The General's Weapons (Heinous Crimes Unit Book 4), page 1
THE GENERAL’S WEAPONS
HEINOUS CRIMES UNIT™ BOOK FOUR
DANIEL SCOTT
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2017, 2022 Daniel Scott & David Beers
Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design
http://jcalebdesign.com / jcalebdesign@gmail.com
Cover copyright © Marlow & Vane
Marlowe & Vane supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Marlowe & Vane
an imprint of LMBPN Publishing
PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89109
Previously Published as The General
Version 1.00, December 2022
ebook ISBN: 979-8-88541-373-2
Print ISBN: 979-8-88878-006-0
THE GENERAL’S WEAPONS TEAM
Thanks to our JIT Readers
David Laughlin
Jan Hunnicutt
Daphne Reilly
Kelly O’Donnell
John Ashmore
Editor
SkyFyre Editing Team
For Heather Cowan. You and I both know the tremendous effort it took to edit this book. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
CONTENTS
Prologue
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
Preview of The Animal’s Hunt
On Purpose and Other Things
Connect with The Author
Books by Daniel Scott
PROLOGUE
The sun shone with such ferocity that it seemed to be taking revenge on the small Venezuelan town for some slight that no one could quite remember.
At one in the afternoon, the streets were nearly empty because the people couldn’t handle the heat. Even the dogs knew it was smarter to seek shade than to venture out looking for scraps.
Christian Windsor sat in the back of an unmarked van with his sweat soaking through his shirt. The van’s air conditioning couldn’t keep up. He kept having to wipe his forehead and had already downed two bottles of water in the past hour.
There were four vans in total, two on the block opposite Christian’s, and another sitting in front of him. He wondered if it was too many, but the local authorities had promised that the vans were nothing out of the ordinary. They all looked worn out. Christian’s was almost broken.
He had stared out the front window as they drove, and saw the Venezuelan police hadn’t been exaggerating. Destroyed vans littered the city.
Christian didn’t know for certain that Luke Titan was less than five hundred yards from him, but the probability was high. He had done something similar to this three other times in the past eighteen months, and each time he’d come up empty handed. In all three instances, Christian had been right that Luke Titan was there. However, he’d been wrong on his timing.
Not this time. Luke’s here, and you’re going to get him.
“How much longer?” he asked.
There were six people in the back of the van, and a driver and passenger were up front. The people in front wore painter’s overalls. Those in the back wore heavy, bullet-proof armor and all had multiple guns holstered around their bodies. Each held an automatic weapon on their lap, and none of the men appeared to have a single ounce of fat on them.
“Ten minutes,” the man to Christian’s right said.
He didn’t know these people. They were from other federal departments. Most likely the CIA, although Christian didn’t concern himself with that. How these people had arrived here and where they came from was FBI Director Alan Waverly’s job.
Christian’s job was to capture Luke Titan.
The operation teams had ceased demanding that Christian remain in the States while their missions took place. Waverly had done a good job stating Christian’s case and refusing their attempts to sideline him. He would be there when they either cuffed or killed Luke.
Christian used the towel on his lap to wipe the sweat from his brow. He wore the same tactical gear as those around him, although they hadn’t equipped him with any automatic weapons. His pistol was strapped to his side. He’d practiced enough over the last year to pass as a decent shot.
The walkie-talkie sprang to life with a burst of static. “Bravo Team, come in, over.”
“Bravo Team here, over,” the man holding the walkie-talkie said.
“We have eyes on the target. He’s crossing the street and heading to home base.”
Christian stared at the bearded man next to him, desperately wanting to hear the words that would set the troops loose. The man didn’t return his look.
“Copy. Distance? Over.”
“Twenty feet, over.”
The van pulled away from the curb. The person driving knew the plan of attack. Christian watched out the front window as they took a right.
Then he saw Luke.
Luke was wearing shorts and a light blue linen shirt. Flip-flops adorned his feet.
The van sped up and didn’t pause for the curb, but jumped right onto it, causing everyone inside to bounce on the benches. Christian saw the other three vans flying across the street and jumping onto the apartment building’s brown lawn.
“Subdue the target at all costs,” the man to his right said into the walkie-talkie.
The van slammed to a stop and everyone piled out, every agent holding their automatic weapon in the ready position.
