Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure Read online

  A POST HILL PRESS book

  ISBN: 978-1-61868-8-903

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-9-962

  Allegiance copyright © 2015

  by Tom Abrahams

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Ryan Truso

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  T A B L E OF C O N T E N T S

  P r o l o g u e

  P a r t I: C o m e A n d T a k e I t

  C h a p t e r 1

  C h a p t e r 2

  C h a p t e r 3

  P a r t I I: N o t E v e r y t h i n g I s B i g g e r I n T e x a s

  C h a p t e r 4

  C h a p t e r 5

  C h a p t e r 6

  C h a p t e r 7

  C h a p t e r 8

  C h a p t e r 9

  P a r t I I I: D o n ' t M e s s W i t h T e x a s

  C h a p t e r 10

  C h a p t e r 11

  C h a p t e r 12

  C h a p t e r 13

  C h a p t e r 14

  C h a p t e r 15

  E p i l o g u e

  A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s

  For Courtney and our nanobots; Samantha and Luke

  PROLOGUE

  “It’s always a battle between anarchy and tyranny – always has been.”

  ---TEXAS GOVERNOR RICK PERRY, FEBRUARY 18, 2010

  The sniper never missed. Never.

  The job was always simple: target, breathe, pull, and kill.

  No emotion. No second thoughts.

  This target, this place, this job, though, were different.

  The mark was not some nameless insurgent or foreign ally turned enemy. He was one of the wealthiest men in the world.

  The location wasn’t a frozen mountain perch on the Afghani-Pakistani border or the humid, tangled jungles of Central America. This was on U.S. soil.

  There was no payment on the other end of the bullet. This was a favor; a freebie the sniper didn’t typically grant.

  All of it was irregular, the sniper thought, lying belly down on the roof of the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, Texas. The crowd on the grassy area below was small. The sky was clear. The wind was slight and from the south.

  It was the loud rush of traffic on highway 59 from behind that was distracting. The sniper slipped in a pair of earbuds and pressed play on a small black iPod. The electric guitar licked into rhythm, followed by the beat of the drum.

  AC/DC always helped clear the sniper’s mind and focus on the task ahead.

  The sniper thumbed the volume up a click and took a deep breath. Eyes closed, the sniper didn’t see the figure to the left approaching with purpose.

  A large man, his muscular frame was hidden by the gray Ghillie suit used to disguise his presence on the convention center’s roof. His dark, polarized sunglasses hid his eyes and his muscles flexed as he crouched low, moving to the shooter.

  The sniper spun as the man approached.

  “Where have you been?” whispered the shooter, pulling out the earbuds.

  “Checking the escape route.” The man was the sniper’s spotter. He was the senior, more experienced member of the team. "You want coffee?" He nodded at a large stainless canister to the sniper's left.

  “Thanks.” The sniper reached for the caffeine.

  “You set?” The spotter inched onto his belly next to the sniper. “Crowd’s beginning to fill in.”

  “A bit.” The sniper took a sip of the coffee without making a sound.

  “That road noise sucks,” the spotter said, glancing back toward the highway behind and below them.

  “That’s why I’m amping up with music. Helps me focus.”

  “This I know,” the spotter smiled. The pair had been through a lot in their time together; Parachinar, Al Fashir, Benque Ceiba, Tampico. They were always in and out. They always hit their mark. They knew each other as well as they knew themselves. Hours, or days, in a snow drift or mud hole had accelerated their personal learning curves.

  “Shoot To Thrill? AC/DC?” The spotter knew he was right.

  “You know it.” The sniper felt the wind shift.

  “Trite.” The spotter adjusted his elbows.

  Another silent sip from the cup.

  “Okay,” the spotter rolled his eyes and reached into a small gray sack and pulled out a scope. “Time to get serious. I see the car approaching.”

  “Roger that.” The sniper set the coffee to the side and scanned the crowd, which now numbered at least two hundred people.

  High above the target, the sniper team quietly pressed forward with their pre-shot routine, despite using a new weapon given to them for this assignment.

  The M110 rifle was longer and heavier than the sniper's weapon of choice, the thirty-six inch, nine pound CSASS. Still, it would do. There was, after all, no such thing as a single best sniper rifle. Any rifle in the hand of a sniper was equally effective.

  The spotter put his eye to his adjustable power scope. He zoomed in to 45x and spun it back to 20x, giving him a wide field of view and the ability to trace the bullet once fired. As he scanned left, he saw the target getting out of a vehicle.

  “Target spotted,” he whispered above the swoosh of the traffic. “Dark suit, near intersection three. Waving hands. Smiling.”

  “Roger,” answered the shooter. “Got him.” The sniper moved the rifle from right to left, following the target. “Now approaching intersection one.”

  The target shook hands with a handful of men and women lining the path to the hurriedly assembled stage. He looked at the skyline to his right and extended his arms as if to embrace the city. He turned to the crowd, clapped his hands, and bounded up the steps to the lectern. Every move was choreographed.

  The spotter checked his range finder. He lifted up his head and looked, without aid, at the scene below them. “That intersection is 350 meters. I laze him at 351 meters. Come up to six plus four.”

