by Thomas Scott
I know you would, Murton thought. He yanked open the cab of the truck and checked the timer. When he saw how much time they had remaining he began to run as well.
Reif and Wheeler were back at the Co-op, neither of them quite sure they were far enough away. “I don’t know about you, old man, but I think I’ve done all I can do here. Maybe it’s time to put the pedal to the metal, if you know what I’m saying. What about the kid?”
“What about him?” Wheeler said. “He’s an insurance policy.”
Jonas was lying on the table, surrounded by the paperwork Cal Lipkins had brought out for Sandy to sign. He wasn’t injured very badly despite the severity of the crash. He had some bumps and bruises and a few minor cuts, but he’d sort of shut down mentally. He was curled into a fetal position, his hands clenched in fists and stuck between his little legs.
“More like a liability, if you ask me,” Reif said.
“I told you not long ago that there was a debt that needed to be paid.” He tipped his chin at Jonas. “That boy’s father is on his way here, I’m certain of it. After he’s taken care of we can be on our way. How long now?”
Reif looked at his watch. “Four minutes. It’s time you’ll be spending alone. Any debts that need to be paid or collected are yours, not mine. I’m out of here.”
Virgil looked at Cool again. “How long?”
Cool checked the nav unit. “Four minutes.”
Sandy and Murton had worked their way around to the back of the Co-op building. The SUV sat in the parking lot, Cal Lipkins body still under the truck that had smashed her car. Her son was inside the building, she was sure of it. Then, as if Murton had somehow taken up residence inside her own skin, as if their thoughts had become symbiotic in nature she thought to herself, time to dance, motherfuckers.
She put her hand on the back door of the Co-op and quietly pushed it open. All of a sudden, as if her hearing had been clicked on, she heard the thunderous roar of rotor blades pounding a rhythmic beat in the air. She glanced up at the helicopter as it made a sweeping pass and settled down in the gravel. When she turned around, Murton was nowhere in sight.
44
Four Minutes Ago
Reif was getting ready to leave and happened to glance out the front window of the Co-op right before he opened the door. He couldn’t quite believe what he saw. Murton Wheeler stood in front of the wrecked box truck, his hands hanging down at his sides, his posture almost simian in nature. “Better come take a look at this,” he said to the old man.
Ralph Wheeler walked over to the window and peered through the glass. “I’ll tell you something,” he said to Reif. “I always thought the better part of that kid went running down his momma’s leg. But I’ve got to hand it to him, he don’t have much quit in him.”
Whatever, Reif thought. It was time to put this particular titty baby to bed. He took out his gun and said, “I’m going to do you one last favor, old man. You can thank me later, if we ever meet up again, which I sincerely hope we do not.”
“What do you intend to do?” Wheeler said.
“What you should have done a long time ago, from the looks of it.”
Reif stepped outside, his gun hanging down along the side of his leg. He moved forward, expecting Murton to run or duck in cover. But none of that happened. Murton stood perfectly still and waited until Reif was less than ten yards away before he spoke.
“You big on history?”
“Not particularly,” Reif said. “Why?”
“Because it’s how we learn from our mistakes.”
Reif pulled the hammer back on his gun. “What mistakes? Or are you just trying to delay the inevitable?”
“The inevitability is yours you pathetic piece of shit.”
Reif stepped closer and raised the gun. “Say that again.”
“I would, but I’m not big on wasting my breath with people who were dropped on their heads as infants. Somehow the information never takes hold. You want a history lesson? Here’s the last one you’re ever going to get. I told you I didn’t kill that prison guard. Want to know what your mistake was?”
“What’s that?”
“You didn’t believe him,” Jack Grady said. He stood at the opposite corner of the Co-op building, his weapon pointed at Reif. When Reif turned his way, Grady pulled the trigger. The bullet ripped through the side of Reif’s head and he dropped to the ground, dead inside a pool of his own blood.
