Bennett jerked his steering wheel to the left to avoid the Bronco, and the sedan slid into the wide grass median, spinning out of control.
The truck driver leaned on his horn as Cole regained control of the Bronco and sped past.
“Why don’t we try to get help from the truck driver?” Tori yelled above the wind whipping through the Bronco.
“What’s he going to do for us?”
“Give us a ride.”
Cole shook his head. “By the time we stop and get in his truck, Bennett would have caught up with us. On an incline like this, it would take that truck miles to get moving at any kind of speed again. We’d be sitting ducks. Obviously Bennett has weapons he isn’t shy about using. Besides, if you were that guy and just saw what happened, would you stop?”
“You’re right. Probably not.”
A quarter mile later they crested the incline. In front of them the interstate headed down a long sweeping curve and into a narrow gorge cut by the river. Tall pines covered the rocky slopes, which rose almost straight up on either side of them.
“If we had to run out of gas, this would be the place to do it,” Cole yelled above the roar of the wind. “He’d have a helluva time finding us in here.”
“Then why don’t we just ditch the Bronco now and head into the woods?”
Cole shook his head as he spotted the white sedan in the rearview mirror, far behind them. “No.” He didn’t tell her that Bennett was once again gaining on them.
The interstate moved away from the river as they climbed out of the gorge. Even as they climbed they were still exceeding ninety miles an hour. Then the double-lane highway crested a rise and suddenly Helena lay before them in the middle of a wide, treeless valley.
“We’re going to make it, Cole!” Tori screamed.
Cole eyed the fuel gauge warily. It seemed as if the orange warning light was growing brighter with each passing mile.
Tori noticed him watching the gauge. “We could coast to Helena from here.”
“We could if Bennett wasn’t back there.”
Tori turned around quickly and looked out through the smashed back window. “I thought he went off the road.”
“He did, but he got the car back on the highway.”
As they headed down the long, gentle descent into Helena, the Bronco picked up speed. The speedometer nudged a hundred, but still the white sedan gained. There were a few cars on the road now as they passed the first exit into the outskirts of the small city.
“Why didn’t you take that exit?” Tori asked.
“It’s too open out here. We’ve still got a good lead on him, so maybe we can get downtown, ditch the Bronco and lose him on foot, then rent another car. I don’t want to go to the cops if I can help it.”
“Why don’t we go to the airport? I know there’s one here. I flew into it a few weeks ago.”
“No way. If he loses us, it’ll be the first place he looks.”
“If we can lose him, maybe we should hide the tape in a locker or something. There must be a bus station out here. I can call my people in New York after we stash the tape there, and they’ll send some muscle out here to protect us.”
Before Cole could respond, the engine went dead, suffocated by a lack of fuel. Cole pumped the accelerator, but nothing happened. He pounded the steering wheel as he checked the mirror. Bennett was racing up behind them now, just a few hundred yards back.
“Hold on!” Cole yelled. He stepped on the brake as hard as he could and the wheels locked. Instantly the smell of burning rubber rose up into the Bronco. “Follow me!” he shouted as the Bronco skidded to a stop. He reached into the backseat, grabbed the backpack, thrust open the door and bolted around the front of the Bronco and up the slope toward a large strip mall overlooking the interstate.
Tori leaped from the Bronco and scampered up the slope as the white sedan skidded to a stop behind the Bronco. “Where are we going?” she yelled.
“Just follow me!”
Suddenly he was down, his foot snagged in a hole hidden by the long grass. “Jesus!” Pain seared through his ankle—the same ankle he had injured in Manhattan while racing to the library.
“Come on!” Tori helped Cole struggle to his feet as Bennett lumbered up the slope behind them, reloading his pistol as he ran.
Pain engulfed Cole’s entire leg, but he put his head down and hobbled forward. Bennett was less than fifty yards behind them as they climbed over the guardrail at the top of the hill together and took off across the parking lot.
“There!” Cole pointed at a video store in the middle of the mall. “That’s where we’re going.”
They ran through rows of parked cars and past people pushing shopping carts. Despite the bystanders, Bennett began shooting. Bullets glanced off hoods and windshields, and people screamed and fell to the pavement for cover.
Cole limped into the video store. It was fairly small, offering only a few thousand titles. He hobbled past several puzzled shoppers to the back of the counter.
“Hey!” The manager stepped in front of Cole as he headed toward the back room where the videotapes were stored in plain black cases. “You can’t go back there.”
“Get out of my way!” Cole pushed the smaller man to the floor roughly and disappeared into the storage room.
“Call the police!” the manager yelled to an assistant in front of the counter as he picked himself up. Then he pointed at Tori, who stood in the middle of the store. “Your friend’s in a lot of trouble, lady.”
“You have no idea how much trouble.” She was gasping for breath. “So are you.”
“Huh?” The manager glanced toward the front door as a woman screamed and Bennett Smith charged inside, gun up and fully reloaded.
“Where’s Cole?” he hissed, moving directly to Tori. He paid no attention to the customers and employees who were sprinting for the door.
“I don’t know,” she said defiantly.
