“Wow,” Rob said. “I can’t believe how quickly the conditions crapped out. We’ll have to take it nice and easy, but I’ll have you home as quickly as I can.”
“No hurry,” Alicia muttered. “I feel like we need to be taking some kind of action. Every hour that goes by is another hour those guys from last night have to cover their tracks.”
“I know, but the driving is terrible. Even if we wanted to head to Concord—which I think we both agree is a bad idea—we’d probably slide off the road and kill ourselves before we made it halfway. I’ll take you home, we’ll wait for the weather to clear, and then we’ll attack the problem together, how does that sound?”
“Thank you,” she said. “I know Eddie was your brother, but I’m involved, too. I want to be a part of whatever happens next. I want to see justice done, too.”
“You’ll be involved, I promise. But I think our best bet at the moment is to get off the roads. Besides,” he added. “I really to need to get home and tell my parents about Eddie.”
Alicia groaned inwardly. That would undoubtedly be the hardest conversation of Rob Senna’s life. She didn’t envy him.
The Jeep chugged forward, slush and water and dirty snow spraying outward in all directions. She turned and focused her attention out the passenger window. She had started to tear up thinking about Eddie, and she didn’t want to upset Rob any more than he must already be.
Silence dropped over the interior of the Jeep as the trees rolled monotonously past, crowding Route 9, their branches heavy with wet snow.
Alicia found her eyes drooping. The warmth of the Jeep’s interior, after the freezing cold outside and the stress of the last twenty-four hours, magnified her exhaustion until she felt as though she might fall into a deep sleep where she sat.
But only for a moment. Her eyes flew open as the Jeep rolled past a big green object. It was a vehicle, and it was parked off the side of the road, nestled against the wooded background.
And it looked familiar.
She swiveled in her seat and stared out the rear window, concentrating hard, squinting as the vehicle began to disappear into the heavily falling snow as the Jeep continued along Mountain View Road.
It was the truck she had seen last night—the one she thought was called a Humvee—that pulled up behind Eddie’s car in the forest. She was almost certain of it. The scene had been stamped indelibly into her brain as she stared in horror and disbelief at the two men, so casually discussing the death of another human being. The truck was big and blocky, painted olive-green, with massive tires almost but not quite as big as the ones she saw at the monster truck rally an old boyfriend had taken her to in Manchester a couple of years ago.
What the hell?
Out of the gloom behind the Jeep came a sudden bright glare.
The driver of the Humvee had switched on his headlights.
As Alicia watched, the big vehicle roared out of its hiding place and onto the sloppy pavement.
“Um, Rob?” Alicia said nervously.
“What?” He cut a glance sideways before returning his attention to the road.
“I think we’re in big trouble.”
17
Colonel Toler steadfastly refused to tell Jason what was happening. What the hell was so important that they had to leave Tamerlane in Toler’s Hummer while a goddamned snowstorm was in the early stages of pummeling New Quebec?
He tried broaching the subject more than once as the colonel manhandled his truck along the slippery roads. Each time he did, he received a similar response: “Tie up a loose end,” or “Fix your damned mistake,” or just an angry, simmering silence.
Eventually Jason gave up. He’d worked for Toler long enough to realize the colonel would do whatever he had set his mind to doing, regardless of input offered by Jason Greeley. Or anyone else, for that matter. The man was strong-willed and stubborn, with a temper that on several occasions Jason had seen had come dangerously close to crossing the line from intense to uncontrollable.
Given the current driving conditions, he decided this would be a poor time to push Toler. So he waited to see what would happen while trying to stifle a series of yawns.
The colonel drove with grim purpose, following GPS coordinates, making left and right turns on remote roads that all looked the same to Jason. A city boy born and raised, he’d never taken the time to explore New Quebec beyond learning the route from his apartment to the facility, and from his apartment to the grocery store. He had never intended to stay here any longer than the time necessary to complete the Lupin Project, so what would be the point of familiarizing himself with the area?
Now he began to get a true appreciation for the town’s remoteness. The swirling snowflakes, fat and heavy and thick, reinforced his sense of suffocating isolation, because it was damned near impossible to see more than fifteen or twenty feet beyond Humvee’s windshield.
Eventually Toler decided he had arrived at his destination. It looked no more significant to Jason than anywhere else in the forest, although he had a vague notion that they might be somewhere near the site of last night’s tragedy.
The colonel pulled to the side of the road, muttering something that Jason missed. The tone of his voice, though, indicated extreme dissatisfaction.
“What’s the matter?” Jason said. He knew as soon as he asked the question that it was a mistake. He should avoid antagonizing Toler, wait to see what would happen next and hope for the best. But he was tired and nervous and worried about the weather, as well as depressed about the state of his project and more than a little pissed off about his recent treatment by the boss.
Before the colonel could answer, the cell phone mounted in a bracket on the Humvee’s dash began trilling. Toler snatched it up and pressed a button and said, “Talk to me.”
For a moment, Jason was confused. Cell reception was blocked in the vicinity of Tamerlane. Toler called it a “security measure.” He should not have been able to make or receive cell calls. Almost immediately, though, Jason realized why Toler could make calls when no one else could: the colonel must have left one specific frequency free from blockage and he had customized his phone to use that frequency.
