by Mike Ryan
Recker got to his car and quickly peeled out of the parking lot. He periodically checked his rearview mirror to make sure that nobody was following him. Once he was on the road for about thirty minutes, he began feeling more secure in his escape. It seemed like a clean kill without any complications that would arise from it. He had forgotten to contact Jones to let him know so he figured he would call him so he wouldn’t begin to worry.
“It’s done,” Recker confirmed.
“I figured as much. I kept looking at the surveillance cameras and noticed you leaving a half hour ago.”
“You could make me out?”
“Well, I could just because I knew the hat,” Jones answered. “But you did a good job of not letting your face show so they shouldn’t be able to match it back to you.”
“That’s good.”
“I also checked parking lot cameras just to be sure they couldn’t get a shot of your license plate.”
“And?” Recker wondered.
“Nothing. You’re in the clear. Even if it was I could digitally alter it.”
“How could you do that?”
“Did you never wonder about when you first arrived in Philly?”
“No. What do you mean?”
“Your face was picked up by airport security cameras when we had our first talk,” Jones informed him. “I had to alter and erase some of the footage so it seemed as if you were never there.”
“Why? You told me you did something with the flight manifest or something.”
“Just in case someone went looking at nearby airports on a hunch. They obviously knew you were on a plane somewhere. So in case they looked into every airport security system on the east coast, I had to doctor the footage.”
“Oh. You never mentioned that before.”
“I never thought it needed mentioning before.”
“Oh. Thanks for everything.”
“You’re welcome.”
“How’s everything there?”
“Just fine. Ready to get back into the swing of things.”
Chapter 14
Almost the entire ride home, Recker thought about the confrontation he’d just had with Edwards. It was something he’d thought about every day for almost two years. He thought about different ways he would kill him, one of which was brutally beating him just the way he’d done it at the airport. He hoped that once it was over, a sense of relief would be lifted off his shoulders, or a bright light would suddenly shine down from the sky upon him. But it didn’t happen. At least not yet. Though he did feel a small sense of satisfaction, he didn’t feel anywhere near as good as he hoped he would. He was obviously glad that he found Edwards and eliminated him, but it would never bring Carrie back. What Recker lost that night in London would never return to him, no matter how many revenge killings he had. Everything was still fresh in his mind, though, and maybe in a few days or weeks, things might look much different to him. He could only hope that Jones was right in that doing this would bring the closure he needed to keep going. Hopefully, he just needed more time to get to that point.
Recker took a little extra time on the way back than he did getting down to Ohio. He didn’t see the need in driving faster and risk getting stopped by the state police somewhere on the road. He finally got back to the Philadelphia area around one in the morning and went straight to his apartment to try and get some sleep. There was nothing so pressing on Jones’ list of potential victims that couldn’t be started the next day. After an action packed couple of days without getting much of a chance to rest, Recker fell asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow.
Getting back to the office the next day around ten, Recker brought a couple of breakfast sandwiches with him. Jones was already there, hard at work as usual. The professor had his list of targets that they needed to work on and he was putting on the finishing touches to his reports, checking out some background information on the first couple of people. He took a brief break, however, when Recker handed him his food and the two men began eating at the desk.
“Just so you know, your airport situation is all over the news,” Jones said.
“Figured it would be. Airport killing is a big deal.”
“Yes it is. Regardless, I’m trying to keep ahead of the situation and monitoring it to see what kind of leads they come up with.”
“Anything yet?” Recker asked.
“No, not so far. You did a good job in disguising yourself so I don’t expect any repercussions.”
“What are they saying so far?” Recker wondered. “What are they saying he is? International hit man?”
“Hardly. They’re saying he’s a security consultant who had clients with ties to organized crime.”
“About what I figured.”
“Well, I’ll keep monitoring it in any case. You certainly look a little more refreshed though,” Jones told him.
“Yeah, I feel a little better.”
“It’s amazing what a few hours sleep will do for you.”
“Yeah,” Recker replied, though still not looking pleased.
“So what’s wrong?” Jones asked, sure that something still seemed to be bothering him.
“I dunno. It’s just that…I don’t feel all that much different than I did a few days ago.”
“You mean before killing Edwards?”
“Yeah.”
“Well what did you expect?” Jones wondered.
“I don’t know,” Recker shrugged. “I just thought maybe I’d feel…happier or something.”
“Mike, you’ve felt a certain way for a very long time. That’s been ingrained into your soul and wellbeing with every step you’ve taken. The darkness that’s been milling around inside of you isn’t just going to evaporate overnight. It will take time.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Believe me, it will happen. Little by little, you’ll get to a better place. Eventually your mind will get to a clearer place. But it will take time. You just have to be patient with it.”
