“Let’s get back to town,” he said.
The remainder of the drive back was uneventful. He had a lot of questions, but right then wasn’t the time. No one followed, so Angela drove, if not at the speed limit, at what was probably a reasonable speed for her. When they arrived back at his car, parked at Barry’s Place, the sun wasn’t yet up, but the sky was already turning a golden blue. The bar was long closed. A few pieces of what looked like hamburger wrappers danced with each other across the empty lot in the predawn glow.
“I have to work tomorrow,” she said. “This is going to be a busy Friday night, so the other girls will need me to help out. I need to get home, shower, and get some sleep. You look like you need some sleep, too.”
He would be able to get the sleep he needed, but it wouldn’t be long until the bar opened again. By the time she got home and to bed, she wouldn’t have the chance to get much sleep.
Jack nodded as he opened his door. “You’re right. You did something incredible tonight, Angela. There are a lot of things we need to talk about. But for now, get some rest. I’ll let you work and then come by later tonight, close to closing time.”
FIFTY-FIVE
When Jack arrived at Barry’s Place that night it was still a little while before their 2:00 a.m. closing time. He knew Angela would be busy helping to keep the bar up and running for Barry, so after everything that had happened the previous night he had wanted to let her do what she needed to do. The parking lot was still half full, so the bar appeared to be doing well.
Now that the people with the bomb had been stopped, he and Angela could take a breather. But Jack still had a lot he needed to talk to her about. He really needed to learn more about her ability to have visions from killers. That was well beyond anything he had ever seen in anyone else.
He didn’t really know yet exactly what he was dealing with. To be honest, it chilled him to the bone.
Jack had checked in with Dvora so she could fill him in with what information she had. She said the incident had been kept well above top secret, which he already knew because the news hadn’t said a word about it. If it had been merely top secret, it would have been leaked by now.
Apparently, after the recent terrorist attacks that had the whole country up in arms and demanding retaliation, the US government didn’t want people to know how vulnerable they were to being nuked. The incident had probably been kept confined to as few people as possible. Even most people in the intel community wouldn’t know about it.
Dvora gave him a report on the killed and injured. She said the nuclear device itself had been blown several hundred feet, but because the bomb required such a heavy steel case for the initial implosion, it hadn’t ruptured. It was secure and NEST was already going about rendering it safe.
The explosives the terrorists had rigged were massive to insure no one at the site survived. None had. He knew that the few lookouts who had chased them were dead as well. Jack was hoping that Cassiel was among the dead. It would take some time, but the authorities investigating the site should eventually be able to confirm his identity from remains found at the site. Once they knew, the Mossad should be able to find out and then let Jack know.
Dvora told him that, from the chatter, it sounded like they had a terrorist in custody. Jack found that surprising. She said they were keeping the captured terrorist under tight wraps and they weren’t saying anything. Jack assumed they must have captured another lookout.
After getting a fitful sleep in a motel room where the curtains let in too much light, he had spent the rest of the day and evening, in the room, doing research over a pizza. He had a lot of information that he had collected over the years about different types of people with the ability to recognize killers. All of those people could do it to a greater or lesser extent. Most to a lesser extent.
Then there was Kate. She had abilities to know things from looking into the eyes of killers that he had previously reasoned would at some point come about because of evolution.
But he couldn’t begin to explain Angela’s abilities. They went far above and beyond any of his own theories. Some very rare individuals, Kate especially, could get shadowy hints of things from looking at killers or their photos.
Angela saw more than shadows. She could name names.
As Jack walked across the parking lot half full of cars, it seemed that a lot of people weren’t leaving, yet. Everyone was probably staying for last call. He wanted to let Angela do her job, but he was eager to talk to her.
The primal woods across the street stood a silent watch. The bar, as he had first thought, looked to be a last outpost before the great, trackless forests. Such things always left him wondering at his place—at mankind’s place—in the greater cosmos. Sometimes he just wanted to vanish into one of those ancient forests and live out the rest of his life alone and at peace without having to deal with killers and their prey.
A wall of pounding rock music hit him when he opened the door on the dark den. Inside was a totally different world than the quiet, surrounding forest just outside.
The people inside were varying degrees of drunk, loud, and seemed to be having a great time. The place was filled with cigarette smoke. Colorful lights played over everyone, making them look almost like they were being sprinkled with pixie dust. Some people danced to the music among the tables. Some women in low-cut tops and short skirts danced on guys’ laps.
Jack saw the girls who worked in the bar having a last drink with their customers. It was a party atmosphere, but he knew that Angela wouldn’t be taking part in the drinking. One of the things he had learned about her was that, like most people with the ability to spot killers, she had an aversion to mind-altering substances of any type.
As Jack made his way across the room among animated people hanging all over each other, drinking, talking, laughing, and dancing, Nate spotted him and rushed over to take him by the arm and drag him around the side of the bar and then to a doorway into a back room where it was a little quieter, but not much.
“Where’s Angela?”
“Please!” Nate said, sounding rather desperate. “Come back here where we can talk.”
Nate dragged him into the back stockroom, where it wasn’t quite so noisy.
“Where’s Angela?” Jack asked again.
“They took her!” Nate said, still gripping Jack’s arm. “Those fucking bastards came and—”
“Wait a minute,” Jack said holding up a hand. “Slow down. Tell me what happened.”
“I wanted to call you—I tried—but I didn’t know how to reach you. I called every motel in Milford Falls and no one had a Jack Raines registered there.”
Jack didn’t use his real name at motels. He had fake IDs he always used so that people couldn’t find him.
“All right. I’m here now. What happened?” Jack’s level of alarm was growing by the second, but he tried not to let it show. “Where’s Angela?”
Nate pressed his fingertips to each side of his head as he took a calming breath.
“When we opened early today in the late morning I had just arrived and was waiting because I don’t have a key. Angela showed up about that time to open the place. None of the other girls had arrived, yet.
“As she was unlocking the door all hell broke loose. Men in black tactical gear from head to foot, with only their eyes showing, pointed machine guns at Angela. They shoved me to the side. They were all screaming orders at once. It was insane.”
Jack leaned in, his jaw hanging open. “What?”