I traipsed back to my shelter, grateful that I had a safe place to hide.
*
I noticed the SUV completely by accident.
After two more nights of prowling and trying to sleep during the day, I found myself tossing and turning on the lumpy sofa in the basement. I sneaked up to the first floor to check on the TV news. During a commercial, I peeked through the curtains and saw it.
A big black SUV with tinted glass. The kind the government buys in the thousands. It was stopped at the end of the drive, and I could tell the passenger window was rolled down. A guy was just lowering a pair of binoculars.
Shit!
How had they found me? And who were they? I had to get out of here, but they were blocking the exit. Shit, shit, shit.
I tried to calm myself. They might be a neighborhood watch, or even a security service, checking on vacant properties, I told myself. That can’t be right. If that were true, they would just drive in.
Maybe they were burglars, just like me. No, it was too light outside.
I returned to the basement and paced a path in the rag rug, going over scenarios, plans and options. Unless they had put a tracker in the Ford—and I couldn’t imagine how that was possible since only Sonny and I knew about the truck—they couldn’t be certain anyone was in the house or that it was me.
As the day wore on, I realized I had alarmed myself over nothing. Whoever the men in the truck were, they could not possibly be after me. Just the same, I decided to move on after one more night of hacking. I was already close to cracking the email account. I was pretty sure it was a Hotmail address: CrippleCreekRun. I just needed to test passwords.
One more night of research should do it, if I was lucky.
Chapter 35
Cornered
Before venturing out one last time, I cleaned up the basement the best I could. I stuffed a couple hundred dollars for the repair of the door in a used envelope I had found and closed the door on it. The owners would discover the envelope when they found the broken door.
I had enjoyed clear, but hot, weather so far. This night, rain threatened. Like so many things in my life, I could do nothing about it. I had my poncho. I went slinking off into the woods for my familiar trek around the loop road.
While I was certain the black SUV had nothing to do with me, I walked deeper in the woods away from the road and stopped frequently to listen to the night sounds. I hadn’t heard the neighbor’s dogs since my initial outing. They seemed quiet and well-mannered, day and night.
Until tonight. As I approached my spot by the neighbor’s shed, they barked. Then they attacked.
They bounded across the neighbor’s yard, baying like hounds of hell. I turned immediately and dashed deeper into the woods. I pulled my Maglite from my jeans pocket, punched it on, and zigzagged through the woods, aiming for what I hoped was the shortest distance toward my basement hideaway.
Everything conspired to slow me down: The darkness, the dense woods littered with downfall, my backpack slapping me with every step, the tablet I carried under one arm. The dogs gained on me.
My out-of-shape lungs were heaving when the ground beneath me gave way. I landed on my butt and slid down years’ worth of dead leaves. Even in the dark, I knew I was slipping straight toward the creek that drained half of the properties in the development.
Thirty, fifty, seventy feet down, I careened around saplings and bushes and jutting rocks. My butt was locked in a shallow ditch down the hillside. My slide stopped abruptly as my boots hit water deep enough to wet my pants all the way to my knees. As soon as I hit, I rolled to the right in an attempt to keep the tablet in my left hand from getting wet. I lost the flashlight in mud and struggled to my knees. I had to get out of that water.
Above me, the dogs barked ferociously. But they stayed at the top of the slope. Apparently, they knew the lay of the land better than I and had no intention of getting their paws wet.
“Duke! Spike! Come!”
A voice hissed. I stayed absolutely motionless, my knees and right hand planted in about six inches of water.
“Come on, you hounds. Shut up. Come.”
One of the dogs growled.
“Come.”
The sound of the command approached the edge of the slope. A flashlight cut a swath in the darkness above me.
“Bad dogs. You’ll wake the neighborhood.”
Petrified—of the dogs, of being discovered, and of the water—I held my breath.
“Come. Now. I don’t care what you were chasing. Come here!”
“Hey, what’s going on?”
A new voice joined the dog owner’s monologue.
“Sorry, Al. Dogs got out and started chasing something. Probably that bobcat. Didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“You need to lock them up better. They can’t be waking people up in the middle of the night.”
