DNA STALKER

by Diane Rapp

Natalia read the message over Jason’s shoulder. “My God! She plans to kill bystanders at the monument. We need to clear out innocent spectators immediately.”

  Jason’s mouth tightened into an angry line. He issued orders as he handed Natalia the keys to the white van, “Walk calmly up the street and cross over a few cars above the van. When you move back to the driver’s door, climb in and get that van off this street. Park it a few blocks away and walk to the monument. Warn anyone you meet on side streets to keep away from the monument until you turn the corner. Then leave off the warnings.”

  “But…”

  “No arguments. Raven expects to see the van drive off soon, and I will send her a text to confirm her message in two minutes.” Jason bent down and retrieved his spare gun from an ankle holster. “I want you to carry this in your…” He glanced at her outfit before shoving the gun into the outside zippered pocket of her purse. “You won’t need to use it, honey, but I want you to have it.”

  Her wide eyes glanced away from his as she nodded.

  He turned to Jacquie and Drew. “Raven expects you both to approach the monument in ten minutes time, so start walking. Don’t stop for anything!”

  Drew asked, “Should we tell people to get away as we go toward the monument?”

  “No. We can’t evacuate anyone who is already in sight of Raven’s scope. She might get spooked and start shooting early. Trust the plan.”

  Jason’s own phone chimed, and he read a text. “Good news! Esteban and sons are ready to board the yacht in ten minutes. The other divers will be on the beach before the action begins.”

  He shooed everyone out the gate and inhaled deep breaths to control his jangled nerves. He sent texts of confirmation to the divers on the beach and more texts to the military personnel wearing civilian clothes on the street. Checking his watch, he ran through the back service gate, heading through side streets to reach the target area.

  *****

  Matt and the girls tried to keep their speed steady as they approached the wheelchair. He saw Tim pushing the chair, and Shirley walking on the left side as planned. Matt swung the Segway to his right and appeared to overcompensate by abruptly swinging the vehicle back to the left.

  “Get out of my way,” he shouted. “This thing is going crazy, and I can’t control it!”

  People scurried out of the street as the Segway barreled towards the wheelchair.

  “Help! Someone help us!” Shirley shouted and grabbed Tim’s arm to pull him out of harm’s way.

  To his credit, Felix sat still, as an unconscious man should. His fists gripped the handles of the wheelchair, as he heard the whine of the Segway approach, and he barely flinched when Matt shouted his final warning.

  When Matt crashed into the wheelchair, both contraptions bounced in opposite directions. Felix and Matt soon sprawled on the road, and people in the crowd rushed to “help” the victims.

  Paul’s strong hands were accustomed to gripping ski poles, so he lifted Felix like a rag doll and deposited him back into the chair after Abby got it upright on undamaged wheels. Felix recognized Melany’s cheerful face as she patted his body down, connecting straps on the Kevlar vest Penny already shoved onto his torso.

  Felix was amazed and grateful that everyone in the twins’ group dared to brave the danger to help him. But he knew that they’d all bonded like family during the cruise. He’d willingly risk his own life to save any one of them. Now he knew they felt the same way.

  “You’re alright now, sir!” Paul whispered and winked at his sister. Abby took a lap blanket out of her tote bag and covered Felix’s knees. A handgun slipped into place under the blanket as she finished tucking the blanket over his legs.

  “Thanks,” Felix whispered but let his head loll to the side.

  Timothy stepped forward and explained, “Our nephew was paralyzed in the war and can’t respond.”

  Shirley added, “Felix always wanted to visit this monument. Can you two help us get the chair up to that flat spot? We want to snap a photo.”

  “No problem. We’ll lift the wheelchair at the count of three.” The siblings counted and lifted Felix into place before they melted back into the crowd.

  Shirley’s back was turned away from the water as she buttoned a new blouse over the Kevlar vest to keep it out of sight. After the crash, someone in the crowd quickly shoved her arms into the vest and helped her into a roomy blouse. She’d seen others rush to help Tim with similar garments. She marvelled at the efficiency of the whole operation, noticing that the new garments looked like the ones they wore under those heavy vests.

