Helpless

by Daniel Palmer

  “Why do we have to separate?”

  “You’ll slow me down if we stick together. It’s me they’re after, not you. But you’re not safe on your own, either. I’m not going to leave you alone for long. I promise.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now I’m going to tell you exactly what to do. I’m going to give you very specific instructions. You’re going to follow my instructions exactly as I give them to you. Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “Don’t think, Jill. Be decisive. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Jill said.

  “Okay, we’ll need to do some things first.”

  “What things?”

  “Go upstairs. Hurry. Grab all the hair gel you have. There’s hydrogen peroxide under the sink in the upstairs bathroom. Grab that too. Then get the rubbing alcohol from the first aid kit. Bring it all back downstairs to me, along with every Ziploc bag we have.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Jill.

  “While you’re doing that,” Tom said, “I’m going to build the detonator.”

  Chapter 75

  Tom watched Jill drag the forty-gallon plastic trash barrel to the curb. She completed her mission with calm efficiency. Tomorrow was trash day. Oak Street was dotted with lots of green plastic barrels set out in front of lots of curbs. Their barrel looked full of trash. But the bags within it were stuffed full of newspaper. They looked puffy and full. Tom made certain nothing heavy was lodged inside those bags. Nothing that could become a projectile when he triggered the device.

  Jill returned unhurriedly to the house. For the next several minutes she would be out of Tom’s sight. But he wasn’t worried. Jill knew what needed to be done. Tom looked out the window again. The street was still quiet.

  Was the storm even coming?

  Better to be prepared than to be a sitting target, he thought.

  Tom called Rainy and told her that he’d call her back later. Something had come up, he said. It was a brief exchange, but it had to be done. Nobody else would be calling him. That was important, too. His phone was now part of the trigger mechanism.

  Jill reappeared in the driveway. She was wheeling her red Schwinn World S bike alongside her. She leaned the bike up against the stone wall that abutted the driveway and disappeared from his view again. That was her signal to Tom that everything was in place.

  Tom snatched the cordless phone from the kitchen. Next, he grabbed Jill’s nylon backpack, which he’d stuffed with needed supplies. He descended the basement stairs, slipped out the back door, and worked his way around to the side of the house. Jill was waiting for him there.

  The mountain bike was there, leaning up against the house. Jill had retrieved it from the shed after she grabbed her Schwinn.

  Tom looked the bike over. It appeared to be in decent condition. The bike had belonged to Kelly’s boyfriend, Alfonso. The same Alfonso who had used Kelly’s house as a storage locker and got arrested for DWI.

  The mountain bike had more gears than most riders had the skill to use. Hydroformed aluminum frame. Cold-forged dropouts. The front shock was an open bath damper type, which was fine by him so long as the oil levels in each leg were adequate to lube the other sliding parts. The tires were Bontrager, and the wheels Shimano. Quality parts as well. He inspected the shifters and derailleur. Those were fine, too.

  Jill came over and stood beside her father.

  “You’re going to stay on the move for fifteen minutes.” Tom said it as an instruction, but Jill understood that it was also a question.

  “Yes.”

  “You know where we’re going to meet.”

  “I do.”

  “You’ll do exactly what I told you to do.”

  Jill nodded. “I will.”

  Tom raised his head like a bloodhound catching a fresh scent. “Okay, then. Ride.”

  “What if nothing happens? What if they don’t come?” she asked.

  “Then we’ll go get ourselves a bite to eat,” Tom said.

  Jill nodded. She got on her bike and coasted down to the end of the driveway. Tom inched himself to the edge of the house. He needed to have a clear view of the street. Jill turned left and began to pedal away from the house. The street was quiet. No cars. No noise.

  It didn’t stay quiet for long. Tom heard the police car sirens well before he saw the flashing strobe lights. Five police cars turned onto Oak Street. Three state police cruisers were in the mix as well. All the police cars had their lights flashing and sirens blaring.

  And they were headed straight for Jill.

  “Hurry, baby. Pedal faster.”

