No Man's Land

by G. M. Ford

  Rosen wandered over. Sunlight made the screen hard to see. Rosen shaded his eyes, but it didn’t help. Santos took off his suit jacket and draped it over the screen. “Here,” he said. “Look at it now.” Rosen bent at the waist and stuck his head under the suit jacket like an old-time photographer.

  Rosen watched in disgust as Driver issued another ultimatum. His reaction turned to horror when Driver came out of the back of the truck with a gas can. “Oh God,” slipped from his mouth when Driver cracked the flare. The rest of it he watched in silence. In the end, he pulled his head away as if avoiding a blow.

  Santos started the streaming video anew. Westerman put her head under the coat. Rosen watched her body stiffen, then grabbed her by the elbow when her knees deserted her. She put both hands on the hood of the car and took deep breaths. She looked like she was about to puke.

  A government green pickup skidded to a halt at the rear of the car. Short, overweight guy with a round red face. “We’ve got a report of smoke up near the Angel’s Mountain Lookout,” he said.

  “Where?” Rosen asked.

  “Angel’s Mountain.”

  Rosen pulled his cell phone from his pocket, pushed star sixty-nine and got the number of the last incoming call. He dialed the number.

  “Mr. Grabowski,” he said. “Good . . . yes . . . you meet us out at the highway. We’ll be there is less than five minutes. Yes,” he said. “Yes. We will.”

  He pocketed his phone and began to jog toward the Lincoln.

  “Santos, follow me. Call another unit, whoever’s closest. Get a couple of aid cars on the way.”

  Westerman was still ashen as she threw herself behind the wheel.

  “That was . . . ,” she began.

  “Down,” Rosen said. “Give it all she’s got.”

  52

  Corso saw them coming. Saw the big Lincoln Town Car winding its way up the narrow road. Then a gap and a pair of beige Fords trailing along in the wake. Corso scrambled across the hill, to a place where he was able to pull himself up onto the surface of the road. Two minutes later he signaled the Lincoln to a halt just below the last bend in the road and a couple of hundred feet above the smoking carcass of Bob Temple’s Forest Service truck. Rosen got out one side, Westerman the other. They walked to the edge of the road together and stood gazing down at the carnage below. When the Fords arrived, Rosen motioned for the occupants to stay put.

  A layer of vile black smoke cut across the rugged contours of the canyon.

  “Couple of public access TV channels in L.A. broadcast it live,” Rosen said. “It’s been up on the Internet for the past twenty minutes or so.”

  “What a way to go,” Corso said. “Live and in color.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I’d love to get his remains out of that truck,” Rosen said, G.M. Ford “but we’re going to have to do something about Driver before we can get a crew up here.”

  “Where’s the RV now?” Westerman wanted to know. Corso pointed uphill. “Just up around that corner. He hasn’t moved. He’s just sitting up there waiting for his ultimatum to come around.”

  Rosen looked grim. “Word is the network isn’t going to give him his airtime.”

  The news left Corso agape. “You’re shitting me.”

  “They’re worried about the legal implications.”

  “Ironic huh?” Westerman added with a bitter laugh. “The paparazzi are worried about their image.”

  Corso crooked a finger. Rosen and Westerman followed him uphill to the final bend in the road. One above the other, they peeked around the corner.

  “There it is,” Corso said. “Only way out is right back this way. He’s got the high ground. No way to cover the doors without coming into his field of fire.”

  “We’re going to have to try,” Rosen said.

  Corso and Westerman watched as Rosen marched downhill to the waiting agents. After a quick briefing, all four agents helped one another up the steep, moss-covered bank, climbing up onto the top side of the road. Working their way backward, away from the clear-cut at the top of the hill, they quickly disappeared from view.

  Rosen tried his phone, only to find out what Corso already knew. Thwarted by a complete lack of service, Rosen tried his radio. Same result. He walked uphill.

  “Think he’ll negotiate?” Rosen asked Corso.

