Elevation: A London Carter Novel (London Carter Mystery Series Book 5) Read online

  ELEVATION

  A London Carter Novel

  (Book 5)

  __________________

  BY

  BJ BOURG

  www.bjbourg.com

  ELEVATION

  A London Carter Novel by BJ Bourg

  This book is a work of fiction.

  All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or

  reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author, with the exception of brief

  excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  Copyright © 2017 by BJ Bourg

  ISBN-13:

  ISBN-10:

  Cover Art by Christine Savoie of Bayou Cover Designs

  PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  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 1

  Sunday, May 25

  New Orleans, LA

  Trace Mullins was fast asleep—or as asleep as any man in his profession ever allowed himself to be—in his hotel room when his laptop came alive. It beeped several times and, through the internal speakers, he could here footsteps echoing against a hardwood floor.

  Without moving a muscle, Trace opened his eyes and scanned the room. All was dark and quiet except for a dim glow emitting from his laptop’s open monitor. He hadn’t closed it last night when he’d logged out of the video chat website with Sandi and the girls, but he had definitely turned it off. Easing his hand out from under the bed sheet, he wrapped his fingers around his Model 1911 .45 caliber pistol and flipped the safety off. The metallic click was loud in the still darkness of the room, but it was the only sound he heard…well, except for the footsteps that still echoed from the speakers of his laptop.

  Trace didn’t think anyone was slick enough to sneak into his room without him hearing, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Since computers didn’t turn themselves on, someone must’ve managed to access his laptop. If it hadn’t happened remotely, then they were inside his room and that spelled real trouble. Easing his feet to the floor while penetrating the shadows of the room with his eyes, he moved to the door and checked it for signs of intrusion. There were none. Next, he checked the window, but it was also secure. Relaxing just a little, he slinked toward the laptop and tilted the screen so he could see what was going on.

  He squinted and leaned closer. He was watching video footage of some sort, but it was hard to make out exactly what he was seeing because of the darkness. There were intermittent flashes of light as the camera moved down what appeared to be a hallway, and it helped offer some perspective. When the camera panned the wall on the right side of the hall, he cursed silently. “What the hell…?”

  Reaching for his cell, he dialed the number to his house phone. One of the girls must’ve grabbed Sandi’s iPad while she was sleeping and redialed his computer on the video chat website. While the house phone rang, he called out to his girls.

  “Camille, is that you?” he asked. “Turn the iPad around so I can see you. Autumn, are you trying to reach me?”

  The video footage continued down the hallway as the phone continued to ring in Trace’s ear. “Girls, talk to me. It’s your dad—you accidentally redialed my computer.”

  When the camera reached the closed door to the master bedroom, it paused briefly and then turned away, moving in a semi-circle and stopping when it came to rest on the small shelf at the end of the hall. On top of the shelf was a handset sitting on a charger and it was ringing. The camera remained trained on the phone and began moving slowly toward it.

  Trace strained to see the hand that reached for the phone, but it was too dark and blurry. He held his breath when the phone clicked in his ear, and he watched the handset disappear somewhere above the camera.

  “Sandi? Is it you?” Trace gripped the pistol in his right hand as he held the phone with his left hand. “Camille…Autumn…come on girls, this isn’t funny.”

  “Oh, I think it’s hilarious.”

  Trace didn’t flinch, but his heart froze in his chest when he heard the voice of a strange man on his house phone. Knowing it was best to remain calm, he asked, “Who is this?”

  “Who I am isn’t important,” the man said. “What’s important is what I want…and how willing you are to give me what I want.”

  “Look, I can give you whatever it is you want, but first you’ll have to leave my house.” Trace took a measured breath. “Just turn and walk away, and then we can talk about whatever it is you want.”

  The camera moved toward the door to Camille’s room, then toward Autumn’s room, and then back toward the master bedroom. “Pick a door, Trace. One, two, or three.”

  “What do you want from me?” Even as he asked it, he knew how ridiculous and weak it sounded to ask such a question, but he was starting to panic on the inside. He was thirteen hours from home and could do nothing to save his wife and daughters from this intruder. A fighter his entire life, his first instinct would’ve been to tell this intruder to go screw himself, but he couldn’t—not with his family’s lives in jeopardy. He was paralyzed with fear. “Please, just don’t hurt them. I’ll do whatever it is you want.”

  “Is that so?” The man turned the camera toward his face and Trace saw that he was wearing a black mask with holes cut out for the eyes. Based on the collar and arms of the outfit, it looked like the man was wearing dark gray coveralls. The mask covered the man’s mouth, but Trace thought he detected a sneer on the man’s face. “Then pick a damn door already. One, two, or three.”