Whoever was on the other end of the call would have to have a phone on the same frequency, so it must be someone Toler trusted professionally, more than he trusted Jason or anyone else on the Tamerlane staff.
Alarm bells began going off in Jason’s head.
This couldn’t represent a positive development.
The person on the other end of the connection was speaking rapidly, but his words were apparently not what the colonel wanted to hear. After about ten seconds, Toler swore into the phone. Maybe another thirty seconds after that, he said, “That’s all I need for now. Stay available in case things change.”
Then he hit a button and slammed the phone back into its bracket before turning to face Jason. “Well, this is wonderful. They’re already moving,” the colonel snarled.
“Who’s moving? What are you talking about?”
Toler waved angrily through the windshield in the general direction of the forest. “I had an associate keeping tabs on the target. Thanks to the snail’s pace you set getting back to the office, we’re too late to eliminate her in the forest, which would have been ideal. Now I’ll have to move on to Plan B.” He continued to mutter under his breath.
“Who’s in the forest? And what do you mean by ‘eliminate her’? I hope you’re not suggesting what it sounds like you’re suggesting.”
Toler ignored him. He stomped on the gas pedal while aiming the Hummer into the middle of the road without checking for oncoming traffic. Luckily there wasn’t any. The colonel skidded to a halt and then shifted into reverse and backed to the side of the road. He eased off the shoulder and butted the rear of the vehicle up against the tree line with the nose facing outward.
Then he switched off the headlights.
Jason had had it. The last eighteen or so hours had been among the most grueling a
nd stressful of his life, and he was tired and unhappy and concerned about his future and just wanted to go home and try to sleep. Instead he was sitting in a dark Humvee in the middle of nowhere during a raging blizzard for some unspecified purpose next to a man who seemed to want to strangle the life out of him.
He just couldn’t take any more. He said, “Colonel Toler, I’m sorry but I really must insist you tell me what’s happening here.”
“Is that so? You really must insist?”
“Yes, sir. I insist. The storm seems to be intensifying and we’re obviously the only people crazy enough to be on the road. I haven’t seen a single other vehicle since we left Tamerlane. I’m not even sure we’ll be able to make it back onto the road if we sit here for any length of time. So, yes, I insist on an explanation. Who were you speaking with just now, and what are we doing here? I deserve to know that much.”
“First of all, we’ll have no trouble getting back on the road. It would take a hell of a lot more snow than the couple of inches that’s fallen thus far to strand this vehicle. Second of all, you work for me, so the only things you deserve to know are the things I choose to tell you. Thirdly, I’ve already explained, ad nauseum, why we’re here: because you screwed the pooch so badly last night it’s fallen to me to clean up the mess before we both land behind bars. Or worse.”
Jason started to answer, then he closed his mouth and stared in surprise as a fuzzy corona of light coming from left of the Humvee indicated the approach of another vehicle. A moment later it passed a few feet in front of them, a white Jeep moving slowly as its driver battled the stil-deteriorating conditions.
“And here she comes now,” Toler said, his voice tense with anticipation. “It’s time to clean up that mess.”
The colonel switched on his headlights and immediately engaged the high beams. He jammed the accelerator down much too aggressively and the restless growl of the Hummer’s idling engine turned into an anticipatory whine as the vehicle punched out of the tree line and jolted back onto the road.
Toler steered in the direction of the retreating Jeep and pushed harder, closing the distance between the two vehicles rapidly. The Jeep grew in size until it filled the windshield.
“Jesus Christ!” Jason shouted. He grabbed the door’s armrest with his right hand and clamped onto the console with his left. “Slow down or you’re going to—”
18
“—Ram us!” Alicia screamed.
“I see them!” Rob buried the accelerator to the floor as the headlamps from the approaching vehicle filled the Jeep, bleaching the interior in impossibly bright light.
Tires spun and then caught and the Jeep leapt forward, but the Humvee was closing too fast, and it struck the Jeep’s rear quarter with a sickening crash. Alicia screamed as she felt them sliding sideways, and Rob swore as he lifted his foot off the gas and wrestled the wheel and somehow kept them on the slick pavement.
He steered into the skid and then eased down on the accelerator, and the Jeep began pulling away from the Humvee, which had careened left from the force of the collision and begun a slide of its own.
But the Hummer was bigger and heavier than the Jeep, better suited for the conditions. After a moment it straightened and accelerated and began once again to creep toward Rob and Alicia.
“What’s he doing?” Alicia said as she watched the approaching headlights in horror. “He’s going to kill us!”
“I think that’s the idea.” Rob pushed harder, coaxing a little more speed from the Jeep, but it was obvious to Alicia they stood no chance of outrunning their pursuer.
They were going to get rammed again.
She kept her eyes glued to the vehicle behind them. After the Hummer’s initial tentative acceleration out of its skid it gained speed quickly, and this collision was going to be worse than the first. A lot worse. The Humvee’s driver angled toward the Jeep’s right rear quarter, his intentions clear. He would strike them at an angle and send them spinning off the road and into the trees.
