by David Perry
Jason’s stomach plummeted. The car became airborne. Tree trunks and branches along this northern stretch of Jefferson Avenue hurtled at him.
The front end crumpled. Metal screamed. The car stopped, but Jason’s body kept moving, stopped instantly by the deploying airbag. Something penetrated the already weakened windshield, tearing at the flesh of his face.
The last sensations Jason experienced were the whiplash of his head and neck followed by the warm gush of blood over his eyes.
Chapter 15
The goddamned idiot had panicked!
The Watcher couldn’t help but cuss out Clyde Hutton as he careened his Ford along the densely traveled Warwick Boulevard with the pharmacist. The spy’s Caddy hadn’t been able to keep up with Rodgers and Hutton. Not because of a deficit in horsepower, but simply bad timing. The Watcher had hit several red lights at intersections in which he’d been stopped as the third or fourth car in line.
With his hand on the gearshift lever and his palm bouncing up and down on the knob, The Watcher counted the seconds before the light turned. He couldn’t see them anymore. They had taken a right onto Yorktown Road, disappearing around a bend at the old train depot.
Moments before, The Watcher had let a sardonic grin slip over his lips as he watched the two men inside the darkened cab of the Mustang. Jason had pressed himself onto the smaller man. The Watcher’s mind had recalled watching Christine Pettigrew a month or so ago sitting in almost the same location from which The Watcher now scrutinized the pharmacist and his prey.
With his reverie interrupted, The Watcher was jolted back to the present when a light strobed inside the car and the loud report cracked.
Had Rodgers killed Clyde Hutton?
Had Hutton delivered the item?
The answer came a moment later when Hutton extricated himself from the car and fled, initiating the high-speed car chase.
When the light changed, he caught a break. All the traffic ahead of him stayed north on Warwick allowing him to floor the accelerator, gunning the eight cylinder four-hundred-horsepower power plant of the Cadillac.
The Watcher shook his head as he trained his eyes on the road.
The Watcher had explained to the nervous Hutton last night that Rodgers would not kill unless he was provoked. It was not in his nature to kill without cause. The agent had given Hutton a simple assignment. An assignment passed on from Hussein. Give Rodgers the name and the damned device!
One simple directive. One a child could have carried out. Even grown men become idiots under pressure.
The double agent’s heart sank. He brought the Caddy to a screeching halt at the intersection with Jefferson Avenue. In the distance to the north, he spied a fireball along the right side of the road. Without waiting, he spun rubber through the red light at the deserted roadway.
As he approached, he breathed again. The wreckage belonged to the pick-up truck. He pulled onto the shoulder a quarter mile from the accident scene. He scanned the roadway for any sign of the Mustang but didn’t see it.
Donning the goggles, he checked again. He spotted a soft red glow in the trees to his left. The red luminescence from the still hot engine. The car was impaled by a thick branch, penetrating the windshield, holding it aloft like a pig on a spit. Inside, the skull-shaped green circle of Rodger’s head on the driver’s side lay motionless near the large branch. Rodgers’s body was still warm.
One question assaulted him: was he still alive?
Jason opened his eyes. He was rewarded with a warm, sticky darkness. He pushed himself back into the seat and away from the steering wheel. A plastic fabric covered it. Jason tugged at it but it did not give.
Walking his hands along the plastic, he could feel it anchored into the center hub of the steering wheel. The deflated air bag.
He blinked, trying to accommodate to the darkness. He turned his head to look toward where the flames would be engulfing Hutton’s truck. His head hit something rough and sturdy.
He ran his hands along it. It was a tree limb. A gruesome death had been inches away. He could see no yellow flames in the distance. He saw nothing at all.
Bringing his hands to his face, his fingers came away coated and sticky with blood. Tracing it to its origin, his fingers caressed the skin of his forehead. The depression was wide. Touching it sent electric daggers coursing through his skull.
Jason tensed, clenching his fists and his teeth, fighting off the agony.
