by Andrew Mayne
Mitchell pushed himself through the tiny space and then froze. Outside he could hear the sound of feet on gravel. Someone was walking toward the car carrier.
56
Tracking Mitchell Roberts had been easy. As soon as Baylor called Mr. Lewis to tell him that Dr. Steinmetz had been overpowered and injected with his own sedative, the first thing he did was put a trace on Steinmetz’s cell phone and laptop. He ignored Baylor’s suggestion that he focus on the rental car. Baylor was cunning in his own right, but he didn’t get people like he did. The whole story sounded fishy to Mr. Lewis, but he kept his opinion to himself. His target was Roberts.
Once he tracked him within 10 meters of a railroad line, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. A charter jet flight courtesy of Baylor and he was able to beat the train north of the Florida border on the Georgia side by a few hours.
The real problem was getting to Roberts before the real feds did. Mr. Lewis couldn’t afford to wait for the train to pull into a yard or have the kid jump train before then. He needed to stop him in his tracks in the literal sense of the term.
Mr. Lewis had spent the two-hour travel time trying to figure out how one goes about stopping several million tons of steel while making it look like an accident or at the very least a crude form of sabotage.
He had enough plastic explosive in his travel bag to do the trick, but that would leave too many questions. He needed what his trainers back at The Woods had called an “organic” solution. Mr. Lewis looked up every rail disaster he could to see what would be the most practical for him to pull off. For the small part of him that felt anything like excitement or enthusiasm, this kind of improvisation was his favorite part of his job. It was one thing to arrange for a Turkish scientist to have his tires get blown out on the autobahn or to create a propane explosion in a medical facility at Oxford that would only take out one troublesome biologist. It was another to do something so spectacular that it would dominate the national news for days. It wasn’t the kind of thing he’d put on his resume, but it certainly would give him a source of pride.
If it killed that asshole Mitchell Roberts in the process, that was an even bigger plus in his book. Mr. Lewis still chafed from letting the kid get the drop on him and making him and Travis out to be buffoons when he hooked the helicopter. Telling himself it was a one-in-a-million shot didn’t solve the problem.
What was most frustrating with Roberts was that he wasn’t any kind of professional. It’s one thing to get thwarted by someone who has been trained to avoid assassination and kidnapping attempts. It was another to be chastened by a kid who hadn’t even served in the military let alone had any kind of special training. Roberts had only one skill and that was running away from danger like a scared rabbit. Most people were easy to catch because they had a moment of panic before they decided to take flight. That was when you went in for the kill. Roberts was like a twitchy rodent that didn’t stop to think. He just kept moving and tried to figure out where he was going afterward.
It was an admirable instinct. It was the kind of thing men trained for years to learn how to do. The trick was learning how not to think. Thinking took time. Thinking got you killed. Roberts had made it this far because he just didn’t stop.
Mr. Lewis’s sole mission in life at that point was to make sure that he did get stopped. His organic solution was a tractor-trailer truck loaded with a 50-ton steel crossbeam destined for a highway overpass. He’d found the solution at a truck stop a mile outside of Waycross, Georgia -- ten miles from the narrow trestle where he was going to put it to use.
He’d stopped the driver in the parking lot and showed him one of his more official-looking badges. He punched the ruddy faced man in the nose when he got within striking distance, stunning him. He then slipped him into a sleeper hold and snapped the man’s neck as he pulled him into the cab.
The entire altercation took only four seconds, not that anyone was counting.
Mr. Lewis pushed the body into the passenger seat and took off back down the highway to the trestle. It took him eight minutes to get to the service road that led up onto to the tracks and to the trestle. The chain barrier snapped like twine when he drove the tractor-trailer truck though it.
He pulled the tractor-trailer and its cargo halfway onto the trestle at an angle. That way, the train would hit it like a bullet through a blocked muzzle and be directed sideways. It would be hard to bring that much energy to a total stop even if he had a hundred trailers loaded with 50-ton beams. All he needed to do was to send it a few feet off to the side and then inertia and gravity would take care of the rest.
