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Just as Just a Shot Away is divided into two sections (“Smoke” and “Mirrors”), the yet-to-be-titled sequel is separated into “Bait” and “Switch.”

SPOILER ALERT:

Chapter 1 of the sequel reveals a great deal about the fates of major characters from book 1.

If you haven’t yet read Just A Shot Away, the first of the Tiffany Wright series, you might want to wait to sneak this peak.

(Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

I.

“Bait”

CHAPTER 1

        

At first, it sounds like a light clap followed by booming thunder.  But, as the last drops of dew clinging to the cherry blossoms tremble free under a cloudless sky, it quickly becomes clear that it’s more.  Much more.

The tourists and transplants are the first to recognize it. Locals have never felt it before. But after the most violent shakes, after every bird has taken flight, when the first screams weave into the pulsing percussion of the collapse, everyone knows.  Even before the rolling clouds of filth from the fallen glass, steel, and concrete have chased the people outside, there is no doubt.

The deepest fears, though, don’t howl to the surface until the ripples in the long pool reflect the distant white obelisk swaying, leaning, and then tipping.

***

It’d been illegal to smoke in D.C. restaurants and bars for more than 20 years, but none of the sophisticates of “Patty’s Pour Excuse” seemed to give a shit.  Two short redheads in baggy black leather jackets sat at the bar smoking like antebellum freight trains, and the big man at the door pulled a cigarette from behind his ear and lit up the moment Joey walked in.

Patty’s was a throwback.  The place looked like the 50’s hit it so hard that it stuck for seven more decades. Its brass rail seemed to hover below the green vinyl-covered stools that lined the copper-topped bar, and the mirror behind that bar threw an antique blur over the dusty bottle tops onto the enormous Irish flag framed on the opposite wall. Beneath the flag, booths made from what looked like cathedral pews sat empty except for the one old man seated in the corner who looked like he might have been there for its grand opening. 

As Joey approached the corner booth, he could see that the envelope on the table was precisely the right width to fit into his suit’s breast pocket, but the width wasn’t the issue.  It was the thickness that was all wrong. 

“Have yerself a seat,” said the old man.

The long beard that dominated his face didn’t fit the old man at all.  He dressed like he expected the paparazzi at any moment. His tailored dark suit, the jewelry store on his fingers, and his counterfeit relaxed posture just didn’t match the Gandolf-mop hanging from his chin, or the time-capsule pub, for that matter. It made him look like he should be at the helm of a Viking long-ship or fronting a country band. And his hyper-active eyes were as indicative of the mountain of coke he’d already snarfed-up this morning as they were of something far more sinister hanging there in the hazy air.

“I’ll stand,” Joey said, looking around.

Through the slight opening in the service door next to the bar, the brief glimpse of a shadow’s edge faded into the smoke while vintage neon buzzed over it, reading “atty’s Pour Exc”, with the unlit “Pa…use” aptly punctuating the frozen-in-time feel of the place. 

Contrasting that feel, hanging in the smoke above the corner booth, a muted TV ran the same bullshit news about the virus and the President’s recovery, while a dark Wurlitzer and broken cigarette machine guarded the restroom doors in the back. 

The only significant movement in the place belonged to the full-sleeve-tattooed arms of the woman behind the bar who appeared a little too focused on polishing the copper. Thanks to the fake boobs stretching it out, Joey could see just enough of her tight t-shirt to make out the words “Just a Shot Away” written there above the picture of a gun’s sights.

Joey looked back to the old man and said, “You know, there used to be Irish dives like this in every city in America… Now they’re all fucking Starbuck’s.”

“Ah, don’t be like that, Joseph. Ya know it doesn’t have to be that way,” answered the old man.

“You’re short.”

“What’s my height have to do with anything?”

The big man by the door chortled.

Behind that scraggly beard, the man’s smile was even more devoid of humor than his attempt at levity.  And his darting eyes remained as cold as the half cup of coffee full of cigarette butts sitting in front of him.

Joey said, “We had an agreement.”

