The Highest Stakes Read online
Highest Praise for Rick Reed’s Thrillers
THE COLDEST FEAR
“Everything you want in a thriller: strong characters, plenty of gory story, witty dialogue, and a narrative that demands you keep turning those pages.”
—BookReporter.com
THE CRUELEST CUT
“Rick Reed, retired homicide detective and author of Blood Trail, the true-crime story of serial killer Joe Brown, brings his impressive writing skills to the world of fiction with The Cruelest Cut. This is as authentic and scary as crime thrillers get, written as only a cop can write who’s lived this drama in real life . . . A very good and fast read.”
—Nelson DeMille
“Put this one on your must-read list. The Cruelest Cut is a can’t-put-down adventure. All the components of a crackerjack thriller are here, and author Reed knows how to use them. Readers will definitely want to see more of Reed’s character Jack Murphy.”
—John Lutz
“A jaw-dropping thriller that dares you to turn the page.”
—Gregg Olsen
“A tornado of drama—you won’t stop spinning till you’ve been spit out the other end. Rick Reed knows the dark side as only a real-life cop can, and his writing crackles with authenticity.”
—Shane Gericke
“Reed is adept at holding a reader’s interest, whether he’s writing about depraved killers stalking their prey or about the back-office politics of the police department. He also displays a great knack for character detail, allowing each member of his expansive cast to shine whenever they appear, no matter how briefly. Finally, he proves disturbingly adept at describing graphic violence, which makes his action sequences all the more compelling. Unfortunately, it also leaves you wondering whether you really did lock the doors before you went to bed.”
—Mystery Scene
“A winner of a debut novel . . . Reed is a master of describing graphic violence. Some of the crime scenes here will chill you to the bone.”
—Bookreporter.com
Also by Rick Reed*
THE JACK MURPHY THRILLERS
The Cruelest Cut
The Coldest Fear
The Deepest Wound
NONFICTION
Blood Trail
*Available from Kensington Publishing Corp.
The Highest Stakes
A Jack Murphy Thriller
RICK REED
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
LYRICAL UNDERGROUND BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2016 Rick Reed
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LYRICAL PRESS, LYRICAL UNDERGROUND, and the Lyrical Underground logo are Reg. U.S. Pat, & TM Office.
First Lyrical Underground edition: October 2016
ISBN: 978-1-6018-3640-3
ISBN-10: 1-60183-640-6
First trade paperback edition: October 2016
ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-641-0
ISBN-10: 1-60183-641-4
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Table of Contents
Highest Praise for Rick Reed’s Thrillers
Also by Rick Reed
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Epilogue
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE DARKEST NIGHT
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This book is dedicated to
MR. ROBERT GROTIUS,
who passed away October 17, 2003, at the age of 79.
Mr. G was my English and Sociology teacher at Rex Mundi H.S. (where I served a four-year sentence). He was the reason I became a writer.
God keep you, Mr. G.
Chapter One
Chicago’s financial district
The late July downpour in Chicago’s financial district didn’t stop the workforce from hurrying about their daily tasks. The sudden storm had blown in from Lake Michigan, and umbrellas blossomed like spring flowers. Women who came to work unprepared held scarves over their heads, the men pulled up coat collars, and like an army of worker ants they streamed along the sidewalks, impervious to the rain, to each other—and to Mr. Smith sitting inside the shiny black Hummer.
Smith was of average height, weight, and build with mousy brown hair that was cut not too long and not too short. He wore a dark suit like so many others. Only the lifeless gray eyes were remarkable. Behind heavily tinted windows, he watched through the intermittent movement of the wiper blades.
The Hummer was parked facing north at LaSalle and Quincy Streets in front of the Potbelly Sandwich Shop. The Willis Tower loomed in the west, the Chicago River two blocks farther on, and behind him at Lake Street the steel and wood El tracks rose above the streets. Directly in front of him was the beating heart of the financial district. The Chicago Board of Trade sat at the southernmost end of LaSalle, and the old Continental Bank building with its grand columns cattycorner. The Federal Reserve of Chicago was directly across from that. Together they formed a financial tricorner hat of sorts.
