Next Exit, Three Miles

by CW Browning

  Alina inhaled sharply through her nose and clenched her back teeth.

  “You can certainly get back to whatever it is that you're doing. I have to look up the instruction manual for my rifle. I'm not sure I remember how to clean it properly,” she said waspishly.

  “Now you're being ridiculous,” Hawk informed her. “That's not what I meant and you know it.”

  “Well, you know, I haven't slept in a while and...” Alina broke off, a sudden thought breaking through her anger.

  “Cute. Are you done yet?” Damon asked politely.

  “That's it!” Alina ignored his sarcasm. “That's why he missed!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Engineer! He missed a clear shot.”

  Alina balanced the phone between her shoulder and ear and started typing on her laptop.

  “I thought Angela got in the way.” Damon's voice was muffled for a moment and then the noise around him disappeared as a car door slammed.

  “She did,” Alina answered. “But it was still a clear shot. I wouldn't have missed....even after two years in the wilderness,” she added.

  “So you think he missed because he hasn't slept?” Damon asked. “That's weak, even for you.”

  Alina grinned at his belated shot back, her anger forgotten as her mind tackled this new idea.

  “That's exactly what I think,” she replied. “I think something upset his game plan and he's being forced to improvise, but he's not very good at that. He's been forced out into the open and that makes my job that much easier.”

  “And this has to do with sleep how?” Damon punctuated his question with a yawn.

  “You said it yourself,” Alina replied. “Sleep is our best weapon. It keeps us sharp. He was anything but sharp today.”

  “That could be for a hundred different reasons,” Damon pointed out. “But I do agree that something has pulled him out into the open and forced him to move up his game plan,” he added thoughtfully.

  “When I find out what that is, I'll find him,” Alina agreed.

  There was another short silence on the phone.

  “I don't like the way this is all heading. It's getting messy,” Hawk finally said.

  Alina thought briefly of Angela, Stephanie and John and sighed.

  “This was messy before I ever got here,” she replied.

  “Just be careful,” Hawk said.

  Alina shifted slightly in her chair and allowed herself the luxury of grimacing at the pain in her side.

  “I'm always careful,” she retorted. “I've taken every precaution possible. I even increased my security perimeter.”

  “I meant cleaning your gun.”

  Damon disconnected after that outrageous remark, leaving Alina torn between laughter and outrage.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Stephanie came awake with a start and sat up, disoriented. The room was dark and the only sound came from the hum of a refrigerator in the kitchen behind her. The fog of sleep cleared from her head and she began to recognize the shape of the coffee table and the flat screen TV on the wall. She was in John’s living room, on his couch, buried under one of his spare quilts.

  Awareness came back in a flood. John refused to let her go home to her own apartment and, after a lengthy argument in the elevator of the hospital, she finally agreed to go home with him. The clincher was when he threatened to call their boss and have her placed in protective custody. She had absolutely no doubt that that would have happened.

  Rubbing her eyes, Stephanie swung her legs off the couch with a wide yawn. She wasn’t sure what had jogged her out of her sleep, but she was awake now. A flashing red light caught her attention through the darkness and Stephanie yawned again as she stood up and padded over to her smartphone. The message light was blinking silently and she unplugged the phone from its charger, taking it back to the couch. Settling down again, she scrolled through the emails until one caught her attention. It was from Shannon Gleason, her friend in Homeland Security.

  Hi Stephanie,

  I looked into that issue you asked me about. Funny thing about that. I hit a brick wall. My clearance is pretty substantial, but it only went so far. I did find out that a Damon Peterson does work with the agency, but I was unable to find any additional information. In fact, the whole thing is a little weird. No one has ever heard of him, but there is a trail of employment. It's almost like he's a ghost. It doesn't necessarily mean much. There are a lot of agents that are clandestine, to say the least. I'll try to find out more. I have to be careful though. I think someone has tagged my access and is monitoring my system usage. I'm sending this from my secure home laptop. Be careful. I don't know what's going on up there, but it doesn't smell right.

  SG

  Stephanie frowned. She had known Shannon since they were in college together. She was the most laid back person that Stephanie had ever met. Stephanie used to say that her blood pressure had to be just one point above comatose. For Shannon to voice concern, something had to have happened to cause her concern.

  Stephanie dropped her phone onto the coffee table and sat back on the couch, thinking. When she called Shannon earlier in the week to have her poke around and see what she could find out, she thought it would be a straight-forward yes or no answer. After all, Damon Peterson either worked for DHS or he didn't. Now it looked like it wasn't that easy. Stephanie didn't really know why she asked Shannon to look into Damon's past, except that something just didn't feel right with him. He didn't have the “establishment” feel. Neither did Alina, but Alina wasn't claiming to be part of it. Stephanie trusted Alina, but she didn't know what to think about Damon.

  She got up restlessly and went into the kitchen, flipping on the light. A brief inspection of the fridge revealed nothing much more than beer, ketchup, pickles, and some suspicious looking cold-cuts. Stephanie grimaced and pulled a bottle of beer out of the case lodged on the bottom shelf, letting the door swing closed. She hunted through the drawers in the kitchen until she found a bottle opener and popped the cap off. Her mind went back to Damon as she leaned against the counter and sipped the beer. He and Alina clearly knew each other well, but Stephanie had a gut feeling that they weren't used to working together. She’d learned not to ignore her gut. It usually knew more than she did.

