Second Sight (2 page)

Chapter 1

Present Day

“Zachary, I’m very interested in your ability. Please, tell me more about it,” Joe Smith said.

Zach rubbed his hands over the fine leather seat he occupied on Joe’s private plane, the soft texture actually relaxing him. He smelled the light aftershave Joe wore—a pleasant scent reminding him of nature or the outdoors. He also caught a whiff of the perfume the flight attendant had chosen this morning. The odor tickled his nose and he sneezed. It hadn’t been a good choice for her.

Although he’d been robbed of his sight, nature seemed to have compensated by heightening his other senses, allowing him to make sense of the world around him.

Savannah, his seeing eye dog, rolled over on top of his foot with a soft snore. He bent down and gently patted her head before answering.

“Well, when I look in a mirror, I see bits and pieces of the future. They never really make much sense until they actually happen. Sometimes, I catch myself in the snippet of what I’ve seen in the reflection; other times, I don’t. That doesn’t necessarily mean that what I have seen hasn’t happened. It just means that the moment passed me by without my knowledge.”

“Fascinating.”

“The rest of my senses have also been heightened,” he continued. “I hear a little better, my sense of touch seems to be more pronounced, and my nose can pick up scents most people can’t. I seem to have stronger taste buds, as well, and can distinguish certain ingredients in the things I eat where before the explosion, I was never able to do so.”

He recalled the time just a week or so ago when his friend, Garrett ‘Honey’ Bloom from the Marines had shown up at his front door out of the blue. That morning, he’d witnessed parts of the scene—Garrett’s arrival and the man walking up behind him and raising a gun at his back. Then, he’d seen himself on a plane with Garrett.

That day, he’d packed his suitcase, knowing he would be going somewhere with his friend in the near future, and had also cleaned his Beretta knowing he would need to kill that other man when Garrett arrived.

When he’d opened the door for Garrett, he’d smelled mint, a scent familiar to the guy as he liked to eat Tic-Tacs. They’d chatted briefly, and then Zach had heard the soft footsteps of the approaching attacker, and also smelled roast beef and onions, a recognizable odor from the restaurant a few blocks away. He’d guessed the assailant had spent some time in the establishment before coming to visit.

He had tracked the footsteps until they’d stopped, and then he’d told Garrett to hit the pavement. Seconds later, he’d put two bullets in the man’s head.

“Your disability doesn’t really seemed to have affected your life in any way,” Joe commented.

Cringing, he begged to differ. His life had become extremely regimented, and he’d worked hard to be self-sufficient. His existence had been turned upside down and inside out. He missed his days of utter freedom, and realized how much he had taken his sight for granted.

The purchase of Savannah had been a huge help, as had becoming incredibly organized. Before becoming blind, he had been a very meticulous dresser. He liked to look nice and loved clothes, only wishing he could afford the more expensive garments on the market. After the explosion, he’d decided he wouldn’t allow his handicap to change his life. He’d had his shirts embossed in Braille at the neckline with the color of the garment, and wore only grey or black pants so everything matched. He’d taken training to learn Braille, and subsequently studied every book he could on living with blindness and had also developed some of his own coping skills. He’d thus become completely self-sufficient.

“I try to live as normal a life as possible,” he said.

“Yes. I really do find you to be quite an interesting man, Zachary. As you know, my company provides protection to the wealthy when they get themselves in trouble. I also have a small part of my company that … let’s just say they take care of whomever is causing my clients distress.”

“Garrett made me aware of what you do.”

“Excellent. Before I offer a job to anyone, I do extensive research on that person. I’ve tried to perform the same background checks on you that I obtain on my other employees, but there seems to be a hole in your military record consisting of two years and three days, to be exact. In fact, it’s as if you didn’t exist during that time. I can’t even find so much as a gas receipt for you. Would you like to elaborate?”

Zach ran his hand over the cool leather again, thinking of the best way to answer.

“Zachary?”

Honesty would be the best policy, especially with Joe. If he’d been correct on his reading of the man, Joe probably already knew the answers to his own questions, and just wanted Zach to verify them.

“I was taken from the military and recruited into a clandestine operational section of the government titled Operation Janitor.”

“What a lovely, exciting name,” Joe mumbled.

“Yes, well, we had a lot to clean up.”

“Such as?”

A sigh escaped him. “Do you remember the president at the time?”

“That would have been seven years ago. Yes, Douglas Yager. A dirty man who seemed to think a president shouldn’t follow the laws of the nation he led. There was the bank scandal, then the one involving misuse of charity funds, and a hint of a sexual scandal story that never fully took flight, and that was before he was elected. I’m not quite sure how he got into office. In my opinion, he was a man without a shred of decency.”

“Yes. Thankfully, he only lasted one term. You’re correct on your assumption of him.”

“And what does that have to do with you?”

“Do you remember when his brother died?”

“Yes, a heart attack, if the papers were to be believed. I had my doubts.”

“Why did you doubt the heart attack?”

Joe had piqued his curiosity with that statement.

“Because, like the president, the man took what he wanted, thinking he walked above the laws. His proclivities toward sexual deviance were bad for the President’s image, and I’m sure the White House tried to persuade the press to drop their incessant digging into the man’s past and all those pesky lawsuits. Obviously, they were unsuccessful.”

