The Double Man (Jack Widow Book 15) Read online

  “Yeah! He put one in the hospital. Carl. I don’t know if he’ll be able to work for months. Widow smashed his windpipe, or damn close to it. I don’t have the details. He’ll be seeing a surgeon later today to repair the damage.”

  The Broadcaster asked, “Forget about Carl! I don’t care about your crew! They’re all replaceable!”

  Peter said, “I’m sorry. It’s not my fault.”

  “Then who’s fault is it?”

  Peter paused a beat, like he was having second thoughts about saying something. He said it anyway. He said, “One of my guys brought a gun. He pulled it on Widow.”

  “So that’s why one of them is in the hospital. This guy is a little better than just some nobody.”

  Peter said, “He beat up five of my best guys though.”

  “That’s nothing. Any one of my guys could do that. Hell, you could do that. Those roughnecks don’t have two brain cells they could rub together to make a fire.”

  Peter said nothing to that.

  The Broadcaster stayed quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “This Widow guy. He’ll be in lockup soon. Unless you have a plan to get the cops to let him go?”

  Peter said, “No. I don’t.”

  The Broadcaster said, “Tell your guy to fess up to it."

  Peter interrupted and said, “But they’ll charge him. He’ll probably do time.”

  “Since he’s the one who messed up to begin with, it’s time for him to take one for the team. Or he could rat. Remind him what will happen to his family, to people he cares about if he does.”

  Peter said, “Yes, sir.”

  The Broadcaster said, “This Widow guy sounds like trouble. More than we thought. Do you think he’s with Kloss?”

  Peter said, “No. I don’t think so. He’s just a stranger. Kloss is gone. Nothing to worry about.”

  “We want this Widow out of here. If he’s just a passerby, then let him pass by before he gets curious and starts more trouble. How long will they hold him?”

  “If Johnny confesses to everything, I imagine they’ll let him go. But”—Peter paused a beat and looked at his watch—“it’ll probably be overnight. By the time they book him and all that, it’ll be after hours.”

  The Broadcaster said, “Fine. In the morning, I want him gone. Call a lawyer. Get your guy to fess up, and get this prick out of here for good.”

  The Broadcaster hung the phone up without another word.

  18

  The Kodiak Police Station and Jail was this monstrous twenty-eight-thousand-square-foot complex, built with serious money behind it. The builders had to excavate and backfill the grounds before laying down one inch of concrete for the slab. They used two hundred and twenty-five steel pilings plus more structural steel-braced frames before they poured concrete for the foundation. The builders insulated the roof with a ridiculously built-up asphalt roofing assemblage. The station’s exterior walls integrated overelaborate stonework with metallic panels to give the outer design a masonry facade like something out of an architectural trade magazine that you might find in the waiting room of a fancy dentist’s office. Widow didn’t like it. It was all overblown, overbudgeted, and overdone.

  The interior spaces weren’t much different. There was everything they needed but overexpensed. There was a massive public lobby area, administrative offices, an emergency operations command center, enormous evidence storage, police locker rooms, vehicle bays, and support offices. Because the station doubled as a jail, the security systems for the building included intruder detection, video surveillance, alarm panels, double-layered access control, audio threshold alarms, secure visitor communication, and video and audio recording systems for the police interview rooms.

  Widow saw the vehicle bay where the female cop, who’s nameplate read, "Qaunak," had driven him into. She waited for the jarhead cop to arrive, and the two of them escorted Widow out of the bay, past parked patrol cars, and through a cop entrance. Then they led him down corridors and into the processing center. The station’s interior was more of the same modern art nonsense as the exterior. It was like being arrested and processed inside a spaceship.

  Widow stayed quiet the whole time. When he sat in Qaunak’s cruiser, the only time she spoke was to read him his Miranda rights. She only looked at him in the rearview mirror. She never turned around—not once. She never took her aviators off—not once. Not even when they entered the underground vehicle bay. Not even when her and the jarhead cop escorted Widow to be processed.

