14bis Plum Spooky (18 page)

Tank tipped his head back and looked at one of the pines by the shed. “There’s a camera stuck into that tree,” he said. “This area is under surveillance.” He looked around. “There are two more cameras that I can see.”

Total panic attack. I felt like someone was squeezing my heart. “We have to get out of here.”

“Only one way to go,” Tank said.

We turned and started to head out, and four ATVs driven by guys in khaki uniforms powered in at us.

“Am I getting punked?” Lula said. “Is this real? This shit don’t happen in real life.”

My eyes were rolling around in my head, looking for an escape route.

“Through the woods,” Tank said, grabbing my hand, shoving Lula.

“Stop!” one of the men shouted. “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”

And he fired off a couple rounds.

“Damn,” Lula said. “Those are real bullets.” She pulled her Glock out of her bag and fired back. Her round missed the guy in the uniform and zinged into one of the tanks. The cylinder exploded into a fireball and flew forty feet into the air. It hit the ground and ignited every other cylinder and steel drum. Cylinders were shooting into the air like firecrackers, and the fire spread to the rockets. It was the Fourth of July, Chinese New Year, and Armageddon.

“Oops,” Lula said. “My bad.”

“Run!” Tank yelled in my ear. “Now! Run back to the SUV.”

Lula and I took off, and Tank ran behind us. I went down twice, and Tank dragged me to my feet. Lula never once went down. Lula was haulin’ ass. We had the SUV in sight when there was a sound like
whoosh,
and
BANG
— the SUV was toast.

“Rocket,” Tank said. “Ranger’s gonna hate this.”

We turned and ran through the woods, keeping the dirt road in sight, heading for the paved road. A pickup barreled down the dirt road. The back of the pickup was filled with guys in the khaki uniforms. We crouched low until they were past, and then we ran some more. We were almost to the road when lightning cut across the sky, and it started to rain. A mist at first, and then, within minutes, we were in the middle of a torrential downpour.

“I’m gonna drown,” Lula said. “I’ve never been in a rain like this. This is unnatural.”

Headlights appeared on the dirt road, an SUV going slow in the rain, sliding on the road that was fast turning to mud. Tank recognized it first. It was Hal in Ranger’s Jeep Cherokee.

We stumbled out of the woods and climbed into the Jeep.

“Get us out of here,” Tank said to Hal. “Fast.”

Hal threw the Jeep into reverse and ground his way through the mud to the pavement. It probably only took him five minutes, but it was the longest five minutes I could remember. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I couldn’t breathe. I was in the backseat with Lula, and I had a death grip on the sleeve of her soaking-wet, fake fur jacket. Lula was rigid alongside me, breathing like a freight train.

The instant we were on pavement, the rain stopped. We looked back into the pine forest, and it was still raining, the rain dampening the thick, black smoke rising from the fuel depot and Ranger’s Cherokee.

“I swear,” Hal said, “this place is like the Bermuda Triangle. It’s friggin’ spooky. I went out to feed the monkeys last night, and I saw the Easter Bunny walking down the road with Sasquatch. And now there are rockets shooting into the sky from nowhere.”

“Don’t think you’ll be seeing any more rockets anytime soon,” Lula said.

“What were you doing on that road?” Tank asked Hal.

“The control room followed your blip to the Barrens and saw you parked. They told me to take a look and make sure everything was okay. I’m a couple miles away babysitting monkeys.”

“I knew I smelled monkey” Lula said. “Now I recognize this car.”

TWENTY

I
STOOD IN
front of my door and said a prayer. Please, God, don’t let Diesel be home yet. I held my breath, opened the door, and looked up at Diesel. Darn.

Diesel grabbed the front of my wet jacket, hauled me inside, and held me three inches off the floor in front of him.

“I told you not to go out,” he said, giving me a shake for emphasis. “I told you to keep the door locked.”

“You were worried about me,” I said.

“Yes. And I’m not used to worrying at that level. I had to take some of your Pepto-Bismol. I was feeling like the fire farter.”

