by Chris Lowry
“So I gathered.”
She smirked.
It drove him a little crazy.
It was the kind of smirk he'd seen his whole life, from jocks, from girls in bars, and the bartenders who watched him burn out and fail.
“I mean, I’ve had sex before. Plenty of it.”
Did she imagine him puff out his chest a little.
“Plenty of girls in the Niagara falls area, right.”
“There was that one trip,” he said.
An old Chevy pickup truck passed them and pulled off to the side of the road a couple of hundred yards ahead.
It was covered with a thick layer of desert dust probably from the era when hitchhiking was the norm.
Jodi started jogging for the truck.
Rob hustled to keep up.
14
The Chevy crested a rise and dim headlights washed over a faded sign that announced Phoenix.
It pulled off the side of the road into a motel parking lot. It was a cracker box hotel, ten rooms up, ten rooms down with a glass walled office at one end that bordered owner's or manager's quarters.
The neon sign crackled and hummed, two letters flickering on and off.
The name of the place was completely dark, but that didn't matter to Rob or Jodi.
The anonymity worked in their favor.
She paid for a room in cash and didn't have to use her ID.
Rob showered first. He came out of the bathroom toweling his hair with one hand.
“I’ve been thinking.”
Jodi held up a finger to quiet him as she held a phone to her ear.
Her gun was in her lap and her hand fell on it with an easy familiarity.
“I understand Sir, but- Yes Sir, I will.”
She dropped the cradle in the receiver and looked at Rob.
“I have instructions to take you by train to DC,” she said.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I tried to countermand, but my orders were final.”
Rob dropped the towel, settled into the one chair in the room.
“Do you think we could be compromised?”
“Where did you learn a big word like that?”
Rob shook his head, noted that she didn't answer the question.
“I have to get to a computer. I need more information.”
Jodi stood up and slipped out of her suit jacket.
Her white shirt underneath clung tightly to her torso.
Rob had to look away.
“I don’t need information, I have orders. We’re going to the train station in the morning,” she said.
She noticed his discomfort.
“Any hot water left?”
He nodded.
She handed her gun to him.
“If anyone tries to come through that door.”
He held the gun away from him by two fingers.
“I can’t use this.”
“Just pull the hammer back and point.”
“I can’t.”
She took the gun, cocked back the hammer and pointed it at the door.
“Like that,” she said. “I saw you at the hanger.”
“I don't know what you are talking about.”
“Look Crow, I want to take a shower. I want you to watch my back.”
She passed the pistol back to him.
“Wash your back?”
She can't tell if he's kidding or not.
“Watch. My. Back.”
She's not kidding.
She slammed the bathroom door and turned on the water.
Rob waited a moment, then moved to one of the beds.
He set the pistol down and dialed the front desk.
“Can you get me a phone number for a computer store?”
He scribbled the number down on a pad beside the phone, hung up and dialed.
“Hi. Can you give me directions from 12240 I-40?” he read off the pad he had just scribbled on.
He wrote the address down and noticed Jodi's jacket.
He glanced over his shoulder at the closed bathroom door, then pulled out her wallet and badge.
The water shut off.
He shoved the badge back in her pocket, opened the billfold and took out a credit card.
He scrambled to shove the wallet back in her pocket and laid across the bed.
The bathroom door popped open.
Jodi stood there toweling her hair off.
“Better?” asked Rob.
“Worlds.”
“I need to pick something up.”
“You have an appointment in Phoenix Arizona? Negative. I was ordered to sit tight, so we sit tight till morning.”
“That’s not reasonable. I need to make contact with people. I need-“
“You need to get some sleep. We’re not going anywhere.”
She picked up her gun from the bed and laid down.
She rested the gun across her stomach, one hand covering it.
Rob slumped across his bed and glared.
15
Harris sat in the leather chair staring out of the window at the DC skyline.
Baker slipped through the door behind him and stood at attention in front of his desk.
