Blood Abandon (Donald Holley Book 1) Read online

  I rested for two days, rehydrated and ate well. When it was time, Manor brought me a box, and an envelope. Inside the box were some documents, a phone, and some other miscellaneous items; the envelope contained a check for the jobs I had completed during my training. It was written out to me for the amount of three-hundred thousand dollars. I didn’t feel excited about the money; instead, I felt prepared for the future. Manor went over the documents in the box, and explained how things were to work going forward.

  “You will tell people you are a security consultant employed by North American Security Services, a consulting firm. Obviously it is a shell company with a generic, hard to trace name.” He extracted a card from the folder. “Here is your business card. You are a 1099 contractor, so keep aside money for your taxes.” He handed me the envelope. “My advice is to hire a CPA.

  “Now for the important part: there is a smartphone in the envelope. You are to use this phone for business only. There is a number programmed inside of it. This is the number you will receive work contracts from. If you need assistance, you will contact this number. You are to wait for calls for work only; do not contact this number looking for work. You are also to never use your skills for another employer unless otherwise authorized. Understand?”

  I nodded.

  “Use some of your start-up money to get the necessary supplies for this employment. An account has been set up for you with a Swiss banking firm. Your bank card, first book of checks and online access information are in the box. Your pay will be deposited as follows: half up front, and the rest promptly upon completion of contracts. The following part is important: when you complete a contract, take a picture of it with the smartphone, and text the image to the number stored within. Is this all clear?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Good,” he said. “I’ll take you the bus station. You’ve done well, and now your employer awaits your services.”

  And that was how I came to be a contract killer.

  Chapter Six

  I pulled off in a strip mall shopping center parking lot on the way back to Chapel Hill. It was after six p.m., and the grocery store in the strip was busy with traffic; winter storms sent towns in the south into an excitable panic. The snow fell thick from the evening sky, and was beginning to collect in the parking lot and out on the streets.

  “Let me see the phone,” I said. Bit passed me the phone, and pulled the folded paper from his pocket. I looked at the names again, and then the phone number; it was local. I punched the phone number into the keypad of the cheap phone, and went over what I wanted Bit to say to whomever answered. After I was confident he was ready, I pushed the send button and put it on speakerphone. It rang out in a thin treble within my vehicle. After two rings, a man answered.

  “I was wondering when you would work up the nerve to call, Gerald,” the voice said. The man had a heavy Hispanic accent.

  “I’m listening,” Bit replied, ignoring the baiting.

  “That’s good,” the man said, “because we need to have a conversation about some money that has gone missing.”

  “Before we go any further, who are you?”

  The man paused before speaking. “My name is Oscar. But what you really need to know is that I’m the worst person you could’ve fucked with, ese.”

  Bit composed himself before speaking. “I’ve seen your work. But I know you’ve got your money back. It was at that second house. You are right, we shouldn’t have taken the money, but you have made your point.”

  Oscar chuckled. “Made my point, eh? That’s funny.”

  I listened intently, saying nothing. So far, Bit was doing well.

  “I got back some of my money, puto,” Oscar said, “but not all.” He took a deep breath. “You are short five-hundred grand, and you are going to get it and bring it to me.”

  “So you can just kill me after I give it to you? No thanks.”

  “Let’s play a riddle game, Gerald. Do you like riddles?”

  “No.”

  “Well, we’re going to play anyway. What is blue, pink and purple, and small?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you should pay more attention to your daughter Marie’s belongings,” Oscar said. “It’s a nice little backpack.”

  Bit bolted forward in his seat, adrenaline surging. “You son of a bitch, you better not hurt my daughter!” he yelled. The man named Oscar said nothing.

  And then Bit paused.

  “If you had my daughter, my ex-wife would have called me.” He sniffled. “You are bluffing.”

  “Kate, you mean?” Oscar said. “She tried calling you, but you didn’t answer your phone.”

  Bit looked at me, panic creeping back into his face. I mouthed the words ‘hang in there’ to him.

  “We have her, too.”

  The color drained from Bit’s face. He became oddly calm; I had never seen him like this before.

  “Don’t hurt them, man,” he said. “I’ll get the money for you.”

  “I know you will, ese.”

  Bit dialed back in to script. “Who are you really, man? What do you do?”

  “I suppose there is no harm telling a dead man something he wants to know.” Oscar chuckled. “I run operations for the Muerte Oscuro cartel north of the border. Of course, when you made off with our money, it got my attention, so I made myself present in North Carolina.”

  Bit hung his head, and then spoke. “Okay.”

  “You have twenty-four hours to come up with the money. At hour twenty-five, your daughter begins losing body parts. Do you understand?”

  Bit clenched his teeth. “Yes.”

  “Good. Call me when you have it, and we’ll arrange the meeting.”

  Bit hung up the phone, and leaned back into the seat. He closed his eyes, and covered his face. I looked at him momentarily, and then out the windshield, the wipers clearing a partial pattern in the snow. Things were as I had thought. My brother and his petty-criminal friends had jumped off the deep end this time, costing them all their lives, minus Bit...so far.

