The Gilgamesh Conspiracy

by Jeffrey Fleming

  ‘Good morning,’ he heard her saying in her assertive manner, ‘I’m booked on the flight to Jackson Hole at eleven twenty-five.’

  ‘Ok ma’am, let me just check,’ replied the counter agent. He heard the sound of a keyboard being tapped.

  ‘Any check-in baggage ma’am?’

  ‘No, I’m just carrying this,’ Gerry replied. Samms heard the brief chatter of a printer.

  ‘Ok here’s your boarding pass. You need to go to gate 36 in an hour or so. Have a good flight.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Samms watched her wander aimlessly for a few moments and then she walked purposefully towards the Coffee Beanery concession. He returned to the ticket desk and booked himself on the 11:25 flight to Jackson. He reluctantly showed his imitation FBI ID to the duty manager but thus ensured that he was not by some calamitous misfortune seated close to, or even alongside, passenger Edith Williams. Samms nodded in satisfaction, and thanked the woman for her help. He walked past the coffee shop and saw Gerry sipping her drink and gazing out into the middle distance. He smiled and then took the elevator to the mezzanine floor and entered the smokers’ bar where he knew she would never go. He ordered a beer and lit a cigar.

  An hour later Samms was undeniably nervous as he lined up for boarding. There were twenty others standing between him and Tate but he felt that at any moment she would swing round and recognise him despite the disguise. The contact lenses were irritating his eyes and he blinked rapidly behind his sunglasses. She suddenly swung round, but instead of looking at him she glared at the man behind her.

  ‘Just hold on would you?’ he heard her call out in a strong clear voice. ‘If you jostle me one more time I’ll deck you!’

  There was an immediate buzz of disapproval from her fellow passengers and Samms was a little concerned that some zealous member of security would come over and suggest that she was too aggressive to be permitted to travel, but now it appeared that the incident was over. At least her journey through two major airports had ensured she was unarmed. His own Glock 17 lay in the bottom of his rucksack, permitted through security on the strength of his bogus FBI identity.

  At check-in, his inspection of the small Canadair airliner’s seating plan had revealed that she was seated towards the rear while he was in the second row. On boarding the aircraft he took his place as quickly and unobtrusively as possible and read his copy of Classic Bike magazine.

  Gerry studied the map of Wyoming and in particular the road from the airport to Jackson and the routes through Grand Teton National Park. Apparently Wyoming was the state with the lowest population density after Alaska, albeit with a large influx of summer visitors to its parks. If Gerry had wanted to hide she would have chosen a densely populated city where strangers would not be noticed, but perhaps Hall’s lack of experience or some personal reason had lead him to this remote spot. She gazed at the seat back in front of her and conjured up a mental image of Dan Hall whispering to her as he placed the gun behind her back. He had given her his phone number and e-mail address on a piece of paper and she remembered pulling the seawater pulped piece of paper from a pocket and dropping it on to the floor of the raft. She hoped that he would be pleased to see her. The Captain’s announcement that they would be landing in fifteen minutes broke into her train of thought. She wondered how liberal were Wyoming’s gun purchasing laws.

  ‘Then there’s this Remington at nine hundred.’

  Gerry picked up the pistol, and checked the action. ‘Ok Hank, is this the cheapest you’ve got?’ she asked. She had not realised that a used hand gun would be so expensive, but then she had been used to having them issued to her free, courtesy of Her Majesty’s Government.

  ‘That one’s nearly brand new ma’am. I’m out of Glocks for now. They come in at around six hundred. You see I mostly do rifles. Oh wait a minute.’ He bent down and opened a drawer. ‘There’s this Beretta 8000 with an eleven round clip. They’re not popular round here. This is second hand, about twelve years old and you can have that for three hundred, maybe three hundred twenty with the rounds.’ Gerry took the proffered pistol and examined it carefully.

  ‘That seems ok. Have you got a range?’

  ‘Yeah, out back.’

  ‘You don’t happen to sell Tasers do you?’

  Hank eyed Gerry carefully. ‘No ma’am, but Marvin does, and you can get that hunting knife you’re after off of him too. Range is this way now.’

  Gerry stowed her newly acquired weapons in handy locations inside the cab of her rented Chevrolet Equinox and entered her destination in the satnav. She was about to set off when she remembered one more thing she should do. She pulled out her phone and sent a text message to Richard Cornwall to say that she was on her way.

  ‘Proceed to the highlighted route,’ a female voice announced for the third time in a slightly petulant voice.

  ‘Yes, alright,’ Gerry muttered. She put the gearbox in drive and headed off towards Moose. After a mile she passed a General Motors Yukon and without interest she noticed the driver sitting by the side of the road talking on a cell phone. If he had not been facing away from her with his pony tail tucked inside his jacket, she might have recognised one of her fellow passengers. Neil Samms watched her drive past and then started his rented vehicle. By dint of careful observation and interviews with two somewhat dodgy retailers in Jackson he knew that she was armed and dangerous. He had also watched her walking to the Mountain Rental Company and climb into the white SUV with plate numbers 17 and 4368 either side of the bucking horse emblem. He waited until five other cars had gone by and she was out of sight before he pulled off the roadside into the traffic and set off after her.

