by Brian Haig
As Rita Sanchez had said, I knew it to be true that most bad guys aren't particularly clever. In fact, most are annoyingly stupid. I had spent part of my career defending them, and I was frequently astounded, often appalled, and occasionally overwhelmed by the monumentally idiotic things they did. The plea bargain was contrived on the very premise that most criminals are just too mortally ignorant to even waste a trial over.
Regardless of what had shaped or perverted Jason Barnes's character, he was different. As far as we knew, he came to the arts of larceny and murder a stone-cold virgin. Yet he had come so far, so fast. His were crimes of passion, yet exhibited none of the telltale rashness, disorder, or carelessness that nearly always define that criminal breed. He had made none of the usual beginner's mistakes, or even a mistake one might expect from a hardened veteran. Up against the very best American law enforcement had to offer-the best coppers the world had to offer-he was running circles around them.
Unbelievable.
I wondered what Jason had up his sleeve for his next move. I couldn't even guess. But if-as Jennie was convinced-a man's past is the chronicle to his future, it was going to be something else.
I was about to find out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Halfway across Key Bridge, she called and said, "Go straight to Seven Corners."
"And you go straight to hell." Assuming she was observing me on Candid Camera, for good measure, I gave her another bird.
"Yeah? Well, who's the one drivin' 'round in his undershorts with a bomb under his ass?"
Good point. "Hey, I've got an idea, lady. Give yourself up. I'm a lawyer-maybe I'll keep your ass from frying in an electric chair."
"Shut up, or you'll get to hell first." She sounded really indignant, and hung up. Obviously, I needed to be careful here. The electric chair is sort of a hot-button topic with criminals. Also, women can be really touchy, and you never know when it's that time of the month.
With that sexist thought in mind, I smiled into the camera, hoping she'd see I was a good sport.
Anyway, I knew how to get to Seven Corners, was aware it was both a location and a shopping center, and I even knew how it got its name. It was in the county of Fairfax, a mile or so south of Falls Church, perched at the strategic junction of seven major arteries. It was a perfect example of what happens when urban planning boards are idiots-a congested maze of shopping malls, small roads, and substantial highways, surrounded by densely built-up suburbs with myriad side streets.
There were so many roads, large and small, leading into and out of Seven Corners it would take an entire field army to block them all off. In short, the perfect place for a shuffle, and somehow, I was sure, this was the decisive ground and the decisive moment.
So off I sped, straight through the steel-and-concrete corridors of Rosslyn, to the Route 50 exit, and then toward Seven Corners. I considered calling Jennie to forewarn her, and even more quickly concluded it would be both stupid and superfluous. With all the people watching, listening, and electronically tracking me, I felt like I was on one of those TV reality shows, this one called How to Save-or Not- Your Own Ass.
After another twenty minutes, I ended up at a stoplight, and to my right were two large strip malls, and ahead, off to my left, the lower parking lot for the Seven Corners Shopping Center, a two-level extravaganza, long and rectangular, half a million square feet of the best the capitalist world had to offer, where you could scratch virtually any materialistic itch and gratify any spending impulse. I love America.
In addition to all else, there had to be a tracking device in the van, because she called and said, "Now, straight to the intersection of Route 50 and Route 7, hang a left, and go to the upper parkin' lot of the shopping center. Keep the phone to yer ear.", I could hear the tension in her voice, and my heart began to race. The upper parking lot was around the other side of the shopping center, a mere few yards from the crossroads of four major highways running east, west, north, and south, the most options for egress. Clearly we had a major problem. Barnes had thought this through with frightening cleverness.
I hoped Jennie and Rita knew I was here, and I hoped they recognized what an ideal spot this was.
I wheeled into the north end of the upper parking lot, a long and narrow patch of black tarmac, approximately sixty yards in depth by about three hundred yards in length. She said, "Pull to the curb right next to the shoppin' center."
So I did.
"Now, keep going… little further… little more-now, stop."
It struck me that we had a big problem here. The parking spaces in the lot were filled with the usual mix of cars, SUVs, and minivans, and more cars were circling around and waiting for a space to open. Sated shoppers were coming out of the shopping center, toting bags of loot and dragging their kiddies, even as large numbers of hungry shoppers were crossing the lot and heading inside. Also, while the shopping center was as large as most malls, it wasn't enclosed-and thus wasn't labeled a mail-but instead had open walkways under overhangs where throngs of shoppers strolled and noodled.
If this thing went south, a lot of innocent people could get caught in the crossfire. If Jason's friend got nervous and ignited the little device wired to this van, we would have a major disaster, mostly moms and kiddies who would never know what hit them, not to mention moi.
But I didn't care what happened to me any longer. I rolled down the window, stuck my head out, and yelled, "This car has a bomb in it! Everybody run! Get away from here, now!.. Run!"
People were just focusing on the nut screaming scary things when a bunch of small gray canisters came flying through the air from the covered space inside the shopping center. The canisters struck the black tarmac around the van and rolled around, at least a dozen of them.
Nobody else did, but I recognized them instantly-Army smoke grenades.
