by Brad Hart
Walsh and Logan both stood up at the same time and walked to the front of the vehicle where the small trunk was. The man kept his gun on Logan and hopped down. He leaned in close and smelled Logan’s neck. “Smells like a private eye, that’s for sure. Now toss your phones and radio on the ground,” he barked.
He turned to Walsh. “Get in the trunk.”
She did what he asked, no hesitation. The man turned to Logan and flashed the gun. “Now you, dick.”
Logan hesitated for a moment. The man inched the gun closer and pushed it hard against Logan’s chest. “Want to look like swiss cheese, friend?”
“No.”
“Then do what I ask, or I’ll turn you into a piece of swiss cheese faster than you can count to one, friend. Get - in - the - trunk.”
The sirens grew closer.
Logan crawled in over Walsh’s curled body. He could hear Michael Jones’s whining in the front seat of the vehicle. The trunk of the Porsche was small and tight. He immediately felt cramped but feeling cramped was better than feeling a bullet. His face was rammed up against the back of Walsh’s head and he could barely breathe as the trunk slammed shut.
Then a moment later the motor purred to life as the sirens grew ever closer, and the car began to move in reverse and then shifted into drive and lurched uphill in the same direction they’d come. It was pitch black in the trunk and the sirens grew softer, fading off into the distance. The two of them said nothing, but Logan could hear Walsh’s labored, intense breathing.
At that moment he felt like a complete and utter failure.
After a few minutes, the car turned left and then drove sharply around twists and turns. Logan felt like he knew where they were, at least roughly – it felt like the winding turns of Mulholland Drive, high above the city. He wondered where they were being taken, but he didn’t wonder too hard.
They were caught, and that was that. That’s what mattered.
What happened next, he didn’t know. The two of them would have to find that out later.
The road seemed to go on for hours, until they felt the car turn left and then go down a hill fast. Maybe it was Coldwater Canyon, maybe Laurel. Logan couldn’t tell because he couldn’t see jack. He felt hopeless along with Walsh. After a while, it felt as if the car had merged onto the highway once the speed picked up and the stop and go lessened, and then an hour later Logan felt them ascending a long, straight hill.
“They’re taking us up into the mountains. We’re definitely not in LA anymore.”
“I know that, hotshot. We’ve been in this thing for hours. My back hurts like hell,” Walsh said.
“That’s probably my fault. My knee is jammed up against it. Sorry, Walsh.”
“It’s okay,” she sighed. “It’s not your fault. It’s that medieval looking son of a bitch who made us crawl in here. What is he even wearing?”
“Some kind of heavy-duty armor. Nothing I’ve ever seen.”
“Me either,” she paused. “Damn, Logan. This wasn’t what I was expecting.”
“Sometimes our expectations get shit on,” Logan said. “We’ll get out of this,” he muttered then, but his voice wavered a bit.
“Yeah.”
Silence. The road went on and on.
“What’s your first name, anyway? I feel like a real prick for not asking sooner. Wish it was under better circumstances.”
“Kristen,” she said.
“Nice to meet you, Kristen,” Logan said. “Do you have any more weapons hidden on your person?”
“On me? Not really. I’ve got some mace.”
“That could be useful.”
“I doubt it.”
“Never know. I wouldn’t be expecting that feel that blast in my eyes if I was one of the bad guys.”
“Do you have something?”
Logan grinned in the dark, but she couldn’t see it. It didn’t matter. He felt warm inside. Warm and angry. “I’ve got a few, yeah. If I could move a few inches maybe I’d be able to give you one, but I think we’re shit out of luck as far as that goes.”
“What do you have?” She asked, voice sounding panicked.
“I’ve got a Glock and two knives, one in each boot.”
“Okay. There’s two of them, and Jones is wounded. Did you see where he got shot?”
“Looked like the blood was coming from his shoulder. He’s not going to die from it, but he’s going to have a hell of a painful time raising his right arm to shoot.”
