The Biker At The Woodland Wedding And The Silver Zippo Secret
CHAPTER 3: THE MIDNIGHT INFILTRATION
Tom and Grizzly hit the hardwood floorboards instantly as a third and fourth rifle round punched through the plaster walls, showering their leather vests with white chalk dust. The office plunged into shadowy darkness, illuminated only by the flickering flames of the spilled oil from the broken desk lamp.
“Rear delivery bay!” Tom hissed, crawling on hands and knees beneath the line of fire toward the storage room at the back of the antique shop.
Grizzly grabbed the heavy iron cash box from the desk, tossing it through the narrow transom window of the alley door to shatter the glass, and kicked the rear deadbolt open with the force of an industrial press. They tumbled out into the narrow brick alleyway just as an unmarked black Cadillac Escalade screeched around the corner, its high-intensity LED light bar blinding them in stark, theatrical brilliance.
A private contractor in a black tactical windbreaker leaned out of the passenger window, raising a suppressed semi-automatic carbine.
Grizzly didn’t reach for a firearm. He scooped up a heavy, cast-iron antique sewer drain grate from the cobblestone gutter and hurled the seventy-pound iron disc with Olympic force. The iron plate smashed directly through the Escalade’s windshield, showering the driver with safety glass and crushing the steering column. The heavy SUV swerved violently out of control, slamming into a row of commercial brick dumpsters with an ear-shattering crash of crumpled fenders and escaping radiator steam.
Tom and Grizzly vaulted onto their idling motorcycles, tires smoking against the slick wet cobblestones, and rocketed out of the alleyway, merging into the northbound traffic of the interstate before the local police could respond to the gunfire.
Two hours later, deep in the balsam-scented darkness of the Lake Placid mountains, the two motorcycles killed their engines on a fire trail half a mile above Bradley Sterling’s sprawling multi-million-dollar mountain estate. The sprawling compound was perched on a granite promontory overlooking the black, mirror-like waters of Lake Placid, surrounded by eight-foot wrought-iron security fencing and monitored by closed-circuit infrared cameras.
Tom pulled a pair of heavy military wire-cutters and two sample collection vials from his leather saddlebag.
“The carriage house is down by the water, Tom,” Grizzly whispered, peering through his night-vision monocular. “There’s two armed guards patrolling the boat dock, and the motion sensors are active along the main lawn.”
“We go through the drainage culvert,” Tom said, his voice flat, completely stripped of fear. “Twenty years ago, Sarah and I used to paddle our canoe past that boathouse when it was just an old logging camp. I know every rock along that shoreline.”
Moving like two silent mountain panthers through the dense balsam and cedar underbrush, they utilized the cover of the howling lake winds and the dense cedar branches to bypass the electronic perimeter sensors. They followed the rocky mountain runoff drainage culvert down to where the fresh water emptied into the freezing, mirror-black depths of Lake Placid. Wading through knee-deep, bone-chilling glacial water beneath the wooden overhang of the private boathouse, they reached the massive granite foundation of Bradley Sterling’s four-bay climate-controlled carriage house.
Tom pulled a thin strip of hardened stainless spring steel and a custom tension pick from his leather tool kit. Working with the delicate precision of a master safe technician, he inserted the picks into the brass cylinder of the ground-level casement utility window. Within ten seconds, the internal tumblers sheared with a quiet metallic click. He eased the sash open on its oiled bronze hinges and slid his tall, muscular frame through the narrow opening, dropping silently onto the polished gray epoxy floor of the heated garage with Grizzly right behind him.
Inside the garage sat four luxury vehicles, but under a heavy gray canvas car cover at the rear bay rested a low, aerodynamic silhouette. Tom walked to the vehicle, his fingers trembling as he pulled back the heavy canvas.
Revealed beneath the cover was an immaculate 2004 Jaguar XK8 convertible, painted in deep, lustrous British Racing Green.
Tom knelt beside the right front fender. Shining a miniature ultraviolet flashlight along the curved fiberglass, he saw it immediately: the hairline fracture where the right quarter-panel had been rebuilt with marine body-filler, and the telltale ripples along the internal frame rail where a hydraulic puller had straightened the crumpled steel.
Tom reached into his leather vest pocket and pulled out a sterile surgical scalpel and a pair of precision titanium jewelers tweezers from his evidence collection kit. With a hand that was completely rock-steady despite twenty years of burning rage, he carefully shaved a paper-thin, microscopic sliver of the British Racing Green metallic enamel, the white intermediate polyurethane coat, and the underlying factory zinc primer from the interior lip of the damaged right front frame horn. He transferred the precious paint chips into an airtight glass forensic vial, labeled the screw-top lid with the date and time, and tucked the vial deep into his zippered breast pocket beside his heart.
Suddenly, the overhead fluorescent high-bay lights clicked on with a blinding buzz.
Standing in the doorway connecting the garage to the main residence, flanked by three private security guards with drawn Glock pistols, was Senator Bradley Sterling. Sterling was sixty-two, wearing a silk dressing gown over tailored trousers, his silver hair slicked back, a crystal glass of scotch held casually in his left hand.
“Thomas Callahan,” Sterling said, his voice smooth, dripping with the arrogant condescension of an untouchable aristocrat. “I had a feeling that sentimental little trinket would draw the mountain dog out of his kennel. But you are fifty miles outside your jurisdiction, mechanic.”
