Above Ground

ABOVE GROUND

To those who give...

A Jack Taggart Mystery

Don Easton

A Castle Street Mystery

Copyright © Don Easton, 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Editor: Barry Jowett
Copy-editor: Jennifer Gallant
Design: Jennifer Scott
Printer: Webcom

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Easton, Don
      Above ground / Don Easton.

(A Jack Taggart mystery)
ISBN 978-1-55002-681-8

         I. Title.   II. Series: Easton, Don.   Jack Taggart mystery.

PS8609.A78A63 2007             C813′.6                   C2007-900088-6

1      2      3      4     5      11      10     09     08      07

We acknowledge the support of the
Canada Council for the Arts
and the
Ontario Arts Council
for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the
Government of Canada
through the
Book Publishing Industry Development Program
and
The Association for the Export of Canadian Books
, and the
Government of Ontario
through the
Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit
program and the
Ontario Media Development Corporation
.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

Printed and bound in Canada          
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.dundurn.com

Holly saw the flash of headlights in the carport and knew that Jack had arrived home. She checked the pot of simmering tomato sauce and turned up the heat. Their daughter, Jenny, at four years of age, was snuggled deep into a corner of the sofa watching television. Charlie, who'd recently had his first birthday, sat on the kitchen floor entertaining himself with an empty pasta box. Spaghetti was what Holly thought her family was going to eat tonight.

“Jenny! Go wash your hands for dinner, sweetie. Daddy is home.”

Jenny was too absorbed in
The Simpsons
to pay attention.

Holly turned back to the stove, where the pasta sauce was beginning to boil. She felt Charlie's hug on her leg as she stirred. “Charlie! Daddy's home! Go see Daddy! Go on!”

Charlie knew the routine, and Holly smiled as he squealed with delight and hurried, taking a few awkward steps before landing on his diapered backside, then scrambling to his feet and disappearing around the corner and down the hall to the door.

Holly caught a glimpse of the cracked window over her kitchen sink.
Not much longer.
They had lived in the modest rented home for the last four years while her husband went to the University of British Columbia to earn his degree in computer science.
Only one more month to graduation! No longer a dim light at the end of a tunnel — it's a shining star!

The dark green van with tinted rear windows did not draw any attention where it was parked on the street. Apartment buildings and low-rental housing made it a neighbourhood where unfamiliar vehicles were the norm.

Ray sat alone in the back of the van and waited. This was not the type of work he felt he should be doing. He had received his masters in business administration at Cambridge, but right now their resources in Canada were limited. Only twenty-one people, counting himself, for the entire lower mainland. Not much of an army ... but that would change.

Ray knew that The Boss was right about one thing. Corporate takeovers are easier when they are unexpected. First they must ensure that their own position is fortified before domination can begin. He was also confident in his research. British Columbia was the best place in the world for his type of corporation. The judiciary was so lenient that, for the most part, judges wouldn't even need to be bought. The power and wealth they had elsewhere made local crime groups look like petty thieves. It was time to quietly establish a new power in Canada.

Ray watched as a car slowed, then stopped at a driveway. He squeezed the transmit button on his portable radio and quietly gave the orders. Ray saw his target get out of the car and move the garbage can that had been placed to block his driveway. The target then returned to his car and slowly drove into the carport.

Ray saw the two Suzuki motorcycles zoom past him before braking hard and parking near the garbage can. One passenger got off each motorcycle and headed toward the carport while the drivers stayed and revved their engines.

“Jolly good,” said Ray aloud, as he made his way back to the driver's seat.

“Where's my boy? Where's that Charlie?”

Charlie let out a long, high-pitched yell as he hurried toward his dad, then gasped when he was swept off the ground. Charlie giggled when he felt his dad nestle into his neck and pretend to blow bubbles.

Charlie was too young to grasp the danger when two men appeared in the open door behind his dad wearing motorcycle helmets with dark shields covering their faces. His father also did not understand when he turned around, still holding Charlie in his arms. But he saw the gun in each man's hand and started to close the door. He was too late.

One assassin calmly fired a shot that passed through Charlie and into his dad's heart. Jack's brain was momentarily still alive and he spun around to try to protect Charlie. He took one step before collapsing on the floor with Charlie under him.

