by R. G. Ryan
He was quiet for a second, and then he said, “Hurt him, Jake. Hurt him bad.”
“No worries there, Mike. My problem is going to be figuring out how to keep myself from killing him.”
“From where I sit, that doesn’t sound like a problem I’d have to think about more than two or three seconds at the most.”
“Yeah, I know. Me too.”
“I should let you get on with it. I just wanted to get that off my chest.”
“I’m glad you did, Mike. And, please, take it easy on yourself.”
“I’m working on it, Jake. I am. Really.”
“Okay, buddy. I’ll let you know when there is anything worth knowing.”
“All right.”
And with that, he disconnected the call.
I couldn’t believe what he’d just told me. The sheer audacity—no, strike that…the sheer balls it took for Morgan to actually go into Michael’s home and play him like that was stunning in its boldness. Which led me to believe that Morgan must be, at the very least, marginally unhinged—a thought that led me down some dusty trails of memory to the months immediately following Muriel and Cassie’s rescue.
I had called in a few favors from the Agency and requested everything they could find on Paul Morgan—employment records, medical records, housing, credit, hell, anything that would give me a picture of who he really was. The memory that had suddenly presented itself was of a psychiatric profile from a teen halfway house in Seattle. Apparently, at some point Morgan had applied to be a counselor there. It would have been like hiring an alcoholic as night watchman at the Jack Daniel’s distillery. Anyway, their policy dictated that new employees had to submit to a complete psychiatric workup. In Morgan’s case, the profile revealed that he had borderline dissociative identity disorder, or multiple personalities. What if it had only grown stronger over the years to the extent that someone else, so to speak, was now driving the bus? And what if this personality manifested as the bold, conniving, and exceptionally clever individual Michael had encountered?
“Everything okay?” Redfern asked over the headset.
“I don’t know. I just learned how Morgan was able to find Cassie so easily.”
“Yeah? How’s that?”
I told him the story that Michael had relayed to me.
Redfern turned around in his seat, peering back at me.
“That’s possibly the ballsiest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Morgan’s an interesting man. Evil, but interesting. He is a conundrum of cunning and brashness while at the same time being entirely cowardly at his core. Couple that with a finely tuned sense of self preservation, and he makes for a fairly daunting opponent.”
I left out the dissociative identity disorder angle for the present.
Redfern said, “I’ve dealt with guys like that my entire career. What makes Morgan different from them?”
I had to think about how to answer the question without giving away my suspicion.
“I don’t know, Gerry. But I know there’s something there—something that sets him apart from any other bad guy I’ve ever encountered. If I were a religious person, I’d be inclined to believe that there was something…I don’t know…almost demonic about him.”
Gerry started to answer, stopped and then replied, “But…we both know that can’t be real. I mean, right?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know, my friend. I really don’t know.”
I had a feeling I was about to find out the truth.
Chapter Seventeen
In spite of the growing darkness, Cassie had gone outside in yet another attempt at figuring out their location. Walking toward the rough, barely discernable two-track dirt road that dead-ended in the small, box canyon where the house sat, the only thing she could see was that there was absolutely nothing to see. After a fruitless ten minutes spent walking down the road, she returned to explore the outside area around the house.
Her conclusion was that it had to be one of those abandoned places she’d read about. Apparently, there were entire towns scattered throughout the desert that had grown up around gold and silver mines. Houses had been found with all the furniture in place, sometimes pots still on the stove and food on the table as if the former occupants had abandoned them suddenly years, even decades before, simply walking away and leaving everything behind. Many were uncharted and undiscovered by any save the occasional enterprising and dedicated desert explorer.
The condition of the roof and exterior paint certainly gave it the appearance of being quite old. When she came around the back corner she found the two small gasoline powered generators Eddie had told her about, along with an old-fashioned well and what looked to be an outhouse about twenty feet away. She figured that the presence of a functioning toilet, sink and clawfoot bathtub inside had to be a result of someone coming along and doing a bit of updating after the original residents had abandoned the place.
Her foot, though still extremely sore, was feeling a little better—good enough that her limp was negligible. That it had been injured at all still bothered her. She knew better. All of her training had taught her skills that were so grounded as to be virtually automatic in their employment. So why had she made such a horrible mistake when executing the roundhouse kick to the back of Paul Morgan’s head? It had to be the horse drugs he’d given her.
Had to be.
A sudden gust of brisk and bitter wind cut mercilessly through the thin, long-sleeved cotton shirt Eddie had found for her to wear. While making her way back to the front door, she hugged herself for warmth, shivering involuntarily. Pausing to glance at the white van before going inside, she thought something looked different but passed it off as her imagination running away from her.
“Is it really cold outside?” Eddie asked as soon as Cassie shut the door behind her.
“It’s that wind more than anything,” Cassie answered fighting off another involuntary shiver. “It just seems to cut right through you. It would help if I had a coat.”
“Paul has a coat and a hoodie,” Eddie said, matter-of-factly.
“Really?” Cassie asked incredulously. “Where?”
