72 Hours (A Thriller)

by Moreton, William Casey

  Archer turned to Lindsay. “Up you go,” he said. He formed a stirrup with his hands and she stepped into it. Then he hoisted her up.

  The girth of the trunk was broad. It felt solid and abrasive against her bare arms and her exposed midriff where her blouse hiked up. She struggled for a handhold, her fingertips digging into the dry, dead bark. She clawed her way to the top, boosting herself beyond Archer’s reach. Then she eased down the other side and dropped to the ground.

  Archer called to them. “Get moving. I’ll catch up.”

  They didn’t argue.

  He turned and saw dark silhouettes looming at a bend in the channel. He wouldn’t know how many of them there were until it was too late. He couldn’t take on more than a handful at a time with just the Beretta, and yet if he got caught as he was crossing over the tree he’d be too exposed and he’d be a dead man. A decision had to be made.

  He backtracked about forty feet and took shelter beside a partially exposed boulder on the east side slope of the ravine. He had to lie on his back with his head flat against the slope to not be seen. He lay with his legs apart, holding the Beretta with both hands at his crotch. Sweat dripped from his chin to his chest. All he could do was let them come to him.

  They reached the fallen tree and immediately began searching for a quick route to circumvent it. Archer had little more than silhouettes for targets. He aligned his sights on the midsection of the silhouette nearest him. Then he fired.

  The first man dropped and Archer pivoted a fraction of an inch and continued right down the line, taking them out like metal cutouts at a practice range. The muzzle flashes from the barrel of the Beretta lit up the darkness like lightening. Archer ripped off four shots and dropped the first four targets without flaw. Then the remaining men made a desperate scramble to scatter.

  Archer continued to fire. The Beretta bucked in his hands. In the darkness, one of the rounds caught a thug at the base of the skull as he ran, exploding vertebrae at the top of his spine. He folded to the ground like a rag doll.

  The remaining two attempted to return fire with a large caliber handgun and a shotgun, fired haphazardly, aimed nowhere near Archer’s position.

  The muzzle flash from the shotgun provided Archer with a nice target. He leveled the Beretta and fired twice. The thug took a 9mm round in the upper chest, shattering his breastplate, and the second took one in the throat.

  The remaining thug gave up the fight and ran like a man on fire back up the channel.

  Archer let him go, then turned to catch up with the Hammonds.

  Lindsay was startled when she glanced over her shoulder and saw that Archer had suddenly materialized.

  “Oh my God,” she said, out of breath. “We heard shooting.”

  “More will be coming. We can’t outrun them like this for much longer. Have to get out of here,” Archer said, leading them through a stand of towering pines.

  The kids were exhausted, as was Lindsay. Archer knew they couldn’t keep up the pace, but the pace was the only thing keeping them alive. They had to get out of the trees and find a road. Find a road and be far away from Malibu by daybreak.

  CHAPTER 31

  Soji opened his eyes and groaned as he rocked up into a sitting position. The side of his head felt like shattered glass.

  The Prius was parked on a nearby street. Based on the topo map on his laptop, he had made an educated guess as to where Lindsay Hammond might likely be found. The map showed some kind of lengthy rift in the hillside. He couldn’t see how she’d get around it, and was hoping maybe he’d find her boxed in between the armed goons and the ravine. He had cut through the wooded area behind a gated estate.

  But before he could find her, he’d been cut down by the maniac in the woods

  The side of his head was bleeding. He touched a hand to the spot where the blow had split the flesh and left a whelp. Then he heard four quick gunshots and a moment later saw two young thugs tearing through the woods toward the street. They were running from someone. Soji had a good idea who that someone might be. Soji hid behind a tree until they were out of sight, then he backed away and headed for his car.

  CHAPTER 32

  Fog pressed down on the hillside. Archer could see only a few feet ahead. He made certain that Lindsay stayed in constant physical contact with her children.

