Читать книгу Finding Mercy - Karen Harper - Страница 7

Prologue

April 12, 2011

ALEX CALDWELL WAS sick to death of having to hide like a hunted animal trapped in a borrowed lair. How had his well-planned life imploded so fast? From a great career with a corner office forty stories up overlooking the Hudson River to a room in a one-floor Georgia motel with a single, curtained window. From skiing vacations in Vermont and golf in the Hamptons to running in place in front of a TV. From lobster and steak dinners to carryout and fast food that was all starting to taste like cardboard.

Damn his mentor and former boss Marv Boynton and his under-the-radar schemes that had brought down SkyBound, Inc., along with Alex’s career and hopes! He couldn’t stand just hiding and waiting for the trial to start anymore. The Atlanta spring weather shouted to him, and he was going out for a run, no matter what his government watchdog said.

“I’m going to jog a couple of times around the building,” he told Jake, who was slumped against his headboard, staring like a zombie at a cable news show.

“Not on my watch, you’re not. I know you’re going stir-crazy. You think this is my idea of a great assignment? But you’re a precious commodity, Metro Man, and—”

“I asked you not to call me that. Use my name. It may be all I have left.”

“You should’ve taken the offer on the witness protection program. At least you’d be stashed someplace you could see the light of day. We’re both getting bug-eyed looking at these cable news shows, looking for more on the big man’s case. You’ll hear soon enough when they’re ready for you. ’Sides, you snore, and I’m missing my beauty sleep.”

“You should talk. I finally made some earplugs out of toilet paper so I don’t have to listen to you at night too.”

As ever, they tired of sniping at each other, and their conversation trailed off. Alex could think of more than one comeback, including that Jake was no beauty. Jake—no last name permitted—was balding, nearly sixty, with such big shoulders it seemed he had no neck. He had a gun but no personality. A former private security firm employee, he’d been let go recently and had taken a job protecting witnesses. As long as Alex refused to go into the federal WITSEC program, he was evidently stuck with the man until he could testify against his former boss for economic espionage—with the Chinese, no less. His whole life, his climb up the ladder, sabotaged by his decision to step forward as a whistle-blower—one, evidently, who needed protection until he could testify, or so the feds claimed. He was tempted to wear a disguise and go back home to Manhattan. Five weeks of this, no date for the trial yet, and he was going stark, raving nuts.

In a rage silent but for grunts, he did sit-ups and ab crunches on the floor until he broke out in a sweat and his belly muscles screamed as loud as his desperation. Then he realized Jake was snoring. Since he was asleep…

Alex got up slowly, not turning the volume of the droning TV either up or down. As he tiptoed toward the outside door of the motel room, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He looked bad, too thin, almost gaunt. He’d lost his tan. His usual great haircut was shaggy, his once clean-cut skin scruffy with beard stubble. He was down to his last pair of clean chinos and a cutoff sweatshirt.

He had to get the hell out of here, even for a few minutes. He wasn’t going to risk being traced by doing anything stupid like calling a friend or either of the women he’d been dating—man, he’d like to import either Marci or Anita right now.

Despite being thirty-two years old, Alex felt like a kid sneaking downstairs early on Christmas morning. Holding his breath, he slowly turned the dead bolt. Jake got to make phone calls—he’d made a private one last night. It really irked Alex to be a prisoner. But he knew the WITSEC program would be worse. There you gave up not only your past but had to create an entirely new present.

Jake snored on, though it didn’t sound deep or regular. Alex opened the door and sucked in a big breath. He took a step out and savored it all. Fresh air! The sound of traffic on the nearby beltway, lined with tall buildings. The splashes of colored flowers in the distance on the hill and in a bed near the motel sign. Open sky with puffs of cumulous clouds and a jet gliding overheard, probably from nearby Dobbins Air Reserve Base or even the huge Atlanta airport. Freedom!

Shaking in anticipation, Alex closed the door quietly behind him and began to walk fast. Just a couple of times around the building, he told himself. Atlanta was hilly with rich, red soil, so different from the flat concrete of Wall Street or even the manicured grassy spots in SoHo. Different too from his grandmother’s terraced lawn overlooking Nassau, where he’d wanted to hide out before the feds nixed it.

Filling his lungs with breeze, he broke into a trot, then a run. He turned a corner, passed cars and U-Hauls parked early for the night. He read license plates from up and down the Midwestern states…Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, what he used to think of as flyover country when he traveled to L.A., heading for Hong Kong.

He turned another corner, kept going, faster. Just get this waiting over, be further deposed, prepare his testimony with his lawyers, then make it through the trial, all the publicity. Find a new job, maybe start a new career. Save some money again, decide on which woman to pursue. “If you can’t decide, man,” a friend had told him, “the answer is neither of them.”

His muscles felt the burn now, his lungs expanded to take in good air, despite an idling black pickup spewing CO2 at the far end of the parking lot. The sun felt so good on his shoulders, so much better than the night that had become his friend. Even with Jake accompanying him, he could duck outside only for a few minutes to gaze up at the vast, black night.

The feds were being paranoid, he thought. He’d complained of overkill but had been told their precautions were so he wouldn’t be “overkilled.” They’d regaled him with stories of witnesses who had been kidnapped or killed, tortured, some whose bodies turned up and some who just vanished.

Shutting all that out, Alex spotted one of the maids across the parking lot, going from room to room with her cart of mops and brooms. She was either really pretty or he was getting desperate for female companionship.

He ran on. The next time around, the black pickup was still there with its motor running. Its side window was down and the driver was holding up some kind of mirror that snagged a piece of sunlight. No, not a mirror, maybe binocs. A telescope? Or maybe…

A crack resounded, echoed off the building behind him. Stucco and shards of shingles spit at him. He lunged forward and hit the concrete walk on his belly as a second shot sounded. It shattered the window he’d just run past.

Shooting at him! But how—no one knew where…

Somewhere a woman was screaming, then Jake’s voice. “Stay down! Gun. Gun!”

The pickup roared away. Jake, cursing, hauled Alex to his feet by the waistband of his slacks and shoved him toward their car, pushed him into the backseat on his face, slammed the door, got in the driver’s seat and roared away.

“That’s it for me!” Jake shouted as he sped up, then made a screeching turn. “You don’t play by the rules, and somehow they found you, Metro Man! I’m delivering you to the Atlanta cops and then I’m outta here! For them to track and find you, someone wants you bad. I’d bet city hall you got a nice expensive contract on your head!”

Alex felt shaken to his soul—bullets…hit man…contract. Traced hundreds of miles from Manhattan. He hated and feared having to become someone he wasn’t, but he couldn’t live like this or else he was going to die like this.