by Jon Land
Ellie saw the shape appear behind the woman who had saved her life and raised her gun. A bullet stung her wrist from another direction and she watched her pistol go flying as Terry stumbled forward with shots pounding her back, making scarlet exit wounds through her chest and stomach. She pitched over finally as Maria Carvera’s dogs rushed into the brush and attacked the man who had killed her.
Elliana felt her wrist join her shoulder in numbness and did her best to flee. She had no gun now and looking for it in the darkness was futile. Escape was her only concern.
There were more shots and horrible wails as the killers descended on the dogs, and still more as another set found the old woman’s shack. Ellie had underestimated their number. There were probably dozens more spread through the woods, circling in on her and making escape impossible.
Undaunted, fueled by the incredible reserves called upon by desperation, Ellie found her legs and ran. She kept her head as low as she could, but speed was of the essence now. She would have to rely on the darkness to shield her.
Bullets split the air, tracing her flight, trying to angle themselves with her pace. Ellie changed to a zigzag, confusing the shooters and buying herself as much time as she could.
Suddenly her feet went out from under her. She felt herself falling, realizing she had lost track of her position and the gulley had claimed her. She braced but there was no hard impact, just a continuous roll as she plummeted downward. Pain racked her body and she felt consciousness struggling from her as she finally came to a halt, sprawled on her back beneath the night sky, unable to move.
A pair of twin figures in black appeared over her and Ellie closed her dimming eyes, resigned to death now and just hoping it would come fast.
Then hands were reaching down, probing, as the darkness enveloped her and she submitted to it.
Chapter 22
THE TIMBER WOLF WAS baffled. Through the Riveros, the grandmothers’ cocaine had been distributed literally all over the country, thirty different drop points from coast to coast. Such a precise, repetitive pattern could be nothing else but by design, which meant that the powder brought in by the grandmothers received totally different treatment from the rest of Trelana’s vast supplies. Apparently, a complete network had been set up just to handle it, with Lantos and the Riveros as key elements.
Yet, none of the points, or few anyway, would normally be associated with cocaine trafficking. Many of the drops were located in small, out-of-the-way towns, which didn’t fit the expected profile in the least. The points were so randomly spread across the country that it didn’t seem to matter at which one he started. Wayman purchased a portable road atlas and circled all thirty of the drop points on the respective state maps, finding the geographic distribution to be incredible. Something stuck in his head, something that held all thirty together through a common thread, but what was it? He stored the question temporarily and turned his attention to Wapello, Iowa, which he had chosen as his starting point mostly because it seemed the least appropriate of all the ones circled. He headed for Des Moines on Wednesday where he picked up a rental car to take him the rest of the way into Wapello, and hopefully some answers.
The trip was comforting only in that it felt good to be active again, to have purpose. Nagging at him always, though, was the final sequence of events that had set into motion his inevitable withdrawal from the field.
Corbano … the White Snake, one of the most successful terrorists for hire anywhere. A man with no delusions of patriotism, cause, or morality whatsoever. He was simply a hired hand. Corbano’s trademark was that he was always at the scene of the violent deeds he perpetrated, never trusting the work to subordinates. He was also one of the most elusive men in the world.
The Timber Wolf had followed a string of leads and had traced Corbano to Corsica, specifically to a small inn nestled in the Corsican hills overlooking the sea. He made base at a nearby hotel and waited for his opportunity to get close enough to complete the assignment. He had ample time to call for a backup strike force, but he wanted the White Snake for himself.
It took the Timber Wolf a day and a half to figure out that Corbano was in Corsica to meet with a radical cell of the Red Brigades. That meant something big was being planned and a lot of innocent people would die if it were carried out. The principals met regularly in a cabin located farther up the mountains. Since the Timber Wolf would be working alone, outnumbered, he would have to strike at night.
Wiring the cabin with explosives was not feasible without risking exposure. But going in at night would allow the Timber Wolf to use a portable rocket launcher to obliterate the cabin. Of course, there would be guards posted around the perimeter, and he dispatched four neatly without fuss.
