by Mark Nolan
“I may have no choice Father. He seems to have a personal grudge against me.”
“May angels protect you then. Are you married? Do you have children?”
“No but I worry about this criminal targeting my family and friends.”
O’Leary was an old-timer who had seen that kind of violence long ago as a young child in Belfast, Northern Ireland. When he heard Jake’s concern for his loved ones, he felt a familiar lump in his throat.
“Family and friends are what matter most in life. Can you ask your former government employers to help you with this problem?”
“I haven’t spoken to them for quite a while. I’ve avoided any contact because I was trying to put that violent life behind me.”
“As you should. You’ve done your duty in service to your country, and now you should leave the battles to others. It’s not your fight any longer. You can walk away.”
“Speaking of walking away, I’ve got to be going now. But I’d like to hear you say that I’m forgiven. You still do that kind of thing here right?”
“Yes of course,” O’Leary said, and he recited the prayers that he’d said so many times to so many anonymous people.
Jake stood on the kneeling pad and reached up and unscrewed the light bulb above his head so it would remain dark as he was leaving the booth. He didn’t look forward to going on the run again, but he was very much opposed to being put into a cage for a crime he didn’t commit.
“Let me ask you a philosophical question Padre,” Jake said as he opened the door a crack and looked out. “It’s in regards to a moral dilemma that I grapple with. The question is this: If a man like me had been able to assassinate Hitler or Stalin or Mao, and it might have saved the lives of tens of millions of innocent men, women and children… would God approve of the premeditated and cold blooded killing of that one man?”
“Well now, you do bring up a difficult moral dilemma. It is one that I’ve personally faced, years ago in Ireland. In theory, keeping in mind that the Bible says God approved of the killing of his own beloved son on the cross to save millions of souls, how could I judge someone wrong if he or she saved millions of lives by killing one evil person such as Hitler?”
O’Leary’s words went unanswered and he heard the door click shut as the man and his dog left the confessional booth. Then the realization struck him, of where he’d heard that deep voice before. It was a man who sometimes volunteered and helped feed the homeless at the soup kitchen dinners. “Oh my goodness, it was that rascal Jake Wolfe.”
Jake stepped out of the confessional booth, and his intuition of danger flared up again. His sensitivity was unexplainable, but he’d learned to trust it. He felt that hunters were closing in on his location, and a violent confrontation was imminent. The elderly Italian woman was slowly pushing open one of the great doors. Jake looked past her through the partly open door and saw a black SUV parked out front. Jake’s keen eyes noted the glow of someone drawing on a cigarette while standing behind the vehicle. He could just barely see the outline of a person leaning against the SUV in the dark.
“Cigarettes can be the death of you,” Jake said.
Chapter 86
When the large door at the front of the church was closing, Jake looked closely at the alcove and caught a glimpse of a uniformed cop hiding there. The inexperienced man leaned in for a quick look at the last moment and then ducked his head back out of sight. There were two hunters, one outside by the vehicle and another inside by the church’s door.
Cody let out a low growl, he was ready to fight, but Jake wanted to avoid any confrontation with the police. He turned in the opposite direction from the door, and they walked behind the altar and through the curtained alcove where the Priests entered to say mass. Jake found the back exit he’d seen earlier when he’d done recon outside of the building.
The two fugitives went out into the alleyway behind the church, staying close to the wall in the shadows in case a third hunter was waiting there. A thick fog was drifting down the alley and climbing over building walls and roofs. Jake saw the silver-haired Italian woman crossing the street in front of the alley. The vehicle still parked in front of the church.
Jake stepped back into the doorway alcove where he could not be seen, and he heard a sound in the room behind him. He swung around, raised his fists and prepared to deliver a quick knock-out blow to the opponent’s head. Cody stood still by his side, at attention with teeth bared but remaining quiet and ready to attack, obeying the hand signals Jake had given to him. The door opened slowly, and Father O’Leary appeared. Jake visibly relaxed, lowered his fists and gave Cody a command.
“I nearly broke your jaw Padre,” Jake said.
“And I almost gave you the shock of your life, young Mister Wolfe,” O’Leary said, lowering a Taser stun gun.
O’Leary watched Jake’s face change in a sort of metamorphosis. For a moment, it had shown the look of a warrior. Next, that emotion had melted away as it showed amusement at the Priest’s electric stun device. Finally, it had changed back to the guarded and world-weary face of a man who had seen too much, a man who had often been stabbed in the back by life. O’Leary knew the feeling, and he sometimes saw the same look on his own face when he looked in the mirror. His housekeeper called it his resting bitch face. That always made O’Leary smile, in spite of himself.
“Where is Mrs. Lombardi?”
“She walked down that street, she’s okay,” Jake said, tilting his head in her direction.
“It’s a good thing she’s okay,” O’Leary said, looking past Jake at the woman as she slowly walked away into the fog. “Her grandson is a Mafia soldier, and he’d become very upset if anyone bothered her.”
“I might know a cousin or someone in the family.”
“For some reason that doesn’t surprise me. Is that Stuart’s dog, from the funeral?”
“Yes Stuart’s parents thought it would be best if Cody lived with me, so I’m adopting him.”
