A second black helicopter shot out over the mesa behind us and swooped low over our heads. Nobody heard this one coming. In fact, we still only heard a whirr, like the sound of a grouse taking flight. This helicopter was flat black, long, thin, and angular, sort of like a giant dragonfly.
Alarmed, the goons ducked and swung their weapons toward it.
And away from us.
Vargas fairly took flight, I don’t know how, but only as a luchadore can. The dreaded Chicken of Death was executing his very own Mexican kung fu. His Oaxaca karate. His Chihuahua jujitsu. El Gallo de Muerte was deploying his signature Tijuana takedown, none other than El Huevo Podrido. Vargas’s legs forked one goon’s middle, and his arms came up to his opponent’s neck. So linked, the force of the impact sent them end over end like a wheel across the desert scrub.
Like a billy goat, Gabby head butted the other goon in the back just as Nicholas lunged and grabbed for the gun. A shot fired into the air, and the gun fell to the ground.
“Garth!” Nicholas scooped up the gun and tossed it to me.
I caught the gun, and saw Lanston jogging back up the gully. I looked down the sights of the pistol at her. “Stop!”
She stopped all right, and trained her gun on me.
“Drop it!” she shouted.
I fired.
Don’t ask me exactly how or why—I just did. Maybe I was just getting a little tired of being pushed around, maybe it was the dehydration and lack of sleep. Don’t mess with Garth when he’s cranky.
Then again, maybe I could blame my sage friend Dudley, who had a somewhat shady past but had reformed and occupied himself stuffing songbirds. After a few bourbons, he’d reflect obtusely on the old days. Out of nowhere, he’d muster up his most rumbling Southern accent and advise something like: “If anybody ever points a pistola at you while you are pointing a pistola at them, never hesitate. Empty your weapon, sir.” I’d never given it much thought. But as soon as I was there, in that moment, that sage advice clicked. Instantly.
I’ve also heard that you can tell when someone is about to try to kill you the second before it happens. Not just because they are pointing a gun at you, or say something dramatic like “It’s curtains for you, bub.” Supposedly the better Western gunslingers had developed this sense, when their opponents hadn’t even drawn their guns, or even said anything at all. Now, I’ve been subjected to murderous intent before, but haven’t exactly made a study of it. Perhaps I was learning something inadvertently, because when she said “drop it,” I knew—knew—she was about to blow me away. And probably the rest of my cohorts, too.
If I knew anything at all about guns other than pulling the trigger, or to stiff arm the pistol at arm’s length like they do on cop shows, I could also tell you how many shells that gun held. I would maybe even be able to tell you what make of gun it was and what caliber shells it employed. Then there might be a chance I would also be able to tell you after the fact exactly how many I fired. Because assuming it was completely loaded, the pistol had stopped going BLAM BLAM BLAM and started going click click click by the time I realized Lanston had crumpled to the ground.
Not bad shooting for a mere Star-level Boy Scout, if I do say so.
“Garth!” That was my mom’s astonished voice. I looked, and her face was contorted. She grabbed me, raised her hand, and for some reason I thought she was going to hit me. Generally, it’s safe to assume your mom’ll be PO’d if she sees you shoot someone or do anything that might result in a poked-out eye.
But the hand grasped my cheek and a big toothy grin blossomed on her wizened face. “Good shooting, boy!”
Garth and Vargas had the two subdued soldiers sitting sheepishly in the dirt, hands behind their heads.
I heard a groan and squinted in Lanston’s direction. She lay on her side between two sage bushes, one foot up on a rock, moving slightly. I looked at the gun trembling in my hand.
“I had to…I mean, I had to, didn’t I? Is it murder?”
“Garth, you did the right thing!” Nicholas panted from his tussle. “If you’d dropped that gun we’d all be dead now. Self-defense.”
“But is she…should we…”
The second helicopter zipped back overhead and then descended directly down a little behind the other helicopter.
Post a sign: VALET PARKING. The gully was getting crowded.
“Hold it!” came over a loudspeaker.
Now who?