“News?”
“I would have thought you knew,” he smirked.
Harris spun around and glared the man in front of him.
“Save the melodrama.”
“They’re in Phoenix.”
“Did you send Frederick to the airport?”
“I convinced the Director to use a train.”
Harris nodded. He patted the vest pocket on his suit and pulled out a cigar.
Baker curled his lip then tried to hide it. Harris noticed.
He chewed off the end of the cigar and slowly lit it, puffing out a cloud of noxious smoke over Baker.
“Train? That's a novel idea,” he puffed again. “Acceptable.”
“Riggs will meet him there to intercept,” Baker added.
Harris nodded and puffed.
“Good. That's real good. You’ve given this some thought.”
“Just acting on your behalf.
“Keep it up. The future of our world is at stake. He can’t be allowed to succeed.”
“He won’t.”
Baker nodded, and looked like he wanted to salute.
He fought it down along with the rising nausea in his stomach and left by the same door he entered.
Beside the window behind Harris a panel slid back.
A blonde Norde stared at the back of the man's head with icy dead eyes.
“You heard? Once he’s yours, you leave us alone.”
The Norde bowed its head.
Harris swung back around and watched the panel close.
He turned to the monitor on the wall that showed an animated graphic of two stars approaching a lonely earth on a black star field.
The second dot moved closer to the first.
16
Jodi cracked open an eye, disoriented for just a moment as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
She was in a hotel in Arizona, with a fugitive and something twinged that instinct in the base of her brain. She was in danger.
A shadow moved in the room, a black patch against the even darker corner of the wall.
She wondered if she could reach for her gun without fumbling it off the nightstand where it rested.
In the movies, the hero always knew where the gun was, could reach it like a second nature and nail the bad guy or guys with his eyes closed.
Too bad real life wasn't like that.
Whoever was in the room would hear her, and that might cause them to shoot.
Thinking about being shot while she slept made her want to growl.
There was no way anyone was going to kill her without a fight.
She tensed her arm to move her hand.
And couldn't.
She was tied to the bed.
The door cracked open and spilled yellow streetlight into the room.
&
nbsp; “Damn it!” she shouted.
Rob stood outlined in the doorway. He glanced over his shoulder at her and shrugged.
“Sorry,” he said.
Jodi was bound to her bed with the sheets from his.
It trapped her against the mattress despite her furious struggling.
“What the hell do you think you're doing?”
“I have to pick something up,” he told her.
She thrashed against the restraint, but it didn't work. So she thrashed harder with the same results.
“Crow,” her voice was low and menacing.
“I'm going to give you one chance to cut me loose.”
Rob held up her pistol.
“Don't worry,” he assured her “You'll be fine. I'm going to toss this to you.”
“No,” she screamed.
She stopped struggling and said in a calm voice.
“Lay it by my head. I don't want it to accidentally go off when it lands.”
“No way,” he said. “You might shoot me.”
“Just wait til I get free,” she warned.
He paused in the doorway for a moment.
“It's a chance I'll have to take.”
He drew his hand back to toss the gun.
“Wait,” she said. “It might bounce off the bed. There's still too much of a chance. Just lay it by me.”
“It can't go off, I have the safety on.”
“It can,” she said. “Why don't you just let me free. I'll come with you.”
He's shaking his head before the words are even out of her mouth.
“I don't think so.”
He considered the room for a moment, then kicked the chair closer to the bed.
He laid the pistol in the seat of the chair.
“You can trust me,” she said. “Come on Crow.”
“I'm going to untie one arm. That should let you get free.”
“Are you coming back?”
He glanced down at her, and undid one corner of the sheet on the bed.
“Don't look for me. I'm disappearing. I can blend in like a native, live off the land. You'll never find me.”
“I'm going to say this one more time. Don't do this.”
He loosened the knot and bolted for the door.
He didn't notice the slip of paper fall out of his pocket before he closed it behind him.
