Authors: Kelly Abell
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I asked her to help us.” Hutch’s voice hitched. He cleared his throat. “She was furious about what was happening to her country and I talked her into nosing around to see if she could find out anything.” Hutch cleared his throat again. “She located a woman that worked directly in the inner sanctum itself and knew all about plans for weapons of mass destruction. I was meeting with that woman the night it happened.”
Jack knew what night Hutch was referring to and he said softly. “Why did Warren think Ileana was the target?”
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I’m not sure, man. I guess because we were meeting so often he assumed she knew something. I gave you the dossier on the woman I was meeting with so you could explain everything to that lunatic but he grabbed her before you could get to him. She was half dead by the time you got there and when you tried to stop him, he cracked your skull with a rifle butt.” Anger mixed with the grief and his voice became low and threatening. “I swear, Jack, if I had been there I would have killed that son of a bitch without even thinking twice. I loved her, man. She did not have to die like that.”
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What happened after I was knocked out? I remember waking up and someone; it must have been Warren, kicking me in the face with his boot. I don’t remember anything after that, except you guys telling me there was an explosion and I was in the blast zone.” Jack looked Hutch in the eye. “That wasn’t true was it?”
Hutch shook his head. “It was Kent’s idea. He knew we killed an innocent girl and he didn’t want to deal with the backlash. He covered for Warren and forced me to lie to you about what happened that night.”
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I guess no one counted on the fact that I would remember.”
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Nope, no one did. Once you started having those nightmares and you told Kent about them he got nervous. That was why he moved you into the CIA, so he could keep an eye on you. If you started remembering too much he could act.”
Jack thought about this for a moment. He looked at the screen and then back at Hutch. “You encoded the files, didn’t you?”
Hutch nodded. “Warren came to me about a year ago and told me what was going down. He said Mohammed was black mailing him with what he knew and if Warren went along with him he would see to it that Warren never became President. Mohammed gave Warren money for his campaign and that locked Warren down even tighter. Jack, I’ve never seen anyone want anything so badly that they would sell their very soul to the devil, but that is what Warren did.
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He brought me the notes and told me he wanted me to encode the files so no one but me could get into them. If something happened to him he wanted me to go public with the story and smoke out Rabin. He told me Rabin had information on all of us, you included.
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I believed him, Jack. I had just begun to get over my grief for Illy when Warren showed up on my doorstep bringing it all back again. I had worked for years to build up this business and I have some wealthy clients that would not be too happy with me if this scandal ever got out into the open. At the time I thought it was my only option.”
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There are always other options, Hutch.” Jack felt sorry for his friend. “Was Mohammed that bent on revenge? I know she was his sister but all that he’s been doing seems quite extreme. What’s in it for him?”
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Mohammed is extreme Islam. He was promised a leadership position if he would help infiltrate the American Infidels government. He would be revered in the eyes of Allah, or some such shit. Then when Illy was killed he saw it as a sign from Allah that he had to take control. The Americans had to die. He felt if he could control the American Government on its highest level, he could bring it down. Somewhere along the line he just went plain nuts. With what he was holding over Warren’s head there would be no way Walters could be President if it all came out.” Hutch grabbed Jack’s forearms and leaned in to him. “You’ve got to stop him Jack. Bad things are going to happen. Really bad things. This guy is insane.”
Jack caught a movement on one of the monitors to his left. He turned and stared intently at it. He spotted a man moving slowly from the cabin back toward the woods. “You expecting company, Hutch?”
Hutch’s face grew alarmed. “Shit,” he exclaimed. “It’s Cortez’s crew. The Emp-Mohammed sent them after you. I was supposed to lure you here so he could take care of you.”
Jack saw more men gathering toward the back of the driveway. “Damn it, Hutch. I thought I could trust you. I knew I was taking a risk, but I hoped I was wrong. I hoped you couldn’t be bought by those bastards.”
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Listen, Jack, we’ve got to act fast.” Hutch was pulling a rug back from the polished floor revealing a trap door underneath. As he swung the door backward he said, “Drop down through here. There’s a motorboat full of gas just underneath the cabin. Head east and up the coast of the island. There’s a marina there. Tie off the boat and take the black BMW in space number 47. You got that? Number 47.”
Jack was already moving toward the hole. “Why are you doing this?” Jack was half way down when he looked up at Hutch.
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Because you tried to save her, man. Now get going.”
Jack dropped down into the boat and grabbed for the cord on the old fashioned outboard motor.
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Jack,” Hutch’s face appeared in the hole above him. “Here.”
He tossed him a disc and a set of car keys, which Jack caught and put in his pocket. The sound of a bullet zinging past his head made him duck. “What’s on the disc?”
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It’s the decoded version. Now go, man, hurry.”
Jack fired up the engine and roared out from under the little cabin. He kept his head low as he heard the popping of rifle shots all around him. He was barely out of the mangroves when an explosion rocked the air around him. The cabin went up in an orange ball of flame. The force of the blast threw him flat into the bottom of the boat and he nearly lost control of the small craft.
Jack lifted his head cautiously and peered out over the side of the boat. “Hutch!” Jack shouted, but Hutch wouldn’t hear him. The burning splinters of wood floating in the water were all that was left of the cabin and his friend. The thought of it made him sick but the high pitched whine of another bullet whizzing past his head reminded Jack he was not out of danger yet. He revved the engine and headed out into open water.
Within minutes he had reached the marina that Hutch had told him about. He pulled the small motorboat alongside on of the mooring slips and leapt to the wooden dock. He tied off the boat, patted his pockets to make sure the disc was still there, and groped for the car keys Hutch had thrown him before being blown into a million pieces.
