Based on the man he saw in the mirror, it seemed that the world abused him regularly.
Christ. What had he been into? And who the fuck was he?
A wave of panic crested over him and for a moment he let it sweep him away. He let himself wallow in fear and self-pity, losing himself in the black hole of his mind.
And then he turned that shit off. He had more pressing things to do than wallow. He didn’t have a memory? Fine. That was his starting point.
So, first question: what did his lack of memory tell him?
That something had happened to him.
Okay, but what?
Best guess—trauma. Either physical or emotional.
As for which, he didn’t care. For the moment, the question was academic. Either way, he was dealing with the same blank slate.
The situation stank, but God knew it could be a hell of a lot worse. He’d once watched a movie about a guy with no short term memory at all. He’d had to tattoo himself to hold on to facts. Great flick—Memento, it was called.
And goddamned if he didn’t remember that. He had some memories, at least. He remembered the names of the planets and the months of the year. He knew how to read. And he remembered that Luke Skywalker was Darth Vader’s son.
He didn’t have a fucking clue what the names of the elements on the Periodic Table were, but at least he remembered there was a Periodic Table. And he had a feeling he’d never known the elements, anyway.
So his mind worked. To a point.
His name, his age, his background? As for those facts, he was completely at a loss. But he’d get it back, damn right he would.
And if he didn’t … well, he’d coped with shit situations before. Not that he could remember any of them, but there was a certainty in his gut and the evidence was on his body. He might not know who he was, but he damn well knew what he was. And he wasn’t the kind of man who curled up into a fucking ball and whimpered.
A sharp rap sounded on the door, and he spun around, his right hand crossing over to his left side as he reached for a holstered weapon.
For a moment, he froze in that position. Then he slowly pulled his hand back and repeated the motion, a smile breaking across his face.
Muscle memory. Three cheers for muscle memory.
A key rattled in the lock, and he sprinted across the room and practically threw himself against the door before whoever was rattling that key could enter.
“Who is it?” His voice came out raspy, as if he hadn’t spoken in months. He coughed, then tried again. “Who’s there?”
“Housekeeping. I clean room, yes?”
He shifted, then peered through the peephole at the wisp of a woman standing next to a rolling cart. Behind her, a battered Toyota was parked in front of the door. His?
He didn’t know.
All he knew was that she wasn’t coming in. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’ve got everything I need.”
Not the truth, but not exactly a lie, either. He had air in his lungs and a beating heart, didn’t he?
“Okey-dokey, mister,” she said, then pushed on toward the next room. He stayed at the peephole, his attention now on the Toyota’s plates. California.
Frowning, he returned to the desk, then grabbed the jeans and shook them, sending dust flurries into the air and a pair of navy blue boxer briefs tumbling to the floor. He scooped them up, sniffed them, then shrugged and put them on, following the underwear with the jeans.
In addition to being filthy, the jeans were a mess. Ripped at the knees and not in a way that was fashionable. More like he’d taken a nasty fall.
He looked at his palms, looked at his knees, and as he did, he remembered. Not everything. Not his life. Not even his name.
But it was something.
Darkness. And motion.
He was blindfolded in some sort of moving vehicle, probably a cargo truck, his ankles tied together and his hands tight behind his back. He was listening, trying to gather as much information as possible, but there was nothing. Just heat and motion. And that was all he knew. Literally, all. It was as if he had been born into that moment, fully adult, and into that truck. There were things he remembered, yes. But not him. Whoever he was, he’d just popped into existence. A blank slate. An empty jar.
But he was aware now…
The truck bumped and rattled—and then it screeched to a stop.
A door rumbled up, and light seeped in around the edges of his blindfold. Strong hands grabbed him, pulling him to his feet and making him stumble forward. He was standing—he must have been right about it being a cargo truck—and then he heard the sound of a blade slicing through cord. His ankles were freed first, then his wrists. And before he could react, the truck started to move.
At the same time, someone shoved him from behind, and he fell onto the rough, hot asphalt, his hands thrust out to break his fall.
He turned, yanking off the blindfold and squinting into the sun, as someone in a black T-shirt and jeans rolled the truck door down from the inside as the vehicle peeled away, careening down the deserted highway toward the horizon.
In the motel room, his memories flooded back. Nothing before the truck, but now he recalled the feel of the road beneath his hands, the sun beating down on him as he walked for miles, the relief of finally coming across this shitty little godsend of a motel.
He’d stumbled into the office, found a hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket, and bought six bottles of water, five cans of mixed nuts, and three Hershey’s bars. Then he’d booked a room for two nights.
That left him with just over thirty dollars, which he remembered shoving back into his jeans.
He’d had no identification, but the woman behind the counter hadn’t seemed to care. He’d registered as Jack Sawyer. He couldn’t remember his name—or anything about his own life from before the ride in the truck—but he did remember the television show, Lost, and he’d claimed those two characters’ names for his own.
Now here he was, Jack Sawyer, in a shitty motel with no memory at all. His whole goddamn world was this tiny room and these filthy clothes. And wasn’t that a happy notion?
