A single swing around it proved what I was looking for wasn’t nearby, the big engine bucking again as I pushed my way back out onto the road and continued on to the next one.
An almost exact duplicate of the previous station, it too didn’t contain what I needed.
Beads of sweat began to dot my forehead as I took the steering wheel in both hands, the nose of my truck just inches from the side of the road as I sat and waited for a pair of cars to slowly crawl past. Once they were clear, I mashed the accelerator down, speeding across four lanes of traffic and into the parking lot of a Burger King.
Ignoring the parking spots lined out on the asphalt beneath me, I pulled the truck to a stop at an angle and jerked open the ashtray, a bevy of loose change rattling as I did so. Hooking my index finger down into it, I fished out three quarters and jumped from the truck, leaving the door stand open behind me, a soft dinging sound alerting me that it was open and the keys were still in the ignition.
Finding a payphone that was still operational was a stroke of luck, the machine something that had gone the way of VCR’s and cassette decks through the advent of cell phones. Affixed to the wall of the brick building, it was just beyond the scope of the security light above the main entrance, a long shadow cloaking most of it in darkness.
I had no way of knowing how Celek had been tracking me since leaving Texas, but there was no way I was going to leave the call I was about to make to chance. If there was even a remote possibility he’d managed to gain access to my cell phone, I couldn’t risk what I was about to do.
Pushing all three quarters into the slot in the corner, I dialed the number from memory, holding my breath, my pulse rate surging as I waited for the call to connect.
Mercifully, after three rings, it did.
“Hello?” Rae answered, the mere sound of her voice pushing relief through my body. Exhaling slightly, I felt my muscles slacken, a flood of cool air hitting my skin.
Every last part of me wanted to tell her exactly what was going on, that I was sorry and she was in danger.
I couldn’t though, not now, and maybe not ever, both because that’s not how we worked and because right now I had more important concerns to deal with.
“Hi, is this Bob’s Air Conditioner Repair?” I asked. “Mine went out and things are getting rather warm here.”
Instantly she picked up on the code. “How hot?”
“Hot enough that I’m sorry to be calling so late, but if I had a Plan B, I would be doing that right now instead.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jacoby.
Of everything Skye Grant had learned about Laredo Wynn, of every action of his she sat and watched through the hidden fiber optic cameras, only one thing weighed heavily on her. Sitting at the forefront of her thoughts, it shoved aside all other considerations, inhibiting her from thinking clearly, from focusing on anything but that single piece of information.
The damnedest part of it was that it didn’t come as a surprise, far from it in fact. For months she had been digging into things that she knew were of a sensitive nature, but never did she think it was Meyers Jacoby pulling the strings.
Maybe some ranking bureaucrat in one of the alphabet agencies, but never, ever him.
Hearing the name went far beyond just that for Skye though, stepping well past the mere thought of such a lofty office catching wind of what they were doing and taking exception to it.
This was personal, in a way that few things in life truly could be.
What they had undergone in the preceding months, had endured from men like Wynn, was nothing short of guerrilla warfare. They were trained soldiers, high-end operators not far removed from representing the nation’s elite, being sent after her and her motley band of computer geniuses. Such information spoke not only to how sensitive what they were doing really was, but even more so to the lengths that some people would go to to keep it concealed.
That had all been expected to come from people with virtually limitless resources and untold access to anything they might need to look for them.
Again, though, never would she have dreamed it would actually be Jacoby.
Folded into the back seat of the van, Skye blocked out the incessant babble of Jazmine and Raz beside her. Since the moment Wynn had exited the house and they cut off the feed, the two of them had settled into open speculation about what they’d just witnessed, neither offering up anything useful, mostly just outlandish conjecture sprinkled liberally with profanity.
The combined sound of their voices drifted back to nothing more than white noise as Skye sat staring at the blank laptop screen, hearing that one name echo through her ears, feeling her chest constrict as her breathing grew more intense. One lungful after another she forced it in and out, a sheen of sweat appearing on her brow as she felt her heart rate climb.
“Skye!” Jazmine snapped beside her, voice raised loud enough to break through the fog.
At the sound of it Skye jerked her head to the side, her eyes still a bit glazed as her internal processes hammered away.
“I said, what do you think?” Jazmine asked, an expectant look on her face. Shifting a few inches to the side, Skye could see past her to Raz sitting up in the rear of the van, his features contorted in a similar position.
“I think I need some air,” Skye said, twirling on her haunch and grabbing hold of the polished silver handle. In one quick movement she jerked the door open, a flood of cool evening air washing over her, picking at the perspiration on her skin.
“You need to what?” Raz called as she exited, leaving the door standing open behind her.
The ground underfoot was loose and uneven, the van parked on a gravel bar. Dragging her feet along, Skye could feel the loose stones pass over the top of her sandals and brush against her exposed toes, could hear them skittering across the top of the ground.
The smell of damp earth and loam met her nostrils as she walked a few steps to the edge of the dense forest they were parked beside, having chosen a turnoff twenty miles west of the house they had just been watching on the screen.
