“You got it boss,” Alice replied, adjusting her black nylon vest that proclaimed FBI in big, bold, yellow letters on the front and back. “You want the man in the proverbial hot seat.”
“You know the deal pretty lady. And one more thing, I want you to have Rich and Jim contact their CIA counterparts over in Langley and see what they have on our boy. They must have a file as thick as a dictionary. Have them call in any overdue favors.”
Chapter Eight
Jim Cooper eased his seat back in his Ford F-150 pick-up truck listening to his broadband scanner/CB, hoping to pass the time on the 2-hour drive by monitoring the local police radio frequency out of Cape May. It was usually the busiest police frequency along the coast due to the number of tourists who frequented Cape May for their summer holiday.
Jim hoped to do some surf fishing on the Delaware side of the bay for a change. A local had told him that perch were running into the lower bay.
Being an Atlantic City police officer, the position provided him with the luxury of a varied schedule. Two weeks of night work followed by two weeks of day work. This enabled him to indulge in his passion for surf fishing during the day, a time when most people were still chained to their desks.
Jim reclined his seat, hoping to catch some shut-eye before they reached the other side. The night shift did possess one obvious downfall, a lack of quality sleep.
Jim was starting to doze off when two young kids ran by squirting water at each other with plastic water pistols, a squirt or two hitting Jim through his trucks open window. He laughed it off as he followed the children’s progress as they ran to the bow of the ferry, using the cars for cover as they dueled.
Jim’s mind started to wander as he watched the children run off.
Had it really been two years since the accident? He allowed his mind to wander.
At his wife Laura’s request, she and his son Bobby would meet him for lunch. They tended to favor a local diner known for their meaty crab cakes, ones that Laura loved to no end. Jim realized Laura’s true motivation; to discuss their pending 2-week vacation to England. She loved the picturesque English gardens and their stately museums and was determined to fit most of the majors into their itinerary. She wanted to run a few things past him changing something in her favor no doubt.
On the other hand, Jim and his son only wanted the chance to try and catch some salmon in Northern England’s Lake District. That is if the boss approved and didn’t add yet another museum to their itinerary.
Deep down Jim realized she would eventually approve after some minor give and take, mostly on his end.
Jim sat waiting patiently in a corner booth making small talk with the waitress, a friend from high school, when a call came in about an accident involving injuries only two blocks from the diner. Being the closest police officer to the scene he had to respond. He knew Laura would chew his head off but deep down he also realized she would understand. She always did.
He was on the scene within a minute pushing his way through the crowd. Both vehicles involved in the accident were flipped over on their respective roofs with one lying sideways on top of the other, exposing their greasy underbodies. As Jim pushed his way through the crowd that had gathered, he overheard a witness say that the car involved in the accident had run a red light. When he broke free of the crowd, he noticed the vehicle on the bottom was the same make and color as his wife’s truck. A sudden chill traveled down his spine knowing this was the same route they would have taken to the diner.
Jim sprinted to the wreck, diving to the asphalt and crawling on his stomach in order to clear the vehicle on top of his wife’s. A strong odor of gasoline hung in the air. He knew he had to hurry before the whole area became an inferno. Using his nightstick as a hammer, he broke the remaining glass on the back window and maneuvered his muscular frame into what would normally have been the back seat of their Ford Explorer, now crushed to half its size. He could hear a slight whimper from his wife faintly calling out his son’s name. He couldn’t see Laura with the truck’s roof crushed down to front seat level, the seats joining together as one in the middle. Jim pushed his hand through a slight opening between the two front seats, reaching for the voice. Once through, he could feel the silkiness of his wife’s beautiful long brown hair and started to lightly stroke it. I’m here baby, he remembered saying, everything is going to be okay. We’re going to get you out real soon.
Cramps forced him to pull his arm back; blood now covering it up to his elbow. This can’t be, he cried aloud. I’m going to get you out baby. He used his nightstick to try and pry open the mangled aluminum, struggling valiantly in his fight to free them, all to no avail. Finally, he started clawing with his fingers.
He remembered waking in an ambulance, a nurse carefully tending his hands where the jagged aluminum frame had sliced into his skin.
The back doors of the ambulance lay propped open as if to provide a front row seat to view the carnage. Jim sat on the ambulance steps, slightly disoriented after being forcibly removed from the wreckage by his fellow officers who had appeared on the scene shortly after him. At first, he had struggled with his friends as they pulled him from the wreckage, finally collapsing in their arms.
Firefighters now worked the “Jaws of Life” to cut through the mangled mess, its hydraulic arms manipulating the steel and aluminum as if it were a child’s toy. After several minutes the front part of the Explorer lay open for all to see. The bodies of his wife and son positioned upside down, suspended only by their seat belts, life having drained from them long before.
Jim tried to rise but two of his fellow officers, friends from early childhood, restrained him.
He remembered crying out their names.
The drunk driver responsible for the accident stood beside the second ambulance, unscathed except for a cut he nursed on his head. Jim’s fellow police officers forced the driver to watch the grisly scene as the firefighters cut the straps of the seat belts allowing the bodies to be lovingly caught as they dropped from their seats before being placed side-by-side on the street. The driver tried to turn away from the carnage, but one of the police officers brutally twisted his head back to view the accident scene he alone had created.
And for Jim, what he had taken away.
Hit once again by an errant trail of water from the children’s water guns, Jim’s head snapped back in response, waking him from his dream like state as he watched the children run by once again through the ferries car deck. Jim didn’t mind, the kids were only having fun. He wiped the small droplets from his check with his shirts sleeve. Was it water or tears he wondered? He was glad for the interruption, if only temporary.
Jim tried to find the Cape May Police department’s frequency on his scanner. After some minor tuning he heard Sergeant Allen’s booming voice talking about the all you can eat rib dinner he had experienced the night before.