“We’re wanted for murder. You think they’ll believe us? Anyway, they get bomb threats every day, and we have no idea who is in on this. I really don’t think McCurdy is calling the shots.”
“Yeah. I heard him talking some. To the guy with Bear. He seems like he’s second in command. Called you a pain in his ass.”
“I’m going to be more than that.”
She didn’t say anything, but her hand slid over mine on top of the gear shift.
“I need to find the sniper location at Maple Grove. Take that guy out if he’s there. Then work my way in there and defuse the bomb. It’ll be hard with no tools and all the security details.”
“Defuse the bomb? What are you? The bomb squad too?”
“We trained for it in Delta. They train you for everything.”
“I guess.”
“Do we have a better plan?”
“Maybe we should call it in,” Shirley said. “Just maybe someone we know.”
“Like who? We have no idea who’s bought and paid for.”
“I don’t think Harden is dirty. Did you see how he reacted when they showed up at the car lot?”
I nodded. I didn’t like the guy, but she was probably right. “We should call him. It can’t hurt.”
“What about Peabody? Does he know anyone?”
I cringed.
“What?”
I’d completely forgotten to break the news. “Peabody’s dead.”
She slumped down in her seat, and her face paled. Her head angled to the ceiling as she inhaled a deep breath, then mumbled, “How?”
“He was hanging from his ceiling fan.”
Her jaw clenched, and she remained silent.
“Did you know he was awared the Medal of Honor?”
“What?”
“It’s true. I saw it.”
“I knew he was in Vietnam. That was about it.”
I slipped my hand out from under hers, then laid it on top and squeezed. “We have to get this done.” I whipped the car off an exit ramp at the last second and pulled into a dimly lit convenience store. We needed to make it quick.
“What are we doing?”
“Calling Harden.”
If he was dirty we were going to be screwed.
53
WE BOTH WALKED INTO THE gas station, straight ahead with purpose, like we owned the place. Shirley led the way as I opened the door for her. If things went optimal, they’d just let her use the phone. If they recognized us, I’d make them let her use the phone.
The clerk recognized us. He was probably mid-forties and his eyes widened when we walked in. His hair was brown and slicked back, and his shirt was perfectly pressed. His name tag read “Clark.” It said he was the evening sales specialist for the last ten years. Evening sales specialist meant night clerk. Everyone looked like a superhero on a resume.
Clark didn’t try anything crazy. In fact, Clark’s eyes went half-hooded when he saw me. Clark was a lot more interested in me than Shirley, which was insane.
“Can I use your phone?” Shirley asked.
Clark’s eyes shifted back and forth between us.
I raised my eyebrows at him.
“Honey, it’s right over here.” He handed her a cordless land line.
Then, Clark ogled me, for two straight minutes. I just smiled. Being ogled by a man was better than beating one to death for trying to pull a shotgun. Whatever accomplished the objective was what I would endure.
I smiled at him. “You gonna use that phone when she’s done? After we leave?”
He grinned. “I could wait to use it.”
“That so?”
“Mmhmm.”
“That would be very kind of you, Clark.”
“It’d be very kind of you to give me your number.”
“I don’t have a phone. I live in the woods.” It wasn’t a lie.
“Oh, a mountain man?”
Shirley cracked a huge grin and shook her head. She looked like she might chime in, then she started speaking to Harden. I kept Clark occupied.
“I don’t know if you could handle me, Clark.”
“I’ve tamed badder boys than you, sweetie.”
I snickered and may have even blushed for the first time I could remember. “For some reason, I believe you.”
Shirley hung up the phone.
“It’s been a pleasure, Clark.”
“The pleasure is the view when you walk away.” Clark whistled.
We pushed through the door and got back in the car. I backed out at an angle so Clark couldn’t read the plates. I was more worried about him chasing me down and tying me up than him calling the cops.
“Cold.” Shirley shook her head.
“What?”
“You didn’t even give up the phone number.”
“You enjoy that?”
“I did.” She laughed. “I thought he earned it.”
I leaned over next to her ear. “I think you’re jealous. What did Harden say?”
“First he asked where I was. Then he told me to piss off. Then he calmed down for a second and said he doesn’t know who to trust. Nothing makes sense. And that he doesn’t like you.”
I smiled. Starsky was growing on me a little. Sometimes you just meet people under the wrong circumstances and it taints your opinion. I’d never been afraid to adapt, though. You make a mistake about someone, you recognize it and own it.
“Is he going to help us?”
“I don’t know. I told him what we know. I’m not convinced he bought it. It sounds pretty outlandish when you say it out loud. We’ll see.”
“Can’t count on him for anything right now and can’t blame him. He’ll want to investigate first. Have his ducks in a row. And even if he isn’t dirty, he still stuck around at the car lot last night.”
Shirley angled her head to the window, seemingly agreeing with me in silence.
“You able to sleep at all? While they had you?”
She shook her head.
“You should try. We’re still twenty minutes out at least.”
“I won’t be able to. Not until this is over.”
