by Steve Berry
Someone turned the corner.
Oliver.
He saw me and reached beneath his jacket. I knew what was coming. To turn away and head down the corridor would be foolish. He’d have a clear shot. Instead, I leaped for the stairway and headed up, two steps at a time. I came to a platform where the risers right-angled. I kept climbing and found myself above the main ceiling, in a spacious area lined along its perimeter with metal catwalks. Electrical cables ran in all directions along with ductwork. Everything was open, the two sides of the building connected by a single, mechanized catwalk on a track that moved left and right. I was out of sight to anyone below. The music continued to blare, dulled only by the thin acoustical ceiling that separated this service area from the attraction beneath. Low-level amber lighting lit the entire space. I could use the crosswalk and find the other side of the hall, but if Oliver came up he was going to have a clean shot. Since I was making this up as I went, I decided there was no choice.
I raced ahead.
Adrenaline surged, carrying with it fear and vigilance. But also a whisk of excitement, that sensual chill of danger that I would at first find enticing, but eventually come to resent.
Halfway across I heard, “Malone.”
I stopped and turned back.
“You’re proving really difficult,” Oliver said, his gun aimed at me.
“Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.”
“You think this a joke?” He stepped onto the catwalk. “You saw what Valdez is capable of. He shot that young man with no remorse.”
“I noticed you didn’t bother to take him down or arrest him.”
“Where’s Jansen?” he asked.
“Probably dead.”
“You’ve had quite the first mission, haven’t you?”
He stopped about twenty feet away. I’d halted about three-quarters of the way across the catwalk at a panel attached to the platform. From a quick glance at the buttons it appeared to control the platform’s movement back and forth.
“I had a lot of agents, like you, work for me. Young hotshots, eager to make a name for themselves, prepared to take chances.”
“Like Jansen.”
“Exactly. Jim always wanted to please. He was good, though, at following orders.”
I realized that the only two reasons he hadn’t shot me yet were the files and the coin.
He had to have both.
Which I commanded.
Since we were all alone, I decided to ask, “Why kill King?”
“Hoover gave that order. Not me. I just did what the old man wanted. Valdez was willing to make it happen, and Ray was supposed to disappear into Rhodesia.”
“Where he would have been killed.”
“Definitely. He was told he’d be paid for what he did once he made it to Africa.”
“Since paying him beforehand, if he was caught, would smack of conspiracy.”
“Absolutely. Valdez was already there, waiting on him. His body would then have been returned to DC. Killer found by the FBI. Hoover does it once again.”
“Things didn’t work out, did they?”
He shrugged. “Ultimately, they did. No money was found on Ray. Nothing pointed anywhere, but to him. Hoover got the credit for catching him. Then his narcissistic personality took over and he lied so much no one gave him a thought.”
I’d been thinking, so I told him, “Hoover hated the civil rights movement. He thought it all a communist plot. But in reality, he was just a racist, pure and simple. He wanted black people kept in their place. And he was intuitive enough to realize that if the movement went violent the country would want it stopped. Whites who’d supported King would flee him. There’d be riots. Deaths. Destruction. It was King’s nonviolent methods that had traction. Images of rednecks spitting on calm, young blacks sitting at a lunch counter were never good for the segregationists. Stay the course and King’s way might just ultimately work.”
Oliver nodded. “The riots did happen after King died. The militants tried to change the course. But King’s legacy proved stronger than Hoover thought. The civil rights movement kept going, pretty much as King would have wanted. Still, we did have more control after that. King had been a pain in the ass for a long time. Both Kennedys aligned themselves more with him than with Hoover. JFK even warned King we were taping him. With King gone, things were easier.”
His eyes looked tense, the muscles around them taut, his cheeks flushed with blood. I had to keep telling myself that this man traded in misery. How careful must he be not to be trapped by his own lies? For so long Oliver had basked in power, a shrewd and experienced operator, tough, sure of himself. Now he was running scared, everything dependent on a loose cannon from Cuba and a rookie from the Justice Department.
I said, “It would’ve all stayed buried, if not for Valdez and Foster.”
“I need Valdez to go away, and he won’t without the coin.”
The gun remained aimed at me.
I’d managed a few quick glances at the control panel and spied the switches that activated the movable walk. We stood in the center of the building, seventy-five feet of air on either side of us, the crosswalk capable of traversing the entire length. This guy had spent a lifetime containing problems. He’d been head of COINTELPRO, one of the most corrupt organizations the U.S. government ever created. He was certainly immoral, more likely amoral. What Oliver didn’t know was that Bruce Lael had sold him out. I’d heard the cassette. I knew the truth about Foster. All I had to do was survive and I could take this bastard, Jansen, and Foster down to the mat for the ten-count.
“Where are the files?” he asked.
“Foster has them.”
And with any luck he was still hidden away at the train station near the park’s main gate.
The walkway was a latticework of aluminum with lots of openings. I stared down, as if assessing the situation, but what I was really interested in was the controls to my left. I saw a red, a green, and an orange button. I decided red was bad.