O’Leary nodded in approval. “As for these men who are after you, I shocked one of them until smoke came out of his ears.”
“You tasered a police officer?”
“It was an accident, he surprised me.”
“The police should not be coming after me Father. I’m one of the good guys, and I’m on their side. We just have a temporary misunderstanding.”
Father O’Leary nodded thoughtfully. He approached closer to Jake and held up a photograph. “The man I shocked had your photo in his shirt pocket. And look at this.”
O’Leary held out his phone, and the display screen showed an internet news story by a reporter named Dick Arnold. It featured a photo of Jake’s face along with the words, Wanted by the FBI. The Bureau is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
That news scene cut to video of a woman telling Dick Arnold, “I was Jake’s high school sweetheart. I never knew then that I was dating a boy who would grow up to become a killer.”
Jake tried to remember the woman, and he decided she was nobody he’d ever known. She was just some crazy attention-seeking whacko. Another sound bite followed of a man who lived on a boat at the same harbor as Jake. “I guess you never really know your neighbors. Jake seemed like an ordinary guy. Although he was a loner who kept to himself.”
Jake sighed and shook his head at the stupidity of the average adult.
“The talking heads are saying you tried to shoot that fine woman Katherine Anderson,” O’Leary said. “But that doesn’t make any sense after what you’ve told me.”
“Katherine, how is she, is her baby alright?” Jake said. “I heard she was only hit by a paintball but still had to go to the hospital.”
“Yes I’ve only heard a bit of the news but the word is that she was not seriously injured,” O’Leary said, while studying the worry lines on Jake’s face. “You’re right that it was a red paintball, not a bullet. The baby is doing fine as well. Mrs. Anderson is only in the hospital because she went into shock. The doctors say she shou
ld be okay after some rest and recuperation.”
Jake’s shoulders slumped in relief. He closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and let it out. “I was worried about her and the baby. A criminal impersonated me. I wasn’t anywhere near the Moscone Center when it happened.”
“I hope you have a good alibi.”
“I do but in spite of my alibi I know that a lot of innocent people go to prison anyway.”
“I thought that might be you in the booth when you called me Padre, but you didn’t speak with a Spanish accent.”
“In the Marines we called any chaplain of any faith Padre.”
Jake leaned out and peeked around the corner of the doorway alcove. “There’s another cop in front of the church, smoking a cigarette next to an SUV. He’s just standing there waiting for me or his partner to walk out the front door. Any moment now he’s probably going to enter the church to see what’s taking so long. I’ve got to get going.”
“You’re an unusual man Jake. However, I think you and I may become good friends. Visit me again when you can. Here’s my private mobile phone number.”
Father O’Leary handed Jake a card and then tilted his head toward a wooden fence down the alley and said, “Use the hidden gate in that fence to go through the yard to the next street and be on your way. I’ve been saving some special Irish whiskey for a grand conversation. I say we open it the next time you visit. Hopefully under less stressful circumstances.”
Jake shook the priest’s hand and looked him in the eye.
“Thanks, I could use a friend like you,” Jake said. “So it’s true, you weren’t always a priest, were you?”
O’Leary got a sad look in his eyes, hooked a finger in his high collar and pulled it to the side, exposing a rope burn scar on his neck.
“I got this scar when I was a young child in Northern Ireland. On the night of Bloody Sunday, I was walking home in the dark— a drunken British soldier tried to hang me, and failed. A neighbor heard my cry for help and came to my assistance. The hangman ended up dead instead of me. The fortunes of war.”
“That was a day of tragedy for everyone on all sides.”
“I’ve never told anyone here about it until now. At first, I began this job as a kind of witness protection program. The job has grown on me over the years, and I try to help people here as best I can.”
“You’ve helped a lot of people, you are forgiven,” Jake said.
O’Leary gave a weary smile at Jake’s pardon, and said, “Go on with you now before that other police officer comes looking for you. Meanwhile, I’ll explain to the fine folks in law enforcement about this mysterious electric-shocking of a cop by some unseen assailant. The Taser hit the poor man right on the butt too. He won’t be able to sit down comfortably for a while.”
O’Leary set the stun gun inside a hidden cabinet, closed it and locked it, then nodded at Jake and walked out the door and down the alley toward the front of the church.
Jake and Cody made their way in the other direction, went through the gate in the fence, and vanished into the fog and darkness of the night.
The plainclothes police inspector standing next to the SUV used his compact night vision zoom binoculars to watch Jake and Cody make their escape. He made no move to chase after them or call for backup. The cop took a puff on his cigarette as he thought up a good lie to tell about how Jake Wolfe had magically given him the slip.
Father O’Leary walked slowly toward the cop, and when he was a few feet away, the police officer spoke to him.
“Hello Father, I’m Lieutenant Terrell Hayes with the San Francisco Police Department. I don’t suppose you’ve seen one of my men around here have you? I seem to have misplaced a rookie officer I’m supposed to be training tonight.”
O’Leary noticed the binoculars but he didn’t say anything about it. “Yes officer, I believe I can help you with that. Come this way please.”
