War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel Page 5

  He slipped the vest in place over Kane’s shoulders and tightened the straps, feeling the dog’s muscles trembling with suppressed excitement. After examining the vest for any rub points and testing the comm link, he did one final check. He cupped Kane’s cheeks between his hands, staring deep into his partner’s eyes.

  “Ready, buddy?”

  Kane pushed forward, touching his cold, wet nose to Tucker’s.

  “Who’s the best dog?” he whispered.

  A small lick to his chin answered him.

  “That’s right . . . you are.” Tucker straightened and turned toward the door. “Let’s go explore.”

  9:19 P.M.

  Night had fully fallen by the time Tucker’s SUV passed through the gates of a small subdivision. His headlights swept over the bronze lettering at the stone entryway.

  CHAPMAN VALLEY ESTATES

  According to Jane, Sandy lived in this neighborhood. His rental’s GPS led him through a maze of streets. The houses he passed appeared to be small mansions, none less than five thousand square feet, all on lots well over an acre. Each yard was neatly manicured, the homes set well back from the road. Through the open window, the evening smelled of lilac and freshly mowed grass.

  Sandy, whatever you were doing, it must’ve paid well.

  He slowed down as he neared his destination, then stopped when he was a hundred yards away. All of the driveways in the neighborhood were marked with identical rustic lamps, each bearing the street number. He noted the lamp at the foot of her driveway was dark.

  A faint alarm bell went off in Tucker’s head.

  Maybe something, maybe nothing . . .

  He sat for a moment, taking everything in. The warm air buzzed with mosquitoes and creaked with the calls of a thousand crickets. The road was otherwise quiet. No cars, no pedestrians, no barking dogs. Through a few neighboring windows, lights flickered from television sets or glowed from bedroom windows.

  “Looks like everyone is settling in for the night,” he whispered to Kane.

  Except for us.

  Tucker grabbed his shoulder pack and climbed out of the car with Kane. Together, they strode over toward her driveway, passing along Sandy’s front yard as if just another local walking his dog.

  Fifty yards from the street rose Sandy’s home, a modern two-story French château with gabled windows and an attached three-car garage. There was even a tall stone fountain in a front courtyard.

  Definitely paid well . . .

  As he reached the driveway, he noted that all of the windows were dark. The fountain lay quiet and still.

  With the street still empty, Tucker took ten quick strides down the driveway, then stepped off into a patch of oak trees. Kane kept to his heels as he dropped to one knee on a thick bed of damp leaves. He dug his night-vision monocle from a side pocket of his pack and panned it across the front of the house.

  He counted four motion-triggered spotlights along the eaves, all evidence that Sandy likely had an alarm system.

  But was it still operational?

  Time to find out.

  Twisting to the side, he powered up Kane’s comm system, then donned his headset. He palmed the shepherd’s cheek and pointed to the house.

  “SCOUT,” he whispered aloud, then circled a finger in the air. It was a command that Kane knew well: CIRCLE AND RETURN.

  Kane took off toward the dark house, running low, already sweeping wide to make a full pass around the grounds. Tucker had worked alongside other military war dogs. He knew their capabilities, but Kane outshone them all, with a tested vocabulary of over a thousand words and the comprehension of a hundred hand signals. And while Kane’s brain couldn’t interpret full sentences, he could string together words and commands to complete a linked sequence of commands. But best of all, after working in tandem since Kane was a pup, the pair had grown to read each other beyond any spoken word or motioned signal.

  They had come to trust each other implicitly.

  Tucker watched proudly as Kane swept over the lawn, a dark arrow through the warm night. He also noted that none of the motion lights activated as the shepherd passed.

  System must be off.

  Suspicions jangled through him.

  As Kane vanished around the corner of the garage, Tucker slipped his satellite phone into his hand. He thumbed on the feed from Kane’s night-vision camera. A bobbling, washed-out image of tree trunks flashing past appeared on the screen.

  When Kane reached the far side of the house, Tucker touched the microphone of his headset and sent a command to his partner’s earpiece: “STOP.”

