The Dinosaur Club

by William Heffernan

  “Take the knife at your feet and run.”

  The voice swirled in again. At first he thought it came from behind him, and he spun quickly. There was nothing, no one. His head snapped to his right, then left again. He looked down at his feet and through the rising mist saw the sheathed knife lying there. He picked it up, spun around and ran into the forest. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he could barely breathe.

  Fallon watched him run. He was on the ground, his body flat and still, no more than twenty-five yards from the clearing. He rose slowly to his knees, eyes fixed on the retreating figure; then reached down and took a handful of dirt and smeared it across his face. Then he lowered the camouflage netting from beneath his cap and moved silently off to his right. It had been almost thirty years, but he still remembered the moves—the gut-tightening fear of hunting other men who wanted to kill you—the two things that kept you alive: patience and silence.

  Bennett crashed through a clump of heavy brush, stumbled, and fell. He pulled himself to his knees and quickly crawled to a fallen tree. He slid behind it and fought to recover his breath. The scent of the forest filled his nostrils, mixed there with the smell of his own fear. He felt cold, but he was sweating.

  He glanced over the tree, searching the forest behind him. There was nothing. He held his breath, listening for some telltale sound of movement. There was a rustle of leaves to his right, and he stared in that direction. The mist had begun to clear and he saw a red squirrel race across the forest floor, then up a distant tree.

  He thought, Maybe you’ve already lost him. Maybe you can lie here and wait for him to pass, then double back the way you came. Bennett thought of the others who’d be waiting for him with shotguns. He’d have to find out where they were to have any hope of getting past them. But first he had to elude Fallon. Think paintball, he told himself. You’re the best. The best in New England. Think it. Think it. His arms and legs continued to tremble.

  The voice, faint and hissing, swirled in again. “Don’t make it easy, Carter. Don’t just lie behind a tree.”

  The voice was ahead of him, slightly to his left. He rolled over the top of the fallen tree and fell to the other side. He was about to crawl back the way he had come, when the voice came again—this time from the opposite direction and to his right. “You’re easy,” it hissed.

  Bennett pushed himself up and, crouching, ran off to his left. Brush tore at his arms and legs; a branch snagged his hat and pulled it free. He left it behind, kept moving for another fifty yards, then dropped behind a large boulder. He was shaking badly, and he fought to control it. He told himself, You’re doing exactly what he wants. You’re running, and you have no idea where you’re running to. The realization struck him. He also had no idea where he was. He tried to recall the directions he had traveled, but found he had only the vaguest idea how to return to the small clearing where it had started.

  Something hit the boulder he was crouched behind. Then, a moment later, something else struck it. He recalled his own ploy in his last paintball tournament, the rock he had thrown to draw out his opposition. Fallon was out there, only yards away, and he was mocking him. Hatred, mixed with fear, surged, as he backed away into the brush again. He had gone almost thirty yards before he realized he might be moving toward the man, right into the knife that awaited him. He stopped; fell to his knees.

  Why were they doing this? Even if he escaped, everything he had hoped for was gone. They had destroyed him, all his hopes. There would be no choice now but to quickly sell off the stock he had purchased. Then go to his father and brother and beg for a job, any job. And if these madmen knew about him, they must know about Waters as well. He’d have to go to Waters, tell him what had happened, and Waters, too, would be forced to abort his plans. No, to hell with that old fool. Let him save himself. Or let him fall.

  The stupidity of what he had just thought rushed at him. None of it mattered now, would never matter unless he escaped with his life. Bennett felt his arms begin to tremble again, then his legs. He bit down on his lip. He couldn’t understand how he’d become turned around so quickly, all sense of direction lost.

  He heard a noise behind him and spun to face it. Fallon rose from a clump of brush fifteen yards away. He just stood there, staring at him. The camouflage netting covered his face—a specter.

  Bennett turned and raced away from him. He dodged rocks and deadfalls. There was a small clearing ahead, and he headed toward it, praying it was a road, or trail, or anything that would lead him away. His ears filled with a steady, choking sound, and he realized what he heard was his own strangled sobs, desperate and filled with fear.