  She drank some more beer, staring at the wall absently. If Damon and Alina weren't used to working together, then it was plausible that he did work for the agency and she did not. But each time Stephanie thought about Damon as an agency employee, something made her pause. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something made her sure that he was not. Alina clearly trusted him. Could her trust be misplaced? Stephanie drank some more.

  What if Alina was wrong?

  Stephanie sighed impatiently and carried her beer back into the living room, switching off the kitchen light. This was ridiculous. She had a terrorist running around planning God only knew what, bodies popping up left and right, an assassin slinking around and taking pot-shots at her, an old friend who was clearly not what she was supposed to be, and a suspicious hunk of gorgeousness that seemed to be looking over everyone's shoulder. Stephanie sank back onto the couch. This was the stuff of movies. It didn't happen in real life.

  Assassins, terrorists, the Jersey mob...You really can't make this stuff up, she thought tiredly.

  Looking around John's living room, Stephanie wondered how she ended up here. A week ago, her biggest problem had been whether or not to take a vacation at the end of the month or wait until next month. Now, she had an assassin trying to put a hole in her head and a terrorist slinking around up to no good. Stephanie frowned again.

  She would call Shannon in the morning and find out what she knew and what was going on down there. Maybe she would be able to shed some light on this mess.

  Alina watched as a black Lincoln town car slid out of the driveway and turned to roll down the road. That was the last one. She glanced at her watch with a yawn and started her engine.

  It was almost eight in the
morning and she was parked in the trees outside the wooded driveway of Frankie Solitto's Bucks County house. Arriving to find that Frankie had company already, Alina went back to her SUV, waiting until the last of the visitors left. Once the last town car disappeared from view, she pulled out of the trees, rolling up to the driveway and turning in. She approached the gate, rolling her window down as one of Solitto's large guards walked up to the SUV. The man looked like a bull terrier in six-foot human form.

  “Tell Frankie that one of his visitors from the other night would like a word,” she told him shortly.

  He stared at her for a beat. She was wearing large sunglasses, which effectively concealed most of her upper face, and she made no move to remove them. He looked into the SUV, examined her for another minute, and then stepped back.

  “Wait here.”

  Alina nodded once and rolled the window up again. She waited patiently as he disappeared into a little hut off to the side of the driveway and picked up the phone. Her eyes wandered to the wall and the gate in front of her. A camera was trained on her vehicle and she could see another guard inside the gate. A minute later, the bull terrier was back.

  “He'll see you. I gotta check you before you go in,” he told her, motioning her out of the car.

  Alina sighed imperceptibly and got out of the SUV so he could run his wand over her. When he was finished and nothing beeped, he set it on top of the hood and reached out to pat her down. He never laid a finger on her. Before the bull terrier had any idea what was happening, he was face down on the ground with a boot on the back of his neck.

  “Nice try,” Viper said softly. “You can open the gate now.”

  He gurgled as he tried to talk and she lifted the pressure on the back of his neck just slightly.

  “You bitch!” he gasped out hoarsely.

  Alina clucked her tongue and dropped the pressure back onto the back of his neck, effectively cutting off his oxygen and forcing his face into the grass again.

  “That wasn't very nice,” she told him.

  Viper looked directly at the camera mounted on the gate and waited. After a minute, the gate swung open ponderously. Once it had opened, she removed her boot and lifted the wand off her hood, dropping it on the ground next to the gasping man. Without a backward glance, she got back into the SUV and put it in gear, rolling forward through the gate and into the stone courtyard.

  Frankie Solitto's compound was much more impressive in daylight. The courtyard was paved in the same gray stone that comprised the six-foot stone wall circling the property, and it was lined with flower beds that, in the summer, would explode with color. A large fountain in the center propelled water high into the air, and two huge urns held matching fig trees on either side of the entryway. The old-world style house itself was clay and stone, and looked like it had been imported, whole, straight from Italy.

  As she rolled to a stop, Frankie stepped out of the entryway and watched her get out of the vehicle. The guard she had noticed from outside the gate stood off to the side, his hand on a rifle, watching. Two large dogs came bounding around the side of the house toward her, and Frankie watched as his guard dogs rushed up to her, tails wagging and tongues out. Alina never took her eyes from the tall man as she walked toward him, beeping her car locked behind her. The dogs ran circles around her, barking cheerfully in greeting, and Frankie looked stunned at the behavior of his dogs.

  “Those are supposed to be fearsome guard dogs,” Frankie said as she walked up to him. “I've never seen them act like this.”

  “I have that effect on animals. It's not the dogs fault,” Alina answered. She stopped in front of him and held out her hand. “Thank you for seeing me.”

  “You've got some guts,” Frankie retorted, shaking her hand and turning to motion her into the house.

  Alina stepped into the cool hallway and removed her sunglasses.

  “It wasn't my idea to visit the other night,” she told him, turning to face him. Her dark brown eyes met his and she smiled. “I apologize for that intrusion.”