“Thank you, Father.” Terrell tossed the binoculars on the driver’s seat of the vehicle and closed the car door.
As the two men walked toward the church, O’Leary said, “I believe I saw you at Stuart’s funeral, didn’t I?”
“Yes I was there, and that was a beautiful eulogy you gave. Stuart’s parents were comforted by your kind words.”
Father O’Leary nodded. “Such a tragic loss of a good lad.”
The priest and the cop turned and looked at each other as they walked, and their eyes shared a secret between them without speaking of it. They had both helped a wanted fugitive to escape from the law. Technically that was a serious crime, but both of them felt that in some situations the law was wrong, and the right thing to do was to question it and disobey it.
Terrell was taking a big risk here, but he was relieved that Jake had made his getaway. As long as his friend was out on the streets, he was capable of taking care of himself. Terrell would let his friend run free, and he’d hope for the best. He figured that if he got fired from the SFPD over this, he would just find some other career. He’d been looking for a job when this one had come along, and he could look again. He’d saved Jake’s life once already, and now he felt responsible for the fool. Jobs may come and go, but some friendships were forever.
Chapter 87
Zhukov sat in a parked car a couple of blocks away from the hospital where Katherine Anderson was staying. He looked at the building through a pair of high-powered binoculars and saw government vehicles coming and going. Serious-looking men and women were guarding the outside. Each of them wore a dark suit and had an earbud in one ear. There was the subtle bulge of a shoulder holster under their suit jackets.
Zhukov silently cursed them for being so good at their jobs. He studied the entrance to the parking garage. Security looked tight at the entrance and exit. He gazed up at the edge of the roof and saw a man lean over and look down at the street. Lastly, he checked out the buildings across the street from the hospital, in the front and back and sides. There were government people everywhere. He cursed and made a phone call.
“Yes Ivan,” Elena said.
“Didn’t you say you had a small, quiet drone the size of a toy remote-controlled plane, with a thermal camera attached for night work?” Zhukov said.
“Yes it’s powered by high-tech electric fans that are so quiet you can’t hear them.”
“That’s the one, I want you to fly it around the hospital and the nearby buildings, look in windows, check the rooftops, and maybe even fly in and out of the parking garage.”
“No problem, I can launch it within ten minutes.”
“Launch it in five minutes, and have a backup unit ready to fly as a replacement in case it gets shot down. Send the surveillance video to my phone.”
“I’ll send you a text when it’s in the air.”
Zhukov ended the call and said, “You’ve got to love technology. The Americans invent all of this amazing stuff and then other countries steal it and use it against them.”
Jake left the church and walked off into the night. He stayed on side streets and tried to stroll along casually as if he was simply out walking his dog after dinner. More fog was rolling in while the temperature dropped, as so often happened in San Francisco, the city by the bay. Jake was grateful to have the fog helping to obscure his movements.
He thought of a nearby park where he and Cody could hide out for a while in the dark among the trees and bushes, and he made his way in that direction. As they walked along, Jake kept watch all around him and made sure he was not being followed. Most of the neighborhood residents were inside their homes, having dinner or watching television. The drivers of the few cars that passed by on these back streets paid no attention to the man walking his dog. It was such a common sight.
A block up ahead, several people came out of a building, talking and laughing. Jake and Cody ducked into a dark alley to avoid being seen. Halfway down the alley they passed by a dumpster. Cody alerted and made a vicious growl, showing his teeth. Jake drew his pistol as a trained reflex and a
t that moment a homeless man stepped out of the shadows holding a rusty knife in his shaking hand.
“Give me your wallet and nobody gets hurt,” the man said. When he saw the gun pointed at him, and what appeared to be an attack dog snarling at his crotch, his shoulders slumped and he shook his head.
Jake ordered Cody to hold and then spoke in a commanding voice to the man. “Drop the knife and put your hands behind your head with your fingers interlaced. Do it now.”
The man followed the order in a calm manner and showed no fear. Jake studied him for a moment and saw that his long hair needed to be washed. So did his red and black checkered flannel shirt. His worn out jeans looked ready to fall apart at the seams. He had the shakes, but he wasn’t trembling from fear. He seemed to be in desperate need of liquor or a drug.
“Do you need a drink of alcohol?” Jake said.
The man stared hard at Jake for a moment to see if he was playing with him, and then he nodded his head.
“You can lower your hands but do not move a muscle or my dog will hurt you,” Jake said. “If you attack us, I can’t stop his reaction in time, and you’ll die.”
The man nodded. Jake holstered the pistol and opened his backpack, taking out two small bottles of Hennessy’s Cognac.
When the man saw the liquor, he licked his lips, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he reflexively swallowed. Jake handed both bottles to him, and the man drank one down quickly in a long gulp. He let out a sigh of relief.
“Thank you, friend.”
“Have booze will travel, that’s how I roll,” Jake said.
The man didn’t smile. He looked at Cody. “Is that a military war dog? He has the look.”
“Yes he is, what branch of the service were you in?”
The man looked off into the distance as if seeing foreign lands far away. “Army, Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment out of Fort Lewis in Washington State.”
“Army Rangers, that’s impressive, you have my respect.”
“Where did you serve?”
