by Jim Heskett
Omar changed from humming to whistling as we walked, and I once heard him whispering, then chuckling to himself.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Omar? I know I just gave you some terrible news, and, to be honest, you don’t seem all that upset about it.”
He stopped short, spun, and leaned close to me. “I loved my brother with all my heart. After we came to this country, we were not as close as we had once been. I saw him sparingly over the last few years. Unfortunately, we did not leave things between us on a positive note.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I knew what he was doing, and I knew they would catch him and kill him for it. What could I do but love him and let him follow his own path? I made peace with his inevitable end long ago.”
“I see.”
“Am I upset? A piece of my family has been ripped away from me. I knew it would happen, but I cannot change it. I will mourn him for the rest of my days. But not today.”
I studied him closely. “And why not today?”
“Because today we have a purpose. Today we will escape, and I will continue the work Kareem has done. I will set right all of the things they have sullied.”
This man could speak in vague riddles just as well as his brother. No surprise there. But, he’d also revived his talk of confronting IntelliCraft, or at least it seemed that way. Had he forgotten I’d talked him into letting that go for now?
Or maybe he didn’t understand the difference.
We rounded a corner and he led me to a concrete parking garage. At the entrance, he took a card from his pocket and pressed it against a sensor to raise the gate. I hadn’t been sure if he’d told the truth about owning a car, but it started to seem more likely.
We hiked up the concrete ramp to the third story, then he pointed at a late-model Toyota Camry, which looked clean and well-kept. “There she is,” he said, beaming like a proud father.
He fished a set of keys from his bag and tossed them to me. The keyring had only one key, and a bottle opener emblazoned with a Custer State Park logo. I twisted the thing in my hand.
“Have you ever been to South Dakota?” he said.
“Mount Rushmore, once, when I was a kid. My mom took me.”
“The bison of the Dakotas is such a majestic animal. So strong and patient.”
Didn’t know what to say to that. As I loaded his bags into the trunk, he ran a hand along the curve of the windshield, smiling to himself.
“Omar, why do you have a car if you’re not allowed to drive it?”
Footsteps echoed on the other end of the parking level. The first other people I’d heard since we’d entered the garage.
“Kareem bought me the car.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said as we both got in.
But before he could answer, the lights in the garage cut out, and a blast cracked the windshield. Gunshot.
“What was that?” he shouted.
I threw the car into reverse and screamed out of the spot, with a tire squeal echoing along the concrete parking garage. I fumbled for the lights at the side of the steering wheel while trying to put the car into gear.
Omar leaned forward, his head between his knees. He put his hands over his head.
“Are you okay? Omar, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am okay, what is happening?”
Glenning had happened. There was no other explanation. “I think the people looking for us are closer than I thought.”
I swerved through a line of parked cars, trying to locate the exit sign. It was too dark in the garage to make out anything outside of the headlights of the car. No sign of the shooter.
I saw the ramp ahead and floored the gas to get there. When the turn came, I yanked the steering wheel, and the shrieking of the tires made me momentarily dizzy. My head pulsed.
But the ramp led down to a light, and then outside. I didn’t bother to stop at the gate. There was no attendant in the little booth to give a ticket, so I kept the accelerator down and busted through the wooden gate. It flew up onto the windshield, then crashed behind us as I turned onto the adjoining street. Omar yelped.
“We’re okay,” I said. “We’re outside.”
I raced down the street, trying to shift the manual transmission and having some trouble. Sticky gearshift, and I didn’t exactly have time to familiarize myself with it.
“Seizures,” Omar said.
The tires burned as I turned a corner. “What?”
“I have seizures. It is why I cannot drive the car, and I am not able to obtain a driver’s license because of them.”
“You get these seizures often?”
He didn’t answer, only stared out the window as we headed toward a main street. I listened to his haggard breathing, which eased after a couple of minutes with no gunfire. But he kept his hands clenched in his lap.
Another gunshot rang out behind us, but I still couldn’t find the shooter. This bullet hadn’t hit the car. The first bullet hole had made a few cracks along the windshield, but I could still see.
So we weren’t alone out here. If IntelliCraft already knew I had Omar, then we were in a shitload of trouble.
CHAPTER TEN
Hurtling down I-35 and weaving through traffic, I sent a text message to my wife, to tell her that everything was fine and going according to schedule, nothing to worry about here. Felt a little guilty for doing that, but I promised myself I’d give her the full update next time we talked.
Wind whistled through the bullet hole in the windshield. Omar popped the glove box and took a length of duct tape from a roll, then sealed the hole. Looked ghetto, but at least it made the car quiet.
As I drove, Omar checked behind us, updating me on suspicious-looking cars or anyone that followed too close. I didn’t think Glenning or any other IntelliCraft people would be behind us. No, they’d want to scare us, then see where we were going.
Then it occurred to me that the bullet they’d fired at the car probably wasn’t meant to harm us. They’d probably launched a GPS tracker into the car. Or maybe that was paranoia.
