Noble Warrior (34 page)

“No,” M.D. said, knowing he couldn't risk it.

Stanzer rolled his eyes, incredulous. “I know you think I—”

“Turn around,” M.D. ordered, cutting Stanzer off. The colonel did as he was told and McCutcheon cautiously removed Stanzer's phone from his pocket. After taking three steps
backward, he stared at the screen.

“No passcode lock?”

“I left it open 'cause I knew you wouldn't trust me.”

“I still don't.”

“That's smart. You shouldn't. I haven't earned it yet. But think for a minute,” Stanzer said. “Why would I take him out instead of you?”

“To eliminate all connections to every part of this operation.”

“Perhaps. But the rule of thumb is, you always take out your most dangerous enemy first; and who represented a bigger threat to me, you or him? Why didn't I search you when you came
into the room? Why didn't I fire on you when you lunged at me? Think about it, son; I could have punched your ticket many times over already. The reason I didn't is because I never
planned to.”

M.D. didn't reply.

“I'm on your side, McCutcheon.”

He still didn't say anything.

“For God's sake, just Google it.”

M.D. looked at the phone, then back at the colonel. “Keep your hands up.”

Stanzer did as he was told and McCutcheon searched online. Sure enough, there was no senator from the state of Nebraska named Ackersleem.

Stanzer read McCutcheon's eyes as McCutcheon read the information on the screen.

“I told you, it was all a lie.”

“I want to talk to Gemma.”

“Fine,” Stanzer said. “In the recent calls section of the phone you'll see a number with a four-zero-five area code. Dial it.”

M.D. went back to Google and searched to see if 405 was in fact an area code for Norman, Oklahoma. It was, but McCutcheon knew it could still be a trap. Stanzer was a master of crossing his
t
's and dotting his
i
's, and routing a fake call through the city of Norman, Oklahoma, would be child's play to him.

“Just dial it,” Stanzer said growing annoyed.

M.D. did. A woman's voice answered. “Hello?”

“Sarah?” McCutcheon said. “It's me.”

There was an awkward pause. “Oh, uhm, hi. You, I guess, want to speak to Gemma?”

“I do.”

M.D. knew that Stanzer might be able to con his mother into covering for him, but there was no way the colonel would be able to get his sister to maintain a lie. If Gemma felt threatened in any
way, it would take McCutcheon less than five seconds to figure it out.

“Hi, Doc!” rang a bubbly voice.

“You okay, Gem?”

“I love it here!” she exploded. “I got to polish a saddle and then they let me ride a pony, and now I know how to trot and brush a mane, and cleaning the stalls smelled like
poo-poo but it was also kinda fun,” Gemma said all in one breath. “Can we get a horse, Doc? Please, please, please?”

“Put Mom back on.”

“I love you!!”

“I love you, too.”

“With gobs of heart and sunshine!!”

McCutcheon heard Gemma say, “He wants to talk to you” as she passed the phone to Sarah.

“Hello?”

“You in Norman, Oklahoma?”

“Ride 'em, cowboy.”

“I'll be in touch.”

Click.
M.D. hung up, stared at Stanzer.

“You believe me now?” the colonel asked extending his arm. He wanted his weapons back.

M.D. considered what to do. He came to the rendezvous point expecting to encounter a man who had betrayed him. And so that is what he saw. But what he expected to see was now getting in the way
of what he was actually witnessing. Stanzer hadn't made any attempt on his life. Stanzer had been forthright about the weapons he carried. Stanzer had just put him on the phone with his
sister, who, not coincidentally, was currently whooping it up at an equestrian center far from Bellevue.

Why so far from Nebraska? Because Stanzer knew that's where Gemma would be safe.

McCutcheon passed Stanzer his gun.

“'Bout time,” the colonel said, holstering his Sig. He pushed past McCutcheon, reached under the bar stool, and yanked free a quart-size bag of white powder that had been
secretly duct taped underneath. Four ounces of premium Columbian blow.

Stanzer, still wearing gloves, meticulously placed Puwolsky's fingerprints on the bag of coke, tore a seam in the plastic, and then mixed the white powder together with the red blood that
had spilled from Puwolsky's brain. It only took a moment to ruin the usability of the drugs by creating a concoction of pink and sticky paste.

Stanzer picked up the Glock, placed the Double T in Puwolsky's right hand, and fired off two rounds into the wall, so that once the coroner's unit discovered the body they'd be
sure to find gunpowder residue on the dead man's fingertips. As Stanzer applied the finishing touches to the fabricated crime scene, M.D. gazed downward at Puwolsky's lifeless eyes
staring at the ceiling. They were empty and cold. Without emotion, M.D. reached into the dead man's pocket, removed his cell, and rolled Puwolsky's inert thumb over the screen.

“Good thinking,” Stanzer said.

With the phone unlocked, M.D. went into the Settings section and commandeered control of the device.

“Now come on,” Stanzer said after executing the final details. “Time to go get this prick Larson. Clock's ticking.”

Stanzer quickly fired off a series of coded text messages through the DarkNet.

“Why's the clock ticking?” M.D. asked.

“Because,” Stanzer said. “They grabbed Kaitlyn.”

S
tanzer weaved through traffic doing eighty-five miles an hour while the rest of the cars on I-75 cruised at an average speed of sixty. The colonel
slalomed through vehicles, zigzagged between lanes, and crossed double yellow lines, like a running back on a football field looking for daylight. Everyone on the road, alarmed by the nut in the
white Chevy four-door, all thought the same thing:
Asshole's driving like a maniac.

“Where we going?” McCutcheon asked.

“Eaton Street. A few blocks off of Livernois.”

“Livernois?” M.D. said. “That's Priest territory.”

