The Senator: A Blake Jordan Thriller (22 page)

My Glock lead the way as I entered Maribel’s home. I really didn’t know what to expect when I stepped inside. Part of me thought that I’d have to hunt for the senator by going from room to room, so I was shocked when I saw the man I had desperately been looking for sitting down in front of me.

Keller’s back was to me. His hands were wrapped around the chair and tied behind his back. I saw that he was also being gagged. I lowered my weapon and looked around, unsure of who else may be inside the house. Marco had disappeared around the side of the yard and besides the yell from Maribel a few seconds earlier, she was nowhere to be found.
What was she doing and where was she?
I wondered.

Keller was sitting straight ahead, past the family room on my left and the kitchen on my right. I ran over to him and tucked my Glock inside my belt so my hands could be free to untie the senator.

“I’m here,” I whispered and Keller looked up at me. I could sense relief in his eyes. I was relieved, too.

Crack!
A bullet whizzed right by us and went into the wall. It was Marco! He had come back around through the front door and caught me by surprise. I grabbed Keller and pulled the man still tied to the chair onto the floor. There was a four-foot tall wall that divided the rooms and offered some protection.

I knew that it was probably razor thin. I popped up and fired three shots back at Marco who ducked back outside.
Three
, I thought to myself, counting how many bullets I had used so I’d know when to change out the magazine.

I noticed that Keller was trying to say something and having a difficult time because of the gag that Marco had secured to him. But, my main priority was trying to kill the madman standing just outside of the door.
I’ll remove the gag and untie him as soon as I can
, I promised myself.

“Marco!” I yelled and I heard my voice echo throughout the house. A second later and the man reached his arm inside, pointing his gun in our direction and fired five times. I ducked and put my body over the senator, trying to shield and protect him from any stray bullets. I popped back up again and fired four more shots at Marco, aiming at the three-foot wide area between the front door and a window.
Seven
.

That’s when I remembered that the front of the house was made of brick and I wondered if my efforts to shoot through the wall to kill the man were in vain. I needed a way to provoke him so he would come out into the open and I could take my shot.

“I was wondering how long it would take you to find me,” Marco shouted from outside.

“It wasn’t hard at all. You were just as sloppy as an agent as you are now. No surprise they chose me.”

Marco peeked around the door and aimed his gun in my direction, but I already had my Glock trained on the spot where I thought he would reappear and I fired three more shots.
Ten
. Marco ducked and I missed him.

Just like with Burnett earlier in the day, I felt like I had struck a nerve. Keller had stopped trying to speak. He laid down lifelessly and only his eyes moved, watching me as I figured out how I was going to get us the hell out of the house alive. I used the few seconds in between shots to look around and try to get an understanding of the layout of the place. I could see a hallway to my left extending past the kitchen.

That’s where Maribel’s hiding
. I looked down at Keller and saw his eyes staring at my drenched shirt. I didn’t even feel the pain from the stab wound anymore. My senses were heightened and I knew I was running on pure adrenaline. When Keller’s eyes met mine, I noticed that his pupils were fully dilated. Something was wrong. “What did you do to him?” I yelled and heard Marco laugh outside of the door.

The senator tried to speak again and struggled to get up. “Stay down,” I said in a low voice, trying to keep him calm so I could focus on getting to Marco. Just then, he fired two more shots in our direction. One bullet made it through the wall and landed in one of the chairs in the den. Dust from the drywall got in my eyes, blinding me. I reached over the wall and fired to buy some time as I blinked to clear my eyes.
Fifteen
.

I ejected the mag and replaced it with the last one that I had in my jacket and fired two more shots.
Two
.

A few seconds later and I could see again. I noticed that Marco’s shoulder kept coming into view from the window just to the right of the area where he was standing. I aimed my Glock, closed an eye, and fired.
Three
. I heard Marco curse and I knew that I had clipped him.

“So, this is all about me? Are you that insecure that you couldn’t just go find yourself another job?”

“I worked too hard to be passed up. I knew you were incompetent. Now everyone is seeing it for themselves.”

