by Ken Fite
I realized my mistake as soon as I made the turn to get on I-90. A barricade was set up and two Chicago PD cruisers were blocking the ramp. I turned the truck so the right side of my vehicle was facing one of the approaching officers who had gotten out of his car while the other stayed inside his.
I tried not to panic. I reached for my Glock and lowered the passenger window.
I quickly aimed and fired three shots at the tires on both patrol cars. I blew out both on the car with the officer sitting inside it and hit the rim of the vehicle belonging to the man approaching me.
So much for being a good shot, I thought to myself. He ducked and drew his gun and fired back, and I gunned it, heading south and driving onto the exit ramp from the highway. I was glad there wasn’t traffic on the street or this maneuver wouldn’t have been possible. I drove the truck through a few small bushes and up over the median and came out on the on-ramp behind the cruiser with the blown-out tires.
I sped off, knowing the officers would come after me. I wondered how long I’d have before additional units would be deployed farther down the highway to try to stop me. Whoever I was.
I floored it, knowing if I could get out fast enough, they might not know if I went north or south. I was glad to see no other checkpoints, and two miles later, I got on I-55 and took it to 45 south.
SEVENTY-EIGHT
JAMI WAS RELIEVED when she arrived at Derek Murphy’s home. She was the first one to get there, even before the agents the FBI had deployed to check things out and make sure he was okay. Jami parked the SUV the FBI had issued Blake in front of the house and stepped out.
A streetlamp right above the truck turned on, and Jami looked up and felt anxious. She didn’t want to leave Blake so late in the day with such little time to spare, but there was more going on with Derek, and she just had to make sure he was okay. The thought of Marco doing something to her ex made her feel sick to her stomach. Her plan was to make sure Derek was safe and then get back to Blake as soon as possible.
Jami looked down both sides of the street and saw no other cars on the road. She walked across the grass to Derek’s front door and knocked. Jami waited a few seconds, knocked again, and rang the doorbell.
“Come on, Derek. Open up,” she whispered to herself, becoming more worried by the second.
When her ex didn’t answer, Jami reached inside her jacket and fumbled around, finally pulling out her keys. After finding the right one, Jami inserted it into the lock, turned, and slowly opened the door.
Once inside, Jami looked around the familiar house like she was seeing it for the first time. A house she thought she and Derek would make their home. She thought about the many talks they’d had about their future together. Jami looked at the dining room table, where their last few conversations had boiled over into arguments. She looked inside Derek’s home office and saw the Italian rug they had bought together. Memories began to flood her thoughts until she tripped on something, not noticing the cluttered floor before now.
“Derek? Are you here?” Jami asked, stepping slowly and hearing the wood floor creak as she walked. Jami realized something was wrong. She flipped on the kitchen light and saw the house was a disaster. Dirty dishes were piled up high; stacks of unopened mail sat on the counter.
Jami looked around the room and smelled a familiar scent—it was marijuana. She started looking around and found a bag filled with a white powdery substance behind a stack of papers. Jami stuck a finger inside to scoop a small amount and placed it on her tongue. The taste was bitter and her tongue became numb.
Damn you, Derek, she thought to herself. He’d gone back to his destructive ways. Another reason why she wanted to check on him, hoping not to find him drugged out on the couch like he’d been a few nights when Jami would get home late near the end of their relationship. What she didn’t tell Blake was, besides worrying about Marco, she also worried that Derek might not have answered his phone because he had overdosed.
Jami was still walking through the kitchen when she heard the sound of car doors closing.
She grabbed the bag and ran to the bathroom and dumped the contents into the toilet and flushed. Derek was on the wrong path and needed help, but she didn’t want to see him arrested. When Jami stepped out of the bathroom, she made her way to the front door to meet the agents when she heard a sound coming from upstairs. She drew her gun and aimed it at the top step and saw a woman appear.
“Who the hell are you?” the disheveled woman asked.
