Lethal Force (27 page)

As Jake closed the distance, taking careful, quiet steps, he heard the other man to his right. First it was a swishing of tree branches. Then it was his footfalls in the snow.

Jake froze and pointed his gun toward the sounds. His heart raced and attempted to explode from his chest.

Gunshots to his left, followed by return fire. Pam and Kim had found their target.

Then a flash of light and the explosion of a gun straight ahead. But the gun wasn't firing at him. Jake aimed at the flashpoints and fired three times, then threw the empty gun away and got out his other Glock. He made sure his last magazine was in his left jacket pocket as he crept toward the man he had just shot at. Jake cautiously stepped through the snow, his gun pointing toward his target. When he nearly stumbled on the man, Jake pulled out his cell phone and turned on the light, revealing a gruesome scene. The Korean man lay on his back. His face had a new hole, with blood seeping out onto the white snow. Another bullet had hit the man in the chest six inches below his neck. Jake turned off his cell phone and returned it to his pants pocket.

“Jake? You still there?” It was Kurt Jenkins in his ear piece.

“Yeah,” Jake whispered.

“The last man is right on you. Moving your way.”

Jake shifted his eyes around and saw the man with the long hair come out from a group of pines, his gun pointed right at Jake.

“I see that,” Jake said. Then he tapped off the blue-tooth and aimed his Glock at the man.

“You see what?” the Slav asked.

“The man who killed my friend. And the man I will kill.”

The Slav smiled and turned his gun sideways. “But I'm out of bullets. I surrender.”

Jake shook his head. “I don't accept that. You think this is a normal battlefield? I don't take prisoners.”

Long hair stepped closer to Jake. “You don't trust your justice system?”

“I've seen twelve people get it wrong too many times,” Jake said.

“So you become judge, jury and executioner?”

“Something like that. You see, I don't trust you either. What's to say you don't have another gun tucked into your back?”

Now the Slav was within a few feet of the end of Jake's gun barrel.

“That wouldn't be very sporting,” the Slav declared.

Jake lowered his gun and shoved it into his right jacket pocket. As soon as he did so, the Slav released the slide and pointed his gun at Jake. But Jake expected this, twisting his body to the left just as the gun report exploded in the night sending a flash toward him.

Rushing the man the rest of the way, Jake simultaneously removed the gun from the Slav's hand and kicked the guy in his right knee, buckling his body toward the ground. As he went down, Jake snapped a roundhouse knee into the man's face, sending the guy flying onto his back.

Before the man could recover, Jake kicked the man in his groin, crushing the man's balls and making him wail in pain. The Slav rolled around on the ground. As Jake considered his options, the man swept his leg and caught Jake off-guard, sending him onto his back.

Together now on the ground, the two men wrestled for dominance. Jake was hampered by the stiffness in his left shoulder from the bullet graze that evening. But eventually Jake had his legs wrapped around the man and his arms around the guy's neck in a sleeper hold, like an anaconda squeezing the life from a pig.

“You think this is over?” the Slav said roughly, without proper air. “This is just the beginning.”

Jake whispered into the man's ear. “I already know about your boss. The lobbying firm.”

The Slav tried to struggle free, but Jake had full control.

“You tell me who pulled the trigger on my friend, and I'll let you die quickly,” Jake promised. “If you lie, I'll take my time.”

Suddenly, a voice echoed through the darkness. “Jake. It's Pam. It's over. We've got them all.”

The Slav tried to say something, but Jake tightened his grip on the man's throat.

“Who shot Toni?” Jake asked through grit teeth.

“Fuck you.” The Slav tried to struggle again, but he wasn't making any progress and he knew it.

“You tell me,” Jake said, “and I won't hunt down everyone you've ever known and kill them as well. It will end here.”

Pam's voice was getting closer. And now Kim also called out to Jake. Both of them had flashlights scanning the forest for Jake.

Jake heard the man mumble something but he wasn't sure he had heard correctly. “Say again?”

