by Erik Carter
The more she cared, the more worried she became, the closer she got to discovering his mission.
Alicia’s golden hair was tinted by the sunset light from the windows. Her fork was loaded with a bite of salad, and it hovered halfway between her plate and her mouth. She wasn’t thinking about her meal. She was staring right at Adam. With that look of concern. Her eyes squinting, the crow’s feet that had developed over the last few years showing themselves.
Adam looked back at her. Looked away. Took a bite and chewed. Looked up to see her still watching him.
“What is it?” he said.
“Is everything okay, Adam?”
“Just work. You know how it is.”
Alicia nodded. She put her fork down. “Carl Bradford called an hour ago looking for you. He figured you’d be home by then. I did too.”
Adam stopped chewing. He had been avoiding eye contact, but after hearing that Bradford had called, he looked right at her. “What did he want?”
Adam hadn’t been surprised when Bradford had pulled him into his office the night before. But he wouldn’t have expected him to call his home. And talk to his wife. This was troubling.
“Didn’t say,” Alicia said. “He did say that you two had a meeting last night. He said that he’s worried about you. So am I.”
Adam slowed his chewing. “He shouldn’t have called here.”
Alicia’s voice wavered. “Don’t shut me out, Adam.” She motioned toward the children. “Remember what you have. Whatever’s going on with you, don’t forget this.”
Adam wiped his mouth and stood up. “I’m done here.”
He left.
He went to the office on the second floor of the house. He sat at the desk and took out the phone book that he had stashed in the bottom drawer. He turned to the correct page.
There were several listings for Cook, Nathan. He had crossed the first two off.
He picked up the phone.
Chapter 19
Owen walked down a sidewalk in a nice suburban community. It was similar to the one he had visited while seeking out his last Nathan Cook. This one, though, was a little bit newer. The trees were smaller, hadn’t become “established” yet. It was hillier too, cars parked along the streets at steep angles.
He had his hands in his pockets, and he kept his gaze toward the ground. He walked by the house that matched the new Nathan Cook’s address. The window was cracked open a bit. He could hear the phone ringing inside the house. He quickly looked back down to the ground, and his eyes caught something farther down the road.
A car. A blue Ford Granada. A man was sitting in the driver seat, his eyes trained on the Nathan Cook house. Owen saw him look away.
A cop.
They were watching the house.
He had to get out of there. Owen’s car was parked another block up on the left. His feet told him to pick up the pace, but he knew that he had to remain inconspicuous. He shuffled along. His breathing increased, and so did his heartbeat. He rounded the corner and saw his car. Casual, stay casual. Slowly walk up to it.
He got in the car, turned the key, and looked in the rear-view mirror. He saw the man in the Granada. He was looking towards Owen’s car, and he was talking on a police radio.
He was a cop. And he was calling Owen in.
Owen put the car in gear and took off, going in the opposite direction of the house. He quickly took a right-hand turn and then another and then a left-hand turn, twisting his way through the neighborhood. He increased his speed, looked in the rear-view mirror.
Nothing behind him.
He sped up a little bit more, not too much, nothing to draw attention.
A minute passed. No one showed up in the rear-view mirror. He took a deep breath and released it. He was going to have to find a new way of getting to Nathan Cook. And if they had Cook’s house covered, they were surely watching his office back at Scarborough Advertising as well. Owen would have to be more clever. And pray for God’s intervention
A car approached from the opposite side of the road. He looked at the driver. A black man. Wearing a purple shirt and orange tie.
Nathan Cook.
God’s intervention indeed. Serendipity. Owen said a small prayer.
He knew he had to make a quick, commanding decision. And then take immediate action. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and floored the gas pedal.
And pulled into the oncoming lane.
There was an explosion of sound, so loud it was deafening. Metal bent, and glass snapped. Owen felt his whole body slammed forward into the seatbelt, the edge of the steering wheel whacking him across the top of his chest. His chin snapped forward, and his arms flailed in front of him, hitting the windshield and tearing his knuckles. The whole mass of the car shifted to the right. There was a screech of tires. Owen slammed into the door. And the chaos stopped.
