by Keith Yocum
“You know what would be really fun right now?” Dennis said. “It would be a great way to get him back. Are you up for a little mischief?”
“What?” Her eyes twinkled.
“Well, the room next to us is not occupied, right?”
“I guess not,” she said.
“Well, it would be really hilarious if I could get in there. There’s a locked door separating the two, and I could sneak up on my brother and surprise him instead. Maybe the maid could knock on the room we’re staying in while I slip through the connecting door. When my brother turns around after answering the front door, well, I’ll already be in the room. It’ll surprise the hell out of him.”
“Good lord.” She giggled. “You Yanks are so bloody devious!”
“Can you talk to the manager to get the key for me? It would be so much fun.”
“He’s not here right now, but I can get the keys. You wait here.”
Dennis’s stomach was in turmoil as the cold beer swirled and foamed. He felt a nauseous wave of guilt wash over him as he thought of Judy. What had they done to her? Why in God’s name did I allow her to come? he wondered.
Waiting for the bartender to return, he patted the small of his back for reassurance. The silencer was still attached, and he would probably need it.
With each passing second, rage built in him. The thought of Judy being harmed made him flash with anger. He put the thought out of his mind. He had never killed a person, but he was suddenly more than willing.
By the time the bartender came back with the maid, Dennis was so angry he had trouble speaking.
Wearing a dull smile, he explained the gag to the young woman. She was to call out “Room Service,” and persist until his brother came to the door. After he answered the door, she was to leave promptly and not worry about the yelling as Dennis surprised him from within his own room. Dennis said he would bring down the master key right afterward.
He took two twenty-dollar bills from his wallet and handed them to her.
As they approached the two rooms, Dennis tiptoed, and she followed his lead. Using the master key, Dennis let himself into the adjoining room as quietly as he could, and motioned with his head for the maid to start knocking.
He slid the key into the door lock between the rooms as she knocked on the other door.
Dennis waited and heard nothing from the other room. She continued to knock and call out “Room Service!”
He wondered whether anyone was in his room and began to sag a little before he heard a man’s voice say, “Go away. We don’t need anything.” The man sounded as if he were sitting on the bed, which was to Dennis’s left in the opposite room. If the maid did what she was supposed to do, she would keep knocking until he answered the door. That would require the man to stand up and walk down the small hallway in front of Dennis, answering the door to his right.
But the maid would have to get the man to answer the door or the plan would not work.
She knocked louder. “Room Service, do you need fresh towels?”
“No,” the man yelled. “No towels. Just go away.”
She hesitated a little at his gruff tone, and Dennis prayed she wouldn’t stop.
Finally she knocked a third time and said timorously, “Room Service?”
This time the man stood up off the bed, and Dennis could feel him walk heavily to the door. As the man opened the hall door, Dennis turned the key and pulled the adjoining door open, holding the pistol in his right hand.
“Please, no towels,” the man said.
“Sorry, sir,” she said.
Dennis swooned as he glanced at the bed; Judy lay motionless on her back. She was fully clothed with her ankles and wrists bound by plastic ties. Her mouth was covered with gray duct tape; her eyes were closed.
The man shut the door and turned to see Dennis pointing the gun at him. Dennis noticed a pistol tucked into the man’s belt at the front.
“Drop the gun,” Dennis said. “Use your thumb and forefinger of your left hand to pull it out. Then drop it.”
The man stood looking at Dennis, his gray eyes intensely focused first on the pistol and then at Dennis’s eyes. He was no match for this agent, but Dennis knew that if he acted quickly and decisively to keep the agent off-kilter, he might just win this confrontation. He prayed the agent would not try to resist, because Dennis was certain he could kill this man.
To Dennis’s relief, the man dropped his weapon as directed.
“Kick it over here,” Dennis said.
“Kick it yourself,” the man said.
“Fine,” Dennis said, aiming the pistol at the man’s thigh. “This is going to sting a little.”
“Asshole,” the man said and kicked the pistol half the distance between them. Dennis knew that if he bent down, he could easily be reached by the agent’s foot.
“My friends at the Bureau say that if you want to stop someone with a bullet but not kill them, you put a round in their shin. Do you know why? Because the thigh is too close to the femoral artery, which could easily kill a man. The shin, though, is all bone and it hurts like hell when it splinters.”
For the first time since their brief encounter, the man’s eyes twitched.
“You are so far off the reservation, my friend,” he said. “They said you were crazy, and I can see what they mean.”
“You want to see crazy?” Dennis said, pointing the pistol at the man’s groin.
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Then tell me what you did to her.”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t fuck around! What did you do to her? Kill her?”
“No, we can’t do that. You, on the other hand, we’ve been authorized to do whatever it takes to stop you.”
“Then what did you do to her?”
“I said, nothing.”
Dennis lowered the pistol barrel and pulled the trigger. The small silencer did its job surprisingly well, filling the small hallway with a flash, pop, and the smell of chemicals.
The man fell back on the seat of his pants, clutching his right shin below the knee.
“You fucker!” he yelled. “You crazy fucker.”