“OK. I, umm, talked to Mia again last night,” Recker revealed.
“Oh? How did that go?”
“I guess we’ll see. She wanted to apologize and thank me for the other day.”
“So she isn’t upset now?”
“Well I don’t know about that. She seemed more understanding of my position I guess.”
“What else did you say?” Jones wondered.
“I told her if what we have now is too hard for her then I’d understand if she didn’t want to come in contact anymore.”
“Oh. What did she say to that?”
“She said we’ll see,” Recker answered.
“And what do you think she’ll do?”
“I really don’t know.”
“And what are you hoping?”
Recker just shook his head. “I really don’t know that either. I just want her to be happy. And I know that won’t include me.”
The pair finished their conversation over breakfast and got back to work. They started analyzing each of the cases on their list and started coming up with a game plan on how to act with each of them. They only got about thirty minutes into their work when they were interrupted by the sound of Recker’s phone ringing. Recker looked at the ID and was a little perplexed at the caller. He couldn’t figure out what purpose they’d have for calling him now.
“Miss me already?” Recker sarcastically asked.
Malloy laughed, appreciating his sense of humor. “No, not quite. Boss wanted to talk to you. Here he is.”
“Mike, how are you?” Vincent greeted.
“All right. Kind of surprised to be hearing from you to be honest.”
“We’ve had a good relationship so far and I want to keep up the bond that we’re developing.”
“Sounds like you’re about to drop some bad news on me,” Recker guessed.
“Possibly. I’ll get right to it then. Based on what transpired the other day, I’ve heard some rumblings that something may be going on that I wante
d to alert you about.”
“Which is?”
“Joe Simmons has a cousin who’s apparently none too happy about his death. From what I hear, he’s sworn to avenge the people that were responsible for it,” Vincent revealed.
“So why don’t you put a stop to it?”
“He doesn’t work for me. I don’t really know much about him. I don’t have a file on him or anything. Like I said, he’s not a part of my organization. All I know is he lives in Jersey.”
“Then how do you know about him?” Recker asked.
“I have a lot of eyes and ears on the street. One of my contacts informed me that he heard about his unhappiness.”
“So who’s he gunning for? You or me?”
“Well, from what I understand he doesn’t know of my involvement in the situation. How that is, I don’t know,” Vincent answered.
“So that leaves me.”
“There’s more.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’ve heard he’s also going after your nurse friend.”
“Mia?”
“From what I understand, he holds her chiefly responsible,” Vincent said.
“How’s he even know about all this?”
“That I don’t have an answer to.”
“What’s this guy’s name?” Recker asked.
“Jason Gallagher.”
“Thanks. I appreciate you looking out.”
“If you need anything else just ask,” Vincent told him.
As soon as Recker put the phone down on the desk, Jones could tell that he was deeply troubled by something. Hearing Mia’s name in the conversation, he had a feeling it had something to do with her, but he couldn’t figure out what. Not yet. Recker stood and put both of his hands on the edge of the desk as he leaned forward, looking down as he took a deep sigh.
“What is it?” Jones hesitantly asked with great concern.
“Simmons apparently has a cousin who wants revenge for what happened to him.”
“Vincent?”
“He doesn’t work for Vincent,” Recker replied. “He doesn’t know much about the guy other than he lives in Jersey.”
“How does this guy know it was you involved?”
Recker shook his head in frustration for having to deal with another problem. “I don’t know.”
“Is he after Vincent as well?” Jones wondered.
“No. He doesn’t know about Vincent’s role in it.”
“That’s strange.”
The two men stayed silent for another minute as they deliberated on what to do next. They obviously would have to protect Mia while at the same time finding Gallagher before he had a chance to enact his plan of revenge. Then Jones made a sound and looked at Recker as if an idea just popped into his head.
“What is it?” Recker asked.
“What if Simmons called this guy before everything went down, before we met him and told him that Mia was looking for him?” Jones wondered.
“Could be.”
“Or, perhaps even after Simmons took us, before Vincent arrived, maybe he called his cousin to tell him what happened?”
“Could be.”
“Let me dig into Simmons’ phone records and see if he placed any calls.”
“Might as well check into Jason Gallagher from Jersey while you’re at it.”
“We should’ve done this before as a precaution,” Jones huffed. “Just to be sure there’d be no repercussions. I don’t know why we didn’t.”