  On the way to the booking desk, Widow saw the jarhead cop’s name was Wayne, which made Widow wonder if his first name was John, making him officer John Wayne. That would be a humorous gag to play on your son. He could imagine all the Waynes born into the Wayne family tree since the actor died. John was a common name. He could imagine how many parents skipped over it so their kid wouldn’t grow up with that name haunting them. He figured by now it was okay to name your kid John Wayne. Although John Wayne was still famous, it had been forty-plus years since he died. He died before the cell phone. He died before social media became a thing. Hell, he died before the World Wide Web was worldwide at all.

  Widow didn’t ask Wayne’s first name. He kept he’s eyes forward.

  They brought Widow to processing, where they handed him off to the two biggest officers on duty in the room, and probably in the whole building. The two new officers were gym big and not cake-fed big. They were similar to Widow: lean in the waist, broad shoulders, covered in muscle. The difference being that they got all of it from lifting things and pushing things and pulling things. Widow got it from a hardy road diet and coffee and walking everywhere. It made him think that if he had a desk job or a job sitting ninety percent of the day away inside a patrol car, he’d have to go to the gym two hours, five days a week just to achieve what nature and an active nomadic lifestyle had blessed him with.

  Both officers kept one hand under Widow’s arms, tried to hold him by the triceps, but it was like palming a basketball. It was possible to do, but most people didn’t have the strength to palm a basketball for any extended period of time. These guys weren’t in the gym palming kettlebells out in front of them for hours.

  The two big officers took Widow the rest of his journey, through processing, booking, and all of it. They made him do the whole song and dance. First, they took him to a station and searched him. One of the big cops stood back and watched, his arms folded like a bouncer at a club. The second searched him from top to bottom and back up to top again. He got a double passover. The cop searching him set all of his belongings on a countertop. There was his passport, fifty dollars in cash money, two quarters, two nickels, pocket lint, a paperback copy of Into the Wild with a cracked spine, and the postcard he bought for Gray.

  The officer at the desk inspected all of the belongings, showed them to Widow, and wrote his name down on a large plastic ziplock bag in a space for labeling. She took his name from his passport, never asked him directly. Once she was finished writing his name legibly, she placed all of his belongings into the ziplock bag and sealed it. She showed it to him for his approval. It was the only time during their interaction that she made eye contact with Widow. He nodded, and she took his stuff and vanished into another room.

  The two big cops took him to another station, where one officer asked him a bunch of questions. He exercised his Miranda rights and stayed silent through all of her questions. This frustrated her. She kept making all kinds of faces. It was like she forgot about his right to remain silent, like she was used to prisoners doing the complete opposite. In the end, she marked down, Prisoner refused to answer, in all of the blank spaces on a piece of paper on a clipboard. Then Widow went on to get his mug shot taken by a bony cop with a camera on a tripod. Finally, he ended up at a last station and got fingerprinted. They had to take his handcuffs off. He didn’t resist them, but the officer who operated the fingerprint station took a look at Widow’s size and asked one of the big cops to do it for him.

  Widow�
��s prints went onto a page with ten boxes for the prints. His prints took up damn near the entire spaces.

  Widow stayed quiet through all the processes from beginning to end. He never spoke. Never complained. Never resisted.

  The whole process seemed to take forever, and it was quite long. In his experience, in a small community like Kodiak Island, this process should’ve been thirty minutes tops. But it took about an hour. There were other new inmates ahead of him. Which surprised him. The cops seemed to be making their arrest quotas and then some.

  At the end of all of it, they took him to a long white corridor and stopped at a white phone on the wall. They looked at him. One of the big cops asked him a question.

  “Do you want your phone call now?”

  Widow thought for a long moment. He looked around the room and didn’t see what he was looking for. So he finally spoke. He asked, “What time is it?”

