OMEGA: A Black Flagged Thriller (The Black Flagged Series Book 5)

by Steven Konkoly

  Satisfied that they hadn’t been followed directly out of the private terminal or joined on the road from a nearby parking area, he glanced at the open briefcase in his wife’s lap. He caught a glimpse of a compact pistol as she refastened a hidden compartment cover. Jessica looked at him and nodded, indicating that everything they’d requested was present. She removed two sets of rental car keys and a notecard containing a few letters and numbers before shutting the briefcase. Daniel went back to watching the road behind them.

  Jessica leaned toward the driver. “Terminal One departures. United.”

  “Copy that, ma’am.”

  Definitely ex-military.

  One of Sanderson’s people? Someone neither Jessica nor he had met? That would be an interesting twist and not completely out of the realm of possibilities. Sanderson had reached out to them after Karl Berg’s phone call, to talk them out of going. Failing that, he offered to coordinate the logistics for the trip and provide personal protective equipment upon arrival in Chicago. They’d taken him up on the offer since neither of them had the kind of contacts needed to procure firearms that quickly, and because Sanderson footed the bill for the flights.

  He dismissed the idea as fast as it materialized. Sanderson had also orchestrated the next part of their countersurveillance maneuver, which entailed ditching the driver entirely. Daniel didn’t care either way. If Sanderson wanted to keep an eye on them, there wasn’t much they could do about it, and there were far worse things in the world than having Black Flag operatives watching their backs.

  Jessica held the notecard where he could see it.

  Vehicles in main garage hourly parking across from terminal one. Kia—row B and Nissan—row G. Good luck and watch your back. Call Ramon—your driver—for pickup from hotel on way out. He’s not one of ours, in case you’re curious.

  “Ramon?” said Daniel.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Looks like we’ll be using your services on the way back to the airport.”

  “I’m happy to hear that, sir,” said Ramon.

  “Why do I get the feeling you already knew it?”

  “I’ve arranged a sedan through a cooperating agency for the return trip. Wanted to change things up. I’ll still be your driver.”

  “That’s good to know,” said Daniel.

  “Any particular reason?” said Jessica.

  Daniel gave her a quizzical look.

  “Unique skillset, ma’am,” said Ramon.

  “Sounds familiar,” muttered Jessica, squeezing Daniel’s hand.

  The driver glanced into the rearview mirror, briefly making eye contact with Daniel. A look of acknowledgment passed between the two of them. The guy was definitely Sanderson material, and it was no coincidence that he had been chosen to drive them. To the general’s credit, he maintained an extensive list of loyal and capable people around the world. The man had that kind of effect on people, a sort of infectious attraction that you could never fully shake. He couldn’t even begin to guess how Ramon had come under Sanderson’s spell.

  After taking another long look at the road behind them, he kissed Jessica on the side of her mouth. She smiled flatly, taking a deep, but quiet inhale. Her stomach inflated and deflated slowly, a breathing relaxation technique she had mastered over the years. Not that he thought it would help her right now.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” he whispered, instantly regretting the clichéd statement.

  “Don’t.”

  Message received. In a way, he was glad they would take separate cars to Palos Hills. The closer they got to the source of her rage, the worse it would get. Daniel stole a glance at his watch. Seventeen hours and forty-seven minutes until they could officially start a new chapter in their life.

  A lot could go wrong in eighteen hours.

  Chapter 17

  O’Hare International Airport

  Chicago, Illinois

  Jessica pulled her carry-on suitcase into the restroom on the departure level and maneuvered it into the nearest open stall. She laid the red luggage piece flat across the toilet seat, quickly opening it to expose a smaller black carry-on bag fitted snugly inside. She removed a compact pistol and two spare magazines from her oversized red leather handbag and transferred the items to a zippered compartment on the outside of the nested bag.

  After separating the two pieces of luggage, she removed her stylish black jacket and hung it on the back of the door. A few moments later, she left her old suitcase in the stall, closing the door behind her, and headed for the exit. She slowed in front of the mirrors to adjust the wig she had retrieved from the original carry-on suitcase. She could use a lipstick refresh too, but decided against it. A quick turnaround in the bathroom was more important right now. On her way past the paper towel dispenser, she pushed the handbag into the stainless steel trash bin, retaining a black clutch purse that had been hidden with the wig.

  Less than ten seconds after Jessica entered the restroom, she walked out with cropped red hair, black luggage, and a trendy white blouse. Not exactly the most radical transformation, but hopefully enough to temporarily throw off anyone that had hustled into the terminal after them.

  She followed the signs for the baggage level, which took her toward a distant escalator. A casual look toward the bucket seats in front of the terminal’s floor-to-ceiling windows eased her fears. Daniel rubbed his right eye with the back of his hand, their prearranged signal that he hadn’t detected any surveillance.

  Jessica kept going, never pausing to look back. Daniel would wait for her phone call before heading for his car. By that time, Jessica would be on the road to Palos Hills, most likely stuck in afternoon traffic. She remembered how brutal the congestion could be in the areas around the city, especially near the airport. The thirty-mile drive could take an hour and a half at this time of day. All the better. She was in no hurry to get to the hospital.

