by Ace Collins
“McGrew, this is your last chance. Come out with your hands up, or we set the place on fire.”
It was nearing the end. With the firepower the FBI had brought, the outcome was inevitable. The sooner the better! Now she just hoped that no one would be taken out in a hearse.
“Miss Meeker.”
She’d almost forgotten about Strickland. Spinning on her muddy pumps, she waltzed back to where the trooper was standing.
“It looks like it’s almost over,” she noted as she approached.
“Not yet,” a voice she didn’t recognize announced. Stepping out of the darkness, his gun drawn and ready, was a man with a very crooked nose.
“Sorry, Miss Meeker,” Strickland said, “he came out of that cornfield and surprised me.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” the stranger warned.
“I think I already have,” she quipped.
“Listen, lady,” McGrew snarled, “the trooper here tells me that car is yours. Get in. You’re driving me out of here. I’m getting in the backseat. If you try anything, I’ll shoot you. And don’t think I’ve got anything to lose.”
“I’m sure you don’t, McGrew.” Her voice was calm. “But what if I don’t get in the car?”
“Then I cut this trooper in half right here.”
She saw the grimace on the officer’s face, and thought of the wife and two kids he’d told her about earlier in the day. Shrugging her shoulders, she ambled to the driver’s door and got in. She watched in the rearview mirror as the public enemy the FBI thought they had cornered brought the butt of his gun down onto the back of Strickland’s head, causing the trooper to fall to the ground. Meeker gasped. Satisfied that his victim was out cold, McGrew opened the back door, tossed in a bag, and joined her.
“I’m right behind you, lady, and my gun is aimed at the back of your pretty little head.”
As she turned the key and hit the starter, she laughed. “It’s a pretty hard head, so you might need to fire twice.”
“Stop with the jokes and drive!”
Backing out onto the road, she spun around and drove up to the trooper manning the roadblock. As she pulled to a stop, she saw McGrew slide down in the seat.
“Bob,” she announced, “nature calls. I’m running into town. Can I bring you anything?”
“No,” he said, “I’m fine.”
Slowly giving the car some gas, she eased down the gravel road toward Highway 49. A few moments later McGrew’s ugly face again filled the rearview mirror.
“You did just fine,” the hood slyly noted.
She didn’t dignify the compliment with a response. Pulling up to the highway, she eased to a stop at the sign and waited for McGrew to give her directions.
“Go left. When you get to Ogden, turn left again on 150. I’ll give you more directions after we get a few miles down the road. I wouldn’t want to overload your brain with too much information.”
“Yeah,” she noted sarcastically, “you are a whole lot brighter than me.”
Meeker made the turn and slowly pushed the Packard up to fifty. At that point she relaxed and casually watched where her headlight beams met the darkness. After a mile, she broke the silence with a question.
“How’d you get away?”
“While the guys were trying to fix the car, I walked out into the cornfield. I must have beaten the G-men by about two minutes. Then I hid out there until the shooting started.”
All she could see in her rearview mirror was the shape of his head. It was too dark to make out anything else.
“So you deserted your partners?” she noted.
“They’re the hired help, not my partners,” he quipped. “They’re paid well to take risks. When they signed up, they knew the score. Life expectancy is limited in our line of work. Okay, lady, we’re coming up to Ogden; make a left at the stop sign onto the U.S. highway.”
Meeker did as he instructed, pointing the Packard east. She followed the familiar pattern through the car’s three forward gears and again climbed to fifty. But this time she didn’t allow the car’s speed to level out. Little by little, at a pace she was sure her passenger wouldn’t notice, she pushed the car harder. Within a mile it was doing sixty. A half mile later she’d gained another ten. As the car hit seventy-five, she glanced into the rearview mirror. He was looking out the side glass, watching the landscape. Sensing she had him where she wanted him, she punched the gas pedal and watched the sudden burst of power push him back into the seat cushion.
“What are you doing?” he screamed as he sat up and put the gun right behind her ear.
“Taking you where you want to go!” she yelled over the engine’s roar. “Or maybe I’m providing passage to the place you deserve to go.”
“Slow down,” he demanded, “you’re going to kill us!”
“Maybe!” she shouted.
“I’ll shoot you if you don’t slow down.”
“McGrew, if you shoot me you’re sure to die,” she explained. “Your best bet is to hope I can hold the car on the road. There appears to be a railroad crossing ahead—you’d better hang on.”
The man’s eyes grew larger as he peered through the windshield. Pushing the car even harder, she aimed the Packard’s long nose down the middle of the road, dissecting the center stripe. They were going ninety, and the vehicle was still gaining speed. She was impressed! A few seconds later, she hit the spot where the tracks intersected the highway. The slight rise in the pavement combined with the rough crossing caused all four wheels to leave the ground. For fifty feet the Packard flew like a DC-3 but it came down much harder, bottoming out, its frame scraping the pavement sending sparks flying in all directions.
Keeping her hands on the wheel, Meeker hit her brakes hard. The Packard’s rubber grabbed the pavement, tossing everything in the car forward, including McGrew. Fifteen seconds later, as the car ground to a stop, the agent reached across to the glove box, and yanked open the door, grabbing her extra gun. As her finger found the trigger she whirled in her seat. A stunned McGrew was still struggling to get up. As he looked across the top of the front seat from the floorboard he saw the revolver’s barrel. His eyes widened.