Once her momentum slowed, Skye came to a stop and raised her attention to the heavens, staring up at the tops of the trees just starting to bud around her and the scads of stars splashed against a darkened backdrop above.
In long, slow, methodical movements she breathed deeply, allowing the chilly air to cool her from within, letting her chest expand before slowly pushing it back out.
This was bad. The one tiny bastion of protection she’d always believed she had had just evaporated, completely annihilated by an overheard phone conversation between two people she had never met.
With that information came an entirely new set of realizations, things that Skye wasn’t sure she was ready to confront.
“Dude, you okay?” Raz asked, his voice just preceding the sound of footsteps in the gravel.
A moment later a second set was audible as well, Jazmine joining him as she climbed from the van.
Rotating back to face them, Skye lowered her gaze to eye level. “Did you hear what he said?”
“Who?” Jazmine asked. “Wynn?”
“Yeah,” Raz answered before Skye could speak, “he said nobody was home, that he was out.” There he paused, eyeing Skye, before adding, “And that’s a good thing, right? One less jarhead to worry about.”
Skye didn’t bother correcting him that jarhead was actually a nickname for a marine, not a soldier in the army.
“Not that part,” she said, “Jacoby.”
“Right,” Jazmine replied, “which we sorta already knew.”
“No, we always knew somebody could be watching,” Skye said, “but not that that somebody was Meyers Jacoby. There is a difference.”
A look of confusion passed over Jazmine’s face as Raz asked, “Which is?”
Reflexively, Skye opened her mouth to respond, catching herself before any words came spilling out. No matter what her initial reaction was, how close she had become with Raz and Jazm
ine, she still had to tread carefully.
There were certain realities they would not understand, things she could not disclose while still conveying the severity of the situation they were now faced with.
“Which is,” Skye said, fighting to keep her voice even, “before we had to be careful, but we could keep doing what we were doing. We knew that we might be on somebody’s radar, that maybe even someone important might be noticing, but this is on a whole different level.”
The only sound was a stray cricket chirping somewhere in the distance, the woods providing the perfect ironic background noise for the blank looks staring back at Skye.
“Now we not only know we’re on the radar, we know whose radar it is, and how high up it goes,” Skye said, her voice rising slightly, keeping pace with her pulse and heart rate as they again began to gain steam.
“Meyers Jacoby. As in, Chair of the Senate Armed Forces Committee and Vice Presidential candidate for the Republican party.”
Seeing the nonresponsive looks continuing to look back in her direction, Skye couldn’t help but feel her agitation grow, this time as much at her friends as at the situation they were now in.
Given the very narrow confines of the tech world they all lived in, there was literally nobody better. It was what had brought the odd trio together in the first place, all three sharing a similar purpose and relying on their combined skills to further it.
Once outside of that silo, though, things began to grow askew. Neither Raz nor Jazmine had ever been much into the bigger picture, content to focus their energies on the other side of the world, oblivious as to what was going on around them.
“Do you guys not get how serious this is? We’re talking about a position that has Secret Service protection around him at all times, is the second in line from becoming President,” Skye said. “Commander-in-Chief!”
Hearing her voice rise, Skye stopped there. Judging by the shared glance between her colleagues, she had finally said something that resonated, each of them parsing out what she was trying to get at.
The odds of them ever being safe again were almost non-existent. Somewhere along the line, their backdoor snooping - what they believed to be a noble crusade - had been flagged by the wrong people. Those people had then gone up the ladder, ascending to places where things got done.
“Okay,” Jazmine said, a hint of uncertainty plain in her voice. “So what do we do now? Take off again?”
In the few minutes since receiving the video feed, Skye hadn’t had time yet to process everything they’d seen. She’d been so focused on the conversation, on the bombshell that Wynn had dropped, she hadn’t been able to see ahead to the next step.
For months now they had been on the run. Each time they had managed to stay off the grid long enough to set up and get some stuff done, but the amount of time they had in each place was diminishing, their pursuers growing smarter, catching on to their tricks.
Now that Skye knew who was behind everything, it made sense, though it still didn’t provide a clear heading of what to do next.
The sum total of their work was comprehensive, but it wasn’t quite conclusive. There were more than enough to provide a framework, to start a conversation, or at the very least pose some very difficult questions for some very important people.
At the same time, there were still sufficient holes in it to keep the conclusions from being certain.
As such, they couldn’t come forward. Not just yet.
They could do as Jazmine suggested and take off again, hopeful they would find what they needed before their luck ran out and the other side finally caught up to them before they could go public.
That too didn’t present much appeal to Skye. That one word from Wynn had recast everything in a much harsher light, making her realize for the first time that they couldn’t just hope to stay one step ahead, that sooner, rather than later, they would be found.
And eliminated.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her just slightly, her gaze drifting past the van, focusing on some indeterminate point in the distance, “but I have another idea.”