“Ya know you’ve been especially squirrely since the Feds let you go. And far less useful. Why’re ya so on edge, Devereaux?”

Former FBI Field Agent Joseph Devereaux had been asking himself that question a lot lately, too.  The answer had less to do with the two smoking Leprechauns glaring at him from the bar or the doorman repeatedly wiping his nose on his glove – a damn glove, could they be any more obvious? – than it did with his not-so-temporary circumstances.

Sure, it had something to do with the fact that the thin envelope in front of the old man wasn’t going to be enough to extricate himself from the mess he had buried himself under.  He knew the moment he saw it that he’d need to do at least one more job.  Then again, maybe this edginess grew from his inability to ignore just how badly he’d blown it, from finally seeing how unlikely it was that he could climb out of that hole before someone literally buried him in it.

“The Bureau didn’t let me go.  You know that I quit.”

“You’re so fulla shit your eyes are brown, lad.”

“Yeah? Well, I haven’t had my morning coffee yet.”

“Whatever,” chuckled the bearded man, who picked up the disgusting coffee cup in front of him and offered it to Joey, soggy cigarette butts and all. “Again, why so uneasy, Joseph? Ya plannin’ somethin’… unsavory?” he asked.

”Isn’t it too early in the morning to cheat me, Ritchy?”

“Y’agreed to get me what I wanted.  Ya only got me a part of what I wanted, and it was damaged, at that. So ya only get part of the agreed upon price…” The old man pointed to the redheads. “… and maybe a little damage, too.”

The two short thugs stood up.

“What you wanted wasn’t all there,” said Joey in a calm defiance. “And the damage came from the firefight that wasn’t supposed to happen. Your intel was bad.”

The two redheads stepped toward Joey Devereaux the way fat guys moved toward a buffet.

“Ritchy, you should really think this through.  First, why hire Oompa Loompas?” Joey nodded toward the approaching redheads. “Second, why would you think roughing me up would improve the situation?”

When Old Man Ritchy McGuffin slid out of the booth to stand nearly nose to nose with Joey Devereaux, his coffee breath and the smell of cigarettes rose with him.

“The answer to both questions is the same, lad: because it makes me laugh, and not much does anymore,” he said with that same humorless smile.

The old man turned toward the two redheads and raised his hand to stop their approach.

“But right y’are,” he said.  “Roughing ya up would likely not improve this situation.”

In a tell he tried to hide, Joey inhaled coolly through his nose and let the tension in his shoulders loosen slightly.  He tried to cover it by stepping to the corner table to retrieve the envelope, but before he could slide it into the inside pocket of his coat, Ritchy grabbed him by the arm.

Old Man McGuffin smiled that same cold grin again. “But killin’ ya might.”

***

Mark Nolan wove through traffic the way Stevie Ray Vaughn bent the notes, lingering just long enough down one lane to push coolly into the next.  But just as he rounded a bend on I-395, just as a line of slow-moving taillights came into view, the blue-tooth volume dropped and a text rolled in, echoed by the squawk of his wipers. 

He glanced down at his phone.

“I think your 8 o’clock is early,” it read.

He wasn’t late yet, but D.C. traffic nearly guaranteed he would be, and coupled with his first appointment being early, he already suspected that it would be another one of those days. So when the volume to “Crossfire” returned, Nolan could only shake his head at how appropriate the blues felt in this rainy last week of March.

Special Agent Mark Nolan, previously of the Washington, D.C. FBI Field Office Evidence Recovery and Processing Unit, had only recently accepted his new role in the J. Edgar Hoover Building and hadn’t yet fully moved into his new office.  He thought about the stacks of boxes in the corner, about the messy heap of files and empty coffee cups on the desk that he intended to clean up nearly every day for the last few weeks, and then about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions.  On this particular road to Hell, just as he considered the impression that mess might leave on his 8 o’clock, FBI Director Jameson Stafford, the music was swallowed up by the impatient horns sounding all around him as everyone slowed to a crawl.

