Spiked

by Randall Denley

  I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out. What was the point in arguing with him? He was right. Leggett had set up an elaborate trap and I had walked right into it. How could I have been that stupid? Then I realized it wasn’t Leggett who had done the thinking, it was Sharpe.

  Platt twisted my arm up behind my back until it felt like it was going to pop out of my shoulder. “Nothing to say now, smart ass?” he said.

  I tried to slow my breathing, to think. What were my options? Platt had me pinned and Leggett had moved too far back for me to even attempt a kick.

  There were a couple of positives. I knew they weren’t going to kill me and we were in a public place. It was early in the morning and foggy as hell, but surely there must be some dog walkers out. And what about Colin? How far off had he driven? If only I hadn’t told him to stay out of sight.

  I remembered telling Reilly that I wasn’t the kind of girl who’d scream like a B-movie actress, but I figured the time had come. “Rape! Help, help me,” I yelled.

  Those four words were all I could get out before Leggett hit me with a resounding slap that felt like it loosened my teeth. Then Platt clamped a hand over my mouth. I could feel the metallic taste of blood. My lip was split, I thought.

  “Rape, huh? Pity we’re in a hurry,” Leggett said. “You’re not as hot as that friend of yours, but I like it when they scream.”

  At that moment, I hoped there was a hell.

  “Come on,” Platt said. “We haven’t got time for this. Let’s get her in the vehicle.”

  He began to push me forward. I tried to dig in my heels, but he twisted my arm even higher. I was sure their car wouldn’t be far away. I couldn’t believe this was really happening, but it was.

  In a parking lot at the edge of the park, Colin looked at his watch. This meeting was taking longer than he had anticipated. It was supposed to be a simple passing over of documents. He pulled out his phone and called Kris, only to get voice mail. What the hell? There was no way she’d turn off her phone. Something had gone wrong. He knew it.

  Colin felt reasonably confident that he could make his way back to the pavilion in the fog, but it was bloody difficult to see. He popped the trunk of his Audi and saw the tire iron he had failed to put back in its holder after that flat he’d had in April. He pulled it out and hefted it. Not much of a weapon, but something.

  Then he thought he heard a scream. A shot of adrenaline set his heart pounding and he raced off through the fog, tire iron in hand.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Reilly accepted a second cup of coffee from the waitress, a tired bottle blond who looked as if she might have worked the night shift at another joint. Sonny’s was kind of a 1970s rec room gone wrong and most of the other diners were old folks from the neighbourhood dragging out breakfast to help fill an empty day. Reilly didn’t care about that because Suzy had reached across the table and she was touching his hand. He felt like electricity was running through him.

  “I just want you to know, Mike, that I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” she said. “You saved me from those guys. If it wasn’t for you, I’d probably be dead.”

  It was a generous appraisal of his performance, Reilly knew. In reality, he’d been stunned by a whack on the back of the head from a heavy branch and he’d allowed Leggett to get away. He did feel that he’d more than redeemed himself during round two, though.

  “I’d do anything for you. You know that,” he said.

  “I do,” Suzy said, then she squeezed his hand and looked down. “I haven’t been very good to you. I know that.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I can be difficult to get along with. And our work situation, that complicated things.”

  “Yes, it will always complicate things.”

  “I’m not going to be a cop forever, you know.”

  She smiled at that, then winced at the pain it caused her. “You’re always going to think like a cop Mike, whether you have a badge or not.”

  “I guess so. It’s what I’ve spent my life doing. You think that’s a problem?”

  “No, you are who you are. I can’t change that. I don’t want to.”

  OK, so that was good. Reilly hoped this conversation was going somewhere positive.

  “I never really told you why I left,” she said.

  Reilly felt his optimism begin to evaporate.

  “The thing is, Mike, I’m at an age where I need to decide what to do with my life. Do I want to get married, have kids? Do I want to devote myself to my career? I’ve been thinking lately that it’s not either, or. I can do both, and after all that’s just happened to me, I’m wondering how much I’m prepared to sacrifice for work.”

  Reilly was starting to get confused now.

  “If I’m going to do that, though, I should be doing it with someone close to my own age, someone who’s going to be around to be a father for those kids.”

  “Jesus Suzy, I’m not that ancient.”

  “No,” she said gently, “but you’re 20 years older than me Mike. It’s just math. My life, the way I see it now, you’re not the guy I need.”

  She paused, then tried again. “I mean, I do need you, right now, but I don’t think it’s the right thing for me, long term,” she said, then nodded as if reassuring herself.

  “You’ve got a concussion, Suzy. You’ve just been through a terrible trauma. Maybe now’s not the time to be thinking about all of this. Besides, right now is all any of us ever have.”

  “That’s true, but I always like to have a plan for the future. You know that, Mike.”

  Reilly did know that, and it was becoming apparent that he wasn’t part of the plan. That didn’t leave him any worse off than he had been a few days ago, but why did he feel so bad?

  Hope was a bitch.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Platt quickly became fed up with my attempts to slow him down and picked me up and carried me like I was a bride crossing a threshold. I tried to get leverage to elbow him, but my attempt was feeble. I might as well have been elbowing an oak.

