Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

into the woods and worked my way over through the forest so that I had a good view of the house from another position. The same but different. Another three-quarter angle, but this time the front and the side. The new position had a straight-on view of Hagen’s window.

Because of the elevation on this side, there was no need to climb a tree. I set up behind a rocky outcrop which made a clearing in the woods above the house. I put my eye to the scope and scanned. Nothing much was going on. The roller shades were still down and Hagen hadn’t turned off the light. There was a possibility that he might be too lazy to get up out of bed. Maybe he had returned to his Viking show with the fancy headphones back over his ears.

Maybe not.

I waited patiently to find out. The end of the rifle barrel was resting on rock. I was in a prone position, belly-down on the dirt and stones. Unmoving and watchful, an alpha predator with the advantage of height.

I thought about where Willets might have gone. Maybe to the bar up past the airport, like Jerry had said. Maybe not. I pulled out Hank’s phone from my pocket and took my eye off the scope long enough to dial Dave. He picked up after three rings.

I said, “What’s happening?”

He said, “Nothing. There’s a boat the size of a neighborhood and water lapping at the dock. I’ve got the window down, so I can hear that. Besides the sound of water, I’ve got Fred Granson a hundred yards from the car, drunk as usual. I can hear his hiccups, one every thirty-two seconds, on average.”

I said, “Fred Granson?”

“Local drunk guy. One of many.”

“How do you know he’s drunk?”

Dave paused. “Fred comes down to the water almost every night. Once in a while, his girlfriend and his mom come down and get him.”

“Okay.” I hung up the phone.

Twenty minutes later, Hagen’s silhouette crossed the window. Ten minutes after that, the front door opened and out came the bearded giant.

He walked straight to the white Nissan. Hagen had left his glasses at home. I figured he knew he looked scarier without them. He got in on the driver’s side. The car started up. The engine was modern and quiet, making an efficient hum. I tracked the big guy in the sights. He looked unconcerned, going through the motions of backing out his car. Hagen steered his vehicle down the drive, away from me.

Only then did I see the Alaskan plates, yellow with dark blue characters and numbers. Seven characters separated by a small Alaskan state flag, furling dark blue with eight yellow stars. TGN on the left, 8462 on the right. Which was precisely the combination that I had found revealed on George Abrams’ yellow legal pad.

Hagen’s vehicle disappeared around the curve at the bottom of the driveway. I took my eye off the scope and watched the taillights through the trees until they were gone. Red brake lights used prudently. The bearded giant’s driving was reasonable and cautious.

The consequences were interesting. I pictured George Abrams in his apartment and went through some of the scenarios in which that license plate number might have been noted down on the pad, and the top sheet torn off.

The first scenario was Abrams returning home. He gets in the door and walks to the dining nook. There, he writes down the number on that yellow legal pad. It was a number he’d seen somewhere, heard from someone, something he wanted to check or pass on. Maybe.

A second scenario had someone else writing that number down. A mystery person, probably an adversary. It could be whoever had placed that laptop in Abrams’ office. An intruder searches Abrams’ apartment, plants the laptop as a trap for anyone else coming around. Gets a call from the boss. Reaches for whatever he can find and notes down the number. Then he rips out the page and pockets it.

A third scenario occurred to me. The dining nook in Abrams’ apartment was tucked into a corner with large windows. I remembered seeing the cruise ship from the window, which was impressive. Less impressive was the view of the street. I mentally walked over to Abrams’ dining table. The yellow legal pad was sitting right there, a ball point pen keeping it company. I visualized looking down through the window to the street below. In that third option, George Abrams gazes down the street, and sees Hagen sitting in the white Nissan. Maybe not for the first time. He notes down the plate number.

I was in no position to follow Hagen. The Land Cruiser was through the woods a ways. It was time for a rendezvous.

Back at the vehicle, I laid the long gun into the case and zipped it shut. I removed the Match King rounds from my pocket and returned them to the box. I placed Hagen’s Smith & Wesson into the glove compartment. Nice little gun, but not accurate enough to be useful. More like the kind of thing you’d use if you wanted to blow someone’s head off at point blank range. More than ten yards from the target, I’d consider the gun useless.

The truck started and I rocked the lever south to drive. There was no way of getting straight out to the airport from that neighborhood. I would have to go back through town, and then up the airport road. And I wasn’t in a patient mood. So I decided to wing it and get into the logging trails to avoid the paved roads. By then it was wet out, not exactly raining, but not far from it. Even so, moonlight trickled through the thin cloud cover. A light mist had blown in from the Pacific and was filtering through the rainforest. I didn’t know the trails but navigating by intuition always worked for me. Maybe it is related to my sense of time, as if