Kill Switch

by Gordon Bonnet

  Chase shook his head. “No! She’s a woman of God, she would never—”

  “Then tell me!” His anger burst like a grenade. He grabbed Chase by the sleeve, pulling him close—close enough to see the sweat standing out on his forehead. “You fucking bastard! Tell me why you did it! Tell me why you sold us out!”

  “I didn’t! I swear to Jesus Christ I didn’t! I didn’t say nothin’ to no one with any ill intent, I promised the Reverend I’d protect you! He said you were in some kind o’ bad danger, and that I was to do whatever I had to to see you safe where you were goin’, and I swear by the Lord’s name I did just that! I never talked about it to no one ’cept people like the Harpers who only want what’s right and good!”

  He let the kid go and slumped in his chair. Restaurant patrons, turning with concerned faces to see if a fight was about to break out, returned to their dinners and their laptops and their conversations.

  Chris put a hand over his face. “How can you really expect me to believe that? No one else knew. The message was in a code that only Elisa and I could break. The only other ones who could have deciphered it are dead, dead like Elisa and I will soon be. If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Look.” He looked up suddenly. Chase started, eyes widening, as if he expected Chris to grab him again. “There’s no more reason to lie. I’m here, out in the middle of a state where I know no one. Someone I care deeply about is in the hands of the people who are trying to kill us both, and I have no choice but to meet them and probably get killed myself in the process. I can’t run any more, not if the result will be Elisa’s death. There is no more reason for you to lie. Even if it’s just to tell me I’m right, and that you’re on their side, and that I’m going to be dead in an hour. Level with me. Just tell me the fucking truth, okay? That’s all I ask.”

  And Chase looked him straight in the eye, and said, his voice still quavering a little, “Mr. Lake, I swear, with the Lord Jesus Christ Almighty as my witness. I never let the evil men know about where you were going, nor where your girlfriend was, either. I only used my cell phone a coupla times since we left, to call Reverend Joe, and let him know we were okay, and to call my friend back in Ogallala to tell him the same thing. If I sold you out, how would I have done it? And when?”

  Chris stood, shut off the computer, and left the rest of his dinner untouched on the plate. He threw a twenty-dollar bill on the counter as he walked out.

  A friend back in Ogallala. And just who was that friend?

  He sighed. It didn’t matter now. The game was up.

  He thought about people getting their last meal before being executed. How could someone choke down a t-bone steak, baked potato and dessert, all along knowing that the electric chair was waiting for them a few hours later? Half a BLT was all he would carry to his grave.

  Chase trotted after him toward the car. “Where are you going? You gonna run?”

  Chris made a dismissive noise. “No. I’m not going to run. I told you that. And you’re coming with me. We’re going to the Ranchester Turnaround. It’s only another ten miles further along I-90. And then we’ll see if you’re lying or not.”

  “I’m not. I promise.”

  They climbed back into the car, a stubborn note entering his voice. Baxter gave a hopeful wag to ask if there were leftovers, but Chris reached back and gave him a skritch on the ears.

  “Sorry, Bax, old buddy. In twenty minutes or so, we may have way bigger problems than no table scraps.”

  —

  The drive to Ranchester proceeded in silence, although Chris’s heart pounded so hard it must have be audible to Chase. Strung out to some extremity of emotion, he was all at once scared, angry, desperate, resigned, furious at having been betrayed, and grief-stricken that Elisa had been caught. There was even a slight tincture of hope there, that somehow, some way he would escape again, that he could free Elisa, that it would still all end okay.

  Was Chase lying? The miles slipped past in the fading light. What reason would he have to keep up the subterfuge once he was found out, once it was obvious Chris wasn’t going to try to run, that they had him cornered, and that he was going to the rendezvous to turn himself in?

  He looked over at his companion, whose narrow, aquiline profile showed no more of the cheerful camaraderie he’d expressed during the first part of the journey. He looked terrified, to be truthful, his lips pinched into a thin line, his eyes wide as he stared straight ahead on the highway. He looked as if he were as scared as Chris was, perhaps more so.

