Tony Wolf/Tim Buckthorn - 02 - Broken Shield Read online

  Broken Shield

  Tony Wolf/Tim Buckthorn [2]

  J. D. Rhoades

  (2013)

  * * *

  Rating: ★★★★☆

  Tags: Thriller

  Thrillerttt

  * * *

  Chief Deputy Tim Buckthorn takes center stage in this scorching sequel to the bestselling BREAKING COVER.

  Buckthorn and his beloved hometown of Pine Lake thought they'd seen the last of FBI agent Tony Wolf. But when evidence of a kidnapping literally falls from the sky, Wolf returns to assist in the search for an abducted young girl.

  Buckthorn, Wolf, and brilliant FBI prodigy Leila Dushane race against the clock to piece the clues together. When the evil they find follows them home, Pine Lake once again suffers terrible tragedy at the hands of violent and lawless men. Tim Buckthorn, who's lived his life as a sworn officer of the law, will have to cross every line he ever knew on a quest to protect the people and the place he loves.

  "I loved this emotionally riveting collision of good and evil in a small Southern town. Rhoades always melds action, character and suspense into a seamless and unforgettable ride."-Alexandra Sokoloff, award-winning author of THE HARROWING and the Huntress Series

  “A blistering follow-up to BREAKING COVER. The prose is fast and smart, the pace frantic and the characters driven, dangerous and yet full of heart. BROKEN SHIELD reaffirms JD Rhoades’ position as the king of redneck noir.” -Zoë Sharp, author of the Charlie Fox crime thriller series

  "J.D. Rhoades introduced Tim Buckthorn in Breaking Cover. Now, in the searing prose of Broken Shield, Rhoades shows us he has created a character who can stand tall alongside Jack Reacher and Harry Bosch."-Keith Raffel, bestselling author of DOT DEAD, DROP BY DROP, and A FINE AND DANGEROUS SEASON

  BROKEN SHIELD

  J.D. RHOADES

  © Copyright 2013 by J.D. Rhoades

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All people, places, and events contained in this book are products of the author’s imagination. No similarity with actual people, places or events is intended or should be inferred.

  Cover design by Robert Gregory Browne, copyright 2013 by Braun Haus Media.

  Photographs copyright 2013 by Mauro Rodrigues/Shutterstock.com;

  Other images courtesy bigstock.com.

  E-book formatting by Brett Battles

  This book is dedicated to my great and good friend, David Terrenoire.

  A kick-ass writer his ownself as well as a crackerjack blues harp player, David was the first one to suggest that BREAKING COVER was as much Tim Buckthorn’s story as Tony Wolf’s. Stay strong, David.

  Thanks to my awesome First Readers: Alexandra Sokoloff, Laura Bradford, and my wife Lynn.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  The girl was young, skinny, and as nervous as a deer under the harsh white lights of the truck stop parking lot. She kept looking back over her shoulder as she strolled between the lines of trucks. She was new enough that the high heels she wore were still awkward for her and she tottered a bit atop slim, bony legs. She wore a mini-skirt made of some fake leather material that barely covered her buttocks and a spaghetti-strap T-Shirt that did the same mediocre job of concealing her small, high breasts.

  A man watched from the shadows between two trucks as the girl stopped at the driver’s side of a large white Freightliner across the way. It was decorated with orange LED lights that outlined the doors and the tall sleeper cab that rose up behind the driver’s compartment. They gave the big truck an almost festive appearance. The truck was running, the engine rumbling like a giant sleeping beast. The windows were covered by quilted panels stuck up by the driver while he grabbed a little nap in the sleeper. The girl knocked on the driver’s door tentatively, then harder. He couldn’t see the conversation that followed, but it didn’t end well for the girl. She flinched back and nearly fell off the heels as a cascade of some liquid was ejected out the window, drenching her flimsy t-shirt. He could see the black lace bra beneath the material. “ASSHOLE!” she shouted as she stomped away. She tried to hold her head up with as much dignity as she could, but that effort was crushed by a peal of cruel laughter from somewhere else in the darkness, followed by a shouted comment in a rough female voice that he couldn’t make out. Apparently it was clear enough to the girl; she hung her head and he could hear the sound of sobbing as she stumbled away. He considered for a moment, then followed, stepping out into the light and following her.

