Waiting for the Kick Read online




  Praise for Tarr’s previous novels:

  Bestiarii—

  “Grab a handful of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World, stir in a generous helping of Jurassic Park, and season with a sprig of fresh Tom Clancy and you have the makings of Bestiarii. James Tarr takes the reader on a heart-pounding trip through a dystopian landscape, where human enemies are the least of our concerns. Bringing his encyclopedic knowledge of the firearms world to bear, the author grips his audience with finely-observed technical details and highly relatable characters.”

  —Iain Harrison

  Editor, Recoil magazine

  Season One winner of the History Channel TV series Top Shot

  “I love this book…a cross between Zero Dark Thirty and Jurassic Park. A wonderful romp.”

  —Michael Bane

  Whorl—

  “From the first chapter until the last graf, I was intrigued by the plot, engaged by the characters, and surprised by (Tarr’s) breadth of knowledge. In fact, when I finished ‘Whorl’ I complained to Tarr about his leaving me wanting more. Get your own. You can’t borrow mine.”

  —The Outdoor Wire

  “Engaging….well paced…impossible to put down.”

  —American Rifleman

  “This book is filled with memorable characters—including the city of Detroit, which serves as more than a backdrop and takes on a character of its own. Whorl is gritty, action packed….and once the story starts to unfold, you’ll find yourself engrossed in a web of treachery and intrigue. Whorl is definitely one of those books that is hard to put down.”

  —Gun World

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  WAITING FOR THE KICK

  First publication: February 2019

  Copyright 2019 by James Tarr

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without

  permission

  Cover design by Damonza

  ISBN: 978-179061879

  Printed in the United States of America

  Waiting for the Kick

  James Tarr

  ANDAMENTO

  As industrial parks went it was rather small and forgettable. Situated in the Northern Neck area of Virginia, it was roughly 75 miles from Washington D.C., although there was no quick way between the two. There was only one entrance with a small sign “WESTMORELAND INDUSTRIAL PARK”.

  The access road was barely wide enough for two tractor trailers to pass. An outfit which manufactured small trailers was on the immediate left, a packaging company on the right. Two more buildings housing bland enterprises on either side, then the short street terminated in a low rolling gate and a guardhouse.

  The guard didn’t step out of the booth as Colman rolled up and held his unmarked ID badge in front of the scanner. When the slow-moving gate was finally out of the way he drove his vehicle toward the only building visible.

  From the outside it appeared to be a good-sized warehouse, newer steel construction with siding on the exterior, with a lot of windows, most of which were tinted. The parking lot was nearly full. On the far side of the nondescript building nothing was immediately visible other than a thick belt of trees.

  There was a large sign out front of the building, THE O’HARE GROUP, which gave no indication of the type of business conducted inside. The only clue that the building might be a bit unusual for an industrial park was the small sign on the front door leading to the lobby, PERSONAL FIREARMS AND LIVE AMMO ARE NOT PERMITTED ON THE PREMISES.

  Colman got out of his car, stretched, and then headed for the plain side door. In the distance he could faintly hear squealing tires from the precision driving course, and gunfire from the pistol ranges, none of which were visible from the road. He swiped his ID for entry. Inside, the building was no warehouse but rather a warren of hallways filled with classrooms, offices, a cafeteria, and private rooms slightly better than the dorm rooms found in most colleges. As he passed a classroom he glanced through the narrow window in the door and caught a brief glimpse of about twenty backs facing a PowerPoint presentation. All he caught on the slide was the heading—Bureau of Diplomatic Security: Courier Protocols.

  Colman headed toward the center of the building. He found the short corridor he was looking for, ending at an unmarked door. He swiped his ID to enter, and found himself in a small vestibule before another door. His cell phone went into the plastic box hanging on the wall, then he punched his code into the access panel beside the door. When the green light appeared he opened the door and stepped in. His boss was already seated at the table.

  Colman looked around and waited for the door to close before he spoke. “I haven’t been in a SCIF in a while.” He pronounced it ‘skiff’. The room could have been a small windowless meeting room in any office building anywhere, with only a few clues it was something more: the panels on the wall which looked like acoustic tiles on steroids. The phone on the table with several interesting buttons. Then, of course, were the security measures to get in. The interesting thing about Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities wasn’t the actual rooms themselves, but rather what was discussed in them. And that the intelligence information discussed inside was shielded from any sort of outside monitoring, electronic or otherwise.

  Colman sat at the rectangular table. His direct supervisor looked around and stated, “I thought it prudent.” Very few people even inside the building knew who the man was, but as the Deputy Director of Operations for the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Defense Clandestine Service (try getting all that on a business card) Winston Elliott was one of the few people in the U.S. intelligence community who actually had the power to order people killed…among other things. He smiled. “We have a new Sheriff in town. And for all the Boy Scout ‘America First’ rhetoric about extreme vetting and enhanced interrogation, I’m not sure our new President actually understands how nasty the business of national security can sometimes be. So we are trying to clean up any messes, or potential messes, we still have on the books before they look at the books and we are told in no uncertain terms to cease and desist certain types of operations. Does the name David Anderson ring a bell?”

