72 Hours (A Thriller)

by Moreton, William Casey

  Somehow she’d been found out. It seemed inconceivable. Impossible. She’d told no one. She’d not planned the route of escape from Brentwood in advance. It had been a last second decision, made on the spot as the Escalade sped away from the three intruders who had tried to kill them. But none of that mattered. By some apparent fluke in the universe they’d tracked her to Vista Verde Drive. So she’d simply have to escape again.

  Engines growled and music pulsed.

  She crept across the lawn, crouching alongside a hedgerow, then stared at the shorn grass between her feet and shook her head, trying to grasp how all this could have happened. The sounds of anarchy grew more prominent. Gunfire popped. Glass shattered as windows were bashed in. She heard sirens rising through the folds of the hills. Then she heard something overhead and turned an eye skyward. Helicopter lights winked into view through the treetops. A small hope twinkled in her heart.

  But then a crippling thought crashed through her chest. Vista Verde Drive ended at a cul-de-sac. There was no way out except the entrance to the street where all hell had broken loose. The Escalade would never make it through. They’d be shot to pieces. The escape route had been blocked. They were caged in.

  Lindsay moved closer, following the hedgerow to its terminus at the property line. She passed through a gap in the hedge and found herself crouching at the edge of the street. She crept through dappled moonlight and ducked down, flattening herself on the blacktop. A silver car eased around the bend of the street, at such a minimal speed it hardly seemed to be in motion at all, insects flicking about in the headlights. It was an old Ford Falcon with the windows down.

  Lindsay noticed the barrel of a shotgun angling out from the passenger side window. They were hunting her.

  The Ford Falcon stopped in the street. Men got out and approached a house four down from the lawn where Lindsay lay.

  Sirens wailed. Two minutes away.

  Wind from the helicopter made the treetops sway. Lindsay tried to signal it with an upraised hand. Then it turned broadside to her and her stomach dropped. It wasn’t the police. It was a news helicopter. NBC out of LA. They weren’t there to attempt a rescue. They wanted carnage. Blood and gore. She jerked her arm down.

  The spotlight from the TV chopper swept up the street toward the growing chaos. Small packs of men were advancing on foot. She could see lights winking on in homes all through the neighborhood. She heard cries for help. Short bursts of staccato gunfire as home owners attempted to defend against the intruders.

  Lindsay decided she’d seen enough. It was time to run. They had to evacuate because Vista Verde Drive was no longer safe. She was sprinting across a lawn when her toe caught on a sprinkler head and she went down hard on her face. Got the wind knocked out of her. She gasped for breath, momentarily disoriented. As she staggered to her feet, the spotlight from the helicopter beamed down directly on her. She was blinded.

  A voice called out over a loudspeaker. “LINDSAY? LINDSAY HAMMOND?”

  Lindsay froze, petrified. She glanced up at the aircraft silhouetted against the night sky above her, and then immediately regretted acknowledging them. She stood, slightly hunched, at the center of the disc of white light. The wash from the rotors generated a swirling mess of anything not solidly secured on the lawn. The wind whipped the hoodie from her head as her hair flailed wildly. The noise from the chopper was deafening.

  “LINDSAY HAMMOND? ARE YOU LINDSAY HAMMOND?” The voice coming out of the speaker crackled. It was blaring. Lindsay was certain the entire neighborhood could hear it. She shielded her face from the rotor wash with one arm and raised the other arm into the air above her head to wave them away.

  “Leave!” she shouted. “Go away!”

  She staggered forward a few yards. The disk of light followed her every move. She was almost to the wooden gate leading to the backyard. The gate bucked against its latch in the wind. Lindsay gasped for breath. Only a few minutes ago she had been seated with Wyatt and Ramey in the calm stillness of the kitchen. Now her plan to ride out the three days in anonymous seclusion had blown up in her face.

  She reached the corner of the house, then stopped to turn and look. The commotion at the top of the street was now shifting quickly in her direction. She saw silhouetted figures on foot racing down the street. The NBC helicopter was like a beacon, showing them the way to her.

