Allegiance Burned: A Jackson Quick Adventure Page 28

  I press the hobbled Citroen as fast as I can get it to go. I’m like Clark Griswold in the wood paneled, army green Family Truckster, wobbling on a bad rim and a flat, but there’s nothing funny about this.

  The SUV’s tires screech angrily against the sharp right turn the driver forces, centering himself in my rear view. It’s closing fast again, with four good tires and rims.

  The revolver is underneath my seat, the AKs in the back seat behind Bella. None of them will do me any good until we stop. I can’t risk handing over the wheel and wrecking.

  I check my speed: one hundred and one kilometers per hour. 70 miles per hour.

  The road curves right and the SUV drifts out of my mirror for a moment. Both sides of the road are lined with thickets of trees, their leaves green and full. I push the accelerator coming out of the curve, the trees give way to farm land, and the Citroen resists my urging for more speed. The blown tire is gone, and we’re rolling on a rim. The bent front rim is causing the steering wheel to shake violently.

  “We don’t have much longer in this car,” I say. “Can you grab the rifles from behind your seat? They’re both loaded.”

  Bella pulls against her seatbelt, loosening the shoulder strap, and reaches around to grab the first of the rifles. She sets it in the center console, the business end facing backward, and then stacks the second one on top of it.

  “I need you to hold on to one of them,” I say, fighting to maintain control of the car. “I’m going to pull off the road over here.” I nod ahead to a cluster of warehouses off to the right of the road. “That’ll give us some cover.”

  She nods robotically.

  “When I stop, I’m going to grab my revolver from under the seat. I’ve got three shots if I need them. I’ll provide cover with one of those AKs while you bolt to those buildings up there. Got it?”

  She nods again and grabs both rifles, setting them on her lap.

  “Those rifles hold as many as thirty rounds. Both are probably less than half full. And they’re set to fire in three round bursts. Flip that switch, right there.” I point to the safety, which she disengages.

  I see the distance between us and the SUV rapidly diminishing. “Okay, here we go.” I slam on the brakes and jerk the wheel to the left.

  The car spins, more aptly bounces, and stops with the driver’s side facing the oncoming SUV. “Go now!!!” I yell to Bella and she darts from the Citroen, running down the middle of the road for cover until she hears me pull the trigger on the AK. I assume at that point, she’ll disappear into the high grass and toward the warehouses.

  I pull on the driver’s handle, trying to loosen it before I grab my AK to fire, but the damage from slamming into the concrete barrier at the off ramp must have jammed it shut. I duck down, pull the revolver from beneath my seat and then push myself through the car to Bella’s open door. Once I’m on the pavement, I reach back inside the car and grab the rifle.

  He’s not going to kill me, I tell myself. He needs me alive.

  Clink! Clink! Clink! It’s the sound of bullets cutting through the driver’s side of the Citroen before the sound of glass shattering. I’m crouched like a baseball catcher with my back against the car.

  Okay. Maybe I’m wrong about that.

  In the distance, I can see Bella picking her way through the high grass. She’s almost to the warehouses, and I haven’t fired a shot yet. I close my eyes, exhale, and focus. Everything around me slows to a crawl.

  Standing up and spinning one hundred and eighty degrees, I pull the rifle tight to my shoulder and set my revolver on the roof of the Citroen. To the right of the SUV, crouched behind an open door is Blogis’ stooge. He’s aiming a semi-automatic pistol in the space between the door frame and the door.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! He’s down.

  I pivot to my right, expecting to put Blogis in my crosshairs, but he’s not there. I swivel back to the left and there’s nothing.

  Pop! A shot whizzes within an inch of my left ear.

  Where the —? I drop behind the car, falling to one knee.

  “I don’t want to kill you, Jackson,” he calls out. “You’re not any good to me if you’re dead.”

  “What do you want with me then?” I call back.

  “You know this,” he laughs. “You know I want the pieces of the process that you are holding. I will get them from you one way or the other. There was a tracker in the Citroen.”

