Breakout (Alex Knight Book 1)

by C. G. Cooper

33

  Knight opened the car door and slumped into the driver’s seat. There had been little progress at the meeting besides filling him with an extreme amount of anxiety about what he’d been thrust into. He couldn’t bear the silent ride back to the hotel through the empty countryside. He flipped on the radio.

  The BBC was running a news report from a correspondent in South Korea. The border with North Korea was quiet, and several satellite images from the north of the Korean peninsula showed no traffic. The correspondent said that several photos from the reconnaissance aircraft showed bodies lying in the streets. It was suggested that North Korea was in the grip of a full-blown Panamanian Flu epidemic. A container ship from Central America had recently docked there, and it was feared it had brought the infection; with the isolated nation’s poor public health capabilities, the virus had run rampant. China had closed its border and was rushing troops in full biohazard gear to prevent any movement of people carrying the virus into its territory.

  Knight moistened his lips. It was sinking in fast: this was a crisis. He wasn’t sure if some two-bit group of military fantasists was going to be the solution, no matter how large and secretive they boasted their membership to be.

  After a moment, a figure rose up in the back seat and pointed a pistol against the back of his head, causing the car to squirm in Knight’s surprised grip. He caught a glimpse of his abductor in the rear-view mirror when he’d steadied himself. The figure, dressed in black with a black balaclava covering its head, tossed a GPS device into his lap.

  The GPS spoke in the voice of a young woman and told Knight to follow the road ahead for three hundred yards and then make a right. It was not the way he’d come.

  The figure jabbed the pistol into the back of Knight’s head.

  “Just relax,” Knight said, equal parts scared and pissed off. Maybe a bullet to the back of the head was best.

  The GPS directed him onto a narrow, winding road. “Would you mind telling me where the hell we’re going?” By way of response, the figure jabbed him in the back of the head again, a little stronger this time.

  Knight drew a sharp breath. The fear was ebbing away as pure anger took over.

  Knight’s cheap little cell phone rang. It could only be Mina. He’d been anxious to hear from her. She seemed like the only person in the world capable of giving him anything close to a clear answer.

  The phone chirped its standard ringtone again. The figure in the back seat jabbed the pistol again. Knight got the message: he fished the phone out of his pocket and tossed it back. He heard the rear window being lowered. He knew what was coming. In the side-view mirror he saw the cellphone go tumbling into the scrubby plant life on the roadside.

  The road twisted and turned between the fences on either side. The sun was beginning to rise, casting a dull glow across the road as he dashed from one bend to another.

  The GPS spoke again. “Turn off the road in five hundred yards. This is your final destination.”

  The words sent a shiver down Knight’s spine. A rising panic, battling with his anger, brought the taste of bile to his mouth. Too many people had died around him recently for him not to take the prospect of his final destination seriously.

  But he wasn’t ready to lie down just yet.

  The road along the next five hundred yards was a sweeping left turn. The low sun threw long shadows off the high trees that covered the inside bend of this stretch of the way. Up ahead, a flicker of a shadow from an oncoming vehicle. It was partially hidden around the bend. Knight recognized it immediately for what it was. If he had been riding his bike, it would have been something to avoid, but with a killer in the backseat, the oncoming vehicle might just be his salvation.

  The shadow came closer, almost imperceptibly so. Knight calculated from the increase in the size of the shadow, by factoring in the angle of the sun and the time in which the shadow had increased its size, even by that tiny amount, that the oncoming vehicle, which Knight now knew to be a large truck, was approaching at close to the speed limit. Knight calculated his own speed and then picked the point on the road the two vehicles would pass one other. Then he calculated the force that would be transferred to the passengers in those vehicles should they collide, which Knight was going to ensure did happen.

  It was going to hurt. The figure in the backseat would be catapulted from the car, forward through the windshield. He sent a quick prayer up to anyone who might be listening for no seatbelt and for his plan to work.

  With a minute adjustment of the steering, Knight side-swiped the truck when it appeared from around the blind corner. The car spun around in a one-eighty. The figure in the backseat was flung against the other side of the car. He saw the approach of the tangled weeds as the airbag smacked him in the face, and he fell into unconsciousness to the sound of his car’s horn blaring.

  Knight came to as the driver of the truck pulled him free from the car, which was on its side. The truck, a solidly-built Mack truck, barely had a dent.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, mate. You all right?”

  “I’m OK,” Knight said, dazed.

  “Your friend over there, she went flyin’ out of the car when you tumbled. I saw her go airborne.”

  Knight shrugged off the truck driver and staggered toward the fallen body. The balaclava was torn, and Knight could see thick brown hair spilling out. As he came closer, he saw her face, and a thick curl hanging.

  There could be no doubt. It was Sarah.

  The trucker came up alongside him. “I’ve called for help.”

  Knight fell at Sarah’s side. He felt for a pulse. It was weak, and Knight felt it slacken with every feeble beat of her heart. “Why?” he asked under his breath.

  He felt the trucker’s hand on his shoulder and he heard the burly man mumble some platitudes about things being all right and not to worry.

