No Way to Die (38 page)

Marlowe inspected the screen for a minute, and then he slowly smiled. “Wonderful,” he said. “I’ll be damned.”

I slowly exhaled. It worked.

“Satisfied?” I said.

He turned back to me. “Very nearly so,” Marlowe said. “I must admit that you’ve actually kept your part of the bargain. I am impressed.”

“I said I would,” I said. “Of course, you’ve already broken your word—it was just supposed to be you and me here, remember? Your words, not mine.”

“Actually, I never said that,” he said. “I said you needed to come alone. I never said
I’d
be alone. I’m sorry if you misunderstood that. Unfortunately for you, I’m afraid that there may be further disappointment in store for you this morning.”

I stared at him. “Which means that you don’t intend to honor your agreement,” I said. “Now that you have the box and the key, you’re not going to let us go as you agreed.”

“Let’s just say that there’s been a need to modify our arrangement,” he said. “Now that you've gone and involved the authorities, I think that I need a little insurance in case your FBI buddies are lurking about. A little—how shall I put it—a little diversion. It will help clean up a few untidy loose ends.”

Before I could react, the armed men on either side of him raised their AK-47s and pointed them directly at me. Either man could have pumped half a dozen 7.62 x 39 mm NATO rounds into my chest before I covered half the distance to Marlowe. Resistance, as they say, would have been futile.

* * * *

“You may leave,” Marlowe said to the PC tech. “Shut down the laptop and take it with you. Leave it in the house. Leave the Starfire key in that device there, and leave the device on the table right where it sits.”

The PC tech had a worried look in his eye as he followed directions. He quickly folded the laptop and put it in a case, leaving only the real Starfire device with the key still inserted in it and the fake device they’d given us sitting on the table. When he was done, he hurried out of the barn like he was late to an appointment.

“You two,” Marlowe said to two of the men who’d followed us in from the driveway. “Go back outside now to your assigned positions. You,” he said to the third man, “search him.”

The two armed men with the AKs continued to cover me while the third man approached me.

“Turn around,” he said.

I did as ordered. He shoved me forward hard, propelling me up against the wall of the tack room. “Put yer hands against the wall, feet back, and spread ’em,” he said, sounding just like a TV cop. There were no games in the way he conducted his search, though. He did a very professional job of patting me down. He found my Les Baer, my Kahr, and my SureFire knife in short order. Damn. I was down to my fists—no weapons at all.

“No wires?” Marlowe said.

“Nope,” the man said. “He’s clean. ’Least now he is, anyway.”

“Excellent,” Marlowe said. He turned to me. “Sorry about all that, Mr. Logan, but it wouldn’t do to have you suddenly produce a weapon and shoot me, would it?”

“Works for me,” I said. “You’re a shit-sucking amoeba that needs stamping out. Rest assured that your time is going to come. Maybe even today. Maybe not. But soon. Real soon.”

He smiled at me. “You’re an impressively feisty fellow for one in your predicament,” he said. “No moping about or begging for mercy from you, eh?”

“What’s the point?” I said. “You’re going to do what you’re going to do, and I’m going to do what I’m going to do. One of us is going to come out on top.”

“Really?” he asked. “Mr. Logan, are you about to attempt some heroics? If so, that’d be wonderful! I love heroics. Makes me feel like I’m in an action movie.”

“Oh, I can tell that about you, Gordie- do you mind if I call you Gordie? It is
Gordon
Marlowe, right?"

He smiled. "As you wish," he said.

"Good. Anyway, Gordie, you seem like a pretty heroic guy. That is, if you overlook your penchant for murdering people, stealing stuff, restraining and drugging helpless women—that sort of thing. But hey, nobody’s perfect, right? And besides—other than those few little things, you’re just a real pillar of virtue, aren’t you? You’re probably a real hit on the society scene, am I right?”

“Well, I admit, sometimes it’s necessary to do unpleasant things in my line of work. Something of an occupational hazard, you might say.”

“I’d say you’re the hazard, Gordie.”