“Nobody liked you, Marco. I was at your funeral – nobody was there. Except Maribel. Where is she?”

Marco fired another shot around the corner. “You ruined my career so I ruined yours. That seems fair.”

Keller kept looking up at me, watching my every move and how I was handling Marco. A few seconds of silence passed and my mind raced. The irony of protecting the life of the man who trained me hit me hard. I couldn’t help but think that if it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t even be in this situation. I tried to refocus.

“I thought after Maria died, you’d step down. But you’re just too damn stubborn, aren’t you?” Marco said.

“What do you know about that?”

“You should have seen her face, Blake. She was terrified. Too bad her death was in vain, isn’t it?”

“You son of a bitch,” I yelled and Marco started firing. In that moment I felt a rage boil over inside of me more intense than anything I’ve ever felt in my life. I didn’t care about anything other than putting a bullet inside Marco. When there was a break in fire I came up and unloaded, firing repeatedly as fast as I could.

Then it was over.

Click. Click. Click.
No more bullets fired from my Glock. I kept pulling the trigger. Marco laughed.

He looked inside and saw me staring back in his direction, continuing to pull the trigger. I was shaking.
Click. Click.
The man that took my wife away from me.
Click. Click.
I was looking in the eyes of a madman. And he was enjoying every second of it. Marco walked slowly and cautiously to me and laughed again.

“You need to learn to control your anger,” he said and smiled as he continued to move closer to me.

“And you need to learn how to count.” I saw terror in Marco’s eyes when he realized what I had done.

I quickly brought my left hand up, hitting the bottom of the magazine, snapping it back into place. I pulled the trigger and sent a bullet into Marco’s forehead. He immediately dropped to the ground. I stood there motionless for a few seconds, keeping my gun aimed at his head and letting the reality of the situation sink in.

I walked closer to Marco and kicked the gun away from him. In the silence, I heard the senator trying to speak again. I ran back to him and removed the gag that was tied tightly to his head and looked for my knife to cut away the zip ties that secured his wrists to the chair. Keller was slipping into unconsciousness.

I wondered what Marco and his sister had done to him. His sister! Where is Maribel! I realized that in the chaos of the last few minutes while I focused solely on taking Marco down, I had forgotten about her.
Is that all that the senator was trying to tell me? That Marco’s sister was still somewhere inside the house?

“Maribel! Show yourself!” I shouted, aiming my Glock through the kitchen and into the hallway that I believed led to where I thought she was hiding. I wasn’t sure what her involvement was and if Keller had been in better condition, I would have just left with him. But, my main priority was getting him to safety.

I didn’t have a way to call for help. I needed to find Maribel and make sure she wasn’t going to be a problem if I was going to be able to focus on finding a way to get help for the senator. I called out to Maribel again and a second later, I heard her voice coming from the back room beyond the kitchen.

“Jordan, I’m coming out, but you’re going to let me go – unharmed.” She demanded.

“Yeah. Right.” I whispered to myself. I saw a few unused zip ties on the kitchen counter. I thought that when she came out, I’d tie her to the same chair the senator had been secured to and neutralize her.

I was holding my position, aiming at the doorway when I felt a tug at my leg.

Keller whispered something, but I couldn’t make it out. I crouched down, keeping my aim at the spot where Maribel was going to appear, ready for anything.

“Say it again, sir,” I whispered to the senator. He took a deep breath before attempting to speak again.

“Blake – she’s got another hostage,” he said, slurring the words badly, but loud enough to understand.

I stood back up, immediately remembering Derek Murphy and Jami who had gone after him. The psycho had taken someone from both Jami and me. I prepared myself to take Maribel out and end the terror now.

The light in the hallway was off but I could see the woman look around the corner and then disappeared. A moment later and she started walking toward me, but was led by a man in front of her.
The hostage
.

I aimed my Glock at her, ready to pull the trigger as soon as I could see her head. There was no way in hell I was going to let her escape. I owed that much to the senator – and to Jami. This was going to end here.