  It took Colman half a second, but then he nodded. “Oh yeah.” The one that got away.

  “He came to our attention because of a certain unique characteristic. Two, actually. Fingerprints.”

  “I remember. That matched other people. And he burned them off, so I was recalled from the field.”

  “After clearing up a few loose ends, if memory serves me right. Things got a bit complicated. The media was involved.” Elliott raised an eyebrow.

  “Outside my assignment,” Colman reminded him. “Anderson apparently had a run-in with a high-ranking criminal figure prior to his coming to our attention, and the FBI had the working theory that this mobster hired my team to take him out. Revenge. It had absolutely nothing to do with us and was a perfect cover when things went sideways, so we just backed away and let it run.” His eyebrows pushed together, forming a vertical line above his nose. “It’s been a while, so the exact details are a bit vague.”

  “You haven’t kept tabs on the story? On Anderson?”

  “I was given an assignment. Once it was completed, I moved on.”

  “Just like that? No personal investment? No plans to revisit him some night? He killed your team. We’ve lost Ground Branch teams before, just never on U.S. soil.” The Deputy Director kept his gaze steady.

  Colman didn’t respond, and his expression was unreadable. Eventually his supervisor went on. “Anyway, it’s been two years. And the human body is an amazing thing.”

&n
bsp; Colman frowned. “You’re worried he…grew them back? If I remember correctly he all but barbequed his fingers. That’s why he was no longer deemed a security threat.” He’d declined to correct his supervisor—Ground Branch was CIA, not DIA, but Elliott had started his career in Langley.

  “Stranger things have been known to happen. Last medical report we could find is over a year old. He’s still got all of his fingers, and apparently they’re working properly, more or less, but one thing the doctor doesn’t mention is whether or not he’s got any fingerprints left in and among the skin grafts and scarring. Not medically pertinent, I suppose.” Elliott set a flash drive on the table in front of Colman. “We want you to track him down. Not sure how long it’ll take.”

  “It only took me a few days last time, and he was on the run.”

  “I reviewed the reports.” Elliott gestured at the flash drive. “Copies in there to refresh your memory. I’m not so sure you found him. Maybe he let himself be found. After all, what happened when your team showed up? Did we ever conclusively determine exactly what did happen? How six highly trained operators ended up dead?”

  Colman pursed his lips. “I obtained copies of the police reports. Officially Anderson only gave one statement after he recovered from his wounds, that he was sitting at home minding his own business when some guys showed up and started shooting at him, then at the deputy who pulled up. He provided no details, and no motive. At least on the record. But I’m not sure I believe what’s in those reports. Or rather, what’s not in them.”

  His supervisor drummed his fingers on the table. “You think he said more than that?”

  “There is no way the local cops would have let him be if all he’d said was what was in that incident report. If they knew more, learned enough to know they couldn’t put it into any report…” He shrugged. “That is the most plausible scenario for me. It’s Tohono County, John Osterman’s domain. He’s no stranger to…controversial incidents, shall we say. Smart, by all accounts. And very politically savvy. I think he’s the one who contacted the media.”

  “Ah, yes. You had a run-in with the Sheriff if I remember correctly. Trying to secure Anderson afterward.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Well, here’s a second chance for you. Anderson dropped off the radar over a year ago, actually months before that last follow-up medical examination. No record of him for a while before he showed up at his doctor’s office, and nothing since. Tax return says he’s living in Michigan, but the address is a mailbox at a UPS store. He sold the two properties he owned, but if he bought another house somewhere it wasn’t in his name. No utilities or driver licenses or arrests or car registrations after selling the one he owned in Michigan. Well, the one that’s not still in the police evidence garage full of bullet holes. His Social Security Number hasn’t been entered into the system since that last doctor’s visit. If he’s ever Googled himself we weren’t able to spot it. He has no online presence, nothing in social media. He hasn’t obliged us by sending his DNA to one of those ancestry websites to find out about his genetic makeup.”

  “We’re into those databases?”

  “We’re into everything, are you kidding me? Siri and Alexa do so much of our work I’m surprised they’re not covered by government health insurance. The only thing we know for sure is that shortly before selling his house he bought a few guns in Michigan. Then nothing.”

  “David Anderson is a pretty common name.”

  “Yes, but the computer can cross check data points, as you well know. Height, age range, all of that in addition to online points of contact. Known interests. No hits at all. He’s abandoned his email, Facebook account, everything. No trace of him.”

  “I sense a ‘but’. Is that why I’m here, now?”