“Federal agent, put your hands up!” Jami yelled just as the FBI walked inside and saw what was going on.
“Derek’s not here, sweetie,” the ragged woman said with a smoker’s laugh as she walked downstairs.
“Where is he?”
“Haven’t seen him since this morning. He’s probably somewhere trying to forget about you,” the woman said.
“Stay where you are,” one of the two FBI agents said to Jami as he climbed the stairs to look for Derek.
SEVENTY-NINE
THE AGENT UPSTAIRS reappeared. “All clear,” he said and walked down the stairs. The second FBI agent had taken the woman into the kitchen and had started to question her. Jami stood alone, trying to figure out where Derek was and looking around to see if there were any signs of forced entry.
“Did he say where he was going?” Jami asked the woman sitting down, interrupting the agent.
“I’m not talking to you. How’d you even get in here?” she asked while lighting a cigarette.
Jami turned to the other agent and asked what he could do to help her.
“We can’t do much if he’s not here,” he explained.
“Can’t you locate him by his cell phone?”
“I understand it’s turned off—we’ll keep trying and I’ll let you know if we’re able to find him.”
Jami thanked the agents and left them to do their job and question the woman to see if they could find out where Derek had gone. She walked to the truck and climbed inside. Jami tried calling Derek again, but the call went straight to voicemail. She left a message, asking him to call her back, and said she’d try again and asked him to go back to his house, where agents were waiting for him.
Deciding that there was nothing more she could do from the house, Jami called Blake to let him know about Derek and to tell him she was heading back to Pearson to join him.
But as soon as she dialed the number, she heard a phone ringing. The sound was coming from inside the car, and Jami realized that a phone was tucked away underneath the passenger seat. She leaned over, felt around, and pulled it out. As soon as Jami answered the call, she heard a loud echo, and realized the other phone was Blake’s.
Why did Blake leave his phone in the car? Jami thought about calling Morgan, but decided to first take a look at the phone. Blake didn’t make mistakes like this—leaving his cell phone in the car was intentional. Jami thought about how Blake had insisted on walking her out. He needed an excuse to leave the phone.
While she held the phones side by side, Jami noticed that both of the batteries were draining quickly. She remembered how earlier, the battery in Blake’s personal phone had drained and how he was sure he was being tracked. Was Blake worried he was going to be tracked again? Why would it matter if he’s working with the FBI now?
Jami put her phone down and held onto Blake’s to take a closer look. After she disconnected the call, the screen went back to the file Blake had been viewing before he hid it in the car. Jami noticed it was the archived employee contact list. Why was he looking at that file? she thought.
But as she scrolled through the list, looking for her name and knowing it wouldn’t be there, Jami found the reason why Blake had asked Morgan for the file.
A name caught her eye: Maribel Lopez. It was Marco’s sister, listed as his emergency contact. Then she saw Maribel’s address noted right underneath her name: 9405 McCarthy Road, Palos Park, IL 60464.
“Oh my God,” Jami whispered to herself as she realized why Blake
had left the phone with her. He wasn’t worried about the FBI tracking him—he wanted them to track him—and think that she and Blake were together. Jami wondered why the two agents inside didn’t ask her where Blake was. Maybe Blake was able to leave Pearson without any of the on-site FBI agents realizing what he’d done.
He’s doing this alone, she thought. His terms. His way. I have to help him, she convinced herself and keyed Maribel’s address into the GPS.
A few miles down the road as Jami got onto the highway, her phone rang. She didn’t answer. A moment later, Blake’s phone rang. Jami knew it was Morgan and imagined Mallory sitting next to him, telling him to place the call. The FBI saw them moving again and wanted to know where she and Blake were going. “Sorry, Morgan,” she whispered to herself.
EIGHTY
WHEN JAMES KELLER opened his eyes, he awoke to a woman removing an injector from his leg. Epinephrine, he thought immediately and looked at the woman, trying to figure out who she was and why she was giving it to him. Maribel Lopez set the spent injector down on a dresser in the room she was working in.
