Patriots Betrayed (3 page)

That he would be suspected of murder and the police would try to look into his past was a certainty. The bodies in and around his shop and his disappearance alone would put him in the center of their radar screen. He smiled at the image he had in his mind of detectives and federal agents coming to a brick wall and wondering where the hell he came from and what his real name was. They might even think he was involved in some way with the explosion — perhaps even suspect him of being a terrorist. He didn’t smile when thinking of that possibility. The CIA might get involved. No, they already were. If the explosion proved to be no accident, the company would be all over it, and they had the means to dig up his real past. They should know. He’d left fingerprints all over the shop, and his blood. Blood and hair meant DNA. The CIA had both his fingerprints and DNA on record. His driver license photo, also on the state’s computer records, would match the company’s photos of him. It didn’t matter whether the CIA sent the killers or if they didn’t; the company would be after him soon enough.

The only question was how long it would take before the company got involved in a serious way. If it was the CIA that wanted him dead, they would feed information to the local police, and finger him as a murderer, an enemy of the state bent on terror. They would fabricate evidence. At most, he had a few hours to get out of town before they tightened the noose. Damn it. He had hoped the company didn’t see him as important enough to expend a lot of resources on. After all, he just wanted to resign from the company and live in peace. No. Important or not, he knew too much.

The safest thing was for him to assume the company was behind it all, and local and state law enforcement, as well as the FBI and Homeland Security, would be fed a big steaming bowl of BS, complete with a story of how dangerous he was to the country and had to be stopped dead.

After walking two miles, he turned and continued towards another section of town that had bars and tourist attractions that leaned to the seedy side, his destination a bar owned by a woman he’d befriended shortly after opening his scuba shop. A long-time diver herself, she’d walked in one day, bought a few items in preparation for an outing with friends in the Gulf and wound up staying three hours, just talking diving. She had a strange attraction to him, always lingering on the edge of trying to seduce him but never crossing some line only she saw. After several months, that all changed. She and he had spent many nights together. She was about seven years older than him but not half bad looking and was always fun to be with, upbeat and seldom down. She was an endless fountain of funny jokes.

Pearl was from New Orleans. In her forties and looking thirty from any angle at a distance, mainly because of her thin build that she worked hard to maintain. “All women’s bodies are high maintenance,” she always said, “but most don’t get that needed care from their owners.” Up close, she didn’t look thirty; her face made men swear she was twenty-five. She had lost her first husband to divorce (he’d beaten her) and another to death by traffic accident. What puzzled Raylan was the fact she was still heartbroken, not over the death of her second husband, but the fact she was forced to leave her first one because he was so abusive. She once tried in vain to explain. “He was my first love and will always be in my heart for that reason. His anger issues weren’t his fault. He came back from the war that way.” Raylan figured the guy must not have beaten her too much. After all, she didn’t have a scar on her face, and her teeth were perfect. But then, maybe he limited his blows to her body. She did have a face no normal man would want to punch.

The night was still young, but the explosion had dampened business for Pearl, with the police diverting traffic away from the bay. Raylan found there were only a few patrons in the bar. Two fat vacationers from Boston were in the middle of a loud argument over who disliked toothless inbred Southerners the most.

Raylan heard them make lewd comments to one another about what they’d like to do with Pearl.

Pearl remained quiet, but kept an eye on the loud, sunburned Northerners.

Raylan walked across the barroom to her with a smile.

She knew him by his alias; David Sutton. Pearl’s face showed shock. “David, darling! What happened to you? What’s wrong with your hand?”

Raylan had an explanation ready: the explosion and ensuing panic on the street. He glanced down at his swollen, bloody hand, aware of the bruising on his face that must have been obvious.

“Jesus! You were in front of your shop when the barge blew up?” Pearl rushed to look him over closely. “You should go to a hospital.”

“No. They’re way too busy with seriously wounded. Ambulances are hauling more victims away as we speak. I would just be sitting out of their way until sometime tomorrow morning. What a waste of time that would be. Might as well take care of it myself.”

