F Paul Wilson - Sims 02 (10 page)

 
          
Patrick lay trembling against the
steering wheel, trying to control his bladder, afraid he was going to be
killed. The guy on his side of the car had just yanked the door open when all
hell broke loose to Patrick’s right—shouts, cries, moans, and then Romy telling
him to run. The guy outside his door was moving away and so Patrick kicked it
the rest of the way open and did just that.

 
          
He didn’t pick a direction, he simply
ran with everything he had. A quick glance over his shoulder showed no one in
pursuit, and a slim figure, glints of light flashing from her glossy cleathre
coat, fading into the night on the far side of the car.
Romy.
Thank God.

 
          
He ran on, still afraid for his life,
but he had a chance now, and that left room enough in his panicked brain for
questions: Who? Why? And room for shame. He was running instead of fighting.
Even though he wasn’t a fighter, he felt he should be back there kicking
multiple butts to defend Romy. Instead, she’d taken the lead and sprung them
both. What kind of a woman had he become involved with?

 
          
At least they were running in
opposite directions. That would split the opposition.

 
          
He spotted a large dark splotch ahead
to his right—a tiny grove of trees, tall bushes maybe—and headed for it. He
could stop there, get his bearings, and then try to make it back up to the
road.

 
          
As he entered the grove he had a
vague impression of a shadow hugging one of the dark tree trunks immediately to
his right, but he kept pushing into the foliage.

 
          
“Not so fast, little man,” said a
deep voice.

 
          
And then something rammed into his
abdomen, a fist, plunging toward his spine, almost reaching it. As Patrick
grunted in airless agony and doubled over, another fist slammed into the back
of his neck, collapsing him to his knees. He retched.

 
          
“Got him!” the voice bellowed.

 
          
Through the red and black splotches
flashing in his vision, Patrick was aware of a flashlight flicking on and off.
A moment later he heard thumping footsteps approach.

 
          
“Ricker?” said the voice that
belonged to the guy who’d opened his car door.

 
          
“Over here. Where’s Hoop and Cruz?”

 
          
As Patrick’s breathing eased and his
head cleared, he glanced left and right: two pairs of identical black sneakers
leading to black pants with elastic cuffs.

 
          
“Down.
Bitch
was playing possum. Maced them and took off. They’re getting their eyes back
but—”

 
          
“Damn fuck better!
Got
to catch her before she gets to the road and stops a car!”

 
          
“That might be up to me and you—she
did some real damage to their balls before she left.”

 
          
“Shit! All right, let’s do this guy,
dump him back in his car, and go after her.”

 
          
Do? Panic clawed at Patrick’s brain.

 
          
For the second time tonight, he felt
himself grabbed by the back of his coat. This time he was hauled to his feet.

 
          
“Steady him,” the big one, the one
called Ricker, said as a pair of massive arms twined around Patrick’s head and
neck like anacondas.

 
          
“
Wh-
what’re
you doing?” he cried, although he sensed with a sick terrifying certainty what
was coming.

 
          
“What the accident didn’t, buddy
boy,” said Ricker’s voice close to his ear.

 
          
Patrick writhed in their grasp and
cried out his fear as he felt those arms tighten, but he was trapped and pinned
and helpless as a moth about to have its wings plucked…

 
          
…and then a jarring impact, an
agonized “Uhnh!” from Ricker, a startled “What the—?” from the other, and the
murderous grip loosened, the arms fell away, and something slammed against
Patrick’s back, knocking him face first onto the ground. He heard scuffling
feet, grunted as someone’s heel kicked him in the ribs,
then
winced as he heard a loud, wet, crunching smack!
followed
by a brief light rain of warm heavy droplets against his head and the back of
his neck.
After that, a heartbeat of silence, followed by the
impacts of two heavy objects thudding to the ground, one on his left, another
on his right.
Then…

 
          
…silence.

 
          
He waited in panicked confusion,
holding his breath, playing dead, praying he’d survive the night. Silence
persisted. Warily he raised his head, inching it upward, spitting the dirt from
his lips. To his left he saw a pair of blackclad legs and sneakered feet, only
this time they were horizontal. With growing alarm he slowly rotated his head
left—

 
          
—and scrambled to his feet with a
startled cry when he found a bloodstained face and dead staring eyes only
inches from his own.

 
          
Heart hammering, he backed away from
the two still forms, the one who’d been struggling with his car door, and the
bigger one, the one called Ricker, the one who’d been about to snap his neck
when—

 
          
When what? What had just happened
here?

 
          
He did a full, stumbling turn as he
edged out of the grove, searching the shadows for something, anything that
might account for the two dead men, but found only more shadows. When he
reached the edge of the foliage he ran, blindly at first, but then a passing
splash of light from above told him where the roadway was. He veered right and
began to claw his way up the steep slope, stumbling, slipping, the rough
granite tearing his pants, cutting his skin. Finally he reached the battered
steel guardrail and pulled himself over.

 
          
No one else in
sight.
Where was Romy? God, he hoped she was okay.

