The Shack series

Chapter 22

That garnered another raised eyebrow from Sheree. It was pretty clear I needed to explain Kurt and Katie's business to her in more detail.

Delaney took a while to spin down to go to bed; the prospect of another summer camp had her too excited.

She finally did, though, and Sheree and I sat on the couch watching the fire. I knew the question was coming.

"So, Kurt and Katie's school..." She just let it hang there.

"It really is for bodyguards. VIP asset protection. Really high level stuff mostly. They also manage some private military contracts. Some armed combat forces and security service stuff."

Sheree looked at me suspiciously. "That sounds like mercenaries."

"Mercenaries are illegal. The UN basically banned them back in the late 1980s."

"So what's the difference?"

"The name mostly. Supposedly, there are other differences, but they aren't really clear. Kurt and Katie mostly do training." Mostly. The only time they'd asked for my help, they'd seemed to be on the right side of the law. At least that's what I'd assumed. I hadn't asked a lot of questions.

Sheree gave me a calculating look and shifted gears. "Did Delaney really roll cars over down there?"

"That's normal in a really good 'crash bang' course. The only way to really know what the limits are is to go all the way over a few times. It's the only way to get a real feel for it." I could see she was trying not to be upset. "Kurt and Katie are real pros. The cars have safety harnesses and they have a crew and equipment right there, just in case. She was probably safer there than on a roller coaster." That was probably an exaggeration, but most roller coasters don't have crash medical teams standing by.

She sat silently for a second. "That's why they always need more cars, isn't it?"

"Yeah. The class is supposed to chew them up. If they don't roll them, they aren't trying hard enough."

"So Delaney rolled a lot of them. She's really fearless, isn't she? Too fearless." Sheree smiled softly at me. "That's why you did it, so she'd know when she needs to put the brakes on."

I nodded. "There are limits for everybody. Physics doesn't give a s**t if you're afraid or not. I'm hoping she sees that it isn't just about cars. Besides..." I stopped for a second trying to figure out how to say it right.

Sheree beat me to it. "She attracts trouble? I'm thinking Delaney could sit on the couch eating cookies and watching TV in her pajamas and there's a good chance it'd end up in a shootout. That's what yer thinkin' isn't it?"

"It seems like it. I know it's not her fault. This is all on Charlotte, but Delaney is stuck in it up to the neck and we don't know how far or deep this goes."

Sheree was quiet for a moment. "Why do you think they really want to do another 'summer camp'?"

"I think Katie is looking at this as an investment. Kurt is probably just having a blast, but Katie is always looking ahead. Do this every year and the girls are young, so everything becomes reflex. Competent female bodyguards are always in demand at for high level work. A lot of female principles are uncomfortable with male bodyguards in certain circumstances. Even if they only manage to recruit one of the girls when they turn twenty-one, they'd have made their money back in a year or two."

"That's..." Her voice trailed off.

"Mercenary? That's kind of what they do. But I'm sure they like the girls, too, so it isn't all about money. And she won't have to work for them if she doesn't want to."

Sheree sighed. "It sounds crazy, but... it's Delaney." She suddenly giggled. "We could go on another vacation. Rent another bungalow with a private beach and I'll buy another teeny-tiny bikini that I can just leave in the suitcase again, maybe?"

"Are you seriously bribing me with promises of s*x to make sure I'll let her go?"

Sheree smiled up at me. "Are ya interested in getting a down payment?"

*****

Sheree looked over the target package we'd received from Kim. It'd only taken two days for Kim to put it together. "He's got a condo in Georgetown, but he's building a mansion up in the mountains in West Virginia not too far across the border from that Hardscrabble place. Bought himself nearly 10,000 acres. Pretty much two mountains and a valley between them. He told a reporter he's using the mountain roads to test his cars and motorcycles."

"An asshole with too much money and too much time on his hands."

"It's probably worse than that. The one mountain he's building on?" Sheree scanned further down and brought up a news clipping. "There was a hold out who didn't want to sell. After living there for almost 40 years, she somehow went over the edge of the mountainside road on a clear blue day."

"A sociopathic asshole with too much money and too much time?"

Sheree nodded slowly. "She has a whole list of 'coincidental' deaths here. Guys he had feuds with, a couple women who were claiming paternity suits..." She looked up at me. "Kinda like Charlotte. One was a ruled a suicide, the other was supposedly an accidental overdose."

"Looks like we have our guy."

She opened a map file that turned out to be some kind of overhead imagery, maybe from Google, but then again, knowing Kim, maybe not. "Here's where he's building his new house, you have to go up this long mountainside road to get there." She traced the line of the road up. "Everything from here on is his property. He's gated the roads to keep people out."

"Is he staying there?"

"Not yet. But Kim included a picture of a f*******: post that says he's up on Saturdays with his 'guys' to practice racing the mountain roads. It's about a seven mile loop."

She brought the picture up and we looked it over. Big bad Jason Bradley Calloway, Esquire, and a half dozen muscle bound guys in black T-shirts. "That's gotta be his security team. Probably more for show than anything else."

"If Kim is right about Gold Shield, they're for a lot more than that." She said it softly. "You need to be careful."

I looked over at Delaney. "Careful is our middle name, isn't it." That just earned an eyeroll and a snicker.

*****

I went alone for two weeks; unlike the goon in the SUV, I actually had training in this s**t and I had a good half dozen at least semi-functional cars to use from the yard.

