by Chad Zunker
If not, he wasn’t sure where to look next.
On the ride over, he logged in to Leia’s Lounge. Tommy was still nowhere to be found. No new messages awaited Sam. No answer on the other end. Sam felt a heavy knot develop in his stomach. He hoped his friend was okay. They were dealing with sinister people who clearly had every intent to stop the truth from ever getting out. Sam wasn’t sure how he’d live with himself if he’d pulled Tommy into this mess, only to get Tommy killed. Tommy had mentioned in his message earlier that someone was trying to get inside his apartment. Tommy was maybe the least physically imposing person that Sam knew, although the guy more than made up for it in being outstandingly clever. His whole life had been set up through the lens of paranoia and conspiracy, so Sam felt there was no way Tommy didn’t have an escape plan. If Tommy Kucher was still breathing, he was busy getting himself reestablished online somewhere else—it was just a matter of time and opportunity.
Once within Saint Tammany Parish, the cab driver followed his GPS through a half dozen small towns until the paved roads eventually turned into dirt ones and the towns thinned out. Gray clouds had moved in over southeast Louisiana, and Sam watched raindrops begin to hit the windshield of the cab. The old driver followed a very long and windy dirt road for a full mile, not passing another car or house the entire drive, until he took one more left, drove down another dirt road, and they finally pulled to a stop in front of an isolated green block of a house with a white front porch. Sam noticed that the back of the house was sitting right on the edge of the murky river water. He did not spot another vehicle parked anywhere. If he was hoping to find someone, that was not a good sign.
“You want me to wait?” the cab driver asked.
“Yeah, that’d be great, thanks.”
“Yes, sir. Take your time.”
The driver turned the jazz up a notch, eased down into his seat, and closed his eyes.
Sam got out, looked around. Thick Spanish moss hung from the cypress trees. It looked spooky as hell. He could hear a chorus of what he thought must be swamp insects singing. Getting wet from perspiration just standing there, he walked over to the green house and under the covering of the front porch, where he looked into a dirt-stained window beside the white front door. He could make out a small living room and a room that looked like a kitchen in the back of the house. Sam guessed there were maybe two bedrooms on the other side. He did not see any movement, but he did notice that several lights were currently on inside the cabin.
He knocked on the front door, waited. He heard nothing. He put his hand on the doorknob, twisted. The front door was unlocked. This didn’t necessarily strike him as unusual. The cabin was out in the middle of nowhere, so no reason to lock the doors. If a thief was willing to come all the way out there, he could simply walk right in and grab whatever he wanted, with no people around to hear anything, anyway.
Sam stepped inside, shut the door behind him.
“Hello? Anyone home?”
No response. He eased down a tattered-brown carpeted hallway. The first door led to a clean bathroom and shower. The second door was a bedroom with a neatly made bed and dresser. He searched the small closet. A few jackets were hanging; there were rubber boots on the floor. He moved farther down the hallway to the third door and found a near-matching bedroom—another closet full of jackets, pants, and boots. It didn’t look like anyone had been sleeping in either of the beds. Not a good sign.
Sam returned to the living room. A flat-screen TV sat on top of a low cabinet. A plaid couch and two leather recliners. Framed on the wall was a creepy picture of a large, dark figure sloshing through a swamp entitled Honey Island Swamp Monster. Sam shook his head. As if being out there in the middle of a swamp with alligators wasn’t scary enough, he thought. In the corner near the kitchen, he found a small rolltop desk with a computer sitting on top of it, the screen currently black. He stepped inside the tiny kitchen. On the counter, he found copies of Field & Stream, Florida Sportsman magazine, and In-Fisherman. The subscription labels all showed they belonged to Rich Hebbard and were current editions. Hebbard had recently been inside the cabin. But just how recently?
Sam noticed a red light blinking on the coffeemaker and brown liquid still inside the glass container. He walked over, put a hand on the glass. Warm. Sitting next to the coffeemaker, Sam found a green coffee mug half-full. Someone had used the coffeemaker that very morning. But was that someone still there?
