Highway to Vengeance: A Thomas Highway Thriller (25 page)

“What’s done is done, Highway. Obviously you
believe we can still negotiate in good faith, otherwise you
wouldn’t have set up this meeting. So let’s dispense with the
verbal calisthenics and get to the heart of the matter.”

“Fair enough.” I turned, giving him my back,
just to see if someone would make a move. Nobody did. Confident now
that there was at least a chance this meeting would go as planned,
I walked over to the two-foot-high wall that separated the plaza
from the hillside and sat down. Pittman joined me, leaving the rest
of his men behind.

“You said on the phone you had a proposition
for us,” he said.

“I do. And it’s a relatively simple one, as
far as these things go.”

“By all means, let’s hear it.”

“All you have to do is live up to your
original bargain,” I said. “You leave me alone, let me get on with
my life, and I’ll do the same. I’ll keep my mouth shut about the
circumstances surrounding Montoya’s death, I’ll keep the location
of the bodies of your people to myself, hell, I’ll disappear
completely if that’s what it takes.”

Pittman seemed to consider this for a few
seconds, then said, “And suppose we agree to this arrangement. Why
should we trust you to keep your mouth shut?”

“Because it’s in my best interests to do
so,” I said. “If I talk, you’ll come after me with everything you
got. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid.”

“Aren’t you worried about the feds?” Pittman
said. “They’re going to be coming after you pretty hard after what
went down at Horton Plaza earlier today.”

I dismissed him with a wave of my hand. “I
can deal with scrutiny from the feds, no problem. They have laws
they have to obey, which makes them nothing more than a nuisance.
You guys, on the other hand, well, you can do whatever you want.
That concerns me.”

“If you weren’t concerned with the feds,
then why set up the meeting with Holland in the first place?”
Pittman said.

“Because at the time, I thought it was my
only play. If I believed I could have contacted you directly
without putting my life in danger, I would have.”

“I don’t know, Highway. After all that’s
happened, I find it pretty difficult to believe you’re just going
to let your wife’s murder go unpunished. After all, that’s why we
pegged you for this operation in the first place, precisely because
we knew you couldn’t let something like that go.”

Afraid my face would betray my true
feelings, I stood up, turned away from Pittman and cast my gaze
once again over the vast ocean below. The sun had nearly
disappeared, leaving in its wake a burnt orange glare that
reflected off the surface of the water, blurring the horizon
line.

“I’m not going to lie,” I said. “Once I
figured out you were behind Josie’s death, I wanted blood. I was
prepared to die in order to get revenge. But the more I thought
about it, I began to realize that killing you wouldn’t solve a damn
thing.”

I turned and stared at Pittman.

“You see, I learned something after I killed
Montoya. I learned that revenge isn’t worth shit. I stood over his
dead body and expected to feel something—joy, relief, satisfaction,
justification—anything, really. But there was nothing at all. I was
empty.”

Pittman continued to watch me, revealing
nothing. I pressed on.

“And then last night, as I was trying to
figure out how to get back at you, it came to me,” I said. “I
realized that no matter what I did, Josie wasn’t coming back.
Everything I’d done since she died was just an exercise in
futility, a misguided attempt to regain something that was lost
forever. And no matter what happens from now on, no matter how many
people I kill, she’s never coming back. So what’s the point? I just
want to get on with my life. And you can make that happen.”

Pittman studied me for another few seconds,
then said, “I must admit, you make quite a compelling argument. But
I don’t know. It’s a pretty big risk to take, leaving you alive at
this point.”

“It may be,” I said. “But it’s a risk you’re
going to have to take. Unless, of course, you’d rather I just put a
bullet in your head right now.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “You
wouldn’t dare do that.”

“Oh?” I said. “And why not?”

“Because you wouldn’t make it two steps
before my men cut you down.”

I shrugged. “Maybe I would and maybe I
wouldn’t. Either way it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of
difference to you.”

