Loose Ends (The Hammer Commission Book 3) Read online

  "What about those three?" Mark asked nodding towards the wounded.

  "By the time they get to talk to their lawyers, the press will have moved onto another story. So no one's going to care what they have to say."

  Mark nodded and George came back in and handed him one of the windbreakers, so Mark put that on.

  "So, any idea on how the hell I'm going to get back home?" Mark sighed walking over to the van and starting to look around for the bag that had his wallet and keys.

  "I'll have one of the guys drive you back to the local office, and after you type up your report, I'll see to it."

  Mark nodded, "Throw in a couple of sub's and a beer and I'm all in."

  "Sub's I can do. Not so sure about the beers though," Bill chuckled.

  "Hey, I'm supposed to be on vacation," Mark said finally finding his wallet. "And I'll even pay!" He said waving his wallet in the air.

  # #

  Mark sighed and leaned back in the passenger's seat as they headed back to his mother's house. It was late, after ten pm. He'd taken a shower, gotten a clean pullover shirt from someone at the local FBI headquarters in Brooklyn, successfully avoided any questions about not being wounded or cut up and even managed to type up a report that was fairly true and avoided mentioning that he'd been shot twice, thrown a grown man ten feet with enough force to knock another one down, or grabbed a third by the neck tight enough that he'd actually broken the guy's neck.

  Then there was the guy he'd butt-stroked in the face. That guy was in a coma and they weren't sure he was going to live; apparently Mark had hit him very hard. Mark sighed again thinking about it. He was used to dealing with supernatural creatures, devils, demons, not humans. With the adrenaline flowing, he'd apparently used a lot more strength than he should have.

  At least the one he'd shot was still conscious and was able to answer a few questions. They had been able to ID all of the perps quickly; they'd all had their wallets and driver's licenses. The 'boss' had been one David Rochell, a man with a very lengthy record for all sorts of nasty stuff. But mostly takeover robberies, armored car heists, and kidnapping. As well as suspected of a hell of a lot more.

  His number two man, the one who Mark had shot, was one Jeffery Zucker. He had a long association with David, and about the same track record. But the other three men, none of them had records for anything more than petty crime, one of them was an actor in an off-Broadway play of all things! He was the one with the fake body armor. Bill's general thought was that David didn't really expect much in the way of resistance, so he just wanted bodies, guys who would work cheap, not experienced pros who would have cost him more.

  Both Mark and Bill Frey found it very interesting that David's employer shot him in the head before trying to flee the scene. Bill's boss had immediately assigned a team to get a search warrant and go to David's apartment, as well as through his bank accounts. Seeing as David was now deceased, having died in the commission of a capital crime, the warrant had been granted rather quickly.

  As for David's employer, that was one Raul Silva, current address, unknown. Current employer, unknown. In fact, they weren't even sure that Raul Silva existed. They were still running his prints and dental records when Mark left. The car Raul had been driving was a rental, and the credit card Raul had used was fairly new as well. None of this had made Mark happy; apparently his brother had come to the attention of some well-funded and not very law-abiding people.

  He'd be having words with Thomas, and while he didn't think his brother was involved in anything illegal, at least not knowingly, they still were probably not going to be very polite words.

  The driver left the expressway and turned off the service road when they came to the exit for his mother's house. The ride had mostly been in silence, as Mark was reading through the copies of the reports that Bill Frey had given him and thinking about what had happened today.

  "Here we are, Sir," the driver said, stopping in front of his mother's house.

  "Thanks," Mark said opening the door and getting out, "I appreciate the ride. Have a good night," he said and closed the door. Turning he walked up to the front door, where he was met by Hope, the others waiting at least until he got inside before they mobbed him.

  "Where is everyone?" He asked, after kissing each of them hello.

  "Well, your mom went to bed an hour ago," Hope told him. "Thomas went home hours ago.

  "So, what happened?" Hope asked.

  "Someone tried to kidnap Thomas, but I'm not sure why," Mark sighed and told them the whole story, not leaving anything out.

