Page 14 of Imminent Danger

He knew how Joey would respond, but he relaxed hearing it nonetheless.

“It’s Kaylie. I… I think she’s in trouble.” His throat grated painfully over the words. “Can you find everything on her for me?”

“What kind of trouble?”

He glanced up at Marshall, waiting a few steps away. The hints of his impatience were hidden, but Tank recognized the flutter of his friend’s fingers in his pocket. Marshall’s eyes darted around the open area in front of the prison, searching for nonexistent threats.

“Just a hunch,” he said, unable to explain the feeling in his gut that there was more to Kaylie’s story than she was saying. “We’re headed inside now.”

“I’m on it. Get what we need from this guy, okay?”

Tank nodded sharply as he pulled the phone away from his ear. Whatever was going on with Kaylie would have to wait. He and Marshall were here on a mission. Which brought them here, to this nondescript block building with a maroon, arched entry.

On its own, it looked more like a high school gym entrance than a prison. But Tank knew what was beyond this building. The open yard had walkways like spokes from the center to each of the cell blocks, and a double fence with barbed wire surrounded the entire property of Coleman Medium Security Federal Correctional Institution.

Tank would much rather the man they were visiting was wasting away, watching his back at every moment over in one of FCI Coleman’s maximum security prisons. But as long as he wasn’t walking free, it counted as a win for Black Tower. And of course, for Hannah Stone, the feisty reporter who had wormed her way into their family after witnessing the assassination and uncovering the corruption at Marshand Chemical and the EPA.

“Normal strategy?” Marshall asked as they reached the double doors.

Tank nodded. Theirs was a pretty effective strategy, all things considered. Marshall would do the talking, and Tank would essentially stare the man down and scare him into complying. Tank knew he looked ticked off on a good day, so when he was trying to look intimidating? Well, people would do just about anything to get his attention off them.

He and Marshall faked their names on the paperwork, and with a knowing glance from the guard, they were in. Their connections at the FBI had already cleared the way for their little chat.

A guard in a navy-blue uniform led them down the windowless hallway to a small, also windowless, room. Waiting inside, chained by his wrists to a metal table with a thick metal loop in the center, was today’s mission.

Damien Strickland looked like death warmed over. Apparently, even the medium security prison was a bit rough for the multi-millionaire. He’d been denied bail and deemed a flight risk, which made Tank’s normally stoic heart almost sing with satisfaction. The man had poisoned thousands of citizens in Florida trying to cover up the spill that threatened their water supply. He was greedy scum, but he didn’t even hold a candle to the monsters he was going to help them find.

Strickland had been arrested a few months earlier for a slew of charges related to his role in the cover-up of the spill at his former company, Marshand Chemical Group. What Black Tower was still trying to figure out was the real motive behind the cover-up and how the Syndicate was involved. There wasn’t a doubt in their minds that the Syndicate had been involved, based on how the cover-up was intertwined with the assassination of President Waters.

Damien’s shaggy brown hair hung over his forehead in greasy strands, as if he hadn’t bothered washing it in weeks. He looked a far cry from the polished man they’d watched be arrested on national television. Of course, Tank might have called in a few favors to make sure Damien’s time here in FCI Coleman wasn’t especially hospitable.

His eyes lingered on a fading bruise under Strickland’s left eye. There was a dull satisfaction that his friends had kept their end of the bargain, and a hint of regret that he hadn’t been able to deliver a similar blow himself.

“Who are you?” Damien spat at them. “You can’t be here. I get a lawyer!”

Tank took up his position against the wall, his eyes trained on Damien.

Marshall clicked his tongue. “Ah, ah, ah. That’s where you’re wrong. You only get a lawyer if we are officers of the law. Are we officers of the law?” he directed the question at Tank.

With painstaking slowness, Tank shook his head, letting all of the disdain and anger he felt toward this man seep into expression.

The little color that had remained on Strickland’s face drained. “Guards!”

“They’re not going to help you,” Marshall said coolly. “We’re just here to ask you a few questions. You might have the media and the feds convinced that your only motive was hitting the numbers you needed for the 3rd quarter, but we both know that isn’t true, is it?”

Damien glared at Marshall. “You don’t know anything.”

Marshall was unaffected. “We know more than you think. But that’s okay. We’re going to let you tell us. Otherwise, my friend here will encourage you as needed.”

Tank shifted his weight, rolling his shoulders back as Damien’s gaze slid back to him.

“You think I’m scared of you? You’re nothing compared to them.”

Tank growled in irritation. It sounded way too similar to what Darkshade, the Ukrainian assassin, had told them before someone had blown his head off from 200 yards away on the tarmac. He was terrified of someone he called Saltykova–a dead end Tank and Joey had been trying to unravel for months.

Was Strickland afraid of the same person? He hadn’t said “her” but maybe it was the same.

Marshall was on the same page. “Who are they? Why do they care about a chemical spill in Florida?”

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