I heard a door slam, then one last whispered, “Come!”
The sound of many feet crunching on dry leaves receded.
I forced myself to stay still in the water for what seemed an eternity before I stood. I wiped my hand on my wet pants leg, turned, and sat leaning into the slope. Without my flashlight, it was too dark to move safely. I’d have to wait until dawn to find my way out of the ditch. I pulled off my mud-soaked backpack, dug out my poncho and stuffed the tablet into the pack, and sat awaiting the coming of the light.
*
Dawn was a long time coming, and the rain arrived first. I pulled the poncho from under me and slipped it on. I was stifling within minutes.
The sky eventually began to lose its darkness in the east. I rose wet and miserable and worked my way along the creek until I could make out the roof of my hideaway against the sky. I dragged myself up the slope toward my shelter, plotting my next move. I was muddy up to my knees and elbows. I hated to do it, but I would shower, change clothes, and then get started. I could stop for coffee on the road. With luck, no one would notice me leaving the development.
I was slipping the backpack out from under the poncho as I neared the edge of the tree line when I noticed it. The white envelope was gone. Someone had entered the basement.
I froze.
*
Moments dragged like hours.
I scanned the house for lights or movement at the windows. I inspected each window, checking to make sure the blinds were still down. Everything looked the same, everything except the broken basement door. It was still shut tight but the envelope was gone.
Some kid might have stumbled on it. No, of course not. I left in the middle of the night. I hadn’t seen any evidence of kids or teens in my drives and night wanderings. This was a geezer hangout.
Someone, an adult, had checked out the house, seen the envelope and opened that door. Who? And what were they planning?
If the owners had arrived back in the middle of the night, they probably would have discovered the damaged door and called the cops. They certainly would have pulled the camouflage tarps off the truck to get the license plate number and any identifying information.
And anyone, anyone at all in the house, would have heard the dogs and guessed what had caused their outburst. Whoever was inside, and I assumed someone was inside, was just waiting for me.
I slowly lowered myself to the ground. I knew what had happened; now I had to deal with it.
The guys from the SUV had come back. Two of them. One in the house; one waiting nearby in the SUV, ready to block my escape. That’s how I’d do it.
I was trapped.
Chapter 36
Escape
Dim gray light suffused the day despite the pattering rain. I was soaked through, and rivulets flowed inside the poncho. Whatever I was going to do, I had to do it soon while I still had wet shadows to hide in.
I couldn’t enter the house, and I couldn’t leave the development unless I walked. What would I do then? I was covered in mud. I couldn’t just walk into a McDonald’s and ask to use the restroom and expect to go unnoticed.
I had to drive out and elude the SUV. If these guys were with the government, they’d be pros, or at least know more about evading capture than I did. They might even have backup.
At the very least, however, they would do what Mike Owens’s people had done: Attach a tracker to the pickup. I’d have to find it, and fast, before this miserable, dreary day produced real light.
My eyes strained to make out the corners of the tarp. I’d found a pile of cement blocks behind the house and placed one on each corner of the tarp to hold it down. With paranoia borne of my recent experiences, I had arranged each block at a diagonal from the rectangular shape of the truck; seen from overhead, they would look like a star. I might be able to tell if someone had messed with the truck if they hadn’t put the blocks back in the right pattern.
Dragging my backpack, I crawled to the nearest corner of the truck, the passenger side rear. The block there formed one ray of the star I had laid out. Slipping toward the front, with the truck between me and the house, I found the second perfectly placed ray of the star.
I crept to the driver’s side corner. This block was aligned parallel with the front of the truck. Bingo! Someone had moved it.
I rolled the cement block back and lifted the tarp. Its stiff newness crinkled like firecrackers. I hoped the rain covered the noise as well as it soaked me. I rolled onto my back, slid under the tarp and felt blindly for the tracker. This guy had been clever. He lodged it on the bottom of the wheel well on the passenger side of the truck. Anyone less paranoid than a demon-possessed photographer would have missed it. I hoped there was only one device. I would check again down the road. I needed to get moving.
