Hidden Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure

by Tom Abrahams

  ***

  “Don’t move!” commands the gritty voice behind me, a pair of hands gripping my legs.

  I pull my knees toward me, one at a time, and kick back. The fifth kick connects with something hard and the man grunts.

  I roll onto my side and try pulling myself around the corner of the duct into the split, but he recovers and manages to grip one foot with both of his hands. He tugs and I lose my grip.

  The duct is rattling against the struggle when I connect with another kick. My foot hits him square in the nose.

  Still, he claws his way closer to me, using my pants to climb even with me. He’s behind me, trying to wrap his arms around me.

  I push off the wall of the duct in front of me, near the opening, pinning him between my back and the wall behind me. I relax and push again, knocking the air from his lungs.

  He gasps and grabs at my head, gripping a fistful of hair and yanking back. I return the favor with an elbow to his throat and he lets go with a sick gargle.

  Another elbow to his chest and I’m able to free myself, feeling for the opening. Finding it, I pull my weight into the split.

  My chest is burning, the sweat dripping from my face and neck onto the metal duct. I am halfway into the split, my legs still in the main stretch of the duct when it shifts under my weight.

  And falls.

  The quick descent, which takes less than second, feels like an eternity. It’s like I have time to consider my life, my death, my mistakes, Bella, my parents, Sir Spencer, the governor, Charlie, George, Ripley, Liho Blogis, faceless Pickle people, my cousin…

  Time stretches in a deafening silence before it ends just as violently with the sound of metal and bone crunching, glass breaking, the scream of the man in the duct.

  I’m surrounded by blackness. I can’t tell if my eyes are open or closed. My back hurts, my neck hurts, my knee feels worse than it has since the day it was surgically repaired.

  It’s good my knee hurts. It means I’m not paralyzed.

  The darkness dissolves into a flickering light. I’m on my back, on the floor, staring at the shredded asbestos ceiling ten feet above me. There’s a fluorescent light hanging next to the hole, cracked with its twin tube bulbs exposed but functioning somewhat.

  A wave of recognition slams into me.

  I’m in building 197. Brookhaven National Laboratory.

  The motion sensor must have triggered the light.

  My fingers work, my toes work. I’m alive. I’m good.

  I’ll just rest here for a second. I’m so tired. Just a second.

  “Jackson?” my earpiece, somehow, is still lodged in its place. “Jackson? If you can hear me, Bella is outside of the building. I’m reading from the tracker you’re still inside. You need to exit as quickly as possible. There’s backup headed your way.”

  Maybe not.

  “Whatever you’re doing in there is getting a lot of attention,” the hacker says. “I mean A LOT.”

  “U.S. Marshals, F.B.I., Suffolk County. They’re all headed your way. You have got to get out of there. Meet Bella where your car is parked. She’s there.”

  I’m underneath part of the duct and pieces of asbestos ceiling. Managing to sit up, despite the pain in my lower back, I scoot out from under the debris. Next to me, unconscious but breathing, is the duct attacker. He’s wearing a uniform identical to Jenkins’. His face is bloodied and he might be missing a couple of teeth, but I think he’ll be okay.

  “Jackson,” Corkscrew’s voice is an octave higher, “you need to go now! There are three guards headed your way. And one of them, a bigger guy, looks really intent on getting to you. He might be the first one who found you.”

  Jenkins!

  I use a chair to help me to my feet. Everything is spinning and out of focus.

  The mess of a room looks similar to the other labs and offices. It’s got a bookshelf on one side, a bank of cabinets on the other. There’s a white board on one wall, an unplugged wall unit air conditioner, the door and its electronic entry panel.

  “You’ve got maybe ten seconds,” Corkscrew warns. “Jackson!! I’ll work on the key panel again. But you don’t have time.”