He looked at me curiously. “I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone quite like you, Mr. Logan,” he said. “Here you are, disarmed, in a strange setting, all manners of guns aimed at you, undoubtedly aware of what’s in store for you, yet you remain sublimely belligerent. It’s quite fascinating. It’s as if you’re purposely attempting to goad me into doing something.” He stared at me. “Is that your game, Mr. Logan?” he said with a quizzical expression on his face. “If I weren’t aware of your circumstances, I’d say you were trying to maneuver me into losing my cool for some reason.” He shook his head. “That won’t happen, I assure you. I never lose my cool.”

“Gordie,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re the coolest guy I know. If I wanted you to do something, I’d tell you. I’d be right up front about it—you wouldn’t have to figure it out. Anyway, like I said, you’re going to do what you’re going to do, and I’m going to do what I’m going to do.”

He continued to study me. “Most fascinating,” he said.

Suddenly, I took a step toward him. The gunmen on either side of him dropped into a “ready” crouch, their rifles aimed directly at my heart. “Understand this, Marlowe,” I said. “When you kidnapped Toni, you crossed a line. I mean, sure—before that, I wanted to see you behind bars for killing Thomas Rasmussen. That was a bad thing to do. But after you kidnapped Toni and threatened her and hurt her and put whatever drugs inside her, well, then you went and made it personal. So now, you need to know that I don’t want to see you in prison anymore. Prison’s too good for you, and I think we should just skip that step. This is strictly between you and me now. Got it?”

He looked at me, no longer smiling. His eyes spoke clearly—he’d heard me. The words had registered. He nodded toward someone standing behind me. I turned just in time to see the man who’d searched me bring a hard, flat leather sap down on the side of my head. It connected solidly, and I fell to the floor, seeing stars. I looked up at Marlowe.

“Nice speech, asshole,” he said.

I’m just about tired of getting hit in the head
, I thought. Then I blacked out. Again.

IT’S ALWAYS AN odd sensation, waking up from being unconscious. I hate to admit it, but I’ve got more than my share of experience in the matter. You go through a real brief period where you start to wake up and you realize you’ve been dreaming—might still be, actually. Then, you move from dreams to a period of darkness in which you hear voices in the distance—voices that gradually take over and take the place of the dreams. In this case, a voice was saying, “Hit ’em again.” This was followed by a cold bucket of water in my face.

“Fu—,” I sputtered, spitting water out. Now I was awake—sorta.I tried to move my hands, but I couldn’t. I forced my eyes open and looked around, desperately trying to focus, trying to remember where I was, how I’d come to be sitting in a smelly barn next to Toni, and why I was soaking wet. Why couldn’t I move my hands? Or my feet?

I realized then that my hands were handcuffed behind me, apparently zip-tied to the railing. My feet were also zip-tied together. I was all trussed up like a turkey in a roasting pan, unable to move at all.

From that point, it took only a few seconds for things to fall into place—mentally speaking, that is. I saw that Toni’d also been splashed by the bucket of water, but she was still too groggy to be functional. Holly appeared to be completely out of it. Both girls were secured in the same manner that I was. I looked around and saw Marlowe standing eight feet away, next to his goons by the PC table.

“You’re back,” he said, smiling again. “Did you have a nice little nap?”

I cleared the remaining cobwebs from my head and tried hard to focus.

“Fuck you,” I said. “You’re a chickenshit, you know that, right?”

He laughed. “I can understand why you might think so,” he said. “Of course, as for me, I don’t see it that way. Not at all. You see, Mr. Logan, I tend to evaluate people—myself included—based on one thing. And that is simply, are they winners? Do they come out on top? And that,” he smiled, “that’s something I am very good at.”

“You don’t care about who you hurt to get there, do you?” I asked.

“Let me think. Uh . . .”He pretended to think about it, and then laughed. “No,” he said. “I don’t. I’m a winner, Mr. Logan. I do what needs to be done in order to win. This is a concept that a sanctimoniously moral person such as yourself might not understand. But then again, you’re no winner, are you? Look at yourself. Look around you,” he said, sweeping his arm. “You are shortly going to die in a beat-up old barn full of fifty-year-old horse shit and moldy hay in the middle of an abandoned farm, on the edge of a hillbilly town in a rainy, backwoods part of your country. Where’s the accomplishment in that? Where’s the glory? Where’s the greater good?” He paused. “Not there, is it? What’s more—what’s particularly tragic—there’ll be no one around you, no loved one to comfort you in your final moments.”