  Questions flooded his mind. If it wasn’t Chase, then how did They find out? Had they pinpointed Elisa’s computer? Or was it some other way? How could they have traced her computer now, if all the emails she’d sent before weren’t enough? If it hadn’t been Chase, and it hadn’t been one of the Harpers, then it had to be that someone had been able to crack their code.

  But how?

  He saw the sign for Exit 16—Decker Road, Decker MT, Next Right. Ranchester Turnaround One Mile. His heart gave a painful leap in his chest. He was going to need some serious therapy if he made it through this alive.

  “There it is.” He pointed, fighting off the strange urge to laugh.

  Chase put on his turn signal and braked to slow down for the turnaround. It was nothing more than a looped bit of pavement with a picnic bench, a garbage can, and an open shelter with one light bulb glowing in the darkness. Chris could see a car parked there, its lights off. There was no way to tell make or model, or even its color. Everything around them had faded to slate gray.

  Chase pulled in, stopped, and shut off the engine.

  He looked over at Chris. “Whaddya want me to do? The Reverend said I had to protect you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I know what I have to do. All the protection in the world probably wouldn’t do me any good now. Save yourself. Get in the car, and drive. Take care of my dog, okay? That’s all I ask.”

  He got out, and shut the door, leaving Baxter safely inside Chase’s car. Much to his surprise, Chase got out, too, and followed, walking slowly about ten feet behind him.

  Two figures emerged from the shadows.

  Chase gave an inarticulate squeak of terror. “You? No—”

  He spun and ran back toward the car. Chris turned toward him, but one of the two figures elbowed him out of the way, knocking him sprawling onto the dry, dusty ground.

  A hand came up, then the other, and there was a gunshot.

  Chase Ballengee flung both arms upwards, like a man shouting hallelujah at a revival, and fell headlong onto the pavement only five feet from his car. He didn’t move again.

  Chris scrambled into a crouching position, gasping for breath. The second figure came running up to the first. At that moment, an eighteen-wheeler roared by on the freeway behind them, and the headlights briefly caught the two men standing over him full in the face.

  Hargis and Drolezki.

  Chapter 16

  Chris choked. “What the hell are you doing? He was helping me!”

  But neither man was paying attention.

  They were facing each other. Drolezki, still holding the gun with which he had shot Chase Ballengee, was regarding his partner with eyes that had gone hard, glittering like pieces of quartz in the feeble glow of the light on the corner of the picnic shelter. Hargis looked at his partner with an uncomprehending frown, a dazed expression like that of a man just awakened from a sound sleep.

  “Mark, what the hell? We were supposed to—”

  Drolezki cut him off. “I know. But you’re assuming that we’re following orders from the same people.”

  And he shot Hargis in the middle of his chest.

  The agent staggered backward and collapsed to his knees, still looking up at his partner with the same perplexed frown. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Then he pitched forward onto the dusty ground.

  Drolezki, his formerly genial, teenage-boy face now ruthless and cold, turned and aim
ed his pistol at Chris.

  Staring down the gun’s barrel, the black hole looking like the pupil of an eye, all he could do was gulp.

  This was it.

  He was going to die, right here, in a pulloff in Wyoming. Would it hurt? Probably, at least for a while. But then, being dead, that part wouldn’t hurt. It would be nothing. Who would claim his body, though?

  All of this ran through his mind in seconds and were gone, replaced by a sudden, animal desperation to survive at all costs. He weighed his options. Was there a way to get away without being shot in the back, the way Chase Ballengee had died?

  Drolezki motioned with his gun.“Into the car.”

  “You’re not going to kill me?” Chris was immediately embarrassed at how terrified he sounded.

  “Not for the time being.” The agent flicked the gun at him again. “Later, you might find yourself wishing I’d put a bullet between your eyes here. Now, get in the fucking car.”

