Near Death (A Jake Townsend Science Fiction, Action and Adventure, Thriller Series Book 1)

by Richard C Hale

  “Yes. That’s Foxwood. I lived in there for a couple of years as a kid. Right here—Epsilon Court.” Jake indicated a small cul-de-sac off the main roadway about midway through the neighborhood. His finger shook and Peter looked at him.

  On the map, a red blip blinked on and off about three blocks to the north of Epsilon, moving ever so slowly northwesterly.

  “It looks like he’s heading toward this area,” Peter said. “Is this a main roadway?”

  “Not really. I mean it’s a two lane road, and it gives access to a number of neighborhoods along it, but it’s fairly quiet. It’s called Moody Avenue and this is Doctor’s Lake Drive just on the other side of these railroad tracks.”

  “All right, let’s head into the neighborhood and see if we can cut him off.”

  “If you can get to him fast enough,” Jake said. “If you don’t, and he finds this opening in the fence here at the back of the neighborhood, we’ll have to drive all the way around to get to Moody or Doctor’s Lake.”

  “There’s no way out of the neighborhood in the back?” Peter asked.

  “Nope, only one way in and out—right here,” Jake pointed to the entrance. “At least for a car.”

  “Morris, punch it! Take the first right after we get out of the parking lot and follow it around and then take the first left after that. We’ve got to move if we’re going to cut him off.”

  “Got it,” Morris said, and accelerated onto Kingsley, cutting off a Honda Pilot, its horn blaring at them.

  Peter and Jake watched the red blip move toward the back of the cul-de-sac at the rear of the neighborhood.

  “He’s making a bee-line for that opening,” Jake said.

  They were flying through the narrow roads, but had to slow down every hundred yards or so because the builder thought it would look better if there were little islands built into the middle of the roadways to act as a deterrent for speeders instead of the usual speed bumps.

  Jake thought it was working.

  They were coming up on a fork about four hundred yards from the blip and Peter yelled, “Turn right here!”

  Morris yanked the wheel to the right and Jake held on as the van leaned to the left. They took a shallow bend back to the left and then accelerated as the road straightened out for a few hundred yards. Another right turn, then left and the back fence of the neighborhood came into view.

  “He’s through,” Peter said. “Dammit!”

  There was no one in sight as they pulled up to the fence opening.

  As the van sat idling, Morris asked, “What now, boss? Should we go around?”

  Peter looked at the moving map and Jake saw that the red blip was crossing over the railroad tracks and heading for Doctor’s Lake.

  “Johnson,” Peter said, “I want you to follow him on foot while we make the end run around. Look at the map here—he’s heading this way across this road on the other side of the fence, over these railroad tracks and toward the road on the other side. If you see him, stay on his tail until we get into position.”

  “Yes, sir, got it,” Johnson said, sliding the van door open.

  “Remember, he’s got Davis’s MP5. Keep in touch with the two-way.”

  Johnson nodded and jumped out, shutting the door behind him.

  “Morris, get us out of here!”

  “On it!”

  Morris turned the van around and headed back the way they came.

  Jake pointed to the map and said, “Here—Orange Avenue—that will be the quickest way to both Moody and Doctor’s Lake. We can make the decision to take either one at this intersection.”

  “Morris, exit the neighborhood to the right and we’ll go down—uh—two streets and take that right. It’s Orange Avenue,” Peter said.

  Morris nodded, concentrating hard on missing the islands in the road. Peter and Jake watched the red blip on the screen as it paused for a few minutes just before Doctor’s Lake Drive.

  “What’s he doing?” Jake said.

  “Probably resting,” Peter said. “He’s hurt and cold and he’s been moving at a pretty good clip since he ran out of the lab. There! He’s on the move again.”

  They watched him move close to the road and then he stopped again. About a minute later they saw the blip cross the road and then stop on the other side. The radio crackled to life.

