Chapter Seventeen

William took a long shower. He kept the water against his back most of the time. The dressing needed replacing when he finally got out. The mirror presented a man who had a brush with death that ended in one of the two people in conflict dying. This sort of thing wasn’t something William expected. While he trained for the combat, it wasn’t something anyone actively looked for when it came to the business of counter-espionage. The trouble was, as William looked to the man in the mirror for answers, he didn’t expect this sort of criminal activity to happen so close to home. And certainly not against someone who mattered so much in his life.

When he opened the thin door between the bathroom and the motel room, he saw Ronald sleeping. Exhaustion had forced him into a fetal position, and William knew him well enough to see if he kept quiet, Ronald would sleep for a few hours, at least.

William redressed the wound. He collected clean clothes from the ‘go bag,’ and made sure the pistol had a round in the chamber and was cocked and locked, ready for business. He scribbled a note for Ronald.

He dressed quietly, gathered his shoes, and made his way outside. It was four in the morning according to his watch, and if there was one thing William understood, every big town had a department store that was open 24-hours. They were fifteen minutes outside Roanoke. William drove away from the motel with quiet confidence they weren’t being followed.

***

By the time William wound through the outer edges of the city on his quest to find the department store, using logic, along with paying attention to the empty streets behind him, it was almost six in the morning when he got back to the motel.

Ronald was awake and looking worried.

“Did you think I left you?” William asked. “Give me a hand, please.”

They collected the rest of the plastic grocery bags from the car. William spent a lot of money, and not just on electronics.

“What are we supposed to do with these?” He held up two hair coloring kits, different colors.

“I thought you could go darker and I can go light.” William tossed Ronald a tweed flat cap. “This will look good with black hair.”

“And you bought clothes?”

“We need to look like everyone else. And I want you to not shave for a while. Try growing a beard. Just these little things make it harder for people to recognize you.” William favored one hand because the left side had the majority of the damage from the knife wound. “I got more first-aid stuff. I was hoping you can help me redress the wound again.”

They ate a breakfast of granola bars and water. William had a handful of trail mix. His breath close to Ronald as he concentrated on redressing the wound was sweet with a hint of peanuts.

He sat on the bed while William spent a few hours tearing apart Ronald’s laptop. William thought of everything. Including the toothbrushes and the memory sticks for the data storage backup in case he made a mistake and lost the hard drive in operation. When he couldn’t watch his laptop being torn apart, Ronald grabbed a box of hair dye and wandered into the bathroom and closed the door.

William fumbled his way through the automatic operation with success. He found a flat rectangle component wedged under the bottom cover of the laptop. It had no purpose when it came to operating the computer. He made sure there was no independent battery for the tiny unit and set it to the side.

The rest of it was a matter of removing the solid-state hard drive and connecting it to another laptop. If Ronald needed data from the core of the old laptop, it was available.

The new laptop was higher-end, sleeker than the one Ronald had for the last five years.

“See, I hardly recognize you,” William said when Ronald opened the bathroom door. “Looks good though,” he added quickly.

“I feel like I’m in a play.”

The darker hair brought out his eyes. Ronald had a smooth symmetrical teardrop shape to his face with a sharp chin. The black hair brought out his angular cheekbones. “You look good,” William repeated. He made eye contact with Ronald for a moment before Ronald looked past him to the guts of his former computer.

William returned to the table and handed Ronald the small black rectangle.

“Is this a tracking device?” Ronald asked.

“I think so,” William said indifferently. He saw the look on Ronald’s face. “Hey, I don’t know everything. You think of movies when you think about spies. We’re not all low-grade superheroes.”

But the look of confusion changed to admiration. It was the grin, William knew. To get through Ronald’s armor, it took a simple act of love and a radiant smile.

“So, here’s the deal. I think you can log onto the network here. We’ll use a backdoor program to access whatever you need on your cloud space. I think we should find out what’s going on out there too.”

“You think someone is after me for that story?” Ronald asked. He dropped on the bed as if his legs could support the weight of concern.

“I would like to know why someone tried to kill you, yeah.” William’s brow furrowed with frustration. “Aren’t you curious about that?”

“You know, there are times when you don’t think about how far things spread out when you write a story. There’s a multitude of things that happen afterward. But as a reporter, I think about the story as something that isn’t relevant to me, so how can it affect me later?” 

“Remember a few years ago when that Russian journalist faked his death after exposing the corrupt oligarch? Someone in a government watchdog agency tipped him off that he’d overstepped his bounds.”

“And you think I stepped in something?”

William shook his head. “I don’t know. I read the article, and I did a little follow up to your story. I didn’t know about the guy in the U.S.. We’ll check up on him and see if he’s linked to the overseas businesses.”

“How are you going to do that?” Ronald asked timidly.

William gave Ronald a face that suggested what Ronald had stepped in had an odor. “It’s not going to be very nice. But I promise not to do anything too drastic. Unless…” And the words left out made Ronald a little pale.

“When do we get started?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

“We’ll see where your story leads. We’ll find out where this guy lives, and we’ll use our limited resources to see if he has anything to do with your life over the last few days.”

Ronald moved to the little table and turned on the computer. He took a deep breath. William pressed his hand firmly on Ronald’s shoulder. “We’ll be okay.”

“I believe you.” He got to work.