The Missile Game (The Dr. Scott James Thriller Series Book 1) (6 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jackson City Jail

Midnight

I SAT ALONE IN my jai
l cell, staring at the wall as if in a trance, thinking about my wife. A bitter chuckle rose in my throat, like bile, at the irony of it all. The thing that had attracted her to me had now turned out to be the same thing that drove her away. I was a plastic surgery resident at Duke when Alicia’s mother was mugged and beaten. Her facial bones were shattered and I stayed at her side for four days and nights until the tracheotomy tube was removed and she could breathe on her own.

Though Alicia was courted by wealthy and successful men, she fell in love with me because I was the one who stayed at her mother’s side the whole time. Of course, that was long ago, at a time when small-town doctors actually cared about helping people. Things had changed. Healthcare costs were through the roof, and they were only going to go higher with the sale of the non-profit Jackson City Hospital. Alicia had initially loved me for being so dedicated to my patients, but then over the years, she grew to hate that very same quality.

From jail, I called our family lawyer. After he told me that he had filed papers to prevent me from seeing my two boys and that he was representing my wife in the divorce, he hung up on me. I thought that was very sweet of him. I then called three other lawyers whom I considered to be close friends. They all refused to represent me when they found out that all my assets were frozen and I had no money for a retainer.

Sure, the test for nitrates on my hands was negative, proving that I didn’t fire the gun that killed Wilson—but what good did that do me? Everything else pointed to murder. I’d been at the scene of two killings and an attempt on Keyes’ life in less than forty-eight hours. The judge and prosecutor didn’t care about the nitrate test.

For the first time in my life, I was ready to give up. My head was spinning.
What the hell am I going to do?
I was so filled with anxiety I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t think at all. I just sat there, dumbstruck and seriously depressed. I was used to adversity, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the troubles confronting me now. I was raised on a tobacco farm and for years worked long into the night doing farming chores to help my aged parents barely eke out a living. My muscles grew strong from the farm work and this helped make me a good athlete. On the high school football team, Herb Waters and I were in the backfield together. Herb was fullback and I was tailback. I was offered a football scholarship but instead chose an academic scholarship at a state college. During the summers, I worked on the farm, and during the academic year I took on a few campus jobs to make extra money for my parents. There was no time for sports. I made high grades in college and med school, and excelled in my surgical training.

I’d trained for surgery under Dr. Jerome Fusco. Under his regime I had to be prepared at any time to quote articles from the thirty or so surgical journals published each month. I had to study and memorize the techniques of each operation in which I was involved, so that if a surgeon on the case fell ill, I could take over. At the same time, I had to provide patient care during killer shifts of “on thirty-six, off twelve” hours. After my paperwork was finished, that often meant zero off hours.

Now all those years of hard work and training seemed to be for naught. I lay on my bed that night thinking about what to do next, but the mental and physical toughness that I’d developed in the tobacco fields was gone. I wished I had the $1.5 million I spent building my surgery center for facial reconstruction. With no surgery on the books, there was no income coming in. I was screwed. I was broke and there was no way I was ever going to make bail. All the extra work I had put into my surgical training seemed like a thing of the past now.

Earlier in the day, one of the guards had read aloud a brief article to me and my jail mates. It told of Herb Waters, who was now the president of Jackson City Hospital, being seen in town having dinner with my wife. My knees grew weak. My chest ached. If I had Wilson’s gun again, this time I’d shoot
myself
.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Watson Farm

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

9:06 am

THE TOP OF THE Mack’s trailer had been peeled back, and the terrorist recruits were assembling the launchers on the truck bed. The four men and two women were dressed as farmers. Nearby, the chief engine mechanic had been working on the deceased Billy Watson’s backhoe for two hours. Ideally, the old vehicle would be used to move the missiles quickly, from the crates to the launchers.

But the old diesel engine just wouldn’t turn over. The chief mechanic wiped sweat from his face with his forearm, smearing grease on his face, and muttered, “Can’t get the son-of-a-bitch started.”

Michelle came into the barn and walked over to fix the truck herself. “I need that machine. Get the fuck outta my way.”

