CHAPTER 8

The disclaimer continues.

"Good evening, Agent Eppes." Telford said calmly. "Your gun please."

Don thought of refusing but Telford flicked his gaze out of the SUV's windscreen. Don followed the line of sight and saw a group of young teenagers leaning against the wall sipping on their sodas. A gunfight here would involve innocent casualties. Don felt a flush of anger, Telford knew him so well, knew that he would not jeopardise others. Slowly and with exaggerated care Don pulled the Glock from the holster and passed it up over his shoulder. It was then that he noted Telford was wearing surgical gloves. There would be no prints this time either.

"Phone." Telford accepted the device, turning it off, before ordering: "Drive."

Don started the engine and pulled out of the gas station. Following directions he soon found himself travelling along the freeway headed out of LA. Not long after getting onto the highway, the rear window was wound down slightly and Don saw his phone being dropped out the window. There would be no tracking him via the GPS chip, Telford was taking no chances even with the phone turned off and the chip theoretically disabled. Don tried several times to get Telford to speak but he refused to answer, simply sitting back in the centre of the back seat wearing his seatbelt. Telford had forbidden Don from putting his own belt on when they left the petrol station. This took away one option that Don had of crashing his SUV as it would be him, not Telford, going through the windscreen.

LA was some distance behind them before Don was directed to turn off the freeway and then onto progressively smaller roads until they ended up on little more than a desert trail. They continued on for a few miles before Don was instructed to stop.

"Keys."

Don handed them over.

"Switch on the interior light." When Don complied Telford added: "Now cuff yourself. Let me see you do it."

"What do you want?" Don demanded.

"I want you to cuff yourself, Agent Eppes." Telford repeated, pressing his gun into Don's neck. "Then we can talk."

Telford sat back moving out of reach as Don reached awkwardly behind him and pulled out his cuffs. He twisted in his seat so that he could show Telford his movements as he snapped the bracelets around his own wrists and locked them. Leaving them unlocked would allow Telford to tighten them, locking them gave Don some small measure of control. Telford reached out his free hand and checked the cuffs, appearing satisfied that Don had fitted them correctly and would not be able to pull his hands out.

"We have warned you what would happen if you continued your investigation." Telford started sliding over further to his right on the back seat so that Don could turn in his own seat and face him.

"If I gave up every time someone tried to warn me off I'd get nothing done." Don replied evenly, desperately trying to stay calm when he felt anything but. "If you think you know me then you would know that."

"Unfortunately I do. I felt that letting you go was a mistake but I was overruled. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but admiration and respect for you Agent Eppes, but you are too dangerous to us."

"Who overruled you? Who do you work for?"

"Suffice it to say that it is fortunate for you that I am following orders. You would be dead by now if I wasn't."

"I get that. So if you can't kill me what are we doing here?"

"Don't make the mistake thinking that I can't kill you, agent." Telford warned. "If it gets to the point that you are near to identifying who we are then your immunity is over. We don't want to kill you, but we will if we must. You know that we can get to you, either directly or through others."

Don looked Telford in the eyes for a long moment seeing the man's conviction. Don nodded tightly. "Alright, I believe you. What are we doing here?"

"You ignored our final warning."

"You've killed agents. I can't let that go."

"I didn't kill you. You owe us your life."

"I don't owe you anything." Don was suddenly angry. "You attacked me, killed the man I was guarding. You've done it at least twice before. One of those agents had a little girl."

"Those two agents were dirty, Eppes. You would die for them?"

"What?"

Telford tossed two envelopes at Don. "Open one."

Don saw that each envelope bore the name of one of the killed agents. He lifted the flap on one and carefully looked inside. He tipped the contents onto his lap once he saw that it there were only papers and photographs inside. The photos were of the agent that was killed three years ago. They were taken from a distance and showed him receiving something from another man. It was the same man in each photo. The papers contained lists of dates, times and places. "What is this?"

"Exactly what it looks like. Surveillance photos."

"How long had you been watching him?" Don was flipping through the pages but would need a slightly less stressful environment to make proper sense of the information. Right now it was all a meaningless blur. He awkwardly put the photos and papers back into the envelope.

"Long enough." Telford supplied. "He got the job to pay out the informant. He was going to take the money."

"So you don't just kill informants who are going to get away with their crimes when they get immunity. You deliberately target agents as well, agents that you decide are dirty. You could have just turned them in." Don said.

"The FBI keeps such things very quiet. Nothing would have happened."

"If they were dirty they would have been charged. Sent to prison. You didn't give them the chance of a fair trial." Don stopped suddenly. He asked warily, "Why are you telling me this?"

"You need to know who you are dealing with." Telford explained. "My employer felt that you would understand once you knew the truth."

"Yeah, I understand. You and your employer aren't prepared to follow due process. You take the law into your own hands. You commit murder."

"We call it justice. You aren't going to stop us. You just won't find us."

"Why's that?" Don asked.

"We have finished here." Telford spat out, finally showing emotion, anger. "We had good works planned but now we have to leave. Because of you. The lives of my men, good men, are on you. I had to kill them to protect you. You are a also a good man, honest and never turned a blind eye. But for this, for what my employer made me do to protect you, I would kill you."

Sitting in his car alone in the middle of the desert with a gunman in the back seat Don's slight feeling of safety due to his 'immunity' suddenly evaporated. He was starting to believe that Telford, beneath his calm and urbane exterior, was an extremist at heart. The type of person who could calmly kill a bus full of school children if he felt it necessary, or a single FBI agent who threatened him with exposure. He took a deep breath. "So what happens now?"

"You never see us again." Telford said regaining his calm exterior as if he had never lost it. "Turn around."

Don put the envelopes on the seat beside him. He looked back at Telford who raised his gun in warning. Don found the whole thing very weird. He just couldn't quite get a handle on the man. One moment he was sure he was about to be killed the next he thought he was safe only to be threatened again. Don turned back around, facing the windscreen. He watched through the rear vision mirror as Telford dug into a bag beside him on the seat.

Telford looked up abruptly and saw Don's eyes on him via the mirror. Telford reached forward and knocked the mirror out of alignment. "Eyes forward." He admonished as Don started to turn his head.

Don stared straight ahead as he heard more rustling noises behind him. Suddenly a pad was clamped over his mouth and nose. His automatic surprised intake of breath defeated him before he even started to struggle. He recognised the smell, chloroform. He raised his manacled hands and tried to pull Telford's hand away but he was already getting weak. Telford had the additional mechanical advantage of being able to clamp Don against the back of the driver's seat. Don refused to give up and continued to struggle. Telford maintained his grip, keeping the chemical soaked pad in place, knowing that the agent could only hold his breath for so long.

It took only two minutes for the agent to slump unconscious in the seat.