“FUCK YOU AND UNDO THESE STRAPS.”
“Shut up. There’s no time to argue. Your family’s in danger, so I need to haul ass to get to them before the Cabal does. So, I’m sorry, please accept my apologies and all that, but it’s night-night time.”
“FUCK YOU.”
Hardie lunged again. His right wrist snapped out of its binding with a pop. This surprised Hardie as well as his double. Hardie recovered more quickly, however, and gathered up a bunch of his double’s shirt in his bandaged fist. Then he yanked back as hard as he could. His double’s head slammed into the top of the open trunk with a satisfying THUNK. Blood spurted from the wound. The double’s eyes rolled up, his mouth started trembling, and then he went down.
“Huh,” Hardie said.
Ow.
Ow ow ow.
You wake up a short while later with a grand prize winner of a headache. It takes a second for your short-term memory to reload, but once it does, you understand why you can’t move your arms or legs.
You also understand why Charlie Hardie is looking down at you, plastic mask in his hand.
“How about you eat the pussy now,” he says, this crazy glint in his eye that frightens you, because it looks like a mirror image.
You shout in a last-minute attempt to explain, but Hardie doesn’t give a crap. Not with that kind of glint in his eye. He slips the mask over your mouth and you can’t help it—you have to suck in some air from the big plastic pussy eventually, and within a few seconds you’re
19
Hi, Fred. We got a little accident. Could you send a tow truck, please, to 618 Elm Street? Hold it. It’s the, uh, third floor, apartment 304.
—James Caan, Freebie and the Bean
AMERICA IS NOWHERE near as big as space. It is a mere sliver of an insignificant spec in the solar system, let alone the universe.
But from the ground, it can feel hopelessly vast.
Even when speeding down the blacktop at 110 miles per hour in a bulletproof coma car.
Hardie kept track of the mile markers, all the way through endless (neverending) rocky, dusty, barren Nevada, past the gaudy purple glam of Wendover—which seemed to be nothing but casinos and gas stations—directly into Utah and its infamous salt flats. All the while he checked the rear and side mirrors for a flash of red. Try explaining the body in the trunk to a state trooper. Gee, officer, I had no idea he was hooked up to life support …
Though if the Other Him was right, Hardie could jet down the highway in this Lincoln Town Car of Death as fast as he wanted and nobody would touch him. The coma car was a GET OUT OF JAIL FREE card on wheels …
He hoped.
Hardie’s brain was fuzzy, his eyelids heavy. The thing he wanted most in the world was the thing he couldn’t have right now: a nap. He’d never felt more tired in his life. Probably the residual effect of that goddamned spray he’d been dosed with. But there was no way anything resembling that could happen. He couldn’t even afford to blink. Hardie had wasted enough time tangling in the Cabal storage depot, talking to a cockroach in a disgusting toilet, and eating cherry pie. Kendra and the boy were walking around with targets painted on their heads, and they most likely had no idea they were in mortal danger.
The salt flats were just as advertised, Hardie realized. Salty. And flat. As if God had decided to smite an entire city and this gray, expansive patch of harsh nothing was all that remained. Well, that wasn’t true. Every couple of miles you could see a formation of rocks spelling out a name or two. Did people come out here for fun, just to leave their mark in the middle of all this desolation?
Hardie tightened his grip on the wheel, which sent new waves of pain down his burned fingers. He wondered how long he could keep this up. Not a good sign just a few hours into the journey.
His mental geography of this part of the country was sketchy. He was pretty sure Salt Lake City was on the other side of this stretch of flat, salty nothingness. And then beyond that … um, the place where they held the Sundance Film Festival, maybe? Hardie would have to stop for a map. Which would be interesting, considering his facial bandages. Nope, that wouldn’t be memorable to, say, a gas station attendant. Who would immediately call his brother-in-law, who would just so happen to be the chief of police in SLC or some shit like that.
Did the coma car have some fancy-pants GPS or something? It must, right?
Hardie felt himself jolt.
