Blood Trails

By R.M. Yeager

As worldwide law enforcement's facial recognition software improved by leaps and bounds, criminal cartels around the globe scrambled to find a solution to defeat the new and improved identity system. One cartel, in particular, using an unlimited pool of resources, designed a foolproof way to give the underworld a new face. Or so they thought. Until a pair of twins and a small California high desert police department pulled the thread that would unravel their well-oiled machine. A gruesome murder would lead to a hidden surgical suite where missing migrants were used as tissue donors for clandestine facial reconstruction surgery. A manhunt through the sage and cactus of the high desert would lead three detectives to a final showdown with a pair of ex-military butchers hired by the cartel. At least they thought the case was closed. However, the greed from within the organization would ultimately ignite a new flashpoint with the cartel's head man sending in a team of assassins and a beautiful woman hacker to erase both people and secret files. Files kept of the cartel's surgical clients as they were before and after facial reconstruction. It then became a race against time. If the encryption on each file were broken and the files sent to Interpol, then the cartel itself would become a worldwide target to every criminal with a new face.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684565450

Book preview

The Beginning

Deep behind Locked Doors

It was the end of a hectic week for Henry. One of the operations had taken two hours longer than planned because of the client’s constant changes to his order. A second procurement had to be scrapped because of undetected damage. Then even more time was wasted while they secured a replacement. His boss was not going to be happy with all the changes to his precisely planned schedule. Harry would deal with that later in the afternoon. For now, he just wanted to get back to the ranch for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. He pulled off his gown, cap, and booties and tossed them down the waste chute. From across the suite, his floor manager, Oliver, waved his bloody clipboard to get his attention.

Hey, boss, the hotel just called. Both teams are tucked in for the night, and the cleaning crew is about two minutes out.

Henry nodded, thought for a second, and asked, What was all that gibberish going on during that aborted procedure?

Sometimes these guys get all worked up over nothing, Oliver replied. Boss, they are just not used to harvesting from live donors. Cadavers, no problem, but we had to bring in a fresh one, and it unnerved them. I got them calmed down and back to work as soon as I could. The head man kept switching from Mandarin to some local dialect I don’t know, so it took me extra time to work things out. Thank goodness we won’t see him again.

Henry slapped Oliver on the shoulder, thanking him for a job well done. He left a list of instructions for the cleaners detailing the additional sanitation measures he wanted to be accomplished. The facility would be shutting down for four days while the town went through its usual Fourth of July celebration. Careful not to track through any of the blood-covered areas in his good boots, Henry took one last look around then ducked into the exit tunnel.

Meadow Wood Court

In more ways than anyone knew, Meadow Wood Court was at peace at last. Vibrating no longer with the sounds of celebration, the street slumbered on unaware. In the predawn quiet, the neighborhood had yet to open its collective eyes to begin a new day. The remains of previous day’s Fourth of July celebration still spread from curb to curb under the shade of a canopy of cottonwood and elm trees. The idyllic suburban drive curved along the edge of a high bluff before running down the hill to a large weedy turnaround. The sky to the east had shifted from deep navy blue to a light baby blue with streaks of pale yellow and a dusting of rosy pink. It was at this exact moment the peaceful early morning silence was finally broken. Every thirsty lawn in the subdivision suddenly sprang to life when a hundred irrigation sprinklers popped to life. Raising from the grassy sunken hiding places, they burst into chattering, hissing action. It would seem that each homeowner had decided that watering green lawns was best done between the hours of six to seven in the morning.

The smell of all that water in the dryness of the high desert air was mixed this particular morning with the scent of burned gunpowder and soggy, wet cardboard. It was a different smell that drifted up and down the court from yard to yard, mixing with the sweet perfume of a score of blooming honeysuckle bushes. Everyone along the entire length of Meadow Wood Court had helped make this year’s celebration one of the best ever. The proof of everyone’s efforts could still be seen littering the length of Meadow Wood Court. City trash barrels and each individual homeowner’s trash cans overflowed with mountains of food-coated paper plates and empty soda bottles. Small landslides of plates coated with streaks of yellow mustard or red BBQ sauce cascaded from the top of overfilled cans to form a ring of color around the bottom of each barrel. Empty pony beer kegs lay propped against the curbs of many of the homes. So for most of the residents, this was the scene that greeted them as they looked out their living room windows on this sunny July fifth morning.

