The taxi pulled into a motel parking lot. Hannah paid the driver, opened the door, and stepped out. “Here we are.”
Chris and Sonny followed her across the parking lot. She glanced down at the monitor on her cell phone then up at the room numbers on the doors. Finally, she stopped in front of a room situated as far from the motel’s front office as possible. Hannah knocked, and someone looked at them through the peephole.
“Hi, Walter,” Hannah said. “I’m Hannah. We spoke on the phone earlier.”
The door opened a crack with the security pin still latched. “You didn’t say anything about those other two on the phone,” a raspy voice said. The smell of tobacco seeped from his mouth.
“All three of us need IDs,” Hannah whispered.
“You look like cops.”
Hannah was patient with him. “Nothing I can do about how we look.”
“I don’t need more trouble with the law,” Walter said.
“If I kick down this door, will that convince you that we’re not cops?” Sonny asked.
Walter hesitated. “Okay, but just one of you in here at a time.” He unlocked and opened the door.
“One at a time, my ass,” Sonny said, pushing open the door. Hannah and Chris followed him into the room.
“Hey!” Walter shouted.
Chris locked the door behind them.
On a table were stacks of blank cards, opaque polycarbonate strips, an embosser, laptop, laser printer, magstripe skimmer, and some already-completed fake IDs. In one corner was a suitcase and a duffel bag. In another corner, Walter had his portable photo studio set up.
Hannah looked at Walter impatiently. “Well?”
“How do we know this guy can even make a Virginia driver’s license?” Sonny asked.
“He can,” Hannah replied.
Walter nervously motioned for her to sit down in front of the camera to take her picture. His anxiety infected Chris, who looked out through the peephole. “Two black males and a Caucasian in their twenties lingering outside our door. Friends of yours?”
Walter clicked the camera. When he pulled his fingers away, his hand was shaking. “No. You’re next.”
Chris took a seat for his photo, and Sonny walked over to the window, parted the curtain slightly, and peered outside. “Three against three doesn’t hardly seem fair,” Sonny said.
After Walter snapped Chris’s picture, he took Sonny’s photo. He kept his sour face and refused to smile. Then Walter picked up his cell phone.
“Don’t!” Chris ordered. “Don’t touch that phone!”
Walter reluctantly put the phone down and went to work on his PC.
“You got a gun in here?” Sonny asked Walter.
The man’s hands trembled so much that his fingers jiggled the keys on the keyboard.
Sonny searched the nightstand drawer.
“Please, don’t,” Walter said.
Next, Sonny checked under the pillow. He pulled out a Glock 19 pistol. “You might appreciate this.” He handed it to Chris.
It was the original factory model. There was no round in the chamber, and it didn’t look like it’d been fired at all. “That’ll work,” Chris said. It was worth around five hundred dollars new, but he dropped six hundred on the bed.
“That’s generous,” Sonny said.
Hannah put a hand on her hip. “Can you guys let Walter do his job so we can get out of here?”
Chris stuck the pistol in his waistband. “No problem.”
Soon Walter handed over the licenses. They looked them over: good. Hannah paid Walter, who seemed happy to receive his money but not totally soothed. She called a taxi.
Chris, Hannah, and Sonny stepped out of the room and put on sunglasses. The three loiterers seemed surprised—maybe they were expecting to jump Hannah alone. “Hey, buddy, how’s it going, man?” the guy wearing a polo shirt asked, moving closer to Chris.
“I ain’t your buddy, so back off,” Chris said firmly.
Polo and his two buddies moved in closer with Cheshire grins on their faces. The man in front of Hannah was particularly full of smiles.
Chris scanned the line of motel rooms and the parking lot for any onlookers. He didn’t want to risk causing a scene, and he knew Hannah and Sonny felt the same, but they didn’t want to have their asses handed to them, either. Reading the confidence in the three thugs’ body language and their forward movement, they’d already decided to make a scene. The best way to win a fight was surprise, speed, and violence of action.
Sonny grabbed Mr. Smiles by the crotch and lifted him off his feet.