  A small pistol lay next to her body. The GPS device was a few feet away. He grabbed both and staggered to his feet.

  “What’s she doin’ with a gun? What the ‘ell are you on about?” the trucker asked, backing away.

  “I can explain everything,” said Knight. “Can you give me a lift into town?”

  “We’re just gonna... leave her here?”

  Knight showed him the weapon. “You see this? You see that mask over her head? Do you really want to be around when whoever it is that sent her comes to find out why they haven’t heard from her?”

  The man’s face twisted up. “Mate, I don’t know who you are or what’s goin’ on, but I see your point.”

  34

  The driver, an amiable dairy delivery man, talked his ear off the whole way. Knight was thankful that fate had provided him with a chatterbox. It saved him from the pack of lies he was going to have to spew to not look like a maniac. He merely told the driver the truth: that he’d been abducted on the way back from a late-night meeting with some acquaintances. The driver bought it with his deepest sympathies.

  Once in town, Knight was equally thankful that it was early enough for folks to be still asleep. He had the driver drop him off at the hospital. He watched the truck take off, then made his way down the block toward a residential neighborhood, clutching the pocketed GPS device in his jacket.

  Cars lined both sides of the narrow street, ripe for picking. After several tries, he found one door open and hot-wired the vehicle.

  The GPS rerouted the directions and had him driving for twenty minutes before telling him to turn off at an exit. Up ahead he could see the silhouette of old farm buildings against the early morning sky.

  He turned off the car’s headlights and peered into the semi-darkness, looking for any signs of what might be waiting. He left the car and went on foot with the 9mm in his hand.

  The buildings were all working buildings. A silo and a large shed. This was no family farm with a small cozy house, a farmer and his wife in residence. It was more factory than farm. He approached with caution.

  He could see lights spilling out of a set of ope
n doors. As he came near, he could see a car. The driver got out and opened the back door. A gentleman in a gray suit stepped out, brushed off his trousers, and stood to the side, looking directly at him. The figure raised his arm in the air and beckoned Knight forward. Knight started toward him, feeling the pistol jammed into his jacket.

  As he approached, he got a good look at the figure. He was Asian-looking, but not entirely so. He obviously had one non-Asian parent. He was lean and stood straight, his hands clasped before him, his feet a foot apart. When Knight was within range, he said, “A funny thing happened once when I was a child. My father took me to see a magician at a fair. The man performed all kinds of miracles. None of them impressed me. I was very interested in magic and had read a lot about the techniques and tricks. Not that the performer was bad, mind you,” the man said graciously, “but I had seen everything. Then he did one thing that I hadn’t seen before. He vanished a coin that someone in the audience had signed and then made it reappear in an egg that he cracked into a bowl. I was astounded. I begged my father to take me to see this magician so that I could ask him about this trick. I begged the magician over and over, even impressing him with my knowledge of all his other feats.”

  The stranger picked a piece of lint from his sleeve and flicked it to the ground.

  “Finally, he relented, and he excused us from my father. He brought me into a small dressing room and sat me down. He said that what he was about to tell me was a secret that could cost me not my life, but the life of my father and everyone else in my family. There was a code among magicians, he said, and it was enforced with blood. Then he,” the man hesitated momentarily, “took advantage of me, there in the dressing room. I’ll spare you the details. And when he was finished, he washed his hands in a basin. He didn’t offer the courtesy to me. And as he was drying them, he said, ‘There are two coins, and the person who signed both is a plant in the audience. I had one in my hand the whole time, and when I crack the egg, I drop it into the bowl as the yolk is falling.’ And then he reminded me of the magician’s code. And what could happen were I to divulge anything that had happened in that dressing room.

  “I was lucky that day. I learned something more valuable than any magic trick. I learned the value of control and power. And I learned that one’s pursuit of the truth can be used as a weapon, more powerful than any bomb.”

  “Who are you?” asked Knight once the monologue had concluded.

  The man chuckled. “That’s all you have to say? I tell you this story and that’s all you have for me?”

  “It was heartwarming,” Knightly said flatly.

  “Where is Ms. Hansen?”

  “You mean Anya Volkov?”

  The man smiled. “Very well. Where is she?”

  “She could be dead, for all I know.”

  The man nodded. “Ask.”

  “Ask what?”

  “Ask,” the man repeated. “Ask the questions you need to ask.”

  Knight laughed sardonically. “I’ve got a million of them.”

  “Then let me answer one. You are here because I want you to be here. You are here because you hold it in your power to heal the world of this dreaded disease, a disease that has gotten away from its engineers. I represent some very powerful entities, Dr. Knight. We can offer you power, wealth, even dominion over an entire country. What do you think of that? Oh,” he added as though it were an afterthought, “and your precious stem cell research? We can throw that in, too. Imagine it, Dr. Knight, a lab of your very own, that you can run as you like, on your terms, free to do all the research in any field you wish, with resources unlimited.” The man’s grin was that of a cheap salesman.

  “Who are you?” Knight repeated.

