Hidden Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure Read online

  “Thanks Max,” says the radio anchor. “You’re listening to the News Machine. I’m Catherine Duke,” she repeats. They do that on radio. A lot. “We have some developments in our top story this hour. Bill McNeal is at the scene of a tense SWAT standoff along the North Freeway which may be connected to the deaths of four men earlier tonight. Bill you have new information for us?”

  “Yes, Catherine,” he says through his phone. “We just saw a bright flash, followed a couple of seconds later by a loud boom. We’re being kept back by caution tape and can’t see the activity firsthand. But we can surmise troopers and deputies may have gotten impatient with the people holed up inside a storage unit.”

  “Were shots fired?” Catherine Duke asks. “Or do you think deputies were using what’s called a flash-bang?”

  “It was a flash-bang,” answers Bill McNeal. “Which is technically a stun grenade. It produces a very bright flash of light and a loud bang, hence the name. It’s intended to stun a criminal suspect long enough to give the advancing officers an upper hand. It temporarily blinds the person, for maybe five seconds or so, deafens them temporarily, and causes him to lose his bal—” The reporter stops talking, and there’s a loud commotion in the background. It sounds like he’s talking to someone there next to him.

  “Bill are you there? Are you okay?” Catherin asks.

  “U-uh,” he stutters, “Uh. Yes, I’m here, Catherine. We’re distracted here by an orange glow coming from beyond our line of sight. It seems the building the SWAT team has surrounded is on fire.”

  “On fire?”

  “Yes!” the reporter’s voice cracks. “On fire. There’s now a large column of thick black smoke, evident even at night because of the large spike of flames coming from the building. It could be the flash-”

  Boom! There’s a loud explosive sound in the reporter’s transmission, followed by another. Boom!

  “Catherine!” the reporter says, sounding as though he is running. “We’re being pushed back. We’re being moved away, south along the feeder road. It seems there are explosions, a pair of them, pushing the flames and smoke higher into the sky.”

  The ammunition! The flash-bang must have ignited the tons of ammunition stored inside the unit.

  I’ve reached the exit off the freeway and merge onto the feeder road. There’s a gas station to the right. I pull into a parking spot and turn off the ignition. The radio is still on and the reporter is describing the horrific scene unfolding in front of him.

  There’s no way Ripley survived. He couldn’t have.

  Another life ended because of me. I’m like the grim reaper. The dread and misery I’ve been trying to keep at bay leaks back into my mind.

  “Catherine,” the reporter says, out of breath, but still working to provide information as best he can, “we have a spokesperson here from DPS who is about to give us some updated information. I’ll let you listen in.” There’s a shuffling noise as he presumably adjusts his phone.

  “Hello, I’m Lieutenant Penny Rogers with the Texas Department of Public Safety.”

  “Could you spell that?” someone in the background asks the lieutenant. She spells her name.

  “We’re going to have to ask all of the media to move to the other side of the freeway at this point,” she announces amidst grumbling from the reporters and photographers. “It’s just too dangerous now. We have multiple fire units on the way. They need access here. You need to head north, turn around, and gather on the southbound side of the freeway. We’ll have someone over there to assist you and provide updates.” More grumbling. There are sirens in the background now.

  “Listen,” she says in a firmer voice, worthy of her rank, “this is not a debate. You need to move now. The only information I can give you right now, and this is only so you’ll move along quickly without hassling me anymore, is the following.” She clears her throat. “We have two injured DPS troopers. Both of them seem to have minor burns and lacerations. We have three Harris County deputies with similar injuries. None are life threatening. As for the fire, it appears there may have been some sort of flammable product inside the building our team was targeting. We can’t tell you more than that.”

  Somebody hurls another question at Lt. Rogers.

  “No more questions,” she says. “Now, for your safety and ours, please move as instructed.” There’s a crackle on the phone and Bill McNeal, the reporter, returns.

  “So you heard that, Catherine,” McNeal adds. “Two DPS troopers and three deputies injured but okay. No word on the person or people inside the storage unit. I’m going to move now, as instructed, and will get back to you with more information once I’ve set up in the media staging area across the interstate.”

  “Okay, Bill,” says Catherine, exhaling as she speaks. “Thank you for the incredible update. Live radio, folks. That was Bill McNeal reporting from the scene of what is now an inferno burning at a storage facility on the North Freeway in Harris County. I believe Bill has already sent some photos into the station and we’ve got them posted on our website. Incredible pictures of the fire, which, we believe, was ignited by a flash-bang thrown at a building during a tense standoff. And all of this somehow connected to a shooting earlier today that left at least four people dead. I’m Catherine Duke and you’re listening to the News Machine 88.5 FM.”

  The harder I work to dig myself out of this quicksand of a hole, the deeper I slip. Every move I make to excise the violence from my life creates an unwitting butterfly effect of harm, injury, and death. I should be numb to it by now. But I’m not. Not when people who should be sitting at home watching American Idol or Game of Thrones are, instead, burning alive inside of a storage unit. Not when five law enforcement officers, doing their jobs to keep people safe, are nursing shrapnel wounds and second degree burns.

