by Jude Hardin
Which presented a potential opportunity.
One of Nefangar’s hands was busy fumbling with the keys, and the other was busy holding the unwieldy handgun, which meant that the cell phone with the fatal SEND button was out of the picture for the moment. Probably in a pocket. Within reach, but it would take some time to fish it out. At least a couple of seconds.
As long as you’re still breathing, there’s a chance the tables will turn. When they do, don’t hesitate. Strike fast. Strike hard. Get out.
Wahlman waited until he heard the key slide into the slot and the deadbolt click open, and then he pivoted ninety degrees and lowered his left shoulder and rammed into Nefangar’s right arm, hammering him with tremendous force, tenderizing him like a piece of raw meat. The keys tinkled brassily to the concrete floor, Nefangar’s left ribcage slammed crunchily against the steel doorframe, and the .44 magnum discharged harmlessly into the section of sheetrock Wahlman had been leaning against.
Wahlman got down on the floor and arched his back and bent his knees and wriggled his restrained hands to the front where he could use them. He grabbed the keys and stuffed them into his pocket, and then he stood and pressed his boot against Nefangar’s wrist and bent over and pried the revolver out of his fingers. Nefangar tried to resist, but it seemed that the little bit of strength he had left was being used to draw air into his right lung—the only one that was still functioning at full capacity.
Wahlman reached into Nefangar’s left front pants pocket and carefully pulled out the cell phone.
“You’re going to die,” Nefangar grunted.
“We’re all going to die,” Wahlman said. “Some of us sooner than others. You sooner than most.”
He pressed the barrel of the .44 against Nefangar’s forehead.
Cocked the hammer back.
“Wait,” Nefangar said. “I can arrange it so you’ll know for sure that Mike Chilton is safe.”
“How can you do that?”
“I’ll show you how to disable the drone. Then you can pinpoint Mike’s exact location and send some cops or whoever out there to help him.”
“Okay. Show me.”
“First you have to promise that you’re not going to shoot me.”
“Who was the guy running from the drone earlier?” Wahlman asked. “The one who got shot in the back.”
“That was our man,” Nefangar said. “He drove Chilton out to the swamp.”
“Why did you kill him?”
“He made a stupid mistake. He was a liability.”
“Show me how to disable the drone.”
“First you have to promise that you’re not going to—”
“Okay. I promise.”
Wahlman gently released the hammer and slid the humongous revolver into his waistband. Nobody needed a gun that big, he thought. It was like carrying an anvil.
“Use my cell phone to access the satellite site,” Nefangar said. “But don’t log in. I’m going to give you a special user name and password.”
“I’m going to need my hands,” Wahlman said. “Do you have something I can cut these ties off with?”
Nefangar nodded. He slowly and painstakingly slid two fingers into his pocket and pulled out a small lock-blade knife. He tried to open it, didn’t have the strength. He finally gave up and tossed the knife on the floor near Wahlman’s feet.
Wahlman bent over and picked it up.
Opened it.
Examined it.
Noticed that there were some tiny blackish-red flakes where the blade locked into the handle.
Blood, he thought. Most likely from Darrell Renfro’s abdomen.
He sawed the zip ties off and folded the blade back into the handle and slid the knife into his pocket. Then he pulled out Nefangar’s phone.
“The first thing you need to do is retract the kill command,” Nefangar said.
“How to I do that?”
“See the button that says SEND?”
“Yes.”
“If you tap it two times in quick succession, your friend will die in a matter of seconds.”
“I obviously don’t want that to happen.”
“Right. So what you need to do is tap the button three times in quick succession. That will cause the drone to return to its base to wait for further commands.”
“I thought you said I could disable the drone completely,” Wahlman said.
“You have to send it back to its base first.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth? I do I know that tapping the button three times won’t dial in the kill command?”
“I’m trying to save my own skin,” Nefangar said. “That’s what this is all about, remember? Why would I lie?”
Wahlman nodded.
He looked down at the display screen.
Stared at the SEND button.
Thought about it.
Thought about it some more.
And then he tapped the button three times.
22
Nothing happened.
“How do I know Mike’s okay?” Wahlman asked. “How do I know the drone went back to its base?”
“Go to the website,” Nefangar said. “There’s a link in my bookmarks.”
Wahlman found the link and accessed the website for the satellite feed.
“I’m looking at the login window,” he said. “I need the special user name and password you told me about.”
Nefangar started laughing. “There’s no special user name and password,” he said. “I made that up. Why should I help you get what you want? I was dead the second you took my gun. Look at me. I need a doctor. I’m going to need to be hospitalized. Drake’s not going to let me live. I’m of no use to him now.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that your friend Mike Chilton is dead. And I’m saying that you’re the one who killed him. If you had cooperated, everything would have been all right. We would have let Chilton go. But you had to be the big hero, didn’t you? My life is over now, Mr. Wahlman, but so is yours. There’s no escape. Even if you manage to get away from Drake, there’s still no escape. Our clients aren’t the kind of people who give up. Ever. They’ll hire someone else to track you down, or maybe they’ll do it themselves this time. They’ll find you. Tomorrow, next week, whenever.”
