The Phoenix Egg

by Richard Bamberg

  John sat still, staring back, transfixed as the hurtling ball of flames expanded toward him.

  CHAPTER 26

  A sleek black Suburban slid to a stop near the burning hangar. Doors opened. Holdren and Romax emerged from the back seat. Their driver and another man joined them at the front of the vehicle where they surveyed the scene. Both Holdren and Romax wore overcoats that were open to expose their black Kevlar vests.

  In the still dark gray of dawn, fire trucks sprayed foam into the hangar’s interior in an effort to save the rest of the parked aircraft. An enormous column of fire towered above the hangar, its source somewhere on the opposite side of the hangar. Police cars, blue and red lights flashing, were parked on the tarmac at a safe distance from the fire. Other police cars cruised around the tarmac, playing spotlights into the dark recesses between the buildings. Farther down the line of hangars, other emergency vehicles including two ambulances were parked outside another hangar.

  “What a shit storm,” Holdren said.

  “Think they got out alive?” Romax asked.

  “How the hell should I know?” Holdren took the badly chewed cigar from his mouth and tossed it onto the snow. “With the way their luck has been going, I’d guess they’re already out of here. I don’t understand how anyone can stay one jump ahead of us. I thought for sure we had them at the house, but they responded as if they knew we were coming.”

  Romax shook his head slowly. He admired the tenacity of Blalock. The man was acting alone and yet staying ahead of them. Why had Blalock ever left the government? “I suspect its Blalock. We know his military background, and although the CIA won’t talk about him, we know he must have worked for them for at least three years.”

  “Yeah, but I worked for them for ten years, and I don’t think I could have been as lucky as this guy. Well, there’s nothing to be done until we find out what happened here. If it was Blalock and Maxwell, then who were they fighting?”

  “I’ve been wondering about that myself. You know, there was a report that two bodies were found in San Francisco,” Romax said.

  “So?”

  “The NCIX report stated they were suspected Japanese External Trade Organization agents.”

  Holdren’s eyes narrowed. “JETRO is on to this? Christ, who else is involved? This is getting way out of hand. Do they think Blalock killed them?”

  “They apparently didn’t make the connection, or at least they hadn’t as of yesterday. It didn’t sound like his style.”

  “Oh, why is that?”

  “They were garroted.”

  Holdren cursed under his breath and turned to the driver. “Morgan, round up whoever is in charge and get them over here, then get our personnel to check the area. I want to know who belongs to that plane and I want IDs on each and every body. ASAP! Look for witnesses and any sign of them. With this much excitement, someone must have seen something.”

  “Yes sir,” Morgan said. He trotted off toward the nearest fire crew.

  “Romax, get on the radio and see if we have a location on their transmissions.”

  “Sure, what are you going to be doing?”

  Holdren studied the billowing flames. “Me? I’m going to find some marshmallows.”

  ***

  John lay on his back, staring up at a tall column of orange and black flames that stank of jet fuel and burning insulation. He watched the flames and marveled at their intensity, until he realized his face was nearly parboiled. He rolled over and lifted himself to his hands and knees. He could no longer feel the localized pain of his destroyed ear, injured shoulder, or cut side. Those pains were lost in the myriad pains of bruised and torn flesh.

  Forcing himself to his feet, John swayed in the waves of heat. A few hundred yards away, past the flaming portion of jet, the hangar burned with a lesser intensity. All around him was bare earth, still damp from melted snow. He checked himself, found nothing broken, and found that his handgun was still holstered beneath his armpit. He turned toward the eight-foot high, chain-link fence. There was no way he was going to climb it, he had enough trouble standing. To his right, the night was filled with approaching rescue and fire vehicles, to his left were the bright lights of the distant main terminal. He was still disoriented from events, but he thought that the hangar where he’d left Caitlin was somewhere down that way.

  He turned left.

