by Peter Darley
“On second thought, it seems I have my answer right here.” Payne fired in the direction of the two men and pulled Belinda toward the Mustang.
Brandon and David instinctively jumped behind the shack as the bullet blew a gaping hole in the wooden door frame.
Payne continued to fire, keeping them at bay long enough to reach the Mustang while Belinda struggled.
“David, we have to stop him.” Brandon ran from behind the shack toward Payne and Belinda.
Payne fired again, forcing Brandon to dive behind the SUV. Edging around the bumper, he saw Payne forcing Belinda into his car and was seized with a dilemma. He could make a run for it and try to reach the Mustang on foot. But if he failed to get to it before Payne drove away, he would have no way of finding her. He knew he couldn’t take the chance.
Driven by panic, he opened up the SUV’s back door, took the attaché case off the back seat, and threw it open. He took a semi-circular half-globe-like object from a sponge cut-out, and ran toward the Mustang as Payne fired it up. He hurled the device, watching intently to ensure it adhered magnetically to the Mustang, a few inches beneath the trunk.
The Mustang spun around with the door open. Brandon ran toward it again and came close enough to glimpse a cardboard box on the passenger’s seat. For a fleeting second, he could see the box contained a few grenades. “Oh, my God.” Frantically, he sprinted the last few yards to the car. However, the door closed and the Mustang sped away, momentarily blinding Brandon with dust.
Shielding his eyes, he turned and ran back to the SUV. “David, get in the car.”
David climbed in as Brandon hurled himself into the driver’s seat. Tires screeching, the SUV sped ahead onto the canyon road.
“Oh God, I’ve got to get her back,” Brandon said. “When he turned that car in our direction, I saw a box of grenades by his side.”
“Oh, shit.”
“We’ve got to watch for whatever flies out of that goddamn window.”
“You got it. But what’s this money he was talking about?”
“I’m not sure anymore, but it’s already about fifty grand short.”
“There’s something I have to tell you,” David said.
“What’s that?”
“On the night you called me, I had an altercation with that asshole in Hooters.”
Brandon glanced at him for a moment, intrigued. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. He must’ve been tracking me since then. I just can’t figure out—”
“What?”
“Oh, my God. This jacket I’m wearing.”
“Jacket?”
“I was wearing it in Hooters. I had him pinned over the bar.” David ran his fingers along the insides of his lapels and immediately came to something stuck to one of them. Angrily, he tore it off. “Dammit!”
Brandon glanced at the small, electronic device in David’s hand. “He bugged you?”
“Yeah. I led him to you without even knowing it.” David tossed the device out of the window.
Brandon focused his attention as he gunned the SUV along the narrow mountainside. To his right, there was barely enough space to accommodate another vehicle before the cliff edge and a one-hundred-fifty foot drop.
“Look out!” David shouted.
Brandon noticed a grenade flying out of the Mustang’s window. It landed by the roadside and exploded a few feet ahead. Swerving to avoid the debris, he barely avoided slipping over the edge of the precipice. The road shuddered under the force of the explosion.
“I have to save her. There’s no telling what that bastard’s going to do to her,” Brandon said, his knuckles white as they gripped the steering wheel. He couldn’t contemplate grief as terrible as the thought of harm coming to Belinda.
He saw her looking at him through the back window of the Mustang. Keeping his gaze fixed on hers from a distance, he sensed his rage overcoming him.
The road became narrower. Any oncoming traffic would have to wait in the wider area and allow others to pass before going any farther. However, all was clear except for Brandon and David chasing Payne.
The SUV’s wheels clipped the edge of the road again, startling Brandon out of his emotional distraction. He twisted the wheel desperately in order to avoid flying over the edge.
“Drake, take it easy, man,” David said. “If we slip over that edge they’re going to be cleanin’ us up with a blotter.”
