Courier (23 page)

His face twisted slightly with irritation. The courier should have been dead – records destroyed, history altered, the past erased. It should have been easy. Just as easy as all the other lives, so many other souls erased from the world, in the years since that hot July day.

He is sweating everywhere, his fatigues dark with moisture. His crotch is still damp and stiff from when he peed himself when they were first hit by North Korean artillery. At least he's not the only one. Half the damn company shit their pants.

CHAPTER 26

 

Rick spotted the black Impala behind them as he made the turn onto Eighth Street and headed for the lesbian bar. He decided to keep on going. They'd just have to come back and get the film and the photoprints later. He kept an eye on the single side mirror that hadn't gotten smashed in that desperate dash through the woods. Damn, that seemed like ages ago. Eve shifted behind him; he could feel her take a breath and prepare to speak.

"Don't look at the bar," he called over his shoulder. "Someone is right behind us. I'm going to lose him."

He felt her arms tighten as she turned her head to the side and flattened herself against his back. Even in the current situation, he had to admit it felt damn good.

He passed the high walls and iron spikes of the barracks where the White House Marine guards were stationed, watching the yellow traffic light in front of the guard shack and the high blank walls that hid the Washington Naval Base. He slowed down, timing it so that he got there just as the light turned red. Kicking down a gear, he pulled the bike into a sharp left, scraping the pegs and hearing the horns and brakes of the cars he'd cut off.

Eve's grip tightened as he accelerated hard up M Street.

Behind him, he heard a steady horn blast and looked in the mirror to see that it was the Impala warning traffic as it fishtailed through the intersection. Other horns joined in a discordant chorus, but the Impala kept coming.

"OK, that didn't work," he said to Eve. "Now we're going to have to get extreme."

"You mean that wasn't extreme?" Her answer sounded muffled by his jacket.

He grinned and drove up through the gears.

By the time he hit the intersection where the entrance ramp to I-395 split off from M Street, he was going so fast that he knew he wasn't going to be able to stop. The light ahead was red. He looked for cars – nothing coming from the projects to the south, but the concrete supports of the highway blocked his view on the left side.

He hit the throttle and accelerated through the light, seeing a flash of a concrete mixer with an American flag painted on the barrel emerging from the darkness on his left. Then it was a wrenching dogleg left and right, and they were flying up the ramp onto the interstate.

At the top, he slowed to match the speed of traffic and started cutting quickly to the left, braking and accelerating to fit into tiny spaces between cars. He knew that only the bridge across the Anacostia was ahead, with its long sight lines. To the left, he spotted the unmarked exit ramp he knew was there.

He kept on juking through the cars – blaring horns and shouted curses marking his passage. At the last second, he slammed on the rear brake to lose momentum, but before the bike went into a skid, he came up off the brake, threw the bike to the left, and rocketed onto the ramp only inches from the orange sand barrels clumped around the concrete abutment.

He cut the throttle and slowed down as soon as they were on the ramp, knowing there was no way the Impala could have followed him. In fact, if the driver had waited at that light, he wouldn't even have reached the top of the entrance ramp in time to see them exit on the other side of four lanes of traffic.

"I think that worked," he said.

Her arms stayed locked around him. "You mean I can breathe now?"

"Yeah, and if you loosen up a bit, so could I."

He felt her sit back. "Who the hell taught you to drive, Trooper? Evel Knievel?"

"Hey, fast is the only way to ride a bike." He laughed, the adrenaline rush beginning to evolve into the giddiness that often followed a close call. "It takes your mind off your troubles."

"You must really have serious troubles."

"I'm not going to deny that."

"No, I guess you can't." She put her head around his shoulder so she could see ahead. "However, let's try and avoid any more therapy sessions for a while, OK?"

"OK." He slowed down to walking speed, finally stopping behind a line of cars waiting between traffic cones. On both sides were stands of evergreens and small bushes, the Anacostia River just visible through the trees on the right.

"Where are we?" Eve asked. "It looks like nowhere. I mean, we were just in the city. How did we end up in the middle of the woods?"

Rick pulled up to a man in an orange hat, a ragged insulated coat, and a money apron. "Tell you in a minute. Do you have ten bucks?"

"You really know how to show a girl a good time," she groused, as she dug into her jacket pocket. "Here."

He paid the attendant and they pulled ahead. The road changed from pavement into rutted mud, and then the narrow track between the trees opened into an enormous parking lot. Burgundy and gold colors were everywhere – on banners, on flags, on strands of bunting, and on every one of thousands of people walking, laughing, drinking, and eating.

"What in hell is this?" she said.

"See the stadium back there?" Rick pointed. "That's RFK, and this is a tailgate party. The Redskins are playing for the championship tonight."

"This is incredible. It's like a redneck Woodstock." Eve shook her head. "And how long are they going to keep that disgusting name?"

"You're kidding. Rename the Redskins? Probably never." Rick kept motoring slowly, weaving up and down the lanes of what was one vast celebration. "Anyway, I thought it was meant as a compliment."

"Redskin? That's what they called us when they murdered women and children in the Plains Wars. It's what the white kids called me at the boarding school where they sent me." She shook her head at the memory. "It would be just as bad to call them the Washington Niggers."

