Alli (10 page)

“Wait!” Randy yelled, but it was too late. Carl had dispensed a load of twenty razor-sharp, four-inch spike clusters, designed to shred any tire they encountered. Unfortunately, they were travelling above sixty miles per hour when he pushed the button. The tacks hit the pavement and bounced along, all of them skittering off to the left or the right of the roadway.

“What the hell?” Carl said, as he tried to look behind them, babying his wounded shoulder. “The damned things just bounced off the road!”

“Didn’t you read your owner’s manual?” Randy screamed.

Nobody reads the owner’s manuals,” Carl insisted.

“If you had,” Randy said, “You would know the tacks won’t work if you are going over thirty miles an hour!”

Randy slammed on the brakes, wheeled the big vehicle hard to the right, and shot down F Street. The Treasury was at the end of the street. Another pursuing car came around the corner toward them, directly in front of the Treasury Building. Randy punched the gas, cranked the wheel, and slid into a tire-smoking U-turn. “We’ll do this the old-fashioned way,” he said. He accelerated back, zigzagging toward the first two pursuing vehicles.

As they accelerated toward the two chase cars on the narrow street, the drivers of the other vehicles had to make a quick decision. Either stay the course and take the Hummer on, or swerve into the buildings on their left or right.

They both thought better of a head-on with the Hummer, and hit opposite curbs. The first car jumped the sidewalk and crashed at an awkward angle, partially climbing the stairs leading up to Metropolitan Square. The other driver took a sharp left, narrowly missing the massive square columns, and crashing through the double glass doors, finally coming to a rest in the lobby of the Willard Hotel! Randy slammed on the brakes, and threw the vehicle into reverse. Four smoking times screamed for traction as the supercharged, 600 HP, four-wheel-drive Hummer reversed course and headed toward their remaining tail, backwards. The car that had just rounded the corner by the Treasury Building saw them coming, and slammed on their brakes. The resulting nose-down attitude of their car, combined with the tail-up attitude of the accelerating Hummer provided a set-up where the Hummer’s oversized tires mounted up on the hood of the car, and continued all the way over and down the other side of the car, flattening it to half its normal height!

The Hummer bounced and landed on all fours as they wheeled around, accelerated, and turned right and back in their original direction, headed North on 15
th
Street.

“We are too visible in this thing to get out of town,” Randy said. He looked over at Carl to see him slumped over in the seat next to him, holding his shoulder.

”Our first order of business has to be getting under cover and getting that shoulder looked at,” Randy told his friend. ‘But I suppose a quick hospital stop is out of the question.”

“Call Michelle,” Carl suggested. “She has plenty of paramedic training; she will be able to patch me up temporarily.” Carl placed the call, using the number on the business card from Randy’s wallet.

“Do you know its 2 o’clock in the morning?” a groggy Michelle said into the phone.

“I’ve been shot- can you help?” Carl blurted out.

“Depends- were you shot by a crazy man, a jealous man, or an angry woman?”              

“Crazy man. Listen, we have people after us, where can we meet? I forgot how much this getting shot shit hurts.”

“Ask her if she can meet us at the Downtown Boxing Club on M Street, right away,” Randy decided, “it’s where I work out. Tell her it’s the grey block building just off Blagden Alley. We just passed it. We can double back and be there in seconds. I know how to get us into the place, and there’s a garage door on the alley side where we can pull in and hide the Hummer. We’ll wait for her there.”

Randy circled back and pulled up next to the boxing club’s garage door. He grabbed the tire iron and a pair of wire clippers from his equipment box behind the seat. A quick snip of the phone line would stop any outgoing calls from the ancient alarm. The tire iron was used to spread the frame on the service door far enough to pop the lock. Once inside, it was an easy matter to raise the garage door. A quick search revealed a claxon as part of the alarm system, but the wire clippers quickly disconnected it from the circuit before it went off. There was a sparring ring set up just inside the door, but the Hummer easily pushed it farther into the building as it entered. Carl and Randy were quite confident their break-in went unobserved as they lowered the overhead door.

