He had the old man drop him off at a shabby motel in Oak Ridge. Nick didn’t even see a name for the place, just a red lit vacancy sign in the window of the office. Perfect. He handed three twenty-dollar bills to his driver and then met the old man’s eyes with a stern, serious look.
“Sir,” Nick said. “I’m going to be real honest.”
The man suddenly looked worried, more than likely preparing for the worst. Was Nick some kind of criminal, Nick could see him thinking.
“I’ve had some trouble with the law, and I’m running from the police.”
The man’s face tensed, and Nick could feel him taking in his features, etching them in his mind for when he had to describe his passenger. Shit, Nick thought, maybe this idea had been stupid. Well, he couldn’t give up on it now.
“Basically,” Nick said, “a man I thought was my friend got to fooling around with my wife. I found out about it, and well, you know, had words with him, so to speak. It was a little worse than I planned, and he had some injuries. My wife kicked me out, and the law wants to throw me in the pen for assault charges.”
The man looked relieved to hear such a trifling story.
“Sounds to me like he had it coming,” the man said. “It figures that a man who’d cheat on his friend’s wife would try to deal with his problems through the courts. Gutless bastard. You just hang in there, son. God will take care of you.”
Nick met the man’s eyes again and nodded thoughtfully. The man seemed to have bought Nick’s acting.
“Sir, you have a good day,” Nick said. And with that, he grabbed his pack from the man’s truck and headed into the office of the motel complex.
Chapter 20
Back in Washington, in his Pentagon office, Whitaker sat with his legs propped on his desk. He was pissed. It had been two days since the raid, and they hadn’t found Nick Woods.
While he didn’t know where he was, what he did know was that Bobby Ferguson was dead. Some of his men had tracked Bobby after the local and state police had cleared out and found the trail leading into his cave. And in the cave were heavy drag marks.
So, Bobby had reverted back to the old Nick and in retrieving his cache had become the highly touted Nick Woods. Sniper legend among CIA insiders. Unknown Marine among the military community.
Now, Nick had been alerted. And, he had disappeared. Just like that.
As soon as Whitaker had received the call from the FBI reporting that Bobby Ferguson wasn’t at home, he had scrambled his forces.
Every available person in his organization not already assigned, even those that had recently entered retirement, had been called up. Thirty-one of his undercover people, varying in age from twenty-two to sixty-six, had closed in on Grainger County.
They’d tried every known trick. They had sat in restaurants, driven along back roads, and asked clerks in gas stations about a friend that had broken down and was traveling on foot.
Waiting for the call that Nick had been spotted by these undercover agents were three eight-men strike teams parked strategically throughout the county in undercover work vans. Whitaker's boss had asked the FBI to assist in the light work since they were definitely involved now.
Since they had already been shot by one of the “Ferguson family,” they were more than happy to assist. So the FBI watched friends, family, every known acquaintance of Nick’s. Whitaker didn’t expect Nick to make such a mistake of contacting any of them, but he had to play it safe.
Still, nothing. From anyone.
Besides the bad news that Nick Woods hadn’t been at home, a woman had been killed, and the media were asking questions about the hastily planned raid that reportedly caught some FBI agents off guard.
That infuriated Whitaker. It presented a definite dot on a map. In his line of work, there were always dots.
No, not dots, small blips. The blips were always scattered, separated by hundreds if not thousands of miles. They spanned counties, states, and continents, and usually seemed unrelated.
Allen Green had somehow connected a few blips. Somehow he’d figured out that American troops had hunted down Soviet troops.
Allen had brilliantly connected the blips, or dots. And even figured out that America had then sold out its own men and given away their location to the Soviets.
Of course, he was wrong about the snipers being killed and the small detail about the mole being arrested, but that was to be expected when you were dealing with small blips on the radar screen.
Allen Green presented a great threat. He was a respected journalist and no doubt had friends and colleagues who would never be convinced he invented the entire story. Or that he was a pedophile.
After all, how could a man with a decade’s-long record of integrity truly be such a criminal? His friends were reporters, and eventually, it’d start to wear on them how they’d misread Allen.
They might even decide that they hadn’t misread Allen’s character. That perhaps something else was going on, which was far more devious.
This was exactly why Allen Green was under surveillance 24/7. Not to mention, tech folks were tracking e-mail traffic among media personnel in New York, as well as each and every phone call made by Allen.
Eventually, as time went by, Allen would have to be killed. Of that, Whitaker was certain.
That was the lesson from this situation.
Whitaker had failed to eliminate Nick Woods when he was in Afghanistan. After Nick Woods and his spotter had completed their primary mission of taking out the majority of an elite Soviet Special Forces unit, Whitaker had sent the two men on worthless operations.
Each operation allowed false information to be fed to possible moles inside the CIA. It was hoped the moles could be ferreted out.
And sure enough, it had worked. They had soon found their mole -- a huge victory in itself. And to wrap things up nicely, they had leaked the coordinates of Nick and his spotter on the next mission.
They had hoped the Soviets would tie up the loose ends of Nick and his spotter, and the Soviets certainly tried. They had gone after the two Americans like madmen. More than a hundred troops, backed up by mortars and Hind gunships.