Keller started to remember what had happened over the last hour. He realized he’d been drifting in and out of consciousness. He remembered being sat in a chair behind his kidnapper while he recorded a video, but couldn’t recall what the guy had said. After Keller had been brought back to the bed his wrists were now tied to, he remembered hearing a loud gunshot from outside his window and staying alert just long enough to hear the sound of a body hitting the ground before falling back into unconsciousness.
In that moment a thought came to him that troubled the senator greatly. Who was shot outside my window? Was it Blake? Did he figure out where I’m being held and try to rescue me, only to be shot to death before making it inside?
Keller prayed it wasn’t Blake, but the thought wouldn’t leave him. He realized he’d been too far out of it when he heard the gunshot to connect the dots and figure out what had happened. But now the epinephrine shot given to him by this woman was helping him stay awake and think more clearly.
Then the senator realized something else. The same pain he had in his leg from the injection he was just given was also coming from his other leg. Good God, she gave me epinephrine twice, he thought. Keller knew how dangerous that was. His wife, Margaret, had worked as a nurse for years, and he remembered the day she told him about a patient who had to receive two injections in a short period of time to save his life. It was early in her career and she came home distraught over the situation.
Keller realized the woman wanted him awake for a good reason. He’d be executed soon.
He thought about Margaret again and prayed she was being comforted by family and friends. He wondered if she knew that the man, somewhere inside the house getting things ready, was going to be murdering him in just a few minutes. Did the Secret Service pick her up, and is she with them somewhere?
His thoughts returned to Tre, the kid in the warehouse that ended up being an answer to his prayer for finding a way out of there. He wondered if the boy had gone to the authorities. If so, he’d taken too long.
Finally, Keller began to think about Blake. He’d been like a son to him, the son he never had. The two of them had worked so hard to prepare Blake to become a SEAL. Keller had pushed him harder than he himself had been pushed. He knew what Blake was capable of. He knew his strengths and weaknesses and his sense of loyalty. Keller was convinced that Blake, with all of his resources at DDC, was doing everything he could to find him. You don’t leave a SEAL behind.
Keller watched as the woman got up and disappeared into another bedroom adjacent to his.
He was surprised to hear the sound of a man groaning. Keller moved his head to look in the hallway, even though he knew that wouldn’t help him see inside the other room. Who’s in there? Are there two of us being held captive? Are both of us being executed? He wondered if it was Blake, captured by the kidnapper.
Suddenly, the madman appeared at the doorway of both bedrooms and spoke to the woman attending to the other person.
“How’s Keller?” he asked.
“He’ll be conscious for at least twenty minutes.”
“Good,” Marco said. “How’s our special guest doing?”
“Fine, not running into any problems with him at all.”
The kidnapper looked at the senator and smiled. “Well then, let’s get going. It’s showtime.” Marco pulled out a gun and handed it to the woman. “In case he gives us any trouble,” he said, moved to the bed, and used a knife to cut the zip ties that had been securing Keller’s wrists.
He got the senator up and walked him out of the bedroom, heading for the den. As Keller walked past the other bedroom, he looked inside to see if it was Blake, but the lights were off and the room was completely dark.
EIGHTY-ONE
AS I APPROACHED Maribel’s house on McCarthy Road, I saw the signs for the Sag Valley Trail and my thoughts once again returned to Maria. Memories of the two of us together hiking the trail overwhelmed me, and I realized we had driven on this road together one rainy afternoon just before she died.
We had dinner at Hackney’s on the corner of McCarthy and South La Grange. I remembered how I’d complained about eating at the hole-in-the-wall burger joint, but she loved trying out new restaurants. The twelve-dollar burgers ended up being better than I thought they would be, and Maria couldn’t get over the atmosphere and the vaulted ceilings. Just as we finished dinner, a musician set up in the corner and began strumming his guitar and singing. We saw an elderly couple stand and start dancing together.