Hightower and his two gunmen went after the Hummer, but were a minute or two behind. They put the word out to be on the lookout for Carl and Randy, but even with a dozen people watching around the DC area, the big, black Hummer had simply vanished. All the major highways were covered, but even with the sparse traffic that late at night, everyone was coming up empty.

“They can’t be far away,” Hightower said, “or they would have been spotted. Keep circling the area. They must be holed up somewhere.” As he was speaking, a city-issued Taurus drove by.

“Isn’t that Frazier’s ex?” One of Hightower’s long-term security men asked as Michelle Miller drove by. “And what’s she doing out this late?” “Let’s find out,” Hightower said. So they followed her.

Meeting at the boxing club turned out to be a stroke of genius, since they had a large, well-stocked, first aid kit available. Michelle arrived within minutes. Randy noticed she looked as if she had just stopped by on her morning jog. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was pulled back revealing a genuinely concerned face as she approached Carl. He was sitting on the edge of one of the sparring rings, acting like it hurt more than it really did.

“Looks like it’s a thru-and-thru, Carl,” Michelle diagnosed as she dressed the wound. “You were lucky. This could have been a lot worse. It might have splintered a bone or two, though. You really need to get it x-rayed.”

“No time, kiddo,” Carl said. “Randy’s been doing some investigating this evening, and he discovered a few things that put him on the bad side of a very dangerous fellow, one Fredrick Hightower. I think Randy would have killed him, too, except I jumped in and got myself shot for my trouble.”

Michelle looked over toward Randy. He was crouched down in the corner of one of the sparring rings, back against the corner, with his head in his hands.

“I take it you are responsible for this B&E we are standing in?” Michelle jokingly asked as she approached Randy.

“I guess so,” Randy said, looking directly into Michelle’s clear blue eyes. “I would have committed my first murder, too, if it hadn’t been for your ex-husband over there.”

They both looked over to see Carl, but he wasn’t alone. Fredrick Hightower II had him in a choke hold, with a shiny Colt Anaconda revolver pointed at his head.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Sorry to break up your little pity-party,” Hightower began, “but we have some unfinished business we need to discuss.” Hightower motioned with his gun for Randy and Michelle to surrender their weapons and slide them under the Hummer. After they had complied with his request, he pushed Carl over toward his two friends, while slipping Carl’s gun under the vehicle with the others.

“Now detective,” Fredrick began, “As I remember, Carl keeps two pairs of handcuffs inside the back of his belt. Please be so kind as to handcuff both of your male partners before our little meeting begins.” Michelle cranked the ratchets on the handcuffs so they would remain somewhat loose on both of the men.

“My dear detective,” Hightower added, “You disappoint me. Those handcuffs need to be a little tighter than that. It’s for their own safety, you know. We wouldn’t want them to try something foolish and get themselves shot, now would we?” As Michelle circled in front of Randy, he mouthed the word “pocket” to her. She picked up immediately that his keys were in his pants pocket. She knelt down behind him to tighten his handcuffs, and deftly slipped her hand into his pocket, enveloping the keys in her hand to prevent them from rattling, and dropped them into Randy’s waiting hand behind his back. She couldn’t see, but she assumed there was a handcuff key on the ring. For lack of another set of handcuffs, Hightower had Michelle sit on her hands, and motioned his two guards to wait outside.

Hightower moved to the side of the Hummer, placing himself between Michelle, Carl and Randy and their weapons. He seemed to be enjoying himself, waving his gun around and barking orders at his captives. Carl, on the other hand, was wondering why he had kept Randy from shooting the jerk back on the tenth floor.

