by Mike Ryan
Stephenson and Myers looked at the dates and times of the logins at each location that was displayed on the screen. There was no doubt about a pattern emerging.
“He moves every six months,” Stephenson said.
“He’s trying to stay one step ahead of the law,” Myers replied.
They continued looking at some of the messages between the family members. “He’s jittery. He mentions about being afraid of them being watched.”
“He’s gotta be staying at hotels or apartments if he’s moving every six months.”
“Has to be an apartment. He appears to be a careful and guarded man. He wouldn’t want to risk constantly going to a new hotel and being spotted. Plus it’ll cost a lot more. Rent an apartment for six months and you hardly ever have to show your face to anyone except going to the supermarket.”
“Where’s the address of that last login?” Myers asked.
“Coming up now,” the analyst answered.
“It’s an apartment complex.”
“We need to get a team there now,” Stephenson said.
“You think he’s letting Porter stay there?”
“I’d say anything’s possible at this point. Maybe they need each other.”
“How so?”
“She has no money, no transportation, no anything, other than her physical skill set. He has a car, considering he’s renting apartments every six months, he presumably has money, and he has a family that he wants to get out of the country.”
“You think he might be paying her to get him and his family out?” Myers asked.
“I think it’s a distinct possibility at the moment.”
Myers went to a nearby computer to check the whereabouts of the nearest available team. He came back to Stephenson a couple of minutes later.
“Nearest team is about forty-five minutes away.”
“Direct them there,” Stephenson said. “Get them to that location. How many do we have?”
“Three. Same three that came across the last location.”
“Good. What about a backup team?”
“Probably about an hour away.”
“Get them there too. I don’t want to take any chances this time. I wanna make sure there’s no way she can get out of this again.”
“You want the first team to hold off?” Myers asked.
“Yes. At least until the backup team arrives. Five agents should be sufficient to move in. Find out what apartment Jordaan is in, then stake it out.”
“What if Porter and Jordaan move before the second team arrives?”
“Then the first team will move with them. But unless that happens, they’ll wait for backup. They’re not to move in until we give them the word.”
“And once the backup team arrives? What are the orders?”
“Same as before,” Stephenson answered. “Eliminate whoever’s in that apartment. If they’re together, their fates are also tied together.”
“What if Porter’s not there? What if it’s just Jordaan?”
“Then he’s to be interrogated first to find out where Porter is. If they’re not together, he dropped her off somewhere. He knows where. He’ll give her up if we apply the right amount of force.”
“And then what?”
“At that point he’d be a loose end and would have to be terminated.”
They impatiently waited for the next forty-five minutes until the first team arrived at the apartment Jeso was staying at, hoping that he hadn’t moved on by then. Once the team got there, they were directed to call in at the first possible moment.
“Team One, go,” Myers said.
“The car’s still here,” an agent replied. “Parked on the side of the building.”
Myers looked at Stephenson, who finally let a pleased expression show up on his face. “All right, good, keep your eyes open and wait for Team Two to arrive. Should be about twenty minutes.”
“Will do.”
Another twenty minutes went by before the second team arrived at the apartment complex. They also checked in to announce they were there. Before letting them move in, Myers looked to Stephenson for approval. Stephenson immediately gave it, nodding his head.
“Take them out. Take them all out.”
10
Porter was getting ready to leave when she saw the piece of paper with Jeso’s address on it. She had put it on the kitchen counter, not really giving it much thought. Before checking out of the room, she walked over to it and put it in her pocket. After returning her hotel key, she walked outside, standing by the front door, just as she said she would. It was a few minutes before five.
Porter anxiously watched every car that pulled into the lot, focusing on the passengers inside each car. Though she could obviously tell that none of them were Jeso’s vehicle, with each car that came in, she worried that she would have to defend herself against another attack. Luckily, all of her fears turned out to be unfounded. The part she did worry about was that Jeso was extremely late.
After waiting outside for about half an hour, Porter wound up going back inside the hotel every ten minutes to check the time. It was now an hour past the rendezvous time. Porter was getting very worried about Jeso not showing up. She didn’t think there was anything that would keep Jeso from picking her up on time. She had actually assumed that he would show up early, excited about the prospects of finally getting his situation rectified soon.
At first, she just assumed that maybe Jeso had lost track of time. So Porter figured she would wait a little while longer. That little while turned into another hour, and it was now seven o’clock. She paced up and down the outside of the hotel, as well as continuing to check the time by going inside every few minutes. At that point, with Jeso being over two hours late, she wasn’t sure what she should do. The one thing she knew she couldn’t do was continue to wait. She just couldn’t do it anymore. She’d already spent too much time in one spot. She already felt uncomfortable staying there as long as she did.
