by George Noory
He said, “It’s no use. He’s got us trapped.”
“Bob?”
“No. Some guy in a uniform.”
“Your van driver.” Ali banged on the door. “Open the door. We’ll pay you.”
“With what?” Greg muttered.
He went to the only window in the room to check it out. Iron bars. The backyard had tall yellow grass that would act like kindling when sparks hit it. The house next door had appeared empty when they drove by and half of the fence between the properties had fallen down, confirming his suspicion that there was no one nearby to whom to shout for help.
Ali said, “We need to convince him we have the file. If he lets us out, we’d have a chance to escape.”
“I don’t know. He’ll know we’re lying about the file.” Greg pounded on the door. “Hey! Open up. Let us out and we’ll talk about the file.”
“What do you think he’s going to do?”
He shook his head. They both knew the answer to that one. It didn’t matter if Greg had the file and gave it to the man. They would get the same treatment Ethan and Rohan got.
59
Leon kept twisting the long screwdriver until the cable was too tight to twist anymore. He aligned the tool with the cable and wrapped strong tape around them so the screwdriver wouldn’t release the tension when he let go.
Testing the cable, satisfied it was taut enough to keep the occupants from opening the door, he grinned and patted the cable with his hand as if it were a work of art. He had followed the instructions given to him precisely and felt proud of his accomplishment.
The people inside the room banged on the door and yelled to get his attention.
“You want the file, let’s talk about it,” the man inside the room yelled.
Leon knew nothing about a file. It puzzled him that the man thought he wanted a file. He knew better than to deviate from the exact instructions given to him. He had once accepted money from someone he had been sent to terminate. He took the money and still killed the man, but the pain inflicted on him for disobeying orders was horrible.
But they kept shouting about the file and he wondered if he had missed something in his instructions. Had he been told to get a file from the people before he killed them? He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t remember.
Leon stepped over to the door and knocked on it.
“Let us out,” he heard Ali say from the other side of the door.
“Where’s the file?” Leon shouted at the door.
“Let us out and we’ll talk about it.”
Leon repeated in his head what the man had said. That they would talk about the file. And he still couldn’t remember being told about a file. Confusion and uncertainty made him angry and caused his rage to grow. He didn’t know about a file and he sensed the people in the room were lying to him. But he wasn’t sure.
Leon said, “Give me the file.” He looked down at the crack at the bottom of the door. “Put it under the door, slip the file under.”
Greg replied, “We don’t have it but we know how to get it. Let us out and we’ll tell you.”
Leon heard desperation in the man’s voice. He shouted at the door, “You’re lying to me!”
He left the hallway and went back into the living room, passing Bob’s body. The floor beside the body was wet from Saint Leon’s work with the blade. He went into the kitchen.
He turned on all four burners on the stove and the oven, blowing out the flames, leaving the gas escaping.
He took a position just around the corner from the hallway. From the work bag he carried he took out an incendiary grenade, pulled the pin and threw it around the corner and down the corridor. The grenade bounced on the wood floor, not exploding with shrapnel but spewing fire and smoke.
Leon left the house walking, not running, proud of himself. Turning on the gas had been his idea. He didn’t know how long it would take before the house blew, whether the fire would get them first, but he marveled at his own ingenuity.
60
The house shook from the explosion. They stared at the door. And smelled smoke.
“He’s blowing up the place,” Ali said.
“Starting a fire.” Greg heard the flames, saw the smoke coming in under the door. It was unbelievable. Bizarre. Impossible. They would be burned alive.
As Ali struggled with trying to open the door, Greg quietly walked back to the barred window, staring at it stupidly. He knew the bars were there before he went to the window, knew they wouldn’t be able to open it, had heard many times about the dangers of installing window bars without a release latch inside, but few people bothered with the release because they figured they could leave by the door—or that there would never be a fire.
He realized it wasn’t the window that had drawn him away from the door. His mind was telling him something, but what it was didn’t come through.
Ali was suddenly at his side. With the heel of her shoe, she broke the window and started yelling for help.
He didn’t think the house next door was occupied. It was dark and looked abandoned when they drove by it. The next house was across the street from the abandoned one. It occurred to him the broken window would let in air that could feed the fire.
“What’s the matter with you?” she shouted at him. “You’re just standing there frozen.”
“I—I got it.” He finally grasped the notion he had been wrestling with. “The house has a pitched roof.”
“Meaning what?”
“There’s an attic.”
“What does—”
“I saw a gabled attic window. There’d be one at both ends of the house.”
“What are you talking about?”
He headed for the closet with her behind him. “When I was a kid, we lived in a house like this.” He pointed up to the closet ceiling. To a trapdoor that opened into the attic. “We can break out through an attic window. They have wood slats but we can kick the slats out.”
“Are you sure?”
“I need a chair,” he said.
The room was filling with smoke, which made them go into choking spasms. Greg got a wooden chair and put it under the trapdoor, closing the closet door behind them to hold out some of the smoke. “You ever been in an attic?”
