Antenna Syndrome

by Alan Annand

  “What’d you tell them?”

  “The truth. I have no idea where he is.”

  “Did my name come up?”

  “Several times. The NYPD’s also issued an arrest warrant for you. Apparently two Midtown detectives were found – butchered was the word they used – in your office last night. Is it true?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t do it.” Even in my mouth, it sounded like a cliché.

  “Did you find Marielle?”

  “Yes. She’s safe now.”

  “Where?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Then why’d you call?”

  “I’m on my way to Hunter Mountain, hopefully to intercept a psycho sent to kill Jordan. I need his phone number and address.”

  “I can’t do that. I’d be fired.”

  “If I don’t find him before the hit man, you’re out of a job anyway.”

  She thought about it a moment, then gave me his coordinates. “But if he’s in danger, shouldn’t we phone him, or alert the police?”

  “Let’s try phoning. Stay on the line.”

  I switched my iFocals to conference call and entered Jordan’s number. We listened as it rang five times before going to voice-mail. An anonymous voice announced asked the caller to leave a message.

  “Harris, it’s Vivien. This is an emergency. There’s a hit man coming for you. You should notify the local police immediately.”

  I added my five rubles worth. “Mister Jordan, this is Keith Savage, a private investigator. The hit man is working for the Russian mob. He’s extremely dangerous, so don’t let him get near you. Watch out for a dark blue van with a rooftop bubble. If it arrives at your place, barricade yourself in the house. If you have any security people with you, put them on high alert. If you don’t, contact the nearest police and get a protective detail.” I ended the call.

  “He doesn’t usually pick up,” she said.

  “Probably still sleeping.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the police ourselves?”

  “No. Given the warrant, the police might concentrate more on arresting me than the hit man. Besides, I’m the only one who knows what Buzz looks like. What kind of car is Jordan driving?”

  “A black Mercedes S-Class.”

  “If the police check in again, you can say we spoke and I warned you about the danger to Jordan, but don’t say anything about my heading up there. At least for a couple of hours. After nine you can tell them anything.”

  Chapter 52

  There was little traffic this time of day and I went up I-87 with the pedal to the metal, passing everything in sight. I called up Fuzzbusters.xxx on my goggles to provide a map of speed traps en route. Fuzzbusters highlighted permanent speed monitoring stations, temporary speed traps, and roadblocks for random breathalyzer tests or ID checks. This allowed subscribers to dodge police activity on the highways, either by slowing down or taking an exit before getting trapped by a roadblock.

  My goggles beeped to warn me of a speed trap ahead. I dragged the Charger down to the speed limit as we passed a highway interchange. With a warrant out for me, the last thing I needed now was the attention of the cops. We passed the populated area and I accelerated back up to speed.

  I saw a dark blue van a quarter mile ahead. I nudged the Charger up to 100 mph and closed the gap. There were mirrored windows at the rear of the van and a Plexiglas bubble on the roof. This was it. I closed in, staying in his five o’clock blind spot for as long as possible.

  “This is our guy,” I told Major. “Get ready. I’ll pull up on his left to give you a shot.”

  No point putting it off. If I could run Buzz off the road and kill him, we’d call it a day. Aside from saving Harris Jordan’s ass, I’d also ensure Buzz never showed up at my doorstep one day. And not that I needed any further rationale but, after the suicide mission I’d sent him on, I owed it to Walker. What was that line from Nietzsche? A little revenge is more human than no revenge.

  Major powered his window down and raised his shotgun. I went left across two lanes and accelerated to pull up alongside Buzz. Just then, I heard the wail of a siren. I looked in the rearview to see the flashing lights of a patrol car that’d just appeared from out of my blind spot.

  Major gave me a quick glance. I knew what he was thinking. Take out the target and deal with the consequences later. But the patrol car pulled up between us and the van, and a grim-faced cop made a violent hand gesture to pull over.

