by Simon King
“I already have a couple of agents standing by to meet you there,” John said as he shook hands with them. Tim gave him a final hug, then closed the door once John was back in his car.
“It all makes sense now,” Tim said as they watched the limo pull back out into traffic. “He’s been ahead of us this whole time. He knows what we do. Son of a bitch.”
“But why?” Sam asked as they returned to the room.
“He loved Evie as much as I did. I think he resented me more than anything when she chose me.”
“It couldn’t have been easy for him, being partnered with her and all.”
“Prick should have died,” Tim mumbled.
Sam went to the small sink in the bathroom and filled a glass of water. She took it back to the table, popped the lid off the pill jar and upended it into her mouth, dropping one onto her tongue.
“Bad, huh?” Tim said, a little apologetically. Sam tilted her head from side to side as she sipped from the glass and swallowed the pain relief.
“I’ll manage,” she said, setting the glass down on the table. Tim walked to the door, paused and looked back.
“Just need to grab my washing. Should be dry by now, I hope. You’ll be alright for a minute?” Sam nodded, waving him away.
“A man doing washing. I love it,” she said, giggling a little. Tim flipped her the bird, smiled and walked out, closing the door behind him. Sam grimaced as the pain in her arm continued to throb, hoping for the pill to work its magic. As the room started to swim, she wondered whether it was working a little too well.
The dryer was still tumbling his clothes around when Tim entered the laundry. Despite this, he opened the door anyway, rifled through the clothes and found his underwear. He’d never been one to go commando, preferring his ‘package’ to be tucked up securely. But spending the last couple of days without a spare change of clothes had been torture. He’d promised himself that morning to do a small load, including his t-shirt, jocks and socks.
He looked briefly out of the door, then closed it and removed his boots and pants. With his balls swinging free, he hurried to step into the warm and welcoming trunks, sighing with relief as he felt his best mates cuddle up close to him. Once his pants were on, Tim grabbed his socks, put them on, then slipped back into his boots.
After folding his t-shirt down to as small as possible, he stuffed it into his pants pocket, before hurrying back to the room. As he walked, his mind tried to make sense of the informational overload John had brought with him. He still wasn’t entirely sure he believed any of it, but trusted his mentor enough to know that there could be some truth to their theory. But as he opened the door back into his motel room, any doubt he had, was instantly vaporized.
The chair John had been sitting on only minutes before was lying on its side. The door to the only other room was closed and Tim knocked on it, expecting Sam to yell out to him.
“Sam?” he called, gently knocking on the door for fear of startling her. But the silence of the bathroom screamed back at him, Tim sensing something wrong. After knocking a second time, he slowly opened the door. “Sam, you in here?”
She wasn’t, the room sitting just as he had left it. He turned back, looked at the table and noticed the sheet of paper propped against Sam’s recently used glass. He didn’t need to step closer, the words readable from where he stood. As they screamed inside his brain, Tim felt his stomach take a nauseating turn as the nightmare John had hinted at, finally materialized before him. He took a step closer to the note, picked it up and stared at the sentence in horror.
About time you came.
12
John had barely made it back to the plane when Tim’s frantic call came through. He hadn’t been wearing his earpiece and so had no idea of the urgency the call had. As he climbed the steps aboard his jet, he saw Tim’s face on his cell’s screen.
“Hey,” he said, answering the call as he sat down. But that was a s far as he got, Tim’s voice cutting him off instantly.
“She’s gone, John. He has her.”
“What? How?” John replied almost robotic. The words had barely time to register and he sat up as the first few finally fell into place.
“It’s him, he left a note. John he has her.”
“Alright, calm down. He’s not going to hurt her. Tell me what the note says.' He rose to his feet as he listened to Tim tell him about the question Fenton had left for him, as well as the circumstances surrounding Sam’s disappearance. John could tell he was barely holding it together and tried his best to calm him.
“He’s going to kill her,” Tim finished, whispering the final few words.
“No he’s not. Tim? He’s not going to hurt a hair on her and do you know why? Tim?” He listened for the voice to calm down some. “Tim?”
“Why?” Tim answered quietly.
“Because Sam knows how to take care of herself. She’s one tough cookie and he knows that. Now stay there, I’m on my way back. Just sit tight, I won’t be long.”
John leapt from the plane, landing on the tarmac in a single jump. As he ran back to the car, he reached into his pocket and retrieved his earpiece. By the time he slid into the backseat, he had the attention of every team member already linked in.
As Tim stood in the middle of the motel room staring at the note, nightmare visions of Sam lying dead in a coffin began to play in his mind. It had been his fault, everything from her injuries to her current nightmare. All him. He looked down at the chair, felt the anger and shame slam into his conscience and kicked the chair still lying before him, sending it shooting across the room. It hit the edge of the couch hard, the splintering sound of it breaking apart not heard by the man caught in a torrent of fear and regret.
“My fault,” he snarled through his teeth. He turned to the table, grabbed it with both hands and upended it as the rage continued to breathe inside him, like an ocean caught in the winds of a powerful storm.