When Reif hit the ground a helicopter roared overhead, its skids clearing the roof of the Co-op building with less than two feet to spare.
Cool began to throttle back on the power as he put the chopper into a nose dive. “Keep the power to it, Cool,” Virgil said.
“I can’t,” Cool replied, his voice overly calm the way pilots are when placed in a stressful situation. “We’ll break apart. I’ve got to bleed off some speed if this is a landing you want to walk away from.”
Virgil looked out the front window. He never saw Murton, his view blocked by the wrecked box truck in the parking lot, but when they crossed over the top of the building he saw Sandy. She turned and looked behind her as if she expected someone to be there. Then she disappeared inside the building.
Cool brought the helicopter in hard and fast, the skids grinding along the hard gravel pack before it finally came to a rest.
“Keep it running. We’re going to have to get out of here in a hurry. I need your weapon.” Cool reached into the side pocket of the door and handed over his service revolver. Virgil climbed out, ducked the rotor, and followed Sandy in through the back door.
Murton grabbed Reif’s gun and ran over to Grady. He saw Cal Lipkins body under the truck. He didn’t know what to make of it. “Stay out here and cover the front. I don’t know who else is in the area or what’s in play. I’m not taking any chances.” Grady nodded and said he would. Murton released the magazine, checked the number of rounds and slapped it back in place. He ran up the steps and inside the Co-op building. What he saw caused his throat to constrict and for a moment he wondered if his heart still beat in his chest.
His father sat at the end of the meeting room table, Jonas in his lap, a gun pressed to the side of his head.
Murton pointed his gun at his father, drew his mouth into a tight line, then immediately lowered his weapon. He couldn’t risk a shot without injuring or possibly killing Jonas.
“Let him go, Pop.”
“So, you can call me pop but I can’t call you son, is that it?”
“I said let him go.”
“Now why would I do that?” Ralph Wheeler said. “Looks to me like I’ve got everything I wanted. Or at least I will when that asshole buddy of yours shows up. I know he’s here. I heard the back door open after that helicopter set down.” He glanced toward the hallway that led to the back of the building. “Come on out, Virgil. It’s time to get reacquainted. Bring your bitch with you too.” Then he looked back at Murton. “Mine’s already here.” He cocked the hammer on his gun and placed it up against Jonas’s ear. “Set your gun on the table, boy, and slide it down here to me or I swear to Christ I’ll scatter this little fellow’s grits across the cinderblocks.”
Murton felt like he didn’t have a choice. He set the gun on the table and slid it down to his father. Ralph Wheeler looked at the gun, a Heckler & Koch P30-S and said, “Nice piece. Those Germans really know how to make them. Better than the piece of shit I’m holding. He laid his own gun on the table and pointed the weapon at Murton. “I’ll bet you could find a hammer in the back, if you wanted one. You do, don’t you, boy? I can see it in your eyes. Now sit the fuck down.”
Virgil caught up with Sandy and pulled her back. He had no doubt that she would have rushed headlong into the meeting room of the Co-op and charged Wheeler, forcing him to shoot at her. When she tried to yank free he grabbed both her arms and spun her around. “We’ve got to be smart here, baby.”
“He’s got our son, Virgil.”
“I know. And I’ll get him back, I promise.
Look at me. I promise I will do whatever I have to do. Anything. Are you with me?”
Sandy nodded. Virgil handed her Cool’s service weapon. They crept forward, through the shop and into the hallway that led to the meeting room. When they got to the end of the hall they heard Ralph Wheeler say, ‘Come on out, Virgil. It’s time to get reacquainted…’ Virgil held his hand out, an indication for Sandy to stop. They were pressed up against the wall, right around the corner of the door frame. Virgil’s .45 was in his left hand, pointed down at the floor.
“If you’re trying to be quiet, you’re failing miserably,” Ralph Wheeler said. “I’ve heard less noise from circus monkeys on the business end of a training stick. Step out here now before I lose my patience.” He looked at Murton and said, “Move one single muscle and this kid won’t see tomorrow.” He stood from the chair and dragged Jonas with him until they were positioned directly behind Murton. He moved the gun away from Jonas and pointed it at the back of Murton’s head.