  He got up. His knees felt wobbly, weak, and the dry wind turned sweaty patches on his shirt to chilly, clammy spots that clung to his skin. He looked over at Chase’s car. Baxter watched him through the passenger side window, his earnest and rather silly face full of canine worry.

  His voice caught in his throat. “What about my dog?”

  Drolezki stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending. “Leave him. Believe me, he’s better off here. Someone’ll find him.”

  “But—” He stumbled again, stopped.

  “No. Into the car. Now. Or it ends here, like it did with your friend.” Drolezki nodded toward the inert figure of Chase, still lying where he’d fallen beside his car.

  Chris got into the car, the same white sedan that he’d seen sitting in his driveway on the last day of school, though it felt like a lifetime ago now. Drolezki climbed into the driver’s seat, pressed the button to lock the doors, and holstered his pistol. Evidently, he didn’t think much of Chris’s ability to defend himself. The agent looked completely at ease, entirely in charge of the situation.

  “What about Chase? And Hargis? You can’t just leave two dead bodies lying around out there.”

  Drolezki didn’t meet his eyes. He started the car. “We have people whose job is to clean up the loose ends. They’ll be here shortly. If anyone sees the bodies before then, well, they’ll call the police, and the Wyoming state cops will have another couple of random, puzzling murders on their books for the people on Cold Justice to talk about.”

  He reached under the seat, pulled out a set of handcuffs, and cuffed Chris’s right hand to the door handle. “In case you were thinking about doing anything stupid. For what it’s worth, it’s hard to survive jumping out of a moving car, despite what the movies’d have you believe. You hit the pavement doing sixty-five miles per hour, you turn into ground beef.”

  Drolezki pulled back out onto I-90. Chris turned, and the last thing he saw as they left the Ranchester Turnaround was Baxter’s face, filled with puzzled incomprehension, watching them drive away.

  They had gotten him. His mental voice sounded breathless and a little incredulous. They’d finally done it. He’d never thought Drolezki would be one of Them, though. He’d suspected Hargis at first, but never thought about Drolezki. He’d just seemed like a comical sidekick.

  Ten minutes later, a blue sign saying Welcome to Montana loomed up in the glare from the headlights. It was shaped like the state outline, with a circle in the center showing a pair of snow-topped mountain peaks.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “You don’t need to know that.”

  “Is Elisa still alive?”

  “For the time being.”

  “Why didn’t you kill us, like you killed the others?”

  Drolezki glared. “I’m not going to spend this entire drive answering questions. Most of them I probably won’t be able to answer.”

  Chris looked at him for a moment through narrowed eyes. “Who the fuck are you? I mean, really.”

  A corner of the agent’s mouth twitched. “Mark Drolezki. FBI.”

  “How long have you had that identity?”

  Drolezki snorted derisively and didn’t answer.

  He refused to quit, though. “Then at least tell me this much. All along, you’ve been trying to find the two of us so you can kill us. The last of the seven. And now, you have the chance. You could have shot me, like you did Chase and Hargis. And you’ve got Elisa, too. Why not kill us and be done with it?”

  “You’re making an assumption when you say that we killed the others.”

  “Oh, come on. Like there’s any other explanation.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “You were trying to kill me before, though. Those bullets in the motel parking lot in Missouri weren’t meant as warning shots.”

  Drolezki gave a harsh sigh. “Let’s just say my orders have changed.”

  “Why?”

  “Stop with the goddamned questions.”

  He kicked the bottom of the dash. “Look, you hold all the fucking cards, okay? I’m handcuffed in your car, being taken God knows where. You can kill me any time you like. Same, I’d guess, as Elisa. So at least tell me what’s going on. I figure that in a day, maybe two, I’ll be dead anyway, so what possible harm can it do?”

  Drolezki looked him over again, as evaluating him one more time. “I never would have guessed that you’d give us this much trouble. I figured it was just a matter of waiting till you were taken care of, one way or the other. You gave us a good run, though. I gotta admit.”

  “So answer my questions.”

