Chapter Seven

Jack
by Pierre Bastien

Ollie stood motionless, observing. He was outside the squash court, a few paces beyond the glass back wall.

Ollie’s two minders, Gus and Kirk, stood on either side of him, a little too close.

They all stared at Hayden, who was on court, kneeling next to Jean-Luc. He looked lifeless, slumped in the corner, legs sprawled awkwardly.

Hayden had two fingers on Jean-Luc’s wrist, presumably to check for a pulse. Was he dead? He sure looked it.

Ollie was hoping for some sort of status report from Hayden. But whatever she had discovered about the poor bastard’s health, she wasn’t sharing; instead she was frozen, staring at the guy who had just made his dramatic entrance.

Jack – that was the guy’s name.

You see, Ollie had fled to the East Side facility. Instinctively, he had gone straight down to the men’s locker room.

There was a guy, who would turn out to be named Jack, leaning nonchalantly against a bank of lockers, bathed in fluorescent light, examining his fingernails. He looked about 60, very lean, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. He was dressed in black shoes, gray trousers with a black belt, and a black sweater – one of those military-style ones, with patches on the shoulders and elbow.

Ollie stopped when he saw the guy.

“Hi Ollie,” the guy had said, tilting his head up to catch Ollie’s eye. “I’m Jack.”

Ollie was taken aback, but just a little. On this particular day, surprises were the norm. Ollie considered running, but he decided to play along.

“Hey Jack,” said Ollie. “Do we know each other?”

“We do now,” Jack said. “Soooooo,” he continued, staring down at his fingernails again, “you should come with me if you want to live.”

“What?” blurted Ollie.

“Just kidding,” said Jack. “Sort of. Come along, and I’ll tell you how you’re involved in all this.”

A guy with a six-pack and leg tattoos emerged from the showers wearing a too-small towel and some Adidas shower shoes. He walked past Jack and Ollie and stopped at a nearby vanity mirror to squeeze out some body lotion.

“I’m not sure I want to know how I’m involved in all this,” replied Ollie, nervously shifting his squash bags around.

“Come on,” said Jack. “We need to get set up before Hayden arrives.”

“Hayden?” Ollie asked, but Jack was already moving toward the exit.

Ollie paused and glanced over at Mr. Six-Pack, who was starting to put lotion on one of his legs.

Jack walked out of the locker room, and Ollie hustled to catch up.

Jack was bounding up the stairs, Ollie trying to keep pace with him.

“So,” gasped Ollie, “how is Hayden involved?”

“We’ll get to that,” said Jack, as they reached the top floor, dashed past an exercise room filled with treadmills and a few sweaty patrons, and ducked into the squash area. Ollie could hear the thwack-thwack of a squash game in progress.

“Suit up,” directed Jack, waving Ollie towards a changing area tucked beside the courts.

“You mean get in my squash gear?” asked Ollie.

“Non-marking shoes and everything,” Jack replied casually, looking down at his fingernails.

Ollie ducked into the changing area, putting his bags down on the handy benches. He pulled out his squash kit and threw it on quickly.

As Ollie emerged, Jack tossed him a fresh Dunlop double yellow dot ball.

“Brand new,” said Jack. “Now listen, we only have a minute. I want you to get on this court here and warm the ball up. A few visitors will be along shortly. They’ll be familiar to you. Now, here’s the thing. Whatever you do, don’t run. Just play along. Got it?”

“Got it,” said Ollie.

As bizarre as this all seemed, Ollie trusted Jack. Whatever situation was developing here, Jack seemed to be on top of things. Plus, he wanted to find out the truth about Hayden. Jack hopefully would fill him in when the time came.

“OK,” said Jack. “I’m going to disappear for a bit. Remember: stay cool. Just play along.”

Jack walked into the changing area and then disappeared out a back door.

Ollie hopped onto the court and began warming up. Who was going to meet him here?

A few minutes later, when Hayden showed up, he was hardly surprised.

Then Hayden and Jean-Luc had started their game, the winner supposedly deciding Ollie’s fate.

Now here he was, standing between Gus and Kirk, watching Hayden look for a pulse while staring at Jack.

The next word out of Hayden’s mouth cleared up some of the confusion.

“Dad,” she almost whispered, as a smile broke out across her face.

Hayden finally stood up and embraced Jack in a huge bear hug.

“Hey, kid,” said Jack, kissing Hayden on the top her head.

“Good to see you again, Dad,” Hayden replied. “Sorry that didn’t go quite as planned.”

“We’ll get ‘em another way,” said Jack.

“Uh,” ventured Ollie, “what’s going on here?”

Jack explained, “Hayden and I have been trying to trap Jean-Luc for over a year. We finally get everything lined up” – Jack broke out into a grin here – “and Hayden goes and kills the guy on game point, before we can learn anything from him.”

“Hey,” said Hayden, “how could I know he was about to have a heart attack?”

“Right,” said Jack. “Anyway, Ollie, I promised to tell you how you fit into all this. Well, Jean-Luc used to be my protégé at the CIA. Over the years he became increasingly unreliable, even a loose cannon. Eventually he left the agency and went out on his own. He got mixed up with a gang in Quebec.”

“What does that have to do with me?” asked Ollie.

“Oh, they’re very interested in some research you’ve been doing,” replied Jack.

Ollie didn’t say anything. Could they know about his work with Dr. Karwah?

“And no,” said Jack, “it’s got nothing to do with that cold fusion nonsense.”

“Oh,” said Ollie, sheepishly. “What then?”

“It’s what you were working on before that – your research on oil pipelines. You know the Keystone XL pipeline, the one that’s going to carry the tar sands oil?” asked Jack. “Well, these Quebec guys are trying to sabotage the project if and when it gets built. And they are pretty sure you can help them.”

Ollie looked at Hayden. He asked her, “And what’s your deal in all this?”

“My job was to protect you,” she replied, “while giving Jean-Luc the impression I was working for him. In fact all this time I’ve been secretly in touch with my dad, trying to bring down Jean-Luc.”

“So it was just a job then,” said Ollie.

“It started that way,” said Hayden, her eyes cast downward. “But it got more complicated as time went on.”

“Listen,” interrupted Jack. “We need to get out of here. We don’t have much time before Jean-Luc’s associates start coming after us.”

Jack moved toward the door, with Hayden and Ollie trailing behind, still wearing their squash clothes.

Gus and Kirk stayed behind, presumably to deal with the body.

Pierre Bastien publishes www.SquashSource.com