Through the latest rotor-induced dust storm we could see the figure of a tall, slim woman flanked by two beefy men in suits. All sported more guns.
I looked at Nicholas, and our eyes met. Do we shoot it out? Hell, I was out of bullets. Or do they call them shells? I kept finding myself regretting I knew so little about guns.
Nicholas smiled and whispered: “It’s only Stella.” His gun hit the sand.
I looked up, and sure enough I could see her glowing skin contrasting against some light green pantsuit. And the two guys in ties? Brickface and Stucco.
I tossed my gun aside. Hey, what were the chances someone would say “kill them” twice in one day?
chapter 28
As the newest arrivals to the gully drew near, I was poised to ask a slew of questions when Stella looked at Brickface, then Stucco, and murmured:
“Kill them.”
This time there was no moment to react before the shooting started.
But it was brief.
Brickface put a bullet into the chest of one goon, and Stucco dispatched the other. The men in black jumpsuits slumped over, twitching, impossibly dark blood rapidly pooling around them. I turned away, and almost tossed my cheese curds.
I suddenly felt extremely weary. Not physically tired, just emotionally and morally exhausted. How a person can so casually end someone else’s life, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me, but nothing makes humankind seem a more worthless enterprise than an insouciant rubout.
Vargas was comforting Gabby—she’d burst into tears.
Stella glanced in Lanston’s direction. “Who shot her?”
I raised my hand, averting my eyes from the two dying men.
“You must be joking.”
Nicholas stepped up to Stella, his face red with fury. “Was that really necessary?”
Stella, still with a gun held loosely in her hands, stepped around him and leaned casually on the half-track, a smirk on her face. “Just obeying orders.”
Brickface and Stucco had holstered their guns and busied themselves taking pictures of the balloon with little digital zoom cameras. Oddly, the balloon had ceased to rise. Like a silver hummingbird in the sky, it just hovered over the nearest hillside, a couple thousand feet up, Fowler an itsy-bitsy spider dangling on a thread below in the light of the rising desert sun.
Nicholas’s eye twitched, the way it used to when we were kids just before the bully he confronted beat the crap out of him.
“Whose orders? Since when did Wilberforce/ Peete begin putting out contracts on military personnel and telling the FBI what to do?”
Stella was taking her time lighting a slim brown cigarette, her gun pointing lazily at Nicholas. She took a deep drag, and smiled. “First of all, let’s not forget these two dead men were intent on killing all of you a few minutes ago. They themselves are government murderers and had it coming. Secondly, you should know things aren’t quite so simple, Nicky. Alliances are sometimes both ways. In this case”—she gestured with her gun at Brickface and Stucco—“the FBI and Wilberforce/Peete have mutual interests here. We didn’t want this Air Force project to succeed. That is, nobody wanted them to kill Fowler and you four, which we knew they would if you reached this…”
“Hold it,” I interjected. “What possible interest could—”
“Insurance, Garth.” Stella didn’t let me finish. “This balloon project was developed by Gibraltar Aerospace under contract to the Air Force. There is a similar project in direct competition to this one being developed by American International Systems under contract
to the Missile Defense Agency and under-written by Wilberforce/Peete. Get it now?”
I nodded and said, “No. Who or what is the Missile Defense Agency?”
“I get it.” Nicholas sighed. “The MDA is a branch of the Pentagon developing laser weapons, and they are in a race with the Air Force to come up with something first to keep their funding. If the Air Force project is a success, and American International doesn’t get a contract to develop their system, Wilberforce/Peete has to pony up considerable cash. They insured American International Systems against not getting the development deal.” He shot a look at Stella. “Have I got it right?”
“You have.” She tipped her ash at him and grimaced at the brightening sky. “Curiously well.”
I scratched my head. “So the Air Force and the MDA—both part of the Pentagon—are competing against each other for aerospace balloon supremacy.”
“It’s all about lasers,” Nicholas said dryly. “These balloons aren’t flimsy but are made of dense, lightweight composites so they don’t look much like a balloon. They go way up, and have mirrors to reflect land-based beams at targets in the stratosphere.”
