THE JACK REACHER FILES: VELOCITY (with bonus thriller CROSSCUT)
Page 26
I looked at my watch. 7:08. I had gotten to the Okefenokee early so I could take some photographs of the site before dark and send them to Nathan Broadway as promised. I planned to stick around till eight, just to make sure the Snuff Tag 9 letter was indeed a bogus subterfuge. In the highly unlikely event that it was not, I had my favorite carry revolver holstered under the tails of my Hawaiian shirt and a sawed-off twelve-gauge pump strapped to the back of the Jimmy’s front passenger seat.
I sprayed on some mosquito repellent, took my camera out of its case and got out to snap a few pictures. The cypress trees surrounding the clearing were heavily draped with Spanish moss, and some of them had purple carnivorous pitcher plants clustered at their bases. The sun was setting and the full moon rising and the area took on an eerie glow I knew the camera wouldn’t capture.
An owl hooted in the distance. I followed the sound and tried to zoom in on it with my telephoto lens, but the bird was well-camouflaged and it took me a while to find it. I scanned the treetops for several minutes and finally saw a big yellow eye peering back at me. I snapped the shot. The eye was huge. You could have served a piece of pie on it.
I heard some splashes, so I knew there was some water nearby. Probably a gator having dinner, I thought. I didn’t follow the sound and try to zoom in on it with my telephoto lens. Alligators don’t amuse me. I hate them. When I was fourteen, a friend from school named invited me to stay the night one time. We were goofing around one of the water hazards at the golf course across the street from his house when a gator came from nowhere and bit his right arm off at the elbow. I knew a little first aid, enough to tie a tourniquet and keep him from bleeding to death. My friend didn’t show up for school the next week, or the week after that. Or the week after that. I never saw him at school again, but I saw him in my dreams for a long time. Alligators don’t amuse me. I hate them.
The owl hooted again. It was getting spooky out there in the swamp. It was creepy, and I started feeling like the guy who always gets slaughtered at the beginning of a horror movie. I climbed back into the car and put the camera away and rolled up the windows.
Before I’d left civilization, I stopped at McDonald’s and bought two Big Macs and a large coffee and a bottle of spring water. I drank the coffee on the drive to the swamp, and I figured the burgers would give me something to do while I waited for eight o’clock. I unrolled the top of the bag and opened one of the Big Mac boxes and took a couple of bites and washed it down with some water.
When we were still on good terms, Juliet used to fuss at me every time I bought fast food. She’s a nurse and she sees people younger than me admitted to the hospital all the time with heart attacks and strokes and other health issues brought on by lifetimes of bad choices. I knew she had a point, but I had given up cigarettes over three years ago and still attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings over the heroin addiction I’d acquired while imprisoned by the Harvest Angels. I’d always been kind of skinny and my blood pressure and cholesterol stayed within normal limits, so I didn’t think the occasional cheeseburger or scoop of ice cream was going to kill me.
Thinking about Juliet made me want to call her. I looked at my cell phone, but there was no signal. I was too deep in the wilderness, too far from a tower. I made a mental note to call her on the way home. I opened the second Big Mac box and thought about it and decided one was enough. I stuffed the empty box from the first burger and the empty coffee cup and some dirty napkins into the McDonald’s bag and rolled the top of the bag tight and set it on the passenger’s side floorboard to throw away later.
By 7:55 the sun was gone all the way but the moon was bright and I could still see the shapes of the trees and the Spanish moss. At 8:03 I decided nobody was coming. I reached for the ignition switch and something hit the windshield with a thud and then rolled off the hood and fell to the ground. I pulled my flashlight out of the glove box and my revolver out of its holster and opened the door and got out, thinking maybe the owl I’d heard earlier had accidentally smashed into the glass. I walked around the car and pointed the light at the object by the front tire on the passenger’s side.
It wasn’t an owl.
It was Nathan Broadway’s head.
This concludes the sample chapters. If you would like to finish the entire novel, SNUFF TAG 9 is now available for purchase.
Thanks again, and happy reading!
Jude
Copyright © 2015 by Jude Hardin
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author. Previously published by Amazon Publishing.
August 2015
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Excerpt: THE BLOOD NOTEBOOKS
== Bonus Novel: CROSSCUT
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Excerpt: SNUFF TAG 9