Highway to Vengeance: A Thomas Highway Thriller (12 page)

The explosion was incredibly loud in the
narrow confines of the tunnel, but was more bark than bite. It was
too far away to do any damage, especially with me shielding my face
from the effects.

Next time I wouldn’t be so lucky.

Knowing my time to work was extremely
limited, I again reached up with my right hand and started banging
on the door with as much force as I could muster, one, two, three
times.

It didn’t budge one bit.

I looked back again. The shaft of light had
reappeared, but this time it was accompanied by the head of one of
the soldiers. He was upside-down, looking through the trapdoor, the
night-vision goggles over his face providing a clear view in the
dark tunnel. He turned towards me, stopped, then disappeared
quickly back up the hole.

The shouting came shortly after.

“Drop your weapon and come down off the
ladder! Now!”

Instead of complying, I spit the flashlight
out of my mouth, put both hands on the ladder, bowed my head and
neck, and stepped up another two rungs. Bending my knees under me,
I climbed up, the back of my head and lower neck pressing tighter
against the door with every step.

“You have three seconds to comply!” shouted
the voice. “If you resist, we will open fire!”

I heard the clatter of at least three more
flashbangs behind and below me, undoubtedly closer to my location
this time around now that they knew where I was. I only had a few
more seconds to get out of their blast radius, and there was only
one direction to go.

I bent my knees as much as possible,
creating a little bit of space between my back and the door above,
then propelled my body upward with every fiber of my being.

A lightning bolt of pain shot through my
back and neck upon impact, but the door relented with a sharp
crack.

I fought through the pain and I climbed up
and out of the ragged hole and into the open space above just as
the flashbangs exploded, their effects minimized by the
distance.

I slammed the trapdoor shut.

Scrambling on my hands and knees, still a
little woozy and in a lot of pain from breaking open the trapdoor,
I found a heavy, metal table to my right, flipped it over, and slid
it atop the hole. It wouldn’t hold them for long, but it would
hopefully give me enough time to get out of the garage. I took a
moment to catch my breath, then stood and started towards the car
parked in the middle of the garage.

I hadn’t taken two steps when lights
suddenly flooded the inside of the building. I started for my gun
but froze before grabbing it.

Two men dressed in all-black military attire
were spread out in front of me. Each man was holding a rifle. Both
rifles were pointed at my chest.

“Please be smart and keep your hands well
away from your weapon,” said a voice from somewhere behind the
armed men. “And no quick movements either, please. I do not want
this to get messy.”

Following the voice with my eyes, I saw an
older, bespectacled, thoroughly unassuming man dressed in an
expensive suit standing in the shadows near the back wall.

“Are you sure about that?” I said.

“Absolutely,” came the reply.

“Then what do you want?”

“Just to have a friendly conversation.”

More talking. I supposed I should be glad
that’s all they were here for, but I was getting sick of all the
talking.

“Just a conversation, huh?” I said.

“That’s right.”

“You sure have a rather extreme way of going
about securing it.”

“It may seem that way from your vantage
point, but after what you went through yesterday, I figured you
wouldn’t be too eager to cooperate this time around. So we decided
on a more circuitous, if not exactly subtle, route.”

“And who are you, exactly?”

“You can call me Pittman.”

“I didn’t ask what your name was. I asked
who you were.”

“We’ll get to that part in a little bit,”
Pittman said. “But first we have some business to take care
of.”

From behind me came a loud crash, as the men
who had chased me through the tunnel flipped the table off the
trapdoor.

“Now, just stay calm,” Pittman said. “One of
the men is going to relieve you of your weapons and your backpack,
and then we’ll be able to move on with confidence.”

I looked back and saw one of the men heading
towards me. His gun was no longer visible. “Slowly put your hands
on your head,” he said.

I did as I was told.

A pair of hands deftly removed the firearm
from its holster, then both my fanny pack and backpack from my
person.

“Do you want me to cuff him?” asked the man
who had just disarmed me.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,”
Pittman said. “Will it, Mr. Highway?”

“No.”

The operative retreated and I let my arms
drop to my side. I felt naked without a weapon but I was just going
to have to deal with it. I figured if they wanted me dead, I’d be
dead by now, so losing the gun wasn’t really that big of a deal. At
least that’s what I told myself.

“See?” Pittman said. “That wasn’t so
difficult, was it?”

“Depends on your perspective, I guess.”

Pittman laughed but didn’t reply.

“So what happens now?” I said.

“Now you and I are going to go for a little
drive,” he said. “And then we are going to have that friendly
conversation I spoke of earlier.”

I stared at him for a few moments, trying to
get a feel for what he was thinking. It was like trying to read a
marble statue.

“Do I have any choice in the matter?” I
finally said.

“Of course,” Pittman said. “There are always
choices. But I can assure you none of them are as pleasant as the
one I’m offering now.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

The sun was just starting to peek over the
horizon as we passed the Coronado Bridge toll plaza and arrived on
Coronado Island. I knew the island well, having spent the first
stage of BUD/S training on its beaches. Pittman was in the
passenger seat and an unfamiliar man who wasn’t in on the initial
raid was driving. I had the back seat to myself.

Coronado was a peculiar place, full of
contradictions, with half the area taken up by multi-million dollar
homes and the other half with stark, basic houses for retired
military personnel. It had one of the best beaches in the world,
which hosted the pampered upper-class guests of the ultra luxurious
Hotel Del Coronado on one end and a full retinue of prospective
Navy SEALs being put through the meat grinder of BUD/S on the
other.

Pittman shifted in his seat so he was facing
me. “That was quite a nifty series of maneuvers you pulled off
since you were dropped off last night,” he said.