One detail that most of them overlooked was the large pool of irrigation water collecting at the blocked storm drain at the lower end of the court. Overspray and misaligned sprinklers shooting streams of water into the road would never have been a problem. The water would simply drain into the irrigation canal at the rear of the subdivision. But at this point, no one was particularly worried, what with the Fourth of July celebration’s litter still clogging the street’s gutters. The city would send a crew in a day or two to unblock the drain. Old man Britton was the first to venture out into his front yard. Pulling his ragged green coveralls out of his butt, he shuffled down his sandy driveway, broom and shovel in hand. Civic pride and the metallic scraping of Bob Britton’s shovel soon had a workforce of neighbors following his lead. Burned black husks of all manner of fireworks were shoveled up and added to the already overflowing cans or dumped into black garden waste bags.

Jim and Martha White stopped for a moment in their shoveling to wonder about the pair of what looked to them like a bloodstained pair of running shoes. Scooping them into a trash bag, they decided that it was most likely ketchup or barbecue sauce. So with no more thought, into the bag they went with a pile of blackened volcano cones and a fistful of sparkler sticks. Old man Britton was already feeling the rising heat as the sun rose higher in the morning sky. Ed Stone, whose house was farther down the hill and much closer to the end of the court, called his oldest daughter over to see if she had dropped a pair of silver and pearl earrings he found in the gutter at the end of his driveway. She declined to accept them from her dad’s outstretched hand. The long strands of black hair tangled around them was just too creepy.

Once the fireworks leftovers had been raked and swept into bags, it was time for each neighbor to wash away the sticky slime and black soot off the road itself. Out came everyone’s trusty garden hose as each homeowner sent a thick flow of muck down the hill. Passing a thick rolling tide from home to home, their efforts sent more and more water and debris sluicing downhill. By the time the entire length of the court was sparkling clean, the growing pond at the bottom covered the entire circle. Well, it wasn’t something anyone on the street above worried about. The city would take care of the problem. Besides, there was only one derelict house located at the bottom of Meadow Wood Court, and as far as most residents knew, it was mostly abandoned. Unkempt was an understatement. Most of the front windows were broken and boarded up. The surrounding property was covered in tall dry weeds, and the rusty iron fence in the front yard seemed to be falling into the street.

The rumor up and down the street was that before the streets and utilities went in for the new subdivision, Charles Evans and his wife, Dorthy, with their three children had built the large ranch house on the edge of their orange grove property. The Evans family owned and operated the largest orange-growing operation here in the Soda Valley for many years. However, not too long after they moved into the ranch house, Charles made a deal with a group of land speculators selling all but fifteen acres of land, which he kept for himself. It was also rumored that two of the Evans children were twins. Rumor had it that both boys were in some way physically and mentally abnormal. The Evans eventually added a younger sister to the family. Then a little over five years ago, both Charles and Dorthy seemed to have vanished. Their oldest son, when asked, claimed that his parents had retired to a smaller beachside ranch in Costa Rica. He also said his twin brother had accompanied his parents to their new home. Over the last five years, the mansion and outbuildings had succumbed to the ravages of the desert climate. Crumbling away to become the entire subdivision’s most hated eyesore.

On this particular morning, the small lake forming by the blocked drain had crept over the curb and was at present creeping under the rusty iron fence that separated the residents of Meadow Wood Court from the blight they all wished would burn down and go away. Moth-eaten dead hedges, peeling paint, broken windows all boarded over with sheets of plywood in even worse condition than the house’s siding made it very clear to the rest of the court’s residents. Keep out: you are not welcome here. The only concession made to the outside world was a dented black mailbox bolted to a splintery wooden post sunk into the sand by the corroding iron gate. Painted by hand on the side in drippy, dirty-white paint, was the number 1222.

This fine, hot July fifth morning, the ranch at 1222 would have remained as it always was—totally ignored. That is, until seventy-seven-year-old Atta McCallie had risen that morning with a supersize bee in her ample bonnet. With all the noise and commotion from the night before, she had had precious little sleep. It was just past ten thirty in the morning, and the convection oven of the desert’s July sun was doing its best to stifle all human and animal life on the court. Delivery vans had all come and gone. The crazy health nuts jogging in their spandex-clad world retired to the air-conditioned comforts of home. Even the dozen or so young boys searching for unexplored fireworks retreated from the blistering outdoor heat. Soon the broiling afternoon wind would stir the stagnate air across the yards up and down the street. Small dust devils danced about the neighborhood, pushing clusters of tumbleweeds along their paths. Atta was bustling around her living room, trying to pull the heavy dark drapes close to block the heat scorching her windows. She had gotten half of her living room drapes closed when she suddenly leaned her face on the hot window glass. She leaned so close the stiff bristles on the top of her nose left tiny marks in the dust on the glass. Anger like a flashover wildfire sparked in every cell of her body. There, kitty-corner across from her house, was yet another slap in her face.

This was the last straw. That Evans boy had stuffed rotten, stained sheets around the plywood covering every window on the front of his house. Loose ends flapping in the hot wind seemed to beckon to everyone in the neighborhood. It seemed to say, See what I think of all your fine homes and property values. If war was what they wanted, then Atta had the balls to confront the issue head-on.

