Dust Up: A Thriller (Doyle Carrick)

by Jon McGoran

  She wiggled out of it and handed it over, her face stunned like she was going into shock.

  The door opened and the old guy walked in just as the fax machine started sending the second page. I went behind the counter and grabbed the cover page and jammed it into my pocket.

  “I just want to check out,” the old guy said, holding up his key, impatiently. He wasn’t as old as I’d thought, more worn down, like he’d been living so hard he wasn’t likely to get legitimately old.

  “We’ll be with you in one moment,” I said.

  I squeezed Miriam’s shoulder. Then I put on the wig and the shades and stuffed myself into the cardigan as best as I could.

  I squeezed past the old man and out the door. Then I got in his car and drove off.

  34

  I put the car in gear and eased it forward, hoping the car’s owner wouldn’t realize right away that it was gone. I sank low in my seat, trying to look small as I swung through the parking lot.

  Axe-Man was standing twenty feet in front of me. He looked up but didn’t seem to recognize me, or rather, didn’t seem to recognize Miriam. I stopped, waiting for it. Then he noticed me. And at the same moment, Old Spice stepped out of the door behind him. I eased the car forward as Axe-Man tapped his partner’s arm.

  I glanced at them, full on, all fake bronze hair and big sunglasses. Then I turned away and hit the gas.

  I swerved out of the parking lot, intentionally overcompensating on the turn and grinding over one of the flower beds, so as to give the impression of being in a hurry but not actually moving too fast.

  They seemed to buy it.

  I fishtailed back and forth onto the street, and behind me the black SUV screamed out of the parking lot, rocketing after me. The old guy ran into the street behind them, chasing after me as well, but he stopped after a few steps.

  I felt bad, but I’d leave the car at the airport, and he’d get it back soon enough. Unless these assholes caught up with me. In that case, his car would be the least of my worries.

  I didn’t know what kind of horsepower either of us had, but I wasn’t trying to lose them, just to lead them as far from Miriam as possible before they realized their mistake. Of course, I didn’t have a plan for if they actually did catch up with me.

  I needed to work on that.

  As it turned out, they had more horses than I did. Even with my foot on the floor, they were gaining.

  I took a right and then skidded left onto the road with the palm trees lining the median. Up ahead was the traffic circle with the communications tower.

  The airport would be just past it.

  The SUV was growing in my rearview, and I was starting to wonder if Sable had run into technical difficulties when I saw a small airplane banking from the right and turning in our direction, flying low, straight down the middle of the road. It was a little prop plane, but oddly boxy and square. I didn’t know what that was about.

  I kept my foot on the gas, and as I approached the traffic circle, the plane roared by, just overhead. Behind me, the SUV stopped growing. Then it started shrinking. By the time I reached the traffic circle, they had stopped completely. The plane slowed down and almost hovered over the motel, then it gently descended onto the road. Like a helicopter. It was the damnedest thing I’d ever seen.

  The SUV spun its wheels for a second, its tires screeching as it turned and took off back toward the motel. I continued around the traffic circle and sped back after it, wondering what I was going to do if I caught up with them. The SUV was taking the turns so hard I was hoping they’d roll, but they didn’t. Neither did I, but I almost drifted off the road a couple times.

  Two blocks up ahead, I could see Miriam running across the street toward the plane idling in the field. The door opened as she reached it, and she clambered aboard without breaking stride.

  The SUV was still a block away as the plane rolled forward and miraculously lifted off the ground after just a few feet. I almost relaxed, but then I saw the top half of Axe-Man protruding from the passenger-side of the SUV.

  He had a gun, an automatic, and apparently a decent touch with it, because when he let loose, at least three slugs dinged the plane’s paint job. I tried to push the pedal harder—maybe I could rear-end the bastards. But I was already going as fast as the car could go, and they were already pulling away from me in pursuit of the plane.

