“What about the crime scene?” Kenny asked.
“Doubtful after all these years.”
There was silence between us for a while before Kenny spoke.
“I don’t need you to protect me, Tim,” he told me a little gruffly.
“I know,” I said and I roared my truck back to life. Then we were back on the street, a trail of dust lifting up and swirling in our wake.
Chapter 22
2:00 p.m., May 6
The surest method was to attack the vulnerabilities. Agent Joe Tango knew that. What were his vulnerabilities though? Did he still have any? He had been trained to not show any weakness. He had been trained to attack the Achilles’ heels in others, but now it seemed he had his own limitations and they seemed to be getting exploited more quickly by the minute.
Agent Joe Tango was nearly killed twice in half an hour. He left the bright streets a few blocks back. It was a fine, clear day. The sun was high in the blue sky and glowed hot above the Pike Place Market sign. Joe had been sitting for only a few moments in a row of stone benches in the market, and he wanted to walk a bit to work out this problem in his mind. Foot traffic was relatively light on the streets and sidewalks around the market. He was sure that the general afternoon chaos would be something to behold, but he would not be around to see it.
Joe had learned something once—perhaps the only thing that applied at that moment—and the thought had appeared in his mind like a flashing highway sign. He had a soldier’s function which they taught him at Quantico.
The troops. The troops had to see you lead.
But now Joe wasn’t leading anyone. How so much had changed. No longer was Joe the promised soldier leader from Quantico. Now he was a fugitive.
They have to know you’re there for them.
The words sounded in his ear.
He had sworn an oath to this country, spoken the words, invoked the name of God to bless his effort. But it had all been so long ago and now it seemed to Joe that he was a different man entirely. Hardly for the first time in his life, Joe Tango closed his eyes and willed himself to awaken from this dream that was just too improbable to be real. And yet when he opened his eyes again, the bright Seattle skyline was still there. He knew he’d spoken the words; he’d even given a little speech to the men, hadn’t he? But he could not remember a single word of it now.
Joe nodded bleakly at this additional tragedy, compressed his lips, and closed his eyes at the thought of one more thing that could possibly go wrong. Life had been tragically simple. At least it had seemed simple before all this happened. Mom and Dad had died, just as he was about to now. Joe had seen them, spoken with them beforehand. Really nothing more than the normal smile and the “Hi” that one gave to a stranger. But they were gone now and Joe was on his own. That fact alone was one of the reasons Joe was recruited into all of this to begin with.
Joe knew he had been in one area too long as it was. He knew he was right the moment he heard it. Footsteps rang out in a not-so-distant alleyway and he gripped the wood handle of his government-issued Colt 1911 45ACP. He knew what the footsteps meant; he had been part of this for far too long not to. The order had been given and his life now meant nothing. They were the Cleanup Crew, the cleaners to clean his mess. Soon he would be dead, erased from this world. He was nothing but an unknown name on a few files now. His life had been expunged long ago by the CIA when he joined their Organization twenty-some odd years ago. So long ago he could hardly remember his true name. Joe… Joe Whiten. Sergeant Joe Whiten, he thought.
A long breeze swept through a dusty alleyway in downtown Seattle. The smells of fish and freshly baked bread were carried along with it as the steps of several men came closer and closer to Agent Tango. He backed up against the brightly lit brick wall of the alleyway and wished the glaring illumination of the afternoon sun would change into the darkness he was accustomed to on this type of confrontation.
BOOM!
Joe jumped into motion at the sound of a controlled explosion. He knew what it was the moment he heard the sound. It was a door breaching charge, something in his mind reported. He sensed the ringing sounds of flash bangs going off behind him. He had his forearm over his face, but not his ears. Ringing pinged repeatedly in his ears as the muffled chatter of gunfire rang out and bullets clanged against a dumpster next to him. Joe’s feet moved in quick strides around a corner and up the steep hill onto 1Avenue, and the angry voices barely reached him.
“Move! Move! Move! Target moving north!”
