Vanishing Point: A Warner & Lopez prequel novel Read online

  Table of Contents

  VANISHING POINT

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  Unnamed

  VANISHING POINT

  © 2018 Dean Crawford

  Publisher: Fictum Ltd

  The right of Dean Crawford to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  Dean Crawford Books

  I

  Manteno, Illinois

  2014

  Ethan Warner knew that he’d found his target. Sometimes, gut instinct was all you needed. That, and the aura of discomfort that enshrouded the guilty. He’d seen it before in Iraq and Afghanistan during his service with the United States Marines, the shifty glances and hesitant footsteps of insurgents trying to get close enough to American troops to detonate whatever hellish device they had constructed.

  A large Greyhound bus sat amid the glow of streetlights on a parking lot on 95th outside Princeton Park, forty miles south of Chicago as Ethan strolled up and boarded it. The bus interior was warm compared to the chill night air outside. He had a ticket for Missouri, a hundred bucks and change from the kiosk on the I–57 running south. A glance down the Greyhound and he knew he’d earn it back within a few minutes.

  Ethan had picked up his target’s trail out of Rockdale after a call–in from an informer he ran in Joliet, south–west of Chicago. Dwayne Austin, forty–two, out of Cicero, was on the run for multiple aggravated assaults and burglaries on the south–side from a couple of years back. After a botched robbery of a convenience store in Englewood, when a courageous cashier had stood up to Austin’s attack and been beaten half to death for his troubles, Austin had been arrested and jailed at Cook County only to be bailed for a remarkable twenty thousand dollars. Predictably, Austin had skipped bail. Local law enforcement had been on the lookout for him but Ethan had been keen to beat them to the chase and collect the bounty. Thing was, Austin had then vanished into thin air and not been seen for almost a year.

  Figuring that Austin, a man with family in the windy city, would lie low for a while before returning home, Ethan had put the word out. After a twelve month wait, he had been rewarded with the sighting of Austin boarding a Greyhound for Arkansas via Missouri. Ethan had no idea who had bailed Austin, a man with no known connection to big money, but he sure as hell didn’t care right now. Austin was looking at five to ten inside, but if Austin crossed the border into Missouri he could wave from across the state line and there was nothing Ethan could do about it. Six foot two and heavily built, Austin wasn’t going to be a walkover, but Ethan had a trick or two up his sleeve. He made his way to a vacant seat, walking past Austin without looking at him but checking him out none the less.

  Austin’s face was mostly hidden behind a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, but Ethan could see his neck where a cheaply deleted Outlaws tattoo scarred the skin. Austin had been a member of the motorcycle gang for some years, although they now considered him too hot to handle and had booted him out a year prior to the assaults and burglaries. That was when Austin had disappeared, completely vanished from trace until the recent reappearance in Chicago.

  Ethan took a seat two rows back from where Austin slouched and surveyed the rest of the bus. There was maybe a dozen or so people aboard, two young children with their mother Ethan’s biggest concern. Trick was to get Austin off the bus without risking anyone else’s safety – Austin was known to be violent and taking a hostage was probably something he would try if he was cornered. Worse, he was known to carry firearms. Ethan couldn’t afford a firefight on a bus even if he was carrying, which he wasn’t, but there was no guarantee some other have–a–go hero wouldn’t pull a piece and get involved.

  The bus pulled out and Ethan watched Austin carefully. The man had been feigning sleep while the bus was in the lot, keeping his head low, but now as it moved slowly out and accelerated onto the interstate he came back to life. Ethan hid behind the headrest of the seat in front and watched surreptitiously as Austin pulled out a roll of bank notes and began counting them.

  Ethan figured that Austin must have robbed someone or someplace in the last few hours, maybe even before boarding the bus. His recorded posessions at Cook County Jail amounted to a few dollars in change and cigarettes, nothing like the fat wad of twenties he was caressing in his hands like a newborn child.

  Ethan settled in to watch as the Greyhound rejoined the I–57. Soon, the trap he had laid for Austin would be sprung.

  *

  Kankakee, Illinois

  Nicola Lopez sat in a flame–red Corvette with her sneakers propped up on the dash in front of her and her cell phone resting between her thighs. The screen glowed blue in the darkness, her car pulled in and out of sight of the I–57 where she lay in wait. Dressed for the chase, she knew from Ethan’s texts that Dwayne Austin was aboard the Greyhound as were numerous innocent folks. Priority number one was to get Austin off the bus without him being able to take hostages or otherwise hurt bystanders.

  Traffic streamed by along the darkened highway as she waited. There wasn’t much to the job but the big payoff at the end, two thousand bucks a huge haul for one low–life bail runner. Most all perps they pulled were worth a fraction of that, although there were plenty of them. The greatest shame was how many had once been normal, law–abiding citizens who had then descended into crime as a result of addiction to powerful painkillers after automobile or industrial accidents. Lopez had lost count of how many opioid–addicted runners she’d apprehended who had once been lawyers, business owners, military personnel, even a couple of bail–bondsmen running a fentanyl ring out of the south–side.