  John walked about fifty feet and was just starting to get some kind of stability in his stride when he saw the metal case. He stopped next to it and stared down.

  “Well, looky looky. What have we here?”

  It was the helmet case. The one he’d thrown into the throat of the jet’s port engine. It was beat up, singed along one side, but still intact, and still latched. The intake guards had kept it from being shattered among the spinning turbine blades and, apparently, it had been thrown clear when the rear section of the Learjet broke up.

  John bent and fell. The air whooshed out of his lungs. He lay still for a moment, and then used both hands to push himself back to his feet. When he bent to pick up the case again, he found himself sprawled beside it on the slushy earth once more.

  “Son of a …”

  He gripped the case’s handle in his left hand and lurched erect.

  It took him a few seconds to reorient his position, and then started forward. He reached pavement, an access road. It ran between a row of warehouses and the fence. In the distance, he thought he recognized the Rocky Air Freight hangar.

  Caitlin was still unconscious, or he would have been able to reach her over the egg. She should be safe, but eventually Holdren’s men or the police would search every nook and cranny. Then they’d find her.

  John moved into a trot.

  A hundred yards later, he braked to a halt. For a moment, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Resting against the fence, in a shallow ditch between two warehouses, was his rented Cherokee.

  He walked toward it, suspicious that it was some kind of bizarre trap. The headlights pointed down into the snow-filled ditch and were hardly visible. Closer, he saw the driver’s door was open and the engine was still running. He peered in the back. His gear was there. Walking around to the driver’s side, he saw that the transmission was engaged.

  He’d thought Dewatre had driven it away from the Learjet and then circled back to park next to the hangar, but apparently, he’d been in such a hurry that he hadn’t bothered to stop.

  John tossed the dented metal case into the back seat and climbed in behind the wheel. He shifted into reverse and backed out of the shallow ditch. Now he had transportation. All he had to do was pick up Caitlin and get the hell out of there.

  A half-mile farther he pulled to a stop behind the Rocky Air Freight hangar. Police cars were all over the place, but most were on the runway side of the hangar. The few in the back appeared to be empty. John killed the lights and cruised to the side of the hangar.

  He saw where the officers from the empty patrol cars were.

  They were helping paramedics load Caitlin onto a stretcher.

  John watched helplessly as they were joined by two men in dark, unmarked uniforms and Kevlar vests.

  Holdren he recognized and the second man matched Caitlin’s description of Romax. “Son of a bitch!”

  John backed the Jeep up until he was almost out of sight of the cluster of people. After a few minutes, the paramedics wheeled Caitlin around the far side of the hangar. Holdren and Romax talked to the police for a moment more, and then followed the paramedics.

  John put the Jeep in gear and moved toward the airport exit. Holdren would take Caitlin away from the paramedics. But when? They might let them carry her to a hospital and determine if she was seriously injured before taking her, or Holdren might insist on taking her before they left the airport.

  If he had to bet on one or the other, he would choose the hospital. There’d be a damn slim chance of getting her away from them at the hospital. He could try to stop the ambulance in route. He’d have to try.

>   He located a side street where he could watch the airport entrance without being observed and waited.

  Less than two minutes later the ambulance appeared. It was flanked fore and aft by a pair of black Suburbans.

  John cursed under his breath as the vehicles passed his position. He waited until they were a block away, then pulled out, and followed. The ambulance wasn’t speeding and now that the snow had finally stopped falling, its flashing red and white lights were easy to spot.

  They turned north onto Powers and a couple miles later turned west onto Platt. John held back, giving them a little more distance, and letting a couple of other cars get between them. Traffic on Platt was almost nonexistent. In an hour, it would be another story.

  John remember there were a couple of hospitals off Platt that might be their destination. Neither would take long to reach.

  The ambulance lights crossed Circle Avenue a minute later while John was cresting the hill. A few blocks farther, the ambulance veered off to the right on Boulder. That settled it. They were heading for Memorial Hospital.