“Sonuvabitch!” Joe spat out, keeping his head down as he ran through a crowd of people. He knew the Cleanup Crew would most likely not fire into a crowd of civilians. Joe looked right and then left, scanning his surroundings just as he had been trained to do. He came upon a man carrying a tan jacket in his arms. With only a slight movement, Joe slid the coat out of the man’s grasp and had the coat over his shoulders, slipping down another street away from the market. Away from the searching eyes of the government killers.
Had he really lost them? He wasn’t sure. Joe slipped farther into the cover of darkness, hidden by a stopped moving van. Covered by its front fender, he could see one man standing at the left rear of the van, just standing there, his pistol hand extended as though expecting to fire at any movement that might cross his path. He was no more than fifty feet away. The man didn’t move, concentrating on the space in front of him. A mistake, Joe thought. His back was still to Joe as he approached the assassin. Joe stalked his prey low, and with light foot falls, silently got closer and closer to him.
Joe then moved quickly around the van, head down, keeping low and accelerating rapidly, his eyes fixed on his targets; the small of the man’s throat and the knee. It took only a few seconds to cover the distance. With Joe’s right foot he kicked out, crippling the right man’s knee. He simultaneously covered the man’s mouth with his hand and struck down with a precise knifelike hand strike to his exposed throat, crushing the trained assassin’s windpipe.
The blindsided attack caught the gunman perfectly. His back bent low as if he had been made of rubber. The look on the assassin’s face was one of astonishment before he gave into his own death and fell like a lump of government-issued clothing at Joe’s feet.
Joe’s eyes darted around before he stripped the man of his radio and earpiece. Joe was crouching by the body and could see that the man’s pistol had dropped to the ground beside the body. It looked like a 9-mm H&K, just like the government boys like to carry. The hammer was back and the safety was off. He lifted the gun off of the wet, cold concrete and held it for a moment in his hand. He looked down at the man that lay dead at his feet and pondered shooting him just for good measure, but then chose not to.
Joe brought the gun up to eye level and moved to the right of the van. He crouched lower once more and peeked around the edge of the alleyway. When he did not see anyone, he tucked the silenced gun into his belt and pulled the tan jacket over it. Then Agent Joe Tango disappeared into the growing afternoon crowd and was gone, engulfed in the sea of the faceless multitudes of downtown Seattle.
Chapter 23
2:30 p.m., May 6
Kat was overheating in her police vest but didn’t consider doing anything about it. If she were to take off her jacket, it would be established to everyone near the morgue that she was an officer, and that was a fact she needed concealed for now. Even in the lobby of the Medical Examiner’s office she felt uncomfortably warm as she moved from hallway to hallway. She passed by coolers and gurneys and made her way into the morgue where she was sure to find Dr. Colleens. She needed to stay clear of the press and hoped that looking somewhat less like a cop would help her now.
Kat had more than one reason for seeing Dr. Colleens on that day. She needed information and had promised herself that she was not going to leave until she got certain facts.
I will not be in the dark any longer, she had said to herself only moments before. But now Kat felt completely intimidated by her surroundings. After all, this wa
s new territory for her. This was former Detective Anderson’s territory, not hers. He and Dr. Colleens were friends and she would most definitely remain loyal to him above anyone else, but Kat had questions that needed to be asked.
As she stepped into Dr. Colleens’ office a hesitation erupted inside her. Not so much out of fear though—it was more a concern about holding firm to her cold persona. She needed to keep her resolve, remain aloof, and do what needed to be done. She was not friends with the doctor like Detective Johnson had always been. But that didn’t mean she was not friendly with her, even though Kat had always found it hard to talk with other women. She had always perceived them to be more beautiful and self-confident than she was. In reality that was not really the case; Kat was a very attractive woman. On the outside, Kat always appeared to those around her as if she was very self-confident in her abilities, when, in fact, she was not always so sure of herself. This was a fact she had always blamed secretly on her father and brothers.
She found the doctor sitting at her desk and was surprised at what she saw. Kat had expected to find Marty going over case records or ballistics reports, or maybe even entering evidence into the computer, but she found Dr. Colleens immersed in a historical research book about the ancient Greeks. It was not a large book but bound in a thick, heavy leather binding. Her right hand was moving quickly, taking notes on a yellow notepad, and she had yet to notice the detective standing in her doorway.
