The fatigued wipers slapped, hopelessly, over the windshield of the blue, vintage, Dodge Ares K car. The driver squinted through the windshield and the beating rain, but his sullen, dark eyes still had trouble seeing the road on which he was driving.

"Damn it!" cursed the driver. Then he felt the rim of his glasses, with the fingers of his right hand. A grin stretched his face, exposing his chunky-white teeth. "Not my reading spectacles this time." He replaced his hand to the wheel, feeling good about himself. The road was in his full focus today—unlike the last time that he'd tried such a run.  He damn near smacked up the car while driving wearing the wrong glasses that day.

Leaning his large head forward, edging his beard-stubbled chin over the steering wheel, as his unfit gut crowded toward it, he muttered, "Is this rain ever going to stop?"

He reached for the defrost control, then remembered it hadn't worked in some time.

"Shhhiiit," he complained, through a controlled, forced sigh, as he smacked his hand at the windshield, to clear the fog from it.

No sooner had he had a clear windshield spot from which to look through, that he noticed an even bigger problem.

"Son of a bitch," he grumbled, glancing into the rearview mirror, seeing the back window fogged. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!" he exclaimed, through gritted teeth, punching his fist three times on the dashboard, then smacked clear more of the fog from the windshield. He knew that seeing out of the back window was key. That was the best way for him to know if a car was following him. Now he'd have to depend on his side-view mirror, and that view had blind spots.

As the car sped onward, the oversized driver tightened his hands around the thin hardened plastic of the steering wheel. His grip forced the blood from his hands, and his knuckles turned whiter.

"Keep 'er straight," he chastised himself. "Hydroplaning out of control is not an option."

Then he sneezed and the car swerved, but he easily straightened it. Still, a "whew," escaped him. He'd never had to run like this before. Yet, so far, he was acing it all.

As he piloted the car, his solid, burly physique—flabby now from years of neglect—ached for room. He twisted and shifted in the seat for comfort, but the K car was not at all accommodating, for an obese man like him. He suddenly realized just how the worn-out arch supports in his shoes must feel—begging for relief from the stress of his body weight, whenever he walked. Was he, too, going to collapse—like his arch supports—from the stress under which he now found himself—before his mission was completed?

Just a little longer, he thought, then shot a glance into the car's side-view mirror. He saw nothing behind his car or to its left. Clear was the only happy thought that consumed him at that moment.

Then an uneasy coolness raced through him, as he again focused his look through the windshield. Fear budded in his gut. His teeth started to chatter. He glanced into the rearview mirror out of habit, then focused back to the road.

"No one followed me. I made sure of that."

Still, he understood the people from whom he was escaping. He had been a part of their "little club," up until today. He knew what they were capable of doing. He was aware that they would have no qualms about making him disappear.

Pushing his wire-rimmed glasses closer to his eyes, the man again, tentatively, peered into the side-view mirror. What he saw, which was nothing suspicious, aided him in feeling a bit more at ease.

"Must've been my wits," he muttered, confidently, certain that it was for that reason how he'd been able to make it this far.

He struggled to remove a handkerchief from the right pocket of his black trench coat, then patted his saturated brow with a quivering hand. His inner nerves were still very shaky, and he felt like crying. But no. Men in his world never shed tears. They weren't allowed to do so. Hell, they never even showed emotion. They were living, stone-faced men, out to do the deeds of others for a hidden gain.

Then an itch began to tap at his bulbous nose. He wrinkled it, as he began to snort the dripping snot back into his nostrils. Then his tongue started to, incessantly, lick his large lips—like a cat after having consumed a meal. Such an action had been a nervous mannerism of his—one that had always surfaced, whenever things were getting to him. Then he remembered the reason for his mission. He only had to get hold of it now, in order to relax.

With an inching of his right hand over the front seat, he searched, blindly, for the envelope in which it was contained. Risky, he thought, caging the prized envelope in his Kong-like hand. He hadn't had the time to correctly package it, before he fled.

Still, a grin expanded, broadly, on his face. His dimples that had, years ago, been his forte for getting women, now fought to develop under drooping cheeks. At this moment, though, he didn't care about the women, or about what they had done together. His only concern now was carrying out his mission.

