alertness.
“I have a safe house in Washington,” said Sam matter-of-factly.
Both the Senator and Clark turned to face Sam.
Senator Clark beat Clark to the question.
“Are you mad? We’ve just risked our lives getting out of there!”
“Exactly,” replied Sam as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s the last place they’ll look. Just one quick stop though,” he announced as they pulled off of the New Jersey Turnpike and headed into a town called Edison.
One minute later, they were pulling into the lot of The Edison Lock-Up Storage Facility. They drove straight past the office and pulled to a stop in front of a garage-sized unit. Two minutes later, Sam had removed the combination style padlock and was backing a silver 2008 Toyota Camry from the lock-up. Clark drove the Maine police cruiser into the now empty garage.
Senator Baker climbed into the passenger seat of the Camry. Clark took the back seat.
Senator Baker kept looking around the car as though he had never seen one before.
“Something wrong?” asked Sam.
“But…but…I mean, how?”
“I think what the Senator is trying to say,” picked up Clark. “Is exactly when did you arrange for the car to be here?”
“Why do you think it’s a 2008 model?”
“Three years, this car has been here for three years?!” exclaimed the Senator.
“Japanese reliability. What can I say? I had it on a trickle charger which kept the battery alive. Other than that, it’s as good as the day I bought it.”
“What yesterday? The Senator had just checked the odometer. “Twenty miles on a three year old car?”
“Turned over first time. No wonder it’s the best-selling car in America and in this color too,” said Sam.
Clark smiled, she got the point. They were now driving the most common car in America and in the most common color.
As they drove down the I95, silence descended. It was the first time they had been able to relax since that morning. The full brunt of what had happened began to hit the Senator. Something he had done had led to the murder of Sam’s family which had subsequently led to the death of at least two drivers in the attack against Sam. The deaths of the killers at Newark or at Sam’s did not bother him in the least. They were there to kill him. He would not lose sleep over them but the others, that was a different matter entirely.
“So what happens when we get to Washington?” asked the Senator, keen to busy his mind with anything but the dead.
“I get you two safe.”
“And?” prodded the Senator.
Sam didn’t answer so Clark interjected.
“What then, we reach out to people we can trust?”
Sam let the question hang before answering.
“Guys, have you not figured it out yet?”
“What?” they asked in unison.
“We can’t trust anyone, we’re as good as dead. The President of the United States, or somebody acting within his authority, is trying to kill us. There cannot be a happy ending.”
“But surely there is something we can do?” asked Clark, naive about how the truly powerful lived their lives.
“There is nothing
“What?”
“Make whoever started this wish they hadn’t been born!”
It was only when the bug’s signal died that he realized something was wrong. He had been tailing them from a mile back when the signal stopped moving. The map ruled out a gas station and showed some sort of warehouse facility. He had sped up and thanked God for the female secret service agent. He had caught sight of her in the backseat of the Camry as they pulled out of what he discovered was a storage facility. He had lost the bug but not them. Well at least, not yet. He had to turn and follow them without them noticing, not something he could do easily, as he had to assume they had seen his car.
Fortunately, the street was residential. With little or no time, he pulled to a stop and got out. His driving gloves ensured no prints would be found in the abandoned car. He jogged up to the first house and rang the door bell. The Ford Focus parked in the driveway would be perfect.
The door opened to reveal a pleasant young woman with a baby in her arms. She smiled at the stranger. Edison was consistently ranked amongst the best and safest places to live in America.
“I need your car keys,” the stranger announced, no preamble or pleasantries. The pistol appeared in front of the young mother’s face before she had a chance to protest.
With her maternal instinct to protect her baby, she instantly nodded towards the key rack behind the door.
The silenced bullet ended her life without warning. She had not even had a chance to turn to see her baby for the last time. Her body fell backwards, the baby saved by her lifeless body hitting the hard wood floor first. The stranger heard footsteps rushing towards him. The thud of the body hitting the floor must have alerted somebody else.
“Honey, are you OK?” A voice came from deeper in the house.
The stranger waited as the young father ran towards his own death. He looked down with pity towards the soon-to-be orphaned baby. He couldn’t help but think that being brought up as an orphan wasn’t that bad. He had done very well and was rich beyond his wildest dreams in a line of work that was recession proof. In fact, the recession had proved particularly lucrative. Nothing pissed off a rich person more than losing money and a lot of rich people had lost a lot of money. Care homes had made him tough. The Marines had made him a killer. A psych evaluation designated him a sociopath and ended his career dishonorably. As a sniper, he was supposed to have been a little more selective over his targets. Being in the vicinity of a man with a weapon did not constitute a legitimate target in Baghdad. What had been the end of one undistinguished career was merely the beginning of a far more lucrative one; one of Lawson’s’ assistants had contacted him for a meeting not long after he had returned to the US. The billionaire had pulled the sniper’s military file out in front of him and reading his psych evaluation had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. From that day on, he had become the billionaire’s personal assassin.
The father took the round through his right eye and joined his wife. The stranger picked up the key and left. The baby could not identify him nor point out that their car was missing.
It had taken a little over forty five seconds to change cars and effectively end three lives, forty five seconds that he had to hope were not too much.
A quick burst of speed to catch up with the Toyota paid off. He could see them turning left onto US 1-S up ahead. Five seconds more and he would have missed the turn.
As he settled down to follow his targets, he thought back to the parking lot at the Howard Johnson in Newark. He had arrived just as all hell was breaking loose inside. He had spotted the Maine cruiser and had assumed that the only reason it was there was because of the brother and if they did make it out of the hotel, it was their most likely escape route. He did chastise himself for a lack of explosives and lack of rifle but Lawson had been very clear. ‘Get there and get there as quick as you fucking can!’ That had resulted in only one weapon being available, his pistol. He comforted himself with the fact that at least he had his silencer.
This was not like Lawson’s previous targets. The sniper had become used to dispatching businessmen, lawyers, accountants or whatever unlucky son of a bitch had upset the cantankerous billionaire. Not that it took much to upset Lawson to the point he wanted to end your life. The sniper was now up against at least one well trained operative and a high profile target. The finding of the Maine cruiser had doubled the number of trained operatives and would ensure a careful approach to completing the job. With explosives and his favored rifle out and the likelihood of an all out and messy fire-fight if he tried to take them down with a pistol in the parking lot, he had no option but to track and trail.