  Leggett pressed a key fob and I saw the lights flash on a big black SUV. It was no more than 20 feet away. I was sure they would bind me and gag me and, once I was in that vehicle, my fate was sealed. If I was going to make a move, it had to be when they tried to wrestle me into the back. I frantically tried to make a plan, but if they knew what they were doing, I wouldn’t have a hope.

  I had known mortal fear before, but this had all happened so quickly and was such a surprise that I was having a hard time processing it. One minute, I had been in charge, about to reveal a story that would bring down a government and create an international scandal. The next, I was looking at being whisked across the border and locked up. Or maybe they would just kill me and dump my body in the deep Adirondack woods. Maybe I had been fated to die there all along.

  I told myself I couldn’t think like that. I had to fight. I would wait for my opening. Surely there would be some chance, some point of vulnerability.

  Leggett was at the driver’s door now, while Platt held me in a bear hug close to the SUV’s rear hatch. Leggett pressed another button on the key fob and the hatch began to swing open. I could see rope, tape and a big hockey kit bag inside. The plan was obvious.

  I wasn’t going to end my life like that. I began to frantically kick Platt in the shins, hammering him with both heels. He grunted, but held firm. I screamed again, a wordless, bloodcurdling screech.

  “Tape her up,” Platt said, “before someone comes along and complicates this.”

  Leggett reached into the back and pulled out a roll of silver duct tape and turned to me with a gloating, evil smile. I kicked at him, but he was out of range.

  Then he turned back to the vehicle, reaching for a utility knife. That was when I heard a whack like a club hitting a watermelon and Platt went slack, dropping to the ground with me under him. I felt like I had been rolled on by a horse. My face was pressed into the wet grass and my arms were pinned
under me.

  I saw feet rushing by, then twisted my head to see who it was. Colin was charging toward Leggett, a tire iron raised above his head. Leggett had just turned, the utility knife open in his hand. He dodged away from Colin’s blow, which rang off the rear hatch of the SUV.

  The two men squared off against each other, Colin wielding the tire iron and Leggett the utility knife. Leggett slashed forward and Colin dodged back, then turned to land a weak blow on Leggett’s shoulder. The CIA man grunted, then backed up, tossed the knife to the ground and reached inside his jacket to draw a gun. Seeing that, Colin put his head down and charged at Leggett, slamming him into the side of the SUV.

  I struggled to get out from under Platt, who was either dead or unconscious.

  Colin had got hold of Leggett’s right arm and managed to force the gun up over his head. Leggett responded by seizing Colin’s throat with his left hand, then he started to push the gun down. Another foot and he’d be able to shoot.

  I had to do something or this was all going to end right here. Digging in with my knees and scrunching my arms up under me, I pushed up as hard as I could. It was enough to roll the felled agent off of me.

  Colin must have caught it out of the corner of his eye. “Run Kris,” he shouted. “Get help.”

  I knew there was no time for that. This was down to me.

  I struggled to my feet and saw my opportunity when the fight between Colin and Leggett turned the spy so that his back was to me. My mother was a woman who spent a lot of time with bad men in rough bars. She had taught me to fight dirty. “Go for the eyes or the nuts” had been her maxim.

  I leaped on Leggett’s broad back, got my arms around his head and drove my thumbs back with full force, aiming for his eyes. My left thumb bounced painfully off his skull, but the right hit home.

  Leggett screamed in pain, dropped his gun and began turning furiously in circles, trying to get me off his back. I clung on like a rodeo rider and kept working my thumb into the eye. I was probably blinding him, but too fucking bad.

  Then Colin finished it with a hard shot from the tire iron to Leggett’s skull. Leggett dropped to his knees and I jumped off before he collapsed face forward onto the ground.

  Colin bent over, hands on his knees, panting. “You OK?” he managed.

  I got shakily to my feet. My ears were still ringing from Platt’s slap and I thought I might need some dental work, but I could move my arms and legs. Compared to where I thought I would be by this time, I was better than OK.

  “Yes, I’m all right. Thank God you got here when you did. They were about to spirit me off to the clutches of Homeland Security.”

  “Jesus. What a pair of bastards.”

  Colin looked down at the two fallen agents, seeming stunned by what he had done. “When I heard your scream, I just went mad,” he said.

  “Good thing you did.”

  He picked up Leggett’s gun and threw it into the bushes. Then he rolled Platt over and did the same with his weapon. Finally, he found the vehicle’s keys on the ground and fired them away into the mist in another direction.

  “All right, let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  The drive back to the newspaper office on Baxter Road was surreal. We drove through placid, leafy Ottawa neighborhoods that seemed light years from the drama we had just experienced. Colin was constantly checking the rear-view mirror, to see if Leggett and Platt had any friends who were coming after us, but we saw nothing out of the ordinary. It looked like our troubles were behind us. The two CIA men wouldn’t be chasing anyone any time soon.

  I related to him the amazing story that Sharpe had told me, and my assumption that the old spy had set the trap that I had fallen into. He wondered if the information Sharpe had given me might have been false. I momentarily considered that, then realized it had to be real for Sharpe’s plan to work.

