The Hunted

by James Phelan

  They waited. Walker watched the house. The southern and eastern sides had three windows, all lit up. One was the lounge room; he saw the forms of two people standing in there, their positions suggesting they were standing over someone, letting their presence be felt.

  His grip tightened on one of the Berettas. He started to think of an escape plan, once he had Squeaker in the clear. He could shoot the three crew members next to him faster than they could turn to react. But there were four separate teams of them, plus Hogan and his three guys, which gave him a problem to solve. Quickly.

  He could lay cover fire while he took one of the trucks or the Sheriff’s car, with Squeaker driving. But the other vehicles would soon be in pursuit.

  All that, because he’d made a temporary deal with the devil to help him get his friend.

  He started thinking up a story that might give Hogan pause, when the two guys in the lounge room moved out of sight.

  “They’ve noticed the truck’s coming,” Walker said to his three companions.

  One of them grunted in reply. Another raked his pump-action shotgun, the sound cutting through the mountain air and making Walker wince. If shooting started, he could take these guys, and the three to the southwest corner that he could see, before the others reacted. Six down, six more out here.

  But then Hogan and 350-pounder would be in the house, possibly with Squeaker. And his two guys with the assault rifles in the back of the truck’s tray would start lighting up the night.

  He would have to get to them fast. Walker felt confident that he could snipe off those men outside armed with short-range weapons of shotguns and 9-millimeter pistols, but then it would be a siege situation, with a host of unknown forces inside holding Squeaker as a bargaining chip.

  Then he’d be back to square one.

  Shit.

  Walker saw Hogan’s truck start up, the bright headlights coming up the lane. He started to move, slowly, settling the pistol in his hands. He liked the Beretta; it was a fine pistol. The M9, the US military called them. Side-arm of the greater portion of the DoD for many years. Reliable. Relatively accurate. It was the first pistol he’d trained on, and holding one was like an extension of his arm. Point and shoot. Fifteen rounds.

  Suddenly, gunshots, from the house. Two of them, from a .357 revolver. Sheriff Lincoln.

  Then they all heard the tinny-sounding pop-pop-pop of a 9-millimeter as it was emptied.

  The crew members around Walker started to rush the house. They were the second group to climb the front stairs. He heard the back door being broken down, and then he saw the two guys standing in the back of Hogan’s truck, their AR-15s rested on the roof, their eyes looking through scopes, waiting for clear shots should anyone they didn’t like appear at a door or window.

  As Walker approached the house, he saw through glass balcony doors that Sheriff Lincoln was spread out on the floor, a 9-millimeter gunshot wound to the head. The 350-pounder was also dead, two neat .357 holes in his chest.

  Hogan held a compact Glock, the slide raked back as it had emptied the mag.

  Two other men were dead on the floor, and four had been rounded up by the crew coming from the back door and were now sitting lined up at the kitchen table.

  Barb’s husband, Gus, had caught a round through the throat and was clutching at the wound, arterial blood oozing through his fingers. Slumped on the couch, he would bleed out or drown in less than thirty seconds.

  Next to him, Squeaker. She had a bruised eye and fat lip. She was wrapped in a ball, her arms pulling her legs up tightly to her chest. She was pale and in shock, but when she saw Walker standing in the doorway, filling that space, she opened up and ran to him and wrapped her arms around him. She felt tiny, cold, tense. Walker hung onto her.

  “Tie them to the dining chairs,” Hogan told his men. The Arkansas crew were shoved roughly into 1970s vinyl chairs, their wrists and ankles soon shackled with plastic cable ties. “We’re going to get everything they know, and we’ve got all night to do it.”

  The Arkansas four looked wild-eyed and spooked. One pissed his pants. Walker figured that within an hour, Hogan would get everything he could from these guys and then he’d sanitize this place; maybe make it look like the Arkansas crew had taken out Sheriff Lincoln.

  “Come on,” Walker whispered into Squeaker’s ear, and took a step back, keeping his eyes on all in the room.

