Next Exit, Quarter Mile

by CW Browning

  “And the driver?”

  “I'm told he had no idea there was a bomb in his trunk,” he replied. “The bomb technicians got to it just in time. It was set to detonate at 2:30. They disabled it at 2:28.”

  Charlie finished his sandwich and wiped his mouth with his napkin.

  “They're all accounted for, then,” he said, reaching for his glass of ice water. “Hawk took care of the one here in DC. He located and neutralized it. The FBI did the rest.”

  Harry nodded.

  “What do we know about Philadelphia and New York?”

  “Both contained.” Charlie sat back in his chair, his gray eyes studying Harry. “You could have called to tell me about Boston. What's on your mind?”

  Harry grinned ruefully.

  “I just got some news,” he admitted. “You may already know, but I thought I'd better come and make sure.”

  Harry fell silent as the waitress appeared and set his hamburger down in front of him. She took Charlie's empty plate with a smile and disappeared again. When she was gone, Charlie raised an eyebrow and looked at him expectantly.

  “Well?”

  “There was an explosion in Maryland about half an hour ago,” Harry told him. “It sounds like another bomb.”

  Charlie nodded.

  “I got the call a few minutes ago,” he confirmed. “It was in a car driven by the man they think put the bomb in John Smithe's wheel. He died in the flames.”

  Harry stared at him.

  “What the hell was he doing out in farmland?” he wondered. “Does she know?”

  “Not yet. She's working. I can't contact her.”

  Harry raised an eyebrow.

  “She found him?” he asked, the fifth bomb forgotten.

  Charlie smiled.

  “Yes.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Viper watched through the binoculars as Asad Jamal exited the side door of the house and went toward the detached garage in the back carrying a large black duffel bag. He disappeared into the small structure and she waited patiently. After a few moments, the door to the garage slid open and a navy pickup truck pulled out. She pursed her lips thoughtfully.

  “Now where do you think you're going?” she murmured quietly, watching as the pickup bounced down the dirt driveway toward the road.

  By now, Asad would have realized that not one of the bombs made its target. Not only had he failed in the original plan, but his back-up plan was also a bust. He would be furious. Viper smiled. That anger would make him careless, she knew, and it apparently already had, for here he was, leaving the relative safety of the house.

  And heading straight for her.

  Viper lowered the binoculars and pulled out her gun from her back holster. She wasn't far from the road, but she would still have to move quickly. Flipping the safety off, she raised her right arm and steadied the gun with her left hand. The pickup bounced into sight.

  Viper waited until it was passing the tree that concealed her before she squeezed the trigger. The gunshot rang out and for the second time in an hour, her bullet found its mark in a tire. The truck swerved, then came to a stop as Asad slammed on the brakes. When the truck came to a stop, he opened the door to climb out.

  He never knew what hit him. As soon as his feet hit the pavement, Viper was behind him. The butt of her pistol slammed into his temple and Asad crumbled to the ground, out cold.

  Viper watched as Asad Jamal groaned and came around. She had him tied securely to an old, plastic bucket seat reminiscent of the ones found in train stations. Handy things, those seats. They were bolted directly into concrete, making them impossible to move without jack-hammering them out. The one he was ensconced in was one of the few remaining from what used to be a row lined up along one side of the old factory. The seats on either side were removed long ago by scavengers, but this one was still firmly embedded in the old concrete floor. Light filtered through a window high up on the wall near the ceiling, reaching the chair almost like a spotlight. The rest of the abandoned and forgotten space was cloaked in shadows.

  She watched impassively as he rolled his head back and opened his eyes. He blinked in the murky light and frowned, trying to move. The frown turned into a scowl when he discovered his arms were secured to the chair behind him, making movement impossible. He jerked his arms, then sucked in his breath in pain.

  “I wouldn't move too much,” Viper spoke, watching as he turned his head, trying to see her. She stepped out of the shadows and he stared at her, his eyes narrowing. “I used fishing line. The more you struggle, the more it will tighten and cut into you.” She walked over to glance at his arms behind the chair and clucked her tongue. “Ouch.”

  “There is nothing you can do to me that hasn't already been done.”

  His accent was thick, but he spoke perfect English. Viper walked around to stand before him, considering him with her head tilted to the side.

  “I wouldn't be so sure of that,” she murmured. “Oxford?”

  He smiled politely.

  “Cambridge.”

  “Good. I don't have to worry about either of us being misunderstood.”

  Turning, she went back into the shadows, returning a moment later with a wooden chair. She turned it backwards and straddled it, facing him with her arms resting along the back. He stared back her, his face devoid of expression, and Viper smiled faintly.

  That would change soon enough.

