Hidden Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure Read online

  Bella unzips the tent and I follow her inside, closing the flap behind me. Cydney is asleep on top of my sleeping bag. I’m crouched like a baseball catcher with little room to move.

  “She’s out fast,” I say and Bella raises a finger to her lips, quieting me.

  Four person tents are really intended for two people, or two adults and a couple of Hobbits. I couldn’t imagine four grown adults in this thing.

  I get onto all fours and reach across Cydney to grab my pack. I lift it, one armed, over her, yank it open, and pull out a desert camouflage colored rubberized roll that opens into a lightweight poncho. I dig deeper into the pack and find my compact binoculars. And from an inside zipper compartment, I grip a Smith & Wesson Governor. The six-shot pistol is loaded with my favorite ammunition, shotshell.

  Even though I’m a natural-born deadeye with just about any weapon, the Governor is easy to hide, easy enough to carry, and powerful enough to stop someone at close distance. With the shotshell, I don’t even have to be accurate. It sprays like a shotgun blast and does a lot of damage.

  Bella’s back is to me while she rifles through her pack. She turns and I motion to the tent’s exit and blow her a kiss. She returns the favor and goes back to digging through her bag.

  I’m not looking forward to sitting in the rain. I’ve done this to myself, so I accept it as penance.

  ***

  The rain is light now, though still relentless. Near the horizon, there’s a break in the thick blanket of clouds mirroring the rolling gray surf.

  I’m perched on the edge of the bluff, about thirty yards from the tent. It’s been an hour, and I’ve seen nothing. I have to keep blinking myself out of a trance, watching one swell after another build, crest, foam, and leach onto the wet sand.

  My attention shifts to the clouds above me, drifting quickly onshore and overhead. They’re thinning, stretching apart like oddly shaped balls of cotton.

  Then, at the edge of the beach, still under the shallow surf, I see it. Something dark. A bag maybe, or a pouch.

  It’s definitely from Cydney’s boat. I hop to my feet and start back to the tent. The rain’s become more an annoying mist now, and I trudge through the grass and unzip the tent’s flap to stick my head inside.

  Cydney’s still asleep, Bella’s lying on her side, her back to me. I crawl into the tent and put my hand on Bella’s thigh.

  She gasps, grabs my hand and whips her head around, eyes wide, until she sees that it’s me. “You scared me.”

  “Sorry,” I say softly. “There’s something on the beach. I’m going down to get it. You okay?”

  She glances over at our guest and nods. She rolls over to face me, now laying on her other side. “What is it?”

  “What’s what?”

  “On the beach,” she rolls her eyes. “What is it on the beach?”

  “I don’t know. It’s something black. Maybe a bag or something.”

  “Okay. Hurry back.” She puckers her lips to feign a kiss and then closes her eyes again, laying her head on her extended arm.

  I slip back out of the tent, careful to zip it up as quietly as possible. As much as I would have liked to curl up next to her and attempt sleep, there’s debris to examine.

  I trek through the grass, a thin spray of water exploding onto my shins from the tall wet blades. Past the grass, there’s a muddy trail, which I cross until finding the narrow path down the edge of the cliff. Careful not to slip on the wet outcropping of rocks and compacted dirt, I descend slowly. About five feet from the beach, I jump down, landing in a crouch and balancing myself with the tips of my fingers.

  The pistol is tucked in my waistband at the small of my back and I adjust it carefully. My eyes water against the stiff breeze carrying in the tide ashore. The surf has calmed infinitesimally since my rescue mission. It’s still angry, though not as violent as it was ahead of the rain. There’s a black object peeking out from under a thin line of foam floating on the surface of the water.

  A few feet from it, I can tell it is a waterproof pouch. It’s no more than four inches by six, and has a brass eyelet at one end with a long black cord looped through it. I kneel down and pick up the pouch. Opposite the cord, at the top of the bag, is a flap with a Ziploc type closure and a pair of white snaps. Holding the pouch, I turn back to look toward our camp. I can’t see the tent from here. I shake the bag in my hand.

  Open it!

  I take a breath through my nose, inhaling the salty air, tasting it in the back of my throat, and pull back the snaps one at a time. I dig my fingernails in between the self-closing ridges of the Ziploc seal and pop it open. There are a couple of flat objects inside.

  Reaching in with my thumb and forefinger, I pull out a laminated map. It’s more of an index card with a black and white map of Point Reyes National Park. And on it there are some highlighted numbers. On the back of the laminated card is a key. The numbers correspond to campsites throughout the park.

  Hadn’t Cydney said they weren’t planning on coming this far south in the boat?

  I reach into the bag of tricks again and pull out a piece of folded paper. I open it up and read a series of handwritten numbers and letters.

  N128XZ.

  I stare at the numbers, as though I’ll suddenly have an epiphany.

  N128XZ. N128XZ. What do they…

  I look back into the pouch and don’t see anything, so I start my walk back to the camp.

  Those numbers and letters were familiar.

  The rain has stopped, and now the wind is carrying with it a damp chill. The sky above me is clearing. The sun will be out soon. I place my hand on a large rock embedded in the cliff about five feet above the beach and set my left foot into a comfortable notch from which to propel myself upward onto the tricky path when it hits me.

