72 Hours (A Thriller)

by Moreton, William Casey

  “I’m not here to argue the past. A critical situation has arisen. Time Sensitive. I’m here to recruit you.”

  The cold stare remained.

  “Not interested,” Archer said.

  “A five hundred million dollar bounty has been place on the head of a woman in Brentwood. I have to keep her alive until midnight Sunday. It looks like things might get nasty before it’s all over.”

  Archer shrugged. “Put a hundred agents on her. Stick her in a safe house.”

  “I don’t have the men. And this could get ugly. What I need is for you to take her and her family off the grid and disappear for three days.”

  “Why three days?”

  “The bounty will expire at midnight Sunday. The man putting up the money is scheduled for execution at San Quentin. The second his pulse flatlines, the money comes off the table.”

  “Five hundred million?”

  Kline nodded.

  “Do we know who he hired for the hit?”

  Kline cleared his throat. “He’s opened it to the public. Anyone with the skills and the means and the desire to get the job done.”

  Archer took his eyes off Kline. Turned his head and stared out through the dirty windshield toward the dunes, lost in thought for a few beats.

  “Five hundred million is significant motivation,” he said.

  Kline nodded.

  Archer said, “Who is the woman?”

  “Lindsay Hammond. The psycho with the money happens to be her former brother-in-law, name of Dunbar. Long story.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Hiding. Somebody posted her address on the Internet. There has already been one attempt made on her life. Both of her two children are with her. She’s divorced, so there’s no protective husband in the picture. She escaped the attack by the skin of her teeth and has been unaccounted for since then.”

  “When was that?”

  “A few hours ago.”

  “How long has the situation been hot?”

  “Happened late this afternoon. In this age of cell phone cameras his speech got uploaded in a matter of seconds. There wasn’t much anyone could do to stop it.”

  Archer looked him hard in the eyes, unable to fully disguise his stunned disbelief. A hint of a grin passed across his unshaven face.

  “You put this guy in front of an audience?”

  Kline blinked. Glanced briefly down at his shoes again. “That’s correct.”

  Archer almost smiled.

  “It’s complicated,” Kline said. “It was part of a fragile negotiation between a death row inmate and the FBI. We took a calculated risk.”

  “And it blew up in your face.”

  Archer had both hands on the steering wheel. He lifted an index finger, gesturing toward the McDonnell Douglas chopper perched upon his favorite stretch of California coastline.

  “My interpretation is that you’re scrambling to cover your ass. A plan of action which apparently includes you dropping in here to persuade me to salvage a situation that you and your bureaucratic brethren seem to be doing a piss-poor job of holding together. You’re willing to throw me to the wolves because I’m expendable. The federal government won’t have to fork over the dough for a state-funded funeral for me. And if I fail to keep the woman alive, I’m to blame, not the Feds.”

  Kline swallowed. “What is your price?”

  Archer’s eyes smiled.

  Kline hesitated a beat. “How much?”

  Archer gestured him out of the way. Swung his legs out from the floorboard of the Land Cruiser. He dropped to a crouch and used the tip of his middle finger to pencil a dollar amount into the sand between his feet. Then he stood.

  Kline glared at him for a long moment. “You’re not making this easy.”

  Archer didn’t respond.

  Then Kline said, “OK, let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 22

  The station manager was on the phone. Line 3. A dozen other little red lights were flashing on the display. Johnny Smackdown ignored the call, watching it blink with a gleam in his eyes. He knew it was the boss, because Wes, his producer, had taken the call in his room on the other side of the glass. Wes made it sound urgent. Smackdown didn’t care who was on the phone. He’d ignore the President if he got the chance.

  Clearly someone was applying heat. The station manager’s name was DeCarlo and someone had lit a fire under him. Maybe the FCC. Probably someone with a badge and a gun. Somebody had definitely put a scare in him. Whoever it was, they wanted DeCarlo to pull the plug on Smackdown and shut him down. He was making people nervous. It was going to be a hot mess if he shined the light on Lindsay Hammond, and nobody wanted to deal with the aftermath.