“I don’t know. No—never.”
“Boards run across the attic every few feet—there’s nothing solid in between. Stay on the beams, the wood joists for support. If you step off, the ceiling can’t hold you; you’ll fall through into the fire.”
She stood on the chair and he wrapped his arms around her legs and lifted her up, off the chair. He got her up high enough so she could push her way through the trapdoor and get a purchase on the frame. With him pushing her up and her pulling, she wiggled through the opening.
As she disappeared into the attic, he got on the chair and reached up to get a grip on the two-by-fours framing the trapdoor. He hadn’t done pull-ups in an eon but a fire below helped motivate him. He pulled himself halfway up but fell back down again. He took a deep breath and choked on smoke, going into a coughing spasm.
Choking on the smoke, he once again got a grip on the wood frame of the trapdoor and pulled until he could get a purchase with the side of one arm and then the other arm. Lifting himself even more with his left arm, he got his right hand on the frame and pushed himself up until he had both hands on it. Pushing up he got his butt on the frame and then fell forward onto his hands and then his knees so he could crawl on the attic supports.
The space was dark and thick with smoke, sending them both gasping for air and into coughing spasms. Smoke not fire is the real killer rang in his head, something he’d read or heard.
Ali was gagging badly; he quickly caught up with her and urged her on. “Keep moving. We’ll die if we stop.”
She went forward on her knees but missed a cross board and broke through, letting out a scream. He grabbed her by her clothes and pulled her back, putting his arms around her to get her steady on a cross beam.
Unable to see well in the smoke and darkness, they moved forward by touch, crawling along on their knees, keeping on the beams, coughing as smoke from the fire burned their lungs.
When they reached the attic window he’d seen earlier, strength fueled by the fire raging behind them enabled him to yank out a slat and then another until he had all four slats off and the window opening was wide enough for Ali to slip through headfirst.
She went through the window, landing on the single-story roof to the garage, which was lower than the main house.
He pushed in the opening, sure he wasn’t going to make it and he was right, he was too wide for it. He backed out and took off his coat. He threw the coat through the opening and went at it again, turning himself almost completely sideways because the window frame was taller than it was wide.
61
They slid off the garden shed to the ground on the backyard side because Greg could hear people out on the street. The house was being completely engulfed in flames as they went over the collapsed wood fence, around to the other side of the neighboring house and out through the gate to the street.
There was no sign of the man who had trapped and nearly burned them to death. He might be long gone from the scene, Greg thought, but he wasn’t sure. Didn’t fire starters love to stay and watch their work? But Greg doubted the arsonist would stay around to marvel over his fiery work. He was most probably an assassin who got in, killed and left before the police arrived.
There was no sign of Bob.
“He would have killed him,” Ali said. She was asking for confirmation that the poor man wasn’t burning to death.
“Before the fire.” He didn’t say that to comfort her but as confirmation to himself. It was a sure thing Bob never left the house—his truck was still in the driveway. The only way the killer could have gotten into the house and roamed around to find them was to get past Bob.
The people who had gathered on the street in front were mostly staying back out of fear of an explosion. They would be wondering if someone was still in the house, but Greg doubted anyone in the neighborhood actually knew the man well enough to know Bob’s name.
A car pulled up near Greg and Ali, a Ford Taurus, and stopped in the middle of the street. A man got out, leaving the driver’s door open and the car running as he ran to join the crowd near the house. As men were coasting the camper down the driveway to keep its gas tank from going up, the fire flared and the big front picture window exploded. The men abandoned the camper and got away from the front of the house.
Ali started in the direction of where they had parked their car and Greg grabbed her arm to divert her.
“The guy might be out there,” he said. “Let’s take this to our car.”
They were on the driver’s side of the Ford Taurus idling in the street. He got behind the wheel and she got into the rear passenger seat behind him to avoid having to run to the other side of the car and get in. He put the car into gear and started backing up when the guy who had gotten out of it yelled and ran toward them. Greg hit the gas still going in reverse and the Ford careened down the street backward, sideswiping a parked car before he got the vehicle turned around and headed front end first away from the guy who was yelling for them to stop.
They had parked two blocks away. They quickly got out of the stolen car as they came up and stopped behind the Honda. The angry car owner was not far back, running for them.
“Must be a damn track star,” Greg said.
He tossed the man’s car keys into the bushes to make sure the guy couldn’t pile into his car and give chase. They got into Franklin’s loaner with Greg behind the wheel and Ali next to him. As Greg fumbled getting the key into the ignition, Ali screamed as Greg’s door was jerked open by the owner of the car they’d stolen.
“Bastard!” the man shouted.
Greg put the car into gear as the man grabbed at his neck. As the car jerked forward, the guy got his fingers on Greg’s shirt collar but his grip broke as Greg hit the gas and the car picked up speed faster than the man’s legs could pedal, and he let go and stumbled and fell.
