Matt asked, “Doug, what really brought your plane down? Was it the same things we saw before?”
Doug’s answer was a grim, “Yes, and worse. They’re keeping it under wraps right now, but soon the mainstream media will have it. Matt, do you really think Pablo would attack innocent people like that?”
“Truthfully, I just don’t know. If I tell you what I’m about to tell you, it will put you in peril.”
“You don’t think I have the right to know, Matt?”
“Okay, Doug, but I wouldn’t plan on ever telling anyone what I’m going to say.” He looked at Doug with sincerity, “I killed Pablo, Doug, two years ago in Ecuador, so this can’t be him.”
Doug thought before he spoke again, “Do you remember what you said to me when our faces were in the dirt and crazy assholes were holding machine guns to our heads in Mexico?”
“I do, Doug, why?”
“Because the way you said your turn was next, I believed you, even though you were about to be killed, so I’m not going to act too surprised by that revelation. But the question still remains, who is doing this? Have you made any new enemies or done something to someone that would give them a reason to do this to get to you?”
Matt wasn’t about to get into his situation with TJAC, he needed to get going now, but one day Doug would hear the whole story. “No, Doug, I have no idea who would want to do this to me or my family; maybe Pablo’s followers. My wife and son are upstairs right now and it seems they have been poisoned and are fighting for their lives. I have to go to my house now and get some things as they are going to transfer us to a hospital in California ASAP.”
He let Doug know where Jon and Jan were and asked him to please look out for them until he got back. Doug said, “Okay,” but then asked if he didn’t want some company for this quick trip to Lummi Island to get his stuff.
That’s when Matt snapped at him, “Doug, listen to me and listen good. Everyone who comes into contact with me ends up dead. Whoever this was tried to kill you today, you weren’t supposed to live through that, my friend.
“Then I was supposed to see it in the news. You need to listen to me my brother. If you want to live to an old age, then you need to forget you know me. Someone has chosen me to be the world’s biggest patsy and just the fact we’re talking right now might have already done you in, let alone watching my family. Which in retrospect doesn’t sound like such a good idea for you. I can’t keep from cursing the people who are close to me.”
He got up to leave and Doug wanted to say something, but there was really nothing to say. Matt leaned in and told him that, “Maybe one day I can write the truth because as it looks like now, they are going to take away everything I have that would stand in the way.”
Doug retorted, “I’ve heard you out, now you hear me out. I’m in your corner and it’s obvious by my jet being brought down that they already know we are close. So you won’t be scaring me off, Matt, I’m in this ’till the end.”
“Thanks, but you know that I can’t ask that of you, it’s not in me.”
“I know, and that’s why I’m telling you!”
“You know, Doug, when a man has nothing to lose, he can be dangerous. Of course, the minute I open my mouth, I’m a marked man for life, but if something happens to those two, then I’m going to sing like a canary.”
They exchanged cell phone numbers just in case something happened after he left. He felt beyond anxious to find out what the heck happened to his parents.
Doug watched him hurry off and sat there trying to process all that the last ten minutes had disclosed. Sometimes whole worlds changed in the course of a few minutes and he felt that his world had just experienced such a transformation. He was elated to hear that Matt was alive, but the current circumstances and the fact that someone must know that the two of them were close and then had tried to get to Matt through him, was proof enough that he was already in this way over any point of backing out. Matt was just too stressed to see that now, but it would come to him. This was war.
Matt’s mind had never spun so hard. If he were Pablo, he would have sorted all this out and had a plan for each contingency as they popped up, but he was not Pablo. Yes, he had survived that horrible ordeal and in the end outsmarted the smartest man the world had ever known, but it could not be that man.
He’d had a nice, simple one-dimensional plan four years ago: infiltrate their group, garner confidence and trust, and then bring them down. He had never had to deal with so many variables in his first life or death struggle, and as he reached for the door of his car, his fear for what he was going to find out about his parents was nearly too much for any one human being to handle.
He got into his Explorer, and put on his sunglasses with his left hand as he was using his right hand to turn the key, no motion or millisecond wasted. Just as he put his hand on the shifter, a shot came through the window.
Matt found out first hand what happened to a person who was nearly hit by a supersonic round. The glasses saved his vision, as the impact of the flying safety glass off his face was enough to crack the lens on his wraparound glasses. He had also learned something from what Peltz taught him. Bullets shot at you at that velocity make little super sonic shock waves as they fly by and even though Matt was four inches from the shot, it felt like a punch in the face. He immediately (and a lot quicker than he thought possible) crouched into the driver’s well; the second shot would have been a kill as it burst the front and back window right over his head.
Glass was raining on top of his head. He was too crouched to put the car in gear so he did the only thing he possibly could, he opened the door to create a diversion. His thinking was the next shot was going to be through the engine block and into the well, so he was banking that the shooter would instead redirect and hit the door. And that’s when he would slide up and try to pull out before he could re-sight. Basically he was hoping the shooter was less skilled than he was, or this was it for him.