  The lines were lit up like a Christmas tree. It was beautiful. Smackdown lit a joint and bobbed his head to a White Stripes classic. A caller had already offered him ten grand for the street name where Lindsay Hammond was hiding. Smackdown had the sound bite cued up for the bumper leading in from the next break. He exhaled blue smoke toward the ceiling and laughed to himself.

  Wes’s voice came through his headset, telling him a federal agent was on Line 7. Smackdown leaned back in his leather chair and gave Wes the finger. He had no intention of talking to anyone. Nobody told Johnny Smackdown how to run his kingdom. They could all go to hell.

  It was almost eleven. A call came from the lobby of the building, a heads-up that the station manager was onsite and on his way up to the studio. Smackdown locked the door, sealing himself in. He decided it was time to roll. He sucked hard on the joint and his eyelids fluttered. He let the smoke out one side of his mouth. Showtime. Smackdown stepped up to the plate, ready to swing for the cheap seats.

  Wes gave him the cue. The On Air sign lit up and suddenly he was live.

  Smackdown growled into the microphone. “Smackdown is back, people! And I’m ready to party! So I’ve decided it’s time to give you what you’ve been waiting for. Lindsay Hammond is hiding in the shadows out there, and she’s been kinda quiet. Frankly, I’m getting bored.”

  Smackdown heard a thump on the glass. He glanced up and saw DeCarlo standing at the door, scowling and gesturing to let him in. Smackdown winked at him, gestured at the On Air sign.

  “Okay, people, it’s Christmas morning, and that makes me jolly old Saint freak’n Nick. And man do I have a great big present for all of you. Lindsay Hammond is in Malibu, boys and girls. She’s hiding on Vista Verde Drive! You heard it here first, people! Go find her! Pin the tail on the donkey!”

  He cued the music, Blondie’s One Way Or Another.

  CHAPTER 23

  It started gradually, like a ripple in the middle of the South Pacific that slowly gains momentum and eventually builds into a tsunami. Johnny Smackdown had finally said the words the world had waited to hear for most of the evening: Vista Verde Drive.

  * * *

  The ripple first formed in biker bars and in the back alleys of South Central LA, in dance clubs and on street corners, in parking lots across Orange County and in dark rooms in dark buildings where all sorts of illicit business was being transacted. The news traveled like an air borne virus.

  * * *

  Outside a bar in Burbank, a cluster of young men had gathered on the sidewalk to smoke, the doors of a Corvette standing open, radio blasting. These men were the first to be infected by the Johnny Smackdown virus. They piled into the Corvette. The motor roared as they sped across the city.

  * * *

  In East LA, they mobilized in packs, piling into pickup trucks and low-riders. Armed with semi-autos and knives. They planned to swarm upon Malibu like locusts.

  * * *

  Across multiple counties, from the San Fernando Valley to the Hollywood Hills, from neighborhoods both rich and poor, speaking languages from English to Spanish to Chinese, from multiple backgrounds and cultures, a mighty wave gained momentum, a dark, violent wave of humanity, its only purpose to seek and destroy. Motivated by greed and fueled by drugs and adrenaline. It was an unstoppable
force.

  * * *

  In a compound set in a clearing cut into a mountainside in Colombia, a man wearing a white suit with a white tie, with skin the rich dark color of the coffee his ancestors had grown for centuries, stood in a lush green courtyard, speaking to someone on his cell phone. He said very little, mostly listening. He put the cell phone away. His name was long and nearly unpronounceable, but in his profession he was called simply Mr. Jupiter. His private jet sat at an airfield a short distance down a dirt road from his compound. In half an hour Mr. Jupiter planned to depart for California.

  * * *

  On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in an apartment on an upper floor of a high-rise building, Noella Chu turned off the television and rose from her sofa. She had a breathtaking view of Central Park from the windows of her living room but ignored it as she crossed to a hallway leading to a series of closed doors. One of the doors opened to a marble bathroom. Another led to her bedroom, and a third door led to her office. She entered the office and turned on the light.