Ali said, “God—I hope he doesn’t have a spare key under his seat. He’s madder than hell. Greg, do you think we can—is there anything—”
“Bob’s gone. And I’m sure before the fire. Anyone who opens a door to that killer is doomed. Bob got what he’s been running and hiding from most of his life. A visit from Big Brother.”
“I—I just don’t … I can’t—”
“You and Agent Scully. But she was getting paid by the network to be a diehard skeptic.” He glanced back in the rearview mirror as they put road between them and the man whose car they had borrowed. “He’s gotten back into his car but I don’t see headlights so there’s still hope. For sure, he’s not a happy camper.”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t find his keys until morning. He’s mad enough to hunt us down and ram us.”
A white van with a utility company emblem on it appeared on the main road just ahead of them.
“He’d have to get in line,” Greg said.
62
The white van was waiting for them with its headlights off where the residential street met the highway back into town. Greg hit the brakes, not sure which way to go, but the decision had been made for them. They couldn’t go back into the residential area without running into a lynch mob and they couldn’t turn right and head into town because the van was waiting there.
The only place to go was to make a left turn and head in the opposite direction, up the foothills and into the mountains.
“Where’s this road go?” Ali asked. “Is there a town?”
“I’m not even sure there are any houses. It’s a national forest.”
He had no idea as to where the road went or even how far it went but knew that the area got more and more deserted and desolate the farther they went in. Many of the roads in the mountains ended up as dead ends.
The moment they made the turn toward the foothills the van followed them and its headlights came on.
“He’s going to kill us,” Ali said.
That appeared to be self-evident.
“He’s a patient bastard,” Greg told her. The killer had been waiting in case they didn’t burn up with the house. “Now he’s forcing us away from town.”
Staring out through the back window, Ali said, “He’s not catching up; maybe it’s just a coincidence, another van.”
“No, he’s pushing us up the mountain where the road’s narrower and bordered by steep cliffs. The van’s bigger than this car. He’s planning on pushing us over a cliff.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We can’t turn off. I’ve been in the San Gabriels before, the side roads are mostly dead ends. I’m not sure any roads go all the way over the mountains. This one may peter out, too.”
“Getting out and running is better than being pushed off a cliff.”
“Not if he has a gun.”
Greg didn’t say it, but he couldn’t imagine the killer without a gun. He looked up at the rearview mirror, at the headlights behind them. There was no turning back. No way to go except heading up the mountain and hope for a break.
“Can we outrun him?” Ali asked.
There was fear in her voice, but not panic. He felt surprisingly calm. Escaping the burning house had used up all the fear he had.
“No way. Franklin chose the car because it wouldn’t pop out, not for speed. He’s going to ram us. The faster we go, the more likely we’ll be unable to keep the car under control when he hits us.”
He tried to imagine what he should do when the killer in the van made his move. The van would come up behind them and … then what? Hit their car in the rear? Not likely, at least not square-on bumper to bumper because it would just push the small car forward and potentially disable the van by getting its front grill pushed into the engine fan.
A cop on Greg’s show once described how bumping a car in the rear off center during
a high speed chase, hitting the left or right rear corner near where the taillights are, caused the car to spin out of control. It wouldn’t take much for the larger vehicle to knock the Civic out of control by hitting it in a rear corner. Would the killer try that? Maybe not. Police cars commonly had strong bumpers or push bars that kept the engine from being disabled. More likely he would push them off the road by hitting the Honda on the side with the side of the van. That way the van wouldn’t be immobilized.
The van kept its distance. The killer was in no hurry. As they went up the desolate road that wound up the mountain the van stayed back a hundred feet.
“He’s still hanging back,” Ali said. “What’s he up to?”
“Waiting for the right spot. I think he’ll come up beside us when there are cliffs on the right.”
“And send us over. Let’s stop and run for it on foot.”
“If that’s what you want, we’ll do it, but if he has a gun…” Greg shook his head. The terrain was too steep and rocky for them to outrun bullets. “I’d rather take my chances in the car.”
“He can pull up beside us and shoot. We’d be sitting ducks in the car. Or just push us over the side. How can we stop him?”
“I have an idea.” He described how a bump to the rear corner of a car could throw it out of control. “The same goes for the front corner. At some point when we have nothing but cliffs on our side he’s going to gun it to come up beside us and push us off. As he comes up, I’ll swerve and hit the van in the right front corner and send it out of control.”
The plan made him breathless. It assumed everything would go perfectly—including keeping the smaller car under control after it was rammed by the bigger one.
She stared at him as if she was amazed at his audacity and shook her head slowly, in wonderment. “I hope to God all that information you learn working radio’s graveyard shift isn’t going to get us killed.”
They waited, with Ali turned in her seat to watch the headlights, and Greg keeping an eye on the rearview mirror.
He realized there were flaws in his thinking but couldn’t get his head around what the problem was. The road was only two lanes, one in each direction, with almost no shoulder on either side. It had been carved out of the mountain, leaving a wall on the left side. On the right side there would be short spurts where the terrain was extremely steep just a couple of feet off the pavement with nothing but a short metal guardrail between the asphalt road and the cliff.