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Damn it,” Jack cursed aloud. Tears stung his eyes and emotion clogged the back of his throat. He had suspected that Hutch was involved somehow with the Emperor, or Mohammed as Jack now knew, but he didn’t deserve to be dead. Hutch was a decent man at heart and it hurt Jack to know his friend had died protecting him, even if he had set him up in the first place.
Jack dashed to the parking lot. He scanned the rows of brightly painted spaces for number 47. He found the row and walked swiftly to the car, unlocked it and got in. He sped out of the parking lot fast enough to throw some gravel, but not fast enough to draw the attention of everyone in the yacht club. He didn’t want anyone to think he was stealing the car and call the police. That would delay his escape and he knew it was only a matter of time before Cortez’s men figured out where he was.
He drove out of the marina and headed straight for the highway off the island. He was getting a very uneasy feeling about leaving Caroline alone and felt a sense of urgency to get back to her. As if confirming his fears, his cell phone rang. Jack looked at the read out. It was his sister, Lucy.
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Hi Luce, what’s up?”
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Jack, we’ve got a real problem.” Lucy’s voice sounded full of panic.
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Calm down, Lucy and tell me what’s wrong.”
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I’ve had a very trusted friend at the Bureau monitoring our personnel files let me know if anyone tagged them. Jack, they were tagged yesterday afternoon. I am pretty sure they were broken into by a guy named Chuck Leta, one of the Bureau geeks. He hasn’t been back to work since the files were tagged.”
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Where is he, Lucy?”
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He was bragging to another co-worker in the office that he was working on a special project.”
Jack’s stomach felt like it had dropped through his butt to the floorboard of the car. He stepped on the gas and increased his speed. He did not like the sound of this at all. “Who was he working for Lucy?”
Lucy started to cry. She rarely ever cried. Jack was getting alarmed now.
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Lucy? Baby, calm down. Take a few deep breaths.”
Jack could hear her breathing on the other end of the phone. She sighed heavily and then spoke slowly. “Jack, Chuck was working for Warren Walters.”
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Oh, shit!” Jack exclaimed. He pushed the car even harder. He prayed with all his being that all the Florida Highway Patrol had decided to take a break as he rocketed over the long bridges to the mainland.
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Jack if he’s seen those files, then he knows about the house in Plant City. Where are you now?”
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I’m on my way back there. I’m several hours away. Let me call Caroline and tell her to get away from there.”
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You left her alone? What the hell were you thinking? Walters could be on his way there right now.”
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You don’t have to remind me of that,” Jack said nastily. “I’m driving as fast as I can. I should be there by early morning. Let me call her and tell her to get out of the house.”
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Jack, what can I do?” Lucy sounded as sick as he felt.
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Nothing, right now. I’ve got the evidence I need to put these guys away and stop the plot on Michael Hardy. When I can I’m going to email the files to you and I want you to take them to the Chief. I’ll call you once I get back to the house.”
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Okay. Jack please be careful.”
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I will, Luce, and hey…thanks for watching those files. I would have never known what was going on if you hadn’t been paying attention. I owe you, Sis.”
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I love you Jack, for God’s sake watch your ass.”
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Love you too, gotta go.”
Jack punched the button and then rapidly punched another one. The phone belonging to the farmhouse in Plant City began to ring. It rang and rang and rang. No answer. He prayed with all his being that she was just in the shower or outside in the barn, although he’d told her not to leave the house. There was no way to know how much of a lead Warren had on him. He felt sick. He was so stupid to leave her alone. He flung the cell phone on the seat next to him and focused all his attention on the dark road before him.
Chapter 40
Caroline placed the last of her breakfast dishes in the dish drainer and folded the dishtowel. She looked at her watch it was seven o’clock. She wondered what she would do with the rest of her day. She awoke just before dawn, her stomach churning with the anxiety of being alone. Jack being away unnerved her. She missed his warm body next to hers in the small bed. It gave her comfort and with him, she felt safe. Without him she was hearing every pop and crack the small house made as it settled on it’s sandy foundation.
She laughed to herself. Not more than three weeks ago she relished being left alone, now it bothered her. Caroline never thought she would need companionship. She had gotten so used to being without it and living her life as Warren’s puppet. Now that she had someone she could talk to and confide in, someone who understood what she felt inside, almost on a cellular level, she missed him.
She wandered around the small house looking at the family photos on the walls and thought about what Jack shared with her about his family. The one on the sideboard in the dining nook was the one she liked the best. There were two old people standing against a white fence, with the big red barn standing silent watch behind them. In front of them stood a teenage boy and girl who Caroline recognized as Jack and his sister Lucy. They favored each other; Jack with his long dark hair, almost to his shoulders with heavy bangs almost covering his eyes, and Lucy with the same coal black hair hanging past her shoulders. Lucy was taller than Jack in this picture, but that wasn’t unusual for girls of that age to be taller than boys. The smiles on all four of them told Caroline how happy that moment had been. She must ask Jack about it when he returned.
This thought caused the knot in her stomach to tighten. She hadn’t heard from Jack in almost 24 hours. She was sure he would call when he reached the Keys, and he’d had plenty of time to get there by now. Caroline remembered what Jack said about there being a lot of dangerous people after him and she worried that the longer he stayed exposed, the more likely they would catch him. What would she do if he didn’t come back? The thought made her physically ill. She couldn’t deny it any longer. She was falling in love with Jack Weaver. Oh God, what a mess, she thought as she stared at the long-haired boy in the photo. She loved him and every instinct in her brain screamed out that she shouldn’t. These feelings couldn’t grow into anything meaningful for either of them.