  They struggled up an incline. Archer heard the sound of a car in the distance somewhere in the fog beyond the crest of the ridge. It buzzed past and was gone in a matter of seconds. There had to be a road nearby.

  Another car passed, and this time Archer saw the faint glow of headlights come and go. A metal drainage culvert ran beneath the paved road. It was a wide enough space for the four of them to huddle inside. The culvert seemed like a safe, temporary place for them to hide while he ran an errand. He bumped his shoulder against Lindsay, put his face close to hers.

  “I’m going to leave you here for a few minutes,” he said. “Don’t set foot outside of here for any reason. You’ll be safe here. I’ll return for you shortly. Don’t speak. Don’t rustle around. Just stay here and listen for me. Do you understand?”

  Lindsay nodded.

  She blinked and he was gone.

  CHAPTER 33

  Archer followed the road until he saw residential lights glowing like fireflies through the trees. There was a house down a gravel lane. He paused for an instant to consider his options.

  He heard a rising hum, then headlights swung around a bend in the road. He stood exposed at the edge of the blacktop as a small yellow car appeared, slowing slightly as it buzzed past him. Then it sped off into the gloom. He watched the taillights fade, his finger ready on the trigger of the Beretta.

  Archer hustled down the gravel lane. Several homes were inset among the trees on wide, roomy lots. He spotted a car parked in a driveway. It was a Volvo wagon with an Earth First decal on the chrome of the rear bumper.

  Archer eased alongside and tested the doors. They were locked. He took a step away and then kicked his foot through one of the rear windows. The glass imploded. He reached a hand through the opening and unlocked the driver’s door. He lay across the front seat and removed a plastic panel beneath the steering wheel. Sorted through a bundle of multicolored wiring and found the wires he needed to start the car. He had the motor started in less than sixty seconds. Lights winked on inside the house. He didn’t have time to explain or apologize. Let insurance deal with it.

  He turned down off the gravel lane onto the blacktop surface. The fog had again settled over the road. The headlights were nearly useless. He drove with the Beretta on his lap, one hand on the wheel, and one hand on the gun.

  CHAPTER 34

  Soji knew it was him the instant he saw him. The headlights from the Prius had washed over the man standing on the side of the road as the fog temporarily lifted. As soon as the headlights hit the guy Soji recognized him as the man who’d jumped him in the woods.

  He sped past the man about fifty yards down the road, and watched him move on foot down the gravel lane. Soji killed the engine and the lights. He watched the Volvo wagon waddle up the gravel and then turn toward him. He slumped down in his seat until the Volvo had passed. Then he eased cautiously along behind it like a shadow among the dense fog.

  CHAPTER 35

  Archer hauled them one at a time up the embankment from the drainage culvert. The motor was running, columns of fog undulating in the white headlights. The road was slick with mist. They poured into the Volvo. There was a blanket in the rear compartment. The three of them crawled over the rear seat and lay side by side in the darkness, covering themselves completely with the blanket. Archer drove with his eyes on the mirrors for miles. He planned to take the Volvo over the mountains toward the 101 and then turn east, toward a sunrise that was still many hours away.

  CHAPTER 36

  In the stillness of his cell, Gaston Dunbar lay on his back on his bunk with his eyes closed. The tier was quiet. Most of the monsters were asleep, but Dunbar was very
much awake. His arms were folded beneath his head on the thin pillow and a subtle smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  The warden had ordered that the small color television be removed from Dunbar’s cell. The TV was the only luxury most inmates had. The warden didn’t want to give Dunbar the pleasure of seeing the chaos he had created in the outside world. The networks were lit up with live footage of mayhem and destruction as the hunt for Lindsay Hammond continued.

  Dunbar did not need to stare at a television screen to take pleasure in the events he had set in motion. His actual plan had very little to do with Lindsay or the bounty at all. It was like a magician’s trick. Sleight of hand. Misdirection. The hunt for Lindsay was simply a distraction.

