by Dirk Patton
“We’re good,” she said, closing the app and putting the phone back in her purse. “There’s a barcode in the email, and as long as we’ve got that for them to scan, everything’s cool. Now, we’ve got two hours to get to the airport and I’m going to take a shower and change clothes before we leave. Sit tight and stay out of trouble.”
She didn’t wait for me to say anything, just jumped to her feet and hurried down the hall. I wandered over and plopped my ass onto the sofa, turning when I saw movement in the hall. It was Julie, going into the bathroom with a towel and pile of clothes in her arms. The door closed, the lock clicking a moment later. I guess trusting me enough to spend $21,000 on a private jet didn’t mean she trusted me enough to take a shower with the door unlocked. Smart girl.
39
Julie was ready faster than I expected. Fifteen minutes later she walked into the living room, freshly showered. Her hair was braided, falling down her back. She wore dark green cargo pants and a black T-shirt. Tossing a small overnight bag on the table, she sat down next to me on the couch and dropped a pair of well worn, desert boots on the floor.
I remained sitting, watching her pull on a pair of thick socks, getting a closer look at her ankles. She’d removed the gold chain from the one with the combat medic tattoo. On the opposite, just above the small round bone on the outside near her foot, was another tattoo. This one was of a grinning skull in front of a pair of crossed arrows. A knife pierced the top, a snake coiling around the hilt. Her husband had been a Green Beret and she’d honored him with the ink.
As she laced her boots, I questioned myself for having waited. While she was in the shower, I had seriously considered stealing her phone and leaving without her. With it, I’d be able to get on the plane. But I didn’t know her well enough to begin to guess what she’d do if she came out and I was gone. The tickets were purchased in her name. I didn’t think it would be difficult for her to call the charter company and tell them to hold the jet until she could arrive and kick my ass.
She was a headstrong woman, of that there was no doubt. There was a lot of iron in her. Had to be. You didn’t do the job in a war-zone that she’d done if there wasn’t. And then to lose a spouse? I had to admit that I admired her. Respected that she’d been through hell and seemed to have come out on the other side relatively intact. That, or she was a hell of an actress. Nah. No one’s that good.
“Ready,” she said, standing and stomping her feet to settle them into the boots.
I stood and took my jacket off. Her eyes momentarily narrowed when she saw the weapons I was carrying.
“Do you have a small duffel or something?”
I didn’t want to spend a five-and-a-half-hour flight with the rifle and pistols digging into my back and sides. I also didn’t want to run the risk of the flight crew catching a glimpse of my small arsenal and deciding to warn the authorities at the arriving airport.
“Just the big suitcase you saw,” she said. “I haven’t exactly had time to move in. Do you want it?”
“Can we bring it on the plane?”
“I think so. Their website said there was room for normal luggage.”
I nodded and she waved for me to follow her into the bedroom. The bag was lying on the bed, half the contents strewn across the mattress. Julie looked at it and eyed the weapons, magazines and flash-bangs I was unloading onto the top of the dresser. She rushed out of the room, returning a moment later with the small overnight bag she’d already packed.
She lifted the top of the large suitcase and dumped the remainder of its contents onto the bed. Clothes and shoes spilled out, then a large vibrator landed on the pile and rolled off onto the floor. I couldn’t help but look at it, trying to suppress a grin.
“What?” She challenged as she opened the overnight bag and dumped its contents into the empty suitcase.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Say a word,” she said. “I fucking dare you.”
She didn’t sound like she was kidding, and I wasn’t brave enough to test her. Instead, I watched as she arranged the clothes she was taking with her, then picked up the rifle. It was a short barreled version of a standard Army issue M4. With obviously practiced hands, she made sure it was unloaded before placing it in the bag.
Adding some clothes for padding, she found spots for all of the spare magazines and the two grenades. I’d kept one of the pistols. It was stuck in the waistband of my pants at the small of my back. Tossing the jacket into the bag, I made sure the weapon was well covered by my shirt.
