Wellspring (Paskagankee, Book 3)

by Leverone, Allan

  “Whatever,” Ferriss/Wesley said with a shrug. “Like I said, it’s a moot point, or soon will be. And now that we’ve brought our friend and former partner in crime, here, Mr. Jackson Healy, up to date on what’s been happening over the last couple hundred years, I guess it’s about time to finish what he started so long ago.”

  Ferriss/Wesley’s eyes narrowed. He had lowered his weapon while speaking, but now he again brought the gun to bear on Healy, pointing it directly at the prisoner’s head. Cooper/Amos perked up noticeably, clearly pleased the talking was about to end and the shooting would soon begin.

  Mike desperately racked his brain for some way to forestall the inevitable, but before he could come up with a single idea, Jackson Healy – who obviously had a stake in delaying things as well – burst out, “But I don’t understand something…”

  Cooper/Amos blew out an exasperated breath. “Who gives a shit what you do or don’t understand?” he growled, but Ferriss/Wesley, still very much in charge, snapped at his brother, “I told you before, we have all the time in the world.”

  Ferriss/Wesley turned back to Healy. “What don’t you understand?” he asked, his voice as calm as if they were discussing the New England Patriots cheerleaders over drinks at the Ridge Runner.

  “I didn’t drink the magic juice until I was trapped inside that damned room and nearly dead on my feet. Drinking it was a last-ditch effort to save my life. Afterward, I must have passed out and have no memory of anything until waking up a couple of days ago at the bottom of a muddy hole with a steady rain falling on my face. How in the hell could I have survived for over a hundred and fifty years without eating or drinking anything?”

  Ferriss/Wesley shrugged. “Good question. We ain’t no experts on the stuff. It’s been a century and a half, and in all that time, we’ve never once gone back to Peru. Had enough of that place to last a thousand lifetimes. But the Youth Juice comes from a goddamned alien wellspring; who knows what properties it contains? My best guess would be that the it has some kind of mystical ability to drop you into a state of suspended animation.

  “Maybe,” he continued, warming now to the subject, “since you can’t die a natural death once you’ve drunk it, your body was simply going to hang, cursed, halfway between living and dead forever. God knows it’s better than you deserve. But once the soil was peeled off the top of that room like a sardine can being opened, and your body was exposed to fresh air and rain, that Youth Juice somehow jump-started you, and brought you back from wherever the hell you were suspended.”

  “I was starving, hungrier than I’ve ever been, for the first day or so after I came back,” Healy muttered, more to himself than to anyone else in the room. “That must have been some kind of reaction to being woken up such a long time.”

  “Beats me,” Ferriss/Wesley said. “And to tell you the truth, I have to agree with my brother. I really don’t give a damn. Now, where were we?” Once again, both he and Cooper/Amos raised their weapons. It was plain by the look on Ferriss’s face that his patience for talking had come to an end. He and his nearly two hundred year old brother were going to execute Jackson Healy in cold blood, and undoubtedly turn their weapons on Mike immediately afterward. Then they would walk out of the nearly empty police station – likely eliminating Gordie Rheame on the way by – and disappear.

  Ferriss/Wesley growled, “Got any last words, compadre?” to Healy, who said nothing but shrank backward as far as he was able. The handcuffs clanked tight against the tie down ring and Healy’s progress was again jerked to a stop.

  The two brothers were spread out in the small room, separated. Cooper/Amos was to Mike’s right, standing next to the wall, Ferriss/Wesley off to the left in front of the table, standing roughly five feet from the interview room’s closed door. They were too far apart for Mike to take them both down at the same time, so in a split-second decision, he decided to go after Cooper first. That brother seemed by far the more unstable of the two lunatics, so Mike’s only hope was that if he launched himself over the table and brought Cooper down, Ferriss might be distracted enough to give Mike time to scramble to his feet and go after him as well.

  It was foolhardy.

  It was suicidal.

  It was his only option.

  Mike tensed his muscles and prepared to spring.

  And then everyone froze at the sound of a quick knock on the interview room’s door. A half-second later it swung open, revealing Officer Sharon Dupont.

