Dragged into Darkness (25 page)

“I can’t do it.  What if he was unconscious?”

“Jesus, I can’t believe you’re considering this, while I’m fucking sitting here trying to save this bird.  You’re finished, pal.”

“Faith is a constant.  It has nothing to do with whether you are conscious or not.  Time has run out, to save everyone you must kill David.  Scott, you have faith.  It’s time to demonstrate it.”

“I’m sorry, David.”  Harrison unbuckled his harness.  He expected to have to brace against himself the
riggers
of the plunging aircraft, but he didn’t.  As soon as he stood, there was no effect on his body.  He was like Smith.  His faith meant he could defy physics.

“If I didn’t have to fly this damn plane, Scott, I’d kill
ya
myself.”

Standing behind Garcia, Harrison slipped a supporting arm across his first officer’s chest.  With his other arm, he curled it around Garcia’s neck and gripped the underside of his jaw.

Garcia took a
hand off
the yoke and tried to wrench Harrison’s arm away.  But with only one hand on the column, control of the aircraft became worse.  He released his grasp on Harrison and took control of the yoke once again with both hands.

“Goddamn you, Scott,” Garcia croaked.

The view out the windshield was desperate.  There wasn’t much time. 
Seconds at best.
  His spiraling view was filled with the Pacific Ocean only hundreds of feet below.  White peaked waves flashed past at four hundred knots.  No time to think, he had to do it.  Captain Scott Harrison yanked his first officer’s head round to an impossible angle, snapping his neck.

Briefly, Garcia’s feet danced on the rudder pedals before he sagged.  His hands slipped from the yoke.  Harrison held the slack corpse.

“You’ve done the right thing, Scott,” Smith reassured.

“Have I?”

The controls settled into neutral positions.  The spiral dive ceased.  The nose lifted.  The aircraft’s velocity reduced and the 747 climbed away from the water.  A cheer erupted from the passengers.  Petra burst through the cockpit door.

“I don’t know how you guys did-”
  The
sight of Harrison releasing Garcia from the stranglehold killed the words on her lips.

As Petra screamed, Harrison realized something was missing in the cockpit.  Smith was gone.

***

The mechanism released the pellets and they splashed into the bowl of hydrochloric acid.  The toxic solution wafted up from under the gas chamber chair.

The gallery watched the execution in uncomfortable silence.  Those who had witnessed gas chamber executions before had seen inmates hold their breath until they flushed purple, but not this one.  He breathed in the lethal cocktail like it was the aroma from a fine wine. 

His impending death didn’t seem to bother him.  He had the confident air of a man who knew something everybody else didn’t.  He was actually smirking. 

But nothing Captain Scott Harrison did
surprised
anyone.  His crazy ramblings at the murder trial had done him no good.  His insistence that the world existed suspended from strands of faith gave the jury no option.  If Smith had been found, maybe a scapegoat wouldn’t have been needed.  Without him, Harrison’s demise was guaranteed.

After a minute, concern spread throughout the death team.  Harrison should have been unconscious.  A technician checked the poison levels inside the chamber.

The gallery gasped.  Harrison stood, his restraints falling from him like ribbons.  He glanced at the technician and shook his head at the man like he was a struggling child doing his best.

“There’s nothing wrong with your equipment.”  Harrison’s voice crackled over the chamber microphone.  “The gas will have no effect.  I have faith.”

“Evacuate the chamber,” the warden demanded.

Harrison raised his hand.  “No.”

The death team froze.

Harrison came close to the viewing panel and with his palm, he pressed on the glass.  It stretched like elastic.

Panic broke out in the gallery.  People leapt from their chairs, diving for exits.  The technician played with the control panel.  The warden begged for calm, although fear gnawed at his rich baritone.  The death team drew their weapons.

“If you have faith, the gas can’t harm you.  But you have to have faith.  Now do you?”

The view port shattered.

The end

The following is an excerpt of
WE ALL FALL DOWN
by Simon Wood, from Dorchester Publishing and available in bookstores everywhere.

Prologue

The BMW 530i’s engine screamed, but it was unclear whether it was in agony or ecstasy.  Vee8 squashed the gas pedal deeper into the carpet and tipped the balance into the pain barrier.  The car accelerated through the narrow car-lined street, occasionally clipping door mirrors as it sped by.

“Spank it, Vee8.  Spank it,” Donkey shrieked hysterically and thumped the passenger side dash with his fist.  In chorus, D.J. and Trey seconded Donkey’s request from the back seat.

Donkey might have been hung like one but he was sure as shit as dumb as one.  Vee8 didn’t need Donkey telling him what to do.  He’d been jacking cars since he was fourteen and in four years, he’d thrashed, crashed and cremated over three hundred of them without ever being caught.  The cops had chased him across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area, but they’d never come close to netting him.  Many had tried and all had failed.  Several had woken up in the hospital to discover that sorry fact.  Like that old school gangster, Dillinger, Vee8 would be an old man before they ever got their hands on him.  He threw the powerful sedan through the left-handed kink. 