Alicia’s heart was in her throat as she tensed against the jarring blow to come. The Humvee’s menacing front grill closed on them, growing in size until it was all she could see out the rear window.
And then Rob twisted the wheel hard to the left. He slammed on the brakes at the same time, and the Jeep began spinning, doing three hundred sixty degree turns down the middle of Route 9.
The Humvee rocketed past, missing the Jeep’s rear bumper by inches. The Hummer’s driver hit his brakes and began sliding again, and this time there would be no steering out of the skid.
Alicia felt dizzy and sick and she heard herself screaming but she watched their attacker slide all the way across Route 9, a stop-motion action movie crash that advanced a little farther with each rotation of the spinning Jeep. The Humvee had made a hard turn just before the anticipated impact, and now its driver twisted his own steering wheel back and forth in a vain attempt to regain control.
The big truck crossed the road and flew off the shoulder in a spray of wet snow and mud, impacting a massive maple tree grill-first, just as Rob’s Jeep skidded to a stop on the opposite side of Mountain View Road.
Alicia had stopped screaming at some point, but she realized she was panting, nearly hyperventilating, and she forced herself to breathe a little more easily.
It wasn’t easy.
She relaxed her death grip on the armrest and looked over at Rob. The headlights reflected off the wall of snow, illuminating the Jeep’s interior almost as brightly as had the Humvee’s headlights a moment ago, and she could see his face had drained of all color. He sat wide-eyed, knuckles white, still gripping the steering wheel with both hands as he met Alicia’s gaze.
“Holy shit,” he said.
“That’s an understatement,” she answered and then chuckled weakly. Adrenaline was ripping through her, causing her arms and legs to shake, making her gulp air like a fish out of water.
Across the road and maybe fifty yards away, grey-black smoke poured from beneath the Humvee’s crumpled hood. Alicia watched in frightened fascination as both front doors opened and two stunned occupants stumbled out of the vehicle and into the snowstorm.
“Should we check on them? Make sure they’re not hurt?”
Rob raised his eyebrows incredulously. “Are you out of your mind? They just tried to kill us, remember? They’re both moving around, so they can’t be hurt too badly, and if they have some bumps and bruises, I’d say that qualifies as a very small down payment on what they really deserve.”
Alicia couldn’t disagree.
The two figures had come together next to the Hummer on the side closest to Rob and Alicia. She could see they were both men, and one of them—the one who’d exited the driver’s side—was gesturing angrily in their direction, the passenger just standing there, taking the brunt of the abuse. Maybe he was speaking every now and then, but maybe not, too.
Then the driver reached behind his back with his right hand.
When it reappeared, he was holding a pistol.
He double-timed to the shoulder of Route 9 and began marching determinedly in the direction of the Jeep.
***
There was only one conclusion Jason Greeley could draw from this whole misadventure: Frank Toler had lost his goddamned mind.
The moment the Humvee struck the tree, the colonel unleashed a steady stream of colorful invective. How he managed even to breathe, never mind scream and swear, Jason had no idea. The force of the impact dug the safety harness so tightly into his chest that just that hitching in a breath was a near impossibility. Jason’s head snapped forward onto his collarbone violently; he was lucky not to have bitten his tongue in half.
He struggled to unsnap the harness and finally managed it, aware of a steady hissing sound that indicated leaking fluids.
I hope it’s not gasoline, Jason thought. Toler’s stream of curses had stopped for the moment, as the colonel worked on extricating himself from the Humvee. They would start up again soon, Ja
son was sure.
He stepped into the storm, the frosty air and the falling snow cutting through his post-wreck confusion like a dose of smelling salts. He stumbled around the rear of the vehicle as Toler climbed out of the truck. The colonel was a fire-breathing nightmare as he emerged from the darkness, his face flushed and furious. He gestured up the road at the Jeep that sat idling on the edge of the road.
“Goddammit,” Toler said. “Goddammit. This is unacceptable, this—”
“What did you think you were doing back there?” Jason said. He knew it was a bad idea to interrupt the boss, especially in his current state, but he didn’t care. “You could have killed those people, and you damned near succeeded in killing us!”
“Could have killed those people? That was the whole idea. Jesus Christ, for a genius, you’re pretty fucking slow, you know that?”
“Why do you want to—”
“Just shut the fuck up and let me think. Goddammit, this is fucking unacceptable. Goddammit.”
The colonel glanced up Route 9 and Jason followed his gaze. The Jeep was still sitting there. Even in the gathering darkness and with snow falling, Jason could see the tendrils of exhaust swirling from the tailpipe and disappearing into the air.
Toler reached one hand behind his back and yanked a pistol out of his waistband. “I can still end this,” he said, his voice a guttural growl.
He began walking rapidly in the direction of the Jeep. “I can still end this.”
***
“Holy shit,” Rob said again.
He shifted into reverse and hit the gas. Spun the wheel and backed to the edge of the road. Turned the wheel in the opposite direction and shifted into drive, moving more slowly than Alicia would have liked considering the lunatic with the gun was coming fast. Under the circumstances, though, sliding off Route 9 would be a death sentence, so she understood his caution.
The Lupin Project Page 11