Porter figured she had two options: She could hit the road again and never look back, which meant kissing goodbye the passports and visas that Nails was working on, since she didn’t have the money to pay him. Or she could try to find out where Jeso was. She took the paper out of her pocket that had his address on it and stared at it for a minute. As much as her instincts were telling her to just get away, as far away as possible, that nagging feeling deep inside told her she needed to go to that address and find out why Jeso wasn’t there. Porter felt like she owed it to him to check. He’d already done so much for her, it was the least she could do for him.
Porter went back inside the hotel and asked them to call her a taxi. Along with paying for her hotel room, Jeso had given her a little extra money in case she needed anything. Porter had had no intention on using it, but now, she was glad he gave it to her. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to pay for a taxi to get to Jeso’s apartment.
A taxi arrived in about five minutes and took her over to Jeso’s apartment, which was about half an hour away from the hotel. After getting out and paying the driver, Porter went over to the entrance. She noticed Jeso’s car parked along the side of the building as they drove in, so Porter’s internal radar was on high alert. She kept looking around at all the parked cars for signs of trouble. Nothing struck her as unusual, though—nothing other than the fact that Jeso’s car was still there two-and-a-half hours later than it was supposed to.
Porter quickly darted inside and went up the steps to get to the third floor. Before going down the hallway to find Jeso’s door, she stood at the top of the steps for a minute, just to make sure she wasn’t being followed. With no one coming, she then cautiously walked down the hall to find Jeso’s apartment. She stood in front of it, not doing anything other than listening, hoping to hear some movement or noises coming from inside. She stood there for a few minutes, but never heard a thing.
As Porter thought about how to enter the apartment, she wondered if she should knock first, just in the odd event J
eso was sleeping or had overslept. She put her hand on the door and knocked, though it was so faint, she wondered why she had even bothered. She could barely hear it, so she knew nobody else would have either. As she looked down at the door to figure out how she was getting in, she put her hand on the knob and turned it. To her surprise, it opened right up. This was definitely not normal, she thought. There was no way, in her mind, that Jeso, in his current state as a wanted man, would leave his door unlocked for anyone to enter.
Porter withdrew her weapon, holding it in front of her with both hands as she entered the apartment. It didn’t even take five seconds for her to know something was wrong. The place was a mess. Books, newspapers, DVDs, boxes, all that and more were thrown all over the floor. It looked like some type of fight had taken place. She slowly walked through the room, being careful to not make any noise in case someone was still there. As she got to the kitchen, it was more of the same. Broken pieces of glass and ceramic plates littered the tile floor. Porter saw the small hallway that led to the bathroom and one bedroom and went over to it, still moving cautiously along the way.
The bedroom door was closed, but once Porter got to it, she could tell it wasn’t completely shut. She put her hand on it and pushed it open all the way. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the bed. She closed her eyes and anger raged through her system as she jerked her head up and down, muttering expletives under her breath, furious with herself for allowing this to happen. She took a deep breath and tilted her head back, opening her eyes so they looked at the ceiling first.
Porter then turned her head back to the bedroom, allowing herself to look at the bed and the body that was lying on top of it. There was no need to investigate further, as the amount of blood that was all over the room was a clear sign that the man was no longer living. There was blood on the floor, the sheets were now stained red from their previous white color, and Jeso’s upper body was covered in the red liquid. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t making a sound. Porter already knew he was dead. But still, she had to move in closer to get a final look at him.
Considering the mess the rest of the apartment was in, the bedroom was remarkably clean, except for the blood. There didn’t seem to be any type of struggle in there. Porter figured most of the fight occurred in the rest of the apartment. They just used the bedroom once they were done with him. Once they were finished getting whatever information they needed from him. And once she got closer to him, she could see that they definitely tried getting information from him.
Jeso’s face was battered and bruised, cuts and abrasions all over it. There were several holes in his chest, but it wasn’t just a simple killing. If it were, they wouldn’t have taken the time to punch his face in. Whoever was after her definitely knew it was Jeso that had helped. How that happened, she didn’t know. But she knew there was nothing else she could do for him now other than grieve for him.
As much as Porter blamed herself for this and wanted to punish herself for allowing this to happen, she knew she had to put it aside for the moment and focus on what she needed to do to get out of there. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to flush the anger out of her system so she could focus and think clearly. Her mind immediately thought of Nails. She knew that Jeso had the money to pay for the forged documents, and she knew he had it in a backpack that was in the trunk of his car, assuming he didn’t bring it inside.
Porter started looking around the room for the keys to the car, checking Jeso’s pockets, as well as the two end tables on each side of the bed, along with going through the dresser drawers. The keys weren’t there, though. She assumed they must have been somewhere else in the apartment unless the men that did this already took them, although it was hard for her to understand why they would, unless it was standard procedure for them to check the cars of their victims for any useful information.