  32

  Sharon sprinted along the basement corridor, driven by the same sense of impending doom she had been feeling since shortly after driving out of the police station parking lot. She had no idea what Ferriss and Cooper might be up to, but she knew allowing them to be alone in a tiny room with Jackson Healy – and with Mike – had been a very bad idea.

  She chastised herself for not being stronger, for not making her case more clearly to Mike. He was in charge, but she knew how heavily he valued her sense of intuition and her instincts as a cop.

  She should have been able to more clearly state her position.

  She had failed.

  Hopefully it wasn’t too late.

  She skidded to a stop in front of the heavy steel door, not bothering to peek through the tiny wire mesh-reinforced window, not wanting to waste the time. Every second counted now; she could feel it in her gut.

  She took a deep breath and then knocked on the door, a perfunctory, I’m knocking as a courtesy, but I’m damned well coming in no matter what you say knock, and then turned the handle and threw the door open.

  What she saw froze her in shock, standing motionless in the doorway for a critical half-second.

  Agent Ferriss stood directly in front of her, his gun pointed at Jackson Healy’s head. Agent Cooper was braced against the wall to her left, his weapon also trained on the prisoner. Healy was straining hard against his handcuffs, which had been locked into place on the table’s tie-down ring; he looked as though he would gladly gnaw through his wrists and propel himself backward through the cinderblock wall. Mike was frozen in a half-standing position directly across the table from her. He looked like he had been preparing to launch himself at Cooper.

  She took it all in in an instant and reached reflexively for her service weapon. Somewhere in a dark corner of her brain she registered that all of her fears and suspicions had been right on target, and then the thought vanished as the scene disintegrated into chaos.

  Ferriss spun on his heel and squeezed off a shot, just as Cooper rotated to his right and did the same. Both slugs ricocheted off the metal door with a pair of rapid-fire pings. Mike was screaming “Get down, get down!” as he continued moving forward, scrambling over the table and plowing into Cooper shoulder-first, slamming him into the wall.

  Sharon dropped straight to the floor, hitting it with a jarring crash and rolling backward into the hallway. She prepared to return fire but Ferriss beat her to the punch, squeezing off another shot that whistled over her head. Had she remained standing, Sharon guessed the slug would have pierced her heart.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she observed Mike and Agent Cooper struggling for Cooper’s gun. The FBI man had somehow kept his weapon in his right hand while absorbing the devastating hit by Mike, and Cooper appeared to be gaining the advantage now, as he peppered the side of Mike’s face with a series of jabs with his left.

  She rose to her knees and raised her gun. She knew Ferriss would not miss again. Before she could fire, the FBI man took one long stride and kicked the door closed. It swung noiselessly on its hinges and slammed shut inches in front of her face. Then she heard the manual lock click into place.

  She scrambled to her feet and pressed her nose to the eye-level window, trying desperately to calculate the odds of getting off a successful shot through it. The glass was at least half an inch thick, reinforced with thick wiring in a criss-cross diamond pattern.

  Even with a rushed glance she could see that hitting what she was aiming at with any degree o
f accuracy would be impossible. She would have to raise her weapon to eye level and aim it awkwardly down. Once she pulled the trigger, the slug would ricochet wildly off the thick glass and there would be no way to predict whom it would strike, if anyone.

  She would be just as likely to shoot Mike or the prisoner as either FBI agent.

  She cursed bitterly and slammed a fist against the door in frustration. Pain blossomed in her hand and she turned and raced along the empty corridor, feeling like she had just abandoned Mike, knowing there was every possibility she would never see him again alive. But her cop instincts took over, and she knew there was nothing she could do for him with just a Glock 9 mm sidearm.

  It was time to get the heavy artillery.

  33

  Mike slammed Cooper/Amos against the cement wall, driving his shoulder into the agent’s gut and churning with his legs. He heard air rush out of the man’s lungs with an elongated “Uhhhhh” and felt a savage sense of satisfaction. The agent’s gun rattled against the wall with a metallic clack but to Mike’s utter disbelief, somehow Cooper managed to hold on to it.

