by Tim Green
Chapter 39
Kratch was sitting in the front seat of his car with the door open. He was parked haphazardly in the elegant circular drive of the Royal Palm with one foot resting outside on the rich clay paving stones. Lawrence and Gill were inside wrapping up the details and getting everything under way with the lab people and the coroners. It was all for show. He knew exactly what had happened, and now it was simply a matter of putting the pieces of the puzzle into place. Kratch had dispatched squad cars to Luthers home at the Polo Club. The officers reported that the guard had seen Luther leave only a short time before. Kratch was now filling out a report of his own. He was keeping close tabs on everything, since this would be considered part of his ongoing investigation of Luther Zorn.
Fifteen minutes ago, he had spoken to the hastily assembled press, indicating that he had put out an all-points bulletin for the immediate apprehension of the star football player. He was dangerous and deadly and to be considered heavily armed. Those were Kratch's words of warning to the press.
Kratch also strongly intimated to the law enforcement community that they shouldn't hesitate to use deadly force in apprehending Luther.
Suddenly the radio in Kratch's car crackled with a general call for a code red response to the Walk Inn. The Walk Inn, Kratch knew, was a few blocks away More details spilled from the radio, an urgent call regarding a wanted suspect.
Then Kratch heard Luther's name. He mobilized instantly, reacting as instinctively as a hunting dog picking up a fresh scent. As he pulled out onto the street, Kratch fumbled with his handheld radio and barked at Lawrence and Gill to get their asses down from the hotel room and follow him immediately to the Walk Inn. It was the kind of opportunity Kratch knew fate pitched at you every so often. It was the chance for him to nail Luther Zorn. There would be no fuss, no muss. With the three of them to back each other up, Luther could be eliminated and the case could be closed. It would be the best thing. Everyone would win.
Cody didn't sit around for long. Everything that had seemed important to him over the past year dissolved instantly. Madison was his world. Even when he'd struggled against her. Even when he'd envied her success as he foundered as a low-paid teacher and coach, she was his lifeline. Madison was better and stronger than anyone he'd ever known. He needed her.
In his mind, Madison had been indestructible. Her death left him floating in a universe devoid of meaning. He desperately grasped for some solid ground. Cody's mind was racing. He hit suddenly on the idea of revenge. If Luther Zom had killed his Madison, then Luther Zom had to be exterminated. Cody kept a .357 locked in his dresser drawer. He retrieved it and shoved the gun into a bag with some other things. Offering no explanation, he arranged for one of his assistant coaches to take care of Jo-Jo, then set out for the airport and Palm Beach with the dark shadow of death in his eyes.
Because Luther had a gun pointed at her, she listened.
"Its not me," he said.
Madison looked him bravely in the eye and said, "Luther, I know its not you. I know you cant help what's happening. I can help you, but you've got to let me."
"You don't understand," he said. Luther grabbed his own face with his enormous hand and gripped it as if he was trying to wring out a washcloth.
"My God," he choked, "I don't know how to stop it. . ."
Luther's head jolted upright and his eyes were immediately alert. Outside, the screams of approaching police sirens could be heard.
"God damn you!" Luther said, believing she had led him into the trap.
"Luther!" Madison begged. "Stop it all! Give up! You can't keep going like this!"
"I can!" he said, pulling her off the bed by her arm and brandishing the Beretta in his free hand. "You're coming with me."
Suddenly Luther let her go, shoving her away from the door. She watched as he picked up a book of matches resting on top of the TV He struck one of the matches, then lit the entire book before tearing the mattress off the bed and sticking the burning book into the loose sheets. The blanket melted away, but the flames licked hungrily at the sheets and the mattress. Black smoke curled up toward the ceiling and the smoke detector over Madison's head wailed loudly. She considered escape, but Luther turned his attention back to her before she could move.
Dragging Madison with him, Luther rushed outside and down the metal steps. He pulled her into the dark space underneath the stairs and clamped one hand over her mouth, resting the gun in the other hand, which was wrapped around her chest. A thick hedge hid them, but Madison could make out the shapes of the police cars as they careened into the parking lot and screeched to a halt.