He shook his head, tamping down on the fear and frustration that was returning. Yes, it sucked, but at least he was alive. And he was going to stay that way.
Resolved, he tugged on the T-shirt. Originally white, the shirt was now a dingy gray with sweat stains under the arms and at the back of the collar.
A pair of dark brown loafers peeked out from under the desk, and he shoved his feet into them, unable to find any socks. At the same time, he patted himself down, his hands searching the pockets of the jeans and the seams, just in case there was something sewn in. But he found nothing except the thirty-three dollars he’d received in change and a room key with 107 etched on it.
Finding no help on his own person, he searched the desk and bureau drawers, but the drawers were empty except for a Bible, a Book of Mormon, a black pen, and a takeout menu for a pizza place in Victorville, California.
His stomach growled, and he started to reach for the phone to order something, then decided against it. Thirty dollars wouldn’t last long. Better to stick with what was in the room.
He popped nuts as he paced, analyzing his next steps. His fevered dreams still lingered, but the words had no more clarity than they’d had while he was sleeping. Less, even. In his dreams, he’d felt trapped, but not confused. Now, the strange words and threats and cartoon references were just nonsense, the numbers even more so.
Without anything else to write on, he pulled out the menu, then scribbled what he remembered: 32355 5-null 717
Presumably, the word “null” meant zero, so he crossed out what he wrote and started over: 32355 50 717
Still nonsense, and he scowled at the numbers and their refusal to provide him any information whatsoever.
But, fine. The numbers meant nothing to him? Then he’d start somewhere else. He knew that something had happened to him, and after that mysterious interlude, he’d been blind
folded and bound, pushed from a truck in the desert heat, and abandoned.
Not a scenario he wished to repeat, and since he had no idea whether his captors had truly abandoned him, he intended to be ready if they returned.
In other words, he needed a weapon.
He could splinter a drawer and use a length of wood, but he had a feeling the nice lady in the office would frown on that. Instead, he returned to the bathroom, then tugged the key out of his pocket. He shoved the end between the mirror’s frame and the glass in the lower right corner, then gently pried. As he’d hoped, the crack was both long and deep, and as he increased the gap between the frame and the mirror, he was able to pop it out, an icicle-shaped piece of the mirror, about five inches long.
Just what he needed. Because he sure as hell didn’t know what to expect when he walked out the door.
He wrapped one raw edge in toilet paper, forming a makeshift handle, then shoved the whole thing deep in the pocket of his jeans as he crossed to the door. He opened it slowly, then stepped hard into a wall of heat.
The sidewalk was clear on both sides, and only a few empty cars dotted the parking area as heat shimmers rose off the asphalt. The world was a fucking inferno, but all things considered, that seemed apropos. Hadn’t he been tossed right out of the frying pan and into the fire?
A sign that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the fifties sat perched atop vertical steel poles and identified the rundown little motel as the Stay-A-While Motor Inn. Hopefully that was only a suggestion, because he wanted to get out of there sooner rather than later.
He walked down the sidewalk toward the sign, passing the pastel colored doors along the way. Green, room 106. Blue, room 105. Yellow, room 104.
This path was familiar, and there was some comfort in that.
At the same time, having the full extent of his remembered life marked by the Easter egg colors of a half dozen doors wasn’t exactly enough to have him jumping for joy.
The same woman was in the office. About sixty with Lucille Ball hair—he remembered I Love Lucy!
She smiled at him from behind a counter. “Well, you’re looking much better today. Got yourself some sleep, I guess?”
“I did,” he said, then cleared his throat as he glanced around the room. “You got a bus schedule?”
She shook her head. “Sorry, no. Where you heading?”
“Just meandering,” he said, as if he was Jack Reacher, and it was perfectly normal to wander aimlessly around the country.
“Well, let me see if I can find a schedule online for you.” She inched toward a computer that looked to be older than he was, but stopped midway down the counter to answer the phone as she rummaged through a drawer.
He cocked his head, his hand sliding into his pocket as his senses went on high alert.
The phone.
He relaxed.
Of course. He should have realized immediately. The numbers. They were a phone number. 323-555-0717.
“Oh, good, I found it,” she said after ending the call. She pulled a crumpled brochure from a drawer. “So the Greyhound station’s not too far away. That what you’re looking for? Or did you want local routes?”
“Greyhound,” he said, thinking of the 323 area code. “I need to make a phone call. And then I think I’ll head to Los Angeles.”
“Friends there?”
“I guess I’ll find out.”
Chapter Two
Back in his room, Jack sat at the edge of the bed, the old-fashioned keypad phone in his lap as he held onto the handset, which was tethered to the base by the curlicue cord.
He didn’t know who, if anyone, would be at the other end of that number. The only thing he knew for certain was that he knew nothing else. He was a blank slate with this one, scribbled note on it.
So dial the fucking phone, Jack.
He lifted his hand, then hesitated. What if it was a trap? A memory deliberately put into his mind.
But to what end?
Refuse to call, and he denied them the satisfaction of seeing their plan succeed.