It was silent for a second, and then Toni tried to mumble something, but it didn’t quite come out.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “What’s that, my dear?”

I could see her trying to concentrate. She was barely able to lift her head. She tried to focus her eyes, but she was having trouble. Didn’t stop her. “I’m here, motherfucker,” she said. “He’s not alone.”

I looked at Marlowe. He stared at Toni. He wasn’t going to crumble in front of us, not by a long shot. But our confidence in the face of what appeared to be long odds seemed to surprise him—especially that part of it came from Toni.

“And you’re not out of here yet, Gordie,” I added. May as well play for time and keep messing with the guy. Maybe Doc or the FBI would come to our rescue if we gave them enough time.

Marlowe turned back to look at me. He was back to his old self. “You two are cut from the same bolt of cloth, aren’t you?” he said. He shrugged. “No matter. Rest assured, I will soon be leaving this shithole,”he said, looking around and then smiling broadly. “Very shortly, I will take the Starfire Protocol—and the key you’ve been kind enough to provide. I will fly away in my shiny G-IV, which is now sitting at an airport only minutes away. I will be waited on hand and foot by two gorgeous flight attendants who will cater to my every need. When I land, I’ll turn the Starfire Protocol over to a waiting buyer and pocket thirty million dollars. Then, back on the airplane and on to my villa. So which outcome should I choose? Yours or mine?” He paused for a moment as he pretended to weigh the two options in his upturned hands. Then he laughed. “Think I’ll take mine.”

He looked at his watch. “Oh my,” he said. “On that note, I’m afraid that it’s time to bring our little adventure to a close.” He looked up. “I do have a flight to catch, you know?” He turned to one of the gunmen.

“Mr. Chambers,” he said. “You may proceed.”

I hoped he wasn’t about to shoot us. I also hoped that if he was about to shoot us, Doc was somewhere nearby so that he could shoot the guy first. I’d not seen even a hint of his presence, and I’d been looking. Then again, Doc was a pretty sneaky guy. No telling where he was. Didn’t matter now. Our plan had called for me to stall Marlowe as much as I could to create as much time for Doc as possible. I’d done my part. Now, it was up to Doc.

As it turned out, Marlowe didn’t mean to shoot us. Instead, Chambers picked up a small blowtorch that I had somehow not noticed. He lit it, and a bright blue flame sprung to life with a low
whoosh
sound. He looked at Marlowe.

Marlowe nodded. “Go ahead,” he said. “Start at the far end.” He pointed to the opposite end of the barn.

Chambers walked down the center hallway to a bale of hay stacked against one of the stalls at the far end of the barn. About this time, I noticed that they’d placed a hay bale in front of all the other stalls as well. Chambers used the torch to light the hay bale on fire. Then, he made his way back to us, lighting each bale in turn. By the time he reached us, the flames from the first bale had already spread to the surrounding stall rails and to the walls of the barn behind it.

Smoke began to fill the top of the barn as the flames on the far wall worked their way up the dry barn wood toward the roof.

“So you see,” Marlowe said, raising his voice to be heard over the crackling sound of the dry wood burning. “An old barn accidentally catches fire and burns down. I'm told that old barns such as these—and the extremely flammable rubbish inside them—tends to burn very hot, indeed. Unlikely, there will be any trace of the three of you left. But even if there is,” he shrugged, “who cares? I’ll be airborne by then.” He looked at us. “Good-bye, Mr. Logan. Sorry things worked out the way they did.” He started to walk away, but then turned back. He laughed. “For you, anyway,” he added.

He turned and grabbed the Starfire box with the USB key in it. “Oh, one other thing,” he said. “No sense us taking up valuable cargo space carrying two of the Starfire Protocol boxes back with us, particularly since there’s only the one key. As a memento of our meeting, I’ve decided to leave this other one with you, sort of a going-away present, if you will.”