  “Not a chance. That’d mean he wasn’t running the show.”

  “You think he’s got a plan for getting out of here?” Westerman asked.

  “I don’t think he wants to get out of here,” Corso said. “He wants to broadcast his message to the world, then go out in a blaze of glory.”

  The crash of broken glass was followed by three flat reports, a pause, then three more. More broken glass. Closer this time. A peek around the corner confirmed Driver’d kicked out both the side and the back windows of the RV. Mangled screens and pieces of curtains hung down on the outside of the vehicle. The segmented barrel of the carbine appeared in the side window. Three more flat reports split the air.

  Down by the cars, the Hispanic agent came spilling over the side of the bank, landing in the road at a skid. His suit was stained with dirt and moss; his service revolver dangled from his right hand as he hurried up the hill.

  “Buttros has been hit bad,” the agent said.

  “Hit where?”

  “In the head.” He made a smoothing gesture with his left hand. “He was flat on the ground. Guy shot him in the top of the head.” The hitch in his voice said he wasn’t far from losing it. Rosen put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Listen to me, Santos. I know he’s your partner. I know how hard this is, but we’ve got to keep our wits about ourselves up here. Soon as I can, I’ll get us some help. In the meantime, what’s the chances of getting Buttros out of where he is without getting anybody else hurt?”

  “Already done,” Santos said. “We dragged him back out of range. Timmons and Lange are bringing him . . .”

  As if on cue, the pair appeared, Buttros slung between them like a sack of feed. Santos hustled down to be of assistance as they eased Buttros over the bank onto the dappled sunlight of the road surface. Santos took his pulse and looked up. His eyes were wide and wet.

  “His vital signs are pretty good. We got to get him some help.”

  Rosen agreed. “You and Lange. Take the car in the back. Hurry.”

  “You want us to send help?”

  “Not just yet,” Rosen said.

  The trio of FBI field agents carried their fallen comrade to the rearmost car, carefully packed him into the backseat and began to back down the mountain.

  Rosen walked down to Timmons. “Go get Martini. Bring him back here. Be careful. We don’t want anybody else hurt.”

  Corso and Westerman watched Timmons scale the bank and disappear. Rosen made his way to the trunk of the town car and pulled out a bullhorn.

  Corso and Westerman stepped aside as Rosen approached. He poked the mouth of the bullhorn around the corner. “This is the FBI . . . ,” he began.

  A single shot rang out. More of a slap than a boom. The megaphone disintegrated, its plastic and metal body sending a shower of shards into the surrounding air. Rosen leaned back against the bank. His lower lip was split in two and dripping blood down onto the front of his suit. A piece of white plastic was lodged in his right cheek, dangerously close to his eye. He sensed his wound, dropped the rest of the bullhorn and pulled a white linen handkerchief from his jacket pocket. He dabbed at his lower lip with little effect. Westerman stepped forward, took the hankie from his hand and used it to pull the jagged piece of plastic from his cheek. Rosen winced as Westerman applied pressure to the wound for a few seconds before turning her attention to his lip. She covered the split with the lion’s share of the hankie and told him, “Squeeze.”

  Rosen did as he was told. “Harder,” she told him, and once again he did as bidden. The flow of blood stopped. Agents Timmons and Martini slid down into the road. Rosen beckoned them to his side. He ta
pped Timmons on the chest.

  “Timmons. You take the car. You get down to somewhere you can use the phone. You call us in a SWAT team. Have them helicopter in. We need them yesterday. You understand me?”

  Timmons said he did.

  “Take Corso with you,” was Rosen’s last order.

  “I’m not going,” Corso said flatly.

  “I’m not giving you a choice here, Corso.”

  “I was you . . . I’d take all the help I was offered,” Corso said. Before another word could be spoken, the screaming began. More like a shout, at first, then rising and rising in pitch until it reached operatic octaves. Then silence.

  “Go,” Rosen said to Timmons.

