Desert takedown, p.1
Desert Takedown, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Also by Stuart Jaffe
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
NATHAN K WILL RETURN SOON!
About the Author
Copyright Information
Desert Takedown
a Nathan K thriller
Stuart Jaffe
For all my Nathan K readers
Thank you for keeping this series alive
Also by Stuart Jaffe
Max Porter Paranormal Mysteries
Southern Bound
Southern Charm
Southern Belle
Southern Gothic
Southern Haunts
Southern Curses
Southern Rites
Southern Craft
Southern Spirit
Southern Flames
Southern Fury
Southern Souls
Nathan K Thrillers
Immortal Killers
Killing Machine
The Cardinal
Yukon Massacre
The First Battle
Immortal Darkness
A Spy for Eternity
Prisoner
Desert Takedown
Parallel Society
The Infinity Caverns
Book on the Isle
Rift Angel
The Malja Chronicles
The Way of the Black Beast
The Way of the Sword and Gun
The Way of the Brother Gods
The Way of the Blade
The Way of the Power
The Way of the Soul
Gillian Boone novels
A Glimpse of Her Soul
Pathway to Spirit
Stand Alone Novels
After The Crash
Real Magic
Founders
Short Story Collection
10 Bits of My Brain
10 More Bits of My Brain
The Bluesman
The Marshall Drummond Case Files: Cabinet 1
Non-Fiction
How to Write Magical Words: A Writer’s Companion
For more information, please visit www.stuartjaffe.com
CHAPTER ONE
The Nevada sun burned bright and dry as Nathan K left Golden Wall Takeout with a bag containing wonton soup, egg rolls, and chicken chow mein. The food smelled delicious, though anything would smell good after being holed up in a ratty motel for three days. On the street corner, a man wearing a tan tunic that reached to his knees stood with a sandwich board reading — Prepare Your Immortal Soul for a Divine Hereafter. Nathan grinned.
Now that Robin, his tech guru and partner in saving lives, knew the truth about him, he could share this moment with her. He had to admit that after years of worrying she would learn he was an Immortal, he found it rather wonderful to no longer lie to her. The general wisdom from other Immortals was that telling people the truth only caused pain and trouble, but that had not been the case with Robin. If anything, she seemed to like Nathan better. She certainly liked asking him questions.
Walking back to the motel room where she had set up a temporary base of operations, he recalled the first few months after returning from England. Every day she peppered him with questions like an old cop interrogating a mobster. Only thing missing was a single bulb hanging over him. Well, that and any sense of real threat.
“Let me see if I got this right,” she would say, her brilliant mind pulling up all the details she had amassed about Immortals. As with her thoughts, her bouncy hair (dyed yellow lately) blossomed from her like a flower from the rich, dark earth. “You’re walking around with two souls. If you die, the one soul leaves you —” She would pause until she found the words in her memory. “— like wisps of dark smoke through your eyes and any injuries you have heal up. Then your other soul takes over. You’re mortal again. You age, you can be hurt, you can die. But once you acquire a new second soul, you’re back to being an ageless Immortal. That about right?”
He would try not to laugh. “Yeah, that’s it.”
“If you’re not careful and you take on a stronger soul, you risk being shoved out. The Nathan K I know would be gone.”
“Afraid so.”
“That’s why you mostly concentrate on elderly people for your second soul, right? You go to Hospice Care and that kind of thing.”
“That’s one reason. I also don’t want to kill people. But if I have to, killing those close to death seems better. Even the bad people we’ve dealt with — I’d much rather find a less lethal way to deal with them. Unfortunately, most of them don’t want to co-operate.”
Robin would nod and screw up her lips. Her rapid-fire brain often moved faster than her mouth could keep up, but all of their talks on his immortality tended to slow her down. “And there are only two rules among your kind? If you want to be closer to another Immortal, or if you want to honor an opponent before battle, you share some of your long, life stories. The more you share, the more depth of feeling toward the other person. The second thing is straightforward — you never kill an Immortal with only one soul. No permanent deaths allowed.”
“You’re catching on fast.”
This was the part where she always stumbled. “It can’t be just that. There must be more rules.”
“That’s all I know. Everything else isn’t a rule. It’s just the way they live. But I don’t want more rules. I don’t think we should have them.”
“You need rules. That’s what keeps a society together.”
This always shocked him. “How can you say that? You’re a talented hacker. You break the law all the time.”
“But those laws still exist. If I get caught, I’ll still be punished. The laws, the rules, give a society a method of living with each other and not going crazy.”
Nathan stopped on the hot sidewalk and stared at the motel half-a-block up the street. Two vans had been parked nearby — one on the street, one in the motel courtyard. He set the Chinese food on the ground and pulled Maggie from the holster tucked in the back of his waistband. The 10mm Wilson Combat Classic fit in his grip like an old handshake. He kept his arm at his side — not a lot of people walking around on a hot afternoon, but enough nonetheless.