  “Alpha, this is bravo, gunshots fired, I repeat gunshots fired!”

  “Stay down and do not return fire, bravo, copy?” Peter said.

  “Bravo, copy.” Johnson said. “He’s not firing at me. I can see now through the trees. He’s killed a dog, and a woman is lying on the ground. I can’t tell if she’s moving or not. Suspect is not in sight.”

  “He’s directly across the road from you, not moving. Stay put!”

  “Roger.”

  The van made the turn onto Orange Avenue and was trying to go around a slow moving Accord, but oncoming traffic prevented it.

  “We’ll be to your position in four minutes, bravo,” Peter said.

  “Roger, car approaching rapidly—shit! I thought the guy was going to run over the woman, but he’s stopped now and getting out of the car. We may have trouble. He’s calling someone on his cell. Shit! Suspect is moving! He’s just climbed into the vehicle and is driving off to the—uh—north! Repeat, suspect is in a vehicle, moving north.”

  “Dammit!” Peter said, pounding his fist into the bench.

  “What now?” Jake said.

  “I’m thinking. Give me a sec.”

  “Do you think that guy called the police?” Jake asked. “You don’t want the cops involved with this do you?”

  “Johnson!” Peter said.

  “Go”

  “Subdue that guy with the cell! We don’t want the police alerted. Hurry!”

  A double click of the mike was the response from Johnson as they turned onto Moody Avenue about a minute away.

  “Morris, turn left here and then right onto Doctor’s Lake. Johnson is just up ahead.”

  “Right,” Morris said.

  They watched the red blip pull rapidly away down Doctor’s Lake and then they were stopping as Morris pulled up to where Johnson stood next to two bodies and a dog.

  Peter slid the van door open and Johnson said, “The woman is alive, the man is out cold and I checked the called numbers on his cell. This looks like a private number, maybe a friend, but definitely not 911 or the police. I think we’re good for now, unless the friend calls the police for him.”

  “All right, good work Johnson. Let’s get these people and the dog hidden in the bushes and then we’ve got to move.”

  Jake and Johnson carried the man to the side of the road and unceremoniously deposited him in the bushes while Peter and the other agent grabbed the woman and did the same. Morris pulled the dog off to the side of the road and left him on the bike path. They all jumped back in and accelerated north hoping they could catch up to Omar before he got too far away.

  62

  January 19, 2010 7:10 p.m.

  Orange Park, Florida

  Omar drove the speed limit.

  It had taken him a minute to find the volume on the radio to turn it off. The music, or whatever they called it here, was full of bass and the vocalists all sounded like they were shouting at each other. Another reason the stupid infidels needed to die. Their music drove people to madness.

  Omar calculated he had maybe thirty minutes in the car before the police were alerted and then he would have to leave it on the side of the road and continue on foot. His mind worked feverishly trying to figure a way out of this.

  He did not know his way around this small town, and his contacts in America were limited and located in the New York and Miami areas. He needed to be free of his pursuers first, before he began actively seeking help.

  He figured he would stay on this two lane road for as long as it would take him north. The streets passing by on his right were probably more neighborhoods and had names like, Woodland and Birchwood. He did not want t
o risk turning into a bottle neck where he would have to back track and lose time and distance.

  Headlights appeared in his rear view mirror and he glanced up at it, concerned. The police wouldn’t have responded this quickly, would they?

  Headlights appeared in front of him and he made sure he was centered in the lane as the car approached from the opposite direction.

  Omar glanced into the rear view mirror again. The headlights behind were now catching him quickly. The vehicle was moving rapidly. He was concentrating so hard on the lights coming up from behind, he had wandered into the other lane. As the oncoming car passed, it had to swerve to miss him and the driver angrily honked its horn. Omar jerked the wheel to the right, overcorrecting and then back left as he drove onto, and then off, the shoulder of the roadway. He had to slow to regain control.