  "Let's worry about that tomorrow," Charity said, taking Mark by the arm, "it's been a long day for you, let's go to bed. You can have it out with your brother in the morning, after church."

  "You're going to church with me?" Mark chuckled and looked at the expressions on his wives' faces. They weren't big on crowds, and church here in Brookhaven promised to be just that.

  "Your mother was really excited by the idea," Charity said smirking at the others, "so they all agreed."

  Mark laughed and let Charity lead him off to the guest bedroom they were using. Obviously someone had used a little force on the other three to get them to agree. Normally he would have suspected Helena, but from the look on her face apparently it had been one of the others.

  3: Thomas's House, Brookhaven New York

  Mark's brother Thomas was scowling at him. Mark had literally dragged him away from the barbeque that they were all having at his brother's house, and upstairs into his brother's private home office.

  "What are you doing, Mark?" Thomas asked, not sounding very pleased.

  "I want to know why some very nasty and bad people wanted to kidnap my younger brother," Mark said, pushing his brother into a chair and looking down at him.

  "I'm rich, they wanted money. That's all," Thomas said.

  Mark shook his head, "No, Tom. They weren't after your money. They were after you, and they were after something in one of the research labs."

  "What?"

  "No idea."

  "Well, have you tried asking them?"

  Mark sighed and looked at his brother, "They're dead, so they're not going to be talking anytime soon."

  "Dead?" Thomas said, looking at him in surprise.

  "They had guns, lots of guns. What did you think was going to happen when they suddenly discovered that instead of an award winning and very rich biochemist, that they instead had a very nasty and dangerous FBI agent?"

  "But, you're alright! You're not even bruised! I thought that the rest of the FBI showed up and they just arrested all of them!"

  "How would they have even known where I was, Tom? Magic? No, by the time the police showed up, it was all over and done. Unfortunately the guy in charge was killed fleeing the scene."

  "You, killed him?" Thomas said, looking shocked.

  "No, he drove his car into a telephone pole. As he wasn't wearing a seatbelt and his airbag failed rather spectacularly, he didn't last long."

  "Was he the one who kicked in the door?"

  "No, we met him when the guys who had been hired to kidnap you got to the handoff."

  "What happened to those guys?"

  Mark sighed and started to pace back and forth in front of his brother. "Raul, the guy who was paying for all of this, he tried to shoot me, along with the guy who kicked in the door. Unfortunately a few of the other guys got in the way. So after missing me a few times and shooting the others, Raul shot the guy in charge, killing him, then ran.

  "It took me a few moments to subdue the ones who weren't shot, and then I went after Raul. He panicked, we wrestled over control of the car, it crashed, my airbag deployed, his didn't."

  "Wow, I had no idea you were such a badass," Thomas said shaking his head.

  Mark stopped and rolled his eyes, "I would think the whole four wives thing would have given that away!"

  Mark shook his head as Thomas snickered.

  "So, Tom, what's in the research labs?" />
  "Some new treatments we're working on, but it's all still in the development stages. We're not even ready for preliminary tests, much less any kind of trials."

  "What kinds of treatments?"

  "They're all company secrets; I can't share that with you, Mark."

  "Thomas," Mark sighed and looked down at his brother, "I am perfectly willing and able to pin you to the floor and sit on you until you talk."

  "You wouldn't!"

  "Of course I would," Mark smiled slowly, "you're my little brother and it is perfectly within my rights to torture the hell out of you."

  "I'll tell mom!" Thomas said, looking shocked.

  "And I'll tell her, as well as Jeri, that it's for your own good, because I'm trying to protect you, and them from some very bad people. And they'll believe me. Because I work for the 'good' guys."

  Mark took a step closer and stopped smiling as he looked down at his brother. "Now, are you going to tell your brother who almost took a bullet for you, what you're doing?"

  Thomas sighed, "We've got four things in development. The newest one is a treatment for dementia patients, to try and stop the decline.

  "Next is a radical new therapy for people with myopathy...."

  Mark interrupted him. "Myopathy? What's that?"

