Hidden Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure

by Tom Abrahams

  That fear evaporates when I reach the door to our apartment. She’s standing in the doorway, leaning against it, her arms are folded across her chest. She knows something.

  “So when were you going to tell me?” she smirks, blocking me from entering the apartment.

  “Tell you what?” I play dumb and try to hand her the box. She doesn’t take it.

  “The gun is missing from the bathroom,” she says. “And it took you way too long to bring back dinner.”

  “Okay.”

  “That guy leaving Willie’s,” she motions to the street below with her chin. “What did he want?”

  I reach into my pocket and pull the card. She takes it, flips it over, and reads it.

  “He offering us a job?” She walks into the apartment, reclaiming her spot on the love seat. There is a pair of wine glasses, half full of a seasonal red, sitting on the coffee table. Next to them are a stack of paper napkins and a couple of plates.

  “Yes,” I carefully set the box next to the plates. “He thinks we’re bored and talented.”

  “We are.”

  I open the box and the aroma of the calzone momentarily overpowers the lavender. Ripping it in half, I plop a huge piece onto a plate. I have to pull at the cheese rope connecting her plate to the box.

  “What’s the job?” She reaches for her wine and takes a sip.

  “I don’t know,” I say, still processing her admission of boredom.

  “When do we have to let him know? What’s the deadline?”

  “There isn’t one.”

  “Hmm.” She picks the plate up with one hand and carefully takes a bite of calzone.

  “So you’re bored?” I ask.

  “I’m watching football, Jackson,” she says. “I’m obsessed with lavender. What do you think?”

  “You’re bored.”

  “You are too. Don’t get me wrong,” she clarifies, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “I’m happy. I love you. We’re good. But don’t you miss the action?”

  “You mean death around every corner?”

  “Not exactly. But yes. I couldn’t wait to live a normal life with you. Now, a normal life with you is the one in which we’re running for our lives. We’re righting wrongs.”

  “Breaking into secret labs and blowing apart iconic architectural achievements?”

  “Exactly!” She takes another bite of calzone.

  I pick up my slice and inhale the smell of the mozzarella and buttered crust. Before I take a bite, I reach around to the small of my back and pull out the revolver, laying it flat on the table.

  The absurdity of our lives has never been more evident. We’re a pair of addicts, codependent and in love. We need the rush as much as we need each other. There’s no other answer. No choice. At some point we’ll need a fix. Not yet. But it’s coming.

  THE END

  EXCERPT FROM SEDITION

  For a man known to make noise literally and figuratively, Dexter Foreman’s death was remarkably silent.

  He was alone in his office.

  Foreman liked to have one half hour of office solitude each morning to read the paper and drink a cup of fully caffeinated coffee. He often joked coffee was a drink that, without caffeine, served no godly purpose.

  It wasn’t just the sense of quiet, the newsprint, and the Arabica he enjoyed in his office. A student of architecture, Foreman loved the neoclassical style of the room; the two-foot rise of its domed ceiling, the niches inset into the curved walls. He admired the Eighteenth Century sentiment.

  He and his wife had chosen to honor the office’s first occupant with green accents throughout. The subtle pea green of the rug complemented the alternating white pine and walnut flooring.

  The matching curtains and valances on the windows were muted with cream sheers. It was colorful but tasteful. Historians loved the homage to an earlier time. Despite the office being more ceremonial than practical, Foreman loved his time there.

  He was reading The New York Times, a below-the-fold article about his efforts to enhance Public Law 107-56, an act initially designed to “provide appropriate tools required to intercept and obstruct terrorism”. He’d not gotten past reporter Helene Cooper’s byline.

  The moment the artery blew within his head, he felt a sharp lightning bolt of pain as the blood exploded into his brain.

  The last image he saw was the portrait of George Washington hanging in its gilded frame above the white marble fireplace across from his desk on the north side of the room.

  He lost focus. The portrait dissolved to black. His eyes fixed.

  His face dropped onto the thick English oak, cracking the bridge of his nose. Blood pooled resolutely around his head, sticking to the gel in his styled salt and pepper hair. It leeched onto the corner of the Times.

