by Matt Hilton
‘Go,’ I told Billie. She hit the gas and almost stalled the big car. But then the limo jerked backwards, and set off rolling at a steady clip. I moved with it, aiming over the roof alongside the open door and firing blind shots into the foyer, while Rink also pumped the shotgun and fired at the front of the building. There was a shout from inside and a couple of the PMCs crept out, looking for cover where there was none. I shot one in the thigh, then the slide locked open, my gun empty. Rink put the other man down for good. Then more PMCs including Erick were out of the door, fanning out to encircle us. I ducked, slapping in a fresh magazine, just as rifle rounds blatted off the car’s roof and whined over my head. To my right, Rink’s shotgun fired again, but then he was out of shells and with no opportunity to reload from his ammo belt. He threw himself inside the back of the limo, even as I eased in, pushing Billie across and down into the footwell on the passenger side. She blocked the gear stick, her clothing catching on it, and there followed a frantic few seconds while I pulled her sweat top clear. Rounds shattered the windscreen, throwing glass and shards of metal on us. Something hot nestled in my hair, but I hadn’t time to worry about what it was. I hit the gas, reversing at speed. The PMCs chased us, and bullets began chewing into the luxury car. Any second and they’d get the tyres, or the engine, and we’d be going nowhere fast. I hit a handbrake skid, rammed the gearshift and hit the gas. We pulled away just as the first of three vans powered round the near corner and struck our back end. Fishtailing, I fought the wheel, then stomped the gas again and accelerated. The limousine was designed for a comfortable ride, not for high speed, and though it responded it was with a steady build-up rather than instantly. One of the other vans matched us speed for speed, and the driver fancied his chances of running us off the road and into the wall of the next building. He slewed the bigger vehicle into us, the sound of grinding metal a banshee’s shriek. By then Rink had reloaded. He stuck the Mossberg out of his window and let the driver have a face full of shot. The van slewed again, but this time away, and with no hand at the wheel it did a half-turn before the wheels hit a kerb and the van went up and over a sidewalk into the front of a building. I’d have cheered if I hadn’t checked my mirrors and seen the other two vans chasing us down. Distantly, Erick was clambering into another vehicle, this one a 4x4, to join the hunt. Billie raised her head but I pushed it back down.
‘We’re not out of this yet,’ I told her. Then to my friend, ‘Rink?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Call Noah. Tell him to move his arse.’
‘Got ya!’
Up ahead, about four hundred yards distant, was the old gatehouse from when the logistics hub was part of the nearby wartime military installation. There was a brick guardhouse on one side and a wide brick pillar on the other. Vehicles were funnelled through a narrow gap with room for only one truck at a time. A steel barrier had been lowered. In movies you see cars smashing through them like they’re balsa wood, but that wasn’t the case in real life. If we collided with the barrier at speed it would take off the top of the car, and our heads along with it. I decelerated as we approached, going for a lower gear, allowing the stream of PMC vehicles to gain on us. Somebody leaned out the leading van and fired at us, but the bullets came nowhere near.
Fifty yards from the barrier, I hit the brakes, pulled down on the wheel and yelled something glib like ‘Hold on to your hats!’
The limo skidded, the tyres juddering on the concrete paving, sending up smoke and the stink of burning rubber, and the back end began to spin towards the gatehouse. I hit an adjustment and the front found its trajectory again and we crashed side-on against the guardhouse. The back end of the car was well and truly crumpled now, but I didn’t care. I hit the throttle, pulling clear of the building so that Billie and Rink could scramble out, while still blocking access to the exit. One of the vans was coming so fast that it had no hope of stopping, but that wasn’t the driver’s intent. I threw myself across the passenger seat as the heavier van impacted the side of the limousine and rammed it into the space between the guardhouse and pillar. Hell, the driver had unwittingly achieved for me what I’d been aiming to do. He’d blocked their way, so that they couldn’t follow. I slid out the mangled car on to the road, then popped up and fired a few pot shots at the van’s windscreen: whether I hit the driver or not didn’t matter, it was about keeping his head down. I ducked under the barrier, and saw Rink and Billie running to my right. A decorative hedge had grown to about fifteen feet tall, and obscured them from the view of those still within the compound. I stood at the back corner of the guardhouse, but nobody came out to join the fight. The van door opened, and the driver, shaken but alive, staggered out and went to one knee, before scrambling for his life out of my firing line. I let him go.