  “He's not with you?” Frankie asked after studying her in silence for a moment.

  Sweeping out his arm, he directed her into a sunny room off to the left. It was a parlor of sorts, bright and warm with plants and chairs and little nick-knacks on side tables. Alina took it in at a glance before turning to face Frankie.

  “No. He's out of the country on business,” she answered.

  Frankie smiled slightly.

  “Shame. I liked him,” he said. He motioned for her to seat herself on one of the chairs and he took the one opposite. “You remind me of him. To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”

  “I think you have some information that I need,” Alina said calmly, crossing her legs.

  Frankie's smile grew.

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes.” Alina regarded him steadily. “You know who took out Sladecki,” she told him.

  Frankie raised his eyebrow.

  “I do?” he asked.

  “You do,” Alina answered. “But you didn't want to tell my friend. That's ok. You take care of your own. I get that.”

  Frankie sat back and looked at her.

  “You're from Jersey,” he stated.

  Alina smiled slightly.

  “I know you've been working with the Philly family to find the person who took out Martin,” she continued, ignoring the interruption. “Under normal circumstances, I would be perfectly happy to let you handle this in your own...unique way.”

  “Would you now?” Frankie came close to a grin.

  “I would,” Alina agreed, her eyes glinting for a brief moment. “But these aren't normal circumstances. I really need you to turn it over to me now.”

  “Just like that,” Frankie said.

  Alina nodded calmly.

  “Just like that,” she agreed.

  There was a stunned moment of silence as Frankie struggled between laughter and insulted anger. Alina waited patiently. He took in her serious face and dark, emotionless eyes.

  “You're serious, aren't you?” Frankie finally exclaimed. Alina didn't bother to answer. “You're really walking into my house, telling me that you're going to take over MY business.”

  Alina shook her head.

  “No,” she disagreed gently. “I am saying that it would be in your best interest to tell me what you know, and let me take care of it for you.”

  “And why would you be wanting to do that?” Frankie demanded, all traces of amusement gone from his face.

  Alina met his glare squarely.

  “Believe me, Mr. Solitto, I'm not trying to insult you. You have no idea who this person is, and this is not someone you are equipped to handle,” she told him softly.

  Frankie stared at her for a beat.

  “And you are?” he asked just as softly.

  The smile that curled Alina's lips sent a chill down Frankie's spine. It was the only answer he needed, but he got one anyway.

  “Yes.”

  “Who is this guy?” Frankie asked, dropping all pretense of ignorance.

  “Someone who does this for a living,” Alina answered calmly. “He's more dangerous than you can possibly fathom. I know who he is, and I know what he's doing here. What I don't know is where he is now, and who arranged for him to join the party. I think those are the two things you know.”

  Frankie stared at her in silence for a few minutes before standing up. He walked over to the wall near the window and extracted a key from his pocket. Alina watched as he unlocked a metal box and flipped some switches. She knew he had just turned off all the surveillance monitoring the room. She felt a surge of satisfaction mixed with anticipation. Frankie was going to play ball. He closed and locked the box and came back to sit down again.

  “I knew you guys weren't Feds,” he told her. “You’re both too smart. I don't know who you are or what you do, and I'm OK with that. But know this,” he held up a finger and nodded to her. “I do this thing...it never leaves this room. No one
ever knows we had this conversation.”

  The threat was clear and Alina nodded in agreement.

  “The only reason I'm doing this is that, given the situation, I think you might be our best bet. I am concerned for my Family. The information we have...it's not good.” Frankie sat back and watched her for a minute. “But you know that already.”

  Alina nodded.

  “Yes.”

  “You know about the weapons. You know where they went to?” Frankie asked. Alina nodded and he smiled slightly. “Of course you do.” Frankie fell silent for a moment, weighing just how much to tell her. “Well, at first, I thought that the person or persons who received those weapons was the person or persons who whacked Martin,” Frankie explained slowly. “But then Joey came up here from Philly with a story he heard from his cousin, Marty. Marty is down in Washington, running some of the more lucrative business endeavors for the Philly family.” Alina was silent, listening. “Marty was in the bar one night and he overheard something he probably shouldn't have overheard. He sat on it for a while, but when he heard about Martin, he came forward to tell Joey. Joey brought it to me in good faith.”

  “And what did Marty overhear?” Alina asked softly.

  Frankie looked up and shook his head.

  “Something no decent American would have said,” he muttered and Alina bit back a smile. “I'll save you the details. The terrorist you already know about anyways. Passports had been arranged for someone else, someone they called an Engineer. The general idea seems to be that even the people down in Washington are scared of this guy. They arranged for the passports and paid him a fortune to come in and take care of clean-up. Marty greased some palms and traded some information and came up with the two names on the passports.” Alina caught her breath. Frankie looked up. “My associates found him in Philly, but now he's gone again.”

  “All I need are the names,” Alina said softly, her heart racing. “I'll find him.”

  Frankie studied her for a moment before smiling slowly.

  “You know, I believe you will,” he murmured. “I hope you come out of this ok. I like you as much as I liked your boyfriend.”