Push the orange and green.
“You’re going to take me to Foster,” he said.
I nodded.
Then my left arm swung over and my palm slammed the two buttons. Motors came alive and the crosswalk quickly shifted left, then one side dipped lower than the other and I realized the buttons were for lateral movement and vertical attitude, the catwalk capable of assuming differing positions depending on what needed to be done.
Oliver’s arms went skyward in an attempt to regain his balance but the catwalk had shifted from flat to about a thirty-degree angle. I gripped the control panel, which allowed me something solid to hold on to. Oliver had only the low railing that ran the crosswalk’s length. I moved to hit the buttons again and stop all movement, but it was too late for Oliver. He dropped over the side and smacked into the acoustical ceiling, which offered little resistance, his body plunging through, falling another forty feet. Unlike Jansen, he did not find the water. Instead, he pounded into the concrete flooring of one of the pirate displays.
A dark pool of blood welled outward.
I locked away the bad thoughts that were racing through my brain and hit the buttons. The catwalk stopped moving. I had traveled laterally about thirty feet from where I started. I worked the orange button and brought the thing level. Time to go and fast. I could hear people below in the boats, voices raised in fear and concern.
But the damn music just kept playing.
One thought raced through my mind.
The reel of tape Oliver had displayed back at Disney’s statue.
I had to get it.
I fled my perch and found the walk on the other side of the building. I spotted an exit and quickly descended stairs similar to the ones I’d used to climb up. This was rapidly gestating into a huge mess, one that I was going to have a hard time explaining to Stephanie Nelle, especially after my rebellion in Stuart. I came to ground level and stepped into another service corridor. This one only went one way, deeper into the
attraction, about fifty feet, one exit out on the right, another at the far end.
I reached for the handle of the nearest door and swung the metal panel inward. It led into another of the faux town scenes, this one complete with animatronic wenches being sold at auction. I entered behind the female figures and decided the thing to do, once I got the reel, was to hop into one of the boats and head for the exit, acting like one of the visitors. Hopefully, no one would rat me out, or at least not until I could slip away.
Oliver lay a few feet away.
I sidestepped the mechanical women and ran over, pretending to see if he was all right. People in the boats were watching. I faked a check for a pulse.
“Is he dead?” someone called out from the boats.
I ignored the question and stuck my hand into his pant pockets, finding the reel, which I pocketed.
Time to get the hell out of here.
“He’s dead,” I called out, readying myself to hop into the boat.
Something slammed hard into my right hip.
CHAPTER FIFTY
I hit the concrete floor and realized that Jansen had returned from the dead. On the way down we’d taken out two of the skirted wenches, each tied to the other with a hemp rope. The robots broke from their underlying supports with a spray of electrical sparks, the two heavy figures tumbling toward the end of the dock and the water, taking down a mechanical goat along the way. We rolled across a couple of concrete risers. Jansen’s arms were wrapped around me and he maneuvered himself on top, releasing his grip and delivering a fist to my jaw.
Which hurt.
He’d apparently survived the earlier encounter and watched as Tom Oliver died from his fall. He must have crossed over the arched bridge that spanned the waterway. He was damn strong for a man past sixty. I flipped him off me and hopped to my feet. Jansen rebounded quickly. A gun appeared in his right hand. I kicked it away. The auctioneer kept droning on about the women for sale. A sign proclaimed TAKE A WENCH FOR A BRIDE.
Jansen lifted one of the barrels adorning the dock and hurled it my way. I dodged the projectile, which bounced off the concrete and collided with another animatronic figure. The gun lay to my left and I could see that he was searching for it, too. More boats passed, the waterway here narrow from one side of the hall to the other, the scenes connected by the arched bridge loaded with animals and characters, beneath which the boats passed into another building. Employees or security should be appearing any moment. I couldn’t be around when that happened. I had to deal with Coleen and her father. Jansen, too, surely did not want to be taken into custody.
“I’m going to kill you,” he spat at me.
And I believed him.
His face had gone white, teeth bared, eyebrows furrowed. We both crouched forward, circling, looking for chances. He kept his left fist cocked back like a southpaw. I landed a sharp jab to his cheek that sent him back on his heels. Before I could take advantage of the moment he attacked with that left, but I dodged the punch and thumped him with a hard right uppercut to his midbody.
He backed away.
I saw more boats with people passing in the water. He lunged forward and grazed my cheek with a fast left and a right to my ribs. I gave him a solid jab to the face, my knuckles tight. Sparks kept flying from where the two animatronic figures had been torn from their supports. You would think this stuff ran on low voltage, but apparently that was not the case. I told myself to be careful with the open wires, especially since Jansen kept nudging me in their direction.
I searched for the gun.
Which I spotted a few feet away.
“You’ll never get to it,” he told me.
He swung and missed with a right. I managed to grab his wrist and land a fist of my own into his left kidney. He broke away and darted toward one of the characters, this one brandishing a pitchfork.
