Highway to Vengeance: A Thomas Highway Thriller (9 page)

“Well, I’ll get this in for you,” she said
suddenly, as if awakening from a light doze, then turned and headed
for the kitchen.

I felt a wave of despair as she waddled
away. Poor girl had to work the worst shift at a 24-hour diner just
to make ends meet while assholes like Russo lived the high life by
selling their country out to the first scumbag that came along with
some cash. All of a sudden I wished I had just killed the son of a
bitch.

I shook my head and forced myself not to
think about it. Worrying about things that I had no control over
was only going to dispirit me further. I had more than enough on my
plate without outside assistance. Instead I started thinking of a
way to go after Alvarez that didn’t include me following him in a
car.

The food came out a short time later. It
wasn’t great but it was good enough that I cleaned all three of my
plates. The waitress brought me the cherry pie just as I finished
up with the breakfast and I gobbled that up too. She came around
again with the check right about the same time I put the last of
the pie in my mouth. She knew her job.

“How was it?” she asked. Despite the
weariness in her voice, it seemed as though she was genuinely
concerned about the quality of the food.

“It was perfect,” I said. “Although I can
feel my body shutting down already. At least I won’t have to worry
about falling asleep anymore.”

“But you do have to worry about making it
out the door without your heart giving out,” she said with a smile
that lit up her face. For a moment, I could see the cute young girl
buried beneath. My heart went out to her.

“Very true,” I said, matching her smile with
one of my own. I looked around, saw nobody else in the diner, and
gestured towards the seat opposite me. “Why don’t you give your
feet a little rest?”

She looked towards the kitchen, then back at
me. “Sure, why not. I deserve a break.”

“Hell, you deserve more than that,” I said.
I held my hand out across the table. “My name’s Scott. But everyone
just calls me Highway.”

“I’m Jenny,” she said, grasping my hand and
giving it a firm shake. “But everyone just calls me Jenny.”

We both laughed heartily, the sound echoing
about in the empty diner. The bald, sweaty head of a forty-year old
man poked out from the opening to the kitchen to see what the
ruckus was all about, looked around, saw us, flashed a scowl in our
direction, then ducked away.

“How far along are you?” I asked. “Seven
months?”

“Almost eight,” Jenny said.

I whistled through my teeth. “What’s a girl
in your condition doing working a job like this?”

“Oh, you know, the typical bullshit. My
boyfriend got me pregnant, then panicked and left, then one thing
led to another, and next thing I know I was taking whatever gig I
could get.”

“That’s horrible. I’m sorry.”

“What can you do?” Jenny said. “Sometimes,
life just sucks.”

“Yeah, I know. But it shouldn’t.”

She held my gaze. I could see her trying to
work out what I was all about. Good luck with that. I didn’t even
know myself.

The bell on the front door jingled and in
walked four stern-looking, well-groomed men wearing pretty nice
suits. Two of them took seats at the table closest to the front
door. The other two sat down a couple tables to our right. I cast a
glance at the rear exit and wasn’t at all surprised to see two more
similar-looking men parking themselves just inside the back
door.

Jenny started to stand. “Looks like it’s
back to work for me. I’ll catch you later.”

“I don’t think these guys are going to want
anything,” I said.

She narrowed her brow. “What do you
mean?”

“I think they’re here to talk to me.”

“Talk to you? Why?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” she
said.

“It sure looks like it.”

“What did you do?”

“Beats the hell out of me.”

The door chimed again and another man walked
in. He was older than the others, had less hair, and wore a much
more expensive suit but was otherwise of the same breed. He headed
towards my table.

“What should I do?” Jenny said.

“Just leave the check and go stand behind
the counter,” I said. “If anything happens, call the cops.”

Her breath quickened. “Do you think anything
will?”

“No, but better safe than sorry.”

She rifled through her note pad, tore off my
check, dropped it on the table, and walked quickly away, leaving
just as the older man arrived. He didn’t sit down and I didn’t
invite him to.

