by O. K. Mills
“I didn’t even realize I was still holding that,” said Heather as she flipped on her siren and jumped onto the entrance ramp to route 66. “Had that son of a gun dead to effing rights, and it wouldn’t fire.”
“Here’s why,” Spade said with a look at the gun handle.
“Holy crap, he was carrying a smart gun? I’ve seen prototypes, but nothing in the actual field. Keep it; Bear might be able to reprogram it for one of us.”
Heather expertly bobbed and weaved her way around traffic that, while it was light for a typical rush hour, it was still route 66, which meant there were plenty of people to watch out for. She roared past as much traffic as she could down the right shoulder before dipping and darting around multiple cars to find herself directly behind the Porsche, which had already caught up with the Jeep.
“That thing is top heavy,” Spade said, announcing the obvious.
“It won’t tip over,” Heather replied.
“How can you know that?” Spade asked.
“Because I just told it not to,” Heather spat through gritted teeth.
WHAM!
Pike slammed his Porsche into the side of the Jeep Wrangler in hopes of tipping it over.
“Hand me your gun and pull up next to him,” Sharon said as she pointed towards Bear.
“I don’t have my gun,” Pike admitted as Sharon rolled her eyes. “We’re going to have to ram him!”
“Look out!” Sharon screamed.
Pike pulled the Porsche hard to the right and slipped around a stalled car on the shoulder before working his way to the Jeep. The remaining traffic on 66 was starting to part for them like a Presidential motorcade.
“If we don’t get her out of that Jeep, she’s finished.” said Spade.
Heather sighed, then pulled out around traffic until she had rolled up to the passenger side of Bear’s Jeep. Meanwhile, Spade worked his way into the back seat of her car and slid directly behind the driver’s side. Bear could see Heather and Spade in his right passenger side mirror.
WHAM!
The Jeep rocked as the white Porsche slammed into it again. Bear looked back at Brynn who was in her seat with knees pressed against her chest and her eyes closed shut—fear enveloping her like a shroud. Bear swore and made the sign of the cross before yelling back to Brynn to get her attention.
“Brynn, do you see the car on the right?”
She opened her eyes to see Spade in the back seat of the other car. She nodded.
“Good. Sweetie, I’m going to need for you to trust me, okay? What I’m about to ask you to do is going to be scary, but it’s the only way we can keep you safe, all right? You with me?”
Brynn nodded, holding back tears as best she could.
“When Heather pulls the car up next to us, I want you to open your door and climb out into their car. Spade is going to catch you, okay? Do you understand?”
Brynn shot Bear a look that said, “Have you lost your mind?”
“Trust me, Brynn. You’re going to be fine.”
WHAM!
“It’s now or never,” Heather said as Bear’s Jeep take another shot from the Porsche.
Spade and Brynn lowered their respective windows, while Heather matched her speed with the Wrangler. Brynn looped her arms around the opening the window created. She looked back at Bear.
“Trust me!” Bear pleaded.
Brynn swung out on the open door, but her weight carried her back. Her head slammed hard into the side of the Jeep, which nearly caused her to lose her grip. As she struggled to collect herself and regain her footing, the police badge slipped out of her pocket and fell to the street. It skipped like a smooth stone across water as it cartwheeled along the asphalt before settling down on its back.
Brynn trembled as she dangled from the open Jeep window frozen with fear. To say she did not want to move would have been more than accurate.
She looked down at the car next to her. She met eyes with Spade.
“Come on, Brynn, jump! I’m going to catch you,” Spade screamed.
Brynn nodded and closed her eyes…
WHAAAM!
Pike slammed his Porsche violently into the Jeep Wrangler, causing both vehicles to lose control, topple over, and eventually slide down a steep ravine just off the highway—but not before Brynn leapt clear of the vehicle mere seconds before.
Heather slammed on the brakes as the inertia pushed Spade back while he held the trembling child and looked at her with relief in his eyes.
“It’s okay, baby, I got you. Shh, I got you,” he said to comfort her. Unfortunately, he also saw Bear’s jeep fall down the ravine.
10: Captured
The red dot on Austin Cole’s GPS app made an unexpected sharp right before coming to a complete halt.
“What the hell just happened?”
“Sir?” Asha asked as she continued navigating around traffic that had suddenly gridlocked.
“Either Brynn James just chucked herself out of a moving vehicle, or the badge has fallen into the middle of the highway. And what in blazes is going on, anyway? Doesn’t the HOV lane open up after 7 pm?” Cole asked, his frustration mounting.
“Probably an accident,” Ricky Sweeney chimed in from the back seat. “Most likely rubber-necking. Dispatch would have called us if something serious had happened.”
“Asha, is there a reason we’re not giving them the full light show? Let’s light it up and at least get to where the badge signal stopped. For all we know, that girl is lying dead in the middle of the street.”
As instructed, she fired up the full complement of police lights and sirens available in the Impala and eased past the gridlock as the vehicles ahead got out of the way as best as they could.
