Back-Tracker Read online

  An hour passed and he’d still heard nothing back. He tried again, knowing that it wouldn’t change anything, but anxious to inform her of what was coming. Still no response. While he waited he went back to the computer and studied the hotel again. He had time. He could wait several days if necessary, and when he finally contacted her, he could find out where she had been, then back-track and get to her in time. As the hours passed and he grew restless, he considered that he hadn’t heard from her after the assassination. That in itself had been unusual, and he remembered being somewhat surprised. The killing of an important Senator would have been a top priority. He decided something he didn’t understand was going on.

  He reached into the center drawer of the desk and withdrew his phone book. He located her office number, something he seldom had used, and then called it on the cheap cellular. He wasn’t surprised when a secretary answered.

  “I’d like to speak with Special Agent Carlson,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, she’s not available at this time,” replied the soft, yet mature voice on the far end. Jake envisioned an older and very efficient woman, who filtered all access to the agent.

  “I see,” Jake said. “Look, I’ve tried to contact her for more than a week on her private cell, and have been unable to reach her.” He quoted the number so the woman would know he really knew the number. The rest of what he was saying was a lie, but he figured he might learn more discussing past events than asking where Carlson was or when she’d return. That would certainly be unproductive.

  The voice hesitated, then said, “She has been away for longer than that. May I take a message for her when she returns?”

  Jake considered. Susan had been away for more than a week, and unless he was mistaken about what had happened the next couple of days she was still going to be unavailable. Wherever she was, she wasn’t answering her cell. That suggested she was involved in some kind of an agency operation. Something that was too important to break cover. It was unlikely she had her phone with her, so she wouldn’t know about his calls. Even if she did, she must consider calling back secondary to whatever she was presently doing. She probably felt Jake’s call was something that could be handled at a future date, factoring in Jake’s ability to back-track.

  Making a sudden decision, Jake said, “Tell her Bob Trask called. It’s important. She has my number.”

  “I’ll see she gets your message,” the voice said, and then disconnected.

  Jake stood and paced. He was certain he wouldn’t hear from her for at least the next several days. That would mean he would have to live through the trip to Reno again, trying to be patient, which was not one of his more established traits. When she finally contacted him, he’d have to back-track, then do it all a third time. He briefly considered back-tracking an additional week right now and getting in contact with Susan before she left on whatever task had taken her away. He still was reluctant to do that. Last night had been special, and he knew he would be forfeiting that experience if he were to back-track beyond that time. He’d still have the memories of the first time around, but Karin wouldn’t, and that would taint the experience.

  The more he thought about the situation, the less comfortable he became. What could Carlson do if he warned her? Given the information that had been available before he back-tracked, the only thing she could do would be to move the Senator someplace else to protect him. That would almost certainly mean whoever was after him would make another attempt before too long, unless something developed to reveal who was behind the attack. They could go in circles for a while, which could easily interfere with Jake’s plans to join Karin back East.

  He wondered if he could handle this one on his own, much like he used to. There would be no casualties, so Karin wouldn’t be too upset. He didn’t know who was responsible. From what he had learned, a man properly positioned could get a shot at the drones as they approached the hotel. That would save the Senator, accomplishing the same thing as moving the Senator, but providing more evidence to aid their search for the instigators.

  He knew he’d made up his mind when he stood and walked across the room, rotating aside the section of bookshelves that hid his gun safe. While most of the operational firearms he’d used in the past were in Nevada with Nate, he still had his personal collection. There were several weapons he’d acquired with no records that traced to him. Jake reached in and pulled out a compact shotgun with a variable choke. Just the thing, he decided.

  He carried the shotgun into their bedroom where his own suitcase was waiting, nearly packed for the trip to Reno in the morning. He separated the stock from the action, and found he still couldn’t fit it inside the suitcase. He had to remove the barrel, and then the three pieces fit. He added the rest of the clothing he would need in Nevada, then zipped up the bags and carried them out to the car.

  Returning to the house, he made a call to the Ritz-Carlton, and made reservations for a two-night stay. The reservation was made using the phony ID in the Mathews name. He didn’t want his actions to be linked to either himself or the Trask identity. Then he locked up the house and climbed into the BMW, and headed into the City.

  Once checked in, he spent the day exploring the hotel to verify what he’d learned on the internet matched reality. He was able to find the back stairway that led to the roof, finding the door at the top locked, but with a simple tumbler lock he knew he could overcome. Twice he had to back-track a few minutes when his explorations were discovered by hotel staff, but by the time evening rolled around, he had figured out how he would get where he needed to be. He had dinner in the dining room, then retired to his room, talking for half an hour to Karin who had arrived safely. He felt guilty not revealing to her what he was doing, but he didn’t want her to worry.

  As dawn approached, he was in place on the roof, the shotgun lying out of sight on the roof beside him. He wore a dark jacket that kept out the chill and hid him against the roof, although he could think of no reason why anyone would be looking for someone out here tonight. The attack that had killed the Senator wouldn’t happen until later in the morning.