  “I’m not giving them to you,” I say. “I know what all of those seemingly meaningless mathematical calculations do when they’re put together.”

  “Do you really now?” I still can’t fix his location.

  “It finds nuclear weapons and renders them useless,” I say. There’s no sign of Bella near the warehouses. She’s hidden. If I can get to her, somehow…

  “Very good,” he replies. “Very good. But do you truly understand what this means geopolitically? This changes everything.”

  “I’m not stupid. I get it. You sell the process, you make money, and then you singlehandedly screw some nation into oblivion. My guess is that you’re not looking to make a deal with Uncle Sam.”

  “Probably not,” he says, his voice from a different location. Not closer. Not farther away, just shifting. “I’m pretty tight with Putin. Vlad and I both have a taste for German beer.”

  “I doubt Rouhani likes beer,” I say, referring to the president of Iran. “What’s your connection to him?”

  “Hassan?” He laughs. “Ha! I’ve known him since his days as a college student in Glasgow. I get him bootlegged copies of the movies he wants to see before they’re available in Iran. He screens them at Sa’dabad Palace before afternoon prayers. Great guy.”

  “Which one is your buyer?”

  “Either one is good with me,” he says. “They both know how it works. And let’s be honest, Jackson, either one of them does the same thing with the gift I provide them.”

  He says something about American imperialism when I make the decision to bolt, crab walking at first, then dashing for the grass about twenty-five feet off the shoulder of the road.

  I dive into the grass as a bullet whizzes by, landing on the AK, jamming it in my ribcage and knocking the wind out of myself.

  “C’mon, Jackson!” Blogis yells again. “We were having a nice James Bond/Goldfinger conversation there. You had to go run off, ruining it!” Catching my breath, I aim the AK skyward and rattle off a pair of bursts for cover before pushing myself up to make a run for the first of the three warehouses. There’s no return fire until I clear the grass and round the corner between the first two buildings.

  I’ve got a minute, maybe, to find Bella and more cover, before Blogis catches up and ends this one way or the other.

  ***

  Thankfully, Bella is hiding on the far side of a large tractor between the first warehouse and the steep bank of a narrow river.

  “You okay?” I slide next to her behind a huge tractor tire wide enough to protect both of us from Blogis’ line of sight.

  “I’m good,” she says, sweat beading on her forehead and chin. “Scared. But good.”

  “Can you fire that thing?” I look at the rifle in her hands. She makes the AK look sexier than it already is.

  “Just hold it tight against my shoulder so it doesn’t kick, right?”

  “Yep. And that weapon doesn’t have as much recoil as you’d think. You should be okay.”

  She nods and attempts a smile before wiping her forehead with the back of her hand and pointing to the wounds on my shoulder and bicep. “You’re bleeding again. You’ve got a new one too.” She thumbs some blood from my ear.

  “I hadn’t noticed. It’s the adrenaline.”

  “What do we do now?” she whispers. “We’re sitting ducks.”

  “We’ll be fine. Trust me.”

  The tractor provides great cover from any direction Blogis might approach. He won’t be able to see us hiding behind it. Unless he approaches from…

  “There you are!
” he shouts from the riverbank. Both of us are exposed. He levels his handgun at Bella and approaches slowly.

  “Don’t think about it, Jackson,” he says, his eyes on Bella as he moves parallel to the riverbank. “I’ll put a bullet in her before you release the trigger. The difference between the velocity of your bullet and mine doesn’t matter at this distance. You’ll kill me. I’ll kill her. That’s not good for anyone. Plus, I’ve got a soft spot for you, Jackson. I don’t want this to end with your bloody, unnecessary death. The girl doesn’t have to die either. But she will if you do something stupid.”

  Bella drops her rifle to the ground and puts her hands in the air. I don’t.

  I keep my AK aimed at his head, tracing his movement.

