Hell Bent

Jack straightened. His finger released the safety on the gun and then slid into the groove of the trigger.

Then he saw the look on his mark’s face. Wistful, earnest. He recognized it for what it was.

After all, he had kids of his own.

In that instant, he knew he couldn’t do it. For the first time in his career, he would fail to finish a job.

Though his entire body had gone rigid, his hand shook.

As Anderson opened her car door and threw her purse inside, Jack took a deep breath, lowering his gun.

A strange whispering sound split through the night. Teresa Anderson jerked forward, her blood spraying the leather seat in front of her. A second whisper sliced the air and Jack flinched, for the first time in his life, instantly sickened by the display of death before him.

Something inside of him clicked into place. Before he could give real thought to what had happened, he instinctively knew what was going on. And though his mind recoiled at the thought, his body knew what to do.

He surged toward the car, grabbed Teresa Anderson’s purse, and was running through the darkness before Anderson’s body hit the ground. He made it to his car, got in, and rammed the gear shift into drive, forcing himself to go slow enough through the parking lot that his progress would not be detected by the next customers now coming out of the gas station across the street.

Both tail lights, as well as the fog lights and the interior lights, had been removed from the vehicle long ago. There was no license plate on the car and the paint was a matte black. The windows were tinted to nearly the same shade.

The car had been primed for running drugs, not assassins, but it suited Jack’s purpose in the same way and for the same reasons.

Jack drove across the grass surrounding the apartment complex to further muffle the sound of his tires. The path he took had been carefully pre-determined and he followed it just as he would have if he’d done the job as planned.

Once he made it across the field and pulled out onto an adjoining street, he drove just under the speed limit to another parking lot several miles away. There, he got out and, after screwing a silencer onto the end of his gun with shaking hands, he fired two rounds into the dirt of a nearby ditch.

He un-screwed the silencer, pocketed it, and strode to an adjacent alley, where a long figure in black jeans, a black t-shirt and a black ski-mask lay, unconscious, against a building wall.

Jack bent and placed the gun in the man’s hand. Then he lifted his own right boot and, taking a clod of dirt from one of the grooves, he rubbed it along the soles of the unconscious man’s sneakers.

Jack stood and gazed down at the man in the ski mask. His name was Ryan Washington, a small-time coke dealer and general all-around creep. Jack had chosen him specifically for his bad manners toward women.

At that thought, Jack closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair.

And then he slid into the darkness once more, unseen and silent, to disappear into the night.

Annabelle raced down road after road, criss-crossing intersections and tributary-like lanes until she wound up on a street labeled “Trinity Street,” utterly lost in her own thoughts and emotions, and semi-blinded by tears she couldn’t be bothered to wipe away. She’d found out only an hour ago that she was now in Colchester, England, and had barely a fleeting recognition of where, on a map, that might be.

Right now, she didn’t notice Colchester’s inhabitants stop and check her out as she ran by. She had no idea where she was going until she found herself standing on the corner of two streets, staring up at a sign of red lettering against a dark brown background. “The Purple Dog”. A pub.

She could hear music coming from the other side of the dark brown door. Annabelle stood there for a few moments, taking in the several-hundred-year-old architecture, admiring, despite her current state, the beauty of the building. Then she hiccupped, wiped her cheeks, and straightened out her shirt. After a calming, deep breath, she pushed past the door and walked into the pub.

She stopped just past the doors and allowed her eyes to adjust to the light. The interior atmosphere of the pub was warm, rich in dark colors and timber, and the place was about half as packed as Annabelle automatically assumed it must be once the sun went down. The crowd was young, for the most part, and well dressed. On impulse, Annabelle felt her front pocket for the money she’d folded into it. It was still there.

It was American money, but she’d been told once that lots of places took American money these days since they could just get it changed whenever they wanted. She hoped this place was one of them.

She had yet to figure out the pound system to the degree that she would have liked, but could handle the conversion well enough for a drink. A drink she badly needed right now.

She made her way to the bar, attracting the attention of several single men as she did so, and asked the bartender if he would take her cash. He nodded, so she ordered an “ale”. She wasn’t a complete idiot. Once she had what she likened to a slightly dark and heady beer, she found an empty table, somewhere near the back wall, and slid into the chair.

And then she stared off into space. Her body felt strangely numb, her limbs somewhat limp, her vision blurry. She fingered the top of her mug, watching the bubbles on the head slowly descend toward the brownish liquid. Her thoughts felt like leaves on a windy day. Scattered, chaotic, impossible to grasp. She had no idea what to make of what had just happened with Jack. A part of her was even having trouble believing that she wasn’t actually dreaming right now.

All she knew for certain was that, though parts of her were numb, somehow all of her was in agony.

Chapter Thirty-three

Jack paced back to the room he and Annabelle had shared while she slept and he stared, unseeing, at the bags and belongings on the bed. He stood there in the doorway for several long minutes, for the first time in his life, unsure of what to do next.

As if on auto pilot, he turned around, crossed the hallway, and turned the knob of the closed door that led to Sam’s room. He stood in the doorway and looked around, not sure why he was even there.

Something had been bothering him ever since New York. How had their pursuers always known where to find them?

The bed was perfectly made, as if it hadn’t been slept in. Which didn’t surprise Jack, seeing as how Sam spent a lot of his nights sleeping… out. There was a dresser against one wall, topped with a large round mirror. There was something not quite right about the reflection in the mirror. Jack studied it for a moment and realized that it was skewed to one side.

In New York, Osborne’s men had not only known to follow them from the airport but they’d been waiting for them at the mansion in Forest Hills. How had they even known about that house?

Middlesex was understandable. Adam could find anybody, even if no one could find him, and Osborne had probably gotten nervous and offered Adam something he couldn’t refuse. But Adam didn’t work with anyone else. He worked alone.

Yet Jack and Annabelle had also been followed down into the tunnels beneath Columbia. How the bloody hell had Osborne’s men known about that?

Jack moved to the dresser and pressed on the side of the mirror that appeared to be sticking out some. It wouldn’t pop back into place. Something was blocking it from slipping back into the groove.

When it came right down to it, there was only one way that either Osborne or the Colonel could have known what they’d known.

With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Jack yanked the mirror out of its rest, slicing the palm of his left hand as he did so. But the pain barely registered. There, in the groove where the glass would normally fit was a manila folder.

Jack threw the mirror on the bed and pulled the folder free from the groove. He opened it and a photograph slid out, accompanied by several detailed sheets of paper. His stomach turned to lead as he stared at the photograph.

And Annabelle’s almond eyes stared back.

“Is this seat taken?”