“Fuck McMannis.”
Forty-seven
“I don’t understand how people minding their own business can have so much shit rain down on them,” Charlie said. “But the important thing is that you’re both safe and no one is going to hurt you or brainwash you. Not if I can help it. Now we just need to—”
The engine went silent and Charlie had to force the steering-wheel to bring the car to the breakdown lane. He looked at the fuel gauge and saw that he had plenty of compressed natural gas.
“Why are we stopping?”
“I think we’re in trouble. I hope you guys can run. When the car comes to a stop, get out and follow me – fast.”
Deron and Michelle were roused out of their comfortable embrace and felt alarmed. They had no possessions except for Charlie’s shotgun, so they were ready to run. The car came to a slow stop on the side of the freeway. Charlie opened his door.
“Let’s go. We need to get as far from this car as fast as we can.”
The three of them climbed over the guard rail and ran down a slight incline into an open grassy area. They were moving away from the lights of the freeway and toward a lighted neighborhood. At the end of the grass there was an embankment they’d have to climb up, but after that was a freeway sound barrier that was too high to climb over.
Charlie stopped and gestured to Deron and Michelle to stop with him. He saw a sewer pipe opening at the bottom of the embankment and he led them down to it. He told them to get inside and move forward as far as they could. If they reached an opening on the other end, then stop and wait. Deron went in first, followed by Michelle. Then Charlie entered. The weather had been warm and dry lately so the tunnel was dry. The three of them slowly crawled forward toward a circle of dim light far ahead.
Behind them they heard sirens and a helicopter approaching. Charlie hoped like hell no one would think to look inside the tunnel – at least not right away.
A local squad car arrived first and pulled over in front of Charlie’s car. A minute later, Kerrigan and Adams arrived and blocked highway lanes with their car as they came to a stop near the other two cars. The police helicopter circled above, aiming its spotlight around the general area and sweeping the freeway, the grass, and nearby neighborhood streets.
McMannis pulled up in an unmarked detective’s car and casually walked over to the other officers who were shining flashlights into the interior of Charlie’s car.
“See anything?” he asked them.
“Possible blood spots in the back seat. I put a call in for crime scene techs,” a Riverside uniform replied.
“Good man,” McMannis said, then looked up to see Adams approaching him.
“I thought they’d have put you out to pasture by now,” Adams said.
“Yeah, well you know. No matter how much happiness we bestow on the people, some of them just can’t resist the primal urge to kill their fellow man once in a blue moon.” McMannis grinned and stuck a toothpick in his mouth. He put a foot on the front bumper of the car and looked around the area.
Adams thought to himself, Hasn’t changed one bit. “That’s evidence related to a crime scene, McMannis. Mind not contaminating it with your goddamned shoe?”
“Sure. But that’s Detective McMannis,” he said, smiling and rubbing salt in an old wound.
“How could I forget?” Adams asked, and then they proceeded to argue over who would direct the investigation from this point on.
Adams claimed First on Scene prerogative. McMannis countered that this wasn’t the crime scene. Adams said it was an extension of the crime scene. McMannis called bullshit and reminded Adams that this was a homicide investigation.
“I think it’s been so long since you’ve had a homicide, you don’t even know how to handle one. Why don’t you just stand down and let a real cop with experience handle this?” Adams asked.
“If you had the necessary experience and qualifications, you’d be a homicide detective instead of still wearing a uniform. So I’ve got this, Sergeant.”
Adams felt years of held back anger from having been stabbed in the back by McMannis, costing him his promotion to homicide, and he swung at the detective. McMannis dodged and the two law enforcement officers brawled on the interstate which was lit up like a stage by the helicopter spotlight.
The co-pilot said, “I don’t believe this shit.”
“Fuck ‘em,” the pilot said. “Drop some search drones. We need to get over to Avalon. They’ve got a shit-storm brewing over there.”
The co-pilot tapped some controls on the panel in front of him causing small bays on the bottom of the craft to open and release three drones. They would begin searching for pedestrians as they flew in ever-widening circles, one working its way east, and the other two going north and south. Any subjects spotted would be relayed to the OCPF officers.
The co-pilot radioed to the cops on the ground that they’d dropped drones and were headed out to an all air-units call off the coast and would be unavailable indefinitely.
Two hundred yards away to the west, Deron stopped when he reached the other end of the tunnel. Charlie was surprised and relieved that he hadn’t heard anyone enter the pipe behind them.
The three of them crawled out and stood up, each of them wiping their dirty hands on their clothes. Charlie looked around and thought about what to do next. He could hear the helicopter but he couldn’t see it. It sounded like it was heading away from them, but he figured it was circling and would be back momentarily.
Since they had been fleeing to the east in his car, Charlie reasoned that their pursuers would expect them to continue in that direction. He grabbed the hands of the teenagers, pulling them further west, and said, “This way.”
They ran beside the sound barrier wall until they saw another drain tunnel half a mile down from the one they’d emerged from. This time, Charlie went in first, gesturing for Darren and Michelle to follow him and to remain silent. He led them to the other end of the tunnel and stopped about fifty feet from the end.