He set me down and looked at me. “You’re wet again. And you smell like campfire.”

I sniffed at my jacket. “I think it’s rocket fuel. Lula accidentally blew up Wulf’s fuel depot. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. And then it rained on us, which was a good thing because it probably put out the fire. Otherwise, the whole Barrens would have gone up in smoke.” I dropped my jacket on the floor and kicked my shoes off. “Did you find Cuddles?”

“Yes. And Wulf hasn’t completed the deal with him yet. I’m waiting for Cuddles to call me back and let me know when the meeting will take place.”

“Bad news. Being that we blew up all Wulf’s rockets, he might not be needing barium anytime soon. Although, it’s possible the rockets we blew up weren’t the barium carriers.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“Munch has his transmitter. And he absolutely can’t drive a truck.”

“Have you eaten dinner?” Diesel asked me. “Do you want a grilled-cheese sandwich?”

“Yes.”

“Make one for me, too,” he said. “Do you have bacon? I want bacon on mine.”

“Nice try, but no. And I don’t have bacon.”

I squished to the bedroom, took a quick shower, and dressed in dry clothes. I took the laundry basket from my closet, put my wet clothes in it, and carried it to the foyer. There was a huge pile of damp, discarded clothes in the foyer. Part mine. Part Diesel’s. I needed to do laundry.

I left the basket by the door and went to the kitchen and watched Diesel. He was making grilled cheese. He slid one out of the pan onto a plate and handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said. “This looks great.”

My cell phone rang, and I looked at the screen.

“It’s all zeros,” I said to Diesel.

“It’s Wulf,” Diesel said.

“Ms. Plum,” Wulf said. “It has been brought to my attention that you were responsible for a fire that destroyed twenty-three of my X-12 King rockets. I’m afraid I must demand that you replace them in twenty-four hours, or I will have to sacrifice Gail Scanlon.”

“Sacrifice?”

“I’m sure you are familiar with the term. You may call this number when you are ready to deliver my rockets.”

“It was all zeros.”

“Just do it,” Wulf said. And he disconnected.

“Boy, he’s kind of cranky,” I said to Diesel.

“He’s not used to having his rockets blown up.”

I ate some of my sandwich. “He said they were X-12 King rockets, and I had to replace them by this time tomorrow, or he’d kill Gail. Where am I going to get twenty-three rockets?”

Diesel finished his sandwich.

“Cuddles might have a source. We’ll hit the mall first thing tomorrow. If the mall is open, Cuddles is there. Turns out he’s not too crazy about Mrs. Cuddles. Likes to spend as much time as possible at the office.”

S
INCE THE MALL
didn’t open until ten o’clock, I took the luxury of sleeping late. I straggled into the kitchen at nine-thirty a.m., ate a strawberry Pop-Tart, and polished off a mug of coffee. Diesel was already up, slouched against the counter, watching.

“Ready to rock and roll?” he asked.

I put my coffee mug in the dishwasher, went to the foyer to grab my bag, and realized I didn’t have any clean sweatshirts. My denim jacket was in the laundry basket soaking wet. Munch’s jacket was in the laundry basket. My only remaining jacket was a black wool peacoat.

“What?” Diesel said.

“I haven’t got a sweatshirt to wear.”

His backpack was sitting on the floor in the foyer. He pulled a black sweatshirt out of the pack and tugged the sweatshirt over my head. I had an extra six inches on the sleeves, and the bottom of the sweatshirt almost came to my knees. Diesel pushed the sleeves up to my elbows.

“Perfect,” he said. “Let’s go to the mall.”

A half hour later, we found Cuddles in the food court sucking down a chocolate milk shake. He was in his fifties, average height, glasses, extra-curly brown hair that blossomed out in a white man’s Afro. Bald on top. Baggy tan pants. Red plaid shirt. He was the last person in the mall I’d pick out to be selling contraband rockets and barium. He looked like Woody Allen all swollen up.

Diesel and I sat down at Cuddles’s table, and Cuddles didn’t look happy to see us.