“Take care of it yourself?” Pearl examined the gash. “It needs stitches. Are you in the habit of stitching your wounds yourself?”

“It looks way worse than it is. I would appreciate your help with it. You have a first-aid kit, don’t you?”

She gave him a
you’re crazy
look. “It’s for minor cuts. There are no sutures in it.”

“Fishing line will do. I know you have your tackle in the back.”

She glanced at the two Bostonians, who had stopped arguing and were taking an interest in their conversation. “Uh, let’s go in the back and clean it up. Then we’ll talk about a clinic fifty miles from here I can take you to. I doubt they have been receiving any of the explosion victims.”

Raylan followed her into the back room.

After closing the door, she turned on him with a hard glare. “What the hell is going on?”

He kept a straight face. “What the hell do you mean?”

Her hard glare broke, and a faint hint of a smile formed on her face.

He chuckled. “You know better than to ask too many questions.”

She folded her arms. “Yeah. There’s a brick wall around you that no one can get through with a sledgehammer.”

“You don’t say that when we’re in bed.”

He got another hard glare. “Sit over there, and I’ll get the first-aid kit – and the fishing line.”

Half an hour later, she wrapped his sutured hand with gauze.

“Use plenty of tape, and make it tight,” he said.

Her eyes darted from his hand to his face. “Are you expecting another emergency tonight?”

He looked away.

She finished with his hand and angrily slammed the first-aid box shut. “Not a word, not a moan, not even heavy breathing – through all of that. I felt like I was torturing you, but you just sat there and took it like it was an everyday thing. All those other scars marring your body. The ones you don’t talk about. They are part of your hidden past.” After glaring at him for several seconds, her anger faded. She put her arms around him and kissed his neck. “You’re going away, aren’t you? Whatever happened tonight has changed things forever. I can see it in your eyes.”

“You don’t see shit in my eyes, woman.”

She pushed away. “Woman? So you’ve already stopped calling me by my name?”

He swallowed. “Pearl, I will never forget you. And I hope to come back someday. The fact is, though, I must leave town.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What is it in your past? What terrible things that you never speak of and seem to be trying in vain to forget?” She wiped her face with the back of her arms. “You will never say, will you?”

He looked away. “Sometimes words can kill. The less you know, the safer you are.”

She stepped back. “It would have been safer for my heart if you had –” She threw her hands up. “Never mind. I’m a grown woman. We had good times together.” She dried her face again. “I just wish it was something like you cheating on me or slapping me around once in a while. That I could handle.”

Raylan stood and stepped closer, his arms out. “I despise a woman beater.”

She put her hands on her hips and tilted her head, glaring at him. “But you hurt. The fact you don’t do it out of malice or anger, don’t even do it on purpose, means little.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t change the world, and the world is a cruel place that we both live in. You may think not, but you’re in the same world I’m in. My past is part of that world and therefore part of yours.” He held her. “I hope this isn’t the last time we see each other, but it may be. I would rather you understand that I don’t want to leave. I would rather you also understand I have held back most of me for your safety and I never wanted to hurt you. But understand or not, I must go. These last months have been the best of my life, but if I stay, I will die. They may even come after you.”

She pushed him away. “Go then. I expect every second you stay puts you in more danger, so go now and stop babying me. There are other men, men who bore me to death, but they’re men. I’ve forgotten you already.”

He laughed. “Good, find yourself a twenty-year-old to teach what to do in bed and be happy.”

“I would rather find one with a sense of humor.”

He gave her a strange stare. “A twenty-year-old? You ask too much.”

Pearl waved him off. “Get out of here. And don’t come back – unless it’s safe.”

He turned and rushed through the hallway and out the back door of the bar, making sure it latched when he closed it. Four miles away, he hotwired a Ford pickup and headed west, out of town.

As the miles flowed by at sixty miles per hour, traffic thinned, and so did the number of commercial buildings and homes. He pulled onto a dirt road and drove another thirty minutes, stopping at a gate. He got out and shot the lock off, then drove on.

