Dark Motive E-Book

Craig Rainey

• Herausgeber: Craig Rainey Creative, LLC
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

This book is a masterpiece and deserves the maximum stars! - ILOVEUNIQUEBOOKS.ORG
Carson Brand finds himself in the middle of a corrupt congressional campaign financed by middle eastern terrorists.
Seduced by his beautiful young attorney, she introduces him to a political campaign with questionable methods of winning elections. He must weigh the DEA threat of a life in prison against the unlimited wealth he could gain by working with the politician's clandestine team of enforcers.
Behind the empty promises and the smiling faces of candidates, despite the positive spin the media presents us, the true power brokers behind the scenes are all driven by the same Dark Motive - Power and Control.
Find out why crime thriller fans are adding Carson Brand to their reading lists.

Leseprobe

Copyright © 2020 by Craig Rainey Creative, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

Craig Rainey Creative, LLC

Austin, Texas

www.craigrainey.com

www.darkmotivenovel.com

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Book Cover by Paramita Creative

Dark Motive/ Craig Rainey. -- 1st ed.

ISBN 978-1-7339867-2-4

OTHER CARSON BRAND NOVELS

STOLEN VALOR

REASONABLE SIN

SOVEREIGN RULE

NATIONS LAW

ALSO BY CRAIG RAINEY

MASSACRE AT AGUA CALIENTE

THE ART OF PROFESSIONAL SALES

HOODOO WAR

Reviews

DARK MOTIVE

“Reading Dark Motive feels like watching an action movie in 3D display. The author’s way of describing scenery and unfolding events is quite gripping and adds to the momentum, as the reader is left wondering with anxiousness about what is going to happen next. This book is a masterpiece and deserves the maximum stars!”

- I LOVE UNIQUEBOOKS.COM REVIEW

Like Stolen Valor, the first novel in the series, this book holds your attention - you can't wait to read what happens next! The detailed narrative allows you to picture each scene in vivid detail. I can't wait for Book #3 - thank you for the great read, Craig!

– READER REVIEW

Action packed, exciting, well written. Brand … Rough, tough, no-nonsense, …Quite an accomplishment for a character involved in the horrors of the dark drug and human trafficking's underground. I am looking forward to the third Carson Brand book.

– READER REVIEW

For Louise – The Queen of Valhalla and a true friend

Innocence, like beauty, is only skin deep. Our Dark Motives drive our desires.

CRAIG RAINEY

Contents

PROLOGUE

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

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28

29

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31

32

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41

42

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE

Prologue

THE MORNING WAS BRIGHT. A COOL breeze carried a false promise of respite for another day where the heat index would break yet another record for the city of Houston. In the heart of the city’s Theater District, the Bob Casey Federal Courthouse rose above heavy traffic clogging the busy street before the modern building.

A large crowd milled and buzzed, filling the wide sidewalk before the glass and steel entry to the courthouse building. The sidewalk was crowded with journalists and photographers, awaiting the next turn of the pages of history.

Others wormed their way through the buzzing reporters as they entered the courthouse for business of one type or another, casting curious looks at the milling media.

A long black car pulled to the curb. Speaker of the House, Franklin Cole, stepped from the back seat and onto the concrete sidewalk. He was surrounded immediately by his team of attorneys and a cadre of stern-faced secret service agents.

Tanner Morales slapped his cameraman on the shoulder as he broke into a run. Morales’ cameraman, William, shouldered his way through the converging pack of journalists as he followed Morales towards the Speaker’s entourage.

William was a tall man with broad shoulders, providing him an invaluable advantage in the journalistic ritual of jockeying for the best position in crowded interviews. He was the favorite photographer of Tanner Morales’ exactly because he was big enough to bully others in the press, and tall enough to shoot over the crowd if he was unsuccessful in reaching the front of the rush.

Morales arrived with the first wave of reporters. He pressed his microphone forward as he asked the first question.

