by James Hunt
Agent Grimes and Agent Mallory moved their black sedan down the road and out of view from Becca’s house. Grimes sat in the passenger seat, his phone glued to his ear, watching the house. “I don’t care what you need to do to wire that house, I just want it done… No, make it an outside team. I don’t want any potential blowback to land on the agency.” Grimes flipped the phone shut, and his partner looked over at him from behind the wheel.
“You want to check out the other names while they’re getting everything settled?” Mallory asked.
“No, this is the one. The sudden death of the husband, the sister that’s never around, the obscure job. That woman was spooked. I’d bet my last dollar that she’s reaching out to whoever her sister works for right now.”
“You think she’s going to run?”
“No, but I think she’ll do something stupid.” Grimes looked down at Sarah’s file, thumbing through the different pages until he came upon the Chicago Packing Company address. “Let’s go check out the woman’s work, see what we can dig up. I’ll have CPD put a marker on the house to keep an eye on her.”
Grimes studied Sarah’s file front to back and looked over every square inch of data to make sure he didn’t miss a thing. The CIA had intelligence on everyone, and he had the highest security clearance in the nation. And even with all that, with everything they knew and were capable of knowing, this woman was still a mystery to him. Whatever agency she worked for had shattered that invisible protective shield with which Grimes had surrounded himself.
When Mallory pulled up to the outside gate of the Chicago Packing Company, Grimes slammed Sarah’s file shut. A “closed” sign was strung up on the outside of the gate along with “hazardous materials” and “do not trespass” signs. Grimes grabbed a bolt cutter out of the sedan’s trunk and snapped the lock keeping the gate shut in half, dropping it to the ground with a thud. Grimes pushed the gate open, its rusty bottom scraping against the concrete. He and Mallory left the car parked on the perimeter and walked up to the abandoned building.
Most of the building had collapsed, with only a few structures remaining. The report on file said the damage had been caused by a gas leak that exploded during the power outages. With the power out, one of the safety valves had stopped working and triggered the leak. According to the police report, there hadn’t been any casualties, as the explosion happened days after the power outage, which gave the gas lines enough time to seep through most of the property. All the workers who had been questioned after the incident had moved away, scattered, with no forwarding addresses and no other contact information.
Grimes stepped over the rubble, careful of any overhanging pieces that could crush him. Mangled heaps of equipment and steel lay about. The back wall of the building was still mostly intact, but the roof had collapsed on the ground. A pile of rocks and beams ten feet high sat in one of the factory’s corners. Grimes looked at the top and noticed that the structure canted inward. He placed one foot on the rocky hill and ascended to the top, being mindful of any sliding concrete rolling behind him.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Mallory asked, keeping a safe distance from the potential rock slide.
Grimes maneuvered around top of the indention, testing the center with his foot. He pushed one of the center rocks hard and felt it sink, and the rest of the rocks on top of the pile shifted with it. His legs wobbled, and he whirled his arms in circles to keep his balance until the shifting stopped. He glanced at Mallory, and the two exchanged a nervous laugh.
“Nothing like a close call to make you reevaluate your decision-making process,” Mallory said.
“There’s something underneath here,” Grimes said, still walking the perimeter at the top. “The rocks didn’t spread out at the bottom, they just disappeared underne—” Before Grimes could finish, the rocks shifted again and collapsed. Pieces of brick, steel, and concrete thudded underneath him as he did his best to keep the rocks from smacking his head. The sharp edges of the jagged formations around him cut into his shirt and jacket. His arms, legs, and back smacked into the rubble. Once the rocks finally settled, he lay at the bottom, his body sore from the tumble, and he was staring at the sweaty, red face of his partner.
“Christ! Are you all right?” Mallory asked, reaching his hand down and helping him up and out of the pit.
Grimes brushed the dust and debris off himself, nursing his left shoulder and elbow slightly. The collapse had revealed a shaft underneath the cage of a mangled service elevator. Mallory looked down the crack in the side with a flashlight then kicked a rock into the space, and they both listened to it clang all the way to the bottom.