  “Roger that,” the sniper adjusted again. “Elevation six plus four.”

  “We have right to left wind now. Come right 1.3 M.O.A,” the spotter looked at the flags blowing to either side of the target. The gusts were slight, but they’d switched from south to north.

  “Roger that,” the sniper made the adjustment. “Right 1.3 M.O.A.”

  The crowd below them was cheering. They were waving signs. The target was relatively still. He was in a single spot. Not working the crowd as he normally did.

  Through their scopes, the team saw the target remove his dark suit jacket and tug at his tie. He was wearing a white shirt, making the mark increasingly visible against the reflective glass and steel of the downtown buildings behind him.

  The spotter and sniper exchanged knowing looks. The two were telepathic, almost. They were ready.

  “Spotter up.” The spotter shifted on his elbows. He’d done this countless times before. With each one, the moment before the shot, he felt the adrenaline course through his body. He was anxious, ready to pull the trigger himself and see the extraordinary result of his godforsaken skill. He was the eyes, not the muscle. He looked to his right at his partner’s hand on the trigger and returned to the scope.

  The target had his finger to his lips, quieting the chanting crowd.

  The shooter exhaled and settled in for the pull. Everything around the target blurred. Concentration was critical. O
ne last breath before the shot.

  “Aaaahhhhh,” the sniper exhaled audibly, signaling the spotter.

  “Send it.” The data was good. The target was there.

  At that moment, the sniper pulled the trigger which, in turn, engaged the sear. Instantly the sear released the firing pin, which struck the back of the bullet primer. A small, internal explosion propelled the 7.62 x 51 millimeter bullet down the barrel and into the air toward the mark.

  Traveling at 2,600 feet per second, the bullet tore through the flesh, muscle, and bone of the target before the sniper released the pressure on the trigger.

  “One o’clock, three inches,” the sniper said softly.

  “Roger that,” the spotter confirmed with the scope. “Target hit.”

  The sniper chambered another round as the spotter scanned the field one last time. Both were motionless until the spotter, out of habit, picked up the brass casing to his right and dropped it into his bag. It was still hot.

  By the time the target's blood began pooling around him on the stage, the sniper and the spotter were off of the roof. Within minutes they’d easily merged into the whirring traffic on highway 59.

  The M110 was in a dumpster on the rear loading dock of the convention center. It was wiped clean and dropped onto a stack of corrugated cardboard, the team making no effort to hide it.

  PART I: COME AND TAKE IT

  “Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans.”

  ---JOHN STEINBECK

  Chapter 1

  The last I remember, I was at a bar on Sixth Street.

  It smelled like a Thursday; a mix of cloves, hairspray, spilled beer, and sweat. Thursdays are big in Austin, a jump on the weekends that lie ahead.

  My girlfriend, Charlie, left me sitting in a small red vinyl booth while she went to the bathroom. Charlie always likes hitting the clubs on Thursdays. She says it makes getting through the week easier when she knows she has an extra night of dancing and drinking.

  She’s as tall as I am; maybe 5’11”, with red hair and bright green eyes, like Nicole Kidman after she got famous, but before she denied having plastic surgery.

  She is Days of Thunder hot and whip smart. I’ve dated attractive women before, but I’ve never fallen for one until Charlie. I always run when things get too serious.

  I had a busy Friday planned and hadn’t slept lately, but given how much I’d been traveling it was great to spend time with her.

  The band 139 played on a small stage at the far end of the cramped pub. The rhythmic strum of the bass guitar vibrated in my hand wrapped around the glass mug on the table in front of me. I thumbed the condensation off of the glass and nodded to the beat.

  Through the cigarette smoke haze hanging in the air there was the regular mix of college kids, politicos like Charlie and me, and Austin free spirits.

  At the large black granite bar on the other side of the room, a group of gel-headed fraternity guys wearing Polo shirts clinging tightly to their biceps laughed and playfully punched the testosterone out of each other. Next to them were a couple of men in dark business suits, their bright silk ties loosened but still knotted beneath the collars of their pressed white cotton shirts. They worked at the Capitol. I didn’t recognize them, but their attitude and attire gave them away. They leaned against the granite, holding hi-ball glasses and whispering to each other about the women who passed by them. They ogled Charlie until she disappeared into the bathroom. Men were always looking at her. She pretended not to notice, but I knew she did.

  Near the stage, in front of the band, about twenty people were bouncing to the music. They’d occasionally hold their glasses above their heads as they swayed back and forth. It seemed spontaneously choreographed; like a mosh pit without the slam-dancing.

  I took a swig from the sweaty, vibrating glass of Shiner Bock. It was saltier than usual, and bitter. I remember thinking the bartender didn’t know how to pour a beer as I wiped foam from my lips with the back of my arm.

  139 finished its set. I think. I don’t remember much after swigging the beer.

  ***

  I am seated and chained to the floor.

  Where is this place?

  There’s a man standing over me, insisting I reveal whatever it is I know. His voice is deep and gravelly, as though he needs to clear his throat. He’s British.