After the organic solution was in place, he checked his watch. He had eight minutes before the train was going to be coming through and meeting its immovable object. That gave Mr. Lewis plenty of time to get clear and to find his means of escape. He walked back the side road to State Road 84 and flagged down a car.
Rhonda Terrell was on her way to drop off a meal for her invalid mother before she went to work. She brought her Chevy Malibu to a stop when she saw a man in khaki slacks and a polo shirt wave her down. He had some kind of badge on his waist, so she figured he was probably a police officer of some type.
He walked up to her window and gave her a broad smile. She never noticed him pull the gun from his back and shoot two bullets through her forehead. The Tupperware container was sprayed with blood.
Mr. Lewis reached inside and popped the trunk lever. He looked both ways to make sure there were no oncoming cars and then unbuckled the woman and pulled her into the trunk. He turned the ignition off but left the keys in the car. He was fairly certain it wasn’t going to get stolen in the next four minutes. He opened the Tupperware container and took out a piece of fried chicken and then walked back to the side of the road where he had the best vantage point of the trestle.
He wanted to get close but not too close. Off in the distance he could hear the train whistle as it went through the town of Waycross. He imagined that most of the locals had learned to tune the sound of trains out entirely. It was just more background noise, like a honking horn, although that was a rarity in this polite part of the South.
Two school buses passed by. Mr. Lewis watched as tiny faces looked out through the windows back toward him. He was almost sad they were going to miss the show. He could feel the rumble of the train as it got closer. His balls began to tingle as he looked through the trees at the steel beam and trailer wedged into the trestle. He finished the chicken and threw the bone to the ground.
As the train reached the point of no return, he could hear the rolling sound of thunder through the trees. The horn blew as the engineer finally saw that the trestle was blocked. Then the sound of air breaks frantically being pushed into action raced through the air.
Mr. Lewis watched as the train engine slammed into the obstructed trestle. The trailer and beam bent inward as the engine hit them with full force. The front of the train derailed and ran square into the trestle beams, knocking the entire structure off its foundation and into the shallow stream below. The engine nose-dived into the ground and sent a bullwhip of energy backward, lifting cars off their tracks and into the air. They buckled and then fell onto their sides, skidding down the embankment and into the trees.
He watched with satisfaction as over a mile of steel and iron threw itself into the air and then against the ground like a giant serpent. He could hear the sound of groaning metal and small explosions as tankers ripped open, spilling their contents.
Mr. Lewis ran forward like a concerned bystander to inspect the carnage and to look for any survivors he needed to kill.
57
Mitchell slowly pulled his body back into the shadows of the crevice formed by the roof of the Land Cruiser and the ceiling of the carrier. It was such a tight space he had to control his breathing to avoid getting stuck. The duffle bag with the spacesuit hung in the air, squeezed between the two walls.
The footsteps slowed down. Mitchell had a pretty good idea who the
y belonged to. He knew the shooter from the helicopter wasn’t going to give up that easily. It just wasn’t in the cards for Mitchell that the man would have just drowned when he threw the air tank at him.
Mitchell tried to think of what he had for a weapon. The screwdriver was in the duffle bag along with the laptop and the thumb drives he’d copied the Great Wall folder onto. He reached a hand toward the zipper of the bag and carefully began to open it. He kept his eyes toward the bright patch of light at the rear of the carrier.
The footsteps moved closer. A voice called out. “Hello? Is anyone in there?”
The calm and friendly nature of the voice chilled Mitchell. This wasn’t a man. This was a sociopath who acted like men to trap and kill them.
Mad Mitch wanted to call back out to the voice, Come murder me in here, dumb fuck! But he kept quiet. His hand probed around the plastic contours of the suit, trying to find the screwdriver. Footsteps moved toward the back of the carrier.
Mitchell could see a shadow come into view. In just a few moments, the shooter was going to poke his head in the back and look to see if there was anybody in there. How far would he go in? Mitchell lifted his chin so he could turn his head and look to the front of the trailer. There were four more Land Cruisers on their sides.