  CHAPTER 37

  The first hint of daylight was an orange streak very low on the horizon. The moon was still visible as the sun seemed to struggle against the Southern California smog. Archer stood alone on a street corner, sipping strong black coffee. He watched the night give way to morning as the caffeine hit his bloodstream. He had walked several blocks from the building where the Volvo was hidden. Lindsay and the children were sleeping. Archer had shut his eyes for fifteen minutes, having stared out a window at the city in the hours leading up to dawn, then stepped out to stretch his legs and find coffee.

  The building was a custom bike shop owned by an old, trusted friend named Zero. Zero was seventy and covered in tattoos. He hadn’t worked a real job since he was sixteen. The shop was located in a rundown building with a pair of Dobermans prowling behind chain-link. Archer had called Zero’s unlisted number at an ungodly hour, asking for a place to hide until sunup.

  Zero had a TV in his office. They listened to CNN tell them what they already knew. Things were bad and certain to get worse. There was a clock on the TV screen counting down to Dunbar’s execution.

  They had talked in the office, with the TV turned off, a small desk lamp pitching a cone of pale amber light across the scuffed pressboard desk and the bubbled linoleum floor.

  “Gonna be a long couple of days,” Zero told him, his voice thick from decades of hard living.

  Archer nodded. He broke the Beretta down on the desk, oiling the assembly as they talked.

  “Need to get out of the city,” Zero said. “Until there’s a body, they’re not gonna stop looking. She won’t even be safe here. Not for that long. Gonna be anarchy until midnight Sunday. Five hundred million kinda guarantees that.” Zero lit a cigarette, stared off at nothing. “That freak certainly knew what he was doing. Have to hand it to him.”

  “I’ll need wheels,” Archer said. “Something serious. Something that can take me off-road in a big way.”

  Zero nodded. “Not a problem.”

  “I want to let traffic start moving before we head out of here. Blend in. I don’t want to be the only set of wheels on the road.”

  “I’ll make a call. You’ll have your ride in an hour.”

  Archer reassembled the gun and sighted it at a split in the wallpaper. He dry fired, then snapped a loaded magazine into the grip.

  Zero tapped an inch of ash off his smoke. “Got enough hardware?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Zero grinned.

  Ninety minutes later Archer stood on the street corner with his coffee while the Hammonds rested. He used the cell phone to make a call to a person he had never met. A woman answered.

  “Penny?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Archer.”

  She was silent for a long moment. Finally, she said, “Okay. Is something wrong?”

  “I need for you to contact your brothers. Tell them there’s smoke in the house and they need to open a window. Say nothing else. Do it immediately.”

  “I understand.”

  Then Archer dropped off the line.

  He returned to the shop. Ramey and Wyatt were still sleeping. Lindsay was seated in the passenger side of the Volvo, staring blankly at the wall ahead of her.

  Zero came out of his office when he saw Archer.

  “Your wheels will be here in five minutes,” Zero said.

  “Thanks again, brother.”

  Zero punched a button on the wall and the big shop door chugged open on its track, rattling to a stop overhead. A massive black Hummer pulled inside. Zero punched the button a second time and dropped the door.

  CHAPTER 38

  There was a car waiting for Kline at the FBI field office in San Francisco. It delivered him to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Sansome Street. The city was coming awake. The sky was clear and full of color over the bay.

  He took an elevator to the Oriental Suite and knocked on the door. Kline was exhausted, his eyes puffy and red. He had made the mistake of leaving his cigarettes with Sperry. He needed a smoke. He was in no mood for a meeting with a slimy defense attorney. Especially not Leonard Monroe.

  The door was answered by a young woman with a thin face, pinched nose and red-rimmed glasses. She looked down her birdlike nose at him and frowned like he might be infectious.