“Correct.” Stanzer took a hard right and did a four-line lane change, ignoring the horns that blared at him. “Puwolsky brokered a deal with a new shotcaller named Puppet. Ever
heard of the guy?”

“No.”

“Well, I'm sure he's heard of you…Bam Bam.”

McCutcheon nodded. His whole life the price for being an underground cage warrior had always been a tax he never wanted to pay. He loved the sport but the notoriety that came with being the best
of the best fit him like a poorly tailored, brightly colored suit: uncomfortable to wear and something that drew far too much attention. Even now, a long while after he'd left the MMA war
tour, the myth of Bam Bam the Conqueror still affected his life.

“How do you know all this?” McCutcheon asked.

“It took some doing.”

“And
when
did this doing get done?” M.D. asked, placing extra emphasis on the word
when
.

Stanzer merged from the I-75 onto the M-10 and checked the GPS coordinates of his destination. Before heading to the site, the colonel knew he'd need a place to settle and craft a plan.
Where, he wasn't yet sure, but maybe, he thought…

McCutcheon suddenly swiped the homing device from Stanzer's hand. “Colonel!” he snapped. “I need to know.”

Stanzer nodded. He knew what he was being asked. McCutcheon wanted to know what the hell had happened to him and why.

“I knew it was a mistake to let you go into Jentles,” Stanzer began. “But I also knew it would have been a bigger mistake to stop you because you would have been damaged goods
after that. If something really did happen to your girl, you'd have resented me for the rest of your life.”

M.D. didn't say a word.

“I only knew what you did at the start, anyway: there was a threat to Kaitlyn, these Doper cops were tainted, and the prison scenario was a tactical nightmare. But I had no idea it was all
a setup. I tried to get some eyes on you inside the penitentiary, but planting a mole like that takes time.”

“What finally clued you in?”

“A tip came in via e-mail. Ratted me and my unit out by name,” Stanzer said. “We tracked it right to his desk in Detroit. After that it wasn't hard to piece everything
together. Puwolsky knew I'd go looking for you at some point over the course of his scheme. This meant that at some point he knew he'd have to deal with me.”

“You mean to get rid of you?”

“Yes,” Stanzer said. “Before I figured out the truth and began hunting him.”

“So how'd he find you?” McCutcheon asked. M.D. had tried himself but come up empty.

“He didn't. No one does,” Stanzer said. “So he tried to blow the whistle on my operation. As you know, we're not exactly authorized.”

“So he figured that was his best angle to take you out?” M.D. said.

“Exactly,” Stanzer said. “Without the ability to snuff me out, he went for the next best thing: make me fight a different war on a different front, a bloody one. It's a
classic military strategy.”

Stanzer ran right up on the tail of a silver BMW and flashed his lights, his bumper only inches away from the sleek luxury sedan. The Beemer, driving at a normal speed, moved a lane over to the
right so Stanzer could fly past.

“Puwolsky figured leaking the existence of the Murk to the do-gooding bastards in Congress would swamp me in red tape and bureaucratic muck. Hell, using minors to fight domestic enemies
might even get me tossed in jail. He would have loved that.”

Stanzer zipped around a blue minivan and accelerated toward Exit 9.

“Certainly a congressional inquiry would bog me down far too much to chase after you,” Stanzer said. “He figured there was just no way I could deny your existence under the
glare of D.C.'s spotlight and pursue your whereabouts at the same time.”

McCutcheon shrugged. “Not a bad attack.”

“Not bad at all,” Stanzer admitted. “Except the guy completely underestimated how deeply the FBI can crawl up anyone in America's digital ass. Not just the FBI, but the
CIA, the DEA, the NSA, and so on. If a U.S. citizen sends an e-mail using anything other than the DarkNet, we can find out every last detail about the user, to, from, location, content, etcetera
within a matter of minutes. It's fucking child's play at this point.”

“So you tracked the e-mail to his desktop computer, put two and two together, and then created a fake Senate panel to make it look like you were in deep shit.”

“Correct.”

“But why did you shoot him?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” McCutcheon said. “You had him. Why not let justice take it from there?”

“Justice did take it from there, son,” Stanzer replied. “I'm just its angel of execution.”

M.D. didn't offer a response. Didn't comment one way or the other, but by not saying anything, he clearly communicated a sense of disapproval.

“Dirty lawmen burn me,” Stanzer added. He gripped the wheel much tighter than necessary. “I mean, where's the goddamn code?”

The colonel exited the highway at the Livernois off-ramp and slowed the Chevy to twenty miles per hour as they entered the heart of the 48204, one of the three most dangerous American zip codes
year in and year out. Stanzer knew that a guy like him, in a car like the one they were driving, stood out like a red tomato on a plate of green lettuce, so he stayed clear of the final destination
until he and McCutcheon could get on the same page about the plan.

The white Chevy rolled past a three-story brick auto parts building, its top floor burned completely off. The place looked as if a bomb had been dropped on its roof. Then they passed a vacant
lot with long, tall, overgrown grass. The space hadn't been tended to in years. Then they passed a decently kept home with two red tricycles sitting in the driveway. Then they passed a
charred house. Then they passed another decently kept home and then another scorched house, its frame a mixture of exposed brown wood and black singe marks. As rain began to fall, Stanzer inspected
the property more closely. The house's windows had been broken out, two crater-size holes gaped where a chimney used to exist, and a white sign, clean and visible from the street, had been
taped to the smashed front door.

The residence was just one of hundreds, maybe thousands, in the greater Detroit area on a list to be bulldozed. As M.D. knew, there were simply too many structures slated for destruction for the
city to keep pace with the volume, but the longer these abandoned homes stood, the longer the heroin addicts had a place to shoot junk, the hookers had a place to turn tricks, and the curious
little seven-year-olds had a place to go investigate cool, interesting urban artifacts like soiled condoms and used hypodermic needles.