Christian stood as the last man jumped out, intent on following just as quickly, yet he paused. Luke had turned around and was watching the men dispersing from the vans. His hands weren’t raised, and even from Christian’s current distance, he could see the smile on his ex-partner’s face.
Luke’s gaze scanned his surroundings and somehow, despite the thirty men surrounding him, landed on Christian. He raised his hand and gave a small wave.
Christian jumped from the van and rounded its corner with his pistol raised and focused on Luke.
“Christian,” his ex-partner called across the dead lawn. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you miss me. You seem to be constantly trying to find me.”
“Kneel the fuck down!”
Christian didn’t know who screamed the order at Luke. He wouldn’t take his eyes off the fugitive to figure it out, either. In a year and a half, they had never been this close to him. This was the first time Christian had laid eyes on Luke outside of video recordings since he had gutted him and stabbed him through the face.
“Christian, why are you doing this to yourself?” Luke asked. He hadn’t knelt, nor made any other movement. “I told you I would come for you, didn’t I? I said I’d see you soon. That I’d see all of you soon. Why are you inviting me before the time is right?”
“Get the fuck down!” someone else screamed.
Christian wouldn’t have believed what happened next if he wasn’t there. Had someone told him what Luke had done, he would have thought it a myth to build up Luke’s legacy. Christian was there, though, and neither his eyes nor mind lied to him.
Someone was moving in on Luke’s right, perhaps the person who had just screamed at him.
Luke’s gaze flashed to him, while the rest of his body remained facing Christian. The fully-armored agent stopped dead in his tracks. The entire group was closing in on Luke, encircling him, but that man stopped moving, caught in Luke’s stare. He paused as the rest of the group continued tightening the noose.
Luke looked back at Christian.
“Okay, then,” he said. “Have it your way.”
Christian was twenty yards out from where Luke was standing, while the rest of the team was maybe five yards away.
Luke took a step back and raised his hands in the air.
“Do not move!” the first agent screamed. “Don’t take another fucking step!”
“I’m not resisting,” Luke said, moving back another step.
Christian’s body was entranced by Luke’s stare, but his mind wasn’t. It saw what no one else did.
Luke was retreating, but there wasn’t anywhere for him to go. There was another reason for it.
“No!” Christian shouted, just as Luke’s foot reached the stoop of his apartment. “Get back!”
The agents heard Christian and paused briefly, a few of them looking over their shoulders. Luke stepped onto the stoop and other agents started screaming. Christian had set off panic in them. They yelled at Luke to get down, to surrender, to do everything except what the fuck he was doing.
“Christian!” Luke shouted above the fray. “You did this!”
Christian’s mind categorized everything that happened next, even though his eyes couldn’t keep up as it occurred. It was only later that he would be able to replay it back with a writer’s attention to detail. Everything was perfectly in place as if he’d written the scene himself.
The yard exploded.
Christian watched as the dirt around the street sprayed outward, followed immediately by fire and crumbling concrete. The earth shook beneath him as if cannons had been installed beneath the street and then fired simultaneously. More flames erupted.
The men in front of Christian had no chance, and if he hadn’t paused inside the van, he would have died as easily as they did. Their bodies were blown apart from the blasts, their limbs separating from their torsos like steamed chicken legs. Blood burst from ripped organs, coagulating with the dust in the air and creating a red, dirty mist.
Christian hit the ground and put his hands over his head, rolling onto his stomach as fire and shards of concrete rained down around him. He kept his eyes on Luke through the blood permeating the air and the destruction falling from the sky.
Shots were fired, ricocheting off the building behind him. Luke was somehow guarding Christian and saving him for a worse fate—nothing touched him.
The last explosion splattered dirt and body parts across the ground. Christian tried to regain his feet, stumbling as he did and falling to a knee.
“Stop chasing me, Christian,” Luke called. Christian could hardly hear his words through the ringing in his ears. “You’ll have your chance soon enough.”
CHAPTER ONE
Charles Twaller understood how people viewed his weight in the same way that a dog understands how people viewed it. It wasn’t that he didn’t care. He didn’t even think about it. At 5’5” and 300 pounds, Charles made less than an impressive figure.
Charles didn’t give a fuck about any of that. The last time he had worried about his weight was in the fifth grade when a punk kid had called him “fatso.” The kid had gone home with a broken nose and an eye so swollen he couldn’t see out of it for a week.
Twelve years later, Charles had gone back home after he’d graduated college and killed that punk kid. So, maybe, Charles had thought about it once more since fifth grade, but not fucking much.