Behind the kitchen was a door that led to an enclosed porch that housed several white wooden rocking chairs. The porch hovered directly over the swamp water. Sam stepped out onto the porch, turned, and nearly had a heart attack. A ten-foot stuffed alligator with its jaws wide open glared at him from the back corner. He walked up to it, touched it, and shook his head. Next to the alligator, he found a large collection of fishing poles and gear, all neatly organized. Peering outside of the porch, Sam spotted a small wooden dock with a fishing boat still tied up. Was there a second boat? Could someone be out there right now fishing in these waters? He highly doubted Hebbard would resort to fishing under his current circumstances—although men had done stranger things.
Sam returned to the main cabin, feeling restless. He still hadn’t found anything to lead him to Hebbard. He walked over to the desktop computer. He jiggled the mouse, and the computer screen sprang to life in front of him. Sam cocked his head, surprised. The computer was not powered down, as he would’ve expected if someone had left the cabin after a visit. A guest likely would not have used the computer. With Tom Hawkins dead in Mexico City, that left only Rich Hebbard. That was his hope. Sam sat in the desk chair, stared at the computer screen. A security box was already up and asking for a password. He sighed. Where was Tommy when he needed him? Sam scrolled through his mental file on Rich Hebbard and began to take random guesses.
Hebbard’s birth date? No.
Kids’ names? No.
Ex-wife’s name? No.
Archie Manning? No.
Sam leaned back in the chair, feeling defeated. The box on the screen told him he had only three more attempts before the computer would lock down for twenty minutes. He didn’t have the luxury of sitting around all day and typing guesses into a computer. He again thought of his baby picture sitting on Hebbard’s office shelf. Sam typed in his own birth date, pressed Enter. The screen suddenly loaded. The password worked. His jaw dropped wide-open. He’d never met the man, and yet Hebbard was using his birth date as his password? He cursed out loud. What the hell? He really didn’t have time to sort through the emotions of this all right now. With Natalie still hanging out there somewhere—and Tommy also on the run—Sam knew he couldn’t get bogged down thinking too much about his own daddy issues. There’d be time for that later—if he lived.
He squinted at the screen, which showed the normal icons for more than a dozen file folders, along with a web browser and e-mail. Sam searched through the file names. Random ones like Wilcox, Harbors Deal, Acton Oil, Cannons–Forger Merger, Nasix Oil, Burner Petroleum. He quickly went through each folder, clicking open Word documents, Excel files, PDFs, and so on. They all looked like standard client files. He found nothing in any of the folders that interested him or that he felt was somehow tied to his current situation. He did a quick search on the entirety of the computer, typing in all the names that were connected to the conspiracy. No mention of Arnstead Petroleum or Lex Hester. Nothing on Francisco Zapata or a Mexican government oil auction. Nothing tied to Senator Liddell of Alabama. He was coming up empty-handed.
Sam clicked on the e-mail icon. When it loaded, Sam searched for the attached address: [email protected]. He thought it must be one of Hebbard’s personal e-mail accounts—except it was an account that Tommy hadn’t mentioned. Could he have somehow missed it? Sam shook his head. No way. Tommy missed nothing. However, Sam scanned through dozens of e-mails, finding Hebbard’s name listed throughout. The account indeed belonged to him. Most of the e-mails looked like random spam from various hunting, fishing
, and golf websites, along with a few personal exchanges with perhaps some friends.
Then Sam paused, stared hard at the screen. An e-mail exchange near the top, from only four hours ago, grabbed his rapt attention. On the other end was this address: [email protected]. Senator Mark Liddell? Was it Liddell’s personal e-mail account? It had to be him!
He quickly read the exchange. The first e-mail came from Hebbard’s account at 10:32 a.m., and the exchange between the two men went back and forth over a five-minute period.
Swampman52: Everything has blown up. I can’t find Tom. I think he’s dead. And now they’re coming at me. What do you want me to do?
LiddellM77: How fast can you get to DC?
