by Darrell Case
His hand itched. He knew from experience that this meant it was healing. Flexing his fingers still sent pain shooting up his arm although not as sharply as it did last night.
Tomorrow he would resume the hunt. The president ordered him to find her, pronto. Until now he had ignored him. What could Robbins do? Send an assassin after him? Have him arrested? Robbins was all mouth. He wouldn’t dare try anything.
Every conversation was on tape, every email saved on a flash drive and all of it was hidden in a secret place in two other locations.
Well aware he was expendable, he had started the stash after his first assignment with the CIA.
After his visit to the retired doctor, he had checked in with Steel. Tony’s field agents had been busy.
“She hid in a car carrier headed west. She was spotted in East St. Louis but we lost her. She's too smart to go to the farm in Indiana.”
Sean grinned. He liked hunting prey with brains and Allison had already shown him that she had some.
In Manhattan, Kansas he stopped at a rundown motel. The place needed a paint job; the carpets were soiled and bare in spots. Places like this asked no questions. He gave them a fake name and tag number anyway. They never bothered to check. He paid with cash, leaving no paper trail. If necessary he would kill the clerk before checking out.
Instinct told him she wasn't far. He would make her pay.
His mind traveled back to the jungles of Colombia. His assignment there was to eliminate a drug lord. They let him choose the method.
The kingpin was inside his villa with bodyguards surrounding it. Throughout the night, Sean picked the guards off one by one. At dawn he sent a bullet crashing through the last one’s head.
The drug lord who had terrorized the country panicked. With no one to protect him, he sneaked out a back door and fled blindly into the jungle. Sean let him get away, giving his prey an hour head start. At 11:46, he found Kingpin near a small pool. Fixing his crosshairs on the man’s ball cap, Sean sliced off the bill. The man ran screeching among the trees with the assassin following at a distance.
A half hour later, Sean spotted him huddled under the washed out root of a Cherimoya tree. Having a clear view of the man and the ears of a bat, Sean thought to take a short nap. Waking refreshed, he strolled over and shot Kingpin in the foot. The blast and the screams that followed bounced off the canopy, sending the birds into a wild cacophony.
Sean let he crippled man hobble away, tears of pain and terror carving rivulets down his dirt-caked cheeks. Over the next few hours, Sean shadowed and shot him several more times, careful to make each wound non-fatal.
In the end, the once powerful drug lord’s life was oozing from a dozen wounds. Wracked with pain and exhausted he lay curled in a pathetic whimpering ball. He begged for his life, promising his unseen assassin his entire fortune.
The thrill of the hunt gone Sean sent the killing shot into Kingpin’s brain. Then he cut off the ring finger complete with ring as proof of death that he was dead.
When Allison stepped out of the restroom in the mechanic’s get-up, John looked over her with a critical eye.
At the desk, he opened and closed drawers. “Now where could those things be? I had them just last week. Ah, here.”
He handed Allison a pair of glasses. “Put these on. I don't use them much except for small print.”
“He’ll be coming after me,” Allison said, perching the glasses on her nose. The glasses gave her an owlish appearance. “Maybe I should just move on.”
“Now you just hold on. How long’s he been chasin' you?”
“A while,” she said carefully mincing her words. If John fell into the hands of the assassin, he would squeeze him for information before murdering him. “John he'll kill you just for helping me.”
“It's been tried before. Ever hear of the walking dead?”
“In Vietnam?”
“Yup. The life expectancy of our squad was twenty-seven days. I made it forty-five. Got shot up lay in the hospital for three months while they patched me up.”
I'm sorry,” Allison said thinking of her parents being killed by Joe Brimmer.
“Yeah. But that was the best thing ever happened to me. Knocked some sense into my head.”
John leaned heavily on his cane as he pushed himself up off the bucket.
“We best get something to eat. I got a full day ahead of me,” he said, handing her a ball cap.”Iff’in you kin pass the Margie test ain’t nobody gonna know who you are.”
Allison pushed her hair up under the cap. She stared at her appearance in an old foggy mirror hanging on the wall. She looked like a 19year old boy.
“Margie test?”
Hobbling toward the door, he looked back. “You comin'? I reckon you're hungry?”
Obediently, Allison followed wondering what she’d gotten herself into.
Margie turned out to be owner of the High End restaurant. Situated in a renovated livery stable, the name was a reference to is for being located at the upper end of the small town.
John ordered two Hungry Man specials. With one eye on the other patrons and the other eye on her food, Allison cleaned the plate in record time. The over- easy eggs, bacon and pancakes tasted heavenly.
Margie came over with the coffee pot and set another Hungry Man down in front of Allison.
Not daring to speak, Allison looked at her questioningly.
“On the house, Sonny. You look like you haven't eaten in a while.” Allison smiled and nodded at the elderly woman.
Margie stopped John on his way back from the restroom.
“That's the most girly boy you ever brought in here.”
“Reckon yer right but long as he's got a mind to work it'll work out,” John said, smiling.
“Yup, some of them wiry ones kin outwork the big boys any day of the week.”
Walking alongside John on the way back to the shop, Allison felt safe for the first time in weeks.
Chapter 27