  I know those numbers!

  A wave of nausea runs through my body, pooling in my gut, and I back off the cliff.

  I look into the pouch again, digging with my fingers, my hands shaking when I find one more item stuck to the inside of the bag. I pull a color photograph of two people stepping off of an airplane.

  It’s taken from a distance with a long-range lens but the image is unmistakable. At the bottom left corner is a date.

  Two weeks ago!

  On the tail of the jet is its FAA registration number.

  N128XZ.

  At the bottom of the steps is a tall woman with a dark complexion, dark hair pulled into a ponytail. She’s shielding her face from the sun with her hand. Behind her on the steps, a large pack on his shoulders and another in his hands, is a man I recognize every time I look in the mirror.

  ***

  The climb up the cliff is more difficult with a pistol in my right hand. I’m halfway up when someone screams.

  My left foot slips against a wet rock and my body slides down a couple of feet. With my left hand, I dig into the dirt face of the cliff, catching my fingers against thick tufts of grass. Regaining my leverage, and assuring myself that I’ve got a good grip on the Smith & Wesson, my foot finds a spot and I’m back on track. Muscling my way step by step, I feel like I’m in a dream where I can’t run fast enough, like I’m climbing in mud.

  Another scream.

  My hand grips the top of the cliff and I step onto the bluff. Ahead of me is the tent, which is moving like a bag of microwave popcorn. With the wind at my back, I can’t hear the struggle going on inside.

  “Bella!” I call out, darting to the tent, gun drawn. I’m just ten yards away. “Bella! Get out of the—”

  Pop! Pop! Two gunshots and the tent grows still.

  Ten feet from the tent I stop running. Frozen, I strain against the wind, listening for movement inside of the tent.

  Nothing.

  Resisting the urge to unzip the flap and risk getting shot, I level the gun at the tent and move aroun
d it to the left. Quietly, trying to control my breathing and prevent my heart from beating through my chest, I circle to the backside of the tent.

  There’s a mesh window on the tent opposite the flap. I step to the window to catch a glimpse of the interior. No dice. The window is closed, the tent fabric draped over the mesh.

  Gun still in hand, I lower myself to the ground. Prone, I lie still, listening.

  There’s a rustling inside. A moan. I can’t tell if it’s Bella or Cydney.

  I hop to my feet and back away from the tent, moving farther away from the cliff, and wrap both hands around the pistol. Exhaling, I brace myself.

  “Bella!” I call out. “Are you okay?”

  Silence.

  I sidestep to my right and call again.

  “Bella!”

  “Jackson?” Her voice is weak, but I can hear it. “Jackson?”

  I move quickly to the flap at the front of the tent and unzip it. On my knees, I pull back the flap and poke the gun through the opening.

  The inside looks like a bear attacked. Our gear is strewn everywhere. Bella is on her back to the left of the tent. Her top is ripped; her hands are covering her face. Next to her, on the tent floor is her nine millimeter and a MAG flashlight. Its bright LED beam is aimed a couple of feet from her, toward the back of the tent where, crumpled on a bloody sleeping bag, is Cydney’s lifeless body. I climb into the tent and slide next to Bella.

  “Are you okay?” I lean down next to her, my mouth at her ear. “What happened?”

  “She hit me with something,” Bella splutters. “On my head. I don’t know.”

  “Where on your head?” I gently pull her hands from her face and gently search for a wound.

  “The back,” she says. “Or the top.” She looks at me for an instant and then squeezes her eyes shut. “I didn’t know what had happened at first—I thought—maybe the tent collapsed. But then—she was on top of me. She hit my face.”

  I notice the swelling redness on Bella’s left cheek and my hand finds the lump on the back of her head. My hand comes away clean. No blood.

  “She was like an animal or something.” Bella’s eyes are closed, her speech slurred, disjointed. “She was. I just... I had my gun. Got it from my bag earlier.” Her eyes open, tears pooling until they run out the sides, down her temples. “I killed her, didn’t I?”

  “You didn’t have a choice, Bella.”

  She presses her eyes closed, the stream of tears widening for an instant.

  I look past her to the body and the bag. Cydney’s legs are pale, the bottoms of her feet calloused and dirty from the climb up the cliff.

  I saved her and nearly cost Bella her life.

  “I was sleeping,” Bella whimpers. “Well, not really sleeping. But I was still out of it, in that nap twilight, you know? And out of nowhere, something slams into my head. My teeth kinda ground against each other. For a second, it felt like my jaw was broken even though she hit me on the back of my head.

  “My vision was blurry and I rolled over, expecting to see the tent collapsing, and she’s on top of me. Her eyes were crazy wild. She hit me again with the flashlight and punched me. She was like a monkey, flailing at me.” Bella winces and swallows hard.

  “You want some water?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Then you shot her?”

  “Yes,” she says. “I mean, no. I was dazed, and couldn’t really process anything. She stopped for a second and that gave me time to remember my gun was right here.”

  “Why’d she stop?” I look back at Cydney’s dirty feet.

  “She mentioned the governor.”