  Had it not been for a planned meeting in his office just three minutes later, his body might have gone unnoticed for a half hour. But because of the meeting, his senior aide knocked on the northwest door of the office just forty five seconds after the vessel popped.

  That aide knocked twice, as was the custom with Foreman, and then opened the thick door from the hallway outside. The young man’s head was down as he entered the room. He lifted it to meet Foreman’s eyes with his. But instead of the expected nod from his boss, he saw him slumped on the desk across the room.

  His mind flooded with confusion and panic. At first he wasn’t certain he was processing the scene correctly. There was a bright, diffused light from the triplet of south facing windows directly behind the desk. It backlit Foreman’s body and made it difficult for the aide to focus. And what the aide saw before him appeared surreal: a cup of coffee, a newspaper, and an unconscious, bleeding Dexter Foreman.

  He hurried to the desk, lifted his wrist to his mouth, and spoke hurriedly.

  “Bandbox respond. Boxer is down. Boxer is down.”

  Two other doors swung open into the office from the rose garden outside and from an adjacent smaller room. Men in dark suits rushed to the desk, their fingers on the DAK triggers of their drawn .357 Sig Sauer P229 side arms.

  “Sir?” The aide touched Foreman’s shoulder, not expecting a response.

  Regardless, he repeated himself as three more suited, armed men ran into the office. This was not the meeting on the schedule.

  “Mr. President?” The aide’s voice was shaky. He swallowed hard past the thick lump at the top of his throat, focusing on the empty distant gaze in Foreman’s eyes. His own welled.

  Steam rose from the cup of coffee to Dexter Foreman’s right. It was inches from his hand, untouched and black.

  The president was dead.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There’s no acknowledgment suitable for the support, love, and guidance my wife, Courtney, gives me in writing and in our life together. Without her, these stories wouldn’t exist. So if you love them, you love her. If you don’t like them, blame her.

  Our children, Samantha and Luke, are equally inspirational in the hopeful way in which they view the world. They make me confident our future is in good hands.

  Thank you to Michael Wilson and Anthony Ziccardi for their confidence in my work. Their team at Post Hill Press does a fantastic job of getting books into the hands of readers.

  Felicia A. Sullivan, editor-in-chief, I am grateful you take the time to wade through my gobbledygook, both literally and figuratively, to grind and polish my mess into a cohesive, fast-paced narrative.

  Ryan Truso, your cover designs do a stellar job of conveying the story without words. Thank you.

  My fearless team of beta readers who tell me what’s wrong and what’s right with the story in its earliest phases, is beyond comparison. Gina Graff, Tim Heller, Mike Harnage, Steven Konkoly, and Curt Sullivant, I appreciate your critical eyes and willingness to be brutally honest. Additional thanks to Curt for his av
iation expertise and to Mike for his knowledge of weaponry.

  Thanks to the fellow authors who’ve been kind enough to help promote my work as they work on their own; Steven Konkoly, Murray McDonald, Clayton Anderson, Bobby Akart, A.R. Shaw, Ian Graham, and Russell Blake.

  And to my parents, Sanders and Jeanne Abrahams, my sister Penny Rogers, brother Steven Abrahams, my in-laws Don and Linda Eaker, thanks for your daily (bordering on Spammish) promotion of my work. I love all of you.

  Finally, thanks to the readers who buy these stories and then take the time to write me and tell me what they think. It’s my favorite part of this…other than typing THE END.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tom is a veteran television journalist and author who’s spent the last 20-plus years covering the biggest stories of our time.

  He’s interviewed Presidents, cabinet members, and leaders in congress. He’s reported live from the White House and Capitol Hill, Chernobyl, The Canadian Badlands, the barrios of Mexico City, Central America, and the Amazon Jungle.

  Tom’s covered five national political conventions. He has flown with presidential candidates, gone backstage at their rallies, and broken stories about them on television and online.

  He was at the Pentagon while smoke still rose in the hours after 9/11 and was in the room when Secretary Colin Powell made his case to the U.N. Security Council for war against Iraq.

  Tom lives in the Houston suburbs with his wife, Courtney, and their two children.