“Good morning, Speaker. How high does this scandal go in Congress?”

“To the top,” Cole replied flatly. “Mine were the best of intentions, but I see now that intentions were not enough to protect this great country from the enemies attempting to defeat her,”

A deafening rise of voices reacted to this admission from the famous Congressman. Tanner Morales pressed closer and raised his voice above the queries of the other reporters.

“Mr. Speaker, who are these enemies you say want to defeat America?”

Cole stopped abruptly, his entourage stumbling as they halted their momentum. The Speaker of the House looked directly at Tanner Morales.

“You are, sir,” he replied with heat. “The truth is before your eyes.”

He looked around him at the mass of journalists encircling and crowding him. His accusation silenced them.

“The enemy is no longer at the gates. The enemy is here amongst us. You people are supposed to be custodians of the truth. You have become harbingers of the very evil you claim to revile. Your zeal in promoting your causes, your ideology, and your opinion has blinded you to what made this country what it is.

“No matter what is said about me in the coming weeks, I am no right-wing extremist, nor am I a conspiracy theorist. I am a steward of this country and the constitution. I took an oath to protect her and serve her. I entered public life with that goal. I embraced the progressive ideals that I believed would strengthen this great land. Somewhere along the way I lost sight of that.

“You protected me as I did it. Your support and cover kept me here as surely as that same defense concealed the infiltration of our government institutions by those who would see us brought to our knees.”

“Okay,” one of the attorneys ordered, grasping the Speaker’s shoulder. “That’s enough for now.”

The entourage began to move. Cole shook off the hand, once more facing the stunned reporters.

“I will have my say. I ask that once more, you act as the voice of the people rather than using your access to amplify your own voices. To the people I say, even if I have to bring the whole thing down around me, I will expose the evil which threatens our very way of life. I will honor the oath I took when I entered this office so many years ago.”

Cole looked at the attorney who had tried to move him along, giving permission to continue. The reporters’ voices exploded in shouted questions as the entourage again moved towards the courthouse.

Tanner Morales looked behind him, searching for William. The tall cameraman returned the look with a lanky smile and a nod. He had gotten all of it. Tanner grabbed William’s sleeve and pulled him away from the group. He selected a spot under one of the large trees near the jammed street. He rotated until the courthouse was behind him.

“Roll, William,” he instructed.

“Rolling, boss,” William announced.

“This is Tanner Morales at the federal courthouse here in Houston, where Speaker of the House, Franklin Cole, is entering where he will surrender himself to authorities on charges of accepting bribes and conspiring to defraud the government. Additional charges are likely to include obstruction of justice and treason.

“After nearly a year of investigations and rumors of corruption surrounding the senior congressman, Speaker Cole announced yesterday that he would surrender to the authorities this morning. Moments ago, he had this to say.”

Tanner cut the spot with a gesture.

“Insert,” he said to the camera. After a brief pause, he began once more.

“The press has been barred from the courtroom. We anticipate a press conference after the hearing, from the FBI and Department of Justice. We will bring you developments as they occur. This is Tanner Morales in Houston.”

William rolled a short out and pressed the stop button.

“We’re out,” he told the reporter.

1

HIS NAME WAS ACHMED AND HE WAITED in the front passenger seat of the idling Toyota Prius. The air conditioner labored to keep him cool beneath the long black pea coat and the shaped explosives strapped to his torso.

He tasted fear’s rusty bitterness in his mouth. He knew the fear was no more than his body’s natural reaction to his understanding of what he must do for God. He had learned long before that to consider fear in the course of his service to the destruction of all false faiths, at-Taaghoot, was to consider a blister a deterrent to honest labor. Fear was a natural yet unimportant part of it. His belief and his training subordinated his fear to no more than a bothersome discomfort.