 
          
Aching and bleeding, he slumped against
the cold metal and tried to catch his breath.

 
          
Not in shape, he thought as he
searched his pockets for his PCA. And even if he were, he wasn’t in shape for a
carjacking and dead bodies. He was a talker, not a fighter. He—

 
          
Shit! He’d plugged the PCA into the
recharger in the car!

 
          
All right.
As soon as he claimed a second wind, he was going to start running, and keep on
running until a car showed up. And then he was going to stop it and have them
call 911.

 
          
Lights glowed beyond the curve to his
left. As a car careened into view, he rose and staggered across the shoulder
toward the roadway, waving his arms. Only when he was completely exposed and
vulnerable did it occur to him to wonder whether it might be friend or foe.

 
          
Moot question.
The car hurtled past without even slowing.

 
          
Patrick looked down at his wrinkled,
torn, bloodstained suit. I wouldn’t stop for me either.

 
          
Maybe he’d be lucky and the driver
would call in about a disheveled crazy looking man wandering the Saw Mill. But
the way his luck was running…

 
          
He ducked and turned as he heard a
noise on the slope below…moving closer.
Someone climbing his
way.
He peeked over the guardrail and sighed with relief when he
recognized her.

 
          
“Romy!” he said, rising and extending
his hand. “Thank God you’re safe!”

 
          
And please don’t say, No thanks to
you, my hero.

 
          
He helped her over the rail and
noticed she wasn’t even breathing hard.

 
          
“Are you all right?” she said, giving
him the once-over as she straightened her coat. “Where are you bleeding from?”
Was that real concern in her eyes?

 
          
“What? Oh…only a little of that’s
mine.”

 
          
He recounted what had happened in the
grove.

 
          
She glanced between him and the dark
pool of the ravine. “And you didn’t see who it was who saved you?”

 
          
“Not a hair, not a trace.”

 
          
She nodded, looking around.
“Typical.”

 
          
“What’s that mean?” And then he
realized she didn’t look the least bit shocked or worried.

 
          
“It means the organization is looking
out for you.”

 
          
“What organization? Those ‘friends’
you mentioned earlier?
Who—?”

 
          
She pivoted and held up a hand to
shush him. “Hear that?”

 
          
He heard a car engine gunning in the
ravine. No way
that could
be his. They both leaned
over the rail, squinting into the dark.

 
          
“When I was hiding in the brush down there
I spotted another van just like the one that drove us off the road. On my way
back up here I noticed that the two guys I gassed were gone.”

 
          
“You think they took the bodies with
them?”

 
          
“I’ll bet on it. This wasn’t a couple
of beered-up Teamsters. These people had a plan and they were following it by
the numbers, military style.”

 
          
Patrick noticed her stiffen, as if a
bell had just rung. “What?”

 
          
She shook her head.
“Nothing.”

 
          
As the sound of the van’s engine
faded, Patrick stared again into the dark ravine, trying to locate his BMW, and
was struck by how perfectly their “accident” had been planned. If he had
trouble locating his car in the shadows below—and he had a fair idea where it
should be—a passing car wouldn’t have a clue.

 
          
A shudder cut through his body. He
began to tremble inside.

 
          
“Don’t tell me ‘nothing,’” he said.
“Somebody tried to kill us and—”

 
          
“They were going to shoot me up with
something first…to ask me questions.”

 
          
“Oh, Christ!
What are we into here? Who were they?”

 
          
“SimGen, I suspect.”

 
          
“No way!
With their clout in court and Congress, they don’t need to hire killers.”

 
          
“Who’s got more to lose?”

 
          
“No, Romy, I don’t buy it—I won’t buy
it. They’re—”

 
          
She leaned close. Intensity radiated
from her like heat from a reactor core. “They’re hiding something, Patrick. And
whatever it is, the two of us—you, me—we’ve touched a nerve. We’ve somehow
threatened that secret.”

 
          
“Just great,” he said. “One of the
largest corporations in the world has painted a bull’s-eye on my back.” He held
up his hands and watched them shake. “Look at me—I’m a wreck.”

 
          
“The shakes are normal,” Romy said,
holding out her own trembling hands.
“Just excess adrenaline.
It’ll pass. How do you feel otherwise?”

 
          
“How does terrified sound?” He wasn’t
ashamed to admit it: He was shaken to his core. “It’s not every day someone
tries to kill me.”

 
          
“The all-important question is: Have
they scared you off?”

 
          
“Oh, they’ve scared me, but not off,”
he said, hoping he sounded a lot braver than he felt. “You see, they made a big
mistake when they ruined my practice: It left me with only one client. I can’t
quit.”

 
          
Romy smiled at him, and he sensed
genuine regard in her eyes. Somehow that made the terrors of the past few
minutes almost worthwhile.
Almost.

 
          
“And I’ll tell you something else,”
he said, feeling a growing anger blunt the edge of his fear. “I’m still not
convinced SimGen was behind what happened here, but just in case it was, I’m
putting them on notice.”