Hidden Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure Read online

  “Shall we go?” He stands, not really waiting for my answer.

  “Sure thing,” I say and follow Roswell Ripley to his truck.

  ***

  Roswell Ripley owes me. That’s the only reason he’d help me. Our relationship, or at least what exists of one, is complicated.

  While I was working for the governor, his opponent, Bella’s father, was shot during a campaign rally in Houston. He survived it and, as we all later learned, ordered the hit on himself to gain sympathy and political momentum.

  Ripley was framed for it. He was a well-known activist who supported Texas seceding from the union. My boss, sensing the political winds, often talked about secession on the campaign trail as a way of appealing to a large block of fringe voters like Ripley.

  Bella’s father thought connecting a perceived nut like Ripley to an “assassination” attempt would be political gold. Apparently he was a fan of the Tim Robbins movie, Bob Roberts.

  Ripley’s son, of the same name, was a scientist at Rice University. His research was critical to a new technology in the oil and gas sector. It was worth untold billions, if not trillions, of dollars. It was also the centerpiece of the conspiracy into which I had unknowingly involved myself by agreeing to deliver information-laden iPods around the globe on behalf of my boss.

  Dr. Ripley had gotten cold feet about his work and went into hiding. George and I found him and tried to help him shortly before he was killed. We ultimately took down the people responsible for his death and cleared the senior Ripley of any wrongdoing.

  He promised George and me on the day he was released from jail, if we ever needed anything he would be there to help.

  Here he is delivering on that promise, driving me north in his beater of an F-150, no questions asked.

  Almost.

  “So did you kill George?” Ripley has one hand on the wheel, the other gripped around the gearshift. He’s rubbing his palm back and forth on the top of it.

  “You have to ask me that?”

  “That’s not an answer, Jackson.” He glances in the rearview mirror. He’s either checking the traffic behind us or the Smith & Wesson M&P15 semi-automatic sport rifle he has on a rack attached to the rear window.

  “No, I didn’t kill him. The governor’s people did.”

  “He’s still got people, does he?” Ripley sneers. “Ain’t he locked up good and tight?”

  “Mr. Ripley, you’re a smart man. You know how these things work. You know better than most how conspiracies work, how far-reaching the tentacles of a powerful person can be.”

  “I guess.” He pulls a sweating Styrofoam cup from the twin cup holders between us, takes a long sip, sucking in his cheeks, before replacing the cup and dropping his hand back onto the gear shift knob. “So, tell me what we’re up to, Jackson?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mr. Quick,” he chides, “you’re a smart man. You know what I mean. Far-reaching tentacles and such.” He raises his right hand from the shifter and wiggles his fingers.

  “Good point.” I exhale and begin to tell him about the last few months of my life.

  I detail the effort to piece together the process, the people killed, the people still alive. He listens without saying anything. By the time I’ve finished, we’re on the North Freeway past Beltway 8 and halfway to Conroe.

  “So,” he finally says, “you’re a walking, talking death magnet. Is that about right?”

  I nod without saying anything and turn to look out the window at the endless stream of strip shopping centers, fast food joints, car dealerships, and gas stations lining the feeder road on the north side of the freeway.

  “Look, Jackson,” he says, “you’re a victim of circumstance, right? But these circumstances are of your own making. You can whine to me all you want about how much of a victim you are, how lucky you are to be alive. It don’t matter much to me.”

  He takes another swig from the Styrofoam cup, slurping what has to be melted ice and backwash by this point.

  “I was a victim, right?” he asks rhetorically. “That rich girlfriend of yours… her dad seized on my political leanings, my affection for a twenty-thousand dollar Knights SR-XM110 Rifle that was perfect for a sniper. He framed me. He victimized me. My son was a victim too. He died because of his intelligence, because he was the first one in the world to figure out how change gas mileage with nanobots or something.”

  There’s an almost imperceptible change in his facial expression when he talks about his son. The deep crevice in his forehead shallows a bit. His eyes widen and become glassy. He’s wistful.