When it passed, he wiped the sticky curtain from his eyes. Faint slivers of dancing yellow and crimson seeped in.
Jason ducked under the thick tree limb holding the car aloft and looked west. Yellow flames licked up from the angled undercarriage of the pick-up resting on its roof.
The unmoving silhouette of Clyde Hutton hung, still strapped in on the driver’s side, backlit by the yellow flames. Jason checked to make sure his Colt was tucked in his belt. He crawled out of the shattered passenger-side window and fell six feet to a grass-covered ditch.
At this early morning hour, this stretch of roadway was deserted except for the two mangled vehicles. No sirens wailed and no flashing lights pulsed … not yet. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. He scampered up the slope to the roadway and ran on weak, wobbly legs to the burning truck.
Dropping to his knees, he poked his head inside the cab. The heat from the flames above them stung his face. Hutton hung motionless by the seatbelt, his right arm bent in a way unintended by nature. That’s when he saw the copious amounts of blood.
Jason’s head and scalp screamed in pain as he ducked inside the cab, where the combination of his own pain and Hutton’s blood dripping onto the upturned roof made his stomach turn. He repressed the urge to vomit as his own blood seeped down his face from the deep scalp laceration. He felt a wave of dizziness as bile filled his throat.
He jabbed a bloody finger onto Hutton’s neck. The pulse throbbed intermittently. This man was still alive but bleeding to death.
There’s not much time!
Jason reached up and tried to unbuckle the seatbelt holding the man aloft inside the overturned pick-up. It would not give. He tried three times to yank it free with the same result.
A loud whoosh swept over the vehicle. The heat in the cab intensified. The yellow glow brightened around the vehicle. Jason tugged once more at the seatbelt. Again, it would not budge.
Jason removed the Colt from under his shirt and took aim. Two blasts strobed inside the cab. Hutton’s torso flinched. The belt gave way. Hutton dropped into Jason’s arms.
He dragged Hutton onto the brush and checked for a pulse once more.
Still alive!
Jason slapped Hutton twice across the face, once with a forehand then a backhand.
“Wake up, Hutton!”
He grabbed skin just under the jaw and twisted it with as much force as he could summon. Hutton twitched and blinked.
“Hutton, what were you going to tell me?”
Hutton’s eyes registered relief at being saved. Then he must have realized who had saved him.
Grabbing hair, Jason shook the weasel’s head.
“Tell me! Who was the man in the jail?”
Hutton sighed, blinking away the pain.
“It’s not over! They’re back … The Simoon … They’re looking for … ”
Hearing the name of the organization again, spoken aloud, stunned him. Jason recoiled. He hadn’t realized it until this moment. He’d not said the name in nearly two years. “How do you know that name?”
“The guy who visited me told me.”
“Who?! What did he look like?”
Hutton shook his head. “It was a guy in a hat … you know, like Dick Tracy’s hat … he wore all black.”
Hutton tried to move his right arm, but dropped it like a discarded tree branch. His eyes widened a moment before he screamed.
“My arm! What the fuck did you do to my arm?”
Jason grabbed Hutton’s shirt, drenched with sweat and blood. Tha
t’s when he noticed the fragment of bone protruding from the tissue. Blood spurted in pulses from the wound.
“Oh shit,” Jason said.
He removed the laces from both tennis shoes and placed one below the shoulder of the mangled arm, creating a tourniquet. The pain in Jason’s shoulder surged. Nausea followed and Jason puked on the asphalt. He recovered, wiped his mouth with his good arm, and tied the fabric. He moved his weakened arm to hold the lace as he pulled hard with his right hand. The pressure was so tight the visible skin dimpled.
He swallowed hard and tore away the sleeve of Hutton’s shirt. Still, blood seeped from the hole around the three-inch section of gray-white bone. Using the second shoe lace, he applied a second tourniquet near the elbow, tying it as tight as he could. The flow stopped. Jason sucked in rapid, quick breaths fighting his own urge to collapse. Blood continued to ooze from the laceration on his head.