A block in front of the Hummer, a deli truck was parked on the corner with a man in a white apron and white butcher hat hawking his goods. A block distant from the deli truck on the front sidewalk of the Federal Reserve was the old-fashioned telephone booth he had under surveillance. In the last hour he had seen dozens of people duck into the booth for less than a minute while they put something in a briefcase or a purse or pulled coats over their heads before venturing out again. He felt the rumble of the subway beneath the street, while above, throngs of people crowded and pushed along the wide sidewalks. The average person made it through each day by pure luck and not by any skill or alertness. Those hapless souls had no inkling of what was to come.
He was told his real t
arget would be in that particular phone booth at precisely noon. At twelve on the dot, a middle-aged man dressed in a smart suit came out of the Federal Reserve building, pulled the collar of his jacket up, and held a newspaper over his head as he walked directly for the telephone booth. He pushed at the bifold doors, rolled the newspaper up and put it under his arm, and then entered the glass and aluminum rectangle.
Smith started the Humvee and put it in drive. He punched a number into a prepaid cell phone and hit the send button. The shock wave from the blast rocked the Humvee. He watched as bodies were thrown about like rag dolls, some landing on the sidewalk, some hurled into the street and run over by panicked drivers. Pieces of those closest to the blast stuck to the hood and windshield of his car almost two blocks distant from the explosion. When the smoke cleared, he could see the a crater in the concrete where the phone booth had stood.
Those lucky enough to live ran in every direction. Others crawled or rolled around, their clothing aflame, their flesh melted by the heat. Some would die later, internal organs damaged from the blast.
A woman staggered out of the smoke and stumbled against his window. The left half of her face was gone. She clawed at the door and collapsed, leaving a smear down the window.
He allowed himself a smile before the next explosion came from below the street in the subway. Iron grates and manhole covers blew into the air all down the block and flipped end over end like coins before thudding to the ground. Another timed explosion came from behind him, herding the crowd south along LaSalle toward the El tracks, where a special surprise waited them. Like any fireworks display there was always a finale.
It was beautiful.
Washington, D.C.
Three blocks north of the National Cathedral in the nation’s capital, Smith waited for Pamela to come home. He’d driven straight through, his route taking him south from Chicago and east through Indianapolis and then Columbus, Ohio, and on into Washington. It was dark when he’d arrived. He left the lights off, poured some Scotch, and wandered through the condo. He could smell her scent in every room.
He’d met Pamela in D.C. a year ago while he was in between assignments. She tended bar at a downtown nightclub named Madam’s Organ. They talked, and she told him she was a political science major at George Washington University with dreams of working in the government, maybe for a congressman. He’d introduced himself as Alex Stanhope, a day trader. The Stanhope cover was clean, with a Virginia driver’s license, a condo, credit cards, and even some debt, and his employers were unaware it existed. Like many of his peers, he had squirreled away several sets of clean IDs, with passports and cash. In between jobs he needed to disappear. Needed privacy. Needed anonymity. He had found what he needed in D.C., hiding in plain sight, so to speak.
His mentor had a saying, “Never shit in your own milk.” So when he awoke beside Pamela the next morning he was surprised. Not by the fact he’d slept with a beautiful woman, but that he had invited her back to his condo and let her stay the night. Instinct told him to kill her. But he hadn’t.
He found he enjoyed her company, so he had violated another of his rules and let her live with him as part of his cover. She went to school days, worked the club at night, and he stayed with her as often as possible. She never questioned his prolonged absences, or his need for angry sex immediately upon his return. His cover job explained his frequent absences and narcissistic lifestyle. Lying about who he was and what he did was like taking a breath, involuntary yet necessary.
In Columbus, Ohio, he was Daniel Whitcomb, who ran a successful consulting business. In Seattle, he was Professor Douglas Levin, on sabbatical from Shoreline College, where he taught criminal justice. There were many others, and in each location someone to complete his cover. But his employers, down to the smallest detail, had manufactured these identities. Had assigned the women who acted as his girlfriend, sister, wife, et cetera. Only in D.C. was he Alex Stanhope.
He was taking a risk with Pamela, but keeping his employers in the dark was extremely satisfying. The killings in Chicago were also satisfying. He had been held in check far too long. Like a bull in a pen, he longed to be released, to run rampant, to charge everything and create fear.
And then 9/11 came along. If he believed in God he would have thanked Him because the rules had relaxed in the aftermath, and the bean counters’ coffers were filling. Then someone had the bright idea of creating even more federal agencies in the name of combating terrorism, and to coordinate investigations among the already burgeoning system. As a result the funding had slowed to a trickle, information was even more jealously guarded, and no one had benefited.