Today his focus was split between his lessons and the timing for his act of Intidhar –the preparation for the coming of Imam Mahdi. He was the most unlikely to be chosen for the honor, based upon his understanding. Only two years before, he had been Kafir, openly non-Muslim in his actions and faith. Now his knees and elbows were rough from the Salat. His heart was pure, and he had been uniquely chosen as the direct instrument in the elimination of at-Taaghoot. His was the most sacred of acts in the elimination of all things worshipped other than the one true God, Allah.

“Laa ilaha illa Allaah,” he muttered as his attention went to the crowded street before him.

Three police cars sat at the curb in front of the large courthouse. Their light bars whirled and flashed strobing reds and blues. A huge mass of onlookers, packs of journalists, and suited federal officers jockeyed for position around the front doors of the building.

Achmed sat in the little car, waiting across the street, some fifty yards away, just outside of the barriers blocking the downtown street. He watched for the signal to move. He did not know what the signal would be, but he had been assured he would know it when it was heard.

A slight change in the movement of the milling crowd indicated that the prisoner would soon emerge from the building. Achmed ignored the driver who waited with him in silence, opening the door and standing on the hot pavement of the street. He reached into his coat pocket and grasped the plunger trigger. He gripped it tightly in his right hand, nervously awaiting the signal.

2

JOE MERCER BRACED HIMSELF AGAINST the pressing bodies of the mob. He pushed against the weight of the crowd with his hands against the glass as writhing onlookers pressed into him and his group. He gave an assuring glance to one of his protesters.

He was convinced many of his group would go to jail today. His participation in these demonstrations had led to his arrest on numerous occasions. Although his name was atop law enforcement’s radical activist watch list, the convolutions of a fickle political landscape had seen to his release each time. His repeated liberation from jail with no subsequent legal backlash confirmed that he was the embodiment of the American way. His first amendment rights were sacrosanct even to those against whom he protested.

He was an activist leader. His job was to provide direction and purpose to mindless protestors. His demonstrations had always been aimed at helpless citizens or opposing activists. This day, however, was different. Where previously the police had disrupted his activities, this time he and his group were to disrupt the duties of law enforcement.

His experience with the police had taught him that you always got a warning. He knew his initial act would draw that warning. The aftermath of the second act would warrant a far more committed reaction.

Mercer squinted to see through the thick tempered glass outside the modern courthouse building. Killing a man was never easy. The task was made much more difficult when the man was in police custody and wore a Kevlar vest.

His role as a leader had placed him in proximity to the most dire acts imaginable. He had seen much violence and death in his commitment to the cause. Today he knew he participated in an event which would again result in extraordinary acts many would consider horrible and needless. In his heart he knew his job was crucial and the darkness he sometimes embraced was a means to a required end. At times, the cause demanded a high price. He believed in his work and was willing to do what it took to succeed.

He turned, locating the uniformed officers stationed strategically within the milling crowd. He had to be cautious in selecting a path free of impediments which could delay the group. Timing was everything.

He found a route clear of law enforcement. He mustered his courage as his time drew near. Today he wasn’t concerned about the killing of the man. He only had to draw that first warning.

His gaze returned to search the inside of the courthouse. Through the tinted windows he saw a phalanx of uniformed officers making their way down a long hallway towards the lobby. He spied his quarry. He caught only brief glimpses of the prisoner among the tightly packed bodies of the officers. Building security moved bystanders aside, making room for the approaching group.

The police escort spread wider as it left the narrow confines of the hallway entering the wide lobby which housed the double doors of the building’s entrance.

Joe saw the prisoner clearly now. He wore a black Kevlar vest over an orange inmate jump suit. His feet and hands were shackled, causing him to shamble rather than walk. His balding head and wire framed glasses shone vulnerably under the fluorescent lights of the lobby. Mercer was surprised how small he seemed. In power, the important man had seemed a giant among his peers.

Franklin Cole looked around helplessly and fearfully. Long before his confinement and shackled movements, his face had been widely recognized due to his regular interviews on the major news networks. He had been a featured guest on many occasions. He had served as the preeminent leader of his party and his opinion was heeded as fact. His positions on issues had been considered planks in his party’s platform.

