Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(69)

No lights, no vehicles. No movement of any kind.

I went around the corner and doused my headlights, then waited five minutes before making a U-turn and coming back around. I pulled to the curb a hundred yards down and on the opposite side of the street, killed the engine, and stared through the windshield.

The building, a play of silver and shadow in the high moon, was two stories tall, fronted by the weedy lot I’d noted in the photograph. The lower floor jutted out from a narrow upper story like an obstinate jaw. The entire place gave off an aura of dreary resignation. Probably not much different from the way it had been when it was open for business.

Maybe the resignation was cut through with despair.

Maybe I was projecting.

The area immediately around the club was hard-packed dirt; the place had a lot of exposed flank. Even from this angle, no lights showed in the solitary upper-floor window, which still tossed back a glaze of moonlight from a full pane of glass.

The rest of the neighborhood lay quiet. The only other moving vehicles were back on Colfax, the lone sounds the occasional thrum of a car engine from the same direction.

I pulled out my phone and dialed Sarge. When he didn’t answer—presumably he was in the midst of getting his friend Hutch “the Handler” drunk and malleable—I sent a text telling him I’d found the club and that Kane’s killer might be inside. I sent the location and ended with, I will wait for you here.

I adjusted my seat and leaned back, prepared for a quiet stretch of surveillance. If the place was as empty as it appeared, we’d be able to do some reconnaissance. If not, then better that there were three of us—two handguns and a set of teeth. I folded my hands across my lap and practiced deep breathing.

When my phone buzzed, I figured it was Sarge, giving me an ETA.

What greeted me instead was a picture of Cohen.

He was in a chair, hands wrenched behind his back, his head held in place by a strap across his forehead. The left side of his face was bloodied, the eye swollen, his ear scraped raw. His good eye glared at the photographer.

He’d been gagged with his own tie. His white button-down was red with his blood.

A second text lit up the phone.

23 hours.

Below it was a smiley face.

My entire body went hot. The bones holding me upright turned to liquid, and I crumpled in the seat.

No. No, oh no, no.

I sucked in air and threw the phone to the floor. Then snatched it back up. I shot back a text.

Hurt him, you won’t get your intel.

The answer came immediately.

Keep the intel, he dies.

I let loose a long, low moan. My stomach flipped, and I squeezed my hands together, telling myself I could throw up later. After we had Cohen. After he was safe.

“I’m so sorry, Mike,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Clyde pushed against me, licked my face, answered my moans with his whimpers.

In my mind I heard Sarge’s voice.

Scuttlebutt was they also use it for doing things they don’t want anyone to know about. Like when they need to break someone who can’t be bribed or threatened.

There were no cars on the property, no recent tracks, no indication that this was where they were torturing Mike. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t here, either, on the other side of a single door.

Hurt. Maybe dying. Hoping someone would come.

I sent a final text to Sarge. They have my friend. I’m going in.

I buckled Clyde’s Kevlar vest under his belly and yanked my own vest over my shirt. I racked a round in the Glock and put the backup pistol in a holster. Ignoring the way my hands shook, I grabbed a flashlight and my lock-picking kit and jammed them into the pockets of my jacket along with the silenced phone. I zipped the pockets closed.

The thought of calling the police rode across my mind. But the notion quickly vanished, chased away by an image of Gorman holding a business card from Valor. It may have meant nothing.

It may have meant everything.

Outside my window, Angelo materialized in a silver haze. His ruined face carried a single message of warning. Move fast.

Beside me, Clyde was a coiled spring, ready to explode.

We slipped into the dark.



Clyde and I crossed the street in the shadows, then sprinted across the open space to the strip joint. We hugged the walls and did a fast jog around the building, looking for a point of entry.

The front door was boarded up tight. No ground-level windows. The plywood over the back door was a ruse—it swung aside when I pushed. But the door was held fast by a hefty lock body, suggesting a dead bolt of industrial strength. My kit could not manage that.

We went around to the front again, where a few feet of roof fronted the single window.

A drainpipe clung to one end of the building. I gave it a test shake. Solid.

We could do this.

I jogged Clyde out to the edge of the parking lot and signaled for him to stay. Then I ran back to the building, stopping a few feet away. I bent at the waist, making my back as flat as possible, and signaled Clyde.

He surged forward, racing toward me across the lot, gathering speed.

We’d done this trick numerous times at Avi’s training center. But this was our first real-world application. My heart was in my throat at what might go wrong. Clyde could slip. The roof might be weak.

Whoever was inside could hear us and come out shooting.

And then Clyde leapt. His paws hit my back with the force of a falling boulder, and just as suddenly, the weight was gone. I straightened and looked up.