  He’s waving what looks like a piece of paper in his left hand as he talks. “Let’s do the math. You’re firing three round bursts, the rounds traveling maybe twenty-three hundred feet per second. My nine millimeter is a little slower at about one thousand feet per second. I’m less than five hundred feet from you.”

  “Which means you’re dead in a quarter of a second.”

  “You’re at a rifle’s distance, Jackson. So test it with your handgun,” he snarls. “I’ll see the change in your facial muscles before your finger pulls the trigger. I’ll fire at the same time you do. She’ll hit the ground half a second after me.”

  “I don’t think so.” My eyes are open, the right one pulled to the scope.

  “I don’t care if she lives,” he says. “Don’t push my pati—”

  Thump! Thump! Thump!

  I release the trigger and through the scope see Liho Blogis jerk awkwardly back, stumbling and dropping his handgun before falling down the embankment and into the river with a splash. The piece of paper in his hand wafts in the air for a moment before spiraling to the ground.

  “Holy sh—” Bella blurts.

  “Walk back to the car,” I say without taking my eyes off the spot where Blogis fell into the water. “I’ll meet you there in a second.” The AK is still pulled tight to my shoulder.

  “It’s useless,” she says. “The tires are —”

  “We’re taking the SUV.”

  “What if there are people there?” Good point.

  “Gauge it from the high grass,” I say. “If it’s not safe then stay there. If it is, then grab the bags out of the rental and toss them in the SUV. My guess is the keys are in the ignition.”

  Bella nods and starts walking quickly, retracing her steps to the road. I walk the opposite direction, to the riverbank.

  The rush of the water amplifies the closer I get. The bank is steep, maybe four or five feet down at an almost vertical drop. There’s a smudge of blood on the weeds and dirt where the bank meets the water. To the left, about fifty yards downriver, is what looks like Blogis’ body, face down. To my right, next to his Glock nine millimeter on the ground is the piece of paper he dropped. It’s a photograph.

  I pick it up and, before I’ve even pulled the image into focus, recognize it. On the far left is a man with his arms behind his back, chest puffed out.

  My dad.

  Leaning on my dad’s shoulder is his tall, musclebound, mop-haired teammate.

  How did Liho Blogis get this photograph?

  I flip it over. The writing on the back isn’t faded as it is on my copy.

  Wolfpack Rifle Team 1981.

  Team R to L: (back) Tim Highwater, G. Graff, Daniel Petrovich, Donald Wayne, Frank Blogis, James Ellsworth (front) Sanders Long, Steve Lawrence, C.L. Eaker

  Two names stand out: Frank Blogis and James Ellsworth.

  James was my dad. And Blogis…could it be…?

  Frank! The college buddy who visited us at the house. The guy with the BMW who upset my dad. Was Frank really Liho Blogis?

  I flip the photograph back over, looking at the man standing next to my father. Could it be?

  Did Liho Blogis know my father? Did they work together?

  “I’ve got a soft spot for you, Jackson,” he said, before I put three rounds into him.

  A memory I’d long forgotten flashes into my head, along with a wave of nausea that overwhelms me and I bend over, involuntary dry heaves tearing at my stomach. The answers to my questions are dead, floating down the river.

  Unless…

  There was that night…before my father died. I’d forgotten about it, repressed it, until this moment. It puts together the far-flung, hidden pieces of my past and my present.

  I wipe the drool from my chin, fold the photograph and tuck it in my pocket, and start marching back to the SUV and Bella.

  By the time I reach the road, she’s in the driver’s seat, waiting on me. There’s nobody around except for the dead body in the road.

  She rolls down the front passenger’s window. “Let’s go,” she says, “we’ve got a date with Sir Spencer.”

  I climb into the seat and pull the door shut. “You know where to go?”

  “I’ve got your GPS.” She nods to the display, which she’s placed just beneath the dash. “We’re good to go. Plus,” she pops open the glove box, which reveals a silver thumb drive. “We’ve got Blogis’ piece of the puzzle. That gives us three.”