Three minutes later, dressed in a worn pair of cutoff jeans, one of her ex-husband’s green Army tees, and a bright-yellow pair of flip-flops, she headed through the flooded circle across the street to do battle. All five feet of her was locked and loaded. In fact, she was on such a roll that the rusted iron gate snapped off its hinges flying into the weeds as she barreled through. She only slowed her assault, pausing to stare at the splintered, rotten porch deck with its missing stair planks. Atta’s flat little nose sank deeper into her fleshy round face as she confronted the most horrible stench enveloping the entire front yard. It was a smell that seemed to cling to everything. What was that Evans boy doing, canning spoiled meat? Clamping a dish rag she found in a back pocket to her nose and using the wobbly handrail at the side of the steps, she pushed off the bottom tread, cleared the missing second tread, and landed square on the deck inches from the front door.

Home Invasion Plans

Henry and Ivan sat side by side on the black leather couch, while the big boss, Mr. Basillious, paced back and forth behind his cluttered desk. Then without stopping, he asked, Did our client get taken out to the ranch for the night, and the next time one of these spoiled assholes wants to change the contract during the procedure, tell the docs to shoot them up and stick with what’s on the board. You guys should know we can’t be seen running heavily bandaged people around the golf course in the daylight. Besides, I can only have our special night crew working two or three times a month, which limits the number of procedures we can handle. The Henry brothers nodded their agreement. With that off his chest, Basillious finally hopped up on his desk chair. Once seated, he pulled himself to the edge with his arms alone. His short legs providing little or no traction on the carpet. Fixing both men with a squinty stare, he asked, Now tell me what you two are going to do about that little shit stealing from us.

Because Henry No-Middle-Name Collins outranked his twin brother, he always took the lead speaking for the pair. We know where the guy lives. We’ve been able to track the golf cart he uses to haul his take back to his base. What we don’t know is why he’s out there in the middle of the night digging through our waste pile. Ivan and I plan to slip into the dry irrigation canal that runs behind his property. We figure we will use the same way he gets to us to get to him.

Ivan then spoke up, Boss, our top priority is to recover everything he took. Second on our list is to make sure he’ll never be a problem for the operation ever again. Last, we’re going to send a message to anyone stupid enough to dig into it any further. The whole town will be so scared they will demand that any further investigation is dropped faster than a hot rock.

Atta

Ready for Battle

Teetering back and forth as if she might suddenly faint, her stomach threatening to empty its contents at her feet, Atta stood inches from the ranch’s front door. Fighting an urge to retreat to anyplace away from the putrid odor that surrounded her, Atta dug deep in her personal resolve. Two competing fears filled her thoughts. The first was the fear that the rotten deck she was standing on would collapse, trapping her somewhere below the porch. A space she was sure was filled with hundreds of scorpions and spiders. A second competing fear was that she might be confronted by a ferocious rabid animal lunging toward her from the open door. Trembling from head to toe, she finally gained a measure of self-control. Taking a deep breath, which she instantly regretted, she steeled herself for action. In as loud a voice as she could muster, she bellowed her demand for a confrontation. I know you are in there, boy, answer this damn door. I’m not leaving till we get some things straight.

Her voice echoed across the bottom of the court. But only silence hung there in its wake. For Atta, being ignored was a top hot-button subject, and it had now been firmly pushed. Rolling anger brought a fiery red color to her face. Placing an ear against the wooden door, she thought she could hear some shifting and scraping sounds on the other side. Glancing over her shoulder to see if any of her neighbors were coming to give her support, she found herself to be a lone warrior standing out in the afternoon heat and wind. As far as she could see, the street was totally deserted from end to end. She guessed the entire street was in its usual after-lunch, self-imposed, air-conditioned lockdown. Never mind, she would take care of things her way. Boiling like a seam kettle, Atta’s face had gone from red to blotchy purple. Atta reared back and delivered a rage-fueled, hammer-like blow to the center of the weathered front door.

Even before the boom of her fist hitting the wood panel had died, there was a loud cracking sound as the latch of the door lock split from its enclosing jamb. The thick heavy door slapped back against the interior wall of the front entry. In that instant, Atta’s world seemed to shift and fold unto itself. Her fiery heat of rage and anger now replaced with the icy hand of cold dread. It felt like a block of ice had suddenly lodged at the base of her spine. Transfixed by what she saw in the open doorway, Atta could neither move nor speak. Atta McCollie stood frozen, trying to process the macabre scene before her. The evil presence shifting about before her suddenly became almost deafening. Possibly in anger at being disturbed or maybe in an attempt to lure her deeper inside. A slender rivulet of saliva escaped down her quivering chin. Her once stiff-as-iron legs were now rubbery and seemed mired in a thick pool of tar. But it was not Atta herself that broke the spell. It was a tidal wave of an iridescent blue-and-green wall that flowed like sea water over and around her. Pelting her body as the entire swarm left their meal, taking flight into the light. In that instant, Atta had only one option, and a fight was not going to happen. There was no contest at this point because flight took complete control. It drove her headlong off that horrible porch. Later she would claim she could not remember how she wound up crawling to the front gate through the weed-choked yard and a patch of sand thorns.