Just as predicted, the shooter took the bait and hit the door. So Matt pulled himself up with all his might and jammed it into gear as he was punching it. The next shot came right through the metal of the window frame and exited in the passenger window behind him. He peeled out of there expecting one more through his side of the car, getting him in the back, but the shot never came. Maybe his movement changed the shooter’s perspective?
He checked the rearview mirror, no one was coming, but his face and head were bleeding as his hat fell off when he ducked. His hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold the steering wheel. He made his way out to Highway 20, heading to the terrifying prospect of what he was going to find on Lummi Island. Then he had a thought.
He dialed 911, and when the operator answered, he reported the gunfire and lone sniper on the grounds of the hospital. That would send in the troops to occupy the place. He also placed a call to Doug. He wanted to ask him, even if he had no right to do so, if he would go to Jan and Jon now and look out for them. No answer on Doug’s phone. What is up with that today?
Doug watched him leave and his heart twanged. That poor guy was destined to be road kill. Most people would have never have believed that story, yet he knew it was true as he drifted toward the door to watch his friend run for his car across the parking lot.
The glass in the hospital was smoked so anyone on the outside wouldn’t know he was on the inside and that was a good thing. As soon as Matt made it to his car, he witnessed someone shooting it up. The next few seconds were hard for Doug to comprehend as the boldness of such an action in broad daylight stunned him. He watched as Matt got away again, seemingly unscathed, although this time he could hardly believe it.
Doug searched for the shooter but couldn’t see anything. People were coming out and there were other witnesses who saw what had happened, pulling out their own cell phones. Doug turned and immediately headed to the front desk to find out what room Matt's family was in. He had no weapon, so he didn’t know what he could do if someone showed
up who did have one, but he’d be damned if he just stood by and watched Matt’s family be killed.
Matt told him that he figured they were just using his family to get leverage on him, because if they wanted them dead, they would be. Doug concurred, but that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t change their minds once they missed their target. He knew the cops would be showing up soon, so if they were going to do something, it would probably be now.
Doug got to the room and the boy and his mom lay still in separate beds. He closed the door and moved the heavy chair in front of it and sat down. After a tense fifteen-minutes he got up and checked the window. Hordes of cop cars were everywhere and soon thereafter came a knock on the door.
He moved the chair out of the way and let the two cops come in. They let him know they were conducting a room-by-room safety check as someone had discharged a gun in the parking lot. Doug let them in and they searched the room and left. Doug left the chair where it started.
He walked over to the window again, which just happen to look right down on the crime scene. When asked, he told the two cops he had seen nothing. The CSI people showed up and he could see they were digging slugs out of the wall of the rehab building.
Then something off in his horizon caught his eye. It was a seaplane that landed in the harbor just a few short blocks away. He had never flown one, but he assumed its takeoff would be like one of his old cargo planes when it was laden—sluggish and heavy. He turned and looked at Matt’s wife and child, so helpless. Matt wasn’t much better off. Who knew what the guy was walking into all alone? He had a feeling starting to build, and a voice in his head that needed to be addressed.
He also felt that there was little he could do here that mattered. It would be a very high profile kill if it were done anytime soon and Doug seriously doubted that the bad guys were within miles of here now. The more he considered it, the more his impulse to help his friend was growing out of control. He felt for sure that was where the danger was now. It looked like it was time to shit or get off the pot. He reluctantly left Matt’s family’s side to go and do what Matt had warned him against; Doug was going to get involved
* * *
Matt was over the edge and driving over ninety now. He was beyond rational thought and would stop for nothing, so he hoped he encountered no cops. The wind was howling through the glass and his cracked wraparound sunglasses were causing all kinds of visual problems. Also, flecks of glass were randomly breaking off and flying in, and he was pretty sure one just cut his earlobe. It was not safe or sane to be driving so fast with a shattered car, but he was beyond caring.
Matt considered that it was a good thing that the fucker who shot at him was not as good as Jim Jensen or he would be dead. Then the epiphany came. If TJAC had been behind this, then he would be dead, because they would have sent Jim to do it, and Jim did not miss.
So if it wasn’t Chase who wanted him dead, then who? He looked at his keychain and he’d remembered. When it was handed to him, Chase had told him that if he were ever in imminent danger, he should activate the locator. And when the danger was life threatening, use the laser pointer, and keep it on the target for ten seconds.
He promised when and if Matt did that, help would be on the way. Matt had to trust. Throughout his recovery, trust was the one component that was nearly impossible to get back. After all the things he had seen and had been party to, a part of him became a hard-core cynic.
He exited Slater Road just outside Bellingham and started to make his way home.
Matt was now running on raw emotion and adrenaline. He also realized that he’d been setting his training aside and doing the thing whoever was herding him wanted him to do. Then he thought about what Jim would do right now and he’d decided he needed to start being smart and bury his emotions for the time being.
First, he would activate his locator and let TJAC know he was back and where he was. Second, he would not run straight to his boat as he had intended. As one approached the edge of the woods before the harbor came into view opposite Lummi Island, there were a few houses that faced his property. He knew from previous observations that one of them never seemed to be occupied.
