Blood Money

  BLOOD MONEY

  By Brian Springer

  Copyright 2011 Brian Springer

  Smashwords Edition

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  DAY ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DAY TWO

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DAY THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DAY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  PROLOGUE

  The early morning sun had just begun to peek over the barren desert landscape when Jessica Robbins saw the helicopter in her rearview mirror.

  Her adrenalin spiked and her mind raced as she tried to ascertain whether or not the chopper was actually tracking her. She didn’t think her handlers could have found her so quickly, but to assume a chopper just happened to be keeping pace directly behind her at 5:19 AM in the middle of the desert with no other cars within twenty miles was pure folly.

  Still, she hoped for the best.

  And so, for the next mile and a half, her eyes flashed continuously between the road and the mirror, anxiously monitoring the progress of the chopper, waiting for it to alter its course.

  Finally, just as Jessica was resigned to the fact that it was indeed following her, the helicopter peeled off and disappeared from view.

  Relief and confusion flooding over her, Jessica took a deep breath and returned her attention to the road ahead, only to see two military grade Humvees a half-mile ahead. The vehicles were parked sideways, their front ends practically touching in the middle of the single-lane highway.

  Roadblock.

  Jessica cursed aloud and slammed on the brakes, stopping her beaten-down, late 90’s model Jeep Cherokee within three hundred yards of the vehicles. Sensing movement behind her, she turned in her seat.

  Looking over her shoulder, Jessica saw that two more Humvees had boxed her in. And no doubt the chopper was still hovering nearby, just in case she tried to run.

  She took a deep breath, tried to gather her thoughts. Although she had known there was a distinct possibility her handlers would catch wind of her betrayal, Jessica had thought she’d covered her tracks well enough to escape their grasp, at least for a while. Obviously this was not the case. Her former employers were even more slick than she’d given them credit for.

  Before she even had a chance to fully grasp the full implications of the situation, the passenger door of one of the Humvees opened.

  A man dressed in an expensive business suit stepped out. His arms were extended and his palms were facing forward in a declaration of peace. His mouth was moving, but the windows were rolled up and Jessica couldn’t hear a word he was saying.

  Nor did she need to.

  Jessica wasn’t precisely sure who the man was, but she knew who he represented, and whatever he was selling, she wasn’t buying.

  She closed her eyes for a moment and considered her options.

  It only took a couple of seconds.

  Sitting here in the middle of the desert, fifty miles away from any hint of civilization and twice that far to the nearest freeway, she had but two choices.

  Make a run for it or just give up.

  It wasn’t even really a choice. There was no way in hell she was going to let them have her without making them work for it.

  With that decided, just one question remained: Which direction to flee?

  Jessica looked right, then left. Both sides offered sand dunes and cacti and not much else.

  She decided it didn’t matter in the least.

  Resigned to her fate, Jessica tried to get a handle on her fear by taking a couple of deep, cleansing breaths, then slipped the Jeep into 4-wheel drive, yanked the steering wheel to the left and stomped on the gas. The Cherokee shook and whined with the strain of the sudden acceleration.

  She passed over the shoulder of the highway, the back end of the vehicle skidding to the side as she made the transition from concrete to loose sand. Her arms steady, Jessica turned into the skid, straightened the Cherokee out and sped off into the heart of the desert.

  Looking into her rearview mirror, she could see all four Humvees take off into the desert after her, two from each side. The chopper was no longer visible, but she assumed it was somewhere near and closing fast.

  Her older model Jeep Cherokee was doing an admirable job, but it was no match for the unyielding desert floor. It bounced along the uneven sand, slamming her body into the door, forward into the steering wheel, up towards the roof.

  Now up to almost forty miles per hour, Jessica didn’t even bother trying to steer the vehicle; it took all her energy just to keep her hands on the wheel.

  With every bump, her body flailed more wildly and her hands threatened to come off the wheel, but she was curiously unafraid. The impromptu chase brought back long-buried memories of off-roading in the Mexican desert with her dad when she was eleven years old. Jessica could picture him clearly, sitting behind the wheel, whooping it up with every bump, turning towards her, smiling, his yellow teeth shining through his heavy brown beard like little golden nuggets poking out of the earth.

  With her dad at the forefront of her mind, Jessica barreled through the brush, her foot still pressing on the accelerator. Unbeknownst to her, the smile on her face matched her dad’s perfectly.

  Jessica glanced to her right, then to her left, and saw that the Humvees were closing in on both sides. Her smile grew wider, and she even started to laugh a bit, perversely enjoying the chase despite the inevitability of its ending. She heard the chopper and tried to catch a glimpse of that too, but was disappointed to learn it wasn’t within view.