  “Tim and Shirley!” a voice they recognized called out. The crowd parted as Shirley glanced up. She gasped at the sight of Drew with Jacquie Ludlow on his arm. He said, “I was hoping I’d catch you before you left the monument. We want to be included in photos with Felix.”

  Drew smiled as he looked out to sea, making sure that Raven got a good look at his face through her telescope. He mouthed the words: “I am here. Let him go.”

  Jacquie heard a chime and opened her cell phone. She read the text and frowned, handing the phone to Drew.

  Look at all the people who will die because of you! I kill them to make you suffer for murdering Jim!

  A single shot rang out, and Jacquie crumpled to the ground. Felix jumped out of the wheelchair and flattened his body against the monument, waving for Drew to join him. Tim and Shirley crawled over to Felix, but Drew stood out in the open holding the cell phone.

  He calmly wrote: Kill me but leave them alone! He pressed send.

  More shots rang out. Undercover operatives in the crowd drew guns and returned fire while bystanders were ushered out of harm’s way.

  From a nearby bush Jason shouted, “Get to cover, Drew! We didn’t risk our lives to sacrifice you now.”

  Drew nodded and crouched. He checked the pulse in Jacquie’s neck and dragged her into the shadow of the monument. Felix crab-walked out to help his father as more shots zinged over the water. Bullets ricocheted off the red plaster cone of the monument, raining plaster chips down on their heads.

  Suddenly three fully-armed divers in black wetsuits slithered over the parapet wall, and crouched down with guns trained on the white yacht. Their wetsuits glistened with water, but their fins, tanks, and masks already lay at the water’s edge. Extracting binoculars from a waterproof pouch, Amanda focused on the yacht and spoke into a hand-held radio. “Hold fire! Three of our team have boarded the yacht and are taking down the enemy. I repeat, hold fire.”

  “Copy that,” several voices replied.

  Jason crawled to her side. “How many targets do we have?” he asked.

  Amanda’s lips curled into a vicious grin. “Two women and three men were on the yacht but my boys took out four of them just now. I assume that Raven is the maniac shooting from the roof. She’s the last one we need to take down.”

  Drew shouted to Amanda, “Raven sent Jacquie a message that she planned to kill everyone around the monument to make me suffer before I died.”

  Amanda growled, “Crazy witch. She must go.”

  “You’re bloody well right on that score, Amanda,” Jason affirmed.

  *****

  Two choppers circled overhead. Raven snarled, threw down her rifle and grabbed a machine gun. She aimed into the sky at the offending machines, enjoying the rat-tat-tat sound and acrid smell of gunpowder. She hunched behind a stack of sandbags that formed a barricade around her position and kept shooting. As the gun fired, she felt the metal grow hot.

  “I knew that coward Drew would mount an assault against me!” she hissed, although her team was no longer able to hear her rants. The helicopter veered off rapidly, and she noticed letters from a local television station on the side. “Guess I’ll be on the news tonight.”

  Swallowing water from a canvas bag, she allowed some of it to trickle over her hot face. “How did those divers know about this yacht? Did Tim and Shirley tell them? I’ll kill them all if it takes the rest of m
y life!”

  Suddenly a loud cackle rang out, startling Esteban into a low crouch just below the sand bags. “What’s that woman laughing at?” he whispered over his shoulder to Roberto. “We got her surrounded.”

  As if answering his question, Raven shouted, “You want to know what I think is so funny, Feds? I just pledged to take Tim and Shirley out if it takes the rest of my life. Funny, right? The rest of my life may only be a few minutes, so I’d better start shooting again.”

  More machine gun fire filled the air, but the Hernandez men would not be cowed. Esteban counted down from five, displaying his fingers as the seconds ticked off. As his fist clenched at zero, all three men rose and fired over the sandbags at the crazed gun woman.

  Her gun continued firing as her fingers clenched on the trigger, but the only sounds they heard were empty clicks. Roberto reached the body and wrenched the hot gun from her hands. He noted that there were plenty of bullets that failed to move into the firing chamber. A cold chill crept up his neck, and Roberto passed the spooky gun to his brother, who grinned.