  "It's a muscle wasting disease, it strikes more women then men. It has multiple causes that have been identified, and more that haven't. But the end effect appears to be the same in all cases; your muscles just inflame and weaken. Eventually, they waste away. It's slow and painful and there hasn't been much success in treatment. Well, we stumbled across something recently and we think it has promise."

  Mark nodded, "Go on."

  "Well, the third one is a new approach on autoimmune diseases. It's mostly government grant money that's driving it. Nothing really earth shattering there. The fourth is a refinement of our line of diabetes medications."

  Mark nodded. "So, just those four things?"

  "Well, we're reconditioning two of the labs for new work, as we just released one new product into advanced efficacy trials, so it's been moved into one of the production labs. The other one didn't pan out, so we dropped it."

  Mark 'hmmed' a bit and went over to sit on the edge of Thomas's desk and think about things.

  "You wouldn't have really pinned me to the floor, would you?" Thomas asked, half jokingly.

  "In a heartbeat," Mark said still thinking about this whole situation. Obviously something in one of those four lines was worth kidnapping his brother over, and probably picking his brains as well. But which one?"

  "Tomorrow you can show me what's going on in those labs, and I'll see if I can't figure out which one is so important that someone would want to kidnap you."

  "Wait, what? I can't do that! The shareholders will have a fit!"

  "And what do you think Mom will do to me if you get kidnapped? Especially now that I'm involved and everyone knows I work with the feds?" Mark shook his head, "Sorry Tom, but that's the way it's going to be. I don't like it anymore than you do, but something drew these people in, and I don't think they're going to just fade away because I stopped their first attempt.

  "Oh, one other thing," Mark said, looking up at him.

  "What?"

  "Hire some security, some good security. Get a bodyguard, get a bunch of them, armed ones. Put them on your wife, your kids, and yourself. And put armed guards into the building as well."

  "What? Bodyguards? Are you serious?"

  "You don't think they won't try to snatch your kids or Jeri next? Or maybe Mom?"

  "The town will kill me!"

  "The town will shut up and not say boo. I'll have the boss at the FBI talk to your congressman and your senators. You bring a lot of tax money and prestige in. Trust me; they'll roll over so fast that you'll feel a breeze.

  "Now, let's go back outside and enjoy some charred hotdogs and a few beers, while your sons all drool over my wives in their bikinis," Mark said standing up.

  Thomas blinked and stood up slowly, "You dump all of that on me, and now you just want to go out and drink some beers?"

  Mark shrugged, "Right now the feds and the local police are watching you like a hawk. I don't expect anyone to try again for at least a week or two, probably longer. That gives you time to get your security updated and me to find out just who is behind this."

  "You're looking into this?" Thomas said, sounding rather surprised.

  "Unless my boss specifically orders me not to, of course I'm looking into this," Mark said. "You're my brother and my family. We're a very family based organization after all."

  "Huh, I never thought of the FBI like that," Thomas said as they walked towards the door.

  "Who's talking about the FBI?" Mark chuckled, "I'm on loan to them, I don't work for them."

  "Oh!"

  "Yeah, Oh. And start going to church again, Okay?" Mark said with a smile.

  4: LevGen Labs, Brookhaven, New York

  Mark didn't get to his brother's company until after ten. He'd had to drop Helena, Charity, and Hope off at the airport to fly back home. He wasn't the only one who was worried about what their children just might get up to, if left unsupervised for too long. They were his kids after all.

  Faith was staying with him for now, and with any luck he'd be heading home with her for a well-needed vacation in a day or two.

  Mark parked the rental car in the 'visitor' parking spot and walked up to the front doors, which were currently being replaced by a couple of workmen. Slipping by them, with Faith following him, he came up to the guard sitting behind the desk.

  "Yes, may I help you?"

  "Yeah, please tell Thomas that his brother is here," Mark said looking around. Other than the front doors, the damage had been fairly minimal.

  "He's in his office; someone will be down momentarily to show you up. Could you both sign in please?"

