Terry Neale - Jo-el

Maggie and I bounced to a parking lot at the back of the office building where Sean worked. I took her hands in mine and explained what I had in mind. She nodded then left me in the parking lot to find Sean.

A few minutes later I saw them leave the building. Sean looked alarmed, Maggie’s hand was pulling at his arm. On my heads-up I saw Sands drive into the parking lot. I changed my look to completely resemble Sean then walked into the building finding Sean’s office with Sally’s help. No one said a word. I took Sean’s seat and waited for Sands. There was a picture of a pretty girl on Sean’s desk, the new girlfriend I presumed, but none of me. What did I expect?

The phone on Sean’s desk rang and the receptionist said that a Samuel Sands was here to see me. I went to the front desk, then led him to the conference room. Just another client.

“How can I help you, Mr. Sand?” I was polite.

Sands was nervous, out of place in this environment, he fidgeted with something in his pocket and kept glancing at the door. The conference room had no windows to the inner office only to the outside.

“Did you go to Washington DC, recently?” he asked.

I allowed my mouth to gape open a little and paused before answering. “I’m sorry, are you here to open an escrow?” I threw him a ‘very surprised’ look.

“No, Mr. Murphy, I’m here to ask some questions?”

“I don’t understand.” I said, innocently.

“Just answer my questions and I’ll be out of your hair. Did you go to Washington, DC?”

Again I paused, then answered, “yes, I did, why?”

“Why did you go there?” he said, still nervous.

“Are you the police?”

“No, private detective.”

“Oh, okay, why are you talking to me?”

“I can’t tell you that,” he said and I sensed the unease he was feeling.

I smiled, calm the dipshit down, “actually I did go to DC, my aunt Sarah died, I went to the funeral yesterday.”

“What was her full name, please?” He pulled out a small notebook and pen.

“Sarah Robinson.”

He then asked about the FBI and CIA. My face kept with the ‘haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about’ vibe. We went through the other questions, I kept the answers simply, he asked where my father lived. I gave my address as simply San Francisco and I said I had a sister. Eventually I objected and refused to answer his last question about when I’d last seen my father. Sally had told me he had a gun in his inside pocket I could see him considering bringing it out. He would not have liked the result. Then suddenly he stood up, thanked me for my time and left. I think it worked.

I met Maggie and Sean at the Mexican restaurant across the street. Maggie had ordered a Margarita; Sean was drinking iced-tea. Maggie winked at me with her left eye and I did the same back. We chatted about the horror of the trip to the CIA headquarters but Sean didn’t have any idea of the real truth. For the time being that was just fine.

“You’re a sly fox, Dad.” Maggie said, back in the suite.

“I’ve got enough on my plate with you knowing everything, better this way. Hopefully I can keep him in the dark.”

“What now?”

“I think it’s time to go on the offensive. These guys are pissing me off.”

“Do you really think you can do this? I mean, rid the world of crime?”

“I’ve got some unique abilities; don’t you think? Once I’ve met with the President and he’s on board, these guys are going to be on the defensive.”

“Then what?”

“Meet with all the other world leaders, that’ll keep me busy and get them on board.”

“You’ve worked it all out, I’m impressed.” Maggie appeared to be drifting in my direction, I was pleased.

“It’s not going quite as smoothly as I hoped, but whatever does?”

Sally appeared without asking. She dressed down when Maggie was there, usually jeans and a simple top, today was green.

“More problems Jo-el.” I waited for her to continue. “There are twenty-seven people who have either Facebook or Twitter accounts claiming to be you, one of them just had his left hand severed.” The expression on her face asked, what do you want to do?

“Shit!” I swung around and threw my arms up. “Are you monitoring the others?”

She nodded. “Six are at risk, bad guys are headed toward all of them.”

“How close?”

Sally hesitated for a second, “first one will be at the Jo-el wannabe in three minutes.”

I smiled and changed into Jo-el. “Let’s go meet him.”

Sally showed me a small ranch house in the snow, a blue Ford truck was pulling up in the driveway. “The bad guy is in the truck.”

“Keep an eye on the other five, Sally, bounce me to the ranch house.”

I landed by the front porch just as the man in the truck was exiting the door. He was massive even inside his heavy coat. He wore a ski-hat, a tattoo of a knife was wrapped ominously around his neck. He saw me and froze. He knew immediately who I was and began to back away.

“Stay where you are.” I shouted. He stopped, I could see his hand reaching slowly into the deep pocket of his coat.

“Sally, activate the shield.”

“Already done, Jo-el.”

“Who sent you?” He didn’t answer. Instead he pulled the gun from his pocket and pointed it at me. I smiled. “If you fire that gun, I’m going to hurt you,” I told him. Problem was that didn’t compute, he was holding a gun at me, which in his mind was the winning hand. It’s hard to adjust your thinking, even when some dude appears out of nowhere right in front of your face. He fired twice. The bullets ricocheted off the shield. I felt a tap, nothing more. I was surprised to even feel that. But tattoo man was even more surprised. He fired four more times. Same result. I smiled, wider this time.

“Chop his gun hand off.” I told Sally.

“With pleasure,” I heard her say. I watched the result, it was the same as Yerchenkov, he didn’t feel it at first, he just stared at the gun and his hand falling to the ground, the blood spurting from the wound. Then the adrenaline subsided and the pain hit. He fell forward to his knees in the thin snow, grabbing at the wound, his eyes still staring at me. I heard the door of the ranch house open, I didn’t look around.

“I asked you a question?”

“Somebody called me, I don’t know who it was, fifty k.”

“I know who it was, Joel.” I heard Sally in my ear.

“Go find a doctor. Change your ways, next criminal deed and I’ll kill you.”

He left the gun and pulled the door of the truck open with his good hand, his bloody wrist was pushed into the arm of his coat. I stepped forward and picked up his severed hand, then I tapped on the side window of his truck, which he opened tentatively. I threw the hand onto the passenger seat, “they might be able to sew it back on.” I smiled. He drove away without saying another word.

I turned toward the front of the house. A young girl, maybe thirteen was standing in the doorway. “Shut down the Jo-el Facebook account, he was going to cut your left hand off.” Her face was white. She was speechless. I bounced back to the suite.

Maggie had viewed the whole episode on the disc monitor. “I can’t believe you picked up his hand and told him to have it sewn back on. He shot at you! That shows a sense of caring. Just weird.”

“It was an impulse,” I shrugged. “Sally, who sent that guy?”

“Intermediary, ultimate chain goes back to Verminov.”

“I just hate it when the only guy that gets hurt is the one at the end of the chain. Who’s next?”

The disc monitor screen flipped to a town that looked like France. “Ten to twelve minutes out, Bruges, Belgium. But there’s two more that are almost as close, one in the US and one in England.”