They all started popping off, spitting and spewing thick clouds of green, red, and gray smoke into the air. Within seconds, the clouds became impenetrable; I could see nothing through my windshield but my own dazed reflection. Then my car door was jerked opened and a large and powerful hand got a grip on the back of my neck and pulled me out of the seat and onto the tarmac, where I landed with a loud oompf on my fifth point of contact.
My first thought was surprise that I could still have a thought. No bomb went off in the van. My second thought was to wonder if Jennie and Rita had somehow beaten me here, if all this smoke was to cover their assault and apprehension plan.
Alas, I had again committed the unpardonable sin of optimism. When I looked up, through the dense smoke and haze I observed a towering figure in blue jeans and a dark top looming above me. I was just starting to say something when the pointy end of a cowboy boot came slashing through the air, directly into my solar plexus.
I made a sound like a popped balloon. I rolled backward and immediately vomited up the tuna salad lunch I had shared with Rita and Jennie. I rolled around, gasped for breath, and mumbled a quick prayer to the god of hopeless causes-"Don't let that damn suppository be in that mess"
I tried to force air into my lungs, and I tried to get upright, but a hand shoved me back onto my butt. Over the noise of screaming people I heard the sounds of heavy grunting and of suitcases thumping onto metal. More smoke grenades were ignited, and I found myself coughing and sputtering from the irritation to my throat.
Then I heard the sound of a loud whoosh, followed instantly by a boom. A moment later, the sounds were repeated- Whoosh… Boom. I recognized the sound-Light Antitank Weapons were being fired, presumably into the parking lot.
I knew what Barnes was doing and I knew it was brilliant. The smoke was hiding the transfer of the suitcases into some other vehicle, and the rockets were fired into the parking lot to create a diversion. All police forces live by the credo Protect and Serve, in that order. Protection of the public trumps apprehension, and assuming Bureau agents were at the scene, they had their hands full protecting the innocents from the flying missiles.
Option one-whirl around, kick the big guy, and haul ass. He was, as I said, large and strong, but he wasn't expecting it, and I owed him a kick in the nuts at the very least. Also, once I got a few feet away, I would be obscured by smoke and it would take a remarkably lucky shot to put a bullet in my back. My day hadn't been lucky so far, but you never know.
Option two-remain with these people, hoping my tracking device wasn't in a pile of vomit, hoping they had some unfathomable reason to keep me alive, and hoping the Feds rose to a level of competence they hadn't yet shown.
Option one meant they would probably escape, but coincidentally, so would I. Option two contained the most hopes, and I had just sworn off optimism.
Through the smoke I observed two people shoving a rolling metal cargo cart loaded with gray suitcases into the shopping center's elevator.
In that instant, it struck me that they had outsmarted the cops; they were going to get away with it. The Feds would be rushing to block the escape routes accessible from the upper lot. Unobserved, Jason's crew would slip down the elevator to the lower level, making their escape out the other side of the shopping center, on different highways.
Either I was propelled by a noble impulse or I procrastinated too long, because suddenly I had no options. I was shoved with great force into the elevator, five more smoke grenades were tossed out, the doors slid closed, and we began our descent.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
There were three of them in the elevator. Nobody said a word. We were all winded, breathing heavily, and, for different reasons, consumed with our own thoughts and fears.
I used the descent to take stock of my new companions. They were dressed regularly-if shitkicker haberdashery can be termed regular-with black balaclava hoods over their heads, so I couldn't observe their fiendish faces, just their soulless eyes.
The one to my right, who maintained a vise grip on my arm, was square-shouldered, lanky, and extremely tall, perhaps six foot six or six foot seven. He smelled a little rank, or these days, I guess, "hygienically challenged."
The one to my left-specifically, the one holding the Glock pistol at my ear-had a feminine physique, slender where it counted, curvy where it counted, with a pair of huge rockets where it counted more. I assumed this was the same lady who had jerked me around on the phone.
The third member of their party had positioned himself in front of the elevator control panel. About my size, just shy of six feet, roughly 190 pounds, which coincided neatly with the descriptive data in Clyde Wizner's personnel files.
In fact, sexually, physically, and morally, these three were a cold match for Eric Tanner's hypothetical ring.
Not present in this gathering of murderers was the fourth party in their conspiracy, the brains of this outfit, Mr. Jason Barnes. Not really surprising, considering that his picture was in every newspaper in the country.
The elevator doors slid open. We were now on the ground level of the shopping center, and mirroring the upper level, there were no walls enclosing the shops; only a narrow covered walkway separated us from the lower parking lot. The cart and I were shoved out of the elevator, then straight toward the curb, where there were two Texas Cadillacs, i.e., beat-up Ford pickups, one red in color, one black, cabs empty, engines idling.
The guy who appeared to be Clyde Wizner said to the woman, "Get yers. Hurry" and off she loped, bouncing and jiggling.
He said to me, "You kin help load these cases, or you kin stand with yer thumb up yer butt and I'll blow yer brains out."
Time to be the perfect guest. I lifted the first suitcase and set it gently in the back of the black pickup.