Our waitress smiled, saying it was their Wednesday night tradition. When she left, Maria reached her hands across the table and grabbed mine, asking if that would be us one day. I promised that it would be. A promise I wasn’t able to keep. A promise I knew would haunt me every day for the rest of my life.
One of my biggest flaws as a federal agent had always been separating my personal life from my professional life. I didn’t believe in work-life balance. I had explained to Maria that there is no balance. Sometimes you have to focus just on work, but then you have to disconnect and take time away. But the truth was, as a DDC agent, and the guy in charge of the whole Chicago operation, you never could really take time away and disconnect. I deeply regretted that after Maria died and spent many sleepless nights thinking about my wife and how I wished I’d spent more time with her while I had the chance.
After she passed away, I focused on my job. It was a good distraction. Mostly to keep myself busy so I wouldn’t have time to think about what had happened to her.
I never found out who murdered her. I wondered if she had fought her mugger—she could be hardheaded and stubborn when she wanted to be. Or had she given them her purse and they killed her anyway? I’d never know. Her belongings were gone and there were no eyewitnesses at the scene.
I parked at the far corner of Hackney’s parking lot and decided to cut through the woods to put the odds of surprising Marco in my favor. I left the car running because I didn’t know what to expect at Maribel’s house. If I needed a quick getaway, I wouldn’t have time to fumble with the wires I’d spent so much time on.
When I got out of the car, I noticed the sun had disappeared behind the woods past Hackney’s and across from La Grange. It was getting darker and I knew I only had a few minutes before Marco would get started. I removed my Glock from my holster and ejected the mag to make sure it was fully loaded. Feeling the inside of my jacket, I confirmed I had one more mag ready to use if I needed it.
I shut the door and held onto my gun with both hands and headed east through the dense woods. I was surprised by how thick they were. I could see Fitzjoy Farm to my left. They offered horseback rides through the Sag Valley Trail. Another thing on the bucket list that Maria and I never got to do together.
My plan was to avoid approaching the house from the obvious entry points. I needed a way to catch Marco off guard. I could have parked on McCarthy and approached f
rom the driveway, but I knew he’d be watching that part of the property. Knowing Marco was an ex-federal agent, I was sure he’d be watching from all sides. Still, I had no choice but to settle on an approach, and I decided the woods would be best.
I moved through the tall grass and trees that surrounded the house. I shielded my face from being scratched by the heavy overgrowth as I pressed forward to make it to the other side. I felt my heart race, and my stab wound started to ache again. I needed to get to a hospital, but my first priority was getting to Keller. Five minutes later, I came to a clearing and I could see Maribel’s house. I crouched down to survey the area and decide on my next steps. How am I going to take Marco by surprise and get inside?
EIGHTY-TWO
WHILE CROUCHED AT the edge of the woods, I noticed a satellite dish on top of Maribel’s house. It was the same kind of dish they had at Hackney’s. I remembered how the last time I was there with Maria, the manager had been frustrated when the TV and internet kept cutting out because of a storm that was passing through. That has to be how she accesses the internet out here in the woods, I thought.
If I could take down Maribel’s internet access, maybe I could stop or at least delay the execution.
I reached for my phone before realizing I didn’t have it. I wanted to check my cell coverage to know just how effective shutting down her internet would be. Would a cell phone signal still be strong enough for Marco to move forward with streaming the execution online? Or would he be forced outside to try to figure out why his sister’s internet access had been shut off? I wasn’t sure, but it was my only play.
I made a run for it. I sprinted to the side of the house and nearly tripped over something I hadn’t noticed from where I’d been hiding in the woods while planning my approach. It was the body of a man. He’d taken a single bullet to his back, and blood had drenched his shirt. I turned him over and saw that the man was in his early twenties. As I stayed low looking around, I saw the kidnapper’s black van in the driveway and a silver sedan parked next to it. I decided it had to belong to the dead man next to me.