First Blood (1990) (27 page)

Teasle had the sink full of cold water, dunking his face in it, swabbing himself with a paper towel. 'Where's my shoes and socks? Where did you put them?'

'What for?'

'Never mind what for. Just where did you put them?'

'You're not planning to try and go back there again, are you? Why don't you sit down and relax? There's all sorts of men swarming through those caves. Nothing more you can do. They said not to worry, they'd call here the minute they found a sign of him.'

'I just told you he's not -. Where the hell are my shoes and socks, I asked you.'

Far off in the front room the phone started ringing faintly. Harris looked relieved to get away and answer it. He swung out through the door of the washroom, and the phone rang again, then again, then abruptly stopped. Teasle rinsed his mouth with cold water and spat it out milky. He did not dare swallow it in case it would make him sick again. He peered at the dirty checkered tiles on the washroom floor, thought incongruously that the janitors weren't doing their job, and swung through the door out into the corridor. Harris was standing up at the end of the hall, his body blocking off part of the light, uncomfortable about speaking.

'Well?' Teasle said.

'I don't know if I should tell you this. It's for you.'

'About the kid?' Teasle said and brightened. 'About that junkyard of cars?' 'No.'

'Well what is it then? What's the matter?'

'It's long distance - your wife.'

He did not know if it was fatigue or shock, but he had to lean against the wall. Like hearing from somebody buried. With everything that had happened because of the kid, he had gradually so managed to keep her out of his mind that now he could not remember her face. He tried but he could not. Dear God, why did he want to remember? Did he still want the pain?

'If she's going to upset you more,' Harris said, 'maybe you shouldn't talk to her. I can say you're not around.' Anna.

'No. Plug it through to my office phone.'

'You're sure now? I can easily tell her that you're out.'

'Go on, plug it through.' 14

He sat in the swivel chair behind his desk and lit a cigarette. Either the cigarette would clear his head or else it would cloud his head and spin him, but it was worth a try because he could not talk to her as unsteady as he was. He waited and felt better and picked up the phone.

'Hello,' he said quietly. 'Anna.'

'Will?'

'Yes.'

Her voice was thicker than he recalled, throaty, a little broken in some of the words. 'Will, are you hurt? I've been worried.' 'No.'

'It's true. Believe it or not, I have been worried.'

He drew slowly on his cigarette. There they went again, misunderstanding. 'What I meant is no, I'm not hurt.'

'Thank God.' She paused, then exhaled steadily as if she had a cigarette too. 'I haven't been watching TV or reading newspapers or anything, and then suddenly tonight I learned what was happening to you and I got scared. Are you sure you're all right?'

'Yes.' He thought about describing it all, but it would only sound like he wanted sympathy.

'Honestly, I would have called earlier if I'd only found out. I didn't want you to think I don't care what happens to you.'

'I know.' He looked at the rumpled blanket on the couch. There were so many important things to say, but he could not bring himself to do it. They did not matter to him anymore. The pause was too long. He had to say something. 'Do you have a cold? You sound like you have a cold.'

'I'm getting over one.'

'Orval's dead.'

He heard her stop breathing. 'Oh. I liked him.'

'I know. It turns out I liked him even more than I knew. And Shingleton's dead and so is that new man Galt and -' 'Please. Don't tell me anymore. I can't let myself know anymore.'

He thought about it longer, and there really was not much to say after all. The quality of her voice did not make him long for her the way he feared it might have, and at last he felt free, at the end of it. 'Are you still in California?'

She did not answer.

'I guess that's none of my business,' he said.

'It's O.K. I don't mind. Yes, I'm still in California.'

'Any troubles? Do you need any money?'

'Will?'

'What?'

'Don't. I didn't call for that.'

'Yes, but do you need any money?'

'I can't take your money.'

'You don't understand. I - I think it's going to be all right now. I mean, I feel a lot better about everything now.' 'I'm glad. I've been worrying about that too. It's not as if I want to hurt you.'

'But what I mean is I feel a lot better, and you can take some money if you need it without the idea that I'm trying to make you beholden and have you come back.'

'No.'

'Well at least let me pay for this call. Let me accept the charges.'

'I can't.'

'Then let me put it on the office bill. It won't be me paying, it'll be the town. For Christ sake, let me do something for you.' 'I can't. Please stop it. Don't make me regret calling. I was afraid this would happen and I almost didn't.'

He felt the telephone sweaty in his palm. 'You're not coming back, are you?'

'This is all wrong. I didn't want to go into this. It's not why I called.'

'But you won't be coming back.'

'Yes. I'm not coming back. I'm sorry.'

All he wanted was to hold her, not do anything but hold her. Slowly he crushed out his cigarette, lit another one. 'What time is it there?'

'Nine. I'm still confused about the time zone shift. I slept fourteen hours when I got here, getting used to the different time. For them it was eleven o'clock, and for me it was already two hours after midnight. What is it, midnight now, where you are?'

'Yes.'

'I have to go, Will.'

'So soon? Why?' Then he caught himself. 'No. Never mind. That's none of my business either.'

'Are you positive you're not hurt?'

'They've bandaged me up, but it's mostly scratches. Are you still living with your sister? Can you at least tell me that much?' 'I moved out into an apartment.'

'Why?'

'I really have to go. I'm sorry.'

'Keep me in touch with what you're doing?'

'If it'll help you. I didn't know it would be this hard. I don't know how to say this.' She sounded like she was sobbing. 'Good-bye.' 'Good-bye.'

He waited, trying to be with her as long as possible. Then she broke the connection and the dial tone was buzzing and he sat there. They had slept together four years. How could she make herself a stranger? Not easily. Her sobbing. She was right, this was hard for her too, and he was sorry.