It was ranch land that held scrub cattle. He knew the owners had people patrolling for trespassing hunters, and he needed to get what he came for and leave before someone found the broken lock at the gate. He stopped at a stand of oaks and got out. After retrieving the lug wrench behind the seat where it was clamped to the jack, he stepped into the woods. Exactly in line with two pines and positioned equidistant from each tree, he had buried a cache. He dug for a few minutes with the lug wrench. It made a poor shovel, but it was all he had and he made do.

The end of the lug wrench designed to pry hubcaps off clanked on metal. He dug around with his good hand until he found a nylon rope. Pulling on it caused the earth to move. He yanked on it in one direction, then the opposite, until an aluminum box emerged from the dry sand. After shaking as much of the sand off as possible, he examined it, checking for signs the seal had failed and allowed moisture in. Satisfied, he picked it up. It was three feet long, more than two feet wide, and deep. It was also heavy. He used the convenient handle to carry it to the truck.

After opening the tailgate, he set the box in the truck and opened it. Inside, he found his bug-out backpack, already loaded with needful survival items that would allow him to flee into wilderness and live out of it for a week. He put that in the cab, setting it on the seat. Working fast, he checked the barrel of an M4 to make sure it wasn’t plugged with grease or some object. It was clear. He slipped one of a dozen thirty-round magazines in and loaded the chamber. The three-position selector was already on safe. Next, he flipped the covers on the Aimpoint sight up and turned it on, checking to see if the red dot was visible. It was. He set the fourteen-inch barreled carbine aside and grabbed a one-foot-square, four-inch-deep waterproof plastic container. Inside, he found several wallets, each with a complete set of identification documents and several credit cards. One wallet held a corporate card with a one hundred fifty thousand dollar credit limit and two cards in the name of Joe Miller – the name he would go by for now. Also in each wallet was a valid concealed carry permit to go with each set of IDs. There was more paperwork for possessing full auto firearms and suppressors.

He checked the Jeep trail for unwanted company. Finding none, he pulled a stuffed money belt out of the same container and buckled it to his waist under his shirt. He left the U.S. passport and other documents in the container and put it on the seat next to the backpack.

Back at the tailgate, he produced a .45 caliber Glock from the metal box, checked the barrel for obstructions, and loaded it with a full-capacity magazine. Over the next five minutes, he put on a Milt Sparks Summer Special holster and a double magazine carrier, then slipped the new Glock and two loaded magazines in the holster and carrier. The old Glock he carried with him from his shop, and the magazines he took off the dead killers, he dumped in the now almost empty metal box. The last two things he removed from the box was a light photo journalist vest he would wear for the sole purpose of hiding his pistol and magazines and a new pair of Bates size twelve triple E military boots. He put the boots on the floor in the cab and slipped the vest on after taking off the nylon jacket and dropping it in the metal box.

On the way back to the gate, he came to a large pond and stopped to dump the pistol, magazines, and jacket in the deep end. He stuffed the magazines in the pockets of the jacket and wrapped it around the Glock. Then he threw it in the water. The gun could be connected to his former life as a scuba shop owner, as well as the shootings in and around the shop. Ballistics and his fingerprints on the gun and magazines would also tie him to the shootings if he were held for questioning temporarily because of his restricted weapons. Sometimes cops wanted to verify the federal forms for full auto and other restricted weapons before letting the owner go on his way. Ditching the gun and mags was not a cure-all, but there was no need to hold on to them. He had replacements and could get more.

He parked some distance from the hard road behind a stand of trees and waited for a lull in the traffic, which wasn’t long in that desolate part of Florida. Then he pulled up to the driveway, stopping long enough to close the gate and hook the broken lock to the chain in an effort to make it look unmolested if private security personnel checked it from the seat of a pickup. He also didn’t want cows getting into the road and maybe getting hit and killing a driver. He was in the habit of protecting Americans and the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic, not putting them in danger. He killed only when he had no choice or the man needed killing so bad he couldn’t resist.