  I’m listening to her, but not processing it.

  Blogis knew my father? They were friends?

  “Are you okay?” Bella shakes my leg. “Jackson?”

  I nod.

  They were classmates and coworkers? Blogis worked for Spencer.

  “What happened down there?” she asks. “Is he dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  My father…did he…?

  “Then what is it?”

  “Nothing.” I shake loose the thoughts in my head. “Let’s finish this.”

  ***

  Growing up, my bedroom was above the two car attached garage. It was the largest of the three secondary bedrooms, but was the least insulated. I always found the room too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. And whenever the garage door rumbled open or closed, my bed rattled like a coin-operated carnival ride.

  One night, not long before my parents’ deaths, I was asleep when someone opened the garage door. I assumed it was my dad. He’d been away on business and my mom told me he’d be home late.

  Once I shook the sleep from my head, I hopped up to go greet him. My alarm clock glowed 11:45 P.M. Too late for me to be up, but I knew he’d excuse my disobedience to give him a welcome home hug.

  I was halfway down the L-shaped stairway when there was another voice, one I didn’t recognize. The man was talking to my father. I stopped at the turn on the stairs and sat down to listen.

  “James,” he said, “I’m disappointed about this. Would you reconsider?”

  “No,” my dad replied. “I’ve made up my mind. I’ve got a new job. It’s…out of the business, and it’ll keep me at home.”

  “I understand the family is pulling at you,” the man acknowledged. “That’s why I told you long ago to divest yourself of any emotional attachments. That they would only hinder your ability to perform.”

  “My family has never hindered my performance,” my dad shot back. From the sounds of their voices, I could tell they were in the formal living room at the front of the house. “I’ve never blown an assignment, missed a target, fouled up intelligence, or fallen short in any way.”

  “I’m not suggesting that you’re not stellar at your job, James. Far from it,” the man backpedals. “If you were anything other than outstanding, I wouldn’t be asking you to reconsider. It’s just…”

  “What?”

  “It’s just that your wife, your beautiful wife, and your son have become liabilities,” the man said. “They keep you from wanting more. They have you unable to accept some of the more… complicated undertakings we like to assign.”

  “I don’t disagree with you,” my dad sighed. “I wouldn’t call them liabilities, but I’ve admitted to being more cautious and less of a risk taker than is necessary. My family is always in the back of my mind. That’s
why you knew this day was coming.”

  “Oh, James, good man,” the visitor said, “you are right. The time has come. I understand. I’ll have to make the committee understand, of course. They may not be as amenable to your retirement as I, but I’ll help them understand the prudence of it.”

  “The committee.” It was a question as much as a statement.

  “Yes,” the man explained, “you know, James, the committee of men and women above me. They make the ultimate decision about how to handle almost everything within the organization.”

  “They’re the ones who chose how to handle Frank’s defection?” my dad asked.

  “Yes,” the man replied. “But please, good man, don’t refer to him as Frank anymore. Frank is as good as dead. His new family calls him Liho.”

  “I can’t understand why he did what he did,” my father said. “He was like a brother. When you recruited us, we knew we’d be a team forever.”

  “Is this retirement about Blogis, then?” asked the visitor. “Is it about the loss of your friend as much as it is about your family?”

  “I don’t know,” said my dad. “Maybe. He tried to get me to flip, to work for the competition. He suggested that both sides can wear the white hat.”

  “We both know it’s not true,” said the guest, “don’t we?”

  There was silence between them for what seemed like several minutes.

  “Jackson,” my mom asked from behind me, “what are you doing awake?”

  “Um,” I whispered, “I heard Dad get home. I was going down to give him a hug, but he’s got a guest. I didn’t want to bother him. I figured I’d wait till the guest left and dad came upstairs.”

  My mom leaned down and put her hand on my shoulder. “That’s fine. But you can’t sit here on the stairs. Go back to bed, and I’ll make sure your dad comes in to say goodnight.”