“Hutton, stay with me!”
The weasel floated in an out of consciousness. Jason slapped him hard, twice. His eyes fluttered.
“What are they looking for?”
Hutton mouthed one word. No sound escaped from his lips. Hutton tried again. Jason leaned in.
“Say it again!”
“You …”
“Me?”
Jason saw the tourniquet give way, unraveling at the elbow. Blood pulsed from the wound again. The slick crimson did not allow him to gain purchase. He tried several times. The flow could not be staunched.
“They … are … looking … for you …”
Jason pushed away from Hutton and shook his head. He ran a hand through his bloody hair. “I don’t fucking believe this!”
A large oval of black blood widened on the asphalt under Hutton.
Jason grabbed the weasel by the shirt with both hands, ignoring the slicing shards of pain in his body. “Clyde, listen to me. I don’t care about what happened in the jail. It’s over. You’re dying. They medics won’t get here in time. I can’t stop the bleeding.”
Part of Jason knew he should be doing more to save this man’s life. Another part of him wanted this scumbag’s life to end. He deserved nothing less. But, he needed him to stay alive long enough to get as much information as he could from him. Jason’s adrenaline kicked in, chilling his own pain and fueling him.
“Clyde, make things right. Tell me Tattoo Man’s name!”
Hutton’s eyelids fluttered. The eyes began to roll into his skull.
“Clyde, the name.” Jason slapped Hutton across the face three times with all his might. Hutton opened his eyes. They were glassy and unfocused.
“Luther … William … Luther …”
“Where is he?”
Hutton shook his head. He swallowed and grabbed Jason’s shirt with his good hand, pulling him down.
“I’m sorry …”
Jason leaned in again, trying to hear Hutton’s weak words.
“In the pocket of my pants … take it. I was supposed to give it to you.”
“Give me what?”
“I’ve known you were watching me. He said to wait until you made contact. They’re watching, both of us.”
“Clyde, what the fuck are you talking about? Who told you?”
“The man in the black hat. They’re watching.”
“Who are watching?”
“The same people who hired me to put Luther in your cell. The Simoon!”
“What?”
A sharp, slice of agony cut through Jason’s chest. Were these the rantings of a dying man or did Clyde Hutton know more? Jason wanted to keep him alive and ask him more questions. But there was no time. Hutton was bleeding to death.
Jason glanced around. He saw nothing but the glow of the burning truck. He patted down Hutton. There was something in the right-hand pocket. He pulled it out and looked back to Hutton. Jason placed the item in his pocket.
“If you knew I was coming for you, why did you run?”
“I got scared. I’m a dead man. I deserve to die.”
With those words, Clyde Hutton closed his eyes for the last time.
What to do?
The Watcher had waited, trying to determine his next move. Eventually, the pharmacist had crawled through the passenger window of the mangled Ford. He had staggered and stumbled toward the inverted truck. Flames licked up from the exposed undercarriage.
He checked the rearview for the FBI. Nothing.
Lost them in traffic.
Through the night-vision goggles, he watched as the pharmacist struggled to free Clyde Hutton. After several tense minutes, Rodgers dragged the limp body from the cab and onto the shoulder of the road. Rodgers himself appeared to be injured.
Was Rodgers talking to him? Or was he trying to revive him?
The Watcher had no idea why the pharmacist wasn’t simply given a message through a dead drop or another means. Hussein wanted the message and the smartphone delivered by Hutton. There was some kind of symbolism in all of it.
The agent saw Hutton’s head and lips moving. He was talking and responding. There was nothing else to do … for now.
Delilah Hussein was toying with the man like a cat with a captive mouse.
The cops would be on the scene soon. If Hutton had evidence linking him to The Simoon in the vehicle, it had to be destroyed. The Watcher was under orders to make sure nothing could be traced back to Hussein. Later, after the man was dead, he would search Hutton’s double-wide in Williamsburg.
