Sold Out (Nick Woods Book 1) (27 page)

Nick shook his head to erase the terrifying thoughts, and,
breathing deeply, set to burying the pains of so many old war wounds. He looked
about and refocused on the present. He scanned the gas pumps nearest him,
looking quickly in a 360 around him as unobtrusively as possible. He gave the
thick woods opposite the gas station a once over and finally took a long look
at the customers in the gas station.

Some of them waited in line. Others picked junk food off the
aisles. No one looked frightened or frozen in fear, as if a hold-up was
underway. So far, so good.

Taking another deep breath, Nick adjusted the Kimber .45 on
his hip, and walked toward the door. He dreaded the people he’d have to
interact with, having spent the better part of two years in solitude up in the
mountains of Montana.

He had expected the government to double-cross him again. The
deal they made was very similar to one they made many years ago and that one
certainly didn’t end up sticking. Nick Woods had been sold out -- twice,
actually -- and he fully expected the government to come after him in Montana.

But a damn strange thing happened: They never came. He’d been
prepared, waiting for them with an almost eager, expectant intensity, but the
dawns and dusks passed with him hidden behind his guns, no one in sight.

He’d grown tired of waiting and realized he probably needed
to be around people again. He was mentally losing it, becoming crazier and
lonelier by the day, and thus a big reason for this cross-country trip was to
tear down his paranoia and get him comfortable being around people again.

Anne would be proud, Nick thought, to see him making such
progress.

I’m trying, baby. I’m trying.

He smiled at her memory and wished she hadn’t been taken so
soon. Or, “shot in self defense” if you wanted to believe the bullshit police
report from the FBI.

He didn’t believe it, and in the end what the report said
didn’t really matter: Nick had gunned down the pencil pusher who’d killed her
that night.

Nick pushed this bloodshed -- that brutal, ugly rifle shot --
from his mind, just as he’d pushed the screams from Afghanistan out of his mind
moments earlier.

As Nick headed toward the double doors of the gas station,
motion brought him fully to the present. A gray, unmarked police cruiser pulled
into the gas station, slow and unthreatening. But Nick still paused, unsure.
And suddenly he was aware that he had stopped mid-stride and stood transfixed
on the cruiser.

The driver seemed to be watching him from behind the tinted
window. Nick stood frozen, watching the car. Unmoving. He looked guilty as
hell, and he knew it, and yet he didn’t care.

No question, he was guilty as hell. He had no concealed carry
permit and he had two loaded weapons on him, not to mention the locked and
loaded long guns in the Jeep. And once they found his rucksack with the
thousands of rounds, the grenades, and the Claymore mines -- all stuff he’d
bought off a man he strongly suspected typically armed drug cartels and
militias in the Midwest -- he’d be completely toast.

Not that they’d ever get him in cuffs. Nope. No siree.

They’d either kill him or he’d kill them first. Nick Woods
didn’t trust cops, federal agents, or even the service members defending the
flag. All of them had worked to either sell him out or put his ass in the
ground, so he’d trust the cold steel on his hip and not another damn thing.
(After all, how could anyone know whether their intel was accurate and
truthful? Nick had sure been misled enough times as a young Marine, and so had
hundreds of men who had come after him.)

Nick considered drawing and rushing forward and blowing the
man’s head off as he watched the officer through the tinted driver’s-side
window. Nick couldn’t let him get on his radio, so if the man made one move
toward the radio in the console, he was a dead man. He was only twelve feet
away and Nick couldn’t let him call in the cavalry.

But then the man did the damndest thing ever. He turned the
car away from Nick, so slow that the movement bordered on bizarre. Still
stranger, the man raised both hands up, palms forward, in the motion of
surrender. It was the damndest thing ever, and Nick kept his eye on the man
with his peripheral vision and scanned the woods beyond the cruiser.

He saw nothing, and though the hair on his neck hadn’t stood
up, Nick wasn’t the type to take chances. He yanked the pistol from his hip so
fast that it was a blur. A motion practiced so many thousand times that it
would take a slow-motion video to pinpoint each individual movement.

But now the man’s head was centered in Nick’s sights and a
woman was screaming. Folks scurried and hid and frantically dialed cell phones.
Nick saw this movement around him, but kept his focus on the man in the
cruiser. He could feel all the eyes on him and his mind raced, wondering how
fast the 911 calls happening all around him would get the local boys on the
scene.

He’d want his M14 for them -- take a few out before running
for it into the woods. Otherwise, they’d just pit-maneuver him on the
interstate with their powerful pursuit cars.

As Nick considered his moves, he noticed the man was saying
something behind the tinted window. He strained to hear and picked up the man saying
his name.

“Nick Woods, it’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t shoot. Please don’t
shoot.”

Nick leaned forward a bit and saw fear and pleading in the
guy’s face, and he heard the words again, clearer this time: “Nick Woods, it’s
okay. It’s okay. Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot.”

Nick advanced toward the car -- fast and agile for a man who
looked too country to be a runner. But a runner Nick was. And he was damn near
a ninja, too. A martial arts addict, he could jump and roll and strike and kick
with the best of them.

And now he stood at the window, his pistol six inches from
the glass and the man’s head. The man looked beyond frantic now.

“Don’t shoot,” he screamed. “Don’t shoot. I need to talk to
you. Just talk.”

Nick grabbed the door handle with his left hand while keeping
the pistol in the man’s face. He ripped the door open, moving his pistol out of
its arc, before stepping in closer and placing the pistol against the man’s
forehead hard enough to drive him on his back. Nick was now leaning in the car,
the pistol pressed with all his might against the man’s cranium.

