CRIME THRILLERS-A Box Set

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  It was full dark, spooky with night owls and the slithers of four-footed beasts, before Lansing found a spot to lie down for the night. Mosquitoes hummed around his face and worried the lashes of his eyes, the hair in his nose.

  Nothing suited Martin Lansing more. The wilder and more wretched the land, the more his spirits rose. He knew he would not be able to sleep because of the adrenalin pumping. During the long hours of wakefulness in the bedroll as the dew fell and coated his face like a caul, he fantasized about Carla and how much she must care to call him back to her. Of all the others he had killed he could barely recall two or three faces of his victims. But Carla's face--and body--was as fresh in his mind as if he had seen her yesterday.

  He hoped to see her again, in the flesh, tomorrow.

  Alternately shivering and sweating, dreaming and waking to slap away mosquitoes, Lansing rested sporadically until a gold dawn laced the forest floor with a newly minted day.

  CHAPTER 5

  "When the enemy feels danger, he will attack. The guerrilla must consider the situation and decide at what time and at what place he wishes to fight. If he finds he cannot fight, he must immediately shift."

  Mao Tse-tung

  Carla woke early and lay listening to birds singing from the woods' edge. She dressed quietly so as not to wake Sully, took a hunk of Colby cheese and a kosher pickle from the refrigerator, and let herself out the back door. She stood filling her lungs with the tangy morning air as she munched on the cheese. There was nothing that smelled quite as fresh as morning before the sun burned off the dew.

  Sparrows flitted across the yard and took turns alighting on the birdbath. They ignored Carla's quiet presence. A rustling drew Carla's gaze to Sully's vegetable garden. He had used chicken wire to make a fence around the perimeters to discourage poachers, but something moved among the great emerald stalks of romaine lettuce leaves.

  Carla walked closer in to see what was going on. A white-tailed rabbit with tan body fur leapt at her approach and scooted down the neat furrow to the fence line. She saw him duck into the ground as if it magically opened to swallow him. On inspection she found the rabbit had burrowed beneath the fence to get at the lettuce. She found a good-sized rock and placed it in the opening. Sully needed a scarecrow or else some aluminum foil pie pans to put on sticks so they would catch and reflect the sun to frighten away marauders. She'd have to tell him.

  She finished the cheese, demolished the pickle, rinsed her hands in the bird bath, and walked toward the woods. She meant to find the area where Lansing's old lean-to used to be. She gloried in this task, feeling at once home again with the earth as she had felt when working on the kibbutz in Israel. No matter how hot the sun or how weary her muscles, how blistered her hands or how parched her throat, she loved the smell and feel of earth coating her skin.

  She trampled softly as possible but still woke sleeping birds and had to listen to their passionate scolding. She picked up a walking stick along the way and beat at the brush and weeds before stepping through them to scatter snakes if they happened to be crawling about. Corals, especially.

  After an hour of wandering, she came upon the creek she supposed Lansing used for drinking and washing while he lived in the forest for a month. There had not been rain in many days and the water level was low, clear, ripples here and there indicating stone tops breaking the surface. She squatted and drank from cupped hands.

  She went on, her eyes objectively cataloging the lay of the land--how a rise began here, dropped off there, where a tree had been gutted by lightening, where deadfall lay rotting peacefully, termites swarming just beneath out of sight.

  She came to a ravine and stopped to look it over. Lansing might have made his place here, she thought, rubbing one hand along her blue-jeaned thigh. She carefully walked along the sloping bank on either side, poking at leaf and limb debris with the walking stick. A moccasin disturbed by her plundering revealed itself from beneath a cache of old fall leaves. It came toward her as she backed away. She had to beat at the ground with her stick to make it turn and hightail it for safety.

  "Damn cottonmouth," she muttered. It was an aggressive snake, mean-spirited and venomous. She would have to watch for them coming out to sun themselves after the long cool night.