Bear found himself hanging upside down and nearly choking to death on his seat belt. His Jeep’s airbag had deployed, but it was only exacerbating the problem.
Think, Bowden. Can you reach the release on the belt?
As it happened his long arms could reach the release. Bear clicked it open and moved his head mere seconds before the retracting belt buckle almost hit him in the face. Immediately, gravity took over, forcing Bear hard into the steering column. When he finally gathered himself, a chilling thought hit him.
“BRYNN!”
He spun, tweaking muscles in his neck in the process. To his relief, he did not see her. He sighed and composed himself.
Spade caught her; he must have.
Life had been cruel enough to him today. It owed him this victory. Or so he thought…
“Step out of the vehicle and put your hands up,” a voice to his right suddenly said.
Bear crawled out of his four-door Wrangler as best he could. When he got to his feet, he stood in across two people. One was the man who had killed Winter Harlin; the other was a blonde woman twirling a butterfly knife.
“I’m pretty tired, sir. And seeing as how you no longer have that .45 caliber pistol in your possession and also seeing as how I’m six foot five and outweigh both of you by a good 125 pounds, I ain’t putting up nothing,” Bear announced.
He couldn’t fight them and win—he already knew that—but he would die trying.
“You and your friends are easily the best dance partners I have had in some time. This is my associate, Sharon and my name is—”
“I don’t care who you all are,” said Bear.
“Oh, you will,” Pike retorted before saying to Sharon, “Bind his hands and put him on his knees.”
“We have to go back!”
Spade looked frantically out of the back window of Heather’s Crown Vic as it sailed past the traffic surrounding it. She shot him an incredulous glare through the rearview mirror.
“Have you lost your damn mind?”
“Heather, we have to. Bear needs us.”
“Brynn needs us, Spade—or did you miss the whole part where I risked our lives just now to get her?”
“We can’t … I can’t just leave him there!” Spade argued.
Heather
softened her tone. Brynn rubbed his back, her eyes glowing softly white to heal his anxiety.
“Bear knew the risks. He knew the minute he picked you up today and decided to help you. I knew the risks the minute I drove to Gainesville. If we go back now, then we’re going to drive straight into the police, the same police that you’ve been avoiding all day.”
Spade sighed, closed his eyes and shook his head, no.
“If we go back now, then Mike, Mrs. Harlin and Bear will have died for nothing. Is that what you want?” Heather asked.
Spade shook his head.
“Look at me, J. Neither one of us has time to bleed right now. Suck it up, Marine.”
Heather referring to him as a Marine got his attention. His breathing eased, and he nodded in confirmation.
“Good. Then we should start calculating our next move.”
Cole looked back at the sea of traffic that stood behind the row of police vehicles that had accompanied him en route to finding Brynn.
“Your program worked like a charm, Asha,” Cole wisecracked as he slipped the badge into his pocket.
“There was always the risk that she might lose the badge, sir. We knew that before—”
Cole held up his hand to stop Asha’s self-defense. He was just annoyed. They’d been at this all day, and they were no closer than they’d been several hours ago.
“About a quarter mile up ahead, there looks to be an accident,” Sweeney announced abruptly as he came jogging up.
That got Cole’s attention.
“Let’s move. That has to be them!” Cole yelled as he ran back to the Impala with Walker, Asha and Sweeny on his heels.
Pike smiled as he watched regret take the place of the big man’s facial expression the minute he realized Sharon could twirl her butterfly knife as effortlessly as Bruce Lee would a pair of nunchuks. She walked casually toward Bear who backed away, looking around for anything he could use as a weapon. Just as she got within striking distance, Pike noticed the faint cry of a police siren wailing in the distance.
“Sharon, the police will be here any moment. Get word to one of my cleaners and get off the grid.”
“What about you?”
Pike did not answer the question verbally, but he gave her a look that reminded her who he was.
She glanced at Bear in a way that told him he had “eight lives left” as she walked past to scan the gridlocked traffic for a car from which she could remove the current owner the easiest.
No sooner than when she made her escape, several police cars came screeching to a halt just behind where Pike was standing. Seconds later multiple officers came bounding out of their vehicles with weapons drawn. Pike and Bear got on their knees and placed their hands on their heads.
Spade, Heather and Brynn continued speeding down the highway when a thought suddenly occurred to Spade.
“We have to go back to the safe house.”
Heather shot him a look.
“Why do we need to go back to that field?”
“For the same reason we had to go to a car wash that had a SOCOM facility hiding underground.”
Heather sighed and slapped herself on the forehead.
“How did I miss that? How did you miss that?”
“How did Bear miss that? He’s the Special Recon guy.” Spade answered.
“That miss cost two people their lives today,” Heather responded softly.
“Then let’s rectify that.” Spade said with conviction.
Bear sat alone inside of an interview room at the Fairfax County Police Department. With the exception of his Miranda rights, not a single question had been posed to him. The inquiries were coming; he knew that. But could he trust the police with the truth? Telling Winter about the situation had gotten her killed. And what about that blonde woman with the butterfly knife? She was still at large.
