He eventually finagled his way to working intel directly for Ranger teams, Long Range Recon Patrol squads, and even a few CIA teams operating in Cambodia and North Vietnam. He left the Army shortly thereafter and entered the shadows, working for the CIA. And he had been in the shadows ever since.
“Alright, people,” Whitaker said, finally stopping his ambling. He stood at the head of the conference table since he never sat when he was in this kind of mood. His tall figure helped remind them of the chain of command, which way it went, and exactly where his position on it was.
All thirty-one of his undercover people were in the room, and his three eight-man strike teams were present as well. All wore civilian clothes, but they were packing heat under coats, in briefcases, and in ankle holsters.
Looking around the room at his people, he announced, “We are changing plans. Forget the restaurants and the gas stations. Start checking out cheap motels. Also, start pulling badges and drop the you-are-looking-for-your-friend story. We’re pulling out all of the stops on this one.”
His troops listened and tried to hide the concern. Whitaker’s change of plans concerned them. None of them wanted to find Nick Woods alone. And they knew they couldn’t call for back up with every possible confirmation made by some motel manager. One of them would inevitably knock on some door and a very dangerous, super paranoid man would answer.
Whitaker understood this. Even knew this, but was willing to lose an agent to locate Nick. Once he was located, Whitaker’s strike teams could move in, and they would take him down. And if they couldn’t get there fast enough, the local law enforcement could cordon off the area. They’d finally kill him though it mist cost them some men.
Nonetheless, it was a win-win situation as far as Whitaker was concerned. National security trumped concerns for his people and local law enforcement.
It was no different than taking a hill as he had done many times back in the Army. You knew you would lose a few soldiers, but you took the hill. Holding a hill allowed you to dominate terrain, and dominating terrain allowed you to win a war.
Killing Nick Woods was a national priority because he was a threat to one of the greatest, most effective operational units the CIA had ever created.
Chapter 25
Nick Woods had been busy.
He spent the day going through the classifieds of the local weekly paper, The Oak Ridge Observer.
He had found a car to buy, as well as a used rifle. Nick had made phone calls about likely vehicles, narrowed it down to three, and then taken cabs out to inspect the vehicles and talk to the owners.
He settled on a 1982 Chevy Caprice. It was green, ran fairly well, and wasn’t too eye-catching, being neither a complete piece-of-shit nor a shiny brand new vehicle. If he was lucky, it wouldn’t draw the attention of cops or potential witnesses. More importantly, it was a heavy, well-built car that could be used to drive through a roadblock if necessary. It cost him twenty-five hundred dollars, which he paid in cash.
Next, Nick began looking for a scoped deer rifle. There were lots of them listed. After all, it was east Tennessee, and deer season was underway. He narrowed the decision down between a .30-06 and a .308. He went and looked at both, finally purchasing the .308.
The .308 was a Winchester Model 70 bolt-action rifle. It cost him $400, including the mounted scope. He left the farmer’s home and went straight to Wal-Mart, where he bought five boxes of shells. One hundred rounds. It was a start. He left Wal-Mart and bought five more boxes of .308 shells at a gun store in west Knoxville, as well as some targets.
As the day was ending, he drove the Caprice to a large field and began sighting in his rifle. It was way out in the country, north of Oak Ridge, in Morgan County, and he knew the gunshots would not alert anyone. Everyone shot up here on a regular basis.
However, he was worried some armed, angry farmer might pull up. He didn’t know how he would handle that. He just took his chances, and his chances paid off.
He shot thirty-four rounds and got the rifle sighted in. More importantly, he got somewhat comfortable with the rifle and its trigger, from the shooting and all the dry-firing he did prior to finally letting loose. He picked up all of his casings and target sheets before leaving and headed back to his motel room. He needed a shower, some more training time, and sleep.
In the morning, he would go to the public library, first thing.
Chapter 26
Nancy Dickerson was tired. She had been driving from shitty motel to shitty motel for the last eleven hours, following the change of plans ordered by Whitaker.
She had only slept four-and-a-half hours the night before, and the search for Nick Woods was taking a serious toll on her thirty-five-year-old body.
Today, every stop had been the same. She would walk into a motel’s office, show a real FBI badge (though she had never been a real agent), and then show a picture of Nick Woods. There had been seven possible sighting already, which was understandable since she was stressing to each manager that Nick Woods may have changed his appearance.
She had knocked on all seven possible sighting doors with the manager standing by her side with a key. Each time, her adrenaline had been pumping, and she had kept her hand on the heel of her nine-millimeter pistol. Each time, a man had answered, and it had not been Nick.
More than three hours ago, her search brought her to motels in Oak Ridge. She really wanted to call it a day and get some rest, but Whitaker had explained this guy was spying on the U.S. and had some top secret information he was trying to get out of the country to China. It was vitally important, he had said, and she believed him.
It had to be.
They had flown her from Los Angeles to take part in the search. And beginning today, she and the other cohorts of Whitaker were flashing FBI badges, an action only taken in the most extreme of circumstances. This man -- Nick Woods -- had to be one of the worst enemies America could possibly have.
