* * * * *
Trish was lying in her makeshift room that she had been given. She had fed Jeffery a story about being kidnapped, and apparently, when asked about it, Nathan and the others had the presence of mind to go along with that story. They must not have asked Michael, she thought to herself. She was satisfied that her story had bought her friends some time, but it wouldn’t buy them very much. She could claim exhaustion today, but tomorrow it would probably be a different story. Sooner or later she would have to have her fun with them or Jeffery would just have them killed. What do I do? I have to help them escape, but how, Trish wondered. The situation was almost hopeless, but she hadn’t lost faith yet. If I can just keep buying time, maybe Lee will get some help for us, she kept telling herself.
Chapter 22
That night Dan and Zane parked about a half mile away from Mr. Fields’ house and made their way through the woods. Upon arriving, two things were obvious. The first was that it was not going to be an easy task getting inside. There were six guards outside the house. Four of them were stationed at each corner of the house, while the other two were stationed at the front and back doors. The other thing that was obvious was that Fields was making a lot of money doing what he did. The house was gigantic, and it sat overlooking a large landscaped yard and pond.
“Great, how am I even supposed to get close to him?” Dan asked in a quiet voice to Zane.
“I could always just get a little trigger happy early,” Zane said in a joking tone.
“No, that’s all right. I’ll figure out something.”
Dan had a pistol with a silencer on it, so if he could somehow take out one or two of the guards, he thought he might be able to enter through a door or a window. He crawled on his belly from the woods toward the house while making sure to stay hidden in the shadows of the night. As he got closer to the back door, one of the men on the corner closest to him turned and walked to the man sitting by the back door and sat down beside him on the steps. This is my chance, Dan thought. He quickened his pace and eventually made his way into a comfortable shooting range. Dan fired two quick shots. Both shots hit the two men squarely in their heads. They expired with little to no sound. Dan walked over to the back door and took out a credit card which he used to open the locked screen door. The actual door would not be so simple, however. He pulled a set of tools from his pocket that Zane had given him back at the house. It was a basic lock picking set. It had been a while since Dan had picked a lock, and he was obviously very rusty at it. Come on, it’s just like riding a bike, Dan thought to himself as continued to try to open the lock. Suddenly, he felt the lock turn and heard it open up. He slowly opened the door and entered the house. After a few seconds, he saw his mark. Fields was asleep in the far right bedroom of the house. Dan approached him and slowly but firmly put his hand over the man’s mouth. Fields woke up in a panic.
“You need to calm down, or I’m going to have to kill you,” Dan said while trying to get the man to be quiet.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” Fields asked as Dan moved his hand away from his mouth.
Dan turned a small lamp on next to the bed, revealing his face.
“Driver!” Fields said in surprise.
“Yeah, and I want to know one key piece of information.”
“And what if I can’t help you?”
“Then I’ll have to kill you.”
“You wouldn’t risk getting caught. The sound of the shot would certainly give you away.”
“Don’t count on it,” Dan said while showing Fields the silencer on his gun.
“What’s your question?”
“If someone were to be taken in Orlando, where would they likely end up?”
“How am I supposed to know something like that? I’m stationed here. I don’t know anything about what goes on in other places.”
“Oh, I don’t know. You could tell me the closest location your group has in relation to Orlando, but if you don’t, it doesn’t really matter to me. I would be just as happy killing you. I never did like you.”
Dan really didn’t want to kill Fields, but he had to at least bluff so he would be taken seriously.
“I noticed that when you threw me out of a moving car. I don’t know. Atlanta, maybe.”
“That’s not a good enough answer for me. I think that there’s somewhere closer, and you’re not only going to give me the city, but you’re also going to give me an address to the place.”
“Fine, it’s in Tampa, Florida, and I’ll write the address down if you’ll just leave.”
Fields then got up and pulled a notebook and pen out of a nightstand drawer and wrote the address down and handed it to Dan.
“Now I have done as you wish. If that’s all you wanted, please leave.”
Dan wished that was all he had to do. He turned and a picture caught his eye. It was of a much younger Fields and a young woman.
“Are you married?” Dan asked.
“I was, but it didn’t work out,” Fields said.
“Why is that?”
“When you give everything that you have to a job such as this, there’s just nothing left for anything or anyone else. Well, you should know in your line of work.”
Dan noticed another picture.
“I take it that those are your kids?”
“No, they’re my grandkids. I haven’t seen them in ages, but why do you care about all of this?”
Dan cared because even if he hated the hobbled man that was standing in front of him, he felt the need to acknowledge, if only to himself, that this man was a human being with people that loved and needed him before he did what he had to do. If he didn’t at least acknowledge this, then killing people simply became routine, and that was unacceptable to him. It was already bad enough that he had been able to kill the two guards outside without a second thought. He wished he could avoid this last step of his mission, but the prospect that Fields would warn someone before Jason was able to act was too great of a risk for Dan to simply ignore.