Tim went to the couch, looked at the note again and scrunched it into a tight ball as the memories continued to play out. The fury threatened to build again, like waves crashing into the base of a cliff, sending a wall of water skyward. He screamed into his fist and threw the ball of paper across the room.
Her earpiece was sitting next to the kettle on the bench, Fenton more than aware of its tracking ability. If it was in fact him, the chances were high that he already possessed an earpiece from one of the numerous agents he’d killed.
“I can’t lose another one,” he whispered to himself. “Not another one.” He looked at his watch, hoping for John’s imminent arrival as he remembered the moment the explosion took Evie from him. The look on her face had burnt itself into his mind. He vaguely recalled seeing Fenton consumed in the explosion as he stood next to her. Had he really survived the blast?
“Cant be,” he tried to tell himself. He looked at the balled-up paper lying on the opposite side of the room. Was that the truth, lying on the floor a few feet from him? Was that the proof?
Tim closed his eyes and remembered her before that night, before she was ripped from his life. He thought back to when they had first met, the first moment he had seen her sweet and innocent face. It had been so long ago and in another…
His eyes snapped open and stared out into the room. Everything inside him froze all at once as Tim suddenly realized the answer had been right there in front of him the whole time. Of course it had. As if suddenly awoken, he jumped from the couch, picked up the balled-up message and carefully unfurled it. He read the sentence again, gazed into space for a moment and slowly nodded his head. As a final affirmation of his new-found revelation, Tim took out his cell, opened one of the apps and confirmed his suspicions. He closed the map, dropped his own earpiece next to Sam’s and ran from the room. It was time to end the chase.
John arrived back at the room and ran inside, already knowing what he wouldn’t find. He’d tried Tim’s cell again several times after not being able to raise him via the earpiece. Mumma had also tried
to get a response from him but had none. As he pushed the ajar door all the way open, he wasn’t surprised by the damage to the room. The chair lay in pieces by the couch, the table on its back with its legs sticking up like a flipped turtle, unable to right itself.
He saw the crumpled bit of paper and reached down for it. Turning it over in his hands, he read the words to himself, shaking his head as he realized the truth behind the suspicions. It really had been Fenton, a man he himself had trusted with his life.
He scanned the room a final time and saw the two earpieces lying on the bench. He walked to them and picked them up, two tiny metallic pieces of technology that were now useless to those it had been meant for.
“Mumma?” he said quietly.
“Here,” she answered.
“Get all the teams to Sheboygan. I want everybody ready to go within two hours. And have Dieter pick me up in the helicopter. There’s a park a few hundred yards from my current location.
“Right away,” she replied. John nodded his head slowly, still looking at the earpieces in his palm. He knew that the chances of saving Sam were rapidly evaporating with each passing minute. And with Tim now playing into Fenton’s hands, another two agent’s lives hung in the balance.
As he headed along Route 131, Tim knew that if anyone managed to track him, they would figure out where he was headed and possibly beat him there. If that happened, he knew Fenton wouldn’t hesitate to kill Sam, maybe even before anyone came close enough to see her.
What he needed was to ditch this car and get himself a new one, a car that none of them suspected. A sign indicating a rest stop ahead passed him and he had an idea. Signalling, he slowed the rental, then turned it into the small vacant lot where a couple of other vehicles were already parked. Once stopped, he jumped from the car and looked around for any evidence of surveillance. Mumma was a genius when it came to tracking cars and he knew it.
It was a typical country roadside with a definite lack of modern technology. Not even a toilet was available and that made things so much easier for him. He looked at his options and instantly knew the old man in the 80’s Ford wagon would be the clear winner. After grabbing his backpack and removing the laptop from it, Tim dropped it into the backseat, leaving the trackable traitor behind. He slammed the door shut, slipped his cap on and put on his best smile.
John reached the helipad as several people assembled nearby. They were about a mile from the abandoned Sheboygan Power Station and both Mumma and Jim Lawson suspected Fenton of using that building for his possible vendetta. The twenty-or-so people watched as the chopper touched down and John climbed out, hunched himself over and ran towards them.
Although the plan hadn’t fully formed in his mind yet, he knew that after giving Fenton enough time to get into position, the net he intended to cast over the area would be virtually impossible to breach.
After giving the helicopter enough time to wind down and quiet enough for him to be heard, John waved for the crowd to close in on him. Hi speech wasn’t going to be a long one, just enough to share the news of Sam’s capture, Tim’s disappearance and the possibility of an ‘ex-agent’ being the culprit. Mumma had circulated his last photo, but everyone understood that there was every possibility he’d changed his appearance..
They listened to him intently, hanging on his every word as the seriousness of the situation was made clear. Once he finished and gestured for them to get into position, John watched his mini army disperse, most checking their firearms, cells and partners to ensure they were properly prepared. John knew that this was a one-shot opportunity. If anyone messed this up, there would be no coming back. He looked at his own cell, saw the photo of himself and Tim during happier times and felt his stomach turn a little. Everything came down to this.