As he was getting arrested, he’d heard things like “Mike’s badge” and “RFID.” He knew what RFID was, but he did not know what it had to do with Mike Spade’s badge.
Suddenly, the detective that arrested him—“Austin Cole” he had heard someone call him—walked in. Cole sat down and slid a cup of water along with a glossy photograph of Brynn over to him.
“We have reason to believe that this young girl’s life is in grave danger. We tracked her to the location of your accident, but we didn’t find her there,” Cole calmly said as he adjusted himself in his steel folding chair.
Studying Cole, Bear remained silent.
“Earlier today Michael Spade lost his life, as did several others at a foster home where this young lady, Brynn James, was residing. We know for a fact that his brother, Jaysiel Spade, was with him at the scene and left, taking Brynn with him. We also saw from our surveillance footage that Jaysiel Spade got into your Jeep Wrangler along with Brynn at the Silver Spring Metro Station after he assaulted five Metro police officers.”
“Is there a question, or are you going to continue telling me things we both already know?” asked Bear.
Cole smiled.
“Do you know we ran your plates and the Porsche’s plates, and they both came up empty? Your prints don’t show up anywhere—it’s like you don’t exist. The same thing happened with the other guy. Isn’t that crazy?”
Bear remained silent.
“We’ve got eye-witness reports telling us that the guy driving the white Porsche was trying to run you off the road. So two guys who don’t exist caused an accident that backed up 66 for hours.”
“So it was like any other day then?” Bear quipped.
“We have a smoking gun, a target and no dead bodies. I want answers, and I want them now,” demanded Cole.
At that moment another officer entered the room.
“Bear Bowden?”
And when Bear heard the man say his name, it suddenly clicked for him as well.
“Officer Walker?” asked Bear with a smile.
“Boy, what have you gone and gotten yourself into?” Walker asked.
“You know this man, Earle?” asked Cole.
“He served with Officer Mike’s brother in Iraq. I remember meeting him at—what was it?”
“Bowl America, sir,” said Bear, filling in the holes of the memory. “You couldn’t bowl worth a darn.”
“Too true,” Walker laughed. He looked Bear in the eyes. “You are in some deep stuff, here, son. I know you’re loyal to Mike’s brother and all; he saved your life as I recall?”
Bear nodded.
“You have to level with me, all right? We have multiple casualties and a governor who wants answers, not just this department. What can you tell me?”
“You should ask the other guy, sir. When he ran me off the road, he had already made an attempt on my life, the lives of three others and murdered Winter Harlin, the acting head of the SECDEF division here in Fairfax.”
“SECDEF? That’s military jargon, right?” Cole asked.
“Activities specified by the President,” Walker answered.
“Was one of those people he tried to murder this young lady?” Cole asked as he held up the picture of Brynn again.
Bear remembered Spade’s words, that he shouldn’t trust anyone. That “people” or the proverbial “they” were coming for Brynn. The one person he had trusted with this information was killed. Still, he had to start trusting someone eventually, and at least he knew Officer Walker.
“Sir, there is so much more to this situation than what you all are hearing from the local news. I am choosing to trust you. I can explain everything, but I have to warn you. The information I am sharing with you is highly classified, and the last person I gave it to died before my very eyes.”
Walker and Cole exchanged glances before looking back at Bear.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said Bear before bringing both men entirely up to speed.
Trying to figure out what to do, Sharon sat parked off road in a stolen BMW. Reluctantly, she placed a call to the one person who could help her.
“Speak,” the voice said on the other end.
“Mr. Silas, forgive this interruption, sir.”
“If you are contacting me, then I can only conclude that the plan has failed?”
“Sir, Pike has been snagged. We tracked the girl to an off-grid SEFDEC facility in Fairfax, which he attacked.”
“Go on,” said Silas.
“He gave absolutely no regard for hiding his identity when he walked in guns first.”
“That is precisely why I chose him. Even if they tie him to the murders they won’t get a name. He hasn’t existed on any public record in nearly 15 years. I assume you have the girl?”
“No, sir, I’m afraid I don’t,” Sharon admitted, fear taking her voice hostage. She could hear Silas’ frustration suppress itself over the phone.
“Where is the girl?” Silas asked with forced poise.
“I … I don’t know sir.”
“So then we’re back to square one?”
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
Silas sighed. His tone completely changed.
“Not to worry, Sharon. You did the best that you could. Your job was to keep an eye on Mr. Pike and inform me of his activities. You have done this. Give Mr. Arata your location, and he will handle your extraction back to headquarters.”
“Thank you, sir. And please accept my apology,” said Sharon.
Spade and Heather stood at the field at Conway Robinson State Forest looking for a trap door, false front—anything that resembled an entrance to a safe house. It was at least five minutes before either of them noticed that Brynn was not next to them.
Frantically, they spun around and were relieved when they saw her standing next to an older man with thinning gray hair. After hugging him about the waist, she pulled him by the hand toward Spade and Heather. By the time they all came together, Spade couldn’t believe his eyes.