“Our tax dollars at work. But what’s the FBI got invested in the failure of the Air Force’s balloon project?”
“We’ve been trying to find this secret location for a while,” Brickface chimed in. “Who do you think has to put up with all the UFO conspiracy fallout that the Air Force invents? The FBI does. So we’d like to see this alien saucer stuff come to an end. Wilberforce/Peete, acting more or less as American International’s agent, clued us in on how the murders were tied to Fowler and why the Air Force had taken such a keen interest in a serial killer.”
Stucco put in his two cents. “How we gonna get him down from there?”
“Just what are you doing here, Nicky?” Stella asked pointedly. “How did you know where to come?”
“I’m here to help Garth, that’s what I’m doing here.”
“You’re not, by any chance, here on behalf of Gibraltar Aerospace, are you?”
He ignored her. “Look, if you killed these two it must mean you’re dispatching witnesses to the MDA, FBI, and Wilberforce/Peete’s involvement. Are you going to shoot us? If you are, let’s get this over with. We’ve had about enough of this nonsense.”
“I haven’t,” Vargas protested, speaking rapidly. “Shoot him if you want. I didn’t see anything. I’m no witness. I didn’t see anything.”
“Um, I’m with Vargas.” I patted the air toward Nicholas. “Let’s not rush this.”
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, in the direction of Lanston. I ducked. Maybe I was getting flinchy, could have been a small bird. Or maybe my reactions were improving.
There was a gunshot and I knew my reactions weren’t half bad. I scrambled to the far side of the half-track, behind the rear treads. I found Vargas and Gabby there—they’d been closer to the rear of the vehicle when hell broke loose. Gabby looked pale, wan—not well. Was she just tired or suffering some sort of serious ailment? Nicholas came ducking around the front of the truck and hid behind the huge front wheel.
Gunshots continued, some pinging off the opposite side of the half-track.
I looked at Nicholas, and shouted over the gun battle: “I guess Lanston isn’t quite dead.”
“Sorry, killer.” He shrugged. “She must have been wearing a vest. Kevlar. You just knocked her out.”
I scanned the half-track, and then gestured to Vargas and Gabby. “Vargas, help her into the back, and sit with her. Nicholas—you’re with me, in the cab. Let’s blow this pop stand.”
“Pop stand?” He winced. “In this piece of junk?”
“Armor-plated junk. Let’s get Mom out of here, how’s that?”
“She’s not my…”
“She is your mom more than anybody else. And I’m your brother no matter who your genetic father is.”
He looked a little surprised, and betrayed a grin.
“OK, brother. Let’s blow this pop stand.”
chapter 29
I was hunkered down in the driver’s seat, Nicholas was crouched in the passenger seat. My thumb hovered over the black starter button on the dash, my foot pumping the accelerator, and periodic bullets plinking the truck’s armor.
How many times had someone else been in this position? Your car stalls on the railroad tracks and here comes the Chicago Limited.
Start, car, start!
Wuh, wuh, wuh, wuh…
You’re in the approach to the Holland Tunnel on a blazing summer Sunday afternoon, ten thousand irritable motorists behind you in a traffic jam when your engine stalls.
Start, car, start!
Wuh, wuh, wuh, wuh…
You’re parking at Muldoon Point with your girlfriend, watching the submarine races, when The Blob oozes into view.
Start, car, start!
Wuh, wuh, wuh, wuh…
Remind me to send a letter of commendation to the White Motor Company, if it even still exists. Had Bobby and Peggy Sue been necking in an M3 half-track instead of a ’57 Chevy, maybe The Blob never would have devoured them.
The half-track roared to life, exhaust billowing in a blue-black cloud around us.
Hunched over the steering wheel to keep a low profile, I shifted the truck into gear and we lurched forward. Through the little gun portal I couldn’t detect the whereabouts of Stella, Brickface, and Stucco, but I assumed they’d taken up position behind rocks to my left. Lanston was last seen somewhere to my right. We were probably headed directly between them, into the fray.
