DREAM ON (Mark Appleton #2)

by Patterson, Aaron

  Hold onto your hats, boys, the Red Dog is in town, and he’s hungry!

  * * *

  MY BRAIN JUMPED TO life as I snapped out of my glimpse. Kirk was typing and Mooch looked at me like I was on drugs. I smiled and wondered what I must look like when I zoned out. I think the flash was only seconds but in my mind it could be any length of time.

  I looked up the stairs and reached for my gun. I needed her alive, she needed to give me some answers. The gun slid into my hand like an old friend, and I clicked the charge to stun. I’d had the gun handmade right from the lab floor in New York. It held small, dart-like charges that could be programmed to explode a millisecond after impact or just send a shock to incapacitate the target.

  Kirk felt the tension coming from my direction, looked over his shoulder, and acted just as a trained cop should. He played along and continued typing and looking at the screen as if nothing was going on. I was impressed once again by the detective’s attentiveness.

  “Guys, you’ve got to see this.” Mooch didn’t seem to be aware of the changing situation. “The signal is coming from this very house.” His eyes grew wide as he looked from Kirk and then to me and then to the gun in my hand.

  “Get down, Mooch,” Kirk yelled as he shoved Mooch with one hand and drew his own weapon with the other.

  Emily came down the stairs faster than I thought she would. She had her gun drawn and fired before anyone had a chance to defend themselves. I was partially hidden from her line of sight, and I fired, hitting her in the chest. She screamed and hit the floor.

  Kirk rolled toward Mooch, who was struggling to his feet. “Emily!” he cried.

  My reflexes kicked in, and I jumped up and dove for Emily. She was shaking and lying on her back, still holding onto her gun. As I leaned down, she kicked. Connecting with my jaw, I saw stars as I fell backward. By the time I righted myself and aimed at her again, she’d bolted up the stairs and out of sight. How did she recover so fast? The last time I was hit with a stun dart I was shaking for a few hours.

  I looked over my shoulder to see Kirk holding Mooch, who had blood bubbling from his chest and mouth. Kirk nodded at me with a grim look on his face. I took the stairs two at a time. The staircase seemed longer than it had when I came down them earlier. The living room was empty, and I could see the front door swinging shut as Emily ran toward her bike.

  You want to play. Fine! Now I was getting angry. When I sprinted from the house, Emily fired off a shot in my direction. I ducked out of habit. Looking around, desperate for a ride, I saw a Buell sitting in the driveway. I hadn’t noticed it on the way in, but I was so focused on Emily and wondering who she was that I must have missed the bike sitting in the driveway. I ran up to it. The key hung from the ignition like an invitation. As I started it and squealed out of the driveway, I hoped I’d been trained on a motorbike sometime in my life, because as far as I knew, this was the first time I had ever ridden one.

  Emily, or whoever she was, blasted down the road, her hair flying in the wind behind her. I twisted back the accelerator and the bike lurched under me, throwing me forward. I held on with everything I had. A calm feeling came over me like a cool spring breeze, and I knew I was in for it. The Harley banked a corner and turned right onto a side street. I was close behind her and found myself enjoying the chase.

  The feeling of being in control and knowing what to do at every corner was hard to explain. As Solomon said, he gave me reflexes, and very good ones.

  I ran through my memory bank trying to place a news article or event that could shed some light on who this Emily Dobson was. It didn’t make any sense. What did she want with me, or Weston? She couldn’t just be some crazy girlfriend who was hell-bent on killing her boyfriend.

  I glanced down at the speedometer, and my heart jumped. It read ninety miles an hour. She suddenly took a corner, fast. Leaning hard right, I could feel the pavement brush my knee. But I made the corner and was gaining on the Harley. What does she have to do with this twisted-up case? Why was she trying to kill us…or did she mean to leave us alive?