“Motherfucker, you squirm one inch and I’ll blow a hole so
big out the back of your head that the mortician will have to attach a bowl to
keep the embalming fluid in. Now, you have ten seconds before I drag you from
this car and throw your ass in my Jeep. What do you want? Why were you looking
at me? How did you know my name?”

“Nick,” the man said, struggling against the console in his
back and the pistol being pressed hard into bone. “I’ve just come to talk with
you.”

“Talk,” Nick said, not letting up.

“My name doesn’t matter, but I volunteered to make contact
with you. Nick, we need your help.”

“Last time you all needed my help, you sold me and my partner
out five hundred miles inside Afghanistan. Forgive me if I’m a little hesitant
to sign up again.”

“That was a rogue operation run by a dishonorable man. You
have to trust us on that.”

“I’ll decide who I trust,” Nick said, remembering the
shredded body of his spotter. And then flashing to the sight of his wife lying
dead in the grass, her white gown ruined by blood and mud.

“Nick, let me up and I’ll call the police off before they get
here. Whether you accept our offer or not, you don’t need to be on the run
again. You don’t need any more dead cops to your name.”

Nick considered the idea, and realized he either needed to
blow the man’s brains out or take him hostage. Either way the clock was ticking
and the cops were certainly racing on their way to the gas station.

“Get up and don’t try anything stupid,” Nick said, grabbing
the man by his throat and jerking him up. They exited the police cruiser
awkwardly, both men aware of the loaded gun and the danger each posed to the
other.

They stood now -- the man with his hands up; Nick with his
pistol covering him.

“Everyone, calm down,” the man said, looking toward those
around him. “This is simply a training exercise. An anti-terrorism drill. There
is no need to panic. My friend here is playing the part of a quote terrorist.”

He looked back at Nick and said, “Let me get my phone out of
my jacket pocket and I’ll get the cops called off.”

“Move damn slow,” Nick said.

The man, who wore a black suit and looked about thirty,
reached inside the jacket and slowly pulled out a cell phone. He dialed three
numbers, which Nick assumed was 911.

“Yes, ma’am. I am a member of Federal Task Force Apache. Code
Number 894673-736492.”

He paused, then said, “Yes, ma’am. Please call Gen. Compton
to confirm, and then please call off the responding units before we have any
blue-on-blue accidents.”

The suited man closed his phone, pointed to his inside coat
pocket, and said, “May I?”

Nick, .45 pointed at his center mass, said, “Slowly. Damn
slowly.”

The man replaced the phone and said, “If you’ll let me lock
the car, we’ll take a ride in your Jeep and talk.”

“Car doesn’t need to be locked. It’s a police cruiser.
Nobody’s going to touch it.”

Nick waved the pistol toward his Jeep.

“Let’s go, hoss. And you better pray I don’t decide to shoot
you between here and there.”

They walked to Nick’s Jeep Grand Cherokee and the man opened
the passenger door, slowly climbing in and sitting down. Nick followed and
stayed behind him, about four feet away. Just enough distance to make sure the
man didn’t get cute and try something stupid.

“You got any weapons on you?” Nick asked.

“Hell, no,” the guy said. “We were afraid that would set you
off.”

Nick could tell he was telling the truth.

“Any cuffs?” Nick asked once he was seated and buckled in.

“I’m not a cop. I work for the government.”

Nick never hesitated, expecting that very answer. With no
give away
, Nick swung the pistol and cracked
the man in the head with its barrel. The strike knocked him out, his head
falling forward and body slumping. The seat belt kept him in place, mostly, and
Nick pushed his right arm in and closed the door.

Nick holstered his pistol and smiled to those watching, none
of whom were sure whether this was a prank, the real thing, or just a realistic
training exercise.

Nick smiled. “Nothing to see folks. He’s just a good actor
and playing along. I love these rubber guns, they look so real. Ya’ll have a
good day.”

By the time the agent woke up, Nick had driven a short
distance to the next decent-sized town, rented a room at a rundown hotel, and
carried the agent inside, binding his arms and legs to a chair.

“About time,” Nick said when the agent came to.

While the man had been knocked out, Nick had made
preparations for an assault, though he didn’t anticipate one. No police or
government personnel had followed him or tried to stop him once he hurried out
of the gas station, so it looked like the agent was telling the truth.

Nick had already learned the hard way a couple years ago that
when the government really wants you, there’s not a hell of a lot you can do.
In that instance, they had brought out the drones, teams of special operators
in Blackhawks, and who knew what else.

Still, serious preparation had saved Nick’s neck on more than
one occasion, so he had placed a C-shaped Claymore mine four feet from the
door, dragging a dresser behind it to help protect him from the backblast in
such an enclosed space. The wire from the Claymore ran back to a bedpost, which
he’d knotted it around so no one would trip on it and knock the Claymore down.
Or worse: twist it around so that it aimed away from the door and toward Nick
and the agent.

The clacker for the Claymore lay on the bed, along with
Nick’s M14, shotgun, and pack. The pack itself was crammed with magazines,
shotgun shells, and other necessary gear.

Nick sat on the bed next to the gear, sipping on a Mountain
Dew he’d bought at a vending machine from the hotel, near where they kept the
ice. Besides getting the Dew, he’d also taken his much-needed piss that he’d
missed out on at the gas station, which was the number one reason he’d stopped
there in the first place. He still didn’t have his Snickers bar yet, but he
always kept stowed away in his pack a good dozen or so packs of
peanut-butter-and-cheese crackers. He was nearly finished scarfing down a pack
of them when the agent awoke.

The man had a hell of a wound on his head, and blood had
coagulated in his hair and run down and ruined his suit. But that was the least
of the agent’s problems, Nick hoped the man knew.

“You wanted to talk, let’s talk,” Nick said. He downed the
final cracker and then hoisted the M14 and aimed it toward the agent.