by David Perry
For the first five minutes, Boyd tried to make small talk. The effort was all the more lame because of his British accent.
“Mr. Boyd, I don’t have much time. I have to get home. My wife needs to go to work. She works night shifts and my son is ill. With traffic, it’s going to take me an hour to get home from here,” Sheppard urged.
“I know,” Boyd countered. “I’m sorry about your boy. I’ll get right to it.”
Boyd produced a folded USA Today newspaper from within his jacket and slid it across the booth. Sheppard began to open it.
“Don’t remove the envelope until later,” Boyd had said.
“What’s this?”
Boyd smiled and took a long pull on his Guinness. “I know that you have many medical bills. This should help. There’ll be more later.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You are now part of my team, Angelo.”
“What team?”
“Juan Santos and I …”
“Santos, the CEO?”
“Yes,” Boyd had nodded. “We are initiating a covert program which will revolutionize our industry. It has been approved by a small subcommittee of the board of directors and is so top secret that only a handful of people know about it. Once we prove that it works, Dawson Pharmaceuticals will become the leader in our industry segment.”
“Is this legal?”
“Let’s just say we have to produce some significant results before we go public. Your job will be to help us build a secret storage facility inside the plant. It will require you to oversee construction of the secret room when the plant is quiet.”
“Can we count on you?”
“And if I say no?”
Boyd forced a thin smile over his crooked bowtie. He leveled a hard glare at him. “Then you will lose your job … and I will see to it that you don’t work in the industry ever again. Your life will be all at sixes and sevens! That’s how we Brits say…all fucked up!”
Sheppard had reluctantly agreed. Boyd pushed the newspaper and the envelope closer to Sheppard.
“Keep your mouth shut and you will be able to retire in a couple of years, son. If not, your life will become very uncomfortable.”
Angelo Sheppard had kept his mouth shut and collected more than three hundred thousand dollars under the table. Now, the Vault was finished and he had placed the drums. But something was very wrong. The truck had arrived with the delivery and the driver had been taken away at gunpoint by masked men.
What the hell was in these drums?
With his hand shaking, Sheppard again removed his phone and recorded the drums in place in the frozen room. Satisfied, he lowered the larger vessel back into place.
He then pulled up the video files on his phone and sent them via secure text to Quinton Boyd, who would send them up the chain.
“Why is the Secret Service doing this? Isn’t that the CIA or FBI’s job?” Jason demanded.
“Trust me,” the director replied. “Since the sitting president and his father, the former president, were targeted for murder, every agency has been tasked with finding those responsible. All appropriate agencies are working together on this.”
“I have Delilah Hussein’s voice,” Jason began, “on a recorded message and have a video file showing my son and my girlfriend being held captive.”
“We know that,” the director interrupted.
“How?”
“We have ways. We have someone inside their organization. We know that there is a plan and that it is underway. But the target has been kept very close to the vest. Only a few people know the true target. Our agent isn’t one of them. The video file was sent to us via our mole. We have been trying to analyze it to gather clues as to Hussein’s location.”
“So you don’t know where she is?”
“We are getting close. But we may not have enough time before her plan is executed. You can lead us to her. And at the same time, you may be able to help your son and girlfriend.”
“Tell me how.”
The masked man held the phone back up to his ear and listened. The tone of the voice on the other end told Peter that Hussein had issued an ultimatum to the gunman standing in the wash of the headlights on this deserted stretch of roadway.
As the leader listened to her harsh words, Peter glanced to his left at the tall skinny man flanking him. Then he cast a quick look to his right. This guy was stout and muscular. The stock of a snub-nosed revolver jutted over his belt. Both men wore dark kerchiefs pulled high over the bridges of their noses.
He’s thicker, Peter thought.
Peter addressed his guards, “You guys ever seen the Jesse James story?”
They guards regarded him with hollow, menacing glares.
“Piss off,” the stout man replied.
“Jesse James is one of my favorite cowboy tales.”
The leader spun.
“She wants to know where your brother is,” the leader demanded.
“I told you I don’t know.”
The man spoke into the phone, turning away once more. “He says he doesn’t know.”
A pause ensued. Three words came through the phone. They registered instantly in the marine’s ears.
“Then kill him!”
The man on the phone nodded. Peter watched the back of his head bob down then up. “Will do,” he replied.
He began to rotate, reaching for the weapon he’d stuffed into his belt.
As soon as he heard the man’s reply, Peter initiated his maneuver. With a lightning quick move, he raised his bound hands and dropped them around the neck of the man standing to his left. With all the force he could generate he yanked down on the back of the man’s neck with his duct-taped hands, forcing him to bend at the waist. At the same instant, he raised his knee, ramming it into the criminal’s forehead. The bone-on-bone impact sounded like the crack of a bat on a spring afternoon.
In almost the same motion, Peter lifted his bound arms from around the man’s neck as he dropped to the gravel. The man to his right reacted, but his timing was a fraction late. Peter spun, lifting his arms, cocking his right elbow and swinging it.
