He had heard the man’s voice before but couldn’t place it. While the idea of getting mysteriously murdered in the woods wasn’t exactly how Black expected to die, he at least wanted to know who was about to end his life.
“Can you at least let me see your face before you shoot me?”
The man chuckled. “Who said anything about shooting you?”
“I don’t know if this is some kind of game to you or not, but I—”
Black froze as his hood was ripped off and he came face to face with his chauffeur—and his executioner—for the past thirty minutes.
“You look kinda surprised, kid,” the man said.
Black’s jaw fell agape. “Robert Besserman?”
“In the flesh.”
“But I thought—”
“Just calm down,” Besserman said in not much more than a whisper. “This is all for show. There’s a camera running on us and has been ever since I got into the car. It won’t be able to capture our voices from this distance if we speak softly, so I’m only going to tell you this once. You need to kneel facing this grave here on the left. When I shoot you in the back of the head with my paintball gun, I’m going to fire my real weapon. The camera will hear that. You fall forward into the pit. I’ll shovel dirt onto the one on the right, and nobody will be the wiser. Everyone will think you’re dead. We’ll report it in the papers, and that’ll be the end of that.”
“Is my career as an operative about to end?”
“Hardly,” Besserman said. “In fact, you’re just getting started. You won’t believe the kind of missions you’ll be able to take on now that you’re about to be dead.”
“And the rest of the team?”
“They’ll be the only ones aside from me who know what’s really about to happen.”
“Well, let’s get this over with then,” Black said.
“One more thing,” Besserman said. “There’s a cell phone and a flashlight in the hole in front of you. After you hear me drive off, call Shields on the number programmed in the address book. She’ll come get you about a quarter-mile from here by the main road. And good luck.”
Besserman shouted at Black to assume the position. He knelt in front of the grave and took a deep breath.
The red bead from the paintball gun splattered against Black’s head as he heard the shot from the real gun. He tumbled forward into the grave and lay there for what felt like an hour before Besserman finished filling the grave. After he drove off, Black followed the instructions he was given and then smiled wryly as he lumbered down the dirt road toward civilization.
His death was a rebirth of sorts, giving him a chance to re-invent himself.
Nobody will ever see me coming.
CHAPTER 40
One week later
BLACK SMOOTHED OUT THE EDGES of his costume mustache and finger combed the wispy hair from his wig over to the right. The windy conditions at Virginia Beach meant that he would be in a constant tug of war between the breeze and wishing to appear like he wasn’t entirely ancient. He looked at his outfit in the rearview mirror once last time before climbing out of his car and trudging through the sand.
When he reached the boardwalk, which served as the de facto entrance to the beach, Black stopped to talk to an old man chewing on a cigar and struggling with a pair of chairs.
“Does your back really hurt you that much?” Black asked the elderly man.
The man glared at Black. “You think you’re cute, don’t you? Some whippersnapper cruising around like you’re always going to be that way. Well, I got news for you, sonny. Your body is going to break down one day just like everybody else’s.”
“But I already look like I’m five hundred years old.”
The old man dropped his chair and stood upright. “I would’ve made you look older if you didn’t act so damned sprightly all the time.”
It was Blunt, whose disguise wasn’t nearly as impressive as Black’s.
“Thanks for letting me do this,” Black said.
“If I hadn’t agreed to it, you would’ve persisted until I either punched your lights out or let you.”
Black’s eyebrows shot upward as he grinned. “You would’ve punched my lights out?”
“Back in the day, I would have.”
“I’m glad you’ve mellowed, for your sake.”
Blunt took the cigar out of his mouth and eyed Black closely. “There’s a reason you’re on this team. And I think that attitude of yours right there sums it up. I don’t want anybody around me who’s satisfied with being second best.”
“If you’re not winning, what’s the point?”
Blunt nodded. “I still would’ve kicked your ass back in the day. Now get down to the water. She’s waiting for you. She just wanted five more minutes.”
Black strode across the sand in the late September sun. Most beachgoers were packing up to head back home. But not Tatiana.
She was fifteen years old but looked like a six-year-old planted in the sand and working on her masterpiece.
“Mind if I help you?” Black asked as he sat down next to her.
Tatiana shrugged. “It’s a free country—at least that’s what I hear.”
Snatching a nearby empty bucket, Black filled it with sand and packed it down tight. “It’s free, but it’s not perfect, you know. We have our flaws like everyone else. Do you think your country is perfect?”
Tatiana shook her head subtly. “I don’t know what to think any more. It’s hard to put faith in anything when you find out that your entire life was a lie.”
“I’m sure your father loved you,” Black said.
“No, he didn’t. He loved his job. He loved his country. But he simply tolerated us.”
“Well, I know how you feel.”
Tatiana looked up and glared at Black. “You know what it’s like to have your father permit an intelligence agency to kidnap you at the age of thirteen and then train for two years to kill someone, only to have your entire world turned upside down at the exact moment you were supposed to do your job?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then don’t patronize me by telling me that you know how I feel.”