Everything was going like clockwork. The Timber Wolf had been after Corbano for years and savored the moment of releasing the first rocket. He hit the trigger and the rocket sped out from the launcher’s barrel with a great whoooooossssssh. As it turned out, the second rocket was not needed, but he fired it anyway. Chips of wood splattered everywhere and flames engulfed what was left of the cabin.
The Timber Wolf knew something was wrong right away. There had been no screams, no flaming bodies projected outward. His heart thudding with uncertainty, he approached the clearing.
The bullets were at once everywhere. The Timber Wolf hit the ground, grasping his Uzi. He sprayed it in the direction of the enemy fire but kept moving. He realized he’d been had, tricked, fallen into a trap like a novice. It was all a setup. Corbano had lured him here. The cabin obviously had a tunnel beneath it that led back into the woods somewhere.
The Timber Wolf had never fought better. Calling upon every skill he knew and plenty he didn’t kept him alive against odds that should have been insurmountable. By all reports twenty men had surrounded him—Red Brigades or Corbano’s, it didn’t matter. It was one of the most incredible battles of its kind ever, adding to and confirming his legend. But the legend didn’t mention that it occurred after the fact, meaningless in and of itself.
Wounded and battered, Wayman made it back to his hotel an hour before dawn, collapsing with his wounds until a knock on the door came several hours later. The desk clerk handed him a just-delivered letter. Its contents were simple: Al Forno school in Rome. Nine this morning. Fuck you, Corbano.
Wayman had checked his watch. It was nine on the button. Frantically he rushed for the phone, his call reaching Rome seconds too late. The Al Forno School had been leveled to the ground with the ringing of the nine o’clock first period bell. Three hundred students, none over fourteen years of age, would die. Another five hundred injured.
All because he had played right into Corbano’s hands, let something become personal when by all definitions it couldn’t be. The White Snake had used him from the beginning, used him to keep other authorities off the job because the Timber Wolf was on it, while he planned his latest atrocity.
So, the Timber Wolf pulled out, resigned two weeks later. His blunder had cost too much, and it should have cost him his life as well. Wayman did not feel fortunate to be alive. Everything he was, everything he had been, was over. He knew it wasn’t just the one incident, not just Corsica. It was a culmination of all the years he had fought the enemy on his own terms. He had only asked all along that he be allowed to know when he couldn’t cut it anymore, limits of the body easily compensated for but limits of the mind not so swiftly made up. It had become personal for him, and the personal was a sign of weakness that created other weaknesses, like predictability, and this he could not afford. So, he withdrew to Florida and did his best to forget that the Timber Wolf ever existed.
But time had caught up with him. He had caught up with himself. The legend of Corsica, Wayman reflected. Things were seldom as they seemed.
There was little traffic on the interstate leading from Des Moines to Wapello and the only scenery along the way was rows and fields of grain ripe for harvest. Wapello itself was a small town carved out of simple Americana with three m
ain roads forming a small business center on the outskirts of a classic Iowa farming community, which boasted corn as its major crop.
Wayman picked up a local map at the small post office and followed Route 61 for ten miles before turning west onto a nameless, numberless road that would lead him to the drop address. He was in deep farm country now, even deeper as he turned off onto a dirt road. His car kicked clouds of dust up thick enough almost to obscure the mailbox with the address in question stenciled on it beneath a single name: TUMBLEFIG. The name of the farm’s owner obviously. Wayman pulled his car over to the side. There was a white farmhouse set back a bit and beyond it lay a modest farm, six hundred acres perhaps lined with what Wayman judged to be corn. A pair of tractors and other heavy farm machinery were parked before a bam. Cows grazed in the fields beyond.
The Timber Wolf climbed out of the car to stretch. His back ached and his muscles felt stiff.
As he stretched, Wayman looked down and noticed the huge ruts carved into the dirt and rock road. A lot of heavy machinery had been down here for quite a while and not too long ago either. Certainly these impressions were too deep to be explained by the inventory of farm equipment present in the yard, the treadmarks obviously those of massive front loaders and back-hoes. But what would so much heavy machinery be doing in farm country?