  Another shot rang out, the concussive blast as loud as a cannon in the enclosed room. As he fought for his life, Mike listened for the cry that would tell him Sharon had been hit but could hear nothing over the ringing in his ears.

  And now he was in big trouble. He had counted on his jarring blow knocking the gun from Cooper’s hand, allowing him to dive at Ferriss, but now that plan was moot. The minute Mike turned toward away from the still-armed Cooper, the agent would put a slug in his back.

  A loud bang told him the interrogation room door had been slammed shut. Mike tried to push Ferriss from his mind and turned his attention back to Cooper/Amos. He had succeeded in knocking the wind out of the agent, but now he was at a serious disadvantage; bent over, his shoulder planted in Cooper’s midsection. The agent began pummeling Mike’s face, raining closed-fist blows down on him while Mike tried desperately to yank the gun from Cooper’s grasp.

  He slammed Cooper’s hand into the wall.

  Nothing.

  Two more punches opened a gash in his face.

  He doggedly slammed Cooper’s hand into the wall again, willing himself to ignore the beating he was taking.

  This time he felt the man’s fingers splay open. The gun clattered to the floor, seemingly forgotten by Cooper as he continued his vicious assault on Mike’s face.

  Mike had had enough. He loosened the muscles in his legs and dropped immediately, disregarding the pain radiating through the left side of his head. His left eye was nearly swollen shut but that was irrelevant because so much blood had flowed into it he couldn’t see anything, anyway.

  But his right eye was just fine – so far – and through it Mike could see the Cooper’s gun where it landed and then taken one big bounce toward the door. He crashed down onto his hands and knees and scrabbled after the weapon just as Cooper/Amos kicked out viciously, catching Mike in the side of the head and sending him sprawling onto his side on the dirty tile floor.

  He managed to grasp the gun as he was being kicked, and in one smooth motion, Mike rolled onto his back, squinting through his now rapidly swelling right eye, aiming carefully down Alton Ferriss/Wesley Krupp.

  But no one was there.

  Ferriss had anticipated Mike’s move the moment Cooper’s gun fell, and he had dropped to the floor as well. Now, with his gun aimed at empty air, Mike felt the cold deadly muzzle of Ferriss’s Glock as the FBI agent shoved it into the side of his head.

  “Not one fucking move,” Ferriss/Wesley said, his voice low and hard and furious. “Drop it right now, or the last thing you ever see will be my smiling face.”

  “Can’t even see that,” Mike said as he released his hold on the weapon. For the second time in a matter of seconds, it clattered to the floor. “Too much blood and swelling, if you hadn’t noticed. I might as well be blind.”

  The statement was close to being true, with his left eye useless and the right one swelling as well. But that eye wasn’t completely closed. He could still see – sort of – through a tiny slit, like a suspicious homeowner lifting one slat and peering through a drawn set of window blinds.

  It wasn’t much, but it was all he had left. Maybe he could convince the brothers he couldn’t see at all and then take some kind of action if an opportunity presented itself. The crazy bastards hadn’t shot him yet, surprisingly, and until they did, he wasn’t about to give up.

  Cooper/Amos bent down and grabbed his gun off the floor, glaring at Mike as he did so. He was breathing heavily, the air whooshing audibly in and out of his lungs as he tried to recover from Mike’s shoulder to the gut, and Mike almost smiled.

  Any sense of satisfaction disappeared, though, as Cooper/Amos shoved the barrel of his gun between Mike’s eyes. “Think you can find anyone else to put a gun to my head?” Mike said drily. “I’m sure there’s room for one more. Barely.”

  “Shut up,” Cooper snapped. “Man, am I gonna enjoy this.”

  Mike had the crazy thought that maybe the two lunatics would shoot one another as they were blowing his brains out. Their weapons weren’t quite pointed at each other, but he could always hope for a ricochet.

  Then Ferriss/Wesley said, “Amos, we don’t have time for this.”

  Cooper/Amos hesitated and Ferriss continued. “That chick officer got away, which means any minute now we’re going to have more company than we can handle. If we’re still fussing around with one lawman who’s only trying to do his job when the cavalry comes, we may not be able to finish what dipshit over there started so long ago.”