  “He put himself in that position, just as I put myself in a position, just as you have, Jackson. And that girlfriend, Bella, she done the same thing. She put herself in this pickle.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Stop getting so philosophical about the whole thing,” he says. “I talk to God all of the time.” He pulls a silver cross from under his shirt, his thumb beneath the thin chain holding it around his neck. “You know what the good Lord tells me? He tells me to take responsibility for my life. To believe in Him in all I do, but to know that what I do is of my own free will. I choose which paths to take. I choose how to walk them. Are you God-fearing, Jackson?”

  I shrug. “I believe in a higher power. I believe I’ll have to answer for the things I do.”

  “All right then,” Ripley says. “You need to understand the awesome power that comes with being a believer. You need to stop lamenting what’s happened. Ask for forgiveness. Move on. You are responsible for what happens next.”

  “You’re being pretty philosophical for telling me not to be so philosophical.”

  “Having faith and being philosophical are two different things, Jackson,” he says, wagging his finger at me. “You can have faith without wallowing in the ethereal worlds of ‘What if?’ and ‘What have I done?’”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I shift in my seat, turning toward him. “Are you suggesting I let go of my regret and angst and whatever else it is I’m feeling so I can live my best life?”

  “I’m being serious,” he says, apparently sensing my sarcasm.

  “So am I.”

  “I’ll be honest here, Jackson,” His eyes darting between me and the road ahead. “I don’t know you hardly at all. Frankly, I don’t care to know you given the crap-filled hole you always seem to find yourself in, but this really isn’t about you or your best life.”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  “It’s about killing every last one of those dickweeds responsible for my son’s death,” he spits, the crease in his forehead deepening. “I need you to have a clear head. I need you to let go of all that metaphysical crap bouncing around in your thin skull and focus on what you have planned.”

  I don’t tell him that his call for revenge goes against everything he just told me. Instead, I focus on the intent in his eyes. Even with the short glances back and forth between mine and the road, the desire, the anger, the pain is evident. He’s prepping me for battle. I’m Rocky and he’s Mickey. I’m Maximus and he’s Proximo. He’s telling me to do as he says, not as he does.

  “Sir Spencer has got to go,” he says. “And that Blogis fella, too. If he’s connected in any way to all of this, I want him dead. These Pickle people you talk about, something’s got to happen to them too.”

  “They’re just pawns,” I tell him. “They’re doing what the governor pays them to do.”

  “Then I guess we gotta kill the governor. You got a plan for that?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Then,” he says, his voice lowered and tone softened, “there’s the matter of your girlfriend.”

  “What about her?” Maybe I should tell him that both Mickey and Proximo die in their respective films.

  “She’s clean in all of this?”


  “How do you mean?”

  “She had nothing to do with my son?” He tightens his grip on the steering wheel, not looking at me as he asks.

  “Not that I know of,” I tell him. “I really don’t think—”

  “I got it. She’s clean. At least as far as you’re concerned. And let’s be truthful about this. If you take care of Sir Spencer, Blogis, and the governor, I got no quarrel with your girl.”

  “Understood.” I let out a deep breath and sink into my seat. The whole point of this, my raison d’être, as it were, is to free her from this.

  “Now,” he says, speeding up ahead of a car to his right and sliding over to take the next exit, “we need to get you armed.”

  ***

  Ripley’s storage unit is unremarkable. With a construction orange, manual pull-up, metal door, it blends in with the sixty or so other units that line the short concrete runway on either side of the property.

  He grunts as he bends over to yank up on the handle of what is essentially a heavy garage door. “I bought this place right after Junior died,” he says, pushing on the bottom of the spring-loaded door so that it slides all the way past the door opening.

  “The storage unit?”

  “No,” he says, stepping into the sixteen by sixteen space and flipping a light switch to his right. “I bought the whole place. All fifty-six units.” He sweeps his arm toward the units on the other side. “Needed something to do after the dust settled, and I didn’t want to keep my doomsday supplies at the house anymore.”

