War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel Read online

At the five-month mark, Tucker found a lone check made out to Edith Lozier in the amount of $360. The memo line read Loan repayment. Thanks, Edith!!!

  “Why would Sandy need a loan?” Tucker mumbled. He had seen Sandy’s bank statements. She certainly didn’t need to take out a loan, especially for such a small amount.

  So why this check?

  Tucker got out his satellite phone and did a local search for Edith Lozier. He got a hit in the neighboring town of Gurley, south of Huntsville. He plugged the address into the phone’s Google Earth app. It appeared Edith Lozier lived off a highway in an industrial section of Gurley. Her home was within a fenced-off area containing a dozen Quonset-like buildings.

  A storage facility.

  The woman was most likely the business’s live-in manager or owner.

  Tucker smiled.

  Gotcha.

  11:48 P.M.

  Shortly before midnight, Tucker slowed his SUV as it passed a sign that read GARNET SELF-STORAGE. The town of Gurley lay about twelve miles south of Huntsville, home to some eight hundred people, small enough for everyone to know everybody’s business. Tucker had passed several other storage places on his thirty-minute drive here; one was practically around the corner from Sandy’s home.

  So why choose this place?

  He glanced to the neighboring two-story building that matched the address of Edith Lozier. The windows were dark at this late hour. Who was this woman to Sandy? Clearly she was enough of a friend to accept a check written to her rather than to the business. He wondered what else Edith might know, but to go knocking on a stranger’s door in the middle of the night might not warrant the warmest of welcomes.

  Instead, Tucker patted Kane’s flank as the shepherd rested his muzzle on the sill of the passenger window. “Let’s first see what Sandy hid out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  Kane thumped his tail in agreement.

  Tucker edged his vehicle up to the rolling gate of the facility and reached out to the pole-mounted keypad. He punched in the four-digit code found on Sandy’s padlock key, and the gate clattered open. Tucker let out a long breath of relief and slowly idled his truck through the nest of Quonset huts, following signs to Unit 256.

  “Home sweet home,” Tucker mumbled as he braked before the numbered unit.

  He and Kane hopped out. While taking a moment to stretch a few kinks loose, Tucker surreptitiously searched around. He spotted a security camera, sharing the same pole as a sodium light. Keeping his face out of direct view, he crossed to the unit’s rolling door and tested the padlock. Sandy’s key slid in smoothly, and a moment later, the padlock dropped into his palm. With the way open, he lifted the rolling door and aimed his flashlight inside.

  For a moment, he simply stared at what lay before him, dumbfounded by the unit’s contents.

  “What the hell?”

  Finally, Tucker stepped into the space and flicked on the overhead light. To keep his search private, he lowered the rolling door. As a precaution, he left Kane outside with a standing order.

  GUARD.

  Tucker was taking no chances of being ambushed again.

  With his hands on his hips, Tucker slowly took in his surroundings, making a slow turn. A single card table and chair occupied the center of the room. Arranged before them in a semicircle was a set of six easel-mounted whiteboards, each scrawled with color-coded notes and flowcharts. To the left of the table, a pair of corkboards hung on the wall, pinned with hundreds of scribbled index cards. To the right of the chair, a dozen or more accordion folders sat on the concrete floor.

  The intent here was plain.

  Looks like Sandy had built herself a nerve center in here.

  But to what end?

  Tucker noted the conspicuous absence of a laptop. All of these notes and charts could have been easily created on a computer, especially given Sandy’s previous job as an analyst. Instead, she had chosen to do all of this old school.

  Just like her records at home.

  But why?

  Tucker snapped several pictures with his phone, then sank into the folding chair and stared at the boards. Sandy Conlon was a high-level mathematician and programmer. The formulas, codes, and keywords were beyond his grasp. Still, he noted a few bold or underlined words: Turing, Odisha, Scan Rate, Expanded Spectrum, Clojure, Unstructured Data Collation . . .

  He shook his head.

  Unless Sandy was conducting her own top-secret project, all this was most likely related to her work at Redstone. The fact that she was doing it here, and in this fashion, meant she didn’t want anyone to know about it.

