Jones North Of The Rock

1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-912850-11-2
Verlag: Clink Street Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 308 Seiten

John Smith is a man who solves problems, just don't try to stop him. As a favour to an old friend in the FBI John returns to West Texas. But there is now a whole new town and way of life that has sprung up since he was last there ten years previously. He soon finds out he is in the middle of some very rich men who will stop at nothing to get what they want.

Ian Jones lives in London with his family and has a passion for motorbikes and music. This is his second novel.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jones, Ian

Leseproben

Chapter One

Day 1

The rental car was a new Buick, perfect for the roads; heavy and wide, a big engine, all the gadgets and a full tank of petrol. He put his bag in the boot and drove out of El Paso International airport, heading south to pick up the 10. He loaded Gray Rock into the satnav. Stated time to destination was three hours and forty minutes. He yawned and settled into the drive, he had been travelling more than sixteen hours already. London Heathrow to Dallas, wait around the airport for a couple of hours, then Dallas to El Paso.

He hit the 10 and as he followed the road east out into the open space the familiar West Texas landscape surrounded him. Not familiar in he saw it every day, or even regularly but familiar in that he had done this journey about eleven years ago. This exact same journey, and in all that time it hadn’t changed at all.

And now he was back. It had all started four days ago. It had been a quiet time for him, he had not accepted any work for a while, needing some solitude after taking on some difficult projects. He had been in town, buying groceries, wandering around, not really doing much at all and had eventually gone into a barber shop for a haircut. It had been fairly busy, but he was in no hurry so sat down to wait. There were newspapers and magazines scattered on a table and he had picked up a red top and flicked through it. There was nothing particularly newsworthy, a quiet day. But about ten or so pages in there was a ‘World News’ section, and there he was, staring out at him from the bottom of the page.

Anthony Collis. He hadn’t laid eyes on him or even thought about him in close to eleven years. It was the mug shot picture, the same photograph that had been in every newspaper when the news broke all those years ago. The heading above the picture just said, ‘Texan Assassin Will Be Freed.’

The article was brief and not particularly detailed. Texas had recently elected a new Chief Justice for the state Supreme Court, a man called Gregory Raymer, who had been a judge for many years, a proud Texan, viewed as a radical Republican with a controversial history. He was elected by a big margin, despite his extreme views. The case of Anthony Collis had been bouncing around in the Texas legal system ever since his incarceration over ten years ago, although it had quietened down a great deal after the initial furore. The original state governor had reacted very strongly when Collis had been found guilty, and there had been plenty of noise, rumoured pushes for the president to get involved. Reading the article John remembered it without much interest. Collis had murdered two men and a woman, and possibly others. He knew, because it was him that had made the arrest and handed him over to the FBI. But Texas was more than just a big state, it was practically a country in itself, and had rallied around its own. There had even been demonstrations and protests in several cities that it was a conspiracy, the wrong man had been convicted, the FBI had arrested an easy target. Now, Gregory Raymer had promised that one of the first things he would do in office would be to put this miscarriage of justice right, and was working to set an appeals courts hearing for as soon as possible.

Without reading any more, John turned over the page. This was a load of nonsense. Collis had done it, no question. Even the worst prosecutor in the world would have no problems making sure he stayed in prison where he belonged.

He got his hair cut, the usual number three all over and then drove home. It was autumn, late September. He loved this time of year, the air seemed fresher and it wasn’t yet cold enough for a coat. He unpacked the shopping and then booted his laptop, idly opening his messaging service.

Despite choosing to take a break, he had been checking it fairly regularly over the past few days so there were only a couple of new entries, and one jumped out at him straight away.

Patrick Skelton – PLEASE CALL ME URGENTLY! – and then two landline and one mobile telephone numbers.

This was very unusual. Patrick was someone he knew who worked for the FBI, he was pretty senior there, his job was basically to investigate the investigators. There were plenty of people who were nervous of him. They had first met when John was working on a case in Atlanta, and then more recently when he had uncovered a mess in Las Vegas.