  They would reach the house in less than a minute. She had sixty seconds to collect the kids and get out. She flung the gate wide open. It rocked on its hinges, clattering into the fence. She pushed through the exterior garage door, shouting for Wyatt and Ramey through the darkness.

  “We’ve got to go! Now! Run!”

  They scrambled to their feet and hurried to the open door. She ushered them out onto the back lawn.

  “GO!”

  “Where?” Ramey asked.

  “Just go!” Lindsay cried, pointing away from the house. “There’s no time! They’re coming!”

  Beyond the swimming pool, the lawn sloped fifty or sixty feet, the grass slope abutting the wooden fence. There was no gate. Lindsay had to think quickly. The helicopter hovered overhead, the disc of white light tracking them.

  “Here,” Lindsay said. She formed a stirrup with her hands, and one at a time the kids stepped up, Lindsay hoisting them to the top rail of the fence. They clambered over and dropped to the other side. When only Lindsay was left, she sprang with her legs, grasping for the top rail, grabbing hold, heaving herself up. She swung the first leg over, straining, splinters digging into her hands. In the instant before she tipped her bodyweight to drop outside the fence, the first of the mob burst through the gate at the rear of the house. Lindsay was lit by the disc of light from the helicopter as she made eye contact with the thug for a fraction of a second. He had the wild eyes of a mad man. Before he had time to flinch, Lindsay released her grip on the top of the fence and dropped into darkness.

  CHAPTER 25

  The yellow Prius was parked on an unpaved shoulder of the road with its lights off. Soji was inside with a cigarette and his camera. This was wild stuff. He’d never seen anything like it. He had the window down, the camera resting on his forearm as he leaned out. He was parked at the top of Vista Verde Drive.

  He had slouched down in his seat as the first wave of the mob arrived like Viking raiders running ashore on foreign soil, having crossed an iron-gray sea to conquer and destroy. The air turned thick with aggression. Gunfire popped through the warm Malibu air before the first vehicles had even reached Vista Verde Drive. It was every man for himself. The hunt for Lindsay Hammond was winner-take-all.

  Soji watched as the mob descended upon the hills above Malibu. Swarming across lawns and over fences, breaking down doors, crashing through windows.

  When the NBC helicopter buzzed overhead, he craned his neck out the window and watched it cruise slowly above the treetops. And when he heard the loudspeaker calling out to Lindsay Hammond, he knew she would make a run for it. He noted the house where the chopper was hovering, and he made some quick mental calculations. The Escalade had nowhere to run. That meant they would leave on foot. And their only option was the wooded acreage behind the house.

  Soji opened his laptop on the passenger seat and pulled up a topographical map of Malibu. It was time to play the guessing game. Where would they run to? How best to find them?

  He started the motor and made a U-turn in the street. He switched on the headlights, goons with guns crossing through the darkness in front of him to join the bedlam. Soji slipped open his cell and dialed Smackdown to feed him an update.

  CHAPTER 26

  The woods behind the house were dark and disorienting, even with a full moon hanging in the California night sky. Lindsay fell hard, impacting the ground without benefit of a buffer. She’d not had time or the presence of mind to get her hands down. And her feet were elevated slightly above her head so her right hip absorbed most of the brunt of the fall. The impact jarred her entire body. Rattled her teeth. Her neck snapped b
ack hard. But there was simply not time to acknowledge the pain. Every second she remained on her back on the dirt and pine needles was a second lost to her pursuers.

  She rolled onto her side. Wyatt and Ramey helped her to her feet.

  “Hurry…this way!” she whispered sharply.

  They entered the wall of darkness. Pines and oaks and maples were impossible to differentiate one from another because the canopy of leaves and boughs sprawling above blotted out all but a minimal glow of celestial light. The terrain sloped away. They scrambled, tumbling. They had no sense of direction except to keep moving downhill. Then they heard the fence rattle behind them in the dark and knew that the first of the pursuers was climbing over. Lindsay knew the slim head start would not last. She pushed through the pain, willing herself forward. Sirens wailed in the distance. Her lungs burned as she gulped breath.