“Tell him,” she said to the man and pulled down the gag on his face.

“Son, don’t listen to her – kill her.”

“Dad!?” I couldn’t believe that it was him as my father and Maribel walked closer and came into the light.

“Shut up!” she screamed at him and hit him on his back with the butt of her gun and jammed the barrel in his side. I recognized her voice from the video on Anita’s TV.
Shut up. She had been talking to my father.

Maribel continued to move toward me slowly and my dad tried to speak again and I realized that he was slurring his words almost as badly as Keller. Whatever drugs she gave Keller, she must have given him, too.

“What did you do to him?”

“Like I said, you’re going to let me go, unharmed,” Maribel responded and walked through the kitchen.

When she was just a few feet away from me, she turned and walked backwards toward the front door.

“I can’t let you do that,” I said and slowly closed my right eye and kept my Glock aimed at her forehead. “How did Marco get you involved in this, Maribel? Did he promise you money? Is that why you’re here?”

“You’ve screwed me, Jordan. Months of planning, all for nothing. Now I’ll make you pay,” she said. I slowly started to walk toward her when she stopped and moved her gun to the back of my dad’s head.

“Drop it! Drop the gun now or he’s dead!” she screamed.

Maribel stopped walking and stood just a few feet away from the front door that was still wide open.

“One second after you shoot him, you’re dead, too,” I said. Maribel waited a few seconds before she started walking backwards again toward the door. And that’s when I saw Jami standing behind her.

Jami was in the front yard, pointing her Glock 17 directly at Maribel’s back.

I wasn’t sure how she found me, but I wasn’t surprised that she figured it out. My dad stared at me. He didn’t look scared at all. He looked proud. He was giving me the same look that he had given me when I came home for Christmas after my first tour of duty in Afghanistan as a member of SEAL Team Three.

I blinked a few times and refocused my eyes on Maribel.

Maribel was now standing in between Jami and me and for a moment. I thought that if Jami took a shot, she very well could hit my dad or me instead. Maribel kept inching her way out of the house and I knew that I didn’t have a lot of time to decide what I was going to do about it.

She’d see Jami either way, but right now we had a chance to take her by surprise. I blinked and refocused on my dad and saw his eyes move. He knew someone was behind them and winked at me to let me know.

“Take her out, son,” he yelled and I was sure that Jami heard him across the yard. She approached slowly.

“Don’t even think about it. You killed my brother and if you think I’ll hesitate in putting a bullet in…”

“Do something, Blake,” my dad interrupted her. “Don’t let her get away, son. Don’t worry about me.”

I knew that my dad was right. Any second now, she would realize that someone was behind her. And when that happened, there was no way to know how she’d respond. Right now, this very moment, was our only chance to end the nightmare that Marco and Maribel had brought to the country. To my city. And to me.

Jami kept her Glock trained on Maribel’s back as the woman slowly moved closer to her.

I noticed that while Jami’s eyes were fixed on mine. She was waiting for a signal from me that she should take the shot. But I was waiting on her to let me know that she had a shot to take.

“Where are you taking him?” I asked, trying to stall and give Jami more time.

“Do you really want to play this game with me? Does your father’s life not matter that much to you?” She had me. And she knew it. But, I still had one more card to play and I was finally ready to play it.

My Glock stayed aimed in Maribel’s direction. Then my dad winked at me to tell me that he was ready.

“Okay,” I said and held my Glock in the air while bending down to drop it on the ground. I was completely vulnerable. No gun. No Kevlar vest. And that was the point. I knew that Maribel wouldn’t be able to pass up the opportunity to take me out if she had the chance.

I was right.

The moment I stood up, Maribel brought the gun out from behind my dad’s back and aimed it at me.

Jami nodded at me, letting me know that she had her shot and I nodded back.

As soon as I did, Maribel turned around to see who I was looking at and my dad broke free and ran toward me. Jami was still a good distance away from us, but she pulled the trigger and took Maribel out.

As I watched Maribel hit the ground, my dad reached his arms out and we embraced as Jami approached.