Chapter Sixteen
After calling Rae, I jumped back on the highway, backtracking the way I’d come only an hour before. Despite the passage of just sixty minutes the roadway was a stark contrast to my previous trip, three of the four lanes completely empty, the final one allowing cars to drift over and exit with ease.
Around me city lights had replaced the sun, providing an equal amount of illumination, even serving to spotlight some high points along the way. Scads of restaurants, shopping malls, and gas stations flowed past as I kept the heading for a dozen miles or so before turning west and heading straight out from the city.
After the events in Elk Grove, my first point of business was to get as far away from Chicago as possible. I had been careful not to touch anything in the house, to keep my head down should any surveillance have been in place, making it tough for anybody to get so much as a snapshot of my face as I came and went.
Despite that, these guys had proven themselves more than capable of finding me and tracking my movements. If they needed to, getting a photograph of me or calling in a random tip to the local police wouldn’t be much of an issue.
Given who Celek worked for, there would be a time in the very near future when the Illinois state police and any of a number of government agencies would be no more than a phone call away.
As Meyers had not yet been elected to the Vice Presidency though – and I had no idea if he ever would be – that left the only real option for them to try and set me up being with the local police. The sooner I could get out of their jurisdiction the better, that singular thought pushing me west, moving back out through Downer’s Grove and on past Naperville, a host of other suburbs flying by along the way.
Not that I especially cared. Never before had I had any desire to see Chicago, and I knew where it was should such a strange longing ever manage to kick up.
For the time being all I cared about was putting it behind me and working my way back to Rae. From there, together, we would try to assess whatever the hell had just happened and decide the best way to move forward.
Stopping just once for gas and coffee, I fell in with a trio of long haul truckers moving directly across the state, all four of us trading positions every so often. More than a hundred miles passed as I jockeyed forward and back with my unspoken friends, my eyes glazing over as I thought on the last few days, cataloging what little I knew, how randomly it had all come together.
Just as quickly fallen apart.
For sixteen years, a man I barely knew but somehow owed my life to had carried around a favor. Whether or not I actually owed it to him was a matter of debate, the kind of thing that became irrelevant once he attained a certain political status and had the added benefits of media attention and extra resources.
He felt I did, and was not above exerting no small amount of pressure to ensure it was repaid.
The thought of owing anybody anything was enough to bring a sour taste to my mouth, the fact that in this case it was for saving my life making it even worse. Pushing matters over the top was the reality that he could bring unwanted media attention down on me, probably untold forces of additional discomfort if I really wanted to think about it.
No part of me had wanted to pack up and drive to Chicago, but even less did I want some camera crew showing up one day, picking at what Rae and I had built together.
Just as fast, the favor was now seemingly covered, more than a decade and a half repaid in full and wiped clean in less than a day. If Celek, and by extension Jacoby, were to be taken at their word I was now a free man, never to hear from them again.
As wonderful as that all sounded, it was supposition I was not about to believe, the thought driving me long into the night.
Three hours after leaving Elk Grove I crossed over into Iowa, another first for me. Under the cover of darkness it looked exactly the same as Illinois, the landscape flat, m
ost of the fields just planted, appearing to be nothing more than dirt, the occasional bean or corn sprouts sticking just a few inches above the top soil.
Before me the road stretched out straight and flat, the asphalt bathed in pale moonlight, the road signs directing me on into Davenport and the Quad Cities.
The combination of adrenaline and caffeine had my system wired tight, telling my body to continue pushing west, but my mind intervened, warning me that that would not be the most prudent of approaches. Right now I was riding mostly on angst and confusion, my heightened senses spurring me into movement without any true idea where I was headed.
As I had learned many times over with Delta, doing so was nothing more than wasted energy. Doing so in the middle of the night made it doubly bad, wrecking the next day in the process, throwing my body clock into a state that could take even longer to recover from.
Realizing that for what it was, just after midnight I fell out of line from the convoy, flashing my front lamps twice in thanks for the escort. All three returned the gesture, their taillights propelling them on onward as I slowed and exited the freeway.
Following a simple sign at the top of the ramp, I hooked a right and made my way a quarter mile down to a place called the Stop On Inn.
Pulling up in front of it, the place looked like the sort a low budget horror movie would be set at, the kind of film where a road weary family got lost and decided to turn in for the night.
Checked in but never checked out, that sort of thing.
One story in height and no more than forty yards in length, the structure was made of concrete block painted mint green, a handful of doors equally spaced out along the front shaded dark red. Along the far end was an office with a covered drive-thru, the top of it just barely tall enough for my truck to pass under.
Framed in the front window was a neon sign, the bold pink letters announcing there was still vacancy for the evening.
Judging by the single car parked out in the front of the place, I took that to be an understatement as I eased to a stop under the awning and climbed out. Ten minutes later I climbed back in, registration and key in hand, the place one of the last remaining establishments to still use actual metal instead of fancy swipe cards that never seemed to work correctly.
Thriller Box Set One: The Subway-The Debt-Catastrophic Page 39