Easy Target (10 page)

Bryan nodded to cover his surprise. “You sound like you know the area. How far are we from Charleston?”

“I work for the South Carolina Board of Tourism. I know all the little towns. We’re about seventy-­five miles up the road from Charleston.” The man pulled his coat more tightly around himself. “You and your woman okay?”

Bryan started at the man’s question, but beside him, Sassy didn’t respond.
His woman?
He’d never thought of her that way before, having shied away from possessive thoughts of any kind where Sassy was concerned. Tonight he found the idea comforting and fitting. Sassy remained silent as the older man waited expectantly.

“She was unconscious for a while. I expect she’s got a concussion,” said Bryan. “We were lucky.”

The man nodded. They watched the burning wreckage. The man’s voice shook when he spoke again. “What in God’s name happened here? Seemed like we crashed and after that initial chaos it was all over . . . then all hell broke loose.”

Bryan nodded but said nothing. The man was saying exactly what Bryan was thinking. The moon peeked out from behind scattered clouds, and together they peered at the morass of twisted metal.

“I don’t know,” Bryan murmured, still staring at the broken train.

There’d undoubtedly been a secondary explosion. But what had caused it? Was it something in the baggage compartment, or had one of the vehicles on the automotive railcar simply exploded?

Remembering the destructive power of the detonation, he continued to study the twisted metal. From this distance and vantage point, it was hard to be sure of anything definitive. Even so, he had that prickly feeling along the back of his neck. The train almost looked like it could have been hit with a bomb. But he wasn’t close enough to confirm it.

Jesus.
Nick had mentioned drones before, and it hadn’t really registered. Ernesto Vega had sworn to Nick at The Gaylord that the vet clinic and Thomas Rivera’s house in Mexico were both destroyed by drones. Was Bryan looking at a similar attack?

But why? Why would anyone come after Sassy or him in that way?

The sirens had grown obnoxiously loud. Bryan could see the red and blue lights flashing as a police car and ambulance both drove along a turnrow toward the group. For a town of three thousand, the emergency response would be stretched thin with this type of disaster.

He glanced down at Sassy’s forehead. She was still bleeding and needed to be seen by a doctor. But he needed her out of the system and off the grid. They both needed to be anonymous.

Bryan looked out over the barren tobacco field toward the man and woman they’d passed on their way to the group.

“Any idea who they were?” he asked the old man, pointing to the bodies a few yards away. An idea was forming that might buy them some time.

A week ago, he wouldn’t have thought it possible, and in fact he would have been offended at what he was about to do, at the cruelty he would perpetrate against the families. But that ­couple was dead, and Bryan was all about protecting the living.

The old man shook his head. “No. I don’t know them.”

A heavy gust of smoke blew through their little circle and dissipated. The old man coughed as he bent down to rifle through a small bag he’d managed to get off the train. If Bryan was going to do this, it had to be now.

He dug around in his own backpack a moment, then left it with Sassy and hustled over to the bodies, bending down on the pretense of checking for the ­couple’s identification. Both were dressed in street clothes instead of pajamas, which made what he was doing a little easier. A fanny pack was around the woman’s waist, and the man had a long billfold in his front jacket pocket. Bryan exchanged their IDs for his and Sassy’s, lifting the man’s wallet and replacing it with his own, plus exchanging the woman’s wallet for Sassy’s new passport.

The switch wouldn’t hold up for long, but hopefully it would last long enough. The emergency vehicles were close. He pocketed the ­couple’s identification and hurried back to the group.

“Who were they?” asked the old man.

“Guy’s name was Bryan Fisher and the woman was Sassy Smith.”

“Wha—­” Sassy looked up in surprise, but an immediate look of understanding settled over her face when she made eye contact with him.

The police car and ambulance both pulled to a stop beside them and blessedly cut the sirens, even though the lights continued to turn and bathe everyone’s faces in macabre red and blue shadows that looked like blood.

Help had arrived.

“I’m James,” the older man said in the deafening silence.

“I’m Robert,” said Bryan. “And this is my wife, Lisa.” He nodded at Sassy. “Robert and Lisa Albertson.”