  Dan Hall stood in line for the checkout at the general store in Moose muttering to himself that it was about time they opened another till. Since he had arrived at the nearby campsite a week ago he had noticed an increase in the number of vehicles parked outside the town’s stores. Perhaps it was time to move on again, but to where? As summer progressed every site would be getting crowded and there would soon come a time when they would be filling up with campers who had made advanced bookings, which he had no intention of doing. He had driven further and further north but if he drove much further he would be up to the Canadian border and he was not sure if he could safely get through border controls.

  ‘Good morning and how are you today?’ asked the young woman on the till.

  ‘Fine thank you,’ he replied, whilst thinking it was a bad sign that he was now a recognised customer. As he packed his groceries away he wondered if he should make plans to move on before the weekend when the sites would become even more crowded. ‘That’s thirty-two dollars and three cents, please.’

  ‘Er, thanks; here’s thirty five.’

  ‘Ok, here’s three dollars change and we’ll forget those cents. Have a nice day.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Dan replied. He took hold of his carrier bags and walked through the exit. As he gazed up the street while waiting to cross the road he saw a woman stepping out of a white SUV, yawning and stretching. He nearly dropped his bags. Gathering his wits he walked with his back towards her to the gap between the general store and the next door hardware store. He put down his bags and peered carefully round the corner in time to see Gerry Tate walking inside the diner outside which she had parked. How in hell had she survived? Even more extraordinary how had she managed to find him? She couldn’t possibly have done it on her own. He resisted the urge to rush over to her. First of all he had to make sure that she was alone. He tried to walk as quickly and as casually as he could to his small Toyota pick-up. He drove the vehicle slowly past the diner and peered in. She was sitting gazing at a map. He so much wanted to go straight inside and speak to her, ask her how she had escaped from the missing aircraft, what had happened to her in the days since he had last seen her. But now whose side was she on? Had she bargained for her freedom and safety in exchange for a commitment to track him down? As soon as he was out of the city limits, he accelerated a
s fast as the battered old vehicle could manage to get back to his stolen RV.

  After he had turned off the road on to the track that led to his camp site he veered off and parked the Toyota amongst the trees. He walked between them until he came within sight of the Winnebago. He gazed around, all his senses on maximum alert for any unexpected presence, half expecting a snatch team to emerge from the woods and take him down. He had to get out of there now. But which vehicle? He could head for the border in the four wheel drive pick up along the dirt tracks he had already mapped out in his head. But all his survival kit was in the RV.

  ‘Hey fella,’ someone called out in a California drawl. ‘I don’t know if you already checked it, but I reckon your back tyre there’s pretty well flat.’

  Dan glanced briefly at the elderly hippy type sitting beside his Harley Davidson motor bike with a cigar clamped between his teeth and then examined the right rear wheel. ‘Shit, you’re right, thanks. Fuck it!’ He bent down further and saw the spare wheel stored in a cage under the vehicle.

  He wondered if the guy with the Harley might give him a hand, but when he looked towards him the man had disappeared. He retrieved the lug wrench from its stowage and tried to loosen the first nut. Goddam it, they were on tight! He thought again about driving the Toyota instead when suddenly the nut gave and he started on the next one. He did not see the white Chevrolet Equinox driving slowly between the other parked up RVs and stop fifty yards away neither did he notice the driver walk quietly up and gaze at his straining back.

  ‘Do you need a hand there?’ a female voice called out in a clearly enunciated English accent. Dan whirled round with consternation and a happy smile fighting for control of his expression. There was Gerry standing there alone with one hand on her hip and the other clutching a set of car keys. He could not hear the sound of voices calling out orders; the clicking of weapons being armed and there was no sign of a SWAT team encircling his position. Just Gerry, standing straight and tall with a half-smile playing on her lovely sun-tanned face.

  ‘It’s good to see you Gerry,’ he said, dropping his guard but then looking warily around. ‘But how the hell did you find me?’ Instantly she looked alert and gazed around.

  ‘You told Richard Cornwall where you were. He told me I would find you here.’

  ‘Richard Cornwall...Who’s he?’

  They stared at one another; both astonished and instantly worried.

  Then they heard a helicopter approaching overhead. It was no more than two hundred feet up and they could feel the downdraught from the rotor as it drew to a hover overhead. The two of them stared up at it and saw the word police written large on the underside.

  ‘Shit!’ Gerry shouted above the noise, ‘I suspect that someone else has picked up the trail.’

  ‘I think it’s time to leave.’

  ‘That helicopter will trail us!’

  ‘Then let’s get rid of it.’ He opened the door to the RV and disappeared inside. Ten seconds later he emerged carrying an M79 grenade launcher. He held it high for a moment and then crouched down and aimed it towards the police helicopter.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘Jesus H Christ he’s got a thump gun!’ Vince Parker shouted at the helicopter pilot. ‘Get us the hell out of here!’

  The young pilot pulled the chopper into a high climbing turn and waited twenty seconds before asking his question. ‘What’s a thump gun?’

  ‘A grenade launcher; it can blow this helicopter apart,’ Parker replied.