As she approached the vehicle, the mechanic stepped toward her, and as she bent down to take a look, he copped a feel of her ass. Michelle laughed, shrugged, and then hit him in the jaw, knocking him to on the ground. She scowled, “I’ll cut off your balls and shove ‘em up your ass if you even think of touchin’ me again.”

The man held his jaw and apologized. “God, Michelle, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Michelle kicked him in the side with the pointed toe of her Western boot, and screamed, “Don’t fucking touch me!”

One of the other men pulled her away before she killed him. Michelle took the mechanic’s tools and began working on the old diesel engine. Within thirty minutes, she had the engine running.

Michelle had trained in Israel with some of the best weapons experts in the world. She’d worked with missiles confiscated by the border police as well as Scud missiles that had been fired their way but had fallen short. She’d learned how to take the devices apart, piece by piece, and repurpose them. She’d removed the kerosene-propelled motors and converted them to solid fuel engines. She’d added GPS guidance systems to relics of past wars and had made them capable of hitting targets 200 miles away.

Now, Michelle headed up the covert operation in the United States, where, among other things, she was charged with installing automatic target recognition (ATR) guidance systems in the silkworms. Manufactured by General Electric, the ATRs had been legally sold to Israel for the development of its missile defense system. Using money Hormand had sent, Nicole had purchased six of these units at black-market prices from Michelle’s Israeli “friends.”

Michelle had worked through the night trying to get all six missiles ready. In the summer heat, she sweated profusely. Since she never wore a bra, her nipples were visible through her wet blouse, yet no one in the group dared to glance at her chest. Although most of the men were devout Muslims, none objected to Michelle’s revealing attire.

Michelle was in the process of installing the ATRs when she received a package from Hormand containing an attachment developed for naval warfare. In mid flight, the attachment could locate the GPS signal given out by a ship in trouble, and accurately lock on to the distressed vessel. Hormand had sent only one of these devices, which Michelle was to install in the first rocket that would be fired.

When she finally finished, she announced, “The missiles are ready. They’re accurate enough to hit the United States Capitol from here—if that was our target—and they would be powerful enough to flatten the motherfucker! As soon as Celena gets off her ass and locates the real target, our missiles are going to rip this country open.”

Cambridge, Maryland

9:15 pm

At long last, the ISIS chief could send a text to Kahlil: MY MISSILES ARE READY TO STRIKE. AFTER CHARLIE IS DEAD, I WILL AUTHORIZE THE USE OF ALL MY MISSILES TO DESTROY THE CITY. PRAISE ALLAH.

Jackson City, North Carolina

11:30 pm

Celena, Hormand’s operative, checked her texts. THE AMERICAN AND HIS CONTROL STATION MUST BE LOCATED AND DESTROYED BEFORE HE KILLS MORE OF MY ISIS BROTHERS. DEADLINE IS ONE WEEK.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Jackson City Police Station

11:00 am

HARRIS WAS STUMPED. AND worried. Someone had paid James’ full bail with cash, and it wasn’t a bail bondsman. After more than twenty telephone calls, Harris still hadn’t identified James’ mysterious benefactor. Judge Wilkins refused to give him the name, and nobody at the courthouse seemed to know where the money had come from.

Harris tightened his jaw.
Not gonna do it. Not til I have ta
.

Harris figured that ignoring the release order might at least buy him some time to track down who was behind this, and it would keep the hospital president, Herb Waters, off his back.

It wasn’t time enough. After making a few phone calls that led nowhere, Harris was nosing around on the computer when a courier delivered a memo from the judge: “RELEASE JAMES NOW OR I WILL CHARGE YOU WITH CONTEMPT OF COURT.”

A few seconds later, his phone rang. Judge Wilkins made no attempt to mask the annoyance in her voice. “Dr. James’ bail has been paid. He’s free to go. The court has sent his release orders. Make sure he understands that he cannot leave the city for any reason. Failure to comply with any of the terms of the release will result in his arrest and forfeiture of the two million in bail, every dollar of it. Tell Dr. James that if he cannot afford an attorney, call the public defender’s office. I’ll see him in court in September. I suggest you get moving.”

