Sandbagged: A Theo Ramage Thriller (Book 2)

by Edward J. McFadden III

  Ramage paused behind a fallen tree, peering back up the slope, giving the guys on the hillside time to consider their situation. The last standing hired gun had a decision to make; stay with his fallen comrade or pursue someone else’s quarry. If the guy stayed with his friend, he might not get paid, and money was always a strong motivator. Ramage’s breathing echoed in his ears as he waited, his calf screaming, joints and muscles close to going on strike. He needed his bag. There were power bars in it.

  Nothing moved on the hillside above, the faint sound of weeping and grunts of pain filtering through the trees. Ramage moved on, slowly working his way through the forest of desert willows, spidery shadows dancing on the hardpan, moonlight reflecting off the thin covering of snow, everything painted in sharp black and white.

  With the goon still on his feet behind him, and Rolly and Shelly ahead, Ramage wasn’t worried about footprints anymore. How he managed to find the tree he’d hidden his pack in, with blackness filling every empty space, he’ll never know. Divine intervention, perhaps? He was in God’s country, after all.

  Ramage ate a power bar, the binoculars focused on the thicket of underbrush at the mouth of the valley, the spire of stone beyond casting a long shadow in the moonlight. A faint glow emanated from within the trees, most likely Rolly or Shelly looking at their cellphone. Ramage aimed the rifle and fired at the light, and it went dark. There were no screams, no wails of pain, but he thought he heard a cry of anger, but he wasn’t sure.

  He moved fast now, slipping through the forest like a squirrel, the .38 bouncing around in his jacket pocket as he ran for the mouth of the valley.

  When he was almost out of the vale the Tahoe roared to life in the distance, the sound traveling across the open plain and echoing off the red-streaked rock walls. Ramage figured Shelly was driving the getaway truck. As the resident sex doll, Rolly wouldn’t want his drug addled toy getting shot or hurt. Or Rolly had gone with her because he’d finally realized he was outmatched and had decided to quit. Thing was, that wasn’t Rolly’s decision to make anymore.

  Ramage picked up his pace, jogging through the thinning trees, the rumble of the Tahoe’s engine getting louder. He couldn’t see the truck because the mesa loomed up in the darkness before him, and he slowed, the cover of the forest slipping away, the patches of juniper and scrub between the mouth of the valley and tall spire of stone only a few feet tall. Rolly could be hiding within, waiting to shoot him, but no shots rang out as Ramage sprinted from the valley to the safety of the underbrush that surrounded the mesa.

  Ramage followed the same path he’d used when he’d arrived, going as fast as he could while still maintaining a reasonable level of stealth. He fully expected bullets to start whizzing over his head, but no shots came.

  On the eastern side of the mesa, out on the open plain, the Tahoe bounced and pitched as it pushed over the hardpan toward RT-6. He strained to see through the binoculars, and though he couldn’t be sure, Ramage thought he saw two heads sticking above the front bucket seat headrests of the Tahoe. Rolly had left all his hired help behind.

  The taillights of the Tahoe jumped as the truck bumped up onto RT-6, the chirp of rubber echoing over the basin as the vehicle sped east, the wash of the Tahoe’s headlights illuminating the Charger where it sat stuck on the side of the road in the culvert. Rolly and Shelly didn’t even slow as the Chevy tore past the disabled car.

  Hope bloomed in Ramage. He could drive the car back to town, maybe stay on Rolly’s tail. He may have retreated, but Ramage was sure the slick shit wasn’t through, not by a long shot. Ramage worried for Anna, made a mental note to tell her to tune up the radar a few notches. Until he had Rolly’s head on a stick, he was a threat.

  He double-timed it across the plain, passing the destroyed pickup, the Tahoe’s taillights disappearing around a bend in the road. Somewhere behind him a mournful wail carried on the breeze, and was answered by a coyote. Guilt seeped through him, though he didn’t know why. The five hired guns hadn’t cared that Ramage was actually the victim, not the criminal.

  Ramage approached the Charger slowly, checking for hiding assholes, but all was quiet. The snow had stopped, but the chill breeze that pushed down from the plateau felt like it got colder with each passing second, and he couldn’t feel the tips of his fingers and toes.