“Heeee!” the man wheezed.
Hannah kicked Cornrows in the solar plexus, knocking him out of his left shoe and catapulting him into the parking lot where he landed flat on his back. His left shoe lay in the parking lot like that of a lost child.
Chris pulled out his new Glock and pistol-whipped Polo. He toppled to the asphalt.
Sonny lowered Mr. Smiles to the ground. As he hunched over, Sonny pulled Mr. Smile’s head down and smashed his knee into his face. He collapsed.
“This place is happening,” Sonny said. “We’ll have to hang out here more often.”
Again, Chris scanned the hotel rooms and parking lot for any onlookers. “If someone calls the cops, we may spend more time here than you’d like.”
“That taxi driver sure is taking his time,” Sonny said, checking his watch.
Hannah looked anxious, too. “He should be here any minute.”
Not a minute later, a taxi came to a stop in the parking lot, and the driver stared oddly at the three men lying on the ground as if they’d fallen from the sky.
Chris hopped inside the car and offered an explanation: “Crack heads.”
Hannah and Sonny joined him inside and closed the doors. While Hannah gave the driver directions, Chris and Sonny used their cell phones to scour the Internet for pistols, rifles, and ammo. The driver dropped them off at a car rental place, and the three rented a grey SUV.
That evening, they returned to Young’s house with IDs, an SUV, weapons, and ammo. “We’ll have to zero our weapons tomorrow,” Chris said. The others agreed.
“Anything new?” Hannah asked Young.
“Victor’s phone keeps ringing,” he said, “and I got word that Jim Bob’s condition improved enough so that he was flown back here to Virginia Hospital Center.”
Sonny looked from Hannah to Chris, and that wicked smile returned to his face. “I guess it’s time we paid the patient a little visit.”
28
_______
The next day, they zeroed their weapons and planned their visit to Jim Bob and how they’d clear their names. In the evening, disguised as doctors, Chris and his teammates slipped into Jim Bob’s suite at Virginia Hospital Center. The three stood over his bed observing his bandaged face. He was hooked up to a monitor that displayed blood pressure, pulse rate, oxygen, respiration, and heart rhythm. A calm wave rolled across the monitor showing his vitals. As if he sensed the trio’s presence, he opened his drowsy eyes.
Chris and the others were still wearing surgical masks and hats to blend in and conceal their identities, but Chris didn’t bother to disguise his voice. “Remember me?”
“Chris?” Jim Bob’s speech was slow, probably numbed by painkillers. “You’re the one who did this to me.”
“You did it to yourself.”
“How’d you get back to the States?”
“Surprised?” Chris asked.
Jim Bob shifted in his bed and grunted in pain. He looked at the others. “And Hannah. But who is this third person?”
Chris gave Jim Bob no more information than he needed.
Jim Bob’s eyes bobbed from person to person. “Are you here to kill me?”
Chris stared through him. “Should I?”
His gaze searched the room as if looking for an escape. “If you’re not here to kill me, then why are you here?”
“I can think of three million reasons,” Chris sai
d.
Jim Bob coughed. “Pardon?”
“You heard me.”
Jim Bob was speechless for a moment. “What have you done with my retirement money?”
The cell in Chris’s pocket vibrated. “Recently Victor’s phone has been ringing almost nonstop. Some Chinese guy leaving angry messages. Hmmm.” Chris picked up the phone and turned on the speaker before answering it. “Hello?”
“Victor, you piece shit,” a man with a Chinese accent said. “We transferred three million dollars to Jim Bob’s Swiss account for Switchblade Whisper, but we still don’t have Switchblade Whisper!”
“Jim Bob is right here. Would you like to talk to him?” Chris asked.
“Yes, stupid ass!”
Chris put the speaker near Jim Bob’s mouth, but Jim Bob didn’t say anything.
The Chinese man’s voice became louder. “Jim Bob, you give back Switchblade Whisper or return three million dollars! You not keep both!”
“This phone is not secure,” Jim Bob said.
