Power Down

by Ben Coes

  The Mercedes made its way to the front of the police line, where it was immediately flagged. Not less than five deputies and two state troopers came quickly to the side of the vehicle, two of them brandishing M60s.

  Jean opened the window as he slowly inched forward.

  “Can I help you, officers?” he asked politely. He handed them his license before they could ask for it.

  “Out of the car,” said the policeman holding the machine gun, training it on Jean’s head.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, opening the door and stepping out into the snow, arms above his head.

  “Where are you going?” one of the uniformed troopers said, shining a flashlight on the license, then into the sedan. Another officer opened the passenger-side back door, revealing an empty car.

  “Southampton,” said Jean. “I’m a chauffeur for Mark Bluntman. Do you know him?”

  The officers didn’t respond to the question. Two officers searched the sedan while a third patted down Jean. The officers moved around behind the car.

  “Pop the trunk,” barked one of the troopers from behind the car.

  Inside the trunk, Fortuna heard the trooper’s words. He felt sweat on his forehead. His heart pounded.

  Jean leaned into the car and pressed the trunk button.

  Fortuna heard the latch click just in front of him. As if in slow motion, the dark steel above him moved upward. Light entered the space and he felt blinded for a moment. When the trunk was just a few inches ajar, Fortuna suddenly kicked up with his right foot as he pulled back on the triggers of both weapons. Before the officers knew what was happening, bullets splattered across their chests, sending blood in a patchwork behind them, across the front windshield of a minivan, the dark-haired woman inside screaming as she watched the troopers get slaughtered in cold blood.

  Standing up quickly, Fortuna turned in the trunk and kept firing, aiming his weapons at the troopers in front of the sedan. One was able to get a round off, but it struck the steel of the trunk in front of the terrorist. Fortuna leveled him with several bullets to the skull.

  Jean had already ducked back into the vehicle.

  “Drive!” Fortuna yelled. Suddenly, the explosion of a gun behind him echoed, followed almost simultaneously by the clang of a bullet striking the trunk next to him. Fortuna wheeled to face the new threat.

  Dewey maneuvered up the breakdown lane until he was just a few hundred feet from the flashing blue lights of the police checkpoint. The line had stopped. Several police officers were gathered around a car; it was a black sedan. All four policemen had their weapons drawn as a stocky Arab with a ski hat climbed out of the front of what Dewey now saw was the Mercedes. The Arab with the ski hat wasn’t Fortuna, but Dewey knew it was the car, that the man was involved. Had Fortuna gotten out? Perhaps he’d pulled what, in Delta, they called a “dog leg”; jumping out of the car a mile back and tracking alongside the highway to avoid the checkpoint. He pushed the taxi toward the front. After being frisked, the driver of the Mercedes leaned into the front seat as four of the troopers moved behind the car.

  Suddenly, the staccato burst of automatic weapons rang out. Fortuna. Dewey opened the door and ran toward the scene as he saw Fortuna stand up in the back of the Mercedes trunk, a machine gun in each hand. He mowed down the police behind the vehicle, then turned. Standing in the trunk, using the open trunk as a shield, he turned toward the remaining officers in front of the car and sprayed them through with lead, killing them all.

  Dewey raised the Colt as he ran, struggling to keep his footing in the thick, wet snow and underlying ice; he slipped but kept moving. He fired the first shot, which rang loudly as it hit the steel of the trunk, missing the terrorist. Fortuna turned in time to see Dewey, and he arced the machine gun in his right arm across his chest, starting to fire. But Dewey’s second shot struck Fortuna in the stomach, dropping him down into the trunk. At the same time, the Mercedes lurched forward, shutting the trunk with its sudden momentum. Dewey’s final shot struck the steel of the trunk once more as the car peeled away.

  All around, Dewey could hear screams coming from inside the cars near the grisly scene. Several cars attempted to screech away from the horrible carnage.

  Running to the nearest police car, which was idling next to the scene, Dewey jumped into the front seat. He stomped on the gas pedal and sped forward, chasing the black Mercedes which was now a quarter mile away, still visible. This was a far better ride than the taxi had been, but the snow was getting even thicker. Still, Dewey kept the accelerator to the ground, his body humming with the knowledge that he’d wounded his prey.