  He slides a bar across the door to lock it from the inside and walks to the back of what resembles a small military surplus store. The floor to ceiling cinderblock walls are spotted with memorabilia that speaks to who Roswell Ripley is, or better yet, who he was.

  On the wall at the rear of the unit is a large green flag. It hangs vertically and is emblazoned with the emblem of the United States Army. At the center is an eagle with a U.S. flag shielding its chest. Its wings are spread wide, olive branches in one talon and a quiver of arrows in the other.

  To its left is a second, larger flag. It also hangs vertically, but is black and more sinister in appearance. At its center is a large human skull wrapped in a cobra. The snake’s jaws are open, its fangs out. Underneath the snake and skull is a pair of bullets arranged in an X. At the bottom, stretching horizontally between the bullets is the Latin phrase Julius Caesar sent in a letter to the Roman Senate after defeating Pharnaces II of Pontus: Veni, Vidi, Vici. “I came, I saw, I conquered.” The sentiment is amplified by another motto in larger letters, “One Shot - One Kill.”

  Beneath the flags, and running along the length of the walls, are shoulder-height metal shelving racks. They are filled with rifles, shotguns, handguns, sights, scopes, and components I don’t even recognize.

  In the center of the unit is a wide, wooden planked table. On it sits a couple of disassembled Remington rifles and some boxes of ammunition. There’s a black Kevlar vest hanging off one corner of the table. I put George’s MacBook on the table along with the 2TB hard drive I took from his apartment. The trio of thumb drives are still in my pocket.

  “I’d say you’re ready for doomsday,” I laugh nervously. I’m certainly comfortable around firearms, but this is intimidating.

  “Never too prepared,” he says, running his hand along the table as he walks to the back of the unit. “Close that behind you, would you?’

  I reach up behind me to pull the door closed. It clangs with a deafening echo against the walls.

  Ripley spins on his heel and folds his arms across his chest. “So, what do you think you need to get ‘er done?”

  “I don’t know.” It’s like I’m looking at a dessert menu with too many choices. “What do you recommend? You’re more of the survivalist than I am.”

  “Ha! I haven’t killed near the number of people you have, that’s for sure.”

  I slink toward him. “All I’ve got is a nine millimeter.” I pull it from the small of my back and palm it onto the wooden table. “There’s a six-shooter on the plane, and our cohort Mack has a Ukrainian-made handgun of some kind. I used to have a lot more at my disposal, but I’ve kept downsizing.”

  “Time to upsize then,” he says. “Let’s start in the back. Here in the left corner.”

  I follow him to the back of the space, beneath a Texas flag with a rattlesnake coiled in the center of it. The words, “Don’t Tread On Me” are proudly stitched in yellow against the red bar across the bottom of the flag.

  “These here are my Barretts,” he says, leaning against a waist high shelf, gesturing at a row of nasty looking rifles. “My favorite is the 821A semiautomatic. It’s got a Leupold scope on it and has a ten round detachable magazine. Comes with a nice case.”

  I run my hand across the stock. “Looks heavy.”

  “About thirty pounds,” he says.

  “Anything lighter?”

  “I got a 98B. It fires thirty-threes, has a nice pistol grip, and only weighs thirteen pounds. But it doesn’t have a sight or a scope.”

  “I don’t need one.”

  “Sold!” He claps his hands and pulls the fully assembled rifle to the center table, laying it next to the Remingtons.

  “Maybe.” There are so many choices; I’m not ready to commit.

  “Now if you want something new and super light to carry, I’ve got this beauty over here. I haven’t even taken her for a spin yet.” He pulls out a military style rifle that looks like a cross between a lightweight M16 and an AK-47. “This is an Arsenal SLR-106.”

  “It looks like it carries more rounds than the Barrett,” I remark, observing the long curve of the magazine.