Chapter Ten

December 28

Morning

Kingstree, South Carolina

S
EVERAL HOURS LATER
, Sassy sat on a gurney in the hall just outside an ER exam room and tried to close out all the noise—­the overhead paging system, loud voices, louder crying, and beeping monitors. As bad as the hallway was, the ER waiting area was worse, having deteriorated into total chaos a ­couple of hours ago.

She’d just been wheeled back from a CT scan. With her splitting headache and inability to think straight, she knew without being told that she had a concussion. Bryan was nowhere to be seen, but she assumed he was close by. He hadn’t let her out of his sight until they’d insisted she had to go into the room with the CT imaging machine alone.

She was still reeling from everything that had happened, but most of all from hearing Bryan identify himself as Robert Albertson, and her as his wife, Lisa.

He hadn’t produced any ID when asked. Instead, he’d insisted it had been lost in the accident. Sassy assumed the Albertsons were the ­couple lying dead in the field next to the train wreck.

She understood why he’d had to do that, but it frightened her. On top of the man he’d killed in their hotel room, it made her wonder what she was doing with Bryan. Who was he, really?

His teammates called him “Hollywood.” But who had Bryan become? What had he become? She hadn’t seen him since they were kids together. Did she know him at all anymore?

He looked the same, if a bit more buff than when she’d lived next door to him in the trailer park. He was still addicted to Dentyne gum. She’d have recognized him anywhere, but the carefree boy she’d known twelve years ago was long gone.

There was something in his eyes that had changed. Sad, somber. Older. What had happened to him?

He’d been in Iraq and Afghanistan. She knew that much from her brother. She also knew he’d been in a horrible accident. It was why he’d missed his grandmother’s funeral. Trey had told her that much, but no other real details.

Bryan had gone to visit Trey in Memphis when he’d finally gotten back home from the Middle East, and they’d spent some time together. But the details of how and why he was out of the Marines and working for AEGIS now, she didn’t know. She’d thought Bryan was a lifer for sure. Trey had as well. But her brother hadn’t shared with her, if he even knew, why Bryan had left the military.

Those were the questions she should look for answers to. But right now Bryan was the only person standing between her and the ­people who were intent on killing her. That had been made perfectly clear before she’d been taken for the CT scan.

“You have to play along as Lisa Albertson until we get out of the hospital and away from Kingstree. I know it sucks, but it’s the only way to keep you safe,” he’d said.

He’d held her hand as she’d lain on the gurney while they’d waited in the hallway for her test. It was one of the first times they’d had even a modicum of privacy since escaping from the train. She’d nodded. She wasn’t so scrambled that she thought the train wreck was a freak accident.

“I’m almost certain this has to do with what happened in Africa and New York,” he’d continued.

She’d felt her mouth open. Not because it didn’t make sense, but because she hadn’t walked the train wreck back that far yet. The tech had arrived then and taken her away for her test.

She didn’t
want
to believe Bryan’s suspicions, but as she’d lain on the table in the imaging room with the tremendous machines and the very loud thumping, she’d come to the conclusion that he was right.

She looked around to see if she could spot him in the waiting room melee down the hallway. The nurse who’d gathered her intake info came by, but still no Bryan. The woman brought a rolling partition and set it up around Sassy before cleaning her face and explaining that it would be a while before the doctor would be available to give her stitches.

As they chatted about inconsequential things for a few moments, Sassy found herself drawn to the older woman. Her name was Tilly and she was a dear, full of conversation and concern for the victims of the train wreck. Tilly told Sassy all about her granddaughter who’d recently moved out of the garage apartment next to her home.

Tilly was most concerned for where Sassy and Bryan would go once they were dismissed from the hospital. She reminded Sassy of Bryan’s Gran.

“Can you tell me if the CT scan was okay?” asked Sassy.

“I’m not supposed to, but I can tell you that if there was a problem, the doctor would be in here sooner rather than later. As it is, I’m concerned about the time lapse for getting your head sewn up.”

Sassy smiled.
Message received
. Her head was fine. “Can’t you or the physician’s assistant do the stitching?”

“The cut is on your face. Wouldn’t you rather the doctor do it?” asked Tilly.