  “How do I know which is which?” Trace asked.

  “You don’t. Now, pick one before I do. If I have to pick one, it won’t be good for whoever’s on the other side of the door, that’s for damn sure.”

  Going in the order the man had panned the camera, Trace picked door three, which was the master bedroom.

  “Please forgive me, Sandi,” he said under his breath, “but you stand a better chance against
this man than the girls do.”

  The camera turned up the hall and jostled lazily as the man walked toward the master bedroom. When he reached the door, Trace saw a leg come up and the door was violently and suddenly kicked inward. Surprisingly, Trace didn’t hear a scream. He sighed and leaned forward in relief. Sandi must’ve taken the girls to her mom’s house in Roanoke.

  “Listen here, you little bastard,” Trace said, his confidence growing and his voice picking up steam as he spoke. “You’ve got ten seconds to get your ass out of my house or my buddies will come barreling through there and—”

  Trace jumped back and dropped the phone when the lights flashed on and he saw his wife propped up in their four poster king-sized bed. Her hands were tied together and secured above her head to the top rail and a piece of thick tape had been placed across her mouth. The red satin nighty she wore was stretched high on her thighs, exposing the matching panties underneath. A second masked man clad in dark gray coveralls was kneeling on the bed beside her and he held a knife to her exposed belly with one hand while gripping her throat with the other hand.

  “Ah,” said the man on the phone. “I see I have your attention now.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Trace knew it was best to remain calm and try to reason with the man in charge, but anger burned like acid in his veins at the sight of his wife being treated that way. He snatched the phone from the ground and, through gritted teeth, said, “If you touch one hair on her head, I’m going to hunt you down and skin you alive, and then I’m going to slowly saw your head off. Do you hear me?”

  The camera jerked back toward the man’s face. “If you don’t shut your mouth and do exactly what I say, I’m going to set her entire head of hair on fire and let her run around this place like a torch, burning your house to the ground with your kids trapped inside. Do you hear me?”

  Trace bit his tongue until he tasted blood.

  The man’s eyes were black and soulless. “You’d better sound off like you give a shit or I’m going to have Blade here open her up like a fish.”

  “I…I hear you,” Trace said slowly, his fists clinched and his gaze fixed on his wife’s terrified eyes. He wasn’t a praying man, but he said a silent prayer that Sandi would survive and God would deliver these evil men into his hands. “What the hell do you want?”

  “Blade, make her scream.” The camera turned toward Sandi and the man called Blade jerked her toward him and pushed the knife up to her throat. Sandi’s muffled scream sent chills down Trace’s back. The veins in her temples bulged as she strained against the tape, trying to call out for help.

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Trace said. “You’ve got my undivided attention.”

  Blade eased his hold on Sandi and lowered the knife.

  The camera whipped around and exited the bedroom. Trace began shaking his head. “No, please, not my girls…”

  The man shoved open Camille’s bedroom door and Trace sank to his knees when he saw a third masked man standing over Camille and Autumn. They lay on their stomachs. Their hands were tied behind their backs and tape was strapped across their mouths. They were both crying and trembling. Camille’s favorite stuffed animal—a white rabbit she’d appropriately named Easter—was on the floor, but its head had been ripped off and it was on the bed next to his daughters.

  “You have such a beautiful family,” the man in charge said, zooming in on Camille’s tear-streaked face first and then Autumn’s. “It’d be such a shame to have to kill these two young girls just to prove a point.”

  “No, please!” Trace was begging now. “I’ll do anything you say—anything at all—just please don’t hurt them.”

  The man sat on the edge of the bed and moved the camera close to his face. “I’m a man of my word, Mr. Trace Mullins, just like you are. If I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it. If I say I’m not going to do something, then I won’t do it. I promise you this, if you do exactly as I say, I’m not going to hurt your wife or your kids. But if you don’t do what I say, well, it’ll be a long and painful death for all of them.”

  Trace was accustomed to being the one in control, the one calling the shots, and he didn’t know how to act. In a low voice, he simply said, “Please, just don’t hurt my family. I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”

  “Now we’re talking.” The man in charge stood with the iPad and returned to the master bedroom, where he propped it up on something and aimed it toward an empty chair. The image on the screen jostled roughly and then finally stabilized. A few seconds later, the man reappeared in the camera’s view and sat in the chair, speaking directly to Trace. “Here’s what I want you to do…”

  As Trace listened to the man’s demands, his heart began to pound so hard in his chest that he thought he was having a heart attack.

