Sandbagged: A Theo Ramage Thriller (Book 2) Read online

  Sandbagged

  Edward J. McFadden III

  Copyright © 2021 Edward J. McFadden III

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors' imagination or are used fictitiously and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For more information, go to http://www.edwardmcfadden.com

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  “The axe forgets, but the tree remembers.”

  – African Proverb

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Also by Edward J. McFadden III

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Karmen Brassi never wanted to be a killer, but sometimes life has a way of going sideways.

  It was like her nickname. On one hand there was a certain poetic justice to being known as Karma, but when you looked at it another way it was a lot of responsibility, like there were ethics involved. She killed people for money, there was no way to dress it up. When she was younger, she’d tried to shed the moniker, but when nicknames stuck, they stuck.

  The dark blue Kenworth growled as it rolled toward where she hid in her rental car, air brakes chirping as the truck’s driver braked hard when he was cut off by a miniature pickup. Karma peered at the semi’s driver through her spyglass, waiting for the inevitable explosion of anger that never came. The Skeeter just sat behind the wheel of his truck, staring through the windshield. There was no yelling, no single finger salute. The pickup buzzed away like a fly, and the truck lurched forward across the Red Rock Truck Stop’s parking lot, stopping at the gas pumps.

  She watched the Skeeter gas up, then park his truck in a long line of eighteen-wheelers that looked like they were starting a race. He’d go get food in the diner next, then he’d sleep for four hours and continue on. He was like clockwork.

  This Skeeter didn’t look like a child killer to her, and he sure didn’t act like one. She frowned. Her contract to terminate one Theodore Ramage was paid for by the Valez family, who cared more about maintaining street cred in the Nicaraguan underground then they did about avenging the two family members Mr. Ramage had murdered, one of which had been a young girl named Sandy Islmal. Seeing the Skeeter, getting a feel for his life, something didn’t fit. She knew sometimes things didn’t go according to plan, and bad things happened, but in this case, she wasn’t the jury, just the executioner.

  Karma glanced in her rearview, the dark bags beneath her eyes like magic marker lines on her deep olive colored skin. She’d been following this particular Skeeter for a week, and based on what she’d heard and seen, she liked this guy Ramage, but it didn’t matter.

  But it did. Thing was, she didn’t shoot people from afar with a long-range sniper rifle like some of her competitors. Killing was personal for her, and she’d looked into the eyes of every Skeeter she’d ever swatted, and there were only two instances that made bile creep up her throat.

  She hoped this Skeeter Ramage didn’t become a third. It made things so much harder.

  Karma believed that all people she met, no matter where they were from, what they did for a living, how much money they had, what ethnicity they were or language they spoke, all fell into three categories. Ten percent of the people Karma came across she liked immediately, often without even speaking to the person. This is how she knew love at first sight was a real thing, even though she’d never experienced it. Then there was the ten percent she knew from first sniff were dipshits, or worse. The eighty percent of people she met outside those twenty required work to get along with.

  She was fighting her internal evaluation department because the unanimous opinion was this particular Skeeter was in the top ten percent.

  When her Skeeter was sitting safely on a stool at the counter in the diner, Karma put her seat back and stared at the stars blinking through the gaps in the clouds. She wondered if Alandro was watching those same stars back in Nicaragua. She missed her son, hated being away from him, which was why she’d lined up the twofer. She had a side job going with the church, and thus only had to take one trip to the states.

  She glanced at the folded white sheets of paper on the dashboard. A summary of the Skeeter’s life provided by a vile chap who called himself Splice. A mountain of contradictions, she’d found herself liking the Skeeter before she even saw him. She rubbed her eyes. It would all be over soon.

  The Skeeter came out of the diner after forty-five minutes, climbed up into his truck, and closed the curtains. At around 11:30PM the truck went dark. She knew from past observation that he’d sleep for four hours, then continue on.

  Tonight he wouldn’t.

  Karma waited and watched. The diner closed and most folks moved on. There were eight trucks in overnight parking, spaced out over an area that could handle three times as many. Generators hummed and buzzed, and daggers of light knifed from truck cabs, but for the most part the truck stop was quiet.

  Karma put her small supply bag in the pocket of her black jacket, clipped her Beretta to her belt, and slipped from the white Chevy Traverse she’d rented under a false ID at Provo Municipal Airport. It was 2:12AM.

  There were competing vending machines shining like red and blue stars next to the diner’s entrance. She walked toward them, not rushing, nor going slow. An old security camera covered the diner’s entrance, a small red dot visible above its lens. She kept her eyes locked on the soda machines and used her peripheral vision, reflections, and sound to map the entire truck stop. A cat was perched on a dumpster gnawing a bone, and several birds watched her from atop a light pole, but no other living eyes tracked her movement.

