by Gary Sapp
perception of things, Champion. I don’t know Serena Tennyson. I don’t want to know her, but I know the type. People in her position like to use human emotions to manipulate the people that work with them into serving whatever desires they want from them.”
“No, Shit, Roxanne,” Champion slapped himself on the forehead to complete his exaggerated exchange with her. “It’s no way that I would have thought of that alone without—hey, we’ve driven pass this point before.”
“We’re being followed. We’ve been followed for about the past hour.” She punched the gas and the Honda’s engine moaned in complaint. Something inside Champion made him check to see that his seatbelt was secured. He glanced over his left shoulder to verify to himself what Roxanne had disclosed with him.
“You believe that the black Cadillac is following us, Roxanne…you sure about this? That’s almost too much of a cliché for me to die of.”
Roxanne ignored his jape and concentrated on her steering. “Back at Carver, you were telling me about the last night you spent with Dr. Hicks-Dupree.” For all of her concentration, Roxanne nearly took the curve too fast, a car traveling in the opposite direction laid on his horn in a long honk of complaint. “What does she know about what is going on in Atlanta right now that you aren’t telling me?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Champion clutched the dash for support.” Why are you asking me this now?”
Roxanne told him her theories about the three parties that were potentially behind the wheel of the car making up ground behind them. “I’ve had too many close calls with eternity lately, Champion. If I’m going to die on this lonely road tonight, I expect to hear the truth from you why. I want it all and I want it right now.”
“Angel and I spent the night…talking when we weren’t having sex and drinking. I hinted to her that I wanted to turn myself into the authorities. But we had another visitor in the middle of the night, a man named Eugene Cover had come from my old stomping grounds in Houston looking for me.”
“Cover,” Roxanne fired the accelerator up as she sped the Honda around two slow moving cars and slipped back into the correct lane as if she’d never abandoned it in the first place. “You didn’t say anything about someone else being in that room with you two.”
“Cover worked at a biogenetics lab. He knew some things. He was trying to tell me some of them about what really happened to President Sweet…how it was connected to Mayor Ernestine Johnson. I wasn’t trying to hear any of it. I had already had my own dirt from my dealings with Pandora. I wasn’t going to die for his sins as well.” Champion looked back to see if they had made in progress in losing their tail. “Cover’s dead now. I’m sure Serena got wind that three mortal enemies of her organization were together. I got out of Dodge. Angel got recruited by the FBI. And I’m sure Danielle Rohm got to Cover.”
“Rohm,”
“Yea, I knew her to be a little woman who dresses all in black and carries big, powerful guns wherever she goes. She’s a contract killer. She’s Serena’s right hand man—woman, I mean. I’m sure she was heavily responsible for helping shoot up the courthouse area when Serena was sprung during Operation Deliverance.” Champion shook the cobwebs out of his head. “But I’m getting way ahead of myself. Eugene Cover’s remains were found near the hotel where Angel and I shacked up for the night. Rohm’s a damned professional alright. I’m sure she made it look like the standard murder-robbery to the boys in the bureau who were casing all the nearby streets thinking that they were going to nab me.”
Despite all of her efforts the Cadillac had closed the distance. She had to get out of this main stretch of highway. Champion asked her what in the hell was she thinking. He told her that leaving the main highway was suicidal. I guess that’s what I get for thinking aloud. Opinions were like reproductive organs: Everyone had one.
“Alright, Champion, enough about that morning that the FBI recruited Angel. Tell me more about the conversation that you two were having before this Cover fellow showed up.”
“I know that it’s not what you think it was, Roxanne.” He said. “It wasn’t this thought out, structured, Power Point presentation you are picturing it as. We talked about everything. I talked about my dear wife. She talked about her husband…her drinking issues. My turning myself over to the authorities was just one of my considerations.” He put his head in his hands. “We talked about running away together…we even talked about…suicide.”
She said, “Why didn’t you?” Champion cursed her and exhaled a deep breath of exasperation. “I meant why didn’t you go to the authorities?”