Sassy shrugged. “It’s at my hairline. It won’t show much. Besides, I’m sure you do just as good work as that doctor I saw in the hallway who’s been practicing for what, fifteen minutes?”

The older woman smiled. “Dr. Xander looks very young for his age.” Tilly paused a beat as Sassy raised an eyebrow. “I think he’s thirty,” she added.

Sassy laughed out loud. “Really, I trust you to do it. And I know there are so many others who need the doctor now more than I do. We can even do butterflies on it if you think that would be better.”

T
HE NURSE WAS
tilting Sassy’s head back as Bryan stepped into the room, but he’d overheard part of the conversation. “You need stitches,” he said. “Butterflies won’t work for a cut that deep.”

The older woman glanced up and did a double take before nodding and looking back at her patient. “He’s right. If you’re really okay with my doing it, I can take care of this now.”

“Of course,” said Sassy. “Stitch away.”

Sassy lay down on the gurney and introduced Bryan to her nurse as Tilly readied everything. Bryan caught himself staring, vaguely surprised that Sassy was so blasé about scars. He’d assumed that because of her usual carefully coiffed presentation, she’d howl about not having a plastic surgeon to stitch up her injury.

He’d misjudged her. Was he making other false assumptions about her as well?

His thoughts raced as the two women chatted away. He was grateful Sassy had the distraction of Tilly, because the picture he’d just gathered outside their “partitioned room” was bleak. The police officers taking all the initial information for the accident victims had been full of information.

A grand total of two hotels graced Kingstree, plus one of the local churches was offering a shelter for the accident victims. Not that he figured any of those options would be particularly safe for him or Sassy. They would be the first places someone would come looking for them.

He and Sassy needed to get out of Kingstree, or at least to a safe place where they could regroup and figure out what to do next. While he didn’t want to lie any more than he had to, if he wanted the world to believe that he and Sassy were dead, there could be no more contacting AEGIS until he’d figured out their “leak situation.”

The immediate issue was getting out of the hospital unobserved by reporters. The cops had filled him in on that, too. The news media had heard about the accident almost as soon as it happened. Reporters from affiliates in Charleston, Greenville, and a ­couple of national correspondents were descending on the small town like a plague of locusts, salivating for details of the wreck.

How was he to spirit Sassy out of here without the two of them being caught on film? The switch with the IDs at the wreckage site would be all for naught if his face or Sassy’s ended up on CNN, even as a background shot for an interview.

His only option for anonymously leaving town was to call someone with no connection to him or to AEGIS. There hadn’t been that many choices. Hell, there was really only one.

He’d called Bear Bennett while Sassy was having the CT scan. He hadn’t wanted to. The two men hadn’t spoken since the day Bryan left Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and flew back to the U.S. to begin his civilian life.

But Bear had said to call if Bryan ever needed anything. He had even sent Bryan a change-­of-­address email last year. Bryan had kept up with him, despite their not talking in real time. In an ironic twist of fate, Bear’s current work address was less than seventy miles away in the Francis Marion National Forest. What were the chances?

Today Bryan had dialed the phone and left a message, unsure if the former Special Forces operator would get the voice mail or not. There was no way to know if the man was even on call, particularly during this odd holiday week. He had family, lots of it, as Bryan recalled.

For now, the local motel would have to do. He’d already phoned and made a reservation in Robert Albertson’s name, claiming he’d lost his wallet in the accident and was having money wired. The hotel clerk had been quite understanding, since several other guests had had the same issue. Bryan just had to figure out how to get to the hotel, even though he wasn’t wild about the whole idea.

“Tilly, how far is the Welcome Inn?” he asked as she finished up Sassy’s stitches.

A look of disgust came over the nurse’s face. “It’s a ­couple of blocks away, but you don’t want to stay there. I was just telling your wife what a dearth of hotels there is here in Kingstree.”

“We don’t have much choice. The Welcome Inn is the only place in town with a vacancy.” And not having a car was an issue. They needed something that was within walking distance.

Tilly finished up the stitches, stepped back from Sassy, and stared at them both a moment before she removed the purple nitrile gloves. “Yes, you do. I have a garage apartment. I was just telling your wife that my granddaughter moved out recently and went back to college. The apartment is simple, but it’s clean. You could stay there tonight.”