My attention was caught by another roaring engine. This one I was happy to hear, and ran for Noah’s sedan as he skidded to a halt alongside Rink and Billie. Adam was about to get out, waving a pistol, but Rink grabbed him by his collar and shoved him back inside, even as he steered Billie for the back seat. I joined them seconds later, and Noah peeled away before I’d even got the door fully shut.
We streaked past the front gate, and could see people swarming to get round the compacted limo, but the chase was over for now. One man watched us go, the ambient light striking highlights off the lenses of his glasses. I wished I could have ended things there and then with Erick, but so be it.
I’d’ve happily laid a bet that we’d still have our day.
40
As we fled northeast on Route 507, skirting the wetlands boundary of Joint Base Lewis/McChord, responding police and State Trooper vehicles sped past on the other side, heading for the logistics depot. There was no sign of the ATF or an FBI hostage rescue team, though Noah assured us that he’d called Agent Cooper at the sound of the first distant pop of gunfire. What could I say? I’d asked Cooper for the opportunity to rescue Billie myself, but I hadn’t really expected total freedom to engage Procrylon in a personal war. Not for the first time I considered Cooper’s hidden agenda in all that had happened.
I was in the back seat of Noah’s sedan. Rink was on the opposite side, and Billie was scrunched between us. She was silent. Not weeping, not saying a word. She had to be in pain, shock, and a thousand emotions must have been playing havoc with her mind, so I let her be. Sometimes silence was the best healer. I wanted to call Cooper and ask him what the hell was going on, but not while Billie could overhear.
‘Where do we go now?’ Noah ventured. He was driving, his hands rigid on the steering wheel, foot heavy on the gas pedal.
‘Back to the motel,’ I said.
‘It’s too close,’ Noah warned.
‘And probably the last place anyone will think to look for us,’ I replied. ‘Once the police organise themselves they’ll have roadblocks in place, helicopters in the sky. We’d be caught in no time. Better that we get our heads down, stay hidden until I can get Cooper organised and back on-side.’
I caught a glance from Rink, and he didn’t need to say a thing.
He didn’t trust Cooper any further than I did. But what exactly could we do? We couldn’t take Billie to the police and demand their protection, not without the rest of us ending up in cells. As far as anyone knew, or needed to know, I was the only person who’d invaded the logistics depot to liberate a kidnapped woman. Rink, Noah and Adam remained unknown quantities and I hoped to keep things that way. What had been important before was getting Billie safely out of Procrylon’s grasp, but now I also had to think about how I was going to escape prosecution. Too many people had seen me and lived. Not that I was too upset that some of them had survived: there was a mix of good and bad people in there, and I was happy that the decent folks had gone unharmed. I was remorseful about head-butting that woman, but under the circumstances things could have proved much worse for her. The PMCs I’d engaged were fair game; we were all soldiers and possible casualties of the war, but those that I’d spared were simply guys doing
their jobs and I didn’t regret that they were still around either. ‘What happened to the chauffeur?’ I asked Rink.
Rink chuckled to himself. ‘He smoked a bunch of cigarettes, tried to regale me with a few humorous cabbie tales, then suggested I tie him up so that he didn’t look as if he’d been consorting with the opposing team. He’s safe, and happy. Think of the tales he’ll tell his next fare?’
I was glad the big Australian’s easy-going manner had won over Rink. Of everyone we’d come across at the logistics depot, he truly was an innocent party and it would have been a shame if Rink had been forced to do something nasty to him. The chauffeur’s car was a write-off, so I hoped his insurance company paid out. If not, then there was some reparation coming from the ATF if I had any say in the matter. I also owed him a cap and suit jacket.
