The Chauffeur Chapter 4
Shaw’s teasing and conspiratorial demeanor dissipated in an instant, her stance snapping to attention, eyes widening with surprise and shock. “What? Who has Harold?” she demanded.
Bear jerked his head up, ears pricked, sensing the tenseness now filling the room. His human pack mate was raising her voice at their alpha. The dog hearing the name of his master’s mate growled softly and jumped up from his blanket on the floor and trotted over between the two. Bear sat at John’s feet and nudged the man’s legs with his paw, the dog’s way of showing affection and support.
Shaw stood there impatiently waiting for an answer, her eyes honing in, following the motions of John’s hands. After first staring at the phone like it was something alien, he slipped it in his uniform pocket then reached down to absently pat Bear’s head while staring off at something distant, invisible.
“John!” Shaw reached out, grabbing the man’s shoulders and shook him none too gently. “Who…has…Harold?” John, the former CIA hit-man, who could pull teeth and remove fingers and not bat an eye, turned his head towards Shaw his eyes unfocused and his face blanched white.
Sameen Shaw wasn't much for gauging her own personal reactions to any situation with anything other than cold, hard and emotionless determination, but she could tell Reese’s were not those of an uncaring former ex-killer. Reese was just a human being confronted with the news someone they cared for was in a terrible situation. Reese was in shock. Taking a calming breath herself, she ran her hands up and down John’s upper arms soothingly. “John, try to focus,” she told him more calmly this time and prompted once more, “Who has Harold?”
Reese looked down, focusing on her now, the vacant far off look slowly being replaced by barely controlled anger. “That was Richard Asherton.” John huffed out. “He is the CEO of Crane Investment’s and the only living person besides you and I who knows Harold Crane doesn't exist,” John offered when Shaw raised her eyebrows questioningly. John swallowed hard trying to continue with out his seething rage taking control. “Harold tried to walk to a nearby sandwich shop when the meeting broke for lunch.” Reese clenched and unclenched his fists, then growled out, “Harold never made it. Some thugs grabbed him off the street.”
Reese walked over to Shaw’s apartment window and looked out. “They called Asherton first. He wanted to warn me. The kidnappers will be calling within the hour to give me their demands.” John voice cracked with the worry still bleeding through the contained fury, “Harold’s out there Shaw, hurt or maybe even dead by now.”
Shaw moved silently to stand next to Reese and looked out the window along with him. “Harold is alive John. He has to be. We’ll wait for their call and find out what they want.” She paused then continued, her voice cold and deadly, “Then we’ll find the bastards, get Harold back, and give them what they deserve.”
The pair only had to wait five minutes before the call came through. Shaw tapped her earpiece to listen in. Reese answered with a blunt, “Yeah.”
“Hey, pretty boy. We got your boss here,” the man on the other end hooted with laughter. Then all humor gone, he menacingly threatened. “Bring $500,000 in small, unmarked bills to the abandoned warehouse on 108th and Ellis and you get your gimpy boss back. You've got two hours. You got that?”
Reese answered, feigning acquiescence, “Yeah I got it.”
“Good. We have an understanding,” the voice on the other end drawled out and then warned John like it had just occurred to the perp, “Oh, no cops! But you should know that, right?”
“No cops.” John repeated the perp’s words in understanding. “I’ll bring you the money; just don’t hurt him, please?” Reese’s trembling plea wasn't entirely a pretense; John couldn't have kept the waiver out of his voice if he tried.
“The gimp is fine for now and as a gesture of good faith, we’ll show you.” Reese lowered the cell from his ear, turning it so both he and Shaw could watch live video of a drugged Harold sitting on a wooden crate and tied to an old drain pipe. Shaw had to grab John’s arm in warning when a dark figure walked over to Finch and slapped him across the face causing Harold to moan in pain. The video cut off and the voice returned, “Do what we say or I let my friend have some more fun.” Then the line went dead.
Reese, not thinking like an ex operative with his brain, but letting his desperation and anger control him, was ready to take off half-cocked without a plan. However, he stopped at the door when Shaw called out, “John! Wait!”
When Reese turned to look at her, Shaw lowered her voice and began reasoning with him. “I know you want to take care of everyone one of them. I do too. But we can’t go bull-rushing in, guns blazing, we’ll get Harold killed.
