HiT 149: Anna Brookes First Chapter (15 page)

6 years ago Ben Pearson was in Narcotics and Special Investigation.

Ethan Martelli AKA Tony Mancini JR has intercepted St Cloud PD 9 years ago and started living as Ethan Martelli 10 years ago.

Ethan’s brother died almost 11 years ago in a gun related incident.

What am I missing? What is staring at me but I can’t work out?

Wait a minute. I jump on Google and search the local news for that interview I saw Ben give a few nights back whilst I was in the hotel. I find the interview and re-play it:

“Approx. 2 hours ago St Cloud PD intercepted a truck that was suspected of carrying illegal firearms. Upon inspection it was discovered that the truck actually contained cocaine. The street worth value of these drugs is in the vicinity of 5 million dollars. St Cloud PD has been working closely with other departments and even though we were expecting a shipment of guns, we are happy to have stopped such a large quantity of drugs from hitting our streets. Thank you very much for your time”

There it is.

Right in front of my nose.

Could The Mancini Family be involved in this drug haul? There’s one question I need to ask. And the only person I can ask is Ben. His answer will confirm what I am thinking about Ethan Martelli and his family.

I need to wait until morning so I can get to Lionsgate Street to ask Ben what I need to know.

First stop though, St Cloud PD. I think it’s time to visit Ethan.

Chapter 20

After a restless night’s sleep the sun rose and I started getting myself ready for my visit with Ethan Martelli and Ben.

I travel the route that Ethan has stopped me on to get to St Cloud PD; I’m hoping that Ethan is waiting for me before I get to the station.

No such luck. I park my BMW in the car park and walk inside to be greeted by Grace.

“Hello there Anna. Ben’s not back to work yet he’s still on vacation.” Her tone is sincere.

“Yeah I know Grace, I’m meeting up with him later. Is Ethan at work yet?”

“I’ll just check to see if he’s out on the road or out the back”

She gets up and leaves, but she’s back fairly quickly.

“He’s not here so I’ll radio for him if you like”

“That’ll be great Grace, thank you.” I hover around as she picks up the radio and calls for Ethan. I hear the two way conversation on their police radio.

“Ethan, Anna is here and she’s asking for you.”

“Tell her I’ll be there in 10 minutes. I’m just checking on something.” I wonder if the something he is checking on is the something he is protecting.

“He won’t be long Anna, could I offer you a drink?”

“Thanks, just a coffee please.”

Grace darts off to make my coffee whilst I sit and watch the traffic go by. Normal traffic, cars, trucks, bikes a tractor and a milk truck. A smile comes to my face. This is going to be fun and I can’t wait until Ethan makes his appearance.

13 minutes later I’m still watching the traffic when I see the Police cruiser pull into the driveway. Ethan gets out and with a look of anger and frustration he storms into the station.

“Anna, I wasn’t quite expecting you.” He is pissed off with me.
Good.

“No one ever expects me
Ethan
” I say his name with a raised eyebrow and smirk.

Ethan’s face falls and his eyes widen. “Why don’t we head into Ben’s office? We can talk there.” I see anger and tension radiating from his body. He walks in front of me but doesn’t look over his shoulder to see if I’m there, he knows I’m there. He closes the door once inside and sits in Ben’s chair.

“What do you want Anna? You’re proving to be a pain in my fucking arse.” He spits the words out with complete hate towards me. No denying that I really do annoy him.

“I’m sorry Tony that’s the last place I want to be a pain in.”
Smile Anna, push him further Anna.

Ethan’s eyes widen, his face goes white, his mouth drops open and his hands ball into fists.

“Who’s Tony?” his voice is rough and it has just given him away.

“Sorry did I say Tony? I meant Ethan” I’m slouched back in my seat giving him nothing.

“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?”
push him and
break him Anna
.

“That is my question to you Ethan. 10 years ago you created an alias and 9 years ago you infiltrated St Cloud PD. Why? What has Ben got to do with this?” My voice was eerily calm. If I was listening to me, I would be terrified at the unknown.