There were a couple of people I’d have liked to see well and truly stopped: Erick Jaeger and Amanda Sheehan. The latter I had no personal interest in: the ATF could deal with her. But Erick was another case in point. I fully expected that both of them would disappear off the radar for a while, but Erick would resurrect somewhere down the trail. He was a soldier with a soldier’s sensibilities, and in that case he wouldn’t take our conflict personally. But he was also a grieving brother who’d want revenge on the killer of Daniel – whoever that might be. If he decided that was me, then good, he’d find me waiting. If he went for Billie, then I’d also be waiting.
I checked on Billie. She was still quiet; sitting there with her broken fingers cupped in those of her other hand. She required medical attention, but for now it would have to be of the battlefield type. We couldn’t go to a hospital, clinic or doctor’s surgery because the cops would be on to us within minutes. Billie looked up at me. She offered a lop-sided smile. ‘I can handle the pain,’ she said, as if she’d read my mind.
‘Jeezus,’ Noah said from the front. ‘Joe only dislocated one of my fingers and it hurt like hell. I don’t know how you do it, Mrs Womack.’
‘I’m tougher than I look,’ Billie said.
She wasn’t wrong. But then again it wasn’t physical toughness that had seen her through her incarceration and torture. It was her state of mind. ‘We’ll get some ice on your hand once we’re back at the motel. How are you otherwise, no other injuries we’ve missed?’
She showed me her left hand and the broken fingernails. One was pulled to the quick, bloody. ‘I left one of my nails stuck in that Amanda bitch’s face. But it was worth the pain.’
I hadn’t yet learned the details of what had gone on, but now I knew from whom the scream had come that led me to Billie. She’d fought back against her captors even without the knowledge that I was coming for her. Her proactivity had allowed her to get hold of a gun and shoot Daniel Jaeger. I should have offered her kudos, but instead I said, ‘We were all lucky to get out alive, and relatively uninjured. We can all pat each other on the back once this is over with.’
Over the top of Billie’s head I caught another glance from Rink. This time there was definite confusion in it. I didn’t offer an explanation, just nodded softly at him. Rink knew enough not to push, and we fell back to silence.
A few minutes later we arrived at the motel and Noah parked the car out of sight of the highway. If anyone at the logistics depot had spotted our getaway car it wouldn’t matter, because I believed that everyone there would have been hightailing it in the opposite direction to that of the responding police officers. Any that were mopped up and interrogated would plead ignorance of what had gone down, because to admit otherwise would be to implicate them in the kidnapping and torturing of a citizen. I felt confident that the car hadn’t been in view of any working CCTV cameras, so we’d be safe enough from discovery for now.
Adam was first out of the car. He still had a sidearm down alongside his thigh and I spoke gruffly. ‘Put that thing away, will you? Try to be a bit less conspicuous if you can.’
Adam was suitably abashed and quickly stuck the gun inside his coat.
‘Hey, go easy on the kid, brother,’ Rink said. ‘If it weren’t for these guys we’d still be running up the five-o-seven with half the cops in Tacoma after us.’
Rink was right. Noah and Adam could have left us behind, but they’d chosen to come and rescue us instead. I owed them more than my surliness. It had nothing to do with them, but something worried me and was weighing heavily on my mind. I waved the young man an apology, but he had the grace to shrug it off. ‘You were right, Joe. It was stupid of me to wave a gun around like that where anyone could see.’
As it was there was nobody in sight. We were in darkness at the back of the parking lot, and most people staying in the motel had retired for the night. Our arrival hadn’t caused any of the bedroom curtains to twitch. We headed inside the room we’d used earlier. Without asking him, Adam offered to go and fetch ice for Billie’s hand from a machine he’d earlier visited in the lobby. When he returned it was also with an armful of Coca-Cola drinks, and some chocolate bars from a vending machine. We all needed the sugar rush and carbs.
‘What are we going to do about the guns?’ Noah wondered, once we’d settled in the sitting area.