  She glanced at her reflection in the car mirror, long dark hair pinned behind her head in a pony tail and dark, almost black eyes staring back at her. She’d come a long way from Guanajuato in Mexico all those years ago, and through the Washington MPD to here, sweeping up the scum of life in the windy city.

  Her phone buzzed in her lap and she saw a message from Ethan.

  Two minutes out.

  The jump was easy. Lopez would slow the bus down to a stop using her Corvette, and then board the bus while Ethan closed in on Austin from behind, effectively pinning him between them where they could overpower him. Neither she nor Ethan were armed, in accordance with Illinois’ state gun laws. They were actually qualified to carry concealed, but neither did given the difficulty in dealing with exchanges of gunfire when perps were found to be carrying. The law was a minefield and a single misplaced shot could bring legal hell or, worse, an innocent fatality that neither she nor Ethan wanted on their conscience.

  Lopez started the Corvette’s engine. This was going to have to be swift and efficient, bringing the Greyhound to a halt rapidly but smoothly to avoid alerting Austin to the sting.

  Moments later, the Greyhound bus roared past and Lopez gunned the engine, the Corvette lurching out of hiding and screeching onto the freeway.

  ‘The game’s afoot,’ she murmured as she saw the Greyhound’s tail lights
ahead.

  ***

  II

  Ethan glanced out of his window as the bus cruised along the highway, and right on time he saw Lopez’s red corvette move out. He heard the big engine growl as it accelerated past the bus before moving in front of it. They had practiced this manoeuvre a few times in the past to get bail runners out of moving vehicles, and it had worked like clockwork every time.

  The bus slowed, the driver changing down through the gears. Ethan watched the road alongside the bus and waited for the tell–tale flashing of the indicator lights that would confirm to him that the bus was going to pull over. They were right outside the town of Kankakee, the river probably somewhere just ahead of them, and out here they would quickly overpower Austin and get him into their vehicle. Ethan figured Lopez would aim to stop the bus on the bridge over the river, limiting Austin’s escape routes.

  Ethan prepared to move, ready for anything as the bus slowed further and the indicator lights began blinking in the darkness. He carried two pairs of metal cuffs, the second pair for Austin’s ankles if he became too much of a handful, and Lopez also carried pepper spray to help incapacitate their mark.

  He saw Austin look up as the bus began to slow down and pull in to the side of the freeway. He’d been on his cell for a couple of minutes, talking quietly enough not to be heard by the other passengers. Alert but not apparently concerned, Austin put the cell away and watched intently as though he were considering what was happening. Then, quite suddenly, he leaped out of his seat and bolted for the front of the bus.

  Ethan got up and moved after him but he stayed silent, slipping down the center aisle as the bus slowed and the brakes hissed as it came to a stop. The bus driver saw Austin rush up on him in one of the mirrors and was about to cry out a warning when Austin lunged past him and hit the switch to open the doors. The double doors hissed apart and Ethan closed in without making a sound as Austin leaped from the bus and into the night just as Lopez came sprinting to the doors.

  Lopez ducked down as Austin’s bulk tumbled from the bus, and she rolled into his legs. The towering convict hurtled over her and lost his balance as Lopez drove up from the thighs and flipped the big man over.

  Austin crashed down onto the asphalt but he rolled with surprising grace and came up on one foot as Lopez whirled to face him. Lopez jabbed out with one fist to strike Austin on the nose and briefly blind him, but the big thug smashed her arm aside and swung one fist into her chest. Lopez slammed into the side of the bus as Austin turned and ran, just as Ethan leaped out of the doors.

  Ethan broke into a full run in pursuit as Lopez coughed and slumped against the bus, struggling to catch her breath and get back on her feet. She threw a can of pepper spray up into the air and Ethan deftly caught it as he sprinted past. Austin was running hard out into the night across a bridge that spanned the Kankakee River.

  ‘There’s nowhere to run, Dwayne!’ Ethan yelled.

  The convict didn’t reply as he ran, Ethan closing the gap steadily as he found his pace, the pepper spray clutched in one hand. He didn’t know if Lopez was behind him but he figured that she was out of the count right now after taking Austin’s punch.

  Austin made it out to the center of the bridge, running hard. A golf course and woods were ahead to the left and it looked like he might make it into the darkness. Ethan cursed to himself as he ran. The bus driver would call the police and they would search the area, and with helicopters and dogs it would only be a matter of time before they found Austin and Ethan could kiss goodbye to two thousand bucks.

  Ethan tried something else.

  ‘Don’t make me shoot Dwayne! Stop now and get down on the ground!’

  To Ethan’s surprise, Austin heard the warning above the roar of passing traffic. He slowed and put his hands in the air, his chest heaving as he turned to face Ethan. He was standing alongside the edge of the bridge, the black waters of the Kankakee River sliding by fifty feet below them.

  Ethan slowed, the pepper spray can in one hand. He pointed it at Dwayne as though it were a gun, hoping against hope that in the darkness the dim–witted thug would not realise it wasn’t a pistol. With no lights on the bridge and only the flashes of brilliance from passing headlights, it was tough to see anything at all.

  ‘Face down on the ground!’ Ethan yelled, to keep up the pretence.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ Dwayne yelled in panic.