Kratch saw smoke pouring out of the hotel room. He jumped from his car and dashed up the stairs with Gill close behind him. Lawrence remained in the car calling the fire department.
As the two detectives banged up the metal stairs above them, Luther lifted Madison from their hiding place and carried her toward his car, now loosely sandwiched between the two police cars.
Lawrence saw Luther appear suddenly from nowhere. The shock made him hesitate an instant, allowing Luther to shove Madison through the driver-side door and start in after her.
Lawrence began firing his weapon, and bullets zipped by Luther's head like deadly wasps. Madison shrieked, and Luther felt a primal scream erupt from the depths of his own chest as he dove for the ground. From that level Luther could see Lawrence's feet and ankles. He aimed the Beretta carefully and pulled off three quick rounds. The detective's feet disappeared, and suddenly, as if part of a staged magic trick, Lawrence's entire body lay still as a stone exposed on the pavement. Blood spread from his nose and forehead where he had hit the car door on his way down, knocking himself unconscious. Luther's amazed stare disappeared with the pain of a bullet tearing through his trapezius muscle and shattering his collarbone.
The shot came from above and behind him, and the impact rolled Luther partially under his car. With a rush of survival adrenaline, he burrowed into the impossibly low space, scratching and clawing his way underneath the car until he emerged from the other side at the same time Madison came spilling out of the passenger door on top of him. A fusillade of bullets rained down on the hood of the Viper. Gun smoke mixed with the smoke from the fire now billowing from the burning room on the second floor.
Luther waited. When the gunfire stopped, he continued to wait. Only when he could hear the clanging sound of the detectives' footsteps on the metal stairs did he scramble to the other police car where Lawrence lay unconscious and bleeding. From behind the detective's car door, Luther rose with his arm strapped around the front of Lawrence's chest, using the bloody detective as a shield. Luther aimed the Beretta at the two detectives and they stood frozen halfway between the stairs and the Viper.
"Don't move!" Luther commanded. "Drop the guns!"
Both Kratch and Gill had their pistols leveled at Luther, hoping he would give them a clean shot. Madison could see Luther, but not the police. She instinctively ducked her head between her hands on the pavement.
"I said drop them!" Luther screamed.
"Easy, Zorn," Kratch said, looking for even a small opening. It just wouldn't do if he shot his own detective, although Kratch was hard pressed not to open fire. He would gladly kill one of his own men in order to bring Luther down, if he thought he could get away with it.
"No!" Luther bellowed. "Drop the guns!"
Still Gill and Kratch held their weapons.
Luther fired a low shot, hitting Gill in the leg. Blood and bone dust sprayed out of the back of Gill's pant leg and he dropped to the ground like an impaled nightcrawler.
Kratch dropped his gun immediately and held up his hands. "Okay. Okay, Luther. Take it easy"
"Now pick his sorry ass up," Luther commanded, "and toss me the keys to your car."
Kratch tossed Luther the keys. Luther dropped Lawrence where he was and rounded the Viper and opened the trunk to Kratch's car.
"Put him in there! Now!" Luther commanded as Kratch approached, support
ing the wounded Gill. "And you get in there, too! Now, Kratch! I'm just looking for an excuse to waste you right here!"
Kratch squeezed into the trunk and Luther slammed it shut.
Luther spun around now and bellowed at Madison. "Freeze!"
She was halfway across the lot.
"Get back here!" Luther ordered, letting a shot go in the air just to let her, too, know he meant business.
Madison returned, carefully crossing the parking lot with Luther's gun trained at her chest. She wished there was a way she could delay him until the fire trucks arrived. She could hear their wail in the distance. She looked down at Lawrence's body lying in a puddle of blood and thought better of it.
"Get in the cop car," Luther told her, "in the back."
Madison did as she was told. Luther got in the front and hit the locks. A cage separated him from Madison.
