by A D Davies
Harpal ducked back down and said, “Two…?”
Tane adopted a sprinter’s position, his ankles braced in invisible stocks, ready to run the hundred-meter dash.
“Three.” Harpal sprang up, centered on the guy ten yards away, and fired three shots.
There was no cry of pain, no flying through the air, just a would-be killer slumping in place.
Tane launched himself for the door, bent almost at right angles, but his speed was that of an Exocet missile homing in on its target.
The man with the muscles poked his arm around the divide and blasted in earnest, but Harpal was quick to switch directions and fire once. He needed to conserve ammo. By his count, the fifteen-strong magazine was now down to six bullets.
As if bonded in psychic harmony, the other two assailants exposed themselves and fired on Harpal, forcing him flat to the floor as wood shattered and flew, and bullets raked the wall behind.
A quick flit to the door showed Tane had exited as planned.
Good.
Harpal snaked over the ground, switching his head with his feet so he could look out from the other side of the desk. It kept the muscle head out of sight.
He aimed up at the perches from where the second two gunmen had attacked. They were frantically shuffling towards the stairs at the auditorium’s edge, which would bring them down towards the muscle head, grouping on their leader.
It still bothered Harpal that they hadn’t destroyed the desk in order to kill him. Tane was right. There was torture in his future.
Four, maybe five bullets remained. He hadn’t asked Tane for his weapon, as he might need it later.
So, he could gamble. Hold his ground and hope for the cavalry or make a run for it the way Tane had gone, then flee in a different direction.
There was still no way he would allow these men to get close to Toby and Charlie.
Okay, this is it.
Harpal crouched in the same position as Tane, an Olympic sprinter prepping for the race of his life. With the desk still obscuring him from view, he held the gun one-handed, on its side the way idiots on TV did, but angled slightly up. He was planning to run, firing backwards. The odd stance would steady the recoil while maximizing his foot speed.
Or should he run backwards, firing two-handed, giving him a better aim?
Stop thinking.
Go.
Harpal took off. He fired once. Twice. A glance over his shoulder.
The three attackers must have been more experienced than he had hoped, as they were now out in the open. His shooting position was awful, posing little threat.
Gunfire rained in. It missed, but the only way it hadn’t cut him down was because their aim was intentional. The bullets raked the wall ahead, pocking the door.
Harpal fired back, but the gun’s slide snapped open, signaling he’d spent the final slug.
“Stop!” shouted one of the men.
Harpal was less than two meters from freedom. He kept going.
A single gunshot rang out.
Harpal ducked, as if he could evade a projectile moving faster than the speed of sound. Something had already bitten his upper arm—the outside, a line of blood slashing the skin.
He lumbered to a halt. It was over for him. Trapped. Nowhere to go.
Then the door whipped open.
Charlie said, “Get down, numbskull.” She held a pistol two-handed, a Barretta if Harpal wasn’t mistaken, and opened fire repeatedly.
He stayed low, crouch-running for the exit, glancing back as he went.
The muscle head had grabbed a colleague and used him as a shield. The shield’s chest had blooded as the muscle head retreated behind the cover of the aisle leading up the stairs. The other minion had fallen.
Harpal dove out of the room, and Charlie was seconds behind, guiding him along the passageway, the opposite direction to where they had hidden. It was a winding route, and Harpal saw little. He concentrated on holding his arm together, putting pressure on the wound which already throbbed and burned.
Charlie pushed out into daylight and continued to lead Harpal by touching his good elbow. Only when they were hurrying down a path with their backs skirting a wall did Charlie enquire if he was okay.
“Fine, thanks,” Harpal said. “The others?”
“Alive.” Charlie snapped her head around at the sound of sirens. She looked at the gun in her hand, then hurried towards a trash can, wiping prints from it, and dumped it in there.
“What are you doing? We might need that.”
“You know which country we’re in. They see me with you, carrying a gun, they won’t ask questions. It might still have some DNA, but I’m not in any database. We should be okay.”
“Fine, which way?”
Charlie answered by leading him toward a block of what appeared to be temporary cabins, out of place in what he’d seen as a traditional-looking American college campus. She went for a car, opened the boot, and it surprised Harpal to find Toby and Sally Garcia curled up inside.
Toby sat upright, his legs hanging out, and drew his attention directly to Harpal’s arm. “Good Lord, are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” Harpal said. “Feels like a couple of stitches will fix it, but they weren’t aiming to kill.”
“Good job,” Charlie said. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
Harpal smiled at her, his heart slowing. “Couldn’t have made it a few minutes earlier? Tane Wiremu is out looking for you.”
“He’s found us,” Professor Garcia said, unfolding and climbing out with Toby.
Sure enough, Tane approached from the same exit they had explored first, checking back constantly, gun by his leg. He hadn’t taken Charlie’s precaution.
He reached them, and all retreated behind the two security cars, obscured from view in case the gunmen found their way here.
Charlie opened the driver’s door. “We should use these to get out. You know the way?”
“I’ll drive, you follow.” Tane muscled past her and she went to work on the next car.