  The grin disappeared, and the voice went flat. “I am someone who once hunted down and killed a lowly magician. But not before I went after everything he loved most dearly on this earth and erased them, one by one. That’s who I am. Think about it, Dr. Knight.”

  The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys, which he then tossed to Knight.

  “There,” said the man, nodding to his right.

  Off in the distance was a motorcycle, an exact replica of his beloved BMW S1000R.

  “It’s yours. Paperwork is clean.” The man turned and got back into the rear seat of the car. “We’ll be in touch, Dr. Knight. I assure you. The global landscape is about to change, and it is in your best interest to think carefully about what your position will be when it does.”

  The window went up and the car sped away. It was just Knight, alone. And a motorcycle.

  He realized he had few places he could go now.

  Home was one of them.

  35

  The arrivals lounge at Dulles airport was bustling. Long lines snaked back and forth at every turn. It had been a long flight and a tiring couple of days. The last thing Knight wanted to do now was stand around. He’d been shuffling forward a few feet at a time for a while before he noticed the reason for the lines. There was a health screening point set up; doctors in protective laboratory gear, gloves, coats, masks, and eye protection were testing everyone.

  Suddenly, a lot of shouting broke out as a young man was separated from his wife and child. He was taken aside to a curtained off area. His wife and child were taken to another curtained off area. The young man shouted encouragement to his family, even when they were out of sight, telling them not to worry, they would be fine, and they would be back home together soon. No one standing around Knight believed it. Knight guessed from the young man’s tone that he did not believe it either.

  An older lady near Knight was coughing and shivering. She had her large coat wrapped around her and was being supported by her husband. Knight heard him tell her that they would have a flu shot in the tents and that she would be feeling much better soon. Maybe they would cancel their weekend plans. Knight wrapped the scarf he had bought more tightly around his face. He noticed others covering their faces with whatever items they had handy.

  Then another man burst through the barriers and made a run for it. He was Tasered by police and dragged into one of the inspection zones.

  Knight noticed how, despite the numbers that were being taken aside, the curtained areas seemed entirely quiet. Not a cough could be heard. Knight shuffled forward with the crowd.

  Eventually it was Knight’s turn to have his temperature taken and a light shone into his eyes by a doctor. Then a swab was taken from inside his mouth, and finally a blood sample taken. A small cut on his thumb and the blood was smeared over a slide. The slide and swab were stored.

  The doctor patted Knight on the back and pushed him to the exit gate.

  As Knight left the arrivals lounge, he saw a face he thought he recognized. Where had it been? And then it hit him: it was a young woman he had seen weeks before. She’d sat near him and Sarah as they shared a coffee after work. The woman avoided Knight’s stare. Knight saw her speak into her phone as she turned away. Her face, however, was reflected in a large, highly polished mirror on a pillar. Knight read her lips. They said, “He’s spotted me.”

  Knight hurried away and was soon standing at a vacant car rental agency. A modest sedan was available immediately. He didn’t care what it was. He took it. He signed the papers and grabbed the keys.

  He had few, if any, places he could turn. There was only one person he thought who might listen: Special Agent Childs.

  Knight pulled up outside an all-night diner. He asked the waitress if he could use her cell, muttering something about losing his own.

  “You’d better tip well, honey,” she said as she handed over her phone. Knight thought of the business card Childs had given him and the number printed on it. He could see it in his mind as clearly as if he had the card in his hand. He tapped out Childs’s number.

  “Who is this?” Childs answered.

  “Alex Knight. Dr. Alex Knight. I need your help. I don’t know who to trust.”

  The phone was silent.

 
“Please,” Knight said. “I have information. I have to tell you what I’ve found out. But don’t tell anyone.”

  “Stay where you are,” Childs said. And then the line went dead.

  36

  Childs tucked his cell phone away and pulled out his service pistol. He released the magazine, checked the rounds and then slammed the clip back home. Then he grabbed his jacket and car keys and pulled open his office door, the loosely-pinned paper on the cork board buffeted by the wind as Childs pulled the door shut behind him.

  Childs was striding across the building reception area, heading for the elevator to the underground parking lot when his cell rang. It was Mina.

  “You have to find Knight,” she said. “He’s in danger. He’s about to blow the lid off the biggest conspiracy ever. Assassinations, terror attacks, murders, you name it. They were all designed to draw attention away from their real goal. The anti-vaccine activists never knew what they’d stumbled on.”

  “Slow down,” Childs said. “I’m on my way to meet him now.”

  “And Knight didn’t kill those people either.”

  “I know he didn’t,” Childs said.

  “You have to get him somewhere safe. He could be our only hope.”

  The elevator arrived. The doors slid open. “I’m going down to the basement parking lot, so I’m about to lose the signal. Call me back.”

  Childs stepped into the elevator and ended the call.

  The elevator traveled down to the basement without stopping. At the lowest level the doors slid open. Childs fished out his car keys from his pocket and headed toward his car. It was a few years old, but he liked it. It was a GMC Acadia with the flashing red and blue emergency warning lights hidden behind the front grill. The headlights flashed once as Childs unlocked the car with a click on his key fob.

  A figure standing next to the car lit up in silhouette.