“Omar, can you check the back and look for the bullet hole?”
He unbuckled his seat belt and crawled into the back, then checked around the cushions. “What am I looking for?”
“A hole, I guess. Torn fabric or something.”
“I do not see anything.”
Maybe there wasn’t anything back there. A GPS bullet sounded too sci-fi; I didn’t know if those things even existed. No, if IntelliCraft wanted to track us, they would have found the car earlier and stashed a GPS on it.
“Does anyone know you have this car?” I said as Omar crawled back into the front seat.
“I do not think so. A few people at the house, perhaps. I go out sometimes to start it up, to keep the battery fresh. But I have never shown anyone where it is.”
Maybe we could pull over and search the undercarriage. But, maybe they could track us with satellites and didn’t even need something attached to the car. But if tracking us was their goal, why had they shot at us?
An idea formed. “We have to sell your car.”
“What? Why?”
I sent a text to Zeke, to find out if he was still in the Austin area. He replied almost instantly, and I asked him to text me his location because we needed to meet.
“We just do, that’s all,” I said to Omar. “It’s for your safety.”
Omar turned his head away and watched the parade of towering billboards and outlet malls as I looked for the next exit. We turned off the highway and I used Zeke’s info to find him at a Super 8 Motel just south of town.
He was outside, sipping a large energy drink and leaning against his Honda.
I parked next to him, and he held up a hand to block out the sun.
“Do you have the title?” I asked Omar.
He fished in the glove box and handed it to me. “I do not know if this is a good idea. Kareem bought me this car.”
&nbs
p; “I know, and I’m sorry about that, but we’re in serious danger. Trust me, this is our best option right now. Stay here, please.”
“Hey man,” Zeke said once I’d gotten out of the car. “You missed a killer show last night. They did this thirty-minute Grateful Dead tribute in the middle of the show. I was in tears.”
“Sounds great,” I said.
“Alright, then, what’s so important that you’re texting me all panicked in the middle of the day?”
“I need to buy your car. Well, trade for it, actually.”
“You want to what?” he said, laughing.
“I want to trade this Camry for your Civic, straight up. This Camry has low mileage, and it’s at least ten years newer than your car.”
Zeke drained the last of his energy drink, let out a belch, then strolled around the Camry. He leaned in close and ran a hand over the paint. “Why would you want to do that?”
I eyed the parking lot and the surrounding streets for onlookers. Couldn’t find anyone. “I just do, Zeke, please. It’s important.”
He kicked one of the tires. “This car’s nice. Is it stolen, or something like that?”
“No, we just can’t be seen in it anymore. Please, I can’t tell you anything else. We need to do this now.”
He frowned at me. I could tell my high-pressure sales routine didn’t jibe with his life outlook. But I held out the title anyway. “We can sign it over to you right now.”
Zeke took the title from my hands and checked both sides of it. “My title’s back in Dallas.”
“You can mail it to me. That’s no problem.”
Zeke tugged at his chin. “You’d drive around in a car with no title? That doesn’t seem too smart.”
“It’s fine as long as you don’t report it stolen. You’re not going to do that, are you?”
Zeke laughed. “Naw, man, I wouldn’t do that to you.” He sighed, then peeked at Omar, who was picking his nose. He walked around the front and poked a finger at the bullet hole in the front windshield. “What’s this?”
“Rock on the highway, I think. If you get it patched up soon, it shouldn’t spread.”
“Hmm. Okay, we can do this. I got some old vinyl in the trunk I need to get, but otherwise, it’s all good with me.”
Thank God for easygoing Zeke.
I helped him transfer the contents of his trunk and a few things from the backseat, thanking him profusely every few seconds. After we’d made the exchange, I helped Omar out of the car, trying my best to keep him out of Zeke’s sight. Not that Zeke cared too much, but the fewer people that knew, the better.
The look on Omar’s face, when he settled into the passenger seat of his new car, made me feel a little sorry for him. Zeke didn’t have the same level of cleanliness that Omar had. Fast food bags, empty cigarette packs, receipts. I hoped Omar would understand that none of that mattered now.
He started breathing heavily, his eyes locked onto the dash of the car. His nostrils flared and he clenched his hands together in his lap.
“You okay?” I said. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
He didn’t answer, but kept breathing until he calmed down in a few seconds. He pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned back into the seat. “I become… uncomfortable sometimes. I am told they are called panic attacks.”
“Do we need to go somewhere? Is there something I can do?”
He stared out the window for a few seconds, then shook his head.
As we drove away, I waved to Zeke and wondered if IntelliCraft would follow him and murder him as they had three of my four trainees from Dallas. I had to hope that they wouldn’t. Or maybe they’d torture him to find out what he knew. A stab of guilt tore through my stomach, but it was too late. The deal had been done, and even if we traded cars back, Zeke was still involved.
If they were satellite tracking us, then switching the car wouldn’t matter, and it had all been for nothing.