Champion spun around and looked out of the back window shield instead. He told her that maybe they’d lost other car at last. He didn’t see anything. Roxanne was doubtful. She eased up off of the gas enough—
As now the Cadillac was driving straight towards them.
“Did you see how Serena escaped a few days ago?” Champion said to her and crossed himself. “Pandora’s sphere of influence spreads like an eagle’s wings.” He seemed to come to decision about something. “No…I think that going to the authorities with what I know and with what I suspect would have been truly suicidal.”
The Cadillac flicked its lights on and then off again and was closing on her Honda again after she barely avoided a head on collision with it a second earlier. Roxanne threw the transmission into reverse, altered her course and tossed it back into drive and sped to her left with all due speed. “No more long stories, Champion, what did you suspect?” She said to her passenger who had gone pallid. “Damn you, Champion, I said talk.”
“411 wasn’t a deep dark secret within the core members of the organization. It had been in the planning stages for years.”
“Did you say years?”
“Yea, the 911 attacks and the war on Al-Qaeda actually delayed Pandora’s plans and caused them to reevaluate their positon. Remember Pandora is made up of mostly US citizens who have or still work for our government in some shape manner or form. The Caretaker had been believed to say that the manpower and resources would not be reassigned from fighting the war on terror and defending the homeland for Pandora’s private issues with a House in Chains. But as that external threat faded, Pandora became more focused on what led to where we are today.”
“And what about Angel’s role in all of this,” The lights of the Cadillac had disappeared again. The world is too quiet, Victor. Victor told her the best time for hearing for strangers screaming in the distance is when your world was at its most still. “Where does Angel fit in this equation?” Roxanne aimed to get the Honda back on the main highway for now. She doused her own lights…learning from her opponent’s example of stealth. She had to admit that part of her was enjoying the cat and mouse game with whoever was behind that other wheel. You are professionals. She thought. I am a professional. She knew. And I like cheese.
And she was more than willing to match her skills with theirs.
“Why are you consumed with Angel?” He asked her. “What has she done to you?”
Roxanne Sanchez wrapped her trigger finger around her Nine for the first time this evening. She didn’t point it at Champion, but she did put it far enough away from her body so he would see it.
“I’m asking the questions here, Champion.”
“Angel knew about Keaton.” He lowered his head, following the gun’s trail wherever it went. “She knew that man’s in’s and out’s. He’s a strange bird but if anyone in that organization could control Keaton, Angel was the one. She’s an expert in her field of psychology and better in most in the remaining fields dealing with the human mind.”
Roxanne had a thought. “Maybe Keaton killed Erica?”
“Maybe,”
The black Cadillac had reappeared…just to her left. She had seen the silhouette of the car even before he turned his lights back on.
And then Roxanne made up her mind one last time this evening to wrap up this performance since the hour was growing late.
“Roxanne,” Champion
slid down in his seat. “What in the name of God are you getting ready to do?”
Roxanne floored the accelerator and left Champion to figure out the rest for himself. She did remind herself that she was in all of this for the truth. She had lived for it. She was willing to die for it as well.
“I’m going to live,” She announced to Victor Castillo or whoever was driving the Cadillac in question, but felt Joseph Champion nodding from next to her in the passenger seat of the 15 year old Honda. “I’m going to live just long enough to kill Angel Hicks-Dupree.”
The other car didn’t call her bluff…as she half expected. She swerved at the last half second to avoid a head on collision that would have ended the life of everyone involved. Damn…she didn’t clear it enough not to clip the other car. Both passengers in the Honda felt the impact. She closed her eyes for a second…to allow the contact to take her car where it may. When she opened her dark eyes she saw the other car flipping once and again until it finally rested on its top, the tires were spinning aimlessly. Champion looked no worse than he usually did so she left him buckled in the passenger seat gasping for breath.
She had her Nine out and drawn. She approached the Cadillac giving the car and the perimeter around the vehicle a wide berth. She licked the rest of the lip gloss from her lips. She tossed her hair