The man finally forced out “The Lobbyist.”

“I know that,” Jake said. “I need a name.”

With as much strength against Jake's arms as the Slav could manage, the man shook his head. “We don't know his name.”

The lights were getting closer.

“What does he look like?” Jake implored.

“Red hair and freckles.”

That's all Jake needed. How many men from the lobbying firm could look like that?

As Jake saw the lights get closer, the Slav twisted beneath him and said, “Do it.”

“I don't know. Maybe I'll just let them send you to a black site for interrogation.”

“We all made your girlfriend water-tight,” the Slav said and then laughed.

Without thinking, Jake simply twisted his body until he heard the familiar snap of the man's neck, which he hadn't heard since killing that terrorist in Tunisia. The Slav's body went limp.

Just as Jake rolled away from the long-haired man, the flashlights found him and the two Agency officers quickly closed in on his position.

Kim put his gun away and reached to help Jake up. “Are you all right, Jake?”

“Just hunky dory,” Jake said, taking Kim's hand and getting to his feet.

Pam was checking out the other dead man and then she came over to the two of them. “Is this guy dead?”

“Afraid so,” Jake said. He pointed off to the forest. “But I think I might have just winged a couple of the Koreans.”

“No problem,” Pam said. “I've got the locals surrounding the park. With this snow they should find all of them.”

“Nice work,” Jake said.

She looked at the man with long hair. “Did that man say anything before he died?”

Jake shrugged. “A lot of swear words. Mostly in Czech. About all I know in that language.”

“Too bad,” she said. “It would have been nice to interrogate him.”

Looking off toward Kim, Jake simply shrugged again.

“Kim, get Jake to the Air Force base,” Pam said. “You take the car. I'll find a ride back to the office.”

“No way,” Jake said. “I have to accompany the congresswoman to the six-party talks.”

“That's not necessary,” Pam said.

“I promised,” Jake said.

“I understand. But the six-party talks are off. That crazy man up north was yanking our chain again. He had no intention of sitting down with us.”

Jake shook his head. “We should just nuke his ass.” After he said it, he thought about the technology he had been protecting ever since he first set free the professor in Montana. The North Korean dictator might make a good candidate for this weapon. Of course the list would be long. But he would be a good start.

Jake reached out his hand to Pam. Instead of shaking, though, she pulled in and hugged Jake.

Pam pulled away and said, “Thanks for getting those who killed Toni.”

He nodded and then rubbed Pam's arm. “No problem.”

“You've gotta go,” she said.

“All right. It's been real. Take care.”

Jake and Kim hurried off toward the parking lot.

Jake had Kim stop off at the embassy to pick up Congresswoman Lori Freeman, before dropping them both off at Kunsan Air Base, where a Gulfstream jet awaited them.

Up in the air now and heading toward the northeast at cruising altitude, Jake finally took off his leather jacket, revealing his bloody left shoulder.

“You're hurt,” Lori declared. She got up and went to Jake to get a closer look at his bullet wound.

“I got lucky,” Jake said, and then ripped his shirt away from the sticky blood. “It just grazed the top of my shoulder.”

She got up and went toward the cockpit to talk with a female Air Force senior airman, and then came back with a first aid kit. Lori helped Jake take off his shirt, cleaned the wound and patched the ripped flesh with four-inch bandages, running the white tape down to his chest on one side and to his shoulder blades on the other. Then she found a clean shirt in Jake's backpack and helped him pull it over his head.

“Thanks,” Jake said.

Lori sat across from him. “You better see a doctor when we get to. . .where's this jet going?”

“Andrews.” Jake glanced at her and wished they had more privacy. Although he was beat up and tired, he would somehow find the strength.

The airman turned down the lights and went through the cabin to close all the window shades. Since they were heading east, it wouldn't take long before they hit sunshine.

Jake must have fallen asleep almost immediately. When he finally woke up, he only did so because the airman was nudging his arm.

“Sir, would you like something to eat,” the airman asked.