Virgil and Sandy stepped into the room, Virgil’s gun coming up as he rounded the door frame.
45
Four Seconds Ago
Virgil held the Glock with a firm grip, his hands steady, the barrel pointed straight at the other man’s head, a choice now, and without question, a price to be paid. He leaned forward, his knees slightly bent, his weight rotated up on the balls of his feet. When he slipped his finger into the trigger guard he asked for forgiveness, though he didn’t know to whom he was speaking, or if they were even listening.
He took a breath, the inhalation something like acid in his lungs and when he could inhale no more he locked eyes with his best friend and brother, Murton Wheeler. The look on Virgil’s face remained a conveyance of everything that couldn’t be said aloud, a lifetime of memories, brotherly love, their victories, their mistakes, and now…
This:
Murton nodded at Virgil, his mouth a thin hard line, his jaw flexed tight. The nod was nothing more than a quick tip of his head, one that said, get on with it, then.
When Jones pulled the trigger, Ralph Wheeler’s head jerked away and he fell to the ground, dead before he hit the floor, his body bent in an awkward position, blood leaking from the gaping hole in his forehead. His eyes remained open and seemed to register surprise, as if maybe the last thought his brain processed was disbelief that his death would come from the hand of the one person he least suspected.
But it had, and in that instant Virgil knew in many ways his life would never be the same. He’d been prepared to shoot, had even begun to tighten up on the trigger. Another half pound of pressure and his gun would have fired.
But Sandy beat him to it.
When Virgil looked at Sandy she was still in a shooter’s stance. He took the gun from her hand, the barrel warm to the touch. She released her grip on the weapon and ran to Jonas, scooping him into her arms. She glanced down at the man she’d just killed and for some reason thought of her own father. Murton stood from the chair and looked her in the eyes, his face as blank and expressionless as a dime-store mannequin. There was no contempt in his voice when he spoke, but there may have been a touch of cynicism.
“I promise,” he said. He touched the back of Jonas’s head and brushed his fingers through his hair.
Grady came through the front door. He glanced at Ralph Wheeler’s dead body, then at Murton. “You okay?”
Murton opened his mouth to say something, but the words, whatever they may have been, were lost in what happened next.
There was a brilliant, almost blinding flash of white light. Virgil and Murton looked at each other and together they pulled Sandy and Jonas to the floor as a thunderous boom rolled over the building and blew out the windows. Once the glass stopped flying Virgil ran out the back in time to see the small mushroom cloud forming. He yelled to Sandy, Murton, and Grady. “C’mon, we’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
Twenty seconds later they were on the helicopter and moving away from the Co-op and the blast site. When they were a safe distance away Virgil said something to Cool who nodded, then maneuvered the chopper into a hover and spun it back around. They hung there for a full minute and looked out the windows and watched as radioactive dirt and dust rained down over their farmland.
When Virgil turned in his seat and looked at Sandy he saw her holding Murton’s hand. Jonas was in her lap, his little hands reaching up, wiping the tears from her face. Murton stared straight ahead, his eyes fixed on nothing at all.
Cool spun the chopper around and flew a few miles away before setting down right in the center of the main intersection that led to the Co-op. Once they were all out of the helicopter, Virgil took out his phone and called Cora. How do you tell your boss that a dirty bomb had been detonated on your own land, threatening the entire county? Virgil wondered.
As it turned out, he didn’t have to.
Murton walked away and made a call to Becky. He sat down in the dirt and told her everything.
Virgil didn’t have to explain the dirty bomb to Cora because just as he was getting ready to call his phone buzzed at him. Franklin.
“You better talk to Said,” Franklin said. “He’s literally been bouncing off the walls trying to make his point. I don’t know how much of it is bullshit, but—”
“But what?”