  What does he want?

  “I don’t know anything.” I swallow past the dryness in my mouth.

  “Are you hungry?” The voice behind me is calm this time. It’s almost a sympathetic whisper behind my right ear. Almost but not really. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten, good boy?”

  My head aches at my temples from dehydration. My vision is blurred, my tongue is thick, and my lips are chapped and feel as though the dryness has glued them shut. I shake my head.

  “Come along,” the voice says. “We’ll get you something to eat, a little water to drink. Perhaps that’ll help your memory. I know how hard it can be to concentrate.”

  It’s obvious to me he’s done this before. He’s a professional extractor of information, standing a step outside my foggy line of sight. He sounds simultaneously proper and evil.

  He walks away. There’s the sound of a door unlocking, opening, shutting, and finally being relocked from the outside. I’ve heard the series of clicks and creaks too many times to count. I imagine the door is thick and riveted. It has that sound to it when it slams closed.

  I’m not sure of where or when I am.

  When I’m not chained to the chair, I’m in my cell.

  It’s cement floored, next to the much larger interrogation room, and is sized such that I cannot stand fully upright or lay down completely. The joints in my hips ache. My knees are killing me. I can’t fall asleep because of the throbbing in my head. Instead, I find myself in a constant haze where I begin to dream while fully aware of the noises around me.

  There is loud, distorted music blasted into the cell for seconds or minutes or hours at a time. It’s speed metal that pounds with a pulsing light that, at times, is so blinding I swear I can feel the heat from it.

  When the light is on consistently, I can only see by squinting though my swollen eyes. Then the room will go black. With the lights off, I can’t see anything. I can, however, smell the mess I’ve made of myself; the constant stink of body odor and worse. I can’t ever completely catch my breath.

  In the larger room there are constant threats of pain, but very rarely pain itself. The threats are worse.

  This is torture.

  Sometimes there’s the sound of metal scraping against metal behind my ear, or maybe it’s a boiling pot of water held close enough to my face the steam makes snot drip my from my nose.

  The only breaks are the occasional moments during which I black out from hunger or lack of sleep. I can’t keep track of it. Each time I wake from the painful twilight, I’m wearing a new jumpsuit. Some of them are too big. Others are uncomfortably tight. Whoever it is that has me here is trying to keep me off-balance. Despite my best efforts to catch clues of my surroundings, I’m too disoriented to do it.

  “I must apologize,” the voice says as he spoons something toward my mouth. “I dropped a jar from the counter and it shattered.” He knows exactly what he’s doing. “So sorry.”

  I take a mouthful and swallow what tastes like warm baby food. Carrots. Maybe beets.

  The voice pauses as he shovels the goop. “I believe I removed all the glass, but some of it may have gotten into your food here. Chew carefully, good man.”

  I suck down the beet/carrots as though some little functioning corner of my mind is telling me I am hungry. I should stop eating. I should refuse, but I slurp another spoonful, tasting the cold metal of the spoon and vague sweetness of the mush.

  Another slurp. And another. Until a small shard of glass stabs the roof of my mouth. It sticks into the soft skin.

  The blood pooling in my mouth tastes warm. I wince and try to r
emove the glass with my tongue before spitting it out onto the floor.

  “Ooh!” The voice seems amused now, reacting to the pained face in front of him. “Perhaps I missed a shard? My apologies. I gather you’re finished.” He drops the spoon into the bowl and places it on a table next to him.

  “Now,” the voice slows and deepens. “You were clumsily suggesting you don’t know anything. I suggest I don’t believe you.” The last four words hang in the air between us.

  The blood pools in my mouth behind my lower front teeth. It’s warm and thick. I inhale and, with the strength I have, spit. The mix of blood and saliva sprays onto the Voice and drips down my chin. It’s hanging there from my lips.

  “Who are you?” I try to suck back in the pink spittle and lick my lower lip with the back of my tongue.

  “My friends,” he begins, “what few I have of them, prefer to call me a saint. Or rather The Saint.”

  “Like that crappy 1990s Val Kilmer movie?”

  “No. That film was horrid. I prefer the 1962 Roger Moore incarnation. It was on the telly,” he laughs and sits quietly awaiting another sarcastic remark. I give him nothing.

  The Saint grabs the chain between the thick iron cuffs on my wrists, the rough edge of the hammered cuff digging into my skin at the point where the bones in my wrist widen. I can feel the existing bruises deepening, as though I had been punched in the same spot repeatedly.

  “Stand!” he commands. He is both the good cop and the bad cop.

  He adjusts the leg irons attached to a metal eye hook in the floor. I lurch forward suddenly, feeling a yank on my arms as the chain between my hands is locked to the eye hook. I’m bent at the waist, doubled over in a sadistic involuntary yoga pose; my ankles and wrists bound to the same spot. The pressure on my lower back is spreading through my torso. The muscles along my spine and shoulders are screaming at me to stand. I can’t. I whimper at the impossibility of this and it echoes against the concrete in the room. It’s a sound I don’t recognize as anything that would ever come from my mouth.