Julie picked up the other pistol, again handling it with a familiarity that only came from years of being around weapons on a daily basis. Satisfied there was a round in the chamber and a fully loaded magazine, she slipped it into a large pocket on the right leg of her cargo pants. They were tight enough around her narrow waist that its weight, while slightly noticeable, didn’t drag them down.
“What?” She asked when she noticed me looking at her pants.
“You know you’re committing a felony in California just by concealing that in your pocket. And DC has even more strict gun laws. Tagging along is one thing, but you’re putting yourself in a bad position.”
“I’m a big girl,” she said.
She stuffed more clothes into the bag to keep everything tightly packed before closing the lid and spinning a combination lock to secure it.
“And,” she turned to face me. “If I’m about to walk into a situation where people might be shooting at me, I want to be able to shoot back.”
I nodded, not about to argue. Stepping forward, I lifted the suitcase off the bed and set it on the floor. Extending the handle, I pulled it along behind me as I followed her back into the living room.
“Are we ready?” She asked, taking a quick look around as she slung her purse over her shoulder.
I nodded and lead the way, suitcase dragging along behind. Releasing the deadbolt, I opened the door and came face to face with two men wearing suits. I stopped so sharply that Julie ran into the suitcase before she realized something was wrong.
One of the men had his arm raised, preparing to knock, looking as surprised as I was. Our eyes locked and a heartbeat later I saw a look of recognition in his. FBI! Had to be.
He dropped his arm and started to step back, his hand moving towards where a weapon would be holstered on his belt. His partner was a little slower on the uptake, glancing at him before moving. I stood frozen for another heartbeat, spurred to action as his other hand came around to sweep his suit coat clear.
His hand was inches from the butt of a pistol when I dropped the suitcase handle and lunged. I bulled into the first guy, knocking his arm aside and shoving him against the railing that protected from a three story drop. The partner was moving now and I spun, delivering a strike to his solar plexus with my elbow.
He folded and I raised my knee into his face hard enough to lift him a couple of inches into the air. His body went limp and he fell to the side. The other agent had scrambled away, still trying to bring his weapon into use, but was frozen when I looked at him. He had a pistol in his hand, pointed straight down as he stared into the apartment door.
I risked a glance over my shoulder, more than a little surprised to see Julie with a pistol leveled at the man’s face. She held it in both hands at arms length, knees slightly flexed and shoulders forward. Her finger was on the trigger and the gun was rock steady in her grip.
“Hand me your weapon, butt first,” I said to him, making sure I was clear of her line of fire.
After a moment of hesitation, he slowly raised his arm across his body and extended the gun in my direction. I took it from his hand and stepped back, aiming it at him.
“Inside,” I said.
“This is not a good idea, Mr. Whitman,” he said, not moving.
“Neither is not doing what I tell you,” I growled. “Now, get inside that fucking apartment before I completely lose my patience.”
For a bit, I thought he was going to be a problem
. But, when there are two weapons pointed at your head, and both are held by people who are keeping space open and look like they know what they’re doing, you don’t have a lot of options.
Carefully, he straightened and slowly moved forward, stepping across the threshold. Julie slipped sideways, keeping room between them as he advanced, the muzzle of her pistol never wavering.
“On the sofa. Hands in plain sight at all times,” I said, remaining outside and hoping a neighbor hadn’t seen what was happening.
Once he was seated, his hands on his knees, I glanced at his partner. The man was still out, lying on the concrete walkway. A small pool of blood had spread out around his head. Probably from a broken nose.
Keeping the new pistol tight against my body, aimed at the unconscious agent, I reached out with my free hand and removed his weapon. Sticking it in my waistband, I grabbed his belt and dragged him inside, dumping him on the carpet underneath the front window.
Circling behind Julie, who was keeping the two men covered, I went into the kitchen. I was looking for something I could fill with water to rinse the blood off the walkway. But there wasn’t anything. Like she’d said, she hadn’t had time to move in yet.