Chapter 27
Nick woke up rested, though sore. After drinking his morning Mountain Dew and throwing down two Pop Tarts, he jumped in the Caprice and drove toward the public library. He needed to do some research on the FBI office in Knoxville, and he figured the library was the best place to start. Nonetheless, he worried there might be some video cameras in the library.
The library was just down the Oak Ridge Turnpike, on the right side of the road. Nick parked and debated leaving the .45 in the car. He debated the pros and cons a few moments but decided he would live and die, win and lose, with it on him. So, he kept it in the small of his back under a loose, untucked T-shirt.
He walked through a set of glass doors and immediately panicked. Just inside the doors was a set of head-high, gray security sensors. Nick didn’t know if they were metal detectors or sensors that detected if books were being stolen. Nick stood there stupidly, debating the issue.
A man and woman heading for the doors stopped and watched him. A library staff member behind the checkout desk stopped typing on a computer and looked up. Nick was attracting attention, so he decided to go forward and if it went off, so be it.
He took a step, looked down at his watch to play off the awkwardness, and went through the sensors. The sensors remained silent, so they were for books.
Nick walked over to the magazine reading section. He wanted to map out the place while sitting down. He had already stood out too much.
He grabbed the day’s paper and sat in a wide, plush chair. The FBI raid on his house was not on the front page, as it had been the day before. Nick decided to thumb slowly through the entire “Nation/World” section just to make it obvious he was not looking for the raid story, which he was now confident would be in the local section of the paper. While flipping, he glanced throughout the library and confirmed there were no cameras. He didn’t see any.
A story grabbed his attention. The headline read, “Reporter who broke story, now ridiculed.” The story was short, obviously the follow-up to a follow-up to a much bigger story, but, it named
Allen Green, the reporter from The New Yorker magazine, and gave the gist of what happened.
This reporter named Green had uncovered a massive story involving Nick and his spotter’s actions in Afghanistan, gained immediate fame, and then resigned after admitting it was false. He was now charged with storing and distributing child pornography. His arraignment was nearly three weeks away, the story said.
Nick stood and went to the library staff person behind the desk. He asked for past newspapers. She pointed to a stack he hadn’t noticed. The articles from the two days before shocked Nick. The reporter had most of the facts right about America’s actions in Afghanistan. The major exception to this accuracy was that Allen Green had written that both the sniper and spotter had been killed following having their information leaked.
Now, everything made sense, Nick thought. This hot-shit reporter broke the story, and Nick (unaware since he didn’t keep up with the news) had gone to work same as always.
Some covert unit had immediately jumped on the ball and moved in to apprehend Colonel Russ Jernigan, most likely, and they’d probably decided to use the FBI to arrest Nick for the sake of speed.
Just like that. Stop the collateral damage. Except that Nick had been fighting with Anne and had stormed out of the house hours earlier. Something they couldn’t have expected.
Nick Woods knew he needed to get to New York to find this guy. A small picture of the reporter was in the article from the second day. He looked around to confirm no one was watching him. Seeing no one, he quietly tore out the picture and the name.
One thing was for sure, this guy would die in some accident soon if Nick didn’t get to him.
Chapter 28
Nancy Dickerson pulled up to one of the roughest joints she had seen yet in Oak Ridge. Why does the city allow them to keep operating this thing, she wondered? She walked into a shabby office.
A repulsive man sat behind a dusty, cheap desk. He was in his early thirties, needed to shave, and wore a dingy T-shirt. Chest hair came up and out of his T-shirt like bushes growing across a fence. Everything in her wanted to hurry up and get home and get some sleep.
Nancy pulled out her FBI badge and gave her pitch for the umpteenth time this day. She was an FBI agent in search of this man. Yes, he might look slightly different. The man took it all in and pulled out a cigarette. Nancy watched him. Surely, he wouldn’t light it inside --
A lighter appeared in his hand, and he lit the cigarette. The man blew smoke in Nancy’s face and grunted, “That man is here.”
“In town?” Nancy asked.
“No. In this building,” the man said as his eyes took in her breasts. He rubbed his crotch and Nancy wondered if he were a sex offender. Thankfully, he continued.
“In fact,” the man said, “he’s back from some errands. I just saw him go in his room about ten minutes ago.”
Nancy wasn’t buying it. But, the faster she investigated his claim, the faster she could get away from this pervert.
“Grab the key and let’s go check it out,” she said.
Chapter 29
Nick Woods was in his room packing up. He had canceled his physical training, pistol drills, and dry-firing practice with his rifle for the day.
Now, nothing mattered but time. Some man he’d never met named Allen Green was hours, maybe days from dying. It all depended on the media. If the media stopped writing about Allen Green’s story, then they would move in and kill him. No doubt about that.
Nick stuffed his dirty shirts and blue jeans into his pack. He wished he would have hand washed them the day before and allowed them to hang dry across the shower rack.
Well, he could wash them in New York somewhere. Of course, Nick suddenly realized he didn’t know the route to get there. You’re a damn fool, he thought, cursing himself. He had been in the library with hundreds of maps and internet access but had departed without charting a course.
You need to stop acting like a greenhorn, he thought. He stopped for a second, debating a brief return to the library. No, he could just hop on one of the interstates heading north, either I-81 or I-75, and get a map later.
