The Last Savage

by Sam Jones

  “Faster,” she ordered.

  The guy complied.

  Maria took a glance around the men’s room and noted the damage that Lowe and Billy had inflicted; including the now-deceased crackhead sprawled on the floor of the stall in a pool of his own blood and the small collection of guns at his feet.

  She looked at Billy. “Christ. I leave you alone for two minutes…”

  Billy stood up, the right side of his clothes soaked with toilet water and specs of blood. He held the Colt with both hands and took a more level aim at Lowe’s head.

  “Follow your buddy’s lead,” Billy said to him, eager to pull trigger. “Put your hands on your hand.”

  Lowe obliged.

  Billy exited the stall and stood back as Maria corralled Lowe’s buddy into the corner near the sinks.

  “You check the locker?” Billy asked her.

  Maria looked to the bearded guy in the corner. “Idiot boy here tried to make a move on me before I could open it.”

  The bearded guy, shoved in the corner like a kid on time out, slowly raised and showcased his middle finger.

  Maria’s eyes fell on the crackhead. “Who’s our friend?”

  Billy, Colt still leveled on Lowe, moved toward the stall.

  “Didn’t catch his name,” he said as he bent over and reached for the guns on the floor.

  “Is he dead?”

  Billy glanced at the blood-soaked, lifeless body of the crackhead and his dilated pupils, his formerly green eyes now looking like of a pair of black marbles sticking out of the sockets.

  “I think it’s a safe assumption to make,” Billy said.

  Lowe looked over at his buddy. After a second, his buddy turned his head to the right and gave Lowe the subtlest of looks.

  Lowe waited for Billy to give him his attention and said, “I think you guys should open up that locker.”

  Billy picked up Lowe’s Beretta near the toilet and tucked in the back of his pants. “That so?” he said as he went about scooping up the crackhead’s .38 and six-shooter.

  Lowe said nothing. Neither did his buddy.

  Billy moved toward Maria, the .38 and six-shooter in hand. He pocketed the .38 in his windbreaker as Maria stuffed away the six-shooter in the left pocket of her denim jacket, the right already occupied by the Walther PPK she took off the bearded fellow.

  “If you kids are finished,” Lowe said, “I’d like to get this show on the road.”

  Billy casually pointed his Colt in Lowe’s direction. “Hey, dumb-dumb, we’ve got all the guns now. I don’t think you should be poppin’ your mouth off. It’s bad for your health.”

  “Blow me.”

  “Oh, go wash your mouth out with hollow-points, you classless shit.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Eat my ass!”

  Maria leaned into Billy’s ear. “Cool it.”

  Billy took a breath. “Cooling it,” he replied, exhaling away his Irish rage.

  Maria nodded toward the door. “Let’s check out that locker. Make them lead the way.”

  Billy gave her the thumbs-up. “I dig it. Let’s do it.”

  He approached Lowe but kept a few feet of distance with the Colt trained on him. “Okay, fuckwits,” he said. “Let’s treat this like a kindergarten conga line. You lead, asshole.” He glanced over at the guy in the corner. “Beardy McGee, you follow alongside him. My lovely partner Maria and I will trail behind you. Keep four paces ahead of us at all times. Handholding is optional. If at any point you’re feeling nauseous, please notify the staff and we’ll get you an airsickness bag—”

  Maria rolled her eyes. “Reese.”

  Billy shrugged. “You heard your captain, boys—let’s boogie!”

  25

  THEY FILED OUT of the bathroom, Lowe in the front, the guy with the beard to his right, and Maria and Billy following four paces behind them. The lockers were a straight shot ahead of the group, twenty meters, just past another archway with a sign above it that read “Lockers.” Inside the entrance of the Greyhound station, the members of Stop Making Sense began their cover of “Psycho Killer,” the lead singer hunched over and embodying some kind of bridge troll impression as he sang his tune to the crowd.

  “We should flag down security,” Maria said.

  “Let’s check the locker first,” Billy said. “I wanna see what’s inside.”

