Omega Dog - 01

by Tim Stevens

But it didn’t do what she was hoping. Didn’t drive anybody out.

  Instead, the mobsters, Rosetti’s boys, panicked. Stampeded like a herd of cattle frightened by a landslide.

  Through the sight of the Panzerfaust, Shelly watched them emerge almost as one from their cars, in their shiny suits, guns in their hands. She saw confusion on their faces. They obviously didn’t know what had happened, but assumed they were under attack somehow, even though the cabin had been hit rather than them.

  And then they stormed the cabin.

  This was it, then. Whatever had been holding them back before, it wasn’t on their minds now. Their numbers would prove overwhelming.

  And they’d get Dr Colby. Which meant Shelly wouldn’t.

  Shelly dropped the launcher and scrambled down from the roof of the Hummer. She slung the strap of the Armalite across her back, wincing at the jolt to her injured shoulder, and carried the weapon in a position for left-handed shooting.

  Quickly she loped through the dense trees, hearing the gunfire and shouting growing nearer as she approached. She saw the cabin emerge, the men advancing across the forecourt using two increasingly trashed cars as cover, exchanging fire with somebody in the cabin.

  A fat guy suddenly came lumbering out of the cabin, a hunting rifle in his hands. Bellowing abuse, he fired, once, twice, scoring a hit each time. Then he was cut down.

  By the look of it, Rosetti’s goons were coming off second best. Bodies lay either screaming or still, all over the forecourt and driveway.

  Well, their problems were about to increase.

  Staying back among the trees, Shelly opened up with the Armalite.

  The recoil was hell on her shoulder, even though she was shooting left-handed, but Shelly ignored it. She was mesmerized by the power of the machine she held bucking in her hands. The way it fed death from its muzzle in a spraying arc that stitched a swathe back and forth across the forecourt.

  Bodies leaped and spun, blood gouting. Most of the remaining men turned their fire in Shelly’s direction. They had little chance of hitting her. With her assault rifle and her position partially shielded by trees, she had the upper hand.

  Suddenly, there was no more shooting. The aftereffects of the gunfire hung in the air, in the form of a haze of smoke and the stench of cordite. Shelly’s ears rang as though somebody had just clapped their palms hard on either side of her head.

  Most of the bodies littering the forecourt were completely still. One or two were twitching. Shelly ignored them and stepped toward the cabin.

  Armalite raised, she darted a peek through the open door. Seeing nobody, she kicked it fully open and swung the rifle to cover the living room beyond.

  The place was a wreck, courtesy of all the gunfire and her own RPG warhead. But it was empty of people.

  Shelly moved to the rear of the building, picking her way through the rubble. In what was left of the kitchen, an open trapdoor beckoned. Steps led down to a cellar.

  Surely they weren’t hiding out down there?

  Then a noise penetrated the ringing in her ears. She raised her head to listen.

  It was the sound of a car’s engine.

  Damn.

  She raced back through the cabin. Through the front door, she saw a Land Rover reversing away from the semicircle of vehicles on the driveway.

  Through the driver’s window she saw him. The big guy with the goatee. The man who’d shot her in the shoulder back in Brooklyn.

  Venn.

  Shelly raised the Armalite to draw a bead on him. As she did so, Venn reached his arm out through the window.

  She leaped back inside as the shot ricocheted off the door jamb, scarily close.

  By the time she peered out again, the Land Rover was on its way down the driveway.

  Shelly sprinted toward the row of cars. Her Hummer would be better, but it was too far away.

  Chapter 65

  ‘She’s coming after us,’ Beth said.

  Beside her, Venn grunted. He had the Beretta in his hand, propped on the steering wheel. The forest road wound away and downward ahead of them.

  Venn pressed down on the accelerator.

  In the rearview mirror, he saw a car peel away from the stationary fleet. A Lamborghini.

  Yes, those guys had been mobsters, all right. Only a wiseguy would bring a sports car to a hit.