  He picked up the police radio.

  “I need somebody,” he said.

  “Dispatch. Who is this?”

  “My name is Dewey Andreas. You have at least eight dead officers at the Manorville checkpoint. I’m working with the FBI and in pursuit of the killer. I need to be patched into FBI CENCOM immediately. Jessica Tanzer. This is an emergency.”

  Fortuna punched the compartment latch in and squeezed into the backseat, his face contorting in pain. Jean looked in the rearview mirror.

  “Alexander,” he said. “Are you okay?”

  Fortuna was silent, except for a labored panting.

  “Alexander,” he repeated, knowing his boss had been injured.

  Jean craned his neck and looked around at Fortuna. Fortuna held his hand against his stomach, but dark blood oozed out over the gloved fingertips.

  “Get to the house,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He closed his eyes.

  “Aw, shit,” Jean said. “You’re hurt. Oh, man. You can’t die, Alexander.”

  “Don’t be a fucking woman,” whispered Fortuna. “I’m not going to die.”

  The Mercedes soon entered the town of Bridgehampton, which was silent in the middle of the winter night. They passed through the town, whose snow-covered main street was deserted in the winter storm. In the rearview mirror, Jean could see the headlights of a police car, gaining on them, less than a quarter mile away.

  “Someone’s following us,” said Jean. “Police car.”

  “It’s Andreas,” said Fortuna in a pained grunt.

  “Who’s Andreas?” asked Jean.

  “Where are we?”

  “Bridgehampton.”

  “Throw me your hat,” Fortuna said.

  Jean tossed it back to Fortuna.

  Intense pain stabbed at Fortuna’s gut. He had to stop the bleeding. He wedged the wool cap into the entry hole on the left side of his stomach. He seemed to have no exit wound, but the internal damage was obviously substantial. He balled up his body in the fetal position, seeking to slow the bleeding and ease the extreme pain he felt from the porous material in the wound.

  It wasn’t working.

  Unfolding his body, then removing and using his belt, Fortuna managed to cinch the cap more tightly about, and inside, the wound. The pain worsened, but for the time being, the bleeding stopped.

  “How long?” he asked Jean.

  “Five minutes.”

  “Dewey, it’s Jessica.”

  “Where are you? They just killed the entire police crew.”

  “I’m in the air, we’re over Southampton.”

  “Do we have a house? Where’s he headed?”

  “Nothing. They’re back-matching legal entities but it’s taking time.”

  “I’m behind him, in a police cruiser, less than a quarter mile. I shot him. He’s wounded.”

  “Keep the line open.”

  Dewey pressed the pedal to the floor and careened through the deserted, snow-swept streets of Southampton, then Bridgehampton. The cruiser had incredible power, as well as snow tires. But the Mercedes kept moving forward at a torrid pace.

  In East Hampton, the Mercedes took a fast right beyond the small town, Egypt Lane. Dewey struggled to follow, the snow not having been touched yet and more than a foot of powder on the ground. They passed massive houses, brick, or shingle-style homes that towered in the dis
tance, surrounded by fences, gates, security. A left followed, Further Lane. The Mercedes actually increased speed in the terrible conditions. On the tight lanes, Dewey pressed the pedal and came close to hitting a tree. He had to get closer, but was losing him. Down Further Lane, Dewey moved in closer as the Mercedes barreled down the thin, tree-lined road, branches sagging down under the weight of the thick snow. Around a set of sharp corners, Dewey maneuvered the police car, nearly losing control.

  As Dewey came flying around a corner, just before a large, overhanging elm tree, the Mercedes stood at the side of the road, next to the man from the checkpoint, in a white sleeveless T-shirt, despite the snow. By him stood Fortuna. Both had machine guns. Dewey saw the red blot of fresh blood at Fortuna’s midsection as both men opened fire on his car as he came out of the turn. The bullets shattered the windshield as Dewey ducked, then swerved, out of control, sliding sideways, blindly from beneath the steering wheel, trying to get past the Mercedes. A patch of black ice appeared beneath the snow; suddenly the front of the cruiser slid uncontrollably to the left, through the slippery snow, and he felt it then, in his spine at first, the center of gravity shifting, the car beginning to leave its axis, its positioning, and traction on the ground, and with eighty miles per hour of g-force, the combination sending the car rising. Only a fraction of a second, yet it felt like an eternity. The car left the ground and began a series of flips and rolls down the road.