  The fence rattled hard in the darkness behind them, again and again, boots and weapons scraping against the wooden slats.

  Lindsay had Wyatt and Ramey by the hands. They ran without a path to follow, out of breath and weak with fear, branches and thorny boughs slashing them in the face and throat. And then, suddenly and without warning, the ground fell away beneath them.

  CHAPTER 27

  Far below the FBI helicopter, the lights of the city shimmered like jewels. Special Agent Kline spent much of the flight to FBI headquarters in Los Angeles talking on his cell, straining to hear the voices on the other end of the line. He touched base with Sperry, who had remained behind at San Quentin.

  Archer was quickly getting a better understanding of what he was heading into. He pulled his Beretta from the duffel bag, checked that it was loaded, and shoved it down the waistband of his khakis. He hadn’t experienced this level of adrenaline in a long time. Almost five years to be exact. This wasn’t the same thing as catching the perfect wave. This was an altogether different animal.

  The McDonnell Douglas 530 was en route to 11000 Wilshire Boulevard. FBI headquarters in Los Angeles. A slight twist formed in Archer’s belly. He hadn’t set foot inside 11000 Wilshire Boulevard in years, and his last memories of the place were not pleasant. In fact, his last memories of Special Agent David Kline were not pleasant. He glanced out the window at the city.

  The radio headsets crackled as a call was patched through. An agent named Myers was suddenly in their ears.

  “Kline, we have James Hammond on the other line,” Myers said. “His ex-wife called.”

  Kline glanced over his shoulder at Archer.

  Archer met his eye in the surreal light of the cockpit but offered no hint of reaction.

  “Put him through,” Kline said.

  There was a series of digital tones on the line as the connection was made.

  “Mr. Hammond?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Mr. Hammond, this is Special Agent Kline speaking, sir. It’s good to hear from you.”

  “Lindsay called about seven minutes ago. She’s still on the line.”

  “Can you conference her in with us?”

  “Yes, okay.”

  A pause, and then another digital tone.

  “Lindsay?” James Hammond said.

  The voice that responded was barely audible. “I’m here, James.”

  “Lindsay, I have Special Agent Kline with the FBI on the line. Do you remember him?”

  Silence for a long moment.

  “Lindsay?” Hammond said.

  The frail whisper returned. “Can’t…can’t talk now.”

  Kline took command of the call. “Lindsay, are you in immediate danger?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” Kline said. “We understand. Are the kids with you?”

  “Yes, they are right here.”

  “Good. Can you tell me your present location?”

  Silence.

  They could hear controlled heavy breathing on the line, but nothing else.

  “Lindsay?”

  No response.

  “Myers, are you working on her cell?” Kline said through the headset mike.

  “Affirmative. We are talking to her service provider to get a lock on her location. They are working on the triangulation. Should know something in the next few minutes.”

  Radio squawk filled their headsets.

  “Lindsay, can you still hear me?” Kline asked.

  Again, no response. A few seconds later the line clicked and the call ended. They had lost her.

  “She dropped,” Myers said.

  “Did you get a trace?”

  “Give me a second.”

  Archer was replaying her frail, frightened voice in his head. That was the voice of the woman he would be responsible for keeping alive for the next seventy-two hours.

  Myers was suddenly back on the line.

  “Okay. We’ve got a rough location. She’s in Malibu and it looks like all hell has broken loose up there. How far out are you?”

  “From downtown?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Kline glanced at the pilot.

  The pilot said, “Ten minutes.”

  Kline nodded. He glanced over his shoulder at Archer. “What do you think?”

  Archer was breaking it down by time, distance, and speed. “I want to be on the ground in fifteen minutes. She won’t last long on foot on her own, and she can’t protect her kids. From the talk coming over the radio, those hills are turning into a parking lot. The sooner you dump me up there the better. Any deviation is a waste of time.”