Ethan sits back and smiles. “I’ll get your phone for you Anna. I’m sure that’s the reason you’re here.” He gets up with so much force he knocks the seat over, he leaves the room for what seems like a minute. He comes back in and stands at the door and hands me my burner phone.

I take the phone and purposely in front of him throw it on the floor where it shatters. “Oops, seems I dropped my phone Ethan. What a problem” I pick up the pieces and toss them in the rubbish, and I turn and smile at him. “Thank you Ethan, again you’ve given me more information then you could possibly know” and I leave the station.

I head over to Ben’s keeping a careful watch for anyone who may be following me, but so far I’m left alone. I get to Ben’s and make my way up to his door. When I’m just about to knock, Ben opens the door with a huge smile on his face. He looks so happy to see me and I am really glad to see him. He wraps me up in a huge hug and plants a kiss on my lips that is searing right from the moment his hot lips touch mine. He walks us inside not breaking the kiss. He tugs on my thighs so I wrap my legs around him. He takes us into the kitchen and sits me on his island bench. Still his lips have not left mine, once I’m sitting on the bench his hands are all over me just softly caressing my body. He is tracing every square inch of my body and my hands are enjoying his hard toned body too. Defining the muscles on his arms, his stomach, pulling at his hair and lightly scratching down his back just the way he likes it. “Baby girl I missed you so much,” he says with a low groan.

A smile finds my lips and he pulls away and walks over to the coffee machine. He brings me a coffee and sits on the stool between my legs. His hands are running up and down my thighs. “What do you want to do today Baby?”

“Actually Ben, I need two things from you. First I need a map of the woods that are around St Cloud mostly between Minneapolis and St Cloud.”

Ben is eyeing me suspiciously. “What are you involved in Anna?” The Police Officer in him is emerging.

“I can’t tell you right now, but I need you to trust me”

“I got a call from Ethan this morning.” He stops to see what I will say, all I do is wait for him to continue with a raised eyebrow. “Telling me he is weary of you and that I should be careful.”

“If you need to listen to Ethan then please do so. I’ve not asked anything of you Ben. However now I need a map and a question answered. If you can’t give me those answers, then I’ll find the answers I need elsewhere. Eventually I know that I will have to tell you the truth, and when the time comes I promise you I will. Regardless of the outcome. But right now, I need to know if you have a map of the woods between St Cloud and Minneapolis.” Emotions gone and façade in place.

Ben runs his hands through his hair and looks torn between what he should do and what he wants to do. We are facing one another in a staring match. He wants to know more, but I can’t give it to him. Yet. After what seems like an hour he gets up and leaves the kitchen. He comes back 2 minutes later holding a folded up map. He opens the map and lays it flat on the island bench. I jump down and lean over it searching and looking. I think I’ve found what I’m looking for.

I pull my phone out and dial ‘Agent’, Ben sits back and observes but with a bewildered look on his face.

The phone rings once “15” Agent says.

“Satellite search between St Cloud and Minneapolis woods. Building search and heat search. ETA?” I look over to Ben whose face has dropped and is in pure shock. My façade is in place and I give nothing away to Ben. He has only heard a one sided conversation. But I’m sure he has more questions than he did before.

“ETA 3 hours” ‘Agent says and our call is disconnected.

Silence is around us. It engulfs us even though Ben is not standing still, he is moving frantically around the kitchen. I observe his behaviour and don’t say anything to him. Half an hour passes and finally Ben starts to speak.

“What the fuck was that Anna? Who the fuck are you? What the fuck is going on? Are you a spy? A government agent?” Ben is pacing and his eyes are wild.

“Ben, I’m still Anna. I’m still the same person you fell in love with.”

“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?? I don’t fucking know who the hell I fell in love with.” He’s becoming more agitated and I need to calm him down before something happens, like he tries to arrest me. Or worse, I kill him.

“BEN!” I shout at him and he snaps his head to me. “I’m still Anna. I’m still the person you fell in love with. I’m still the Anna who loves you. It’s ok Ben, everything will be fine.”

His face is unsure and he’s now rooted in the one spot looking at me but he opens his mouth and gestures with his hands that he wants to say something. He stops himself numerous times before he finally says, “What’s the question you need to ask me?” He’s resigned to the fact that I’m holding onto a secret and that I will tell him when the time comes.