  “Tell me how you came to be in the United States,” she said comfortably.

  “How do any of us come here?” he countered. “We rely on your naive notion of acceptance and diversity.”

  Viper flashed a grin.

  “Touché,” she murmured. “Just to be clear, though, they are not my naive notions. I have my own ideas about what should be accepted, and what should be rejected.”

  “So I've heard,” Asad replied, his dark eyes glinting in the low light. “You've made quite a name for yourself, Lady Viper.” Her eyebrow soared and he smiled tightly. “Oh yes. I know who you are.”

  “Good! That will cut down on formalities,” she announced. “It makes things easier. It's always better when everyone knows exactly what they're dealing with. So, let's try this again. How did you get here? And don't try my patience by telling me you crossed the border from Mexico.”

  Asad was silent and she sighed.

  With one smooth motion, Viper pulled her knife from the holster at her ankle and threw it. The blade impaled itself in his thigh and Asad's whole body jerked in both surprise and pain. As soon as he surged forward, the wire holding him tightened again, digging further into his forearms. He sucked in his breath as blood dripped down his arms and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

  “I was invited,” he finally choked out.

  “Thank you,” she said politely, getting up and walking over to him. She reached down and wrenched her knife out of his leg. He flinched, but managed to not send the lines further into his arms. “Who invited you?”

  “Who invited you into my country?” Asad countered. “You come and go as you please, but do not allow others to do the same.”

  “Well, you can't really blame us,” Viper said, glancing at him as she walked back to her chair. “We have an old-fashioned aversion to being beheaded here.”

  “Ironic choice of words, coming from you.”

  She raised her eyebrow.

  “Oh? Why?”

  “For four years, you made your home in the country that invented the guillotine,” he told her. “Yet you speak to me of an aversion to beheading.”

  Viper studied him, her attention caught.

  “What makes you think I lived in France?”

  “I don't think, I know,” Asad replied arrogantly. “A nice little farmhouse near Montpellier, wasn't it?”

  Viper's eyes narrowed.

  “The wine was really quite outstanding,” she said. “It more than made up for any decapitating proclivities the French may have had in the past. How did you find out about tha
t?”

  Asad shrugged, then clenched his jaw as the wire cut even further into his arms.

  “Once you know what to look for, information is very easy to find,” he rasped.

  “How true.” Viper sat again and considered him thoughtfully. “Tell me about where you get your information.”

  “I imagine it is from sources similar to yours. I know people who know things.”

  “Highly doubtful,” Viper said, shaking her head. “You don't have the resources to know people who know things. You've burned bridges with other sects instead of building the kind of network needed to cultivate information. Your leader, who might have been able to barter for information, is dead. The only thing you have is a benefactor who allows you to know what you need to know to complete your mission. So, no. I wouldn't say it's similar to where I get my information at all.”

  “We're not so different, you and I,” Asad said with gravelly laugh. “You say I have burned my bridges, and that is true. Yes. Our methods are deemed too extreme and too violent by many other faithful followers of Islam. We have been outcast, left to fend for ourselves and make our way as best we can in the time given to us. Yet, you are the same. You haven't been outcast, but you have removed yourself. You have determined your own methods to be too extreme and unacceptable by the absurd Christian standard your culture was built upon. While you have a network for your information to flow through, you have no brotherhood in your life. No family to lean on. No past to support you. You are just as isolated as me. The only difference is that I have made peace with Allah's will for me. You have not.”

  Viper smiled faintly, her eyes dark and emotionless.

  “You're mistaken,” she said softly. “I'm perfectly at peace with what I do.”

  Asad looked at her, his dark eyes piercing.

  “Is that what you told the old sensei in South America?” he asked silkily.

  Viper's eyes narrowed abruptly and she stared hard at him.

  “My, you do seem to have stumbled across a few gems.”

  “You went to him in search of meaning, did you not?” Asad continued. “You suddenly questioned your very purpose and existence. He offered you insight. After two years, though, nothing had really changed, had it? All the doubts were still there. You were still expected to fight for an outdated sense of morality that has roots in corruption and hypocrisy. You've seen this for yourself. Yet, you still returned to it. Why?”

  “Why do you fight for what you believe in?” she countered.

  “Because Allah wills it,” he answered promptly. “You have no such conviction to compel you to do the things you do. Yet you call us terrorists.”

  “I don't need conviction to recognize evil,” Viper said coldly. “I happen to believe in that outdated sense of morality you hold in such low esteem. It seems to work for us here, whereas your conviction has done nothing but destroy the lands you call home time and time again.”

  “My lands would not be filled with discontent if it weren't for the corruption of...”