Wahlman reared back and threw Nefangar’s cell phone toward the end of the hallway. He threw it hard, overhand, like a baseball, and then he pulled the .44 from his waistband, cocked the hammer back, aimed the barrel at Nefangar’s face.
“Who are your clients?” he asked.
“Seems like you have some anger management issues. You might want to see someone about that.”
“Who are your clients?”
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” Nefangar said. “Like how it went down with Renfro. Like how we placed one of our guys in Allison Bentley’s hotel room. Like how we drained your bank account, or why any of this is even happening. With Renfro, it was supposed to look like an accident. McNeal and I followed—”
Wahlman jammed the barrel of the revolver into Nefangar’s mouth, breaking several of his front teeth in the process.
“I don’t care about any of that shit,” Wahlman said. “Not anymore. You think I’m going to stand here and listen to you talk until Drake gets here? I’m going to ask you one more time. Who are your clients?”
Nefangar started gagging. Wahlman pulled the gun out of his mouth. Nefangar turned his head to the side and coughed out some blood and tooth fragments.
“You want to know who hired us?” he said, his speech wet and garbled and nearly incomprehensible. “Why? So you can go after them? It’s not going to work. They’re too big. The issue they’re trying to keep secret is too big. You don’t have a chance.”
“As long as I’m still breathing, I still have a chance,” Wahlman said.
And then he took two steps backward and emptied the revolver into Nefangar’s chest.
Which he knew right away was a
big mistake. He had allowed his emotions to get the best of him. He should have kept at least one bullet for contingencies.
Because when he turned to run back out to the tanks, to retrieve the weapons he’d left on the catwalk, he saw a man with an Uzi standing at the end of the hallway.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” the man said. “Clifford Terrence Drake Junior, Attorney at Law.”
Wahlman didn’t know what was behind the door Nefangar had opened a few minutes ago, but he knew it couldn’t possibly be any worse than what he was facing now. He dropped the .44 and dove toward the door and rolled into the room on the other side of it, barely beating a short burst of rounds from Drake’s machinegun. The bullets pinged off the concrete and thudded into the wood and drywall as Wahlman scurried back to the threshold and slammed the door shut and secured the deadbolt.
There was another door on the other side of the room. Two entrances from two different hallways. Typical for this kind of setup, Wahlman thought. A common area for staff meetings and educational presentations and whatnot. He’d seen plenty of similar arrangements on naval bases, and even on ships.
Drake was still on the other side of the door that Nefangar had opened with the key. Wahlman could hear him over there ramming it with his shoulder, trying to bust through the frame. Maybe he had never been to the factory before. Maybe he didn’t know about the double entrance. Wahlman hoped he didn’t, because the second door represented his only chance of getting out of there alive. He stayed low, belly-crawling past a conference table and a file cabinet and a small steel safe, almost making it to the door before looking back and noticing that he was leaving a trail of blood.
He’d been hit.
Left hamstring, several inches above the knee joint.
The extreme adrenaline rush from the fight-or-flight response must have kept him from feeling the bullet as it went in, but he could certainly feel it now. Like someone holding a soldering iron to the back of his leg. He reached up and unlocked the deadbolt, opened the door and crawled out into the hallway.
Drake was still trying to break through the door on the other side. Wahlman could hear him. Banging with his shoulder, kicking with his foot. Probably thinking that he had plenty of time. Probably thinking that he had Wahlman trapped.
Drake could have tried blasting the lock off with the Uzi, but Wahlman supposed he was too smart for that. It was highly unlikely for a bullet to strike a lock mechanism in the precise manner it would need to in order to break it open. What was more likely was that one or more of the rounds shot at the lock would ricochet back and hit the shooter. Not to mention the ammunition that would be wasted. Trying to blast a lock with a gun was an all-around fail most of the time, a notion that was dispelled during the first week of any sort of serious firearms training.
Wahlman stood and started limping toward the end of the hallway, toward the turn that would lead him back to the production area, warm blood from the gunshot wound trickling down the back of his leg in a steady stream. The injury was serious, but it could have been a lot worse. If the bullet had clipped his femoral artery, he probably would have bled out by now. The hole in his leg hurt like crazy, but it didn’t present an immediate threat to his life.
He made it to the end of the hallway, took a right down a shorter corridor, pushed his way through the heavy steel door, out into the big room where the big tanks were. Now it was just a matter of getting over to the stairs and climbing up to the catwalk and retrieving the weapons he’d left there. Easier said than done when it felt like a handful of razorblades were being jammed into the back of his leg. He hobbled along the edge of the factory floor as fast as he could, losing a few more drops of blood with every excruciating step.
