Stan said, “The urethral sphincter controls urination!”
“What the hell?” First Voice said.
“I’m pulling over,” Driving Voice said.
And Stan told himself not to smile. Because his plan had worked. Chuck would be proud of this plan. When they stopped and they let him pee, he would fake them out all right. He was a fast runner and he would run away from the car so fast they wouldn’t know what to do.
It was a good plan, he thought. A very good plan.
Chapter 47
“How are things back in Bosnia?” Chuck said.
For a moment the only sound was the hum of the SUV and a little wind whistling through one of the windows. Or maybe even a snort of breath from the gun guy.
The driver said, “Make him shut up.”
“Don’t you want to talk about the Serbian mafia?” Chuck said. “And the fact that you all smell like garbage? Don’t you ever take a bath?”
“Now!” came the order from the front.
The guy with the gun cursed in another language. To Chuck it sounded like he had just been called a naked cake.
The big man’s hand slapped Chuck across the face. It was a good smack, stunning him momentarily. Chuck tasted blood in his mouth.
But noticed that to get him across the face, the big man had to lean slightly over the seat. When he did, he held the gun in his right hand, poised on the top of the seat.
Chuck said, “Thank you sir, may I have another?”
The big man hesitated then called him something. It sounded like furry check. He leaned over to hit Chuck again. Chuck rolled slight left at the same time shooting his taped hands up toward the gun. The big man’s blow glanced off the back of Chuck’s head. Chuck got his hands around the barrel of the gun and pulled.
It went off.
A blast, and the shattering of glass.
The back window blown out.
The SUV swerved left.
Chuck twisted the gun upward and it snapped out of the big man’s hand. He pulled it into him and rolled right, once over completely. The gun, probably a nine, was barrel toward him. With his wrists together he couldn’t easily manipulate it.
The SUV swerved right. The light from an oncoming car, now laying on its horn, caught the form of the big guy in full, making him a lurking shadow.
Shadow dance . . .
A shadow that was now jumping over the seat.
.
I am fast, and the plan worked!
I didn’t have to pee, and you are stupid, mean people, you are stupid.
Run fast! Because they have a car and guns.
There’s a hill, my feet hurt, but I won’t let them catch me!
I am fast, I am fast, I am faster than the mean guys who tried to catch me in junior high. I am faster than all mean guys.
The hill is full of trees and bushes and dirt, but I will be safe and they will have to give up chasing me. Then the cops will come, they will come in the daytime.
There are wolves in hills. In the dark. They could eat me. They could smell me and eat me but I will hit them with a stick now. I’m not going to be scared this time, even though I am. Chuck needs me, and I am not going to be scared.
I wish I could see some lights somewhere. Maybe a town or a gas station or a 7-Eleven. I will give even a 7-Eleven another chance if I can get in there and get to a phone and call the police.
Lights! The road. There’s a car on the road. Coming this way. Up. I have to go up the hill. Up where maybe wolves are. Can’t think about that. Have to get away, had to save Chuck. Have to be brave.
Teddy Roosevelt. He charged up San Juan Hill. July 1, 1898.
Rough Riders. Mom liked Teddy Roosevelt.
Do it for Chuck, and for Mom, and for Teddy Roosevelt.
The ground hurts.
Chuck, dear God, don’t let them hurt Chuck.
Can’t think about that. Even if I bleed!
Up this hill!
Lights on the road.
They’re coming!
Chapter 48
Chuck hit the asphalt and rolled.
Flesh tore off the palms of his hands. His elbow slammed into hard road. He heard the sound of his jeans tearing at some unknown spot.
But he was out. The jump through the shattered back window had surprised even him, so it had to be a shock to the Serbs.
He heard the SUV skid to a stop about thirty yards away.
Bright lights slammed into Chuck’s face.
Another car coming, fast, right at him.
He realized he was lying in the lane of oncoming traffic.
Blinded now by the lights, engulfed by the roar of a horn, amplified by adrenaline pumping through his head, Chuck pushed off from the road and thrust himself backward, toward the darkness of the canyon he knew was behind him.
He thought, as he fell, that the car whizzing past was his last chance to be saved.
.
What would Teddy do about barbed wire?
Stan was stunned by the fence. He needed to get through it. What was it doing on this hill?
But he was in his underwear and didn’t want to tear his skin. If he got bad scratches he could bleed to death! And that wouldn’t do anybody any good, especially Chuck.
He looked behind him and saw dark gray and what he thought was the strip of road. Then on his right, way far off, the headlights of a car coming, he thought, his way.
Maybe he should run down and wave his arms.
But people weren’t as friendly as they used to be. In the movies they would stop but now was different, everybody was afraid.
He was starting to hate fear.
For a long moment he stayed still. Dear God, tell me what to do. What am I supposed to do?
From the side he heard a crunch, like branches being stepped on.
When he looked there was nothing. For one second.
Then light burst out of the darkness. It was a beam, a flashlight, aimed right at him.