  “What?” My attention whips back to Bella. “What do you mean? She stopped attacking you to talk?”

  “Just for a second,” Bella says. “She said something like, ‘The governor says hello!’ or ‘The governor says hi!’ or ‘This is hello from the governor.’ Then she reached back with that flashlight, ready to swing down again and I shot her. Twice.”

  My mind is swimming.

  The governor. He got to me. Again. It doesn’t matter where I go or how I hide. He wants me dead.

  ***

  “We’re going to be a target,” Bella says, hiking a step ahead of me, her pack bouncing on her back. She turns her head halfway, her profile marred by the swelling on her cheek beneath her eye.

  “What’s new?” I huff. I’m slugging my pack, thumbs tucked under the shoulder straps.

  “This is different,” she says, slowing a step. “We left a dead body in a tent at a national park campsite. Our fingerprints are all over the place. It won’t be long before somebody finds her, checks security cameras at the ranger station, and puts our pictures all over the place.”

  “We’ve been there before, Bella,” I remind her. “Well,” I correct myself, “I’ve been there before. I’ve been okay so far.”

  “Oh, right,” she scoffs, “this is okay. We’re running from place to place with no sense of normalcy. We’re leaving a trail of death in our wake. I can’t live like this.”

  “How’s your head?” I ask, redirecting the conversation.

  “It hurts.”

  “I bet.”

  “What are we going to do, Jackson?” She blows out a puff of air as we tread along a slight incline on the path back to civilization. “You always have a plan, right?”

  “I have a plan.”

  “Care to share it with me?” She stops and turns to face me.

  “You’re frustrated right now,” I observe. “You’re in pain and you just killed someone with a nine millimeter at point blank range. Now is not the best time to discuss any plans.”

  “Really?” She snorts in disbelief, striding again to keep up with me. “Really, Jackson?” Maybe more irritation than disbelief.

  “You’re not going to like the plan.” I tighten my grip around the shoulder straps and tug down, adjusting the pack on my sweat-soaked t-shirt. I check the GPS. We’ve got three miles to go.

  “Try me.”

  “We need to meet with Blogis.” I brace myself for her response but there’s only the rhythmic crunch of our feet on the path. Maybe thirty seconds pass before Bella responds.

  “Okay,” she says.

  I spin around, walking slowly backwards, and face her. The look on my face must convey my surprise.

  She shrugs. “What? I get it.”

  “You do?”

  “We have no other options,” she says.

  “How do you figure?”

  “It’s your plan,” she laughs. “You tell me.”

  “We have the resources to disappear again, right? But we’d just find ourselves in a violent mess… again.”

  “Granted,” she agrees.

  “We need someone with more than just financial resources to help us,” I continue, stepping over a large root snaking a bulge across the path and grabbing Bella’s hand to help her across. “Blogis fits the bill.”

  “So does Sir Spencer. And he doesn’t want us dead.”

  “True. But what good does it do us to seek the help of someone who won’t kill us? We need the help of someone who would lessen the number of threats against us. You know, the enemy of my enemy…”

  “… is my friend,” she says. “I know.”

  “That leaves two choices. The governor and Liho Blogis.”

  “That makes the choice easy,” she chuckles.

  “It does. And if we can find something that Blogis wants from us, other than our lives, we can trade it for our safety.”

  “Didn’t you try that before?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You made a deal with Sir Spencer to gain your ‘freedom,’ so to speak,” she says. “That didn’t really work out for you. I mean, you met me,” she looks back with a smirk. “But finding the neutrino proce
ss didn’t buy you anything other than more trouble.”

  “You’re right,” I admit. “And I don’t expect this to buy me a life either.”

  “Then why do it?” she asks, stopping to pull a stainless water bottle from the mesh pouch on the side of her pack. “If you don’t think Blogis will help then what’s the point?” She pries open the top of the bottle with her teeth and slurps a mouthful of water.

  “He’ll help.”

  She wipes her mouth with the back of her arm. “You’re speaking in Jackson code.”

  “Blogis wants what Sir Spencer has. If we convince him that we can get it for him, that’ll buy us some time, maybe give us some leverage.”

  “So what did you mean when you said it wouldn’t get us our lives back?”

  “That’s not what I said. I said I didn’t expect it to buy my life back. The point of this is to get you back into the real world. As much as I love you, I can’t drag you down with me.” I step toward her, lowering my voice. “This is my life now. It’s been my life for two years. My past, what I did before I met you, got you killed today.”

  “But it didn’t,” she reasons. “And I —”

  “Wait,” I interrupt her. “You can disappear into Europe somewhere or maybe into South America. I’ll always be hunted. First it was the governor, then it was Blogis. Who’s next? Before long I’ll have an army chasing me.”

  “That’s ridiculo—”

  “I seem to attract enemies like a cow does flies. We’re going to find Blogis. We’re going to help him. We’re going to hurt Sir Spencer. And then you are starting over. The plan is to pay for your freedom with mine.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “I don’t like being back here,” Bella says, shaking her head at the billboards and car dealerships rushing past our speeding car like an assembly line of commercial blight. “It’s too risky.”

  “It’s a necessary risk. We need his help to get to Blogis.”