Holding the envelope, his thoughts reverted to his youth. In his mind's eye, he could see everything: aunts, uncles, friends, everybody at his parents' house on his tenth birthday. Everybody had been there to see his magic act—Mr. Amazing.

He shot a glance at the envelope, before pulling it to his lap. Then he sent his look back onto the road. He could only hope that passing on this envelope would not have the same disastrous results, as his disappearing milk trick that went awry that day in his youth had. Spilling that liquid all over his grandfather's lap was one thing. For things to go wrong at this moment in his life was entirely something else.

Then his internal reminiscence ceased, as he noticed his blunder—he'd just passed the parkway exit that was his. He slammed on the breaks. The speeding car, in an uncontrolled, hydroplaning skid, swooped across the lanes of the deserted parkway.

Clutching the envelope, the man, desperately turned the wheel, hand over hand, as he pumped the breaks to bring about some control. He wasn't winning. The car shifted and danced atop the rain-soaked road, opposite of wherever he wanted it to go—its aimless intention, seemingly, wanting to cause his death.

I should have been paying more attention, was a fleeting thought of the careless driver.

But it was too late to place blame anywhere; the car contacted the corner of a steel guardrail and spun, then slammed hard into a light post on the passenger side. The man, instinctively, covered his face, as the car's frame buckled, glass showered inward, and the car came to a sudden, hard stop, just shy of the driver's destination—the parking lot of the airport.

Shaken, the confused man's mind raced with uncertainty. He checked the wound on his forehead and shunned it off—he'd had worse. Rather, he had given worse to others. But he was no longer that henchman.

Frantic now, his heavy, quick breaths caused his chest to pain. He feared broken ribs, perhaps a punctured lung. Still, he knew if he remained in the car, his mission would have failed.

Nonetheless, he couldn't move for several moments. The fear, unlike before, had now started to overwhelm him.

Is this a mistake? He pondered the idea that it might be. Then No! he answered himself with an internal shout. I have to get on that plane!

How he was going to do so, with what he had, he didn't know. But the man had to try. It was too late to turn back now and plead for forgiveness from those whom he'd been fleeing.

He pulled on the door handle, but his door didn't open. Pulling on it again, as he rammed his shoulder into it, did the trick. The force of his action propelled him out into the torrential rain. He stood tall, as he glanced about and spied the lights of the terminal. Committed to run toward it, but just short of taking his first step, he felt a hot throbbing sensation fill his ragged body.

They found me, he feared, immediately grasping his left shoulder, in reaction to the pain of the stab of a knife there, as he heard an engine idling that wasn't his. Then another stinging penetration, to the right side of his body, numbed him, as he saw what he thought were headlights shining in his eyes.

Gasping for air, his facial features protruded into a retarded-like frenzy. His oversized body jerked. His glasses, upon which he was so dependent, flew to the ground and washed away in a flood of rolling road-top water.

The man cocked his head, slowly, like a dying moose searching for the origin of a life-ending hunter's bullet, but he couldn't see anything—the rains were too intense. His will stirred, negatively, coinciding with his sudden spinning world, but, still, he had determination to move forward.

His large shoes, as he hurried along, cut into the water-soaked road, hitting it with the force of a jackhammer. That caused his knees to buckle more than once, and he found himself stumbling forward, continuously falling to and pushing himself, quickly, up from the road. His white-cotton shirt darkened more each time, as it absorbed the filth and dirt from the street-flooding water in which he'd fallen, and his dungarees, along with his jacket, tore in several places, with each contact that it made with the road's blacktop.

Are they still following me?

He fought, squinting backward on the run, to see if they were. Then he focused, running toward the bleary, terminal lights. They illuminated what he believed to be the entrance, just steps from him. Then an ominous sensation quaked through his body. His hearing muffled. His eyes froze. He outstretched his hand holding the bloodstained envelope, collapsed over the threshold of the terminal's doorway, and into the arms of a stranger. Gasping for air, then taking his last breath, he forced out, "Washington—Akner."