Double-Back (Jake Waters Book 3) (6 page)

But it turned out that the situation was a setup.  Somehow, Carlson and her people had known about the attempt.  That seemed impossible given that only the small group of them had been involved in the planning.  Actually more people knew of their planning, she learned later, when Paul told her about those he'd had to involve to make arrangements for the safe-house where they planned to interrogate the agent, and later kill her off.  There had also been several who had helped with the surveillance that helped them learn about her routines.  That might be the source of the leaks.

When they thought Carlson was returning home, Paul had called and indicated they were preparing to take her.  Then there was silence.  Natalie had been hardly able to contain herself as she waited for them to arrive at the safehouse with their prisoner.  But that hadn't happened.  Finally, she'd had to admit something had gone wrong.  It didn't take her long after that to realize the only hope for her was to Backslide and call the whole thing off.  She'd done so, and had an awkward time convincing Jeff and Paul that they should shift their approach.  She'd finally managed to convince them that the risks were too high with the kidnapping, spicing her argument with the false impression that her contact within the firm who had alerted her to Carlson in the first place, had indicated he'd overheard that Carlson was suspicious of something.  She hadn't had to reveal her secret, and reluctantly Paul had set the plan to shoot Carlson from ambush in motion.  They wouldn't have a chance to learn what the agent knew, but that was a luxury that no longer seemed important.  If they could shoot her now, and then arrange the accident for Anne Barker, the firm's CFO who had started all this, odds were good she and her secrets would be safe.

It had taken Paul some time to arrange for the second shooter.  Natalie had asked why he needed two, and why he was insistent on being one of them.

"Because I'm a superb shot, and I want to make sure this is done right," he said.  "I don't think the second man is actually needed, but it's good insurance just in case the situation forces one of us to stand down.  It'll also confuse the investigation afterwards.  I have an uncomfortable feeling this agent knows more than you suspect."

Paul had been right.  The day of the attempt, just as the shot was about to take place, a situation that Paul had used one of his uncle's most carefully placed contacts inside the White House to help arrange, both Paul and the second shooter had been caught again.  Their carefully managed plan was known to Carlson this time as well.  In a panic, Natalie had Backslid to yesterday, as much as she hadn't wanted to attempt such a thing so soon after the last instance, and found stopping the plan was harder than placing it in motion in the first place.

Paul had been pissed, something she seldom saw, at least with regards to herself.  She'd finally had to reveal her ability, and convince them with some simple examples, which really compounded her headache, before Paul had finally agreed to call it all off.

"Now you are telling me this is the real reason you wanted to stop the kidnapping once we had it all set up?" he'd asked angrily. 

Natalie had nodded.

"Somehow they know what we are planning," she explained miserably.  "If we go ahead, we'll all be captured."

"Then why don't you simply use this ability or yours to go back far enough that they can't have contacted one another, and have us eliminate this Carlson person and your CFO before any of this can become a problem?"

"I can't go back that far," Natalie had tried to explain. 

"Of course you can't," Paul had replied, looking at her doubtfully.

"Perhaps the first day I was told that Anne had contacted her friend in the FBI I might have had a chance to do that, but you were out of town on business with Jeff then," Natalie explained.  "Remember I approached you about the kidnapping the day you arrived."

Natalie knew she had screwed up.  She should have dealt with the matter immediately, but hadn't been comfortable acting without Paul or Jeff's support.

Paul had been silent a long time, then had said, "I can't see how we solve your problem then," he said.  "If they know about us, we will all end up in jail.  At the moment, they are only aware of you.  You might have to simply disappear,"

"I don't understand how they have been finding out about our plans, but I don't think they know about me," she'd said, and explained why she felt that way.

"There's something odd about this," Paul had said finally.  "We need to talk through everything that has happened."

First, however, had been the need to clean up the planned attack, and that had resulted in Jeff and Paul heading off the evening before.  And Paul had still to return.  Natalie worried that maybe he'd decided to leave her to solve the problem on her own.

She took four of the tablets, knowing she would pay the penalty of an even worse upset stomach for doing so, but hoping the dull throb in the base of her skull would fade away so she could think better.  She didn't know why, but aspirin worked better for her than any of the other headache medicines she'd tried, and even better than some of the less commonly available stuff that she had access to through her work.  She felt far better than she had the night before, but past experience warned her that it would be a few days before she was completely rid of the persistent ache, no matter what she did.

She returned to her bedroom in order to change into something more reasonable now that she was up.  Nothing fancy.  She wanted loose, relaxed clothing for the day.  Jeans, but not the tight designer kind, and perhaps a loose sweater.  While she changed, she considered the Carlson situation, and what all of this was leading towards.  If it hadn't been for Chuck, Anne's assistant, she wouldn't have known about the situation until it had become a problem.  And she was certain it would develop into something she didn't wish pursued. 

Chuck hadn't known any details beyond the fact Anne had contacted her old friend Susan Carlson, a highly placed agent within the FBI.  He'd told Natalie about the call because he was aware of the bad blood between the two of them, and hoped he might gain some points with her as a result. 

