72 Hours (A Thriller) (38 page)

“We’ve got to move these vehicles up the road, get them out from between these bluffs.
 
It’s like sitting in a shooting gallery.”

Lindsay nodded.

“I’ll drive the Scout,” Archer said.
 
“You follow in the Hummer.
 
Let’s get a few miles up the road, then we can regroup.”

“OK.”

Archer moved Simeon’s body into the passenger side of the Scout.
 
His blood had mixed with the rain and was spattered across everything.
 
Archer put the transmission in drive and let off the handbrake.

The headlights sliced through the rain.

Archer was not at all comfortable leaving one man still alive out there.
 
It was a loose end that he knew could very well come back to haunt him in a big way.

*
   
*
   
*

November stood among the gnarled remains of a pair of stunted trees near the crest of the bluff.
 
He stood with his thick arms crossed over his chest and watched the two SUV’s bounce out of the canyon, headlights fading into the gloom.
 
He simply watched them go.
 
He’d seen his partner, India, be picked off during the ambush, and decided he’d rather not be the last man killed for a lost cause.
 
So he simply stood in the rain and listened to the thunder.
 
He wouldn’t be reporting back to base.
 
It was best to just let Mr. Jupiter assume he had died with the others.

*
   
*
   
*

Mr. Jupiter dialed the number for the hundredth time.
 
And again there was no answer.
 
Alpha wasn’t responding.

Mr. Jupiter wanted an update.
 
He needed confirmation that Lindsay Hammond was dead.
 
He had dispatched the best of the best to find and kill her, but something was wrong.
 
Alpha should have answered his cell by now.
 
Mr. Jupiter pushed his mounting anxiety down as he stared up at the moon and stars and dialed the number again.

*
   
*
   
*

The same moon and stars were visible high above the mountains at the edge of the desert floor.
 
Alpha’s body had come to rest facedown in the wet sand and mud, the knife still firmly planted in his ear.
 
The cell phone was wedged deep inside a nylon pocket on the front side of his combat vest.
 
It rang for the hundredth time, the sound of the ring tone muted by the weight of his dead body pressing down, barely audible at all in the cool desert night.
   

CHAPTER 108

They emerged from the mountains as the storm began to shift to the east.
 
The rain finally began to taper off.
 
They followed the dirt track for another few miles and eased to a stop midway to the second gate.
 
The landscape was flat and dark.

Archer found a folding camp shovel stowed behind the seat of the Scout.
 
He stomped out across the dirt and scrub for about a hundred feet.
 
Dropped to his knees and began chopping away at the sandy soil.

He labored for half an hour.
 
Exhausted, weary, fueled mostly by rage.
 
His muscles burned with every spade of earth he removed and heaved aside.
 
He labored with the shovel until the edge of the pit came up to his hip.
 
The hole was just deep enough and wide enough to suffice.
 

Archer opened the Scout’s passenger door and hooked Simeon under the arms.
 
Dragged him out across the gloom.
 
He dropped the body into the pit and collapsed to his knees in exhaustion.
 
Lightening traced across the sky, briefly revealing the corpse in the crude grave.
 
He muttered a short prayer he’d heard a thousand times back in the Army.
 
Then he filled the pit with the turned dirt, dropped the shovel beside the grave, and staggered back to the road.

CHAPTER 109

The work was completed an hour before dawn.
 
Rydel ran through his checklist and found nothing had been overlooked.
 
He was ready to dispatch his men.
 
He gave the order and the big bay door opened, fluorescent light spilling out into the predawn haze.

The big trucks rolled out into the streets one at a time, spaced at ten-minute intervals.
 
The drivers had specific instructions.
 
Everything had been perfectly planned and choreographed.

When the last of the trucks exited the warehouse, Rydel stood in the open door, looking past the haze toward the edge of the city, and then he phoned Leonard Monroe to give him the news.
 

*
   
*
   
*

Noella Chu pulled in at a truck stop and purchased a prepaid cell phone from a display rack on the sales counter.
 
She returned to the Kia and found Penny settling back to sleep.

Noella Chu flicked the overhead light on and took a moment to study the map.

They would be there soon.
 
Another hour, perhaps.
 
She’d have plenty of time to set up her trap.
 
She was confident they’d never see it coming.
 
They simply had no idea who they were dealing with.

*
   
*
   
*

A long night had followed a long day, and Special Agent David Kline wasn’t sure he had anything left to give.
 
He stood in the shower of his hotel room and leaned into the hot spray from the shower head with both hands planted against the wall of the shower stall.

He stood with his face downturned, eyes closed, half asleep.
 
The past couple of days had been more like a dream than real life.
 
His muscles ached.
 
A thousand different kinds of pain ricocheted through his skull.
 
He felt very old.
 
Steam plumed up and around, rolling up and over the shower curtain, clouding the bathroom and heavily fogging the bathroom mirror.

All he really wanted to do was to clear his mind for a few short hours.
 
Shut his eyes and drift away for ninety minutes, then drink coffee and watch the sunrise.
 
Dunbar was almost dead, but Kline still needed to go back and find out where the bodies were hidden.
 
