Rising Phoenix

by Kyle Mills

  “Are you all right, Mr. Beamon?” Philip Nelson asked, as he had every day since Beamon had replaced his original escort. Beamon nodded, but didn’t move.

  Finally he glanced at his watch. Ten o’clock. Time to go. He began moving forward, right hand gripped tightly around the chain on his prisoner’s handcuffs. Nelson looked relieved.

  Wait for it, Karns told himself. The reporters and onlookers’ excitement level was rising, but Hobart had told him that they could see through the glass doors, and to wait until he could actually hear them shouting questions. Then he would have about eight seconds with a clean shot and another two with a shot partially blocked by a car. Karns took a deep breath and held it, adjusting the rifle slightly in his grip. It felt strange through the surgical gloves, as if it wasn’t real.

  The shouting started and he wasn’t ready. He let the breath out and took another one, wasting two seconds.

  His legs were sore from the previous day’s exercise, but the blood was back in them. He rose smoothly to his feet and steadied the gun. No one in the crowd noticed the small figure leaning over the roof.

  There was no need to adjust for drop due to the angle and distance. Nelson’s head was directly in his crosshairs. He lowered the barrel a fraction, repositioning the crosshairs on Nelson’s chest. Head shots were sloppy. It was astonishing what the human skull could deflect. He still hadn’t been noticed by the crowd when he squeezed the trigger. The rifle cracked loudly, jerking against his shoulder. A fraction of a second later, he had dropped the rifle and was running for the back of the building, rope in hand.

  The sound of the shot and the sound of the bullet as it ricocheted off the cement stairs behind him were virtually simultaneous. Beamon expected to feel his prisoner torn from his grasp and to have to watch him cartwheel away with the impact of the shot. In that split second between awareness and action, though, Nelson remained perfectly still.

  Beamon dove to the left, pulling his prisoner by the chain between his handcuffs. They landed heavily on the stairs, Beamon on his stomach and Nelson on his back. With a shooter on a roof, it wasn’t a much more desirable position than standing, he reflected, watching the crowd scatter. He was counting slowly to himself. It was a habit he had formed years ago. Time seemed to slip away in situations like this, and more often than not, it was helpful to know when things happened. When he reached five—an eternity in a gun fight—he sat up.

  The other agents were still crouched behind the LTD parked at the base of the steps, as was Tom Sherman. They were aiming their guns in the general direction of the top of the building across the street. A couple were touching their ears, listening intently to the chatter on the FBI radio.

  “Get up, you lucky bastard,” Beamon said, poking Nelson’s still prone form in the ribs. Nelson didn’t move.

  Uh-oh.

  Beamon ripped open Nelson’s shirt, finding a neat hole in his bullet-proof vest. Blood was just beginning to flow through the tear.

  “Fucking Teflon bullets!” he shouted, standing up and dusting himself off. He had probably made it to the four count before the poor bastard even knew he was dead.

  “Get down, Mark,” Sherman yelled.

  Beamon thrust his hands into his pockets. “Oh, shit, Tommy, that guy’s burnin’ a hole in his sneakers by now.”

  Sherman poked his head up from behind the car, looking indecisive. Finally he walked over and stood looking down at their dead prisoner. His gun hung uselessly in his hand. “Jesus.”

  Motherfucker didn’t even know what hit him, Karns thought to himself as he secured the rope to a thick ventilation pipe on the roof. He hadn’t stuck around long enough to watch his target fall, but he had a hunter’s sixth sense. Dead center.

  Adrenaline coursed through him as he anchored the rope into his harness and climbed to the edge of the roof. He hadn’t rappelled since the army—thirty years and fifty pounds ago. And he hadn’t been crazy about it then. He felt suddenly dizzy as he teetered on the edge, becoming aware for the first time of the whistle of the wind. The sight of his motorcycle, and freedom, steadied him.