  My mind raced as the landscape blurred past me. I tried to focus on the situation at hand and put my deductive skills to rest for a better, safer time to ponder them. Time to give this chick a run for her money. The mind is a funny thing. Here I was, riding a motorcycle for the first time, and I was thinking of what she wanted, and did the Dodgers really force all their players to take steroids? Okay, Mark…road…crazy chick…me…going really fast.

  Dropping low on the powerful bike, I opened up the throttle. I couldn’t believe the power coming from the bike; it felt like I was strapped to a rocket. The light up ahead turned red and Emily didn’t even slow down. Her Harley screamed through the intersection as a Honda minivan slammed on the brakes and started to spin out.

  I was closing in on her, but now a mass of cars were slamming into each other, making the intersection a death trap. My instincts kicked in. Through the mess, I spotted a bus stop bench on the sidewalk that had been toppled over by the Honda. I only had one shot at it. The time it took to make up my mind was only seconds, but everything seemed to be in slow motion. The only thing not in the slow-moving gel was me and the crazy girl up ahead. I swerved onto the sidewalk and people jumped from my path. I was going well over a hundred now, and when I hit the bench, it acted like a ramp,

  I was airborne.

  Clearing the minivan, I hit the ground hard, grunting. I recovered from a near tailspin and was back on the road after my would-be killer.

  * * *

  EMILY CURSED WHEN SHE saw Mark Appleton make it through the intersection unscathed. She had had that Buell built from the ground up as a gift for Mooch, but he was too chicken to ride it. So there it sat in his driveway for a month. Now she had it on her tail, and it was closing fast. No doubt about it, he’d caught her by surprise.

  What happened back there? It was like he expected her to come down the stairs. “Fine, you want to chase me? Let’s see you follow me now!”

  Emily was an experienced rider and had even raced competitively in college. She knew everything about the custom Harley because she had built it with her own two hands.

  There! A parking garage. This would test his nerve. See if he can follow me through this. Skidding to the left, she burst through the crossing gate and started up the spiral garage. The gate attendant yelled in her direction but was almost run over when Mark sped past him through splintering debris.

  Emily was not only confident, but she was very well organized. She had gone over every escape plan and had driven this very route no fewer than ten times in the last two months. She could hear Mark’s deep-throated engine, and with a swift jerk of the brakes and a lean to the left, Emily did a one-eighty as she drew her gun. Mark blazed around the corner and she sent two shots crashing into the side of his bike. She’d missed him! Before he could recover, Emily hit the gas and raced toward the top of the parking garage.

  Tires screeched as she raced through the garage, and as the bright sunlight hit her in the face, she squinted, halted, and laid the bike down. The sound of the Buell could be heard coming up the ramp. It was time for the second act.

  Emily slid under a tall Chevy truck and aimed her pistol at the opening where Mark would be coming from in just a few…the Buell came through the opening so quickly it flew into the air. Mark hugged the bike like a trained professional and landed five feet beyond where Emily’s bike had come to a rest, but caught the front tire and flipped over the handlebars.

  Pop—pop—pop!

  Bullets slammed into the fuel tank of the bike and threw Mark into the air, just as the bike exploded. Emily jumped from her hiding place, grabbing the handlebars of her Harley, and hopped on. She’d done what she needed to. Mark was only dazed, and hopefully a bit shaken up. She wouldn’t kill him. She needed him alive. For now.

  Another day, my friend. Spinning around, she gunned the gas on the Harley. The parking garage stood a floor higher than the one next to it. Emily had pla
ced a metal ramp in the corner just for this contingency. She hoped she’d make the jump. Too late to turn back now! She just about ran Mark over as she flew past him. The Harley hit the ramp at seventy and ate up the air.

  But someone had moved her ramp on the other garage. She leaned into the bike and could see that her landing was going to be close. The Harley slammed to the ground, sparks flew, and Emily was almost thrown. Amazingly, she controlled the bike, raced down the garage, and disappeared from view.

  That was total Chaos! Take that, Mr. Appleton!

