by Alice Sharpe
The wall clock seemed to click the minutes off at glacial speed. Noon came and went. A bus emptied several people into the waiting area. Others left to get on a departing bus. An older man wearing a feather in his cap entered from the street and looked around carefully, and for a moment, Simon thought they had their contact, but a teenager by one of the arcade games yelled, “Grandpa!” The two hugged and left together.
If Jerry Bucker’s death was well known, perhaps the contact had decided this was all too dangerous. A profound moment of relief quickly went up in smoke as an old guy with a newspaper rolled in one hand entered the depot through the same door Ella had used.
Simon knew the older man was ex-police by the way he carried himself. He might be retired but he was still wary, a man used to assessing everything and everyone around him. Simon would bet his life on the fact that the man was armed and ready to defend himself.
But he didn’t expect what happened next. The old guy’s gaze lingered on the bulky shape of the man with the knife so long, the other man sensed it and looked over his shoulder. Their gazes met and flashed away, but surprised recognition singed the air between them. The old guy immediately looked toward the door as though trying to decide what to do while the big man turned his back.
What was going on? They knew each other?
The older man apparently reached a decision. Walking quickly now, he approached Ella, sat down and started speaking. As she nodded and leaned closer to him, the man shook open his newspaper and the two of them disappeared behind it.
Once again Simon located the man he’d first seen on the bluff wielding a knife only a little over twenty-four hours before. He’d moved to a different vending machine and was dropping in coins, but by the way his gaze was glued to the glass panel of the machine, Simon was pretty sure he was really watching the reflection of the meeting going on across the room. There was still no sign of Carl, who was probably waiting outside to spring a trap once Ella left.
Simon had long since stepped out of the line and found an obscure corner. As he waited for the meeting to be over, he counted how many people were now in the depot. Including the woman selling tickets behind the counter, there were ten. At least four of them were here because of this meeting. That left six possibly unrelated individuals.
The newspaper moved as the old man rolled it once again and placed it on the seat next to him. Ella looked strained but resolved. The ex-cop patted her arm before getting to his feet. As he stood, his gaze darted to the big guy, who turned and took a step toward him.
The older woman who had seemed to be asleep also stood and joined the man, linking her arm with his. The big guy stopped abruptly. The older couple moved in unison toward the door. Apparently, news of Jerry Bucker’s and maybe Robert Connors’s deaths had reached Tampoo.
If so, what kind of loyalty propelled these old guys to risk themselves this way? And why were they being murdered after they spoke to Ella?
The big guy formed a fist and knocked it against his thigh. With hatred burning in his eyes, he turned his attention to Ella.
But Ella was looking at Simon, and though he tried to telegraph a warning, she looked away too quickly. He’d have to manually stop her from proceeding out the front doors, because that path would take her too close to the man in the raincoat, who appeared angry enough to throttle someone.
Simon heard passengers disembarking in the garage area behind him. Any second, they would barge through the doors. If he could waylay Ella, the two of them could get lost in the small crowd outside and circle the block back to their car. All he had to do was intercept her….
The metal door connecting garage and waiting area swung open. Several people flooded through, including a frail but spry white-haired woman using a four-wheeled walker who stopped right in front of Simon.
“What’s the time?” she demanded.
He glanced at the clock. “Twelve-forty,” he said, trying to get past the walker without bumping the woman.
“Where’s my son? He’s late. He’s always late.”
Over her head, Simon saw the tall man paralleling Ella’s path. She appeared to be totally unaware of his presence.
“Excuse me,” he added, sidling past the walker as he slid his hand under his jacket, unhooking the strap that held his revolver in the holster. There was no way he would pull a gun in a crowded building, but he suspected the big guy would usher Ella outside into Carl’s waiting arms.
He’d see about that.
Instead, the man suddenly sped up and purposely rammed into Ella. She stumbled and turned to look up at him. Simon heard her intake of breath as the man placed huge hands on her arms. She seemed to sag against him.
