Chase Chapters by James Patterson 25-29 — Members Only Access

I made him lie on his belly, searched his outer pockets, and found zip ties that I used on his hands. Twenty feet away from where he’d been sleeping, the trees gave way to a clearing I

recognized as the firing range I’d seen the day before. Beyond it were the trailers. We’d done it. We’d made it back to their camp. I told Rosalind to head to the tree line and wait for me

there, while I went back to the soldier and lifted his weapon—an actual grenade launcher! Just amazing. These guys had to be CIA or something. You couldn’t get grenade launchers at Walmart.

I’d never even seen one. The man remained silent as I removed his camo balaclava. He looked boyish, in his late thirties, a pleasant enough curly-haired guy with a goofy gap in his teeth.

His driver’s license said his name was Justin De Souza, with an address in San Jose, California. “Long way from San Jose, Justin,” I said. I found a Clif energy bar in his bag, ripped off

the wrapper, and started chewing. “Where are the others?” I said, spitting crumbs. “Where the hell do you think they are? Out looking for you.” “You’re the only one here?” I said

skeptically. “Yes. I mean no. Therkelson is in the trailer with a broken back. And the old man is here. They got him locked up.” “The old guy in the blue truck? He’s here?” “Yes. He’s okay.

A little roughed up, but okay.” “Get up and show me,” I said, kicking him. We walked to the clearing and stopped. “Rosalind, I’m going to take this guy back over to those trailers. If

something happens, I want you and Roxie to try to get to Chapman by yourself. But if it’s okay, I’ll whistle and you and Roxie run as fast as you can to the trailers, okay?” “Okay,” she

said. “Where’s my grandpa?” “In one of the trailers, I think. Just let me go check first.” I turned back to Justin. “Okay, buddy. Showtime. If you’re lying and somebody takes a shot at me, I

won’t shoot back at him. I will pull this trigger on you, Justin, and we can die together. Now get moving. Fast.” The twenty seconds it took to run out in the open toward the trailers were

the longest of my life. Any moment, I thought I would know what it felt like to take a high-powered bullet to a vital part of my body. But we made it. There were no shots. We found Joe Walke

in the second trailer, sitting against the wall in his orange vest. “You got the drop on them!” he said, leaping up with surprising energy. “I knew it! Where’s Rosalind?” I whistled. Their

hug moments later on the edge of the firing range was epic. Roxie, who couldn’t contain herself any longer, let out a happy bark. “Okay, Joe. Here’s what I’d like you to do. Find some keys,

take one of the vehicles, and head down the hill.” “What are you going to do?” “My job,” I said, shoving Justin back into the trailer in front of me, “is to end this thing. Now go.” CHAPTER

29 I MADE JUSTIN sit against the wall. “You ever want to make it back to San Jose in the vertical position, you better start explaining just what in the hell is going on here, Justin.

Because I’ve had a long night, and I’m not in the mood.” “We’re training at the camp.” “Training for what? The coming alien invasion? I’m a cop, Justin. NYPD. I know what happened to

Eardley. How he didn’t die in the crash back in ’07. How his old buddy Haber is here running a paramilitary operation, and decided Eardley should take a dive off the side of a building. What

are you guys? CIA?” Justin looked at me. I took a chance. “Look, man. I have no stake in this, except that I tried to solve a murder and now people keep shooting at me. But I was just at

the Pentagon, asking how this guy turned up dead again, and the brass are all over this. The secret is out.” Justin grunted, so I continued. “And this little training camp is gonna look

pretty strange when the powers that be start sniffing around. I wouldn’t be surprised if Haber took that chopper and flew away. If not, I’m gonna wait here with your weapon to greet him in

style. But if you tell me what’s going on, I can help you.” He exhaled and slumped down. “Give me a cigarette, man. They’re in my bag. I’ll tell you the whole thing. This mission is cursed.”

I lit his Marlboro for him with his Zippo and placed it between his lips. “Okay, Justin. Now, from the very beginning,” I said. He took a breath. “It all started in Iraq. On the night of

May 1, 2007, we ran a raid from the Special Forces command in Balad up north all the way down south. Near the shore of the Persian Gulf in Basra.” “In Eardley’s C-130?” “Yeah. It was a big

CIA-run operation. There were Rangers, Green Berets, and SEALs. I was just a weatherman and forward observer.” “Weatherman?” “An Air Force weatherman. They bring us out on potentially longer

raids to read the sky, just like the guys on Channel 6. Weather’s important to pilots and planes. Like life-and-death important.” I nodded. “Go on.” “Anyway, so the top special operators,

mostly veteran SEALs, were real jazzed about grabbing some bigwig al-Qaeda asshole they got intel on, so they brought all the toys way down there. Little bird choppers, some Humvees, some

dirt bikes. There were about thirty of us altogether. “So the hot dogs do a recon, to suss out a plan while a contingent of Rangers and B-level folks like myself are supposed to hang back at

this remote staging area, as backup in case some heavy-duty shit goes down. While all the hotshots were on surveillance for hours, us peewees were sitting around shooting the shit. And this

one Ranger, this guy Toporski, goes exploring on the outskirts of this remote craphole suburb of Basra. After an hour, he radioes us to come running because somebody took a shot at him. “We

run over there, and there’s another shot from this hut’s window, and we light it up and kick in the door ready to grease Osama, who we hadn’t found yet. But it was better than that. A

million times better. It was the mother lode.”