Dennis quickly bent down and grabbed the agent’s pistol off the ground and stuffed it down the front of his pants.
“I’ll try this just once more,” Dennis said, trembling with rage. “What did you do to her?”
“Drugged,” the man said, rocking back and forth. “She’s OK. She’ll wake in a while.”
“Where are your ties?”
“My back pocket.”
“Get one out.”
“You fucking get it out.”
Dennis took a step forward and pointed the pistol at the center of the man’s forehead.
“Fuck you,” the agent said, reaching to his back pocket with a blood-splattered hand. He held one up.
“Put it on your wrists and pull it tight with your teeth.”
The man did it slowly, glaring at Dennis all the way.
“Turn over and lie on your stomach.”
He lay face down, and Dennis reached into the man’s back pocket and pulled out another plastic binding. With a foot pressing into the small of the agent’s back, Dennis bound his ankles, and then reached into the bathroom and pulled out a hand towel.
“Turn over and sit up,” he said.
The man turned and grabbed his shin with his bound hands. His pants were soaked in bright-red blood.
Dennis threw him the towel. “Here, stop the bleeding,” he said. “I can’t stand the sight of blood. And crawl into the closet there.”
“I’m not going in that closet.”
Dennis stepped forward again and aimed at his forehead.
“Jesus, take it easy, you crazy fuck,” the agent said. He scooted the several feet to the small closet and squeezed into it sideways, his knees nearly up to his chin.
“I’m going to close the door, and then I’m going to jam that chair over there underneath the knob. I’m going to t
ry to wake her up, and if you’re telling the truth, I’ll leave you here to get out after we’re gone. If you’re lying, then I’m going to come back and empty this clip through the door.”
Dennis shut the door, grabbed the chair and lodged it at an angle under the doorknob.
He sat on the bed next to Judy and for a moment was afraid to touch her. He pulled the tape off her mouth, and she reflexively opened it slightly to breathe.
“Judy,” he said, shaking her head gently. “Wake up.”
Standing up, he switched on the TV and turned up the volume, then went back into the bathroom and soaked a hand towel in cold water.
Sitting next to her again, he patted her flushed cheeks and gently kissed her lips. “Judy, come on. Wake up. Come on.”
After several minutes of jostling and whispering into her ear, Judy opened her eyes.
“Dennis,” she said hoarsely. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the hotel room, but we have to get out of here. I need you to wake up. Can you do that?”
After five minutes she was able to sit up. Dennis cut her plastic binds off. As she began to explain what happened, he shushed her, pointing to the closet. He turned up the TV even louder so that their conversation could not be heard.
Dennis had found a black nylon backpack next to the bed. Inside was a small two-way radio, just like the ones he had confiscated from the ATV riders, several more plastic ties, a liter bottle of water, and a plastic medical syringe gun.
“We need to get out of here as fast as we can. I don’t want him hearing what we’re talking about. Can you walk?”
She nodded and tried to stand up but fell back on the bed.
“I feel so strange,” she said.
Dennis packed their clothes as fast as he could and put the two roll-on suitcases at the front door. He canvassed the room one final time and had Judy walk around the room to get her muscles moving.
He pulled a chair over in front of the closet, gave Judy his pistol, and whispered in her ear over the blaring TV.
“If he tries to get out, shoot him. He will kill you if you don’t shoot him. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
Dennis jogged to the car, pulling the roll-ons behind him. He felt more secure in the darkness and moved the Cruiser to a block behind the hotel.
Judy was still slumped awkwardly in the chair when he arrived.
“I think I fell asleep,” she said weakly.
“No problem,” he said.
Dennis picked up the agent’s backpack and took out the radio. He pried open the back and took out the nine-volt battery, dropping it into his front pocket. He held the syringe gun up to the light and saw it had a rotating cylinder he presumed equated to the number of injections. He rotated it forward one notch for the next shot, clicked off the safety button, and walked over to the closet. Removing the chair, he pulled the door open and stood back.
The agent sat on the floor in nearly the same position he had left him.
“I’m going to bleed to death if you don’t get me some help,” the agent said.
“Don’t be stupid; it’s a minor wound. You’ll be fine. But I do have something for you,” Dennis said, stepping forward and shooting the man in his thigh with the syringe. The ‘pop’ startled the agent, and he jerked awkwardly.
“You asshole,” he yelled.
“Sleep tight,” Dennis said, closing the door. He jammed the chair underneath the door.
Above the sound of the TV, he said loudly, “Now you stay in this chair, and if that bastard tries to get out, just empty the clip into the door.”
Judy looked at him, confused and still glassy-eyed.
He motioned for her to follow him out of the room, and they quietly closed the door.
Within ten minutes they were racing to the airport outside of Newton, the cool desert air rushing through the open windows mixed with the hot air from the heater as Judy held Dennis’s hand.
Chapter 38
He canvassed the small airport lounge and saw only three surly, leather-faced men hunched in the corner. They looked like mining employees on their way to the big city. A SkyWest flight to Perth was scheduled in two hours. He went out and gathered up Judy.