  Gaining my balance with the help of a desk, I grab the broken leg of a chair and maneuver my way to the door. I grip the chair leg like a baseball bat and shove the end of it into the key code panel. I crack the panel, but it’s still lit. I slam the butt of the leg into the panel a second time, sparking a short. The lights blink and shut off. I hit it again for good measure.

  That should keep them out of the room for a minute.

  Dragging another chair to the opposite wall, I struggle to the other side of the room. I step up on the chair with one foot and place the other on the bookshelf. Reaching up, I take the chair leg and use a protruding screw to rip into the caulk lining the edge of the air conditioning unit. There’s no trim molding around the unit, making the impossible job a little more feasible.

  Once I’ve made my way around the entire unit, I take my fingers and start prying the caulk. It’s old and cracked, which makes the job easier. My head is spinning; a sharp pain is pulsing above my right eye. My lower back is tightening by the second.

  “They’re at the door,” Corkscrew says. “They’re punching in a key, but it’s not working.”

  Good.

  “Their weapons are drawn, Jackson!”

  Not good.

  I don’t have time to finish removing the caulk, so I grab at the face of the unit and pull. It comes off and I swing it to the floor. That does me no good.

  I’m not getting out this way.

  “Jackson,” Corkscrew’s voice is softer, like she realizes there’s no point in the urgency anymore. “They’re working on the panel. You’ve got a few extra seconds to figure something out.“

  I bang on the air conditioner, praying that all it needs it a shove or two to come loose and open a hole big enough for me to squeeze through. No such luck.

  The air duct attacker is still unconscious. His face is covered in blood from what I figure is either the fall or my elbow to his face.

  I can’t tell how old he is or what he looks like, except that his hair is my color and about my length. It’s short, cropped on the sides, a bit longer than a high and tight military style cut.

  Hopping down from the chair, I push aside part of the vent and move to the guard. Standing over him, his chest moving up and down with short, shallow breaths, I have an idea.

  ***

  I’ve never been one for uniforms, but in this instance I’ll make an exception. It’s ill fitting, a little loose in my shoulders and tight in the waist, but it’ll do.

  My face is covered in ceiling dust, palmfuls swept from the floor and generously applied across my cheeks and forehead. There’s a little blood too, thumbed from a puddle on the floor next to guard. It’s streaked like war paint above one eye and on my ear.

  It was a lot easier getting the uniform on than it was pulling it off an unconscious man. Then, getting him dressed again, in my clothes, all while keeping one eye on the door, was ridiculous.

  It’s taken the guards fourteen minutes to open the door. I’ve spent the last thirty seconds banging on the door, calling for help.

  When the door finally hums and swings open, three guards, including Jenkins tumble into the room. All of them are wide-eyed, trying to take in the chaos in front of them.

  “He’s alive!” I assure them in a hushed voice, strained from screaming for help. I don’t even recognize it as my own. “I got him. But I’m hurt. I’m bleeding. Jenkins, get him first. Secure him. Then help me.”

  My head is hanging, one of my hands cupped over my eyes. I’m leaning against the wall next to the door. The men are frozen for a moment before Jenkins and one of the other guards picks their way to the man lying face down on the floor.

&n
bsp; “That’s him!” Jenkins calls back. “That’s Jackson Quick! I know what he was wearing. That’s him!” The second guard has his weapon trained on the unconscious suspect.

  “Go help him,” I wave off the guard standing next to me. “That guy’s dangerous. I’ll go call 9-1-1.”

  “We’ve already handled that,” he says, putting his hand on my shoulder. “The ambulance will be here any minute.”

  “Go help them with Quick,” I order the guard. “I’m okay.”

  He nods and, without questioning the instructions, wades his way to Jenkins’ side. He kneels down to check the suspect’s pulse. “He’s got a pulse,” he nods and then turns his attention back to the suspect.

  I slip out of room, shutting the door behind me. And I run.

  My right eye feels like it’s connected to a surging electrical socket. My lower back screams with every pound of my feet along the linoleum floor of the long hallway.

