Body Parts (Rye & Claire 1) (20 page)

“Shit.” He nearly drove off the road when he spotted Claire’s Austin-Healey.

By the time he was back in
his lane he’d passed the driveway where he was going to turn around and
was getting frantic. He had slowed the ambulance to a crawl when a dirt
road appeared on his right. He pulled in, cut the ignition and started
jogging back the way he’d come.

He reached around to the
holster clipped to the back of his pants when he noticed that all four
of the Healey’s tires were flat. He kept his right hand wrapped around
the handle of the .38 as he approached the car.

There was no blood, no sign of a struggle. But why were the tires all flat?

Looking down at the gravel
shoulder, he could just make out a footprint. He immediately recognized
it as one of Claire’s special EMT, size-eight shoes.

He stood for a minute taking
it all in. Looking down the road he could see the massive gate, looking
up the road he could see his ambulance. Another minute and he was back
in the ambulance driving up the dirt road that seemed to parallel the
gated drive. He caught glimpses of the paved driveway until the trees
became too dense. He checked the dashboard clock—he’d been driving for
fifteen minutes. When he looked back up, he could just make out a
clearing ahead. He brought the ambulance to a stop, climbed out and
stepped into the woods.

He moved in a crouch from
tree to tree until he was at the border of a clearing. He was about to
step into the open when two people emerged from the woods on the
opposite side. A man and a woman, joined by a third person—all in a
heated discussion.

As he strained to hear what they were saying, Rye failed to notice the three men creeping up behind the ambulance.

Chapter Thirty Three

The pain kept her conscious
. With labored effort, Claire lowered herself down the cable, no longer attempting to walk down the wall.

She felt two hands around her hips moving up to her waist. “I’ve got you.” Crystal said.

The hands provided direction,
urging her, pulling her. She finally let go of the cable and sat down
hard. It was pitch dark, and Claire could feel her claustrophobia
starting to close in.

The two women clutched one another, as if either let go, the other might disappear.

“Claire what happened? I thought you’d fallen and I was terrified. I couldn’t tell what it was.”

Claire shook her head in an
effort to clear her thinking but stopped when the pain intensified. “I’d
wrapped the cable around an old iron wheel; it must have been pulled
over the edge.” She ran her hand over the back of her head, it came away
wet and sticky. She knew it was blood. Her head throbbed and her hands
burned.

“Help me open my butt pack, I need some ointment.”

The two women did a little
dance, Claire rolling onto her stomach too unsteady to stay up on her
knees, Crystal tracing the belt with her fingers until she found the
butt pack. There was no ointment.

With considerable effort,
they pulled out everything they could find that would burn—lint, Kleenex
and gauze. They used the last match, made a small mound of dirt and
hollowed out the center, then built a tiny fire. At first, they stared
into the flames and Claire’s feelings of being closed in vanished, but
Crystal’s gasp alerted her to their surroundings.

The two were perched on a
ledge approximately twelve feet long but only about three feet wide.
Crystal was plastered to the wall, eyes wide with fear. Claire fell into
her roll as EMT, took Crystal’s hand and looked for a way to distract
her. “I can see the top. We’re only about fifteen feet down.”

Her words seemed to bring Crystal around. “Do you think we can climb out?”

Claire gave a tug on the cable and was surprised to find it solid. “The timber must be holding, I think so.”

The giant timber, pulled to the rim of the shaft by Claire’s weight, was long enough to span the narrow opening.

They found the iron wheel
teetering on the lip of the ledge, pulled it on end and gained another
three feet by standing on it. With Claire’s help, Crystal was able to
climb the cable, then help Claire come up the last couple of feet. The
women were exhausted, the fire on the ledge was out and they were in
darkness again. Urging each other on, they crept away from the opening
of the shaft, then collapsed onto their backs panting and gasping.

Chapter Thirty Four

sed
by 20415 Pericolo Lane. Just beyond Claire’s Austin-Healey, it turned
around in a driveway and parked on the dirt road. Two men in blue suits
got out and walked down toward a giant gate but didn’t stop. Instead,
they stepped over the drooping barbed wire of a dilapidated fence and
sat on a huge stump just inside a circle of trees. Neither spoke as they
watched the road.

