Highway to Vengeance: A Thomas Highway Thriller (10 page)

“Oh, I get it,” I said. “Can’t say that I
like it, but I get it.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to like it,” Holland
said. “And don’t get me wrong, as a human being, I admire your
course of action. In fact, I would undoubtedly be doing the same
thing if I was in your shoes.”

“But as a federal agent, you have to shut me
down,” I said.

Holland patted me on the knee as though I
was a child. I stifled the urge to break his nose.

“I knew you’d understand,” he said.

I nodded but didn’t say anything further on
the subject. I just wanted the conversation to be over. I couldn’t
take any more of his pandering.

“So are we done?” I asked.

Holland nodded. I stood up. But before I’d
taken a step, he said, “You mind if I ask you a question about
being a SEAL?”

“Shoot,” I said, knowing full well what the
question would be. What it always was when someone said they wanted
to ask me something about being a SEAL.

“Is BUD/S training as difficult as they say
it is?”

Bingo. Every time.

I broke out my stock answer, which was
mostly the truth, just toned down a bit for public consumption.

“Worse,” I said. “Far worse, actually. It’s
impossible to put into words how difficult it was. Makes the rest
of your life seem like a cakewalk. Well, until now, at least.”

“But you were a SEAL for only a couple
months, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Why’d you leave?” Holland said. “You seem
like you were made for the job.”

“I thought you already knew everything about
me?”

Holland shook his head. “We only had time to
get the basics.”

I filed this away for further consideration.
“I didn’t leave,” I said. “I was forced out.”

“Let me guess,” Holland said.
“Insubordination?”

“Nah. I wasn’t this ornery back then.”

“Then what?”

I un-tucked my shirt and lifted it,
revealing the nasty pink scar that covered the lower half of my
torso on my left side. I turned, giving him the full view. The scar
took up half of my back, from about the seventh vertebrae down.

“Damn, that’s one hell of a scar.”

“It goes all the way down to my knee,” I
said. “A full three square feet of tissue.”

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Necrotizing fasciitis.”

He gave me a confused look, just like
everyone else did when I used the official term for my
condition.

“A flesh-eating virus,” I said.

“Are you serious?”

I nodded.

“In combat?”

“No,” I said, my mouth turned up in a bitter
smile. “Just a standard pre-deployment training exercise. Right
here in Coronado Bay.”

“That sucks.”

“Yep.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Like hell.”

“I can imagine.”

I shook my head. “No. You can’t.”

He laughed softly. “Yeah. I guess you’re
right. So I take it you’re in the clear now?”

“I’ll never be in the clear,” I said. “The
only thing keeping my organs inside my body is an artificial layer
of mesh with pig’s skin grafted on top of it. If any part of the
graft gets infected, I’ll be dead before they get me to the
hospital.”

“And there’s nothing the doctors can do to
fix it?”

“Not a damn thing.”

“That’s a shame.”

I just looked at him. I didn’t need his
sympathy, or anyone else’s. I never had. And I never would. Not on
this matter or any other.

Holland met my glare head-on, looking at me
as though he was working something out in his head. Then he reached
into his coat pocket and pulled out a blank card and a pen. He
wrote a number on the card and handed it to me.

“What’s this?” I said.

“My personal cell number,” Holland said.
“Call me if you ever get into something you can’t get out of. Sort
of like a get-out-of-jail-free card. Good for one use only. Think
of it as a token of my appreciation for your assistance on this
matter.”

I was skeptical but I took the card.

“Well, I guess that’s it, then,” Holland
said. “If you want, we can give you a ride back to your car.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll
walk.”

The first thing I did after leaving the pier
was call Willis from my cell.

“What do you need now?” he said upon
answering the phone. Always the smartass.

“We need to get together, discuss a few
things,” I said. “Consider another course of action.”

“It went that bad today, huh?” Willis said,
presumably talking about my tail job.

“It didn’t go well, that’s for sure.”