“Adrenaline it is.”
She reached over and squeezed my hand. “We have to get him back. Even if I don’t see him that often. He’s the closest thing to family I have.”
“I know.”
We headed west toward downtown on I-244. It looped around the top of the city and came in from the north.
“The plan then. We get there. You stay with the car. We’ll do our best to get to where you have a visual on the Classic Cola truck. It’ll be a long way out though. What’s the terrain like there?”
“It’s maybe a little hilly in some spots. Very heavily wooded. I’ve never been to Maple Grove, but I’ve been near it.”
“A little hilly there too? I thought Oklahoma was supposed to be flat? Wind sweeping down the plains and all that?”
“That’s western Oklahoma and the panhandle. This is Green Country.”
“It’s definitely green. I see where it gets the name.”
“Visibility will probably be an issue. We’ll be lucky to see where we’re headed. There are a lot of trees out there, and the roads wind around the hills.”
I scanned the picture of the map in my head and wondered how much time we had. The sun would come up late in the summer.
“We’ll make do. We have to.”
“Why am I staying with the car? Shouldn’t we stick together?”
Shirley was tough as nails. She’d proven that. But her question said one thing and meant another. She was afraid of us separating. I’d thought about it. I didn’t want to leave her alone, that was for damn sure. But she’d slow me down in the woods and if something happened to me it would all fall on her. If something happened to both of us together, everyone would be screwed.
My main hope was they’d had to improvise somewhere. Hopefully, we’d thrown a wrench in the gears of their plan. Last minute improvisations meant greater oppor
tunity for mistakes to be made.
“If something happens to me, you have to take off and regroup. It’ll all fall on your shoulders. We can’t risk being caught together.”
Shirley nodded. I was sure it didn’t make her feel any better, but it was the right thing to do.
We came up on downtown, still lit up in the dark. I knew I needed to curve around the central business district and get on a highway called 412. It headed west to Sand Springs.
The giant buildings floated by on our left as the highway looped around the northwest corner. We passed a huge light that said CAIN’S.
“Is that Cain’s Ballroom?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me another story about Tulsa. It helps me think.”
She turned and eyed me for a long second. “Well, Cain’s Ballroom actually started out as a garage for an oil guy named Brady. It was where he kept all his cars.”
“Of course it was a rich oil guy.”
“Did Sean ever tell you about the race riots?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. A lot of people try to forget it ever happened. This area north of downtown was the most affluent African American community in the country. They called it black wall street. It was the Greenwood district.”
“What happened?”
“In the early 20s, I think, a black man was riding in an elevator with a white woman. Nobody knows for sure what went on in the elevator, other than she started screaming and he ran away. Before long, lynch mobs were out looking for him, saying he made sexual advances. Racial tension was high back then. For the next two days there were huge riots. Black men were rounded up, and the whole area was burned to the ground. Everything, all their stores, houses. They took all the black men to the Brady theater, which is right over by Cain’s ballroom and there are rumors they tortured and killed some of them inside. Growing up, my dad told me all kinds of stories about how the place is haunted, and areas all around downtown and riverside, because they dumped bodies in the river. I don’t know how many of those details are true, but the riot definitely happened, and a lot of people were killed.”
“Wow. I had no idea. You’d think they would’ve taught that in history class.”
“It’s just like a lot of the rest of the history in this country. Forget the bad stuff, remember the good. That’s what my dad used to say.”
“Sounds like a pretty smart guy.”
“He was. He used to tell his students there was no way to prevent repeating mistakes, if you ignored the issues that caused them.”
I saw the exit for 412 and signs that said SAND SPRINGS on them.
The Focus rocked and bounced a few times as I merged onto the highway.
Then, I saw something I’d never seen in my life.
54
I TUNED THE RADIO TO AM and pressed seek until I could find a news channel. I drove the speed limit up 412 and the cars just kept flying by on the other side of the median. I’d never seen anything like it. It was the Secret Service times a thousand.
There was a motorcade of at least a hundred solid-black vehicles, all speeding toward downtown on the opposite side of the highway, like a giant funeral procession racing to a cemetery.
“Well, we know Morgan wasn’t lying. There’s definitely a meeting.”
Shirley’s eyes widened in disbelief. She gawked at the cars flying by, one after another. None of them had flags on the hoods like world-leader convoys, which told me they weren’t here for parades and publicity.
The radio found a station: 1170 AM.
There was breaking news—the President of France, gunned down in the middle of the street outside a hotel in downtown Tulsa. Twenty minutes ago. Shooter on the loose. That was all they knew.
“Oh my God,” Shirley whispered, staring blankly at the cars.
I kept driving.
She straightened up in her seat. “This has to be related.”
I nodded. Didn’t say anything.
“Right?”
“Diversion. It’ll confuse security teams.”
Shirley exhaled. “It’s clearly working. Why are they driving right into it?”
“That’s not all of them. Just some. It’s huge because there are a lot of people and a lot of security teams.”
“Why do the teams that aren’t in charge of the French president care? Shouldn’t they all be watching their leaders?”