“I think we might be safe here until they leave,” he told them.
“But won’t they check all the tunnels?” Deron asked.
“I don’t think so. At least not the ones west of my car. They’re more likely to assume we continued east, or south.”
It turned out that Charlie was right. After the captain of the Westminster Division of the OCPF came to the scene to oversee the search and suspended Adams and McMannis without pay, he directed officers to search in a wide fan pointing east radiating out to the southeast and northeast.
The drones searched in ever-widening circles around the area. They detected the officers but ignored them as their chips identified them as law enforcement. One of the drones flew over the fugitives, but they were not visible from the air and only the helicopter had thermal imaging capabilities.
After several hours when they could hear nothing but the occasional freeway traffic passing, Charlie crept out of the culvert and snuck up to the highway, staying as low as he could while still getting a look to the east. His car was gone, as were those of the officers.
Forty-eight
“You can come out now. I think everyone’s gone.”
Deron and Michelle crawled out of the dirty tunnel, and again, tried to wipe dirt and algae off their hands onto their pants. They looked tired and dirty and Charlie didn’t feel entirely certain he was doing the right thing by taking them on the run. But the alternatives were for Deron to be locked up in a “treatment” facility where he’d lose the spirit of who he was, and for Michelle to return to the crime scene she called home.
“Michelle, do you have any family you can call? Someone you can stay with instead of running with two fugitives?”
She bit her lip and shook her head, clinging to Deron as a buoy for the stormy sea of emotions in which she was still adrift.
“You don’t have any relatives in Orange County, or anywhere in California?” Charlie would be relieved if he could be unburdened of the tr
aumatized girl.
“Grandpa, she doesn’t have anyone but her parents, and if they cared about her, she wouldn’t be here right now. She has to stay with us.”
Charlie came close to her and gently brushed away some dirt on her check. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
She nodded meekly and Charlie wondered if she even had the mental faculty right now to decide her own fate.
“Okay. We’ll keep going, but if you find yourself thinking that you want to go home, or call someone, just let me know. I won’t be angry. I think it would be best for you to see a crisis counselor and a doctor after what you’ve been through.”
Michelle turned away, not wanting to mentally go there. Not yet, anyway. The horror of it was too fresh, like wet paint.
“Okay, I’m going to cross the freeway to see if there’s a tunnel we can use on the other side. If I’m not back in five minutes, that means I found something and you two should cross over and meet up with me.”
“Couldn’t it also mean you got caught?” Deron asked.
“If that happens, you might as well come over anyway. You won’t be able to survive on your own out here. None of us will actually, unless we’re able to reach an old friend of mine. And even then, there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to help us. But let’s take things one at a time. If you hear a helicopter, get back in the tunnel. I’m guessing you have one of those microchips in you, right?” Charlie asked, looking at Michelle.
“An Identi-Chip?” she replied, holding up her left wrist.
“I was afraid of that. Do not come out of the tunnel if you hear anything – a car, helicopter, drone – anything at all. That type of chip requires line of sight to be scanned, so just stay out of sight of anything and you should be fine.”
“Should be?” Deron asked, alarmed.
“Yes. We used to have chips on our car windshields so we could pay highway tolls without stopping. I’m sure they have new scanners on the freeway now, but I don’t know what they look like. We’re well between light posts though so she’ll probably be fine crossing here.”
Deron and Michelle looked around, fearfully trying to spot anything that might support a scanning device.
“Try not to worry. I’ll be right back…”
Charlie took off jogging toward the freeway, slowing as the terrain inclined. He looked around for cameras and wasn’t sure if he could make one out in the distance to the west. If it was a camera and if it was being monitored, he was definitely going to attract attention, running across the freeway. Traffic was sparse and crossing would be easy so he decided to walk across so as not to look like someone who was literally running from something or someone.
There wasn’t a tunnel on the other side where he expected one to be, but there was one further east, forty or so yards away. He made his way to it slowly, wanting the kids to cross to this side and easily spot where he’d gone. He walked backwards, mentally urging the kids to appear at the guardrail.
He reached the tunnel entrance and they still hadn’t appeared, so he peaked inside the tunnel, not entering it all the way. He did not see any light on the far end as he had hoped he would. Not even a glimmer of streetlight illuminating an opening. Maybe this tunnel curves more, he thought.
As he sat down to wait, he tried to estimate where he was and how to get to his old friend’s house from here. He hadn’t spoken to Emile in a few years, but if he was still living in the same place, Charlie had no doubt that Emile would do what he could to assist. He didn’t plan on asking him for much. The last thing he wanted was to cause trouble for yet another innocent person, but if he could borrow some money, they might make it out of the state. And maybe they could get a lead on the location of one of the anti-government free zones that were rumored to exist.
There they are! He saw Deron and Michelle carefully straddle the guardrail as they climbed over it, then make their way down the embankment, changing course diagonally to head toward him. He felt terrible looking at them as they approached. They were dirty, tired, injured, bloodstained, and probably starving.
“This tunnel looks dark. We’ll have to go slow and be careful. Do you two need to rest before we go in?”