Ringing in his ears. Owen put a hand to his head. His fingertips came back bloody. There was pain in his chest, and he groaned. A hissing noise coming from somewhere under his car’s hood. He looked through the spiderweb remains of his windshield to the other car. It was a mangled mess before him. He could make out Nathan Cook, motionless in the driver seat.
Owen put his hand on the door handle and pulled. There was a metallic whine, and the door didn’t open. It was stuck. He pulled the handle again and drove his shoulder into the door. It screeched open. He sat one foot out on the ground, put a little weight on it. Unsteady but it held. Both feet. He stepped out into the cool air, the pink sunset light. He stumbled to his left. People emerged from the houses around him. Some were running toward the accident.
He wouldn’t have much time.
He looked at the other car. He could see that Nathan Cook wasn’t moving, but his eyes were open, blinking. There was blood spread across his purple shirt and a gash across the side of his head.
“Everyone alright?” a voice asked. Owen turned. The voice had come from an old man. A tough old salt. Like a war veteran. He was on the short side, barrel-chested, wrapped in ancient muscle. The man walked toward Owen. Briskly.
Not much time. Owen approached Nathan Cook.
And put his hand on the hilt of the knife strapped to his belt.
Chapter 20
Dale had Arancia’s windows rolled down. It was just a little bit cool at the beginning of the sunset, and he was enjoying the feel of the breeze. The weather in the Pacific Northwest was delightfully low in humidity, especially considering that his second-to-last assignment—before the even more arid Phoenix assignment—had been in the thick of southern Mississippi.
He saw the car—a blue Ford Granada—parked where he’d been told he would find it, about a block from the Nathan Cook residence. Dale pulled over a few cars behind the Granada on the side of the street. He stepped out and examined his work. He’d given plenty of space between Arancia and the cars in front of and behind her. But he probably could have gotten a bit closer to the curb. He glanced across the street where he’d seen a child. A boy of about five, bouncing a ball. The ball was soft rubber, wouldn’t make a scratch, but still he worried. Who was watching the kid anyway?
He assured himself that everything would be fine and walked up to the Granada. He rapped on the passenger side glass. The driver reached over and unlocked and opened the door.
Dale sat down and offered his hand to the other man. “Special Agent Conley with the DOJ.”
“Detective Cooper, PPB.”
Cooper looked how Dale imagined SAC Taft must have looked twenty to twenty-five years ago. He was out-of-shape but not obese. Going bald. A little sweaty. He was shorter than Taft, though, and scruffier too. In fact, his thick shadow and wrinkly trench coat made him look not like a real detective but like someone dressing up as a detective for a Halloween party. He was someone straight out of a hard-boiled, LA detective story, a Mickey Spillane character.
“What do we got?”
“Cook isn’t home yet,” Cooper said. He had a smoker’s voice. “A
couple neighbors walking their dogs. One guy looked my direction, turned away awful quick. I don’t think it was anything.”
Cooper’s radio came alive. “Collision at the intersection of Shadybrook and Wilkinson.”
“Shit,” Cooper said. “That’s right down the road. I’d better check it.”
Dale’s instincts fluttered.
Coincidences. They happened so often in his work at the BEI that he didn’t believe in them. A car crash right down the road in the middle of the quiet subdivision he was staking out seemed like just such a coincidence. He held up a hand. “No, stay here. I’ll check it.”
Chapter 21
Owen staggered forward. His legs were wobbly. They felt soft, like packed clay, but somehow they held him up, and each shuffling step drew him closer to Nathan Cook’s wrecked car, though his path to get there twisted left and right.