“What you mean, phone not secure?” the Chinese man demanded. “Victor say your phone special CIA secure phone!”
Jim Bob’s heart rate on his EKG remained calm. “No, your phone is not secure.”
“This most secure phone in China! You better—”
Chris pressed the “end” button, cutting off the Chinese voice.
“I gave the Chinese the Switchblade Whisper in Syria,” Jim Bob said. “I can’t be responsible for them losing it.”
Victor’s phone vibrated again.
“All that trouble with the Chinese over what?” Hannah asked. “Three million dollars that’s no longer in your bank account.”
Jim Bob groaned. “What do you want from me?”
The phone continued to vibrate.
“A better question would be, ‘What do you want from me?’” Hannah replied.
“I want my three million dollars!” Jim Bob sputtered.
“Don’t overexert yourself.” Hannah sighed and Jim Bob’s EKG spiked.
“I want my three million dollars!”
“Call off your dogs and clear our names,” Hannah said. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re the one who stole the Switchblade Whisper and sold it to the Chinese for three million dollars. You killed Wolf, and when you two tried to kill Chris, he shot you both in self-defense. Then in Turkey, Chris and I recovered the Switchblade Whisper and took it to the US embassy, but you framed us, and we were falsely imprisoned. As a result, Professor Mordet attacked the embassy and took the Switchblade Whisper. And in two days, he will launch his attack on the whole country.”
Jim Bob spoke in a wounded tone. “You make it sound like I did something wrong.”
“Like I said, correct me if I’m wrong.”
Victor’s phone vibrated again in Chris’s pocket.
Jim Bob seemed to contemplate his options. “I’ll call off my people and clear your names, but I want my money, my laptop, and Victor’s phone.”
“You don’t get your laptop or Victor’s phone,” Hannah said. “That’s insurance for us in case you renege.”
The conversation appeared to have tired Jim Bob. He smiled faintly. “You drive a hard bargain.”
“You have no idea.” She nodded at Chris, and he answered the vibrating phone and turned on the speaker phone again. “It’s over, Sonny,” Chris said into the phone.
“You hear that piece shit, Jim Bob? It’s over,” Sonny said in his Chinese accent. Then he switched to his Queens, New York, accent: “How was I? Was I good?”
Jim Bob’s eyebrows twisted. He pointed his finger at the third person in the room. “Who is he?”
“Oh, right,” Hannah said, tapping her finger against her chin.
The third person pulled out a badge. “I’m Special Agent Frank Garnet with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Jim Bob Louve, you are under arrest for espionage against the United States of America, selling top secret defense information to aid a foreign government—”
Jim Bob’s EKG peaked violently, and he froze for a moment. Then he gagged hard.
Agent Garnet spoke into his hidden microphone. “We need medical assistance, ASAP!”
29
_______
Later that evening, Chris, Hannah, and Sonny returned to Young’s house. Minutes later, a knock sounded on the door. Young answered it and accepted a large manila envelope. He closed the door and locked it. “It looks like the analysis of Professor Mordet’s meat jerky has arrived.”
Chris’s stomach turned before Young even opened it, and the warm air in the apartment made him feel light-headed. He wanted to know, but he didn’t want to know.
Young opened the envelope and took out some documents.
“Who was it?” Hannah asked.
“It’s someone I haven’t heard of,” Young said.
“Who?” Sonny asked.
Young read the name: “A Ron Hickok?”
Hearing that Ron was dead wrenched Chris’s gut and set his skin on fire. He had to sit down before he fell down.
“The Ron Hickok?” Sonny asked in disbelief. “Can’t be.”
“The brief bio here states he was the lead instructor at the Blaze Ranch,” Young said. “Disappeared three months ago.”
Sonny sighed. “I took some classes from Ron.”
“Why would Ron Hickok have anything to do with Mordet?” Hannah asked.
Sonny was quiet for a moment. “Maybe Mordet passed himself off as someone he wasn’t.”
“But how could he kill Hickok?” Hannah asked. “The only person who could kill Ron Hickok was Ron Hickok.”