“The other guy is unharmed. He’s going to probably have his gun on us as soon as he lifts this trunk if he’s smart.”
“But we’re smart too,” Logan said, and fidgeted in the darkness. He was trying to reach for the Glock in the back of his pants.
“So, you think you can be ready for when that trunk goes up? He’s got a lot of armor on.”
“But not on his head. It’s a clean shot.”
“You’ll be ready, or you want me to do it? If you can move your arm and get me the gun. It’s tight in here.”
“I’ll do it,” he said.
“You sure you’ll be ready? I’m good with a gun.”
“I’m going to be ready to blow that sick bastard’s brains out.”
Chapter Eleven
Chief Walker almost missed the car entirely. That is, he had seen it, and he had unofficially clocked it going around eighty, but he had felt so beaten down that he almost didn’t stop it. He wasn’t doing much good with anything else, so why bother?
He took a drag on the smoke and flicked it out the window, then he turned his lights on and sped off after the ancient looking town car. He shouted into the speaker.
“Pull over now.”
The car slowed after another twenty seconds of cruising at seventy, and then turned off onto the edge of the abandoned mountain road. It slowed to a creeping pace of ten miles per hour, and then the driver slammed his brakes on and lurched the vehicle into park.
“Turn off your engine,” Walker said through the speaker.
The driver did just that. So far, so good, except for the hint of arrogance.
Walker stepped out of his cruiser and toward the rusty old car. He kept his hand on his holster as he did this. He reached the driver’s side window and saw a man who looked anywhere between thirty and seventy years old. He had a full head of sandy hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed or touched by anything but his pillow in weeks.
However, it looked like he hadn’t closed an eye in weeks either, so the pillow thing was unlikely. The man had deep purple bags under his sea blue eyes, an unshaven, rough face pockmarked with acne scars, and a cluster of a few yellow teeth in his otherwise empty gums. He smiled at Walker.
He was on some heavy shit. Drugs, and lots of them. Probably cooked up in his own basement.
Walker tightened his grip on his holster. “You on something?” The man didn’t speak. He seemed to be looking past Walker. “Can you talk? Do you understand what I’m asking you?”
The man kept smiling his ugly, mostly toothless smile. His eyes never seemed to cross Walker’s path. They seemed to be looking far off in the distance. Then the man winced with fear. “He’s coming for you.”
Walker paused. “Get out of the car.”
“He’s coming right behind you, and he’s not a nice guy.”
It must have been a ruse. Regardless, Walker wasn’t going to take his eyes off the drugged-out punk in the driver’s seat. Until he heard the soft, barely audible footsteps. He spun around and saw the looming shape walking toward him, and he wished at that moment that he had taken back-up with him. He was alone, of course. Walker always worked alone, and he liked it that way. He wasn’t social, and he didn’t like to talk, unless it was about something he deemed necessary.
That meant he had no backup. No one there to save him in a time of need. And he was in a time of need, even if he didn’t fully know it yet. His life, along with his family’s, was on the line. “Freeze!” He said, backing away from the car until he reached t
he butt end of it. “I said freeze.”
What he saw walking toward him was a man in an old black jumpsuit. It looked filthy with age and general lack of care. The man had a long beard and bright orange hair that flowed past his shoulders. He was balding on top, and the sun shone brightly across the dome of his head.
He stopped. Walker kept the driver in his peripheral vision, and then the driver’s car started up and he began to pull off. Walker spun the gun around toward the car, and just as he did that the man to his left took off like a football linebacker and sprinted toward him.
“Shit,” Walker muttered as he twisted himself around and pulled the trigger.
The man had made it within three feet of Walker before a hole was blown in his chest. The momentum of his sprint sent him plowing into Walker, regardless of being shot. Walker groaned as the man’s massive weight barreled into him and then sent them both down to the ground. He was trapped beneath the man’s heavy, dead weight.
Except the man wasn’t dead – not yet.