Simon yelled, “Hey!” but it was drowned in the bellowing tones of the giant.
“Honey?” the big man said as he scooped Ella up like a rag doll. “Are you okay? You need fresh air.” He knocked the door open with his broad back, supporting Ella’s weight, his gaze briefly meeting Simon’s. Simon looked at Ella’s face. Her eyes were open, his lips moved, but the big man’s continuing assurances covered whatever she was trying to say.
Simon had seen the man slip something into his pocket. He’d drugged her. He’d stuck the needle or whatever delivery system he’d chosen back in his pocket and covered her collapse with his booming voice and tan raincoat. That had to be what happened.
Simon quickened his pace. Damn. He’d screwed up; he hadn’t expected they would make their move inside the building. A young boy ran into the station as Ella disappeared outside. The kid bumped against Simon’s legs. Simon caught him and turned him away from the doors. “Slow down, buddy,” he said.
The kid opened his mouth to speak, but the words never came. At that instant, an explosion rocked the building, blowing out the café doors. Simon, snatched from his feet, was hurtled against the ticket counter. Screams were followed by falling debris and frantic calls for help. The boy lay on the floor nearby. Simon crawled to him, clearing dust off his face and urging him to take slow, steady breaths. He couldn’t see that any of the glass had hit the kid, who seemed more dazed than hurt.
A woman appeared through the gaping hole in the depot wall. “Peter!” she screamed, frantically looking every direction.
“Over here,” Simon said hopefully.
She was there in a flash. “Peter, you ran ahead of me—oh, Peter!” She fell to her knees, taking the boy into her arms.
“Keep him still until help arrives,” Simon urged.
She cast him an alarmed glance. “What happened?”
“A bomb, I think.” He struggled to his feet, relieved to see the boy trying to sit up.
The woman caught Simon’s wrist. “You’re hurt,” she said. “The back of your shirt is bloody. You’d better stay still.”
“Can’t,” he said, peering through the gaping hole in the wall in time to see the tail end of a man shoving Ella’s limp body into the backseat of a car.
“No,” Simon yelled, but it was more of a croak. Behind him, pandemonium reigned; people sobbed and shrieked. As the car carrying Ella eased back into traffic, Simon staggered down the sidewalk toward his own vehicle, his head echoing with the concussion of the explosion, his movements unsteady and way too slow.
He heard approaching sirens. Pedestrians pushed past him on their way toward the depot. Fire and smoke filled the air. Traffic began plugging the street, but Simon could see the car Ella had been pushed into and it was still moving, ahead of most of the congestion.
A Harley pulled up alongside the curb in front of Simon. Throwing his feet to the ground and turning to look back, the driver tore off his helmet, revealing a head full of long dark hair. He was about Simon’s age and very tan. He said, “Get on.”
Simon wiped his face, barely noticing when his hand came away covered in blood. “What?”
“Get on,” the man repeated with a slight accent.
“Who—”
“Your car is blocked in. If you want to save Ella, get on the bike
. Ahora.” He pulled his helmet back on his head and revved the engine. Simon covered the remaining sidewalk as fast as his shocked and battered body could take him. He climbed on behind the stranger, who pulled back onto the street a second later, weaving the big bike through the stalled cars, moving quickly toward the corner.
ELLA SAGGED AGAINST THE MAN sitting next to her. Her brain was scrambled like morning eggs, but she did know a couple of things. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be in this car and she knew the man holding her down on the seat was the same man who had bumped into her at the bus depot.
Another man turned around from the driver’s seat and grinned at her. She recalled him at once, though it was hard to place him. Long blond hair gathered into a ponytail, long nose, thin lips. He looked at her for a heartbeat, then turned back to driving. Over his shoulder he said, “Did you give her the drug I bought on the street?”
“Half of it. She’s not very big.”
