Jack Be Quick Ch. 07

"Pete, what'd you do to my car? We just got it fixed up, and now it looks ready for the scrap heap."

The door opened behind us and Red came in. "There's so much body damage that we're thinking about pulling the whole body off and sticking another one on."

"Much damage to the stuff that makes it go?"

"Some. You didn't see the driver's side, did you?" We walked around there and I was looking at maybe a dozen more holes, all in a line the way a machine gun would rake the car as the shooter went by fast in the passing lane.

"Who was driving?"

"I was," said Pete, "and if Red hadn't told Woody to put some armor in the doors, I wouldn't be here."

Red nodded. "Too bad I didn't tell him to put in hardback seats. Could have saved poor Julie a lot of grief."

Pete nodded. "When we stopped rolling and sliding, Julie was covered in blood. So much that it was hard to see where it was coming from. I was afraid she was done for. What a mess."

We walked back to the classroom, shaking our heads. With the door locked, I asked Pete, "So what do we do now? The whole world knew where Trudy and I were going. I can't draw fire to my family or Trudy's. Do you have a plan?"

"The only sure way to put a stop to this is to catch the people that're paying for it. Getting the shooters doesn't stop anything. This whole deal must be a lot bigger than we thought, for them to keep on trying like this. The paid guns are keeping their mouths shut so we can't get a single clue from them. I'm starting to believe them when they say they don't know who's paying them."

"It sounds as if there are more of them, and more incidents, than I know about. Is this really that big?"

"More complex than you need to know. But you and Trudy were the first targets, and I think it got personal. Whoever the prime contractor is, he can't stand the thought of failing. Think for a minute. If you're being paid top dollar by European politicians to obstruct an American project, you must be someone with an international reputation, a really elite operator. Then your guys can't even knock off two kids? It's very damaging to your reputation, and every time you fail it makes you look like more of a fool. So if he has to hire a whole army division, he's determined to get you and Trudy once and for all, just to stay in business."

"Yeah, I can see that. Pete, could you fill me in real quick on what you've found out about George's murder?"

"We couldn't find the truck, but we found the shop that cut it up into small pieces. Didn't get a lot of info out of that, though. We got the name of the guy who paid for it, but it was just a name, and we haven't tied it to anybody yet. The whole stunt out in the field was pulled off by three guys, and we have one of them. The other two suffered accidental deaths."

"Like acute lead poisoning, you mean?"

"Yeah, you could say that. And as I said, we don't know much more than we did before."

"Okay, go on with what you were saying."

"Jack, my top priority right now is to keep you and Trudy safe. We've got the CIA intercepting phone calls and emails, working this from the other end. They've put out the word through spy channels that whatever governments are behind this, when we find them blood will be shed. Not military action or diplomatic action, I mean important people will leave home in the morning and not come back at night. What we expect is that they'll stop funding this thing, but the contractor who's running it will keep it up out of his own pocket, just to protect his reputation so he can stay in business.

"We've established some idea of what's going on, just by going over the people who are capable of organizing something this big. We're not stupid and we have connections you can't even imagine, so I know we'll get this problem solved. But I can't guarantee when."

"So what happens now? I mean now like today, and now like the next two weeks, and now like when we go back to Boston if we live that long."

"We're going to move you to a place where you'll be safe."

"What's that mean? Where? When?"

For the first time since I got there, Pete smiled. "Let's go get some lunch."