The waitress pointed to the menu on the table. “Take a look at that and I’ll be right back with your tea.”
“Thanks.”
When the waitress walked away, Karen took her head in her hands again and whispered a prayer: “God, help me. I’m going crazy here. I need my family. I need Jed and Lilly. Please, keep them safe and bring us all through this.”
“Miss?” It wasn’t the waitress’s voice.
Karen looked up and found an elderly woman standing by her table. She must have been in her eighties. She was short and round and wore a light-blue dress that reached nearly to her ankles. “Yes?”
She motioned to the bench seat across from Karen. “May I?”
“Oh, uh, sure. Yes. Sit, please.”
The woman had a pleasant smile and warm eyes the color of brushed steel. Her face was weathered with deep smile lines. She looked to be a farmer’s wife, a woman who had lived off the land for decades, enjoying the abundance it gave and the work it took to produce it. “I’m Emma and I’m sorry for intruding like this. I could tell you were having a private moment.”
Karen smiled. “That’s okay. It’s nice to see a friendly face.”
Emma leaned in and lowered her voice as if sharing a secret. “May I ask? Were you saying grace?”
“More like asking for it.”
Emma reached across the table and put her hand on Karen’s. Though her hands were worn and leathery from years of enduring the blustering wind and extremes in Nebraska weather, her touch was gentle and tender. “I knew from the moment you walked in here that you were hurting.”
Karen glanced around the diner. “Is it that obvious?”
Emma winked. “Only to those looking for it. And to those who have also lived it.”
Karen was now intrigued by this farmer’s wife. “Lived what?”
“Heartache. Loss. Fear. Such a heavy burden to carry.”
“Would you believe me if I said I’ll be okay?”
Emma’s smile pushed her eyes into crescents. “Not for a moment. I’m a good listener if you want to talk.”
Though Karen knew nothing of this stranger who had approached her so suddenly, she felt herself drawn to Emma, warmed by her friendliness and comfortable manner. She wanted to pour out her heart right there on the table and let Emma clean up the mess, but she knew she couldn’t. Her burden was for her alone. It was for no one else’s ears, not even a kind and wise woman. “I can’t. I wish I could but I just can’t.”
Rather than looking dejected or disappointed, Emma squeezed Karen’s hand. “I understand, of course. But I want you to realize you don’t have to carry any burden alone. Jesus has pretty broad shoulders and he wants to take that load for you. Give it to him. Let him bear the weight of it. He knows what’s best for you, you know.”
Did she know it? Her life had been turned upside down. Jed’s life, Lilly’s life . . . they were all tossed around in a hurricane of turmoil and grief and uncertainty. They lived every day constantly on the edge of disaster. She had no idea where her husband and baby girl were. Was that best for her? “Sometimes I wonder about that.” She’d surprised herself by saying it aloud, but Emma didn’t seem fazed.
“Why do you wonder?”
“If you knew what I’d been through, what my family has been through and is going through now, you’d wonder too.”
Emma didn’t push for information; she simply smiled that warm smile and said, “You’re not the first. God’s been down this road before with countless other folks. He knows the way. Trust him to lead you through it.”
Karen smirked. “That’s easy to say from where you’re sitting.”
“Darling,” Emma said, “I’m one of those countless other folks. If you knew what God has brought me through—the pain, the valleys so low and dark and abandoned I didn’t think there was any way out—if you knew that, you’d stand up right here and praise him with a loud voice.” She smiled again, and for the first time Karen noticed the shadows of deep pain and hurt and tragedy in her eyes. And she was sitting at Karen’s booth bearing witness to her salvation.
“How did you make it through with your sanity still in one piece?”
Emma laughed. “Who said it was? I did the only thing we can do: cling to God and trust him to carry me.” She squeezed Karen’s hand again. “He won’t drop you. His arms are strong and his footing is sure.”
“So just trust him, huh?”