  “Sandy, what were you up to?”

  A low growl rose from outside.

  Clenching a fist, he stood and looked back at the rolling door.

  Someone was coming.

  6

  October 13, 8:14 A.M. CEST

  Belgrade, Serbia

  War is business . . . and business started early.

  Pruitt Kellerman had left his public meetings in Athens before dawn and flown two hours north to the capital of Serbia. His private jet had landed in Belgrade as the sun crested the horizon. He had been driven in a bulletproof limo with blacked-out windows to Beli Dvor, the presidential palace located in the royal compound. He had given strict instructions to his advance team to keep this meeting private, to avoid even a whisper of press coverage. Even his daughter, Laura, was unaware of this side trip. To the world at large, the head of Horizon Media remained at his hotel in Athens, awaiting more meetings regarding Greece’s telecom industry.

  Unfortunately, the president of Serbia, Marko Davidovic, had chosen to ignore this memo. Upon arriving at the official residence, Pruitt found a lavish brunch awaiting him, attended by a slew of Davidovic’s political cronies. The meal was in a grand hall, with black-and-white checkerboard marble floors, vaulted ceilings, and wrapped all around by grand staircases and balconies.

  Pruitt endured the welcoming brunch with a smile fixed to his face and glad-handed whomever Davidovic put in front of him. He engaged the president’s wife in polite talk regarding the midterm elections. In the end, it seemed those invited were the president’s innermost circle, as Davidovic seemed equally keen to keep their upcoming joint endeavor a secret.

  After an interminable time, Davidovic finally led Pruitt to a bookshelf-lined study and gestured to a leather captain’s chair before a crackling fireplace, then took the opposite seat. The president was relatively young, in his late forties, with a boxy build and the broad shoulders of a farmer. His hair was still pitch-black, with a hint of silver at the temples.

  A servant appeared and offered Pruitt a snifter of a dark liqueur.

  “We call this Slivovitz,” Davidovic explained as the servant left. “A native plum brandy.” He lifted his glass. “Ziveli! To long life.”

  Pruitt raised his own glass, nodded at his host, and took a sip. The liqueur burned his throat, leaving a sweet aftertaste.

  Not bad.

  Pruitt sat straighter, ready to firm up their mutual plans. “You’re a most gracious host,” he started. “And your wife is lovely.”

  “My wife is a cow, but it is kind of you to say. She and I are comfortable with one another, and she has given me two strong boys. And the people love her, so who am I to complain? You never married, yes?”

  Pruitt smiled inwardly. He knew Davidovic’s chief of staff would have fully informed the president regarding the tragic death of Pruitt’s wife. It was a question designed to unbalance his guest. Instead, Pruitt kept his face impassive.

  “Widowed.”

  “Ah, yes, forgive me. And now I remember you have a beautiful daughter. Very smart, that one.”

  “Yes, she is,” he answered with a touch of pride. Other emotions briefly flickered inside him: shame at deceiving Laura about all of this, but also fear that she might someday discover the truth.

  “It is unfortunate she lost her mother so young.”

  Pruitt gave a bow of his head in acknowledgment, using the mo
ment to settle himself. “It was long ago. But let us turn from the past to the future.” He smiled blandly and cut abruptly to the heart of the matter. “I hear you have some reservations of late regarding our arrangements.”

  The president shifted in his seat, his dark eyes flicking to the flames of the fireplace.

  That is how you unbalance an opponent . . . to let them think you know all their secrets.

  “I am . . . reconsidering,” Davidovic admitted.

  Pruitt leaned back, cradling the snifter of brandy between his palms. “How so?”

  “You stand to gain substantially from this agreement.”

  “Of course.” Pruitt shrugged. “I’m a businessman.”

  “I understand, but—”

  Pruitt cut him off. “You feel that your end can be improved.”

  Davidovic stared hard at him, dropping any pretense of graciousness. “I know it can be. You are asking me to provide facilities and transportation for your operational teams, along with all of the necessary immigration and customs interventions.”

  “As we agreed nine months ago,” Pruitt said. “And in return for your cooperation, I will be handing you the first step to fulfilling a Serbian national aspiration—one close to your own heart.”