"Youve bleeding," she said as quietly and gently as her nerves would allow. "You can't get away, Luther. Stop this now."
"Shut the fuck up!" Luther screamed, spinning around in his seat to glare at her as he started the car, then raced out of the lot and onto the street. Luther listened carefully to the radio for clues that would help him to avoid capture. Madison sat silently. She couldn't believe how calmly Luther drove, carefully putting as much distance between them and the Walk Inn as was possible without turning on the car's sirens and racing through red lights. After some time, Madison realized Luther was heading for the highway. They reached 95 and headed south. She choked down her hysteria like a wave of vomit.
"May I ask where were going?" Madison said quietly after a while, the tears welling uncontrollably in her eyes.
Luther seemed to relax just a little. "Were going as far from here as we can get before I hear them start looking for the car on this radio."
As soon as he spoke, both of them could hear the excited chatter on the radio describing the car and putting out an all-points bulletin. "Shit."
Luther got off at the next exit and headed west, checking his mirrors constantly. Soon they were beyond the heavy development and into an area that was dusty and overgrown with trees and scrub brush. Luther pulled off the road onto a dirt path. The path cut through the trees and eventually opened up into a cleared area of grassy fields. The path itself made a wide loop in the grass. Graying wooden stakes topped with crude fluorescent orange ribbons sprouted like brilliant tiger lilies. The stakes marked what had been planned as a residential development. On the high ground in the farthest corner of the loop, Luther pulled into the grass and backed the car carefully out of sight.
Luther turned off the car and dropped his head onto the wheel. Morning light filtered in through the gray-green camouflage of the foliage. The engine ticked quietly as it cooled. Madison eyed the oozing wound in Luther's shoulder. Blood trickled in a thin stream out of the meaty red and purple hole and spread in a great reddish stain across the back of his shirt.
Without a word, Luther ducked down in the front seat and rustled around in the glove box. He pulled out a white tin emergency first aid kit and spilled its contents onto the seat. He tore open his shirt, methodically washed his wound out, smeared it with an antibiotic cream, packed it with gauze, and taped the whole thing down. The entire time he worked, Luther made no noise. He only winced silently, gulping down the pain in great swallows that caused his Adams apple to bob like a cork. His stoicism only served to further Madison's fright.
Suddenly Luther heaved an agonized sigh and lifted his head.
"I want you to listen to me," he commanded, peering intently at her through the cage.
Chapter 40
About six years ago a Navy SEAL lieutenant was stationed on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Persian Gulf," Luther began. He looked at Madison to see if she was following him. She nodded for him to go on.
"The lieutenant and his men were flown into Iraq late one night and dropped about a mile from shore with their gear and a couple of inflatable rafts. The night was black, but these guys were able to navigate by the stars. They stashed the boats on the mainland and located a narrow river that flowed through a steep ravine into the Gulf, and followed the river upstream for several miles. The walls of the ravine got higher and higher. By the time they came to a steel suspension bridge it was about five hundred feet up on either side.
"The sun was coming up by the time they reached their target, so they stopped and dug into the thick vegetation surrounding the bridge, putting up trip wires around their perimeter for security. They slept through the day and when night fell, two men were sent to reconnoiter the area. After about two hours, one of them came back in a panic. They had been told that the bridge would be guarded by two infantry platoons, but the scout saw an entire battalion of tanks and light infantry, and two dozen support choppers on the north side of the ravine. Someone asked if they should abort the mission, given the inaccurate intelligence and the odds against them. At the same time, the second scout appeared and reported that a regiment of elite Republican Guards was camped out on the south side of the structure. The mission had suddenly turned suicidal, but the lieutenant knew he had to take out the bridge. There were fifty mobile SAMs positioned throughout the desert to the south of the bridge that needed to be isolated and taken out before any bombing raids could be launched on Baghdad. With the bridge out, the fifty mobile SAMs would effectively be neutralized. But someone had messed up in a big way, grossly underestimating the strength of the troops guarding the bridge. The lieutenant wanted the ship to send in some F-18s to knock out the copters and decrease the effectiveness of the pursuit that would be undertaken by the Iraqi forces once the bridge was blown.