They began to fight for the gun which had left Walker’s hand when he was tackled to the ground. The man was bigger than Walker and must have outweighed him by a hundred pounds, but he wasn’t as quick, especially with a bullet in his chest. He was groaning and breathing heavily as he crawled off Walker, who grabbed at his feet and tried to slow him from reaching the pistol.
“Son of a bitch!”
They were gurgling and pawing at one another on the ground, kicking and writhing as they screamed. Walker had grabbed hold of the man’s leg and wouldn’t let go, but the man was big enough that he could move with Walker hanging onto him. It wasn’t going to stop him. If anything, it felt merely like dragging a twenty-pound weight attached to his ankle. He reached his long, hairy arm out for the gun as the pain in his chest grew worse by the second. Blood dripped heavily onto the ground beneath him.
Walker bit into the back of the man’s ankle – teeth going deep into the Achilles tendon and not stopping until blood was drawn and the man was howling a deep scream of agony. “No, no, no!”
Walker grunted and began to bite down harder. The man was panting and howling and managed to pull his leg from the wretched grip of Walker’s teeth and kick him square in the face.
As the man’s beefy arm came within six inches of the gun, Walker rose and pounced right over top of him like a tiger hunting its prey. Except there was no grace in his movement, and no stealth in his approach. There was no time for stealth or patience. Walker began to scream as he mauled the man, biting into his ear until it tore off entirely and bashing his fists into the man’s skull.
The man’s arm kept reaching until Walker grabbed him by his one remaining ear and yanked his head back; his neck on the verge of snapping – and then slammed him face first into the hard road. The man stopped moving then, but Walker wasn’t through with him. He placed his hands onto both sides of the man’s head and then pulled it up and began to bash it into the pavement.
As he did this, he was screaming. Blood covered his lips. The man’s ear was lying on the road.
Walker stopped then, gasping and wheezing. He looked at the man beneath him, realizing he was dead. He could have relaxed then, but he didn’t. He went ferociously for the gun that lay within reach of the dead man’s hand and grabbed hold of it himself.
Then he rose up fast and aimed the gun at the man who lay lifeless on the ground. Just in case he comes back. Just in case he reaches for it. Walker was wheezing still when he pulled his pack of cigarettes out. He was wheezing when he lit the match and sucked in deep. He closed his eyes, but only allowed himself to do it for a second. Then he opened them and kept them locked on the dead man on the ground. He was dead alright, and he wasn’t coming back. Walker had done it all with his hands.
He felt like a monster, and the back of his jacket rose with the rhythm of his heavy, frantic breathing. He radioed in for back up, but first, he finished his cigarette. He looked at the sky and began to cry as the dark clouds loomed overhead and the rain came and washed the blood from the pavement and his face.
Chapter Twelve
The road had begun to feel very bumpy, and after thirty minutes of being tossed around the tight space of the Porsche’s trunk, Logan and Walsh felt the vehicle turning right and then driving down a long, gravel road. A driveway, perhaps, or not – there was no way of telling until the trunk swung open and they could see.
Logan imagined he’d be as good as blind when it happened. He had his eyes opened in the dark for the last few hours, and when the light came flooding in, he knew it might be hard to see. He hoped he would be able to get a clear shot of the guy when he came into view so he could take his head off with the Glock.
“Where do you think they’re taking us?” He asked Walsh.
“Up in the middle of nowhere. Why, I don’t freaking know. You got any ideas?”
“They’re taking us to their hideout, or some kind of compound.”
“I just can’t shake that the girl’s dad is involved. Why?”
“There doesn’t have to be a reason for being a killer. Maybe he likes it, maybe he was blackmailed. We really don’t know a thing about Michael Jones. All I did was connect the dots and realize he was involved. Is he his own daughter’s killer? I don’t know, but I doubt that. All I did was find his card at the crime scene. It could have been dropped by the freak wearing the body armor.”