  He reached the small clearing and found nothing leading from it—no path, no trail, only more forest beyond. He started across it at a run, desperate to reach the cover of the other side. Then the ground gave way and he fell, crashing down on one shoulder and driving the breath from his body.

  He recovered in moments, and found he was in a long, shallow pit, perhaps waist high at its deepest point. He struggled to his knees. The voice swirled in on him again.

  “In Nam the VC put punji stakes in the bottom of their traps. They liked to see their enemies impaled on them. I don’t think you would have lasted very long.”

  Bennett crawled from the hole. Fallon stood about thirty yards behind him, partially obscured by brush. Bennett turned and raced directly away again. When he glanced back over his shoulder, no one was there.

  Fallon watched him run. The man was hopeless, easier than he had thought. But, then, he’d never had to fight this way, never been forced to survive anything more than a social gathering or boardroom meeting. Even his paintball tournaments had been a game played by grown children.

  He saw Bennett veer to his right, headed toward Constantini’s position. Bennett was pitiable, and it was time to end it. Surprisingly, he found no pleasure in the man’s fear. He only found his own sense of worth diminished. Samantha had been right.

  Bennett raced ahead. Behind him he heard a long, sustained whistle. Thirty yards ahead, Ben Constantini rose up on a rock face. His shotgun snapped to his shoulder and he aimed down. Bennett froze, then threw himself to his left as the weapon erupted. He heard himself scream, but only in fear. Then he scrambled away, keeping low, running back the way he had come, then veering to his right again, when he was sure he was out of the weapon’s range. Constantini’s voice chased him.

  “Run, you little rabbit. Run.”

  Bennett kept running. He had gone another fifty yards when his foot struck a trip wire, and he fell forward, skidding on his chest. A loud whooshing sound filled his ears, and he looked up and saw a block of wood descending in a wide, falling arc. It was another twenty yards ahead, the block attached to a long pole that swung down from a tree, and it had sharpened stakes protruding from all sides, each capable of impaling him. He watched, terrified, as it reached its apex, then began the swing back, then forward again.

  The voice came to him again, seemed to swirl in from several directions. “Just a warning of what could happen, Carter.”

  Bennett pushed himself up, trying to decide which way to go. Constantini was somewhere to his right; the sharpened stakes and perhaps still more traps lay straight ahead. He cut to his left, running again, knowing he should slow down to avoid the noise he was making, but unable to stop himself.

  Then two figures appeared fifty or sixty yards away: one to his left, the second straight ahead. Each carried a shotgun.

  “Keep coming, Carter,” Valasquez shouted. “Keep coming, you miserable little shit.”

  “This way. Right this way,” Hartman countered. “Give me one clear shot.”

  Bennett spun away from both, their voices trailing after him, taunting, threatening. He realized he was sobbing again, and tears streaked his face. Ahead lay two large outcroppings of rock with a path cut between. He pulled the knife from the sheath he had attached to his belt, and raced into the tunnellike passage, headed toward another small clearing he
could just make out on the other side.

  He broke into the clear. Wally Green and Annie Schwartz stood at opposite ends of the clearing. Both had weapons raised to their shoulders.

  “Whoops. I think you made a wrong turn,” Annie said.

  “You’re dead meat. Just like Jim Malloy,” Wally shouted.

  Bennett spun around to race back the way he’d come. Fallon’s leg struck out, smashing into his knee, and Bennett’s feet flew out from under him. He fell heavily; the knife flew from his hand. Fallon dropped on top of him, pinning his back to the ground. The knife in his hand pressed against Bennett’s throat.

  “It’s all over, tough guy,” he hissed.

  Bennett stared into his face. It was cold and pitiless, filled with a mixture of contempt and hatred.

  “Don’t, Jack. Please don’t.” He could hear himself begging for his life, and only prayed he’d be given time to beg even more.

  Wally and Annie moved up, and hovered over him.

  “Kill him, Jack.” Wally growled the words. His face seemed obscenely twisted.