  She kicked at a mound of dirt and was about to walk past when from the corner of her eye she noticed a speck of bright red. She halted, squatted to examine her find. With the stick end she pawed at the earth until the red thing came free. She reached out, held it up before her eyes. It was a pair of wire snips with red plastic-covered handles.

  A mockingbird flew low, lit on a poplar limb, and sang loudly all his multi-varied songs for Carla, as if it were his duty to serenade a mortal being today.

  So this is where he went to ground, Carla thought, walking around the place she had found the snips. She mentally gauged how far it was to the stream, how far to Sully's house.

  She tucked the snips into her back pocket and struck off on a horizontal line with where Sully's house should be in her calculations. She walked for another hour until she was thirsty and tired. The forest grew wilder here, the trees crowded together to let little sunlight enter. Thorns snagged at her pants' legs and there was the scent of something dead in the sweltering still air. No mockingbird sang, nor creek gurgled. There was too much silence, too little light, too dense a passage for her to go any further.

  She stood still, listening to the eerie silence, wondering at how ominous the land suddenly seemed. She was not happy here, did not feel free and healthy and optimistic. She cocked her head listening now to her own thoughts. Lansing is here somewhere. That thought rebounded through her skull. She did not know why she believed this except for the intuitive crawling feeling that moved slowly up her spine to her neck where it culminated at her hairline with a tingle.

  She was not ready to face him today. She had not come into the woods expecting to find him and now to feel him so close caused her heart to beat erratically. He had returned so quickly.

  She swiveled and beat her way out of the thick, choking woods with the walking stick. Her breath came ragged and whistling. She could taste the bitterness of fear on the back of her tongue, and saliva filled her mouth.

  By the time she reached the bubbling, clear creek she was running, intent on retreat before he sensed she had found him.

  When she burst from the woods' cover into the backyard, Sully straightened from where he was bent over in the garden. "What's wrong, Carla?"

  "I think he's here," she rasped.

  Sully's expression was one of sudden unmasked terror. "You saw him? He's behind you?"

  Carla put her hands on her knees and leaned down on them to get her wind. She shook her head. "No, I didn't see him, he didn't see me. But I know where he is. I felt him. I know it was him."

  Sully stepped over the two-foot chicken wire fence and came to her side. "I think we should call the sheriff." He draped an arm around her shoulder to guide her to the house.

  "He's mine, Sully. Don't call anyone. You call in the sheriff, he'll disappear smooth as smoke." She gave him a pleading look as he held open the back screen door.

  "We don't have enough defenses to keep him out," Sully reminded her.

  "I agree your alarms and locks won't protect us absolutely, Sully. Nothing will keep him out. He might even use them to trap us inside, turn the defenses against us. He's smart enough to think of that."

  She sat at the table while he brought ice water in a tall, sweating glass.

  "What are we going to do, then?" He sat across from her, his worry evident in the circles beneath his eyes, the furrowed squint.

  "After I take a breather, I'll show you."

  "If you don't have a gun, what is it you do have so we can protect ourselves?"

  She smiled enigmatically. "Ask not what it is. Ask what they are."

  Sully stood and began to pace. It was turning into his favorite form of exercise. From beneath his lashes he watched Carla leave the kitchen.


  She returned with a bundle in her arms. She put the primitive weapons on the tabletop. "This," she said, lifting a leather thong attached to thin leather strings, "is my sling."

  "You're kidding me now, Carla. Tell me this is a joke."

  "If it was good enough for David to kill Goliath, it's good enough for me. I'm quite proficient with it, honest. We'll go outside and I'll show you later." She lifted two of the three green saplings that lay across the table. "These are javelins. They're sharpened, then the points are hardened in fire. I won't tell you what the ends get dipped into when I'm serious about using them."

  Sully's light eyebrows rose. "Human excrement?'

