The Jack Reacher Cases (The Perfect Man For Payback), page 1
The Jack Reacher Cases (The Perfect Man For Payback)
The Jack Reacher Cases #14
Dan Ames
Slogan Books, New York, NY
A USA TODAY BESTSELLING BOOK
Book One in The JACK REACHER Cases
CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW
Contents
THE PERFECT MAN FOR PAYBACK
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Also by Dan Ames
About the Author
Free Books And More
Would you like a FREE copy
of my story BULLET RIVER and the chance
to win a free Kindle?
Then sign up for the DAN AMES BOOK CLUB:
For special offers and new releases, sign up here
NEW SERIES! Jack Reacher’s Special Investigators.
CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW!
THE PERFECT MAN FOR PAYBACK
The Jack Reacher Cases #14
by
Dan Ames
“The axe forgets, but the tree remembers.”
-African proverb
1
The medium-security federal prison sat baking under the harsh Oklahoma sun. The sky was cloudless. Even birds avoided the unmistakable scent of loss and desperation hanging over the cinderblock and razor-wired structure.
In Cell Block D, Michael “Stone” Morticelli studied his face in the mirror. His olive complexion had deepened into a dark tan, and his blue eyes blazed out from the reflection in the glass.
He’d been inside for less than two years now and he’d never looked better, he realized, even though he wasn’t a vain man. With little to do other than read and exercise, both his body and mind had sharpened immeasurably. He had the upper body of a stone mason, which is what his trade had been as a very young man in his father’s business. This was all well before he’d graduated to the other family business. It was how he’d gotten his nickname, as well.
His neck was thick, his shoulders broad and his arms taut with muscle. Even his large hands gave the appearance of strength and something more sinister. Early in his career he’d strictly performed enforcer work. It was something he’d enjoyed and for which he clearly showed an aptitude. Success changes things, of course, and soon he was rising through the ranks of the Barranca crime family.
Until that day when everything changed.
He pushed those memories aside for they did him no good. Now, the steam from the shower had coated the mirror’s glass with a thin mist and he wiped it away. As he did, the reflection changed.
His face was not the only one in the mirror.
Stone turned and faced the two men who had silently appeared behind him.
The prison was medium security and most inmates were not violent. But within the walls there were a few dangerous men.
The two individuals facing Stone were widely considered to be at the top of the food chain. Perhaps just under Stone himself.
They were twin brothers. Niko and Tre Theodopolus. Rumored to be hitmen for a Corsican gang in New York, they were to be feared and avoided. Like most twins, they kept to themselves, rarely spoke to others, and rarely even spoke to each other.
Stone wasn’t surprised to see them. He’d been expecting this day would come ever since he’d landed in prison. If anything, he wondered why now. It’d been no small amount of time since his conviction and he had begun to wonder if the parties responsible for putting him in prison had decided he was no longer a threat.
Clearly, they did.
Life in prison is a balancing act, a series of unwritten rules most inmates follow. Stone knew them as well as everyone else, and he also knew that he had not made enemies. There had been no fights. No disputes. He kept to himself.
So the appearance of the twins had nothing do with what had happened within the walls. Rather, they were here because of forces outside the walls.
Although both of the men facing him were taller than Stone, he outweighed them each by at least twenty pounds. They didn’t have his bulk; rather, they were slender like athletes, all sinew and bone. They would be quick, rather than powerful.
That didn’t bother Stone.
It was the crude knife each of them held in his hand that gave him pause. He wondered how they would attack. Simultaneously? Or would the alpha of the pair strike first?
The answer, when it came, was fairly obvious.
The twins acted at the same time.
They lunged forward, both with the same expression – a grimace that almost seemed like a smile.
Stone’s hand lashed out to his left where a three-foot-long towel bar, made of iron, had been bolted to the concrete wall. He’d been shaving in front of the same mirror for nearly two years and over time, had noticed the bolts holding the bar in place were corroding. He’d gently loosened them over time and now his enormous hand gripped the bar and ripped it from the wall as he dodged to his left. That put one of the twins in front, the other behind.
Stone pivoted and swung the bar on a short arc. The first brother’s knife whisked past Stone’s chest just as the iron bar connected with the man’s temple. It sounded like a baseball bat hitting a ball into deep centerfield. Stone felt the crush of the iron all through his arm.
The first of the Corsican brothers sagged and folded to the bathroom floor, his shiv clattering along the tile.
