Stone Groove Read online

  Stone Groove

  Erik Carter

  Copyright © 2017 by Erik Carter

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Washington, D.C.

  The 1970s

  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

  Thank You

  Get More Carter

  Dale Conley Books 2 & 3

  Also by Erik Carter

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  “You sure don’t look like a special agent.” The waitress eyeballed him. There was a small grin on her face that said, You’re either yanking my chain, or you’re completely full of crap. But, still, it was a nice smile. Pretty. Not the kind of smile that tells a story but one that gives a thousand little hints. Lots of sparkle. And a bit of mischief.

  Dale couldn’t help but notice her other assets too, notably an illicit figure that did one heck of a job filling out her uniform—a light red, almost pink, dress with white trim around the edges, snug in all the right places. She was the new girl. Her name tag read Julia.

  Dale was angling for her phone number, but the window of opportunity was small. The lunchtime crowd at Rich’s Diner was thick, and Julia had several other tables. In a sea of greasy spoons, Rich’s was the greasiest. It wasn’t the first place one would expect to find a federal agent in the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of Washington, D.C., in the middle of the 1970s. Everyone knew federal agents wore business suits and ate meals with three forks and five courses. But not BEI Special Agent Dale Conley.

  “What do you mean I don’t look like an agent?”

  “Just look at you.”

  Dale glanced over himself. He was wearing his usual—a T-shirt and 501s. His tan leather jacket was on the seat beside him. “What? Because I’m not wearing a suit?”

  “You’re a mess. Your damn lip is bleeding!”

  Dale checked his reflection in the window. She was right. The corner of his mouth was indeed split, blood already black and crusty in his two-day beard. Patches of sweat showed through his pale blue shirt. His thick brown hair and sideburns were disheveled.

  He took a paper napkin from the holder on the table, dipped it into his water then wiped at his lip. He gave Julia a smile. “Occupational hazard.”

  Half an hour earlier, Dale had been standing among the throngs of people at the Jefferson Memorial, in sunglasses and with a tourist pamphlet held up to his face. Near the base of the statue was his mark, a monster of a man in a long military field jacket. Six-foot-three with lengthy arms. His hair was unkempt, his face scruffy, and his eyes had that same wild look that all the crazies had.

  His name was Willard Ledford, and he had been a person of interest for the FBI due to his weekly column in a local extremist newsletter. But when his credo turned from angry to outright deranged, the Bureau called the BEI.

  Dale had been trailing him for the last three weeks. For most of that time, Willard had been holed up in his apartment, only leaving for a few extended visits to the public library and several fast food runs. When he suddenly made a trip to the memorial, Dale knew it was time to risk exposing himself.

  Willard was gazing up at Jefferson, ostensibly studying the stoic face of the Declaration’s penman but at the same time glancing left and right at the crowd around him. The creep hadn’t made a move yet, but Dale knew it was coming.

  Willard scanned the crowd repeatedly. Finally he reached into his jacket and took out a small box, about six inches cubed. He set it at the base of the statue then quickly turned and darted off.

  Dale dropped his pamphlet and ran toward the statue, pushing people out of his way.

  Julia motioned toward the window where, in the distance, you could just make out the Washington Monument. “You work out there, huh?” She bit her lip. It was clearly all she could do to keep from laughing.

  Dale played right along. “Indeed I do.”

  “Do you protect President Ford?”

  “That would be the Secret Service.”

  “So you spy on the Russians, stuff like that?”

  “That’s the CIA.”

  “Aren’t all those agencies basically the same?”

  Dale smiled. “Not quite.”

  Julia gathered a couple of Dale’s used napkins and glanced back at her other tables. “If you were a special agent, wouldn’t you have a badge or something?”

  “Yep.” Dale fished in his pocket and tossed his badge on the table.

  Julia picked it up. Her expression became more serious. “This looks real …”

  “Nah. I had it made just to impress you.”

  Julia scrutinized the badge. “Department of Justice,” she read. “Hey, wait a minute. Bureau of … Esoteric Investigation? I’ve never heard of them before.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  She squinted at the badge. “Esoteric?”

  “Things that only people with specialized knowledge understand.”

  “Hmm,” she said, still looking at the badge. “So, this is, like, top secret?”

  He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You won’t tell anyone, will you, Julia?”

  She smiled.