What was that? Did he just nod off?
C’mon, buddy, let’s keep it together.
Forget the bandages. Hardie knew what he needed. A drugstore. Raid the pharmacy shelves for some kind of uppers. Just like Kowalski in Vanishing Point. Jack yourself up and hammer the accelerator all the way to Philly. Probably could be covered in a day, day and a half, right? Of course you’d be spent when you arrived. And you’d still have to deal with your estranged wife (“Hi, honey, I’m home!”) and the son who probably grew up hating your ass—and somehow convince them that they needed to get in the coma car and travel with you to some secret location in Virginia …
Don’t worry about the big-picture stuff, he told himself. The big picture was always overwhelming. Take it one little piece at a time. First piece: Stay awake behind the wheel until you could figure out your next move.
Still, Hardie couldn’t help but think about what it would be like when he knocked on his ex-wife’s front door. Starting with the door itself. Hardie had seen the surveillance shots of the inside of Kendra’s new house for months now, but never the outside. Were they still near Philadelphia? Hardie thought so. She wasn’t one to pick up and move to another part of the country. But right there—another problem. His enemies knew exactly where Kendra lived; Hardie didn’t even know the neighborhood.
Stop thinking about it and drive.
The midday sun blazed bright off the flats. Hardie squinted a little, wishing he had sunglasses. Wouldn’t that make him look badass. Bandaged mummy dude in shades.
Were there enemy agents inside the house right now, creeping up on Kendra and Seej?
And then, in a fraction of a blink:
Hardie opened his eyes and then the coma car started rocking up and down, shifting from side to side. Each jolt through his body was so painful it brought tears to his eyes. It seemed like it took an eternity to send the message from his brain to his foot: Stomp on the brake. He did. The car spun a few times before making a complete stop. Only when it rocked on its suspension did Hardie realize he was screaming.
Throwing open the door, he tumbled out into the flats. Touched the ground just to make sure it was there. How far away was the road? Very, very far. He’d somehow veered off the road and gone off into the great barren nothing …
Oh God, Hardie realized, with his palm pressed against the dead, hot earth. He’d fallen asleep at the wheel. And then he threw up, right through the bandages.
Deke Clark’s FBI agent brain worked at lightning speed. He might be ex-FBI, and he wasn’t getting any younger or handsomer … but he still had the moves. He quickly found the poet’s abandoned SUV, then traced that to another stolen car—a Honda Fit. Traffic cameras along 80 from Vacaville to Reno picked up the Fit as it traveled just a hair above the speed limit all the way to the state border. Another set of cameras picked up the Fit, but then, strangely, the car disappeared between Winnemucca and Battle Mountain. Up in that desolate part of northern Nevada, there aren’t many places you can go. Why would Charlie Hardie hole up there, of all places? Answer: He wouldn’t.
Unless his accomplice wanted him here. The guy in the face bandages.
So either they’re staying put here for a while, or they’re moving on.
Deke knew they weren’t staying put.
Whatever Hardie was up to—and Deke didn’t even pretend to think that his investigator brain could puzzle out that one—it involved steady eastward movement. For some reason, after all of these months of silence and hiding, Hardie was headed home.
If it came to it, Deke could hop a plane and tuck
Kendra and her son away somewhere safe, then sit in the empty living room, shotgun draped across his lap, and wait for his old pal Charlie to show up. Hey, how’s it going, buddy? Actually, Deke wouldn’t even bother with a question. He’d cold-cock the mysterious bastard with the stock of the shotgun and ask plenty of questions later. The last time he’d seen Hardie, the man had taken advantage of their friendship and Deke had woken up with piss-stained pants on the floor of a garage.
So that was one option. But Deke couldn’t help but think that was a tactical mistake. It also didn’t factor in the mysterious mummy man, who could be anybody from D. B. Cooper to D. B. Sweeney. While Deke was busy subduing his old pal Charlie, the other guy could get the drop on him. It was foolish to go there alone and just wait for trouble to come knocking on the door.
