Name Not Given

by Scott Blade

  I saw it was one of the guys who rode with us the other night. One of Clayton’s guys.

  He stopped on the side of the house. He was smoking a cigarette.

  He smoked it and flicked it out on the grass. He turned and walked back the way he had come.

  I jumped up and ran after him. I slowed my pace as I neared the corner. I peeked around it. He was walking slowly.

  I crept up close behind him, as close as I was comfortable with. Then I ran faster and he heard me. He turned around fast.

  I flipped the Glock in my hand and used the side of it as a knuckleduster. I punched him square in the face. I heard the bones in his nose crack. He went back off his feet like a puppet with the strings cut.

  I jumped on top of him before he could scream out. I kneed him right in the chest, just above the solar plexus, took the breath out of him. He held onto his nose with both hands. Blood gushed out of it.

  I pushed the Glock into his neck.

  He felt it. He looked at me with horror in his eyes.

  I asked, “How many of Clayton’s guys are inside?”

  He said nothing.

  I used my left hand and punched him square on the back of his hands, crushing them into his broken nose. He screamed as loud as a man with no air could scream, which wasn’t loud at all.

  “How many? I won’t ask again.”

  “Three. And me.”

  I nodded. That was what I had thought. The other night, Clayton had picked us up with a driver and then there were the three other guys, counting this one. Five total. He had a crew of five, counting Clayton. But they were short a man. One of them was dead. The one who had been scoping the sailboat in the car, waiting for us to play along. He wore the mask, pretended to be the dead son, and ambushed us.

  But he was dead now. That left the four of them remaining.

  Three in the house and him. That’s five total.

  “Don’t kill me,” he said.

  “Which one of you killed Karen Dekker?”

  “What?”

  “Was it you?”

  “No. No. That was Clayton. All Clayton.”

  I came down close to him.

  I said, “But you knew about it, right?”

  He said nothing.

  I came back up and pointed the Glock in his face. He stayed still.

  I stood up off him. And then as fast as I could I dropped a knee down on him—hard as I could. This time I didn’t land on his chest. I landed on his throat, crushing his larynx.

  I got up and watched him squirm around, gasping for air that wouldn’t come.

  He was dead in less than a minute.

  I searched his pockets and found nothing of interest except for his weapon, another SIG SAUER. I took it, and unloaded it, dry fired it, like I did the Glock. It worked. I reloaded the magazine and chambered it as well.

  I left the dead former Secret Service agent there.

  I stood up. The ringing in my ears was still there. My vision was still okay. And I didn’t feel bad, but when I stood up, I felt lightheaded.

  Not now, I thought.

  In the SEALs teams, if this had been a mission, I would’ve had backup and state-of-the-art equipment and intel and a plan.

  I had no plan. My plan was to kill them all.

  I continued to go straight in the direction the dead guy was going. I walked past windows with lights on, but I saw no movement in them.

  I heard music playing from the second floor.

  I ended up coming around the house to the front. I stopped at the driveway. No one was out front, but there was a garage and the door was open.

  I peered in. Saw a black car, like the one I saw at the harbor, but not the same one because the driver of that car was dead.

  I walked into the garage. There was a door that led into the house. I almost opened it, but I stopped and stepped back.

  There was a long workbench with tools laid out above it.

  I saw that each tool had a designated place or hook to hang on with an outline of the tool. I noticed a hammer was missing. It must’ve been the one the masked man had with him.

  There was no other hammer, but there was a crowbar. It was a black steel thing, with fine craftsmanship spent making it. I knew quality when I saw it. And this was a fine tool.

  I smiled because I needed a melee weapon. I couldn’t just start picking off the rest of his crew with bullets. Gunshots make a lot of noise. Crowbars are quieter.

  I slipped the crowbar off its hook and felt it in my hand. It was lightweight, but hard.

  I took it in my left hand and held the Glock in my right.

  The door led to the pantry. I passed through it, slowly. And walked into the kitchen, where I found the male nurse. Whose name I had forgotten.

  He was trying to put one half of a sandwich in his mouth when he saw me. Instead, he froze.

  To be honest, I wasn’t sure where to categorize him. I doubted that he had anything to do with the crimes that this house had committed. On the other hand, he wasn’t innocent. Being an accessory is still a crime.

  I had to take him out. But I didn’t have to kill him. I walked up to him, pointed the Glock at him. He didn’t say a word. He dropped the sandwich. It fell to the floor.

  I stuck the gun in his face and asked, “Where are the car keys?”

  He said nothing, but pointed to a drawer under the countertop.

  I put the crowbar on the table in front of him and reached down and bunched up the collar of his shirt. I pulled him to his feet and dragged him over to the drawer.

  “Get them.”

  He slid open the drawer and pulled the keys out.

  I checked down the hallway and then pulled him back through the pantry into the garage.

  “Pop the trunk,” I commanded.

  He pressed a button on the key and the trunk popped open.

  I dragged him over to it and said, “Get in.”

  He got in.

  “Keys?” I asked with my free hand open.

