Officer Jones

Chapter 91

When Benson’s car hit mine, it took off like a plane and shot over my vehicle, flipping in the air. My car hit the road with a thud, skidded over the bridge, and shooting sparks everywhere. It came to a stop about two hundred feet down the road, sounding like a train wreck. Maybe looking worse than one.

My car was crushed like an accordion. I checked myself to make sure I was still of the living. It was inconclusive. But if I was dead, death sure was painful. I pushed the airbag out of the way and climbed out of a hole that was ripped in the side of the car.

My adrenaline pulled me toward Benson, but my body was not cooperating. I fell to the ground, unable to put weight on my leg. It wouldn’t stop me-I was going to get to Benson or die trying. If I had two minutes left on the planet, I would use every remaining second to find Gwen.

The Martinez Painting van showed up seconds later. They looked stunned to see me still alive, and trying to crawl across the bridge. I was just as shocked.

Clarisse Johnson met me. The other agents ran guns blazing toward what was left of Benson’s squad car.

“Lie still,” she instructed.

Taking orders wasn’t really my thing. I tried to get to my feet again, before falling down and coughing up blood. I was not a pretty sight.

“JP, I need you to remain still so I can check you out.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the other agents surrounding Benson’s demolished car. He was now out of the mangled steel and holding a gun at the head of his hostage-Bobby Maloney. We were right back where we started, except for a few additional broken bones and hurt feelings.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

“That’s what Noah’s girlfriend thought,” Agent Johnson tried to sober me. It worked, but didn’t stop me.

The whole thing was happening in slow motion. “Help me to him. Hawkins will get Maloney killed,” I said. And more importantly … Gwen.

I must have been really convincing, because she agreed to assist my insanity. I draped one arm around her shoulders and hopped on my one remaining good leg.

“Get him out of here,” Hawkins yelled at the first sight of me.

“Warner stays or Maloney dies,” Benson shouted out, and we momentarily became teammates. Benson looked even more surprised to be alive than I was. But unlike myself, he looked like he didn’t want to be.

I knew Benson wasn’t stupid enough to think holding Maloney would keep him from an onslaught of FBI bullets. I had to get to Benson before he killed himself, or got himself killed … whichever came first.

Rich Tolland met me with concern. “Are you okay, JP?”

I repaid him by stealing his gun away from him. Before he could try to regain it, I was aiming at Benson’s face, ready to fire. “Where is Gwen!?”

“Put the gun down or I kill Maloney,” Benson fired back.

“Shoot him and get it over with. This is between you and me, Benson, and he’s getting in the way!”

The FBI agents all looked at each other-not sure what to do. They didn’t teach JP Warner at Quantico.

Maloney met the statement by throwing up. It was always harder to die the second time in a night.

“Where is Gwen?” I asked again.

Benson just smiled, which worried me.

Time was running out. I had to do something, so I fired the gun. The blast echoed off the river below, and also pierced Benson’s right shoulder. The surprising shot caused mass confusion, allowing Maloney to get out of his clutches.

Benson screamed out in agony. He attempted to fire back, but his gun feebly dropped to the pavement.

“Wrong answer, where is she? I know she’s alive.”

“You’re crazy,” Benson said to me, clutching his wounded shoulder.

I didn’t have time to ponder the irony of the statement. I broke away from Agent Johnson, but my legs couldn’t support my weight. I screamed out in pain and dropped to my knees. Before anyone could figure out what I was about to do, I slithered to Benson and stuck my gun in his mouth.

“Where is she?”

The FBI shouted for me to back off, and I could feel their weapons pointed at me.

“Don’t do it, JP,” Agent Johnson exclaimed.

“Put the gun down, Warner,” Hawkins shouted, with gun drawn.

“He killed my brother. He wants justice and now he’s gonna get it, old-school style, unless he tells me where Gwen is!”

I shoved the gun to the back of his throat and he began to gag.

Rich Tolland spoke up, “JP, if you shoot him then you become as bad as he is.”

“Why should I let him live? So he can have a trial where he would try to garner support for his sick acts?”

“Drop the gun or I’ll shoot you, Warner,” yelled Hawkins. I didn’t doubt him. In fact, I thought he might enjoy it.

Benson turned a shade of purple as my gun tickled his tonsils. I shoved deeper.

But when I looked deep into his bulging, psychotic eyes, I realized that Rich was right-I didn’t want to be like him. And more importantly, I knew that a dead Benson equaled a dead Gwen. I tossed the gun on the pavement. I raised my hands in the air as the agents moved in on me like I was the mass murderer.

Benson shouted, “Either let me go or you never see Gwen again. Do you understand!?” It was the last card he had to play.

The ringing of a phone temporarily froze everyone. The agents instinctively checked their pockets, but the phone didn’t belong to any of them. Agent Johnson and I simultaneously located it-on the ground beside Benson’s mangled police car. It was his phone.

I tried to speed-crawl for it, but had no chance to beat Agent Johnson to it. She answered it with the casual greeting of “hello” like it was her home phone. She listened intently while nodding. She then walked toward Benson and tossed it toward him. “It’s for you.”

He reached up to catch it, but couldn’t raise his bullet-punctured shoulder. The phone fell to the ground in front of him.

With an arsenal of FBI firepower still pointed at him, Benson picked up the phone with his left arm. When he listened to the caller, the life ran out of his face. He tossed it on the ground in my direction.

I picked up the phone and I got my answer. I smiled as wide as I ever had.

“Are you causing trouble, JP Warner?”

“Are you calling your boyfriend?”

“I would have called yours, but being absentminded like you are, you left it with Lamar Thompson.”

I was full of questions. The journalist in me had returned. Gwen answered my rambling questions with a simple, “Long story.” Then I felt another huge relief shoot through my body. The voice of Jeff Carter boomed into the phone, “I thought retirement was supposed to be less dangerous. What’s all this commotion about?”

I kept smiling as I watched the FBI take Grady Benson, aka Officer Jones, away in handcuffs.

“I guess it’s just who I am,” I said with a shrug.