  I have no idea if I’m headed in the right direction. I can’t focus.

  “Jackson!” Corkscrew calls to me. “Jackson? You’re not moving. You’ve stopped moving.”

  She doesn’t know the guard is wearing my clothes. I left the transmitter in the pocket.

  “Bella,” she says. “Bella, Jackson is caught. He’s not moving. You need to leave.”

  No!!

  I bite down on the inside of my cheek and refocus. My right eye closed to dull the edge of the pain, ignoring the throb in my lower back, I push forward.

  About twenty yards ahead is a glowing red EXIT sign. I’m there.

  “Bella,” repeats the hacker. “You need to go now. There’s a caravan of cops closing in on your location. If you head north now, you’ll avoid them.”

  I’m almost there.

  I reach the door and tackle it, slamming it open into the dense midnight air. The humid, cold air pushing me backward. With the last bit of energy I can muster, I run through the doorway and—

  I’m on the wrong side of the building!

  In front of me is a parking lot. A half-dozen cars are parked amidst the twenty spaces lining the entrance to Building 197. The door swings shut behind me. In the distance there’s the flash of red and blue lights against the low, water-filled clouds.

  “I see you, Bella,” says Corkscrew. “Turn right onto Michelson and the right onto Upton.”

  She’s gone…

  I can hear the sirens wailing now. They’re getting closer.

  Sinking down to the sidewalk, I collapse next to the curb. Rolling onto my back, my right eye still closed, I stare up at the sky. Puffs of vapor obscure the view with every breath.

  I clasp my hands across my chest, resigning myself to what’s about to happen, when I find something in the left breast pocket of the uniform.

  Keys!

  Reaching into the pocket, I pull out a set of keys, and dangle them above my left eye to get a better look. Two of them look like building keys, but the third and its accompanying fob belong to a car.

  I press the unlock icon on the fob and hear the familiar chirp of doors unlocking. I turn my head to the right, toward the cars in the lot and press the button again. The taillights of a Chevy Cruise flash.

  Pushing myself to my feet, I hobble to the Chevy, and climb inside. The car starts and I pull the belt across my lap as I slip it into reverse and pull out of the lot. I find the headlight switch and turn it to the OFF position.

  Knowing Upton runs north and south, I turn right out of the lot. Guessing I’m heading in the right direction, I make another right, turning north. It’s Upton. I might only be five minutes behind Bella. When I gain some distance from Brookhaven, I’ll call her. In my rear view mirror, a cavalry of cops are racing toward the same lot I just left.

  My body feels like it’s been run through a grinder, the pain acute in too many places to count. But I’m alive.

  CHAPTER 16

  I’ve never really finished anything. True, I graduated from high school and college, but other than that, my life has been a series of incompletes.

  Whether it’s the job-hopping or the inability to maintain relationships of substance, I’ve found ways to skip out early. My shrink thought I had Attention Deficit Disorder. She even considered the possibility I was bipolar.

  She concluded it wasn’t either of those diagnoses, but rather, a general fear of completion. I needed to be aware of the pattern and recognize when I was about to run. She made me take notes on every task, however I started and failed to complete.

  It was too easy to blame it on my parents’ deaths. I couldn’t use that as a crutch my entire life. Instead, I should place the blame and responsibility of incompletion squarely on my own shoulders.

  She wanted me to research more deeply any project, job, or relationship I was about to undertake. Sketch out goals, outline my expectations, and incrementally move toward resolution.

  I was headed there, I thought, when the Governor of Texas hired me. I quickly became a trusted aide, a confidant of sorts. He took me to his ranch, he entrusted me with delicate tasks.

  Then I met Charlie. She was everything I thought I wanted in a companion. Whip smart and beautiful, she made me want to be a better person. I opened up to her. I let her in.

  Both of them betrayed that trust. Charlie died. The governor went to prison. Now he’s dead. You can’t get more closure, more resolution, than death.