  He was slim and wiry, dressed in blue jeans and a windbreaker that was too warm for the humid South Carolina summer night. He appeared to be in his early forties, but it was hard to tell exactly because of the NC State baseball cap pulled down to obscure his eyes. He had to shorten his stride to avoid catching up with the girl before she got where she was going.

  The parking lot stretched out for acres around the garishly lit oasis of the compound that made up the “Interstate Travel Center” off a nameless exit on Interstate 95 in the marshlands of South Carolina, near the Georgia Border. The place was like a small town compacted into a few cinderblock buildings; along with the expected rows of fuel pumps, there was a diner, a convenience store, a bank, a Laundromat, a post office, even a tiny video store. A weary trucker could find nearly anything legal he needed in the complex, and most illegal things he could want in the shadows outside.

  The girl stopped by a small white pickup truck with a white bubble light on top of the cab and the words “Dixie Security” in black letters on the side. A beefy man with a shaved head and a bored expression stared straight ahead as she voiced her complaint, waving her arms for emphasis and pointing back to where the trucker who’d thrown his drink on her was parked. Finally, the bald man had had enough. As the man in the ball cap approached, he told her harshly to shut up and get her skinny ass back to work. The girl slammed her hand onto the top of the cab in frustration. “You’re s’posed to take care of us!” she shouted in a thick Southern accent made harsh and ugly by her fury. The bald man opened the truck door and shoved, nearly knocking the girl down again. He got out of the truck. He was dressed in a pair of khaki pants and a white t-shirt with “SECURITY” written on it in the same lettering as on the truck. He grabbed the girl by the throat, shoving her back against the truck. “Listen here, you little white trash cunt,” he began, but he was interrupted by the man in the ball cap, who loudly cleared his throat, then said “Excuse me.”

  The bald man released the girl and turned around. “The fuck do you want?”

  “I want you to deliver a message for me. To your boss.” He began to unzip the windbreaker.

  “A message?” the bald man said. Another man was getting out of the passenger side of the truck. This one was squat and even uglier than the first. The muscles bulging against his T-shirt shirt looked more like they came from a needle than the gym, the word SECURITY on his shirt stretched and distorted. “The fuck I look like?” the bald man said. “Western Union?” The two men laughed at this witticism, until the man in the ball cap drew an X26 Taser from the pocket of the windbreaker and shot the bald man with it. Two darts propelled by compressed nitrogen covered the distance in less than a second and embedded themselves in the flesh of his arm. He went rigid, then bellowed in agony as the electricity hit him. He collapsed to the asphalt just as the man in the ball cap dropped the Taser and drew a .40 caliber Smith and Wesson pistol from the shoulder holster under his windbreaker and pointed it at the other security man, who was charging around the front of the truck, a police baton in one hand. “Drop it,” the man in the ball cap said. The security man drew up short, then dropped the baton to the pavemen
t.

  “You were holding it wrong, anyway,” the man in the ball cap said.

  “Wh—what?”

  The man in the ball cap ignored the question. “Get over there and sit on the ground. Next to your buddy.” The second security man hesitated, then lowered himself slowly to the ground where the first man was sitting up, groaning in pain.

  The man in the ball cap turned to the girl. “Where do they keep the money?”

  She was trembling, the fear making her shake as if she was the one who’d just ridden the lightning. “I…I don’t know.”

  He looked at her for a moment, then turned to the second man. “Okay. You can tell the boss she’s not the one who told me. But you know where it is.”

  The man’s expression of puzzled innocence was so clearly false it was almost comical. “Where what is?”

