Disavowed Read online

  Disavowed

  A Blackthorn Thriller

  R.A. McGee

  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

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Epilogue

  Ready To Be A Rogue?

  Want More Clark?

  About the Author

  To JRM

  My original sparring partner. I’m sure the action scenes wouldn’t be as good without all our practice. Sorry about the hill…

  One

  To Clark, the blinking neon sign on the side of the building was an advertisement for nude women, cheap booze, and violence. He stood in the dusty gravel parking lot, finishing the last of a cigarette, the pale green light flashing against his face.

  There was no line outside the drab one-story building. Clark waited until he saw his guy walk out and look around nervously. Clark waved him over, and the chubby Mexican jogged as best as he could.

  The man held his palm out. Clark handed the man a folded hundred, holding tightly to the end. “Is he in there?”

  The man shook his head. “No, not yet, but his guys are.”

  Clark snatched the bill back from the man. “Miguel, you’re wasting my time. I’m not paying for his men. I need him.”

  “You see how the parking lot is almost empty? There’s a reason nobody else is here. It’s because everybody knows. A couple times a month, Flores and his guys come in and blow off a little steam. No one wants to be around when those animals are in there. Trust me, he will be here.”

  “If you fuck with me…”

  “You’ll kill me, I know. Believe me, if I couldn’t help you, I wouldn’t say I could. Flores will be here,” Miguel said.

  Clark handed the bill to the man. “As long as we have an understanding.”

  Miguel nodded, jowls shaking. “Just wait a few minutes and come in. You’ll see.”

  Clark nodded and watched as his informant scurried back across the parking lot. The man was far from trustworthy, but there wasn’t much else Clark could do.

  He needed to find Flores.

  The loose cigarettes in his pocket called to him, and he fished around until he grabbed one. He’d paid a man on a street corner handsomely for those smokes. He always bought only a few at a time. Clark didn’t trust himself with a whole pack.

  He was trying to quit.

  The cigarette quickly burned to a nub and Clark dropped it on the gravel, stomping it out underneath his heel. He walked across the empty parking lot and up to the front door. The doorman was the first person Clark had seen in the entire country who was bigger than himself. Clark was just over six feet; the doorman had a few inches on him, and maybe thirty pounds.

  When the doorman spoke to Clark, it was in Spanish. Everyone in Mexico did. With his brown skin and dark beard, he could easily be from somewhere south of the border, especially with his face half-hidden in the dark. “Veinte dólares.”

  Clark pulled out a twenty and paid the man, then stepped through a brown door, which swung closed after him. Lights bounced off a disco ball and filtered through the smoky air.

  The middle of the space was dominated by an oval-shaped stage with three brass-colored poles anchored to it. Two girls, in various stages of undress, gyrated around the poles, making frequent trips to the edge of the stage to collect the dollar bills the men offered up.

  Beyond the stage, a deejay in an elevated booth barked over a relentlessly loud soundtrack. Clark went to the back corner, pulled a chair over, and sat with his back to the wall, watching everything in front of him.

  On the other side of the room, near the restroom, several tables were pushed together. Half a dozen rowdy men sat there, drinking bottles of beer pulled from buckets filled with ice. It was soon apparent that the handful of men sitting around the stage were with the group as well, bringing their numbers somewhere near ten.

  Clark lit his last cigarette and observed the group. The waitresses were busy, bringing bucket after bucket of beer to the men, who drank them as quickly as they came, spilling a good portion as a penalty of their drunkenness. Every girl in the club was occupied, either on the stage or with the men.

  No one came over to Clark to take a beer order or dance for him. The lights didn’t reach his little corner, and he sat bathed in darkness.

  After half a dozen more buckets from the waitresses, the front door swung open. Illuminated by the light from outside as well as the strobe from the stage, Clark easily recognized Darren Flores.

  A Texas-born United States citizen, Flores had spent most of the last five years working his way up the ranks of the Nahuatl cartel.

  The term “cartel” had fallen out of favor in the law enforcement and intelligence communities, replaced by the more generic term “Drug-Trafficking Organization.” Clark preferred to call it like he saw it. Flores was a high-ranking member of his cartel, and that put him squarely on Clark's radar.

  In the brief moment he was illuminated, Clark saw the man’s fancy leather cowboy boots, his clean jeans, and crisp white button-up shirt. An oversized cowboy hat topped his outfit.