His thoughts were interrupted by the emergence of a husky man in denim overalls from the house. A screen door slammed behind him. He was wearing a straw hat and made straight for the largest of the two tractors. Tumblefig, Wayman assumed, ready for his afternoon chores.
The tractor’s frame sagged as Tumblefig settled into the seat and gunned the engine, backing up a bit to angle the machine for a direct approach to his fields, plow teeth at the rear ready to be lowered and churned. Wayman kept watching, following the tractor’s progress. On two occasions it swerved to avoid something rising out of the ground. Without binoculars Wayman couldn’t tell exactly what the things were, but his eyes were sharp enough to identify steel extensions, something like baffles.
His mind registered the incongruity with a slight increase of his pulse. He had been looking for something out of place, something that didn’t fit. Perhaps this was it. Clearly he needed a closer look.
Wayman waited until Tumblefig’s tractor was a safe distance away before venturing stealthily out onto the farm. He made it easily to the rear of the barn and then covered the distance to the first of the steel extensions from the ground with a quick dash.
It was indeed some sort of baffle, used in either the intake or jettisoning of air, a steel grating over it to guard against unwarranted entry. But why here? Such a baffle implied the existence of some sort of underground shelter. It made no sense.
Staying low, using the baffle for cover, Wayman gazed around him. There were at least three more baffles spread over regular intervals across the fields he could see along with something else; something less distinguishable in the dirt and grass but present nonetheless. Wayman was attracted to its presence by the reflecting sun. Still hunching, he made a quick dash for it.
It was a steel hatch, similar to the kind found on submarines! Again, why here? Wayman’s heart picked up its pace. Yes, there had to be some sort of underground shelter contained beneath this farm. But what could this possibly have to do with the cocaine distributed along Trelana’s channel? The answers lay underground.
Wayman pulled a file from his jacket pocket. He knew that such a hatch was constructed under the same principles as a standard door lock, secured by tumblers. He worked the file around the outside until he located the tumblers and then maneuvered it against them, manipulating until the bolt came free. He grabbed the single handhold and lifted, starting to lower himself down before the hatch was all the way up.
Down in the darkness his feet found a ladder and he began to descend, closing and sealing the hatch again. Beneath him was bright, antiseptic light. His feet touched a tile floor. Confused and disoriented, he took about ten steps forward with his back pressed against the wall and reached a huge white corridor that jutted off in two different directions at a right angle.
The air around him should have smelled of damp earth, but instead it was clinically fresh and scented. Obviously this underground structure had its own air supply or at least sophisticated filtration devices; that made sense considering the baffles above. He recalled the prints of the huge construction machinery from the dirt road in front of Tumblefig’s land as he started down the empty corridor before him. The scope of what they had undertaken and accomplished was amazing. But for what purpose? What exactly had he uncovered here?
Wayman heard the echoing of his own footsteps against the tile. No other sounds met his ears. A few more yards and he noticed the doors. They were spaced regularly, equidistant. The scope of this construction job amazed and fascinated him. It must have taken years. An underground bunker beneath a simple Iowa farm. He recalled the layout of Tumblefig’s land. It was isolated and apart, probably the only farm for miles. Yes, they could have pulled it off.
But that didn’t tell him why.
Wayman noticed the main corridor was intersected in several places by other hallways, neither as long nor as wide. He was coming up on one when the shuffle of footsteps forced him to backtrack. With nowhere else to go, he tried one of the doors. It gave and the Timber Wolf ducked inside, closing it behind him.
The darkness was total. Wayman waited until the sound of footsteps had passed and then eased the door open to allow light in so he might view the contents of the room he had entered. He frowned in confusion. It was a dormitory of some kind, unmade cots lined one after the other with little room in between. What had he stumbled on here? There were forty beds at least and it seemed reasonable to suspect many more were contained behind the other doors. Yes, he had suspected all along that more than simple cocaine trafficking was involved here, but this? The cocaine was involved somehow, though as merely a part of something much greater. He had to look at it from a different angle to see.