  She stayed in the shadows, avoiding the puddles of light created by the high-pressure sodium lights all around the parking lot. When she was almost to the soda machines she veered right, cutting toward the gas pumps and the line of trucks. A burst of cheering made her freeze in her tracks—someone watching a sporting event on their truck’s TV or listening on the radio. That was good for her. In the deep of night, a bit of random background noise could be helpful.

  She walked behind the row of eighteen-wheelers, examining the assortment of stickers on the back doors, a rough chronology of the high points in each of the semi’s travels.

  The Skeeter’s blue Kenworth sat alone at the end of the row under the glare of a parking lot light. The truck’s cab was in darkness, but its entire load was lit up brighter than a stadium. The flatbed trailer was packed with equipment that looked like old rocket ship parts. She knew the stuff
was oil related, but what it was she didn’t know, and the Skeeter probably didn’t, either.

  Karma approached the Kenworth, eyes locked on the passenger side window and the small porthole marking the truck’s sleeping quarters. She stayed out of the cone of light until she was close, then she strode purposefully toward the truck’s trailer, squinting as she entered the cloud of light, eyes adjusting from the darkness. If she was seen now, she would simply ask the Skeeter if she could borrow some sugar.

  She wasn’t seen, and when Karma reached the blue semi she dropped and rolled under the Kenworth’s trailer. She waited, breathing softly, listening hard, blocking out the chirping and braying of the night symphony, the gentle push of the wind, and the faint tap and rattle of a generator. No sounds of movement came from the Kenworth, no footfalls on pavement.

  Karma waited five more minutes to be certain, then Army crawled the length of the truck’s trailer until she was beneath the Kenworth’s engine compartment. She scanned the parking lot again before pulling her supply bag and laying it on the blacktop. Karma removed a penlight and a selfie stick with an exacto knife secured to its end from the bag.

  She extended the selfie stick, clicked on the narrow light, and went to work.

  It took three minutes, a dim glow leaking from under the truck as she punctured, slashed, and cut all the air hoses she could see. When she was done, she retracted the selfie stick, and put it in the supply bag along with the penlight. She inched backward until she was under the trailer, and there she waited a thirty count, taking deep breaths, trying to slow the rhythm of her heart.

  Karma casually rolled out from under the truck, pressed to her feet, and headed back toward the vending machines. The digital clock on the Castle Rock beer sign in the diner’s window read 2:31AM. The Skeeter had gone to bed at around midnight and was scheduled to wake at 4:00AM, when only bats and insomniacs were awake.

  The Skeeter would get up, thinking he was beating the rush, making a final push homeward bound. When the Kenworth didn’t start and the guy got out to look under the hood, Karma would introduce herself.

  Except, that’s not what happened.

  She sat patiently in the Chevy until 4:00AM, and by 4:30AM Karma was ready to storm the Skeeter’s truck, but that made no sense at all. The guy had the advantage inside his metal casa, and he was most likely armed, and was certainly dangerous. What was she supposed to do? Knock on the guy’s door? Wait until he looks out a window and take his head off? Gunshots, even of the silenced variety, would bring onlookers, police, so she waited, the drumbeat of her nerves dancing faster with each passing minute.

  The diner opened at 7:00AM and Ramage was the first one in. He made a show of looking under the semi’s hood, but she could tell he had no idea what he was looking at. When he entered the diner, he had a bag slung over a shoulder and something glittered in his hand. Pain lanced her neck. Why would he leave his truck? Where the hell could he go?

  It took the Skeeter an hour and a half to eat, and Karma figured he was waiting on something. Sure enough, a red Honda wagon pulled up, a red plastic DriveME sign held onto the car’s roof with black straps. Karma put the spyglass to her eye and watched the Skeeter have words with the car’s driver, then he disappeared around the back of the building while the taxi waited.

  The truck service bays were on the backside of the cinderblock building that housed the diner and public restrooms, a barren dirt circle containing the flagpole the only adornment. The place’s Christmas decorations, if it had ever had any, were already gone.

  The Skeeter appeared a minute later and jumped into the Honda and it sped off, disappearing behind a red rock plateau that hid RT-6.

  Karma started the car, then shut it down. What was the rush? He’d probably gone for supplies and had to come back for his truck. It was still early, and no cars moved in the parking lot, but the Skeeter might notice her jumping in behind him, and the taxi driver was a witness.

  She got out of the car and jogged around the back of the diner and found the mechanic’s office locked. The hours of operation stenciled on the glass showed standard hours starting at 7:00AM. What the hell? Did everyone but her sleep in today?

  A white piece of paper smudged with greasy fingerprints was tacked below a key drop. The note had been scrawled in a doctor-like hand. It read: “Gone Armadillo Hunting, be back Wednesday.” It was Tuesday.

