Helius Legacy

by S Alexander O'keefe

San Bernardino County, California

  December 5, 1999 / Sunday / 9:30 a.m.

  Cochrane had been working his way past the line of cars in front of him to the open space he could see on the road up ahead. Some of the drivers in front had pulled over to the right when he’d all but climbed up on their rear bumper, but others had just ignored him, forcing him to dodge into the opposite lane to pass them. Now he had a problem. The SUV was behind a tractor trailer truck, and a series of curves in the road was making it difficult to find a clear space to pass the truck. The truck driver wasn’t making his job any easier. He seemed to be intentionally riding the edge of the centerline in order to thwart Cochrane’s effort to pass. Severino’s rage was reaching the point of explosion.

  Cochrane swerved out once again in an effort to pass the truck, but was forced back into his lane by the oncoming traffic.

  “Get that fucking piece of shit out of the way, or I’m going to blow your goddamn trucker ass away,” Severino growled in frustration.

  As soon as they passed through the curve, Cochrane went back to riding the centerline, trying to catch the next piece of clear road.

  “Bingo! We have daylight after the next car,” Cochrane crowed as they passed through a curve in the road. Cochrane waited impatiently for the car at the front end of the gap to pass him, but the car slowed as it approached, making a run around the truck in front more risky with each passing second. The instant the approaching car passed the SUV, Cochrane jammed the gas pedal to the floor and swerved into the opposite lane. The SUV hurtled toward another oncoming car. Cochrane cut sharply in front of the tractor trailer, fifty feet ahead of the approaching car. The driver of the tractor trailer blew his air horn in anger.

  Now that the road ahead was finally clear, Cochrane was determined to make up lost time. He pushed the SUV’s speed to 120 miles per hour. Cochrane saw the sign warning of an approaching curve and he backed off on his speed, but he still came into the curve too fast. Cochrane pulled his foot off the accelerator when he realized his mistake, but the big SUV continued to wallow across the road. It crossed the centerline and slid inexorably toward the guardrail on the left side of the road. Cochrane could hear Miguel praying in Spanish in the rear seat.

  The SUV was less than five feet from the guardrail when the curve eased and then straightened out. If another car had been coming in the opposite direction, they would have suffered a head-on collision, but the road was clear for another fifty yards. Cochrane let out the breath that he had been holding and pulled the car back into the right lane.

  Severino hadn’t slept in the last thirty hours. During that time frame, he’d been forced to plan a mission that was outside his pay grade, his chopper had been shot out of the air by a supposedly vanilla target, and now he was in a high-speed chase. Cochrane’s near fatal miscalculation pushed him over the edge. He seized the Uzi and jammed it into Cochrane’s ribs.

  “You stupid shit, you almost dumped us over the goddamn cliff! I should—”

  Severino’s tirade was interrupted by the cell phone on his belt. He ignored the first ring, but then he picked up the phone. The call would be from Paquin. He’d arrived at the local airport an hour ago and taken control of the operation.

  “Severino.”

  “What’s your road marker?” Paquin asked, in a clipped voice.

  “It’s … SB 158,” Severino said.

  There was a short hesitation.

  “I just spoke to Anders. He’s right behind the target. You should see him converging on your right,” Paquin said.

  Severino looked to the right, but his view was still blocked by a stand of trees. When they passed the trees, he could see the old car racing down the other road on a parallel path. Blue smoke was pouring out the car’s tail pipe. Anders and Juan were about fifty yards behind the target, steadily closing the gap.

  “Yeah, we got him,” Severino said.

  Cochrane had pulled up behind a white BMW. He looked over at the GTO roaring down the road to his right and then looked ahead. The two roads had to intersect less than a half mile ahead. Although the GTO had a slight lead, Cochrane knew he could eliminate the gap if he could get past the BMW. He floored the accelerator, and pulled into the opposite lane, passing the BMW. Severino, still shaken by the near-crash, glanced over at the speedometer. They were doing about ninety miles an hour and the speedometer was rapidly climbing.