  “No, don’t kill him. Just cut something off.” It was Annie this time, glaring down at him.

  The knife twitched in Fallon’s hand. From the corner of his vision, Bennett could see Hartman and Valasquez and Constantini move into the clearing.

  “Tell me about Charlie, and maybe I’ll let you live,” Fallon hissed.

  Fallon knew about it. He knew everything they’d been doing. Bennett’s father flashed into his mind. Then his brother. There was a look of contempt on each of their faces, just as there always had been. He didn’t care. For the first time in his life, he didn’t care.

  Bennett fought for breath—just enough to let him speak. “Charlie’s selling the company to Strube Industries.” The words wheezed out, barely intelligible. “No one knows. Not even the board.” He swallowed, felt his throat constrict. “Charlie owns seventeen percent of the company, and he’ll get about twenty million in Strube stock.” He fought for breath again, felt the knife pressing harder against his throat. “I’m sure he’ll get even more, that Strube will sweeten the deal under the table if he can pull it off without a fight.”

  “Is that where Plattsburgh comes in?” Fallon’s voice was low and cold and filled with hatred.

  Bennett felt the tremors in his arms and legs. He tried to nod, but the blade of the knife stopped him. “Yes. Charlie wants the board to believe we’re about to lose the government gyro contract. They all know we’ll flounder without it; probably never regain our market position in fiber optics. When they understand that, they’ll grab the deal and take the quick profit that’s being offered.”

  “And the downsizing is supposed to sweeten the pot for Strube, right?”

  Bennett swallowed. His mouth and throat were dry with fear, and the effort hurt him. “Strube’s going to sell off the company, and they want as many people as possible gone before they’re forced to buy them out. Waters Cable is a young company, and there are tens of millions in nonvested pension funds that we could never touch. But Strube can when they divest us. Any money that’s left is theirs. With that money, and when they sell off our equipment and real estate, they’ll have bought us for pennies. The only thing left will be a research facility. Waters Cable will exist only on paper, and Strube will have the gyro contract under that wholly owned subsidiary. They’ll have it all to themselves.”

  “Charlie doesn’t know that you know all this, does he?”

  “No. He knows about Strube’s plan to divest, but he doesn’t know that Strube came to me and offered me a deal to handle it for them.”

  “And that’s when you set up your own little side deal, to make a nice killing in the market.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Bennett’s voice rose; he was close to hysteria now. “Waters is walking away with millions. And he was going to leave me holding the bag. No job, nothing. So I took what Strube offered, and I was going to take some more for myself.”

  Samantha came into the clearing, and Bennett’s eyes darted toward her, pleading for intervention. The others stared at him with a mixture of contempt and—he thought—something close to pity. Their weapons were slung over their shoulders now. Wally Green turned away, shaking his head. “This is the guy we were so afraid of,” he said. “Look at him.”

  Fallon sat back and removed the knife from Bennett’s throat. He reached into his shirt pocket and removed a small voice-activated tape recorder. Samantha stepped in close and he handed it to her.

  “I’m surprised you had time to terrorize your employees,” she said. “You were all so busy stabbing each other in the back.” She continued to stare at Bennett. “Did any of you ever think about the lives you’d be destroying? All those people? All those families? How could you be such bastards? How could you try to make me help you?”

  Bennett just stared at her. He heard Fallon expel a long breath.

  “We’re going back to the cabin now, Carter. There’s a laptop computer there, and Samantha is going to put together a document that you’re going to sign. Then she’s going to work up a special buyout package for each of us. You’ll sign that, too. If you do those things, you’ll walk out of here alive.” Fallon’s eyes held the unspoken threat, and Bennett’s face told him he still believed; still saw his life hanging in the balance. “When you’ve done that,” Fallon continued, “you’re going to take it all back to Charlie Waters and explain it. You can tell him we’ll be in his office at one o’clock tomorrow to pick up our checks.” He gave Bennett a cold smile. “Cashier’s checks, of course. And if they’re not there waiting for us, tell Charlie we’ll be headed straight to the SEC with the documents you signed and this little recording. If they are waiting, the documents and the tape are his.” Another cold smile descended. “What’ll it be, Carter?”