  Mark nodded and signed the logbook, then let Faith do the same. By the time they were done a young woman had showed up and led them down the hallway and up the stairs to Thomas's office.

  "What kind of a mood is my brother in today?" He asked her.

  "Excuse me?" She asked, looking a little surprised.

  "He's making me come to him, that means he's either feeling slighted, or looking for a fight," Mark said with a smile. "So which do you think it is?"

  "Maybe he's just busy?" she said looking a little embarrassed.

  "Uh-huh, sure. Which is it?"

  "Umm, there's a guy from the FBI up there, as well as the company's lawyer and two members of the board."

  Mark smiled, "Thanks," and walked inside the office as she opened the door.

  "Mark," Thomas said and the stood up as he saw Faith enter the room, "Faith! I thought you were going home with the others?"

  Faith laughed, "And leave him all alone? Then who knows what kinds of trouble he'll get into."

  Mark looked around the room; Agent Bill Frey was standing up, plus three other men that Mark didn't know.

  "Agent Frey, this is my wife, Faith," Mark said, introducing his wife. He turned to Thomas, "Could you introduce us all to the others please, Tom?"

  Mark smiled as his brother flinched a little at the use of his more familiar name, Mark usually only called him Tom in private.

  "This is Todd Sutherland," Thomas said coming from behind his desk. "He's our head corporate lawyer. This is Scott Patrick, he's the company vice president and on our board, and this is Jack Smith, he's also on the board and deals with outside appropriations for us.

  "Gentlemen, this is my brother Mark, and his wife Faith," Thomas said, completing the introductions.

  "Great," Mark said and smiled at all of them. "Now, how about we all go downstairs and check out those labs?"

  "Mark, I told you that the board and our lawyers weren't going to allow that," Thomas said, looking at him.

  Mark nodded, "Yes, and if you hadn't involved them, they'd be none the wiser. But now that you have, I guess they can tag along
as well."

  "Mr. Levin," Todd, their lawyer spoke up, "this is all highly irregular! You don't have a warrant; you don't even have grounds for a search!"

  "A team of men break in here over the weekend, try to kidnap my brother, your President and CEO, in order to pump him dry about something going on in one of your research labs here, possibly killing him in the process, and you're not interested in why?" Mark asked.

  "You don't know that for sure," Todd said defensively.

  "Actually, I do," Mark replied. "And honestly? Even if you don't care. I do. Thomas is my brother and I need to find out what he's gotten himself into."

  "But you can't just waltz in here and demand to see our confidential labs!" Scott Patrick said.

  Mark smiled, "Actually, I can. And I am. After all, who is going to stop me? You? Hardly. Your lawyer? Nope. I don't think you gentlemen," Mark favored them with his best evil smile, one of the ones he used to practice in the mirror for use on lesser demons who were usually fairly easy to intimidate. He'd found over the years that it worked equally well on most humans, "understand that this isn't about the law. This is about family. I'll just use the law as a club to beat to death whoever is behind this mess."

  They all flinched back, rather satisfactorily at that, Mark was pleased to see he hadn't lost his touch.

  "Agent Frey!" Todd said, "I must protest! You have to stop this! It's illegal!"

  Bill laughed, "I saw what he did to those guys who tried to kidnap your brother, four dead, one in a coma, and another in ICU with a gun shot wound from his own gun? You heard him, this is family." Bill shrugged and smiled, "Not my jurisdiction, the FBI doesn't do domestic disturbances."

  "Really now, Thomas," Faith said taking Thomas's arm and leading him towards the door, "do you think your own brother is going to steal your secrets or something? What would your mother say? You should be ashamed; especially after all he went through saving your life!"

  Mark watched as Faith led his brother out of the office and down the hall towards the stairs. The others probably couldn't tell that Faith was actually manhandling his brother, who was much larger than she was. The look of confusion on his brother's face as Faith dragged him off was pretty funny, as were the threats of getting their mother involved. Thomas may be an adult, but even Faith had twigged to the fact that Thomas was still something of a mama's boy, having been the youngest child, and lived in fear of making their mother mad at him.