  “Guess someone was looking out for us brother,” Geraldo quipped.

  Esteban spoke into his radio, “Targets down. I repeat all targets down on the yacht.” He knew there might be more shooters on land, but they’d taken care of the ring leader.

  “Let’s examine the bodies and see who we’ve got left to find.”

  They carried Raven’s body down the boat’s steps and dropped it in line with the other four bodies.

  Esteban frowned. “I expected to find Hank Martin as part of this group. We still have at least one killer ashore.”

  Roberto and Geraldo snapped photos of the dead, laid out like bandits in an old western movie. A shadow overhead caused them both to look up at once.

  “What’s wrong, boys?” Esteban asked. “De dead giving you a fright?”

  The twins gestured at the dense fog that suddenly surrounded the yacht. It felt creepy but Esteban refused to let it shroud their victory. He grinned at his own mental pun and knew he’d tell Amanda the joke that night.

  He ordered, “Stop gawking. Help me get de anchor up and de motor started. I take de yacht to base while you boys go fetch DPDs. It be no good to lose expensive DPDs on your salary.”

  The twins worked alongside their father but felt relieved when they climbed back into their tanks and fins. As they slipped below the surface, rays of sunlight filtered through the aqua blue water like a heavenly sign. Everything felt normal once again and they both felt relieved to escape from that yacht.

  Geraldo reached his DPD and glanced at the yacht. He heard motors churning but he couldn’t see the boat. Although visibility was always clear in Gulf waters, the yacht remained enveloped by an eerie gray blanket. He shuddered and spoke to Roberto over the mask radio, “Do you see that? We can’t even see the boat.”

  “Yeah, I noticed. Let’s get onshore. Hank Martin is still at large, so we can’t afford to worry about scary fogs like frightened school boys.”

  *****

  Natalia followed Jason’s directions to the letter. Climbing into the white van, she glanced toward the back seat, nervous about the goon lying on the floor. He looked unconscious, so she started the engine and slowly pulled out of the parking place. Turning the corner two streets up, she felt relieved that Raven could no longer see the van through her rifle scope. After two more turns Natalia searched for an available parking spot.

  The town was packed with tourists driving cars, or rather, parking their cars on these streets. Finally she spotted a free spot and parked parallel to the curb. Before she climbed out of the van, she rolled all the windows down. She felt worried about the unconscious man and the heat building up inside the vehicle. Luckily the cool spring weather sent a breeze through the interior of the van. She decided the goon would live long enough to stand trial.

  Walking the next two blocks, Natalia advised tourists she met to avoid the Southernmost Point monument for a couple of hours. She told them the police were tracking down a dangerous criminal. Most tourists promptly changed direction. Locals just laughed and claimed, “We never go to the monument, because it attracts too many tourists.”

  Finally Natalia turned the corner and saw a long line of tourists along the sidewalk leading to the Southernmost Point monument. It looked like a squat missile ready to lift off into the blue sky over waves that crashed in the background.

  Wide stripes of red, black and gold were painted on the monument. Starting at the top red cone, “Conch Republic, 90 miles from Cuba, and Southernmost Point” were all printed across the colored stripes. “Continental U.S.A., Key West, FL, and Home of the Sunset” were printed at the bottom next to a small green palm tree.

  Natalia decided that the monument looked attractive. No wonder tourists stood in line for pictures beside the colorful monument framed by blue sky and ocean. Her reverie was abruptly shattered as Matt’s Segway crashed into the wheelchair carrying Felix.

  Both men sprawled on the ground before the monument. Natalia was amazed at how quickly the twins managed to get Kevlar vests onto Tim, Shirley, and Felix while worried crowds blocked Raven’s view from the sea. She started to move forward to help, but the cold muzzle of a gun jabbed her side.

  A man’s gruff voice growled, “You thought you were so clever, but she’ll mow them all down.” He angled the gun into the gap between the Kevlar vest and Natalia’s tender skin. “Now, back up toward the fence, and we’ll walk to the van.”

