The Lethal Bones Read online

  Dalton shrugged. “I don’t see your point.”

  “I’m saying, the Review Board is unpredictable. You need hard evidence, or it can backfire on you. You haven’t seen Christoph around in a while, have you?”

  Dalton shook his head. “I’d rather kill her and be done with it.”

  “I thought we were trying to avoid a war.”

  "Maybe if you'd caught her little plaything Harvey Bennett, we wouldn't have to think about extreme measures like this. Yes, I'm trying to avoid an outright Branch war, but we've amassed enough munitions to conduct one if we have to. Which, thanks to you, we might."

  Rennie ducked his head. Yes, he had failed to bring in Harvey Bennett and left another civilian dead in the pursuit. More things to clean. More questions that would have to be answered, if Dalton failed to initiate his plan before members of the Club government caught wind of what they were doing out here.

  "I messed up," Rennie said. "I don't have an excuse. Bennett is more cunning than I gave him credit for. I thought two guys would be plenty to take on three civilians, but maybe I should have brought more."

  “Maybe we should be the ones trying to recruit him.” When Rennie looked at him with a raised eyebrow, Dalton gave a rueful laugh. “Just kidding. We’re way past that now.”

  “It’s not a bad idea, actually. Steal him out from underneath Ember’s nose.”

  Dalton shook his head. “No, no. We don’t have time for that now. But, speaking of, what do you have on his wallet?”

  Rennie cleared his throat at Kevin, who had been staring off in the distance. One of his favorite hobbies, apparently. Kevin snapped back into awareness and sat up straight.

  “We’re zeroing in on family members right now,” Kevin said.

  “Good. Every day we wait, the less leverage we have.” Dalton pointed at Rennie. “Make me a pros and cons list. Killing Ember. Worst-case scenarios if we take her out.”

  “Are you sure? Offhand, I can’t think of many pros, but there are a lot of cons.”

  Dalton glowered. “Are you saying you won’t do what I’m asking you to do?”

  Before Rennie could respond, the walkie talkie on the table squawked. Dalton snatched it and pressed the button on the side. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Dalton, sir. We have an intruder on the grounds.”

  20

  Ben’s hands were in the air as the six men by the truck shifted into a line opposite him. Some had rifles, some pistols. All of them were armed. None of them had raised their weapons to point at him yet, but most had hands ready, hovering near their guns.

  These men must have arrived seconds ago. Ben and Ember had scouted this area ten minutes before and had seen nothing. These people weren’t from inside the building, which meant they’d driven here from somewhere else.

  Which meant Ember had no idea Ben was in trouble right now.

  “Who are you?” asked a lanky white man who took a step in front of the others.

  “Tommy,” Ben said. “I’m just looking for the stadium. You know, where the, uh, Broncos play? My friend said it was over here, but my phone says I’m totally in the wrong place. Maybe you can help me? Point me in the right direction?”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “I’m on foot.”

  The lanky man spat on the ground. “Do we look like we’re the sort of people who can give you walking directions?”

  “No. I mean I guess, yeah? Sorry, I don’t really know.”

  As Ben eyed the weapons slung over their shoulders and in holsters on their belts, the half dozen men all exchanged a series of glances. Ben had trouble reading their intent. Obviously, he couldn’t pivot his feet and run. He might get twenty feet before one or all of them put a bullet or ten in his back. And, he couldn’t try to take them on, either. That was even less of a reasonable option. No, all he had left was talking his way out of this, and he hadn’t done a great job of that so far. But, he believed he could pull it off. If he acted confident, he would project confidence.

  “Look,” Ben said, “whoever you guys are, it’s none of my business. Whatever you’re doing out here in this parking lot with your truck and your guns, I don’t care. I’m not one to judge. I’m just lost, and I’m looking for someone to point me in the right direction. If you say you can’t help me with that, then cool. I’ll get out of your hair.”

  He considered a slow walk away, but the lanky man took another step closer, then pointed over Ben’s shoulder. Ben turned around to follow the finger.