Natalie had been certain what the matter was about.  Anne had been unreceptive to her for some time, and must have finally made some connection that she wanted to have her FBI friend pursue.  Natalie could only hope that Anne hadn't revealed much, if anything over the phone, or if she had, this Carlson person had chosen to hold it close at least until they had met in person.  She'd decided that something must be done to eliminate the Anne Barker problem once and for all.  She'd realized that any action she took would be complicated by what Chuck had overheard and relayed to her.  If something happened to Anne, however innocent it appeared, questions would be asked, and that would almost certainly lead to her as a person of interest, as they liked to say.

She'd gritted her teeth, and performed a Backslide, the first in nearly a year.  The ability was there, but she was loath to use it.  The side affects were unpleasant, and she worried if they weren't an indication of trauma of some kind she was inducing in her brain.  Frankly, she was a little afraid of the ability, and used it sparingly.  Without revealing what she could do, she could hardly seek out expert advice to discuss the matter, although she'd once consulted an expert on her sometimes severe headaches.  Nothing had been found, but somehow that hadn't soothed her worries.

She'd gone back only far enough to arrange for Chuck to run an errand for her, which delayed his getting to the office until after the critical call had taken place.  As a result, Chuck was now completely unaware of the call to Carlson, and therefore made no attempt to inform Natalie.  She, of course, still retained the memory of what he'd told her the first time around.  Now, when something happened to Anne, there was nothing to link the two of them.

That left the matter of how to defuse the investigation that Carlson had almost certainly been asked to pursue, probably on an unofficial basis, at least for now.  More than a week passed while she waited nervously for Paul and Jeff to return from something they were doing for the Organization, allowing the window to when she could Backslide to move too far.  Even so, it shouldn't have mattered.

Thus far, what seemed like a relatively straightforward problem, had become impossibly complicated.  When they had finally gotten around to acting, somehow Carlson had been aware of both moves they had attempted against her, which made Natalie wonder how secure Paul's organization was, or whether her brother or Paul was under some suspicion and being watched.  Perhaps that was how the FBI had become aware of his involvement in a plot against Carlson.  When Jeff and Paul returned, they were going to have to talk this out carefully, and determine where the leak was.  Natalie was certain it wasn't her.  Carlson hadn't had time to investigate her or to place the kind of watch on her that would have allowed them to know she had plans against the agent.  At least she didn't think so.

Natalie shook her head, wishing the dullness would go away.  She was normally very astute, but her ability to think logically was clearly impacted by the side affects of the Backsliding.  All she knew was the investigation that Anne wanted the FBI agent to pursue had to somehow be derailed.

As bright as she was, Natalie had found the business world to be less enthusiastic about her skills than the university had been.  After graduation she'd gone to work at a firm for an exceptional salary, but found that her job was restrictive and channeled into areas the firm felt were important, and her own instincts for where the research should go totally ignored.  She was too new, and until she'd established herself within the firm, she wasn't given the opportunities she'd hoped for.  One Friday night she'd allowed her frustration to let her drink far too much, and overconfident as usual, she'd driven herself home.  That had been a very bad decision, and yet in other ways the most important turning point in her life.

She'd lost control of the little Mini-Cooper she drove with unreasonable aggression.  As a result, four people had been killed, two of them children, and she'd ended up in the intensive care facility of the local hospital.  Not only was she close to death, but the accident had left her badly disfigured, her formerly beautiful looks now a ragged mess that even extensive plastic surgery was unlikely to be able to make whole.  The police had informed her that she would be taken into custody for manslaughter once she was well enough to be discharged from the hospital.  Her firm, not wanting to be associated with someone so irresponsible, had informed her she had been terminated, although her medical bills would be covered as required by law.  Her services as a research biologist would no longer be required.

A number of people came to visit her.  Her brother, some of her friends, although she learned there weren't as many as she'd believed, and a number of people from the university, including several of her professors, which surprised her.  Among them was Professor Morris, the old, somewhat absentminded professor, she'd worked under while doing some of her graduate work.  He was an unusual specimen and while he rambled as he tried to make her feel better and simultaneously tell her of what he'd uncovered, she realized he was offering her a job.  He'd heard that she had been terminated, and wanted her to know she had someplace to go when this was all over.

"But Professor, the University is unlikely to hire me after this," Natalie had protested.  "I'll probably be in jail."

Professor Morris had just shook his head, denying that it would come to that.

"It's not for the University," he said.  "Me.  I need your help on something I have been working on privately, at my lab in my house.  I've made the most remarkable discovery.  It will change thousands of lives, but I need someone with your kinds of skills and insights to help me complete the final tests before revealing it to the world.  It'll be worth millions, not that the money is important, but I'll have done what I promised Mary so many years ago.  Please, promise me you'll come and talk with me when you have recovered?"