  Tom noticed Jill pick up her pace and pedal faster. Her legs were pumping. He had wanted her to be a good hundred yards away from the house before he made the call. The police cars didn’t slow as they passed Jill. They kept right on driving.

  “Keep going. That’s it, Jilly-bean,” Tom whispered to himself.

  Next, Tom checked in both directions on Oak Street for any pedestrians or coming motorists. All was clear. Jill was at a safe distance. The line of approaching police cars was some fifty yards from the house.

  Tom knew he was about to commit a crime. Several of them, in fact. But the situation had left him no alternative. If the police arrested him, he’d be charged and convicted for Lindsey’s murder. He’d spend the rest of his life in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Jill would be vulnerable. Perhaps the next victim of Lindsey’s killer.

  Tom’s other option was to evade capture. Take Jill to a safe house. His military contacts and network could keep close watch over her. And while she was secure, he’d be free to track down Lindsey’s real killer and bring him to justice. Tom had no intention of running forever. Once Jill was safe and Lindsey’s killer behind bars, he’d gladly pay for the crimes he committed. All of them. Including his role in the drugs he’d smuggled out of Germany.

  Using the portable house phone, Tom dialed his cell phone number. His cell phone was buried at the bottom of the trash barrel, but the call went through with no problem. Electricity passed through the wires of his cell phone’s ringer mechanism, which Tom had rigged earlier to the flash trigger of a disposable camera. The electric circuit of the camera’s flash detonated the bomb.

  A jet of fire erupted two hundred feet into the air, streaking skyward in a thick column of flames approximately the diameter of the trash barrel. The explosion rattled windows in some houses. Shattered them in others. Car alarms made an orchestral shriek that rose above the siren noise. A powerful shock wave lifted the wheels of the approaching police cars off the ground, before gravity resettled them with an unforgiving crunch.

  The police cars swerved off the road. Their wheels skidded against the pavement as they gripped for traction. They came to a stop in odd angles on sidewalks and lawns. The street was completely clear of traffic. But Tom wasn’t headed for the street. He was headed for the woods.

  Distract and evade.

  It was time for him to leave.

  Chapter 76

  Tom shouldered the mountain bike down the steep ravine behind the house, then up the other side. He rode across Pine Street and vanished into the dense, root-covered forest that lay just beyond. He knew without instruments that he was riding his target cadence of eighty-five rpm’s. His right hand effortlessly worked the lever controlling the rear gears, while his left operated the front mechanism, shifting the chain from one chainwheel to another depending on the terrain or obstacle in his path.

  The SEALs could evade with whatever was at their disposal. Tom could fly a plane, steal a car, ride a motorcycle, or sail a boat if it meant avoiding capture. A long-standing joke in the navy was that the SEALs were the only outfit capable of escape by unicycle. Tom did with the mountain bike precisely what the navy had prepared him to do. He grabbed the best available option and pedaled as though he’d been preparing for this race all his life.

  The conservation land behind Pine Street was especially hilly, so Tom kept the chain
mostly to the inner chainwheels. He remembered to ease off the pedal pressure some just before shifting gears. He sped up, didn’t brake, while going over obstacles. On the downhill, he leaned back to apply more grip to the rear tire. Uphill he leaned forward to accomplish the same on the front. The biggest problem was the clipless pedals, for which he didn’t have the proper cleats. His feet slipped, but not often.

  Tom kept clear of the paths, which meant more obstacles to overcome. The unbalanced weight of Jill’s nylon backpack somewhat hampered his ability to maneuver the bike. Still, he managed to bunny hop a fallen moss-covered maple tree without having to dead stop. On a couple of steep run-ups, Tom had to dismount and shoulder the bike to the top. He used the densest parts of the woods to his advantage, turning the tall, leafy trees into a natural canopy that concealed his location from air surveillance.

  Tom was glad he kept up a disciplined exercise schedule. Even with the injuries he had sustained in the car accident, his breathing was unlabored as he pedaled through a river swollen from a recent rain. Trained athletes would have been sucking air at his pace. Weekend warriors would have been hyperventilating, probably injured by now. He saw obstacles—roots and rocks—that normal riders would have missed. His heartbeat stayed steady.

