Wrong Time (12 page)

Upon informing the guards of the deal
that had been made, a man stepped forward.

“That woman bit my ear off yesterday,
and I want those five minutes alone in the cell just as much as she does,” the
man said.

“I really don’t think that’s a good
idea,” Jess said.

“I really don’t care what you think is
a good idea. I’m going into that cell.”

Fine, it’s your funeral, Jess thought.

“We’ll leave the transport and
decisions on how to move forward to you, gentlemen,” Burt said.

He and Jess exited the prison building.
Jess felt good that they had some new information, but she couldn’t help but
feel that they had just given someone a death sentence.

* * * * *

The next morning, Nathan and Sam were
both lying in bed in a completely bored state. They hadn’t received any new
orders yet, and there was absolutely nothing to do.

“So if we’re going to just lie here all
day, we might as well get to know each other a little better. Is there anything
that you’ve always wanted to know about me? Nothing is off limits,” Nathan
said.

“Okay. The first time that we met, you
were staring at me. What were you thinking in that moment?” Sam asked.

“I thought that you were beautiful, and
I had no idea how I was going to beat you out for the job. You were stunning,
and you seemed to be so confident. I didn’t know how I was going to compete
with that. Then when I saw that you were staring back at me, I felt like an
idiot.”

“Well, I thought you were cute in a
strange kind of way, so you shouldn’t have felt odd when you saw that I was
looking back at you.”

“That’s a relief. It’s my turn for a
question. Who was your first love?” Nathan asked.

Sam didn’t say anything, and the smile
that was on her face suddenly left.

“What’s wrong? You don’t have to answer
that. That’s normally a sore subject with most people. I shouldn’t have asked,”
Nathan said while trying to quickly back away from the subject that had
obviously ruined their morning.

“It’s okay, Nathan. I never really had
time for this sort of thing in my life before. You’re the first person I’ve
ever loved. That probably sounds pretty pathetic.”

The truth was that Sam felt a little
insecure about how inexperienced she was when it came to anything to do with
social interaction, and she hadn’t really wanted to bring up this subject.

“Hey, that’s nothing to be ashamed of.
I’m glad I’m your first experience with a relationship, and I hope that I’ll be
your last,” Nathan said.

 
“What about you? Who was your first
love?”

“I have been in love with the thought
of being in love with a lot of women, but I think that you’re the first person
who I’ve actually loved every part of,” Nathan said as he wrapped his arms
around her.

His answer was a little cheesy, and it
didn’t exactly answer her question, but Sam decided to take the answer. How
often were they going to get to have the perfect morning together without any
interruptions, after all? She was satisfied with just lying there curled up in
each other’s arms.

* * * * *

Campbell was waiting as patiently as he
possibly could in his office for Burt and Jess to return with good news, but
his patience was starting to run out. He was so close to knowing the location
of the man who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of lives and for the
relocation of his own family. He decided that he would meet them downstairs. He
walked in fast paced steps to the elevator and went down to the ground floor.
He stepped out of the elevator and then made his way to the door. Once he was
outside, he sat down on a bench near the entrance and waited for their arrival.
Suddenly, he heard a deafening boom from above him, and the earth shook. He
looked up to see a fireball a few floors up. He counted the floors.

“That’s our floor,” he said to himself.

Just then, Jess and Burt came running
up.

“What happened?” Jess asked.

“I have no idea, but I think it’s safe
to say that Markus’s reach extends a little further than our own,” Campbell
said.

Chapter 11

Jason had just finished questioning the
prisoner upstairs and was exiting the cell when he heard a large explosion and
felt the building shake. He was in a panic. There was no one on this floor other
than himself, the prisoner, two guards, and a janitor. If they were being
attacked, there wouldn’t be much of a chance that they would be able to defend
themselves up there. Jason quickly pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and
called Campbell.

“Sir, what’s going on?” Jason asked.

“There appears to have been an
explosion on our floor. I’m glad that you’re okay. Where are you?” Campbell
asked.

“I’m two floors above our floor with
the prisoner.”

“Okay. See if you can make your way
down the south stairwell. If the stairwell is on fire, then go to the roof, and
we’ll try to get a chopper up there to evacuate you.”

Jason hung up the phone and started
walking toward the stairwell but stopped before he reached it. The man who was back
in the cell may have been a prisoner, but did he deserve to burn to death? That
was a question that Jason didn’t feel he was qualified to answer, so he
motioned for the guards to walk back with him to the cell where they opened the
prison door and retrieved the man. The janitor followed close behind them, and
when they started walking back to the stairwell, Jason heard a click, followed
by two shots. The guards who were with Jason fell to the floor in a lifeless
heap. Jason turned to see his attacker. He was a middle aged janitor, who had
previously looked harmless. This man cleans our floor. I see him all the time,
Jason thought to himself.