"To be honest, I've never thought about it, but I suppose you're right." Rick swept an arm at the racially mixed crowds. "But, after the riots, it's about the only thing that everyone in this city – black or white – agrees on. I mean, you don't see people getting together like this anywhere else."

"I guess that's a good thing," she agreed. "But can't they get together without having to have that Uncle Tom cartoon of an Indian warrior painted on their beer coolers?"

"OK, if you're not happy, I'm not happy. We're out of here. Hold on."

With that, Rick gunned the bike, popped it over the parking lot curb and up the grass slope toward the street beyond. They turned right on East Capitol and disappeared over the Anacostia River.

CHAPTER 27

 

Rick was sure he'd lost the Impala long before they even reached the stadium parking lot. But just in case, they'd run up through Fort Dupont Park, down Alabama Avenue where the corner boys selling drugs were some of the few people still working tonight, and finally down past the long wall that enclosed the massive brick wards of Saint Elizabeth's – the city's psychiatric hospital.

Crossing back over the Anacostia on South Capitol, he pulled into a filling station and began to fill the tank. The attendant, an elderly black man, just looked at him from his seat in the office, clearly warm and unwilling to miss any of the Redskins game on his tiny black-and-white TV.

Eve climbed off the back seat stiffly, walked around in a circle, stamping her feet and massaging her legs to restore the circulation.

Rick smiled. "Not used to riding?"

"Are there really shock absorbers on that thing?" She scowled at the BMW.

"Great ones. Strong enough to cross the Sahara."

"I'll bet anything that the Sahara has fewer potholes than a DC street in a warm winter. I may never be able to walk again."

She took off her helmet and began to rub her fingers vigorously through her scalp. "Not to mention what it feels like to have a braid stuck under this thing."

"Think of it as extra cushioning if we go down."

She turned and glared at him with her hands on her hips. "Don't even joke about crashing this damn thing. There will be no ‘going down'. Never, do you hear me?"

He grinned as he topped off the tank and replaced the pump handle. "Your wish is my command."

The attendant had finally hit a commercial break and slowly hobbled out to the pumps. Rick handed him a couple of dollars. "Keep the change. It's bad enough to have to work tonight. Do you have a pay phone?"

The man looked at him, then pointed around the side of the station and slowly headed back to the game without saying a word.

Rick waited until the door had closed and said softly, "And a Merry Christmas to you, too. OK, I need to make a call. I'll be right back."

One of the new anti-theft pay phones was mounted on the side wall of the station. Rick fished a dime out of his pocket – no banging these for a nickel – and dialed. The phone rang once and then someone picked up but didn't say anything.

"Hey, this is Rick Putnam," he said.

He recognized Steve's laugh. He didn't think he'd ever been so happy to hear someone's voice. Steve said, "So, you figured out the code. I guess swapping out ‘Eps' for ‘Zeke' wasn't all that hard, was it?"

"It took me a couple of minutes but ‘Zeke' had too many letters." Rick grinned. "You need to get that signal off the pool feed, or you'll be responsible for the explosion of ABN's senior technician's head."

"Good, that means we get to play in the tunnels again. One of our favorite pastimes."

"Damn, I'm glad to hear from you," Rick said. "What the hell happened?"

"Well, I keep saying we didn't always have computers to play with, right?"

"Right."

"Luckily all of us were serious Dungeons and Dragons players in college – the real version, not the board game. Down in the steam tunnels and over the roofs and all that stuff."

"You mean like that kid who got lost out in Madison?"

"Yeah, except we don't get lost. Anyway, there's been a real game going on in DC for years, and being the champion team, we checked out the house as soon as we moved in. I'll bet you didn't even notice that manhole in the basement, did you?"

"A manhole?" Eve came around the corner and Rick leaned against the wall with a grin on his face and wrapped an arm around her. "No, I never noticed a manhole in the basement."

Eve looked at him quizzically and he smiled, mouthing the word, "Later."

Steve continued, "Yep, leads into the primary storm sewers and down to an outflow on the banks of the Anacostia. Luckily, it hasn't rained or we'd have been covered with shit. They really should replace those damn dual-use sewers."

"I completely agree. I have no idea what you're talking about, but I agree anyway." Rick's smile broadened. Then a thought drove it from his face. "But there was a lot of blood. Anyone get hurt?"

"That question goes to Mr Pickell here."

Eps came on the line. "Hey, Rick!"

Eve now was leaning against his chest with her head close enough to hear the voices on the phone. Rick enjoyed the warmth of her body against him.

"Hey, Eps."

"So, anyway, I grew up just slightly fascinated with things that go boom, you know?"

"You mean you used to set off firecrackers?"

"Firecrackers? Hell, no." Eps sounded insulted. "I don't think you'd call a plastic explosive made from rock salt with thirty percent of the explosive power of dynamite a ‘firecracker',"

"Um. No, I wouldn't. But how did you make it so fast?"

"Oh, we didn't make it last night. I made up a batch a year ago – you never know when a little plastic explosive will come in handy. It's been in the refrigerator. You know that plastic tub with the label ‘Mashed Beets'?"

Rick shook his head. "You mean I've been sleeping on top of a batch of unstable homebrew explosives for all this time?"

"Dude, you have no idea. A man has to have his toys. Plus, you don't really sleep all that much, so that's not a reasonable complaint," Eps continued. "Anyway, after you left, we figured someone might come visiting, so we rigged a surprise in the hall."