Assassin's Express

by Jerry Ahern

  “Why was I gunned down, Hank?”

  Frost had said nothing; then after a long silence, Deacon had said, “I gotta get some rest, so I can tell you when I see you. And Hank?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Come ready for work, huh?”

  Frost hadn’t had to ask the meaning of the last remark.

  He opened his eye, this time staring at his watch—the new Rolex. Maybe if he hadn’t given Bess the ring there in the store, and Bess hadn’t started to cry, hadn’t gone to the bathroom, had been with him instead by the jewelry counter... Frost felt in his pocket—the little velvet box was there still. He hadn’t wanted to put it away. He took it out, looked at it—part of the finish, the surface of the velvet, was already wearing away. He dropped the box back into his pocket.

  Glancing at his new watch again, Frost decided they should be landing at LAX in twenty minutes. He tried to focus his attention on what kind of trouble Deacon had gotten himself into, why Deacon had gotten shot and nearly died. Frost smiled to himself—he didn’t really care, but it was something to do, a head game to get his mind going in another direction. That it might be dangerous was of little consequence, he decided. Clinging to life was now more than ever—because of Bess—the last thing on his mind.

  He laughed out loud, noticing the man in the seat beside him staring at him. Frost reflected that if he had tried to kill himself after Bess had died, he probably couldn’t have done that right. He shook his head, took out a small map and street guide of Los Angeles that he’d put in his coat pocket, and began to study it. Just like the whole trip to bail out Andy Deacon, it was something to do.

  Frost felt like a packhorse, sweating in the sun as he walked out of the terminal to the driveway, looking for a taxicab. Slung from his left shoulder was the folded-over suitbag. In his right hand was the black nylon Safariland SWAT bag, in his left hand the locking pistol case—only the KG-9 and its spare magazines in the case now, the Metalified Browning High Power resting under Frost’s left armpit in the Alessi shoulder rig.

  After talking with Deacon by phone, Frost had stopped by the office with Claudia Minish. The news clippings and the telexed copy of the initial police report indicated Deacon had been walking across a parking lot; three men had come up on him and started shooting. Deacon claimed to have wounded one of the men before getting cut down.

  Frost set the black SWAT bag and the pistol case down on the curbstone, looking now for a taxicab, feeling hot in his blue vested suit. He set down the suitbag but it started to tip over. He bent to pick it up. Frost heard the loud popping sound and hit the pavement. There was a scream, another shotgun blast and the sound of glass shattering, then the screech of power steering being pushed too far. Frost was already reaching under his coat as he edged behind the taxicab. He could see the car—a gray sedan, black-wall tires, the license plate dirty and the markings illegible.

  Frost left his gun where it was, under his coat, stood up and looked behind him. The first shotgun blast had impacted on a luggage carrier about the height his chest had been before he’d bent over to pick up the suitbag. The second shot column had shattered the window of the taxicab by which he now stood. There were some very quiet, nervous-looking people beside the terminal doors, some of them still on the sidewalk on their knees or flat on their faces, but apparently no one was hurt.

  Two uniformed police officers were running down the sidewalk—Frost didn’t move.

  The policemen ran past him. His hands shaking a little, Frost picked up his bags, then slowly started toward the first cab in the line. The last thing he wanted was to get his name taken as a witness to the shooting, to give his employer as Diablo Protective Services, to get stopped by the police. There was a cold feeling in his stomach now—if Deacon’s hospital phone was tapped, that meant somebody or something with connections was involved. Frost hadn’t given Deacon his flight number—he hadn’t known it at the time. Yet, whoever the shotgunner in the gray sedan was, he’d known Frost on sight, known just where to find Frost and exactly when.

  Frost got into the taxicab, rolling down the rear window as a precaution before closing the door.

  “Hey—I got the air conditionin’ on!”

  Frost looked at the driver, leaning forward out of the rear seat as he did. “I’m allergic to air conditioning, but on the other hand I’m a big tipper.”

  “Where to, mister?”