  The plane swung around as it rose, and by now the SUV was closing fast. This time, Axe-Man was aiming, squeezing off shots, one, two, three. I was afraid the plane was going to burst into flames. I was close enough that I could see Sable through the window, then the window cracked and I saw a splash of red. The plane wobbled wildly for a moment as it headed off to the north, flying low over the road.

  The SUV kept after it, Axe-Man leaning out the passenger side, firing wildly again. I slowed to a stop next to the motel. I didn’t know who’d been hit on the plane, or how bad. But there was nothing more I could do for Miriam, or for Sable.

  As far as I knew, the fax had gone through by now, so hopefully Nola would get it and send it on to Mikel. I hadn’t put her name on it, hoping “I love you, Doyle” would be enough to get it to her.

  But these guys were ready to shoot down airplanes to keep their secrets from getting out. Suddenly, it sunk in how much I was endangering Nola by sending that fax. I’d told myself no one would ever know a fax had been sent. But if they did, if they looked in the motel office and saw it, it wouldn’t take long for them to figure out where it had gone. And who the connection was to me.

  I jerked the wheel and swerved into the motel parking lot, leaving the keys in the ignition and the engine running as I ran up the steps and into the office.

  The fax had gone through, all the pages lying in the bottom tray. I grabbed them and jammed them into the waistband of my pants. Just as I was turning to run back out, I heard a loud metallic click. The black circle of a gun barrel appeared at the periphery of my field of vision, inches from my eye. My heart plummeted, not just because now they had me, not just because now they had the files, but because now they’d know where I sent them, and to whom.

  Then a voice said, “I don’t know what you’re playing at, asshole, but this is one crime scene you shouldn’t have returned to.” He didn’t smell of Axe. Inexplicably, he smelled worse, a putrid combination of urine and halitosis.

  I turned a little more. When I saw it was the guy whose car I’d stolen, I smiled.

  “You think this is funny, asshole?” The gun started wavering, and he adjusted his grip. His grin had meth mouth written all over it. “You picked the wrong motherfucker to mess with, stealing a car I just stole my own self.”

  Part of me did think it was funny. But I didn’t have time to explain to him why.

  The gun was a big old thing, a Colt .357 with a six-inch barrel. He was holding it so close to my head I could have just bobbed out of the way and stepped past it to take it from him. Of course, if he pulled the trigger, I’d be deaf for a week.

  He must have read my mind, because he stepped back. “Go ahead and make a move. I will open you up.”

  Axe-Man and Old Spice already knew what the car looked like. They’d be looking for it. I raised my hands, and he laughed. “You’re lucky I’m in a hurry to get away from this shithole.”

  In the background, I could hear the car dinging, with the engine running and the door open, just like before.

  He backed out the door, holding the gun on me the whole time.

  “Drive safe,” I said.

  “Fuck you,” he replied.

  As he got in the car, I could see the SUV approaching in the distance.

  I hoped Sable and Miriam had gotten away.

  The meth head peeled out, and I headed for the other door, pausing to watch as he tore out of the parking lot and screeched into the first left turn. I waited until the SUV went after him, then I slipped out the door and ran the other way.

  35

  The terrain was distressingly flat an
d open. I ran full out, the way you do when there’s a machine gun involved. I kept the motel between me and whatever was playing out between the SUV and the meth head in the Buick. I’d seen the town from the air, and I knew there wasn’t much of it—road out of town to the north and another one to the south. I knew the Buick wasn’t going to elude the SUV for long, and however that interaction ended, it wouldn’t take Axe-Man and Old Spice long to figure out I wasn’t driving.

  I had to find Charlie and get out of there the way I came in: by air. And I realized I probably wasn’t going to be headed home, either.

  I was pausing to catch my breath behind a Dumpster at a Gator Express gas station when I saw Taste of the Everglades, the restaurant, diagonally across the street.

  I ran across to the parking lot and hid behind a massive pickup truck with a Confederate flag in the back and huge, coal-roller exhaust pipes sticking up over the bed. When I was sure there was no sign of Axe-Man or his pal, I slipped in the front door.