My voice was calm, measured. It wasn’t a
threat. It was the truth. I knew this. But I needed Pittman to know
it too. Beyond the shadow of a doubt. So I held his gaze, my face
slack, my eyes dead, radiating my determination.

After a full five seconds of staring each
other down, he gave me a little nod. He understood.

I smiled, breaking the tension. “But there’s
no reason to go down that path,” I said. “So tell me what I want to
hear and we’ll both walk out of here fully intact. But make your
decision. Because I’m real sick of this bullshit. One way or
another, this thing is going to get resolved. Right here. Right
now.”

Pittman took a deep breath, exhaled audibly.
Then he nodded and said, “All right.”

“All right, what?”

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” he said. “You
can have your life back.”

I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath
until it came out in a rush. “Just like that?”

“Sure,” Pittman said. “Why, were you
expecting it to get drawn out? To be more cinematic? Going down in
a blaze of glory, something like that?”

I shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t really know
what I expected. But I know it wasn’t that.”

“It’s the right business decision, nothing
else,” Pittman said. “That’s what guys like you never understand.
You always want to make everything so personal. It’s never
personal. Just business.”

My anger flared but I shoved it back down. I
knew he was trying to piss me off, trying to draw out my real
feelings, trying to figure out if what I’d said about being over
Josie’s murder was the truth. I knew because I had tried to do the
same thing to him. He had convinced me he was on the level, and now
I had to convince him I was too.

I forced myself to smile. “Hey man, I get
it. We all have jobs to do.”

Pittman nodded. “Yes we do. Now, if there’s
nothing else, I have other matters to attend to.”

“Actually, there is one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“A question, actually.”

He sighed. “Listen, this isn’t some James
Bond movie. If you expect me to spell out every tiny little detail,
you’re sadly mistaken. I’m sure you and your private eye friend can
figure out the hows and whens of the last couple of weeks. Once you
understand the basic framework—which you obviously do—it’s all
relatively simple.”

“Actually, at this point, I don’t give a
fuck about the mechanics of the operation. I’m more interested in
the why.”

“Let me guess,” Pittman said. “You wanted to
know why we chose you.”

I nodded.

“I can tell you if you want, but you need to
ask yourself this: Why do you want to know? If you think it’s going
to make you feel better, then I’d suggest you unask the question.
Because it won’t. Not in the least.”

“Just tell me,” I said.

He shrugged. “You were the best man for the
job, plain and simple. Your background, your private eye friend,
your wife’s occupation, it all fit perfectly into what we needed
done. We built the specific situation around you and set you on
your course, knowing exactly where you would end up.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“So if it wasn’t me, it would have been
someone else just like me.”

Pittman nodded.

“That’s pretty much what I figured.”

“I told you it wouldn’t make you feel any
better,” Pittman said.

“You were right,” I said.

And he was. It didn’t help. Not one bit. But
I knew something that would.
All in good time,
I told
myself.
All in good time.

“So is that everything?” Pittman said.

“That’s it.”

“Then I wish you a fond farewell,” he said.
But do me a favor and make sure that you live up to your end of the
bargain. Because despite what you may think, we can hurt you a hell
of a lot more than you can hurt us.”

“I’m sure you can,” I said.

“And although you probably don’t believe me,
I actually admire what you’ve done over the past week.”

I wasn’t sure how to reply to this so I just
gave him a little smile and a quick nod that was meant to portray
my appreciation at the comment even though appreciation was the
furthest thing from my mind right now.

Pittman seemed to buy it though, as he
turned and headed back towards his car without another word. I
watched him climb in and drive off before starting down the path
that lead to shore four hundred yards below, where Willis’s boat
was tied off.

BUD/S TRAINING:
GRADUATION

You sit in a plastic folding chair, next to
your fellow classmates, trying to keep the excitement level to a
bare minimum. The Commanding Officer is up at the podium, telling
the gathered friends and family how difficult the task was we had
accomplished, about how we were now more than men, about how this
was just the end of the beginning, how being a Navy SEAL was a way
of life; the same things you had heard hundreds of times during the
past 27 weeks. But now, somehow, they hit home with far more
force.