  Maria and Billy, guns tucked in their jackets and palms resting on the handles, kept their eyes glued to the men in front of them, occasionally taking note of the men and women of all shapes and sizes that walked past them in case any last-minute wackiness decided to creep up on them for a blitz.

  “Keep going, guys,” Billy said to Lowe and his partner, forcing that “proud parent” kind of inflection into his voice. “You’re doing great.”

  They passed under the archway. Directly to their right were three rows of lockers, each row labeled from A to E with a total of twenty lockers in each row. The lockers were arranged in stacks of four, starting with the corresponding row letter and the number “1” on the top left and ending in “20” on the bottom right.

  The group came to a stop a few feet away from Row A as the combined symphony of the crowd and Stop Making Sense’s cover of “Burning Down The House” gave it all a little thump-thump-thump.

  Lowe and the bearded guy glanced over their shoulders for Billy and Maria to give the order.

  Maria looked around and saw no one removing or placing anything inside any of the lockers—the only people in this part of the station now were two cops and a pair of thugs.

  The coast was clear.

  Maria told the men to keep going.

  The group moved together toward the middle section, B, and approached the center locker nestled in at the end of the row: B-19.

  Billy fished the key out of his pocket and ran a thumb over the engraving.

  “Stand five feet to my left,” Maria said to the thugs. “Face the lockers. Don’t turn around.”

  Lowe and his bearded buddy followed her orders. They shimmied five feet to the left from the B-19 locker, turned around, and kept their focus on the lockers in front of them, their postures loose and attitudes exuding nothing but confidence.

  Billy glanced at Maria and held up the key—moment of truth.

  He stood in front of the locker, inserted the key, and twisted. Billy slowly pulled the door open, his heart racing the second he saw the contents inside the locker: a compact, homemade explosive that looked like a car battery, wired to four packets of tan putty bricks that Billy instantly recognized as C-4 explosive.

  Based on the basic knowledge Billy had about bombs, it was a powerful-enough device to take out about two-thirds of every living thing inside the Greyhound station, including the members of Stop Making Sense and their groovy little rendition of “Burning Down The House” that was now a split second away from being cut short.

  All Billy could think to say was, “Oh, brother.”

  26

  A SMILE STRETCHED across Lowe’s face the moment Billy opened the locker and laid eyes on the bomb.

  Maria took a step forward, trying her best to lay eyes on the prize while keeping an eye on Lowe and his buddy.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Billy, worried that any move he made would prove fatal, slowly turned out his left shoulder so Maria could take a look. The moment she leaned in and saw the device, the same kind of cold sweat that Billy was experiencing overtook her as well.

  “It’s got a proximity circuit,” Lowe called out. “And you just activated it.”

  Billy looked on the left side of the device and saw a red light switch on—a little devil’s eye now glimmering at him and daring him to make a mistake.

  Patience.

  Well, try your best at least.

  “If you move more than three feet away,” Lowe continued. “It’s gonna go bang.”

  A ringing emitted from inside the locker that caused Billy and Maria to shudder. For a moment they thought t
he worst. Once they realized it was nothing more than the harmless ring of a mobile brick phone resting to the left of the bomb, a second’s worth of relief overcame them.

  “Go ahead,” Lowe said. “Pick it up.”

  Billy slowly reached inside with surgical precision, the same kind he applied when he use to play that fun little game called Operation back when he was a kid.

  He grabbed the brick phone, removed it from the locker, pressed the answer key, and held it to his ear.

  “Yeah.”

  “Special Agent Reese,” a digitally disguised and out-of-tune voice said from the other end of the line, similar to Darth Vader if he had a stroke. “Did you get my present?”

  Billy squinted at the bomb. “Yeah. Yeah, I got it.”

  “Good,” the voice replied. “I trust Mr. Lowe explained to you about the proximity circuit?”

  It took Billy a beat to reply as he tried to control his nerves. “He did,” he finally said.

  He then glanced around at the citizens passing through the station. “Look, we’ve got a shit load of innocent people in this terminal. This thing goes off, everyone in here is a memory.”

  The voice on the phone snickered. “That’s the point.”