Still under the tarp, I kicked the other front block away and rolled out from under the truck. I dug the keys out of the backpack, opened the door, and eased behind the wheel, dragging my backpack across my legs onto the passenger side of the seat.
Things were going to happen fast; I needed to be ready. No rain in my eyes. Dry hands on the wheels. I dug under the seat and pulled out the towel I kept for messy photo jobs. I rubbed the rain off my face and wiped my hands over and over, turning the cloth brown with mud and grease.
I slipped the key into the ignition, released the hand brake and eased the clutch to the floor. The truck started to roll forward, unfurling the tarp. I slammed the gear shift into first and twisted the key. The engine roared, and I let up the clutch. The rear tires spun, churning sod and mud, and the tarp flew off, held back by the cement blocks. I yanked the wheel into a hard left, and the truck’s rear fishtailed away from the corner of the cabin.
I tore up the hill past the carport onto the gravel, the engine growling in protest in first gear. No SUV barred my way, and the truck tires squealed on the wet asphalt of the loop road as I aimed for the development’s exit. I gambled at the stop sign, hung a left, still spraying mud, and tore down the highway toward I-40.
I didn’t notice anyone leaving the development after me, and I’d gone several hundred yards before I saw the first vehicle in my rear view mirror. If someone was following, they were giving me a long lead, or they knew where I was going, unlikely since I didn’t know myself.
I merged into the early rush hour traffic on I-26, then pulled off at the first exit. At an all-night McDonald’s, I slapped the tracker onto the rear of an RV. I followed the RV back to the interstate. It went north; I went south. At the next exit, I got off and followed the local road signs west.
I hadn’t seen anyone following me, but that didn’t mean anything. Twice on that first day, I pulled off the road and watched traffic pass. I marveled at the number of large, black SUVs with tinted glass that passed. None slowed, stopped or pulled a U-turn. Nonetheless I kept one eye glued to the rear view mirror.
As I raced to put Asheville behind me, I realized how I had been found, despite my head start and precautions along the way. Every time I stopped for gas or food, I left a marker: The tattoo on my face.
Mike Owens would have had no trouble following that cookie crumb.
I knew from experience the tattoo would not wash off. I kept it in the shadows or turned away from most people, but it was there, and it marked me. How could I have been so stupid?
Apparently, it was quite easy.
At my next stop, I bought a box of bandages large enough to cover most of the tattoo. If anyone asked, I would tell them I had skin cancer. I knew a lot about cancer from Sarah, and I knew people stopped asking as soon as you uttered the “C” word, as if it were contagious.
I plowed west on two-lane highways paralleling I-40. I picked up no tail that I could detect.
*
At Nashville, I detoured down to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, home of the Crimson Tide. I had online work to do and I hoped the thousands of Internet connections around the university would mask my location, if anyone was trying to find me.
I dozed overnight in the cab of my truck deep inside a parking garage several blocks from Alabama’s Gorgas Library. Waking myself at 7:15, I strolled over to the library, expecting to be the first patron of the day. Far more student go-getters than I ever anticipated beat me to the door.
Trying to make myself presentable, I brushed my teeth, combed my hair and applied a fresh bandage to the tattoo in one of the men’s rooms. Looking less like a homeless person who’d slept in his truck, I sat down at a computer terminal and trolled the Denver news sites. I found a long obituary for Charles Ivo Simon on a Denver news website, complete with a quotation from Amanda. She praised Simon as an outstanding lawyer and faithful friend. The obituary listed no cause of death.
Someone was covering up the shooting.
News from West Virginia was harder to come by.
I checked my local volunteer fire hall website, which is usually given over to news of bingo winners, potluck suppers, and the annual gun bash. The “Recent News” section included an item about a double run up to Eagles Roost, where I lived, to recover two bodies. One, a lawyer from Denver, apparently committed suicide. The other was a heart attack victim found with what was described as a hunting rifle with a scope; neither his photograph nor fingerprints had produced an identification.
