by L. T. Ryan
I put my head down and made my way to the room. Once inside, I parted the curtains an inch with my thumb and forefinger and checked the parking lot again. My view was now cut in half. The car was there, but I couldn’t see the windshield. They’d cut the engine. Extending their stay?
The .45 on my hip only provided so much comfort. Five rounds and a pretty strong kick meant it wasn’t the most reliable weapon if I was facing a two-on-one situation. I grabbed the VP70 and set it to single-shot. For a moment, I wondered if I should have brought a third sidearm.
Was it possible my location was compromised? The only ways I could’ve been tracked to the motel was if my ID had been compromised, or if they’d managed to put a tracker on my car while Ginger was playing tough guy. Lexi had fished the alias out of me, and I had no doubt she’d run the name through the databases. But Jonah Lamb was squeaky clean. No one knew about him outside of a small circle. And they weren’t the type of people who’d show up in Illinois in a Mercury to stake out a motel room.
There was a chance, as slim as it was, that someone at the diner recognized me. No one looked familiar, and I didn’t see that spark of recognition in anyone’s eye when they glanced in my direction. No one got up and abruptly or frantically left the place. If they knew me that’s how they would have reacted.
“Get a grip, Jack,” I muttered. “Just a couple guys swinging through on their way to Kalamazoo, Michigan, or some damn place.”
I went to the bathroom, set the VP70 on the vanity, and filled my cupped palms with cold water. I splashed it on my face. My heart rate decreased. My abs, chest and shoulders loosened. I studied my soaked reflection. Water dripped off my face.
How had I gotten here?
It was one of those existential thoughts that comes out of nowhere, often at the wrong time, or when you wake up at two in the morning when it’s easy to slip back into the dreamland and forget. That wasn’t happening now though. The question seemed to be burning itself into my consciousness. I didn’t want to dwell on it. Couldn’t afford to, not with a job in progress. This was not the time to question my life and career choices.
A sharp rap at the door shifted my focus. I wiped off my face, grabbed the HK, and slid through the room toward the window. I didn’t peel back the curtains. That’d be too obvious. Instead, I placed my ear against the wall and waited. A dozen seconds passed. I heard nothing. The light filtering in through the door was broken into three sections, shadows indicating someone stood on the walkway.
Three hard knocks echoed through the wall. I pulled my head away from the wall and aimed the pistol at the door.
“Sir, are you in there?”
9
“Sir, please, I saw you go in.” She paused a beat. “I left my cigarettes in there.”
I glanced through the peephole and saw the cleaning lady. She fished through her apron and produced a key. I tucked the pistol in my waistband and covered it with my t-shirt.
“Hang on a sec,” I said, looking back to see if I could spot her smokes. They weren’t in sight, so I unlatched the door and opened it.
“I’m sorry.” She held her gaze firm as she walked past. Her eyes were wide, wet, like she had been crying.
I stuck my head out the open doorway and checked in both directions. Empty. Letting the door fall shut, I turned and watched her head into the bathroom. “You OK?”
She shook her head. “It’s just cigarettes. I think I left them in the bathroom.”
“I was just in—”
The sound of a pump shotgun will stop anyone in their tracks, even if they’ve only ever heard the exaggerated stock clip they use in the movies. A chill raced down my spine. Two shadows stretched across the floor. This wasn’t a robbery or chance encounter. Who the hell was I dealing with? First thought was that Thanos’s goons had found me. But how? Random coincidence? Someone drove by the motel and spotted my rental? No chance.
The cleaning lady peeked out from the bathroom. Her lips trembled. Tears streamed down her cheeks. The men had forced her at gunpoint to get in the room, but were smart enough to stay out of sight. They could’ve simply taken her keys, but then I’d hear them coming and have time to get ready. They’d played it well. And now the woman feared for her life. She’d seen the men, seen them commit a crime. How much of one was still to be determined.