He noticed this house during Jan’s and his excursions into the sound to have loud sex (something they could not do with mom and dad living below). This particular house never had lights on, and Matt had never seen anyone there during the day, either.
He still had his hunting rifle, so he decided he’d get a peek at the house before committing to breaking and entering. Then he had another thought and pulled over. He got out and searched the undercarriage of the Explorer and found it on the back left bumper. It was a GPS tracker. He did not smash it though, instead, he brought it into the car. He came across a produce stand, stopped and bought an apple, leaving the tracker on a couple’s car he had seen coming in from the west. It had Canadian plates.
He saw it now. Someone was playing a game with him. Someone wanted to toy with him before they ended him. He made the turn for Lummi and made note of the Tsunami Escape Path signs. That was exactly how he felt, like he was running from a tsunami.
Whoever was doing this to him wanted him running in a blind panic, and so far he was obliging them. But now his organization would be in on it, and if he wasn’t reading the situation wrong, then he still worked for a group of people who would like to see him stick around. As he was nearing Fisherman’s Cove, he saw the house and pulled in. He was able to pull all the way back and over as the driveway had a small dogleg down near the end that allowed him to get out of sight.
He parked and gathered his thoughts. Someone was trying to make him think that Pablo Manuel was alive. No one else would carry that kind of a grudge, unless it was a sycophant who still lived. Matt had poisoned his people, so maybe now the payback was they poisoned my family? I killed our woman and him, but somehow not all of them, and now what?
He looked across the Sound but could see no sign of life. Matt got out and went to the back of the SUV, retrieving his rifle case. He had just purchased a Bar ShorTrac Hog Stalker Realtree Max-1. He almost refused to buy it because of that ridiculous name, but Jim told him to just ask for the Browning tree-camo 308, the one with the pistol grip.
Sure enough the guy at the counter brought him his favorite gun to date, without the tongue-twisting name. From the second it hit his hands it was a part of him. With a pistol grip and 10X fixed scope, it was a dream come true in his hands. The scope wasn’t as sophisticated as the scope that Jim had him use for sniping, but that scope had mil and other advancements that he didn’t need for deer hunting.
He brought his rifle out of the case and went over and sat on the ground right in front of the truck and brought the rifle up. His house was deserted yet still in one piece. There were no signs of broken windows or mayhem. His head pounded with the thought of what the fuck is going on?
He wouldn’t have been able to see his parent’s car, as they usually parked in the horseshoe at the front of the house. The clock was ticking on him, though, and he figured whoever had put that tracker was going to be frantically looking for him now. Anyone he saw on his property was going to die quickly. He kept his ears peeled for the sound of revved up engines speeding around. Nothing. No movement of any kind on the opposite shore. He’d had enough. He needed to get home and get answers.
He went back to the car, placed his shoulder holster on, and put his Beretta snug in its home. He put on his windbreaker and headed to the shore, rifle slung over his shoulder. It took ten minutes to traverse the shore and get to the boat.
Then he’d realized that he still had to go home by his boat, but if they were looking for his car and it was headed to Canada, as long as the one he thought they’d have planted on the boat didn’t move, then they wouldn’t come here. It took him five minutes to find the GPS locator they’d hidden under the ledge on the port bow. He placed it on the adjacent boat, “Mother Theresa,“ which was berthed right next to him.
The trip over to the house
was quick and he leapt up the grass to his parent’s apartment in desperate bounds. Their door was locked so he used his key. The house looked untouched and he quickly looked around. They weren’t there. He ran out around the side past the sauna and up to the horseshoe driveway. No cars were there.
He went back to their house and looked around. On the table was the news that he dreaded he was going to find—well not this exact news, but some lead as to where they might have gone. There was an open letter on the table and it said that his parents had won a raffle they had submitted who knows when. They were invited to lunch in Kingston and the two tickets enclosed were not there. Matt thought, it’s impossible for one man to be this unlucky all in one day. He dialed his dad’s number again and it went straight to voice mail like before, but now the mailbox was full.
Then he heard a buzzing coming from the coat rack and Matt walked over there and found his dads light jacket. In it was his cell phone with all Matt’s missed calls on the screen.
He looked at the call log and there had been a call to the main house just after ten. Jan would have been long gone by then. He re-ran back up to the house, entered, and got to the answering machine. It was his mom who had called, and her message was a joyful. “Hi, Dear, your father and I won a raffle contest for something or other, and the prize was a first class lunch at Prizzis over in Kingston. You know how your father loves good Italian, so we’re going to travel over there for lunch as I finally got your father to agree to ride the ferry.”
The call ended after that and Matt found the nearest chair to collapse in. He’d finally been beaten. Someone had finally made him give up. If they burst through the door right now, he’d have let them shoot him without a fight. Thunderstruck, he wondered if his parents were really dead?
He was falling down a well of despair when he remembered Jan and Jon. There were times in life when life handed one too much for one to handle. Matt never remembered saying he was cut out to handle any of this? True, he had considered himself smarter than the average individual, but he was never equipped to handle such abstruse matters as these.
Without Wrath (Harbinger of Change Book 3) Page 18