  Hogan gave a tilt of his head in Walker’s direction and he felt a sawed-off barrel press against the back of his head as he raised his Berettas.

  “Put those two in the barn, tie them up,” Hogan said.

  “We had a deal,” Walker said. He knew that even if he got by the guy behind him, the snipers out in the truck had a clear line of fire at him with their scoped rifles.

  Hogan shrugged. “I still got to decide what kind of future you and your little friend here have.”

  46

  “Some rescue,” Squeaker said, a tiny smile on her face, the movement making her wince against the pain in her lip. They’d injected her with something, and by her pupils Walker guessed it was some kind of barbiturate. “You’re trained at this sort of thing, right? Oh, yeah, Air Force, I forgot.”

  “Ye of little faith,” Walker said. They sat on the concrete floor, dusty old hay forming a loose ground cover, the Sheriff’s old ride-on mower, the half-rebuilt Corvette the only machinery in there. The two side walls held workbenches and tools in varying states of disarray and rust, as if the Sheriff had bought the place like this and never ventured inside except to get the mower.

  One of the biker crew watched over them. He was armed with a pistol, a nickel-plated thing in his belt. He also had Walker’s—the deputies’—two Berettas.

  Squeaker asked, “You’re not worried?”

  Walker said, “Why would I be worried?”

  “Ah, five minutes ago it was just me prisoner. Now it’s the both of us. That’s a worry.”

  “That’s not worth worrying about.”

  “Why?” She looked to the biker at the door, who’d put the Berettas on the dusty boot of the Corvette. “That guy has your guns. And his own. And a dozen friends.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t really rate them.”

  “And we’re tied up.”

  “Not really.” Walker watched their watcher light up a smoke, turn his back to them and lean against the open doorway, looking out to the night sky and toward the house. Then he looked to Squeaker and spoke quietly. “Who hurt you in there?”

  “Gus.”

  “Well, at least I don’t have to worry about going into the house to break his arms.”

  “He’s dead, right?”

  “You didn’t see?”

  “I closed my eyes when the shooting started, and covered my ears too. When I opened them, I just saw you. And in that moment I forgot everything else.”

  “Aw, shucks, that’s sweet.”

  “How are you so calm right now? We’re trapped here.”

  “No, we’re not,” Walker said, getting up. He pushed his arms up, then drew them in hard and fast toward his butt, pulling them outward as he connected. Snap. “Cable ties are for pussies.”

  He crept up behind the smoking biker. The guy was on sentry, thinking that he and his armed buddies had everyone and everything covered, maybe even that their turf was about to double overnight after what had gone down here. That they’d won tonight and that was that.

  Wrong.

  Walker wrapped an arm around the guy’s throat and pulled him in, hard, squeezing. When he couldn’t squeeze any tighter, he flexed his bicep against the front and slightly to the right-hand side of the biker’s thorax. He heard cartilage shatter. The guy’s breathing was almost ending. His smoke-stained hands stopped grappling at Walker’s arm, and then his legs gave out. Walker dropped him to the ground.

  “Is he . . .”

  “Unconscious, for now.” Walker took the guy’s pistol and tossed it out into the field. He then used the guy’s knife to cut Squeaker free
.

  Squeaker looked to their former captor. “For now?”

  “Well . . .” Walker looked down at the knife in his hand.

  “Don’t.”

  “It’ll be one less guy at our back. You think he’d hesitate to kill us?”

  “But we don’t need to kill him, do we?”

  Walker looked down into her eyes. The toughness was all gone out of them, replaced by a young woman full of hope.

  Squeaker said, “Let’s just get out of here. Okay?”

  “Okay. Follow me.” He paused a moment, knelt at the biker, patted down his pockets and took his bike keys. Then he took the knife, the three-inch blade shiny under the light, and sliced the guy’s boot at the back, deep, through the Achilles. “One less guy at our back.”

