Night Vision

By Shawn McConnell

After seventeen years on the Seattle Police Force, the personal and professional life of Detective Steven Morris is at the start of a downward spiral. Things are about to get worse as Dane Reese, a commercial fisherman with a very unusual off-season occupation, unwittingly puts himself between a trio of corrupt narcotics detectives and their sought after quarry.

Reeses actions set in motion a deadly game of cat and mouse. Morris is drawn into a circle of dangerous deception that will force him to walk a thin line between loyalty to his brothers in blue and a desperate need to uncover the truth. He soon decides to take Reese as an unconventional partner, and they attempt to prevent local cops from committing further crimes.

At stake is nothing less than the life of a mysterious young woman, as well as the chance for Morris to resurrect his sagging career. Played out along the lakeshores of Seattle, the deadly game reaches its climax beneath the rusting hulk of the old Gasworks. Will Morris be able to take down these law-breaking lawmen, or will he and Reese be added to the body count?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532015267

Shawn McConnell

Shawn McConnell operates a whale watching tour business in his hometown of Hoonah, Alaska. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Seattle Pacific University, he worked for twenty years as a high school science teacher. McConnell has authored two books and is working on several others.

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NIGHT

VISION

SHAWN McCONNELL

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NIGHT VISION

Copyright © 2017 Shawn McConnell.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1527-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1526-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017903682

iUniverse rev. date: 3/6/2017

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

EPILOGUE

For J.A. La Rue

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing a novel has been a life-long goal and almost a ten year project. For better or worse, it is finished. I want to thank my wife, Teresa, for her encouragement, proofreading and patience during the writing process and my sons, Casey and Kyle, for allowing me some time off from coaching and being dad to write. Thanks to Bill H. for the edits and to my friend Mark O. for his insight into the police department and for blurring his vision just enough to let my version of how the PD might work slide.

1

R eese sat with his back to a tree facing the black expanse of the lake rimmed with sparkling lights. He was waiting, collecting his thoughts before beginning the night’s work. Occasionally he glanced down toward the shore. Pulled up between two clumps of cattail, invisible to the uninformed eye, was his black two-person sea kayak. He adjusted the pistol strapped tightly under his left arm.

Turning a peppermint in his mouth, he sucked air in gently, enjoying the coolness that filtered into his throat. His stomach was empty and hard candy warded off the hunger pangs. His fleece pants and jacket matched the kayak. A pair of polypropylene gloves provided good sensitivity, insulation against the chill, and a fuzzy barrier between his fingerprints and anything he touched.

He was hidden from sight of the two houses on either side of a narrow track that led to a boat ramp. He punched the light on his dive watch and marked the time at 12:03 a.m. He got to his feet, gently stretching each of his muscle groups to full extension. A silver cloud of vapor dissolved into the black night air when he exhaled.

He pulled a pair of night vision goggles from a pack around his waist. Removing his baseball cap, he fitted the goggles on his head and replaced the cap, pulling it down snugly over short-cropped brown hair. When he flipped the lens down, the night was lit with a green, grainy glow.

The lawn behind David Kagel’s home stretched forty meters up a sloping yard to the main house. On the wide back deck lay a glowing, amorphous hulk. The light breeze did not favor a direct approach so he skirted the outside of Kagel’s fence moving slowly and silently on crepe-soled boots.

Halfway up the alley he stopped below the low hanging branch of an oak that stretched over the alley from inside of the fence. He gathered himself and jumped, grabbing hold of the thick bough. In one swift motion he pulled himself into a sitting position on the branch. He paused, watching the yard and listening for movement. Nothing stirred.

He crossed over the fence, hung from the limb, and dropped into the yard without a sound. The soft grass had begun to gather dew and he left a trail of damp footprints as he crossed thirty feet of grass to the house. He moved around the darkened house hugging the shrubs until he reached the corner opposite the deck.

Security cameras, motion activated lights, and alarms protected the front of the house. He had surveyed them on previous visits. His landing on the shore was apparently unanticipated by Kagel’s security consultants. Through the night vision lens, he could see the amorphous lump more clearly, a large Bull Mastiff named Zeus.

