The Tin Man (28 page)

As she
climbed down the stairs, the smell of smoke intensified. She took a deep whiff. Funny, it didn’t smell like cigarettes. Was he burning something? She stumbled through the dark toward the car. She heard a crackling sound, saw something in the corner. A flickering orange glow.

Oh dear God.

“Alex!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Where the hell are you? The barn’s on fire!”

She stood there for a minute, wondering if she should try to put it out
, but abandoned the idea when she saw how rapidly it was spreading. A scuffling sound behind her made her turn, expecting to see Buchanan. There was no one there. Now spooked, she hurried toward the open door, stumbling over debris.

Another snap
. She spun around, but saw nothing. She swallowed hard and took a breath, trying to calm her pounding heart and racing pulse. She spun in circles, glancing around. She sensed a presence, but couldn’t see anything. Was Buchanan playing tricks on her, trying to scare her?

If so, it was working.
Her hands were shaking and heart was hammering so hard she could barely breathe. She almost wet her pants when a beam of light flicked past her.

“
Alex!”

Her scream pierced the silence. The beam found her.
Keeping low, she started belly crawling toward the back door. She heard a loud crack. Something struck the boards just above her head, showering her with splinters. Panic flared. Another crack. She could hear shuffling in the straw, getting closer. Shite, was it the twins? And where the hell was Alex?

Crack.

The bullet grazed her shoulder. Springing to her feet, she made a run for the back door. Making it outside, she tore across the field, racing toward a black line of trees. She glanced back over her shoulder. She couldn’t see much, but she could hear them giving chase. She pushed herself harder. The tree line was still a few yards away and she was already breathing hard. Her legs felt like lead. She drove herself with everything she had.

As she neared the woods, the ground got steeper.
Her heart felt like a locomotive. Her side was starting to stitch. She pressed her fist against the pain as she pushed on. Looking back again, she tripped and lost her balance, but only for a second before righting herself again. If she fell, they could be on her in a flash. She didn’t want to think about what those two freaks might do to her then.

She kept on running
, the pain in her side getting worse. She looked to the woods, now only a short distance ahead. There was a steep rise between her and the thicket of trees. She tore up the hill, arms pumping, legs trembling with exertion. Her breath was coming in hot gasps. The cramp in her side was now so bad, she was lumbering along half-stooped like one of those awful flying monkeys from the
Wizard of Oz
.

And then, another shot cracked the silence. She heard something whizzing toward her. It hit her in the
buttocks, a sharp prick, making her yelp. She missed a step, but kept going. She made it to the trees. Ducking behind one, she stopped to catch her breath. The bullet in her ass smarted like mad. She moved her hand around to assess the damage, surprised to find something sticking out. She winced against the pain as she withdrew it, then brought it around to see what it was. A dart, dipped no doubt in some kind of sedative. Shite. In another few minutes, she was going to drop like a scarecrow.

* * * *

Buchanan was smoking out among the trees when he heard the gunshots. Turning toward the barn, he saw flames leaping from the roof. Dropping his cigarette, he charged from the underbrush like a bull, thinking only of Thea. Another shot shattered the darkness. He drew his Glock as he trundled across the field. The fire was spreading fast. He reached the barn, choking as he raced inside. The whole place was filled with white smoke.

“
Thea!” he screamed, coughing violently. “Thea!”

He raced toward the stairs, grabbed the rail, hoisting himself up
two rungs at a time. He frantically searched the loft, but found only her purse. Taking it with him, he stumbled back down.

“
Thea! Thea! Where are you?”

The smoke was so thick he couldn’t see a thing.
He heard another crack. Outside. Shite, the assassins had found them. But where were they now? And where was she?

He groped his way through the cloud, gasping, choking, eyes stinging, until he found the car. Feeling his way around, he located the driver’s door, got in, and started the engine. He hit the gas. The Toyota lurched forward. He couldn’t see a
fucking thing through the smoke. The car crashed through wood, jolting him. The air began to clear as he bounced across the field. The black sedan came into view, speeding toward the road. He eased off the gas, falling back to avoid being seen.

Fucking hell.
He’d cocked up everything. Now they had Thea, which was killing him. Anything he could do to save her would endanger her life. Assuming, of course, she was still alive. The possibility she might not be kicked him in the chest, but he reasoned it away. She had to be alive. It only made sense. If she was dead, why take her? He felt better, but not for long. If she was alive, there was a reason. And the only reason he could think of made his stomach turn.

* * * *

Zeus was a boy again, running through the farmhouse he was raised in by his mother, heart hammering with terror. He had a piss erection, which bobbed painfully as he ran, slowing him down. The bathroom door, as usual, was locked. Inside, he could hear a child sobbing. He didn’t know who the child was or what he was doing there, he only knew he had to protect the kid. He shuddered when he heard his mother, somewhere in the house, singing that awful nursery rhyme.

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,

Up stairs
and down stairs in his night-gown,

Tapping at the window, crying at the lock,

Are the children in their bed, for it's past ten o'clock?

Racing for the front door, he grabbed the knob, shaking it violently. It wouldn’t turn. With rising panic, he sprinted toward the kitchen. He tried the back door, but it, too, was locked. On the verge of hysteria, he ran to the sink and fumbled frantically with the window latch. It wouldn’t open. The singing, that terrible singing, was getting closer.

Hey, Willie Winkie—the child's in a creel!