Tim had once asked Evie how she managed to traverse the country as easily as she did without a car. Her mileage had been impressive, having spent time in more than half the states of the continental United States by the time she was 21. She would often share stories with Tim about her many escapades, having worked some less-than reputable jobs in even less than reputable locations. They had been lying in front of an open fire, their naked bodies side-by-side.
“Truckies,” she had replied, the answer rolling off her tongue as simply as melting butter. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to thumb a ride with them.” She had watched him as he let the answer try and find purchase in his mind, knowing full well what his follow up question would be. Of course she did. It was what all the men she had ever let in wanted to know.
“Did they expect,” he began, but Evie had cut him off with a laugh, his cheeks warming up a little as he watched her.
“What? Did I have to put out? Is that what you’re asking?” Tim had blushed fiercely as he felt her eyes bore into him.
“No, it’s just that…”
“They’re not all like that, you know. Most of them are just fathers and husbands trying to support their families. They work hard to put bread on the table, Tim, and for some, having a passenger along for a bit of conversation is more than enough.”
She could see his mind working again, the flush in his cheeks starting to fade again. He wanted to know more, they all did.
“Did anyone ever?”
“What? Proposition me? Of course they did. A few. I’m a pretty good looking chick, you know.” She had slapped his arm and he playfully pretended it to hurt. “Although, there was Patrick and his wife, Lisa. They drove a truck with a sleeper cabin and they took turns tag-teaming me in the back.” She began to laugh again as his cheeks blazed to life. “I’m kidding, dumbass.”
“I don’t mean to sound like a tool,” he said after her giggling had died down.
“I’m just screwing around with you. If you want to know the truth, I tried to stay as safe as possible. It wasn’t always easy, but I managed.” She paused briefly and he could see her think, her naked breast glistening in the heat of the room as she rolled onto her back. He could feel himself growing hard again just from the sight of her, the slim pubic bush casting the smallest shadow. “George, now him I’ll always remember.”
“George?” he asked, slowly stroking her belly.
“He was one of the few coasters I ever met.”
“What’s a coaster?” He could feel her tense a little as his fingertip reached the sensitive part beside her bellybutton.
“The ones that would go from coast to coast. George had a run from Miami, all the way to LA. All he wanted was for me to read to him.” Tim slowly worked his finger down further, watching her lips purse a little as he traced along the side of her pubic hair. He looked at her cheekily, then continued south, feeling the warmth of her skin as his fingertip carefully ran down beside her love spot and continued along her inner thigh.
“Read what?”
“Salem’s Lot,” she said, sitting up and rolling him on his back. As his penis pointed skyward, Evie mounted him and said, “But let’s not talk about that now.” The moan that he made as she sat on him was enough to end the conversation, the fire the only witness to their ensuing passion.
Tim was jolted awake from his dream as the truck hit a pothole, the cabin violently shaking from side to side.
“Ah, look who’s awake,” the truckie said, a half-smoked cigar jutting from the side of his mouth. Tim sat up, wiping a warm patch from his mouth as he looked out at the passing countryside.
“Where are we?” he asked, his throat feeling scratchy.
“Almost in Nashville,” the driver replied, flicking his ash out of the window. “Makin pretty good time. At this rate, we should get to New Orleans by around 3 in the morning. Maybe 4, depending on how well Mavis does.”
The old man in the station wagon had taken Tim all the way to Indianapolis before dropping him at a truck stop on the outskirts of the city. Tim spent less than ten minutes walking between the lorries before finding a ride south. A truck driver named Henry Perkins had offered to take him all the way to Louisiana, so long as his w
ife didn’t mind. After a brief check, she had agreed, welcoming Tim aboard with a smile as wide as the load they were carting.
As he sat looking out at the passing lights, he smiled, remembering Evie’s advice; advice that now proved invaluable.
“If ever you need to travel inconspicuously, find a truck stop. They’ll take you right across the country, if need be.” And she had been right, just as she had always been.
As John continued waiting for any news of the target showing up, his instincts were screaming at him to call it off. Despite having multiple teams set up, he knew that with each passing moment, the chances of Fenton turning up at the abandoned power station were virtually zero. He knew, because Tim had also disappeared. Not only disappeared, but taken steps to ensure he wouldn’t be found.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was happening and when Jim Lawson finally called him and said that they’d found Tim’s abandoned rental almost a hundred miles from the motel where he’d last been seen, John knew that he was nothing more than a passenger, destined to listen to the final outcome like all the rest.
He knew that Tim would take steps necessary to ensure he wouldn’t be found. With Sam in Fenton’s clutches, there was only one person that held all the cards and he had somehow managed to fool the lot of them.
He finally called the operation off a little after two in the morning, after both Jim and Mumma had given their final updates, both exact copies of the reports they had given the previous hour. With no other choice, he made the call to the troops and listened as they disappointingly acknowledged. All they could do now was wait.
Not only did Henry nail the arrival time on the dot, he also surprised Tim by taking a detour and getting him a little closer to his destination.