Nathan had paid for a motel room in a crappy section of Las Vegas, far from the Strip and other tourist areas, yet plenty of people still surrounded the depressed street. Elderly folks sat by cracked windows and watched life pass by from their air-conditioned apartments. The jobless and homeless sprinkled about, paying attention to themselves but always aware of others. Even the occasional police cruiser drove by.
As he neared the motel, he spotted the room door ajar and a man dressed in black standing in the doorway. Though Nathan could not make out more than that, he would be willing to bet that the man held an assault rifle and had it trained on Robin. With one man in the door, odds suggested one more stood inside, probably next to Robin. Two vans hinted even more men at the ready. At least one sitting in the van, watching the street for Nathan’s arrival.
Nathan cut down the first alleyway, around the corner, and up toward the motel from the back. He had escaped from a motel room or two by sneaking out the small bathroom window. Sneaking into a motel room by that same window was a first. Thankfully, the endless, open spaces of Nevada meant the motel stretched outward rather than upward. All the rooms were on the ground level.
Counting off from the end, he found the correct room and nudged the window open. He positioned a trashcan underneath and hoisted up. Climbing through the narrow space quietly meant being patient, moving slow and with grace, and watching every foot placement so as not to knock over a shampoo bottle or a toothbrush.
“Sorry if you were expecting me to be screaming and scared,” Robin said to her captors, her melodic voice a pleasure to hear — uninjured and alive. “A girl like me doesn’t get into this kind of business without seeing a gun or two. Since you haven’t bothered to kill me, you’re probably going to use me as leverage against Nathan or, perhaps, you’re actually smart and know the value I bring all by my little lonesome. Thing is — if you guys had half-a-brain, you’d forget about whatever stupid group you work for and let me set you all up for life. You know I can do that, right? Oh, there’s some interesting looks. I’m guessing your boss didn’t tell you that I can hack practically any computer practically anywhere in the world. How would all of you like to become instant millionaires?”
A gruff voice said, “Shut her damn mouth already.”
A hard slap followed and Robin stifled a cry. Nathan wanted to barrel in, but he knew better. With Maggie up and ready, he eased toward the door and peeked through the crack to see what he faced.
From his vantage, he counted three targets — one standing in the front doorway, one by the window, and one with his back to Nathan. Robin sat at a small , round table between the man at the window and the one facing away. Nathan saw it play out in his head. The first two shots would be easy. It all came down to the Window Man and how fast he would react.
After a few seconds more to see if any better options came, Nathan moved. He flung back the door and shot the man facing away through the back of the head. As all the targets flinched and momentary confusion flustered in their heads, Nathan turned Maggie toward the one in the front doorway. A single shot took him down — aimed for the chest but the fast motions knocked it upward to the throat. With a rapid twist, Nathan swung to Window Man and shot.
Had Window Man been faster, had he thought quicker, he might have grabbed Robin and attempted to use her as a hostage or a shield. Instead, he made the fatal decision to raise his weapon and fire at Nathan. Robin checked her shoulder against Window Man and his shot spit into the wall. Nathan’s bullet, however, did not miss — right through the head, blood splatter on the motel curtains.
“Holy crap,” Robin said. “That was an incredible shot. Damn miracle. Only thing more of a miracle would be if you managed to bring the Chinese food, too.”
Nathan turned his weapon on the open doorway. Without looking at Robin, without any humor in his voice, he said, “Grab whatever’s important. We’ve got to leave right now.”
“Shouldn’t we do something? I don’t know — maybe pat these guys down, find out who they work for, figure out —”
“Robin. Grab whatever you need. We are leaving.”
Nodding far more than necessary, she closed her laptop. “Right, right, right.”
As she crossed the room toward her bag, the last man — the driver from one of the vans — swiveled into the room. Nathan squeezed off two rounds while racing forward. With one hand, he shoved Robin to the floor. The driver swung back outside.
Nathan snatched a glance at the window. The driver never went by. The only question in Nathan’s mind at that moment — how thick were the walls. He walked straight up to the front door, pressed Maggie against the wall to the side of the jamb, and shot twice. That left him with one round — just in case. But the thump of a dead man collapsing to the pavement relieved any doubt.
Robin had crawled to her bag, stashed the laptop, and swung the whole thing over her shoulder. “Who are these people?”
Nathan peeked out the door — no other driver waiting in the second van. “Dressed in black and carrying serious firepower. These are well-armed, somewhat trained men. They won’t have ID on them, and if they do —”
“It’ll be fake,” she said, the shock finally dissipating.