Shaw went over to the closet, rummaged around in it until she dragged out a worn cardboard box full of unused clothing and other junk. Next, she stepped around the box and pulled a leather gym bag off the closet’s shelf. She tossed the gym bag on her bed. Then dug to the bottom of the box before pulling out a rolled up brown paper bag. Shaw turned it upside down and dumped its contents into its leather counterpart. She zipped it up and tossed the bag at Reese. “There are not quite 500 gees but we’re not going to give them a chance to count it.”
“Shaw?” Reese drawled out. “What’s with the stash?”
“What? You’re gonna tell me you didn't have back-up funds ready in case things didn't work out between you and Finch in the beginning.” Shaw took Reese’s almost imperceptible nod as agreement.
“Now, let’s go get Harold!” Shaw told Reese as she brushed past him.
The drive to the warehouse took a little under ninety minutes giving them a good half-hour to scout out the warehouse and its surroundings from a distance through a pair of field glasses.
It was decided Shaw and Bear would use the cover of the empty buildings just as deserted as the warehouse they surrounded to avoid detection. The lone man guarding the front entrance wouldn't see them slip into the warehouse through the upper windows accessed by an old metal fire escape.
John waited and ten minutes later drove through the opened gate up to the building’s entrance after Shaw had confirmed her readiness through the earpiece, “We’re in John. There are four perps visible and Harold. He’s alive.”
Reese slowly got out of the limo. With both the money bag in his right and his empty left hand held above his head where the armed guard had told him to raise them, John slowly walked through the open door and into the dimly lit interior.
Another man, John supposed might have been the ringleader, walked up to Reese and grabbed the bag from the hand John left still held above his head. The kidnapper hastily looked in the bag to see the rubber banded bundles of small bills.
Leering at John, he gave his insincere apologies before walking away and instructing the other armed men. “Kill them.”
A blur of brown jumping from an upper floor took down the man standing closest to Harold. In less than the second or two it took the other men to turn their heads to check out the commotion, they were all lying on the floor grabbing at their knees, screaming in pain.
John jumped over the man who had been the one to grab the money bag out of his hand and ran over to Harold. Reese pulled the three inch knife from his right boot and cut through the rope bindings.
“John?” Finch slurred trying to focus on the man cutting him loose. “I knew you would come for me,” Harold sobbed out.
Reese took Finch’s face in his hands brushing his thumbs across Harold’s cheeks wet from tears sliding down them. “Always!”
Their moment was interrupted by Shaw appearing alongside them, “Come on we got to get him out of here.” She bent down to grab one of Harold’s arms when she kicked a glass vial left setting next to the crate.
Bending down to pick it up, she read the label. “Damn it!” She handed the bottle to John knowing he would understand.
John went over to the man Bear had taken down and grabbed him by the shirt shoving the vial in his face. “How much did you give him?” When the man refused to answer, John got in his face, “Bear here will kill you if I give him the command. Now you want to tell me? How...much...did...you...give...him?” The man glanced nervously at the dog waiting anxiously for his master’s command and believing Bear would kill him, he blurted out. “Two doses. I don’t know how much. Dever over there drugged him up.”
Dever, the man in question, had passed out from the pain of being kneecapped and they didn't have time to bring him around. Fusco would be showing up soon with the drug task force.
Grabbing Harold's arms, one on each side of him, they walked him out to the limo. John climbed in the back with their drugged boss, as Shaw jumped into the driver’s seat. She had barely driven the car out the gate and down the street before the police arrived.
When they were far enough away to avoid detection she pulled the limo over and slid open the privacy screen. “John. They could have killed him with that shit. Finch is still going to get really sick if he took any dose of the Lortabs recently that I know he takes for pain. We don’t have time to make it back to either of our places or the Library.”
John didn't know the location of all of Harold’s safe houses, but he was sure Finch had one near by. Reese didn't know if Finch could focus enough tell him but John tried asking Harold anyway. He gently turned Harold’s head to face him. Softly coaxing him, John asked Harold if he had any safe houses near 108th and Anders, the corner where Shaw had pulled over.
“Nathan, are you drunk? Your apartment’s on Anders.” Harold looked blearily out the window and pointed at a tall well lit building maybe ten blocks away. “There Nathan, the penthouse.” Finch giggled, “I think I’m drunk too.” John wrapped his arm around Finch and pulled the drugged man to his side when Harold passed out. “Go Shaw! Now!”