“I don’t want to go,” she said.
“Sorry. It’s not an option. You need to exchange your missed flight for this next one to Perth and show up at work tomorrow. These guys won’t touch you. You’re an employee of Australia’s Federal Police service, and they’re running a black program that your government most likely knows nothing about. Or if they do know about it, they don’t want to bring it to anyone’s attention.”
“But what are you going to do?” she said.
“I’m going to Port Hedland to see if I can find a container that was shipped from the mine a couple of days ago. Or at least I hope it’s still there.”
“Dennis, don’t you think they’ll be looking for you?”
“Not sure. My hope is they’ll think they’ve scared me enough and that I’ll just stop.”
“So why don’t you come back to Perth with me? That would be the safe thing to do.”
“There’s just one more thing to do,” he said.
“If you go on to Port Hedland, I don’t know if I’m ever going to see you again,” she said, her eyes welling up. “What is wrong with you, Dennis? I just don’t understand why this is so important.”
Dennis held her hand and looked out the open window into the blackness of the desert. Except for two street lamps in the parking lot and navigational lights on the small airport tower, the sky was lit with a million stars shining through the smog-free atmosphere.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that this guy Garder and I are the same person. Well, not identical, of course, but the same kind of person. The harder they fight to keep us out, the more driven I am to find what they’re hiding. Whatever they’re doing, I just know it’s really bad. I’m not pretending for a second that any of this is logical, but there you have it.”
He looked at Judy in the darkened car, the side of her face lit by the parking lot light.
“That sounds hopelessly childish,” she said. “What is it about men that they justify the silliest things by resorting to concepts like honor and truth? The world doesn’t operate like that, and you know it, Dennis.” She closed her eyes again, and Dennis wondered if she was going to fall asleep.
“I’m telling you, this guy Garder wasn’t crazy, Judy.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Dennis,” she said quietly, her eyes still closed.
“Judy, you and I are going to be fine. Nothing bad is going to happen to us. You’ll see.”
“Right,” she said, her eyes blinking slowly several times. “There’s just too much going on around me. I don’t even know what I’m doing sitting at an airport in Newton trying to escape some bloody mad Yanks. I’m being assaulted by men everywhere.”
“Hey, listen to me,” he said, gripping her wrists. “It’s the drug that’s breaking you down. Go home and start back to work just like nothing happened. I told you they won’t dare mess with you, but they might tap your phone and hack your email. Don’t talk about me to anyone, either on the phone or in an email. I’ll contact you; don’t worry about that. Now go inside and buy a ticket.”
Judy did as she was told, sniffling and wiping at her smeared mascara as she got out of the car. Afterward they waited silently for the plane in the dark car, holding hands like teenagers.
Before the plane landed, he canvassed the airport one final time.
“See you soon,” he said, kissing her hard on the lips. “Get some rest.”
She put her arms around his neck, holding him tightly for nearly half a minute. Then she let go and walked away, dragging her roll-on suitcase behind her in a weak zigzag pattern.
***
Dennis watched the plane take off from the LandCruiser. The lights of the SkyWest jet disappeared into the desert air, and he finally relaxed. He was incredib
ly tired and his throat hurt, but at least Judy was no longer in harm’s way.
Dennis had perfected a method of compartmentalizing his life’s experiences and he anticipated—yearned for—the chance to put this day behind him.
One compartment included being chased across the desert by men in four-wheelers. One compartment included a man nearly strangling him to death. Those compartments were now closed and he would not open them again unless forced to.
Another compartment included shooting a man in the shin and putting Judy on a plane to Perth. That compartment was mostly closed, but he still experienced anxiety when he remembered looking at her bound on the bed in the hotel room. At that moment he feared she was dead. He had trouble putting a lid on that compartment. He missed her already.
Yawning loudly, Dennis started up the LandCruiser and pulled slowly out of the airport parking lot, looking for other problematic vehicles. He saw nothing and prayed the wounded agent was still drugged in the closet.
It was a five-hour drive to Port Hedland and would call for driving through the night on the two-lane highway. The airport was south of Newton, so Dennis drove carefully back through the town, avoiding the downtown stretch by cutting through the grid of neighborhood streets.
Outside of Newton though, the bleakness of the desert emerged and Dennis kept his foot on the accelerator, trying to get far away from the trouble in Newton. He played with the heater so that it wouldn’t overheat the car’s interior and soon found that by turning the fan to low and keeping his speed to about sixty miles per hour, the engine warning light would disappear.
The first hour went smoothly; he saw only an occasional vehicle coming in the opposite direction. A large truck once flew up from behind and raced past him, showering the Cruiser with grit and dust. By midnight he was halfway to his destination but was fighting exhaustion. He strayed onto the dusty roadside at one point, sending a shower of rocks and sand into the undercarriage of the car.
He sometimes forgot which side of the road he should drive on and wandered over the center line. With scant traffic, he was not worried.
At one a.m. he saw something large appear on the highway directly in front of him. Reflexively, he hit the brakes, but the object, which did not move, was on him in a flash.