Tomahawk (10 page)

My whole team I believed hated me.  This was my fault. All morning I knew that all this was coming around in a very big circle.  I hated myself more than anything right at this moment.  What that animal did to her, what Jacob Mentik started, I was going to finish with a lot of blood and violence.  What I was planning on doing to this guy when I got my hands on him would make my former self blush.  I was going to kill everything about him.  Now I just had to find out whom?

As if watching the wheels turn in my head.  “You have any idea who would want to hurt her and kill the kid?”  Drew said sitting on the edge of the queen-sized bed.  “We’ve made enemies as of late, but no one knows her.”

“I have a few ideas.  Nothing solid. We need to get Mel on this shit.”  I turned to the door and Drew followed.

“What?”

“We left her alone.”

“You don’t think?”  Drew was standing next to me. I didn’t need to look at him to know that every muscle in his body had flexed to capacity. 

I shook my head.  “Right now, I don’t know.”

Drew had already had his Samsung in his hand, face in a deep frown.  “Her phone is just going to voice mail.”

“This is all we need right now.”  I had no time to think. I had to do something--and quick. Every person that I knew and cared for was currently in danger.

The bedroom door opened and Ryan stuck his head in.  “Y’all should come out here. The party is about to start.”

Drew and I walked into the hall.  Kinney and Mel were stationed in the front room.  Her eyes narrowed as she looked over the hotel suite.  Waiting for something, I could tell from here she had her hand on her gun in her parka coat.

“It seems that me and the lovely lady here were run out of your house,” Kinney said, taking his coat and suit jacket off and putting them on the table.  “Sorry, sweetie,” he said looking over to Tonya.   “Your hotel has just become a command center.”  Tonya turned back around and faced the fireplace, as if this wasn’t one of the hardest days of her life.

“Did you get a look at him?”  Ryan said to Kinney.

“The way that the boss man pulled us out of there, we didn’t get eyes on him.”  Mel took one step closer to Ryan, whose stare never left Kinney.

Kinney, took a seat on the opposite side of Tonya on the couch.  “I was leaving the house and there was movement on the upper level.”  Kinney smirked.  “Bastard thought I didn’t hear him.  He might as well had been a rhino taking ballet.  But no, didn’t see him.  My guess, he thought he’d sneak in the house and pop blondie here.”  He pointed to Melissa.  “Lay in wait till you found her and then start another game.”  Kinney grabbed my attention and in a hushed voice.  “You are the end game. You know that, right?”  

I nodded.  

“I saw the police report.”  

I already knew what he was going to say.  

“She--” He took a quick look at Tonya.  “He asked her about the Tomahawk. Were you aware of that?”

“Yeah.  She doesn’t know yet.”

“I wish that everyone would stop talking above my head.  I think I have the right to know what’s going on.”  Tonya was still not looking at either of us. 

“I will tell you everything, but right now--”

She stood balancing herself on her good leg. “No, Vic. You are going to tell me now.”

“I think that you should probably calm down.  This has taken a toll on all of us.”  Mel came forward.  “Right now, Vic doesn’t need any sort of interruption while we are all trying to form a plan.”

The room fell completely silent.

Tonya hopped a bit closer to Melissa.  “When I am speaking to you, I will look at you.  So if I were you I would sit in a corner and wait to be called on.  Grown people are talking.”  Then she looked back at me.  “Now are you going to tell me?”

Kinney leaned over into Melissa’s ear.  “That went over well.”

“I don’t know who you are talking to, but if these guys weren’t here I’d--”

“You’d what?  Say really nasty things about me behind my back?  I think you are really missing the point here.  People are dead and you are worried about who has the bigger balls.  Save yourself the trouble in finding out.”  Taking another step closer to Melissa.  “Again, Vic. I think that you owe me something.”

Melissa took a survey of the room. No one made eye contact with her.  “Really, Vic?  This girl pops up out of nowhere and the whole world changes.” 