  And not only was his life in danger now, but his daughter and ex-wife were on the clock also. Half a million dollars was still unaccounted for, and the fact that we were not in control of the situation made me sit uneasy. In the immediate moment, I needed to boost him, bring him back to functionality. I couldn’t imagine how he felt, but I needed him dialed in.

  I reached over and grabbed his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Bit. We’re going to get them back,” I said. It wasn’t just for show. I was confident that we would. The question was, would he and I survive? That part I didn’t know. I had never heard of this cartel, but generally speaking, they were always well connected, well trained, and well resourced. These were distinct advantages that they held over us. Plus, two men, going to war with a cartel? That was probably the worst idea I could envision, and I always considered myself a planner. But this whole situation had been off the cuff the entire time, and I felt a step behind constantly. I didn’t like that.

  I turned the Tahoe on, and we went back to my house in Chapel Hill. I lived in the Governor’s Club, an upscale, gated community on the south side of Chapel Hill. We pulled in my driveway and I remotely opened the garage door. Snow covered the ground completely outside my two story brick home. The home was perfect for me, if a little big; it provided me with the necessary privacy to come and go and conduct my business. I had bought it five years ago for eight-hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and now that the housing market was bouncing back some, it had actually increased in worth to around one million dollars. Not too bad for a convicted felon, I thought.

  I checked my alarm system in the garage; there were no breaches. Things were safe for now. We went inside the house from the garage and Bit took a seat at the countertop bar in my kitchen. The house was warm, but dark, so I flipped on some lights. I poured a glass of water for myself and grabbed a beer for Bit from my fridge. I leaned my back on the counter across from where Bit was si
tting. He looked at his beer and pulled at the corner of the label. Neither of us said anything for a few moments, each lost in our own thoughts. Then:

  “Donnie, what are we going to do about the money?”

  I took a sip of water from my glass. “Still working on that.”

  I didn’t want to yet tell him that I had more than that in cash in a hidden wall safe here in my home. I had stored just over a million in cash in a safe that I had pulled out in chunks from the Swiss account over time, in case I ever had to run or my assets were frozen. Of course I didn’t want to use that money in this situation, but the money wasn’t important given the scope of our current situation. If the money would free Kate and Marie from the cartel, then I would definitely do it. I could lean on my brother with getting back some of it for me later, if we even made it out of the situation alive. But first I wanted to see what he knew about where the remaining missing money might be stored.

  “Bit, he said he’s missing five-hundred thousand. Why would that amount have been separate from the rest of the money? Is there anything you aren’t telling me? Because now would be the time,” I said.

  “I’ve told you everything I know!” he snapped.

  I slapped my hand down on the counter. “What you need to realize, Bit, is that everything, including our lives, and that of your family, is on the line because you fucked up. Do you realize that?” I sat my glass down. “Sorry you don’t like the question, but this is where we are at.”

  “I’m sorry for responding that way,” he said. “I’m just frustrated, and scared.”

  I looked at him for a moment, watching him. He seemed angry, but not scared.

  “You seem angry, but I don’t see fear.”

  “What does that mean? Of course I’m scared, Donnie, they have my daughter and Kate!” he yelled. “Are you questioning my loyalty or concern for my family?” He was really angry now.

  “No.” I had to make sure before I offered the money. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “And I’m listening,” he said.

  Chapter Seven

  I told Bit about the cash in the safe, and we decided I would give him the cash in a bag in exchange for his daughter and ex-wife. He would hand it over, I’d offer cover. After that, there was going to be death. The cartel wouldn’t walk away after the swap. There would be two options for Bit and I: fight, or hand ourselves over. That wasn’t a hard choice.

  Fight it was.

  And yet, there were several things that were still bothering me. There had been zero contact or interaction from the Crip set; there should have been something. Truth is, if I were them, I would have hit first before the cartel could. If you had beat me to my own hit, I was going to come looking for you; it wasn’t unreasonable to think a street gang missing out on a large chunk of change wouldn’t do the same thing, and yet, so far there was nothing. Also, I knew the players on the international market, for the most part, and I had never heard of this cartel. Muerte Oscuro? Dark Death...that sounded really dramatic, unlike most cartel names.

  Bit sat on the couch, drinking beer and watching television. We had time to kill, so I went to my office. I pulled up the internet on my laptop and performed a Google search for the Muerte Oscuro cartel. The results returned nothing for that name. I typed it in again, this time with quotations, and I received no results.

  Something was off.

  I next searched for news stories about the gentleman’s club robbery. I found a few, but no mention of the amount of money stolen, just about the murdered club employee. The eyewitness accounts in the stories matched Bit’s account pretty accurately, but I wondered why there was no mention of how much money had been stolen. All my internal alarms were going off; something was definitely wrong.

  I needed to make a few calls.