Charles was twenty-one when he killed his first person. He was now thirty-five and didn’t know how many people had died by his hand, let alone how many people had been murdered at his behest. The number was high.
Charles Twaller had a few mottos he lived by. He found comfort in mottos. They were something that he could go back to when the world around him started getting stressful. He didn’t walk around quoting them. He lived by them.
One of them was from a song he'd once heard. He didn’t know what the song was or who’d sung it. He didn’t give a fuck about that, either. It was the words that mattered.
And it’s you I’ll come for.
He’d thought about that lyric when he killed the punk kid, and every other time he’d committed murder. It helped focus his mind in those moments when life was about to be extinguished. Because Charles wanted to focus then, to soak it in.
He always giggled when he killed someone. Well, maybe not always, but quite often. It was the way they fell, awkwardly and without control. He couldn’t help but giggle like a little girl when they collapsed, their fingers twitching and eyes staring at endless peace.
Charles wasn’t a contract killer, and he didn’t go around randomly offing people. He was very specific about the people he killed. Murder wasn’t his business, but it was next door to his business.
He primarily dealt in guns but he sold weapons of all kinds. Tanks, pistols, automatic rifles. It didn’t matter. He loved weapons. He had always loved them. The old saying was true. If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. Charles loved every single day he woke up and got to transport guns.
He shipped them across state lines and international boundaries. He held them in warehouses and supplied them to warlords. Charles didn’t care who needed them, or what their reasoning was. He cared that their money came through on time and securely.
Charles wasn’t an idiot by any means. He had a degree in mathematics and had originally worked for an insurance company. The path upward would have been easy enough. He was smart, and his only family were his mother and sister. With no friends, he had all the time in the world to climb that corporate ladder. He just didn’t see the return on investment being great enough. Even with the healthcare and 401k match, how many years would it take him to reach a million dollars net worth?
Too-fucking-many.
Plus, he had liked killing that punk kid, and he certainly wouldn’t have been able to do that in the actuary department of State Farm.
So, Charles had done what any entrepreneurial young man would do and started a side business. An illegal side business. Charles wasn’t into imaginary lines the government said you couldn’t cross. He wasn’t into anyone’s lines but his own.
He had another motto he liked.
Advance, whatever the costs.
So that’s what Charles did.
He advanced.
Things moved quickly. At twenty-five, he was a fat man with a master’s degree in math and a job at an insurance company. By thirty-five, he was a fat man with a master’s degree and a five million dollar net worth, although the government only knew about five hundred thousand of it.
Still, Charles knew that sooner or later, the imaginary lines he cared nothing for would show up in bright red. They would cease to be imaginary when he was facing three life sentences for trafficking weapons, not to mention the murders they would most likely pin on him. He could keep grinding and amassing great wealth, but in the end, bad deeds would be noticed.
There was his mother to think about, too. He sent money home every few months, and with no man in her life, his mom could use the cash.
Charles needed a score that would set him up for life. A score that would allow him to never need to worry about money again. Five million was a nice nest egg, but Charles wasn’t sure that would keep him and Momma their entire lives. He could spend money like nobody’s business, and if he was caught, the egg was fried.
One Friday at three in the afternoon, Charles was wondering if he’d finally found the score he needed.
The number of weapons currently stored in his warehouse was staggering, even for him. He didn’t know if he’d ever seen this many guns in one place, and that was a powerful statement.
He’d walked around armories with African kings. But what he was looking at now…
Two bodyguards stood behind Charles, neither saying a word. Charles didn’t want them to speak, and they knew it. The people who worked around the fat man quickly learned what he wanted, and if they didn’t, they found themselves seeking new employment.
Charles knew their names because he knew everything about his business, but he would never say them aloud. He liked not calling anyone who worked for him by their name. It gave him a sense of importance. Guns, money, status. These were the things that mattered to him. Those, and mottos.
Mottos kept the world moving, after all.
The fifth shipment of weapons would arrive today and Charles was ready for them. He had his two bodyguards inside with him, but twenty more men were in the parking lot. The heat was awful outside and Charles liked making them wait in it.
Let ‘em sweat.
The eighteen-wheeler rolled over the parking lot’s gravel, and the sound of crunching rocks reached Charles’ ears. He looked out the window. Sure enough, old Hector had arrived.