  I took my foot off the gas and both of our cars fell back as the van shot ahead. Then everything went to hell. The bubble dome atop the van slid forward, opening a roof hatch. Two monster hornets popped out and made a low-level kamikaze dive on the patrol car. As they disappeared under the patrol car’s grill, I saw they each carried a packet gripped between their legs. A pair of simultaneous explosions flung the cop car in a somersault across the highway.

  Glass, metal and car parts flew around me as I spun the Charger’s wheel. I careened across the highway, bouncing over twisted scraps of the patrol car. The Charger spun off the shoulder, rolled in the ditch and landed right side up in a shallow pond. The roof was crumpled and Werewolf was howling in my ears.

  I grabbed my shotgun and tote bag and crawled out my window. I bloodied my hand on some broken glass but was otherwise okay. Major and Werewolf climbed out the other windows. They were shook up but, with none of us injured, we were fit to continue. But where and how? The Charger was axle-deep in pond mud, so we couldn’t get out of that hole on our own power.

  We left the ditch and climbed onto the shoulder. Parts of the cop car were scattered everywhere. I looked up I-87. The van was long gone. I stood at the edge of the highway and tried to flag someone down but none of the passing cars stopped. Couldn’t they see there’d been an accident? No matter how furiously I waved, they maneuvered through the debris and kept going.