  Frost noticed his own face in the driver’s rear-view—he was smiling. Frost sat back all the way in the passenger seat, his right hand under his jacket, the fingertips touching the Pachmayr-gripped butt of the Browning. Frost realized that perhaps he was acting paranoid—rolling the window down to prevent gas or something being leaked into the passenger compartment as it so frequently is in the movies; rolling the window down so he could open the door from the outside if needed.

  And holding on to his gun, like some sort of talisman. He heard the cab driver talking, “I asked ya—where to, mister?”

  Frost lit a cigarette with the battered Zippo, saying through a cloud of grayish smoke, “Just take me for a ride—I’ll tell you later.”

  It had been the lead cab, would likely be a backup for the shotgunner in the event of a miss on the timing. Frost inhaled hard on the Camel, his eye never leaving the rear-view, watching the eyes of the cabdriver; and as the cab pulled out into traffic watching the green four-door sedan almost causing an accident sliding in three cars behind.

  Definitely, Frost thought. Deacon had been in over his head. And Frost wondered if he were too.

  Chapter Two

  Frost leaned forward in the passenger seat, then quickly, before the cabbie could react, Frost pushed himself up, swinging his right leg over into the front seat. The cabbie started turning toward him as Frost hauled his left leg behind him, plopping down beside the man. Frost’s right hand came from under the left side of his suitcoat, the Browning High Power snaking out; Frost’s right thumb jacked back the hammer to full stand with an audible double click.

  “What the—”

  “Relax,” Frost rasped. “Those guys in the green car behind us—lose ’em.”

  The cabbie turned, glaring back at Frost and Frost punched the muzzle of the High Power a few inches closer, up-angling it toward the cabdriver’s face. “I said to lose them—now.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, mister—what’s with the—”

  “Drive,” Frost said, trying to make his voice sound as low and menacing as possible.

  “Hey—reach into my jacket pocket—up here,” and the cabdriver slowly gestured toward the outside left breast pocket of the battered suede jacket he wore.

  Frost reached across the man, keeping the muzzle of the Browning close beside the face as he did.

  Frost knew what it was before he opened it, by feel. It was a small, thin wallet. And only one kind of guy carried two wallets, Frost knew—a cop. He opened the wallet. There was no badge—the badge would be somewhere else. The I.D. card was enough—Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  “So relax the rod, mister,” the cabdriver started.

  “So drive,” Frost told him, the muzzle of the Browning High Power unflinching.

  “Hey—”

  “I know, I’m playing with fire. You’re a federal officer, the whole nine yards. Like I said, lose the guys in the green car—now!”

  Frost didn’t gesture with the gun. It was one reason why he liked single-action automatics like the Browning High Power. He could thumb-cock the hammer for dramatic effect. You could do that with a double-action automatic, or a DA revolver too, but that was only a sign of being an amateur. Now, the Browning cocked, the muzzle inches from the FBI-cabdriver’s face, there wasn’t anything left to do with the gun except pull the trigger and Frost had no intention of doing that. The cabdriver still wasn’t accelerating away from the pursuit car.

  “You can skip the lecture about when I shoot you, the car goes out of control and we both get killed. I’m close enough to
kill the engine and hit the brakes—better still just roll you out onto the street and take the taxi and drive it. Now—you going to show me how good Uncle Sam trains FBI guys to drive or do I dump you? No more talk. Your move.”

  Frost looked at the man; the man looked at him. “Damn you,” the cabdriver snapped, then glanced over his shoulder; then into the mirrors and hit the gas pedal, the Plymouth’s engine starting to drone louder, the sounds of the transmission kicking into high, audible over it. Frost shot a glance behind him—the cab was cutting through the airport exit-ramp traffic, the green car suddenly starting to accelerate behind them. “Look—I don’t know anything about that green car, Frost—not a damned thing.”

  “Terrific—then we both want to lose it—I’ll just lean back and relax,” but Frost never moved the muzzle of the pistol.

  “Listen, Frost—I’ll give you some advice—I read your record. You’re O.K.”

  “It’s sweet of you to say so.” Frost smiled.