  Kane immediately obeyed, dropping down onto his belly. The shepherd kept his focus—and the camera’s—on the rear of the modern château.

  Tucker stared at the screen for several long breaths.

  All seemed quiet.

  “CONTINUE,” he ordered.

  Kane pads through the damp grass, angling around bushes and flowing through the deepest shadows. Ears stand tall, swiveling to every noise: the whir of insects, a distant feline hiss, the rumble of a car on a neighboring road. His nostrils flare with scents both familiar and strange in this new place.

  A squirrel darts from his passage, but he ignores the fire to give chase.

  He remains on the path given to him.

  He circles around the house and back into the woods out front. A faint breeze carries the tang of familiar sweat. He moves swiftly toward it. His body craves the warmth behind that scent, the promise buried there, of pack and home.

  He finally reaches his partner’s side.

  Fingers find his scruff and welcome him with their touch, with the dig of nails.

  He leans closer, nudging the other’s thigh with his nose.

  Together again.

  “Good boy,” Tucker whispered in both greeting and reward, acknowledging their partnership.

  With Kane panting lightly at his side, Tucker sat back on his heels and debated his next move. He had come here in the hopes of searching Sandy’s residence. With the house dark and the outside motion detectors off, it might be safe to proceed, but such a move was not without risk. Still, it wasn’t in his nature to lie back.

  “On me,” he finally ordered.

  Keeping close to the trees, he headed toward the rear of the house. During Kane’s surveillance, he had spotted a back door into the garage. He approached it cautiously, only to discover it was locked. But the door’s upper half was made of mullioned glass.

  Using a small penlight, he searched through the window for alarm wires and found none.

  Good enough.

  From his pocket, he withdrew a spring-loaded glass punch. He folded a bandana over its steel head and pressed the tool against one of the windowpanes and touched the button. With a muted crack, the glass shattered. He quickly tapped away the loose shards, then groped through until he found the dead bolt and flipped it.

  He hurried inside, chalking up his first felony on this mission.

  Breaking and entering.

  He scanned the garage and found the usual contents: gardening and lawn equipment, a workbench, a few ladders hanging on the back wall.

  But no car.

  He crossed to the door leading into the house. He checked the knob. Locked. But he also knew Sandy’s habits. He reached up and ran his fingers along the top of the molding.

  Bingo.

  He plucked the key, inserted it into the lock, and stepped through into the kitchen. After the humidity of the outside, the air conditioning felt refreshing, cooling the sweat on his skin. He held a hand up to one of the air vents. If Sandy had left the air conditioning running before she had disappeared, it seemed to imply she had intended to return here.

  Worry iced through him.

  He stood still and listened to the house, but all he heard were the telltale creaks of an empty house. He glanced down to Kane, who must have sensed his attention. The shepherd’s ears were high, his muscles tense under his Kevlar vest. But his partner gave no indication that
he detected anything out of the ordinary here.

  Tucker touched his side. “Stay with me,” he whispered as he began his search of the premises.

  He made a quick survey of the house to get the layout. Sandy’s taste in decor was southern cozy: deep-cushioned chairs, hand-scraped oak floor, maple cabinets. Yet, as homey as it all appeared, it all had a staged look. Nothing stood out of place. It felt unlived in, as if Sandy spent most of her time at work.

  He looked for any evidence that someone had conducted a search before his arrival, but on his first pass, he found no sign of any trespassing beyond his own.

  He ended up in an upstairs study dominated by a dark oak desk, which was flanked by tall bookshelves. He glanced through the titles, a mix of popular fiction and rows upon rows of books on computer languages, engineering, and programming.

  Recognizing her interest, he stepped to her computer monitor. He followed a cord over the lip of the deck to a rectangular imprint on the carpet. It seemed the computer tower itself was missing. But did Sandy abscond with it or had someone taken it after she had vanished?