He could try to move all the way to the back, but then what? The farther in he went, the more trapped he would be. Mitchell tried to imagine what the shooter was going to see when he came around the corner. If the shooter looked at the back of the car to see if the hatch had been opened, Mitchell might have a moment before the shooter noticed him in the tight space.
Mad Mitch’s fingers felt the edge of the laptop. He still couldn’t find the damn screwdriver. Fuck it. He slid the laptop out of the bag. At the very least he could use it as a shield.
The duffle bag lost some of its tension and fell to the aluminum siding that was the floor and made a metal clang. Fuck.
“Hey! Need me to go get help?” The shooter was giving Mitchell a plausible reason to speak up.
Yeah, go get help so you won’t get infected by my reverse rabies that’s not really reverse rabies. Mad Mitch kept his mouth shut. If he spoke, even if it was an attempt to misdirect the man by telling him he was stuck in the car, he knew he’d lose the advantage.
The shadow grew as it came around the corner. Mad Mitch raised his left hand in an arc and passed the laptop over his head and into the grip of his right hand. The shadow paused. Mad Mitch could hear the man take in a breath of air through his nostrils.
Mad Mitch didn’t even wait to see the man come into view around the corner. He knew a human predator like this was controlled by their killing instinct and would not hesitate. He slammed the laptop downward as the shooter leaped into the crevice.
The thin metal edge of the computer slammed into the shooter’s forehead and formed a crimson streak across his face. Mad Mitch stepped backward. The shooter pushed his body into the crevice. His clawed hands shot at Mitchell’s face, trying to pull away flesh and skin. Mad Mitch slammed the laptop upward at the man’s chin. His head jerked back and then snapped forward as his teeth bared at Mitchell. He let out a growl, sending a shower of blood and spittle at Mitchell’s face.
Mad Mitch took another step back. The man forced himself farther into the crevice. A hand grabbed Mitchell’s shoulder. He could feel nails digging into his skin and trying to pull apart the sinew of his shoulders. Mad Mitch pulled backward and tripped over the bag as he fell onto the metal siding.
The shooter pushed himself into the space where Mitchell had just been. His left hand clawed out into the space beyond the hood. He struggled to pull himself through, but the space was too narrow for his large frame.
Mad Mitch looked at the laptop on the ground. He got to his feet, picked it up and slammed it into the man’s face with both hands while trying to avoid the reach of the hand. The shooter’s nose shattered and sent a cascade of red fluid all over the laptop and Mad Mitch’s hands.
The man’s eyes bulged and looked at Mitchell without blinking. The hand tried to twist around the corner to reach out at Mitchell, but he was too far out of reach. The shooter tried to push his body into the narrow space. Mad Mitch could hear the sound of the Land Cruiser’s metal roof pop inward as he shoved his shoulders past the center.
Fuck.
Mad Mitch slammed the laptop into the man’s face again. He heard a crack as the laptop finally began to crumple. He grabbed it by the sides, held it over his head and brought the corner into the shooter’s left eye socket. Mad Mitch felt it crack through the case of the laptop. Blood spurted out from the eye and it bulged even farther outward, hanging loose.
The shooter kept snarling and trying to grab Mitchell with his left hand. Mad Mitch swung the laptop into the man’s wrist. He could hear something crack as he dented the laptop even more on the man’s thick wrist bones.
Lubricated by his own blood and sweat, the shooter began to slip past the roof of the Land Cruiser and the carrier ceiling. Mitchell looked to the front windshield of the Land Cruiser. This one wasn’t cracked like the one he’d been inside. Mad Mitch kicked his right heel into the windshield, hoping to break it. His foot was just deflected. Mad Mitch slammed the laptop into it. The computer broke into two pieces, only leaving a small spiderweb of cracks.