An entire operation merely to get two men. The Soviets had bagged Nick’s spotter and wounded Nick, as well, but he had escaped their cordon and worked his way back to the embassy in Pakistan.
Whitaker was confident Nick knew he had been sold out. As part of every op, Nick and his spotter were given coordinates of where to be picked up. Not just one set, but many, in case they couldn’t get to the primary pick up point. Or, in case the primary pick up point was compromised by the enemy.
But, Nick had avoided the three primary points and two other alternates, all within ten to twenty miles of his mission site. Of course, Whitaker had leaked each of the pick-up points to the mole, hoping the Soviets would bag Nick at one of them and end the mission for good.
But instead, Nick had traveled more than a thousand miles to Pakistan over a period of weeks. All while being wounded.
Whitaker had been so certain that Nick and his partner would be killed or captured that he hadn’t had anyone watching the embassy. He’d closed down the operation and sent all his forces back to America, figuring that there was no way that Nick or his spotter would get away from the battle-hardened Soviets. Not when the Soviets had the specific location of the two men.
But letting down his guard and making that assumption had proved a huge mistake. Weeks later, Nick showed up to the American embassy in Pakistan dressed as a civilian.
He made a demand to the Marine guard at the door that he wanted to meet with the American ambassador, and by the time a leak in the embassy informed Whitaker of the situation, he could hardly have Nick picked off.
Thankfully, Nick had been smart enough to create a credible story of being a missionary kidnapped from Pakistan and dragged into Afghanistan. Then, once he was no longer closely watched, he had escaped.
Nick had told the embassy he was named Bobby Ferguson, a
nd though they could find no record of him, his English was impeccable and they assumed he had been too traumatized to correctly remember his name. He certainly knew American history and geography, and they figured if they just got him back to the states with a psychiatrist, he’d be fine.
Whitaker had already reported to the Marine Corps that Nick Woods and his spotter had died in a training accident while conducting treacherous mountain operations.
The press never caught wind of the abduction and heroic journey of Bobby Ferguson. Partly it was because reporters cared little about missionaries and their religious zeal. And partly it was because no one in the media cared about Afghanistan prior to the attacks of September 11.
Thus, Nick’s story of being a missionary had proven to be brilliant and kept him off anyone’s radar screen. Quite impressive for someone untrained in the art of covert operations.
Whitaker had always debated when to take Nick out once he returned to the states. Nick had somehow understood he’d been thrown into something over his head, and had gone along with giving up his old life.
Nick Woods was dead, and his family would get the $200,000 in life insurance they were due. Nick agreed to avoid his hometown -- at least for ten or twenty years, and then, only in disguise -- and to begin his life anew under the name Bobby Ferguson.
Nick had been told by one of Whitaker’s handlers that he must avoid going home in order to stay under the radar of Soviet KGB agents, who might eventually find and identify him.
“The Soviets still want your hide for all the men you killed,” the handler said. “Not to mention, you helped turn the tide of war against them almost single-handedly, so they’ll be looking for you for years and years. If I were you, I’d stay on the run or keep a low profile.”
Whitaker knew he had to take Nick out at some point. It had to be done, but it wasn’t that simple. Nick was a nut, and he was good.
And Nick realized -- somehow -- what Whitaker hoped he wouldn’t: that his greatest threat wasn’t the KGB, but the CIA hoping to tie up a loose end.
Initially, Nick had placed dynamite all through the house. All primed to go off for the sole reason of causing a scene because Nick was smart enough to know that he couldn’t possibly stay alive.
No one could live forever if expert killers were after you. No one kept their guard up that well.
But, you could cause a scene, and Nick knew that if a house exploded, they would come. Local law enforcement. The media with their dangerous cameras and questions. And, they’d find numerous bodies in the house.
Whitaker had debated taking Nick out on the road in a classic “hit and run” or something, but Nick had approached the sheriff and told him there were people sending threats to him. So, if he’d died within the first few months, there would have been at least an investigation by the sheriff, which wasn’t a problem.
But, if the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation got involved, it could have gotten ugly. Especially, if the FBI decided they would provide assistance.
And who knew how many documents Nick kept in safe deposit boxes that Whitaker didn’t know about.
Nick was crazy, and they knew by his behavior that he was doing everything in his power to prevent his death. And they’re worst fear was that ultimately Nick planned to take down the men behind the murder of his spotter and best friend in Afghanistan.
Whitaker and his men had waited for Nick to take his guard down. To stop carrying two pistols and a knife. To stop watching his mirrors as he drove to work and living a life utterly without a pattern.
Even driving to his job, Nick changed his patterns. Sometimes he would go in to work two hours early and on other days, he would show up five minutes late. He even took different routes, one of which added 24.6 miles and thirty-three minutes to the commute.
The man was a nut. A hard target. Psychotic. But, above all of that, he was just good.
They had left him alone while keeping him under surveillance, just in case he tried to leak the story.