And a voice grunted, “There he is.”
.
Down, falling like a sack of auto parts tossed in a pit. Only the sack was his skin, ripping.
Chuck closed his eyes so as not to get jammed by a stick or bush or rock. His arms, held together by heavy tape, were useless in front of him, and he thought for a moment he had dislocated both shoulders. The pain was as hot as fire in August. He rolled over completely three times, stuck his bare feet out to stall the descent. He saw stars in the sky and behind his eyes. Then darkness as he ended up face down, sucking dirt and weeds on the sloping bank.
In the silence, the momentary pause, he listened. He heard only a slight wind whipping through the canyon, and then another sound—a car driving slowly by. It was them. If he was right about where he was, this was a deeply chiseled ravine and he still had a long way to go down.
And down was where he’d have to go, because up was only them.
He pulled his head up and saw the red of taillights, only a few feet from where he must have gone over the side.
If they got out with flashlights he wouldn’t be hard to find.
If he stayed.
Forcing himself to his feet, feet now shooting with razor blades, he started down. It was an obstacle course of hard scrub and dirt and rock. Of unseen flora in the dead of night. He took in a full breath and smelled ocean in the air.
Not looking back, he let gravity help him get as far as possible. His only plan was to go deep into this crack in the earth and stay hidden long enough not to be found. Then he could figure out which way was north, which was south, east, and west, and maybe find his way to a house or town.
But every step was an agony of uncertainty. There was no moon and the expanse below was little more than a gaping maw of black. Chuck saw the terrain in his mind, recalling the times he’d driven to the beach on one of these roads. The green bushy splotches that looked so innocuous from the road were hard reality now when he needed to escape.
At least he was getting farther from the road, fr
om the red lights, from the enemy.
Enemy. That’s exactly what they were. It was Afghanistan, come to his city.
Rushton Line . . .
He heard Dylan Bly’s voice, breaking through his brain mass like an explosive device. I know where, Bly had said. Chuck hadn’t recalled those words before, but there they were now. Like one of those loose files Royce told him about. Here under the stress of escape one of them flopped open.
Rushton Line . . . Did Bly say that? What did he mean?
Chuck told himself to keep moving. But he was waist deep in something now, sharp branches of something pushing back against him.
He needed to get his hands free but there was nothing doing on that score. He’d need something sharp, like a caveman’s flinty stone. No time to stop and look for that.
He had to keep going. Had to make it out.
Had to get back to Stan.
Chapter 49
“You must approach him in just the right way,” Steven Kovak said. “You understand that, don’t you?”
“Of course,” said the doctor. Yang Jing’s practice was confined to Kovak and his own family and staff. He was well paid for this. He was well paid because he was good, and because he could keep his mouth shut. He had come recommended by Zepkic, and been trained and scared into submission by Zepkic, too. He was small and tidy, a graduate of the medical college at Chenzhou, and at fifty retained a slight, Chinese accent.
Despite his experience, Jing did not know as much of about the workings of the mind as Kovak did. This was Kovak’s own assessment, based upon his years of breaking the will of prisoners.
“The questions must be softly posed,” Kovak explained.
“Perhaps you should be the one,” Jing said. He was wearing his usual suit and tie, which always impressed Kovak. Would that more professional people did that in America. It was a discipline that was breaking down.
“No,” Kovak said, offering Jing more tea from the service on the table in the atrium of his home.
Jing put up his hand. “No thank you very much, sir.”
“You’ve administered thiopental how many times?”
“At least a dozen, sir.”
“With interrogation?”
“Only once, last year, with you. You also questioned the subject, I forgot his name.”
“His name is best forgotten,” Kovak said. “He no longer exists.”
Jing nodded.
“You must understand context,” Kovak said. “I am going to give you all the information you need so that you can question him in detail. And you will never talk of this again, after this night, on pain of death. Is that clear?”
Jing’s Adam’s Apple bobbed up and down. “I am ready to take notes.”
Kovak crossed his legs and steepled his fingers. “He was a Navy chaplain, working with a unit of the Marines. This was in the same region where I began. And through hard work and enterprise, my partners and I put together several boxes of gold and international currencies, worth at least ninety million dollars. That is, as they used to say in America, a lot of hay. This was stolen from us, and we had information and belief that it was a traitor working with an American soldier named Dylan Bly, who was operating in what they would call an undercover capacity. He was, in short, attempting to put a stop to our enterprise at the point of origin.”
“I see,” Jing said.
“We set out to capture this Bly, but he was very uncooperative, and died on us. But he did have an association with the man you will be examining tonight. This is the man I and my host, a great warlord––a great man––questioned. Our subject’s mental condition was terrible back then, and we were unable to complete the examination. The man was taken back in a raid on my host’s villa. But he has come back to me now, in what I can only conclude is the hand of providence.”
Jing said nothing.
“You follow the way of the Buddha? Or the Tao?”