“Faith, darling. It’s more than a feeling, more than talk and good intentions. Faith is action. It’s doing. It’s moving forward even when we don’t feel like it, trusting him when everything around us tells us not to. It’s stepping out of a boat in the middle of a raging storm and putting your feet in the water even when every thought in your head is screaming at you to stop because no one can walk on water. It’s such a ridiculous notion, isn’t it? Walking on water?”
The waitress returned then and handed Karen her iced tea. “Are you ready to order?”
Emma patted Karen’s hand. “I’ll leave you now, darling. Think about it, okay?”
Karen smiled and nodded. “Thank you, Emma.”
Emma stood and handed the waitress a small fold of money. “Don’t let this young lady pay a single cent for your delicious food.” She winked at Karen, then turned and left the diner, calling out over her shoulder, “Just get your feet wet, dear, and let God take care of the rest.”
TEN
• • •
Jed drove for nearly fifteen hours before the phone rang. He picked it up and hit the Talk button.
“Patrick.” It was a woman. A voice he did not recognize.
“I’m here.” He’d just left Reno, where he’d stopped for fuel and to get a drink and a hot dog.
“You’re about to enter California.” He already figured there was a GPS tracker in the Fusion. This confirmed it. “In a few miles you’ll pass Floriston. Nothing to it, really. Seven miles after you pass it, you’ll cross the first of four bridges over the Truckee River. Stop before the fourth bridge. There’s a pull-off area. Get out. You’ll know what to do.”
“What does that mean?”
But the woman had already disconnected.
Jed depressed the car’s accelerator a little farther, and the engine whined; the speedometer climbed to eighty. Just as the woman had said, the town of Floriston wasn’t much more than a few porch lights glowing in the darkness of the desert. He pushed the car harder, anxious to get to the location the woman on the phone had described. He had no idea what would be waiting for him there, if anything. The thought had entered his mind and bounced around for the past several hours that Murphy might have sent him on a wild-goose chase, leading him to the desert with no real direction. Jed didn’t like the fact that Murphy knew exactly where he was at all times, but Jed had no idea where Murphy was. And the man had Lilly, so Jed had to take every conversation seriously; he had to treat every interaction, every order, as if his daughter’s life depended on it. He would go along with the woman’s instructions but remain alert. What he currently needed most was the one thing he lacked: information, answers.
He arrived at the fourth bridge just minutes before midnight and parked in a gravel pull-off area a hundred feet from the bridge. He stepped out of the Fusion and leaned against the door. The sky above was clear and dark and full of stars. At this location, Interstate 80 wove through a shallow gorge, cutting across the curves of the Truckee River. A railroad track followed the path of the river. On either side rose walls of rocky soil dotted with pines and scrub brush. The terrain reminded him a lot of Afghanistan. He remembered a night, dark just like this one, quiet just like this one. Stars covered the sky like illuminated grains of sand. Just like this one. He lay in a hole he dug, his rifle across his chest, and thought about how peaceful the night was compared to day. Days were full of gunfire and death, but with most nights came peace and stillness. The nights there were cool, comfortable, a stark contrast from the oppressive heat of the day. But on that particular
night, there was nothing peaceful in that hole. Moments later the concussion of gunfire ripped through the silence, and the night became a hell.
Jed blinked and wiped his eyes, ran his hand over his beard. More memories were surfacing from the depths of his psyche. Every day, more images and sounds and emotions came out of hiding. He was rediscovering his past and did not always like what he found. Afghanistan seemed like such a long time ago. A lifetime ago. And yet with the resurgence of memories came the feeling that it had all happened in the not-too-distant past.
Jed yawned and scanned the pull-off, wondering what he was to do now that he was here. There were no streetlamps, so the only illumination came from the dusty starlight that covered the area. His car was the only vehicle in sight.
Then the faint figure of a man emerged from the darkness and made his way across the bridge. At that distance, Jed could not make out any details, but it was obvious the man was not Murphy. He was taller and thinner than Murphy and wore a hooded sweatshirt and tight-fitting jeans. The man crossed the bridge and stopped along the shoulder of the highway. He bent at the knees and placed something on the gravel, a small package about the size of a cereal box.
He then turned and left.