Not a facsimile.
Someone had thought that an actual pitchfork would work just fine.
He thrust the blade my way.
I seized a moment and snapped his head back with a stiff jab to the right eye. He went into a rage and grasped the pitchfork with both hands, swinging it in a desperate attempt to make contact with me. I retreated, dodging the swishing metal tips, which were not dulled. He began to stumble, maybe stunned and hurt from the blows. Blood poured from one nostril. The first wave of visitors had to have made it to the end of the ride by now and alerted the staff about what was happening inside the attraction.
This had to end.
Now.
But Jansen suddenly looked restored.
“It’s over,” I told him.
“Because you say it is? You’re nothing.” His voice was rising. “Nothing at all. We gave our entire lives for this country.”
“You killed him,” I said.
“I did as I was told,” he yelled. “I did my job.”
He’d quickly transitioned from patriot to “loyal employee,” his conscience searching for anything to justify reality. For him this had gone from search-and-find to an outright suicide mission. Of course, Valdez had narrowed the options when he chose to gun down Nate Perry. Oliver was dead. Valdez was God knew where. Jansen was the last man standing.
I recalled my boot camp training in hand-to-hand.
Keep your mouth closed. Clench the neck and jaw. Protect the stomach. But careful with hitting the other guy’s face, especially the forehead. You can break a bone in your own hand.
But I’d never been one to follow the rules.
He stopped his flailing with the pitchfork.
I grabbed his upper right arm and sank an uppercut into his gut. Then I slammed my forehead into his.
We met with a crack.
Everything blinked in and out.
My brain spun.
I was near the end of the fake wharf at the water’s edge, fighting to regain my equilibrium. Jansen was having a problem with balance, too. He staggered backward, still holding the pitchfork, his arms flailing as he fought the vertigo. He tried to stay on his feet. More blood poured from his nose. Three barrels stood to my right. I shook off the fog in my brain and reached for one, hurling it toward Jansen. He raised the pitchfork to block the impact, but the barrel was solid wood and crashed into him, driving him farther back. He hit the pavement among the animatronic figures, finding the spot where the two skirted wenches had been torn away.
Sparks exploded.
He screamed.
I realized what was happening. The exposed electrical conduits had connected with his wet clothes, completing the circuit. The barrel lay atop him, pinning him down. His body shuddered, arms and legs extended outward. His screams rose, then faded as the life ebbed from him.
He lay still, in silence.
I stared over at him.
Another boat of people approached.
“You. Stop. Stay right there.”
I turned and saw three men dressed in security uniforms on the other side of the waterway, running my way. They were headed for the arched bridge, and it would only be a few moments before they were on me.
I grabbed the gun still lying on the concrete, then fled the wharf back into the fake buildings and found the metal door through which I’d entered. I headed left and saw that the corridor was long and straight. The guards could easily find me, so I headed back up the stairs to the service area. I ran across the catwalk to the other side, then down, careful at the bottom to make sure the coast was clear. Seeing no one, I turned right and hustled to the end, where a door opened into the attraction’s lighted, main entrance.
I eased the door open and peeked out.
People were being channeled away from the building. Someone was yelling that the attraction was temporarily closed. The crowd was contained within nylon safety barricades that usually formed an infuriating zigzag back and forth, but were now set for a full-scale exit. I tucked the gun at my spine, then slipped out and ducked beneath one of the retractable straps, melting into the crowd and following the surge out of the b
uilding to the open pavement of Adventureland.
I’d made it out.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
What had just happened was only now beginning to register. Two men had died, both of whom had been trying to kill me. I still had the coin in one pocket and Nate’s cell phone in another, though I doubted that thing would be working after its bath off the galleon. I was also armed, which brought some comfort, but not much. I decided to head for Foster, who should still be back near the main entrance at the train station. But walking there, out in the open, might not be the smartest move.
No telling who else was on the lookout.
Once I was outside the Pirates building, beyond a stand of trees and foliage, I heard the churn of an engine and realized the train tracks were nearby. Something in the back of my brain reminded me that the train encircled the entire park to form an outer perimeter, offering a way to get from one side to the other without walking. I saw a park employee assisting visitors and asked where the nearest station was located. She directed me to Frontierland, where I arrived just as the train was slowing into the station. I hopped aboard and rode in the open car all the way around the park, stopping a couple of times for more passengers. I was moving farther away from Pirates of the Caribbean by the second, which could only be a good thing.
The rain had slackened to no more than a few sprinkles.
Ahead, I spotted the station above the park’s entrance, back over Main Street and the town square, where I’d started. I left the train and walked through the station onto the covered porch that overlooked the town square. People were sitting among the covered deck’s benches.
But no Foster.
Instead, sitting alone was Juan Lopez Valdez. Both arms outstretched on the back of the bench in a welcome.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, motioning.
I walked over and sat beside him. Both of us kept our gazes out into the misty night.
“Oliver and Jansen?” he quietly asked.