  “Forget it, man,” Major said. “Nobody’s going to stop for two guys with shotguns and a hyena.”

  ~~~

  As I stood wondering how we’d get to Hunter Mountain now, I heard an engine in the distance. I looked across a field and saw a small plane coming in for a landing. An airport! Major and I trotted through a quarter mile of tall grass to the airfield. Half a dozen hangars were lined up at one end of the asphalt strip, a dozen single-engine light planes parked on the tarmac. A bit further away, sitting all by itself like an ugly duckling, was a helicopter.

  We entered a building whose sign read Newburgh Flying Club. In the lounge the walls were covered with aerial maps. A wooden propeller hung above a fireplace, its mantle crowded with trophies. Model WW2 airplanes hung suspended by threads from the ceiling.

  In an open-concept office, a man in faded grey overalls sat at a desk working an ancient desktop computer. He looked up as we approached, saw the shotguns and raised his hands.

  “Nothing here to steal,” he said, “except aviation fuel.”

  “We want to rent a chopper,” I said.

  The desk jockey had bright blue eyes and a pair of mirrored aviator glasses propped atop his close-trimmed black hair. “The pilot’s not here.”

  “Just the chopper,” Major said.

  “You can fly?”

  “Three hitches in Iraq jockeying Apaches through sandstorms and machinegun fire.” Major flipped open his wallet and showed the man his pilot’s license with helicopter qualifications.

  “I’ll have to check you out on the Ranger first.”

  “We don’t have time.” I showed my credentials and told him we were pursuing a criminal. “How about I just give you a down payment and leave you with my credit card. If we don’t crash on takeoff, you can assume this man knows how to fly.”

  “Money talks.” The man counted my cash, took my credit card and Major’s license, and started punching information into his computer. “You want insurance too?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “Everything we can buy.”

  Chapter 53

  We put Werewolf in the back seat of th
e helicopter. Major started the engine and passed me a headset. As soon as the main rotor came up to speed, he manipulated the collective and the chopper pulled itself into the air. With a hand on the cyclic and his feet on the anti-torque pedals, he pivoted the chopper above the hangars and we clattered off on a northwest track across patchwork fields and orchards.

  “Cops are on the scene now.” Major pointed to the southwest.

  Out on I-87, a pair of State Police cars diverted traffic around the scattered debris while paramedics extricated the state trooper’s body from the wreckage of his car.

  Buzz was racking up a score. I hoped we could stop him before he reached Harris Jordan.

  Major set a course for Hunter Mountain. I punched the address for Jordan’s country house into the onboard GPS. For twenty minutes, we paralleled I-87. I used my binoculars to scan the highway, but I saw no blue van.

  We climbed the westward slope of a mountain range. A secondary road snaked over the hilly terrain. Small lakes, surrounded by summer cottages, glittered under the sun.

  Halfway up the mountain I spotted the bubble-top van on the road. I focused the binoculars and saw Buzz turn his face upwards as we passed him.

  “This must be it.” Major indicated a house on a low ridge. It was screened from the road by a grove of trees. A black sedan was parked in its driveway.

  “Is there room to land on the lawn?”

  “No. I’ll use the lot next door.”

  Fifty yards across the road, a vacant lot had been cleared for someone to build a new house. Major jockeyed the chopper in over the trees, flattening the tops of mountain ash beneath the prop-wash. We were twenty feet off the ground when an explosion rocked us.

  “Tail rotor’s hit.” Major struggled with the controls. I looked back and saw pieces of the rotor flying off, blown away by one of Buzz’s kamikaze hornets. The chopper began to spin.

  The ground rushed up to meet us. The chopper landed hard and I was flung forward in my harness. The forward window cracked on impact. Major killed the engine and we bailed out.

  I freed my harness, kicked my door open and scrambled out. A giant hornet came droning in through the trees. I raised the shotgun and fired. The hornet blew apart with a roar that knocked me on my ass. Damn! Were they all carrying explosive payloads?

  “Get your dog,” I hollered at Major. I pumped another load, ready for more buzz-bombs, but there were no more incoming for the moment. Major climbed from the cockpit and pulled Werewolf out. Fearing more hornets on the way, we ran for the house.

  As we crossed the road, I saw the blue van coming up the hill. Major and I ran up Jordan’s driveway, Werewolf just steps behind. I mounted the porch but found the front door locked. I smashed the window with the shotgun butt, and passed my hand through to unlock the door.

  “What are you doing?” A handsome man with a square jaw and a thick shock of dark hair waved a butcher knife at me. His being barefoot in pajama bottoms and a tank top made him seem less threatening than he might have liked.

  In the kitchen area behind him, a young blonde wearing only a camisole and panties cowered behind a counter island. She looked too young to be his campaign manager.

  “Did you get my voice-mail?” I said. “There’s a hit man coming for you. Do you have a gun?”

  “What?” His florid face drained white as Major entered the house with shotgun in hand, Werewolf at his heels.

  Since Jordan was too flabbergasted to speak, I scanned the living room and answered my own question. On a peg rack above the fireplace was a lever-action Marlin rifle, a heavy-caliber favored by moose hunters.

  “Where’s the ammo?” I yelled at Jordan as I snatched the rifle.

  He stared at me a moment, still dumbfounded.

  Major crouched at the door and fired at something outside. An explosion rocked the porch, and debris rattled the windows like hail. “Where the fuck are those giant hornets coming from?” Major swore.