Purchased by Kagel for security on his estate, Zeus had proven to be a menace to his neighborhood, based on the hours of surveillance Reese had spent vetting this job.

He had jogged several times through the neighborhood and observed Kagel and Zeus out for their walk. Kagel paraded Zeus about, driving joggers and couples with baby strollers and small children from his path. On two occasions Reese had witnessed Zeus attack other animals. Neither had been serious enough to warrant a call to the police, but enough to earn Kagel and Zeus the reputation of neighborhood bullies.

The sight of the big dog growling over someone’s timid house pet, while Kagel stood smiling or sneering, made Reese’s blood boil and painful memories welled to the surface.

Zeus lay sleeping, bathed in the faint yellow light that spilled onto the deck from a single bulb in the kitchen. He was unaware of his company, enjoying the contented slumber of a predator. Reese paused against the corner of the house, his back to the shrubs. Flipping up his night vision lens, he removed a Browning semi-auto 0.22 caliber from its holster. Flipping a switch on the side of the scope, he watched a ruby laser beam cut the fine mist, tracing a pencil thin path as it moved along the grass. A dark cylinder bulged at the end of the barrel. Reese stepped around the corner of the house, crouched on his right knee and took aim.

The tiny red dot played along the sleeping dog’s back, becoming an unmoving red point on the thick fur at the base of its skull. Taking a deep, silent breath, he gently squeezed the trigger.

The hollow-point round vaporized the animal’s cerebellum and with the exhalation of his final breath Zeus ceased to exist. Not a muscle had twitched. The beast had not suffered.

Repositioning the night vision lens Reese bent down and located the spent cartridge, it glowed bright against the cool grass. He tucked the cartridge into his front pocket and crossed the yard, slowly approaching Zeus’s lifeless body. A trickle of blood was seeping from the pinhole in the back of the dog’s neck but none had reached the sleeping mat. He pulled a piece of black cloth tape from his shirt front and pressed it firmly against the dog’s short coat, covering the tiny hole. The underside of the tape held a piece of cotton cloth.

The dog was heavy. Reese had estimated him to be about one hundred forty pounds. He slid the dog to the edge of the deck and lifted him over his shoulder, pushing the bed back to its original position. Moving carefully, he carried the lifeless dog down the sloping grass toward the corner of the yard where the fence ran into the lake. He waded up to his knees into the chilling water, skirting the fence. Moving so as not to make a splash, he waded to the kayak.

He slid the dog into the kayak’s front cockpit on top of an open net bag. Working the bag up around Zeus’s lifeless body he pulled a nylon drawstring tight. He clipped a karabiner through the loops of netting and the open loop of a rope attached at the other end to a lead weight the size of a grapefruit. He let the bag fall loosely in the kayak.

Reese turned back to the alley and mentally retraced his steps. As he replayed the stalk in his mind’s eye he glanced toward the windows at the back of the house across the alley from Kagel’s. The house belonged to an importer named Woo.

The Woo house was a rambling, two-story affair with glass walls spanning the ground floor, facing the lake across a wide flagstone patio. The patio was dotted with the ghostly white figures of lawn furniture covered against the winter weather. Woo was out of town.

As he turned to make his departure, Reese caught a glimpse of something out of order. In what had previously been total darkness, a faint glow was visible in one of the rooms on the ground floor of Woo’s house. Someone had turned on a light.

2

I n the grainy glow of the night vision lens , Reese saw the figure of a young woman standing beside a sofa. The woman was scanning the room, sizing it up, as if for the first time. She was average height with dark hair. As he watched, a man entered the room. He was tall with short hair, dark skin and wore a goatee. He spoke to her as he crossed the room and then disappeared behind the drapes.

The woman’s gaze followed the man and she turned to face the partially drawn drapes. After a few seconds, the man briefly passed through Reese’s view before exiting the room. The woman crossed her arms and leaned against the back of the sofa, impatiently awaiting the return of her companion.

A moment later the dark man returned. He had removed his jacket and now wore a tee shirt. Well-muscled arms extended from shorter-than-normal sleeves.