  She walked through an automatic door near the center of the baggage carousel pickup area, immediately choking on diesel fumes. She’d forgotten how nasty the air was on the arrivals level. A dozen or more buses and airport shuttles sat idling at any given time in front of the exits. More passed through every minute to discharge exhaust into the concrete and pavement hell beneath the arrival lanes constructed above. Dark. Dirty. Smelly. Airport planners had managed to make a traveler’s first taste of Chicago a shitty one.

  Taking shallow breaths, Jessica hustled to the pedestrian crosswalk and crossed two wide rows of uneven traffic to emerge into the sunlight. She stopped to fiddle with her suitcase, taking the moment to scan the people she could observe in the shadows underneath the overpass. Nearly everybody hauled luggage. Nobody stood out.

  Once inside the garage, she quickly analyzed the signage and headed in the direction of row G. A silver Nissan Sentra with Wisconsin license plates finally responded to her repeated press of the key fob. With her suitcase situated on the front seat and the zippered pocket containing her pistol opened, Jessica backed out of the space and followed the signs to the exit. She stopped the car several feet in front of the automated pay gate, mumbling curses. No. It was too late to turn back, and it would be the cowardly thing to do. Her mother deserved her forgiveness, and Jessica wanted to give it.

  “You will fucking do this,” she whispered, easing her foot off the brake.

  Ten minutes later, after paying for three hours of parking with a preloaded credit card, she sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic, pointing south on Interstate 294. She called Daniel to report a seemingly uneventful departure from the airport.

  “Coast is clear?” he asked.

  “Couldn’t say,” she said. “I’m at the American Airlines counter, booking a flight back to Anguilla.”

  A long pause ensued. “You sound like you’re in a car.”

  “Parked on the expressway,” she said. “I didn’t detect anyone paying attention to me on the way out.”

  “I think we arrived undetected,” said Daniel.

  He didn’t brin
g up the obvious, which she appreciated. It was one of his best qualities. Never making her feel worse about a situation, particularly one she’d created for herself.

  “Arriving clean was never the real challenge,” she said.

  “We’ll be just as cautious at the hospital,” he said. “By this time tomorrow, we’ll be over the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “I hope so,” she said, not sure why she threw that at him.

  He didn’t take the unintentional bait. “I found a tapas restaurant in Oak Brook. We could both use a bite to eat. A drink wouldn’t hurt either.”

  “I’m not really hungry. Or thirsty.”

  Her statement didn’t reflect the truth. It was more like the warped perception of how she thought she should be feeling. She could eat her way through an Old Country Buffet right now, heat-lamp-preserved food and all.

  “Well, I’m kind of starving, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to eat something before we roll into Palos Hills,” said Daniel. “Plus we need to kill some time outside of town. It doesn’t start getting dark until around seven.”

  “That’s fine,” she said.

  “Get off at Cermak, headed west. Take a right on Spring Road. El Tapareya is in Le Meridien.”

  “The restaurant is in a hotel?”

  “I didn’t think you’d care. Not being hungry and all.”

  “Just saying.”

  “I was eyeballing a nearby Long John Silver’s, if you want to know the truth,” Daniel cracked.

  “Hush puppies and French fries. You know the way to this girl’s heart,” she said.

  “Trust me on the tapas.”

  “I could go either way, honestly,” she said, half meaning it.

  “Your choice,” he said.

  “Cermak then Spring Road. I’ll grab a table.”

  “Facing the door, please.”

  “That goes without saying.”

  She needed to get him off the phone. Their conversation would dance around the edge of nothingness, a never-ending banter tinged with anxiety and framed by the gravity of her approaching reunion. Fuck that. She was better off tapping her fingers on the steering wheel and creeping along in traffic with her thoughts for the next hour. On top of that, they each needed to pay attention to their surroundings. Close attention. One slipup could cost them everything.

  Part of her hoped the whole thing was a setup, and it was sprung before they got to the hospital. That would be the easy way out for her. Fight and win, no holds barred, just like she’d been trained. But this wasn’t a trap in the traditional sense. She was most certainly trapped, but not by any of the enemies they’d made in the past. No. The worst enemy possible had cornered Jessica. The one guaranteed to fuck up everything. Her guilt. And there was absolutely no way she was getting out of this one.

  She’d let this enemy convince her to make a potentially dangerous trip, right on the cusp of sailing away from her shattered past. Her battle with this adversary ended tonight. She heard Daniel’s voice, but didn’t catch what he said.

  “Sorry. What was that?”

  “I said I’ll let you go,” said Daniel. “Stay alert, and let me know when you get there.”

  “I will,” she said. “And…thank you.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  “Sometimes you do it frighteningly well.”

  “That’s because we’re a good match. Catch you in an hour or so.”

  Jessica eased her car forward with the mass of traffic, the hope of a breakthrough short-lived. After stopping, she craned her head back and scanned the windshields behind her in a mostly useless gesture. It would be nearly impossible to spot a tail in this mess and not likely worth the effort. Unless someone wanted her dead, badly, she was as safe here as anywhere.

