Authors: Ty Patterson
The Warrior Code (28 page)
Joe and Emilio helped him wind up in the evening, and at nine, they rolled the shutters down, and silence fell over their share of Myrtle Avenue.
Lester walked two doors away, climbed a short flight of stairs, and entered his still apartment.
He took a shower, broke open a can of soup, heated it, and had his dinner.
A few slices of bread and a bowl of soup.
He sat by the window for a while and watched the occasional car whoosh by below as it turned the street momentarily gold before darkness claimed it back.
The faint hum of tires and the play of gold and black lulled him to sleep as he sat by the window.
Lester woke earlier than usual the next day.
It was
that
day in the week.
He showered and hit the avenue forty minutes after waking up, and a brisk walk took him to the subway station on Classon Avenue and Lafayette. Fifteen minutes later he boarded the Brooklyn Queens Crosstown, and one change later he joined commuters in a steel MTA train as it rocked its way to Manhattan.
Two hours from the time he’d left home, just as the sun made a determined bid to pierce the cloud overhang, Lester entered Central Park and walked rapidly to a runners’ track. Runners, joggers, dog walkers, cyclists, the park already had traffic, and it was just seven in the morning.
Lester moved deep inside the park to a secluded track that just serious runners knew and went to his hiding place. It was a deep copse, in plain view of the track ten feet away, but so thick that runners couldn’t see beyond the immediate foliage.
Lester checked his watch.
Seven thirty.
And there she was.
She was wearing a dark track suit, a Columbia Business School hoodie, and her dark ponytail bobbed as she ran evenly.
A ray of sunlight escaped the leafy shade overhead, and her chocolate skin glowed briefly. Lester drank her in, her dark eyes, her features, her even stride, and his heart swelled.
Alisha Jones. That was her name.
She was his daughter. She didn’t know he existed.
One day she would inherit his convenience store and his apartment.
Lester died with that thought in his mind.
The killer knew Lester’s routine.
He had come across Lester a month back, and something clicked deep inside him in a way he never understood.
The killer knew all about routines and patterns and profiles, and Lester didn’t fit his previous victims’ profiles. That was good. What was even better was that Lester lived alone; no one to raise the alarm if he didn’t return home.
He followed Lester for a month, learned his routine, and waited for the right time.
There had been several opportunities to take the African American man, but the thing in him was not ready then. He would know when the time was right. The man was bigger than him, taller by half a foot and heavier by a few pounds. Despite his sixty-odd years, the man was fit, but the killer was confident he could take him.
His earlier kills had been messy, he was still learning, and this time he was determined to make it a clean kill.
He followed the man easily, marveled at the stupidity of people that they never bothered to check their backs, and took the subway along with him. At one point he could have reached out and touched the man, but the killer had learned to cloak himself in invisibility, and he was just another commuter in the train.
He followed Lester to Central Park, knew what he was there for, and just as the woman jogged past, he struck.
Lester’s body was found the next day by a jogger, and the NYPD swung into action. They got his identity from the New York State driver’s license in his wallet, calls were made, and eventually they got hold of Joe and Emilio.
They were shocked, and Joe shed tears in the privacy of the restroom. Lester had been more than an employer, he had been a friend. They told the cops that Lester didn’t seem to have any relatives or friends that they knew of. The store and his apartment were his world.
The cops searched his apartment, found two names and numbers, and two calls were made.
One was to Alisha Jones.
The other was to another sixty-year-old African American, in Tennessee. The man lay on his bed for a while after hanging up, then slowly eased up.
His son heard his stirring, heard his end of the call, and rushed to his room.
He brushed his son’s help away, stood upright, breathed deeply, and regarded his son.
His son was huge, six foot four, all of it hard muscle. He had close-cropped hair, piercing eyes and an air of stillness that concealed a capacity for enormous violence.
He told his son what had happened and watched his eyes darken.
He held a hand up to stop him.
‘This isn’t something for you. I’m sure the cops will investigate.’
He looked steadily at his son, waited for an acknowledgement, and when his son nodded once, he sighed deeply and lay down again.
His son left the room, went outside their house, stood in the small front garden, and felt the sunlight beat down at him.
He knew how important Lester had been to his father.
Bwana Kayembe, deep black, ex-special forces operative, picked up his phone.
He called his friend in New York, his friend who was also his boss.
Zeb Carter.
Author’s Message
Thank you for taking time to read
The Warrior Code
. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends and posting a short review,
here
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Books in the series:
The Warrior
, Warriors series, Book one
The Reluctant Warrior
, Warriors series, Book two
The Warrior Code, Warriors series, Book three
About the Author
Ty has lived on a couple of continents and has been a trench digger, loose tea vendor, leather goods salesman, marine lubricants salesman, diesel engine mechanic and is now an action thriller author.
Ty is privileged that readers of crime suspense and action thrillers have loved his books. 'Intense,' 'Riveting,' and 'Gripping' have been commonly used in reviews.
Ty lives with his wife and son, who humor his ridiculous belief that he’s in charge.
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Table of Contents
Books by Ty Patterson
Acknowledgements
Dedications
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Check out The Warrior, Book One in the Warriors series
Check out The Reluctant Warrior, Book Two in the Warriors series
Coming soon
Author’s Message
About the Author