“If you don’t want to die then start
walking,” the janitor said as he escorted Jason to the holding room that had
previously housed their own prisoner.

He shut the door and locked Jason
inside. The man walked over to his cleaning cart and pulled out a janitor’s
outfit. The other man quickly dressed himself, and the two of them began to
walk away. Before they were completely out of the room, the man who Jason had
thought was a simple janitor turned and threw the key to Jason’s prison on the
floor in plain view. It was as if he wanted Jason to have to see his only
glimmer of hope just feet away as he burned to death. Great, I just went from
the possibility of dying at gunpoint to the probability of dying by burning to
death. How unlucky could I be, Jason wondered.

Jess, Burt, and Campbell were waiting
outside for the fire department to arrive, but unfortunately, they were taking
their own sweet time. As they waited, two cleaning people ran outside. Burt
recognized one of them, and the other one looked slightly familiar, but his hat
was pulled down low. He wouldn’t meet Burt’s eyes, so he couldn’t place him.

“Hey, you work on our floor, Sully.
Have you seen Jason? Is he okay?” Burt asked.

The man only gave him a sad look and shook
his head while still moving away from the building. After seeing what had just
happened, Jess put a hand on Burt’s shoulder, as if to try to provide some type
of support for him after he had just heard the worst possible news. Jess looked
up at the inferno above them and had to look away. She took her hand off of
Burt’s shoulder and turned her body completely away from the sight. Tears began
to collect in her eyes.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Campbell
asked in a panic.

As Jess turned back around to see what
was going on, she saw Burt running toward the building. He didn’t buy the story
that Jason was gone. Campbell had just talked to him on the phone a minute before
the cleaning people came out. He was going to save his friend. As he made his
way into the building and started running up the stairs, he began to have
doubts about his decision. The doubts were understandable, however, when you
considered the fact that with every set of stairs he climbed, the intense heat
grew hotter and hotter. When he got to the floor that the explosion had
occurred on, it became clear that this part of the stairwell was not going to
last much longer. He hurried past the blaze and walked up the next two flights
of stairs. Then he stepped onto the floor where Jason had called them from. The
first thing that he saw was Jason’s face staring out from behind glass. Why is
he in there, and what is he staring at, Burt wondered. Burt traced the source
of his gaze and found a set of keys lying on the floor. He picked them up, hurried
to the door of Jason’s cell, and unlocked it. As soon as he opened the door,
Jason met him with the biggest hug he had ever felt and the only one that he
had ever received from Jason.

“Boy, am I glad to see you! I thought that
I was done for,” Jason said.

“There isn’t much left of the stairwell.
If we don’t hurry, we’ll both be done for soon,” Burt said.

As they ran through the smoky stairwell,
Burt asked him a question.

“Who locked you in there?”

“The janitor who is normally working on
our floor at night.”
 

“Sully? He always seemed like such a
nice old man,” Burt said.

“Well, whoever he is, I can guarantee
you that he isn’t very nice.”

As the two men finally exited the
building, fire fighters were running past them. When they stepped out into the
daylight and were finally able to breathe fresh air, the two friends found a
place far away from the building to sit down. There was no talking. Both of the
men were tired, and their lungs had been too filled with smoke for either of
them to make a sound that didn’t revolve around a choking cough.

After Jason and Burt caught their
breath, Jason told Campbell about what occurred as best he could.

“Sully might have done all this? That’s
hard to believe. He was always such a nice man,” Campbell said in surprise.

He turned and made a phone call. He had
to get the word out about Sully and their escaped prisoner. Jess, meanwhile,
called Michael. She knew that if he heard about what happened at their office,
he would be worried sick. Jason called Sam. No matter what was going on back in
Memphis, it was time for her and Nathan to come back to Washington.

* * * * *

Early that afternoon, a guard entered
Chloe’s cell and removed her hand cuffs. Then he walked out of the room.

“Are you sure that you want to do this,
Will?” he asked the angry guard standing outside the cell.

“Yes. I’m going to show this woman that
she messed with the wrong person,” Will said as he stepped into the cell.

Chloe stood and faced him. Her body was
weak. She had been beaten, she was dehydrated, and she was starving, but
strength wouldn’t be necessary against a buffoon like Will. As she stepped within
striking distance of him, she noticed the most obvious thing. Why do they
always leave the most vital places wide open, she thought and smiled. She faked
high and then kicked the man hard in the groin. As he went down to his knees
holding his groin, Chloe delivered a hard blow to his throat. Once the man hit
the ground clutching his throat, Chloe jumped onto his chest and placed her
thumbs squarely in his eyes. She pressed as hard as she possibly could. The
guards ran into the prison and pulled her off of Will, but it was too late. The
damage had already been done. He would be lucky if he could ever have children,
and he would lose his sight in one eye and only regain limited sight in the
other one.

