Bad Axe by James W. Hall

Author:James W. Hall [Hall, James W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dead Last Press
Published: 2020-07-03T16:00:00+00:00

Sugarman tossed Thorn’s duffel and Sofia’s overnight into the back of a white Chevy Tahoe and pulled out of the parking lot of the county morgue.

While he drove, Sugar explained how he’d arrived on the scene. First, he’d overheard the whole takedown in Thorn’s motel room on the open phone line because Bobby’s cell was lying on the bed while Thorn answered the knock on the door.

After what sounded like a scuffle, Sugar heard nothing more from Thorn, but did catch a conversation between a man and woman. He wasn’t sure if they were FBI or what, but they had a brisk, no-bullshit exchange about questioning Thorn, using language that Sugar registered as federal jargon.

When they discovered the cell phone lying on the bed, a female voice came on the line and asked who she was speaking with. Sugarman was silent but figured that since they now had his phone number, it wouldn’t be long before one of their kind showed up at this door in Key Largo.

He clicked off and called Frank Sheffield, filled him in on Thorn’s latest debacle, then asked if Frank would consider using his contacts to find out what kind of law enforcement operation was underway in the Tucson area. After cursing out Thorn for a colorful half-minute, Frank agreed to look into it, told Sugar he’d call him back as soon as he had something.

Not sure if Sheffield would follow through, Sugar packed, drove up to Miami, made it by eleven, got super lucky and nabbed a seat on a flight to Tucson that was currently boarding, and as he was sprinting down the concourse to the gate, Frank called back.

Some kind of task force run out of the Department of Defense was tracking a hate group that appeared to have acquired landmines containing VX nerve gas, part of the cache stolen from a base in the Pacific decades back.

“I know about the nerve gas stuff,” Sugar said.

Frank wanted to know how the hell he had that kind of info.

So Sugar gave him a quick rundown of Bobby Tennyson’s version of events and Frank agreed to poke around, see what else he could find.

Early afternoon when Sugar landed in Tucson, he checked in with Sheffield. By then Frank had an address where Thorn was being held. He’d bullshitted the head of the DOD task force in D.C., convincing him the Miami field office was running an operation targeting the same hate group, and the overlap had resulted in a fucked up case of mistaken identity with Thorn and Sofia wrongly taken into custody.

Frank coaxed an informal agreement with the DOD guy, promising to share all the FBI’s latest investigative notes—handwritten, video, audio, phone intercepts, everything they’d collected, as soon as his undercover operatives, Thorn and Sofia, were released from custody.

“Conning a federal official,” Thorn said.

“Guess it worked.”

“Generous of Frank,” said Thorn. “Anything in return?”

“He’d like you to put him on a school of tarpon sometime soon, mentioned fishing the flats off Flamingo.”

“I believe I can manage that.

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