The woman next to him in a matte black Mercedes G-Wagon lifted her hands in an expression that screamed, “Come on,” before tousling her pretty dark hair. She looked over at him, noticed that he had witnessed her frustrated gesture, and flashed him a beautiful smile. She pointed to the car-length space ahead of him, put her hands together as a prayerful request, then gave him the thumbs up when he nodded.  After she snuck into the open gap, she gave him an appreciative wave then scooted onto the shoulder then accelerated away from the fun.

He hoped helping the Director would be as appreciative for helping to take down Sebastian Greene and clean up the messy politics strewn about in the aftermath of the Omega Virus and its accompanying vaccination scandal. Maybe that would be enough to ignore his office and the mess that typically surrounded him.

Today, Nolan figured the “interim” tag would be lifted and he would officially become the D.C. Field Office’s Special Agent in Charge.  It was a job he neither wanted, nor deserved, but he’d learned that Stafford’s insistence was never a thing that could be avoided for long. Maybe that was the very thing that awaited him this morning.  And maybe he’d get the necessary assurances and pep-talk that he needed in the corner office that once belonged to the traitor. 

The traitor – the now deceased former Special Agent in Charge Alexander Rhodes — didn’t deserve that office either, though for entirely different reasons.  Of course, only Nolan and a select few knew the truth about why. The official story was that he was killed in the line of duty, but every time Nolan caught a glimpse of him on the 55-inch interactive display on the Wall of Honor in the lobby of the Hoover Building, he had to fight the urge to spit on it. Clearly, to Nolan anyway, the late Alexander Rhodes didn’t deserve that honor either.

Now, while he sat in the parking lot that was supposed to be a highway, Nolan hated that he undoubtedly would be another kind of late today. He hated wasting time, almost as much as he hated Rhodes.  He’d become hyper-aware of time as the priceless commodity it is since nearly being completely out of it on Michigan’s Thumb Coast last fall. A near death experience can do that to a guy.

Over the last six-months, through his shoulder rehab and suppressed PTSD, he had been thinking more and more about time and how he wanted to spend his. More to the point, about who he might want to spend it with.

The sound of Nolan’s phone cut through horns and the music again, pulling him from his thoughts. An unfamiliar number showed on the screen.

“Nolan,” he answered.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, standing me up.”

He knew that voice.

“Hang on, lady.  You know I’d sooner chew on barbed-wire than do such a thing. In fact, I was just thinking about you.”

Her sweet laugh echoed through the car’s speakers. “How are you, Mark?”

“I suppose a bunch better now, hearing your voice.”

“Don’t go getting cheesy with me, mister Special Agent in Charge.”

“Interim,” Nolan corrected. “Interim Special Agent in Charge.”

“I thought we were going to meet in Port Huron after all the lies were told?”

“You mean after we gave our statements?” he clarified. “I went straight into surgery there. So, it’s really you who stood me up.”

“Rodney suggested it was in my best interest to bug out, pronto. Today’s your day, isn’t it?”

Curious about how she could know that, Nolan continued, “I think so. How are you, Tiffany?”

“Another typical Nolan deflection. Still drawing attention away from yourself, I see.”

The truth was that Mizz Tiffany Wright was damn good at deflecting, too.  She never wanted anybody too close, where they could see the real her. It wasn’t a self-loathing kind of thing, at all.  It was more that her continued role as a “fixer” depended on her being a chameleon, though blending in for her had become increasingly more and more difficult.

She always had trouble blending in at 6 foot 2, looking the way she did, but now it was so much worse.  After her involvement in thwarting the Omega Virus power-play, it had become harder and harder to distance herself from the appearance of somehow being involved with law enforcement, especially high-level federal law enforcement.

She remembered Rodney calling them “Big badges” and smiled.

“Are you back in D.C.?” Nolan asked.

“Not yet,” she admitted.

“Whenever you are, we should get together. Get caught up.”

“We’ll see.”

Mark Nolan looked at his car’s touch-screen like it was what just shot him down and noted the time. 7:52.

“I’m never gonna get there,” he said and briefly considered reversing up the onramp directly next to him.

“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself, darling. You still have a shot. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t have called.”