  As the car rolled, Dewey struggled to keep his grip on the wheel and foot on the gas pedal. His momentum would not take the cruiser past the Mercedes and if the police cruiser landed on its roof, he was dead. They would still be in front of him, waiting, firing. If he landed wheel side up, though, he might just survive.

  One roll, two, three, four, until finally the last one seemed to last longer. The car came to rest on its side, then slowly settled onto its wheels with the momentum of the run. This was it: Dewey gunned the engine, which roared and hurtled the destroyed cruiser forward, keeping him a moving target, a threat even, to the gunmen, until he lost control and shot into the woods and down an embankment. Down the side of a snow-covered hill it plunged until it made an abrupt stop against an old stone wall at least a hundred feet below the road.

  Dewey had struck his head hard against the steering wheel. His nose bled profusely and his ears rang. But he could not give up. He looked to his right for the cell phone. Gone. Same with the Colt.

  Seize the opportunity, he thought.

  He tried to unbuckle his seat belt, but it was stuck beneath a heap of wedged-in metal from the door, which had been pushed in during the tumble. He felt for his Gerber knife, strapped to his left calf. It was hard to reach but he just was able to grip the hilt, as suddenly bullets began to shower the cruiser, Fortuna’s driver giving chase down the hill. Dewey smelled gasoline then. He took the serrated upper edge of the blade and used it to rip away at the nylon seat belt. More bullets from the terrorist’s machine gun pelted the metal of the cruiser, and the aroma of gasoline became stronger and more immediate. He finally cut the seat belt. He climbed desperately out of the wrecked door, moving as quickly as he could away from the police car, sidling into the forest before the killer could see him.

  Dewey ran along the stone wall. He turned back and for a quick second saw a flash of light as the Mercedes’ lights illuminated the icy hillside. He could see the police car halfway down the hill, and the terrorist descending the hill to kill him. The terrorist held the gun at mid-waist and sent volleys off every few seconds until one of the bullets struck the leaking gas and the police car ignited into bright orange flames, illuminating the stocky Arab. Above, the Mercedes pushed away.

  Dewey moved up the icy hill as quickly as he could. By climbing along the remains of an old stone wall, he made little noise. He felt pain throughout his body now, pain to compete with his shoulder wound. Fatigue compounded the sharp bolts of trauma in his stomach, ribs, in the right side of his head above his ear. His nose poured blood into the snow as he walked.

  Then the warmth came. He began to taste it, the warm dose of adrenaline he’d come to rely on again and again since the attack on Capitana, fueling the final yards of his ascent.

  Dewey watched from the hillside above as the terrorist got down on his knees, trying to get a good look in the burning car to confirm Dewey’s demise; finally, resigned, probably assuming the job had been done, he turned to hike back up the hill.

  Dewey waited. He tasted a snowflake on his lip, others melting against his warm cheek. His breathing grew slower as he anticipated the next move. The killer climbed quickly up the hillside. The flames from the burning police cruiser began to dissipate into dark smoke as the terrorist climbed. The terrorist started to whistle as he neared the road, a dissonant tune that Dewey didn’t recognize. The compact HK UMP hung from a strap around his neck. By the time he was near the top of the hill, he was winded, and Dewey could hear him breathing heavily.

  Dewey waited with his knife out. As the killer approached Dewey’s tree and stepped onto the snow-covered road, Dewey stepped calmly from behind the tree. He clutched the man’s forehead and pulled his blade across his throat, once, twice, then stabbed him through his ribs and into his heart. The man crumpled to the ground. Dewey grabbed the weapon, ran down the road now, following the tire tracks left by the Mercedes in the snow, praying that he’d catch Fortuna before the terrorist reached the detonator, dawning a terrible new day God knew where. Down Further Lane he ran, navigating through the snow and ice until in the distance he saw a set of stone and iron gates, the tire prints running up the lane.

