a closed-circuit system,” Willis said.
“Four cameras. Two outside, covering the entryways. Two inside, one
an overhead of the main floor, the other watching the door to the
living quarters. They switch to night-vision once the light gets
below a certain level. Plus the system is equipped with an
attention alarm that trips whenever something larger than a dog
moves into the frame.”

“What’s the alarm like?”

Grinning like a school-boy playing a prank
on his teacher, Willis clicked on a lightning bolt icon in the
corner of the screen. An incredibly loud, high-pitched,
ingratiating screech filled the room. It sounded like a million
owls on steroids, all shrieking simultaneously.

My hands flew to my head on their own
accord, but even with my ears covered, the sound pierced my mind
like an ice pick through the skull.

It stopped abruptly.

I pulled my hands away but my ears were
still buzzing so I stuck the tips of my pinkies in there and
wiggled them around but it didn’t seem to help.

“How did you turn it off?” I said, not sure
if I was shouting.

“It shuts itself off after three seconds,”
Willis said. “Just long enough to let you know something is going
on out there.”

“Or bring you back from the dead,” I said.
“Damn that thing is loud.”

“That’s the whole point.”

I looked around a final time and nodded my
head in admiration. “It’s a sweet setup, I must admit.”

“And I haven’t even showed you the best part
yet,” Willis said. “Come here. Check this out.”

I followed him into the walk-in pantry and
watched him from the door as he made his way into the far corner.
He knelt down, grabbed a piece of fishing line from the floor, and
pulled sharply.

A square portion of the floor lifted,
revealing a four-foot hole with a ladder descending down one side
into the darkness below.

I started laughing; I couldn’t help myself.
“Oh man, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Pretty cool, huh?”

“Hell yeah.”

“You never know when you’re going to need to
make a hasty exit,” Willis said. “The ladder leads to a rainwater
storm drain. Once you reach the bottom, cross to the other side
until you hit the wall, then turn to your right. About fifty feet
down is another ladder. That one leads to an old automotive garage
on the next street over, two buildings down.”

“And I suppose you own that building
too?”

“Of course,” Willis said. “And inside the
building is a 2000 Ford Taurus with the keys in the glove
compartment. It looks like crap on the outside but its got a brand
new heavy-duty Twin cab engine under the hood. That baby can
move.”

I laughed under my breath. “You’re a slick
little bastard, aren’t you?”

The corner of Willis’s mouth turned up
briefly in what he considered a smile. Then he closed the trap door
and we exited the pantry.

Once back in the main room I noticed a black
duffel bag sitting on the floor by the bed. “Is that the rest of
the stuff?”

Willis nodded.

I picked up the bag, set it on the bed,
opened it. Inside was a MK23 MOD 0 .45-caliber handgun. Next to it
was a Gemtech Blackslide sound suppressor.

“That was your service pistol, right?”
Willis asked.

“It sure as hell was,” I said. I again
marveled at how adept he was at obtaining information but this time
I was smart enough not to mention it, lest it be considered an
insult.

I picked up the handgun, screwed the
suppressor onto the end of the barrel, and aimed it at the wall.
Even with the silencer, it was as perfectly balanced as I’d
remembered. I’d shot thousands of rounds through one just like it
while training and even though it had been a couple years since I’d
used one, it still felt perfectly natural in my hand, like an
extension of my arm.

“So what are you planning on doing next?”
Willis said.

“I figure I’ll take Russo at his house
sometime tonight, ask him a few questions, find out how much he
knows about the situation.”

“You think he’ll talk?”

“Oh, he’ll talk.” I looked down the barrel
at the wall beyond and slowly squeezed the trigger, testing the
pull weight. There was a loud click as the weapon dry-fired. It had
a hair-trigger. Half a pound at the most. Just like I liked it.
“They all talk eventually.”

Willis chuckled under his breath and shook
his head. “Listen to you, going all Dirty Harry and shit.”

Smiling, I unscrewed the silencer from the
barrel and set them both down on the bed. Looking into the duffel
bag, I saw eight boxes of .45 caliber hollow-point match-grade
ammo, 400 rounds in all. More than enough. There were also two
different styles of holsters and a fanny pack that could double as
an ammo dump and another place to store the pistol in a pinch.

“So how much do I owe you for all this?” I
asked.

“Save your money,” Willis said. “You never
know when you’re going to need it. We’ll settle up after this thing
is over.”

“Assuming I make it through alive, of
course.”

“That’s a good point,” Willis said. “You
know what? Maybe you should pay me now.”

CHAPTER FIVE

David Russo lived in a single-story,
ranch-style home set amongst the rolling hills of East San Diego
County, within a gated golf course community called Southern Ranch.
His house was backed up to the fourteenth hole, which sat near the
outskirts of the community. It was serviced by only a single road
and the nearest neighbor was more than 300 yards away. The houses
were set up so that nobody had a clear view of their neighbor, a
fact which served me perfectly on this night.

I had taken the long way in, bypassing the
ten-foot high wall that blocked off the community by following a
little-used hiking trail up into the brushy hills above the golf
course that snaked its way through the houses. I was wearing blue
jeans and a black sweatshirt and carrying a backpack, looking every
bit the part of a man just out for a hike in the late
afternoon.