Swampman52: I can go to the airport right now.
LiddellM77: If you get here, I can protect you.
Swampman52: What about the feds?
LiddellM77: No. Let me handle it.
Swampman52: On my way.
Sam sat back in the chair. He’d found Rich Hebbard. Had the man been sitting in this very chair when he’d sent the e-mail to Liddell? If that was the case, Sam had missed Hebbard by only a few hours. He checked the time on his phone and thought Hebbard might already be in the air, on his way to DC to meet with Senator Liddell—to find some protection. Hebbard had a head start. Sam at least knew where to go next to find him. He felt a sudden burst of adrenaline. He had to return to the New Orleans airport ASAP.
Sam heard the car horn wail outside and turned sharply. It wasn’t a few quick beeps, either, as if the driver was simply tired of waiting and giving him notice. The horn sounded as if the driver was keeping his hand pressed down fully for close to fifteen seconds now. Sam got up, walked to the front of the cabin. Then the noise stopped. He peered out a window. That was odd. He couldn’t see the driver inside the car through the windshield. Where was he? Had the old driver laid on the horn and then jumped out of the car?
Panic surged through Sam.
FIFTY-THREE
The first shot punctured the window and clipped Sam in his right arm. The only thing that kept him from being hit square in the head was Sam’s escape instinct kicking in and causing him to begin moving. The wound in his arm shocked him but not enough to slow him down. He bolted through the cabin for the back porch. The second shot nearly knocked the beanie right off the top of his head. Grabbing the screen door to the back porch, he flung it open. The next two shots splintered the door frame but missed him. He wasn’t sure from where the sniper was shooting, but Sam knew he had to keep moving. Sam dashed toward the screened-in wall on the right side of the back porch. He’d spotted it earlier—the screen had a big gash in it just above the wooden railing. Diving headfirst, he held out both fists in front of him, plunging himself forcefully through the screen, splitting it wide open, before landing in shallow, muddy river water on the outside.
He scrambled to his feet, sloshed forward through the water, looking for the first thick cypress tree he could find. Diving behind a tree again, he pressed his back up against it, completely hidden. He waited a few seconds before peering around the opposite side, could see a shadow by the hole in the screen on the back porch. The assassin was inside the cabin. Sam had tucked away when three more shots punctured the tree. His breathing was heavy, and he could tell he was already bleeding badly down his arm. He could see blood dripping out onto his fingertips. Blocking out the pain, he listened. He knew the guy inside had a choice. He could either climb out through the same screen hole as Sam did and drop into the swamp water. Or he could make a run after Sam by going back out the front door of the cabin.
When Sam didn’t immediately hear any noise from the back porch, he knew the assassin had chosen to make his way back around the front. Sam had to keep moving. Pressing off the tree, he carved a path deeper into the marshland, sloshing through the shallow swamp water, away from the cabin. He was loud, moving about in the water, as there was no way to hide the splashing of his steps, until he found a muddy path up the bank onto drier land. Crossing through several more tree sections, he dropped behind one again, where he was nearly swallowed up by the thick Spanish moss, hiding him from view. He peered around the tree, looking for signs of movement, and saw nothing. Where was the guy?
Sam was developing a plan in his mind. His only hope was to lure the killer far enough away from the cabin, then somehow circle his way back to the car. Thinking about the cab driver, he cursed to himself. The man was probably already dead.
Pushing away moss, he looked for a path farther into the marshland. Then he stepped out from the tree and sprinted as quietly as he could toward the next tree line. Mud splashed up in his face as he dove behind a tree. Rain came down now, creating a welcome noise buffer, as the heavy drops pounded the swamp water all around him.