  Forty-five minutes later Jake checked his watch for the tenth time. Five minutes until the drones would arrive. Carefully he picked up the shotgun, his hands encased in thin disposable medical examination gloves. He had already used his compass to scout out the directions the two drones would approach from, and was aligned toward the first. He rested the shotgun in his lap with the barrel aligned along the direction of fire, so all he had to do was raise it to his shoulder and fire. He had nearly thirty seconds between the arrival of the two drones, which gave him plenty of time to be sure of the first, before rotating five degrees to his left to engage the second one.

  There! His eyes picked out movement against the sky. As he watched the small drone moved straight toward the Presidential Suite near where Jake sat. Attached to the bottom was a dark package that looked almost too bulky for the tiny drone.

  “Show time” Jake thought. He wanted to hit the drone when it was far enough away that any explosion he triggered would startle people, but do no serious harm. He raised the shotgun to his shoulder as he rose up on his knees. From that position he could easily swivel for repeat shots and to engage the second target.

  The shot was difficult only in the fact it was longer than he liked. Unlike game birds and skeet. There was little transverse motion. The drone was headed directly toward his position. He sighted over the barrel, allowing years of practice to guide his sight picture and decide the lead. Then he fired.

  He was almost surprised that his shot was good. He’d been prepared to back-track as needed to retry the first shot, but his first attempt struck the tiny vehicle a little low, hitting between the bottom of the drone and the top of the explosive payload. He was also surprised there was no explosion. He watched as the drone wobbled, lost control, and plunged toward the ground below. It struck in a grassy area along one side of the hotel.

  So far, so good, Jake thought, as he t
urned toward the second drone. It took him a moment to spot it. This one was coming in with one of San Francisco’s high rise buildings in the background, and that momentarily hid the vehicle from Jake. When he finally spotted it, the drone was closer than he liked, and he had to make a snap shot or it would be too late. He fired once, then a second time, as the first appeared to clip the edge of the vehicle. The second struck something critical, and the drone erupted into a bright flame and a powerful boom, that made Jake duck and press himself against the rooftop. He heard the sound of shattering glass, the result of the blast, and hoped that no one had been hurt.

  Knowing he had only a little time before someone responded, Jake set the shotgun down, and left it in a depression on the roof. There was no way to trace it to him. Then he turned and made his way quickly across to the far side of the building. All eyes would be this side of the hotel for the moment. He’d tied a rope to a support, and checking to see if all was clear, he tossed the end over, then slid down to the wide walkway that encircled the hotel on the upper levels. Once down, he tied the end of the rope out of sight. It would be found later, but by then it wouldn’t matter.

  Quickly he pulled off his gloves, stuffing them in the pockets of his jacket, and made his way inside through the side doors. He pulled out his phone and pretended to be engaged in a conversation as he walked toward the elevator, taking it down two levels where his room was located. A couple of minutes later he was in his room, where he ordered room service. He’d made it unnoticed, without the need to back-track even once!

  He would remain in the hotel for the day. In additional to the politicians who were meeting in the hotel, there was an art exhibit he would pretend to be here for. There was nothing to tie him to the shotgun or the aborted attack. He was simply another frightened guest. Staying would be better than trying to make it out of the hotel which would be crawling with police by now. He’d be a day late getting to Reno, but he’d accomplished his goal. Once he heard from Susan, he would be able to tell her what he had done, and she could deal with finding out who wanted Senator Kerns dead.

  Chapter 1

  Present Day

  “Almost home,” Jake said softly as he looked at his wife snuggled into the leather seat of the BMW and leaning against the passenger side doorframe with a soft blanket thrown over her. She had been dozing the last hour as they made the run across the Bay Bridge and fought their way down the peninsula toward San Jose.

  “Finally,” she said, the sleep still apparent in her voice.

  She pushed herself upright, rearranging the blanket. Jake couldn’t understand why she was cold. He had the temperature adjusted to a comfortable setting, but Karin always wanted a blanket when she napped in the car. She looked into the back to check on Janna. Now thirteen months old, their daughter slept without a care as the soft hum of the tires on the wet road lulled her to sleep.

  “Did it rain hard while I was out?” Karin asked, looking out the windows at the lights of the houses along the freeway. The drops on the windows made them smeary and indistinct. It was a little after five in the afternoon, but being that it was February, dusk was already settling in.

  “A couple of short downpours as we approached Vallejo,” Jake said. “Nothing serious. Mostly just the constant drizzle.”

  The rain had started as snow when they pulled out of South Lake Tahoe just after lunch. There had been a lot of snow this year, as if Mother Nature was trying to make up for the past few years when there had been hardly any. The snow had stayed with them as they made their way over to Highway 80, and gradually changed to rain as they descended down out of the mountains towards Sacramento. Karin didn’t like driving in the snow and rain, but Jake found the rain kind of peaceful. The weather was the main reason that they hadn’t taken the plane and flown up from San Jose. Karin was uncomfortable in a small plane, looking down at all that white snow. Jake felt it safer, avoiding the icy roads, but he knew when to surrender, and hadn’t even suggested the plane this trip.