  Returning her gaze forward, Jessica saw that she was coming up to the crest of a ridge. She let out a wordless yell just as the Cherokee went flying over the edge. Her joy turned to terror as her stomach rose up into her throat and her body came fully off the seat. The large vehicle got airborne for a second, only to come crashing to the earth with a hideous groan.

  Jessica’s face slammed into the steering wheel, sending a jolt of electricity through her head, past her neck, down her spine. Then she was spinning madly, her head flopping around and her body pushing away from the seat, held in place only by the rigid straps of the seatbelt. The pressure on her chest was nearly unbearable. She tried to scream but the force was too great and no sound issued from
her throat. There was a final angry screech of metal, then a dull thud, and the world went black.

  Jessica opened her eyes, looked around in confusion. Sand and little pebbles of safety glass were strewn about the Cherokee’s cabin. The world seemed to have slid to the right. Her vision swam and she shook her head, but that only made things worse. She closed her eyes for a moment. She coughed, sending shock-waves of agony shuttling through her torso.

  She gasped and her eyes shot open but the pain helped focus her thoughts. She suddenly remembered where she was and what had happened and how much trouble she was in.

  She tried to formulate a plan of action, but her thoughts were overwhelmed by the insistent whompwhompwhomp of a chopper. It filled her entire being, reverberating through her bones, rattling her teeth.

  She groped for the seatbelt release, finally finding it. After struggling with the mechanism for a few seconds, she pushed the button, freeing herself.

  Turning her attention to the door, Jessica turned the handle but the door didn’t budge. With a grunt of effort, she slammed her shoulder into it and it flew open. She climbed awkwardly out of the vehicle.

  Still light-headed from the blow to the steering wheel, Jessica stumbled away from the Cherokee, falling face-first to the sandy floor after just a few steps. She lifted herself up, but her legs didn’t want to cooperate, and she fell back to the ground. A few seconds later, she picked herself up again, only to fall once more.

  Even though Jessica knew she had failed, she refused to give up. Fighting back tears of frustration, she climbed to her knees and started to crawl away from the unholy din of the chopper as it set down a couple hundred feet behind her.

  The sound was all-encompassing; her head throbbed in time with the rotors. She turned towards the noise, but was forced to close her eyes and cover her face with her hands to avoid being blinded by the stinging whirlwind of sand.

  What she failed to see was a team of six heavily armed soldiers swarm out of the chopper, their movements smooth and perfectly coordinated from hundred of hours of working together. The soldier in the lead flashed a hand signal and the group behind him split into two teams--one headed in the direction of the disabled Jeep and the other bee-lining straight towards her.

  Jessica was still on her knees when they reached her. They wrenched her arms behind her back and bound her wrists together with plastic zip-ties. Then they pushed her face-first into the sand and zip-tied her ankles together. Spitting out sand from her mouth, she turned her head around to see the man who had stepped out of the Humvee back on the highway standing above her. She tried to plead with him but hadn’t gotten out so much as a word before he produced a hypodermic syringe, flicked the tip of the needle with his middle finger, and plunged it into her thigh.

  The world around Jessica frayed at the edges, closed in, then went black.

  DAY ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Greg Kelton lay flat in the waist-high sagebrush, waiting patiently for his prey to arrive.

  He was watching a two-story house in Rancho Santa Fe, an ultra-exclusive community of multi-million dollar homes just north of San Diego, located a few miles in from the Pacific Coast. Situated two hundreds yards off the main road and surrounded by a dense grove of eucalyptus trees, the property was designed to ensure privacy, which is exactly what Kelton needed.

  The house was owned by Jason Preston, the 23-year-old son of the international banking mogul, William Preston. Jason was an enterprising young man, educated at the finest prep schools and colleges in the country, and the sole heir to the multi-billion dollar Preston banking dynasty.

  He was also an unrepentant sexual predator.

  But despite being the main suspect in numerous cases over the past three years, Jason had never been convicted of any crime. In fact, he’d only ever been arrested once, and even then he was only in custody for an hour and a half before his father managed to get the charges dropped.

  Backed by billions of his father’s dollars and influence beyond calculation, Jason Preston assumed himself to be untouchable.

  Tonight he was going to learn the truth.

  Kelton had been in position for a little more than an hour when a black Lincoln Navigator pulled into the driveway. The grill of the large SUV stopped inches from the garage door. The engine cut and the passenger door opened.

  There were no lights on near the house but the full moon overhead was bright enough for Kelton to clearly see Jason Preston’s pinched, pockmarked face as the young man came around the back of the vehicle.