  The gear had improved, that was for sure. He slid smoothly down the rope, gripping and releasing rhythmically with his gloved hands. About halfway down he stopped with a vicious jerk. His head snapped back and he nearly turned upside down. Confused, he looked at the metal loop at his waist. Nothing caught. He looked at the rope below him and discovered the problem. Four men in street clothes were standing in the alley, each one with a pistol aimed up at him. A fifth man was pulling hard on the rope, effectively locking him in place. Karns looked up at the roof. Three clean-cut faces peered down at him over the sights of their sidearms. He looked at the window in front of him. Plexiglas.

  He ticked off the facts: He had no gun, he was stuck fifty feet above the ground, and there were no fewer than seven guns pointed at him. Options? Surrendering seemed the only logical choice, though the thought of grabbing for an imaginary gun was pretty attractive, too. The young FBI agents had set up quite a crossfire for themselves.

  He was leaning toward surrendering when his body was slammed face first into the side of the building. As he swung back out, he felt at his nose. Fucking FBI. Couldn’t they just let me sit and think for a minute?

  He looked down, expecting to see the young agent holding the rope swinging it back and forth, trying to hurry his decision. Surprisingly, he wasn’t anywhere near the rope anymore. The agents had scrambled behind an overflowing Dumpster and were shouting at each other and pointing their guns at a faraway rooftop.

  Then he saw it. There was no blood on his shirt, but he could see it running down the neon green rope. First he looked up, thinking that maybe one of the agents above him had accidentally shot himself. No, they were in the same position as their cohorts.

  Karns tore open the front of his shirt to find a bubbling hole in his chest. He never felt any pain. The last sensation he had was that of a gradual acceleration toward the ground.

  John Hobart dropped his rifle onto the asphalt-shingled roof and walked casually toward the door to the stairs. He walked down two flights and came out on one of the posh upper floors of the hotel. Finding the elevator, he pushed the Down button and waited. A woman came up behind him and pushed the button a few more times for good measure. She was wearing a well-coordinated track suit, and her blond hair was tied back with a thick white ribbon. She pulled one of the ears on her Walkman out as she stretched a shapely leg against the marble wall. “You been outside yet?”

  “Sure haven’t,” Hobart replied in a friendly tone.

  “Hope it’s not raining,” she said to the wall.

  Mark Beamon shielded his eyes from the sun and moved away from the Dumpster and the smell of rotting vegetables.

  “So he shot from that hotel over there?” he asked the young agent standing next to him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You make that three hundred yards, Tommy?”

  “At least.”

  Sherman walked over to look at the body. The impact with the concrete had done even more damage than the bullet.

  Beamon turned back to the agent. “So you’re telling me that some guy hit a moving target from three hundred yards in this wind?”

  “Uh. No. He was stopped about midway down.”

  “Still,” Beamon said with a hint of admiration in his voice. “One hell of a shot.”

  Beamon slid behind Tom Sherman’s desk and grabbed a coffee mug off the credenza behind him. Pulling a bottle of Jack Daniels from the brown bag on the desk, he filled it almost to the rim. He wanted a cigarette, too, but he knew his boss would have his ass for smoking in his office.

  It had been one hell of a day. The second shooter had walked away scot-free. He’d had a hundred and fifty agents on the street, but they were only covering buildings that you could hit Nelson from. His mistake—and a pretty fucking big one at that.

  He took a heavy slug from the mug.

  And don’t forget the guy you killed
today.

  He took another slug. He could still see the surprised expression frozen into Nelson’s face. In many ways, Nelson was far more deserving of respect than the flip-flopping politicians who had sentenced him to death. Beamon had spent quite a bit of time with him in the interrogation room. Right or wrong, the kid had believed what he was doing, and was willing to put his ass on the line to see it through.

  The liquor was starting to go to his head, just where he wanted it. He spun the chair around and looked out the window at the fading light washing the color from the nation’s capital.

  “Mark?”

  Beamon spun back around and motioned toward the chair in front of the desk.

  “Got one for me?” Laura asked.

  Beamon filled a green mug with National Park Service emblazoned across it.

  “Quite a day,” Laura probed.