  Asad's words were cut off suddenly as her blade buried itself in his shoulder. He gasped in shock and surprise, wrenching against the fishing wire in reaction. A cry of pain ripped out of him as the wire sliced deeper into his arms.

  “I have no use for your rhetoric. It bores me. Tell me who brought you here. Or should I find Kasim?”

  Asad looked at her, startled. She shrugged.

  “It's those damn informational networks I've made,” she said apologetically. “Nothing stays hidden forever.”

  Asad let loose with a stream of Arabic. In two strides, Viper reached him and delivered a stunning blow to his face with her fist that snapped his head back painfully.

  “Watch your mouth,” she hissed in his native tongue. “I am not one of your women to abuse at will.”

  She grabbed her knife and pulled it out of his shoulder, turning to walk around him. She glanced down at his arms. The wire had gone down to the bone on one arm, and blood was pouring rapidly from both, pooling on the concrete below. She didn't have much more time.

  “Tell me who brought you here and I'll make sure Kasim lives out his days in a maximum security prison without possibility of release and three square meals a day,” Viper told him, circling around to face him, her words short and clipped. “Don't tell me, and I will personally cut him into pieces, starting with his toes, while he watches. Do you understand?”

  “Even if you find him, Kasim will never tell you what you want to know,” Asad spit out. “He doesn't know.”

  “That's going to suck for him, then,” she said decidedly, “unless you step up and be a big brother.”

  “Like David did when you were blamed for punching a hole in the dining room wall?”

  Asad's words stopped her cold and Viper stared at him, her face suddenly expressionless.

  “What did you say?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

  “You always did have an anger management problem, didn't you?” he asked, his voice almost taunting. “Of course, over the years you learned to bury it, keep it under control. You got blamed for the hole in the wall when, in fact, Dave was the one who put his fist through it. Even when he told the truth, they didn't believe him, did they?”

  Viper stared at him, her eyes narrowed.

  “You certainly seem to know a lot about me,” she finally said. “Things no one else does.”

  Asad grinned.

  “We're enemies,” he replied. “What did you expect? I study my opponents very carefully.”

  “Hmm. How disappointing.”

  “Disappointing?” Asad raised his eyebrows. “What is?”

  “This whole time you’ve been talking, it seemed like you were tapping into me. I thought perhaps, for once, someone actually understood,” she said slowly. “For a few, glorious moments, I thought someone finally got me. I thought you understood me because we are so similar.”

  Asad looked at her for a moment.

  “And what changed your mind?”

  “Well, clearly you don't know a thing about me.”

  “Why do you say that? I think I've shown I know quite a bit about you.”

  Viper smiled and Asad visibly shuddered. She walked around him slowly, trailing the flat of her blade across his collarbone and around the outside of his shoulder. Once she was partially behind him, she leaned down to whisper directly into his ear.

  “If you really knew me, then you would know I don't have enemies. I have targets.”

  Her blade flashed in the dim light as it sank into the side of Asad's throat, driven by the full force of Vipers arm. A practiced twist of her wrist spun the blade a quarter rotation inside his throat, shifting the hilt so it was parallel with the floor. When Viper swept her wrist forward, the knife ruptured Asad's carotid artery and sliced through his esophagus in one movement, ripping out the front of his throat. A strangled gasp was followed by a choking gurgle as Asad collapsed forward, blood pouring from his severed throat.

  As he slumped forward, dead, Viper calmly plucked an ear piece from inside his ear.

  “And now I'm coming for you,” she promised coldly, speaking into the receiver to the unknown and invisible prompter on the other end.

  She dropped the ear piece on the cement floor and lowered her heel onto it sharply, crushing it into pieces before turning to leave the cold and abandoned factory.

  Note from Author

  Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed Next Exit, Quarter Mile, please take a moment to leave an honest review. Reviews are invaluable to authors, and it would be greatly appreciated!

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  Copyright © 2018 by Clare Wroblewski

  All rights reserved.

&n
bsp; Cover design by Dissect Designs / www.dissectdesigns.com

  Book design by Clare Wroblewski

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

  CW Browning

  Visit my website at www.cwbrowning.com

  First Printing: 2018

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  Also by CW Browning

  Kai Corbyn Series

  Games of Deceit

  Shadows of War

  The Courier

  The Oslo Affair

  Night Falls on Norway

  The Iron Storm

  Into the Iron Shadows (Coming Soon)

  The Exit Series

  Next Exit, Three Miles

  Next Exit, Pay Toll

  Next Exit, Dead Ahead

  Next Exit, Quarter Mile

  Next Exit, Use Caution

  Next Exit, One Way

  Next Exit, No Outlet

  The Exit Series Box Set #1: Books 1-3

  Watch for more at CW Browning’s site.