Adam Jameson … President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world. “You’re tellin’ me that we’re up against the leader of the free world … and his death squad?” Marcus said.
Garrison shrugged. “It fits, but come on. It’s just crazy speculation. I have no proof that the President’s involved. The connection’s weak, at best.”
“But it’s possible, and until we know differently, we have to operate under the assumption that he is involved.”
They were silent for a long while. He felt the weight of an entire country’s worth of resources pressing down. Nothing seemed real anymore. The dark landscape rushed by, and his world spun. He felt like he was underwater.
“One thing I can’t figure,” Garrison said.
“One thing?”
“Well, a lot of things, but one thing about your story. I can’t figure out how the Sheriff and his men kept finding you everywhere you went.”
He had wondered the same thing but had dismissed it as paranoia.
“I get that he could have found you on the highway. After all, you didn’t know the resources he would put into your search, but he could have canvassed every road. So, I get that. But you said that you smashed the cop’s radio and cell phone before leaving him at the crash site, and the cop hadn’t called in his position. Granted, he probably had low-jack in the cruiser, and they could have traced that. But from the sound of it, they didn’t even know that there was a problem. So, number one, how did he find you so quickly? And number two, how was he so sure that you were in that house? Sure enough that he gunned down Allen Brubaker on his front lawn?”
He mulled over what Garrison had said. It made sense, but what was the answer? He searched his memory banks, and his eyes went wide. “My shoes. The Sheriff took my shoes at the Hill crime scene to make castings.”
Garrison slammed on the brakes and whipped the big SUV to the side of the road. Marcus heard unknown items shift, fall, and clang in the back of the vehicle. “Take them off,” Garrison said.
He complied, and Garrison examined them. “Look at this.”
He looked closer and noticed a small spot of new glue showing on the back of the shoe. Garrison removed a pocket knife and used it to pull back the heel. A tiny, hollowed-out area contained a small electronic device.
“Son of a … I shoulda thought of this earlier,” Marcus said.
Garrison shook his head. “How were you supposed to know that a local sheriff had access to this kind of technology?”
“What are we going to do with it now? Attach it to some rabbit and let the Sheriff chase Bugs all the way to New Mexico?”
Garrison snickered. “No. That might work in the movies, but the Sheriff would track us down before we could ever hope to catch some animal.” Garrison stepped from the vehicle, removed the small tracking device, and threw it into a clump of bushes alongside the road.
They rode in silence for a few minutes longer before he realized that they were not just driving in a direction, but toward something. “So, Garrison, do we have a plan?”
“Andrew.”
“What?”
“My name. Call me Andrew. And the first thing we need to do is get my source within the organization to safety.”
“Who’s your source?”
“I guess at this point it doesn’t hurt to tell you. You know her … the Sheriff’s daughter, Maggie. She works for me at the real-estate office, which is all just a cover.”
Marcus reached up and massaged the bridge of his nose. He had been afraid of that answer. In many ways, he was ecstatic at the thought of seeing her again. In many other ways, however, he wished that he could keep her as far away from himself as possible. The dream kept returning to him with increasing intensity. In the dream, he had failed her just like everyone else.
A sign read, Asherton: 13 Miles.
He had often heard that animals could sense when a bad storm or other natural disaster like an earthquake or tornado was about to hit. That was the way he felt at that moment. It was like he could sense that a storm was on the horizon and that everything he had experienced so far was a prelude of what was to come. The kiss before turning out the lights.
He glanced over at the speedometer. An unexplainable sense of urgency had overtaken him. He didn’t know why, but he had a feeling that they were already too late.