“Umm, let’s see. I think the coat’s in the van—not sure about the hoodie. Do you want me to go look? No, wait, the van’s locked and I don’t know where he hid the keys. Sorry.”
Cassie fingered the thin material of her shirt.
“That’s okay. Inside the house here it’s not that bad. I just need to find something else to put on.”
Eddie sighed in frustration.
“Besides a couple more shirts, I don’t know if there are any other clothes besides what we have on.”
“Maybe we should do an inventory and see what we have in the way of wearable items. They’re filthy, but I could always put on the clothes I was wearing. I mean at this point, anything will help. How about you?”
“Well, Paul didn’t let me pack much, but I wore a shirt and a hoodie when we…you know…took you, and I have another shirt and pair of pants. I guess we’re both down to the basics, huh?”
Cassie scanned the small front room.
“Maybe Paul has something we can use. Where are his things?”
Eddie pointed to a backpack in the far corner.
“That’s all I saw him with.”
The past couple of hours had been spent taking turns keeping an eye on Paul Morgan—during which time he had remained sleeping—and trying to come to terms with the seriousness of their situation. They needed the key to the van. Paul knew where it was. When Cassie had asked him about it before, his response, at least the part that didn’t include copious amounts of profanity and describing what he was going to do to both of them when he was free, had been to just grin and laugh wildly.
Besides the cold and exhaustion, hunger was becoming a real problem as well. Having eaten the last of the food, they were both ravenously hungry. On the plus side water was apparently, and fortuna
tely, in abundance courtesy of the outside well and a large container in the kitchen. It wasn’t particularly good water, but it was wet and would suffice.
Cassie looked at her watch and realized that it had been over an hour since they had checked on Paul.
“Eddie, how about checking on Paul,” Cassie said as she rummaged through the pitifully few items of clothing in Paul’s suitcase.
“Sure,” Eddie replied while walking the short distance to the bedroom door where she opened it a crack and peered inside.
Suddenly she flung the door open all the way and shouted to Cassie, “He’s not here!”
Cassie hobbled over to the doorway and edged past Eddie holding the remote control for the collar with her thumb firmly on the trigger. Paul was indeed absent. She stood in the middle of the bedroom attempting to reconcile what she was seeing with the precautions they had taken to secure him. The collar, which had been torn in two, was placed neatly on top of the mattress, while the rope that had been secured to the headboard and the electrical cord they had used to bind his hands were coiled up right beside it.
“That’s not possible!” she muttered under her breath.
Stepping forward, she stared through an opening in the window that was just wide enough to accommodate his exit.
She had started to comment when she heard the sound of the van’s engine turning over. She and Eddie immediately ran out of the bedroom toward the front door, throwing it open just in time to see Paul driving away spinning gravel as he accelerated.
They could do nothing but stand helplessly and watch the van grow smaller and smaller as it disappeared into the distance.
“How did he do that?” Eddie asked, her voice breathless with wonder.
“I don’t know. It’s impossible, and yet…”
Eddie sat down on the ground and started to cry as Cassie leaned against the doorjamb and called upon all her will power to prevent herself from doing the same. This was not the time to fall apart! This was the time to rise to the challenge and—who was she kidding! With the wind picking up in intensity and both of them already weak from hunger, there was no way she and Eddie could walk the thirty miles to the nearest road.
“Eddie,” Cassie said gently.
Eddie looked up with eyes so devoid of hope that Cassie nearly lost it.
“Yeah?”
“Listen, we’ve got to keep it together now. We can’t allow ourselves the luxury of falling apart even though we may feel like it.”
“But, what are we going to do?” Eddie began to sob once more.
“Well, I could lie to you and tell you about this great plan I’ve cooked up, but to be honest, I don’t have a clue. But we’ll think of something,” Cassie said bravely as she stared off into the distance in the direction of Paul’s escape.
“What if he comes back?” Eddie asked, fear suddenly freezing her voice.
Cassie hadn’t thought about that possibility, but had to concede the validity of such a consideration.
“I guess that’s something we’ll have to figure out when and if it happens,” she replied as a wind-driven cloud of dust swirled around them. “Come on, we’d better get back inside.”
Eddie stood and they both went back inside but not before each gave a parting glance down the roadway. Eddie continued to whimper softly as Cassie shut the door against the bitter cold. The desolation of their surroundings matched the desolation she felt in her spirit.
“Okay, let’s talk about this,” Cassie said, figuring that talking about their situation would help gain a measure of control for both of them over their emotions.
“I don’t know what there is to talk about,” Eddie sighed dejectedly. “Paul is gone along with the van. And unless you want to start hiking in that freezing wind, we’re sorta stuck.”
“Thirty miles,” Cassie mused. “Who says it’s thirty miles?”
“Paul said that it was thirty miles to the road if you knew which direction to go. Otherwise you could wander—“
“Right. But what if he was lying? He’s lied about everything else in his life, why should he be telling the truth about that one thing?”
“So, maybe it’s only ten miles instead of thirty!” Eddie said sarcastically.