  They’d stepped out at the back of the house and, seeing nobody around, Venn had led them along the wall, farthest from the sound of the shooting. By the time they reached the front, the shooting had stopped. Corpses were strewn all over, and Venn heard movement inside the cabin.

  They’d run for the cars.

  Glancing back as he was pulling out, Venn had been so surprised to see who it was at the cabin door that he’d paused.

  But only for an instant.

  ‘It’s her, isn’t it?’ said Beth, in the passenger seat. ‘That detective. Shelly Anderson.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Venn. ‘Get down. Both of you.’

  Beth crouched down in the footwell. In the back, Lomax did the same.

  The Lamborghini was gaining on them. Easily.

  Venn put his foot down.

  Ahead, the road swerved suddenly and Venn gritted his teeth, barely keeping the Land Rover’s wheels from the edge.

  On the right side of the road was a dense wall of trees.

  On the left was a plunging drop into the forest.

  In the rearview mirror, the woman’s arm was coming up outside the window of the Lamborghini, the Armalite gripped in her hand.

  She’s got to be immensely strong, Venn thought.

  Or maybe she’s just crazy.

  Her aim was off, largely because of the awkwardness of firing one-handed, but the slugs ripped through the air around the Land Rover, singing and whining off the trees.

  There was no point in firing back at her, Venn knew. He’d have to slow down to take any kind of proper aim.

  Plus, if he didn’t keep his eyes on the road, they were going to go over the edge.

  The second salvo came, the noise chattering off the forest walls.

  This time Venn felt the Land Rover rock, and he heard a couple of sharp pops as the rear tires blew out.

  The Land Rover fishtailed wildly, and Venn fought desperately to retain control, avoiding the mistake of locking the brakes but rather trying to contain the natural movement of the vehicle. The horrible yowling of tearing rubber was followed by a banshee shriek of naked metal wheel rim on blacktop.

  He was dimly aware that the Lamborghini was almost on top of them, and he braced himself for the impact even as he struggled to hold the Land Rover on the road.

  Then the sports car flashed past, its side scraping the Land Rover’s with a screech, one side mirror busting off and spinning high.

  Venn understood. She’d shot past to avoid a direct collision.

  Now she was in front of them, and as Venn took the unruly, swerving vehicle round the next curve, he saw the Lamborghini up ahead, maybe a hundred yards down the road.

  It had swung round to face them, and was heading back in their direction, picking up speed at a terrifying rate.

  The road here was so narrow that two cars would have difficulty riding abreast, even at a crawl.

  To the right, the wall of forest.

  To the left, the almost sheer drop into the trees.

  Well, if she wanted a game of chicken, she could bring it on.

  Venn trod on the accelerator once more.

  He heard the bare rims of the rear wheels scream in protest. Felt every rut and pothole in the blacktop.

  Glancing down, he saw Beth’s face staring up at him from the footwell.

  It was time to end this.

  He watched the Lamborghini growing larger through the windshield.

  Could see the woman’s small face becoming clearer and clearer above the wheel.

  She wasn’t aiming the gun. Was focusing all her attention on the game.

  And he saw, at the last mome
nt, as the vehicles hurtled toward one another, that she was grinning.

  It was a move he’d heard of, but never seen performed. He’d certainly never tried it himself.

  Venn spun the wheel clockwise, riding the brake at the same time.

  The Land Rover swung through a sideways arc, through more than ninety degrees. Its front fender hit the trunk of a tree on the right hand side of the road.

  The rear smashed into the nose of the oncoming Lamborghini with such force that the wheel was almost torn out of Venn’s hands.

  The impact spun the Lamborghini sideways, in turn.

  And, with an awful, rending noise, the sports car toppled backward over the edge of the slope.

  Venn sat for an instant in the stalled Land Rover, stunned. Then he looked down at Beth.

  She’d screamed, he vaguely remembered. But her eyes were open, and her face was contorted in fear, not pain.

  He craned his neck round, saw Lomax huddled behind his seat, hands over his head. He too looked intact.

  It had been a close thing. The other side of the Land Rover was concertinaed inward. A few inches more and Lomax would have been crushed.