Meeker smiled and in an icy tone said, “Drop the gun or greet the devil.”
McGrew considered his options for less than a heartbeat before setting the pistol on the floorboard and lifting his hands in the air. Keeping the convict in her gun’s site, the agent stepped from the idling car and yanked open the rear door. She grinned and barked, “Keep your hands up and get out. When you get out of the car, lay face down on the pavement.” She watched him step out, fall to his knees, and hesitate. All that did was bring another warning from Meeker. “If you want to live another minute, put your nose on the concrete.”
He eased forward, catching himself with his hands, before lowering his body to a prone position. It was only after his face was flattened against the road that she spoke again.
“Put your hands behind your back.”
He again followed her orders to the letter.
“Now don’t move. If you even flinch, I’ll end your life right here and now.”
She reached to her car, pulled some handcuffs from the glove box, and before McGrew knew what had happened had them locked around his left ankle.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“If we had your Buick I’d lock you in the trunk,” she matter-of-factly explained, “but I guess I’ll have to improvise. Turn over.”
Rolling over onto his back, McGrew looked up for her next orders.
“Okay, Jack,” she ordered, “snap the other side of the cuffs around your right ankle. Make sure I hear it lock.”
The confused and frightened man rose to a sitting position and did as she asked.
“Okay, big man, get up.”
McGrew pulled himself to his knees and awkwardly rose to his feet. As he did, he looked to the woman.
“Climb up on the fender and lay on your belly on the Packard’s hood.�
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“What?” he asked, his eyes moving from the smiling woman to the nose of the car and back.
“You heard me!” she barked. “Be quick about it. I want your feet on the driver’s side of the car and your head on the passenger side.”
It was not going to be easy. With his ankles cuffed, just climbing up on the bumper and clearing the headlights was tough.
“This is impossible, lady,” he complained as he slid off the fender and landed hard on the roadway.
“No, it’s not,” she said. “Now get on that running board and leap up onto that hood. You’ve surely seen fish jump. So just do it.”
With his ankles locked together, the man hopped back to the car using a method usually reserved for sack races at Sunday school picnics. Then, using his hands to gain leverage, he managed to stick a landing on the running board.
“You’re doing good, Jack,” Meeker assured him. “Now leap like a salmon up on that hood.”
He did as instructed and landed with a thud on the metal bonnet. It must have hurt, but he didn’t complain.
“Now,” Meeker ordered, “work your way toward the nose of the car. I want your body just behind the hood ornament. You got that?”
“Yeah.” He sighed. He wiggled forward, his belly and chest on the hood.
“Good job,” she said. “Now you just lay still. My gun is trained on you, but I’ve got to get something out of the trunk.”
Keeping her gun trained on the man, she popped the trunk lead, dropped her left hand in, and found what she needed. A few seconds later she was back at the front of the car studying the man lying face down across her hood. Grabbing his secured ankles she jerked him around until his feet lined up with the Packard’s driver’s side headlamp.
“Hey, that hurts!” he screamed.
“It probably does,” she said. She snapped another set of handcuffs onto the headlamp bracket and locked that onto the first set of cuffs around the man’s ankles.
“What are you doing?” He used his hands to push up on the passenger side front fender. As he did, a bullet flew just inches over his head.
“Jack,” she shouted, “the next one goes through your brain! Now get your belly back on the hood.”
He quickly did as she asked. Walking over to the front of the car, she smiled at her handiwork. If only Reese could see this.
“Don’t move,” she ordered McGrew. She moved to the passenger side of the car. “Now lay your hands down on the side of the headlight.” When he didn’t move, she stuck the gun into the side of his forehead and cocked the trigger. A second later, the hands fell into place.
She snapped one side of a third pair of cuffs onto his left wrist and the other on the right. She then produced a fourth pair of restraints locking them on the passenger headlamp bracket and the other to the cuffs that were around his wrists. He now looked like a trophy from a deer hunt being transported back home.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you back to the farmhouse,” she informed him with a smile. “The wind might be a bit cold, but at least the motor will heat the hood enough to keep your belly warm.”
“You can’t do this!”
“Watch me!” she barked.
Smiling, she got back in the Packard, started it up, turned the car around, and headed west down 150. Ten minutes later, she was back at the roadblock. As a stunned trooper looked on, she rolled down her window and asked, “Where’s Reese?”
“Still up at the house.”
“What’s with the guy tied on your hood?”
She ignored the trooper’s question. “Are the fireworks over?”
“Yep, they gave up,” the still mystified trooper answered, “but McGrew wasn’t there. Strickland said he grabbed you and got away. There’s a team out looking for you now and another looking for McGrew, but I see we can call off both searches.”
“Yeah, call them back in,” she quipped. “I’m about to deliver a package to my partner.” With no other explanation, she slipped the car into first and headed toward the house.