Then the CO calls your name and you go up
and accept your trident that specifies you as a BUD/S graduate. You
shake the hand of every single instructor, their smiles wider than
yours, and then you sit back down.

It is a small, relaxed ceremony, almost no
pomp and circumstance, which is just how you like it. The last 27
weeks has burned many things out of you, one of which being the
desire to draw attention to yourself. You just want to get the
ceremony over so you can get to the next training phase.

Twenty-seven weeks of the most brutal,
painful, singular experience of your life is over. BUD/S is
complete. What has come before—while easily the most difficult
thing you’ve ever experienced—is nothing compared to what still is
to come. The real work has not even started yet. Things are only
going to get harder. Which is fine by you. You can’t wait. You love
it. You will stop at nothing. You will see every job all the way to
the end, no matter what. You will never give up, never give in,
never back down from anyone or anything. Ever.

You are a Navy SEAL. Hooyah.

EPILOGUE

Thirteen months.

That’s how long it took me to find the man I
knew as Jack Pittman.

Armed only with pictures taken by Willis
during our meeting at Cabrillo National Monument, I’d lived the
last year of my life on the road, never staying in one place for
more than a week, slowly cultivating information and hints about
Pittman’s true identity, not in any hurry, safety and anonymity my
only concern.

There had been a couple of close calls along
the way, but nothing I couldn’t handle without too much of an
issue. No more bodies, at least. That was the key. I was sick of
the collateral damage. There was only one man in my sights now.

And in my sights, he was. Literally.

His real name was Stephen Simmons, and the
organization he worked for was surprisingly very much like what he
had originally claimed. Except for their age. They were known
within certain circles as the National Defense Commission and had
not been created, as he had told me, after 9/11, but had been
around since the early years of the Cold War. Planning their
operations behind the scenes, away from the public spotlight, doing
what they believed needed to be done, regardless of the
consequences to the very people they were supposed to be
serving.

Here he was, this man who had torn my life
apart—although I knew his real name, in my mind, he was still
Pittman—sitting by himself, eating lunch outside on the patio of a
Mexican restaurant, within walking distance from his work. The
symmetry was undeniable, and it helped reiterate that this was the
right thing to do.

Even after I’d taken the pains to learn his
true identity and his real employers, I was still torn as to what
route to take. There were many nights where I had convinced myself
to simply let it go, but I could never stay away for more than a
couple days at a time before I came slouching back to continue my
surveillance. The need for justice was simply too great. It
consumed my soul.

And that’s what this was about. Justice. Not
revenge. I’d come to realize that. This wasn’t only about me and
Josie, it was about something bigger, a covenant shared by a
government and it’s people, a pact that had been shattered by the
actions of this man, and the nameless masters he did the bidding
of.

Not that I was so naïve as to believe I’d be
changing anything with my actions. But it was necessary to stand up
to these faceless monsters, show them that they couldn’t act with
impunity. And if nobody got the message? That was all right too.
Justice has no need for witnesses. It is an end unto itself.

And so, here I sat, in this stolen car,
parked along the sidewalk a couple hundred feet from the crosswalk
that Pittman was now getting ready to cross on his way back to his
office.

The WALK sign lit up. I started the car.
Pittman stepped into the street. I put my left foot on the brake,
shifted into drive, then pressed the accelerator with my right
foot. The engine whined. Pittman crossed the center line. I glanced
to my left, then my right. There was a break in traffic. Just as
I’d known there would be. I lifted my foot from the brake. The car
lurched forward, speeding ahead, flying through the intersection.
Pittman turned, saw me. His eyes widened in recognition or terror
or perhaps both. I stared at him, expressionless, my face betraying
no joy, my heart feeling none either.