“I’m sorry, Zeke,” I said to the windshield.
“Excuse me?” Omar said.
I turned back to the highway. “I think I may have just gotten that guy into trouble.”
“With these people, everything is trouble. They destroy all things in their path. No one is safe. Your friend back there was in trouble from the moment he walked into your life.”
***
I studied Omar as we caught up with the flow of traffic. “When are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
“There will be less jeopardy for you if you know nothing about it. Maybe you feel your curiosity will be sated, but it will not.”
“So, what can you tell me?”
“My brother Kareem was a great man. He tried to help people and expose the truth, and for that he died.”
“And what does that have to do with Heath Candle?”
“Candle was Kareem’s greatest adversary. They wanted the same thing, for different reasons. Or, at least, they used to want the same thing. Candle is a very bad man. He will do anything to protect himself.”
I fidgeted in my seat. “Was a bad man. He passed away.”
“And how do you know this?”
The restriction of the seat belt felt like arms holding me down. My mouth dried out as I licked my lips. “I haven’t been entirely honest with you.”
Omar pivoted to me. “Now is a good time to start.”
“Heath Candle was… my father. My name is Tucker Candle.”
Omar’s hand shot out to the door latch.
“No no no! Wait, please!” I tried to reach over and grab his hand, but he swatted me away. We were doing seventy on I-35. Did he think he’d just step out of the car and onto the shoulder?
“You are a liar and a cheat, and I do not know why I trusted you at all. Let me out of this car immediately.”
His eyes were full of fury. He breathed in and out of flared nostrils, waiting for me to answer.
“Just hear me out.”
“No! Pull this car over.”
I slowed and took the next exit off the highway toward a truck stop emporium complex, the kind with the sign out front stretching a hundred feet in the air and a parking lot big enough to accommodate a shopping mall. Omar kept his hand on the door latch the entire time, face scrunched in anger.
I slowed at the edge of the giant lot. “Please listen to me.”
Before I’d come to a complete stop, he fled the car and ran toward the building. Panic seized me. The last thing I needed was for him to make a scene inside somewhere in a big group of people.
I dashed after him, pleading for him to wait, but he seemed determined to go inside. Was he going to call the cops? Start screaming for help? If I had to tackle him, that wouldn’t look too good.
He opened the front door, and I followed him into a gas station so spacious it was like a small grocery store. A diner to the left, a lounge area to the right, groceries and souvenirs in the middle. Omar went straight back along an aisle full of chips and dips.
“Please, stop,” I said, in a loud whisper, keeping my head low.
He spun to face me but kept backing away. “I do not know you. I do not trust you. I should never have come, and now you’ve given away my car. My car! How did I let this happen?”
A man in a camouflage trucker hat peered at us over the next aisle.
“Yes, Heath was my father, but I haven’t had anything to do with him in twenty years. He’s no family to me. Whatever he was doing, and whatever his relationship with your brother, I didn’t know anything about that.”
Omar kept backtracking, and he bumped into a rack of Texas-shaped air fresheners. A hundred of the little things bobbled on the ends of their strings. “Why should I believe you? Why should I put my trust in you?”
A young couple near the end of the aisle sneaked glances at us while they were chatting.
“Please,” I said, “can we go outside and discuss this? I can explain everything if you give me a chance.”
“No.”
“What do I have
to do to prove it to you?”
The camouflage man rounded the aisle. He was a burly guy with a perfectly rounded gut and a white ring the size of a Skoal can marking the front pocket of his jeans. “Is this guy bothering you?” he said to Omar.
Omar stared at me, considering the question. One word from him and the whole thing came tumbling down. I should have told him straight out who I was, but that didn’t matter now.
“We’re fine,” I said.
The man kept his eyes on Omar, waiting for an answer. “Sir, is that true?”
Omar didn’t respond. He brushed past me and out the store.
I tried to smile at the man. “Moody friends, you know?”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and I spun on my heels to race after Omar. When I got outside, he was nowhere in sight. I peered at the collection of gasoline pumps, then rounded the side of the bathrooms. No Omar.
I went back to the store and sat on the edge of the curb, my brain flicking through options. Then my eye happened to catch a reflection of light in the distance, as Omar got into the car. He was going to leave me here.
The keys.
I jumped up and sighed in relief when I felt the keys in my pocket. I ran back to the car and slid into the driver’s seat, huffing and puffing.
We sat in silence for a few seconds.
“I need to be able to be certain you will not lie to me again,” he said.
“I understand.”
I started from the beginning. Explained Kareem meeting me at the bar, the warning not to go to Dallas, the dead trainees, Wyatt Green’s conspiracy, my kidnapped wife. All of it. Everything up until my last conversation with Kareem, when he told me that he and my father had once been friends.
“Heath and Kareem worked together long ago,” he said. “They used to be very close, in fact. Then your father transformed into a monster.”
A monster. Was that true?
“Are we okay?” I said.
He waved a hand at the ignition, I started up, and we left the lot.