Sold Out (Nick Woods Book 1) (12 page)

Chapter
31

Nick
Woods drove south down the Pellissippi Parkway, away from Oak Ridge.

He
kept his speed right at sixty miles per hour, and his eyes darted from the rear
view mirror to as far forward as he could see, looking for police cruisers
coming up behind him or roadblocks that might be set up ahead.

Would
there be roadblocks? He wasn’t sure. Perhaps.

Killing
the woman was bad enough, but that was self-defense. Or at least self-preservation.
Killing the manager bugged him.

Why
had he done that? Had it been truly necessary? Was he starting to lose it? Nick
tried to shake it off and not think too much on it. He couldn’t right now,
after all. The man had brought up Anne, attacked him, and he’d lost it.

He
couldn’t change what had happened, so he focused on his current predicament. On
his speed limit. On looking for roadblocks.

There
weren’t many vehicles on the road going south, the direction he was going. That
worried him. Worse, none of the vehicles he saw were green. Shit, he had picked
a bad color in his zest to find a cheap, heavy car.

Unfortunately,
even without a roadblock, he might get spotted by some alert cop driving the
opposite direction and responding to an all-points bulletin out of Oak Ridge.

Nick
needed to get to Knoxville. Fast. With its horrible traffic and immense size,
it would provide him some safety.

Chapter
32

A
boxy, green Chevy Caprice moved north along interstate I-81, near Harrisonburg,
Virginia.

Rain
and a slick pavement kept most drivers from pushing the speed limit or passing
except when absolutely necessary, yet nearly all passed the Caprice.

The
Chevy Caprice was one of those harsh cornered cars that looked like it had been
designed by engineers who’d only had Legos at their disposal. It hadn’t been a
head turner when it was designed, and this one had seen about five lifetimes
since it came off the assembly line.

The
back window was cracked, while the underside of the rear panels bore bubbled
paint and spreading rust. The entire paintjob on the car was horribly faded, and
the car’s interior head liner sagged from the ceiling.

In
a word, the car was ugly. And well past its deserved retirement.

Nick
Woods sat on the cigarette-burned, front seat of his $2,500 Caprice. He didn’t
notice the traffic that rode his ass before swerving over and angrily passing.
His mind was on Anne.

It
amazed him he hadn’t thought of her more in the past few days. But then again,
when had he had time? Ever since he’d grabbed his pack out of that cave, he had
either been running, or hiding, or buying necessities, or doing research, or
working out.

And
now he had nothing but time. Hours and hours of it. About thirteen or fourteen,
he guessed. He had already decided what he would do once he got to New York. He
had initially thought he would look the guy’s address up and just call or stop
by, but that seemed suicidal once he thought about it. Hadn’t he himself said
they would be watching Allen Green?

His
second thought had been to recon outward in. Once he figured out where this guy
lived, he could work his way in looking for patterns. Eat at a deli for a
couple of hours “working” to solve a crossword puzzle, in which he wrote out
the descriptions of possible agents in the margins. He could sit at a park
bench, walk by the home randomly, ride by it in cabs, and find out who “they”
were. But, he realized this plan had two major shortcomings.

One,
it would take too long. It would take days and days, and maybe a couple of
weeks, to find out the opposition and their observation posts.

The
second major problem was they would likely discover who he was during that
time. Surely, they had pictures of him and knew to be looking for him, just in
case he came looking for Allen Green. After giving up on plan two, he had
racked his brain for more than an hour and a half before a simple plan emerged:
he would hang a note on Allen Green’s door.

Well,
it was a little more complicated than that. He would go print a shitload of
door advertisements and would put these on doors throughout the neighborhood,
except on Allen’s door, he would pull from the bottom of the pile and put a
contact note in light pencil in the margin; top left corner to be precise. It’d
be light enough so agents watching with binoculars from across the street
couldn’t make it out.