He could see Nathan behind the shattered windshield and crumpled hood. He lay still but not completely motionless. He sucked in big breaths. He was a big man—not fat but bulky—and his massive chest heaved under his flashy, purple shirt. His eyes darted about, big and white with fright. They locked on Owen as he continued to stagger toward him. They maintained eye contact.
A voice behind him. Owen didn’t turn to look.
“I called the cops. Are you alright?” It was the old man he’d seen. The old tough guy.
Two more steps, and Owen was to the car. The engine idled. Owen put his hand on the roof of the car. There was a ridge where the metal had buckled, a rough edge where the paint had splintered off. Nathan Cook was squeezed tightly against the steering wheel. He looked stuck. Nathan gazed up at him, fear in his eyes. Not fear of Owen. Shock from the accident. In fact, Nathan looked relieved. Help, he thought, had arrived.
Owen had no time to waste. Police had been summoned. He maintained eye contact with Nathan Cook. “Actiones secundum fidei.”
Nathan’s eyes lit up. The shock from the accident had been exchanged for true fear. Fear of Owen. Now that he had heard the words. And the theory was reforming in his brain. He scrambled for his seatbelt.
Owen reached for the knife on his belt, pulled it out of its sheath, and stabbed Nathan in the chest. There was a solid, wet thunk as the four-inch blade penetrated. Nathan shrieked, and his eyes rolled back. Owen pulled the blade out.
Then someone strong grabbed him from behind.
Chapter 22
It was two turns in the neighborhood to get to the scene of the accident, and as Dale rounded the second corner, he saw it up ahead. Right in the middle of the street. A Chevy and what had been a nice, shiny Lincoln were smashed into each other. Two men were fighting between the cars, one holding the other from behind. Car accidents always brought out the nasty in people. At least the two of them were uninjured enough to be able to stand. The cars lay across the road at bizarre angles. Shattered glass. Crumpled hoods. A plume of steam came out of the Lincoln. People from the neighborhood gaped from the sidewalks.
Dale hooked Arancia’s emergency light to her rear-view mirror and continued toward the scene. He watched the men fighting. They were really going at it. The man being held from behind thrashed wildly to get out of the grasp of the older man holding him. Then there was a swift motion, the flash of a knife in the younger man’s hand. He stabbed the old man in the shoulder. The old man toppled to the ground. Knife in hand, the younger man then turned and immediately moved toward the Lincoln.
Dale smashed the gas pedal, and moments later Arancia screeched to a halt a few feet from the back of the Chevy. The man with the knife turned and looked. Dale yanked the parking brake, took out his gun, and jumped out of the car. He leveled his gun at the man, who was about six feet tall, in decent shape, and had wavy, brown hair.
“Freeze!”
The man put his hands in the air. Their eyes locked, and Dale nearly took a step backwards because the guy had the craziest blue eyes he’d ever seen. Streaky. A cool yet bright blue. Icy.
The man was also pretty banged up. Blood on his head, his hands. And he looked wobbly.
Dale glanced at the old man on the ground. His shoulder was covered in blood. He squirmed in pain. But he was going to be alright.
“Drop the knife,” Dale said.
The blue-eyed man threw the knife. It clattered on the ground. He kept his hands in the air.
Dale took a couple steps forward. The man moved away, toward the Chevy.
“I said freeze.”
There was the sound of sirens from behind. Another cop car was approaching.
Dale was now close enough to see into the other car, the Lincoln. There was a bulky black man in the driver seat. Seatbelt on. Blood drenched his purple shirt and orange tie. He looked right at Dale. His face became panicked, urgent.
“Titus,” he said.
Blood bubbled in the corner of his mouth. Then his head fell to his chest.
Titus. A flurry of thought and analysis rushed over Dale. Titus. The Roman emperor. A member of the Flavian Dynasty, the emperors who captured Josephus, made him their official historian. Jesus, Josephus, Titus.
Mr. Blue Eyes continued to inch toward the Chevy … and then darted for it.
“Shit,” Dale said.