He had walked into this same courthouse only three weeks before, third in line to the presidency, the most powerful man in the house of representatives. Today, all the power and fame were gone, replaced by shame and ridicule. He was the Fed’s top suspect turned key witness against his party and many of his highly placed donors. The mob outside represented a national abhorrence for him. No one is hated as one who was once trusted unquestioningly.

He had entered politics more than two decades earlier with the altruism of every political candidate who had ever won the votes of the American people. His intention had been to reward the people’s support with actions and deeds that would make a noticeable and significant difference in their lives.

The double front doors flung open as the police entourage moved confidently into the hot glare of the Houston afternoon. Cole squinted in the bright sunlight. Head down, the angry din of the crowd dulled his perceptions. He felt the impassioned sound of the mob and the pounding heat of the blazing Texas afternoon as a united assault upon his narrow shoulders and balding head. He experienced a strange gratitude for the strong grips and irresistible force of the officers as they carried him through the crowd. It seemed at times that his feet left the ground as he was taken from the courthouse to the police convoy which would end with him in a secure private jail cell.

His thoughts returned to the early days of his political career. His first act as a freshman congressman had been to sit on a telephone bank ten hours per day, seven days a week, schilling donations for future elections for the party. He had appeared on the floor of the house only to vote for or against bills. He voted only then on the few pieces of legislation that mattered to the party.

His senior colleagues had assured him that he could miss as many as a quarter of all the votes on the floor without any ill effect to his re-election bid. The claim had been accurate. He won his second term handily.

His exhaustive drive and personal strength had resulted in unprecedented success on the phones. He was promoted to in-person appearances for fundraising events and keynote addresses for special interest groups. Before long he was lauded as a rising star, destined for political greatness.

His third term found him in the position of Speaker of the House. He was second only to the president in the leadership of his party. His was the most coveted access to the levers of power within his party and for that matter the control of the country. All his early naivete had fallen away with his intimate knowledge of how to gain power and keep it.

Disappointment and confusion took their places in his mind. He had been so careful his entire career. One slip and he had exposed everything his predecessors had built over a span of eighty years of manipulation and control of the country’s political system.

The investigations had begun soon after. He had been assured that politicians, particularly highly placed politicians, never saw convictions or jail time. As with companies considered too large to fail, senior politicians were too big to fall. The phone call from his attorney came nearly a year to the day of his mistake. A warrant had been issued for his arrest. He remembered the tears he and his wife had shed that evening.

Rumors sprang from leaked documents and blogger hearsay. The numerous threats upon his life began the next day. Most were the empty threats of extreme activists from the other side. Others were credible and valid according to Agent Collins, lead investigator.

A quick movement to his right drew him from his reverie. A long-haired man, his face twisted in hatred, was thrown to the ground by one of the guards as he rushed the officers surrounding the prisoner.

Some distance from the police entourage, Joe watched the long-haired man struggle with the arresting officer. He gestured to his followers. He and the fourteen angry young men moved as one, shouldering through the pressing crowd, roughly shoving curious onlookers out of the way. Joe Mercer plowed through the mob on an intercepting course with the prisoner escort.

A tall man holding his two children fell back from the advancing protestors. Three men in expensive suits complained as they were jostled and moved aside. Joe was a large man with angry eyes. The combination limited their reaction to impotent protests and angry downturned looks.

With remarkable speed they drew to only a few yards from the security detail. On cue, the protestors raised their signs and their voices in chants.

“NOTUS – We won’t go! No right, no rich, no po po!”

Joe and the National Organization of Trotskyite United Socialists broke through the crowd at a perfect right angle, converging upon the slowly advancing police guard. Joe pressed headlong towards the detail. The officers were well-trained and acted immediately upon that training, turning to face the protestors, pressing forward against the impending attack.