  Realizing we were under attack, Jordan snapped out of it. He opened a cabinet and produced a box of ammunition. I grabbed a handful of .45-caliber cartridges and started feeding them into the tube magazine.

  Crouched at the front door’s broken window, Major blew another attack hornet to oblivion.

  The blonde dashed upstairs, hopefully to lock herself in the bathroom.

  “Are you any good with this?” I thrust the Marlin into Jordan’s hands.

  “I’ve hunted deer.” He levered a load into the chamber. “What do you want me to do?”

  I looked out a living room window. At the bottom of the driveway, the parked van blocked our only exit. “That guy in the van is a hit man, and you’re on his to-do list. Try to get him before he gets you.”

  A swarm of hornets erupted from the van’s bubble-hatch and flew towards the house. I knocked a pane out of a window and got busy with the shotgun. From the doorway, Major fired several shots. Ejected shells skittered across the floor. From outside came a flurry of loud explosions as each hornet’s payload was detonated mid-air. After half a dozen rounds each, we’d downed all the bomb-bearing hornets. So far, so good.

  While Major and I reloaded, Jordan opened a window and went to work with the rifle. The van’s windshield imploded, and holes erupted in the engine grille. Buzz left the van and took cover in the trees. Jordan fired a few more shots and the van sagged on flattened tires.

  “Look out behind you!” Major yelled, firing a shot into the living room.

  I turned and dropped to one knee. Half a dozen hornets, these without explosive charges, swarmed out of the fireplace. I fired and pumped and fired until my shotgun was empty. Wings, legs and hornet guts spattered the walls and ceiling. Major had run out of shells and started to reload.

  Two more hornets the size of softballs snarled in through a shattered window.

  Werewolf leaped in the air and snapped the head off one. The other hornet struck me in the shoulder. Before it could drive its stinger in, I punched it away. It spun off course, then looped around and came at me again. I retreated to the kitchen and grabbed a frying pan. As the hornet dive-bombed me, I swung the pan and scored a solid hit. The hornet bounced off the cupboards and spun out onto the floor, where I brought the frying pan down hard and spread it all over the place.

  By now, Major had reloaded and was knocking down stragglers still entering through the fireplace. As I recovered my shotgun and grabbed more shells, everything fell eerily quiet. We scanned outside, still expecting another attack.

  “Jesus, that was freaky,” Major said. “You think we got all of them?”

  “Nothing buzzing.” Inside and out, hornet parts were scattered everywhere. Werewolf began to eat the remains. “Better collar that guy. If he eats a stinger, he’ll be sorry.”

  We went outside with Werewolf and checked the van. The rear compartment had two walls of what looked like oversize honeycomb chambers but there were no hornets left in them. In the front seat Major found a half-liter squeeze bottle of honey and a five-kilo bag of brown sugar.

  “Who was that guy?” Jordan had put on jeans, a T-shirt and running shoes to come out and join us. “He looked like some kind of alien.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I said.

  Chapter 54

  Werewolf sniffed the ground and barked, eager to pick up Buzz’s trail. Major let him go and we followed as fast as we could. We climbed a ridge of pine trees, from which we had a clear view across a ravine. A hundred yards away, Werewolf climbed a slope spotted with scrub brush. Fifty yards higher up, a tall skinny figure climbed swiftly through a jumble of boulders.

  “Can you hit him?” I said to Jordan.

  “Not at that distance.”

  “Give me that.” Major took the rifle, aimed and fired twice. The bullets spattered low and wide; the whine of their ricochets floated down moments later. Buzz disappeared behind some rocks. Werewolf reached the same place a few seconds later.

  When we got to where Buzz and Werewolf had disappeared, we encounter
ed a cliff with a hill of rubble at its base. We looked up the cliff. Buzz couldn’t have scaled it without our seeing him. We heard a hollow echo of barking and snarling.

  “Werewolf!” Major called.

  “They must have gone into the cave.” Jordan led us to its entrance, half-covered with rubble. “I’ve been in there. About a hundred yards deep but there’s no way out.”

  We sat on our heels, debating what to do. From inside the cave came snarling, yelping, screaming. Hard to know who was doing what to whom.

  “Got a flashlight?” Major said. “I need to get Werewolf out of there.”

  I had one flashlight in my tote bag, and a penlight attached to my keychain. I handed the flashlight and a roll of duct tape to Major. He secured the flashlight to his shotgun barrel and nodded. “Good to go.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  He shone the light into the cave. “It’s tight in there.”

  “I’ll have your back.”

  We checked our gear before we went. Shotguns and side arms loaded, pockets full of extra ammo, knives on our belts. We started in.

  Only five feet in diameter, the cave descended in a gentle grade. With heads stooped, we followed it down. Water dripped on us as we walked further in. I remembered, just before we’d arrived at Jordan’s cottage, having seen a small lake near the mountain.

  It was now silent inside the cave. We didn’t know if Buzz was dead, or lying in wait for us. Fifty yards in, Major’s light found Werewolf. He lay crumpled against one wall, a terrible rent in his side, his fur matted with blood. He raised his head and made a sound like a wet cough. There was something in his jaws that looked like a shirtsleeve.

  “He’s alive.” Major kneeled beside Werewolf and checked the wound, a long slash in his side that had bared the flesh right down to his ribs. But the bleeding was slight and it looked worse than it actually was, since his ribs had shielded his organs from injury.