Officer Gus Rainwater was the first officer to arrive at 1222 Meadow Wood Court. His dispatch contacted him after a dozen 911 calls from neighbors flooded into the station. At present, he was sitting in the door of his squad car, examining this two shredded knees. Bright-red blood was seeping from two raw raspberries showing through the torn fabric of his uniform in the center of each knee. His uniform pants looked beyond repair as well as his uniform blouse, which was also coated with foxtails, puncture thorns, and wet black sand. Atta had hit him at a full run, knocking him off the curb into the knee-deep standing water. A short struggle followed in which he attempted to untangle himself from a very hysterical Atta McCallie. Atta must have thought he was the devil himself and threw a series of kicks and punches in her attempt to escape. It was only after calming her down enough to silence her screams that he became aware that 1222 was an honest-to-God crime scene. He placed her in his squad while he strung yellow crime tape across the front of the property. Medical and detectives as well as the department’s CSI team had been notified and would be soon rolling down Meadow Wood Court.

Scene of the Crime

Spiral Down the Rabbit Hole

Officer Gus Rainwater, having done his best to preserve and block access to 1222 Meadow Wood Court, returned to his squad car. After attempting to get a somewhat understandable statement from Mrs. McCollie, he decided to walk a calmer Atta back across the street to her own yard, where detectives could get a more coherent statement at a later time. Her hard gray head had nailed him center mass, and even with his tactical vest on, he was still feeling the effects. Having joined the Soda Valley police fifteen years ago, a young Marine fresh out of the service, he was no stranger to the sweet, oily odor of decomp. Something awful had taken place inside that house, and it was horrible enough to shake up a tough old bird like Atta McCallie. He also knew that being the first officer on the scene, sooner or later he would be required to enter the reeking, run-down old ranch house.

Gus was more what you would call stocky rather than tall. He and his family were part of the Native American Yolo tribe, who claimed to have made this part of California their home far into the distant past. Gus’s dark-blue uniform, up until a few moments ago, was always spotless, starched, and pressed much like the Marine uniform that he had once worn. Gus had a complexion much like that of a newly minted penny and deep brown eyes with thick heavy lashes. A thatch of short jet-black hair resting above lighter sidewalls marked him as ex-military.

Gus’s weathered face was a road map of creases and wrinkles from his years growing up in the high desert sun. It was often said that at times it was hard to tell if he was smiling or frowning. Taking out his notebook, he knelt next to Atta and began to put together a narrative of the afternoon’s events.

Detective Burt Greenwood was the second officer to arrive at the crime scene. He pulled his black department sedan to the rear bumper of Rainwater’s squad car. Being second on scene meant he would assume command as lead detective, and his first duty was to check in with Officer Rainwater. As he listened to Gus’s report, he also could hear the flood of sirens now rolling into the subdivision. Less than five minutes later, a stream of vehicles, light bars flashing, jockeyed for position in the flooded circle at the bottom of the hill. A town fire truck was the next to arrive closely followed by the Soda Valley Rescue Squad. Burt’s partner, Detective Sid Yao, the chief of police, and the county coroner Dr. Tao soon arrived within minutes of each other. The once empty turnaround was soon filled with active people. The sirens were soon silenced; however, the blue-and-red flashing lights continued to dance up and down Meadow Wood Court. It was a scene never before witnessed in this quiet suburban neighborhood.

Try to Avoid Walking through the Blood

Ablack Crown Vic, its roof a forest of antennas, skidded to a stop in a spray of sandy mud and oily dark water. The chief’s official department car was not often seen at crime scenes anywhere in town. Throwing open their doors, almost simultaneously two men quickly exited the vehicle. The driver was a thin dark-haired Asian man dressed in a black polo shirt with Soda Valley PD stenciled across the chest and a dark-green pair of worn Dockers above red-and-blue Reeboks. Sid’s one distinguishing feature besides his rather tall stature was a small patch of snow-white hair just above his right ear. Sid Yao had been writing reports at his desk when the call came into dispatch. The second man on the passenger side was Soda Valley’s chief of police, Winston Thomas. Chief Thomas had just returned from a Rotary Club meeting