Just as Porter was about to exit the bedroom, she stopped dead in her tracks, thinking that she heard something. It sounded like the creaking that a door sometimes makes when it swings open. She remembered that she didn’t close it all the way, just in case she needed to get out of there fast. Maybe it was just the wind blowing it open, as Porter wasn’t sure if any of the windows were open. She hadn’t noticed if they were. But she wasn’t about to take any chances. She knew it wasn’t just her mind playing tricks on her. She definitely heard a creaking noise. Based on what had already happened in that apartment, she had to assume it was bad news.
Porter peeked her head out of the bedroom door, looking out to the main room, not observing anything out of the ordinary, at least as it pertained to what she walked into. She slowly walked out of the bedroom, clinging to the wall, holding her gun out in front of her, assuming she might have to use it any second. She started breathing more heavily as she got closer to the main room, thinking in her gut that something was wrong. She could just feel it.
She stood at the corner of the wall, just watching and listening, waiting for something or someone to appear. A few seconds later, she heard what sounded like a box being stepped on to the right of her. Porter jumped out into the main room, crouching down in her stance to make herself a smaller target. Just as she did, a shot rang out, the bullet whizzing past her and ripping into the plaster wall behind her. Calm as could be under the duress of being shot at, Porter remained composed and returned fire. She drilled the man in his right shoulder, his gun arm, and he flailed wildly to the ground, his gun falling quite a distance behind him.
Porter quickly looked around the room for anyone else, and upon seeing there was nobody else, rushed over to the fallen man. The man was alive and clutching at his shoulder, his fingers turning red from the blood spilling over. Before questioning the man, Porter went over and grabbed his gun, tucking it in her pants. She then closed the front door and locked it, just in case the man had any friends coming. Then she finally turned her attention to the injured man.
Porter grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar and spun him around, that way her back wouldn’t be toward the door as she questioned him. She had a feeling that her time there would be limited, and she didn’t want to get caught off guard again. The two just stared at each other for a few seconds, neither saying a word, the man looking a little surprised that he was still alive. He figured she would have finished him off by now.
“What are you doing here?” Porter asked, still trying to slow down her breathing from all the excitement.
“I’m not talking.”
Porter immediately got angry and crouched down, sticking her thumb into the bullet hole in his shoulder. The man shouted out in extreme pain. Porter didn’t know what possessed her to do that, but it was just a reflex action, a move she had obviously performed before whether she remembered it or not.
“You better start telling me what I want to know or I will make your existence a very painful one.”
“Torture me all you want,” the man said. “I’m not telling you anything.”
Porter grabbed the man’s arm and completely bent it in a way that it wasn’t meant to, stretching ligaments, breaking a bone, and bringing the man more agony than he knew existed.
“I can do that for every part of your body if you want,” Porter said. “And I won’t even give you the satisfaction of killing you so the pain will go away. I’ll just leave you here so you can feel every ounce of pain and suffering.”
In truth, the man knew he didn’t have to hold out for much longer. He knew help was on the way and should arrive any minute. There was no point, in his mind, in taking a beating like she was obviously capable of dishing out, when they probably weren’t going to be able to talk long enough for him to say anything worthwhile. Porter leaned down, ready to unleash some more punishment, but the man had had enough.
“All right,” the man finally said. “I’ll talk.”
“Why did you kill Jeso?”
The man closed his eyes and breathed heavily, trying to block the pain out of his mind. “We were trying to find you.”
&
nbsp; “So? Why torture him? Why kill him? It wasn’t necessary. You could’ve just left him be.”
“He knows too much now.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
A path of rage flowed through Porter’s veins and she wasn’t able to control it. With her gun firmly entrenched in her hand, she reached back and nailed the man in the face with it, causing a big gash to open up on his face. The cut ranged from just above his eye, across his forehead and down to the bridge of his nose.
“What do you people want with me?!”
Though the man’s sight was a little blurry at the moment and he was having trouble seeing, he still gave her a curious look.
“You don’t know?” the man asked.
Porter could tell that he asked the question with a genuine state of disbelief that she didn’t know why she was being followed.
“You stopped checking in. Left your assignment.”
“What assignment?” Porter asked, her memory still not coming back to her. “Check in with whom?”
“Did something happen to you?”
“I woke up in a strange hotel a few days ago, not remembering anything about who I am, or even my name! I don’t know who I am, what I do, who or what I’m supposed to be, and I don’t know why you and your people keep coming after me!”
The man let out the slightest form of a laugh, though it was mostly suppressed by the pain he was feeling. “They thought you just went AWOL.”
“Who’s they?”
The man’s eyes started feeling heavy, and he was just about to pass out from the pain. “You’re gonna have to go in and tell them what happened. Or else they’ll keep coming.”
Porter put her gun down for a second and reached down and lifted the man up by his shirt. She needed more answers. She couldn’t let him fall into unconsciousness. Not now, when she felt like she had started to understand what was going on. She tried talking to him, shaking him, even lightly slapped his face, all in the name of keeping him awake. It was no use, though. Nothing worked, and he faded away.