“Don’t move, asshole, except to get your wallet outta your pants.” His neutral accent gave me no inclination as to where he was from, only that he hadn’t grown up in Chicago. Couple of thieves passing through, pegged the motel, and more importantly, me as an easy mark? I didn’t buy it.
The cleaning lady averted her eyes and started crying. One of them had probably turned a weapon in her direction. She needed to get in the tub and lay down, hope they’d forget about her. But I couldn’t tell her that. Poor thing was about to wind up a statistic.
I pulled my wallet out, careful not to reveal my concealed Springfield. There was nothing I could do about the VP70 on my hip. If these guys had any training at all they’d have already spotted it.
“Good boy,” the guy said. “Now toss it back on over here.”
I needed to make a move, but they weren’t giving me much to work with.
“Nothing worth taking in there,” I said.
“Who said we’re taking?” the guy said waving his pistol. “Now toss it, or I’ll shoot you.”
“If you were gonna shoot me, I’d already be full of holes.” I lowered my arm, pulling the wallet tight to my body. “So, if you want this, you’d better come and get it.”
“Please, mister!” the cleaning lady shouted. “Do what they say. I don’t wanna die.”
Every muscle in my body clamped down over the next few seconds. I braced for impact, whether a bullet or a fist. One of the shadows on the floor shortened as the guy approached from behind me. His steps were slow and deliberate. He racked his handgun’s slide. I turned my head slightly to the right to get a read on how far away he was. He was smart enough to keep an arm’s length between us. Had he come too close, or touched the weapon to my head like in the movies, it would have made it easy for me to gain control of his weapon, and use him as a meat shield against his partner.
“We just wanna know who you are and what you’re doing here,” he said. “Now, we can do this in here, or we can bring you someplace special.”
Either way the outcome remained the same. They’d kill me. Forcing them to take me with them would at least provide an opportunity for me to catch them slipping up.
“So, what’s it gonna be?” he said.
Before I could answer, his partner exclaimed.
“Shit!”
“What?” the guy behind me said.
“Cops,” the other guy said.
The cleaning lady glanced at the door, blue strobes bounced off the ceiling and over her face. I could see her debating whether to make a run for it. She shifted her gaze in my direction for a moment. I nodded at her, encouraging her to do it. Her lips drew tight. She burst out of the bathroom and started toward the door with an apparent plan to bull rush the guy with the shotgun.
This was my chance. They hadn’t taken my VP70. I dropped my wallet on the floor and turned right while pulling the pistol from my waistband. The man behind me stood about three feet away. I lunged in his direction, my arm whipping toward him, my hand wrapped around the pistol’s barrel. I drove the butt into his larynx.
The guy’s head snapped back as he dropped his piece and raised his hands to guard his throat a second too late. A guttural, choking scream escaped his gaping mouth. He wrapped his hands around his neck, tearing at his shirt collar as though that would enable him to breathe again.
I drew the .45 from behind my back and aimed it at the guy with the shotgun. He swung his weapon like a baseball bat, nailing the cleaning lady in the gut. Her torso bent forward as her rear flung back. She looked like a parachute suspended in the air for a moment before crashing to the ground. Her body writhed on the floor. Her face reddened. I
n a few moments, she’d regain the ability to breath. But I knew at that second she thought she was dying.
The guy swung the muzzle of his weapon toward me, chambering a fresh round along the way. Before he could take aim, I lunged across the room and placed myself between him and the weapon, wrapping my left arm around it to wrestle away control. I slammed the pistol open-handed against his cheek three times. He dropped to a knee. I wrestled the shotgun free from his weakened grasp, drove the buttstock into his nose. I searched his pockets, grabbed his cell phone, then dragged him into the bathroom, leaving behind a trail of blood.
The man with the crushed larynx had stopped fighting. His face blue, he laid almost motionless on the ground, drawing in short breaths like a guppy out of water. His eyes bugged from his head, bloodshot, staring up at the ceiling. I searched his pockets and came up with two extra magazines for his pistol and a money clip containing cash only. I pocketed the cash, the rounds, and took his pistol. Neither guy had an ID on them. It was intentional in case I turned out to be who they feared I was.
