Perpetual Motion (23 page)

“You know they’ll be long gone.”

“Yeah, but I’m going to find out who they are
– and someone is going to pay,” the FBI agent said with conviction.
As his thoughts drifted from his slain partner, he pointed at the
x-detective. “You know this isn’t over with you. I’ll be in
touch.”

“I know,” Cynical said, acknowledging that,
at the very least, an in-depth debriefing was in his future. “Hey,
don’t forget about your transmitter.”

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten,” the FBI agent said
with a sly smile. “You be careful out there.” With that, he turned
and walked toward the gigantic convenience store.

As the agent left, his original statement
lingered. Was any amount of money worth the risk he was taking?
Agent O’Riley was dead. J.T. was injured, possibly dead. Desmond
was lucky to be alive. Karen had been tortured. He had been shot –
twice. And now they were heading back into battle?

A ringing broke into his self-examination. It
was a different ring than he’d heard before and it surprised him
when he found the source nestled in his own pocket. Pulling out the
encrypted phone Mancuso had given him, he answered, “Yes?”

“Do you have an update for me?” the British
voice asked sharply.

“We were attacked again. It was the same
group that jumped us in Vegas. It was pretty ugly too. People are
dead, including an FBI agent.”

“Bloody hell,” Mancuso muttered tersely.

“They kidnapped Michael’s girlfriend, but I
have her back. And we have a lead on Michael. I think he’s in a
small town outside of San Diego called Borrego Springs.”

“Borrego Springs?” Mancuso repeated as if it
was another language. “What’s he doing there?”

“I don’t know,” Cynical said. “It’s probably
just a place to hide.”

“Do you know where in
Borrego Springs
is he hiding?” Mancuso asked after a moment of consideration. “How
are you going to find him?”

“I don’t know,” Cynical admitted. “But, as
soon as we make contact, I’ll let you know.”

“Listen to me, Mr. Jones,” Mancuso said in
his authorial, high English voice. “If these people show up again,
I don’t want you to engage them. Do you understand? I do not want
anyone else to get hurt.”

“What about Michael?” Cynical asked, as a
crackle of static interrupted him. “We don’t want these people to
get their hands on him. They were torturing his girlfriend. There’s
no telling - ”

A wave of static rolled through the signal
again.

Through the intermittent noise, Mancuso
seemed to be repeating his warning. “Do not engage…. Do not
interfere.” Then the line went dead.

Cynical looked at the phone. While he
appreciated his employer’s concern, he wasn’t sure he completely
understood the gravity of the situation. If they went to Borrego
Springs, there was a pretty good chance they’d be ‘engaged.’ And
what was he supposed to do if they trying to kill him or
Michael?

Just then, the backseat door he was facing
opened and Karen climbed inside with a plastic bag from the store.
“Okay, pants down,” she ordered.

“What?”

“How else am I supposed to clean your
wound?”

Cynical shook his head uncomfortably.

“What’s the matter?” Karen chided. “You’re
wearing clean underwear, aren’t you?”

“Probably not,” Cynical said. With a sigh, he
unbuckled his belt and gently lowered his blood-stained
trousers.

“All right,” Karen said, finding the seeping
puncture on the front of his thigh. “Didn’t the bullet hit go in
the back of your leg?”

“Yeah,” Cynical said.

“Well, I think it came out the other side,”
she said, wiping away blood with a moist paper towel to better
examine the exit wound. Taking a bottle of alcohol out of her bag,
she soaked a clean cloth. “This is probably going to hurt a
bit.”

“You think?” Cynical managed just before his
face twisted into a knot.

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” she teased him.

He started to give her a lecture on the
sensitivity of exposed nerve endings before noticing the burn marks
on her own wrists and the purple discolorations around her temples.
If she hadn’t complained about being electrocuted, he could grit
his teeth and take the pain too. In fact, he had it coming.

“Geez,” Desmond exclaimed as he got back into
the driver’s seat. The poor kid looked like he might get sick at
the grizzly procedure going on in the backseat.