He found Joe’s assessment of the situation interesting, and his respect for the man increased because of his powers of deduction and the obvious thought he’d given to the President and the circumstances surrounding the brother’s death. Most of America seemed to just accept what they read in the headlines, believing the press and what their government told them. In a nutshell, that seemed to be how the powers that be got away with everything they did. The American people were too busy in their own lives, too focused on trying to pay the bills and keep a roof over their heads. They simply didn’t have the time, nor the energy, to really contemplate those headlines or do their own research into the actual stories. And forget about asking any questions.

“Yes, they were. I happened to be there when Robert T. Yager had his heart attack, and you may say that I was the catalyst that set it off.”

A beat of heavy silence filled the air.

“I see. It’s becoming clearer now, Zachary. You were tasked to clean up that part of the President’s life.”

He nodded.

“And there were others who met their demise at your hand, I assume?”

“Yes. Over those two years, I killed four people, besides Robert Yager’s guards.”

“Do you have any regrets for your actions?”

He took a deep breath, giving a thought to the question before answering. All of his targets had been a waste of human life, as far as he was concerned. They didn’t deserve the air they breathed, nor the space they occupied on Earth. Well, all except one.

“No. My assignments were pretty cut and dried in my mind. They were horrible people. Besides Robert Yager, there was a Muslim fanatic in Africa who specialized in trading young Muslim woman into slavery or forcing them into prostitution. I saved many girls from a life of horror by putting two bullets in the man’s head. There was also a white supremacist who wanted to blow up a federal building in Sacramento, like Timothy McVeigh did in Oklahoma. It was the president’s belief  that if we could get to these people and just eliminate them in a quiet way instead of having them go through the legal process, it would save everyone time, money, and heartache.”

“And what happened after the white supremacist met his demise? What about the fanatical Muslim?”

“It was like cutting the head off a serpent. The rest of their followers just seemed to disappear back into the fabric of society, lost without their leader. The men in Africa did eventually regroup.”

“But you saved lives in both cases.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You said there were four. Who was the fourth?”

The death of the fourth person had never sat well with him, but it had been a matter of self-preservation. “A reporter who got a little too close to Operation Janitor. My superiors hadn’t sanctioned his death, but I had been watching him for a while as I received some information that he was interested in the death of the President’s brother. I tailed him for a few months, and he interviewed some high-ranking officials. They had no idea about Operation Janitor, but what they did reveal could lead him directly to the President’s doorstep. I took the matter into my own hands when I had the opportunity.”

“Hmmm … interesting. We all do what we need to in order to survive.”

He nodded, not comfortable with the statement, or what he’d done. At the time, he’d been thinking of protecting the President, and having a chit in his back pocket to cash in to his handlers, if necessary. “Yes.”

“Zachary, you were responsible for the death of the President’s brother. Why on Earth did they allow you to live?”

Zach grinned. “Let’s just say I put a contingency plan in place to ensure my safety.”

“Very smart.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, before Joe spoke. “Did you enjoy your job at that time?”

Zach crossed his legs and laced his fingers together in his lap, considering the question for a moment.

“I’m not a blood-thirsty man, if that’s what you’re asking me. I don’t have the
need
to kill, nor is it something I think about doing on a frequent basis. However, I do not have a problem killing someone who deserves to die.”

“This world is filled with a lot of bad people.”

He chuckled. “I’m very well aware of that.”

The plane shifted, and the flight attendant came out to notify them of their descent to the Palm Springs International Airport. Zach grinned, loving they were landing in the area of palm trees, warm weather, and accolades to Bob Hope, one of the funniest men to ever inhabit the planet, in his opinion.

Just then, the phone rang. Joe answered.

“Seriously?” he asked, sounding incredulous after a few moments.

Zach thought he heard Garrett on the other end, his deep voice rumbling.

“They shot at the house?” Joe asked.

Uh-oh. Garrett had been tasked to guard Ruby Rose McDermott, the very sweet daughter of an oil tycoon who had escaped a kidnapping attempt, while Joe worked to apprehend the kidnappers.

Joe instructed Garrett into the living room and gave him a code to lower steel panels on the windows. Zach wished he could have seen that.

“I’m counting on you, Garrett. Don’t let your guard down for a second tonight, and if you run into trouble, do whatever you need to do to keep Ruby McDermott safe. Do you understand me?”

A brief pause followed as Garrett answered.

“Good. I’d rather have to dispose of a pile of bodies than tell a father his little girl has been murdered under my watch. On another note, your friend Zachary is quite an interesting person. I’m very intrigued with him.”

Garrett chuckled at Joe’s statement.

“Most people do,” he heard Garrett say.

“I understand why,” Joe continued. “I will meet you in Dallas tomorrow, and we’ll get Ruby home to her parents’ house. Be safe tonight. With the plates over the windows, you should be fine.”

As the plane landed, Joe sighed. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to head to Dallas to meet Garrett. We’ll take you to where you’ll be staying. Although this is rushed, if you’re interested, I’d like you to work for me; yet, I’m not sure in what capacity. Your special training might be of use to me. If that won’t work for you, please let me know.”

The sound of the plane door opening met his ears, and a blast of warm air caressed his face. A jolt of adrenaline went through his system at the prospect of being back in action.

He took a moment to dig deep within him.

No, he would not have a problem with killing again.

“I think we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement,” he said as Savannah raised her head and nudged his hand.

“Excellent. Let’s get to the safe house, and I can introduce you to the woman who lives there.”

“Woman?” He stood and grabbed hold of Savannah’s halter.

“Yes.” Joe sighed.  “Her name’s Ella, and hopefully, you have enough charisma that she won’t shoot you.”

Zach grinned as he made his way down the stairs, intrigued. “I’m sure I can charm her enough to avoid a bullet.”