“I’m okay,” Deron said, then looked at Michelle who nodded, indicating she was good to go. Charlie felt an urge to hug them and apologize and tell them that he was proud of them. They were exhibiting so much strength in such adverse conditions. These kids deserve so much better than this.
“I’ll go first. Try not to let the dark bother you.”
Charlie felt a tap on his shoulder as he lowered himself to his knees. He turned and saw Deron handing him a lighter. Charlie smiled.
Using the lighter every several feet, they reached the end of the tunnel and found that it did curve, and it sloped downward as it turned to the right. After the plane leveled out again, Charlie flicked on the lighter briefly and found a handle on the wall. He gripped and pulled but nothing happened. Then he tried swiveling it and it turned. He opened what turned out to be a door in the wall with a ladder leading down to another level that was much larger than the tunnel, so he decided to explore, even though it meant leaving the kids in complete darkness.
“I’ll be right back,” he said before descending.
Deron felt for Michelle by waving his hand around slowly until he made contact with her. She felt his touch and moved toward him. His hand followed the trail of her arm down to her hand, which he took in his, then they sat in the dark silence, gripping each other’s hands tightly as they listened to the sound of Charlie’s shoes on each rung.
As soon as Charlie reached the bottom, he glanced around and saw dim lights lining a tall and wide sewer system. He went back up quickly. He lit the lighter again at the top and told Deron and Michelle to come toward him. They were going to travel upright for a while, with light.
Forty-nine
Charlie estimated that if they had an approximate pace of three or four miles per hour, and they’d been walking for just over three hours, they could be roughly in the vicinity of Emile’s house, give or take a couple miles. Now he just needed an exit ladder.
When they came to one, Charlie climbed it but couldn’t get the hatch door to open. He climbed back down the ladder thought he heard something. He spread his arms out and stopped. Deron and Michelle stopped walking and looked at Charlie. He held a finger up in front of his nose and mouth.
They all heard it now. Footsteps, getting louder; coming toward them from around a bend in the sewer. He motioned for them to get behind him, and stay close to the wall. He took a few steps to put some distance between them.
Suddenly Charlie saw something he hadn't seen since before the post-war reconstruction: Thugs. Typical, lowlife thugs. They stopped as soon as they made eye contact. The taller, meaner looking one on the left pulled out a knife. The smaller guy looked around, either for an escape route, or for something to use as a weapon. Charlie was guessing escape. He looked startled rather than aggressive.
Charlie assessed the threat potential in seconds. They both looked like they'd been deprived of food and sleep for some time. The tall guy’s face was gaunt. Greasy hair hanging down over desperate eyes. Clothes that hung on his bones. His partner was no better off, but didn't appear eager for combat like his buddy.
"We're just passing through," Charlie said. "I won't give you any trouble, but I won't stand for any either."
"Give us your money and food, old man, and I won't have to cut you." He brandished a knife and tried to see past Charlie to where the Deron and Michelle were huddled together. Charlie stared at the young man's eyes without moving or speaking.
The punk turned to his friend and said, "Go take what they got, Scrab."
The unarmed smaller man who had hair that might've been blond if it hadn't been so dirty started to walk, curving to the right to make a wide berth around Charlie who sidestepped to his left, blocking the younger man's advance while keeping his eye on the other man. Scrab stopped when Charlie block
ed his way.
“You got the knife, Mick. I ain’t got nothin’.”
The tall one lunged forward one step, knife hand extended. Not quite attacking yet, but trying to intimidate. Now that Charlie was further to the right, the knifeman had a better view of Deron and Michelle. "I'll make you a deal, old-timer. Give us your money and the girl and we'll let you and the boy go."
"We have nothing, and you're getting nothing. And if one of you even touches that girl, I'll kill both of you with my bare fucking hands. How's that for a deal?"
The one called Mick charged forward with his knife out in front. Charlie would've shaken his head in disgust at the lack of tactical combat skill if he wasn't already countering the lame offensive. He pivoted, turning to face Mick from the side, reaching for his extended right arm while stepping in close to him and spinning back out around Mick's other side, easily breaking his arm as he rotated.
Mick spun around without a choice, following his arm and trying to reduce the excruciating pain. Charlie looped his left leg behind Mick's legs and shot his right hand forward, palm out into Mick's chest, following through with the motion to not only send him to the ground, but to ensure the impact was maximized.
Mick struggled to breathe and Charlie turned to Scrab who had backed against the far wall with his hands in the air, shaking his head. He had no beef with Charlie.
"I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry!"
Charlie spotted the knife on the ground and carefully bent to pick it up, looking at Scrab as he did so to make sure he wasn't going to have a change of heart as he briefly put himself in a vulnerable position. He shifted the knife to his left hand, then bent down again and grabbed one of Mick's feet and dragged him backwards around the bend and out of sight. There was a barely audible thump and Mick's screaming stopped.
Charlie quickly re-appeared, relieved to see that his estimation of Scrab was correct. He hadn’t moved a bit. Charlie had taken a risk when he dragged Mick away, leaving Deron and Michelle to fend for themselves. He was glad to know that his mind was still sharp enough for an accurate threat assessment. Old-timer my ass, he thought.
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