Kinney put a tight grip on her elbow.  “Pick your battles. Besides, you just lost this one.”  Kinney turned to address the rest of the group.  “Blondie and I are going to the bar upstairs.  Don’t make any decisions without me.”  Dragging her outside, Melissa turned and gave us all a hateful look.

Ryan stood at the hotel door. Drew was standing over the couch.  Any other day I would have been proud of my men.  Securing the room.  Today I just wanted to secure Tonya.  “Please sit down.”  Gingerly she sat at the farthest point of the couch.  “Where should I start?”

“I just want to know how much danger am I really in,” Tonya whispered.

“Right now, I’m not sure, but I would guess we all are in the thick of it."  I scooted closer to her on the couch, my knee brushing hers.  I knew that I had her trapped. I had to get everything out.  "Tonya, I want to first start off by saying that I'm sorry and I never meant for you to get hurt.  You have to believe me when I say that you are the last person on this earth that I would want to see hurt."

She closed her eyes and lay her head on the back of the couch.  Without looking at me, "I know that this is all because of you, isn't it?  You did something to this guy and now he's out to kill me, well us."  I nodded.  "What is the Tomahawk?"

"It's not what. It's a who."

"And you are the Tomahawk then, right?"

"Yes."

She looked back to Drew and Ryan.  "Do they know?"

"Drew does. You remember. We worked together in the Secret Service."  I exhaled loudly.  "We all had names, nicknames that were in our files.  You know that my first name is Thomas, but I go by my middle name."  She nodded.  "Thomas, Tommy, Tomahawk.  Damn, Tonya I just wish that I could tell you everything and make you understand."

"I'm really not concerned on what your nickname is.  I just want to know why this man came after me.  If he knew anything about you, he would know that I don't have any feelings for you.  And that you and I haven't been together in years."

I've never been mauled by an animal in my life.  Never seen it in real time, but on the Discovery Channel a large predator like a bear or tiger would grab its prey and without giving the defenseless animal a second thought would rip it into shreds.  That's how I felt right now.  She had no feelings for me at all.  Words that she mumbled to me in our bed at night, whispers of kindness in the morning.  The warmth of her was colder than a grave marker.  I cleared my throat and spoke above my pain.  "He's crazy is the only thing that I can think of.  When Melissa gets back, I'll have her dig into some of our enemies and make a list."

"That many enemies? You can make a list.  I thought I was the only one that hated you that much."  She smiled. 

"Job like ours, you make a few."  She looked away.  "Do you want me to tell you what I do?"

"Not really.  Honestly, I don't really care.  You got me into this, now get me out.  If you really wanted me to know, you could have told me years ago.  Now your secret nearly killed me and now you want to talk?  You have a way of putting me in the world's most uncomfortable positions. You know that?  Because of you I...I was hurt.  Then you track me down, then you have me sharing quarters with your girlfriend.  You have no idea how much this hurts."

"Mel?  She's not my girlfriend.  I never slept with her."  That was completely out of left field.  Melissa had always been a friend.  More Ryan's than mine, but I trusted her.  What the hell was she talking about?

"You can be with any woman that you want to be with, Vic.  Like I said, you and I are no longer anything.  But to have her all pissed that I'm here is downright uncalled for and immature.  You better talk to her before I do."

I’ve only seen her mad once before.  We were on our second date.  She had on this purple silk blouse thing and a black skirt.  Her hair was in a high ponytail. She looked gorgeous.  Our first date was a hit and I begged her to see me again.  We met up at a little bar in the city.  There was this waitress who completely ignored her and kept her big blue eyes on me.  "Excuse me."  Tonya had said while the waitress filled my glass of water for the hundredth time.  "But Vic, do you see me?"

"Um, yeah. I can see you,"  I said confused.

Looking up to the waitress.  "Well, I'm glad that you can, because it seems that our waitress can't."  The waitress turned every shade of red. "If you have a problem with me I think that I would like another waiter."

"There's no problem. I'm so sorry," the twenty- something waitress said.

"No need to be sorry. Just let me speak to your manager."