The man and woman began a conversation, but in a matter of seconds the woman’s expression changed dramatically. Impatience and disinterest flashed to fear. Reese could see it first in her eyes and then in her body as she stiffened and raised her hands in defense.

Her slight frame afforded little protection against the heavy backhand which swept the air and caught her under the right eye. The woman toppled backward over the arm of the sofa and came to rest on the cushions, her legs pointing skyward. One of her shoes flew off.

The large man was instantly over her, delivering another blow with an open right hand as she lay stunned on the sofa. She was unable to raise her arms against the second blow, which landed solidly on the side of her face. She bounced down, into the cushions, and then quickly up from its force. Blood surged in Reese’s temples, and adrenaline flooded his chest.

He turned away to clear his vision. The man didn’t fit the description of Woo, and the woman was certainly not enjoying the experience. He ruled out a rough sex game or a family spat. Reese crept up the west side of the alley toward the house, abandoning stealth. As he moved, the scene came into better focus.

The man stood over the woman’s limp body. One hand held her by the throat and his other was poised to strike again.

Reese paused beside a large elm and pressed his legs between the cedar fence boards and the smooth bark, lifting himself to a better view. He winced when the hand came down again and the woman’s head snapped to the side as the man released his grip.

The scene played out between the emerald green of the night vision scope and the natural light afforded by the lamp in the room. Reese watched as the attacker grabbed the front of the woman’s blouse and ripped it from her body, holding it up to his nose. Her body fell back to the sofa, limp and unresisting.

The man was large, well over six feet, and powerfully built. He stood and made some gestures with his hands, as though suddenly delivering a lecture. He strode around the sofa, knelt behind it and stared down at the woman’s limp body. His lips mouthed words, which Reese could not make out. The attacker reached out and gently stroked her stomach with the back of his right hand. Suddenly, a heavy backhand knocked the woman to the floor where she sprawled face down, hair and arms splayed out. She moved a bit, trying to right herself but collapsed back to the floor. The man rose and slowly walked around toward the front of the couch.

Reese glanced for a moment down the track toward his kayak, then vaulted the fence and dropped into Woo’s yard.

Removing his night vision lens, Reese raced across to the patio. Crouching behind a white-draped chair ten feet from the window, he looked directly into the room. The man lifted the woman into a sitting position by her hair. The woman sagged motionless, her mouth open and her head flopped back. Rivulets of blood trickled from the edges of her mouth and her face was blotchy and red. Drops of blood collected on her neck.

The attacker stood with his back to the window, not fifteen feet away. His hands moved to his waist and began to pull up his shirt.

Reese slid over to the French doors in the center of the glass wall. Removing a metal card from his pack, he gently slipped it down the gap between the doors, expecting an alarm but past caring. Silence. No deadbolt held the doors closed, and he used the card to open the handle latch. The door gave way with a slight click. He pushed it open only enough to pass through and entered the foyer.

A yellow line of light squeezed from under the door, reflecting off polished hardwood. He could hear the man’s voice through the door. The man asked the limp body of the woman if she knew what was going to happen next. There was no response.

Reese walked to the door, tried the knob, and felt it turn in his hand. He burst into the room. The man was bent over, slipping his trousers off. Reese closed on the woman-beater in three strides, giving him just enough time to straighten up, hands frantically pulling at his pants, his face a mask of disbelief.

A burst of profanity was cut short by a sharp chop to his larynx followed instantly by a powerful uppercut to his solar plexus. The man’s breath exploded in a croaking gasp as his diaphragm began to spasm. His eyes flashed fear and shock as he bent double, clutching his throat and abdomen. As the attacker tumbled forward, Reese drove a knee into the man’s chin. Something cracked loudly and the former assailant toppled sideways to the floor, hissing as he fought for a breath. A crimson pool formed on the floor around his head as blood poured from his nose and mouth. His throat began to swell and his breath came in short, wet gasps.

Stepping around the fallen figure, Reese moved to the motionless woman slumped against the couch. Her blood-spattered torso was twisted at an unnatural angle and her hair was matted against her face with sticky blood. He pulled a blanket from the back of the sofa and gently wrapped it around her. He grabbed a penlight from his pack and snapped it on. He used his thumb to lift the woman’s eyelids and passed the light across each eye. Both pupils quickly shrunk to points and opened again when the light was removed.