Joe bent low and leapt headlong into the officers like a linebacker rushing an offensive line to sack the quarterback. The angry NOTUS protestors followed. The impetus of Joe and fourteen sprinting men overwhelmed the half dozen guards.

Camera shutters clicked and video cameras whirred as the press struggled to gain a vantage point from which to record the melee unfolding before them.

The converging reporters’ movements hindered the frightened bystanders’ flight from the violence. The shifting mob tangled, and many fell to the hot concrete, trampled by others. The tone of the angry mob changed by degree as the wail of the frightened and the injured added their voices to the din.

Those few guards who were not struggling to regain their feet, rallied after the surprise of the initial assault. They moved to reform the security cordon around the prisoner. The officers did not wait for their fallen comrades to join them. Rather, with desperate strength, they fairly carried the prisoner as they again made their way towards the awaiting police cars. The officers stationed amongst the police cavalcade at the curb moved towards them, trying to usher the panicked crowd out of the path of the diminished security detail.

The terrified Cole, and the few guards who escorted him, finally broke free of the packed throng, and entered the open area near the line of police cars.

Cole felt vulnerable and exposed as the three remaining officers in his escort struggled through the diminished crowd near the awaiting police cars. Two of the fallen officers appeared from behind them, rejoining the prisoner escort as they neared the police cars.

Franklin Cole looked up from his intense focus on the ground and his efforts to remain above his shambling feet. As if through a narrow tunnel, he saw a dark-headed young man in a long black coat slide between two of the police cars. The young man’s dark eyes locked with Coles’ as he drew his right hand from his coat pocket.

Cole saw that he held something metallic. He couldn’t see clearly what the dark headed man held, but it glinted in the summer sun. The dark man spread his arms wide as if to offer Franklin Cole a welcoming embrace. As his arms rose, the coat opened, and the congressman saw the rectangular packs and loose wiring of an explosive vest.

The police noticed the man in the coat too late. Their attention had been on the crowd and the protestors behind them. They drew their weapons to neutralize this new threat. Their weapons never came on line for a shot.

Joe Mercer grappled with two uniformed officers as the blast shook the crowd. He and the officers fell to the hot sidewalk, their ears ringing with the concussion of the blast.

3

CARSON BRAND ENTERED THE LITTERED alleyway with a measured step and a cautious eye. Although it was mid-afternoon the tall buildings on either side cast cool dark shadows upon the stained pavement of the alley.

According to the man he had left bleeding and bound on a dirty floor, the tall building to his right was where he would find Christina. In addition to the reluctantly provided information Brand was able to draw from his tormented informant, to ‘enter through the alley in back’ had been uttered with an honesty wrought by that same pain.

Brand had passed by the front, noticing several seemingly unassociated men sitting loosely about. Their interest in Brand confirmed that they protected the vulnerable front entrance. Brand had moved past them casually.

Set within the building’s spray-painted bricks was a peeling metal door with a slide viewport set at eye level. There were no windows on that side of the structure. The steel door was the lowest of several built at the rusty landings of a zig zagging fire escape which served each of the ten floors of the old building.

Brand stopped before the steel door. He glanced around once more. Nothing stirred around him other than the rare breeze which lifted trash in lazy circles in the tight space between the buildings. There was no knob or handle on the door.

With one last look down the alleyway, Brand beat the door with three hard knocks. He listened for any indication of movement within. He detected none. Either no one was inside, or the steel door was thick enough to mask the sounds.

He waited a full minute with no answer to his knock. He was about to turn from the door when he heard a scraping as someone worked at the metal mechanism which secured the door. Brand watched as the viewport slid slowly with a reluctant squeak.

A stripe of a dark face and black narrowed eyes surveyed him blandly through the narrow view port.

“What do you want?” a whiny voice asked through the port.

“I was told to meet Oscar here,” Brand replied as innocuously as he could.