  “See that structure way over there, closer to downtown? The one sticking up with that giant banner on the side, the orange and blue horse’s head?”

  Ben lifted a hand to block out the glare as he squinted. “Yep. I see it.”

  “That’s Mile High Stadium. You, dumbass, are nowhere near it, and I don’t believe for a second you’re on foot trying to find it. So why don’t you tell us what the hell you’re really doing here before we shoot you in your dumbass head and leave your body in the dirt for the coyotes to find.”

  Ben cleared his throat. Maybe he’d overestimated his confidence level. “I, uh, don’t know what to tell you. I’m lost. I thought you guys just might know which way to go.”

  “That way,” the guy said. “I already told you that. And then I told you I think you’re full of shit.”

  “What do we do?” asked a man at the edge of the line.

  “I think it’s him,” said another. “The Bennett guy, the one Mr. D’s looking for.”

  Ben tried not to show any reaction at the mention of his name, but he didn’t know if he’d pulled it off. “All right. I don’t want to take any more of your time, guys. I’ll move on and let you get back to whatever it is you’re doing.”

  The lanky man raised his gun and leveled the barrel at Ben’s face. “Don’t move.”

  Several others pointed their guns at Ben. Ben raised his hands. Making a break for it was beginning to seem like a better option. His eyes flicked around, looking for the best exit. Maybe at an angle up the hill. If I can run toward the sun, maybe the glare will interfere with their aim.

  The lanky man unclipped a walkie from his belt and set his assault rifle against the truck’s rear tire. He pressed a button on the side. “Dalton?”A scratchy reply came back, then the lanky man said, “Mr. Dalton, sir. We have an intruder on the grounds. How would you like us to proceed?”

  Ben heard the footsteps in the dirt, speeding toward him at a breakneck pace. He angled his neck to see Ember, running flat out in his direction. She was holding something in one hand, like a phone but with an antenna jiggling as she ran. Her hands knifed the air as she sprinted.

  Half the guards pointed their guns at her, and the other half stayed on Ben.

  “Don’t move!”

  Ember screeched to a halt, ten feet away from Ben. A cloud of dust pluming around her lower torso. Without a word, she held up the device in her hand and pressed a button on the side.

  The force of the blast reached Ben a split second before the sound. Like the most intense gust of wind he’d ever experienced. All eight of those present left their feet. Ben felt himself bending, the air pushing him over.

  The sound blasted Ben’s ears, but his eyes were still working. He watched two of the men smack into the side of the truck bed, their bodies bending in half over the edge of it. He knew he couldn’t hear bones breaking, but he also knew there was no way they’d be in one piece after a hit like that.

  The lanky man soared through the air toward Ben. They collapsed together, a cloud of dirt around them. Their bodies slammed into the soft dirt below, rolling a few feet and then landing in a pile of legs and arms.

  Ben couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see with the dust cloud in his eyes. But he could feel the lanky man’s hands around his throat. How is he already recovered? Ben thought. The pressure made his head want to pop, but he gritted his teeth and tried to focus. It was challenging with the man’s thumbs digging into his windpipe. To make matters worse, the guy�
�s fingers were about as lanky as the rest of him, and besides the choking, Ben felt like someone was jabbing two dull knives into his throat.

  Ben brought his knee up, jabbing it as hard as he could into whatever flesh of the man Ben could find. The hands around his throat loosened a bit. He jabbed up once again, then he shifted his weight and got farther underneath the lighter man. Ben threw his own weight, which tossed his attacker to the right then onto the ground. The man wheezed, eyes bulging. He rolled to his side and Ben saw that the guy’s back had landed on a rock, which had knocked the wind out of him.

  He’ll recover quickly, though, Ben thought. Better be ready with another —

  A hand grabbed Ben by the shoulder. He clenched a fist and prepared to throw a punch, but he looked up and saw Ember standing over him.

  “Let’s go,” she said. She looked like she was shouting, but the words hit his ears only as a muted whisper.