  “Listen, damn it—I’m trying to help ya out. You’ll never get to Deacon, and you know it.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why? You know—” But then the cabbie stopped, cutting the wheel into a sharp left on a yellow light across an intersection, a surfer-painted van just missing sideswiping them. As the cabdriver corrected, accelerated down a wide palm-studded boulevard, Frost looked behind them again. The green car was still coming, but it looked, from the block or so distance, that the green car hadn’t been quite so lucky at the intersection—the left front fender was peeled back.

  “Why shouldn’t I see Deason?” Frost rasped, looking back at the FBI man behind the wheel, beside him.

  “You don’t know what’s goin’ on then—you really don’t!”

  “What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Frost snapped, looking behind over the front seat back, studying the green car—it was starting to gain on them. “Those guys in the green sedan are startin’ to make time. Better boogie, pal,” and Frost fumbled a Camel from his coat pocket with his left hand, then lit it quickly in the blue-yellow flame of his battered Zippo.

  “Deacon,” the FBI man snapped. “He’s into something he shouldn’t have gotton into. He’s working with the Commies. I don’t know if he. knows it or not. I never met him, but heard he was a good fed. But whether he knows it or not, he’s working with the Reds, and he wants you to do it, too. If you don’t know anything about it, Frost—then hop the next plane out of here and disappear someplace fast—maybe that girl friend your file says you got back in London.”

  Frost inhaled hard, almost choking on the cigarette smoke. His voice low, his gun hand trembling, Frost snapped, “You’d better update the file, pal—a terrorist bombing in a department store there killed her. And you mention her again and you’re gonna wish a terrorist bombing had killed you.”

  The cabdriver snapped his head right, looking at Frost; then, the man’s voice low, said, “Sorry, fella—I didn’t—”

  “What about Deacon?” Frost rasped, glancing back behind them. The green sedan wasn’t any closer, but it wasn’t any greater distance back either.

  “I can’t tell you that—if you don’t know already. My job was to keep you from getting to the hospital.”

  “What about those shooters with the shotguns?”

  “Not mine—we don’t play that game.”

  “What about the CIA?”

  “I don’t know anything about the CIA—they don’t get involved in domestic intelligence activities. You know that—”

  “Bullshit they don’t. Was it them?”

  “I don’t know,” the FBI man snapped, glancing at Frost, then back out the windshield.

  Frost looked behind the cab. The green sedan was still there.

  “You better lose those suckers—now,” Frost rasped.

  The FBI man looked at Frost, then muttered, “Maybe I read you wrong, maybe you are in on this deal Deacon’s got. I guess when you guys go bad, you go all the way. You can damned well—”

  Frost cut him off. “Look—if Andy Deacon is into something, you can damned well bet he’s on the same side you are. He may not be Mr. Excitement, he may not be the perfect drinking buddy, but there’s one thing he is—honest. And don’t you go calling me something you’re not willing to spit out. If those aren’t FBI guys behind us, then you stand just as good a chance of gettin’ croaked out of this as I do—so drive.”

  The FBI man looked at him a moment, then cut the wheel hard left, Frost slid across the seat, then started to react, thinking in that instant that the man driving the cab was making a play. But the cabdriver cut the wheel back right, passing an eighteen-wheeler and sliding through a yellow light across an intersection. The humming of the car’s engine made it apparent—the FBI man, this time for real, was trying to lose the green pursuit car.

  The taxi turned hard right off the boulevard. Frost glanced ahead of them as the taxi entered an industrial park. Frost started to move the High Power toward the FBI man at the wheel. “Relax, Frost—I know this town better than a real cabbie. There’s an alley leading between two factories just up ahead. A couple of years ago, the one factory bought out the other and they closed up the end of the alley. But to keep the trash-removal people happy, they ran off a ramp from the left side of the alley as you drive in. If you miss it, you can follow the alley for two blocks and it dead ends on you. If you miss that turnoff, you’re stuck.”

  “What if the guys in the green car know the city as well as you do?”

  “Then we don’t lose ’em, I guess—but you can’t fault a guy for tryin’.”

