Catch a Ghost (Hell or High Water) Read online

  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 6652

  Hillsborough, NJ 08844

  http://www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Catch a Ghost

  Copyright © 2013 by SE Jakes

  Cover Art by Victoria Colotta, http://www.vmc-artdesign.com

  Editor: Sarah Frantz

  Layout: L.C. Chase, http://lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [email protected].

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-038-3

  First edition

  September, 2013

  Also available in paperback:

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-039-0

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  Everyone knows that Prophet—former Navy SEAL, former CIA spook, full-time pain in the ass—works alone. But his boss at Extreme Escapes, Ltd. has just assigned Proph a new partner and a case haunted by ghosts from Proph’s past. Suddenly, he has to confront both head-on.

  Tom Boudreaux—failed FBI agent, failed sheriff, full-time believer in bad luck—is wondering why the head of a private contracting firm has hunted him down to offer him a job. Still, he’s determined to succeed this time, despite being partnered with Prophet, EE’s most successful, lethal, and annoying operative, on a case that resurrects his own painful past.

  Together, Prophet and Tom must find a way to take down killers in the dangerous world of underground cage matches while fighting their own dangerous attraction. When they find themselves caught in the crossfire, these two loners must trust each other and work together to escape their ghosts . . . or pay the price.

  For JH, because it all started with you.

  You don’t know what you’re alive for until you know what you would die for.

  —Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

  —Oscar Wilde

  About Catch a Ghost

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Acknowledgments

  Also by SE Jakes

  About the Author

  The encrypted email had been sent to Tom Boudreaux’s private email address. He couldn’t trace its origins, but after watching the video attachment, he was betting it hadn’t come from either of the men who held the starring roles.

  The footage was dated a decade ago. The quality was grainy and slightly dark, but steady, most likely shot from a mounted camera fixed at a slightly downward angle to capture what appeared to be an interrogation of a military prisoner.

  The opening shot showed a small room, cut in half by a table. Two men sat across from one another. The first man’s face was shadowed—purposely so, perhaps—and he was dressed in battle fatigues. Directly across from him sat a younger man, his face in plain view, his wrists handcuffed, the chain passed through a metal ring attached to the table in front of him.

  His hair was blond and spiked with sweat and blood. His nose looked broken; his eyes were already bruised underneath. His chest was bare except for his dog tags and some tape wrapped around his ribs. There were enough bruises on his body to fell most men.

  But not this one.

  He didn’t shift in his seat or look uncomfortable or scared. Instead, he listened to the interrogator’s questions silently, with what might’ve actually been a trace of amusement.

  “Why were you on the border?”

  “Who sent you?”

  “Are you a spy?”

  At some point, the prisoner began a continuous sort of half humming, half singing under his breath, words to a tune that Tom couldn’t quite place.

  Interrogation was all about the mindfuck. But this guy—who looked maybe nineteen if he was a day—was better doing the fucking than being fucked, and that made the interrogator angry. He banged the table, repeating the questions, and the young guy kept his singing/humming routine going. This time, Tom caught a few of the words—world and alive—and realized that both men were American.

  Maybe this is just a training session? Tom knew they could get brutal, especially for Special Forces operators.

  The interrogator spoke, a low, short burst—Tom couldn’t catch it no matter how closely he listened, no matter how many times he rewound—before he reached across the table and ripped the tags off the young man, hard enough to jerk his body forward before the chain broke.

  “We know you killed an innocent man. No one’s coming to help you.”

  The interrogator threw the tags across the room. Tom couldn’t see where they landed, but he heard the ominous clank when they did.

  Tom’s blood ran cold as something in the young man’s eyes changed. It had nothing to do with the interrogator’s words. No, it happened when the tags were thrown away.

  The next moves took mere moments. The young man managed to pick the table up with his wrists still chained to it, knocked his interrogator to the ground, and pinned him there by his neck with a table leg. The camera was blocked for a few seconds as other men rushed into the room, all yelling.

  When the men cleared the camera space, Tom saw the young man refusing to move, even with guns pointed at his head. His knees were on the table, and he was balanced just well enough so the interrogator could breathe. But if he leaned forward, even a little . . .

  None of the men were rushing him, probably afraid he’d move and break the interrogator’s neck. The young man turned his head toward the camera, teeth bared in a feral snarl, and then the video cut off abruptly.

  One month later.