Then the three of us were tossing suitcases into the beds of the red and black pickup trucks. There were no bags or luggage in any of the trucks, indicating, I thought, the possibility of a nearby hiding place. The license plates on both vehicles were Virginian, though presumably they were stolen, as was the fifty million, as was Sean Drummond.
In less than thirty seconds, the lady rolled up in her pickup, a yellow one, and the last four suitcases were thrown into the bed. The tall guy ran down the line and drew canvases over the cases, and there was their haul-fifty million in clean, untraceable cash divided not quite equally three ways, plus indivisible me.
The lady tossed me her keys and said, "Yer drivin' mine. Git in."
To clear up my apparent hesitation, she allowed me to examine how clean she kept the bore of her Glock pistol. She said, "I'd jus' as soon kill you. Move it, asshole."
And like that, I was in the mood for a drive.
The other two pickups sped off in different directions, as she and I climbed into the cab of her yellow Ford. Fastidiousness and nutritional fussiness were not among her faults; the floor was covered with crushed Bud cans and balled-up candy wrappers, and the lady appeared to own a bald dog, because tiny gray hairs were matted everywhere. Also, on the dash, directly in front of the steering wheel, was mounted a small video screen, presumably the one she had used to observe me inside the van.
Her right hand kept her pistol leveled at me, and with the other she removed her black balaclava hood and shook out her blond hair. As Chief Eric Tanner's witnesses attested, this was a lady who could spin a few heads; a little past thirty, cool blue eyes, tanned skin just turning wrinkly, pouty lips, and a firm chin. She was quite pretty, though a little slutty. Definitely not the type of girl Mom dreamed you'd bring home, but I think Pop would've enjoyed her. Except this lady had no heart and the black soul of a murderess.
Obeying perhaps her only law of the day, she buckled her seat belt. She said to me, "Don't buckle yers. Try crashin' this truck, yer goin' through the windshield, not me." She waved her pistol in front of my nose. "What'n the hell you lookin' at? Move it."
I pulled forward, and she directed me toward the far end of the parking lot. We sat on a long bench seat, and, showing sound survival skills, she scooted up against the passenger door and faced me. She said, "Don't speed, neither. Git back on Route 50, toward D.C."
After a moment, I commented, "You lied."
"I lie all the time. What's yer point?"
"There was no bomb."
"Oh… yeah." She looked around to see if any cops were in the vicinity. Unfortunately, they were all attending a convention on the other side of the mall, and it was smooth sailing. She looked at me and giggled. "Now, don't you feel like a stupid ass? Law degree and all that… still, I bullshitted you down to yer underpants. You were shittin' yer drawers."
"I never believed you in the first place."
"Liar." She laughed. "I saw yer face through the camera, and heard you tell the FBI. Like hell you din't believe me."
I laughed, too. "It did kind of suck."
I kept my eyes on the road, but after a moment I said to her, "You know, every cop in the entire world is going to come after you. Forever. You murdered a lot of important people. They'll never forget. Never. Eventually, they'll get you."
"Shut up."
"I just thought you should know they're really pissed."
"So what? They ain't impressed me yet."
That was probably true. After another moment I said, "What should I call you?"
"Don't call me nothin'. Shut up and drive."
"Come on. Give me a name. You're going to kill me anyway. Think about it… What will it hurt?"
She seemed to consider this. Obviously, she had removed her balaclava because in this era of terrorphobia people get a little stressed when they see hooded people riding around town. Yet allowing me to see her face was bad news for me. In fact, I was clueless as to why they hadn't already whacked me. Somehow, I fit into their agend
a. Probably it suited their purposes to keep a hostage until they were free and clear, not a second longer. In any event, her failure to contradict my assertion confirmed that I didn't have to worry about my dinner plans. She said, "Mary-Lou."
Why do all these people from Texas sound like country singers? I said, "Pretty name."
"Don't try that shit. We ain't gonna be friends."
I looked at her. "You're right, MaryLou, we'll never be friends. I'd just like my last few hours to pass pleasantly. Okay with you?"
We could hear, off in the distance, the screams of sirens, and again she twisted around and looked to be sure there weren't any flashing lights on our tail. No such luck.
I mentioned, "Anyway, it doesn't matter. The Bureau already knows about you."
"Yeah, right-nice try. They don't got a clue about me."
"Well… look, I hate to be the harbinger of bad news here… but yeah… they really do."
"Bullshit. They don't-"
"They know you're from Killeen, they know you've been pilfering weapons, and they know all about your pal Clyde Winner."
As intended, this disclosure got a big jolt out of her. She sort of recoiled backward, the pistol dipped a little, and her eyes went wide.
"Investigators are running all over Killeen," I continued. "What I'll bet is somebody will remember seeing you and Clyde together." I added, "With your looks… the boys do take notice, don't they?"
"I… when… I mean, how-"
"Hey… you should see the composite of you they're flashing around. From that range theft-the day you ran around Fort Hood in the range control getup. Those guys on the range sure remembered you. In fact, seeing you in the flesh-wow, it's you… a dead ringer." I glanced at her and said, "Hey… you seem a little tense… upset. Should I be telling you this?"