  Beamon let the remaining half inch of Jack Daniels slide down his throat and poured another one to the rim. “Yup.”

  “So what happened out there today, Mark?”

  Beamon shrugged. “I got a couple of men killed.”

  Laura took a long pull from the mug and leaned back in her chair. “You know, Mark, I sometimes question your methods—no, that’s not true, I usually question your methods. What I’ve never questioned, though, is your judgment. What’s going on? You knew damn well that Nelson’s security was inadequate.”

  Beamon smiled. She had yelled at him for almost twenty minutes about that very subject last week while he had made stupid excuses. It was nice of her not to say ’I told you so.’”

  “Maybe my judgment’s not as good as you think it is.”

  Laura scowled and took another slug. “This is me you’re talking to, Mark.”

  The less Laura knew the better, but Beamon couldn’t bear the thought of her believing he’d planned this stunt.

  “It seems the powers that be thought using Nelson as bait was just one hell of a fine idea.”

  Laura let out a long sigh. “You couldn’t do anything to stop it?”

  “This didn’t come just from Calahan, believe me.” Beamon shook his head. “I thought that if I stuck it out, I could control the situation.” He raised his mug. “Here’s to controlling the situation.”

  “So where are we now?”

  Beamon thought for a moment. “It sure as hell would have been a lot cleaner to have two live suspects instead of two dead ones. But—and I hate to say it—we’re better off than we were yesterday. It should narrow things down a bit, having two names.”

  Laura held out her mug and Beamon filled it. “You gonna let me get you drunk?”

  “I’m tempted. Do we have a name on the shooter yet?”

  “No, but I’m sure you’ll get me one tomorrow.”

  “So do you still think that the organization’s centralized? That one general recruited all the soldiers?”

  “Hoping, anyway. Figure it this way. The same guy got the mushrooms and the money. It stands to reason that he also hit the sources of the coke and heroin. Well, maybe him and one or two other guys …” Beamon shook his head and went for the bottle again. “Aw, hell, who knows? There could be hundreds of these guys running around—each one only knowing one other operative. You know, like the spooks do it. If so, we’re screwed.”

  Laura raised her glass. “Well, then, here’s to the General Theory.”

  28

  Near Bend, Oregon,

  March 6

  Matt Fallon slowed his ’72 VW microbus and turned left off Highway 97, passing briefly through Terrebonne, Oregon. The cool, dry wind blowing through the window quieted as he slowed, and he turned down the stereo to compensate. It wasn’t long before he could see the volcanic spires of Smith Rock State Park rising in the distance. He smiled and breathed in the sweet, pine-tasting air. It was Friday, and he was anxious to get out of the van that had become a prison over the last three weeks.

  The FBI had tried conventional means of finding Lance Richardson, the missing witness from the bank, and had failed miserably. Finally management had been forced to admit that they just couldn’t fathom the rock-climbing-bum mentality.

  And that’s where Fallon came in. He had risen to the top of the U.S. competitive climbing circuit while getting his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Colorado. On the night of his graduation, he had hiked up to the cliffs above Boulder, Colorado. There, accompanied by a case of his favorite beer, he had carefully appraised himself and what he wanted out of life. He had a shot at the climbing thing—power, balance, drive. But where would that get him? Climbers were viewed by most people as a bunch of long-haired lunatics with death wishes. The best in the U.S. would be lucky to feed himself from sponsors.

  He had also decided that while he had a real love and aptitude for physics, he wasn’t brilliant enough to be a driving force. He would probably end up teaching, or worse, sitting behind a computer at some crazy defense contracting firm.

  And then it had come back to him—the days spent riveted to his television as a small child, watching Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. catch the bad guys. He’d finished the case of beer, and the next day, suffering from a near-terminal hangover, he had applied to the FBI.

  The funny thing was that they accepted him. The well-rounded agent was what they were looking for, they told him. His Ph.D. and dominance in a sport—even one as esoteric as rock climbing—had apparently qualified him as well rounded.