The raw wound was stinging as she wrapped up
his thigh with her limited first-aid supplies. While he knew he
needed stitches to suture the hole, at least the strips of gauze
would soak up some of the blood until he made it to a hospital.
Karen got out of the back and returned to the front passenger
seat.

“McCobb’s right, you know,” he said to both
of the kids. “I shouldn’t let you go with me. This is way too
dangerous.”

“You have no choice,” Karen said
matter-of-factly. “You can come with
me
if you want, but
I’m
going.”

“Well, I think it’s crazy for either of you
to go any further,” Cynical continued. “These people are
professional killers and - ”

“You’re right,” Desmond said, cutting him
off. Turning his attention on Karen, he said, “Look, I’m sorry, but
I can’t do this anymore. I’m not cut out for shooting and
electrocuting and shit.” Trying to force a smile, he added,
“Besides, I always end up being a third wheel anyway.”

While she acted like she didn’t understand
the reference, it was painfully obvious how he felt about her.

“You shouldn’t go,” Karen agreed. “But not
because you’re a third wheel.”

Desmond nodded, looking like he might be on
the verge of tears. “And I’m sorry!” he suddenly cried out.

“Sorry for what?”

“Cynical can explain it to you,” Desmond
exclaimed, suddenly anxious to get out of the car before he lost it
entirely. As he shut the door behind him, he turned back to the
window. “Just know that I really care for you Karen. I hope you
find Michael.”

With that, the young man shuffled away toward
the bright lights of the truck stop.

“Do you know what he’s talking about?” she
asked.

“I’ll explain later,” Cynical said. “But I
wish you would follow him. It’s a lot safer with the FBI.”

“The subject is closed,” Karen said
definitively. Reaching down into the backseat, she grabbed the
crumpled stack of maps from the floor. “Pull up your pants. We’re
going to Borrego Springs.”

The Impala skirted the outer southern Los
Angeles interstate system, making good time before the onslaught of
rush hour traffic would grip the city in a stranglehold for the
next few hours. Karen drove, while Cynical occupied the back seat,
trying to get a little rest with his leg propped up on the opposite
arm rest.

“So, are you going to tell me what Desmond is
so sorry for?” Karen finally asked, breaking the silence as they
passed into Orange County.

Opening his eyes, Cynical told her Desmond’s
story. How he’d contacted another company about selling their
technology, and how the Department of Energy showed up shortly
thereafter.

“And then the prototype was blown up, and
Fernando was murdered. He thinks it’s all connected,” Cynical
concluded. “And he thinks it all started with him tipping off that
company.”

“Why would he do that?” Karen asked, more
hurt than angry. “I mean, why would he go behind Michael’s back
like that?”

“Look, Michael is obviously the brains of the
operation. He owns the invention – and he’s got the girl. Desmond
just wanted some of that. That’s not an excuse.” He managed a
shrug. “But I’m not really in a position to judge him, or anyone
else.”

He was ready to elaborate when his personal
cell phone rang from the front seat. “Can you reach that for
me?”

Karen fumbled around with her right hand
until she found the phone in the well between the two front seats.
Handing it back to him, he checked the number before answering,
“Cynical.”

“What are you doing?!” were the first words
out of Detective Cynthia Trudent’s mouth. “You’re leaving a trail
of bodies all over LA.”

“You heard about University Circle?”

“Everyone has heard about University Circle,”
she said flatly. “And everyone knows you were in the middle of it.
You’re on security cameras, and the security guard is telling some
crazy story about you protecting a girl from the Mob..?”

“Oh yeah…” Cynical said, trailing off.

“They’re saying you abducted a student from
her apartment?”

“I didn’t abduct her,” Cynical shot back. “I
got her back from the people who grabbed her. Talk to an FBI agent
named McCobb. He’ll tell you what happened.”

“I’ll pass that on,” she said. “But the
police still want you for questioning.”

“I’m sure they do,” Cynical commented. “They
can take a number.”

“This is serious, Cynical.”

“I know,” he replied gravely. “Have you found
out anything about the stiffs in the suits? I counted three that
didn’t make it out of University Circle.”

Cynthia paused for a second, trying to decide
how much she should share with a person of interest in an active
case.