“Maybe Mordet tricked Ron into teaching him Flash-Kill,” Sonny suggested.
Hannah shook her head. She turned to face Chris and started to say something but stopped.
Tears clouded his vision, but he was too numb to wipe them away.
Hannah stared. “You knew him. He trained you, didn’t he?”
Thinking became a burden, and words became unattainable, floating in some distant cosmos.
“Why wasn’t it in your service record?” she asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was Ron’s idea to expunge my record of ever training with him,” Chris said, his voice barely a whisper. “He didn’t want anyone to know, and he never explained why.” Now the tears were streaming down his cheeks.
“He taught you Flash-Kill,” Hannah said softly. “Didn’t he?”
Chris’s skin became hot, and the room began to spin. He needed fresh air. He rose out of his chair and wobbled before regaining his balance. He put one foot in front of the other and headed for the back door. As he entered the kitchen, the doorknob seemed so far away and the house felt like it was tilting. He reached for the blurry doorknob and turned it, but the door wouldn’t open. A hand unlocked the door, and he was helped through by someone—Hannah.
For a while, he sat under a tree in Young’s backyard. He glanced back at the house. Hannah stood inside watching him through a window. She had enough sense to give him his space but cared enough to keep an eye on him.
30
_______
Chris wasn’t hungry and skipped breakfast. He felt disconnected from his body—and the world. Ron Hickok had been his SEAL instructor during First Phase of BUD/S training, and he’d taken a special interest in Chris—as if Ron had seen something in him that he couldn’t see inside himself. In Second Phase, new SEAL instructors replaced the First Phase instructors, and in Third Phase, Chris found himself outshooting his SEAL pistol and rifle instructors. It was then that he’d realized he had a special gift. Years later, he’d had the opportunity to take shooting classes from Ron; in contrast to other SEAL shooting instructors, Ron challenged Chris. Ron didn’t subscribe to any one religion, but he was intensely spiritual and often he seemed to teach directly to Chris’s soul. Ron wasn’t married, and he treated Chris like a son; Chris loved him like a father.
Ron had always seemed invincible, but Mordet had killed him, and Chris
’s own mortality struck him like a sledgehammer—Mordet might kill him, too. How could God allow this to happen? He didn’t ask in anger; he just didn’t understand why Ron had to die. Although Chris believed becoming angry at God was preferable to ignoring God, he valued his relationship with deity more than he valued anger.
Hannah tapped Chris on the shoulder with a chocolate-flavored energy bar, bringing him back to reality. “You should really eat something,” she said, “so you can maintain your energy level.”
She was right, and he nodded. He ate the bar, but his taste buds, too, were numb, and he couldn’t taste the chocolate. Even so, he forced it down.
They spent most of the rest of the morning poring over the intel and analyses, and just before noon, Sonny stepped out of the living room to answer a call. Young announced, “I might have something.” His hand flew over the keyboard. “Just a minute.”
Chris nodded and turned to the television, where CNN was on. He watched for a few minutes to see if they were reporting anything related to Mordet. Nada.
Sonny came into the room then, a broad smile on his face.
“What?” Hannah asked. “Who was on the phone?”
“JSOC,” Sonny said. “The Department of Homeland Security has cleared our names.”
Before Hannah could respond, Young spoke. “Finished restoring deleted files, and on Mordet’s laptop, I found this photo.” He grabbed a printout from his printer and showed it to them: a painting of an eye held between a monster’s teeth.
“What is it?” Hannah asked.
Young studied the picture. “Looks like some sort of evil eye.”
“But what does it mean?” She crossed her arms, thinking. None of them knew.
For the rest of the day, they spread out across the living room, helping Young sift through more data and analyses to try and figure out the meaning of the painting and what Mordet was planning. They left the TV tuned to CNN, playing at low volume while they worked.
Just after five p.m., they had a few loose threads but nothing substantial yet. Chris happened to glance at the TV when a CNN BREAKING NEWS banner flashed across the scene.
Trident's First Gleaming Page 18