“But we couldn’t impose—­” started Sassy.

“Spend the night,” Tilly interrupted her. “At least stay there today until you figure out how to finish your trip home. I wouldn’t wish The Well on my worst enemy. It’s a roach motel and a home for bedbugs.”

“But—­”

“You can pay me. How about half of what The Well charges?”

Sassy looked at Bryan and raised an eyebrow. He didn’t want to accept and could tell that Sassy didn’t either, but they were completely out of options.

He nodded his agreement.

“Thank you. That’s very kind,” said Sassy.

Tilly kept talking. “My husband can take you to the house. I’ll give him a call. He’s here waiting for me right now, ’cause this is the time my shift usually ends, but with the accident and all, it was just extended.”

“Are you sure you don’t want us to wait?” asked Sassy.

“Oh, I’m sure you don’t want to. I’m likely to be here several more hours until they can get more hands on board. Normally we’d keep you for observation on your head injury. But I get the feeling you’re not going to go for that, are you, dear?”

Bryan willed Sassy to agree. This was the last place they needed to be. He turned his gaze on her, and she couldn’t have mistaken the message in his eyes.

She shook her head and shifted on the gurney. “You’re right. We’re not up for that.”

“So, it’s settled,” said Tilly. “You go on with my Otis. You can shower and get cleaned up at the apartment.”

Sassy had tears in her eyes. “I don’t know what to say,” she murmured. “Thank you, again.”

“No thanks necessary, dear. You just feel better.”

“Now, let me look at your man.”

Bryan started to protest, but that would be foolish at this point. He needed to be in top shape to get them out of this. Tilly had him sit beside Sassy on the gurney to check his eyes and look at his shoulder so she could determine if he needed stitches, too.

“Got two needles?” he asked with a smile.

Now it was the older woman’s turn to sigh.

“Your back has some substantial bruising, and both of you have slight concussions. I don’t know which will hurt worse tomorrow—­your head, your back, or your shoulder. Take a good hot shower once Otis gets you to the apartment. You might try icing your shoulder some, too. I’ll ask the doctor for some anti-­inflammatory medication for you.”

Bryan nodded and followed Tilly out from behind the privacy screen to finish up the paperwork while Sassy dressed. Afterward the nurse showed them a back door from the hospital so they could avoid the reporters who’d gathered in the ER waiting area.

It was almost 9:00
AM
when they walked out of the back hospital exit. Tilly’s husband was in the parking lot in a simple silver sedan, just as the nurse had described. “You Tilly’s friends?” the older man asked.

Bryan nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Hop on in. She told me to take you to the house.”

Without another word, they were off. Ten minutes later, Otis pulled the sedan into a quiet neighborhood lined with moss-­covered trees and sidewalks that looked like something out of Mayberry. He turned into a drive with a detached two-­story garage, then parked inside beside something large under a car cloth, leaving his keys in the ignition.

Feeling an unusual need to fill the silence, Bryan nodded toward the tarp. “What do you have there?”

“A ’64 Buick Riviera. I just finished restoring her.”

“May I?” Bryan put his hand on the material.

Otis nodded, and Bryan lifted the edge of the cloth to reveal a stunning black two-­door showpiece. “That’s amazing. Is that the dual-­quad carb setup?”

Otis beamed like a proud parent. “Found her in a scrapyard. It’s taken me four years to finish the restoration. But she drives like a dream. Tilly keeps asking what am I going to do with her. I’d like to sell our sedan and just drive this one.”

“Who wouldn’t?” agreed Bryan. “You should.”

Otis grinned. “Maybe I will.” And without further fanfare he directed them to the steps on the side of the garage apartment.

“The key is in the flowerpot by the door. Make yourselves at home. I think there are frozen dinners and perhaps some soup in the pantry from when my granddaughter was here. Help yourselves. Tilly said your wife might need some clothes. There’s a closet up there with a white plastic bag full of things Tilly’s planning to take to Goodwill. She can pick out whatever she needs. I think Tilly even threw in some of my clothes that don’t fit anymore. Grab anything you want.” The old man looked Bryan up and down and shook his head. “Not that anything’ll fit you.”