“They’re covering their asses and all coming up with a plan. Good ol’ boy network, remember? Same in the government as it is in the private sector. The bosses are demanding first-hand accounts and intelligence. They’re looking for ways to capitalize on it too. Information is currency for powerful people.”
“I hate the world sometimes.”
“Living off the land sounds pretty good about now, doesn’t it?”
She didn’t say anything to that.
I took the exit at 33rd West Avenue.
“Where are you going?”
“Near the botanical gardens. That’s where they’ll take the shot from, if they need to. It’s the only place that made sense on the map I saw.”
We wrapped around a lot of trees and some small hills and made our way up to the parking lot. Everything was flatter than I’d imagined. I went and parked the car behind a building. None of it looked good. A sniper didn’t plan this location.
They were counting on the remote switch to work for sure, but I still didn’t want the sniper in play. He should’ve been set up by then. Getting ready. Visualizing. There should’ve been a wall or some place for his perch that gave him a clean line of sight to the truck, that would also protect him from the blast moments later. He’d fire the shot and duck behind in the split-second it would take the bullet to travel.
I scanned the area. No sign of a wall. No sign of anything. I looked out at Maple Grove Lodge. It was dark, and I couldn’t make out much. There was a large pond in front of the lodge, and trees everywhere. A shot from here would be impossible.
I thought about the map, then rotated my head one-hundred and eighty degrees, scanning the area. A loud growl of a diesel engine broke my focus.
The Classic Cola logo flashed in front of a light, before it snaked between some trees and headed up toward the lodge, disappearing in the trees. The brakes hissed it to a halt. I couldn’t see a thing in the dark.
Why was it there already? And how did it get through?
55
I’D BARELY CAUGHT THE LOGO, but the sound was unmistakable.
I stood there with my hands on my hips, shaking my head.
“What is it?” Shirley whisper-screamed.
“It’s no good. Nothing is good here. The trees are full of leaves. Maybe in winter, but not now.” I held my hand out, gesturing to the darkness. “You can’t get a shot off in this. Not a reliable one.” I paced back over to the car.
We hid out for a few minutes to think. I stared around once more, looking for some kind of elevation. It was the only way, but it’d need to be thirty or forty feet high. Nobody was on the roof of the buildings and the highest one wasn’t even close to tall enough.
“That’s why so many cars went back. Those guys worry about snipers more than anything. It’s why they chose this place. Look at all the trees and the privacy. It’s like a fortress. Well-hidden. Out of the city.”
“Maybe there was never going to be a sniper,” Shirley said.
“I guess. They just concealed everything in the wall to hide it. It was done well. Maybe I was wrong. I just knew this was the plan, though. At least we know the bomb is here. That confirms the meeting is the target for the attack.”
I couldn’t help but be upset with myself. I couldn’t afford to make mistakes. I’d formed a theory and treated it as fact. I should’ve known better. Learn from it. Move on. Don’t do it again.
“Okay.” Shirley sighed. “What do we do now? We need to adjust, right?”
“Yeah. We take out the bomb. Maybe they have other assassination attempts planned. But the bo
mb will do the most damage. We take it out of the equation, we minimize the casualties.”
“Okay then. Go take it out.”
I leaned over and snaked my hand through the back of her hair, then kissed her firm on the lips. “I will.”
“We make a good team, Savage.”
I pressed my forehead to hers. “You’re damn right.”
“And I wait up here?”
“Yeah. Keep your distance. They’re on high alert, and they’ll be edgy. Hide out. Pay attention. You see anything at all, you get the hell out of here. Find a way to call Harden and tell him everything again. Meet up with him if you have to. Make him believe it.”
“What if he arrests me?”
“He won’t. But it’s a risk we take. Let him do it if you have to, okay? At least you’ll be safe in custody. If we get separated, we meet at Peabody’s house tomorrow after this is done.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
I took off for the trees.
56
WALKING AWAY FROM SHIRLEY, I couldn’t help but think I was making a mistake. It didn’t feel right. Nothing did. I got about a hundred yards into the forest and my gut gnawed at me. I turned around and went back to the car. There was no way I was leaving her alone again. The last time I left her in the car she disappeared.
When I approached, a pair of high beams lit up the road in the distance. The tires from the huge diesel truck chirped on the pavement as it sped up the road that led to the gardens. What the hell was going on?
Shirley scrambled out of the Focus and sprinted in my direction. The truck gunned it.
“Run!”
She bolted toward me and made it right as Bear and the driver fishtailed into the parking lot. We ran to the woods. The truck stopped at the car, and I looked over my shoulder to see Bear climb out of the passenger side. The driver stayed behind the wheel.
He was driving the Classic Cola truck.
I had to think. How did he drive the truck in there and get out so fast? Did McCurdy drive it in alone? Maybe he drove the Classic Cola truck out here, hopped out, McCurdy took the wheel, and he jumped in with Bear? That had to be it. My brain was all over the place. Lack of sleep and food slowed everything down.
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