Which made Deke think that he had to do his best to capture Hardie while he was still on the road.
And to do that, Deke was going to call in some more favors.
You’re vaguely awake, breathing through the plastic pussy.
It’s not bad, really, except for the nagging idea that you’re missing something important, that you’re botching some important job …
And then the universe opens up its lid and unholy light shines down upon you. Rough fabric hands pull the mask from your face, the needles from your veins, the bindings from your arms and legs. Then you’re pulled out of the trunk and deposited on hard earth and somebody is telling you:
“Okay, fine, you were right.”
You blink until the sunlight is almost tolerable. You’ve been in a lazy half-coma for what’s felt like days, a half-waking dream. All you wanted to do was tuck into the pillow and roll over … only you couldn’t, because you were on life support in the trunk of a luxury car.
“C’mon, wake up already. If I’m going to apologize, I’d like you to be conscious to hear it.”
All you can think is, Asshole.
In fact, you might have said it out loud.
“Don’t be that way. You have to see it from my point of view. I think you would have done the same thing.”
See it from my point of view. Oh, that was rich, you asshole. My entire life has become all about seeing it from your fucking point of view.
“Can you see to drive?”
There’s a rough hand on your shoulder and you slap it away. Which is a good sign. You’re going to need motor function to make a cross-country drive.
You tell him, “Yeah, I can see.”
The urge for payback is great. So many scenarios involving Charlie Hardie’s beaten and mangled corpse left out here in the middle of Utah. But that wouldn’t do anyone any good. You probably needed him alive, and you definitely needed him on the East Coast. All you can do is suck it up (you eat the pussy now) and recover and move on as quickly as possible.
Vision’s coming back. You take stock of your surroundings. Apparently Hardie drove off the road somewhere in the Great Salt Flats.
“I put a bag of supplies in the back seat,” you say. “Is it still there?”
“Yeah.”
“Bring it to me.”
“Your legs broken?”
“I can’t feel them yet. But if you bring me the bag,” you say, trying real hard to be the grown-up here, “then I can fix that, and we can go save Kendra and Seej.”
Hardie gives you a weird look.
“What?” you ask.
“Don’t call him that. He’s not your boy. You’re not allowed to call him that.”
“Call him what?”
“Seej. That’s my nickname for him. You call him Charlie Jr. In fact, don’t even say his name at all.”
There is a chill in Hardie’s eyes, behind that mask of bandages, that twists up your insides a little. Does he know? Does he suspect?
You dismiss the feeling and ask for the bag again. Inside the bag is the rest of the goodies you stole from the pharmacy on the coast. Your shopping list was full of ingredients that could rev a human being up or down. Right now you’re only interested in the stuff that will rev you up. Because you know that your surreal half-nap in the trunk of this car was the last sleep you’re going to enjoy until all of this is over. No rest until you win your freedom. No rest until your new life begins.
“What’s that?” Hardie asks as he gestures at the mix of pills in your trembling hand. You ignore the question and chew them down dry, one palmful at a time.
“You’re not going to go into a seizure or anything, are you?”
Chew, chew, chew, swallow.
You wait for the pills to kick in. You wait for the feeling to come back to your extremities. But then again, you’ve been in the waiting room of life for some time now. The finish line is within view yet so many miles away.
Hardie reaches out his bandaged hand to you. You clasp it, only realizing halfway up that it’s wet with something. Blood or vomit, most likely.
“We tag-team the wheel. You understand me? None of this riding in the trunk shit. We’re going to have to work as a team if we’re going to save my wife and son and then get you back to your little home base.”
“I didn’t think you were a team player, Charlie Hardie.”
“I’m not. But you’re my clone, so it doesn’t count. Now can we go already? I think I can see flashing lights out there in the haze.”
Deke Clark knew how to call in favors. He still had the FBI patter down. He could steamroll over almost anybody—DMVs, local sheriff’s departments, DOTs, whatever—until he dug out the information he needed.