Cassie scolded, “You’re not helping things here, Eddie.”
“I’m sorry, Cass. I just can’t see the point. Whether it’s thirty miles, ten miles or five miles we still don’t know the right direction.”
Cassie thought for a moment before answering, “And what if the direction is right down that road out there? What if it’s down that road and it’s only a few miles? Paul went that direction, didn’t he?”
Eddie looked at Cassie then out the window and back again.
“Okay. I see what you’re saying. You’re thinking that he made up a bunch of weird stuff just to mess with our minds and get us thinking we’re like, really isolated out here and that there’s no way out, when really, we’re not that far from people who could help us.” Eddie stared out at the roadway. “Do you really think it’s possible?” She looked back at Cassie. “I mean, you’re not just saying all this stuff to cheer me up or something?”
“I’ve got a feeling about this and I’ve got to at least check it out.”
“But what if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not wrong!” Cassie replied with a confidence she didn’t feel. “Besides, I know my uncle is trying to find me and he’s the best in the world…” her voice broke, and she took a moment to recover. “He’s the best in the world at finding people.”
Eddie was nodding her head.
“Yeah, I vaguely remember him when he rescued you and Muriel and beat Paul half to death.” Her eyes looked far away inwardly for a few seconds. “That was a great day. I hope he finds us—him—only this time finishes the job.”
“I can promise you,” Cassie answered with some heat. “That if Paul Morgan is stupid enough to challenge Jake, he will be a dead man.”
They both sat silently for a few moments until Cassie’s eye fell upon the SatPhone Morgan had left behind.
She held it up.
“I totally forgot that we had this.”
Eddie looked at the phone and then said dejectedly, “It won’t work unless you have the code to unlock it.”
“Then, we’ve just got to be smarter than him and bust the code.” Cassie was silent for a few seconds and then added, “Okay, let me think out-loud for a minute: The two main obstacles are cold and hunger. Hunger we can’t do anything about. Cold we may be able to overcome by wearing layers of clothing and by using some of that bedding to wrap around us like a poncho, or something.” She held up the cell phone. “This is our biggest asset.”
“But, how do we make it work?”
“I guess we start trying every combination of numbers we can think of and hope something clicks.”
“I’ll go get the stuff off the bed,” Eddie said while standing and hurrying toward the bedroom.
“And I’ll get the clothing laid out and try to find something to carry water in,” Cassie replied. “We’re going to be all right, Eddie. Jake is coming for us. The whole FBI is coming for us.”
How she hoped it would be true.
Chapter Eighteen
As we flew over the Las Vegas Strip I felt an intense sense of…something. It was hard to pin down. It wasn’t fear, because I had no fear of Paul Morgan. And it wasn’t dread, because if you want to know the truth, I was looking forward to finishing what I had started and bringing about a final reckoning. It was more like a sense of foreboding that something dark— something ominous—was hovering on the fringe of my consciousness. Once again I recalled my dream and the brooding presence awaiting Cassie just over the crest of the next dune.
Was it only a dream…or was there something it portended?
The sun had dipped well past the horizon and its twilight rays were painting a multi-hued masterpiece against the clouds. Juxtaposed with my tho
ughts it presented a jarring contrast.
“Ten minutes to insertion,” Gerry said over the comm.
“Roger that.”
He turned in his seat.
“You sure about this, Jake? Because I’ve got three good agents more than willing to go in with you.”
“I’m sure. But, thanks for the offer.”
“All right. But we’re going to establish a landing zone and create an operational base within five minutes of where we put you down. You just give a holler and we’ll be there.”
“I’m counting on it,” I replied while pressing my face closer to the glass and attempting to catch a glimpse of the terrain flying by five hundred feet below us.
I felt the chopper slowing and beginning a gradual descent.
Redfern said, “We’ll have you on the ground in five.”
I began a quick inventory of my gear. During the rescue of Gaspard Ducharme three months earlier, I had used some firearms borrowed from his personal arsenal and had fallen in love with several. As a result, I now carried a Sig Sauer P226 Tacops .357 pistol, a DP-12 tactical 12-gauge shotgun and an HK416 with Nightforce optics. All of which were packed carefully inside my tactical bag along with enough extra ammo to hold off a small attack force. Overkill? No, more like pre-emptive preparation against being killed. Last, but not least, given that deserts are not known for stellar cellular reception, I had a SatPhone with my cell number directed to it in case the in-ear comm system stopped working, as they have been known to do on many critical occasions.
The chopper slowed dramatically and began to hover.
Redfern’s voice crackled over the comm, “You ready, Jake?”
“Let’s do this!” I replied with more confidence than I felt.
One of the FBI agents who accompanied us threw open the side door and tossed out a Fast Rope giving me a “thumbs up” go signal.
I slung the tactical bag over my shoulder, cinched up my gloves, grabbed the rope and stepped out into the chopper’s downblast feeling like I was in a Category 4 hurricane. Sliding quickly to the ground, I released the rope and saw it jerked upward as the chopper arced off toward the west and the dying embers of the sunset.