  “Listen to me, son,” the man in the ball cap said. “No one here has to die tonight. Fact is, I’d rather not kill you. You’re just grunts. But I am already way the hell over every line I ever recognized, and it would not trouble me one bit to but a bullet in as many knees and ankles and other non-lethal body parts as it would take to get you to cough up the money you’ve been collecting from this girl and the half-dozen others I’ve seen working this lot tonight. Now what’s it gonna be?”

  The bald man spoke up, his voice still tight with pain. “You got any idea who you’re fucking with? Whose money that is?”

  The man in the ball cap grinned. It was a savage smile, leached dry of all humor. “I know exactly whose money it is. That’s why I’m taking it.” He motioned with the gun to the second man. “Get it.”

  The man slowly got to his feet and turned his back to lean over and reach inside the truck. “You turn around with a weapon in your hand,” the man in the ball cap said, “and you’ll die. I guarantee it. Don’t get yourself killed for another man’s money or for your dumb-ass pride. None of that’s worth dying for.”

  “Well, what are you dying for?” the bald man on the ground said. “Because you, my friend, are fucking dead.”

  “Maybe,” the man in the ball cap said. “But not tonight.” The second man came out with a white canvas bag. “Toss it over here.” The bag landed with a heavy thump. The man in the ball cap squatted down, keeping the gun on the two security men. He picked up the bag and stood up. “Come with me,” he told the girl. “When we get far enough away, I’ll give you this money. You can use it to get out of the life.” She stared at him uncomprehendingly, then shook her head. “No,” she said. “They’ll find me. And they’ll hurt me.”

  “Just like they’re going to find you,” the bald man said. “They’ll find out who you are. When they do…”

  The man in the ball cap aimed the pistol to one side and fired. The girl screamed. Both men screamed as well, covering their faces with their arms. The bullet struck the left rear tire, which exploded with a report almost as loud as the flat bang of the gun. He shot the other tire. The truck leaned to one side, the loud hiss of the escaping air filling the night and nearly drowning out the girl’s terrified sobbing.

  “I know your boss is going to find out who I am,” the man said, “because I’m telling you now.” He started backing away. “My name,” he said, “is Tim Buckthorn. Be sure you tell him. He already knows it, but he needs to know I’m coming for him.”

  He turned and vanished into the night.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TWO WEEKS EARLIER

  The storm had passed, leaving behind a few ragged clouds, sailing by against a sky so bright and blue it looked freshly scrubbed. The yard surrounding Maddie Underhill’s house was less pristine, littered as it was with small sticks and pinecones scattered among the larger branches. The high winds of the fast-moving system had taken their toll as it galloped through Gibson County; some of the branches were as big around as her arm. Maddie was sweeping the front walk, uncomplaining despite the pain in her joints.

  “I’ll get that, Mama,” Maddie’s son Rayvon called from the yard. He and his fifteen-year-old son Trey were pulling one of the larger branches to the curb. “Go on back inside.” Maddie’s only response was to wave off the offer with a wrinkled and age-knotted hand. There might come a day when she’d sit on her behind while someone else worked, she thought, but not yet. She went back to sweeping the walk, the wet pine straw stubbornly adhering to the concrete. She set her jaw, brushed harder, and said a quick prayer under her breath. “Thank you, Jesus,” she said. “Thank you that all I have to worry about is this pine straw and some limbs.” She thought of the pictures she’d seen on her TV the night before, scenes of devastation where the huge storm system had roared through the Southeast, spawning tornadoes and hellish winds, leaving behind a swath of devastation forty miles wide.

  ”And please be good,” she added, “to all those people who weren’t as lucky as us, and please take those poor souls who died to be with You in Your Heavenly Kingdom. Amen.” She had no doubt in her mind that the prayer had been heard; Jesus was an unseen but constant presence in Maddie Underhill’s life, as real to her and as close as the man and boy dragging that giant limb to the edge of the road where it could be picked up by the county. She glanced over at them and saw that they’d stopped dragging the limb and were looking at the sky. She followed their gaze, craning her neck to see.