  “You can’t be serious,” Trace said in a hoarse voice when the man had laid out his plans. “I can’t…there’s no way I can do that. It’s impossible.”

  The man in charge turned to Blade. “Cut the bitch.”

  Although muffled, Trace could plainly hear Sandi’s immediate and painful cries through the tape. He shoved his face near the monitor and hollered as loud as he could that he would do it. “Please, stop hurting her! I’ll do it! Jesus Christ, I’ll do it—just don’t hurt her anymore!”

  The man in charge lifted his hand, but Sandi’s cries continued. Trace knew she was in real pain. The bastard had hurt her. Tears formed in his eyes and—as hard as he tried to contain them—leaked down his face.

  “Please, don’t hurt her.” His voice cracked and that got the man’s attention.

  “Wait a minute,” said the man, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he walked toward the iPad’s screen. “Are you crying? Is this for real?”

  I’m going to kill every one of your friends and your entire family, Trace thought, and then I’m going to rip you to pieces with my bare hands!

  “You are crying.” The man squinted. “And you look angry—like you want to do something bad to me. I tell you what, if you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’m going to make Blade hurt your pretty wife again, and this time it’ll be in her stomach, not her leg.”

  Trace was having a hard time catching his breath. He nodded his head and looked away, afraid his eyes would continue to betray him. “I’ll do what you’re asking me to do, as long as you promise me you won’t hurt my family anymore.”

  “Scout’s honor.” The man in charge raised his right hand. “Oh, and since we’re bonding and all, I have to warn you that if you call any of your buddies or the local police we’ll kill your wife and little girls and blow this place off the grid.”

  Trace nodded his understanding.

  “Nope, I need to hear you say it—no law enforcement.”

  “No law enforcement,” Trace mumbled.

  “Good boy.” The man reached his hand toward the iPad. “Now go get some sleep…you’ve got a busy week ahead of you.”

  Before Trace could say another word, the screen turned black. He screamed and punched repeatedly at the monitor until it was a smashed mess and blood was running down his fingers. Sick to his stomach and feeling completely helpless, he sank to his knees in despair and stared blankly into the darkness, wondering if he would ever see his family again.

  CHAPTER 3

  Monday, May 26

  Bailey Oil Headquarters, Beacher, Louisiana

  I peered through my binoculars from my perch atop one of the large above-ground oil tanks on the Bailey Oil Company property. Beside me, the Secret Service agent I’d been teamed up with was talking into his radio, letting his team leader know we were in place. When he was done, he turned to face me. “London Carter, right?”

  I nodded, measured the man. His hair and eyes were dark brown like mine and he was about my height—five-ten—but he was a little thicker around the gut than I was. Still, he appeared to be in great condition and he hefted his rifle and gear effortlessly.

  “And you’re Ross B
uckner.”

  “Well, that was the old me—before I joined the sniper team fifteen years ago. Now, they just call me Spider.” He pointed toward the other above-ground tanks. “Are these the only tanks in this area?”

  “Yeah…and the highest structures for at least a mile and a half.” I waved my hand to encompass the entire square-shaped plot of land that served as Bailey Oil’s headquarters. “It’s a thousand yards from the northern edge of the property to the southern edge, and twelve hundred from east to west. Like I said, these tanks are the highest points for at least a mile and a half. The event stage is lower than the levees that surround the property and we have a clean visual on the entire stretch of them, so the stage will be secure from sniper fire.” I shifted my attention to the southern side of the property and pointed off in the distance. “That’s the two-mile road we came in on this morning, which leads to the main highway east of here.”

  Spider nodded his head, studying our surroundings. “We really appreciate how you and your team scouted the area for us. The VP has a bad habit of planning last-minute trips to the middle of nowhere for her stump speeches, and it really makes our job difficult. I don’t know what we’d do without the assistance of local law enforcement.”

  Vice President Courtney Burgess Browning’s penchant for being unpredictable had been well documented in the media, as well as her close ties to big oil, coal, and natural gas. Since Louisiana was rich in oil and the voters here relied heavily on it for their livelihood, she made regular trips up and down the coastal towns speaking directly to residents and promising to keep their jobs secure.

  Despite being a staunch conservative, she had managed to gain a large following among Democratic voters in a number of key states who made their living off of fossil fuels, and the polls showed she was a heavy favorite to inherit the White House once President Graham Agner, a former governor from Ohio, finished his second term. Although the election was more than two years away, Browning had already begun campaigning, and she was picking up steam across the country. According to all major polling organizations, she was beating the top four Democrats by twenty-three points combined.