  He put the keys in my palm.

  “Cellphone,” I commanded.

  He didn’t argue. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to me.

  “Keep quiet.”

  He nodded.

  I slammed the trunk shut and locked the car. Tossed the phone and the keys onto the workbench. I figured the cops would find him. I wasn’t concerned with him identifying me, not then. All that was on my mind was Talbern.

  I went back into the kitchen and picked up the crowbar and continued down the hall.

  I searched the bottom floor and found no one. There was nothing but huge, empty rooms.

  I turned and walked up the stairs to the top floor. I heard laughing and music.

  First, I checked all of the rooms on my way to the source of the music. They were all empty.

  The room with the music and voices was Dayard’s bedroom.

  I walked to it and heard footsteps. I backed up and waited.

  One of the guards walked out. It was one of Clayton’s guys. He had been on the helicopter with us.

  He stopped outside the door on his way to the bathroom. He froze and stared right at me.

  I cracked him in the face, as hard as I could with the crowbar. He dropped like a ton of bricks. Blood gushed out a gaping wound was left on his forehead.

  He was probably dead. I wasn’t sure.

  Then I heard Clayton’s voice from the bedroom.

  “Sanson, you out there? What the hell was that?”

  No more sneaking around, I thought.

  I burst through the open doorway.

  The room was the same as it had been the other night, only now it was full of energy and life. It almost seemed like a different place.

  The secretary sat in his chair, only now he was wearing a suit without a tie. Sitting across from him, where I had sat, was his son. He wore a shirt and tie, not jacket.

  Clayton stood in the center of the room, facing me, and holding a brandy snifter. The last one of his
guys leaned against the fireplace, smoking a cigar.

  Then I noticed that so were both Dayards. They had cigars hanging from their fingers.

  A CD player was playing old soft rock music over a big loud speaker. The song I didn’t recognize, but it was something somber and probably from the nineteen fifties.

  Then there was Talbern. She was in the same seat that she had been in a couple of nights ago. Her hands were tightly duct-taped out in front of her. She had a black ball gag stuffed in her mouth, with a black leather contraption strapped around her head.

  She was fully clothed, but she was missing her shoulder rig and her jacket. She had a torn-up top and trousers. She wore no shoes.

  Her face wasn’t beaten, but she had tears streaming down her face. She looked terrified.

  Clayton stayed standing, but he started to move his hand down to his gun, which was under his suit jacket. I saw it.

  I glanced over at the other guy. He was wearing his as well. I saw he was thinking about going for it. I saw it in his eyes.

  Both Dayards had no guns. Their hands were visible.

  I said, “Which one of you killed Karen Dekker?”

  No answer. I kept the Glock pointed at Clayton. He didn’t move.

  I said, “Dayard, you were convincing. A sick old man. A military man. Like me. You read through my files. Did you get a psychological profile of me too?”

  He was quiet.

  “You gave me that bullshit about your family and your cancer, which might be real. Hell, I don’t know. But then you laid it on thick about your sons.”

  I walked into the room more and dropped the crowbar.

  “You knew that I’d pick up on John Jr. You gave me that whole charade about losing your son. I doubt you even gave a shit about that one. I’m thinking that he wasn’t the only one with psychological problems. I’m sure you passed that psycho shit off to both of them. One son kills himself years ago and the other one turns out to be a serial killer. Then he gets caught. So, you plant the seed that maybe it’s not James. He’s the good son. It was John. Only he’s really dead.

  “You get Clayton here to kill another girl same as the ones that James murdered just so the FBI would have to stop the execution.”

  Dayard said, “Widow, we can work this out. I have what I want. What do you want?”

  I ignored him.

  “How did you get Dekker to go along with it?” I asked Clayton.

  He didn’t speak.

  “You only had a few days to save James from lethal injection and you didn’t have a woman who actually went AWOL. So, you had to have tricked her somehow to pretend to. I figure you promised Dekker money. She had just gotten orders that she didn’t want. She wanted out. So, you lured her out to the boat. She thought that you were going to fake her death, but then you killed her. Is that right?”

  Clayton said nothing.

  “I figure that she was your best candidate. You concocted this whole scenario where John Jr. was out there, still alive, living on a boat somewhere. He traveled up to Florida and found Dekker. Killed her. Setting this whole thing into motion. But you didn’t count on me finding her dog tags. You planned for someone to find her body.

  “But once you learned who I was, you manipulated me from the start.”

  Dayard said, “It’s all water under the bridge now. Widow, don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

  I stayed quiet, kept my eyes on Clayton.

  Dayard said, “Widow, I have money. I can make you a rich man. I have influence. You would be shocked at what power can get you in this world.”

  “Which one of you killed Dekker?” I asked Clayton, again.

  He said, “Does it matter?”

  I shrugged and shot him in his chest.

  Clayton flew back off his feet. Blood splattered across the center of the room. It sprayed across Dayard’s face.

  The last of Clayton’s guys went for his gun. I turned faster and squeezed the trigger of the Glock, twice.