  Bennett swallowed, grimaced against the pain it caused. “Whatever you want, Jack,” he said.

  Fallon nodded. “There’s one other thing, Carter.”

  Bennett stared at him. There was no resistance, only a will to survive.

  “Lester Gavin stays fired,” Fallon said. “And I’d like you to fire Willis Chambers, too.”

  Bennett let out a breath. “That won’t be a problem, Jack.”

  29

  FALLON ARRIVED AT THE RESIDENCE AT WILLOW RUN AT seven o’clock that evening, still dressed in his fatigues and combat boots. His face was covered by a day’s growth of beard.

  Samantha had changed clothes in the car, insisting she was not going to meet his mother “dressed like Fidel Castro’s gun moll.”

  Fallon didn’t care. He had stopped at the real estate office and picked up a copy of the broker’s listing on the cabin. He wanted to lay it before the Virgin’s feet and, hopefully, put an end to her veneration.

  The line outside his mother’s room was even longer than the last time he had visited her shrine. The acolyte guarding her door glared up from his wheelchair. Fallon opened the door and entered. His mother was standing before the drawn curtains, as before; draped in blue, veiled, her hands extended in the same beatific pose. Again, the room was ablaze with candles, and there was an old woman standing before her, propped up by a walker. The old lady’s head was bowed.

  Kitty Fallon glared at her son. Then she whispered something to her supplicant. Without a word, or a look back, the elderly woman began plopping her walker about, until she had turned completely around. Then she shuffled forward until she was out the door.

  Kitty Fallon eyed Samantha with suspicion. “Who is this, John?” she demanded. “You haven’t hired a psychiatrist, have you?”

  “What did you tell that old woman?” Fallon asked.

  “Never mind what I told her. Who is this?”

  “My name is Samantha Moore,” Samantha said. “I’m a friend of Jack’s.”

  Kitty turned her gaze on Fallon. “A girlfriend already, John?” She shook her head. “I hope you have better luck this time.”

  Fallon lowered his eyes. When he look
ed at his mother again, he was smiling. “You never ease up, do you, Mom?”

  Kitty ignored him. “Why are you dressed like that?”

  Fallon walked across the room and kissed her cheek. “Sit down, Mom,” he said.

  Kitty moved to a chair, and Fallon took a seat on the edge of her bed. He handed her the real estate listing.

  Kitty studied it, then looked up, still suspicious. “What is this?” Her voice sounded uncertain, even a bit nervous.

  “It’s Dad’s cabin,” Fallon said. “I’m selling it, and I’m going to use the money to set up a fund to cover your bills here.” He inclined his head toward Samantha. “Samantha’s a lawyer,” Fallon said. “She’s going to draw it up for me.”

  Kitty’s jaw quivered, but she fought it off. It was the nearest to tears that Fallon had ever seen her come. “Thank you, John,” she said.

  “I prefer Jack, Mom.”

  Kitty blinked. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that?” she asked.

  Fallon lowered his head again and laughed. “I guess I never thought to,” he said.

  Kitty blinked again. She seemed to be drawing herself up for something. “Thank you for doing this for me, Jack,” she finally said. “I know how much the cabin meant to you.”

  Fallon reached out and took her hand. “It meant even more to Dad,” he said. “And he’s the one who’s doing it, Mom. It’s what he would have wanted.”

  Kitty Fallon’s jaw quivered again, but again she fought it off. “He was a good man,” she said. “Your father was a good man.”

  “Yes, he was,” Fallon said.

  “And so are you, Jack. So are you.”

  They entered Charlie Waters’s office at one o’clock the next day. Waters stood behind his desk, his face red and angry. Bennett stood beside him, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes.

  Samantha was dressed in a simple but elegant black dress. The others had worn their best business suits.

  “I won’t waste your time, or mine, by expressing my disappointment, Jack,” Waters began. He seemed ready to say more, but Fallon stopped him.