  Another sigh. “As much as I can, okay. I guess you’re right, I can’t see it changing the outcome any.”

  That was easier than he thought it would be. He’d figured Drolezki would just tell him to shut up.

  “Why are you keeping Elisa and me alive?”

  “There were hints in the emails you exchanged. We want to see how much you know, and find out who you talked to.”

  “Before you kill us both and take care of anyone we might have talked to that could cause problems later.”

  “More or less.”

  “What if I don’t cooperate? What if I refuse to talk?”

  The agent snorted. “Not recommended.”

  Chris suppressed a shudder at how matter-of-fact he made that sounded, despite what it implied. Time to change the subject. “Who is Iktomi7979?”

  “Very funny. Next question.”

  Chris frowned. Peculiar response. It seemed pretty certain, however, that persisting on that topic wouldn’t accomplish anything. “Okay.” He sighed. “Why did you kill Chase Ballengee?”

  Surprisingly, Drolezki’s expression immediately lightened. This was evidently a question he’d anticipated and didn’t mind answering. He shrugged. “Collateral damage. Given that he’d traveled with you, we’d probably have had to get rid of him eventually anyway. My supervisors don’t like loose ends. Loose ends have a way of coming unraveled eventually.”

  “And Chase was a loose end.”

  “Yes.”

  “He looked like he recognized you. Right before you shot him.”

  Drolezki gave him a hard look. “Can’t see how that would be possible.”

  “What about Hargis? Hargis didn’t know about you?”

  “Didn’t know I was working for the other side?” Drolezki laughed. “No. Hargis was a good soldier and assumed that everyone around him at the Bureau was, too. I had a couple of close calls with him. But I finally realized that he did what all people from his cut do. They decide what people are, and after that there’s no changing it. Hargis wasn’t hard to fool, because once he came to a decision about who a person was, it would have taken an act of Congress to change it. He was so loyal, he couldn’t imagine disloyalty in the people around him.”

  “Didn’t mind betraying him yourself, though?” Chris waited to see if his question had pushed the other man too far, whether he’d snap at him angrily, or possibly refuse to talk further.

&nbs
p; All he did was continue smiling. “There’s more at stake here than Hargis was worth. I waited until I had no choice but to blow my cover. After that, Hargis was expendable.”

  “Expendable.”

  “Yes.”

  “Like Elisa and me.”

  “You two don’t even rank on that scale. If you weren’t wanted for questioning, you’d already be dead.”

  He looked back out the window. It was completely dark now. Only the headlights of the occasional oncoming car cut into the blackness, with a harsh white glare that illuminated nothing. “I suppose you were the one who poisoned the beer in my fridge and killed Adam Parrish.”

  “Nope. Sorry. I had nothing to do with that.”

  “But you would have been happy if I’d been the one who was killed.”

  “It’d have been a shitload less work,” Drolezki said.

  “So Adam was expendable, too.”

  “Of course.”

  Chris looked at him in silence for a moment. “You sonofabitch,” he finally said, in a low, intense voice. “You aren’t even human.”

  Drolezki didn’t meet Chris’s stare. He simply kept driving, looking through the windshield at the interstate winding away west in front of them. “You might want to save your bluster for my superiors,” he finally said, chuckling a little. “Compared to them, I’m a pushover.”

  —

  Despite knowing that he was almost certainly being taken to his death, he was somehow able to sleep. Somewhere in the black Montana night, he slipped into a doze, then into a deep, dreamless sleep. When he finally awoke, some hours later, he blinked groggily, not able at first to make sense of his surroundings until the pain in his wrist reminded him that he was still handcuffed in Drolezki’s car. It was dark, but behind them there was a trace of pearl gray in the eastern sky. The dashboard clock’s red numerals told him that it was a little before five in the morning.

  He looked over at Drolezki, who was still sitting in the same position as he had been earlier, one hand resting on the steering wheel. His round face showed no sign of fatigue. “Don’t you need to sleep?”