  She stood barely five feet tall, a hundred pounds soaking wet. She had long, silky, straight black hair she wore swept forward over one shoulder. From a safe built into the wall behind her desk she removed a small remote control device and pressed her thumb onto the only button. The remote released a lock that opened a hidden storage space built into the wall. The storage space was mainly shelving, with a tall safe standing to one side. She opened the safe and removed a metal flight case the size of a large briefcase. She dialed the combination into the lock, popped the latches and opened the case. Inside was a dismantled sniper rifle. Barrel. Stock. Scope. Silencer.

  Noella Chu closed the case and brought it out of the storage space. She packaged the metal flight case inside a cardboard shipping carton and labeled the parcel with an address in Los Angeles. Twenty minutes later she stood at a FedEx counter in Manhattan, having the parcel shipped for overnight delivery.

  She would leave on the first flight out of La Guardia in the morning.

  CHAPTER 24

  Lindsay and the kids had camped out in the kitchen. Down on the floor out of sight. All the lights were off. Lights would draw unwanted attention. The refrigerator was mostly bare shelves, probably cleaned out at the last minute because any perishable goods would have spoiled before the family who owned the place returned from vacation.

  They found junk food in the cabinets. Snack crackers and half-eaten bags of potato chips. So they huddled among crumbs on the kitchen floor and whispered.

  Lindsay’s cell vibrated. James again. She was tempted to answer, but was still hesitant. She’d heard all the folklore about cell tower triangulation and such, and was paranoid someone out there might discover them and blow their cover. The call went to voice mail.

  It seemed too quiet outside. Eerily peaceful. Lindsay felt desperate to know what was happening in the outside world, to hear some sort of update. She slowly stood up.

  “Mom, what are you doing?” Ramey asked.

  “Just stay down,” she told them.

  She glanced into the shadows on the wall. A small television was mounted beneath a row of cabinets. She saw the flat gray screen suspended above the countertop. She glanced over her shoulder toward the eerie glow coming through the blinds over the kitchen window. So still and quiet out there. She squinted through the gloom to find the power button, and then tabbed through the channels and found CNN. Then her heart caught in her throat. Dunbar was looking back at her through the thin glass screen.

  “Oh my God,” she sighed.

  The kids sprang up at her side.

  “Is that him?” Wyatt asked.

  Lindsay was too stunned to respond. Dunbar was being psychoanalyzed by a handful of self-described experts. Lindsay stared into the monster’s eyes and felt a horrid chill spread down her body. She abruptly slapped at the power button. The screen faded to black, leaving the kitchen darker than before. The three of them sank back to the floor. Lindsay forced herself to push down the fear. There was no other way she could function.

  Lindsay was exhausted. Mentally and physically. She felt herself go numb. She wanted to curl into a ball there on the kitchen floor, go to sleep and wake up when the nightmare was over. She closed her eyes, put her face in her hands, and took a deep breath.

  Then she heard a noise. Her spine tingled. She sat totally erect, cocking an ear toward the darkness deeper inside the house. The kids had heard it too. They were seated cross-legged in a wide band of shadow. The sound had come from the far end of the house.

  Lindsay touched a finger to her lips. Wyatt and Ramey understood and nodded. The three of them waited and listened. Five minutes passed. Not another sound. Lindsay rose cautiously, silently. She touched a hand to a marble countertop as she crept forward. Wyatt and Ramey held hands, trailing in her shadow.

  Three strides beyond the archway leading out of the kitchen, Lindsay paused and strained to listen. She was certain that what she’d heard was real. She replayed it in her mind. A single bump. In the darkness. Near enough for the three of them to hear. It wasn’t imagination or hallucination.

  Together they edged around a corner into a room with a high ceiling. Glass shattered nearby. They froze. Lindsay nearly jumped out of her skin. She gasped and immediately clamped a hand over her mouth.

  Then a long-haired cat dashed through the doorway. It hissed, carpet snagging under its claws as it cut between furniture and vanished. It was gone in a flash.