“Anything in the bathroom I can put water in? Blood outside I need to clean up.”
“Shampoo bottle in the shower,” Julie said. “Dump it out and use it.”
I did, and a few minutes later there was no longer an obvious blood stain right in front of her door. Now it was just a slightly soapy wet spot with an indeterminate dark splotch in the middle. It would be noticed if someone walked by, but it would be dismissed.
Closing the door, I knelt over the unconscious agent and searched him. Wallet, keys, cell phone, hand cuffs, a folding knife and an FBI badge case. I flipped it open and looked at the ID card. Special Agent Reginald Hart. Piling the items on the table, I stepped to the side of the guy on the sofa.
“On your feet,” I said, waving him up with my hands.
He sighed and stood. Reaching out, I grabbed his shoulder and turned his body until he was facing away from me. Running my hands over him, I found the exact same things I’d taken from Agent Hart, plus a snub nosed revolver in an ankle holster. Pushing him back onto the couch, I added all of his possessions to the pile on the table, noticing my watch as I worked. We only had slightly more than an hour before our flight left.
But then I wasn’t terribly worried. This was a charter, not a commercial flight. There was no point in them leaving without us. Still, we needed to be moving.
“You know who I am,” I said to the conscious agent, opening his badge case to look at his ID. “Special Agent Arnold Cooper.”
“I know who you are, and I know what you did,” he snarled at me.
I closed the case and tossed it onto the table.
“What did I do?” I asked.
“You murdered Kirkpatrick,” he hissed. “He was a friend of mine. Wife. Two kids. And you killed him.”
“Yes, I did,” I said. “After he tried to shoot me in the head on orders from Agent Johnson.”
“Bullshit!” He spat. “I’ve heard about you. About the cops you killed in Arizona. You never should have been brought in to the project.”
“Would you believe me if I showed you a video of Johnson ordering my termination?” I asked, brief hope flaring that maybe I could use the FBI to help.
“So what? If he did, I’m sure he had a good reason. Maybe you did something else I don’t know about. You’re dead, asshole. You’re fucking dead! You don’t kill an FBI agent and get to walk around like nothing happened. One day you’re going to turn around and I’ll be standing there. And I’m going to put a bullet in your goddamn head!”
I sighed and picked the two pairs of cuffs off the table.
“Stand up,” I said. “And keep your mouth shut and you just might live long enough to try and kill me.”
He stood, eyes boring into mine. I twirled my finger in the air, telling him to turn around. When he did, I pulled his hands behind his back, put the cuffs on and pushed him back onto the sofa. Next, I cuffed his unconscious partner, then walked into the bedroom.
Sweeping all of Julie’s clothes onto the floor, I stripped the sheet off the mattress and used a knife I’d taken from one of them to cut it into long strips. Once I had them ready, I went back out and picked up one of the kitchen chairs from around the table and moved it to the middle of the living room. Pointing at it, I stepped back as Agent Cooper slowly stood and moved to take a seat.
“Think about something,” I said as I worked with the strips of sheet. “If I’m who you think I am, why are you still alive? Why is your partner alive? Why am I tying you up when it would be much simpler to just cut your throats?”
“Who knows why a fucking psycho does something,” Cooper said.
“Whatever. Just remember something. You’ll survive this because I don’t want to kill you. No matter what you think, I’m not some bloodthirsty madman. So, unless you’re in on the whole conspiracy with Johnson, you’ll come out of this OK.”
“You’re fucking crazy,” he hissed. “That fucking machine has scrambled your brain. Or were you always fucked up like this?”
At that point I wrapped a strip of fabric around his head, covering his mouth. That ended the conversation. His hands were cuffed behind his back and he was completely secured to the metal frame of the chair. Each ankle was tied to a leg and a thick strip went around his chest, holding him tight in the seat.