  The lights at his rear came right up on his bumper and stayed there for a half a kilometer or so, and then moved to his left and accelerated, passing him. Omar glanced over as a van passed and at first he thought it an overzealous driver late for dinner, but taking a second glance he recognized it as the vehicle the Americans had driven him in from Orlando.

  Too late.

  As it passed in front, it turned hard right into a skid. Omar slammed on the brakes and swerved right onto the shoulder again. His car crashed into the side of the van and came to a stop with its hood pressed against the sliding door.

  He grabbed the MP5 with his good arm, fired it through the windshield, shattering the glass, and peppered the side of the van with bullets. Throwing the car in reverse, he backed away, grimacing, the pain from using the injured arm almost unbearable. Slamming the shifter into drive, he swerved left as he went around the back of the van, hitting the rear bumper and causing it to spin further to its right.

  He pulled away into the night, his headlights smashed, windshield shattered, steering blindly down the dark road.

  63

  January 19, 2010 7:22 p.m.

  Orange Park, Florida

  Jake had been thrown to the rear of the van during the violent maneuver Morris had performed. His hip had banged painfully off of the bench and he ended up on his ass on the floor. Peter had somehow held on to the computer and maintained his seat, but now yelled at Morris.

  “What the hell, Morris! Are you trying to kill us?”

  Morris said nothing and then they were all diving for cover as bullets sprayed the van. Flat on the floor, Jake heard the car back up and pull away, slamming into the rear bumper of the van and spinning them sideways. The laptop, which Peter had dropped, slid into Jake’s head painfully, but he reached out and held onto it, trying to keep it from banging into something else.

  “Anybody hit?” Peter yelled.

  “No’s,” all around as the five of them picked themselves up off the van floor.

  “Morris, can we follow? Any damage?” Peter asked.

  He didn’t answer, just put the van in drive and spun around, accelerating after Omar.

  Jake grabbed hold of the bench and hung on until the vehicle stabilized. Peter took the laptop from Jake and looked relieved to see it was still functioning. The blip was not too far ahead.

  “Can you see him, Morris?” Peter said.

  “Tail lights ahead. It looks like his headlights are out so he’s driving blind.”

  “That’ll slow him down. This time, try to run him off the road from behind without killing us.”

  Morris grunted.

  Jake looked around the van and saw that Johnson was bleeding from the head. He didn’t seem to care. Jake took inventory of his own aches and pains and was relieved to find there were nothing but bumps and bruises.

  If Peter were to ask him again to come along and act as guide, he would say no. He was in real danger here and didn’t like it.

  It was one thing to be tailing someone in the night, but the violence of a car crash, even one intended, and being shot at, was taking its toll on him. He kept thinking of Teri, trying to feed his fear with anger. It didn’t seem to be working.

  Peter handed the laptop to Jake who took it with shaking hands. “Hold on to this for a moment. I need to ride up front with Morris for a bit.”

  Peter slid into the front passenger seat and took out his pistol, checked the clip and then slid it back in.

  “How many bullets do you think he has in that clip?” Peter asked no one in particular. “We need to make him waste the rest of it.”

  “He fired a three round burst that killed Davis in the lab,” Johnson said. “Another single shot into the General and then maybe five rounds at you in the lab.”

  “Ok, nine rounds. How many to kill the dog?” Peter asked.

  “Three rounds into the dog.”

  “Twelve. Anyone able to estimate how many he fired into the van? I want to say nine.”

  “That sounds about right,” Johnson said.

  “So he’s fired about twenty one rounds of a thirty round clip. Let’s see if we can get him to blow the remaining nine. Morris, get close and I’ll see if I can draw his fire.”

  * * *

  Omar could barely make out the road.

  There was scarcely enough light between the widely spaced street lamps for him to navigate, but he kept the accelerator pressed as the cold wind whipped at his face through the missing windshield. He shivered uncontrollably.

  Headlights approached rapidly from the rear. He cursed loudly in the wind.