  Cooper turned a black gaze in the direction of Healy, who was still cowering behind the interrogation table. Ferriss continued, “Mr. Small Town Police Chief’s helpless now, he can’t hurt us. Let’s stay focused and get this over with.”

  For a long moment nothing happened, and Mike feared Cooper/Amos was going to pick this moment to finally disobey his brother. Then the pressure of the cold steel barrel against his forehead vanished as Cooper pulled his gun away, and he muttered bitterly, “You are one lucky son of a bitch, you know that, lawman?”

  Don’t answer, Mike thought, but before he could stop himself, he said, “Somehow I don’t feel all that lucky right now.”

  To his surprise, Cooper/Amos barked out a laugh, and then Mike felt himself being jerked to his feet. “Get back in your chair,” Ferriss/Wesley ordered, shoving him hard.

  Mike stumbled backward and bounced off the table before falling heavily into the chair. He could feel his right eye continuing to swell, and knew he would soon be as blind as a bat. He was lucky to be alive, but any chance of disarming the two men and preventing the execution of Jackson Healy – and probably himself, once the outlaws had completed the job they came here to do – was slipping away.

  And he was out of ideas.

  34

  Sharon raced up the steps and burst through the doorway leading to the police station’s main floor. “Gordie!” she screamed, to get the attention of the older man she assumed would still be sitting at the dispatcher’s station across the big room.

  But Gordie Rheaume had already started across the floor. He had made it nearly to the door, and now he grabbed Sharon’s arm to slow her down and said, “What the hell’s going on down there? Did I hear gunshots? Is anyone hurt?

  She ignored the question and snapped, “Call the State Police right now! Tell them we have a hostage situation inside the station and we need a negotiator and tactical response unit immediately. Then get every Paskagankee cop in here, even the ones on their day off. We need people and we need them now!”

  Gordie stared at her for a moment, his grey eyes watery and uncertain. “Hostage situation,” he repeated. “How could the prisoner have gotten the jump on Chief McMahon AND the two FBI agents?”

  “It’s not the prisoner,” Sharon said. “It’s the FBI guys. They’re holding Mike and the prisoner at gunpoint and I’m afraid they’re about to kill them both
. That’s enough questions, make the calls now!”

  She waited long enough to see Gordie hurry back to the dispatchers’ station and punch the line connecting the Paskagankee station to the Maine State Police unit in Orono. Then she ran to the weapons locker against the far wall, unlocked it, and removed a Mossberg 590 riot gun and shells. She loaded the weapon quickly, hefted it, and retraced her steps toward the back of the room. Just before reaching the stairway she ducked into the chief’s office and grabbed a master key off a small pegboard hanging behind Mike’s desk. Then she darted out of the office.

  Gordie looked up in alarm and removed the phone from his shoulder. “Sharon!” he shouted. “You can’t go down there alone. Wait for backup! The Staties are on their way and I’m talking to Shankman right now. He was relatively close on patrol and will be here inside of two minutes!”

  Sharon ignored him. She had by now reached the stairway leading to the basement and the interrogation room. She paused just long enough to look back at Gordie Rheaume, who had accumulated more service time with the Paskagankee Police Department than all of the current patrol officers combined. Worry was etched on his craggy face.

  “I can’t wait, Gordie,” Sharon said, locking eyes with the kindly dispatcher. “Two minutes will be too late. In fact, I might already be too late.” She pictured Mike lying in a pool of blood and pounded down the steps.

  At the bottom of the stairs she sprinted the length of the hallway. Reaching the door, she threaded the master key into the lock with shaking hands. Without time to develop a workable plan and with no backup, she was counting on the element of surprise and the superior firepower of the Mossberg shotgun to force the two rogue FBI men to stand down.

  Assuming they hadn’t already killed Mike and Jackson Healy.

  She slid the key home and it rattled in the metal lock, sounding to Sharon like the chatter of machine-gun fire.

  She cringed and sank to her knees, hoping that her previous strategy would work one last time and the slugs would whistle over her head when the men started shooting at her. She turned the knob as quietly as she could and eased the door open slightly, then took a deep breath, steadied the shotgun in both hands, and drew back her foot to kick the door open fully.