  Ethan, surprised, dropped his voice.

  ‘Easy, nobody’s gonna get shot just as long as you do as I say.’

  ‘I said don’t shoot!’

  Dwayne’s voice rose higher, echoing into the night. Ethan hesitated, froze on the spot as some instinct told him that something was going terribly wrong.

  ‘I’m not going to shoot you,’ he said. ‘I just want to…’

  ‘No!’

  Dwayne Austin’s last word was twisted high with terror, his eyes wide as he stared at Ethan, and then he turned and hurled himself over the side of the bridge. Ethan stared in shock as the big man vanished into the darkness, and he dashed to the side of the bridge to hear but not see Austin crash into the black water.

  ‘What the hell?’ Ethan uttered.

  Lopez staggered up to him, holding her bruised chest and fighting for breath as she stared down at the water below them.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ she uttered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ethan said as he grabbed his cell phone and began dialing, the bounty forgotten. ‘He’s not going to last long in the water. I’m calling an ambulance. I don’t want this guy dying on us and…’

  The sound of sirens cut Ethan off, and he looked up to see four squad cars tearing down the freeway toward them with lights flashing blue and red. The cars screeched to a halt twenty yards away and armed police leaped from within them, all pointing pistols directly at Ethan.

  ‘Armed police, stand still and put your hands in the air!’

  Ethan stared at them for a long moment, then slowly put his hands up.

  ‘How the hell did they get here so fast?’ Lopez asked.

  Ethan shook his head slowly, no answer in his mind as the police advanced upon them, their pistols pointed unwaveringly at his chest.

  ‘Face down on the ground, hands behind your backs! Down, down, down!’

  Ethan complied, familiar with the routine of apprehending suspects. He figured that they had mistaken him for Dwayne Austin. As the police closed in, Ethan called out to them.

  ‘We’re bail bondsmen, there’s a perp in the water, he just jumped. You need to call an ambulance, he won’t last long down there…’

  ‘Ethan Warner, you’re under arrest for homicide and the discharge of an unlicensed weapon on a public highway.’

  Ethan stared at Lopez, who looked back at him in shock as two police officers locked them into handcuffs and hauled them to their feet. Instantly, Lopez was led away by two officers, separating her from Ethan.

  ‘I’m unarmed,’ Ethan replied, trying to stay calm. ‘We were pursuing a bail runner named Dwayne Austin, but he took a dive over the bridge. You need to get someone down there before the idiot goes and drowns.’

  The police officers glanced at the side of the bridge and one of them immediately radioed in for assistance as the other guided Ethan back toward one of the squad cars. Ethan noticed with some relief that the other armed officers had put their weapons away.

  ‘We’ll take care of Austin, that’s if he can be found.’

  ‘I don’t carry a weapon,’ Ethan repeated. ‘Neither does my partner. We were calling an ambulance after Austin went over the side when you guys showed up.’

  The officer said nothing as he directed Ethan to the squad car and opened a door for him. Ethan hesitated.

  ‘Don’t make this harder than it already is,’ the officer said. ‘Get in the car, watch your head.’

  Ethan saw Lopez being directed to a second squad vehicle.

  ‘How did you guys get out here so fast?’ he asked the officer.

 
; ‘In the car, please sir.’

  Ethan sighed and climbed into the vehicle, and as the door was shut behind him he saw officers taking witness statements from passengers in the bus who had got out to see what was happening. They were gesticulating, speaking animatedly, and then one of them pointed at Ethan and even from a distance he could see what she was saying.

  That one you arrested, he shot the other guy.

  ***

  III

  Kankakee Police Department, Illinois

  It had been a long time since Ethan had sat inside a police cell.

  The cold gray walls were scarred with juvenile graffiti, the twisted verse of an illiterate and desperate portion of society that existed on the fringes of what most people considered normality. The thin mattress beneath him was tainted with the odors of stale sweat, bodily fluids and bleach. The door was forged from steel and as cold as ice, dull green paint flaking from it. A thin blanket and a pillow yellowed with age accompanied him as he awaited interview with the arresting officers. They’d already processed him, taking inventory of his possessions before taking his boots or anything else he could conceivably use to harm himself and locking him up.

  Somewhere down the hall, he could hear a man jumped–up on drugs screeching thin, wailing sounds and clawing at his cell door. Others hollered obscenities back or clattered tin cups against cell doors, a cacophony of misery, the hymn of the damned.

  After a three–hour wait an officer finally unlocked Ethan’s door and he was cuffed once again and led to an interview room. He was sat down and cuffed to the table, and then two officers sat down opposite him and closed the door.

  ‘Officers Bailey and Rikard, one forty am, in custody with Ethan Warner, arrested on suspicion of the homicide of one Dwayne Austin and illegal discharge of a firearm.’

  Ethan riled at the accusation but he said nothing. Bailey was the older of the two and bore the insignia of a sergeant. Balding and a tad overweight, he looked world–weary and hid behind a thick moustache that drooped either side of his jowls. Rikard was young, thin and keen–eyed, watching Ethan with a mixture of fascination and disgust.