Rye drew his revolver and was
about to step into the clearing to confront the group, when another man
emerged from the woods to join them. Rye sat back down into a crouch
holstering his gun.

The foursome walked toward
some cliffs that emerged from the hills, then disappeared. He quickly
high-stepped through the woods, going around logs, stepping over
branches, until he could see where they had gone.

Slowly at first, a shadow
came into view until he realized it was the opening to a mine. The last
man to join the group had a flashlight and was using it to lead the
others inside.

Claire heard the noise first and pushed herself into a sitting position. “Listen.”

“I don’t hear anything,” Crystal said.

“Shhh. Now do you hear it?”

“Yeah.”

Claire stood up. “I’m sure I heard talking.”

Crystal stood, flailing her
arms around in the dark until she found Claire. Grabbing the hand that
smacked her in the shoulder, Claire guided her over to the wall.

“I think somebody’s coming. We need to get to the other side of the shaft and find a place to hide,” Claire said.

Without another word, she
pulled out her lighter and began walking along with Crystal in tow,
using the light cast by each spark.

When they reached the
vertical shaft, they flattened themselves against the tunnel wall and
shuffled past. As soon as they were clear, they began to walk.

Crystal pulled back against Claire’s forward movement. “What’s that?”

“What?”

“Do you feel it?”

Suddenly something soft and cool brushed against Claire’s cheek. “I feel it.”

She began spinning the wheel
of the lighter in earnest, keeping it close to her body to protect the
flame if it lit. It did for an instant, then flickered out.

“I can really feel it now. C’mon the air’s coming from the right.”

With Crystal in tow, Claire
made her way following a cool breeze that seemed to be guiding her
deeper and deeper into the old mine, never knowing that Rye was hiding
in boulders just outside the mine shaft.

Chapter Thirty Five

The light illuminated a shoe print
that plainly displayed a logo—an oval with “EMT Special” in the center.
“Shit, that seals it, they’re here.” All heads spun around as though
they might be able to see the intruders.

Then everyone looked at Simms. “Bonnie, you and Derrick stay put. Hubble and I’ll go back to the mansion.”

Rye ducked back around behind
a boulder when he heard the sound of running. Two men emerged from the
mine and ran to the edge of the clearing where they disappeared down a
trail that led into the woods.

The two men burst into the clinic panting and breathless.

Simms turned to face Hubble.
“Get into storage and take the C4 plugs and detonators to the mine.
Send Derrick and Bonnie back, I’ll need them here.”

Hubble looked Simms in the eye and seemed to comprehend what was going to happen.

“I’ll need a key.”

“Of course.” Simms turned and led Hubble into his office, removing a key from his top center desk drawer.

“Go! Set the C4 at the opening of the morgue and around the mouth of the mine, then wait for me.”

As soon as Hubble was out of
the office and down the hall, Simms took out another key, unlocked the
small drawer on the right side of the desk and removed his .45 pistol.
Then he followed Hubble about fifty yards into the woods and stepped off
the trail.

Rye watched from his hidden
vantage point as a man entered the clearing just in front of the mine
entrance. Moments later Derrick and Bonnie went back down the trail. He
watched Hubble head into the mine, and took that as his cue to come out
of hiding, In one quick move, he lunged forward and placed the barrel of
the pistol in the center of the man’s back.

In a flash, Hubble moved to
the side using his right arm to knock Rye’s gun arm to the left. Rye
tightened his arm, pulling the trigger in response. But Hubble was well
out of the way and drove a left palm strike to Rye’s temple.

As soon as his gun arm had
been knocked away, Rye knew he was facing a trained martial artist.
Seeing the palm strike from the corner of his eye, he twisted his head
at the last minute to avoid full contact. He attempted several of the
moves Claire had shown him over the years but they were all slow and
poorly aimed. His opponent, though smaller, was landing strike after
strike. Rye knew that one was bound to bring him down. Lurching to one
side he managed to avoid a kick aimed at his kidney and turning,
sprinted into the mine. Hubble, wanting to get as far away from the mine
as possible, did not follow.

