Snippets #3

Ron sat in the loft for a good hour playing with his guns and thinking about his next move. No contact with Jack, no contact with Nancy, holding onto this hotter-than-hell CD with no trusted place to pass it over. Think, Ron, think, review all of yesterday. What would Jack do? What would he want you to do? No, you're on your own now, you make the decisions. First, get out of here unseen. Second, get a long haired wig, mustache, sunglasses, or whatever. Third, get a cell phone, one of those prepaid jobs. Fourth, get a few clothes. Fifth, find a cheap motel some two hundred miles away from this hot spot and think things out.

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"Dan, I don't have time right now to reminisce, I need your help. Are you near a computer?"

"What's wrong, your computer down, your fingers broken? Ah, go ahead, its right in front of me, shoot."

"I need to find the location of Ronald and Nancy Tibbetts. I need everything you can get me on Senator Marcus Simpson. I need some equipment," said Jack.

"Ok, no problem. What do you want on the Senator, and why?"

"Can't answer why just yet, but I need a full background; birth, schooling, parents, where he learned to speak Russian."

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Maybe the bus hadn't been such a good idea. There was far too much time to think. Ron's mind was full of pictures of Nancy, Amy and Jeff. He couldn't get over the reality of his situation. How in the world could all of this be happening? Our country is overloaded with checks and balances. Are our intelligence departments so absorbed with red tape procedures that they could not see this coming? We have CIA, FBI, NSA, Secret Service, Military Intel, and a host of others. Were they so wrapped up in their own directives that they couldn't cross the communication line and find or pass on a hint that something was terribly wrong? You couldn't have thirty-eight thousand false people in this country without something being triggered. Or could you?

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"Ron! Oh, my God, it's you!" Amanda exclaimed. "Jack said you would be calling."

Ron's heart started beating again. “He's alive! I'm not in this by myself!” Contact; the greatest feeling a human can have is to know he’s not alone, especially when Hell is boiling up from the depths of the Earth.

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Ron's stomach was churning. He knew already what he had to do, but Jack's list made it sound so clinical. "If he calls back, tell him I understand." Ron just hung up the phone without responding to Amanda's questions. There was no sleep or food for this agent, not with what he had coming up.

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"Senator, this is Art. One of our people might have spotted Tibbetts at the San Francisco Airport last night. He tried to follow, but lost him in downtown Frisco.

"Shoot him!"

"We don't know where he is exactly."

"No, shoot our man, the idiot that let Tibbetts out of his sight. Then get hold of Pat and warn him. Have Pat set up a trap at his hotel room.”

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There was only one thing to do. Ron took the safety off both guns, and staying on the floor, pulled forward far enough to fire. His only chance was to catch them off guard.