“You’re just lucky that I decided not
to kill you!” Chloe shouted as they escorted her out of the cell.

Will just lay there, powerless and in
pain. For the first time in his life, he knew what it was like to be
embarrassed and to be in more pain than his body could handle. The guards
escorted Chloe to an area where she was able to shower and put on a fresh set
of clothes. Afterward, they gave her a meal and some water. Finally, she was
escorted out of the prison and to a car where they began to drive to the
airport.

* * * * *

Jason was on the way to drop Jess off
at her new home when Jess suddenly received a phone call.

“Hello,” Jess said.

“Can you meet our prisoner at the
airport? I believe her name is Chloe,” Campbell said.

“Sure, but why do I need to meet her?”

“We’ve lost the only prisoner that we
had other than her. Suddenly, she seems a little too valuable for us to just
let her go. See if you can get her to cooperate with us further, and regardless
of whether you can or not, try to squeeze some more information out of her.”

 
“All right. I’ll see what I can do.”

Campbell then proceeded to tell her how
to find Chloe’s private flight. Once she hung up the phone, she turned to
Jason.

“We need to make a quick detour,” Jess
said.

Chloe had just gotten out of the car
next to a small runway, and she was about to get onto the plane when a car
suddenly pulled up. The woman she had made a deal with the day before got out.

“I have nothing else to talk to you
people about,” Chloe said as Jess exited the car.

“Just hear me out,” Jess said.

“Nope. Like I said, I have no time for
you. Hawaii is calling.”

 
“Look, aren’t you at least curious about
why I’m here? Give me five minutes.”

“Fine, but you really only have five
minutes.”
 

Jess explained how their building had
been bombed and how a prisoner and another man had escaped their facility.

“So what do you want me to do about
it?” Chloe asked.

“You’re the only one we know of that
has had direct contact with Markus Boyd. Do you have any idea how valuable that
makes you to us? I want you to help us find the men who killed dozens of our
people, and then help us find Markus,” Jess said.

“So what are you going to do? Drag me
back kicking and screaming to that prison if I don’t come with you willingly?
That sounds like the typical thing that you CIA scum would do.”

“That may be what some people in the CIA
would do, but it’s not what I’m going to do. If you want to leave, then you can
just get on that plane and go, but I’m asking you to stay.”

“Look, I’m going to get on that plane,
but you haven’t treated me badly, unlike the rest of these scum, so I may have
a couple of tidbits of information for you. Markus has a private place in Paris
off base. If you have a pen and a piece of paper, I could jot down the address for
you.”

Jess quickly retrieved a piece of paper
and a pen from the car and gave them to Chloe.

“There’s one more thing. Markus has a
son. He doesn’t go by the name Boyd. Instead, he goes by his mother’s name. The
kid should be in middle school by now. His name is Jeremy Parker, and he should
still be living in Pittsburgh with his mother. If you want Markus to come to
you, threaten the kid’s safety, or at least that’s what I would do,” Chloe
said.

Jess didn’t know how she felt about
endangering a little boy’s life just because his father was a wanted man, but
she was grateful for all of the information that Chloe had given her.

“Thank you, but are you sure that you
don’t want to stay and help? I see a lot of good in you.”

“You don’t know me. I only want you to
succeed in killing Markus because it means that he won’t be able to look for
me. Now, I’m leaving on a permanent vacation,” Chloe said and began walking to
her plane.

Jess pulled her phone out of her pocket
and called Campbell to report everything that she had just been told.

* * * * *

Michael had picked up roses and asked Lee
to make himself scarce for the night. For some reason, unknown to Michael, Trish
had already made herself very scarce. As a matter of fact, she was practically
a ghost. Michael was attempting to make chicken with rice and a number of
vegetables for himself and Jess, but it wasn’t going as he planned. He didn’t
know anything about cooking. In fact, the closest he had come to cooking before
today was when he would pop a dinner in the microwave. After a little while,
Jess entered the house. Michael walked to the door and took her coat.

“I have had the worst day ever!” Jess
exclaimed.

“Well, leave your worries at the door
because I’m going to take care of you tonight,” Michael said as he showed her
to the table.

“What are you doing?” Jess asked him.

She was in shock to see that he was actually
cooking.

“I’m cooking you dinner. I figured
after you called earlier that you could use a good night and someone to take
care of you for once.”
 

Jess was touched that he had thought of
her and gone to all this effort, but she was also terrified of what he might put
on the table.

“It should be ready by now,” Michael
said as he hurried to the oven and pulled out the most perfect looking chicken
that Jess had ever seen.

He grabbed the rice and vegetables and
brought them to the table. Then he turned the lights out and lit a single
candle in the middle of the table.

“You really didn’t have to do all of
this for me,” Jess said.