by Jerry Moore
“About what?” Jeff asked.
“I’m going with whoever is picking up Carl,” I said.
He held up his hand. “No, you’re not. You, young lady, are staying here with Jenny. That way you’ll be safe and sound until we get back.”
“Okay, this whole ‘me Tarzan, you Jane’ attitude you got goin’, doesn’t really work with me.”
He reached out and pulled me toward him. “Look, I don’t want to take any chances on you getting hurt. You’re what this is all about.”
I shook my head. “No, that data card is what this is all about. This was never about me; I just didn’t know it until this morning.”
“The bad guys still think you’re the key. They don’t know we found the data card.”
“I’m not asking for permission to go. I’m telling you I’m going. Just go ahead and try to leave me here. I’ll follow you. I’ll walk to Lubbock if I have to. We’re in this together, whether you like it or not.”
His shoulders sagged. “Fine, you can go. However, once we are out in the field, you will listen to my orders and follow them to the letter. That is the same thing that I expect out of everyone else.”
I hugged him. “You won’t regret this.”
“We’re not leaving for a couple of hours. Go see Allison. She’ll get you what you need.”
I caught up with Allison in the garage. She was in what looked like it used to be a utility closet. Now it looked to be stocked with two-way radios and few different types of pistols and rifles. Obviously, this is where Jenny’s gun had suddenly appeared from. She never got the chance to grab her personal weapon from our house.
I peeked inside and saw Allison taking some two-way radios off one of the shelves. “Hey, I’m glad I found you. Jeff said you could get me what I needed. You know, for when we go pick up Carl.”
She bit her lip. “Jeff is going to let you go with us?”
“He’s not letting me do anything. I can decide for myself where I go.”
“I think you should reconsider.”
“Why, you think I can’t handle it?”
“Have you ever even shot a gun before?”
“Not exactly.”
“It’s not that I think you can’t handle yourself. You haven’t been trained for this sort of thing.”
“I promise to follow Jeff’s instructions and not get in the way. Now, what do I need?”
Allison shook her head. “Fine, if you get killed, it’s not my fault.” She handed me a nine millimeter pistol in a leather holster. She also gave me two clips of ammunition. “Here, you’ll need these. I’ll get you a radio when I hand them out to everyone else. For now, come with me.”
She led me behind the house. It was the first time I had seen the farm in the daylight. There was a chain link fence around the back yard. An old barn sat about twenty yards beyond the back fence. Next to the barn was an old chicken coop on one side and a gas pump on the other. The gas pump must have been used in the past to fuel tractors and whatever else they used on a farm. We walked past the barn to the edge of a cotton field. Allison went into the barn and came back out with a shovel. She went out about fifteen feet into the field and scooped several piles of dirt into a little mound.
She walked back toward me. “Okay take out your gun, it’s show time.”
I took the gun out of its holster and Allison showed me how to load and unload it, how to aim it, and how to take the safety on and off. The gun seemed bigger when I was holding it. It scared me to death.
Allison helped me get into a stance with one foot slightly ahead of the other and my feet about shoulder width apart. “Okay, whenever you’re ready, I want you to aim for that mound of dirt and pull the trigger. Don’t jerk it, just squeeze it gently.”
So how hard could it be to hit a clump of dirt that was fifteen yards away and couldn’t move? I mean I had seen Jeff fly through a window and put two bullets in a man before he landed on the ground. There was no way I could miss. I aimed and squeezed the trigger.
The gun fired and almost jumped out of my hand with a kick. I have no idea where the bullet went. It certainly didn’t hit the pile of dirt I was aiming at. I was so startled that I screamed. I don’t know which was worse, that I had totally missed and had made a fool out of myself or that fact that Allison was laughing at me.
She tried to stop laughing. “Okay, try it again, it takes practice sometimes.”
I wound up shooting all the bullets in both clips of ammo. It got better. By the last few rounds I was hitting the dirt mound every time. “Okay, now I’ve got the hang of it.”
“One last thing about shooting,” Allison said, “it is a lot more difficult when your adrenaline is pumping and someone is shooting back at you. When we get out in the field, you don’t use your gun unless you have no other way to save your life. If you can run, run. If you can hide, hide. Everyone else has had years of training and experience. You haven’t. You don’t worry about anyone but yourself if we get into a hostile situation.”
“But what if one of you is in trouble and I could help?” I asked.
“Lisa, all of us expect you to run and hide if and when the bullets start flying. If you do anything else it could throw us off. Just do what we expect you to do. The last thing we need is someone acting erratically,” Allison said.
“Do you expect trouble when we try to pick up the geek?” I asked.
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that. I know you’re only joking but I think I may be falling for him,” Allison said.
“You’re actually going geek…I mean going for Carl? I mean I get that it is different with you. I just thought there were so many other cute guys you could pick from.”
Allison shook her head. “You don’t get it do you? All of us so called ‘pretty people’ have been telling Carl all his life that he can’t be one of us. That’s what you see. You see Carl as he is this second. I see him for what he could be. He could be very special.”
I rolled my eyes. “So now you’re an expert on how kids like Carl get treated by the rest of us so called pretty people? I’m betting it has been a really long time since you were in school. Things are different now.”