  To Billy’s left, Lowe and his buddy were slowing turning away from the lockers, eagerly awaiting the now-inevitable outcome of becoming the men about to control the situation.

  Billy looked at Maria as she slowly began to pull her Beretta out of her denim jacket, not yet ready to let the pricks have the upper hand.

  “Okay, slim,” Billy said into the phone. “Looks like you’re calling the shots.”

  The digitized voice replied, “Looks that way.”

  “Well…place your fuckin’ order then…”

  “Hand your weapons over to Mr. Lowe and his friend. Do it slowly. Do it discreetly. Like you said: there’s a lot of people in that terminal, and I’m also controlling the device remotely.”

  Billy looked at Maria. “Give them your guns.”

  Maria disengaged the safety on her Beretta. “No way.”

  “Maria,” Billy insisted. “It’s their game now. Our choices are pretty slim here.”

  It took Maria a moment to digest. As she weighed the narrow options she and Billy had, Lowe and the bearded guy turned and faced her, Lowe’s hand extended outward, his attitude insultingly complaisant as he waited for Maria to surrender.

  Maria clenched a fist, anger welling up inside her, eager to pistol-whip the two thugs standing in front of her on mere principal. She took a look around the terminal, her eyes scanning the small sea of citizens and commuters moving to and fro, oblivious to the fact that their lives were now all on the line, tethered to four packets of C-4 explosive that were just itching to go off.

  In that moment, Maria realized that every person inside that station had just become her responsibility. Their lives were in her hands, and the next move she made would decide their collective fate—including the five- or six-year-old girl with pigtails running into her mother’s arms twenty yards away.

  Maria engaged the safety on her Beretta, removed it from her jacket, took a step forward, and slapped it into Lowe’s palm.

  “And the six-shooter,” Lowe said. “Two fingers.”

  Maria reached into her left pocket, gripped the handle with her thumb and index finger, removed it, and placed it in Lowe’s free hand.

  Lowe turned to his partner. “Get your gun back.”

  The bearded guy moved in close on Maria, the stench of tobacco thick and violating as his face came within inches of hers. Maria looked away and stifled the urge to head-butt him.

  “Easy, babe,” he cooed as he reached into the left pocket of her jacket and wrestled out his Walther. He then frisked her, unnecessarily jerking and groping her in an effort to make Maria as irritated and uncomfortable as possible.

  The look on her face indicated that it was working.

  The bearded guy finished his frisk. “She’s good,” he said to Lowe.

  Lowe motioned to Billy. The bearded guy tucked his Walther away in the back of his pants and walked toward the FBI agent, casting a look over both shoulders to check that no one else had stumbled into their section of the station. “Hands up,” he said. “Do it slow.”

  Billy reluctantly obliged. As soon as his arms were up and his palms faced out, the bearded guy reached into his jacket and removed the Colt. The bearded guy then fished his free hand into the jacket pocket containing the .38 and removed it. He put the gun in his own pocket, and patted Billy down from neck to ankle.

  “He’s clean.”

  The bearded guy stood back as Billy cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the digital voice on the brick phone. “Okay,” he said. “Now what?”

  “Mr. Lowe and his colleague are going to walk you out to the bus depot,” the voice said. “There’s a car waiting for you there. You’re going to get in it.”

  “And then?”

  “Don’t spoil the fun, Agent Reese. We’re just getting started.”

  The line went dead.

  Billy slowly lowered the phone and let it hang at his side in defeat.

  Lowe looked Maria square in the eyes. “Go on,” he said. “Hip to the hop.”

  Maria stared defiantly at Lowe for several seconds, her hands now bound by invisible restraints as she ground her teeth and curled all her fingers into fists. “This isn’t over,” she said just shy of a hiss.

  Lowe rolled his eyes. “Now you’re just being obstinate.” He shoved her toward Billy. “Reese,” he said. “Press that green button to the left of the bomb to deactivate the sensor and then close up the locker.”

  Billy pressed the green button, slowly shut the door, took out the key, and held it in his hand.

  “Toss it over,” Lowe said. “Phone too.”