After a smile, he answered, “Not that. I’m gonna be late.”

“Aren’t you the boss, now?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, I’ll let you get back to your rain-soaked race down 395 to make the unneeded good impression – I mean don’t you just have to remind them that you helped save the world?”

“I think we’re expected to do that every day,” Nolan replied.

For a moment, Nolan thought he dropped the call, but Tiffany was just letting that sink in a second.

“I’m glad my profession isn’t so stressful,” she laughed. “Until next time. Ciao.”

“Hey, wait a minute, how do you know where I am?” Nolan asked.

The beep that ended the call was his only answer.

Just then his peripheral vision picked up the silver Tesla.  Easily accelerating past 60 miles per hour, the Cyber truck blasted down the onramp with no indication of slowing.  He was pinned in the nearest lane of stand-still traffic, directly behind the eighteen-wheeler in front of him and a BMW sedan behind him, smack in the path of the Tesla.

He threw his government-issued SUV in reverse and floored it, bashing the Beemer into the car behind it and reorienting the imminent t-bone collision by only a few feet and a few degrees, just before the sound of shattering glass and crunched metal bled into the returning notes of the blues. Just before everything went dark.

***

When Tiffany Wright ended her call with Nolan she could see the man on the bed next to her was waking up. He looked so peaceful.  Tranquil, even.

So, she chambered a round in her new toy and tapped him on the forehead with the threaded-barreled, suppressor-tipped 1911 Model, Browning pistol.

“Be a dear, now won’t you, Congressman?” she said. “Don’t scream.”

Blinking hard in a feeble attempt to stop the room from spinning, he asked, “What happened?” His eyes fixed on the gun in his face. “Are you going to kill me?”

“That depends, Congressman. Probably not,” she smiled at him. “I really don’t have to kill you to bury you, do I?”

As that began to soak in for Representative William Andrew Slosson of North Carolina, he frantically took in the surrounding disaster. The posh hotel room was trashed.  Broken glass littered the floor at the foot of the bed.  The chairs by the window were overturned and the crooked mirror above the wet bar was cracked into branches rivaling any tree. Empty bottles and rumpled clothes lay everywhere, including pink lace panties dangling from the lamp next to him.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Well, Billy, I’m the most important person in your life right now.  The exact and only individual who can make all of this disappear.”

When he tried to sit up, his leg brushed the cold hip of the woman lying on the other side of him. Barely covered by a bloody sheet, she was so pale she was nearly blue, and her once blond hair was matted in dried brown blood.

Wright whispered to him, “It’s ok. I hate blonds.”   

The Congressman gasped. “How?”

“The more important question, sir, is why? But we’ll get to that later. Right now, you need to listen carefully.  The only photographic evidence of this tragic encounter is on my cute little phone here. And all this forensic evidence can be made to disappear, but only if you agree to a few things in writing, first.”

“That’s what this is? Blackmail?” He pushed back to the headboard and sat up.

“Obviously.”

“Who are you?” he repeated more emphatically.

“Let’s just say that the distinguished gentleman from a neighboring state has decided that you are no longer fit to run the House Appropriations Committee on Defense. And since he’s calling the shots now, you’ll need to officially step down from your lofty Chair via the resignation letter on the table over there by the window. If you play nicely, I’ll get to work cleaning up your mess.” She continued, “Oh, and don’t forget to wipe off all the blood before signing for me.  It’d be hard to explain away if it’s on the papers.”

“But I don’t remember anything.  I’d never do this.  Who is this woman?”

“Don’t you mean who was that woman? Did I mention that we also have video?”

“Oh, my God!”

“Don’t blame him, Billy.  This was all you.”

“But— ” he began.

“—Whether you sign or don’t, you’re done chairing that committee. If you sign, we’ll let you finish your term and retire with your pension and benefits, and your name. If you don’t, all this goes public. And honey, there’s no spinning this.  Literally and figuratively, the blood on your hands is undeniable.  You understand?”

Representative Slosson looked past the barrel in his face at the destroyed room and his destroyed career came into focus. Reluctantly, he nodded his consent.