  “But —” Ben tried to argue, to point out the guy who was no doubt ready for another round, but before he could add anything else Ember fired two quick shots into the lanky man.

  The bullet blasts were like tiny thumps. The echo through his head was almost louder than the gunshots themselves.

  When Ben stood, she pointed back toward the hill they'd come from. She broke out into a run, and he had no choice but to follow. As Ben ran behind her, he looked over toward the building, half-collapsed.

  Then he noticed a piece of metal, lifting up from a collapsed portion of the warehouse. It was then pushed aside, and Dalton emerged from underneath the rubble.

  Covered in bits of plaster and dirt, he met Ben’s eyes.

  Dalton seethed, baring his teeth at Ben.

  21

  Dalton’s ears rang with a revolving thump, like standing outside a dance club with a boom of relentless bass coming through the walls. He took a visual inventory of his surroundings, trying to count who was still alive.

  A pair of legs stuck out from underneath a slab of broken concrete. Looks like Alex’s jeans. Dalton knelt down next to him and tried to lift the concrete, but it wouldn't budge. The puddle of blood on the ground suggested the Alex was gone. If the concrete hadn't crushed him, then he'd bled to death. Dalton tapped the legs a few times to see if he could get a reaction, but Alex didn't move.

  “That bitch," Dalton said, and his voice came out like a far away sound, like an alarm clock waking him from a dream. His ears popped, and when he stood, he had to brace himself against the husk of an exploded truck.

  Rennie and his other men were running around, trying to salvage what was left of the factory. As far as he could tell, Dalton didn’t think he’d lost anyone else. He didn’t spot Kevin, but with everyone scrambling and working to prepare for a second attack he knew wouldn’t come, he had trouble recognizing some of their faces. His vision was blurry and strained.

  Standing amid the rubble, Dalton considered going after Ember and Bennett. They had disappeared over the ridge to the west only a minute ago. He knew a bit about the area, but not enough to know exactly what lay that direction. And he didn't know if he could even command a hunting party at the moment, or how effective they'd be. His head thumped, and every part of him ached. Streams of blood cooled his forehead, and only the thickness of his eyebrows prevented the blood from dribbling into his eyes.

  He stumbled across the wreckage. Stepping over metal beams, chunks of drywall. Powdery clouds puffed every time he set a foot down. Must have been bombs in the trucks, because they were all blown to shit. That meant all their supplies were gone, as well.

  Good thing he’d not been in the basement when it had happened. The call from outside alerting him to an intruder had drawn them all out, onto the factory floor and toward the exits. Dalton could see parts of that floor had collapsed. Alex had been unlucky somehow. Too close to a concrete support, or something. Dalton couldn’t string together a coherent thought pattern to piece together how Alex had died. He even had trouble keeping his eyes open.

  “Sir?” Rennie said, standing in front of Dalton. Sounded like he was a thousand feet away. He had appeared there, and Dalton hadn’t noticed him before.

  “What?” Dalton shouted.

  “We need to get into the basement. The file cabinets down there… the paper copies. We have to get all that stuff out of the building as soon as possible.”

  Dalton shook his head. "No. Burn it all. The police will be here soon. We need to make sure no one can ever know we were here. We don't have time to figure out what needs to be salvaged and what's not important. And no way we can haul it out fast enough."

  “But, sir,” Rennie said, frowning. “All of our work…”

  Dalton could understand Rennie’s disappointment. Months and months of amassing weapons, months of collecting intelligence on the other Branches. They’d had a solid plan for Five Points to eliminate the governing leadership of the Denver Assassins Club and the other Branches in one fell swoop. And now, with a handful of explosives, Ember had set them back months, or maybe even years.

  That woman will pay. She and her new boy toy would pay dearly for this. Not only for that but for Alex. A good man dead in an act of cowardice.

  Dalton must have been worse off than he’d realized because the look on Rennie’s face told him he needed to get to a mirror soon. Rennie stepped in and took Dalton by the arm, then led him away from the building. Dalton wobbled, nearly collapsing. He was able to get out safely, on his own two feet, by focusing on his breaths. Focusing on his training.