  I grabbed a no-contract cell phone from my office drawer, put it in my coat pocket next to my work phone and went back out into the living room. Bit was still sitting on the couch watching television.

  “I’ve gotta run out to get a few supplies for us. I’ll be back in a little while,” I said.

  Bit stood up. “I’ll go with you.”

  I shook my head. “That’s okay. I can take care of it. Just stay here, get your mind focused on what we have to do.”

  “Okay.” Bit didn’t seem to think twice about it.

  I went out the door that led to the garage, locked it behind me, and hopped in the Tahoe. I backed out of the driveway, left the gated entrance to my neighborhood and went to a neighborhood nearby. I pulled over onto the first side street, parked the Tahoe and killed the lights. I left the engine running to stay warm. It was after ten p.m., and the snow had stopped coming down, but it had built up into a thick layer on the ground and roads, so I was careful driving. I pulled my work phone from my coat pocket. It was risky alerting my employer to anything not directly contract-related, but I needed their resources. I dialed the number.

  After three rings, a man picked up.

  “Yes.”

  “Employee twenty-six on the line.”

  A pause. “What can I do for you, number twenty-six?”

  “Well, I need some research help for something that has come up.”

  “Okay.”

  “I need to know what you can tell me about a cartel called the ‘Muerte Oscuro’.”

  “Hold on the line.”

  I did as I was told, and the man came back on the line after several minutes.

  “Number twenty-six, there are no active contracts involving any cartels.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “Then what is the nature of this inquiry?”

  I paused, then: “A potential threat toward me.”

  “I see. Well, if there is a threat toward you, you have incorrect information in regard to their organizational identity. There is no cartel by this name that we have any record of.”

  I thought about this. My employer had the deepest pockets and most connections of nearly any organization in the world. If they said this organization didn’t exist, then they didn’t.

  “Okay sir, thank you for your assistance.”

  “Number twenty-six, I have to log this information as it is unusual and not contract-related.”

  “I understand. I’m just trying to be cautious.”

  “I see. Be careful number twenty-six, and keep us apprised if any further issues arise.”

  “I will. Thank you for your help.”

  I hung up the line. A hollow pit had begun to form in my stomach.

  I had another call to make.

  I sat the work phone down on the seat, withdrew the other phone from my pocket and punched in my ex-sister-in-law Kate’s number from memory. We had no real relationship to speak of, but I did know how to get ahold of her if I needed. I pressed send, and after two rings, a woman answered.

  “Kate?” I asked.

  “Yes...Donnie? Is that you?”

  Motherfucker, I thought. It was so simple, right in front of my face this whole time...

  “Hey Kate, yes...it is me. I was just checking in to see how you and Marie are. Is everything well with you two?”

  “Yes, we are fine...why?” I could tell she was curious considering the infrequency of our communication normally. I only saw them around Christmas when I brought gifts over for Marie.

  “Oh, no reason really. I was just thinking about you guys.” My blood felt like ice water in my veins.

  “Uh-huh.” She didn’t seem to buy it. “Well, we are just fine. Marie just came back in from playing out in the snow, and now she’s taking a bath getting ready for bed.” She paused. “Is everything okay with Gerald?”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear for a second, closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, and then put it back to my ear. “Yes, he’s fine. I was just thinking of you, that’s all.”

  “Okay…” she trailed off. “Well, have a good night.”

  “You too,” I said.

  It most certainly was not going to be a good night.

>   ***

  Rage built up inside of my head like roaring surf, pounding against the walls of my skull with a reckless abandon, followed by a sudden crash of despair, followed again by rage. I blinked my eyes rapidly, and put my hands to my head, trying to quell the storm building. I smashed my hands against the steering wheel of my Tahoe repeatedly. When I was finished, I tried to pace my breathing, and organize my thoughts. That nagging voice in the back of my head, it had been right all along.

  My brother had set me up. But why?

  It was an extensive lie; there were so many details he had to have covered correctly, and he probably would have put it over on someone else; hell, he had almost done it to me. All of my analytical thinking had been mitigated when it came to thinking of supporting my brother. I had gotten into this so deep, and now...it was a setup.

  No cartel.

  No street gang.

  No missing money...he just wanted mine.

  And until now, I had taken him at his word with the story, not checking things out for myself.

  I wanted to kick myself for telling him I had the money there in the house in the safe. He had probably developed a scheme prior that would have made me pull it out of some account and transfer it to another, but this had made things way easier for him. If it weren’t me he was running the scheme on, and it weren’t my brother, I would probably be impressed with him. Right underneath my eyes, Gerald “2-Bit” Holley had grown into an actual, cold-blooded criminal. If he could do it to his brother, then he had become something else.

  And the murders in those homes...they were barbaric, brutal...could he have done that? Or was that the work of his partner, 'Oscar', or whatever his real name was? He had also been a good actor in the homes, and on the phone...I had never even questioned any of it. It was impressive, in spite of the crushing weight I now felt.