He’d learned his trade amongst the sideshow kings of Oakland.   He’d been taught by the best, until he was the best.  Most of them were now in prison, but in their heyday, they’d shown Vee8 how to make a car dance. 

Infineon Raceway was only a thirty-mile burn across the Bay and he could have been a legitimate race driver, but why?  He didn’t have the money or the connections to race.  Anyway, they were pussies.  Where was the fun in driving on a road where the traffic went in one direction?  Oncoming traffic, now that was a challenge.

Even though he was eighteen and old enough to possess a driver’s license, he hadn’t bothered.  What did he need a license for?  He didn’t own a car and why should he?  There were too many people like him who would have a set of wheels out from under you before you’d locked the doors.  No, if he wanted a car then he had Donkey snatch one.  They were more frequent than buses, and nicer.

Donkey started up again.  “
Vee
, get off these
pissy
little streets.  If the
po-po
catches our scent, we’re fucked.”

Vee8 hated the way Donkey spoke.  Donkey came from the Deep South somewhere.  Alabama.  Louisiana.  One of
those fuck-your-sister
, marry-your-cousin states.   His southern drawl intensified when he whined and it grated on Vee8.

“Who’s
fuckin
’ driving,
Donk
?”

“You.”

“That’s right.  Me.  When you’re driving, you can make the decisions.”

Although Donkey whined, he was a necessary part of the operation.  He was a magician with locks and alarm systems.  Cars just opened themselves up to him.  Within a matter of seconds and with the aid of a few tools that appeared from his pockets, his work was done.  Despite Donkey’s talents, Vee8 was the star.  Essentially, Donkey got them in and Vee8 got them out.

Donkey was right.  Tearing strips off the residential streets was asking for trouble.  They’d jacked the BMW from the El Cerrito Del Norte BART station around noon, before the suit returned home from a hard day of stroking his secretary’s thigh.  Now that it was after eight, the car would be on the hot list and the cops would be looking for it.  But like Cinderella’s coach at midnight, it would be a rotting husk by the time they found it. 

Vee8 threaded his way through the Sausalito streets avoiding downtown.  He didn’t fancy a run-in with the cops.  He headed for Highway 1.  The narrow, coastal road snaked and heaved, and it would put him and the BMW to the test.  It contained more than enough thrills for a Wednesday night.

He got clear of the town.  The full moon gave him a clear view of the road ahead well beyond his headlight beams.  He brought his speed up to eighty-five.  The turnoff to the two-lane highway was coming up on his left.

As he approached the four-way, Vee8 eased the BMW hard over to the curb to get a faster turn-in for the left turn.  A Honda Civic sedan approached the intersection from Vee8’s right but it didn’t bother him.  He was on the through road and had the right of way.  The Civic would have to stop. 
Even if he didn’t have the right of way, so what?
  No one in their right mind was going to argue the point when a car was driving at breakneck speed. 

Vee8 stepped off the gas and jumped onto the brake.  Everyone in the car was thrown forward against the seatbelts as the BMW dived on its suspension.  He watched the speedometer dial sag as the speed was sloughed off and ignored the whoops of his boys.

Vee8’s smiled slipped.  The Civic wasn’t slowing.  It wasn’t traveling as fast as he was; no more than fifty, but it wasn’t going to stop. 

“I don’t think he’s stopping,” Donkey said flatly, seeing what Vee8 had seen.

Donkey’s words silenced everyone.

Vee8 pressed down on the brake harder and thumped the horn twice with his fist.

The Civic showed no sign of stopping for the BMW.  It leapt across the intersection and into Vee8’s path.  Everyone in the BMW swore and braced themselves for the impact.  Vee8 stamped on the brakes and the anti-lock system went into action.  He didn’t bother to turn onto Highway 1 as he’d planned.  It would have just made the collision worse.  The best he could hope for was to tee-bone the bastard and do as much damage to him and as little to himself as he could.

For a moment, Vee8 thought he was going to get away with it.  The Civic was passing out of his field of vision faster than expected, but not quite fast enough.  The BMW clipped the
Civic’s
rear panel and wraparound light cluster.  A deafening bang echoed through the car as sheet steel collided with sheet steel.  The Civic wiggled after its glancing blow and carried on its merry way unhindered.  The BMW was less fortunate.  The car plowed on, veering right, and struck the curb hard.  The front wheels
jackhammered
into the wheel arches and relayed their agony through the steering wheel.  Vee8’s hands and arms tingled in sympathy.  The car leapt the curb and came to a halt in the field beyond the pavement. 

“Christ, my head,” Donkey whined.  He put a hand to his nose, checking for blood.  There wasn’t any.  He touched the dashboard where he’d smashed his face.

Vee8 checked the rear-view mirror and found D.J. and Trey were bleeding from where they’d banged heads.  Both were looking dumbly at each other and moaning about whose head hurt more. 
Christ, what a
clusterfuck
, Vee8 thought.