  Dale sprinted up to the box and dropped to his knees. He slowly opened it.

  Inside was an intricate bomb—wires, a clock face, and a couple blocks of C4.

  Dale groaned. He’d been expecting Willard to pull a gun and go out in a blaze of glory. Bombs were not Dale’s specialty.

  The clock was counting down. One minute forty-seven seconds.

  Beside him, a tourist saw what he was tampering with and screamed. A mass of shouting and pushing followed as the people fled the monument. They bashed into Dale as they funneled around him on either sid
e.

  He looked up and saw one person who was not headed for the exits. On the opposite side of the monument was a Park Police officer, a pudgy, short guy. Their eyes met.

  “Hey!” the cop shouted and ran toward Dale.

  Dale concentrated on the bomb. There was a clump of wires in an array of colors. Taking out the correct wire would diffuse the bomb, but if he pulled out the wrong one, it would blow up in his face. He rubbed his chin and flipped through the wires.

  So many colors.

  Julia handed Dale his badge. She looked more convinced now but not completely.

  “Far out …” she said.

  Dale winced. Far out was quite too hippie for his taste. But he could ignore it. Julia was a looker, and he enjoyed how she’d been toying with him. He liked a girl with spunk.

  “So what’s your name, Agent?”

  “The name’s Dale.”

  But in a way, it wasn’t. Dale Conley was the name they’d given him when he joined the BEI. He hadn’t liked it at first—it sounded like some stuffy writer’s name, which was ironic since writing had been his job on the outside. But now he was stuck with the name. Forever.

  So, “Dale Conley” it was.

  “I’m Julia.” She put her hand on her waist. “How’d you cut your lip, Dale?”

  Dale had just made up his mind to pull the red wire when a heavy fist flew into his jaw, splitting his lip open. It knocked him down, and a bright white haze flashed before his eyes.

  His vision returned just in time to watch the Park Police officer run up, get snatched by the long arms of Willard, and have his neck snapped. Willard threw the limp body to the side and rushed toward Dale.

  Dale drew his snub-nosed revolver, but Willard plowed into him, and they both fell to the ground. The gun sailed out of Dale’s hand.

  The big man’s full weight fell upon Dale, and his leather jacket did little to absorb the impact. Dale felt big arms and legs clambering all over him. He tried to pry his legs through Willard’s to gain some leverage, but the creep quickly wrapped one of his arms around Dale’s neck and squeezed hard. A bulging bicep crushed Dale’s throat, and he coughed.

  “I suggest you leave that box where you found it,” Willard said. He sounded as crazy as he looked. And he stank.

  Dale grunted. “You don’t mind if I admire your handiwork, do you, Willie?”

  “The Jefferson Memorial has been a meeting place for Freemasons for thirty years. And it ends today.”

  Dale would have rolled his eyes if they weren’t about to pop out of his head. This was the kind of weirdo that he always dealt with at the BEI—those who think the whole world’s in on some master plan, and they’ve figured it all out. The scary thing was that they always thought they were doing a service for mankind.

  “Somebody’s seen one too many episodes of Outer Limits,” Dale said.

  His neck was in a vice, and it took everything he had to turn his head and steal a glance at the clock. Thirty-three seconds.

  “It’s a modern version of the pagan Pantheon.” Willard spoke quickly with short, choppy breaths. He pulled his face around to Dale’s, inches apart, keeping Dale’s neck hooked in his elbow. “Masons use Pantheon structures as allusions to the Temple of Solomon. The Dome of the Rock. The Knights Templar knew the truth, that the Dome was the site of Solomon’s Temple. And that’s why Masons continue to use Pantheon domes in their buildings. This one here in the world’s capital is the perfect meeting place.”

  The guy was blending his history, melding his myths. Taken individually, the things he was referencing were real. Thrown together, they made no sense whatsoever.

  “Maybe you should take up your concerns with the Park Service.” Dale pulled at Willard’s arm, and the grip tightened even further. Dale kept himself in great shape, but this guy had natural strength. Beast strength.

  “Rather take care of the problem myself,” Willard said. “And since you keep giving me grief, we’ll go down with the ship together. Two men on opposite sides of tyrannical government control. Yin and yang. Very poetic.”

  Willard tightened his grip even more. Dale gagged, and his eyes watered. He looked at the clock.

  Ten seconds.