“Obviously not nifty enough, considering I’m
right back in your custody.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it, Mr.
Highway. It was inevitable, really. Even for someone with your
impressive skill set.”

“Maybe,” Highway said. “But I figured I’d at
least make it through a couple of days before you guys rounded me
up again.”

“And what were you planning on doing with
those couple of days?” Pittman said. “Take another shot at
Alvarez?”

“Who’s that now?”

“You don’t have to continue on with your
charade, Mr. Highway. We know you were still planning on going
after Carlos Alvarez. In fact, that’s why we picked you up so
quickly. We didn’t want to give you a chance to do something
stupid.”

He was right. There was no use pretending.
They had me dead to rights and we both knew it. My gaze wandered
towards the side window to catch a glimpse of the black water of
the mighty Pacific stretching on for thousands of miles. I wanted
to gaze upon nature while I still had a chance.

“So what happens now?” I said. “Are you
going to lock me up in some unmarked cell and throw away the key?
Send me to South America? Antarctica? ”

“Not quite.”

“Then what?”

“I’m going to make you a proposition,”
Pittman said.

“I didn’t know Homeland Security made
propositions to civilians.”

“They don’t,” Pittman said. “But I never
said I was with the DHS, now did I?”

I shifted in my seat. “You’re not with
DHS?”

Pittman shook his head.

“Then who are you with?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

“Unfortunately, there isn’t too much I can
tell you.”

“Then tell me what you can,” I said.

He shrugged, then said, “I am a member of an
organization that was created in the aftermath of 9/11, when
certain high-ranking members of our society decided that they had
their own ideas about what actions are necessary in this brave new
world of ours. We are not officially a part of the government, but
we are still accountable to certain high-ranking government
officials. We are independently financed, privy to all the
information gathered by the American intelligence community, and
very, very serious about our purpose.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Our organization specializes in finding
ways to work around the red-tape that plagues the current
international political climate,” Pittman said.

“Which is just a fancy way of saying you
guys take care of tricky situations without concerning yourself
with the law.”

“You say it as though it disgusts you. Does
it?”

“A little.”

“Come on now, Mr. Highway, certainly you see
the hypocrisy in this, no? I mean, you didn’t seem too concerned
with the law when you decided to acquire an unlicensed firearm 72
hours ago. Or when you conspired to disobey a direct order given to
you by an agent with the Department of Homeland Security. Or when
you broke into David Russo’s house and elicited information from
him.”

The smug bastard had a point but I wasn’t
going to give him the satisfaction of hearing it come from me. But
I wasn’t going to take their side either, so I just stared at
Pittman and waited for him to continue. And tried not to think
about how disturbing it was that they knew exactly what I’d been up
to for the last two days. Since the beginning of my little
operation. Before I’d had any inkling of anyone being on to me.

“I didn’t think so,” Pittman said. “Besides,
in this particular case, our method of operation works in your
favor. You see, because of who we are, and more importantly, who we
aren’t, we are able to offer you a unique opportunity.”

“Which is what?”

“The chance to kill the man responsible for
your wife’s death.”

A surge of conflicting emotions bubbled up
but I pushed them aside. Right now I needed a clear, unfettered
mind.

“You know who killed my wife?”

Pittman nodded.

“It was Ferdinand Montoya, right?”

“We’ll get to that in a little while.”

I leaned forward, my eyes still locked with
Pittman’s. “Let’s get to it now.”

Pittman held my stare for a moment, then
gave a little nod of his head and said, “Yes. Ferdinand Montoya was
responsible for the death of your wife.”

I opened my mouth, but before I could say
anything else, Pittman held up his hand and said, “Just hang on to
that thought for a second, Mr. Highway. Before we discuss any more
specific pieces of information, we need to make sure you understand
the situation you are getting yourself into should you choose to
accept our assistance.”

“Then start talking,” I said.

“First of all, this meeting never happened.
Whatever you learn here today, you found out on your own. You had
no assistance from any outside source. You must never mention me,
nor our little talk here tonight, even after the operation is
complete. In addition, you must understand that if anything should
happen to you during or after this operation, you are completely
and utterly on your own. The organization that I am a part of does
not officially exist, therefore, we cannot help you.”

“Sounds reasonable enough,” I said. “Is that
it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Then let’s stop wasting time and get on
with the important stuff.”

“If you insist,” Pittman said. “What do you
want first, the good news or the bad news?”

“The bad,” I said.

“The bad news is that Ferdinand Montoya is
extremely well-guarded; he lives in a heavily fortified ranch in a
relatively isolated area of Mexico. There are more than twenty
armed guards on the ranch grounds and fifty more within shouting
distance. In addition, Montoya has a full retinue of bodyguards
with him at all times. He is never alone. Not even when he
sleeps.”

I shrugged. It sounded pretty much like what
I expected. “And the good news?”

“We know how to get you close to the target
with relative ease,” Pittman said. “So killing him won’t be all
that difficult.”

“But getting out will be, I assume?”

“It will take some work on your part to get
out of his compound,” Pittman said. “But if you can manage to do
so, it will be clear sailing to the border. Of course, after you’re
back on American soil, you’ll be on your own, but that shouldn’t be
a big deal. If everything goes according to plan—and there’s no
reason why it shouldn’t—you’ll be able to resume your life without
anybody having any clue about your role in Montoya’s death.”

“Except for Agent Holland,” I said.

“He may have his suspicions,” Pittman said.
“But there will be no evidence to back them up. Unless, of course,
you decide to leave some at the scene. But with your background, I
don’t foresee that being an issue.”

I laughed under my breath. “Sounds like you
guys have this thing planned out pretty well.”

“Well, as you can imagine, this isn’t the
first time we’ve done something like this.”

“I’m sure it’s not,” I said.