What the hell was this? There was a car standing on the driveway. A car. One car. There had been at least six men involved in the kidnapping and at the warehouse Jackson had seen possibly ten different men. One car…
As quietly as possible Jackson crossed the yard and walked further from the house. The driveway was long, but he could hear the traffic, so he knew there was a road ahead. Feeling energetic and amazingly pain free, Russell hurried away from his captors.
He saw the road, the car headlights and suddenly something felt wrong. How the hell did he get away so easy? The agent's… Greg's words rang in his ears. "You are not exactly a field agent, are you," the man had said. Jackson left the road and walked up a hill. Then he sat down, staring at the cars passing by.
"I'm not a field agent. Never have been. Half of the shit I did just now should have been impossible to me and much more so with…" Jackson spoke out loud to himself. Slowly he pulled the torch out of his pocket. The back room where he had ended up from the hatch had seemed untouched by anyone. It had probably been like that for years. How was there a flashlight with LED lamps and perfect, new battery to be found? How did he know what to do? It had been years since the last time he had climbed down a hatch. Years… say around 45-50 years. How did he drop on his feet and not on his ass? And then the most important question.
Why couldn't he feel the gunshot wound anymore?
Moments passed. Russell Jackson stared into oblivion.
"Am I dead?" he asked himself. He felt full of energy, almost anxious to get up and move ahead. There was no pain, no fatigue and judged by the amount of blood he had lost, there should have been just that. Jackson put the torch between his teeth and pulled the shirt up.
"What the fuck?!" he exclaimed, torch falling on the ground. The wound was almost closed. How long had he been there? He took the torch again and very carefully touched the edge of the wound. His fingers felt something hard.
"Glue? Someone glued the wound shut?!" Jackson realized he was talking out loud, but he couldn't stop himself.
"What the hell is this?" he still asked. His mind raced. His brain was under the same energetic rush as his body. And then it dawned on him.
"I've been drugged. Extacy, meth… something to keep me up and going," he said. Talking to himself didn't feel all too bad. The wound felt numb.
"Not just painkillers. Something a lot heavier. Why did they glue it shut?" he kept on thinking out loud. It felt like expressing his thoughts by talking to himself helped him slow down his racing mind.
"I'm not a field agent," he reminded himself again. Now everything started to feel wrong. He was too strong, too resourceful, too everything compared to his usual, white-collar self. He realized all too well, that whatever he had been given, was strong enough to make him think and move faster and more efficiently. He felt like he was on steroids, which of course was one option. But why? Why kidnap him and then leave him unguarded? They had to know he would go to POTUS the moment…
"By everything that is holy… " Jackson muttered.
It was all so clear to him now.
There was no other mole in the White House.
He had not escaped to tell the President his life was in jeopardy.
Just how close would be close enough.
There was no one else.
He had been let go in a very cunning and unexpected way.
Someway.
Somehow.
He was the mole.