  Davidovic shifted again in his seat; his cheeks had darkened, and not from the flush of the brandy he downed now in one gulp. Pruitt’s private intelligence network had supplied him with the hidden engine behind the Serbian president’s ambition—a goal fueled by vindication and revenge.

  During the border skirmishes between Serbian and Montenegrin forces back in the midnineties, Davidovic’s home village of Crvsko had been attacked. A Montenegrin paramilitary group had razed the village, slaughtering his father and mother and his three sisters. Only his grandfather had survived and tried to defend Crvsko. Due to some brutal acts during the town’s defense, the grandfather was later branded a war criminal by the Serbian president of the time, Slobodan Miloševic´. The grandfather had eventually died in prison.

  This watershed event drove Davidovic into politics. He had positioned himself as a crusader for lasting peace in the Balkans—or so his platform declared. But Pruitt knew the truth and used that lever to sway the Serbian president to his side.

  Pruitt continued, applying more force to that lever. “With my help, you’ll realize your ambition—to finally set right what was wrong—while in turn earning the full support and praise of the world.”

  Judging by Davidovic’s downcast eyes, he knew his words had struck home.

  “And in return,” Pruitt pressed on, “I’ll receive the mining rights to a strip of land that no one wants.” He shrugged and stood up. “If anyone should be reconsidering this deal, it should be me.”

  Pruitt turned and headed for the door.

  Davidovic stopped him before he could take three steps. “Please, sit, Mr. Kellerman. I spoke out of turn. Let us forget this matter, attribute it to what you Americans call . . . cold feet.”

  Pruitt faced the president.

  Davidovic waved to the abandoned chair. “Let us discuss the timeline.”

  Unmoving for a long ten seconds, Pruitt finally returned to his chair and sat down. He picked up his snifter, took a sip.

  “My people will arrive in thirteen days.”

  9:03 A.M.

  After finalizing plans, Pruitt was back in the limo with his head of security, Rafael Lyon, and headed to his private jet. He needed to return to Athens for a luncheon with Greece’s main telecom company.

  Pruitt sighed and loosened his tie, picturing Davidovic as the big man gave him a bear hug good-bye, the two of them the best of friends once again. “Are we certain that idiot isn’t a war criminal himself? I’ve read about some incidents along the Serbian border.”

  “Rumors.” Lyon shrugged. “Davidovic will behave himself until it is time. But we should—”

  Lyon’s cell phone trilled in his pocket, cutting him off.

  Pruitt waved for him to answer it.

  Lyon freed his phone and listened for several seconds. He asked a few curt questions, then disconnected. From the twin furrows between his brows, it was not good news.

  “What is it?” Pruitt asked.

  “That was Webster. There was someone at the Conlon woman’s house in Huntsville.”

  It took Pruitt a full breath to disengage from his toe-to-toe confrontation with the Serbian president and remember who this woman was. Not that the two matters were unconnected.

  “Who was the intruder?” he asked. “A burglar?”

  Lyon shook his head. “Someone with training. He had a dog with him, too.”

  Pruitt frowned. “A dog?”

  “A big beast, according to Webster. He believes the pair had military training. They sent Webster and his partner running with their tails between their legs. No pun intended.”

  Lyon’s face was stone; he did not joke.

  Pruitt sat back. Karl Webster came out of the military. He was no slouch, and over the years Pruitt had learned to trust the man’s judgment. “What’s his take on this guy?”

  “Shots were exchanged, but Webster got the impression the intruder was purposefully avoiding hitting anyone. Which means this guy is careful, thoughtful, good under pressure.”

  Pruitt understood.

  Dead bodies bring unwanted attention.

  “Are there any leads on this mystery man?”

  Lyon frowned. “Not yet.”

  “Could he have found anything at Conlon’s home?”

  “Nothing. It’s been sanitized.”

  Let’s hope so.

  “Still, he wasn’t there by accident,” Pruitt said. “Someone must have sent him. And I could guess who that might be. Our last loose connection to Project 623.”