“Neither of the bodies had any IDs, and the
SUVs were rented under a false name.” Lowering her voice, she
continued, “But we did get prints from the SUV they left behind. I
heard we got a match with a former member of the US military, who
was employed by a company in Maryland called Black Starr.”

“Black Starr?” Cynical repeated, glancing up
to find Karen staring at him in the rearview. “Who are they?”

“They’re a private security agency,” Cynthia
said. “They’re pretty big too; they have offices all over the
world. They’re basically guns for hire.”

That didn’t surprise Cynical. “That fits,” he
thought out loud.

“So, are you going to tell me what’s going
on?” Detective Trudent asked.

“I don’t think you’d believe me if I told
you.”

“Try me,” she said dryly.

“I will, some other time,” he said. “By the
way, can you do me one more favor?”

“Of course,” she said in full sarcasm mode
now. “That’s what I’m here for – to serve you. I just stay on at
the police department so I can better assist your cases.”

“That security guard at University Circle;
his name is Karl. Could you get him an application for the LAPD and
write him a letter of recommendation?”

There was a heavy sigh on the other end. “I
would have to get to know him before I could write him a
letter.”

“So meet him for coffee,” Cynical said.
“He’ll make a good cop, if he still wants to be one; a real
straight arrow.”

“Unlike some people.”

“Thanks Cynthia,” he said sincerely.

“You stay in touch,” she said, making it
sound like a threat, before hanging up.

“What was all that about?” Karen asked as
Cynical disconnected.

“We’re up against some outfit called Black
Starr,” he said. “Of course, that doesn’t tell us who hired them.”
Sitting up, he looked out the window to get a sense of their
location. “As long as we can beat them to Borrego Springs, I don’t
care who they are.” Pausing, he looked at the back of his driver’s
head. “So, do you know where Michael is in Borrego Springs?”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis.”

“When do you think I’ll need to know?”

“I’ll let you know.”

Cynical let out a dry chuckle that ended in a
slow motion coughing jag. The movement shook his torso and jarred
his leg, causing a fresh round of pain that ended in a teeth
grinding grimace.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, trying to steady
himself to let the sensation settle down.

“Here, take a couple of these.” A hand came
over the seat holding a small plastic bottle.

Taking the aspirin, he noticed the ring on
her left hand; just a simple black circle without a stone. “Is that
an engagement ring?”

“Yeah,” she said with a slight smile. “It’s a
neodymium magnet. Michael’s ring is made of steel. He said,
‘whenever we were apart, we would be drawn to each other and we’d
always be able to find each other.’” She looked up, her eyes
glistening in the rearview. “We’re getting close. I can feel
it.”

During the next forty-five minutes, Cynical
managed to snatch a bit of sleep, or possibly he’d just passed out
from fatigue and loss of blood. Either way, he had a feeling he
would need as much rest as he could muster for whatever awaited
them in Borrego Springs.

With nothing to look at except the harsh,
unforgiving terrain, Karen had fixated on her twin goals of
outrunning her torturers and reuniting with Michael. Fueled by the
fear of running into Black Starr again, she found herself driving
faster than she should. Then, frightened of getting a ticket and
being detained by the police, she repeatedly had to force herself
to slow down. And so it went.

“Borrego Springs – 20 miles,” she declared,
reading the road sign out loud.

Reopening his eyes, Cynical adjusted to the
morning light that was trying in vain to soften the rocky,
semi-desert landscape. A quick assessment of his condition told him
he still had a shooting pain in his leg and his shoulder had
mellowed into a dull throb. Further self-inventory caused him to
announce. “I’m hungry.”

“Too bad,” Karen said over her shoulder. “We
don’t have time to eat.”

“I’m still hungry,” he said, looking around
as if a McDonald’s would appear on the side of the road like a
McMirage.

“Maybe I’m imagining things, but do you see a
big black car behind us?” Karen asked, her tired eyes darting
nervously up to the rearview.

The act of tuning around to look out the back
window caused his whole body to ache, starting and ending with his
thigh wound. At first, he didn’t see anything, except the morning
sun beating down on the baked asphalt and brown ground.