Without bothering to look up at him, I said,
“And who might you be?”

Instead of replying, he produced a badge
from his pocket and held it in front of my face. I looked down and
read it aloud, keeping my tone flat.

“Special agent Derek Holland of the
Department of Homeland Security.” I looked up at him, my face
expressionless. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

He pulled the badge back and returned it to
his pocket. “You’re supposed to be concerned.”

“About what?”

“About why I want to talk to you,” he
said.

“Well I’m not.”

“I can see that,” Holland said. “If you
prefer, I can make things more uncomfortable for you. Would you be
impressed then?”

“Probably not,” I said. “But why find out?
You say you just want to talk?”

“That’s right.”

“About what?”

“We’ll get to that eventually.”

“Let’s get to it now.”

“Not here,” Holland said. “In the car.”

“Oh, so now you want me to take a ride with
you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first
place? You could have made this a whole lot easier.”

“How so?”

“Because I would have told you to fuck off
right away instead of making you wait around to hear it.”

Holland’s face reddened and a muscle
underneath his left eye twitched. He was clearly not used to being
talked to this way.

“Does that mean you’re refusing the ride?”
he said.

I looked at the six other DHS goons in the
restaurant. I could take a few of them but probably not all six.
Besides, what was the point? It wasn’t like I was going to
accomplish anything by butting heads with these guys out in the
open. And hell, by talking to them, I might even learn something.
Time to bite my pride and stop being such an asshole.

“I guess not,” I said. “Just let me just pay
the check and we can go.”

Holland stood aside and let me pass.

I walked over to Jenny, handed her
everything I had in my wallet, a little over $250.

“I can’t take this,” she said, holding the
bills out towards me. “This is way too much.”

I reached out and closed her hand around the
money. “No, it’s not,” I said. “If anything it’s not enough. Take
care of yourself, all right? And the little one too, when it pops
out.”

“I will,” she said.

“And don’t worry about me. Everything’s
fine.”

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

A couple minutes later we were driving along
the San Diego Harbor in a black Crown Victoria. I was in the back
seat, squished between two of the goons from the restaurant.
Another one of the goons was driving. Special Agent Holland was in
the passenger’s seat. Nobody had said a word the entire time.

The silence was starting to make me a little
anxious. What if these guys weren’t who they claimed to be? What if
Russo had talked to the people he was in bed with? Or what if
Alvarez had called his brother after he’d spotted me tailing him?
And here I was, stuck in a car with four strangers without my
gun.

I was starting to feel very foolish about
trusting this self-proclaimed “DHS Special Agent Holland” simply
because he showed me a badge, especially considering I didn’t even
know what a DHS badge looked like. But at this point there wasn’t
much I could do except ride it out and hope for the best.

My relief was palpable as we turned into a
parking lot near the Convention Center. The car came to a stop.
Holland stepped out, along with the goon to my right. Holland
motioned for me to follow. I did.

“Shall we walk?” Holland said.

“Sure.”

We walked along the path adjacent to the
Harbor, the cool breeze blowing the smell of salt water and dead
fish into our faces. Coronado and North Island shimmered to the
west.

We shared the path with a smattering of
couples, most of whom were walking in the opposite direction. Two
of the goons followed twenty paces behind us.

“So are you going to tell me what’s going on
here?” I said.

“That’s funny, Mr. Highway. I was going to
ask you the same thing.”

“How the hell should I know? You’re the one
that initiated this conversation, not me.”

“And what reason could I possibly have for
doing such a thing?”

“I thought I explained that to you already,”
I said. “I have no fucking clue.”

Holland eyed me, his face a curious mixture
of disgust and admiration. “You don’t have any idea who you’re
talking to, do you?”

“Oh, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea,” I
said. “But to be perfectly honest, I just don’t fucking care.”

Holland laughed softly, shook his head. “You
SEALs sure are a tough lot, I’ll give you that. Never back down,
never give in, all that shit.”