“Phil, you there? We need your automobile magic again.” She paused, then the second car unlocked. “I’ll explain on the way.”
Before she could get behind the wheel, Toby said, “I think it’s safe to say those gentlemen who visited Father Pandi in Mexico were not tourists. One hundred percent caution from here on out.”
Harpal winced against the pain spreading from his minor wound. “Any idea how they’re doing in Alabama?”
Charlie put the question to Phil, then answered, “They’ve made some progress.”
“Alabama?” Professor Garcia said. “You’re really pushing for the shield? Even I’m not positive it exists.”
“We need to know what you know,” Toby said. “I expect the men who attacked the building are desperate to speak to you too. They need your knowledge.”
Tane was already behind the wheel, beckoning for people to get in. “Stop talking. Let’s move.”
“If they want what she has,” Charlie said, “it has to be valuable.”
Tane slapped the wheel in exasperation. “Then it’s a damn good job she doesn’t know everything, isn’t it?”
Even Sally looked surprised.
“Just get in. We can talk on the way.”
“On the way?” Toby said.
“Alabama,” Tane said. “At least, we will if you can stop jabbering and start running. Now.”
Chapter Twelve
Alabama Freedom Museum, Alabama
Jules closed the latest land registry record, having double- and triple-checked what he thought they needed, which he’d discovered a half-hour after the museum closed and all but Darkeen Willis went home. Bridget, though, had her nose in what appeared to be a handwritten manuscript, another she hadn’t deemed fit to share with them. All she’d done was hold up a finger and said, “One minute.” That was twelve minutes earlier.
“Okay, I’m done.” Jules stood and stretched. “If all we’re doin’ is getting colorf
ul background, maybe I can leave you to it. I gotta get back to New York.”
Bridget glanced up, sagged, and sighed. “New York? But we’ve barely gotten anywhere. Haven’t even persuaded the Willises to grant us permission to explore.”
“Wasn’t my brief. All they needed me for was to help get your dad on side. I did that.”
“You know that wasn’t Toby’s main reason for wanting you involved.” She tapped her finger on the pages. “You might want to stick around for this.”
“All clear,” Dan said, turning back to face them. He had been muttering with Phil in the corner near the window, having returned from his post outside to offer them news of the other team’s escape from what Jules had feared was chasing them. “They made it to the airport without being detained. Stitches for Harpal and they’ve picked up a couple of passengers. Someone who might be useful in a scrape, and another for this book stuff.”
It had been over two hours since they learned of the gunplay in California. That point signaled the first time Jules announced he was leaving, explaining that he couldn’t get involved in anything that might lose him his job. Just now was the third time, but something kept pulling him back.
In his civilian life, he’d been quite the expert at scraping out of arrests on either technicalities or pointing out a lack of evidence and the likelihood of local courts being able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he had done what they’d accused him of—even though he was guilty almost every time. It had been a badge of honor for him.
“What’s so interesting?” Jules asked Bridget, coming back to the question prior to Dan’s interruption.
“Your official federal records and my local agreements differ up to a point,” she replied. “You found the Southern Spike was owned by the state, not Jacob Carr, right up until the same date he sold his own properties to the people who’d worked the land.”
“For a dollar, yeah. Got that. Then he married a black lady and disappeared into retirement. We covered this.”
“Yes, but it all builds. Let me get it straight, and don’t forget…” Bridget tilted her head toward Dan. “Not everyone was around for all of that.”
“Don’t mind me,” Dan said. “I’ll hear it when you repeat it to Toby later.”
“That settles it.” Jules made for the main body of the museum. “Let’s head out. I’ll catch another red-eye home. You wait on Toby and the newbies.”
“Then let me get it straight.” Bridget thumped the table. “Unless you want to take a two-hundred-dollar cab ride.”
Jules glanced at Dan.
Dan shrugged. “I’m hoping to stay at her place. Can’t afford a hotel, so she’s in charge of transport.”
“I could steal it,” Jules said.
“Thought you were worried about getting fired for associating with criminals. How’s grand theft auto gonna go down?”
Defeated, Jules leaned on the arch’s frame, his back to the darkened exhibits. “Fine. Jacob Carr sells his farm and property for a dollar, remarries once his kids are all grown up, and retires. The land our new friend from LA thinks contains a deep, dark secret is the Southern Spike we’ve been talkin’ about, which was federal land for a time.”
“This is what reverted to Native ownership?” Dan said.
“Correct.” Bridget brightened as they dug back in. “Jacob’s property line abuts the Southern Spike, and right along there, it’s documented a number of figures in the underground railroad lived and worked. After the civil war, the land was carved up, and the Spike returned to… it says the Cherokee but doesn’t go into which band.”
“And it was never populated,” Jules said, boredom stretching his patience.
“Ah, yeah, that rings a bell.” Dan hopped up onto a desk, sitting there with his legs dangling. “If I remember from school, places like the Southern Spike were subject to land surveys as part of the Indian Termination Policy between the 1940s and 60s.”