He laughed. “You should have let me put
someone on it for you. I could have saved you a lot of
trouble.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” I said. “So what are
you up to tonight?”

“I got nothing planned. Why?”

“The Padres are still in town, right?”

“Yeah,” Willis said. “They’re playing the
Brewers tonight. First pitch is at 7:05.”

“You want to check it out, for old times
sake? We can have our palaver in the stands.”

“Sounds good.”

“Cool. I’ll grab a couple of tickets and
meet you at the Tony Gwynn statue at 6:45.”

CHAPTER
TWELVE

Willis arrived right around game time. I
gave him his ticket and we walked into the park. It was the bottom
of the first and the crowd was buzzing. Kids running around with
their brand-new hats on, gloves on one hand and sodas in the other,
smiles huge and glorious. The smell of popcorn and spilt beer and
peanuts and hot dogs permeated my skin, soaked into my body,
immediately thrusting me back to my college glory days. And
reminding me of the first thing in my life that had been taken from
me, my dreams of playing major league baseball.

“Brings up some potent memories, doesn’t
it?” Willis said.

“Hell yeah,” I said. “Kind of painful, to be
honest.”

“I hear you there,” Willis said.

That was an understatement. Although it hurt
us both to be reminded of our shattered hopes and dreams, it was
far worse for him. He should have made it to the big leagues; he
had the size, the ability, and most importantly, the internal drive
necessary for all successful professional athletes. The only thing
that had stopped him was the one thing he had no control over.
Injuries. First his shoulder, then his elbow, and finally his back.
The back injury had required surgery, and it had put him on the
shelf for good. He had been tearing it up in Double-A at the time,
and on the verge of a call up to the show. Painful stuff
indeed.

We made our way to our seats in silence,
taking in the atmosphere and jettisoning our demons. By the time we
sat down, it was time for business.

We were in the upper level of the stadium,
halfway up the section, almost even with first base. The park was
about 75% full, but most of the empty seats were up in this part of
the stadium. The three rows in front of us were vacant, as were the
four behind. Nobody was close enough to hear our conversation,
which is precisely why I had chosen these particular seats. To make
it seem like I thought we had some privacy.

“So are you going to tell me what’s going
on, or what?” Willis said.

“I’m just trying to figure out where to
start.”

“That crazy, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

I then went on to tell Willis about my day,
starting with tailing Alvarez from his work and finishing with
Holland giving me his personal cell number. I left out nothing of
importance.

“Holy shit,” Willis said after I’d fallen
silent a full two innings later. “Homeland Security, huh?”

“That’s what his badge said.”

“And he wouldn’t tell you any details about
their operation?”

I shook my head.

“Not surprising,” Willis said. “I can try to
find out what’s going on, but they’ve got some serious protocols
over there. It may take a while before I can get any details for
you.”

“Don’t even bother,” I said.

Willis turned towards me. “What the hell
does that mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. I’m done with
this thing.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

I shook my head.

Willis stared at me. Through me, actually.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.

I averted my gaze, watched the game. “I told
you what Agent Holland said. If I stick my nose in their business
again, they’ll shut me down for good. Leave me to rot in some
unmarked cell for as long as they want.”

“Don’t believe their bullshit,” Willis said.
“They’re just trying to scare you.”

“Well they did a damn good job of it,” I
said. “Besides, what choice do I have? Alvarez is my only lead and
he was damn near untouchable, even without the feds watching me
around the clock. With them on my ass too he might as well be the
freaking Pope. Screw it. Let the feds have Alvarez and Montoya. I
don’t want anything to do with them anymore. I’m done.”

Willis continued to stare at me, sizing me
up. He didn’t bother to hide his disgust. “I can’t believe I’m
sitting here listening to this,” he said. “I never thought I’d hear
those words come out of your mouth. Ever. Especially not on this.
She was your wife, man. Your wife.”