“There is no Oscar here, white man,” was the quick answer.

“Bullshit,” Brand argued without heat. “Open the door and stop wasting my time.”

The door keeper’s eyes shifted down and away as he considered the direct manner of the stranger.

“Who said Oscar is here?”

The voice held a new quality. Brand thought he detected doubt: maybe fear.

“Don Rojas sent me.”

The eyes focused on him once more. They held him with a steady stare.

“Wait.”

The slide again closed over the narrow port and Brand waited for several minutes before it was opened once more.

This time the eyes in the viewport belonged to someone else. They were green with flecks of gold at the edges.

“Who are you?” a female voice asked suspiciously.

Brand looked at his feet as his impatience grew. He glared at the green eyes.

“I don’t have time to stand out here in this alley while you decide whether or not Don Rojas will punish you for blocking me out. The answer is yes, he will. Open the door and stop wasting time.”

Green eyes hesitated a moment more before the viewport slid shut. Metal scraped and clicked as she unlocked the door. It swung open reluctantly on groaning hinges. Inside the doorway stood an older woman wearing too much make up, and a small dark man holding a snub-nosed revolver.

“Enter,” the woman commanded.

Brand considered the smaller man for a moment before he complied. The gunman’s dark eyes held a menacing light. Brand recognized him as the first who had answered the door.

The woman looked him up and down.

Carson Brand was just over six feet tall, athletically built for a man who rarely worked out or ran. His arms and legs were sturdy from a life of labor. The old woman shifted her assessment to his blue eyes. They were dark as a stormy sea. Within them she saw a hard resolve and a dangerous glint.

She glanced at the small man holding the gun.

The gunman gestured with his pistol.

“Against the wall,” he commanded in a high, pinched voice.

Brand stepped inside and put his hands against the painted concrete wall just inside the doorway. The gunman frisked him rapidly with a practiced efficiency.

“He is unarmed,” he told the woman.

She watched Brand as he faced her once more.

“What do you want with Oscar?” she demanded.

“I am to speak only to him,” Brand said in return.

The woman weighed this as she considered him gravely. After she studied him for a few long seconds she seemed to come to a decision.

“Oscar has not been here for several days,” she explained with unexpected candor. “We are concerned at his absence.”

“I see,” Brand said.

His thoughts returned to the memory of Oscar bound hand and foot with duct tape in a dark apartment in Houston’s 3rd ward.

“Can you help me then?” he asked.

“With what,” she asked suspiciously.

“I am looking for a friend. Her name is Christina. She came in on what you call the ‘Vaca Train’. She is Latina, attractive, and speaks English.”

The gunman growled as he brought the pistol up to fire at Brand.

Brand side-stepped as the pistol belched flame. The bullet cracked wickedly as it bounced off the concrete wall. He snatched the gun hand, pulling the smaller man towards him. He grabbed the man’s head and slammed it against the wall where he had frisked him. With a groan the gunman folded, unconscious. Brand collected the pistol from the limp hand, dropping him to the floor. He adjusted his grip on the pistol, training it on the woman. His ears rang from the loud report.

“No more tricks,” he warned. “Oscar lied to me. I will punish you if you lie.”

The woman said nothing. She merely stared at him. Brand noted she seemed to be without fear.

“Let’s go,” Brand said, gesturing with the pistol.

She obeyed without any resistance. Brand’s caution grew at her ready compliance. He followed her along a dark hallway. At the center of the long narrow corridor a single bare bulb provided a dim raw light. They passed under the bulb, continuing towards the darkness at the other end.

Brand strained to hear anything which might give away a trap or an ambush. He heard only the faint sounds of distant machinery and the ringing in his ears.

The woman led silently with a slow gait. She turned to the right, and they climbed a dark staircase within a dingy stairwell. The first landing was visible in the dusky glow of another bare bulb in the ceiling. Brand glanced upward through the center space between the railings. The stairs disappeared into darkness above.