  Clark’s cigarette had long since burned out, and he dropped it on the floor. His pulse quickened at the sight of Flores, and he took a deep breath to calm himself. He needed to stay calm and relaxed. The waiting wasn’t finished yet.

  Flores made his way over to the group, where he was hailed as a hero. They were all bursting with excitement at his presence, and the waitresses brought even more beer to stimulate the festivities.

  What’s more, Flores pulled out a large baggie, a quarter full of a white powdered substance. With a swipe of his arm, he cleared off the beer bottles from a table, empty and full alike. He picked up a dancer’s discarded lingerie top and wiped the table dry, then sprinkled the powder on it.

  He and his men took turns hoovering lines, then the dancers got in on the action.
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br />   Clark watched the group and waited.

  An hour later, his wait was over. Flores stood on unsteady feet and lumbered toward the bathroom door, leaning against the stage as he went.

  Clark stood and walked around the opposite side, away from the group. Then he circled around the end near the entryway and followed Flores into the bathroom.

  The bathroom was small: a stall, a urinal, and a sink. Flores was at the sink, staring at himself in the mirror, pulling down the bags on his eyes.

  Wordlessly, Clark went to the urinal. Flores stumbled into the stall, pissing noisily as Clark pretended to go.

  “My friend,” Flores said in slurred English. “I see you in the corner, all alone. You should come and join us. We have plenty.”

  “Mighty nice of you,” Clark said, answering over the stall wall.

  “Of course. When I do well, everyone does well. You see how happy my party is? You can be happy too.”

  “I’m already happy.”

  “You don’t look it. You have a sour look on your face. It makes you look like an asshole. I figure there are only two things you could be bothered about,” Flores said.

  “And what’s that?”

  The toilet flushed and Flores stumbled out of the stall. “Women and work. That’s all a man cares about. The first is no worry—have you seen the girls out there? I’ll buy one for you, then you will forget there are any other women.”

  “Quite an offer,” Clark said, pretending to zip his pants and facing the man as he leaned on the sink again.

  “I am very generous. As far as work?” Flores looked up at Clark. “You are a big man. Might as well be a giant in this country. You come work for me. I can find something for you to do.”

  “I already have a job.”

  Flores patted him on the shoulder. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of money, with a rubber band holding it all together. “But does your work pay this?”

  Clark whistled. “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Here. You take it. I have plenty,” Flores said as he dropped the hefty brick into Clark’s hands.

  Clark stuffed the wad into his front pocket and smiled. “Thanks.”

  “See? No problems. Aren’t you feeling better?” Flores laughed.

  Clark joined him, putting his hand on Flores’s shoulder as he laughed. Then he slid his hand behind Flores’s head and brought the Spyderco knife he’d surreptitiously deployed up and into Flores’s neck. He pushed with all his strength, tearing and severing everything in Flores’s throat, rendering him silent.

  He dropped the man on the dirty tile floor, his blood pulsing out of the arteries and veins. Flores’s eyes were wide and he clutched his wound, trying to keep his blood in, but it was no use.

  The bathroom was filled with an overwhelming metallic smell. Clark wiped the blade on Flores’s immaculate white shirt sleeve and slipped it back into his front pocket. He stood and took a deep breath, then stepped over the body on his way out of the bathroom. He reached for the door, which swung open at him.

  Two of Flores’s men walked in, laughing and joking. A moment later, they saw their boss, bled out on the floor. The laughing stopped as they looked at Clark.

  “Oh, shit.”

  Two

  Instinctively, Clark kicked the door shut to close off any further visitors to the restroom. With no time to reach his knife, Clark launched himself at the first man, a short, squat guy wearing a red shirt.

  Red Shirt was frozen in terror as Clark grabbed him by the throat and heaved him into his bearded friend, driving them both into the wall.

  Wasting no time, Clark slammed two right hands into Red Shirt’s face and felt the man sag against his grip. Beard was behind his partner, reaching into the side of his waistband, exposing the black grip of a gun whose make Clark didn’t recognize.

  Clark released his grip on Red Shirt’s throat, allowing the man to fall inert onto the floor, nearly on top of his boss.

  The pistol came out of Beard’s waistband, but he fumbled his draw and only got a couple of fingers on the butt of the pistol. Clark smacked his hand and sent the weapon skittering away on the tile floor.