  •

  Levine rang the bell again at the Sheriff’s counter. No answer. No sign of anybody. But the place was open, and two squad cars were out front. The frosted-glass office marked “Sheriff” was empty, lights off. Lamps were switched on at two desks out of six; one held a half-eaten sandwich and a cup of coffee.

  “A town like this, how many cops?”

  “Five, maybe six,” Woods said. “About one per thousand population seems about right around here. Not much crime that doesn’t get sorted out in their own Ozarkean way.”

  “Ozarkean? I’m not sure that’s a word,” Levine said, stepping around the counter and walking to a deputy’s desk.

  “It shouldn’t be a word, if you ask me.”

  “Don’t be a hater of my southern kin,” Levine said.

  “You’re from New Orleans,” Woods said, checking the Sheriff’s door—it was locked. “That’s different. Good people. Here’s just weird.”

  “Says the whitest man in America.”

  “Ouch.”

  Levine felt the cardboard coffee cup. “It’s cold.”

  “Maybe they got called out. That sometimes happens to cops; they have to work.”

  “Leaving their cars out the front?”

  Woods shrugged.

  Levine heard noise, like a TV or radio was on. “Hear that?”

  “What?” Woods said. They were quiet. “I hear nothing. Come on, let’s split.”

  Then they both heard it. Noise, coming from out back.

  47

  Squeaker leaned on him. “Thanks . . .”

  “You’re my partner in this,” Walker said. “We’re a team, and this is what teammates do.”

  “Yeah . . .” she said, dazed, drugged. “You’re really tall.”

  “Taller than most.”

  “You’re nice.”

  “Thanks. You too.”

  “Think I can see Philadelphia someday?” Squeaker said, her eyes out of focus. “I want to—with you. Yes? I mean, you can take me there, show me around . . .”

  “Sure.”

  “City of brotherly love, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “So gay, am I right?”

  Walker smiled.

  “I want to see it!”

  “You will,” Walker said, helping her to the bike. “I’ll take you there.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “They signed the Declaration of Independence there.”

  “They did.”

  “And the Constitution.”

  “Yep.”

  “And the first White House was there.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Philly cheese steak . . . what is that, exactly?”

  “It’s like a sandwich, a grinder of meat and cheese; they’re good.”

  “Grinder?”

  “In Philly they call a hot sandwich a grinder and a cold sandwich a hoagie.”

  “Okay. Well, I want a grinder. No. I want two.”

  “Sure. My treat.”

  “And a city-wide special—they have that, right?”

  “Three bucks for a beer and a whisky. Helps dull the pain when the Eagles lose.”

  “I want that. I want lots of that. With you.”

  “Okay. Come on, let’s go,” Walker said, picking her up and carrying her the remainder of the way.

  “They’re good, these grinders?”

  “They’re great. They taste like home.”

  “Where’re you from?”

  “South Philly.”

  “Tell me about it . . .”

  Walker looked around at the cluster of bikes and then at the keys in his hand: two worn silver keys on a rabbit-tail keychain. “Plenty of Italians.”

  “I like Italians. I like their food.”

  “My mother is half-Italian. Such a good cook.”

  “Can she cook for us?”

  “Sure, Squeaker.” Walker paused, then saw a bike with a rabbit foot hanging off a handlebar and headed for it. “Come on,” he said. “Time now to sit behind me and hang on tight—we’re getting out of here.”

  •

  Levine went to the door set into the back wall.

  “Maybe they’re busy?” Woods said before she opened it. “Could be a couple—a male and female deputy, you know, going at it. Could even be two guys. Either way, maybe you don’t want to just burst it open—knock first.”

  “When have you known me to knock?”

  “Or two cousins? Think about that. That shit’ll be burned into your retinas for years.”

  Levine shook her head and opened the door. Past a kitchen space and storage area she saw another long back wall with internal door. And the noise was louder in here. Not a radio or TV. People. Two. Men. Calling out. This door was stenciled with small lettering: “Holding Cells.”