After twenty minutes of scoping out the
area, I found a spot above the fourteenth hole that had a perfect
view of Russo’s house. I sat down on the ground behind a scraggly
bush, pulled a set of mini-binoculars from the backpack and waited
out the afternoon.

I watched his house until the sun had fallen
three-quarters of the way below the purple mountains to the west,
then pulled a tin of black grease paint from the backpack. With the
help of a small folding mirror, I carefully applied the grease
paint to my face, covering it completely. Then I slipped out of my
blue jeans—the full length wetsuit beneath my clothes showing
momentarily—and swapped them out with a pair of black cotton
sweatpants from the daypack, making me all but invisible to the
naked eye.

Once it was completely dark, I pulled the
hood of my black sweatshirt over my head and started carefully
picking my way down the hill and across the fourteenth hole.

A couple minutes later I eased into position
alongside Russo’s house, lying on my stomach in the sagebrush less
than fifteen feet from the front entrance of his garage.

I had been in position for a little less
than two hours when I saw headlights appear at the far end of the
road. A few seconds later, a black Lincoln Navigator came into
view, heading towards me. It slowed down and turned into Russo’s
driveway, giving me an excellent sidelong view of the driver.

It was Russo. He was alone.

There were a couple of different things I
could do, depending on where he parked his car. But once I heard
the sound of the garage door opening, my course was set.

I waited until the front half of the large
SUV passed out of sight and into the garage. After glancing once
more at the street to make sure it was still clear, I stood up and
started walking quickly but unhurriedly towards the garage.

A few seconds later, I was standing with my
back against the stucco wall of the garage, H&K in hand, my
heart pounding, my breath quick and ragged, my muscles tensing up.
It had been years since I’d done anything like this, and my body
was reacting poorly. I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to
relax, but it only helped a little. Three years of inactivity
suddenly felt like a very long time.

Despite being completely exposed were a car
to come down the street, I forced myself to wait until the garage
door started to close before making my move. Going in too early
would create too many uncontrollable variables.

From my position I could hear everything
going on in the garage. The brakes being engaged. The car coming to
a stop. The engine shutting off. The driver’s door being opened
then shut. And finally the familiar whine of the garage door engine
being engaged.

I took a final deep breath, then turned the
corner and stepped into the garage, careful to step over the ground
sensor.

Russo had just stepped out of the car and
was turning towards the door leading to the house when he saw me
come around the corner. He stopped abruptly. His face went pale,
his eyes widened, his mouth opened slightly as if to cry out.

I raised the gun and pointed it at his face.
“Don’t make a fucking sound.”

Behind me, the garage door finished closing,
effectively cutting us off from the outside world.

Russo’s arms were hanging down by his side.
His keys were in his right hand and a black leather briefcase was
in his left. He was shaking so badly that the keys were
rattling.

I moved forward, narrowing the distance
between us but making sure to stay out of Russo’s reach, just in
case. There was nothing to indicate that the smaller man would pose
even the hint of a problem, but it was best not to get into bad
habits.

“Drop your stuff,” I said.

Russo’s keys and briefcase fell to the
ground with a clatter.

“Now turn around.”

“Why?” Russo said. “So you can shoot me in
the back?” He shook his head. “No way, man. No way.”

“Listen shithead. If I was going to kill you
I’d have done it already. Now shut the fuck up and turn around or
I’ll put a bullet in your kneecap.”

He paused for a moment before turning around
but only after the tears started to flow. To me, this meant two
things.

One: My theory of him being behind the
murders was clearly out the window now. He was obviously not
capable. Russo was nothing more than a middle man, if not just an
outright pawn in this situation.

Two: Getting information from him was going
to be easier than I had thought. There was no reason to get violent
unless absolutely necessary; in fact, the soft approach would
likely be more effective than the hard one in this case. Pain would
undoubtedly just make him start blubbering. And that was the last
thing I wanted.

“Listen,” I said, softening my tone
considerably to reflect my new direction. “I just want to talk. So
if you do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you, then we should
be able to get through this without any real discomfort, okay?”

“O . . . Okay,” he said, confusion writ
large over his face.

I dipped into my fanny pack and traded the
gun for a pair of zip-ties that had been looped together to form
temporary handcuffs.

“Put your hands behind your back.
Slowly.”

Russo did as he was told.

“Good,” I said. “Now, I’m going to come over
and secure your arms together at the wrists. If you don’t tense up,
it won’t be uncomfortable.”

I stepped forward and bound Russo’s hands
together with a zip-tie. He didn’t so much as flinch.

“Now we’re going to go inside your house and
have a little talk,” I said. “Stay cool and everything will be
fine.”

Russo nodded, as passive as a newborn puppy.
I led him to the door to the house with a gentle prod.

“Is it unlocked?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I grabbed the handle and turned, confident
that my gloves would protect me from leaving any fingerprints. The
door opened and we walked into the house. A light in the kitchen
was on, providing more than enough illumination to negotiate the
room without difficulty.