Facilities to house hundreds of people underground. A private air supply. What did it all mean?
The Timber Wolf crept back into the corridor. If answers were going to be found, he had to get out of here. There was no reason to check any more of the doors. Wayman suspected more of the dormitories would lie behind most of them, probably supplies of food and water behind others. The whole place had the feel of a giant, fortified fallout shelter. He shivered at the thought, then dismissed it. Nuclear weapons had nothing to do with what he had uncovered here. They didn’t fit the scenario that somehow involved Trelana’s cocaine. But something else was clearly involved of potentially comparable catastrophic ramifications. And someone was getting ready to protect themselves from whatever these were.
Which meant someone was preparing to implement … something.
He had seen enough; he had to get out. A feeling of dread fear filled him. Wayman didn’t rush, however. He knew that hatches similar to the one through which he had entered would be scattered throughout the structure.
A sign marked Portal Three with an arrow after it made him swing left down one of the intersecting corridors. He was halfway down it when the soft echo of footsteps found him, coming from the opposite direction. A shadow appeared and then a shape. Wayman froze. If he ran, he’d be made for sure.
He started walking in the opposite direction, ears primed to any change in the cadence of the footsteps behind him.
“Hey!” The shout came before the footsteps had a chance to pick up. “Hey!”
Wayman kept walking at the same pace, walking as if lost in concentration.
“You, stop!”
Footsteps were coming fast now, pounding tile, almost upon him.
“What the hell do you think you’re—”
The man had grasped the Timber Wolf at the shoulder and started to yank him around. Wayman went with the motion and entered into it, cracking the guard under the chin as he did. The man’s head slammed backward into the wall.
The Timber Wolf held his chin still and rammed his skull twice more backward. The guard’s eyes glazed and closed.
“Intruder in the bunker! Intruder in the bunker! Sound the alarm!”
The guard halfway down the adjoining corridor had dropped his walkie-talkie and was starting for his rifle when Wayman went into his rush. At the start his plight seemed impossible and was no better when, with the gun sighting on him, he went into a legs-first leap. The resulting collision forced the rifle barrel up as the guard squeezed the trigger and a jagged design of bullets dug chasms out of the ceiling. Wayman landed atop the dazed guard and stripped what remained of his consciousness away with an elbow.
A piercing alarm had begun to sound. The Timber Wolf was back on his feet and charging toward Portal Three. Echoes of footsteps were everywhere when he reached the ladder and started climbing, swinging the hatch open easily when he reached the top.
The grinding sound bubbled his ears. The tractor was coming straight for him, too late for him to duck back down. Wayman pulled himself all the way out from the hatch and rolled, unaware till the last whether he would be crushed or not. The smell of freshly groomed fields and gasoline filled his nostrils. One of the huge tires grazed his shoe. Tumblefig started to bring his tractor around again.
The Timber Wolf had already leaped on the plow attached to the rear, lunging forward onto the main tractor frame. Tumblefig turned just as Wayman cracked him with a kick to the ribs. The farmer was built like iron. The tractor wobbled as the husky farmer turned to meet the assault, a pipe wrench in his hand.
He swung it overhead, but Wayman twisted aside, ramming a rock-hard fist into the big man’s soft ribs. A gush of air fled Tumblefig’s mouth as he grimaced in pain, flailing out wildly with the pipe wrench.
The tractor was rolling awkwardly toward the woods bordering the farmer’s property. The Timber Wolf avoided all his strikes deftly, exchanging each for a slicing punch combination to Tumblefig’s face, afraid to take the time needed to draw his gun. The farmer took a half dozen combos before he crumbled over the tractor wheel as it rolled straight for a tree. Wayman heard the collision when he was airborne, the sickening thud of crunching metal forcing his teeth to grind together. He rolled free into the forest as the bullets started up behind him, chewing tree bark as he scampered into the cover of the trees.