“How far does that thing go down?” Mallory asked.
“Get a cleanup crew here as fast as possible,” Grimes answered. “And you get Sarah Hill’s picture into the national databases, but do not send it to local police or media outlets. We’ll use the facial recognition software to find her. If her face comes across a public camera or security check, I want to know about it.”
The red ring twirled in a tight circle on Rick’s desk. The sunlight shining through the window caught the ruby and flashed red across the room like a lighthouse. Rick watched the ring spin in a trance. Just before the ring lost its momentum, Rick gave it another flick, which reignited another invigorating spin, continuing the flash of the ring’s ruby. Rick plucked the ring from the desk and rubbed the metal between his fingertips. A thumping pounded on his door. “Enter.”
Heath stepped inside holding a stack of folders. “Hill’s already taken out three board members. Finley, Dunst, and Kipp are gone.”
Rick picked up the files, flipping through the reports and scanning the pages haphazardly. “She can go after as many board members as she pleases. They don’t know anything. They never knew anything.”
“Sir, I haven’t been able to dig up a lot of information on our GSF mole,” Heath replied. “The only thing I’ve found is a name and a very modest bank account. I’ll be the first to admit, however, that I’m not specialized enough to fully break through the level of computer security needed to get a detailed scope of that man.”
Rick looked down at the ring, still performing flips under the skin of his fingers. The faint scent of metal filled the air underneath his nose, and he held up the ring for Heath to see. “Do you know what this is?”
Heath examined the ring, squinting in the glare of the sun. “I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking, sir.”
Rick slid the ring on and off his right index finger, rubbing the ruby stud with his left thumb. “This was the first piece of jewelry I bought for myself when I made my first big sales commission over twenty years ago. I was nineteen, working at a car dealership. I had a great month and made twenty thousand dollars. I worked fifteen-hour days every day that month. When I stepped in my boss’s office to get my check, I was worn down, tired, and could barely keep my eyes open. It was an exhaustion that permeated through my bones. But the moment I saw how much money I’d made, I pulled another fifteen hours the next day. It invigorated me, it fueled me, it gave me anything and everything I could have wanted.” Rick spread his arms out, gesturing to the office, the house, the land around him. “Even with all Hill’s resources, she still can’t find me. And if she thinks that mole squealing to her so she could kill off a few worthless sacks of expired meat will cause me to quake, then she’s sorely mistaken.”
“Sir, this woman,” Heath said, pointing to the stack of folders on Rick’s desk, “she has a vendetta. And I would like to make sure she doesn’t have a chance to continue her work.”
“All my wealth, everything I’ve done over my lifetime will not have been for nothing.” Rick’s voice was hard; each word that left his lips ignited his body in a heat. “Do you understand me? Kill the bitch. Bring her head to me in a bag, and let us be done with this.”
“Yes, sir.” Heath turned on his heel and exited.
Despite Heath’s ability and his track record, Rick wasn’t sure if he wo
uld be able to pull it off. This woman, the agency she worked for, they were relentless. Rick didn’t need Heath to kill her, just to wound her to give him the time needed to amass his countermeasures. He needed more time to find out who Branston Clark really was. Rick looked at the ring in his palm then picked it up, examining the ruby in the sunlight coming through the window. He grimaced then chucked the ring into the garbage. “I’ll get another one.”
6
The building Grimes and his partner Mallory worked out of was small, understaffed, and falling apart, but it was all he could get at the last minute. With the construction crews waiting for his team to get past the lawyers charged with protecting whatever secrets lay beneath the Chicago Packing Company, Grimes and his staff were stretched to their limits.
The Germans offered to help, but from across the ocean, they could do little more than process some of the data coming in. Grimes’s superiors had told him his mission was a priority, but with much of the country still dealing with the repercussions of the blackout, resources were scarce.
Mallory rushed into the office, out of breath, clutching a cluster of papers in his hand. “We have a hit.”
