Mister Nobody

Chapter 23

Holloway had finally managed to get the last of the onlookers away from the scene when his phone rang. Taking it out of his pocket and not bothering to look at who it was, he picked it up. "Holloway." A familiar voice spoke on the other end. "Sir? I found something." Holloway's eyes widened. "Chelsea. Give me good news." Sitting at her terminal, Chelsea stared at the screen in front of her. "I've got plenty of that, sir. I was busy looking through DeLancie's background, his past life, his childhood, everything. Remember how I said that he was your perfectly average American?" Nodding, Holloway walked to a more private area in an alleyway near the MCC. "Yeah?' Chelsea smirked. "Turns out he's a little too perfect. His entire life, no arrests, perfectly clean record, nothing out of the ordinary. So I went back to the very start, where he was born. I looked at the records of the hospital he was born at. Turns out a couple by the names of Robert and Maria DeLancie had and lost a baby on that same day." Holloway's eyes widened. "Yet we've got a perfectly healthy old-looking Jack DeLancie running around." Chelsea kept the profile of Jack pulled up on her screen. "Which means someone pulled the strings to make sure that everyone thought he was dead." Looking back at Ralston inside the MCC from across the way, Holloway muttered. "And I think I might have a good idea who. Listen, Chelsea, I want you to make sure no one else sees this info. I need to go, but keep me posted if you find anything." Hanging up, he saw Marcusson walk over to him. "How did the call with the Secretary go, sir?" Shaking his head, Holloway sighed. "Might as well have told him that he's going to be attacked by Martians. The only chance we have of catching DeLancie in this act is if we go ourselves." Marcusson frowned. "Sir, with all due respect, are you sure that this will allow us to catch DeLancie? What if Ralston is wrong?" Shaking his head, Holloway sighed. "I don't like it either, but until we get any more solid leads, this is what we got. Tell everyone we're Oscar Mike in 5 minutes. We need to be at Washington by tomorrow." Nodding, Marcusson rushed off, and Holloway prayed he was doing the right thing.

"Wake up. Your turn to drive." Jack opened his eyes and blinked, seeing Alison staring at him from the driver's seat. Looking around, he saw he was sitting in the passenger's seat of an SUV, sitting on the side of the highway as cars passed by. Everything that had happened before rushed through his mind, including the part where they'd woken up early to try and get a head start to Washington. Nodding, he opened the car door and got around to the other side, him and Alison switching seats as he started the engine then merged back onto the road. Sighing, he rubbed his eyes slightly. "How long was I out?" Alison shrugged. "Hour, hour and a half." Jack nodded, then a question popped up in his mind. "Is it normal? Being able to sleep this well despite what we've done?" Alison spoke against the window. "You get used to it. It's the killer in you." Jack sighed as he looked down the road. "Please don't say it like that." Alison closed her eyes. "Jack, sooner or later you're going to have to admit to yourself it's what you are. The life you were living for the past 2 years was a lie, not the other way around." Jack tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. "How long did it take you to get used to it?" Alison paused, not saying anything. "A while." Jack decided to leave it at that. Looking in the rearview mirror, he could see the bags full of guns they'd brought with them. "We're pretty much ready for war with these things. All hell's gonna break loose once we get to Washington." Alison sighed. "Not if we play our cards right. Trust me Jack, I've been through a lot worse than this. We can make it through without dying, and at least very minimal casualties." Jack scoffed. "That's comforting. Were you always this reassuring?" Jack looked to his side a bit, and thought he could detect the faintest hint of a grin on Alison's face. "Maybe. Now hush and let me sleep." Nodding, Jack stayed quiet, and a few moments later could hear her gentle breathing from the side of the car. Left with nothing but his own thoughts for background noise, he drove through the night.

A few hours later, the sun was rising on the District of Columbia, and Jack's SUV was beginning to become more and more bogged down in traffic as it got closer to the nation's capitol. Craning his neck above the cars in front of him, Jack tried to see what was the cause of the jam. Then, his eyes widened when he saw what it was. Shaking Alison's shoulder gently, he turned to her. "Hey, wake up. We got a problem." Alison slowly opened her eyes, and frowned when she heard what Jack was saying. Jack pointed forwards, and Alison looked ahead to see a police roadblock checking every single car that was ahead of them. Her eyebrows raised up. "Shit...bail, now." Reaching back behind them, she grabbed the bags from the backseat, and opened the door. Jack did the same, and left the now empty car in the middle of the highway, running through the traffic towards the tunnel that was beneath the underpass. Making their way inside, they stayed against the walls. "Well, there goes our hopes of making it here before the FBI." Jack said, then looked at Alison. "Hope you had a Plan B." She nodded. "I did. Follow me." Making their way out of the tunnel, they walked through a few fields until they finally made it to the back streets of Washington, far away from the tourist districts that held the big attractions. "The FBI being here further confirms my theory. Ralston knows that I know he wants to kill the Secretary of Defence, so he sends them here. Question is, where is he? He'd have to be somewhere open, and in public where he could easily be-" Jack pulled on Alison's shoulder to stop her in her tracks. "That seem good enough?" He pointed to an electronics store where several TVs were showing a news broadcast. The anchor was talking next to a picture of the Secretary of Defence. "And today in Washington, Secretary of Defence Alistair Denholm will be speaking to the press today at the Lincoln Memorial about the current situation occurring in the Middle East, and the President's plan moving forward." Looking at each other, it was clear where to go next.