Bennett grabbed Tori by the hair, spun her around so that her back was against his chest and leveled the gun at her head. “Does he still have the tape?”
“I don’t know,” she moaned.
Bennett pulled her hair hard, lifting her off her feet. “Does he have it?”
“You’re hurting me!” she screamed.
“Let her go, Bennett!” Cole stood in the doorway to the storage room. He tossed the empty backpack onto the counter. In the distance he could hear the faint sound of a siren. “The Dealey Tape is in one of the cases back there.” He nodded toward the storage room behind him, then glanced at the front door. “It sounds as if the police are going to be here in about two minutes. I don’t think you can find it and get out of here that fast.”
For several moments Bennett stared at Cole, then slowly he relaxed his grip on Tori and dropped the barrel of the gun from her head.
“It’s over, Bennett,” Cole said loudly. “Over!”
But a smile spread slowly across Bennett’s face. Suddenly he grabbed Tori by the hair again and hustled her forward toward Cole. “It’s far from over,” he snarled, pushing Tori ahead so she was directly in front of Cole. Then he brought the gun back up to her head. “Get out of the way, Cole!”
“Do something, Cole!” Tori screamed.
Before Cole could move, Bennett pointed the gun at him and fired. The bullet blew past Cole’s left ear. He felt a rush of hot air like a steam pipe bursting right beside his face, and smelled gunpowder. Instinctively he tumbled over the counter and dropped to the floor. Then he heard the door slam shut.
He was back on his feet and around the counter quickly. He wrenched the doorknob to the right and pushed, but the door leading to the storage room—and the Dealey Tape—was locked from the inside.
“Hold it right there!”
Cole whipped around. Standing in the store’s doorway was a lone Helena city
policeman, gun drawn.
“Hands up!” the young policeman yelled. He was nervous. Cole could see it all over his face. His eyes were flashing around and his voice was strained.
“Officer, we’ve got a hostage situation,” Cole said calmly.
“Get your hands up!” The policeman moved forward, hunched over at the waist, the revolver pointed at Cole. “Don’t talk until I tell you to!”
Slowly Cole raised his hands. He could hear Bennett rifling through the tapes. Empty cases and cassettes were crashing to the floor behind the storage room door. If he somehow found the Dealey Tape, hidden in a cassette case marked Reds, he’d head out the back door and be gone forever.
The policeman was only a few feet away now. In the distance Cole could hear more sirens. In seconds the place would be crawling with cops, and a standoff would ensue if Bennett hadn’t found the Dealey Tape by that point. The officers would surround the store and call in special forces—which would take another thirty minutes—and by the time everyone was in place, Bennett would have found the unmarked tape inside the Reds case. Then he’d negotiate his way out by using Tori as trade bait. Cole could see the scenario developing so clearly.
“Get down on the floor!” the policeman shouted at Cole.
As Cole began to drop to his knees, he chopped the back of the officer’s wrist with his hand. The gun fell to the floor, and as the officer reached to retrieve it, Cole smashed his chin with a powerful uppercut. The policeman toppled backward, unconscious.
Cole grabbed the revolver and moved toward the storage room. As he aimed at the door, there was a loud explosion from within. Instantly Cole fired twice into the lock, blowing it apart, then slammed his shoulder into the door and fell into the room. He rolled twice, smashed against a rack of tapes and aimed in the direction of the shot.
He was unprepared for the sight that met his eyes at the end of the officer’s gun. Bennett lay on the floor near the store’s back door, blood pouring from a wound in his chest, the Reds cassette case on the floor beside him. Tori sat on the floor a few feet away, one wrist chained to a rack of tapes by a pair of handcuffs, the other holding the General’s gun which she had slipped into her jacket just before she and Cole had entered the interstate.
“What the hell?” Cole rose unsteadily to his feet.
“He found the Dealey Tape!” Tori yelled. “He was going to escape out the back door. I couldn’t let him do that, not after all we’ve been through.” Her breath was coming in shallow gasps. “Get the key to the handcuffs. It’s in his pants pocket. Get me out of these things. Come on, Cole! Hurry!”
Bennett moaned and pulled himself into a sitting position against the wall. Cole whipped his gun around, covering Bennett, searching for a gun in the other man’s hand. But Bennett was unarmed. Cole spotted Bennett’s gun lying against the far wall, where it had fallen when Tori shot him. Bennett’s head was resting against the cinderblock wall and a tiny rivulet of blood was oozing down his chin.
Cole’s eyes flashed back to the doorway. Policemen would be spilling through that door in a matter of seconds. They’d arrest him, and there would go any chance of getting the Dealey Tape into the proper hands and collecting the money. The DIA would hear of this incident, and the tape would be gone forever.
Cole bolted to where Bennett sat against the wall and picked up the case, checking to make certain the Dealey Tape was inside.
“Cole!” Tori screamed. “Don’t leave me here!”
He gazed at her. She was pointing the General’s gun in his direction. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Get the key to the handcuffs!”
He blinked. The sirens were closing in.
“She’s DIA,” Bennett groaned. “Don’t let her out of those handcuffs.”