During the week, it was busy with work trucks and crew going in and out, but on Saturdays, it was pretty much just Calloway and his bodyguards visiting the mountain retreat. There were a couple random deliveries, but that was all.

Whatever supercar he brought spent the day roaring up and down the roads at insane speeds. I figured him for a real adrenaline junky, since racing those kinds of roads at the speeds he was going was just short of suicide. Still, he might be almost as good as he seemed to think he was.

At the end of the second week, I had a plan. And Delaney made it better.

*****

"Get the keys to the wrecker."

Delaney's eyes sparkled. The wrecker was one of her favorite vehicles. It was a black Ford F550 with a Vulcan 812 Intruder II tow package, normally used for repo work. I didn't do repo work, but it was also damn good for snatching wrecks out of tight places. The pivot stinger could slide into places that seemed impossible and once the tire jaws clamped down, it was simple to lift and pull the car along.

I'd bought it from Emmett Tuckett when he retired.

Emmett Tuckett had been a hard-core hard-drinking cigar smoking repo man, and he'd bought the best equipment he could get. He'd had countless run-ins while repossessing cars all over the state. He'd been shot, stabbed, run over-eight Damning times-and bitten by dogs ranging from Pit Bulls to Rottweilers. He'd finally retired and sold me his truck after he'd had a "particularly bad day."

I still wasn't sure just what had happened. He wouldn't talk about it, but at the end of that "particularly bad day," two h****n dealers were dead, four houses had burned to the ground and a mint condition 1969 Jaguar XK-E with 20 keys of h****n in the trunk was sitting in the bottom of a swimming pool. Emmett had two bullets lodged in his chest, a kitchen knife tip broken off in his shoulder blade, a broken leg from being run over by an orange 1974 Volkswagen Thing, and an infected Pomeranian bite.

Emmett took a low ball-price on the wrecker from me and moved to Florida to be a babysitter for his grandchildren. He took his brand new girlfriend, a woman named Amelie who was just as quiet about how they met as he was.

And their Pomeranian named "Skittles."

*****

"Slowly, work it forward just a bit more."

Delaney followed the instructions carefully, edging the wrecker a bit more forward until I signaled for her to stop. She leaned out the window with a concerned look at our handiwork. "Will we have room to get around it?"

"Yeah, a couple feet to spare." I unhooked the canvas straps and threw them onto the back of the Ford F550, then slid up into the driver's seat as Delaney hopped back over to her seat, shoved it into gear and pushed on up the mountain road.

Delaney peered down the mountainside out her window. "You can almost see forever from up here."

"Maybe that's part of the problem. People like him get used to living on mountain tops. They start seeing everybody else as beneath them."

She nodded and sat silently until we reached the security gate. The wrecker nosed the gate open with little effort and surprisingly little noise; it was unlocked, unlike the one at the base of the mountain. I'd chained that one shut to discourage any accidental bystanders to this. A long looping circle drive through the grounds went right in front of the massive construction-site of what would obviously become a massive mansion.

Acres of unfinished fountains, stone pathways, and other, less-recognizable, structures were everywhere. Six guys were sitting at a stone table, drinking and eating something. They watched us disinterestedly, and maybe with a little disdain. They were used to the occasional work or delivery truck. I was pretty sure Jason Calloway had never seen a repo truck before. From their lack of reaction, none of his goons was particularly interested in us. You get what you pay for sometimes.

"Wow." Delaney peered around. "He must think he's Louis the Fourteenth."

"You're actually learning that stuff?"

"There's a TV series about it."

Delaney scanned the grounds wide-eyed, finally settling on a blue spacecraft of a car parked in the middle of it all. "Oooh. That looks really Damning breakable."

"It does, doesn't it?" Her grin mirrored my own as I backed the wrecker up to the car and popped the door open. "Stay inside until I tell you. Seriously, if he sees you, he'll know."

I dropped to the ground and began walking around the hypercar, inspecting it carefully until one of the men ran up to me. "Get the Damn away from the car, asshole. Drop off whatever it is you're here to drop off and get moving."

"Hey, I'm just doing my job. Got an order from the owner, a Mr. Calloway, to pick this thing up. I don't want to damage it."

He stared at me for a minute then ran back to the group and started talking earnestly with a big blond guy who looked like he was trying to be cool. Jason Calloway walked over arrogantly, glaring at me. "Hey, dipshit. I didn't tell anyone to pick my car up."

"Wait, I have a signed order here." I reached inside my jacket, pulling my 1911 out and leveling it at his head. "Tell your little Damnbuddy to go get the rest of his Gold Shield friends and start running for the far side of your little palace grounds here, or I start putting some big Damning holes in you. Do it now. Three. Two..."

He hesitated, then nodded to his guy and we watched while they scampered off. "What the Damn are you doing?"

"Just some insurance so we can talk. You really ought to hire some competent bodyguards." I waved my free hand and Delaney backed the wrecker up to the a*s end of his car, sliding the stinger into position.

Calloway grimaced at the sound of the jaws snapping into position. "I will Damning ruin you. You really need to..."

"Shut the Damn up. We haven't started anything yet. You do the right Damning thing and we'll hardly Damn up your little toy at all."

He looked at me in disbelief as the stinger raised, lifting the end of the car up. "What do you want?"

"Nothing, I'm just the driver of the tow truck, but I do have somebody who wants to talk with you." I signaled to Delaney to come out.