Dale sprinted up to the car as the man shut the door and tried to put it in gear. Dale punched the driver-side window, shattering the glass, which sprayed all over Blue Eyes.
Dale grabbed at him, pulled him toward the busted window. Blue Eyes put his left hand against the side of Dale’s face and pushed hard. Dale squinted as one of the guy’s fingers went into the corner of his eye. With his other hand, Blue Eyes slapped around at the gear selector. Dale heard the transmission thump into gear.
And the car peeled off.
Dale stumbled forward, being pulled by the hand clenched onto his face. The grip loosened, and he spun around a quarter turn before gaining his balance. He could feel where the man’s fingers had been. His eyes watered. The Chevy zipped away.
Dale ran back to Arancia, threw the parking brake down, and hammered her into first gear. Arancia’s rear tires chirped, and she flew down the road toward the Chevy. Dale felt the inertia in his chest. He flipped on the siren then squeezed onto the leather-wrapped steering wheel.
Ahead, the other car took a right turn. And disappeared. Dale closed in and took the turn. There were people milling about this new street—some of them on the sidewalks, some children right in the middle of the road. They screamed and ran to the sides as the two cars flew at them. An older man was struggling to move onto the sidewalk. Dale gritted his teeth, pulled the wheel to the left, and swerved around him. Arancia’s tires squeaked.
Arancia closed right in behind the other car, a leopard chasing a three-legged turtle. Dale could see every detail this close up. The license plate, Oregon. The passenger-side mirror rattling around after the damage of the accident. Suddenly the car veered to the left and through a yard, cutting a corner onto another road. Dale continued and thrashed Arancia’s nimble frame right around the corner.
A child darted into the road, and the Chevy quickly swerved to the right to avoid the kid.
And smashed into a tree.
The already-mangled front end of the car squished, like a sponge, into the thick trunk of the old oak in the center of the yard. The rear end kicked up, both tires coming off the ground. It floated like this for a moment, hovering in the air, then crashed back down to the earth. The whole car shook. Its suspension squeaked.
Blue Eyes stumbled out of the destroyed Chevy and ran off, jumping over a fence that sectioned off the backyard of the house. Dale pulled up behind and quickly darted out of Arancia. He sprinted across the green grass toward the fence and jumped it.
The backyard had a porch with lawn furniture and maple trees in the corners. Blue Eyes sprinted toward the side fence and hopped over. Dale followed, the coarse wood of the fence digging into his palms as he vaulted over.
They were in the backyard of the neighboring property now. In front o
f them was a long stretch of yards, none of them fenced in. There were people out in some of these yards, and as the two men sprinted through the yards, there were screams of fear, shouts to leave. The neighborhood sloped down a hill, and Dale gained a lot of speed as he chased the other man, his legs flailing wildly, feet practically kicking his butt.
A road crossed their path at the end of the block, and Blue Eyes stumbled with the change of surface. He fell over, quickly scrambled back to his feet, and took off down the street. Dale managed to keep his balance and chased after him, getting closer.
A block ahead of them was a small shopping area of quaint, little stores. German style. Boutiques. Bakeries. Tables with umbrellas. Blue Eyes ran into the crowd. People screamed, made way. Dale was right behind him. Blue Eyes shoved a woman out of his way. She fell to the ground. There was a large chainsaw carving of a lumberjack, and Blue Eyes tossed that down in Dale’s path. Dale leapt over it, feeling like an Olympic hurdles runner. He’d gotten some experience recently jumping over mannequins thrown at him at Thomas Mall in Phoenix. But he’d lost a smidgen of time. Blue Eyes had gotten a lead on him.
A movie theater ahead of them. Dale watched as Blue Eyes entered the theater. Moments later, Dale slammed through the doors.
The smell of popcorn assaulted him. A frightened-looking teenager eyed him from behind the concession stand. Movement to the side. Dale turned and saw Owen slipping into one of the screenings. The door shut behind him.