  “Get it done,” Paquin said and ended the call.

  Severino glanced back and forth between the two cars and the rapidly approaching intersection point. The SUV was continuing to accelerate. They were closing the gap. Severino checked the magazine in the mini Uzi. Once they pulled in front of the target, he was going to empty the entire twenty-five-round magazine into the GTO’s windshield. At this speed, the target would lose control and almost certainly be killed in the resulting crash. Severino hated the target for making him work this hard. A high-speed wipeout worked for him.

  The gap between the two roads had narrowed to the point where Severino could see the face of the figure in the other car. As he watched, the driver’s side window on the old Pontiac opened, and a man looked directly across at him. There was no fear in that face, just cold determination. A fraction of a second later, the driver’s left hand extended out the window in one smooth motion. There was a black automatic in his hand. Severino heard the distant reports from the gun and then the window behind him exploded.

  “Fuck! Get down!” Severino choked out, as he dropped his head below the window line. His own window exploded a second later, letting in a blast of cold air and the roar of the engine. Cochrane reacted to the exploding glass and Severino’s scream by pulling the wheel to the left. The blast of the horn from an oncoming car caused him to overreact, and he yanked the wheel hard to the right, causing the SUV’s left rear tire to come off the ground. In a desperate effort to regain control, Cochrane took his foot completely off the gas.

  After recovering from the shock, Severino cautiously lifted his head enough to glance across at the target. The other car was just reaching the intersection point ahead of them. In a rage, Severino whipped the Uzi out the window, intending to empty the entire magazine into the rear of the other car, but Cochrane’s yell stopped him.

  “Stop! You’re gonna hit Anders!”

  Severino froze, realizing Cochrane was right. The other SUV had just pulled onto Route 18. It was racing after the GTO. Severino noted with satisfaction that Anders was blasting away at the target with his own Uzi from the passenger-side window. Anders’s ability to do any damage was cut off when the GTO roared down the turnoff for Route 330 on the right.

  Juan, the Nicaraguan who was driving Anders’s SUV, raced into the turn after the GTO, making the same mistake that Cochrane had made minutes earlier. He failed to realize that the GTO, despite its age, could carry more speed through the curve than the big Suburban. Anders, a former truck driver, saw the mistake as soon as he leaned back into the SUV to reload.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he yelled as the SUV raced into the curve, slamming his hands against the dash for emphasis. Juan reacted by taking his foot off the gas and pumping the brake pedal. Since the SUV had already started into the curve, Juan’s action exacerbated the leftward rolling action. Anders, feeling the SUV going into a terminal roll, yelled, “No fucking brake!”

  Then he grabbed the wheel and pushed it to the left, away from the inside of the curve.

  Anders’s move stopped the roll, but it put the SUV across the centerline into the path of an oncoming tow truck. Realizing that if he yanked the wheel back to the right, the SUV would roll for sure, Anders steered for the breakdown lane on the opposite side of the road. The driver of the tow truck in the opposite lane was so surprised by the move that he failed to react by steering to the right at the same time, avoiding a head-on collision. By the time the other driver did react, the SUV was already out of his way, but it wasn’t out of danger.

  The SUV slid into the guardrail on the far left. On the
other side of the rail, the slope dropped seven hundred feet to the next plateau. The county had reinforced the guardrails in the past five years after several fatal crashes had occurred on this stretch of road. But for this, the SUV would have blown through the barrier and plummeted down the slope. The left side of the big vehicle scraped along the edge of the barrier for thirty yards until Anders pulled the wheel slowly back to the right. Then he growled “Brake now” to the terrified Nicaraguan.

  When the SUV came to a dead stop, Anders and Juan looked over the guardrail at the sheer drop down the side of the mountain.

  Cochrane slowed as he passed the other SUV, which was now on the wrong side of the road. Anders was climbing out of the front passenger-side door. He waved Cochrane on in disgust. As Cochrane passed the second SUV, he saw Juan get out of the driver’s side and start to walk around the rear of the SUV. Cochrane smiled to himself. Anders wasn’t going to risk another cliffhanger like that one. He would be doing the driving from now on, even if that prevented him from blasting away at the target.