  Letting go of the steering wheel for a second, he secured the seatbelt. It pressed against the wounded shoulder but he would just have to bear it. This was probably going to get nasty

  The van came up on his rear and then slid to his left, but did not pass. Gunfire—and a bullet ricocheted off of the hood. He ducked and swerved into the van, but they were ready and easily fell back behind him. More gunshots as bullets missed him but one broke the left rear window and then his rear windshield was shot out.

  He grabbed the MP5, gritting his teeth against the pain from having to steer with his injured arm, and turned left in his seat, firing a three round burst at the van. It swerved behind him just in time and he missed wide.

  He watched it slide left again as more gunshots rang out. A bullet whizzed past his left ear. He turned again and fired another short burst anticipating the van’s move. He caught the left headlight, before it moved out of position. He turned the other way and fired through the shattered rear windshield and watched as the right headlight blew out and two bullet holes appeared in the windshield of the van. The van swerved back to the left out of his line of fire.

  Turning back to his left, he pointed the MP5 at the driver and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  He squeezed again, but the gun was empty. Cursing, he dropped the gun and switched hands on the steering wheel. He swerved left into the van, trying to force it off the road, but it slowed and stayed behind him, keeping pace with his speed.

  He was out of options.

  * * *

  “All right! That’s it! He’s empty. Use the bumper and spin him out. It’s time to end this,” Peter said. “Hold on everyone!”

  Using a technique popular with law enforcement called PIT, Morris moved to the left lane and sped up just enough so his right front fender was even with the left rear fender of Omar’s vehicle. He then brought the van back right, connecting with the left back fender, causing the rear end of Omar’s car to fishtail and spin out.

  At fifty miles per hour, the effect was spectacular.

  The car slowly spun sideways, the tires screaming as Omar tried to regain control. It wandered into the right median and struck a rut in the turf as it slid sideways. It began to flip.

  The momentum carried the car through three complete revolutions and then it settled back down on its tires, right side up.

  Morris slowed the van to stay behind the out-of-control car and as it came to a stop, everyone but Jake jumped out and surrounded the car.

  Jake heard shouting, but no gunfire.


  After the wild ride, Jake was glad the gunplay was over. He wasn’t sure if Omar had survived the horrible crash, but at this point, he really didn’t care. He just wanted this night to be over.

  64

  January 19, 2010 – 7:45 p.m.

  Orange Park, Florida

  Maddy couldn’t seem to sit still.

  Jake had been gone for over forty five minutes and no one had heard a thing. She knew she should have gone with them. She walked over to the one called Pierce and asked again for the third time in fifteen minutes if he had heard any news. He shook his head.

  Bodey sat in an office chair inside the console area with his arm bandaged in a sling. She wandered over, sitting down on the stool next to him.

  “He’ll be all right,” Bodey said.

  “I know. I can’t help worrying. I should have gone with them.”

  “I’m not worried at all. I still think he has something else to do and nothing can happen to him until he finishes it.”

  “I don’t know. The last dream we had seemed kind of final to me, as if there was nothing else to fix once we made Frank whole. That’s why I’m so worried I guess. Nobody is looking out for him.”

  “That Peter guy is looking out for him and he’s pretty badass. Hell, he shot me in the arm. Pretty good shot.”

  “I don’t think Peter cares for anybody but himself. He’d shoot Jake if he got in the way.”

  Commotion in the back of the lab made Maddy stand and Bodey turn. Two of the men who had left with Jake came in carrying the terrorist through the back door. Peter followed behind and shouted for Pierce and the woman who both ran right over. Jake came in behind the last operative. Maddy rushed over and threw her arms around him.

  “No one knew what was happening,” she said against his chest. “I was going crazy!”

  “I’m all right,” he said. “It was probably good you didn’t come. It got kind of rough. Gunfire and car wrecks. It was pretty hairy!”

  She looked over at Omar. “Is he alive?”