  John followed their turns until the ambulance backed up to the emergency room doors. He parked across the street, crouched low in the seat, and watched. Several men climbed out of the Suburbans before the ambulance doors opened. Each man carried a compact Uzi carbine and watched the street rather than the ambulance. Did they really think he’d go up against them in the open? They were giving him more credit than he deserved. Maybe if he’d had a sniper rifle ... how good was the 30-06 rifle he’d taken from Caitlin’s parent’s house? No, it’d be stupid, he wasn’t in any condition to try, and by the time he could set up, they’d already have Caitlin inside and out of reach.

  He’d wait. Once she was awake, she’d contact him and they could coordinate a rescue. John put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb. He needed time to rest, to think.

  Hell, what he needed was a small army.

  He drove north a ways, then turned east. It was a weekday, there was nearly four inches of snow on the streets, and people wouldn’t be moving around any more than necessary. Colorado Springs was not known for it’s rapid snow removal. The main streets would be clear soon, but the side streets would wait for the next sunny day.

  In a few minutes, he found a side street with snow covered alleys leading away in either direction. John found one that looked a little seedier than the others and pulled down it until he found a large Dumpster to park behind. He turned the engine off, killed the lights, and leaned back against the headrest. His body hurt. He would swear that even his hair hurt.

  Caitlin shouldn’t be out too long, and then he could move again. Right now, he’d rest, then he’d be ready when she woke. Maybe an hour or so. It didn’t matter. Any rest was welcome. He closed his eyes. Just a little rest.

  ***

  Romax and Holdren followed the gurney into the elevator. The other agents tried to follow, but the doctor held up a hand to restrain them. They looked to Holdren for orders.

  “Put a man on each entrance and I want two upstairs outside her room.”

  They nodded as the doors closed.

  “Doctor, how soon will the blood test be back?” Holdren asked.

  “If it’s a common drug, we’ll know within the hour. Otherwise, well, there are drugs that don’t show up in the bloodstream at all once they combine in the system. If that’s the case, then we’d have to look for cell byproducts for identification. In truth, we might never know.”

  “That’s not what I wanted to hear.”

  “I’m sorry, but her vital signs are normal enough. She shouldn’t be in any danger.”

  “What I want to know is how soon she will be conscious?”

  “Oh, well, I can’t tell you that until the blood test is done and even then it’s questionable. If I had to guess I’d say she will probably be awake within twenty-four hours.”

  “Twenty-four hours, all right. We can work with that.”

  The elevator stopped. Romax and Holdren stepped out first, and then motioned for the doctor and attendant to come out. They moved the gurney down to a private room and transferred Caitlin to a bed. The doctor adjusted the drip on the IV and left.

  Holdren closed the door behind her and turned to Romax, who was staring at the jewel-encrusted, cyberphone he held in his left hand.

  “So what are we going to do until she wakes up?” Romax asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about that. We’re going to arrange a little trap for Blalock. The profilers said he’s a dedicated person. He won’t abandon his client, so I think we can get him to attempt a rescue.”

  “Here? That’s a little public, isn’t it?”

  “No, we’ll move her to the Los Alamos facility just as soon as she’s awake. We’ll need her to be awake to lure him in. You get things arranged. I’m going to sit with our pretty Ms. Maxwell for awhile.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Romax closed the door behind him and walked down the hall to the stairwell. Sunlight streamed in through a narrow window in the far wall. Pulling out his cell phone, Romax autodialed the barn.

  “Yes?”

  “Cronski, please, Mark Romax calling.”

  A few seconds later, his boss picked up the phone. “Romax? How are things?”

  “We’ve made some progress. We have Ms. Maxwell in custody and we have recovered one of the cyberphones.”

  “Excellent, that’s the best news I’ve heard all week. Have you recovered the blueprints?”

  “Just for the encoder. We still haven’t found the prints for the cyberphones.”