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  TWO CRANES HOISTED A large shell for a reactor. The construction site was more than two hundred thousand acres. The round, metal cylinder was welded stainless steel that made a perfect tube. Taras Karjanski overlooked the site from his perch high above in a black helicopter. He thought all the workers looked like ants on the ground. He remembered burning insects with a magnifying glass as a kid.

  Much to his displeasure, the plant was only about half finished, and it would take another three years to complete. He wanted the refinery to double as a nuclear power plant. The underground operation was to build nuclear bombs beneath the cover of the power plant.

  “Bring me around to the main entrance,” Taras said. “Is Joseph here?”

  “Not sure, he’s supposed to be,” Abe yelled over the drone of the blades.

  Taras nodded and looked at the refinery as it towered above the relatively flat landscape. The swing from the Middle East and its oil power had begun. After the discovery of a massive underground oil reserve running through Africa, the world rushed to claim its part of the trillion dollar industry. The Middle East was rumored to be drying up, which was causing a war of mass proportions over who would control the last few precious drops of oil.

  Taras Karjanski was the first to pounce on the opportunity, but for entirely different reasons than for money. He was much deeper than that. His plan was coming together without a hitch.

  The chopper landed with a soft thud, and Taras was greeted with a smile from a black native who wore a bright yellow hard hat. “Welcome, Master Karjanski. This way, please.”

  Taras ducked with a hand over his face and followed the black man through the dust cloud produced by the rotating helicopter blades. It was hot and dry. A four wheeler waited for them, and Abe and Taras were soon able to sit in comfort after descending underground to the main construction office.

  The place made Taras feel like God, or more aptly, like the devil. His mind raced as they drove deeper and deeper underground, thinking of all that would one day be his.

  Lights from a big room shone up ahead. The sunlight from above had disappeared and was replaced by a thick, black shadow. The air cooled almost instantly and felt refreshing. Even though it had a stale taste to it, Taras still preferred it to the sweltering heat. The building was brand new, with metal walls more than a foot thick. The windows were thick glass mixed with an alloy that made the material transparent, but hard as steel. The underground caves and tunnels had a tendency to collapse, so every structure was reinforced to withstand a possible cave-in. They made their way to the front door and got off the four wheeler.

  “This way.” The black man took off his hard hat and walked up the metal stairs, wiping sweat from his forehead with a dirty, gloved hand. Though no fixtures were visible, light filled the office. It looked like the ceiling was glowing as if from a magical source. A skinny, white-haired man stood up from behind a plain, metal desk. He smiled awkwardly and held out his hand. “Welcome to the future, Mr. Karjanski. I hope your stay in our great country has been acceptable.” His voice shook, and he cleared his throat to cover it up.

  “Less than accommodating, but I hope this will brighten my mood.” Taras could see the look on Joseph’s face fall. Taras was about to drop a bomb on his day, anyway, may as well get on with it. “I am here to protect my investment. Not with money as of yet, but with sheer force. You understand?”

  “I believe you have made your point.” Joseph St. Clair was a powerful man in his own right, but he wasn’t sure where he would end up if he took The General head on.

  “The shares and stock numbers show that I own fifty-one percent of this project and you are owner of the rest. I propose we make a deal. You work for me and finish this plant, and you supply the money to do it. I need a man I can trust to make this work.” Taras sat down in a metal chair and clasped his hands in his lap, as if he was in his own living room.

  Joseph had a fair complexion, but it was rising to red. He tried everything to keep his rage in check, but it wasn’t working. Taras had killed his partner and friend, and now he was pulling a power play, and the thought of it turned his stomach. “I will do no—”

  “Before you answer, I have something I want to show you. I am a bit of a photographer, and I think these pictures might interest you.”

  Abe stepped forward, opened a briefcase, and pulled out a manila folder. He handed the photos to Joseph, who looked through them and fell, face pale. “You…no!” He stuttered as his face turned white with fear and shock. “Please, no!”