  Venn leaped down from his seat onto the road. As he did so, a boom rose from down in the trees below, as did an orange and black fireball.

  He went to the edge and peered down. Saw the path of smashed branches and wrenched-out trunks, leading way down to the forest floor, where the car was a black metal skeleton engulfed in flame.

  Chapter 66

  Lomax’s ankle was twisted. When he stepped from the wreckage of the Land Rover he stumbled and fell before Venn could catch him.

  ‘Can you make it back to the cabin?’ Venn asked.

  ‘I think so,’ the professor said, wincing.

  He hobbled between Venn and Beth, leaning on their arms for support. It was nearly a half-mile walk. Venn bit his tongue, not wanting to rush the injured man but at the same time aware of the dangers of even a minute’s delay.

  The emergency services would be there soon, alerted by the explosions and gunfire.

  And reinforcements might also be on their way.

  Finally they reached the cabin. The log structure was a smoldering ruin. The carnage in front was sickening, like the battlefields Venn had seen in Bosnia and Kosovo.

  Venn chose a BMW sedan. Like all of the other vehicles, the keys were still in the ignition.

  He looked around for Lomax, saw him near the cabin, crouched down by the body of Stavros.

  To Beth, Venn said, ‘Get him. No time for this.’

  He started the car and reversed it out. Lomax came limping back on Beth’s arm and they got in.

  ‘He was a good man,’ Lomax said, simply.

  ‘And a crazy man,’ said Venn.

  He took a different route, heading on beyond the cabin before turning and winding down through the forest, northward instead of back toward the interstate. They didn’t need to run into a fresh posse of mobsters. Or a bunch of cops coming to see what all the noise was about.

  Lomax had a memory stick with the final paper he and Stavros had written up, laying out the case for the link between C-77 and cancer. As Venn drove, Beth and Lomax discussed the most effective ways to make the data public as quickly as possible.

  ‘Your suggestion earlier of Canada was a good one, Mr Venn,’ said Lomax. ‘Assuming we can make it to, and across, the border safely.’

  Venn said nothing.

  A memory had surfaced in his mind, like a body dredged up from a river.

  Again, he thought of Corcoran’s last words to him.

  Call me the moment you locate Lomax. Don’t wait. I’ll see to it that you and he are brought back safely from wherever you are.

  Don’t wait...

  Why, exactly, had Corcoran been so insistent on immediately calling him? Was he worried Venn might talk to the professor, hear his side of the story, and let him go? But that could happen even after he’d called Corcoran.

  Unless...

  Venn stared down into the footwell. At his right leg.

  The one with the electronic tag on it.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he muttered.

  Beth, beside him, turned her head.

  ‘What is it?’

  Venn hit the brakes.

  With the engine still running, he said, ‘Beth, I need you to drive.’

  ‘Okay, but why?’

  ‘Take Lomax, take the car, and run. Just lose yourselves.’ He got out.

  Beth got out too. So did Lomax, stumbling a little.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Beth.

  ‘You have to stay away from me,’ Venn said, backing down the road.

  There was a field alongside. If he took off across it, he could probably make his way to some town or other, where he could get a car.

  And the walk would give him time to try and figure out what the hell he was going to do.

  Beth advanced, her face knotted in concern. ‘Venn, what is it? What’s wrong?’

  Venn took a deep breath.

  ‘I wasn’t just supposed to find you and bring you in,’ he said to Lomax. ‘I was supposed to kill you. Without knowing it.’

  They stared at him uncomprehendingly.

  Venn pulled up the leg of his jeans.

  ‘This tag,’ he said. ‘It isn’t just a tag. It’s a remote-controlled bomb. Corcoran’s going to set it off as soon as he knows I have you.’

  Chapter 67

  It made sense now.

  Why the mob guys hadn’t attacked earlier, but instead had demanded that Venn reveal himself and the other occupants of the cabin.

  Corcoran had needed to be certain Lomax was in there. Otherwise Venn would be killed, and with him would die any leads to Lomax’s whereabouts.