Then something totally magical happened. Nick had met Anne. They had watched the two with interest, and Anne had saved Nick’s life. She had tamed him and made him into nearly a normal man, one that could be taken out, no doubt.
But, Whitaker had changed his mind in one of the few instances of sympathy he’d ever had. Whitaker decided that Nick had served his country well by turning the tide of the war in Afghanistan, being used as a pawn to stop a dangerous Soviet Spetsnaz unit, and discovering a painful mole. Even when he found out the real truth of how he’d been sold out, he remained mute.
A true patriot, if ever there was one.
For sure, Nick could have started probing and looking for who had set him up, but he hadn’t. He’d understood that he’d been caught up in a game much bigger than himself. Much, much bigger. Or perhaps, he never did anything, because he realized how little he could achieve. Or maybe he couldn’t confirm well enough in his own mind that he’d been sold out.
Either way, Anne had finally closed that door for good by falling in love with the distant, stern man, and wearing down his crazy behavior.
But, now Whitaker knew he was in a world of shit. Nick’s single guiding force, his rudder in life, had been brutally killed.
Whitaker had no idea how the death of Anne would affect Nick. Currently, three of the nation’s top psychologists were evaluating Nick’s type of behavior in a “hypothetical” situation.
Worse than not knowing what Nick would do, several FBI agents were asking questions internally about the extremely odd, last-minute assignment they’d been given.
One of their men had been hit and was wounded badly. In addition, these men had no reason to keep quiet. Whitaker imagined every one of them getting phone calls from media outlets literally at any moment.
All Whitaker needed was one of them to explain to some reporter how odd the raid had been. How none of them had heard about their target and how the place hadn’t been scoped by some snipers to make sure Nick, or Bobby Ferguson as they knew him, was inside.
The director of the FBI had called and reamed out Whitaker’s boss. The raid had embarrassed the FBI, and its director was furious.
He’d have to get over it, though. And he would once he received a package later that day that had some great photos of the man in them.
Chapter 21
Back in Oak Ridge, the motel office was close to what Nick expected. A near empty desk dominated the room, sitting in the middle of it. It was one that had likely been from Wal-Mart’s greatest line of prefabricated furniture. The desk was now dusty and scratched up.
In front of the desk sat two guest chairs. They were green vinyl and cracked from overuse. A piece of notebook paper was taped to the desk.
In black magic marker, the message said, “If not here, use phone to call 421-6539.” An arrow was drawn pointing to the left, and sure enough, a phone was behind a big vase-bottomed lamp.
Nick grabbed the phone and dialed the number.
“Yeah,” a gruff voice answered. The voice sounded irritated at being disturbed.
“Hey, my name is Nick. I need a room.”
“I’ll be down,” the man said without an ounce of urgency or kindness. “Give me a few minutes.”
So much for customer service, Nick thought. Ten minutes later, a man appeared. He was early forties and quickly getting fat. He looked like he had two days of growth on his face, and his black hair was greasy and unwashed for at least two days.
The man popped a cigarette out of a pack and lit it, blowing smoke toward Nick like he didn’t give a shit.
“Well?” he asked.
“I’d like a room. My wife and I are -- well, she threw me out. I may need quarters for six weeks or six nights. I don’t know how long. What’s the going rate?”
The man looked at Nick’s clothes, trying to judge his worth.
Nick looked rough in his soiled filthy blue jeans and shabby face. Before he could take in more, Nick said, “Look, all I’ve got on me are these
clothes and this pack. Times are rough. I lost my job two weeks ago. I can go eighty a week, and you’ll hardly know I’m here.”
“Eighty it is then. But, the maid only cleans rooms once a week, on Saturday, from as early as ten in the morning ’til as late as four in the afternoon. At some point during that time, Greta will be by. You better be there. She’s not bonded and has taken stuff in the past.”
The man scratched his chin and took another long drag. “If you’re not there, she cleans anyway, and more than just your room. Be there. For eighty, you get the room with the TV that doesn’t work.”
“No problem,” Nick said.
“And also, this is a rough joint. Lots of problems with loud neighbors and fights and shit. The last thing I need or want are the cops here. They’ve been threatening to close this place down for years. You call the cops, you’re out on your ass. No questions asked.”
“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Nick said, opening his wallet and forking over $80, enough for one week.
Unlocking the door, Nick saw the room was serviceable. The carpet was drab and pocked with cigarette burns.
Thankfully, the door had a deadbolt and chain lock. Probably due to the crime problem the manager had mentioned, but Nick didn’t care. He was a big boy.
The sheets and blanket on the bed weren’t fit for a dog, stained and smelling of sex or some other God-awful stink. Nick ripped them off, even the mattress liner and threw them in the corner. He’d buy some sheets when he went out later.
The room had a chest-of-drawers, the nonworking TV, and a cracked mirror. Nick braced himself before entering the bathroom.
But surprisingly, it was clean. The design was from the ’60s, at least. Nick pressed the handle on the toilet, and it flushed. Good.
He tried the shower’s hot water, and it worked. Now, he had his command post, though it needed to be stocked.
Sold Out (Nick Woods Book 1) Page 7