Jones feverishly typed away, trying to get into Simmons’ phone records. After a few minutes, he successfully hacked into them. He looked down the list of numbers that Simmons called and saw that he placed a call at 1:15pm, a little over an hour after the supposed meeting with Jones and Mia that resulted in their capture. Armed with that knowledge, Jones typed in Jason Gallagher’s name into their database, quickly getting a hit on his name. Jones also typed in the number that Simmons called and it came back as belonging to Jason Gallagher.
“There’s the connection,” Jones noted.
“After Simmons took you guys he called Gallagher and told him what was going on,” Recker assumed.
“What do you want to do now?”
“I’ll go to Jersey and pay this guy a visit.”
“Maybe we should call Mia and let her know to be careful,” Jones said.
“I don’t want to worry her if we don’t have to.”
“Well I don’t want you traveling to New Jersey only to find out he isn’t there. What if he’s already on the move. Let me try pinging his cell phone.”
After a couple minutes and a few shakes of Jones’ head, Recker could tell that he wasn’t having much luck in his endeavor.
“I’m gonna go,” Recker insisted.
“Just wait,” Jones replied. “Let me try a couple other things.”
“Such as?”
“I can hack into the GPS on his phone if it’s been enabled recently and pull up his position that way.”
About five minutes passed and Jones made a few gestures to his partner indicating that it was working out.
“I got it,” Jones stated.
“Great. Where is he?”
“Not in Jersey. He’s on the move.”
“Where?”
Jones stopped typing and turned to look at Recker. “Here.”
“Here? Where? The parking lot?” Recker asked.
“Not here. Here. Philadelphia.”
Recker, fearing what was about to come out of Jones’ mouth next, clenched his jaws. “Where is he now?”
“I think he’s heading for the hospital.”
“How much time do we have?”
“None,” Jones puffed. “It looks like he’ll be there any minute.”
Recker immediately grabbed his phone and dialed Mia’s number, desperately hoping that she’d pick up. It rang several times but just went to voicemail.
“Check if she’s working,” Recker told his partner.
Within a couple minutes, Jones easily hacked into the hospital time management system. It was a process he’d done several times before so it wasn’t much of a challenge to him since he was already familiar with it. She was scheduled to work at eleven, though she hadn’t yet clocked in.
“She’s not picking up,” Recker worriedly said.
“I think I made a mistake.”
“What?”
“I’m looking at the time stamps and locations of Gallagher’s phone,” Jones replied.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t think Gallagher’s on his way to the hospital.”
“Then where is he?” Recker asked.
Jones looked at Recker, almost afraid to deliver the news. “I think he’s already been there.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The time stamp on the GPS on his phone indicates he was at the hospital’s coordinates at 10:45,” Jones answered. “The next one at 10:55 indicates he’s moving away from there.”
“He was there waiting for her,” Recker assumed.
“I’m afraid it looks that way. She was supposed to work at eleven. It’s now 11:30 and she hasn’t clocked in yet.”
Recker got a maniacal look in his eyes, like he was about to rip someone’s head off. Though he wasn’t mad at Jones, Recker stared at him for a minute as he let the anger flow through his veins.
“How could we be so stupid?” Jones angrily asked, slapping at his keyboard out of frustration.
Recker took control of his anger, not letting it get the best of him yet, and started to think clearly about the best way to proceed.
“That hospital has security cameras,” Recker stated.
“I’m on it,” Jones quickly replied.
Recker took a seat again, rolling it over next to Jones as they got into the security footage. Jones rolled the cameras back to 10:30 and fast forwarded a little at a time as they looked for Mia somewhere on the screen. At 10:50, Jones paused the screen, clearly seeing Mia get out of her car after she parke
d in the lot. They slowly played the footage, outraged at seeing three men quickly approach her only moments after exiting her vehicle.
“What’s that there?” Recker asked, pointing to something on the screen. “In that guy’s hand near her back.”
Jones quickly zoomed in on the object, not liking what he saw. “It’s a gun.”
“Can you get into her phone and see where she’s at?”
Recker leaned forward and put his head in both of his hands as he rubbed his face. His mind was racing with horrible thoughts that Mia was already dead. If he lost her too, there was no telling what type of destruction was about to commence. Jones looked over at his friend and could tell he was in a considerable amount of mental anguish as he thought about Mia’s fate. The news he had to tell him wasn’t going to make it any better.
“I locked into her phone’s GPS system as well,” Jones told him.
“And?”
“It’s still at the hospital.”
Recker started rocking back and forth in his chair, feeling like he was about to go full bore psycho on someone. Seeking to calm his friend, Jones offered up a few solutions to quell his rage.
“If they wanted her dead yet, they probably would’ve done it already,” Jones told him. “If they were going to kill her they wouldn’t have taken her with them.”
Recker stopped rocking and looked at Jones. “They need her for something.”