Natalie nodded, knowing the Professor wasn't aware of how serious her legal problems were going to be.  After he left, she pushed aside his plea, and tried to concentrate on what her future might really be.  It was pretty grim.  No job, physically disfigured, with a leg shattered in three places, and easily proven legal responsibility for the deaths of four people.  She could be shown to have consumed far too much alcohol.  There were dozens of witnesses back at the club, and she had run through the light long after it had turned red.  She recalled deciding there were no cars in sight on the cross streets and she didn't wish to stop.  Then the speeding car she had missed seeing was coming through the intersection just as she pressed her own accelerator.  It was hard to believe that just three days ago her life was normal with a bright future.

That's when the surgeon had come in and informed her about her leg.

"You've got an infection in there that is resistant to the normal antibiotics," he said.  "I'm certain it's a form of MRSA.  We're going to have to go in and remove a section of bone, which is so badly damaged it won't ever heal properly, and then try you out on a different type of antibiotic.  I want to schedule the operation for tomorrow morning.  The sooner we get this infected section out, the better your chances."

Natalie had asked him about the new drug, mostly out of professional interest.  She knew of the drug, and also that it was only effective in about a third of the cases, and had some truly nasty side affects.  Even so, she shook her head in assent.  She had little to lose at this point.

After the surgeon left, the nurse came in to check on her and asked if she wanted any painkillers.

"No," Natalie replied.  She'd been so drugged up the last couple of days she felt the pain was both deserved and better than being so muddle-headed.

While the hospital slowly became quiet and empty as the visitors were chased out and the night shift took over, Natalie tried to find a bright spot to focus on.  Jeff was coming in the morning.  He had promised the group he worked for had some decent lawyers, and he'd see what he could arrange for her.  The group, basically the same Mob her father had been part of until he was killed, certainly had good lawyers, but Natalie doubted they would be of much help in her case.  The facts were too iron clad.

Unable to sleep, she grew more despondent, and at one point started to cry.  As the silent tears ran down her cheeks, she wished she could undo the events of the last few days and do it all again.  If she'd just taken a taxi home that night, none of this would be happening.  She focused on herself back at the club, so confident and unreasonable toward those that warned her she couldn't drive safely, as if willing that version of herself to hear her pleas.  Silly, but in her state, she wasn't thinking very well.

Natalie suddenly clapped both hands around her head as the screaming pain seemed about to split her head.  She spun around, lost her balance and crashed to the floor alongside her table, and vomited violently, the remains of the small dinner and at least a half dozen large drinks spewing across the floor and onto her dress.

"Eew!" one of the other women at the table complained, and turned away from the foul smelling and looking mess.

"I told you," one of the men said almost gleefully.  "She's so drunk she can't stand.  Another one who can't hold her booze."

One of the more considerate males and his date glared at the others and bent down to help Natalie.  The woman, Sandy, took her arm and led her to the bathroom to clean up as best she could after her date helped Natalie to stand.

"Call her a cab," someone suggested.

"No need," the date of the woman who'd gone to the bathroom with the stricken Natalie said.  "We'll take her home."

Once in her apartment, Natalie had stumbled to the bathroom to look into the mirror at herself.  She was a mess.  She had vomit in her hair and all over her dress, which was ripped in several places.  She had a bruise on the side of her face where she'd struck the table when she fell, and she felt as if she'd been hit by a large truck.  Especially her head.  She looked at the image and laughed with uncontrollable happiness. 

She was intact.  She wasn't disfigured in a hospital bed with no future beyond a jail cell ahead of her.  She'd made an absolute fool of herself at the club, and would have to stay away from that establishment for a long time, but that wasn't important.  None of it had happened.

She stripped off her ruined clothing, tossing it into the trash, and climbed into the shower where she washed until the hot water ran out.  Climbing out, she grabbed her old, somewhat threadbare robe and wrapped it around herself sans any undergarments.  She made some hot tea, then made her way to her bed where she sat surrounded by a half dozen pillows while she drank the soothing beverage and considered her situation.

She couldn't imagine what could have produced the horrible images that were still in the back of her brain, but happily they were only that, images.  She wished she knew when they had formed, because she didn't recall any of them before she'd fallen, and she worried that the impact on the floor might have induced them, which meant she might had some kind of head injury she needed to have checked out.  That caused her heart to clench momentarily, and she tried to recall if her head had actually struck the floor.  She simply had been too drunk to remember, but feeling around she found no tender spots.  She was aware that near the back her head throbbed unlike anything she'd ever felt before.  It wasn't the booze.  No matter how drunk she'd gotten in the past, she'd never had that kind of headache.

The next morning was a Sunday, and she couldn't see going to ER and waiting four hours for someone to take a cursory look at her and then send her home.  Besides, while the dull ache was there, it was far better, and she still couldn't find any tender spots, and decided she hadn't struck her head.  She'd decided to take a couple of aspirin she found in her medical cabinet and delay the decision of whether she'd go in until the next day.

Monday morning came with the ache still there, but the realization that an important meeting was scheduled that day, and she really couldn't afford to miss it.  By the end of the day the ache had receded to the point she could forget about it.