The point of his elbow caught the man square on the cheek, snapping his head to one side. Peter reached down and pulled the revolver from the man’s belt before jumping behind the staggering man. The masked man at the front of the car, holding the phone, had leveled his weapon and fired.
The round struck the heavy guard in the lower abdomen. Peter held the man upright. A second shot rang out, ripping through the man’s shoulder. He groaned as air escaped his lungs in a rapid whoosh.
Peter pushed the wounded man toward the gun-wielding, phone-holding leader. As the heavy guard fell forward, Peter saw the leader’s eyes following his compatriot’s downward trajectory. That split second allowed the former marine to rip off one shot.
It exploded into the man’s shooting arm. The masked leader spun and dropped to the gravel, dropping the gun. The leader, though down, scrambled for the fallen gun.
Peter aimed and pulled the trigger a second time. The trigger clicked and the revolver spun. Nothing!
The leader had taken hold of the gun with his good arm, his left, and was bringing it around. Peter pivoted and ran behind the idling car. Two shots zipped past him.
He dove into a roadside ditch overgrown with tall grass, rolling several times to its valley. Peter collected himself and, staying low, bolted for the tree line.
An hour later, Peter, his hands still bound with duct tape, trudged along the two-lane deserted stretch of roadway framed by trees and shrubs. The traffic was sparse, an occasional truck or car passing by every ten or twelve minutes. The sun had begun its descent to the horizon. Darkness would envelop the area soon.
When a pair of headlights approached, Peter stepped into the tree line. The sight of a strange man with his wrists bound would not invite drivers to stop. Besides, he wasn’t sure if the goons were still alive or if they would pursue.
Dawson Pharm
aceuticals, as he recalled, was situated along State Road 602, in Camden which cut through swatches of farmland, slanting northeast, paralleling Interstate 295. As he approached the pharmaceutical plant, the farmland turned into suburbs. He shouldn’t have to go far to find some kind of civilization. After they had driven from the parking lot, they did not travel for more than fifteen minutes. So he was still relatively close to the plant.
After he had taken refuge in the woods from the remaining gunman beside the desolate roadway, Peter ran through trees and brambles as deep as the thickets would allow putting distance between him and the killers. After he’d humped about two hundred yards, the sedan’s engine pitched higher. Tires spewed dirt and stone as it sped away.
Now, Peter bundled himself against the chilly spring night, plodding along and pondering his options. Jason was God-only-knows-where. But Peter knew Jason would be scratching and clawing a way to find Michael and Christine. Peter decided his only option was to find a phone, lie about his predicament, and contact the only man he knew to call.
After thirty minutes of humping in the growing darkness, the former marine stopped and knelt to tighten the knots on his tennis shoes. He had retied the second knot awkwardly with his bound hands when he spotted a flickering light through the forest to his right.
Peter studied it, moving his head back and forth. The light remained stationary as he moved, peering through the dense foliage. It was a spotlight.
He left the roadside and entered the dense forest a second time, picking his way through a hundred yards of trees. He emerged on the other side in a clearing, where he gazed upon a cluster of three one-story buildings.
Several minutes later, he stood on the porch of the main residence, a farmhouse. He mashed the doorbell several times. When no one responded, he opened the storm door and rapped once on the metal door.
The porch light came on. The curtain in the window twitched. Then the door cracked open.
“Who are you?”
The voice was male and husky. The eyes were hidden by shadow. Peter could make out a bulbous nose in the sliver of light penetrating the opening between the door and the jamb.
Keep it simple!
“Sorry to bother you at this hour, sir. I need help! I need to call someone.”
“What century do you live in? No cell phone? You think you’re gonna roll an old man. I ain’t no ham-and-egger from Chicopee Falls.”
Peter didn’t understand what the hell that meant. He shook his head. “No sir, I left it back home. Just one call.”
“You know what they say in Russia, son?”
“Uh … no sir.”
“They say, ‘Tough shitski!’” The diminutive man cocked the hammer on the sleek, shining shotgun. “Now git the hell outta here!”
Peter showed him his tied wrists.
“It’s a matter of life and death.”
“What the hell? Is this some kinda joke?
“No … no joke. I was taken by some goons. Managed to escape and walk here.”
“Where you from?” The old man eyed him with suspicion.
Peter lifted his arm and scratched his nose. “Virginia. Smithfield. I promise just one call and I’ll leave you alone.”
Peter felt the unseen eyes studying him for a long time. The door opened a foot more.
“I’m gonna have Old Bertha here on you the whole time. One wrong move … you got it?”
“Yessir.”
“Make it quick,” the voice ordered. “A guy can’t be too careful.”
“Thank you very much, sir.”
Peter pulled open the storm door and stepped in. That was when he got a better look at the over-under, double-barreled shotgun angled toward his face. The two black circles of the muzzle stopped him in his tracks. His eyes whipsawed between the gun and the face of the old man holding it.
The man looked to be about eighty and stood no more than five-nine. The red-skin hung like jowls from his face. He wore a faded wife-beater t-shirt and boxers adorned with red flowers. His rail-thin legs were covered with white curls of hair. Peter sensed a lot of fight in this small dog.