The driver grumbled. “It appears to be working. Slap her, don’t let her fall asleep. Not yet.”
A hand appeared out of nowhere. The slap came quick and strong, snapping her head back against the seat, bringing water to her eyes, but it couldn’t dispel the bone-chilling lethargy that frosted her veins like an advancing glacier.
“Did she meet with an old man?” the voice from the front demanded.
“Yeah, and get this, it was Potter.”
“I don’t know anyone named Potter.”
The big man grunted. “I keep forgetting you’re in this for the money and nothing else.”
“No shame in that,” the driver said. Ella stared at the back of his head. A ponytail. She knew him. Carl. His name was Carl.
“The bastard got away,” the big man grumbled.
“He’s not important,” the detached voice said.
He was her husband.
“He is to me. They all are. But I’ll find him, you wait and see.”
There was a pause as Ella touched her face, almost surprised when her fingers found skin instead of bones. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she think?
“Where are you meeting the next contact, Eleanor?” the man in the front asked.
“Idaho,” she mumbled, vaguely alarmed she’d responded and terribly sleepy.
“Where in Idaho?”
“Storm Creek.” Her voice seemed to come from somewhere outside her body, like maybe from an overhead speaker.
The front-seat man snapped, “When?”
Before she could answer, her seat companion leaned forward. “The freeway ramp is up ahead.”
“I see it. When, Eleanor?”
“Tomorrow,” she whispered. She had a deep-down feeling she should refuse to answer any questions posed by these men, but she was unable to stop herself. All she really wanted was to lie down….
With a hard turn, the car, which had been veering right, suddenly swerved the other direction and she slid against the opposite door. A loud roar outside the window evolved into a motorcycle right beside the car. Carl swore as he steered the car under a bridge, missing the ramp completely.
“Damn it! He cut us off!”
There was a lot more swearing. Both men sounded furious. “What time is the meeting?” Carl demanded. “Eleanor, what time?”
She tried to close her eyes and ignore the raised voices and the demands, but the big man beside her grabbed her shoulders and shook her.
“Three o’clock,” she muttered.
“What? What did she say?”
“Three,” the big man yelled as he twisted to look out the rear window. “That bike is still back there.”
“I know. And there’s roadwork ahead. Look for someplace we can turn around.”
“Up ahead, to the left, some old plant of some kind.”
“Yeah, I see it. Hold on.”
The car soon made another hard turn, the tires squealing. A loud metallic sound was followed by pieces of chain flying past the windows as the car broke through the rusted barrier and bounced on the uneven pavement of what had once been a parking lot.
“You got a gun?” the driver yelled.
“Just the knife. Gun in the trunk.”
More squealing tires, more yelling, the big man twisting again, hands bunched, knots in his massive jaw. “They’re still back there.”
“I know, I know. Get her head down, protect her face.”
The car skidded as it turned again. The big man pushed Ella’s head toward the seat. She felt an odd sense of detachment, a floating sensation as though only her body were in the car.
And yet at the same time a tiny fire flickered in her gut, a defiant flame braving the storm, beginning to spread warmth through her body again. In her mind, she walked toward the flame.
The dark figure of a man stood beside the rippling light, hand extended. She couldn’t see his face, but his voice bathed her with comfort. He leaned down and said, It’s all right. Everything is better. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I won’t leave again.
Daddy?
The answer to her hushed question came in the form of a hand clamping down on her wrist, propelling her mind back to the inside of the car. The big man opened the door and jumped out, pulling Ella along after him. A scream died in her throat as she realized the vehicle was no longer moving. Her legs folded beneath her.
The big man bundled her against him like an armload of sticks and carried her around to the back of the car, where Carl was hiding. He held a big gun.
The next thing she knew, thunder roared from above as a huge black shape flew over her head and crashed somewhere in the distance. She covered her ears with her hands, melting into the gritty pavement, finally free to close her eyes where once again the flickering flame drew her to its warmth and the promise of her father’s voice.