He lifted the small black box from the seat beside him, turned the red knob to the on position. The green light illuminated. He checked to make sure Jason Rodgers was not going back to the vehicle, then he pressed the round black button.
A second later, the charges rigged in the overturned truck exploded.
Chapter 16
Fifteen hundred miles to the southeast, Delilah Hussein knelt in her massive master suite. She would miss her appointed time for the first salaat of the day. Normally, she prayed the Fajr at six in the morning. It was just after four now. There would be no time later. This would be a very busy day, so she performed it now, two hours early.
She had only managed a few hours of sleep in the last twenty four, mostly through short twenty or thirty minute naps. With her energy level high, Delilah Hussein cleansed herself and covered her hair. She stood on her prayer rug with her hands at her ears, palms forward. Her thumbs tucked behind her earlobes.
“Allahu Akbar!”
She then placed her right hand over her left on her chest and looked at the rug before her. She offered the traditional opening supplication followed by the Fatiha, the first surah of the Qur’an.
She lowered hands and bent at the waist. “Allahu Akbar!” she whispered, as she lowered her torso. When her back was parallel to the floor and her eyes saw her feet, she continued.
“Subhanna rabbiyal ‘Azeem!”
Hussein repeated this three times.
The door to her bedroom opened. Hussein sensed the man waiting until she was done.
“What do you want?” she demanded without looking in his direction.
“Hammon, he is bleeding … a lot. There may not be much time.”
Hussein sighed. She could not afford to let this man die. She had shot him on the island in the shoulder, missing any vital internal structures. With his implanted tracking device destroyed and his body scanned for any other devices, her minions had dragged Hammon back to the boat for the two-hour trip to the main island. They deposited him by the pool under the covered pergola while she prepared to pray. It was time to extract what she needed.
“Je serai la!” I’ll be right there!
“He abducted someone from inside the club, sir.”
“What?”
“Our agent on the ground said he came out of the strip club with a gun. He forced someone into his Mustang. Minutes later, Rodgers left the car and is now chasing him. Very high speeds.”
“Where are they going?”
“We don’t know, sir. The agent lost them at an in
tersection. We are blind again.”
Brad Lane, the deputy director of the Bureau who had been personally asked by Director McNamara to supervise this operation, spat a string of expletives.
“And the pharmacist and the pick-up truck are being followed by a third vehicle. A black Caddy. Is it The Watcher?”
“We believe so, sir.”
Hussein watched Hammon clutch at his left shoulder from the comfort of the padded Adirondack chair. The round had penetrated below the clavicle. His plump fingers tried in vain to stem the flow of blood.
“You are bleeding profusely, Hammon. I guess a man of your size has a few extra liters.”
Hammon’s arms were crossed over his torso. One clutched the bullet wound while the other pressed the bloody napkin into the self-created knife wound in his belly.
“You stupid bitch,” Hammon moaned.
Hussein leapt from her seat and was on him with a dexterity that surprised even her. She maneuvered the barrel of the gun between the fingers of Hammon’s hand over the belly wound and pressed. The fat spy shrieked.
“You are bleeding all over my patio and furniture, you fat slob. So much blood, it scared my man. He thought you were dying.”
Hammon breathed heavily, trying to quiet the pain.
“I have brought you back to my island, Hammon, as you wished. But the tracking device is on the other island, destroyed.”
“I’m not giving you a penny. I can’t!”
“I know that, you idiot! You are delirious. We already talked about this. I never intended to take any more money from you. I need information from you.”
“What kind of information?”
“One piece. That’s all I need. I know you have it. If you give it to me, I will kill you quickly, painlessly. If not, Oliver will carve you, while still alive, into bite-size morsels to be used as chum,” Hussein seethed.
Jason awoke in a large, square ambulance rig parked at an angle across Jefferson. He lay on a stretcher as a paramedic palpated him for more wounds. A second rig was visible through the open doors. Jason stared into its open bay. In it lay a stretcher with a blanket-draped body.