Prompted to action, Brandon reached across, opened up the glove compartment, and felt around inside. He quickly found a small, palm-sized cell-phone-type gadget, and dropped it into his inside jacket pocket. He then grasped a metallic pistol-like device with a small targeting sight atop a bulbous end and handed it to David. “Take this. We may have no choice.”
Spicer took the object with a look of recognition. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.”
Another grenade flew out of the Mustang’s window and rolled under the SUV. Seconds later, they heard the explosion behind them.
David exhaled with relief at how narrowly the grenade had missed them. “Shit. How many of those babies does that son of a bitch have?”
Belinda watched as Payne reached into the case for another grenade. “Don’t do this,” she pleaded.
“So long as I’ve got you, he’s just another pain in the ass.” He checked the rear view mirror and coldly pulled the pin out of the grenade with his teeth. He waited for three seconds until he was about to turn a corner. “This time,” he said, and hurled it out.
Belinda looked back again, feeling as though her soul had been torn away. Horrified, she watched as the grenade detonated under the SUV, the explosion annihilating it. Metal and upholstery sprayed across the road and over the edge of the cliff. “No!” she cried.
Thirty-Nine
Manhunt
Brian Malone had been driving his new Mercedes-Benz for three hours. He pulled over in the wilderness just north of Asheville, North Carolina. His wife, Angela, sat beside him, and their eighteen-year-old son, Joe, sat in the back seat.
“I need to take a leak,” Brian said, and stepped out of the car.
Angela rolled her eyes impatiently. “Couldn’t you have gone before we left?”
“That was three hours ago.”
Joe climbed out and joined his father.
“Do you think we’ll get there this year?” Angela said. She received no reply.
Brian and Joe wandered into the wooded lot until they found a couple of trees to relieve themselves against.
“I don’t know how you put up with all that earache, Dad,” Joe said as he unzipped his fly.
“The joys of marriage, son.”
They heard the faint sound of a female screaming in the distance.
Joe’s head snapped up. “You hear that?”
Brian nodded and pointed to his left. “I think it came from over there.” He shook himself off and walked in the direction of the cry.
Joe followed as another scream came wailing through the trees.
“You killed him, you bastard!”
Brian and Joe ran through the woods until they saw abandoned gas station on the other side of the trees. Outside, some guy was manhandling a woman. Her hands looked as though they were cuffed behind her back, but she kicked frantically as he pulled her out of a Mustang.
“You’re going to be joining him, if you don’t shut the fuck up, bitch.”
Brian studied the victim and the assailant and memorized as much as he could before they disappeared into the gas station. Finally, he turned back to Joe. “Whatever you just saw, remember as many details as you can. We just witnessed a kidnapping.”
They turned and ran back through the woods.
As they reached the Mercedes, Angela’s scornful face was clearly visible through the open window. “What on earth took you so long?” she said.
After what he’d just seen, Brian’s intolerance surfaced. With his index finger in her face, he said, “Shut up, and pass me my cell phone.”
; She appeared to be stunned by his aggression.
“Now!” Brian said, and held his hand out.
Angela reached into the glove compartment and handed the phone to him.
Hurriedly, he punched in 9-1-1.
***
Director Elias Wolfe studied the files on his desk with obsessive focus. His life had become consumed with getting to the bottom of the Treadwell mystery. The moment he first realized the Delta Unit’s contact number on McKay’s cell phone contained a high-level security SDT prefix code, his blood had turned to ice.
Almost immediately afterwards, Drake turned the camera on Payne and his two accomplices, Ogilsby and Woodford, for the entire nation to see.
Now, Treadwell was dead, Payne was missing, and the more Wolfe delved into Treadwell’s affairs, the more he realized how far the man’s operation extended. He’d uncovered mentions of Everidge, Carringby, and Colton Ranch, but he couldn’t ascertain if there were cells of the Central Intelligence Agency involved, or if was restricted to SDT. Treadwell’s personnel would have bypassed their annual polygraph tests. With nothing known of Treadwell’s operation, the test questions wouldn’t have been relevant. There was also the likelihood they would have learned polygraph bypassing techniques from outside the intelligence community.