Chapter Nine
Simon knew Carl was at the wheel; he’d seen the man when the bike prevented the car from taking the on-ramp. He hadn’t been able to see in the backseat, but he knew Ella was back there.
Where would they take her? How could they go too far without finding out what she knew about the next meeting place?
His cell phone practically burned in his pocket. Things had gone too far. He’d let them go too far. Better Ella should be safe in a jail than in this situation. She couldn’t have murdered Jerry Bucker, she couldn’t be in cahoots with Carl Baxter…
But she could.
Carl wouldn’t give her anything that would disable her too long until they knew what she’d learned from the contact and which direction to travel next. That meant just enough to control her for a while and hopefully, hopefully, that meant it wouldn’t hurt her baby….
The road grew increasingly industrial and untraveled. Orange signs announced roadwork ahead, and even over the noise of the Harley engine, Simon could make out the sound of earthmoving equipment. The car was going to have to turn around or risk being delayed, and Simon doubted very much they would take such a chance.
Up ahead of them, the car made a tight right turn into a vast parking lot, kicking up gravel and a dirt cloud as it bounced over torn patches of old asphalt, headed for the river where the hulking shape of a long sheet metal building abutted an aging wharf. Rotting piers jutted out of the gray waters of Puget Sound. It appeared to be an old fish packing plant.
The car went in a straight line toward the wharf. With the motorcycle, however, caution had to be used lest the bike spin out of control on buckled pavement and patches of loose gravel. Up ahead, Simon saw the car come to a screeching halt in front of the largest structure. Two men jumped out of the vehicle, the larger shape manhandling Ella to the protection of the far side. Simon saw the flash of a gun in Carl’s hand. Shots whizzed past the cycle.
The Harley driver veered to the left, running the bike up a ramp that ran behind Carl and his buddy, bursting into the gutted shell of the structure behind them.
Simon was off the bike before it had completely stopped, stumbling once and catching himself on an overturned barrel. Revolver in h
and, he knew he had to disable the car immediately. He darted to a glassless window and chanced a peek, but from this angle all he could see was the hood of the car.
The biker came up behind him, helmet removed. “What’s the plan?” he asked, his voice deep and flavored slightly with a Spanish accent.
“Shoot a couple of tires out of the car, subdue the two men, rescue Ella.”
“I’m not armed.” He rubbed his jaw and added, “Be prepared, amigo.” In the next instant, he’d sprung to his feet and disappeared into the deep shadows of the building, his footsteps all but inaudible, which was amazing considering the condition of the floor.
Simon didn’t waste time shaking his head, but that’s what he felt like doing. Be prepared? What, like a Boy Scout? Didn’t look as though there was going to be a lot of help from that quarter after all. He shot a few rounds through the window opening just to announce his intentions, inserted a new clip and made for the door. If that car left again with Ella inside it, who knew what would happen? He had to disable the car.
From the door of the building, he moved to the shelter of a row of old steel drums. From there he could see the right side of the car. A bullet ricocheted off one drum. He shot out the rear tire, then aimed for the front.
Before he could pull the trigger, a man’s voice announced, “One more shot and Eleanor dies.”
Simon’s trigger finger froze in place. He heard sounds of a struggle and then Carl appeared down below, in back of the car, a drooping Ella held in front of him as a shield. Her eyes fluttered open. Carl looped one of his arms around her neck while he pressed a gun barrel against her temple. Her expression immediately jumped from dazed to terrified.
“You won’t kill her,” Simon yelled. “You want to know what she knows. You need her face to open doors.”
“You’re right,” Carl yelled, “I can’t kill her. But I can wound her. What do you think? Leg? An arm?” Ella’s gasps as Carl jabbed the muzzle harder into the side of her head skittered along Simon’s nerve endings like firecrackers.
“Or maybe Chopper could use his knife on her, you know, someplace it won’t show,” Carl added.