I allowed myself a malevolent smile. Since going off the grid, I hadn’t given much thought to my inner demon. The spider was playing nicely; if it was happy, I was happy.
I strolled out the front door, looked around, and hiked to a side door of the library. I slipped back in through a locked door when a professorial type exited. I climbed to the top floor and plunked down on the top step of the stair well.
Cracking the password for [email protected] proved relatively simple, and I gained access after trying only a dozen variations of the phrase “my client.” The password was myCl!3nt. Charles Simon had a way of thinking, and somehow I was quickly attuned to it.
What I found hardly justified my late-night adventures. In fact, it was a major disappointment. The account held just three emails, with nothing that I didn’t already know. Still, given all the trouble I’d gone to, I downloaded them onto the tablet. I found that I had admin powers for the account and deleted the emails. I considered wiping the account as well—Charles wouldn’t be using it—then thought better of it. Free, anonymous email accounts don’t fall off trees.
I walked back to the truck and sacked out on the seat. After dark, I headed west again, keeping an eye out for headlights in the rear view mirror. The farther west I drove, the fewer lights I saw.
It gave me a lot of time to chew over what Charles Simon had told me and the useless material I had found in the email. It made me wonder if the email account had been hacked. Maybe the men who visited Charles at his office were a lot smarter than he thought. If that was the case, they might be right on my tail, and I’d never know it until it was too late.
Chapter 37
Pursuit
TOP SECRET OMEGA
DESTROY AFTER RECEIPT
FROM: MAJ WALKER STURGEON, 348TH GENERAL SERVICES, CHIEF OF STAFF
TO
: OPERATIONS TEAM CHARLIE
RE: ORDER TO DISABLE CONTACT - SUPPLEMENTAL TWO
IN ABSENCE OF DESIGNATED COMMANDING OFFICER, CHIEF OF STAFF CONTINUES IN COMMAND PER REG. 14-37-B, REV 09/2015.
SURVEILLANCE BY US ARMY SPECIAL WEAPONS COMMAND, USMC LTC MICHAEL OWENS, COMMANDING, LOCATES DISABLE CONTACT US CITIZEN SEBASTIAN ARNETT, PASSPORT 774872778, REF Y0071-12-14284-R CMS, IN DENVER COLORADO.
ALL TEAM CHARLIE ASSETS TO CONVERGE DENVER COLORADO SOONEST.
GPS DATA WILL BE UPDATED TO OMEGA SECURE ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS DEVICES AS AVAILABLE.
DESIGNATION OF NEW COMMANDING OFFICER FOR 348TH GENERAL SERVICES OFFICE IMMINENT. MAY IMPACT DURATION OF THIS DISABLE ORDER.
REPEATING, DISABLE ACTIONS MAY BE TAKEN INDEPENDENTLY BY EACH ASSET TEAM CHARLIE. RPT DISABLE ACTIONS MAY BE TAKEN INDEPENDENTLY.
FORMAL COOPERATION WITH US ARMY SPECIAL WEAPONS COMMAND, USMC LTC MICHAEL OWENS, COMMANDING, SUSPENDED. CLANDESTINE AUDITING OF COMMUNICATIONS CONTINUES, SUBJECT TO UNANNOUNCED TERMINATION.
ACTION THIS ORDER MOST URGENT RPT MOST URGENT.
ENDIT
TOP SECRET OMEGA
Chapter 38
Friends
Two days after leaving Tuscaloosa, I found myself sitting on the porch step at Amanda’s cabin, drink in hand.
“Old man, come out,” I yelled. “I have Hendricks gin. Come out now.”
“You don’t need to shout.”
I jerked toward the sound of his voice. The old Indian was nowhere to be seen, and then he was there. “Don’t do that,” I said.
“You call. I come. If you don’t want me to come, why do you call?”
“Don’t sneak up on me like that. Besides, I called plenty after we sweated, and you never came.”
“I had many things to think about. So did you, Sebastian. You are very nervous. That man who shoots at you, he must scare you a lot.”
The Mark of the Spider: A Black Orchid Chronicle Page 19