Bridget frowned up at him. “Umm, yes. How did you—”
“And in 1956, they passed the Native Relocation Act which encouraged Native Americans to move to more urban areas.” Dan screwed up his face in concentration. “It’s coming back to me. Around 750,000 Native Americans headed for cities before they expected to be evicted. But, oddly, the land we’re calling the Southern Spike was gifted to none other than Telah and Andre Willis in January of 1956, several months before the act passed.”
Bridget checked the documents and notes she’d taken so far, blinking fast before settling on Dan again. “Impressive. You remembered all that from high school?”
Dan tapped the side of his head. “Oh yeah, all up here. The natives knew the act was coming, and rather than risk it falling into federal hands, they donated it to the museum.”
“Yes. Dan, are you—”
“He has Phillip Locke in his ear,” Jules said. Watching Bridget flounder at Dan’s encyclopedic knowledge had amused him for a short while, but it was getting late, and he really intended to be on the next plane home. “It’s public record, backing up what I dug out. Just the timings that are different.”
Dan appeared more amused than annoyed at Jules selling him out. “Point remains. Jacob Carr passes his land on to the people who’d worked it and made him rich, he takes his wealth and retires with a hot new wife, and the property passes from generation to generation of the Willis clan.”
Jules wound his hand in the air. “Yeah, yeah, then they sell off bits and pieces along the way, endin’ up with this plot of land for the museum. Plus, the Southern Spike, which stays untouched. It’s odd, but not worth the attention of a group who specialize in the kinda things we’ve seen.”
Bridget fingered a section in her latest manuscript. “It’s only just gotten interesting. That finger of land passed to the Willis family, same as the museum. But that’s simply the official contract. Here’s the one signed informally, but one infinitely more important to the Cherokee… and this other signatory.”
Dan leaned over to look.
Jules considered holding his ground but ambled over and read what Bridget had found.
“Okay, fine,” he said. “Guess we got one more stop to make after all.”
Bridget had started the day excited to see her friends, then disappointed that they’d visited only to recruit her for a mission. Well, an errand. But it was becoming something more. Now she was ending it with a buzz in her rib cage, in her fingers and toes, her knees both weak and strong as they pressed home the need to hurry.
Even Jules had come along willingly, swatting at mosquitos in the early evening dusk.
Jules.
Why couldn’t he admit that he loved this type of work as much as she did? Why deny himself the chance to explore the planet, to explore history, and even rewrite chunks the world thought it had known?
A cop of all things?
She understood he’d been through an ordeal back in Austria. His actions had led to him accidentally killing a man—a dangerous man, who’d have murdered Jules in a heartbeat and smiled while he did so. But Jules had this code, something to do with all life being precious. One of the martial arts he’d studied meant he had to respect all life, and to always seek a different way to end conflict. Perhaps joining the police was his way of giving back. To help others, to protect and serve.
Still, carrying a gun for a living was an unusual way of hoping never to kill again.
“You do the honors,” Dan said.
Bridget rang the bell.
The Willises’ house stood alone on the eastern edge of the museum. It had been constructed at least thirty years earlier and looked its age. While they were land-rich, probably millionaires, technically, it seemed unlikely they could unlock that wealth and translate it into ready cash.
When the door opened, Andre Willis—the tour guide they’d seen with the schoolkids—greeted them as a fog of spicy aromas, mingled with something cabbage-like, wafted out. “Hello. What can we do for you? It’s late.”
“May we come in, plea
se?” Bridget asked in her most polite voice. “We won’t inconvenience you long, I promise.”
Andre looked to his left, received an answer, and stood aside for them to enter.
The door led directly into the lounge without encountering a hallway or reception room, two doors besides the outer one. The first opened to a kitchen, dishes on the side of a sink the only sign of mess in the house, the other a passage running out of the lounge which presumably contained the bedrooms and bathroom.
Before Bridget, Telah Willis sat in a sturdy armchair with a purple flower pattern. She faced them, as if she’d been expecting visitors, the TV directly to her right. It wasn’t until she raised a hand, appraising Bridget as she approached, that Bridget noted the chair swiveled side to side as well as back and forth.
Telah asked, “You found what you need?”
“We found something,” Bridget said.
The door closed. Jules removed his shoes and padded over, halting behind Bridget. Dan had remained outside, still concerned about the possibility of being jumped as Toby’s group had been.
“It’s small,” Andre said, finding his own armchair—a twin of Telah’s in shape, only a leather design. “But it sees us well.”
Telah hadn’t taken her eyes off Bridget. “What did you find, child?”
“I don’t mean to accuse you of anything—”
Telah’s lips parted wide, the approximation of a smile, but lacking warmth or humor. “I’m sure I’ve heard worse in my time. Speak. Candid-like.”
Bridget did so, recapping the official records and the more personal accounts of deal-making, until she found herself on the precipice of being shut down. “The land you took over from the Cherokee… It was a deal on paper, and in fact. But there was another facet that didn’t make it into the federal records.”
Telah hummed, nodding gently, although it made the chair wobble more than it should have.
“What you mean another facet?” Andre asked.
Jules finally gave in, having had to relive the research for a third time. “Are you part of a super-secret inter-generational group of people dedicated to helping those in need, providin’ they meet your strict moral standards?”