  “Never been into poetry myself,” Dale said. “I’m more of a rock and roll kind of guy.”

  Visualization. It’s what athletes used to win games; it’s what businessmen did before the negotiation. Dale thought about himself in the gym, tossing iron around, and with a surge of energy, he flipped Willard over his shoulder. With Willard momentarily dazed, Dale jumped toward the bomb and detached the red wire.

  The clock stopped.

  Willard snarled and rushed at Dale with a roundhouse swing. Dale stepped back, feeling the breeze from the big fist as it missed his face by an inch. The two men now circled each other, fists drawn, in the shadow of Jefferson.

  “You have no idea what you’ve done,” Willard said.

  “Sure I do,” Dale said. “I stopped a bomb, and I’m about to get one more nutjob off the street.”

  Willard growled. He took a couple more swings, a left then a right. Dale avoided the first blow, but the second connected with his stomach, clipping his lowest rib. Dale staggered back, and Willard rushed toward him again.

  Dale’s feet weren’t set, and the swing he threw was puny and ineffectual. Willard smacked Dale’s hand out of the way and landed another solid blow, this time on Dale’s shoulder. The impact tremor shook his whole body.

  There was a glint in Willard’s eye and a slight curl on his lips, a look that said I’m going to finish this. Now. He pulled back for a massive swing, giving Dale time to react. Dale ducked, and the death hammer that was Willard Ledford’s right arm went sailing over his head. From his crouched position, Dale sprang up with an uppercut that landed right where he wanted it, squarely under the man’s jaw.

  He felt Willard’s stubble against his knuckles, the oil and sweat of his face. Willard’s lower teeth cracked into the upper row. The creep’s head snapped back, and the momentum from his missed blow spun his body around ninety degrees before he began to tip over.

  Slowly, like an old oak tree that wasn’t quite ready to be felled, Willard’s body pitched to the right. Dale sidestepped just as Willard came crashing down to the marble floor.

  “So you got the crap beat out of you, defused a bomb, and caught the bad guy. And yet you came to a place like Rich’s to recover?” Julia said. “That’s the part I find hard to believe.”

  He pointed to the slice of pie in front of him. “Best pie in the city.”

  The food at Rich’s Diner was fairly pedestrian, but the apple pie was out of this world. It had made it onto the Best of D.C.: Desserts list three years in a row. Huge chunks of apple. Just enough tanginess. Big grains of sugar caramelized on top.

  Julia laughed. “Good point.”

  There was a certain sparkle to Julia’s eyes now. Her smile, which had been bemused and skeptical, was now easy and genuine. It was time to close the deal. “When’s your shift over, Julia? I know this great place down the road. You and I ought to—”

  Just as he was about to impart a dosage of his fabled charisma, a deep voice bellowed from the other side of the restaurant.

  “Agent Conley.”

  All the customers in the diner turned to look. But Dale didn’t. He knew who was behind him. There was no mistaking that voice.

  Chapter 2

  Dale heard the jingling of the bell on the front door as it closed followed by the tap of approaching dress shoes.

  Julia’s eyes opened wide. She took a couple steps back, her hand on her chest. “I … I’d better get back to my other tables.”

  She left.

  A man stepped around to the other side of Dale’s booth and sat down across from him.

  It was Walter Taft, Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Esoteric Investigation. He looked angry. He was always angry.

  Taft had a sizeable paunch and thin hair that was once red but was now not
so much salt-and-pepper as it was salt-and-paprika. His eyes were close-set, and his skin was always shiny, something Dale attributed to constant stress-induced sweating rather than an oily complexion. Taft hailed from Detroit, so the lack of sunlight in his formative years was quite possibly the reason for his dour disposition. Dale had known a lot of nasty people who crawled out of the far northern regions.

  The BEI was a clandestine group within the Department of Justice, but the powers that be thought it prudent to have a more “traditional” man at the helm. Thus, an FBI agent was called upon to head the operation. How they decided on Taft, Dale would never know. Managing the whacky personalities in the BEI required a level of patience few could manage—and Walter Taft was the type of man who got frustrated at his wife’s cat for being “too damn incompetent.”

  Dale leaned around Taft and watched as Julia tended to one of her other tables. He sighed. “Now look what you did, sir. I was really making some progress.”

  “I don’t give a damn about your romantic conquests, Conley. I’ve got a job for you.”