by Scott Blade
Fallow’s expression froze, and it never changed again, not for the rest of his life.
Widow had plunged the broken arrowhead from the bow right into Fallow’s brain stem. He held it there for a long, long second. He made direct eye contact with Gaden, and he twisted the arrow hard, first clockwise and then counterclockwise.
Gaden stared on in horror. He saw his friend’s body go limp and lifeless.
Widow jerked the arrow out. Clumps of brain matter extracted with the arrowhead.
Fallow’s body collapsed like a crash test dummy. Widow showed the arrowhead to Gaden and stared at him and smiled.
He said, “You should’ve had me turn my pockets inside out.”
Gaden screamed at him. It was some kind of primate indiscernible noise. There were no words in it.
Gaden flipped his blade and reversed it and threw it at Widow. Widow slapped it away in the air.
Gaden turned around and looked at the tiger and then the lion. He ran to the tiger and searched for one of the weapons, one of the thrown guns. He found nothing. He bolted to the lion. He got down on his hands and knees and searched frantically.
He was too slow and too stupid.
Widow came up behind him and grabbed a tuft of his hair and slit his throat with Gaden’s own knife.
Before he slit his throat, he let the sharp edge press against his skin, and he pulled Gaden’s head as far back as it would go, and he whispered to him.
“How you like my knife work?”
Then he slit his throat.
Blood gushed out and sprayed all over the long-dead lion. The claws, the teeth, the mane were all soaked in deep red blood by the time Gaden died.
Sixty-Six
An hour later, Gray lay in a bed in a hospital room in Anchorage. She was fast asleep.
She had cleaned herself up and showered and dressed in a hospital gown at the request of the nursing staff. It was all protocol. Her chart had read that she was healthy, but needed to be kept overnight for observation.
She still had to get checked out. It was all procedure, all by the book. She was glad because she was dead tired.
She slept through the rest of the day and most of the night.
Around noon, she got a visitor. It was Widow, showered, cleaned up, and stitched up. He had a couple of cuts. None of them were from the knife fight with Fallow and Gaden. He hadn’t even felt them when they happened. It was no big deal—two stitches in one cut and one in another.
He ended up sitting in a lounge chair against the window. He fell asleep there until that night. When he looked up, it was midnight. He saw the time on a wall clock. He looked at Gray; her eyes were closed.
He got up quietly and smiled at her and started to head out the door. His instincts were pushing him. The open road was calling him.
At the door, Gray spoke.
“You trying to sneak out?”
Widow turned back to her and smiled.
“I can’t. You’re my ride back to DC.”
Over the next several days, inquiries were opened, and arrests were made. Gaden’s old teammates who had taken the bribes were brought to justice for their silence. A lot of people were fired or indicted. Fire Marshal Jay Haspman was both.
Careers were made. Promotions were handed out. Pats on the back were given all around.
Andy Frost was offered the chance to be reinstated to the NCIS, but he declined. Michael and Jill Aker remained in DC with their daughters. Brig Tunney recovered from his wounds, though it was a long and arduous path. In the end, it saved his marriage because his current wife helped him every step of the way, which brought them closer together.
The strangest part took place in Nebraska. In a small farming community, a nearly penniless elementary school teacher, who was a single mother of two children, received a phone call one day. She was on the verge of having to move because her school was losing funds and cutting programs. That all changed when the caller told her that her father, Henry Eggers had passed on. He had left her a sizable fortune. She was told that she needed to sign some documents and sell all the stock by the next day, which she did, right in her small-town lawyer’s office. She did it all by teleconference with a law firm in DC.
By the end of the day, she was worth fifty million dollars.
By the end of the week, a corporate conglomerate that she had never heard of had gone out of business because the FBI stepped in and indicted owners and the CEO and other figureheads.
The Double Man
Preorder today!
Coming Winter 2020!
A face he recognizes.
Is it a deadly terrorist?
Or is Jack Widow seeing double?
In a sleepy, seaside town in Maine, filled with historic buildings, cobblestone streets, a forgotten port, fishing schooners, and an eighteenth-century lighthouse, there is a newcomer: Jack Widow.
With no plans of staying, Widow comes to town, takes in the history, and the local coffee.
His plans change when Widow sees a familiar face. He recognizes a total stranger, but from where?
The stranger goes by one name but has the face of another.
The man Widow has the face of a terrorist off the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted List.
In a riveting, new thriller by International Bestseller Scott Blade, Jack Widow investigates a man who is either a cursed lookalike or one of the deadliest criminals who ever got away.
A Word from Scott
Thank you for reading PATRIOT LIES. You got this far—I’m guessing that you liked Widow.
The story continues…
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Coming in WINTER of 2020 look for The DOUBLE MAN.
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The Nomadvelist
Nomad + Novelist = Nomadvelist
Scott Blade is a Nomadvelist, a drifter and author of the breakout Jack Widow series. Scott travels the world, hitchhiking, drinking coffee, and writing.
Jack Widow has sold over a million copies.
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Contact at: [email protected]