“Excuse me, Dr. Colleens. Would you have a moment to talk?” Kat asked, announcing herself quietly. The doctor looked up in surprise and gave her a quick smile. Somehow that simple greeting reassured Kat. It seemed to her to be an honest smile and not one given in the fake way that some people smiled at her when they weren’t being genuine.
“Oh, hello. Detective O’Hara, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Kat said as she took a step into Dr. Colleens’ office.
“Please have a seat.”
“Thank you.” Kat sat down gracefully in the empty chair across from the doctor’s desk.
“Now, what can I do for you?” Marty asked her kindly.
“Doctor, have you by any chance heard from Detective Johnson?”
“What? No, I haven’t. I’m sorry, but is there something wrong?”
She knew Dr. Colleens had the best of intentions, but Kat wasn’t about to answer that question right now. She needed to know what the doc knew and hadn’t felt inclined just yet to reveal too much information.
“When was the last time you talked with him?”
“Oh… let’s see. Yesterday evening. A body came in and he was here.”
The doctor’s eyes were fixed onto Kat now and the detective sensed concern in them. Kat wondered how close she had ever gotten with Kenny. Would she lie for him? Would this woman, this doctor sworn to help and save people, hold back information for him?
“Okay, Doctor… I need you to be straight with me. Was Kenny alone?”
“Yes,” and Kat instantly knew that was a lie. She had questioned hundreds of people in her career as a detective and she had always had good instincts, knowing without a doubt when someone wasn’t being truthful with her. Kat had her answer.
“Okay, I’m going to be frank with you, Doc. I am sure that you just lied to me about Detective Johnson. Now, I’m okay with that. I can appreciate loyalty. I’m a cop and sometimes loyalty is all we have. But I need some truth right now. I’m his partner and I have to trust him, but frankly, he has not been forthcoming in the slightest bit… I want to trust him… I want to trust you.”
There was a pregnant pause and their eyes met. They held each other’s gaze for a long moment. Then Dr. Colleens spoke.
“I want to trust you too, Detective… I need to, but it’s difficult. There is a lot of pressure to keep this quiet.”
“Pressure? Pressure from whom?” Kat couldn’t contain her exasperation.
But the doctor would not give a verbal response to the question. She merely shrugged. Then she began to scribble something on her notepad and at the same time began to speak again without looking up.
“I’m sorry, Detective. I have nothing more to say to you. Please leave my office. And if you have any further questions, may I suggest that you bring them up with your partner and not me.”
Then the doc handed her the note, the whole time holding Kat’s gaze.
“Good day, Detective.”
Kat took the signal with only a moment of confusion between the two of them before responding to the doctor.
“Good day, Doc,” Kat answered uneasily and left the office, the whole time her mind racing over many possibilities. She held the note tightly in her hand, refusing to give it even a glance as she walked down the hallway. It wasn’t until she sat in her car for several minutes and was sure that there were no eyes on her (and that the press was nowhere to be seen!) before she unfolded the piece of yellow notebook paper and read it.
Unsafe to talk here. Meet me at the fountain in the Seattle Center at 3:00.
Chapter 24
3:30 p.m., May 6
The Mary’s Corner gas station was a high-priced convenience store just five minutes from the freeway. It was one of those open-from-sun-to-dark Ma and Pop stores that were lined with port-a-potties on one side and a trailer home on the other. It was just off of Highway 12 outside of town. I was standing outside the truck waiting on Kenny who had gone inside to check things out and I decided to call my daughter, hoping maybe her mood would be more receptive this time. The line only rang a few times before it was snatched up. Since it was my daughter’s cell phone I was surprised when Sara answered it and not Merric.
“Hello,” she practically grunted at me.
“Sara, it’s Tim.” I was taken by surprise and didn’t say anything more.
“She doesn’t want to talk to you right now, Tim.”
The words hurt. And they were supposed to hurt.