  Now, driving west toward I-95, I find myself on the verge of finishing something I started. It’s within reach. I can complete my mission to end Sir Spencer’s grasp on me, Liho Blogis’ plan to sell nuclear destruction to the highest bidder, and my desire to see Bella free of anxiety and fear.

  The clock on the dash reads 12:40 AM. I haven’t stopped to call Bella. She doesn’t even know I escaped Brookhaven. I’m too afraid to stop. I keep telling myself, “One more exit,” and then I drive past it, certain that I’ll get surrounded and caught.

  I’ve had the radio off. I don’t want to hear the latest about what I’ve done, who I’ve killed or maimed, why I’m public enemy number one.

  The pain over my right eye is subsiding, or it could be that the ache in my lower back is so concentrated and sharp, it’s overpowering my other injuries.

  The six-shooter and my burner cell are on the passenger seat. My wallet’s in my back pocket. I’ve got some cash, but no credit card and no identification. I left the fake ID’s around the neck of the unconscious security guard. Bella’s got the extra burners and additional IDs in the SUV.

  She’s also got the bag with Ripley’s weapons and the thumb drive Mack gave me. I’d forgotten about that thumb drive.

  Mack suggested that everything I needed to know about my parents’ death was on that drive. He pulled it from the cloud and told me I needed to see it firsthand, learn about the connections between my parents, Sir Spencer, and Liho Blogis.

  My shrink could suggest all she wanted that my ability, or inability, to do anything wasn’t related to my parents. However, the deeper down this rabbit hole I slip, the harder I work to climb my way out, the more I know that everything in my life was a set up for what I’m about to finish.

  One way or the other, I’m ending this. I’m so close to the end, I can see it dancing on the horizon. Just beyond the reach of the Chevy’s headlights, it’s there. Calling me. Taunting me.

  I reach over to the passenger’s seat and grab the cell phone to call Bella. She needs to know I’m okay and I need to read what’s on that drive.

  ***

  Bella’s sitting in the driver’s seat of the SUV, parked in a rest area just off the interstate in New Jersey. When I climb into the front seat next to her, she doesn’t say anything. Her lower lips quivers, her eyes fill with tears that quickly spill onto her cheeks, and she throws herself across the armrest and into my arms.

  Her head buried in my chest, she sobs. I ho
ld her, one hand on the back of her head, the other on her back. With deep, heaving breaths, she cries until the wave subsides. She pulls back from me and kisses my lips. Hers are salty from the tears; the kiss is full and passionate. Her hands move to either side of my face pulling me closer still.

  “I can’t get close enough to you,” she says in a voice on the verge of hyperventilating. “You were right behind me. And then you weren’t. And then the crash. And Corkscrew telling me you were stuck. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t. I just—”

  “I know,” I interrupt her, thumbing the tears from underneath her eyes. “I know you didn’t. It’s okay.”

  “I thought I had this figured out,” she says, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “I thought I could emotionally detach. You know, I could, distance myself from you just in case.”

  “I get it.”

  “But I can’t,” she admits. “I can’t be mad at you. I can’t turn a switch and be cold.” She sits up and wipes her eyes. “I love you too much.”

  “I love you too.”

  “We’re finished with this, right? I mean,” a laugh emerges from the crying, “we’re close to leaving all of this and starting fresh, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s hurry up and finish.”

  “You’ve got the process?”

  “I think so.” She reaches under the front seat and pulls out one of the file folders from the safe. “Take a look and tell me what you think.”

  I flip open the folder labeled WOLF to find a stack of papers. On top of the papers is a sticky note.

  Aleksey, You are my last hope. Keep this safe, friend.

  With deepest admiration, Paul

  Under the sticky note, on the first page begins a familiar string of letters, numbers, and symbols. They’re indecipherable to me, but I know what they mean.

  “This is it!” I look to Bella, who’s blinking away her tears, smiling at what we’ve recovered.

  “Yep. You recognize it too?”