  Fallon shook his head, remembering that it had almost been three years since that night in Boulder. Einstein had been wrong about time. It accelerated as you got older.

  He had spent the last weeks scouring America’s premier climbing areas—the New River Gorge, Hueco Tanks, Wild Iris, to name only a few—asking questions and running into way too many old friends. He figured that he had packed at least five beer pounds onto his painfully thin frame.

  He turned left into a crowded pullout and hopped out. He shouldered a small pack full of climbing gear and headed down the steep trail toward the cliffs.

  After only five minutes on the trail, he heard a familiar voice floating through a narrow passage in the rocks. He turned off and danced gracefully up the steep boulder field. At the top, he found a young woman watching a shaking figure fifty feet up a sheer rock face.

  “Hi, Sara. Remember me?” he asked, approaching her quietly. She looked up, confused for a moment.

  “Matt!” She looked up. “Scott! Matt Fallon’s standing right here!”

  The man on the rock face struggled a few more feet, finally reaching a bolt that he could clip into. He leaned back on the rope and jabbed his finger downward. Sara obligingly lowered him to the ground.

  At the bottom he threw his arms around the agent. After a moment he pulled back, giving Fallon’s arms a squeeze as he went. “Still feel pretty strong,” he observed. “Three years in the CIA doesn’t seem to have hurt you much.”

  “FBI,” Fallon corrected. “There’s a difference.”

  His friend looked like he was about to make a smartass comment, but before he could open his mouth Sara pushed him out of the way and ran her fingers through Fallon’s closely cropped hair. A sad look came over her face. “What happened to your beautiful hair?”

  “Cut it off—the Bureau doesn’t take kindly to that shoulder-length look.”

  “So why didn’t you call us and tell us you were coming?”

  “I wasn’t sure I was. Actually, I’m on business.”

  She snickered, looking at the climbing harness peeking out from the top of his backpack.

  “No, seriously,” he protested. “I’m looking for somebody. He’s a climber. Name’s Lance Richardson. Five foot ten, long blond hair. You know him?”

  “Did he kill somebody?” Scott asked,

  “Nah. He might have seen a guy we’re looking for when he was working for a bank in Saint Louis. That’s all.”

  “Well, you came to the right place,” Sara said.

  Fallon looked at her with surprise. After all this time on
the road, he hadn’t been prepared to actually find the guy. “You’re kidding. You’ve seen him?”

  “Yeah. He’s been around for about a week. I think he’s living in his van back in the National Forest somewhere.”

  “Do you know where, exactly?”

  “No. But I think he’s probably working Chain Reaction.”

  Chain Reaction was debatably Smith’s most renowned climb. And it was less than a quarter of a mile away.

  “You mean right now?” Fallon asked, still in a daze. The realization that his paid climbing trip might be nearly over was sinking in.

  “Right now.”

  Scott was getting impatient with all the business talk. “So are we gonna do some climbs while the sun’s still up, man?”

  Fallon reached behind him and felt the pack, confirming that his notebook was in it. “Hell, yeah—just let me go ask this guy a few questions. I’ll be back in less than an hour.” He started back down the boulder field. Stopping about fifty feet away, he turned back to his friends. “Oh, can I stay at your place for a couple of days?”

  Sara sat back on the rock behind her. “We’ve got a wedding to go to tonight. We’ll leave the front door open.”

  Fallon sat down in the dirt and pulled the notebook from his backpack. He lay back and put on his sunglasses. The blond figure was about halfway up the climb, and struggling. Despite his long arms, he missed the hold he was aiming for and fell six feet or so before the rope stopped him. Fallon looked on calmly, silently critiquing his technique.

  “Shit, man, I’m never going to get this—too late in the day.”

  “You want down?” his partner asked.

  “Yeah, might as well.”

  Fallon watched as the climber slowly lowered. When his feet hit the ground, Fallon interrupted what sounded like the beginning of a long conversation about tomorrow’s climbing strategy.

  “Excuse me. Are you Lance Richardson?”

  The young man looked up from the knot he was untying. “Yeah. Do I know you?”