Scarcity (Jack Randall #3) by Randall Wood Read Free Book Online Page B

too late.
    •      •      •
    Tessa shook the hair out of her eyes in time to see the approaching truck. Her driving reflexes were not developed enough to avoid the collision. She dropped the phone and grabbed the wheel in time to overcorrect. The Mustang responded instantly to the steering command, and the car slewed to the right, barely avoiding the head on collision.
    But there was no where else to go. The car impacted the parked truck straight on, the nose diving under the high rear end and defeating the airbag sensor. The force lifted the rear wheels off the ground and shoved the truck forward several feet. Tessa’s size and weight worked to send her chest into the steering wheel before she was thrown down and under the dash. Her head struck the shifter, and she mercifully lost consciousness before the car collapsed around her. Ironically the phone survived the crash and her friend could be heard calling out to her from somewhere in the backseat.
    “Tessa? Are you there? How long till you get here? . . . Tessa?”
    •      •      •
    Carl and Kurt pried the door open with a shovel far enough for Nick to squeeze into the opening. Nick’s brother was a paramedic, and he knew enough from him to hold the girl’s neck straight while he checked her out.
    “She’s breathing.”
    “Ambulance is on its way,” Carl informed him. He was still shaking from the near miss. He could have easily been between the car and his truck if Kurt hadn’t been driving by.
    Tessa coughed and blood trickled from her mouth. Nick wasn’t sure what to do about that, but he remembered that he couldn’t let go of her neck.
    “Hope they get here quick. She’s bleeding from her mouth.”
    As if they had heard him, the sirens sounded in the distance.
    “Couple of minutes, Nick, just hold on.”
    Nick looked down at the broken girl in his hands. “You hear that, pretty girl? Just hold on, they’re coming,” he whispered.
    •      •      •
    Senator Remington Lamar of Maryland sat on one side of the large conference room table surrounded by aides. A tall man with steel gray hair and dark intelligent eyes, his name suited him. He looked exactly like what he was—an old money politician from New England. His family had been in politics since the Civil War. Currently, his younger brother and uncle both worked for the State Department, while his nephew was soon to graduate from the naval academy. All of them were ensuring the family tradition would live on for the next generation. Due to this legacy, the senator held power and influence few in his profession could match, which was the reason he had the task before him. It kept him a very busy man. But he had always been busy, first in school, and then in the military. He had followed his years of service with a successful chairmanship of the family business that had made his family even wealthier. He had since traded the business world for government work, first as a governor, and now as a senator in his fourth term.
    The pile of paper on the table in front of him had been several months in the making and was nearing the point of being ready. As the head of the committee in charge of overseeing, and now revamping, the Department of Homeland Security, he was putting in the long hours. Projects of this size required help, and the senator liked to surround himself with younger versions of himself, like the man sitting across the table from him.
    Although several years younger, Special Agent Jack Randall of the FBI had a career path similar to his. After leaving a family business behind him to join the FBI, he had quickly gained some fame chasing down Mafia heads, serial killers, and terrorists, before advancing to his latest position as FBI liaison to Homeland Security. Senator Lamar had asked Jack only once to come on board, and his combination of law enforcement and business experience had proven him to be the perfect man to help him with the