He still had to face the lunatic one more time.
 
He would beat it out of him if he had to.
 
He couldn’t allow Dunbar to take his secret to the grave.

Kline heard his cell phone ring.
 
Raised his head against the spray, eyes still closed.
 
Released a long, tired breath.
 
Pushed a hand through his close-cropped hair.
 
Heard the cell ring again.

“Give me a break, people,” he sighed.
 

He ignored the call and tried to blank his mind.
 
He couldn’t shake the image of Julie Sperry and the piano wire.

After a minute the cell rang again.

Kline left the water running, shoved the shower curtain aside, and stepped over the side of the tub as water pooled on the bathroom floor.
 
He put the cell to his ear.

“Kline,” he grumbled.

“Special Agent Kline, this is Vince Fortner,” a gravelly voice said.

Kline’s eyes snapped open.
 
Vince Fortner was the warden at San Quentin.

“Uh, good morning, warden.”

“How far are you from the prison?”

Kline frowned.
 
“I’m in L.A.”

“I’d suggest you get on a plane.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We’ve had an emergency.”

Kline felt his stomach drop.
 

“What kind of emergency?” he asked.

“Gaston Dunbar attempted suicide about half an hour ago.”

CHAPTER 110

The FBI helicopter landed in Marin County shortly before dawn.
 
A car was waiting.
 
Special Agent Kline dropped into the backseat.

“Go,” he told the driver.

They weren’t going to the prison.
 
Dunbar had been rushed to Marin General Hospital.
 
Fortner had reported that Dunbar was in bad shape.
 
Looked like the execution might not be necessary after all, Fortner had said.
 
Might save the taxpayers a couple of bucks.

Kline’s stomach twisted into a thousand tiny knots.

He called up to the driver.

“You smoke, son?”

The driver glanced at him in the mirror.

“Yessir.”

“Pass one back.”

The kid blinked in the mirror, then handed a pack over the seat.
 
“Keep them,” he said.

“You’ll make a fine agent one day,” Kline said, sucking hard on the filter.

“Thank you, sir.”

The car delivered him to the emergency room entrance.
 
He barreled out into the cool morning air.
 
The sliding glass doors whisked open for him.
 
There were hulking prison guards loitering inside.
 
Kline flashed his badge.
 
A doctor in blue scrubs came out to greet him.

“Dr. Ghinnish,” a tall, fit, dark-skinned Pakistani young man said, extending a hand.

“Where is Dunbar?”

Dr. Ghinnish hooked a thumb toward a closed door, guards posted on either side in the corridor.

“What happened?”

“The inmate slashed both his own wrists.
 
He’s lost a great deal of blood.”

“Will he live?”

The doctor nodded.

“Is he conscious?”
 

“Yes.”

“Is he responsive?”

“Yes.”

“I need to talk to him.”

Dr. Ghinnish led him through the closed door.
 

Dunbar was on a table surrounded by medical staff.
 
There were intravenous tubes running to his arms.
 
Blood and fluids.
 
Medical equipment beeped and hummed.
 
The atmosphere was tense and nervous.

Dunbar’s eyes were open, staring calmly at the pale ceiling above him.

Kline approached the table.
 
Glared down at the patient/inmate.

Dunbar did not acknowledge his presence in any way.

Kline studied him.
 
Dunbar’s arms and legs were restrained by heavy straps.
 
He wasn’t going anywhere.
 
Kline turned to Dr. Ghinnish and the nurses.

“I want everyone out of the room,” he ordered.

The members of the medical staff turned to him and stared.

Kline addressed Dr. Ghinnish directly.

“Doctor, get them out.
 
Now.”

Ghinnish reluctantly ushered his nurses out the door.

Then Kline addressed the pair of armed prison guards.

“Please wait outside the door.
 
I need to speak with him privately.”

The guards glared at him, unsure.
 
Then they nodded and turned for the corridor.

“We’ll be right outside the door if you need us,” one of them said.

Dunbar’s wrists were heavily bandaged.
 
His skin tone looked even paler than it had in the unforgiving fluorescent lights of the prison.
 
Dunbar blinked, eyes tracking contentedly back and forth across the ceiling tiles.

“What the hell are you up to?” Kline said.

“I wanted you to understand how important I am to you.
 
You needed a wake up call.
 
See how easily I was able to do this?
 
And I wasn’t even really trying.
 
If I had really intended to kill myself, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
 
My body would already be in a drawer downstairs.”

“Why did you cut yourself?”

Dunbar spoke plainly and calmly.
 
“So that you won’t take me for granted.
 
You believe you have another two days to dig the truth out of me, and I wanted to make it clear to you that no one is control here but me.
 
I know exactly where the bodies are.
 
Sydney and Robin.
 
Mother and daughter.
 
The woman I married and the child I fathered.
 
I can point to a map and put you within six inches.
 
But I’m the only one.
 
And the notion that I might die before I tell you my secret absolutely terrifies you, Special Agent Kline.
 
Quite honestly, nothing makes me happier than possessing that knowledge.”