  As he rode, he visualized the response to his escape. The Shilo police weren’t a significant concern, even though they would call in reinforcements from the state police. They’d organize a containment strategy of sorts. Patrol cars and motorcycles at the major access roads bordering the section of woodland directly behind his house. They’d figure on covering about a ten-mile radius. But Tom was riding fast enough that they’d need to double that acreage to have any hope of spotting him.

  But SWAT was a legitimate concern.

  Some of those guys had his level of training. They could mobilize fast, too. It was what they were organized to do. The state police would call for SWAT. They’d come at him from the air. But they’d also come by land.

  Tom had a map of Shilo in his backpack, but he didn’t need to refer to it. He knew exactly where he was riding. If he could slip by SWAT, he was gone. Nobody would find him then. Not unless he wanted them to.

  Of all the concerns clouding his thoughts, his biggest worry was Jill. Would she be all right? Would she do exactly as he had instructed? He recalled how she had screamed into the dark woods, daring the vandals who desecrated her house to show their cowardly faces. He saw a fight in his daughter she’d shown only on the soccer field. It was reassuring. It gave him confidence that she’d be fine. Soon, they’d be together.

  The terrain flattened out for several hundred yards but then began a steady incline. Tom rode in a zigzag pattern, with his body over the rear wheel to establish a greater center of gravity. His outside foot leaned forward into each turn, granting him added mobility so that he could swivel at a much greater angle. He moved toward each turn, looking nine feet ahead in anticipation of the next.

  The forest here was composed mostly of hemlock, white pine, beech, and oak trees. The composition of the terrain seemed to vary every few feet. In parts the soil was rocky, but it soon became a coarse washed till and just as quickly turned sandy and fine. The riding was challenging, but not impossible. He knew where he could lose any pursuer, and didn’t have that far to go.

  Tom was beginning to think the chase would be easier than he’d anticipated. Then he heard the sound of a helicopter’s rotors slicing the air.

  SWAT had arrived.

  Tom craned his neck skyward. The land in front of him dipped. He nearly lost his balance trying to pinpoint the chopper’s exact position. There was a quick break in the tree cover. The helicopter was almost directly overhead. The forest thickened again, but the damage was already done. The helicopter pilots had seen him. Same as he’d seen them.

  For ten minutes the helicopter kept pace with Tom. He knew what was coming next. He heard the sound in his mind before he heard it in his ears. The whining engines of ATVs barked out their warning from the dark wood behind him. As he expected, SWAT had mobilized a task force to hunt him down. The helicopter worked as a spotter. Now it was up to the ATV riders to bring him in.

  Good luck, Tom thought.

  The ATVs sounded at most five hundred yards to his back. He knew not to be confident in that assessment. The forest made pinpointing location by sound a misleading endeavor.

  He accelerated to ninety-five rpm’s. His destination was nearing. It would be a race to see who got there first. Diffused light from the late-day sky flattened out the shadows and blended dangerous obstacles in with the harmless terrain. Tom’s night vision acuity couldn’t reveal everything, and when Tom hit the rock, a small boulder buried beneath a lump of decaying forest rot, his only option was to take the fall.

  The wheel of his bike connected with the rock’s jagged side at full speed and sent Tom lurching forward. He catapulted over the handlebars like a projectile launched from a slingshot. With a grunt, Tom landed on the hard-packed ground, feeling the impact like a thunderclap rolling about his head.

  He staggered to his feet and retrieved the crumpled bike, which had landed some twenty feet from where he rose. The bike’s front wheel was bent slightly; a few spokes had become dislodged on impact. He checked it quickly; it could still be ridden. The noise of ATV engines grew louder with every passing second. They buzzed, seemingly from all directions.

  As Tom remounted his bike, headlights appeared at the top of the hilly rise several hundred feet behind him. The headlights, like a swarm of gnats with glowing eyes, six sets in total, lit Tom’s face and cast threatening beams that danced over the rocks and trees of the darkening wood.