"He had to get to the top of the ravine in order to radio the ship. It was a long climb but his anger carried him to the top quickly. He put on a pair of night-vision goggles as his sergeant set up the transmitting disc. The lieutenant could see tanks, tents full of men, and the nearby helicopters. When the sergeant had the communications unit up and running, the lieutenant called in to the ship. The ships communications commander lit into him immediately. Their mission was supposed to be blacked out. The lieutenant barked at him, telling him, in code, that there was an emergency situation. The communications commander left his transmitter open while he raised the ships admiral, complaining to the senior officer about the lieutenant s breaking the blackout. The stupid prick mentioned the name of the bridge," Luther said, shaking his head sadly.
"The lieutenant went ballistic. By the time the admiral was on the line, the Iraqi choppers were already in the air. The admiral screamed at the lieutenant that he didnt give a damn if the whole Iraqi army was there, he wanted that bridge down. The lieutenant cut him off in mid-sentence and tossed the radio on his back, as he saw big searchlights begin to sweep the banks of the ravine from the bridge. Two copters flew up over the lieutenant and his sergeant, and down into the ravine where they began to use their own searchlights to scour the foliage. Big guns traced every movement of the lights."
Madison stared, open-mouthed, as Luther raced through his story. She knew now that something terrible was about to happen, but still couldn't figure out what it had to do with Luther.
"Just as one of the copters located the lieutenants men," Luther continued," a missile went up and the copter burst into a ball of fire. A fist-sized chunk of shrapnel hit the sergeant in the face, killing him instantly. A moment later, other copters were swarming like hornets around a kicked-up nest. Another missile went up from the other side of the gorge and another helicopter went down. Troops began pouring over the side of the ridge in a full-scale assault. The lights now had completely illuminated the gorge, and the lieutenant could hear the screams of dying men as they were cut down by gunfire. The lieutenant headed toward the bridge, picking his way through Iraqi troops until he found a crevice between some rocks and a concrete abutment that helped support the bridge.
"He stayed there all through the next day. He had some rations in his pack, but his only source of water was a patch o
f green slime that oozed from the rock wall. When night fell he climbed out of his spot and out as far as he dared onto the underpinnings of the bridge, in the midst of the crisscrossing searchlights. All his men were dead. He was determined to blow the bridge with his own single block of C-4. He stuck the detonation device into the center of the plastique and made his way carefully through the lights and troops about a tenth of a mile down the ravine.
"In two hours, the sun came up again. As it did, the lieutenant made out a strange sight by the north entrance to the bridge. It looked as if the Iraqis had erected ten large match-sticks in a semicircle near the road. When there was enough light, the lieutenant put his binoculars to his face and discovered the twisted bloody heads of his men stuck on top of tall poles. Something inside him snapped. In the early afternoon, a convoy of fuel trucks crossed the bridge. The lieutenant detonated the C-4. The combined force of the C-4 and exploding fuel trucks destroyed the bridge, blanketing the horizon with fire and smoke. To escape, the lieutenant threw himself into the river.
"Six days later, he wandered into an American army outpost in Kuwait. Two weeks after that, he was back on board his ship, receiving a hero's welcome. The next morning they found the communications officer's head stuck on the short flag mast on the admiral's bridge. No one had any reason to suspect the lieutenant, but when guards caught him sneaking into the admiral's quarters two nights after that, dressed in black and armed with a razor-sharp survival knife, they put him in chains and had him flown to the psychiatric ward at the U. S. hospital base in Germany. He was twenty-three, and they said he'd completely lost his mind."
Chapter 41
The sun was high in the cobalt sky, and even though the temperature was in the seventies, it was hot inside the car.
"Can you open a window?" Madison said. A bead of sweat trickled from her hairline to her jaw before she reached up and dabbed it with the back of her sleeve.