“This table is for paying customers,” Cuddles said.

“We might be paying,” Diesel told him.

“Oh?”

“We need some X-12 King rockets.”

“You and everybody else. Those are very pop u lar rockets. Very versatile. How many?”

“Twenty-three,” Diesel said.

Cuddles worked his straw around, trying to get the last dregs of milk shake into his gut. “How soon?”

“Now.”

“Hah, that’s funny. It’ll take a week, minimum.”

“I haven’t got a week,” Diesel said. “Where do I go to get them now?”

“How about Canada?”

“Do you remember the conversation we had earlier today?”

“The one about breaking every bone in my body and then sucking my fat out with a Shop-Vac and shoving it up my ass?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“Eeuw,” I said.

“Brytlin Technologies might have some Kings. They design some of the payload for the BlueBec sounding rocket, and the King is essentially a miniature BlueBec. It can be used to do more eco nom ical preliminary testing.”

Diesel stood. “You’re going to call me when you hear from Wulf.”

“Yes.”

I didn’t say anything until we got back to the Subaru. I buckled myself in and looked at Diesel.

“Suck his fat out with a Shop-Vac and shove it up his ass?”

“It was one of those inspired thoughts.”

“How are we going to get the rockets from Brytlin?” I asked Diesel. “It’s Monday morning. It’s not like we can waltz in and buy them.”

“We’re not going to buy them.”

I felt my eyebrows go up to my hairline. “Oh no. No, no, no. I’m not going to steal rockets. And the whole place is on camera. Remember when Munch left with the magnetometer, and they got him on tape?”

“Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

“Oh boy. A plan.”

Diesel cruised the mall lot. “The first thing we have to do is steal a car.”

“What?”

“The Subaru can be traced to Flash, so we don’t want to park it in the Brytlin lot.” He pulled in next to an old Econoline van. “This’ll work. It’ll be easy to load the rockets into this.”

“We’re going to jail,” I said. “I’m going to have to use one of those steel toilets without a seat.”

Diesel was out of the Subaru. “I wouldn’t let that happen,” he said. “I’d make sure you got a good toilet.” He opened the driver’s side door, got behind the wheel, and turned the engine over.

“How did you do that?” I asked him.

“They left the key in the ignition. Get in.”

I moped around to the passenger seat. “I’m going to be really mad at you if I get arrested.”

“It could be worse,” Diesel said. “You could be Gail Scanlon.”

I looked at the ignition. No key.

“There’s no key in the ignition,” I said. “How did you start the van?”

Diesel held his finger up.

“You started the car with your finger?”

“Yep. And that’s nothing. You should see what this finger can do on a G-spot.”

“Good grief.”

Diesel backed out of the parking space and took the exit to Route 1. “Put the hood up on the sweatshirt and pull the drawstring tight so no one can see your face.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t photograph.”

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t know. It’s just one of those weird things.”

“Like your finger?”

“Sweetie, my finger isn’t
weird.
It’s
magic.”

B
RYTLIN OCCUPIES A
seven-acre campus just off Route 1 and is centrally located in a sprawling corridor of technology companies. Diesel wound his way through the parking lots, looking at the redbrick buildings, scoping it all out.

“Ordnance wouldn’t be kept in the main office building,” he said. “They have two buildings on the perimeter of their campus that look to me like maintenance facilities. I’m guessing our rockets are kept in one of them.”

Both buildings had a regular door in the front and garage doors in the rear. Diesel backed the van up to one of the garage doors.

“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Are you insane? You can’t just walk in and steal rockets during business hours!”

“No one’s over here.”

“Yeah, but there could be someone inside.”

“Then I’ll deal with it.”

He opened a garage door, slipped into the building, and minutes later, he reappeared with an armful of rockets. I jumped out of the van and opened the back door for him. He slid the rockets into the van and ran back for more. He loaded a total of twelve rockets into the van and closed the garage door.