  The air was full of small fluttering things, falling slowly and erratically through the humid atmosphere. It took her a moment to recognize them as scraps of paper. The first one alighted delicately on the ground a few feet from where she stood, like a moth coming to rest. She stood dumbfounded as others followed, settling gently to the earth all around her. She bent over to pick one up at her feet, grimacing as her back reminded her why she didn’t do that much anymore. She looked at the object in her hand as she carefully straightened up. It was a piece of notebook paper. The blue ink was smeared, running down the page in streaks, but she could make out the shape of a heart, with the symbols “T.L. &” inside it. She couldn’t make out the other two initials. She almost laughed out loud with the shock of sudden recognition. She’d certainly seen plenty of similar foolishness in her thirty years as a teacher in the Gibson County Schools. Some young girl (or boy) mooning over some young boy (or girl) in the next row instead of paying attention to their lessons. She almost let the paper drop, but it seemed too much like littering, so she stuck it in the pocket of her housedress. Other bits of paper, and some scraps that looked like wet cardboard, were falling around her like snow.

  “Where’d all this come from, Grandmama?” Trey had come up to stand next to her, holding out a soggy handful of paper.

  “I saw a story about this,” she said. “On the news. Sometimes when one of these big storms come through and destroys somebody’s house, some of the papers inside get picked up and carried. I heard for miles.”

  Rayvon looked at the yard glumly. “Ain’t gonna make this easier to clean up.” He bent over to pick up a square piece of paper. “Look,” he said. “Someone’s picture.”

  She took it from him. It was a couple of young white boys, tongues stuck out, each one trying to put his fingers up as bunny ears behind the other one’s head. Maddie made her decision instantly.

  “We need to get all these up,” she said. “The pictures especially. And save them. Be careful with them, now. These belong to someone.”

  “Mama,” Rayvon said, “How are we gonna find out…”

  “That’s what I read about,” she said. “Last time this happened. Someone put those pictures up on the computer. On that Facebook.” She waved the photograph at them. “This is a memory to someone. Maybe even a precious one. We need to try and get these back to the people who they belong to.”

  “Mama,” Rayvon said. She stopped him with the look that had frozen two generations of Gibson County schoolchildren into silence. “We have work to do, son,” she said.

  He sighed. “Okay.”

  The work went slowly. There must have been a couple of hundred bits of airborne fl
otsam scattered in the yard and the dirt road in front of Maddie’s house, and even more on the roof. Maddie went inside and got a card table she’d used for extra seating at Thanksgiving. She set it up in the yard and put a blue plastic wastebasket next to it. As Rayvon and Trey brought her the scraps of paper, she sat in her folding metal chair and sorted them. The majority were too damaged to identify, and those went into the wastebasket. She started to put the photographs in a pile, then decided to spread them out on the table to dry. Miscellaneous papers went in their own pile, except for one that Rayvon brought her. It was a death certificate, or at least two-thirds of one. She put that aside, as it seemed disrespectful to just shove it in the pile. Besides, it might provide some clue as to the source of the other papers, even though the name of the issuing county was torn off.

  She looked up from her sorting to see Trey standing before her. He was holding a photograph in his hand. He had a strange look on his face. “Well, boy?” she said. “What have you got there? Don’t just stand there like a moon-calf. Hand it here!”

  Wordlessly, he did so. She looked at it. Her hand went to her mouth. She stared at the photo for a moment before raising her head, a grim expression on her face.

  “RAYVON!” she called out. “Call the Sheriff. Right now. Get them out here.” A thought occurred to her. “Ask for Tim Buckthorn.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Buried alive.

  She had sobbed herself into unconsciousness in the dark, and now she awoke in terror and that same impenetrable and hopeless blackness, the phrase whispering in her mind, settling down on top of any hope she might have felt like some mocking carrion bird, just waiting for the moment when she surrendered, waiting to strip the flesh from her still living bones.