  Prophet didn’t like sitting still, found it nearly impossible to do so unless it was a life-or-death situation—and that had to be literally life or death and not some bullshit sit still or I’ll kill you type of non-threat.

  Right now, he was supposed to be playing good little office boy. Doing paperwork, which sucked anyway, but more so because he was wearing not one, but two casts. Goddamn it. He looked mutinously down at the blue encasements that covered his hands and forearms to just below his elbows, and fought the urge to slam them against the desk. He’d done that once before—it’d cracked in half, but it’d been a different kind of cast. These he could fucking take a grenade to and they wouldn’t open, thanks to Doc’s tricks.

  There were a few marks on one from where he’d tried to saw it with his KA-BAR, but that had just made the ends a little sharper and the whole thing more annoying than it had been, which was already pretty damned annoying. Although still not as annoying as the paperwork.

  He planned on rectifying that situation as soon as the office emptied out a little—with a match, a garbage can, and a disabled smoke alarm—

  The phone rang. He stared at it like that would make it stop. Desk duty wasn’t his forte, and this was some serious desk duty. It was partially because of his injuries—although he’d played hurt before—but mainly because of what he considered a minor infraction on his last trip out.

  Obviously, his boss disagreed that storming a building protected by twenty guards and a state-of-the-art alarm system, without waiting for backup, and with a thief who hadn’t technically, as of that mission, been an Extreme Escapes employee, was a minor infraction (although he’d like to point out that all the good guys had lived, thank you very much), but hell, Phil Butler had known him long enough to realize that nothing with him ever went by the book.

  Since the damned phone wouldn’t s
hut up, he finally answered with, “Yeah,” and then someone was yelling in his ear. Oh, hell no, he didn’t do that. He hung up and it started to ring again almost immediately. He muted the volume and began to draw on his cast, highlighting the number he’d gotten at the bar last night, before Phil walked into Prophet’s office—unannounced and without knocking—and slammed files down on his desk.

  “Ah, come on, man.” Prophet flipped through them. “I finished these.”

  “Not completely.”

  “I thought the benefit of working here was not having to do this shit,” he groused, but Phil just smiled. Because Phil was grooming him, he knew, to take over EE. But the old man wasn’t all that old, and he wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

  Plus, Prophet guessed he should be grateful he could still do shit like paperwork.

  “Finish it and I’ll buy you lunch,” Phil said.

  Prophet started to nod, then pushed back in his chair, which went flying, stopped only by the wall. “What do you want?”

  “You’re all so suspicious.”

  Prophet pointed a finger at him. “Because you only buy lunch when you’re up to shit. Dinner’s reserved for someone who’s dying.”

  Phil pressed his lips together, pinched a thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose—the classic I’m trying to hold it together so I don’t kill Prophet signal—and said, “You’re getting a partner.”

  “What?”

  Phil spoke louder. “You’re getting a—”

  “I heard you. It’s the eyes, not the ears.”

  “Hey, you made a joke.”

  Prophet couldn’t even begin to curse the man for that. He was too distraught over the partner thing. “Why now? It’s been a year.”

  “I know. You’re not the easiest man to partner up.”

  “So why try?” Prophet ground out.

  “Because these are my rules.”

  “You own this place—you can change the rules anytime you want.”

  “True.” Phil rubbed his chin with two fingers as he contemplated Prophet’s words, then smiled. “Try this new rule on for size—you can’t order office supplies.”

  “This isn’t going to work.”

  “It has to.”

  “This isn’t another one of your jail charity cases, is it?” he asked, and Phil shrugged. “Ah, come on. Who is he? Some prick fresh from Special Forces, thinking he’s the shit?”

  “And that would differentiate him from you, how?”

  Prophet pointed at him. “Nice one, Phil. Come on, answer the damned question.”

  Phil conceded, leaning a hip on desk as he said, “Most recently, he was a deputy in one of the parishes of New Orleans. He’s former FBI, too.”

  Prophet groaned, put his forehead on the desk and slammed it lightly several times. “I don’t know which is worse—the Cajun part or the Fed part. Don’t we have anyone applying here who’s a career criminal? I could at least learn something useful.”

  “Just Blue—and he’s already partnered up,” Phil pointed out. “And we’re being a bit dramatic, no?”

  “No,” Prophet deadpanned. “Look, I’ll do a job with him, but this permanent partner thing . . .”

  “You know why I’m doing it.”

  Prophet straightened. “So what? This guy’s going to be like my Seeing Eye dog? Because I could just get a real dog, you know. Would save everyone a lot of time and money.”