  Monroe was already sparkling. Dressed in a suit that cost more than the first car Kline drove after college. Monroe was talking on his cell and pacing the magnificent suite with a cup of espresso. He spotted Kline and gestured that he’d be just another minute or two. There was a private terrace and Kline stepped out into the cool morning air. The spectacular view spread out before him. San Francisco Bay. The Golden Gate Bridge. The Oakland Bay Bridge. The Transamerica building looming like a monolith. A breeze tossed Kline’s tie as he turned from the view and looked back inside through the glass. Monroe’s people shuffled in and out of the rooms, busy making money, defending the worst the world had to offer. Kline had managed an hour’s sleep at a desk in LA and was now running on fumes.

  Monroe came out onto the private terrace, overflowing with brio and goodwill.

  “Good morning. Can I offer you coffee? Espresso?”

  “I’ll pass,” Kline said without humor.

  Monroe crossed to a patio chair. He sat, gracefully folding one leg over the other.

  “Tell your people to get lost,” Kline said.

  Monroe raised the small cup and was mid-sip. He turned his nose up at Kline’s words. “Excuse me?”

  “Send them out. This conversation is private.”

  Monroe set the cup down on the patio table. “Very well.” He stepped into the open room of the suite to address his entourage.

  Kline was in no mood for the lawyer or his games.

  Monroe’s legal staff gathered their cell phones, notepads, and laptops, and filed out the door. Monroe stopped at a mirror to tweak the knot in his tie.

  “Satisfied, Special Agent Kline?”

  “Tell me what Dunbar meant when he told the world to contact his lawyer about the money.”

  Monroe paused. Pursed his lips. “That was disturbing, wasn’t it? You can imagine my dismay.”

  “Did you have any prior knowledge of what he intended to say?”

  “Absolutely not. Those were the words of a desperate man exploiting his final moment in the limelight. I can assure you of that.”

  “Where is his money? The five hundred million.”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Okay, how does he pay you?”

  “The money is deposited into an account at a bank here in the city. The same as with any of my clients.”

  “Where are the funds wired from?”

  “Again, I have no firsthand knowledge of those details. Our accounting department handles all of that. I’d be more than willing to make a call and provide you with whatever information we have access to. Our firm has nothing to hide.”

  “Who controls Dunbar’s fortune?”

  Monroe dropped a hand into a pocket of his slacks, and with the other lifted the cup of espresso to his lips. Then he said, feigning mild exasperation, “Again, Special Agent Kline, you’re posing your question to the wrong person. I am only his lawyer, not his accountant. As long as I’m promptly
paid for my services, the rest is immaterial to me.”

  Kline frowned. He glanced out across the skyline of San Francisco. Traffic was beginning to move through the streets in fits and starts. A thousand dollars a night bought an incredible view.

  “Have you looked at a television lately?” Kline said with an edge.

  Monroe pursed his lips. He simply shrugged. “I know what you’re asking. I’ve heard the news. Los Angeles is a shooting gallery, and you are proposing that it is my client’s fault.”

  “You stated specifically that he was going to confess and that we would be given the location of the bodies.”

  “Those were Gaston Dunbar’s words to me, Special Agent Kline. Those words exactly. Obviously he lied. The best I can offer is an apology for allowing myself to be duped by a condemned man.”

  “Why is he doing this?”

  “He is a complicated man.”

  “He’s a monster.”

  “You are certainly entitled to your opinion.”

  Monroe glanced at his watch, directed the federal agent toward the door. “Mmm, if you’ll please excuse me now, I have a previous commitment across town.”

  “I want the bodies of Sidney and Robin. Tell Dunbar he failed. Tell him that Lindsay Hammond is safe. And tell him that all the money in the world won’t keep that needle out of his arm. You’re his lawyer, by God. Talk some sense into him.”

  The elevator spat Kline back into the hotel lobby. The car was waiting. He tried bumming a cigarette off the driver but the driver didn’t smoke. So he dialed the cell he’d given Archer in the helicopter the previous night, but Archer didn’t answer.