  “How do you plan to get them out of there?”

  Archer glared at him. “Let me worry about that.”

  “If that’s the way you want it, I won’t argue.” Kline gestured at the pilot. “Okay, Jimmy, turn it around.” He pinwheeled his index finger in the air.

  The pilot acknowledged his orders with a nod of his head. He manipulated the controls, and the McDonnell Douglas banked hard, changing course and buzzing away from the city.

  The radio squawked with reports of random gunfire and bodies on the ground in Malibu. The Malibu 911 system was going crazy. Home owners had been shot and homes were on fire. Kline thought it would be a miracle if Lindsay Hammond was still alive by the time Archer got on the ground and found her.

  “Seven minutes,” the pilot said.

  Kline turned in the forward seat and handed Archer a cell phone. “This has Lindsay Hammond’s cell number already programmed into memory. You’ll have to maintain contact with her to locate her because both of you will likely be constantly on the move. And here,” he said. “Hook this on your ear.” He handed Archer a Bluetooth earpiece. “So you can communicate handsfree.”

  Archer frowned at the cell.

  Kline said, “The cell will also provide me a way to contact you, and vice versa.”

  “The instant I drop from this chopper, I’m a ghost. For three days I don’t exist, so don’t waste your time. The woman and the two kids are my only priority.”

  Lights from the interior of the cockpit highlighted Kline’s silhouette. He moved on to his next thought. “What about money?”

  “What about it?”

  “For expenses.”

  “There won’t be a lot of expenses where we’re going.”

  Kline reached a hand over his shoulder, offering Archer a fold of cash. “A few hundred bucks. Just in case.”

  Archer took the money without response and without breaking eye contact. He slid the cash into a pocket of his shirt and buttoned the flap.

  “Three minutes,” the pilot said.

  Kline stared out the front glass of the chopper.

  Archer tilted his head to see out the side. The hills of Malibu rolled into focus to his right, the infinite blue-gray of the Pacific to his left. Ribbons of low-hanging cloud brushed past his window in the slate-colored night. Lights from homes among the lush vegetation dappled the mountainside like stars twinkling in the sky.

  They sailed inland a few miles, riding a thermal, following the rise of the mountains. And
nearly all at once the spectacle unfolded beneath them. Smoke rose up in twisted columns, carried westward by coastal winds. The chopper dove through a curtain of smoke and made a wide sweep above the treetops that towered over a maze of winding and intersecting streets.

  “Good God Almighty,” Kline said under his breath as they thundered over rooftops. “They’re everywhere.”

  The streets were alive with movement. Knots of activity silhouetted against the mundane backdrop of paradise, dark figures scurrying in every direction.

  Archer felt the old juices kicking in, his muscles tensing, his eyes taking on a cool, calculating alertness.

  Kline said, “There have got to be hundreds.”

  “And it’s just getting started,” Archer said. “This time tomorrow you won’t be able to count them, let alone control them.”

  The chopper banked to the east, making another sweep of the area. Each pass revealed greater numbers of the growing multitude.

  Archer took a deep breath to center himself. He would be dropping into hostile territory. It was a battlefield down there. He had to let his old instincts take over. Instincts that had kept him alive in jungles and deserts and the crowded streets of cities from Hong Kong to Tokyo to Washington, D.C.

  Archer had been plucked from a beach in Santa Cruz and was being delivered immediately into the eye of the storm. There had been no time to plan. No time to strategize. No opportunity to study the situation and formulate the best approach. The mission had been simply thrust upon him without a moment’s notice. As his eyes analyzed the chaos passing beneath him, his hand moved to the Beretta and his thumb bumped the safety off.

  “Like what you see?” Kline asked.

  “I’ve seen worse in far worse places,” Archer answered.

  “Set this thing down,” Kline instructed.

  The pilot frowned. “Too much hostile fire. We’ll have to drop away a half mile or so to avoid being hit.”