Blake Pierce - Once Hunted

As Bill and Riley pored over the material, Kelsey remarked, “I guess you’re wondering why I just won’t let this case go. Sometimes I wonder myself.”

She thought for a moment.

“Shane Hatcher was my one brush with real evil,” she said. “During my first fourteen years with the Bureau, I was pretty much window dressing here in the Syracuse office – the token woman. But I worked this case from the ground up, talking to gangbangers in the street, taking charge of the team. Nobody thought I could bring Hatcher down. In fact, nobody was sure that anybody could bring him down. But I did.”

Now Riley was looking through a folder of poor-quality photos that the Bureau probably hadn’t bothered to scan. Kelsey had obviously known better than to throw them away.

One showed a cop sitting in a café talking to a gangbanger. Riley immediately recognized the young man as Shane Hatcher. It took her a moment to recognize the cop.

“That’s the officer that Hatcher killed, isn’t it?” Riley said.

Kelsey nodded.

“Officer Lucien Wayles,” she said. “I took that photograph myself.”

“What’s he doing talking with Hatcher?”

Kelsey smiled knowingly.

“Well, now, that’s rather interesting,” she said. “I suppose you’ve heard that Officer Wayles was an upstanding, decorated policeman. That’s what the local cops still want everybody to think. Actually, he was corrupt to the very bone. In this picture, he was meeting with Hatcher hoping to make a deal with him – a cut of the drug profits for not interfering with Hatcher’s territory. Hatcher said no. That’s when Wayles decided to do Hatcher in.”

Kelsey pulled out a photograph of Wayles’s mangled body.

“As you probably know, that didn’t work out too well for Officer Wayles,” she said.

Riley felt a tingle of understanding. This was exactly the treasure trove of material she’d yearned for. It brought her much, much closer to the mind of the youthful Shane Hatcher.

As she looked at the photo of Hatcher and the cop, Riley probed the young man’s mind. She imagined Hatcher’s thoughts and feelings at the moment the picture was taken. She also remembered something that Kelsey had just said.

“You know, he had a strict code, even as a gangbanger.”

From her own conversations with Hatcher, Riley knew that it was still true today. And now, looking at the photo, Riley could feel Hatcher’s visceral disgust at Wayles’s proposal.

It offended him, Riley thought. It felt like an insult.

Small wonder that Hatcher had made such a gruesome example of Wayles. According to Hatcher’s twisted code, it was the moral thing to do.

Thumbing through more photos, Riley found a mugshot of another gangbanger.

“Who’s this?” Riley asked.

“Smokey Moran,” Kelsey said. “Shane the Chain’s most trusted lieutenant – until I busted him for selling drugs. He faced a long prison sentence, so I had no trouble getting him to turn state’s evidence against Hatcher in return for some leniency. That’s how I finally nailed Hatcher.”

Riley’s skin prickled as she handled the picture.

“What became of Moran?” she asked.

Kelsey shook her head with disapproval.

“He’s still out there,” she said. “I often wish I hadn’t made that deal. For years and years now, he’s been quietly running all kinds of gang activities. The younger gangbangers look up to him and admire him. He’s smart and elusive. The local cops and the Bureau have never been able to bring him to justice.”

That prickling feeling grew. Riley found herself in Hatcher’s mind, brooding in prison for decades over Moran’s betrayal. In Hatcher’s moral universe, such a man didn’t deserve to live. And justice was long overdue.

“Do you have his current address?” Riley asked Kelsey.

“No, but I’m sure the field office does. Why?”

Riley took a deep breath.

“Because Shane is going there to kill him.”

Riley knew that Smokey Moran was in great danger. But the truth was, Riley’s heart didn’t exactly go out to the vicious career thug.

Shane Hatcher was what really mattered.

Her assignment was to put Hatcher back in prison. If they caught him before he killed Moran for the old betrayal, fine. She and Bill would drive to Moran’s address without giving him any advance warning. They would call the local field office to have backup meet them there.

It was about a half hour drive from Kelsey Sprigge’s home in middle-class Searcy to the much more sinister gang neighborhoods of Syracuse. The sky was overcast, but no snow was falling, and traffic moved normally along the well-cleared roads.

As Bill drove, Riley accessed the FBI database and did some quick research on her cell phone. She saw that the local gang situation was dire. Gangs had grouped and regrouped in this area since the early 1980s. Back in the era of Shane the Chain, they had been mostly locals. Since then national gangs had moved in, bringing with them heightened levels of violence.

The drugs that fueled this violence with their profits had gotten weirder and much more dangerous. They now included cigarettes soaked in embalming fluid and paranoia-inducing crystals called “bath salts.” Who knew what even deadlier substances would turn up next?

As Bill parked in front of the rundown apartment building where Moran lived, Riley saw two men wearing FBI jackets get out of another car – Agents McGill and Newton, who had met them at the airport. She could tell from their bulkiness that they were wearing Kevlar vests under the jackets. Both were carrying Remington sniper rifles.

“Moran’s place is on the third floor,” Riley said.

When the group of agents moved in through the building’s front door, they encountered several gangbanger types standing around in the cold and shabby foyer. They just stood there with their hands shoved into their hoodie pockets and appeared to pay little attention to the armed squad.

Moran’s bodyguards?

She didn’t think they were likely to try to stop her little army of agents, although they might signal Moran that someone was on the way up.

McGill and Newton appeared to know the young guys. The agents patted them down quickly.

“We’re here to see Smokey Moran,” Riley said.

None of the young men said a word. They just stared at the agents with strange, empty expressions. It struck Riley as odd behavior.

“Out,” said Newton, and the guys nodded in compliance and filed out the front door.

With Riley in the lead, the agents stormed up three flights of stairs. The local agents led the way, checking each hallway carefully. On the third floor, they stopped outside Moran’s apartment.

Riley knocked sharply on the door. When no one answered, she called out.

“Smokey Moran, this is FBI Agent Riley Paige. My colleagues and I need to have a word with you. We don’t mean you any harm. We’re not here to arrest you.”

Again came no answer.

“We have reason to believe that your life is in danger,” Riley shouted.

Still no answer.

Riley turned the doorknob. To her surprise, it wasn’t locked, and the door swung open.

The agents stepped into a neatly kept, nondescript apartment with virtually no decor. There was also no TV, no electronic devices, certainly no sign of a computer. Riley realized that Moran managed to wield tremendous influence in the criminal underworld solely by giving face-to-face orders. By never going online or even using a phone, he stayed under law enforcement’s radar.

Definitely a shrewd customer, Riley thought. Sometimes the old-fashioned way works best.

But he was nowhere in sight. The two local agents quickly checked all the rooms and closets. Nobody was in the apartment.