The second brother stepped in and thrust his shiv forward, opting for a direct stab. Stone had already pivoted back and this time, the pipe came via backhand and connected with the attacker’s wrist. Stone heard bones break and the homemade blade went airborne, landing somewhere near the showers.
Stone dropped the iron bar as the second brother hurled himself forward. If he’d been worried before, now, all fear was gone. Close quarters fighting with no weapons other than hands was his forte.
Stone ducked his head, felt the man’s fists bounce off his midsection and he caught the remaining twin’s neck in his hands. He wrenched his forearms and heard the Corsican’s neck snap. The man’s body went limp and Stone held him, practically airborne for a few seconds and then he let go and the body dropped. It reminded Stone of dropping a trash bag into the bin.
Stone walked over to where the iron bar lay on the floor, picked it up, and went to the first brother, who was still breathing. Stone raised the bar and smashed it down, crushing the Corsican’s skull.
The man stopped breathing.
Stone dropped the pipe to the floor.
He didn’t have much time.
This wasn’t the end of it.
It was only the beginning.
And now, he had to activate the plan he’d put in place immediately after his arrival and had only needed the spark to set it in motion.
The fact they’d come for him now, after all this time, meant he had only one option.
Escape.
2
The wiry old man held the knife, a stiletto, pointed directly at Lauren Pauling. He was dressed all in black and his skin was dark brown. His shoes were black and he seemed to float above the floor. His close-cropped silver hair seemed to glow in the dim light of the room. His eyes were dark pools of blackness, showing no emotion, just cold, calculated cunning.
Pauling kept her breath steady, let the flow of the fight come to her. She’d trained before in a variety of weapon styles and knew not to panic. Let things come naturally.
The man thrust forward, a move of liquid poetry, and Pauling’s own knife slashed forward seemingly of its own volition, down and then through. She hadn’t thought about the move, it just happened. Simultaneously, she caught the old man’s forearm in her free hand and reversed her knife’s path, slashing along his stomach.
Pauling stepped back and the man straightened.
“Very good,” he said in his heavily accented English.
He looked at his wrist. The knives were trainers - made of rubber - but Pauling’s “blade” had left a red mark on his inner arm, barely visible on the dark skin. Pauling felt a twinge of guilt as her “opponent” was so much older, she figured he might be nearly eighty years old. But he was lean, and his body didn’t look like an old man’s. He moved with an easy grace of a natural athlete.
She knew him only by the name Accursio, which made her always wonder if he was prone to swearing, or foul language.
Pauling didn’t know much more than that, save for the fact he was a world-renowned knife fighter in the Sicilian tradition of fighting with stilettos. An old friend in the Bureau, also retired, had recommended him to Pauling after she’d claimed she was looking for something new.
“You must always remember angles,” Accursio now said to her. “Some say it is a triangle.” He point
They went through several more moves as the ancient Sicilian tweaked her footwork, challenged her balance and several times placed the tip of his rubber knife directly into the skin over her heart.
Training is humility, she told herself.
By the end, she had worked up a good sweat and realized she was happy. As if she’d just seen a good movie or experienced something deeply satisfying.
“I will see you two days from now,” Accursio told her. There was no set schedule. He simply instructed when she should come back to his basement studio.
Pauling gathered her workout bag and bottled water. As she was heading for the door, Accursio said her name, softly.
The workout facility was in the basement of a butcher shop on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Pauling had no idea if her instructor owned the building, or the shop, but the room was silent.
“Pardon me?” Pauling said.
“You should be careful,” he said.
“Yes,” she replied. “Being aware is the best defense.”
“No. You do not understand,” he said.
Pauling turned and gazed at the old man. He was standing with his hands by his sides. His dark eyes were fixed on her.
“You understand where I am from?” he asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“You know silence is the treasure of Sicily.”
Pauling waited.
Accursio walked toward her. He held out his hand. In his palm was a 9-inch Sicilian stiletto. It was a folded blade, released by a button. She didn’t know what kind of handle it was, but it looked like old ivory. Pauling knew it was the real thing, the blade would be razor-sharp.
“You are not here by accident, I believe,” he said. “This is how things work.”
“Thank you,” she said. “But why do I need to be careful?” she asked. Pauling slipped the knife into her pocket.
“A man who locks his hate away is a fool, for one day, it will break free.”
He nodded to the door.
When she opened it and turned back to say goodbye, he was already gone.