The cleaning lady looked as though she were about to explode. I went over and placed my hand on her diaphragm.
“Slow down,” I said. “You have to relax to let the air back in.”
Her eyes were big and wide, and fixated on mine. It took a moment for her to calm down. After she did, she choked on the air rushing into her lungs. I helped her get to a seated position against the wall near the door.
“Who are they?” I said.
“I don’t know, Mister.” Her voice was gravely. She rubbed her neck. “They approached me on the walkway and made me go to your room.”
“My room specifically?”
She cradled her stomach with both arms. “Yes. Your room. They showed me a picture of you and everything.”
“A picture?” I’d searched both men and hadn’t found a picture. Perhaps they’d disposed of it outside.
The sirens drew close enough that the sound echoed in the room. The only way out was through the rear window, and that was a thirty foot drop to a steep slope at least three times as long. Chances of coming away uninjured were slim. I could take my chances with the cops. My alias was clean. If they didn’t let me go, I had other ways of getting released from custody.
I snapped a photo of each guy on my phone. As quickly as the sirens reached their peak, they started to fade. A moment later, an ambulance’s siren overtook the police. I pulled back the curtains and saw a line of emergency vehicles streaming down the road past the motel.
“Get a load of that,” I muttered. Bastards had saved my life. I offered my hand to the cleaning lady. “You OK?”
“Yes, thank you.” She rose to her feet and shuffled toward the door.
I dismantled the shotgun, pocketed the rounds and tossed it over the railing. “Follow me out of the room, wait until I’m clear of the parking lot, then call the cops. Tell them nothing about me, all right? Nothing about my stay, and definitely don’t give them a description of me. Got it?”
She nodded.
I exited the room. There were five people standing there, looking at me. Their mouths hung open at the sight of my blood-covered shirt. Fortunately, I had a change of clothes in the trunk. I turned toward the stairs and left the room.
“Mister, wait!”
10
I hurried back to the threshold, adrenaline pumping through my veins. I expected to see that one of the men had snowed me, and was attacking the cleaning lady. When I reached the room I saw the cleaning lady standing in front of the bed, holding my wallet.
“You forgot this.”
I couldn’t believe I’d been so careless. The cops would’ve found it and the hunt would have been on. I was eight hundred miles from home, with few contacts to help me out here. I couldn’t even rely on the Old Man for assistance. Chicago wasn’t his territory. Every associate he had outside his organization was as much an enemy as a friend. There was always Frank Skinner of the SIS, but we’d been on rocky footing for some time now. I’d turned down every job he’d offered the past two years. He knew I would every time he reached out to me. I had no idea why he kept offering.
The cleaning lady pulled out her cell phone and punched 9-1-1. Her finger hovered over send. She gestured with her head toward the small crowd watching us. “You should leave now. There are witnesses.”
I took a quick look at the crowd of onlookers who’d gathered. A prostitute, a middle-aged alcoholic, and three junkies. The police wouldn’t put much stock into what they said. And since the motel took cash, I checked in under the most basic of names, John Smith. The cleaning lady didn’t know who I was either. The wallet was clenched shut and latched.
“Make sure you describe me as older, and balding.”
“And not white,” she said, tearing up. “Got it. Thank you for saving me. I was so scared I wouldn’t get home to my baby.”
I ran down the stairs to the car. By the time I reached it the cleaning lady had her cell phone pressed to the side of her head. It wouldn’t be long before a few of those patrol cars that had raced past a few minutes prior would be rerouted back to the motel.
The situation was bad. Leaving in a rush meant I left without erasing evidence of my stay. My prints were all over the room. Not too much of a problem given that there were at least twenty other sets in there. Cleanliness wasn’t exactly a standard of the place. But if anyone matched my face with a set of prints, it would kick off a chain of events that started and ended in the Pentagon, albeit different sections. These days I had far more enemies in the building than people willing to stick their neck out to help me. Getting any of them involved wasn’t a situation I wanted to deal with.