  Frost could already see the alley looming up ahead of them between two massive stucco-fronted factory buildings. A sign on the one on the right read, FIMBERTON MEAT PROCESSORS. Frost looked from the sign to the FBI man driving the cab. “I hope that sign isn’t prophetic!”

  The FBI man cut a sharp right and they were into the alley. Already the ramp on the left side loomed ahead of them. “Damn it,” the FBI man shouted. Frost didn’t ask why—the upper portion of the ramp was blocked by what looked like double wooden doors.

  “Take the ramp anyway,” Frost commanded.

  “You’re nuts,” the FBI man shouted back.

  “Do it,” Frost told him, brandishing the Browning.

  “Hold on,” the driver shouted then, cutting the wheel half-left and accelerating up the ramp.

  Frost tucked down between the dashboard and the front seat, by the firewall; the sound of the taxicab impacting against the wooden doors was loud, almost deafening, wood and metal tearing against one another—but no sound of glass shattering other than the tinkling of the headlights that shattered just at impact.

  The cab lurched to a halt. Frost looked up. The FBI man behind the wheel of the taxicab gripped the steering wheel in white-knuckled fists, his body shaking. “We could have been—”

  “But we weren’t,” Frost interrupted. “Now,” and Frost glanced behind them. There was still no sign of the green pursuit car. “Back this thing up, down the ramp, then head up the alley—quick.”

  The FBI man shot a glance toward Frost, the ashen look in the man’s face gone for an instant. “Gotcha—ha!”

  The cab was moving, a high-speed reverse over the debris of the broken wooden doors and down the ramp, the FBI man half-propped against the front seat back, his right arm extended, his left hand shifting the wheel of the cab back and forth, right and left. They hit the bottom of the ramp, the taxi’s brakes screeching, the transmission thumping as the FBI man shifted too fast out of reverse and into drive, then hit the gas pedal. The car stalled for a second, then lurched forward with a screech as the wheels spun out and straightened. As they rounded the first curve in the alley, Frost could see the nose of the green car, turning in behind them.

  “Stop this thing,” Frost commanded. As the driver hit the brakes, Frost felt himself getting thrown slightly forward.

  “What?”

  “Shut up—I’m counting,” Frost
snapped. “... One thousand nine, one thousand ten, one thousand eleven, one thousand twelve, one thousand thirteen, one thousand fourteen, one thousand fifteen—” Then Frost glanced back behind them, snapping to the driver. “O.K.—back her up fast and out of the alley.”

  “What the—you think they bought it?”

  “No time like the present to find out,” Frost answered, not looking at the man.

  The FBI man edged around in the driver’s seat, his right arm across the seat back again, the cab already in reverse. The engine whined as the taxi accelerated back down the alley. The Browning High Power was clinched tight in Frost’s right fist—in case the green sedan hadn’t taken the bait of the broken-down wooden doors and taken the ramp out of the alley.

  The ramp was in sight now, more of the wood from the doors hanging off the high sides of the ramp and into the alley below—there was no green car in sight though—behind them or, as Frost craned his neck up and peered through the windshield, on the ramp.

  The taxicab was still accelerating, reversing out of the narrow driveway, the FBI man behind the wheel saying, “Looks like they bought the whole nine yards—now if you’re smart, Frost, you’ll take this taxicab right back to the airport.”

  “Yeah—so you can get me arrested.” Frost smiled, the muzzle of the Browning still trained on the man.

  “Hey—no, I—”

  Frost leaned across the front seat, his face inches from the FBI man’s face as the taxi wheeled back out of the alley, cut a reverse right and skidded to a stop. “Take me to the hospital, pal.”

  “You’ll never get in.”

  Frost, his voice low and emotionless, almost whispered, “You’d better hope I do, and that I get out. You and I are walking into that hospital together, going to Deacon’s room and going inside. You make one wrong move and you’re dead. You do anything to alert the people guarding Deacon or get up a SWAT team or anything like that and there’s a shoot-out—well, you’re dead too.”

  “You wouldn’t smoke a fed, not if you got an ounce of—”