Primary Valor by Jack Mars (booksvooks TXT) 📗

“I’m long past coffee, darling.”

She hung up.

Luke looked at Ed. Ed was in thedriver’s seat. Ed’s eyes were bloodshot. The lids were heavy. His jaw was linedwith dark stubble.

“You look worse than I feel,” Lukesaid.

Ed shook his head. “You ready?”

Luke nodded. “Let’s do it.”

They climbed out of the car andcrossed the street. Luke held a slip of paper with half the license platenumber of the van in question. That was the best the cameras could do—whiteFord van, with a South Carolina commercial vehicle plate starting with LPJ. Thatwas a lot. A van fitting that description was available for rent from thislocation.

They entered the lot. Before goingto the office, they walked slowly down the line of rental vehicles, inspectingthe plates. There were only about twenty vans on the whole lot. This was goingto take all of five minutes.

“Can I help you gentlemen?”

Luke looked up. Now he knew he wastired.

The man who had arrived stoodthere, twenty feet away, with a pump action shotgun. He wore work coveralls,and a denim baseball cap. A large belly, like a beach ball, protruded from hiscoveralls. He held the gun cradled in his thick arms, pointed at the sky. Theman had simply appeared there, as if out of nowhere.

Instantly Luke and Ed had theirguns out, pointed at the man.

“Drop it!” Ed said.

“FBI,” Luke said.

The man raised one meaty hand, butstill held the shotgun with the other.

“Drop it!” Ed said again. “Now. FBI.”

A long, dangerous second passed.

“It’s an expensive gun,” the mansaid. “I ain’t about to drop it.”

“Then put it down slowly.”

The man placed the shotgun on theground, moving as though he was underwater. He raised both hands.

“Pistol Pete?” Luke said, stilltargeting the man’s center mass.

The man nodded. “The very same.”

Luke indicated the shotgun. “Whathappened to the pistol?”

Pistol Pete shrugged. “Times havechanged. A pistol won’t do anymore.”

Luke and Ed did not lower theirweapons.

“Do you know why we’re here?” Lukesaid.

Pistol Pete nodded. “I suppose. Thewhite van.”

“Yes.”

Pistol Pete shook his head. Hespoke as though he wasn’t being held at gunpoint. “I knew it was a mistake whenI saw him. Man came in here the day before the girl got taken. Wanted to rent avan for cash. Anonymous, no questions asked. Willing to pay three times theprice.”

“Is that your business?” Ed said.“Anonymous rentals?”

Pistol Pete stared at Ed for along second. “Part of. The rest is just the same as anybody else, but the bigcompanies don’t make it easy, do they? They’ll gladly lose money for years toput a man like me out of business. When I go under, they’ll raise their pricesup the very next day.”

“Is that why you didn’t report it?”

Pistol Pete shook his head. “Ididn’t put two and two together until late last night. Woke up and knew whathappened. I must be psychic. I had no reason to suspect him. The man broughtthat van in clean.”

“That’s your story, and you’resticking to it, right?” Ed said.

“I figured the girl ran off with aboyfriend,” Pistol Pete said. He gave Ed another long look. “Maybe some blackboy, something along those lines. That kind of thing is frowned upon aroundthese parts, or used to be. Anyway, last I heard, anonymous cash rentals areagainst the law. Something to do with tax evasion, terrorism, things of thatnature. You can see why a man might hesitate to…”

“Can you describe the man whorented the van?” Luke said.

Pistol Pete shrugged again. “Don’tneed to. Everybody walks in that door gets videotaped twice, once as they comein, once as they stand at the register. I don’t advertise that fact, but theydo.”

Luke looked at Ed. Slowly, theyholstered their guns.

“We’re going to need to send thatvideo to Washington,” Luke said. “And we’re also going to impound the vehiclein—”

As he spoke, three cars, all darklate-model sedans, roared into the parking lot. One came in the entryway, andtwo came in the exit. Instantly, half a dozen men leapt from the cars, gunsdrawn, and moved toward Ed, Luke, and Pistol Pete.

“Down!” one of the men screamed.

“Get DOWN!”

“FBI!”

Luke did as he was told. Besidehim, Ed did the same. It took Pistol Pete a moment longer. He was heavy, andperhaps not accustomed to falling to the ground. So the FBI agents helped himwith it. Two men tackled him and pressed him, epic stomach and fleshy face, tothe pavement.

Luke lay face down on blacktop. Heheld his badge in the air behind him.

“FBI!” he shouted.

A hand slapped his badge away, andthen two more pulled his wrists behind his back. He went limp. The worst thingyou could do was resist. Resistance got people killed. Mistakes were made, andpeople died. This would all get sorted out eventually.

“I’m Agent Luke Stone,” he said tothe man handcuffing him. “FBI Special Response Team. DC office.” He added DCoffice as if that would clarify things. Most FBI agents had no idea what theSRT even was.

They lifted him to his feet.

“What are you doing here?” one ofthe men said.

“Working a case, how about you?”

They walked him over to PistolPete, who was still on the ground in front of the office. Pete’s nose wasbleeding from where it had met the cement. He looked up balefully at Luke. Lukewas still handcuffed—the agents didn’t seem to be in a big hurry to believehim.

“If these are the FBI,” PistolPete said from the ground, “then who the hell are you?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

12:10 p.m. Central StandardTime (1:10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time)

La Sierra de San Simon (St.Simon’s Saw)

Near Honduras

The Caribbean Sea

They brought the girl up to himlike room service.

“Yes,” he said. “Beautiful. Docome in.”

He was sitting in a wicker rattanchair in his living room, admiring the painting over the sofa, and the viewsthrough the open doorway to the balcony. Elaine had paid just under a hundredthousand dollars for that painting. Only the good Lord knew what the humidityin this place was doing to it. But it didn’t matter.

Darwin King chose to surroundhimself with beautiful things. If they were destroyed by their proximity tohim… well, nothing was meant to last forever.

On a small table next to him wasan old-style telephone. Beside that was a glass with vodka, tonic, and ice. Darwinliked to open