  Two bullets tore through his center mass. Red mist sprayed up into the air.

  The guy flew forward and crashed on the coffee table in front of Talbern.

  I turned the Glock to James Dayard.

  He didn’t move.

  “Widow, no! Don’t!” his father begged.

  James Dayard started to speak. He mumbled a word, but I had no idea what. My ears weren’t ringing anymore. They were buzzing hard. The Glock’s gunshots were deafening to me. The doctor had told me to avoid loud noises.

  I said, “Don’t speak.”

  I shot him once, center mass. I heard his father scream and drop his drink and cigar. He leapt out of his chair and across to his son. He planted two hands on the hole that used to be James Dayard’s chest.

  For a guy with terminal cancer he moved pretty fast.

  I felt dizzy again.

  I walked over to Talbern and grabbed the duct tape with my free hand and ripped it off.

  She did the rest of it and pulled out her ball gag. She tore the leather straps that held it on and dropped them to the floor.

  She jumped up and hugged me tight.

  I held her back.

  Dayard continued to hoot and holler. I ignored him and pulled Talbern away from the sofa and out to the hallway.

  “Wait for me. Bottom of the stairs,” I said, giving her the SIG SAUER.

  She didn’t argue, which I had expected.

  I walked back into the room.

  Gun smoke filled the air.

  “General,” I called Dayard. He turned and looked at me.

  He didn’t speak, didn’t call out.

  I shot him in the head. He dropped back onto his son.

  I slipped the Glock back into my pocket and bent over, picked up the crowbar, and wiped my fingerprints off it with the bottom of my shirt. Tossed it back to the ground.

  I went back out and down the hall and the stairs.

  Talbern grabbed me and hugged me tight again.

  “I thought I was dead. I thought they were going to kill me.”

  “It’s over now.”

  She didn’t let go.

  I held her for a long moment and then I said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  She followed me back out of the house. We went through the backyard and back to the wall that I had leapt over.

  I lifted her up and over and then I followed. We ran down the beach, back to the police car.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  I took the Glock and threw it into the water and told her to ditch the SIG SAUER.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Talbern, we can’t be here. I just killed a US secretary of defense.”

  She nodded and threw the gun after mine.

  “What if they link my fingerprints in the house?”

  “That’s okay. We were here before. But we don’t need to leave fingerprints on stolen guns.”

  “Have you done this before?” she asked.

  I stayed quiet.

  We got into the car and drove off.

  EPILOGUE

  I DIDN’T RETURN to the hospital.

  We drove all night and the next day and most of that night until we ended up in Jacksonville, Florida.

  I spent a couple of nights at Talbern’s apartment, five nights to be exact. She didn’t go back to work, not yet. She had spoken on the phone with Pawn. He mentioned the guy in the trunk. A witness. He also mentioned that the guy couldn’t remember who he had seen.

  Something told me it was only after Pawn had convinced him to forget.

  We lay in bed, naked. And we heard the rain pound on her windows.

  She said, “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “We should go to Jamaica, like for real.”

  “How long are you going to stay away from work?”

  “I don’t know. I feel safe in your arms. I don’t want to go back.”

  I thought about that for a long moment.


  “What are you going to do?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked her.

  “Are you going to stick around?”

  I wanted to lie to her. But I wasn’t good at lying.

  I said, “I don’t stick around. I need to move.”

  “Wish I could go with you.”

  “You can do whatever you want.”

  She rolled over and faced me, ran her fingers over my chest.

  “Do you want me to go with you?”

  I thought for a moment. I didn’t like lying. I was no good at it. So, I didn’t lie.

  “I do.”

  She smiled and kissed me and we did all the things that we had been doing for five days.

  I stayed another day and night and morning. But by that afternoon, I was back on the road. Talbern had decided to return to work. She had lots to do. She needed to debrief. And apparently, someone assassinated Dayard, killing all his men and his son.

  The FBI thought that it was a whole, well-trained wet work crew. They were most likely foreign. She said that it was a huge mess. And Pawn had asked for her specifically to come and help.

  That last day Talbern dropped me off at a bus stop in Jacksonville.

  I bought a ticket west.

  THE MIDNIGHT CALLER

  Book Seven

  A Jack Widow Thriller

  Scott Blade

  Preorder is available now!

  Former undercover Navy cop Jack Widow is in New York City. Today is his birthday. He’s spent the day riding around the subway, walking the streets, and sipping coffee in Central Park. Enjoying the tourist life.

  While, Widow is sitting in a café, he gets a phone call on the landline, which is strange enough. But it’s an old friend.

  Rachel Cameron calls him to wish him happy birthday.

  She has a surprise for him.

  She bought him a room for three nights at the Ritz Carlton.

  Gratefully, he accepts. What a great way to spend his birthday. Or is it?

  At midnight, the telephone rings, waking Widow from a dead sleep.

  A woman with a stimulating accent tries to speak to him in Russian. She makes a brief declaration and then realizes that she has the wrong room number.