Jodi struggled against the sheets.
17
Brandon Ramsey hated closing the shop by himself.
He was seventeen years old and six months ago when he was promoted to Assistant Manager he couldn't have been more proud.
He shared that with his Mom, who beamed at him.
“Your moving up the corporate ladder, hon.”
Brandon knew it.
At sixteen he had gone farther in life than even his deadbeat dad who was a roughneck working somewhere on an oil rig or shale field up North.
The man had nine fingers, one sacrificed to the oil gods when it got caught between pipes.
No manual labor for Brandon though he now knew that the promotion was just so the nineteen-year-old manager could make him close up the small computer store every night.
“Why do we stay open til 9:00 every night?” he asked as he assumed the mantel of managerial assistance.
He was planning to make some changes.
“For our customers,” answered Mark, the manager.
Brandon looked around the empty store.
“Mark, no one comes in here after 7:00 except on weekends. Nobody buys computers on a Wednesday night.”
Mark passed him a broom.
“We're here in case they need us,” he said.
So every night, Mark bailed between 5:00 and 6:00 leaving Brandon three hours to clean, dust, and rebuild some of the computers on a workbench at the rear of the small shop.
The strip mall they were located in had a pawn shop, which also sold computers, but Mark said they weren't on the same competitive level.
There was a liquor store at the far end, and two big box stores that had been abandoned sometime in the past five years.
Brandon played video games, cleaned the shop, and just basically roamed around the store.
He was locking up when a man ran up the sidewalk and grabbed the handle.
Brandon jumped back.
“Sorry sir,” he said through the glass as he pointed to the closed sign he had just flipped. “We're closed.”
Rob pressed the credit card against the window.
“I have an emergency.”
Brandon looked at the card, then at the slightly wild look in the man's eyes.
“Come back in the morning,” he said.
“No time partner, come on, open the door. I'm going to get your fastest laptop with the most memory and I need it now.”
Brandon shook his head.
“I can't. We're closed.”
“Please,” said Rob.
Night after night he had been alone for hours.
No traffic meant no sales.
It would feel good to have Mark come to work in the morning and find a big fat sales slip sitting in the lockbox.
“We need to be fast,” said Brandon as he opened the door.
Rob slipped through before it was all the way open.
He reached back and locked the door behind them.
Brandon indicated the selection of laptops on one wall.
Rob hurried over and scooped one up.
He moved it to the counter in the back and started pulling it from the box.
Brandon watched as he set up the computer, plugging it in when Rob indicated.
He booted up the main page and waited while it processed.
“This should only take a minute,” Rob said.
“I should probably run the card,” Brandon licked his lips.
Rob held the card out to him when they heard a tap on the door.
They both turned.
Jodi stood on the other side of the glass, pistol in hand as she tapped the barrel against the door.
“Oh shit,” Brandon breathed. “Robbery.”
He ducked behind the counter.
Rob shrugged and went to unlock the door.
“Freeze scumbag,” Brandon squeaked.
He popped up from behind the counter with a revolver in his shaky hands.
Rob backed up against the wall, knocking several off the shelf in the process.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he shouted. “It's not what you think. She's a federal agent.”
“Shut up,” screamed Brandon. “Just shut up.”
Mark had talked to him about being robbed.
Their proximity to the liquor store made it a possibility, but the fact that they dealt in credit card payments ninety-nine out of one hundred times meant they were not a big target.
But he had told Brandon about the gun.
“Just in case,” the manager winked.
And here was a just in case moment standing right out of the door.
He waved the shaky gun from Rob to Jodi and back again.
“Nobody move,” he shouted.
Rob was not moving.
He was pressed up against the wall as far as he could go, and wondering just shaky this kid was.
Jodi slammed her badge against the glass door.
Brandon panicked and twitched his finger.
The glass door shattered.
Jodi ducked under the cascade of shards and fired back.