The noise of the gun, equipped with a silencer, was drowned out by the television. The television did not, however, drown out a piercing cry from Charlie.

Both Holly and Jenny arrived on the run from different directions. Holly looked in horror, and upon seeing the two men she instinctively grabbed Jenny. One of the assassins stepped forward and fired another shot into the back of Jack's head before taking the time to stare at Holly and Jenny from behind his visor. The assassins did not know that their intended victim was already in a graveyard.

Constable Danny O'Reilly hurried to keep up with Corporal Jack Taggart. Being tall and lean, Jack tended to take larger strides. His metabolism was also high, and the strides were not only longer but also faster. Danny found himself in a position where jogging was too fast and walking fast was too slow.

“Damn it, slow down, will you?”

“We're late,” replied Jack, quickening his pace.

“Only a few minutes. Lance has kept us waiting before.”

“
Our friend
has kept us waiting before.”

Danny sighed, then said, “Yeah, sorry. Our friend.”

As they continued, Danny noticed the inscriptions on the tombstones they passed and the ages of some of the people. He thought of his own life, the past eleven years of which he had been a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Last year he had been transferred from Manitoba to work on the Intelligence Unit in Vancouver.

That was when he had met Jack Taggart, a man who was both his partner and his boss. He was also his best friend. Working with Jack was not easy. During his first shift with Jack, Danny had been attacked from behind by a junkie with a knife. Later, both he and his family had been targeted for assassination by a splinter group of bikers from Satans Wrath. This group had
been led by a corrupt Crown prosecutor by the name of Sidney Bishop.

When the first assassination attempt had failed, Bishop had ordered the bikers to set up an ambush. The bikers were subsequently killed in a shootout, but Bishop fled the country. Danny ended up with a 40 percent loss of vision in one eye as a result of bullet fragments from the skirmish. He looked at one tombstone and did a double take before realizing the name he saw was
O'Brien.
He gave a wry smile.
Not even close to O'Reilly!

His thoughts brought him back to his family. His daughter, Tiffany, was now fourteen months old. The latest arrival to their family, James Patrick O'Reilly, was two months old. Susan was a great mom. An even greater wife.
Working with Jack does make you appreciate life ... as long as you're still alive to appreciate it.

Danny glanced at Jack. He's been with me through a lot of scrapes. Then again, he's also the asshole who got me into them!

Jack was a specialist as an undercover operator and had received special police schooling for the task. At the moment, Jack was clean-shaven. Although Danny was now sporting a goatee, he was not a trained operator. His job was usually to remain in the background and try to keep Jack alive when things went wrong — or to identify the right culprits if Jack was killed. Not an easy task.

Satans Wrath was one of the top organized crime families in the world. Things had changed since the seventies. Long past were the days when they were just a bunch of thugs on wheels. Control of the drug industry brought immense wealth and sophistication to the bikers. The club expanded into twenty-one different countries. Now it was one of the most dangerous and insulated organized crime families in the world. Partly,
Satans Wrath could thank the police. Years of police work and international cooperation had decimated much of the mafia, and Satans Wrath had been more than willing to step in and take over.

In Vancouver, police intelligence units estimated that Satans Wrath had ninety-two members split between the east-side and west-side chapters. There was a president in charge of each chapter. The national president of the club, Damien, also lived in Vancouver.

With approximately ten hard-core criminal associates connected with each member, in Vancouver alone Damien was in control of an army of approximately one thousand. Across Canada, there were twenty-one other chapters, all with their own armies — and no shortage of recruits.

Satan's Wrath was actively seeking recruits at the moment. Competition was deadly. The Indos were of particular concern to Satans Wrath, followed by Asian gangs. At the moment, the Indos were still fighting amongst themselves to gain a share of the drug market, but it would be only a matter of time before the pecking order was established and the Indos turned their attention to Satans Wrath.

It was Satans Wrath that Jack and Danny focused their attention on, and Lance was the key to their success. Satans Wrath was importing tonnes of cocaine from a vicious drug lord in Columbia by the name of Carlos. Lance had let Jack and Danny know about the intended arrival of the last ship, with a cargo that included one metric tonne of cocaine. To divert suspicion from Lance, Jack had tipped off a friend in the American Drug Enforcement Agency, who had then seized the ship before it ever reached Canada.