  The car was locked, and no keys were visible, an alarm light blinking steadily, a cloud of red light pulsing through the Charger. Ramage walked around to the passenger side of the car. He hit the glass with the butt of the rifle, pain running up his arms.

  Two more times Ramage hit the window, and on the third try the glass shattered, tiny clear squares bouncing off the seat and falling onto the snow-covered ground. The throb of the Charger’s alarm shrieked over the plain, the car’s headlights strobing on and off, RT-6 appearing and disappearing in the pulsing light.

  Ramage snaked his arm through the broken window, unlocked the door, and pulled it open. The car’s interior light came on, the alarm screaming, headlights pulsating. He checked the glove compartment, and the extra key fob lay atop an owner’s manual that looked to have never been opened. He turned off the alarm with the fob and slid into the driver’s seat.

  It took a few minutes to get the car out of the ditch, but after ten minutes of spitting gravel and sand he managed to get the car back onto the road. Churning down RT-6 he had time to consider things. The night had been a failure, his plan a dud. He’d managed to incapacitate and kill the hired help, and add two holes to his body. He was no better off—worse even—than when the night began. Anna would say this was a familiar theme. Damn that woman, he lov…

  The Charger hummed as Ramage put the pedal to the floor and sped into the night.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The sun set behind the mountains in the west, leaving a bruised sky. Thick clouds fleeted overhead, and Karma thought it looked like snow was on the way. An hour became the past, no sign of Ramage or Rolly and crew. It was possible they wouldn’t come back on the easterly route, but with the Skeeter’s truck not getting fixed until Saturday morning, she felt comfortable waiting. She finished her water and the last powdered donut, and her bladder nudged her. Not a warning, just a, “Hey, you’re going to have to deal with me soon.”

  Her phone buzzed and vibrated, a blue text box reading Pastor Robin flashing white. Karma sighed. She’d been pushing off her church business because of Ramage, which was ironic because she’d put off swatting the Skeeter because of her business with the pastor. All Karma had to do was facilitate a transaction, act as security, a neutral party. She didn’t know what the item being sold was, but she knew it involved the red market. She had the supplier waiting nearby in Provo.

  Something ate at her, and it was more than the feelings she was having for the Skeeter. She found herself cheering him on in her mind, hoping he’d beat Rolly and his band of perdedores, but deep down she knew that wasn’t what she wanted, because then she’d have to kill him herself.

  Darkness pressed in on Karma, the car windows cracked open, a thin stream of cool air pushing her toward sleep. It started to snow, tiny specks of white glinting in the pale moonlight. She sat there a long time, a thin white blanket impeding her view through the windshield. The car got darker, and she was starting to despair, to think the fight had moved on down the road and left her behind.

  It was 3:31AM when a single headlight appeared in the distance. She ran the windshield wipers, the squeak of the dry rubber running over glass shrieking through the car. The Tahoe whizzed past in the blackness, one headlight out. The Dodge Charger didn’t follow, nor did Ramage in his rented pickup.

  The road curved, the single headlight pointing southwest, and Karma peered through her night scope at the Chevy. Huge white shadows danced across the land, the world painted in green, and inside the Chevy’s cab Karma saw Shelly’s smashed face behind the wheel, Rolly in the seat beside her. They looked to be alone.

  Karma rocked back in her seat as the truck flew by, the unw
elcome feeling of sorrow and pity worming its way into her, making her feel guilty, less than human. And she hadn’t even swatted the Skeeter. She needed to add a new clause to her contract. Right of refusal on site, but… money was money, and morals and ethics were in the eye of the beholder.

  She waited an hour, but the rented pickup didn’t show.

  She wasn’t happy, nor was she upset about the Skeeter’s demise, but as she worked things through a problem emerged that she hadn’t thought of before. Typically, Karma’s word was sufficient to prove she’d completed her task. Occasionally there were special requests; a specific piece of jewelry, or a finger, sometimes a picture of the corpse, if possible, but usually the person not showing up anywhere was enough. In the two cases she’d been involved with that still made her hackles rise, she’d considered letting the Skeeters go if they’d agreed to disappear, go somewhere far away and start a new life on an island as a charter boat captain, but her analysis ultimately led to the age-old question of, “What’s in it for me?” Any recompence would be traceable, and if word got out she hadn’t fulfilled her contract, or worse, had lied about it, she’d be out of business at best, dead at worst.