  Venn stood in the field, fifty yards from the BMW where Beth and Lomax huddled, staring at him.

  He didn’t know quite what he was going to do. But he had to make contact with Corcoran urgently.

  Just in case Corcoran decided Venn was probably with Lomax, and decided to press the button.

  Venn hit the dial key on the phone.

  It didn’t finish ringing once before it was answered.

  ‘Venn. That you?’

  ‘Yeah, Corcoran. It’s me.’

  ‘Thank God you’re alive,’ the man rumbled in his incongruous bass. ‘What’s happening? I haven’t heard from you since you left here.’

  ‘I don’t have Professor Lomax with me.’

  ‘Really? Then why are you –’

  ‘I’ve found him. But he’s not with me.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Quietly, Venn said: ‘I know about the bomb, Corcoran.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The bomb around my leg. I’ve figured it out. That’s why Lomax is in a safe place. In case you decide in a fit of pique to blow me up, he’ll escape.’

  Venn held his breath. This was a moment when Corcoran really might press the button. He hoped the fifty yards’ distance between him and Beth and Lomax would be enough to protect them. Without thinking, he strode a few paces farther into the field.

  Corcoran was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, ‘Congratulations, Joe. For finding the professor, and for working this all out. I was sure you’d succeed in the former. The latter, I didn’t expect.’

  ‘You’ll realize I also know why you want Lomax dead.’

  At the other end of the line, Corcoran sighed. ‘Get real, Joe. This is the world we live in. It’s a mean, tough place. You of all people should know that, given the things you’ve seen and done in your life. Sometimes the few must be sacrificed for the sake of the many. That’s just the way it works.’

  Venn gazed back toward Beth and Lomax. He felt an odd sensation in the pit of his stomach.

  Into the phone he said, ‘I’m assuming this bomb goes off if I try to remove it?’

  ‘Of course.’ Corcoran chuckled. ‘As I said in the beginning, that tag is our insurance. Though you probably didn’t fu
lly grasp my meaning.’

  The sensation began to grow, filling Venn’s chest.

  He recognized it as hope.

  Because he had an idea.

  ‘Corcoran,’ he said. ‘Fair dues to you. You screwed me, royally. But I can’t help admiring how you did it.’

  ‘Thank you. But –’

  ‘Hear me out. You have the power to kill me right now. At the push of a button. On the other hand, if you do that, you’ll lose Lomax. So it’s a stalemate.’

  Corcoran waited.

  Venn went on, ‘So I’m willing to cut a deal. I come in, alone, and you take this goddam bomb off my leg. In return, I tell you where Lomax is.’

  Corcoran laughed mirthlessly. ‘As ruses go, that’s a pretty stupid one, Joe. I’m disappointed in you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if you tell me where to find Lomax and he’s not there, I’ll have you killed. If he is there, I’ll still have you killed. You know that. So you’ve got some trick up your sleeve.’

  ‘Trick? You hold almost all the cards, Corcoran.’ Venn paused. ‘But you won’t kill me, once I’ve told you where Lomax is.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because there’s something I’ll tell you, something Lomax told me, that will make sure you never kill me once you have him.’

  ‘No idea what you’re talking about, Joe.’ But Corcoran’s tone was intrigued.

  ‘Agree to the deal, meet me, and you’ll find out.’

  There was a moment’s silence.

  Then Corcoran said: ‘All right.’

  Chapter 68

  Venn covered the six-hour trip back to New York City in just five.

  He’d ended up stealing a car, a Mustang this time, from a residential street in a nearby town.

  ‘This is the last one,’ he promised Beth.

  It was too risky to go into a rental shop.

  They’d traveled together, Beth, Lomax and Venn, in the BMW. Just as far as the nearest town. Speed was of the essence, and Venn didn’t think Corcoran would push the button just yet. In time, he might. But not yet.

  He said his goodbyes to the two of them. Lomax he gave a manly handshake.

  With Beth, the farewell was more prolonged.

  When he’d disentangled himself from her arms, he gazed into her face. It was wet with tears.