Search and Destroy by JT Sawyer (top non fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗

then turned to face Hunley. “This is exactly why I had Montoya and his guys waiting in the wings, and Shepard managed to drop three of them before escaping…again.”

Hunley rubbed his pointy chin, narrowing his eyes, trying not to reveal his anxiety over the news. “I’ll have Montoya circulate Shepard’s picture amongst the East Coast cartels and let them know there’s a considerable bounty on the man’s head. If he’s still here in the U.S. after today, they’ll have his head on a pike soon enough.”

“Montoya’s also got a coupla his guys staked out at Landis’ place in Virginia, in case Shepard somehow traces things back to him.”

“Unlikely, unless Landis has really grown that careless.” Hunley straightened up, leaning forward. “Look, I used to work with these agency types in Colombia. They’re well-trained but ultimately dependent on the actual fucking agency for support, supplies, intel, and for being told when to wipe their asses. Shepard’s only concern now is self-preservation, and he knows he’s not going to survive long in the U.S. being number one on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.”

Roth rubbed the back of his neck, muffling out a raspy exhale, then he deposited his hulking frame in the oversized leather chair across from Hunley.

“I hope you’re right. This whole operation with Rimaldi and my future oil holdings in Venezuela are only weeks away from being solidified in this election.”

“Our oil holdings.” Hunley smirked.

“It’s my engineers and technology doing the extraction. You’re the one providing transit for the barrels of crude with your freighters parked off Colombia.”

“Yes, well, be sure to leave that last part out of our conversation when we meet with Rimaldi.”

“Everything on track for his arrival?”

“Yes, he’s flying in on your company plane, arriving here around noon tomorrow. We’ll meet with him for a few hours at Roth headquarters before his fundraiser and speech with his former countrymen.”

“You say he met with an enclave of his in Miami already? How did that go?”

“Miami is home to the bulk of the Venezuelan elite who were connected with the oil industry in their country before the mass exodus following the economic collapse three years ago. But Houston is the other pocket of wealth from that country, and I’ve got a couple of presentations for him lined up there over the coming weeks. If he can win them over, they and the families in Miami will provide a unified front for supporting him in the crucial days leading up to the election and after he’s been installed. Many of them still have strong ties with the military officers in the current administration, who can help push Rimaldi into power if the election is looking like it could be close.”

“Close? Hell with that. Exactly why we’re dumpin’ all the funds into the news outlets down there. Ramp up those efforts if needed during these next coupla weeks. I want Rimaldi looking like a fucking superhero in a gold cape to the commoners.”

“They already love the man. He’s like a Spanish Jesus, for crying out loud. You’ll see…he’s got tremendous charisma. I honestly think he’s the kind of guy who could win a Nobel Peace Prize for his work amongst the poor. Plus, my social media targeter is blitzing the southern cities near Caracas with very specific messages aimed at the struggling families who were most affected by El Presidente’s layoffs in the oil industry a few years ago.”

“In my experience, conquest is sometimes easier than control over the long term. If Rimaldi has the magnetic personality you say, and which I’ve seen in his speeches online, then he will have to be kept on a tight leash once he’s in office.”

Hunley reclined back in his seat, resting his hands across his stomach. “Agreed. But I’ve also got a contingency plan in place in case he becomes unwieldy.”

25

After he escaped from the bridge, Shepard followed the creek bed for a half-mile, pausing to wash Tremblay’s blood from his hands, then made his way along a circuitous route on foot through the suburbs of west Arlington.

He stopped briefly in an alley to use his personal phone to Google a bus station on the opposite end of town, knowing the Feds would be tracing his digital trail.

When he was done, he tucked his phone into a bike courier’s saddlebag parked near a café then crossed the street.

Shepard waited until he was by a park to dispose of his encrypted agency phone, taking out the SIM card and smashing it then doing the same with the device before tossing it into the woods.

He took frequent stops, scanning the route ahead for cops, then waited in the shade on a side street near a community college, surveying the older model cars suitable for hotwiring, eventually locating a weathered Mazda.

He drove for just over an hour, arriving near the outskirts of Baltimore and parking the car in the congested parking lot of a big-box hardware store. He pulled out the iPhone he’d stolen from the teenager at the skateboard park and googled the region, searching for a secondhand clothing store and a place to stay for a few nights, then he headed out on foot towards a stretch of strip plazas he’d seen on the drive in.

Shepard’s head was still swirling from the assault on his house and his narrow escape in the firefight.

Who the hell leaked my identity? And who were those shooters on the bridge? They moved like they had training, so not your average gangbangers, for sure.

There were only two choices now: stay or run. And if he ran, where would he go?

Our safehouses on the East Coast and elsewhere are off limits, plus my security credentials have probably been revoked. Airports, bus terminals and the vessels at the ports would all be on the lookout for me.

Plus, he had no desire to flee. He wasn’t a criminal.

I need to find out who’s behind all this. Clearly someone with connections and considerable hacking skills was behind a media event like that.

Staying in