With the gag in place, I grasped the back of the chair and pulled, tilting it back to rest on the floor. I didn’t want him to start bouncing around and come crashing over. He just might succeed in making enough noise to alert the downstairs neighbor that something was wrong.
Five minutes later his partner was in another chair, secured in the same manner. I’d worried about gagging him at first, afraid he wouldn’t be able to breathe through a broken nose and would suffocate. But the blow with my knee had missed his nose. There was a long split in the skin of his forehead. That was where the blood had come from.
Agent Cooper watched every move I made, glaring at me with hate filled eyes. I couldn’t say that I blamed him. If our roles were reversed, all I’d be thinking about would be getting my hands around the throat of the guy who had tied me up.
Once they were secure, I had Julie open the suitcase. I paid attention this time and memorized the combination. The three guns I’d taken off the agents went in and I was starting to close the lid when Julie stopped me. She snatched her laptop off the table and put it in, too.
A quick trip to the bathroom to make sure I looked presentable enough to board a chartered jet, and we were ready to go. Leaving the apartment, Julie locked the door with her key, then lead the way to an aging VW Jetta in the rear parking lot. The suitcase went in the trunk and I slipped into the passenger seat as she got behind the wheel and started the engine.
40
I sat there looking at Julie, waiting for her to put the car in gear and start driving. But she just sat there, hands tightly gripping the wheel as she stared through the dirty windshield. She was breathing fast, trying to get herself under control.
“I just screwed myself,” she whispered. “Those were FBI agents!”
I didn’t know what to say. She was right. If things were normal. But there was nothing about this that was normal. A time traveling ex-con trying to foil an assassination plot that involved the Vice President of the United States and at least one FBI agent. God only knew who else was involved.
“And you haven’t told me everything,” Julie said accusingly, turning to face me. “What was he talking about? You killed two cops in Arizona? And what machine has messed with your head?”
“You’re right,” I said with a sigh. “I haven’t told you everything. Some of it would just be too hard to believe.”
“Harder to believe than the fact that I’ve just ruined my life helping a man I don’t even know? Emptied my bank account. Pointed a gun at an F
BI agent while you tied him up. What the hell was I thinking?”
“You were thinking that I’m telling the truth,” I said gently. “And I am. Just because there’re some things I haven’t told you doesn’t mean I’m lying. If I don’t get to DC and stop this, the President and the Speaker of the House will be dead this time tomorrow. And the people behind the conspiracy will be in control of the country. That’s the truth.”
“I don’t know if I can believe you,” she said after a long stretch of silence. “I did. Or I wanted to, maybe. But the deeper I get, the more it feels like there’s more going on here that you’re hiding from me.”
I leaned my head back on the car seat and blew out a quiet sigh of frustration. She was smart and intuitive. There was no denying that. And she also had enough strength of character to stop helping me as quickly as she’d started if she felt I was playing some sort of game. The truth was, without her help, I wasn’t going to be able to pull this off.
“Look,” I began. “Nothing I haven’t told you has anything to do with why you’re helping me. I understand you don’t trust me at the moment. Don’t blame you. But we’re running out of time. I’ll tell you everything once we’re on the plane. We’ll have plenty of time to talk.”
She stared at me so long I grew uncomfortable and wanted to look away. That’s probably what she was waiting for. To see if I couldn’t look her in the eye. So, I forced myself to endure the scrutiny, sitting still and remaining quiet. Finally, she broke eye contact, savagely yanked the transmission into drive and roared out of the parking spot.
The drive to the airport took most of an hour. And it was quiet. Neither of us spoke. I didn’t think Julie was mad at me or pouting. I suspected she was thinking. Trying to figure out how she’d gotten in so deep, so fast. But isn’t that the way it always is? It takes one decision and minutes of action to get yourself into a mess that will take years to put behind you.
Exiting the freeway, she followed large signs to the airport entrance. A smaller road peeled off from the heavy traffic, heading for the charter terminal. We pulled into a half full lot and Julie whipped the VW into a parking spot near the walkway to the building’s entrance.