  One of the big cops took his hand off Widow’s triceps and dug his hand into his pants pocket, fishing around for his cell phone. He found it, took it out, and looked at the screen.

  He said, “It’s seven thirty.”

  Widow thought of Gray. He could call her. She could get him out of this mess. She would too. She would do whatever necessary to help him out of a jam. He had no doubt about it. But right then, Gray would be at home in Quantico, Virginia. It was four hours ahead of Widow. It would be eleven thirty at night there. Gray worked tomorrow. She was a good agent. She’d already be in bed, probably snuggled up with her little dog, probably fast asleep. She’d probably been asleep for hours.

  Widow thought he could call her. She’d answer. Maybe she’d sound gruffy and asleep, but she would take his call.

  The big cop put the cell phone back in his front pocket. He stared at Widow. Impatience flooded his face. He asked, “Well? What’s it gonna be?”

  Widow said, “No phone call. Later.”

  “Suit yourself,” the cop said.

  The two big cops took Widow by both triceps again and hauled him off to the holding cells.

  19

  Widow woke up in a holding cell with four other guys. He fell asleep on a cot that might as well have been the floor because it was as stiff as concrete. It was okay because he had slept in worse places on worse beds before. He was amazed that he was able to sleep at all. They had the whole place lit up with blinding white lights. The ceilings were high, too high for anyone to reach the bulbs. He supposed anyone could have thrown a shoe up at the lights and smashed them if they weren't guarded by plastic covers. Of course, those could’ve been smashed too.

  The holding cell itself was a large concrete block. The room was large enough to park a fleet of cars in but small enough to fit inside a baseball diamond. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, all of it was painted white, amplified by the bright lights. It smelled like alcohol and fresh paint.

  Widow sat up and put his feet on the floor. He stared forward and looked around the room. The other four prisoners were all male, all still asleep. Three of them were snoring. As large as the holding cell was, Widow was on one wall, and the other four inmates were huddled closer together on the opposite wall. They moved as far away from him as possible. He figured they were afraid of him. He guessed because of how he looked, but then he got up and moved around the cell. Instead of bars, the cell had one large window of glass so that the guards could see straight in. There was a door cut out of it on one side. It was mostly glass and steel.

  Widow stared out across from the holding cell and saw another cell. In that one, he recognized four of the guys. They were the ones he beat up. Only now, they had black eyes and bruised faces. One of them was the guy called Johnny. They were all asleep as well. They must’ve told the guys in his cell what he had done to them. That’s why his cellmates were less than eager to share a cell with him.

  Widow wondered what the time was. He figured it was early morning, probably first light. He could use that phone call now. Gray would be awake. On the East Coast, the day would’ve been well into the morning hours.

  Widow stood up slow and stretched his arms all the way out and turned his head from side to side, cracking the bones and ligaments. Next, he cracked his knuckles. Once he was satisfied, he moved to the glass.

  He looked out over the guys he’d beaten up across the hall. He glanced at their sleeping faces. Sure enough, it was them. The only one missing was the one called Carl. He was probably at the hospital.

  Widow leaned into the window and looked left, saw a guard station. He was about to rap on the glass when he saw a male guard coming from around a corner. He was huge, bigger than the two cops that escorted Widow the night before. He came around the corner and locked eyes with Widow. He walked straight for Widow’s cell. He stopped in front of the glass. He moved over to the door.

  At eye level, there were holes cut through the glass for talking. The guard looked at Widow and asked, “Jack Widow?”

  Widow said, “That’s me.”

  The huge guard pulled on a security badge that ran from a thin cable to a badge retractor on his belt. He stepped to a card reader near the door and swiped the card. There was a buzzing sound, and he opened the cell door.

  “Step out,” he said.

  Widow didn’t protest. He stepped out of the cell. The huge guard let the door shut behind him and waited for an audible clicking sound that indicated it was locked.

  The guard said, “Follow me.” And he started to walk back the way he came. Widow followed.