They mounted the stairs in darkness until they reached the landing for the third floor where she pushed the bar on a heavy door. Inside, the stench of filth, excrement, and something he could not place, assailed his nose. He guessed it must be death.

A long wide corridor stretched away towards the opposite side of the building. At the end of the long hallway stood another sturdy steel door. Judging by the direction they faced, Brand presumed it was one of the outside doors that opened onto the fire escape he had seen from the alley. Several side doors led into adjoining rooms on both sides of the dark hallway. The building appeared to have been an office complex at one time.

The woman stopped. She turned slowly until she faced him.

“If she is here,” the crone explained in a withered tone. “She is in one of these rooms on this floor. If she is not on this floor, you cannot help her.”

She waited for his reaction. He sensed that she expected him to visit violence upon her. With surprising insight, he realized that she was not without fear. She was without hope.

“You lead,” he ordered.

She shrugged, turning away from him as slowly as before. She shuffled to the first door. Inside, a man was atop a blonde woman who stared blankly at the ceiling. He writhed as she lay inert, unresponsive to the base act forced upon her body.

Brand felt disgust rising in him. He wanted to shoot the man. He clenched his teeth and pushed the woman roughly towards the next door, taking out some of his anger on her.

At the next entrance two women sat against the far wall, clutching one another as they eyed Brand with dread. Neither was Christina.

In this way, they went from room to room, each view a new and more horrible sight to Brand. At the last doorway near the end of the long hallway, Brand paused, focusing upon the naked body of a woman with long black hair. She lay on the floor, her bruised back towards him.

Was she Christina? He pushed the woman into the room.

“Turn her over so I can see her face,” he ordered the older woman.

She looked up at him impassively.

“This is not your Christina,” she assured him.

“Do it,” Brand repeated, his voice a growl with his anger and a growing sense of dread.

The woman shrugged, pulling the naked woman onto her bruised back. The face he saw was vacant of expression and unfamiliar.

Brand grabbed the older woman and shook her upright.

“How did you know she was not Christina?” he demanded of her.

The wretch smiled at him as though he were the pathetic one.

“Christina is dead.”

Brand struggled to make sense of what he heard.

“Don Rojas gave instructions that she was special and was to be treated as such.”

She looked into Brand’s eyes to make certain he understood.

“She is dead and gone. She is as dead as Senor Rojas.”

Brand stared at her in disbelief. The woman knew more than she had given away. Brand felt a twinge of remorse as he struggled to believe that Christina was dead. His journey to rescue her had been long and arduous. Rojas, the head of the Gulf Cartel, had died at his feet in Mexico less than a month before. At gunpoint one of his henchmen had told him about the “Vaca Train” upon which Christina had been taken to Houston.

This woman knew everything, yet she had allowed him inside.

“Why did you lead me here?”

The woman’s heavily made-up face screwed into an evil mask. Her expression froze like a building gargoyle as she listened to a nearly inaudible faraway noise. Brand canted his head to identify the sound. He soon recognized what he heard: it was the pounding of slamming doors and the heavy staccato of boots on smooth concrete.

He had walked into a trap.

From his place near the naked woman and the old crone he heard the stairwell door bang open. Several pairs of feet scuffed along the long hallway.

Brand felt a familiar buzz of anger rising in him. The feeling was akin to a light-headed euphoria. A raging hunger consumed him as he anticipated the conflict to come.

The memory of Christina haunted him, torturing him with the realization that he had failed her. He stared at the grinning wretch who allowed women to be treated this way. He listened as unseen assailants closed in on him. All of these caused his blood to run hot in his veins. He felt the familiar heat of an irresistible urge to act, and to act violently.

He struck the woman hard across the face with the pistol barrel. She fell soddenly – unconscious. Brand turned his attention to the approaching menace in the passageway. Checking the pistol for ammo, he counted five rounds.