“I know, Willis. Believe me, it wasn’t an
easy decision. But I don’t have any other choice. I simply don’t
have the firepower to move forward with this thing. Not under the
current circumstances.”

“So you’re just going to act like a little
bitch and let them run you off?”

I shrugged and looked down at my feet.

“You’re better than this, Highway.”

“Apparently not,” I said.

Willis stared out into center field for a
couple of pitches, then shook his head and stood up. “You know
what? I’m gonna take off.”

“You don’t want to stay for the rest of the
game?”

“Nah. I need to get some work done.”

“I hear you,” I said, standing up along with
him. I held out my right hand. Willis looked at it for a moment,
then reached out and grabbed it. As we shook, I pressed a folded
napkin into his hand. Question marks flashed in his eyes but he
knew better than to say anything. We released hands and Willis
turned and started down the aisle.

“I’ll give you a ring in a couple of days,”
I said as he walked away. “We can square up then.”

“Whatever,” he said without glancing
back.

I watched him disappear down the stairs then
sat down and turned my attention back to the game.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

I stayed until the end of the ball game,
which the Padres won 2-1 on a two-run, ninth inning home run into
the left-center field bleachers by Chase Headley.

I filtered out of the stadium with the rest
of the buzzing crowd and headed towards the parking lot, moving at
a leisurely pace. I drove home much the same way, slowly and
methodically, purposefully keeping my eyes off of the rear-view
mirror. Even though I hadn’t seen anyone that looked like a federal
agent since my meeting with Holland, I was certain there was
someone back there, following me, and I wanted to make them feel as
comfortable and relaxed as possible.

I arrived at my house at 10:45 PM, parked in
the driveway, and made my way through the front door. It was weird
entering this house again, having not been back in the couple of
days since the funeral. It smelled different, it looked different,
it even felt different. Empty, somehow. More like a morgue than a
home. Or a black hole. But I was here for a specific purpose so I
pushed the feeling aside and did what I had to do.

I flipped on the living room lights, headed
into the kitchen, fixed myself a turkey and cheese sandwich with
mustard and mayo, grabbed a can of Mountain Dew from the fridge,
and sat down to watch Baseball Tonight on ESPN. I was going through
my normal pre-bedtime routine, putting on a show in case someone
was watching.

Fifteen minutes later, I stuck the dirty
dishes in the sink, turned off the TV and the living room light and
went into the bedroom. I grabbed a full-length bathrobe and a pair
of rubber-soled moccasins from the closet and carried them into the
bathroom.

I closed the door behind me, brushed and
flossed my teeth, then put the robe on over my clothes and slid
into the moccasins.

I turned the bathroom light off and walked
over to the nightstand. I set the alarm for 7:00 AM but didn’t turn
it on. I flipped off the bedroom lights, slid out of the
moccasins—leaving them at the foot of the bed—and climbed under the
sheets. The house was completely dark, save for the bright red
numbers of the alarm clock next to the bed that read 11:15 PM.

I laid under the covers and stared towards
the ceiling, not even remotely approaching sleep, until ten minutes
before midnight. Then, making as little noise as possible, I
slipped out of the robe, carefully climbed out of bed, put the pair
of moccasins back on, and made my way out of the house by way of
the sliding door that led from the master bedroom to the back
patio.

After exiting the bedroom, I stood on the
back porch and counted to 100, listening for sounds of human
activity coming from the area in front of the house.

Nothing.

Fully confident that whomever was monitoring
my whereabouts was unaware that I had left the house, I walked
across the lawn towards the rear of the yard, climbed the brown
wooden fence that separated my property from the canyon behind the
house and began my trek towards the basketball courts at Legends
Park, a little more than two miles away.

I made my way through the canyon using a
familiar jogging trail, negotiating it with ease even though the
moon stayed mostly hidden behind clouds. It felt good, actually, to
be out this late, running around in the middle of the night. It
reminded me of my SEAL days, when we regularly trained at midnight
or later, doing our jobs while the normal world slept, unaware.