She shook her head emphatically . “No, they’re not all that different than they’ve always been. As far as how long it has been since I was in school, I may not have been a middle school or even a high school student in a while. What I have been for most of the past hundred years is a teacher. So, I have seen how people like Carl get treated in schools and growing up in general.”
“I guess I never considered what kinds of jobs you might have had in the past. I bet you were a good teacher.”
“I may have used Carl as an alibi, but I genuinely enjoyed helping him with his English paper. Perhaps you should think about what it’s like for people like Carl.”
As the two of us headed back toward the house, we really didn’t speak. I had the distinct feeling that I had just been told off. I knew Allison was right. Even in high school, my friends and I had always made fun of and put down people like Carl. Girls that looked like Allison simply didn’t give guys like Carl a second thought. Could she really be falling for him?
Of course, the even more sobering realization was that Carl might be the one person who could save me. He would never be the gorgeous hunk that Jeff was. He wasn’t an immortal or a federal agent or any of those sexy things. He was just a genius who might be able to crack the code on that data card. He might be able to give us our bargaining chip.
Chapter Seventeen
I finally felt normal again as Allison eased the blue Tahoe into a parking place at the South Plains Mall. I had traded in the sweats I had been wearing for Jeans and a t-shirt. We had stopped at a thrift store in East Lubbock to find some clothes for me and Jenny. Allison had also insisted that we pick up three oversized purses.
Allison, Jenny, and I were in the Tahoe while Jeff and Phil had followed us in a Dodge Dakota pickup that looked to be at least ten years old. It was just the k
ind of truck you expected to see in West Texas. Allison had called Carl earlier and arranged for him to meet her at the mall for lunch. We could have picked him up on campus but Jeff thought going anywhere near the campus would be a mistake.
I was riding shotgun in the passenger’s seat and Jenny was in the back seat directly behind me. Jenny touched me on the shoulder. “Okay Lisa, you need to take one of the purses and put your handgun and extra ammo in it.”
“Okay, now I get why Allison wanted to buy these purses,” I said.
“Just remember, the guns are our last resort. There are too many people in a place like this. Gunfire is the last thing we want,” Allison said.
The plan was simple. Jeff and Phil would stay outside the mall but in close vicinity to both vehicles. Jenny would go with Allison and I into the mall but she would stay out of sight and blend in. Allison and I would try and coax Carl outside. It was simple as long as no bad guys figured out that Carl was important to us before we could kidnap him.
We made our way through the always crowded mall. In Lubbock, this was simply referred to as ‘the mall’. That’s because it was the only mall within a hundred miles of Lubbock. When someone said they were going to the mall, there was no doubt which mall they were referring to. As a result, the mall was always fairly crowded.
I tried to be alert for any sign of trouble. Of course, I really didn’t know what I was looking for. Mostly, I just followed Allison through the crowd toward the food court. Allison pointed toward a table in the food court and there sat Carl in all his geekiness.
Allison walked over to Carl and planted a kiss squarely on his lips. “Hi, baby.”
Carl shot me a glance to make sure I saw how into him Allison was. He seemed rather proud of himself. “Hey gorgeous, I didn’t know Lisa was coming, I could have brought along a date for her too.”
Okay, I felt sick. Me and one of Carl’s friends? That was so never going to happen. “That’s okay, I guess we’ll just have to share you.”
Allison’s expression suddenly went cold. “Hey, let’s get out of here.”
I could see Allison regain her happy face but I could feel her yelling in my mind. She was warning me that we had to leave. We were in danger. “Yeah, let’s go somewhere else.”
“I sort of hoped we could hang out at the mall. Maybe we could even go check that video game store,” Carl said.
I could see Allison concentrating. I assumed that she was trying to influence Carl into leaving. It wasn’t working. She grabbed onto his arm as her expression turned hard. “We’re leaving.”
Carl looked shocked that he was practically being manhandled by Allison, as she jerked him out of his seat. “Hey, not so rough.”
She cut her eyes at him. “If you don’t come right now, you haven’t seen rough yet.”
“Okay, I’m coming. I’m coming. Man, talk about a pushy woman,” Carl said.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Allison replied.
We made our way toward the exit at a brisk pace. Allison took her two-way radio out of her purse. “Indian country, Indian country,” she said into the radio.
Carl tried to stop. “Okay, someone tell me what is going on.”
Allison shoved him forward. “Just keep moving.”
We reached the mall entrance and found the Tahoe waiting for us. It was parked right in front of the exit with the passenger side doors open and Jeff behind the wheel.
Allison nudged me as we came out the doors. “You take shotgun.”
“Okay,” I replied.
She shoved Carl into the backseat and followed him into the Tahoe. “Go, go, go.”
Jeff took off and I felt the Tahoe accelerate. I looked around. “Where’s Jenny?”
“She’s in the pickup with Phil. She’s fine,” Jeff said.
Carl was looking around nervously. “You know who’s not fine? I’m not fine. Stop this vehicle and let me out. I don’t know what is going on with you people, but I don’t want any part of it.”
“Too late”, Allison said as I heard the distinctive sound of her nine millimeter chambered a round with unmistakable double clicking sound.