It was the ‘urgently’ in capital letters that made him think, this wasn’t a word that he could picture Patrick using, everything had a specific place and time, well structured, there always had to be order.

Well ok, why the hell not, thought John and picked up his mobile. He liked Patrick, he was one of the good guys. It had been at least a couple of years since they last met, there was no harm in calling. Patrick was based in Washington, so he calculated it was about mid-morning over there. He called the mobile number as that was likely to be the easiest way to catch him.

Patrick answered quickly.

‘Patrick Skelton, hello?’

‘Patrick? It’s John.’

‘At last, some good news. How you doing?’

‘I’m fine, what’s up? Bit of a panicked message you left there Patrick.’

‘Yeah, well panic doesn’t really cover it. There’s a lot of headless chickens over here right now if you get what I’m saying.’

John was surprised to hear it. Patrick led a well organised life.

‘Why, what’s going on?’

‘It’s not going to make the news over your side of the pond. But Anthony Collis, it looks like he’s getting out.’

Patrick was looking for him to talk about that? Why?

‘Actually Patrick, I just read about that today. By chance. Some new judge or something, but he won’t get out, how can he? He was bang to rights.’

There was a sigh down the phone and some movement. Patrick sitting down probably. John could picture him; crisp shirt with sleeve creases that could cause an injury and a subtle tie. Shiny cufflinks.

‘There was a lot of trouble over that whole thing John. The governor back then made out like Collis was Texas’s favourite son. They claimed that we, and by that, I mean the FBI, set him up. At the time there was already some negative press about the FBI and this just made it worse. The CIA didn’t want it, so everything was down to us; and as a result we ended up looking like we were only after the glory.’

John remembered. It was true, the CIA hadn’t wanted it, even though it was an American citizen killing people in Europe. Which was why John had been asked to continue with it.

‘Sorry Patrick, it’s great talking with you but I don’t see what I can do.’

‘Right well, I’ve been given the job of going through everything and making sure that we are covered. The feeling is that this is going to become big news, and we will be dragged through it all over again. I’ve been told fairly bluntly that if we have screwed up anywhere at any point I got to get it sorted. Thing is, I wasn’t involved in it at all back then, so it’s all new to me. And trust me, I’ve got masses of files to wade through. And what’s the first thing I see? Your name, right there in black and white, stamped all over it.’

‘Yeah, well it kind of fell into my lap really. Came out of what we thought was nothing at all. I’d been working on something over here for a while and Collis’s name came up. Like you said, the CIA didn’t want it, they were no help but we had to do something so I went to the FBI with it, we had a good relationship with you guys. It was political at the time, all sorts of problems and your people were nervous about it, so I offered to be on point. And it was no problem at all, we got the right man.’

‘I’m sure you’re right John. But there is another factor that you don’t know about. You probably heard about all the protests down in Texas at the time?’

‘Yeah, I kind of followed it because I’d been working with you but from memory it didn’t do anything constructive though.’

‘Right, but a year later Collis’s younger brother Wayne walked into a public library in Austin with an assault rifle.’

‘Shit. No, I didn’t hear about that.’

‘I never knew about it either. It can’t have made headline news. Anyway, he barricaded the doors and demanded to speak to someone senior at the FBI. Said it was about his brother. If he didn’t get what he wanted, then it’s goodbye hostages. You know the score.’

‘Jesus. What happened.’

‘Austin PD were on the scene, and they had it pretty well secured, and they got their local SWAT team down there. Those guys know what they are doing. We sent in our local field officers, one of them starts claiming to be the section chief. Why the real chief didn’t get his sorry ass down there I have no idea. It was a fuck up, that much is clear. Turns out, Wayne Collis was a crack dealer and also an addict, and had been taken down by this same agent in a sting operation along with the DEA just a couple of months before.’

‘Ah.’

‘Yep. So he starts shooting.’

‘I can’t believe I never heard about this, it must have been big news.’

‘Well it would have been big news, no question. It happens too damned often over...