  Tom began to pedal again. It wasn’t far now. He’d studied the maps before he’d left the house. He knew how the terrain changed beyond the creek. Where the land rose again stood a forest of densely packed, smaller trees. Skiers in the Northeast might refer to the tree line up ahead as glades. But Tom had a different name for it.

  Escape.

  A voice from a megaphone overhead cut through the noise of the ATV engines and whirling rotors.

  “This is the police. We’ve got you surrounded. Dismount your bicycle. We have orders to shoot. Dismount and get down on the ground.”

  Tom pushed harder against the pedals. He was sweating. The muscles in his calves and thighs burned as fibers broke down and lactic acid built up.

  “Last warning. Dismount now,” boomed the voice from above.

  Tom risked a glance behind him and saw that five of the ATVs were still in pursuit. He estimated the distance at fifty yards back, but closing in quick. The sixth rider had stopped to ready a weapon.

  Fifty yards to the glades.... now forty ...

  The crack of a rifle shot exploded in the distance. The bullet slapped into a tree not far to Tom’s right. It splintered the wood with an alarming snap. Another shot, this one passing close enough for Tom to hear the bullet whiz by.

  Twenty yards to go ...

  The riders were close enough now for Tom to feel the heat of their headlamps. All forest sounds gave way to the noise of their engines revving in pursuit.

  Ten ...

  Another shot rang out. The bullet was way off target. Even so, the lead ATV had managed to pull alongside Tom. The ATV rider slowed to keep pace. He wore a black helmet and had on leather protective gear.

  Good for him. He’ll need both, Tom thought.

  The rider released one hand from the ATV handlebars and motioned wildly for Tom to stop.

  Tom released his hand from the handlebar. He used that free hand to point to something up ahead.

  The rider turned to look to where Tom pointed. Tom could see the rider try to brake. But he braked too late. The spacing between the trees was twenty inches, twenty-five at most. Tom needed only eighteen to clear the obstacle. The ATV required more than seventy. The impact when the ATV threaded two trees was ferocious.

  Traveling at over thirty miles per hour, the front of the ATV collided against t
wo trees with only a tap of the brakes to decelerate. Metal crunched against wood, and the ATV’s engine made a desperate whirring sound, as though taking its final breath. The vehicle flipped over onto its front, but the trees held it in an inverted position, which kept it from toppling over. The rider flew into the air, arms outstretched, and landed, miraculously, between two other trees. The force of his fall buried his head beneath a dense pack of ground cover. The other ATVs stopped inches before hitting the glades.

  Tom’s bike, however, wove in and out of the trees, tracing a zigzag path between the obstacles like a seamstress’s stitch. The forest canopy thickened again.

  Above, Tom heard the helicopter circling, but he could no longer see it overhead.

  Behind, Tom listened to the angry idling of five waiting ATV engines.

  Ahead, Tom saw only trees. Densely packed and narrow.

  The final passage to his escape.

  Chapter 77

  Tom rode the bike in a wide circle. The police would assume he’d continued on his northerly course. He doubted anybody would suspect that he’d backtracked toward home. But that was the direction he had to ride if he wanted to make it to the Plenty Market—and to Jill.

  The sun had set, and the late summer song of crickets and other woodland critters punctuated the evening’s calm. In this part of town, there was nothing unusual to draw the people’s attention. No all-points-bulletins had been issued to locals, warning them that Tom Hawkins was a fugitive from justice. Sure, news spread fast in Shilo. But Tom was confident it didn’t spread that fast. Whatever was happening on Oak Street was taking place a world away from where he was now. Here, there were only food shoppers.

  Tom entered the market. He wore a baseball cap he’d packed in the backpack and kept his head low. The high-powered air conditioners chilled his skin. He intentionally proceeded down an aisle without any other shoppers. He headed straight to the back of the supermarket without slowing. Once there, he pushed open the swinging double doors that led into the back storeroom.