JP3-The Escape by David Baldacci

Author:David Baldacci
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK
Published: 2014-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 41

NILES ROBINSON HAD left work early to catch his son’s soccer match. The boy had gone from death’s door to being a healthy athletic twelve-year-old in less than two years. It truly was a miracle, and one that Robinson never took for granted.

There were a handful of parents watching the match from the sidelines. The day was warm and the boys had already worked up a sweat. Robinson’s son was a center midfielder, which meant he had equal responsibilities for defense and attack. Because of this his kid probably ran more than any of his other teammates, but he seemed up to the task.

Robinson shook his head in wonder as his son flashed past him with the ball. A minute later the ball was in the net and his son’s team had taken the lead. It was a lead they would not relinquish. After the match was over, Robinson congratulated his son and then headed back to work. The boy would be driven home by a friend.

A tall man in a hoodie approached him in the parking lot. Robinson didn’t register on him until the man was nearly upon him.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Before the hooded man could answer, four men appeared out of vehicles parked nearby and converged on the pair. The hooded man was grabbed and his hood yanked down as his hands were cuffed behind him.

Robinson stared at the man and shook his head. “It’s not him,” he said. “It’s not Robert Puller.”

The man in the hoodie was younger and his face was dirty.

“Get your hands off me,” he yelled. “I ain’t done nothing wrong. Get them cuffs off me.”

One of the other men slammed him up against Robinson’s van. “Why did you approach this man?”

“Is that a crime?”

“It might be.”

“Some dude paid me.”

“What dude? Where is he?”

“Just some dude. Paid me twenty bucks. Said to come over here after the match was over.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know. He was tall as me. Never saw his face.”

“Why’d he pick you?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“You hang around this park a lot?”

“Yeah, going through the trash cans. The kids leave full bottles of Gatorades. And the moms throw half the snacks they bring away. Cornucopia, man.”

“You’re homeless?”

“No, man, I had my private jet drop me off here so I could go through shit in the garbage.”

“When did the ‘dude’ approach you?”

“About an hour ago.”

“Where?”

“Over by the basketball courts on the other side of the park.”

The man let him go and looked at Robinson. “He faked us out with this idiot.”

Robinson nodded. “I told you he was smart.”

The man spoke to one of his colleagues. “Take this smartass and see what else you can get from him.”

They pulled the man away and pushed him into a waiting SUV, which immediately drove off.

The first man looked at Robinson. “If he contacts you, you get in touch with us immediately. Understood?”

Robinson nodded, climbed into his car, and drove off. When he looked at himself in the rearview mirror he was sweating.

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