  As his hand gripped her elbow, Natalia experienced a vision and knew the man’s identity. “You’re Hank Martin, Rose’s husband.” His thick fingers dug into her joint and the gun angled up toward her ribcage.

  “Rose expects me to arrive at the extraction point as soon as she takes care of business,” he hissed. “It won’t do to disappoint the missus.”

  As Natalia and Hank turned the corner, he pulled her along at a much faster pace. Within minutes they heard a gunshot and screams. A few heartbeats later the unmistakable continuous fire of a machine gun rang out.

  Hank chuckled but Natalia nearly tripped. She mentally pleaded for her grandmother to keep Jason alive, not considering the danger she faced. They turned the next corner and before she knew it, Hank forced her to climb into the van.

  “It was nice of you to roll them windows down to keep me cool, but as you can see, I didn’t plan to stay inside the vehicle alone.” He shoved her toward the driver’s seat and picked up a broken hypodermic from the floor. “Shirley jabbed me in the neck but broke the needle. It only delivered enough sedative for me to feel woozy and made me stumble. They didn’t realize I just blacked out after hitting my head on that damned wheelchair.”

  The cut on his forehead oozed blood into his eye, and Natalia realized the man still felt wobbly. No wonder he needed her to drive the van. Using his bare hand, he wiped blood dripping off his eyebrow, and Natalia noticed red welts on his wrist.

  Aware of her gaze, he chuckled. “People believe plastic ties are perfect restraints, but you can break them if you know the right method. It hurts like hell, but it will heal better on the yacht than in prison.”

  Waving the gun in her face, he ordered, “Find them keys and start the engine. You may be driving, but remember that I give the orders!”

  He gazed out the window as Natalia rummaged inside her handbag. She found her phone and pressed the button to silence its ringer. Then she touched the app that would speed dial Jason and immediately started talking to her captor.

  “I’m so sorry. I know I stowed those van keys in here somewhere, but when you wave that gun around I feel too scared to think. Give me a minute, Hank. I know I’ll find them.”

  “Stop jabbering so much and get the van started,” he barked. “Women and their blasted purses! It drives me crazy.”

  “Oh, I remember now! I zipped the keys into this outside pocket, so I wouldn’t lose them, silly me.” Her fingers grazed the handgun as she drug the keys out of the pocket, but she knew trading gu
nshots in close quarters might mean death for them both.

  “Got them, see?” She jingled the keys and hooked the handle of the bag over the armrest of her bucket seat. She was careful to keep the gun on her side away from his view. As the engine hummed, she asked, “Where do you want me to drive?”

  “Turn left at the next street. We need to get as far away from the shootings as possible, and then we’ll head toward Fort Zachary Taylor Park. There’s a quay just above the fort where Rose likes to dock. It’s on a dead end street. I’ll tell you where to turn when we get close.”

  “It’s near Fort Zachary Taylor Park?” She repeated and prayed that Jason could hear the destination with the phone inside the open purse. Perhaps he’d be too occupied with the shootout to answer her call. She might be on her own after all. Glancing down at the revolver, she swallowed the saliva that formed in her throat, afraid that drool might show her fear.

  *****

  When the shooting died down, Jason assisted with triage of the wounded. Jacquie had merely passed out from the pain of being shot, and the Kevlar vest had prevented a fatal wound. Jason knew she’d live but the bruise would last for weeks. Matt suffered scrapes on his arms and legs but nothing serious. Shrapnel from stray gunfire caused nicks and cuts on bystanders’ skin. Timothy suffered shell shock, shivering as he leaned his back against the monument and wrapped arms around his bent knees. Shirley placed her arm gently over her brother’s quivering shoulders to comfort him.

  Jason’s sharp eyes roamed the milling crowd and a knot of fear formed in his chest. “Where’s Natalia?” he asked the group of twins. “Has anyone seen her?”

  Melanie announced, “I saw her near that fence when Matt crashed. After we finished putting a vest on Felix, I went to look for her but she was gone. I figured she left to find you, Jason.”

  “Everything was happening so fast,” Paul added. “We didn’t have time to think before the shooting made us dive to the ground. Sorry.”