Nick
figured that if he started five blocks away and went five or six more blocks
past Allen’s house, they wouldn’t be suspicious. The plan became more etched in
Nick’s mind.

His
confidence in its success had put him at ease, allowing his mind to drift and
relax.

It
quickly drifted to Anne. Shit, he missed her. He’d give anything to be sitting
on the couch with her watching some dumb-ass reality show on TV -- even if it
included some odd-looking singer with crazy hair.

He
remembered how soft her lips had been the first time they had kissed and how it
had felt the first time they had gotten carried away. And while she had been so
lustful in bed, she had been so sensitive most of the time. She always loved
for him to hold her as she went to sleep each night, especially after sex.

It
would grow old in a hurry, his arm quickly going numb beneath her, her curves
turning him on again, the closeness making it too hot under the sheets.

Damn
though, what he would give to be able to
hold her now.

He
remembered their final moments on that last terrible night: a bad fight. Their
fiercest. He had hurt her with his words and anger. In the end, he’d left her
crying and desperate. Devastated. Worried about him.

He
gripped the steering wheel with all his strength. He then realized he didn’t
even know if, or where, she had been buried. Those motherfuckers, he thought.
And that was the real question. Who were those motherfuckers?

Actual
FBI agents had raided his home. That didn’t make sense. He was hardly a
criminal. So was someone high up in the FBI behind this? That didn’t seem
likely. It seemed more likely that someone with real power had used that power
to get the FBI to assist in some quick damage control.

Not
that Nick thought very many FBI agents would purposely kill an innocent person,
but they would apprehend and turn over people. They did it all the time. To
U.S. Marshals, to local and state police, to the Justice Department, to the
Department of Defense.

Nick
didn’t know who was behind it, but he was damn sure going to find out or die trying.

Chapter
33

Whitaker
was now in Los Angeles, having called off the search for Nick Woods following
the death of Nancy Dickerson. After all, how did you catch a ghost?

With
luck, a local police force would get lucky and cross paths with him. There was
still the “wanted” child predator alert on Nick distributed throughout the
country.

Besides,
there was more Whitaker had to worry about than just Nick. His first and
foremost mission was fighting the war on terror, which was the real work of
Whitaker’s group these days.

In
fact, two of his eight-man strike teams were inside Pakistan searching for
Osama Bin Laden right this very minute. His three other eight-man strike teams
were in the states.

Whitaker’s
teams could enter countries clandestinely and operate invisibly. If they were
caught or killed, no problem. They had no way of being tied back to the U.S. since
they used non-U.S. weapons and carried various French, Italian, and German
papers.

Politically
and legally, American troops couldn’t operate in Pakistan, an ally supposedly
assisting in the war on terror. But the pressure from Pakistan was too small on
al Qaeda, so two of Whitaker’s teams had been called in on one hot and one cold
lead regarding bin Laden’s location.

Whitaker’s
teams were more covert than most military Special Forces, such as the SEALs and
other units. His teams appeared to be a group of mercenaries from a European
country.

The
real beauty was the fact that not one cent of funding for Whitaker’s unit was
found anywhere -- not even from the CIA’s undesignated fund. No reporter could
ever blow their cover. No Congressman could ever find out through an audit or
Inspector General’s report about them.

That
was because Whitaker’s unit was entirely funded from its own efforts, which
resulted mainly from illegal drug running. Which, of course, was why Whitaker
was in L.A.

A
local competitor, some gang offshoot of the Crips called the Hands of Death,
had been growing and somehow bringing in enough cocaine to cut into Whitaker’s
profits by 36 percent in the L.A. area. Of course, that was unacceptable.

Whitaker
was here to investigate the situation and check out the competition. And what
that mostly meant was he was out driving around in the most dangerous parts of
town.

He
had lots of options to deal with this problem. The easiest option would be to
give a tip to the cops and let them clean house on the Hands of Death. However,
the competition had corrupted a few police officers to work for them, just as
Whitaker had. So that option could fail if they received enough of an early
warning.