Shit. He was losing his composure. He bent over to cinch down the pack when he heard footsteps at the door. Someone knocked and said, “FBI, open up.”
It was a female voice. He didn’t move, afraid to make a sound. His hand grabbed the .45 from behind his back and drew it. Maybe she would go away. Probably just checking every door.
No way, he thought. He had not heard her until just then, so she hadn’t knocked at the doors to his left or right.
She knocked again, harder. He heard a male voice say, “I just seen ’im go in there.”
A key or pick was inserted into the lock. He looked at the dead bolt on the door. Fuck, he hadn’t bolted or chained the door in his urgency to get packed and headed for New York.
He started toward the door, thinking maybe he could get use his bodyweight to hold it shut. His thoughts and actions seemed slow and thick in his panic.
The door swung open before he could get to it, and there stood a woman. Her hand was on the butt of a pistol. Her eyes widened in immediate recognition, and her hand pulled the pistol holstered on her right hip.
Nick wasn’t sure what to do. Was she was one of them? The covert unit who was breaking who knew how many laws?
She retrieved her pistol and Nick froze. Was she going to fire?
Her pistol raised higher, he saw her finger tighten, and he ducked as her gun exploded and launched a round by his head. Nick was already in the kneeling position, the bullet having only missed him by inches.
Surely this woman wasn’t FBI? She had literally tried to kill him right then and there. All of these thoughts happened in milliseconds, and Nick’s reaction followed. He hastily returned fire.
His first shot wasn’t even aimed. He needed her to freak out and panic.
The round caused her to scream, and she flinched. Getting shot at will do that to you, Nick knew.
But Nick’s recent practice of his drills took over as he instantly focused on the black front sight of his pistol and the gun seemingly fired on its own. The big .45 hit the woman in the chest and threw her four feet back.
She landed on the pavement and Nick knew that being thrown back like that meant one thing: bullet-proof vest.
He stepped toward her to see if the fight was out of her. Maybe he could tie her up, but from on her back, she raised her head and brought the pistol in his direction. Her left hand moved up and molding to the pistol in a good two-hand grip. At least as good a grip as possible after being surprised and suffering a broken rib and cracked chest bone. Nevertheless, she was well-trained. And tough.
Nick had no choice. He aimed, focused on the front sight, and fired again. He saw the results. His bullet hit her forehead and that was the end of that.
Nick hurried to the door to see who the man was that arrived with her. He turned the corner, and there stood the fat, stinking manager he’d met just days earlier.
The man stood there, motionless and pale. Nick grabbed him, put the pistol against his head, and growled, “Get in the room.”
The man’s fear must have left him because he said “no” and reached for the pistol. Nick saw the move coming from a mile away and yanked the pistol back.
Nick kneed the man in the balls and the man fell forward, completely deflated. Nick grabbed a handful of hair and pulled him into the room.
The man fell and curled up in the fetal position, groaning and holding his groin with both hands.
Outside the room, Nick ignored the manager’s moans and looked around, scanning the parking lot. Nothing but a few scattered cars and drape-covered windows.
He saw no one though the shots had been so loud. Probably people were still too scared to look out. He stuffed the pistol into his pants and rushed out to the woman. He grabbed the pistol from her still warm hand and threw it in the room. Then, he grabbed her legs and dragged her toward the room.
She was
light, Nick thought, as he noticed her gray dress, more of a suit really, was still meticulous except for the blood stains. The shot to her chest had brought no blood, thanks to the vest. The headshot had blown most of the blood back. Pulling her legs, he dragged her into the room.
Behind her, a trail of blood led to where her head had hit the pavement. Although even a 10-year-old playing detective could have seen the blood trail and where it led from a half-mile away, it didn’t matter.
He had to move fast, and having no body immediately visible would gain him a tad more time than having a body outside his door.
Inside the room, he slammed the door and locked it. The man had righted himself and sat against the wall, terrified. Too scared to even crawl toward the pistol Nick had chunked into the room. Shit, that was stupid, Nick thought.
“I knew I shouldn’t have rented a room to you,” the man snarled. “What are you? Some kind of psycho wife killer?”
Something snapped in Nick.
In a blur, he ran over to his pack and searched for some rope. At that moment, when Nick had his back turned, the man moved. He lunged toward Nick.
Nick just managed to find the rope and spun to meet the man. The man threw a haymaker, which Nick narrowly dodged by sidestepping left.
As the man passed by him, Nick looped the 550 cord around the man’s neck. Before the man could turn, Nick hauled the half-inch wide rope up and back.
The man made a sucking sound of surprise as the rope burned into his neck. Nick, trained in the art of garroting, shoved his back against the man’s back. And as the man elbowed Nick’s ribs and kicked his boots into the back of Nick’s knees -- both moves sent shots of pain through Nick’s body -- Nick bent forward.
Bending forward pulled the rope tighter, and now Nick was lifting the man off the ground. The rope had to be digging into the man’s throat, cutting off his air, but all Nick could think of was the fat son of a bitch calling him a psycho wife killer.
Sold Out (Nick Woods Book 1) Page 9