  “Nope.” He shakes his head. “It’s deceiving. This only holds five rounds, but they’re nice and big. The buttstock folds, you have the pistol grip, and it weighs just over seven pounds.” He snorts with glee. “Crazy, right?”

  I nod and he puts the Arsenal on the table. He claps his hands again, rubs them together. He shakes his finger at me and moves to another shelf, closer to the entrance. “You want light with a large capacity. Let’s look at the Rock River.”

  “What’s that?” I move toward him as he pulls a mid-length rifle from its space on the shelf.

  “This is a Rock River LAR-15. It’s about the same weight as the Arsenal, shoots the same caliber too, but it has a thirty round magazine.” He runs his hand along the forward curve of the magazine like a Price Is Right model. “There’s the traditional pistol grip and a two stage trigger. Really nice semiautomatic.”

  “It looks cheap.”

  “Well, you can’t have everything. This one runs about a thousand dollars. The others are between five and ten grand.”

  “I don’t mean cost,” I clarify. “I mean quality. I don’t want it jamming.”

  “No worries,” he assures me. “This is quality. You’ll be good.”

  “You have two of them?”

  “I have five.”

  “Why?”

  “I buy in bulk and it saves money.”

  I move to another shelf, where it appears he’s stocked shotguns. Turning a corner, there are handguns. I stop and try to assess the options.

  “I’ve got Glock, Sig Sauer, Smith 7 Wesson, Olympic, Walther, Kel-Tec, and Colt. Oh, and I have Taurus too. Maybe just bought me a couple of 809’s.” He rummages through a couple of shelves and then pulls a small box from the back. “Yep, here’s an 809. Holds eighteen rounds. Pretty much your standard nine millimeter.”

  “What about the Kel-Tec?”

  “Another high capacity magazine. I have the PMR-30. It carries thirty rounds. It’s a little heavier than some, but it disassembles with a single pin. Really nice.”

  “And the Walther?” I like the irony of using James Bond’s preferred weapon.

  “It’s the slim police version. Fires
seven rounds of a forty caliber Smith & Wesson or eight of a standard 9mm. It’s half again as heavy as the Kel-Tec, but it’s a heavy punch.”

  “I need the capacity over the power,” I explain. “I’ll take the Kel-Tec.”

  “Done,” he says and locates the small box containing the PMR-30. “Now, you’ll need a small sidearm, something you can hide.”

  “What do you suggest? An old single shot Derringer?” I smirk.

  “I have one of those, but you said capacity was the key.” He scoots around me to another shelf on the opposite side of the room. He’s like a mad professor, knowing exactly where to find just the right beaker amongst a laboratory full of them. “So I would go with the Kimber Micro Carry. It holds six rounds but has a barrel less than three inches long. It’s got a thumb safety on the side.”

  Ripley pulls out a case from the back of the shelf, pops open the tabs, and reveals a shiny aluminum thirty-eight caliber handgun. “I’ve even got the ankle holster if you plan on wearing pants.”

  The whole scene is surreal to me. I’m in a storage unit off the side of a freeway, ordering up high-powered weapons like items on a dollar menu. A wave of dread washes over me.

  Are we being watched?

  I mean, Ripley is a known dissenter. He was accused of shooting a gubernatorial candidate. His son was assassinated.

  How can they not be watching him?

  The fear grows darker.

  There are surveillance cameras nestled into each of the unit’s four corners, where the walls meet the corrugated steel roof. I remember spotting one at the entrance to the property, another as we rolled into the aisle of units, and a third perched on a short light pole to the right of Ripley’s storage space.

  “Aren’t you worried about all of this?” I ask. “Doesn’t Waco mean anything to you?”

  He laughs, pulling a large olive canvas bag from underneath the center table. He spreads it open at the zipper, and starts placing boxes of ammunition into its corners.

  I glance at one of the security cameras, certain someone with a badge is watching a monitor on the other end. My throat’s getting dry and I try to swallow past it.