  “Damn, you know we have to have those prints. That damn Curtis destroyed all the copies except for the one he passed on to Corning. It’ll take years to reproduce his work.”

  “I know, sir. We’re working on it, but another problem has surfaced.”

  The voice on the other end of the call tightened. “What now?”

  “It appears that Ms. Maxwell has keyed the cyberphone to herself.”

  “Damn!” Cronski paused, then said, “Look Romax, make damn sure she stays alive. We can’t reprogram the phone and without the blueprints....”

  “I know, sir. I suspect that Mr. Blalock has the other cyberphone keyed into his mind. If so, we’ll have to have them both until we can manufacture new ones.”

  “I agree. You see to it.”

  “Yes, sir. And if I may add one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  Romax hesitated while he stared out over the snowy rooftops. “Sir, I am uncomfortable with some of Holdren’s actions. It seems to me that he may be losing control.”

  “That’s too bad. He’s been a good man. All right, keep an eye on him. If he steps too far out of line, well, I’ll back whatever play you determine is necessary. Just get those plans back!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  ***

  The patrol car slowed, stopped, and backed up. Sure enough, there was a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee parked halfway down the alley. Officer Carl Weber turned into the alley and drove close to the Jeep. The call had come from some lady who was taking out the garbage. She’d reported a body in a car behind her house. Her statement was that the man appeared to be dead from a gunshot or something. She hadn’t gotten too close to the body, but there were bullet holes in the vehicle and blood covered the driver’s head.

  There was someone in the driver’s seat. Weber stepped out of his patrol car and paused to report the license plate and his status. Dispatch informed him that the vehicle was a rental, rented two days ago at the airport. It hadn’t been reported stolen. Weber adjusted his dark sunglasses and still had to squint against the glare of the noon sun off fresh snow. He unsnapped the clasp on his holster and moved cautiously toward the driver’s side.

  The Jeep had a couple of windows missing and bullet holes pockmarked the near side. Since no one had reported gunshots in the area, Weber guessed that the driver had been fired on somewhere else and had made it this far before he collapsed.

&nbs
p; Weber reached the driver’s door and peered in.

  The driver’s head was slumped back against the headrest. His eyes were closed. Congealed blood covered the left side of his head and it looked like at least half his ear was missing. An old scar ran down the side of his face giving the man a sinister, menacing appearance. Weber stared at him for a minute, looking for some sign of life, but there was none.

  Weber tried the door. It wasn’t locked. He pulled it open and paused to see if the driver would react. Again, no response. The driver was wearing a heavy coat, torn and scraped; it looked like it had been expensive once. The man’s hair and eyebrows were singed and the smell of burnt hair was mingled with a smell similar to diesel fuel, but Weber couldn’t identify the odor. He smiled. This was going to be interesting, something to break the monopoly of minor crimes and traffic arrest.

  Careful to avoid the blood, Weber reached over and felt the driver’s neck. It was still warm. If he was dead, he hadn’t been dead long. Weber moved his fingers over the carotid arteries and squeezed in his search for a pulse.

  The driver jerked awake.

  Before Weber could move the man’s left hand shot out and closed on his neck. The strength in his grip was enormous and it tightened against his windpipe. Weber tried to pull away, but was held fast. His right hand tugged at his Glock handgun, but he froze when he heard the click of a hammer being pulled back. Something cold and hard was pressed against the underside of his chin.

  Oh, God. It wasn’t fair. He’d only been on the force for three years and he’d been married less than a year. His wife, Gail, was expecting their first child in April. It just wasn’t fair that he wouldn’t get to see their child born.

  “Please,” he said. His voice was hoarse over the grip that compressed his larynx.

  The driver’s brown eyes were bloodshot and intense. He blinked and seemed to see Weber for the first time. “You a cop?”

  The man’s voice was as hoarse as Weber’s. “Yeah. Look man, you don’t want to do this. I can get you a doctor. You’re hurt bad.”