Peering around the tree, Sam finally put eyes on the shooter fifty feet behind him, slowly making his way through the marshland. The man, bald and clean shaven, was about his size and dressed in all black: black pants, long-sleeve shirt, and work boots. A black rifle hung on a thick strap over his shoulder. He looked to be in his forties. Sam didn’t recognize him, as he wasn’t one of the guys who had chased after him in Mexico City. Who the hell was he? Was he the same guy that had taken shots at him in Jackson Square? He had a stone-cold look about him as he held the handgun with a long silencer attached to the end—not that the assassin needed to hide the sound of his gunshots out here in the middle of nowhere. The guy was cutting a slow path about thirty feet to Sam’s right, so he was not coming straight at him. Sam had done enough to create some room away from where he’d originated. Could he get back without being detected? To get that opportunity, he would need to wait until the very last second.
Sam grimaced again, feeling biting pain shoot up and down his right arm. He needed to get some pressure on the bullet wound, cut off the blood flow. Staying very still, he watched the man begin to level up with him, still thirty feet off to his right, carefully moving in and out of swamp trees. The guy would stop, listen, and then point the gun in different directions. Sam practically held his breath, slowly scooted around his current tree to stay blocked from view. Looking around again, he watched, knowing he had to choose the perfect moment. The assassin would stop hunting at some point and make his return to the cabin. Sam needed him at the farthest distance possible.
The assassin made it about twenty feet beyond him when Sam decided to make a run for freedom. His survival was going to be determined by who could run through swamp water the fastest, although Sam was at the disadvantage of maybe having to evade bullets in the process. He counted down in his mind, begged God for a miracle, and pushed himself off the wet tree. Sloshing through mud, he kept his head ducked low, circling in and out of trees. He didn’t have the luxury of stopping to look or listen to see the progress of his hunter. He just had to keep running no matter what and hold nothing back.
Spotting the cabin a hundred feet ahead of him, he slipped in the mud, fell face-first into swamp water, and saw something long and dark slither off to his right. He cursed, quickly got back up, raced forward, his shoes trudging through the marshland until he finally made his way into the clearing beside the cabin. No other vehicles were parked there except the cab. How did the assassin make it to the cabin? He rushed around to the front, toward the cab driver’s door. He pulled it open and found the driver slumped over in the seat, a bullet hole in his head. The assassin must’ve taken him out from a distance, which explained the driver falling forward onto the car horn for several seconds.
Sam yanked him out of the seat and onto the ground. He jumped into the driver’s seat, found the key in the ignition. The cab rumbled to life. Sam shifted into reverse and hit the gas pedal. He slammed the brakes, shifted into drive, stomped the gas pedal again. That’s when the man appeared in the opening directly behind him. Sam watched his mirror before ducking as low as possible in the driver’s seat. The back of the cab was then littered with bullets. They shattered the back window and went all the way through to
puncture the windshield. Sam peered up just enough to keep from driving straight into a cypress tree as the dirt road weaved left in front of him. He kept his foot to the floor, the car racing ahead.
When he didn’t hear another explosion inside the car, Sam figured he was far enough away that the man had stopped shooting. He eased up, checked the rearview mirror, couldn’t see anything but dirt road behind him. He’d put enough space between himself and the man. About a half mile up the long dirt road, he came upon a dark-gray minivan parked along the edge. He slowed as he approached, wondering if more assassins were inside the vehicle. He ducked low in his seat, looking for any movement, hoping the guy was working alone. He didn’t spot anyone else.
Sam didn’t have time to search the van, to see if he could find some kind of identification. The man would likely be running up the road behind him. Sam had to keep going, although he knew he would have a much better chance of making it out of there if the assassin didn’t have a vehicle. He backed the cab up, angled it toward the front of the van. The cab raced forward and hit the minivan’s front left, crumpling metal and plastic. The minivan jolted backward, skidded off the edge of the road, and slid into muddy water. Sam backed up again, shifted into drive, stomped the gas again. More metal crunched, and this time the minivan pitched even deeper into swamp water beside the dirt road. Sam made sure to hit the brakes on the cab before he also got stuck in the muddy water.
He examined the damage. Both of the van’s front tires were sunk in at least four feet of brown water, and the front frame of the van was crunched up around the left wheel. He doubted the assassin would have any chance of using the vehicle now. It would take him at least some serious effort—by then, Sam would be gone.