  Without a body, or other proof, she’d have to hang around and make sure the Skeeter didn’t show for his truck. That meant she had to stay in Price and the thought of staking out the Red Rock Truck Stop wasn’t her idea of appealing. She was tired, hungry, and needed some real sleep, in a real bed.

  She reached over the seat and grabbed a black case with silver clasps. It contained her collection of handguns, fake IDs, money in multiple currencies, two small bombs with cellphone detonators, false credit cards, and several gadgets she’d purchased at an online spy store. It was amazing the cameras and spy tech available to the general public. If people knew their boss could be wearing a necklace with a camera in it, they might act differently. She figured the divorce rate would be much higher, as well.

  She drew out a trail camera similar to what hunters used to track the habits and living areas of armadillo and deer. She fired up her cellphone and sync’d it with the camera and got a live image of the inside of the car. The unit had an internal hard drive that stored seven days of recordings, but needed to be downloaded to view.

  She started the Traverse, but didn’t put it in gear, instead staring west, following the dark line of RT-6 in the darkness. She waited, the eastern horizon blossoming yellow and purple. No lights approached. The Skeeter was gone.

  She started the Chevy and bumped up onto the road, heading for Price.

  A chill ran through her, and her stomach soured. She’d added another person to the list of folks she wasn’t proud to have killed… but, she hadn’t killed Ramage. Did she sit by and watch it happen? Not really, yet she still felt like shit, like she’d snuffed a kindred spirit. She shrugged. He might not be dead. The Skeeter had skills, and it was possible he was laying half dead in a crevasse but would crawl his ass back to civilization. But for her, it was time to start thinking about her next move. There was money to make, and new Skeeters to swat.

  As she drove, she called Pastor Robin and told him to stay by the phone. The eagle was getting ready to land, and he should be ready to move as soon as she called. Then she called the supplier and set the transfer meeting for later Friday at 6PM. The supplier needed six hours notice, and Karma gave him twelve. She’d set the meeting at an old oil derrick off RT-6 outside town.

  The pastor was supposed to bring $100,000 in unmarked bills. A lot of money, so whatever the pastor was buying, he wanted… needed very badly. Karma had heard nightmare stories about the red market, organs and blood being bought and sold like produce and steaks. She knew the time vectors for organ transplants were less than twenty-four hours, but it could be blood, skin, or a derivative, many different things, which have longer shelf lives.

  She’d seen a picture of Pastor Robin on the church website and judging by the red spidery lines crisscrossing his cheeks and red nose, he could be buying a liver. The time vector seemed plausible if the organ was harvested in Provo, delivered, and the paster had an install site selected within a twelve-hour drive. Very possible. People were capable of so much when they put their mind to it. The paster was probably hiding his drinking from the church elders, who would have pulled his authority within the church, and perhaps even cast him out. Alcohol was the devil’s juice, and Karma had to admit the bible thumpers weren’t totally wrong.

  She called the Pastor back, told him where to pick her up, and cut him off when he started asking questions. Her bullshit bucket was full.

  The gray haze of dawn crept across the land as Karma wheeled into the Red Rock Truck Stop. The place was quiet, everything still in night mode. She circled the main building to make sure nobody was watching, and drove past the blue Kenworth, stopping before the red rock wall to the trucks left, which was thirty feet away. She grabbed the camera and slipped from the car.

  The snow had stopped, but a thin coating of white covered everything, and she left footprints as she trotted over to the wall and fit the camera into a small depression in the red streaked sandstone. Back in the car she pulled up the camera’s image and got a perfect shot of the dark blue Kenworth. Karma dropped the phone on the seat beside her and went in search of a hotel.