A contempt charge came with a $10,000 fine and jail time. Harris dropped his head and shook it.
Shit.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Jackson City Jail

1:25 pm

HARRIS WALKED UP TO my jail cell and unlocked the door. He didn’t say a word, didn’t even look at me. I just stood inside the cage I’d been dying to get out of, staring at the open door. I tried to make eye contact with him and read h
is expression, but he wasn’t giving anything up.

When I was released from jail, I had no plan, no car, and very little cash in my wallet. I decided to walk around town for a while, hoping to clear my mind and figure out what to do next. An hour later I was crossing Magnolia Avenue when I heard a woman’s voice yell my name. Raising my forearm to shade my eyes from the sun’s glare, I looked in the direction of the voice and saw an arm waving at me through the open window of an aging, fender-dented, white Honda Accord. As I approached the car, the driver called out again, “Dr. James!” It was Elizabeth Keyes.

Elizabeth Keyes had been my office manager for the past two months. Never before had a staff member endeared herself so quickly. Everyone who came in contact with Elizabeth liked her. It probably didn’t hurt that the thirty-two-year-old blonde was fashion-model gorgeous.

“Elizabeth.” I said, surprised to see her. “Good to see you. Clearly, you’re feeling better than last time I saw you.”

“Likewise.”

“Thanks.” I stood for a moment, then said, “Poor Boyd.”

“Yeah. Dr. Carey. That’s so sad.”

Then, lowering her voice, she asked, “So you’re a free man now?”

“Um, well, sort of … ” I stammered. “At least for now. I’m out on bail.”

“Wow! How’d you come up with all that money? The paper said it was, like, two million.”

“I didn’t,” I said quietly. “Someone else paid it.”

“Do you know who?”

I shook my head and looked around nervously. This was not a conversation to be having with an employee who also happened to be the patient who’d almost died in my operating room. After all, that unfortunate incident was being investigated as an attempted murder, for which I was the prime suspect.

Leaning toward the car’s open window, I said, “Well, I’d better get going. I’m glad to see you’re doing well. Take care, Elizabeth”

“Dr. James,” Keyes called after me as I stepped away from the car. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”

I hesitated, not sure I wanted to trade the freedom of walking for the confines of a car. But then I thought,
Maybe Keyes knows something I don’t, like what happened to the friend who was supposed to pick her up. Maybe she saw someone else in the OR . . .

“Sure,” I said.

As I got into the front passenger seat, I couldn’t help but notice that her curves were accentuated by her skin-tight T-shirt and workout pants. “You look a lot better than the last time I saw you. But are you sure you’re okay now?”

“All better!”

“You had me worried there,” I said.

“Oh, I just had too much Valium. Once it wore off, I was fine,” she said. “Where to, James? Your house or mine?”

This was a side of Keyes I’d never seen, and it caught me a little off-guard. But I liked it.

“Well, since my wife gave me the boot and started screwing around, I don’t have a home to go to,” I said. “But you can take me to a hotel.”

“And you’re going to pay for that how?” she asked.

How does she know I’m broke?
Before I could ask the question, Keyes answered it. “Rumor has it your wife cleaned you out, and since you haven’t been able to work … ” Turning toward me, her face filled with empathy, she laid her hand on my leg and cooed, “I’m so sorry all this is happening to you. You’re welcome to stay at my place.”

“Alright.”

“In separate bedrooms, of course,” she added quickly.

My two options flashed through my mind: Sleep on a park bench, or go home with a beautiful woman. It took all of two seconds to decide.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Positive.”

“It’ll just be for a couple days, till I figure something else out.”

“Buckle up, Doc,” she said as she pulled the Accord away from the curb.

“Could we stop by my office on the way?”

“You’re allowed in there?”

“I just want to check on my orchids.”

“You and your orchids. Can they wait till tomorrow? I’m all sweaty from my Zumba class and really want to get home and shower. And I’ve got a ton of stuff to do today.”

I had no choice but to agree.