“Where’d you learn to drive this thing?” Nicholas shouted.
“Rat Patrol!” I wound the truck up and ground it into third.
We rumbled down the gully, and I realized the helicopters were in the way. Now I could have sneaked around them, if I were careful. But then I thought, Why be careful?
I ground the tranny into fourth, bullets plinking off the sides of the armor plating.
Titan’s rolling pin on the front of the half-track smashed into the Air Force helicopter and bashed it into the FBI helicopter. We pushed them for about twenty feet before the sky heaved into view—up we went over both of them. Rotor blades whirled and splintered before us, bashing into the metal armor of the half-track. Fiberglass shattered and flew in all directions. Metal crumpled and tore, rivets popping. The truck’s rear treads shuddered as they ground over one of the chopper’s engines and we slammed back down on terra firma.
Nicholas roared with laughter. “Perfect!”
“So, you are here for Gibraltar Aerospace, aren’t you?” I shouted back. “That’s what I overheard Lanston talking about. Gibraltar was sending someone.”
“I’m here for you, first and foremost.”
His equivocation was palpable, even over the clank, rattle, and drum of the vehicle, shards of fiberglass still clicking free of the undercarriage.
“By way of Gibraltar? All makes perfect sense. You were darn quick to stop Vargas from shooting that balloon. Gabby wasn’t anywhere near his line of fire. And I’d be willing to bet a hundred dollars you don’t have a subscription to Popular Mechanics—how’d you happen to know all that stuff about laser balloons?”
Nicholas shot me a look from where he had braced himself between the door and the dash. I detected a brief calculation, then an internal shrug as he looked me in the eye. “Technically, it was Gibraltar’s insurer, Global Underwriters, that hired me. When I started looking into this, about the Air Force kicking Fowler outta here, you telling me the Air Force was involved, things started to fit together. So I made a few calls and then went to Global to sniff them out—I knew they were involved in underwriting things like this for aerospace contractors. They wanted me to find Fowler, and I knew the best way to do that was to stick close to you. I had to make sure Fowler didn’t interfere with the liftoff, to back up Lanston. I didn’t count on Lanston getting smart and trying to kill us all. And I didn’t figure on Stella showing up.”
> “Well, well, well. My brother using me as bait to catch Fowler.” I snorted. “Doesn’t this all just figure?”
“Garth, I would have come out here anyway, you know. No reason not to come and get paid for it on top of helping you out. Hey, I never would have gotten to you at Vargas’s so quick without Gibraltar’s private jet. And they flew Gabby here, too.”
Damn him. Risk management espionage? Couldn’t he ever do something out of brotherly or filial obligation? There always had to be an angle with Nicholas.
“So let me guess. You’re getting married as some sort of arrangement with Mutual of Omaha? Because it damn well couldn’t be for love.”
His face reddened, and the skin around his eyes got dusky as he tried to contain his anger.
“You’ve been needling me about this marriage, trying to get a rise out of me, and now you finally have. Happy? And what is it you want from me? Some sort of admission that I have weaknesses, that I need love? Well, I do, everybody does, I just don’t think I have to wear it on my sleeve all the time the way you do. You and Angie fairly taunt me with your family bullshit, thinking you can change me by making me feel inadequate. Did it ever occur to you two that I don’t need to be changed, that I can change on my own? That I needed to find the right person for me and work it out? And you, Garth, act so friggin’ high and mighty. You have your girl and your love and your little taxidermy paradise, but isn’t it funny, the one thing that’s missing?”
I’m not sure if I asked him about what was missing or not, but he answered anyway.
“A dog. Garth is afraid of getting a dog and I’m afraid of getting married. What do these things have in common, brother dear?”
The barrage of emotion from him was almost unprecedented, and I admit that I was fairly stunned.
“Well, I’ll tell you what the common element is, Garth. It came to me a few weeks ago. I visited Skunk Junction, where the house used to be. All wiped clean. Except for one thing. There are some rotten boards still in that tree out back. The one where the tree fort was. The one where you kept that possum, Arnold.”
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