  I had to ask myself why I had trusted someone who had spent a lifetime in a world where lies and deception were the norm. Perhaps I had been blinded by the value of the prize he offered me.

  The fog had cleared once we got away from the river, only to be quickly replaced by rain that was now heavy. The wipers beat loudly against the windshield. As we pulled into the newspaper parking lot Colin said, “You sure you are going to be OK to write this, after all you’ve been through?”

  “Damn straight,” I said. “Wouldn’t miss it.” In truth, my heart was still jackhammering and I felt like I had consumed a case of Red Bull.

  “All right. I’m going to drop you at the door so you don’t get wet, then park around back. See you in a few minutes.”

  I appreciated the gesture. Colin had his own parking space, but it wasn’t close to any of the doors. As the industry had declined, even the perks had deteriorated.

  I opened the car door, then quickly jogged toward the side entrance used by employees. I was running head down, using an old copy of the newspaper to keep the heaviest water off my head.

  I ran headlong into a large man, then bounced off, stumbling backwards. Shit, I thought, one of the goddamned smokers who liked to hang out by the door.

  I was about to give the guy what for, but then I looked up and my jaw dropped. I was speechless. Standing in front of me was Luc Champagne, his tan overcoat drenched, his hair plastered to his head and a look of angry desperation in his eyes. Then I saw the large black gun in his hand.

  “So, you escaped,” he said. “I’m not surprised.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I am Plan B. I was told that if you showed up, Plan A had failed. Now, give me that information.”

  “What information?”

  He raised the gun. “Don’t fool with me. I know that you have a thumb drive full of classified information, and you know how I know. If it comes out, I might as well be dead. I have nothing to lose.”

  I quickly assessed my situation. The remaining employees would be inside the building by now, but surely some latecomer would arrive or someone would come out for a smoke, despite the rain. The security guard who sat at the front desk was supposed to be monitoring this area on CCTV, but I knew I couldn’t place all of my hopes on that. Then there was Colin. If I didn’t show up in a couple of minutes, he’d come looking for me. I had to keep Champagne talking.

  “Look, you’re not going to get away with this, whether you have the information or not. Why not surrender before it gets any worse?”

  Champagne responded with a bitter laugh. “Oh, this is about as bad as it gets, but don’t worry, there is a plan in place to get out of the country quickly. Once you give me that information, Luc Champagne will simply cease to exist.”

  “Are you going to kill me? Because if you aren’t, I’m going to write this story with or without that proof.”

  “Perhaps you will, but it will just be your say so. The people I work for want that thumb drive, badly. I have to have it. It’s my ticket out.”

  He raised the gun and pointed it at me, rain dripping from the shiny metal. “I’ve been very reasonable, even though you’ve lied to me. Now you have a choice. Hand over that information or I will kill you to get it. It makes no difference to me. Either way, I get what I want.”

  I took a deep breath and thought about the little drive tucked in my jeans pocket. It contained a hell of a story, but not one that was worth my life. My best chance was to hand it over, but there was no guarantee that Champagne wouldn’t kill me anyway.

  Then I heard the sound of a car in the parking lot behind me and saw headlights sweep the brick wall of the building. Champagne saw it too and his attention flickered away from me. My first thought was salvation, my second was that now he would have to shoot me and run. I hit the ground and rolled away. It was all I could think of.

  Then I heard a familiar, deep baritone voice. “Police. Drop that gun.”

  I looked up to see Mike Reilly standing in a crouch beside the door of his old Crown Vic, his gun aimed at Champagne.
Inside the car, I could see Suzy, a look of horror on her face.

  Champagne looked at Reilly, then at me. He was finally cornered.

  He glared at me, his angry face streaming with water. “This is all your fault,” he said.

  Then he raised his gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

  FIFTY-SIX

  I hammered away at my keyboard, trying to ignore the fact that half the newsroom was gathered around expectantly and Colin was leaning over my shoulder as I worked. A cigarette and a couple of fingers of Scotch were what I needed, right now, but the newsroom was dry and smoke-free.

  The story of Luc Champagne and Mae Wang was sprawling and complicated, and yet I could see it all in my mind. It was the kind of story best written in a single blast under deadline pressure. There was no time to second guess or agonize over the best approach. I was leading with the CIA bombshell, of course, grafting that on to what I had already written. Several sidebars covered every possible angle, but Colin and I had agreed that our struggle with the two CIA operatives was a story best left untold.

  I tried to write about Champagne’s last few minutes of life as if I were a detached observer, not a participant. Still, the image of his exploding skull filled my mind. That and the bastard saying it was all my fault. A narcissist to the end.

  Clearing Mae Wang’s name made me feel good, but I felt no triumph or satisfaction in writing about the death of Champagne. He wasn’t evil. Luc Champagne was simply a guy who had gotten caught in the updraft of ambition. Were it not for a judgment he had made as a grad student, that updraft could have taken him a long way.

  “Hey, there’s a TV remote truck setting up in the parking lot,” I heard someone shout in the background. I wasn’t surprised. Mike had said he would try to keep a lid on what happened as long as he could, but with a dead cabinet minister, that wouldn’t be long.