“That’s all they had,” he said. “Get in the van. I’m going to check out the other building.” Diesel drove to the other building, parked, ran inside, and instantly returned. “Just lawn mowers and snowblowers in there.”

We returned to Route 1, and Diesel called Flash.

“I’m looking for eleven X-12 King rockets. See if any of the research labs on the tech corridor bordering Princeton have anything. If you can’t find any there, try north Jersey.”

Diesel drove the van back to the mall, and immediately we saw the flashing lights. A single cop car was parked in the lane behind Diesel’s Subaru. We were two lanes over, and we could see a scruffy young guy talking to a cop, gesturing to the empty parking space where his van used to be parked.

Diesel slid from behind the wheel. “Drive the van to the other side of the mall by the food court. I’ll get the Subaru and meet you there.”

I climbed behind the wheel and drove to the food court entrance. I found a parking spot with an empty space next to it and parked the van but left it at idle. If I turned it off, I wouldn’t be able to get it back on without Diesel. I tied the hood tighter around my face and gripped the wheel. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that at any moment I might throw up. I was sitting in a hot van with twelve stolen rockets.

A few minutes later, Diesel eased the Subaru into the spot next to the van. We transferred the rockets from the van to the Subaru, cut the engine on the van, locked its doors, and drove away in the Subaru. The perfect crime.

“Are you okay?” Diesel asked me.

“Sure. I’m peachy. And you?”

“I’m good.”

He stopped the SUV at the edge of the lot, untied the hood, and pushed it back off my face.

“You look like you’re going to faint,” he said. “Your face is white and your eyes are glassy.”

“I’ve never stolen rockets before. I’m pretty sure it’s against the law. And what if they explode?”

“They aren’t going to explode. They’re just shells. No fuel. No payload. No explosive device.”

We sat for a few more minutes, waiting to hear back from Flash. When the call came in, it was negative. He hadn’t been able to locate any companies that might have X-12 Kings.

“Call Wulf back and tell him you have his rockets,” Diesel said.

I punched Wulf’s callback, and he answered on the first ring.

“I have your rockets,” I said. “Now what?”

“Do you have all twenty-three?”

“No. I could only find twelve.”

Silence.

“This is as good as it’s going to get,” I said. “There are no more in the area.”

“There’s an envelope in locker 2712 at the train station. Get the envelope and read the instructions.”

“Do I need a key?”

“No. You need Diesel to open the locker.”

T
HE TRENTON TRAIN
station is to the south of center city. As with most of Trenton, it’s a mixed neighborhood where busy commuters can mingle with hookers and muggers and various interesting bag people. It was just past noon, and traffic was slow around the station.

Rather than chance sitting in short-term parking with a car full of rockets, Diesel had me drive around the block while he ran into the station and retrieved the instructions. I picked him up after two laps, and I drove us to Cluck-in-a-Bucket. We got a bucket of extra-crispy, extra-spicy fried chicken and opened the envelope.

The first instruction was that Diesel was not allowed to participate, that I had to run through the directions without him. I would be directed to five different locations and closely watched. The fifth location would be the drop where I would exchange the rockets for Gail Scanlon.

“I know Wulf. He doesn’t care about the rockets,” Diesel said. “This is a way to get you. He’s going to lead you around, and in the end, you’re going to have to deliver the rockets to him. And when you deliver the rockets, he’s going to turn you over to Munch.”

“Do you think he’ll really kill Gail if I don’t cooperate?”

“Hard to say. Wulf doesn’t usually kill innocent people, but he’ll kill if it’s justified in his mind.”

“Is there a way you can watch me without Wulf detecting you?”

“No. I flunked invisibility.”

“I’ll be okay until I get to the fifth location. I’ll take Lula with me, since he didn’t say anything about Lula. And I’ll use the Buick, so Ranger can track me. I can keep in phone contact with you. And we can reevaluate after the fourth location.”

Diesel dumped his half-eaten chicken breast back into the bucket, wiped his hands on his jeans, and cranked the engine.

“Let’s get this over with,” he said. “It’s ruining my appetite.”