  ‘So we’re not going back there, right?’

  ‘No. Just give me a minute…let’s see; can you put me down in the roadway at the park entrance?’

  ‘Well the road’s not very wide…but yeah, that should be ok.’

  ‘Then let’s take a wide circuit behind that hill and then bring it down below tree level,’ Parker suggested.

  ‘Hey! Like in the movies!’ the pilot agreed with enthusiasm.

  ‘If you like,’ said Parker, ‘but we’re the good guys so let’s be careful, alright.’

  ‘Ok, it’s your call.’

  He lifted the chopper up and flew close to the ground until the camp site had disappeared from view and then picked up the trail around.

  ‘Are you sure they won’t hear us?’ the pilot called.

  ‘They might,’ Parker admitted, ‘but I don’t think they’ll be able to tell we’re we are. Is that the road back to their van?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Ok, put me down and then fly back and find the other guys; tell them to drive here.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  Parker grinned and patted his M40 sniper rifle. ‘I’m going to herd them.’

  Parker watched the helicopter disappear back behind the hill and then jogged along as quickly as he could while encumbered with the rifle until the camp site came into view. He crouched behind a tree and then took careful aim at the RV’s front wheel. The tyre deflated with a bang and the vehicle lurched over. Hall and Tate jerked round towards the sound of his rifle.

  ‘Ok I’ve got the two of you covered,’ he began to say, but Gerry Tate sprinted towards the woods beyond the Winnebago. He cursed and squeezed off two shots in quick succession. Oh hell, this was not going according to plan. A movement caught his eye and he saw a flash of blue amongst the trees. It was Tate running quickly through the trees. Towards him. He swung the rifle round and fired a shot. He cursed and suddenly realised that the bolt action rifle was a poor weapon against a quickly moving target, but soon she would slow down and try and stay under cover as she approached him. Then he realised she wasn’t slowing down; she was running towards him at full speed, leaping over tree roots and low scrub and ignoring the branches that whipped across her body. He aimed, fired and missed. He worked the clumsy bolt action as fast he could and fired again. Now she was too close and he could see the blood on her face where she had been cut by a tree branch and he could also see her face was contorted by hate and anger and she was nearly upon him and he worked the bolt action then tried to club her with the rifle just as she launched herself at him in a full on football tackle that knocked him flying. She rolled off him and he scrambled to his feet but not as quickly as she did. She backed off and checked that the rifle was out of his reach. He watched her clench her fists and rub her thumbs over her knuckles.

  She was the same height as he was, or maybe slightly taller, but still she was a woman and however physically well developed, she was thirty pounds lighter than he was and not as strong.

  ‘So what are you going to do now Gerry?’ he grinned.

  ‘I’m going to beat the living crap out of you, you bastard.’

  He watched her carefully, expecting her to run and try to drop kick him or trip him so as not to trade blows with him at close range, but she just walked quickly toward him and threw a punch at his face which he parried easily, but then her other hand jabbed towards him and he just managed to fend off a blow to his abdomen. He aimed his own fist towards her face but she fended it off and then connected a blow to his head that knocked him off balance swung round and kicked him in the back and he grunted in pain and fell to one knee. He suddenly realised that her speed and quickness of movement were entirely beyond his measure. He pushed himself upright and tried to close and wrestle her down to the ground but she quickly moved back but then she caught her heel on a tree root and tumbled over. He fell on top of her with the full weight of his body and prepared to drive his fist into her face but he felt an excruciating flash of pain to the back of his head.

  Parker woke up face down with his arms bound behind his back and his legs tied to the back of the pick-up truck. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to overcome the throbbing pain in his head. Shit, what a bloody mess he was in, but surely Samms would be here soon. They hadn’t killed him yet, so maybe he would survive long enough to be rescued.

  ‘He’s awake,’ he heard someone say. Standing with Dan Hall and Gerry Tate was an old man with tanned face and full b
eard and mirrored sunglasses. ‘Seems I didn’t hit him hard enough, this friend of yours.’

  ‘Ok, let’s find out if he’s acting alone or expecting back-up,’ said Gerry. She pointed to the hunting knife in Dan Hall’s belt. ‘Lend me that, would you?’

  Shit, what was she going to do with that? Hall handed it over without a word and then she knelt on his back and wrenched his arms up until he gasped from the pain.

  ‘Ok Vince, tell us how you came to be here or else I’ll have to start cutting off your fingers. Here’s the first one, just so you know I’m serious.’ She scored the side of his little finger with the serrated top of the knife blade. He screamed. ‘Ok, now you’re going to eat it!’ She prodded the side of his mouth with her own little finger. He gagged and turned his face away.

  ‘Come on Vince! Open your mouth!’ He pressed his face against the ground. ‘Ok so you don’t like that one. Let’s try another finger.’ She caught hold of his ring finger and scored it with the blade.

  ‘No I’ll talk! I’ll talk!’

  ‘Yeah I know you will you bastard,’ she snarled into his ear, ‘but one more finger first!’

  ‘No!’ he screamed as she jabbed his middle finger with the blade.

  ‘Ok tell us what back up you have and you won’t have to lose this one,’ she said.