Wriggling from everyone's knee like an eel,

Tugging at the cat's ear, and confusing all her thrums

Hey, Willie
Winkie—see, there he comes!

His chest grew tight. His knees began to shake. His bladder was ready to burst. He seized his cock and aimed. Going in the sink was wrong. It would make her even angrier. But he had to go so badly he didn’t know what else to do. He pushed hard, but nothing came out. In desperation, he started thumping his engorgement against the ledge. Anything to relieve the unbearable throbbing.

Weary is the mother, who has a dusty child,

A small, short little child, who can’t run on his own,

Who always has a battle with sleep before he'll close an eye

But a kiss from his rosy lips gives strength anew to me.

She was right behind him now. He could hear her breathing, could feel the heat of her body on his back. He tried to scream when he saw the cleaver, but no sound would come out. The blade came down with a whack. His penis
tumbled into the sink, bouncing once before shattering like glass. Urine and blood jetted from the wound. He felt no pain, only enormous relief.

He awoke
with a jolt to find, as always, he’d wet the bed.

* * * *

Lapdog cringed as he thought back on the demoralizing conversation he’d had earlier that morning with Natalie Coole, the newly appointed assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division. Natalie, a staunch conservative, ascribed wholeheartedly to President Freeman’s philosophy that, left to themselves, markets would self-correct (despite all evidence to the contrary).

Blond
, blue-eyed, and statuesque, Natalie had earned the nickname “The Ice Queen” in less than a week on the job. Right after he got to the office, she’d summoned him to discuss the proposed merger between Titan and Golden Age. No sooner was he seated in front of her massive and obsessively tidy desk than she announced, “We’re going to let this one slide.”

He should have seen th
is coming, but he didn’t. “What!”

“I have orders from the top,” she said, staring him down with those frosty eyes of hers.

He furrowed his brow. “Who? The Attorney General? The President?”

Her fingers, pressed together in a pyramid,
moved in and out like a bellows. “If you want to keep your job, you’ll do as you’re told and not make any noise about it. Do I make myself clear?”

As clear as an aquarium full of piranha.
He just sat there, stupefied. It was probably just as well, since anything he felt like saying would end up costing him his job.

What he saw happening inside the department made him physically ill, but
could he do short of handing in his resignation? And what good would that do in the grand scheme of things? Sure, it might spare him a little personal grief, but he could hardly do any real good standing on the outside looking in. Better, he reasoned, to suck it up and keep trying to fix things from where he now stood, despite the rising water.

That was
the reason he’d gotten Buchanan and Thea involved—to expose the truth, thereby forcing the Attorney General’s hand. Once the story broke, there was no way the DOJ could go on ignoring these kinds of gross violations of the anti-monopoly laws. He swallowed hard. That was the plan, anyway.

A red glow broke through the enveloping darkness. Thea felt the car began to slow, heard the soft squeal of brakes under her ear. They hit a bump—a sledgehammer to her brain. She bit down hard on the rubber ball wedged between her teeth. The glow became brighter, turning from red to amber and began to throb. Inertia pulled on her body. She grunted as the handcuffs dug into the flesh and bone of her wrists. As the car straightened out, her terror returned, stealing her breath.

The car drove on, her angst building with each passing mile. She had been like this for what
felt like hours. The side of her face, where they’d hit her, pounded unmercifully. Her mind slipped in and out of awareness. When she was conscious, her memory remained murky.

She sucked in a breath.
The events of the past several hours started coming back in slices. The lounge at the crappy motel…seeing their pictures on the news…carjacking the Toyota…making love in the hayloft…waking up alone…the creepy twins in tan suits.

Panic
threatened. Obviously, they’d put her in the trunk of a car. But where was Buchanan? The thought of him tightened her throat and brought tears to her eyes. Was there any chance he might still be alive?

Images drifted through her mind.
The twins, looking like they’d stepped right out of a 1970s spy film, looming over her with guns. Her on the ground, back against a tree, feeling so woozy she couldn’t focus. One of them kneeling before her, putting a hand on her face.

“She is very pretty, do you not agree?”

“Yes, Georgi,” the other one said. “Very pretty. But also forbidden fruit, in case you have forgotten.”

The hand on her face travel
ed south, stopping at her left breast.

“Very, very pretty,” he whispered as he squeezed hard enough to make her wince. “She has nice
tsitsi
, too—not as nice as my Tatyana’s, of course, but there are few who can make that claim.” He turned to look at his twin. “What do you say to having a look?”

“Nothing wrong with looking, I suppose,” the standing
twin replied with a shrug.

Thea’s
eyelids were heavy and hooded, but she could feel his hands lifting her sweater, could feel icy fingers reaching inside her bra to twist her nipples like radio dials. She squirmed a little in protest, but could manage nothing more. And then, he slapped her hard across the face, knocking her over. The last thing she remembered before everything went black was the taste of bloody grit in her mouth.

* * * *

The black sedan was heading southwest along Interstate 95, having just crossed the border into Maryland. The road was flat and mostly straight, with three traffic lanes in both directions. Trees lined either side of the highway. Many looked barren and skeletal, having already lost their leaves.

A couple of times along the way, Dee and Dum, as
Buchanan had dubbed them, pulled off the highway. He’d followed, keeping his distance, parking on the shoulder. While waiting, he’d consulted the map he found in the glove compartment or pissed in a Budweiser bottle he’d found under the seat.