  Focusing on his anger.

  Toward the truck that had been parked near the dirt mound, he could see a few bodies scattered around it. At least one dead, given the way he'd been bent backward over the back of the cab. Dalton didn't know the man's name. Someone new to the Branch, most likely.

  All of this, Ember’s fault. And Bennett. They would both suffer. Suffer like never before. Dalton would string them up by their thumbs and give both of them a thousand little cuts.

  Someone emerged into Dalton’s vision. Kevin, who had been in the basement with him. Dalton felt a rush of gratification he hadn’t been killed in Ember’s terrorist attack.

  Kevin was holding a phone, sprinting toward Dalton. He skidded to a stop a few feet away, panting and waving the phone. His nose was broken, bent at an odd angle. A curtain of blood caked his chin, and red dotted his shirt. But his eyes were open and alert.

  “You okay?” Dalton asked.

  “I’m fine. Bloody nose, that’s all. What you got there?”

  “We have it, sir.”

  “You have what?”

  “Leverage. We found Harvey Bennett’s younger brother Zach. He’s up in Fort Collins, going to school there.”

  Dalton nodded. “Excellent. First, we clean this up. Then, tomorrow, we’ll pay the little brother a visit.”

  22

  Ben waited until Ember waved him forward, then he left the car. She escorted him toward the building, this “Post Office” in Boulder. He couldn’t tell if it was the adrenaline or the altitude, but his brain had been buzzing nonstop since the escape from the weapons depot. He assumed they’d accomplished their goal there, which he hadn’t been quite clear on what it was.

  He had been a few seconds away from taking a bullet from one of those guys in the truck. Ember had not only saved his butt, she’d taken out a few of them in the process.

  Is this how it always is? he wondered. Nearly dying, then somehow making it out alive? And is winning just about luck, good training, or something about being a better person?

  He was about to have an existential crisis when he looked up at Ember.

  “Wait,” he said.

  She turned and faced him, hands on her hips. Looking impatient. “Yes?”

  “I know we’re in a hurry and all, but I have to know something. What’s our plan for Zach?”

  “Best plan is to stay away from him. We can’t afford to take the chance that he’s not being watched. There are eyes everywhere, Ben. Anything we try to do
is likely to lead Dalton right to him.”

  “But he’s got my wallet. Isn’t he going to find Zach anyway?

  Ember bit her lower lip. “He’ll be a little busy with his factory explosion right now. It’s bought us some time. Not much, but some.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then we have to make a direct strike at Dalton before he can do anything. We hit him hard and fast in a way he won’t see coming.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  "I'm working on it. I've got eyes and ears in places he doesn't know about. Come on; it's time to meet Salty."

  Ben wobbled across the parking lot. “Last time we were here, you wouldn’t let me come inside.”

  “Things are changing. For everyone.”

  She swiped a keycard against the side of a door with no handle, and it unlocked. If there was a keypad, it must have been hidden somehow. Sneaky. He would never have known how to open the door. Given the tinted windows preventing any light from escaping, he actually never would have known anyone was in this building. The cars in the parking lot were the only giveaway.

  Ember guided him inside to a hallway. “Try not to look anyone in the eye. You’re still technically not supposed to be here.”

  “Technically?”

  “It’s probably not a big deal. Everyone has enough of their own stuff to worry about right now. Just saying, no one is going to welcome you with a fruit basket and a bottle of wine with a bow tied around it.”

  “Is that how they normally welcome people?”

  She gave him that look he’d come to know all too well.

  “Understood.”

  He followed her down the hallway and couldn’t help but peek into every room they passed. One was a lounge, where several people were gathered around a set of couches, watching the news. Two others stood near the couch, playing air hockey.

  The room on the other side showed two people standing in front of a TV screen, with an image of a building blueprint showing. They were standing on either side of the blueprint, talking about the best way to sneak into the building.