~*~
The Chauffeur
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Epilogue
Bear jerked his head up, ears pricked, sensing the tenseness now filling the room. His human pack mate was raising her voice at their alpha. The dog hearing the name of his master’s mate growled softly and jumped up from his blanket on the floor and trotted over between the two. Bear sat at John’s feet and nudged the man’s legs with his paw, the dog’s way of showing affection and support.
Shaw stood there impatiently waiting for an answer, her eyes honing in, following the motions of John’s hands. After first staring at the phone like it was something alien, he slipped it in his uniform pocket then reached down to absently pat Bear’s head while staring off at something distant, invisible.
“John!” Shaw reached out, grabbing the man’s shoulders and shook him none too gently. “Who…has…Harold?” John, the former CIA hit-man, who could pull teeth and remove fingers and not bat an eye, turned his head towards Shaw his eyes unfocused and his face blanched white.
Sameen Shaw wasn't much for gauging her own personal reactions to any situation with anything other than cold, hard and emotionless determination, but she could tell Reese’s were not those of an uncaring former ex-killer. Reese was just a human being confronted with the news someone they cared for was in a terrible situation. Reese was in shock. Taking a calming breath herself, she ran her hands up and down John’s upper arms soothingly. “John, try to focus,” she told him more calmly this time and prompted once more, “Who has Harold?”
Reese looked down, focusing on her now, the vacant far off look slowly being replaced by barely controlled anger. “That was Richard Asherton.” John huffed out. “He is the CEO of Crane Investment’s and the only living person besides you and I who knows Harold Crane doesn't exist,” John offered when Shaw raised her eyebrows questioningly. John swallowed hard trying to continue with out his seething rage taking control. “Harold tried to walk to a nearby sandwich shop when the meeting broke for lunch.” Reese clenched and unclenched his fists, then growled out, “Harold never made it. Some thugs grabbed him off the street.”
Reese walked over to Shaw’s apartment window and looked out. “They called Asherton first. He wanted to warn me. The kidnappers will be calling within the hour to give me their demands.” John voice cracked with the worry still bleeding through the contained fury, “Harold’s out there Shaw, hurt or maybe even dead by now.”
Shaw moved silently to stand next to Reese and looked out the window along with him. “Harold is alive John. He has to be. We’ll wait for their call and find out what they want.” She paused then continued, her voice cold and deadly, “Then we’ll find the bastards, get Harold back, and give them what they deserve.”
The pair only had to wait five minutes before the call came through. Shaw tapped her earpiece to listen in. Reese answered with a blunt, “Yeah.”
“Hey, pretty boy. We got your boss here,” the man on the other end hooted with laughter. Then all humor gone, he menacingly threatened. “Bring $500,000 in small, unmarked bills to the abandoned warehouse on 108th and Ellis and you get your gimpy boss back. You've got two hours. You got that?”
Reese answered, feigning acquiescence, “Yeah I got it.”
“Good. We have an understanding,” the voice on the other end drawled out and then warned John like it had just occurred to the perp, “Oh, no cops! But you should know that, right?”
“No cops.” John repeated the perp’s words in understanding. “I’ll bring you the money; just don’t hurt him, please?” Reese’s trembling plea wasn't entirely a pretense; John couldn't have kept the waiver out of his voice if he tried.
“The gimp is fine for now and as a gesture of good faith, we’ll show you.” Reese lowered the cell from his ear, turning it so both he and Shaw could watch live video of a drugged Harold sitting on a wooden crate and tied to an old drain pipe. Shaw had to grab John’s arm in warning when a dark figure walked over to Finch and slapped him across the face causing Harold to moan in pain. The video cut off and the voice returned, “Do what we say or I let my friend have some more fun.” Then the line went dead.
Reese, not thinking like an ex operative with his brain, but letting his desperation and anger control him, was ready to take off half-cocked without a plan. However, he stopped at the door when Shaw called out, “John! Wait!”
When Reese turned to look at her, Shaw lowered her voice and began reasoning with him. “I know you want to take care of everyone one of them. I do too. But we can’t go bull-rushing in, guns blazing, we’ll get Harold killed.