  Prisoners?

  She opened the door and saw two uniformed deputies, locked up in their own cells, calling out for help.

  48

  “Where are we going?” Squeaker shouted into Walker’s ear.

  They rode the Harley Electra Glide west on Highway 60. Then they’d head north around the town of Willow Springs, arcing around and then coming northeast. A good 500 miles to cover to Old Pelts Road.

  “Where we should have gone this morning,” Walker replied over his shoulder. He held the bike on the yellow line down the center of the deserted road, keeping a decent screw on the throttle, easing off only over crests and through bends. It was a bike designed for a good cruise on the wide open American roads. Here, Walker made it do what he needed. “We’re getting to your cousin the long way.”

  “Do you know how to get there?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “The map at the Sheriff’s.”

  Squeaker yelled into his ear, “You remember it?”

  “I never forget a map.”

  “Okay.”

  Squeaker rested her face side-on against his back. Her hands were slipped under his zipped-up jacket, wrapped around his stomach. Clinging to him kept her warm, and the seat too was warm against the cold night from the heat of the engine. The Harley’s headlight was fat and powerful, and the ride on the open road was like sitting back on a comfortable recliner.

  Walker wound the engine out on the long straights, cruising at ninety miles an hour. It felt like it could sit on 200 without breaking a sweat. The gas gauge was three-quarters full, but he had no idea how far that would take them. There were plenty of towns along the way. With stops, and with slower riding through the smaller or twistier roads, it would take them six hours. They’d be at Old Pelts Road by sunrise.

  •

  “That’s it, we swear,” Deputy Chester said. He was at his desk, his co-worker Jones next to him, the latter unable to talk after Walker’s goodbye tap. Levine sat on the end of the opposite desk, while Woods leaned on the counter, watching and listening.

  “Bullshit,” Levine said.

  “I—we—promise!” Chester said. “We just did what the Sheriff told us. Go ask him.”

  “We will,” Levine replied.

  Woods said, “He’s not answering his phone or radio.”

  “Maybe that Walker guy got him—he’s c
razy!” Chester said.

  Jones nodded, holding a bloodied rag to his face.

  “No,” Levine said. “You guys were crazy to lock him up.”

  “And lucky to be alive, if you ask me,” Woods said.

  “Old Pelts Road!” Chester said in a moment of clarity. “That’s where they asked to go, right?”

  Jones nodded.

  “Right. Right!” Chester said. “That’s where he’ll be headed, for sure. Road’s down, though, you’ll have to go around, through Willow Springs and all. Take a few hours.”

  “We can show you on a map,” Jones said.

  “Do it,” Levine said, getting up. “Show us. And then show us where the Sheriff lives, because we’re going to have a talk with him before we leave.”

  Chester looked to Jones. The latter shrugged.

  “But—but you just want this Walker guy,” Chester said, “and he’s on the loose.”

  “With our side-arms,” Jones managed to say through his wrecked nose and mouth. “He’s armed and dangerous.”

  “He could have killed you two with a look,” Woods said.

  “He’s not traveling alone,” Levine added. “He’s with a young woman by the name of Susan Orlean. And you’ve not mentioned her once. So, I’m thinking that maybe the Sheriff knows something about her whereabouts, and that Walker broke out and locked you two idiots up and has gone to get her before continuing on. Right?”

  Chester looked to Jones again, and they shared a look of defeat.

  “That’s right,” Levine said, satisfied. “If you two don’t give up all you know and help us until we’re satisfied, you’ll be impeding a federal investigation. You know what the Patriot Act allows us to do to guys like you who stand in our way? Hmm? Woods?”

  “I hear Afghanistan’s nice this time of year,” Woods said. “We’ve got plenty of shit-hole black sites over there where these unpatriotic guys can be looked after real good. The boys in there would love some fresh meat. I mean, look at Jones here, he’s a knockout with that red hair.”