Blood Line (A Tom Rollins Thriller Book 1) by Paul Heatley (book recommendations based on other books .txt) 📗

24

Ben is alone. No company. He sits on his sofa, buttons of his shirt undone, tie discarded, a glass of scotch in hand. His eyes go to the window, staring out at nothing. It’s getting dark. Soon there’ll be nothing to see but black.

Gerry has had to give up the search of his laptop. There’s nothing to find. No spyware, no signs, no trail, nothing. Almost as if it hasn’t been hacked at all.

Ben is frustrated. He’s beyond frustrated. Trying to find a mole or a leak or a hacker, and he has no leads. All he has are questions, and they keep piling up. No end in sight. Keeps wondering if he’ll ever be able to find anything at all, or if this incident will go unpunished.

Something cold and hard is pressed to the back of his head, at the base of his skull. Ben knows it is a gun.

“No sudden movements, Agent.” The voice is unfamiliar to him. “I see you’ve taken off your tie, but you’ve still got your gun. Take it out, nice and slow.”

Ben does as he’s told. He has to sit forward to comply. Puts his drink down first. He tries to see the reflection of the man behind him in the window, but can’t. Whoever he is, he’s positioned himself out of view. “Who are you?”

“Not yet,” the voice says.

Ben doesn’t understand this. He pulls out his gun, goes to place it on the coffee table next to his drink.

“Not quite. Take the clip out first. Don’t forget the one in the chamber. That’s good. Now throw it over to the other sofa.”

Ben does so.

“You packing anything else you think I ought to know about? An ankle holster?”

Ben puts his feet up on the table, pulls up the cuffs of his trousers to show his bare ankles. “What do you want?”

The gun is removed from his head, though Ben has no doubt it’s still pointed at him. He doesn’t turn. There’s movement behind him. It comes around his side, slowly. It goes to the sofa opposite, to where Ben threw his gun. Ben sees the man for the first time as he takes a seat, gun still raised. There’s something familiar about him.

“I believe you know my brother,” the man says. “Anthony.”

Ben feels the color drain from his face.

“You know who I am?”

“Your name came up in Anthony’s file,” Ben says. “Tom, isn’t it?”

“Well remembered. Now tell me yours.”

“Ben Fitzgerald. Agent Ben Fitzgerald.”

“Good for you.”

“I’ve been, I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately – your brother. You here to kill me?”

“I’m not sure yet. Maybe, maybe not. Let’s see how this goes, shall we? This here” – he wriggles his gun – “is just in case you don’t feel like answering any of the questions I have for you.”

“Questions?”

“Oh, I have a few. First and foremost, why was Anthony undercover, and with whom?”

“Do you know where he is? Is he safe?”

“I’m asking the questions, Agent Fitzgerald. Tell you what, I’ll call you Ben, shall I? It’s a lot less formal.”

Ben doesn’t like this situation. He can feel his heartbeat rising. He bites down on the inside of his cheek, tastes the familiar tang of blood. All he can do right now is comply. “He was with the Right Arm Of The Republic.”

Tom considers this name. “Can’t say I’ve heard of them.”

“They’re niche. Neo-Nazis, white supremacists. Up until recently, I didn’t think they were into anything more serious than casual hate crimes and selling drugs. But, from what I’ve heard, they’re looking to get bigger. Make a real name for themselves.”

“And they’re the ones who attacked Anthony? Who killed Alejandra?”

Ben thinks he sees something in Tom’s face as he asks this last part, about Alejandra, but he doesn’t question it. He’s not in any position to do so. “Yes,” he says.

Tom doesn’t dwell on that. He’s quick with his follow-up question. “All right. Now tell me the why.”

“Have you seen your brother?”

“Yes.”

“How is he?”

“He’s alive. I told you, I’ll be the one asking questions.”

“Well, how much has he told you already?”

“Nothing.”

Ben frowns. “Two of you ain’t close?”

Tom looks like he’s getting annoyed. “Tell me why, Agent Fitzgerald.”

Ben takes a deep breath. He tells Tom how they got Anthony for drug dealing. The way Anthony told it, it was because the only job he could get was in a grocery store stocking shelves, he wasn’t qualified for anything else, and with a child on the way, this wasn’t enough to support his coming family. Apparently, Alejandra had been unaware of his dealings. He kept her in the dark, told her each night that he was going to work, to stock shelves after hours.

Due to prior convictions, Anthony was facing a long prison sentence. He’d miss the birth of his child, miss most of the kid’s life. Enter Ben Fitzgerald, who saw an opportunity to recruit him into going undercover in exchange for making it look like this most recent arrest had never happened. Anthony accepted the offer. He didn’t have a choice.

“You blackmailed him,” Tom says.

“I did what I had to do,” Ben says. “You haven’t heard the why yet.”

Ben had to get him undercover fast. It was unofficial, off the books. He’d heard from various contacts that something was being planned, something big, and it would happen on American soil. In Texas. Kept hearing a reference to Oklahoma City. One of his informants had said, “Way I hear it, it’s gonna make OK City look like a bonfire.”

Ben started pressing on contacts. The consensus was it was being planned by Nazis, though no one knew the target. Ben got a list of all the white supremacist groups in Texas, no matter how big- or small-time they may have been. He tried to narrow it down, get as many undercovers, informants, and contacts into them as possible.

Then he got some more news that helped him narrow it down. It came right before he met Anthony. The timing was serendipitous. FBI analysts were bringing