I hunch down, with Rodney mimicking my movements. “You sure about this?” he asks nervously. Who would’ve thought a big, dumb thug like him would be scared of this shit.
“You wanna stay here?” I ask again. He shakes his head no. “Okay, on my go.” I wait for the guard to turn his head, and when he does, I motion for us to move. We both start running across the field, but before we can make it fifty feet, I hear them shouting for us to stop.
“Freeze and put your hands up!” The guard on the front corner draws his weapon and that’s my cue to turn my ass around and get the hell out of there.
“Let’s go!” I say, but I know Rodney won’t be able to keep up. Oh well, it’s all for yourselves in this game. I sprint as fast as I can back the way we came. What’s that saying about a bear attack? You don’t have to be fast, you just have to be faster than your friend? Well, the same concept applies here. I don’t look back until I’m further in the tree line, but when I do, I see Rodney on the ground with three guys on him handcuffing him. One of the guys is still coming toward me, so I keep moving to avoid being arrested. I’m hoping this incident is just what I need to get Cal to back off my nuts a bit so I can talk to my boss and check in on Elizabeth. I can’t do any of that when I have a tail twenty-four-seven. So I’m going to pin this botched mission on Rodney’s fat ass to prove having someone follow me is an issue.
About four blocks up I come to a convenience store. I walk in and immediately go to the store clerk. “Do you guys sell disposable cell phones?”
“No, I’m sorry,” the girl replies. Fuck.
“Do you have a phone I can use then?”
“Sure.” She hands me a cordless phone. I know I don’t have long and will need to get back to the car before they find out Rodney was arrested.
“Turner,” he answers gruffly.
“Sir, this is Matthews,” I say into the receiver. Whenever I’m in the field, I always use my undercover name, even when talking to my boss and colleagues. You never know who’s listening. “I don’t have long, but I wanted to give you an update.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m being held by two guys in an abandoned building in Manassas.” I give him the address of my exact location. “Don’t send a patrol unit. I don’t want to tip anyone off.” He agrees. “Cal wants me to assassinate Bill Hutchison so he can win the election. I’m in Iowa right now. We flew in on a private jet. Tail number November, 6–2-4, Romeo, Sally. You got that, sir?”
“Yeah, what else you got?”
“The two guys he has on me are Rodney and Bruce. I don’t know last names, no visible tattoos or other distinct markings to give away affiliations. Rodney just got arrested, so you might want to look for a police report. I’m sure Cal will use his connections to get him out, so be quick.”
“Okay, anything else?”
“Not right now.”
“Alright. Be careful and check back in when you can.” He hangs up and I hand the phone back to the clerk who gives me a weird look before leaving and running back toward the car.
“Where the hell is Rodney?” Bruce asks, placing his hand on his gun that’s holstered at his hip. I put my hands up.
“He got arrested.”
“What do you mean he got arrested?”
“We were trying to get to the stage and his fat ass slowed us down. I just barely got away. I told you guys he would be in the way, and because no one wanted to listen to me, the whole mission has been put in jeopardy.”
We get in the car and drive off. On our way back to the airport, Bruce calls “the boss” to tell him the bad news. “He wants to talk to you,” he says, holding the phone out to me.
“Looks like you need a reminder of what happens when you fuck up,” he says. I don’t know who’s on the other line, but it’s not Cal.
“I told everyone it would be too hard to get in and out with him trailing me. I can’t do the job and worry about covering him. If anything, your poor decisions led to his arrest and now this whole thing might be compromised. I hope your guy doesn’t talk or we’re all going down for this.”
He laughs. “You’ve got balls, kid, I’ll give you that. And I won’t be going down for shit. Don’t worry about Rodney, he won’t talk and I’ve got a guy up there at the precinct. So what’s next?”
“What’s next is you guys let me do this my way. You think you’re safe, but do you think cops care about guys like me who do the hit? No, they care about guys like you who order it. Take off the constant trail and let me do what I’m good at.”
There’s a long pause on the line and I’m worried I’ve pushed it too far. “Fine. You do this your way. But I swear, if you fuck up at all, they’ll be looking for your girlfriend in pieces. You understand?” I swallow hard at the thought of them harming her.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Get to it then.” He hangs up. I glance at the screen as I hand the phone back to Bruce, but the ID only says Boss Man.
“Looks like I don’t need babysitting anymore,” I say to him. We drive back to the airstrip, board the plane, and fly back to Virginia since today is a bust.
Well, not really, but they don’t know that.
“IS ANYONE WATCHING Elizabeth?” I ask Turner over the phone. Since Rodney’s arrest two weeks ago, I’ve been able to move around unescorted. It’s not much, but it gives me enough time to talk to Turner and report back to him.
“No, we had to pull everyone off when you went down.”
“Are you shitting me?” I say in a low, restrained voice. The last thing I need right now is to draw attention to myself, but this is unacceptable.
“Listen, it’s out of my ha—”
“No, this is bullshit and you know it. They’re going to kill her if shit hits the fan.” My free hand rakes through my hair in frustration.
He sighs over the line. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. I might be able to get a man to run surveillance outside the home when she’s not traveling with him. If anything is going to happen to her, it’s not going to be when they’re together.”
He’s got a point. Cal will be nowhere around with an iron-clad alibi. It’s not ideal and I’d rather have her watched all the time, but something is better than nothing. “Did you find out anything about the plane?”
“We’re still working on it. I think it’s registered under a fake name.”
“Okay. Well, I talked to the boss on the phone right after Rodney was arrested. I don’t know who he is, but it’s not Cal. He said he’s got people on the inside at the precinct who would get Rodney out.”
“Yeah,” he lets out a huff. “I figured there was some kind of connection. He was released an hour after he was brought in.”
“This goes way deeper than we ever thought, man. It’s not just simple corruption and taking illegal campaign funds anymore. Now we’re talking about infiltrating the police department, murder, and who knows what else.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. What a cluster fuck this is turning into.
“I have a feeling when we find out who the jet belongs to we’ll start connecting the pieces. Just keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll let you know if we have any updates on the jet the next time you call.”
“Okay, sir.” I hang up feeling slightly better about Elizabeth than I had before. Turner can be a hard-ass, but he’s always there when you need him. I know if he can make it happen, he will.
A week later, I’m sitting in that dirty-ass abandoned building doing “research.” Really, I’m searching for every video I can find on YouTube of Cal campaigning. In the last two weeks he’s made four appearances, and each one Elizabeth looks worse and worse. She’s lost a lot of weight. Her cheeks are sunken in and her once bright, beautiful face is now a pale, ashen color. Each time I see her sad expression, I feel like someone has punched me in the gut and stolen all the air from my lungs. Every part of me is screaming to race to her and take her away from here, but I know it won’t do anything to solve the bigger problem. Until Cal is completely out of the picture and in jail, she’d never be able to live a life without fear. He’d find her, I have no doubts about that.