  The Deputy Director nodded at the flash drive. “The computer flagged something. What little we have is on that flash drive, everything retrieved through PINWALE, STELLARWIND, PRISM, and whatever else they’ve got spinning up there. Possible matches off social media and assorted websites from facial recognition software. Both cherrypicked and bulk data. Sorted, but not analyzed or of course acted upon. Plus, the flagged item.” He pointed at the flash drive. “That is only computer data, with no human intelligence. No one has started pulling any of those threads, making phone calls, talking to people, reading whatever the algorithms snaked out of the internet and flagged. Put human eyeballs and a brain looking at the data. Which is where you come in. And be aware, this wasn’t exactly a priority item, so you won’t have the luxury of following a fresh lead. That possible hit on him is close to two months old already. You’ll have your work cut out for you.”

  “And when I find him you want me to find out if his fingerprints have grown back? It was only two fingers, if I remember correctly.”

  “Yes.”

  “What if I can’t determine whether or not that specific problem is once again a problem?”

  “If you can’t say for sure it isn’t, then you need to act accordingly. This is not something we can leave to chance. It shouldn’t have been punted this long.”

  “Understood.” Colman paused. “You understand, we’re in the intelligence business, and we still don’t know exactly what happened the last time we sent a team after him. But I was told to cease and desist, so I followed orders. That’s always bothered me. It was my team. I sent them. And I don’t like unanswered questions.”

  “Yes, I don’t blame you. I’ve read the incident reports from Tohono County as well. I don’t know what the hell happened, how the team could have screwed up so badly. I know the kid didn’t win a six-on-one gunfight, which is what the report seems to suggest. Which tells me that the whole report is bullshit.” Elliott ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Bombs and fires and getting into a gunfight with a deputy? One of Shotgun John’s deputies to boot, the man can’t stay off Fox News. Did your men ever hear the term clandestine? Jesus. Thank God we used deniable assets and cutouts. I hate to speculate, but I imagine he went to the Sheriff, told him a convincing story, and it was Osterman’s men who put down your team. Maybe used the kid as bait, set an ambush. I really don’t see any other way those men, with all their combat experience, could have ended up dead.” He sighed. “You said you backed away, didn’t maintain an interest. Are you aware just how much media attention that got? They were talking about that clusterfuck on Billy Parr’s show, even though nobody knew anything.”

  “Why would Billy Parr be talking about that?” Colman got a dismissive wave in response.

  “He was doing a show on gun control and one of his guests who’s against it mentioned Anderson. How him having guns and knowing how to use them saved his life. Forget about that. Yours weren’t the first men to go after him, just the first pros. That FBI Agent got himself recorded hiring dirty cops to go after him.” Elliott sighed. “If I would have known how big that was going to blow up I would have cancelled your mission. Or at least postponed it. Talk about fertile ground for the conspiracy theorists, they were ranting about the mafia and the FBI everywhere, including Parr’s show. The mafia angle was a clever bit of misdirection, whoever thought of it. I wish I could take the credit. But that media attention is why we backed off of him, not just his possible lack of prints. Which is how he managed to disappear. This time I want it just to be you. I think you’re perfectly capable of handling something like this by yourself, don’t you? Without making headlines? Discreetly?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m under the impression he never actually saw you, is that correct?”

  “The only time we were face to face he was in a medically-induced coma. And even that was over two years ago. Osterman might recognize me, but I don’t plan on running into him.” Colman smiled, then frowned. “Could Anderson be in Arizona? Instead of Michigan?”

  “The data the computer flagged seems to indicate he is. Or was.” The Deputy Director nodded at the flash drive. “He sold the property he owned in Arizona, we know that for sure, but
everything else is just AI guesswork. He could be dead, or out of country. But we have to plan for worst case scenario.”

  “Arizona’s still hot after that terrorist attack last month. If he’s down there…”

  “We were just using the word discreet. I trust you know what it means. And that wasn’t terrorists, it was cartel.”

  “We’re making that distinction now?”

  The Deputy Director snorted. Then he leaned forward and tapped the flash drive. “There’s no doubt he’ll have some scarring and damage based on the medical records I’ve read. It’ll be up to you to determine if whatever prints he has left are enough to cause this country any trouble.” He leaned back and smiled. “I don’t know if or even when word may come down from on high telling me to shut down certain types of operations. But if I was ordered to tell my people cease and desist, I would of course not be able to contact those teams or individuals who were in the field and operating under emcon until their missions were complete. No matter how long their missions might take. Are we clear?”

  Emcon. Radio silence. “Yes sir. Perfectly.” Colman thought. “Since I’m going to be out in the cold and in the dark for the duration, I’m thinking I ought to requisition a few items. Since I’m here.”

  “Whatever you need.”

  PART I

  TERMINAL

  ONE

  I’m feeling out of bounds, out of bounds

  I’m running out of time, out of time

  I know there’s no such thing as either of them

  But it doesn’t make me feel any better

  Adolescents

  Incubus