Nathan stepped back to the far side of the motel room. He snatched his bag and put a fresh magazine in Maggie. “First thing, we need to get out of here.” He dug out his keys and tossed them to her. “I don’t think there are any others, but we need to assume there are. I’ll cover you, and you book on over to the car. Drive right up here, I’ll dive in, and we get going.”
“Going where?”
“South. If they found us, there’s a good chance they know about Altman, too. We need to get to her first.”
“But she’s in Tucson.”
CHAPTER TWO
As Nathan and Robin drove into Arizona, he kept checking the rear view mirror. In all the hours they were on the road, he never once saw any sign that they were being followed. He peeked up at the sky now and then but rarely spotted aircraft. None behaved like anything to be concerned about. If they were being tracked, it had to be by satellite. But Nathan discounted that idea as paranoia — mostly.
Robin’s version of paranoia took the form of using her laptop to ID the men that had attacked them. “It shouldn’t have happened. We’ve been good about paying in cash or using credit cards that couldn’t trace back to us. I’ve done everything I know to wipe our movements from any kind of digital record.” She would have loved to find security camera footage of the motel’s surrounding area so that she could grab a license plate or at least get a better idea of their enemy’s movements leading up to the attack. Unfortunately, they had picked their motel precisely for its lack of security cameras. The few that were operating at nearby gas stations or convenience stores, she had disabled when they first arrived.
Nathan knew their best line forward rested with Agent Altman. Nathan knew that Robin also knew it. That did not make the long drive any easier. Worse — they had been trying to contact Altman since the attack and had yet to receive a reply.
“Do you think she’s dead?” Robin said. “What am I saying? Of course she isn’t. That’s crazy talk. I’ve seen her in action, so have you, and we both know that she’s very capable. She fought alongside you against two Primes. That’s the right word — Primes?”
Nathan did not relish the idea of getting into another Immortal discussion. Especially about Primes — those few Immortals who had managed never to be removed from their Immortal bodies. Until recently Nathan had only encountered one — the Cardinal. The other Prime he had met, Dendra, died at the Cardinal’s hands in Ireland. In their long lives, Primes had tapped into greater powers than simply not being able to die, powers that Nathan had managed to glimpse within himself. Which possibly meant that Nathan was more than an Immortal, less than a Prime. What that made him, though, he did not know.
“Let’s not worry about things we can’t control,” he said.
“Easy for you to say. If you had died back in that motel room, you would just pop back up and finish the fight.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Just because I can take one death, doesn’t mean I should be casual about it. Neither should you. And don’t think that I take your life any less seriously. If those bastards had managed to hurt one colorful, bouncy bit of hair on your head, I would not have made their deaths so quick.”
His harsh tone kept her quiet for a moment. At length, she tapped at her keyboard. “I’ll try Altman again.”
After so many years being simply Nathan and Robin, he had found it strange to consider Altman a member of the team. Until they had barged into her life, Agent Deanna Altman had been an ex-member of the Eternity Agency — a UK-black ops group attempting to uncover the truth about Immortals. When she left England to work with Nathan and Robin, she did not expect to be stuck in Tucson waiting for Robin to establish her credentials.
Of course, Robin could create forgeries with ease, but cover identities lasted longer and proved stronger against scrutiny when backed up with bits of reality. Having a verifiable home address, paying taxes, having a rewards card to the local grocery — all of these things became signifiers that the Deanna Altman created by Robin was more than a digital footprint. She was a real person.
“Hello? You there?” Robin slapped Nathan’s arm several times. “I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Are you okay?” Nathan asked.
Altman’s gentle tones mixed with her strong presence. “Since you’re asking me that, and since it sounds like the two of you are on the road together, I take it you ran into a spot of trouble, too.”
“You could say that. Armed men attacked us in our motel room. They were professionals.”
“They only sent one man after me. Feel a bit insulted.”
“Better alive and insulted, than the alternative.”
“I’ve got one better — I didn’t kill the man. I captured him.”
Nathan checked the clock. Keeping his voice calm, he said, “We should be reaching Tucson in a couple hours.”
“I won’t be there. I’ve stashed the man away in the Pinal Airpark boneyard.”
Nathan had to pause to let that sink in. But Robin picked up his slack. “How did you manage that?” she asked. “Those places are actively used to strip down planes for spare parts. They’re usually guarded.”
“Just because you have me sitting around Tucson doing nothing, doesn’t mean I’m going to sit around Tucson and do nothing. I made some friends. Useful ones.”
“You’re supposed to stay low to make it easier for me to establish your credentials. You may have blown the entire identity I’ve been building for you.”
“I think that identity has already been blown. Otherwise, how did our unseemly friends know to attack me down here?”
They talked for a while longer. Nathan made sure Altman knew to clear out her apartment and erase any sign of where she intended to go. He did not mean to insult her intelligence or her abilities. He only wanted to make sure there were no surprises. But she had already handled half of the things he could think of. He would have to work on trusting her.