Moving slowly along the hallway, three Latino males carried pistols as they searched the floor. They checked the first room cautiously. They snickered and spoke softly at the sight of the man atop the woman.

Brand heard them speaking in whispers and muted laughter. Although he didn’t understand Spanish, he guessed they commented on the man and the woman he had seen earlier. He crept to the wall beside the open door, leaning against the wall out of view of anyone who would peer into the room.

The three Latinos crept cautiously from one door to the next. Inside of each they found only drugged and beaten women. With fading vigilance, they approached the last doorway. Their confidence in finding the intruder was waning. Had he gotten away in time?

Brand heard them outside the door. One of the men peeked around the door jamb. He saw the two women lying on the floor. He turned to inform the others of his findings when Brand crushed his nose using the pistol grip of the black revolver.

The other two fell back from the attack as Brand turned tightly into the hallway. He lifted the stunned man with his left arm, covering the two men with the pistol in his right. His first shot sent shards of plaster into the nearest man’s face. The other Latino shot the man Brand held upright. Brand felt the body jolt as the slug struck deeply. Brand shoved the wounded man at them and fired wildly as he turned towards the steel door leading to the fire escape.

Three rapid strides brought him to the door. He shoved the bar, pushing the rusty door ajar. He slid through the narrow opening, slamming the heavy door as a volley of slugs pinged off its solid surface.

The weathered steel stairs creaked a rusty warning as he descended, leaping from landing to landing. The platform ended some fifteen feet above the alley pavement. A ladder was hinged from the bottom landing in an upright position. It was secured with a quick pull release pin. Brand tore at the mechanism. Frozen in place from years of rust and weather damage, the pin did not move.

He heard a scraping squeal as the door above swung slowly outward. He guessed that the prospect of gunfire had slowed the pursuit for the moment.

Brand leaned out over the railing and fired a shot up the fire escape. The two Latinos retreated, jumping against the brick wall behind the cover of the steel landing.

Brand stuffed the pistol into his waistband and stepped over the railing. He grabbed the ladder and lowered himself hand over hand until he hung from the bottom rung. His feet were more than eight feet off the ground.

A shot exploded above him. The bullet nearly parted his hair. He let go, landing in a controlled roll - feet, calf, thigh, hip. He leapt to his feet and moved to cover against the building. Keeping near the brick wall he ran along the alley towards the street.

Shots rang out above him. Bullets pinged off the pavement dangerously close, adding an additional urgency to his flight.

At the street he ducked right. He looked around the corner towards his backtrail. He saw the third-floor door slam closed as the Latinos re-entered the building. Brand felt certain that they would contact the sentries occupying the front sidewalk, enlisting their aid in the pursuit.

Brand turned from the alleyway and cautiously headed away from the danger. With a conscious effort, he held his pace to a casual walk, wary of signs of pursuit. His body stiffened in alarm as he heard an approaching police siren. He hurried to the curb and dropped the gun into a nearby storm drain.

Just ahead two Houston PD cruisers roared around the corner, grinding to a halt before him. Four uniformed officers stepped from the cars and trained their weapons on him. Blue and red lights whirled. Stoic voices from police radios filled the air as Brand raised his hands in surrender.

“On the ground!” one of the officers shouted, pressing his weapon forward to cover Brand.

With raised hands, Brand lowered himself to his knees. Two officers converged upon him, aggressively pushing him flat onto the sidewalk. They cuffed him then frisked him. They lifted him to his feet, roughly shoving him against the brick wall where they frisked him once again. They emptied his pockets, opening his wallet.

“Carson Brand,” one of the officers said, reading the name from his driver license.

More police cars arrived on scene. An older officer approached the group.

“Is this him?” he asked.

“Yes, Lieutenant,” was the reply.

“Take him.”

“Lieutenant, we haven’t investigated the gunshots yet.”

“We’ll take it from here. Get him in a cell ASAP.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What is the charge,” Brand asked.

“Shut up.”