  Cochrane hit the gas again as soon as the SUV came out of the hairpin turn, but the GTO had already disappeared around the next turn. Although Cochrane had never been down this road before, he knew from the map that it made a series of hairpin turns over the next five miles, as it traveled down the mountain. As a hardcore car enthusiast, he knew the GTO would steadily pull away from them over this stretch, unless the driver made a mistake, and from what he’d seen so far that wasn’t likely. Cochrane thought about telling Severino that catching the GTO was a lost cause, but one look at his face convinced him to let the matter ride. He’d figure it out soon enough.

  As the SUV started into the next curve, Severino’s cell phone rang again.

  “We’re about four miles out of Snow Valley. We’re still after the target, but—”

  “I need the next road marker.” There was a sharp urgency in Paquin’s voice.

  Severino looked out the window at the road marker they were passing.

  “We just passed marker 163.”

  “Hold on,” Paquin said. He came back on the line five seconds later.

  “You will turn left on the dirt road that should be coming up within a quarter of a mile. The road is between markers 164 and 165. This will take you back to Route 18. You will take Route 18 south.”

  “Wait. That will take us away from the target. We can still get this bastard.”

  Paquin cut off Severino’s argument, his voice hard and impatient. “You have your instructions. Follow them. Your current route is no longer viable.”

  Paquin’s message cut through Severino’s frustration. Paquin’s communication people were monitoring the police channel. The local police must be waiting for them down the road.

  San Bernardino County, California

  December 5, 1999 / Sunday / 9:45 a.m.

  Caine looked in the mirror again. This was the third switchback he had passed through without seeing either of the SUVs in the mirror. Although he continued to work the road, holding on to as much speed as possible through the turns and accelerating on the straightaways, he eased up a little. Unless the old car gave out on him, he was safe for the moment.

  When he came around the next corner, his adrenaline level shot back up again. A California Highway Patrol car was parked in a turnout on the other side of the road, and the officer was placing a series of orange cones in the road. He’s setting up a road block. Someone must have called in the chase on Route 18. The Snow Valley police were probably setting up the other end of the roadblock up on Route 18. Although Caine had been pushing the GTO, he was just coming out of a curve when he saw the CHP officer, and his speed was within the limit. Caine gave the officer a friendly wave as he passed and continued on his way.

  Caine looked in the mirror as he was disappearing around the next curve. The CHP officer had pulled his car across one lane of the road. Caine increased his speed once he was out of sight, but not to a level that would draw attention. Although it was possible that another team was racing to cut him off at the bottom of the mountain, he considered it unlikely. He was more worried about getting pulled over by the police.

  Caine took the first major road south when he reached the bottom of the mountain, and then took as many turns as possible for the next ten minutes, heading generally westward. He continually checked the mirror, but there was no pursuit. When he reached the city of Riverside, he pulled into a crowded shopping center and parked the GTO in between a minivan and a pickup. After waiting another five minutes and scanning the lot for possible signs of pursuit, Caine felt satisfied that he’d escaped the trap.

  As he leaned back in the seat and tried to relax, Caine realized he was thirsty and hungry. He hadn’t eaten anything in the last ten hours. He looked around the shopping center and saw a Rite Aid pharmacy. When he opened the car door to get out, he noticed his cell phone on the floor of the car. The message light was blinking.

  After buying two bottles of water and a couple of energy bars, Caine sat down at one of the tables outside the store and drank half a bottle of water as he pulled up the message menu on his cell phone. The number on the screen had an Austin area code. It was the attorney in Texas, Andrea Marenna. She had called him back.

  Caine made a call to a neighbor down the road from his cabin, who was a friend, and asked her to pick up Sam and take care of him for a couple of days. Then he called Andrea Marenna back. She picked up the phone on the first ring, a good sign.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  Austin, Texas

  December 5, 1999 / Sunday / 12:30 p.m.