“Here, I’ll let him tell you. Hold on.”
Virgil waited a beat and then Radiology’s CEO was on the phone. Said finally had his say. He told Virgil what he wanted to tell him, had been trying to tell him back at the airport. He finally told him the whole truth.
It had happened like this:
When Ralph Wheeler entered the rear of Radiology, Inc.’s shipping area, Said had been right there waiting for him. Wheeler gave him a hard stare. “The truck ready?”
Said tossed a set of keys to Wheeler and pointed at a box truck with his chin.
“Keep your mouth shut and everything will work out fine. We clear on that?”
“How do I know she’s still alive?”
Wheeler tipped his head in what he hoped was a thoughtful manner. “I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it because the bottom line is this: you don’t.”
Said took a step forward. He might have looked like a writer or an anthropologist, but he wasn’t a pussy. “Then maybe I’ll walk inside and do what I should have done all along. Maybe I’ll go inside and call the cops.”
Wheeler laughed at him. “Go ahead. She’s your niece, not mine. But I’ll tell you this, if this truck doesn’t end up where it’s supposed to be she will be dead. That’s a fact. So you’re left with two choices, smart guy. Do nothing and hope everything turns out all right for your niece, or go make the phone call and ensure that it doesn’t.”
Said knew he didn’t have any choice at all. In fact he knew his life was over the moment they’d taken his sister’s child. He’d never had children of his own, and Patty had always been like a daughter to him. He’d helped raise her and even paid for her education. When the old man showed Said the photos weeks ago he broke down and cried right in front of him. Wheeler had laughed, Said’s fear and anguish a source of wicked pleasure.
Now Wheeler climbed in the truck, started the engine and lowered the window. He let his arm rest on the side of the door. “By tomorrow it’ll all be over and you’ll have your precious niece back, safe and sound. Stay by the phone and you’ll get a call.”
Said watched the truck drive away, his heart beating like a kettle drum. He knew if they found out what he’d done it would be the end of Patty’s life. Still, he knew he had to do it. As much as he loved Patty, he couldn’t allow the material to get loose. There’d never be a call and he knew it.
He told Virgil as much. “I didn’t think I had any other choice.”
“I don’t know exactly how all this is going to play out for you, Mr. Said. You’ve put yourself, your company, and your niece at grave risk. If you’d have called us at the beginning we might have been able to save her.”
Said d
idn’t respond, and Virgil wasn’t surprised. “Give the phone back to Agent Franklin.”
A moment later Franklin was on the line. “We’ll be up there as soon as we can.”
“Bring him with you,” Virgil said. “If he tries to lawyer up or anything like that, explain the situation to him.”
“That won’t be a problem, “Franklin said. “We’re talking about nuclear material. Ever hear of the Patriot Act?”
“Ah, go easy on him,” Virgil said. “We’re talking about a guy looking out for his family. The nuclear material is safe. You might want to call Thorpe and get him and Mok off that train. If they have to ride that thing all the way to West Lafayette I’ll never hear the end of it.”
What about the other guys…the ones who were going to take the material off the train?”
“According to our people here, they’re off the board. Said outplayed them all. He’d kept the nuclear material crated away and altered the logs. Both the train and the truck were loaded with the nano particles, which are supposedly harmless. If he’s telling the truth, and I think he is, the radioactive material is still at the plant. If you guys could verify that then get him up here, I’d appreciate it.”
“Do that,” Franklin said. “See you in a few hours.”
Virgil then spoke at length with Cora and brought her up to speed on what had happened. He finished with, “So, hell of a blast, but no radiation…I hope. It’d be nice if someone brought a Geiger counter for verification though.”
“That’s already being handled. The ATF is on the way as we speak,” she said. “So is the EPA, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, the FBI and probably a bunch of three-letter agencies no one has ever heard of because they don’t officially exist. By the time it’s all said and done, I think it’s going to look like federal alphabet soup out there. Boy, this isn’t going to play well with the media.”