No Way Back(Jack McNeal #1)(67)

“Jack, for Christ’s sake. Think!”

“This car is not going to outrun them.”

“You got your gun?”

“Yup. Keep on going, Peter. Take care of yourself.”

Jack pulled over and flicked on his hazard lights. He pulled out his gun. The cold metal on his warm fingers. The beam of the headlight washed over his car. He was in their crosshairs. The seconds seemed like hours. The motorbike was closing. A matter of yards now. Then the motorbike accelerated hard past him, the driver and a hanger-on both clad in black.

His heart skipped several beats. “Motherfucker.”

Suddenly, the two-way radio on the passenger seat crackled into life.

“You okay, Jack?”

McNeal put down the gun and got back on the road. “I’m okay. Graff said it was a two-man team coming for me. I swear to God, there were two people on the bike.”

“Jesus Christ, seriously?”

“So, why didn’t they open fire?”

“I have no idea.”

“We’re not out of the woods yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jack, up ahead, we’ve got single-lane traffic. Some truck crashed. Cops and paramedics everywhere. The traffic is slowing.”

McNeal’s heart nearly stopped. This was exactly what he had feared. “Fuck.” He questioned whether this was an elaborate trap. Were the two people on the bike part of this?

“Let’s just go with it.”

“Nothing else we can do. Let’s sit tight and be cool.”

“Exactly.”

“If I get pulled over, Peter, I just want to say I love you. But you need to look after number one.”

“No one’s going to get pulled over.”

McNeal slowed down until he saw the red lights in the distance. The traffic slowed to a crawl. Cops with nightsticks and high-visibility vests directed the cars to keep moving. He knew they would see his out-of-state plates and wonder what the fuck he was doing in the dead of night in the Middle-of-Nowhere, Maryland. At least that’s what he would think.

McNeal began to disassociate. He disconnected from his thoughts. His identity. Even his consciousness.

His mind drifted. He saw a time when he and Caroline were together. Before she left him. Before she was by herself, without him to protect her.

He grappled with a sickness that spiraled to the very depths of his soul. He had become everything that was immoral in man. The beast within had raised its head. McNeal wanted to close his eyes and see his son again. He wanted his son back in his arms. He remembered the day his son was born and the days that followed. He was working, and when he returned home, there was his baby son, sound asleep in Caroline’s arms.

The sound of police shouting for traffic to slow down snapped McNeal back to reality. It was single-line traffic as they passed the smoking wreckage. He stared straight ahead as he drove on.

McNeal tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He drifted into a fugue state. He mentally fled his own body. He could hear his heart beating. But a strange calm washed over him.

The faces of the cops were bathed in red and blue lights. Waxy. Slow-motion blur. Nightsticks pointing the way.

McNeal edged slowly forward. He drove on. Past the cops. Without even a glance.

Eventually, McNeal was in the clear.

The road ahead opened up before him. He eased his foot on the gas, putting distance between himself and the cops in his rearview mirror.

McNeal drove hard. The taillights up ahead in the darkness illuminated the way to the reservoir.

The two-way radio crackled into life. “You okay, Jack?”

“No, not really.”

“Let’s focus. Just checking the GPS, the reservoir is three miles away. We’re looking for Nicodemus Road, just outside Reisterstown. Do you copy?”

“Copy that.” Jack put down the radio and drove on, the headlights bathing the woods all around and illuminating a sign for Reisterstown.

McNeal turned off onto a winding rural country road. He slowed around a sharp bend shrouded by trees and foliage, then saw the bridge in the distance. His heart hammered like a pneumatic drill.

Peter had clicked on his red hazard lights. He emerged from his car carrying his flashlight, indicating for McNeal to pull up beside him.

McNeal glanced in the rearview mirror. Just darkness. No other cars on this isolated stretch of road.

He pulled up, got out of his car, popped open the trunk.

McNeal grabbed the head, his brother the feet. They were both breathing hard. “Let’s do it,” McNeal instructed.

They lifted the body from the trunk, eased it onto the small concrete wall and rolled it into the water below. A heavy splash. Ripples of water.

Peter shone the flashlight down onto the dark waters. “It’s gone. It’s done.”

“You sure?”

“It’s over. Let’s get out of here.”





Forty-Nine

The first glimmers of pale morning light flickered through the blinds of Andrew Forbes’s office in the West Wing. He was drinking a strong coffee, watching Fox News, when the President appeared in the doorway. The big guy was smiling this morning, sporting a bespoke navy suit.

Forbes got to his feet. “Morning, Mr. President.”

“So, what do you think, Andrew?”