  He searched the desk drawers, but found nothing unusual: bills, appliance warranties, letters, pay stubs, car payment vouchers, canceled checks, bank statements, and so on. They were all organized in labeled hanging file folders.

  Hmm . . .

  For someone so invested in computers, her recordkeeping was more old school. She seemed to prefer hard copies of everything.

  A whine drew his attention to Kane. The shepherd stood by the lone window of the study. It offered a view overlooking the front lawn.

  Tucker watched a black Chevy Suburban finish a turn into the driveway and glide toward the front door. Its headlights were off.

  5

  October 12, 10:04 P.M. CDT

  Huntsville, Alabama

  Tucker zoomed in on the license plate and memorized the number. This timely arrival couldn’t be a coincidence. He didn’t know who the newcomers were, but they weren’t the police.

  Must’ve triggered a hidden alarm.

  Ducking away, he retraced his steps to the garage. Just as he reached it, the front door slammed shut inside the empty house. Tucker hurried to the back door of the garage, cracked it open, and searched the rear yard. All clear. He motioned for Kane to stick to his legs and slid out. Pressing to the brick wall, he sidestepped toward the front of the house. As he neared the corner, he heard something: the faint swish of a foot passing through the grass behind him.

  Shielding Kane with his body, Tucker whispered to his partner, while reinforcing the command with a firm hand signal. “COVER RIGHT. CLOSE HIDE.”

  The shepherd tensed, then bolted into the trees, vanishing immediately.

  A harsh voice called out, “Stop right there!”

  Tucker half turned, raising his arms, as a dark figure closed toward him. He whispered into his headset, “CIRCLE REAR. QUIET ATTACK BRAVO.” Then he yanked the headset down around his neck and called loudly in an affable southern voice. “Hey, there, buddy, I was just looking for Sandy. I’m Fred Jenkins. Neighbor across the street. Me and Libby take care of things for Sandy when she’s out of town. Left me her key.”

  He held up the key, while noting the darker shadow of a gun clutched in the man’s right hand. Tucker kept a nervous smile on his face.

  Nothing to see here, buddy . . . just a friendly neighbor . . .

  “Hadn’t seen Sandy for a while,” Tucker continued. “Thought maybe she forgot to tell us that she was leaving for a spell. Then I saw that her lawn was turning yellow. What with all the heat of late, I wasn’t sure her sprinklers were coming on, so I came back here to check the timer box.” He pointed toward the back door to the garage. “But it looks like—”

  “Keep your hands up,” the man ordered as he stepped closer and lifted his arm higher, revealing his weapon: a semiautomatic pistol affixed with a barrel-shaped noise suppressor.

  Not good.

  “Sure, no problem,” Tucker mumbled. “Didn’t mean to—”

  A twig snapped behind the gunman—an unusual misstep for Kane. The man began to turn as the shepherd sprinted out of the trees and leapt headlong at the gunman. He blindsided his target like an NFL linebacker. With an umph, the man went down hard, his head striking the edge of a stone planter bed. His finger, already on the trigger, jerked reflexively and fired off a round with a cough of the suppressor.

  Tucker charged forward as the round buzzed past his ear. He kept moving, but the man had gone limp on the ground. Tucker slid on a knee in the grass next to the body as Kane retreated to the far side.

  Tucker snatched the gun, a Beretta M9, and checked for the assailant’s pulse, when a new voice barked harshly behind him.

  “Freeze!”

  Tucker grimaced.

  Of course, there was more than one guy.

  He hissed to Kane, who remained shadowed by Tucker. “CLOSE HIDE.”

  As Kane slunk around and ghosted across the lawn into the nearby bushes, Tucker yelled over his shoulder. “Okay, okay! No problem!”

  “Don’t turn around!”

  Tucker had to act fast. Men with noise-suppressed weapons tended to shoot first and skip questions altogether. Probably the only reason Tucker hadn’t been shot in the back already was due to the proximity of the man’s partner.