  The hostess seemed startled, and I opened my mouth to describe Charlie, but I knew there wasn’t time for that. Instead, I ran past her. The place was sprawling, and I hurried across the deck, through the screened-in porch, into the dining room. There was only a handful of people, and they stared at me like I had two heads. It wasn’t until I got to the bar area that I realized I was still wearing my Miriam disguise.

  I pulled off the shades and wig as my eyes adjusted to the dim light. The bartender and his lone customer were already staring at me.

  “Carrick?” Charlie said, snorting as he looked me up and down and turned back around on his barstool. “Whatever, dude. Don’t matter to me what you’re into.”

  The bartender seemed more judgmental, trying hard not to say anything more than “What’ll you have?” Even that sounded like he wasn’t just asking what I’d like to drink.

  I ignored him.

  “We need to get out of here,” I whispered tersely to Charlie.

  The bartender raised an eyebrow and looked at Charlie differently after that.

  “Dude,” Charlie said, leaning back and waving his hands over the large glass of beer and the platter of fried seafood in front of him. “I’m eating dinner. I’ll get you home soon enough.”

  I grabbed him by the collar, and he turned to me, a look of anger on his face until he saw the look on mine.

  The bartender wandered down to the other end of the bar.

  “We have to go to Haiti,” I said.

  He screwed up his face. “Bullshit we do.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Sable’s taking the girl to Haiti. I’m taking you back to Philly. That’s the plan.”

  “The plan’s changed. Sable’s hurt.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The guys after Miriam found her. Sable came in to extract her, in some crazy little plane that dropped out of the sky like a helicopter.”

  He smiled. “That’s the Helio Courier.”

  “He got away, but they shot him.”

  The smile disappeared. “How bad?”

  “I don’t know. But the guys who shot him are about five minutes behind us.”

  I almost said me but figured saying us might incentivize him. It did.

  “Fuck,” he said, sliding off the barstool and tossing two crumpled twenties on the bar. He downed his beer, then we went outside to the giant pickup truck.

  “This is you?” I asked as we got inside.

  “Don’t judge. Belongs to a friend of mine who works at the airport.” He looked around as we drove. “I thought you said guys with guns were right behind us.”

  “They were,” I said, looking around myself. “Maybe they left, or maybe they’re waiting for us at the airport. I don’t know.”

  “Excellent.”

  As it turned out, they weren’t. Or they weren’t fifty yards from the gate. That’s where Charlie stopped and said, “Get out here.” He pointed at the dirt road where Sable and I had come out. “Go back that way, meet me at the end of the runway. I’ll pick you up where I dropped you off, okay?”

  I got out and ran past the spot where Sable had picked up the car. I squeezed around the end of the fence and waited in a clump of bushes near the end of the landing strip.

  Ten minutes later, I heard the turboprop approaching. As it neared the end of the runway, I ran toward it. The hatch fell open, and I climbed in, pulling it shut behind me. Before I was buckled into my seat, we were rocketing back down the runway, tipping up into the sky.

  36

  Charlie was worried about Sable—that’s the only reason he agreed to take me—but he was worried about himself, too. He was angry about the idea of flying into Haiti on what he considered a whim. He said I hadn’t thought it through. It didn’t help when he found out I didn’t have my passport.

  “We’ll just do the thing at the end of the runway,” I said, “like we did in Everglades City.”

  He shook his head and let out an exasperated laugh. “Not for international flights, man. And not for international airports. Even in Haiti, there’s going to be customs and immigration, cops all over. It’s a big airport, with big fences and lots of guards. You’re going to get taken in. And I’m going to get into trouble for helping you. Have you thought about this at all? Do speak any Kreyol? Do you even speak French?”

  “A little,” I said, exaggerating.