  Timmons was halfway to the car when the upper half of Martin Wells was thrust out the back window of the RV. His hands were fastened behind his back somehow. His face was covered in sweat. His breathing came in short, ragged gasps. “Please . . . please . . . please . . . ,” he begged.

  Timmons was in the car, backing crazily down the longdeserted highway. The whine of the transmission was lost around the second corner. Only the sounds of the wind and Marty’s agonized pleading reached the ears.

  “Forty minutes,” Rosen said. “They’ll have a team in here in forty minutes.” His voice held equal parts authority and conviction.

  “I don’t think Marty’s got forty minutes in him,” Corso said. Rosen kept his thumb and forefinger pinching his lip. “I’m open to suggestion,” he said with a trace of sarcasm slipping through the muffle.

  “We can’t just sit here and wait to see what he’s going to do to those people. We’ve got to do something.”

  “Such as?” Rosen inquired.

  Corso shrugged. “Maybe we . . .”

  Again, Martin Wells’s screams rose to a fever pitch. His thrusts and convulsions rocked the vehicle. At the moment when it seemed Marty surely could endure no more, the pitch of his protestations rose yet another octave.

  The sound was more than Corso could bear. He straightarmed Rosen and walked around the corner. “Stop it, godammit,”

  he shouted up the hill.

  53

  Westerman threw herself forward in an attempt to stop Corso; that was when Rosen let go of his lip long enough to catch her by the collar and pull her back behind the sheltering escarpment. They could hear Corso’s boots slapping on the pavement. The woods rang with his curses. They furrowed their brows and waited for a volley of gunfire to cut him down. Miraculously, no shots were fired.

  “Stop it, godammit,” Corso shouted again as he walked along.

  “What the fuck is the matter with you ? Is this how you want this thing to end? This is . . . this is disgraceful . . . this is . . .”

  And then the sound of gunfire filled the air. Corso could feel the slugs as they buzzed inches from his head like angry bees. He waited for an impact that didn’t happen. He was nearly at the back of the RV by then. He could hear Marty’s low moan coming from somewhere in the interior. He could sense Driver’s coal black eyes scouring him.

  “This isn’t how the story ends, man. I have to live so I can tell everybody how it all came down.”

  And then . . . bang . . . the top half of Melanie Harris was thrust out the rear window of the vehicle. Her hair was wild and G.M. Ford tangled; her mouth was taped; her breasts hung down from the window frame.

  “Puppet show,” Driver shouted from somewhere in the interior. And then Melanie went wild. Her muffled screams painted the air and the trees. Her desperate attempts to escape her bonds shook the big vehicle as whatever was happening to the bottom half of her crossed into primal territory, into a place where only the pain mattered and where screaming was the sole option. Corso ran at full speed and leapt like a basketball player going for a rebound, trying to get his hands entangled in Melanie’s hair, but just a moment too late as Driver jerked her back inside, allowing Corso to slam against the metal siding like an insect against a windshield.

  Driver laughed. “Audience participation,” he said. Corso got to his feet. The back window was empty, so he dusted himself off and walked up to the passenger-side door. He grabbed the handle. The door swung open in his hand. He stepped inside.

  Driver stood in the middle of the coach. The carbine was slung across his bare chest. Behind him, Melanie and Marty sat huddled on the floor.

  “You’ve got balls. I’ll say that for you, Corso,” Driver sneered.

  “A number of unenlightened souls have called it a death wish.”

  “Were they right?”

  “If you’ve got a death wish, all you’ve got to do is step out into traffic.”

  Driver nodded his agreement. “It’s about life,” he said.

  “About choosing how you’re willing to live it and how you’re not. That’s what prison teaches you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your limits.”

  Corso changed the subject. “Where’s Cutter? He on his way to Canada?”

  “Cutter’s on his way to hell.”

  “I don’t think he’d be surprised.”

  “He was planning on it.”