  Billy tossed the key to Lowe underhand, followed by the phone. Lowe caught the key, pocketed it, caught the phone, dialed a number, and held the device to his ear. “We’re getting ready to move,” he said into the phone. “Send Ricky over to the station to pick up the device.” He pointed it over Billy and Maria’s heads. “Head out that door behind you.”

  Maria and Billy looked to the right and saw the glowing green exit sign over the double doors that lead out the back of the station. They walked, Lowe and his partner following several feet behind him, the roles now reversed from when the group first left the bathroom as they marched toward an unknown fate.

  Moments later, they emerged into the depot of the Greyhound station, a fleet of silver-and-blue busses parked in a row at diagonal angles offering ample cover for the group as Lowe and his bearded buddy drew their weapons and trained them on Billy and Maria’s backs. They moved down an empty space in between two vacant busses. Right as they reached the tail of the vehicles, a black four-door Mercedes pulled up and came to a stop, a single man behind the wheel sporting black clothing that looked like it had been lifted from the wardrobe closet for The Clash. The driver, a wiry-looking bloke with a crew cut, hopped out and opened the rear door like a bellhop.

  “Get in,” Lowe ordered.

  Maria got in first, Billy following right behind her. They moved slowly inside the car and nestled into the back seat, the bearded guy squeezing in alongside them as Lowe slipped in the passenger’s side. Both men then shut the doors in sync and kept their guns leveled on Maria and Billy as the Benz slowly accelerated out of the parking lot.

  Right as they spilled onto West Harrison Street, the driver reached into the center console and produced a pair of zip ties and forked them over to Lowe, who tossed one pair to Maria and the other pair to Billy. “Tie your wrists,” he said. “Use your teeth.”

  Billy and Maria donned the cuffs and secured them with their teeth. When they finished, Lowe reached into the backseat and tested the cuffs with a quick shake. Satisfied at how firmly their wrists were now bound, he looked to the bearded guy.

  The bearded guy turned toward Maria and Billy. He said, “Close your eyes.
The both of you.”

  Maria gave him her signature “fuck you” stare.

  The bearded guy cocked back the hammer on his pistol—click.

  Maria looked to Billy, hoping that he’d thought of an exit, desperate for any kind of Hail Mary play that would pull them out of the fire.

  Billy said, “Let them have this round…”

  Maria slowly shut her eyes.

  Billy followed suit.

  A few seconds passed before they heard the sounds of something being unzipped. Seconds that felt like an eternity passed before they then felt the stabbing pain of a needle being injected into their arms—Maria first, Billy second.

  The last thing they heard before both felt their muscles go slack and unconsciousness overtook them was Lowe’s voice taunting them with the age-old classic, “Sweet dreams.”

  27

  BILLY CAME TO.

  For the first few seconds, his vision felt like he was being run through a blurry filter. All he could see were smudges of tan, black, and gray, swirling around like a kaleidoscope. The air around him was stagnant with slight traces of mildew on metal. Industrial. Someplace resting near a body of water.

  Snap-Snap-Snap…

  Snap-Snap-Snap…

  The smudges turned into an outline, the outline turned into a shape, and the shape then became a pair of legs clad in some kind of casual black business attire.

  Snap-Snap-Snap…

  “Wake up, man. Wake up…”

  Billy tried lifting his head. It was an effort. His melon felt like it weighed a hundred pounds from the grogginess. Eventually he managed to tilt it up, his eyes shaking off the last bit of blear before fully focusing on the same Judd Nelson–looking guy named Lowe, who’d scuffled with him back in the Greyhound restroom. He was snapping his fingers in front of Billy’s face, clearly perturbed at the time it was taking to bring the subdued FBI agent out of his stupor.

  “Wake up, Reese,” he said. “Wake up, man. Come on.”

  Soon the airy feeling inside Billy’s head subsided, and his senses fully recouped. He looked around and found himself in a warehouse made of brick with chipped and faded white paint. There were six gargantuan mural windows fogged the color yellow and a corrugated metal roof overhead supported by big, thick metal beams painted green. The place still looked like it was in use, so Billy figured whoever ran the show was renting, borrowing, or flat-out owned it.