The car crept to a halt and then they waited in silence, or close to it. It was never completely silent, because the two of them were breathing so hard. Logan was sure Walsh could feel his heart beating like a jackhammer, and he could feel hers doing the same. He had managed to get the gun out an hour or so prior, and he was holding it up in the general direction of where the guy would be standing when he popped the trunk. Walsh was holding Logan’s knife in her hand. She had popped out the blade and was ready to charge.
But no one popped the trunk. Logan heard two doors slam and then heard footsteps sinking into heavy, freshly poured gravel. Then the footsteps got quiet and stopped.
“What’s going on?” Walsh asked.
“Shh, wait.”
The footsteps began again, except not on gravel. Logan and Walsh could hear two different sets of feet going up a series of steps. Then there was a knock at the door and a deep, barely audible voice said something. It wasn’t Michael Jones or the man in the armor, but someone else. Someone who had been waiting here. Maybe.
“I think we’re at a cabin. Could be someone’s weekend house.”
“Do you know if Jones had a house in the woods?”
“I don’t think so.”
They waited for a long time. Logan’s pulse had slowed, but he didn’t lower the gun.
“Stay awake,” Walsh said. “We don’t want to drift off before they come back.”
“I’m not falling asleep in this box,” Logan said.
“I feel like I need to pee.”
“You and me both,” Logan said. “It’s miserable in here.”
If it had been a different time, on a different day, in a different type of situation, the two of them would have shared a hearty laugh. But under the circumstances, there was nothing for neither of them to laugh about. The funniest joke in the world wasn’t going to make Logan chuckle, and the same was true for Walsh.
“If we get out of here and nab these guys… It’s going to feel so good, Logan.”
“That’s usually how it goes,” Logan said.
“You ever been in a situation like this before?” She asked.
“Nope.”
“Me either. I’m thinking about my mom and dad. Can’t stop thinking about them right now.”
“They live in San Feliz?”
“No. Retired in Arizona. I don’t know what’s going to happen to them if I die today. God, I mean… I think they’d both crumble. I still drive out there every month, once a weekend when I’m off. I still go see them all the time.”
“Don’t think this way, Walsh,” Logan sighed. “
No one’s going to die today except for the men who are in that house.”
Logan clenched his hand on the gun. He sounded like he was spewing mindless encouragement, but in his own mind, it was true. He was convinced of it and had been daydreaming about it ever since the armored mystery man had slammed the trunk door shut and locked the two of them inside.
If he, or Jones, or whoever else had the bad luck of being the ones to open the trunk, then they’d be the first ones to bite a bullet – and it would feel good to Logan to be the one who served them that fresh bullet. He was trapped in his own fantasies of revenge when he was stirred back to his senses by the sound of a screen door closing with a loud whine and then footsteps hurrying down the steps.
He and Walsh listened closely. He couldn’t tell if it was one guy or two. One would be best, but if it was two then that could potentially be good as well. Taking two out at once and then whoever was in the house would be satisfying… But Logan didn’t know who was in the house, although he was certain whoever it was would be armed, and perhaps it would be more than one person.
The footsteps burrowed deep in the gravel as Logan held his breath and waited. They reached the trunk of the car and then stopped. Logan took a deep breath and kept his eyes peeled, although he could still see nothing except for the darkness. He felt like a mole burrowed underground, ready to pop out of its hole.
Then the trunk door swung open and the light blazed in and Logan couldn’t see a thing except for a big hunk of dark mass standing dead center as he fired his gun crazily and watched the big shape fall back. He and Walsh charged out of the trunk; their bodies stiff from being jammed against each other’s for hours on end, and Walsh jumped on top of the mass on the ground, screaming as she dug her knife into it from above.
Logan’s vision cleared. He looked down at the guy on the ground and at Walsh who was over top of him, panting like a bloodhound. The man was someone new; maybe the man who had let Jones and the armored man into the old decrepit cabin which Logan then saw up ahead some thirty feet from where they stood. The man was dead, with three bullets having burrowed deep into his upper chest and neck. Blood was pouring from him. There was a gun on the gravel beside his corpse, and Walsh grabbed for it.