Another
option was to call
The
Los Angeles Times
and provide a tip about
some of the collaboration between the cops and the Hands of Death. But this
could create hysteria from elected officials once the press finished its vendetta,
and such an uproar would likely cost him some of his informants on the police
force, as well. Strike two.

That
left only one option, as Whitaker saw it. It was also why he had brought one of
his U.S.-based, eight-man strike teams to L.A. with him.

His
boys were going to spill some major blood in L.A. Really shake the place up,
while also getting in some great and very realistic training.

And
Whitaker being Whitaker, he wanted to take part in it.

Chapter
34

Nick
Woods hesitated before stepping out of the elevator.

He
was nervous, like a useless, gun-shy hound, but he had to find Allen Green. So
he focused again on the task at hand.

Nick
took a deep breath and stepped from the elevator. He was in New York now, a
city he intensely disliked. There were too many buildings, too many people, and
both were too cold for his comfort. He couldn’t wait to get back to the South,
where folks met your eye and said hello.

Nick
saw a receptionist sitting behind a desk, and he considered turning around.
But, what other option did he have?

He
had discovered the apartment listed as Allen Green’s address was burned, but
not before designing, buying, and distributing a couple hundred damn flyers.
Now, he really hated the fact he had raced out of the library in Oak Ridge like
a stupid, boot recruit.

No
doubt he could have found a side story in the newspaper mentioning the
suspicious fire of the esteemed-turned-infamous reporter’s apartment.

With
the apartment a dead end, Nick was left with one option: hoping he could
convince a coworker to give him Allen’s phone number.

The
make-up plastered woman behind the desk was staring now. He finally moved
forward.

“Can
I help you?” she asked.

“I’m
looking for Allen Green.”

“He
doesn’t work here anymore,” she snapped. Nick figured he wasn’t the first to
stop by and ask about him.

“Well,
can I speak to one of his good friends?”

She
squinted at him, looking disgusted, but picked up a phone. She dialed a number
and asked a “Mike” to come to the front desk.

Mike
showed up a couple minutes later. Nick knew he wouldn’t get along well with
Mike. Mike had curly, long hair and some kind of designer glasses with really
small lenses. Lenses barely larger than his eyes. He also had a notepad and pen
in his hands.

Nick
hesitated, his paranoia returning, but then realized this momma’s boy couldn’t
possibly be anything other than just a reporter. He for damn sure was too soft
to be an agent waiting to take Nick out.

But
if he were, Nick had the .45 tucked in his back, and two more magazines in case
Mike brought reinforcements.

“Did
you need something?” Mike asked, his voice too educated for Nick’s tastes.

“I
called you, didn’t I?”

“You
sure did, but I’m busy, so if you don’t mind?”

“Lead
the way, hoss.”

Mike
glared at Nick’s blue jeans and shook his head in disgust. This guy had
definitely strayed too far north of the Mason-Dixon Line. He better have
something good to say, Mike thought, as he led him through the cramped and
crowded newsroom.

Nick
surveyed Allen’s old work-place. Cubicle after cubicle dotted the interior,
like islands. The cubicles were low, maybe four or five feet high, and heads
popped up and shouted across the room intermittently. Nick figured it would be
stressful as hell working here.

Mike
stopped off at a glass room and stepped inside. Nick followed, and Mike shut
the door behind him. The room consisted of a conference table, ten chairs, and a
shoulder high tree of some kind growing out of a basket in the corner.
Amazingly, the room was well insulated from the noise outside in the news room
once the door closed.

“What’s
your name?” Mike asked, opening up his notebook.

“I
don’t think you need to know that,” Nick said.

Mike
groaned and dropped his reporter’s notebook on the table.

“Look,
we’re not going off the record. I only do that with people I know, that I
approach because I have to.”

Nick
shrugged. He’d need to do some good acting here. “Sorry. I’m not talking.”