  He sprinted down a long driveway, covered in snow, that seemed without end. His lungs burned as the cold air bit at them and at his throat, along with years’ worth of cigarettes and Jack Daniel’s. But he didn’t slow, even when he crested a hill, heard ocean, saw lights. The snow seemed to be lightening. Windows twinkled far in the distance. He had a downhill pitch now and he kicked even harder toward the house. As he came closer, the largest home he’d ever seen came into view, a stunning mansion that stretched left to right in a vista around a large circular driveway. There must have been a hundred windows on the three-floor expanse. Shingle and dark shutters as far as he could see, painted with snow.

  There in the driveway, behind a fountain that sat in the middle of the circle, sat the dark outline of the Mercedes, still running, door ajar.

  Dewey ran to the Mercedes with the machine gun extended in front of him. A trail of blood from the open door intermingled with tracks through the snow. He sprinted to the front door of the house, which was wide open, following the path of blood on the ground. He continued in through a large dining room, then a dimly lit hallway.

  He felt pain in his head, but ignored it as he moved toward the target.

  He had only himself now, and whatever he could bring.

  Throughout the house, he could hear ocean pounding angrily against the shore.

  At last, he came to the light. In a large room at the far end of the mansion, dark green walls, a blazing fireplace. Then the terrorist, Fortuna, his back to him.

  Ignoring the blood that coursed down his lips from his nose and ears, and his hands still sticky with the other terrorist’s blood, Dewey kicked in the French doors and stepped into the large, warm room. He aimed the HK UMP at Fortuna. Fortuna turned in the chair. In his hand, a shiny silver object that looked like a television remote. Detonator. He held it up.

  Had he pushed one already? More? All of them? Dewey wondered. Or is he bargaining for his life?

  Fortuna appeared ashen, almost white under a sheen of perspiration. He panted in short bursts. Still, under it all, Dewey could see the face of the man he was; the sharp outline of his nose, hair slightly long, brushed back. Even near death, there was a charisma, composed in part by his looks, and by eyes that penetrated Dewey from half a room away. Looking down at the tan carpet, a large pool of blood surrounded the area beneath the chair. From his waist down, Dewey could see that the terrorist’
s pants were drenched in crimson. He stared back at Dewey, holding the detonator in his hand.

  From this close, Dewey could see that Fortuna’s gloved index, middle, and ring fingers were poised above three of the buttons near the detonator’s bottom.

  “This button sets off a bomb at Staples Center in Los Angeles,” said Fortuna, barely above a whisper, obviously in extreme pain. “This one will trigger a massive bomb that’s in a locker at O’Hare.”

  “The third?” Dewey asked.

  “The third. That one wasn’t easy.” He paused, struggling to take in air. “There’s a bomb in a closet at the Supreme Court in Washington. We needed a woman to do that. Karina.”

  Dewey kept the machine gun trained on Fortuna. He stepped forward into the room.

  “Put the weapon down,” said Fortuna. “And don’t move.”

  Dewey walked forward, ignoring Fortuna’s demand, finger on the trigger and gun aimed squarely at Fortuna’s head.

  “Put the detonator down,” said Dewey.

  Fortuna grimaced at a spasm of pain. “I’m just the beginning,” he said. “The tip of the spear. You can’t stop it. My father, my brother. They will come behind me. They won’t stop.”

  “I have brothers too,” said Dewey. “A hundred thousand brothers. This is nothing new to us. We’ve dealt with your type before.”

  Fortuna’s eyes moved from Dewey to the detonator to the flow of blood in his lap. He was minutes away from bleeding out, and they both knew it.

  “Is it medical attention you want?” Dewey said.

  Fortuna opened his mouth, then shut it. Shook his head.

  “Not very convincing,” said Dewey, “or you’d push those buttons, kill a few thousand more people, before I empty this HK into your head.”

  “It was never about the people,” said Fortuna.

  “Right,” said Dewey, anger in his voice. “Yet you killed my men. You’ve killed thousands already.”

  “When you come to our countries, what do you do?” asked Fortuna, eyes meeting Dewey’s. He paused to let another wave of pain pass. “Vietnam? Afghanistan? Iraq? Lebanon? You are so powerful it doesn’t matter that in the plain light of day, when you take away the names of the countries, what you are doing is no different. Except that you are an entire government. Thousands of men, pouring in, with permission, permission because you yourselves make the rules! And you destroy lives. You destroy whole towns.”