Black turned the bucket over, emptying the cylindrical sand along the wall Tatiana had been building. “I lost my father in the most brutal of ways in Afghanistan. He parachuted out of a plane when it was struck by a Taliban missile. Even before his feet hit the ground, several dozen members of the Taliban didn’t even bother to release him from his harness. They scooped up the chute and tied it to the back of a pickup truck, dragging him back and forth through the street until he died from the injuries. I never even got to see his broken and battered body again. I never got to tell him goodbye. I never got to tell him how much I loved him.”
“Does it get any easier?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I miss him every day. It’s why I keep his dog tags around my neck and close to my heart. I don’t ever want to forget him.”
“I spent most of my childhood longing for my father’s attention despite how he treated me, but he was never around to give me what I really wanted,” Tatiana said. “And I spent two years wondering if he’d appreciate me the way the general did if I succeeded in my mission. Then in a matter of minutes, I notice my father, who is telling me not to go through with it. I ignore him. The lights go out. And when the light returns, I’m left on stage with a knife in my hand and my father nowhere in sight.”
“He’s not coming back, Tatiana.”
She nodded knowingly. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Who killed him?” she asked.
“Will that change anything?”
Tatiana sighed. “No, but it might give me some more closure.”
“The truth is it doesn’t matter. Nothing will bring him home. Trust me. I know that from experience. No amount of revenge or retribution will raise a person from the dead. But there’s still hope for you. There’s still a chance that y
ou can be resurrected, salvaged off life’s trash heap. But it’s up to you now. Today is a new chapter in your life. You don’t have to spend it as a spy. You can be a normal kid, go to high school, then to college. Get a degree in a field where you can do something you love.”
“Is that what you did?” she asked.
“I’m not exactly the best at taking my own advice.” Black stood up and backed away from the sandcastle.
“Thanks for your help,” she said.
“I barely did anything.”
“You helped,” she said as she stood and joined him. “And it’s beautiful.”
Black admired their work. “My stepdad hated sandcastles.”
“My dad loved them,” she said. “I’m ready to go.”
Black walked her back to the SUV waiting in the parking lot. He opened the door for her and wished her good luck before closing it. He didn’t move as the vehicle drove off.
“Nice ’stache,” a woman said behind him.
Black spun around to see Shields. “What are you doing here?”
“Just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Senator Gaither is going to prison after the information dumped on the world by Wikileaks has undone him. That’s a good thing. And I was exonerated for Captain Watkins murder and Gaither’s attempted murder, posthumously, of course.”
“Is being dead all it’s cracked up to be?”
“Hardly, especially when you have to live through it. There are people out there who think I was killed by a Russian spy. That’s almost as bad as if that actually did happen.”
“I’m surprised you and that ego of yours can fit through the door sometimes.”
“It’s a burden,” Black said. “But I’m willing to bear it.”
Shields shook her head. “Seriously, how are you?”
“I’m always doing well when justice is being served.”
“Our work will never be done, you know? There’s always someone else out there concocting a scheme to hurt others for personal gain.”
“Or for their country’s gain.”
“Speaking of which, Blunt has a new assignment for us.”
“Already?”
She nodded. “I told him you’d be ready to go.”
Black winked. “I’m always ready to go. I was just hoping to school you at the shooting range.”
“In your dreams, spook,” she said.
“So, what’s the job?”
“Apparently, Gaither was just one cog in a much greater wheel.”
“You mean there are more crooked politicians?” Black said. “Consider me shocked.”
“I brought your gear,” she said. “Wheels up in an hour.”
“Roger that. Let’s roll.”
THE END
To continue reading in the Titus Black series, order GAME OF SHADOWS now. Or to read more novels from the Firestorm world, check out the Brady Hawk series.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to so many people who have helped with the creation of this project and the entire Brady Hawk series.
Krystal Wade was a big help in editing this book as always. And I appreciate all the help from Scott Rigsby regarding prosthetics. If you haven't had a chance to check out his inspirational work, I encourage you to do so at ScottRigsby.com.
I would also like to thank my advance reader team for all their input in improving this book along with all the other readers who have enthusiastically embraced the story of Titus Black. Stay tuned ... there's more Titus Black coming soon.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
R.J. PATTERSON is an award-winning writer living in southeastern Idaho. He first began his illustrious writing career as a sports journalist, recording his exploits on the soccer fields in England as a young boy. Then when his father told him that people would pay him to watch sports if he would write about what he saw, he went all in. He landed his first writing job at age 15 as a sports writer for a daily newspaper in Orangeburg, S.C. He later attended earned a degree in newspaper journalism from the University of Georgia, where he took a job covering high school sports for the award-winning Athens Banner-Herald and Daily News.
He later became the sports editor of The Valdosta Daily Times before working in the magazine world as an editor and freelance journalist. He has won numerous writing awards, including a national award for his investigative reporting on a sordid tale surrounding an NCAA investigation over the University of Georgia football program.
R.J. enjoys the great outdoors of the Northwest while living there with his wife and four children. He still follows sports closely.
He also loves connecting with readers and would love to hear from you. To stay updated about future projects, connect with him over Facebook or on the interwebs at www.RJPbooks.com and sign up here for his newsletter to get deals and updates.
Behind Enemy Lines
© Copyright 2019 R.J. Patterson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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