Grimes rose from his chair and followed him to the support center, where a series of monitors lined the wall. Hundreds of pieces of data were being analyzed, and a few of the screens displayed the data collaborations from the Germans.
“Let’s get it up on the main screen,” Mallory said. The large monitor filled with a picture of Sarah, along with her flight data. “It’s coming out of Ukraine, heading for Miami. It’s a twelve-hour flight, and she left eight hours ago.”
“And we’re just getting that data now?” Grimes asked.
“The servers we’re using are sharing space with FEMA, who’s still dealing with the reconstruction efforts from the blackout, and the recognition software takes time to sift through all the data points, especially with our net this wide.”
“I want the first flight there, and whoever we have stationed in South Florida, I want them ready to go in less than an hour. We get her right from the gate, seal everything off, but we do not let this shutdown get into the media. The last thing we need is for some tourist to check their news updates before they land and tip off our girl.”
Grimes dialed the chancellor on his cell. He walked back to his makeshift office and desk while the phone rang. An operator answered, and he told the woman who he was. A few seconds later, the chancellor picked up.
“We have her,” Grimes said.
“Where is she?”
Grimes picked up a duffel bag and shoved spare magazines and field gear inside, including Kevlar. “She boarded a plane from Kiev and will be landing in Miami in less than four hours. I have a team preparing to intercept, but I wanted to give you a heads-up.”
It could have been the fact that Grimes’s heartbeat was running a thousand miles per hour or the dozens of thoughts racing through his head, but he felt the silence between him and the chancellor was a very long moment. “Chancellor?”
“Do you need any support?”
“You’re not suggesting that you have German spies in the area that would be willing to out themselves for the good of the American people?”
The chancellor must have heard the smile coming from his face as he slung the duffel bag over his shoulder. He didn’t think the Germans grasped sarcasm.
“From a surveillance standpoint,” the chancellor said.
“No, but the moment I have something for you, I’ll call.”
“Thank you, Agent Grimes.”
“Thank you, Chancellor.” Grimes ended the call and met Mallory with a small unit of men in the support center as they walked in step toward the helipad. He knew how important this was. The fact that they were so close was almost too much. He hadn’t felt this overwhelmed before a field mission since he had first become an agent. Excitement returned in a roaring fervor. This would be the defining moment of his career. This would make him. Or kill him.
The fabric from the long-sleeve shirt Sarah wore itched, and she found herself clawing at the collar for most of the flight. She was wedged between two very large, very loud, very obese individuals who didn’t know each other but found they had much in common. When Sarah suggested she switch seats with one of them so she wouldn’t be caught in their verbal crossfire, they simply waved her off. The fat man to her left enjoyed the window seat, and the fat man to her right had a small bladder, which Sarah replied was the only small thing on him. The two men laughed until their belly fat thundered from all the jiggling.
The pilot’s announcement of their landing was a welcome one, and once the plane touched down and they taxied down the runway, she managed to get a glimpse at the windows over by her gate. All the seats were empty, and she couldn’t see a single person walking in the terminal. Her brow furrowed, and she pulled out her mobile, checking social media tags for the Miami airport. And she found quite a few. Massive delays and lines people had posted about said something about the computers being down, but with the pilot not mentioning any of that on his end, Sarah knew there had to be someone out there waiting for her. She pocketed the phone and squeezed her way past the large man before he could block her in. She grabbed her bag, which held both her guns and her jacket, pants, and boots, from the overhead compartment. The suitcase manipulated the images of the contents during the x-ray, and her pistols were coated with a sealant that allowed her to pass through metal detectors unnoticed. Bryce had tried explaining the process to her once, but she’d stopped listening once the word “molecular” left his mouth.
Everyone on the plane was in a hurry to get off, although Sarah couldn’t imagine what the couple in front of her had to complain about considering the three seats they’d bought to have leg room. She couldn’t be sure exactly what they had been doing under that blanket during the flight when everyone else was sleeping, but she had a few ideas.