  They went back through corridors and back past the fingerprint and mug-shot stations and the rest of processing. They didn’t go to the vehicle bay. Instead, they took a left down a corridor that Widow hadn’t been through. They went to the interview rooms.

  The guard took Widow to a green door marked "Interview Room G." The guard opened it and led Widow inside.

  “Have a seat,” the guard said.

  Widow entered the room. Inside, there was a metal table and two metal chairs. The whole space was painted green—the floor, walls, and ceiling, all of it.

  Widow glanced up to one corner and stared at a security camera. It went to the video and audio recording systems center that Widow had already passed by. There was no two-way mirror, like in the movies.

  The guard said, “Have a seat.”

  Widow asked, “What am I doing in here?”

  “I was told to bring you here. Have a seat.”

  Widow stayed standing.

  The guard said nothing and retreated back out in the hall. He closed the door behind him. Widow was left in the interview room wondering what the hell he was doing in there.

  Widow stayed standing. He had been sleeping all night and didn’t need to sit down. He waited for around fifteen minutes, then he leaned against the back wall and folded his arms across his chest. The door opened right then. The huge guard opened the door. He stood in the doorway for a long second and stepped back into the hall. A woman carrying a thick navy-blue folder stuffed under her arm stepped into the doorway past him. She wore enough makeup to cause her appear older than she was at first glance. The problem with her strategy was no one took just a first glance at her. Widow guessed she was aiming to look in her early thirties, but she was probably closer to twenty-five than she was thirty-five.

  The woman was taller than most women Widow encountered. Widow estimated she was about five foot eleven, but there was an inch and a half discrepancy because of molded block heels on a pair of black Rockport dress shoes she wore with her outfit. She wore black dress pants, a leather belt, and a black V-neck sweater under a black leather jacket. There was a gold badge clipped to her belt. She looked tough but with a dash of deer-in-headlights look. Widow couldn’t put his finger on it, but she didn’t quite fit in, like she was in the wrong room or something.

  She came into the room and glanced at Widow. She looked at him, and her eyebrow arched like she was just now realizing why they sent her in with the huge guard. It was for her protection.

  Even tho
ugh Widow saw slight fear in her eyes—fear that he was used to seeing on people when they first encountered him—he thought she was a little too attractive to be a detective. It wasn’t an intentional line of thinking, just a gut reaction. She had shoulder-length blond hair. But her eyes. That was the thing that didn’t fit. Her eyes were a large, intoxicating, and a vivid Caribbean blue. They belonged on a billboard in Times Square not in a little known island in Alaska.

  She entered the room despite Widow’s intimidation. She walked over to one side of the table, took the folder out from under her arm, set it down on the table, and pulled out a chair. She looked at Widow and spoke.

  “Good morning, Mr. Widow. Would you like to have a seat?”

  Widow looked at her. He glanced at a SIG Sauer P226 under her jacket in a hip holster clipped onto her belt, her right-hand side. The SIG Sauer P226 was a firearm he knew well. It’s one of the regular weapons carried by SEALs. This one was chambered for the nine-millimeter Parabellums.

  Widow said, “Sure.”

  He moved across from her and pulled out the other metal chair. He dumped himself down on it. It was just as he suspected—uncomfortable, like all metal chairs everywhere since the beginning of time. Widow put his hand out in front of him on the tabletop. He knitted his fingers together like he was planning to pray.

  The woman sat down across from him. She asked, “Would you like coffee or soda or something?” She must’ve seen the flicker in his eye at the mention of coffee because she said, “Coffee is it?”

  “Sure,” he said, trying not to make it seem like she had won him over.

  The woman turned and called out the guard’s name and asked him for two coffees, black. He nodded and left, and about five minutes later, he returned with two coffees in paper cups. Neither was hot. They were both lukewarm, which Widow figured. Cops never give inmates scolding hot liquid that can be used as liquid grenades.

  Widow didn’t complain. He drank it anyway.