“I’m sorry for this,” Dan said as he raised his gun and fired two shots into Field’s head.
As he turned to walk out of the bedroom, he could feel the eyes of Field’s family haunting him.
“Some good men must do terrible things for the greater good,” he told himself as he left the room.
Zane had been waiting in the woods for quite some time, and he was starting to get a little worried. What could possibly be taking him this long, he wondered. About that time he saw Dan exit the back door and slowly begin making his way back toward him. As he walked slowly past one end of the house, however, a guard rounding the corner saw him. Dan was trapped. Well, I didn’t really want to do this. Who am I kidding . . . yes I did, Zane thought as he steadied his aim and fired away. The first man was down. Dan began to run back toward Zane as he no longer had to worry about being stealthy. Another man stepped out from behind the house and raised his gun. Zane fired just in time, effectively cutting the man down in his tracks. As Dan entered the woods, Zane fired one final shot at a man who had run around the house from the front side of it. This shot was only meant to injure and not to kill. He connected with the lower leg of his target. Zane figured that this would not only incapacitate the man but likely force the one remaining guard to tend to the man’s injury rather than pursue them. Zane quickly jumped to his feet, and the two men ran as fast as their legs would carry them back to the road and got into the car.
“I told you that I was quite the sharpshooter,” Zane said as he started up the car.
“Thank God!” Dan said.
“Well, did you get the information we needed?”
“Yeah, I guess I should call and let Jason know,” Dan said while pulling out his phone.
* * * * *
At a small hotel room in Orlando, Jason waited anxiously for the phone to ring. It was already 1:30 in the morning. He probably should have been sleeping but he just couldn’t, knowing that at any moment he and Lee would have to
act as Sam’s last hope. What chance do we actually stand? Lee has no training, and I’ve never even left a desk until today, he thought. Just then the phone rang. As expected, it was Dan. Dan gave him the address, which Jason quickly jotted down on a piece of paper.
“I’m glad that everything went smoothly,” Jason said.
“I wouldn’t exactly say that, but thanks to Zane, we made it out alive,” Dan said.
“He is the best.”
“You aren’t lying, but Jason, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“What is it?”
“I think you should wait to go rescue Agent Fisher and the others.”
“Hold on a second! Why would I wait? The longer we wait, the more chance there is that she will be killed, if she already hasn’t been.”
“I know that, but why don’t you wait just a little longer for Zane and me to fly out there, and we can all find a way to get them out.”
“I appreciate your concern, and normally I would wait around, but I don’t know that she has that kind of time. I think that Lee and I are going to get this one done now.”
“I don’t agree with this course of action, but do me a favor, and at least give me a call when this is all over. If I haven’t heard from you by two tomorrow, I’m going to assume that the worst has happened and try to get some help.”
“All right. I’ll give you a call when we’re done. Thanks for everything, by the way. Zane was right about you all those years ago,” Jason said.
“No problem, but what are you talking about?” Dan asked.
“Oh, never mind. I’m going to go get Lee and we’re going to Tampa. I’ll talk to you soon,” Jason said and hung up the phone.
In Lee’s hotel room, he was sleeping soundly when a knock at the door suddenly roused him.
“It’s me. Let me in. I have some news,” Jason said from outside the door.
Lee walked to the door and opened it.
“So what’s the latest news?” Lee asked as Jason entered.
“They’re likely being held at a facility in Tampa. The facility is moonlighting as a snowmobile and winter gear shop.”
“Why would they disguise it as a winter shop in the middle of Florida?”
“I don’t know. They probably don’t want too many people bothering the place, and who the hell buys a snowmobile in Florida?!”
“What’s the plan?”
“If you’re looking for a good plan, then you should look elsewhere. All I have are a couple of guns and a location,” Jason said.
“I can’t say that I feel good about this plan, but give me a second to get ready, and we’ll take our chances.”
Lee walked into the hotel bathroom.
“Hey Lee, I have a question for you,” Jason said to him through the door.
“What is it?”
“Have you looked at what’s on that flash drive yet?” Jason asked while eyeing the flash drive that was laying on the nightstand.
“No. I’m waiting to get everyone back. We all went through a lot of trouble over that thing, so I guess I just think we should all look at it together. Where should I leave it while we’re gone?”
“I would just put it in the hotel safe.”
Lee emerged from the bathroom and walked over to the nightstand. He grabbed the flash drive and secured it in the safe.
“All right. If we’re going to do this, let’s do it before I lose my nerve,” Lee said while walking to the door.
Here’s to hoping that my first hands-on mission isn’t my last one, Jason thought as he followed Lee out the door.
* * * * *
Zane and Dan arrived back in Memphis, but they weren’t going toward Zane’s house.
“Where are you going?” Dan asked.
“To the airport,” Zane said.
“Jason wants us to stay here for now. He’s going to take care of it,” Dan said.