“The drug haul that you intercepted, what sort of truck was carrying the cocaine?”

“What sort of dumb fucking question is that Anna? Who cares what sort of truck it was. I think it was a Volvo truck. I don’t fucking remember.” He’s becoming frustrated and agitated with me.

“Ben. Stop acting like a lunatic and listen to me. I don’t want to know the make; I want to know what the truck you stopped was supposed to be carrying. What was written on the outside of the truck?”

“Um, let me think.” He thinks for a second but my phone rings.

It’s ‘Agent’. I answer it quickly.

“15 the information you require was easy to obtain. There are 2 buildings in the woods. One a run-down old mansion with no heat signatures. The other an old cattle station and heat signature is abundant,” the call is disconnected.

The moment ‘Agent’ tells me it’s a cattle station is the moment Ben blurts out, “it was a milk truck”.

Chapter 21

Ben was looking at me as most of the pieces fell into place for me, just like one giant puzzle. Ben has no idea what has just been uncovered to me and I can’t give it away. I need to speak to Ethan because if my theory is correct and I always am, then Ethan is involved with this entire situation. And always has been involved in this, I’m sure that was his game plan all along.

I give Ben a kiss and say goodbye however Ben grabs onto my arm stopping me from leaving “God damn it Anna. What the hell have you just uncovered? I’m sick of not knowing what the fuck is happening here or in that head of yours.”

“Ben, please give me 24 hours and I’ll explain everything and one more thing. I love you.”

Ben reluctantly agrees to let me leave with the proviso that he has everything explained in 24 hours.

I’m sitting in my BMW and close my eyes for a moment. Breathe. Breathe Anna. In and out, just breathe.

I think it’s time I know what Ethan gets up to when he’s not being a token Police Officer.

I need to lure Ethan out and I need to lead him back to my cabin. I can work on him there, no one will miss him.

As I’m on my way to my cabin to get certain equipment to monitor Ethan Martelli I see in my rear-view mirror the familiar flash of red and blue lights. But this time it’s not on a police cruiser, this time the flashing lights are on a civilian car. It looks like I won’t need to follow or lure Ethan, it looks like he’s found me. This could work, but now he’ll be in control and I will have to turn that around.

I pull over and see Ethan stop the flashing lights and hide them from view. I also notice that he’s pulled me over on a relatively quiet road. I’m watching every move he makes through my rear-view mirror. My Glocks aren’t within reaching distance but I need to collect all the relevant information that I can so I think I’ll leave them where they are and just go with the flow of the situation I am currently in. As I watch him leave his vehicle he comes around to the passenger side. It’s when he reaches the passenger side that he taps on the window with his gun that I notice the gun he is holding is not police issue.
Shit
. This may be trickier than I thought.

“Ethan how nice to see you,” he slides into the passenger side. I’m letting this unfold because even though he may have the upper hand at this very moment he still does not know anything about me.

“To your cabin, 15” he spits my professional name out. Shit, he knows who I am.

I turn to him and smile, my façade in place. “So finally, you know who I am. Are all your questions answered???” I take off towards my cabin because it’s quiet and I can get to work there.

“The famous 15. Here we are. A woman so elusive that most people think you’re an urban legend, captured by Tony Mancini. I will go down in the record books as destroying the ‘top assassin’ in the world.” He uses his fingers as quotation marks when he says top assassin.

“So should I be calling you Ethan or Tony?” my façade is not slipping. I show no emotions to this man sitting next to me. Ethan makes no attempt to answer my question. He does though pull his phone out of his pocket and hit a speed dial number.

“Dad, I have her. I’ll send coordinates once we reach her cabin.” Ethan goes quiet and listens to further instructions. “I will pass that message on Dad. See you soon.” Ethan turns to me and has still got his gun pointed at me. “You know Anna, you and I are cut from the same cloth. We could have been great together. Why my father wanted YOU to take out Pearson, I have no idea. I was setting the scene for him to take the fall.” I listen on with interest because it seems Ethan is going to tell me exactly what I want to know. Obviously I was hired because Ethan was taking too long with his strike against Ben.