Nodding, Jake said, “And some coffee, please.”

He glanced about the cabin and finally saw Lori in the back seat on the phone with someone. She smiled at him and put up her index finger.

Finally she clicked off the phone and put it into her purse. Then she came forward and sat across from Jake. “You slept like a baby.”

“You mean I cried every two hours and crapped my pants?”

“Wow,” she said. “I had no idea you could be funny in the morning.”

“Maybe you need to hang out with me a little longer,” Jake said, hopeful.

“Maybe. I was just on the phone with the Speaker. Since the six-party talks failed, I have a week left before our next session.”

“What do you have planned?” he asked.

She leaned closer to him and put her hand onto his knee. “I was hoping you could delay your return to South America and spend some time in DC. With your favorite representative.”

Jake smiled at her conspiratorially. “I'd rather be with you.”

Lori slapped his leg. “You are so bad.”

She didn't know the half of it. “All right. But I need to take care of a few things, including attending the funeral for a friend.”

“I understand.”

No, she didn't. But that was all right.

An hour later they landed at Andrews outside of DC. A car and driver waited for the congresswoman outside the operations building. The driver wasn't too happy to see Jake, since their last encounter Jake put the man in a sleeper and shoved him in the trunk. Lori and Jake got into the back seat.

“Stay with me,” Lori whispered to Jake.

“What about keeping up appearances?” he asked her.

“Screw that.”

Jake put his hand on her leg and said, “All right.”

●

They spent the next twenty-four hours not even leaving Lori's apartment. They called out for pizza and Chinese. And they made love as often as physically possible. The two of them were good together, but he had no idea where this was going. Those who got too close to him ended up dead. He couldn't live with that outcome for Lori.

The next evening, while Lori was taking a long shower, Jake accessed the internet for a little research. She came out naked with a towel wrapped over her hair like a turban. My God, Jake thought. Her body was perfect.

“What will it be tonight?” she asked.

His eyes scanned her body from top to bottom and then back up again. “This works for me.”

She smiled. “I was talking about dinner.”

“Oh. I thought the turban meant you wanted Indian food tonight.”

She stepped in front of him, her nakedness within touch. “Perhaps the Kama Sutra first, and then we can call out for Indian.”

He couldn't argue with her logic.

Much later, after eating, Jake opened a bottle of wine and handed a glass to Lori. She got only a few sips down before she started to sway. Jake helped her to her bedroom and tucked her under the covers.

He checked his watch and then found his backpack and retrieved one of the Glocks. He pulled out the magazine and flipped out the bullets onto the living room coffee table. Then he put on some surgical gloves and wiped down the bullet brass before putting the bullets back into the magazine. Then he also wiped down the magazine and the gun itself.

Jake glanced back to the bedroom. He hated to slip Lori a Mickey, but he also needed to take some time to finish something.

He spent the next couple of hours traveling by bus, by subway and by simply walking, until he got to a secluded house in Arlington, Virginia. It was a two story raised ranch with massive deciduous trees in the back yard. In the darkness closing in on midnight, only a couple of street lights gave Jake any view at all of the neighborhood.

It took Jake less than two minutes to break through the security system for this house. Getting in the place took another three minutes.

Knowing that his target lived alone, Jake made his way through the house with a small pen light with a red lens. Finding the master bedroom on the second floor was easy. Jake just followed the heavy breathing.

Now he slipped the 9mm auto from his right pocket and sat in a chair at the side of the bed, simply watching the man sleep. Since finding out about the man, Jake had run every possible scenario through his mind.

Finally, he aimed his gun at the man and clicked on a small table lamp.

The man with the red hair shot up in bed, saw Jake, and then reached for the nightstand drawer. “I wouldn't,” Jake told him. Then he reached into the drawer and found the man's handgun—a 9mm Sig Sauer almost identical to the one he had used in Korea.

The man in bed said, “What do you want?”

“You know who I am.” It wasn't a question.