“Wait,” Jed hollered.
The man kept walking.
“Stop!”
Leaving the Fusion, Jed sprinted along the highway’s shoulder in pursuit. The man also broke into a run. When Jed reached the bridge, he bent and scooped up the package with one hand. It was wrapped in paper and soft. Tucking it under his arm as a running back would a football, he followed the man onto the bridge. A wide shoulder ran the length of the westbound side of the bridge. A cool breeze blew, moving the dry air of the desert over the river gorge.
When Jed hit the bridge, the man had already reached the far side. He looked back at Jed, then stopped, spun, and slipped something from his belt.
Jed knew what it was. There was no mistaking. And even as he shifted to his right and pressed himself against the guardrail, he saw the muzzle flash of a handgun. A round ricocheted off the roadway.
Jed didn’t have time to plan or strategize or even to think. Reflexively, he grabbed for his own handgun and squeezed off a couple rounds in the direction of the deliveryman-turned-assassin.
More shots came his way but all missed the mark. The man had taken cover behind the bridge’s concrete wall and didn’t want to expose himself any more than Jed did.
Having no cover of his own, Jed had to act quickly. The last thing he needed was for a car or truck to pass, witness a shoot-out taking place on the bridge, and call the police. The area would be swarming with law enforcement of every kind and Jed would never get to Lilly. He’d be arrested, questioned, interrogated, exposed. He couldn’t let that happen.
Using darkness as cover, Jed sprinted across all three westbound lanes, zigzagging every several feet, and hopped the concrete wall that protected traffic from careening off the bridge to the river or rail tracks below. He found footing on a three-foot wide ledge that ran the length of the bridge. He crouched low and drew in a deep breath. Then, wasting no time and staying low, he made his way westward, toward the shooter. He could have headed the other direction, gotten off the bridge, and returned to the Fusion, but he needed answers. He needed to disarm the deliveryman and do an interrogation of his own.
Quickly he shuffled along the ledge, expecting at any moment for the shooter to appear just on the other side of the wall and fire off a few point-blank rounds. But the shooter never appeared. Jed reached the west end of the bridge and peeked above the wall. There was no sign of the man.
• • •
Stepan Levkin hadn’t counted on Patrick pursuing him. He should have. It was his mistake to underestimate the man. Stepan knew Patrick’s history; he knew the training Patrick had gone through, the missions he’d been on. He’d briefly read Patrick’s psychological profile. The man didn’t give up. And Stepan should have anticipated this.
But he hadn’t and now he’d have to confront Patrick. That wasn’t part of the plan. It wasn’t part of his orders. His order in Denver was to pin Patrick down; his order here was merely to deliver the package. He’d killed plenty of men over the past several years, but Patrick was not to be one of those marks. Stepan could have shot Patrick as he crouched along the guardrail; he could have put several rounds in him as he raced across the highway. But he didn’t. He’d missed intentionally, carefully placing each shot to herd Patrick like a sheepdog moving a flock. Orders were orders, and he’d been trained to always follow orders.
When Patrick made a run for the west end of the bridge, Stepan had slinked back off the road’s shoulder and taken refuge in an outcropping of rocks. He’d use the darkness and rocks for cover as he waited for Patrick to find him. He might have been ordered to not kill Patrick, but there was nothing said about not injuring him.
• • •
Jed moved slowly, cautiously. He needed to get off the bridge. It was midnight, sure, but Interstate 80 was no ghost road. Vehicles still traveled it even in the middle of the night, and one was bound to come into view at any moment. He peeked above the concrete barrier but saw no one. Quickly he hopped the wall, gun raised and ready to jump into action, and scurried back across the three lanes heading west. As he reached the far shoulder of the highway, a pair of headlights rounded the corner ahead. Still grasping the package, Jed jumped the guardrail and lay flat along the gravel shoulder of the road.
He was hidden from the road but exposed to the shooter. He needed to move, to get out of there, to find cover. The vehicle, a big rig, lumbered by. The ground vibrated beneath it. As soon as it passed, Jed scrambled to his feet.