The waitress looked to me for help.  "Give the lady what she wants."

Looking at her right now, she had that same look of frustration and I had to say that it was turning me on.

"Stop, Vic."

"I told you that I can't and I won't stop looking at you."

"Right now you are making me feel uncomfortable."

"Not my intent."

"Once you find out who’s doing this, let me know.  I'll be in my room."

I stood up with her, reaching out to guide her back to her room.  "I got it.  I've been walking close to 30 years now."

"I just want to make sure you don't hurt yourself."  I think she was just too tired to protest. She let me walk her to her room.  "Holler out if you need anything.  We'll be right outside, okay?"  She walked past me and lay face down on the bed.

She stuck her good arm out and gave me the thumbs up and I shut the door.

I left the door cracked, praying that she would call out to me.  Wishful thinking on my part, but hey I am more than desperate at this moment.   “Do you actually think that she’ll come back to you?”  Drew’s statement caught me off guard.  He looked me square in the eye, biceps tensed.

Pressing out a weak smile.  “A man can only hope.”

“You shouldn’t have let her go in the first place; she wouldn’t be in this position.”  The big man swayed.  I had seen this posture before, right before he was going to pound the life out of one of our marks.

Instinctively, I put my hands out, not in fear but to diffuse.  “Don’t you think I know that?  Can’t worry about yesterday. We live for today.  She’s safe now and that is all that matters and we are going to keep her that way.”  I looked over to my little brother whose lips were pressed together so tight I thought they would fuse together.  “Priority one:  keep Tonya safe; two, find out who’s doing this; three, we eliminate target.”

“Then what?  You try to patch things up with Tonya?  She won’t go for it.”  Drew’s voice grew deeper, with a tinge of malice laced in it.

Ryan had the same expression of a man witnessing someone that he loved wanting to sprout wings and jump off a cliff.  

“We follow procedure,” Drew said.  “Not going to pretend that this is just another one of our ‘jobs.’  We know it’s different. We are all emotionally involved.  It will make us more dangerous, but we have to go into this smarter.”

Ryan smirked over to Drew, and then said to me, “Bro, we know our job.  What the big man is trying to say is, will Tonya.”  He hitched a thumb in the direction of her room.  “Will she cloud your judgment?”

It was a good question.  All morning I have been blocking the thoughts of her being violated by this man.  All morning, wanting to coo her and touch her, be reassuring.  My judgment has been cloudy since I saw her in the hospital this morning.

“I’ll be fine.”  Both their glares relaxed.  They knew I was lying through my teeth.

“So the Tomahawk, huh?  Are you going to leave your little brother in the dark?  Spill it.”  Ryan grabbed a bottle water that rested on a coffee table.  “I had no idea that we had Indian in our family.”  He smirked and the tension in the hotel seized to exist. “So what’s the next move?”

I really didn’t know how to be honest.  Had three dead bodies, an asshole roaming around in my house.  An ex-girlfriend that would rather jump out of a building than stand next to me.  I guess I was taking too long in thought.  “Well, we know that someone is trying to kill us--”

“Not the first time,” Drew said.

“Won’t be the last,” I chimed in.

“But this is something old school, something that you did from way back.”  They both looked at me.

A series of curse words came out of our mouths.  “Kinney,” I said, as all of our cell phones rang.

“Turn on the TV,” Drew said, looking down at his phone.  Ryan picked the remote up off the couch.

There stood my former boss.  Standing tall and proud in a pair of creased relaxed fit jeans. His tan was beginning to fade. Flannel shirt and cowboy boots. His wife Annie, looking as homely and fake as ever stood by his side.  Tears ran down her face, a white handkerchief over her mouth. Every few seconds she would shake her head in disbelief.  “As you know, this has come to a shock to me and my family.  The sudden suicide of our only child has left our family hurt and without any answered questions.  Right now I would ask that you would leave our family in peace and respect our privacy as we go through this hard time.”  The former POTUS pulled his wife closer to him and they began to walk back into their ranch home in his hometown state of Wyoming.