I headed away from the motel. The incident had sped up my timeline in Chicago. The job had to be finished soon. While I couldn’t guarantee that the men I encountered at the motel were Thanos’s guys, I had to consider the possibility. Dumb luck had led them to me. Carelessness on my part. I should’ve ditched the rental and grabbed a new one. Doesn’t matter how large or small an area. Give yourself a chance to get caught, and you’ll be caught. Perhaps they weren’t Thanos’s men. Maybe Charles or the Old Man had me followed and decided to take me out. In that case, was the job a ploy to get me in position? I saw no reason for the Old Man to concoct such an elaborate scheme to erase me. He could lock me up in his dungeon and let time run its course if he wanted. Charles, however, well, there was no love lost between us.
I rolled down the windows, let the frigid air wash over my body. Sweat froze and dried in place. My scalp felt like ice. I’d only made it a half-mile and already paranoia had me in its grips. That led to a slippery slope of self-doubt with every move I’d make if I didn’t get things under control.
I hopped on the highway for a few miles, then exited and found a quiet residential neighborhood. Winding through the streets of two-story homes with square yards, I started to feel safe. I found a cul-de-sac, drove around the circle and stopped next to the curb between two homes with empty driveways. That didn’t mean no one was home. This seemed like the kind of place where folks took care of their cars, parked them in the garage.
My heart had slowed to a decent rate, the sweating had stopped, and I breathed normally again. I had to forget about what had happened at the motel, at least for now. Every thought and every ounce of energy had to be directed toward taking out Thanos. The office was obviously off limits, too great a security presence there. His house was the next stop.
I needed a new car. Driving the one they’d seen at the office building was out of the question. And I had to wonder if it was being tracked right at that moment through telematics and the close-caption TV network throughout Chicagoland. Chances were Thanos’s security presence extended to his residence, whether the same men from the city or a new group.
I found a rental car store, drove a few blocks past and ditched the car. They didn’t have much for selection. I ended up downsizing to a compact car, a black Honda Civic LX. It was roomier than I had
anticipated, and the heat worked immediately, but I wouldn’t be using it as a weapon in a car chase. The thing was, it was new and I hadn’t been seen in it. So long as my Jonah Lamb identity hadn’t been compromised, I was a ghost once again. If I was tailed, or someone showed up unexpectedly, then I knew I’d have a problem to deal with back in D.C. or New York. Maybe both.
I decided the best plan of attack was to watch the house tonight. See how large of a security presence there was, and note any patterns in Thanos’s evening routine. I stopped off to grab a bite to eat and plan my route. With my route to Thanos’s house mapped, I set out on a forty-five minute drive. It was getting late in the day. The sun alternated between hovering behind the tree line and shining directly in front of the Civic. The intense glare reduced visibility to a few feet. The sun finally set below the horizon, and with every passing second, darkness pervaded.
11
Thanos lived in a five-thousand-square-foot home on a private acre-and-a-half in the suburb of Naperville. The sprawling neighborhood was composed of custom houses on similar lots. No two homes I passed were the same.
I ditched the Honda at the end of a quiet street a half-mile away and jogged the rest of the way, keeping my head down. A few cars drove by, but no one paid any attention to me. Nothing unusual about a guy in his mid-thirties out for a jog.
The dimly-lit street offered a few places to hide for a while. Thanos’s side was lined with a thin layer of pine trees, but in the house next to his, a family ate dinner in front of a large bay window that looked out on their front yard. So I chose a house across the street. It’s empty driveway and darkened windows indicated no one was home, though with a three-car garage, I didn’t expect the owners to keep their Mercedes or BMW exposed to the harsh Chicago winter.
The front of the house had a perimeter of waist-high shrubs, but there wasn’t a single spot that offered me a view of anything other than the entrance to Thanos’s driveway.