  Andrea tried to read the morning newspaper and relax with a second cup of coffee after leaving the message on John Caine’s cell phone, but it didn’t work. After ten minutes, she put down the paper and stood up. Why doesn’t he return the call? Andrea decided to take a shower and get dressed. She brought the phone into the bathroom.

  After showering and putting on a pair of jeans and a pullover sweater, Andrea turned on the morning news. She could only catch one or two words from the talking heads over the noise of the hair dryer, but she could tell by the pictures that nothing earthshaking had happened in the last twelve hours. The phone rang just as she turned off the hair dryer.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello yourself.”

  “Oh, hi, Mary.”

  “What am I, a second-class citizen now?”

  “I’m sorry. I just was expecting someone else. It’s kind of … ”

  “Complicated? Sounds like another work-related problem, Marenna. I just wanted to let you know there’s a 5K run along the Town Lake Loop next Saturday. Tom Engel will be there.”

  “Mary, I’d love to get there, but I’m attending a seminar.”

  “As in a work-related seminar.”

  “Mary—”

  “Remember what I told you?”

  “Change your life, or it will change you. I got it, coach.”

  “Good. I’m going to be checking up on you, girl. Oh, one other thing. Next week I’m out of town. So you’ll have to run on your own Wednesday.”

  “Okay. And thanks, Mary.”

  “See you later.”

  Andrea and Mary had gone to high school together, and they’d both run middle distance races for the track team. Mary had gone on to run for SMU. After college, she’d started a sports rehabilitation clinic with an orthopedic surgeon, who later became her husband. They had two great kids.

  Six months ago, Mary had decided that she needed to get her wayward friend on the right track. Mary’s mantra was simple: Change your priorities. Spend more time on Andrea and less time at work. Andrea liked the advice; it was the implementation that was proving difficult.

  Mary had also decided to try to “fix” Andrea’s social life. Her less-than-subtle attempt to persuade Andrea to give Tom Engel a second chance was not going to work. Tom was a vascular surgeon who played tennis with her husband. He was a nice guy, but Andrea knew they had no future together af
ter their first date. The good doctor had spent the first five minutes of their dinner date grilling the waiter about the ingredients in each dish and another five on the cooking methods. The phone interrupted the unpleasant memory.

  “Hello, this is Andrea.”

  “Hello, Ms. Marenna, this is John Caine. I want to apologize for earlier today.”

  “I’m the one who owes the apology.”

  “No apology necessary, Ms. Marenna. I—”

  “Please, call me Andrea. And I really am sorry, no excuses. With Richie’s death and … other things, I guess I’m just a little out of sorts.”

  There was a hesitation on the phone.

  “Mr. Caine—”

  “John.”

  “John, I have to ask you this. Why did you ask me if … if someone would have any reason to harm Richie?”

  “Let’s just say that my life has changed since I received Mr. Steinman’s message,” Caine said.

  “What are you talking about?” Andrea said.

  “Last night some people broke into my cabin in Snow Valley, and this morning those same people were still looking for me.”

  “Why … what makes you think that has anything to do with Richie? Did you call—”

  “Andrea, can you hold on a minute? I’ll be right back.”

  “Sure.”

  Andrea walked over to a small window and idly stared out at the street three floors below. A man was walking down the sidewalk holding two cups of coffee. He was wearing a baseball cap, an oversized blue sweatshirt, and a pair of worn jeans. Andrea watched the man without interest, until he looked up. I know you. Andrea recognized the thick glasses and the odd sideburns that ran down the length of the man’s jawline. She had passed him on the stairs yesterday when she was coming back from her run. He’d been wearing some kind of a uniform and carrying a tool case.

  The man walked across the street toward a white van that was parked across the street from the building. A large V-shaped antenna was built into the roof. Before he reached the van, someone opened the rear door and waved to him. The man in the baseball cap handed one of the coffee cups to whoever was inside the van, looked up in the direction of Andrea’s corner unit, and then climbed into the van. Who is this guy?