  Taras had the demeanor of a lion. He sat and his eyes lit up as he looked at his prey. “Your wife put up a fight, but as you can see, she won’t be calling you on the phone anytime soon. Her screams were not for you as she died, but for your only son, Julian is it? Well, anyway, he is safe. For now. I let his nanny take him to live with her for a while. If you finish the plant, you will be allowed to visit twice a year. If you try any funny business, I will pull him apart, limb from limb.” As Taras said this last part, his eyes hardened.

  Joseph looked devastated. The black man who brought them on the four wheeler had lost his white grin and looked at the two in horror. “Please, I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t kill my son, please!”

  “I have sent your wife to your house in a trunk, I hope you will find the time to put her back together and bury her with honor. I will permit you a week off to take care of it. Now that we are in agreement, I expect the details of our arrangement will not leave this room.”

  Joseph nodded. The black man cursed and looked down at the floor. He never even saw the gun raise, or feel the bullet as it crashed into his skull. He died instantly. Taras smiled and looked at the end of his smoking gun. He bent over the body. The smell of iron and blood made him chuckle. It was so sweet.

  He looked up at Joseph. “He couldn’t live, you know that. Only you will know the truth, and if you tell anyone about this conversation, I will kill them and your family, down to your grumpy old aunt.”

  The meeting went better than he had hoped, and after a tour of the facility, he was going back to the States to finish some old business that needed his attention. Taras’s mental chatter erupted, and his ever-dwindling conscience yelled. You are a killer. You aren’t even human. Can’t you feel that? Answer me! I hate you!

  I don’t believe it! You love me or you would have killed me a long time ago.

  * * *

  BLOOD SPILLED FROM MOOCH’S chest as he labored to breathe. Kirk pressed his hand on the wound and talked in soft tones to his friend. Friend? Wow, I guess he was a friend. He had known Mooch for years, and through it all, he’d liked the guy.

  The whole event had caught Kirk off guard. They’d been hovered around the computer, Mark had given him a strange look, he’d heard gunfire, and the next thing he knew Mark was sprinting up the long stairs after Mooch’s girlfriend.

  What did she want to kill Mooch for? Was it just a thing between them, or was he a target, as well? Mooch coughed and spit out a mouthful of blood. “It’s going to be okay, man, just hang in there.”

  Kirk had called 911 and he cursed them for taking their sweet time.

  Mooch looked up at Kirk with a blank stare in his eyes. “I’m dying, man, please don’t let me die!”

  “Don’t talk that way, Mooch. The paramedics are on their way, just hang in there.” His lung had been hit, and Kirk felt Mooch shivering and heard his ragged breathing.
He didn’t have much more time. “You’re gonna make it, Mooch. You’d never let a girl take you out like that, wouldja?”

  Mooch gave a wan smile, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he lost consciousness.

  Kirk was shocked and scared at the same time. But then his fear turned to anger, and after he stopped the bleeding as much as he could, he left before the cops got there. Kirk hotwired a car one block up and took off. It didn’t take a super detective to follow the trail of destruction to where Mark made his stand with the female killer.

  The parking garage had two wrecked cars on the way up and smoke billowing from the roof. Kirk spotted Mark walking back down the ramp. He pulled over and let him in.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, she got away. Mooch?”

  “Not good,” Kirk shook his head without looking at Mark.

  Mark muttered something and looked up at Kirk. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

  The rest of the ride passed in silence. Kirk thought about the case and had a feeling this woman was somehow connected to the Red Dog. It was not just a coincidence that they were interrupted when they had the first real lead on the case. He didn’t voice his theory just yet, but in the deep places of his mind, he wrestled to make a connection.

  The sidewalks were filled with shoppers and businessmen who milled about, talking on their Blackberries and iPhones. Detroit was a big city, and much of it was poorly planned. The roads would make someone without a good sense of direction completely confused. And no one wanted to be lost in Detroit. Kirk had lived in Detroit for a long time, and even he would get nervous if he got caught on the wrong side of town.