He never saw the blow coming.
At first he thought he’d been shot. His head snapped forward as lightning exploded in his vision. He dropped the package, and his gun clattered away as he slumped and fell to his knees, then his hands. The earth seemed to move under him. He knew he had to move, that remaining still like that was an invitation to die, but his limbs would not cooperate. It was as if the thought had originated in his brain as it should, but the signals weren’t making it to his muscles.
Another blow came, this time to his flank, along the left side of his ribs. He exhaled forcefully. The blow had knocked him off his hands and feet and planted him on his right side in the dirt. He gasped to fill his lungs with air, but it was as if his chest had become encased in concrete.
Jed’s head spun. He needed to move. He rolled over to his stomach, then to his back. He kept rolling until he felt as though he had put some distance between him and his attacker. But the sound of footsteps shuffling in the dirt and gravel was soon upon him once again.
This time Jed saw the strike coming and lifted an arm to block it. The man was on him then, throwing punches one after another. Jed did his best to block them, but too many slipped through and pummeled him in his chest and head area.
Jed did the only thing he could think to do. He reached up and grabbed the man’s shirt with both hands, then mustered every bit of strength he had left to yank the man toward him. Jed had gravity on his side, and the force of his forehead contacting his attacker’s face was enough to momentarily make the man’s body go limp. Long enough for Jed to push him off and stagger to his feet.
Though his head ached and though his ribs burned, enough adrenaline had made it into his bloodstream to clear Jed’s head and give him the burst of strength he needed to go on the offensive. He advanced even as the shooter climbed to his feet. The man’s face was bloodied from nose to chin and his eyes were glazed as if he’d just awakened from an anesthesia-induced nap. He sidestepped and raised his arms.
Jed lunged. The man blocked his advance and delivered a punch aimed at Jed’s head. Jed blocked it and countered with an elbow that landed on the man’s chin. At once he followed it with a blow to the man’s abdomen and another elbow to his cheekbone. The shooter stumbled backward and nearly lost his footing. Jed didn’t give him one moment
to regroup. He moved in and shoved his palm toward his opponent’s face, but the man deflected the advance and stepped into Jed’s forward motion, catching Jed in the chest with a hard elbow.
Fatigue had set in and Jed felt his reaction time slowing. His lungs burned; pain pierced his chest wall. He needed to end this.
Groping at his attacker’s flailing arms, he finally found the man’s wrist and grasped it. Twisting forcefully, Jed positioned the man’s arm over his shoulder, hyperextending his elbow. The man groaned and snarled. He knew what was coming but with his muscles stretched so far could not muster the strength to resist. Jed snapped down, breaking the man’s arm.
His opponent hollered in Russian, a weak bawl that signified surrender. But with one last stand, he raised his foot and shoved the sole of his boot into Jed’s hip, pushing him back and knocking him off-balance.
Under the bridge, a passenger train sped by, silent save for the quick rhythmic clickity-clack of the wheels on the rails.
As Jed recovered, the man took off running toward the bridge, his arm bent at a grotesque angle. Jed pursued, but no sooner did he reach the edge of the bridge than his opponent, now nearly halfway across, jumped the concrete wall that separated the westbound lanes from the gorge below. At first Jed thought the man had jumped for the train and wondered how he could ever find an escape on the smooth roof of the speeding passenger cars, but when he arrived at the location where the man went over the edge, he found him in the rapidly moving Truckee River below, on his back, flailing his good arm to remain above water.
Jed walked back to the spot where he was first assaulted to retrieve the package and find his gun. A low ridge of rock ran along the length of the highway. Jed climbed it quickly and slid down the opposite side so he would be out of sight of any traffic that might pass. It was there that he sat, panting, bracing his ribs with both arms, running scenarios through his mind. Nothing made sense. Why would the man do a Mary Poppins off the bridge? Why did he physically attack Jed and not just shoot him? He was close enough; he could have squeezed off one round and taken Jed out. Why didn’t he? And why did he speak in Russian?
Kill Devil Page 7