  Safe. A relative term for people with their kind of background and history. Even at their home in Anguilla she never felt completely safe. That was the underlying problem with their life. One she hoped to permanently leave behind when they sailed away on La Ombra. She just needed to keep her shit together for a few more hours. By this time tomorrow night, she could be on their boat, making final preparations to put an entire ocean between the past and a new future.

  Chapter 18

  Palos Hills Community Hospital

  Palos Hills, Illinois

  Daniel examined the reflective sign on the left corner of the intersection, which read “main entrance.” Unfortunately, that would be their only option for tonight’s visit. There would be no forged keycards and identification cards allowing them to enter more discreetly. They would walk through the visitor entrance to the hospital as Daniel and Jessica Petrovich, until they reached her mother’s room, where she would have to identify herself as Nicole Erak, daughter of a dying woman.

  He slowed for the turn across the empty intersection, his car’s headlights drowning out the subtle lights highlighting a wide Welcome To Palos Community Hospital sign. Once past the bright sign, he caught a glimpse of a tall illuminated building between the thick stand of evenly spaced trees lining the right side of the road.

  Research on the Internet gave him little useful information about the facility. Images of the exterior and interior suggested it had undergone extensive renovations at some point recently. A few buildings had been added, mainly outpatient surgery and physician office facilities. His best guess was that the hospice rooms would be located in the main patient building, which towered over the rest of the hospital.

  Security inside the place would be a mess. He couldn’t think of any effective way to sweep the areas they’d need to move through, clearing a path for Jessica in advance. The best he could do was observe the areas outside the entrance for any obvious snatch-and-grab teams. Anyone wishing to do Jessica and him harm faced the same complications inside. There was no way to go about business inconspicuously unless your plan was to kill and you really didn’t give a shit about keeping it covert. A distinct possibility in this case.

  Daniel had no intention of letting his guard down outside or inside the building. Their greatest ally would be time. The sooner they got in and out, the better, and that would solely depend on Jessica. He hated to admit it, but part of him hoped Vesna Erak was incommunicative or unresponsive at this point. Jessica could spend some time in the room “talking” to her mother, and they could get the hell out of here within the hour. Quicker possibly. Or would that just make matters worse for Jessica?

  He knew the best outcome would be for his wife to spend as much time as she needed to clear the air and say goodbye to her mother. All he had to do was keep her safe. As his car cleared the trees, the main entrance appeared, directly across from a three-story parking garage.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  Google Earth hadn’t shown a parking garage, which changed his plan. He was no longer dealing with a straight line-of-sight surveillance situation across a parking lot. He’d need to accompany Jessica the entire way instead of hanging back to watch the surroundings. Too many nooks and crannies in a parking garage to ensure her safety. He dialed her phone.

  “What’s up?” she answered.

  “There’s a massive parking garage instead of a parking lot. I’d feel better about this if we walked into the hospital together. We can put some space between us once we’re inside. I’m going to pull into the drop-off area in front of the main entrance and wait for you to get here. Pull up behind me and we’ll find adjacent spaces in the garage.”

  “I guess we should have driven together after all,” she said.

  “It would appear so,” replied Daniel. “I don’t see any other parking options, either…hold on.”

  The kit provided by Sanderson included handicap placards, so there might still be some hope. He scanned the area around the entrance for handicap parking spaces, finding a few rows of cars in a small lot located directly in front of the garage. They might be able to station at least one of the cars as close as possible to the building in case they needed to make a quick exit. No such luck.

  “N
ever mind,” he said. “I thought we might be able to use a handicap space.”

  “It’ll be fine. I’m about five minutes out,” she said.

  “I might take a look inside the lobby before you get here.”

  “Not a bad idea,” said Jessica.

  He disconnected the call and eased into one of several unoccupied patient pickup spaces under a wide, two-story-high roof sheltering the entrance. The moment he stopped the car, an older gentleman dressed in pressed khaki pants and a red sweater vest over a white collared shirt emerged through one of the main entrance doors and ambled toward him. Daniel met him on the other side of the car, halfway to the door.

  “You can’t park here, sir,” stated the man.

  Daniel read the plastic name tag pinned to the vest.

  “My apologies, Tom,” he said. “I’m supposed to grab my sister-in-law here and drive her home. My wife’s mother is in one of the hospice rooms, and everyone is in from out of town. I’m doing what I can to get people back and forth. Do you mind if I leave the car here while I have a look around the lobby?”

  “As long as you don’t linger,” said the venerable parking sentry.

  “I’ll be gone in a minute or so,” said Daniel. “Thank you.”

  The man didn’t change expression, clearly unimpressed by his promise. He’d undoubtedly heard every excuse in the book at this point.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “We tow,” warned the man.

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  Daniel pressed the blue handicap access button plate on the thick metal post in front of one of the automatic doors. By the time he reached the entry, the door had opened far enough for him to slide into a glass-enclosed, three-story atrium. The lobby looked more like something you’d find inside fancy tech start-up headquarters than a community hospital, which made his job easier. He had clear sightlines to all of the seating areas scattered throughout the space.