Mike
looked intrigued like he was on the verge of giving in, but --

“All
right,” Nick said. “You win, but not today. You get me Allen Green’s new address
or phone number. I don’t care which. I’ll talk to him alone and get him to
vouch for my military background and service. If he doesn’t, then you’ll never
see me. If he does, then you’ll have one of the biggest stories of your career.”

“This
better be good,” Mike said.

“Well,
I’m not sure what you consider good, but when you get what I’ve got to tell,
it’ll be worth the wait.”

Mike
picked up the pad, wrote down something, and tore off a sheet.

“Here’s
his number,” he said, pushing the paper across the table. “Call him and then
call me.”

With
that, Mike reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a business card. He
slid that across, too.

Nick
accepted both, nodded, and said, “Thanks, Mike. You’ve been most helpful.” He
tried to hide his smile, but couldn’t. He had scored a major accomplishment,
finally finding a way to contact Allen.

Nick
rushed from the building to find a payphone. He finally located one inside a bad-smelling
section of the subway seven and a half blocks away.

He
dialed Allen Green’s phone number, looking for anyone suspicious around him. No
doubt, things would soon get dicey.

It
rang three times before it was answered.

“This
is Allen,” Nick heard.

“Allen,
hi, uhh, how are you?” Nick said. “Look, I need to meet you.”

“I
don’t even know who you are,” Allen said. “Who am I talking to?”

“Uh,
I can’t say over the phone.”

“Then
I’m not interested in whatever it is you called me about. Besides, I’m not in
the news business anymore.”

“Look,
this is really important.”

“I
don’t meet strangers,” Allen said.

He
hung the phone up, perplexed. That had been weird. He replayed the experience
of meeting the “source” who had brought a couple of friends for a friendly
elevator ride a few days ago. Not to mention a couple of paramedics.

Nick
listened to the dial tone in the phone. Shit.

He
should have planned the phone call better. He reached into the front pocket of
his blue jeans for some more change. He only had a dime and a nickel -- not
enough.

Well,
he would be forced to think about what to say this time, since he needed to get
some change. He hung the phone up and stepped from the booth.

On
the other end of the call, Allen remembered the paramedics strapping him down
and waking up to meet Mr. NFL Linebacker and Whitaker.

They
had broken him so easily. Whitaker asking for a radio and giving a command.
Someone already waiting at Allen’s apartment to burn it down.

The
fire being reported over the radio minutes later. Then, it hit Allen. Those
guys were professionals, duh. But, whoever had just called had hardly been a
professional.

He
had been a tongue-tied idiot and a Southern one at that. At least, that was how
he had sounded.

It
might have been an act by someone who was not a tongue-tied idiot, but couldn’t
Whitaker and his professional thugs come abduct Allen whenever they wanted anyway?

They
could pick his locks in the middle of the night or show up impersonating a cop.
They were so good that probably nothing was beyond their capabilities. But this
guy had been none of those things.

Allen
punched the menu button on the cell phone and looked at the number on the
caller ID. He punched the talk button and hoped he hadn’t waited too long.

Nick
had made it close to twenty feet from the payphone when he heard it ring. Could
it be Allen? He ran back to it.

“Hello?”
he said, somewhat stupidly.

“Hey,
it’s Allen Green. I’ve changed my mind. Let’s meet.”

“Okay.
Well, that’s great. I don’t know the area, so you’ll have to pick somewhere.
And it needs to be really public, lots of people around if you know what I
mean.”

Allen
did, but he played it off. “No, I don’t know what you mean. Well, how about
O’Mally’s diner. It’s just off --”

“No,”
Nick said, “I’d rather meet at a busy bus stop or somewhere near the subway.”

“Okay,
let’s meet at Luzio’s. It’s a pizza shop just half a block from the substation
on 46
^th
street.”

“Done.
I’m on my way,” Nick said, digging out his recently purchased map of New York
City.