Peter recognized the gun. “Nice shotgun. I believe it’s a Caesar Guerini Tempio Field Gun. Runs a pretty penny.”
The old man smiled, backing up a step. “Damned right, sonny; thirty inch barrel, 28 gauge, with a Prince of Wales grip. Cost me over seven grand. At this range, you’d look like Swiss cheese. And don’t think I won’t. I killed a man back in ’81. I’ll do it again too if I have to.”
Peter raised his hands. “I don’t mean no trouble. Just need a phone.”
The man waved the gun toward the back of the house. “In the kitchen.”
Peter inched past the man, who followed with the weapon pointed at the small of his back. He dialed his home landline awkwardly with his wrists taped together. It rang ten times before voicemail picked up. Peter hung up and dialed Lisa’s cell phone.
“Where the hell are you?” she asked.
“I’m somewhere in New Jersey,” Peter sighed.
“New Jersey? How did … Where is …” Peter could hear the concern in her voice.
“Lisa. I’m sorry. I’ll be home as soon as I can … Listen to me …”
Peter stopped speaking as her sobs mingled with panicked exclamations. He was not angry with his wife. He felt sorry for her. The girls and he were her whole life. And Peter’s escapades with Jason two years ago, no doubt, were revisiting her again because she had been kept in the dark. The mind fills in the gaps.
“Honey, I need you to go to my computer …”
Lisa did not respond. Her crying increased in volume. Her responses were barely coherent. “Not at … home. At my … sister’s …”
The crying disappeared followed by a few seconds of fumbling on the other end.
“Peter?!”
“Donna?” Peter said. Donna was Lisa’s older sister and the woman Lisa always turned to in a crisis.
“Yeah,” she retorted. “You listen to me you sick sonofabitch. You’ve put her through enough. She’s barely stopped talking about all the crap that happened two years ago. Now you disappear again without … Your wife is worried sick …”
“I know …”
“Then get your ass back home and take care of your family!”
The line went dead.
“Donna?”
Peter stared at the phone then turned toward his host. The old man had lowered the shot gun and was smiling.
“You’re not going to shoot me?” he asked.
The old man screwed up his lips. “I could hear everything your women folk said. If I did shoot you, I think I’d being doing you a favor.”
Peter chuckled. “You might be right.”
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
Peter redialed the number but it rolled to voice mail. He tried twice more with the same result.
The old man returned with a bottle of whiskey, two rocks glasses, and a pair of scissors. He cut the duct tape from Peter’s arms.
“Whenever things go to shit, I break out the Knob Creek. Good stuff!”
He filled both with three fingers of the amber liquid and handed one to Peter.
“My Gladys has been dead for ten years,” he said, raising his glass. “She was a great cook. I haven’t had a decent meal since she passed. But she could make my life miserable. Once, I left the seat up after takin’ a leak at two in the morning. She went in an hour later, tried to sit down in the dark, and fell in. On her deathbed, one of the last things she told me was to remember to put the seat down.”
Peter raised his glass. “Here’s to our women.”
They slugged back the whiskey.
“I need to make one more call.”
“Help yourself,” he replied, pouring two more shots.
He lifted the phone to dial and stopped. “What’s your name, sir?”
The old man grinned. “Are we going to be friends now?”
“Maybe.”
“Name’s Pe
rechoduk. Dennis Perechoduk. Friends call me Ducky.”
Peter dialed the only other number he remembered. In two minutes, he had John Palmer on the line.
“I swear,” Palmer began, “between you and your brother, the Newport News PD is going to have to create a division just for all the shit you two start. Do you two think I’m your personal answering service?”
“You talked to Jason?”
“Yeah. He called me several hours ago.”
“Where is he?”
“By now, he’s probably in Washington DC, a guest of the FBI. So what’s your story?”
“I delivered the package to a pharmaceutical company called Dawson Pharmaceuticals. I have no other information. I don’t know what’s happening but it ain’t good. I need to call someone in Washington.”
“Well, call Broadhurst of the Secret Service. He appears to be running an operation up there. You gotta a pen?”
Peter motioned that he needed to write something down to his guest. Ducky retrieved a pen and paper. Peter jotted down the number.
“You do realize you and your brother still have to answer for running from the police, and Jason is a suspect in the death of a man, right?” Palmer added.
“We’ll have to deal with that later,” Peter explained.
“Where are you?” Palmer asked.
“I’d rather not say. I’m a fugitive, remember? Thanks for the phone number.”
“No problem. I’ll arrest you and Jason when you get back.”
“Of course, you will.”
Peter hung up before Palmer could trace the call, afraid that he would in fact send officers to arrest him. He turned to Ducky. “Thanks for the use of the phone. It’s not often people help strangers these days,” he said. “Mind if I ask why?”
“I noticed the art on your forearm when you scratched your nose on the porch.”
Peter lifted his right arm. “This,” he replied, showing a tattoo of an eagle, globe, and anchor.
“I was in the corps. Did three tours in ‘Nam between ’65 and ’71 with the second marines.”