3
The beauty of La Cosa Nostra or “our thing” as the Mafia referred to themselves, was the sheer numbers. Any army’s strength is judged by the number of soldiers within its ranks. The same is true of any criminal organization and the Mob had been around a long time, securing its thirsty tentacles to all forms of commerce for over a century.
Prison, as well, had its own type of commerce.
Almost all of it illicit and vulnerable to exploitation.
The head guard of Cell Block D in the medium-security institution home, for the moment, to Stone Morticelli, had been “gotten to” by the Italians. His name was Bud Dupree and he had a fondness for methamphetamine and females around the age of puberty. A large stash of illegal drugs and a set of photographs worthy of the label ‘child pornography’ had been combined with a threat to tell Bud’s wife and the warden.
The threat had been more than enough to bring Bud Dupree into the fold of the Mafia. Stone had been made well aware of Dupree’s compromised position and filed it away for future use.
That time was now.
Stone hurriedly dressed, then walked quickly from the bathroom to the guard office. The space was separated by a single, steel-framed door with shatterproof glass. There was an intercom next to the door. Beyond the door was a small room, a perfect square, with a desk that ran along one wall, and atop the desk were a number of video camera feeds.
Bud Dupree glanced up and then frowned. He was large, slow-moving, with a scruffy beard and tired eyes. Dupree’s lifestyle of drugs and booze showed; he was fair-haired and freckled, but his cheeks were red with hypertension and his belly hung over his belt.
Stone watched him as he leaned forward in his chair and pressed a button near the camera system’s control board.
“What ‘n hell do you want?” Dupree asked with his unmistakable southern drawl.
Stone held up his hands and let his eyes find the camera pointing down at him.
A look crossed Bud’s face and Stone knew the man understood. The overweight guard begrudgingly got to his feet, scooped a set of prison cuffs from the counter and came to the door. Stone obediently stepped back six feet and let Bud open the door.
Wisely, the guard didn’t shut the door.
He clamped a cuff on Stone’s left wrist and then did the same with his right, except instead of the cuff clicking shut, it made a muted sound and Stone knew Bud had slipped his finger in between, preventing the cuff from closing. He’d used his body to shield the action from the camera, and now, he pulled Stone through.
Stone heard Bud whisper over his left shoulder.
“Shit, man. You tryin’ to get me fired?”
“Absolutely not,” Stone said. “Just take me to the doc and I’ll explain everything. It’s going to be fine.”
“Better be,” Dupree said.
Like all prisoners, Stone had spent many countless hours studying the habits and practices of the prison. Being medium-security, there were a lot fewer secrets than in the big houses.
Many of the inmates were older, white-collar criminals prone to all sorts of medical maladies. Bunions, gout, ulcers and diabetes.
Stone also knew the doctor was only at the prison on Mondays and Thursdays. This being a Friday, the office would be empty.
Bud led his charge through the hallway between the main prison blocks and through another set of doors that housed the administrative sections. The doctor’s office was at the end of the hall.
The security guard unlocked the door and he pushed Stone through.
Once the door was closed, Stone took off the cuff and bud quickly unlocked the one on his right wrist.
“Please tell me you need drugs,” Bud said. “Booze. A hooker.”
“Sorry,” Stone said. “I just killed the twins.”
The blood drained from Bud’s red face. “Both of them?”
Stone nodded.
“Why?”
“Why do you think? They came for me.” He studied Bud’s face and then said, “Take off your uniform.”
“No way,” the man shook his head. Stone could see tufts of red hair sticking out from underneath the prison-issued baseball cap. “Nuh uh.”
Bud Dupree was a big man and Stone didn’t relish the idea of trying to take off the man’s uniform if he was unconscious.
“I’m going to give you a little tap on the side of the head before I leave,” Stone replied. “You’ll be able to say I got the jump on you.” He slid one of the shiv’s from the Corsican brothers. He held it in front of him and Dupree knew he had no choice.
“Ah, shit,” Bud said. He hurriedly removed his shirt and pants along with his keys.
Stone waited until he was done then threw a short right cross that caught the guard on the side of the jaw. A horrible grinding sound, followed by a pop, filled the room.
Stone grimaced.
Bud sagged to the floor and cracked his head on the tile.
It was better this way, Stone thought. He hadn’t wanted to tell Bud that he needed his wallet and car keys. Or what he planned to do afterward.
Stone knew exactly where Bud’s car was parked and the exit protocol.
