Page 36 of To Die For

Well, game on.

Hours later, she had gone through several different disguises and “disruption funnels” as she termed them, which were designed to throw off any pursuers no matter how skilled.

Now safe, the old woman was gone and Pru Jackson was returned to herself, whatever that actually meant these days.

Baggy clothes hid her athletically crafted and leanly muscled body. Her captors had broken bones and they had been left to reset on their own, and had done so badly. After her liberation they hadhad to be rebroken with grafts and rods used to repair the damage and bring her back from painful immobility. She often rose from sleep stiff and heavy-limbed.

Passing through airport security required a doctor’s note since the bells went off in the face of all the metal she now carried inside her person. That was one reason she liked to fly private, and now had the financial means with which to do so.

She took an Uber to the airport and boarded a set of wings for a ride across the country.

Seattle, Washington, was her destination. She had someone she fervently wanted to meet there.

His name was Travis Devine, formerly of the United States Army, but now just another go-along operative for the very same government that had betrayed her.

She feared and respected Travis Devine, for he had also shown himself to be a survivor.

We’re perhaps more alike than not, former Captain Devine.

So it was up to her now to end the man’s life, because she was done relying on anyone else to do it.

Devine could have easily killed her on that train between Geneva and Milan.

And I could have killed him at Dulles Airport, when I slipped the note in his pocket.

So they were even on that score. Now, one of them was going to die.

We just have to see which one.

CHAPTER

15

JACKSON ARRIVED AT NEARLY MIDNIGHTinto the cold, drizzly maw of the Pacific Northwest. She Ubered to an Airbnb located in an upscale neighborhood she never could have afforded on Uncle Sam’s payroll. In the garage was a four-door Hyundai SUV and another, smaller, vehicle, which would allow her to move stealthily around the region. She checked the latter over in the garage, and also scrutinized the other pieces of equipment she’d had delivered here along with the two vehicles. All seemed in order. She unpacked the weapons case she had carried onto the plane.

The kitchen was fully stocked with a list of special foods she had ordered. She made her dinner and chewed slowly, taking her time because she had to. Jackson’s digestive system had been permanently wrecked by her years-long ordeal. Water was her only libation, and sometimes even that was difficult to get and hold down. She’d had grain alcohol repeatedly forced down her throat in a bastardized offshoot method of waterboarding and, as a result, couldn’t even stomach looking at a bottle of wine, beer, or liquor. The GI guy in Belgium who’d examined her gut and intestines and treated her after she’d escaped had asked her two questions: How was she still alive? And did she want to be? After what she’d endured to survive and escape to be there seeking his help, Jackson had wanted to disembowel the medico and make the asshole eat his own intestines.

Finished with her meal, she walked into the family room, turned on the gas fireplace against the chill that had settled into her bones and metal, sat down, and opened her laptop. Jackson scrolledthrough the pages of intel that she had paid for from various sources and that had allowed her to set her sights on Devine. He was here, on a mission, and she needed to understand that mission better in order for her to lay a plausible trap.

She knew it would not be easy.

He knows I’m after him, and he’ll do his best to get to me first. But I doubt he knows I was able to follow him here.

She knew that a man named Danny Glass was the reason for Devine’s presence. She knew about some of Glass’s criminal endeavors and current legal troubles with the government but had no beef with him and no skin in that game.

Every man and woman for themselves from now on, especially this woman.

Jackson went to bed and slept like the dead for six hours, which was unusual; her sleep was still often disturbed by nightmares. She rose and went to the home’s small gym, where she stretched for a half hour and then ran on the treadmill for forty-five minutes. Her limbs felt clumsy and slow and her mind wasn’t much better. She hated the mornings now because that was the time during her imprisonment when she would jerk awake from a wonderful dream in which she was free and happy, only to find that she was neither.

By the afternoon, she was usually fine. She wondered if that was why Devine had managed to escape her in Geneva; she had not been at her best so early in the morning. But in truth, it was more to do with Devine. He had easily killed the two men she had brought along to murder him and they supposedly operated just fine at all hours of the day and night. They had been billed as consummate professionals at taking someone else’s life. They had turned out to be no challenge for the former Army Ranger.

And I wasn’t any better.

She slid her finger across her jaw where Devine had slugged her on the train. She knew from experience that his blow had been delivered with power but also control.

It was not a kill strike. He saw my knife in the train window’s reflection. Bad mistake on my part. But then he committed the same mistake by letting me live.

She showered, changed, had some breakfast, and drove to downtown Seattle.

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