  Corso took a deep breath. “Looks to me like you’ve staked out your ground here, Driver.” Corso inclined his head toward the pile of humanity at the back of the coach. “Why don’t you let me take those two and be on my way. After that, you can play this thing out any way you want.”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “Because leaving them here with you is outside my limits.”

  “You could join them.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Me neither.”

  “What do you say?”

  Driver thought it over. “You see my mother on TV last night?”

  Corso said he had.

  “I was coming for her. We were going to leave the country together.”

  “That’s why you wanted me along, wasn’t it? I was the only person on earth who knew where to find her. You wanted me with you so’s I couldn’t tell anybody else. That way, you two could have disappeared together.”

  “I always said you were a smart guy.”

  “And all that Driver’s losing his mind stuff . . .” Corso let it hang.

  “Got me out of my cell. If I’d needed a regular doctor, they’d just have brought the prison sawbones to my cell. A shrink they had to let me out for.”

  “We probably got another best seller in how you pulled that one off.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Corso. I’ll kill you where you stand.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.”

  “So what do you say?” Corso tried again. “Let them go. You need a hostage, I’ll be your hostage.”

  Driver shook his head. “The regular citizens there are the only thing keeping me from getting shot to pieces.” He smiled. “I’m like you. I haven’t got a death wish either.”

  “I’m not leaving without them.”

  “Then you’re not leaving.”

  “So be it,” Corso said quietly.

  Driver took the carbine in his hands and aimed it at Corso. Right between the eyes. Corso stopped breathing. He closed his eyes and waited.

  “It didn’t have to end this way,” Driver said. Corso wanted to agree but couldn’t force the words from his throat.

  54

  Corso cracked an eye. The carbine was still pointed directly at his face. The tension had partially revived Melanie. Her eyes were focused on Driver and Corso.

  Corso took a deep breath and held it. Driver’s impassive black eyes told him nothing. He swallowed a couple of times. “If you’re going to do something heroic, you better hurry,” Corso said.

  “They’ve got SWAT teams and helicopters on the way.”

  Driver lowered the rifle. “You really fucked things up, Corso.”

  “Me? You’re the one got me into this. You put me in a position where I had to show up at Meza Azul. I was minding my own damn business. Then you made me come along on some cross-country cr
ime junket. I didn’t want anything to do with it. I told you every step of the way. All I wanted was out. You owe me.”

  Driver’s eyes were hard and flat as rivets. His lips were thin enough to pass for scars. “Owe you what?”

  “You owe me a ticket out of here.”

  “So go.”

  “I need to take them with me.”

  Driver threw a glance at the back of the room.

  “Those assholes killed my mother,” he said without conviction.

  Corso waved a hand at him in disgust. “We both know that’s bullshit. They may have been there when it happened, but that doesn’t make them the reason she had a heart attack. She had a heart attack because she had a bad heart.” He waved his arms.

  “Hell . . . back when I knew her, she’d already had a couple of heart operations. Who are we kidding here? You remember what you said about Kehoe. How he hurt people because it made him feel better about himself.” Driver didn’t answer, but Corso kept talking anyway. “You want to be that way . . . well I guess that’s between you and your conscience.” He pointed at the pile of flesh that was Marty and Melanie. “But don’t be telling yourself they had anything to do with your mother’s death, because that’s crap and you and I both know it.”

  Driver’s eyes flickered. He turned away. Corso kept at him.

  “They were just doing what they do, feeding the machine. Making somebody the celebrity of the day.” Driver turned his eyes back to Corso. “Celebrity has become the opiate of the people. It’s the new heroin. Everybody wants to be famous, even if it’s only for a day or an hour or one episode of Evening Edition. Everybody wants their fifteen minutes of fame. You and I . . . we’ve already had ours. It’s time to move on. Onward and upward. Bigger and better things. It’s not their fault the people they work for won’t put you on television. All that proves is their employers think a whole hell of a lot more of themselves than they do of the people who work for them.”