  "You got it, Boy Scout. Deadliest poison, easiest to manufacture." She thought about what she'd said for a moment, then let out a small embarrassed giggle.

  "Carla, this is..."

  She sobered. "Don't say it, Sully. I know what I'm doing. I can throw one of these javelins as close to target as I could shoot a pistol. If he gets into the house I can use it as a sword." She reached for another weapon. "This is a throwing axe. I'm not as good with it as I wish, but I'm practicing. It's lightweight, easy to carry, too."

  "You think you're going to get close enough to use these things?" Sully asked.

  "He's already close, Sully. He's made camp not more than half a mile from this house." Her shoulders went back and she stuck out her chin.

  "And what is this stuff?" Sully picked up little pots of paint. Next to them was some kind of strange headdress made of long colored feathers, banded with snakeskins.

  "Ancient warriors knew the value of psychologically fear-producing costumes. If you strip down and paint your body and face with these paints, and come upon your adversary unannounced, you've successfully weakened him with surprise and astonishment at how you look. The headdress works the same way. It makes you look taller than your opponent, belittles him. If these things only make him hesitate for a few seconds when otherwise he would have attacked, you've got those few seconds advantage over him."

  Sully slumped into a chair. "I don't believe this. I really cannot believe this. I don't understand how you think anymore, Carla. I don't even know who you are."

  Carla pushed the things aside and sat down. "Sully, whole armies have been defeated with weapons like this. Before the advent of metals and gunpowder, the world was conquered with hand-carried weapons. Spears, swords, battle garb. All Lansing has is a switchblade. He doesn't favor guns. And to use his knife he has to get in close, doesn't he? What I have here is more efficient than his weapon ever could be--even if he was expert in throwing his knife, which I don't believe he is."

  "You're going to paint your body and don a headdress like an African heathen and throw sticks at the man," Sully stated dismally.

  Carla stood. "You're not trying to understand. You haven't studied warfare the way I have. And besides these things, I have one more weapon that's more powerful than a knife. It's heavier, so it isn't something I can haul around so easily, but it's my favorite."

  "What, a cannon? A catapult?"

  Carla trooped off to the bedroom and came back with something in her arms. When she reached the center of the den and stopped, Sully watched with trepidation. She hoisted the contraption she carried to shoulder range, carefully aimed in his direction and before he could speak something flew past his left arm and thunked into the far kitchen wall. He turned to see what missile had nearly struck him. A short, stern-looking arrow quivered from buried tip to end flights. Sully shuddered.

  Carla came into the kitchen, the crossbow hanging from her hand. "Little demonstration," she said. "This takes time to draw and load, but I can hit a mark within fifty feet."

  "You weren't aiming that thing at me, then." He inspected the thin, plastic flights on the arrow buried in the wall.

  "If I'd aimed at you, you'd be dead now." She added the bow to the motley collection on the tabletop. "So what do you think? Still feel unprotected?"

  Sully gripped the arrow and jerked it free of plaster. A puff of white particles fell onto the floor at his feet. He examined the metal point before handing the arrow to Carla. "I feel better, but not as secure as I would if we had police protection. And maybe body armor, a tactical team on call, Mace, and a howitzer could come in handy."

  "You want to go on vacation till this is over?"

  "I've already told you I'm not leaving you alone here."

  "But you still think we should haul out the heavy artillery is that it?"

  "I'm disappointed you didn't have the Civil War cannon in your arsenal. Or a cranium squeezer."

  Carla laughed and gathered her things from the table. "Cranium squeezer!" She laughed all the way into her bedroom. The fear she had felt before when unarmed and unprepared in the forest was rapidly shrinking. If it was Lansing she sensed in the woods, it was important--vital--she know it. He had not followed her, of that, she was sure. And now she was gradually bringing Sully around to her way of thinking, a feat of masterful manipulation. Tonight she would confide in him her training in Israel. Two of her four years abroad were spent learning to be a soldier. She loved the last two years most when on the communal farm working with her hands and her back, talking with the other women at night, feeling a part of something larger than herself. Nevertheless it was the military training she must depend upon to save her life. And Sully's. As oddball and out of place her chosen weapons looked in the modern world, they were especially suited for the campaign of terror she had in mind.