  Lyon nodded. “Jane Sabatello. It was my thought as well, but it gives me an idea.”

  Pruitt glanced harder at Lyon.

  “We know her phone is a ghost,” Lyon said. “All outgoing calls go through too many proxies to pin her down. But what about incoming calls? If she sent someone down to investigate Conlon, she’ll be expecting updates from him.”

  Pruitt rubbed his chin, calculating in his head. This last matter was too important to leave to Webster alone, especially this close to their first true test. It was time to tie up these loose ends once and for all.

  “I want you to go to Huntsville and work with Webster,” Pruitt ordered.

  “With all the surveillance resources we have sitting idle at Redstone Arsenal, surely we can find this man. And when you do, make sure he and his dog disappear.”

  Lyon nodded. “Consider it done.”

  7

  October 13, 2:08 A.M. CDT

  Huntsville, Alabama

  Someone was coming . . .

  Trapped in Sandy’s storage locker, Tucker needed Kane’s eyes. He already had his satellite phone in hand after taking photographs of Sandy’s makeshift nerve center. As Kane let out another low growl, Tucker tapped in the code to bring up the feed from his partner’s video camera. He radioed Kane to go silent and keep out of sight.

  “CLOSE HIDE.”

  An image—washed out into gray tones by the camera’s night-vision mode—appeared on the screen. The view bobbled as the shepherd retreated to the rear bumper of the SUV. A figure appeared out from under the glare of a sodium lamp on a nearby pole—someone armed with a double-barreled shotgun. From the curves, it was plainly a young woman, her hair tied in a ponytail. She wore jeans, boots, and an untucked flannel shirt. She kept the shotgun firmly at her shoulder. From the way she carried it, she knew how to use it.

  And she hadn’t come alone.

  A large beefy Doberman kept glued to her side, tensed and obviously trained.

  “You in there!” she called out. “Come out! Slow now, you hear?”

  Tucker could guess who this woman was. He pictured the security camera he had noted on the light pole earlier. He raised his voice and called back, “Edith? Edith Lozier?”

&
nbsp; After a moment, the other answered, confirming his supposition. “Who are you?”

  Tucker didn’t want any misunderstanding with an armed civilian in the middle of the night. Apparently the caretaker of Garnett Self-Storage doubled as the security guard for the place. She must have seen him enter the storage facility and knew he didn’t belong here, especially at this particular locker.

  “I’m a friend of Sandy Conlon!” Tucker called back.

  “Come out and show me some ID.”

  Tucker pocketed his phone, approached the rolling door, and slowly pulled it up. The woman backed two firm steps, keeping the shotgun at the ready in case he tried anything funny. She looked to be in her late twenties, with dark red hair and freckles across her cheeks. The Doberman kept its position, only lowering its head a few inches in an aggressive posture.

  Once the door was up, Tucker lifted both hands, showing they were empty. From the corner of his eye, he noted Kane crouched in the shadow of the truck. He signaled Kane to remain hidden. He didn’t want to startle the armed woman or her companion, not before he had a chance to explain himself.

  “I have a dog, too,” Tucker warned, figuring she had likely already spotted Kane on the security camera. “Come on out, big boy. Show the lady you’re friendly.”

  Kane slunk out and joined Tucker. The shepherd’s gaze remained fixed on the other canine. Edith eyed the shepherd, plainly noting Kane’s gear. She still kept her weapon raised.

  “Military dog?” she asked.

  “Former. He did four tours in Afghanistan with me.”

  “So you’re not from Redstone?”

  He shook his head. “Just got into town. Looking for what happened to Sandy. She’s been missing for a few weeks.”

  Suspicion still shone from the woman’s narrowed eyes, from her ready stance. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  “Sandy gave me a copy of her key,” he explained. “Said to come out here if there was ever any trouble.”

  It was a lie, but from Sandy’s caution in renting this place, he imagined Edith must have sensed Sandy was hiding something. To reinforce his claim, Tucker carefully reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the photograph Jane had shown him back at the hotel in Montana. It showed the three of them in each other’s arms. He had asked to keep it, figuring he might need to substantiate his relationship with Sandy at some point.