“Jason is one of the smartest and most charismatic people I’ve ever met, but one thing he is not is a soldier. He’s too close to this one, and he’ll likely get himself captured. When he needs us, we’ll be there,” Zane said.
“All right, I’m with you. Jason said something odd on the phone that I was wondering about, though.”
“Oh, what was it?”
“He said that you were right about me all those years ago. Do you have any idea what he was talking about?”
“About eleven years ago, he was picking out new agents, and he wanted my input on who he should pick. You were my pick.”
“Why would you have chosen me?”
“I don’t know. I guess that you reminded me of myself. You were a little too small, and it appeared that you were a bit underestimated, like me. Plus, I liked that you had an attitude. Every time I had worked with the CIA in the past, I noticed that the people there were a little stiff, almost in a robotic way. Well, except for one person. Almost no one thought for themselves, and there you were. You were someone who questioned your orders. That’s not normally a trait that’s a good thing in a soldier, but I found myself questioning a lot of things at that point in my life. I thought you would get things done when they made sense, and when your orders didn’t make sense, you would get done what ought to be done. It turns out, I was right about that.”
“Well, thank you for giving me a chance.”
“Don’t thank me just yet. None of us may get out of this alive,” Zane said as he parked the car in the airport parking lot.
Chapter 23
Jason and Lee arrived at the facility in Tampa and were attempting to find the best way to approach it.
“What do we do? It’s not like we can just walk up and knock on the door,” Lee said.
“Honestly, I have no idea. Let’s just go up to the place and see if we can find a way in,” Jason said.
Inside the facility, a man was looking at the parking lot on a monitor when he saw two men walking up to the front door with guns in their hands. The man grabbed a hand radio.
“It looks like we have company, boys. They’re at the front door. Take care of them, if you will,” he said.
Four large men emerged from the back of the building and came up behind Jason and Lee.
“Freeze! Drop your weapons,” one of the men said.
Great, this is just great, Jason thought to himself. Jason and Lee slowly laid their weapons down on the ground.
“I thought we would at least make it into the facility before we got caught,” Lee said.
The four men grabbed them and escorted them to the elevator inside the building. Once they were inside, they hit the B1 button. As the doors opened, what Jason and Lee saw was exactly what they expected to see. The underbelly of this unsuccessful business was a totally different environment. It looked like a fortress with tons of military-type people hustling and bustling about, even at this late hour. They were escorted to the front of what looked like many different cells.
“We’re running a little short on cells these days, so one of you will have to share a cell with someone,” the guard said.
The guards split up. Two escorted Lee to a cell, while the other two escorted Jason to a cell. Not only had Jason and Lee failed, but they had failed miserably. It seemed as if there was truly no hope at this point.
Inside of Lee’s new cell, he saw a familiar face. It was Michael.
“Boy, am I glad to see you. Have you seen any of the others?” Michael asked.
“No, I just got here,” Lee said.
“What do you mean you just got here?”
Lee explained the whole situation to Michael.
“I guess that we’re screwed right now, but at least they don’t have the flash drive. Where is it, by the way?” Michael asked.
“It’s probably best if you don’t know where it is just in case they question you about it, and I don’t really want to say right now because you never know who could be listening.”
“I understand. I might have a crude escape plan if you want in on it,” Michael whispered.
“Yeah, I’ll listen to any plan at this point. What is it?”
Michael then pulled the large shard of glass out from under his covers.
“The next time they come in here, I say that we take back the power in our situation. Are you with me?”
“No, I’m not with you. They have guns, and they outnumber us by several dozen people, possibly even several hundred people. All that shard of glass is going to do is get us killed.”
“So what exactly do you want to do then? Do you want to just sit here and wait for them to kill us, which you know they will eventually do? I’m sorry, but I am not going to sit here and wait to be tortured to death, or worse, rot away in this prison. If I’m going to die, then it will be on my own terms, but make no mistake about it, I do not plan on dying here,” Michael said confidently.
Lee was surprised. He had not heard such determination in Michael’s voice in years. Against his own better judgment, Lee was actually considering Michael’s plan.
“You’re right. I don’t have a better plan, but if we’re going to do this, then let’s do it right. What if we do get out of this cell? What are we supposed to do then?” Lee asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen anything outside of this cell.”
“That won’t be a problem. I saw everything on the way here. Outside of this cell, there is a large hallway filled with prison doors. I assume that the others are being held in those cells. Outside of that hallway, is a large area where there are tons of enemy soldiers, and in the middle of that area is an elevator. That elevator is where we need to go.”
“Okay then, how about this. We could dispose of however many guards enter here and take their uniforms and the key that one of them will obviously be carrying. We can let the others out and then decide which of us should wear the uniforms that we have just acquired. Then they can go to get help for everyone else.”
“All right, it’s worth a try, but Michael, if this doesn’t work out, it’s been nice knowing you,” Lee said.
Wrong Place (The Wrong Series) Page 19