Mad Mitch threw it to the ground. He picked up the duffle bag and crawled into the space where the wheels met the floor of the carrier. He ducked under the front wheels and shoved his body under the front forks. His spine could feel the axle pressing up against it. He kept moving.
The shooter finally burst through the crevice and into the space Mitchell had just left. He threw his body into the even-tighter area Mitchell was in and grabbed wildly. His hands grabbed Mitchell’s right thigh and began to dig their nails into the skin.
The shooter brought his mouth to tear into Mitchell’s flesh. Mad Mitch reflexively jerked and sent his knee into the shooter’s chin. He heard a loud crack as he dislocated his jaw. The hands didn’t let go.
Mitchell fell backward. He was half supported by the pressure of his hips between the undercarriage and the side wall. His leg was still firmly grasped by the shooter, who was pushing his body in farther.
Mitchell heard the sound of metal clang. He looked to see if his screwdriver had fallen free. His left hand scraped the floor where he couldn’t see. His fingertips grazed something metal. The shooter brought the top of his mouth onto Mitchell’s leg to take a bite. His dislocated jaw couldn’t close on the leg, so he furiously slammed his upper teeth into Mitchell’s shin.
It felt like an ice pick slamming into bone. Half upside down, stuck between the SUV and the carrier, Mitchell began to hyperventilate. He stretched his left hand back to try to grab the object. Mitchell let out a roar as he nearly tore his arm out of socket pulling on the car’s frame.
His fingers grasped the object. It wasn’t his screwdriver. He gripped the handle and brought the shooter’s gun back over his head and pointed it toward the man’s bloody mess of a face as he tried to fillet Mitchell’s calf muscle.
Mad Mitch pulled the trigger and fired a round at almost point-blank range. The back of the shooter’s skull exploded, sending blood and brains into the back of the carrier. His body reflexively kept trying to bite into Mitchell’s leg.
Mad Mitch fired two more rounds into the man’s face before he could pull his leg free. His ears rang from the sound of the shots reverberating in the small space. Mitchell fell backward and hit the ground. With his free hand, he grabbed the duffle bag and went toward the light. He tried to ignore the searing pain in his leg as he stood up and limped from the back of the car carrier.
Outside he could hear sirens as rescue vehicles raced toward the mile-long disaster of twisted metal. Mitchell could see two separate plumes of black smoke coming from tankers at the tail end.
He knew he only had minutes before rescuers found him and tried to finish what the shooter had started. Mitchell pulled a shirt from
the bag to use as a bandage. He looked down at the spacesuit in his bag.
In all the commotion, it was worth a try. It looked like a hazmat suit firefighters used to put out chemical fires. If he could get it on quickly enough, he could pass himself off as one of them and get the hell away from the train and the dead body of the first man he ever genuinely wanted to kill.
Mitchell found the car that Mr. Lewis was planning to use for his escape. He was twenty miles away before he noticed the blood stains on the passenger seat and dashboard. He put two and two together and decided he didn’t want to look inside the trunk. It was a bad enough feeling knowing that the murder weapon was in his duffle bag and he had gunpowder residue all over his fingers.
It was just one more situation that kind of made him look like a bad guy. He’d have to deal with this complication in due time. For the present, his only mission was to get the word out about Great Wall. Until people understood what was going on, for most people at least, he was just some shadowy figure in a strange plot.
His only tool was openness. His biggest problem was that being out in the open usually meant people were trying to kill him. The previous owner of the vehicle had mercifully left him with nearly a full tank of gas. With any luck, which was stretching things, he could make it to his final destination in under five hours. From there, he’d let fate take its course. Mitchell was willing to put a big bet on humanity, despite the horror of the last several days, that when given the chance, they’d make more sense of the events of the past four days than the people trying to control things from behind the scenes.
58
Mitchell took the exit off I-75 and drove toward the heart of Atlanta. The signs for Centennial Park reminded him of another innocent man who was wrongly implicated in the center of a terrorism plot. Richard Jewell, like Mitchell, unfortunately fit the profile some people were trying to box him into.