“What the heck are you doing? Is that a gun, what are you some sort of criminal?” Carl asked.
Allison looked at him calmly. “No, not yet anyway. Here is the deal, Carl. If we stopped and let you out, you would probably be dead within twenty-four hours. It would only be that long because they would probably torture you to find out what you know before they killed you.”
“So you’re kidnapping me, holding me against my will?” Carl asked incredulously.
Jeff gunned the engine as he headed out of the parking lot. “That’s pretty much what we’re doing, sport.”
Jeff drove through town for about ten minutes making quick turns and zigzagging through neighborhoods. I felt bad for Carl. He had no idea what he was getting himself into that first day when he was making eyes at me and tried to impress me with his knowledge of the library. Now he was like me, running for his life.
Jeff finally started to relax with all the sharp turns. “Okay, I don’t see any overt signs of pursuit. Tell me what happened to make you call ‘Indian country’ over the radio.”
“What did that mean when you started saying ‘Indian Country’?” I asked.
“It just means a hostile environment. In this case it meant we were in danger and were going to be coming out fast,” Allison said.
Jeff looked at Allison in the rearview mirror. “So what happened in the mall?”
“Nothing really happened. At least I didn’t see anything,” I said.
“It totally makes sense now. I finally get a babe for a girlfriend and she turns out to be a total gun toting psycho. No wonder she was available,” Carl said.
“I saw Flores,” Allison said in a somber voice.
Jeff’s head jerked up. “Are you sure about that?”
Allison nodded. “I’m sure. We worked with him long enough for me to recognize him instantly. I’m sure he made us. I wonder why he didn’t make a play.”
Carl put his hand on Allison’s leg. “So all this is about some guy you used to know? That’s what this drama is about? Does the term drama queen mean anything to you or Lisa?”
Allison took his hand. “Well, your psycho babe, drama queen girlfriend did get the three of us out of there because she saw someone she used to know. That someone is Roberto Flores and he’s a professional assassin.”
Now the alarm bells were going off in my head. “So you’re saying you worked with him a while back, like a long while back.”
Allison seemed to understand that I was trying to avoid coming right out with the fact that her and Jeff had been around so long that they weren’t just older than dirt, they very well might have named dirt. “Yeah, it was quite a ways back. Probably about as long as what you’re thinking.”
Oh, this was just great. Not only had we almost run right into an assassin, but this assassin was also an immortal. The hits just kept on coming. “Oh, that’s great. Because, you know, I was getting pretty tired of these run of the mill mob killers. I mean a girl has got to have standards about what kind of killers she associates with.”
Carl looked over at Allison. “Y’all haven’t told me everything, have you?
I looked back at him. “Well I guess they don’t call you a genius for nothing.”
“I well I guess they don’t call you a…,” Carl started to say.
“Both of you stop,” Allison said.
“I’m sorry Carl, I guess the stress is starting to get to me,” I said.
Jeff glanced back at Allison. “Tell Phil to meet us at that Walmart on Avenue Q.”
She looked up. “Okay, it’s done”
Carl looked over at her. “You didn’t do anything. You didn’t talk on the cell phone or radio or anything. So how did you talk to this Phil person?”
She kissed Carl on the cheek. “There is so much I need to tell you. As soon as we have some time, I promise to tell y
ou everything.”
We pulled into the Walmart parking lot and found Phil and Jenny waiting for us. They were parked in the extreme southeast corner of the parking lot. Most people liked parking close to the store, so the area they had picked out was empty of cars or people to speak of. Once we parked everyone got out. Jeff took Phil aside and they seemed to have a brief but private conversation. The rest of us just sort of stood in a semi-circle. I really wasn’t sure what to do next.
Jeff walked over to our little circle. “Okay, we’re going to split up into couples and go into the store. I will go with Lisa, Phil with Jenny, and Allison with Carl. No one, except Jenny will take a weapon in. It wouldn’t do much good in a crowded environment, but it’s part of Jenny’s uniform, if you will. Besides, no one is going to question a federal officer carrying a weapon.”
Carl looked at me. “So, your Aunt is a fed?”
“No, she’s a fed pretending to be my aunt. Boy, you have a lot of catching up to do,” I said.
Jeff took me by the hand. “Let’s go, little miss snug.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“That means you seem to enjoy tormenting that boy with the fact that you know more than he does, at the moment,” Jeff said.
“It’s not a real attractive quality is it?” I asked.
Jeff shook his head. “Not really, but I can live with it.”
I wanted to change the subject. “So what are we doing here? Shouldn’t we be high tailing it for the farm?”
“I’m concerned about what happened at the mall,” he said.
“What exactly are you concerned about?” I asked.
“I know the man Allison saw. We used to be like brothers. He’s an assassin and he’s very good at it. There’s no way the three of you made it out of the mall without a scratch on any of you unless he didn’t want to hurt you or he had orders not to make a move in a public place,” Jeff said.
I stopped and looked at him. “So we’re safe in public places?”
He nodded. “I think we are temporarily. But I have no doubt that we are being tracked. I’m just not sure how.”
“So what are we doing at Walmart?”