But what if there was no plan? What if they were done with him, and they’d tossed him out onto the highway with no memories and no resources, fully expecting that was the last they’d see of Jack Sawyer, or of the man who’d come before?
Then again, if they’d wanted him dead, why not just kill him? Why stuff cash in his pocket and leave him alive?
If he refused to dial, he might be screwing them, but he’d definitely be screwing himself.
And, goddammit, right then the possibility of finding even the smallest clue about the man he was before outweighed every other consideration. A trap? Maybe. But he’d survived worse. Or, at least, he’d probably survived worse. He was a scarred-up, badass member of the Special Forces. Or so he assumed. At a minimum, he should be able to make a phone call without triggering Armageddon.
In his hand, the dial tone changed to a squawking wail. He tapped the switch hook, tucked the handset between his ear and his shoulder, and dialed the number that had been running through his head.
On the other end, the phone rang twice before an efficient male voice came on the line. “Monrovia Travel Adventures. Are you a client?”
“Ah, yeah.”
“Your user name, please.”
He hung up. Wrong fucking number. Either that or he’d misremembered the number.
Frustrated, he stood and paced and re-ran the nonsensical dream through his mind again. Nonsensical being the operative word. Cartoons and disembodied voices and random phrases and numbers that wouldn’t make sense to anyone.
Except…
With a frown, he turned and looked at the phone. Maybe they did make sense. In the world of Ethan Hunt and Jason Bourne, those nonsense phrases might make a lot of sense.
Not that he was Bourne, but maybe … just maybe…
He dialed again, and this time the call was answered by a woman. When she asked for his username, he took a shot in the dark, having parsed through all the nonsense in his head to find the most likely handle.
“Road Runner,” he said, hoping to hell he was right.
For a moment, there was only silence. Then her voice returned, curt and crisp. “Hold, please.”
He held, his gut churning. He wasn’t sure what he’d just done, but he was certain that he’d set wheels in motion. But whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, he really didn’t know.
The line clicked, and this time the speaker was male. “Pass phrase?”
He started to speak, his posture straightening as if he was reporting for duty. As if this was a familiar routine. At one time, he assumed, it had been.
Today, he didn’t have a clue.
“Pass phrase?”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Please state your name, your location.”
“Victorville,” he said. “I need to speak to someone in charge. It’s urgent.”
For a moment, there was silence. “This office utilizes certain protocols. This call will be terminated in five, four—”
“Wait. Something’s happened. I can’t tell you the pass phrase because I can’t remember it. I’ve been drugged or brainwashed, or I don’t know. Just let me speak to your superior.”
Silence.
Mountains and mountains of silence.
Then, “I’m sorry, sir. Protocol requires that—”
“Wile E. Coyote! Looney Tunes! Beep-beep!” He sounded like an idiot. “Shit, I don’t know. Who is this? Who am I calling?”
“Hold, please.”
The dispassionate voice disappeared, replaced by a rhythmic ticking in lieu of hold music. For what felt like an eternity, he simply held the line.
He was about to give up and start the process all over again when he heard a series of clicks followed by a gravelly voice saying, “Good God, Road Runner. Where are you? What’s your status?”
He started to answer. He actually started to open his mouth and spill everything to the man with concer
n in his voice. Then rational thought returned, and he said, “Why don’t we start with who you are.”
Silence. Just long enough to be noticeable. He’d surprised the guy. Good. Jack was getting tired of being the only one behind the curve.
“I’m Colonel Anderson Seagrave. And right now, I’m the only one willing to trust you.” The words were stern, but not hostile.
“Because I didn’t know the pass phrase.”
“Didn’t you?”
Good point. He must have rattled off the correct one—or at least come close enough to pique this colonel’s curiosity.
“No,” he said, figuring it was better to be all in or all out. “I took an educated guess.”
“I see.” The voice had tightened, and when he spoke again, Jack heard a dangerous edge. “And how exactly did you manage to get so well-educated?”
“You mean did I beat the shit out of someone to learn the secret handshake?” He knew he was being ballsy, but this guy was a colonel. That meant military, the government, some sort of heavy shit. And no way was Jack strolling into that environment like some meek little lost puppy. He’d lost ninety-nine percent of himself; he was damn well going to cling to that final one percent like grim, fucking death.
“Something like that,” Seagrave said. “So you tell me—are you the Road Runner? Or have you just poked around in his mind?”
Jack closed his eyes, then pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Moment of truth time. Hopefully, this wouldn’t prove to be the biggest mistake of his life.
The good news, at least, was that he couldn’t recall any bigger mistakes to compare it with.
“Truth?”
“In this business, that would be nice for a change.”
“Fine, then maybe you can tell me who and what I am. Because I haven’t got a goddamn clue.”
He waited, anticipating an explosive response. A series of verbal slaps to put him in his place for playing such stupid games with someone who was obviously well positioned in the intelligence community. Jack may not know his pass phrase, but he knew the hallmarks of a covert intelligence operation that managed agents in the field.
Whether he was still a soldier or not, he was certain that he was some sort of intelligence officer. What he didn’t know was if this guy was a friend or someone who’d screw him over six ways from Sunday.
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