Authors: Victor Methos
Jack had hoped to take the bomb away from the water source but he wasn’t sure how much time he had. He ran his hands over the device until he came to a small plastic stub. It was a timer. It was set to ignite in less than two minutes. No wires to detach, no mechanisms to pull apart. Agamemnon had thought of that. He couldn’t see a way to stop the timer from counting down.
Jack pulled the device onto the sand. He buried it as far down as he could and then covered it with his own body. The explosion should shoot directly upward. A massive volcano of heat. He wrapped his arms around it, his chest directly over it, and waited.
He thought of his family. His sister and Autumn. He thought of his mother and father. How quickly he had accepted her word that she was actually the woman that gave birth to him. The certainty burned within him that she was telling the truth. Why hadn’t he sensed it before? How had she seen it but he hadn’t?
So many questions filled his mind that he couldn’t keep track of them. So he let them go. Instead, he thought of a single memory. A place he had been to in Chile with his work at the DEA. A small island off Valparaiso. Meant exclusively for wealthy tourists, who Jack was trying to emulate at the time, the beaches were white sand with a green canopy backdrop just off the beach. The water was so clear he could see the coral on the bottom even from the beach as the sun heated his face and he listened to the crackle of the waves on the shore.
He couldn’t help but smile at the memory as the timer beeped, and the device detonated.
CHAPTER 58
Colonel Tiberius Finley sat on the veranda of the café, wearing shorts and a red and white Hawaiian shirt. Leave was not an easy thing in his position, so when it was granted, he liked to take it in as exotic a location as possible. This year, his wife had chosen St. Martin.
The margaritas were cold and the temperature rose to over a hundred. The heat was cleansing somehow. He felt cleaner here than he did in the cold of Fort Langley, his permanent station now. Sipping his drink, he saw his wife sit down across from him and he glanced at her.
Only it wasn’t his wife.
Heidi appeared tan and her hair was streaked blond. She looked younger than she had when he had seen her five months ago.
“You look good,” he said. “Skinny and brown.”
“I’ve been getting a lot of sun time.”
He smiled. “You always did take too many vacations.”
“Never been one for staying on base too long.”
He took another sip. “How’d you find me?”
“You’d be amazed what a little flirting with an assistant can do.”
He shook his head. “I knew I should’ve hired a female for that. What is it you want from me, Heidi? I’ve left you alone.”
“I know you have and I appreciate that, Ty. I really do. It’s not me I’m worried about, though.”
He nodded. “Agamemnon’s too dangerous to leave out there.”
“He’s secure. I’m helping him get back to the way he was.”
“You think that’s possible?”
“I don’t know. But I have to try.”
“Why? This is what I never got; why do you have to try? You don’t owe him anything. When he injected himself with that poison, did he even think about you or the young son you had at home? He didn’t give a second thought to either of you. Power was what mattered to him. You don’t owe him a damn thing.” He took a long drink this time before placing it back down on the table. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me where you stashed him.”
“No, I won’t subject him to that again. Not ever, Ty.”
He exhaled. “Then what is it you want from me?”
“I want you to leave him alone. This cost me my family once, and it cost me my son again. I have to keep my husband. He’s all I’ve got left.”
“You really think Jack’s dead?”
“Did you read the witness statements?”
“Yeah, I read them. He took the full blast and the explosion didn’t reach the atmosphere. But they didn’t find a body.”
“It would’ve been incinerated.”
He leaned forward. “Now, you wouldn’t just be trying to convince me of this to keep me from looking for him, would you?”
“I came here to ask you, to beg you, to not search for my husband. Leave him alone, Ty. He’s changing. Please, just leave him alone.”
“I can’t do that. I’m going to find him. And when I do, you’re going to have to make a choice. I just hope you make the right one.”
She stood. “Your wife’s coming. I better go. You should know you haven’t even seen me begin to fight. I protect my family like nothing else in the world.”
“I know.”
She nodded. “Good bye, Ty.”
“Bye.” She had taken a few steps when Finley said, “Heidi. If your son is still alive, I’m coming after him too. Don’t ever let me find out he is.”
She turned and walked away without responding.
Nicole Kane heard voices from her daughter’s room and ran out of the second-floor bathroom to her room. She swung open the door and saw Autumn leaned down by her window, looking outside.
“What’re you doing, sweetheart?”
“I was talking to my friend.”
“Which friend?”
“I can’t tell you. He said it’s a secret.”
“Oh really? And what else did this friend say?”
“He said that he’s going to be looking out for me.”
She smirked. It wasn’t the first time Autumn had had an imaginary friend. “Shut the window, Autumn. I have to turn on the alarm.”
“Okay, Mommy.” She leaned out the window. “Bye, Uncle Jack.”
“What did you say?”
She looked at her and smiled. “Nothing, Mommy. It was just my friend.”
EPILOGUE
Harvey Woods ran out of the grocery store like a dog on fire. He sprinted out of the automatic doors, slamming through them before they had opened all the way. He ran into the street and jumped into the waiting car as it peeled out, the tires screeching and leaving behind a trail of smoke in the darkness of a Los Angeles night.
“How much?” his partner, Dave, shouted.
“At least ten Gs. Turn here.”
The car swerved right so suddenly that it nearly spun out of control. They didn’t keep much money in the tills but he knew that right before midnight they opened the safe for a deposit. He had filled a plastic bag with as much cash as he could and ran out with only having to fire a single round in the air.
The car, stolen a few hours before, got up to over a hundred miles an hour in a residential street before Dave slammed the brakes and turned down another street. They didn’t slow down until they were near downtown and houses were replaced by buildings.
“The manager pissed his pants. He wasn’t even—”
An impact on the car sent Harvey through the windshield. He soared through the air, his vision spinning as he hit the ground like a sack of cement and groaned, the wind knocked out of him. He lay motionless, acutely feeling the pain in his two broken wrists and shattered hip. Looking back to the car, it appeared like it had been in an accident. But there was nothing that…
He saw a figure rise on the hood of the car out of the blackness. It was darker than night, so dark he hadn’t seen it at first. The figure silently flipped his body off the car and tore off the driver’s side door. Dave’s head was bleeding and he was disoriented but he still managed to pull out his piece and aim.
The figure reached up and snatched the gun away, twisting the barrel and throwing the useless weapon to the ground. He pulled Dave out of the car and laid him flat on the road. He leaned down over him and said something to him. Harvey was close enough to hear.
“TELL YOUR FRIENDS THE DRAGON IS HUNTING THEM.”
In an instant, the figure was gone as sirens wailed in the distance.
As the police tried to question him, while he was being strapped to a gurney, he kept his eyes on the tall buildings close by. On top of one he could see an outline. It was a man, standing on the edge, looking over the city as if it were his and no one else’s.
Harvey blinked, and the man was gone.
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BY VICTOR METHOS
Jon Stanton Thrillers
Thrillers
Murder Corporation (A Crime Thriller)
Creature-Feature Novels
Science Fiction
Star Dreamer: The Early Science Fiction of Victor Methos
Humor
Earl Lindquist: Accountant and Zombie Killer
Philosophical Fiction
Existentialism and Death on a Paris Afternoon
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