Wolfe had discovered connections between Treadwell, a corrupt arms dealer, and several independent mercenary groups. The senator had negotiated billions of dollars’ worth of arms deals over a ten year period. Hundreds of millions had been siphoned away to a bank account in Switzerland, enabling him to finance his entire murderous operation. It had all occurred right under the radar of the US government and two presidents, without even a hint of exposure.
Particularly intriguing to Wolfe was the discovery of several payments made by Treadwell to a neurobiologist based in New Hampshire, and the repetition of Brandon Drake’s name on all associated files.
He was startled out of his deep thoughts by a knock on the door. “Come in.”
Deborah Beaumont, Wolfe’s assistant, stepped into the office. An officious-looking brunette in her late thirties, Wolfe had always appreciated her deep commitment to professionalism. “Agents McKay and Wilmot to see you, sir.”
“Send them in.” Wolfe turned to the two operatives with a humorless expression as Deborah closed the door behind her. “Are Ogilsby and Woodford singing?”
“Not yet, but we think Woodford is getting closer to loosening up,” McKay said. “Ogilsby has a will of iron.”
Wolfe rubbed his chin in contemplation. “I’m going to propose a deal to them. The death penalty, or parole after thirty if they surrender information leading to the capture of Gary Payne.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And make sure this is kept away from the TV and radio stations. I don’t trust that Hobson, in particular. That little weasel would start a goddamn civil war just to pay for his next vacation.”
“No details have been leaked. We’ve made sure of that, sir,” Wilmot said. “They’re not even certain Payne, Ogilsby, and Woodford were with the agency.”
“Good. Now you two get back out to the jail and find out what you can about Payne. You absolutely have got to track that animal down.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wolfe waited for them to leave and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Heaven help us all.”
***
McKay and Wilmot followed two stern-eyed corrections officers along a bleak, dimly lit corridor in a remote section of DC Central Detention Facility.
Wilmot and McKay knew they were fortunate not to have spent time in the jail themselves for their part in assisting Treadwell. Ultimately, their claim of being ignorant of any knowledge of what the senator had been doing had been accepted.
They finally reached a door at the end of the corridor. The guard to Wilmot’s right took a key card from his belt, inserted it into the reader, and opened the door. The two agents stepped inside the gray, sterile-looking interview room. McKay closed the door behind them.
Ogilsby and Woodford sat handcuffed, wearing customary orange prison uniforms at a long desk in the middle of the room. After being transported from the Los Angeles Police Department, they’d been confined to solitary. This was their first hour out of the hole.
McKay had studied the information that had, so far, been prized out of the two killers. They’d been cautiously recruited by Treadwell six years previously. Both were ambitious, and it hadn’t taken Treadwell many months to determine that power and money were their primary interests in life. Ogilsby and Woodford were highly-trained, experienced killers, completing the perfect criteria for the senator’s agenda.
McKay sat at the table opposite the prisoners and wasted no time getting down to business. He eyeballed Timothy Ogilsby on the left. “We have a proposition for you.”
“And what would that be?” Ogilsby’s cruel eyes and towering frame seemed threatening even through the cuffs and the jumpsuit. His short-cropped, army-style haircut further enhanced his rugged square jaw.
“Look Ogilsby, don’t be a wise guy. We’re here to offer you a break. Or do you enjoy the décor in here?”
“What break?”
“Right now, you’re both looking at lethal injection,” McKay said. “If you cooperate, Wolfe will pull a few strings to reduce it to life with the possibility of parole in thirty.”
“Thirty years?” Ogilsby barked. “I’ll be sixty-fucking-nine, you son of a bitch.”
“And the innocent people you gunned down will still be fucking dead.”