The less attention she could draw to herself now, the better. She made her way to the back of the plane, pointing toward the bathroom, still carrying her bag. Once she made it inside, she locked the door. Sarah opened the bag and ripped off the “I love Kiev” shirt. She slid her holster over her shoulders and loaded the pistols. She pushed her arms through her jacket sleeves and exchanged the shoes for her boots.
Sarah unlocked the door and cracked it open to peek into the plane. Most of the passengers had made their way off, and the two fat men that had sat next to her were long gone. One of the flight attendants was making her way down the aisle, checking the seats for anything that might have been left behind. Sarah pushed opened the door, still clutching her bag, and the attendant gave her a smile.
“How was the flight?” she asked.
“Long, but the two walruses I sat next to kept things interesting.” The flight attendant gave a few stuttered attempts at a reply as Sarah brushed past her. She kept her eyes peeled for any agents. Her right hand lingered on the side of her jacket, itching to grab the pistol underneath.
The flight attendants and the pilot smiled as she approached the exit. She gave a polite nod back and stopped at the threshold of the terminal’s gate. She looked up at the material between the terminal and the plane. It was nothing but a heavy piece of cloth. Sarah set her bag down and started searching through it.
“Um, ma’am?” the flight attendant asked. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Actually, yes, there is,” Sarah answered, looking up from the bag, the handle of a knife clutched in her fist. “Wait a couple minutes, if you can, before you scream.”
“What?”
Sarah whipped the knife out and sliced through the fabric, cutting a body-sized hole that she slipped through, and despite her request, the flight attendant screamed the moment the blade penetrated the fabric. “Thanks for trying.” Sarah landed on her feet on the tarmac then sprinted away from the plane and the luggage workers. She looked back over her shoulder to see a cluster of law enforcement officers at the window in the terminal,
pointing and screaming and watching her get away.
The tarmac was thick with trams and luggage cargo and stares from every airport employee watching her blurred figure sprint across the pavement. An equipment shed rested on the opposite end of the airport—she had noticed it during their taxi along the runway. She needed a vehicle and cover. No doubt the CIA had already assembled choppers in the area.
The shed was in sight, and when Sarah heard the screech of tires, she didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. Warning shots landed to her left, and just before the truck chasing her tried to mow her down, she veered left, turning more sharply than the truck could keep up with.
A luggage cart was just ahead of her, and Sarah dug her heels into the concrete, skidding to a stop. She reached for the latch on the back of the cart that connected the luggage boxes and separated them. The workers still unloading the cart chased after her, but she was long gone before they could catch up.
Even with the cart’s accelerator floored, it was only slightly faster than Sarah was on foot, and the truck behind her was still in pursuit. Helicopter blades thumped in the air, and the gunshots that followed blew out the rear tires. With the air support so close and the fact that she was outnumbered, she chose not to fire back. Shooting a federal agent wouldn’t help her in the long run. Evasion was the name of the game.
With the cart maxed out in speed, Sarah didn’t bother slowing down as she careened into the shed connected to a larger hangar filled with trucks. The cart crashed into the fence, sending a mangled heap of metal wires flying up and over her head. She jumped from the cart, landed in a running stride, then shot the lock off the shed door.
A man in an orange jumpsuit shot his hands into the air when Sarah burst inside. He had a piece of sandwich hanging from his mouth, and a small lunchbox sat on the card table in front of him with an US Weekly magazine. “I think that Avis car sales rep sent me to the wrong place,” Sarah said, “but while I’m here…” She grabbed a set of keys and checked the front of the shed where the cart had parked itself, and the agents chasing her had positioned themselves at the hood and the back with their guns aimed at the shed. Sarah looked back at the man in orange, who still had his hands up in the air. “Will you do me a favor?” The man nodded. “When these guys storm through the door, will you tell them I said I’m heading to New York?” Again the man nodded. “Thanks, bud. Sandwich looks good.”