  Over his shoulder, Tucker said, “Your friend is hurt over here! We better get him—”

  Without turning, he brought the Beretta up across his body and fired twice under his armpit. Even as the second round left the barrel, Tucker was spinning on his knees and dropping to his belly. He kept his pistol extended toward the gunman. Unsurprisingly, both of Tucker’s shots had missed their target, but they had served their purpose. The assailant rolled himself around the corner of the house and vanished.

  This guy’s trained . . . seasoned . . .

  Tucker sprinted to the front corner of the house, leading with his pistol, and peeked around. A bullet shattered into the stucco near his cheek. Tucker dropped to his belly, then peeked around the edge again. The man had reached his Suburban and taken refuge behind the open backseat door.

  Why the backseat? Why isn’t he—

  The answer occurred as the man lifted a long gun into view. Tucker recognized the weapon: an M4 carbine, noise suppressed and equipped with holographic sights.

  Before the gunman could get into position, Tucker squeezed off four quick shots into the Suburban’s open door, shattering the window and pinging rounds loudly off the metal frame. His target backpedaled while returning fire in Tucker’s direction, then disappeared around the Suburban’s rear bumper.

  Knowing the man intended to outflank him, Tucker didn’t wait around. He gained his feet and retreated toward the neighboring tree line, firing as he went, careful not to empty his weapon. Ducking into the foliage, he broke contact and sprinted through the trees into a neighbor’s yard. After fifty feet, he stopped behind a tree trunk and went still.

  No gunfire. No footfalls in pursuit.

  He waited a full minute.

  From the direction of Sandy’s home, an engine started, followed moments later by the hiss of tires on asphalt. His opponent’s discipline must have kicked in. No matter who won, a firefight in a suburban neighborhood was a bad idea, so instead of hunting Tucker down, the man had likely collected his partner and fled.

  Tucker let out the breath he’d been holding, then reseated his headset and whispered to Kane. “RETURN HOME.”

  10:24 P.M.

  Ten minutes later—after making sure the Suburban had truly left—Tucker found himself back in Sandy’s kitchen with Kane at his side. It was the last place in the house he had failed to search. As he checked every drawer and cabinet, Tucker felt the tension of each passing second building into a knot in his neck. The unknown assailant could return with reinforcements at any time . . . or the gunman could simply force Tucker away by alerting local law enforcement with an anonymous tip of a suspicious person at Sandy’s address.

/>   Either way, he had to move quickly, but so far he had found nothing.

  Tucker leaned against the counter and pondered. His gaze settled on a key rack by the kitchen door that led into the garage. He had stepped right past it earlier.

  Stupid . . .

  He needed some sleep.

  Crossing over, he found another example of Sandy’s usual meticulous nature. Each key was carefully labeled: backdoor, patio, Mom’s house. Standard household stuff. But the last hook—this one unlabeled—held a padlock key. On it was a yellow sticker with the number 256, and beneath it in smaller letters 4987.

  Tucker recognized the type of key from his military days, when he shifted posts regularly.

  “Self-storage,” he murmured.

  If he was right, the four-digit pass code would unlock the entry gate, and the unit itself was marked by a three-digit address.

  But which storage place?

  Huntsville was a military town, which meant there had to be at least a dozen within range of the Redstone complex.

  Suspecting where he might find a clue, he returned to Sandy’s study and reopened the file drawer that held Sandy’s bill folder. He sifted through the bills but found nothing from a self-storage company. He moved on to her canceled checks; there were hundreds, going back to 2011. Tucker started there and worked forward. The earlier checks showed Sandy’s address in Washington DC, before she moved back to Huntsville. Tucker flipped through the succeeding months and years, sifting through her life, until he came to Sandy’s move to Alabama. Again he found what he expected: a payment to a moving company, followed by standard household expenses: telephone, water, cable.

  Nothing significant.

  What am I missing?

  He closed his eyes and remembered Jane had mentioned that Sandy had become withdrawn about six months ago. Maybe that period deserved a closer look. Tucker flipped back through the checks to eight months prior, then moved forward more slowly, this time looking for anything that might coincide with Sandy’s change in behavior.