Chapter 15

It's over. Do something. Move. Get your mind on the kid where it belongs. The kid. Behind the wheel of a car. Driving fast.

He saw his shoes and socks by the file cabinet and hurriedly put them on. He took a Browning pistol from his gun case, slipped a full bullet clip into the handle and strapped on a holster, slanting it backward he noticed, the way Orval always had told him to. As he came down the hall, through the front room toward the door, Harris looked at him.

'Don't say it,' he told Harris. 'Don't say I shouldn't go back out there.' 'Fine, then I won't.'

Outside the street lights were on, and he breathed the fresh night air. A cruiser was parked at the side. He was just getting in when he glanced to the left and saw the side of town light up, flames reflecting in waves across the night clouds.

Harris was shouting on the front steps. 'The kid! He got out of the caves! They just called that he stole a police car!' 'I know that.'

'But how?'

The force of the explosions rattled the windows in the police station. WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP! A string of them from the direction of the main road into town. WHUMP, WHUMP!

'Christ almighty, what's that?' Harris said.

But Teasle already knew and he was ramming the car into gear, racing it out of the parking lot to get there in time.

Chapter 16

Roaring deeper into town, swerving to pass a motorcyclist who was stopped looking back astonished, Rambo saw in his rearview mirror the street behind him flooded with fire leaping high into the trees that bordered it. The fierce red flames radiated into the cruiser. He pressed the accelerator to the floor, whipping down the main street, explosions flaring in the night behind him, bursting the pattern of the fire. Now they would have to waste time going around. Just in case, he needed to do it again. The more diversions, the more they would be confused. They would have to put off chasing him and stop to control the fire.

One of the street lights ahead was burned out. Under it the brakelights of a car flashed on, its driver opening his door to stare back at the flames. Rambo, sheered into the left lane, bearing down fast on the low headlights of a sports car. It swung into the right lane to avoid him just as he swung into his own lane too, and he continued sweeping toward it until it leapt up onto the sidewalk, snapped off a parking meter and crashed through the front display window of a furniture store. Sofas and chairs, Rambo thought. Here's to a soft landing.

Foot solidly on the throttle, he was surprised there were not more cars on the street. What kind of town was this anyhow? A few minutes after midnight and everybody was asleep. Store lights off. Nobody coming out of bars singing. Well, there was a little life in town now. There sure as hell was. The rush of the cruiser, the hefty surge of the engine, he was reminded of Saturday nights years ago racing stock cars, and he loved it all again. Himself and the car and the road. Everything was going to be fine. He was going to make it. Working unnoticed down through the hills to the highway had been easy. Creeping through the forest of junked cars into the field and up to the cruiser had been easy. The policemen from the car must have been in the hills with the rest, or else down the road to see the drivers of the lorry trucks. There had been no key in the switch, but tripping the ignition wires had been no problem, and now streaking through the red light of an intersection, the power of the motor seeming to rise up through the accelerator, flooding his body, he knew it would be only a matter of hours before he was free. He felt too good not to make it. The police would radio ahead to try and stop him, of course, but most of their units were probably behind him with the searchers, so there could not be much resistance ahead. He would make it through town and take to the side roads and hide the car. Then run overland. Maybe hitch onto a freight train. Maybe sneak into a transport. Maybe even steal a plane. Christ, there were any number of possibilities.

'Rambo.'

The voice startled him, coming from the radio.

'Rambo. Listen to me. I know you can hear me.'

The voice was familiar, years off. He could not place it.

'Listen to me.' Each word smooth, sonorous. 'My name is Sam Trautman. I was director of the school that trained you.'

Yes. Of course. Never in sight. The persistent voice over the camp's loudspeaker. Any hour. Day after day. More running, fewer meals, less sleep. The voice that never failed to signal hardship. So that was it. Teasle had brought in Trautman to help. That explained some of the tactics the searchers had been using. The bastard. Turning on his own kind.

'Rambo, I want you to stop and surrender before they kill you.' Sure, you bastard.

'Listen to me. I know this is hard to understand, but I'm helping them because I don't want you killed. They've already begun to mobilize another force ahead of you, and there'll be another force after that, and they'll wear you down until there's nothing left of you. If I thought there was the slightest chance of your beating them, I'd gladly tell you to keep on the move. But I know you can't get away. Believe me. I know it. Please. While you still can, give up and get out of this alive. There's nothing you can do.'

Watch me.

Another chain of explosions rumbling behind him, he veered the cruiser, tire, squealing, into the empty lot of a gas station, lights off for the night. He ran from the car, kicked through the glass of the station's door, stepped inside and switched on the electricity for the pumps. Then he grabbed a crowbar and hurried outside to wrench the locks off the pumps. There were four, two hoses on each, and he squeezed them on, spewing gasoline into the street, setting their latches in place so they would not shut off when he let go. By the time he drove the car up the street and stopped, the pavement back there was flowing with gasoline. A struck match and whoosh, the night flared into day, a huge lake of fire from sidewalk to sidewalk, twenty feet high, storefronts crackling, windows shattering, heat streaking over him, singeing. He raced the cruiser away, the blaze of gasoline spreading behind him, streaming to parked cars. WHUMP, WHUMP, they exploded, rocketing. WHUMP. Their own fault. The sign on the light pole had said no parking after midnight. He thought about what would happen when the pressure in the underground gasoline tanks went low. The fire would back up into the hoses and down into the tanks and half the block would explode. That would hold them from following. It certainly would.

'Rambo,' Trautman said from the radio. 'Please. I'm asking you to stop. It's no use. There's no sense to it.'