“I have no religion,” said the doctor.
“In this you are quite foolish,” Kovak said. “And you must keep this in mind as you examine our subject. He was a chaplain, a man of God. You must convince him that you are also.”
“I will.”
“Good. What I want is to know what became of the boxes of gold. This may have been told to him by the soldier Bly. I want to know who the traitor is in my network. It is a thin reed that we have, but I must believe that is why our subject has come to me at this hour. The infusion of this capital would be of great benefit to us, as competition is growing strong.”
“I understand.”
“I certainly hope you do,” Kovak said. “There is competition among physicians as well.”
Jing frowned. “I am not entirely certain I know what you mean.”
“It means you can be replaced. There is an evolutionary component to—”
The soft vibration of Kovak’s phone interrupted him. He answered.
It was Simo. “Something has gone wrong.”
Kovak closed his eyes. “Dragoslav?”
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
Chapter 50
Chuck’s arms itched like freaking crazy.
The canyon was filled with poison oak. Every SoCal kid knew that. Leaves of three, let them be.
No time to be discriminating.
His arms itched but he couldn’t scratch. He’d have to put up with it even as he kept moving.
He was at the bottom of the canyon now, sliding in mud. A creek bed. But apparently he wasn’t being followed.
Yet.
Calibrating his direction from the road, Chuck figured he was facing away from the ocean. He had to keep moving. What choice did he have?
But it was like walking in cold pudding filled with broken glass. Chuck had to be careful not to jam his foot on something sharp and cutting.
He tried not to think about anything else being underfoot. Like snakes.
Don’t think about snakes.
Too late.
He tried to get into the minds of the kidnappers. They were up on what was probably a two-lane highway in an SUV. They couldn’t sit in the road unless they found a turnout. Those were few and far between if this was a stretch of road typical of the area. They would probably drive back and forth for a while, or maybe call in some heavy lights.
They probably already reported to the head man, whoever was hiring them. Chuck was still convinced that he was to be taken alive.
Now he wasn’t going to be taken at all.
He was going to find Stan.
Maybe he should just wait it out, wait out the night. But that didn’t sit well with him. It would just get colder and colder. This was Southern California, so he wasn’t going to freeze to death. But it wouldn’t exactly be Zuma Beach in the summer, either.
And weren’t there mountain lions out here, too? He seemed to recall a surfer last year, stoned out of his mind, wandering up the canyon and getting torn apart by a mountain lion.
Gnarly, dude.
There you go again, thinking about things you can’t control.
How often have you counseled men in battle on that very subject? There are things out of your control, things created by the acts of evil men. You can only live in the present.
Live.
Chapter 51
“Stop your carrying on,” the man said.
The way he said it scared Stan, but he was not going to show him he was scared. That was what he wanted, and he was not going to give it to him. He would wait then. Wait for his chance. He told himself to be calm, even though his body was tight in that way he got.
They were in a small room with soft furniture. The room had no windows. It had a sink. A silver sink with a mirror and some cupboards behind it. Two men had brought Stan here and locked the door. The same two men who caught him in the hills.
Then this man came in. He had a blanket with him and draped it over Stan’s shoulders. The other two men left.
“That’s better,” the man said. He was a strong man. He had a
look of someone who was in charge. It was sort of like Mr. Cambry’s face at Ralphs Fresh Fare, only much stronger. Maybe this man owned many stores or many homes like this one. Yes, that was it, this was a very rich man.
“You are not in any danger here,” the man said. “We both want exactly the same thing.”
His voice was strong, yes, but also soft and reassuring. What was he up to? Why did he have men with guns take Chuck away?
“We both want to see your brother, don’t we?”
“Yes!” Stan said, then told himself he was being too anxious. He had to control himself. This was a mean man.
“That’s right,” the man said. “I need to talk to him about a certain matter.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m someone who knows your brother.”
“What’s your name?”
“You may call me Steven.”
“I had a friend named Steven once,” Stan said.
“There. And so you have again.”
“You’re not my friend.”
“I’d like to be.”
“Why?”
“The world would be a better place if people were friends, don’t you think?”
Stan didn’t like the way he was feeling. Steven was saying the right things, but they sounded funny. That’s what tricky people do.
“I don’t want to be your friend,” Stan said. “I want to see my brother now.”
“He’s not here,” Steven said. “But soon he will be. He will want to make sure that you’re all right. In the meantime, you can help him.”
“How come you have guns?”
“Do you see me with guns?” Steven held out his hands and they were empty.
“But mean guys with guns killed people and took us!”
“May I call you Stan?”
Stan didn’t know what the right answer was. “I guess so.”
“Stan, listen to me. Guns are used when there is danger. Your brother is in danger. I want to protect him. That’s why I’m having him brought here.”
Could that be right? Could he be telling the truth? Maybe there were other mean people with guns trying to get Chuck. But I’m going to wait for him. I’m waiting for Chuck.
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