Both women peered back into
the black, at the sound of the pistol shot. Claire increased her pace
and was suddenly being hit full face by a steady breeze.

She shook the lighter. “Come on, light goddamn it.” Her thumb was raw from turning the rough wheel.

Spin, spark….spin, spark

Spin, flame. Claire quickly
cupped her had around the flame. “Do you see a shaft anywhere? It’s got
to be close. Must be an air shaft leading to the surface.”

Crystal released her grip on
Claire’s sleeve and ran to a small hole in the rock, about the size of a
manhole cover, Inserting her head and shoulders into the ascending
shaft. Claire took a last look and let the flame go out. Staggering and
flailing her arms, she found Crystal. She could just make out the
airshaft into which Crystal had climbed and could see her extended hand.

“C’mon, you’re right it
leads to the surface,” Crystal said. But Claire didn’t make a move,
didn’t say a word. “Claire, c’mon. Claire, what’s wrong?”

Chapter Thirty Six

Simms didn’t have to wait long
for
Derrick and Bonnie. He heard them talking as they half jogged, half
walked down the trail. Without showing himself, he shot Derrick in the
side of the head. Bonnie bolted down the trail toward the clinic. Simms
stepped out onto the trail leveling his pistol at her head. He pulled
the trigger, but missed, hitting her in the right shoulder. The shot
knocked her to the ground, but she was up and running before he could
get off another shot. He quickly checked Derrick’s pulse, then stepped
around the body. When he reached the grass clearing that led to the
clinic, he slowed to a walk. Bonnie was nowhere in sight but he could
see blood on the door handle.

Pulling open the door, he found the hall empty. But there was blood on the floor.

“Bonnie, I heard shots. Are you hurt?” he called out.

No answer. Simms imagined her
lying unconscious on the floor in one of the clinic rooms. When he
stepped around into the first exam room a blur of red came out of
nowhere slamming him in the face, breaking his nose and knocking him
backwards. He staggered to catch his balance but was struck again by the
fire extinguisher, this time in the groin. Tentacles of pain shot into
his abdomen driving him to his knees. Bonnie followed him out the door
and pushed him over onto his back. Raising the extinguisher high, she
plunged it down aiming for his groin, but the move was too obvious and
ponderously slow. Raising the gun, extending his arm full length, Simms
fired several shots into her at near point blank range knocking her back
through the door and onto the floor.

Ignoring the throbbing from
his broken nose and the urge to curl up into a fetal position from the
pain between his legs, Simms staggered to his feet and stumbled down the
path toward the mine.

He cleared the trees and
crossed the clearing just as Hubble came out of the mine. Hubble didn’t
see the gun until Simms had it leveled at his chest. Neither spoke.
Simms fired three shots driving Hubble against a boulder next to the
entrance of the mine. He didn’t see the three figures moving through the
woods in the direction of the mine. He picked up the flashlight Hubble
dropped and began scanning the walls for the C4. Finding all twelve
plugs, he discovered the detonator just outside the morgue, picked it up
and put it in his pocket.

“Hubble, efficient to the end,” Simms’s said as he limped back to the entrance.

When he was clear of the
opening, he turned to face the mine and began walking backwards, finally
stopping near the middle of the clearing. His attention was suddenly
drawn to the sound of running feet. Before he could turn to see what was
happening, someone tackled him around the ankles, knocking him to the
ground. His right arm was yanked behind his back urging him to his feet.
Two men stepped into view.

“Where’s Rye Anderson?” the taller of the two demanded.

Simms blinked and shook his head, totally confused.

The shorter man stepped
forward delivering a savage punch to his stomach. The arm behind his
back wouldn’t allow him to bend over, as the convulsions demanded.

“I’ll ask you one more time. Where is Anderson?”

The smaller man stepped forward and spoke to the man holding Simms in an arm lock.

“Turn him loose, Phil.”

Bobby Panther snapped off a right jab to Simms’s already broken nose, but the scream was masked by the blast from a shotgun.