  With a spring in his step and a little grin painted on his face, Jason opened the rear passenger door, reached in, and pulled out a young woman who appeared to be bordering on the edge of consciousness.

  Grunting in effort, Jason slung her small, thin, limp body over his shoulder and walked towards the front door.

  Bottling up his disgust to be used as fuel as the evening moved along, Kelton waited until Jason was inside the house before initiating the operation.

  Once the door closed, Kelton pulled a ski mask over his head and carefully climbed to his feet. Maintaining a crouched position, he picked his way through the trees and across the perfectly manicured grass, moving quickly but unhurriedly, his movements smooth, almost oily, like a lion stalking its prey through the African bush.

  A few seconds later, he was standing next to the glass double doors at the rear of the house, watching as Jason carried the girl up the stairs to the second floor.

  After they’d disappeared from view, Kelton produced a set of lock-picking tools from his fanny pack and picked the lock. He eased the door open, slipped into the house, then eased the door closed.

  After a slight pause to pull a silenced .22 caliber Glock from his thigh holster, Kelton began moving across the carpeted floor towards the stairs.

  Walking in the measured, confident steps of someone practiced in the art of stealth, Kelton negotiated the steps with the Glock extended and angled up towards a partially open door at the end of the hall on the second floor.

  He had just reached the top of the steps when he heard Jason’s voice coming from the room beyond the open door. He slid into position just short of the doorway and peeked in through the sliver of space.

  The large room was equipped with a mirrored ceiling, an enormous plasma-screen TV, and a table with sex toys scattered haphazardly on top. An H-shaped contraption sat in one corner and a funky-looking swing hung from the ceiling in another. Four digital video cameras affixed to tripods were positioned strategically, covering the entire area.

  On top of the king-sized bed in the center of the room was the young, blonde-haired woman that Jason had pulled from the car. She was lying on her back, spread-eagled, wearing nothing but a bra and panties. Her wrists and ankles were bound loosely to the four corners of the bed. Her breathing was shallow and her eyes were closed.

  Jason was standing next to the bed with his back to Kelton, adjusting one of the video cameras. He had already stripped down to his boxers and was whistling softly as he worked.

  With the ski mask still covering his face, Kelton took a deep breath, pushed the door open with the toe of his soft-soled shoe, and stepped into the room.

  “Turn around, asshole.”

  Jason nearly jumped out his skin. He spun around, eyes wide, mouth open. He saw Kelton’s gun and threw his hands in front of his face. Cringing, he said, “What the hell is this?”

  “Keep your mouth shut.”

  “What do you want?”

  Kelton stepped forward and pressed the extended barrel of the silenced Glock up against Jason’s cheek.

  “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

  The cold steel seemed to get Jason’s attention. Despite the tears running down his face, the young man slammed his mouth shut without saying another word.

  “That’s better,” Kelton said. He took a step back, leveled the small bore barrel at Jason’s face. “Turn around.”

  “Why? What are you going to—”

&
nbsp; Kelton reared back and kicked Jason in the crotch, lifting the young man off his feet.

  Jason seemed to levitate for a moment before crashing to the carpeted floor. He immediately curled into the fetal position. He was mewling like a newborn kitten.

  “I told you to stay quiet,” Kelton said. “Pay attention.”

  Jason replied with a dry-heave, followed by a series of low, chest-rattling coughs.

  Kelton stepped over the young man, grabbed him by the armpits, lifted him to his feet and shoved him towards the bathroom door.

  Jason stumbled into the bathroom, obviously still in pain. Kelton spun him around, pushed him up against the far wall and said, “Sit. On the floor.”

  Jason did as he was told.

  Kelton glanced back at the girl—she hadn’t stirred in the least—before closing the door. He sat down on the edge of the bathtub, six feet away from Jason, and set the hand holding the Glock on his right knee. The gun was still pointed in Jason’s general direction, but not at any specific body part.

  “Can you talk yet?” Kelton said.

  Jason squawked out a hoarse, “Yeah.”

  “Good, because I’m going to ask you a couple of questions. And if you answer them honestly, maybe this night won’t end with you drowning in a pool of your own blood. Understand?”

  Jason nodded. Suddenly there was a shimmer of hope beneath his fear, which suited Kelton’s purposes perfectly. He wanted Jason to think there was a chance he’d get out of this situation unscathed. It would greatly lessen the chance of things spinning out of control, and if there was one thing Kelton valued above all else, it was being in control.

  Kelton leveled his gaze at Jason, hoping to convey the gravity of the situation with his eyes alone. “What did you give that girl in there?”

  “A mild sedative,” Jason stammered. “That’s it. Just enough to knock her out for a while.”