Sure, they could call their local field office and find out for themselves that one Deacon Clark left the agency quite some time ago and in fact has retired to parts unknown. But that probably wouldn’t happen for some time, and Deke has given this last-ditch effort no more than a day. It can’t go on for more than a day. This thing stretches out past the next twenty-four hours and it’s a death sentence for everything involved. And that can’t happen.
So Deke has called in favors along the one road leading out of that desolate part of Nevada: Route 80. Favors in Northern Nevada, favors in Utah, favors in Wyoming. He’s given access to traffic cams and incident reports. He prayed for something, anything unusual. And then a few hours into his search, Deke’s prayers were answered:
An incident report, about a car losing control and veering off into the Great Salt Flats.
But that wasn’t the weird thing.
The weird thing was: The incident was erased just a few minutes after Deke saw it.
Deke knew his aging eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. He’d seen the incident, jotted down a few notes on an index card. But then the damned thing vanished. In all of his experience in law enforcement, he’d only encountered one group who could make things—incidents, accidents, people—vanish completely. They were the same people who’d threatened him years ago. The same people who’d sent him and his family into hiding.
Would you like us to continue, Agent Clark?
Hardie called them the Accident People.
And for some reason, they’d just made an incident on Route 80 in Utah … disappear.
Deke hit the traffic cams. There was nothing much near the mile marker originally mentioned in the report, so Deke checked the time, did a quick-and-dirty guesstimate, then hopped eastward on 80, hoping to see anything that screamed “Charlie Hardie.”
Just outside Salt Lake City, Deke indeed saw something that screamed “Charlie Hardie.” Same make, same model. Last time he’d seen a car like that he’d woken up in wet pants and with the worst headache of his life.
Deke wasn’t a man to curse much, but even he let a “motherfucker” glide across his lips as he picked up his cell phone and prepared to call in three, possibly four, more favors. Deke would be cashing in all of his markers for this one, and would be indebted to the types of men he used to pursue when he was a federal agent.
But, as they say in all of the bad movie trailers: It ends tonight.
Hardie had never quite seen anythin
g like it. His hopped-up clone had been hauling ass across the salt flats, kicking up great plumes of … salt, maybe?… when barreling toward them from the opposite direction was a Utah state police cruiser, cherries flashing. Hardie was in the passenger seat and gave some thought to buckling his seatbelt.
“You see that?” he asked.
“Yeah, I see it.”
“We going to do anything about it?”
“Hang on.”
The clone hammered the accelerator and Hardie felt himself pressed up against the seat. The needle jumped to 70, 80, 90… then 100. Which closed the gap between them and the friendly neighborhood Utah state trooper within seconds. Hardie knew the car was bulletproof. But he was pretty sure it wouldn’t survive a head-on creepy David Cronenberg–style collision.
“You sure you can see?” Hardie asked.
At pretty much the moment Hardie thought he’d be inhaling shattered glass, his double careened off to the right, and the state trooper to the left, and both vehicles slammed through mini-asteroid belts of flying salt. Behind them, the trooper’s siren screamed. The clone behind the wheel apparently didn’t give a fuck. The accelerator needle wilted back down to 90, 80, 70…
“You’re slowing down?” Hardie gasped.
“Just giving him a look at my ass.”
And as the needle slid back up the impossible happened: The trooper gave up. Sirens off, cherries off. He resumed normal speed and faded into the rear distance as they found Route 80 again, slowed down enough to merge safely, then peeled down the asphalt.
“What just happened?”
“I told you,” said his double, “we’re cop-proof. Once he saw my license plate and started to call it in, he had to let me go. Whatever incident he may have reported is now being erased from the police data banks. We’re invisible. We could drive over the bodies of nuns and toddlers from here all the way to the Hamptons and no cop would be allowed to touch us.”
Hardie shook his head. “I used to be a cop. Work for them, anyway. How did this happen? How did you get every cop from coast to coast to go along with this?”
Point and Shoot Page 12