  “I hope they can visit us next month,” Karin said wistfully.

  She was referring to Nate and Brenda, his bride of just shy of two months. They had been married at Christmas, in a small ceremony that Jake and Karin had flown up to Reno to attend. Karin and Brenda had hit if off the first time they had met, and the bond had only grown stronger with time. While Karin liked her job in California, she missed some of their old friends from Nevada.

  “It didn’t seem like four days,” Karin added when Jake didn’t say anything.

  “No, it didn’t,” Jake agreed. They had spent the time mostly around the casinos and shops, but had made a circle of the lake one day when it was clear and sunny. It had been cold, but they kept Janna bundled up when they got out of the car, and she had stared at everything with the same detached wonderment with which she took in everything. Jake could only wonder at what might be going on in that growing awareness inside her head.

  “Nate sounded pretty certain they would make it,” Jake said, finally responding to Karin’s earlier question. His mind had been sorting through the conversations of the past several days. “Nate talked to Zack last week and he didn’t sound like he and Cheryl would be coming.”

  “I’ll call Cheryl when we get home. Maybe I can persuade her. It would be really great to have us all together again. It’s been nearly two years since we went camping together.”

  They fell silent for a while, watching the now very familiar freeway signs as they passed, marking the approach toward home. They probably should have gotten an earlier start, but Karin had been reluctant to end the short vacation, and they’d lingered over lunch. Now they were tired and anxious to reach their house.

  “She did good, didn’t she?” Karin said with a smile.

  Jake knew she was referring to Janna. They’d had doubts at how well she’d react to the four to five hour drive from San Jose to the Lake, but she’d been a model passenger, both coming and going. She had amused herself with one of her toys for a time, and then had drifted off to sleep for the majority of the trip. She was like that. Jake was impressed with his daughter, and while it might be because she was his, he felt he could see a deep intelligence sitting behind those bright blue eyes of hers.

  “Better than we could have hoped,” Jake agreed. “I think Brenda is going to be pushing Nate for one of their own.”

  “You sensed that too,” Karin replied. “She was really taken with Janna. She wanted to take care of her whenever she could.”

  Jake signaled a lane change and shifted to the right, falling in behind a pair of cars that were already in the far right-hand lane. Both he and Karin shed a certain tenseness as the car slipped into the turnoff exit they had taken so many hundreds of times before. Less than a mile and they would be home.

  The last two years had been good to them, despite Jake’s misgivings about moving into California with its many restrictions and crazy politics. Karin’s career had sky-rocketed, and Jake had been able to distance himself from the frequent need to correct the twisted actions of those anti-social individuals that felt the need to express themselves violently. Sometimes a situation would arise that he could handle without resorting to violence. Those were usually local. For the major events, he simply gathered the information from the news and then called Susan Carlson back in Washington. She would take his input and deal with the problem. Only a couple of times had situations developed where she had asked him to become personally involved. Most of the time he worked on his computer projects, although since Janna had come along he had moved into a mister mom role. Karin had offered to quit and stay at home with him. They didn’t need the money her now hefty salary brought in, but Jake knew she loved her work, and he didn’t mind the situation.

  It was now fully dark outside, the streets lit by the occasional street lamp and the lights from the windows of the houses on either side. Jake noted that the drizzle had let up, as if realizing they were home and it could no longer be a bother anyway. He turned off the windshield wi
pers as he turned into the cul-de-sac where they lived. Theirs was the house all the way at the end, and he could see its shadowy outline offset by the tall trees on either side. The house was dark other than the single light in the upstairs window they left on when they were away. He pressed the button on the dash that opened the garage door and saw the light appear under it as it raised. By the time he reached the driveway, the door was all the way open, and he pulled smoothly into the garage alongside the Toyota Highlander that waited patiently in the right hand spot.

  The door closed behind them. Karin slid out and opened the back door to extract Janna from her car seat, while Jake opened the door into the house and walked inside turning on lights and making a quick check for anything out of place. All looked exactly as they had left it. He walked over to the temperature control, and selected the normal program that they used when home. He heard the heater come on to bring the temperature up another ten degrees. Then he went out to unload their bags.

  Karin stretched and yawned. She had never been a morning person, and she looked at him hopefully, one eye peering from under a pillow.

  “We’re going to need some things,” she said.

  “I’ll make a run to the store,” Jake volunteered. He’d already decided that he’d need to go this morning anyway.

  That earned him a passionate kiss and a promise for later. He climbed out of bed and dressed in jeans and a casual shirt. He’d just grabbed his keys off the dresser when they heard Janna moving around and complaining from the other room. The small audio monitor placed next to her crib alerted them to any discomfort she was having.

  “Go on,” Karin said, as she slipped out of bed and grabbed her robe. “Diaper time. I’ll see to her.”

  Jake smiled and headed off. He walked through the great room and headed toward the garage, where he climbed into the Highlander. Moments later he was on his way, noting the gray skies foretold of more rain today. It was early enough that few of his neighbors were up, although he saw a couple of lights in kitchens.