“What?” Cole turned to face Bennett.
“Don’t listen to him,” Tori hissed. “He’s trying to delay you until the cops get here. If he can’t have that tape, he doesn’t want you to have it.”
“She’s DIA. I recognize her, Cole,” Bennett whispered. It was all he could do to speak. “She’s part of the operation I told you about. She works for a man named William Seward. He runs Operation Snowfall. The one I told you about on the river.”
Cole glanced back at Tori. She was still pointing the gun straight at him. She had smashed the General’s head by throwing the rock through the window, then run around the house to the front door. The natural reaction should have been to run away. Now she had shot a man. Maybe she was DIA.
“Get the key, Cole,” Tori urged, still aiming the gun at him.
“Check under the fingernail of her left index finger,” Bennett said weakly, coughing. “Check for the brand.”
Cole glanced at Tori’s left hand, chained to the rack of tapes.
Tori shook her head as she leveled the gun at him. “If you leave here without me, you’ll do the deal with someone else, Cole. Your father wanted me to get credit for finding that tape. I’ve been through way too much to let you walk out that door without me and sell it to someone else. Take a step for that door, Cole, and I’ll shoot you, I swear.” The gun shook in her hand and tears streamed down her cheeks.
“It’s all an act,” Bennett spoke as loudly as he could. “She’s DIA, Cole.”
“Liar!” Tori screamed. “You want to see what’s under my fingernail? Is that what you want, Cole? Will that convince you?” She held out the hand chained to the rack. “Is this the finger?” She made a fist except for the index finger.
“Tori, don’t!” Cole yelled.
But it was too late. She shoved the finger in her mouth and jammed her lower front teeth under the nail. The nail tore neatly away from one side and she screamed in agony. Blood poured from the spot, but she sucked it away and held up the finger. There was no brand.
“You bastard, Bennett.” Cole reached down and searched Bennett’s pockets. It took him a few moments, but he found the key, scrambled to Tori, released her from the handcuffs, pulled her to her feet and hugged her tightly. “You’re incredible.”
“We’ve got to get out of here!” she implored.
“Right.” Cole grabbed her by the hand and pulled her out the back door.
Bennett’s chin dropped to his chest as he watched them disappear out the door. He could feel his lungs filling with blood, and he would die whether or not the doctors at the Helena hospital could save him. If he survived the operation, agents would find him and there would simply be another, more accurately aimed bullet.
He crawled across the floor, listening to the policemen shouting to each other as they entered the video store. As he reached the gun lying against the far wall, the first officer moved through the doorway behind the counter and into the storage room, gun drawn.
“Freeze!” the officer shouted.
But Bennett had already reached the gun. In one smooth motion he picked it up, pressed the barrel to his temple and fired.
25
Tori followed Cole as he hobbled quickly across the blacktop and into the woods behind the strip mall. It was deserted here behind the stores. There seemed to be no one milling about the Dumpsters and semitrailers. In the cover of the woods, Cole turned right, toward the sound of cars on the interstate a quarter of a mile away.
Tori held her left index finger tightly in her right hand, trying to stop the bleeding as she stuck close to Cole. The fingertip felt as if it were on fire. She took her hand away from the finger, glanced at the nail and cringed. The nail rose slowly until it was standing straight up. It was completely torn away from the skin on one side, still attached on the other.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Back to the Bronco,” Cole replied as he limped around trees, still clutching the Dealey Tape.
“The Bronco doesn’t have any fuel. Remember, smartass?” She was furious with him. The pain in her finger was almost unbea
rable, and he was to blame for it.
Cole didn’t answer. He just kept going.
A few seconds later they reached the edge of the interstate. Cars flashed past as Cole searched the roadway for police cruisers. It was almost five o’clock in the afternoon, and traffic had picked up as people headed home from work. A few hundred yards north of where they stood, the Bronco was still parked on the side of the road with Bennett’s white sedan directly behind it. However, they saw no police cars.
“We’re going down there,” Cole said, pointing at the two vehicles. “You’re driving because I can’t. My ankle’s killing me. Plus you’ll be able to drive without having to worry about being recognized. That cop at the video store never got a look at you. The police won’t have your description unless one of the customers in the store when we first ran inside gives it to them, and I doubt we have to worry about that. Those people were too busy trying to get out of there to remember any details. The cops will be searching for me. If we see any police, I’ll get down in the seat. They won’t be looking for a woman driving by herself.”
“What about roadblocks?” Tori asked.
“I think the only place the police could set up any roadblocks would be on the interstates. There are too many other roads to cover. Montana is too big. And we’re not going to stay on the interstate very long. We’re going to travel on back roads and head south toward Bozeman, then around Bozeman and east to Livingston. After that we’ll head over to Billings. From Billings we’ll fly to Minneapolis. There should be a plane going to the Twin Cities in the morning. From Minneapolis we’ll go to New York and get this tape to your boss.”
Tori glanced up. “What happened to me having nothing but the right of first refusal? I thought you were going to shop your piece of gold around so you could get the best offer, then come back to me to see if I could match it.”
The Legacy Page 28