“Hooyah,” I said, echoing the SEAL war cry.
“Although I have to admit, I’m impressed that you know so much
about me already.”

“I make it a habit to get to know the people
that are getting in my way.”

“Getting in your way? How so?”

“Come on,” Holland said. “Don’t give me that
shit. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

I shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

Holland glared at me. “Do not mistake my
cordiality for a lack of resolution, Mr. Highway. There are two
ways we can proceed here. Either we can have a nice, friendly
conversation out here in the open, under the high sky and this
wonderful night air, or I can stick you in a stuffy, smelly, tiny
unmarked cell until you decide to be more cooperative. The choice
is yours.”

I cast my glance out over the Harbor. I
figured I’d pushed Holland’s buttons enough for him to know that I
wasn’t going to hop, skip and jump just because he said to. It was
time to come clean, act like a reasonable person. I turned back
towards him, caught his gaze.

“If these talks remain cordial, are you
going to tell me anything? Or are you just going to shine me
on?”

“That depends on what you want to know,”
Holland said. “But if you’re honest with me then I’ll be as honest
as I can with you.”

I thought about it for a couple seconds and
figured it was as good as I was going to get. “That sounds fair.
Let’s talk.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said.

“Let’s go have a seat at the end,” Holland
said. “Give ourselves a little bit of privacy.”

We made our way to the end of the 42nd
street pier and sat next to each other on a concrete bench facing
the Harbor. The sound of the water slapping against the pier was
soft enough for us to speak normally but loud enough to not have to
worry about being overheard. Something told me that Special Agent
Holland had chosen this exact spot for talks of this sort
before.

“So,” Holland said, “Why don’t you tell me
why you’re so interested in Carlos Alvarez?”

“Because he had something to do with my
wife’s death,” I said.

Holland narrowed his brow. “I was under the
impression that your wife was killed in a hit and run
accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

“The San Diego Police Department seemed to
think it was.”

“They’re wrong.”

“Are they now?”

I nodded.

“You seem pretty sure.”

“I’m more than pretty sure,” I said.

“What makes you say that?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Care to articulate them?”

“Not particularly.”

Holland took this in with a slight nod of
his head and didn’t press the issue. “Well, despite what you think,
I can guarantee you Mr. Alvarez was not involved in your wife’s
death in any way.”

“Yeah, well I’m sure you won’t mind if I
don’t just take your word for it,” I said.

“Actually,” Holland said. “I mind quite a
bit.”

“Do you, now?”

“Damn right I do.”

“And why is that?”

“Because Mr. Alvarez is involved in an
ongoing operation and I will not allow him to be compromised. For
any reason.”

“What kind of an operation are we talking
about here?” I said.

“I can’t divulge the details,” Holland said.
“But I assure you it’s a major one. With national security
implications. We’ve been working it for more than eighteen
months.”

“That long, huh?”

Holland nodded. “Which is why you can
understand my agitation when I found out someone had come out of
nowhere and started tailing—badly, I might add—one of the key
components of my case, putting the whole operation—not to mention
my career—in dire jeopardy.”

“It was that bad, huh?”

“It was pathetic,” Holland said.

I laughed softly and tried to decide how I
was going to play the situation. But Holland didn’t give me a
chance to play it at all.

“This is not open for debate,” he said. “We
are going to have eyes on you, and if one of my agents so much as
sees you within a mile of Alvarez, you will be in an unmarked cell
in the basement of some unmarked building so fast your head will
spin. Do you understand?”

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly. I
cast my eyes down at the waves slapping against the pier. Their
restlessness reflected my own. Eventually I lifted my eyes, looked
at Holland. “Yeah. I understand.”

“Good,” Holland said, slipping into a
relieved smile. “That’s good. Now I’m sorry your wife is dead, I
truly am. And I understand your need to find out what happened to
her. But National Security must take precedence over your quest for
closure. As a former SEAL, I’m sure you can understand that, even
if, as a former husband, you can’t.”