“You can’t prove who killed who, ass-wipe, so don’t give me any of that. I wanna see a lawyer.”
“You know that’s not going to happen,” Wilmot said casually. “You were involved in attacks against government installations, treason, mass murder, and conspiracy. You’re a national security risk with access to inside secrets. That’s why you’re being detained here, away from the rest of the prison population.”
“I’ve still got my goddamn rights, Andy.”
McKay shook his head smiling. “The Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act. They can keep you here on suspicion of picking your nose if they want to, and for however long. You know that.”
Woodford looked at Wilmot and finally spoke. “What do they want from us?”
Ogilsby rolled his eyes as though he perceived his co-conspirator’s compliance as weakness, and turned back to Wilmot and McKay. “Don’t give us any of your self-righteous crap. You were involved too.”
“I was in the dark, and I certainly wasn’t a party to the killings,” McKay said.
Wilmot interjected. “They don’t want the two of you anywhere near as much as they want Payne. Now, we need to know. Where is he likely to be?”
There was an uneasy pause as Ogilsby and Woodford looked at one another in a short moment of silent conference.
“Information leading to capture will save your lives,” Wilmot prompted them.
“I have no idea where Payne is, believe me,” Woodford said, almost pleadingly.
“Well, can either of you give us any indication of his characteristics? You worked much closer with the guy than we ever did. Anything to help us build up a profile. You know the drill. The smallest details can lead to a capture.”
After a moment of silence, Ogilsby said, “Drake.”
McKay looked at him, puzzled. “Drake? What did Payne have to do with Drake?”
“No, no, you’re not getting me. He hasn’t got anything to do with him. He just needed to catch him.”
“Why?”
“For some reason, Treadwell left money he owed to Payne with Drake. He needed to get Drake in order to find out where it was, and then he was going to get out of the country. He was going to pay Woodford and me a hundred grand each to help him.”
McKay glanced at Wilmot. If Payne wanted Drake, they knew they were talking to the wrong men.
“So, did Belinda Reese have anything to do with the attacks, or not?” M
cKay said.
“No, of course not.”
“OK, let’s look into Drake,” Wilmot said. “If we can locate him, we might, just might, nail Payne.”
Woodford began to perspire. “What about us?”
“What about you?”
“C-can you get us a deal?”
Wilmot shrugged and stood to leave. “It isn’t up to us.”
Ogilsby stood sharply. “Hey, hey, now wait a minute. I just gave you two bastards a lead. Now you do your part.”
Wilmot reached into his inside pocket, took out a pen and a folded piece of paper, and placed them on the desk. “The names of each and every operative involved in Treadwell’s plot, and we’ll see if we can get you the thirty-til-parole.”
McKay knocked on the door for the guards to release them.
Moments later they were gone, leaving Ogilsby and Woodford to their fears.
An hour later, McKay and Wilmot stood in Wolfe’s office, conveyed what Woodford and Ogilsby had told them, and awaited directions.
Wolfe stood facing the back wall with his hands clasped behind his back. “I’ll have the all-points bulletin on Belinda Reese lifted immediately. As a matter of fact, I should have done that some time ago. Any fool would’ve seen she had nothing to do with it.”
Wilmot stepped forward. “Sir, the Dodge Sprinter Drake abandoned on the highway in Wyoming was traced to a dealer in Aspen, Colorado. Maybe that’s a lead on where he could be located.”
“Thoroughly investigated,” Wolfe said. “The description of the man who bought it was twice Drake’s age. Of course, that could have been Drake in disguise, but the kid’s an itinerant. The location of anything he bought wouldn’t tell us a damn thing about where he’s really holed up.”
There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Wolfe said.
Deborah Beaumont entered.
“Yes, Deborah.”
“Sir, we’ve just had word that the police in Asheville, North Carolina, received a report of a man answering Agent Payne’s description assaulting a woman matching Belinda Reese’s. It’s believed he’s kidnapped her.”