‘We need to hang on to them for now,’ Rink replied. Like I did, Rink understood that things had not yet come to a head. Without adding anything more, he went to Billie who was sitting on the edge of the bed. Out of us all – and considering my mind was on other things – he was the appropriate person to administer field dressings and such to Billie’s hands. Billie offered up her malformed right hand, but she didn’t look at Rink; she eyed me steadily, with great interest. I found her scrutiny oddly unnerving and looked away. I asked to borrow Noah’s cell phone.
‘I’ve got to make a couple of private calls,’ I announced.
Once out of the room, I walked away from the motel across the lot to the darkness alongside the parked car.
I must call Brandon Cooper, I thought.
After that, Harvey Lucas.
First I wanted to clear up the lies, and follow that by learning the truth.
41
We didn’t bring Billie home to her farm. She stayed in Hill End with Noah and Adam watching over her, while Rink drove the two of us to Baker’s Hole. It was a solemn drive. After I’d made the calls last night, I’d got Rink alone and told him what I’d learned, and also what I suspected. I hoped to God I was wrong, but the clenching in my guts was too intense to ignore.
Arriving at the farm, I went inside the house through the front door Adam had booted open, and upstairs to Billie’s bedroom. I then joined Rink on the stoop and we walked out by the lake. As I stood on the shore, Rink silent alongside me, I held up the painting I’d taken down off Billie’s bedroom wall. Then taking our bearings from the scene in the painting we visually marked the spot of interest on the opposite shore.
‘X marks the spot, huh?’ Rink said, but with no enthusiasm.
‘C’mon, let’s get going before Cooper arrives.’ I put the painting down on the shore – a clue for the ATF agent to follow. I didn’t need the painting as I’d memorised it in detail and could probably draw it again myself, not with Billie’s artistic flair but a good copy.
We each shouldered garden spades and set off, following the curve of the lakeshore around its eastern end. It took us twenty minutes to find the general location we’d noted from the other side of the lake, and I lined us up on the natural landmarks I’d taken note of. ‘It should be here somewhere,’ I said.
Rink is an expert tracker. He sees things that would go unnoticed by your regular man, and what would appear a natural feature of the landscape would stand out to him like an explosion of colour. ‘There’s irregularity in the undergrowth over there,’ he said, indicating a low hummock of turf just beyond the pebble-strewn shore. I trusted his instincts and we moved together for the area he pointed out. It wasn’t the hummock itself, but the depression in the ground in front. The grass and weed that had found purchase in the depression were darker, younger than the growth
all around. Some of the rocks embedded in the earth were also darker in colour than those in the vicinity. Those rocks had once lain the other side up, and hadn’t yet had time to fade the way their neighbours had. The earth had been disturbed there. It had been dug out, and then shovelled back into place. Over the years it had settled, sinking marginally lower than the ground nearby.
‘You sure we should do this, brother?’
‘It’s the only way we’re going to know for certain what’s down there,’ I said.
‘Maybe it’s best we never find out. It’s not too late to walk away.’
Unfortunately, it was too late.
In my mind’s eye I pictured the crimson stroke of colour in Billie’s painting. The vibrant red depicted Nicola, her deceased daughter. In that painting – and others of Billie’s if I’d had the time to study them – the dead girl pointed at the ground, at this very spot in the wilderness. Those paintings Billie had committed to canvas were both her way of paying homage to her daughter, and clues to the treasure everyone had been seeking in vain. Following the direction of Nicola’s pointing finger, I settled the spade in the earth, stepped on it with one foot and pushed.
We only had to dig a few feet until we came across a galvanised steel barrel. I’d seen others like it in the shed on Billie’s farm, next to her parked Jetta. We scraped away the soil, but left the barrel on its side, the lid untouched. By that time the crunch of approaching footsteps had alerted us to Agent Cooper’s arrival and we stepped out of the hole and leaned on our spades. Cooper had come as I asked – alone – but I didn’t doubt his ATF pals were waiting nearby. He held a pistol down by his thigh.
‘Good of you to join us,’ I said.
Cooper stopped fifteen feet away, his shoes sinking into gravel with a soft hiss. He didn’t lift the pistol, but neither did he put it away.
‘I’m surprised you’d doubted me,’ he said.