  I remind myself, however, this nasty, blood-spilling, back-stabbing world has always existed, I just didn’t know about it. It wasn’t until I took an iPod on a plane to London that I became enlightened.

  With a deep breath, I throw the Camry into reverse.

  I’ve got a plane to catch.

  PART TWO: NIGHT VISION

  “Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons and actions are understandable to man or not.”

  —Galileo Galilei

  CHAPTER 7

  Straight Line FBO has its own terminal at Conroe’s Lone Star Executive Airport. It’s what’s called a fixed base operator, providing A to Z support for private aircraft, pilots, and travelers.

  The fifty thousand square foot hangar was big enough to house the white-and-gold Bombardier Global 5000 jet we flew here from Santa Rosa. The aircraft, rented under a pseudonym, of course, is top notch. It’s big for a corporate jet and can cross the Atlantic with its awesome range. It’s a shame we’re flying it under these circumstances. It makes it difficult to appreciate the luxury of it. Let’s put it this way: the pilot’s cockpit is lined in double-stitched leather and chrome.

  We told the attendant at the FBO we wouldn’t be more than a day or so, and that we’d need the plane fueled and ready to fly with little notice. The pilot and copilot were on standby when we left this morning. It feels like a month ago.

  Exiting off the freeway, I head east and then north on a loop around the city of Conroe, until there’s a sign directing me to the airport and Straight Line. The radio distracts me for a moment and I almost miss the turn. Bill McNeal is back on the air with an update.

  “…got word from DPS that they believe there are two fatalities inside the storage unit, which is still on fire. Sources are telling me the people inside that unit were Roswell Ripley, the owner of the facility and well known for the assassination attempt of former gubernatorial candidate Don Carlos Buell, and a man named Jackson Quick. You may remember him for his involvement in the prosecution of the former governor. He was a poli
tical aide for the governor who turned against him and gave prosecutors valuable information as they sought a conviction for a host of crimes.”

  They think I’m dead?

  “Where this gets more complicated,” McNeal adds to the drama of it with a pregnant pause. “Quick was the source for much of George Townsend’s award-winning coverage that put the governor in the legal crosshairs. Townsend was also the first television reporter to interview Roswell Ripley when he was wrongly arrested for the Buell shooting. Now Townsend, as we mentioned earlier, is dead after a shootout in his home earlier today. Piecing the parts together, with the help of our sources, it seems Ripley and Quick were the ‘persons of interest’ authorities sought to question about Townsend’s death. Catherine, that’s all I have for now. Back to you in the studio.”

  “Great work out there, Bill,” Catherine crows. “Really fantastic information on this developing story. I’m Catherine Duke and you’re listening to the News Machine on 88.5 FM Houston. For more on the mass shooting that left reporter George Townsend and three others dead, let’s go to reporter Matthew Brock. He’s joining us live from southwest Houston. Matthew, what are authorities there telling you?”

  “Catherine, this upscale neighborhood isn’t used to this kind of crime. Police have marked bullet casings in the yard between two homes, there are trajectory sticks poking from the windows of a three-story townhouse, and yellow crime tape is everywhere. The body of one victim is covered in a sheet, still on the ground.

  “Inside the home, police say there are three more bodies, all of them adult men. One of them is local television reporter George Townsend. Investigators here tell us that they believe at least three different weapons were used, and some of the victims were shot with more than one weapon. Witnesses tell me they saw three people leaving the house after they heard gunshots. There were two men and a woman. They have no suspects in custody, we’re told. But we don’t know if either of the men seen leaving this scene are connected to the standoff and deadly fire some twenty miles north of here. Catherine, we’ll stay here for the latest information and get it to you when we can. From southwest Houston, I’m—”

  I turn the radio off, processing what this new information means. It means I’m dead. At least until the arson team fails to find my body.

  That’s probably a good thing. Until they discover I wasn’t in the fire, I’ve got a free pass. Nobody looks for a dead guy. I press the brakes and slow the car to make a left turn.

  Once off the loop, the absence of streetlights makes the drive dark until I reach the modern Straight Line terminal looms, glowing from its lobby lighting. It’s impressive through the twenty-foot tall single pane of glass surrounding the front entry and facing the parking lot. The sight of it makes my heart beat faster. A cold sweat blooms on my forehead.

  Will Bella be there? Mack?

  I steer the Toyota into an empty parking space next to a black Silverado and crank the car into park. On truck’s side is the Straight Line FBO logo; two red dots connected by a straight brush stroke of black. This place is vacant. I hope I’m not the only one here. That wouldn’t be good. I’m bothered less by the lack of activity on the other side of the windows, however, than I am by the information that radio reporter got from anonymous sources.

  Would DPS or Harris County really have pieced all of that together so quickly, especially with HPD handling the scene at George’s house? It just seems so—

  Then it hits me.

  It seems so… Sir Spencer.

  ***

  My mother was a gardener. She always planted seeds, believing that growing vegetables or fruit from anything else was agricultural heresy. We had a small, elevated garden in the backyard and she worked the plot year round. I can’t even tell you the number of times my dad and I found her elbow deep in compost.