  The truth was, I was as alarmed as he was. But even after I realized I totally hadn’t thought it through, I couldn’t think of anything I should have done differently. I needed to follow Miriam and Sable, to make sure they were okay, to help Miriam if Sable wasn’t okay, and to help get those files to Regi Baudet.

  Ron Hartwell had been convinced that whatever was in those files was explosive, and he had died trying to expose them. I needed to do what I could to help Miriam get them out.

  Once we were in the air and I had a moment to think, panic flooded through me once more at the potential danger I had just faxed to Nola.

  I glanced out the window, at the land sliding into the distance behind us, and I took out my phone.

  Nola answered breathlessly on the first ring. “Doyle! Where are you? What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m in Florida.” I glanced back out the window. I could still see Florida.

  “Florida? What are you doing there? How did you get there so fast?”

  “It’s a long story. I was meeting with Miriam Hartwell. Look, I sent you a fax at work. It’s important and it’s dangerous. I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “It’s okay. What is it?”

  “It’s what Ron and Miriam uncovered, files and memos. I need you to get it as soon as possible, but you need to be really careful, okay?”

  “Sure, okay.”

  “Make a copy and put it somewhere safe. Send the other copy to Gregory Mikel, urgent, from Miriam Hartwell. Look up Mikel’s corporate address in New York—”

  “Wait, you mean Gregory Mikel the Beta Librae guy?”

  “You know about them?”

  “The environmental group? A little. You know Mikel is a billionaire, right?” The signal was starting to break up.

  “Yes. Beta Librae—are they for real?”

  “Yeah, I think so. What about them?” Her voice cut in and out.

  “Look, I’m losing your signal. I shouldn’t have sent it to you, I just needed to send it out before—”

  “Before what?”

  “You need to get out of the house.”

  “What?! Doyle, what are you talking about?” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Laura just left. Can’t I just be alone in my home for a moment?”

  “The guys who tried to kill Miriam in North Philly found her down here.”

  “Jesus, is she okay?”

  “I think so. She got away. But this is serious.”

  “You think they could come here?”

  “I just want you to be safe.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll go get the fax. Then I
’ll … go somewhere.” I could hear her moving about, grabbing her keys. “When are you coming home?”

  “Not just yet.”

  There was a burst of static, and I thought I’d lost her. “You’re staying down there?”

  “I think Miriam went to Haiti. I have to go after her, make sure she’s okay.”

  “Haiti? Doyle, are you serious? Do you even have your passport?”

  “Um … No, I just…”

  “Then how … you going … into Haiti? How are … get back home?”

  “I’ll figure something out. I’ll see you soon. I love you.”

  “I … too, but…”

  And then she was gone. Outside the window, there was nothing but ocean.

  Now that I was off the phone, I could hear Charlie, still muttering obscenities in the cockpit.

  I took out the files I had faxed to Nola. There were a dozen pages, three or four of them stamped CONFIDENTIAL. A lot of the pages were almost duplicates, and none of them were all that scintillating to read in the first place, not even the secret ones. I kept reminding myself, This is what Ron Hartwell was killed over, and he was bringing it to me when he died.

  I pored over each page looking for something, anything that stood out as a clue.

  There were several abstracts of scientific reports that were so technical they were indecipherable. There were also a handful of inventory or production reports, lists of quantities of various agricultural products, or forecasts or plans for future production. They included several different varieties of modified corn, sugar beets, alfalfa, soy, and, at the bottom of the page, Soyagene.

  There was a distribution memo marked CONFIDENTIAL. It seemed pretty innocuous stuff, talking about the phase-two rollout of Soyagene that Miriam had mentioned, set to start in a couple of days. There was an impressive list of markets, including the United States, broken down into six regions, and two dozen countries around the world, and a calendar of launch dates, stretching over the next six weeks.

  There was a sales memo with a list of about a dozen crops, including Soyagene and something called Early Rise corn, as well as a couple of hybrid and genetically engineered sugar beets, two alfalfas, and a bunch of other stuff.