By the time he got to the portable steel staircase on the right side of the tanks, the one he’d used previously, the pain in his leg had subsided some, which was good, but then he saw that the staircase had been pulled away from the catwalk, which was not good. Now there was a gap between the top step and the horizontal platform. Ten feet or so. Too far to jump, especially with a shredded hamstring. Wahlman backed up far enough to see that the staircase on the left had been moved as well. He figured Drake must have pulled the units away from the platform on his way in. Motivation unknown. Maybe he’d thought that Wahlman was still up there. Or maybe he’d planned ahead, envisioning the possibility of the scenario that was playing out now. Smart. And if that was the case, it probably wouldn’t be long until he came out to the production area to take a look, regardless of whether or not he managed to break through the door to the conference room.
Which meant that Wahlman needed to hurry.
He tried wheeling the staircase back into position, quickly realized that there was a braking mechanism on it somewhere that needed to be released. He found the lever and yanked it back and scooted the stairs closer to the catwalk. Not quite flush, but close enough. He mounted the first step and immediately fell back and landed on his ass.
The pain in his leg had subsided because his leg had gone numb.
No longer able to stand on two feet, Wahlman started crawling up the steps, gripping the back of each riser with his fingers and pushing himself upward with his right leg. His heart was racing and he felt weaker than he’d ever felt in his life. He was dizzy and he couldn’t remember what day it was and he knew that he was going to die if he didn’t get medical attention soon. Just a few more feet, he thought. Just a few more feet to the top of the stairs. Then he could defend himself. It was just Drake now. Just one guy. No problem. All he needed to do was make it up to the catwalk.
And then, suddenly, he was there.
And just as suddenly, a familiar voice echoed from the other side of the production area.
“Now I’ve got you,” Drake said.
23
A deafening barrage of automatic rifle fire blasted through the cavernous space, a staccato series of earsplitting explosions, like a brick of firecrackers linked with a single fuse. Wahlman scrabbled toward the section of the catwalk where he’d left the guns. The .38 and the 9mm and the twelve gauge pump.
But they weren’t there.
They were gone.
Drake must have done something with them before he moved the staircases.
Wahlman pulled himself up to the lip of the tank and peered down into the same access hatch he’d peered down into earlier, thinking the enormous container would have been a convenient place for Drake to ditch the weapons.
Same faint smell of vinegar, same shiny steel floor.
No guns.
They weren’t at the bottom of the tank, because they were on top of the tank. Near the edge, in front, about twelve feet from where Wahlman was standing. Drake had probably tossed them out there, thinking he would come back for them later. Which made sense. The fewer pieces of evidence left behind, the better. And it would be much quicker and easier to retrieve these particularly incriminating items from the top of the tank than it would from the bottom.
Thinking ahead again.
Smart.
But not really. Arrogant was more like it. Drake had never anticipated Wahlman escaping and getting enough of a head start to be in the position he was in right now.
He’d underestimated his opponent.
A big mistake, and now he was going to pay for it.
Wahlman had been on the verge of passing out, but a fresh surge of adrenaline had brought him back to a high state of alertness. He felt reenergized, but he knew it wouldn’t last. He’d lost a lot of blood, and the only way to fix that was to replace it. He needed someone to dig the bullet out and stitch the wound and transfuse him with two or three units of packed red blood cells.
But first things first.
The top of the tank was filthy, coated with the same greasy dust as the plumbing and electrical conduit. Wahlman climbed up there and started crawling toward the edge, his numb left leg and the slimy black film on the tank making it ten times more difficult than it should have been.
Somewhere around the halfway point, Drake opened up with the Uzi again. Bullets drum-rolled off the upper part of the tank, leaving trails of bright orange sparks as they tore through the ceiling.
Wahlman was hesitant to proceed toward the edge of the tank now. Toward the weapons that represented a potential way out of this, but also toward the hailstorm of machinegun rounds that represented potential instant death. He was hesitant to proceed, but he knew it was the only possible way he was going to survive. If he stayed where he was, he would die. He would eventually lose consciousness from the blood loss, or Drake would eventually climb up to the catwalk and finish him off with the Uzi. One of those two things would happen if he stayed where he was. It was only a matter of which would happen first. So he had to continue moving forward, even though it went against his instincts. He figured his odds of making it out of the factory alive were about a million to one at this point, but a million to one was better than a million to zero.
He kept inching toward the edge.
Grunting.
Sweating.
Wheezing.
And then the fingers on his right hand closed around the grips of the 9mm semiautomatic pistol. Finally. Now he could defend himself. He waited for another short burst from Drake’s Uzi, aimed toward the muzzle flash and pulled the trigger.
And nothing happened.
He turned the gun over and stared into the hollow space where the magazine was supposed to be. No magazine, no bullet in the chamber. He tossed the pistol aside and grabbed the shotgun, checked it over and saw right away that the ammunition had been ejected from it as well.
Which left the revolver.
The .38 he’d bought in the freezer at Dena Jo’s.
He grabbed the gun and aimed it down toward the area Drake had been shooting from and squeezed the trigger.
Nothing.
The .38 was empty too.
Drake had removed the ammunition from all three guns.