  “Your mom has got to be the most beautiful woman in the world,” my dad would say. “She is unbelievably sexy.”

  “Gross, Dad,” I’d complain. “I don’t need to hear that.”

  She was beautiful. Even in soil stained overalls and bright yellow rubber boots, she carried an elegance unmatched by any of the other moms I knew.

  The garden was as much a hobby as it was an escape for her, and it was a daily part of her routine. She treated it like a job. A labor of love.

  My mom was meticulous with that garden. She’d split the plot into four equal sections and she’d alternate plantings to keep the soil fresh.

  “It rejuvenates the nutrients,” she told me one day as I helped her clip a snake of black irrigation tubing around her plantings when I was about ten years old. “Plus it helps keep pests away.”

  “How?” I asked her.

  “Different crops need different things from the soil,” she explained, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of a gloved hand. “Some plants, like tomatoes or corn, suck out the nitrogen. So if I plant tomatoes and corn in the same places, year after year, that part of the garden will lose its nitrogen faster than the other parts. If I rotate where I plant the tomatoes and the corn, it balances out the soil.”

  “What about the bugs?”

  “The bugs are less of a nutrient problem and more of an appetite issue. You want to rotate plants so that you confuse the bugs and they don’t set up shop in one spot expecting the same meal season after season.”

  She liked planting bulb onions, pole snap beans, summer squash, and tomatoes at the end of the summer and into the fall. In the spring, she’d plant cucumber, chard, radishes, and kale.

  “The key, Jackson, is balance. That’s the key to life, really; balance in all things.”

  In the winter, it could get tough sometimes to keep the plot healthy, but she worked at it. There could be ice or snow on the ground, and she was outside with a shovel or a hoe in her hand.

  My dad might admire her from the back porch, but he didn’t venture into the dirt. Maybe he didn’t like it or, better yet, he didn’t want to interfere on her turf. He’d surely enjoy the salads and side dishes she put on the dinner table, though.

  “Have you thought about raising cattle?” he’d joke. “I mean, if you can grow vegetables like this, what’s to stop you from ranching a mean steak?”

  “You’re the hunter and gatherer in this family,” she’d said. “You bring home the steak.”

  My dad, as I’ve discovered, was the hunter. If I believe Mack, my mom had a lot to do with that. She was the one who introduced him to the life that killed them and sent me on this Greek tragedy of a life path.

  One warm day in the garden, I remember, I was harvesting cucumbers. I’d take a set of clippers and cut them from their sticky, prickly stalks, carefully brush off the dirt, and place them in a canvas bag my mom gave me. There were maybe five or six of them in the bag when my mom cried out in pain.

  I turned around to see a tangled piece of chicken wire sticking out of her forearm. She’d lost her balance pulling a weed and, in stopping her fall, caught her arm on the wire intended to keep out snakes and rodents. There was an extra thick layer of barbs along the top of the fence, some of which had burrowed their way beneath her skin.

  “Mom!” I shrieked, sounding more like a teenage girl than a young boy. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she grunted. “It looks worse than it is.” She was on her knees, bracing herself on the top edge of the limestone, trying not to tug on the chicken wire. Most of it was still in the ground, except the part connected to her arm.

  “Do you need help?” I asked, moving to her side.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling through the pain. “I need you to pull it out.”

  That was not the help I was expecting to give. But my dad wasn’t home and she couldn’t balance herself and pull free from the barbs buried in her arm. So, without really thinking, I took the clippers and started cutting the wire about six inches from my mom’s flesh.

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p; “I’m cutting you free of the fence first,” I explained, snipping through the flexible galvanized steel mesh. “Then you can sit up straight and it won’t hurt as much when I have to yank on the parts of the fence stuck in your arm.”

  “Good idea, Jackson. Very good idea.”

  I clipped through one hexagonal gap after another until she was free of the fence, then ran inside the house. A minute later, I emerged with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a pair of needle nose pliers.

  “Sit here,” I told her with what I now know was a remarkable sense of calm for a kid my age. I gently pulled her arm into my lap by her wrist. There is a three-inch section of fence protruding upward with at least four barbs to pull out.

  I pour a healthy dose of the peroxide on the punctures and it bubbled ferociously around the edges of the barbs.

  “Okay, Mom, this might hurt.” Wincing as I did it, I surgically plucked each of the four prongs with those pliers. It took several minutes, which felt like hours, and tears were streaming down my mother’s face by the time I’d removed the last of them and doused the wounds with another slug of H2O2.

  She didn’t think they were deep enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room, but she slathered the cuts with a healthy dose of Neosporin. I was carefully unwrapping a large square Band-Aid when I noticed something on her forearm I’d not seen before.

  Right at the point where her forearm met the lower part of her bicep, there was a small, raised, circular scar. It looked like a bullet wound.

  I pressed the edges of the bandages onto her skin, careful to avoid the wounds themselves. “Mom, what’s the scar on your arm?”

  “What scar?” she said, feigning ignorance.

  “The one on your arm.” I pointed to it. “It looks like it hurt.”

  “Oh, that scar,” she said dramatically. My mother wasn’t much of an actress. She rubbed her thumb on it. “I’m not sure.”