“You have no idea what’s at stake here,” Hightower began. “My discoveries are going to change everything we know about how man interfaces with his computer. Everything from how the disabled relate to the rest of us, to how a woman prepares her grocery list is about to change.” Hightower was waving his gun around recklessly in all directions. “My hybrid computers will become their owner’s best friend. They will do all the things we can’t or don’t want to do. Every home will have their own computer expert, always available, to answer questions or for tutoring a person any subject they desire.” Hightower was now pacing back and forth along the side of the Hummer.

Finally, he stopped and put his foot up on the running board, as if he were posing for a photograph. “But having help around the house is just the beginning,” Hightower continued, still gesturing with his firearm. “The commercial aspects are limitless. Companies will be able to handle all of their telemarketer needs for less than five years of salary to a conventional employee. And the new computer will perform twenty hours a day, indefinitely. No sick days, no vacations, no weekends off, no pensions. We have examples that have been on line for more than ten years.”

“Oh yeah?” Randy taunted. “You have one less than you did yesterday.” Hightower glared at Randy for a moment, and then looked away. “One defective unit will not derail the project, Mr. Fairchild. In fact, you did me a favor by taking your DEFECTIVE girlfriend off-line.”

“I put her out of her misery, you prick,” Randy shot back. “You’re no better than a damned plantation owner with a woodshed full of slaves to do your bidding.”

Hightower began rocking back and forth toward Randy. He was visibly agitated. He stepped back and grabbed the Hummer’s door handle, restraining himself, while he threatened Randy with the gun in his other hand. After a minute of glaring at Randy and collecting his thoughts, Hightower grinned at his captives.

“Very clever, Mr. Fairchild.” Hightower touched the gun to his temple and lightly tapped it against his head. “But your little mind games won’t work. No one has ever been able to successfully challenge my superior...” He suddenly stopped talking, his eyes fluttered, and then...

BLAM!

The large revolver in Hightower’s hand fired one round through his temple, exiting through a silver dollar sized hole in the front left side of his skull. The recoil from the big gun jerked it from Hightower’s now lifeless hand and it skittered across the hard concrete.

Hightower slumped to the floor.

“What the hell just happened?” Carl wondered out loud, not believing what he had witnessed. “The god-damned idiot shot himself!”

“Not exactly,” Randy said as he unlocked Carl’s handcuffs. After releasing their bonds and picking up Hightower’s weapon, Randy held up something to show Carl. His keys were dangling from his left hand. On his key ring was the remote key fob for the Hummer. “I have been waiting all spring to try out those shocking door handles,” He said with a grin. “They seem to have been worth every penny!”

Epilog

One Year Later

“Looks like Uncle Carl could use a break,” Randy said, as he retrieved his two month old daughter from his friend. Carl loved kids, as long as he could hand them back.

“You might want to check the diaper on that kid,” Carl suggested, fanning the air with his hand. “Her parents aren’t the only ones in the family packing lethal weapons, if you catch my drift.”

As they all waited for their lunch at the Red Fox Inn, Carl looked across the table at his best friend and his ex-wife.
Life is full of surprises,
he thought to himself.
A lot can happen in a year.

Detective Miller (with Carl’s and Randy’s help) had arrested Hightower’s two security men at the boxing center on the night his ‘suicide’. The ballistics match from one of their firearms, and testimony offered in exchange for leniency, implicated Hightower and his men in the murders of Dr. Johnson and Jessica Cooper. Both were put behind bars for the foreseeable future.

Carl decided to spend more time NOT working, and offered Randy a partnership in the company, to help run things.

After the Hightower ‘suicide’, Ameriplaxi’s stock values plummeted. With their resident genius gone, and having left no succession plan, the business floundered.

Senator McGinty’s pet project was unplugged, and the building mothballed. Just another government project that had cost the taxpayers billions of dollars, run its course, and failed.

Randy and Michelle were married three weeks after their ordeal at the boxing center, and decided to move to Middleburg and start a family of their own.

“I’ll be right back,” Michelle said, as she gathered daughter, blanket and diaper bag for a trip to the restroom. She kissed Randy on the top of his head. “Start without me if lunch comes while I’m gone.”