“She’s tired of you doing this to her.”
“What precisely have I been doing to Merric, Sara?”
“Oh, come on, Tim. She makes plans with you and you always have something better to do. She’s tired of it.”
“You mean you’re tired of it. Sara, stop trying to turn her against me, damnit,” I told her somewhat forcefully.
“Yes, goddamnit, I am. It’s for her happiness, you know.”
“Sara, can you please just calm down? I…”
“Fuck you, Tim!”
Then I heard it. Sara was saying all these things to me in Merric’s room. I could hear Merric crying in the background and my heart broke. Guilt raged through me and I hung up the phone.
It wasn’t often that I shared Kenny’s addiction to ice cold Coke or Pepsi, but on this day I could feel my impending headache and a little caffeine would not hurt. So after filling up at the pumps we found ourselves standing at the fountain drink machine inside, indulging our cravings.
Then, coming out of nowhere, fear gripped Kenny and sent waves of panic throughout his body. I could do nothing for him. We had been out of the hospital for only a few hours when he hit the ground again. The large fountain drink he had been holding crashed to the linoleum floor and pooled around his big body. I was at his side in seconds, pulling him up and attempting to defuse the situation.
“Please, I’m a police officer. Step back! Give me some room,” I told the crowd of people that gathered around us. I held up my badge again as proof, which seemed like it was becoming somewhat of a habit.
But as I lifted him up I noticed them—the marks on his shoulder. The top of an abrasion had formed on the skin, and at once I suspected what it might be. Slash marks from a propeller.
It had begun. Kenny had been marked by the ghost and he would certainly die now if I couldn’t find some piece of the actual frightened boy who had died at the airport more than two decades ago. Time was not on our side. The ghost would take his life soon if I could do nothing to stop this from happening. I did not feel all that optimistic.
I got Kenny up
and as we walked outside amidst stares and whispers, Kenny was shaking and scratching frantically at the abrasions on his body. I lost myself in what I was doing, my mind pulled into keeping my friend safe. Death was after Kenny now, chasing after him. And chasing me too, because I would sooner die than live to see my closest and dearest friend die. I told myself I would never let it happen.
The doors to my truck shut next to us, returning silence to the dark cab, and my heart sank just a bit more as I listened to Kenny’s heavy, rapid breaths that seemed amplified inside my truck. It didn’t take much intuition on my part to immediately think of Fabiana. In times of desperation I often reached out to Kenny and in the last few months to Fabiana. And of late I was certain of my feelings for her. I truly loved her.
Suddenly he spoke to me with labored breaths, “Got to get out of here… too far away.”
“Away from what, Kenny?”
“Seattle…”
Then it was as if he awoke from a dream. He jerked all of a sudden and shook his head, wiped his eyes and looked at me in a daze.
“What the hell? What’s going on? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Apparently he didn’t even notice his soda-stained shirt. I was stunned silent for a moment and I just looked at him some more.
“Wait… You don’t remember anything?”
Kenny looked around the gas station parking lot.
“I remember getting gas.”
“But nothing else?” I asked in shock.
“No… I… I remember pulling in here and going inside to pay for gas.”
“Kenny, that was fifteen minutes ago. You blacked out, hit the ground, and started to convulse. I brought you here to the truck where you began to talk to yourself.”
“Wait. I talked to myself? What did I say?” Kenny asked, concerned. And just before I could answer he began to cough. At first I thought he was fine, but then he gave me a disturbed look that told me that he was anything but fine. His eyes were turning red and he began to gag and choke on something. Then Kenny reached into his mouth and pulled something from his throat. He stared at his hands for a long time before looking at me, and then he held it up. At first I couldn’t tell what it was, but then I could see it. For a moment my eyes were not sure what they were seeing. I closed my eyes and opened them once more. It was a fuel pipe of some kind. I had seen many fuel pipes before but I couldn’t remember one like what Kenny held out before me. It was small and had a valve on an elbow joint. It looked like it was from a piece of equipment, but it was nothing I had ever seen before.
The Blood Born Tales (Book 2): Blood Dream Page 14