  Karma sighed.

  Below the main note a yellow Post-it™ was stuck to the glass. “Please call Theo. Room #6 at The Whispering Pine Motel. 435-637-1919.”

  Karma pulled free Ramage’s note, crumpled it, and tossed it in a trashcan as she made her way back to the rental car.

  Chapter Two

  Ramage hadn’t been shot at in a couple of weeks, and he’d been in no fights, not so much as a disagreement on a checkout line, since he’d left Prairie Home. There was the asshat who cut him off at the gas station, but he’d let it slide and that had been a proud moment. His nerves no longer strummed his angst, and his nightmares had fallen into a predictable pattern that he’d learned to manage. He was getting some sleep, and he didn’t see the Sandman’s seething face in his dreams, or the blood splattered on the inside of Gypsy and Cecil’s van. Anna said all that was progress. He wasn’t so sure. Ramage couldn’t help connecting his recent relaxed behavior with being back out on the road, not having to converse with others of the species, and like a tickle in the back of his throat that idea irritated him.

  A semi thundered down RT-6 and the windows rattled. Ramage rolled onto his side and the thin mattress, if you could call the threadbare, foam-filled, flattened dirty mound a mattress, squeaked. Music, the mumble of a TV, and a mother yelling at her son Daniel echoed through the motel. The room stank of mothballs and smoke, and Ramage felt the familiar itch of unease spreading down his back. He rolled his shoulders and stared at his cellphone where it sat on the nightstand.

  The Whispering Pine Motel was southeast of Provo. It was a dive of epic proportions, but finding a room on short notice in Utah in January was a fool’s errand, even at lower elevations. Ski season was in full swing, and Ramage wasn’t interested in paying a thousand dollars a night for a room that allowed its guests to take an elevator to a heated gondola, which went to the top of a mountain, so said guests could get out and complain about how cold it was. He also hadn’t wanted a one-star rent by the hour establishment, but with the snow-covered mountain ranges looking down on the arid red rock plains with haughty derision, beggars can’t be choosers.

  His phone buzzed and Ramage smiled as he tapped his FaceYou app. “Hey, sweetie. Been waiting on your call. What’s up?”

  “Oh, you know. My evening consisted of dinner at Lucy’s with dad and now I’m pining for my man, drinking by myself on the porch swing. It’s poetic in a tragic kind of way,” Anna said. Just hearing her voice made Ramage remember the warmth of her touch, the gleam in her dark eyes. The trip north had served its purpose. If he didn’t love Anna, he sure liked her a lot.

  “Sounds wonderful,” Ramage said. “How is my number one fan?”

  She chuckled and the sound was like a warm breeze. “Poppa? He’s enjoying all the attention.”

  “Attention?” An old, tattered red flag Ramage hadn’t raised in a couple of weeks fluttered as storm clouds gathered in his mind.

  “Word got around that he helped take down the Sandman. Turns out, folks around here aren’t as supportive of the dead asshole and his son as we thought,” she said.

  He harrumphed. “That’s always the way. In Nazi Germany people just looked the other way because they were scared. Makes you weak, but it doesn’t make you a killer.”

  “Or a thief.”

  “So, has my name come up?”

  “Of course.”

  Another eighteen-wheeler blew down RT-6 and the Whispering Inn whispered and shook.

  “And?” Ramage said into the void.

  “Everyone looks at me with pity. Like I’m some damsel that’s been left behind in my
tower while caveman Ramage conquers the world.”

  He said nothing. They’d talked frequently since he’d left Prairie Home, but her frustration with his absence appeared to grow each time.

  “From what I can tell the odds around town are about 50-50 that you’ll be back.”

  He whistled. “Only fifty percent? What do you think?”

  “I think I miss you and need you here. Any word on Big Blue?”

  It was Ramage’s turn to sigh. “Strangest thing ever. I had her checked out before I left. Tito went through everything. She ran like a dream up to Seattle, no issues at all. I pick up my load, no delays, then she just dies.”

  “At least it happened at a rest area where you could get help,” she said.

  Ramage flashed back to the little pickup cutting him off as he pulled into the rest stop. He’d eaten, hit the head, gotten a great night’s sleep, and when he went to leave Big Blue wouldn’t start. The engine had wheezed and farted, and when the motor did start, it stalled immediately. “It’s a good thing I left my name and info with the waitress at the diner, or I’d be even further behind schedule. The mechanic says he didn’t get my note.”

  “Mechanics are fortunetellers, you know that. Any predictions?” Anna said.

  “Probably a vacuum hose or an electrical problem.”

  “Great, like going to the doctor and being told it’s a virus,” Anna said.

  “The guy at the shop said I should be good to go tomorrow morning.”