  The Hammonds collapsed upon each other in relief. Lindsay clutched a hand to her chest. There was a moment of breathlessness. Then they began to laugh. The stress and anxiety that had begun that afternoon was finally catching up to them, and there was nowhere else to go with it but to channel it into laughter.

  Lindsay kissed both kids on the forehead and hugged them to her. The noise hadn’t been her imagination, but her imagination had gotten the best of her. She put her back against the wall and slid to the floor. Wyatt lay on his back on the floor, legs folded, arms crossed over his forehead. Ramey dropped to her knees, still smiling. They had survived a false alarm.

  A gunshot split the stillness.

  The laughter and the moment of relief ceased instantly as a bone chill settled over them. It had been a single pop of gunfire. Not from inside the house, or even from right outside, but certainly from within the neighborhood. From somewhere along Vista Verde Drive.

  Then another loud pop, followed by a third shot. About the same distance away.

  Lindsay wasn’t naïve enough to chalk the gunfire up to mere coincidence. This had to do with them. It was time to act. Time to move. Hesitation would get them killed.

  She snapped her fingers at the kids and whispered urgently, “Back to the garage!”

  The kids ran, keeping their heads low. Hurrying through the kitchen, opening the door to the garage and descending the three concrete steps to the cool slab floor.

  Lindsay felt her pulse rise again. She paused at the door to the garage, listening. She swore she heard distant voices. She needed to know what was happening outside. To her left was a laundry area, with a closet right inside the door. Inside were boots and flip-flops, an umbrella and a battered Frisbee on the floor, and rain slickers and coats hanging from a closet rod. She grabbed a cotton hoodie from a plastic hanger and put her arms through the sleeves. She tugged the hood over her head and zipped the front to her chin. Then she went out into the garage.

  The kids were huddled on the floor in front of the Escalade. She saw only the whites of their eyes through the gloom. She kneeled down, pulling them close.

  “Wait right here,” she said. “Don’t move a muscle. Don’t make a sound. If I’m not back in ten minutes, call 911.”

  “Please don’t go out there, Mom,” Ramey pleaded.

  “They’ll see you,” Wyatt said.

  “I’ll only be a minute. I’ll be right outside the house. Don’t worry. Just please don’t come looking for me. I need you to stay right here where it’s safe. Pro
mise?”

  Ramey managed a timid nod.

  Wyatt wiped away a tear from the corner of his eye with the sleeve of his shirt.

  Lindsay scrambled on her hands and knees to a corner of the garage opposite the door to the interior of the house. There was an exterior door with a window. She turned the lock. She glanced back toward the kids but saw only a vague, silhouetted representation of them through the gloom.

  She turned the knob and eased the door open. She stepped onto a sidewalk that traced the rear perimeter of the house. Beyond the sidewalk, surrounded by a lush, well-tended lawn, was an in-ground pool. The backyard was boxed in by a wooden privacy fence. Her heart raced as she followed the curve of the sidewalk to the junction of the side of the house and the fence. The fence was too tall for her to see over, and there were no gaps between the wooden slats. She wouldn’t know what she was heading into until she headed into it. She lifted the metal latch and gently bumped the small gate open with her forearm.

  The moon was full and bright in the night sky. Streetlights illuminated the length and breadth of Vista Verde Drive at intervals, dull light falling across manicured lawns and long hedgerows. She made her way in a bear crawl to the front corner of the house. She didn’t realize she was trembling until she raised her hand to adjust the hood.

  Now she definitely heard shouts rolling her direction from up the street. She heard car doors and could see headlights moving methodically along Vista Verde Drive. She heard the sounds of conflict. Husky male voices arguing. Suddenly another crisp pop of gunfire. Her throat went dry. Whoever it was – and it sounded like there were plenty of them – they were making their way toward her. And they clearly meant business. These people had come to make a quick five hundred million dollars at her expense.

  Lindsay found herself gripped by panic.

  She could see bodies crossing through the beams of headlights, shadowy figures on foot advancing from house to house, consuming the neighborhood like a plague.