  “Yes, that would work out so well jumping out of planes.”

  “I’m fine for now, Phil. I wouldn’t be accepting missions if I wasn’t.”

  “I know. I get your doctor reports.”

  “And when I’m not—”

  “I prepare for any and all eventualities,” Phil said, echoing what Prophet told him on a daily basis. “And I’m not losing you. This partner thing is final.”

  Prophet knew better than to continue arguing. He rubbed his cheeks with his fingertips, realized he needed a shave badly. He looked down at the sweats and ripped T-shirt he wore because he’d come here straight from training, without bothering with things like a shower. Or shoes. “Fine,” he mumbled. “But don’t expect me to like him.”

  Phil handed him another file he’d had tucked under his arm. “New mission intel. And I never know what the hell to expect from you anyway. He’ll be here soon.”

  “Soon, like soon?”

  Again, Phil did the nose pinching thing and walked away, cursing to himself under his breath. Prophet had that effect on everyone, he supposed.

  No time to shower or change. But hell, he wasn’t looking to impress. Maybe the guy would think he looked like a crazy homeless person and demand another partner.

  He gave his most put-upon sigh and left his office with the new op file to go raid the supply closet in the common area looking for his favorite pencils. Because when he was forced to ride a desk, he wanted his favorite supplies. Was keeping them in stock too much to ask?

  Apparently so. And now he couldn’t even order them.

  He grabbed a box of paper clips instead so he could try to fix the communal copy machine. He pulled open one of the panels that held the ink supply, brushed the hair out of his eyes impatiently. Too long for most jobs, maybe even longer than he really liked it, but he wore it this way because he could. A daily reminder of his freedom from the bullshit bureaucracy that had hampered him in the past. But the thing of it was, he couldn’t escape the future hurtling toward him like a meteor delivering a death blow.

  Going blind doesn’t have to be a death sentence.

  For him, he wondered if it would be.

  No one knew, except Phil. Prophet had told him in the hopes that Phil wouldn’t want him for EE, that he’d stop courting him and just go away.

  That hadn’t happened, obviously. Phil had made sure that no one else at EE knew, except for Doc, and he’d made sure Prophet’s insurance at EE covered the specialist he now saw.

  It would be up to Prophet when and if to tell anyone else at EE, and he wouldn’t ever do it. Didn’t need anyone treating him differently. Especially a new partner.

  He thought about heading out to lunch, but he wanted to see if the guy was punctual. If he wasn’t, Prophet would yell at him. And if he was, it’d prove that he was some kind of kiss-ass to Phil.

  A sense of dull foreboding overtook him and he tried to shake it, but couldn’t. Another glance at the clock, and he looked down in time to see Phil usher a man into his corner office.

  Right on time.

  Asshole.

  To distract himself, he leaned against the copy machine and paged through the new mission file Phil had given him. He and his new, annoying partner were set to fly to Eritrea. EE kept a second base of operations there. Most of the time, it was strictly recon, which meant you’d wait for something to happen, check in twice a day, and then maybe, if you were lucky—or unlucky—be sent out to do something.

  Still, Prophet always managed to find some trouble there. It was hot. Corrupt. And he’d need plenty of weapons and cash for payoffs. T-shirts and candy for the kids. And knives. Maybe another machete because last time he was in-country, he’d broken his. A hell of a trip, his souvenir was an elbow that ached when it rained, and a scar on the back of his neck from the guy who had tried to cut his head off.

  With Prophet’s own machete. So maybe scratch the machete.

  Elliot was in the Eritrea office, had been for the past three months while he’d healed from a bullet wound. Prophet assumed he was being sent there to heal as well, and probably to bond with his new partner.

  Son of a bitch.

  He glanced up at the man who walked out of Phil’s office. The guy was almost as tall as Doc, which put him in the six-foot-five range. And he was broad, with dark hair, but man, the chip on his shoulder was visible from the fucking moon.

  Prophet stared down at his casts and sighed. Picked at the edges of them. Wondered if he went into an ER and complained about pain whether they’d take them off for him, then remembered he was banned from the two closest ERs. He pulled his phone from his pocket and Googled ERs over twenty miles away, flagging a few viable options, until a shadow fell across him.

  No doubt the gargantuan man. He took his time looking up, and when he did, he stuck out one of his casted hands. “I’m Prophet.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Why? What’s your name? Jesus?”