  The first place she stopped at, The Lucky Traveler, was full, so she moved on and settled for a Budget Inn outside of town by the University. It was close to the pickup spot, and with the bars and eating establishments encircling the college, she figured folks wouldn’t pay much attention to who came and went at the hotel, which offered hourly rates upon request.

  She paid cash for her room, double locked the door, put the writing desk chair under the doorknob, and laid on one of the double beds, fully clothed. She rested her Berretta nine on the bed beside her as she stared up at the stained ceiling. The room smelled of smoke, and that rose scented air freshener that made the place smell worse than stale.

  She set the alarm on her phone for 3PM and drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ramage went the long way around, cold wind streaming into the car through the broken window. He cut through the backstreets of Carbonville, and approached Price via the southeast interchange of RT-6. He figured Rolly was licking his wounds in a hotel, but he was sure to have hired help watching the western approach. Lights sparkled throughout Price, despite it being 4:07AM. His stomach growled, so he pulled into a work yard stacked with crushed cars and piles of metal. There was no sign out front, no guard dogs. There was a trailer with a small white sign with black lettering which read SCRAP, Monday through Friday. No hours listed. He backed the Charger between a stack of crushed cars, their models and makes no longer discernible, and a box truck with no markings except green and red graffiti on its side touting someone known as X-Ray Green.

  He shut the motor down, grabbed a power bar, and let his head fall against the headrest. Where to go from here? The truck wouldn’t be ready until Saturday morning, which meant he still had a day to kill. He cringed at the thought of killing, tension throbbing through him like an unwelcomed heat. Not a great analogy. He’d choked the life out of a man and blew chunks only a couple of hours ago, and he’d been stewing so hard on the drive back into town, the adrenaline ebbing away, that he’d almost forgotten how lucky he was.

  Anna’s face filled his mind, and the idea that he’d taken the haul to Seattle, when… He wanted to know. So now he knew. “So say it to her you pathetic man,” rang his mother’s voice.

  Ramage pulled his phone, thumbed to Anna’s number, but didn’t tap call. There was only so much he and Anna could talk about over the phone. He needed to find out if Rolly was already hightailing it back to Texas, or was hanging around.

  He ate his power bar and drove around Price, keeping a low profile, but not hiding. He didn’t see the Tahoe, so he drifted back to the boy’s hotel.

  Hotel Price was a shithole, so it was no surprise there was only one car in the motel’s parking lot, all
the rooms dark. The boys were in room four, but Ramage didn’t have a key. He considered sleeping in the car so he wouldn’t disturb them, and he’d also be able to keep watch, but it was too cold, and sleeping in the car left him too vulnerable. He was shot and needed heat and a chair to catch some sleep in. Then he’d get a real breakfast and start asking questions. He didn’t think it would take very long to determine if Pepper and Shelly had split.

  He eyed the rifle, but it couldn’t be concealed, so he stuffed the snubby in his coat as he folded himself out of the Charger. The damn thing was so low to the ground Ramage felt like he was a hundred years old when he got out of the thing. Dropping into the seat was easy with gravity and all.

  Ramage peered at the window of room four, but the curtains were pulled closed. He tested the doorknob, and to his surprise it turned and Ramage slowly eased the old wood door open. Blackness spilled from the room, the door creaking, green and red shards of light knifing through the darkness from the digital clock on the nightstand and the red power indicator on the silent TV.

  “Spencer? Maverix?” As Ramage’s eyes adjusted he saw no mounds in either of the beds. He called out again, a bit louder, no response. He closed and locked the door as he flicked on the lights.

  The room looked as though it had already been cleaned, but judging by the unlocked door he doubted the maid had yet to visit. The beds were made, but there were two ass indentations on one, and one on the other. He pulled the .38.

  The tap of the lead line on the flagpole out-front, air pushing through vents, the distant screech of an armadillo.

  He glanced up at the ceiling where he’d hidden his laptop. The corner of the ceiling tile was lifted from its metal frame. Angst ran through Ramage like an electrical shock, sprinting down his spine to the tips of his toes. He’d been very careful to put the tile back exactly the way he’d found it. Hadn’t he? He wasn’t sure, and how could the boys have known where he’d hidden the computer? Had one of them seen him? Did they search the room—