Finally the Agency had turned him loose. The “terrorist attack” on Chicago would ensure their coffers were filled to overflowing. He was like Hercules unchained, doing what he was born to do. But he was no fool. He’d been at this too long to believe they would let him continue for long before chaining him again. He was lifting the heavy loads while the pussies in the Agency were wringing their hands and crying like old women. Or more likely, planning damage control, eliminating any thread of connection between themselves and the Chicago incident, and he was one of those threads. Time to move again.
The condo was dark. He looked at the luminous face of his watch, then silenced the ticking of the wall clock. Sitting on the sofa, he closed his eyes, and let his senses take over. Pamela would be walking in the door at exactly one a.m. He would have to kill her and leave Alex Stanhope behind. Such a waste.
He heard the hum of the elevator and the soft clattering as its doors opened. Too early. Soft footfalls came down the hall. Two sets. Not the high heels Pamela wore. The steps paused. The light coming from beneath the door went out as a key slipped in the door’s lock.
He knelt beside the sofa and retrieved the handgun from underneath, thumbed the safety to the “fire” position, then hurried into the bathroom. He stood in the dark with his back against the wall and used the medicine cabinet mirror to watch the front door.
The snick of the lock turning was barely audible. Soft-soled shoes, more than one set, moved into the condo. In the mirror he saw two black shapes. One tall, one short, a faint green glow floating around their faces. Night vision.
Night-vision technology is designed to magnify ambient light, so when Smith flipped the light switches on, the intruders were as blinded as if staring into the sun. Gloved hands scrabbled for goggles, but before they could pull them off, Smith shot the closest one in the throat just under the chin and the other in the mouth. Both targets were down, unmoving.
He stood between them and examined the bodies. Both wore dark clothing, balaclavas over their heads with night-vision goggles covering their eyes and 9mm Glocks fitted with silencers in their hands. Their equipment and weapons were all the explanation he needed for why they had come. Cleaners.
They were from the Agency, or maybe hired guns. In either case, their purpose was to eliminate him and erase any evidence he had ever existed. Good equipment, sloppy execution. He was insulted the Agency hadn’t sent a better team, and a little angry they thought he would be that easy to dispose of.
The short one seemed familiar. He knelt beside the slender athletic body and removed the goggles and lifted the balaclava. He felt emotions he hadn’t felt since he was a child. Embarrassment. Shock. Disbelief.
It was Pamela. His Pamela.
He looked out the window for signs of a backup team. Traffic was light. No parked cars. No one on the street. But he knew at least two more were waiting. Any minute they would know the first team had failed and they would come for him. This time they would come better armed, and they would come hard.
He went to the massive wooden entertainment center, lifted the plasma television out, and tossed it to the side. In the back of the cabinet was a wall safe. He worked the combination and opened an inch-thick steel door, revealing another silenced pistol, several passports, other identification and credit cards, and stacks of twenty- and hundred-dollar bills.
She also would have recorded the serial numbers on the money, but he would have to chance it for now. The last item he removed from the safe was a small canister resembling a can of shaving cream. It was an incendiary device that could be detonated remotely. The condo would burn and eliminate most of the evidence. With any luck they would find Alex Stanhope’s wallet beneath the burned body of the male agent. It would only confuse things for an hour, maybe less, but he needed the diversion.
On his way out of the condo he stopped and stood over Pamela. He looked down into her face. He knew now why he had liked her better than the other women he’d been with. She was like him.
He went to the open door and turned the condo’s lights off. He peeked into the dark hallway. Nothing moved. He thought about using the night-vision goggles, but it hadn’t worked out well for the two inside. He stepped into the hallway. Left, it was twenty feet to the stairs. Right, it was fifteen to the elevator. No professional would be waiting in the elevator. He turned toward the stairs.
He reached for the handle of the stairway door and saw it turning. He yanked the door open and shot the startled man in the throat. As that one lay gagging on his own blood, another man looked up the stairwell and was dispatched with a double tap to the face. He shot them both once more in the head and descended the stairs.
Sluggo Snares a Vampire
The Fiercest Enemy
The Cleanest Kill
The Highest Stakes
The Deepest Wound
The Deadliest Sins
The Darkest Night
The Cruelest Cut
The Slowest Death
The Coldest Fear