  She arranged them all on deep shelves along one wall of her bedroom that used to hold books and toys when she was a girl. Even in the dead of night she could get to them instantaneously. She took the sling and a handful of ball bearings back with her to the kitchen. She had more convincing to do on her Doubting Thomas of a brother-in-law before the day was finished. They must both be ready for the dark.

  Her unpredictable foe might appear before the morrow dawned. He would not find them unprepared.

  CHAPTER 6

  "Those who fight without method do not understand the nature of guerrilla action. A plan is necessary regardless of the size of the unit involved."

  Mao Tse-tung

  Carla slept fitfully. Twice she rolled to the bed's edge and woke a second before plummeting to the floor. Each time she woke she listened to the sleeping house, judging whether it had been infiltrated or not. This manner of rest often wore down her friends during training, but it did no more than sharpen Carla's responses and thinking processes. She could wake a hundred times a night and still feel well rested come daybreak.

  She was up before Sully and preparing breakfast when he straggled into the kitchen in his wrinkled pajamas and sleep-swollen face. He wiped sleep from his eyes, sniffed the aromatic air experimentally. "Sausage. Coffee. Best way to wake up in the world. I want three eggs... No, make it four."

  "You're not hungry you're famished." She flipped a sausage patty with the fork and grease splattered so that she leaped away. "This heavy eating is going to be the death of you."

  "Why are you cooking it, then?" He poured coffee into a mug and stood breathing in the steam.

  '"Traditional morning fare. Isn't that what you've always wanted? I guess I'm not gonna change you this late in your life."

  "I'm not in my sunset years, Carla. Besides, what's wrong with tradition?"

  "Nothing wrong with it unless there are better ways."

  She kept the rest of her thoughts to herself. It was too early to overwhelm Sully with philosophical theory.

  "You ever wonder how something becomes a tradition?"

  He sat at the table to drink his coffee and wait for a platter of food.

  "Ignorance. Laziness. Lack of imagination."

  "You're an incorrigible girl, Carla, and maybe a little bit of a cynic. What did they teach you over there, anyway? How to sneer at your country's code of ethics and patterns of living?"

  "That's what I wanted to talk to you about today, Sully, what I was taught while I was
gone. Later. After we eat."

  She set Sully's heaped plate in front of him with a hint of disgust on her face.

  "You eating?"

  "Bran flakes and bananas. Good for regularity."

  "Jesus, Carla, let me eat first before you get into another loathsome subject." He stabbed the fried eggs with his fork and dipped a corner of toast into the yellow yoke. "You just don't know what you're missing."

  Carla raised one hand and ticked off on her fingers, "Heart disease, cancer, thyroid troubles, diabetes..."

  Sully slapped her hand down and dug into his lumberjack breakfast without again raising his head to look her way.

  Over coffee while the dishes soaked in the sink, Carla launched into some of the survival methods and warfare tactics she had been taught in the Israeli army. When she stumbled to an awkward stop two hours later, Sully rubbed the middle of his lower back as he stood from the table.

  "Okay, I'm impressed."

  She waited, gestured for him to go on.

  "I guess I can agree, at least on principle, to most everything you've picked up in your soldiering."

  "And...?" she prompted.

  "And I still say we need locks, we need guns, we need the law, we need a goddamned miracle to turn aside what I'm afraid is coming from out of those trees out there." He pointed beyond the screen door to the sunny edge of the woods.

  Carla hung her head. She laced and unlaced her fingers.

  "Carla, don't you understand? You could have an entire regiment of your wonderful friends living here with us armed to the teeth and things could still go wrong. They could go wrong for us, Carla."