Shaw went over to the closet, rummaged around in it until she dragged out a worn cardboard box full of unused clothing and other junk. Next, she stepped around the box and pulled a leather gym bag off the closet’s shelf. She tossed the gym bag on her bed. Then dug to the bottom of the box before pulling out a rolled up brown paper bag. Shaw turned it upside down and dumped its contents into its leather counterpart. She zipped it up and tossed the bag at Reese. “There are not quite 500 gees but we’re not going to give them a chance to count it.”
“Shaw?” Reese drawled out. “What’s with the stash?”
“What? You’re gonna tell me you didn't have back-up funds ready in case things didn't work out between you and Finch in the beginning.” Shaw took Reese’s almost imperceptible nod as agreement.
“Now, let’s go get Harold!” Shaw told Reese as she brushed past him.
The drive to the warehouse took a little under ninety minutes giving them a good half-hour to scout out the warehouse and its surroundings from a distance through a pair of field glasses.
It was decided Shaw and Bear would use the cover of the empty buildings just as deserted as the warehouse they surrounded to avoid detection. The lone man guarding the front entrance wouldn't see them slip into the warehouse through the upper windows accessed by an old metal fire escape.
John waited and ten minutes later drove through the opened gate up to the building’s entrance after Shaw had confirmed her readiness through the earpiece, “We’re in John. There are four perps visible and Harold. He’s alive.”
Reese slowly got out of the limo. With both the money bag in his right and his empty left hand held above his head where the armed guard had told him to raise them, John slowly walked through the open door and into the dimly lit interior.
Another man, John supposed might have been the ringleader, walked up to Reese and grabbed the bag from the hand John left still held above his head. The kidnapper hastily looked in the bag to see the rubber banded bundles of small bills.
Leering at John, he gave his insincere apologies before walking away and instructing the other armed men. “Kill them.”
A blur of brown jumping from an upper floor took down the man standing closest to Harold. In less than the second or two it took the other men to turn their heads to check out the commotion, they were all lying on the floor grabbing at their knees, screaming in pain.
John jumped over the man who had been the one to grab the money bag out of his hand and ran over to Harold. Reese pulled the three inch knife from his right boot and cut through the rope bindings.
“John?” Finch slurred trying to focus on the man cutting him loose. “I knew you would come for me,” Harold sobbed out.
Reese took Finch’s face in his hands brushing his thumbs across Harold’s cheeks wet from tears sliding down them. “Always!”
Their moment was interrupted by Shaw appearing alongside them, “Come on we got to get him out of here.” She bent down to grab one of Harold’s arms when she kicked a glass vial left setting next to the crate.
Bending down to pick it up, she read the label. “Damn it!” She handed the bottle to John knowing he would understand.
John went over to the man Bear had taken down and grabbed him by the shirt shoving the vial in his face. “How much did you give him?” When the man refused to answer, John got in his face, “Bear here will kill you if I give him the command. Now you want to tell me? How...much...did...you...give...him?” The man glanced nervously at the dog waiting anxiously for his master’s command and believing Bear would kill him, he blurted out. “Two doses. I don’t know how much. Dever over there drugged him up.”
Dever, the man in question, had passed out from the pain of being kneecapped and they didn't have time to bring him around. Fusco would be showing up soon with the drug task force.
Grabbing Harold's arms, one on each side of him, they walked him out to the limo. John climbed in the back with their drugged boss, as Shaw jumped into the driver’s seat. She had barely driven the car out the gate and down the street before the police arrived.
When they were far enough away to avoid detection she pulled the limo over and slid open the privacy screen. “John. They could have killed him with that shit. Finch is still going to get really sick if he took any dose of the Lortabs recently that I know he takes for pain. We don’t have time to make it back to either of our places or the Library.”
John didn't know the location of all of Harold’s safe houses, but he was sure Finch had one near by. Reese didn't know if Finch could focus enough tell him but John tried asking Harold anyway. He gently turned Harold’s head to face him. Softly coaxing him, John asked Harold if he had any safe houses near 108th and Anders, the corner where Shaw had pulled over.
“Nathan, are you drunk? Your apartment’s on Anders.” Harold looked blearily out the window and pointed at a tall well lit building maybe ten blocks away. “There Nathan, the penthouse.” Finch giggled, “I think I’m drunk too.” John wrapped his arm around Finch and pulled the drugged man to his side when Harold passed out. “Go Shaw! Now!”
~*~
The Chauffeur
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Epilogue