As he prepared to lift the unconscious woman onto the couch, the glow of a tiny red light caught his eye. He stepped back over the writhing assailant and walked toward the light. The red light was located on the front of a small video camera. The camera rested beside the lamp on the edge of a wet-bar. He picked up the camera, turned off the power and switched off the lamp. Tucking the camera into his waist pack, he returned to the woman’s side.

He wrapped the blanket tightly around the woman’s head and shoulders to keep her blood from dripping onto the floor and grass as they made their exit. Reese picked her up as he would a sleeping child and carried her out through the foyer, using his foot to pull the door closed as he stepped onto the patio. He crossed the open yard then hugged the fence down to the lake’s edge. He waded around the end of the fence and into the alley.

He laid the woman on a patch of grass at the end of the boat launch and lifted Zeus out of the kayak. He draped the dog’s corpse across the deck between the two cockpits, deer on the hood fashion, and then used two bungee cords stretched in an x pattern to hold the corpse in place. Returning to the woman, he picked her up and waded into the water, then gently slid her into the front cockpit, letting her head settle back onto Zeus’s warm body.

Reese pointed the nose of the kayak toward the open lake and pushed it into knee-deep water. As he lowered himself into the kayak, he heard the whine of an inboard motor approaching from the south. He dug deeply with his first strokes and put some distance between himself and the approaching craft. He coasted behind a floating dock four houses down from Kagel’s. He refitted his night vision lens, training it on the approaching boat.

3

A sleek ski boat slowed. The engine purred like a lion’s cub with a full belly as it approached the shoreline behind Woo’s house. Reese could clearly see two men standing behind the windshield. The driver was short and wide and the passenger was tall and thinner.

The sharp bow slid to a stop on the grass and the driver killed the engine. Both men climbed over the windshield and landed in the grass as one. Pulling the boat up on shore a bit they made their way up the slope of the yard to the patio. Both men surveyed the area once they had some cover.

After a brief pause, the taller figure signaled to his stocky partner and then led the way to the French doors. He was surprised when they pushed open.

As Reese watched the men move on the patio, he remembered the prize he had collected and removed the video camera from his pack. He found the night-shot button and activated the special feature. While watching the front of the camera he turned the power on and pushed record. When the red light came on he covered it with his index finger and trained the camera back on the scene in the back yard. Reese kept his eye pressed against the viewfinder of the camera, careful not to let any light escape into the darkness. The men were standing at the French doors. After a few seconds, a black rectangular shadow swallowed them.

Twenty seconds passed before a loud yell erupted from inside of the house. Reese could see the taller of the two men in the room, bent over Reese’s victim. The stocky guy reappeared in the shadow of the open door, scanning the back yard. His eyes passed over Reese and the kayak without stopping. A brighter light suddenly flooded the room where the assault had taken place, and Reese flipped off the night shot and used the camera’s powerful zoom to focus on the activities in the room. The taller of the two was still hunched over the woman’s assailant, trying to revive him.

The man at the door disappeared into the house and Reese could see the two men lift the man from the floor and make their way toward the door.

The two men appeared on the patio, carrying their fallen companion between them. They labored with the unconscious body, making their way to the boat where they waded knee-deep into the water and unceremoniously dumped him over the side into the back of the boat. The stocky one returned to the house and the light went out. When he returned, both men pushed the boat off of the shore and scrambled aboard, taking their positions behind the windshield.

The engine rumbled to life, and the boat eased away from the shore. The driver idled a few minutes before gunning the engine. The launch quickly disappeared around the point, leaving a trail of white foam.

Reese let out his pent up breath and switched off the camera. He didn’t much care what had just happened, but he knew he had seen enough. He paddled into deeper water.

One half mile off-shore, Reese undid the bungees holding Zeus in place and slipped the dog’s body and the lead weight into the water. The boat rocked two or three times before settling back on an even keel. By then the air bubbles trailing off of the dead animal had disappeared. Zeus would not be terrorizing his neighbors anymore.

Reese made