  Beard swung frantic punches at Clark and managed to slip one in, tagging him in the left eye. Clark pushed the man back against the wall, then hit him with a string of right hands, until he was on wobbly legs.

  Clark picked him up and slammed him on the pile that was the other two men. Then, he held him down with one hand, re-deploying his Spyderco with the other and slashing his throat. The man did the same futile throat clutch that Flores had done, and his blood ran on top of his companions.

  Not content to take a chance the man would get up, Clark grabbed Red Shirt and slit his throat for good measure. He quickly stood and leaned against the bathroom door, holding it shut as the men on the floor went through their final death throes.

  No one else tried to get in.

  Once Clark was sure they were all dead, he put away his knife and flipped the switch to the bathroom light, leaving the room in darkness. Then he stepped out and closed the door behind him.

  He looked to the right and saw the remainder of the cartel party. The Glock in his waistband called to him. It hung heavy, reminding him that it was there and ready to be used. Clark thought, however briefly, about taking out the rest of the men. Were it not for the innocent working girls surrounding them, he might have.

  Clark couldn’t even pretend to muster any sympathy for the men in the cartel. Still, he wasn’t about to kill anyone who wasn’t involved in their crimes—not even coked-out-of-their-mind strippers, who might be involved in who knew what else.

  Clark was past the stage and out the front door before any of Flores's goons noticed their boss was taking an exceptionally long time in the bathroom.

  Past the big doorman, Clark found Miguel pacing nervously up and down the front sidewalk. “Did you do it? Huh? I didn’t hear any gunshots.”

  “Relax,” Clark said. “No one will suspect you were involved at all. Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless you were planning to snitch on me,” Clark said. “Maybe you go to Flores’s boss and tell him who killed his guys in a shitty strip club bathroom.”

  “Hey, my club isn’t that bad,” Miguel said.

  “I know how greedy you are. It would be easy to dime me out and make a few extra bucks for yourself.” Clark stepped closer, letting the comment linger in the air.

  “Hey, listen, I ain't no rat.”

  “You ratted Flores out to me,” Clark countered.

  “But he was an asshole. His crew is always smacking my girls around. You think they pay for all the booze they drink? Hell no. They run a tab and then leave when they’re done. What am I going to do, mail them an invoice? The way I see it, you did me a favor.”

  “Fine. Just remember—”

  “Don’t fuck with you. I know, I got it.”

  “Good.” Clark set off down the sidewalk, away from the seedy club. He hadn’t driven that evening, preferring instead to walk. The small Mexican border city was easily walkable, and although he was a head taller than most people, Clark had plenty of experience blending in places.

  Half a mile away from the club, Clark found himself on a sidewalk filled with worn-down workers coming in from the fields, beggars, panhandlers, and tourist kids stumbling around drunk, clueless to the dangers around them.

  Clark kept his head down, then turned off a side street and cut through a poorly paved alleyway. The buildings overhead were the same color as all the rest: tan, with bumpy stucco to combat the effects of the harsh daily sun.

  The alley let him out on a larger street, and he walked around the corner, standing for several minutes in front of an empanada takeout shop. He observed the people walking past him, ensuring that none of his fellow pedestrians had followed him or otherwise posed a threat.

  Feeling confident, he waited another ten minutes for good measure, then walked across the small
street and through the lobby of a laundromat. It was a twenty-four-hour affair, but the only person in the dimly lit room was a man, sitting in his underwear, cowboy hat and boots on. The man stared at the face of a front-load washing machine, its cargo spinning round and round.

  Clark stepped behind the makeshift plywood counter and into a walkway that led to a cramped staircase. One floor later, he was walking down a dark hallway, then standing in front of the only door on the floor.

  He pulled out his flashlight to illuminate the door handle. The witness mark he’d drawn in Sharpie on the worn silver knob was in the position he’d left it. The knob hadn’t been turned.

  No one had come through the door.

  Clark turned the key in the knob, then shouldered into the sticky door to get it to open. He stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him.

  He flipped on the light and a bare bulb flickered to life, revealing the small studio that Clark called home. There was a bed, a couch, and a coffee table littered with plastic bottles of cheap vodka.

  Behind the couch was the kitchenette, with a single folding chair at an uneven wooden table with a red Sharpie marker on top.