Fifty members of the FBI’s exclusive boy’s club watched the Packard pull into the farmhouse lane. Meeker waved as she steered the vehicle to a spot just in front of the Buick. Turning the motor off, she pushed the door open and stepped out. Reese was the first to run up to her.
“Who …?” He then got a good look at the man over the hood. “What …?”
“I think ‘when’ comes next and then ‘where,’” she chided. “It’s McGrew. He took me for a ride, and then I took him for one. Here are the keys to the cuffs. I don’t think he’ll give you any problem now.”
“How did you do that?” Alvin Lepowitz demanded as he walked up to the car.
Meeker studied the agent for a few moments. He was built like a fullback, must have had a half a bottle of Wildroot slicking down his black hair, and his face had the pained look of constipation. “You know,” Meeker said, addressing her partner, “Lepowitz screwed up. He let one of the guys Hoover has had you dogging for two years slip through his hands.” Then she turned to the man whose mouth was hanging open. McGrew was screaming for someone to get him away from this crazy woman. “Let’s just say,” Meeker went on, “you should be glad this woman didn’t let your prize catch slip away.”
She dropped her hand and smoothed her jacket before adding, “Now get this guy off of my hood.”
Chapter 54
Meeker reclaimed the Packard after her prize catch was taken into custody and headed to Urbana, Illinois. The task force was meeting at the police station there, and though she knew that they wouldn’t let her in on the questioning, she still wanted to hang close enough to get information from Reese.
The drive took her directly over the spot where she’d tied McGrew to the hood. She smiled as she traversed the railroad crossing at a much lower speed than she had earlier in the evening. Patting the Packard’s dash, she whispered, “Your brakes might have saved me tonight.” And that fact was true. Packard’s engineered safety and attention to detail, along with the FBI mechanics that reworked the sedan before she began driving it, might well have been the reason the stunt worked. She was sure that once McGrew had gotten far enough from the farmhouse and felt comfortable, he likely would have killed her.
Pulling up to the Urbana Police Department’s main building, she got out, stretched, and then, remembering that McGrew had brought something with him when he’d forced her to drive him away, threw open the back door. In the glow of a street lamp she noted the item on the floor—a bag.
Pulling the bag up to the seat she unzipped it and looked inside. What she saw was pretty much what she’d expected: clothes, ammunition, and cash. She grabbed the gun, dropped it with the rest of McGrew’s stuff, rezipped the bag and, after tossing it over her shoulder, made her way into the combination jail and police station. She flashed her presidential credentials to the desk sergeant and took a seat. Twenty minutes later, Reese walked in with Lepowitz.
This time the man actually talked to her without snarling.
Making a detour, he walked across the room, stood in front of Meeker, and announced, “You know how I feel about women working with men. It’s a distraction. The only reason you’re on loan to us is because of your family’s long association with Roosevelt. When he’s out of office, you won’t be anywhere near FBI work ever again. I will make sure of that. Do you get that? You got lucky when you captured McGrew, but that doesn’t change my opinion of women in the FBI or any other kind of law enforcement!”
“Yes, sir.” Her words were accompanied with a sly grin, which was not lost on Lepowitz.
“You should be dead right now. You know that? But nevertheless, what I heard you did with that bow and arrow, and the way you subdued McGrew shows me that working with Reese has taught you something. When this experiment ends, I’ll write you a letter of recommendation to anywhere but the FBI.”
“How generous you are, sir,” she quipped.
He glanced down at the duffel bag sit
ting beside the woman. “What’s with the bag?”
“This was what McGrew took with him,” she explained. “It was in the backseat of the Packard. There’s a gun, some clothes, a lot of ammo, and cash.”
The station door opened behind them, and four troopers escorted McGrew across the reception area and through doors at the back. The captured man glanced over toward Meeker and shook his head.
“I don’t think he likes you much,” Reese noted.
“The feeling’s mutual,” Meeker replied.
“He does make a good hood ornament,” Reese added.
“I thought so,” she shot back.
Lepowitz cut in, “Reese, you know as much about this guy as anyone here. You come in with me for the interrogation. And, Meeker, why don’t you find an empty office somewhere and count the cash in that bag.”
“That sounds like women’s work,” she noted.
“Yes, it does.” Lepowitz smiled. “I’m sure you’re suited for it.”
The desk sergeant escorted Meeker to the conference room and gave her a legal pad and pencil so she could take notes. Dumping the bag’s contents onto the table, she went to work. Her first chore was detailing the information on the manufacturer, make, model, and serial number of the firearm. She then recorded the information on the ammunition. She next went through the clothes, searching all the pockets and noting what was in each. Finally she turned her attention to the cash.
The money looked almost new. Though it was not crisp and it had a few creases, it was nevertheless very clean. Pulling off a rubber band, she thumbed through the cash. The bills were all one hundreds; while not startling, it was a bit strange. Most stores had a habit of carefully examining anything larger than a twenty, and so criminals liked smaller denominations as they drew far less attention when purchasing items.
The bills’ serial numbers were consecutive, indicating they likely had been part of a major bank heist. If this was true it would be a snap to link McGrew to that crime. She noted the starting and ending serial numbers on the pad then set about counting the C-notes. There were exactly one hundred bills and all, except for the last one, were in perfect shape.